On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:02 AM, Thomas Lee Abshier, ND wrote:

On Thu, Nov 4, 2011 at 9:22 PM, John F. wrote:

John F: Yep, that is a toughy. Let me try some more.

You are right, sometimes it does not matter whether we use the word "wealth" or "value". Other times it could be confusing, when there must be a difference....

"Value" focuses on the subjective decision of a human will. The Man values the Thing. He values it for its usefulness for himself, or as an instrument in attaining something else he desires, by trade or manufacture, and thus obtains some type of enjoyment.

"Worth" or "value" can refer to the expected response of others to the "thing". Men value it today, because of what it is, or because of what it represents.  

Thomas A: Value is the intangible quality of utility or enjoyment added to the raw materials of God’s creation.  God made the substance, and men organized matter to give it additional utility over its native state.  And yes, the utility of the original material, and the manufactured item is judged by each man.  

Wealth is the word used to describe a stored accumulation of value.  

Value could be generally categorized under the term “utility”.  This term has many subcategories of character that give additional specificity to a particular type of utility, such as: beauty, functionality, security, esthetics, etc...  All of these refinements of utility and enjoyment are types of value to a beholder that appreciates, desires, consumes, uses, or is willing to trade value/utility for them.  

Adding value to the raw materials that God gave us is the primary activity of men in business, manufacture, and sales.  We add this quality of “Value” (which arises only by the judgment of men) to matter/mass/material. (which is the raw material of the creation, made by God).  If another person values the item, it is then a potential object of trade.  

The raw material of God’s creation, and the manufactured objects that men make from that substance, have value to an individual to the extent that he finds it useful.  People add intelligent direction of work to matter to produce the quality of “utility” and thus, “value”.  

When using “value” in the context of trade, an implied concept of “ownership” underlies the trade.  Both parties in a transaction must have ownership of a good or service, and both must attribute value to that item.  The person who manufactures an item for sale/trade owns the value he has placed in the object.  He can trade that value for wages, or barter it for another item he considers equivalent in value to the work he put into it, or he can trade it for money in the marketplace as a vendor.  

Note that money represents a generic store of value.  The value society (but ultimately individuals) places on the any item can be converted (by trading) into money.  Money, once possessed/owned (by virtue of having created value, or having had ownership title transferred), can in turn be converted (traded/purchased) into another form of value (goods and ser as desired by the bearer of the money.

The goal of the trade is exchange of an item of lesser personal value, for an item of greater personal value.  Again, both sides of the trade are attempting to negotiate a deal where the personal valuation of the object owned is traded for an object of greater personal value.  This is the essence and heart of every trade.  The two sides of the trade must negotiate to the point of agreement on the amount of value given and amount of value taken.  It is the process of trade itself that defines the value of an item.  Value by its very nature is a relative term, defined by the individual valuation of a specific trade, or by the larger statistics of the society and the smoothing function provided by averages.  

Thus, the trade will only take place when the owner of value comes to a point where he agrees that the terms of the trade constitute an exchange of equivalent societal value, but an increase personal ownership of value.  Neither person wants to receive less than the societal value they judge is inherent to their work/object, and there would be no purpose to an exchange where there was no increase in personal  value.  

The value of the entire spectrum of goods and services has been abstracted by the market by the bid and ask process, and is represented symbolically by money.  The general trade involves money (whose ownership was acquired by some type of work or transfer of ownership), and the trade of money for goods and services involves a trade of ownership.

The vendor of the goods and services transfers title to its new owner, and the purchaser in turn compensates the vendor with an equivalent value as represented by money.  Money is the societally recognized token representing value that can be used to redeem valuable goods and services in the marketplace.  Thus, money is a carrier-of value, a way of storing, representing, and exchanging value.  The money symbol/token itself has only a minor value, but as a symbol, it can represent great value.  Money can be used to either exchange for current use of real value, or delayed in its exchange and used as a store of value.

The essential trade transaction is the transfer of ownership of value from one person to another.  And, the fundamental motivation and criteria governing the trade is the experience of gain in personal-value-owned by both sides.  Since a final price is negotiated, it appears that the trade is at parity -- a trade of value for value.  But, the fact is that both parties are only motivated to trade if their sense of personal value owned is greater after the trade than before.  Thus, the trade proceeds when the exchange price reaches a level where both parties feel the sense of an increase in personal-owned-value.

Again, “How is it possible for two people to trade and both experience an increase of value?”  The answer is, “People trade because they increase their inventory of owned “demand/consumption value”, while simultaneously their ownership of “Supply/Producer Value” goes down.  The effect is an net increase of owned value.

Trade always proceeds in the direction of the increase in owned value.  Every trade results in the increase of inventory of more valuable goods & services, and a reduction in inventory of lesser value good and services.

Examining the concepts of Supply Value and Demand Value:

The Personal Production value (supply) has at its center a recognition that there are goods and services that other people want.  But, no one would produce anything if he could satisfy all his needs without working.  Thus, part of the process of growing up, parenting a child, is teaching/learning the principles of fairness.  The self interest of others becomes apparent to the casual observer, as does the fact that I cannot obtain desired goods and services unless I give equal perceived value to those vendors.  Thus, I am forced by hunger and necessity to sacrifice my time and energy creating goods and services that meet the needs of others.  

Again, trading commensurate value to acquire ownership is the central essence of commerce.  And, an implicit transfer of ownership/title takes place when two willing parties exchange items judged by both parties to have greater personal consumption/demand value, and lesser personal production/supply value.

With regard to “man and God-created value”, both types of object can possess the quality of utility, and hence be considered valuable to an individual.  The rareness, or sensory stimulation of pleasure, or any other desirable experience, can be the aspect of the object which gives it the quality of value.    

Money was invented as a token or symbol to represent value.  The personal production/supply value is the quality added to material by work.  We produce supply value so that we have can have a store of value we can use to give in trade to take ownership of valuable items.  Thus, money is symbolic of value owned by virtue of work in organizing matter.  We symbolize in the money the value we have stored in our previous productive efforts.  We then use money as the surrogate carrier of value, instead of trading the actual thing of value.  Thus, money represents value created by personal effort to produce supply that will satisfy other’s demands for goods and services.

The word wealth is a different tense, perspective, or aspect of the word “value”.  The word “wealth” is used to refer to a store of value.  Such as, “He has great wealth.”  Or “He is a wealthy man.”  Or, “He went in the search of wealth.”  Or, “He now spends his investing time and effort in wealth management.”

Regarding money: Today we have banknotes, pieces of paper with ink printed on them. They represent something, or nothing. But people value it today.

Money represents value because, 1) it has been given as a symbol representing the value created by work.  And, 2) money represents value because it has been offered in payment for value delivered, and accepted.  The universal acceptance of money for all debts, public and private, gives money its symbolic value.  Without that consensual societal acceptance of money, it would have no symbolic value in trade other than as a commodity.

Money is used as an easily transported symbol of value in the society-economy-market.  Value is real, but subjective, and dependent upon the observer.  The statistics of large numbers give money its nominal value.  People put value on money because they have been given it upon serving in various ways when they create value as goods and services.  Thus, when they trade the dollar for useful goods and services, they refer back to the pain and effort they expended.  The items purchased for a certain amount of money correspond to an equivalent amount of goods and services.  Money is essentially barter, but the product offered on one side is universally needed and wanted, money.  

Tomorrow they may value it differently. It is still the same piece of paper with ink. What has changed? Tomorrow, there are so many of them, and they are so easy to get, that people don't value them any more. They won't trade any bread or silver for them any more.

Were they useful yesterday? Will they be useful tomorrow?
Did they have inherent value Yesterday? Will they have inherent value tomorrow?
They were worth something yesterday. They will be worth-less tomorrow.
But the paper and ink never change. They are the same yesterday and tomorrow.

My Morgan Silver dollar, minted in 1878, has lost a little of the alloy metal by wear. It is .7734 troy ounce of fine silver with additional percentage of copper. It was the same in 1878 as it is today. There was a time that it was worth 1 silver dollar. During the FDR era, it was "worth" .44/100ths to 70/100ths of a gold dollar. Today it may be worth 35 imaginary dollars. It all depended, at any particular time, what men would be willing to trade for it. Yet we could always be honest and accurate about what it was -- .7734 troy ounce of fine silver with an additional percentage of copper. God created that. It has properties. The Silver in it does things. It exists. It protects. It heals. It reflects - better. It conducts heat - better. It carries electrons - better. It divides. It melts. It makes chemical reactions faster, quicker, cheaper. It makes beautiful.

Thomas A: You have argued that silver money has many benefits, and God created it, none of which I dispute.  I concede that paper with printing on it is worth very little as a consumable commodity, while silver is more valuable in many ways.  But that is not the issue.  You have stated that fiat money is imaginary.  And you have given me no argument that convinces me that fiat money is imaginary, except to state that the Fed spoke it into existence out of nothing.  I agree that the dollar had no value at its inception, but neither did the fertilized egg.  The dollar acquires value by its association with debt, by its use as a contract to produce value.  The fertilized egg acquires value through a process of differentiation and maturity.  Both came from nothing, because associated with physicality, and gradually became more real and functional.  Both eventually die and dissipate back into God’s mind.

You did not say that fiat money is not as valuable as a commodity, and therefore we shouldn’t use it. You threw in those points, and it gives your argument the appearance of substance, but that data is not relevant in resolving whether fiat money is imaginary.  Note: If you will only accept monetary symbols that themselves are of equivalent value to their symbolic trade value, then you will only accept that system.  

But, for me, the point of this discussion is to show the error in your contention that fiat money is the source of the economic woes of the nation/world because it is imaginary.   You have given fiat money a unique and centrally culpable role in the loss of value of the dollar.  

What does your God-damned US imaginary contemporary US Banking dollar do? It lies. It steals. It enslaves. It kills (not really - only men do all these things - but what an instrument it is for them. Silver can be used to kill also, but look at all the other differences).

It has no existence. (Not True -- it has existence as both a paper symbol, and as a symbol of an amount of goods and services that it can trade for.) It has no measurability.  (Not True -- each paper dollar symbol is a measure of quantity of paper dollars, or in amount of generic goods and services.) It has no properties. (Not True, the paper dollar has physical properties.  The generic goods and services that the dollar symbolizes in trade can be categorized according to their constituent activities and substances, such as art, invention, crude oil, iron ore...)  It can't be found. It can't be moved. It can't be seen. It can't be felt. (Not True.  The paper symbol can be found, moved, seen, felt, and counted.  The tangible generic, and specific, goods and services, the dollar symbolizes in trade can all be moved, seen, felt, and counted in various ways.  The intangible goods and services   It can't be counted. It can't be verified or falsified. The Central bank can create out of nothing 1 new US Banking dollar just as easily as it can create 16 trillion dollars. They will all be perfectly, exactly the same. But you cannot tell the difference between 1 or 16 trillion. They look the same, except that you cannot see them. The feel the same, if you could feel them, which you cannot. They weigh the same, measure the same. You cannot tell where one dollar ends and the next dollar begins. This seems to me to be a weakness and lack of utility.

You have indicted the dollar for being less concrete in substance, less precise in measurement of substance, and less precise in quantiy in counting its substance. And therefor evil .

Thomas A: You have combined two concepts -- 1) the tangibility of the monetary unit, and the 2) value of the unit.  The ability to measure, quantify, and identify something accurately as being a good criteria for money.

My old silver dollar is not so. You can compare it with another silver dollar. You can compare it with something else that looks like it. But you can weigh it or check its dimensions and tell if it is different. You can tell the difference between a silver dollar that is there and a silver dollar someone says is there but isn't there. You can tell if the substance is different, maybe it is just silver coated-gold, or silver-coated lead or copper. You can tell if it is just shiny Cupra-Nickel. You can tell the difference.

Do they both have value? Or is it that People value, place value on them?
Thomas A: Both have value, but there are two types of value that we use to distinguish between.  



On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 9:35 PM, John F. wrote:

Tom:

Thanks again for the discussion-time on Sunday. Hope you enjoyed the service. Did you happen to notice how many times they can't help attesting to the Royal Patent of Jesus? (words like: king, reign, majesty, rule, sovereign, courts)

Our mission, if we can manage to understand it, and if we are willing to make the sacrifices to take it up -- will be helping contemporary church members also embrace the meaning of those words they cannot help voice.

Driving home from our family celebration, I was reminded of a tendency to keep using the inaccurate and deceptive words/phrases popular in the media concerning our topics we are discussing. Words can be really important, as Humpty Dumpty reminds us.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that’s all."

Humpty implies words must mean to others whatever he wants it to mean to him, because he thinks of himself as Master (owner & controller).

Neither you nor I are the Master. What we are trying to do is come to agreement on what words mean. Especially what the Words of God mean.

We are trying to avoid the cognitive dissonance of believing two opposite things are true at the same time. We could accept the same words meaning two different things if we wanted to say we "shift frames", for instance.

In this "frame" the dollar is something. But in this other "frame" the dollar is nothing. Then they can both be true!

NO. When I say that I have concluded by my study of the sources, interviews, Biblical study, and thinking -- that our US Dollar since 1971 is nothing, I mean that it is the antithesis of something. As in the difference between a Mountain - and - A-Hole-In-The-Ground. It's got to be one or the other. I know that hurts the head to have to accept this, because you will not be able to avoid, on the one hand, [We are insane/crazy.] or [The whole world is completely daft.]

Same with 9/11. The opposite things just cannot both be true at the same time. Jesus is like that too. Read all accounts. There is absolutely no way He can just be a good teacher/example. He was either wicked/crazy, or Creator/Master infinite God.

So you and I have hammered out this before about who/what/how new dollars supposedly come into existence. This understanding is so crucial, and so hard to apprehend, because of our decades of brainwashing, I do not believe we have the luxury of being sloppy in our words.

Normally, I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to just believe what the US Govt or the Fed would say/publish. But on these themes, I have studied long and hard, and triangulated from so many sources over so many decades, I have no reasonable doubt that the scenario I am trying to paint for you is true. The basics of this I understood (at least that the Fed and inflation, and the successful Fabian Socialists planning – was very bad) shortly out of High School in the ‘70’s.

Do you believe the Fed, the Treasury, the US Govt. when they publish their technical explanations that dollar is just something that they say is coming into being when they reckon a new debt that someone owes them? Putting all that these agencies say, together, we have to admit that neither Treasury, nor Mint, nor Bureau of Engraving and Printing makes new dollars. The paper notes, indeed, originate with the US Govt's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but they and the Fed both agree that the Fed pays them for the expenses of the printing, that the paper notes are not legal money until Fed Central trades them to one of the 12 Branches in exchange for dollars credited to an account. In the transaction, dollars are going one direction, while the Federal Reserve paper Notes are going in the other. Banks are buying the notes, if you will.

So we cannot be true if we are saying the Govt is creating/adding/increasing dollars. Dollars are never created/added/increased by a printing process. They are only created by the Fed system in the 3 ways I have hammered over and over with you. Neither you, nor anyone else has ever recommended to me any credible, technical source that claims anything to the contrary. Except my CPA friend at my old church that insists that:

Dollars are units of purchasing power.
New dollars are added to world money supply every time anyone adds value (as in sells it for more than he paid for it, or works for wages) to anything.

Do you think these are serious speculations? He doesn’t seem to have much understanding of the economic categories the Austrian scholars discuss, and he thinks Ron Paul is ignorant, at the very least.

Yet we have to face the fact that, in the familiar and popular way-of-speaking, we are going to continually be reading things like the quote I just found today……

There are only three sources of government spending. It can tax, or it can borrow, or it can print money to spend.

So the “printing money”, and the US Govt doing the dollar-increasing directly – we will still keep hearing, even by conservative/Austrians that know better. They are just doing it to communicate with folks that don’t know any better. Let's you and I get past that. Sloppy words will result in sloppy thinking.

OK, that’s off my chest (again), now I will try to work on your many emails.