Arthur, on rereading, you and I may be saying about the same thing, though in
different ways.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 6:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Consequences of our second-strongest instinct
Reaching an agreement on debt/GDP via a Bretton Woods type agreement might
work for a time and in particular circumstances, but as I see it economic
circumstances and their international consequences change much too quickly in
today's globalized world. What seems needed is intelligence and an ability to
make whatever deals may be needed on the part of leadership and to make those
deals quickly. Get your brightest, most open minded and least corruptable
people into leadership roles and keep them talking to each other. But I know
that may be too tall and order.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Arthur Cordell
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' ; 'Keith Hudson'
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 9:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Consequences of our second-strongest instinct
Rather than going to gold there might be a Bretton Woods type meeting where
international agreement is reached on debt to gdp ratios which are acceptable.
As nations go into the "danger" zones there can be international ways of
alerting financial markets to this fact. This may the self correcting
mechanism that is needed. Granted that different nations will have different
zones which spell danger but with agreement there will be the much needed
control over the printing presses.
Moving to gold is going to be difficult.
arthur
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 9:18 AM
To: Keith Hudson; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Consequences of our second-strongest instinct
A couple of comments, Keith. One is that I've known strong-willed and
powerful women whose husbands are low status whimps. They didn't marry them to
attain status, but probably because it is nice to have a husband when
attending events. The other concerns gold, as you may have guessed. It may
feel reassuring to think there is something out there that can ultimately
provide the world with the stability it lacks, but I can't really see anything
doing that, not even gold. We live in a world of quick fixes, and something
that prevents governments from trying to fix quickly doesn't fit anymore.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, ,EDUCATION
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 4:51 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Consequences of our second-strongest instinct
As the stock markets of the world seem on the point of collapse and
likely long-term economic depression looms, let me dwell on a couple of
fundamentals.
The strongest instinct of all is individual survival. In extremis we have
even been known to eat one another. Thus food and water are the ultimate
backing for any currency. A billionaire marooned in a tent in the middle of the
Sahara would spend his last penny if he were to be offered food and water and
taken to safety. He might even spend his last penny on one cupful of water
without any further guarantees.
We don't need any of the biological sciences to tell us the above.
However, for the vast majority of mankind, as yet uneducated in any of the
biological sciences (even in the Western world), we need such stuff as
anthropology or evolutionary biology to tell us what is the second-most
important instinct which we share with 3,000 other mammalian species.
This is procreation, disguised in practical form as status. The male of
the species needs to have as high a status as possible in order to have as much
sex as possible, in particular with young, healthy, desirable females. This, of
course, can't happen for more than a small minority of human males, as with
other mammals, because of the 50:50 male:female sex ratio. Mao Zedong, the
all-powerful dictator of China for many years was a recent example of an
exception (now that his true life story is being told!). By the age of about 30
years, when our frontal lobes have largely ceased developing, and potential
skills are largely revealed, most males have settled into an acceptable status
role for themselves. It is not that any male (to my knowledge anyway) will turn
down an opportunity to increase his status, but he won't necessarily strive
hard for it. Only relatively few will continue to be energetic in mid- and
older-life in pursuing higher status intensively in the arts, or sciences, or
politics, or business, or sport (of the gentler sort!) or even in some obscure
hobby or activity.
The general instinctive strategy of the young pubescent female is to
choose as her life partner a male of as high a status as possible within her
social domain as her intelligence, health and beauty allows. This is our human
version of the quality control instinct of all mammalian species in making sure
that the more inept males are left childless so that their less fortunate genes
are not passed on. In oppressive cultures, parents will do this for her, often
having to entice such a male with a dowry offering.
And, talking of dowries, this immediately brings us back to money because
currency and status are highly correlated in most spheres of human activity.
Even individuals with the finest intellectual minds who don't usually bother
overmuch with conventional status objects strive for gongs such as Nobel Prizes
-- and usually also find themselves (accidentally?) in higher-paid jobs than
the humdrum mental plodder.
Food and water are not convenient items to carry around in exchange for
items which have to do with our second-strongest instinct, so man has made do
with small items which are valuable because of their rarity. Gold and precious
stones are good examples. In fact, as an economic survival-of-the-fittest
phenomenon, gold coins became by far the best currency to carry around. By the
17th century it was the universal currency except in a few small isolated
islands.
Gold had to be assisted, however, with a cloud of many other vicarious
currencies during the course of the industrial revolution, because of the sheer
volume of money that was being transacted. Principally (as regards most people
most of the time) these surrogates were banknotes, though they could be
exchanged, if absolutely necessary, with gold. This regime was thrown over
completely, however, in 1914, when major countries started printing hitherto
unimaginable quantities of banknotes to pay for wartime armaments. After WWII
was over, they decided that it was in their interests to outlaw gold as the
currency with which their electorates had to pay their taxes -- that is, the
legal currency. By printing banknotes, at first modestly and then exuberantly,
they could devalue the cost of their debts.
But, as we are seeing in the past few weeks and months, this trick never
quite came off. The principal paper currencies -- the dollar, the euro and the
renminbi -- have all been devaluing and are now close to panic mode. Gold,
which had never quite lost its currency status, either in the minds of many
ordinary people nor in the vaults of the central banks, is now re-establishing
its basic value in mirror-like fashion. Central banks of the world,
particularly those of the fast emerging countries, have been buying gold
steadily since the last pseudo currency, the Euro, was instituted in 1999.
If we do, in fact, descend into world-wide economic depression in the
next few days then one thing is for certain. Treasury economists, central
bankers and top politicians will be re-reading their history books to determine
more precisely just what went wrong in the last century. Then we might have
some hope that a dependable stable world trading currency will follow.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/08/
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