As to the first issue, what is "money"? That's a hole with no bottom. Are stocks money? So when a company buys another with stock, rather than cash, surely that

As to the first issue, what is "money"? That's a hole with no bottom. Are stocks money? So when a company buys another with stock, rather than cash, surely that's a monetary exchange right? Is property money? Gold? Oil? What about cows? Where do you draw the line. If I trade someone tickets to a play in exchange for, say, a cast iron skillet is that a monetary exchange or just bartering? If I give someone a box full of old Magic the Gathering cards and that person then selects out all the valuable ones and sells them and gains cash from it was that a monetary transaction? What if I intended for them to do that? What if I didn't? Economics is complicated, and the desire for economists to simplify it doesn't get rid of the complexity, it just changes what subset of the real economy economists actually talk about.