I'm not ashamed to care about that either. The original topic question though was "why do we always have to count costs, rather than lives?".
Longevity is only half the equation, quality of life is the other. Are tragedies bad because of the loss of life, or because of the hardships they cause?
I believe in respecting life because it always comes around. Once you devalue life, you devalue your own. Again though, that leads to quality of life. I don't want to live in a world of death and suffering. Economics and longevity weigh in as equally important for me, since a long life of suffering is not better than a short life.
Agreed, I paid for a year as well... they are liberal, but there is nothing wrong with that if you are aware of the slant. Contrary to what the Rush Limbaughs of the world would have us believe, conservatism (preservation of the good things) and liberalism (reform of the bad things) can co-exist.
That being said, they do have articles which are well researched and I have enjoyed my subscription.
Sadly some of us do consider human life cheap (It's very easy to make, and will be around a long long time). I believe in quality of life over quantity of life, and economics is a reflection of quality of life. When the shuttle broke up, I didn't think twice about the people on board, I wondered what it was going to do to the US financially.
We are all going to die, I promise you that. Spending an extra 2 months out of the year working to fund federal disaster programs affects me directly, and I am not ashamed to say that I care about that. Counting costs and counting lives are equally important, and intimately connected.
I'm not actually saying you are wrong, just that money and life aren't so seperate.
Re:What is BEHIND that money... that is the questi
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The Future of Money
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Asset money doesn't collapse, it never has, it never will. Gold, silver, land, grain, gems, etc all have value today. The only thing that fails under asset systems are the banks who over-extend themselves in fractional banking (printing unbacked notes). The money never collapsed, the institutions did.
Very true, most of the libertarians I know are pretty liberal about life. They just wan't less big government in their business and taking their money. Libertarianism is really more republican than republicans are. Republican's in washington have no interest in moving power down to states anymore, which is/was the cornerstone of the party. They also are not fiscally conservative, as reflected in the massive debt spending. Under our money system central government will continue to grow, and they all know they can't stop it, so the just ride the gravy train.
They were empires, not third worlds. That's like saying because the US is in a mature phase of its lifecycle that it is a third world. The Roman Empire certainly wasn't a third world.
Our money has problems are two-fold, one is the lack of backing, the other is the debt system that creates a debt trap. The two problems keep each other in check to some degree, but its not stable (as our current debt ratios hilite) and slowly moves increasing %s of wealth to the financial sector.
Alright, this conversation has ended. When you title your initial reply "you have a shallow understanding" no further argument is needed. Was nice doing business with you Anonymous Coward.
Re:you have a shallow understanding of the issues
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The Future of Money
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· Score: 1
Gawd, did I do that? I did write senator didn't I... My bad. That'll teach me to not reread before posting. Thanks, I stand corrected.
What amazes me is the ferosity of some of the people arguing with me. Its not like I am saying "switch back to gold", I'm just saying Fiat always implodes, and an electronic fiat will be no different. They can turn paper into anything they want, but as long as it isn't asset backed, it will not last.
Re:What is BEHIND that money... that is the questi
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The Future of Money
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I understand the theory behind our Fiat money, but the problem remains. A massive buildup of debt is still created due to the debt nature of our system. If people stop going further into debt, then the economy shrinks and deflationary pressures kick in as money is sucked out of the economy from loan payments on existing debt. All the talk about how fiat lets our money supply remain fluid are nice, but the debt creation/destruction cycles are catastrophic under fiat. Fiat doesn't work, it can in the short run, but reality always catches up with it.
Noone has given me an example yet of a Fiat money that has stood the test of time, or that didn't expire in a massive failure.
In most of the cases I am familiar with its been out of control government spending. Banks haven't been in charge of fiat in the past as far as I know, they usually we gold or other asset bankers who would engage in fractional banking.
The only reason anyone would chose to use Fiat money over an asset money is if they are forced to by law, or if an asset like gold isnt available. The US couldn't just go back to gold now for example, since very few people own it. I'm not actually encouraging moving to gold as money, I'm only saying that money always goes back to assets when Fiat runs its course.
And yeah, that is the theory (ability to smooth out the economy) but it comes at a cost under our current system. That cost is debt accumulation to a degree you would never see w/o fiat, and some REALLY painful corrections. Judging by ratios the Dow should be at 5000 right now, so there is a lot of pain left from this last money supply bubble. Low interest rates when debt is already high only makes the problem worse. Right now for example, low interest rates are less effective since noone is in a position to borrow. The debt problem has to work itself out before things can resume.
Meanwhile my gold has been rising in value as people catch on to the fact the market isnt going anywhere until our currency corrects itself.
Re:you have a shallow understanding of the issues
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The Future of Money
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Wish I knew, I'm a multimedia developer, so while I know how things work, I don't have any theories on anything better. I just know that our money system has only a finite life span now that it is Fiat. I'll just keep a partion of my wealth in the form of durables.
Re:What is BEHIND that money... that is the questi
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The Future of Money
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· Score: 1
The only times that fiat money has been a problem, in general, is in third-world countries...
I think the people of Russia, Germany, Yugoslavia and the Roman Empire might disagree with you there. I don't think those empires would have appreciated being called "third world".
Re:your conclusions are unsupported by your facts
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The Future of Money
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It's not that it doesn't work. All Fiats work fine until they bite the dust, and that usually happens quickly once they start to crumble.
Also, the enourmous wealth growth of the past 70 years isn't as obvious as you think. Those who lived through the depression, and my mother and grandmother who just lost their retirement funds might disagree with you. All of those living on credit cards might also take your view of the sucess of Fiat money into dispute. We have also seen an increase in the gap between wealthy and poor, as well as an increase in the total number of people in poverty. The US is now a socialist government, and it has Fiat money to thank for that. Even Alan Greenspan is a believer in asset based money, and recognizes that Fiat is the money of the statist and works counter to freedom.
"Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."
Alan Greenspan
The US was creating enourmous wealth before Fiat money. Be careful not to confuse the wealth of the industrial revolution (cars, planes, electronics, rockets, physics, medicine, etc) as a success of fiat money. All of those industries would have existed with or without Fiat money.
You also seem to keep attacking me as if im some extremist you need to beat down. I'm simply stating that our money is Fiat, and being such, it has a finite lifespan now. It will continue to funnel an increasing % of our national product to the financial sector, and will continue to fund government expansion. That has nothing to do with isolation or whatever you are accusing me of. It's just a statement.
Re:you have a shallow understanding of the issues
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The Future of Money
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· Score: 1
1. Exactly how does new money make it into the market? They cant just give it away right?
The easiest way to learn about all of this is just do a google search on Federal Reserve System. All money enters the economy as a loan, which is why we call it debt money. Its not based on an asset, so the control of its creation and destruction is interest rates. Low interest rates encourage borrowing, and high rates discourage it. All money put into the economy has to be returned though. When you borrow money from the bank, they create it, and you pay it back and it is removed from the economy. The Fed (private central bank) buys printed money from the US Treasury for pennies on the dollar (to offset printing costs). Through a process thats kind of complex and beyond this question they distribute that to banks for use in extending loans. The US government goes to the Fed to satisfy its budget needs, and the Fed sells securities on the open market. If they can't find enough buyers I believe they would printing in what is called "monetizing the debt". I'm a bit fuzzy on that part of the process, but the end result is...
The government makes its budget, and the Fed funds it, regardless how much it is. Our tax money that is collected every year goes to the Federal Reserve (private bank) to pay interest to those holding the securities they bought, and the remainder is used to pay some securities.
An oversimplified way to look at it I think is that the Government has a credit card with the bank of Federal Reserve, and we (taxpayers) get the bill. The federal government doesn't actually care if there is enough tax revenue to pay for their budget, since on their end it looks the same either way. The only thing that keeps the system in check as far as I can tell is the realization that if they push it too far, investors in securities will pull out and invest in Euros or Yen or other currencies that aren't being inflated as quickly.
2. If the banks are private, and the gov't is not 'backing' the money, again, how can the gov't print more and how do they distribute it?
Same deal, they are allowed to run up as much of a tab with the Federal reserve as congress sees fit. The only limitation being you can only dilute money so much before investors abandon your currency, or start demanding higher interest rates for the increased risk in investing in your money.
Its a fun subject to read up on. One of my favorite guys to read is Senator Ron Paul, who is on the banking committee I think. Just put his name into google with federal reserve and enjoy.
Re:What is BEHIND that money... that is the questi
on
The Future of Money
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You have to have inflation under debt currency, otherwise you find yourself struggling under deflationary pressure. Our money is created in the form of loans, so when you get 100K to buy a house it is created into the economy, but has to be returned over time plus interest. So every loan adds money to the economy, and then returns back to nothingness. To pay the interest though, someone else needs to go into debt to keep to make up the difference. There is a natural debt creation/destruction cycle in fractional banking, Fiat money doesn't stop it, it just magnifies the timeframe and magnitude.
Printing money with the purpose of "diluting" cash (raising the real rate of inflation) is not inherently evil
Inflation isnt "good" for an economy, just in ours it is better than the alternative, which is crushing deflation. There is only about 1T in M1 money supply in the US, and there is in the ballpark of 8T in outstanding debt. Paying off debt very quickly contracts the money supply. We have to keep borrowing money to keep from contracting. If you really trust politicians and bankers to do the right thing with your money, more power to you. We'll ignore for now that on the watch of these two groups we have seen:
Massive bubble of the roaring 20s
Bust of the 1930s
Depression
Great Depression
Confiscation of gold and illegalization of its ownership
grinding periods of inflation and recession over the last decades
Increase of debt to GDP to a ratio of 3/1
Uncontrolled government deficit spending
The bubble we just went through, wiping many peoples retirement funds out
I'm not ready to pat these people on the back just yet. They have yet to solve the problem inherent in fractional banking and the creation of debt.
Could you explain that concept? Seriously?
You seem to be saying that Fiat money doesn't collapse, because ours hasn't yet. Name the oldest Fiat currency on earth, and what is the longest time a Fiat currency has ever lasted in History? Not one Fiat currency has ever stood the test of time. The US has already gone through a couple Fiat currencies that have collapsed before the federal reserve note was created.
This is the kind of crap governments pull with money... "The printing of such large sums created a major problem. Paper, engravers and printers were hard to find. In desperation, the Secretary of the Treasury recommended that counterfeit money be utilized. Anyone holding a counterfeit bill was supposed to exchange it for a government bond and the government would stamp it "valid" and spend it." That was the confederacy did to their Fiat money.
Fiat money almost always dies the same death, uncontrolled inflation due to state spending. It also usually results is some very socialist measures as governments try to stop people from running from it. If you get a chance, read up on what happened to Rome when its Fiat money hyperinflated, its pretty funny how they attempted to control prices. I can't name any good links off the top of my head, but this one looks like it has some good examples.
"--- my belief in the value of U.S. currency has less to do with faith in the U.S. goverment than with my belief that other people will be willing to exchange goods for U.S. currency in the future."
If the US government increased its budget to 7 trillion next year (creating massive deficit spending, resulting in hyperinflation), how long would your faith in that dollar last? Or if they reduced and balanced the budget, and the deflationary pressures that are currently in effect sent us into a depression... how long would you accept the dollar?
This from the only senator in Washington I trust to give it to me striaght. He sits on the senate banking commitee and is a Libertarian dressed up as a Republican.
Re:you have a shallow understanding of the issues
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The Future of Money
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Where to start...
"How is this different from a gold-backed currency like the old American Dollar. Well, since the old dollar did not actually come attached to a piece of gold and in fact was not even exchangable for gold it's last 40 years."
I'm going to ignore the insult to my intelligence in the title to your reply, and just say you made my point for me. In 1933 the ownership of gold by you and I was made illegal to keep banks and the Fed solvent. Since then we have moved toward a fully Fiat system, and under Nixon we achieved full Fiat status. We are allowed to own gold again, but its not the legal currency of the US. Inflation like we have now didn't exist before going Fiat, and depressions usually lasted less than a year. We are very likely entering a new one now, as we are at the end of a K-wave cycle and debt accumulation is strangling growth. This is the result of central control of money supply, as the roaring 20s and the great depression that followed were as well.
"If you cannot trust the US to back the current dollar, why could you trust them to back the old one, in the absence of proof that it is equivalent to gold?"
The US didn't back the old dollar, the US never has backed the dollar. Banks have always been and still are private in the US. Even now, the Fed is a private institution. Our money now is Fiat, that means there IS NO BACKING, even if the US claims otherwise. All the FDIC promises is to print more money if banks get in trouble, which dilutes everyones money.
Before 1933 gold was money. When you carried a note, you could physically walk to a bank and trade it for gold. Money was an asset, and notes were titles to that asset. Now all that makes money valuable is the trust (and law) that others will accept it as payment. If that trust is broken, the dollar collapses. Switching to an electronic dollar only makes it easier for banks to recklessly create money. Without sound policy behind them, all we gain is a loss of privacy, and the banks save a few pennies per dollar on printing costs.
Before you go insulting someone with a statement such as "you have a shallow understanding of the issues", maybe ask them a few questions to make sure you can verify that.
What is BEHIND that money... that is the question.
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The Future of Money
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· Score: 5, Interesting
E-money is the ultimate form of Fiat if you ask me. All fiat has a history of corruption and collapse (the american dollar and other world currencies are heading that way as well). Fiat money is the money of the statist, since it allows those in charge of the press to create as much money as they need, while dilluting what the rest of us hold.
The question isn't "what form will money be in", the question should be "what assets will back our money". I don't care if its in the form of rice crispies, as long as it is backed by an asset (gold, food, land, space rocks) and has real value.
Actually they will have to jail me. I won't be intimidated out of sharing files. Placing the burden on me to find out of the media I download is legal or not is NOT reasonable.
If I read a news article is it of concern to me whether it was plagiarized before I read it, open it, or forward it to a friend?
In more than one way. I also payed by leaving the music industry as a career. I went to music school and loved it, but it felt more like preparing for a boxing match than learning a craft. The competition to whore yourself out is brutal. The most fun I ever had as a musician was playing covers in a cheezy 70s band, when we really had no intentions other than to make a few drunk people move.
The American idea of corporate everything
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Shutting down Kazaa
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The interesting part of all of this seems to be an underlying belief that every human endeavor must be industrialized. I personally don't pay for shrink-wrapped music, and I never will. I gladly pay musicians by means of a tip charge, cover charge to get into a club, and by buying an occasional CD from the band if they are good. Record companies get nothing from me.
Music isn't an industry, any more than art is. At the moment industry backed music chokes out the independents, leaving you with either corporate music, or having to search for independent music. I would listen to independents more, but I shouldn't have to work that hard to find music. Record labels gained power by getting access to OUR public airwaves and then monopolizing them, and attempts are being made to do the same with the Internet.
I was a musician and lived in Hollywood for a few years. The current system turns music into prostitution, where the only way a band can ever be heard is to prostitute themselves to the labels. The Internet has to potential to return music to its traditional place as folk art, and that is what the labels are out to stop.
Once people realize that music has been with us since the dawn of man, and doesn't need a corporate headquarters to exist and be good, then record companies will finally (and are) lose their grip.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not ashamed to care about that either. The original topic question though was "why do we always have to count costs, rather than lives?".
Longevity is only half the equation, quality of life is the other. Are tragedies bad because of the loss of life, or because of the hardships they cause?
The correct answer I think is both.
I believe in respecting life because it always comes around. Once you devalue life, you devalue your own. Again though, that leads to quality of life. I don't want to live in a world of death and suffering. Economics and longevity weigh in as equally important for me, since a long life of suffering is not better than a short life.
Agreed, I paid for a year as well... they are liberal, but there is nothing wrong with that if you are aware of the slant. Contrary to what the Rush Limbaughs of the world would have us believe, conservatism (preservation of the good things) and liberalism (reform of the bad things) can co-exist.
That being said, they do have articles which are well researched and I have enjoyed my subscription.
Sadly some of us do consider human life cheap (It's very easy to make, and will be around a long long time). I believe in quality of life over quantity of life, and economics is a reflection of quality of life. When the shuttle broke up, I didn't think twice about the people on board, I wondered what it was going to do to the US financially.
We are all going to die, I promise you that. Spending an extra 2 months out of the year working to fund federal disaster programs affects me directly, and I am not ashamed to say that I care about that. Counting costs and counting lives are equally important, and intimately connected.
I'm not actually saying you are wrong, just that money and life aren't so seperate.
Asset money doesn't collapse, it never has, it never will. Gold, silver, land, grain, gems, etc all have value today. The only thing that fails under asset systems are the banks who over-extend themselves in fractional banking (printing unbacked notes). The money never collapsed, the institutions did.
Gold didn't fail, it still has value today. It was made illegal in the US to keep central banking from folding under.
" Libertarians are Republicans who get high..."
Very true, most of the libertarians I know are pretty liberal about life. They just wan't less big government in their business and taking their money. Libertarianism is really more republican than republicans are. Republican's in washington have no interest in moving power down to states anymore, which is/was the cornerstone of the party. They also are not fiscally conservative, as reflected in the massive debt spending. Under our money system central government will continue to grow, and they all know they can't stop it, so the just ride the gravy train.They were empires, not third worlds. That's like saying because the US is in a mature phase of its lifecycle that it is a third world. The Roman Empire certainly wasn't a third world.
Agreed.
Our money has problems are two-fold, one is the lack of backing, the other is the debt system that creates a debt trap. The two problems keep each other in check to some degree, but its not stable (as our current debt ratios hilite) and slowly moves increasing %s of wealth to the financial sector.
Alright, this conversation has ended. When you title your initial reply "you have a shallow understanding" no further argument is needed. Was nice doing business with you Anonymous Coward.
Gawd, did I do that? I did write senator didn't I... My bad. That'll teach me to not reread before posting. Thanks, I stand corrected.
What amazes me is the ferosity of some of the people arguing with me. Its not like I am saying "switch back to gold", I'm just saying Fiat always implodes, and an electronic fiat will be no different. They can turn paper into anything they want, but as long as it isn't asset backed, it will not last.
I understand the theory behind our Fiat money, but the problem remains. A massive buildup of debt is still created due to the debt nature of our system. If people stop going further into debt, then the economy shrinks and deflationary pressures kick in as money is sucked out of the economy from loan payments on existing debt. All the talk about how fiat lets our money supply remain fluid are nice, but the debt creation/destruction cycles are catastrophic under fiat. Fiat doesn't work, it can in the short run, but reality always catches up with it.
Noone has given me an example yet of a Fiat money that has stood the test of time, or that didn't expire in a massive failure.
In most of the cases I am familiar with its been out of control government spending. Banks haven't been in charge of fiat in the past as far as I know, they usually we gold or other asset bankers who would engage in fractional banking.
The only reason anyone would chose to use Fiat money over an asset money is if they are forced to by law, or if an asset like gold isnt available. The US couldn't just go back to gold now for example, since very few people own it. I'm not actually encouraging moving to gold as money, I'm only saying that money always goes back to assets when Fiat runs its course.
And yeah, that is the theory (ability to smooth out the economy) but it comes at a cost under our current system. That cost is debt accumulation to a degree you would never see w/o fiat, and some REALLY painful corrections. Judging by ratios the Dow should be at 5000 right now, so there is a lot of pain left from this last money supply bubble. Low interest rates when debt is already high only makes the problem worse. Right now for example, low interest rates are less effective since noone is in a position to borrow. The debt problem has to work itself out before things can resume.
Meanwhile my gold has been rising in value as people catch on to the fact the market isnt going anywhere until our currency corrects itself.
Wish I knew, I'm a multimedia developer, so while I know how things work, I don't have any theories on anything better. I just know that our money system has only a finite life span now that it is Fiat. I'll just keep a partion of my wealth in the form of durables.
It's not that it doesn't work. All Fiats work fine until they bite the dust, and that usually happens quickly once they start to crumble.
Also, the enourmous wealth growth of the past 70 years isn't as obvious as you think. Those who lived through the depression, and my mother and grandmother who just lost their retirement funds might disagree with you. All of those living on credit cards might also take your view of the sucess of Fiat money into dispute. We have also seen an increase in the gap between wealthy and poor, as well as an increase in the total number of people in poverty. The US is now a socialist government, and it has Fiat money to thank for that. Even Alan Greenspan is a believer in asset based money, and recognizes that Fiat is the money of the statist and works counter to freedom.
The US was creating enourmous wealth before Fiat money. Be careful not to confuse the wealth of the industrial revolution (cars, planes, electronics, rockets, physics, medicine, etc) as a success of fiat money. All of those industries would have existed with or without Fiat money.
You also seem to keep attacking me as if im some extremist you need to beat down. I'm simply stating that our money is Fiat, and being such, it has a finite lifespan now. It will continue to funnel an increasing % of our national product to the financial sector, and will continue to fund government expansion. That has nothing to do with isolation or whatever you are accusing me of. It's just a statement.
The easiest way to learn about all of this is just do a google search on Federal Reserve System. All money enters the economy as a loan, which is why we call it debt money. Its not based on an asset, so the control of its creation and destruction is interest rates. Low interest rates encourage borrowing, and high rates discourage it. All money put into the economy has to be returned though. When you borrow money from the bank, they create it, and you pay it back and it is removed from the economy. The Fed (private central bank) buys printed money from the US Treasury for pennies on the dollar (to offset printing costs). Through a process thats kind of complex and beyond this question they distribute that to banks for use in extending loans. The US government goes to the Fed to satisfy its budget needs, and the Fed sells securities on the open market. If they can't find enough buyers I believe they would printing in what is called "monetizing the debt". I'm a bit fuzzy on that part of the process, but the end result is...
The government makes its budget, and the Fed funds it, regardless how much it is. Our tax money that is collected every year goes to the Federal Reserve (private bank) to pay interest to those holding the securities they bought, and the remainder is used to pay some securities.
An oversimplified way to look at it I think is that the Government has a credit card with the bank of Federal Reserve, and we (taxpayers) get the bill. The federal government doesn't actually care if there is enough tax revenue to pay for their budget, since on their end it looks the same either way. The only thing that keeps the system in check as far as I can tell is the realization that if they push it too far, investors in securities will pull out and invest in Euros or Yen or other currencies that aren't being inflated as quickly.
Same deal, they are allowed to run up as much of a tab with the Federal reserve as congress sees fit. The only limitation being you can only dilute money so much before investors abandon your currency, or start demanding higher interest rates for the increased risk in investing in your money.
Its a fun subject to read up on. One of my favorite guys to read is Senator Ron Paul, who is on the banking committee I think. Just put his name into google with federal reserve and enjoy.
You have to have inflation under debt currency, otherwise you find yourself struggling under deflationary pressure. Our money is created in the form of loans, so when you get 100K to buy a house it is created into the economy, but has to be returned over time plus interest. So every loan adds money to the economy, and then returns back to nothingness. To pay the interest though, someone else needs to go into debt to keep to make up the difference. There is a natural debt creation/destruction cycle in fractional banking, Fiat money doesn't stop it, it just magnifies the timeframe and magnitude.
Inflation isnt "good" for an economy, just in ours it is better than the alternative, which is crushing deflation. There is only about 1T in M1 money supply in the US, and there is in the ballpark of 8T in outstanding debt. Paying off debt very quickly contracts the money supply. We have to keep borrowing money to keep from contracting. If you really trust politicians and bankers to do the right thing with your money, more power to you. We'll ignore for now that on the watch of these two groups we have seen:
I'm not ready to pat these people on the back just yet. They have yet to solve the problem inherent in fractional banking and the creation of debt.
You seem to be saying that Fiat money doesn't collapse, because ours hasn't yet. Name the oldest Fiat currency on earth, and what is the longest time a Fiat currency has ever lasted in History? Not one Fiat currency has ever stood the test of time. The US has already gone through a couple Fiat currencies that have collapsed before the federal reserve note was created.
This is the kind of crap governments pull with money... "The printing of such large sums created a major problem. Paper, engravers and printers were hard to find. In desperation, the Secretary of the Treasury recommended that counterfeit money be utilized. Anyone holding a counterfeit bill was supposed to exchange it for a government bond and the government would stamp it "valid" and spend it." That was the confederacy did to their Fiat money.
Fiat money almost always dies the same death, uncontrolled inflation due to state spending. It also usually results is some very socialist measures as governments try to stop people from running from it. If you get a chance, read up on what happened to Rome when its Fiat money hyperinflated, its pretty funny how they attempted to control prices. I can't name any good links off the top of my head, but this one looks like it has some good examples.
If the US government increased its budget to 7 trillion next year (creating massive deficit spending, resulting in hyperinflation), how long would your faith in that dollar last? Or if they reduced and balanced the budget, and the deflationary pressures that are currently in effect sent us into a depression... how long would you accept the dollar?
This from the only senator in Washington I trust to give it to me striaght. He sits on the senate banking commitee and is a Libertarian dressed up as a Republican.Where to start...
I'm going to ignore the insult to my intelligence in the title to your reply, and just say you made my point for me. In 1933 the ownership of gold by you and I was made illegal to keep banks and the Fed solvent. Since then we have moved toward a fully Fiat system, and under Nixon we achieved full Fiat status. We are allowed to own gold again, but its not the legal currency of the US. Inflation like we have now didn't exist before going Fiat, and depressions usually lasted less than a year. We are very likely entering a new one now, as we are at the end of a K-wave cycle and debt accumulation is strangling growth. This is the result of central control of money supply, as the roaring 20s and the great depression that followed were as well.
The US didn't back the old dollar, the US never has backed the dollar. Banks have always been and still are private in the US. Even now, the Fed is a private institution. Our money now is Fiat, that means there IS NO BACKING, even if the US claims otherwise. All the FDIC promises is to print more money if banks get in trouble, which dilutes everyones money.
Before 1933 gold was money. When you carried a note, you could physically walk to a bank and trade it for gold. Money was an asset, and notes were titles to that asset. Now all that makes money valuable is the trust (and law) that others will accept it as payment. If that trust is broken, the dollar collapses. Switching to an electronic dollar only makes it easier for banks to recklessly create money. Without sound policy behind them, all we gain is a loss of privacy, and the banks save a few pennies per dollar on printing costs.
Before you go insulting someone with a statement such as "you have a shallow understanding of the issues", maybe ask them a few questions to make sure you can verify that.
E-money is the ultimate form of Fiat if you ask me. All fiat has a history of corruption and collapse (the american dollar and other world currencies are heading that way as well). Fiat money is the money of the statist, since it allows those in charge of the press to create as much money as they need, while dilluting what the rest of us hold.
The question isn't "what form will money be in", the question should be "what assets will back our money". I don't care if its in the form of rice crispies, as long as it is backed by an asset (gold, food, land, space rocks) and has real value.
Actually they will have to jail me. I won't be intimidated out of sharing files. Placing the burden on me to find out of the media I download is legal or not is NOT reasonable.
If I read a news article is it of concern to me whether it was plagiarized before I read it, open it, or forward it to a friend?
In more than one way. I also payed by leaving the music industry as a career. I went to music school and loved it, but it felt more like preparing for a boxing match than learning a craft. The competition to whore yourself out is brutal. The most fun I ever had as a musician was playing covers in a cheezy 70s band, when we really had no intentions other than to make a few drunk people move.
The interesting part of all of this seems to be an underlying belief that every human endeavor must be industrialized. I personally don't pay for shrink-wrapped music, and I never will. I gladly pay musicians by means of a tip charge, cover charge to get into a club, and by buying an occasional CD from the band if they are good. Record companies get nothing from me.
Music isn't an industry, any more than art is. At the moment industry backed music chokes out the independents, leaving you with either corporate music, or having to search for independent music. I would listen to independents more, but I shouldn't have to work that hard to find music. Record labels gained power by getting access to OUR public airwaves and then monopolizing them, and attempts are being made to do the same with the Internet.
I was a musician and lived in Hollywood for a few years. The current system turns music into prostitution, where the only way a band can ever be heard is to prostitute themselves to the labels. The Internet has to potential to return music to its traditional place as folk art, and that is what the labels are out to stop.
Once people realize that music has been with us since the dawn of man, and doesn't need a corporate headquarters to exist and be good, then record companies will finally (and are) lose their grip.