first things first,
big up from Holland for beating the aussies with rugby(smile) !
Blondie wrote:I am the last person who would call for another to abdicate their responsibility to think for themselves.
I am interested in your views; I have not seen an explanation of them which I understood, as yet, so I am keen to be pointed toward such a synopsis. Perhaps you can clarify here?
Perhaps another member who shares your perspective can help?
As promised I will try to clarify my postition, This forum is not the place to write/publish own theory, but it is perfectly suited to exchange thought.
As you state, people are responsible to think for themselves. I couldn't agree more, you can share knowledge, but you cannot share wisdom. to get there one needs to use own brain ...
Blondie wrote:
If the market has freely established a rate of exchange between gold and currency, presuming said currency is still acceptable in exchange for other goods and services (ie. is an acceptable medium of exchange), then simple triangulation gives the value of any of the three. Such value remains subjective in that it is an expression of the utility found in the valued item (gold, currency or tangible good/service) by the assessor, but all participants in such a system now have an objective reference point: the weight of gold does not change.
The way I look at it, what is missing here is the international component; the import/export perspective. To be able to trade internationally in modern time volume, we NEED a international uniform unit of account. Dollar performed wonderful here, problems are caused by double functionality, dollar is also used domestically. International uniform unit of account should be independent to be stable.
My position here is exactly the one Martin Armstrong describes in his one world currency piece.
http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files/On ... cy-509.pdf
We need a modern equivalent of Bretton Woods to accomplish this, we should have Bretton Woods 2.0 by now, but instead we are dealing with Bretton Woods 0.5 at the moment. The system changed when floating exchange took over(for the good), but the rest of our systems were not adapted(really bad). This is what is causing all this mess. Not the question what money actually is.
In my view (market)money is intangible commodity. Ultimately it is a confidence game. It is cyclic in behaviour. I would draw a mental playing board to play on that would probably look something like this.
I see a relation between the power and the money which feels fractal. A functional simularity in the components. To be able to create a stable system the flows between the components should all be functionally separated.
In power we separated religion and state(in the west) during Enlightenment, This crash, although I hope crash can be avoided, will teach us also to separate market and state. In money same thing; splitting of functionality will result in stable system. we store in assets, we account in a world reserve currency, and we use a local currency domestically.
This all is thought in progress. I saw a wonderfull presentation yesterday about the human brain posted by boefke here, and am now playing with thought if there is fractal simularity to be found here as well. (power would be left side brain, money right side). probably not, but it is nice thought...
Where Lietaer comes in, is in the separation of market and state. I could not see this happening, where I also see this as a nescessity.
I agree with Lietaer we are in digital revolution and (market)money is inheritance from industrial revolution. Its organisation is all about efficiency and competiteveness and performs excellent when dealing with economic forces, ultimately dealing with scarcity.
Digital age is not about scarcity, it is about networks and information and is about sharing. scarcity in those domains is artificial. mankind has not adapted yet. Digital revolution is the explosive change caused by our information systems, it would be strange if the most fundamental information system of all, our money, would stay unchanged.
From my perspective market is just a component of society where resource and demand need to be brought together. where market is a confidence game about scarcity and needs competitive money (without flaws) to achieve this, other domains of society, not dealing with scarcity, need their own different kind of money. Money is about bringing the resource and the demand together. competition is not always best suited to achieve just that. human nature is also about cooperation. about teaching. about learning from and taking care off each other.
Furreai Kippu in Japan, and Saber in Brasil are nice examples of complementary currencies doing just that.
This is also where I see the needed separation becomming possible. give the politicians their own currency, so they can stay out of the markets. stop manipulation. stop the borrowing and the promises. give them a currency accounted in hours already worked for. no promises. true value. the work is already done.
There will be arbitrage between the complementary currencies, as there is arbitrage in everything, but functionally the money is separated. When market is crashing, society is not.
It is like ecosystem, to be sustainable you need diversity. Government will have to adapt to modern times ...
Hope this clarifies a little ...