The relativity of values causes us to use money irrationally. I go to the supermarket to buy a $15 pen, and the clerk smiles and says, “You can buy this pen for $7 if you walk 5 minutes from here.” Then, most people walk five minutes and buy a $15 pen for $7. But if you want to buy a $1,000 jacket and the clerk smiles and says, “You can get a $992 jacket in five minutes from here,” most people simply buy the $1,000 jacket. Reasonably, walking for 5 minutes equals the effort, and the profit of $8 is the same. However, people might go to a store that sells pens cheaper, but not for the jacket, because the discount rate is too low. In other words, the relativity of comparing values makes us act irrationally. The pen’s discount rate is 55%, and the jacket’s is only 0.8%. Yet, the total amount is the same for all $8, and the effort to gain that profit is identical. Attitudes and misconceptions about consumption influence how we build wealth. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Value in Kind (VIK). Refers to the spot value . We pay money to buy the goods we need, which represents an exchange of goods for currency. However, since money is also a kind of good, it has a relative value that constantly changes. That’s the price. When the price of goods rises, it indicates that the value of money in relation to goods declines. This phenomenon is called INFLATION . If other goods exchanged for goods experience a greater value increase than currency, the seller finds it more advantageous to transact using those other goods rather than currency. We prefer to exchange currency in transactions because it is a government-guaranteed compulsory means of exchange . The right to exchange anything constitutes compulsory circulation power . However, this is the only value of money. If the price of gold is rising significantly, and you can exchange gold for goods, it becomes a better option for producers of goods to trade in gold instead of money. Originally, the pre-currency...