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I am scrambling the password of the 'contagion' account, so I will no longer be able to login nor post from that account name.
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I am scrambling the password of the 'contagion' account, so I will no longer be able to login nor post from that account name.
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Why are people still listening to these idiot gold promoters? I was debating Jim Willie in email back in 2007, when he admitted to me he is an alcoholic. He made no sense then and still doesn't now. Do I need to publish some of these old emails? |
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I'd like to take a moment from your learned "OMG, economic devastation" discussion to share some great news: For Bitcoin, it's already in progress. We broke $280! You may now return to prognosticatin' doom & disaster  I predicted the intial drop to $350 back when Bitcoin was $600s the first time, then I predicted the second drop to $300 when it was $600s the next time, and in September I said Bitcoin would fall below $200 before it bottoms. |
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CoinCube, probably the bastion of white America in WA State will split from the USA and join Canada, with Vancouver and Canada having extremely heavy Asian immigration[1]. So yes, you may simply economically and culturally enjoin Asia while remaining physically in North America. http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/09/11/will-the-usa-also-break-up-into-regions/Will the USA Also Break-up Into Regions?
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; A friend of mine attended one of your Edinburgh conferences here in the nineties where he said they introduced you as a 7th generation Scotsman not as an American. He said you answered the question in 1997 and said that Scotland would seek independence from the UK starting in 2011. You also said the USA would eventually split because of the cultural differences between the regions and the driving force there would also be the social program burden...
ANSWER: Yes, the forecasts I delivered there in Edinburgh remain unchanged. Keep in mind that whatever the SNP says today to win is not necessarily the final outcome. The split will not come until 2016 and then the world economy will be turning down...
As for the break-up of the USA, the computer has been warning for decades now that the 2016 election will see a sharp rise in third-party activity. The Republican Party may split again. We see the internal civil war with the Tea Party people. This is the core of the break-up for what lies behind that is culture and religion. Once the economy turns down, this will accelerate.
It appears that Hillary will be the Democratic candidate and that will merely solidify the Republic split. By 2032, the other side of this 51.6 year wave looks to be a starkly different world. The USA will split and China will become the Financial Capital of the World. http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/01/02/boehner-on-the-way-out/Boehner on the Way Out?
John Boehner, the current Republican Speaker of the House, just may be thrown out. He wages war against the Tea Party and threw off every financial committee anyone who supported Ron Paul...
Currently more than 50% of the Republicans want him gone. He has to stand for election as Speaker and we could at least get some reform if he is kicked out in House elections. http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/12/26/224-collapsing-wave-structure-point-to-breakup-of-usa/ | 224 Year Collapsing Wave Structure Points to Breakup of USA
The CONFIDENCE in government is truly collapsing. The latest CNN Poll shows that 73% of Americans feel Congress has done nothing worthwhile. The approval rating for the Democrats has collapsed by 6% and this is all part of the process of shifting from a Public Confidence Wave to a Private Confidence Wave.
There are two types of waves on the 224 Year Cycle – the Collapsing Wave and the Protracted Wave. It appears that the USA is in the Collapsing Wave formation meaning that the 224 year runs from the birth to the peak with the total duration running minimum 296 years with the optimum being 309.6 years meaning the society splits and does not remain intact. A Protracted Wave is a society view where the wave is measured peak to peak totaling 224 years. The second Protracted Wave formation is where governments come and go, but society survives and reforms remaining intact. In the Collapsing Wave structure where it is 224 year from birth to peak, the overall duration appears to be is 296-309 years. for the conclusion whereby society breaks apart and fragmentation emerges..In the case of Rome, 309 years from the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC is 265AD where Rome broke apart and the Gallic Empire emerged under Postumus (259-268AD).
This Collapsing Wave structure that the United States appears to be in means it is a one-time-wonder and that the United States will break-up and the there will be no more “united” union. This is becoming self-evidence in the polarization of politics with tremendous differences in culture on a regional basis. The Obamacare is just one aspect revealing the undercurrent whereby one segment of society believes it has a right to force their views upon another group.
So unfortunately, the USA does not appear to be destined to remain intact otherwise we would have seen and overall structured wave of 224 years. We seem to be in the Collapsing Wave with the 224 years was from birth to peak with an overall duration of 309.6 years at best. This appears to be like the Collapsing Wave in Imperial Rome itself whereas from the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC to the peak in the glory of Rome and population in the city took place under Marcus Aurelius that was 224 years later in 180AD. The decline that followed brought total chaos, sovereign debt crisis, massive government seizure of capital, fragmentation of the Empire, and in the end, Rome was no longer the Capitol and that became Constantinople followed by the split of East and West. We are much more akin to the this type of Collapsing Wave formation whereby society collapses and breaks apart. Now we have the Cycle of War turning in 2014 that appears to be focused within civil unrest at least initially. |
Constitution is Just a Scrap of Paper
...
ANSWER: If I were to speak from hope rather than experience, I would agree with you. But the reality is I have studied constitutional law very intensely. There is nothing that the Founders did that has been retained. We have no ability to even bring a suit against the government, they have to give you permission first. I would attack the whole thing under civil rights, but that gets as far as the prejudice of the judge. It’s a dirty word they call “discretion” to violate your rights.
Take the Freedom of Speech. Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, Article Six, Clause 2 establishes the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and U.S. treaties as “the supreme law of the land”. It provides that these are the highest form of law in the U.S. legal system, and mandates that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either the state constitution or state law of any state. This was the secret federalization of the USA. This is how the Feds broke up the segregation in the South. They said that no state could pass a law against the Feds using the Supremacy Clause. Hence, the Civil Rights enforcement during the 1960s was orchestrated this way. The Feds write a law that supersede whatever the state desires. Therein will ultimately be the breakup of the Federal government because of this clause.
Now for the hypocrisy. Government is able to arrest anyone who protests to exert their First Amendment Freedom of Speech that they disagree with. They simply arrest you for walking on the grass as they did with Coxley or failing to have a permit – NEVER for expressing your opinion. OMG. There is the First Amendment. They get to arrest you for some other violation not because of what you say.
Every single protest has been broken up this way since the late 1890s. The Feds justified sending in tanks in 1932 to kill Veterans in the Bonus Army calling them “criminals” and communists simply because they asked for what had been promised. Yet, call someone a criminal and you then justify killing them.
Those who protest against the Income Tax go to jail all the time because they try to argue that the tax is supposed to be voluntary. The tax protesters do not pay and argue they should have that right. This is why you have to break everything down very carefully whether it is taxes, the concept of inflation or the definition of political systems. Yes – the income tax is voluntary. However, filing is not! You MUST file an income tax return and TELL them what you owe. They CANNOT imprison you for not paying, it is FAILURE TO FILE. Wesley Snipes was sent to prison after being convicted of three misdemeanor counts back in 2008 for failing to file tax returns from 1999-2001. It was not the failure to pay, that would be unconstitutional. It was the failure to file.
Unfortunately, the Constitution is way too malleable in the hands of government appointed judges for life. It is a joke that we have even a Tripartite government. Presidents claim EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE and then claim the power for “signing statements” where they can simply instruct their own Executive Department not to enforce this law. That is plainly UNCONSTITUTIONAL for it circumvents the pretended legislative branch. The EU Commission need not obey the Parliament – well guess what – the President can do the same. They also have claimed the right to issue dictatorial decrees without Congress called – Executive Orders. Hello – Roosevelt’s confiscation of gold was an Executive Order – not legislation passed by the people.
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/01/07/separatist-movements-are-also-alive-in-the-usa-goodbye-california/ | Separatist Movements are Also Alive in the USA – Goodbye California?
I have reported how there are separatist movements cropping up all over the place. We will see Scotland come to a vote this year in 2014 about separating from the United Kingdom. As taxes rise and finger-pointing increases, the rising trend is to separation. The building resentment in Southern Europe to break away from the Eurozone is gaining support in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The only thing they got out of the deal besides higher debts was import-duty-free German cars and French wine. Most restaurants in Rome will not even serve French wines. Even in Switzerland the bias is toward Italian wines.
The separatist trend is also alive and well and we will see this movement gaining popularity with the Bible-Belt looking to separate from the USA leaving the Democrats to themselves. If the Democrats won in 2016, there might be civil war. This separatist movement exists even in Texas, but now it is rising higher in California. There, it is primarily North v South, but there is an argument to divide California into 6 states. This is all part of the decline and fall of socialism. Obamacare has been a total disaster. Even my personal insurance went up by 20% and others a lot more or cancelled. It would have been cheaper to just pay the medical bills for the 1.1 million people and leave the rest of us alone. But no possible way. The government has a policy. If it ain’t broken – break it. And if it is broken – try to screw it up so bad you can blame someone else. If it does work well, there must be something wrong. |
How far in the future does your computer model project?
QUESTION: How far in the future does your computer model project?
ANSWER: One of the fascinating aspects about modeling the world economy is you rapidly discover that the complexity is enormous, yet the outcome is far more predictable Long-Term than Short-Term. This may seem illogical at first, but once you comprehend the dynamics of the system it becomes understandable.
The Long-Term is far easier to predict with even 100% accuracy than Short-Term. Why? There is a lot of noise within the system so that markets can rally today and drop tomorrow yet the closing prices are nothing dramatically different. The Long-Term is what confuses people. Like the whole reasoning behind gold, fiat, deficits, and the dollar. People look at the national debt and say the system has to burst. That may be true that the sustainability of ANY system inevitably falls into collapse. However, the question is always TIMING.
Bretton Woods was a fatal design as was the Euro trying to create a single currency yet retain individual sovereign debt. That does not mean that the system would be incapable of functioning for a few decades. However, such system cannot be sustained indefinitely and will always collapse.
Therefore, you can state with confidence that the Euro will collapse, as will the Dollar and the Yen. The question is simply WHEN? Consequently, the Long-Term can be predicted with ease; the TIMING is something altogether different.
Our model is concerned about TIME and the interplay between all the factors that combine to make or break the trend. This is not about personal opinion for NOBODY can predict the future with respect to complexity and TIME from a pure opinion or gut reaction.
Our computer can accurately project Long-Term trends out into the hundreds of years. Why? Because it is only a matter of TIME that all things must change and evolve. The United States will break-up as a political entity and it is the people’s fault because human nature allows crazy politicians to go unpunished for decades before revolution bursts out onto the scene.
This is what the conspiracy nuts cannot get through their head who insist Ukraine was orchestrated by a CIA plot. All the desire of the CIA to accomplish a change in government may exist. However, the best that can be accomplished is a coup – not a revolution. Why? A coup does not require the PEOPLE – only a small group. A Revolution requires the PEOPLE and that will only be accomplished when the economic trend declines and forces the people to take action. The USA will go through this VERY SAME process. You will see the rise of civil unrest as the economy turns down after 2015.75 and uprisings like Occupy Wall Street unfold but with more violence. That will NOT be a CIA plot – and people who fail to comprehend this important difference are just too biased in their views to see the writing on the wall.
herefore, the Long-Term is very predictable that there will be a revolution in the USA when the taxes rise and the standard of living collapses so that people have then lost their future. What makes such changes take place is ALWAYS the economy. If you can map the world economy, you can map the future.
The ONLY question is TIME. http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/01/01/time-fourth-dimension-catalyst-v-object/TIME & Fourth Dimension – Catalyst v Object
QUESTION: Wine and Energy have one thing in common… real estate ( thinking Linearly). However if one uses “Relativity Theory”, we can go deeper. Relativity says,Essentially,when you measure an object ( in this case price) to determine it’s velocity, momentum and how it experiences time you must measure it in relation to something else.
I’m guessing that Wine and Energy move through time in a similar fashion. They don’t really affect one another, they merely experience time in the same way. One may move faster, slower and with less or more momentum but they correlate in how they experience time.
ANSWER: Yes. It is not merely real estate. You are overlooking the common element – human nature. Does it take a given amount of time for a particular commodity to move? Or is it that the TIME is a constant factor and the mover and shaker is human nature? If we assume the object rather than the catalyst, commonality remains hidden. Wine and Oil appear to be different only on the surface. Yet they both reveal a trend of expanding production into the high based upon human decisions predicated upon confidence at that moment for the majority assume whatever trend is in motion remains in motion. Then the collapse in confidence drives the price down. This is why every investigation of a crash is unable to find the culprit. The truth lies simply in the actions of the majority. Scare the herd and you create a stampede and panic.
The difference in the rate of change of course exists unique to each instrument. However, the trend is the common bond and that reflects back to the trend in the catalyst – not the instrument. Observing TIME as a fourth dimension separate and apart from the “fundamentals” reveals a whole new world. |
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Asian birthrates are only higher in poor countries. In every country or city where Asians have become wealthy their birth rates have plummeted.
By the time a couple billion Asians are as rich as Westerners were, it will be some decades after Asia had been the center of the financial world since 2032. Let's talk about what is happening in our lifetime, not what happens after you and I are dead.
The table below is US fertility rates by ethnicity.
That data is ambiguous because it doesn't reflect Western white women delaying pregnancy to much later in life, which affects how fast the population grows and whether the demographics shifts from youthful to old. So not only are white women less fertile than Latinos and blacks, they are delaying pregnancy which is means the white population is growing even slower than the relative fertility rates indicate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States#Average_age_at_marriage1970: Men 23.2, Women 20.6
1980: Men 24.7, Women 22.0
1990: Men 26.1, Women 23.9
2000: Men 26.8, Women 25.1
2010: Men 28.2, Women 26.1 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/sep/03/race.worldNon-whites will be majority in US and Europe by 2050
The next several decades are likely to be Asian ones. However, if Japan is any sort of template for Asia in general it's golden period will be relatively brief.
All the waterfall rapid action in the Knowledge Age will be over the next 2-3 decades. You and I will be dead after a few decades. And the oscillation between East and West is much more frequent than you are implying, i.e. you are implying the USA was special and sustained an empire longer as if you are implying the USA was the center of the financial world since 1700s, but that is not the case: http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/08/05/the-shift-from-west-to-the-east/  | You are suffering the typical Westerner philosophical mistake of not thinking in terms of cycles and wanting to think in terms of control and sustainability. In fact, this philosophical difference may be the main reason Asians will dominate the Knowledge Age, because they are naturally attuned to change and adaptation; whereas, the Westerners want to cement the foundation and build Towers of Babel.
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http://armstrongeconomics.com/models/In Asia cycles are part of the religion. Richard E. Nesbett wrote a good book entitled “The Geography of Thought, How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why.” He attributed his work to a Chinese student who said: “You know, the difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line.” He goes on to quote him: “The Chinese believe in constant change, but with things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to wide range of events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can’t understand the part without understanding the whole. Westerners live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects.”
Hispanics are largely Catholic and family oriented.
Uh oh... Christianity and Islam may be the most popular religions other than government, and the three thus are responsible for the most deaths. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4289&cpage=1#comment-379180Christianity is probably the best of the world’s religions No. Buddhism. (I’m leaving out my own neopaganism because it only has about 60 years of history and arguably isn’t a “religion” at all, having no aim to be a total explanatory system.) I’m not a Buddhist (and someday I’ll explain why I’m not in detail on this blog), but the Buddhists have totted up the lowest massacre count of any of the major religions. That’s convincing evidence of superiority right there. On the positive side, Buddhist philosophy, art, and meditative practices are astonishingly subtle and rich. Christianity is absolutely up there among the most deadly religions in history. True. When evaluating such claims, it’s helpful to ignore all the rationalizations believers fling around and consider only the total body count. Christianity and Islam are in a class by themselves when it comes to lethal evil in religion. Only Marxism surpasses them. Yeah as I said they love government and socialism religions too. Family oriented like a Mafia. Wait I am going to find a video from Argentina or Brazil (or any other Latin country) to illustrate my point... ...here we go. This reminds me of the machetes and 12" knives I saw in the city when I was in Colombia: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2014/09/argentina-gunpoint-robbery-caught-on.html (Buenos Aires, Argentina) Ferfal's commentary: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2014/09/lessons-from-argentina-wrol-vs-real.htmlYou must watch the video in the linked blog above, as he explains that violent crime in the USA has increased by 1/3 from 2010 to 2012!As a Brazilian, I'm sad to learn that crime in Argentina is this bad. As our countries were battling authoritarian populism or messianic socialism at the same time, I always had the impression that crime wasn't as bad in Argentina as in Brazil. Sadly, it seems to be in exactly the same calamitous situation.
As a matter of fact, crime was why I emigrated. I made up my mind when my neighbor's daughter was kidnapped to the ATM one evening parking her car in the garage back from college. Thank God nothing elder happened to her, but it got me thinking about my then little daughter.
People in developed countries have no idea how bad life adjust violent crime is. I can attest to everything you said and corroborate that that's hire life in Brazil is too. The odds of this being captured on headcam show just how prevalent muggings are in Latin America. Even rural Argentina is not safe: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2014/11/rural-crime-keeps-getting-worse-what-do.htmlHey I grew up in inner city New Orleans and Baton Rouge. I used to go hang out in the Projects. I've hung out in El Paso, traveled all over Mexico and Guatemala by land. I think you may live a sheltered life. I have been all over the Philippines and can make a realistic comparison. |
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Youth are naturally autodidactic!Perhaps you and I just disagree on the timing. A Knowledge Age will do little for most people I see and know. Here in the USA, ahh, maybe 1% - 2% of our people are capable of thriving now as you did with your $30,000 / month income from programming. Just off-hand, I can think of but TWO friends or acquaintances that have made BIG $$$ by using their brains (one a PhD in Geology, he's an "oil finder", maybe not so great right now though...; the other a PhD in Electrical Engineering, he designs high-speed chips). The others I know who are wealthy, or near-wealthy, got there via luck (born into it) and/or similar.
Indeed, the people aren't ready, and they want to protect "stored capital" which isn't adding anything to prosperity, which is why the people are voting for socialism and to sustain the Industrial Age which enslaves them — an ironic " catch-22" dilemma. But as I have detailed upthread, Asia is more ready than the West. The youth are more adaptable, and the West is lacking youth in terms of the boomers demographic holds the reins on the politics and government. The West is old. Asia is youth and vibrant. The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives, by Google's Eric Schmidt: Everywhere we looked, we saw mobile devices. That surprised us. At that time, Iraq had been a war zone for more than 6 years ... most people had unreliable access to food, water, and electricity. Even basic commodities had become prohibitively expensive ... Yet as we came to learn, despite all of the pressing problems in their lives, Iraqis prioritized technology. http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves?language=enSpeaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own — and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves? http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/24/tablet-as-teacher-poor-ethiopian-kids-learn-abcs/1788863/http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves ... http://www.humanipo.com/news/2256/illiterate-ethiopian-children-manage-to-hack-android/lliterate Ethiopian children manage to hack Android ...
Negroponte has revealed that the illiterate Ethiopian children they had given the locked down Motorola Xoom tablets earlier this year have within five months not only started teaching themselves English, but managed to bypass the security on the tablet’s operating system to customize settings and to activate disabled hardware such as the camera.
“We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up.
“Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android.
“Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.” The waterfall collapse into the Knowledge Age will be because economically Asia will find its geographical liability is eliminated and the governments in Asia are very weak (only a small % of the GDP) and thus the people are much more autonomous, thus rapidly adaptable. In Peru, who cares about knowledge (not many)? Peru kinda sorta counts as about a "middle income country" as they come, with an emphasis on metals exports (and so at great risk if you are completely right). My xxxx (early 20s) in Lima owns a small rent-a-computer-by-the-hour store across the street from one of Peru's best universities. What are all of those students doing on the computer for 35 cents / hour? Yep, playing games. And my xxxx is NOT "Knowledge Age" ready, LOL (or would that be /LOL?).
So, the USA and Peru do not have high percentages of direct beneficiaries of a Knowledge Age.
Latinos and Americans are not as focused on education as East Asians are. Hispanics (Latinos) are heavily into socialism, drugs, machismo, tattoos, and other vices... and also they idolize USA culture, e.g. rappers and pop culture. Latin America has polluted the USA and vice versa in decadent synergy. Have you looked at the crime rates for muggings in Latin America! Horrendous compared to for example the Philippines or Vietnam. The problem for Latin America is they don't have the rice culture, high density population synergies of Asia that I explained near the bottom of my prior post. Really the generative essence is geography and rice. If you want to see the future, leave the Americas and come to Asia. I have some personal interest in South America due to the sparse population density. But in terms of the Knowledge Age, fuhgeddaboudit except maybe for São Paulo, Brazil. Howzabout the BRICs? China and Russia I believe are far too burdened with oppressive dictatorships (with people who readily accept their rulers) to be ready for Knowledge anytime soon. India and Brazil? Ah, no. Perhaps a very small segment might be Knowledge Age ready in the coming years, but I would predict just a tiny few, the very bright and very motivated. 1%? [EDIT: I have known some very bright students and professors from India and Bangladesh here in the USA] You do not understand Asia. Chinese citizens are mostly autonomous now. The key is all about the fact that the government is small (as a % of GDP) and mostly gets out the way. And the high population densities and youthful demographics combined with a high prioritization of technology adoption and education. Europe (ex-Russia) has many bright people, and they are roughly as free and educated as Americans. So maybe 1% - 3% are Knowledge-ready there (?).
Europe is dominated by old people. That is why up to 60% of the youth are unemployed. NOT ADAPTABLE. MORASS. RIGOR MORTIS. Same as USA but much worse. Sum it up: MAYBE 1% worldwide are in a position for the foreseeable future to bring on the Knowledge Age and benefit the most.
It only took the illiterate Ethopian kids in a remote village who had never seen a computer before, less than a minute to open the boxes and find the on switch. Within 5 months, they had taught themselves English and had become computer programmers hacking Android! Sorry for the rude awakening, but adaptability is everything.
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I wrote upthread that technology would always find a way to maintain anonymity. And now some evidence... http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/01/03/iris-scan-beaten-with-cell-phone-cameras/Iris Scan Beaten with Cell Phone Cameras
A hacker has cracked at the Congress of the Chaos Computer Club, the thumbprint of Ursula von der Leyen and the iris of Chancellor Merkel.Therefore, the hacker used simple press photos of politicians. It appears that it is sufficient for a cell phone camera to fool biometric recognition systems, such as the Irsis scan. |
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Why the geography of the USA vs. China has inverted (now a liability for USA, formerly for China)If you are interested in the future, this may be the most important economics insight you will ever read: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg10023708#msg10023708This may be the most important economics insight I've made. It is fundamental and generative.
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Christianity and Islam may be the most popular religions other than government, and the three thus are responsible for the most deaths. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4289&cpage=1#comment-379180Christianity is probably the best of the world’s religions No. Buddhism. (I’m leaving out my own neopaganism because it only has about 60 years of history and arguably isn’t a “religion” at all, having no aim to be a total explanatory system.) I’m not a Buddhist (and someday I’ll explain why I’m not in detail on this blog), but the Buddhists have totted up the lowest massacre count of any of the major religions. That’s convincing evidence of superiority right there. On the positive side, Buddhist philosophy, art, and meditative practices are astonishingly subtle and rich. Christianity is absolutely up there among the most deadly religions in history. True. When evaluating such claims, it’s helpful to ignore all the rationalizations believers fling around and consider only the total body count. Christianity and Islam are in a class by themselves when it comes to lethal evil in religion. Only Marxism surpasses them. |
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USA's geographical strength has become its liabilityhttp://www.amazon.com/review/R17IQT2GITQFUJ/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&asin=0307957136&cdForum=FxKJW2C2LNGGFX&cdMsgID=Mx1CDZI81F946RK&cdMsgNo=3&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx3LMVROYOXJZ1T&store=books#Mx1CDZI81F946RKThe issue in these two pages (18-19) was that of globalized competition for jobs, wherein borders and community boundaries fall in the face of internet outsourcing of jobs. Eric Schmidt and Cohen [in The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives] oversimplify as they discuss how workers in Orange County must compete with workers in Uruguay. How is this oversimplified? By not accounting for the multiplicity of factors that come into play, for example, what is the cost of living for a working family in Orange County compared to an overseas location? What are the working conditions of any number of overseas labor markets?
But the most striking case of over simplication comes near the bottom of page 19:
"Globalization's critics will decry this erosion of local monopolies, but it should be embraced, because this is how our socieities will move forward and continue to innovate."
So, where are the problems with this sentence? At least two instances. Case one: to use the word "MONOPOLIES" when referring to local workers is a needlessly perjorative phrase, especially in the US. Mark you're reading the book as an American citizen while the author probably views himself as a citizen of the world. The line about Uraguay competing against Orange county probably sounds like great news to anyone outside of Orange County. People in Uraguay probably think it's the best thing ever. I'm with you that this is bad for America but this boat has already sailed. NAFTA and globalization have already pitted the US manufacturing class against people in South America who are hoping to be the first person in their village with indoor plumbing. You can't really fault the authors for pointing it out. On the whole, the human race is better for this, but the US worker, not so much....how photonics is doubling the data coming out of fiber-optic cables every nine months, but no insight as to when Cox Communications (my local source of Internet frustration) and others will replace cable Internet with fiber-optics. http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/31/technology/internet-speeds/Americans pay more for slower Internet
By James O'Toole @jtotoole October 31, 2014: 5:52 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
When it comes to Internet speeds, the U.S. lags behind much of the developed world.
That's one of the conclusions from a new report by the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation, which looked at the cost and speed of Internet access in two dozen cities around the world.
Clocking in at the top of the list was Seoul, South Korea, where Internet users can get ultra-fast connections of roughly 1000 megabits per second for just $30 a month. The same speeds can be found in Hong Kong and Tokyo for $37 and $39 per month, respectively.
For comparison's sake, the average U.S. connection speed stood at 9.8 megabits per second as of late last year, according to Akamai Technologies.
Residents of New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. can get 500-megabit connections thanks to Verizon (VZ, Tech30), though they come at a cost of $300 a month.
There are a few cities in the U.S. where you can find 1000-megabit connections. Chattanooga, Tenn., and Lafayette, La. have community-owned fiber networks, and Google (GOOGL, Tech30) has deployed a fiber network in Kansas City. High-speed Internet users in Chattanooga and Kansas City pay $70, while in Lafayette, it's $110.
The problem with fiber networks is that they're hugely expensive to install and maintain, requiring operators to lay new wiring underground and link it to individual homes. Many smaller countries with higher population density have faster average speeds than the United States. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/upshot/why-the-us-has-fallen-behind-in-internet-speed-and-affordability.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0America’s slow and expensive Internet is more than just an annoyance for people trying to watch “Happy Gilmore” on Netflix. Largely a consequence of monopoly providers, the sluggish service could have long-term economic consequences for American competitiveness.
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The reason the United States lags many countries in both speed and affordability, according to people who study the issue, has nothing to do with technology. Instead, it is an economic policy problem — the lack of competition in the broadband industry.
“It’s just very simple economics,” said Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies antitrust and communications and was an adviser to the Federal Trade Commission. “The average market has one or two serious Internet providers, and they set their prices at monopoly or duopoly pricing.” http://theweek.com/article/index/257404/why-is-american-internet-so-slowAccording to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. The leaders in the world are Hong Kong at 72.49 Mbps and Singapore on 58.84 Mbps. And America? Averaging speeds of 20.77 Mbps, it falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.
Its upload speeds are even worse. Globally, the U.S. ranks 42nd with an average upload speed of 6.31 Mbps, behind Lesotho, Belarus, Slovenia, and other countries you only hear mentioned on Jeopardy.
So how did America fall behind? How did the country that literally invented the internet — and the home to world-leading tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Facebook, Google, and Cisco — fall behind so many others in download speeds?
Susan Crawford argues that "huge telecommunication companies" such as Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T have "divided up markets and put themselves in a position where they're subject to no competition."
How? The 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was meant to foster competition — allowed cable companies and telecoms companies to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly, allowing them to charge customers higher and higher prices without the kind of investment in internet infrastructure, especially in next-generation fiber optic connections, that is ongoing in other countries. Fiber optic connections offer a particularly compelling example. While expensive to build, they offer faster and smoother connections than traditional copper wire connections. But Verizon stopped building out fiber optic infrastructure in 2010 — citing high costs — just as other countries were getting to work. However, the above quoted article is missing the point, that telcom monopolies in the USA are a function of the poor ROI economics of a sparsely populated country: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=266The market failures in telecoms all derive from the high fixed-capital costs of conventional wirelines. These have two major effects: (1) incentives to provide service in rural areas are weak, because the amount of time required to amortize large fixed costs makes for poor discounted ROI; and (2) in higher-density areas, the last mile of wire is a natural monopoly/oligopoly. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3689Running a cellphone network is a brutally capital-intensive business with thin profit margins, and subject to heavy regulation. Any economist will tell you that all three of these factors favor size – capital concentration confers a stronger advantage, thin margins can only yield a decent profit at high volume, and larger organizations can better afford the costs of capturing their regulators. This graphic is a bit behind today’s news; the Feds have sued to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. As a T-Mobile customer I wasn’t looking forward to it; as a staunch advocate of free markets, I’m not happy that the Feds have the power to stop it. My preferences aside, the interesting question is whether blocking this merger can actually prevent further consolidation. I’m not very optimistic about this; the economics are what the economics are, and the real rates of ROI on wireless networks are negative[1]. There is, sadly, every likelihood that smaller carriers like T-Mobile that don’t merge with larger ones will simply go under, leaving their assets to be snapped up by the remaining incumbents at the going-out-of-business sales. [1] Fifth: The carriers are desperate to cut costs and drive up margins. But not symmetrically; they’ll tend to favor cost-cutting, because the causal link to better ROIC is both more direct and easier to demonstrate to investors.
FASCISM! Obama proposes to use illegal executive order to compel the FCC to classify the internet as a public utility. And the people support him, because they are frustrated with the inferior internet speed and cost.
As I pointed out upthread, the USA's geographical advantages have turned into tectonic liabilities, which are aiding and abetting the rampant rise in totalitarianism.http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/how-might-a-china-slowdown-affect-the-world/#comment-108537@Suvy, the relative weight of the physical resources is declining, e.g. commodity prices have been inexorably falling since the dawn of human civilization; Iron was a precious metal 300 B.C.. The $200 trillion global debt bubble has been sustaining the statist fixed capital relevance against the fledgling Knowledge Age. Physically advantageous paradigms are now a liability, no longer an asset. China and Asia were historically constrained by the impossibly impractical (low ROI) cost of projecting trade and power across the Himalaya mountain range[1] — the mountainous geography that promote the farming of rice instead of wheat with its higher caloric content, irrigation, and labor intensity attributes making it concomitant with higher population density[2]. The Knowledge Age removes that geographical limitation and turns the high density population (which is crammed in along the non-mountainous coastline) into an asset.   
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CoinCube, you are in for a rude awakening.... I agree that Asia will become the financial center of the world and likely remain there for our lifetimes. It is hard to beat a 4:1 population advantage. Absolute numbers matter in the short run. In the long run, however, what matters is growth. Asian GDP has been growing at 2 - 3X the rate of the Western countries. Asian birthrate is higher than the USA, especially if exclude Latinos. Latinos and Negros are negative on the Knowledge Age economy. The Americans have this huge Latino albatross dead weight, and they are extremely socialist and agrarian, which is why you see South America in such big trouble. The Negros are statistically extremely violent and uneducated. The brown Asians (e.g. Indians and Filipinos) are much more studious than the Latinos, c.f. the outsourcing to India and the Philippines versus Latin America. Latinos are much more violent than Filipinos. Filipino guys are not into machismo. Indian guys appear to be more prone to gang rapes, yet the huge size of their population and the fact they were #1 in the world before in textiles, shows they have organizational and educational advantages. Asia has shown itself to be acutely venerable to the sterilizing effects of the modern world. Long term 2150 I expect the USA to once again surpass China as the demographics remain in the USA's favor. When China ends it's one child policy it will not change much. China is now firmly on track to mirror Japan. Like Japan it will have its boom and get rich and old.
But the white portion of the USA and especially Europe has the same fertility problem but worse. Nevermind the Latinos and blacks, and the immigration will reverse when the economy is not longer inducing it. Actually during the brief 2008 downturn, we actually saw a brief Latino exodus. That was a harbinger of what to expect the economy permanently turns down after 2016. Uniformity of language, and law are advantages. Uniformity of genetics is very much a losing competitive strategy.
Asian genetics are highly diverse. I guess you haven't compared an Indian to a Korean. Even the youth in Japan are clamouring to end the xenophobic immigration policy. Asian's potential is about to be flung wide open! The immigration will flung wide open with the Asian union in 2015, where any Asian is basically treated as a citizen of any country in Asia. Like most Americans you've had your head in the sand over there in isolationist USA. Most Americans never travelled internationally and don't even know more than one language. Of all rich world countries the USA has proven most resilient to the worldwide decline in fertility. Its underlying openness and success in assimilating immigrants are also powerful long term advantages. The USA also has fewer of the harder to assimilate immigrant groups compared to europe.
Because of immigration. But now the immigration is mostly negative Latinos. The whites are no longer procreating. The USA is now suffering for the geography that once was such an advantage. Knowledge workers will want to live in communities with other knowledge workers. People want to live in big cities. That is not going to change in the near future. Knowledge workers are likely to gather in the large cities where other knowledge workers live. Diverse places where all ethnicities feel welcome will have a leg up as they can attract from a wider pool.
Correct and Asia will have this in spades while the USA degrades. Even infrastructure in the USA is degrading. This will get much worse as the governments become unable to fund anything. And the politics will fracture and gridlock, morass will ensue in the West, because the West has this huge population of entitled boomers who expect a high lifestyle and will demand it politically and through socialism. Asia will steam forward unabated. Asia's elderly don't expect much from the State (excluding Japan, but Japan is bottoming in 2016 after a 26 year decline to start a new multi-decade upcycle). They came from abject poverty. The boomers came from the pinnacle of wealth and materialism in the 1950s. Boomers were extremely spoiled and they spoil their latest generation Y. My generation X was the forgotten generation (we are poised to be very important in the coming transition because we aren't burdened by alliances and inertia). West coast of the USA will likely do especially well as it draws in people from all of Asia.
I recently rented a small home in a large city in Washington state so I could enroll my children in the very strong schools there. The elementary school my kids enrolled in is a public school and I was surprised to find that it is 60% Asian. The Asian knowledge workers are currently flooding the west coast. I do not see that trend reversing.
Throughout history the peripheral countries have milked the core economy until it was time to transfer the core economy to the former periphery. The smartest come to the USA (e.g. look at the Indian race Vice Presidents at Google) to suck all the opportunity, and then they leave and go create startups in Asia! This is actually happening! The tide will turn into a massive exodus once the critical mass of all the factors (enumerated throughout this post) has reached the apex just before 2032. Just as every empire before it, the USA will be a shell of its former self. Then it will adjust and a century or so later, it may be poised again to rise. Note the whites and the Asian immigrants have chosen WA State and Vancouver as the focal point of the USA. This area may fare better than others, especially if it can manage to become immune to what is happening at the Federal level and the rest of the nation. But I am not sure it can. Whereas, state of CA is falling into the socialism abyss. The USA will suffer from the growth of socialism like everywhere, but it will remain a relative safe haven compared to most other countries.
I emphatically disagree. The socialism is egregiously high and increasing towards a catastrophic end in the West, whereas it is at a very low level in Asia (e.g. the government is only 16% of the GDP in the Philippines versus 75% in the West). The USA is descending into a totalitarian, socialist police State. This is one of the factors that always leads to the destruction of an Empire from within. People fled Rome, abandoned their land, and the population dropped from 1.3 million to 30,000, because the State became so oppressive. Ask yourself, how does a Communist, Fascist, dictator such as Obama get to be President? Sorry I am not exaggerating[1]. What you see now is an illusion propped up by a $200 trillion global debt bubble. Just wait until the global economy collapses from 2016 until at least 2020. Then you will start to see the true nature of the USA as it really is now. China and India may have more knowledge workers but their culture does not allow them to thrive. That is the reason the Ph.D's in China are living in the slum and why they are moving to the USA if they can. It also happens to be the reason my kids public elementary school is 60% Asian.
Hahaha. That foolish pride again. Look I've seen with my own eyes the transformation of Asia from 1990 (my first visit) until now. The culture is extremely family oriented, values education as a first priority, frugal, and every other virtue the USA has lost in decadence. You are in for a very rude awakening. |
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CoinCube, you are in for a rude awakening. Asia will not peak in 2032, that is when it will become the financial center of the world, and then rule from that position for many decades. China's demographics are offset by the demographics in the rest of Asia, besides China is about to end the one-child policy. It was precisely the homogeneity of the efficient waterways transport, the unified language, and interstate economy efficiencies that propelled the USA to #1, but now that is all lost. The large land area of the USA turns into a liability in the Knowledge Age (i.e. much more expensive to cover that entire land mass with the fastest internet and wireless networks). The USA has some Libertarians, but there will be fighting and fracturing. The Knowledge Age workers have no time for that nonsense drag on their productivity. They will gravitate to more homogeneous and peaceful pastures. Besides China and India have many more knowledge workers than the West does. We barely make any children and most of our children are not getting the math and science (S.T.E.M. fields) education that the Chinese are. Our best will gravitate to where the most action and largest markets are. Most Americans don't see the morass written on the wall. mo·rass məˈras/ noun noun: morass; plural noun: morasses 2. a complicated or confused situation. "she would become lost in a morass of lies and explanations" synonyms: confusion, chaos, muddle, tangle, entanglement, imbroglio, jumble, clutter; informallogjam "a morass of paperwork" Even the slums in Asia have PhDs. Our slums in the West are populated with illiterates or Muslim fanatics. I really think you need to get your view adjusted to reality. The USA is headed into strife and political war. Asia is casting off the cronyism and united on the concept of capitalism. Really the West is decadent. Foolish pride and lack of willingness to see the changes afoot is one of the signs of decadence. Whereas, Asia is hungry and energetic about the challenge in front of them. We waste our time in forums as useless blobs. Spend a little time trying to interact with the Prima donna programmers in the West in forums, and you can quickly see the decadence. There isn't a "let's get it done teamwork attitude", rather ego jostling. Just compare the dynamism of the skyscapers in any minor city in China to some of our hill billy cities such as Dayton, OH or Corpus Christi, TX. The USA is being overrun by Latinos who are no match for East Asians and Indians in terms of intellect, work ethic, and lack of crime. Last time I was in the USA in 2006, there was push to make the official language Spanish or at least to have two languages. When I dial Wells Fargo Bank, I am asked first something in Spanish, before the recording speaks in English. A significant percentage of the Asians are ready for the Knowledge Age, whereas, perhaps only 1 - 2% of Americans (entire continent, North America and South America) are prepared. |
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so all this low inflation is symptom of illness and their cure is to print more   You hard resources and stored capital investor fools are misunderstanding the paradigm shift underway. The stored capital is the problem. It must be eliminated in order for the world to move forward into prosperity. You can't preserve stored capital. The western governments are going to confiscate it also. Sorry it is all going poof (highly devalued relatively speaking) in the Knowledge Age. Sorry knowledge age workers don't need your stored capital. The capital startup costs are near 0 now. Everybody has a computer. It is the intellectual capital that is extremely expensive.
We will permanently move to negative real interest rates. The coming crypto-currency of the Knowledge Age will be debased 5 - 10% per year. The Knowledge Age doesn't want to be enslaved by the power law distribution of stored capital. It wants to motivate knowledge capital instead.
The negative interest rates are a sign of what is changing. Most people see them as corruption, because they don't understand the paradigm that is occurring. I am not referring to Communism, because the knowledge capital will still be power law distributed and this will be a free market, not a command economy. And the debasement of a decentralized crypto-currency won't be captured by corruption, rather it will be expended in electricity to secure the system and secure the freedom of the Knowledge Age from the slavery of stored capital.
You might as well spend it now. Enjoy your life.
Waterfall collapse of the Industrial Age to usher in the Knowledge AgeAlthough I think the trend of your observations (Knowledge Economy, etc.) is correct, these evolutions typically take longer than we think. Just like the fall of the Berlin wall, bankrupt paradigms waterfall collapse to usher in the new. ... The physical economy is bankrupt because the economies-of-scale are too great and the maximum division-of-labor can not advance. It may seem valuable to you because the ruler you are using to measure with is the illusion of a massive $200 trillion global debt bubble. Society is trying to prop up that bankrupt Industrial Age paradigm with debt and socialism. Knowledge production generates several orders-of-magnitude more value per human than the Industrial Age. Heck in just a few months in 1998, I (all by myself) wrote some software that was generating up to $30,000 a month in today's dollar. The internet has 10 times more population now. ... |
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so all this low inflation is symptom of illness and their cure is to print more You hard resources and stored capital investor fools are misunderstanding the paradigm shift underway. The stored capital is the problem. It must be eliminated in order for the world to move forward into prosperity. You can't preserve stored capital. The western governments are going to confiscate it also. Sorry it is all going poof (highly devalued relatively speaking) in the Knowledge Age. Sorry knowledge age workers don't need your stored capital. The capital startup costs are near 0 now. Everybody has a computer. It is the intellectual capital that is extremely expensive.
We will permanently move to negative real interest rates. The coming crypto-currency of the Knowledge Age will be debased 5 - 10% per year. The Knowledge Age doesn't want to be enslaved by the power law distribution of stored capital. It wants to motivate knowledge capital instead.
The negative interest rates are a sign of what is changing. Most people see them as corruption, because they don't understand the paradigm that is occurring. I am not referring to Communism, because the knowledge capital will still be power law distributed and this will be a free market, not a command economy. And the debasement of a decentralized crypto-currency won't be captured by corruption, rather it will be expended in electricity to secure the system and secure the freedom of the Knowledge Age from the slavery of stored capital.
You might as well spend it now. Enjoy your life.
Waterfall collapse of the Industrial Age to usher in the Knowledge AgeAlthough I think the trend of your observations (Knowledge Economy, etc.) is correct, these evolutions typically take longer than we think. Just like the fall of the Berlin wall, bankrupt paradigms waterfall collapse to usher in the new. ... The physical economy is bankrupt because the economies-of-scale are too great and the maximum division-of-labor can not advance. It may seem valuable to you because the ruler you are using to measure with is the illusion of a massive $200 trillion global debt bubble. Society is trying to prop up that bankrupt Industrial Age paradigm with debt and socialism. Knowledge production generates several orders-of-magnitude more value per human than the Industrial Age. Heck in just a few months in 1998, I (all by myself) wrote some software that was generating up to $30,000 a month in today's dollar. The internet has 10 times more population now. ... |
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Armstrong has been predicting events precisely to the day. The below $57 closing price for oil on Dec. 31, he predicted long ago (I saw it). There are many, many examples I have observed.
The build up to the waterfall crash is a 51.6 or 31.459 year cycle, but the final waterfall is about 8.6 years with the largest portion of the transition over 4.3 years.
Events change but the pattern of time and human nature repeats.
You can't preserve stored capital. The western governments are going to confiscate it also. Sorry it is all going poof (highly devalued relatively speaking) in the Knowledge Age. Sorry knowledge age workers don't need your stored capital. The capital startup costs are near 0 now. Everybody has a computer. It is the intellectual capital that is extremely expensive.
We will permanently move to negative real interest rates. The coming crypto-currency of the Knowledge Age will be debased 5 - 10% per year. The Knowledge Age doesn't want to be enslaved by the power law distribution of stored capital. It wants to motivate knowledge capital instead.
The negative interest rates are a sign of what is changing. Most people see them as corruption, because they don't understand the paradigm that is occurring. I am not referring to Communism, because the knowledge capital will still be power law distributed and this will be a free market, not a command economy. And the debasement of a decentralized crypto-currency won't be captured by corruption, rather it will be expended in electricity to secure the system and secure the freedom of the Knowledge Age from the slavery of stored capital.
You might as well spend it now. Enjoy your life.
Remember the Bible verse, you will throw your (worthless) silver and gold into the streets...look again at the commodity price chart for the inexorable decline.
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Armstrong has been predicting events precisely to the day. The below $57 closing price for oil on Dec. 31, he predicted long ago (I saw it). There are many, many examples I have observed.
The build up to the waterfall crash is a 51.6 or 31.459 year cycle, but the final waterfall is about 8.6 years with the largest portion of the transition over 4.3 years.
Events change but the pattern of time and human nature repeats.
You can't preserve stored capital. The western governments are going to confiscate it also. Sorry it is all going poof (highly devalued relatively speaking) in the Knowledge Age. Sorry knowledge age workers don't need your stored capital. The capital startup costs are near 0 now. Everybody has a computer. It is the intellectual capital that is extremely expensive.
We will permanently move to negative real interest rates. The coming crypto-currency of the Knowledge Age will be debased 5 - 10% per year. The Knowledge Age doesn't want to be enslaved by the power law distribution of stored capital. It wants to motivate knowledge capital instead.
The negative interest rates are a sign of what is changing. Most people see them as corruption, because they don't understand the paradigm that is occurring. I am not referring to Communism, because the knowledge capital will still be power law distributed and this will be a free market, not a command economy. And the debasement of a decentralized crypto-currency won't be captured by corruption, rather it will be expended in electricity to secure the system and secure the freedom of the Knowledge Age from the slavery of stored capital.
You might as well spend it now. Enjoy your life.
Remember the Bible verse, you will throw your (worthless) silver and gold into the streets...look again at the commodity price chart for the inexorable decline.
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