Focus on Life™

We seem to be very efficient, but unfortunately this does not mean that we are doing the right things. Saving the environment is the next new trend. Everyone wants to get involved and be part of the latest fashion. But below the hood not much have changed after all. The methods are the same and the results may be less than impressive.

For many of us it is not about saving the planet but reducing the guilt. We are bluffing ourselves and trying to be good citizens. However, this does not change the underlying facts and the ongoing destruction of the planet. Still, we are carrying on with our lifestyles and ways of working without changing anything radically. By our actions we are saying that we are concerned and I can do this and that but I don’t want to go any deeper. I’m not willing to do major sacrifices. This is my life—no matter how twisted or destructive its impact might be.

Buying carbon credits is easy. Following your carbon footprint and compensating it may sound like that you’re helping out in a big way. But what is it exactly that you’re trying to do? First you consume (destroy and pollute) and then you feel guilty or concerned about it and compensate by buying some credits that may either be someone ‘rights’ to pollute that have been sold to you or you are planting something back to nature that will take decades if not centuries to heal and compensate the loss you made. How can you be so sure that there is enough time left for future generations and your credits to ‘payback’ before the whole planet has been destroyed? You did not stop the destruction and pollution in the first place. What you said was that you’re continuing to do your mess now and you will fix it later somehow. And who has said that carbon credits or any other single concept is the right solution for the damages we are causing?

Regulators are keen to impose new taxes and restrictions on various items and processes. Energy is ‘bad’ in general and needs to be highly taxed. Some ‘alternative’ energy forms are preferred over others and there are sanctions and incentives for certain activities and actions. In an overall level we are forced to act in a unified and specific manner but in reality we may help out someone’s business interest more than save the planet—we just continue the destruction in another way that is more ‘socially’ accepted. How does it help the environment that governments impose taxes on energy? It certainly helps the government to get more revenues by appealing to our ‘responsibility’ to our living environment. At the same time the very same government is telling us that growing crops and other biomass for fuel are saving the planet and these forms need to be subsidised. What happened to the overall impact and energy input-output efficiency? We are just recycling the money and boosting business, not saving the environment. Guilty revealed and the new fashion trend harvested, mainly supported by coercion.

Money does not buy love. Neither can it buy nature. By looking around us it’s obvious that we have not learned this lesson. No matter how much money you have still you cannot undo the damage for rain forests, polluted water and land, corrupted crops and extinct species. We are good at destroying but very poor at creating. What has taken tremendous amount of time by nature to build we are destroying almost in seconds compared to the overall time perspective. We are irresponsible and ignorant of our support systems. What else can be said when we prefer short term at the cost of our children?

Guilt does not solve the issue, neither paying more. Something more profound is needed. We need to reconsider our priorities and values. We need to reassess our relationship with this planet, with nature. Now we consume. We use, utilise, and throw away. This is a one-way relationship that is not sustainable. We are living in a closed system called the planet Earth. We cannot pile up things forever and expect that our trash and pollution are well hidden and do not come back to us. Who do you think are already eating, drinking, and breathing hazardous waste? So far things have not gotten better. Our current solutions are not working. More regulation, more penalties, more subsidies, more forced ‘one right way policies’ are not the answer. The question is not what you do but why you do it. Everybody can do his or her own share. There is more than one way to live in this planet. Now it is time to explore and experiment other approaches that are based on a more balanced way of existence. What is it that you’re paying for?

You are surrounded by your past. All the tangible items and assets represent the earlier achievements. The same applies to your monetary wealth as well—it is only storage of your previous efforts and endeavours. The past is not the future; you need to create something new in between.

Basically everything goes through a cycle of creation, sustenance, and decay. It does not really matter whether we talk about knowledge, skills, physical goods, or even our thoughts. The only constant is change. It stays and forces everything else into movement. Effort is required to keep up with the changes in the world around us.

Tangible things are relatively easy to produce—if you only know how. And this is exactly the point. We need ideas, innovations, experience, knowledge, and the right skills to get something done. A beautiful house/car or any other physical good or product does not last forever. They need either be replaced or maintained. This information is always within people. Persons make everything happen.

Diversity and specialisation are the means that enable our society to have a wide variety of different tangible items and products available to us. There needs to be people who have the required skill set and the production tools to create the items. They do not come out of nowhere—they represent the existing expertise and knowledge.

We often take services and products as granted, and can only start to appreciate them when they have first demonstrated their non-functional nature. If your bathroom pipe is leaking then suddenly a plumber is a very valuable person for you. Actually your life becomes pretty unbearable without the necessary reparation skills!

The richness is not in the goods and things around you. They are only the presentation of the wealth in the society. The future success needs to be earned every day. No money can buy you food if you are in an isolated island. Similarly the wealth of any society can be measured only by the richness and the variety of experience, knowledge, and interaction among its members. Specialisation is only available when there are enough goods and services available to take care of the more general needs of the members of the society. If you need to grow your own food and prepare it as well there is less time available for other activities. In a similar manner any specialist is dependent on the work and expertise of the other people in the production chain. We all need each other. If you are not contributing or loving what you’re doing everybody is worst off. Do you see how personal freedom is very closely linked to the well-being and the wealth of the society?

Money is only a medium of exchange. It is not the wealth. It only presents the future wealth we believe it can provide us in form of goods and services from other people whom we hope to accept our money in an exchange for our desired goods and services.

Wealth is created by people who produce goods and services. We use money as a middle man to satisfy our current and future needs. What we do not consume immediately we can store for a later day (save (i.e. invest)).

Basically anything can be used as a medium of exchange. History knows many commodities used as money. Currently we have accepted printed-paper notes as money that has no other productive use.

The purchasing power is based on exchange of goods and services between individuals in any society. In another words in order to get something you have to give something. One can do this directly by bartering fish to bread or use a medium of exchange in between. For example buy ‘money’ by selling the fish and then sell the money and buy the bread.

Provided that the society is based on trust where no one is cheating (i.e. getting something for nothing—stealing) it does not really matter what is used as money. Ludwig Von Mises has theoretically proven that gold, silver etc. were evolved as the commonly accepted medium of exchange by having an alternative productive (i.e. economic = scarce) use first. Later they became the de facto standard ‘money’. For example gold can be used for jewelery, semiconductors etc. as well as a medium of exchange.

Our current fiat money is not backed by anything. This means that one can fabricate more money and thus steal/cheat from the society. By printing more paper notes one can exchange those notes to real goods and services (provided that people still believe in the money and are ignorant of the scam) without giving anything back. Thus getting something for nothing. In other words the overall wealth in the society has not increased as a result of printing more paper notes, ‘money’. There are no more goods or services for the members of the society to enjoy and consume.

We focus on growth—it’s everything. Our current economy is based on the ever-expanding growth paradigm. It does not work without it. Our monetary base grows every year. Valuations need to grow, as well as profits and revenues. The society is driven by this growth mania.

And how do we do this? By producing and consuming more, or should I say evermore, ever-expanding. And by consuming more we feed more needs to expand the business and acquire new resources to fulfil the needs of the growth. And so the cycle goes on and on—but not forever. Sole expansion is not natural, it pairs with contraction, in nature that is.

Seldom we start to question the basis of the assumptions and thinking underneath. What is the purpose of the growth and why is it needed? Some would say that it is because of money. And in many ways they are right. The fiat money system is built upon a hypothesis of ever-expanding promises of debt that are not paid back but rolled over. It requires more units of money to survive. As a result of this there are only raising prices and continuous inflation (expansion). For example US dollar has lost over 95% of its value since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was established. Does this create wealth for all the citizens using the legal tender?

But coming back to the question why the growth and what’s the purpose of it. More money does not answer the question; it only explains the way the current system is working. Actually money has nothing do with the real issue—it’s only a poor middleman that is often misunderstood to be the purpose when it can only be the means for something else. Money is used to obtain goods, services, or intangible needs such as security. We would not consume more simply because our monetary system requires so. There is something else underneath that feeds the requirements and keeps the wheels turning. And once again we are getting back to each and every one of us, individually. No company consume, buy, sell, manufacture, or invest—only people do. Structures are mere tools and vehicles for our purposes, ignore them long enough and they disappear. There is no one to blame but us. It’s not the economy, stupid—it’s us, the people!

We have bought the idea and assume that more is better. More money means something better, more consumption provides with something more and so on. Having more is the key and this having is the cause of the ever-expansion in our needs. But if you never consider why you need to have more you will never approach the real issue, you simply will act to gain more of something—forever and ever more.

Wanting is easy. Also having more is relatively easy, even though it takes its toll. But being happy has nothing to do with wanting or having. Confucius once said: “they must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” It looks that buying happiness does not seem to work despite all the consumption and material well-being. Maybe it is time to reconsider our assumptions and beliefs that define our current growth paradigm, individually?

Gary has very clear advice: nada de nada.

How do you like it when someone is exchanging nothing for something?
Kings did it in the past and we are doing it at the moment in massive scale as well.

Money and Inflation: The Tendency to Deny Reality by Frank Shostak.

Printing money does not increase the amount of products and services available in the market. It only increases the prices in the long term, in the short term it creates an illusion of increased wealth before the slow adjustment of prices catch up.

“The services money renders are conditioned by the height of its purchasing power. Nobody wants to have in his cash holding a definite number of pieces of money or a definite weight of money; he wants to keep a cash holding of a definite amount of purchasing power.”
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 3rd rev. ed. (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1966) p 421.

Read Gary North’s The Official Counterfeiter.

Frank Shostak explains global liquidity and whether there is such a thing: The Yen and Monetary Liquidity

The root cause of inflation is very simple: the central bank produces money out of thin air.

A case in point: Fed’s Inflation Analysis Ranks With Zimbabwe’s: Caroline Baum

Why don’t we use gold as money anymore?

The Gold-Plated Sting by Gary North.

Ludwig von Mises: “It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments.”

Read the article by Thorsten Polleit.