Tag: Value

The real value of Money and Cryptocurrencies (DeFi) today

Crypto or Cryptocurrencies have become increasingly popular in recent years. But in their current form, they have a massive and potentially terminal flaw: Today’s Cryptocurrencies are worth ZERO.

Today’s Cryptos work on the same basis as the FIAT Money system that they were intended to side-step.

The value of Cryptocurrencies is based only on what anyone believes.

For many of us, this is a very difficult message to understand. We only have to look at news in the media that suggests Cryptos such as Bitcoin are worth tens of thousands (x10,000) of £Pounds, $Dollars or the equivalent in many other currencies or monetary terms to see what people think they are worth.

Yet Cryptocurrencies are not tied to anything of value. They do not have anything of value linked directly to them. Even the arguably sensible idea of only creating a limited or finite number of them doesn’t answer the fundamental questions or realities of what a currency or any form of money is, and how they should really work.

Money is a unit of exchange. Money is a value transfer tool. Money is a medium and nothing more.

Money has become the benchmark that is set against everything in our lives, because making us believe that its value is real has benefitted someone else’s greed for wealth, power and influence in some way.

With the FIAT Money system about to collapse, we are all going to go through the process of realising the real value of the things that we genuinely need, as opposed to the things that we want.

That process will lead to us rediscovering what the real value of money and any form of currency really is.

When money or currency of any kind can no longer be used to buy anything, either because we simply don’t have enough of it, it’s not tangible, or because what we need is not available to buy, circumstances will force us to appreciate what the value of the things that we need really is.

Advertisement

A True Economy is founded on value that each person contributes to it, partnered by the raw materials and resources that the world and environment gifts us

We have sadly all been drawn into an interpretation of life where money and the wealth that it appears to give us is considered to now be the benchmark or reference point for everything.

We literally value money to the point where it has not only become a thing in its own right, it has become the defacto god or deity that rules each and every part of our lives.

Today, we look upon others in terms of what they have, what status they hold, what they earn and what capacity they have to earn.

Yet the intrinsic value of money is nothing.

Money is worth zero.

Money is a unit of exchange and nothing more.

It is simply a change in our beliefs that has allowed the value of money to take over our lives in this way.

What we not only fail to realise, but have actually forgotten, is that the real point of value in anything is its beginning or its foundation. What it was built on or built with.

The true value of anything is not even the end product, or whatever the parts, inputs or elements of any constructive process add up to – or what things become.

People, or each and every human being on the planet are the basic elements or building blocks of The True Economy.

It is the Labour, Time, Skills and Experience of PEOPLE that add value, through process, to the raw materials and resources that we take from the world.

Levelling Level | Digital Currency, Crypto, DeFi

Digital or crypto currencies will not survive in their current form.

Like the system that cryptocurrencies were created with the best intentions to try and override, it is simply the belief that people have, or the way that people think about cryptocurrencies today that appear to make them work.

The cryptocurrencies that you can buy or trade today may be worth a lot of money. But like the money they might replace, they have absolutely no value at all.

In reality, digital currencies that exist today are as flawed as the FIAT money system itself. They are based on no real value or tangible holding.

It is literally the belief of those who invest in or use the existing blockchain currencies that make them work.

The moment anything happens to shatter the belief in today’s versions of digital currency – as you can be certain that it will – these cryptocurrencies will return to their intrinsic value. That value is zero or nil.

The new ‘local’ way of living will allow the creation of new digital currencies based on real value that is defined by the community that runs it.

That value will be pinned or anchored to the value of input and output (labour, skills, experience) and the true value of the locally produced goods that people genuinely need to live.

We cannot and must not even try to return to a pyramid or hierarchical system that is skewed to allow prices at the foundation of our society to be dictated by actions at the top.

We could very easily and very quickly come to experience a fully functioning system of digital currencies that are locally linked. Currencies that become interchangeable and exchangeable with others, because of how the basic value of input and essential goods are defined.

Levelling Level | Bartering and Exchanging of what we actually have for what we actually need

The point has regrettably long since been missed that the real function of money was to make bartering or the exchange of goods or labour much easier.

For instance, when there was no money: if a fisherman had fish spare but wanted his horses saddle repaired, he might have to exchange  the fish for bread with the baker, the bread with the butcher for meat, and then the meat with the saddler for the time and materials from the Saddler – who might have gone through a similarly convoluted route to secure whatever he needed to live, but also to work.

Like the goods used in this example, labour, skills and the experience that each of us has are also a commodity which have value for others.

It is only because our experience tells us that it’s the money that we receive for providing our labour, skills and experience to others that holds the real value, that we have accepted the way that prices escalate at rates that others decide.

In a period of massive change, when everything that we know or take for granted has stopped, and the great correction is underway, one of the key areas of change will be our relationship with money and the way we pay for the things that we need – and if we are able, that we want.

The refocusing on local production and localism in its truest sense that we will have to embrace will enable a much healthier relationship with money to exist. One where money will be seen again as the unit of exchange that it is, rather than the must-have or endgame in everything that it has sadly become.

Levelling Level | Bartering, Exchange and using money in the right way

Money is a unit of exchange that doesn’t hold any value of its own.

However, we have been conditioned to think that it is the money itself and not the goods or services that we use money to exchange with that have no value until such time as they are bought or sold.

This way of thinking only serves the rich, powerful and governments that have an unhealthy desire for control.

In the period of change or transition – or the process of correction that lies ahead, the financial system and the way that money and our currencies are valued today will inevitably change.

The process of that change itself is likely to involve and be driven by inflation of a kind that will at least temporarily make money worthless in every practical sense.

It follows that during a period of turmoil such as the one that we face, the joined-up thinking and continuity of the way that money and finance works that we have been used to and taken for granted will break down.

Whilst a transition to a new financial system that works fairly and appropriately, and at the right way that it should for everyone, it must not become an aim that can be in any way compromised.

Like politics and the system of government structures around it, it is because of the role that money plays – as it will continue to do so, even in its correct form, it is absolutely necessary that the monetary system and the way that financial systems work are dictated and governed from the grassroots up.

To do otherwise, puts all of the power and utility that money and its use as a medium of exchange provides into a third parties hands.

Levelling Level | The Benefits Smart Card

The only obligation of wider society to those who are in need of support, is for them to be able to maintain a basic lifestyle during their period of need to Basic Living Standard Terms – with the support being given, being itself the only obvious difference.

By making all payments or rather the equivalent of payments using a smart card, or a bank card from the Community Bank that we will move on to cover next, the community can ensure that support is being spent and used as it was intended, and support to cover costs for anything other than items such as food – which even when rationed are a personal choice – should always be paid direct to the supplier, removing the risk of debt that will limit peoples next steps, at a time they are most vulnerable.

Nobody needs anything other than the essentials for living when they are in real need.

If anyone down on their luck has a problem with not being able to eat at McDonalds and having to buy the essential goods that they need, rather than what they want, the chances are that they are taking help and support from others as a lifestyle choice, and not because they are in genuine need.

The additional benefit to the wider community using smart card technology is that a supplier list can be defined that ensures card users make purchases from local businesses. This will ensure that money from the community is used within the community and therefore supports the community at large.

Levelling Level | The role and voice of Young People in Politics & Government

The often-unrecognised strand and dynamic of top-down politics is the reality that the people we currently have at the top are usually at the end of their career (or beyond), and that those even in the lower stages of this perverse hierarchy are themselves in or approaching middle age.

Yes, there are exceptions as there are in anything. But when you have a system that maintains itself and functions by using the same thinking continuously – and that thinking reflects only the selfish wants and needs and outlooks of the older people who are at the top, it stands to reason that there is a massive gap not only in policy, but also within the messaging that makes sense to or can be identified with by the young.

The issue of life experience and the impractical idealism of the young will always run contrary to policies and practical solutions that consider everything and work as they should for all. But that doesn’t mean that the outcomes and aims that Younger People have in mind shouldn’t be heard, or indeed incorporated into wider policies that reflect practical reality and therefore become solutions that can and do actually work.

Just as power must be restored to the level of government and decision making that is most relevant to the collective voice, Young People must be considered within that process too, with youth or young people’s councils meeting as part of and feeding into each tier of government and being used as an effective tool to influence and inform.

Qualified academically or not, we are all capable of greatness or of being complete and utter fools

images (15)As humans we love difference. We love difference so much, we use it as a way to qualify other people by colour, gender, sexual orientation, financial and material wealth, social background, taste, appearance and in many other ways too.

Many of the benchmarks that we carry within our own personal make up as we attribute a value to others are unconscious or to the world outside us, secret from everyone’s view.

And the fact that we effectively make the judgements connected with our way of thinking behind closed doors, means that no matter how hard do-gooders attempt to legislate or rather control our behaviour, controlling other people’s thinking at a personal or very private level is a battle that even the most politically correct amongst us will never actually win.

So obsessed have we become with being able to legitimise our qualification of others when it suits us to do so, we have found it easy to use the markers that society legitimately provides to create yet another set of differences between ourselves and other people. One that stands far outside the purpose for which that system was intended, and the help that it was originally intended to provide.

For a long time, academic qualification has increasingly been used as the preferred way to distinguish the ability, attitude, application, intelligence and any number of other things about an individual that to the audience can be used to distinguish the capability of a person and whether for the purpose they are being considered, they are ‘qualified’ or not.

By-passing the cold, hard reality that academic qualifications, whether it be a GCSE, A’Level, Graduate Degree, Masters or Phd is simply another benchmark created in some particular persons (usually an academic’s) thoughts, the elephants of our society have fallen head over heels in to the trap of believing that academic standards portray the genuine quality or value of each and every individual or person. 

They do not.

Yesterday, we witnessed the power of these maleficent social anchors at their horrifying worst, when Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner was ridiculed for having what are considered to be 4 very poor GCSEs and academically speaking, no more.

Whilst Labour and their principle spokesperson for Education demonstrate little credibility in terms of the policies they have been putting forward with an eye on the upcoming General Election at their Party Conference this week, there are few of us outside of Westminster who could list with fingers on one hand, the number of politicians from any one Political Party who we could hand-on-heart consider credibly, when it comes to fulfilling their roles properly, and being good representatives of the people too.

Perception is everything. Particularly so when it comes to the influences on our thinking and lives that is played out on social media and TV.

Just because an MP or politician looks good on camera, comes across as confident, sounds competent or can boast an academic cv that included Eton, Oxford or wherever it may be from, it is simply a fact that the reality and truth may be – and in the case of many of our sitting MPs – is that they are not ‘qualified’ by or by being any such thing.

Because we have learned and increasingly been conditioned against the value of the substance of life experience and the practical understanding of people, business, community, their experiences and views that time in the real world gaining knowledge of different situations brings, we have reached a stage where we look for things that make high-profile people stand out for all the wrong reasons, mistakenly thinking that they are right.

There is some rich irony in the fact that it was the Labour Government of 1997-2010 that pushed the envelope of qualification bias to its currently accepted extreme by suggesting that it was not only possible, but should be the case that everyone has a degree.

This malignant and ill-conceived step has itself contributed the biggest change in perception about what qualifies any person.

It has pushed us all much further away from regarding each and every other individual as being equal and the same.

Furthermore, the meddling of Angela Rayner’s political predecessors when in Government bears much of the responsibility for the commercialisation of Higher Education. The rancid truth being that many young people have been condemned to financial servitude by a past Labour Government by being encouraged to take degrees that nobody in industry values.

Others are being left behind simply because they are excluded by the perversion of a system that frowns upon anyone who is not academically inclined, or because they know that a lifetime of debt is not something that they can realistically afford.

Education in its real sense, is only partially academic in its make up. No matter how any person is educated, they are equally capable of greatness or of behaving like fools. And the suggestion that people are only capable of anything great if they have good academic qualifications is a premise that is fundamentally flawed.

When we finally have a Government led by politicians who are responsible and not so easily led, the hard decisions over the way that we educate and support our young people will be addressed properly.

The focus will be brought back to the basic reality that as teenagers, we are pretty much all either ‘heads’ or ‘hands’. 

Once we value the fact that not everyone in their early teens is either ready or able to spend at least another 7 years in books, we can then get back to providing a real option of parallel educational – not academic pathways – that developed properly with business and the opportunities that Leaving the EU will give us, will mean that rewarding lives for people whatever their background and birth, will for a great many more of them be fully assured.

 

image thanks to businessinsider.com