A phrase literally equivalent to "make money" ("faire d'argent") is common in medical French documents, with the same meaning as "make money" in English.
I say "in English" (rather than " in American English") with intent: as the Oxford English Dictionary documents that the phrase was used in England (again, with the same meaning) at a period before the colonization of America. "To make money,," then, was not unique to America,mand was not created by Americans. (Like many an old phrase or usage, it went out of currency where it had been coined, only to survive elsewhere.)

On a philosophical level, we know energy and matter can only be transformed, not destroyed/created. The ultimate bad outcome for humans is Entropy. So though it appears that America created Wealth it really only transformed other energy/matter in something humans call Wealth. The End Game is tricky.

What is money? Is it an object or process? We know that early humans without central government spontaneously created money from various objects. "Created from"...So money is not the object. Money is stored economic work represented by a proxy object. Each society of people has a maximum it can produce, called Potential Wealth, given the resources, labor, and capital such as buildings, machines, infrastructure, we call Base Capital. Without Money only a very basic subsistence level of Wealth can be achieved since Base Capital never develops past starting level. It takes Money to facilitate the exchange of goods to raise towards the limit of Potential Wealth. Potential Wealth can be increased by increasing Productivity and decreased by not replacing Base Capital that is used up to produce Goods (i.e. Debt). If a central authority prints too much Currency (Currency is based on Money but is one more layer of abstraction that increases chance for abuse), there is the danger that the level will exceed the Potential Wealth and cause Inflation. There are those who manage Sales/Revenue and those who manage Profit.

A Parable: At one time America had a strong economy, all rejoiced, and politicians started to promise, promise, promise (spend, spend, spend). Over time the government spending required much more revenue but the politician didn't want to level with the voters that taxes were going to have to be raised to pay for the government provided services ("Guns and Butter"). Thus backroom deals were made under the "Trade Deal" banner so that a foreign country would partner with the American government agreeing to buy its debt in return for "free trade" that allowed cheaper products to flood the American market (the foreign country collects the dollars on the sales to America then turns around to buy T-Bills thus funding the government spending and gets "jobs"). The first partner was Japan, then Mexico and Canada (NAFTA), then China (Communist!). Over the course of those 4 decades the result was that many American factories shut down and some American companies went overseas to compete on price. All the while the politician yelled and screamed about the evil businessman who was killing the American economy by moving jobs to other countries. Most Americans who were educated in Public Schools where no Critical Thinking or Finance History are taught believed the politician that the evil businessman was responsible. All the while the government continues its promise of more and more spending ("Guns and Butter") until the American economy is destroyed and the correction comes.

Interesting. A number of concerns issued "scrip" well into the 20th century. By no means mining companies. Land O' Lakes Co-op printed its own money during the Great Depression, effectively creating private local economies in many small towns. A co-op is, of course, an entirely voluntary association.

"TO MAKE MONEY"--almost a lost concept in modern-day America. In order to maintain a capitalist economic, it is necessary to produce something of tangible value or to provide a skilled service (hardly intangible but somewhat different).

A "service economy" consisting of semi-skilled people working at low-paid jobs and others skimming wealth by making an infinite series of electronic financial transactions, cannot remain capitalist for long. Any economy that wishes to maintain itself in a global economy must, first and foremost, produce something that others want to buy.

An old joke defines capitalism as: "you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull". Better still, you keep both (your "capital") sell some milk (your product) and rent the neighbor's bull (a necessary service).

Of course, the looters would never understand the concept, as for them their form of "making money" is to print more pieces of arbitrary paper, assign a random number to said papers, and coerce people into believing said pieces of paper have -real- value, as if they represented either a tangiable amount of production or tangiable substance, rather than a promise made by those who excel in not honoring promises...

A good read is Glyn Davies "A history Of Money." It covers the use of money from ancient times to modern. Money, it appears, developed at an extension of barter. Traditionally people were paid in goods and most transactions were by barter. But how do you trad a barter to someone who was not involved in the process to begin with? In other words, I shoe your horse but you have nothing I want so you offer me something you have available from someone else. But that guy has a barter out too so what can you use to represent the transaction without the first guy constantly being involved? Anyway, the book covers those things quite well and how monitory systems derived from simple barters. I haven't read the book for a while but I think there's also a section on stocks and stock exchanges. The first one was in Holland for the tulip trade back in the 15th or 16th century.

I would like to make clear my definitions: Money is proxy for store of value and accepted as tendering for economic transaction. Productive Work provides the underpinning for the use of Money. Currency is a fabrication of central banking and was originally backed by Money such as Gold. It is the Currency that is abused not Money. Money cannot be abused, only exchanged. A unit of Money becomes worth more when Productivity increases Wealth. The value of a Currency is at the whim of the Central Bank.

I always interpreted that part of the money speech to typify the unique American culture. Compare to British culture for example - where one was looked down on for working in a trade. Most cultures have been about gaining status/ preserving aristocracy.
We have all sorts of phrases that capture this unique cultural interest of finding value in making money. Time is money, money doesn't grow on
trees,

A good read is Glyn Davies "A history Of Money." -- Posted by exindigo 1 day, 15 hours ago.
"Hi, I suggest you read "Money Mischief" by Milton Friedman." -- Posted by Danno 1 day, 19 hours ago

Davies, I know. The Friedman book is at both my city and university libraries, so I will check it out later. I am always interested in learning more.

But I know a few things about this and most economists do not. (One who does is George Selgin who wrote about the Birmingham Buttonmakers and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage.) We do not have college curricula in numismatics. Many of us major in history, art history, or languages. Largely we are autodidacts. I do hold three certifications from the American Numismatic Association: Basic Numismatics, Grading U.S. Coins Today, and Detecting Altered and Counterfeit U.S. Coinage.

My first literary award from the ANA was for an article on the origins of coinage. The nomination came from Elvira Clain-Stefanelli of the Smithsonian; and the article corrected the Encyclopedia Britannica. (I also had to win the support of Robert Hoge of the ANA Museum who convinced the editorial board that most of the standard references on their shelves were wrong: merchants did not invent coins.) My second literary award from the ANA was for a biography of Sir Isaac Newton's tenure as warden and master of the British Royal Mint. Other awards from other groups came for other works.

The ANA also published articles from me on Buffalo Nickels, Peace Dollars, Cameo Proofs, and Proof Double Eagles. For seven years, I wrote the monthly "Internet Connections" column for The Numismatist. Some of my works are given as citations in Wikipedia articles. One was cited by Nobel laureate Robert Mundell.

When it comes to money, I know what I am talking about.

Most recently, I read "Debt: the First 5000 Years" by David Graeber. Although Prof. Graeber is an anthropologist, he is also a left-anarchist who is afraid of debt and money. That being as it may, his work is supported by current research. He supplies his sources. The take-away facts are: (1) Trade did not begin as calculated profit-making (2) Debt did not begin with money. (3) Money did not grow out of barter. (4) Gold and silver did not evolve from commodity money.

And just to say, this fear of debt and money is not isolated to Marxists.The conservative and libertarian quest for 100% gold-backed banking and a gold-backed federal money supply are reflections of the same fears.

In understanding the origins of monetary media, Menger and Mises did not improve on Marx. Even Hayek offered no empirical evidence for his "Denationalisation of Money." He only cited Rothbard's "What has Government Done to Our Money?" which only cited one academic paper from 1916, which itself was flawed by citing as "circulating" coins that we know were rarely seen: any active American coin collector could have provided a wealth of accurate empirical data.

Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/...
Murray Rothbard: Fraud or Faker
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...