Why Yap Island Stone Coins Tanked on Friday

            A billion and a half Chinamen probably couldn’t each have his own Yap Island stone coin. But it’s not like it’s entirely out of the question.

            The Yap Island stone coin (abbreviated YIC, and also known as rai) – most of whose value evidently derives from the similarity of its shape to the ever-popular treat known as the doughnut (or, in the parlance of the hoi-polloi, “donut”) – illustrates an important point about money. Namely, that it has a great big hole in it.

So what would it take to make YIC into the new standard for a viable world reserve currency? Check this out: If you fuck a donut, have you fucked the donut, or have you fucked the donut hole? Most importantly, have you fucked yourself? We must look at the hole issue. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude from these data simply that Our Money is Fucked,^TM but let’s make sure we can see the donut for the hole.

For each Chinaman to have his own YIC, although highly impractical, is the sad course of affairs on which we have set about. For the value of the Yap Island stone coin lies in the labor which was undertaken in order to construct it; and additionally, in the labor it takes to distribute it. Each one of us can’t just carry an Easter Island statue in his pocket; they have to be carefully carved, moved according to The Game, and revered in keeping with the ancient sacrificial rites, all that good stuff.

Money creation gives a new meaning to the phrase “you’ve gotta spend money to make money”. But that’s not so; you can’t gain money by spending money, nor gain value by selling. You don’t have to read Menger to know that; yea, for, as Ivan imparted, “we can dance, everybody look at your hands”. The hole in the donut, we shall refer to as debt. So, then, whither lies the donut hole? Audit Fort Knox and you’ll find out. Maybe it’s been right there in your hand the hole time.

As with any other currency, the supposed value of the YIC lies not only in the labor-value thought to be contained within it (as if a produced good somehow traps value), but also in its widespread acceptability and use. If nobody is willing to use them – and do all the strenuous work necessary to move them – then the YIC have little to no value; only to those who recognize, honor, and compensate the hard day’s work that went into donutizing The Rock. Only to those unwilling to wait for The Rock to Come to Them.

How lucky would you be to stumble upon a Yap Island stone coin? You’d be richer than all your friends, you could buy all the seashells you want. You’d certainly have something precious on your hands; something rare and unique. But then again, what if you found a thousand of them, and gave them to all your friends!? They’d all be richer than one another!

But this is all assuming that you can even find someone willing to accept YIC, who’s willing to sell what you want, and believes that YIC are as valuable as you believe they are. But what are the odds of that? Who’d carry it? The only realistic solution is to store your money at home. But then, you say, you can’t bring them to market. Ah, but see, that’s yet another problem. Only a fool wagers his most valuable assets, yet only a fool leaves them at home where they’re of no value to anyone else.

And yet that is what the Yapese did; once the coins arrived on the island, they were deemed too large and heavy to be moved each time they were used, so the islanders decided that the coins should stay put, but change ownership.

It should be as clear as Orgonite by now that we’re grappling with a paradox: that a currency derives its value from its scarcity and uniqueness, yet at the same time, its widespread acceptance and ubiquitous use.

The rarest gem in the world supposedly holds so much value, but what exchange-value does it have? None. It has sentimental value only to its possessor, and use-value only to those who either have the skills necessary to refine the gem, or are interested in purchasing the product after such finishing and refinement processes. If the holder won’t sell, then no use-value can be derived from it.

“To myself, I am everything!”: so proclaimed Saint Max. I echo this sentiment. All my use-value is contained within my body and its powers, its potential. I alone Am a viable currency. I alone Am current, I alone Am present; am presence itself. For I Am everywhere, yet nowhere. I am the voice in the wilderness. I tread not upon the streets of men, yet I Am accessible to all. Who Am I? I Am both a who and a what, a subject and an object. I Am, at least potentially (if I am invited), all of this, yet I am not floating around in men’s pockets.

Just as the lamp is within the genie, and just as the Dead concert can never be taken out of the hippie, is not the time-money-moon-value (not to be confused with Blood Sugar Sex Magik) which is contained within me, fostering high, sustained growth of a real store of value within my Own Holy Vehicle (i.e., corpse-in-waiting)? I mean, repent, for fuck’s sake, for your days are numbered, for your home is built of nails, fire, and blood!

A stable (ahem, excuse me, I’m a little horse) fire insurance company will not – neigh, cannot – survive without local building codes demanding that what shelters us from the elements must be made of easily collapsible, flammable materials. This is a viable long-term bu$ine$$ strategy that will support $ound mØney. They don’t call it re-pent-ance for no reason; you’ll have to build yourself a new penthouse in the sky! So build that house of hay; until you do, you’ll be on pins and needles in that haystack. To sit on a house of stilts is to keep one’s head in the clouds. And that’s how you get to Heaven; the same way an ostrich does, except backwards. You just put your head through the donut hole.

There is no store of value in your home. The only home with a real store of value is when a hermit crab takes up residence inside a human skull. And Feng Shuis the shit out of it. The Chinese tea-brick can be used as medicine or food, even construction material, in an emergency. That’s how you make a currency. Not that skulls and bones don’t make excellent construction materials; have you seen some of those churches They got in the Czech Republic?

So be the king or queen of your castle, and make your home your temple. After all, it’s right there on the side of your head. Just as your permanent home is the flesh-prison from which you’re trying to escape, and, at that, the only viable world-reserve currency. To you, it’s worth everything else. After all, every country has people to wager, as a way to back that currency up, doesn’t it? Back it up! Only problem is, that country doesn’t have you. To ignore that is like trying to take the hole out of the donut, trying to drink the Blood of the Savior from a bottle of wine. You gotta get back. Plato’s Cave is the only residence that’s sheltered from all five elements. I mean, I Am a Rock, right?

Estonia has an e-currency, and you can’t spell Estonia without “stone”. Prisoners use cigarettes as currency (and, as Ronnie pointed out, they’re the most stable currency in North America, resting steadily at 25 cents each for at least the last three decades). So why not have panarcho-prison-e-cigs as the world reserve currency? Using an electronic cig could make it trackable from a remote location, another important value-padding characteristic for moneys to have. Besides, the cigarette (aside from being essentially a wedding ring, made of paper, that you fill with tobacco, which many people are married to, rendering it the perfect family heirloom) is the only currency that will smoke us into death, and into Heaven, where our treasure is.

As Blame asks when he requests a cigarette, “Will you help me die?”. That’s real value; the value of certainty, the value of death.

But let us not confine ourselves to a discussion of mere currencies; money is where it’s at. This is where the Pharaohs come in. Pharaoh says fire is the ultimate money; for fire is elemental, and a tool whose use renders he who wields it a god. This simple fact is hidden from every NomNomNomics 101 class you’ll find, yet it is remarkably easy to demonstrate. You’d be shocked to Discover® how much money you can extract from someone through the simple act of setting fire to all they hold dear. This also demonstrates that the (Fire)Power Theory of Value is immutable; unfalsifiable, immune from dispute, questioning, even logic. How can such an offer be refused?

But most importantly, only fire possesses (that is, takes spiritual control of) all the characteristics that mortals desire in a stable money. It’s portable, it’s trackable, it’s electronic, it’s accepted everywhere, it’s easily divisible into standardized units, it fits in your pocket… It is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; the primordial spark which maieutically birthed each of our thought-babies from the sacred annals of bio-history, and the desolate, deserted lome, the whirling cosmic dervish unto which we are destined to someday return; perhaps as fuel for the fire, perhaps stored neatly as computer data on a sun that’s really some otaku’s self-custom-designed computer tower.

Don’t worry about whether a black hole can store labor-value, nor worry where your thinky-thoughts are going. Keep your mind on your mooney, and your mooney on the Mound. Pyotr had it right; bread-backed currencies (like MannaLoaf^TM and SalvationCoin®) are the wave of the future. He understood that the buck(skin) stops here. Each one of us, deep within our holes, knows the value of a buck, and that of a dough. To be Frank, you can’t have one without the other.

That will bring us back to doe; the deer, dear source of the preciousness which gives life value, which backs the currency with which we keep current, with which we track the transit of that great celestial orb (our Sky-Mother, the Lesser Light). That’s how you get ahead, you keep up with the Boneses. We are fools if we think that Blockchain can record all transactions; only black holes and blood can do that. Blood and the blood oaths are the genuine Holders of Value, Signifiers of Honor, Keepers of Record, and Ancient Historians. Let’s not kid ourselves; RNA was the original Blockchain.

This is why I propose experimentation with an alternate currency backed by tracking the transit of supermoons, blood moons, and blood supermoons. I mean, when every holiday of the year occurs within the space of a single February, you know it’s time to call your broker. But you don’t need an Al Broker man to know which way the solar wind blows. This represents a call for a currency backed by nature, not nurture.

Just as the hole must be shed from the donut, as the funerary shroud from the moon-mummy, any serious monetary reform can only come about through Sacrifice^TM of what we value most. The reason that YIC and the Slandered & Whores’ Index lost 15% of their value on Friday is that it was not a Good Friday. YIC-heavy portfolios have revealed themselves to be so heavy with rock, that they don’t rock. It is as it was in the Beginning; as the portability of the coin must be sacrificed to honor the workers who make them and move them, the whole must be sacrificed for the Good of The D0nut, for the virtue of Emptiness (all hail). So let’s move some money.

When it comes to power-backed currencies, portability is next to trackability. That’s why they have to run your fingerprint (your real driver’s license, as the driver of your own body) before you’re allowed to buy Cheetos. That’s why YIC futures aren’t safe bets; rather, they’re investments that are only for the savvy moon-watching investor. But if you’re bearish on mooneys, don’t go loony; instead, hang onto that millstone and take the plunge. Take it all the way to the river bank – which is where you’re gonna be laughing – because that millstone’s gonna be worth a Hell^TM of a lot of money some day!

We’ve all read Adam and Josiah, and understand Cost the Limit of Price. Labor is the only just compensation for labor. Additionally, the cost of labor is the subjective cost of working; that is, the suffering borne by the laborer. The amount of suffering involved in the work determines the value of the product that the work creates. This is why we are paid in suffering. The wage of sin is not death; the wage of work is death, is suffering.

This is why we must pay our employers back with amounts of suffering equal to the amount they have invested in us. Only then can we restore Blood, Sweat, and Tears^TM (BST) to its proper place as the real world reserve currency. This will show that BST is the only genuine form of money in the world (at least on this plane), because it’s the only one with real exchange-value, the only one that’s universally accepted and traded the world over. Most importantly for our masters in government, taxes are payable in BST. If hard work is taxing, then it can be taxed.

Unless and until those who work us, work for us (or at least swear blood oaths not to take our toil as a standard part of our employment contracts), then no compromise short of a sweat-based currency should be made. This must come with no less than full property ownership over our precious bodily fluids, as part of our bodily autonomy, physical integrity, and personal self-ownership. If workers are to be microchipped (because who doesn’t love Revelation), then they at least deserve a package of shares corresponding to the value of their sweet, untainted golden piss on the global market, as determined equitably by everyone involved in piss futures speculation on the Stalk Exchange.

Finally: If we must use a money, then it must be one whose value is backed by the inverse of the quantity of suffering which the reckless pursuit of other currencies cause humanity; never based on a direct correlation. To do otherwise is to destroy the uniqueness of the money, with nothing to make it distinct from its competitors.

The Sacred Unique is the Scarce – the Rare – in which all value originates. And on this Rock I shall build my Church.

Written on September 14^th and 15^th, 2017

Originally Published on September 15^th, 2017

Edited on January 17th and March 20th, 2018