The Wealth of Notions
Well - it took a long while, but my brain and heart pain aren't too bad now. I was in bed/room for hours, with that banging/cleaning going on all eve., and there dog running around and occasionally barking. Then I took my dog out a 15 minutes ago. N-Guy comes home while we're out, stomps feet slowly on his porch, not just for the snow, but because he's being an ass. He banged his feet even when there wasn't any snow whatsoever - so the most important thing to these people is the passive aggression, proving they are more RIGHT, and the top-dogs. I'm just biding my time, taking note of all this, being as quiet as a mouse, because the BS keeps coming from them, and all I have to do is write it down. I am finally on my futon in the back room - but what do I hear - MORE KNOCKING? Fairly loud? If I knew for sure that this was meant to be intimidation, I would call the police right now. But I have a scientific mind, even during stress, and I must allow that it may be due to something else - although it almost ever is. I.e., it is almost always passive aggression. So, those are my Nether Notes for now. (I am also trying to keep a log of all the little - or big - incidents, elsewhere). Now, with that out of the way, maybe I can finally concentrate on something. I had an idea about money earlier today. Maybe I ca remember that. Please note that if I do post these money thoughts, please note that these are half-baked ideas - not hypotheses. They are explorations or propositions... Must rest and think now... [ps - 9:20 - this brain-knot is more difficult to untie than I thought - (it also involves stalled stomach-peristalsis) - but it would have been impossible to improve, without the escape of this little room - which I will now begin referring to as, "The Decompression Chamber." - or, "The DC"]...
OK. I wrote a few posts in the past seeking econ/polit solutions, including a post about a 2-tiered currency system idea. Maybe that was around 2006-2009...? I never could find it...
Today, this is what ave me another 2-tier idea: Even in commie Cuba, there is an eventual disparity between those with more wealth, and those with less. Currency incentives and punishments or fees do this. Plus, when you have more money, you have geometrically increasing alternatives, or opportunities, compared to the poor, who must spend everything on basics like food - and so, for them, money is a basic this-for-that quantity, as opposed to a basket full of all sorts of possibilities, or things to purchase. For the wealthy, a dollar may be seen as a part of a car, a boat, a house, a trip, or any number of magical things. For the poor, the dollar only equals a set amount of rice and beans, and that's that. No room for imagination or generosity here, eh? No room to step beyond defined limits, etc. Plus, while the wealth-disparity widens between rich and poor, the price of those rice and beans often tends to rise, relative to the dollar, so the dollar is worth less and less. Less food. Less nutrition. Less opportunity. More kids. More struggle. More rent... The poor are, by nature, pushed further downwards, merely by the existence or structure of the economic system. And so the poor end up working more and more in the dregs, in the margins, at the BASE of the great ECONOMIES OF SCALE, which drive the success of the economy. And they are the most repressed, the most exploited, the most LABOURED. Meanwhile, those who acquire more wealth and opportunities are able to take advantage of purchasing from the economies of scale, where per-unit prices are cheaper, while secondary costs are more externalised onto the poor and onto the environment. The relatively wealthy are able to INVEST, or buy into, the profitable economies of scale, even in management positions. Economies of scale are simply giant industrial machines and distribution networks, operated by and for corporations and mega-corps, sometimes in collusion - with each other and/or foreign/global parties - which are better able to overcome ENTROPY, drag, friction, or costs. There is more cost and entropy involved in moving a mountain by hors-ecart than there is via moving a mountain via giant machines, so long as oil horse-power is cheap. So, when people can take advantage of these giant monoliths of scale, they have easier access to CAPITAL - which may be reinvested this way or that, or may be eaten away by greed, in times of stress, as it is today. So, the problem with economies of scale is that they more and more orient towards A SINGLE WAY OF DOING THINGS - or, a single future - a single direction to invest capital - while the rest of the economy becomes more and more locked into the predetermined scale networks of distribution, trade, currency standards, etc. So, economies of scale are good at overcoming entropy - but only in a relative short-term. As oil becomes less available, and more expenses, e.g., then economies of scale begin to falter, and become propped up by corrupted governments because it i assumed that those monoliths are now,"too big to fail." And this also refers to all the capital bound up in the scale, megacorp economy, which knows only to reinforce the predetermined, but dying, "future." So, the irony here is that economies of scale, now subsumed into juggernaut, dysfunctional megacorps and banks, (becoming more a game of finance and gambling than anything demonstrably productive), become more and more limitted in their opportunities - much like the poor of old. Pretty cool, huh? The corporations become destitute, and now slaves to vulture capitalists and foreign interests or global politics and corruption. CEOs at the top mainly keep these ghosts alive only in a superficial sense. So, economies of scale, linear by nature, become dysfunctional, like the poor they once exploited and out-competed. Meanwhile, what are the poor doing? Using horses, planting food, running black markets, being inventive, labouring, and creating TRUE WEALTH, PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY - comparatively. They have at least mastered these more cyclical, organic means of economy, even with so much entropy and cost - or dirt - surrounding them - on top of which, now, fall all the costs and pollutions and depletions of the failing mega-economy. But are they listened to or invested in, as via micro-loans? Rarely. Instead, they are not see as cyclical, organic or humane, they are seen as DIRECT THREATS TO THE SINGLE LINEAR VECTOR OF THE FAILING MEGA-ECONOMY, AND ALL ITS POLITICAL AND MILITARY CORRUPTIONS.
The essential problems of the Obama economic strategy is not that it is Keynesian, and printing more money. It is that it is generally reinvesting in the faling mega, too-big-to-fail economy, and locking us in via government debt, and taxpayer-backups. What they SHOULD be doing is letting the Treasury print new money, and put that money into the pockets of the poor, along with new and alternate economic vectors. The Obama has tried this to a small degree, but the backlash has been overwhelming. Backlash from entrenched, status-quo special interests.
Now, there are a few problems I wish to see solved: 1 - The gradual widening between the rich and the poor. 2 - The problem of eventually failing, unidirectional economies based on entrenched economies of scale, networks and corruptions. 3 - The problem of a single currency standard, like gold, or the force of the US military in propping up the PETRO-DOLLAR around the world, which is simply insanity.
Regarding #3, the military route is simply a non-option, and it should be ended NOW. That leaves the problem we have of printing paper money, with nothing to back it up, other than snowballing government debt., and all the political rigour mortis associated with that. Switch over to the Treasury to print this funny money, which infinitely more easilly said than done, and that solves the debt problem, for the most part. But it is not so wise to print paper currency with no VALUE to back it up or limit it, although there is one respectable economist out there who argues that this is possible. Well, even if it were possible, I can't imagine that it would reman stable for the next hundred years of GLOBAL TURMOILS we will be going through. Bitcoins are fun and interesting and new and useful, but they suffer from a likely "digital inflation" problem down the road, and should eventually collapse, if this is not addressed. For now, though, they rock. still, I believe we can't base an economy on non-backed currency. So - we need to find something to back the currency. Gold again?
Well, when we got off of gold and silver backed currency, and into the Reaganomic presidency, we went into a destructive cycles of stock bubbles, along with a gradually falling dollar, mainly exasperated by military counterproduction. Ironical, we still invest more and more in that very counterproduction, as our primary means of propping up our PETRO-DOLLAR, which otherwise, (and in fact), is ot worth the paper it is printed on. (The dynamics of war and FORCE are LIMITTING DYNAMICS and so they have been acting as a surrogate backing, just as god once did, by the limitation of gold's preciousness and low availability). Way back before Reagan, when our currency was backed by gold, (and silver), we didn't so much suffer from stock bubbles so much as we suffered from financial panics. These were mainly caused by industrial overproduction relative to internal demand, and relative to the somewhat set value of gold. (Variations in gold availability also had their destructive effects). There was also a relative labour shortage. These things conspired together to make gold value want to separate from the currency value meant to be tied to it. Therefore, after a panic, gold and/or the currency had to be adjusted, often simply by increasing one or the other quantity relative to the other. The whole venture into trade with China, based on a special minting of a US silver dollar, was a interesting development in this pattern. And so was the emergence of William Jennings Bryant, arguing against a, "cross of gold," which later became part of the inspiration for the symbology hidden in the book, "The Wizard of OZ." Anyway, today, when times get tough, the value of the dollar usually drops, and often does Wall Street as well, and people rush to put their money into GOLD, which then goes up in value, compared to how many dollars it can be traded for. Dollar cheap, gold expensive. Dollar buys less, gold worth more. A, "gold bubble," is more noticeable in the trade of gold certificates and other paper representations of gold, but this is a fool's market - and that is discussed in other posts. The only sensible market is in physically owning gold, as in bullion/ coins). In times of overproduction, (then), and in times of underproduction, (now), there seems to be this destructive problem where gold wants to go the opposite direction as the dollar - (just as you might expect the poor to want to do, in relation to a failing, linear mega-economy), and so, when the dollar is actually BACKED only by gold, this causes economic crash and burn, and everyone has to try to get the economy back on ONE TRACK, going into ONE "predictable" FUTURE. And, indeed, this is not unrelated to the dynamics which EVOKE the very widening disparity between the rich and poor, discussed above. To back a currency by, e.g., just gold, is to state right out: "This is how our currency shall orient as value, in one time, preferring certain economic structure, mostly structure of SCALE to overcome "entropy," ("nature, hard work, women's work, poor people, pointless investments, etc."), and orient towards a "future" which is mainly favourable to the 'authorities' or the ELITES in our society."
And, regarding #1, we need something to manage the widening disparity between rich and poor. Simply basing the currency on gold, or such, you see, won't accomplish this. In fact, basing the currency on gold alone - (except for a time during a GLOBAL currency, which basically kicks the can down the road until the world economic system eventually runs up against itself, and squashes us again) - can place a large handicap on some vectors which might better be freed up - (which some would argue that this is a healthy price to pay - since these vectors are like addictions anyway - IDK). In Sumaria and among Hebrews, there was a tradition of letting the wealth disparity rise, but then, at the end of a set period of time, all debts would be forgiven, and wealth would be evened out again. This was a property-sharing plan amongst a COMMUNITY, aware that their COMMONS must be respected for the generations to follow, (as also expressed by Native Americans). The COMMONS cannot be VIOLATED, or privatised, away, as being attempted today, as exemplified by Kochs and Robbers, Goldman-Sachs, Mitt Romney, and recent mayors of Chicago, and so on. They recognised that COMPETITION is not the only force in the universe. Seen as such,in only leads to increased overall entropy - and HEAT-DEATH. Competition is a destructive force - a force reliable as a means towards longer-lasting ends and values, such as community, welfare, freedom to associate and create, organic and cyclical economics, sharing, - GOD, etc. The public GOOD. And, lately, SCIENCE is agreeing with this. COOPERATION MATTERS, just as much, if not more. To base an entire economic system on competition is insane, as when Germany demands all Europe to pay through the nose, based on expectations derived from MORAL ABSOLUTES, along the line of the Protestant Work Ethic, when in fact nature changes,and economy changes, and so too must debts be changed. That was the whole sense behind the repetitive JUBILEE...
Must now move back to bedroom before battery completely dies.... Moving back to the bedroom, it is overwhelming the extent of the second-hand smoke in here. Absolutely overwhelming. No wonder I have been so sick - just from that alone. Now, I expect to hear some bangings from below, since I actually walked in my own living room to turn off the extremely quiet, and soothing New Age music, which I think the dark might actually have barked at. How insane is this?...
A Jubilee makes sense today. I believe it will become a necessity, as time goes by, if we hope to avoid war, or at least, certainly following the devastation of the next war, which will also be coupled with the creation of a new global currency or basket standard... But, yes, instead of sinking the economies of countries in Europe, who have been finagled into debt by the likes of Goldman-Sachs and Chase-IMF, by forcing "austerity" on the poor and middle classes, (who had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GAMBLING LOSSES OF THE BANKS AND CORPORATE RAIDERS AND DERIVATIVES ZOMBIES, expecting them to fork over decently-earned money in their personal bank accounts, when they have already avoided being squeezed by the powers that be, yet became the crucial MOTOR OF EUROPEAN WEALTH ITSELF, i.e., LABOUR, i.e., CREATIVITY, i.e., CONSUMERS) - THE CENTRAL BANKS NEED TO START FORGIVING DEBTS NOW. Meanwhile, the USA government wishes the Fed. to print so much funny money that we can hype up inflation, (even as the Chinese economy is failing us), so as to reduce the value of our debt, and make it easier to repay - like an insane snake trying to swallow its own tail - like Xeno running after his arrow - like fools trying to outrun an explosion of ENTROPY. This is impossible, ad we need a Jubilee for US government, (etc.), as well. Even as Republicans decry the debt, they need it to remain, which is why they stall up everything. Why do they need it to remain? It - so far - keeps interest rates low. As long as interest rates are low: Treasury bonds are cheaper to buy; derivative gambles are cheaper to place; borrowing is cheaper, including for the government, and the LIBOR rate won't go haywire, forcing a massive derivatives failure, which will not only tank the global economy, it will leave WE THE USA TAXPAYERS paying to cover the asses of European accounts in our FDIC-insured banks, and various other extreme expenses, which may be discussed in a separate post. Certainly, a Jubilee must be given to the poor and the suffering middle classes, if we want any kind of economy to rise up from the old oil-based economy which is burning away right before our eyes. HOWEVER... A jubilee, unless really written into the constitutions of the global economies, as repetitive, and regulated and rational, will not solve the over-arching problems. It's like a reboot for a computer that never really gets fixed. The widening disparity of wealth continues. But - isn't it possible to have incentives and fees which can fuel economic progress - hopefully in a more organic way - which need not feed this widening gyre of woe? At least not so much as it does presently? Are we so locked into oil that not only is this impossible, but Jubilees themselves are regarded as bordering on tactics used by terriblists? Can we not have a more robust, dynamical economics, including not only a basket of currency bases, but a basket of alternative fuels, and of alternative cooperatives, or COMMONS? Well, this is why this post is merely exploratory. I wish I had the time and the health to develop something REALLY STRONG. But all I have for you now is a few more novelty ideas - which, maybe they would be very useful - but there is so much farther beyond we could go, in creatively dealing with these severe, planet-endangering economic dysfunctions.
So, these problems - 1, 2 and 3 - are inherent in capitalism, (even mercantilism, feudalism, and socialism), especially when degenerating or badly regulated, ad they attend or precipitate the rising and falling of civilisation. They are problems inherent n physics itself - except we, as humans, have a (limited) creative ability to define and fashion or value what are our goals and futures, and what is this,"entropy," (costs), which we wish to overcome. Still, our systems won't stad in perpetuity, when real entropy overtakes our machines and our info-tech. (This is one reason why I am so interested in superluminal info-transfer via quantum entanglement and computing; in renewable, free and "zero-point" energy possibilities; in the creativity of the free and associative human spirit, etc). However, I feel that a few ideas could help to ameliorate problems #1 and #3, and thereby also #2 if complemented by rational government regulations. I will discuss these ideas in an upcoming post, for I feel I must close shop for the night, and prepare for some great banging on the anxious, frail walls of my heart, again, tonight...
But, this: What if we had two separate currencies - a 2-tier system. One would be a competition currency, like today's dollar. The other would be a cooperation, or "co-op" or "Commons," currency, for alternate aspects of our society and economy, as for non-profits. And, instead of a Jubilee, these two currencies are alternated, regionally, every few decades? I hope to discuss this, "co-com," system better, later, As I see it, it would solve some problems, if it could work. You are free to let your imagination run wild in the mean-time. Hopefully, I might also dig up some other related econ posts,mentioned above. Now I must rest and listen to Coast-to-Coast until I drift of to sleep on Cloud 2nd-hand Smokey...