Value & Wealth

Value : its language is creativity and contribution; it is perhaps an emotional right brain thing.

Wealth : its language is management and optimization; it is more a rational left brain thing. 

The relation between the two is of goal and measurement. Value creation is the goal and wealth creation is a measure of how well we are doing the job of achieving that goal. Or so it was supposed to be!

The fact is that value creation is tough. Any creation is tough. You eventually create out of yourself and that is never easy, not to say that it is often quite messy.

Wealth creation is easy by comparison. The rewards are visible and enticing in here and now. No wonder, gradually but right under our eyes, the world shifted. Wealth creation became the goal. Value became something to be protected, restricted, hoarded and controlled so that wealth can be maximised. The whole economic model of last couple of hundred years is nothing but this.

Slowly but surely we moved towards a world where wealth creation got all the rewards while value creation was relegated to thin margins. 

Which is the reason, maybe, why a Van Gogh never made any money from his paintings while everyone else did! And the poor maniac is not alone in that list of wretched geniuses.

Which is also the reason why a Lehman Brothers happened right under our nose and no one could see it coming! LB created wealth and did a bloody good job of that. However, if there was some value at the core of that wealth, it was lost along the way and was missed by none. So LB grew much like a helium balloon - all hot air volume (wealth) but not much solidity or mass (value) at the core. And we all know what happens when we keep pumping air in a balloon. It bursts. It bursts in a moment. Even though it was perfect and beautiful a moment earlier!

Yes sir! The big problem with the world we live in is that too many people are trying to manage and monetise too little value created by too few, often mad-head, romantics.

You can ask yourself the meaning and sustainability of this! Next time someone says 'economic bubble', don't be surprised... Brace yourself.