TED Community » Jeff Rudisill

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Monetary reform; saving humanity by doing more with less

An idea worth spreading

Money has evolved from being a commodity to being an information system. The information conveyed is each entities' (person, group, company, etc) claim on the productivity of society. However, our 500+ year old system of economics is still based on neo-Malthusian concepts of scarcity. Human progress remains limited by this archaic model. There is an abundance of potential human productivity. Our monetary and economic systems need to be restructured to reflect this abundance, and permit continued sustainable growth and human development. Saying there is not enough money is equivalent to saying there is not enough zeros to put into a computer.

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Monetary reform

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• A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 4 2012: @Edwin Nazarian, I looked at your comments re: money on the other thread you mentioned, and browsed your profile. We probably share more than is apparent in these exchanges. RE: money as a tool, I see how it can be seen that way, since, like a tool, it can be used to accomplish something, or rather to get someone else to accomplish something by paying them to do that something. More precisely, that describes a FUNCTION of money as opposed to a description of what money is. On a more fundamental level, I've come to the conclusion (for now) that money used to be a commodity, and has "evolved" into an information system. Since I, like you, find repeating myself somewhat tedious, I would direct you to my other comments in this thread, if you are interested in my thoughts on the subject.
  
  PS - another thing we share...I was certified in NLP 30 some years ago, but haven't practiced the craft since then.
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  A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 4 2012: @Edwin Nazarian, I am not "one of these" anything, and don't find it helpful to put labels on people wishing to engage in serious (and, sometimes, not so serious) discussion. Currently, I don't believe we, as a society and culture, can live without money. I SERIOUSLY believe that money is poorly understood by the vast majority of folk in our society, and that there needs to be significant monetary reform. We are living with a system that is more than 500 years old, and it no longer serves the needs of humanity in general.
  From your comments on this thread, there's not much depth to your views: "we don't need money, we want money." Need:want. For me, it doesn't contribute much to the conversation. I will look for your description of money in the other comments you posted. I would like to know what you think, and understand continuous repetition can be tedious.
  If someone took you up on your rhetorical proposition, to wit, "Send me your money and I will tell you all about money you need to know." What does that even mean?

• A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 4 2012: @Edwin Nazarian. Cute, but your response doesn't contribute much to the understanding of what money is and where it come from.

• A comment on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 3 2012: @Edward Long (continued)
  Even if your bank account reads zero, and you have no money in your pocket, you can still buy your eggs with a credit card. You would be sending information that your negative balance would be offset in the future by your labor or a product you would sell.
  Some misguided folk see this change to an information system as a problem, and consequently want to go backward to a gold standard. This would be disastrous. One of the beauties of money as an information system is it gives anyone who contributes productively to the economy an equal claim on that productivity. A gold standard (or any standard that sets money as a commodity), encourages hoarding of gold (or other commodity): cornering the market.
  In summary, I believe it's important to perceive money as an information system, and not as a commodity. The information it contains is each person's claim on overall productivity.
  
  Enjoying the conversation. Thanks.

• A comment on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 3 2012: @Edward Long, I, too, am a novice re: economics. Perhaps the only difference between us in that regard is that I perceived that most of the world's problems involved money in some form or other. So, about a year ago, I started to look into the questions of "What is money?" and "Where does it come from?" Until then, I accepted the commonly held view of most folk in our society, much of which is reflected in your legitimate response above.
  Part of that world view is that money is based on something material; that money is a commodity. While this is historically the case, my belief is that money has "evolved" (for lack of a better term) into an information system. Take your example cited above. Your labor, the REAL value in the transaction between you and your employer, is given in exchange for a claim on the productivity resulting from that labor. You produced something that didn't exist before, and that has value. Your employer gives you something in exchange. That could be something material, like a bushel of zucchini. But you don't need a bushel of zucchini (who would), so you need something that carries value in the larger society: you need money. Though he or she may give you a check, that wouldn't be necessary in today's world. Your employer could also have done an electronic funds transfer, which is, again, dealing only in information. 150 year ago, you probably would have demanded metal coin: something material. No longer necessary. THERE IS NOTHING MATERIAL BEHIND TODAY'S MONEY! THERE IS ONLY DEBT. True, you can go to the bank and get pictures of dead presidents on a piece of paper, and this fiat currency, by law is legal tender. This piece of paper is, indeed, physical, but it is not "backed" by anything tangible. It only has the perception of value, and your choice to use paper rather than plastic, or swiping your smart phone, is a choice to convenience the outgoing modality of exchange.
  (MORE)...
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  A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 3 2012: @Edward Long... Go to the store, pick up some eggs (might as well get a 6-pack while you're there), take your items to the cashier or self-check out, run your credit/debit card through the pos terminal, and the eggs, beer, etc are yours.
  You just sent INFORMATION through a network - NO gold, NO beads or shells, NOT EVEN PAPER REQUIRED! The information you sent was an adjustment in the debt that someone owes to the banks. ALL MONEY EXISTS ONLY AS DEBT. That's the current situation, and has been since the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. The only way money is created is if someone agrees to repay that money, WITH INTEREST. When that happens, the Banksters create the money, OUT OF THIN AIR, by making an accounting entry. The interest due IS NOT CREATED, just the money owed.
  The reform that needs to happen would take the Banksters out of the loop by having the US create money, as the Constitution provides for and as Lincoln did when he issued Greenbacks instead of borrowing money from NY bankers, who wanted 26%-33% interest. This money would or could be spent into the economy, no interest involved. Our national debt would go away, and the information exchanged would reflect your claim on productivity instead of a payment on someone's debt.
  We, as a culture, generally have no clue about how money is created and controlled, and the Banksters like it that way. It allows them to "steal" the productivity of others by manipulating the information. If you haven't already, see the movie Margin Call.
  Let's continue the conversation.
  
  PS - check those eggs before you exchange information to get them.
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  A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 2 2012: @:John Smith, I agree with much of what you say. I've also learned in my investigations of money that money currently exists ONLY as debt. If all debt could be paid off (it can't), there would be no money. This monetary system is designed so that the creation and control of money remains in the domain of the rentier clas, who live off the interest created by debt.
  This system is NOT inevitable. Historically, in the US, there has been an ongoing struggle between those who think creation and control of money should be in private hands, and those who think it should be in the public domain. Since the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, private interests have prevailed.
  There is currently legislation proposed that would bring creation and control of money back into the public domain. HR2990, the National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act of 2011 would do this. (See http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR02990:@@@L&summ2=m&)
  I encourage those in the US who believe that the authority to create and control money should be returned to the public domain to promote and support this legislation.
  An alternative is to spend our time spouting our personal, unsupported and undocumented opinions here.
  @Krisztián I don't think we can talk about money without including the current banking system, and the need to reform it.

• A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 2 2012: So Bruno, if I understand what you're saying, using money to satisfy higher level needs - nonphysical needs - is a misdirection of energy. Would you agree that money, used to satisfy survival needs - Maslow's first two levels - is appropriate?
  I would argue that those lower level needs are really human rights, and should be guaranteed to all humans.

• A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 2 2012: There's an interesting concept that money, as a claim on productivity, could be created and issued individually in our modern information rich world. This is the basic concept behind BitCoin. I think this concept points to the future. We need a better financial system than the one we've been living with for centuries.

• A reply on Conversation: why money money money ?money !why ?do we really need money ?

  Oct 2 2012: Thought experiment: IF human survival needs - those two lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy - were assured for every human, what would that do to greed and avarice? I contend that MOST folk, if they had their survival needs met, would not succumb to greed.
  Greed and the pursuit of money, I would argue, is a function of a scarcity model of economics. The 500+ year old economic system we live with no longer serves human needs. It requires a major make-over.
  Let's start by examining how we determine who gets to claim the results of increased productivity.