The conventional way of measuring wealth is all to do with material possessions ... how much stuff we own, and the size of our financial holdings.

Such a measure misses almost everything that is of truly great importance. It misses everything to do with my value as a person, and the value of my family and friends.

Such a measure ignores the value of my connection with community and the shared value of the commons of the place.

Such a measure also ignores the huge value of the resources of the planet that are shared with everyone else on the planet ... a huge wealth yet finite and easily capable of getting wasted by the profligate socio-economic system we think is the norm.

Source of wealth ... material wealth, that is!

All wealth has its origins in the distant past, and the greatest wealth of all is the fact of life itself.

Another great wealth is our access to solar energy, without which nothing we know would exist.

Some of the resources we have today are the result of solar energy and natural life that has created the fossil fuels we are consuming to support our modern wasteful world.

Other mineral resources originated with the formation of our planet, and are a finite resource that cannot be replaced.

Land is another source of wealth ... not so much because it can be bought and saold for money, but because it is a vital part of a sustainable world.

Water and air are resources of huge value ... without these resources life cannot exist.

The money wealth associated with ownership of material property and money all has its origin in these real wealth elements. Some people own more than others

Substantial wealth versus perceived wealth

It used to be said that the UK was a nation of shopkeepers ... a sort of back handed compliment meaning that everything could be found somewhere in the shops in Britain.

In fact, it was manufacturing and trade that made the nation's wealth ... and a very aggressive spirit of enterprise and willingness to make investments. Much of Britain's wealth was generated from end to end value chains that added up to deliver profit ... and a growing pool of capital to invest. The value chains were global, even though, compared to today, the technologies of transport and communications were primitive.

The industrial revolution also created wealth in United States ... in some ways bigger than in Europe ... but the country was still relatively small. Certainly bigger than say, the UK, but not bigger than the British Empire. The pound sterling was a much bigger international influence than the US dollar.

Modern macro-economic measures do not differentiate adequately between the GDP at the manufacturing level and GDP at the pre- and post manufacturing stages. With the prevailing system of metrics the sneaker contributes more to the global economy while it is sitting on a ship, or on trucks or in warehouses and retail stock-rooms than during the manufacturing process. This is patently absurd.