Tuesday, July 31, 2012

After Thoghts - Logical and Physical -- No Change to the End User

People resist change.  I learned that in the process of getting a business degree.  They resist change because things are different. Duh.  I learned a lot in college then I joined the navy.

This ties together two previous posts on this blog.

Big changes used to be more in the physical environment where things like working conditions are obvious.  Physical things.   Conceptual changes in the past were usually bound closely to associated physical changes.  In the Information age where we are increasingly disassociating physical things and process from their logical things and processes the physical impact of change,  what we see as change in a real thing in the real physical world is perhaps not at apparent and identified as change to the end user.

If what I stated is increasingly true, more true today than it was in the past, change is quicker and easier to make in the logic process and logic object elements because are are separated by technology from their physical constraints.

The money system could change dramatically and rapidly if most end users of money did not even notice the change.  Paychecks still come in.  Money comes in, money is spent. Loans are made and paid off.  That is the way the 99 percent, maybe 90 percent see it.  Business as usual.  Changing to a real money system would be a big change, an astounding change for a few.

If money continues to do what it has always done, without the fraud, no end user change is perceived even if there is a total different conceptual implementation in the logic definition of what money is.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Monetary and Financial Engineers

Monetary Engineers design what money is.  Financial Engineers design what money does when it is applied to a sub-set application of what money does called finance (loan - debt).

The information age has produced the model for redesign of our Monetary System.  Money is in the Information System domain.  It is currently managed in that domain.  The problem is that the design of our money system; what money is and how money is used as a medium of exchange predates the management of it and its processes in our current computer based, networked information management system.

The basic design of the money system was established long before computers were invented.  The system was designed by bankers over thousands (more rapidly over hundreds) of years.  The operations of this vast numerically intensive system were gradually mechanized by machines performing physical processing faster (replacing human labor).  Then there was a more rapid shift to computer processing.   This shift was made possible by detatching the limitations of physical machine processing of the media directly associated with money on mechanical devices from the logical processing and doing the logical processing on computers.  The only remnants of any physical constraints related to money and its use exist as computer storage media and the network that carries information from one place to another.

All dollars (except about 3% in paper bills circulating in the USA) exist on a computer.  transactions related to these dollars are processed by computers.  Our currency is computerized as well as its processing.  Efficiency gains in processing are what drove the adoption of first mechanical then electronic computer processing of money.


Over time our money system has transformed from having great physical constraints on processing efficiency to relatively insignificant physical constraints of computer processing.  The next step is not as apparent as the transition from mechanical adding machines and their more complex physical calculators to computers.

The next step in the evolution of money system efficiency is not an evolutionary follow on step in the efficiency of processing.  The speed of processing money has maxed out.  It has reached the speed of light.  What follows after progressing from hand to mechanical machine then to electronic machine processing?  The next step in efficiency is not evolutionary but revolutionary.    This is now the Information Management Age the new generation of efficiency that follows the Computer Processing Age.
If the processing of money has reached the speed of light what greater efficiencies can be achieved in the money system domain?

Intelligent Design!  The product of the human mind.  Human hands were the first processors of physical things.  Then the human mind created physical things, machines, wheels and levers to process, to do things more efficiently.  Our minds also created conceptually logic things existing and operating only in the mind to order our physical and logical world.  Physical limitations on what we can do in our logical world are rapidly diminishing.

We always could and always will dream.  The difference is that now we have achieved almost undreamed of ability to manifest our dreams in a logic world unchained from previous physical constraints.  Who, one hundred years ago could have dreamed of the cell phone.  That was 1912.  Phones were limited by physical wire connection.  Logic processing of voice by radio wave was in a limited capability infancy. 

Our computer systems are now just a tool for the next step which is total information management.  We are no longer limited by what our electronic processing systems can do.  We are only limited by the conceptual design of what we want done and creating the conceptual objects to do them.

Our processing ability and focus has reached a peak.  Peak processing.  The focus in now on design on the things we process.  The logical design of logic things.  Freedom is a logic thing.  We did a design of that more than 200 years ago.  Money is a logic thing.  It is an old design plan.  The processing age has launched us into a new age where we can and must redesign what money is.

There are only two things to money.  What it is and what it does.  What it does are the functional applications of what it is.  What it is has remained relatively unchanged except for its detachment from physical representation.

It is time to change the money we use.  To redefine what money is because we have given ourselves the ability to do that in the Information Age.  The functions of money remain the same but we have reached peak functional processing of the form of money we have chosen to use (chosen for us by bankers) until it is too expensive to use in terms of cost vs benefits.  The exact same thing could be said about energy.  The function of energy will remain the same.  We have reached peak function of the form of energy we have chosen to use (cheapest source) until it is too expensive to use in terms of cost vs. benefits.

Energy is a physical world thing.  In any of its forms it can do the same function.  Energy was brought into being by its creator for us to use.  Energy is a given to us.  We can only apply it in use, we cannot truly create it into physical existence.

Money is a conceptual world thing.  In any of its forms it can do the same function.  Money was brought into being by its creator, the human mind.  Bankers created it and we agreed to use it by giving them an IOU for it.  It is debt money.

Oil is a form of energy that is becoming cost inefficient for functional use and will eventually reach an end.  Really, mathematically, certainly.  Debt money is becoming cost inefficient for functional use and will equally reach an end.

We are facing reality, reluctantly and with great opposition regarding the oil form of energy as well as the impact that any form of energy has on the environment.  Same thing applies with our selected form of money.

Peak Debt Money.

A new form of money is needed.  Non-debt money.  Real money where money is not an essential representation of debt but debt is merely one millions of the functional application uses of real money.

Real money in the object form of uniquely serialized digital dollars with a unit value of one dollar existing on a secure cloud computer each and all dollars associated with an owner.  The digital dollar is a fixed record that once created exists forever as a unique serialized entity.  Transactions involving money occur when the identity of the owner of a uniquely serialized digital  dollar changes to a new owner.


Sunday, July 29, 2012

What I Want for America

This is a response to this post at New Economic Perspectives that I composed but did not send.


Thornton;

Your objective is stated in the end:  "will you try to understand how the financial system really works?"  That is the hard part!  You made an attempt at explaining it and moving people toward this position stated in the beginning:  People who understand how this country’s financial system works know the American dream doesn’t have to die.

In the lead paragraph you state 10 specific things that "People who understand how this county's financial system works" actually know as facts with supporting reasons why they are facts that substantiate the conclusion that "the American dream does not have to die".  There are 9 major positive things cited that the financial system can do. The 10th thing these "People who understand" know is that the collective deliberate misrepresentation of what the financial system does hurts America.  They know the truths  of what the system can do and well as the misleading untruths of what it does.

Your explanation of the financial system is good. I understand it clearly because I can separate out everything you say about what money is from everything that you say that money does.  At the most fundamental conceptual level there are only two aspects to any thing.  What the thing is and what it does.  That applies to the most simple and complex systems.  Call it system design, architecture, relationships and system functional operation over a time line.  What a thing is designed to be determines what it does.  Understand the structural design of money and we understand what it does.

I suggest there is a benefit to clearly distinguishing and presenting the financial system in terms of what money is (base money and credit) and what money does (operation in the economy).  An understanding of what it is leads to what it naturally does. What a system thing is, like an operating system or human body (as complex as it is) is one thing, what it can do in terms of all its applications is a million things.

Base money is what money is.  Credit is an inflated extension of base money. I liked your expression of the base money concept as the accumulated national debt since 1790.  That is why I submitted a post comment.  You replied to that post: "...the article may even have gone too far in mentioning base dollars. Trying to sell the fine points of them would surely end the discussion."

Money is base dollars and its derivatives.  If we understand what base dollars are collectively and as an instance of the the collective class then we can understand what money does. What money does is a function of what it is.  Most people focus on what a thing does, first, foremost and most important.  Especially in this information age.  If you define simply, extremely simply what money is then everything it does falls into place.

Base money is not a fine point.  It is the starting point.  The base of anything is not a fine point.  We do not call the base of everything that exists and the actions those things do a fine point. 

Base money is national debt as unfortunate as the word debt is as used in describing it.  All we need is a conceptual paradigm shift from national debt to national asset.  A shift from debt money to real money.  Base money that simply is money, with no balancing debt side to it.  Once national debt is shifted to national asset base money then all debt money can be shifted to national asset base money.  There will be no such thing as credit money at the base system level.  Credit is not money it is simply one of the functional applications of base money.  Credit does not create base money.

A rather simple but perhaps most dramatic paradigm shift in history will happen when people comprehend what money simply is and therefore what money simply does.  that is accomplished when all the finite universe of money is defined as a single units of value with the denomination of one digital dollar having a unique serial number maintained on a secure system computer accessed through a secure system network by uniquely identified users of money in a financial system.  Base money.

That is what money is and its relationship to users.  That relationship is implemented through transactions between uniquely financial system users over a communication network involving changes of ownership called transactions involving variable quantities of uniquely serialized digital dollars with the denominated unit value of one used as a medium of exchange.  The exchange transaction is accomplished by changing the ownership association of a digital dollar from the current owner to a new owner.  All digital dollars in the uniquely serialized finite universe are subject to expansion and contraction control as necessary by a control authority which is subject to all financial entity users of the system that are in the class category of human being citizen.  It s our money.

For Joe Six Pack it is as if all money was single serialized paper dollar bills in his pocket with a unit value of one having Joe Six Pack's own unique name on it.  Instead of carrying all those paper dollar bills in a back pack and crossing out his name on each bill and writing in the name of a new owner of the one dollar bill in exchange for a six pack, the total amount of the exchange is sent over the network and the name of the new owning financial entity is entered on each uniquely serialized dollar bill previously owned by Joe.  All Joe has to carry is an iPhone iWallet.  Computer in the network do all the transparent work in the exchange to make the result happen.  Just like the entire system that bring the football name to Joe on the wide screen.  He can learn how it all works but as long as he sees the real score of the game as it is played and it is correct, he does not care about how the system that brings it to him.

Just some thought.  Base money is not a fine point.  It is what the system is built on.  The concept has to be so simple that Joe six pack understands it but also as well defined in open source detail as our current operating system and application programs. 

Transprency

Transparency is a good thing.  You don't need to know the details of the system in order to use it.

A computer, the Internet, television or an automobile or airplane for example.  You can know all the details if you want to know but all most want to do is use it.  They are end users of the system.  They do things with what the system provides.

The banking system is a fraud but it is also transparent.  You can learn about it it, how it operates and why it is a fraud.  It is not easy to learn about it and opinions of knowledgeable people vary as to how it operates and why it is a fraud.....or not depending on who you believe and how much. 

The results of the fraud are apparent.  The cause is not easy to see. One of the principal things that would control the fraud is enforcement of the law by regulators who have agreed not to look at the transparency and politicians that reduce the number of regulators so there are fewer to look.  Regulators look at what the system does but base findings on what the law is regarding what the system is allowed to do or not do. 

Focus on what a system does simply presents the system from the viewpoint, generally uninformed, of the user.  Working upward through a functional hierarchy  through everything the system does to the core functional things it does is confusing, it is the easiest way to confuse and divert understanding of the system.  At the top, the point from which the entire system descends, is an object model that presents the principal objects in the system, how they relate, what their attributes are and what methods they know as the fundamental Class Object in an object oriented high level abstract concept of the system.  The object model at the top is the real basis for the system design and extension to do all the functional things the system does.  All the top Class Objects have methods that they use to do things, functional things. 

Our Constitution is a high level abstract object model for our country.  It does not say much about what the system does, it presents the basic Class Objects their attributes and what the objects in the Class inherit as members of the class and the methods they have to do things.  They are system users.  They naturally focus on processes and procedures that are built on the fundamental object model.

If anyone wants to understand banks and money they have to start with a high level abstract object model of what money is.  Nothing presents the model except people who think they know what it is, which are few. Most who think they know what money is really only know what money does.  Focus only on what money does clouds the transparency of what money is as an object and what are its attributes.

This is like a chicken and egg thing.  Which comes first in the planning design? Knowledge, of course about all aspects the total problem domain.  However when the top level design plan starts it is the top class objects that are identified in the problem domain.  Then their properties are established then their functions are identified.

Objects come first.  Then there is a dance between objects passing messages to other objects to do things.  The things that they can do are designed into the system.  It used to be that functional processes were separate programs all with functional statements in their processing programs that were verbs that did things. 

Unified Modeling Language is the object oriented method of design for high level system modeling.  There are experts in this method.  Certainly at least one of these experts must see that the money system has to be redesigned using the methodology.  Technology has often provided the solutions to problems in the past.  UML is the technology of the information age that can solve the problems related to money today.

UML and an open source transparent money system founded on what money is as an object.

It is a Process Oriented World

The whole world is watching the Olympics.  All the action.  All the movement.  All the process in going higher, faster, farther toward the goal of winning in competition.

Is there any doubt that the Olympics is overwhelmingly and action process oriented event and we love the action?  The focus on the playing of the game?

There is also a focus at thoughtful and reflective times on the objects involved in the Olympics.  The games themselves, the people that play them the fields of play, the rules, etc. 

Most focus primarily on the action of the games, to varying degrees all recognize the role of the objects related to the action.  When the objects related to the Olympics become the primary focus of the presentation of the Olympics on TV some viewers go for a beer.  Some viewers are glad that those that went for a beer are not still there to comment on the waste of time by some idiot that interrupts the game.  They have some appreciation for the things involved in the game, not just the game itself.  Some really don't care about the play of the game nor do they even know the rules.  They just enjoy the objects involved in the game.

In a process oriented world those few that have an appreciation of the nature, and fundamental basis of the object structure model of the game as well as the functional performance of the model are having a wonderful total quality experience. 

Those that are having the wonderful total experience are smart enough not to tell the guy that went for a beer what he really missed while he was gone.  When he returns they  can tell him that he should be glad he left when he did so he did not have to listen to the idiot.  Let him think that his view is the only view (as long as he did not turn off the TV when he left the room or deprive everyone in the world of viewing what he missed while he was gone).

In a process oriented world the object modellers must present they object based model in process oriented terms.  The majority, games or business focus on process perspectives.  Give them the user view that they prefer.  Make the object model basis of the process transparent (OK, hide it!)  they would neither understand it, enjoy it, appreciate it and would perhaps even be threatened by it if they thought that some pointy head liberal was trying to change the way things are done.


Points of View

Perspectives on Process Modeling

The above link takes you to an interesting discussion by Roger Burlton (Founder Process Renewal Group, Chief Consultant, BPTrends Associates) of process modeling perspectives.  The discussion includes the following quote from Einstein: "A model should be as simple as it can be but no simpler"

All that some people can see is process.  That is their perspective.  Show them only a process model.  Do not show them any more than what they want to see.  If they see the whole world as the function of a process model then do not show them the whole damn world.  They will neither comprehend it nor recognize that their narrow view of one aspect of the whole world is not really the whole world.  It is not the basis of the structure of the whole world.  The ones that believe that it is are only bit players in whatever the "whole world structure" is.  Let them continue to think that what they see is the whole world.

Why waste time trying to educate or convert them to a bigger picture.

If their narrow functional process view of the whole world dictates the object model basis of the whole world structure then the tail is wagging the dog.  Either:

1.  Take the time and effort to educate them to the broader view and its logical object based structure.  The greater good idea prevails when they agree to the greater good.

2.  Marginalize their influence on the logical object structure so as not to sub-optimize it on their functional process if their is a conflict with the greater good.

3.  Remove them from problem.  They will never change their view.  If they have power, their view will sub-optimize the system object structure and therefore function by imposing a domination of special interest function.  Greater good goals will not be achieved.

Banksters have dictated the object model structure of money to sub-optimize on their narrow special interest functional model perspective.  Built by banksters for banksters using the banksters functional model to dictate object model structure.

Design for catastrophic failure.

There is no viable competing model until there is the force of a greater power than the banksters to replace it.

Who has that greater power and will use it to create and implement an object model based system with a functional process to achieve the goal of the greater good????

Thanks Roger for your perspective on a micro problem representative of a macro problem.  Same problem, different scale.






Modeling Perspectives

For the sake of mercy on the poor reader of this:  It all gets to a point! 

Yes, all the words that follow attempt get to a point so I will present the reference to the point exactly right here at the start .  (Yes, that is a link you can click on to get the point).  Then after all the following that I wish to say about that point that I am working toward I will restate it (again!) at the end of what I say for those that have endured the torture you will have to go through to get to the end of how I say it. 

IT ALL DEPENDS ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT!

"It" is a universal descriptor.  Any thing can be called "It".  Maybe even call it "That"

Hey, Look at "It".  Look at "That".  Yeah, I see "It", I see "That".

I might be calling attention to an object.  You might be giving your attention to the action the object is doing.  Both the object and its action are combined in something worthy of attention so does "It" really matter?  Yes, and No.  Very much in a complex situation, not at all in a simple one.  Or, (to complicate matters unnecessarily, or to make a point) not at all.

See What?  Well, it all depends on what is being talked about, what is being looked at.  They could be the same thing or they could be two fundamentally different things.

It all depends on how you look at it!

It can be any thing!  depending on the definition of "thing".  It could be every thing!

Confusing?  It is called communication.  Full of ambiguity until we take some steps to reduce the ambiguity in various ways.  Like a frame of reference, agreed upon definitions, the structure and rules of the language we use.  Some languages are more precise than others.  Natural language, mathematics, music, etc.

It and things:  It starts in first grade, actually it starts with our first word and we simply learn in first grade the formal rules for the differences between the words we have already learned to use to communicate.

We learn that things are nouns and actions are verbs.  The entire structure of the frame of reference that relates us to the world, our thinking about it and the world model that we build in out heads is all based on this introductory concept and it is wrong because it is one step removed from what is the most fundamental thing to start with and that is:

ALL THINGS ARE THINGS!  A NOUN IS A THING. A VERB IS A THING.  ALL THE OTHER WORDS WE USE AS MODIFIERS AND FILLERS OF THE CONTENT OF OUR LANGUAGE ARE JUST THINGS.  ALL THINGS ARE THINGS.  EVERY THING IS SOME TYPE OF A THING.

That concept is some kind of a thing called mystical when you think about it.  Maybe a thing called philosophical because it is something to think about when we seriously start thing think about the meaning of things. Something that does not start in first grade.  It is a later in life thing.  Maybe never for some or most people.

When we do start to think about the deeper nature of things in the world we are to some degree handicapped by what we have learned from the start:  Not the concept of thing but the duality division of all things expressed in the language we used as either nouns (the thing) or verbs (the action a thing does or relates to)  (and their little helper friends which are just tag along modifiers).

The Eureka!  The "Ah ha, I get it!"  The paradigm shift in thinking and point of view arrives where what we see as a vase becomes the face when we see the unity of things as all things.  That means we see verbs, the words that describe actions in our language as things.  That is the meta structure of language and thought.  Nouns are things in a conceptual structure.  Verbs are things in a conceptual structure.  They are both things.  They are not mutually exclusive things because we look at one thing (the noun) as a thing and the other thing (the verb) as not a thing but is an action, which is something that is done over time by a thing in the physical or conceptual world.  We tend to think of nouns and verbs as two different things.  We have a tendency to think in a frame of reference dominated either by tendency to focus on the thing or the action a thing is doing.

That takes it all back to the beginning.  Back to the basic start.  So, let's go back to where I started this thing I am writing. 

It all depends on how you look at "It" or "That".

If I say look at that!  Does the person I speak to look at the noun object or the verb action that some undefined but apparently obvious thing has some action relationship to?  Which in my mind did I intend to call attention to?  The noun object or its verb action.  There is not necessarily an ambiguity of intent involved in what I said nor a failure in communication due to interpretation of the meaning.  Make that last sentence a question in your mind.

It  depends.  Depends on the situational condition frame of reference.  Two basic frames of reference that influence our expression and interpretation of what we are talking about are thinking and feeling.  Not black and white binary dualities like on or off,  men or women but a combination of the two things in our minds where one tends to eclipse the other depending on the situation but at the bottom line tends to dominate how we see "things".

Torture mode off: 

The Modeling Perspective which is the point of all the previous determines the manner of problem definition examination and solution as described here as various approaches depending on perspective.  If in your perspective you did not see as described here as a link to something I am talking about on the internet then I will point that out as something to click on to learn about the different modeling perspectives.  As described here is a verb phrase that is an object thing with a function (having a private method that knows how to do some thing" that takes you to its explanation.

Get the point??

A verb in its action role in a conceptual structure is just another thing in the structure of all things in the structure.

You don't get it?

If you see a verb as an action and not a thing then you never will see it any other way.
 

 





Saturday, July 28, 2012

One Dollar of Capital

Karl Denninger

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=209282

Origin of Money

An Excellent Post here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-origin-money

"
Giving banks a monopoly over the allocation of capital has dramatically enriched banking interests. It is also correlated with a dramatic fall in total factor productivity, and a dramatic increase in income inequality.
Very simply, I believe that the present system is inherently undemocratic. Giving banks a monopoly over the initial allocation of credit and money enriches the banks at the expense of society. Banks and bankers — who produce nothing — allocate resources to their interests. The rest of society — including all the productive sectors — get crumbs from the table. The market mechanism is perverted, and bent in favour of the financial system. The financial system can subsidise incompetence and ineptitude through bailouts and helicopter drops.



More on Money as Social Media

Money is a social media that exists in the Information Engineering problem domain.

Speech and writing are social media.  They are the result of solving an information engineering problem long ago.  Sounds and letters were devised as a result and placed in the commons for all within a social group to use.  No benefit accrued to those that devised them unless they were controlled in some way like prohibition of certain words to be spoken by those that assumed the power to speak them or control the writing of them and what that writing expressed. Hurrah for free speech.

Social media is now more complex it is computer based and there are benefits to those that can control it.  Like Facebook, password entry.

The money system was created and controlled by bankers for their benefit.  Like free speech it should be free for all to use in our social system where we exchange things of value with the medium.  It costs bankers nothing to create money but when they do they control it.  They have failed to manage it for the common good and done great damage. They misbehaved and we must apply controls to what they do or simply take the power to create money away from them.  It  is a power belonging to the government in the first place.  Banks are children that cannot handle the responsibility or crooks that have no responsibility. We know how to handle that.

The Internet is the model.  Ones and zeros.  But when they are assembled into some order that means something.  all communication is done on a packet switching network that assigns a unique number to every single packet of information then sends it to the destination address.  That is how you are reading this but how it got there is all transparent to you.  I could explain it but......

Rather than sending money around from one place/person to another think about this:  There are only a finite number of  uniquely serialized digital dollars by design.  Always just enough.  Today there is no limit on how many can be created.  As many as needed to bail out banks for bad bets.

Instead of sending these new serialized digital dollars between accounts, they all stay in one place, the Fort Knox of digital dollars and the only thing that changes is the name of ownership associated with each serialized dollar.  We receive and spend the dollars one at a time changing the name of ownership of each single serialized dollar with a value of one dollar.  That however is transparent to you.  As transparent as the packet switching network that carried this email to you.

The small change less than a dollar?  Simply a small detail in the design.  Maybe we can give that detail to the banks as their only authority to design and manage.  Like giving children blocks to play with because they can't handle the bigger toys. 

Now...to condense all that to a simple idea. 

Money is like letters in the alphabet.  We decide how many unique letters there are in the alphabet then everyone uses them to do what speech or writing does.  Money is a trillion ( or whatever is needed) digital one dollar bills on a computer each serialized with a number from one to a trillion.  That is what money is.  Once created they never cease to exist, each dollar is owned by some financial entity.  Then everybody uses them to do what money does and ownership changes. They can use it to buy and sell stuff or just be a store of value.  Get it by cheating and stealing, but in a system where all money is "marked money" and a name of ownership is always on it then that makes it hard to steal or keep by cheating or to buy or do illegal things with it.  People are absolutely free to do terrible things with it.  Just like they are free to kill. However, it is a system where if they do then the crime will not pay in the end when money record evidence is submitted for judgment and the application of justice in accordance with the law.  Whatever laws we choose to apply.

Now ain't that democratic?  Pretty republican too.  What's not to like unless you are a bankster, gangster or some other crook.  Money is our ball to play with.  We can play any game we choose.

Money is Social Media

Money is a social media that must exist in the public domain as an open source conceptual system with defined standards and controls for its implementation and maintenance. 

It is essential that what money is as a conceptual information structure be clearly distinguished from its application to doing something with it. For an example from our modern era of information management: Money IS the operating system.  What money does are its application programs and we call all of those programs the economy.  For an example from the dawn of information management:  Money is like the alphabet.  The application of the alphabet is everything we write and say.  That, like money, is anything and everything we can dream up to do with it.

Money Does as Money Is.

The essence of the information age is the separation of physical things from their logical association.  When that is done they can be managed better logically than only physically. That is not new or hard to understand.  It is the same as separating a word which is a conceptual thing in our mind (logic) made up of the letters "d o g" from the physical object that barks.  We say "dog" otherwise we would have to tie the logical idea of a dog to the physical reality of a dog by barking like one. The new information age is simply extending more conceptual information structures on top of older conceptual structures.  That increases complexity but computer information management systems enable us to manage it by making the complexity transparent to the the end user.  That is a good thing and a bad thing.  Hiding truth from the user of a complex system that would otherwise expose its fallacy is fraud. 

Bankers separated physical money from its direct logical connection long ago.  The golden rule is that they that have the gold rule.  That rule is from the days when physical money, gold was absolutely bound to a logic value.  A gold coin was a gold coin and that is what money was. Deposited in a bank however, bankers could loan out more money than they had on hand from depositors.  Consequently the fractional reserve banking system was born.  Bankers only had to maintain only a fraction of the gold coins deposited and loan out the remainder.  The banking system evolved, is no longer based on a gold standard but entirely on promises to pay back a loan.  We call that money today and that is what our money in fact is today.  It is all just promises to pay back a loan.  All our money is debt money.

The real golden rule is that they who define what money is rule the world.  Bankers define what money is.  Money is the representation of debt and they create money out of nothing when they loan it into existence.  The end stage of the banking definition of what money is has been reached.  There no longer is any physical representation of money or association to it.  Money is only a number in an account.  Numbers created out of nothing and seemingly an unlimited supply.  Whatever is needed or wanted the only rule is that whatever the total amount of money is, money held as an asset by a bank always has to balance to a equal amount of debt created by loans.  The sum total of all bank loans is equal to our money supply.  All our money is debt money that is what money is by banking system design.

It is the sovereign right of our government to create money.  It's in the constitution.  That right was granted to a central bank in 1913 along with the responsibility to mange the monetary system.  However, ultimately the right to create money remained reserved to our government. 

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Wild Thinking Insrutable Humor

Given that crazy, improbable, mathematically impossible things are happening in the money world is the following in the wildest stretch of the imagination possible:

Is it possible that China is attempting to hide in its shadow banking system a progression from a debt money system to a real money system that would otherwise be reflected by an increasing reserve ratio base money trend aimed at 100% real money?  In other words they are trying to hide their increasing real reserve ratio progress to a new money system?

Is it possible that the USA is attempting with equal vigor to hide its decreasing reserve ratio.  Are we at 0% real money reserve now and trending increasingly negative as we call things money reserves that are truly not real base money one step or maybe two steps removed from any concept of money satisfying traditional definitions of qualifying as reserves in the fractional banking system.

What is the end game of each country's attempt to (in my truly craiest of thinking -- Kelsey says I should take a day of from thinking) hide its shadow banking system.  China hiding its progress toward a real money system.  The USA hiding its progress away from it.

The answer might be in short term and long term objectives.  How long has each country been around?

Hmmm........take the money and run or take control of the money system and run things

Who has taken control of the money system and run things into the ground for the benefit of a few.

Who wants to take control of a new money system and run the world?

Who has the power of force to preserve the current money system for the benefit of the few to use force for preservation of a failing/failed system?

Why is the government bank of China called the People's bank?  Are they hiding something in plain sight there?

Who are really the clever ones? 

If we look we will see.

We have the worlds greatest capability to look at, spy upon, anything we want.

We can see everything except what is right under our noses!!!!!!

Hidden in plain sight.  I must be crazy if I think I can see something that nobody, not even the NSA can see.  Has the world gotten that crazy or is it just me.

Taking a day off from thinking......

Maybe I should think about going to China and talking to a guy in Macau that is as crazy as me.

The most elegant way to skin a cat is to induce it to jump out of its own skin.

Which country is doing the skinning?  The joke is that China are not really doing any skinning just creating conditions by which we skin ourselves and keeping quiet until it is time for the last laugh.  Or maybe keeping quiet until the time comes to induce the cat to skin itself by merely saying: Bo!

How elegant, how clever. With, perhaps, a touch of inscrutable humor.

Clever.

We are probably not making rope anymore in the USA.  Maybe one of the businesses that Romney and Bain Capital outsourced to China.  That would mean that all our rope would be coming from China.  Probably cheap too.  China would be too clever to give us free rope but I am sure they would relish the situation even more if they could.   However that would truly be adding insult to injury and that is more like the crude American Bankster way of doing business. 

Banksters only know how to skin a cat by making a bloody mess of it.

China Peer to Peer Lending

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/links-72412.html#v6VTxgzZYdICmywg.99

This is lending 100% real money in possession of the lender, at least as real as money gets in a debt money system. This is not fractional reserve lending where money is created by a bank to make a loan. The lender may have sole ownership of the money loaned, may share honest ownership with investors or maybe has possession as a ponzi scheme.
In any case, real money is being made lending real 100% money that exists as a thing prior to loan and continues to exist after the loan is repaid. Only the possession of the the real money for exclusive use changes during the life cycle of the loan.
If this guy is happy to make some money lending “real” money then why can’t we have a real money token system instead of debt money at the macro money finance level?
Loans (debt) are simply an application of what money is in a real money system not the reason for the existence of money and what money is in a debt money system.
China might be the first nation to go to a real money system. They get there through a continuing trend that increases the reserve lending ratio until it is 100% reducing debt money to zero. Where is China now? 20% reserve ratio for the People’s bank? What country has a higher reserve ratio? Their trend? Where are we? For all intents and purposes are we at 0% reserve? Our trend is away from even a resemblence of a real money system with any facade called real base money. Real money that is not debt money.
The only real money we have left is small change.
What will be the world’s next reserve currency system? 100% real money for the whole world? Who will do it first for the world to follow?
Who are the clever ones?

Monday, July 23, 2012

Real money

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/randy-wray-why-were-screwed.html#jESL2QM45gHz1ezL.99

The original post and all the comments talk about what money does. This is the only comment that talks about what money is and that is the place to start in order to change what it does. The easiest way to cloud a fundametally wrong concept is to forever focus on what the concept does. Never allow focus on what it is; that is the key to the solution.

The money system was designed long ago to accomplish exactly what it is doing: Serving a narrow special interest group by the power it conveys to those who define what it is.
We did not define what freedom does. We defined what it is then let it do what it does best. We must define what new money is. All money is now debt money created by a loan. It must become real money where debt is a money application not the foundation of what the operating system is.

When the total finite universe of money is uniquely serialized digital one dollar bills existing on a central computer associated with a current owning financial entity and money transactions occur when the identity of the current owner of each digital dollar changes to a new owner along with associated information then we will know exactly what money is and exactly what it is doing. Public money subject to public authority with certain rights and conditions to know what money does as well as privacy rights for that information not to be known.

This is the new “Freedom” that we have to figure out.

It is our money. We are the public control authority of the operating system. While the paying/receiving of money would be granular at the serialized digital dollar level, that is transparent to the user but the basis for conversion to real money and new system structure and function. The end user of money would see little change in what money does for them, except that what money does would be substantially less fraudulent because it is defined to be a different thing.

That is the concept of a new money system created by information engineering and object oriented methodology that will free us once again. In order to convert from debt to real money, every dollar that pays off debt does not go out of existence but becomes a real uniquely serialized digital dollar with a value of one that exists forever in the new system that can be used for anything, including a loan.

We currently Occupy money. Money is currently a thing that can only be fundamentally occupied by virtue of the design of what it is. Like beer. We want to Own money (public money) and make temporary occupation of money owned by others (mostly the majority) merely one of the applications of real money.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Monetary System Engineer

From time to time I google the term "Monetary System Engineer"  I got one hit on that today for the European system but the link was dead.  I conclude that there is no such thing.  Nobody seeking the skill or having the skill to design a monetary system of having the need to employ such a skill.

Nobody that wants to specify the purpose, functional requirements and high level abstract conceptual structure of a monetary system for and engineer to create an Object Oriented information model.  Nobody seeking employment to do such work.

Must I conclude there is no need for a replacement of the current model or existence of anyone capable of producing specifications for a new and better model and implementing them in operation?

Engineers are smart people that design and build the things the rest of us use.  Good stuff like cars, TV, our Constitution.  When things don't work well or can work better, engineers design them.  Our politicians are not engineers.

Our Money System?? Where are the engineers?  Where are those that would employ such things called Monetary System Engineers.  Where are the businesses dedicated to Monetary Engineering???

Oh....they are bankers.  Working their engineering designs with their money so well for our benefit.

Looks like a closed shop monopoly for anyone seeking a job in Monetary System Engineering.

Go into Economics.  Become a broadcaster that describes the play of the game the way they see it and think that it is played but never determines what the game is nor how the game is played.  It is the only game in town and totally franchised to the banksters.  They protect their franchise.  That is why there are no search results for a non existent profession call Monetary System Engineer.


Logical and Physical

I love the information age and the conceptual information structures that we have created on top of physical systems of electronic processing that brings so much potential for human advancement.  It has really been nothing more than a continuance of separating logical relationships from physical objects that started with written and spoken symbols structured to represent the physical things in this world they related to.  Then we started to relate these symbols to thoughts and feelings that do not exist in the physical world and connect the two worlds with the medium of exchange called language.  The rapidly increasing speed of change based on technology that furthers our ability to separate but at the same time make more productive relationships between our physical and logical world is amazing.

I thought that my father's world where trains, planes, automobiles, radio, TV, etc were the most exciting things was the most exciting time to live.  Now I can see that my time to live is the most exciting time.  His was world of physical change, where barriers of physical time and distance were reduced by our increasing ability to separate physical objects from their logical relationships.  We still have trains, planes and automobiles but now we have so much more ability to create, manage and use them based on the continuation of the same capability to separate the restrictive binding of physical things to their logical associations that ultimately result in better physical processing and result.

We are always getting better at separating what a physical thing is from what it does and processing the concept of a thing separate from what a thing is.  That is the story of human progress.  We do not have to explode atom bombs anymore.  We simulate the explosion on a computer.  Much more efficient.  Then we can build bombs we never, I hope have to explode.  That is progress.

Barriers have been decreasing between us and the things we can do with our physical world because we have a mind to logically think about doing them.  There was always a lag caused by whatever idea we had about doing something with a physical object and actually doing something with the object.  We got an idea even before anything was ever actually done like making a fire or using a wheel.  Actually doing it required getting tow sticks or making something round.  The idea was a product of the mind; logic.  It was constrained by applying it to something physical; two sticks or fashioning a wheel. 


There was an inherent lag between thinking about something and applying the thought to the physical thing it related to.  Like thinking about a new route to the Indies and actually getting the there in sailing ship.  It requires less and less time now to the extent that the lag built into the actual doing of something is not much of a constraint to getting it done.  To some extent, and perhaps that is increasing as well, we might be losing the safety factor inherent in requiring some time to process or use the physical object necessary to get something done.  Or, simply, the constraints of the physical object itself which assured the honesty in its use. 

Honesty in use being assured by the nature of the physical object itself, and inherent nature that cannot be changed for for the purpose of dishonest use because the bonding between the object and its logical representation cannot be separated.  Now there is a fascinating idea that is contrary to thinking that the progress of humans is possible by our ability to increasingly separate but relate physical things from their logical representation and processing!!

Such honesty in use of a physical object dictated by the fact that it cannot ever be separated from its single logical application is never possible....perhaps, I think...I will just accept that as a statement of fact for the sake of argument.

Honesty in use of a conceptual object because by the nature of its concept can never be separated from its single logical application is possible and perhaps the greatest gift of the human mind?  Hmmm......Money is a conceptual object.  What if it had only one logical application and could be used for nothing else:  A logical medium of exchange tied directly in an exclusive one to one relationship with aconceptual representation in a variable but finite universe of like objects that exist forever and never changed except for its value which was a relative constant?







Nothing different to the End User

I briefly explained the concept of serialized digital dollars all with a unit value of one dollar existing on a central computer as our total base money medium of exchange.

She asked:  So what difference would it mean to me?  I get a payed by some kind of digital money transfer and I can spend the digital money I get with another digital transfer?

I replied that for her, as well as 90 to 99% of all Americans nothing changes.  Get money in  computer system, spend money in a computer system.  Perhaps that is the beauty of sweeping change in the essential structure of a conceptual/physical structure.  The lesser the apparent impact of substantial fundamental system changes have for the end user, except to make it cheaper/easier, the easier it is to accomplish the changes.

The ideal:  Nothing changes for the end user, everything that delivers the end user experience changes.

Everybody watches TV.  We changed from an analog TV to digital TV system.  Nothing changed for the end user.  Some had to buy a converter to keep the old analog TV.  Most were happy to get a big screen digital.  Most already had them with dual reception capability.  There was a big change in the system that delivered the TV picture.  It brought an improvement to the end user as an inducement to change.

The personal inducement for an end user of the money system to change to a digital, serialized central record dollar is and have all those single dollars processed individually at the record level to change ownership, while being all transparent to the end user is small or even non-existent.  Unless, however, the end user cares beyond their own paycheck and spending whatever they get.  If they care about the fraud that lives off our money system like a fungus and the power conveyed by the shift of money to the hands of the few in a ponzi scheme then they would care to change the money system.

Most Americans don't care and would not see any change in their personal money does.  As long as their personal money does what money does, the essence of what money is remains secondary.  What money is however is of primary importance to those who control it and have abused that control for their own financial and political self interest.  The abuse will never change until we change what money is but do not change the good aspects of what money does.  More are beginning to care but do not understand the money system.  What money is.  They see the bad things money does.  When the current system collapses most people will care very much about what money is.  They will not understand the system but they will want a dollar to be a real dollar and wonder how many real dollars are there in the USA who gets them, has them and spends them and who has control of the money system in which this all happens?

When the crises, the collapse of the money system comes as it is happening in Europe, those in control of the money system will only want to control what money does, not change what money is and will go to any length to control what money does and divert attention from the real solution of changing what money is which is essential to change what money does when the system does not work any longer.

An absolute answer to changing what money does is to change what money is.  Changing what money is means making the dollar a real, conceptually concrete uniquely individual serialized conceptual thing existing as a permanent computer record on which the identity of the owner changes as transactions occur.

Credit and loans in such a system become an application of what a dollar is, not the reason that brings dollars into existence and extinguishes them when a loan is repaid in an endless cycle to create our current money system.  A money system that is the sum total of all money we have as a medium of exchange, what we get and spend,  that currently exists only because and (ONLY because) ALL OF IT exists because a banker has made a loan to someone that owes repayment plus interest.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

New Money

The money system was designed long ago to accomplish exactly what it is doing:  Serving a narrow special interest group by the power it conveys to those who define what it is. 

We did not define what freedom does.  We defined what it is then let it do what it does best.  We must define what new money is.  All money is now debt money created by a loan.  It must become real money where debt is a money application not the foundation of what the operating system is.

When the total finite universe of money is uniquely serialized digital one dollar bills existing on a central computer associated with a current owning financial entity and money transactions occur when the identity of the current owner of each digital dollar changes to a new owner along with associated information then we will know exactly what money is and exactly what it is doing.  Subject to certain rights and conditions to know as well as privacy rights for information not to be known.  This is the new "Freedom" that we have to figure out. 

It is our money.  We are the public control authority of the operating system.  While the paying/receiving of money is granular at the digital dollar level, that is transparent to the user but the basis for conversion to real money and new system structure and function.

That is a new money system created by information engineering and object oriented methodology that will free us once again.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

SuperClass: Financial Entity

My fantasy money system, what money is, not what it does, is based on the idea of a single central digital record of all money supply.  About 7 trillion dollars.

Each dollar is denominated as one dollar and each has a unique serial number.  Each dollar is associated to an "owning" financial entity.

As money transactions occur, the name of the "owner" changes.  The digital dollar record does not otherwise change and exists forever once it is created.

Financial entities interface with their "owned" dollars through electronic devices over the secure communications network.

That is the SuperClass: Money.

This is the SuperClass: FinancialEntity

Only Financial Entities can interact with SuperClass: Money.  There is a money system FinancialEntity register.  All citizens of the USA are instances of the SuperClass FinancialEntity.   Citizen Entities may combine to form a unique parent Class: CombinedFinancialEntity.

Geographic Resident Information Node

Bend Cable is my internet provider.  They also provide me with My Bend Cable.  They used to provide me with some space on which they hosted my web site.  They are my communication portal to the internet when I am at home, which is most of the time.  They also stored information for me while they offered that service.

OnPoint (credit Union) is my bank.  I finally moved money from Wells Fargo to a credit Union!

If the single point of entry to my money storage and transactions was OnPoint then its role regarding money would be very much like my internet provider's role regarding my information and communication.

Both are geographically local points of entry.  Both are nodes of a national information and communication network.  When I am infrequently away from my geographical node called home I can utilize other nodes in the total network.

Public Money - Private Accounting

This is the plan for the new money system:

Public Money  -  Private Accounting

There is a given amount of money in circulation today that we use as means of exchange.  When it is not being exchanged it is a store of value.  If not spent it is saved until spent.

Total US dollars in circulation is the  M1 money supply and that is is $1.8 trillion.  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about 15 trillion dollars annually.  Fundamentally, what is produced each year equals what is consumed  and that is called Gross Domestic Consumption (GDC).  What workers are paid to produce, they spend to consume.  They produce and consume about 15 trillion dollars worth of goods and services stuff per year.

If the total M1 money money supply used for all the yearly paying and spending of dollars to produce and consume is $1.8 trillion then each dollar gets spent about 8 times per year.  If workers were paid once per month and also spent monthly everything they were paid monthly then for all workers to spend all their paycheck monthly to buy stuff would only require a total money supply of about 1.3 trillion dollars, not $1.8 trillion.  There are things that account for the difference.  They are details in the big picture.  Forget about them for the time being.  This is a big picture look at money in a new monetary system.

The store of money needed in the new monetary system:  $1.8 trillion.  About 98% of the M1 money supply is digital money existing on a computer.  The remainder, 2% is paper currency residing in pockets, under mattresses, in cash registers and bank vaults.  About 60% of all $100 dollar bills circulate outside the USA.

Here is the straw man idea for a new monetary system

1.  Revoke the authority of the Federal Reserve to create money out of nothing.  Restore this authority to the government as it sovereign constitutional right.

2.  Pass legislation that authorizes any financial entity to create a private money system.  Any entity that operates a private money system must have ownership capital in US dollars equal the the amount of dollars in the money system that it operates and be registered by the government to operate a private money system.

3.  Convert the existing M1 money supply of $1.8 trillion to a new money supply of $1.8 trillion.  Each new digital dollar is uniquely serialized in the denomination of one dollar.  Each dollar is associated to an owning financial entity.  All citizens are entities, any combination of citizens may be a financial entity,  All businesses are financial entities.  The money supply would exist on a government computer system

4.  Any financial entity may choose to use US government dollars for any transaction or private money system dollars backed by US government dollars.  Private money systems may offer any value added benefit to the use of their private money system, the value added being the reason anyone would choose to use the private money system.

I will return to the idea of private money system operation in some future entry.  With some registration controls and an minimum of consumer protection laws, Private Money Systems would be allowed to operate as a free private enterprise business market open to all who wish to enter and compete in the private money market.

Every new digital dollar in the government monetary record would be mirrored on a

Packet Money

Packet Money.  No, not a misspelling of  Pocket Money.  The new monetary system that I propose is that all money in circulation is recorded as a uniquely serialized unit of One Dollar on a government maintained computer associated to a unique financial account entity.

Each serialized dollar on the government record with a value of  one dollar and identified to the owning financial entity is mirrored by the same serialized dollar held by a financial accounting entity.  The account entity maintains a total dollar on hand balance with a mirror record of its uniquely serialized dollars with a unit value of on the government central server where the total of all those single dollars with the same associated account identifier total the on hand balance in the account record.

When money is transacted in the new system that transaction is communicated as packets of information over the internet using one IP6v packet per each single dollar.

The small change remainder will be handled by a system that I will dream up later.  This is theory, not application.

We deal with digital money transactions as total dollar amounts payed/received from one account to another account.  We think of money in terms of total to what it is related, paycheck, price.  We don't primarily think of money transactions in terms of money units of aggregated single dollars related to a total.  In some cases we do if all we have are one dollar bills and the price of the item being bought is, for example, $7.  Then seven one dollar bills are counted and given in payment.  A more or less automatic action of the hand counting 7 bills but the mind still primarily concerned with the total to  be paid.

In a world of digital money perhaps it is convenient for us to manage money totals payed and received in terms of our "account: user view of the monetary system as we use it to make transactions and for computers systems and monetary engineers that design monetary systems to have to have a different view that  facilitates system design and operation. That different view would be the dollars themselves, at the granular level of 1 serialized dollar.

We view money as passing from person to person and their related accounts on a computer record.  The total amount involved is variable.  A monetary system design engineer would view the transaction in a manner most efficient to system design objectives.  The engineer might therefore  view system transactions not as money passing from account to account but as totals of dollars changing accounts to which a fixed record monetary unit of one serialized dollar is associated.  Computers can do things like that very easily.  The fixation on an account as the record on which all transactions take place is a legacy of an old school system where accountants posted each individual total transaction amount from one account to another.  That was accounting in the old pen and ink days.

People will continue to perceive money moving from account to account.  They will view it that way for individual transactions and as the total of all transactions on their monthly bank or credit card statements.  The computer monetary management system would look at it all in a different way.  People could look at it from the computer viewpoint like they can look under the hood to see the engine driving the car or the circuit boards driving the computer.  Some might do that if they wish, others do not care to see it.

It might sound like a crazy idea to process money transactions in terms of individual serialized single units of one dollar.  Especially if you are buying a $25,000 car or $500,000 house.  That happens every several years for a car, less often for a house.  Of all the transactions we make in a year, what might be the average amount related to a transaction?  Maybe equal to the price of a tankful of gas?  Who knows? Somebody might.  Maybe on Google.  Say it is $50.   How much more would it cost in terms of processing time for a computer to process 50 serialized digital dollars as opposed to a single amount of 50 dollars.

Money transactions take place over a computer network:

1.  Use a credit card and we do not own the money we are spending.  We are spending money held by an institution that grants us the credit to spend it in return for repayment of the credit extended to us.  Pay the amount due on the temporary loan at the end of the month and the credit costs us nothing.  Don't pay and it costs.  Do you see a business plan here?

2.  Use a debit card and we are spending our own money.  Money in our account somewhere.  Maybe we pay for the use of the debit card service.  Maybe the debit card is free and some institution is making money on some aspect of us using the free card.  In any event.  The money is in our account to make the payment.  In this case, 



There is a given amount of money in circulation today that we use as means of exchange.  When it is not being exchanged it is a store of value.  If not spent it is saved until spent.

Total US dollars in circulation is the  M1 money supply and that is is $1.8 trillion.  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is about 15 trillion dollars annually.  Fundamentally, what is produced each year equals what is consumed  and that is called Gross Domestic Consumption (GDC).  What workers are paid to produce, they spend to consume.  They produce and consume about 15 trillion dollars worth of goods and services stuff per year.

If the total M1 money money supply used for all the yearly paying and spending of dollars to produce and consume is $1.8 trillion then each dollar gets spent about 8 times per year.  If workers were paid once per month and also spent monthly everything they were paid monthly then for all workers to spend all their paycheck monthly to buy stuff would only require a total money supply of about 1.3 trillion dollars, not $1.8 trillion.  There are things that account for the difference.  They are details in the big picture.  Forget about them for the time being.  This is a big picture look at money in a new monetary system.

The store of money needed in the new monetary system:  $1.8 trillion.  About 98% of the M1 money supply is digital money existing on a computer.  The remainder, 2% is paper currency residing in pockets, under mattresses, in cash registers and bank vaults.  About 60% of all $100 dollar bills circulate outside the USA.

Economist in a Box - Money in a Box

Economist build idea boxes about the economy.  Their boxed thought structure is defined by all the parameters they assign to the box.  Then they attempt to relate the model of that boxed thought to the real world economy.  When it fails to fit they are confined by the box they built.  If it is a square box and the real economy is a round hole and they have invested a great amount of time, effort, reputation and commitment then they just try to pound it in to the round hole rather than start over.

Economy is about money.  It is about what money does.  Money is a fundamental entity in the economy.  Other major entity players in the economy are entities that use money as a medium of exchange and the objects that money is exchanged for.

The entities that use money and the objects they are exchanged for are highly defined identities.  The greater the amount of money involved the higher the degree of definition, often contractually defined.

The money involved in the transaction lacks a unique degree of identity beyond the nature of the currency, the US dollar, the amount involved, the account source of the funds and means of conveyance from one entity to another.

Scientific study of money and what it does in the economy cannot be done until each unit in the medium of exchange is uniquely defined and identified  to its lowest level instance of the collective entity and persists forever with that unique identity.   Then its micro and macro nature can be traced in time and transactions linking the transactors as well as the objects in the transaction.

In order to manage what money is and what money does each individual unit of money must be serially identified and that unit of account defined as a computer record that does not change.  Only the attribute of that unique serialized unit record called "possessor" changes as a function of transactions using the medium of exchange.

If the "possessor" entity of a serialized unit of money (one single dollar) may be either an owner or an occupier (borrower).  There must always be an owner associated with a unit of money.  Possession by an occupier is optional associated with rights (which may be limited) to use the unit of money granted by an owner entity.  When an owner expends a unit of money in a transaction (the owner can only expend it if their is no occupier) the information regarding the transaction goes into memorandum history.  When an occupier (if there is one) expends the occupied money in their possession it becomes owned by the new possessor.  The transaction in which the occupied medium of exchange unit was involved goes into the debt record history of the occupier.  The creditor of that debt record may (subject to law restrictions) transfer ownership of the debt.  The debtor (occupier) of that debt settles the debt by repayment of owned dollars.

Some rules:  Occupiers cannot loan money they occupy.  In other words occupied money cannot be "reloaned".  At least there is no provision in the central money record for this situation.  The expenditure of money by an occupier is not a legal basis for any legal repayment claim other than failure to deliver the goods or (non-loan) services.  If an occupier of money does re-loan the occupied money then there is no legal recourse to collection of that loan by the occupier or legal requirement for the receiver of occupied money to repay the loan.

Social Engineering

This is one of my primary views of what money is:  Social Media.  It is a media for social decision making.  Decisions regarding acquiring it,  maintaining it and expending it.

If money is social media then the structural nature of money is a matter of social engineering.

Social Engineering:  Defined here by Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia entry obviously needs some attention.  Expressing Social Engineering as a thing in two categories; Security and Politics is barely a foot in the door place holder for a more concise identification of the concept.  Wikipedia is only a start point for me on anything.  This start point has far to go.  Some research with Google will probably take me to where I want to go quickly.

Where I want to go is to relate Social Engineering to problem domain of Money and the the construction of a conceptual structure of money along the lines of information engineering methodology.

Social Engineering gets a bad rap.  That is reasonable when social structures are designed for the imposition upon society.  On the other hand when they are designed to invite society to participate based on the desire of individuals to participate then it plays a different role.  A ball game is a socially engineered thing.  So is a fascist state.  Fraud and deception can motivate people to participate in a social engineered structure with or without their knowledge and consent.  Social engineering is an interesting thing to examine.  Facebook is a product of social engineering.  So is religion.  Government.

If the family is the fundamental social unit, the nuclear family, father, mother, children was designed by nature.  God, if you prefer.  Human re-engineering of that basic structure obviously creates some conceptual design creator conflict.  Conflict resolved by what it takes to create children, nature's or God's province and what it takes to raise them; human province in the view of some, nature or God in the view of others.  God's plan.  Man's plan.

Money as a social media conceptual structure does not suffer from the hand of God as its creator.  That is positively and negatively questionable in reality since all of out social structures involve some degree of the hand of God in their creation in the view of some portion of society.   Putting that aside, the design creation of what money is tends greatly to be an objective conceptual structure more like computers systems while what money does is largely subjective in its social structure.

Designing a money system, what money is:  A Social Engineering challenge.  Looking at the money system design from that approach is the beginning of a personal path of investigation regarding the nature of Social Engineering.

Wow!  Starting on the path with a Google search and look what pops up to the surface to present itself as Social Engineering!

Is Google run by Goebbels or what?  Seems like Social Engineering is all about security and deception!  Look at this hit on the very first page of the Google search on the term "Social Engineering" on which this appears.  It is our Homeland Security government warning us about a social engineering attack! Certainly puts it in a bad light.  Somewhere next to socialism?

What is a social engineering attack?

In a social engineering attack, an attacker uses human interaction (social skills) to obtain or compromise information about an organization or its computer systems. An attacker may seem unassuming and respectable, possibly claiming to be a new employee, repair person, or researcher and even offering credentials to support that identity. However, by asking questions, he or she may be able to piece together enough information to infiltrate an organization's network. If an attacker is not able to gather enough information from one source, he or she may contact another source within the same organization and rely on the information from the first source to add to his or her credibility.

If Social Engineering is a dangerous thing, give it the benefit of the doubt here and view it like a weapon.  It itself neither good nor bad, but finds judgment in how it is used.  What about the designers of this thing called Social Engineering?  They would be called Social Engineers right?  Like a gun is designed and produced by a gun maker who is neither a policeman nor a criminal?

Look at this definition of the first page of Google hits on a search term "Social Engineer" in quotes to avoid other general results.

The very first hit is Social-Engineer.org.  

This site immediately starts out with a definition of what Social Engineering does, not what a Social Engineer is.  Big red flag.  Just like defining what money is by describing what money does.  Immediate diversion from analysis of the object itself to what the object does!  True Goebbels!

This is an interesting investigative path!

The rest of the hits on the first page of the Google search on the term "Social Engineer" are mostly results that contain the headline term "Social Engineering".  While the Wikipedia result is for "Social Engineer" reading the content of the Wikipedia entry slants it this way:

A social engineer is one who tries to influence popular attitudes, social behaviors, and resource management on a large scale. Social engineering is the application of the scientific method for social concern.


Amazing.  A bridge engineer designs bridges for people to use.  They do not try to influence people to use it beyond offering a desirable decision alternative to swim across a river as an independent choice.  If people like to swim the bridge will not get much use.  It appears that the Wikipedia definition of a a social engineer is a bridge engineer that designs a bridge then puts up a sign at the river's edge that says "No Swimming".

The dangers of Wikipedia.  It ascribes intent to influence as a purpose of a social engineer then goes on to say that social engineers are scientific and that influence as a purpose is in the realm of "Political Engineering"

This is from the first page of Google hits on "Social Engineer"

Social engineering is a term that describes a non-technical kind of intrusion that relies heavily on human interaction and often involves tricking other people to break normal security procedures.
A social engineer runs what used to be called a "con game." For example, a person using social engineering to break into a computer network might try to gain the confidence of an authorized user and get them to reveal information that compromises the network's security. Social engineers often rely on the natural helpfulness of people as well as on their weaknesses. They might, for example, call the authorized employee with some kind of urgent problem that requires immediate network access. Appeal to vanity, appeal to authority, appeal to greed, and old-fashioned eavesdropping are other typical social engineering techniques.

Security experts propose that as our culture becomes more dependent on information, social engineering will remain the greatest threat to any security system. Prevention includes educating people about the value of information, training them to protect it, and increasing people's awareness of how social engineers operate.


Mothers don't let your children grow up to be Social Engineers.  Or terrorists!  Or Socialists!

The term "Social System Design"  gets more objective treatment on a Google search.  Among results are academic offerings.  The term "design" is a step back from engineering in the implementation progression from conceptual idea to the end product of a thing that actually implements the concept.  "Social System Design" seems less tainted with negative connotations and more closely associated with objective science.  More 'socially" acceptable.  Less associated with social engineering with the objective of deceiving people like con artists, banksters, politicians and news media.

Bringing this back to the focus on money as a social media:  The money system is a designed and engineered social system thing that exists in a Social Network.



Paper Dollars

I am almost 70 years old.  The world has changed.  I remember when…….

….When I did not have a credit card.  I did not have one until after college.  I can't remember having a checking account.  I did have a savings account but don't remember making many deposits or withdrawls.  It was an account to cash the few checks I received.  I used cash and never used much of that, I was a student.  The days of cash in the pocket were simple days of understanding the money system.  Money in the pocket.  Money in the bank.  No loan until the last year of college, a few hundred dollars paid off when I joined the navy. Money was so simple then.  It was dollar bills. 

What if all money was in the form of dollar bills today?  Absolutely not realistic since money doesn't pass hand to hand, pocket to pocket today.  It passes between computers.  Dollar bills in various denominations are only about 3% of our money supply. Conceptually, however it is an idea that leads me to the conclusion that money today should be exactly like doing all transactions with dollar bills except those bills are on a computer, not in our pockets physically but in our pockets virtually on a device or accessible by a device connected by a network to our money.

What if all money in our system was defined as serialized paper dollar bills with denominated amounts at its four corners?

A dollar bill is uniquely serialized.  A physical object with a denominated amount.  Everyone can simply understand what it is.  Everyone simply understands what it does.  Few if any would know or care that it is actually a representation of debt in the real world of today.  The dollar belongs to them, they possess it.  Forget about any dollar bill association with debt.  All that is recognized in this "what if" situation is its positive value as a medium of exchange.  Therefore, for the sake of this example, let's just say a dollar only has a positive value, there is no debt side to it.

On with the pipe dream based on this crazy idea of all money being in the form of paper dollar bills.

There would be a finite number of dollar bills in existence.  They would all be serialized and in a range and total of denominated bills necessary to conduct business.  Maybe the largest necessary single bill would be a hundred million dollar bill.  Nice to have one.  Nicer to have more than one.  Maybe billion dollar bills would be necessary for large transactions.

Since this is a fantasy paper dollar bill world I can lay any number of fantasy qualifications on it.

Paper dollar bills are never lost and can never be destroyed in any way.  Once created they exist forever.  They never wear out.  They can never be lost.  They can never be used for any purpose that destroys their physical existence like using them to light cigars.

While dollar bills live forever and never die, they do have a birth.  They are born when an imprint is made on a special piece of paper that can exist forever, that cannot be duplicated in either its substance or imprint graphics and a denomination amount and a serial number is imprinted on the bill that is unique to that bill and is duplicated by no other dollar bill in the system of any denomination.  Exactly the way that dollar bills are born today.  They just exist forever, somehow.  They live at least until the world has no use for this form of money any longer.  Maybe that is an economic definition of the end of the world?

In this "what if world" that defines what money is.  This is what all money is as an object. The most fundamental relationship dollar bills have to any other object is to the object that owns it.  In this case the owner is the object entity in physical possession of the dollar bill.  Physical possession equals ownership by an entity capable of potentially using that dollar bill in a transaction exchange for goods and services.  All owners are therefore by definition in the class called Financial Entities and are in the sub class End User of the money system. 

There are primary two entities that act in the money system. 

1.End User Class financial entities with possession of dollar bills and therefore ability to use them as a medium of exchange for goods and services and, 

2. Custodian Class financial entities that have custody of dollar bills (for various reasons) but have no ownership of them nor authority to use them as a medium of exchange for goods and services.




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

M-C-M

http://monthlyreview.org/2010/10/01/the-financialization-of-accumulation#en70

This is pure gold thinking!  It takes some time to read but the last paragraph convincingly sums it up nicely.

Never before has the conflict between private appropriation and the social needs (even survival) of humanity been so stark. Consequently, never before has the need for revolution been so great. In place of a global system given over entirely to monetary gain, we need to create a new society directed at substantive equality and sustainable human development: a socialism for the twenty-first century.

C=commondities.  M=money.  It explains the difference between C-M-C, exchanging commodities for money to get more commodities and M-C-M exchanging money for commodities to get more money.  For example exchanging the commodity work for money to buy a car (C-M-C) which is the economics of the worker or those that deal in other real commodities of intrinsic value to gain other commodities through the medium of exchange in the relationship.  Basically, bartering things of intrinsic value.

M-C-M is the financial model of business to exchange money for commodities to exchange or more money.  When the commodity money is exchanged for in this situation, a financial commodity represented by a financial paper related to a real commodity, perhaps leveraged on the thing of real value or in the extreme, based on nothing of real value except some idea of future value, (greater sucker theory), things get out of hand quickly!

Things have gotten out of hand quickly.

Karl Denninger advocates the guillotine.  http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=208374  I say take those that got rich on fraud in the financial market scams and condemn them to live on an amount of money equal to the average income of the hourly wage worker. They may choose wherever they wish to live in the state of Kansas with a population of less than 100,000.  They may not make nor may they spend more than the average income amount per year for life.  Can they claim that is punishment?  Let them complain in an LTE to the local newspaper.  I would call it justice.  All their money transactions must be made from a controlled bank account.  It is like placement in a witness protection program in reverse.  They would be publicly known and the town would (must) choose to accept them.  That makes it more like the sex offender model.  Call them financial offenders.  They must live among the hardworking people they have offended by their fraudulent manipulation of a commodity of true value; Labor, with a paper value financialization of it that seeks to live like a blood sucking speculative financial leach.  That leach is the model of Money exchanged for Commodity to make more Money where the commodity itself is simply money itself.  Hmmm...sounds like the interest on debt model......a global system given over entirely to monetary gain.