However, there is a problem with reputation. How do you know that the name, or cert you have from someone is actually from the real person and not counterfeit?
We've tried central authorities. You have all seen the results. It mostly works, as long as you trust the central authority. How do you make a completely distributed system work? It requires some sort of reputation about people and companies you have never been in contact with.
Note, we haven't solved this problem in real life either. We have brands, certifications, social networks, tests but we don't have a way to say that Xs reputation in terms of Y is Z when you don't know X.
i.e. It is predictable. I'm currently positioning myself for 12 and beyond. Most of the economists in positions of authority just now are Neo Classical or Keynesian, what this means is they are ignorant, arrogant and have a habit of painting radio dials on rocks and worshiping them[1].
I'm not going to tell you how, I need someone to hold the bag. So if you don't want to be the empty bag holder go figure it out yourselves, I will give you a hint though.
Go and find out exactly what money actually is and what growth actually is.
It has been going on long before the deregulation, since 1971... Actually mid 1960s since it was the Vietnam war spending which started the problem.
The 2008 crash was the end of a credit bubble which had been blowing up since Nixon took the US dollar off of the gold standard. Nothing but debt backing the dollar.
Chris Martenson has a good chart of total US debt. Matches an exponential curve to 98%. Doubling period of about 7 years. Eventually you just run out of people to suck into the Ponzi scheme.
and not get taken in by Internet memes such as "end the fed" that offer no real solutions.
"End the fed" is a slogan created by the "free banking" crowd. It would have the effect of removing trillions in state guarantees from the financial sector and would have a very real effect on the nature of credit creation. The price of money would change substantially to reflect the true risks of lending. i.e. Losses would be privatised not socialised.
You yourself don't come off as a wacko, but all you have to do is criticise Keynes and the door is wide open. None of the meme-chanters have a real solution.
I and many like me have thought about what is happening since it has been blindingly obvious what is going on (Long before 2008). There are no easy solutions, we're in a bad place and everything is going to hurt. It would have been much better never to get here in the first place. None of the real solutions have any political weight behind them, they are not even on the table at all and probably never will be. so the status quo remains, and i'm therefore going to use that to make money.
The gold standard is inherently international. Wackos are almost universally fearful of International Currency if you poll them on that itself; but then if you ask them about a gold standard they're all for it
No... You (and perhaps they) are missing some subtle distinctions. And I think you need to think a little more carefully about the exact nature of money, currency, credit and debt.
There is a difference between gold itself as currency, and a gold standard, it is the difference between a centrally managed and controlled system and a fully distributed one. If gold itself is currency it is traded by weight, anyone can produce coins or bars and as long as they are of an acceptable quality who makes them is irrelevant. It is fully distributed. Control and economic activity is also fully distributed, peer to peer.
A gold standard on the other hand then a certain number of dollars are defined to be worth a certain mass of gold. It is centrally controlled and subject to manipulation and corruption. A totally different beast.
I suppose the gov't could have let them die, then stepped in to keep the economy going. But you wouldn't have liked that either, would you?
That's exactly what should have happened. Share and bond holders should have been wiped out, what was left auctioned to solvent organisations and any remaining debt written off. Any trillions spent should have gone to the unemployed in benefits and the reserve ratio used to reduce overall leverage in the system.
We would have been out of the woods by now. However the government is owned by Goldman Sachs so it was never going to happen. Didn't happen last time either.
You can expect this all to continue for another ten years. See Japan "lost decade" for an example of what's to come.
Those who control the finance system control who works and who doesn't, and who has a home to go to at night. That is every bit as coercive as any governmental power.
Who keeps these guys alive when they fuck up? The government does.
You just saw them do it in 2009. If they had died then they would be replaced right now with thousands of small relatively powerless financial organizations.
Without government support, the Too Big To Fails actually do Fail, leaving lots of small Not Too Big To Fails.
Didn't you see TARP? LSAP? Good god, I'm sure it was even actually on TV at some point. This was government keeping mega corporations alive to fuck you up all over again...
Don't you see all the subsidies? The no bid contracts? The laws which act as barrier to entry? Fuck... The Wars!
It's only government saving their arses which allows them to get this big. Cut off the money supply and they won't remain Too Big To Fail.
To the guys running these corps. Government is just another tool which they use to get what they want, and a tool which has M1 tanks, F16 fighters, black ops aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons.
government is the only chance we have to keep the market fair and equal. left to itself, all by itself, NATURALLY, the market is abused by its largest players
Government is in bed with the largest players. Now you are really, truly fucked.
You think you have a democracy? You think what you're seeing is capitalism?
No. America is a crony capitalist corporatocracy. Haven't you noticed?
Slashdot Mirror
Money is borrowed into existence. Paying off debt causes the destruction of money.
Right now there is about 9.5 trillion in money, 50 trillion in debt, of which 14 is public.
If the government pays off it's debt it would cause a massive depression because all the money would disappear.
This is why you have exponentially growing debt.
http://media.chrismartenson.com/images/credit-market-doublings.jpg
Basically the monetary system is totally messed up and has been since 1971. What's required is monetary reform.
I actually agree. Same with DNS.
However, there is a problem with reputation. How do you know that the name, or cert you have from someone is actually from the real person and not counterfeit?
We've tried central authorities. You have all seen the results. It mostly works, as long as you trust the central authority. How do you make a completely distributed system work? It requires some sort of reputation about people and companies you have never been in contact with.
Note, we haven't solved this problem in real life either.
We have brands, certifications, social networks, tests but we don't have a way to say that Xs reputation in terms of Y is Z when you don't know X.
and made ~30% per year between 09 and 11.
i.e. It is predictable. I'm currently positioning myself for 12 and beyond. Most of the economists in positions of authority just now are Neo Classical or Keynesian, what this means is they are ignorant, arrogant and have a habit of painting radio dials on rocks and worshiping them[1].
I'm not going to tell you how, I need someone to hold the bag. So if you don't want to be the empty bag holder go figure it out yourselves, I will give you a hint though.
Go and find out exactly what money actually is and what growth actually is.
[1] Cargo cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
So... You're not home usually between X and Y. Bought a new TV, expensive computer, key hiding rock.
Information is power.
You have nothing to fear.
It has been going on long before the deregulation, since 1971... Actually mid 1960s since it was the Vietnam war spending which started the problem.
The 2008 crash was the end of a credit bubble which had been blowing up since Nixon took the US dollar off of the gold standard. Nothing but debt backing the dollar.
Chris Martenson has a good chart of total US debt. Matches an exponential curve to 98%. Doubling period of about 7 years. Eventually you just run out of people to suck into the Ponzi scheme.
http://media.chrismartenson.com/images/credit-market-doublings.jpg
Totally irrelevant which political side was in power. 9% growth in debt every year for 40 years.
You want to see a 40 year exponentially growing credit bubble in action?
http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=^DJI&t=my&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US®ion=US
Now there is a truly impressive Ponzi scam.
It may be no coincidence that the markets peaked around 2000. Energy (oil) production peaked around the same time (2005).
Money is not really a model for energy. It is a claim on resources of which energy is one.
and not get taken in by Internet memes such as "end the fed" that offer no real solutions.
"End the fed" is a slogan created by the "free banking" crowd. It would have the effect of removing trillions in state guarantees from the financial sector and would have a very real effect on the nature of credit creation. The price of money would change substantially to reflect the true risks of lending. i.e. Losses would be privatised not socialised.
You yourself don't come off as a wacko, but all you have to do is criticise Keynes and the door is wide open. None of the meme-chanters have a real solution.
I and many like me have thought about what is happening since it has been blindingly obvious what is going on (Long before 2008). There are no easy solutions, we're in a bad place and everything is going to hurt. It would have been much better never to get here in the first place. None of the real solutions have any political weight behind them, they are not even on the table at all and probably never will be. so the status quo remains, and i'm therefore going to use that to make money.
The gold standard is inherently international. Wackos are almost universally fearful of International Currency if you poll them on that itself; but then if you ask them about a gold standard they're all for it
No... You (and perhaps they) are missing some subtle distinctions. And I think you need to think a little more carefully about the exact nature of money, currency, credit and debt.
There is a difference between gold itself as currency, and a gold standard, it is the difference between a centrally managed and controlled system and a fully distributed one. If gold itself is currency it is traded by weight, anyone can produce coins or bars and as long as they are of an acceptable quality who makes them is irrelevant. It is fully distributed. Control and economic activity is also fully distributed, peer to peer.
A gold standard on the other hand then a certain number of dollars are defined to be worth a certain mass of gold. It is centrally controlled and subject to manipulation and corruption. A totally different beast.
they threatened to take our economy with them.
And? caving has worked so well.
I suppose the gov't could have let them die, then stepped in to keep the economy going. But you wouldn't have liked that either, would you?
That's exactly what should have happened. Share and bond holders should have been wiped out, what was left auctioned to solvent organisations and any remaining debt written off. Any trillions spent should have gone to the unemployed in benefits and the reserve ratio used to reduce overall leverage in the system.
We would have been out of the woods by now. However the government is owned by Goldman Sachs so it was never going to happen. Didn't happen last time either.
You can expect this all to continue for another ten years. See Japan "lost decade" for an example of what's to come.
David Icke is a nut who believes in lizard people.
Taken out and shot.
Inflation and deflation.
HTH.
Big government is *already* owned by corps. Regulation has *already* failed.
You have to starve them of resources. i.e. Money.
Those who control the finance system control who works and who doesn't, and who has a home to go to at night. That is every bit as coercive as any governmental power.
Who keeps these guys alive when they fuck up? The government does.
You just saw them do it in 2009. If they had died then they would be replaced right now with thousands of small relatively powerless financial organizations.
Without government support, the Too Big To Fails actually do Fail, leaving lots of small Not Too Big To Fails.
Didn't you see TARP? LSAP? Good god, I'm sure it was even actually on TV at some point. This was government keeping mega corporations alive to fuck you up all over again...
Don't you see all the subsidies?
The no bid contracts?
The laws which act as barrier to entry?
Fuck... The Wars!
It's only government saving their arses which allows them to get this big. Cut off the money supply and they won't remain Too Big To Fail.
I'm going to take all the value you have worked for over decades and leave you a pauper in your old age.
Many thanks.
And not the Keynesian cargo cult economics which is so prevalent.
To start with, go find out what money is.
Basically, it's the beginning of the end.
To the guys running these corps. Government is just another tool which they use to get what they want, and a tool which has M1 tanks, F16 fighters, black ops aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons.
But most of those companies have thousands of owners, not just one. They're probably in your 401(k) or pension plan.
The owners are absent.
government is the only chance we have to keep the market fair and equal. left to itself, all by itself, NATURALLY, the market is abused by its largest players
Government is in bed with the largest players. Now you are really, truly fucked.
You think you have a democracy? You think what you're seeing is capitalism?
No. America is a crony capitalist corporatocracy. Haven't you noticed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
The students end up with a mortgage on their lives.
So...
Massive debt.
No Job.
No Collateral
No Bankruptcy protection. They can just about hound you till you drop.
Yeah sounds like a good deal to me. If i'm a University or, wait for it.. A banker.
And are only just starting after 40 years to wake up to the fact that the enemy is over here not there, and usually has the title "leader".
Example:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
Guess that 1 million has been paid back several hundred thousand times.
http://www.hybridairvehicles.com/
The US military is buying half a billion dollars worth of kit from them... Or rather through Northrop Grumman.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/video-northrop-grumman-wins-race-to-revive-hybrid-airships-with-517-million-order-343259/
We all knew that anyway.
The picture you've got there shows the best they could do before Apple is be a cheap knockoff of RIM...
And that is just sad. From knockoff to knockoff.
For all those Android owners out there, who wants a cheap knockoff anyway?