My focus on a proposed digitized, serialized dollar monetary system is built of the information engineering structure foundation that all dollar bills in the monetary system are uniquely identified by a serial number. All dollars in a unit value of one are serialized and exist as a single record on a central data base (Cloud) and every single dollar is associated to a current owner. (also associated in history to all previous owners and related transaction exchange history).
All owners (financial entities) are equally uniquely identified by a registered number identification. Without it they cannot own or transact dollars. I have given little thought to that essential element in the information engineering structure. Now I do not have to. The NSA has already done it and created the structure.
Financial entities include all living people without exception. We all use money so there are few that this rule would not include except perhaps those that took a vow of poverty. For the sake of system integrity they as well as all children would be required to have a unique serial number ID but, unlike digitized, serialized dollar bills, they could exist independently of any ownership association to a serialized digital dollar. Of course that begs the question: how do they do that? In most cases the answer would be obvious, in other cases, interesting. In a few cases is would be very interesting, Like any entity (person or business) identified as financial that has no and spends no money. It also includes all entities that operate as people. Any institution that transacts business that involves money and its exchange is a financial entity and must have a unique financial entity registration to which serialized dollars can be related to (owned and transacted by that entity).
All the recent revelations of Prism spy program and all other government surveillance of private information has been focused on personal communications. "Businesses are people my friend!" Targets of interest can be business entities organized to do some kind of business and using "business entity" communications as well as uniquely identified individuals and their person communications. Not all cell phones are registered to individual people paying their own phone bills with their own money! Is that a big surprise?
What if the NSA wanted to know the individual using a company cell phone? Company internet? The computer at an internet cafe. Easy, that is where 2 degrees of separation identify them but one of those degree data element is the business ID associated with the means of communication.
It is absolutely obvious that the NSA must have a master ID number to which every entity transacting communication is associated. By definition all people. By extension, all entities identified other than people owning or controlling the means of communication.
In other words, in my proposed monetary system serialized money cannot be owned or transacted by any entity that is not a registered and uniquely identified financial entity therefore having the attribute to do business with money. Receive it, own it, spend it.
Likewise, no entity in an equally structured communication system could be allowed to communicate in that system without a uniquely identifying associated traceable ID number. Without it they could communicate but immediately the question of the NSA is "Who is that" Just like the IP system. Someone communicates using it and the it can be known, or at least start to be known by "Who Is?"
The privacy of non living breathing communication entities (entities other than people that communicate as an enterprise like a business or government agency) is as much at privacy risk as an individual in a world where all communications are spied upon!!!!!
How much buzz is there about that fact in our media????
Who cares about me as an individual and what I communicate as interesting as I think it may be to me??? What organized enterprises are communicating is much more interesting.
That is where it gets very interesting!
This reported today by the South China Morning Post World: Also reported here and probably by now hundreds of other places
"A massive database of private offshore banking entities that could be
used for tax evasion was posted online for public use on Friday by the
muckraking group that first reported the files.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said anyone can now search the records
of some 100,000 companies, trusts and funds located in leading tax
havens to see who could be making use of them to skirt home-country
taxes....It allows users “to explore the relationships between clients, offshore
entities and the lawyers, accountants, banks and other intermediaries
who help keep these arrangements secret”."
The data base is here at: http://offshoreleaks.icij.org/
Searching the data base using the name of my small town "Bend Oregon" reveals that there is one off shore account associated to a residence address in town. Searching other information leads to ownership of the house at that address. If it was a business or associated with a business then that would become very interesting. This is public information now. Just public. Not incriminating for an individual or a business. After all what do they have to worry about if they are doing nothing wrong.
It is not the common person communicating with friends that have to worry about spying! It is the enterprise or people doing business as an enterprise with off shore accounts that have to worry. Any individual or any enterprise doing anything wrong anywhere will be the ones clamoring for constitutional rights to privacy. Probably those with the most money to make their clamoring known.
Who do you know, personal or business that has an off-shore account? And the source for knowing is public information! How much more must billions of dollars and thousands of spies know about every entity (person or enterprise) worth knowing about. By definition of total information there are none not worth knowing about! The capability for total information exists, if it does not have that capability yet then the ultimate goal is to have it.
The NSA has done the job of designing the information engineering required to uniquely identify all entities that would require unique registered identification to do business in my proposed monetary system.
In prior posts I suggested that the NSA might be most qualified to run the monetary system that I propose. The goal of the institution is total information, real time, all the time.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
NSA and Wall Street
Robert Reich gets it exactly right with this analysis.
The two centers of great unaccountable powers used in secrecy for the institutional agenda.
Until we have visible oversight personal control the units essential to conducting our pursuit of happiness, our freedom, whether it is a digital serialized dollar or our single numerically identified unique communication we will be subject to the tyrannical power of the uncontrollable institutions that act in their self interest, not ours nor our common good.
NSA and Wall Street are the threats to our society.
The two centers of great unaccountable powers used in secrecy for the institutional agenda.
Until we have visible oversight personal control the units essential to conducting our pursuit of happiness, our freedom, whether it is a digital serialized dollar or our single numerically identified unique communication we will be subject to the tyrannical power of the uncontrollable institutions that act in their self interest, not ours nor our common good.
NSA and Wall Street are the threats to our society.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
It's Information Evolution...Dude!
Information is evolving toward the unique identification of all things. Identifying attributes that make a single thing different somehow from all other things.
The rule driving the evolution says that information about a thing is limited to the extent that it cannot be created about a thing because the thing, physical or conceptual, does not have a degree of unique attribute identification to distinguish it from all other (otherwise) same things.
That is the rule that requires that all dollars be reduced to the level of a One Dollar thing with a unique serial number that make it different from all other dollars in the universe of dollars.
The same rule that requires that all people be reduce to their absolutely unique single identifying attribute that makes them different from all other people. Perhaps the other end of the spectrum that requires a single conceptual attribute common to all people that make them all perpetually the same, at least according to a popular information structure scheme: The Everlasting Soul.
The same rule that requires all information that the NSA collects to be associated to a unique individual entity by associated unique attributes of time and space as well as collective (more than one) attributes of association to other entity attributes by some connecting (communication of any nature) verb that implements the association of the target to an entity of interest.
The shoe fits all. All information is evolving to increasingly higher levels of unique entity attribute identification and the creation of information structure design to make this all possible. Higher levels of unique entity identification leads to increased information generation and the flip side: Ambiguity reduction.
NSA leads the way.
Secrecy and Transparency are only terms that related to the visibility of the evolution, not its progress. They do however have a vital role in the greater good benefits of the information evolution. The vital role is one that has long been recognized and is no secret.
Know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Funny that idea is associated with the bible. In the Information age the refinement of that concept is Verifiability Not Truth.
Verifiability because every thing we wish to verify is uniquely identified like evidence entered into a court of law. Who benefits most by prohibiting the evolution of information that results from increasingly precise unique conceptual identification of attributes that identify the lowest level of distinguishing one thing from another thing?
Secrecy is the prohibition of making known existing information and level to which things are uniquely identified. In the gross analysis, the detail to which the NSA must know everything is obvious.
Money must someday be uniquely identified to its lowest level unit used in exchange, whole unit of one or decimal number of that whole unique as appropriate. The entities involved in the transaction using money must also be uniquely identified as well as the entity being exchanged as well as all related unique time and space information that make the entire transaction unique for eternity.
The rule driving the evolution says that information about a thing is limited to the extent that it cannot be created about a thing because the thing, physical or conceptual, does not have a degree of unique attribute identification to distinguish it from all other (otherwise) same things.
That is the rule that requires that all dollars be reduced to the level of a One Dollar thing with a unique serial number that make it different from all other dollars in the universe of dollars.
The same rule that requires that all people be reduce to their absolutely unique single identifying attribute that makes them different from all other people. Perhaps the other end of the spectrum that requires a single conceptual attribute common to all people that make them all perpetually the same, at least according to a popular information structure scheme: The Everlasting Soul.
The same rule that requires all information that the NSA collects to be associated to a unique individual entity by associated unique attributes of time and space as well as collective (more than one) attributes of association to other entity attributes by some connecting (communication of any nature) verb that implements the association of the target to an entity of interest.
The shoe fits all. All information is evolving to increasingly higher levels of unique entity attribute identification and the creation of information structure design to make this all possible. Higher levels of unique entity identification leads to increased information generation and the flip side: Ambiguity reduction.
NSA leads the way.
Secrecy and Transparency are only terms that related to the visibility of the evolution, not its progress. They do however have a vital role in the greater good benefits of the information evolution. The vital role is one that has long been recognized and is no secret.
Know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Funny that idea is associated with the bible. In the Information age the refinement of that concept is Verifiability Not Truth.
Verifiability because every thing we wish to verify is uniquely identified like evidence entered into a court of law. Who benefits most by prohibiting the evolution of information that results from increasingly precise unique conceptual identification of attributes that identify the lowest level of distinguishing one thing from another thing?
Secrecy is the prohibition of making known existing information and level to which things are uniquely identified. In the gross analysis, the detail to which the NSA must know everything is obvious.
Money must someday be uniquely identified to its lowest level unit used in exchange, whole unit of one or decimal number of that whole unique as appropriate. The entities involved in the transaction using money must also be uniquely identified as well as the entity being exchanged as well as all related unique time and space information that make the entire transaction unique for eternity.
Digression is the Point of the Enterprise
Yes, but I digress.....
We are all heroes of our own stories.
I will not live my life through the stories of others. I will adopt the stories I wish to live as my own.
We are all heroes of our own stories.
I will not live my life through the stories of others. I will adopt the stories I wish to live as my own.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Snowden Leak
There is a wealth of insight and information being published regarding the Snowden leak that relates directly to my thoughts on a new monetary system.
Math Programming website author made this post: Why Theoretical Computer Scientists Aren't Worried About Privacy
"There are two facts which are well known in theoretical computer science that the general public is not aware of. The first is about the privacy of databases:
These are two key factors applicable to the my digitized, serialized dollar monetary system. It is like having your cake and eating it too. Privacy is protected by all other related data is detached from that which is private.
Perhaps the broad general benefit of the Snowden leak is to educate the public regarding technical methods of both privacy invasion and protection. In a greater sense: more knowledge about information engineering in our information society.
Math Programming website author made this post: Why Theoretical Computer Scientists Aren't Worried About Privacy
"There are two facts which are well known in theoretical computer science that the general public is not aware of. The first is about the privacy of databases:
There is a way to mine information from a database without the ability to inspect individual entries in the database.This is known as differential privacy. The second is no less magical:
There are secure encryption schemes which allow one to run programs on encrypted data and produce encrypted results, without the ability to decrypt the data.This is known as fully homomorphic encryption."
These are two key factors applicable to the my digitized, serialized dollar monetary system. It is like having your cake and eating it too. Privacy is protected by all other related data is detached from that which is private.
Perhaps the broad general benefit of the Snowden leak is to educate the public regarding technical methods of both privacy invasion and protection. In a greater sense: more knowledge about information engineering in our information society.
Using Meta-data to Find Paul Revere
Brilliantly amusing!
This blog entry by Kieran Healy
Technical capability of NSA is beyond Keystone cops. Its information science, dude!
He references Michael Suk-Young Chwe. Michael has a fascinating website
This blog entry by Kieran Healy
Technical capability of NSA is beyond Keystone cops. Its information science, dude!
He references Michael Suk-Young Chwe. Michael has a fascinating website
Social Security Numbers--Close Enough For A Drone Strike?
The title is an entry at Naked Capitalism.
The author is: "Patrick Durusau, who consults on semantic integration and edits standards. Durusau is convener of JTC 1 SC 34/WG 3, co-editor of 13250-1 and 13250-5 (Topic Maps Introduction and Reference Model, respectively), and editor of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard at OASIS and ISO (ISO/IEC 26300). Originally published at Another Word for It."
In prior post I wrote about the obvious necessity of having a single number identifier to which is associated all information associated with an individual. Stupid people think that the universal ID number will never happen as long as they have their guns. We certainly all have a unique number identifier, we just don't know it because we have no need to know. Publicly, our SSN comes as close to it as possible, secretly it is probably linked to a better all inclusive number. India wants to make that kind of better all inclusive unique number a means of identifying all of its citizens.
One unique person having more than one SSN breaks the rule and messes up the system. The unique one to one relationship is mandatory and cannot be violated any more than there can be two unique physical beings that are me. Impossible. So must be the impossibility of two people having the same number. Like all the unique serialized dollar bills in the monetary system I propose, there can be no duplicates. Alarm bells go off if the computer finds any and it is checking every milli-second to assure system integrity.
The rule of Information Engineering is that information structures are built on unique one to one relationships of a unique instance of a collective entity is identified by a unique attribute, the easiest one being a number. That is the essential idea of my monetary system: Every single dollar is uniquely serialized. Every financial entity that relates to a dollar must also be uniquely identified and relate to its own associated information. That is foundation of the system. Clear and simple. Exactly the way we vote. One person, one vote. A unique one to one relationship upon which a democracy is built. Of course, we are a republic therefore our one vote is for a representative to vote on stuff for us. Not for my good every time but the common good of the republic.
While the examination starts well with analysis of the attributes of SSN and its validity identifying number it ends on a diversionary note consistent with a Keystone Cops characterization of the NSA.
"Yes, the NSA can use a phone call to search all other phone calls, within the phone call database. Ho-hum. Annoying but hardly high tech merging of data from diverse data sources.
It is also true that once you are selected, the NSA could invest the time and effort to reconcile all the information about you, on a one-off basis.
But that has always been the case.
The public motivation for the NSA project was to data mine diverse data sources. Computers replacing labor-intensive human investigation of terrorism.
But as Snowden points out, it takes a human to connect dots in the noisy results of computer processing.
Fewer humans = less effective against terrorism."
My next blog entry illustrates a more technical reality amusingly placed in an historical perspectives.
The author is: "Patrick Durusau, who consults on semantic integration and edits standards. Durusau is convener of JTC 1 SC 34/WG 3, co-editor of 13250-1 and 13250-5 (Topic Maps Introduction and Reference Model, respectively), and editor of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard at OASIS and ISO (ISO/IEC 26300). Originally published at Another Word for It."
In prior post I wrote about the obvious necessity of having a single number identifier to which is associated all information associated with an individual. Stupid people think that the universal ID number will never happen as long as they have their guns. We certainly all have a unique number identifier, we just don't know it because we have no need to know. Publicly, our SSN comes as close to it as possible, secretly it is probably linked to a better all inclusive number. India wants to make that kind of better all inclusive unique number a means of identifying all of its citizens.
One unique person having more than one SSN breaks the rule and messes up the system. The unique one to one relationship is mandatory and cannot be violated any more than there can be two unique physical beings that are me. Impossible. So must be the impossibility of two people having the same number. Like all the unique serialized dollar bills in the monetary system I propose, there can be no duplicates. Alarm bells go off if the computer finds any and it is checking every milli-second to assure system integrity.
The rule of Information Engineering is that information structures are built on unique one to one relationships of a unique instance of a collective entity is identified by a unique attribute, the easiest one being a number. That is the essential idea of my monetary system: Every single dollar is uniquely serialized. Every financial entity that relates to a dollar must also be uniquely identified and relate to its own associated information. That is foundation of the system. Clear and simple. Exactly the way we vote. One person, one vote. A unique one to one relationship upon which a democracy is built. Of course, we are a republic therefore our one vote is for a representative to vote on stuff for us. Not for my good every time but the common good of the republic.
While the examination starts well with analysis of the attributes of SSN and its validity identifying number it ends on a diversionary note consistent with a Keystone Cops characterization of the NSA.
"Yes, the NSA can use a phone call to search all other phone calls, within the phone call database. Ho-hum. Annoying but hardly high tech merging of data from diverse data sources.
It is also true that once you are selected, the NSA could invest the time and effort to reconcile all the information about you, on a one-off basis.
But that has always been the case.
The public motivation for the NSA project was to data mine diverse data sources. Computers replacing labor-intensive human investigation of terrorism.
But as Snowden points out, it takes a human to connect dots in the noisy results of computer processing.
Fewer humans = less effective against terrorism."
My next blog entry illustrates a more technical reality amusingly placed in an historical perspectives.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Domestic Spying and My Digitized, Serialized Dollar Monetary System
So here is a parallel: The domestic spying system is an information management system that most closely resembles my concepts for a digitized, serialized dollar monetary system.
Every transaction must be documented by association to a specific individual entity exchanging (communicating) an item of value in a structured information system (communication network) providing for support of the exchange. That information system identifies the communication by unique attributes of the two (or more) parties to the communication (transaction) as well as the unique attributes of the information (object or service) exchanged. These unique attributes include person identity, time, geographic location, content or nature of the the item exchanged. The system also maintains a searchable history of all information history. Each system has secret protections related to privacy. Those internal and external protections may be removed by a controlling authority.
Bottom line: They are both systems with objectives to gather and retain all information all the time. Access to all information is controlled by some means that can always be overridden secretly or publicly.
The information system and information gathered and retained is neutral. It works for good or evil depending on who obtains it and how it is used.
It is like Google. All website information, current and historical (from real time to chronological records) on the web is collected. Users may access it as they wish or are allowed to do so. User access and their interaction with information (access or creation) also become part of the information structure.
The Internet System provides the structure to do all this in the Spying World.
The Monetary System fails to provide this information structure. The Banking System is an information structure that uses the lack of a Monetary Control System analogous to the Internet System in order to serve its own Banking System structure and prohibit the creation of a Monetary System that would define what money is and provide total information regarding what money does.
Every transaction must be documented by association to a specific individual entity exchanging (communicating) an item of value in a structured information system (communication network) providing for support of the exchange. That information system identifies the communication by unique attributes of the two (or more) parties to the communication (transaction) as well as the unique attributes of the information (object or service) exchanged. These unique attributes include person identity, time, geographic location, content or nature of the the item exchanged. The system also maintains a searchable history of all information history. Each system has secret protections related to privacy. Those internal and external protections may be removed by a controlling authority.
Bottom line: They are both systems with objectives to gather and retain all information all the time. Access to all information is controlled by some means that can always be overridden secretly or publicly.
The information system and information gathered and retained is neutral. It works for good or evil depending on who obtains it and how it is used.
It is like Google. All website information, current and historical (from real time to chronological records) on the web is collected. Users may access it as they wish or are allowed to do so. User access and their interaction with information (access or creation) also become part of the information structure.
The Internet System provides the structure to do all this in the Spying World.
The Monetary System fails to provide this information structure. The Banking System is an information structure that uses the lack of a Monetary Control System analogous to the Internet System in order to serve its own Banking System structure and prohibit the creation of a Monetary System that would define what money is and provide total information regarding what money does.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
NSA Collection of Verizon Phone Records
We are fools not to see the obvious: The government must collect communications data to have a record of communications to sift through after the fact of an attack. Intelligence services have little knowledge of when and where an attack will be made in advance. They may listen in real time to known or suspected plotters, if they are identified. In most all cases when an attack occurs it is a surprise to them.
If they do not collect all communications in advance and have an historical data base to search through once key words are known after the fact like places, names, methods, etc then it is like us trying to find information on google if there is no google to index in a searchable format all the information in the google world for us to access when we want to know something.
Government cannot afford not to know. It must collect all information in advance about everything. It simply cannot look until it has a right to look. That exactly is how it will defend its right to collect all information. Court orders are still required. How stupid we are to think that protects us!!!
Of course they are collecting this information and as much of its content subject only to its ability to store that, which is always increasing like the new installation in Utah.
The question is: When are they looking at the information and is it fishing to establish probable cause to look closer. What personal rights are protected and how? We should all know exactly what communication information is being collected (or monitored in real time as the first step of sifting and collecting. This is called their capability and is certainly a secret that would be revealed if they demonstrated probable action on information that could only be obtain by obvious connection to secret methods. Often a dilemma when it comes to acting on information of this nature. It would point to how it was obtained. That is where cover stories and deception are used to mask how they knew what the knew and when.
This is a big problem! We are being boiled by raising the temp a degree at a time. Every new incident is an opportunity to raise it a degree.
If they do not collect all communications in advance and have an historical data base to search through once key words are known after the fact like places, names, methods, etc then it is like us trying to find information on google if there is no google to index in a searchable format all the information in the google world for us to access when we want to know something.
Government cannot afford not to know. It must collect all information in advance about everything. It simply cannot look until it has a right to look. That exactly is how it will defend its right to collect all information. Court orders are still required. How stupid we are to think that protects us!!!
Of course they are collecting this information and as much of its content subject only to its ability to store that, which is always increasing like the new installation in Utah.
The question is: When are they looking at the information and is it fishing to establish probable cause to look closer. What personal rights are protected and how? We should all know exactly what communication information is being collected (or monitored in real time as the first step of sifting and collecting. This is called their capability and is certainly a secret that would be revealed if they demonstrated probable action on information that could only be obtain by obvious connection to secret methods. Often a dilemma when it comes to acting on information of this nature. It would point to how it was obtained. That is where cover stories and deception are used to mask how they knew what the knew and when.
This is a big problem! We are being boiled by raising the temp a degree at a time. Every new incident is an opportunity to raise it a degree.
Money From Thin Air
Dan Kervick posted this excellent discussion on 3 June, 2013 at New Economic Perspectives: of where bank money comes from: This is the link: Do Banks Create Money From Thin Air.
In a couple of days there are 150 comments on his initial discussion attempting to define the question more exactly through questions and opinions.
On 6 June Dan's discussion was cross posted by this link at Naked Capitalism website. More discussions in the blog entries attached to that cross posting.
These two sites are my two top favorites on the web. Intelligent people discuss complex thing on these sites. Perhaps the best discussions on the web. Regarding Dan's post it is ironic that an intelligent discussion finds it so difficult to define exactly how the creation of money works. It is a problem domain of numbers like the computer world but the only documentation of the domain is embodied in law and theory described by opinion of how it all works.
It is ridiculous, laughable and unbelievable that there is no definitive mapping of the information structure and processes of the money system equal to that of the computer operating system structure and programming methods that create applications operating within that structure.
The situation is like blind people describing an elephant. In a situation like religion that is the nature of the problem domain. (Or does the elephant speak to us to describe itself?) But...but....money is numbers! Numbers that seem to be applied to mystical structures and methods that cannot be understood!!! A mystical structure that dominates us. A structure operating behind a curtain.
Dollars have no unique identity at the most basic unit level (single serialized virtual digital dollar with a unit value of one that once created lives forever). No unique identifier that makes it different from all other dollars in the money universe. It is the same as all people in the world having no name. They are all identified by aggregates of where they live, what they do. Individually they cannot be tracked at the individual level to where any one person is or what that person does.
At the Naked Capitalism site the discussion picks up and extends the discussion at the New Economic Perspective site regarding the profits of the Fed remitted to the government. Give every single perpetually existing digital dollar a unique serial number and maintain a record of who "owns" that dollar at any given moment (plus who ever owned it at any given time) then we will know where it is, where it came from and why "ownership" changed.
In this proposed structure the dollar is given an identity that never changes, exists forever in a managed universe where the number of unique digital single dollars is controlled for appropriate objectives. The current "owner" (also a uniquely identified financial entity) of the single digital serialized dollar changes with transactions. Transactions are dollar aggregate values. The computer system figures out which unique single serialized dollars to which the change in ownership is to be applied. That is transparent to the owner.
In this money structure all money is traceable. Just like all telephone calls made today.
Dan Kervick: My thanks to you for everything you write! If money had more substance than thin are to build a system structure upon then you would not have so much explaining to do nor would there be as many differing comments on what you explain.
Our current money system is one that is structured more on belief than fact. Empirical observation of stuff created from thin air to establish fact is difficult at best, impossible systemically. Who really knows? Only those that benefit most from such system and they are not telling, nor do they want the facts to be known. The rest of us just try to guess. Some like Dan get it right, as best they can. Lacking clarity of structure like the natural world or the computer operating system and application programming virtual world, nobody really has a chance of figuring it all out and therefore gaining control of it to serve our common good.
In a couple of days there are 150 comments on his initial discussion attempting to define the question more exactly through questions and opinions.
On 6 June Dan's discussion was cross posted by this link at Naked Capitalism website. More discussions in the blog entries attached to that cross posting.
These two sites are my two top favorites on the web. Intelligent people discuss complex thing on these sites. Perhaps the best discussions on the web. Regarding Dan's post it is ironic that an intelligent discussion finds it so difficult to define exactly how the creation of money works. It is a problem domain of numbers like the computer world but the only documentation of the domain is embodied in law and theory described by opinion of how it all works.
It is ridiculous, laughable and unbelievable that there is no definitive mapping of the information structure and processes of the money system equal to that of the computer operating system structure and programming methods that create applications operating within that structure.
The situation is like blind people describing an elephant. In a situation like religion that is the nature of the problem domain. (Or does the elephant speak to us to describe itself?) But...but....money is numbers! Numbers that seem to be applied to mystical structures and methods that cannot be understood!!! A mystical structure that dominates us. A structure operating behind a curtain.
Dollars have no unique identity at the most basic unit level (single serialized virtual digital dollar with a unit value of one that once created lives forever). No unique identifier that makes it different from all other dollars in the money universe. It is the same as all people in the world having no name. They are all identified by aggregates of where they live, what they do. Individually they cannot be tracked at the individual level to where any one person is or what that person does.
At the Naked Capitalism site the discussion picks up and extends the discussion at the New Economic Perspective site regarding the profits of the Fed remitted to the government. Give every single perpetually existing digital dollar a unique serial number and maintain a record of who "owns" that dollar at any given moment (plus who ever owned it at any given time) then we will know where it is, where it came from and why "ownership" changed.
In this proposed structure the dollar is given an identity that never changes, exists forever in a managed universe where the number of unique digital single dollars is controlled for appropriate objectives. The current "owner" (also a uniquely identified financial entity) of the single digital serialized dollar changes with transactions. Transactions are dollar aggregate values. The computer system figures out which unique single serialized dollars to which the change in ownership is to be applied. That is transparent to the owner.
In this money structure all money is traceable. Just like all telephone calls made today.
Dan Kervick: My thanks to you for everything you write! If money had more substance than thin are to build a system structure upon then you would not have so much explaining to do nor would there be as many differing comments on what you explain.
Our current money system is one that is structured more on belief than fact. Empirical observation of stuff created from thin air to establish fact is difficult at best, impossible systemically. Who really knows? Only those that benefit most from such system and they are not telling, nor do they want the facts to be known. The rest of us just try to guess. Some like Dan get it right, as best they can. Lacking clarity of structure like the natural world or the computer operating system and application programming virtual world, nobody really has a chance of figuring it all out and therefore gaining control of it to serve our common good.