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Forum Post: Why do we gauge everything by money?

Posted 9 years ago on May 8, 2014, 3:17 a.m. EST by Shule (2638)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Why do we gauge everything by money? We say things like my house is worth so and so many dollars. Should it not be the other way around? We ought say that money is worth so and so much of my house. After all the value of the house stays the same (less real depreciation). What a house provides to the homeowner (i.e. a place to live) does not change. It is the value of the money that is fluctuating.

We have the 1% rule our lives because we let them. When we stop pandering to the dollar bill, that is when we will get our freedoms back, our government back, and our country back. I'd use dollar bills to wipe my butt, but they are too rough. Toilet paper is worth more.

12 Comments

12 Comments


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[-] 6 points by wickerman (62) 9 years ago

Have you noticed how the 1% seem to manage to get their hands into almost every exchange of money that we make? It's not always obvious, but almost anytime money changes hands there is someone in the middle taking a %. Swipe your debit card there's a fee (usually covered by the merchant). Get a payroll check there's a fee (check fee paid by your employer). It would be nice if we could cut them out.

[-] 7 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

Yes I noticed. I try to not use my credit card, though at times I find myself having to. I make a lot of my transactions in cash, write checks, and always trade with my friends in kind.

Most important though I don't go chasing after money. By that I mean, I don't do things to make money, but I make money to do things. And when I don't have to do anything in particular, I don't bother with trying to make money.

[-] 1 points by wickerman (62) 9 years ago

That's a start. I like what some are doing with crowd funding as well. I think that people are starting to realize that they can't depend on the government to fix this mess (they caused, and are still causing it) but rather can take actions on their own. All cash, or even barter, using crowd funding to cut the 1% out of loans...... Lets keep this going, what are other ways you see to cut them out?

[-] 0 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

Haven't yet heard of crowd funding, but it sounds pretty interesting.

There is this thing called micro-money that is popular in Europe. Basically, small towns issue their own money that can only be used in the town that issues it. That tends to keep the work and commerce in town. Interesting if people stated doing something similar stateside. I suppose we can personally issue IOUs.

[-] 1 points by wickerman (62) 9 years ago

Crowd funding is a sort of micro loan system. You borrow from individuals rather than a bank. It also can be used to stat a business, with individuals investing to help with start up costs, and then receiving a share of the profits.

[-] 3 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

Most of us realize our government, our society, is in a state of slow meltdown, and its been that way for a good long while. I'm not so sure we small fish can influence the power people much without torching a few towns and cities, but as a matter of self-preservation, I feel its necessary for us all to find ways to be more independent of government, big corps, and social infrastructure created by the 1% establishment. Crowd funding certainly seems to be a way of doing that. That we start building our own micro economies around ourselves, our friends, and neighbors. Another way is finding ways of living more independently like in planting gardens to grow food, and staying away from chain establishments; patronize local owned small businesses who keep what money there is in town, or who take IOUs. Big thing too would be getting to the point of owning our properties outright so as to avoid paying rents and mortgages. I know that is a tough one in these times, but that is were the focuses ought be.

[-] 3 points by IndigoRed (87) 9 years ago

capitalism is failing and by that I mean private ownership, including the moneymasters who own the dollar.

[-] 2 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

Great! I can't wait. Now the only question is what will take its place?

[-] 1 points by MattLHolck (16833) from San Diego, CA 9 years ago

people not demanding others money for a place to live ?

[-] -1 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

err, like letting people who don't pay their rent stay in the flat one's trying to make a living on?

or

offering a person a place to stay who needs a roof over thier head?

[-] 1 points by MarthaScotts (8) from Chicago, IL 9 years ago

The value of things do change because of scarcity. Offer and demand. As long as everyone on the planet cannot have something because of it being scarce, the value of that thing will change depending on its scarcity.

Money is not the problem. It is only a form or representation. If you would go back to the barter system, things would not improved. Marx explained this very well. Once we solve the problem of scarcity, then communism can exist. Not before.

[-] 1 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

Don't get taken in by that Economics 101 ho ho ho they teach in school. That stuff is for suckers. Ever notice where ever there are a lot of poor people, there is also some rich scum bag holding most of the goodies? The price of things more often has more to do with somebody fixing the price by monetary manipulations rather than any supply and demand curve. In these times of high tech and automation, there is more often an over abundance of most everything. The problem tends to be that so much is being produced by so few people, that too many people don't have jobs to make the money to buy the things being over produced. (China really got us going down that route, but let us not blame it all on them.) Basically, our whole system of production, and earning has been skewed out of whack.

Verily, I do recognize money in and of it self is indeed no problem. In fact for lack of anything better, I'd go so far as to say money is totally necessary in a modern society. It serves as a medium for trade. My issue with it is how people view money; that people have come to see money as a valuable good in and of itself, and thus go to abominable lengths to acquire it. This thirst for money is what gives those oligarchs who manipulate us their power, and thus our poverty. People need to start recognizing money for what it is; a mere mechanism for trade; that money has no value in and of itself. Its value is only what we make it to be at the moment we happen to use it. And when we have no money to enable a trade, then we can use or do something else. When society as a whole comes to see that, I believe a lot of the misallocations we see in our world can come to a more equitable order.

By the way, I'm not a commie.

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