US Ponzi Final Fraud

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Jay Greathouse

William K. Black once again points out the obvious in:

Why Covering up Fraud Losses Impairs Economic Recovery
Part One:
The Unbearable Lightness of the Accounting Cover Up

While Mr. Black does an excellent job in explaining significant aspects of our current situation (and I do recommend you read it for that alone) it still seems somewhat naive to me. Over at the Market Ticker, Karl Denninger, picks up the chorus and makes a few of the implications very explicit.
I recommend you read Mr. Denninger as well. But the guy who puts a different spin on all of this is Eric deCarbonnel of MarketSkeptics.com, who just launched a new blog called The Final Fraud In The US Ponzi Scheme. He plans on charging for access to his big report but you can figure out most of it from what he gives away.
For me, the take away point is that the bankers are in many ways stooges, patsies and fall guys for the government. Just as certain as the [...] Continue Reading…

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Stochastic Implications

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Jay Greathouse

The research behind a follow up to last month’s Money post grew past expectations. The history of the U.S. since 1934 involves complex and complicated financial creativity that appears challenging to break down in to understandable units.

I will persevere. IMHO, this history represents a significant force bearing upon our society.

Also, a follow up to First Four Steps To An Online Business is in the works. A hint: it all revolves around the capacity to produce content.

But recently, two revelations seem to have hit me in the head simultaneously. They both involve revealing limits of control and expanded freedom.

First, meditation upon the idea that maybe the universe we live in proceeds as a stochastic process, as opposed to a deterministic one, presents new understandings of the universe to me. For a moment, think about how a non-deterministic universe would work.

If one could no longer say, for example, that action “A” always caused consequence “C”, then how would things happen? Well, for a clue, stochastic processes [...] Continue Reading…

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Money

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Jay Greathouse

Money


Money
Money requires specific understanding. A trap lies waiting by assuming that a common sense understanding of money represents reality.
“There is no evidence of a society or economy that relied primarily on barter.” Marcel Mauss in ‘The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies’
Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economics.
“When barter did occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or potential enemies.” David Graeber in ‘Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value’
Commodities were likely used as the first form of money, such as  gold, silver, copper, rice, salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis and candy. It seems that money emerged to facilitate exchanges between “complete strangers or potential enemies.”
Commodity Money
is similar to barter in use and commodity money provides a simple and automatic unit of account for the commodity being used as money. A unit of [...] Continue Reading…

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The God You Worship

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Jay Greathouse

“You may be a construction worker working on a home,
“You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome,
“You might own guns and you might even own tanks,
“You might be somebody’s landlord, you might even own banks
“But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
“You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
“Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
“But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
from Gotta Serve Somebody by Bob Dylan

The United States government spends 11% of the GDP (gross domestic product) beyond what they obtain through actual taxation by borrowing it and blowing it.  If they stop that, the GDP instantly contracts by at least $1.5 trillion and all the economists scream
“DEPRESSION!”
While all across America people seem to embrace the ill conceived concept of
“I got mine, now screw you.”
People “got theirs” by ignoring the ugly truth that most of what The Federal Government does is unconstitutional.

The handouts and profitable insider contracts from the The Department of Education [...] Continue Reading…

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The Next Civil War

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Jay Greathouse

The conditions for the next United States Civil War were created by the victors of the first United States Civil War, the corporate elite and their political agents. At issue are rights established with The Declaration Of Independence.

The Declaration Of Independence is truly a magnificent document much superior to the United States Constitution, a severely flawed compromise in comparison that ultimately legalized the corporate take-over of the United States Of America. The key phrase of The Declaration Of Independence is
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government”
“These ends,” being, of course, “to secure these rights,” which are “endowed by their Creator,” making them “certain unalienable Rights, among these being Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was specifically stated
“That, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The government established with respect [...] Continue Reading…

Posted in Economics, Ponerology, Post-Carbon | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments