Thoughts On Bartering

Over the years I have taken time to study and think very seriously about bartering. For those of us that live here in the United States, we have a form of currency that is referred to as fiat. That is a currency that is not backed by a precious metal like silver or gold. A fiat currency works just as long as the population is comfortable exchanging basically a piece of fancy paper in exchange for goods and services they create or perform. If we are confident that we can take that piece of paper from someone and go use it to get what we need then everyone is generally fine with the arrangement. You have to understand the history of what happens to these kinds of currencies though to appreciate what could happen in the future at some point.

There are many historical examples you can study to understand the basic principles that play out when people lose confidence. During a time when prices begins to inflate rapidly people will often give up on trying to keep up with it and look for what I call a “mental anchor”.  This is a coping mechanism that is very natural as people want to feel like they can gain control again of something that has totally gone out of control. In Germany after the war it was a carton, pack, and individual cigarettes. In Brazil I’m told in many areas it was a gallon of milk. A mental exercise you can do now, is take several important needs and compare them. Let’s say a gallon of raw milk from the local dairy farmer, a face cord of oak firewood and the average wage. Now before anyone gets bent out of shape on the figures I’m going to attach. I realize these things are quite varied depending on where you live. So here is my community. Milk $5.00 Gallon, Face cord of oak firewood $60.00, and average wage $15.00 hour. Now these are anchor points to relate to. So you could also say it another way Oak firewood is the same as 12 Gallons of milk, or four hours of labor. Now none of that can be set in stone. Milk may be so much in demand that people are willing to exchange for it differently. This is a place to start mentally.

The next most important concept you need to understand is how btu’s & calories come into play. When a crisis situation develops people become focused on important needs. If your belly needed food would you barter your precious resources or time for lettuce or potatoes? Potatoes because #1 they have calories that fill you up and #2 the main reason your body needs lettuce is the minerals. You can obtain those minerals very easily by eating wild greens and many garden “weeds”. Most of which have ten times the amount of minerals anyway. 😊 Understanding btu’s is important because not all energy sources are the same. Pine firewood has way less btu’s than oak. Black locust has more than oak. If you’re going to expend energy to gather firewood you will want to gather as many btu’s as possible. So I hope you’re starting to follow me. Try to develop skills that created btu’s or calories because this is what people will need when you decide you want to exchange with them for something you need.

Related issue:
Conventional agriculture launders inedible kWh (or btu or barrels or kCal or kJ) of fossil fuels into much smaller yield of edible kCal of food.
Fossil fuels and fossil fuel driven fertilizer is why ~1% of the population feeds the rest.
Bizarrely the solar energy input into conventional crop output is a fraction of the fossil inputs.