Either in the DNA or any other part of the body's systems. We just made a lot of simplifying assumptions to get a handle on some extremely complex systems (i.e. genes are the only place inheritable traits are carried). Now we have to start addressing the complexity behind those simplifying assumptions.
You are not the first person I've heard claiming that just because monetary base has increased and money supply hasn't that the inflationary aspects of fractional reserve banking don't apply. I think it's pretty obvious that it doesn't apply YET. I certainly expect a deflationary period, followed by reflation. This is so intuitive to me I am more than a little surprised others don't see it as such.
Regarding the dollar vs. bonds, just remember that the big players (banks holding more in excess reserves than the total monetary base as of 2008) will be well suited to rush in and grab assets with dollars at fire sale prices when the bonds are written down. The USA cannot pay its debt honestly, it can only default directly, or with printed money.
The cause I think is spot on, that males are competitive and in general more solitary (damn that testosterone)
As soon as I read this I thought of the under-recognized phenomenon of dominance within a cloister. Obviously I wasn't going to be dominant in stickball, BMX biking, or gym class; few of the other computer nerds were. To a large extent our need for dominance resulted in conquering territories we were successful in. So for me, being a guy who was cracking copy protection on video games in 1987 made me like the varsity quarterback of the computing circle.
It only makes sense that in a world where available areas to express dominance are already taken, a new subtype forged into the territory available because of the advent of the PC. Women, wired differently, would not value dominance in the new arena in the same way.
Men started to outpace women at an accelerated rate when the highly personal learning style of "having a pc to play on" became an option. Given that we see more and more of an imbalance in favor of women in group learning environments (college and even moreso in graduate programs), maybe this is just something very obvious, and a good thing for men, as men can excel in solitary study which they can tailor to their own interests and pace. As my wife, a school psychologist said, girls tend to learn better in groups, and don't typically like to work in competitive/solo situations given the choice, whereas boys often do. I'll take the advantage on this one, gladly.
He never said they should die in the street -- that's a BS characterization -- the implication there is they will get shuffled to the unemployment roles until such time as they get a different job and a lower wage. It's not unreasonable to say they should be paid less if they're producing less. It IS a global market, and if I'm less productive than a guy from Hyderabad, what is it about my geographic location that entitles me to 4x the pay?
There are mutual consent laws for this in some states in the USA today. I remember that weird dude Phoenix Jones engaged with a drunk in front of a police officer, and since they both consented, it was not a crime for Jones to drop the guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I know libertarians would say we should wait until the threat is carried out and someone is actually raped and killed, but in the real world most of us would prefer to stop it happening in the first place.
Some libertarians might say that, but many libertarians including Rothbardians describe coercive behavior as "force or the threat of force." What constitutes a threat is subjective in many cases because people have different sensitivities. I am reasonably certain that the US Government is realistically threatening force against me if I don't pay my taxes, because I know they've used force against others. A guy in a bar who threatens to kick my ass is a lot less clear as to follow-through, and I'd probably have to take it on a case-by-case basis. A guy on/. who threatens me is probably full of shit, but if he and his buddies are starting to consistently harass me online so as to interfere with my reasonable use of my online person, they're probably over the line.
It's not so much a natural law as the fact that palladium especially tends to soak up hydrogen. People, including, apparently, some scientists, seem to ignore that there's a lot of chemical energy in hydrogen, and so keep falling for cold fusion. Pretty much every cold fusion experiment has eventually been shown to involve palladium's natural sponginess towards hydrogen to act as a natural chemical battery, if you will.
I wasn't exactly disagreeing with you. I was nodding to your mention of demand (or lack thereof) which, as I think you largely agree, is weak against supply right now. But...
I would severely contest that statement...
I'm from the USA. My statement about excess reserves is based on the published information from the Fed itself:
Now, unless you think the banks are outright lying about their capitalization, and the Fed and other regulators are looking the other way, clearly banks are not lending money they could choose to lend. I would definitely agree that at least to some extent the banks continue to deleverage because these numbers are based on book-value, not market value, of assets, and the central bank continues to quietly acquire $400 billion USD in mortgage backed securities last year to bail out the banks. Sooo, back to demand...why exchange dollar denominated assets for digital dollars (the Fed *IS* giving banks new dollars as reserve deposits in exchange for MBS and treasuries)? Because those assets are soon going to become worth a lot less. And I don't just think the MBSs, but also the treasuries. And the banks will be sitting on excess reserves, "high powered money", that after a write-down of US debt, will be worth enough to consist of a wealth transfer to the ultra-rich the likes of which the world has never seen.
I bring this up, because it's not a free-market operation, and it dwarfs any concept of income inequality Piketty can dream up.
The big fish are playing an entirely different game while "left" and "right" bicker over marginal tax rates...
I find it interesting to hear you talk of the demand side of capital. Right now, banks are sitting on unprecedented levels of excess reserves, yet the central bank continues to purchase treasuries to keep interest rates near zero, and the central bank is now paying 25 basis points for banks to continue to sit on the excess reserves. Demand isn't really in the equation right now. People and firms aren't looking to borrow because they're concerned about risk.
The problem is not the 2% growth rate he speaks of, it's the unsubstantiated claim he makes that the historical return on capital was 4.5%. That's the basis of his claim that the growth at 2% causes inequity, and that claim about the return on capital is in question at best.
There's a math problem here. These numbers cannot be correct. 320 million people, 6.7 trillion total government spending, 3.7 trillion just for the federal government:
That's $20,937 total spending per capita, and 11,562 federal spending per capita. I dont' trust that site - the numbers do not match. What's the disconnect between my numbers and yours from the same site?
2014 spending was 3.75 trillion (roughly) and we have about 320 million citizens. That puts US government federal spending alone at $11,718 per capita. I looked at your sources and got the 3.75 trillion number from there. The math doesn't work - there's no way the local spending is only $400/year. Am I dividing wrong?
I see people claim income inequality is an inherent quality of capitalism. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not. But why isn't such a criticism leveled in terms of communism, socialism, and social democracies? And extend the analysis to power as well as income. You'd see quickly that capitalism and free markets do quite well in comparison.
Further, look at the overall absolute quality of life. If I'm better off in a free market economy than an egalitarian social democracy, even though I'm relatively poorer than another guy who's WAY better off, I'm still better off overall. Zero-sum-game thinking from socialists can't begin to crack that nut.
The people in charge don't give a shit. They buy votes with debt that's backed, essentially, by the military they bought with the debt, and share some of the credit with the Saudis. It's a bank and defense contractor free-for-all paid for by pretty much everyone who's screwed by the petrodollar.
That's because there's a stronger monoculture in Japan, and you can actually blame individuals for making bad choices since they're part of the same monoculture. In the USA and UK, there is not a monoculture, and it's not permissible if you're in the majority to blame someone from a minority when they commit a crime. Or something like that, I feel...
That's an interesting point. I was thinking that the internet, especially when anonymous, has the effect of multiplying the perceived/apparent impact of a small number of actors. It's kind of like terrorism, in that it's asymmetric. For this reason, I can kind of understand the concerns over the apparent threat, but I find the people claiming it's a "cultural problem" aren't understanding that a big part of the reason the crowd isn't reacting the way the critics want is because the crowd intuitively knows what a small number of people there are purveying this antisocial behavior, and thus feel the claim of "cultural problem" is at best improper, and at worst slanderous.
Haven't you already noticed how weak social conservatism is getting in the GOP? Many, many people have abandoned that mode of thinking. It's one of the reasons the GOP continues to lose even in the face of the pro-war, pro-bank Democrats: The fiscal conservatives and genuinely small government (even out-of-the-bedroom, anti-war small government) are splintering off from the necons and religious right, and choosing to lose to Democrats instead. Lots of people under 40 who are fiscal conservatives, anti-police state, anti-war, and have no issues at all with social liberalism are continuing not to vote for the extreme right wing.
There are plenty of pro-life people who aren't anti-contraception. It is in no way shape or form a solid, unified group who all hold the same opinions.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.psc.edu/science/Wol...
There has already been a lot of research into this by people who have the correct understanding. Unfortunately, palladium is really, really expensive.
Either in the DNA or any other part of the body's systems. We just made a lot of simplifying assumptions to get a handle on some extremely complex systems (i.e. genes are the only place inheritable traits are carried). Now we have to start addressing the complexity behind those simplifying assumptions.
You are not the first person I've heard claiming that just because monetary base has increased and money supply hasn't that the inflationary aspects of fractional reserve banking don't apply. I think it's pretty obvious that it doesn't apply YET. I certainly expect a deflationary period, followed by reflation. This is so intuitive to me I am more than a little surprised others don't see it as such.
Regarding the dollar vs. bonds, just remember that the big players (banks holding more in excess reserves than the total monetary base as of 2008) will be well suited to rush in and grab assets with dollars at fire sale prices when the bonds are written down. The USA cannot pay its debt honestly, it can only default directly, or with printed money.
But you side stepped the issue of them being coal miners because they're male.
The cause I think is spot on, that males are competitive and in general more solitary (damn that testosterone)
As soon as I read this I thought of the under-recognized phenomenon of dominance within a cloister. Obviously I wasn't going to be dominant in stickball, BMX biking, or gym class; few of the other computer nerds were. To a large extent our need for dominance resulted in conquering territories we were successful in. So for me, being a guy who was cracking copy protection on video games in 1987 made me like the varsity quarterback of the computing circle.
It only makes sense that in a world where available areas to express dominance are already taken, a new subtype forged into the territory available because of the advent of the PC. Women, wired differently, would not value dominance in the new arena in the same way.
Men started to outpace women at an accelerated rate when the highly personal learning style of "having a pc to play on" became an option. Given that we see more and more of an imbalance in favor of women in group learning environments (college and even moreso in graduate programs), maybe this is just something very obvious, and a good thing for men, as men can excel in solitary study which they can tailor to their own interests and pace. As my wife, a school psychologist said, girls tend to learn better in groups, and don't typically like to work in competitive/solo situations given the choice, whereas boys often do. I'll take the advantage on this one, gladly.
Thus, the 90% should die in the street?
He never said they should die in the street -- that's a BS characterization -- the implication there is they will get shuffled to the unemployment roles until such time as they get a different job and a lower wage. It's not unreasonable to say they should be paid less if they're producing less. It IS a global market, and if I'm less productive than a guy from Hyderabad, what is it about my geographic location that entitles me to 4x the pay?
There are mutual consent laws for this in some states in the USA today. I remember that weird dude Phoenix Jones engaged with a drunk in front of a police officer, and since they both consented, it was not a crime for Jones to drop the guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I know libertarians would say we should wait until the threat is carried out and someone is actually raped and killed, but in the real world most of us would prefer to stop it happening in the first place.
Some libertarians might say that, but many libertarians including Rothbardians describe coercive behavior as "force or the threat of force." What constitutes a threat is subjective in many cases because people have different sensitivities. I am reasonably certain that the US Government is realistically threatening force against me if I don't pay my taxes, because I know they've used force against others. A guy in a bar who threatens to kick my ass is a lot less clear as to follow-through, and I'd probably have to take it on a case-by-case basis. A guy on /. who threatens me is probably full of shit, but if he and his buddies are starting to consistently harass me online so as to interfere with my reasonable use of my online person, they're probably over the line.
What if someone wanted to know where you weren't? That can be just as damaging.
Similar assertions have been made by proponents of perpetual motion machines.
They do tend to keep going on and on about that. It never ends.
It's not so much a natural law as the fact that palladium especially tends to soak up hydrogen. People, including, apparently, some scientists, seem to ignore that there's a lot of chemical energy in hydrogen, and so keep falling for cold fusion. Pretty much every cold fusion experiment has eventually been shown to involve palladium's natural sponginess towards hydrogen to act as a natural chemical battery, if you will.
I wasn't exactly disagreeing with you. I was nodding to your mention of demand (or lack thereof) which, as I think you largely agree, is weak against supply right now. But...
I would severely contest that statement...
I'm from the USA. My statement about excess reserves is based on the published information from the Fed itself:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EXCSRESNS
Now, unless you think the banks are outright lying about their capitalization, and the Fed and other regulators are looking the other way, clearly banks are not lending money they could choose to lend. I would definitely agree that at least to some extent the banks continue to deleverage because these numbers are based on book-value, not market value, of assets, and the central bank continues to quietly acquire $400 billion USD in mortgage backed securities last year to bail out the banks. Sooo, back to demand...why exchange dollar denominated assets for digital dollars (the Fed *IS* giving banks new dollars as reserve deposits in exchange for MBS and treasuries)? Because those assets are soon going to become worth a lot less. And I don't just think the MBSs, but also the treasuries. And the banks will be sitting on excess reserves, "high powered money", that after a write-down of US debt, will be worth enough to consist of a wealth transfer to the ultra-rich the likes of which the world has never seen.
I bring this up, because it's not a free-market operation, and it dwarfs any concept of income inequality Piketty can dream up.
The big fish are playing an entirely different game while "left" and "right" bicker over marginal tax rates...
I find it interesting to hear you talk of the demand side of capital. Right now, banks are sitting on unprecedented levels of excess reserves, yet the central bank continues to purchase treasuries to keep interest rates near zero, and the central bank is now paying 25 basis points for banks to continue to sit on the excess reserves. Demand isn't really in the equation right now. People and firms aren't looking to borrow because they're concerned about risk.
The problem is not the 2% growth rate he speaks of, it's the unsubstantiated claim he makes that the historical return on capital was 4.5%. That's the basis of his claim that the growth at 2% causes inequity, and that claim about the return on capital is in question at best.
There's a math problem here. These numbers cannot be correct. 320 million people, 6.7 trillion total government spending, 3.7 trillion just for the federal government:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_2014USrt_15rs5n
That's $20,937 total spending per capita, and 11,562 federal spending per capita. I dont' trust that site - the numbers do not match. What's the disconnect between my numbers and yours from the same site?
2014 spending was 3.75 trillion (roughly) and we have about 320 million citizens. That puts US government federal spending alone at $11,718 per capita. I looked at your sources and got the 3.75 trillion number from there. The math doesn't work - there's no way the local spending is only $400/year. Am I dividing wrong?
Is that federal only, though? I pay a lot of state and local taxes, too. I think factoring them in makes his claim roughly accurate.
I see people claim income inequality is an inherent quality of capitalism. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not. But why isn't such a criticism leveled in terms of communism, socialism, and social democracies? And extend the analysis to power as well as income. You'd see quickly that capitalism and free markets do quite well in comparison.
Further, look at the overall absolute quality of life. If I'm better off in a free market economy than an egalitarian social democracy, even though I'm relatively poorer than another guy who's WAY better off, I'm still better off overall. Zero-sum-game thinking from socialists can't begin to crack that nut.
The people in charge don't give a shit. They buy votes with debt that's backed, essentially, by the military they bought with the debt, and share some of the credit with the Saudis. It's a bank and defense contractor free-for-all paid for by pretty much everyone who's screwed by the petrodollar.
That's because there's a stronger monoculture in Japan, and you can actually blame individuals for making bad choices since they're part of the same monoculture. In the USA and UK, there is not a monoculture, and it's not permissible if you're in the majority to blame someone from a minority when they commit a crime. Or something like that, I feel...
That's an interesting point. I was thinking that the internet, especially when anonymous, has the effect of multiplying the perceived/apparent impact of a small number of actors. It's kind of like terrorism, in that it's asymmetric. For this reason, I can kind of understand the concerns over the apparent threat, but I find the people claiming it's a "cultural problem" aren't understanding that a big part of the reason the crowd isn't reacting the way the critics want is because the crowd intuitively knows what a small number of people there are purveying this antisocial behavior, and thus feel the claim of "cultural problem" is at best improper, and at worst slanderous.
Haven't you already noticed how weak social conservatism is getting in the GOP? Many, many people have abandoned that mode of thinking. It's one of the reasons the GOP continues to lose even in the face of the pro-war, pro-bank Democrats: The fiscal conservatives and genuinely small government (even out-of-the-bedroom, anti-war small government) are splintering off from the necons and religious right, and choosing to lose to Democrats instead. Lots of people under 40 who are fiscal conservatives, anti-police state, anti-war, and have no issues at all with social liberalism are continuing not to vote for the extreme right wing.
There are plenty of pro-life people who aren't anti-contraception. It is in no way shape or form a solid, unified group who all hold the same opinions.