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Call To "Open Source" AIG Investigation

VValdo writes "As you may recall, the citizens of the US shelled out about $85 billion to bail out AIG and its creditors (Goldman Sachs in particular) last year. But as 80% owners of AIG, we still don't know what happened, exactly. That may change. In a new op-ed piece, former prosecutors (including former NY governor Eliot Spitzer) are calling for the US Treasury to force AIG to release its treasure-trove of emails to the public before allowing AIG to 'break free' of our control. As the prosecutors put it, 'By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of "open source" investigation. Once the documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims and angry citizens have a chance to piece together the story.' Good idea?"

35 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Yes. by selven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We own 80% of AIG, so 80% of AIG is technically part of the federal government. That means we should have open access to everything just like we should have open access to the Congress, senate, court system, etc.

    1. Re:Yes. by tuxgeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The American political system has evolved today into one that the only people capable of buying their way into congress are the Donald Trumps and Bernie Madoffs
      Once in there the only legislation passed are bills that favor them and the wealthy class

      The best example I can think of right now is the Health Care reform clusterfuck. The root of our problem is the insurance industry. They are raping the system and all citizens and are the cause of the escalating costs of medical care. So what do our representatives do? They move to require all citizens to buy insurance or face a fine for not being wealthy enough to afford it. Does anyone really think people working at walmart can afford insurance if it isn't given to then as a benefit? The insurance industry is the same as the financial industry. Controlled and run by greedy corporate scum like Madoff.

      I say sack them all and start over with a clean slate. I'm not the only one thinking violent revolution may be our only way out of this quagmire. I hear this idea more each day from people on the street. Those that have lost their homes and/or life savings and now watch as we fork over billions of public tax dollars to the scum responsible.

      Not a good sign

      --
      "Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
    2. Re:Yes. by FiloEleven · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The root of our problem is the insurance industry.

      That's an awfully simplistic explanation. I am very much against the current health care legislation for a number of reasons including the one you mentioned, but the truth is that the problem has many roots; including the insurance industry, hospitals, government, and patients themselves. NPR's This American Life did a show on it that highlights the complexity of the issues. There's plenty of blame to go around and IMO the insurance companies deserve less blame than government, which through wage freezes essentially kicked the insurance companies from a primary market of individuals to a market of corporations. Hospitals vary their charges (sometimes by a factor of 10) for identical procedures depending on how many patients use that insurance company. Doctors are afraid of liability if they don't run a requested test even if it's in the patient's best interest to remain untested.

      The health insurance industry doesn't get off easy--there's a second show devoted entirely to it. It's a huge mess. But here's the thing: they're not really like the financial industry. They seek profits, like everyone else, but they have been demonized. Their hands are tied by hospitals, and they are left with the choice of raising premiums for everyone or dropping the policies of people in areas where they have little clout with hospitals. IMO their biggest failing is that they don't care about the patient: they approve lots of unnecessary procedures because much of their profit lies in the volume of claims they process.

      "Clusterfuck" is an appropriate term, because it's a whole lot of things gone wrong all at once. Without having a clear understanding of the problem, you can be sold a bill of goods like the current legislation. You've seen through this bill, but enough people haven't that it's still creeping along. It's important to get the shape of the problem so that if we get rid of this bill it won't be replaced by something equally awful.

    3. Re:Yes. by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If we have "universal" health care, then insurance should go away. I couldn't find how much of premiums went to actual services, but it, from a glance, looked like it was about 10% loss between overhead and profit. So, if we abolish insurance, and just have payment come from the government in all cases, with no claims adjusters, just fraud-prevention, it should cut more than $200,000,000,000 from our national costs of health care. I know that's a small number, but every hundred billion helps.

      A unified systems of risk management with limitations on liability will have those that need tests get them, and those that don't need them not be given them. One of the highest rising parts of health care is the tests. There are more, and they are expensive. And everyone getting them because their doctor doesn't want to get sued is wasting money.

      And, of course, another way to keep costs down is to reduce work on those with less life left. The costs are increasing because there are more old people. Death can't be prevented, no matter how much is spent. Work on making sure the quality is good, and less on preventing it for those that are headed there because of age. But that's considered political suicide because of the AARP voting bloc.

      So yes, there are factors, and insurance is a big one out of it, and not the only one. But it's an easy target and should be a good starting point.

  2. Keep Dreaming by arcticinfantry · · Score: 4, Informative

    This will *never* happen. GS is far too powerful to let that happen. The AIG bailout was quite simply a giveaway to GS.

    1. Re:Keep Dreaming by maxume · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Insurance businesses are regulated in such a way that they are not supposed to go bankrupt, AIG managed to avoid those regulations and become bankrupt (but the government chose to dump money in rather than attempting to resolve it through the traditional process).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    2. Re:Keep Dreaming by maxume · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's likely that they could have pushed the haircut issue, but the banks that got the money were not the ones that would lose on the insurance contracts (for instance, Goldman only stood to lose $14 billion if AIG completely exploded, AIG's customers stood to lose hundreds of billions, so the government would have been depending on the generosity of the creditors (if they were willing negotiators), or doing even more damage to contract law (if they were unwilling)).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  3. No by cheesybagel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, not a good idea. What is the point in having a Cultural Revolution? Better to just split these companies which are too big to fail into smaller chunks, kick out the top management making sure they never work in that capacity anymore, enforce layers of separation between businesses and let them free. Restore the Glass–Steagall Act and separate commercial banking from investment banking.

    1. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We need that and a 'Cultural Revolution' that fights back against the idea that the upper class knows what's best for the rest of us and that any attempt to eek out even 4% more of their wealth from them is not socialism at all.

    2. Re:No by trout007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You have it completely backwards. I'm a libertarian but the one place the socialists have it right is that "some" of the rich steal it from the "workers". The problem as I see it with the socialists is that they don't distinguish how people get rich. There are people that get rich by making things that people value ie, computers, software, entertainment, machines, goods, services. Then there are those that actually steal it which are the bankers, lawyers, and investment houses. The bankers steal it because they have had laws written that allow them to create money out of thin air and lend it with interest. What happens when money is created out of nothing is a little bit is stolen from everyone holding that currency by inflation. So they can become famously rich without doing anything of value. And of course they gamble that money they created at 30 to 1 leverage which makes them even richer. And when the whole gamble fails to pay off they just run to their lawyer friends in DC and get bailed out claiming that if they go down so will the country. Well I call BS. If they were allowed to fail we would have a serious deflation with all of their fake money getting destroyed. As long as minimum wage laws were repealed all prices would drop and those that were thrifty and saved money would do much better because those dollars would be worth more. But of course we can't have that so the Federal Reserve creates even more money (stealing it through inflation) to give to their buddies.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    3. Re:No by causality · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree, the public is just going to crucify the company. We need to move forward, fix the problems, and make sure they don't happen again.

      On the other hand, this might be a great learning exercise for academia. It might be nice if accredited institutions could review a portion of the details in the interests of study cases; particularly a business ethics class (no that's not an oxymoron).

      Business ethics: if it's legal, do it for short-term profit with no regard for side-effects, long-term losses, or harm that it might cause to other people. If it's not legal, grease the right palms until it becomes legal.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    4. Re:No by Znork · · Score: 3, Interesting

      However, you are correct that the problem was that EVERYBODY was acting stupid.

      Fundamentally, the Fed was forcing everybody to act stupid. Central banking works by artificially changing rates outside actual market rate. That the function by which the Fed can dictate that, either you "invest" (speculate), or your money gets eaten by inflation (the actual which has little to do with normally reported numbers).

      The thing is, it's not that investors are insulated from investment decisions, it's that they have no control over the game either way. They, or their representatives, do what they're told, invest in whatever bubble the Fed blows, or they get reamed anyway by funding the bill for the crash. There may not be an educated choice to make, everyone may know that it's a bubble that's gonna crash, but either you're in on it, or your money gets depreciated anyway.

    5. Re:No by 10101001+10101001 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The bankers steal it because they have had laws written that allow them to create money out of thin air and lend it with interest. What happens when money is created out of nothing is a little bit is stolen from everyone holding that currency by inflation. So they can become famously rich without doing anything of value.

      Not quite. The major problem in the current situation is because bankers have started including investing houses. Banking is supposed to provide reliable, low-interest, low-return loans as a stable basis for inflation. Inflation is supposed to encourage investment and debasing of the currency of the rich over time, especially for those who would sit on money instead of investing; ie, inflation is intended to encourage economy growth instead of risking periods of economic stagnation.

      And of course they gamble that money they created at 30 to 1 leverage which makes them even richer. And when the whole gamble fails to pay off they just run to their lawyer friends in DC and get bailed out claiming that if they go down so will the country.

      And that's the problem. Banks becoming investment houses has resulted in the mixing of safe and wildly unsafe loans. The result is that to support the general population through common bank loans, it was necessary to subsidize wildly unsafe loans. The main problem now is that with the emergency over, there should be immediate efforts to dissect the bank into investment and banking operations. This really should have started as soon as December last year.

      Well I call BS. If they were allowed to fail we would have a serious deflation with all of their fake money getting destroyed. As long as minimum wage laws were repealed all prices would drop and those that were thrifty and saved money would do much better because those dollars would be worth more.

      Deflation is more or less the worst case scenario. Instead of investing, people would simply save their money. Those with outstanding loans (ie, most small businesses) would have to sell at lower prices, resulting in even greater difficulty in paying back their loans, and making it harder to buy the same size stock of items, let alone any sort of expansion. Adding on repealing minimum wage laws would make it worse, by removing the masses regular spending money. Such would merely accelerate the deflation.

      Would people with savings be better off? Sure, I guess. But, that's a relative term. If 50% of the farms go out of business because so few people have any money to spend, you'll be the one of the few people with enough money to buy a steak. But, being the one eyed king in the land of the blind isn't really a great place to be in, overall.

      But of course we can't have that so the Federal Reserve creates even more money (stealing it through inflation) to give to their buddies.

      That's the limit of the Federal Reserve's actual power (well, and changing the interest rate, but that mechanism was already screwed by Greenspan and Bernanke's unwilling to raise the interest rate during relatively economically prosperous times*). While it can be argued that the current and previous chairman of the Federal Reserve encouraged the deregulation and merging of investment houses with banks (which is a good basis to fire Ben Bernanke), invariable it is the Congress who actually passed the deregulation laws, ignored warnings about derivatives, and has still failed to act to further the separation of investment houses with banks. Congress, and generally deregulation minded individuals, have turned banking from a stable, progressive debasing of the currency into a rapid expansion of the economy coupled with catastrophic economic circumstances when over-leveraging can not be handled by the built-in mechanisms that were created for low-risk, low-fail-rate loans.

      In short, rallying against the Federal Reserve on its principle function is lu

      --
      Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
  4. Wonderfull Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Put PJ in charge! :)

  5. Hrmm by acehole · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unlike movies, the guys in high places taking home the multimillion dollar salaries 99% of the time dont get caught. They cover for each other.

    Sad fact of life,

    --
    Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
  6. The Risk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As purported owners of 80% of AIG, shouldn't taxpayers also be concerned that the information released could compromise the viability of their investment necessary to regain their lost billions?

    I'd love to know what happened but I also want the money they took from me plus an onerous amount of interest. I think the interest will discourage them (and anyone who looks up to their executives as examples of how to rape taxpayers) from repeating their greed/mistakes. Of course what they really deserved was to sink like the anchors they were... Seriously, if you divide the TARP bailout money it comes out to $20,000 per US citizen. My savings and investments can't cover that level of corporate charity disguised as taxes.

  7. Re:Superheroes by countertrolling · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A corporation's, or any other authority's "right to privacy" should be much more limited than it is. And even more obviously, we shouldn't be giving it rights as a person. What an absurd concept! But since we always try to put a human face on everything, from god on down, it seems inevitable. And vigilantism becomes inevitable when the confines of the law aren't applied equally and the system breaks down.

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
  8. Ummm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We know exactly what happened... a few *idiots* in AIG's derivatives trading department thought they could sell credit default swaps on mortgage backed securities without keeping *anything* in reserve. It's actually a great strategy... unless housing prices go down, in which case you will take huge, mind-boggling losses. Essentially a few people in one department of an otherwise well run institution took down the whole thing by drastically underestimating risk.

    Credit default swaps are an insurance product. If you sell them, then you had better keep proper reserves to cover claims AND you had better buy reinsurance in case there is a market downturn. AIG did neither and went kaput.

  9. Open Source the Whole Industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a great idea, but it is POST-crash thinking. That's how prosecutors think: They wait for something bad to happen, see blood in the water and then look for the crime. Certainly this is a part of how regulation must happen.

    But, there is an even more powerful, I would say way more powerful, idea lurking behind what they are considering: Why not "open source" the whole industry? For example:

      o Have open source analytics that measure risk and values and apply those analytics against firm positions to show aggregate exposures and stress values? The recent "stress tests" that were performed against the banks were generally considering quite weak by industry standards. For example, they were based on single scenarios being applied against option-like positions. And, the scenarios were simply housing and interest rate related but not further defined by prepayment and default models. A full analytics package applied with monte carlo methods would give a much more robust answer of the true risks. Shouldn't we know exactly what exposure all large firms have? If the market has much more information on the risks that various firms are taking, it will be much easier to reward good decisions and punish bad ones.

      o Force all firms of a given size to publish their largest counter-party exposures on a daily basis. If I own BAC and they are long AIG, shouldn't I as a shareholder be able to see the exposure? Shouldn't anyone be able to see that, for the benefit of the whole? If you produce enough of the counter-party graph connectedness, the market will have much more information on system stability and be able to punish/reward bad/good decisions.

      o Shouldn't we be able to see prices of ALL transactions that occur in the capital markets? This is a pretty simple database: CUSIP, Date/Time, Amount, Price. Currently members of the public can only see corporate and (I believe) muni prices. What about MBS/ABS/CMBS/CDO/CLO etc? Also, for OTC transactions there could be other databases that show counter-parties, etc.

      o How about seller transparency in fixed income markets? If an MBS deal is coming to market, shouldn't the buyers get access to all material information the sellers have? This would allow for a market where the buyers can actually price risk without massive information asymmetry.

      o Getting back to open source analytics, having such analytics (paid for by the large financial firms and produced by independent modelers) would greatly help the fractured buy-side firms who simply can't otherwise compete with the large firms that develop sophisticated, proprietary analytics.

    If you want to open source the capital markets, there are many, many things you could do that are proactive and would lead to much greater transparency and stability.

    1. Re:Open Source the Whole Industry by arcticinfantry · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But that would ruin the whole purpose of CDS's!! Where would a CEO be able to rat hole liabilities to improve the balance sheet!

  10. It is a great idea, but... by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lets break them up. The last thing that we need is have companies that are 'too big to fail'. We need more competition. If these companies that 'required' and accepted help, then we should break them up into at least 3 companies so that if any are ran into the ground again, we let them die.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  11. Of COURSE it's a good idea by popo · · Score: 5, Informative

    As many accountants have said: Show me a company who does not get audited, and I will show you fraud.

    There are only two options here:

    Option1: We the People get ripped off.
    Option2: We the People are allowed to see exactly where OUR money went.

    All other options are Option 1 in disguise.

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
  12. Not quite by SlappyBastard · · Score: 3, Informative

    Being 80% owned does not integrate a corporation into the entity that owns it. Trust me, Verizon has been using the exact theory for decades to lock Verizon Wireless workers out of the main Verizon company's collective bargaining agreement. Also, ask the Rigases (who owned Adelphia) if full ownership entitles you to complete run of the company -- it can be a jailable offense if you go about owning the company you own to aggressively.

    A stockholder company has a wide range of fiduciary issues. It's very likely that if the government, as 80% owner, tried to force corporate secrets into the open that the other 20% could sue them for abandoning their responsibility to the company.

    --
    I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
    1. Re:Not quite by Ramze · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nope... you and whomever modded this as +5 informative needs a course in business law. Owning 51% or more in a company gives you complete and unquestionable authority over what actions a company can take unless a signed contract says otherwise or your shares are specifically "non-voting" stock. If the Fed. govt. as 80% owner decided to release all documents or even liquidate the company, the owners of the other 20% would have no say at all and no legal recourse.

    2. Re:Not quite by Late+Adopter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Neither of you cited your claims, but I'm fairly sure it's actually the GP who has it right. Dodge v. Ford established that even a majority shareholder has some basic responsibility to the minority holders, which would preclude actions that would harm the shareholders for no clear benefit to the company. This is sometimes raised out of context on Slashdot to falsely claim that a business must by law maximize profit, but the basic principle is of a similar vein: you can't just water down the value of your shareholder's shares for nothing (as in the Ford case).

  13. It's a start by mbone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have no doubt that there is a lot of dirty stuff in those emails, so releasing them would be good.

    Since clearly not everything could be released (HIPPA stuff, personal bank account numbers, etc.), this raises the question of who would remove the private information, and whether they could be trusted. Clearly, if this was done by AIG, an amazing amount of stuff would presumably be declared personal and private and not for release.

  14. not only by phrostie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    not only is it a great idea, it should have been a requirement before the bailout.

  15. This is an insidious suggestion. by steve+buttgereit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While it is certainly easy to suggest something like this for those evil people at AIG, it presupposes that those good prosecutors and men at law that would protect us from such evil themselves are actually good. In truth the situation is much more grey than that. Firstly consider that many prosecutors in the country are elected and the prosecutorial policy is originates in the politics of the various office holders. Are politicians so indifferent to their own self interest that such a policy as being proposed by the article could be executed in good faith? Of course not. Politicians, and those that serve at them, are as notorious as any 'fat cat' in using their position and power to their own benefit at the expense of the others. All this policy does is feed a sort of populist anger that garners political support for those that suggest it and at the expense of real justice for the small minority that it targets... regardless of their past transgressions. One should remember that enshrining rights, such as prohibitions against search and seizure without convincing a court, exist largely to protect minorities from majority exploitation.

    The real sin in the AIG case, to be fair, was not any action of AIG at all. It was that we bought into the bogus notion that a firm can be 'too big too fail' and must be bailout out by Government. AIG made bad judgments and bad investments and its owners (shareholders, including big investment banks) allowed it to be managed poorly. The company should have been allowed to fail, something all those involved earned. What we did instead was reward the foolish risk taking made by the shareholders and the managers and, worse still, told future generations of shareholders and managers that taking these risks is OK... the government will bail you out if you lose so there really is no risk at all... you're too big too fail. Let em fail! Stop taking my savings, diluting my money, borrowing on my behalf to save businesses that by all rights have earned their failure (including all those that chose to have a business relationship). There are other insurance companies, there are other investment banks, and there are others capable of filling the gap responsibly. Sure none of them have such good friends as Geithner, Paulson, Obama, & Bush... but they can rise to the occassion.

  16. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  17. Re:Rigghttt... by iluvcapra · · Score: 3, Funny

    Lehman no longer exists, so I guess that makes us a one-party state? :p

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  18. Grandstander Eliot Spitzer thinks its a good idea by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ordinarily, I would think this might be a good idea. However, Eliot Spitzer is among those calling for it. In the past there were several times where he called for "public accountability" of various corporations. Those seemed like good ideas too. They turned out to just be shakedowns and/or publicity opportunities to advance his political career, not attempts to serve the public interest. If an organization has Eliot Spitzer as a member, I will not believe that they are seeking something in the public interest. This is about serving the personal interests of the people calling for it, not about serving the public interest.

    --
    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  19. Audit the --- FED --- FIRST!! by gd23ka · · Score: 3, Informative

    And here's the way it'll happen:

    Support Ron Paul's bill http://www.auditthefed.com/ and http://www.campaignforliberty.com/

    Why audit smalltime thieves when we could be coming after the GREATEST financial criminals this far into human history!!!

    They stole trillions from us and wont tell us what they did with the money.

  20. Re:Yes, it's Bad Analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's a difference between having 80% ownership of a corporation and owning indebtedness of 80% of a loan for the agreed value of a property. The bank can only ask you to satisfy the debt owed, not vote upon your decisions dealing with the property nor claim ownership before foreclosure.

  21. Paulson+Geitner+Berspankme=Criminal by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are two time frames which require serious investigation. The first is the period Sept 10-Sept 17. What was said in these meetings? Who was there? It is not even entirely clear that AIG would have failed so spectacularly had they been allowed (as proposed by NYS) to tap into some of the excess liquidity of the subs. AIG, similar to Lehmans, was all about liquidity and the lack of access to short term lending facilities. The marks that the CDS portfolio was set to take that quarter were survivable. The cash crunch came from the securities lending side as well as some debatable collateral calls by the likes of Goldmans. The government then decided to effectively do eniment domain on AIG - taking it from its shareholders (80%, they would have done 100% if law permitted) and making it a conduit to funnel money into other institutions. There was never any serious consideration given to assisting AIG, either through relaxed regulation or temporary bridge financing (public or some mixture private/public) at rates similar to those given other institutions which were far, far less punative..

    Second, the time period when Treasury decided to force AIG to pay par on the CDS held by many of the counterparts, even though they were not entitled to par as most, if not all, the underlying CDOs had not yet entered default. Even so, CDS held by other institutions *never* paid at par, even when underlying bonds/structures had legitimately defaulted. It was not uncommon to only receive 65 or 70c on the dollar. Yet AIG was forced to make whole a slew of counterparts who at the least should have taken a sizable haircut if not been made to go to court to enforce their agreements if AIG had violated any of the terms.

    Instead, not only did the government via Paulson/Geitner/Bernanke pay off the likes of Goldmans and Deutche, they hosed the US tax payer as well as the shareholders of AIG. Some may object to the last but consider that all the above events, particularly those in early September, amounted to the pilfering of the AIG shareholders too. Yes, they may ultimately have lost everything but the way things went down was a sham.

  22. Re:Will this be like the CRU emails? by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let me guess, I suppose none of you find it strange or noteworthy (or obvious like a sore thumb) that public (government-run) schools generally do not teach the well-known fact that under the Federal Reserve system, dollars represent debt and not wealth. They don't teach that if all debt were paid off there would be no money in circulation. They don't make it clear that when money is created out of thin air and has interest attached to it the moment it is created, there is not enough money in circulation to pay off all debt.

    Another Zeitgeist victim. Here's a tip; read a book on basic finance. Better yet, just read a book. Any book. The Great Crash. Animal Farm. I don't care. Stop getting your information from YouTube and the odd polemical internet site.

    Every single one of the arguments applied to "fiat money" can be just as easily applied to supposed "hard currencies" like gold. Remember, when gold or platinum or what have you is mined out of the ground, from a currency standpoint, that's exactly equivalent to some new dollar bills being printed. Dollars, euros and yen are worth money because they are (relatively) rare. It has sweet FA to do with debt. The circulation money has nothing to do with debt levels. Debt is not "created" by printing bills or mining metals. Debt is created when people spend more than they earn; which is what western society has been doing economically for 20 or more years. We'd be in debt if we used fiat money, the bren-whatever gold muck-about, or else just traded in bottlecaps.

    Strong individuals can do their own research, process their own information, and obtain their own understanding. Helpless sheep need someone to both provide and interpret information for them.

    And brainless fools require someone to pre-digest their information into a pseudo-intellectual web-video so it can be masticated into their waiting mouths. Learn to chew.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!