#57.18: Perspective – The Sales Pitch

1) Why do we need more money?

Those among the 2% who have on average 97% of the all the financial resources on earth, don't need more money. The rest of us are expected to subsist on the remaining 3%. Most of us need more money. One hears all kinds of pronouncements from economists, all beating the same drum; THEIR system is fair and just and works the way it does and woe be to any outsider whoever tries to displace THEM. Again, just who are THEY? Broadly, globalists, bankers, elitists, technocrats, satanists (those who have an entitlement complex to be predators on others), pedovores (the whole range of abuse here), scribes (writers and lawyers) and Pharisees (politicians and their sycophants). We need our own money so that we can and will be able to move out from under THEM and away from THEM as THEY face ultimate oblivion.  We, the people, by our work and our will, choose not to follow THEM.

2) Why should we accept the Valun?

The proposed Valun (international standard value unit) does not change. It is based on a specific piece of purchasing power defined by an ounce of gold bullion for $2,160 on 11/2/11 a specific point in TIME. We divide this by a thousand and get our Valun at inception at $2.16. But today, the price of gold is 12% lower than at inception. So the present value of the Valun is $2.43. The Valun can never fall below $2.16 nor rise higher than $4.32 should gold all of a sudden become worthless, which is not very likely.

E. C. Riegel made many contributions to our understanding of monetary reality. He seemed to sense that defeating the “commodity theory of money” would be absolutely necessary, though he didn't state it quite that way. Riegel was an autodidact. We need more of them. There were others who saw this flaw in THEIR monetary understandings. Arthur Kitson was one of them. With a solid unchanging reference point, we can tell right away whether precious metals or US dollars (THEIR primary brands of THEIR money) are gaining or losing purchasing power compared with ours. Right now, precious metals are gaining purchasing power and dollars are losing purchasing power.

What happens should our inception point ever be surpassed by gold prices forcing our initial $2,160 per ounce higher? We raise the inception point and all Valuns assume this new higher valuation. It will never be possible to lower the inception, therefore Valuns will retain their purchasing power over all THEIR money. Should US dollars no longer buy gold, the US dollar, after years of constant economists prattling, is probably done for as functioning money, much like what happened to the Venezuelan Bolivar.   This provision ultimately results in a harder and heavier Valun moving forward against all of THEIR money.

For example, let's say that gold surpasses $4,300 per ounce spot price. That makes our bid price up to 25% higher, $5,375 per ounce. That new inception point is recognized by IVES (everyone should be able to explain the relationship between IVES and the local exchanges) and the Valun is now $5.38. Now what happens when the price of gold falls from there? The new valuation is going to make it more expensive in gold in present dollars and therefore the Valun goes up further. It may be necessary when that happens, because it's probably going to happen, to have V-Checks representing V¼. At the new inception, at $5.38, the quarter Valun would be at $1.35 and the cento or fen would be a bit above five cents American. 

3) How does this help us build wealth?

Since our goal for everyone is individual-sufficiency, individual-actualization, individual-attainment, etc. we recognize that we will need to interact with each other, through exchange of our work for goods and services, we will need to organize to actually own together that which helps us all toward our individual goals. That's one reason Riegel called the new organizations we would require, “exchanges.” The present monetary system cannot and will never be sufficient to our needs. THEY already know that we seek ways out of THEIR system, so THEY devised cryptocurrencies, so that THEY can eventually put up their “social scoring” technology against us. We are also flatly opposed to more reliance on the internet, which also belongs to THEM. Our proposal understands these realities and seeks ways out of and away from THEM and THEIR systems and solutions.

Wealth to us, must provide an income, or it isn't wealth. Each one of us has acquired some interests and skills that are capable of providing us an income, therefore our work, the time out of the rest of our lives spent earning money (barter), constitutes our individual innate wealth, just waiting for expression as income to us. That extra income, from undeveloped or expressed innate wealth, is used to maintain and build more wealth opportunities, all intended to provide income to us. Having the Valun as a supplementary currency allows us to grow our wealth apart from and beside THEIRS. Eventually, as THEIR fake STOLEN fiat, unbacked credit and “commodity money” systems are seen for what they are, more people will want out into something else. The Valun will be worth having and saving as well as spending and investing in projects that actually benefit people rather than stealing from them. 

4) How does this help us ensure that our children have a future? 

Valun accounts are inheritable assets among all our members. Our children will be the normal and natural inheritors of our assets. There is little or nothing about the present monetary system that can be relied upon long term and anyway, none of it actually belongs to us. So we need our own that can eventually belong to people of our choice, usually our families and our children.

5) How does this proposal help local businesses?

In our proposal, an individual gets an A member account with V200 in it. They can set up a B member account for their own business for free as long as they put Valuns into it. Any business can put Valuns into their business account by submitting transactions to increase the Valuns in their Equity balance. Any tools, inventory, supplies, fully paid for in THEIR money can be added for their value in Valuns. There are no transaction fees for making changes to the Equity balance, as all the changes occur in one account. You would be building the value of your business in Valuns. Some businesses that are already in existence can apportion a percentage of their inventory for sale in Valuns or some other equipment that is fully paid for that would be included in their business.

The proposal intends to limit the competition from “public” corporations and “public” institutions. No B member business may be an absentee owner, “limited liability” corporation. No government organizations may be B members either. The intention is to limit the Valun market to actual producers as far as possible. A B member business intends to make money as a for profit operation. They must have identifiable owners. An A member opening a B member business is the actual owner of that business. Otherwise many A members can form partnerships and all family owned and operated businesses are encouraged to become B members.

6) How does the Valun defeat price inflation?

Another of Riegel's contributions was the recognition that price inflation was directly influenced by government spending over taxation; deficit spending. The only break on this, as we have maintained, ignored by most of THEIR economists, is the role of depreciation of assets in the destruction of money. The second hand markets for all goods and services actually provide a hedge against general price inflation.

Let's examine THEIR fundamental explanation for inflation; too much money chasing too few goods. This idea has a fundamental flaw, which means that it's a lie. It concerns something very simple, the observation that not all units of exchange (money) can or will be bid on the prices of all goods at the same time. Not everyone shares the same interests, has the same perceptions of economic decisions, including whether to make or buy something, whether to expand or contract business based on risks, etc.

Our contention is that the stability of the Valun over time, designed specifically to beat all of THEIR money, will tend to bring prices into whatever the correct balances between offered products and services will be and over time these prices will become more stable. Conversely, any differences in price, from a longer term average, will be easily identified as caused by either temporary or permanent changes in buying habits, the results of real physical shortages, etc. rather than the relentless march of higher prices brought about deliberately by THEM to steal more and more from us.

7) How does advertising help sponsor our money?

We need to identify ourselves to each other in ways that improve our bottom lines. We proposed that the actual tokens in our proposed system, the six month open Valun-Checks (V-Checks), would be the most attractive advertising we could make it, cheap enough to circulate among us and provide necessary account clearing information. Businesses that can afford it, would be encouraged to buy advertising from their local exchange, that would appear on the backs of these V-Checks. To begin with, they would be issued in V½, V1, V2, V5 and V10 denominations. They will require paid advertising on all their reverse sides.

8) How is usury defeated?

The rent of money is the particular subject associated with gaining income from wealth, in the form of money. Wealth to us must produce an income, so besides each one of us having innate wealth, which is free enterprise, the acquisition of more money would enable us to practice capitalism, the making of money on money without work.

But unlike THEIR system, all the rent for any borrowed money must be paid up front, and very importantly, paid out of already existing money, not as in THEIR system, from money that was never issued over and above the issued money supply. We have also determined that THEIR fractional reserve system allows certain special people the authority to loan money they don't actually have. We forbid this practice. We have also deliberately separated the transaction clearing function from the money lending function.

Since none of the money in the accounts we will maintain belongs to anyone else but the owners, there is no need for deposit insurance because there will never be any outside lending claims against any of this money as any kind of reserve. If someone intends on becoming a financier, they would have to acquire the necessary Valuns to lend from those who have the most of them at the opening of the exchange, and pay those people up front as well for the rent of their money.

If anyone needs to borrow money in our proposed system, they will pay the rent for it up front out of already existing money and all compounding of interest, allowing claims upon claims for money that never existed, thus causing a “musical chairs” economy everywhere; this is also forbidden.

We further make borrowed money work for the communities it is raised within rather than some other communities with one of our 80% rules; if a lender raises the money within a particular exchange area, then 80% of that money must be lent within that same area. This simple rule helps eliminate capital flight away from where it is produced and invested. Obviously the more productive a community is, the more financing it will have and conversely.

No matter where one is, our proposal upholds and supports the work ethic, which begins with our perception that all work is the time out of the rest of your life to produce or provide something for payment in money to satisfy the terms of barter. The erroneous assumption, another lie, is that transactions using whole barter are different from those using money. But in truth, barter never goes away. We just use money to set up and clear our terms of barter, splitting the terms of the trade between buyer and seller.

We have other practical rules for ensuring that everyone stay out of onerous debt. The practical goal for our system is that everyone operates in the black, not the red

9) How is poverty defeated by this proposal?

E. C. Riegel observed that only the poor should be able to issue money without producing anything. He was referring to the indigent. How do we determine indigence among our prospective members? Let's begin by saying that any business that is running in the red is not fit to remain in business. So businesses may come and may go, but individual people, their needs and aspirations, remain. Our proposal benefits any who are disabled, veterans, unable to work, retired or homeless.

Within the United States, and eventually everywhere else, we only have one simple question; are you really an American citizen and can show proof of it? Many of our citizens are chronically homeless, unemployed, etc. and we'll be honest, for some of these people, perhaps nothing but some form of extended stays in sanatoriums for remediation of longstanding difficulties, is likely to produce beneficial results. In other words, this powerful tool, important as it is, may not be sufficient in and of itself to help the most needy.

Nevertheless we have as part of our proposal that indigents would be eligible to issue Valuns based on some predetermined policy, backed by a form of credit contract between the indigent and the exchange. Since it takes two sponsors for each A member, the indigent member will know and be known by other members of the community. Perhaps their ability to issue Valuns will change, perhaps not. An indigent might decide to spend as few of his Valuns as he can, saving sufficient Valuns, so that when he has the means, he opens a B member business and begins the process of sliding out of indigence.

Who benefits from any extra Valuns that enter the system? The poor will likely spend most of theirs. So who gets them? The producers. And unlike any of THEIR money, none of the extra Valuns can contribute to inflation directly, because the exchange value of each and every Valun is never determined by speculation (speculators) concerning the amount of money available to lend, nor in calculations of the financier's take, the interest out of money that was never created/issued.

We suggested a long time ago that probably the first segment of the population to attract to our proposal would be law enforcement, both active and retired, and their grandmothers. Likewise veterans and their grandmothers. Let's look at a few details from our proposal that have specific meaning for these segments of our population.

We cannot operate anything without adequate law enforcement. We need and want these people to be part of our private economy. Whether retired or not, we can help them. Any A member begins with an Issuance balance of V200. Any active law enforcement may become A members and while earning THEIR money, earn up to 80% more in Valuns. Since their employer is some government that can't become a B member, each police officer has a labor contract with the exchange itself operating as a proxy. These contracts are simple one page affairs that specify how many Valuns at what times are deposited into their Income balances.

Now then, their grandmothers, retirees, veterans, etc. We have another policy that says that these A members can issue as many Valuns as the accumulated proceeds received from any and all pensions, retirements, etc. since Valun inception on 11/2/11. If you received Social Security since that time, you can begin stacking your yearly statements because when the exchanges start near you, you can take those into our offices and find out how many thousands of Valuns you will be entitled to issue. If someone has retired from some skilled job having its own pension, whether paid or not (as some have gone broke through incompetence or corruption), as long as they have documented proof, they will be able to issue 100% of all that value in Valuns.

We hence have three ways that Valuns can enter the market using them; by work (labor contracts), by will (credit contracts) and by indigence. The way Valuns disappear from the system is the same as in any other money, through depreciation of assets.

This is a simple idea and doesn't take any advanced degrees to understand. If anything is sold for less than it was purchased for, the difference in terms of money, disappears, dies, is gone forever, never to return. The quickest way to a continual recession would be one where nobody ever bought any used goods. Then, inflation would behave according to THEIR economic rules, and happen much faster. We'd also be buried in used junk before too long. But of course, nobody follows this because used goods are everywhere and nobody is FORCED to buy brand new of anything. The same economic rules affect recycled materials. Any work to recapture discarded value, can still produce an income, but comparisons between the brand new and the slightly used, well worn or obsolete, surely affect the prices asked and any differences between an item being sold as brand new and one sold as obsolete, always involve the destruction of money over the useful life of the asset.

All of which illustrates how far off THEIR limited quantity of some scare commodity theories about money, pricing, etc. really are, since money is created and is destroyed. There is no conservation of energy theory here or any other such nonsensical idealism. Legitimate money, not THEIRS, always begins when someone buys something and is always destroyed in the process of asset depreciation. In fact, there are many cases where the superlative quantities of stuff, great mansions, great estates, luxury automobiles, etc. are no longer economically sustainable, since they often do not provide or produce any income. Many of these items become so top heavy in relative valuations, that they become practically worthless. Remember that the next time you think to expand your holdings too far. There will always be taxes to pay in THEIR money. Consider it a protection racket or a FORCE of Nature as you will, taxes will always present a limitation on what any of us may do.

Since the proposal is nether a tax dodge nor a money laundry, all prospective A members would be aware that in joining and owning come tax responsibilities that can only be handled in THEIR money. And very important, we have a way into exchanging THEIR money for Valuns, but there is no way back to THEIR money. Money laundering is eliminated in this way.

We say today (8/17/19) that a Valun is worth approximately $2.43 and that's what we'd expect a member to pay in dues if collected today, but they can't cash out of Valuns back into any of THEIR money, because the Valun is intended to be the rock bottom for all money everywhere eventually. Of course some scoundrel might try and operate within the Valun system trying to produce something that would be sold only in dollars. But none of that sales would ever show up as transactions representing income to that B member business. It would show up on the rest of the accounts representing their business, not the B member account. Were such practices to be attempted, we assure you that they would fail pretty badly, especially since before one got anything to sale, it is likely that THEIR money would have inflated more and reduced their expectations of reward. So, it's best to stick with Valuns.

Now we have indicated three groups of people with respect to Valun issuance, because only money that is issued by individual natural persons in the act of settling their barter is legitimate money to us; THEIR money is still money all right, but it is illegitimate, entirely because of who issued it, either some government or some bank. These three groups of people are the employed, retirees and the indigent.

We fully expect the indigent, not all but some, will decide to start businesses and begin acquiring assets in furtherance of those businesses and that they will all begin by establishing a B membership and adding to that business's Equity balance. Eventually, these self-employed formerly poor people may well slide off their indigence contracts with their exchanges and begin to become self sustaining. The rest will furnish the only free money to anyone in the system.

Retirees are given their entire accumulated pensions since Valun inception on 11/2/11 in Valuns to issue. These do not represent earned income because they aren't actually money until they are spent into existence. But they are assets that can be inherited by another member. That information is part of the membership contract everyone will have with their local exchange.

Example: Joe, a retired Army officer, has an initial V45,000 in his issuance balance. He does nothing but spend down his issuance and upon his decease has V25,000 and has bequeathed this asset to his niece Judy, who is an A member. She gets her uncle's V25,000 issuance and might be subject to whatever taxes this implies. Right now, 25,000 x 2.43 = $60,750.

If taxes are required, what's the surest way to raise money? I'm suggesting that the precious metals dealers we associate ourselves with, will be willing to hold some Valuns. They would actually need to, in order to hold a B member account open. If you have a valid tax receipt and this would probably be the only exception we would ever allow, you would take however many Valuns it takes, buy gold or silver coins with your Valuns from one of our reputable B member business engaged in dealing in precious metals, and then reselling them for the money required to pay the taxes. This will probably be the only way any of our money becomes transferable back into theirs and will presume that any and all precious metals dealers understand the role and value of the Valun moving forward.

How would a precious metals dealer be able to sell their wares for Valuns? The same way any other business would, by setting up as a B member and allocating a certain amount of inventory for sale in Valuns into their Equity balance. Right now (8/17/19) an ounce of gold trades for V875.25 and the dealer will probably want slightly more to effect the transfer.  As the recent rise in precious metals indicates, their purchasing power is increasing relative to dollars.  Were the price of gold to reach our bid price of $2,160, making each Valun $2.16, then an ounce of gold bullion would trade for 1,000 Valuns as it did at Valun inception.

We presume that precious metals dealers are just like any other mortals and would want the benefits of local trade wherever they are operating. From the very beginning, we steadfastly recommended that there would be a place for precious metals dealers in our system. They would be the only effective means of converting THEIR money into ours or vice versa. But unless to raise money for taxes, there won't be any means of exchanging out of our own money into THEIRS.

Now then, how does one go about selling this proposal? Best to go out by two. Both should be signed up as putative A members. That way the two of you can sponsor any you sign up. Since there isn't an exchange as yet, you would be forming a local steering committee and signing up for the exchange that shall be. You would accept the V1 yearly dues, whatever that is, from each who signs up. You will have to keep all these funds separate, so I recommend as a temporary expedient only, that three of you decide to form a DBA (doing business as) and secure a regular checking account under that DBA until the DBA is re-established as a local exchange up and running and open for business. Then that DBA goes away and the assets of the defunct DBA now belong to the local exchange.

Tell everyone that this is something you are building that will require at least a year to bring into existence; they are being asked to pay it forward. Let them know what will be required, the software, hardware, etc. Describe what the local exchange is supposed to be like and how it is expected to function. Let them know that for some of them, you would be looking for advertising that would appear on our money. Tell them what they need to know, as though you were selling an investment opportunity, which this is, except it will always be outside THEIR system and not exposed to it in the usual particulars; speculators, grifters, grafters, liars, etc.

Don't forget to tell them that such a thing as we envision cannot be accomplished with fewer A members than 40,000 or fewer than 500 businesses willing to participate as B members.  Let everybody know that these are our goals for membership drives.  Above all, establish TRUST in all your dealings with anyone.   

If you cannot establish TRUST between yourself and those you approach, something may be very wrong with your approach. Remember, this isn't about everybody going it alone, this is about people helping other people. Approach your efforts with the attitude of bringing relief to everyone you meet, rather than saddling them with more baloney. Read and reread this blog often, so as to be familiar with all important aspects of the proposal.  Stick to the facts and build TRUST. Without that, no constructive purpose is ever achieved.

Thanks and best
David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com

[8/18/19: Many questions come to mind after this. What about insurance? What about fire-fighters? Could they earn Valuns in another state other than where they live? The answer is that any fire-fighter or primary medical service provider, while they may be working for someone else that cannot be a member, may still have labor contracts allowing them to issue 80% of what they earn in dollars in Valuns, as long as they meet the other requirements and are able to cover the additional taxes.

Let's say Ted is a fire-fighter who often works in Oregon, Washington or Idaho, but who lives in California. Ted would be an A member of his local exchange in California and establish B member accounts in Washington, Oregon or Idaho. His labor contracts would involve his personal business as a fire-fighter or service provider, operating in states other than his home state. Obviously, all these exchanges would have to be established, up and functioning, for any of this to be possible. Otherwise, Ted might be able to secure a labor contract through his home exchange in California, with the exchange operating as a proxy, as long as Ted's pay for services comes directly from some public source, like a local, state, regional or Federal government agency.

This brings up a point; anyone currently working for any government agency, as long as they meet the other requirements, can certainly become A members, once their local exchange is established, up and running. In all their labor contracts, the local exchange acts as a proxy for the Valuns they earn while earning dollars.

Can someone working for a public corporation also do the same? Their employer cannot be a member, but they still have a will and work and as long as they meet the other requirements, may become A members. They can even set up B memberships as long as they have Valuns in these accounts. Many might choose to do this in order to start a business on the side so that they can eventually leave the corporate rat race, etc.

As for insurance in a Valun system, this would require a far longer answer. Best.]