It seems obvious until you really examine what you know about this word, "finance". It comes to us from the Old French *finance*: "end, ending; pardon, remission; payment, expense; settlement of a debt", which was a noun of action from *finer*: "to end, settle a dispute or debt." We examine [debt in detail](https://www.kernel.community/en/learn/module-2/debt) in Module 2 of the [Kernel syllabus](https://www.kernel.community/en/learn/module-2), which is entitled "The Global Financial System". While there is a great deal to learn from that module, one of the critical threads which we want to weave further into this library topic is the link between [faith and finance](https://www.kernel.community/en/learn/module-1/playdough-protocols/#faith-and-finance). Not only is the question of debt ultimately a moral and existential one, finance has always - fundamentally - been about who and what you put your faith in. Finance **happens** (it is a verb, after all) when we settle our debts, or are pardoned. To settle your debt, or pardon another, is to reckon with this life you have been given. It is literally the great reckoning, based on your reconciliation with that to whom you are indebted. Isn't it fascinating - given this context - that finance has become a place for the privileged few; that tribe of pre-selected bankers and bureaucrats who carefully regulate access to a set of rules only they can understand and change? Regulating access to meaning is the primary way to control who and what people believe. Maybe it all sounds abstract: but common sense says "money runs the world". This is *how* and *why* money runs the world. If the money we use is not created by us, then the meaning of our acts of faith - which are literally how we perceive and create the world we share - are regulated and determined by others. Author: cryptowanderer