It is a very good example because again it explains the difference between debt and property !

If I did something for a mob boss, and we wrote out clearly what he's supposed to do as a favor for me, then he has a debt.
For instance: "ok, I will give a false testimony to the police about when you robbed the bank to make you go free-out, but in return, you will go and smash the shop of my competitor, understood ! "

and I give my false testimony to the police, then the mob boss has a debt: he has to smash the shop of my competitor.

On the other hand, if I just propose to give a false testimony, to win his sympathy, with the idea that one day, he will return the favor, then there is no debt.  However, I own abstractly some of his sympathy.  That could be an illusion on my part.  I may have invested wrongly in what I think to be the sympathy of a mob boss, with the idea that one day, I might ask him a favor.  But if on that day, he laughs in my face, then I just invested wrongly. 

This is btw, something people do all the time.  You invest often in doing things for others, with the idea to build up a capital of sympathy.  But there are no guarantees of what it is worth.  You have simply the ownership of a very abstract entity which is what you think to be sympathy.

You often do that as an employee.  You do overtime, you work harder than you are supposed to contract-wise, with the hope of building up a capital of favor with your employer.   You can then ask for a raise.  But the employer doesn't owe you a raise.  He will only give you a raise if he thinks that this will motivate you further to invest your overtime in the company.  Not for what you have done.  Only for what he thinks he will still get out of you.  Your investing in overtime is not a debt of your employer you are engaging.  He didn't promise anything.

It would be different if it were like this: "OK, if you can finish this projet 2 months earlier than agreed, you will get a promotion".  NOW, there is a debt from the employer to you, if you succeed.  If you don't get the promotion, you can rightly complain: "hey, there was an agreement !".

If you did overtime, and then you ask for a raise, without such an agreement, you may get as an answer "I didn't promise anything !".

So in one case, you are the abstract owner of some sympathy capital (you think you have gathered), which may be worth nothing after all ; in the other case there is an agreement, and hence a debt.

It is not stranger than your concept of debt without obligation, liability or engagement :-)

Pretty sure we had a QE coin at one point and it was an excellent demonstration of value dynamics within that system


I think they can both be equally worthless.    The main point would be a written contract, in reference to dollar debt there is not fixed worth to 'the promise' only the idea of exchange or release from taxes within that nation and that relys on trade being in demand.  [If you hold a trillion of this promise, this is a worry and a liability]   Russia perhaps has a problem with this now as its main trade is oil and gas which has become too expensive to produce relative to their competitors retail pricing. It could apply to dollar also as USA is perhaps also too singularly reliant or leaning on one effect to balance the rest of its economy.
 
  I think December registered the largest ever manufacturing trade deficit, yet its not a problem while we are propped up and China can just make things for us.   China has their own problems and the West cant dictate how factors play out just as Russia could not dictate outside its borders and is weak

Again, no.

Monetary inflation = increase in the money supply.
Monerary deflation = decrease in money supply.

That's all.

Oooh Yay!  Let's all be like Plato and pretend that words have objective meanings so we can argue about them without ever getting anywhere!

There are plenty of people brainwashed or dishonest enough to misuse terms in a way that makes it difficult to understand things.  An argument of what the words mean only suggests that you are a slave to an utterance using those words, and so you must get others to use them the way you understand them.  That seems kind of silly and pointless (and cultish and religious and academic).  What they mean is important if you want to understand a claim made using them, but whoever made the claim can simply replace them with other words that are simpler (and often more numerous).

So in a sense, are the deflation and inflation of BTC kind of like stocks?
Since it's effected by current events relating to BTC.
And also it's ran by supply and demand?

Money is an abstraction used to settle debts.  Notes and coins are physical representations of that abstraction regardless if they are made of gold or paper.  The only reason gold was used as the material of choice is it had the desirable properties.

That has to do with belief or confidence in the abstraction. 

That's not how most people use the word speculation.  Speculation usually means when people try to earn money from price increase being long an asset. (or price decrease in a short position)

Outside of Bitcoin and forex, most people don't "buy" money. They simply use it as medium of exchange.  I don't think it has anything to do with speculation but it needs faith in the backing.  People trusted gold notes because gold was backing the notes. They trust fiat because it's backed by future output of issuing country.  (And demand is set by legislature) But when that confidence is shaken like in Weimar Republic, the faith was broken.