Yesterday

I too am doing this all though I am just getting started by putting together a folio to practice research with. I am a dividend kind of girl. On a later post you asked what the problem with the big banks is...they perpetuate the financial irresponsibility of our government and manipulate everything they can to the bottom line in their favour. They are a monopoly and a big pain. They use our debt as a tool, they reek havoc with interest rates and inflation with abandon, displaying blatant disregard for anything but the bottom line.

I've gone and lost that valuation article...this computer cleans itself every time I shut down the web so I lose all my history and the pdf while it is about velocity I need the other one to paint the picture. I'll fix this... There is this one I found about the Federal Reserve that was quite enlightening... http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/learn-how-to-invest/should-the-fed-be-abolished.aspx

Yup, he is in public high school and just a regular kid...big, bad and beautiful. I can agree that what he has received to date for political education leaves a lot to be desired but what he has learned from me in terms of independance of thought makes the grade and we do talk. We talk a lot compared to many mother/sons. We have learned together about many things, I am so grateful for our relationship. We already know they do this and we perpetuate it knowingly by doing business with them anyway. In terms of variables that we could realistically effect, we are the largest. In terms of developing a concept that could theoretically usurp a large enough portion of the finacial consumer base, well, the stock market would be instant death. If the assets to create loanable funds are reliant on the market, its too volatile for a small beginner and if we risked our clients assets on the market and lost them....also, any market assets would be a target for the pissed off big banks and like I said would likely be instant death. I like the idea of being completely liquid. I've been looking at the totals for service charge profits across the big banks...quite a few trillion if I remember correctly. In terms of making a profit and even perhaps offering nominal interest on savings...without being a glutton there is a lot of room to play in even just a small percentage of this. Not to mention the interest collected on the loans. We don't need another bank, we need something new. Something completely seperate from governments/printing money/hedges.

Life, experience, these are too random to exclude either the predetermined response or the completely random response. I don't think I view time as really existing the way we apply it. In my mind, the reason time seems to be so important is because we age, we die. In the grand scheme of things perhaps only speed, space and density really matter. Really, I think time is more of a man made explanation of an effect and not a very good one. I read that Stephen King book, it was pretty good. One of my favorites actually. Do you have a link for a paper about this theory of 'now'?

OK, I can agree with you over the insult bit, . Space time is a huge study and I have the rest of my life to learn about it and thankfully don't have to pass any exams . It does fascinate me. What Pliny is saying has interest and merit. I'd like to understand more.

Brings to mind a thing my grandmother always says....'If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.' Were you going to try to correct us and then just figured an insult was easier? I can already correct one thing I said....I confused size with density. I would of been open to any corrections from you before the snot trip.

My sons generation seems to have no problem questioning her or the governments motives and practices. Thankfully to them, titles are no sanctity, at least no means of sanctuary. Times are changing really fast...I wonder sometimes if the general public is quite ready to try a new type of banking. Could be that the only way to stop this is to make different choices and design different business concepts to achieve the means. Really, if we could borrow and save with entities that did not create money and invest in markets we could decide to give our business to the new entities and slowly drive the biggies out. Really, the only threat the biggies could be to the newbies would be on the stock market. So we would have to give up the piddly interest made on savings...be a holding versus investment entity. There are many ways to achieve this and being a holding company of sorts is just part of it.

Hi, that is a good read isn't it. I made the mistake of saving the research paper about currency velocity and interest and value as a pdf instead of bookmarking it...now I have to try and find a link. Research papers seem to be kind of hard at times to find by title. As soon as I get it I will post it.

This is an interesting article about the BoC and who controls/owns what... http://www.members.shaw.ca/theultimatescam/The%20Bank%20of%20Canada.htm

From the article... OK principles fine, but just because the brain might operate on these said principles and regardless of the reference to telepathy I can not see the universe being a holograph. I am more inclined to view the connection between electrons as one related to time and how we could theoretically fold space and time together, that size does matter in this regard that gravity reduces ability to fully utilize time by helping to create larger and larger masses. An electron on the other hand would have very little friction from speed so is much more capable and a neutrino even more so. I find the fact that a neutrino can phase shift so very fascinating. Yes, I do enjoy Stephen Hawkins' theories and others of this nature.

Well said Mapleleaf, this is true. A conclusion that I am coming too is that for the government to lose the debt that furnishes 160-170 million dollar a day collection of taxes, well that day will never come unless we as Canadian citizens figure out an effective way to fight/re-write this. Something is fishy about this regarding where that collected revenue goes. I am not naive enough to think this actually goes to the banks. Yeah right. I would imagine that somehow, someway, there is an agreement between the banks and our government that allows for (I'm guessing at least a large %) a portion of this collected revenue to be used for government spending of some sort. It seems to be more of a joint effort between the government and the banks to determine how much printing should go on in any given fiscal year.

I had read that yes, creating medium to circulate does indeed reduce the value of any pre-existing medium in circulation, from what I understand it takes a lot. Perhaps volumes as large as the totality of the recent US budgets. Which makes me think of a youtube movie I watched once that explained how in the US, upon the creation of a budget the Federal Reserve can print money equal to the budget immediately for use relying on tax collection to fund the budget itself, the double dip. This would give the volumes to make the difference. I have not substantiated this, have no idea if it is true, but it was an interesting watch just the same. This makes me think again of that 9% reduction mentioned earlier. If indeed it was referring to currency medium in circulation then I don't think we can look to printing excess volumes of currency medium to circulate as the means to the end for this 'keeping the value low' for the US dollar. Although, there is so much I don't understand yet....I will pull the article that I was reading about interest and the effect on value tonight. OK, these are the 2 conclusions I keep coming too, 1. If the US is paying China back (supposing they are) in US dollars and the price of the Yuan goes up then there can be less US dollars exchanged to clean up the debt? 2. That if the US is paying China back in Yuan's then a higher value for that would equal less of them exchanged to clean up the debt. Either way the benefit seems to come for the US. I have not substantiated this debt other than through alternative media but they say it is roughly 47 trillion dollars (foreign debt). Keeping the double dip in mind and the 9% reduction in circulating medium...the budgets, unprecedented, equal almost 40 trillion dollars....8-9 trillion of government spending in 2009 unaccounted for...mmm.... I know I have a lot to learn...

Mmmmm, would keeping the value of the US dollar low allow for more effective use of foreign currency by the US for foreign debt repayment? As in using the stores of the Yuan, or any other, owned by the US to repay instead of using it's own dollars? Lower value on the US dollar means less foreign money to equal a dollar. I think that in the case of the Yuan, it needs to be revalued versus devalued. This makes me think of the rumour about how much the US owes China. If true, the revaluation while helping to level out the foreign exchange might not bode so well for repayment of this alleged debt.

Hi Pliny, I am beginning to understand a bit about velocity. One argument states that velocity is not affected by the rise and fall of interest alone as shown in various years where production was high but consumerism wasn't for example. I am also beginning to get a bigger picture of devaluation and revaluation. Am I getting it right? That no matter whether the US dollar returns to an asset backed position, it's value will decline (devaluation)over the next few months and then could/should revalue by the end of 2010? And that China's adopting a floating rate is what is allowing the US to keep its valuation low? That everyone else's devaluing is keeping the US dollar relatively stable, as much as it can in this situation? I think of the article that says the currency in circulation in the US dropped by 9%. Is that a velocity measurement or simply a number of bills measurement? Perhaps this is not a good example of this possible coming reset to gold standard as so coveted by some. That this reduction has nothing to do with a reset but is simply a sign of the times and subject to reversal at a whim. So Zirping keeps the valuation low (do I understand this right?), is the US Zirping on purpose to force devaluation/revaluation (depending on individual circumstances) across the board to return the foreign exchanges to a more realistic volume?

This is interesting...thanks for the example I will look for it and read it. Loosely put, you could use the term slavery as a description of our current system in its entirety perhaps especially when considering the enforced debt of under-developed nations and our own issues with federal debt but in a more personal less general way the use of a term like unbridled usury might better apply. Interest itself, as a means to profit off a transaction which deals with the transfer of money on loan, is not a bad thing and no different than the mark-up on goods at a store. Lending money is a service and should be paid for. It is the magnitude of interest and how it is abused that is the real issue.

Glory be to the pachyderm (spelling?) who shows us size is not the best measurement! TeeHee... This is very interesting. I have a book called Bio-Mimicry by Janus Benus which is rather old now, 10-12 years anyway...which might as well be a century, but I really found the section on how we store information in the brain to be quite fascinating. It talks about quantum mechanics and the function of the electron that sits in the hydrophobic pocket of a micro-tublin. There was an earlier post that talked about someone being interested in the electron (photon versus electron for photography)in memory processes and also one I believe about how memory could be a separate layer of film, it got me thinking of this. The one theory I have read about this suggests that thought consists of waves (picture football fans in a stadium doing the wave) that travel across micro-tublin. (loosely explained) These waves are propagated by reactions of the electron which causes different chemical releases-reactions across the brain. Each one of these waves could perhaps be an individual layer of film. The signature of the memory. I did watch a very short expose once that showed promise in coma patients regarding the building of new neuro-pathways by attaching a machine to a finger that sends electrical pulse through the brain at regular intervals.

My Uncle suffers from this. It is truly a sad effect for such a strong man...I miss him already. A couple of years ago I was kind of looking into this and came across some interesting theories about semantic memory and its function in the recall of traumatic memories in post-traumatic syndrome. That perhaps beyond being simply storage for body function information that it can actually map memories. Whether or not those memories are actually stored in the semantic membrane or just mapped it had no answer. In terms of rewiring though, building new synapses...new neural pathways, it would be interesting to see if in this advent, how many would concentrate themselves to this membrane if other parts of the brain were indeed dysfunctioning.

Hi ML, have you heard of 'Global Finality of Settlements'? It is a rather large template for a global gold exchange type of asset backed economy.

Very good point and well written. I had a similar experience as a quite young girl. My family moved from Nova Scotia to Fort McMurray in Alberta when I was 10. The difference in my speech to that of the other children in school included speed, how fast I spoke and how words like corner and quarter had almost a southern drawl to them. I still remember how big of a deal it was for whatever reason....even a teacher singled me out for this and stated desires to put me in speech classes. While all of this was going on they realized that I was a year ahead of the curriculum even though I sounded like a bumpkin and got the resulting bump ahead. This did nothing for me in the friend making department. Having this experience did teach me how important it is to get passed most first impressions, both the ones you give and the ones you get.

Well that link I posted about currency velocity wasn't what I expected but it was kind of neat just the same. I couldn't get the velocity article to open up but there were lots of others. One in particular about Islam finance and Sharia (I know I spelled it wrong)Law. I read some of it...I think I had it mistaken for something else till I read that article. I think I can understand now the talk about the US becoming little Islam at least a bit. The no usury and so on is interesting. Maybe they could teach us a thing or 2 about finance. I settled for a wiki article last night (actually a few) about currency. So far, I am absorbing the quantity versus real bills theories. I understand the concept on how it measures the velocity by how many times a bill gets used with a formula that includes things like amount of money printed/released, amounts in bank accounts and more. The only table that graphed the velocities I found was too complicated for me to understand (not a wiki graph but one from the link I posted)...it used symbols that made it hard to understand at least without more study that's for sure. It is really interesting. I would love to have a better understanding of this. In truth, I love statistics! To actually be able to put a figure to how many times a bill changes hands before it makes its way back to the bank paints such a picture of human life. I'm going to read more tonight....the Austrian theory is going to take a bit of a back seat to this for awhile. Thanks again! PS I'd give it perhaps more than a week or so unless I find some less complicated versions of explanations and stats to understand the whole concept at least in a rudimentary way. Giggle...

Hi Maple, I've considered what the world would be like without money as a bartering tool. We would need something else to replace it. Human nature is what it is and idle hands don't tend to produce much of value either emotionally or practically. I would have to say for the most part we need redundant task, not redundant production though like we suffer from now. Personally, I view the advent of a lot of our current machinery as very destructive towards productivity because human ability was a good tool for curtailing over production. Machinery allows us to produce a virtually unlimited stream of stupid stuff. This unlimited stream has defined capitalism in a very unhealthy way. This ability to produce so much is what is at the heart of almost every fractionated layer of currency. Before machines, this was not much of an issue. Not like it is today. Barter, regardless of whether we use a paper bill, a metal coin, any object of considered equal value, exchange is what we have always done to reward effort and acquire needed materials. There is a difference in the types of scarcity. The kind of scarcity in third world and other under developed nations IMO is not a type of scarcity that opens up markets. This one does not drive economy but retards it. The amount of labour and production that would be required to bring all the underdeveloped nations up to even just close to our standard of living is enough to probably stabilize markets and give enough people a job for hundreds of years. This realization is slowly taking roots. Viewing these countries through the rose coloured glasses of external natural resource exploitation is becoming part of the past. I view some of the middle east wars as hopefully the last push for ownership of these said resources. The scarcity that I think has been referred to regarding business is one where a new technology or other comes available and through careful marketing a desire is made for this item defining an area of scarcity which shows viable markets. Unless the product is wanted, there is no scarcity. If there is no money for the average person to buy products, as in third world and such, there is no marketable scarcity. These are 2 different situations. The ability to create a marketable scarcity needs to go. In its place can come a real scarcity that could create enough of a market to allow us to remove redundancy without so much debt and hardship. Under developed countries could give us this...look at the size of Africa. Aside from internal conflict within African nations, there is enough people there to provide a consumer base to last into eternity.

IMO in a large part it is the governments half assed commitment to the means of stabilizing to any great degree the standard of living of its patrons through the use of federal/provincial spending of tax revenue that has caused this 'mere sum of money attitude'. My preference would be perhaps to see an increase in the control of the basic cost of living and tax reductions especially on income but if government spending is the way du jour then at least clean up the redundancy, abuse and the actual definition of being a welfare recipient. Sometimes I ponder what the division of labour would look like governed by need/usage versus scarcity. I can see what you mean by scarcity being the fuel that drives the competition of the marketplace. How can we define scarcity? In some ways I suppose this scarcity can be considered in terms of being rather benign when thinking of emerging market demand but this method also creates situations where entire countries are being controlled through their import/export in terms of the IMF or internally by themselves to manipulate market demand and financial control. Scarcity has allowed for fortuitous, un-paralleled speed in the growth of fortunes but has done little towards peaceful global growth. It is a bit easier to see the argument about how our future could be headed down the collectivist road when viewed from this perspective.

Hi, I wonder what our ratio of short term to long term bonds is? Would you say that we could at least speculate on the definition of any long term bonds issued by the government then administered by the bank as a possible SWF? In countries where the interest rate on products used by banks who do manage the SWFs is being subjected to Zirp, could that be a way to limit bank control on the investment return of the government?

Taking a lack of transparency into account, on the wiki page Canada's SWF performance seems to be weak. What kind of revenue do we gain from this type of investment? I wonder if Harper's interest in increasing foreign investment in our dollar is one way Harper is creating SWFs for Canada? Interesting...in terms of Zirp where the interest on overnight swaps is basically nill, how many SWFs have been affected? Are our SWFs, whatever they are beyond the one listed on Wiki, held by the banks? How about the US's SWFs?

This looks like a very interesting read. Thanks Pliny for the suggestion to look up 'velocity of currency'. When I finish reading it I'll post about it. Sorry I didn't get back to it sooner however I think this will be one of those times when 'it's better late than never' applies. http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/13807.html