Martin Armstrong Discussion

[TPTB_need_war]

I suppose it's everywhere, people looking for a scapegoat, but may become a bigger problem in areas given a heavy dose of multiculturalism.

Scapegoating and frustration to rise in the West because the people don't realize they need to escape socialism and the Industrial Age. But many people are sort of getting it but not entirely. It is a process. Some will move to the Knowledge Age faster than others.

So yes a rise in discord and chaos in society in general, with the government responding with a more authoritarian hand. Bankrupt West to tax and expropriate to avoid debt forgiveness (since the TPTB are in control, not the people), thus accelerating deflation making it all worse.

The productive people must escape into the Knowledge Age so we can provide a release valve to that declining, self-inflicted morass. Asia, BRICS, and NICs will rise up after 2020, thus providing another escape valve, but they may be heavily integrated with the West's totalitarianism (but maybe we can influence some of them with the Knowledge Age ... we will see).

[1715163032]

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[1715163032]

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[TPTB_need_war]

So no end of government for the masses. Yet many people will adopt the individually autonomous Knowledge Age and break free from that morass much sooner. That is why there will be a mixed outcome, initially with a waterfall collapse outside the USA, then with a long-term declining West and a rising East after 2020. However that East will be much more totalitarian (top-down obedient) that we were accustomed to in the West (note my comment on the linked page).

Such a scenario will have to include an alternative to the current monetary system. A Money V.2.0, if you prefer, so that TPTB will still remain at their position and -maybe- even make it stronger. I predict that -if such a transition occurs- some of us will have the ability to upgrade our thesis and *maybe* even form a cluster of opposition. Technology presents a nice weapon for the Knowledge Age, also as, the new generation presents an increased factor of productivity on tech matters.

Interconnected companies are forming the current power scheme, will most probably keep their stand, but this is not a 100% certainty. Not when new tech is rushing out and new companies are being formed at a fast pace. Up until now it was possible to accumulate most of them, but what about after the monetary transition (assuming there will be one)? I'm pretty confident we will have our chance to fight back...

No doubt the top-down Coasian barrier is dying. The question is how fast it dies. They are consolidating power because they are dying (yet they may have a lot of power in for example obedient Asia ... we will see).

The grassroots will be spinning off from the NWO morass into the technologies that enable them to.

Yes of course they will reset the monetary system at some point in a power sharing arrangement that is pitched to the public as more fair. The question is how many people will still be following their dying system.

They can leverage a lot of physically warm bodies in the developing world, but remember the physical world is heading towards near zero margins.

The problem for them is the Knowledge Age is an end-to-end principled network, where there is a declining role for accumulated finance, rather more on individually accumulated expertise interacting autonomously directly (without middle men, managers, financiers, etc). The middle men become zero margin replaceable and the Theory of the Firm dies.

[macsga]

No doubt the top-down Coasian barrier is dying. The question is how fast it dies. They are consolidating power because they are dying.

The grassroots will be spinning off from the NWO morass into the technologies that enable them to.

Yes of course they will reset the monetary system at some point in a power sharing arrangement that is pitched to the public as more fair. The question is how many people will still be following their dying system.

Funny you've mentioned Ronald Coase, I was reading an article of his about the tendency of the people to form coalitions or "firms" in order to make business. To answer to your question, in such occasions, the events are cataclysmic. Panic is the catalyst and most of the people tend to panic for no reason at all. So, I guess it will be -literally- days, or weeks at max.

[TPTB_need_war]

The Theory of the Firm can be explained from one perspective with the erroneous theory that knowledge creation can be duplicated and redundant thus managers play an important role of making sure there are backup employees in case one gets sick, leaves, or otherwise fails.

We've needed corporations to aggregate work, because for example you don't build Mozilla Firefox with one programmer. You need a large team.

This is why I was working so hard on solving the Expression Problem for computer programming language (which I think I've solved and will be working on after I finish the crypto work), because with true modularity (no need to refactor), then programmers can work on their own smaller modules and then other programmers can combine modules into large programs. This is the Holy Grail of programming yet to be achieved.

In any case, the point is knowledge creation is becoming more autonomous, e.g. the 3D printer and 3D printer designs for download. You used to need a corporation to accomplish what you can now do individually.

[TPTB_need_war]

the USA declining from April 2013 at its 224-year peak (when Edward Snowden made his final plans to expose the NSA) to an eventual breakup by the 309th year of its cycle.

Relating that 85-year delay to breakup to Rome's case...

First leading up to it:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/21370

What took place during the fall of the Roman Empire offers another warning that we are seeing with the unions. There were precisely 4 x 8.6 emperors from the fall that followed Marcus Aurelius’ death in 180AD until the bottom in the collapse of the currency.

Notice the approximately 85 year delay from the Waterfall crash event of Rome to the point where not a single silver coin was minted:



That waterfall event corresponded with expropriation of private wealth:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/35672

The Roman Emperor Maximinus I (235-238AD) declared that all wealth belonged to the state. Spies were rewarded for turning in anyone hiding assets. The IRS also has its Whistleblower – Informant Award program. History repeats because governments are always the same – it’s just about them. Maximinus set in motion the destruction of the Roman economy. Once he began to hunt wealth, people hid it, and the economy imploded. We are in the very same process and in the USA; it is called FATCA.

Europe is hunting assets everywhere. Starting Sept. 30 /Oct. 1, 2015.75 (365 * .75) we enter the BIG BANG, and over the next four years things will go from bad to worse.

But note the collapse into chaos occurred within roughly 2 decades of the waterfall event:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/research/monetary-history-of-the-world/roman-empire/monetary-history-of-imperial-rome/217-270-ad

This political disintegration came largely during the reign of Gallienus who was the son of Valerian I. Eventually, much of the Eastern provinces were lost to Palmyra and Postumus not merely took Gaul, but also Britain and Spain. The monetary system of this brief period demonstrates clearly the economic chaos that prevailed. The silver content of the double antoninianus plunged to the point that the coin had been reduced to a mere token bronze coinage that had been chemically plated with silver in a vain ttempt to maintain a silver appearance. This is quite similar to the collapse of the silver standard in modern times when silver disappeared from the entire world coinage between 1965 and 1968. In many cases, the silver coinage was replaced with nickel or in the case of the US, a clad coin with a copper center. Within a rough time span of 3 to 4 years, silver disappeared from the coinage of Rome as was the case in modern times.

The coinage under Gallienus is by far one of the most prolific of the entire period. It is also one of the crudest in workmanship. Both traits reflect the sorry state of economic and political affairs within the collapsing Roman Empire. Even the gold coinage suffered to such an extent that there appears to be almost no standard of weight. The range of the aureus appears to be 3.69 to 1.85 grams. The double aureus of this period is barely 60% of the weight for the aureus of Augustus – a mere 5.3 grams.

As is the case throughout history, economic instability promotes political instability. The massive collapse of the economy and hyperinflation no doubt contributed to the decline in political support for Gallienus who was assassinated by his own generals Claudius II and Aurelian in 268 AD.

Notice how after the chaos, Rome made one more military conquest and took back its territories:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/research/monetary-history-of-the-world/roman-empire/monetary-history-of-imperial-rome/270-294-ad

It was during the reign of Aurelian when the relentless attacks by the barbarians came to a temporary halt. Aurelian also retook the East as well as the Gaul, Spain and Britain thus uniting the Empire to a large extent.

However it is interesting that the collapse of the coinage and politics preceded the peak in Rome's population in 400 AD:



It appears Constantine's adoption of Christianity was the moral support that enabled him to restore order in Rome after 312 AD:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/21099

Constantine increased centralization and top-down control. He also increased the government spending on a new city and increased the size of the military. He can essentially be equated to the big government of FDR and every President hence:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/research/monetary-history-of-the-world/roman-empire/chronology_-by_-emperor/era-of-christianity/constantine-i-309-337-ad/the-legal-bureaucractic-reforms-of-constantine

Thus I see the feminism, humanism, socialism, Keynesianism, etc. are the West's new religion that enabled doubling-down on big government to drive the coming collapse since the peak for the USA as of April 2013.

Rome had a Protracted 224-year cycles before having a Collapsing 224-year cycle beginning in 180 AD:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/693-2/2012-2/anatomy-of-a-debt-crisis

The century in which Caesar lived was the second 224 year phase of the Republic -the first was 492-268 BC culminating in the Punic Wars – from 268-44 BC that had culminated with the assassination of Caesar and the birth of another civil war that led to the new Imperial Age of Rome peaking with the reign of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD where the line is drawn by Edward Gibbon for the Decline and Fall of Rome.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/research/a-brief-history-of-world-credit-interest-rates/3847-2

The fate of the Roman Empire of the West had been cast with the sack of Rome in 410 AD by the Goths...

By the year 622, the Arab nations were on the rise. They had conquered Egypt, Syria and Persia and in 669 they took Asia Minor by storm. In 698, the Arab armies captured even Carthage and followed with an invasion of Spain in the year 711. The Arab goal to conquer the balance of Europe was finally thwarted at the Battle of Tours in 732. Nevertheless, the Arabs controlled the Mediterranean, which had essentially cut off all trade in Western Europe. The economy diverted to one of agriculture and mercantilism died a quite death. Cut off from world trade, the Latin tongue began to disappear and the emergence of independent languages began throughout Western Europe.

This was the atmosphere that history has labeled the “Dark Ages” and while coinage existed, the lack of commerce and increased hoarding had seriously reduced circulation. It was the rise of Charlemagne that brought light to this dark period in man’s history. Much of the circulating currency was still old Roman coins. Charlemagne brought forth a great monetary reform that has survived into our present day. He introduced the “denier” which was a silver coin eventually referred to as a penny. Twelve of these silver pennies equaled one “sou” which later became known as a shilling in many parts of Europe. Twenty shillings equaled one pound.

The Capitularies of Charlemagne, circa 800 A.D., also dealt with the issue of credit. Undoubtedly, this legal code had been highly influenced by the severe inflationary trends and debt crises that had plagued the final years of the Roman Empire. The charge of interest on loans was strictly forbidden. It was during this period when the evils of excessive debt were viewed not only as destructive socially but as a sin under church law known as usury. Any exception to this view on charging interest remained highly controversial for the following thousand years well into the Middle Ages.

The tenth century was a period of slow advance. While much of central Europe did not benefit, the Venetians gained major concessions in trade from Constantinople and the uptrend in trade brought with it wealth. Moneylenders in Venice were actually respected while banking facilities re-emerged out of the need to finance maritime ventures. The Vikings began to settle back into the position of traders rather than raiders and secure a dominant role in maritime trade between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the Arab power, that had dominated the previous century and brought about the Dark Ages in Western European culture, gave way to decay. By the eleventh century, the Europeans were pushing the Arabs out of Sicily and Sardinia. By 1096, the First Crusade had re-established Italian dominance in the Mediterranean once again.

[TPTB_need_war]

So it was the Arabs (and here they come again with ISIS wanting to retake the Mediterranean) who cut off trade from the Mediterranean that caused the Dark Age in Western Europe. This created a power vacuum which the Vikings took advantage of.

It is always the cutoff of trade that leads to devastation.

We have now a situation in the world where large corporations and oligarchs want to retain and increase economies-of-scale with their capture of the State by forming a NWO global alliance. They want to kill trade and declare themselves the kings.

This is why we risk another Dark Age.

If the USA is in a Collapsing 224-year cycle that ended April 2013 with Edward Snowden's final moves to make his revelations, then 2013 corresponds to 414 AD Rome. Silver was entirely removed from our currency in 1971. It appears to me the reason for the USA's short-lived empire is because TPTB (the multi-national oligarchs) are moving as rapidly as possible to their NWO consolidation, because they (and all those who depend on welfare, socialism, and unfunded bankrupt pensions) are being threatened by the rising Knowledge Age.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/ancient-coins

If we turn to military wages, during the Republic period (c.200-150 BC) we find records of a legionary soldier earning about 3 asses per day when wheat sold for 4 asses per modius. As illustrated here, eventually the unfunded liabilities are what broke the back of the Roman Monetary System offering pensions assuming the revenue would always materialize.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/21370

This third result in Roman times was military pension that the troops began to raise and kill emperors all to be able to cannibalize their own country. There was no money for pensions. They then laid siege to cities that did not support their choice. This would be like New York engaging war on Chicago, taking everything possessed by citizens to pay the union pensions in New York. Rome destroyed itself and THEN the barbarians came into the gates. We are seeing public unions demanding tax increases on other people to pay their pensions. This is the very same cannibalization process. Here are the seeds of our own destruction. They must rob the people to pay for government workers because politicians promise everything but commit fraud upon their own workers.

Today it appears that we will first eliminate the paper currencies and move to a new electronic version to make avoiding taxes impossible. Hence people will flee to tangible assets and the velocity of money will decline taking the economy with it. That will most likely then result in civil unrest/war and then we will see a new type of Bretton Woods rebuilding the global economy adopting some new electronic world reserve currency.

I have written about the 224 years cycle and my discovery of the 8.6 year cycle stemming from 26 of these cycle within that major cycle. All historians agree that Rome peaked during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180AD). That peak came in 174 and he raised his crazy son to the throne in 177 – Commodus. From that peak it was precisely 112 years to the political restructuring of Diocletian (284-305AD) with the creation of the Tetrarchy. Diocletian was the first Emperor to retire trying to restore a political government avoiding the cannibalization process.

In the era of Rome it was geographical might that was contested and the people had to align loyalty to emperors with militaries. Today the geographical control is already consolidated by the multi-nationals, and the battle is now between the individual and the State (as a proxy of the oligarchs).

The battle is now almost purely technological.

[username18333]

I've been reading carefully what M.A. wrote as an answer in this post:

QUESTION: Marty— Every post is enlightening. I was intrigued that there is no ‘plunge protection team’. I believe you, because you have been behind the curtain. Then what is the ‘Presidents Working Group’ and what does Kevin Henry do? Enlighten me more!

Thank you.

RK


ANSWER: That was a presidential executive order from 1988. I myself was called in back then because of the 1987 Crash. If such a team existed, then what happened in the 2000 Dot.COM bubble crash? Where were they in 2007-2009? I guarantee you they will not be there the next time either.

There is a huge difference from claiming to create some committee and actually having power, funding, etc to do such a job. The closest you have to that is simply the Federal Reserve. They lowered interest rates to help the banks and are now trapped. They have screwed the entire pension fund community and you have the rest of the world pleading with them not to raise rates, but the fact of the matter is there is no such omnipotent group pulling the strings perfectly.[/b][/i]

More here:
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/35973

All in all the question is pretty straight forward. Are there any PTB? Could MA really believes what he's stating or he's covering up something that he knows already?

(Colorization mine.)

[...]

I dont think its pure oligarchy, as pure oligarchy would be business oriented, while this system is more theft oriented and pleasing the masses.

(Conception deprives one of that which accompanies antithetical-thereto non-conception.)

What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

Plutocracy (which is not, necessarily, oligarchy) "would [not] be business oriented" (RealBitcoin), for "business" (RealBitcoin) is competitive and would, necessarily, jeporadize the political status of a plutocrat (which derives authority from wealth).

[...]

(Colorization added.)

[TPTB_need_war]

Lol, MA might get married for the first-time in his 60s:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36020

the coding of the actual AI trading and structure of analysis is done ONLY by myself. There is no employee to be bribed or compromised to get the code. That has been my personal confinement my whole life; that is what they focused on in the movie.

...It has been a choice between work and life. Perhaps the day will arrive where I will get married and try to enjoy life rather than working 7 days a week (no one in particular, what woman would put up with a chronic workaholic?).

[macsga]

Lol, MA might get married for the first-time in his 60s:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36020

the coding of the actual AI trading and structure of analysis is done ONLY by myself. There is no employee to be bribed or compromised to get the code. That has been my personal confinement my whole life; that is what they focused on in the movie.

...It has been a choice between work and life. Perhaps the day will arrive where I will get married and try to enjoy life rather than working 7 days a week (no one in particular, what woman would put up with a chronic workaholic?).

We've got many things in common you know; workaholic, coding/working by ourselves, I couldn't tell about your marital status... Just found out that MA is single! FWIW, because I look like you, I have to tell you that I found a woman that got me for her husband so, there's hope!

[altcoinUK]

Probably this was discussed here, but in case if not, what you think about Armstrong's opinion on Bitcoin?

"So all I can do is look at is how these people play with us. The idea that Bitcoin can circumvent government currencies and taxes I just do not buy. I suspect these people are licking their chops to rush in. That is my only concern. You cannot withdraw $3,000 in cash without them freaking out. They will an underground economy exist? I seriously doubt it."

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/27303

How digital currencies should act to that government approach? Have a fully anonyme digital currency that runs on something better than I2P and Tor so it can indeed circumvent government currencies and taxes or to comply with laws and regulations, because the government is just to powerful and there is no way that community driven digital currencies could beat the government?

[TPTB_need_war]

MA is busy coding his model (he stated he is the ONLY coder on the actual model) and I am busy coding. Neither of us know the details of the other's expertise and code, thus neither of us should comment with certainty on that which we are not coding.

MA's stance is the government can shut down the internet and regulate the internet. I recently explained why that might not be true:

1.	Refer to footnote [1]: My wholeentire/salient point is that the wealthy decide the future of humanity weather you like it or not You seem to confuse monetary digits and political power with real capital. As Warren Buffet said, "You'll know who wasn't wearing underwear when the tide goes out". The old world industrial capitalists can print international dollar debt to the tune of $9 trillion and cause filipinos to build redundant gas stations every 500 meters where a few years ago there was none, but misallocation of real capital destroys real capital and leaves those leaders with a dying NWO system of starry-eyed fools. The real capital that is working away like busy bees almost unseen is gradually taking over the world. Have you ever contemplated that all the systems those dumb asses employ depend on us[1]. [1] "nobody can take it away from us any more, we have the internet" https://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_the_internet_could_crash_we_need_a_plan_b?language=en http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4155 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4213 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4441
2.	what happens when they (TPTB) notice? What's the countermeasures such an initiative should introduce to maintain its integrity; and most importantly, how could one rule out a (future) "chief software engineer" retaliate and alter a piece of code making a fork and dreadout the project together with the whole community? Critical code paths need to be highly scrutinized on any change. After the code is stabilized, the community should be alerted when a change is made to the so identified "critical paths". Checksums need to be enforced with a block chain to create a Web of Trust. Being open source, you can't kill it. You can Whack-A-Mole one protocol but another protocol pops up instantly. When the economy becomes valuable then hackers will be there to keep it running. Protocol tweaks can be made independent of critical paths. There are many defenses, but the question is do we as a community pool the resources to get 'er done. That has been my point all along as to why I was dissatisfied. We are not moving fast enough with our immense resources as a community. The sooner it is not hinged on one person, the better. Looks like in private it is becoming dehinged from me as we speak which a major development. I suppose it was necessary for me to speak recently. But I hope y'all understand I like to go back to being just the many names of AnonyMint. Note even compromised compilers can be defended against: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/countering_trus.html
3.	Once you put unbreakable crypto technologies out in open source, TPTB can possibly filter one protocol but a 1000 others will sprout, because where there is a demand supply will go. (And with steganography and perhaps alternative wireless networks, they may not be able to filter) The smart fork would enable spending the coins from the destroyed protocol into the new protocol, so it is a continuation of the preexisting value and distribution. TPTB can then play Whack-A-Mole. The more the government stomps on commerce, the more demand for those technologies. I don't think they can break the core math quickly. And we'll always be driving ahead towards stronger math. Our community hasn't been organized. We haven't been funding mathematicians. My goal was to get the snowball rolling downhill. I sense the past tense is accurate now. Edit: TPTB rely on something not being too popular or co-opting the popular movements. How can they convince the people they are stomping on to prefer their walled gardens and jails? The count on being able to divide-and-conquer or pick off a few from the herd at a time, so the rest of the herd doesn't react. But if you do decentralization very well, then any individual can effect his own choice. One problem with Bitcoin from my view, has been we rely so heavily on network miners being not co-opted and thus the battle over BitcoinXT (aka GavinCoin). In the designer drug game (continuing metaphor), even if the state could outlaw drugs as quickly as a drug was presented to them, you could release 3d printer plans for new drugs as soon as the drug was outlawed and even have chemists (at home and of their own volition) modifying the drugs as they get the plans. The whole thing should and could be made effectively automated+autonomous+rigorously-modified and resistant to day-late-dollar-short countermeasures.
4.	Popular game currencies have threatened the State enough that overtly totalitarian States had to outlaw them: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/06/china-outlaws-use-of-virtual-currency-for-real-world-items/ And insidiously totalitarian States in the West have effectively outlawed them by forcing anyone who exchanges fiat for them to be registered money services businesses under the AML clauses in the asinine oxymoronically named Patriot Act. So yes I agree virtual game currencies have shown promise but so far they lacked resiliency against the State (anonymity, decentralized exchanges, decentralized consensus that can't become centralized, decentralized scaling, etc).
5.	There is one aspect that is still not solved for crypto-currency which is filtering of the protocol. The next TODO will be steganography and also figuring out how to keep the block chain online with HAM and shortwave radio should that become necessary. After selling some coins, we can fund the research & development needed on those remaining items. That is one reason we should not do a mining launch and then throw away all your money into hardware and electricity, when instead we can pool your money and put it towards solving all our needs.
6.	Max Weber is another source of the canonical definition of the State as the entity with a monopoly on violence. Is your viewpoint that the State must crush any truly anonymous network? Frankly I agree with that threat. But why waste our time kidding ourselves that I2P and Tor are anonymous against the twee ladder agancias. If we want to test our strength, let's actually create the anonymous network and give it a whirl. I am hoping what we will discover is that the State is actually quite impotent once people discover they don't need to pay taxes on virtual commerce nor be controlled by arbitrary laws (e.g. the War on Drugs when in fact the Deep State is running the world's drug cartel). Personally I hate addictive drugs (include even sugar in that as I never eat it any more), because they destroyed my family. But it is not my place to decide for others their lifestyle and poison. And besides freedom is needed in more areas than just drugs. I will give you one example...
7.	No CN coins and in fact no altcoins that I am aware of, have really solved the issue that centralization of mining can cause transactions to be censored. This is an open problem for cryptocurrency. This is only a problem if the miner can identify which transactions they want to censor by linkability or other analysis. Presuming that you can maintain unlinkability, miners won't censor transactions unless they want to censor all transactions. There's no easy fix for that - if someone wants to spend lots of money suppressing nearly all transactions, you are correct - they can do this. CN has a viewkey. If the government takes control of the mining because due to centralization they can regulate 51% of network hash rate, then they can require every transaction publicize its viewkey. Effectively the government can force anonymity to be turned off, if they control 51% of the network hash rate. Being able to guarantee that the mining will always be decentralized, is required to be able guarantee non-censorship. This is probably the major flaw of crypto-currency. I do believe I have a design solution and this should be published this year (hopefully). At this point, I wouldn't take my assertion as 100% given, because without peer review and implementation, one has to remember "devil is in the details" and faults could be discovered.
8.	OROBTC, here is a kickstarter project that could give us all anonymous WiFi internet access and also make it much more difficult to censor and take the physical internet down every where: Coal Mine Canary: If they send out the men in black, to suicide this guy, it proves that the people in charge, kill puppies. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metamesh/meta-mesh-community-wireless-networks-for-all Whoops. Kiss that project above good bye: Update: The FCC just banned open source wifi router firmware in the United States. All manufacturs selling routers have to lock the firmware down. Permanent NSA/FISA court back doors for everyone. http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/07/FCC-Blocks-Open-Source https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/kdb/forms/FTSSearchResultPage.cfm?id=39498&switch=P This comes after hounding of the TrueCrypt developer and suppression of meshnet project at defcon. It shows that TPTB prefer to take action against the centralized aspects of the system, i.e. the manufacturers. This is why centralization of mining in crypto is so dangerous.
9.	Source: http://www.coindesk.com/vitalik-buterin-on-public-and-private-blockchains/ I have developed a design that has all the advantages Vitalik describes for private block chains, but on a public block chain. The scalability white paper he linked to in that article is a more abstract and generalized description of the scalability design I had also invented around the time he  published this paper. This is the first time I've seen this research. Afaics his abstract paper does not deal with some of the intricacies of the economics that have to be solved in order to make the design actually work in the real world. Also he apparently hasn't realized that it is possible to filter out a 51% attack.
10.	Well the block size issue has been a gift to me. Afaik, all crypto coins have this problem with a tradeoff choice between consensus decentralization and scalability. But I solved that problem, so it is just a matter of bringing the solution to market and watch what happens. I think a benevolent dictator or small group (say 2 like-minded peers sharing power), can be most effective in bringing a crypto coin to fruition. I think crypto coins need to be set on auto-pilot I think there needs to be built in some side-chain capability (assuming all bidirectional issues with that can be resolved, else some way to burn coins one-way to a new fork) so that HODLers can move their value out to a new fork gradually as a way to upgrade. This protects the value of the HODLers and allows for new technology. I don't agree with any changes made to the protocol of the coin after it has been stabilized (fixing bugs excepted of course). Note this depends on the eliminating the 51% attack, but I've solved that too.
11.	Edit: We as a community are fighting for a mutual goal against a very well funded TPTB who control mass media and thus have annointed Bitcoin because they know they can control Bitcoin via its centralized mining and lack of anonymity. I posit we are wasting our resources by throwing our money into hardware and electricity when we could be using our resources to fund the developments for economies-of-scale needed to overcome. Btw, I am not referring to the consensus algorithm above but rather launch distribution and network security is a related factor but I have an innovation on that. I reiterated my thoughts about proof-of-stake recently here: Proof-of-Work vs. Proof-of-Stake
12.	... So if you talk about one of the most powerful weapons one can give to the local militias, that is an anonymous internet which can't be filtered nor controlled. Not an easy thing to accomplish. First you need the anonymity protocols (and Tor and I2P are broken designs). Then you need HAM radio backup for the internet infrastructure so the internet will always stay on regardless what the Feds do to the internet backbones.
13.	there has existed for somehing like 35 years an analogue modem for 27MHZ, 142MHZ licenced and unlicensed. It's just a little PCB you solder to your mike / speaker points. There are multiple private 24/7 uplinks around the world. so you can mail and surf as you would normally, but slow. Around 2K baud, So try to sync your block chain on that. As a post apocalyptic internet it's fine. The entire internet will never go down. The main threat is segmentation of the internet and thus the block chain into competing chains. The solution is to HAM or shortwave radio the data between segments, and the miners slow down the block period as necessary to accommodate the slower relaying time. The coin needs a better (more efficient) design than Bitcoin on the way miners aggregate and relay data. This can probably all be solved once we get serious development back into a coin. Bitcoin development has become rigor mortis. Ham radio can be used to receive encrypted messages, so it can be used to send and receive bitcoins over very long distances. Imagine a scenario in the future where only Brazil has internet as we know it today and allows bitcoin to be used. We could use ham radio using encrypted communications for bitcoin sweep. Then again, ham radio communication seems easier to restrict than the internet. By the way, do you think in such scenario would be possible to use an old fashioned modem to connect with internet in Brazil using ham radio? "HAM" radio is a specific, licensed service with a prohibition on encrypted communications. I do believe that "high frequency" or "shortwave" radio, which is what you mean, will play a role in human liberty. So, it's funny this thread came up today because I was just thinking about HAM radio applications for bitcoin.  Transactions over the radio wouldn't be super-feasible using voice modes (but perhaps using digital modes).  They need not be encrypted, just signed.  AFAIK, sending a cryptographically signed message for authentication should be fine since the data is in the clear.  Here's an extensive write-up on the subject: http://blog.rietta.com/2009/08/authentication-without-encryption-for.html WHAT DOES PART 97 SAY? Section 97.113 (4) "...messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof, except as otherwise provided herein..." Based on the above quote, we can use any method at our disposal to provide for secure authentication which does not obscure the meaning of communications.

[TPTB_need_war]

OROBTC, Hillary is hiding she was involved in the Benghazi affair which was arms to Syria and the gas attacks on civilians, creating ISIS, etc.. Tens of 1000s of deaths on her hands at least.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/tag/benghazi
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/14205
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/14268
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/13562
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/21995
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/21295
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/21964

[miscreanity]

TPTB, I assume you don't think the low is in yet after the Bitfinex dip to the mid-100s.

My interpretation of Socrates' forecast is that we may see a pop in gold to near last week's highs before month-end with a resumption of the downtrend thereafter, so it will be interesting to see whether gold follows Bitcoin's activity sometime in the next two weeks.

[TPTB_need_war]

Well in May I wrote in several Economics -> Speculation threads that BTC would rise from the low $200s to $315, then it would crash back down to eventually below $150 (and probably to double-digits) no later than sometime after October.

I reiterated these points over the past weeks in the Economics -> Speculation -> PnF and Economics -> Speculation -> Free Money threads. Even a few hours before the crash I reiterated these points again that everyone should have been short since $315.

The bottom in the BTC price will come in Spring 2016, and it will be back below $100, perhaps even below $50.

After that, we will start a new bull market that will make investors rich.

If you weren't dumb, you'd learn to stop ignoring me. You'd be clicking my Profile and reading all my archive of posts.

But you are dumb and lazy, so you won't do that. And so you will remain ignorant. And I sort of like that, don't you?

[macsga]

"Only The Date Is Unknown"

The US and world economies are frauds that are coming unraveled. The Greek bailout is the most recent example of “kick the can down the road” solutions. The US housing bubble was an attempt to cover up/recover from the dot-com bust. Now the US is in a financial bubble engineered to recover from the housing bubble debacle. Soon this bubble will burst. Only the date is unknown.



More: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-18/only-date-unknown

There you have it. This is from today's zerohedge site. Government is helpless at this point. Their cover-ups have made matters worse. When the unknown date arrives, America will likely look like some third-world country. Its political system may not survive.
So in essence, this is "The End of Government" that MA predicted.

PS: I've decided to risk a portion of my BTCs following the advice you gave on Klee's thread. As stated there, I don't feel comfortable about it, but more and more I am convinced that your approach of BTC's is essentially a "gold-like" commodity and should be treated like one, is true.

[TPTB_need_war]

PS: I've decided to risk a portion of my BTCs following the advice you gave on Klee's thread. As stated there, I don't feel comfortable about it, but more and more I am convinced that your approach of BTC's is essentially a "gold-like" commodity and should be treated like one, is true.

As more people capitulate to the reality that it is better to be short than long that is what drives the extreme low.

This bounce back up is one more gift to go short before it is too late. Again the "Only the Date is Unknown". I don't know how far up the price will reach before crashing again or the timing. Volatility will increase.

The "End of Government" can mean many things. It can mean we still have governments exerting totalitarianism with the chaos of loss of rule of law (i.e. rampant corruption in government). Again study my upthread review of the decades long chaotic collapse of the Western Roman empire.

The government won't entirely disappear any time soon. You'll wish they would. In Rome it got so bad that the people just abandoned their land because the government was so oppressive. Later there was no government in Rome and only cows grazing in the city. But first the totalitarianism.

[macsga]

The government won't entirely disappear any time soon. You'll wish they would. In Rome it got so bad that the people just abandoned their land because the government was so oppressive. Later there was no government in Rome and only cows grazing in the city. But first the totalitarianism.

This is actually happening here, in Greece right now too! History tends to repeat itself so that it reminds the ones who didn't notice (or didn't study enough) what needs to be done. For some peculiar reason I tend to believe that this time will be different though. Technology is a catalyst. Whereas human greed always intervened to the current economic system, math came along to resolve this with a blockchain ledger to witness it all.

That's why I don't believe in a total catastrophe. I (as you've mentioned in a previous post of yours) believe that the solution is always somewhere in the middle, rendering a "gray" shade to the black or white decisions we make as species. Now, there are voices that oppose to the scenario of a "digital" non-inflatable economy. I don't. I believe that if we want a decent world to live in, we certainly need a decent monetary system to run it.

[TPTB_need_war]

MA seems to hint that world economy will "nosedive" in 2016. He wrote in the past that 2016 would be like 2008, but much worse.

Chinese Stocks Continue to Collapse as World Economy Prepares for Nosedive

[username18333]

MA seems to hint that world economy will "nosedive" in 2016. He wrote in the past that 2016 would be like 2008, but much worse.

Chinese Stocks Continue to Collapse as World Economy Prepares for Nosedive

Synchronous, international default should void both any and every economic liability (i.e., both any and every “sovereign debt”) that does not serve the plutocrats.

[TPTB_need_war]

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/35990

Things will not play out as many people are assuming. This shift [confluence of various cycles all at same time] comes around perhaps once every 309.6 years, so without an extensive database, it is impossible to see what is even possible other than pure speculation. This will not be the typical event. We have a collapse in liquidity and a rise in regulation that is far from stable. Every action government takes has played a role in what is coming.

What I will say is this: the immediate target 2015.75 happens to be very critical. In fact, the target date is the birth of a whole new wave of capitalism that began in 1706. The British might recognize that date as two major events were set in motion. This began the movement toward creating the United Kingdom with the merger of England and Scotland following the defeat of the French on May 23, 1706 at the Battle of Ramillies where the English, Dutch, German, Swiss, and Scottish troops led by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, joined forced. That led to July 22, the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England in London for ratification by the national legislatures. Then on September 7, 1706, the War of Spanish Succession began with the Battle of Turin where the forces of Austria and Savoy defeated the French.

The second major event was when the English Parliament established the first turnpike trusts, which began road construction under the privatization and the control of trustees drawn from local landowners and traders. The turnpike trusts borrowed capital for the road maintenance using the security of future tolls to be collected. For the next 150 years, this became the common method to build infrastructure based upon private investment rather than taxation.

If we flip back 309.6 years before 1706, we come to the birth of capitalism when the Black Plague wiped out about half the population, initiating a return to wages and the end of serfdom (not in Russia). So this is the third wave, and the rule of three is the reaction wave. This should be an interesting shift, which will not make things exactly normal. We will need Socrates to look at this whole mess objectively and without bias.