The difference between a market economy and capitalism is that while markets need money to circulate, people see it as signal to save and store. So the medium has become the message. The tool has become the god.

Econ 101 says money is both medium of exchange and store of value, yet one is inherently dynamic, while the other is naturally static. Blood is a medium, while fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. The hallway is a medium, the hall closet is a store.

The functionality of money is its fungibility, so we own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies. It's not our picture on it, we don't hold the copyrights and are not responsible for its value, like a personal check.

Consequently it is a quintessential public utility, like roads.

It functions as a contract, an accounting device, enabling markets as a medium, but we treat it as a commodity to mine from society. All of society, not just the markets, given the reductionist feedback loops driving our obsessions, toward that point on the horizon.

Since the asset has to be backed by a debt, storing the asset requires generating debt. Besides the centripetal effects of positive feedback drawing the asset to the center and negative feedback pushing the debt to the edges, for which the Ancients devised debt jubilees as a circuit breaker, one of the major sources of debt is government. The markets could not function, without the government siphoning up trillions in surplus investment money. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.

So what does the government then do with this money? Much is poured into the military and as Julius Caesar is reputed to have said, "You can do anything with spears, other than sit on them."

Consequently we need wars to generate debt, in order to sustain the illusion of wealth.

Safe to say, the mother of all reality checks is in the mail.

Debt doesn't matter, until it does.