Something that costs banks a lot of effort to create ex nihilo, justifying the charging of interest for its use.

Now seriously, money is the ability to mobilize economic resources, including mobilising oneself. Banks, by being given the ability to create money and award credit, get to decide who gets to do what they want, and who doesn't.

Bush is a symptom, not the disease.

Money in fact is "Dynamic" Value which exists only in the transitory instant of exchange by reference to an abstract "Value Unit" - Keynes' "Bancor".

Capital is "Static", or "potential", Value consisting of "Money's Worth" in:
(a) "Property" ("fixed capital"); and
(b) obligations = credit ("working capital").

That's what Money SHOULD be and COULD be in a rational moneatry system based upon a "Clearing Union" approach and backed by "Guarantee Societies".

The toxic form of deficit-based Money currently in use is an interest-bearing "Claim over Value" issued - as Migeru puts it - "ex nihilo".

In essence it's the Bank taking my credit (promise to provide future value) and reflecting it back to me with their "guarantee". A Bank's "claim on a claim over Value" is a "double negative" giving a "false positive".

It is an illusion of Value or, in an analogy to anti-matter: "anti-Value".

Note that the whole business of "credit derivatives" is to all intents and purpose Banks outsourcing their "Guarantee".

My proposal of a partnership-based "Guarantee Society" achieves the same result, but without the costs and complexity.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson