An excerpt from Jouni:
... > Technology is the real measure of wealth, money is just > mediator what can be utilized into exchanging and > distributing technology. Generally speaking, I tend to agree with this assessment. I suspect books like "The Lights in the Tunnel" which Mr. Rothwell brought to our attention will indeed point society towards more sane ways in which manage the economy. What is insane is having the economy dictated (hijacked) by political ideologies that show little comprehension of the bitter pills they want everyone to swallow. The same ideologies show little comprehension as to the ramifications of how advancing technology & automation will transform our economy, nor how society will need to adjust accordingly. Dreamers of a future economic utopia, like me, have a very hard sell ahead of them. From my perspective the USA is currently strangled by certain Neanderthal-like political organizations that subscribe to ideologies so incredibly wrapped up in their own sense of righteousness that they don't perceive the fact that they are currently eating their own young. When they finish eating their own kin, they will go after everyone else's. My own predilections concerning economic theory have led me to conclude that our current concept of what money, what CURRENCY represents has gotten completely out of hand. IMO, currency should be treated as nothing more sacred than as a mundane contractual document, a transaction representing the exchange of goods and services between participating entities. Money, the concept of what currency represents, should no longer be treated like fixed units of physical objects. Money, "currency" should no longer be treated as if they are physical pieces of gold and silver coins. Maintaining stashes of gold and silver in the King's vault was how economic theory worked in the past. However, trying to maintain the same kinds of "stashes" in twenty-first century and beyond will, IMO, lead to economic ruin. The sooner everyone gets over how freaked out they are over the fact that "currency" possesses no intrinsic value of its own, the sooner everyone realizes the fact that the only value that should be measured should be the value of actual goods and services being exchanged between participating entities, the better off we will all be. Where it all went terribly wrong was when "money" itself became the Holy Grail, the ultimate goal that must be acquired and subsequently squandered in mattresses, within heavily guarded vaults surrounded by motes filled with hungry alligators. The tragedy of this folly is that the intrinsic value of GOODS and SERVICES, for which "money" was supposed to represent, is in danger of being perceived as less valuable than the currency itself. In other words, the maniacal need to protect the perceived value of CURRENCY itself is beginning to supersede the need to protect and maintain the overall health and value of generating goods and services. We have essentially put the cart before the horse. To prevent valuable goods and services from being produced because there is insufficient "currency" is absolutely insane! If the goods and raw materials are there... if there is available labor willing to generate those goods and services, the lack of available currency should never EVER be the reason why such goods and services were never generated. In the United States there currently exist certain political agendas attempting to tell everyone that we must cut taxes because in their view taxation prevents the creation of jobs which in turns destroys the economy. They seem oblivious to the fact that those very taxes they want to cut directly pay the salaries for hundreds and thousands of government employees who, in turn, spend their income out in the market. They don't want to hear about the fact that when government employees "spend" their money it boosts the economy in exactly the same manner as what would be "spent" from individuals who work and earn income out in the free market. Money is money. It makes no difference where the currency comes from nor how the currency is eventually spent. Granted we obviously need to maintain a stable currency distribution system. To be effective however we must also devise systems that distribute "money" equitably amongst as many individuals as possible. Said differently, systems that help generate equitable distributions of currency is what ultimately helps keep economies running healthy. Some may perceive this as nothing more than a veiled threat to generate a "welfare" state. Some might even complain that "welfare" states harm the economy by taking advantage of labor generated by those who perform "honest" work presumably performed out in the free market. But what if more and more of that "honest" work ends up being performed by robotics, “slaves” that never complain about their salaries and don't want to unionize. The point is that government employees, combined with the products and services they generate, end up making valuable contributions. They end up spreading their currency throughout the entire economy in exactly the same way as those employed out in the free market system. Contrary to prevailing opinion on the matter, government employment isn’t problem. Unfortunately, certain political agendas don't see it that way. One might say it's not in their best "invested" interest to see it that way. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
