If no one prints money and no one takes money out (US, or world as a whole), then it's zero sum right? How is wealth created and where does growth come from? Commodities? I guess what I'm asking is, how does money actually work?
wealth is not money Wealth is physical goods and services that are valued by other people. Money is only a temporary store of value, a legal agreement, in exchange for future goods and services. Money can be ephemeral in its perceived value.
Wealth is work. Money is just a measurement. A way to score-keep the value of wealth amassed. Real wealth is actually measured in physical assets, manufactured goods, or services we can buy. Wealth is created when one or more people decide to work. For instance, imagine a 2 person economy. Both people decide to sleep all day, everyday. Nothing gets produced. No wealth is created. Now imagine if those 2 people decided to work 10 hours a day. 1 catches fish, and the other hunts wild game. At the end of the day, food is amassed. That food has intrinsic value. "Wealth" has been created. Wealth is really just a psychological invention of the mind. Humans need things to survive. And like to have things that enhance their survival. Humans consider these things to have value, and anyone who possesses them, to have "wealth". Therefore, when humans make or produce these items or services other humans crave, wealth is literally created.
wealth is created by raping and pillaging Mother Earth. as in the above example both fish and wild game were stolen from Nature.
The best explanation of money and wealth was in this great article written by Paul Graham ( a multimillionaire engineer). http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
Wealth & growth comes from rising productivity and a growing slave population.; The master reaps the wealth . Most people don't gain wealth, they consume, sweat and shit with a carrot stick hanging in front of them.
wealth is more than just value of work, though. imagine that a major earthquake hit california and caused real estate prices to tumble. or that war breaks out in the middle east and caused stock markets worldwide to fall 10%. why would wealth fall in both cases? is it because people value "work" less? I don't think so. i think of wealth as not just work but as an expectation of future economic and human prosperity. when the aforementioned earthquake causes wealth to tumble, it's because people now have a reduced view of future prosperity in the vicinity of the quake. instead of paying $700k for a house, maybe people only think it's worth $500k because they don't feel living in that area would result in as much prosperity as before.
Welcome to the fucked up world of bubble, debt-based economies. In such an economy, wealth and growth come from increasing the money supply by various tools of monetary manipulation by the central bank to stimulate consumption and consequently, production. Once that is done, you get a bubble, which is an irrational increase in some thing's price (not value), like houses for example. General instability and someone getting fucked over (the last fool to buy into the bubble) are the hallmark of this system. It's a pyramid scheme.
You might enjoy reading "The Wealth Of Nations" by Adam Smith. I find "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx entertaining as well.
Unless we've RFID enabled currency it is not really possible to track the source and destination of wealth.