What relationship does wampum have with fair trade?
King Solomon
Desirable and Rare wealth are in the home of a wise man, but a man who is a fool consumes it (Proverb 21:20)
Wealth in the possession of a wise man is the subject of this verse. The allusion is apparently partly to his thriftiness, since he is contrasted with the fool who devours and or squanders wealth.
What is My Point
Proverbs may be interpreted to have many different meanings. The reason I selected this proverb is because a wise man knows the difference of what is real and rare wealth and will not squander this wealth by buying or trading it for wampum. I will explain my point in this post.
Comparative Value in Trade Commodities
If you are trading a food commodity such as US wheat or corn which grows better in the US, for bananas which grow best in South America, both have a comparative trade value. Food is a necessity of life, same as energy. I have no qualms about basic necessities in life, food and energy that concerns me in relation to trade imbalances. Without either food or energy, both people and nation’s economies will expire.
It is the other commodities that I am concerned with is what I categorize as real and rare wealth that are being traded away by fools, namely our Congress and the people who continue to vote for the members who in my opinion are allowing real wealth of our children and grandchildren’s future to be squandered. I will give you examples. But first I want to clarify production in relation to trade commodities.
Production
The manufactured products that the US produces to offset the difference of low wages are mainly the result of modern automatic production machines being used in the US, or availability of costly investment of facilities, such as oil refineries, and/or having close access or available of minerals and raw materials or energy. In other, words labor is not the prime cost ingredient. Some commodities are competitive because of engineering superiority, and/or closely guarded patented technologies.
As for food production, the combination of land availability, climate, and farm machinery aid farmers to be competitive in world markets. However, some food products require laborers at harvest time to prevent the food commodities not to die or spoil on the vine. That was the initial reason for US children to have summer vacation, to allow them to help in farm labors.
Today visas workers are doing the farm labor. Corporations buy up land because family members died or gave up because they could not afford inheritance taxes. The travesty is both foreign owners and Corporations never die on paper and the IRS for the most part never collects inheritance taxes from foreign owners of US assets.
Wampum
Do US schoolbooks still explain the story of how the original native American Indians sold Manhattan Island for some decorative beads called wampum, or is now taboo because of political correctness? The American Indians valued wampum so they could make decorative bands to wear on their person. Artwork that did not grow anywhere in value over time as the island they traded away.
I still remember when I read the story seven decades ago and thought to myself, boy those Indians were really fools to do what we Americans are foolishly now doing, selling our US land, real estates, art, and even our businesses that may or will grow more valuable in time..
In other words, selling out for paper US dollars (wampum) accumulated by shrewder traders than our trade negotiators and Congress because they know the dollars will devalue in time.
One reason the US dollar has not collapsed in value yet because of unbalanced trade is this. Owners of dollars know the dollar is only a piece of paper, or wampum. However, they also know there are few or no restrictions on using the dollar to buy US land, art treasures, and business assets instead of US products. Other nations like our favored nearby NAFTA nation has restrictions on Americans owning Mexican land.
If you ever took a Business Law Course, you would know that land is recognized in law as different from other assets. That is because land is the only asset that cannot be duplicated in value. My point is someday one of your kids will someday think we are fools same as I did when I read in my grade school history book.
If you never read the novel, Gone With the Wind, look up and discern again in the context of this post, the final words uttered by the heroine. Words which gave her hope to live on after experiencing all the tragedies in her life caused by mainly her own foolish choices.
King Solomon’s Above Proverb
King Solomon had another religious viewpoint of this proverb which I concur. That is because in my opinion, Our Souls, the Rarest of all Rare Treasures, is yet another type of squander story about foolish earthly trades many will make in their lives. You may come to understand that meaning if you explore and discern his Ecclesiastes.
However, I do not want religion to enter into the subject of folly of our earthly commodity trades for purposes of this post. In other words, one squander at a time is all I can bear writing about.
I also wonder if the author of Gone With the Wind selected her title after reading King Solomon’s Ecclesiastes message about the folly of our vanity in life of Chasing the Wind.
In My Next Post
I will explore what I consider to be another tragedy of choices Americans are making in our lives by consuming, squandering, and trading away another aspect of our Rare Wealth, referred to in the above King Solomon proverb.
Preevious Posts
Post One HERE
Post Two HERE
Post Three HERE
Post Four HERE
Post Five HERE
Post Six HERE
Post Seven HERE
Post Eight HERE
Post Nine HERE
Post Ten HERE
Post Eleven HERE
Post Twelve HERE
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