Mark, I would start here: http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/
Dr. Seneff is a leader in research proving the harm caused by glyposate.
Dave,
you keep repeating this claim and it is a fallacy. Well, a real world fallacy at any rate.
It works in a modeled environment only where there are perfect stocks combined with perfect flows.
In the real world pile-ups happen and money get's stuck in various places. We sometimes call them 'endowments' or pensions' or 'the 1%.'
So why not live in the real world on this one?
I took Keen's model and expanded it to include imperfect stocks and flows (meaning, for example, that the bank's payments to the janitor were not perfectly used by the janitor to pay down his bank loan) and guess what? As soon as the money piles up it begins to grow exponentially.
Just like what we see in the real world debt and money data.
And I think this is an unavoidable 'feature' of debt based money, not necessarily because of the money itself alone, but because humans are involved and we haven't mastered the concepts of 'enough' and 'equitable' yet.
So we always want more and we pile up more loot than we need, and then interest assures that those piles grow exponentially bigger.
Of course, a simple thought experiment will suffice to reveal this as well.
Suppose Bill Gate's foundation said, "hey, we're earning 5% on our bond portfolio and we're not ever going to touch the principal or interest on that." Because, you know, that's just what they decided to do.
If they started with 20 billion, in one hundred years they have $2.6 trillion. 50 years after that they have $30 trillion. After 25 more years they have $102 trillion. And 25 years after that they have $345 trillion.
One entity, one decision, a couple of hundred years of simple compounding and they own the entire world several times over.
Nothing balanced about that.
And, of course, this was entirely due to a pile-up of money stock in one place, and this is exactly what is happening all over the place all the time but in many, many places, and it begins to explain why debt-based money systems 'go exponential.'
I think it's important to not let academic models prevent us from analyzing what's really happening.
My conclusion is that the current level of cultural evolution is not yet ready to handle debt-based money. It (we) needs a brake (gold, or something).
DaveUsing the current money system how would you ‘predict’ the system would function if another 2008 event were to occur but the central bank’s did not pull off a bail out? I heard the threat of lock up and great defaults as the reason for the intervention, but where does it go without intervention.
I fashion myself as a defensive driver, hence the question. I will assume similar conditions; high energy costs, over extended debt obligations, etc.
Speaking of rackets:
Shocking Government Report Finds $6.5 Trillion In Taxpayer Funds "Unaccounted For"I'm sure there's a lot of double-counting here because the Pentagon does not have a budget large enough to account for the size of the "missing funds."Last week, we first touched on a topic which, in any non-banana republic, would be a far greater scandal than what Ryan Lochte may or may not have been doing in a Rio bathroom: namely, government corruption, falsification and potential fraud and embezzlement, which has resulted in the Pentagon being unable to account for up to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer funding.
Today, Reuters follows up on this disturbing issue, and reveals that the Army’s finances are so jumbled it had to make trillions of dollars of improper accounting adjustments to create an illusion that its books are balanced.
The Defense Department’s Inspector General, in a June report, said the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. Yet the Army lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.
As a result, the Army’s financial statements for 2015 were “materially misstated,” the report concluded. The “forced” adjustments rendered the statements useless because “DoD and Army managers could not rely on the data in their accounting systems when making management and resource decisions.”
Something like department A has to simply pencil in a $10B adjustment, which then forces another $10B adjustment in the next level of books higher and so on until the original $10B adjustment has been made ten times for a $100B total in wrongful adjustments.
But the point remains; in any system of accounting this loose there are going to be plenty of scamsters and trough feeders fraudulentlypadding their own bank accounts.
In other words, it's a racket.
Chris-
I took Keen's model and expanded it to include imperfect stocks and flows (meaning, for example, that the bank's payments to the janitor were not perfectly used by the janitor to pay down his bank loan) and guess what? As soon as the money piles up it begins to grow exponentially.That's great.
Now change the sim to use commodity money, and apply that same "imperfect flow" (slash "sticky money") condition to that same system, with the same actors, and see what happens.
I'm going to project the outcome. Commodity money will pile up in the one "sticky money" (imperfect flow) account over time, just the way it did with the debt-based money. Then the flow of money through the rest of the economy will slow down, and even if there are no borrowers at all, the economy will grind to a halt because there won't be enough free money to run the economy. That one guy will have it all.
If you consistently (slash artificially) stop the flow of money in one place, eventually both economies (and the debtors in both economies) have real problems.
I'm guessing that's why they were preoccupied with "hoarding" back during the 30s. They had a "sticky money" problem in a commodity money system.
Its a real issue. And, I suspect, its at the root of the deflation effects seen during the Great Depression.
But its not (just) a debt-money issue. And it has nothing to do with "not having enough money to pay the interest."
Flows will always be imperfect in the individual case. But the base money should be large enough to cover the "normal" level of imperfect flows of the overall economy.
In the real world pile-ups happen and money get's stuck in various places. We sometimes call them 'endowments' or pensions' or 'the 1%.'Ok. In the real world, the top 1% and pension funds and endowments do NOT put their savings in cash. Mostly, its in property, or equities, or bonds, and the act of buying these wealth units ends up recycling that money right back into the economy. Money is a mechanism for wealth transfer, NOT a mechanism for wealth storage. In the real world.So why not live in the real world on this one?
Related: the "Bladder Theory of Corporate Finance" advanced by Peter Lynch: the larger the company's bank balance, the greater the pressure on management to piss it away.
In sum: flows are perfect enough, over time, since in the real world, the vast bulk of wealth storage doesn't involve cash at all. Wealth is 5% cash, and 95% "other stuff." Paying the interest can therefore be done with flows, since they are "perfect enough" averaged out across the whole economy over time. Any excess cash get stuffed into bonds, stocks, or property by the money manager because it generally has a higher yield than cash.
I checked out one of the presentations; very interesting. I wish I understood more of the underlying biology and biochemistry, but even so, there's a lot of information even a non-expert like me can glean. Thanks for providing the link!
Human intent, action and consciousness, there in lies the problem. I think Dave started to drive the conversation in the right direction in post #33. The silver bullet temptation is very strong, which I think we need to avoid. If we had this "ism", everything would be OK. If this person was elected then everything would be OK.
We all understand from our own daily existence, the struggles that we all have, that it is never one and done. We think we have overcome something and then wham, its back in your face again. But then at some point we can be finished with something, when we have experienced is from all sides, seen it for what it is, we can be one with it then it is truly "over". But I digress.
I guess for me the debate is, does any one particular system create a greater propensity for corruption than another or does the level of corruption of the individuals within a system/society drive the structures of the systems around them. Some might say this is a chicken and egg question. But I do believe that we do create the reality around us that we need to maximize our own personal evolution. If all the individuals within a system were completely committed to the idea, I will take no more value out of a system then I put in, then I don't think the type of financial system would be relevant. I'm sure that a corrective mathematical mechanisms could be inserted within even a debt based system to correct the propensity for wealth concentration and perpetual growth. The argument could then I'm sure be made, well then it really wouldn't be a debt based fiat money system any more, but that in my mind could turn into a intellectual black hole that would miss the point.
In my mind the financial system we live under is still a level away from where the real action is, and real change cannot be made at that level. Our relationships with ourselves, each other ecological structures around is where the action is and is the level where actual change can occur. If we are unable to take the world as it is, or believe that the world owes us something based on our superior birth, intelligence, level of accomplishment, etc. then we are done. I don't care what kind of money system we have.
There is a lot of pain out there, which means there are a lot of people in contact with reality, which is transformative. So many people have stopped drinking cool aide, it really is amazing to see. I like the positive notes that were sounded at the end of this conversation, at a deeper level, I do believe we are headed in the right direction.
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky‘s presentation at the Science for Peace Conference, Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, 15-16 August 2016
This is a deeply disturbing article reviewing the scope of the global destruction that the US led NATO is causing.
The media, intellectuals and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the unspoken truth, namely that the US-NATO led war destroys humanity. When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, Justice and the entire international legal system are turned upside down.Chossudovsky summarizes the incredible breadth and scope of warfare being waged all over the world. He then returns to the creation of Al Qaeda and ISIS.
... Al Qaeda is a Creation of US IntelligenceIn the late 1980's, the US established 4 camps in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to train young Muslim men to fight the Soviets. Here is a picture of the CIA director with the Pakistani General Gull in one of the camps.From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in 1979 to the present, various Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary organizations became de facto instruments of US intelligence and more generally of the US-NATO-Israel military alliance.
The US has actively supported Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations since the onslaught of the Soviet Afghan War. Washington has engineered the installation of Islamist regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has destroyed the fabric of secular societies.
… the Al Qaeda opposition fighters in Syria are recruited by US-NATO and the Turkish high command.
The Al Qaeda affiliated “moderate” terrorist organizations in Syria are supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The counter-terrorism agenda is bogus. It’s a criminal undertaking. What is being bombed is the civilian infrastructure of a sovereign country.
Referred to as “Freedom Fighters”, president Reagan meets Afghan Al Qaeda Mujahideen leaders at the White House.
Unknown to the American public, the US spread the teachings of the Islamic jihad in textbooks provided to Afghanistan children developed at the University of Nebraska.
After the Soviets had withdrawn from the camps, the US continued to operate them bringing Muslim men from other parts of the world for the several week long training course.Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Willian Webster; Deputy Director for Operations Clair George; an ISI colonel; and senior CIA official, Milt Bearden at a Mujahideen training camp in North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987.
Chussudovski explains that the goal of the NATO actions is to destroy secular society and replace them with a fundamentalist religious structure. In other writing, he points out that only the most radical Muslim groups, insisting on Sharia Law, are supported armed and funded by the CIA.
Kabul University in the 1980's.
Your comment on our intense exchange on the financial sphere has reminded me of some other realities I am very thankful for, but not very deeply trusting in.
This weekend I had a wonderful discussion with my son on the 8 forms of capital. He and his family (wife and 2 kids) are quite aware of the change in expectations his generation has. But, I found it interesting that he had not thought of the investments he and his wife are making in culture, community, and ecological awareness as valuable forms of capital.
The lifestyle his family is living is a natural outgrowth of his generation’s current thinking. They have grown up with the keen sense that financializing everything in life is a bad path. Their gut sees dark clouds on that horizon.
I walked away from the conversation with a keen awareness of my own inner dependence on money for security. On a personal level I have a long way to go with developing a stronger dependence on viewing personal wellbeing and future security on the other 7 forms of capital.
Bottom line is that whatever financial system we have, it is only 1/8 as important as I have felt it is.
treebeard-
I guess for me the debate is, does any one particular system create a greater propensity for corruption than another or does the level of corruption of the individuals within a system/society drive the structures of the systems around them. Some might say this is a chicken and egg question. But I do believe that we do create the reality around us that we need to maximize our own personal evolution. If all the individuals within a system were completely committed to the idea, I will take no more value out of a system then I put in, then I don't think the type of financial system would be relevant.Another way of saying this is, can a system make the people inside it better than they otherwise would be?
Here's an interesting video derived from Sapolsky's work studying a baboon tribe in Africa. It suggests that a better system (and nicer people) can encourage anyone new coming into the system to behave better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRtyx3kEWiA
Unfortunately, in this instance, the event that enabled the change was fairly extreme.
Ultimately, while I'm fascinated by financial systems and their design, I also know that our systems are comprised entirely of people. Corrupt the people, and good systems will fail. During the housing bubble, we had laws on the books about fraud. Yet, nobody was prosecuted for all that banking fraud. People failed in that instance, not the system.
I think systems are just emergent properties of people and societies. The baboon tribe got a new system after the alpha males all died off - the new system emerged from the inner nature of the remaining members of the tribe, and (probably) because they were the majority, it remained in place 20 years later.
So perhaps for us to have a new financial system which behaves reasonably, and whose rules are actually enforced, we first must have some sort of internal change occur that prepares the ground for the new system to emerge. If the majority of people don't fall for the ponzi, then the financial system that majority puts in place and enforces won't allow such a thing either.
It does put the power in our own hands. And the responsibility. If we become in aggregate "better" people, we get a better system more or less as a side effect.
But I don't think the reverse is true: we can't just put a better system in place, then pray the existing majority of people suddenly start acting better.
I've really become convinced that TV as a form of mind control may be the key. Or a key. Watching it drops your brain into a receptive, hypnotic state - dropping you into a "program-me-please" mode. The recent class in evolutionary biology I took clued me in to just how much of our "free will" is actually heavily influenced by the very structure of our biology. If you know how the biology works, influencing the consciousness inside is much easier. The industry has had 60 years of trial-and-error to get it right, as well as a huge investment in science too. At this point, they know exactly what they're doing. We think we have free will, but on a larger scale, biology and repetition will - probably - win.
I'd be very interested to do a survey of TV hours spent of the group here at PP. My guess: we're on the low side.
Its interesting we left the discipline of the gold standard in 1970, about 20 years after TV had come on the scene. I'm not saying the gold standard was fantastic, just that - it did serve to constrain things, sort of a monetary "frontal cortex", which is the very part of the brain that the TV supposedly tends to weaken. There are lots of ways to restrain excess in a monetary system - but if the society overall suddenly becomes progressively less interested in exercising restraint, no system will do any good at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/09/ban-under-threes-watching-television
Dave:
Right on! Further to my post #34, I fear we underestimate the profound influence that the electronic media have on our developing society. As we dumb down the masses, through "spoon feeding", we will become more dependent on the bold and/or eccentric to find novel ways to move society to more rational and realistic choices. Unfortunately, it also allows avarice rein free, as well. The masses have demonstrated that the path of least resistance is the convenient default position for our "connected" times. It is the quality of those connections and the information shared that define the "thought currency" of the times. Marshall McLuen nailed it with his "the medium is the message" observation years ago. Read through the Lincoln/Douglass debates of the mid 19th century if you want a measure of how fair we have spiraled down the "techno-rabbit hole", especially in regards to language.
The young need to get their hands on "stuff" and be allowed to experiment and experience what this life offers. To experience the world through a pair of virtual goggles offers little for our youth if PP's tenets are to be heeded. A television ban for the under three crowd doesn't seem seem so radical, now, does it?
The promise of a rare Pokemon in the game of PokemonGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoYjVTbLWyo&feature=youtu.be
In my mind the financial system we live under is still a level away from where the real action is, and real change cannot be made on that level. Our relationships with ourselves, each other ecological structures around is where the action is and is the level where actual change can occur.Yes. This is that nagging feeling I always have when taking in information, no matter how brilliant, about financial systems. They are powerful and important on this planet in that they determine a lot of what we humans end up doing with our time here, and they are the motive behind disassembling the ecosystem. They can't be dismissed but they are not where the real action is. It's so good to hear someone clearly articulate that.
It is human comprehension, human relationship with self, other humans and Universe that created these extractive financial systems. How odd! They are not a feature of Earth, nor of the Universe as we can see it so far. They are a feature of us, to date.
Our comprehension has not been accurate. The systems we created do not fit reality. We mistook some things. The planet is NOT infinite, and we are NOT made happy and healthy by destruction of nature and other in mindless, merciless acquisition mode. At least part of the real action must lie in becoming able to correct our comprehension.
I've witnessed individuals deciding to wake up. There is growth, there is love, there is clear thinking. They cultivate it. HOW do we get that human capacity up and running en masse? With our hearts, minds and souls awake, we would have a chance at designing systems that account for reality.
Anyway, it's garden day. Earth and Sun. Water and Wind. Flowers and bugs. Photosynthesis always in action, creating our habitat for us. Lots of human sweat. Plenty of reality to account for!
This was one of the better Podcasts in a long while. Chris and James really had their energy high, on-point, and entertaining. I think I will take Chris's advice and get rid of the TV…although I did just buy an Amazon Fire TV stick a couple weeks ago!!
I ran across a NIH study that tested people with a certain type of brain damage to see if they showed signs of "The Pepsi Paradox".
What is the Pepsi Paradox? In a blind taste test, people tend to prefer Pepsi over Coke. In a non-blind taste test, people tend to prefer Coke over Pepsi. Numbers are significant - when the brand is used, Coke numbers jump from around 45% to 60%.
The executive summary: a certain type of brain damage seemed to confer immunity to Coke's advertisements. Those with the brain damage, who liked Pepsi when they tasted it blind, also liked Pepsi when they tasted it non-blind. Lest you think my title is an exaggeration - the name of the study itself: "Prefrontal cortex damage abolishes brand-cued changes in cola preference."
In other words, Coke advertising successfully makes us like a sugary beverage that doesn't taste nearly as good as its competition - and only if we suffer brain damage can we break free of this relentless conditioning. It takes brain damage to allow us to trust our own taste buds!
If that's not mind control, I don't know what you would end up calling it. What happens to free will and a "marketplace" when the consumer is pre-programmed to like an inferior product?
And this is just about selling sugar water. Imagine if you want to sell "torture is ok" or "Trump will doom us all", etc. Perhaps you 9/11 truth people could figure out some way the government could utilize this. [Not like I need to get you guys cycled up on the subject, but…the thought did occur to me.]
Here's the study itself: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2288573/
Here's the key statistical figure - VPMC = "brain damaged/immune group": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2288573/figure/F1/
And here's a summary article that's less science-researchy: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/subliminal/201205/why-people-choose-coke-over-pepsi
Sadly, I am not immune. I like Coke too, and now I know why.
Great baboon video Dave. Genes or aggression don't have to be destiny. Very heartening.
If things go bad there may be long periods of time when people are vulnerable and need to work with each other in all kinds of ways. If encouraged on a broader scale as well, town, county, moral can improve as people interact better and make-do. Of course ideally, troublesome behavior should be anticipated, redirected, or discouraged. Opportunity for a great new social model utilizing " slow " quality living.
My own brain recycles ~ every 7 weeks. There's palpable brain cell stress, for 3 weeks and neurogenesis/ destressing for ~3 weeks. And I thought I preferred coke too. It doesn't even look as tasty with a small "c "!
I am so glad to hear you drink Coke, too, Dave.
I do too, and I believe this is very important. Coke has a wonderful effect on humanity and brings us together in important ways. And what could be more important than that?
I have actually seen this happen.
My wife and I often go to the movies. Before the previews start they show short films about this remarkable beverage. Often there is a sincere but shy young adult artist, musician or athlete. He feels insecure. But a friend comes into give him a hug, claps him on the back and hands him a Coke. That changes everything. A smile blossoms, his confidence returns and he goes out to perform with enthusiasm and to wild acceptance and acclaim!
He offers Coke to the audience and the after event partiers who are all now his closest friends. Everyone is full of joy.
They then gather in a lush green mountain meadow joining hands held high above their heads, singing.
Any beverage with this amazing capacity to transform human life deserves to be number one.
ROFL!
SP, that is my all-time favorite of all your posts I've ever read!
Cold fizzy –> warm fuzzy!
You might be on to something, Sandpuppy! Or have I missed something? Talk about a confidence builder.
https://vimeo.com/174520539
Liking neither Coke nor Pepsi myself, I fear my brain damage must be especially bad.
Didn't watch the Olympics or the (Canadian pop culture reference alert) Tragically Hip Kingston concert either.
Yeah, probably terminal, late stage, etc.
Oh, well. It's been nice knowing all of you.