" Finance seems pretty real.”

“Well, it’s not. Let me tell you. It’s not. It’s just a value we agree to put on things. It used to be numbers on a piece of paper. Now it’s numbers in digital memory.”

“But the numbers represent real money. Right?”

“There is no real money. Not anymore. The banks just make it up. We just create these numbers, more and more with every year that goes by. We use the numbers to keep some people up and other people down. Used to be there was a gold standard, but you’re too young to remember that. The government used to own gold, and paper money represented it. But what does it represent now? "

― Catherine Ryan Hyde , Allie and Bea