[GNC] [newbie] how to treat a gift?

[Michael or Penny Novack]

> One could. but one probably shouldn't.
>
> Extending the thought exercise, one could elect to  just record all income /
> expenses to the singular top-level accounts, wih no sub-division or
> granularity.
>
> Would it be a good idea?   probably not.
> Would GC allow it?  of course.

Historical note ----- THAT is exactly how it was when double entry 
bookkeeping was a new concept, say a thousand years ago. Assets and 
liabilities had child accounts under them in the ledger. Necessary to 
track the individual accounts of each borrower and each lender. << the 
earliest users of double entry were in the money lending business >> But 
the other side of transactions we think of as income and expense was equity.

Of course that was a PITA when the boss asked "how much interest did we 
take in last month?" Somebody had to go through all the equity 
transaction for the month to see which were interest and add those up. 
Since this was a frequent question, some bright person came up with the 
idea of introducing a TEMPORARY account type "income" and use that for 
the other side and only once a period closing into equity << the 
fundamental type of income is type equity. >> The same was done for 
expenses. I don't know when, some hundreds of years ago at least.

MONEY --- Notice with double entry bookkeeping these early bankers 
learned they could create money! Say representatives of banking houses 
in London and Milan met and exchanged debt instruments with each other. 
So now the London bank held notes payable at a Milanese banking house 
while the bank in Milan held notes payable at a London banking house. An 
English merchant planning to go on a buying trip to Italy could go to 
the London banking house a purchase one of these notes (for "real" 
money, silver or gold) and when arrived in Italy turn that note in to 
the issuing house (receiving "real" money, silver or gold). No risk of 
losing silver or gold while traveling to bandits, etc. as these notes 
needed to be endorsed. All the banks needed was to keep on hand enough 
silver and gold to buy back these notes as they arrived (the correct 
percentage required to keep on hand learned over time -- nowadays this 
tends to be regulated by governments or quasi governmental bodies)

Let's say that reserve is 50% <<each can create/exchange with each other 
notes for twice the silver and gold they have in reserve>> Well that has 
just doubled the amount of money that exist in the economy. Well as long 
as it all keeps circulating. Were that circulation to stop, would disappear.

Michael D Novack