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DARnet Andy Roberts

Distributed Action Research, communities of practice and social objects by Andy Roberts

How is wealth destroyed and where does wealth come from?October 11

Where did the wealth destroyed on Stock Markets come from?

If 20 percent of the value of world stock markets can be wiped out in one week, as has just happened, then where does that wealth actually disappear to? Is it buried in a big hole somewhere, scuttled at sea or sent on a rocket into outer space? Apparently not, but if money can simply disappear from world markets how can we make any sense of the concept of value in finance. How is it measured and where did it come from in the first place?

Theories of value

In the first post of this series I asked “where does money come from” and gave a brief history of the origins of money in the form of precious metal coins used to facilitate the process of trade from simple barter to the exchange of goods of different values. Without exactly defining where money comes from I hinted at the idea that monetary value is realted to the total amount of work or labour which is tied up in bringing the goods to market. That’s a theory which is known as the labour theory of value and is not always widely accepted, probably due to association with a certain Karl Marx who took that theory, which was already known by cpaitalist economists, and developed it a bit further with his concept of “socially necessary labour time”.

Money grows on trees

People who don’t subscribe to the labour theory of value beli

What’s odd about this Dartboard? Found in an East London PubOctober 2

Do you notice anything odd about this dartboard seen in an East London pub recently? Most darts boards look a bit like this, but different.

How on earth would you ever end a game of 301 on such a dart board?

Posted by Andy Roberts

What's odd about this Dartboard? Found in an East London Pub

Theatre BreaksSeptember 29

Theatre Breaks not for cutbacks

Having avoided traditional summer holidays the past two years, preferring to go abroad in the off seasons, I certainly won’t be cutting back on theatre breaks and other little weekends away or short breaks in the UK. Neither will hoards of other people up and down the country regardless of what the doom and gloom mongers would have us believe.

Some might be thinking twice about booking long haul trips to Oceana and Asia, granted, and the shopping trip to New York is looking decidedly passe but there’s never been a better time for squeezing in a little treat of a weekend, just the two of you, with a bit of style in London’s West End.

Hotel and Theatre Breaks in London

With the shrinking of the finance sector and slightly less demand for business trips to London, the big hotels have a few rooms going spare and these are being bought up by tour operators who can then offer even better value hotel and theatre breaks in London. The advantage of booking a hotel at the same time as your advance theatre tickets should be obvious really. To get the best out of a good night out at a top West End show you don’t want your shared elation to be instantly let do

Where does Money come from?September 26

Have you ever been asked, Where does money come from?

This might sound like a stupid question - “where does money come from” - but how many people actually know?

In recent days European and UK national banks have pumped billions of Euros and pounds into the economies to try and stabilise a volatile market. The US is debating whether to spend $700 billion dollars on covering bad housing debts. People are asking why should tax payers pay for the well heeled banking speculators mistakes, and will it be enough! Where does $700 billion come from? Where does one dollar, Pound or Euro come from?

Origins of Money

Money originated soon after the time when the simplest forms of trading began. Once people got the hang of surviving from day to day in a hand to mouth existence, they had a little spare time to themselves. Different people started to specialise in different types of work. So if I could make more than enough animal skin coats for myself and family, and somebody else could catch more fish than they needed, we might give some away to each other. At first this must have been how it worked. Descended from primates who lived in large social groups, we mostly looked after each other by instinct.

Early Humans

As things progressed, early humans who were genetically pretty much identical to ourselves became more efficient at simple farming, making pots and other basic crafts. The opposable thumb left over from gripping tree bran

Sea Eagles in Scotland - problems of reintroducing speciesSeptember 23

Various attempts have been made over the years, some successful, to reintroduce wildlife species into areas where they have become extinct in the past.

The ospreys in England are one well known example, and a similar scheme is currently underway to reintroduce sea eagles into Scotland. This season is the second in a five year plan to release young sea eagles taken as chicks from Norway and already there are some breeding pairs reported. They’ve been seen around the Isle of May in Fife as well as in the North West Highlands. But there is a problem. As the farming today programme on BBC radio 4 reported, crofters in Gairloch are complaining about the sea eagles taking lambs. It is claimed that as many as 50% of one farmer’s lambs have been destroyed and that conservation groups are not taking the problem seriously.

The RSPB pointed out that there are only three breeding pairs of sea eagle in the Gairloch area, and it would be highly unlikely the birds were responsible for the loss of all of the lambs. A spokesman for the crofting foundation said “We feel they put the birds here without our consent and without asking our advice.”  So there we have a conflict of interest that may be quite hard to resolve.  Sheep have been kept on hillsides ever since the land was cleared but white tailed sea eagles are historically indigenous to the country. How do we decide when to embark on a reintroduction progr