I'm fond of saying YeNom is the reverse of money. It is perhaps reasonable then to clarify some basics regarding the world's most popular money. Fortunately we have classic comments from Alan at our disposal to serve as authentic examples of popular legends. Reacting to my post “The thought provoking Eric Harris-Braum”, Alan argues, “... referring to [the] introduction of government money, you say, ‘… money is injected into the economic area via bank loans (so it is never free and always burdened with interest). Plus it trickles down from the money moguls to the producers.’ I believe you are looking at this with blinders on! Bank loans are in the middle of the cycle, not at the beginning. Banks can only lend money they possess. They do not create it. The government does that, lending initially created money to the banks to re-lend. Banks also re-lend money from deposits. These deposits come from both the moguls and the peons, meaning it both trickles down and up (i.e., it is again with blinders that you ignore an important part of the overall equation).”

To best deal with these typical assertions, I naturally turned to our friendly fiend the Internet. And while the majority of the results coughed up by an initial search are expected to be crude, this particular monetary topic was considerably comical. Government sources are particularly prone to avoid substance and gravel in trivia. Although many ‘authorities’ may welcome Alan's viewpoints and want to encourage them, I still could not find any instance where the line was crossed with blatant falsehoods to justify anything like Alan purports. Not even the Bureau of Engraving and Printing with the incredibly intriguing domain name of moneyfactory.gov offered any support for Alan's claims.

* From Eric Harris-Braum's openMoney.inf WEB site*                        — Why I was confused although Alan was not. —

Commenting on my previous post, The thought provoking Eric Harris-Braum, Alan worte, “In response to Harris-Braun's openmoney.info page, I would like to say I agree. Specifically, this is an EXCELLENT perspective on money and wealth, with an honesty and clarity and depth that is rare.
Your first impression says, ‘You [i.e. Eric] open with an introduction on the Tradeable - Measurable - Acknowledgeable paradigm. I needed to reread and wrangle with it a bit to get this new perspective into focus.’ I sure hope you provide elaboration on this. I found the paradigm very easy to understand.”
    Elaboration on a personal inability?  Another's insight into this would perhaps be more valid than my own.  Anyway, in Eric's “Levels of Wealth” the circle of Acknowledgeable wealth is more sizable than the merely Measurable, while actually Tradeable wealth (the stuff of mega-billions of GNP) is the smallest of all.  This concept is especially appealing for its propensity to put the realm of traditional money into perspective.  Now then, the “Levels of Wealth” oval graphic moreover implies (to me) that Tradeable is a subset of Measurable which in turn is a subset of Acknowledgeable.  At the very least, this is a comfortable assumption due to the terribly counter intuitive notion of saying that Tradeable wealth is NOT (i.e. excluded from the set of) Measurable and in turn insisting that the Measurable isn't Acknowledgeable.  This would, for me, constitute an overly extreme distancing of these words from their common casual meanings.  Nevertheless Eric, could potentially be advocating exactly this when he writes, “Acknowledgeable Wealth: Friendship, beauty, freedom, civility, culture, happiness, integrity, reputation--these are all forms of acknowledgeable wealth. They are neither tradable nor objectively measurable because their impact is only felt subjectively.”(emphasis added)  Then when Eric teaches that Acknowledgeable wealth are “relationships between systems”, I find myself fumbling with the notion of “beauty” and “freedom” (from the previous sentenece) as relationships between systems.  An excellent recognition of the “interdependent” nature of wealth levels, is followed with a whole section on “Wealth Acknowledgment” which focuses on Tradeable wealth issues.  So I guess this “Acknowledgment” is very much distinguished from (if not the antitheisis of) the former term “Acknowledgeable”.  Perhaps it is unfortunate that the things I've just cited overly interfere with my ability to grasp new perspectives.  However an agreeable benefit of the doubt posture where we all ‘know’ more or less what we're talking about is increasingly objectionable for this student to adopt.  My way of developing his theme would be to start with Acknowledgeable wealth and then examine Measurable and Tradeable as clearly identified natural subsets.

Note: the following comments are extracted from two email messages sent to me from Alan Newman regarding my post - “For the Love of Money”. Normally this would simply be a comment to the original article. In this instance however, I feel the extent of the comments and responses they merit justify a new separate post.

Alan: This may seem strange, but I find the links are a bit confusing. As I follow the look here link for more ideas on how to use the compliments, I found a reference ... which claims anyone can easily view the first compliment from you to RMS, but I can not now find a copy of that compliment to view from any of these links! I know this stuff is never easy to construct, but I'm just pointing out weaknesses I am experiencing with it (not as criticism, but more as a bug report).

Money is an invention.  Whereas vital increases of production via the division of labor (specialization) or per cooperative efforts (economy of scale) are simply observed consequences.  No money is necessary for neighbors to avoid a fatal failure by bartering wares or working together to easily accomplish an otherwise daunting task for just one person.  But as soon as the scope of interactions increase much, then either money, slavery, or both have been needed to further accelerate exhilarating productivity gains.

A magnificent mass of material is available that substantially covers the history and theory of this great invention - we consequently need not develop nor extend this work further.  Our objective instead is merely to look about and perceive the ramifications of well developed technologies as they relate to a new area of freedom to be ‘underwritten’ by liberated monetization.  The essence of this is, of course, liberation of mind (will/choice) - since nothing is monetized until you choose to perceive it as such (and use it as money).

Indisputable, unforgeable, thief proof ownership is an untapped ramification inherent in public-private key encryption technology. This leads to a simple obvious means for us to realize wealth while advancing security, dignity, and freedom. In view of what passes for money today, there is good reason to expect that rational empowering alternatives could be embraced. The advancement of this hope is the raison d’être for this blog.

Our blog's named Monetize - yet my impetus is not to personally monetize anything. I believe that mankind's second greatest invention is money - however I know of no national currency worthy of endorsement. The values driving the free software movement directly expedite liberation from grievous fallacies - nevertheless a straightforward means to reward avant-garde warriors is patently lacking.

So here is the plan. Let's say that you wish to recognize some particularly deserving individual. You simply write up your thoughts (or offer) and then sign the text using your private key. Next you send this to your recipient. If this person wishes to take ownership of your gesture, they will then verify your signature and sign the whole thing using their private key. Next this file with it's uniquely identifying name (UID) is posted to a highly accessible public data base (GRW). These simple actions have created a mutually agreed upon ownership that is indisputable, unforgeable, and thief proof. And while nothing has been monetized as yet, a fertile robust stage has certainly been set to do so. The file will be effectively monetize as soon as it changes ownership for some consideration (with no limit to the number of times this could occur).
    The original text you created could have been a mere compliment or something more substantive like a redeemable coupon - it's only limited by our collective imagination. For instance, one could easily grant interest in an enterprise, or you might just write to a performer and promise to buy a ticket when they do a concert in your city. If said performer collects (becomes owner of) sufficient numbers of these endorsements, then the raw appreciation of their fans could be literally bought up by a promoter who'll sponsor a concert in return for having the commitment of hundreds or thousands of fans in advance. Look here for more thoughts along these lines.
    Now before something like the above could become a big reality we'd be looking at a google size data base with an enormous amount of traffic. This would insinuate the participation of 3rd party service providers to make the process readily available to the masses. Long before that however, a great service could be bestowed upon the more technically inclined who will be responsible for fueling the initial popularity and advancement of this new freedom based form of ownership & monetization.

Yes, we're overdue on “... a simple, brief, nontechnical way to explain the idea.” I'm postponing that a bit nevertheless, and will instead elaborate on the now sadly common bad phraseology of 'monetizing' a Blog (etcetera).

First, I've found two more definitions (from www.answers.com) namely:

American Heritage Dictionaries

mon  ·e  ·tize
tr.v., -tized, -tiz ·ing, -tiz ·es.
1. To establish as legal tender.
2. To coin (money).
3. To convert (government debt) from securities into currency that can be used to purchase goods and services.