Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
You seem to be describing not deflation but the lowering of the prices of specific commodities due to price pressure arising from increases in productivity. we agree . my point is only that at least in france, many people mix the reduction of price with deflation-depression as 1930+. when Uber or AirBnb,, or Amazon, or google lower the price to access to service, they say it is deflation and this should be stopped with taxes, with monopolies and fixed rates. in fact for French elite, the use of public money and debt is like cocaine for a rockstar... they want inflation to shave the lender, because unlike the king of france they cannot burn the Templar, pogrom the Jewish, and expulse the lombards. To a lesser degree it seems valid for western elite. US is simply printing numbers, which serves not to create price inflation, or to increase useful investments, but to inflate asset bubbles where the price is virtual. this is why people have the impression that inequalities grows, but most of what people like Piketty see as wealth is pure wind. This is where Hernando De Soto is bashing those Euro/US-centric accountants. 2015-08-18 4:35 GMT+02:00 Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com: On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 3:25 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: deflation is natural and sane in economies where there is growth of productivity. This is a good way to increase wages. You seem to be describing not deflation but the lowering of the prices of specific commodities due to price pressure arising from increases in productivity. I'm going to hazard a guess that economists don't think of this kind of downward price pressure as deflation, especially of the kind seen in the Great Depression. Deflation in that instance was across the board. If you held on to your money, it would be worth even more a week later. There was an incentive to refrain from spending and to keep your money in a can under your mattress. In a healthy economy, you might want to wait for two or three months to purchase that television or stereo system or car, because the price might be about to come down; but while you wait your money would become worth a little less overall because of a slight amount of inflation. If you did not intend to spend it you would want to put it to some other good use -- in an investment account or a savings account. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 3:25 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: deflation is natural and sane in economies where there is growth of productivity. This is a good way to increase wages. You seem to be describing not deflation but the lowering of the prices of specific commodities due to price pressure arising from increases in productivity. I'm going to hazard a guess that economists don't think of this kind of downward price pressure as deflation, especially of the kind seen in the Great Depression. Deflation in that instance was across the board. If you held on to your money, it would be worth even more a week later. There was an incentive to refrain from spending and to keep your money in a can under your mattress. In a healthy economy, you might want to wait for two or three months to purchase that television or stereo system or car, because the price might be about to come down; but while you wait your money would become worth a little less overall because of a slight amount of inflation. If you did not intend to spend it you would want to put it to some other good use -- in an investment account or a savings account. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
hey Jed, in france it is not far from what you say of your past ! 8) 2015-08-14 1:49 GMT+02:00 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com: Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: There are only two types of economies that have been demonstrated in the world: An economy which allows people to trade freely; and an economy which commands all production and distribution. To date, no one has demonstrated how the latter can replace the former. I disagree. All real world economies are a combination of the two. Hybrids, that is. With some freedom to trade, and some restrictions. For example, few people are allowed to trade in explosive materials, for the practical reasons demonstrated in Tianjin, China, yesterday. There has never been a time in history when trade and commerce were unrestricted by laws, licensing, inspection and so on. For example, the law governing beer purity (Reinheitsgebot) has have been force in Germany since 1487, more or less unchanged. (Although Wikipedia says it was rescinded.) There were extensive laws governing house and barn construction in Pennsylvania in 1750. Builders who did not follow these laws were run out of town on a rail according to an expert I know. He really is an expert: he repairs and rebuilds 18th century structures in Pennsylvania. He knows all of the codes from that time, as well as those presently in force. In U.S. history, over the last 200 years, the number of laws and restrictions to trade have been drastically reduced. We are now living in the golden age of unrestricted free market competition, unlike like any previous era. This is contrary to what conservatives believe, but it is true. You have to read a lot of original source history about boring subjects to understand this. For example, in 1800 all along the east coast, hotels were regulated to an extent that would be unthinkable today. The amount of money they could charge every night, the size of the room, and the exact menu of food they had to offer was set out in detail in the laws. In examples, up until the 1960s, lawyers and doctors were not allowed to advertise their services or post their rates; advertisements were not allowed to name their competing products (so they called them brand X); rates for trucks, airplanes and taxis were set by law; and established companies has trade groups that more or less banned the entry of competition. Also, the telephone and electric power industry did not allow competition. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I would add also that currently central bank are desperately injecting keyneisian money to stop depression, and deflation, but all it does is inflating assets values, not prices. this is benefiting finance and crony capitalism, not real economy which suffer from bad investment decisions. people asking for gold (I find it stupid) or electronic curencies where central bank cannot manipulate the primary monetary mass do to prevent cehtral bak to promoting crony practices like today. my feeling is that it cannot work, because M3 money is not printed or even mined. someone explained how you can create money in a sane economy (and I understood why there is no inflation despite tons of paper printed). imagine that you are in a world with real great opportunities, like farming rice with neolithic technology. the idea is that as soon as you have money, even if the mass is small, you pay someone to work, and this man have money, that he can consume, or invest. this gives money to people who can buy or consume... if people have many thing to buy or to invest and always work to do that is productive, the money wil circulate very quickly. deflation in 1929 was because people stopped buying goods, buying work, to look less indepbted. hyperinflation in germany was on the opposite becaus epeopel lose trust in deutchmark and immediatemy bought goods with money, to people who do the same ASAP. monetary mass is not the key factor... key is the speed, and the opportunities or fears. if there is opportunities to create value, money will flow, and be reused hundred of time a month. if people are depressed they will keep it dying on an account. only hope is the bank reusing it (where fractional banking is useful), but if people invest them in dead value (bonds on dayly state expenses) it will not flow anymore. if people are terrorised on the opposite money will flow frantically like false notes. today we have strandes asses that are exchanged frantically creating asset bubles. on the opposite there is depressed economy which make real economy deflate because nothing real seems productive. central bank don't solve, but feed, those problems. 2015-08-13 10:25 GMT+02:00 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com: it seems there is an irrational fear of good deflation. what people are afraid of is the deflation-depression like in 1929+, but before 1900 there was regular deflation which was not so evil. currently the Airbnb deflation is giving value to the people by reducing prices of goods and service... the problem is not inflation or deflation, but rigidities in prices and rates, in contracts, compared to price. inflation is a way to break rigidities in too high wages, too high rates deflation is natural and sane in economies where there is growth of productivity. This is a good way to increase wages. one fear is that deflation push people not to consume, but if deflation is on goods that you need immediately and consume, delay is absurd. deflation in housing may be a problem for investors, but deflation of rent, of vegetables, meat, even of cars or computers, is not a problem. 2015-08-13 5:01 GMT+02:00 Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com: On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more economic activity and more people, or you get severe deflation. This happened in the U.S. and other countries on the gold standard. Severe deflation is a bad thing. This is the reason I've never understood the appeal of gold or bitcoin. The urge to take the control of the amount of money in circulation out of the hands of central banks seems to disregard the danger of deflation. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
it seems there is an irrational fear of good deflation. what people are afraid of is the deflation-depression like in 1929+, but before 1900 there was regular deflation which was not so evil. currently the Airbnb deflation is giving value to the people by reducing prices of goods and service... the problem is not inflation or deflation, but rigidities in prices and rates, in contracts, compared to price. inflation is a way to break rigidities in too high wages, too high rates deflation is natural and sane in economies where there is growth of productivity. This is a good way to increase wages. one fear is that deflation push people not to consume, but if deflation is on goods that you need immediately and consume, delay is absurd. deflation in housing may be a problem for investors, but deflation of rent, of vegetables, meat, even of cars or computers, is not a problem. 2015-08-13 5:01 GMT+02:00 Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com: On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more economic activity and more people, or you get severe deflation. This happened in the U.S. and other countries on the gold standard. Severe deflation is a bad thing. This is the reason I've never understood the appeal of gold or bitcoin. The urge to take the control of the amount of money in circulation out of the hands of central banks seems to disregard the danger of deflation. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
You are a good teacher Alain - well said. My personal opinion is that we cannot give this kind of power to large institutions. There will always be misuse and the cronies as you say will always be the beneficiary as they can 'scratch' the back of the central banks. Unfortunately we do accept the status quo. With modern technology we could have other means to regulate our barters. As you say the whole thing hangs on the speed. The only reason to not use direct barter is that it takes very long time to find business opportunities. Money supposedly solves that problem. However, we have now let this instrument have its own life. Manipulation is now the name of the game to achieve political, financial and military goals (see surge in US dollars). Because the manipulation is on a national basis, we have introduced another political/ military weapon. Currency fluctuations - not because of different prices but because of political reasons will of course screw up the barters (I say that because it all should be about barter and that is it.) Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 12:46 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: I would add also that currently central bank are desperately injecting keyneisian money to stop depression, and deflation, but all it does is inflating assets values, not prices. this is benefiting finance and crony capitalism, not real economy which suffer from bad investment decisions. people asking for gold (I find it stupid) or electronic curencies where central bank cannot manipulate the primary monetary mass do to prevent cehtral bak to promoting crony practices like today. my feeling is that it cannot work, because M3 money is not printed or even mined. someone explained how you can create money in a sane economy (and I understood why there is no inflation despite tons of paper printed). imagine that you are in a world with real great opportunities, like farming rice with neolithic technology. the idea is that as soon as you have money, even if the mass is small, you pay someone to work, and this man have money, that he can consume, or invest. this gives money to people who can buy or consume... if people have many thing to buy or to invest and always work to do that is productive, the money wil circulate very quickly. deflation in 1929 was because people stopped buying goods, buying work, to look less indepbted. hyperinflation in germany was on the opposite becaus epeopel lose trust in deutchmark and immediatemy bought goods with money, to people who do the same ASAP. monetary mass is not the key factor... key is the speed, and the opportunities or fears. if there is opportunities to create value, money will flow, and be reused hundred of time a month. if people are depressed they will keep it dying on an account. only hope is the bank reusing it (where fractional banking is useful), but if people invest them in dead value (bonds on dayly state expenses) it will not flow anymore. if people are terrorised on the opposite money will flow frantically like false notes. today we have strandes asses that are exchanged frantically creating asset bubles. on the opposite there is depressed economy which make real economy deflate because nothing real seems productive. central bank don't solve, but feed, those problems. 2015-08-13 10:25 GMT+02:00 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com: it seems there is an irrational fear of good deflation. what people are afraid of is the deflation-depression like in 1929+, but before 1900 there was regular deflation which was not so evil. currently the Airbnb deflation is giving value to the people by reducing prices of goods and service... the problem is not inflation or deflation, but rigidities in prices and rates, in contracts, compared to price. inflation is a way to break rigidities in too high wages, too high rates deflation is natural and sane in economies where there is growth of productivity. This is a good way to increase wages. one fear is that deflation push people not to consume, but if deflation is on goods that you need immediately and consume, delay is absurd. deflation in housing may be a problem for investors, but deflation of rent, of vegetables, meat, even of cars or computers, is not a problem. 2015-08-13 5:01 GMT+02:00 Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com: On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
From Eric This is the reason I've never understood the appeal of gold or bitcoin. The urge to take the control of the amount of money in circulation out of the hands of central banks seems to disregard the danger of deflation. I'm baffled that there still exist politicians who want us to go back to the gold standard, believing that doing so would ensure the safety of U.S. currency. I think not. The appeal for gold is based on an illusion that gold has some kind of mystical value of its own, as if the it was ordained by God. I doubt God cares. Neither is paving the streets of heaven with pure gold (as Thomas Malloy, once envisioned) recommended due to its soft pliability. In no time there would be scuff marks and ruts. I wonder if there exist road repair jobs in heaven. Going back to a gold standard is insane. FDR got rid of it back in 1933. Later, Nixon and G. Ford fiddled with how much gold U.S. citizens could purchase. I believe part of the problem was due to the fact that U.S. gold reserves held in Fort Knox was in the process of being decimated as other nations tried to convert their national currency reserves into gold. By 1971 the U.S. went completely off the gold standard, allowing the price of the precious metal to float from a fixed $35.00 price to current market value. The price is currently hovering over $1,100. Gold was much higher not all that long ago. The more perceived angst there is in the world, the pricey gold gets, and vice versa. Given the topic of bitcoin currency being raised in this discussion I suspect inflation might be more likely of some concern rather than the ravages of deflation. Speaking of inflation, it's really another form of taxing the entire nation. When the effects of inflation end up costing you more to purchase a product or service, it is no different than having to pay a tax on the same item when you are living on a fixed income. When a nation experiences moderate inflation, wealth is being reallocated. Not surprisingly the wealthy tend to weather taxation by inflation far better than who are typically living on limited fixed incomes. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson OrionWorks.com zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
No - Craig I did not write that but I think it is correct in a way. Your more in dept series of events is actually supporting the statement as I see it. More important to me is that you actually give good example to how the manipulation for political reasons becomes more important than the economical reality. No body could get money without paying a high interest, which was impossible as it was shortage of income opportunity - so nobody invested so nobody bought more than absolute minimum and nobody invested . . . In the end of the day devaluation took place anyhow. The real irony is of course that as the US dollar dictated the value of other currencies it was no real devaluation or rather everybody devaluated. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 06:11 -0800, Lennart Thornros wrote: deflation in 1929 was because people stopped buying goods, buying work, to look less indepbted. No. Deflation in 1929 - 1933 was due to the Federal Reserve's response to a gold run. At the time, the US dollar was still considered to be gold, and the Federal Reserve was charged to ensure that all federal notes could be honored. They raised interest rates in 1929 to such an extent that the money supply which had been expanding for the previous decade, would decline to the point where they could ensure adequate gold reserves. They continued this policy for 3 years until Roosevelt made it illegal to own gold under a WWI emergency wartime act, at which point the gold run was over. However, even after all gold was confiscated, and three years of a contracting money supply, the US dollar still had to be devalued with respect its gold reserves from $20 / ounce to $35 / ounce. The Federal Reserve created a lot of money in the 1920s and much of it went into the stock market, driving prices to extraordinary levels, which had not been seen before that period in time. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 17:57 +0100, Ian Walker wrote: Hi all In all honesty we need to consider a post capitalism world. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/aug/12/paul-mason-capitalism-failing-time-to-panic-video?CMP=fb_us There are only two types of economies that have been demonstrated in the world: An economy which allows people to trade freely; and an economy which commands all production and distribution. To date, no one has demonstrated how the latter can replace the former. The narrator in the video, above, equates capitalism with violence, but there is no causal link between the two. Free trade does not lead to mass surveillance, wars, and riot squads. He is, rather, equating a philosophy based on violence with a philosophy based on free trade, where no such relationship can be shown to exist. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Lennart, Money is used to facilitate the exchange of good services; it needn't have any intrinsic value. The money supply needs to be balanced distributed to foster it use to balance distribution of these goods services within the economy. Hence the need for regulation. All those derivatives fancy wall street products were effectively unregulated money in a huge shadow economy when they suddenly went away that money had to be replaced which the Fed has been doing; although not perfectly as the financial sector has a lot of power influence in our political system. I believe your faith in a laissez faire solution is naive. Ron --On Wednesday, August 12, 2015 7:25 PM -0800 Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Eric and Jed, Why do we need someone to control the amount of money in circulation? Why do we need to split it up in pieces? I guess it is good for China they can now fix their economy by letting others pay for it. This nationalistic way of solving problems will go away. Just let it go natural. I do not think we need a financial nurse checking out for us. Freedom is a god thing liberalism does stand for that from the beginning but now it has become to mean socialism. Is that why everybody like to have more nursing? Cannot distinguish between liberalism and socialism:) Big difference. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. PJM On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 7:01 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more economic activity and more people, or you get severe deflation. This happened in the U.S. and other countries on the gold standard. Severe deflation is a bad thing. This is the reason I've never understood the appeal of gold or bitcoin. The urge to take the control of the amount of money in circulation out of the hands of central banks seems to disregard the danger of deflation. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Hi all In all honesty we need to consider a post capitalism world. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/aug/12/paul-mason-capitalism-failing-time-to-panic-video?CMP=fb_us Kind Regards walker On 13 August 2015 at 17:32, Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: No - Craig I did not write that but I think it is correct in a way. Your more in dept series of events is actually supporting the statement as I see it. More important to me is that you actually give good example to how the manipulation for political reasons becomes more important than the economical reality. No body could get money without paying a high interest, which was impossible as it was shortage of income opportunity - so nobody invested so nobody bought more than absolute minimum and nobody invested . . . In the end of the day devaluation took place anyhow. The real irony is of course that as the US dollar dictated the value of other currencies it was no real devaluation or rather everybody devaluated. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 06:11 -0800, Lennart Thornros wrote: deflation in 1929 was because people stopped buying goods, buying work, to look less indepbted. No. Deflation in 1929 - 1933 was due to the Federal Reserve's response to a gold run. At the time, the US dollar was still considered to be gold, and the Federal Reserve was charged to ensure that all federal notes could be honored. They raised interest rates in 1929 to such an extent that the money supply which had been expanding for the previous decade, would decline to the point where they could ensure adequate gold reserves. They continued this policy for 3 years until Roosevelt made it illegal to own gold under a WWI emergency wartime act, at which point the gold run was over. However, even after all gold was confiscated, and three years of a contracting money supply, the US dollar still had to be devalued with respect its gold reserves from $20 / ounce to $35 / ounce. The Federal Reserve created a lot of money in the 1920s and much of it went into the stock market, driving prices to extraordinary levels, which had not been seen before that period in time. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: There are only two types of economies that have been demonstrated in the world: An economy which allows people to trade freely; and an economy which commands all production and distribution. To date, no one has demonstrated how the latter can replace the former. I disagree. All real world economies are a combination of the two. Hybrids, that is. With some freedom to trade, and some restrictions. For example, few people are allowed to trade in explosive materials, for the practical reasons demonstrated in Tianjin, China, yesterday. There has never been a time in history when trade and commerce were unrestricted by laws, licensing, inspection and so on. For example, the law governing beer purity (Reinheitsgebot) has have been force in Germany since 1487, more or less unchanged. (Although Wikipedia says it was rescinded.) There were extensive laws governing house and barn construction in Pennsylvania in 1750. Builders who did not follow these laws were run out of town on a rail according to an expert I know. He really is an expert: he repairs and rebuilds 18th century structures in Pennsylvania. He knows all of the codes from that time, as well as those presently in force. In U.S. history, over the last 200 years, the number of laws and restrictions to trade have been drastically reduced. We are now living in the golden age of unrestricted free market competition, unlike like any previous era. This is contrary to what conservatives believe, but it is true. You have to read a lot of original source history about boring subjects to understand this. For example, in 1800 all along the east coast, hotels were regulated to an extent that would be unthinkable today. The amount of money they could charge every night, the size of the room, and the exact menu of food they had to offer was set out in detail in the laws. In examples, up until the 1960s, lawyers and doctors were not allowed to advertise their services or post their rates; advertisements were not allowed to name their competing products (so they called them brand X); rates for trucks, airplanes and taxis were set by law; and established companies has trade groups that more or less banned the entry of competition. Also, the telephone and electric power industry did not allow competition. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Lennart, I agree that a change in the system is desperately needed. we need a more equitable distribution of wealth but I don't see this happening without gov intervention regulation. I certainly agree that there is a lot of room for improvement in government regulation as most institutions are very CYA risk averse (I work with highway dept. projects all the time), but that said, codes and standards are essentially good for industry society even if implementation can always be improved. Ron --On Thursday, August 13, 2015 11:04 AM -0800 Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Ron - I agree that is as it is. Money is there for manipulation. It was originally to help the barter. Now it is a system all by itself. Its production is zilch. It is just working for political reasons. Maybe I am naive. you know I heard almost 30 years ago when i moved to the US that leadership and management was control over the workforce and to get the maximum for minmum pay. Today the theory is coming close to what I believed already at that time. Companies like Google are my believe but I do think they grown to big to survive as a forefront in this regards. You say that all the fancy stuff Wall street are inventing is 'unregulated'. No, not at all. That is products / functions created as a pay back to the regulator as a benefit. When the system brakes down there are two parties to take responsibilities and that is the regulators, which was well aware but wanted Wall street to get this perk and than the greedy Wall street itself. It is not unregulated - you and I could not start businesses with this type of products. If I believed in laissez faire that would be naive. I believe in simple system with a minimum of regulations and a minimum of 'products'. Ian showed the ideas I think are needed. Not that I believe that this is exactly how it could /should be done. Rather that a change is required and that technology can replace the many outdated laws we have. Everything changes except for the political system. I would rather see that we change the current format to a working modern system. The alternative is some kind of revolution, when the system becomes so obsolete that it implodes. I think that type of change is negative and I think that to search for improvement in a moderate pace is better. The real problem is that we are moving very fast to the point of no return, by constantly 'improving' the existing system. Change is necessary and if it is a continuous process it is easy and uneventful. Evaluate the situation - make a plan for what could work better - implement that plan - evaluate . . . . Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 17:57 +0100, Ian Walker wrote: Hi all In all honesty we need to consider a post capitalism world. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/aug/12/paul-mason-c apitalism-failing-time-to-panic-video?CMP=fb_us There are only two types of economies that have been demonstrated in the world: An economy which allows people to trade freely; and an economy which commands all production and distribution. To date, no one has demonstrated how the latter can replace the former. The narrator in the video, above, equates capitalism with violence, but there is no causal link between the two. Free trade does not lead to mass surveillance, wars, and riot squads. He is, rather, equating a philosophy based on violence with a philosophy based on free trade, where no such relationship can be shown to exist. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Lennart, I guess we will just have to disagree. As an example just compare countries (or states) with strong code enforcement to those with little on none. You will find the former much nicer. Corners will always be cut if it's possible. Ron --On Thursday, August 13, 2015 12:32 PM -0800 Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Ron, I understand your view. I might just be too radical. However, my experience is that starting with a clean plate - taking in a minimum of the regulations and try to catch the regulation with as generic statements as possible is a good starting poin. The other way to eliminate what is not required is just not going to eliminate anything - it actually will add more stuff. My thinking is that any law that is not easy enforceable is useless and laws that does not make sense or violates general moral (did not find a better word) should not be allowed. I do know very little about building roads. However, I think the industry knows what is required. I see no reason that the government should be involved in determine how. The competition would easily force a set of standards to be 'typical' and then the buyer could buy what standard he wants. I know that someone is saying that would be people taking short cuts. That is just as it is today also. It is still very costly and in-effective to litigate based on details. The method I suggest (to delegate the standardization would bring new methods in quicker as it could create competitive advantages to the implementer. Now we are doing things as we always done and hope for a better result and you know what that means.:) Just stick with what always was and then no risk for the behind and no difficult new stuff to have to learn about. This goes for most of our regulation. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Ron Wormus prot...@frii.com wrote: Lennart, I agree that a change in the system is desperately needed. we need a more equitable distribution of wealth but I don't see this happening without gov intervention regulation. I certainly agree that there is a lot of room for improvement in government regulation as most institutions are very CYA risk averse (I work with highway dept. projects all the time), but that said, codes and standards are essentially good for industry society even if implementation can always be improved. Ron --On Thursday, August 13, 2015 11:04 AM -0800 Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Ron - I agree that is as it is. Money is there for manipulation. It was originally to help the barter. Now it is a system all by itself. Its production is zilch. It is just working for political reasons. Maybe I am naive. you know I heard almost 30 years ago when i moved to the US that leadership and management was control over the workforce and to get the maximum for minmum pay. Today the theory is coming close to what I believed already at that time. Companies like Google are my believe but I do think they grown to big to survive as a forefront in this regards. You say that all the fancy stuff Wall street are inventing is 'unregulated'. No, not at all. That is products / functions created as a pay back to the regulator as a benefit. When the system brakes down there are two parties to take responsibilities and that is the regulators, which was well aware but wanted Wall street to get this perk and than the greedy Wall street itself. It is not unregulated - you and I could not start businesses with this type of products. If I believed in laissez faire that would be naive. I believe in simple system with a minimum of regulations and a minimum of 'products'. Ian showed the ideas I think are needed. Not that I believe that this is exactly how it could /should be done. Rather that a change is required and that technology can replace the many outdated laws we have. Everything changes except for the political system. I would rather see that we change the current format to a working modern system. The alternative is some kind of revolution, when the system becomes so obsolete that it implodes. I think that type of change is negative and I think that to search for improvement in a moderate pace is better. The real problem is that we are moving very fast to the point of no return, by constantly 'improving' the existing system. Change is necessary and if it is a continuous process it is easy and uneventful. Evaluate the situation - make a plan for what could work better - implement that plan - evaluate . . . . Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
OK Jed. I am just imagine things then. I am 100 % sure there were less laws and regulations in the US when I came here almost 30 years ago. My experience is that it is true in Europe also. I only can build that opinion on hearsay but . . I have not read all the boring stuff you read. I have experienced first hand how much more everything need to be as molded in to the form. We allow less personal freedom. Sure there were many laws in old time we cam laugh about today. Good we managed to stop protecting hotels from robbers. The monopolies are all because the banks saw that it was possible to monopolies certain industries under the philosophy that it would be a waste f resources to build competing telephone lines. such a large infrastructure that only the banks could handle. Regarding the law about German beer. That has changed in my lifetime so it is at least different than it was 1487. I also know for sure that it ws not a German law as there was no Germany at that time. Probably a Pilsen (today no longer in Germany) idea. On the other hand - yes there were many laws that kept people from moving 'up' in the ranks. Not defending that. It did not take so many laws when you had a dictator who could change the law as he found best, when he so wanted. Not my idea about freedom. I am not comparing with the history I am looking for a solution for the future. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 3:49 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: There are only two types of economies that have been demonstrated in the world: An economy which allows people to trade freely; and an economy which commands all production and distribution. To date, no one has demonstrated how the latter can replace the former. I disagree. All real world economies are a combination of the two. Hybrids, that is. With some freedom to trade, and some restrictions. For example, few people are allowed to trade in explosive materials, for the practical reasons demonstrated in Tianjin, China, yesterday. There has never been a time in history when trade and commerce were unrestricted by laws, licensing, inspection and so on. For example, the law governing beer purity (Reinheitsgebot) has have been force in Germany since 1487, more or less unchanged. (Although Wikipedia says it was rescinded.) There were extensive laws governing house and barn construction in Pennsylvania in 1750. Builders who did not follow these laws were run out of town on a rail according to an expert I know. He really is an expert: he repairs and rebuilds 18th century structures in Pennsylvania. He knows all of the codes from that time, as well as those presently in force. In U.S. history, over the last 200 years, the number of laws and restrictions to trade have been drastically reduced. We are now living in the golden age of unrestricted free market competition, unlike like any previous era. This is contrary to what conservatives believe, but it is true. You have to read a lot of original source history about boring subjects to understand this. For example, in 1800 all along the east coast, hotels were regulated to an extent that would be unthinkable today. The amount of money they could charge every night, the size of the room, and the exact menu of food they had to offer was set out in detail in the laws. In examples, up until the 1960s, lawyers and doctors were not allowed to advertise their services or post their rates; advertisements were not allowed to name their competing products (so they called them brand X); rates for trucks, airplanes and taxis were set by law; and established companies has trade groups that more or less banned the entry of competition. Also, the telephone and electric power industry did not allow competition. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Ron - I agree that is as it is. Money is there for manipulation. It was originally to help the barter. Now it is a system all by itself. Its production is zilch. It is just working for political reasons. Maybe I am naive. you know I heard almost 30 years ago when i moved to the US that leadership and management was control over the workforce and to get the maximum for minmum pay. Today the theory is coming close to what I believed already at that time. Companies like Google are my believe but I do think they grown to big to survive as a forefront in this regards. You say that all the fancy stuff Wall street are inventing is 'unregulated'. No, not at all. That is products / functions created as a pay back to the regulator as a benefit. When the system brakes down there are two parties to take responsibilities and that is the regulators, which was well aware but wanted Wall street to get this perk and than the greedy Wall street itself. It is not unregulated - you and I could not start businesses with this type of products. If I believed in laissez faire that would be naive. I believe in simple system with a minimum of regulations and a minimum of 'products'. Ian showed the ideas I think are needed. Not that I believe that this is exactly how it could /should be done. Rather that a change is required and that technology can replace the many outdated laws we have. Everything changes except for the political system. I would rather see that we change the current format to a working modern system. The alternative is some kind of revolution, when the system becomes so obsolete that it implodes. I think that type of change is negative and I think that to search for improvement in a moderate pace is better. The real problem is that we are moving very fast to the point of no return, by constantly 'improving' the existing system. Change is necessary and if it is a continuous process it is easy and uneventful. Evaluate the situation - make a plan for what could work better - implement that plan - evaluate . . . . Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 17:57 +0100, Ian Walker wrote: Hi all In all honesty we need to consider a post capitalism world. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/aug/12/paul-mason-capitalism-failing-time-to-panic-video?CMP=fb_us There are only two types of economies that have been demonstrated in the world: An economy which allows people to trade freely; and an economy which commands all production and distribution. To date, no one has demonstrated how the latter can replace the former. The narrator in the video, above, equates capitalism with violence, but there is no causal link between the two. Free trade does not lead to mass surveillance, wars, and riot squads. He is, rather, equating a philosophy based on violence with a philosophy based on free trade, where no such relationship can be shown to exist. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Ron, I understand your view. I might just be too radical. However, my experience is that starting with a clean plate - taking in a minimum of the regulations and try to catch the regulation with as generic statements as possible is a good starting poin. The other way to eliminate what is not required is just not going to eliminate anything - it actually will add more stuff. My thinking is that any law that is not easy enforceable is useless and laws that does not make sense or violates general moral (did not find a better word) should not be allowed. I do know very little about building roads. However, I think the industry knows what is required. I see no reason that the government should be involved in determine how. The competition would easily force a set of standards to be 'typical' and then the buyer could buy what standard he wants. I know that someone is saying that would be people taking short cuts. That is just as it is today also. It is still very costly and in-effective to litigate based on details. The method I suggest (to delegate the standardization would bring new methods in quicker as it could create competitive advantages to the implementer. Now we are doing things as we always done and hope for a better result and you know what that means.:) Just stick with what always was and then no risk for the behind and no difficult new stuff to have to learn about. This goes for most of our regulation. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Ron Wormus prot...@frii.com wrote: Lennart, I agree that a change in the system is desperately needed. we need a more equitable distribution of wealth but I don't see this happening without gov intervention regulation. I certainly agree that there is a lot of room for improvement in government regulation as most institutions are very CYA risk averse (I work with highway dept. projects all the time), but that said, codes and standards are essentially good for industry society even if implementation can always be improved. Ron --On Thursday, August 13, 2015 11:04 AM -0800 Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Ron - I agree that is as it is. Money is there for manipulation. It was originally to help the barter. Now it is a system all by itself. Its production is zilch. It is just working for political reasons. Maybe I am naive. you know I heard almost 30 years ago when i moved to the US that leadership and management was control over the workforce and to get the maximum for minmum pay. Today the theory is coming close to what I believed already at that time. Companies like Google are my believe but I do think they grown to big to survive as a forefront in this regards. You say that all the fancy stuff Wall street are inventing is 'unregulated'. No, not at all. That is products / functions created as a pay back to the regulator as a benefit. When the system brakes down there are two parties to take responsibilities and that is the regulators, which was well aware but wanted Wall street to get this perk and than the greedy Wall street itself. It is not unregulated - you and I could not start businesses with this type of products. If I believed in laissez faire that would be naive. I believe in simple system with a minimum of regulations and a minimum of 'products'. Ian showed the ideas I think are needed. Not that I believe that this is exactly how it could /should be done. Rather that a change is required and that technology can replace the many outdated laws we have. Everything changes except for the political system. I would rather see that we change the current format to a working modern system. The alternative is some kind of revolution, when the system becomes so obsolete that it implodes. I think that type of change is negative and I think that to search for improvement in a moderate pace is better. The real problem is that we are moving very fast to the point of no return, by constantly 'improving' the existing system. Change is necessary and if it is a continuous process it is easy and uneventful. Evaluate the situation - make a plan for what could work better - implement that plan - evaluate . . . . Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. PJM On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 9:39 AM, Craig Haynie cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 17:57 +0100, Ian Walker wrote: Hi all In all honesty we need to consider a post capitalism world.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 06:11 -0800, Lennart Thornros wrote: deflation in 1929 was because people stopped buying goods, buying work, to look less indepbted. No. Deflation in 1929 - 1933 was due to the Federal Reserve's response to a gold run. At the time, the US dollar was still considered to be gold, and the Federal Reserve was charged to ensure that all federal notes could be honored. They raised interest rates in 1929 to such an extent that the money supply which had been expanding for the previous decade, would decline to the point where they could ensure adequate gold reserves. They continued this policy for 3 years until Roosevelt made it illegal to own gold under a WWI emergency wartime act, at which point the gold run was over. However, even after all gold was confiscated, and three years of a contracting money supply, the US dollar still had to be devalued with respect its gold reserves from $20 / ounce to $35 / ounce. The Federal Reserve created a lot of money in the 1920s and much of it went into the stock market, driving prices to extraordinary levels, which had not been seen before that period in time. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Thu, 2015-08-13 at 09:48 -0500, Orionworks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: The appeal for gold is based on an illusion that gold has some kind of mystical value of its own, as if the it was ordained by God. Opinions and desires can't be universalized, but I believe that most of the people who want to see gold as money do so because they believe in a decentralized, universal, stable, currency, something no central bank can achieve. Craig
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more economic activity and more people, or you get severe deflation. This happened in the U.S. and other countries on the gold standard. Severe deflation is a bad thing. This is the reason I've never understood the appeal of gold or bitcoin. The urge to take the control of the amount of money in circulation out of the hands of central banks seems to disregard the danger of deflation. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Eric and Jed, Why do we need someone to control the amount of money in circulation? Why do we need to split it up in pieces? I guess it is good for China they can now fix their economy by letting others pay for it. This nationalistic way of solving problems will go away. Just let it go natural. I do not think we need a financial nurse checking out for us. Freedom is a god thing liberalism does stand for that from the beginning but now it has become to mean socialism. Is that why everybody like to have more nursing? Cannot distinguish between liberalism and socialism:) Big difference. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 7:01 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:11 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more economic activity and more people, or you get severe deflation. This happened in the U.S. and other countries on the gold standard. Severe deflation is a bad thing. This is the reason I've never understood the appeal of gold or bitcoin. The urge to take the control of the amount of money in circulation out of the hands of central banks seems to disregard the danger of deflation. Eric
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 9:19 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: True the SPLC could not have acted as a legal person as it did not exist, but its antecedents certainly did exist in the form of the natural person who comprised it and then proceeded . . . You said they had hundreds of millions of dollars. I said they have, in the present tense, hundreds of millions of dollars. But they did not have any money in 1968, when you allege they masterminded an assassination. They had no money or influence, except among a small group of people working in civil rights. They were just a couple of threadbare lawyers and a book publisher. Such people do not mastermind the assassination of a world famous Nobel Prize winner. Or, if they do, the police catch them. I suspect a wide range of parties that had the means (not necessarily financial), motive (possibly including financial) and opportunity (insiders/infiltrators of MLK's Poor People's Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign). Aside from the antecedents of the SPLC, there is Nixon, who briefly promoted a debilitated form of a citizen's dividend but then instituted affirmative action instead, is a suspect in this regard. I alleged only that SPLC and other organizations that took over MLK's _true_ legacy of promoting a race-neutral citizens' dividend, assassinated that legacy by promoting, instead, Title VII. That assassination was far worse than putting a bullet through MLK's head. That the SPLC then went on to collect hundreds of millions in endowments paying their executives hundreds of thousands a year would not only be forgivable but laudable if they had, instead, actually denounced Title VII and instead gotten MLK's citizen's dividend passed as the solution to southern poverty. That true legacy of MLK would have addressed the ills not only of capitalism, but the ills of communism that was responsible for an order of magnitude more deaths than Jews that died at the hands of the Nazis. There is no word for the people who assassinated the legacy of MLK in the DSM, because it has removed the word psychopath and replaced it with the mere sociopath.
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
The Plutocrats of the day wanted a march on Washington to overthrow FDR as secretly led by them. Congress held hearings and supposedly investigated but as with modern day TBTJ banks (suggesting snipers for the Occupy movement and paying for police ‘charities’ in appreciation of their future work) it went nowhere. Smedley Butler was a credible patriot who got tired of being a gangster for Wall Street. Inflation of services has been reported on National Public Radio and education is most noticeable. There is huge inflation in investments/assets as money desperately chases yield. The zero interest rate phenomena makes it worse as well as fears about banks (add ‘bail in’s to the list). The positive potential here is that a solid crash could eliminate many of the 1% and their power. Few seem to realize that the millennials situation may doom any future economy – there are homes not being bought, families not being started and crushing college debt for many who now live with their parents. At some point, it isn’t reversible. This may be an overlooked factor in why ending the Great Depression was so difficult – damaging the ‘handover’ of an economy to the next generation.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Jed, It cannot be true that you think there is no inflation.. What about my exampla. If there is no inflation why does the government need to increase taxes and fees?? Yes there are tendencies at deflation because of all manipulations. As I said before there is a hidden inflation. Fees and other governmental charges are increasing. That fits all politicians. More money to handle (read skim from). No, inflation in itself does not create economic enhancement. I agree with that. Inflation is merely a way to distribute the assets. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 5:34 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Money is not the issue. The way they are handled and looked upon is. As a .ashfield said there is inflation just that we use all sorts of methods and stats to hide it. No, there is not inflation, and if there were, there are no methods or stats that would hide it. Such notions are another example of preposterous conspiracy theories. If there were inflation, it would be in the interests of many powerful people in the Congress, on Wall Street, at banks and elsewhere to measure it. They would not keep their findings secret. In particular, right wing economists would plaster this data on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Some of them have been saying for years that inflation is just around the corner, it will happen Any Day Now, and we have to take drastic steps to avoid it. They have been looking high and low for evidence of inflation to prove they are right. So far they have found none. Where there is a lack of demand, high unemployment, the banks pay practically no interest, and ordinary consumers are growing poorer year by year, inflation is unlikely. These conditions cause deflation instead, as they have done in Japan for the last 20 years. The Abe government is trying hard to go the other way and inflate by 2% per year. I do not think it is working. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: The SPLC may or may not have been directly involved in the assassination but it is clear they had the means, motive and opportunity. With a time machine, not doubt. MLK was assassinated in 1968. The SPLC was founded in 1971. True the SPLC could not have acted as a legal person as it did not exist, but its antecedents certainly did exist in the form of the natural person who comprised it and then proceeded . . . You said they had hundreds of millions of dollars. They did not. They were ordinary lawyers and a book publisher. They were nobodies, with no influence or power. The lawyers had taken on many civil rights cases but they were paid little. However, they were then and are now well regarded by people in the civil rights movement. Apparently you think civil rights leaders have no sense of judgement and they are extremely stupid and incapable of recognizing their own worst enemies. I have known some of them personally for decades, and I can say with assurance that you are completely batty on this subject. You are living in a fantasy world. I will not comment again on your conspiracy theories. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: Money is not the issue. The way they are handled and looked upon is. As a .ashfield said there is inflation just that we use all sorts of methods and stats to hide it. No, there is not inflation, and if there were, there are no methods or stats that would hide it. Such notions are another example of preposterous conspiracy theories. If there were inflation, it would be in the interests of many powerful people in the Congress, on Wall Street, at banks and elsewhere to measure it. They would not keep their findings secret. In particular, right wing economists would plaster this data on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Some of them have been saying for years that inflation is just around the corner, it will happen Any Day Now, and we have to take drastic steps to avoid it. They have been looking high and low for evidence of inflation to prove they are right. So far they have found none. Where there is a lack of demand, high unemployment, the banks pay practically no interest, and ordinary consumers are growing poorer year by year, inflation is unlikely. These conditions cause deflation instead, as they have done in Japan for the last 20 years. The Abe government is trying hard to go the other way and inflate by 2% per year. I do not think it is working. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: True the SPLC could not have acted as a legal person as it did not exist, but its antecedents certainly did exist in the form of the natural person who comprised it and then proceeded . . . You said they had hundreds of millions of dollars. I said they have, in the present tense, hundreds of millions of dollars. But they did not have any money in 1968, when you allege they masterminded an assassination. They had no money or influence, except among a small group of people working in civil rights. They were just a couple of threadbare lawyers and a book publisher. Such people do not mastermind the assassination of a world famous Nobel Prize winner. Or, if they do, the police catch them. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I wrote: 2007 $5.1 trillion 2006 $4.6 trillion *THAT SHOULD BE 2008 -- the year of the crash* 2010 $4.7 trillion 2014 $5.8 trillion (finally recovered) Government income declined from $5.1 to $4.6 while government expenses went through the roof, because the government bailed out the banks, GM and Wall Street with the TARP program. Fortunately, most of that money was paid back, including interest. $455 billion spent, $442 billion paid back, 98.9% recovery. http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/reports/Pages/TARP-Tracker.aspx Government expenses also increased because of safety net expenses such as unemployment payments and food stamps. It would have been a 1929-type catastrophe if that had not happened. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com wrote: It cannot be true that you think there is no inflation.. There has been very little overall inflation. Obviously, some things have gotten expensive, but others are cheaper. For example, eggs are expensive because of avian influenza. On the other hand, coal, oil and gas are record low costs (relative to other commodities, adjusted for inflation). People spend a lot more on fossil fuel than on eggs. What about my exampla. If there is no inflation why does the government need to increase taxes and fees?? Some governments increased some taxes and fees after 2008 because the economy collapsed and government income declined drastically. Not because there was inflation. Overall, government collected less money than it did before the crisis. Totals: 2007 $5.1 trillion 2006 $4.6 trillion 2010 $4.7 trillion 2014 $5.8 trillion (finally recovered) http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2014USbn_16bs1n#usgs302 Yes there are tendencies at deflation because of all manipulations. No one can manipulate something as large as the U.S. economy enough to hide something like general inflation. No one has that kind of power. The U.S. GDP is $17 trillion. You cannot deliberately suppress (or enhance) the price of any commodity or group of commodities enough to make a difference. Eggs could cost $10 each and it would barely register. It would be swamped by the falling cost of natural gas, coal and oil. As I said before there is a hidden inflation. No, there isn't. No one can hide significant inflation. You are repeating a right-wing urban myth. You can only hide very small inflation for products that economists in the government, the banks, investment companies and elsewhere do not monitor. The price change of any commodity that plays a measurable role in the economy, such as eggs, will be noted by the economists. They have computers. Supercomputers. They monitor prices and the overall economy in enormous detail. Fees and other governmental charges are increasing. No, they are not, and even if they were, this is a small part of the economy compared to natural gas, which is plummeting in price, as I said. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 8:22 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: The SPLC may or may not have been directly involved in the assassination but it is clear they had the means, motive and opportunity. With a time machine, not doubt. MLK was assassinated in 1968. The SPLC was founded in 1971. True the SPLC could not have acted as a legal person as it did not exist, but its antecedents certainly did exist in the form of the natural person who comprised it and then proceeded . . . You said they had hundreds of millions of dollars. I said they have, in the present tense, hundreds of millions of dollars.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Money is not the issue. The way they are handled and looked upon is. As a .ashfield said there is inflation just that we use all sorts of methods and stats to hide it. The people hiding it are the same as the guys that said banks do not need to pay interest that way they can get out of bankruptcy without any shame. Call them central bank or something else. If I remeber right the US does not have a central bank so . . . the name is irrelevant. Of course the people who handles the large amount of money. which they can skim in fiftyeleven different ways without it is visible at any stage, they like status quo. The good thing is that they are as little aware, because they have no interest to find out, that there is technology that can replace them and there 'service' in a heartbeat without losing anything in any regard. Someone said that we can wit for the revolution. Yes, that is true and the loser is . . . To seriously say that one is in politics for the better for the nation in general is a joke if you do not deal with issues like: totally insane and outmoded and tax laws, a military that has its own agenda, a welfare system that cost almost as much to administrate as it provides, etc. Nobody comes up with straight forward answers. Donald Trump takes points by being upfront. I have not many pluses fro him but that is something the politician should learn from him. We are hearing the internal drama between our servants (the politicians), which mostly is noise to mask that they really do nothing to solve apparent problems. I think there is great proof of inflation among governmental offices. To get a copy of my Naturalization (just the name) document cost more than it did to get the original a decade ago.I am sure governmental fees are not included when they calculate inflation. I also think that Alain's references have a lot of merit. In the colonial time it was possible to hide the 'rich' world . Today we have so good communication that there is no protection for discrimination. Nationalism cannot take expressions and actions to separate nations. That idea is going to be dead long before we will see revolution. I agree with ashfield that there is a religious factor. Yes, but the fact that there is a difference of possibilities makes a good soil for such religious ideas to grow. This is not 1775 and some explorer travelling around the world and make colonies out of uninformed tribes. Now it is Microsoft explorer getting the information equally easy in both directions. If we go back to the 'dark ages' we had small kingdoms everywhere. It did not work to keep those kingdoms separate except fro a few (Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, San Marino) that verifies the rule and survive by being compliant. I agree that UBI is a possible solution. It actually have capitalistic philosophies and would reward initiatives. My only fear is that there is no good mechanism to handle the distribution. I know that becoming part of the government would make it without merits. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 1:27 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:13 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Martin Luther King Jr.'s final advice, before he was assassinated, was to follow Henry George's advice to attack poverty directly with a citizen's dividend. They shot MLK because he proposed a race-neutral approach to souther poverty and if there is one thing the Souther Poverty Law Center cannot abide . . . They did not shoot him. One person did. There was no conspiracy. Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern
[Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I've always had doubts about economists understanding of how technology influences and changes the world and the society over time, and consequently also its financial and monetary realities. Renowned economist and author, George Gilde, has written the book 'A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money', which is discussed by Ray Kurzweil in this piece: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-renowned-economist-and-author-george-gilde rs-new-information-theory-of-money I think it brings out some fresh ideas on the failure of established economic theory. Personally I'm particularly interested in the aspect of Bitcoin with a fixed amount of money supply, making it similar to gold. Potentially this could be an important feature if the value of human work drops to zero through automation and the value of products and services falls drastically for the same reason. It could be what makes Bitcoin or some similarly designed crypto currency a winner. Note that Kurzweil points out to Gilde that supply of gold is not guaranteed to remain fixed, in the prospect of efficient transmutation technology. A refined algorithmic crypto currency might be more future-proof, although, as Kurzweil writes: I have concerns about the validity of bitcoin's mining algorithm, and the extent to which this can ultimately be algorithmically subverted. Mats http://www.animpossibleinvention.com www.animpossibleinvention.com
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Mats, Thanks for the link. A most interesting criticism of current economic theory. Clearly our fiat money system has high risk but I'm not so sure that Gilders has the answer. I touched on the problem, together with a lot of other problems, in a piece I wrote /Advances in technology that will change your life/. See attached Word file. Regards, Adrian Ashfield On 8/5/2015 3:20 AM, Mats Lewan wrote: I’ve always had doubts about economists understanding of how technology influences and changes the world and the society over time, and consequently also its financial and monetary realities. Renowned economist and author, George Gilde, has written the book /‘A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money’/, which is discussed by Ray Kurzweil in this piece: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-renowned-economist-and-author-george-gilders-new-information-theory-of-money I think it brings out some fresh ideas on the failure of established economic theory. Personally I’m particularly interested in the aspect of Bitcoin with a fixed amount of money supply, making it similar to gold. Potentially this could be an important feature if the value of human work drops to zero through automation and the value of products and services falls drastically for the same reason. It could be what makes Bitcoin or some similarly designed crypto currency a winner. Note that Kurzweil points out to Gilde that supply of gold is not guaranteed to remain fixed, in the prospect of efficient transmutation technology. A refined algorithmic crypto currency might be more future-proof, although, as Kurzweil writes: /“I have concerns about the validity of bitcoin’s mining algorithm, and the extent to which this can ultimately be algorithmically subverted.”/ // Mats www.animpossibleinvention.com http://www.animpossibleinvention.com Advances in technology that will change your life.docx Description: MS-Word 2007 document
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Gilder's ideas in this latest book may be fresh, but his career is far from it -- including some very stale ideas such as supply side economics (which even some of its major proponents eventually admitted was destructive to the middle class that Gilder supposedly championed from his early days as an author) and being a major participant in the DotCon era bubble. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 3:20 AM, Mats Lewan m...@matslewan.se wrote: I’ve always had doubts about economists understanding of how technology influences and changes the world and the society over time, and consequently also its financial and monetary realities. Renowned economist and author, George Gilde, has written the book *‘A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money’*, which is discussed by Ray Kurzweil in this piece: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-renowned-economist-and-author-george-gilders-new-information-theory-of-money I think it brings out some fresh ideas on the failure of established economic theory. Personally I’m particularly interested in the aspect of Bitcoin with a fixed amount of money supply, making it similar to gold. Potentially this could be an important feature if the value of human work drops to zero through automation and the value of products and services falls drastically for the same reason. It could be what makes Bitcoin or some similarly designed crypto currency a winner. Note that Kurzweil points out to Gilde that supply of gold is not guaranteed to remain fixed, in the prospect of efficient transmutation technology. A refined algorithmic crypto currency might be more future-proof, although, as Kurzweil writes: *“I have concerns about the validity of bitcoin’s mining algorithm, and the extent to which this can ultimately be algorithmically subverted.”* Mats www.animpossibleinvention.com
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Quoting Gilder's book preview In economist Milton Friedman’s famous equation MV=PT... Gilder should learn to use Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Fisher#Monetary_economics On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 7:53 AM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Gilder's ideas in this latest book may be fresh, but his career is far from it -- including some very stale ideas such as supply side economics (which even some of its major proponents eventually admitted was destructive to the middle class that Gilder supposedly championed from his early days as an author) and being a major participant in the DotCon era bubble. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 3:20 AM, Mats Lewan m...@matslewan.se wrote: I’ve always had doubts about economists understanding of how technology influences and changes the world and the society over time, and consequently also its financial and monetary realities. Renowned economist and author, George Gilde, has written the book *‘A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money’*, which is discussed by Ray Kurzweil in this piece: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-renowned-economist-and-author-george-gilders-new-information-theory-of-money I think it brings out some fresh ideas on the failure of established economic theory. Personally I’m particularly interested in the aspect of Bitcoin with a fixed amount of money supply, making it similar to gold. Potentially this could be an important feature if the value of human work drops to zero through automation and the value of products and services falls drastically for the same reason. It could be what makes Bitcoin or some similarly designed crypto currency a winner. Note that Kurzweil points out to Gilde that supply of gold is not guaranteed to remain fixed, in the prospect of efficient transmutation technology. A refined algorithmic crypto currency might be more future-proof, although, as Kurzweil writes: *“I have concerns about the validity of bitcoin’s mining algorithm, and the extent to which this can ultimately be algorithmically subverted.”* Mats www.animpossibleinvention.com
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Adrian, I read your paper. It's very good. For a six page WORD doc it manages to cast significant light on the socio-economic complexities our society is in the process of inheriting such as advancing robotics, AI, and automation. The Vort Collective has been debating many of these issues for years. I retired last December. In a sense, I have now graduated to the status of a person who enjoys UBI via through the economic mechanisms of retirement annuities and social security. I'm a reasonably lucky citizen of the United States. I have acquired modest UBI allowing our household to pay the bills, feed our two cats and keep them entertained, and perhaps even take a budget vacation every other year. It distresses me that too many in our society aren't as lucky as our household has been. Being lucky should NOT be a major factor in how one hopes to live the remaining years of their lives with some dignity. With advanced automation, robotics and AI, it seems reasonable for me to predict that the retirement age will come earlier and earlier. Eventually we will stop calling it retirement when we start retiring in our mid 30s. Perhaps we will call it: Reaching the Age of Maturity. Before reaching maturity society may require us to choose from a selection of mandatory services we must perform in service to society. We may be required to do this service for perhaps up to 10 - 15 years, like joining the peace core, or building essential infrastructure like roads bridges. This is to assure that essential infrastructure remains intact. Of course, during your years of mandatory service, you will be given UBI. However, in order to share in the collective wealth of the nation for the rest of your remaining years you must first give unto it according to your experience, unique skill sets and education. After one reaches the age of Maturity you are given permanent UBI status for the remaining years of your life. It is up to you to make the best of the rest of your remaining years. I remain optimistic that most will attempt to do just that. Start up a unique and eccentric business. Become a popular well sought-out artist or musician within your local community. Perform theoretical research in some obscure subject that eventually becomes a key component that helps explain how to fold space and make space travel between stars economically possible. RAISE A CHILD FROM INFANCY TO ADULTHOOD. If you don't think that isn't a full-time job! I think most of us will have a strong desire to leave our planet in a better place before we finally head for the recycling bin ourselves. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson OrionWorks.com zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Quoting Gilder's book preview Wealth is created by learning curves that result from millions of falsifiable experiments in entrepreneurship... Gilder's attempt to impress us with his ability to pedantically parrot Popperian dogma confuses experiment with hypothesis. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 9:57 AM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Quoting Gilder's book preview In economist Milton Friedman’s famous equation MV=PT... Gilder should learn to use Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Fisher#Monetary_economics On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 7:53 AM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Gilder's ideas in this latest book may be fresh, but his career is far from it -- including some very stale ideas such as supply side economics (which even some of its major proponents eventually admitted was destructive to the middle class that Gilder supposedly championed from his early days as an author) and being a major participant in the DotCon era bubble. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 3:20 AM, Mats Lewan m...@matslewan.se wrote: I’ve always had doubts about economists understanding of how technology influences and changes the world and the society over time, and consequently also its financial and monetary realities. Renowned economist and author, George Gilde, has written the book *‘A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money’*, which is discussed by Ray Kurzweil in this piece: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-renowned-economist-and-author-george-gilders-new-information-theory-of-money I think it brings out some fresh ideas on the failure of established economic theory. Personally I’m particularly interested in the aspect of Bitcoin with a fixed amount of money supply, making it similar to gold. Potentially this could be an important feature if the value of human work drops to zero through automation and the value of products and services falls drastically for the same reason. It could be what makes Bitcoin or some similarly designed crypto currency a winner. Note that Kurzweil points out to Gilde that supply of gold is not guaranteed to remain fixed, in the prospect of efficient transmutation technology. A refined algorithmic crypto currency might be more future-proof, although, as Kurzweil writes: *“I have concerns about the validity of bitcoin’s mining algorithm, and the extent to which this can ultimately be algorithmically subverted.”* Mats www.animpossibleinvention.com
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Quoting Gilder's book preview Average American households incomes and net worth... Gilder's ignorance of the importance of median (or even mode) as opposed to average of these variables might be written off as a mere mental typo were it not for the fact that choosing average over median (or even mode) favors the further centralization of wealth that he was a party to under supply side economics -- a policy that not only contributed to the destruction of the middle class but also to the demographic collapse of the Nation of Settlers in the US. That demographic collapse is prosecutable as genocide. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:12 AM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Quoting Gilder's book preview Wealth is created by learning curves that result from millions of falsifiable experiments in entrepreneurship... Gilder's attempt to impress us with his ability to pedantically parrot Popperian dogma confuses experiment with hypothesis. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 9:57 AM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Quoting Gilder's book preview In economist Milton Friedman’s famous equation MV=PT... Gilder should learn to use Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Fisher#Monetary_economics On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 7:53 AM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Gilder's ideas in this latest book may be fresh, but his career is far from it -- including some very stale ideas such as supply side economics (which even some of its major proponents eventually admitted was destructive to the middle class that Gilder supposedly championed from his early days as an author) and being a major participant in the DotCon era bubble. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 3:20 AM, Mats Lewan m...@matslewan.se wrote: I’ve always had doubts about economists understanding of how technology influences and changes the world and the society over time, and consequently also its financial and monetary realities. Renowned economist and author, George Gilde, has written the book *‘A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money’*, which is discussed by Ray Kurzweil in this piece: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-renowned-economist-and-author-george-gilders-new-information-theory-of-money I think it brings out some fresh ideas on the failure of established economic theory. Personally I’m particularly interested in the aspect of Bitcoin with a fixed amount of money supply, making it similar to gold. Potentially this could be an important feature if the value of human work drops to zero through automation and the value of products and services falls drastically for the same reason. It could be what makes Bitcoin or some similarly designed crypto currency a winner. Note that Kurzweil points out to Gilde that supply of gold is not guaranteed to remain fixed, in the prospect of efficient transmutation technology. A refined algorithmic crypto currency might be more future-proof, although, as Kurzweil writes: *“I have concerns about the validity of bitcoin’s mining algorithm, and the extent to which this can ultimately be algorithmically subverted.”* Mats www.animpossibleinvention.com
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Steven, I read your paper. It's very good. For a six page WORD doc it manages to cast significant light on the socio-economic complexities our society is in the process of inheriting such as advancing robotics, AI, and automation. The Vort Collective has been debating many of these issues for years. Thank you for your kind words. I have to confess I thought I was replying to Mats Lewan not to Vortex, so I was surprised to see it, complete with attachment, appear on Vortex. Maybe thanks to an administrator who fixed it. My basic concern is the state our politics has got into. I can't see any of the present bunch handling the problems that I foresee until forced to by riots or a revolution. The thought of having to support large numbers of unemployed is completely foreign to them. The good news is that Aftenposten, Norway's largest newspaper , has reported they have expert third party confirmation that Rossi's 1 MW thermal LENR plant is working well. It is now at about 168 days of the 350 day trial. If, as now looks likely, LENR works, it should solve a lot of problems. Adrian
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I share some vision. note that UBI is not oposed to working... UBI make people less afraid to take risk, and they make them always wanting to work more to have more... but not at any cost in term of comfort. people will work hard to have a nice leisure time, employing people who will work hard for the leisure of others. another point i always see forgotten is that people may earn money from robots, like farmers earn money from land, land lord from real estate, retired people from shares and securities; society with less work (the cited paper says it will not be soon) will mean people will earn their like through capital, maybe in the form of some UBI, and some enterprise and IP. the evolution of career you imagine is not far from the one you see in emerging countries, where younger people work hard , as independent workers, as salarymen, then build some capital, buy a shop or a car or a room, and work hard to manage them ... when getting older. until they let someone manage them and retire earning just the dividends... our concept of salary and company is very restrictive in western countries, and led to the Marx vision of class war, with big centralized capital, soviet-like organization of management, and helpess salarypeople needing huge protection by strong state. I urge people to read about third world capitalism of the poor http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hernando-de-soto/piketty-wrong-third-world_b_6751634.html and how it breaks established discriminations http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/capitalisms-assault-on-the-indian-caste-system in http://thenextconvergence.com/ the book the next convergence, the beginning explains how low growth and low technology progress led to rich becomming slightly richer at the expense of the weaker, while during big change, the dice are rolled agains, and rich people may miss the revolution just being slightly richer in absolute value, far from the lucky/smart who embraved the revolution... today in the west conservatism benefit the rent owners, not only in absolute value, but at the expense of others. 2015-08-05 16:55 GMT+02:00 Orionworks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net: Adrian, I read your paper. It's very good. For a six page WORD doc it manages to cast significant light on the socio-economic complexities our society is in the process of inheriting such as advancing robotics, AI, and automation. The Vort Collective has been debating many of these issues for years. I retired last December. In a sense, I have now graduated to the status of a person who enjoys UBI via through the economic mechanisms of retirement annuities and social security. I'm a reasonably lucky citizen of the United States. I have acquired modest UBI allowing our household to pay the bills, feed our two cats and keep them entertained, and perhaps even take a budget vacation every other year. It distresses me that too many in our society aren't as lucky as our household has been. Being lucky should NOT be a major factor in how one hopes to live the remaining years of their lives with some dignity. With advanced automation, robotics and AI, it seems reasonable for me to predict that the retirement age will come earlier and earlier. Eventually we will stop calling it retirement when we start retiring in our mid 30s. Perhaps we will call it: Reaching the Age of Maturity. Before reaching maturity society may require us to choose from a selection of mandatory services we must perform in service to society. We may be required to do this service for perhaps up to 10 - 15 years, like joining the peace core, or building essential infrastructure like roads bridges. This is to assure that essential infrastructure remains intact. Of course, during your years of mandatory service, you will be given UBI. However, in order to share in the collective wealth of the nation for the rest of your remaining years you must first give unto it according to your experience, unique skill sets and education. After one reaches the age of Maturity you are given permanent UBI status for the remaining years of your life. It is up to you to make the best of the rest of your remaining years. I remain optimistic that most will attempt to do just that. Start up a unique and eccentric business. Become a popular well sought-out artist or musician within your local community. Perform theoretical research in some obscure subject that eventually becomes a key component that helps explain how to fold space and make space travel between stars economically possible. RAISE A CHILD FROM INFANCY TO ADULTHOOD. If you don't think that isn't a full-time job! I think most of us will have a strong desire to leave our planet in a better place before we finally head for the recycling bin ourselves. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson OrionWorks.com zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Alain, I share some vision. It was not clear what source you were referring to in your reply. The paper that was attached to my earlier reply or Steven's comment on it. I agree with you that UBI looks like it may be an answer, but as I suggested, the wise thing to do would be to try a limited experiment first. Perhaps in some more isolated city in the US to see what the actual problems with it are. The problem of course how UBI would be funded. History shows that some wealth distribution is required and considering that the majority of our politicians are rich and funded by even richer patrons, it seems unlikely they would consider that. Aside from that, doing away with all the social security programs and the expensive administrations that run them, plus withdrawing our armed forces from all over the world and just planning on defending America, would go a long way towards that. Again, very unlikely politically. I agree with your link What Piketty Gets Wrong About the Third World has a good point as does Capitalism’s Assault on the Indian Caste System but I think religion plays a big role too, although personally I can't understand why. Maybe it is just too easy for the demagogs to use. Consider that President Obama is on about his new clean coal regulations helping children with asthma. CO2 has no bearing on that at all. What about the hundreds of thousands that DIE in Africa because they have no electricity and the West won't lend them money to build fossil fired power stations? Sigh Adrian.
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I recall that the notion of a basic guaranteed income actually came up during the Nixon administration. They kicked around the idea of getting rid of the whole welfare establishment and just hand out cash instead. Reagan also observed the huge expense of welfare as opposed to the actual benefits getting to the recipients. I don't know how such an arrangement comes into being while we suffer under the opposite condition of most wealth being tightly centralized. How does this change without violence or revolution against the oligarchs? We're gonna need a miracle.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s final advice, before he was assassinated, was to follow Henry George's advice to attack poverty directly with a citizen's dividend. They shot MLK because he proposed a race-neutral approach to souther poverty and if there is one thing the Souther Poverty Law Center cannot abide, it is something that would reduce their race-baiting fear-mongering with which they extort money from wealthy Jews that fear US-based neo-Nazi holocaust. A deal was cut with guys like Jesse Jackson and the SPLC to keep the emphasis on racial preferences under affirmative action rather than a citizen's dividend so they could continue to pound on working class southern whites as the scapegoats for social ills. Gilder is basically just keeping up the conservative side of that false dilemma by promoting socialization of the cost of protecting property rights so the rich get richer. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 1:48 PM, Chris Zell chrisz...@wetmtv.com wrote: I recall that the notion of a basic guaranteed income actually came up during the Nixon administration. They kicked around the idea of getting rid of the whole welfare establishment and just hand out cash instead. Reagan also observed the huge expense of welfare as opposed to the actual benefits getting to the recipients. I don't know how such an arrangement comes into being while we suffer under the opposite condition of most wealth being tightly centralized. How does this change without violence or revolution against the oligarchs? We're gonna need a miracle.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
a.ashfield a.ashfi...@verizon.net wrote: Thanks for the link. A most interesting criticism of current economic theory. Clearly our fiat money system has high risk but I'm not so sure that Gilders has the answer. I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: 1. The money supply has to increase when there is more economic activity and more people, or you get severe deflation. This happened in the U.S. and other countries on the gold standard. Severe deflation is a bad thing. 2. The supply of bitcoins is actually limited, by the algorithm. That straitjacket will work. The supply of gold is not limited in any practical sense. The ocean is filled with the stuff. Mountains on earth and probably meteors and other planets are too. There are probably billions of tons of gold in the solar system and I am pretty sure we could soon find a way to transmute other elements into it, or convert energy (sunlight) into it. Put it this way: If we had 100 years to come up with a trillion tons of gold to escape from the sun going supernova, I expect we could do it. If gold becomes the standard of money, people will put enormous effort into mining gold, extracting it from ocean water, or transmuting other elements into it. This effort will be an terrific waste of time, talent and money. There are many things more useful than gold such as purified silicon, wheat, or clean water. We should be putting our efforts into making things that people need, not soft metal that will sit in vaults unused. It would make a lot more sense to base the money supply on sand (silicon) or kilowatt hours of generating capacity, or some other useful commodity. Heck, it would make more sense to base it on soybeans, because they are good for you and they have many practical uses. There is no material thing on earth on in the solar system with any permanent value, or any intrinsic value. Anything and everything we want -- materially -- can be made available to us in unimaginably large quantities. I mean billions of tons per person, if we have a use for it. We could eventually pave the highways of the Earth and Mars and other planets with gold -- if gold happens to be a good paving material, which I doubt is the case. The only thing standing between the human race and unlimited wealth is ignorance, foolishness and lack of imagination. As Arthur Clarke wrote: In this inconceivably enormous universe, we can never run out of energy or matter. But we can all too easily run out of brains. I touched on the problem, together with a lot of other problems, in a piece I wrote *Advances in technology that will change your life*. See attached Word file. I like it! I agree. See also Martin Ford's first book and website, both here: http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Martin Luther King Jr.'s final advice, before he was assassinated, was to follow Henry George's advice to attack poverty directly with a citizen's dividend. They shot MLK because he proposed a race-neutral approach to souther poverty and if there is one thing the Souther Poverty Law Center cannot abide . . . They did not shoot him. One person did. There was no conspiracy. If there were one, the SPLC would never in a million years have anything to do with it. They are not in favor of poverty. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I don’t see how society can tolerate the inherent power of extreme wealth even if all other problems of income inequality can be explained away. If campaign contributions were controlled or eliminated, there could still be outright bribery. As with elite bankers, what do laws matter if there is no enforcement? The way it’s handled now is thru fees for speaking engagements or easy director jobs at compliant corporations. On the negative side, they can use the NSA to control politicians thru surveillance. This is why I immediately believed accounts in England about the elite there being involved in pedophilia and murder. It’s the same control mechanism as the Mafia – “making your bones”.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Jed, I know little about economics, but limiting the amount of money based on the amount gold we have -- or the number of bitcoins -- seems like utter lunacy to me. It never worked in the past. There are two reasons: Kurzweil seems to think it may be possible to break the Bitcoin algorithm too. Having the dollar value based on something with a fixed quantity obviously will not work. The only thing in its favor is that the central bank can't then screw things up. That being the case surely it would be better to have it based on a basket of other currencies or at least write some laws to limit money expansion to match some measure of actual economic expansion. I know, I know, the politicians would find some way around it whatever is done. Adrian
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
I wrote: It would make a lot more sense to base the money supply on sand (silicon) or kilowatt hours of generating capacity, or some other useful commodity. Here is an interesting quiz: 1. In England circa 1800, what was the most valuable material per gram: iron, diamonds, or gold? Answer: Iron, when it was worked into the blue steel springs of marine chronometers, used for navigation. England led the world in chronometer production. At the peak of their value, chronometers were worth about 1/3 the cost of a ship. They were the high tech gadgets of that era, like computers are today. The spring was the most critical part, and the hardest to make. 2. Today, what is the most valuable substance on earth: silicon, gold, or uranium? You know the answer: silicon, when converted into something like an Intel processor. A tiny bit of it is worth hundreds of dollars. Demand is so great, you can sell it practically unlimited quantities. If NAND semiconductor memory (SSD) replaces hard disk storage, here is the size of the market: There are, at present, more bytes of hard disk storage than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Think about that. Compared to gold, computer storage is a Niagara Falls of money. The thing is, people want it. It is useful. Companies such as Google use it to earn money. You can't do that with gold. (I am not sure it would be a good idea to base the money supply on the number of bytes of disk storage available because every single byte on earth could be stored in 7 mL of DNA, which is cheap, to say the least.) The value of any material is a function of the knowledge and skill added to the material, and the usefulness of it. As for diamonds, they are made of carbon and synthetic ones will soon be of better quality and larger size than the natural ones, so the cost of diamonds per kilogram will eventually be about the same as natural gas (which is what they are made of). Women's clothing will be decorated with thousands of them, worth a few hundred dollars at first, and later $20. I hope they will make a good semiconductor substrate. I hope eyeglasses and iPads can be coated with thin film diamond to make them scratch resistant. That will make diamond broadly useful again for the first time since the demise of the diamond record player stylus. There is no reason to think that in the distant future gold will not be available for $20 a ton, for anyone who have some use for a ton of gold. The notion that gold might automatically put a limit on the money supply is based on 18th century technology. I know little about economics, but I can tell that the economists and gold bugs who entertain such notions know *nothing* about technology, and nothing about the future. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
a.ashfield a.ashfi...@verizon.net wrote: The only thing in its favor is that the central bank can't then screw things up. I am not aware that a central bank is screwing things up now. There has been no inflation in the US in many years so obviously they are not printing or circulating too much money. There has been no inflation in Japan since 1972 when I first went there. Things like food, a 100-yen Kirin Lemon softdrink, books and automobiles cost about the same now as they did then. However the economy is not doing well. It has been in the doldrums since the 1980s so I suppose inflation might be a good thing for them. P.M. Abe's economic policy (Abenomics) aims for 2% inflation. That being the case surely it would be better to have it based on a basket of other currencies . . . That would be an imaginary standard. The other currencies are not limited by anything other than policy. or at least write some laws to limit money expansion to match some measure of actual economic expansion. I gather that economic expansion sometimes depends on expanding the money supply first. First you issue money, then the economy expands in response to that. That's what P.M. Abe is hoping for, and it seems to be working. It would be a mistake to prevent that from happening. It would have been a disaster after the 2008 crash, and it was a disaster after 1929. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
a.ashfield a.ashfi...@verizon.net wrote: How does this change without violence or revolution against the oligarchs? We're gonna need a miracle This situation has happened many times in history. It results in either a revolution or the appearance of some charismatic leader that is able to persuade the government it must be done. In a democracy, you have to persuade the public that it must be done, not the government. In the case of the US, the charismatic leaders who changed the course of economic history most were Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. They were prominent members of the oligarch class. Everyone knew they were, but the voters did not hold that against them because they were obviously in favor of reform and spreading the wealth. FDR in particular was called a traitor to his class. Many wealthy people despised him. Not all of them, though. When I was young I knew many wealthy people who idolized FDR and considered him the savior of the capitalist system. That is called enlightened self-interest. It still exists. This is why, for example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are in favor of the inheritance tax. As robots and computers improve, human labor will gradually become worth nothing. Every sensible person will see that we need a new economic system based on something other than the exchange of labor. Perhaps some stupid, greedy wealthy people will fail to see this, but I expect most of them will eventually come around, they will not stand in the way of a reform that allows the wealth to be shared equitably. In his latest book, Martin Ford points out that all of us contributed to the development of computers and robots with our tax money. As I have often pointed out, much of the technology was paid for or directly developed by Uncle Sam. In that sense we all own it, so we should all benefit from it. I think Bill Gates would agree. Societies seldom destroy themselves when there is an obvious and relatively painless way to prevent a catastrophe. Implementing a universal income would be relatively painless. I know that many conservatives would yowl and carry on in opposition to it, but I think that is theatrics. There is significant conservative support for a universal income. See: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-arent-reformicons-pushing-a-guaranteed-basic-income/375600/ - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Jed, “I am not aware that a central bank is screwing things up now. There has been no inflation in the US in many years so obviously they are not printing or circulating too much money.” But they have in not obvious ways. Making money and lending it the banks at zero interest and for the banks to make billions in interest lending back? Mainly it is allowing the government to borrow money that isn’t there. What’s our national debt? 18 trillion? That’s $56k for every person in the US. “There has been no inflation in Japan since 1972 when I first went there. Things like food, a 100-yen Kirin Lemon softdrink, books and automobiles cost about the same now as they did then.” So far so good said the man falling from a skyscraper. Japan's debt is 230% of GDP What happens when interest rates increase? “I gather that economic expansion sometimes depends on expanding the money supply first. First you issue money, then the economy expands in response to that” It depends on how the money is spent. It surely doesn’t follow that simply increasing the money supply grows the economy. Into whose pocket does the money go? Much to be said for UBI. Adrian
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Jed, In a democracy, you have to persuade the public that it must be done, not the government. I know that's the theory, but when the media is all owned by rich people and the choice presented to the plebs is vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee. I remain pessimistic. My wife says I'm too pessimistic and she may be right. Probably a wealth tax is required. How do you think that would fly in Congress? Adrian
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
FDR was nearly the victim of a fascist coup that is usually left out of history textbooks. And we do have nasty inflation in services, which is often overlooked in gov. stats. (NPR). Wages have suffered relative deflation as minimum wage will not pay for rent ( properly) in any of the 50 states. I understand that this may extend to all counties now. I am tempted by the viewpoint that society is like a 3 year old child just before bedtime. There is much commotion and resistance and yelling – and then sudden capitulation. We are seeing and hearing all sorts of craziness in resisting changes that our world must make. I believe that the Soviet Union and Fascist Spain ended because their leaders lost all faith in the system – followed by sudden change. In this, perhaps there is hope.
RE: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
_Wealth is created by learning curves that result from millions of falsifiable experiments in entrepreneurship..._ Its says noting about the quality of this experiments. Some may really create new value but some only redistribute value. Even with gold its may be more safe to invest in old dept than in new technology. Or in extracting gold as Jed said. I think this only is a new version of the old mantra the government must do as little as possible. Yes central banks can screw tings up but they can also assuage things then the market screw things up. On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 20:53:52 +, Chris Zell wrote: FDR was nearly the victim of a fascist coup that is usually left out of history textbooks. And we do have nasty inflation in services, which is often overlooked in gov. stats. (NPR). Wages have suffered relative deflation as minimum wage will not pay for rent ( properly) in any of the 50 states. I understand that this may extend to all counties now. I am tempted by the viewpoint that society is like a 3 year old child just before bedtime. There is much commotion and resistance and yelling - and then sudden capitulation. We are seeing and hearing all sorts of craziness in resisting changes that our world must make. I believe that the Soviet Union and Fascist Spain ended because their leaders lost all faith in the system - followed by sudden change. In this, perhaps there is hope.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
Chris Zell chrisz...@wetmtv.com wrote: FDR was nearly the victim of a fascist coup that is usually left out of history textbooks. It was left out of every history book I know, and I have read a lot of 'em, plus original sources. And we do have nasty inflation in services, which is often overlooked in gov. stats. (NPR). Not since the 2008 crash as far as I know. That is when the government began increasing the money supply to counteract the crash. Wages have suffered relative deflation as minimum wage will not pay for rent ( properly) in any of the 50 states. Again, not since 2008. The minimum wage lost value between 1997 and 2007. It remained at $5.15 that entire time, and for long periods previously. There is no question that overall wages have decreased relative to other earnings since the 1970s. (Other earnings are things like profits from Wall Street and CEO stock options.) Wages have also decreased relative to productivity. See: Workers' salaries are at the lowest percentage of GDP since 1929 http://www.dougsguides.com/content/whats I do not know of any conservative or liberal economists who dispute those numbers. They dispute the causes and proposed cures. This does not bode well for the economy or society. I do not see how you can run a mass-production based modern economy if the workers cannot afford to buy the products of that economy. I agree with Henry Ford on that. If this trend continues, people will not be able to buy cars, computers or tomatoes or whatever you are making. What is a wealthy person going to do with 20,000 personal computers, or a truckload of tomatoes? In what sense is that wealth? The only thing you can do with the products of a mass production industrial society is sell them to lots of people. If people cannot buy them, the CEO and stockholders of Intel and Archer Daniels Midland do not make any money. If cold fusion works, people will not want to buy the output of the fossil fuel and electric power companies. They will go bankrupt for the same reason Archer Daniels Midland will if people cannot afford to eat. The loss of demand looks the same from the point of view of the corporation. Speaking of which, see: Alpha Natural Resources, a Onetime Coal Giant, Files for Bankruptcy Protecton [sic] Alpha Natural Resources, once a powerhouse of the American coal industry, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday so it may emerge from the grip of a $3 billion debt at a time when utilities are switching to natural gas and coal prices are plummeting. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/business/energy-environment/alpha-natural-resources-a-onetime-coal-giant-files-for-bankruptcy-protecton.html?_r=0 The Japanese and European medieval economies or the economy of Afghanistan today were not based on mass production. They could function with a small number of wealthy people and many impoverished people. It wasn't pleasant, but they were stable for long periods. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 2:13 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Martin Luther King Jr.'s final advice, before he was assassinated, was to follow Henry George's advice to attack poverty directly with a citizen's dividend. They shot MLK because he proposed a race-neutral approach to souther poverty and if there is one thing the Souther Poverty Law Center cannot abide . . . They did not shoot him. One person did. There was no conspiracy. Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law… My husband once said, The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. To-day, almost 32 years after my husband and the father of my four children was assassinated, I feel that the jury's verdict clearly affirms this principle. With this faith, we can begin the 21st century and the new millennium with a new spirit of hope and healing.” - See more at: http://www.thekingcenter.org/assassination-conspiracy-trial#sthash.9vJnTrqr.dpuf If there were one, the SPLC would never in a million years have anything to do with it. The SPLC may or may not have been directly involved in the assassination but it is clear they had the means, motive and opportunity. They are not in favor of poverty. Your naivete is touching. They are documented sociopaths enjoying hundreds of millions in endowments from their donor base that they psychologically torment by keeping poor blacks and poor whites at each others' throats.
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: They did not shoot him. One person did. There was no conspiracy. Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . Yes, I know. I think she was nuts. People often believe crazy, unfounded nonsense and conspiracy theories. That includes famous people, good people, and well-educated people who should know better. For example, Robert Kennedy Jr. is opposed to the use of vaccines. He has campaigned against them and said outrageous things that no college educated person with knowledge of science or medicine should ever say, such as: They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country. http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article17814440.html That is not even slightly true. It is true that on extremely rare occasions vaccines cause reactions, including fevers. If anyone -- child or adult -- develops something like a 103°F fever after getting a vaccine or any other drug, you can be sure that patient will be rushed to the hospital. They do not just go to sleep. In nearly every case such high fevers turn out to be unrelated to the drug that was administered but nowadays no one would take that chance. If the parent had enough sense to call a doctor or the vaccine hotline, there would be an ambulance at the house in 10 minutes. Vaccines prevent millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths for each severe reaction they cost. The only people who object them are innumerate and scientifically illiterate fools. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: If there were one, the SPLC would never in a million years have anything to do with it. The SPLC may or may not have been directly involved in the assassination but it is clear they had the means, motive and opportunity. With a time machine, not doubt. MLK was assassinated in 1968. The SPLC was founded in 1971. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:A 21st Century Case for Gold: A New Information Theory of Money.
On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 4:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: If there were one, the SPLC would never in a million years have anything to do with it. The SPLC may or may not have been directly involved in the assassination but it is clear they had the means, motive and opportunity. With a time machine, not doubt. MLK was assassinated in 1968. The SPLC was founded in 1971. True the SPLC could not have acted as a legal person as it did not exist, but its antecedents certainly did exist in the form of the natural person who comprised it and then proceeded to do everything _except_ advocate Martin Luther King Jr's race-blind solutions to poverty among southerners of all races. The SPLC simply finished the job of assassinating MLK's legacy and replacing it with their own race-baiting extortion racket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Do_We_Go_from_Here:_Chaos_or_Community
