How will we have money to support millions of more people in the future?

in Wealth Building

Jogol asked:

How will the system of money work to keep from having an extremely disproprotionate balance of wealth and poverty if the rate of population growth continues to soar and we have many millions of more people in the future?

Does the system of money have a mechanism built in to combat something like this? For instance, will more money be made (not currency) in order to support more people?

What is money? Is it silver or what?

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3 comments

patois on September 17, 2009 at 3:48 am

Humans must get smarter, that’s all. We have survived this long by getting smarter when needed. That’s what we humans do. And, the forecasted “divide” among people is not going to be between rich and poor, but between those who make the effort to get educated and those who do not, especially those who cling to old ways that mean nothing in the current reality. It always works out that way. Stupid people die. Stupid cultures die. We either get smarter and adpat to our current reality or we don’t make it. What do you want to bet there’s going to be enough smart people, though, who make it through just fine?
Da_Gibb on September 19, 2009 at 4:41 am

In the US, money is only worth what we say it is now. It used to be based on gold and/or silver (they kept changing it). Now they just print more. But that is just for cash. With electronic banking, most of my savings have never actually been physical (check or otherwise) since we paid the IRS taxes.

And as for distribution of wealth, if it gets too lopsided, we have a revolution.
meg on September 21, 2009 at 8:22 am

Peoples labor will create more stuff so the size of the economy increases with the population. Central banks (the federal reserve in the US) increase the currency and credit available to support the economic growth. When money was based on the gold standard and the money supply was fixed, prices fell with increased production, but the economic growth rates were low compared to today.
Most “money” is really credit or promises to pay and currency is the unit of measure. We make most of our payments with checks or credit cards, not cash.

The population growth in the world is slowing down and is expected to stabilize in about 2050, If it were to continue to soar we would eventually run out of food and resources, but that is not expected to happen, but if it did money would be the least of our worries.