Meconomics: I Want my Needs and Need my Wants to be Satisfied

The economic problem – the corner stone of economic theory – is defined as the satisfaction of unlimited wants and needs in a world with finite/limited physical resources. This implies that not all wants and needs can be satisfied, so the questions economic models attempt to answer are: How is it decided which wants and needs will be satisfied? How is it decided whose wants and needs will be satisfied? In our world today – the answer is: “those who can pay for the satisfaction of their wants and needs will see them satisfied, those who can’t pay for it – well, sorry, we have to draw the line somewhere”.

As I was reading about the economic problem for the first time – I found it fascinating that they used the words ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ in the same way and treated them as one term – like this: ‘wants&needs’ – lol. The difference between wants and needs was briefly explained, but then both words were thrown under the ‘wants&needs’ banner – as though ‘needs’ carry the same characteristics as ‘wants’ and ‘wants’ carry the same characteristics as ‘needs’. When you approach the economic problem by reading the words ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ as ‘wants&needs’ - then the world as it is today might make sense to you – then the economic problem might actually be a justification for the desolation and lack in which millions live. Perhaps that is how economists want us to read the words, so that we won’t hold them accountable for not yet having come up with a better solution.

‘Wants’ and ‘needs’, however, are two very different things. ‘Needs’ are things you NEED – that you cannot go without or you will be physically and emotionally compromised. ‘Wants’ are things you WANT – they go beyond what you ‘need’ – you can go without, but you would like or prefer to experience them or have them in your life. It is true to say that if you tally up all the individual wants of all the people on the planet – you will end up with ‘unlimited wants’. The same is not true for needs, however – there are certain things no human being can go without – say food, water, shelter, social interaction, medical support – where this is the same for every single person by virtue of them being ‘a human’ – and where for some, dependent on personal situations and circumstances, the list is expanded to include a few other things as well.

Considering that needs are limited – we may actually be able to satisfy the needs of all the human beings on the planet – and it is known that we can. So – instead of trying to work with ‘wants&needs’ where the task seems impossible and full of ‘sorry’s, we have to draw the line somewhere’ – we could start with the part that IS possible – satisfying everyone’s needs – and only then design an additional system or model that draws lines for ‘wants’. Our current model is one where some are able to satisfy all their needs and most of their wants, while others are not supported in their basic needs – which, you have to admit, is quite an insane situation. Part of why this is allowed is due to… ‘wants&needs’.

Now – this blog is part of my ‘Meconomics’ series – so you can already guess where I am taking this discussion next… For this situation to be as it is – with so few raising their voice and spurring into action to change the status quo – I started wondering how the same point exists within ourselves. The same point, meaning: do we in fact have a clear understanding of the difference between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ inside ourselves and do we approach ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ appropriately in our own personal lives?

True story: Earlier as I was writing this blog and came to the section of clarifying the words ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ – I first took the easy route of simply looking up the words in the dictionary and copy/pasting the definitions in my blog. But! I couldn’t use those definitions, because they would have perpetuated the confusion between the words rather than clarifying the difference between them. Have a look:

If the dictionary uses the word ‘want’ to clarify the word ‘need’ and uses the word ‘need’ to clarify the word ‘want’ – we can be sure we’re on to something. Does this mean that wants simply imply needs and that needs imply wants – because the dictionary says so? No. Remember, dictionaries will reflect our own language usage – so if the word ‘want’ has been used over time to indicate a ‘need’ – then it becomes an ‘accepted use of the word’ and is reflected in the dictionary as such. In the same way, the word ‘need’ has been used to describe ‘wants’ – and so it has become ‘normal’. What the dictionary then shows is how we have confused the meanings of the words ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ for ourselves and started using the terms as synonyms.

In my next blog I will continue exploring how the ‘merging’ of the words ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ as ‘wants&needs’ affects and influences us on a personal level so that we can get a better understanding of the world as it exists today within the principle 'as above, so below'.

Read More

Day 251: Living Income Guaranteed and Market Mechanics

This blog is in response to a comment made on Day 250: Economics Nobel Prize reduced to Laughingstock :
“Economics is about, or should be about, how to employ the available means in such a way that no want more urgently felt should remain satisfied because the means suitable for its attainment were employed - wasted - for the attainment of a want less urgently felt. This is what it means to economize: to allocate scarce resources to their most productive/urgent use. "Most urgent use" is determined by supply and demand as established on the free market. I agree with the criticism that empirical economics seem frivolous and misplaced. But I disagree with the conclusion of this article; the only way to make the world more wealthy is by increasing the ratio of capital to people through investment and savings. Wealth redistribution will only succeed in making us all equally poor. Well written piece, though, thank you for a thoughtful opinion.” - Matt Summers

“Economics is about, or should be about, how to employ the available means in such a way that no want more urgently felt should remain satisfied because the means suitable for its attainment were employed - wasted - for the attainment of a want less urgently felt. This is what it means to economize: to allocate scarce resources to their most productive/urgent use. "Most urgent use" is determined by supply and demand as established on the free market.”

The effectiveness of markets in being able to successfully allocate resources to ‘their most productive/urgent use’ is dependent on how effectively the market is able to capture supply and demand signals. Here, we currently have a problem as not everyone has an equal opportunity to access the field of the free market and cast their demand / signal their need. Access to the free market is restricted, and the only way to gain access is by having a ticket – where one’s ‘purchasing power’ is representative of such a ticket that will grant you access.

So long you do not have the money / financial means to back up your demands, your demands will fall on deaf ears and not be catered for. Alternatively, depending on the scope of purchasing power available to you, your demands may only be catered for partially, as you are unable to ‘validate’ or ‘redeem’ all of your needs into demands due to the size and scope of one’s purchasing power – and thus the free market will only pick up one those demands/needs that are backed up by purchasing power, while not registering others.
With not everyone’s demands in effect being picked up by the market, we get a distorted view and picture of what we believe is wanted/needed - and use this distorted picture as a map to allocate scarce resources. To actually be able to direct and allocate resources to their most productive and urgent use, we require a lot more information – information that is missing and not being received simply because not everyone has the capacity to validate their demands through purchasing power.

Whether we like it or not, we currently live in a world with huge levels of income inequality^[1] and thus purchasing power inequality – where there is an inverse relationship existent between the size of purchasing power and the amount of people who have purchasing power.
In terms of the mechanics of Supply and Demand, this structure gets translated into the market receiving a big amount of information about the demands of a few people, while receiving little to no information from the majority of the people who have smaller to no purchasing power.

Within providing a Living Income Guaranteed, the goal is not to ‘equalize’ the entire purchasing power structure – but merely to give those at the bottom / those who do not have access to the market mechanisms -- the chance to be heard and recognized within the market. Providing a Living Income Guaranteed effectively provides everyone with a base amount of purchasing power, so that at a minimum everyone can effectively signal their demands to be able to achieve a dignified living standard.

“Wealth redistribution will only succeed in making us all equally poor.”

Here I will assume that your statement is based on the same logic Nozick follows, where he perceives a problem in redistribution leading to disincentive for the productive members of the economy who would then produce less and less until they cover only their immediate needs and having no ‘surplus’ to redistribute.
In terms of the Living Income Guaranteed proposal, where we want to ensure that those who are unable to sustain themselves financially through providing them with a Living Income – we are not looking at a massive movement of redistribution. In terms of the capital and wealth that is available within the world, it only takes a small fraction^[2] being moved from top to bottom to give the majority of people the necessary ‘bump’ to be able to realize a dignified living standard for themselves.
There will thus still be a wide range of incomes, a wide range of competition and more than enough incentive to be innovative and keep producing.

A more drastic change will rather be seen within the market system within the mechanics of supply and demand being able to capture a lot more information about the needs and wants of people – which will provide society with more effective and accurate guidelines as to where resources should be allocated for their most productive/urgent use. The biggest change will be seen in the living standards of people and the actual realization of having everyone’s fundamental human rights secured.

Here, we can look for instance at the ‘ideal’ many people envisage when looking at the distribution of wealth in society. As you can see from the graph below, it still leaves plenty of incentive for those who are incentive driven to be productive and innovative – while at the same time allowing the bottom two quintiles to have sufficient wealth to live a dignified life (and to have any share of wealth at all for that matter! Since both the first and second quintile barely get registered on the ‘actual’/’current’ graph).

The Nozickian notion that redistribution will ‘leave us all equally poor’, is a very radical and extremist position, which takes on a very rigid and narrow view on human nature and values. It is assumed that we only care about ourselves and within this will go as far as compromising and sabotaging our own living standards just because we don’t want anyone else to reap benefits of ‘our work’ and ‘our effort’. There is no space for relating to one another and helping each other out – even when it comes down to something basic such as having everyone’s fundamental human rights covered. We suggest that humans are not the completely irrationally selfish beings Nozick assumes us to be, and that we are capable of compassion and can realize this compassion in the form of having everyone’s fundamental human rights secured.

“But I disagree with the conclusion of this article; the only way to make the world more wealthy is by increasing the ratio of capital to people through investment and savings.”

This statement is not necessarily true – as it assumes that we are currently experiencing a ‘lack’ in real capital and actual resources to effectively provide everyone with a proper living standard. The capital and the resources are already here – but through the market system operating at an inefficient level (due to our current supply and demand curves not capturing the full extent of demand as explained above), the capital/resources are not moving and not being directed towards those who need it most.

This is how we end up with scenarios of food dumping and having huge amounts of food destroyed and thrown away parallel to having high levels of hunger and starvation in the world. This is simply because our economic system is not sensitive and attuned to human needs and instead being irrationally driven by the profit motive. Economics and the market have become all about non-human elements as profit and numbers which have stopped serving the general human interest. By placing in a Living Income Guaranteed system, we are placing the human element back in the center of economics, allowing economics to be the life supporting instrument that it was destined to be. Economics and money are then here to support ourselves in living our life – and not the other way around where are lives are lived in the service of money and the economy, as how the majority of people’s lives are currently being lived.
It’s time to reverse the roles.
 
[1] See our blog on the World’s Lorenz Curve, which displays almost perfect inequality “Day 143: The Neo-Apartheid Era”
[2] See “World’s 100 richest could end global poverty 4 times over”, which is but one example of ‘how little it takes’ to make a ‘big difference’ for many

Related articles

• What is the Living Income Guaranteed?
• The Pope on Inequality and Unfettered Markets
• Day 251: Living Income Guaranteed and Market Mechanics
• Day 252: The Rich Be Cursed, The Rich Be Blessed
• Day 226: Living Income Guaranteed will Prevent Destruction of Homes

Related articles

Read More

Day 235: Living Income and Effective Markets

"... and it leads to mediocrity by furthering the emergence of a “mass culture” where the lowest tastes are catered for. Furthermore, it is contrary to human nature with its rich diversity. Why make equal that what was not equal in the first place?"

The above quote was made in relation to the promotion of Equality within society. Within the implementation of a Living Income Guaranteed, we are promoting Equality within placing everyone in a position where one can participate in Life, economically, politically, socially and culturally.

By giving those who are unable or have yet to establish a stable income stream for themselves, a living income – we ensure that everyone is equipped to participate in society. This places everyone on a more ‘equal footing’, as everyone is able to take care of one’s basic needs and contribute to society.

By implementing a living income guaranteed, we will have a more accurate market system. As more demands are being validated through a living income providing everyone with money to ‘back up’ their demands – our demand curves will more accurately show and reflect the populations demand, consequently allowing supply to adjust to the actual demand levels of the consumers (as everyone is now being recognized as a consumer) and catering for that which is actually wanted by society. Previously (or currently), only those demands were recognized which were backed up by one’s purchasing power. This means that there’s an exclusive catering mechanism taking place for those who have money, by those who want even more money. From this, a mass culture emerged in terms of the arts like in the Music Industry, where mainstream music is all about what ‘most of the people who have money’ want to hear – where only the taste of money is being catered for as that which will be ‘most profitable’ – leading to Music Industry ignoring lots of areas of Music to explore as there is ‘no money in it’, which leaves us with a bland, monotonous, mediocre mainstream music industry. By extending economic participation to everyone, more people are able to ‘place their votes’ as their demands of what it is they want / would like to receive – and thus the music industry will receive a larger variety of signals of types of music to be explored and developed.

For more on the Music Industry and Living Income, read the following blog:Living Income and the Music Industry

Promoting equality such as equality in economic participation, does not lead to mediocrity and ‘mass culture’ – that, we already have and is the result of a profit based system, a system of discrimination. By implementing a Living Income Guaranteed, everyone is able to signal their demands to the market effectively. Only when we have a Living Income can our “human nature with its rich diversity” be captured and reflected in our society and economy and can we truly enjoy the variety and creativity that the Human has to offer.

Stand for a Living Income Guaranteed, Stand for a Better and more Effective Market System!

Related articles

• Day 251: Living Income Guaranteed and Market Mechanics
• Day 252: The Rich Be Cursed, The Rich Be Blessed
• Day 226: Living Income Guaranteed will Prevent Destruction of Homes
• Day 265: Do you still have a job?
• Day 350: A Living Income Guaranteed will End Charity - for Real

Read More

Day 196: Market Mechanisms and Equal Money

This blog is in response to a comment made on the ‘Logistcs’ Goal on the EM Homepage:
http://equalmoney.org/goals/15-logistics   http://equalmoney.org/goals/15-logistics

Goal: Logistics

In the Equal Money System, the Banking System Infrastructure will become the Logistical System that manages and Allocates resources and goods to Each Individual in the World on an Equal Basis. And your bank card will become your Life Card, which you will swipe every time you Draw Goods and Services from the Global Life Support System. The Logistical System will make sure that each person receives their just dues and at the same time will prevent abuse and exploitation. Each person will have access to the Global System to review the current Status of Available Resources and to vote on effective distribution and allocation – and to place preference selections and make suggestions.

Comment:

"I do believe this market-absent socialism has already been proven impractical and inefficient. Especially when coupled with a form of direct-democracy type resource management such a system would surely be impossible, if not impossible then at least impractical and doomed to fail. A market mechanism, even a socialist one, is necessary, and will allow for efficiency. Command and Control, especially decentralized command and control, is a doom driven system. You need to include some form of market mechanism in order to make this successful.

Response:

There will still be a Market Mechanism in place within both Equal Money Capitalism and Equal Money. The Market Mechanism in place within Equal Money will merely replace the variables that the drive Supply and Demand in a way that actually benefits Human Life and the Planet as a whole. The Market Mechanism will thus be an holistic / ecological one – where the conditions which require to be in place to ensure a life of Dignity will signal/drive the Demand and in the Economy and whereby Supply will respond accordingly within taking into consideration Earth’s capacity to provide resources. This implies that in terms of resource distribution the priority will be placed on Needs over wants – and once needs are taken care of we look at what else is available to provide for people’s wants within the principle of sustainability and prevention of consequence (eg. where the providing for wants does not come at the expense of another).

It is then not so much a ‘Market-Force’ driving the Economy but a ‘Life-Force’ within placing Life as the principal point to be honoured.

For more information, please read:

Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
Day 173: Supply, Demand, Business and Scarcity in Equal Money Capitalism
Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism
Day 180: The Word 'Capitalism' in 'Equal Money Capitalism'
Day 184: The Relationship between Ecology and Economics in Equal Money Capitalism

Related articles

• Day 173: Supply, Demand, Business and Scarcity in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 195: Moneyless Societies and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 181: Applied Equality in Equal Money Capitalism

Read More

Day 192: Demand and Flexibility in Equal Money Capitalism

This blog-post is a reply to a comment on the blog Day 172: Retirement and Holidays within Equal Money Capitalism.

What if the products or services of a company won't sell anymore, the demand ends or decreases, when a person is retired? It would affect employees too but they can change jobs.

When a company is unable to cover its cost and pay out its wages, they will receive additional funding from a Fund to which the profits go of companies who make a profit that is larger than required to cover their costs and wages. When such redistribution is required, an intervention takes place where know-how is transferred from effective companies to those who struggle to cover their costs.

When demand simply decreases or ceases to exist, the company can partially or completely re-invent itself in terms of seeing how it can use its experience, expertise and infrastructure towards providing different services and goods in the economy. If such re-direction causes momentary fluctuations in the flow of income, government steps in to provide support for the time being.

Related articles

• Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit
• Day 172: Retirement and Holidays within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 162: EQUAL MONEY CAPITALISM - The Way Forward
• Day 189: Will your Level of Education Determine your Income in EMC?
• Day 188: Simple Solutions in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 182: Will we be Feeding the Fat Cats in Equal Money Capitalism?
• Day 173: Supply, Demand, Business and Scarcity in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 190: Fairness in the Work Place and Equal Money Capitalism

Read More

Day 173: Supply, Demand, Business and Scarcity in Equal Money Capitalism

Also see the following blogs on more points within EMC:

Day 162: EQUAL MONEY CAPITALISM - The Way Forward
Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit
Day 164: Equal Money Capitalism - Preparing the Road for Change
Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism
Day 166: Corporate Social Responsibility in Equal Money Capitalism
Day 167: Harmony and Equilibrium within Equal Money Capitalism
Day 168: The Future of Integrity with Equal Money Capitalism
Day 169: Equal Living within Equal Money Capitalism
Day 170: Companies and Industries in EMC
Day 171: LIfe-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
Day 172: Retirement and Holidays within Equal Money Capitalism

Supply and Demand

Pricing will not resemble a free market paradigm, so the interaction between supply and demand as it exists now will not determine anything. Supply will be according to your demand, that means your demand will not be based on price, your demand will be based on supplying yourself with a lifestyle that is worth living – so the demand will change. Because the demand will no longer be controlled by price, it will now more be controlled by the fact that you want to live an excellent lifestyle, that you want to change products – it is going to change what goods and services will be available. You’re not going to buy ‘inferior products’ that you buy because it’s cheap and made in China – but it’s not what you would have bought if you had more money.

Business to Business Interaction

Business to Business interaction is basically based on what a product manufactures requires to produce a product. Businesses won’t compete around products per se, because information around products will be shared and made available to be able to produce the best possible product. But some products you’ll be able to produce differently – different products from the perspective of what they look like, which may have an effect on preference – those type of variations will still exist.

Businesses and Communities

The placement and operation of businesses will be far more regional – simply because it’s an effective way to manage things rather than managing things on a national or transnational level.
With regional, we mean that all businesses will in a way be a community service, so it will be based in community environment and provide service for the community..

Scarcity and Pricing

There’s not going to be pricing control in terms of scarce resources, things are going to be available or they are not. It is controlled by its availability. If certain resources become unavailable, which is going to affect the products that are going to be available – then we will just have to take that into consideration. So for instance, if there is not enough fish in the sea, we will simply have to withhold from catching fish -- the supply / option of fish disappears off the menu until the fish supply is re-established.

Scarcity and Non-Renewable Resources

Non-Renewables will automatically be targeted to be reduced, and eventually phased out completely. Society should not be based on an non-renewable resource. We have other ways to do it.

Related articles

• Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 166: Corporate Social Responsibility in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 162: EQUAL MONEY CAPITALISM - The Way Forward
• Day 172: Retirement and Holidays within Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism

Read More

Day 59: How Far can We Stretch our Customers? - Part 2

For context, please read: Day 58: How Far can We Stretch our Customers? - Part 1

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to milk my customers as much as I can so that I can earn as much profit as I can - and to be able to do this use the concept of elasticity and if I see that the product I am selling has low price elasticity of demand - I will make the price unnecessarily high, because I know that my customers will pay the higher price anyways.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think 'Suckers!!!!!!' as I raise my price in seeing that the product I am providing has a low price elasticity of demand - because I know that I am fucking over my customers but there is nothing they can do about it, because I am simply following the rules of the free market economy - and thus, I know that I am abusing my fellow human, but can get away with it and within that I feel all powerful and smart because I have got the long end of the straw.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that just because I am operating my business in a legal way, that my behaviour is acceptable - instead of seeing, realising and facing the actuality of my actions for what they are: that I am taking advantage of people and what people need.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise the disgrace and absurdity of an economic system that allows individuals to literally play with the lives of others by raising prices as long as there is enough people that are willing and able to pay the higher price - without considering that there are simply things that HAVE TO be available to everyone, such as housing, food, clean and drinkable water, electricity, education, etc. - just to be able to survive in this world - and thus any economic system where people are left out is unacceptable and must be stopped.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that in teaching students of economics what the concept of elasticity means and implies, we are educating the next generation in how to fuck over our fellow human beings, making sure that our legacy of nastiness and spitefulness continues - where we will fuck someone over and then smile and say "hey, it's just business".

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abdicate all responsibility for my actions within the economic system to the rules of the game - because: hey, this is how it's done, it's nothing personal, I gotta do what I gotta do - as though the game and its rules can ever exist without its players - not realising that it is the players who play the game that create and sustain the game - and therefore, each and every one is responsible on a personal level for all the atrocities that are accepted and allowed as consequences of playing the game of free trade.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that my behaviour of nastiness and spitefulness is acceptable in economics, because everyone's nastiness and spitefulness will 'balance each other out' so that, in the end - the consequences of this spitefulness and nastiness remain limited and contained - without realising and seeing the ridiculousness of such a statement and belief.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that our economic system is simply showing us how we have limited ourselves into believing that we'll never be anything else than lying and cheating bastards who will smile in each others' face and then stab each other in the back - and as long as we keep training new generations in the way of Nasty Economics, we ensure that this is all humanity will ever be - instead of just stopping the insanity and commit ourselves to stopping any form of abuse, inequality, atrocity, nastiness, spitefulness, backchatting and backstabbing - and create a world that is a home, rather than a minefield.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that we've created our world to be one big minefield where we are living in continuous fear of being fucked over by other people, because we know that's what they do - because we know that's what we do - yet on the surface we will be friendly and cheerful and say 'I love you so much' - because admitting to the reality of the situation and actually facing our fears seems like too daunting a task, not realising that what we're currently saying is: 'let me rather just try and avoid the invisible mines and try to not get blown to pieces' - as though that's such an easy task.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that because we suppress our fears of each other every moment of the day, doesn't mean that they are not existent within us and that it is not how we truly experience ourselves - but we rather pretend to be and feel different than who we really are by playing a character of joy and peace and love, continuously suppressing the FEAR that lingers within, until one day we get a burn-out and become depressed and we don't understand why - not realising that how you experience yourself in those moments is how you actually always experience and have experienced yourself inside - as a creature that does not feel, nor know, nor understand joy, peace or love.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that I have never really seen or experienced myself as everything that I have suppressed within myself, yet keeps lurking in the darkness - but only ever experienced myself as the various characters that I have designed for myself to be able to cope with my environment and my inner reality for those moments where 'dark thoughts and emotions' creep up to the surface - in the same way that I have never really seen or experienced the world we live in as all the pain, agony and atrocities that happen every day - but only focus on those parts of the world that make me feel better about myself and make me feel like I am living a good life, a happy life - blinded by fear of what I have created and continue creating every moment of the day that I ignore who I am.

Read More

Day 56: Measuring the Performance of the Economy – Part 2

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value objectives within macroeconomics in terms of evaluating the performance of the economy – which is no way are related to the wellbeing of Life on Earth, but only concerned with the self-preservation of the current economic system

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a world economic system where Life on Earth is placed in the service of the Economic Machine of Greed and Unsustainability – instead of a world economic system which serves Life on Earth

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have completely missed the point of economics – where I accepted and allowed myself to believe in - and support a system of Hope where few win and the majority lose, where Hope is the only thing keeping the system standing as the majority hope to one day be in a position of the few – while obviously this is not mathematically possible, as the lifestyle of the few is only possible if they remain few – and within that I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to have created and economic system which actually looks at all the points in the world which require support within sustenance and then unconditionally direct the flow of resources towards all points which require sustenance/support without any form of discrimination which is in fact what the Equal Money System is designed to do

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value ‘economic growth’ as a macroeconomic objective, and where this objective is valued above all other objectives as the Holy Grail of Success – without seeing and realising that the desire for economic growth is just another way of saying ‘more..More.. MORE, I WANT MORE!!!’, as a spoilt child throwing a tantrum for not getting what it wants – while in the meantime half the world perishes in poverty and starvation and get to be ignored while we economists stare at economic growth like a moth being attracted to a flame - ever hypnotised, never considering the consequences of one’s actions

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value “how much more stuff has been produced” as the primary marcoeconomic objective

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the news today which I can see/hear/read about daily – clearly indicate that there are much more important objectives to consider as the suffering and madness is undeniable, yet I will value ‘producing stuff’ more over ‘making sure everyone’s living a comfortable life’

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have mindfucked myself into believing that ‘producing stuff’ equals ‘making a better world’

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify within myself my evil actions of limited self-interest with the thought that ‘eventually all the stuff/wealth will trickle down to the poor and then they will also be better off!’

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to be honest with myself as I know that ‘it will trickle down to the less fortunate’ is a big fat lie – but as long as there are enough of us portraying it to be the truth and teaching it to our children, we can maintain the lie and keep avoiding self-responsibility – and if we put it into pretty sophisticated words in textbooks then it almost sounds true too!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a world economic system where there can never be full employment – and then at the same time create the system in such a way that everyone is dependent on employment to earn their living, and so not everyone can live

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that we can just as easily create a system where people don’t have to depend on employment to be able to sustain themselves and where we scale down our industries of entertainment which are only here to benefit the minority – so that there are less jobs to be done and so not everyone has to work all the time for the sake of profit and economic growth – and so we will have more time available to actually live and enjoy ourselves

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to value only those things which relate to the preservation of the current economic system – and so there are no real goals , as all we are doing is timelooping on the same point, which is our current economic system which is Not Best for All

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place ‘equitable distribution of income’ as one of the objectives of marcoeconomics, but it is really just to appease people, where we pretend that we are giving inequality attention – while we don’t, and then justify our non-consideration on the base that it is a ‘normative’/’subjective’ issue – and that it is not the economist’s place to say anything about this issue, as they are not politicians or sociologists – which is a real easy way out of not taking responsibility – and within that I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that our very economic system as what it currently exists as, is ONLY based on the subjectiveness and normativity – as it is a VALUE SYSTEM which currently only values the HAPPINESS OF A FEW – and so when economists say that they rather do not comment on such a ‘controversial issue’ as ‘unequal income distribution’ – it’s really just the same as saying I LIKE THIS INEQUALITY JUST THE WAY IT IS

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that it is not about being a ‘politician’ or a ‘sociologist’ or whatever other qualification – as the only thing you require to comment on the current status of inequality within the world is YOU as a HUMAN BEING and the realisation that OTHER HUMAN BEINGS, which are JUST LIKE YOU, are mostly in positions which you would NOT WANT to be in – and within that you either decide to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT or NOT – and as we have seen, the mainstream economists have decided to NOT do ANYTHING about it as they value their own Life as more valuable than others

Read More

Day 53: Government Intervention - Part 2

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if we just edit or adjust a few things within our current economic system that things will get better

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that we can try and change/manipulate whatever we want – but as long as we do not change the starting point of our current economic system as justified self-interest – we’ll simply play the same game under a different picture

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that there is a solution within the system – not seeing and realising that the system is the problem – and within that I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing / giving up the current economic system because I fear losing / giving up my self interest

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rather want and go change bits and pieces here and there to make things more ‘equitable’ for those less fortunate – but never take on the system as a whole because I secretly want to hold on to the problem as self-interest because I do not want to give up my hopes and dreams of wealth and living a care free life while others slave away their existence to make my care free life possible

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself advocate particular points such as for instance ‘minimum wage’ and ‘banning child labour’ – without taking into consideration what the consequences/effects/results would be of such actions as I have failed to investigate this reality for real

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a political system where leaders and decision makers are placed in positions of power based on a popularity contest which is based on money – as whoever gets the must funding for their campaign will win the contest – where we end up with leaders who were not trained to be leaders and which lack the skill and understanding of how the world actually operates – and then end up implementing policies to “do good” but end up doing “bad” within not having investigate the nature and dynamics of the current world system

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that there is no solution possible within the system – as it will only create side-effects / consequences which result in a world worse off instead of better off – since we’ve accepted and allowed self-interest to be the guiding principle for all our actions and within that we’ve accepted and justified abuse – so as long as we safeguard and protect self-interest – it will always be the dominating variable in any equation which will overpower and determine the outcome

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that no ‘altruism’, ‘goodness’ or ‘love’ can exist as long as we live in and accept the current world system, as it can only result in more evil, hate and self interest

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to admit that which I know needs to be done – which is the implementation of an Equal Money System so all may finally be equal in accessibility of life sustaining resources

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that we cannot go on like this forever – so we might as well stop now, as it has to be done sooner or later – and the sooner the better

Read More

Day 52: Government Intervention

In this section we will have a look at the outflows and consequences which manifest when the government intervenes in the economy. The economic model is designed to ‘stand on its own’, where the forces of supply and demand ought to rule and regulate the market without anyone exerting any form of control or manipulation. It is designed to balance itself out.

However, due to the free market principle – some people are excluded from being able to access (basic) resources because of insufficient financial means. The government might find it necessary to intervene in the economy to allow for more people to be able to access these goods and services.

Price Ceiling
A ‘price ceiling’ is a legal upper limit on the price of a good or service. Once this price ceiling is imposed by the government; it becomes illegal for suppliers to sell the particular good or service at a higher rate than the set ceiling price. This is done to protect consumers from conditions that could possibly make basic commodities inaccessible.

Let us now have a look at the ‘ripple effect’ that comes about when a price ceiling is imposed.
We know that consumers like low prices and that suppliers enjoy high prices. Within the free market an equilibrium price is reached [See Day 49: Resource Distribution: Supply & Demand for a refresher on 'equilibrium price] where both demand and supply meet each other. For a price ceiling to be effective [a maximum price], the government has to set the ceiling below the equilibrium price. If for instance, the equilibrium price of bread is set at $3 a loaf – the government would set a price ceiling at let’s say $1,50 a loaf – to make the bread accessible for a wider range of people. This will initially make the consumer temporarily pleased as he or she can now buy bread or buy more bread with his or her available funds. Though, as we have seen before, the interest of the supplier lies at the opposite side of the equation. The supplier is now not making as much money as he could have been making at the equilibrium price, and considers being at loss with the new price rate. Producing the same amount of bread loaves at the new price is not (as) profitable anymore and the supplier starts producing less. The bread will still be available at $1,50 a loaf – but less bread will be offered. In the end, we have the exact same problem as before the price ceiling was imposed: some will be able to buy bread, and others won’t. The price ceiling has as a side-effect created a shortage in supply and no actual solution has been put in place.


Price Floor
A ‘price floor’ on the other hand, is an imposed minimum price that may be charged for a particular good or service. It becomes illegal to sell the particular good or service at a lower rate than the set floor price. Price floors are imposed by the government to prevent prices from being too low. The most common known price floor is the minimum wage for labour. Price floors are also often used in the agricultural sector in an attempt to protect farmers.

As you can guess, a price floor is not without consequence.

What happens when the price of a product or service increases? Potential buyers are more likely to refrain from buying the product or service as it is considered to be less lucrative to buy the product or service at the floor price. The quantity demanded of the particular good or service decreases.

On the other hand, there will be in an increase of supply, as more people are willing to supply this particular good or service since they can get more money for than at the equilibrium price – for the exact same amount.

If we now have to translate this into a real life practical example such as the minimum-wage, we get the following scenario:

Because of the increased in price for labour, companies are less likely to hire as many people as they would have done at the equilibrium price – because it became more expensive to do so.
Thus some people will be able to get jobs and have a minimum wage that they can live off. But at the same time there will now be people who will not be able to get a job at all, due to the decrease in available job positions. There is a surplus in supply.  In the end the people who were supposed to benefit from the government intervention, are the ones who are worse off in the long run.


Another example of the inefficiency of price floors within our current economic system plays out within the agricultural sector. To provide farmers with a decent income (and thus to keep them motivated to produce food for consumption), the government can introduce a price floor on certain types of food. The farmer will start producing and supplying more of that particular food, as he or she knows that a greater profit is being made. At the same time, a lesser quantity is being demanded as the particular food just became more expensive in the eye of the consumer. A surplus of food is thus created. This can cause massive amount of food to go to waste or lead governments to dump the surplus of food in other countries, which disrupts the local market there – where the farmers there end up not being able to sell their produce as they have been bombarded with cheap surplus food / food-aid from overseas.


Often politicians themselves are not even aware of the side-effects / consequences of making such decisions -- as they are playing a popularity game and are only concerned with doing that which 'looks good' and have no background in economics, or where they will know what the actual effect of their decisions is, but still do it anyway, as the voters are fooled within believing that the politician is being 'altruistic', while nothing really changes.

This again highlights that there is no solution possible within the system – since self-interest is at the base point of everything – and so no matter how you try and ‘manipulate’ the game – self-interest will always bite you in the ass and get what it wants. If you try and change some of the rules, self-interest will simply adapt and do what self-interest does = only care about self, and others will still be hurt in the process. And so no matter what you do, you’ll still end up with a broken system, because the very foundation, the very starting point is unsound. Whatever move you make to “try and make things better” will simply be matched by a counter movement which keeps the entire game / construct in place. 

This dynamic is important to keep in mind, as some people will for instance advocate ‘minimum wage’ without seeing/realizing what the consequences/side-effects are. This doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t have a basic income – it just means that it won’t work in our current system.

That’s why we cannot just ‘edit’ or ‘adjust’ the system – we have to completely and irrevocably replace it with a whole new value system – a value system as the Equal Money System which values Life over all, and works for the whole of Earth and its inhabitants.

Read More