It is not a non-sequitur, I’m arguing against a claim you made;
trade is equally as valid as value created from the production of resources or services
I think you’re overstating trade and downplaying labor here. It’s not the trade that’s multiplicative, it’s labor saving tools that expand what an hour of labor can accomplish. It’s why the modern exponential explosion in economic activity correlates to industrialization, and not expanding trade routs.
Suppose we imagine a fantastical world where no one is able to trade, and a second fantastical world where nobody is able to labor.
In the first world, people would still be able to get stuff done, alter their surroundings, and invent new things - they’d just have to do it each for themselves. In the second world, there would be nothing to trade.
How can the process of exchange value be equal to labor value when it can only exist with the prerequisite of labor?
If trade value is equal to the labor value of something, then how is it that the trade value can fluctuate so much? You emphasize its creation of value, but what of the destruction?
Instead of Pokemon cards, lets use a trend that came and went. The trade value of a Beanie Babies skyrocketed in the mid-to-late nineties. People were using it as an investment vehicle. And then the trade value plummeted. The Beanies themselves, the cloth and the plastic filling, remained unchanged through all of it. If a good is damaged, its value is permanently reduced (sans labor to repair, anyway). If trade value is reduced… doesn’t matter. It can go up or down or anything tomorrow. You would claim that process is equal to value derived from labor?
Trade creates value
Labor creates value, trade allows us to quantify the value between different goods (which are themselves still the output of labor)
I agree with what you’ve laid out here, except that I think you’ve missed the point of the comment you are replying to. When an economic downturn happens not for material reasons (resource constraints, logistical choke-points, and the like) but for financial reasons, then yes, physically it is arbitrary. The 2008 crash happened because of mortgage debt in a ledger - our physical ability to work and produce goods didn’t change.
I like Istanbul better that Constantine-vill
But it is labor that facilitates the logistical work! The someone has to drive the trucks, load the boats, log the inventory. It’s all still predicated on labor!