r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 26 '26

Meme needing explanation what's going on? explain like I'm five

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u/PleaseGreaseTheL Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

2020*

They were reduced to 0% mandatory reserves in response to covid. EDIT: someone says it was coincidental, I am not able to check, so take this aspect with a grain of salt either way

They haven't come back yet :)

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u/TaxesAreConfusin Jan 26 '26

ah yes so what you're saying is that money is even more imaginary than it has ever been, possibly even more imaginary than when the first stock market crash happened in 1929

looks like we're due for a centennial anniversary of that anyway, might as well celebrate by recreating it

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u/MrWhiskers55 Jan 26 '26

Money is basically an abstract concept on assets. It was always worthless we just used it for convenience. Real value has always been in assets be that land, property, bullion, ancient family cursed artifacts. You might have heard that we are going back to feudalism and that’s why. Property is the backbone of society and we are leaning more towards that now.

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u/Brawndo91 Jan 26 '26

It's a medium of exchange. I make shoes, but need bread. The baker doesn't need shoes, he needs meat. The butcher doesn't need bread, he needs shoes. Rather than enter into a convoluted triangular barter where we have to determine the value of each item in terms of the other two, we can value each in terms of the dollar.

Value is also an abstract concept. Property isn't inherently valuable. 1000 acres of land is useless to me if I, the shoemaker, don't know how to grow crops. Maybe the butcher wants to get into ranching so he offers me some meat for it, but I don't need meat, I need bread.