Monday, May 20, 2013

#20.3 A Preliminary Standard for Value Unit (VU) Exchange Notes & Coins

This is the link to #20.2 the previous post in this series.

The results of our latest sample of people's reactions to our proposed reverse sides of Exchange Note designs has been very positive. We determined that we could satisfy both those who are used to same size bills and those who wanted different sized bills beginning with a proposed starting dimensions for a V1 (One Value Unit – Valun) note as 7 cm high by 14.7 cm wide.

The following represents our nearest estimates of note sizes:

[V1/2 = 6.8cm x 14.5cm]  
V1 = 7cm x 14.7cm
V5 = 7.2cm x 15cm
V10 = 7.4cm x 15.2cm
V20 = 7.6cm x 15.4cm
V50 = 7.8cm x 15.6cm
V100 = 8cm x 15.8cm
V500 = 8.2cm x 16cm

Designing a set of notes that grew 5mm in each direction would have produced some impressively large notes; V500 represented as a card 10.1cm high by 19.9cm wide. Clearly one wouldn't need this big a note that often, but even so, one would like to be able to fold them neatly into one's billfold.

[2/9/18: Everything said here about coinage is out of the question; cannot be done, prohibited by law.  We'll keep it here anyway as a witness to the idea.]  As for coins, we want them to perform many weight functions for us, specifically to be used as reliable weights with which to measure that which is measured in troy ounces; gold and silver bullion. The 1/2 valun should weigh 1/2 troy ounce in grams, the 1/4 valun, 1/4 troy ounce in grams, etc. The following illustration gives the approximate weights in grams. Observe that the smallest possible coin represents a current purchasing power of $ .0264 so almost 3 cents. It would be a coin of miniscule weight, about that of a button. Our suggestion to use surgical or stainless steel was also applauded.

 
[7 June, 2013: We note that the Chinese monetary system divides the main unit of value into ten parts called jiǎo which in turn are divided into ten parts called fēnThere are equivalents in the Value Unit system.  The 1/10 Valun is the jiǎo and the 1/100 Valun the fēn.  We could even call these coins by these names.] 

A symbol for the International Value Exchange Society or IVES was devised for use on the notes and coins. A symbol composed of the simple capital V overlaid with the capital U creates something that looked to many like a pair of outstretched hands, to one like the downward point of an arrow arriving at a determination of value, all sorts of ideas were expressed.
 
Provisions against counterfeit

The proposed design of the notes employs some simple numbers checking to determine that the note is genuine. On the lower right corner of the reverse (general) sides of the notes will be a series of numbers displayed in red like this: 0-00-0000 and under that the year the note was printed. The number identifies an IE by continent, country and the individual IE. Continents are arranged largest to smallest, Asia is 1, Africa 2, etc. Countries are arranged in alphabetical order. IE's are given numbers as they are organized and join the VEN and are supplied with monetary instruments, notes and coins (Vieira's “scrips and slugs,” though we're really going to make them look good) by the IVES, which is to be a B member of all the independent exchanges, IE's. On the obverse side, the side supplied by each IE based on some simple rules, the same numbers must appear and they must match. Some suggested that individual notes could further be numbered using hexadecimal codes which have the advantage of compressing how much space it takes to represent a numerical value.

We added the words “International Standard” to the words “Value Unit Exchange Note” for a very good reason. We are advocating, as a keystone of monetary reform, an international standard that is exactly like the gram, the centimetre or any other international standard of measurement. In this instance, it's to be an international standard of monetary value, recalling that money functions primarily to measure the value of something. One acquires more of these to measure, to purchase, something of greater value. You acquired those units of monetary measurement by exchanging your goods or labour for them so that you could split the barter between yourself and any other with whom you sold something you produced or time you worked. With your international standard value unit, something that once initialized stands free of even that which originally gave it meaning; the price in dollars of an ounce of gold bullion on 2 November, 2011, you will have a yardstick (again with reference to a standard) that will NOT be subject to the corrosive influences of governments, whose money is never backed even when the backing is supposedly gold or silver and of corporations who feed at the government trough.

Is this as good as we can get? Perhaps if we included the provision that the initial price is reset each time gold or silver rise above their previous initialization values, we could always guarantee a “hard” currency and we could do this without resorting to some weird algorithm to induce scarcity as bit-coin uses. Remember, we are saying that the scarcity of the means to measure value, as constantly touted as a means to stop inflation, is irrelevant and in fact serves as a detriment to trade.

Questions or comments related to this or any related topic on this blog may be sent to dpbmss@mail.com

David Burton

[2/9/18: Since this was written, we have decided that the limited duration circulating V-Check makes more sense.  References to it abound in this blog now.  It is acquired on a draft from a member account to a cash account with the member getting the V-Check having a six month duration and an expiration date on the check.  Each V-Check can be exchanged for a new one or deposited.  These will function as our cash.]

No comments:

Post a Comment