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The World's First Trillionaire


August1991

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He is an economic failure and is breaking the law.

I'm kidding.

You may jest, but that is how some companies see it. If you grow your own food, you are a threat to their revenue stream. Independence means liberty.

Actually, money will likely cease to exist in the next century or so, I predict. The virtualization of money is corresponding with a new era in which saved money will mean nothing - so a kind of digital barter system will take its place. You read it here first !

I read it somewhere else already. You heard of Bitcoin? Late to the game again Mike. The barter system is already in place. But the reason they went digital means the sky is the limit. There is no limit to how high we can run the whole planet into debt. Which nation is debt free? Are there any?

There was a barter system set up in the USA where it got shut down because the gov could not get in on the action to tax it. Same reason they want to get involved in private sales between individuals. You want to buy my used car, but then you pay a sales tax to the government. I paid the tax to buy the car, and you are paying tax to buy the car off me, not a car dealer. I am not a retailer , yet you will be paying retail tax on a used vehicle bought in a private sale that you and I agreed on. Sounds like a racket to me.

Well, YOU are the one who called it a 'boon' right ? Even if you were just being sarcastic why did you say that ?

I am not being sarcastic. You called it an 'adjustment'. How much money in bailouts? And the banks are STILL involved in shady economic practices. Recently in the UK, UBS and HSBC and JP Morgan were fined for deliberate manipulation of the interest rates in Europe. Still want to call it an 'adjustment' ??

I showed you where that notion was completely wrong. The crisis should never have happened in the first place.

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You may jest, but that is how some companies see it. If you grow your own food, you are a threat to their revenue stream. Independence means liberty.

Well if I were a food company, I would see it as a threat but not illegal.

I read it somewhere else already. You heard of Bitcoin? . The barter system is already in place. But the reason they went digital means the sky is the limit. There is no limit to how high we can run the whole planet into debt. Which nation is debt free? Are there any?

Bitcoin isn't barter - it's tied directly to hard money and if you couldn't cash out many wouldn't use it.

There are good reasons to incur debt sometimes. Is it any healthier to sit on piles of cash reserves than to have debt ? Are these things related ? If the money system crashes, isn't it those who hold debt that are hurt most ?

There was a barter system set up in the USA where it got shut down because the gov could not get in on the action to tax it.

Of course.

Sounds like a racket to me.

Well, it works. Find a better system if you can.

I am not being sarcastic.

Ok, then your message is unclear. These are 'boon times' and yet you are complaining about bailouts ? Or something else ?

You called it an 'adjustment'. How much money in bailouts? And the banks are STILL involved in shady economic practices. Recently in the UK, UBS and HSBC and JP Morgan were fined for deliberate manipulation of the interest rates in Europe. Still want to call it an 'adjustment' ??

Yes, there was an adjustment because prices were too high. That's what I'd prefer to call it, thanks.

I showed you where that notion was completely wrong. The crisis should never have happened in the first place.

I don't care about whether it "should" have happened. You have a great need to moralize on this, and I'm not at all interested.

You made a post with 3 points that are still unclear to me:

1. The notion that money will solve issues is wrong.

2. And if that is the case then guys like Gates should be able to fun a mission to Mars and back.

3. What about the financial boon we are already experiencing?

We're not making any forward progress on these. #1 is wrong, #2 I don't get your point but there's a chance Gates could fund such a mission, and #3 is unclear as I said.

Want to try again ?

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Well if I were a food company, I would see it as a threat but not illegal.

If you get big enough like Monsanto you can change the laws so it is illegal.

Bitcoin isn't barter - it's tied directly to hard money and if you couldn't cash out many wouldn't use it.

It is 100% not connected to hard money. It is an algorithm. And it is barter. Bitcoin is the first 100% pure digital currency not backed by anything.

There are good reasons to incur debt sometimes.

Like when?

Is it any healthier to sit on piles of cash reserves than to have debt ?

Would you rather have piles of cash, or debt? Thought so.

Are these things related ? If the money system crashes, isn't it those who hold debt that are hurt most ?

Yes, they are hurt the most. And who has the most debt?

I don't care about whether it "should" have happened. You have a great need to moralize on this, and I'm not at all interested.

Millions of people got screwed by the deliberate manipulation and outright fraud against it's customers. You don't have a problem with that? A few got really damn rich off screwing those people. AND they got bail outs and performance bonuses for their fraud. Moralize? Really? This put many people out on their ass and you come up with me moralizing it all?

I don't think I need to try anymore. Lost cause.

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There are good reasons to incur debt sometimes. Is it any healthier to sit on piles of cash reserves than to have debt ? Are these things related ? If the money system crashes, isn't it those who hold debt that are hurt most ?

Well in the long term almost everyone is hurt by perpetuating bad monetary policy.

And no... if the money system crashes those who hold debt are actually in pretty good shape. They owed a million pesos/dollars/yuan, but now you can settle that debt with three loafs of bread, a cheese burger, and a bottle of mustard.

And there ARE good reasons to incur debt sometimes. Actually theres two.... 1. You have to borrow money to get what you need to survive. 2. You borrow money because the way that you are going to spend it will result in a return in investment.

But neither of these things really justify the debt/money system. Since the public and the government ultimate backstop the central reserve system, why do commercial banks get to make all the profit? After all they have no money to lend... The services they provide could be provided with a pretty basic piece of computer software. Why not just have governments make the money at the mint, and lend it out, and use the interest gained to allow for much lower taxes. This has been tried before and it works.

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And no... if the money system crashes those who hold debt are actually in pretty good shape. They owed a million pesos/dollars/yuan, but now you can settle that debt with three loafs of bread, a cheese burger, and a bottle of mustard.

Did the banks lend that money to get back a bottle of mustard ?

I don't want to get into the whole Federal Reserve discussion with you again. If you want to post the example of the government that lent out money, ie. no banks, then I'd like to read that.

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I have no idea what this discussion is about, other than you shaking your fist at big organizations and expecting me to get angry right along with you. I was mad when this happened, 5 years ago, and I have moved on.

The people in power love people like you. Give it a couple years, no one will care.

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Did the banks lend that money to get back a bottle of mustard ?

I don't want to get into the whole Federal Reserve discussion with you again. If you want to post the example of the government that lent out money, ie. no banks, then I'd like to read that.

Nazi Germany is an example, they went from deep depression to being a world power in about 5 years. The green back is another example, and the North probably would have lost the civil war if it had to get funded by banks. The commonwealth of Pennsylvania is another example. Kennedy dollars are another.

And my point was not that the banks would accept mustard, but that the value of the money has been reduced to the point where you can basically get out of debt free.

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My guess is the first trillionaire (by today's standards) will be the:

Majority shareholder in the company that genetically modifies pigs, lettuce and tomatoes to survive a Martian night out doors. And the opens the first drive through on the colony....the tag line will be the "Best BLT in the Solar System"

or,

The person who patents a rapidly self replicating machine that feeds on CO2 and shits N/H/O2/O3, and can survive and reproduce on Venus. Think manufactured 'plant' with an attitude and pretty thick skin, and an adjustable life span.

or

The manufacturer of the surgically implanted mobile phone that encodes then transmits thoughts person to person....hands free. This would be available about the same time you could get a manufactured body to replace the old one....from what was formally the Scooter Store, only 2000 easy payments, with free shipping to Earth.

Edited by Talby
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So, who will be the world's first trillionaire?

Here's my guess: Anyone who invents a new/better way to transfer knowledge.

Rest assured that the bankers and their "preferred investors" will make more money from that invention than the inventor himself will.

-k

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Rest assured that the bankers and their "preferred investors" will make more money from that invention than the inventor himself will.

-k

Yup, the inventor wont have the money to register the patent, or for patent litigation to protect it. So hell give up his rights for pennies on the dollars that selling the product will eventually make.

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Guest Derek L

Rest assured that the bankers and their "preferred investors" will make more money from that invention than the inventor himself will.

-k

Kimmy, I wouldn’t take such a jaundiced view of things……August has nailed it, since the largest factor in accumulating wealth is, well, knowledge……

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Guest Derek L

Yup, the inventor wont have the money to register the patent, or for patent litigation to protect it. So hell give up his rights for pennies on the dollars that selling the product will eventually make.

Like Mark Zuckerberg?

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Guest Derek L

He damn near lost the rights to his invention to "investors" as well.

Clearly the final scorecard shows that he didn’t though……..Now I’m certain we could spend all night listing examples of inventors that got screwed and inventors that made it big, but to save us that, I’ll say this, those that made it “big” clearly were more knowledgeable (and perhaps in some cases lucky) then those that didn’t…..I know it’s a meat and potatoes statement, but it’s bluntly obvious.

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Clearly the final scorecard shows that he didn’t though……..Now I’m certain we could spend all night listing examples of inventors that got screwed and inventors that made it big, but to save us that, I’ll say this, those that made it “big” clearly were more knowledgeable (and perhaps in some cases lucky) then those that didn’t…..I know it’s a meat and potatoes statement, but it’s bluntly obvious.

Theft is how Zukerberg started Facebook. Hacked into Harvard servers of student information and made it public. I would not cry if he was destitute in the streets.

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Theft is how Zukerberg started Facebook. Hacked into Harvard servers of student information and made it public. I would not cry if he was destitute in the streets.

No, he started Facebook with a good idea, and developed the software to reflect said idea.

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No, he started Facebook with a good idea, and developed the software to reflect said idea.

Looks more like he stole the idea. Zuckerberg is completely unethical by hacking into other people's emails using the Facebook logins. Good thing I don't use Facebook.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-harvard-crimson-2010-3

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255888/Facebook-founder-Mark-Zuckerberg-hacked-emails-rivals-journalists.html

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Looks more like he stole the idea. Zuckerberg is completely unethical by hacking into other people's emails using the Facebook logins. Good thing I don't use Facebook.http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-harvard-crimson-2010-3http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255888/Facebook-founder-Mark-Zuckerberg-hacked-emails-rivals-journalists.html

Stole the idea from who? And yep, Facebook is completely voluntary. Nobody is forced to use it and/or provide any information.

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Now, personally, I think that population growth is necessary to the long term longevity and survival of a civilization...

You've argued this before, but I still disagree. No animal species I'm aware of, even species that have existed for millions of years, has experienced long-term continual population growth. Had they, they would have overrun ecosystems by now and destroyed nature's balance (like a never-ending virus). Virtually every long-term surviving species (and short-term existing species) features growths and declines in its populations to maintain overall balance in earth's ecosystem. The species that survive for millions of years don't do so via perpetual growth, they are simply able to adapt better to harsh conditions than other species. Humans are a part of earth's natural ecosystem, and if our population becomes too high we will (and do) negatively affect many other species & risk our overall survival (since our survival depends on countless other species of plants/animals). Nature has a way of balancing overpopulation of any single species, whether by disease, environmental stress, food shortages etc., so if we aren't careful to balance human population numbers we'll begin to face more severe disease/pandemics, food shortages, environmental damage (ie: pollution) causing death etc. That's just physics.

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I do not think that is true. Regardless of technological advances, humankind can survive and prosper on Earth only for a finite period of time. The only long term path for human civilization to survive and continue to progress is by expanding outward, and as we settle and populate multiple planets and solar systems, total human population will continue to grow. If we fail to achieve this, then, inhabiting only one planet, some disaster or cosmic catastrophe will wipe us out sooner or later. Here, I am talking about long time scales (centuries+); what you say is true for shorter timescales.

Ok, on long timescales ie: many centuries, colonizing of space on multiple planets/bodies will very likely mean overall population growth. Who knows, eventually on even larger time scales, we may run into technological limits of space travel or start running into other space-faring E.T. species that will limit our colonization territory, and we may also decide that after colonizing a certain number of other planets, the risk of human disaster destroying all human population throughout the galaxy will be low enough that the cost of continuing to colonize is greater than the benefits. At that point human population might stabilize.

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Theft is how Zukerberg started Facebook. Hacked into Harvard servers of student information and made it public. I would not cry if he was destitute in the streets.

Stole the idea from who? And yep, Facebook is completely voluntary. Nobody is forced to use it and/or provide any information.

Both of you guys ought to watch the movie "The Social Network", which addresses both of these issues.

Regarding the hacking of Harvard servers, that was unrelated to the origin of Facebook, and was simply a stunt that gained Zuckerberg some notoriety.

Regarding the theft of the idea, the Winklevoss brothers had attempted to hire Zuckerberg to build a website for them called "Harvard Connect"; Zuckerberg didn't build their website and built his own instead. The extent to which Facebook resembles the original "Harvard Connect" concept is pretty dubious, and Zuckerberg settled the lawsuit with what amounts to pocket-change (about $63 million dollars.)

I don't believe that Zuckerberg built his fortune by theft.

-k

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Yup, the inventor wont have the money to register the patent, or for patent litigation to protect it. So hell give up his rights for pennies on the dollars that selling the product will eventually make.

Kimmy, I wouldn’t take such a jaundiced view of things……August has nailed it, since the largest factor in accumulating wealth is, well, knowledge……

I wasn't even talking about patents. I was talking about the financing required to bring an idea to fruition, and the financial industry's method of capitalizing on the people who actually did the work.

My dad and my former long-time special guy were both involved in technology start-ups at various times, and through them I heard all about the "venture capital" process. Suffice to say that they prefer the term "vulture capitalists".

And then there's the IPO process, the part of the program where the entrepreneurs get to cash in on their success. And here we find that the banks and their preferred clients make more money off the invention than the inventor does. The IPO's underwriter sets an initial share price, gives themselves and their friends first dibs on the shares at that price, and gives themselves and their friends the option to buy another large block of shares at the initial price. So the shares hit the market, the price doubles on the first day, the banks and preferred investors exercise their options, flip their shares, and they make more money off it than the inventor did.

Read about the recent Twitter IPO to see how all of this happens. That was above-the-board, all out in public. The financial industry jargon would say that Twitter "left a billion dollars on the table", but the reality is that the deliberately low initial price allowed the banks and their preferred clients to make a billion dollars (on top of their regular fees) that came directly out of the pocket of the inventors of Twitter.

But there's more to it. Read about the eToys IPO. That's the one where Goldman Sachs has been involved in a lawsuit for, basically, deliberately screwing eToys. They set an initial price of about $20, but their internal memos showed that they believed the shares would reach $80 on the first day (they were close-- $77). They set the price deliberately low, and giving their biggest clients the right to buy large blocks of shares at that price and sell them the same day at a quadruple profit. And they sent letters informing these clients that they had to generate a certain amount of transaction fees for Goldman Sachs to be part of this kind of deal in the future (ie, they expected kickbacks.) eToys made $164 million from their IPO; Goldman and friends made $470 million from the IPO, by holding their shares for a few hours.

And it's not that eToys is the only time this happened; it's just that eToys is the only one where we have the evidence in our hands to prove it was done deliberately. GS's defense is simply that they did nothing wrong and had no duty to maximize eToys' return. That line of thinking, combined with the content of the memos obtained under subpoena, makes it clear that GS simply felt that was how things ought to work. Any time you see an IPO where the share price doubles in the first day, you ought to be suspicious.

And that's why the Facebook IPO was seen as such a big disappointment in the financial industry: Zuckerberg got full value, and the finance industry failed to rob him like they've done to others.

-k

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