Back then, we didn't molly-coddle everyone and give medals to everyone for participation. We rewarded only the winners, the brave, and left the rest in the dust.
Then liberals (note the lower case useage please) took over the schooling systems and have been doing their damnedest to make everything "fair", and as such, we have a generation afraid to take risks, expect to be rewarded for being mediocre, and generally a failure, yet have a massive ego issue. It's not wonder we are where we are these days.
I see three possibilities here:
1) You had kids in the public education system. You failed as a parent to choose a good school district for them, and you further failed as a parent to teach them yourself and use the free public system as a adjunct only. If this is the case, please do not project your failure to educate your children onto everyone else. Parents have the primary responsibility for their childrens' educations. It was your fault, not the "system".
2) You worked in the public education system. In which case, you are blaming yourself for "coddling" and whatever else you feel has mediocritized the new generation. Strange. But again, please don't project your failure on others.
3) You have absolutely no real-world experience with the public education system, either as a parent or an educator, and you are simply parroting politically-biased crap that you heard on Fox News, read in USA Today, etc.
Also: How much do you care about the quality of your photos? And how do you want to use your GPS?
I agree with the posts below that suggest a cheap pre-pay phone for calls. Last phone I bought in Asia was an indestructible little Nokia, cost about $20 plus another $20 for more minutes than I could use in a month. It was also a good flashlight...double-click the asterisk button to turn on a high-power LED at the top of the phone.
If you are traveling in both urban and rural areas, wi-fi hotspots will be faster, more flexible, and more reliable than cell data coverage.
The question is really, what should you bring for your camera, photo editing, and GPS needs.
Personally I bring a dedicated camera, a very small laptop, and an iphone. The iphone by itself (or another high-end smartphone with the right apps) can serve as your camera, gps logger, gps navigator, photo editor, and wi-fi emailer/uploader.
A laptop is more flexible and IMO easier for photo editing, typing, and emailing. But it depends on how much you want to carry, and how much editing you want to do. If you're just sending some occasional low-res, low-quality pix to stay connected with people, a wifi smartphone will do just fine.
Did you have any information to add to your earlier misinformed rant? Like, e.g., does Sprint have an unusually long contract commitment for their phones, more than 2 years?
I'll also point out: You can also buy a brand-new, unlocked iPhone 4, with no service contract commitments, directly from Apple for $649. That is more than 10 times cheaper than your ludicrous claims.
Why are you using a 2-year cost when the person you are responding to used a 5-year cost?
Because as far as I know, the maximum commitment for a subsidized cell phone in the US is 2 years. At least that's my experience with AT&T and Verizon.
I just tried to shop for phones & plans on Sprint's website for comparison, and it choked with the message: "We're sorry Login to Chat END TALISMA CHAT BUTTON". Ouch. Point gun at foot. Fire.
~$599 phone + ~$105/mo bill * 5 years = ~$7000...didn't you realize that your little pocket toy cost more than most used cars?
Sorry, but you are insane.
My iPhone 4 32GB cost $299 + $60/month on a 2-year contract with voice, data, and messaging. That totals $1739 for phone plus 2 years of cell service.
Since a basic home land-line costs $20/mo (without long-distance service), I figure that the cell service with long-distance voice, data, apps, and text/image/video messaging is worth at least $40/mo. So, the total cost of the phone is at most $299 + $20/month, or $779, over 2 years.
With the iPhone 3GS, it works out to $49 + $20/month = $529.
I recently sold a 20-year-old Honda Civic with a blown head gasket for more than that.
Basic math, son, very basic. You can't spend more than you make.
Actually, you can.
The USA as a country, has consistently done this, running trade deficits with every major trade partner. This behavior has been supported by the status of the US Dollar as the dominant global reserve currency (since Bretton Woods) and petrocurrency (since the early 1970s).
Even today, after decades of financial shenanigans, the US can print its way out of debt by simply creating more dollars. This is called "quantitative easing", or "QE", so the average shmoe either thinks it is too complicated to consider, or associates it with British royalty.
It's no surprise that this financial mentality would propagate down through banks, corporations, and the ruling class and eventually to the average American shmoe. You CAN spend much more than you make. The more audacious you are, the more you can borrow. Until it catches up to you. Then you can declare bankruptcy, and all of your debts are wiped off the board. It's the new American Dream.:p
It really comes down to whether you can expect fast medical attention or not.
If you can't count on medical attention, choose the lion. They do the spinal kill-bite, so your ordeal will be over fast.
If you can count on medical response, choose the grizzly. If you can survive some grizzly-mauling and just play dead, they will often leave and you might survive the attack.
Sharks and crocodiles suck because they will seriously wound you, then decide you are actually unappetizing, and leave your bleeding body to drown.
Recently I saw you in the Raymond Kurzweil documentary (Transcendant Man) where you emphatically said that you do not want to die.
This year, you have exceeded the average life expectancy of a male for ANY country in the world. Iceland is highest at 80.2 years; you are now 80.5 years.
So my question(s): Are you still fighting the battle for physical/mental immortality? If so, how? If not, can you describe the process you have gone through to accept your mortality and ultimately death?
Thanks very much for your insights.
BTW I loved your work in Star Trek as a youngster, and your cover of Pulp's "Common People" just a few years back.
One of them seems to sell your information to the highest bidder...The other one collects information and uses it to show you advertisements, but doesn't seem to do anything else with it
Yes, public perception of the companies is part of the answer. Followup question: How much does Google spend on PR to help create that perception?
And provides many free services which are often superior to "pay" alternatives.
Yes, that's another part of the answer, actually the part that motivates my use of Google search, mail, maps, and a few other services. These "free" services are sufficiently valuable that I accept "paying" for them by giving up my privacy. This is a conscious personal choice.
The fact that people continually group the two in the same category shows that it doesn't matter how "well" a corporation behaves, people will still manufacture reasons to hate them.
Oops, now you've jumped into the deep end of the crazy pool. Radical emotions like "hate" have no place in a rational evaluation of costs & benefits of these companies' services. You seem to be one of those people who confuse corporations with real human beings...and have trouble thinking logically about either group.
When we look at an issue like privacy, we should hold all companies to the same baseline legal standards.
With that baseline protection behind us, we can judge their cost/benefit based on where they choose to play within the legal privacy space, and what other costs & benefits they have.
Besides, Google is regularly investigated by both governments and by competitors via lawsuits (mostly SEO firms who are sad that Google closed their loopholes.) So in addition to being counter-productive, you are also incorrect.
My question was why "these groups" (ie, the "10 public-interest groups" mentioned in the summary) are not going after Google as well.
If these groups are pursuing Google as well, please provide a reference. Otherwise, your point was???
I have never had a Facebook account, and never will, because they add absolutely zero value over private listservs, forums, blogs, and websites.
Google on the other hand, I use very much for searching and other services. And it seems to me that Google collects even more valuable information than Facebook.
So why aren't these groups going after Google?....
Amazing as it may seem to you, some of us have been working on software platforms for 30+ years, and we are not so surprised when a profit-motivated corporation says one thing, yet does another.
The case of a vendor claiming to pursue "open standards" for their platform, and then actually promoting their own proprietary system, has happened hundreds of times in my own limited experience.
This is simply the way the current corporate-technology system works. A company will tell you that they're all about cooperation...until they have enough clout to be a leading competitor. Then everything shifts to their "standards".
There are privacy concerns, of course, as Amazon will have a record of your browsing; but in a larger philosophical sense, Silk is of a piece with Facebook and Apple's iOS walled garden, an intermediary between you and the Internet.
OK, sure, we all know that Facebook's business is to collect & sell your personal info & connections.
iOS? That makes no sense. I suppose you could say that specific apps are "intermediating", but the apps are not the OS. Also, every iOS device has a generic web browser. If you're concerned about intermediation, it should be from your service provider...AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc...not from the os.
What really surprises me here...is that Google is rarely mentioned in these lists of "intermediaries". Google has been collecting most folks' search histories for the last decade. And indexing your email if you use Gmail. And recording your news habits if you use Google News. Etc, etc. For example: Recently a friend send me a Gmail about her fight against breast cancer, and I suddenly had lots of cancer-related links in Google news & advertising.
If you use any data services, someone is going to track it. If you care, you can take (often very inconvienent) measures to reduce tracking. But most people don't care enough to bother.
Apple pretended that...their original idea was to have everything web based and accessed through Safari...however the drive to native apps was their actual intention.
FTFY.
I'm well aware of this b/c, back in 2007, I developed mobile web apps with a cross-platform javascript framework for Microsoft/PocketPC, Nokia/Maemo, Blackberry, and Palm web browsers. Apple's announcement of a web-centric app strategy was exactly what I wanted to hear.
But it was total absolute BS. As the total newcomer to the smartphone market, Apple was required to say this, but in retrospect they obviously never meant it...unless the iphone had failed and needed more marketing boost on the developer front.
Every platform vendor strives for native apps on their proprietary platform, to avoid irrelevance of that platform. Apple is no exception.
How are you going to spread the information to the people that they ought to [do stuff]?
How about the internet?
I know, large corporate interests are doing everything they can to contain and control that information hydra. For many folks, it has been squeezed down from the internet, to www, to google, and now just facebook. But...you and I are having an informative conversation right here.
> Street protests are stupid and futile. You're underestimating them.
Not really. I lived in San Francisco for many years, so I've experienced my share of street protests. Little to no education occurs. People form a mob and their average IQ drops by about 50 points. Blocked commuters aren't convinced of anything; they are just pissed off. Much time and energy is wasted just venting mob emotion, when it could have been used to educate others one-on-one, or actually take steps (like moving your bank accounts) that would effect REAL results.
It isn't about who holds the wealth; it's about who controls the revenue.
I'm looking at the 2010 annual reports for Citigroup and Bank of America. You know, two massive banking corporations who received $50B and $45B of taxpayer TARP money, respectively.
49% of Citi's $66B annual revenues came from consumer/retail banking 45% of BofA's $110B annual revenues came from consumer/retail banking
Do you think those tens of billions came from the high-net-worth customers? No. They came from the poor shmucks who carry credit card balances, pay usurious interest rates, and even pay fees for the privilege of the bank hold their small deposits in checking & savings accounts.
Feel free to pull the annual reports for other large banks if you want to see how much they rely on consumer banking.
If 1 in 100 of big-bank consumers moved their debts & deposits to trusted local banks and credit unions, the big banks would (collectively) lose billions in revenue and start to get scared.
If 1 in 10 consumers moved their accounts, the big banks would lose tens of billions in revenue and would be absolutely frantic.
Of course it won't happen, because the average consumer is much to lazy and clueless to exercise their real power. It feels better to just march down the street like a lemming, chanting "the people, united..." or "what do we want..." or somesuch. But bank executives pay practically no attention to these protests.
Exactly what do you think "they" accomplished in the 60s?
The ruling class still fought a war in Vietnam (btw in Vietnam, they call it the "American war"). And the ruling class developed and deepened a "cold war" against the Russians/Soviets.
I'll admit that the space race of the 1960s was exciting...even if it was motivated by development of nuclear ICBMs. But the protests? Good place to meet girls. Nothing more.
However - some of us still grow/raise much of our own food, and fix our own cars and other machinery, and don't "drive to work" with the other sheeples.
More for optimism, perhaps, but any idea how well Koku (enough Rice to feed a person for a year) worked for Feudal Japan? Seems like a reasonable measure of value to use as a base for currency. I know it was used, but I have no idea whether it suffered from similar issues to the gold or silver standards.
My knowledge of feudal Japan is mostly limited to the incident at Sakai Jiten, so I can't directly answer your question.
However...Japan is currently the 2nd largest foreign holder of US treasuries in the world, at $914 Billion. China is the first largest with $1174 Billion, but China has more than 10 times the population of Japan, and more than 30 times the arable land. The UK (arguably the birthplace of modern "banking") is a distant third with only $353 Billion in US treasuries.
So I'd say the Japanese have done quite well, despite the western propaganda about the "lost decade". Perhaps the feudal "koku" standard was a factor.
An AC posted "Wow, you must be really popular at the Ron Paul meetings."
Do I really need to explain the problem with that comment? I never indicated any political affiliation whatsoever, to a person, or a party, or even the widespread left vs right idiocy.
And here is your homework: Discover exactly when the "too big to fail" banks and insurance corporations started to displace productive manufacturers and developers in the Fortune 100. Then the Fortune 50. Then the Fortune 10.
Hint: Save yourself some time by starting today and working backwards. This has happened in your lifetime.:o)
You don't say, but I suspect you're talking about the gold standard or some similarly narrow definition of the value of currency.
I'm talking about linking currency to a much broader basket of useful resources (Au is actually NOT a very useful resource...just a rare resource) and useful human productivity (researchers and makers and teachers advance humanity; while bankers and insurers and middlemen and most politicians abuse humanity).
The "pendulum" will not even begin to swing back until the people:
1) Withdraw all of their savings from the big banks.
2) Reclaim personal control over the money in their IRAs or 401Ks or 403Bs or whatever, and invest it themselves instead of letting corrupt corporations use these assets for their own goals.
3) Place a value on the dollar that is connected to real-world resources and human advancement instead of some false "economy" construct that is programmed into them by their slave-masters.
Street protests are stupid and futile. Many of the idiots who are getting beaten by the cops have credit/debit cards, savings/checking accounts, retirement accounts, etc with the very corporations against which they protest.
Promote change by moving your money,not raising your voice. That the ONLY kind of change that will affect the financial "institutions".
Slashdot Mirror
Back then, we didn't molly-coddle everyone and give medals to everyone for participation. We rewarded only the winners, the brave, and left the rest in the dust.
Then liberals (note the lower case useage please) took over the schooling systems and have been doing their damnedest to make everything "fair", and as such, we have a generation afraid to take risks, expect to be rewarded for being mediocre, and generally a failure, yet have a massive ego issue. It's not wonder we are where we are these days.
I see three possibilities here:
1) You had kids in the public education system. You failed as a parent to choose a good school district for them, and you further failed as a parent to teach them yourself and use the free public system as a adjunct only. If this is the case, please do not project your failure to educate your children onto everyone else. Parents have the primary responsibility for their childrens' educations. It was your fault, not the "system".
2) You worked in the public education system. In which case, you are blaming yourself for "coddling" and whatever else you feel has mediocritized the new generation. Strange. But again, please don't project your failure on others.
3) You have absolutely no real-world experience with the public education system, either as a parent or an educator, and you are simply parroting politically-biased crap that you heard on Fox News, read in USA Today, etc.
Which of these three describes you?
...if you choose to purchase exit-slide priveleges, exact change is greatly appreciated, thank you...
Also: How much do you care about the quality of your photos? And how do you want to use your GPS?
I agree with the posts below that suggest a cheap pre-pay phone for calls. Last phone I bought in Asia was an indestructible little Nokia, cost about $20 plus another $20 for more minutes than I could use in a month. It was also a good flashlight...double-click the asterisk button to turn on a high-power LED at the top of the phone.
If you are traveling in both urban and rural areas, wi-fi hotspots will be faster, more flexible, and more reliable than cell data coverage.
The question is really, what should you bring for your camera, photo editing, and GPS needs.
Personally I bring a dedicated camera, a very small laptop, and an iphone. The iphone by itself (or another high-end smartphone with the right apps) can serve as your camera, gps logger, gps navigator, photo editor, and wi-fi emailer/uploader.
A laptop is more flexible and IMO easier for photo editing, typing, and emailing. But it depends on how much you want to carry, and how much editing you want to do. If you're just sending some occasional low-res, low-quality pix to stay connected with people, a wifi smartphone will do just fine.
you're an idiot
Wow, chief, you sure got me there.
Did you have any information to add to your earlier misinformed rant? Like, e.g., does Sprint have an unusually long contract commitment for their phones, more than 2 years?
I'll also point out: You can also buy a brand-new, unlocked iPhone 4, with no service contract commitments, directly from Apple for $649. That is more than 10 times cheaper than your ludicrous claims.
Why are you using a 2-year cost when the person you are responding to used a 5-year cost?
Because as far as I know, the maximum commitment for a subsidized cell phone in the US is 2 years. At least that's my experience with AT&T and Verizon.
I just tried to shop for phones & plans on Sprint's website for comparison, and it choked with the message: "We're sorry Login to Chat END TALISMA CHAT BUTTON". Ouch. Point gun at foot. Fire.
~$599 phone + ~$105/mo bill * 5 years = ~$7000...didn't you realize that your little pocket toy cost more than most used cars?
Sorry, but you are insane.
My iPhone 4 32GB cost $299 + $60/month on a 2-year contract with voice, data, and messaging. That totals $1739 for phone plus 2 years of cell service.
Since a basic home land-line costs $20/mo (without long-distance service), I figure that the cell service with long-distance voice, data, apps, and text/image/video messaging is worth at least $40/mo. So, the total cost of the phone is at most $299 + $20/month, or $779, over 2 years.
With the iPhone 3GS, it works out to $49 + $20/month = $529.
I recently sold a 20-year-old Honda Civic with a blown head gasket for more than that.
Wake up.
Basic math, son, very basic. You can't spend more than you make.
Actually, you can.
The USA as a country, has consistently done this, running trade deficits with every major trade partner. This behavior has been supported by the status of the US Dollar as the dominant global reserve currency (since Bretton Woods) and petrocurrency (since the early 1970s).
Even today, after decades of financial shenanigans, the US can print its way out of debt by simply creating more dollars. This is called "quantitative easing", or "QE", so the average shmoe either thinks it is too complicated to consider, or associates it with British royalty.
It's no surprise that this financial mentality would propagate down through banks, corporations, and the ruling class and eventually to the average American shmoe. You CAN spend much more than you make. The more audacious you are, the more you can borrow. Until it catches up to you. Then you can declare bankruptcy, and all of your debts are wiped off the board. It's the new American Dream. :p
Come on. This is an easy question for anyone.
It really comes down to whether you can expect fast medical attention or not.
If you can't count on medical attention, choose the lion. They do the spinal kill-bite, so your ordeal will be over fast.
If you can count on medical response, choose the grizzly. If you can survive some grizzly-mauling and just play dead, they will often leave and you might survive the attack.
Sharks and crocodiles suck because they will seriously wound you, then decide you are actually unappetizing, and leave your bleeding body to drown.
Mr Shatner -
Recently I saw you in the Raymond Kurzweil documentary (Transcendant Man) where you emphatically said that you do not want to die.
This year, you have exceeded the average life expectancy of a male for ANY country in the world. Iceland is highest at 80.2 years; you are now 80.5 years.
So my question(s): Are you still fighting the battle for physical/mental immortality? If so, how? If not, can you describe the process you have gone through to accept your mortality and ultimately death?
Thanks very much for your insights.
BTW I loved your work in Star Trek as a youngster, and your cover of Pulp's "Common People" just a few years back.
One of them seems to sell your information to the highest bidder...The other one collects information and uses it to show you advertisements, but doesn't seem to do anything else with it
Yes, public perception of the companies is part of the answer. Followup question: How much does Google spend on PR to help create that perception?
And provides many free services which are often superior to "pay" alternatives.
Yes, that's another part of the answer, actually the part that motivates my use of Google search, mail, maps, and a few other services. These "free" services are sufficiently valuable that I accept "paying" for them by giving up my privacy. This is a conscious personal choice.
The fact that people continually group the two in the same category shows that it doesn't matter how "well" a corporation behaves, people will still manufacture reasons to hate them.
Oops, now you've jumped into the deep end of the crazy pool. Radical emotions like "hate" have no place in a rational evaluation of costs & benefits of these companies' services. You seem to be one of those people who confuse corporations with real human beings...and have trouble thinking logically about either group.
When we look at an issue like privacy, we should hold all companies to the same baseline legal standards.
With that baseline protection behind us, we can judge their cost/benefit based on where they choose to play within the legal privacy space, and what other costs & benefits they have.
Besides, Google is regularly investigated by both governments and by competitors via lawsuits (mostly SEO firms who are sad that Google closed their loopholes.) So in addition to being counter-productive, you are also incorrect.
My question was why "these groups" (ie, the "10 public-interest groups" mentioned in the summary) are not going after Google as well.
If these groups are pursuing Google as well, please provide a reference. Otherwise, your point was???
I have never had a Facebook account, and never will, because they add absolutely zero value over private listservs, forums, blogs, and websites.
Google on the other hand, I use very much for searching and other services. And it seems to me that Google collects even more valuable information than Facebook.
So why aren't these groups going after Google? ....
Amazing as it may seem to you, some of us have been working on software platforms for 30+ years, and we are not so surprised when a profit-motivated corporation says one thing, yet does another.
The case of a vendor claiming to pursue "open standards" for their platform, and then actually promoting their own proprietary system, has happened hundreds of times in my own limited experience.
This is simply the way the current corporate-technology system works. A company will tell you that they're all about cooperation...until they have enough clout to be a leading competitor. Then everything shifts to their "standards".
Caveat formator.
There are privacy concerns, of course, as Amazon will have a record of your browsing; but in a larger philosophical sense, Silk is of a piece with Facebook and Apple's iOS walled garden, an intermediary between you and the Internet.
OK, sure, we all know that Facebook's business is to collect & sell your personal info & connections.
iOS? That makes no sense. I suppose you could say that specific apps are "intermediating", but the apps are not the OS. Also, every iOS device has a generic web browser. If you're concerned about intermediation, it should be from your service provider...AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc...not from the os.
What really surprises me here...is that Google is rarely mentioned in these lists of "intermediaries". Google has been collecting most folks' search histories for the last decade. And indexing your email if you use Gmail. And recording your news habits if you use Google News. Etc, etc. For example: Recently a friend send me a Gmail about her fight against breast cancer, and I suddenly had lots of cancer-related links in Google news & advertising.
If you use any data services, someone is going to track it. If you care, you can take (often very inconvienent) measures to reduce tracking. But most people don't care enough to bother.
Apple pretended that...their original idea was to have everything web based and accessed through Safari...however the drive to native apps was their actual intention.
FTFY.
I'm well aware of this b/c, back in 2007, I developed mobile web apps with a cross-platform javascript framework for Microsoft/PocketPC, Nokia/Maemo, Blackberry, and Palm web browsers. Apple's announcement of a web-centric app strategy was exactly what I wanted to hear.
But it was total absolute BS. As the total newcomer to the smartphone market, Apple was required to say this, but in retrospect they obviously never meant it...unless the iphone had failed and needed more marketing boost on the developer front.
Every platform vendor strives for native apps on their proprietary platform, to avoid irrelevance of that platform. Apple is no exception.
How are you going to spread the information to the people that they ought to [do stuff]?
How about the internet?
I know, large corporate interests are doing everything they can to contain and control that information hydra. For many folks, it has been squeezed down from the internet, to www, to google, and now just facebook. But...you and I are having an informative conversation right here.
> Street protests are stupid and futile.
You're underestimating them.
Not really. I lived in San Francisco for many years, so I've experienced my share of street protests. Little to no education occurs. People form a mob and their average IQ drops by about 50 points. Blocked commuters aren't convinced of anything; they are just pissed off. Much time and energy is wasted just venting mob emotion, when it could have been used to educate others one-on-one, or actually take steps (like moving your bank accounts) that would effect REAL results.
It isn't about who holds the wealth; it's about who controls the revenue.
I'm looking at the 2010 annual reports for Citigroup and Bank of America. You know, two massive banking corporations who received $50B and $45B of taxpayer TARP money, respectively.
49% of Citi's $66B annual revenues came from consumer/retail banking
45% of BofA's $110B annual revenues came from consumer/retail banking
Do you think those tens of billions came from the high-net-worth customers? No. They came from the poor shmucks who carry credit card balances, pay usurious interest rates, and even pay fees for the privilege of the bank hold their small deposits in checking & savings accounts.
Feel free to pull the annual reports for other large banks if you want to see how much they rely on consumer banking.
If 1 in 100 of big-bank consumers moved their debts & deposits to trusted local banks and credit unions, the big banks would (collectively) lose billions in revenue and start to get scared.
If 1 in 10 consumers moved their accounts, the big banks would lose tens of billions in revenue and would be absolutely frantic.
Of course it won't happen, because the average consumer is much to lazy and clueless to exercise their real power. It feels better to just march down the street like a lemming, chanting "the people, united..." or "what do we want..." or somesuch. But bank executives pay practically no attention to these protests.
Exactly what do you think "they" accomplished in the 60s?
The ruling class still fought a war in Vietnam (btw in Vietnam, they call it the "American war"). And the ruling class developed and deepened a "cold war" against the Russians/Soviets.
I'll admit that the space race of the 1960s was exciting...even if it was motivated by development of nuclear ICBMs. But the protests? Good place to meet girls. Nothing more.
Good for you.
However - some of us still grow/raise much of our own food, and fix our own cars and other machinery, and don't "drive to work" with the other sheeples.
More for optimism, perhaps, but any idea how well Koku (enough Rice to feed a person for a year) worked for Feudal Japan? Seems like a reasonable measure of value to use as a base for currency. I know it was used, but I have no idea whether it suffered from similar issues to the gold or silver standards.
My knowledge of feudal Japan is mostly limited to the incident at Sakai Jiten, so I can't directly answer your question.
However...Japan is currently the 2nd largest foreign holder of US treasuries in the world, at $914 Billion. China is the first largest with $1174 Billion, but China has more than 10 times the population of Japan, and more than 30 times the arable land. The UK (arguably the birthplace of modern "banking") is a distant third with only $353 Billion in US treasuries.
So I'd say the Japanese have done quite well, despite the western propaganda about the "lost decade". Perhaps the feudal "koku" standard was a factor.
Hello...are you awake?
An AC posted "Wow, you must be really popular at the Ron Paul meetings."
Do I really need to explain the problem with that comment? I never indicated any political affiliation whatsoever, to a person, or a party, or even the widespread left vs right idiocy.
Get a grip.
An example, please.
Seriously?
For most of its history, money has represented real value (resources, services, productivity, growth).
It is only very recently that it became a subverted and leveraged means & end all in one.
Don't believe me? OK. Here is the archive of Fortune 500 lists which began in 1955:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/1955/index.html
And here is your homework:
Discover exactly when the "too big to fail" banks and insurance corporations started to displace productive manufacturers and developers in the Fortune 100. Then the Fortune 50. Then the Fortune 10.
Hint: Save yourself some time by starting today and working backwards. This has happened in your lifetime. :o)
Say what? They sent YOU to evangelize on Slashdot? Fascinating.
Wow, you must be a corporate tool.
You don't say, but I suspect you're talking about the gold standard or some similarly narrow definition of the value of currency.
I'm talking about linking currency to a much broader basket of useful resources (Au is actually NOT a very useful resource...just a rare resource) and useful human productivity (researchers and makers and teachers advance humanity; while bankers and insurers and middlemen and most politicians abuse humanity).
The "pendulum" will not even begin to swing back until the people:
1) Withdraw all of their savings from the big banks.
2) Reclaim personal control over the money in their IRAs or 401Ks or 403Bs or whatever, and invest it themselves instead of letting corrupt corporations use these assets for their own goals.
3) Place a value on the dollar that is connected to real-world resources and human advancement instead of some false "economy" construct that is programmed into them by their slave-masters.
Street protests are stupid and futile. Many of the idiots who are getting beaten by the cops have credit/debit cards, savings/checking accounts, retirement accounts, etc with the very corporations against which they protest.
Promote change by moving your money,not raising your voice. That the ONLY kind of change that will affect the financial "institutions".