One-world reserve currency inevitable and will enslave all nations?

[Lauda]

I'm not that familiar with economics, but it's usual that something has it's pros and cons. This is a very much possible scenario, which I do not prefer.
Look what happened with ruble, dollar and the swiss franc in a very short period of time. Things haven't really been stable, and some countries are having problems because of credits that were in those currencies.

The real question is if we are ever really going to be our own banks, something that cryptocurrencies have enabled us?

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[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 17: abomination of one-size-fits-all central banking
From:    iamback
Date:    Mon, March 16, 2015 4:21 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/03/virtues-of-germany-vs-vices-of-greece.html

Pettis answers ...

Blaming Nations

   Because German capital flows to Spain ensured that Spanish inflation exceeded German inflation, lending rates that may have been "reasonable" in Germany were extremely low in Spain, perhaps even negative in real terms. With German, Spanish, and other banks offering nearly unlimited amounts of extremely cheap credit to all takers in Spain, the fact that some of these borrowers were terribly irresponsible was not a Spanish "choice".

    Couldn't Spain have refused to accept the cheap credit, and so would not have suffered from speculative market excesses, poor investment, and the collapse in the savings rate?

Not really. Pettis explains ...

   "There is no such a decision-maker as 'Spain'. As long as a country has a large number of individuals, households, and business entities, it does not require uniform irresponsibility, or even majority irresponsibility, for the economy to misuse unlimited credit at excessively low interest rates. The experience of Germany after 1871 suggests that it is nearly impossible to prevent a massive capital inflow form destabilizing domestic markets."

    As German money poured into Spain, with Spain importing capital equal to 10% of GDP at its peak, the massive capital inflows and declining interest rates ignited asset price bubbles.

Pro-Cyclical Feedback Loops

Spain could not stop these pro-cyclical feedback loops of massive proportion because Spain did not have control over its own interest rate policy or currency.

Instead, the ECB had an interest rate policy best described in my opinion as "one size fits Germany".

The bubble-blowing feedback loop fed on itself until it blew up. Who is really to blame for that?

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 17: China's central bank emulated Japan's
From:    iamback
Date:    Mon, March 16, 2015 4:42 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Japan's Central Bank became the entire economy in Japan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY

This is the brave new world we are headed into with a single central bank that controls the world.

Knowledge Age innovation is incompatible with that top-down micromanagement. Thus we much break free from Armstrong's "solutions".

China tried to emulate Japan's model but did so at the tail end of the Industrial Age and ended up with centrally planned overcapacity. China is now at 0% real GDP growth. The 7% GDP figure from the government is a "production target" (similar to how Japan top-down financed their economy) not a real GDP calculus (c.f. 12:30 in the linked video for explanation).

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article49808.html

[B.A.S.]

I think the title should say one-nation controlled one-world reserve currency. The idea of a reserve currency is not rooted in ease of global commerce. It is rooted in control of political and economic world power.

[countryfree]

A singe currency is as feasible as world peace.
China, Russia, the UK, the US, North Korea or Japan will never accept a currency out of their direct control.

Readers don't read, or lack reading comprehension.

Why don't you try again to read the thread. The national currencies will float against the reserve currency.

I've understood the subject.
So that new reserve currency would be pretty much like gold. But no currency is pegged to gold any longer, and you may say that all national currencies are currently floating against gold, or that gold floats against each national currency, but few countries will accept that this new reserve currency shall be the standard against which all the others should be measured. Setting a reserve currency requires a consensus to begin with, but that doesn't exist at this time. Questions to ask is what authority could say this is the new world reserve currency, and why should countries accept it as such.

This topic should not be in "Economics", but in "Politics".

[B.A.S.]

I've understood the subject.
So that new reserve currency would be pretty much like gold. But no currency is pegged to gold any longer, and you may say that all national currencies are currently floating against gold, or that gold floats against each national currency, but few countries will accept that this new reserve currency shall be the standard against which all the others should be measured. Setting a reserve currency requires a consensus to begin with, but that doesn't exist at this time. Questions to ask is what authority could say this is the new world reserve currency, and why should countries accept it as such.

This topic should not be in "Economics", but in "Politics".

I agree. No world authorities are going to agree to such a thing; it's in nobody's interest to do so. The IMF has been trying to push SDRs for years now with the biggest problem being that countries have to deal with the IMF and become a member. The stipulations are way to grand for it to work.

The next reserve currency (if there is another one) would do best to be backed by something infinite, easily obtainable and liquid. Finite commodities like gold or oil end up one-sided and serve the good of those who hold the most.

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 17: Idiotic goldbugs think gold is a reserve currency!
From:    iamback
Date:    Mon, March 16, 2015 9:36 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A singe currency is as feasible as world peace.
China, Russia, the UK, the US, North Korea or Japan will never accept a currency out of their direct control.

Readers don't read, or lack reading comprehension.

Why don't you try again to read the thread. The national currencies will float against the reserve currency.

I've understood the subject.
So that new reserve currency would be pretty much like gold. But no currency is pegged to gold any longer, and you may say that all national currencies are currently floating against gold, or that gold floats against each national currency, but few countries will accept that this new reserve currency shall be the standard against which all the others should be measured. Setting a reserve currency requires a consensus to begin with, but that doesn't exist at this time. Questions to ask is what authority could say this is the new world reserve currency, and why should countries accept it as such.

This topic should not be in "Economics", but in "Politics".

Tsk, tsk. Small minds.

Gold isn't a reserve currency, because A) central banks and moreover investors don't choose to hold most of their reserves in it; B) because the supply of gold can't expand rapidly enough to pay back the annual interest in the usury based economy (and don't forget the public demands fractional reserve banking because they love debt); C) there is no authority that can backstop and insure the fractional reserve banking system that the public clamors for by printing more gold; and D) governments hate gold because they can't print it in order to fund their ever increasing fiscal deficits and citizenry love unlimited government spending.

You goldbugs are so clueless and blinded [and deafened] by the tinfoil hats drooping down over your eyes [and ears].

As for why the nations will accept the new one-world reserve currency, it is because they much prefer a central bank that is a power sharing agreement and orthogonal to any one nation, than the situation now with the USA at helm.

And this is political-economics, with as much emphasis on the economics as the political, as I demonstrated above with the point about money supply must expanded at the compounded average usury rate in the debt-based economy.

Get off my lawn kiddies!

[OROBTC]

...

OROBTC: Proud member of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade since 2011 (when they chucked bin Laden's body into the Indian Ocean)

Unit: Lunatic Fringe Battalion

Rank: Private Second Class (promotions are slow in my battalion)

Commanding Officer: Col. Cognitive Dissonance


Remark 1: It's loud around here, screams.  Lots of people don't make any sense...  Not very orderly.  Smells funny too.

Remark 2: Should have signed up for the Goldfoil Hat Brigade...

[tabnloz]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 17: Idiotic goldbugs think gold is a reserve currency!
From:    iamback
Date:    Mon, March 16, 2015 9:36 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A singe currency is as feasible as world peace.
China, Russia, the UK, the US, North Korea or Japan will never accept a currency out of their direct control.

Readers don't read, or lack reading comprehension.

Why don't you try again to read the thread. The national currencies will float against the reserve currency.

I've understood the subject.
So that new reserve currency would be pretty much like gold. But no currency is pegged to gold any longer, and you may say that all national currencies are currently floating against gold, or that gold floats against each national currency, but few countries will accept that this new reserve currency shall be the standard against which all the others should be measured. Setting a reserve currency requires a consensus to begin with, but that doesn't exist at this time. Questions to ask is what authority could say this is the new world reserve currency, and why should countries accept it as such.

This topic should not be in "Economics", but in "Politics".

Tsk, tsk. Small minds.

Gold isn't a reserve currency, because A) central banks and moreover investors don't choose to hold most of their reserves in it; B) because the supply of gold can't expand rapidly enough to pay back the annual interest in the usury based economy (and don't forget the public demands fractional reserve banking because they love debt); C) there is no authority that can backstop and insure the fractional reserve banking system that the public clamors for by printing more gold; and D) governments hate gold because they can't print it in order to fund their ever increasing fiscal deficits and citizenry love unlimited government spending.

You goldbugs are so clueless and blinded by the tinfoil hats drooping down over your eyes.

As for why the nations will accept the new one-world reserve currency, it is because they much prefer a central bank that is a power sharing agreement and orthogonal to any one nation, than the situation now with the USA at helm.

And this is political-economics, with as much emphasis on the economics as the political, as I demonstrated above with the point about money supply must expanded at the compounded average usury rate in the debt-based economy.

Get off my lawn kiddies!

In a situation where there are multiple sovereign defaults, no one has the balance sheet to provide another, bigger, bailout. Except the IMF. Concerning the bolded text above, wouldn't it be possible that no consensus would be needed; everyone is so interconnected (read:screwed) that an SDR might just be the 'fairest' option?

[B.A.S.]

In a situation where there are multiple sovereign defaults, no one has the balance sheet to provide another, bigger, bailout. Except the IMF. Concerning the bolded text above, wouldn't it be possible that no consensus would be needed; everyone is so interconnected (read:screwed) that an SDR might just be the 'fairest' option?

In theory, I think SDRs could be used successfully; however, the problem is with the economic size of the nations involved and pre-existing debts. For instance, The US is part of the IMF's SDR program. The US wants China on board. China wants no part because of the debt it holds of the US'. If all nations (hypothetically) were to transition into SDRs, existing debt obligations would be buried.

Countries in heavy debt want this, countries with no global debt don't.

Conversely, countries with "lots of money" (countries in debt like the US) are expected to buy SDRs in a larger portion to help smaller countries get loans from the IMF or a more favorable exchange rate for their currency. Countries with no money (who want cheap credit) are expected to go to the IMF for loans. De facto they are under the control of the IMF and wealthy nation participants (not really different from today).

The current SDR system in place through the IMF is having the same problems the US is having now regarding being the world's reserve. Nobody wants to give up the power associated with having reserve status. All the solutions are the same (currently). If it's not a nation, it's a bank. If it's not a bank, it's an entity. If not an entity, it's a government.

Nations in heavy debt are screwed (i.e. the US), but the US can self sustain with it's political power and military might in the world. Europe is partially screwed, but has a socialist net that will keep default states afloat because it's in the interest of all intertwined.

The fairest solution of all (IMO) would be to let nations form agreements for their global trades. No need for a reserve to set the standard. There is no standard, only what nations negotiate. I do understand this may bring "unwelcome" bargaining in the dark areas of the markets for arms and such, but this happens anyway. The world isn't fair, it's survival of the fittest.

[iamback]

Nadeem Walayat is usually correct. Appears buying a house in the UK or getting involved in UK real estate will be sustainable for at least 2 years; whereas, Europe is ready to slide over the cliff as of October.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article49783.html

Yes, his forecasting is pretty good, especially regarding the UK. He has been advocating property in the UK for a couple of years if I remember rightly.

Yes he did. And apologies I was thinking the UK would bust with Europe as of October 2015, but now I realize the USA and UK are independent because they (or were) reserve currencies[1] and thus they will get ingress of safe haven seeking capital that is fleeing the collapsing EU, China[2], and Japan in 2016.

[1]

...There are banksters in every nation on earth. For now, they just happen to be concentrated in New York (and lingering in London) for the moment, because that is where the seat of financial (and military) power is held because the USA (and formerly England) holds the world's reserve currency [i.e. they are the current financial capitals of the world].

[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985481.msg10794406#msg10794406

[iamback]

Goldbugs don't understand that the majority will never be on their side, because the majority loves debt (thus needs fractional reserve banking systems) and love government deficit spending.

The coming one-world reserve currency would be backed by gold only (if at all) in the sense that the basket weighting of national currencies which backs it each have their own gold reserves (which may not even be publicly verified, just an unverified accounting statement from the nation).

Gold is an archaic relic. It can be counterfeited with gold plated tungsten (and silver with lead), you can't spend nor move it without being spied on and even busted in a sting operation. You can't spend it autonomously at a distance without incorporating a single-point-of-failure by trusting a third party to store your gold and arbitrate the transaction, e.g. goldmoney.com. Anonymous crypto-currency in the new gold (and the new untraceable, autonomous cash) for mankind that fits the digital age.

Gold has two remaining monetary utilities, A) to store value for long periods of time without fear of it perishing; and B) in event of societal collapse, it might be the form of money people recognize and accept in dire circumstances but that is only true if we don't collapse into such chaos that only food is money and nobody wants gold (which happened in Japan for 600 years for example). Gold is not something you want to risk transacting often. So go store some recognizable gold and silver coins (that are so thin not easy to counterfeit) in the ground for a rainy day.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/17/what-can-we-do-3/

What Can We Do?

QUESTION: Dear Martin, All of the issues you point out…government debt, weather cycles turning down, bank manipulations, loss of individual freedoms, topic avoidance by the Media, hunt for taxes, the dying global economy etc… are absolutely INVISIBLE to the average American. People, in general, have no clue what is going on. With the exception of your readers, they could care less about what is happening to our world. On occasion Americans see clips of riots and discourse on the evening news, but it’s no big deal because that is par for the course. If it’s not affecting them personally, then it doesn’t matter much.

During the 2008 crash, neighbors were running around in a panic wondering what to do. No one had a clue. Not even their 30 year old advisors who were deer-in-headlights. I suppose it will be the same way next time. If feel a tremendous amount of pain and sadness based on all the things your write about. When are people going to WAKE UP and see what is happening? When will they care? When will the world start to have a conversation about “solutions” instead of stupid ass fixes that prolong the agony and line the pockets of so called leaders?

WHAT CAN WE DO? Tired of it all,

ANSWER: There is nothing we can do to stop it. We have to crash and burn. That is the only time we get reform. Yes it can get depressing for in the process we must confront the fact that although we are people who may have free will on an individual basis to wake up and see reality, as a whole, we are collectively no different than a herd of wild horses. We spook and run with most merely running because everyone else is. This is merely nature and we cannot change our human nature. There is the delusion of crowds and the wisdom of solitude. Free will exits to rise above it all, or to remain just one of the sheep.

Between the media not reporting because they are controlled by corporate entities whose self-interest is at stake and the hopeless conspiracy theory advocates who seek to blame grand schemes without proof to explain their own helplessness, the majority will be misdirected and left hopelessly lost in the folds of their own mind knee deep in delusional bullshit. So it may appear hopeless, yet this is required for the majority must always be wrong and that is the energy that passes through the mob to create the boom and bust cycle. The majority will become convince at the top of a market that it will never end, Then, the slightest whiff of error creates the flash crash. They will blame some short-player to explain their greed and mistake, but in truth, they are the culprit. When you are at the extreme on both sides, they because the fuel to propel the market in the opposite direction. They will even outlaw shorts assuming they have manipulated the market. But that always makes it worse for only the short has the courage to buy in the middle of a panic.

I tried before to prevent trends and had to discover that they are set in motion and must run their course. I gave up and saw firsthand there was just no way to do anything for that would require altering humanity and changing the laws of physics that govern the markets which must swing between maximum and minimum entropy.

Yes, I could have saved Social Security transforming it into a wealth fund. But self-interests of politicians is always too overwhelming. True, I could revise the world monetary system in 30 days or less and correct the mistakes to prevent the crash and burn. But this is delusional for that would require people to see the problem and then say fix it. Their own self-interest is always in maintaining the status-quo. It would be like a man with a gun comes to rob you and you then try to argue that guns are illegal and he should not do this. He will laugh if not shoot you.

So we are on the one hand condemned to watch history repeat, yet we are in the middle of a play and cannot just walk out. The answer lies in our individual freedom to survive. The world must go through these booms and busts, for therein lies the essence of advancement and growth. They are indeed waves of Creative Destruction – but you can survive if you live with the cycle.

You have on the one hand media who will not report and then you have people who will do whatever they can to try to prevent people from even listening to this message. Those who open their eyes to all the obfuscation are in a position to to at least prepare and that is 95% of the battle. The key is to survive.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 17: the majority are ALWAYS wrong (Hillary Clinton)
Subject: Mar 17: the majority ALWAYS fights their own shadow (Hillary Clinton)
From:    iamback
Date:    Tue, March 17, 2015 10:36 am
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

...there would be an uprising if people realized how much money our governments waste on a daily basis.

No the people love all that spending. They would clamor to get their slice of the spending too.

And then blame “the 1%” for the problem, i.e. the “99% versus the 1%” Hegelian Dialectic (ain’t it hilarious to see the masses blaming their shadow and not realizing it).  

Politicians are also quite clever in hiding their sources of ill gotten wealth:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/17/the-majority-are-just-fools/

The Majority Are Just Fools

In 2000, Bill and Hillary Clinton owed millions of dollars in legal debt. Since then, they’ve earned over $130 million. Where did the money come from? Most people assume that the Clintons amassed their wealth through lucrative book deals and high-six figure fees for speaking gigs. Now, Peter Schweizer shows who is really behind those enormous payments.

I was asked to review the documents when Hillary amazingly made hundreds of thousands of dollars trading futures at the same precise time she was in meetings. Her lawyer had an account at the same firm and a trade would be put on but left open until the end of the day. It would be a spread long and short the same commodity. At the end of the day, the losing trade went to her lawyer and the win into her account. Today, that is called money laundering.

This is why society must crash and burn. It is just too damn corrupt and the majority are simply sheep who believe whatever they say. The politicians know the people are stupid and the press is on their side. So how can we reform without being forced? Sorry, it is just impossible.

[BillyBobZorton]

Europe is partially screwed, but has a socialist net that will keep default states afloat because it's in the interest of all intertwined.

Illogical. In order to fund that safety net, it must tax expropriate from the productive sector, which is why Europe has no productive sector remaining, thus Europe will not be able to produce what it needs internally (will worsen in a negative feedback loop spiral flush into the toilet bowl) and thus it will rely on the Euro FX value to purchase for import its needs, but the Euro is collapsing in value as Euros are printed to bailout the safety net (indirectly via the banks who hold the sovereign bonds).

Nations in heavy debt are screwed (i.e. the US), but the US can self sustain with it's political power and military might in the world.

Correct the USA can expropriate from its productive sector and the productive sectors of the entire world with FATCHA, the military, and mostly importantly because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world's financial system.

The USA is the wounded Godzilla that can possibly drag the entire global economy down into a Dark Age, if we don't find solutions.

The solution I advocate is a bottom-up, grassroots technological anonymous crypto-currency and fledgling Knowledge Age. I also concur with Martin Armstrong's vision of a global restructuring (when and if it becomes viable), because this is a way to avoid sinking too far into a Dark Age while waiting for the Knowledge Age to grow and take over with anonymous crypto-currency which the USA can not expropriate.

Armstrong seems to misconstrue my debate with him as one of total disrespect or disagreement. Rather I very much appreciate Armstrong's models, his sharing, his insights. My disagreement with Armstrong only rests on him preaching EXCLUSIVELY on top-down solutions and not also recognizing the potential rise of Creative Destruction. In the past few blog posts, he has alluded to Creative Destruction, but he still denies that anonymous crypto-currency and anonymous internet systems could potentially rise. He paints his world view that only he has the Solutions and doesn't recognize that hackers are not also very important. Armstrong should recognize that he is also hacker, as defined correctly by Eric S. Raymond.

Note Armstrong may not realize that one of the reasons his site exploded in popularity since 2013, is because I have been quoting him with links to his site from this Bitcointalk.org forum. If he shuts off his sharing, this will only hurt his site's popularity. I do agree with him charging for some of the details of his model's predictions, because it makes the information more valuable. But if he thinks crawling into a shell because he feels defensive about debate and discussion, then he has really lost objectivity. Hey Armstrong, grow some skin on your back. Just because you've finally met your intellectual cohort, embrace it, don't wither away into a hole in the ground!

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/17/what-can-we-do-3/

He talks about "grassroots technological anonymous crypto-currency", I wonder if by this he means Bitcoin or a totally anonymous currency without a public ledger like Monero.

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 17: we LOVE Armstrong more than he realizes
From:    iamback
Date:    Tue, March 17, 2015 1:08 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Europe is partially screwed, but has a socialist net that will keep default states afloat because it's in the interest of all intertwined.

Illogical. In order to fund that safety net, it must expropriate from the productive sector, which is why Europe has no productive sector remaining, thus Europe will not be able to produce what it needs internally (will worsen in a negative feedback loop spiral flush into the toilet bowl) and thus it will rely on the Euro FX value to purchase for import its needs, but the Euro is collapsing in value as Euros are printed to bailout the safety net (indirectly via the banks who hold the sovereign bonds).

Nations in heavy debt are screwed (i.e. the US), but the US can self sustain with it's political power and military might in the world.

Correct the USA can expropriate from its productive sector and the productive sectors of the entire world with FATCA, the military, and mostly importantly because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world's financial system.

The USA is the wounded Godzilla that can possibly drag the entire global economy down into a Dark Age, if we don't find solutions.

The solution I advocate is a bottom-up, grassroots technological anonymous crypto-currency and fledgling Knowledge Age. I also concur with Martin Armstrong's vision of a global restructuring (when and if it becomes viable), because this is a way to avoid sinking too far into a Dark Age while waiting for the Knowledge Age to grow and take over with anonymous crypto-currency which the USA can not expropriate.

Armstrong seems to misconstrue my debate with him as one of total disrespect or disagreement. Rather I very much appreciate Armstrong's models, his sharing, his insights. My disagreement with Armstrong only rests on him preaching EXCLUSIVELY on top-down solutions and not also recognizing the potential rise of Creative Destruction. In the past few blog posts, he has alluded to Creative Destruction, but he still denies that anonymous crypto-currency and anonymous internet systems could potentially rise. He paints his world view that only he has the Solutions and doesn't recognize that DECENTRALIZED (not top-down controlled!) hackers are also very important for the world's future. Armstrong should recognize that he is also hacker, as defined correctly by Eric S. Raymond.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html

hacker: n.

    1. ...A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
    2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
    3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
    6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
    7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

hack value: n.

    Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were installed purely for hack value. See display hack for one method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained, only experienced. As Louis Armstrong once said when asked to explain jazz: “Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know.”

Eric Raymond explains well why I am annoyed with Armstrong transitioning from his engineers vocation to a fucking political soapbox spouting off about the only Solutions are top-down destruction into a one-world reserve morass.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3514

Those who can’t build, talk

One of the side-effects of using Google+ is that I’m getting exposed to a kind of writing I usually avoid – ponderous divagations on how the Internet should be and the meaning of it all written by people who’ve never gotten their hands dirty actually making it work. No, I’m not talking about users – I don’t mind listening to those. I’m talking about punditry about the Internet, especially the kind full of grand prescriptive visions. The more I see of this, the more it irritates the crap out of me. But I’m not in the habit of writing in public about merely personal complaints; there’s a broader cultural problem here that needs to be aired.

The following rant will not name names. But if you are offended by it, you are probably meant to be.

I have been using the Internet since 1976. I got involved in its engineering in 1983. Over the years, I’ve influenced the design of the Domain Name System, written a widely-used SMTP transport, helped out with RFCs, and done time on IETF mailing lists. I’ve never been a major name in Internet engineering the way I have been post-1997 in the open-source movement, but I was a respectable minor contributor to the former long before I became famous in the latter. I know the people and the culture that gets the work done; they’re my peers and I am theirs. Which is why I’m going to switch from “them” to “us” and “we” now, and talk about something that really cranks us off.

We’re not thrilled by people who rave endlessly about the wonder of the net. We’re not impressed by brow-furrowing think-pieces about how it ought to written by people who aren’t doing the design and coding to make stuff work. We’d be far happier if pretty much everybody who has ever been described as ‘digerati’ were dropped in a deep hole where they can blabber at each other without inflicting their pompous vacuities on us or the rest of the world.

In our experience, generally the only non-engineers whose net-related speculations are worth listening to are science-fiction writers, and by no means all of those; anybody to whom the label “cyberpunk” has been attached usually deserves to be dropped in that deep hole along with the so-called digerati.

There are specific recurring kinds of errors in speculative writing about the Internet that we get exceedingly tired of seeing over and over again. One is blindness to problems of scale; another is handwaving about deployment costs; and a third is inability to notice when a proposed cooperative ‘solution’ is ruined by misalignment of incentives. There are others, but these will stand as representative for why we very seldom find any value in the writings of people who talk but don’t build.

We seldom complain about this in public because, really, how would it help?

Note Armstrong may not realize that one of the reasons his site exploded in popularity since 2013, is because I (who have read him since he started writing from prison) have been quoting him with links to his site from this Bitcointalk.org forum. If he shuts off his sharing, this will only hurt his site's popularity. He can verify that some of my threads on Bitcointalk.org have 60,000+ reads and he can verify via Alexa.com that Bitcointalk.org has 20 times more page views than ArmstrongEconomics.com does. I do agree with him charging for some of the details of his model's predictions, because it makes the information more valuable. But if he thinks crawling into a shell because he feels defensive about debate and discussion, then he has really lost objectivity. Hey Armstrong, grow some skin on your back. Just because you've finally met your intellectual cohort, embrace it, don't wither away into a hole in the ground!

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/17/what-can-we-do-3/

We will even shift some info away from the blog for those who are clients in order to preserve the integrity of some of the analysis making it more exclusive for it is widely plagiarized and distorted by others desperate to stand on their soap-boxes with nothing to offer society misrepresenting the facts and what we even say.

The irony is Armstrong is describing himself below. He thinks he is describing me, but I am not on the soapbox saying that I have the only Solution and that it requires all of us to bound together in the same agreement. Rather I am saying that we hackers can experiment with many variants decentralized (bottom-up) and if humanity adopts any of our solutions over time, then that is a free market result entirely consistent with thermodynamics, entropy, physics and Armstrong's cyclical models.

The conspiracy nuts cannot accept that the world functions in a fascinating way according to physics as does everything else. No, they must attribute all powerful knowledge and evil plots to explain why they cannot escape the mob to see the reality of the world as it exists. They pretend to be all knowledgeable, yet close their mind to knowledge that does not satisfy their conclusionary expectations. They cannot rise above and observe their own actions and participation with unbiased eyes. To them, the world plots against them.

Armstrong even admits is he is fighting against thermodynamics, entropy, physics and his own cyclical models:

I tried before to prevent trends and had to discover that they are set in motion and must run their course. I gave up and saw firsthand there was just no way to do anything for that would require altering humanity and changing the laws of physics that govern the markets which must swing between maximum and minimum entropy.

Yes, I could have saved Social Security transforming it into a wealth fund. But self-interests of politicians is always too overwhelming. True, I could revise the world monetary system in 30 days or less and correct the mistakes to prevent the crash and burn. But this is delusional for that would require people to see the problem and then say fix it. Their own self-interest is always in maintaining the status-quo.

Armstrong has put himself in a [Hegelian Dialectic] dilemma because he feels he needs to convince society-at-large of the necessity of a top-down restructuring Solution in order to avoid a Dark Age, and he is trying to say that we who want bottom-up Creative Destruction are the reason the majority is always wrong. This egregious discombobulated illogic saddens me, because I otherwise respect Armstrong very much. It is so sad to see he has created these false demons in his mind.

Apparently Armstrong lost some of his sanity when he was tortured in prison. I can understand that. I pray he can come to his senses. I would help him any way I can. I love the man.

He wants so badly to fight those who tortured him that he thinks anyone who is questions his top-down solutions is perpetuating the torture of mankind. This is visceral for Armstrong. He can still feel the torture he went through in prison. This is sort of the dual of the Stockholm Syndrome.

It would be like a man with a gun comes to rob you and you then try to argue that guns are illegal and he should not do this. He will laugh if not shoot you.

Between the media not reporting because they are controlled by corporate entities whose self-interest is at stake and the hopeless conspiracy theory advocates who seek to blame grand schemes without proof to explain their own helplessness, the majority will be misdirected and left hopelessly lost in the folds of their own mind knee deep in delusional bullshit. So it may appear hopeless, yet this is required for the majority must always be wrong and that is the energy that passes through the mob to create the boom and bust cycle. The majority will become convince at the top of a market that it will never end, Then, the slightest whiff of error creates the flash crash. They will blame some short-player to explain their greed and mistake, but in truth, they are the culprit. When you are at the extreme on both sides, they because the fuel to propel the market in the opposite direction. They will even outlaw shorts assuming they have manipulated the market. But that always makes it worse for only the short has the courage to buy in the middle of a panic.

Again I reiterate to Armstrong that the repeating outcomes of the collusion of banksters, central banks, and governance are facts he can't deny (and in fact he has proven with his excruciatingly detailed study of history). Whether it happens only by an invisible hand, by plans with alliances, or some combination of those, doesn't matter. My point remains valid that bottom-up technological solutions that create new frontiers in the Knowledge Age are also desirable.

Not only desirable, but I posit maybe the only solution. Because Armstrong must admit that it is very likely the cancer of our current system doesn't die until it has killed the host, thus the wounded Godzilla is going to be forcing us hackers to develop the anonymous technological solutions.

Touché.

:wink:


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 18: Armstrong in denial of his stated world view
From:    iamback
Date:    Tue, March 17, 2015 1:25 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Armstrong could benefit from adhering to his own advice and stop trying to force his world view of the future as top-down, Hegelian Dialectic dilemma. He ought to admit that just maybe our anonymous crypto-currency Creative Destruction might end up being the solution and not his post-prison-torture Stockholm Syndrome psychosis.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/17/how-i-see-the-world/

Einstein was aware of his celebrity, but he never surrendered his own humble humanity. To live is to think, to conform is to surrender your thoughts. It is a willingness to expand the mind and simultaneously to never assume you are right. With each new day comes something new to learn and with that knowledge comes wisdom.

To see the future, we must comprehend the past. Opinion has little value for soap-boxes do not truly make a person taller. This is not a contest of who is right or wrong, for those who confine themselves to such a black and white world will never see the color that brightens the world. Wisdom comes from knowledge, which comes from trial and exploration. To assume you are right and reject any challenge is the mark of a fool, not of wisdom.

Einstein’s approach to the world was precisely that. Never surrender your imagination for within that spirit lies the truth and all wisdom.

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 18: russian and usa elite (DEEP STATE) cooperate (power sharing global hegemony)
From:    iamback
Date:    Tue, March 17, 2015 1:54 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Will Armstrong deny the research of Anthony Sutton and now the revelation he posted to his own blog?

Does Armstrong have an open-mind to information that disagrees with his world-view that the elite don't cooperate globally?

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/17/new-evidence-surfacing-us-assassinated-general-patton/

New evidence is surfacing that General George Patton was assassinated by the US government to shut him up for Patton’s position was clairvoyant to say the least that the Germans were not our enemy, it would be Communist Russia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3869117/General-George-S.-Patton-was-assassinated-to-silence-his-criticism-of-allied-war-leaders-claims-new-book.html

The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.

...

Mr Bazata also suggested that when Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general.

...

In order to placate Stalin, the 3rd Army was also ordered to a halt as it reached the German border and was prevented from seizing either Berlin or Prague, moves that could have prevented Soviet domination of Eastern Europe after the war.

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 18: the USA built communism (FACT!)
From:    iamback
Date:    Tue, March 17, 2015 2:48 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will Armstrong deny the research of Anthony Sutton and now the revelation he posted to his own blog?

Does Armstrong have an open-mind to information that disagrees with his world-view that the elite don't cooperate globally?

Antony C Sutton: Wall Street and the rise of Hitler & communism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sah_Xni-gtg

http://www.antonysutton.com/suttoninterview.html

Q: Do you believe that there has been suppression of technology? Has it been major or minor?

AS - Yes there has been suppression but its going to be impossible to suppress the new emerging paradigm.

Q: The Federal Reserve, the House of Morgan, House of Rothschild and Skull and Bones are they related?

AS - Best source for this is a book by me THE FEDERAL RESERVE CONSPIRACY, 1995 CPA, PO Box 596, Boring OR 97007

Q: What do you see for the future?

AS - Chaos, confusion and ultimately a battle between the individual and the State.

The individual is the stronger; and will win. The state is a fiction sanctified by Hegel and his followers to CONTROL the individual.

Q: Can you tell the story of how you learned of Skull & Bones? And how you felt?

AS - I knew nothing of S&B until I received a letter in the early 80's asking if I would like to look at a genuine membership list. For no real reason I said yes. It was agreed to send the package by Federal Express and I could keep it for 24 hours, it had to be returned to the safe. It was a "black bag" job by a family member disgusted with their activities.

For the benefit of any S&B members who may read and doubt the statement; the membership list is in two volumes, black leather bound. Living members and deceased members in separate volumes. Very handsome books.

I spent all night in Kinko's, Santa Cruz , copied the entire volumes and returned within the 24 hour period.

I have never released any copies or identified the source. I figured each copy could be coded and enable S&B to trace the leak.

How did I feel? I felt then (as I do now} that these "prominent" men are really immature juveniles at heart. The horrible reality is that these little boys have been dominant in their influence in world affairs. No wonder we have wars and violence. Skull and Bones is the symbol of terrorist violence, pirates, the SS Deaths Head Division in WW Two, labels on poison bottles and so on.

I kept the stack of xerox sheets for quite a while before I looked at them—when I did look—a picture jumped out, THIS was a significant part of the so called establishment. No wonder the world has problems!

Q: Did any of Hitler's economic policies threaten the interests of the international bankers, and if so did that play a role in his downfall?

AS - Hitler's economic policies were OK'd by the bankers right through the war...ITT, Chase, Texaco and others were operating in Nazi-held France as late as 1945. In fact Chase in Paris was trying to get Nazi accounts as late as 1944. When we got to Germany in May 1945, I remember seeing a (bombed-out) Woolworth store in Hamburg and thinking, "What's Woolworth doing in Nazi Germany?" While we were bombed and shelled it was "business as usual" for Big Business. Try the Alien Custodian Papers.

See my BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY for more.

Union Banking is very important. I made a documentary for Dutch National TV some years ago. It got all the way through the production process to the Dutch TV Guide...at the last minute it was pulled and another film substituted. This documentary has proof of Bush financing Hitler—documents.

Maybe my Dutch friends will still get it viewed, but the apparatus reaches into Holland.

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 18: FATCA is forcing the world towards unified taxation
From:    iamback
Date:    Tue, March 17, 2015 3:03 pm
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.nestmann.com/why-fatca-is-a-train-wreck-waiting-to-happen

But even here something very interesting is happening that I think will eventually derail the FATCA project. You see, the agreements that the US has signed with other countries call for the exchange of tax data to actually be… well… an exchange. But there will be no exchange because there’s no procedure in US law for that to happen. In other words, the IRS can demand that other countries send it data, but there’s no legal mechanism in place for the IRS to force US financial institutions to send information to foreign tax authorities.

...

Meanwhile, finance ministers in Germany, China, India, and other countries are starting to ask, “Where’s the data on our citizens investing in the US?” And there’s a deafening silence on the US end of that question. The US can’t force its banks to provide this information, and barring a sudden change of heart by the Republican majority in both houses of Congress, the earliest this could change is in 2017, after the 2016 elections.

http://www.nestmann.com/is-this-the-first-nail-in-the-coffin-of-citizenship-based-taxation

Obama Proposes Relief for Some Expatriates

Now the Obama administration has proposed a modest reform of the grossly unfair system of citizenship-based taxation in its 2016 budget presentation. Certain individuals who were dual citizens at birth would be permitted to expatriate under a considerably easier process than currently applies.

...

Does Obama Really Feel US Expatriates’ Pain?

...

But I don’t think Obama gives a rat’s ass about Americans living abroad. He’s much more concerned about making FATCA a success, so he can fulfill his campaign promise of “shutting down” what he calls “offshore tax havens.” And FATCA – the centerpiece of this plan – faces real threats, as I wrote about in this essay.

Now there’s another threat. In Canada, two US-Canadian dual citizens at birth have filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government. The lawsuit demands that the Canadian courts declare it illegal for the Canadian government to discriminate against US-Canadian dual citizens. The FATCA intergovernmental agreement between the US and Canada does discriminate – it forces Canadian financial institutions to release more information to the IRS than they are permitted to disclose to the Canadian tax authorities.

If this litigation succeeds, it could prove disastrous for FATCA – not just in Canada, but globally. But if Obama’s proposal becomes law, it would weaken the plaintiffs’ arguments – perhaps sufficiently to have their claims thrown out of court.

[iamback]

Heiamback talks about "grassroots technological anonymous crypto-currency", I wonder if by this he means Bitcoin or a totally anonymous currency without a public ledger like Monero.

Monero has a public ledger which attempts to provide anonymity via autonomous mixing with Cryptonote's one-time ring signatures. Monero does not have anonymity of the IP address sending the transaction to the public ledger, thus it doesn't have total anonymity. Fluffypony was proposing to add I2P (a.k.a. Darknet) integration, but I don't think any free onion routing "darknet" network can be resistant to Sybil attacks on anonymity. We've seen the Tor "darknet" fail spectacularly with its hidden services.

Anonymity is difficult with Bitcoin (but not impossible if you are expert). Bitcoin is an important bridge between the legal tender national currencies and the altcoins.

There are many technologies in play here, and there are more coming. Stay tuned.

[iamback]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Mar 18: Armstrong admits finance has always required risk-less rents on society
From:    iamback
Date:    Wed, March 18, 2015 7:48 am
To:      "Armstrong Economics" <armstrongeconomics@gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Armstrong has now documented that the elite banksters have an incentive to take control of finance away from governments and into their own hands, e.g. a one-world reserve central bank.

My seminal essays explained that Finance (usury and debt) are the paradigm of ignorant, passive capital (a.k.a. stored monetary capital) extracting risk-less rents from the productive sector by subjugating the collective to fungible stored monetary wealth (which is always power-law distributed, thus giving rise to socialism). It is not a question of desire, the paradigm demands it be risk-less because debt is only mathematically possible with fractional reserve banking, which is an inherently bankrupt paradigm. This was possible when non-fungible knowledge production was not the dominant component of production; which was the case in the stone, bronze, iron, agricultural, and industrial age epochs. But the Knowledge Age inverts this fundamental economic relationship.

The true solution is not a one-world central bank controlled by the banksters under the ruse of international partnership. Rather it is the grassroots rise of the computer revolution enabling the individual mind as economically dominant! I pray that Armstrong will have an epiphany.


http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/03/18/austria-to-default-of-debt-of-10-2-billion-euros/

The documents of the Medici family clearly state “to deal as little as possible with the court of the Duke of Burgundy and of other princes and lords, especially in granting credit and accommodating them with money, because it involves more risk than profit”. Distinctly, it is clear that the text continued showing that the Medici did not wish to lend to the princes of Europe for there was no way to collect a debt from a sovereign. The contract continued warning “many merchants in this way fared badly” and that “our fathers have always been wary of such involvements and stayed aloof, unless it was a matter of a small sum lent to make or to keep friends.” The Medici policy was “to preserve their wealth and credit rather than enrich themselves by risky ventures.”

The Baring Brothers folded. The Rothschilds, despite the conspiracy theories, have been replaced by the modern merchant banking style firm Goldman Sachs. I cover in detail the rise and fall of every banking family with documentary proof – not wild rumor and speculation.

This is history unfold once again in Austria. Sorry – the Rothschilds are not in the game this time. Not a single firm that has ever gotten involved with government has survived.

[BillyBobZorton]

Heiamback talks about "grassroots technological anonymous crypto-currency", I wonder if by this he means Bitcoin or a totally anonymous currency without a public ledger like Monero.

Monero has a public ledger which attempts to provide anonymity via autonomous mixing with Cryptonote's one-time ring signatures. Monero does not have anonymity of the IP address sending the transaction to the public ledger, thus it doesn't have total anonymity. Fluffypony was proposing to add I2P (a.k.a. Darknet) integration, but I don't think any free onion routing "darknet" network can be resistant to Sybil attacks on anonymity. We've seen the Tor "darknet" fail spectacularly with its hidden services.

Anonymity is difficult with Bitcoin (but not impossible if you are expert). Bitcoin is an important bridge between the legal tender national currencies and the altcoins.

There are many technologies in play here, and there are more coming. Stay tuned.

As far as I know Tor never got compromised given the guy hosting the hidden service didn't do anything stupid, which has been the case every single time. It's like saying Bitcoin is not secure because all those exchange hacks. If you keep your Bitcoin with you in a safe computer they are safe, if u run Tor with no javascript etc in a safe OS and dont reveal private information you are safe imo.