Covid-19 (Part 5) - UK Government's Reckless Re-opening During Delta

Here we are again. In the alarming but familiar situation where the UK (or rather England's) covid-19 cases are soaring while government fails to act appropriately. The situation that kicked off my first posts, before the March 2020 peak: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Then for the even worst autumn/winter wave: Part 4... 

[Twitter]

... Except that this time, the death rate has been greatly diminished by vaccination: case-fatality rate down roughly 12-fold, from ~2% to 0.16% [Twitter]. For the older, vaccinated portion of society, at least. And as expected, it looks like high deaths really were the only thing holding our government back from pushing through herd immunity by full infection, with a reckless abandon that I feel is a crime against humanity.

Here's a somewhat concise list of reasons why their particular interpretation of "living with Covid" is so dangerous and unnecessary, how it's been enabled (A to D) and a possible upside (E). Followed by a brief overall look at the current pandemic situation in other parts of the world (F) and personal anecdotes (G). Finally, some nice graphs further down (H) that explorer some of the topics in more detail. {Update 2021-07-30: why did cases suddenly start to fall, just before re-opening (I) & (J)?}.

Covid-19 (Part 4) - The Brexit Resurgence

Updates index:

•  2021-01-10 - UK situational report - 12 reasons...
  
•  2021-01-16 - Reevaluating - lockdown 3 takes effect.
•  2021-01-18 - Surging inequalities.
•  2021-01-20 - (Minor additions.)
•  2021-01-29 - Contagion dynamics vs testing.
•  2021-02-11 - Vaccination & Immunity Outlook.

 

 ► 2021-01-10 Sitrep - 12 reasons things will get much worst!:

In the UK, we're back in a situation a lot like March, when our (so called) government was disastrously inactive in the face of rapid exponential growth of coronavirus infections. They seem to have given up on containing the spread again.

The scariness of inaction spurred me to write my first Covid-19 mega-blog post, initially about exponential transmission. Following up with part 2 and part 3. I looked at all aspects of the Covid situation (and beyond) in the Anglosphere and the world in general. I'll try to revisit some of those topics and my predictions, below, as and when I'm able.

Thankfully there was enough public alarm to instigate action from the bottom up. The much talk about the nature of exponential graphs, thereafter. But it seems we've largely been overlooking the multiplicative nature of case growth again! In different ways, perhaps.

In many ways, the situation is now far worst than March. Despite having 2 vaccines in use and a 3rd approved, way ahead of the absolute most optimistic 12-18 month time frame (that was the expectation 9 months ago). Plus other positive developments, including mandated mask use and refined treatment protocols apparently halving hospital mortality rates.

 

See Independent SAGE and Christina Pagel for the best briefings on the UK situation. But here's my rundown of why this peak is almost certain to be an order of magnitude worst than the first (in number of deaths, lasting illness, trauma, distress and collateral damage):

(1) More cases and hospitalisations than the April peak - a couple weeks ago (late December 2020) we exceeded the total number of Covid patients during the first outbreak peak (back in April) ~20k. As of 9th Jan we're 50% above that eye-watering level, at ~30k:

 

Official GOV.UK graph from 2021-01-09.

... And we're nowhere near peaking yet. The months long period of high transmission (from September school re-openings, onwards) has accumulated many severe cases. There's around 2 weeks delay before the ill become severe enough for hospitalisation. Then often (many) more weeks for recovery, while deaths typically come in at about a month after initial infection.

 

There were rapid rises in cases in early to mid December [Covid-19 app study], even before the last minute partially aborted Christmas holiday itself. In terms of hospitalisations, we're only just starting to see the impact of that [when I started typing this up on 5th Jan]. With New Year's celebrations then a perfect turbo charger, given the week long (asymptomatic) incubation period between events, multiplying up the effect.

 

From the graph below: the last 2 week period, with ~78% higher (50k-60k) cases than the fortnight before, hasn't manifested in the hospitalisation figures yet!:

 

Christina Pagel [Twitter].

UK Election 2017 - Why we need Corbyn's Labour (but won't get it)

Blog Post Contexts Index: ➤ Setting the Scene ...WHY CORBYN'S LABOUR NEEDS TO WIN: ➤ Inequality ➤ Xenophobia ➤ Economic stimulus ➤ Housing ➤ Shift focus towards environmental issues ➤ Stabilising financial markets ➤ Towards a Universal Basic Income (UBI) ➤ Positive Money (creation) ➤ Brexit ➤ Voting Conservative doesn't even benefit *anyone's* financial self interest ➤ Ill gotten gains ➤ Ironic hypocrisy ➤ The UK's Sanders ➤ Gentler kinder politics ➤ Think of the children ➤ Life or death (or exacerbated disability) ➤ Terrorist Attacks ➤ "1984" isn't an instruction manual! WHY CORBYN WON'T WIN: ➤ Not enough time! ➤ Biased press (the right wing legacy filter bubble) ➤ Memetics ➤ Thought free ➤ Personal appearances ➤ Lies and dirty tricks ➤ Censorship ➤ Gagging ➤ Gerrymandering ➤ Voter suppression ➤ Non-voters (in general) ➤ Party funding ➤ Dark money ➤ Dark ads and big data (I.e. the Facebook factor) ➤ Polls ➤ Committed to the big lie ➤ Terrorism ➤ Rained off ➤ Not mentioned, but not overlooked WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (SPECULATION): ➤ Tory majority ➤ Hung parliament

➤ Setting the Scene:

I've never voted Labour. Historically I have decried the traditional right vs left (Conservative vs Socialist) tug of war, in UK politics. It has ignored the liberal axis of debate - the need to protect the individual, our liberties (which have been ignored or actively trampled) and democracy itself. Hence railing for the Liberal Democrats in many previous elections (including back in 2010). But our politics has drifted so dangerously far to the right, now, that I feel a sizeable socialist swing is currently what's most desperately needed.

Also, the national Lib Dem party currently still resembles a smoking crater in the ground, having (unfairly) received all the blame and none of the credit for 5 years of relatively stable, but austere, government in coalition with  the dominant Tories. While the Greens (for whom I voted in 2015), are in no position to swing things (due to our hopeless electoral system), resorting to valiant tactical efforts, stepping aside to support other progressive parties, regardless.

The manifestos: Conservatives | Liberal Democrats |Green party | Labour Condensed summary of the Labour manifesto (by @LabourEoin, also here).

Under Ed Miliband's lukewarm leadership in the 2015 election, the Labour manifesto promised an uninspiring flavour of austerity-lite, having been painted into a corner by our right-wing press and their pet government's dominant (though bogus) 'paying off the national credit card' narrative.

Thankfully, this time, there's a very stark difference between team red and blue. Labour finally crawling out from the shadow of Thatcherism, after the pleasantly surprising result of their internal leadership election of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. It was pretty miraculous, given the many interventions from high profile 'Blairite' party members (and the media), branding him as unelectable. Who were bizarrely proposing that the party failed to prevent David Cameron's Tories gaining a full majority due to Labour not being 'centrist' enough.

The 2 years since has seen almost non-stop infighting, with the legacy 'New Labour' guard, refusing to back their new leader, attempting a coop and forcing a second leadership election that Corbyn subsequently won, again, with a large majority of votes. This, despite internal manoeuvres aiming to shut out his ground swell of supports from voting (by banning new members from recent months and, perversely, levying a new fee).

This mirrored the frustratingly outrageous shenanigans in the run up to the 2016 US presidential election, within the democratic party, when Bernie Sanders was stupidly shut out of the running by the party establishment in favour Hillary Clinton. Despite him polling far better against Trump. Of course this lead to the death of real hope (for me anyway) and, of course, the disastrous result.

So anyway, we're very lucky to have a candidate, here, who seems prepared to genuinely push back against some of the worst excesses of the neo-liberal consensus. Although, years of devastating press bias against him, fuelled by suicidal party infighting, means he has started from a massive disadvantage. But with Labour having shrunk the Tory's 25 percentage point head-start, in the polls, down to (perhaps) as little as 3%, there is now arguably hope for change. And this is...

...WHY CORBYN'S LABOUR NEEDS TO WIN:

➤ Inequality:

Despite the global 'occupy' protests of 2011 being a distant memory, wealth inequality has only worsened here since. Ongoing cuts and pay freezes have held the majority back, while quantitative easing (QE) has pumped huge amounts of money upwards, inflating the assets of the already wealthy. (In addition to the usual factors still ticking along.)

In 2015 Greece's radical left alliance, the 'Syriza' government, bravely attempted to battle the brutally crushing austerity handed down to them by the EU (ultimately capitulating), as their central banks effectively laundered the Eurozone debts through the country. I blogged at length about this, siting the writings of Yanis Varoufakis, and tying in many other aspects of global macro-economics, finance, debt, etc.

Must of the Western world seems to have, in fact, exacerbated inequality, rather than redressing it. Obama's initially hopeful stimulus went some distance, but he was thoroughly shut down by endless dirty tricks by the Republican dominated congress for the rest of his 6 years.

➤ Xenophobia:

I think the rise of right-wing, anti-immigration sentiment (that fuelled Brexit, for example) is a direct result of this economic squeeze on the population's living standards. At risk of being overly reductive, I imagine this link stemming from an evolutionary instinct for tribes of hunter-gathers to disperse into smaller groups when the pickings are lean (ensuring that at least some survive).

On: "Knights of Sidonia" Anime (and Related Current Affairs)

"Knights of Sidonia" totes plenty of whizz-bang space battles with giant mecha suits piloted by teenagers repeatedly fighting incomprehensible space monstrosities that attempt to tentacle humanity to death.... But! Push past the facade of these overused anime tropes and be rewarded by a rich, engaging space opera.



Summary - Components of This Well Assembled Pastiche:

There's a strong 'hard sci-fi' undercurrent carrying the story along and underpinning a decent amount of attention to detail.

Then there's teenage awkwardness, of course, and tensions in a kind of high school-ish setting (of the pilot academy). The socially inept protagonist, chosen-one (Nagate), who alone can pull the joysticks of the legendary armour suit to it's full potential... But thankfully it's never as paralytically morose as NGE (Neon Genesis Evangelion).

It is respectably gritty, but not like the gratuitous gore of Akira. It has decent depictions of the brutal suddenness of war. This is brought home via the perspective of sympathetic characters, mostly very young, like the unlucky soldiers of real wars. But, of course, the fantastical space setting and perversely monstrous threats make it psychologically gentler (safer) for an audience to engage with emotionally.

Yuhata Midorikawa's different faces.

It also avoids being too bleak via juxtaposing the relatively low key social tribulations of the pilots, burgeoning on adulthood. Prime example of this is Yuhata. She swings between command responsibilities, gambling everyone's lives, to then be the star-struck, boy obsessed, teen girl. (Also gluing together geeky toy models kits in her spare time.)

There's a definite 'harem' sub-genre element running throughout, adding lighter notes, with support character developement and romantic intrigue. With three main contenders for Nagate's attention, there are few other females encountered who don't also make a play at some point, brood over him or have a twinkle of possible interest. These are mostly relatively subtle, making sense in context, since our protagonist is deliberately set up to be an inspirational hero who necessarily appeared mysteriously from no-where. An attractive combination, I suppose. But then this blank slate POV character with an open selection box of different flavoured lovers meshes rather neatly with the psyche of the core young-ish male demographic. Who would not love to imagine themselves as an overlooked darkhorse hero themselves? (If only they had their moment to shine or step out of themselves!)

Residential interior of Sidonia - caricature of the 
dense, hilly urbanisation of 'spaceship Japan'?

The flip side of all these female characters is that there are a whole lot of complex, strong female characters. In fact, they run the ship, from captain to XO, to commander, chief engineer, dorm mother, genius doctor/scientist. So, I suppose that even if this is basically down to the Manga artist/author enjoying drawing the female form more, then so be it. The result is good overall, although the bias towards showing only female communal 'photosynthesis' room scenes feels a little exploitative.

Also thrown into the pot are the unavoidably ubiquitous anime tropes of instant karma for (accidental) male lechery, always receiving a bloody nose, usually quite directly off a fiery female. Plus an alpha dog bully antagonist with long, grey/white hair and a massive family inheritance. But even he has an interesting story arc.

Finally, the art style is seamless 3D CGI. It's more noticeable in the space action scenes, when things look a little bit Tron - monochrome with neon highlights. But then it blends into a more rustic feel while inside sidonia's city spaces, with familiar cartoon stylings. The characters faces generally appear unnoticeably traditional. There's a retro aesthetic flavour, too, with the uniform outfits: almost storm trooper-esq, with stuffed up gear. There's some disconcertingly high flung, pointy boobage going on, but we'll put down to genetic engineering and/or reduced gravity, and move swiftly on...

The marriage of high tech space mecha, moving city(ies) of giant rusty pipes and cthulhu-ish space monsters is similar to, though far less gordy than, 2013's "Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet".


Original Manga vs Anime:

The anime appears to follow the original manga (comic) publications very closely. Almost shot for shot, with only some minor sequence juggling and tweaks here and there. So while I'm talking about the Knights of Sidonia (KoS) anime here, most comments apply to both.

Given that the manga has concluded already, it's a little tempting now, after watching season 2, to just read the final third (volumes 44-78, or thereabouts), rather than wait while the animation studio is apparently finishing up with a different project. It would save totally forgetting the plot details a second time.

But the video format is more compelling and I often struggle more to figure out what's supposed to be happening in the strips. It's a far more mentally tiring and different experience. At only 20 minutes per episode and a dozen per season, it's probably almost as quick for me to watch as read and digest the corresponding 20 odd manga volumes with 30 or so pages a piece. Plus you get to hear the cute Japanese voices and groovy theme tunes.

Audacity of Yanis Varoufakis - Understanding Global Macroeconomic Stability and the Greek Financial Crisis

Rough Contents Overview:

• Varoufakis, a quick profile.
• Global Minotaur book/concept.
• Exchange rates, trade surplus issues and history.
• China, 'Chimerica' & Niall Ferguson, currency wars.
• Greece - historical context, specific precipitating factors.
• IMF's ills.
• Bitcoin and Max Keiser.
• Piketty, inequality and Gates.
• Referendum result and Resignation.

[2015-06-18] The ongoing Greek financial crisis dedlock has been continually misreported as if it is a simple, political tug of war: little Greece trying to barter an arbitrarily better deal from big EU lending countries. But this narrative excludes essential dimensions which have massive implications for the entire world! The bulk of this can, I think, be covered by talking about this chap's writings and hopeful approach...

He's the finance minister for Greece's latest Government, Syriza - a rainbow coalition of small, 'radical left' leaning parties. I almost wish this political agglomeration would inspire something similar in the UK, to tackle the insurmountable FPTP electoral system. Syriza united behind a popular mandate to begin rolling back half a decade of failed austerity measures, privatisations and restructuring forced upon Greece by the 'Troika'. This triumvirate comprising the IMF, EU and ECB, imposed these conditions in exchange for further, massive, unpayable debts.

Varoufakis is no career politician. Brought in by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, he's not even a party member, persay, more like a passionate consultant. A globetrotting, professional economist, no less, who has continued his blogging despite his new post. We should be so lucky! After graduate and masters studies in the UK, he fled Thatcher's 3rd term for 12 years tenure in an Australian university and a year in Texas. He recently advised Valve on growing their Steam platform globally before being drawn back to Athens and his home land. [Wikipedia-1]

With looks that wouldn't be out of place in a Bond villain, and a mellifluous cadence, he meticulously and gracefully answers any and all questions with carefully selected metaphors and examples. He is a formidable speaker in English, and someone to whom Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel economist and ex World Bank chief) pretty much defers to [New Economic Thinking Video]. In fact, Varoufakis' government position has been described as analogous to Obama appointing the well known Keynesian, Paul Krugman, or the aforementioned, world famous inequality expert, Stigltz [NYtimes via twitter].

With a father who fought on the communist side of Greece's civil war (1946–49) and having set up local (PASOK) youth movement, Yanis describes himself as an 'erratic Marxist' and preaches 'pragmatic egalitarianism'. A term I much like. With contributions to the field of game theory research, and the build of a rugby player, he must truly be an intimidating prospect for the European bureaucrats with whom he has been tasked to negotiate. So its of little surprise that he's had to, cooly and calmly as always, belay the repeated claims from 'leaks' and attacks on him via the (dodgy Greek) press, and distorting, confrontational lens of the international coverage.

Rumours of my impending resignation are (for the umpteenth time) grossly premature...

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) [Twitter May 31, 2015]

The audacious part is that he appears to be out to apply his key macro-economic insights directly to where they could have the biggest, widest reaching beneficial effects on the composition of the entire Eurozone (and beyond)! A step up from the radical academics in fiction: Indiana jones or Tom Mason. I'd go as far as to hold him up besides world super-hero Elon Musk, if he succeeds at all.

Physicists - Yanis' initial interest in this degree subject, before switching to an economics degree (the lingua franca of political discourse) [1], leads me to feel an affinity with him and his approach. It was my first degree, which I chose because it seemed seem to contain the most fundamental factors for understanding everything (and for engineering the biggest changes to the universe). Elon Musk was also a physicists, dropping out days into a PhD to make his millions on the dot com boom. He's famously talked about the subject's necessary thinking style of "first principles reasoning", "a framework of thinking that would allow understanding counterintuitive elements of reality" [BuinessInsider], that seems obvious to us scientist/engineer types, but seems regarded as a magical secret sauce by standard business types. I've already sung Musk's praises in my hyperloop post.

I hope(d against hope) that the Eurocrats can bring themselves to pay him serious attention, because he's not out to win as much ground for team-Greece as possible. The repayment postponements have been aimed at creating time for constructive dialogue. He's consistently projected far more hopefulness than the prevailing media narrative of political conflict we've heard, which has a perversely myopic focus, seemingly intent on self-fulfilling a doomsday scenario.

He's been penning, and repeatedly revising since 2010, a pragmatic "modest proposal" (with expert co-authors) that would quickly resolve the situation. It uses only existing institutions, without call for fanciful systemic overhaul. Yanis understands the hope and expectations riding on Syriza (and himself), and talk about the opportunity for Europe to "reboot". But has also stated that "we are not interested in imposing our views monolithically on the rest of Europe [Greece] is too tiny and too bankrupt to do that" [at 12:18 in this radio interview].

His ambition is to lay matters bare. Obviously he's been seen by some as rude and too strident, and I'm not sure his core ideas have even been listened to, let alone seriously considered. It feels like it may be a case like a expert employee trying to get their boss, with only qualifications in business management, to understand a fundamental technical limitation or requirement in their business, but the one in charge is blind to any reality beyond their costings spreadsheet. Does not compute and they probably even resent the impudence of their lesser rank knowing more than them. And that's before considering any influence of powerful figures who stand to profit from disaster and failures, via whatever arcane financial mechanisms they've cooked up.

Since starting this piece (several weeks back) a deal has been seeming decreasingly likely [BBC]. It was always going be a last minute compromise, at best, but it does feel increasingly like that may have been unrealistic. Despite haing to work up the details of the exit plan, Yanis is still pushing hard to be heard and save the day (as of 2015-06-19). But with talk of an all out run on their banks this weekend it sounds pretty much like game over [ZeroHedge].

Edited book cover image (from Yanis' blog).

Anyway. Varoufakis' big insight is "The Global Minotaur" - a beastly financial aspect of the United States that has stabilized the world economically (and therefore politically) via its huge, brutal consumption. More specifically, the state of affairs that existed since 1971, when America's world dominating, post world war trade surplus inverted. Instead of re-balancing, Nixon's Government decided to actively feed the country's trade and budget deficits to the max, shooting the moon. They relied instead upon attracted their exported dollars for re-investment in the American pie, vacuuming them back up via the wonders of international investments in Wall Street!

This one-sided flow of capital (goods and investment) was so powerful a sink of capitals as to neutralise the effects of national trade surpluses all around the entire world. It maintained a somewhat grim, global stability. This is comparable to the ancient regional stability fostered by the tyranny of feeding King Minos's labyrinthine bound, hybrid monster of Greek legend; a probable mirror of a real historical situation of lavish (human and economic) tributes proffered to Crete, in subordination to its dominance.

Who owns our national debt? (I recently found out)

With the Northern Rock nationalisation and various other bank bail-outs/prop-ups, the government has conjured up a whole load of cash from somewhere. But where exactly does a country's government borrow money from?; all the UK's other country buddies seem to be in the same situation, so surely they can't be helping out. Does it borrow from the Bank of England? If so, do they just print more money? (but that would cause inflation) I've heard that the “Federal Reserve” (in the USA) is neither Federal, nor has any reserves, is it possible the Bank of England is privately owned too?!.....:

Bank of England was originally a private entity given a monopoly over issuing money by royal charter, in return for a huge government loan. It was nationalised in 1949 [by a Labour government].The idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century, also managed by the bank. Responsibility for government debt management was transferred to the new UK Debt Management Office in 1998.

[Wikipedia]

That all seems above board; so the Bank of England is a branch of government, that doesn't really seem to do very much at all any more. An offshoot of it sells government bonds and “gilts” to the private sector. Meaning that anyone in the world with numbers in their bank account can give them to the government. Generally these generous souls consist of:

- Pension funds
- Investment trusts
- Private individuals

Of course, government doesn't rely on charity; these loans will be paid back, through future taxation (rises if necessary), and with interest. UK National debt at the start of 2008 was £512Bn with total national debt interest payments of 31Bn for 2007: that's roughly 6% per annum. 2.5% of GDP (all the money UK citizens earned that year). At the end of December 2008 after the troubles last year, debt was £697.5Bn, which makes debt repayments the 4th bigest governmnet expense, behind social security, health and education, and just ahead of the defence department! And because selling of government bonds is open market, to sell more, higher interest rate repayments have to be offered, to encourage buyers.

Sounds bad, right? But looking at the table of national debts of all countries [1], the UK is right down the bottom with it's measly 47.5% of GDP. The US has 71% and Japan 194%! Apparently it makes a major difference as to the nationality of the financial entities who own the debt: with a country of prudent savers, the Japanese own 90% of their own debt (and interest rates set by Japan's central bank are low, making debt repayments low too). Whereas, 25% of the US's is foreign controlled, meaning that it is haemorrhaging money to other economies through repayments. Biggest US debt owners:
Japan - $592bn 
China - $502bn (China has a total of $1trillion dollar based assets)
UK - $252bn

[above: US national debt, % of GDP]

To keep current events in context, look back at the figures for national debt for the last century; the recent, huge spike from pouring liquidity into Banks is barely a blip compared to the enormous burden left by the great depression and the second world war (see graph). 

Also, pretty much all governments borrow money and as a rule, (developed) countries never go bankrupt. It is a useful tool: buffering income from taxes, and allowing the purchase of infrastructure and other public investments now, that can be more easily paid for in the future, when the country's productivity has increased. As any budding Singularitarian will know, this is a continuing, exponential increase too, thanks to technology and 'increasing returns'! So why not rack up the debt a bit?!

It does bring problems that should not be taken lightly:
+ Extensive borrowing will mean higher taxes in the future.
+ It can have a negative effect on your country's exchange rates.
+ 'Crowding out' of private sector investment; no finance left for private enterprise (baulking the economy).
+ The Centre for Policy Studies argues that the real current UK national debt is actually £1,340 billion (103.5% GDP) including all public sector liabilities: pensions, Private Finance Initiative contracts (e.g. Northern Rock).
+ The 'demographic time bomb' means pension liabilities and healthcare demands are going to continue increasing massively. 

[above: optimistic forcast of UK debt]

But I haven't entirely answered my original question!: Who, exactly, owns our national debt? Which specific individuals we are subservient debtors to I did not manage to find out. I'd quite like to know (if anyone does know). I presume (given that pensions have fallen in value by a huge amount in the last few years) that it will be a load of rich, trust fund kiddies and banker types. Which would fit in with various corporate banking conspiracies. Bankers bleeding the world dry both ways: cocking up the banking industry by being dishonestly greedy, then making a killing lending money to governments, who have to save corporations that are 'too big to fail'. There seems no incentives to stop them doing this deliberately. Even if the financial clusterfuck was pure stupidity, it still makes the rich a whole lot richer.

If only the corporate media pointed concerted focus at significant issues like this, instead of going bananas over which MP used public money to unfairly buy a second toilet brush! (As Stephen Fry says too) 

I've been playing quite a bit of Simcity 4 recently (a recurring addiction), and unlike the real world, your spending is immediately stopped the second government finances hit red, and borrowing comes at a hefty 12% per annum, flat rate, which is sure to finish you off if taking out a loan because of budget deficits. Pretty unrealistic, but it's more informative (with regards to government finance and money in general) than anything I was taught at school. The origin of money and some basic political economics really should get incorporated into standard, non-optional curriculum. 

Most of the hard information above was from here: http://www.economicshelp.org/

What is money itself ???; I highly recommend watching Money as Debt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8&feature=related