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.


No comments: