To be fair, currency and the stock exchange are fairly different systems. Currency roughly keeps track of how valuable/stable that currency is seen to be, while stock prices are largely made up of vibes regarding how well a company is doing. The latter is a game designed by and for the rich to hide and move money while inflating their own worth, while the former is what is being hid. The difference is, everyone has to agree on the worth of the dollar, while only a handful of traders determine the worth of Tesla stock.
This is the heart of the shared delusion - that everyone agrees on the worth of a dollar, when in fact, it’s worth is can only be defined personally. And to be more precise, I’d correct your comment to “everyone has to agree on the Fed’s definition of the worth of a dollar”.
If you make $30/hr, a dollar is worth 2 minutes of your time. If you lose your job and get another making $10/hr, that same dollar is now worth 6 minutes of your time, simply because one boss decided you’re worth less than another boss did. This is where the real distortion comes into play - in the perceived value of money versus labor.
Of course, most folks don’t accept a downgrade in value, so instead, they simply make your earned money worth less over time via intentional inflation. The net effect is the erosion of labor’s earned capital and the increase in the value of assets.
An all of this is because we accept their definition of how valuable a dollar is, because we believe we have no other way to earn wealth from our labor, save through money.
Which isn’t true, and hasn’t been true for most of human history. Humans generate wealth by either tending to or exploiting the natural environment. Now, that natural environment is fenced in by property rights, which are governed by the exchange of… you guessed it…
Money.
See, we think that money is wealth. It’s not. Money is a communication of value. And all elements of human communication are imaginary symbols we’ve instilled with arbitrary meaning to build a map of reality.
The map is not the territory. The symbols are not the reality, and they are easily manipulated. Money is one of our oldest and deepest symbols, but we survived before it ruled our minds. If you detach the concepts of wealth, fortune, and happiness from money, you’ll find that your value is far greater than your bank account would suggest.
But to go back to your comment, if you’ve ever done currency trading, you’ll see the two markets are pretty similar and subject to the same levels of manipulation (on a governmental scale in many cases, lookin’ at you China). The game is effectively the same, and it’s still pretty much refereed by the Federal Reserve, as the dollar current is the default currency for most of the world. And the Fed never gets rid of inflation, because without the constant degradation of labor capital, the asset owning class would lose its position of social superiority.
To be fair, currency and the stock exchange are fairly different systems. Currency roughly keeps track of how valuable/stable that currency is seen to be, while stock prices are largely made up of vibes regarding how well a company is doing. The latter is a game designed by and for the rich to hide and move money while inflating their own worth, while the former is what is being hid. The difference is, everyone has to agree on the worth of the dollar, while only a handful of traders determine the worth of Tesla stock.
This is the heart of the shared delusion - that everyone agrees on the worth of a dollar, when in fact, it’s worth is can only be defined personally. And to be more precise, I’d correct your comment to “everyone has to agree on the Fed’s definition of the worth of a dollar”.
If you make $30/hr, a dollar is worth 2 minutes of your time. If you lose your job and get another making $10/hr, that same dollar is now worth 6 minutes of your time, simply because one boss decided you’re worth less than another boss did. This is where the real distortion comes into play - in the perceived value of money versus labor.
Of course, most folks don’t accept a downgrade in value, so instead, they simply make your earned money worth less over time via intentional inflation. The net effect is the erosion of labor’s earned capital and the increase in the value of assets.
An all of this is because we accept their definition of how valuable a dollar is, because we believe we have no other way to earn wealth from our labor, save through money.
Which isn’t true, and hasn’t been true for most of human history. Humans generate wealth by either tending to or exploiting the natural environment. Now, that natural environment is fenced in by property rights, which are governed by the exchange of… you guessed it…
Money.
See, we think that money is wealth. It’s not. Money is a communication of value. And all elements of human communication are imaginary symbols we’ve instilled with arbitrary meaning to build a map of reality.
The map is not the territory. The symbols are not the reality, and they are easily manipulated. Money is one of our oldest and deepest symbols, but we survived before it ruled our minds. If you detach the concepts of wealth, fortune, and happiness from money, you’ll find that your value is far greater than your bank account would suggest.
But to go back to your comment, if you’ve ever done currency trading, you’ll see the two markets are pretty similar and subject to the same levels of manipulation (on a governmental scale in many cases, lookin’ at you China). The game is effectively the same, and it’s still pretty much refereed by the Federal Reserve, as the dollar current is the default currency for most of the world. And the Fed never gets rid of inflation, because without the constant degradation of labor capital, the asset owning class would lose its position of social superiority.