You're touching a sensitive wound here. I often am hostile towards some colleagues that classify a person as "dumb" or "smart". To be honest, I used to be such an ass myself when I was younger, but not anymore though. Let's get things straight:

How can one be determined as "smart" or "dumb" really? And most importantly, who is the one who judges him or her as such? Under what authority?

I once met a friend who insisted that I should take the MENSA test. I refused but he insisted that I should just go with him (he's a member) and see how a test looks like. I complied. TBH, I found the test marvelous! Very intuitive, brilliantly drawn and truly can certify someone's ability in math, combinational thought, pattern recognition, vocabulary etc.

What about the rest?

I mean what about a person who never learned what "Fluid intelligence" is or had never the chance (or the free time) to learn basic math problem solving, or what a geometrical pattern really represents. The short answer is "it's not for them". The long one is "It's the worst form of human classification" and the worst part, it's been done voluntarily (and erroneously)! To be fair, we must have a test for everybody - even those who cannot read or write.

What I'm saying here, is that IQ, EQ, or whatever mind capabilities a person has is subjected to training! Anyone can get better when you teach them how. Others are good in math, others in poetry, or music. We all have something in common: WE ARE EXCEPTIONAL AND UNIQUE!



PS: Congrats on connecting the dots on the Expression Problem Challenge.

1. Having the "blessed" opportunity to live in a country that has been devastated by TPTB the last 5 years, I can assure you, when something is so carefully designed and/or a long line of random events looks like a "conspiracy theory", it usually is. I've often been in front of Greek government officials the last 5 years that were mumbling about "conspiracy theories" when they had to cover up a dirty work of theirs. It's the "reverse psychology" trick that you deny the obvious because it's too obvious to accept it.


2. Don't get smart people wrong because of their disability to acknowledge something that it's conspicuous to you. As you're a fan of the late Steve Jobs, one of his worse flaws, IMHO, was that he had been harsh to his colleagues. Not everybody functions the way you do. This is prominent between the younger persons. Their ability to understand something difficult varies from person to person, sometimes even the smartest ones are failing to understand the simplest things. After all these years, I tend to believe that the Pareto principle is in a dynamic equilibrium where the "best" 20% often becomes a part of the "worst" 80% and vice versa. People need their time. Period.


3. I'm sure you're aware that we are -literally- talking about the same things here, right? A long story short, if one has the way to predict accurately the outcome of such a model, at any given time, I'll be glad to help him document it and have my name under his Nobel prize...

(Yes, it's THAT big).

I will do it for you since I agree with most of your points. But; (again for the sake of argument) is there a possibility that his economic model doesn't NEED to incorporate such a parameter? To place this on a real basis, "does it matter WHO is driving the ship?". We know for a fact that *someone* has to lead, does it really matter if he's opposed to somebody else for real (or not)?

My point is, that when you mentally conceive the chaotic design of an economic model that incorporates (basically) stock exchange/oil/gold/etc numbers, the causality effect of a (probable) opposition between USA and  Russia is a minority. Think about it as a coupled oscillation in Physics. Either way, the one might interfere to the other, but THE SYSTEM is one and only!

Besides, I'm *still* not sure he's out of the "inner circle" in order to be so accurate. THAT would explain his denial for their existence. Besides, it requires more than a sophisticated predictive model to pinpoint certain events with the accuracy of a certain date, if you ask me... Of course, I'm not claiming for the non-false of my thoughts. Just posting them to give you another perspective.

Cheers.

Woah! That's the definition of "fair game"...

@JorgeStolfi:

Thanks for the informational post. Are you aware of the "stress tests" that China incorporates for about a couple of weeks now towards the global economic system? What is your professional opinion of the commodities drop and how this is going to evolve within a time period of (let's say) 2 months?

Thanks in advance for your insightful answer...

I've decided to put kenji on ignore for flooding the Wall Observer Thread with reverse Monero promotion. Please update your lists.

Latest additions to The List as of 2015-08-03:

I believe that a great number of the allegedly "verified" accounts were not at all verified, so you have a point there. I also think that we miss a part of the story that has to do with the missing 650K and in whose hands those funds are. I expect that Kobayashi brought in MK because he thought the missing BTCs were embezzled by him (or a close colleague). These musings, of course, are only scenarios that may have nothing to do with the real deal. We'll see.

Pardon me but this is not a competition (the way I see it). It's a way to expel a member who has absolutely no interest in bitcoin and his only interest is to provoke, irritate and troll everybody in this place. I'm not sure about his motives; I'm guessing he's on payroll or maybe he's just here for trolling (too much effort for such a task if you ask me).

I haven't added EVERY account of his in the List; but I guess it becomes too much of effort (for him) to see which is unbanned and start typing there in order for the users who are using The List, actually read what he has to say. I assure you though, if you choose to use this list, the most commonly used threads on this forum become a paradise.

Cheers.

This is actually a clockwork mechanism, not that hard to predict what will happen. I'm pretty curious if we (Greece as a country) can hold up until Oct. 1; the far left wing of Syriza is behaving hostile, towards the PM's decisions about the Greek Memorandum III (on the talks right now). I concur with most people here who believe we're going for elections much sooner (before mid September).

The next move will (have to) be a bold change of policy for the whole EU, introducing a Federalization model that overcomes political decisions and finally kills democracy in its own homeland. Very carefully plotted plan that is based on the "shock doctrine" practices of the mid-60s. First you lead the situation to  the adiexodo, while you have, a-priori, the "solution" ready to solve the problem.

Piece of cake... 

Meanwhile in Greece:

"Black Monday for the Athens Stock exchange. More than 17% drop, limit down for the Greek Bank stocks."

http://www.imerisia.gr/article.asp?catid=26502&subid=2&pubid=113640168

I believe the most possible scenario is to get a portion of the 200K that are reported as "found". I'm not sure what will happen with the other 650K "missing" not to mention the fiat money that people had into MtGox's bank accounts. I'm confident that the best we can expect is a 1/4 of the coins, not sure we will get them though...

I believe this should've been done since last February - March. Most possibly, we'd know, by now, what the real story was (behind the story that they let us know so far) and found out earlier about MK incompetence to run the most illustrious business of the century. Makes me wonder (still can't believe) how a guy like him made it to the top of the Bitcoin world...

Thanks LFC_Bitcoin. Guess what ...they keep coming. FIVE for today. Please update.

Latest additions to The List as of 2015-08-02:

Two more added for today. It seems he waited for cheap coins but didn't turn out as well as he thought...

Latest additions to The List as of 2015-08-02:


Thanks smoothie. If you notice something I missed out please add the nickname here.
Cheers.

To add to the subject, (mainly because I'm the one who brought it up)



http://management.simplicable.com/management/new/examples-of-the-pareto-principle

That was really spot on Klee. As previously stated, I'm not trading but I'm very closely monitoring this thread. Congrats and keep going.

Five more additions to the list. If I missed someone please post his username here; and please update.

Latest additions to The List as of 2015-08-01:

I'm seriously ROTFLMAO here. He's either trolling or we're talking about the perfect guy (MK) to do everything wrong (in every aspect possible)...

Finally, a sign that we can actually learn WTF happened with MTGox. BTW: Just got the news that Mark was arrested this morning by the Tokyo Police.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150801_05.html

Unfortunately, it's not only the Clintons. Following the 80-20 (aka: Pareto principle) most people don't (or simply won't) understand how their neighbor steals from them. I'm copy-pasting the latest from Yanis Varoufakis from his page regarding the situation in the Eurozone:

Something is rotten in the eurozone kingdom – my op-ed in the Financial Times
Plan would have eased Greece’s chronic liquidity shortage, writes Yanis Varoufakis in the Financial Times.

A paradox lurks in the foundations of the eurozone. Governments in the monetary union lack a central bank that has their back, while the central bank lacks a government to support it.

This paradox cannot be eliminated without fundamental institutional changes. But there are steps member states can take to ameliorate some of its negative effects. One such step that we contemplated during my tenure at the Greek ministry of finance focused on the chronic liquidity shortage of a stressed public sector and its impact on the long-suffering private sector.

In Greece, where the central bank is unable to support the state’s endeavours, government arrears to the private sector — both companies and individuals — have been a drag on the economy, adding to deflationary pressures since as far back as 2008. Such arrears consistently exceeded 3 per cent of gross domestic product for five years.

The phenomenon is both the cause and consequence of delayed tax payments to the state, reinforcing the cycle of generalised illiquidity.

To address this problem, our simple idea was to allow the multilateral cancellation of arrears between the state and the private sector using the tax office’s existing payments platform. Taxpayers, whether individuals or organisations, would be able to create reserve accounts that would be credited with arrears owed to them by the state. They would then be able to transfer credits from their reserve account either to the state (in lieu of tax payments) or to any other reserve account.

Suppose, for example, Company A is owed €1m by the state; and it owes €30,000 to an employee — plus another €500,000 to Company B, which provided it with goods and services. The employee and Company B also owe, respectively, €10,000 and €200,000 in taxes to the state. In this case the proposed system would allow for the immediate cancellation of at least €210,000 in arrears.

Suddenly, an economy such as Greece’s would acquire important degrees of freedom within the existing European monetary union. In a second phase of development, which we did not have time to consider properly, the system would be made accessible through smartphone apps and identity cards, guaranteeing that it would be widely adopted.

The envisaged payments system could be developed to create a substitute for fully functioning public debt markets, especially during a credit crunch such as the one that has afflicted Greece since 2010. Organisations or individuals could buy credits from the tax office online using their normal bank accounts, and add them to their reserve account. These credits could be used after, say, a year to pay future taxes at a discount (for example, 10 per cent).

As long as the total level of tax credits was capped, and fully transparent, the result would be a fiscally responsible increase in government liquidity and a quicker path back to the money markets.

Handing over the reins of the finance ministry to my friend, Euclid Tsakalotos, on July 6, I presented a full account of the ministry’s projects, priorities and achievements during my five months in office. The new payments system outlined here was part of that presentation. No member of the press took any notice.

But when a subsequent telephone discussion with a large number of international investors, organised by my friend Norman Lamont, and David Marsh of the London-based Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, was leaked — despite the Chatham House rule we agreed with listeners, under which speakers are not identified — the press had a field day. Committed to unlimited openness and full transparency, I granted OMFIF permission to release the tapes.

While I understand press excitement about elements of that exchange, such as having to consider unorthodox means of gaining access to my own ministry’s systems, only one matter is of significance from a public interest perspective. There is a hideous restriction of national sovereignty imposed by the “troika” of lenders on Greek ministers, who are denied access to departments of their ministries pivotal in implementing innovative policies.

When a loss of sovereignty, arising from unsustainable official debt, yields suboptimal policies in already stressed nations, one knows that there is something rotten in the euro’s kingdom.

Read the last paragraph again; this is not only in the Eurozone. The USofA has it too; it may be unnoticeable to the unpracticed eye, but that's due to their infrastructure! It lies behind a bold federalism -which the EU is trying to forcefully establish- right now. I've posted here my musings about such an initiative; it will FAIL boldly. Not because the people will arise against their plans (80% are non-doers), but because the economic inauguration is rotten in its very own roots.

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/08/01/something-is-rotten-in-the-eurozone-kingdom-my-op-ed-in-the-financial-times/

Received my 0.2BTCs, left some positive feedback. I'm enrolling for another month if it's ok with you.

Cheers.