Trade Ya for a Better Economy?

According to Dictionary.com, the first listed definition of value is, “relative worth, merit, or importance,” in other words the worthiness, merit or importance of an abstract or concrete entity in relation to another abstract or concrete entity.  I would conjecture that the list of our most valuables would indeed be a matter of character and maybe even morality. What do you most value? Generally, that’s a question one might hear in a philosophy class or maybe even resonating throughout a religious assembly from clergy standing at a pulpit. It might seem that what is valuable is, or should be, as far removed from the world of finance as the unemployed are from finding a lifestyle sustaining job in the United States.

What do I value most? What in my life is worth the ultimate sacrifice?

Well, that would be my children and my husband- my family. Abstract entities that are valuable to me? Time, love, security and space. Next on my list of valuables would be the slightly more practical necessities: food, water, shelter, warmth, clothing (especially after two cesareans, this gal doesn’t wanna do the nudist thing!)

It would be at this rung on the Ladder of What Matters where I would probably insert some kind of landing area because anything else I could add is just fluff. What is kinda neat about the top tier of this fool’s values is that all of those valuables CAN indeed be gotten without any money exchanging hands. Am I going all Ted Nugent on your ass here? Maybe, maybe not. It is true that not every one of us is in a position to build our own log cabin or hunt our own meat. Some of us don’t even have room to grow our own vegetable gardens and quite frankly, I can’t remember learning how to sheer sheep and spin it into wool to make clothing in my high school home economics class. Honestly though, doesn’t this mean we can’t? Or does it mean there are other things we would prefer to do with our time and resources.

Early on, maybe even before the emergence of homo sapiens, we realized that some of us have a certain affinity for producing a specific good or service and that maybe it made more sense to let them be brilliant at THEIR craft so that we could hone the necessary skills for brilliance within OUR craft. “You cook, I’ll do the dishes?”  That folks, is called bartering. Exchanging a good or service for another good or service. Both parties involved in the self legislated transaction, where each party walks away with a valuable commodity. There’s no speculation, there’s no regulation, there’s no taxation. There’s no unions or management. There’s no outsourcing or globalization or pensions or social security. There’s no entitlements and no lobbyists. There’s no stock holders and there are no off shore accounts. There’s no inflation or deflation and there are certainly no stimuli or bailouts. It’s pure, unadulterated commerce. What sounds like a fantastic utopia has actually been right here, hiding, under layers and layers of ideas perpetuated by people trying to “fix somethin’ that just ain’t broken.”

In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt nullified the “gold standard” in the United States, which meant that the dollar bill was to be no longer backed by a portion of gold sitting in Fort Knox. Instead, the United States government would decide how much the dollar was worth. My personal assumption would be that, at the time, this decision was integral to FDR’s plan for the US’s recovery from the Great Depression; however, this action always takes my mind to the board game Monopoly. At the moment FDR enacted this policy, he pretty much equated  the dollar bill with its Monopoly counterpart. Is it really okay for the government to decide what something is worth to us (or the US, for that matter?) Because, by removing gold as a physical backing for the currency, we might as well use it buy one of those little plastic hotels for Boardwalk.

Obviously, I am oversimplifying a undoubtedly complex system, one that many have spent a whole time manipulating and mastering. Golly gee, maybe I just ain’t quite sophisticated enough to decide what is valuable to me. Maybe I need the government to determine the worth and the value for my life.

Or maybe, just maybe, we really can determine value for ourselves. According to U.S. Small Business Association’s Web site, , as of 2008 SBA.gov, there were 29.6 million businesses in the United States and , as of 2007, 21.7 million of them had no employees. So, that means that approximately 21.7 million people in the US have figured out that they want to determine their own values as well. They want to be able to determine their own worth, and the worth of the services/ products that they produce and, surprise, surprise, if they were considered businesses, it means they had customers/ clients. What if we were to take that concept one step further, and just eliminate the paper/ electronic currency from the transaction entirely? Hmmm, I wonder if that would be considered tax evasion?

What if, I produced a product and charged $5.00 for purchase of said product, but on that price tag, along with the $5.00, there was a picture of 2 chickens? What if you could have my product for the price of two chickens, that could be placed in my freezer and used to feed my family, or simply pay the five dollars? What if my store was on a country road, and if you decided to erect a windmill to produce electricity on your neighboring property and what if I gave you X amount of doohickeys that I produce, so that I could have some of the electricity that your windmill produces to power the lights in my store?

Something to think about?

Well, you and I aren’t the only ones thinking now. As per a quick google search of “bartering movements,” I found:

Bring Back Old-time Bartering by Roland McShane 2008

The Barter Project #2 By Sharon Knight

The Barter News Web Site

Bartering in Place of Currency in Today’s Economy

Barter, Trade, and Share – Save Money and Strengthen Our Community by By Sono-Ma Holly | Published: June 2, 2010

Apparently, what I thought was an innovative, cutting edge idea, has been re-surging for quite a few years. Strength in numbers, I suppose? Maybe, just maybe, our economy is really so broken that we have to scrap it and start over. I don’t know, but, can the current system really get much worse? <shuddering>

Gas...It's a Fact of Life

So, we HAD to quench the thirst of our [free for a legitimate reason] ‘96 Ford Winstar today. It was painful, it shattered my begrudging hopes that the economy would indeed rebound (at least for us working class folks.) For the first time in my life, I yelled to my husband, “Don’t fill it!” I knew full well, that we had to fill it, cause eventually, we would just be refilling it again and probably at a higher price! It was already $3.43/ gallon!

If it was up to me, I would never drive again! I would be perfectly happy walking kids to school, walking to the grocery store and the pharmacy- it would be GOLDEN! But, alas, we have our own Indy 500 just a block away, which is NOT conducive to a 2 week grocery order and 2 preschoolers in tow. I hate winter, especially, with all of it’s snow and ice and such. I hate driving.  There are rude people on the road- old and young

But, the kids are 3 and 5, and they have little legs. Could they walk two miles to school? Sure. Could they function the rest of the day? Probably not. Really? Is this what the “Greatest Generation” bequest to us? It’s not totally their fault though. Not really their fault at all. They didn’t  make the choices their legislators made.

We are in a bad place. We are dependant on oil from a place that is NOT here. It COULD be from here, but it is not.  Why do we need the oil? Being dependant on someone else for our livelihood isn’t American, but it IS Global.

So, the total  cost at the gas station was about sixty dollars. It doesn’t sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, especially with the prices of everything else escalating, but sixty dollars DOES matter to me and I can probably think of about sixty reasons WHY we shouldn’t be paying $3.43 for one gallon of gasoline. I am not going to delve into them all here, but I will touch on a few:

Alternative energy vehicles-  There’s an inventor in the Philippines who has come up with an electric car that has solar charging capabilities: Solar Car and there have been a number of other people that have retrofitted their vehicles to run on water and used vegetable oil and such. Also check out List of Alternative Fuels that lists almost 20 different options for fuel that would work in most vehicles currently on the roads today.

More local shops!- There’s a glorious time of yore when there was a market, local beer garden and church literally down the block from every home in the United State. Back then, there was little unemployment, children and adults alike COULD safely walk where they needed to go, so the occurrence of obesity was far lower, there was no hole in the Ozone Layer, because people only really “needed” to drive for special occasions like Sunday drives or  vacations to the shore during the summer. Local shops COULD easily repopulate and create a sustainable living for the owners by tapping into modern technology for some help. Grocers can create little eating areas, like counter top seating and a couple of café tables and invest in wi-fi for their establishments to encourage patrons. They easily create a Web site that would allow for access to an international customer base and send shop specific specialties far and wide.

Think trains not trucks! Much of the country is still covered in at least remnants of the glory that was rail travel and, of course, a number of trains STILL function quite well as a form of transport that’s less dependant on oil and exceptionally cost efficient. Jobs could be created in order to bring the lost tracks back to fruition. Truckers could be retrained to work trains (yes, I am proud of that alliteration there!) We COULD be as bold as to go back to steam engines, but our technology  just isn’t quite there yet with an alternative energy source for vehicle as large and fierce as a train. It’s still a possibility though..

Embrace the cyber world! If we really think about it, a ridiculously absurd amount of office jobs, really anything not specifically requiring manual labor, can be done from the home of anyone with HSD, a computer and access to Skype. For the cost of a computer, a wecam/ speakers/ microphone, internet service and Skype (or any Voice Over IP service like Vonage) we could avoid the costs of commuting, as well as work fashion, as well the need for a brick and mortar office building, aside from, at MOST a customer accessible little hub of a building. Secure networks allow for a virtual office for the handling of any level of sensitive information. Online chatting allows for contact with coworkers and superiors when there’s a need for escalation of an issue and/ or customer interaction. Even old fashioned phone customer service can be done from home with a quiet room and the other aforementioned prerequisites. Imagine a world with no more traffic jams, no road rage, no need for fast food (when ya got your own kitchen a couple of yards away.) I could go on and on about the benefits. And then, guess what? We won’t need petroleum products to keep ourselves functional, well, not to anywhere near the degree of necessity that we currently have.

According to Wikipedia, the first car was produced in 1902. Human beings have lived, survived and prospered for approximately 500,000 years prior to 1902, according to NASA. Something tells me that a world without petroleum products just might still be feasible.

So, maybe we need to respond like the innovative, frugal and resourceful Americans of the past, and change our own corner of the world. Your bank account will surely thank you.