"The point of all international trade is to get like value for like value."

Insofar as this incoherent statement goes, when we sell an asset abroad and someone abroad pays for it, it is "like value for like value", even if the currencies are unpegged to gold (they are mostly pagged to the dollar, itself pegged to a basket of commodities). The point of international trade, however, is to enhance everyone's purchasing power by exercising what's called comparative advantage, e.g., China makes consumer goods which we import and we make high value added goods for export.

Since Altamont Press' discussion board isn't oriented to these types of discussion, I'll quit, but if anyone wants to discuss I will be happy to provide my eMail.