C.G.Ayling

Tag: money

  • on Money pt3

    This is the third post in my ruminations on denominations.  aka on Money.

    Money is a disassociator.  Wait a moment!  Disassociator isn’t even a word!  Strange how it takes a word that doesn’t exist to adequately describe money, which shouldn’t exist as it is something with absolutely no intrinsic value.

    So what do I mean by a “disassociator”? Finally! Now we’re getting to the reason money is inherently evil.

    What is evil? Evil isn’t some malign presence nobody can see or touch or feel, yet which mysteriously motivates people to do terrible things to one another. Evil goes by another word, and that word is greed. Whatever evil exists within the world can be directly traced to greed. Please bear in mind how greed comes in many forms. However, the essence of greed is invariably the same – the greedy want more than their fair share. It isn’t complicated, indeed it could not be more simple, or more obvious. And money finally shows its true colors…

    Money isn’t black, it isn’t white, it isn’t silver, and it definitely isn’t gold. The true color of money is camouflage. Money is that which lets the greedy hide in plain sight. How does money accomplish this remarkable feat?

    By disassociating true value from perceived value money lets the greedy hide among the destitute.

    Have you ever wondered why you can’t see the size of the paycheck of your coworkers and they cannot see the size of yours? Is it a matter of privacy? No, it isn’t. This enforcement of monetary secrecy isn’t accidental, it is deliberate, and it is malignant.

    Let me explain through the use of a hypothetical example.

    Imagine a hundred people live on a small island which is only capable of producing enough food to sustain those hundred people. Now imagine what would happen if one person attempted to take twice their share. Do you think anyone would notice when they tried to carry off twice the amount of food as anyone else? Let me rephrase the question. Do you think anybody could fail to notice such blatant greed? Now imagine what would happen to that greedy individual. The greedy person would be taken to task immediately, and most likely harshly. There is simply no way such visible greed would be tolerated because when a single person takes twice their share, two people only get half theirs. For that greedy person to get fat requires that two people starve. The math is inescapable.

    Or is it? Perhaps the other ninety-nine people could divvy out the remaining ninety-eight portions? And right about now is where money steps in.

    Money is a disassociator.   Money lets the greedy take much more than their share by hiding the share they are taking. If nobody knows how much everyone else is getting, how does anyone know who the greedy scum that are responsible for making everyone else go hungry are? And the answer is, they don’t. And that is precisely what money does. Money hides who is taking more than their fair share.

    In the hypothetical example above I have difficulty conceiving how anyone could bear the shame of knowing their greed made two other people go hungry. If you were one of those hundred islanders could you do it? Could you take twice as much as you require, knowing two other people would then get half as much as they need? I could not, and I’m pretty sure that if you’re spending your precious time reading my blog you couldn’t either.  And yes, your time is far more precious than money will ever be.

    Sadly, an awful lot of awful people can and do take much more than their fair share, every day of their miserably greedy lives.  However money steps in again and hides them from shame.  Money is a sop to their greedy conscience.  Money tells them they aren’t responsible for two other people starving, as they don’t really know just how little others are getting or even who the starving are.  The evil equation of greed not only obscures the greedy from the impoverished, it protects the greedy from their conscience.

    Money is a direct facilitator of greed, and greed is nothing more than another word for evil.  Money facilitates evil by obscuring who has more than their fair share.  Period.

    {P.S. Period, but not the end…}

  • on Money pt2

    My first post on the topic of money ended by asserting money wasn’t real even when it was manufactured from precious metal. How could this possibly true? Even to the most ignorant of us it seems obvious that when currencies were based on the Gold Standard money had some real value. You don’t know what the “Gold Standard” is? Well since lack of knowledge of such archaic concepts shouldn’t surprise either you or me, so I’ll explain it is as few words as possible.

    The “Gold Standard” was a system in which paper currency was directly backed up by Gold Reserves equal in value to the country in questions total circulating currency. In other words if a country had ten billion dollars of currency in circulation it also held ten billion dollars worth of gold at then current market value in reserve in order to cover the value of its currency. Governments worldwide abandoned the Gold Standard shortly after World War One.

    So what I’m saying is that when countries were still on the Gold Standard money was real, right? Wrong. I’m saying money has always been a lie because money has never been real.  For an explanation of what I mean, please travel with me back in history to when money was invented.

    How can it be wrong to accept the true value of money was the weight of the precious metal from which monetary coins were manufactured?

    It is wrong because the value ascribed to the allegedly precious metals from which coins were struck far exceeds their practical worth. What do I mean by that, and what evidence am I providing to back up my assertion?

    This is what I mean.

    And I hope you’ll see what I say in the following paragraphs as its own evidence.

    Essentially, nothing gains value simply because someone says it is valuable.  Money is nothing, yet we’re told it is valuable.  Our error is that we believe the lie.

    Simply because we are told rare metals have extraordinary value does not make it true. Perhaps these rare metals do have value to specific people or specific industries in specific circumstances, however the only value they have to the vast majority of living humans is the value we are told these metals have. Which means these allegedly precious metals are not really precious at all.  Allegedly is not reality.

    During the height of the Roman Empire about 2000 years ago, people were told twelve silver coins were fair pay for a month’s labor. Does that sound reasonable to you? Would you work an month for twelve silver coins?

    Before you jump in feet first and say you would, since you’d at least be getting something real for your labors, allow me to expand on the matter.  The coin in question was the Roman Denarius. A denarius contained about four and a half grams of silver.

    Numbers and measures and labor hours and values and weights!! Who cares, after all it is real silver, right?  Wrong.  Perhaps you’re beginning to sense the depth and nature of the lie money truly is.  Perhaps, but more likely not.

    The essence of the lie is that converting hours of labor into silver coins is a one sided transaction, with the scales unfairly weighted on the side of silver. What people are losing in all those conversions between alleged value, weights, measures, and hours worked is their time. Perhaps you’re more interested in the numbers? What are those 12 silver coins worth in “real money” today. Let’s do the math. Today, 26th August 2016, silver is priced at US$0.46 per gram. Therefore 12 coins, multiplied by 4.5 grams per coin, multiplied by 46 cents per gram means workers were expected to work for US$27.00 per month.

    Not such a good deal is it?

    Simply to press the point let me let me ask you a few more questions you might consider to be rhetorical, yet which I encourage you to consider practically. Have you ever tried to eat a silver coin? Have you ever tried wearing a silver coin as clothing in the middle of a cold winter? Have you ever fashioned a silver coin into a tool with which to harvest grain, or into an arrow point with which to hunt? Have you ever tried to use a silver coin to shelter yourself from a merciless sun or a bitterly cold wind?  If this allegedly precious metal we know as Silver has no practical value to every living human, then precisely who determined it is in fact precious at all?

    I’m not disputing that polished silver and gold are pretty enough. Indeed burnished gold is extraordinarily pretty. However pretty doesn’t nourish a hungry belly, pretty doesn’t slake a thirst, pretty doesn’t shelter a family from the elements, pretty encourages rather than defends against attack, and while pretty may warm a cold body the pretty that heats a heart isn’t the pretty of burnished gold.

    The point of all this is that even when monetary coins were struck from precious metal, they simply weren’t worth what people were told they were worth. Money is and has always been a lie.

    On the other hand, the following statement is an absolute and undeniable truth.

    Our time is real, it is extremely valuable, it comes in a strictly limited supply, and once spent it can never be regained.

    Yet we are foolish enough to trade our time for money…
    We are foolish enough to trade something truly precious for something truly worthless…
    Even worse, we’re foolish enough to think we’re getting a good deal…

    Money isn’t about convenience, it is about control, and money has been that way since the dawn of civilization.

    And it gets worse. Worse? How could this possibly get worse?

    Well, for that you’ll have to visit here another day.  But please don’t hold your breath, your time is far too valuable for that – all you need do is realize it.

    {P.S. I anticipate some bright spark will think they’re more than willing to work a month for 12 Denarius, provided they are genuine Roman Denarius minted around 2000 years ago.  Personally, I would be willing to work a month for a single priceless piece of history.  However the key concept of the exchange of my time for that authentic Roman Denarius is not an exchange of time for money, it is an exchange of my time for something real – namely history.  History, what a pity we don’t readily learn from it until it becomes our past…}

  • on Money

    Money is nothing, yet we are foolish enough to accept it in exchange for something.

    Preposterous!

    I wish my statement were preposterous.  Unfortunately it isn’t.  It is a simple, inescapable fact for which I’ll provide proof.  However along with the proof I have other things to say about money, questions to raise, and hopefully doubts to instill in the minds to the unwary.

    “Money has no value except in exchange.” Those aren’t my words, however they are inescapably true. Just how true I’ll try and reveal in this post and further posts to follow. Yes, to get the whole story you’ll have to come back since this topic is far too big and far too sinister to comfortably encapsulate in a single post.

    What do you think money is?

    Is money something that sets you free, or is it something that chains you?  Is money a matter of convenience, or an implement of control?

    While we’re tempted to think money is something convenient created to make our lives easier, it isn’t. The purpose of money is not convenience.  Money wasn’t invented in order to facilitate trade. Money was invented to facilitate taxation.

    Money has never been about convenience, it has always been about control.

    The proof money is worth literally nothing.

    Since two of the must influential nations on earth are the United Kingdom and the United States I’m going to use their currencies as the evidence supporting my hypothesis.  However you’ll find similar hollow, meaningless promises used to back up virtually every currency in the entire world, there are no exceptions.

    Read on and become enlightened even as you find yourself distressed.

    The English Pound.

    In the United Kingdom this messages appears upon a £5 banknote: I promise to pay the bearer on demand £5.

    What does this mean?  Well, this is how the Bank of England’s official website describes the above promise.  Their explanation appears under the Heading “What is the Bank’s “Promise to Pay?”

    The words “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five [ten/twenty/fifty] pounds” date from long ago when our notes represented deposits of gold. At that time, a member of the public could exchange one of our banknotes for gold to the same value. For example, a £5 note could be exchanged for five gold coins, called sovereigns. But the value of the pound has not been linked to gold for many years, so the meaning of the promise to pay has changed. Exchange into gold is no longer possible and Bank of England notes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England notes of the same face value. Public trust in the pound is now maintained by the operation of monetary policy, the objective of which is price stability.

    How hollow is a promise when all that serves as legal tender for the promise is another promise?

    Such a promise is worth absolutely nothing.  To be precise, all a £5 banknote is actually worth is another £5 banknote.  If you’re still resisting this truth perhaps music will sway you, so let me quote a famous singer, “Nothing for nothing means nothing.”

    The United States Dollar.

    In the United States this messages appears upon all paper USA currency:- This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.

    The following question and explanation of this utterly meaningless promise appears on the US Treasury’s official website.

    “I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn’t this illegal?”

    Answer:-
    “The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled “Legal tender,” which states: “United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.”

    This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.”

    What does this flowery verbiage mean?

    Pay particular attention to the line “There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services.”

    With the line above the US Treasury actually acknowledges there are no Federal laws which mandate that any private party must accept currency or coins as payment for goods and/or services.

    In such realizations doth freedom dwell…

    Essentially the Treasury of the United States of America has reduced the inscription “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private” to a hollow promise that is not even backed up by Federal authority.

    That US $50 bill you grasp so tight and hold in such esteem?  It is worth nothing, not even that paper it is printed on.

    But how did this happen?

    How did matters come to this? Surely something must back money up?  Well, yes, and no.

    In the ever more distant past money pretended to have value by being struck or minted from a valuable metal.  Gold and Silver are metals of such limited supply their very scarcity apparently grants them some unique, universal, and intrinsic value.  Therefore when money was manufactured out of valuable metals the weight of metal within the coin was itself the value of the money the coin represented.

    So way back when money was made of precious metal it was real, right?  Wrong.

    But to find out why that assumption is wrong you’re going to have to think about its ramifications, then come back and let me think about them with you. But how will you know when I’ll revisit this topic again? See that subscribe button in the top tight pane?  That’s the only way.

    {P.S. If you can’t conceive of a world in which money doesn’t exist then I encourage you to visit Malmaxa. Will you find Malmaxa to be a place of paradise or anarchy? I’m not telling, you’ll have to find that out for yourself.

    P.P.S. If you’re interested in reading the the next part of this post you ma do so here.}