Money seems to be a sort of physical artifact, a receipt if you will, that records human effort.  Throughout history, this receipt has taken many forms, including: gold, silver, cattle, grain, tobacco, paper, and (increasingly) digital dots on a computer screen.

Whosoever controls the receipts controls the people who must use the receipts. The author Robert Anton Wilson describes money as ’bio-survival tickets’: these receipts often determine if one gets to eat, mate, raise a family, get an education, and generally participate in society. The battle over who creates & controls the money supply has been a major energy source driving the machine of socio-cultural evolution.

These artifacts can be divided into two styles:

*Elastic currency is a style of ‘money’ with NO intrinsic value. The value is decreed by a governing body, whether private or public. It’s called ‘elastic’ because this currency can stretch: it can EXPAND, usually causing inflation, or it can CONTRACT, usually causing deflation.

*Hard currency is a style of ‘money’ that DOES have intrinsic value (even if it must be arbitrarily agreed upon first). This style cannot be artificially manipulated as much as elastic currency, so it appears relatively stable.

The former style, elastic currency, is a type of “fiat” currency — from the Latin “let it be done”. This is the style that the United States favors, the kind of style a dead greek meant when he exclaimed “money exists not by nature, but by law”. The physical artifacts, the receipts, of this style are called “Federal Reserve bank notes” in the United States — or more commonly, just ‘dollar bills’ or ‘cash’. The latter two terms are much easier to use, but these seemingly innocent metaphors mask a much more deceptive magic show.

I wonder what effect it would have on our economy if everyone referred to ‘cash’ as ‘bank notes of the private federal reserve’?

Anyways, the value of these receipts is different from their physical constituents. As described above, the paper currency can be INFLATED so that the value of each dollar DECREASES because the QUANTITY has increased –as more and more ‘federal reserve bank notes’ are printed, each one becomes less & less valuable. The paper currency can also be DEFLATED so that the value of each dollar will INCREASE because the QUANTITY has decreased — as less & less ‘federal reserve bank notes’ are printed, each one becomes more & more valuable.

As you can see, the value of our currency, is very arbitrary.

Some VERY Useful Resources:

http://www.webofdebt.com/

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-6-what-money

http://gnosticmedia.podOmatic.com/player/web/2009-08-30T22_51_27-07_00

]]> http://sansend.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/some-money-basics/feed/ 0 sansend http://sansend.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-bilderberger-group/ http://sansend.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/the-bilderberger-group/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:50:17 +0000 sansend http://sansend.wordpress.com/?p=11 ]]> The Bilderberg Group formed to promote political, economic, and defensive cooperation between Western Europe and the United States, an ideology termed atlanticism. It was founded by two Europeans, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and Jozef Retinger. They then contacted influential American authorities, such as CIA head director Walter Smith, and the first conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in 1954. An elite cadre of European & American diplomats & politicians, bankers, intellectuals, and media giants have attended the conferences in its 50-plus year history. There are no “official members”, only “members of the Steering Committee” (comprised of about 2 members from 18 different nations) who invite other elites to participate. Some noteworthy attendee’s include: Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher, Ben Bernanke, William Buckley Jr., Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller, Timothy Geithner, and Herman Van Rompuy (current President of the European Council, which sets the political direction for EU). The most prestigious title in the Bilderberg Group is probably that of chairman, the current one being Etienne Davignon.

Their only activity, at least on paper, is the yearly conferences held at opulent hotels across the world. During the three day event, the entire hotel is rented out, a highly secure atmosphere is maintained, and a very strict “no-speaking about the event” policy is enacted. If the latter is violated, by hotel workers or invited journalists, it can result in losing one’s job. Throughout the conference, no votes, policy decisions, or resolutions are put out–it’s simply a private venue for very influential elitists to engage in open & frank discussion without the need to censor their thoughts for the press… at least that’s the official Bilderberger story.

Due to the insurmountable security–including two F-16 jet fighters, some navy commandos, helicopters, and machine guns (the usual!?) — and the “no speaking” policy, a black-hole whirlpool of nefarious schemes has crowded in to construct a narrative from the event-horizon facts that occasionally seep out. A little bit of fuzzy logic certainly helps here. Instead of coming at the facts with an absolutist stance of “this is true” OR “this is false”, it helps to accept the “fuzziness” of the facts and use words like “possible” “plausible” and “highly probable” to interpret the narrative that emerges. In mathematical terms, the number 0 would represent “absolute falseness” and 10 would be “absolute truthfulness” (an impossibility), so we deal with the in-between’s of 0.1 to 9.9, which use the above described terms to gage the degree of truthfulness. So apply a bit of occam’s razor, take a critical thinking approach, and don’t believe everything you read…especially after reading this.

The official story line that 130 highly influential elites from the power structures that determine U.S. and E.U. policy would meet, shrouded in an aura of near-impenetrable secrecy & protected with war-like security, simply to have a “social club” gathering of informal discussions and golf games.. seems a bit absurd. Some of the more elaborate conspiracy theories seem equally absurd.

I’d say I stand around the 7.7 mark on the fuzzy logic scale…it’s probable that something like the planning of a New World Order is part of, if not the whole, agenda for these highly secretive annual meetings. Regardless if one totally believes the conspiracy theories or not, investigating the subject helps one to understand how power structures work –and what “we” are up against. To conclude, my conclusion is inconclusive — I’ll have to research some more.

Peace

Sansend

The latter method can be strengthened by following an ancient system of learning known as the Trivium, latin for “the three roads”.  This quilt of self-education is comprised of three interwoven strands: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. In less abstract terms, it’s composed of: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

1. Grammar is the “thing-as-it-is-symbolized”; this is the art of inventing symbols and defining “things”, the individual constituents that make up the subject as a whole. By first identifying and becoming familiar with these building blocks, we can later figure out how they interact together. This stage is where a systematic knowledge of the parts is built up. If learning music, this is where one comes to know the individual notes & sounds that can be created.
2. Logic is the “thing-as-it-is-known”; this is the art of making sense out of the “things” previously defined. The stage of detecting bullshit, otherwise known as faulty & hazy reasoning. Like gold-mining, we sift through the extraneous debris and continue to refine our globs of dirt until we are left with gold. When educating oneself, the gold is called understanding. To reach this, we can subject our grammatical knowledge to the rigors of logical fallacies to make sure we extract the most refined & unbiased understanding. In learning music, this is where one learns that individual notes make up scales & certain scales go together to form larger pieces of music.
3. Rhetoric is the “thing-as-it-is-communicated”; this is the art of transmitting the understanding gained from organizing the “things” that one originally defined. By sharing the grammar & logic, or knowledge & understanding, with others, one conveys wisdom. In learning music, this is where the scales are formed into a coherent piece of music that is played for an audience.

For the sake of convenience, the art of education can be split in two main areas: the liberal arts and the servile arts. The liberal arts (taken from the latin “liberalis” meaning “appropriate for free men”) taught critical thinking skills and developed the reasoning capacities of an individual. The servile arts (sorry no hyperlink; only italics!) seek to train individuals in a specific profession, such as business manager or a banker. Although both are useful, I feel the latter has overstepped its boundaries and severely blemished the true meaning of education, which can be translated as “drawing knowledge out of somebody or leading them out of regular thinking”.

By effectively using the above-described system, one can become conversant in and master a vast array of subjects–from the liberal to the servile!

Remember: The goal here is NOT to be taught what to learn, but to teach oneself how to learn!

ABSORB! ORGANIZE! COMMUNICATE!

–peace,

sansend

“The Broadcast”

Ancient radio programs

broadcast life’s endless

“on air” frequencies.

Tireless disc jockeys spinning grooves

of rhythm set in motion long ago,

transmit the human station.

Melodies from white noise

in this concert with no audience,

the music vibrates through us

with the deep sounds

of all earth’s instruments.

We harmonize or desynchronize,

plugging in

to the orchestral cosmos.