The Economy Of Heaven

[Ahab]

I think you have a fairly accurate picture of how things will work.

Though, I dont necessary have a view that money necessarliy evil as some do. I think in this world it can be a tool to measure how much we are serving others. Imperfect yes, but that's because of society, not because of money in and of itself.

I expect we will be much better at just serving one another without the need to measure it.

It's the love of money that is evil, and what is love? A high regard for something, with the desire to nurture whatever you love.

And what is hate? The opposite. A disdain for something, with the desire to get rid of it.

The hatred I have for money makes me want to get rid of it, or at least all that I get, and if more people got rid of their money as fast as I can when I get some the whole world would be in a better economic condition. Money would be flying all over the place, not staying in anyone's pocket for very long, and the more of it someone had the more they would be getting rid of it to anyone else who wanted to get their hands on it. It's no good unless it is spent, don't cha know. Money by itself is good for nothing but to be spent on something else of some real value.

Now imagine that instead of money flying around all over the place haphazardly it was instead spent or given or "utilized" under the principle of charity, with concern for the welfare of everyone, collectively. And that instead of trying to pay the least you can pay to someone for the work they do, either for their products or services, you instead tried to pay them as much as you possibly could while still considering the needs of everyone else while looking for whoever could do the most to get rid of it.

For example, if someone already has all they really want and need from the world and they get another million dollars on top of the millions they already have, that million dollars probably won't get spent as quickly as it would be if it was given to someone else who still needed a lot of basic things the "rich" person already had, so the poor person would go out and spend it to try to get all of those things. The other people who got it from that person, in turn, would go out and spend their money in a similar way, saving it more if they already had what they really needed while those who had less would spend more to try to get what they needed.

Thus, loving or hoarding/saving money is the problem, especially when you already have more than enough to cover your needs, and to be most effective the "tool" that money is needs to be used as much as possible, rather than just letting it sit around for a long time.

And btw, I've had to learn to be more careful and frugal with my money only because there's not a lot of it that gets around for me to use up, so since I don't get very much I need to be more careful about making sure I have some when I need to use it. If I could though, if I had enough money coming in, I'd be giving a constant stream of it to other people so they could get all of the things they want to get with it, too.

[Stone holm]

It's the love of money that is evil, and what is love? A high regard for something, with the desire to nurture whatever you love.

And what is hate? The opposite. A disdain for something, with the desire to get rid of it.

The hatred I have for money makes me want to get rid of it, or at least all that I get, and if more people got rid of their money as fast as I can when I get some the whole world would be in a better economic condition. Money would be flying all over the place, not staying in anyone's pocket for very long, and the more of it someone had the more they would be getting rid of it to anyone else who wanted to get their hands on it. It's no good unless it is spent, don't cha know. Money by itself is good for nothing but to be spent on something else of some real value.

Now imagine that instead of money flying around all over the place haphazardly it was instead spent or given or "utilized" under the principle of charity, with concern for the welfare of everyone, collectively. And that instead of trying to pay the least you can pay to someone for the work they do, either for their products or services, you instead tried to pay them as much as you possibly could while still considering the needs of everyone else while looking for whoever could do the most to get rid of it.

For example, if someone already has all they really want and need from the world and they get another million dollars on top of the millions they already have, that million dollars probably won't get spent as quickly as it would be if it was given to someone else who still needed a lot of basic things the "rich" person already had, so the poor person would go out and spend it to try to get all of those things. The other people who got it from that person, in turn, would go out and spend their money in a similar way, saving it more if they already had what they really needed while those who had less would spend more to try to get what they needed.

Thus, loving or hoarding/saving money is the problem, especially when you already have more than enough to cover your needs, and to be most effective the "tool" that money is needs to be used as much as possible, rather than just letting it sit around for a long time.

And btw, I've had to learn to be more careful and frugal with my money only because there's not a lot of it that gets around for me to use up, so since I don't get very much I need to be more careful about making sure I have some when I need to use it. If I could though, if I had enough money coming in, I'd be giving a constant stream of it to other people so they could get all of the things they want to get with it, too.

Money is a method of accumulating surplus and facilitating trade. Its simplifies trade, but it also has a tendency to commodify everything. Its the commodification of everything that tends to be part of the destructiveness of money.

[Ahab]

Money is a method of accumulating surplus and facilitating trade. Its simplifies trade, but it also has a tendency to commodify everything. Its the commodification of everything that tends to be part of the destructiveness of money.

If by commodification you're referring to putting a monetary price on things so they can be bought or sold with money then I don't see why you would say that would destroy money. All it takes is the money to buy something, if you must use money to get it, and then you can either sell it or give it away. Using money to buy things is a way to get rid of it but I wouldn't call that the destruction of money. It's simply a matter of using it.

[Stone holm]

If by commodification you're referring to putting a monetary price on things so they can be bought or sold with money then I don't see why you would say that would destroy money. All it takes is the money to buy something, if you must use money to get it, and then you can either sell it or give it away. Using money to buy things is a way to get rid of it but I wouldn't call that the destruction of money. It's simply a matter of using it.

I said the "destructiveness of money" , not the "destruction of money." Money assists in the commodification of just about everything which causes us to try and put a dollar value on everything, it creates the "everything has a price" type thinking.

[Ahab]

I said the "destructiveness of money" , not the "destruction of money."

I saw what you said, but I thought by destructiveness you meant destruction. Now I like what you said a lot better.

Money assists in the commodification of just about everything which causes us to try and put a dollar value on everything, it creates the "everything has a price" type thinking.

Hmm. Okay. Not really a problem, as I see it. The fact that someone puts a monetary price on something doesn't mean we have to use that much money to get it, or even any money to get it. I'm growing fruits and vegetables and I can still give them away even if I want to say they are worth a certain amount of money.

[Stone holm]

I saw what you said, but I thought by destructiveness you meant destruction. Now I like what you said a lot better.

Hmm. Okay. Not really a problem, as I see it. The fact that someone puts a monetary price on something doesn't mean we have to use that much money to get it, or even any money to get it. I'm growing fruits and vegetables and I can still give them away even if I want to say they are worth a certain amount of money.

I don't think we did ourselves a favour by making housing a commodity or when we began thinking of education as a business or when we began thinking of the Church as being a communications business.

[Ahab]

I don't think we did ourselves a favour by making housing a commodity or when we began thinking of education as a business or when we began thinking of the Church as being a communications business.

If by that you mean we should value those things as worth more than money, sure, but as some people say, money can be used for good as well as evil. It's just when we value money/profits more than we value people and what people need to live a good life that we get ourselves into trouble. Thus the love of money is the root of all evil.

And you know, even now that I know what our Lord meant by that, I still think it's amazing that he knew that about the world at such a young age. He was only about 30, in Earth age, when he said that, you know. And economists could still learn quite a bit from his teachings.

[Stone holm]

If by that you mean we should value those things as worth more than money, sure, but as some people say, money can be used for good as well as evil. It's just when we value money/profits more than we value people and what people need to live a good life that we get ourselves into trouble. Thus the love of money is the root of all evil.

And you know, even now that I know what our Lord meant by that, I still think it's amazing that he knew that about the world at such a young age. He was only about 30, in Earth age, when he said that, you know. And economists could still learn quite a bit from his teachings.

So could some members who seem to ignore Him when it comes to economics.

[Ahab]

So could some members who seem to ignore Him when it comes to economics.

Why don't you try selling all you have and giving to the poor to see how well you can do.

[Stone holm]

Why don't you try selling all you have and giving to the poor to see how well you can do.

There is a thought, but it wouldn't go very far. My advice on estate planning is to die broke, but not a day before. And I always follow my own advice.

[thesometimesaint]

It's the love of money that is evil, and what is love? A high regard for something, with the desire to nurture whatever you love.

And what is hate? The opposite. A disdain for something, with the desire to get rid of it.

The hatred I have for money makes me want to get rid of it, or at least all that I get, and if more people got rid of their money as fast as I can when I get some the whole world would be in a better economic condition. Money would be flying all over the place, not staying in anyone's pocket for very long, and the more of it someone had the more they would be getting rid of it to anyone else who wanted to get their hands on it. It's no good unless it is spent, don't cha know. Money by itself is good for nothing but to be spent on something else of some real value.

Now imagine that instead of money flying around all over the place haphazardly it was instead spent or given or "utilized" under the principle of charity, with concern for the welfare of everyone, collectively. And that instead of trying to pay the least you can pay to someone for the work they do, either for their products or services, you instead tried to pay them as much as you possibly could while still considering the needs of everyone else while looking for whoever could do the most to get rid of it.

For example, if someone already has all they really want and need from the world and they get another million dollars on top of the millions they already have, that million dollars probably won't get spent as quickly as it would be if it was given to someone else who still needed a lot of basic things the "rich" person already had, so the poor person would go out and spend it to try to get all of those things. The other people who got it from that person, in turn, would go out and spend their money in a similar way, saving it more if they already had what they really needed while those who had less would spend more to try to get what they needed.

Thus, loving or hoarding/saving money is the problem, especially when you already have more than enough to cover your needs, and to be most effective the "tool" that money is needs to be used as much as possible, rather than just letting it sit around for a long time.

And btw, I've had to learn to be more careful and frugal with my money only because there's not a lot of it that gets around for me to use up, so since I don't get very much I need to be more careful about making sure I have some when I need to use it. If I could though, if I had enough money coming in, I'd be giving a constant stream of it to other people so they could get all of the things they want to get with it, too.

Actually the opposite of love isn't hate, but it is indifference.

I wouldn't say it is worthless. It is a representative value. It represents the value we as a society place on differing objects subject to supply and demand.

I believe that we should all have the basic needs for life. IE; Adequate food, shelter, clothing, education, and timely medical care. Beyond that we get into wants, and possibly the love of money.

Sometimes that is a painful lesson.

[Stone holm]

Actually the opposite of love isn't hate, but it is indifference.

I wouldn't say it is worthless. It is a representative value. It represents the value we as a society place on differing objects subject to supply and demand.

I believe that we should all have the basic needs for life. IE; Adequate food, shelter, clothing, education, and timely medical care. Beyond that we get into wants, and possibly the love of money.

Sometimes that is a painful lesson.

Is there evil involved simply by using something to quantify the value of something?

[thesometimesaint]

Is there evil involved simply by using something to quantify the value of something?

I don't believe so. Say you have a load of fish, and I have a load of wheat. But we live far enough apart that direct barter is impractical or impossible. Money(or a representative value) allows both of us to get what we need.

PS;

Thought you might find this interesting.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/ayn-rand-sears-and-eddie-lampert?paging=off

Edited July 21, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[Stone holm]

I don't believe so. Say you have a load of fish, and I have a load of wheat. But we live far enough apart that direct barter is impractical or impossible. Money(or a representative value) allows both of us to get what we need.

PS;

Thought you might find this interesting.

http://www.alternet....pert?paging=off

I guess that works if you live too far from a body of water, but it also encourages you to get involved in long distance trade and then slowly the people managing the transactions slowly become dominant rather than the people producing what is being exchanged. But again it clearly fosters trade, but I am not sure that addresses the issue of whether it is good to quantify everything in dollars. I just had a long conversation with my foster son's girlfriend who is part Peruvian she was describing the oppression occurring in the jungles down there which have become in essence war zones because of the oppression being visited upon the native people whose forests are being stripped and lands are being raped by miners. Am wondering if we are not seeing the rise of the Lamanites which was foreseen.

[thesometimesaint]

Money isn't everything. But it is nice to have more than a little bit of it. At least here in the US.

Someday soon they'll be a thorn in the hand of their oppressors.

[Ahab]

Is there evil involved simply by using something to quantify the value of something?

There can be. How much is the service of a person really worth? Say someone has the desire to help you by helping you with something you either can't do or aren't very good at doing yourself. How much is that desire worth? Say they use some materials that are available on this Earth which our Father in heaven has provided. Does that alter the value of that person's desire to help you or the value of what they are willing to do for you? Take any example you can think of and tell me how much that is worth.

If your first instinct is to put a dollar vallue on the help you get from other people I think you should think about why you do that.

[Ahab]

Money isn't everything. But it is nice to have more than a little bit of it. At least here in the US.

Someday soon they'll be a thorn in the hand of their oppressors.

What you really want is what you can sometimes get with money, though, and if money didn't get that for you it wouldn't have any value at all.

Imagine yourself sitting on a huge pile of $20 bills with EVERYONE ELSE also having their own huge pile as big as your pile.

The people who promoted the idea of using money, like American money for example, also needed to promote a demand for it by inducing other people to think they needed to have that in exchange for what they already had or could do without it.

Someone who had land, for example, was sold the idea that having a wad of money was better than having the land, so there they were with a wad of money but without that land that they had thinking there were other people around who wanted that money. But what if nobody else had been sold on that idea, thinking that instead of trading it for money they should keep what they had. It's good for nothing unless someone else thinks they need to have money, too, which is why everyone who has some wants you to believe it's worth having.

[Stone holm]

There can be. How much is the service of a person really worth? Say someone has the desire to help you by helping you with something you either can't do or aren't very good at doing yourself. How much is that desire worth? Say they use some materials that are available on this Earth which our Father in heaven has provided. Does that alter the value of that person's desire to help you or the value of what they are willing to do for you? Take any example you can think of and tell me how much that is worth.

If your first instinct is to put a dollar vallue on the help you get from other people I think you should think about why you do that.

You hit the nail on the head. Why is it that we put a dollar value say on a house and land that your family has lived on and worked for generations? Why is it that we have snotty yuppie bankers characterizing people as just living as subsistence farmers as justification for destroying their culture, environment and replacing sustainable traditional lifestyles with minimal wage industrial work in the city?

[Stone holm]

What you really want is what you can sometimes get with money, though, and if money didn't get that for you it wouldn't have any value at all.

Imagine yourself sitting on a huge pile of $20 bills with EVERYONE ELSE also having their own huge pile as big as your pile.

The people who promoted the idea of using money, like American money for example, also needed to promote a demand for it by inducing other people to think they needed to have that in exchange for what they already had or could do without it.

Someone who had land, for example, was sold the idea that having a wad of money was better than having the land, so there they were with a wad of money but without that land that they had thinking there were other people around who wanted that money. But what if nobody else had been sold on that idea, thinking that instead of trading it for money they should keep what they had. It's good for nothing unless someone else thinks they need to have money, too, which is why everyone who has some wants you to believe it's worth having.

Our posts crossed in cyber space I think we are thinking the same thing in a way.

[thesometimesaint]

What you really want is what you can sometimes get with money, though, and if money didn't get that for you it wouldn't have any value at all.

Imagine yourself sitting on a huge pile of $20 bills with EVERYONE ELSE also having their own huge pile as big as your pile.

The people who promoted the idea of using money, like American money for example, also needed to promote a demand for it by inducing other people to think they needed to have that in exchange for what they already had or could do without it.

Someone who had land, for example, was sold the idea that having a wad of money was better than having the land, so there they were with a wad of money but without that land that they had thinking there were other people around who wanted that money. But what if nobody else had been sold on that idea, thinking that instead of trading it for money they should keep what they had. It's good for nothing unless someone else thinks they need to have money, too, which is why everyone who has some wants you to believe it's worth having.

Money is just a medium of exchange. I find it useful as a medium of exchange, since I can't carry around all the land I do own in my pocket.

I'm not for an absolute equality in money. But I would like to see more equality in money.