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| I selected this picture to let friends of mine know I am still paying attention to what they are posting. |
Before
getting started, we felt it was a good time to reiterate that our
proposal is about you having OWNERSHIP of OUR monetary machine, for a
nominal yearly dues in THEIR money, that anyone can afford. What is
offered is the opportunity, for once in you life, to OWN something
that will actually be YOURS and expresses one of your fundamental
human rights as best understood by the Bill of Rights; the first ten
amendments to the US Constitution and by natural law; your right to
contract and through that right, the exercise of your will (fiat) to
issue your own money.
It
must also further be more fully understood and appreciated that this
proposal must succeed only as allowed by local law and that this
proposal is not a money laundry nor a tax dodge. Everything must
function under existing law. That means that wherever any
locality has outlawed any but THEIR money, that you have direct
evidence that you are living under a tyranny which you must either
agree to endure or seek lawful residence elsewhere.
The
organizational design involves a private tax paying for profit
entity; IVES (the international Valun Exchange Society), the service
organization for all the associated network of local exchanges and in
which each A member has ownership along with ownership in a local
exchange. IVES provides us with the standards. These standards are
to be manifested in a set of rules for all the local independent
exchanges. These would also be tax paying for profit entities. We
call them exchanges because that's what E. C. Riegel called them.
Each local exchange does the accounting and the advertising drives
among it's B members. IVES also conducts audits when required to do
so and would be empowered to settle certain kinds of disputes.
This
proposal can best be described as essentially an assembly or
association of PRIVATE and privately owned accounting businesses
(serving a physical geographical area, not an internet oriented Valun
exchange). Each exchange also seeks local advertising revenue to use
to produce our circulating paper currency, the six month duration
open V-Checks. These would be available in denominations of Valuns
(international standard value units), beginning with the Half-Valun,
One Valun, Two Valun, Five Valun and Ten Valun. (Ten Valuns is
$26.59 @ 2/25/19)
Currently,
these measures follow the laws which in the United States disallow
anything circulating as money with a value less than a US dollar or
longer than six months. That's fine with us, because as we shall
see, THEIR money is to be reserved for those things which must be
paid with it, beginning with taxes.
Our
membership consists of eligible A members. B member businesses may
purchase advertising from their local exchange and advertising
expenses are tax deductible. These ads appear on the reverse sides
of our V-Checks and so this information is passed among members so
they can know who trades in Valuns. We buy and sell among ourselves
and progressively (truly so) begin to form our own economy and have
less and less to do with THEIRS.
Why
are we doing this? Because THEIRS is FAKE, PHONY and FALSE, even
when it claims to be based on precious metals, as THEY will
inevitably turn us back to a “sound” or “hard backed” money,
whatever THEY claim for it, since it is all THEIR money and precious
metals are merely the other end of THEIR dialectic; either THEIR
credit or THEIR gold. Understood? AND, do you think for a split
second that THEY will stop lending money THEY don't have (fractional
reserve lending) even if THEIR money is supposedly “sound” or
“backed”? Of course not. But many die hard gold bugs continue
to ignore this inevitability. Again, to accept anything from THEM is
slavery. We need our own money.
Yes,
reiterating this: Dues paying A members would OWN these exchanges, so
each owner would have one vote in all elections for officers, etc.
both for IVES as well as each local exchange. These proposed
independent local exchanges (sites where the accounting for each area
are conducted) would be PRIVATE for profit tax paying
institutions, whose primary mission is the advertising and
promotion of local businesses that would belong to each exchange, as
well as conducting as much as required of the necessary accounting
for our complementary monetary machine.
Local
B member businesses would be attracted and formed and begin joining
too and eventually our new and attractive V-Checks would soon be seen
in our wallets and around our local neighborhoods. Eventually we
will be dropping them into envelopes and sending them around the
world in fulfillment of orders. These will be cleared through the
exchanges at both ends. Believe me, trade will find a way,
especially when THEIR system finally falls, and it will.
The
system at present may not be merely sick, or even terminally ill. It
might actually be dead and may be at the moment kept alive in a
comatose state. Remember, we have shown that approximately 97% of
all the financial assets in the world are in the hands of the top 5%,
perhaps as few as the top 2%, and the rest of us are expected to
subsist on the remaining 3%. And one can examine hours of videos on
abandoned properties to see the destruction of wealth and the death
of money. Can any of these places be repurposed? What would it
cost? Why are such monstrosities virtually worthless even when so
much was spent on their construction or maintenance? Too much “build
it and they will come?” Too much leverage, deliberately exploiting
momentary economies of scale which couldn't have even been considered
without extraordinary financing? Such it is, until it is not and in
any case none of you out there has any control.
So
part of this proposal is to recognize this situation squarely for
what it is and to start again with we ourselves, as people and as
individuals as well as groups of people engaged in income producing
businesses.
In
case anyone has not been paying attention to recent events, the
future is certainly not with globalism and will be with populism,
localism, regionalism, nationalism, greater economic redundancy and
more genuine competition, where innovation is naturally put to work,
where meaningful efficiencies to scale produce quality results.
This
is a proposal that places a firm grip on technology for its own sake.
This proposal could be built using very common open source
technology. As we have pointed out consistently throughout this
blog, money is accounting, therefore the meaning and purpose
of enabling exchange using this accounting machine of ours is based
on our ownership of our money in our accounts. If some people
would rather cash out and rely only on V-Checks, and run into the
exchange to get replacements every so often, because the cash is
still in the cash account, it hasn't moved anywhere until the V-Check
is deposited into another account, we certainly don't mind, because
the owner has paid their dues and as long as they do, they have an
account in one of our exchanges. [7/15/19: These cash accounts belong to the members of each exchange not to the business entity each
exchange will represent. Each business always has its own asset cash
account, separately from all other business and subject to the rules and
laws defining each kind of business entity. The transaction fees would flow into each exchange's
own cash account, not into the member owned cash account each exchange
will maintain, with oversight when required by IVES.]
In
the developing Valun economy, B Member businesses are the engines of
wealth; that which produces income. All these businesses, if they
already exist, conduct business in THEIR money, especially the
collection of taxes. Any new businesses that decide to conduct the
majority of their business in Valuns, will still need to collect
whatever taxes apply in THEIR money.
In
the beginning, a business would elect to sell a certain percentage of
their inventory or service hours or whatever are the terms of sale,
in Valuns. It may be as low as 10% at first. But as the Valun
economy takes off, these percentages would naturally rise.
It
will be the responsibility of each business to account for their
sales and inventory sold in Valuns and to supply that transaction
information to the local exchange. Since the dullest pencil is still
sharper than the best memory, pre-printed standard pages might be
used. In any case, the transaction details would include the date,
the taxes collected and the percentage tax rate. Since all B member
businesses within the United States would get a standard 1099, which
determines tax liability for Valun transactions in dollars, this
would demonstrate that taxes were actually collected.
We
are not anywhere near the place yet, where we can presume that our
rents and utilities can be transacted in Valuns, so whatever THEIR
money, enough has to be brought in to cover these overhead expenses,
until they can be conducted in Valuns instead. This is where E. C.
Riegel's idea of a complementary money takes up the slack. There may
be opportunities to produce product or service in excess of the
amount of THEIR money available. Should taxes rise or other basic
costs continue to rise, and we should all expect that they will,
because that's what happens with THEIR money, we would naturally need
to bring in more of THEIR money to settle these things. But more and
more transactions can and would be conducted in Valuns, because among
other things, prices in Valuns would remain more stable over the long
run and are not impacted by the usual sources of inflation.
As
an example, if anyone wants to suppose that in order to support say
the price of a pound of butter at V1 (one Valun), then places more
distant from the supply might pay slightly more and those closer
less, but eventually word gets around; a particular place has a
greater need for butter than another, etc. and prices find their
places. We all recognize that those willing to buy more of anything
usually get a discount. So whatever terms any business decides, and
can satisfy, is strictly a local and private affair. No outside
planners or commodities speculators are required and in fact are
discouraged, because we simply wont have the financing available for
those activities. So yes, there will be realistic limits to
production for each business, based on the very real diminishing
returns to scale law as it naturally applies differently to all
businesses.
The
structure of a B member account is the three balances are previously
described:
The
equity balance
The
income balance
The
escrow balance
We
have already said that the equity balance represents what the
organization would be worth in Valuns if it were an asset to be sold
to another member, whether that be an A or a B member. Usually those
wholly owned material assets that the organization sells along with
the business, are given comparable value in Valuns and accumulated
and accounted for in this balance.
Another
use of this equity balance is to account for any inventory intended
for sale. For instance, if a dairy wants to sell 1,000 pounds of
butter at V1 a pound, a transaction of V1,000 is added into this
balance, without fee too, because the Valuns don't exist until they
are paid/sent into another member account for some good or service.
Then, when a sale is made, someone buys ten pounds of butter, the
requisite V10 is deducted from the equity balance as the same sum is
added to the B member's income balance.
Let's
look a little more closely at this: The inventory of butter is a
thousand pounds to be sold for Valuns at V1 per pound. A transaction
is made to account for that inventory by adding V1,000 to the dairy's
equity balance. The inventory is also probably identified by some
symbol that is the same used when completing a sale. When the dairy
B member comes in with sales slips and Valuns, the transactions are
each constructed to reduce the inventory in the equity balance and
increase the income balance by the same amount. Any business may
elect to alter their inventory at any time. So some things that
might have been offered for sale might be removed from the inventory
or their prices changed by the business owner at any time. There
would be a prearranged provision to let the B member know when their
inventory fell below a certain number.
We've
also already said that any equipment that would be included in this
“asset ownership” balance would also be determined in Valuns and
may be subject to a Depreciation Allowance Contract or DAC.
The same might actually apply to inventories as well since almost all
inventories depreciate.
The
only money flows that face taxation are inflows to a businesses
income balance. These transactions are listed and a report is
supplied, probably quarterly, to each B member business. After all
these transactions are acknowledged by the B member, at the end of a
tax year, a 1099 (in the US) is provided for the business to settle
its taxes.
Some
have asked whether when a business operates in both dollars and
Valuns, whether two sets of books are involved or implied. The
answer is a resounding NO! A book of entries computed in a
complementary currency is always an extension of any
businesses existing books. What any business gains through expanding
their business or merely shifting percentages of it to trade in
Valuns, is still a part of their total business and asset accounting;
not another set of phony books to fool the taxman, but an expanded
set of the already existing accounting.
We
expect to hear from business owners who have specific ideas that they
would like the proposed Valun system to cover. We are encouraged by
the number of visits this site continues to get. I have changed my
e-mail address and shall change all references to the older address
in the next few weeks.
David
Burton
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