Is your money safe?

OUR hard-earned savings are at huge risk from those purporting to be our financial masters.

- DARREN SMITH

Think bank failures, stock market crashes, cyber-attacks and the plan to introduce programmable all-digital currencies.

Whether you have savings, pensions or investments, few tell us about the risks involved with paper assets - wealth that we don't hold in our hands.

All trade and the economy is exchange: whether you are exchanging your labour for bank account credits or credit notes for barrels of oil, we are all exchanging what we have for what we need.

When you go to the shop, you exchange what you have (paper currency or account credits) for what you need (bread, milk, meat, etc.) Nearly every single part of the economy works like this except for where one side of the exchange is 'free', e.g., voluntary work or gifts.

The medium of exchange, what we call money, therefore becomes the most highly prized commodity because of its ability to be exchanged into anything else.

Money used to be an actual commodity after tally sticks, pebbles, salt and many other variations, people settled on gold and silver as the best form of money because of qualities like their rarity and durability.