#77 Probable Courses of Valun Usage

We've narrowed the topic down to focus on what it would be like to use Valuns. When Valuns come into being in any community, that community will have a potential purchasing power that can be issued into being directly by fiat of each individual A member of that community. If you have read this blog seriously, you will understand this and have no trouble accepting it. By accepting the responsibility accorded the use of this purchasing power, you establish your own worth within the community.

We have already said, and this in perfect accordance with E. C. Riegel's observations; he did recommend that to get started each member be given some free money. We therefore propose every new A member gets V200. (Comparable values in dollars 4/7/16)

1 member = V200 ($554)
10 members = V2,000 ($5,540)
100 members = V20,000 ($55,400)
1,000 members = V200,000 ($554,000)
10,000 members = V2,000,000 ($5,540,000)
100,000 members = V20,000,000 ($55,400,000)

What would qualify you to be an A member? Approved by 2 existing A members and have a certifiable right to reside where you live; domicile. 

Could you be a child? We'd like to presume so, but there are public laws that may forbid it. For now, we'd say you have to be 18 years of age or older.

In addition to this pool of purchasing power, we'll assume that a certain number of these A members run a private business and those businesses would be B members with their own separate accounts. Some may be sole proprietors and some might be partnerships. Some might have one or two employees, while others may employ hundreds, but in each case they would be tightly owned operations.

No IE in the VEN: independent exchange operating in the Valun exchange network, is ever going to deal with any public laws concerning labour. Those matters run perfectly fine just the way they are, until they aren't. One reason for adopting this system alongside of THEIRS is because THEIRS is illegitimate and sooner or later it will fail and then we do not want to ever have recourse to another one of THEIR solutions to OUR money, since we'll have our own.

At each IE, an organization chart of each B member business is drawn to help determine, from an overall tax saving perspective, how much extra purchasing power the business is willing to accept on its new books, alongside its old books. Two sets of books? No, the new book is for new business alongside the old business. The new book would be an accounting ledger kept in Valuns and each business we enlist as a B member will want one of these, because it enables them to account for and build wealth in our own money, that is of all the A members that made their contributions to that business through labour, sales or trade. We expect that over time, everything except taxes and other old debt in THEIR money will not be in the old book, but in the new.

Notice our more specific and narrower use of the word wealth: it is understood that no money by itself will ever again represent wealth as is typical in THEIR system (because we will eschew capitalism as defined in this blog), but instead this new book would allow the free enterprise business to record and manage its transactions in Valuns that would describe the wealth of that business capable of generating revenue (income) to remain in business. We also expect that standards will be established that will greatly help streamline accounting for all asset and liability categories in Valuns. It would be a good thing for all VEN businesses to use the same accounting practises, numbering systems for accounts, etc. I believe that the French may have and use an accounting system that might be beneficial to look into.

Running alongside THEIR system, each A member of every B member business would get Valuns per payment period along with their “public” THEIR money. The payment period could be independent of the usual payroll, as long as it doesn't overlap a fiscal year, because of tax settlement issues.

With each succeeding week, in this process the number of Valuns in that community will grow. People will want to have places to spend their Valuns and therefore the first place Valuns are likely to be accepted in trade is to sell excess production or inventory in all factors of supply. This makes perfect sense in that something that was difficult to sell (and is sitting there depreciating) or where there were too many of some thing in a run that weren't sold, etc. these would be the first items to offer for sale in Valuns. We'd also expect to see them used in trade for anything second-hand, which should remain a growing market. It is understood that the Valun is accepted for trade because it is capable of commanding respect in its community in trade for something of like value.

For the time being, people will get used to two different price schedules for things based on their local “public” money; a price in THEIR money and a price in ours. Right now (4/8/16) the ratio between a dollar and a Valun is 1 to 2.77 which is close to 1 to 3. Because dollars and precious metals are all commodities that are actively traded as such, their exchange with Valuns will fluctuate between the Valun's inception at 1 to 2.16 and no lower and ... well gold would have to be absolutely worthless and then Valuns would be perhaps as much as $4.32 apiece.

But what could and probably will happen, is that the “public” stolen fiat currencies will fail first, precious metals will shoot the moon, maybe, and if and when they do the inception point for the Valun is raised, never lowered, and it's purchasing power in exchange for any other of THEIR money is preserved. It's really simple and unbreakable because it was designed to be exactly that (Riegel and Kitson hit upon the exact same device for accomplishing it; a single transaction at a moment in time). Because of the way the Valun is defined, it doesn't matter how much or how little of it is in circulation; all units of it are always exactly the same, there are never any volume discounts on Valuns.

Sales of excess inventory are a likely start, there will be lots of stuff that requires repurposing for other and better uses than war or playing games with figures on screens and imagining that you're working for a living. But eventually as time passes, and maybe not very much time either, the Valun will be recognized for its ability to preserve purchasing power. As that happens, even more business will be conducted in Valuns and since they would start as a worldwide money standard, as with any other internationally recognized standard measurement, anyone would be able to simply compute the transactions from any widely traded currency via silver or gold. Money is an invention, people; a tool, but where the means begins to be observed as secure (worthy of trust), even more business will be conducted using Valuns.

Another probable next place where Valuns would probably find easy acceptance is in the area of labour required to do jobs that are often left undone because of scarcity of THEIR money. These are usually needful maintenance jobs that may have been neglected for a long time for want of money and now that a proper vehicle upon which to build personal and community wealth would exist, more of this work will get done. It's unlikely that any of this work would be more than incidental and require any labour contract. Things like haircuts are likely to be among the first to be paid for in Valuns. Also any of the local food producers will eventually seek to be paid in Valuns. Remember, I told you that farmers and bankers were notorious enemies down through time. It will be quite different with the farmers actually manifesting their own money and becoming part of the actual money business themselves.

Understand though that it would become customary for people to carry two kinds of money, THEIRS and ours. Pay unto Caesar (or those that own Caesar) all taxes on any purchases in THEIR money, and anything else that requires THEIR money, the rest in our money. Notice that having your own money alongside theirs changes your spending patterns. Save THEIR cash which is purposely scarce for those things that MUST be paid in their money. Reserve our money for everything else, and those uses will grow once the advantages of dealing in Valuns are recognized.

It has been the customary experience of communities which adopted a particular complementary currency to experience some of the following problems:

Hoarding: If each A member gets V200, what are they likely to do? Go into their IE and cash out into V-Checks and put them all in a drawer for safe keeping? Well, wait a minute? You see what's on the backside of each of those V-Checks? Right, local businesses that honour your new money. So get out there and spend it! What happens is that our money tends to stay around in the community and becomes a resource to get needed work done that otherwise wouldn't be done, because there isn't enough of THEIR money to provide incentive enough to do much of anything ... and please, let's not hear any of the usual complaint about how much labour costs. What do you expect all the push for raising minimum wages is about?

Digression: a minimum wage in their money is a detriment to the economy but not so in our system, because there is automatically a floor beneath no one falls and all contract labour is self financing. Get that, all you socialists out there. We will take care of our own in each and every community and we do not need or even want any outside interference from any state that doesn't know us, our area or what's important to us, so can't really help us except to act like they're better and smarter than us and bully us around, etc. Nobody likes that, I don't care who they are or where they come from. And anyway, we don't want to have to keep paying them more and more taxes just so they can supposedly help us. There's that giant sucking sound again of more money taken out from a supply that's purposely scarce no matter how much money is created the way it is in their system.

One of E. C. Riegel's prime concerns from way back in the post war era was that most labour is fundamentally underpaid. Are any of you complaining because the people at the top of the present system don't work and get paid perhaps even hundreds of times more than the average labourer who people like Ayn Rand deemed only fit to be paid enough to feed them? Ridiculous. It is too, there's no excuse.  So expect labour to be paid more and financial factotums less in a Valun based system because frankly we don't need or want much of what Capitalism requires; fancier mathematics to fleece people out of what they earned through hard work at all those underpaid labour intensive jobs, etc.

Please understand, this demand for our own money is NOT one more “ready made” Marxist “class struggle” idea at all. It's rather class separation. We find some things about the present order repugnant. It's literally the method of earning a livelihood that we detest about capitalism and we're disgusted having lived so long being fooled into believing that capitalism had anything to do with free enterprise or much of anything that is really any good. We admit our indoctrination on this and many other things, but we are gladly recovering from our miseducation.

So the idea is sort of to give everyone a raise that's paid in Valuns rather than in THEIR money and the way it benefits people most in the most practical ways that matter is buying locally as much as possible what you need. So please, when they appear, don't hoard your Valuns, hoard your dollars, pay off your taxes and all your debts denominated in dollars. Cut your ties with their system at the roots; the use of THEIR filthy, stinking, blood soaked money. Incidentally, all of the silver and gold have blood on it too and so does most traded precious stones, especially diamonds. Just saying.

Redemption: Valuns are the money you keep, it's actually yours, so there's no redemption for your own money. You can buy things with it, but we will not be cashing in any Valuns for dollars unless you have a genuine tax bill that can be legitimately paid by liquidating Valuns. We don't and wont have any dollars on account in any IE.

Account preservation issues: Other drafts of a Riegel inspired system have described their institutions being ruled by a “board of governors.” We don't want that, but we demand professional competence because real money that's ours, is for once, not a game. Understood? Once procedures have been drawn up, we intend on operating a legitimate, competent and professional system that builds confidence as it builds ties to people around the community and gets things done that have been left undone for many years, because the bigs just had to have more of their money and their stuff, etc.

And guess what? We don't care! We don't need or want anything of theirs. There's no possible redistribution of anything that's theirs that's necessary to suit us. We'll get along fine among ourselves deciding what's important to us and we'll have the power OUR money gives us to prevail. Those around the world who read this will understand exactly what I'm saying. If you're reading this, I am speaking directly to you as if I were sitting across a table from you. Hey, I have something to tell you. Look in your wallet. What do you use as money? Is it yours? No? Then I guess you're a slave.

Understand one thing though, they can and do use FORCE, play dirty, everything else. Many have died trying to fight them. Are you afraid? I'm not advocating violence, but they, well many of them, are “murderers from the beginning,” if you get my drift and they usually employ (for being so neat and dapper in their fine business clothes) the stupidest louts and ruffians they can find. Look what they're doing right now. So, what a mission like this requires is the resolute stand of tens of thousands, nay MILLIONS of people, outraged at the conduct of the present system and its oligarchs. It's the economy, stupid? No, it's the money, stupid!

David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com

Current Hypothetical Value of a Hypothetical Value Unit

Oh and by the way, the stock market has reached its current high water mark. Going any higher faces the headwinds of the long term moving averages, which set a curve above all the performance data. It will take lots of their money to keep it afloat, amounts of money so huge that you'd be speechless and spellbound to comprehend it all. A recent trading session recovered after losing a hundred points and more and only finished slightly ahead. Today a similar upside down pattern occurred where the market rocketed up a hundred points then floated down to a miserable barely positive finish. If you have any money in the market right now, best pull it out. This would be a good time to sell. 

Meanwhile some estimates of unemployment in the United States run as high as 90 million. It may be that high. Their money? Their banks and corporations? Their edifices of “stuff” that they say is wealth? Meanwhile more go without and their answer is a Scrooge answer; “less money for you, more for us, and in fact we prefer you'd just go off somewhere and die quietly, you know because we don't need you, so you're just useless eaters to us.” Think about how they really are and then look at their money and decide. You think they're glamorous and exciting? Really, you don't even want to know them! Are you going to work if you can for them until you're sick and dead (and be grateful too) or are you going to get yourself together and working along with others, build your own life? Having money you can honestly say is yours is where it begins.