The Love of Money

topic posted Sat, April 7, 2007 - 6:14 AM by  Shera
Hi all. It's been awhile since I was here.

I posted this essay on another tribe but I feel that it will also have value here.

A lot of good things have been said about money.

This is not going to be one of those essays.

Nothing has such wide appeal as MONEY.

Somewhere the parallell of money to abundance has been altered and most of the world is in the dark about this.

Some of those who know and understand arent telling because of obvious reasons. The rest who do know and are telling are regarded as chicken littles or outright enemies of prosperity.

I stand firmly in the second group regardless of what others think of me.

New Age spiritual manifesters will tell you that there is more than enough money for all of us. That more money for all of us means increased prosperity and abundance for all of us.

Economics 101 says an increase in money in a society results in a drop in value of said money. We see it as Inflation.

Lets look at money then. The only currency that is legal tender is FIAT money.
What IS fiat money then?

Fiat money is that which is not backed by any commodity or precious metals but is legislated to be accepted as payment for value.

If fiat money is not backed by any rare and precious metal or commodity, where then does it come from?

It is written into existence by banks. It is written as loans.
MEANING then that money starts as debt. Once the debt is paid the money ceases to exist.
Money today is debt, pure and simple. Nothing else.

If you are still reading you are either angry at me for being a heretic or saying "what the *****!"

If youre still here, take heart for fortune favors the brave.

Money in fact stands directly between us and our true abundance. Yes, we can gather a little here and there for ourselves, even do good things with it to enhance abundance for ourselves and for others. Feed our families, send them to school, give to the less fortunate.

The history of money is long and sordid. There have been banking enterprises that were honest when money was in fact backed by commodity or precious metals. But the combination of ignorance of the general public and the greed for the easy profit of writing money into existence always won out. And true money disappeared.

Central banks primarily write money into existence as loans to national governments. Governments use said money for public services, wages, self interests and wars. War is such a great money maker for those who back both sides. That is, write money/debt into existence.

Smaller national banks write money into existence as personal loans, mortages etc. Their fractional reserve is barely enough to respond to depositors choosing to withdraw their money.

Meaning that once again huge amounts of money enter society. Economics 101, again says that increase in money in a society leads to the devaluation of that money. The problem with inflation is that it strikes those hardest who can bear it least. Those on low income, fixed income and wages.

An argument to this is that as prices increase so do wages so it evens out. But it does not address the fact that the savings or equity that you put into your house last year has less value than it does this year.

If inflation bites you hard enough you will either find yourself reborrowing or homeless. If inflation bites your place of work hard enough you will find yourself jobless too.
ALL because of an increase in money. Which is an increase in debt.

If you have neither home nor job you are the at the greatest risk from Inflation. From money.

The spending of all money carries with it the added burden of tax, every time it is spent, interest as well in most cases. Leading to more and more debt. Which we will see in a few short years is about to collapse under it's own weight.

Eisntein when asked what was the most amazing thing he had come across replied "compound interest"

Granted, this is a short essay on money and banking and skips over many things.

If you have grasped what I just said you will be wondering why we strive for that which is such a powerful enemy. I fully recognize that this tribe is about abundance and I am all for abundance. I know in my heart that we are all truly abundant beings.

The point I am making is that the more we focus on money, the more we stand in the way of our own true and full abundance.

I will be rather surprised if there are any more than just a few responses to this. And that's okay. I trust that my offering will reach those who are ready to receive it. I speak out of love. Love for all Love for those who suffer most from money. Love to those who choose greed over their own true and natural abundance.

Yes abundance is ours for the taking.
Love to all.
posted by:
Shera
Canada
  • Re: The Love of Money

    Sun, April 8, 2007 - 6:16 PM
    :D

    Shera...

    thank you. I fully agree.

    I also often ponder how 'developing' countries have such large issues with paying back thier 'debts', whilst at the same time, The United States of America, has a few TRILLION dollars in debt... and is spending billions more each month with no apparent means by which to repay.

    how can this be? how can they continue to finance massive wars when they technically, should be in bankrupcy, offering themselves as servants to the rest of the world to pay back thier debt.

    this clearly shows that money is meaningless and does not exist except where people choose to acknowledge it.




    The main argument for a money-based economy is that is gives the consumer 'purchasing power' - the power to choose what they want and shape industry accordingly. I disagree. I believe that people want Hummers, Maxim magazine and nike pumps because they are advertised so seductively.

    I think that farmers would adjust thier crops to consumer demand based on what people eat regardles of wheather or not there is money involved. I also think that farmers would farm just as well regardles of wheather or not they have a massive debt over thier heads and stress over the thought of loosing thier land.
    Imagine; Instead of resource use being dictated by greed for profit, why not have it shaped by a natural aversion to waste and destruction?

    I believe that life could exist without ownership.

    BUT

    the transition from money based to resource based society... is a bit of a sticky situation.

    the main issue I see is that without the use of nuclear feuls, life support on this planet is limmited to the yearly solar radiation budget.
    that is to say; All wind, water and solar power is directly or indirectly taken from the sun's energy. Tidal power is seperate, but then you are screwing with the moon's orbit... and I don't really want to pull the moon out of the sky... do you?

    This means that we have a VERY REAL population limit, one which we might have already surpassed.
    we need to see that out of this limit comes energy for ALL life. So, we can have a planet of 15 billion humans... and some potatoes...

    Or we can have 10 million humans.... and 10 billion species of other life-forms.

    So, no only do we HAVE to limit our populations... we also need to take into global human consciousness; the problem of what we want our planet to look like in terms of bio-diversity.


    The next step;

    The recognition that once we have mastered the concept of global stewardship... we are NOT limmited.

    there is nothing to prevent us from constructing an orbital solar aray to double the energy that Earth collects from Sun.

    There is nothing to prevent massive aquaponic farms that orbit our sun, who's harvest feeds greater populations.

    yet we still recognize that even though we CAN increase the carrying capacity of Earth... that doesn't mean that we should. for 10 men in a one bedroom apartment will not be all that happy regardless of the amount of food that they have to eat.

    So from here we look to terraforming other worlds and stretching out to the stars.

    but these are problems for anouther decade. Right now we need to focus on the health of Gaia.
    • Re: The Love of Money

      Mon, April 9, 2007 - 4:00 AM
      ((....and stretching out to the stars.)))

      such a deliscious thought! I would have agreed with ((terraforming other worlds)) up until several years ago but I think it would be best to tread very carefully there. Still as you say, a topic for another day.

      Personally, I dont think we have come anywhere near the maximum safe limit for the numbers of humanity on Earth. I am not suggesting we need more, I just think we have been sold another load of tears with the notion the Earth cant support so many people.

      Already I see a lot of anti human zealotry in the environmentalist camp. Dont be surprised if you see a lot more in the next few years.

      Would it not be more fair to say that 95% of the wealth is concentrated in less than 5 percent of the population just MIGHT have more to do with it?

      We have some wonderful technologies available to provide enough of the basics of life for all...and so much more. Including wonderful energy technologies. Not everyone is focused on scrabbling for the last gallon of oil.
      Cosmic Accounting is another brilliant web site addressing this too:
      www.cosmicaccounting.org/

      I agree that it's not so much that we want Hummers, Nike etc, it's just that we arent really getting the choices we want. The most valuable choice being freedom---but the hardest to hold on to.

      Even in my parent's day a single razor would last literally for years. Now razors are so expensive that at the drugstore there is a special locked cabinet that holds razors, DISPOSABLE razors!! that cost something like 30 dollars for 8!
      Within less than a year a new disposable razor with 5 blades instead of just 4--or 16 will be on the market and all the old stuff will be junk.
      And we have progressed 50 years in technology so that we can even make razors that dont need sharpening for a very long time.
      The stores of full of stuff like this.

      If you just watch the highway for a short period of time you can see truckloads of the very same product going both ways. Huge wastage.

      That very same highway will be packed with vehicles at one time of day, another time of day it is virtually empty. Huge wastage.
      Vehicles with one single occupant for the most part. Vehicles which are idle for 95% of the day. Huge Wastage.

      50 years ago or so Bucky Fuller mentioned in one of his books that approximately 75% of people in jobs were not providing life support. I feel like I may have said this here already but more and more you just need to look at the sky scrapers full of office buildings, banks, insurance, people shuffling papers for corporations and some invisible but powerful profit imperitive. No life support.

      I'm not saying that everyone should be involved in life support, but if we are experiencing problems--we could rethink this. "No ownership" makes insurance companies as we know them, redundant. A better type of insurance would be an intelligent back up system. Not to mention that fact that all people support all people.
      • B
        B
        offline 113

        Re: The Love of Money

        Mon, April 9, 2007 - 6:53 AM
        <Would it not be more fair to say that 95% of the wealth is concentrated in less than 5 percent of the population just MIGHT have more to do with it?>

        I see the notion of wealth and the utilization of actual resources as two distinct items. Wealth is created by the mete flip of some bits on a computer but resources are finite and their distribution costly in terms of real energy. I would argue that we have already past a point where we can all live on this planet comfortably. We have a choice, we can either all live like the peoples in Saharan Africa and use precious little food and resources or we can live like we do in the US and consume a tremendous amount of resources. If the entire planet lived like the US then we are well past the number of people this planet can support. Something in between will be the final solution. Of course if you believe that the Georgia Guidestones have some thought behind them then the optimal number of people on the planet is 500,000,000.
        • Re: The Love of Money

          Thu, June 21, 2007 - 8:10 AM
          So many fun topics in one thread...:

          Resources:
          We are limited to the Sun? Sure; but we only use a fraction of the energy that the Sun shines on the earth every day. Picture maglev railways hurtling from coast to coast at the speed of an airliner, powered by solar cells built into every mile of the track. (2000 miles by 10 feet across is one humoungous solar cell).

          "A typical "150 Watt" solar panel is about a square meter in size...."
          2000 miles approx = 3200 km, or 3 200 000 x 2m = 6.4 million sq. m = approx 1 million KW. (1000 MW).

          Now imagine you have 2 cross-US maglevs, and 3 N-S interconnectors (both coasts, and along the mississippi); and you have 4000 MW.
          Now add in solar panels along the median strips of freeways following JUST those same routes, and you have 8000 MW.

          Thats 8000 x 12 hours sun x 360 days = 34 560 000 MWh (34.5 trillion KWh)
          US consumption 3.717 trillion kWh (2004)

          ---------------

          Land is limited. Especially fertile, agricultural land. But with essentially infinite power from the Sun, harnessed appropriately; (by wind turbines, solar, wave, etc) we could generate unlimited amounts of fresh water and fertilizer. By growing and composting, we can rebuild lots of soil.

          -----

          The major problem is that all species, including homo sapiens, increases its population to the point of famine. Its a biological imperative. So no matter how much we expand our supplies, our demand will match it.

          "The poor will always be with us".

          ----

          So in the final analysis, we face the ultimate question.

          Are we prepared to control people's reproductivity in order to increase the QUALITY of our life?

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