I think becoming as independent as possible from others is linked to taking control of our lives.

I should make the point there's no way for me to find out how any person votes here...I can only get at the totals.

This was a tough list of questions to create. I had to suck out any hint of politics because you can take any one of them, view them through partisan lens (be it political, economic or class partisanship) and come up with conflicting techniques, even given the same intent. And lots of folk have forgotten the intent beneath the techniques they have committed to.

Cash is secondary (and dollars are a declining value asset - backed by nothing more than agreement); hence, agreements forged without the actual use of a declining value asset are superior.

I don't know if that's possible for a couple more decades.

Cash is objective trust...as you said, backed by an agreement, and I suspect (given the other things we've agreed on) it may be the only thing we really believe in. That sounds hella more cynical about it than I actually am, but I can't think of another phrasing right now.

Cash is not objective trust.  It's not objective in the sense that prices are not controlled by factors external to most individuals.  I would argue that since the US govt has the power to print money, set monetary policy, ensure that dollars remain the international reserve currency, tax citizens, and subsidize corporations, the value of cash (take the case of declining consumer purchasing power) is specific, political and contextual.  I don't believe it is objective - especially after the US vaulted away from the gold standard.  That's macro...and at the micro level, it comes to the fact that poor folks are working more and spending more on basic necessities - and receiving declining value in each transaction. 

The agreements of which I speak are current and ongoing.  In principal, I mean transactions and leveraged agreements where your personal fortune is NOT at stake.  Rather, your ingenuity, guile and moxy allow you to create lucrative agreements or generate revenue streams that are of increasing value).  It may too subtle a point for this conversation - I don't know that there is a substantive dispute, but I believe that the nature of true wealth lies in agreements (especially those where transactions are simply done with paper - not cash)...

I don't know that there is a substantive dispute, but I believe that the nature of true wealth lies in agreements (especially those where transactions are simply done with paper - not cash)...

Yeah. Maybe "tactile trust" is better than "objective trust."

The whole purpose of an economy is to give folks the confidence to do something other than acquire food, secure in the assumption that doing so will get them food.

So if it's too subtle, what would it take to bring us up to speed?

Bring you up to speed?  I better get myself up to speed.  LOL.

If an economy begins at the first point of trade (work on some non-consumption activity in exchange (trade) for food), then I would argue that the key for us, as a collective, is certainly not cash - it's the cultivation of tradeable agreements for essentials (sometimes cash, sometimes rights, sometimes concessions, sometimes privileges, sometimes work, sometimes something else).  At this juncture, there are two missing pieces:

1) control over "our" tradeable agreements (I'll sing for you if...; I'll play for you if...) no coordinated black collective controls a critical mass of these agreements...as a result, there is no leveraging of these agreements to serve the interests...typically folks who can create these agreements only hold out for CASH - a declining value asset...it's a lot easier to get a "fat contract" than it is to insist on the right to your likeness or to demand payment as a corporate vendor/contractor vs. as a taxable employee. 

2) a mechanism for aggregating and leveraging the value of agreements to generate, attract, and seize external assets...the US dollar, no longer pegged to gold retains it's standing as the world's reserve currency precisely because nation's around the world are unable to purchase oil in non-dollar denominated currencies.  it seems to me that it would be uniquely beneficial for us/we to develop/use a non-dollar denominated currency to trade our tradeable agreements...

*are these black dollars? not exactly.  i don't think the point is to have a currency used exclusively or even primarily by black folk - i think that's kinda silly and defeats the point of having a currency.  the point would be to have the currency widely circulated (though not too widely) and serve as the sole medium of exchange for those agreements that only black folk bring to the world...there are certain commodifiable elements of excellence that are distinctly black - and setting prices for those things could be interesting.

I could be off my rocker with this, but I thinking out loud - cyberloud.  Rescue me if I'm wrong.  Holla back.  I plan on exploring this more over here...I want to see where it goes.

 a black bourse denominated in  bolivars......, 

If an economy begins at the first point of trade

The problem, of course, is we're deep in it.

My real question is, what problem does all this solve?

It's all about relationship (interpersonal communion) now brah.  The dollar has been on the black  gold standard for over half a century.  This physiocratic fact makes Hugo Chavez a pharaonically powerful black man, whose like has not been seen or felt for millenia. 

"high oil prices have attracted top companies to Venezuela's heavy oil, which could boost the country's reserves count to the largest in the world - ahead of Saudi Arabia.

"Chávez is in the driver's seat because he has what everybody wants," says Roger Tissot, energy analyst at PFC Energy consulting firm, about Venezuela's heavy oil. "It's not any kind of oil. It's the oil of the future."

But more forced contract changes could further increase investor fear and make it more difficult for US oil companies to access one of the largest long-term sources of oil left on the planet.

We should Work to align our black gold with his black gold by any means necessary!  Chavez has demonstrated like no other that his politics are fully black partisan.  Stepping up and Working this relationship -  to the fullest - is one sure way for us to be in this Murkan world, but not so pathetically and submissively of this Murkan world.  

Chavez has demonstrated like no other that his politics are fully black partisan.

You got a lot of work ahead of you. I just can't see folks relocating to preserve ownership of hip hop culture. It's like when the conservative asked the progressive why he doesn't leave the country if he hates it's policies so much, the progressive says, "I don't want to be subject to our foreign policy."

I still gotta ask what problem is being worked on. Is it Become as independant as possible from others"?

We got black gold?

lack of intuition, imagination, and now just plain information, dayyum an i-trifecta.....,

dood, you REALLY need to get out the house more and try to get back into circulation. 

If you could name the largest black owned corporation in America and its primary lines of business, I  seriously doubt youd've asked about black gold or hip-hop even speciously rhetorically.  Setting aside for the moment his literal blackness and aggressive and highly successful Pan-American alliance building.., very  obviously;

1. Oil reserves in excess of Saudi Arabia make Chavez a global leader.

2. Distribution and refining infrastructure in America make him a serious producer, and  as we all know, the world's affairs are governed by resource producers, not parasitic consumers.

3. He needs all the political, business, and demographic allies he can get across the Americas in order to counterbalance the wickedness being openly plotted against him.

At the end of the day, do you really want Jackson, Farakkan, and the old guard preachers to be the most serious black men getting face time and business opportunity with Chavez?  Think about it. 

As for my serious suggestions, if I can establish a mutually and reciprocally profitable working relationship with Bangalore, (which is 16 fukking hours away) - I can damn sure establish a mutually and reciprocally profitable working relationship with Caracas.  It ain't rocket science after all.  Oh, and the last thing in the world I would ever see myself - or any other serious minded black man - doing is going there with my hand stuck out - that's a surefire way to not be taken seriously - WORLDWIDE. 

f'realzzzz....,

bolivars and benjamins all transit EFT systems in precisely the same hard, cool, and completely digital way.

1. Oil reserves in excess of Saudi Arabia make Chavez a global leader.

2. Distribution and refining infrastructure in America make him a serious producer, and  as we all know, the world's affairs are governed by resource producers, not parasitic consumers.

3. He needs all the political, business, and demographic allies he can get across the Americas in order to counterbalance the wickedness being openly plotted against him.

But if this is all you got, don't do it here.

I'm looking to square away Black folks. You're telling me about Chavez' problems.

What problems that BLACK PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA have are you trying to solve? I'm not feeling anything else, and if you can't come correct on the question I got nothing for you.

Frankly, I'm including discussion space on my site in that nothing.

Now, does what you just wrote sound anything like what I just objected to?

Of course not, but what I wrote is consistent with what Nulan has been saying as well.  I still need to flesh it some more. 

On my blog, I put together a rather lengthy document on what I think this stuff is all about.  One of my key positions (if I can call it that) is that America imposes a unique set of conditions on every group that comes here.  Part of this is attributable to geographic isolation, part of it is attributable to conflicts with and between white folks and another part of it is attributable to the historical evolution of the nation-state cum empire.  Bottom line...I do not see a "permanent solution" beyond international assistance and reconciliation between US blacks and international black folk.  Quite simply, white folks of good will are a necessary, but insufficient part of the equation.  As such, Venezuela is an important place.

Columbia would be an important place too if the leadership was different.  Colombia is beginning to look like more of an outcast everyday with the domino-effect that Chavez is leading.  Chavez can provide critical resources for the member states of CARICOM and can serve as a trading partner for African nations requiring additional resources that need to be purchased without granting concessions to the International Mother Fucker or the World Skank. 

Chavez could provide significant investment capital for authentic development projects within the US.  It might be significant if foundations run by the likes of Bill and Melinda, John D., Henry and George (Soros) were out of the picture.  As I said previously, the same would be true of creative artists.  The question for me is, "On what basis do we trade agreements?"  At present, our ROI is so low that the agreements are essentially our Stolen Legacy. 

Of course not, but what I wrote is consistent with what Nulan has been saying as well.

What he wrote here, on the topic of "What is Black Folks' most pressing need," was peak oil and Senor Chavez needs our help against evil. Constantly changing topics, flipping hyperbolic vocabularistic distractions...didn't you say the most pressing need is discipline?

I'm made room for his positions...and I get goads and personal disparagements. Bullshit. Get pissed and talk about "uneducable" Black kids. Bullshit.

I'm not of the People of the Word. I key on what you do. And it's my goddamn space.

So. As I said, if you can't go into how it will benefit Black folks, the conversation is over. You don't seem to have that problem. Fine. But I will not pretend cnulan is having the same conversation with me that you are.

Earl,

Your empty egotism and emotional cowardice have made you an irredeemable nullity.  By your own admission you lack the courage to be emotionally available to your own family in their time of need.  If  you're not man enough to be of use to your very own, what the fuck could you conceivably think, feel, or do that would be of any possible benefit  to black folks? How could a virtually housebound emotional retardate even possibly hold up his side of a non-linear discussion?

I'm  finished wasting time here and I take my leave of your empty space with no regrets...., 

TJ...nice thoughts...don't quite know your audience, but black culture is proto-American and not separatist...in fact, whichever direction is staked, white folk are sure to follow.  Surely you've been here for the past two, three or four decades...and those others who've followed have always financed it...what do think you're listening to or looking at?  creations from europe?  anyway, don't take it seriously, I'm sure you were just kidding about all this and hadn't done the math.  enjoy.