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Calvin Perrins's avatar

However we look at money, it has no intrinsic value. It's value is based upon belief. In that sense, money is a religion. It's the same with gold. We can't build a shelter, plant or eat either.

Because we can't survive without money, it is infact a limiter of energy.

Living and working on a farms, you very quickly realise that the real value is in nature, knowledge, human endeavour and working together. Essentially, an elevation of consciousness.

There will undoubtedly have to be a stepping stone like the Bradbury pound to get us to the point where we are not slaves to wages.

If everybody did stuff simply because it needs doing then we would eliminate the controlling mechanism of money.

Fire example, if I don't get up in the morning to milk the cow then I have no milk. A key part of this is being responsible for our own lives and communities and being responsible for that which truly has value, as mentioned above. This will only come about through self governance under natural law (the constitution).

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Iain McCausland's avatar

We already have an alternative to the debt based fiat money Ponzi scheme, it is called Bitcoin.

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Ben Rubin's avatar

bitcoin is digital garbage, has no underlying value, has no day to day transactional utility, is largely owned by a tiny group of State actors and ties users into a global surveillance grid.

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Iain McCausland's avatar

https://youtu.be/3UBrW3aqDOg?si=aifployNSCPrhyU-

You can’t lead a horse to water but try and educate yourself as to what BTC offers. It is not the same as all the other shit coins as they are known.

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Ben Rubin's avatar

I helped launch the first crypto exchange n the UK in 2017. I know exactly what it offers, see previous response.

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Iain McCausland's avatar

There is Bitcoin and Shit Coins - big difference. I pay attention to people like Simon Dixon, Matthew Kratter, Max Keiser, Stacey Herbert, Jeff Booth, Lyn Alden, Eufrat Fenigson and others all of whom have bern following BTC longer than your good self.

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Ben Rubin's avatar

congrats, you have fallen into the trap

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Iain McCausland's avatar

And the debt based fiat money system (blood money) is not a trap? Well good luck with that.

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Iain McCausland's avatar

Well that was a complete waste of 54 mins. as I suspected. Nothing new and no mention of BTC.

I am not interested in “truth as entertainment” as Dr Shiva Ayaadurai put it. I want to know what’s going on in order to find a solution - quickly. The battle lines are centralised v decentralised. BTC is the latter and it works now, not when you and Mr Walker hope a new system comes along.

Do yourself a favour and interview someone like Saifedean Ammous or Jeff Booth. Or are you happy just being another independent media entertainer?

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Ben Rubin's avatar

Of course there was mention of Bitcoin. Justin Walker was here to talk about the Bradbury Pound. And as I said in my original response, BTC is digital garbage that ties humanity into a global surveillance grid (aka the internet). I have no time for it. But thanks for stopping by.

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Iain McCausland's avatar

Correct. I may have a listen to this Mr Walker sometime and if I change my mind on BTC you will be the first to know.

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MR DONE's avatar

This was a super enjoyable listen, thank you. And what a Total Good Guy JW is! Excited to hear what else you’re doing, Ben (signed up to Substack just for Pattern18)!

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Economics21st's avatar

Ben,

My earlier comment where I was dismissive of the Bradbury pound was after watching just the first part. I've watched the whole video now, and I'm glad you showed some scepticism towards what is quintessentially fiat currency.

I fully agree with you that currency should be backed by something real. Interestingly, our current debt-based money system *does* do this - *as long as the issuers are solvent*. This is why it's vital that banks (including central banks) should be shut down if they are close to becoming insolvent (not illiquid!). It's actually a pretty good system. The money is backed by the assets of the issuer. As long as the issuer has enough assets to pay all of their debts, it all works extremely well.

If we define someone's "raw" net worth as what they own plus what they're owed minus what they owe, then the economy is essentially barter of raw net worth. The only difference with plain goods and services barter is that sometimes people don't keep their promises: in that case, what was believed to be an exchange retroactively becomes a transfer, or what was believed to be a transfer retroactively becomes a no-op. This, in fact, is the reason why banks *must* charge interest (or fees). If they didn't, then they would have no income to compensate for the losses when borrowers default.

Here are some articles I've written on money and banking, using a raw net worth analysis:

https://www.economics21st.com/i/151547522/money-and-banking

Thanks for posting the video. If you're interested in discussing any of this, let me know.

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Economics21st's avatar

There's nothing clever about the Bradbury pound. It's just the government writing an IOU which it doesn't intend to honour. It's not much different from what happens these days, except it's removing the fig leaf provided by the Bank of England.

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Ben Rubin's avatar

Who said it was clever? it's a plausible (and proven) interim step towards a proper asset backed system and it takes the power away from the central bank / addresses the issue of interest payments. Sounds good to me

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Economics21st's avatar

Thanks for the reply. The reason I speak with confidence about it (although I'm always happy to be challenged on whether I've made a mistake) is that I've been doing OOAD for 30 years, and been studying economic systems from first principles for 17 years. Essentially, I look at what everyone owns, is owed and owes. From this perspective, we get a Newtonian-style *linear* model of the economy i.e. where the whole is the superposition of the parts. And apart from production and consumption, all economic actions are zero-sum. Creating a Bradbury pound isn't production or consumption, and therefore it's zero-sum i.e. if someone gains from it, someone else loses.

Here's the model, starting from first principles (5 min read): www.economics21st.com/p/the-7-economic-actions

The reason I started exploring the topic in 2008 is that I wondered whether films such as Paul Grignon's "Money as Debt" and Peter Joseph's "Zeitgeist" were right about the monetary system. Here's an analysis of banking, using the model:

www.economics21st.com/p/money-and-banking-1

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ROK3333's avatar

I would like to be able to dwonlaod this to listen (as an MP3) to while I am gardening. sthere a way to do this?

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MR DONE's avatar

This video is on YouTube so you could use one of the many free YouTube video downloaders available for it.

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Iain McCausland's avatar

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv57IWvddSQ

“Once you see it you can’t un-see it”

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