I have read this by greenspan many times now, mogambo guru and puplava had me on this a few years back - please help me understand:
If men did not have some commodity of objective value which was generally acceptable as money, they would have to resort to primitive barter or be forced to live on self-sufficient farms and forgo the inestimable advantages of specialization. If men had no means to store value, i.e., to save, neither long-range planning nor exchange would be possible.
Well the link I posted earlier on oil and food said our global food machine is sucking too much energy in transportation and maintenance and we need to localize right?
But where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal.
I know people that would trade me unbelievable amounts of money for my douglas adams hitchhikers guide hardbound with his signature on a misprinted copy that is very rare. I wouldn't give it away for all the gold in babylon, but if michelle pfieffer showed up at my front door and wanted to do some barter - its GONE. Why must it be METAL, I have people that want my copy of 3 stooges DVD - not my gold coin, my niece sure didn't want the gold chain I gave her, she just wants to trade dvd's and mp3's and games back and forth with her friends. She has zero use for gold - take a human, put them on an island, put them on mars, put them in space, put them in an underwater city, what do all those humans share? Not a need for gold, they need food, air, water at minimum. Give them those things, then what do they need next, happiness, entertainment, education - still no gold, trade - ok trading dvd's and emails and text messages - still no need for gold.
He talks about luxury items, in DUNE it was water, in Waterworld it was dirt - go figure. Scarcity right? He says wheat is useless in prosperous societies, I am saying gold is useless in digital virtual socieites. Luxury implies SCARCITY and HIGH UNIT VALUE, gold being scarce is not enough , me and jay chen and you must VALUE it for whatever reason beyond its scarcity, yet its SCARCITY is the only thing I see - I don't see any VALUE beyond that - not like a last cigarette in WW2. that first hamburger I eat I want more, by the 5th hamburger I am satiated, but I cant eat gold or drink it or breathe it or have it make me laugh or give me orgasm or entertain me in any way save to polish the dust off it and like homer simpson say OH PRETTY - shiny shiny! My precious - no value to me.
High PORTABILITY he says is important, a digital coin trading back and forth on ebay or a credit card is far more PORTABLE than a bunch of metal. Metal is great for a physical world, but on the matrix I dont see it.
The money conferences all the experts have went to the past few years have been about DIGITAL coins backed by the faith and credit of some global bank - that is the talk I am hearing, not gold, not us dollars, not euros. Greenie says the ECONOMY determines the token of VALUE, well the digital virtual economy needs a digital virtual token no? Seashells were needed by the islanders, beads by the indians, tobacco by the southerners - why will NEO in the matrix need GOLD and not something more suited to his enviroment of digital virtuals? He glosses over why one token of value takes precedence over another - that is the key issue if we want to understand the future - why does gold take over in some places and beads and seashells in others and credit cards in others and virtual +30 excalibur soul sucker swords in others?
To further read the article by just capitulating and saying OK greenie - y ou are right, gold is it - makes no sense to me, I cant continue until you give me more input why in societies in the past where gold took over why it did, in places where it didn't why it didn't and when 12 billion on ebay and sony everquest will need gold. I do not accept that it is inherint to human nature that gold will always rule or is even necessary. I don't trust the green paper we have now - but walmart still takes it, that is all that matters. Saudis still take it for oil, that is all that matters, when they start demanding our virgins for thier oil and made in china goods - then what? What if they wake up tomorrow - sauds and chinese and say you know what BUSH, we don't want you, your virgins, or your gold and you can cram your 3 stooges dvds too - then what? How lucky mr. Perkins was able to find a slut blonde to make the saudi prince happy, if we only had gold to fall back on - we might have lost that deal!! |
