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Gold (Tungsten) Standard
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From: Justin Escher Alpert <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]"
<[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>;
"[email protected]" [email protected]
BCC: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Asm. D. O. Prieto
Sen Weinberg [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] Sen. D.O. Allen [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Orit Sklar [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] Rob Astorino [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] s-
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
SenRice Matt Katz [email protected] Sen. Barnes Senator Joe Kyrillos andrew.sidamon-
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] Aden-Wansbury Casey (Franken) Liz
Krueger [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Alfred
Doblin [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] dennis.mcdonough, [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2014 11:02 AM
Subject: The Gold Standard, The Tungsten Standard, and Actually Setting the Standard for
Public Employee Compensation
Dear New Jersey U.S. Senate Candidate Jeff Bell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter:
Here on the New Jersey side of the Delaware, we are actively considering the gold standard for
money. On the Philadelphia side, it is looking like you are trying to educate your children as
inexpensively as possible. I have an idea.
Look at the intrinsic values of gold (Au 79) for a minute: It is shiny. It is heavy (about the same
as lead (Pb 82)). It is rare. It is malleable. It conducts electricity well. Note that today, gold
trades for about $1,200 an ounce, while tungsten (W 74), which is also rare and is used as light
bulb filaments and for a whole bunch of other novel ideas, trades for about a dollar an
ounce. If, as a society, we may choose go to a gold-based standard, surely, for the sake of
argument, you will admit that a tungsten-based standard is an equally valid (if not warranted)
idea.
Now, I personally have no use for either gold or tungsten. If I labored all day and you gave me a
bit or a barrel of either, I could not sustain my family without carting it to someone who
personally found value in such precious metal. I suppose that the upside of wealth on the gold
standard would be that as your pants were embarrassingly dropping to your ankles from the
weight of all of that shiny metal in your ample pockets, at some point you might decide to free
yourself to pursue other more productive and rewarding interests. Of course, someone would
suggest banknotes to solve this weight problem, but then the bank notes would only serve to take
away from us that shiny hunk of metal that was so valuable to begin with, that we needed to base
our whole currency system on it… but I digress.
I have a better solution… one that will unite the self-professed (or so-labeled, as the case may
be) Progressives, the good folks dressing up as Tea Party Patriots, AND the God-fearing Faith &
Freedom Crowd…
What if we went to a values-based dollar?
Wait for it…
Five… four… three… two… one…
You know… for the lot of us, the things that we find really important… they are
neither tangible nor liquid. They are ideas, like… My house modestly shelters the needs of my
family… like… My neighborhood is safe because my neighbors
are actually engaged in and responsible for the community… like… My schools are educating
my children to have enough tactile experience when they graduate that they will be able to take
on the world (i) with the assurance that their point-of-view counts and (ii) with the humility and
free space to learn from their mistakes.... or even like… My table is covered with food and my
lead crystal glasses are full of wine crushed from the fruits of my labors and my chairs are filled
with family and friends with whom I may share life’s blessings with reckless abandon.
Could we, Mr. Bell, Mr. Mayor Nutter, perhaps, base our dollar on such an elusive values-
based standard?
Well, what would you need to do to achieve that standard?
I suppose that the first thing would be to build a sense of Trust with a wide body of The People
whom you have been empowered to Serve. And then you would have to set
out parameters: What is the meaningful work that we as a
community value that needs to be done? Public education would be one of
them, right? Libraries. Hospitals. The mechanics at the garage who keep city running, that’s
important work too, and some of them have families also. What about the people who bring
food and sustenance to us in the supermarkets? How about the cops, firefighters, and EMTs who
protect and serve us? I suppose that many of us find the work at the casinos and other regulated
industries to be valuable, right? What does it take for a family to live reasonably? Does a strong
social structure and safety net lower that vital amount? On the low-side, if you are putting in a
40-hour week, what should you be earning as a minimum to live a bold life, if only as an
example… to the children of the community? On the high-side, how much of a salary is too
much of a queen’s ransom before it becomes clear that one no longer serves the Will of The
People? If you are working so hard under tungsten-free florescents that you can’t make it home
in time to coach Little League, how much of that potential community value is loaded up in
barrels and shipped out of State to nameless, faceless owners of public corporations and public
investment trusts?
These problems are all fixable.
Once your parameters were set out, then it would be up to those responsible members of society
who operate government… who operate major corporations… who operate major
organizations… who live amongst the communities that they serve…
to actually set the standards (and if they would like, proudly wear it on their sleeves). You
would, as a matter of pride, pay your employees that which they need to be paid to have upward
mobility, you know… rather than giving them currency of little sustenance, or a shiny hunk of
metal, or worse… never engaging them at all while you shuffled away with your pockets full of
tungsten. When we pay people a living wage as a matter of Faith in the economy, we are likely
to find that the economy is able to heal itself.
Maybe then, from time to time, those of wealth and means may use gold as an effective hedge
against decreases in currency value while dreaming about the weight of a gold standard…
realizing that money only has value to the extent that it builds relationships with others who are
each striving to set their own standards of excellence for what is important within their own
families and communities.
Mr. Bell, Mr. Mayor Nutter… Let’s try a values-based monetary standard. Let’s make sure that
everybody is presently accounted for… that the valuable work that needs to be done pays a
present day’s real living wage for real live responsible heads-of-family in the community… and
let’s work together to fairly address all other problems as they arise going Forward.
Thank you for your strong leadership.
Warm regards,
Justin Escher Alpert
Escher Alpert, P.C.
(917) 406-2323
http://www.escheralpert.com
