My favorite definition of empire is a country that can tax other countries. The US is an empire by this definition because debasing the reserve currency (US dollar) enables the US to take money from other countries. In this light, the news China and Japan will no longer use the US Dollar but trade directly in Yen and RNB is big news. No mention of it in the Republican Primaries or from Comrade Obama.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
I'm a Denier.
Semi-interesting article on global warming:
Most interesting part was the comments section. I really like this guy's explanation:
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Bitcoin - P2P digital currency
This is interesting. Seems that it would be very susceptible to manipulation...
Saturday, November 19, 2011
CDO's for Dummies
Gordon was the proprietor of a bar in Glasgow. He realises that virtually all of his customers are unemployed alcoholics and as such can no longer afford to patronise his bar.
To solve this problem, he comes up with a new marketing plan that allows his customers to drink now, but pay later. Gordon keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Gordon's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into his bar. Soon he has the largest sales volume for any bar in Glasgow.
By providing his customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Gordon gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, he substantially increases his prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Gordon's gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Gordon's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These 'securities' are then bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb - and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Gordon's bar. He so informs Gordon.
Gordon then demands payment from his alcoholic patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics - they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Gordon cannot fulfil his loan obligations he is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Gordon's 11 employees lose their jobs. Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Gordon's bar had granted him generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off his bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
His wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, his beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion pound no-strings attached cash infusion from the government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never even been in Gordon's bar.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The REAL problem is tax evasion
I couldn't find in the article where it says the problem is the Italian government spent more money than it had. I did note that tax evasion and the use of nasty old cash are the real culprits.
He will target widespread tax evasion, sub-standard education and training and Italy's creaking welfare system as well as reforming the labor market in what are expected to be painful and unpopular austerity measures to end a crisis that has put the euro zone's third largest economy at the center of its expanding debt crisis.
...
In another shot at a major problem with the Italian economy, Monti said the use of cash should be reduced to cut an underground economy that accounts for nearly 20 percent of GDP.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Lang Xianping: China's Economic Depression Has Begun - YouTube
Interesting. I wonder if anyone really knows the situation...
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I’m making no positive assertion concerning the efficacy of a field of study as either explanatory or predictive. I don’t have to prove anything.
The “climate scientists,” on the other hand, are claiming that their “science” is sufficiently predictive that humanity should invest way-of-life-threatening resources in averting their predictions. The ability to predict future events requires understanding of both past and current events; proof of the ability to predict future events requires demonstration of an ability to predict, based on data as of a specified time in the past, consequent events that in fact coincide with the known consequent events.
Climate “science” meets none of these requirements. It cannot explain known historical events even of the recent past–like the MWP and the LIA–let alone the more profound events of the distant past such as the Younger Dryas. Even less can it can it predict in models the MWP or the LIA based on data from prior to those events.
Astrology and chicken entrails I said, and astrology and chicken entrails I meant. Until climate “science” can model known historical events, it’s useless as a predictor of future events, and it would be profoundly foolish for humanity to waste resources on chicken-entrail predictions.