Day 160 - Stewardship in an Equal Money System

Stewardship

Nature and Symbiosis

When left to operate naturally, the plant and animal world exist in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Symbiosis is, in essence, a giving and receiving – a form of value exchange. When all parts of nature are allowed to exist in a symbiotic way – they together exist as a massive and complex life-support system, which human beings are meant to be a part of.

A profit-driven system has altered how we view and participate in nature, where we have started to take more than we require and virtually stopped giving back, hereby disrupting the balancing effect nature requires in order to be able to perform its function as a symbiotic life-support system.

Monitoring the Well-Being of Animals and Plants

In an Equal Money System the human being will reintegrate himself as a full participant of nature – where nature is not just something ‘out there’ anymore – something we ‘visit’ once in a while when we want to ‘get away from it all’. Instead, nature is part of our world and we are a part of nature. This means a rediscovering of what it means to be a human as a physical being and a redefining of our relationship with our environment. In order to best support ourselves, we require to best support that which supports us: which is nature. The challenge before us is therefore to restore the Earth to a state of being where it can operate in optimal conditions, as a smooth-running life-support system.

Where the human is involved with animals and plants, the human will monitor the well-being of those plants and animals and become a care-taker of the area that they are occupying – because there is a human impact. Any form of problematic development, such as soil erosion or human waste, as a result of human impact – requires to be managed by the human.

Where humans are not a part of the environment, nature will take care of itself. For instance, if a certain animal or insect increases in numbers to such an extent that they become a negative or destructive impact on their environment – the forces of nature will bring about equilibrium through, for instance, some form of natural disaster that reduces the numbers. Those kinds of natural disasters, which bring about a new form of equilibrium, are part of the distribution cycle of nature. Or if, for instance, a rabbit population expands too rapidly in a certain area – it will cause predator birds to have more access to food, allowing more of them to survive and reproduce. Eventually these birds will be so big in numbers that they will reduce the rabbit population back to where it was. Having less food available, the birds will also reduce in numbers again. So, nature has a variety of ways to correct situations of disharmony and imbalance.

Unlike human beings, animals and plants are very proficient in using the least possible resources. They don’t have the tendency to simply hoard for the sake of having. That is why the form of competition that occurs within nature brings about actual equilibrium, whereas this is not happening in our economic system – because animals and plants will only compete for what is necessary and understand that if their environment as a whole exists in the most optimal way – they themselves will benefit most. Therefore, we will not be tracking every animal and plant to monitor the well-being of each life-form, we will, in essence, be tracking the human impact on nature. This will enable us to assist nature in re-establishing equilibrium where it has been lost. Our role as a human will thus be to rehabilitate nature as a steward so that it can correct itself and re-establish its expression into what it is meant to be.

It must be understood that nature, as a life-support system, has inherent value and that its importance does not only extend in so far as it gives us nice experiences – when we go to the beach or go for a safari-trip. Those experiences are of secondary importance and may not interfere with nature’s expression and optimal functioning. As said above, our interaction with nature will change, where we are not just ‘enjoyers’ of nature, where we no longer merely sit back and ‘enjoy the view’ – but where we are active participants – identifying where nature is struggling to maintain itself and step in with rehabilitative programs and projects – and thus, become a part of the flows of give and receive.

Related articles

• Day 128: What Is Nature Worth To Us?
• 250. Ignoring the Equilibrium of the Physical is our Doom
• Day 123: Health Obsession put Sharks in Peril
• Day 156: Honoring the Right to Life in an Equal Money System
• Day 158: Prevention is the Best Cure - Equal Money System

Day 53: Government Intervention - Part 2

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if we just edit or adjust a few things within our current economic system that things will get better

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that we can try and change/manipulate whatever we want – but as long as we do not change the starting point of our current economic system as justified self-interest – we’ll simply play the same game under a different picture

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that there is a solution within the system – not seeing and realising that the system is the problem – and within that I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing / giving up the current economic system because I fear losing / giving up my self interest

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rather want and go change bits and pieces here and there to make things more ‘equitable’ for those less fortunate – but never take on the system as a whole because I secretly want to hold on to the problem as self-interest because I do not want to give up my hopes and dreams of wealth and living a care free life while others slave away their existence to make my care free life possible

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself advocate particular points such as for instance ‘minimum wage’ and ‘banning child labour’ – without taking into consideration what the consequences/effects/results would be of such actions as I have failed to investigate this reality for real

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a political system where leaders and decision makers are placed in positions of power based on a popularity contest which is based on money – as whoever gets the must funding for their campaign will win the contest – where we end up with leaders who were not trained to be leaders and which lack the skill and understanding of how the world actually operates – and then end up implementing policies to “do good” but end up doing “bad” within not having investigate the nature and dynamics of the current world system

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that there is no solution possible within the system – as it will only create side-effects / consequences which result in a world worse off instead of better off – since we’ve accepted and allowed self-interest to be the guiding principle for all our actions and within that we’ve accepted and justified abuse – so as long as we safeguard and protect self-interest – it will always be the dominating variable in any equation which will overpower and determine the outcome

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that no ‘altruism’, ‘goodness’ or ‘love’ can exist as long as we live in and accept the current world system, as it can only result in more evil, hate and self interest

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to admit that which I know needs to be done – which is the implementation of an Equal Money System so all may finally be equal in accessibility of life sustaining resources

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that we cannot go on like this forever – so we might as well stop now, as it has to be done sooner or later – and the sooner the better

Day 52: Government Intervention

In this section we will have a look at the outflows and consequences which manifest when the government intervenes in the economy. The economic model is designed to ‘stand on its own’, where the forces of supply and demand ought to rule and regulate the market without anyone exerting any form of control or manipulation. It is designed to balance itself out.

However, due to the free market principle – some people are excluded from being able to access (basic) resources because of insufficient financial means. The government might find it necessary to intervene in the economy to allow for more people to be able to access these goods and services.

Price Ceiling
A ‘price ceiling’ is a legal upper limit on the price of a good or service. Once this price ceiling is imposed by the government; it becomes illegal for suppliers to sell the particular good or service at a higher rate than the set ceiling price. This is done to protect consumers from conditions that could possibly make basic commodities inaccessible.

Let us now have a look at the ‘ripple effect’ that comes about when a price ceiling is imposed.
We know that consumers like low prices and that suppliers enjoy high prices. Within the free market an equilibrium price is reached [See Day 49: Resource Distribution: Supply & Demand for a refresher on 'equilibrium price] where both demand and supply meet each other. For a price ceiling to be effective [a maximum price], the government has to set the ceiling below the equilibrium price. If for instance, the equilibrium price of bread is set at $3 a loaf – the government would set a price ceiling at let’s say $1,50 a loaf – to make the bread accessible for a wider range of people. This will initially make the consumer temporarily pleased as he or she can now buy bread or buy more bread with his or her available funds. Though, as we have seen before, the interest of the supplier lies at the opposite side of the equation. The supplier is now not making as much money as he could have been making at the equilibrium price, and considers being at loss with the new price rate. Producing the same amount of bread loaves at the new price is not (as) profitable anymore and the supplier starts producing less. The bread will still be available at $1,50 a loaf – but less bread will be offered. In the end, we have the exact same problem as before the price ceiling was imposed: some will be able to buy bread, and others won’t. The price ceiling has as a side-effect created a shortage in supply and no actual solution has been put in place.


Price Floor
A ‘price floor’ on the other hand, is an imposed minimum price that may be charged for a particular good or service. It becomes illegal to sell the particular good or service at a lower rate than the set floor price. Price floors are imposed by the government to prevent prices from being too low. The most common known price floor is the minimum wage for labour. Price floors are also often used in the agricultural sector in an attempt to protect farmers.

As you can guess, a price floor is not without consequence.

What happens when the price of a product or service increases? Potential buyers are more likely to refrain from buying the product or service as it is considered to be less lucrative to buy the product or service at the floor price. The quantity demanded of the particular good or service decreases.

On the other hand, there will be in an increase of supply, as more people are willing to supply this particular good or service since they can get more money for than at the equilibrium price – for the exact same amount.

If we now have to translate this into a real life practical example such as the minimum-wage, we get the following scenario:

Because of the increased in price for labour, companies are less likely to hire as many people as they would have done at the equilibrium price – because it became more expensive to do so.
Thus some people will be able to get jobs and have a minimum wage that they can live off. But at the same time there will now be people who will not be able to get a job at all, due to the decrease in available job positions. There is a surplus in supply.  In the end the people who were supposed to benefit from the government intervention, are the ones who are worse off in the long run.


Another example of the inefficiency of price floors within our current economic system plays out within the agricultural sector. To provide farmers with a decent income (and thus to keep them motivated to produce food for consumption), the government can introduce a price floor on certain types of food. The farmer will start producing and supplying more of that particular food, as he or she knows that a greater profit is being made. At the same time, a lesser quantity is being demanded as the particular food just became more expensive in the eye of the consumer. A surplus of food is thus created. This can cause massive amount of food to go to waste or lead governments to dump the surplus of food in other countries, which disrupts the local market there – where the farmers there end up not being able to sell their produce as they have been bombarded with cheap surplus food / food-aid from overseas.


Often politicians themselves are not even aware of the side-effects / consequences of making such decisions -- as they are playing a popularity game and are only concerned with doing that which 'looks good' and have no background in economics, or where they will know what the actual effect of their decisions is, but still do it anyway, as the voters are fooled within believing that the politician is being 'altruistic', while nothing really changes.

This again highlights that there is no solution possible within the system – since self-interest is at the base point of everything – and so no matter how you try and ‘manipulate’ the game – self-interest will always bite you in the ass and get what it wants. If you try and change some of the rules, self-interest will simply adapt and do what self-interest does = only care about self, and others will still be hurt in the process. And so no matter what you do, you’ll still end up with a broken system, because the very foundation, the very starting point is unsound. Whatever move you make to “try and make things better” will simply be matched by a counter movement which keeps the entire game / construct in place. 

This dynamic is important to keep in mind, as some people will for instance advocate ‘minimum wage’ without seeing/realizing what the consequences/side-effects are. This doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t have a basic income – it just means that it won’t work in our current system.

That’s why we cannot just ‘edit’ or ‘adjust’ the system – we have to completely and irrevocably replace it with a whole new value system – a value system as the Equal Money System which values Life over all, and works for the whole of Earth and its inhabitants.

Day 51: Resource Distribution - Part 3

I commit myself to expose the true nature of supply and demand -- where a demand is only a demand if a person has the financial means to back up their want/need -- and where again no distinction is being made between want or need -- the system doesn't care whether you're dealing with a want or a need -- if you don't have the money you're not part of the game

I commit myself to expose that our current nature inherently prefers people with money over people with no money and that the system will thus never work for everyone as there is no equality existent currently within the distribution of money all over the world -- it can thus only further widen the inequality gap


I commit myself to expose the dubious nature of economics -- where economics is dubbed the 'science of scarcity' -- while all the while not being interested at all in the responsible management of these 'scarce' resources -- because if you have money, you can get what you want -- no matter how this will impact negatively upon others

I commit myself to expose that economics being fucked up is no secret -- it is right there all laid out in the textbooks, there are no conspiracies who are behind the fucked-up-ness within our world -- the answer has always been right infront of our eyes but we've been too blind to see it/question it -- which only reflects back to us who we really are and what we have accepted and allowed ourselves to be and so allowed it to be manifested within this world as an extension of ourselves


I commit myself to the uniting of divided interests into one interest as that which is Best for All Life -- where all play a role as giver and receiver within the realisation of the responsibility each one has to take on and live to make this place a world which is Best for All




I commit myself to expose the fake sense of 'equality' our current economic system presents -- where the concept of equilibrium sounds nice, and where the math adds up = the amount supplied equals the amount demanded -- it sounds so perfect so it must be right -- without seeing/realising that the equation had to be rigged for it to work out, and is thus not a real point of equilibrium, as it only wants to play equilibrium with those who have money




I commit myself to the responsible management of resources, where we actually look and investigate what is here, how we can use it, how long will it last -- how many beings are there, what are their needs, how can we get the resources they need to them --- where the system will not distribute to those with money and skip those without -- but will give to Life for the sake of Life, where all have a right to the resources to sustain themselves just because they are Here, not because they first have earn it

I commit myself to the establishment of an Equal Money Economic System, the first Economic System which cares about all Life and cares about the resources Earth has provided, managing them responsibly and with sustainability in mind at all times

Day 50: Resource Distribution - Part 2

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created an economic system which relies on the principle on ‘Supply and Demand’ to distribute resources to beings – where I / we’ve accepted and allowed ‘demand’ to only count if and when a person has money to back up there want/need – and within that I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to make a distinction between wants and needs – where it doesn’t matter what one wants/needs as long as they have the money to back up what they want/need, I don’t care about what it is they want/need

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created and agreed upon an economic system which favours beings with money over beings with no money – where we / I have accepted and allowed ourselves to place value within money over Life and within that create disastrous consequence as that which has Real Value as Life, as the Physical is now completely disregarded in the name of Money

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that since no-one has ever been equal in terms of money – a system such as the one we have now which works within the principle of supply and demand and where demand is only validated through having the financial means to back up you want/need, with not everyone having money/having access to equal money – can and will only result in the deepening of inequality and this misery within this world

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to actually read that which is being taught within economics textbooks – where I will simply read the theory of supply and demand and go “okay so that’s how it works” without ever questioning or looking at what is being implied within the theories – and within that accept and allow the current condition of the world as inequality resulting in suffering for the majority to continue to exist

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a division between those who supply and those who consume – where each are standing at opposite self-interest sides – instead of seeing and realising that everyone is part of this world and thus should form part of both creating as giving and ‘consuming’ as receiving – and so both groups self-interest ought to be aligned to what is Best for All as each play their part within the Body of Existence

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created an economic system where wants are valued over needs within having defined the starting point of economy as using resources to satisfy human wants – and within that I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created an economic system where not everyone wants and needs can be satisfied because of the reality that we cannot satisfy unlimited wants through limited means – and so I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a system of supply and demand in an attempt to ‘scale down’ the amount of people who ‘demand’ a particular good/service – and within that make it appear as if the market is ‘satisfied’ – as through the equilibrium principle the amount supplied will equal the amount demand which sounds so nice – where an illusion of ‘equality’ is created without seeing/realising that this is not real equality as a whole bunch of beings had to be taken out of the equation for the system to work – and those are the beings who end up living in slums/townships fending for their lives

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place the responsibility of what needs to be produced and to whom it must go within a system of supply and demand – where producers will solely consider what is demanded and supply accordingly without ever stopping for a moment and asking themselves whether this is really best for all

Day 49: Resource Distribution: Supply & Demand

As seen in ‘Day 40: What is Economics?’, economics essentially deals with three questions: what should be produced, how should it be produced, who gets to consume what is produced.

Within Supply and Demand – we’ll be looking at how our current economic system decided to answer some of these questions.

Not all wants and needs are considered to be demands in the world of economy. Your need or want will only be interpreted as an actual demand once you have the purchasing power to acquire the goods and services to satisfy your particular want or need.

This practically implies that you can ‘want’ and ‘need’ all you want – if you do not have the financial means to acquire these resources, then you will not get them. This is obviously very problematic and a very well – stupid – way to set up an economic system. It does in no way whatsoever consider everyone but only those who have money. If everyone at some point had been given an equal amount of money – it might have worked out for a little while, but even that never happened. So the decision to work with demand in terms of wanting/needing something and having the money to back up this want/need – is very deliberate, since we’ve never at any point in history have been ‘equal’ in terms of purchasing power and so the decision to only consider/distribute towards those who have money, implies a very specific preference of people with money over people with no money. Problem!

So currently, the economic system is set up to provide only to those with Money – and so within an Equal Money System, to be able to provide for all – we’ll simply provide everyone with money so EVERYONE can be included and be ‘represented’ within the system through having money available.

The interaction and relationship between supply and demand illustrates how prices are determined and is one of the most fundamental concepts to the free market economy.

As mentioned in previous posts, resources such as goods and services are scarce. They are available in limited quantities only. By setting a price on goods and services you are ‘scaling down’ the scope of people who can afford or demand the good or service.

Prices are determined by looking both at how much people are willing to pay for a particular good and how much suppliers are willing to supply at any given price – and so as these two come together and cross – a price has been determined (this will become clearer later).

The amount of people who are able to purchase the product is thus controlled through the price.
For instance, everyone might want bread to eat – but suppliers are not interested in supplying everyone with bread for free because that would not make them any money, and so instead of producing a lot of bread, a limited amount is produced which is not enough for everyone – and so people start “competing” to get themselves a loaf of bread, which is done basically as a form of ‘bidding’ and so for instance the price will be set at $1 a loaf – and all the people who do not have this money are then ‘eliminated’ from the equation and now only those with money will be able to get bread. And so the illusion is created that everyone who wants bread gets bread and everyone is happy – while it is only this way because everyone who did not have the means to get the bread has been eliminated through the principle of ‘demand’.

This is how the forces of supply and demand attempt to come to a point of equilibrium. This equilibrium price per unit comes about where the quantity demanded by consumers will equal the quantity supplied by producers (more on this later).

The Law of Demandstates that:  with all other factors remaining equal – the higher the price of a good, the fewer people will demand that particular good. In other words: when the price goes up, the demand goes down. The ‘reasoning’ behind this, is that humans are compelled to want to obtain everything as cheap as possible – this is considered to be in their best interest.

Let us illustrate the Law of Demand with the use of a graph:

In the above graph, A, B and C are point on the demand curve (D). At point A (highest price), a certain amount Q1 is demanded (lowest quantity). As the dot moves from A to point B, to point C: the price decreases, and the quantity demandedincreases.

The Law of Supplystates that: as the price of a good or service increases, the quantity produced and supplied will increase. The logic applied here is that a producer will increase his production and supply of a good or service when prices increase, because the producer wants to use this as an opportunity to obtain greater revenue.

 

 As you can see in the above chart, the quantity supplied will increase as price increases. Both the person who demand and the person supplying are following their own self-interest – which as an effect has them going in opposite directions: As prices rise, demand will become less but supply will become more – there is a constant polarity pull in play.

(Note that these quantities are always in relation to a particular time frame, where a particular amount is demanded per day / week / month / year , etc.)

There is always a certain time-lapse present between a change in demand and a change in supply. This sometimes causes unfortunate outcomes. If one year for instance, the demand for a particular product such as ‘cooling fans’ has been fairly low due to unusual cold weather circumstances – the supplier might feel the need to respond to this decrease in demand by decreasing fan production – because he is not getting all of his stock sold. If in the next couple of months a sudden heat wave occurs then the demand will change instantly but there will be a shortage of fans until the supplier has had the time to respond to this change in demand. This dynamic of producing more and less in relation to demand can sometimes we quite problematic when we are dealing with for instance crops. Crops are seasonal, sometimes annual and thus the time-lapses taking place are greater in proportion. If the farmer notes a particular demand for corn at point X in time, he will plant and plan according to that demand. But by the time his crop is ready for harvesting, the demand will already have changed overtime and his current obtained supply will no longer match the new current demand. If this happens on a big scale, the consequences grow in the same proportion (and if this crop is all you’ve got – which is a situation many poor famers currently find themselves in – and if you don’t get your crop sold because of a change in demand, and had put everything into this crop = then you’re in big shit).

Equilibrium

If we now combine both the supply and the demand curve into one graph, we can indicate where the point of ‘equilibrium’ would be:

Where the supply and demand curve meet, is the point of equilibrium. In this instance it is represented by point B through which both curves cross.

In theory, the price for the particular good concerning would thus be set at the price P2 with a quantity supplied of Q2.

The same way as prices are calculated for products, wages and salaries are calculated for jobs. Their ‘value’ is equated in terms of scarcity and availability.

Note though that this is only a ‘perfect theoretical model’ and that in reality a lot more factors influence the determination of prices. Even though reality will not follow this exact scheme, it gives you an idea of what type of ‘reasoning’ the economic world follows – which will assist in the future understanding of discussions pertaining economic issues.

Note: The economic world acknowledges that this is a somewhat unfair and flawed system - and that not everyone having equal access to all resources is just an “inconvenient fact of life”. The current system is justified by claiming that we would be worse off with any other alternative. This is true to a certain extent, as there is no solution or improvement possible within the framework of the system itself (which will become clearer as we progress through the various blogs). That is why the Equal Money System is not just a re-alignment of our current monetary and economic system – but a complete and total replacement. -- it will thus not be governed by the same rules and forces as our current system. We have been so conditioned to think “inside the box” that it is hard to fathom and envision an Equal Money System. We easily make the mistake of relating Equal Money concepts back to what we already know as the current system we live in (= “the box”). This ‘drawback’ influences how we perceive and interpret the concepts we hear or read about as we are placing them in an incorrect context. It is thus important to ‘step back’ for a moment when processing information on the Equal Money System and allow yourself to fully grasp what is actually said and not what you *think* is being said.

Excess Supply[price is too high]

If the price of a product is set too high there will be an excess of supply for that particular good or service – and the price setting will be labelled as ‘inefficient’.

Producers want to produce a lot of a good or service in the hope to increase their profits – while the consumer will find the product or service less and less appealing and will purchase it in lesser quantities because the price is seen as too high. Eventually the supplier will be forced to lower his price in an attempt to sell all of his product or services. When the price is lowered to a point where all products and services are consumed – equilibrium is reached. The market is perceived as saturated. Any price above the equilibrium price will leave an excess of supply.

Excess Demand [price is too low]

If the price of a good or service is set below the equilibrium level – an excess of demand will be created. There is a greater quantity demanded of the particular good or service than there is available. When this happens, the price of the good or service will be increased until equilibrium is reached – to lower the level of competition.

This whole Supply and Demand model just re-emphasizes how we are allowing conflicting self-interest to rule the world – instead of aligning our separate individual self-interests to One interest as what is Best for All Life – and within that eliminate the need for all these various models and interaction models to tell us what to do according within the respect and honour of everyone’s separate little mind reality bubble and within that not provide basic necessities for everyone.

The next point to be discussed (after Self Forgiveness and Commitment Statements) will be how the government will try and intervene to make things more equitable and how it works out just the opposite.