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The Most Valuable Form of Money Nobody's Seen--Yet July 1, 2022
What is "money"? "Money" is a claim on the essentials of life. Ration cards are claims on essentials.
Many people expect "money" will soon be tied to commodities. Agreed. It's called a ration card that grants the holder the right to buy a specific quantity of essential goods at a specified price. This right is a form of "money" directly tied to the value of commodities. Ration cards are the only fair way to distribute essentials in times of chronic scarcity. Markets work fine when there's a substitute for whatever is scarce, but there are no substitutes for electricity, food, fuel or fresh water, the FEW essentials (Food, energy, water). Leaving the distribution of scarce, no-substitutes essentials up to the market leads to the rich eating very well indeed and the poor going hungry. This leads to a little thing called the overthrow of the failed status quo and the destruction of a good chunk of its ruling class (Payback's a witch, etc.). No bread? Let them eat iPhones. We know ration cards work because a mass experiment in rationing essentials was conducted in World War II. Maybe fairness no longer matters (and if it doesn't, then prepare for the overthrow of the failed status quo and the destruction of a good chunk of its ruling class), but if fairness matters--or the ruling elite wish to keep all their power and all their goodies--then rationing and the ruthless suppression of price gouging are as good as gold. What is "money"? "Money" is a claim on the essentials of life. Ration cards are claims on essentials, enforced by the state to insure everyone has a minimum of the FEW resources. Beyond that minimum, the market will discover the price of extra goodies. But the point is that ration cards are a fair form of "money." With a little digital magic, ration cards can't be counterfeited or used by anyone but the person to whom they were issued. If you get your ration and don't need all of it, nobody's stopping you from selling it to somebody else. But at least everyone got the same amount at the same price. How valuable is ration-card "money"? Let's put it this way: if you're a wealthy, powerful member of the ruling elite, how much would you pay to avoid the overthrow of your regime? If creating ration-card "money" saves your bacon, then what other form of "money" has more value than that? The other form of "money" that will be valuable isn't even tangible. It's called self-reliance. More on that later. 
Recent podcasts/videos: Tectonic Shift of Mercantilism Revalued (Gordon Long, Macro-Analytics, 42 min) My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. My recent books: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 Kindle, $10 print, ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 Kindle, $8.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal ( $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook) 
When I burned out, what I wanted but could not find was a practical guide by someone who had experienced burnout
themselves. None of the material I found spoke to what I was experiencing or to my sense that our
economy is now optimized to burn people out.
I decided to write the guide I wanted but could not find. This is my experience of burnout, reckoning and renewal. This book is my account of what helped me. The intended audience is other burnouts and those who want to better understand the experience of burnout. Burnout is a life-changing experience in a good way, as absurd as that may sound to those in the depths of burnout. To paraphrase Samuel Beckett: I can’t go on but I must go on. There is a way forward. Read the first section for free (PDF). The Introduction
The Epidemic Nobody Talks About: Burnout
Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States ( $22.50 print, $9.95 Kindle ebook, audiobook) 
Nations that embrace Degrowth and social cohesion will survive. Those that cling to "waste is growth" economies
and destabilizing extremes of inequality will perish.
The threats to the republic are unprecedented, and conventional responses are an accelerant of collapse: the status quo is now the problem rather than the solution. We have an opportunity to redraw America’s Grand Strategy from the ground up. Should we fail to do so, the United States will fail, along with all the other nation-states that are incapable of grasping degrowth and social unity as solutions. This revolutionary Grand Strategy will be the deciding factor between nation-states that fail and the few (if any) that will not just survive but actually thrive. Read Chapter One for free (PDF). Read the Introduction Podcast discussing the book: A Grand Strategy to Address the Global Crisis (54 min., with Richard Bonugli)
Recent entries: The Most Valuable Form of Money Nobody's Seen--Yet July 1, 2022 Why the Housing Bubble Bust Is Baked In June 29, 2022 The Age of Discord June 27, 2022 The Global Power Shift Isn't West to East--It's Not That Simple June 24, 2022
Our No-Win "Kobayashi Maru" Economy
June 22, 2022
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"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur) "We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle) "Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.) "He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones) "When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac) "Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger) "Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam) "The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley) "A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS) "Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte) "The way of the Tao is reversal" Or "Reversal is the movement of Tao." (Lao Tzu) "Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur) "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill) "Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi) "The realm of gratitude is boundless." (CHS, 11/25/15) "History doesn't have a reverse gear." (CHS, 12/22/15) Smith's Law of Conservation of Risk: Every sustained action has more than one consequence. Some consequences will appear positive for a time before revealing their destructive nature. Some consequences will be intended, some will not. Some will be foreseeable, some will not. Some will be controllable, some will not. Those that are unforeseen and uncontrollable will trigger waves of other unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences. (July 8, 2014)(thanks to Lew G. for retitling the idea.) Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16) My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me) "We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16) "Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16) "Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16) "Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17) "We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18) "Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas) "Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB) "When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19) "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau) "Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19) "Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22) "Tune in (to degrowth), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22) |
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