Watching as the world sells itself to death...

The above title was a thought that fell out of my fingers on another site, and it's kinda stuck in my cranium. ("and he saw that it was good etc etc")
Thing is, it seems to be a nutshell phrase. Value, as I've burbled about previously, is in the eye of the seller. When posting items sold on eBay (oooh a product placement issue!) the nice lady in the Post Office (and another!) asks me the value of the item I'm posting.
In response, I give her the amount that the customer paid for it, as, to them, that is its value. It then strikes me that to me it is worth less, as that is why it's being sold.
Some garlicky descrepancy then lurks within this kiev of transaction. I have no doubt that disturbingly clever people with beards and calculators (and that's just the women) could tell me how much every item I've sold cost to produce, so that would be one value.
But that someone else out there can re-value it according to what they're willing to pay, means that all intrinsic value is entirely arbitary, and it becomes a wonderful meld of philosophy and finance.
Which sounds less and less wonderful as I contemplate it, I must admit.
Is all money an existential question now? Beyond the physical existence of the spare change I have rattling in my pocket, how much tangible currency is there?
The proof of value is now in the minds of others, yours and mine. It is an etherial construct of desire and microchip, one keystroke whim from ascension or destruction.
It is a suspicion of mine that the current economic crisis is the result of this ghastly realisation hitting home.

As a form of uneffective protest or maybe just boredom, I have been searching for an alternative way. Actually, that should be Way with a capital wuh, as we're talking philosophy and religion now, and as I sit here I imagine the droves that log off at the mere thought of my burbling on about one of the two things one should never discuss at parties or with hairdressers.
Well, I don't mean any harm by this, nor am I about to order the Extremist's Handbook onTotal World Domination or How To Convert Your Friends With Only A Little Social Discomfort (check on Amazon, there's bound to be something there...)
No, I'm just curious. The world that I have always known is western (yee-haw) and capitalist in nature, so I want to know more. To this end, I've been looking into Taoism. Took me a while to home in on this one, but there was something about the sheer inpenetrability that drew me.
Or possibly a BBC programme on it that interested me. Not sure now, but here I am.
The main thing that leapt out at me was this excerpt:

Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

Now, if desire and the need to get more and more and more of what little we imagine is going to make us happy has brought us to this sorry economic time, then there's definitely a lesson here.
I shall read more and let y'all know.
If you fancy finding out more, check this out:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/index.htm