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.
You’re conflating a lot of things as being the same thing and it’s important to draw the lines between them because conflation causes confusion that can and will cause harm if acted on.
Yes, a currency’s relationship with labor fluctuates due to how a market prices labor, but this isnt the fault of currency. It’s a fault with labor markets. In a labor market buyers almost always have an advantage over sellers and as such can devalue labor seemingly at will. This does not in turn change the value of the currency though.
You’re also right to say the Fed has a responsibility to secure market stability and that right now stability is measured in the independant wealth of businesses. However, the Fed is not private, it’s a public structure. It’s been captured by private interests because Americans largely dont understand/care about economic infrastructure. At any point the Fed could raise interest rates to a degree that almost entirely stops borrowing and that would curb inflation the other way. The downside to this is that it would make borrowing impossible for both small and large businesses. The Fed has a very large lever and no discretion. I dont think I need to say that small businesses dying is also not very good for the labor class.
As for your argument on money and self-worth. I largely just chalk this up to being a propaganda campaign to get laborers more interested in currency accumulation over community building. That isnt something that changes with fiscal policy though. That’s a culture issue. I’ve yet to convince anyone though that the two are separate, much less that their culture ought to be changed. The cold reality is that many Americans prefer it this way. They’d rather be a slave in a system where they could see themselves as kings over a system without kings but higher standards of living.
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.
You’re conflating a lot of things as being the same thing and it’s important to draw the lines between them because conflation causes confusion that can and will cause harm if acted on.
Yes, a currency’s relationship with labor fluctuates due to how a market prices labor, but this isnt the fault of currency. It’s a fault with labor markets. In a labor market buyers almost always have an advantage over sellers and as such can devalue labor seemingly at will. This does not in turn change the value of the currency though.
You’re also right to say the Fed has a responsibility to secure market stability and that right now stability is measured in the independant wealth of businesses. However, the Fed is not private, it’s a public structure. It’s been captured by private interests because Americans largely dont understand/care about economic infrastructure. At any point the Fed could raise interest rates to a degree that almost entirely stops borrowing and that would curb inflation the other way. The downside to this is that it would make borrowing impossible for both small and large businesses. The Fed has a very large lever and no discretion. I dont think I need to say that small businesses dying is also not very good for the labor class.
As for your argument on money and self-worth. I largely just chalk this up to being a propaganda campaign to get laborers more interested in currency accumulation over community building. That isnt something that changes with fiscal policy though. That’s a culture issue. I’ve yet to convince anyone though that the two are separate, much less that their culture ought to be changed. The cold reality is that many Americans prefer it this way. They’d rather be a slave in a system where they could see themselves as kings over a system without kings but higher standards of living.