Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

Yes, and this is why I was in favour of Gavin's original 20MB + 40%/year growth.  Many people were concerned about the exponential growth of the blocksize limit under this proposal, but in my mind it was just a sensible way to slowly transition from a hard limit to this "Nash equilibrium" limit.  Whether 40% was the *perfect* number to match BW and storage growth was never really that important in my mind.

Let's allow the network to grow!

So... we just need a great visualization of this. If an idea is good enough AND people can understand it easily and quickly, it spreads faster than others and takes over.

Haha, OK I tried to think up a good visualization for this today, but came up blank.  Did you have any ideas?

In my mind, the default ideal visualization is some kind of familiar physical analogy. However, it's hard to find physical systems that are perfectly isomorphic (homomorphic?) to any given concept. So failing that, create some kind of quasi-physical or more complex/strange physical analogy. And if that also can't be done, then use piecemeal visual metaphors for parts of the explanation and visual tokens (non-isomorphic but loosely representative, like in Peter Todd's anti-increase propaganda video) for the rest, accompanied by written/spoken explanation.

It would be important to have a good representation of the mining/consensus process first, then show what would happen in various scenarios of concern. I don't have specific ideas on what sort of physical analogies could be used for, say, the Nash equilibrium*, but it would be something to come up with sort of on the fly.

The best thing would be a simulation, where the viewer could play with the blocksize settings and see the results. But creating something like that is way outside my skillset.

*Note: I don't mean something like a graph showing the mathematical aspects, but rather something like a physical system whose "moving parts" and their movements all correspond to aspects of the system that is being explained. A bit like how a scale, together with its possible motions, is isomorphic to the balance of power in a relationship: when one side goes up, the other goes down.

it's really too bad that the anti-increase 1MB core dev crowd can't understand the concept that tx fees and block size limits should in fact be settled by economic market forces.  if anything, the myriad of technicals proposals flying around that ignore these economics is evidence to this confusion.

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[coinfusion]

...
IBLT can scale up to any amount of txns that all full nodes can coordinate via the P2P relay. I argue that at some level this becomes centralizing. ...

Someone has proposed a 'P2P relay'?  LOL!  I argue that at some level all levels this is label is an absurdity.

Don't all the big miners already use this private relay network:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766190.0
?

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

it's really too bad that the anti-increase 1MB core dev crowd can't understand the concept that tx fees and block size limits should in fact be settled by economic market forces.  if anything, the myriad of technicals proposals flying around that ignore these economics is evidence to this confusion.

Coders gonna code. But I think it's too much to say they're ignoring the economics. I think a lot of them simply prefer a technical solution because it is more tractable/knowable/familiar to them. They may acknowledge that the market may make everything work out in the end, but they don't see it as their position to jump into the unknown like that, or at least to support that idea ("the nail that sticks out gets hammered down" - if bad stuff happens, they get the blame if they were the one supporting an idea that is perceived as not being appropriately conservative).

[thezerg]

Compromise solution: up to 500 tps on-chain while keeping the 1MB limit, however, a hard-fork is still needed.

i like this proposal b/c it theoretically accomplishes several things at once:

1.  "clears" out the unconf tx set via incentives to capture fees
2.  eliminates the "burstiness" and propagation delays related to large block transmission latency (ideally block messages should transmit just as fast as real time tx's themselves)
3.  works off the assumption that most nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools
4.  eliminates wasteful hashing of block "receiving" miners.

questions:

1.  how much work and time is involved in decompressing an IBLT for verification/validation and addition of unknown tx's compared to the current method of receiving decompressed tx's contained within a block?
2.  how strong is the assumption that nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools?
3.  what are the most common problems that could occur if adopted?

I like it too but havent analyzed IBLT yet.  One possible concern is that it discourages miner's personal choice to add or remove a txn from the block.  But is this even bad?  If it is a simple addition to the protocol could be a list of modification s to the canonical txn ordering.

[sickpig]

Don't all the big miners already use this private relay network:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766190.0
?

AFAICT it's not private at all.

[Pruden]

All non-sovereign bond assets are becoming aligned together as private assets. Why? Because $250 trillion of capital has to go some where. And it will have to flood out of sovereign bonds to some where.

Sorry, but you (or the way you're explaining it) are wrong. This is the typical mistake of thinking of markets as balloons that are inflated by "money flowing into them". Since at every trade there is a buyer and a seller, money quantity remains the same, it just changes hands. Thus, money does not flow into another thing when a product crashes. It's just that its value, which even if it can be called capital is just a number, changes.

If bonds crash, then poof! capital evaporates. This is why it's called malinvestment, it's not a matter of communicating vessels, just paper wealth where every security is completely independent from others (in principle).

John P. Hussman likes to talk about that, and many other misconceptions like the "money multiplier". He also mentions the Tobin Q indicator, which has just been mentioned in this thread: Stock-Flow Accounting and the Coming $10 Trillion Loss in Paper Wealth

[Odalv]

Compromise solution: up to 500 tps on-chain while keeping the 1MB limit, however, a hard-fork is still needed.

i like this proposal b/c it theoretically accomplishes several things at once:

1.  "clears" out the unconf tx set via incentives to capture fees
2.  eliminates the "burstiness" and propagation delays related to large block transmission latency (ideally block messages should transmit just as fast as real time tx's themselves)
3.  works off the assumption that most nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools
4.  eliminates wasteful hashing of block "receiving" miners.

questions:

1.  how much work and time is involved in decompressing an IBLT for verification/validation and addition of unknown tx's compared to the current method of receiving decompressed tx's contained within a block?
2.  how strong is the assumption that nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools?
3.  what are the most common problems that could occur if adopted?

IBTL only saves you from sending same data twice.  e.g. 500 tps = 75 MB block.  In current implementation every node has to download 150 MB of data (first all transaction, and then again all transaction ordered in block)

[Biodom]

I understand Armstrong perhaps better any person on the forum. [...]

Thanks for sharing your views and detailing Armstrong's thoughts on this. I do not think the long term play I outlined differs from Armstrong's in terms of 'CONFIDENCE'. The flow from paper to physical and back again is all about confidence (confidence in the 'system').

The flow from European/Asian (Japan?) bonds into US stocks until 2017 is something I can imagine. This is typically described as the US having the cleanest 'dirty shirt'. However, this is a rush from one type of paper somewhere in the world to another type of paper in a different part of the world (the loose cannons of capital). It all takes place within the paper world.

What I am interested in is under which circumstances Armstrong sees Gold reaching $5,000 and what the stock market will be like when that happens. After all, this is a crucial premise of the paper vs physical theory. Whether Gold peaks at $2,000 or $20,000 is not interesting. It is only interesting to know at what level stocks are at that moment (will it reach the long term bottom between 1:1 and 2:1?). With Gold at the suggested peak of $5,000, the Dow should then be between 5,000-10,000, meaning a serious crash (no longer a correction) from current levels. Perhaps this is something Armstrong may see happening beyond 2017 in the bottoming process of 2018-2023. Is this the time period in which he sees also US bonds break down (resulting in the anticipated rush from paper - all paper - into physical)?

If (US) stocks were to explode higher into 2017 as a result of the public wave going into the private wave (in paper), levels in 2017 will be so high that a crash to Dow 5,000 (to reach Gold 1:1 parity) would be the biggest crash in stocks since 1929-1932. Somehow, I doubt this will happen with CBs on watch, ready to throw the kitchen sink at it if deemed necessary (and they will). In such environment, I do not see Gold peaking at $5,000 but at least a multiple of that. Trouble is, we do not know exactly sure what CBs are going to do (keep on printing or at some point just let it be).

Anyway, on the last theme (predicting CB behaviour), I think Gold provides protection in both scenarios. In case of excessive printing, Gold will protect in the long run and if CBs let the markets collapse, Gold will be a good hedge against banks and other financial institutions failing. In that respect, I find the idea of $250 trillion seeking a safe haven somewhat misleading. If the SHTF, much of that $250 trillion will prove to have been illusory: too much claims on wealth in the system.

By not focussing on stocks, at worst I can be a fool and at best, well protected.

I think that it is more likely that european stocks will outperform US IF europe will continue QE while US will be tightening.
A a result money from european bonds will move to european and/or emerging market stocks/bonds instead of US stocks.
In any case, the problem, in my opinion, is with overall picture so distorted by various stimuli and QE, there are no good places to invest.
My hope was that bitcoin would be one of remaining avenues but with a terrible 18 mo trend, even bitcoin is pretty much out of contention (rightly or wrongly) for most investors.

[cypherdoc]

Compromise solution: up to 500 tps on-chain while keeping the 1MB limit, however, a hard-fork is still needed.

i like this proposal b/c it theoretically accomplishes several things at once:

1.  "clears" out the unconf tx set via incentives to capture fees
2.  eliminates the "burstiness" and propagation delays related to large block transmission latency (ideally block messages should transmit just as fast as real time tx's themselves)
3.  works off the assumption that most nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools
4.  eliminates wasteful hashing of block "receiving" miners.

questions:

1.  how much work and time is involved in decompressing an IBLT for verification/validation and addition of unknown tx's compared to the current method of receiving decompressed tx's contained within a block?
2.  how strong is the assumption that nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools?
3.  what are the most common problems that could occur if adopted?

IBTL only saves you from sending same data twice.  e.g. 500 tps = 75 MB block.  In current implementation every node has to download 150 MB of data (first all transaction, and then again all transaction ordered in block)

No, I don't think that's right. They already have all the TX's in mempool. They'd only need to download the  few TX's they don't already have, which should be miniscule. That would be the power of the IBLT.

nevermind

[rpietila]

All non-sovereign bond assets are becoming aligned together as private assets. Why? Because $250 trillion of capital has to go some where. And it will have to flood out of sovereign bonds to some where.

Sorry, but you (or the way you're explaining it) are wrong. This is the typical mistake of thinking of markets as balloons that are inflated by "money flowing into them". Since at every trade there is a buyer and a seller, money quantity remains the same, it just changes hands. Thus, money does not flow into another thing when a product crashes. It's just that its value, which even if it can be called capital is just a number, changes.

If bonds crash, then poof! capital evaporates. This is why it's called malinvestment, it's not a matter of communicating vessels, just paper wealth where every security is completely independent from others (in principle).

John P. Hussman likes to talk about that, and many other misconceptions like the "money multiplier". He also mentions the Tobin Q indicator, which has just been mentioned in this thread: Stock-Flow Accounting and the Coming $10 Trillion Loss in Paper Wealth

For one, capital can be created or destroyed. If you bomb stuff and they are destroyed, you destroy capital. If you invest less than the equipment is worn, you let capital be destroyed. Malinvestments also "destroy capital" as you spend resources to something that is not useful and cannot be called capital. Saving creates capital.

For another, property values can go up and down, but this does not create/destroy capital (as such; the adjustment process is typically associated with suboptimal production and loss of aggregate utility). Property values have more to do with interest rates than capital. If interest rates are low, property values are high, because the properties compete with bonds for the investments.

If bonds could be guaranteed to never pay a positive return, the property values should theoretically reach infinity and still make a better yield. This obviously does not practically happen, rather it causes a boom of building new properties to compete from the yields. This "investment" is a diversion from consumption, so causes a decrease in the standard of living, and causes something to be built which cannot generate good returns (ghost cities in China, oil shale projects, wind power, all malinvestment).

The idea that interest rates should be coordinated is a really stupid one, there is absolutely no mechanism for a CB to make better the equilibrium rate the markets freely decide if they are left alone to do it - it is already and automatically optimal. Both lowering and raising it just cause misallocation and misery.

There is nothing to fear from the crash of property values - with a reasonably diversified portfolio (weighted with the global weights of different asset classes), after the crash you own the same % of the total cake as you did before, and your annual profits are the same as well. The ones who suffer are the leveraged guys - a fool deserves his punishment.

[solex]

questions:
3.  what are the most common problems that could occur if adopted?

I'll just start by describing what seems to be a downside to the proposal: weakening of blockchain consensus.

At present anyone can get a copy of the blockchain and verify it offline using a "recent" version of Bitcoin software that they trust or have verifid the code themselves. The problem with accepting or rejecting blocks based upon message length (<=1MB) is that this decision is not preserved in the blockchain history. i.e. you can't look back later and see that a 2MB block is OK, because it was sent compressed, or not OK because it is present and somehow never compressed. This can't be resolved in isolation, but can be by connecting to the network and getting a download of all the headers to verify the blockchain. The active network has the correct state.

Is this really a problem?
A blockchain is pretty useless without an active network to process a tx built from it. The network has consensus on software as well as the blockchain, and this proposal relies upon the continuance of software consensus.

Other risks relate to the viability of compression techniques in situations such as reorgs. Since Gavin suggested IBLT in the first place, and it has been unit tested, I think it is reasonable to accept that compression can work, smoothly and long-term.

1.  how much work and time is involved in decompressing an IBLT for verification/validation and addition of unknown tx's compared to the current method of receiving decompressed tx's contained within a block?

This is the trade-off, bandwidth is saved but extra CPU effort is expended by the sender and receiver. While unused (free) cpu is available and bandwidth is limited, costing money, then there is probably an overall benefit. We are going to have to wait for the numbers on this.

2.  how strong is the assumption that nodes and miners have nearly identical mempools?

Gavin has done some work trying to get metrics in this area. So has Rusty http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=486
Nodes should have nearly identical mempools except at the margins i.e. new transactions coming in and old ones dropping off, so the middle 95% would be the best selection when forming an IBLT. Only nodes which apply their own non-standard tx filtering rules are likely to differ significantly,

I like it too but havent analyzed IBLT yet.  One possible concern is that it discourages miner's personal choice to add or remove a txn from the block.  But is this even bad?  If it is a simple addition to the protocol could be a list of modification s to the canonical txn ordering.

IBLT will always allow some flexibility for personal tx choices by miners.
A ball-park maximum number for this is taking the size of the IBLT and allowing half of it to be comprised by tx unknown to the network. So, a 100KB IBLT could have 50KB (or 100 personal tx deliberately added). The more unknown tx that are added, the more the block is likely to fail decoding by the network and get orphaned.

[TPTB_need_war]

I understand Armstrong perhaps better any person on the forum. [...]

Thanks for sharing your views and detailing Armstrong's thoughts on this. I do not think the long term play I outlined differs from Armstrong's in terms of 'CONFIDENCE'. The flow from paper to physical and back again is all about confidence (confidence in the 'system').

The flow from European/Asian (Japan?) bonds into US stocks until 2017 is something I can imagine. This is typically described as the US having the cleanest 'dirty shirt'. However, this is a rush from one type of paper somewhere in the world to another type of paper in a different part of the world (the loose cannons of capital). It all takes place within the paper world.

What I am interested in is under which circumstances Armstrong sees Gold reaching $5,000 and what the stock market will be like when that happens. After all, this is a crucial premise of the paper vs physical theory. Whether Gold peaks at $2,000 or $20,000 is not interesting. It is only interesting to know at what level stocks are at that moment (will it reach the long term bottom between 1:1 and 2:1?). With Gold at the suggested peak of $5,000, the Dow should then be between 5,000-10,000, meaning a serious crash (no longer a correction) from current levels. Perhaps this is something Armstrong may see happening beyond 2017 in the bottoming process of 2018-2023. Is this the time period in which he sees also US bonds break down (resulting in the anticipated rush from paper - all paper - into physical)?

If (US) stocks were to explode higher into 2017 as a result of the public wave going into the private wave (in paper), levels in 2017 will be so high that a crash to Dow 5,000 (to reach Gold 1:1 parity) would be the biggest crash in stocks since 1929-1932. Somehow, I doubt this will happen with CBs on watch, ready to throw the kitchen sink at it if deemed necessary (and they will). In such environment, I do not see Gold peaking at $5,000 but at least a multiple of that. Trouble is, we do not know exactly sure what CBs are going to do (keep on printing or at some point just let it be).

Anyway, on the last theme (predicting CB behaviour), I think Gold provides protection in both scenarios. In case of excessive printing, Gold will protect in the long run and if CBs let the markets collapse, Gold will be a good hedge against banks and other financial institutions failing. In that respect, I find the idea of $250 trillion seeking a safe haven somewhat misleading. If the SHTF, much of that $250 trillion will prove to have been illusory: too much claims on wealth in the system.

By not focussing on stocks, at worst I can be a fool and at best, well protected.

In addition to CONFIDENCE, I forgot to mention the another key force of CAPITAL FLOWS that Armstrong's global (in space and time) computer model correlated. These international capital flows tend to move together, I presume not only because the factors driving them are identified by many investors but probably more so because capital tends to follow capital, i.e. investors will flow into that asset they see rising and dump the asset that is stagnant. Thus right now we private assets are waffling (and assert ready to take one more dive as moment increases on the last big rush back into safe haven sovereign bonds before October) while the short end the German yield curve is going bonkers. Some of you identified this shift by noting the Central Banks had to take drastic liquidity actions recently to counter major shifts in portfolios.

Armstrong's computer has numerous times (on various assets) targeted shifts or increasing volatility in June/July and September:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30539

Our computer is also projecting the same timing targets of June/July and then September.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30466

QUESTION: At Stuttgart you said gold coins would be one asset people could use against the banks and that there is some seasonal high. Could you explain that a bit more in detail.

Thank you. You deserved the standing ovation.

ANSWER: Yes, for the individual you can buy gold coins that are familiar to people rather than bars. That is for burying gold in the backyard.

As for the seasonality, June has often been the turning point in gold be it highs or lows. This time we should see a pop and then any decline will come in the fall. A weekly closing above 1239 should confirm the pop to the upside. The key resistance technically stands at 1309 area. Keep in mind that a rally in gold at this time would reflect perhaps a correction is shares and further send money into the short-end of the government debt curve.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30425

At this time, we see that there is the traditional risk of a correction in the share market that could set off the final stage of the bond bubble. Keep in mind this is not going to materialize in the long-end of bonds/bunds. What we are seeing is capital is not rushing into the 10 year or greater paper, it is rushing into the very short end. Rates there are negative as there is not enough short-term paper around to meet the demands to park cash.

We still see May – July – September as key targets for turning points. Whatever we end up with in September should produce the opposite trend immediately thereafter. As we now head into the last week of May/first week of June, we should start to see the choppy trends begin.

It is more likely than not that we should see a retest of support that will scare people and cause them to believe the stock market will crash. The high in the Dow still remains March 2nd at 18,335 level. Support begins at the 17,153 level and a daily closing beneath that level will signal the correction is then possible. The key support lies back at 16,540 level. A drop back to that area in the weeks and months ahead should convince everyone to buy more government paper and complete the final bubble top in government debt.

What is interesting is how stocks and other privates assets such as gold are not entirely aligned yet (which makes sense since stocks are mainstream and large capital liquid which gold and BTC are not), for Armstrong sees the possibility of a pop up in gold (and thus BTC also perhaps) this June/July as the stock market corrects now along with the kick off of the move into the short end of bonds by the early movers that is underway. Then later in the fall as the capital follows the early movers into the short end of bonds, gold and BTC will also get taken down to their final lows. This makes sense because initially in any safe haven shift gold moves up (remember the peak of silver at $21 in March 2008 which btw I called exactly to the day and sold but my dealer did not execute my order!) because the gold investors have their antennas up for obscure defaults in progress (evidence the upthread mentions of recent CB liquidity emergency actions). But then later the contagion forces investors to sell their asset of last resort to meet margin calls, thus gold gets taken down, e.g. August 2008.

So there is your likely timing on BTC. Hold for a pop back to $320 this summer, then sell waiting for the capitulation bottom in the fall. This pop is necessary to bring out the egos of the young fanboys[1] so they can give up their capital to us seasoned experienced elders. BTC won't have bottomed until there is pain, despair, and blood-in-the-streets, which is in my opinion below $100.

On the stocks-to-gold (stocks ÷ gold) ratio issue, the ratio will be heading down for non-USA stocks after October. For USA stocks, the ratio will not peak until 2017, then it will head down. And this is why the rocket shot in gold and BTC won't come until after 2017. It is an interesting question whether it will reach 1 or 2 again. Well at $5000 gold, a DJIA of 5000 or 10,000 would be quite the precipitous drop from the projected 30,000 to 40,000 peak in 2017 that Armstrong's model is stating may be possible. As I've said, the 2018 - 2024 period is going to be scorched earth chaos. War is very likely late in 2017 as the USA peaks and Armstrong's War Cycle model is also pointing to that time. As well his pandemic model is also pointing to the possibility of pandemic at that time (his theory being a repeat of how the Black Death was introduced to Europe by invading armies throwing diseased bodies over the walls in Ukraine, this time the war in Europe may be fought by mercenaries and these mercenaries will carry the disease into Europe).

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30499

This is why Brussels is now calling for a European Army. That will be their power and sending Greek troops into Germany will prevent the troops from siding with the people. This is also why there is a mad rush to create robots for war. They have no emotions and cannot be turned. Government understands their weak-link for throughout history it has always been the loyalty of the troops.

On the question of whether to hold gold (or cypto) instead of USA stocks, it seems to make sense. Both will be rising together from October forward, but USA stocks will peak in 2017 after a double or at most a triple (if you buy the coming correction bottom), and if gold and BTC bottom under $1000 and $150 respectively then I doubt they won't also make doubles or more by 2017. And the additional problem with investing in stocks is they are not anonymous and thus with the coming capital controls it might be possible you can not sell or you are taxed really insanely if you do sell. My stance is about now to start moving capital off the grid where gains will not be known to the bankrupt socialism which will be expropriating your gains with rising taxes.

[1]	Always fascinates me when older intelligent people, loose their acquired wisdom, at the very point they disappear up their own proverbial backside. You are talking to yourself, TPTB. Have a fine n dandy day.

[STT]

I understand Armstrong perhaps better any person on the forum. [...]

If (US) stocks were to explode higher into 2017 as a result of the public wave going into the private wave (in paper), levels in 2017 will be so high that a crash to Dow 5,000 (to reach Gold 1:1 parity) would be the biggest crash in stocks since 1929-1932. Somehow, I doubt this will happen with CBs on watch, ready to throw the kitchen sink at it if deemed necessary (and they will). In such environment, I do not see Gold peaking at $5,000 but at least a multiple of that. Trouble is, we do not know exactly sure what CBs are going to do (keep on printing or at some point just let it be).

The point on CB is that ultimately their actions will become irrelevant which would be a reversal of now when they are considered to control interest rates absolutely.    They will stop whipping the horse at which point it will be dead anyway
You should look at some studies by Marc Faber on previous stock reactions in a excessive inflation environment, I believe his conclusion was a net neutral result.   The gains in price equated to no valued gained over a decade as the company and consumers presumably struggled with the negative effects of an unstable economy despite the cheap money, it does not help overall

The bigger deal with US dollar is it benefits from foreign investment not just national which if lost means higher cost finance and less value or higher cost to stocks.  But also alot of US stocks are in fact global, could finance elsewhere so its not clear

[TPTB_need_war]

Armstrong's sources say nationalization of banking (and retirements) is (are) coming.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30472

Comment From a Banker in Asia

COMMENT: The distinction between relationship and transactional is so compelling and explains my own puzzlement in dealing with ‘relationship’ managers.In Asia they have to sell structured products — even now,after 2008 — or be fired.They are under enormous pressure and cannot focus upon anything else so the word ‘relationship’ is a misnomer. The staff turnover is enormous.
Good fortune attend you in Warsaw !
Bill

REPLY: This is really wiping out banking as we once knew it  The solution if this is still fractional banking is the nationalization of banks. This is the rumblings coming from key sources behind the curtain. This is getting very scary. Once government seized banking, then they can prevent you from buying or selling by just blocking your accounts or clean them out at will. This is the battle ground between humanity and the coming authoritarian age. I do not know what more I can do. My condolences to those under 40. At least I have an expiration date to save my ass from this world they are determined to create. It just doesn’t have to be this way. We do have a choice.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/29835

The Crisis in Democracy – Debt & Electronic Money

COMMENT:

Hi Marty,

Would you be able to clarify the risks with having just an electronic money system – it would seem that any electronic system would be vulnerable to viruses, bugs, hacking, and other collapse. Also a completely electronic system would possibly be a tool of a tyrannical government simply to shut dissenters down.
Many thanks for your conned work.
Andrew

ANSWER: This is my concern. Take the proposal in Iceland, where credit decisions are to be taken from banks and given to the government, using the claim that fractional banking creates chaos. It was not the fractional banking, but the selling of structured products that blew up, which I have called transactional banking.

If we merge these two factors, you can see that we are looking at a nationalization of money and banking. This will lead to one small step towards full authoritarian power. This is the end of Western Civilization and those in power are spying on everyone because they are trying to hold power precisely as Stalin in Russia.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30480

Why are governments rushing to eliminate cash? During previous recoveries following the recessionary declines from the peaks in the Economic Confidence Model, the central banks were able to build up their credibility and ammunition so to speak by raising interest rates during the recovery. This time, ever since we began moving toward Transactional Banking with the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999, banks have looked at profits rather than their role within the economic landscape. They shifted to structuring products and no longer was there any relationship with the client. This reduced capital formation for it has been followed by rising unemployment among the youth and/or their inability to find jobs within their fields of study. The VELOCITY of money peaked with our ECM 1998.55 turning point from which we warned of the pending crash in Russia.

...This current mild recovery in the USA has been shallow at best and as the rest of the world declines still from the 2007.15 high with a target low in 2020, the Federal Reserve has been unable to raise interest rates sufficiently to demonstrate any recovery for the spreads at the banks between bid and ask for money is also at historical highs. Banks will give secured car loans at around 4% while their cost of funds is really 0%. This is the widest spread between bid and ask since the Panic of 1899.

We face a frightening collapse in the VELOCITY of money and all this talk of eliminating cash is in part due to the rising hoarding of cash by households both in the USA and Europe. This is a major problem for the central banks have also lost control to be able to stimulate anything.The loss of traditional stimulus ability by the central banks is now threatening the nationalization of banks be it directly, or indirectly. We face a cliff that government refuses to acknowledge and their solution will be to grab more power – never reform.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30499

That is what we must understand and we must understand that private assets are the means to survive – not pensions or government bonds. Eliminating cash is their way to force people into banks and prevent a bank-run. That will end in the total authoritarian government for you will not be allowed to buy or sell except without the grace of government.

Armstrong has placed all his hope on a political solution, because he understands gold can no longer function as it used to in the past.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30499

Perhaps this time we can put pressure for political change in eliminating debts and this viscous cycle of Sovereign Debt Defaults that destroy society. We can prepare for our individual survival by comprehending the nature of the beast. As was discussed in the session in Warsaw, it is true gold is no longer the savior since we cannot hop on a plane with a briefcase full of gold and seek a new start. Gold’s role may be local and in an underground economy, but make no mistake about that, government is well aware of that role as well.

Governments are robbing anything travelers might have these days. There were even signs in Poland warning if you have more than €10,000 in cash or “assets” when traveling it was illegal. They will look for jewelry, stocks, gold, or diamonds. Anything they deem of value they can confiscate.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30549

More and more details keep surfacing about the corruption of the Clintons. The biggest contributors to Hillary are Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Citibank for after all it was the Clintons who repealed Glass Steagall enabling transactional banking that is destroying the world economy.

The view of Hillary from outside the USA is much more critical than the press in the USA who want her regardless of how much she pockets or helps the banks against the people and line their pockets. The Daily Mail in Britain is reporting that the overlap between the donors to the “Clinton Foundation” and the countries Hillary dealt with as Secretary of State is by no means coincidental. No doubt she erased her emails to cover up these type of deals.

This is the peak in government corruption for 2015.75. Will the confidence in government just meltdown in time for the 2016 election? This is possible with the collapse in liquidity for when the markets turn down, they should move more in a flash-crash formation when it comes to debt. Running to the private sector may be the only security we have left.

Armstrong doesn't believe crypto-currency can resist the power of government.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30499

This is a new age of authoritarianism and is not ending nicely. The idea of crypto-currencies is also rather foolish for nothing can compete against a government that is ruthless and broke. They have the guns and then tanks and will use them against the people. Our hope is to identify the problem and spread the word. Yeltsin stood on the tanks in Russia and asked the troops not to fire on their own people. If the pawns of government refuse to massacre their own people, then we can win. It is critical to understand that police and military will become the tool for both sides.

Armstrong is correct about gold for the same reason he is incorrect about crypto-currency — entropy.

Gold is losing entropic possibilities because the people don't want to use it for trade because it can't be spent electronically. The internet changed our expectations of efficiency of commerce and this has reduced the entropy of gold and that is why you will throw your gold into the streets as a useless relic because you will have no way to sell it except at a regulated dealer (black markets for it will disappear because there is no decentralized demand for it any more) which the government will regulate to tax and expropriate your gold from you. As I had pointed out in 2010, if your gold appreciates by 500%, then the capital gains tax of 28% (in the USA) means you give 23% of your ounces to the government. And expect tax rates to rise egregiously.

Whereas, crypto-currency is gaining network efforts thus entropic possibilities. I commented on this several times as follows...but realize Bitcoin is moving towards centralization and thus it will be the government controlled crypto-coin. An altcoin will have to provide the black market function that bearer cash used to.

Erdogan, they can't take away the internet entirely as you point out. Because there is too much entropy (a.k.a. life) enabled by the network effects. In short, a million people will be brainstorming how to route around the cancer and reestablish their networked contacts. The network is inherently distributed. Unlike the political morass and central banking which is inherently centralizing.

THX 1138, the Knowledge Age is not just about coding logic. It is about any creative activity that can't be automated. The Knowledge Age is about eliminating the repetitive drudgery so humans can focus on what they do best, which is creativity.

The pathway forward is obvious. The decentralized network can't be stopped by the centralized morass. No the Knowledge Age mavericks will not join the centralized morass! Why the hell would we join their failure. The one-world NWO morass will end up annihilating itself and anyone who depends on it.

As for "running out of time", I agree in some aspects (e.g. Bitcoin gaining a lot of mindshare, difficult to replace or overcome), but I also think the worst of what is coming won't kick in until after 2016. We have some time yet, if someone created something that was sufficiently innovative and generated significant market excitement.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Physics & math proof internet unstoppable, uncontrollable
Date:    Mon, April 27, 2015 10:54 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


It didn't take me 2 hours. Once my mind was fresh, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to refute this.

I was going to come at this more abstractly explaining why matter is conserved so that the universe doesn't have an edge nor collapse to infinitesimal point and then explain that the only degree-of-freedom for a non-static (non-existent) universe is increasing entropy, but let's save that for the future essay where I can tear to shreds CoinCube's popularized notion of entropy as some baseline that order draws from. For the moment I'd rather make my point more comprehensible and concise.

The meeting of the minds synergizes and much more complex possibilities spawn (new information content is spawned serendipitous that couldn't be predicted a priori by the prior information content and that is a key difference between "random" generators regurgitating information content from the environment).

What you are describing is in essence the higher ordered potential energy gathered via the search through aka harvesting of entropy. It is not entropy itself.

Reed's law says the potential increases 2^N - N - 1 thus with exponential complexity[1]. Multifurcating networks and multiplexing routers means the energy cost to provide available connection between N nodes only increases with polynomial or subexponential complexity[1]. The virtual IP network is a fully connected mesh topology, but the physical network is hub-and-spoke a.k.a. hybrid star plus bus[2] (this is gained via efficiency).

Conservation of Energy thus makes your statement impossible. ▮Q.E.D.

That slam dunks also my point about the general definition of efficiency.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory#Important_complexity_classes
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_complexity#Sub-exponential_time

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_topology


P.S. this is why the internet has radically changed the economics of the universe and is ushering in the Knowledge Age. The powers-that-be can not shut off this entropic force. Impossible. Nature will route around them. Raise your fist Knowledge age people, we win. No chance we fail.

This so called law is obviously and intuitively wrong. It fails to acknowledge limits on the number of inbound and outbound connections a member in a group-forming network can manage. The actual maximum-value structure is much sparser than Reed's guesstimate would suggest.

Hey technological dunce, servers don't have a Dunbar limit. Even users of P2P don't have to be limited by their Dunbar limit, because P2P is automated (which is probably why Bitcoin is tracking Metcalf's law).

My server for new website is accepting all connection requests to it and doesn't need to ask me first. Duh!

While it is true that Reed's law doesn't apply to all the users on the internet because they don't all connect with each other over the internet (i.e. P2P is not used yet by all users, although I plan to change that!), the article you cited admits that Reed stipulated that his law only applied to groups wherein all the users did interact with each other.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/metcalfes-law-is-wrong

At the other extreme, exponential--that is, 2ⁿ--growth, has been called Reed's Law, in honor of computer networking and software pioneer David P. Reed. Reed proposed that the value of networks that allow the formation of groups, such as AOL's chat rooms or Yahoo's mailing lists, grows proportionally with 2ⁿ.

If we limit my proof to only servers, we still find that my math about relative complexity applies — the costs of the connections is growing slower than the complexity value of the virtual IP network. This is because the network self-organizes into a hierarchical hub-and-spoke topology that is more efficient than a fully connected mesh. Thus the entropy is grower faster than the potential energy can according to the Conservation of Energy, and this gain is coming from efficiency of topology. You can quibble about the exact model of the growth of the virtual IP network, but you will never be able to argue that is not growing at a greater complexity scale than the cost of the physical network.

Although you won't admit it you are essentially trying to prove the second law of thermodynamics is wrong. You have no chance of success.  If you insist on trying you need to make the argument using the math of thermodynamics not business school guesswork.

Don't flatter yourself. I was already well aware that you would think that and it is obvious why you would think that. Really I have your thinking all mapped out already. I know why you are wrong. I was going to address that fundamental math in the more abstract essay. Nevertheless the math above is irrefutable.

Start searching now for your mistake instead of assuming incorrectly and egotistically presuming that my thought process was not exhaustive (when have I ever demonstrated myopia?! never!), and see if you can figure it out before I tell you.

You were correct before when you agreed with me that some top down constraints are needed to ensure convergence. You should return to your prior and correct insight.

The network is free market, self-organizing into a plurarity of top-down managed mesh or bus connected hubs which multifurcate (spoke topology) to the network ends.

I am arguing against a monopoly on (force) top-down management, because it has an entropy approaching 0. Someday you will get this distinction into your hard head.

AnonyMint I can tell you only spent 5 minutes on this.

It is clear you do not have the time currently to do this topic justice. I am content to leave the matter in dispute. Let's return to it later when you can give it more attention.

Flattering your ignorance with platitudes is noise. You'd be wiser to stop interjecting those incorrect barbs and stick to futilely, incorrectly arguing the facts.

In your stubborn ignorance, you are going to miss a huge opportunity to become a $billionaire. You are like the politically correct, mainstream educated fools who told Columbus not to sail because the world is flat.

Your disingenuous behavior is causing me to not ever want to be your friend in future, even after you finally realize I am correct. All the apologies you could make won't erase the memory I will have of how you prefer disingenuous ego (you appear to be so worried about your reputation as if that is your productive value in society whereas I shred my reputation every damn day because my value to society is actual production and pursuit of truth, ego be damned!) over intellectual pursuit of truth. If you were sincere, you would have at least explored the point I make above. It is certainly obvious to someone of your intellect. Or are you really that myopic? Well I have had a few indications that you are that myopic, such as the rash investment decision, etc.. So perhaps this isn't insincerety but rather just a mental handicap? Then I guess I should be empathetic.

Although you won't admit it you are essentially trying to prove the second law of thermodynamics is wrong. You have no chance of success.  If you insist on trying you need to make the argument using the math of thermodynamics not business school guesswork.

Don't flatter yourself. I was already well aware that you would think that and it is obvious why you would think that. Really I have your thinking all mapped out already. I know why you are wrong. I was going to address that fundamental math in the more abstract essay. Nevertheless the math above is irrefutable.

Start searching now for your mistake instead of assuming incorrectly and egotistically presuming that my thought process was not exhaustive (when have I ever demonstrated myopia?! never!), and see if you can figure it out before I tell you.

Your mistake is you are conflating energy and entropy.

It is true that a perpetual motion machine of the 2nd kind violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It is not possible to attain 100% efficiency in a thermal transfer process because we would need an infinite reservoir (heat sink) of absolute 0 temperature internally and an infinite external ambient environment (heat source) of infinite temperature.

What is being considered with the Conservation of Energy in the First Law of Thermodynamics and the transfer of Heat in the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the fact that the matter of the universe is constant. I was going to go more abstractly into what the matter of the universe is, because I have unifying theory on that which I think will be breakthrough. But suffice it to say that the matter of the universe does not increase nor decrease. Btw, my future elucidation will explain why this is required else the universe would need to have a fixed, absolute origin and edge and thus could not exist (would collapse into an infinitesimal point), but that is not elucidation is not necessary for the point we need to discuss now.

Whereas the entropy, i.e. the probabilistic degrees-of-freedom organization of the matter, of the universe is not constant and is always increasing. This is the entropic force and the other forces and macroscopic effects emerge from it, e.g. gravity emerges from the entropic force. See the matter of the universe is uninteresting. It doesn't cause any thing to happen. It is the organization of the matter that defines the various macroscopic effects, such as potential energy, kinetic energy, heat, etc..

The Second Law tells us that entropy is always created by any thermodynamic process (except for idealized reversible processes which never occur in nature).

Thus the entropy created by the internet which exceeds the potential energy that can be created by the work done of building the physical internet, is an increase in efficiency above 100%. But that > 100% efficiency is not in terms of energy, but rather in terms of entropy. Thus it does not violate the Conservation of Energy.

Measuring efficiency in terms of energy is myopic, because for example I can achieve near to 100% efficiency for transferring energy from reservoir (e.g. battery) to another but that hasn't achieved anything useful.

The useful work as far as nature is concerned are the increases in entropy. Nature's entire holistic motivation is increasing entropy.

Thus the only definition for efficiency which has any consistently, holistic meaning is the ratio of entropy increase.

Thus (entropic) perpetual motions machines do exist! They are called Life a.k.a. nature.

Think of the thyroid gland.

First scientists said it was a trivial side organ.

Then it was sort of important.

Now almost every biochemical process can be traced back to some influence from the thyroid and related organs.

The body is stunningly complex, and even most general practitioners are only scratching the surface.

Your subordination of entropy to a 2nd class citizen of physics and nature is abomination and travesty of science and philosophical inquiry.

In line with your asteroid example above unrestrained anarchy can lead to megadeath in other ways. As we proceed into the knowledge age the resources required to develop and deploy nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks will continue to decline. At some point it may be possible for a single individual to possess the destructive potential our nation states have today. Human nature requires us to develop and enforce significant controls around such technology. Terrorism is a currently a bogeyman used to further state control. That may not always be the case.

The only way the State could stop individuals from acquiring and using such technology would be to track everything everyone does. Choke points of yore only (e.g. export restrictions on certain technology) worked before the internet. The cat is already out of the box and the only way to put it back in, is to track everything everyone does. That Orwellian State would mean certain extinction of the human race because centralization of power corrupts absolutely and there will be no way to break out of it until hits 0 (i.e. cancer entirely killed the host).

The logic you expressed appears to me to be certifiably insane because...

All you have provided are the choice between two scenarios which are both human extinction paths.

My gosh. Sociopath much? Why not contemplate a more rosy possibility?

Of course anarchy (a.k.a. the free market) would never end up with the outcome you illogically fear. Because (unlike a perfectly centralized system which has 0 entropy), the entropy of the free market is higher (not 0) and thus it has a higher implied equilibrium state (above 0).

Can't you PERCEIVE (i.e. envision) that the free market will always react by providing self-defense technology? For example, technology to leave planet Earth if necessary, technology to live underground, and remote sensing (this exists already) technology sniff out certain chemical compositions in a certain proximity. Etc, etc, etc.

This perfectly exemplifies why those who lack PERCEPTION and are too much JUDGING, will prefer insane (absurd) low entropy choices.

http://blog.mpettis.com/2015/02/when-do-we-decide-that-europe-must-restructure-much-of-its-debt/#comment-123414

Suvy I wrote CoolPage in 1998 from Nipa Hut in a squalor community in Mindanao. I was infested with weekly bouts of Giardia, had a karaoke blasting in my ear 16 x 7, I'd turn my head and my underwear and spoon would be gone. I reached the low of eating only rice because I had run out of funds and none of my boomer relatives would[n't] loan me even $100 because they wanted to punish me for my decision to go international and rustic.

Sorry there is internet access in most of of the world now. There are some 3 billion at least on the internet by most estimates. Up from a 100 million back when I launched CoolPage. And to think I had a million users and thus 1% of the internet, all coming from a Nipa Hut in squalor.

Sorry you are not making any sense. You need to travel outside the USA more to lose your myopia.

Suvy, when I first explored Manila in 1991 (just after Mt. Pinatubo erupted), I noticed all these smoky, smoldering shantytowns, e.g. tiny abodes in along river banks constructed of scrap materials, and I was wondering where all these sharped dressed professionals strolling by were living. Someone informed me they live in those cardboard shacks with only crawl space. If you saw them at the office you would have never known.

It was quite an eye opener and attitude adjustment for a 26 year old westerner.

[TPTB_need_war]

In my mind, the default ideal visualization is some kind of familiar physical analogy.

...

It would be important to have a good representation of the mining/consensus process first, then show what would happen in various scenarios of concern. I don't have specific ideas on what sort of physical analogies could be used for, say, the Nash equilibrium*, but it would be something to come up with sort of on the fly.

...

*Note: I don't mean something like a graph showing the mathematical aspects, but rather something like a physical system whose "moving parts" and their movements all correspond to aspects of the system that is being explained. A bit like how a scale, together with its possible motions, is isomorphic to the balance of power in a relationship: when one side goes up, the other goes down.

Utilities. Railroads. Public highways. Wireless telcom.

Those are the model that Bitcoin falls into with needing to allocate a scarce resource for the public good. Once you remove the decentralized opt-in because the resource is scarce and not accessible to every individual, then we exit the meritocracy of free markets and enter the lalaland of public control over the Tragedy of the Commons.

This is why I say that IBLT and Bitcoin are broken as pertains the fundamental tenet that Satoshi gave us in section 4 of his seminal whitepaper.

Sorry fanboiz.

[TPTB_need_war]

All non-sovereign bond assets are becoming aligned together as private assets. Why? Because $250 trillion of capital has to go some where. And it will have to flood out of sovereign bonds to some where.

Sorry, but you (or the way you're explaining it) are wrong. This is the typical mistake of thinking of markets as balloons that are inflated by "money flowing into them". Since at every trade there is a buyer and a seller, money quantity remains the same, it just changes hands. Thus, money does not flow into another thing when a product crashes. It's just that its value, which even if it can be called capital is just a number, changes.

If bonds crash, then poof! capital evaporates. This is why it's called malinvestment, it's not a matter of communicating vessels, just paper wealth where every security is completely independent from others (in principle).

John P. Hussman likes to talk about that, and many other misconceptions like the "money multiplier". He also mentions the Tobin Q indicator, which has just been mentioned in this thread: Stock-Flow Accounting and the Coming $10 Trillion Loss in Paper Wealth

For one, capital can be created or destroyed. If you bomb stuff and they are destroyed, you destroy capital. If you invest less than the equipment is worn, you let capital be destroyed. Malinvestments also "destroy capital" as you spend resources to something that is not useful and cannot be called capital. Saving creates capital.

For another, property values can go up and down, but this does not create/destroy capital (as such; the adjustment process is typically associated with suboptimal production and loss of aggregate utility). Property values have more to do with interest rates than capital. If interest rates are low, property values are high, because the properties compete with bonds for the investments.

If bonds could be guaranteed to never pay a positive return, the property values should theoretically reach infinity and still make a better yield. This obviously does not practically happen, rather it causes a boom of building new properties to compete from the yields. This "investment" is a diversion from consumption, so causes a decrease in the standard of living, and causes something to be built which cannot generate good returns (ghost cities in China, oil shale projects, wind power, all malinvestment).

The idea that interest rates should be coordinated is a really stupid one, there is absolutely no mechanism for a CB to make better the equilibrium rate the markets freely decide if they are left alone to do it - it is already and automatically optimal. Both lowering and raising it just cause misallocation and misery.

There is nothing to fear from the crash of property values - with a reasonably diversified portfolio (weighted with the global weights of different asset classes), after the crash you own the same % of the total cake as you did before, and your annual profits are the same as well. The ones who suffer are the leveraged guys - a fool deserves his punishment.

Pruden your first fundamental error is to conflate the market bid/ask price with the amount of monetary capital that had been exchanged (or maybe that is your point! see below). If the float is small then the bid/ask can moved with a very small proportion of the market cap.

Also like most goldbugs you (apparently I presume based on this one post) tend to view investing in absolutes (my theory of the goldbugs it is because they want a fundamental surety of precision of information which doesn't exist in the real-world), which are extremely rare if non-existent events because society's knowledge rarely if never drops to 0. A great speculator such as rpietila understands the probabilities and fuzzy logic rule. I sucked at trading when I wanted precision. I am good at trading when I relax and let the available information speak to me about what I do and do not know.

Bond markets rarely if never go from $50 trillion "market cap" to "no ask" instantly. Even during the small revolutionary government (and market cap) of the Wiemar hyperinflation, those who wanted to convert to gold had time to do so. Although deflation is an unexpected waterfall crash and hyperflation is more visible ramp, thus deflation occurs when more capital was destroyed (and this is because hyperinflation only happens when a small government dissolves itself with the people losing CONFIDENCE and deflation happens when society-at-large has ingrained its psychology with socialism with the masses CONFIDENTLY digging in their heels demanding continuation of their destruction. And note this is why after 2017 will be so horrific because the capital flows into the USA will have no where also to go! because the investors won't have the knowledge or options and the capital is finally realized as destroyed).

The capital that is destroyed did not exist, i.e. monetary digits are only capital if the executor has the knowledge. Those who didn't convert their capital even though they had adequate time to do so, thus did not possess the necessary knowledge capital.

You are correct that the notional values provided by the bid/ask price can not be accurately interpolated to tell us the liquid market cap. The only perfectly liquid asset is currency and that is only liquid up to the CONFIDENCE of the people in the currency. Thank you for pointing that out and raising this elaboration.

In short, capital flows are essential to understanding market timing and function.

Yet you are correct that estimates of total capital are exaggerated by lack of information (we would have to have a time machine or be able to predict all the investors' knowledge a priori). But you need to acknowledge that the float of physical gold is tens of $billlion only (or at most a $trillion but I doubt it)[1] and the float of crypto is in the $millions only. So relatively the knowledgeable capital—that can flow out of bonds into gold and crypto—is immense. See the float is smaller than the "market cap" for both bonds and gold, not just bonds as you were thinking thus we don't need complete information because fuzzy logic can eliminate the dependent variable from our prognostication analysis.

[1] Note Fekete was the one who taught me that gold is used as a store-of-value because it has very high stocks-to-flows ratio.

[TPTB_need_war]

I understand Armstrong perhaps better any person on the forum. [...]

Thanks for sharing your views and detailing Armstrong's thoughts on this. I do not think the long term play I outlined differs from Armstrong's in terms of 'CONFIDENCE'. The flow from paper to physical and back again is all about confidence (confidence in the 'system').

The flow from European/Asian (Japan?) bonds into US stocks until 2017 is something I can imagine. This is typically described as the US having the cleanest 'dirty shirt'. However, this is a rush from one type of paper somewhere in the world to another type of paper in a different part of the world (the loose cannons of capital). It all takes place within the paper world.

What I am interested in is under which circumstances Armstrong sees Gold reaching $5,000 and what the stock market will be like when that happens. After all, this is a crucial premise of the paper vs physical theory. Whether Gold peaks at $2,000 or $20,000 is not interesting. It is only interesting to know at what level stocks are at that moment (will it reach the long term bottom between 1:1 and 2:1?). With Gold at the suggested peak of $5,000, the Dow should then be between 5,000-10,000, meaning a serious crash (no longer a correction) from current levels. Perhaps this is something Armstrong may see happening beyond 2017 in the bottoming process of 2018-2023. Is this the time period in which he sees also US bonds break down (resulting in the anticipated rush from paper - all paper - into physical)?

If (US) stocks were to explode higher into 2017 as a result of the public wave going into the private wave (in paper), levels in 2017 will be so high that a crash to Dow 5,000 (to reach Gold 1:1 parity) would be the biggest crash in stocks since 1929-1932. Somehow, I doubt this will happen with CBs on watch, ready to throw the kitchen sink at it if deemed necessary (and they will). In such environment, I do not see Gold peaking at $5,000 but at least a multiple of that. Trouble is, we do not know exactly sure what CBs are going to do (keep on printing or at some point just let it be).

Anyway, on the last theme (predicting CB behaviour), I think Gold provides protection in both scenarios. In case of excessive printing, Gold will protect in the long run and if CBs let the markets collapse, Gold will be a good hedge against banks and other financial institutions failing. In that respect, I find the idea of $250 trillion seeking a safe haven somewhat misleading. If the SHTF, much of that $250 trillion will prove to have been illusory: too much claims on wealth in the system.

By not focussing on stocks, at worst I can be a fool and at best, well protected.

I think that it is more likely that european stocks will outperform US IF europe will continue QE while US will be tightening.
A a result money from european bonds will move to european and/or emerging market stocks/bonds instead of US stocks.
In any case, the problem, in my opinion, is with overall picture so distorted by various stimuli and QE, there are no good places to invest.
My hope was that bitcoin would be one of remaining avenues but with a terrible 18 mo trend, even bitcoin is pretty much out of contention (rightly or wrongly) for most investors.

ECB can't monetize because there is no political consolidation of the debt of member nations. Instead its austerity and defaults. There was already a Greek bond default but it was hidden. The authorities claimed they gave bondholders the option to cash out, but in fact did not honor any of the elections of investors to do so. Europe will hit the CONFIDENCE stampede wall in September.

Rpietila is correct, the CB don't control anything. They are dependent on investor CONFIDENCE that they do control something. They can push markets for short periods of time. The wise investors time this and exit before the curtain falls. They've moved from the long to short end of the curve, waiting for the greater fools to follow then they exit to the USA after collecting gains (preexisting bonds increase in price when rates go more negative than they are already are).

P.S. an economics lesson from a programmer and yet some fanboiz think I don't have anything up my sleeve.

[tvbcof]

...
IBLT can scale up to any amount of txns that all full nodes can coordinate via the P2P relay. I argue that at some level this becomes centralizing. ...

Someone has proposed a 'P2P relay'?  LOL!  I argue that at some level all levels this is label is an absurdity.

Don't all the big miners already use this private relay network:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766190.0
?

Probably they do.  Big miners suck compared to not having big miners in a system such as Bitcoin IMO.  That was one of it's design defects.  That is entirely beside the point, though, since my comment had nothing in particular to do with Bitcoin, much less the state of Bitcoin.  My point is that 'peer-2-peer' and 'relay' are opposite constructs.

That said, with certain layers of encapsulation the phrase is a bit less absurd on it's face.  Application peering is (or can be) close enough to 'peer-2-peer' in spite of the fact that we use commercial network providers who do various kinds of switching at the transport layers.

[TPTB_need_war]

My point is that 'peer-2-peer' and 'relay' are opposite constructs.

There is that same conceptual need for absolutism that plagues goldbugs.

Then your definition is that only a fully connected mesh topology is P2P. But we know for a fact that multifurcating physical networks are more efficient than fully connected topology. Thus P2P would be uneconomic except that we can layer the logical IP network on top of the physical network. Nevertheless similar economics apply to the logical IP network and thus no real-world P2P networks exist without relaying (propagation) because Reed's law (i.e. # of connections in fully connected topology) is exponential complexity (scaling) cost. You are asserting that Facebook would need to send every user message from any user's node to all 1 billion users' nodes in order to be P2P. Thus you might as well quality your definition of P2P to — a fully connected mesh topology that can't scale and thus doesn't exist in the real world.

Heck if the Bitcoin block announcement network was fully connected mesh, then wouldn't need IBLT because there wouldn't be his huge propagation delay problem that leads to orphans.

I rather have a more sane definition of P2P, i.e. it is not client-server. In other words, every client can communicate to another client, even through a relay. Servers don't relay rather they serve. Facebook is not relaying the message from one user to another, because the end-to-end principle is not in play (Facebook is not acting as a dumb, fungible intermediary).

Thus sorry you were entirely incorrect in your accusation.

P.S. I rather think client-server is an oxymoron and should be appropriately named servant-master.

[Perspicacious]

I was going to go more abstractly into what the matter of the universe is, because I have unifying theory on that which I think will be breakthrough.

You mind is like a rare orchid blooming in a quagmire, a beautiful bird trapped in a menagerie of farm animals.  Please pay no attention to the neophytes and B-listers, nor to the effluvium discharged by their ego-driven loquaciousness.    

Now I must share with you that I was stuck recently by such an afflatus that the tenebrous nature of the universe was illuminated, as though God shone a light to the aphotic depths of cosmic understanding.  The unifying theory I pieced together from that moment is not only a breakthrough, but of such breaking breakthroughyness that it is more properly a breakthrough-n-beyond.

Btw, my future elucidation will explain why this is required else the universe would need to have a fixed, absolute origin and edge...

Yes, beyond the figurative edge of the universe (for literately the universe must have no edge <yet I must waste valuable time to make these parenthetical remarks, for without them, the b-listers become confused in their nullibicity, opining relentlessly in their dungeons of inferiority>).  

and thus could not exist (would collapse into an infinitesimal point), but that is not elucidation is not necessary for the point we need to discuss now.

Indeed, but I must interject: for if the universe were an infinitesimal point, and nothing beyond it exists, then would it not equally be infinite in magnitude?  Does not the measure of measures becomes sensibly nonsensical?  Unquizzically quizzical?

That is all I can muster for today, for it is with great pains that I must wade through the drudgery of the other comments in this thread.

I have said what I have come to say.  

I shall now leave this forum never to return.