[FRIAM] What is Wealth for?

Fri Mar 19 12:34:25 EDT 2021

At the risk (with the awareness of?) being pedantic:

My working definition of Wealth is that it is accumulated or stored
Value which just begs the question of "what is Value?"

There are a few reasons that Fiat Currency is a common measure of Value
and Wealth (e.g. GDP, personal Wealth/Income, etc), the most obvious (I
think) is that it IS reductive and moderately fungible.   Money is "the
universal solvent" which on one hand means it helps to solve or clean up
sticky problems, but it also ultimately "dissolves everything".   And
you "can't buy happiness" but money *does* work to leverage/relieve
various things which contribute-to/detract-from happiness.  The kid who
killed the Asian Massage Parlor women seemed to have hit a boundary on
that one and took it out on them.  

I started the thread "what is Wealth for?" to prompt the kinds of
discussions that have been offered up and perhaps beyond.

My working definition of Value includes it being very
Subjective/Personal/Context Specific and that it is at least a Vector,
probably more properly a Tensor.   As a strawman (in my sense), I offer
dimensions such as:

 1. Fiat Currency with it's exchange rate among other similar
    instruments, it's liquidity, inflation/interest rates, etc.
 2. Data/Knowledge/Wisdom spectrum
 3. Love, Kindness, Filial/Fealthy networks
 4. Tools (levers) for specific tasks/goals
 5. Raw materials
 6. Comfort items (soft warm bed, nice view, etc.)
 7. Basic need items (air, water, food, shelter, ...) -
 8. Reputation
 9. Beauty/Culture
10. et cetera, ad nauseum

Bhutan's Gross Domestic Happiness Index is an interesting way of
evaluating the Tensor of Life into a singular Eigenvalue.   It is most
useful to our Western Hypercapitalism as a strong contrast to the way
*we* collapse it all into $USD (private wealth or GDP or... ) even
though we know money can't always buy happiness and as with our favorite
whipping boy and his neice's book "Too Much and Not Enough" what seems
like a linear or maybe log curve is not only fraught with inflection
points, it has some kinks and even knots built into it.

If the calculus of our "happiness tensor" includes satisficing as well
as optimizing terms, we see something somewhat different the usual math
for evaluating (economic) wealth/value...  

    "Enough is too much, and that is just right!" - antidote to "Too
Much and Not Enough"

Some of the terms in the Value Tensor refer to virtuous rather than
vicious cycles (e.g. Love, Kindness, Generosity).   The extrema are
interesting but not defining (Elon Musk, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Nelson
Mandela, your favorite Street Person).

mumble,

 - Steve

On 3/19/21 7:54 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> " I still don't see what's wrong with the dictionary definition. Is
> there some reason we need a different definition?  "
>
> Maybe we want to include non-material wealth such as Merle's example
> of the formar Bhutan's happiness?
> Maybe we also want to include Nick's freedom to think as wealth?
>
> @Merle, you asked for a definition, what do you think?
>
>
>
> On Fri, 19 Mar 2021 at 15:42, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <gepropella at gmail.com
> <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     I still don't see what's wrong with the dictionary definition. Is
>     there some reason we need a different definition?
>
>     American Heritage ---
>     wealth (wĕlth) n.
>     1.a. An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources;
>     riches: gave his wealth away to charity.
>     b. The state of being rich; affluence: a community of great wealth.
>     2. Goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or use:
>     the agricultural wealth of the region.
>     3. A great amount; a profusion: a wealth of advice.
>
>
>     Merriam-Webster ---
>     wealth noun \ ˈwelth also ˈweltth \
>     1 : abundance of valuable material possessions or resources
>     2 : abundant supply : profusion
>     3a : all property that has a money value or an exchangeable value
>     b : all material objects that have economic utility especially :
>     the stock of useful goods having economic value in existence at
>     any one time national wealth
>     4 obsolete : weal, welfare
>
>
>     On 3/18/21 9:42 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>     > Let me try a definition of wealth:
>     >
>     > Wealth is that what makes you happy.
>     >
>     >
>     > On Fri, 19 Mar 2021 at 06:01, Merle Lefkoff
>     <merlelefkoff at gmail.com <mailto:merlelefkoff at gmail.com>
>     <mailto:merlelefkoff at gmail.com <mailto:merlelefkoff at gmail.com>>>
>     wrote:
>     >
>     >     Is the definition of wealth having a lot of whatever the
>     culture values?  (I'm late meeting Nick's challenge to me.)  The
>     former Bhutan (it's changing drastically and rapidly) valued
>     Happiness.  It's why their happy people thought they were wealthy,
>     despite being one of the world's least "developed" country. (GDP
>     is now rising with outside development of its natural resources).   
>     >
>
>
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>     ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>
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