The Money in Your Pocket Isn’t What You Own, It’s What You Owe. And It's Who Owns You.
“You’ll own nothing and be happy"
(Originally published the Editor in Chief of the American Council on Global Affairs November 30, 2012 at 16:25PM)
Let’s pull a dollar bill (or the currency of your country) out of our wallet or pocket and hold it up. It’s just a piece of paper with a dead president’s face and some designs, right?
But what if that dollar, pound, or euro, etc., isn’t money at all?
What if it’s a debt, something owed, a system that keeps people working to pay off a bill they didn’t have anything to do with? Or do they?
Three ideas are brought together here—a philosophical take, a banking breakdown, and a perspective on how money works every day—to show what’s really going on. The dollar is a made-up idea, a debt created by banks, and a constant weight in daily life.
From how it’s believed in, to how it’s made, to how it shapes every moment, money is shown to be a debt trap that’s carefully built so that it can never be paid. But here’s the good part: a way out is offered at the very end of this essay. This isn’t just a talk—it’s a chance to see the truth of a life that’s forced to be rented back to oneself from those controlling it and break free from that cycle.
Let’s start with the big picture: money is an idea that’s been turned into reality.
Section 1: The Illusion of “Money”. Money Is an Agreed-Upon Hallucination
Why does a dollar feel so powerful?
A dollar is looked at closely. It’s not gold or silver—it’s just paper, but it controls time, work, dreams, and even nightmares. A philosophical idea suggests money is a belief, something everyone agrees to value. There’s no real worth in the paper itself—it’s powerful because it’s trusted to buy things like textbooks, coffee, or a new phone. If that trust vanished, the dollar would be as useless as a ticket to a canceled concert. This matters because it means money’s strength comes from people’s minds, from the hopes and needs they put into it. Money is a trusted belief, like a religion or a god—an idol.
Did money start as something real?
Money was originally tied to and represented something tangible, something solid. It was a physical object. In the US and most of the world, a “dollar” was a standard weight of a gold or silver coin or could be swapped for that standard amount of gold or silver, like a claim check for a jacket left at a hotel desk. That dollar “claim check” could be taken to a bank and turned in for metal that everyone wanted, a promise backed by something real. Over time, governments and banks eliminated that tie, turning money into paper and then numbers on a screen. Now, money is only worth something because everyone agrees it is, like players in a game following the same rules.
This agreement makes money work—groceries or rent can be paid without trading stuff directly. But game tokens made arcade games work too—inside the arcade. And that makes money risky, because that trust can be used to steer people’s choices. A trust exists where money can still be exchanged for groceries, and arcade game tokens for stuffed bears, because everyone agrees to do that.
What makes money feel like it’s alive?
Money can be thought of as an artifact, talisman, or charm where desires are crystallized into something that can be touched and held—a way to hold everyone’s wants in one place, like a magic wand. When a new laptop, a car, or a trip with friends is wanted, that dollar feels like the way to get it. It’s not just one person’s wishes that charge that wand—it’s the dreams, worries, and plans of millions of people, all mixed together. This gives money a kind of psychic or mental pull, guiding everyone along with its gravity. It’s why some chase and use money like it magically solves everything: for some, it’s freedom to start a business; for others, it’s safety from piling bills; and for some, it’s a way to show off with new clothes or tech.
But here’s the truth: money isn’t any of those things. It’s like a mirror showing what people want to see, and it’s been given so much belief that it feels real, like coins in a video game or an old-school arcade.
How does money take over lives?
The trouble starts when money is treated like it’s actually worth something on its own. People let it run their lives. The stock market is a good example: when lots of money is put into a company, its value shoots up, not because it’s making better stuff, but because everyone believes it’s valuable. It’s like blowing up a balloon—too much air, and it pops. This messes with how things work, making people work extra hours, stress about bills, or chase jobs just for cash, all for something that’s basically a made-up idea. When money’s real nature is forgotten or hidden, it’s like being controlled by a story everyone helped write, with competing intentions creating unpredictability.
Like the stock market or the price of gasoline, where lots of people cast their own spells with the same magic wand called money, not always in ways that align. It’s seen as unpredictable, isn’t it? Money is only an idea.
Who controls the story of what money appears to be?
The story of money is shaped by governments and banks. They’re not perfect—they’re just systems run by people who can mess up or focus on their own goals, dreams, desires, or fears. Focus is the same as meditation or worship. Worship is what’s focused on with intention before speaking or acting to “manifest” the idea in the mind. Meditation is sometimes the word used by the “spiritual” or “non-religious,” but it’s still worship. Too much money being printed, unrestricted printing just because it can be done, means things like coffee, bus passes, or rent cost more. When big companies get more support than small businesses, it’s harder for regular people to get ahead. It’s like a game where the rules favor one side, making it tough for everyone else.
But since this belief was created together, it can be changed. By questioning why money matters so much, as shown here, it can be seen as just a tool, not the boss. But everyone would have to agree, wouldn’t they? And they’d expect agreement in return.
Why does money feel inescapable, like a drug that’s just an idea?
This reality hits close for junior college students. Money is chased through a full- or part-time job to pay for classes, buy a used car, or help out at home. Those are real goals, but money is just a way to get there—it’s not the point. When it’s treated like the main thing, stress piles up about bank accounts, not having the latest gear, or not having enough for a doctor’s visit. A question is worth asking: What really counts? Is it the cash, or the learning, freedom, or connections it’s supposed to bring? It promises to bring those things, and a wish is made that it will. Focusing on things like knowledge or friendships might loosen money’s exclusive grip (it’s worshipped, and it demands obedience in exchange for wishes) and the exclusive grip on it (it’s demanded to grant those wishes, but only when it’s worshipped).
Money’s power grows because everyone buys into the same idea, like a group of friends all hyped about the same game, team, or “side” of some idea or cause. This makes it easy to buy stuff without trading things directly, like bartering. But it also means everyone’s tied to the same problems and risks of using it. If banks put money into risky bets like stocks, bonds, real estate deals, or hedge funds (basically gambling in a global casino) instead of local shops and factories that make and sell things, towns lose jobs because money was printed for consumption, not production. When prices go up due to printing money to buy things or gamble with it, especially with a credit card or loan, everyone feels it.
This shared belief makes money feel like it’s everywhere, because everyone shapes its behavior in different ways for different reasons, except for one: it’s still an agreed-upon hallucination.
Money as life’s scoreboard
And when it’s seen as the measure of success, a scoreboard of winners and losers, the rich get more respect, even if they’re not kind, creative, or generous. Companies focus on making cash (which itself is a negotiable liability deliberately misclassified as an asset on financial statements), sometimes cutting corners on the product or hurting the environment in the process, passing the cost to anyone but themselves. Social media makes it worse, with people showing off fancy stuff to look important, pushing students and anyone persuaded to spend money they don’t have and don’t own anyway. This twists what matters in the mind, making it seem like having money is more important than being a good person or doing something meaningful, because having money is what’s good. It’s the magic wand.
How does this setup keep people running?
This setup keeps people running inside their hamster wheels. Time is spent working to cover rent, but rent keeps going up. Money is saved for a phone, but the price jumps. This isn’t random—it’s how the system is built, using people’s belief to keep them locked in. Loans for school or cars are pushed, making sure everyone stays tied to the cycle. But there’s a way out: by seeing money as just an idea, not reality, its control can be challenged. Choosing time with friends or learning new skills over chasing cash is a start. This leads to the next part—how banks turn this idea into a system that keeps people in debt.
Section 2: The Mechanics of the Debt System
How did a dollar become a debt anyway?
Now that money’s been shown as a belief, only an idea, let’s dig into how banks turn that belief into a system that keeps everyone owing. A perspective suggests that money isn’t real money at all, as Professor Richard A. Werner has proven empirically. Instead, it’s an IOU (issued by the central bank of a country or a note signed when borrowing), a promise that more work will be owed later for what’s borrowed now.
In 2014, the first empirical study on how banks actually work was finally published (followed by a second study in 2015) and thus ended the centuries-old debate about whether banks are (a) mere financial intermediaries passing on savings (deposits) as loans to borrowers, as the leading journals and textbooks proclaim today; (b) whether they need central bank reserves or deposits to lend these on to their customers, so that each bank is an intermediary, but in aggregate more money is created by the banking system in a collective fashion—as a previous generation of unwitting central bank spokesmen had argued; or (c) whether they instead are not financial intermediaries at all, but creators of the money supply, so that each bank creates new purchasing power that is added to the money supply when it extends a loan, thus deciding about the amount and allocation of new money creation—a pivotal function in the economy. The empirical tests rejected the financial intermediation and fractional reserve theories (Werner, 2014a, 2015) and showed that banks do not need prior savings, nor central bank reserves or other deposits to lend. Instead, banks create new money when they do what is called “bank lending,” and add it to the money supply (see Figure 1). Bank loans thus do not transfer existing purchasing power, but add net new purchasing power. The banks’ lending creates 97% of the money supply. Bankers’ decisions about how much money is lent—and thus created and added to the money supply—and given to whom for what purpose quickly reshapes the economic landscape and affects us all. Sadly, no regulator has asked banks to ensure they lend for productive and environmentally sustainable projects—over two-thirds of UK lending is not for productive purposes that create jobs or boost GDP, but instead for assets, causing asset price inflation.
—Professor Richard A. Werner, paper presented at the 14th Rhodes Forum: Dialogue of Civilisations Research Institute, Panel 2: Economic Alternatives When Conventional Models Fail, Rhodes, Greece, October 1, 2016.
As such, money isn’t just handled by banks; it’s created by them in a way that shapes the whole economy. This section, backed by a banking analysis, explains how money is made, what happens when it’s used for risky bets instead of building stuff, and how this makes things unfair in a very real way. The banking system is revealed as something that could help everyone or keep them stuck, depending on how it’s run by banks and influenced by people’s choices.
Banks don’t have piles of “money” sitting around
The idea that banks have piles of cash to lend out isn’t right. When a loan is needed—say, for tuition, a car, or a home—a promise to pay it back is signed, and money is added to an account by the bank through a few keystrokes. In other words, a bond or security is created as an annuity, with oneself as the collateral.
The self is securitized into a digital version to be bought and sold.*
No tangible forms of sound money, such as gold or silver, move; no stacks of paper currency shift anywhere—just numbers on a computer screen are adjusted to reflect the balance in the account, representing the amount for which one has sold oneself.
Decisions made by fiat are arbitrary commands or decrees mandating the holder of the bearer bond—which is what this currency is—to perform a specific action. Bearer bonds are carried in pockets or wallets, where the individual is the collateral.
As we see, about 97% of all “money” comes into existence from this process. Deposits actually represent amounts agreed to be paid, recorded as an asset at the bank. The individual is the asset, not stored in a vault but working outside on a farm or in a store, generating payments (income) to repay the note.
The bank records the note as a liability, something they don’t own, because they must pay you as the note is drawn upon by you—it’s a promise from the bank to pay you, but only as the loan is repaid by you on time. Interest is collected on that loan. If an individual is an asset working outside and their loan, as a security, is bought and sold, what does that resemble?
A system monetizes people.
Banks aren’t just passing money around; they’re making it up and charging interest for it, where the individual is what’s being monetized. A system is set up where debt is at the heart of everything— each individual is the debt instrument, the collateral, the deposit, the liability.
Why do prices keep going up?
As stated before, banks put money into risky bets instead of manufacturing actual assets, real things. Loans for flipping houses or trading stocks push up prices for things that already exist, like homes or company shares, without making anything new. This makes costs skyrocket. Houses are expensive because banks keep pouring money into real estate, turning homes into a game while others struggle to rent. Stock prices rise too, not because companies are better, but because people are betting on them, believing as a group that their faith is well-founded. This makes the wealthy wealthier and leaves everyone else working for salaries and wages behind. Big banks, like the few that control most money worldwide, focus on the largest deals for the largest employers of debtors earning that digital currency, ignoring small businesses.
What happens when bets go wrong?
This way of doing things causes serious issues. Too many risky bets create bubbles that burst. In 2008, banks bet big on the housing market, and when it crashed, people lost jobs, homes, retirements, and even their own companies. Banks were bailed out by government printing presses (bailouts by typing numbers on a computer screen), but regular people paid the price with harder times. Every dollar or digital currency created as debt means someone has to pay it back with interest, so students, for example, get stuck with loans for their education.
When too much money is created, prices for things like food or gas are bid up like an auction where more money is available to drive up the price, and what’s earned buys less. It’s a setup that keeps people working harder just to stay where they are.
How does this hit students?
This is tough for students. Money is saved from a part-time job for books or a laptop, but prices keep rising because banks are betting on houses or stocks. A loan is taken, and interest is paid on money that was just invented. The system is built to keep people owing, ensuring banks and governments stay in control. Most don’t know banks work this way, so loans and price hikes are accepted as normal. But knowing how it works is the first step to pushing back.
What can be done to fix it?
Changes can be made to fix this. Rules are suggested to make banks focus on making real assets, not betting on intangibles. Laws could limit loans for risky, intangible things and push money toward small- to medium-sized company productive investments. This would keep prices steady and create jobs, making life easier for students balancing work and classes. Smaller entities like credit unions could be used instead of big banks, since they care more about local needs. These changes need people to speak up, even though larger institutional banks won’t like it because they bet on short-term transactional results, quarterly gains, dividends, or buying interests in companies.
The difference between betting on something and building something is huge. Betting with money makes prices go up by chasing stuff that’s already there, causing unfairness and crashes. Building with money makes more things, keeping things stable and fair. This shows why the debt system is a problem and how it can be fixed by focusing on real growth. A future is imagined where loans help start businesses, not fuel stock market games, and where prices don’t make life impossible.
How can choices challenge the system?
The system keeps going because people keep using it—taking loans, buying stuff, not asking questions. But every choice can push back. Local shops can be supported, or bank rules can be questioned in discussions. Learning about things like seigniorage (profit from making money) or leverage ratios (how much debt banks use) helps make a stronger case. Picture a student, Jamal, taking a loan for school, paying back fake money while prices go up because of bank bets. If money went to building schools or training programs, he’d have a better shot without owing so much. This shows why the system needs to change, and it starts with understanding how it works.
Section 3: Navigating and Escaping the Debt Cycle
What’s it like to live with this debt?
The idea of money as a belief and how banks make it have been laid out. Now, the daily reality is faced: every dollar is a debt, a promise that more work is owed. A perspective says the dollar ties people to a system where their hard work pays for someone else’s gain. This part looks at how this debt cycle affects everyday life, from jobs to shopping, and offers ways to get out of it. For junior college students dealing with school and money stress, this is the world they’re living in—but it’s not the only one possible. Ways to break free are there, and they start with seeing things clearly.
How does work get trapped in debt?
Work is picked up—maybe pouring coffee or stocking shelves—to cover school or bills. Paychecks are seen as a step forward, but they’re not what they seem. Those dollars are just paper or numbers made when the government borrowed money. Every dollar is a loan that gets paid back through taxes, like getting a check with a bill already attached. Taxes are paid on that paycheck with the same dollars, which are just more debt. It’s a cycle that keeps going: work, get debt, pay debt, repeat. Even with long hours, there’s never enough for stuff like new clothes or a weekend trip, showing how the system takes more than it gives.
Why are prices always climbing?
Prices make it worse. Things like food, bus fares, or phone plans cost more every year because too much money is being printed, making dollars worth less. It’s like playing a game where points shrink with every round. Money has to be spent fast or saved less to keep up. Trying to save for a car or school fees? Prices jump before there’s enough. This comes from banks putting money into bets on houses or stocks, which pushes up costs for everything. The system is set up to keep people working non-stop, with no chance to catch a break.
How does debt shape every choice?
Everything is caught in this cycle. Going to school means taking loans; getting a new phone means signing up for payments. Banks make money from interest, and the government keeps borrowing for projects or programs, adding to the tax bill. The Federal Reserve runs this show, printing dollars to keep it going. The dollar isn’t wealth—it’s a promise to keep working to pay off debts that weren’t chosen. The system is built to make debt feel like just part of life.
Who’s really paying the price?
The hardest part is realizing people are the ones being used. Every dollar spent—on snacks, gas, or apps—is time and effort given up. When banks bet on stocks or houses, they make prices higher, so what’s earned doesn’t go as far. Things like phones or cars aren’t really owned—they’re borrowed from a system that keeps asking for more. But that’s risky for banks and central banks too, which is why, to eliminate individuals as a risk—slaves who might rebel or change their minds—some propose requiring everything to be rented, never owned. It’s already heading that way.
“You’ll own nothing and be happy” is a phrase published by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The phrase is based on a 2016 essay by Ida Auken of Denmark, published by the WEF, about a future in which a hypothetical person relies on the sharing economy for many of their needs. The phrase has been used by critics who accuse the WEF of desiring restrictions on ownership of private property.
“Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city - or should I say, "our city". I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes.
It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.”
Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better. Written by Ida Auken Member of Parliament, Parliament of Denmark (Folketinget), November 11, 2016.
As established, big banks focus on huge companies and global restructuring, “the great reset,” not small businesses like a friend’s food truck, making it harder for regular people to get a fair deal. It’s a setup where work—everyone working until they die—keeps the system running, but only a few reap the benefits as those controlling the game.
How does this debt trap hit retirees?
Picture retirees, folks who’ve worked decades, banking on Social Security to cover basics like groceries or medical bills. That system’s on shaky ground, with experts saying it could go bankrupt by 2034 because the government’s been borrowing and printing money to keep the debt cycle spinning, just like the essay’s shown. All that money printed to fuel risky bets or bail out banks? It’s driven up prices—rent, medicine, utilities—eating away at fixed pensions or Social Security checks that don’t grow fast enough. And if those retirees stashed cash under the mattress, in the attic, or in the basement, thinking it’d hold its value, they’re in for a shock.
That money that you thought was safely tucked away has also been hurt by inflation too, worth less every year because banks and the Federal Reserve keep flooding the system with more dollars, shrinking what each one can buy. Inflation is a tax you don’t see until you see how little it purchases.
It’s a raw deal: retirees’ savings and benefits, earned over a lifetime, are eroded by a system that’s rigged to keep everyone owing, and having to work, leaving them struggling to afford the life they thought they could plan.
Can the cycle be broken?
The idea that money’s just a belief means it can be questioned if one dares to. I you dare to.
Knowing how banks create money out of thin air, shackling you to it, shows where the system’s weak spots are. Different choices can be made. Stuff or skills can be traded with friends, like swapping notes for a used phone. Things that hold value, like tools or even gold, can be bought to avoid losing out when prices rise. Money can be kept in credit unions, which help local communities, not big banks. These steps start small but chip away at the system’s hold. If everyone does this, each person becomes their own bank, owning themselves and what they save from trading with each other, value for value, with no third party involved. The meter stops running—it’s over when the trade is complete.
What bigger changes could help?
Bigger changes are also suggested. Rules could be pushed to make money tied to something real, like gold, or to stop the government from borrowing so much. Some say the whole debt system should be challenged as unfair. These ideas take work, but they start with talking about it—in classes, online, or with friends. Learning about things like seigniorage (the profit from making money, the difference between creating it and the face value printed on it) or leverage ratios (how much debt banks use) helps make the case stronger. The more people know, the more they can push for a system that’s fair instead of one that exploits them.
What could the future look like?
This isn’t just about one person—it’s about everyone. The debt cycle keeps going because it’s not noticed. Cards are swiped, loans are signed, and bills are stressed over like it’s normal. But it’s a system designed to keep people busy. A different future is possible, where work buys real stuff, not just more debt, and prices don’t keep rising, making life more predictable. This needs everyone to see the truth, understand the system, and make different choices. Local businesses can be supported, or new banking rules can be discussed in group chats, churches, schools, business meetings, or trade and industry gatherings.
Imagine a future where goals—like starting a business or traveling—aren’t buried under loans. Right now, prices and debts make that hard. But in a new system, work pays off, and savings don’t shrink. This starts with small steps—trading stuff, saving differently, speaking up. Elena could swap graphic design for tech, use a credit union, or get her classmates talking about fair loans. Every choice makes the system less powerful.
Who owns the debt in your pocket?
So, the money in your pocket isn’t yours—it’s a debt, a belief turned real, a system banks keep running, a cycle that shapes your life. But it can be changed. Every dollar spent can be questioned, banks can be pushed to build instead of bet, and time can be valued over cash.
This isn’t just an essay—it’s a chance to see things differently and create a different path. Because as it stands now, everything and everyone is living inside a structured default.
Every cash asset or short-term asset listed on the balance sheet actually a liability.
And if there’s no actual assets, then everything is a fiction—just an idea, an agreed-upon hallucination. Everything including retained earnings, paid in capital, even the concept of ownership is a fiction. It’s all a liability. And who has claim on that liability? The ones that issued a fake idea -the paper currency- that you signed everything over for to get it, including oneself.
Every transaction that occurred in everyone’s lifetime were only executed as intra-account transfers inside the global game. Everything exists inside a global pawn shop, digital marketplace, owned and operated by the central banks, where you are bought and sold.
In the meantime, while anger, fear, or worry about money as something owed instead of owned may arise, who exactly should be the target of that anger—the system that lied and made something unreal seem real, the person writing this essay, or the person reading it? And who signed on that dotted line anyway? What exactly was sold to get this little magic wand in your hand?
Who exactly is being bought and sold in global markets up there on the big board? Is it you? Is it all of us now?
Reminds me of Jeffersons words in the original Declaration of Independence in a section of his original draft that was removed by the Georgia and South Carolina colonies, or they wouldn’t sign the Declaration where he denounced this for all black slaves and for the colonists themselves. The king had maintained two layers of slaves, divided into classes in the colonies, not just one.
“…he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
I thought slavery, the “execrable commerce” had been officially outlawed in the United States on December 18th, 1865, with black slaves declared forever free by President Lincoln on December 2nd, 1873
… or has it simply digitized for everyone as Jefferson had denounced in 1776, with a modern-day slave tag—feeling more like a cement block—hung around everyone’s necks?
*Monetized promissory notes can be monetized by a central bank. Banks can monetize promissory notes signed by you by bundling them into a trust, converting them into bonds or stock certificates, and selling them to investors. It is you that is bought and sold.