I've given up magical thinking, mostly, but what about the economy?

Money is a collective delusion. We all agree that a dollar is worth a dollar, so a dollar is worth a dollar. When people stop agreeing you have a currency crisis. Italy had one--it took thousands of Lira to buy anything. If you can keep enough people believing the lie, though, nobody can afford not to.

What you have to remember is that economics is not the study of production, goods, and so on. Sometimes it seems like it is. But it's not.

The true subject of economics is values. The choices people make. What they will trade for what. This often has nothing to do with the external universe and everything to do with the internal one.

Even if you found that all the dollars were backed by gold, what would that mean? Gold is of almost no use to anyone except to sparkle and look pretty. People only want it because of what they think they can get for it.

Trapped alone on a desert island, virtually everyone would rather have a pound of meat than a pound of gold. There is no value-o-meter. It's all subjective.

So can you still make it snow in Mexico?

You'll find a consensual fantasy, an agreement to pretend that paper is worth work and product. You'll find clever people who manage to gather all that paper to themselves to control all the work and product. We are slaves. Discoverng that we were in the Matrix would be a pleasant surprise---at least it would mean job security.

The people, the ability to back up that money with the goods and services that the nation can offer.

Sell AUD/USD and Sell NZD/USD and you will make a killing!

A word to the wise!

the army and police.