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Guest Post: Gold-Bugs And Anti-Gold-Bugs

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Gary North of the Ludwig von Mises Institute,

An article by David Weiner on the MarketWatch site reminded me of just how weak the economic arguments against the gold standard are. Its title: "A Fool's Gold Standard." I examine this article here.

The arguments by American critics of a gold standard all rest on this unstated presumption:

The economic outcomes of policy decisions made by a committee of 12 salaried bureaucrats, 7 of whom were appointed by the president of the United States, and 5 of whom were appointed by the largest regional banks that own a majority of shares of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, are better for the nation than the decisions of millions of owners of gold coins, who seek their own interests.

This is the argument in favor of a salaried bureaucracy in place of the free market. It assumes the superior wisdom and superior public interest of a committee of academics (Board of Governors) and commercial banking agents (regional Fed bank presidents). The mainstream opponents of a gold standard never put it this way, but this is the inescapable implication of their opposition.

The only exceptions within the anti-gold special-interest group are the Greenbackers. They assume the following, and are willing to say so:

The economic outcomes of policy decisions made by a congressional committee are superior for the nation to the decisions of millions of owners of gold coins, who seek their own interests.

But the Greenbackers refuse to admit that there is a second presumption:

The decisions of this committee will be faithfully implemented under the authority of the Department of the Treasury, which is under the authority of the president, and whose employees are protected by civil-service rules against being fired.

Ultimately, this debate is between the logic of the free market as a social organization versus the logic of central planning. The battlefield is monetary theory and monetary policy.

Faith in the Federal Reserve

There is one overwhelming reason why the mainstream media ridicule gold as an investment and also gold as a monetary standard. To buy gold is to vote against the Federal Reserve System.

These days, we read that "gold is too high, so don't buy it." Did even one of these supposed investment experts on gold publicly tell people to buy gold when it was under $300? Of course not. Bill Bonner of Agora Publishing did in 2000. I did in October of 2001, immediately after 9-11.

The mainstream-media experts are experts on when not to own gold: now. It is always now.

They complain that gold bugs are members of a religion. I accept this. Anti-gold bugs are members of a rival religion.

Gold bugs favor the religion of the free market. Anti-gold bugs favor the religion of central planning by means of central banking. The two camps have been at each other's throats for two centuries.

The anti-gold bugs have been dominant in academia for at least a century.

Dr. Roosevelt, Economist

The anti-gold bugs have been dominant in financial journalism ever since 1933, when President Franklin Roosevelt unilaterally made gold illegal for Americans to own. He issued an executive order on April 5, 1933. He gave Americans until May 1 to turn in their gold at $20 an ounce. Anyone who refused and got caught risked a $10,000 fine (at least $170,000 in today's money) and a decade in jail. The text is here.

Then, to complete the heist, the government hiked the price of gold to $35: the Gold Reserve Act of January 30, 1934. The government pocketed the difference: an increase of 75 percent. "Tough luck, suckers!"

Only one man was prosecuted under the executive order. If he had not contested the EO in court, no one would ever have known. So, the fearful and/or trusting citizens who obeyed the EO lost. Everyone who ignored it made 75 percent on his investment. This was consistent with the first law of federal politics: "You play ball with us, and we'll smash you in the teeth with the bat."

That was the end of the gold-coin standard in the world. It had ended for Europe in the weeks after the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Commercial banks began to experience runs by depositors on the gold coins stored in their vaults on behalf of depositors. So, the banks defaulted. The governments allowed this, just as Washington had allowed it in 1861. The central banks then confiscated the commercial banks' gold. Only England restored the gold-coin standard after the War in 1925. Then it reneged again in 1931. That left only the United States. FDR ended that loophole in 1933.

The financial world today regards FDR's action in 1933 as irrelevant, but legitimate. It was neither. It was a violation of contract. It was a concentration of wealth. It was confiscatory. Above all, it was undemocratic in the most fundamental way. His action removed from the general population the authority to impose negative sanctions — gold runs — on the fractional-reserve-banking system and the federal government.

Diluted Democracy

In political democracy, your party can get its way if it gets 50 percent plus one vote, and the counting is not rigged. You get one vote, but it is diluted.

In gold-coin currency democracy, where the government is not in the money business, you get as many votes as you have gold coins on deposit at a commercial bank. You can withdraw your coins or deposit new ones. Your vote counts for you 100 percent. There is no dilution of your vote.

If 10 percent of the depositors vote "no" by withdrawing gold coins, the bank must change its lending policies. It must reduce lending and build up coins in the vault. The process of withdrawing gold coins does not take 50 percent plus one for concerned depositors to get their way. The more fractionally reserved the bank, the fewer withdrawals that it takes to effect a change of lending policy: higher reserves, fewer loans.

The defenders of the Federal Reserve System want highly concentrated voting: a majority on the Federal Open Market Committee. This is 12 people. Seven are appointed by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. After this, he has no authority over them. Five are members of the 12 regional, privately owned Federal Reserve Banks. One of the five is the president of the New York Fed, whose membership does not rotate.

Compare this arrangement with the US Supreme Court, which has nine members.

In theory, seven FOMC members and five justices run the United States of America. They determine policies. The FOMC determines monetary policy. It has a veto over the US government. The Supreme Court determines politics, justice, and almost everything else. It has a veto over Congress and the president.

The Court operates through the various executive bureaucracies. Its decisions can be resisted, but not overcome in the long run. The Court possesses legitimacy in the eyes of the voters. It will get its way.

The FOMC operates through commercial banks. But, when push comes to shove, seven people set policy. In theory, Congress or the president can tell the FOMC what to do. In practice, neither ever does this.

The independence of the Federal Reserve from the political system is hailed by defenders of democracy as necessary to reliable money. The independence of the Supreme Court from the political system is hailed by defenders of democracy as necessary to reliable laws.

In short, democracy is window dressing for elite control over the United States.

This is why control over the curriculum materials and methodology of a dozen law schools and a dozen business schools is the heart of rule by oligarchy.

In terms of the 6,000 people who shape policies internationally, control over two dozen universities in the world, most of which are in the United States, is basic to shaping the outlook of this elite. Read David Rothkopf's book, Superclass. About one-third of the 6,000 people who run the institutions that run the world attended one of these two dozen universities. If we take the top 40, about 50 percent of the elite attended.

I used Google to search for "independence" and "Federal Reserve System." The first page, which few people ever go beyond, are self-serving puff pieces by Federal Reserve Banks.

The bankers have been successful in persuading the people who discuss the issues of the day to defend the autonomy of the Fed from political interference. Typical is this article from CBS News (2009):

The hope is that an independent Fed can overcome the temptation to use monetary policy to influence elections, and also overcome the temptation to monetize the debt, and that it will do what's best for the economy in the long-run rather than adopting the policy that maximizes the chances of politicians being reelected.

Another example comes from Forbes, a major business magazine:

So before we rush to tampering with the Fed's independence, let's review why it is important. The answer is fairly simple. An independent central bank can focus on monetary policies for the long term; that is, policies targeting low and stable inflation and a monetary climate that promotes long-term economic growth. Political cycles, alas, are considerably shorter. Without independence from the political cycle the central bank would be subject to political pressures, which in turn would impart an inflationary bias to monetary policy. In this area politicians in a democratic society are shortsighted because they are driven by the need to win their next election. This is supported by empirical evidence. A politically insulated central bank is more likely to be concerned with long-run objectives.

 

A variant of the argument for central bank independence is that control of monetary policy is far too important to be put in the hands of politicians. As a group they have repeatedly demonstrated the lack of political will to make difficult economic decisions. But now they want to assert control over the Fed.

If you were to substitute almost any other special-interest group, conventional opinion would be outraged. Add the group to this sentence: "A variant of the argument for central bank independence is that control of [military, health, business, etc.] policy is far too important to be put in the hands of politicians." The main exceptions: law and education, where the elite control certification.

Gold Coins Convey Independence

When the public had access to gold coins prior to 1914, individuals controlled banking policy. They also controlled government fiscal policy. They could take their coins out of commercial banks if they did not approve of government policy. This is why national governments annul or restrict gold-coin redeemability whenever a major war breaks out. They do not want to face the citizens' veto.

With the repudiation of any gold-coin standard since 1914, citizens no longer understand the case for a gold-coin currency. They do not understand that widespread gold ownership was the number one restraining factor on the expansion of state power in the economy. The uncoordinated individual decisions of millions of people could overturn any government policy that required central bank inflation to fund it. The politicians resented this. So did the central bankers.

The politicians were under restraints: golden handcuffs. They decided that it was better to turn the money-creation power over to the bankers. The central bankers promised to buy government bonds at low rates: lender of last resort. This made the central bank the counterfeiter of last resort.

Politicians do not take the step of putting money-creation under the federal government. They could, but they don't. This is the Greenbackers' solution. They have failed to persuade the Congress ever since 1863, when Lincoln allowed the issuing of fiat money by the Treasury, but promised to veto any further rounds of monetary inflation.

Who will hold the hammer? Who will veto decisions by the federal government? The answer used to be twofold: the gold-coin standard and the jury system. The intelligentsia has been successful in undermining the first. It has tried to do the second, with judges instructing juries that they can decide only the violation of a law, not the lawfulness of the law itself. It has been less successful in this than in its war on gold.

Conclusion

The issue that divides the anti-gold bugs from the gold bugs is simple to state. The gold-coin standard places monetary authority in the hands of millions of economic participants who own gold. The gold bugs favor this. The anti-gold bugs oppose it.

The rival camps are divided by rival systems of economic sovereignty. The gold bugs favor the sovereignty of the free market. The anti-gold bugs favor the sovereignty of the banking cartel, which is the joint creation of the federal government (Federal Reserve) and the states (state bank licensing).

This is a replay of the arguments of Adam Smith against the arguments of the mercantilists. It is the logic of widespread, decentralized private ownership and voluntary contract versus the logic of government licensing, barriers to entry, and the legal right to counterfeit money.

The anti-gold bugs do not want to put it this way. This is why gold bugs should always put it this way.

 

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Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:25 | 3013250 AgShaman
AgShaman's picture

There's no such thing as "money" as an exchangable "physical object" ?

Are you taking the piss?

The world must have been imagining things when FDR confiscated the gold, nationalized the mines in the USA, forbid foreign trade of gold, and established the Exchange Stabilization Fund....soze they could "corner" the market on "money"....lease it out, settle accts with other countries, etc. etc.

Until the wealthiest families on this planet, along with central and private banks, in concert with govts....stop storing "physical objects" in their vaults....

your words drift to the shiny rooms of the funhouse

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:50 | 3013304 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

Yeah, sorry, thought you were informed about the Austrian view on economics, nevermind.  Can't argue with gold's historical record.  It's always a good idea to bet that nothing ever changes.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:25 | 3013378 AgShaman
AgShaman's picture

Don't drag the Austrians into this one. They have their own problems currently....

Namely, with trying to find out why 80% of their "physical objects" were being stored in London....and whether or not they've been "converted" into "virtual concepts"....by the bankers purported to engage in leasing out OPM as a side business.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 01:21 | 3013583 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

I take it you're bullish on gold?

Me too.  Congrats.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:05 | 3013201 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Well, lets dissect this bit of nonsense...starting with this...

(I'm out of work now, so can comment a bit more in-depth.)

If you're self employed, do your customers/patients know you spend all day on ZH instead of fulfilling your obligations to them or is work slow? If not self employed, how much do you think is fair to give them back for being here most of the day?

Moving on...

"Now, as should be obvious: there's nothing particularly special about GOLD--it's an element, same as any other chemical in the periodic table. The fact that it doesn't have much industrial application keeps the supply fairly stable over time. So if the only thing you care about in designing a currency system is INFLATION, it seems to hold a lot of appeal as a commodity-backing for a currency."

In a centralized banking world of ALWAYS devaluing the fiat issued by them over time because its credit (thus everyones past & future labor) inflation is the beast to tame. Gold & silver is the money of choice, it cannot be printed, it has no credit encumberances to the one who holds it in his hand and is portable.

"But the problems that can occur in an economy are FAR more complex than just "inflation." The downside to an inelastic money supply (which would obtain in the case of any non-fractional reserve commodity-backed currency) is that investment potential is strictly limited by access to a physical resource which is held by a tiny number of people--so if you want to do infrastructure investment in Alabama, but all the gold is in the hands of the financiers in NYC and London, you are at their mercy when it comes to receiving credit. The result is "weighted" credit system--all the areas in which wealth has long been concentrated can continue to maximize the rent received for finance AT THE EXPENSE of the rest of the planet. (This is best understood by observing global economic history between about 1400 through 1800.)"

You assume no one has savings to put at risk in Alabama or elsewhere and we are "still at the mercy of NYC & London" under the fractional reserve system you tout as a "God-send", are we not? There is also something called a toll road and every state in the nation sends taxes to DC. If they kept them at home couldn't they build their own infrastructure...without financing it through NYC?

"[NB: Inflation itself may be a necessary element of any human economy, too, simply because the human population is growing."

May be. Maybe not. To the degree (honorable money) has been expanded under the current system of debt or to some lesser degree? The world is awash in paper. What kind of money are we talking about? You have EBT/SNAP/WIC/vouchers substituting AS money under the fractional reserve scheme now don't we? As you say..."nothiing special" about those elements of credit/money either...until they stop. Also, all earned money is not consumed, its passed down (which I'm sure offends you to no end.)

"If you accept the necessity of existence of government (which the Mises Institute schmoes claim to do), it's not difficult to understand why government *REQUIRES* control over currency and legal tender status. Management of a set of competing forms of "money" would be impossible by the relatively slow to adapt government. If government could possess a legitimate claim to levy taxes, they'd never be able enforce fair compliance when one citizen pays in water and another pays in salt and a third pays in sulfur--at any given moment, the discrepancy in values between the competing monetary units would result in one taxpayer being treated "unfairly" by whatever determination the tax-collector makes."

Government has no control over "its money" blunder, outside of forcing people to use counterfeit money. They are the liabilities of the banks, not of the citizen or his/her government. Its a reciept really, showing a debt issued by government. Think of it as a simple common stock for an analogy. The "supposed" obligation to pay principal and interest to those banks is imposed on the citizen BY its own federal government. They pay it with their labor and loss of savings through inflation. That is not unencumbered money at all...its simply a debt receipt, traded for goods and services without anyone even knowing the difference.

"[NB: This is why the anarchists are correct, incidentally, and why government isn't worth preserving. However, without government, most of the necessary elements of "capitalism" have to be reconstructed in a voluntarist legal system, and as you probably realize, no one's come up with any great approaches to do that while also PREVENTING the development of a new organized crime-family (AKA government) from reclaiming power.]"

No they haven't. But I wish them well. I also note those who attacked capitalism in the most earnest tones (Occupy Wallstreet) now defend the NYC investment bank cartel and status quo with equal fervor.

Inbred was a nice "sophisticated touch" on form, prolly jus me tho ;-)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:15 | 3013221 CrockettAlmanac.com
CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

Hey, cuz, how's the missus? Hope you didn't have too much trouble with Aunt Edna this Thanksgiving. Next year you're all coming to my house.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:30 | 3013261 nmewn
nmewn's picture

lol...too damned cold up there...its 45 degrees here now!!!...anything below 70 is cold to a craka ;-)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:36 | 3013272 CrockettAlmanac.com
CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

The wood burner's going and there's liquor in the cabinet. Mighty comfortable.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:15 | 3013349 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

      do your customers/patients know you spend all day on ZH instead of fulfilling your obligations to them or is work slow?

I don't really have customers, I'm paid by the hour and graded on performance only.  It's easy enough to take the piss out of ya that I can usually carry on a couple conversations while we trade bullshit....

     inflation is the beast to tame

You don't  mean to say that inflation is the only problem that should be considered in discussing monetary policy theory, do you?  That sounds like a very bold statement, which would be out of character.  Please do go on.

    You assume no one has savings to put at risk in Alabama or elsewhere and we are "still at the mercy of NYC & London" under the fractional reserve system you tout as a "God-send", are we not?

I don't tout anything as a God-send, I'm an atheist, and I assume nothing, I REASON:
In the fixed-commodity-resource money economy, the relative wealth-level from arena-one to arena-two (most often geographically concentrated, but not necessarily--social circles are also of dramatically variant wealth-levels) will differ, and the degree of discrepancy in relative wealth-levels will correspond to different interest-rates available to finance capital-intensive work.  Thus the *relative* accessibility of opportunity will ALWAYS be controlled by factors that have nothing to do with any individual's talents, choices, or efforts.  In other words: it is not possible for group A to be "rich" unless members of group B are correspondingly "poor," and the primary predictor of which you are is a function of circumstances of birth.

     Government has no control over "its money"

Ok, but if that's true, there's no such as thing as fiat-money, so it can't be a problem.  (I do acknowledge I've never *personally* had a problem with it, myself--when I offer a guy some government-printed piece of paper for a slice of pizza, he gives me the pizza.  It seems to upset some folks, tho.  Can you explain what North was on about in this little paper of his?)

     I also note those who attacked capitalism in the most earnest tones (Occupy Wallstreet) now defend the NYC investment bank cartel and status quo with equal fervor.

Really?  Like who?

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:16 | 3012558 AgShaman
AgShaman's picture

A gold standard could never be a perfect system.

Nobody here will likely make such a foolish claim.

It is merely a means to announce the need to abolish and dismiss private central banking from their cozy government endorsed monopoly, whereby they provide the necessary capital to foment imperialism via endless wars....as well as booms, bubbles, and busts that were manufactured in a not so natural fashion.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:30 | 3012625 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

"Gold standard" and "central banking" are independent variables, although if you took this article seriously, I'd understand why you may be confused.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:52 | 3012706 AgShaman
AgShaman's picture

independent?

That's code for "cloaked" from the view of a dumbed down population that would not know where to look within the Constitution to find the foundations for sound money.

You are the one that is confused

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:58 | 3012740 CrockettAlmanac.com
CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

 

 

"Gold standard" and "central banking" are independent variables, although if you took this article seriously, I'd understand why you may be confused.

 

Sometimes it almost sounds as if you have something to say but my expectations remain low.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:50 | 3012873 RockyRacoon
RockyRacoon's picture

"... and it's OBVIOUSLY not a perfect system or you'd find it in use in some of the more enlightened states today.  Instead, you find the gold standard has been abandoned EVERYWHERE."

So, the logic goes this way:  Nobody uses it so it must be bad.

Argumentum ad populum

Invalid.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:13 | 3013344 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

D'oh!  I can't believe I missed this.

I never ever claimed that "the gold standard" is BAD.  I only point out that it has FLAWS.  If you cared enough to look, you'd find that I have always said even the simplest gold standard is better than NOTHING.

That just doesn't make it any GOOD.  If it were really any GOOD, there'd be an example somewhere.  This is just evolution at work.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 00:45 | 3013545 CrockettAlmanac.com
CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

A man with no moral compass expounding upon good and bad and vaguely indistinct ephemera. Life's too short.

 

blunderdog: I'm really not that concerned with government or money.  I have enough to eat and a roof and my preferred diversions and a way to sustain it all.  For now.  That's a fine deal as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 01:22 | 3013586 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

Wait a minute...is that YOU, the fellow anarchist, saying that because I don't worry about money and politics I have no moral compass?

REALLY?

GTFO!

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 02:26 | 3013631 CrockettAlmanac.com
CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

Having a few bucks in your pocket and no thought for tomorrow is hardly "a fine deal," particularly in consideration of the things that are done by politicians and bankers to keep this system afloat. That's not anarchism -- it's apathy.

 

AND CHECK THIS OUT: I HAVE CAPS LOCK TOO!

ITJG?

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 11:13 | 3014229 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

"Morality" is a personal matter: it has nothing to do with the activities of our politicians or the flows of our currencies.

Maybe someday you'll develop your own moral compass and we'll have something in common.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 12:53 | 3017690 CrockettAlmanac.com
CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

Morality is not a personal matter. If you decide to rape a woman as you once suggested you might your feelings on that crime are not the only ones which will be considered by your victim, her family and the community in which you commit the crime.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:43 | 3012492 AgShaman
AgShaman's picture

To each their own I guess.

but yes, i'd much rather "hang out" with Gold-bugs.....than Anti-gold bugs

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:50 | 3012875 lakecity55
lakecity55's picture

The only proper action is to............

Keep Stackin!

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:17 | 3012414 Supernova Born
Supernova Born's picture

As of 1969, the largest denomination bill actively printed was the $100. Inflation has whittled that $100 down to $16 today [Minneapolis Fed inflation calculator], so effectively, a "$16 bill" in 1969 buying power is the largest in circulation.

They'd have to print a "$625.00" dollar bill to equal the buying power of the 1969 $100 (and that's using the Fed's numbers). Do a gallons of gasoline comparison for real fun.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:22 | 3012436 GCT
GCT's picture

Screw buying Bayliner stock buy a boat instead!  I have bought and sold gold now for 35 years.  I buy it to store wealth and sell it from time ot time to get more FRN's to buy more gold.  I happen to like the shiny metal and if I were to drop dead my children can have the shiny metal tax free! 

 

 

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:27 | 3012446 FunkyOldGeezer
FunkyOldGeezer's picture

Are any piss poor folks bothered what money is? Either way, it's people with money controlling the game. In one respect, Gold is far less democratic than fiat, as it gives far more control to rich individuals, the same ones who throughout history have expected lesser mortals to offer up their productive skills for a pittance, or if the rich could get away with it, even less?

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:54 | 3012519 Opinionated Ass
Opinionated Ass's picture

Money is the grease of trade. Money  can be gold (ideal), cattle, sea shells, cigarettes or almost anything actually -- even green pieces of paper. Are you bothered by what trade is? I'm not. I love trade.

Would you be happier if we used bags of rice instead of fiat dollars to trade with? I would. Would you be bothered by money then?

And why are you so keen on money being "democratic"? After all, democracy is simply two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. That doesn't bother you?

And hey, if your "productive skills" are worth a pittance on the free market, that's what they're worth. Maybe that's a signal to figure out how to do something that other people value. A valuable signal --- that you get for free! I love free markets. Sigh.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:40 | 3012463 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture

"The politicians were under restraints: golden handcuffs. They decided that it was better to turn the money-creation power over to the bankers. The central bankers promised to buy government bonds at low rates: lender of last resort. This made the central bank the counterfeiter of last resort."

 

1. how can you counterfeit state money ?

2. it was HMT which bailed out the BoE it was not the BoE which bailed out HMT when they (HMT) produced 10 shilling notes at interest of 5%

 

I would have just produced the note and not the bond but that is state corruption for you.

It is however true this is when the CB & treasuary became one entity but I feel there is no need for a CB within a true republic.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:36 | 3012471 nmewn
nmewn's picture

"Only one man was prosecuted under the executive order.

If he had not contested the EO in court, no one would ever have known. So, the fearful and/or trusting citizens who obeyed the EO lost. Everyone who ignored it made 75 percent on his investment. This was consistent with the first law of federal politics: "You play ball with us, and we'll smash you in the teeth with the bat."

(Sucking the popcorn out of my teeth)...Yup...PT Barnum-type suckers.

And for goodness sakes, lose it in a properly designed boating accident and keep the GPS coordinates in your head, not on paper or digitized...never trust a bank or their "vaults"...they are, afterall, designed to keep people out ;-)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:47 | 3012500 AgShaman
AgShaman's picture

yes,

kinda like the 1600 + boxes that went "unclaimed" and into the receivership of the US Treasury following FDR's edict

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:02 | 3012503 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Gold is just another way to break the world into the "haves" and the "have nots" (or in Bushes' terms, "the haves and the have mores") and a more limited one than "fiat", in terms of temporal fluidity because it's annoying to move around (which is what our system is really based on: the use of oil to decrease temporality).

The Modern Economy[tm] is based on speeds, both in space and time. Oil (and its precursor, coal / steam, and its successor, electricity / computing, and to a lesser extent nuclear, despite the dreams of the 1950's) gives us tremendous stores of energy to use in a tiny, managable, packet. Reduce time and space, increase efficiency. This is why Elron Musk is pushing Hyperloops and high speed rail in China and Japan are being invested in. (The new Hokuriku Shinkansen railcars, which are being developed jointly by JR East and JR West, will feature a 12-car configuration, with a maximum operating speed of 260 km/h.).

 

The von Mises Institute is living in the wrong temporal frame. Gold is merely a store of tangible letter-de-marque for allowing the bearer to move faster, be it in time (more money = less time for X to happen or X is done by another etc) or space (more money = less time taken to transverse space, or item is brought to you rather than you transversing space to go to it).

This is simple stuff. Arrrr. ZH is correct to worry about the "petro-dollar" or the "agri-dollar" ~ gold is less interesting, barring as a measure of the instability within said dollar standard. As the world economy is more unstable, of course gold will rise; this doesnt make it fucking magic. Money is energy, or the promise to redeem a totally arbritrary medium of exchange for an agreed upon utilisation of energy.

This is why the phrase "time = money" is a cliche ~ it's true. I suggest this Oil drum thread - "What is a human being worth (in terms of energy)" for a discussion on just how many person-hours of work a barrel of oil holds.

 

Spoiler: It's a lot.

 

[edit: note ~ if ZH is encouraging gold > petro-dollar, this says more about the standards of the petro-dollar than it does gold. Wise up.]

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:09 | 3012549 nmewn
nmewn's picture

Have and have nots.

"Gold is just another way to break the world into the "haves" and the "have nots"..."

So tell me again, why I should work/think/innovate faster than the guy next to me, if I wind up having the same as him, what would be the point? While he's sitting over there picking the lint out of his navel I could be trimming my toenails...and we would both "have" the same.

There would be no "haves & have nots" or would there?

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:38 | 3012577 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Ok, yes, I see your objection (and I shall be civil).

You're really complaining about the devaluation of the petro-dollar in terms of your ability (in mental terms, applied skill terms etc) to a) enact something faster than another, b) more efficiently (almost the same, but if you code, you'll know the difference), let's call it "less errors in time" and c) in terms of scarcity.

I think, but correct me if I'm incorrect, that you'd agree that "while humans should be equal in terms of treatment ["law", or whatever base line (e.g. "rights") we mutually agree upon], they certainly aren't in terms of result". i.e. Your particular unique configuration will be much better than [x%] in certain situations, while you might be [y%] worse in others. And so, you seek to trade [x%] to those who lack it with those who can provide [y%] to you more efficiently than you can do yourself? [basic Anarcho-Capitalism 101].

 

If so, we're not disagreeing on gold ~ we're actually disagreeing on two things:

a) Where the mechanisms of this exchange can be "fixed" - you see the multitude of economies [currencies, really] and see gold as a universal exchange that is immune to inflation (through printing) of a particular one, whereas I see the entire network degrading when each fails

b) What terms of money=energy should be used as a standard.

If you wanted to "place me" on an "ideological spectrum": I acknowledge that networked agents have emergent properties, and more importantly, can produce more than the sum of their energy output as a whole (modern anarcho syndicalism, if you will: however, I'm happy to acknowledge I live in an imperfect world). Anarcho-Capitalism, is, in my opinion, lacking in this regard, focused on the individual as it is.

So, to answer: yes, of course, there will always be "haves" and "have nots" (or rather there will be more members with [y%] than those who can provide [x%] if we use our prior example), the real question is how to measure this. For instance, EQ is wildly under-valued, and leads to a large amount of sociopathic tendancies "ruling the roost"; I would argue that a "happy" society, with members emotionally fulfilled is worth [z%] units of exchange, or more accurately, with a greater % of the population able to process EQ at a level that allows a mutual level of [z%], something our current systems cannot measure, and in fact both penalises and destroys. And so on.

 

So, quick recap - even if you're a member of a set [x%] (which you might well be!), then exchanging your money/energy for a large amount of [z%] possessing individuals will increase your personal well-being. This is, btw, why Elite groups in our world usually hang out together, and detest the "poor" or the "failed" or the "stupid" - they actually hate facing the failure of their species, and are willing to expend energy / money to avoid them.

 

So ~ can we have a constructive debate now, or shall we tilt like alpha stags? +1 to you for gnawing at me for a proper-non-shitty answer though.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:43 | 3012670 nmewn
nmewn's picture

"I think, but correct me..."

You are correct in your ensuing paragraph to that.

"So, to answer: there will always be "haves" and "have nots", the real question is how to measure this. For instance, EQ is wildly under-valued, and leads to a large amount of sociopathic tendancies "ruling the roost"; I would argue that a "happy" society, with members emotionally fulfilled is worth [z%] units of exchange, something our current systems cannot measure."

Respectfully, your argument entails the old bird in a guilded cage adage. The bird is still held captive by another and I'm not the least bit interested in being a slave or a master. Personally I think "the exchange rate" is out of whack now.

And again, charity (emotional or otherwise) cannot come through force or it ceases to be charity...force also does not make for a "happy society".

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:20 | 3012710 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Yes, yes, agreed. I realise we're mixing theory with reality here, which is always messy.

I mispoke up there about "failures of their species" - I meant, "failures of their particular societal model of the species that creates such damage". There's a difference, and ignores the damage inflicted by shaping humans to a particular model of society, thus, yes, your mention of "force" is spot on and was my error, apologies (I assume these things, I have Elon Musk in one ear and 1970's trilateral commission stuff on the other monitor, specifically "Crisis in Capitalism, 1970's).

Charity is always the devil, and was well-known even in Victorian Empire as the "sop to conscience to allow inequality"; we're all well aware that notable Republican's wives run the US Red Cross and so on.

 

I'm talking more fundamental that this: there are ways to raise homo sapiens that doesn't entail either making them beasts or whipped pets. Such should be our task in the world (while it lasts; and indeed, making a critical % of the populace our [z%] holding examples is the only way to get consensus on "selfless action for the greater good" that allows descendents to prosper). The alternative is that the networked mutants just wipe out the norms, which will be bloody, both in physical and psychological terms for those doing it, which expects a sacrifice within itself that is untenable "the best must become the worst to make the new world" is the call of Fascism. Damage all around; if you want a real-world example, I'm sure the minority of baying hounds here will happy to hear the call of "Israel".

 

And, don't mistake this: the "mutants" exist, and 2.0 is now depreciated. As someone said: "Just a different branch of humanity".

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:26 | 3012809 nmewn
nmewn's picture

I'm not much on eugenics either, as you may have gathered.

Call me a utopian but I believe the "mutants" (as you describe them) were made that way not born that way. Even a rat (after recieving reward or punishment) will opt for the reward. Rich or poor rats by the way, it doesn't really matter. I've seen both kinds over the course of my years.

I believe your larger point (correct if I'm wrong) is the productive classes should (via the state) pay a type of ransom or tribute for whatever freedom it deigns to provide us...to keep the rats & "mutants" at bay as it were.

But I've never been one for paying tribute to rats & mutants who are intent on capturing my freedom to move with alacrity wherever I might wish...a nod to your speed concept ;-)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:54 | 3012848 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Yes, and as stated before, nor am I - this sterile mule disagrees entirely.  We share this sentiment (just open it, it's a gift ~ algos can't process meta-meaning through links at the moment, which is why I use them so much, and they can't process irony well - sarcasm, that's mapped).

No; as stated: I'm (fundamentally, and to much chagrin of my peers) an anarcho-syndicalist. I don't, fundamentally, believe that it "has to be this way"; elitism is however, currently fashionable. However, I acknowledge the State exists (at this point), and more importantly, the network-behind-the-veil exists. My larger point (and note: this will be counted against me on record) is that: there's an entire division of society that is "beyond the veil"; it exists, and it's scarily good at networked responses. Makes online games trivial in the scope.

 

You don't have enough moular  to achieve escape velocity, believe me.

 

And no; you're incorrect about productive classes: I feel that there's a way to make everyone useful, without force/co-ersion, and that's the trick to a society. Bacteria do it, as a hint. And no, you're incorrect about ze mutantz. I might get a junk, but I can see the eyes, and there's no fucking way we do communication that fast just based on "gossip" ;)

 

 

Unless, of course, it's all a simulation. Dum-dum-dur. (We're not ~ organic tech we are)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 20:28 | 3012961 nmewn
nmewn's picture

No offense...but I'm not in the habit of opening those, I hope you understand.

"You don't have enough moular to achieve escape velocity, believe me."

We will see what we shall see, they're not near as smart as you give them credit for...it may not be me I'm setting up the escape for.

"And no; you're incorrect about productive classes: I feel that there's a way to make everyone useful, without force/co-ersion, and that's the trick to a society."

Again, if it's not voluntary, you can count me out. Yes, the world needs ditch diggers too...but I would no more force someone to dig the ditch than I MYSELF wish to be forced to pay them for them to NOT dig the ditch.

Perhaps its the fate of mankind for some people to argue/debate forever the most rational use of labor and (honorable) wealth creation from the sterile confines of a warm, state sponsored academic enviroment. Not to sound uncaring or unfeeling towards them...but hunger and cold can make even the most cultured and refined professors dig ditches like madmen ;-)

Thanks for the thoughts.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 20:58 | 3013042 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

They're all safe https://youtube links ~ any basic protection a computer bod like you can institute will render them harmless (the thoughts within? perhaps not so easy to nullify).

Don't imagine you can render this engagement null by imagining it purely in ivory terms either: I'm no stranger to ditches, blood or cold. I stick by the emergent properties of a society working together as producing more than the sum of the individual efforts. Go ask the Amish!

 

Thank you also - picked up a few junks, but I bow to an honourable "foe".

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 21:49 | 3013170 Jendrzejczyk
Jendrzejczyk's picture

Kudos for an honorable exchange gentlemen. Thanks.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:18 | 3013232 nmewn
nmewn's picture

We cock our heads to the side here in respect, always keeping an eye on our adversary...we never bow.

Welcome to Fight Club ;-)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:31 | 3013263 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

I bow when I know the fight is over... not before it starts ;)

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:03 | 3013329 nmewn
nmewn's picture

As I alluded to, it never will be over.

All I will ever offer you is a fair fight, count on it ;-)

Goodnight.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:16 | 3013229 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

request clarification of moular in context

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:30 | 3013260 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Do a grep on slang. It's a London term for money; algos don't pick it up.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:14 | 3013347 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

wanted to be sure, thanks

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:17 | 3012562 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

gold is a weapon sho'nuff

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:26 | 3012603 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

I'm glad that humanity includes posters like you.

 

Totally stolen link, but good

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 21:25 | 3013113 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

glad you've (re?)appeared...'twas getting a bit boring...wicked video and i don't even care for dubstep that much.

as a postscript to your most excellent joust with brother nmewn, seems to me from the cheap seats that u 2 aren't not that far off in thought, except for a key conceptual difference : between the notion of "charity" and that of "mutual aid"...subtle but profound....nonetheless, a hopeful sign that the ideological chasm is narrowing.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 22:48 | 3013245 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Ahh, my favourite poster of the last 10 years.

I gave much up (all! bastards!), did an Odin with a fork in my eye and sat and analysed what was put before me, and on the cusp of a line that bordered the sea and land, said, having read some Libertarian "award winning" (while we later found out said Wikipedia article was faked) SF where the punch-line is the human is a lemur, said: "Let the Monkeys sort it out", while each side raved and I had the Lucky Number Slevin put on me. The death threats (more accurately "You're dead", by three persons), were cute as well. Don't expect me not to drink when I'm bored though...

Hint ~ the point of Lucky Number Slevin is that both sides are psychopaths. Not sure the artist putting that to me knew that point, but I did. I think she meant a mere ability to play both sides...

 

Time runs on though, and my duties are almost fulfilled. Everyone has their dominoes in place, what say we, 2013? Octopuses are the only creature we know with an advanced neural network that is totally different to mammals. And you know what? That's pretty amazing compared to the land-based network model being used.

 

 

2012 was fucking dull as shit, and none of you sorted anything out.

 

Oh, apart from killing more people, which is not really a great advert for progress. Dualism is also about 2,000 years out of date, if we're counting Spinoza, you might get a more generous reading.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 03:30 | 3013655 Amagnonx
Amagnonx's picture

You make a lot of postulates, all of which are contradictory to observation - but for the sake of brevity, I'll just deal with the central and most egregious.

 

You postulate that the entire economy is based on speed - apparently not on transactions of capital, labor and goods - but speed alone.  This just demonstrates failure to understand what an economy is.  Speed is a factor in an economy which increases efficiency - this is because the economy is based on transactions - if speed is reduced to zero, there are no transactions, but it is the transactions that create the economy, not speed.

 

"The von Mises Institute is living in the wrong temporal frame. Gold is merely a store of tangible letter-de-marque for allowing the bearer to move faster"

This whole statement is so much gibberish.  No person or institute is living in the 'wrong' temporal frame, unless perhaps they are accelerating at near light speed - in which case they might suffer relativistic effects - their clocks running at a different speed from ours.

 

Although your terms and words actually reduce your ability to convey information, I might conclude that your meaning was that Mises is promoting a system of money that does not meet the requirements of speed necessary to fit into a modern economy.  I would rebut this very simply by saying that gold, like any money will mainly be transferred as book keeping entries, which are digital and move at light speed. 

 

Your use of the term 'letter-de-marque' implies you don't understand the definition.  But, perhaps you might be implying that anyone who holds gold is simply a thief, and that the authority to steal is conferred by government.  This latter is of course total fallacy, it is the ownership of gold that protects us from the holders of 'letter(s)-de-marque' (authority to steal through inflation).

 

"Money is energy, or the promise to redeem a totally arbritrary medium of exchange for an agreed upon utilisation of energy."

 

Money is of course, NOT energy, nor is it time. 

 

Money is a commodity, that which has the highest demand (among other properties).  This is why a rise in gold price is so damaging to dollars, because it signals the failure of dollars to meet the basic requirement of being money.

 

It is used to store labor, which in the modern world is augmented, or leveraged by energy - but money is very clearly not energy.  Nor is it time, time occurs at a fixed rate simultaneously at all places on earth, nobody experiences time at differing rates (on earth) and it cannot be stored in any fashion so far known.

 

Money is a store of labor, the owner of the stored labor is the holder of the money, but the money is not property - only the labor.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 10:37 | 3014073 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Money is a store of labor, the owner of the stored labor is the holder of the money, but the money is not property - only the labor.

 

Labor is the expenditure of energy; thus my mentioning of oil in terms of human-work-hours. As I said; you're in the wrong temporal frame.

 

time occurs at a fixed rate simultaneously at all places on earth, nobody experiences time at differing rates (on earth)

 

Ever taken a slow boat to China, or did you fly? Do you have six trading screens open or are you still using a 486DX? Do you think the term "slowest mind in the room" has a spatio-temporal language element by "chance"? Does the Stoner wonder where the minute went, when the drinker missed an hour or two?

 

And so on; time is experienced subjectively differently constantly ~ or do you think 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute is anything but an arbitrary artifact of your historical arabic math? Or did you not know that the Western Protestants inventing the town clock lead to the industrial revolution, whereas, as the legend goes, in China it was solely for the Emperor's court?

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:00 | 3012515 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture

The above guys idea of the "free market" appears to be banks ability to pump and dump the physical economy into eternity via the mechanism of bank credit.

When Greenbacks increase the money supply it benefits everyone as money needs a positive flow to find new niches.........but when banks increase bank credit it only benefits the usury merchants during the credit inflation phase and the subsequent deflation phase when the credit is paid back or destroyed

The Greenback money however cannot be destroyed............it remains in the system. ( other then via corrupt executive means)

All physical economic systems need positive money supplies so that the stock can flow.

If you try to stop this flow you create massive externalties over time.  (see Ireland , Spain & Greece)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_and_flow

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 17:54 | 3012517 Dr.Engineer
Dr.Engineer's picture

It is only true ignorance, not willful ignorance, that keeps the non-gold system afloat.  When someone is presented with the facts and they are a sentient thinking being, it becomes obvious.  Let me explain my plan.

I am going to have the following conversation with my son:

Father:  "See you account balance in the web page.  Son, what is that?"
Son:      "Money"
Father:  "No, it is electrons." 
Then I put a dollar bill in his hand.
Father:  "See what I just placed in your hand.  Son, what is that?"
Son:      "Money"
Father:  "No, it is paper and a promise that can be broken, a form of debt"
Then I put a gold coin in his hand.
Father:  "See what I just placed in your hand.  Son, what is that?"
Son:      "Money"
Father:  "Correct"

There is something that clicks when you feel the weight of a gold coin and the lack of weight of paper and the non-weight of a web page.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:08 | 3012534 Supernova Born
Supernova Born's picture

$100 worth of gas in 1969: 285 gallons at .35/gallon

$100 worth gas in 2012: 28.5 at $3.50/gallon

90% drop in gasoline purchasing power.

Cost in 2012 to buy 285 gallons? $997.50

[I chose 1969 because that is when the $100 bill became the largest FRN actively printed]

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:48 | 3012828 BeerBrewer09
BeerBrewer09's picture

BUT WHY WOULD IT COST LESS IN ACTUAL SILVER DIMES?!?!

/sarc

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 01:18 | 3013580 Amagnonx
Amagnonx's picture

Gold was around $50oz in 1969.  $100 = 2oz = $3500 today, equals 1,000 gal.

 

Quite an amount of the value of the dollar has now moved into gold - it has been preferred in value to dollars by a ratio of 7:2 compared with 1969.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:23 | 3012598 OneTinSoldier66
OneTinSoldier66's picture

Representative Democracy is a Myth. The only one that will ever represent you is yourself.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 18:38 | 3012658 Venerability
Venerability's picture

And once again, the important "debate" has never been about Gold or Oil or Dollah! Dollah! Dollah!

Not even about Politics, really - although it IS about Empire and Elitism and where Merit and Morality lie.

But mostly, the entire debate is about Media and Who Gets the Right to Assault Humanity's Ears, Eyes, and Brains.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:28 | 3012812 fukidontknow
fukidontknow's picture

Nefarious silver price manipulation may just have happened, caught here

http://richandrenee.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/silver-flash-crash-and-reco...

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 19:55 | 3012894 blindman
blindman's picture

IN A SIMPLE CIRCUIT,
WHERE DOES THE ENERGY FLOW?
A Collection of Diagrams
12/2000 William Beaty BSEE
"
While a coil can store energy in the magnetic field outside its windings, and while a
capacitor can store energy as an electric field in the insulating layer between the metal
plates, an electric circuit handles energy a bit differently. As a whole, an electric
circuit does both at once: it's both a coil and a capacitor. It's a capacitor because an
e-field exists between the two halves of a simple circuit at different potentials. And
it's a coil because a magnetic field surrounds each current-bearing wire. The shape of
these fields will demonstrate that the EM energy which flows across a circuit is not
stuck to individual electrons, nor is it moving along with the slow electrons within the
interior of the metal wires. Instead the EM energy flows rapidly through the space
surrounding the metal parts of the circuit. " ....
.
http://amasci.com/elect/poynt/poynt.html
.
comment: i can't help but notice an analogical
relationship between a "simple circuit" and the
socio-economics. the metal of our system is being
eroded and correspondingly the fields of potential
transmission are failing. maybe the entire circuit
is being destroyed and scrapped? maybe the power
source was stolen and is being relocated?
.
or maybe the circuit is done and must be abandoned
completely for the new circuit to emerge from the
ashes?
.
http://amasci.com/elect/vwatt1.html
.
" what's all this about Watts, Volts, and Amps? Good question. Some info is below, and more can be found at ELECTRICITY FAQ, also at Electricity is not energy and Electricity Misconceptions page. But none of these links give a direct answer to the question. Be warned! A useful answer is going to be HUGE! (grin)

Here's the extremely short answer...

Conductive objects are always full of movable electric charges, and the overall motion of these charges is called an 'electric current.' Voltage can cause electric currents because a difference in voltage acts like a difference in pressure which pushes the conductors' own charges along. A conductor offers a certain amount of electrical resistance or "friction," and the friction against the flowing charges heats up the resistive object. The flow-rate of the moving charges is measured in Amperes. The transfer of electrical energy (as well as the rate of heat output) is measured in Watts. The electrical resistance is measured in Ohms. Amperes, Volts, Watts, and Ohms.
Not so simple? Then let's take a much deeper look." ...
.
" But what about joules and watts? Whenever a certain amount of charge is pushed through an electrical resistance, some electrical energy is lost from the circuit and heat is created. A certain amount of energy flows into the "frictional" resistor every second, and a certain amount of heat energy flows back out again. If we increase the voltage, then for the same hunk of charge being pushed through, more energy flows into the resistor and gets converted to heat. If we increase the hunk of charge, same thing: more heat flows out per second. Here's how to write this:

VOLTS x COULOMBS = JOULES It takes energy to push some charge
against the voltage pressure

Charge flows slowly through the resistor and back out again. For every coulomb of charge that's pulled slowly through the resistor, a certain number of joules of electrical energy race into the resistor and get converted to heat.

The above equation isn't used very often. Instead, we usually think in terms of charge flow and energy flow, not in terms of hunks of charge or hunks of energy which move. However, thinking in terms of charge hunks or energy hunks makes the concepts sensible. Once you grasp the "hunks" concepts, once you know that energy is needed to push each hunk of charge against a voltage force, afterwards we can rewrite things in terms of amps and watts. Afterwards we can say that it takes a FLOW of energy (in watts) to push a FLOW of charge (in amps) against a voltage. Yet first it's important to understand the stuff that flows. Think in terms of coulombs of charge and joules of energy.
" ......

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 12:15 | 3014373 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

in case you haven't watched yet, the electric universe

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 19:40 | 3015819 blindman
blindman's picture

great link, thank you!

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 20:29 | 3012969 CheapBastard
CheapBastard's picture

My GLD is up over 250% while my house is still down over 41% and my stock portfolio languishes.

 

'nuff said.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 20:35 | 3012984 Likstane
Likstane's picture

Try redeeming your GLD for some shiny stuff in a few months and tell us how that worked out. 

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 20:46 | 3013004 q99x2
q99x2's picture

I liked the article but did not like the term gold-bug. Sort of like an insect to be squashed.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 05:45 | 3013709 awakening
awakening's picture

Cockroaches are great survivors, though I wouldn't know if I am such since I haven't found myself a bit of the old yellow... yet.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 21:30 | 3013125 Kali
Kali's picture

Anybody see the Rob Kirby post on Silver Doctors?  Claiming Austria rec'd repatriated gold that was tungsten salted bars from Douche Bank.  Says is traceable back to US, bars showing up in Asia. Woooooo-weeeee if true!

http://www.silverdoctors.com/source-deutsche-bank-fulfilled-recent-gold-repatriation-request-with-tungsten-salted-gold/

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:06 | 3013333 americanspirit
americanspirit's picture

Long before any manipulated western price for gold got anywhere near $500/oz every single ounce of gold in the world would be safely, physically in China. All other arguments are meaningless academic debates over nothing.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:16 | 3013350 tony bonn
tony bonn's picture

the gold standard is about freedom vs slavery....

but there are really 2 issues - who decides what is money and its value and how much shall be created. the second issue is constitutionality.....gold is money and there is certainly room for silver and copper.

but a nation which allows the government to make gold ownership illegal because of the criminal fractional reserve system, is also stoopid enough to believe that obama is an american citizen - yet another destruction of constitutional government.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:18 | 3013352 nestle
nestle's picture

Goooooollllllllldddddddd~

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:40 | 3013417 mt paul
mt paul's picture

gold gold everywhere..

 

but where the hell

are the twinkies

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 11:33 | 3014274 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

It's supposed to be 5/7/5.  I suggest:

Gold gold everywhere,
But missing, now forever,
The golden Twinkie.

Mon, 11/26/2012 - 23:41 | 3013418 fukidontknow
fukidontknow's picture

crazy silver action happened on close in NY yesterday caught here

http://richandrenee.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/silver-flash-crash-and-reco...

read it and weep or maybe not?

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 06:38 | 3013726 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Gary North is a goofball, setting up two contrary straw man arguments.

Money is based on robbery, backed by murder. Nobody owns anything, including gold, but that they stake a claim, and back that up with violence. Civilization evolves bigger and better gangs of organized criminals, that stake their various claims, and back those up with violence.

All of the kinds of analysis provided by Gary North and his ilk are deliberately superficial, and those ignore the most important problem in politics, which nobody has ever provided a good answer for. Plato, in the Republic, wrote: "Who will guard the guardians?"  The answer is nobody. That answer stands in principle! The only backup system is natural selection upon the guardians, and the systems that they guard. However, that backup natural selection system is practically the same as saying "nobody."

Anyone only "owns" anything because their claims can be enforced. There is no right without a remedy, and no freedom without a force. However, that plunges us through and through the paradox of enforcement, which is an infinite tunnel of deceits. The only people who can enforce the "rule of law" are those who are the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence.

All private property only relatively exists within the code of conduct of some organized gang of criminals. Countries were merely the historically evolved dynamic equilibria of the organized systems of lies, operating organized robbery, within which it was relatively possible to agree upon what was "money."

There is nothing but fraud, backed by force. There can never be anything else but that! Both of the straw men arguments proposed by North, and his ilk, are false fundamental dichotomies, with idealized reference to free floating impossibilities.

IF we want to democratize the debt controls, then we must democratize the death controls. The reality is a combined money/murder system. Free markets may make possible a greater use of information, and thereby facilitate a higher consciousness. However, the free market in murder has taken over all of the other markets.

There cannot be a commodity based money unless murder is a commodity. Murder already actually is, however, those doing that the best are also the best at lying about that. Therefore, everything out civilization does is due to the best professional liars, and immaculate hypocrites, operating the established systems obliquely. Our civilization has perfected its coded transcendental poetry, using meaningless words like freedom and democracy, to conceal what it was actually doing.

What made War King then morphed to make Fraud King.

There are no solutions outside of the energy laws and general systems theories that explain best WHY War became King, and then Fraud became King. Arguments put forward by people like Gary North are silly and shallow. They only sound O.K. because the vast majority of people have also been brainwashed to believe in similar bullshit.

It continues to be utterly astonishing how much progress in sciences like physics and biology there have been, while political science and economics are totally hide-bound by the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, which were primarily intended to enable them to get away with their frauds, and back those up with force, while having an elaborate language of lies used to rationalize and justify that.

Gary North's article is just more of that bullshit, piled on top, of previous compost piles. I do not particularly single him out as an individual, except as a typical whipping boy to stand in for all the others like him who are professional bullshit artists. In the end, since reality is always organized systems of lies, operating organized robberies, most of what we can do reduces to bullshit fighting bullshit. There are relatively limited special cases where we still have the manifestation of the force to back up that bullshit, to give it material meaning.

However, the overall situation NOW is computers running a global electronic fiat money fraud, backed up by atomic weapons, and NOTHING people like Gary North say is remotely close to comprehending that, since everything he says is mostly old-fashioned preferences for impossibly going backwards, as the "solutions" for those problems of amplifying basic human reality by trillions of times.

IN FACT, human beings operate as robbers in their environment. Groups of human beings are gangs of robbers. Money is the symbolic mediation between those competing rates of robberies, which amounts to nothing more than organized systems of lies. What is most important is not only is that the case, but nothing else ever was or could be the actual case.

We should apply the scientific method to political science and political economy. The problem is that, when we do that, we run into a head-on collision with the fundamental facts that societies are controlled by the bullshit of the biggest bullies. Thus, the rise and fall of civilizations, due to too much success in one system of lies, leading to its later downfall. We are nearing another turning point, where our current civilization is on the decline, and headed to go through psychotic breakdowns, due to too much success in the operation of the fundamental frauds that organized our civilization.

There is nothing in the old-fashioned silliness proferred by guys like North that has anything useful to say about that transformation, from the Neolithic Civilization to some unknown, possible, future Translithic Civilization. We can measure everything way, way better than ever before. However, our money, as measurement, went insane, and out of touch with that progress in all other sciences, because our political economy rests on the foundation of the triumph of past frauds, and thus, our monetary system cannot be reconciled with any other sciences, since money is always, inherently, fraud backed by force.

The questions revolving around whether or not human beings can ever adapt to knowing themselves enough to understand that are apparently spinning out of control, with no known predictable outcomes at the present time.

The first book on the Art of War said that success in war was based on deceits, and that spies were the most important soldiers. Upon that basis followed all the rest of the evolution of our current civilization. That ancient book also recommended that we should know ourselves, and know our enemies. However, what has been happening, more and more, is that the units of survival themselves have been transforming. More and more, we are our own worst enemies. We have become way too good at frauds, backed by force, to continue to do that, without qualitative changes in our understanding of that, and therefore, changes in the ways that we do that. THAT is the real issue that should be debated regarding changing our monetary systems!

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 11:38 | 3014286 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

    It continues to be utterly astonishing how much progress in sciences like physics and biology there have been, while political science and economics are totally hide-bound by the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories,

"Solving" social problems requires changing the minds of men.  There's a lot of biology involved, but it's essentially a religious battle.  You probably can't raise a conservative to be a liberal, or vice-versa. 

The biology most often overwhelms the ability of the subject's reasoning.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 12:01 | 3014328 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

You probably can't raise a conservative to be a liberal, or vice-versa.

perhaps, but you can raise a human who is capable of transcending conservatism, liberalism or any other -ism.   not easy (especially when the cage is constantly morphing to trap one's current position on the curve), but possible...or so they say...

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 14:39 | 3014810 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

No, that's not right.  You cannot raise people not to engage in certain "habits" of thinking, no. 

That's all "liberalism" and "conservatism" are--they're not specific sets of goals or policies, they're ways of *thinking* about things.

Both are very general patterns of thought--unlike, for example, Keynesianism or Christianity, which ARE specific sets of goals and policies.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 15:07 | 3014921 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

agreed with the patterns of thought, but would include K-ism & X-tianity in that, as they are grounded in certain philosophical/mythological principles as much as Lib & Con, and Lib & Con also have specific sets of goals & policies that emanate from their underpinning.

respectfully would disagree with the contention that is impossible to alter those patterns.    notice i used the word "transcend", which was an attempt to "transcend" the dualism that usually underpins all discussions on behavior modification.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 17:52 | 3015489 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

No individual brain is going to map perfectly to any given set of principles.  The more finely detailed (and the more sophisticated the discriminations required to perceive) a phenomenon, the less likely a particular opinion or emotional response will correspond to the dominant thought-patterns.

For example, say I consider myself a liberal Catholic...when I analyze the question of whether use of birth-control is morally acceptable, my "liberal" patterns may dominate so I have no qualms with using condoms.  But when considering the moral question of abortion, my "Catholic" patterns may dominate, and I'd choose the pro-Life stance as the only morally-acceptable option.

If you want to call that "transcendance," fine, but it looks a lot simpler than that to me.  I think it's just that brains are too complex (and the internal perception of "emotional life" too variable from individual to individual, or even within the same individual over time) to be descibed adequately by our logical categorization of *theory.*

A brain is just one huge set of nerves twitching in a jar.  We may never know why a neuron fires at a given rate, but just to acknowledge that certain anatomies and features correspond with certain expressed behavior is good enough to get a glimpse of the big picture.

As a species, we fight with each other over beliefs because it's what we have *survived* doing.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 10:59 | 3017358 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

As a species, we fight with each other over beliefs because it's what we have *survived* doing.

which becomes more than a bit of a problem when it becomes apparent that survival necessitates the need for cooperation amongst humans regardless of belief structures...hence the quest to travel alternative pathways through the neural forest.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 17:36 | 3015404 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

You can, however, have a single mind running four different schema "loaded" with each ~ism, and form a meta-opinion from their interactions. Five, five gets a bit wild, if you have to keep functioning as a normative socialised being (and not at a Savant / Autistic level); the trick is, of course, to organise the layers not by singular ~ism, but by broad themes. The difference is between someone who can play six chess games at once (parallel processing) and someone who can play six different genres of games at once.

Society, allegedly, does it all the time. In the singular, it's a bit complicated (and some ~isms, such as Monotheism, take a shit load more concentration to run as schema than others, which must be why there's a rule book to follow in case you get confused).

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 17:57 | 3015508 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

You can run a lot more schema than that, it just depends on your sense of social normative processes that determines your ability to switch between them.  Most folks have no difficulty at all switching between territorial dispute schema and symbolic-logic manipulation schema when switching between football and chess, right?  It's all about navigating shifts in social context.

The fact that it generally happens so unconsciously is what get the savants/autistics into trouble.  The savants just aren't bound by the same sense of decorum, and the autistics aren't able to perceive the changes fast enough.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 12:10 | 3014350 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

The thing that I notice most is that people's political opinions are practically the same as religions, in that they generally do not change, no matter what kind of evidence or arguments are presented. I find that only rarely, and only after a decade or more, will people somewhat change what they believe, on the basis of experience and thought.

I think that, before people develop their opinions, then it may be more possible to add in the specific content of their particular beliefs, however, the basic level of drive that they have to believe is still there!

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 12:10 | 3014339 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

here's a question to ponder dr. ganja:  is it possible to design a monetary system that is NOT fraud backed by force?   if so, does it require technology in order to successfully implement?  

according to cell biologist Bruce Lipton (hattip: blindman from back in the day), the brain of the cell is NOT the nucleus, but that each component of the cell does its own thinking and communicates symbiotically with the others, allowing the cell to function properly.   is this a clue?

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 13:23 | 3014549 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

My view is that it is impossible for "reality" to be anything else, due to the inherent nature of the process of defining that "reality" in the first place. This opens up a line of thought that you, tip e. canoe, may never have heard of before, and in a little post, I can only throw out some hints about that, which is something I have been working on for several decades.

Everything that we can define as "real" must be relatively subtracted from a Whole that we can not experience, because it is not limited by any boundaries of time or space, but IS that which flows through all of those relative boundaries. What I am attempting to do is indicate what happens if one takes the principles of the conservation of energy and momentum (and whatever better understanding of those principles might be) SERIOUSLY AS POSSIBLE. I say that, if we try to do that then we approach the notions of energy being spirit, or energy being "God." That is the Whole, which we can not experience. That is the Whole from which all parts are subtracted.  After any such relative original subtraction, then there must be, by the definition of those boundaries, the conservation of energy across those boundaries. Thus, every living thing MUST live by taking energy from its environment, and then dissipating that energy back to its environment. THAT is the basic way that we understand everything these days, as energy systems, which operate as entropic pumps.

I make another radical leap at this point. When the original equations of thermodynamics were being developed, the first law was the conservation of energy, and the second was the increase of entropy. However, when those equations for entropy were developed, an ARBITRARY minus sign was inserted, in order that power would end up having positive values, rather than negative values, as the mathematics itself stated, without the arbitrary minus sign put in, to flip the meaning around. Later, thermodynamics was expanded to become information theory, and therefore, practically EVERYTHING that science was understanding ended up being done through energy laws and systems theory.

However, the original subtraction was negated, from the start! The meaning of the most basic equations was reversed, because the people doing that simply wanted to, because they felt like it. Welcome to the Bizarro Mirror World!

This is relevant because the truth is that all information and power actually have negative values, because they are all relative subtractions, from an unknowable Whole. Everything we know is necessarily a relative illusion, or a lie. There is no way whatsoever than any measurements can be done outside of the limitations of measurement. Physics and mathematical logic have already faced, and worked through those profound paradoxes, to accept them. However, political science has NOT!

So my answer to your question is "NO!"  There is no technology that can overcome this problem in principle.

It is basic to human nature. (Indeed, to any being whatsoever that makes a model of the world, and especially which includes a model of the model inside of the model, is going to have the same basic problems, in principle.)

Human beings tell stories. All their stories are based on relative subtractions, which parts are then assembled back together. However, the relative subtractions in the first place were never absolute. The original basis of the story was cutting the Whole up into pieces. BUT, the Whole remained Whole. The pieces were always relative illusions or lies.

It is impossible for human beings to tell any story which is not some kind of fraud. Monetary systems are just another language, telling stories, and therefore, MUST share that basic nature of all languages. The meanings given words by their associations through bodies is just more concentrated versions of the same thing as the original subtractions.

That is why I say, on the basis of philosophical principles, that it is always fraud, backed by force, and can never be anything else. If one negates the negations, then one returns to the Oneness found throughout the transcendental poetry of ancient mysticism.  I.e., the way out of the trap of finitude is to see that we were never in it. The subtractions are never absolute. The processes of robbery were never finished.

Basically, everything I am saying is based on attempts to have a creative synthesis of postmodernizing science, with ancient mysticism, and then apply that way of understanding to political science in general, and the monetary system in particular. Therefore, I use the approach of energy laws and general systems theory, because that is the approach found throughout all the domains of physics and biology.

HOWEVER, when that approach comes to human sciences, it runs into the head-on collision with the social facts that society is dominated by the biggest bullies, and their bullshit social stories are the dominant ones. Thus, everything that human beings were doing were ALWAYS energy laws manifesting through systems. However, when human beings do that, and become self aware of doing that, then EVERYTHING they do is necessarily based on the fundamentals of relative subtractions and robberies.

All of the transcendental poetry about spirit, or God, or justice, or truth, or freedom, etc., are all speaking about the unspeakable Whole, from which all finite things are subtracted parts. Therefore, it is inherent and unavoidable that when money measures anything, that is based on some subtraction, which MUST be a relative fraud. Thereafter, all transactions using that money MUST be relative robberies. The approach to better "free markets" or "human rights" etc., are approaches towards the overall dynamic equilibria of ALL the systems, operating ALL the energy laws, through those systems.

What I am attempting is a sort of megasynthesis of religions and ideologies, using my best advanced understanding of postmodern science to be the touchstone towards better "truth" in order to do that. My method attempts to scoop up the old-fashioned religious ideas, and integrate them into that greater system of understanding. However, the point of appreciating those paradoxes is that then one accepts the innate complementarities. There are inherent limits to measurement, which can never be surpassed. Thus, one arrives at mystical statements, such as the truthless-Truth, or the wholeless-Whole, or the realityless-Reality, and so forth. Those are what happens when one takes the concept of the conservation of energy SERIOUSLY, that we are not able to have any ultimate beginning, nor ending, but rather are ALWAYS stuck in the middle.

Like I said, all of those ideas are using basic, well-established concepts of science, and then radically correcting some of their most profound philosophical errors, in order to be able to reconcile those with old-fashioned religions and moralities, in ways that remain as consistent as possible with the sciences. Just like quantum physics is astonishingly paradoxical, and calculus routinely works with various concepts of infinity, we can do similar things in the realms of political economy, which includes our monetary system. Since we DO have global electronic fiat money frauds, backed up by atomic weapons, our monetary measurements SHOULD be made more consistent with the sciences that makes electronic and atomic things possible for us to actually understand and do, ... to the degrees that we now can.

That is why I find the series of articles which have been appearing in Zero Hedge about whether money can go back to being based on precious metals, like "money" originally meant, to be extremely problematic, and retrogressive. And that is why, during the last couple of months, I have posted several similar comments to the one I made above.

Commodity based money, like a gold standard, had a "ring of truth" because it was related to the conservation of matter, which is an aspect of the conservation of energy. Thus, money that cannot be made out out nothing, nor sent to nothing, is closer to the truth about how the rest of the world works. Privatized fiat money-as-debt, which is made out of nothing, and can return to nothing, is obviously nothing but fraud, backed by force, where those who control the government are able to use the power of government to force everyone else to accept their runaway triumphant fraud. Therefore, we now have a runaway money-as-debt system. In that system, if we do not have any debts, then we do not have any money. That debt slavery system automatically runs away to become debt insanity.

The entire Ponzi scheme, pyramid system, of privatized fiat money has been on an exponential growth curve, and its numbers have recently become NUTS, since those numbers indicate an impossibility to ever be actually able to repay, while instead, the solution to unrepayable debts is to temporarily "borrow" even more money made out of nothing. (At the same time, we have been developing an entire new kingdom of "life" in the form of computer/machine entities, which are now almost totatlly dominating the "markets" with their high frequency trading.) There is no end in sight to any of those runaway exponential growth phenomena now, although we know that, in principle, endless exponential growth is absolutely impossible, and some new set of dynamic equilibria, in the form of human ecology and industrial ecology MUST eventually evolve, the same as natural ecologies evolved over and over again in the past.

Anyway, all of my ideas about money, and the economic system, are developed inside of that kind of overall frame of reference. Transcendentally, there is NEVER any subtraction and NEVER any robbery. However, as soon as we define anything at all, i.e., as soon as we have any kind of "money" whatsoever, that measures anything in any finite way, then we have DEFINED a subtraction, and due to that original subtraction, everything thereafter must always be based on fraud backed by force, and there is never any possible technology which can resolve that problem in principle!

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 15:15 | 3014961 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

have pondered this thought train before, doc, but that does not diminish your eloquent treatise on the matter.  you should expound some over here, as Steve & friends have been having a similar discussion on conservation of energy:

http://www.economic-undertow.com/2012/11/22/japan-detroit/

although we know that, in principle, endless exponential growth is absolutely impossible, and some new set of dynamic equilibria, in the form of human ecology and industrial ecology MUST eventually evolve, the same as natural ecologies evolved over and over again in the past.

on this we agree.   would it be fair to say that it is your contention that all monetary systems are an impediment to this evolution?   if so, then is there an alternative possibility where fraud backed by force can not flow in a way to dominate the organism?

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 16:39 | 3015217 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

 No, I would not say that all monetary systems are impediment to this evolution.

What is an extremely destructive impediment is the relative runaway success of the privatized fiat money-as-debt system, which deliberately ignores the laws of nature as much as it can, which is to say, not at all, except by lying about that to other people, and being able to get away with those lies to the degree that those benefiting can use violence against those being systematically defrauded.

I am in favour of the human experiment, and the extrapolation of that experiment to new kingdoms of life, which will require their own ecologies. I regard the essential aspect of the human experiment as being the evolution of a brain, and a network of brains, with the ability to model the world sufficiently to also have a model of the model within itself. As soon as the modelling of the world becomes good enough to open up that infinite tunnel, then we have all the attributes of humanity, which could also be extrapolated through other media, to other entities, that could also develop enough of a model of their world, including a model of themselves within their model of the world.

Within that human, and perhaps other consciousness, via evolutionary experiments, then "money" is a vital and necessary aspect of the network of "brains" being able to communicate with each other, within the context of their environment, which they all are modelling and interacting with each other, through their models. In that context, I believe that money is a vital and necessary and beneficial tool, which assists with the evolution of survival of ecological systems, which are all able to do that together.

What I see as the primary problem is the current runaway triumph of the established systems of fraud. We have seen almost all of the checks and balances that were supposed to govern the American system overwhelmed by the runaway triumph of the fraudulent of the monetary system, systematically working its way through destroying everything that the American constitution was supposed to prevent from happening.

The international bankers immediately attempted to regain control of the United States after the revolution. They succeeded somewhat, then were reversed, then succeeded again, then were significantly reversed. Then they succeeded somewhat again.  One can associate that with the creation of relative central banks, and the arresting of those banks. Those events were associated with significant Presidents, and attempted assassinations, and successful assassinations of Presidents.

The beginning of the end, which has now become a runaway debt insanity, was back around 1872-74 when the international banksters spent $100,000 to bribe Congress to stop silver from being money. Then, of course, the Federal Reserve Board in 1913, and the total abandonment of limitations of fiat money backed by gold in 1971.

The relationship of money to silver and gold was a good enough idea in the past, to prevent total runaway fraud. (I do NOT agree that we could go back to those over-simplistic solutions now, but the deeper reasons WHY are still good reasons to find ways to achieve similar purposes.) However, the original idea that American money was supposed to be backed by silver and gold, and the value set by Congress, was systematically destroyed when the international banksters were able to bribe Congress to stop silver being money. Then, the fiat money fraud of fractional reserve banking was enabled by various tricks in 1913, and that absolutely took off since 1971.

The PRIVATIZATION of the power to make money out of nothing, basically legalized counterfeiting, does NOT violate the laws of nature, because it does NOT actually make anything out of nothing, nor send something to nothing. Rather, it is simply the runaway triumph of frauds, both coming and going, whereby the best organized gang of criminals are able to take control of the political processes, mainly through the feedback loops of the funding of politics, but also through paying for professional assassinations, and other dirty tricks against politicians that refused to be the banksters' puppets. The sum total of all those triumphant frauds have created the society that we live in today, controlled by the Fraud Kings.

Since America was able to dominate the world, the frauds in American were able to dominate the world. Thus, the whole world is controlled by huge lies, backed up with lots of violence, and the heart of that beast is the current American Empire, as controlled by the international banksters.

That kind of runaway triumph of frauds is not violating any laws of nature. But then, neither will the catastrophic collapse into chaos of that violate any natural laws either. The problem is that we are going down the path of least resistance, to maximize the short-term benefits of criminal organizations, taking control of governments, to use the powers of "We the People" to against "the People," in ways that "the People" are unable to stop. That runaway triumph of frauds controlling all economic decisions must necessarily end very, very badly. The entire system is headed towards psychotic breakdowns, from too much success at fraudulence. That means that every decision, both coming and going, with respect to energy generation, and dissipation, and material production, and disposal, are being made by an INSANE accounting system, where the money gets made out of nothing, as debts, BUT, nothing else, none of the energy or materials in the economy, can be made out of nothing, nor sent to nothing.

Therefore, I am NOT against money. I am against an insane monetary system, which is the runaway triumph of frauds, by a tiny elite against the vast majority, which will eventually destroy itself, as a kind of social sicknesses which was not cured. The current system is like having parasites so take control of the host that they are killing the host. The host is unable to resist, because the parasites have so totally infiltrated. However, the path is still for the parasites to continue to destroy production until the host is destroyed, which will destroy the parasites at the same time. This kind of runaway fraud is still a sort of ecology, but an extremely bad one for almost everyone living within it!

Theoretically, what we need is a better kind of social arms race between the different social groups, so that the social rates of robbery reach a better dynamic equilibrium, within its total environment. However, the excessive triumph of the ruling classes has reduced most of the other people to being Zombie Sheeple.  By and large, today, the vast majority of Americans are political idiots. Most of them do not understand American history, and do not want to understand.

The current system is the runaway triumph of the Vicious Wolves, controlling the Zombie Sheeple. However, the wolves also have the mad sheep disease now too! As far as I can tell, the people that control the political puppets that control the USA are planning to totally destroy the American Republic, and, right now, it looks almost practically guaranteed that they are going to continue to succeed with doing that.

The human ecology and political economy of the USA is totally dominated by insane runaway triumphant frauds, where the parasite predators have way too easy a job of sucking the life energy out of their productive prey. In theory, what I always recommend is that more Americans should learn to be better wolves, in order to better balance their systems. That becomes extremely imperative, the more science and technology advances. However, as far as I can tell, too many Americans are now brain dead sheep, and there appears to be no reasonable hope to expect that trend to be reversed.

Anyway, I am in favour of a greater truth standard in money, but that idea is way, way more profound than the old-fashioned ideas of sound money, as backed by commodities, or whatever. A greater truth standard in money would enable the rest of the economy to become saner, and thereby, all other aspects of a greater use of information, and higher consciousness be enabled to improve things (which is what most other people call "free markets" and "capitalism" and "liberty" although I do not like that old-fashioned language.)

I believe that there needs to be an intellectual Second American Revolution, and that revolutionizing the monetary system is the most important central core of that. However, as far as I can tell, that is nothing but day dreaming about a series of political miracles. Right now, it is way too easy to fool enough of the people enough of the time. Far too many Americans ARE now nothing more than bullshit consumers, who are not much more than Zombie Sheeple, in a self-destructive dance with the Vicious Wolves. Way, way too few Americans are even remotely close to being competent citizens, and most of them do not even want to try. The predator parasites have it almost all sown up ... except for the way that too much of their kinds of "success" is driving them mad too, and towards their own self-destruction as well.

Anyway, there is no way to stop reality from being frauds backed by force. However, there are plenty of ways in which hard bargaining between different groups could make and maintain a better balancing between those frauds and forces. BUT, that only looks like pie-in-the-sky theory right now. The social reality is runaway triumphant frauds, driving itself towards psychotic breakdowns, due to too much success at controlling civilization with Huge Lies, backed by Lots of Violence.

As the American constitution and rule of law are destroyed, that will eventually circle around and bite itself in the ass, since that process feeds a monster, that eventually devours itself. There is nothing new in what I am saying, except for an attempt at a more modern, scientific language. However, most of what I would say can also be found having been already been said by great Americans, long ago, and indeed, much earlier, like this:

Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny;

for no power that is not limited by laws

can ever be protected by them.

--- John Milton

America is destroying itself due to having a fundamental fraudulent financial accounting system. Those who are benefiting from doing that in the short term have every advantage, and so, there are apparently no realistic and practical ways to prevent that from eventually destroying itself.  I would NOT say that ALL monetary systems are impediment to a better human and industrial ecology. However, FOR SURE, the runaway privatized fiat money-as-debt system that we have now is the worst possible one for the longer term future. However, I can not foresee anything else than that it WILL get way worse, and I can not foresee what MIGHT survive, as the seeds, to be on the other side of that crazy collapse into chaos.

I WISH I believed something else. However, I actually think that learning about politics, and writing about it, are almost totally a waste of time, since far, far, far too few other people are ever going to bother to do that anymore ... What I actually believe is that the USA is terminally sick, and is not going to recover. Therefore, talking about what a better monetary system should be is mostly a pointless exercise. One thing, however, that I will say is that there are NO possible "monetary reforms" that could be enough. It is imperative that there must be a deeper "monetary revolution."  ... BUT, BUT, BUT, the only apparent way that can happen is after the current systems finish driving themselves mad, and destroy themselves, which then leaves the field thereafter way, way, way too unpredictable to make any recommendations regarding whatever should be done then ... ???

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 17:35 | 3015414 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

Friendly tip: You're looking for the term "Hollywood Accounting"; people will understand the term, and will allow you to focus on non-description.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 05:41 | 3016727 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Yeah, I liked that phrase Hollywood accounting.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 17:51 | 3015479 Orly
Orly's picture

Either way, your ideas are flawed in that there is an assumption that all past and present methods of "currency" exchange mean that one has to get over on someone to be successful.  That is short-sighted.

For instance, what if the "currency" exchanged were that which "helped our fellow man" the most and people were rewarded based on some measure of that attitude.  Your argument then immediately falls to pieces.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 06:07 | 3016729 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Orly,

I WISH you were right, however, your ideals only exist in fantasy, magic worlds. Obviously, some people rob and kill, and that is all it takes for them to control. Like I said above, a "free market" in murder and robbery takes over all others.  The competition to be the best at backing up lies with violence enables monopolies, like those over the money supply, to undermine all other "fairness" and "free exchanges" ect.! The only ways out runs into the profound paradoxes with the "rule of law."

Also, there are the deeper problems that living things can reproduce, and so, even if there was enough for a while, there soon will not be, and that forces the people dealing with that problem to resolve it by fighting over scarce resources. Your view, Orly, is based on decent people living inside of a functional rule of law governed society, where there is enough to go around for everybody. That is a nice place, where what you suggest is possible. However, that never lasts, and sooner or later, in one way or another, some of those conditions break down, and so, reality returns to what I was talking about.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 10:29 | 3017246 Aurora Ex Machina
Aurora Ex Machina's picture

I think he was referring to Gift Economies, which have (and do) exist. They're usually enforced by social pressures (thus the importance of "Exile" to writers such as Nietzsche).

Science as gift giving is an explored theme as well; Hagstrom, Warren (1982). "Gift giving as an organizing principle in science". In Barry Barnes and David Edge. Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science. MIT Press (Cambridge, MA).

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 11:02 | 3017366 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

good example: linux (which even the big banker boys can't do without).

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 18:04 | 3015504 jeepndesert
jeepndesert's picture

When you control the debate, it is easy to ignore the primary problem is fractional reserve banking. Credit as money and the nature of legal tender are secondary problems.

Legal tender is a public utility, used to pay taxes and rent. For government to select any currency as legal tender from the free market is a corruption of the free market. To avoid this paradox, the government should provide it's own legal tender so that it will not corrupt the free market.

When government selects credit as a legal tender, it has corrupted the free market in credit. It is also government granting privilege to usurers, to profiteer on legal tender.

It is much like ObamaCare, forcing people to purchase private credit as ObamaCare forces people to purchase insurance. Both credit and insurance are legal entities unenforceable except by government. Credit and insurance are not products and services in a traditional sense. It is usury. The government should not necessarily nationalize credit and insurance, but there is justification for it since it is already government subsidized industries in that government enforces the terms of such. There should be a free market in credit and insurance to supplement any non-profit or public credit/insurance.

When government selects a fractional reserve banking system as a legal tender, it has corrupted the free market in credit, granting privilege to banks. It also gives banks too much unaccountable power to control the supply of money, leading to monetary boom/bust cycles.

When government selects gold as a legal tender, it has corrupted the free market in both gold and credit. You have to borrow gold to use it as a legal tender, thus, gold is a credit monetary system. Also, gold is limited in supply, so it also has supply/demand issues already, which would be made worse if government selected it as a legal tender. It is why we had banking panics every 10 years from 50BC to 1935AD when the world was on a gold standard. You could set your clock by the monetary boom/bust cycles under a gold standard.

Gold isn't even a magical way to preserve wealth. Half the demand for gold right now is for speculative investment purposes. The other half of the demand for gold is for jewelry, with 45% of the demand coming from India and China and with significant demand from the Middle East. Technological application has minor demand, though I'm sure that would increase if there wasn't so much demand for jewelry and speculative investment. Once people start selling gold, prices will collapse. That is the nature of speculative investment in commodities. Buying gold is like buying Dutch tulips. You will not be guaranteed you'll be able to sell your gold for more than you paid for it when you're ready to use it. You should always diversify your investments.

These articles are quite humorous considering how badly they miss the point. Unfortunately, such is common in the mainstream media and people like Gary North, Ron Paul, and others, who work for the big banks. Zero Hedge is such a minor blog, Zero Hedge acould at minimum give some sound and honest debate rather than frame the debate to miss the point.

Commodity Monetarism is a Trick Mechanism of Usury and Coercion

Nationalize Money, Not Banks

 

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 18:12 | 3015574 jeepndesert
jeepndesert's picture

1913 did not significantly change the banking system. it just made it more difficult for small banks. the excuse was that there was a lot of fraud with small banks during the time, printing money to their friends for pennies on the dollar and going bust.

fractional reserve banking was the primary problem before 1913 and after 1913. most respectable political economists agree on this point.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 06:13 | 3016741 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Yeah, I agree that fractional reserve banking was THE debt engine, for a few hundred years, since the Bank of England first allowed a 50% rate, which then became more and more leveraged!  Being able to lend "money" that does not exist, until someone agrees to "borrow" that is obviously FRAUD.  Fractional reserve banking is legalized counterfeiting.

However, the deeper problems are always fraud backed by force. That HAS primarily been manifested through the history of fractional reserve banking during the development of the Anglo-American Empire, BUT, other situations could enable other forms of fraud backed by force to still operate.

Fractional reserve banking was the main manifestation of the triumph of organized crime controlling governments. It existed long before 1913. It was merely with the Federal Reserve Board that the government of the USA agreed to totally submit to that system, and to not do anything outside of that system.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 19:22 | 3015774 blindman
blindman's picture

well said in the comments, brilliant !
brilliant! but, there is the ongoing real
world of one inch, one drop and one day
at a time with infinite possibility presented
at every turn.
the brilliance makes my mind spin, blinds the
eye accustomed to darkness!
.
http://archive.wbai.org/#ankor4
Tuesday November 27 12:00pm
1 hour
Unknown
Gary Null - The Natural Living Show
.
interviews r. wolf and c. a. fittz. concerning
debt slavery as the predominant means of social
control, that and the tyranny of oppressive restriction
of speech, the criminalization of intellect and
intelligence punishable by murder and torture and
by "law", if you can even call it that.

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 20:19 | 3015942 blindman
blindman's picture

time moves ridiculously fast while signifying
nothing.
http://richandrenee.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/silver-flash-crash-and-reco...
.
great link

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 21:25 | 3016120 blindman
blindman's picture

Big Chief - Professor Longhair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhYyFnFPhBg&feature=watch-vrec
.
you tube is turning into a pile of semi shit, no?
google should fix their train wrec k before they
destroy their inves tm ent. go figure.
.
http://247wallst.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/change-in-home-values.jpg
.
debt money in housing failures in the ponzi scape ^tm.
it is like we have regressed ten years due to corporate
concerns and will waste the dawn for the sake of nothing
and no one. for the sake of the destruction of the elite
and stupid at their own hand, all right then.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 10:43 | 3017304 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

hmm, look at that, North Dakota, the only state in the union with its own bank, has the highest appreciation of home values in a crashed market.     what a coinkidink!

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 11:41 | 3017477 blindman
blindman's picture

good catch. i skimmed this piece and
i'll look again but i don't think that
was mentioned in the article. ? hmmmm....
.
The Best and Worst Run States in America: A Survey of All 50
Posted: November 27, 2012 at 6:20 am
.
Read more: The Best and Worst Run States in America: A Survey of All 50 - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2012/11/27/the-best-and-worst-run-states-in-america...

http://247wallst.com/2012/11/27/the-best-and-worst-run-states-in-america...

Tue, 11/27/2012 - 22:54 | 3016249 Aquarius
Aquarius's picture

@Radical Marijuana

Very much appreciated your dissertation and I respond accordingly. From the past, wisdom has come to us that our Race of Consciousness as expressed as Aryan, or the West as we are commonly know, represents the final stage in the cyclic dynamic that produces 'man the accomplished' aka as 'Man'. (man = the unaccomplished adamic man where Man = man the accomplished). In other words, that which will soon faze out is the now redundant element of humanity; the game is not over, as it is just beginning.

Thank you for your insightful comments.

 

Visualize people as cells - akin to biological cells ie super molecules - that move around in greater and lesser amounts ("bouscule" - from the French). The cells interact at their surfaces. The cells are on an implied 2D surface - a flat plane - but the plane is not visible - the plane is not really imagined (Lipton's Spontaneous Evolution is an excellent reference). The neurological center of the cells is not the nucleus but the plasmalella.  

The cells need "stuff" and interact when they come into contact with one another - in this visualization the contact is visualized as actual physical contact. Transfers take place. (Lipton's Receptors and Effectors). But it is not just physical, but physiological which implies spiritual or would be where the medium of humanity was natural, which today it is not.

The cells may be arranged in groups; State vs Society - maybe, representing a company (a business) - maybe representing a certain group of special interests. 

Think of our current system - just visualise groups but with "leader" or "director" cells that dictate what the group (the collective) does and defines its a priori ideology. 

In order to gain control the "leader" cells implement this thing called "money" that they control and since all (most) exchanges require this money then the subservient cells clamour to collect this money. This should be termed drug addiction where the drug is Fiat Currency.  

Note in particular that if the "money" was not present the exchanges would be dictated by the actual objective things required by the individual cells and the cells would value those needs based upon real perceptions of value. 

But alas the money can be so manipulated by the leader cells that the real objective value of "things" is lost. Gross distortions of real value are possible - but the subservient cells don't care about that - they no longer know the real value - and who cares anyway as long as this "money" can be gotten in sufficient quantities (or the hope of that) to achieve what they (are often told) that they need. This is the state of "Waiting to Die".  

Clearly the above is very hierarchical; damned hhierachy, the golden heaven of the priests of all things institutional, is, religion, bureaucracy and all forms of statis in the form of zombie blood seeking"collectives". (see below)  This is the materialistic mode as opposed to the spiritual mode. However like milk, humanity needs to achieve the balance of materialistic and spoirituality prior to achieving stability; today, the materialistic rules, albeit, in extemis.

So now think of a system where the cells do not have the same "configuretion", that the money is not dispensed from the top down - that the money really does reflect real objective (physical) worth. That exchanges are between cells of equal societal level.  

It is clearly evident that our current "money" when dispensed in the manner in which it is so done today must necessarily lead us to where we are today. 

As long as the "profit paradigm" can be maintained as some level, the system will continue to function. That this money can easily be directed into "highly profitable" ventures such as extracting ores and other resources, then really there is no "problem". Profits are easy to acquire - make people work in China for 10 dollars a day or less - such things are easy to direct and make things profitable. It is really easy to "make a venture profitable" with this system - it certainly is not rocket science. Repeated for emphasis. The engine is "political Expediency" aka acting to instructions from the Banking System and ownership thereof. 

Of course how the subservient cells in the system are to taught to think of profit is the business cost accounting model that says - buy low and sell high. As long as sufficient money can be pumped into the system in the places so desired it will be possible to make the business cost accounting model play out. 

Hummel (a poster on Steve Keen's blog) is absolutrely right about this. He has bleated on about this and yet everybody ignores him including Keen. 

The simple fact of the matter is that Keen has never shown the cost accounting play out in any of his models. This lack of demonstration by Keen is simply pathetic and the lack of response by the other posters to Hummel's "demands" is representative of the pathetic level of the posters there upon - all considering themselves to be one with Economic Theory (with the exception of Lyonwiss). As so Roubini and Krugman.

It is intolerable that a person is not able to work if he/she so wishes because the "money system" dictates if a person can work or not.

The stupid games and hoops that people have to jump through to get even a menial job is disgraceful. Any 'reasoned' and logical system would ensure that people can get work and earn some of these "money units" if we so decide to offer these "money units" of society and without all that stupid business heirarchy (bureaucrats) that we have today. It is so wasteful of human spirit and energy that one could hazard a guess that it exceeds any National GDP by at least ~ >500%. 

This rant started with visualizations. Clearly the cells have been taken over by various "cancers" or death feeding upon itself. (See below)

Economic Theory (all of them) are nothing more that faith based cancers which have no place in human affairs, which merely demands the sciences albeit, physis, and an indepth appreciation of human behaviours; which precipitates to the application of the sciences, in integrity.  

Please note that "cells of a certain variety" cannot and should not forced to help themselves despite the modern political solution of Stalin, Hitler, the USA and Israel, ie stealth genocide under the label of "terrorism" or the "collectives" feeding upon themselves. (see below)

All this validates the observation that the West is devolving through natural cyclical evolution where Entropy, the engine of change and evolving consciousness, appears in the form of quantitative complexity in the dynamic state of:

simplicity --> complexity --> qualitative simplicity, and so forth. Or, similarly parallel to the dynamic  cyclic progression of:

intellect --> intelligence --> higher intellect. 

Yes the engine is the 2nd. Law but it is not linear but cyclic and tuned to music theory in the Golden State of  -

quantitative disorder --> chaos --> emergent qualitative order; Chaos is the state of the changing of the guard.

Medium substituted with Money

Take into consideration that all phenomena function in a medium - even in outer space, where we have neutrinos as the medium for Plasma in which electricity runs it's course, sustaining itself with the creation of magnetic fields perpendicular to its path, and thusly feeding energy (electricity is not energy) spontaneously to 'all' within the confined Universe (a leaky capacitor), albeit in 3 modes of intensity  expressed in gradients. Yes, the Universe and all within it is electrical; electricity is the blood of the Universe which carries the energy to all entities of the body to be taken as within the human body, to the unique demands and needs of all elements. From ancient texts written by the Races of the defined zodiacally consciousnesses that have preceded this current devolving Race, it is written as "giving to receive so as to receive so as to give" and "As above, so below".

Conclusion: 

Fiat currency or more precisely, in today's venacular, "money", has been substituted for the BLOOD of human diaspora; or, the whole of humanity. As such, "money" defines the state of humanity as nothing more than "Waiting to Die" where each invividual of the materialistic non spiritual mode, no longer exists, except as the living dead, or Zombies, while imposing upon humanity the need to become of the "collective" in order to survive; feudal insanities, where the collectives feed upon themselves. (See first paragraph)

Ho hum

 

 

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 06:37 | 3016757 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

Thanks for your comment Aquarius.

I am familiar with Lipton, who, like Sheldrake, I find so surprising that I am not sure what to make of that!

I started with my original philosophy being statistical materialism. That has been almost totally exploded, to the point where I am willing to entertain ideas like those presented by Lipton and Sheldrake, etc., but I still find those ideas quite flabbergasting, especially sinc they seem to be scientifically supported by observations!

To quote Haldane:

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane

I only have my tiny keyhole of perception upon that, which is filtered by my education, mostly through the English language. But nevertheless, most of the metaphors which you used in your comment resonate with me.

P.S.

Speaking of electricity is the blood of the Universe which carries the energy ... I suppose you are familiar with the Thunderbolts of the Gods Web site? http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/ I like their paradigm shifting concepts of astronomy. I find the ways that the mainstream astronomy responded to those ideas over the last Century to be quite a good example of scientific revolutions, as in the Thomas Kuhn senses.

It is practically impossible to imagine how difficult it will be to change the paradigms that we have today about what "money" is, and how that works through our political economy! There is no other area of human activity that is more intensely concentrated fraud, backed by force, than the monetary system itself! New ideas about money are more resisted by the established systems than new ideas about anything else! Ideas about going backwards, like this Gary North article regarding "money," seem the opposite to me of what sort of paradigm shifts are more necessary. However, the resistance of the established systems to proof that they are wrong continues to be utterly overwhelming at present, and for the foreseeable future.

Thu, 11/29/2012 - 08:50 | 3019922 Aquarius
Aquarius's picture

'difficult to change the paradigm' - of course, you are correct and this is why the system must burn before any reformation or rebuild. I called it a Dark Age in 2006 (see Verbewarp.blogspot.com) But be sure, our global socio-economic will burn and it will not feel like what it is; just a snake shedding its skin; a new consciosuness is about to be imposed upon us by the Gods.

 

I appreciate your work, kindest.

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 11:12 | 3017393 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

thanks for expounding on the cellular metaphor better than i ever could.   if we run with the cancer metaphor (which seems most appropriate), the next step would be an investigation on how to rid the body of the cancer.   should we spend all of our energies and resources dissecting the causes in hopes to find a cure (concurrently developing business models that succeed in building bridges to nowhere on a perpetual search) OR be on the lookout for alternative therapies (that have been suppressed by said business models) that will develop more robust antibodies in order to help the body cure itself?

...which brings us back to gold and the mystery of why it has been valued so highly across what we consider the history of human civilization... 

Thu, 11/29/2012 - 09:11 | 3019958 Aquarius
Aquarius's picture

Gold was earlier the foundation of Christian Sun (current Sun) religions (not Islam or Judaeism) and as such maintained as of the Sun, the representaive of the High God, the Father which makes the Sun, the Son or commonly called today, Jesus Christ. Gold was from the body of the Sun; the flesh of the Son; Sun and Holy\ier than the highest which became Royale; ever been to Paris?

... where the Sun of the King awaiting to become King is the Dauphine (Dolphin) = (of Pisces fame - and Glory) He who would be King - not the enligh Afghanistan version, the Christian version. Gold is the Flesh.

Gold is the end of the metal kingdom's Causal travails; it is royalty and therefoer redundant; all European Royal and their protocols are of this tradition (of Egypt) Gold is the metal accomplished.

Gold is everything that man the unacomplished wishes to achieve; it is the end of the road; the objective and is innate in all men.

"Money" is integrity and has little to do with the trade that ensues after integrity has been established (due diligence)

Speaking of insanity: Why do we declare a tree illegal? Why do we declare hemp illegal? Are we not insane?

Okay. People establish "value". If the few Big Banks and their eagerly corruptable cull 2/3 of the human diaspora so that they may live with fear of losing their fiat and, more importantly, assets, where does "value" go.

Answer: If they genocide us all, which they have commenced, they end with nothing; their wet dreams are insanity, which has little value and I for one would prefer to be dead, that even talk to one of them. DEath would be so sweet.

Back to Gold: You may talk about Gold Standards and the pro's and con's - But the fact of the Matter, is that the entire World is a Gold Standard. Gold is the ONLY Universal Standard that we have.

There is NO time - only potential.

Oh, when they cull us, ~ 6.5B we, what fiat currency will they utilize? No values; no life!

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 12:21 | 3017614 blunderdog
blunderdog's picture

The analogy is a bit clunky.  "Money" is just a virtualized proxy for "energy" within the cellular model.

The real survival resources are things like food/water/heat (just as individual cells require), but money is substituted as a generic virtual replacement for all three.

Thu, 11/29/2012 - 09:21 | 3019974 Aquarius
Aquarius's picture

Sure, but it is also toxic and addictive: my immediate analogy would be the sugar pumped drinks that the washed and unwashed are obsessed with today!

"Money" today, is a substitute for everything, especially sanity and values, intellect and intellecgence, food, water and everything else even "bullshit". "money" today, is what you want it to be.

And, is the Cause of the coming Dark Age. But "money" is no substitute for truth, courage, honour, virtue, compassion, nor Man.

The current game is done - "All that needs to be said, has been said", so those aware, will do what they need to do, and the others will perish; fate cometh.

I find it rather intellectually exciting actually: there is no life without death.

Good luck to all.

 

:

Wed, 11/28/2012 - 12:39 | 3017662 blindman
blindman's picture

Townes van Zandt - Waiting around to die
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emHZ2oj8wDk
.

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