https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
Sunday, January 25, 2015
How the CIA Made Google
This is a link to investigation analysis having the title of this blog entry.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Progressive Insurance Company "Snapshot"
The title of this blog entry is a placeholder following what I wrote iny prior blog entry for what I intend to write about progress towards an individual becoming a thing on the Internet of Things (IoT)
It is an excellent example because it shows the current status of progress in boiling the frog (all of us) but investigation of all the future features of this program demonstrate far greater progress in making an individual a thing on the IoT.
Investigation of that future progress will be based on examination of the Google patents covering Snapshot.
Xirgotech makes the dongle device. http://www.xirgotech.com/xt-3200-series
I would think that while the dongle draws and transmits data from the car on board device there is no reason that the dongle could have its own independent sensor devices?
On the software side PTC recently acquired Axeda. PTC is an IoT company. http://www.ptc.com/about/news-room/press-releases/2014/07/ptc-acquires-axeda
Becoming a Thing on the Internet of Things
Becoming a thing on the Internet of Things (IOT) is like turning up the heat to boil a frog. It happens gradually without being aware of it. Objectively, if you are not the frog, it can measued by degrees. There are metrics of progression.
First there must be a connection to the Internet. That connection may vary by degrees of separation.
Second, there must be identification of a person as a thing that the Internet can recognize. That identification may vary by degrees of accuracy. An absolute degree of identification accuracy depends on an absolute biometric verification of a unique individual.
Third, there must be a communication link between an identified thing on the IoT and the Internet.
These three things set up the physical "hardware" structure layer necessary for physical connection of things on the IoT. Once that is established then software applications can be applied.
As the hardware layer of the IoT expands by extension to shorter communication distances between the sensing device and the identified (to some variable degree) person it is sensing and objects that individual is interacting with increasing data about the interaction is generated.
The holy grail of seeking information and knowledge about a thing on the IoT is total information all the time. An individual person as a thing on the IoT is progressing daily toward becoming a thing on the IoT. Perhaps the most important metric to measure this progess is real time data of both location and identity of any individual and the things they are interacting with. Real time data becomes stored history.
In my next blog entry I will use the Progressive Insurance Company's Snapshot program as an example of what I have presented in this blog entryway. It is an excellent example because it not only demonstrates how an individual has become a thing on the IoT on Snapshot physical IoT but a thing on the conceptual level of things managed on what we call the Internet but is really in the broadest terms the World Wide Web of data, information and knowledge that is the software layer existing on the hardware system.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Be My Eyes
I want to commend the designer of the be my eyes app. Blind persons can use this app to contact a volunteer with a smart phone that also has the app via Skype and have the volunteer tell them what they see on their screen and assist them with what they need.
What an excellent idea!
If the blind person was wearing Google glasses a sighted volunteer could guide them as they walk. Perhaps through a supermarket or down a street.
In general, hardware technology advancement is so far ahead of creative applications.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Spending the Day on San Diego Bay
After riding around the bay from Harbor Island I sat down on a bench next to a man that had lived his entire 88 years in San Diego. I thought that it had changed a lot since my navy training in 1963!
We had a very interesting conversation about the changes. We both enjoyed talking about our memories. I hope I can still sit here and talk about then when I am 88.
Our conversation was interrupted by his cell phone. He was waiting by the bay to pick up his daughter from the nearby airport. I think he would have sat there lost in memory until sunset if his daughter had not called.
When he left he asked to shake my hand and thanked me for talking with him. I think not so much to simply talk but with someone who valued knowing about his memories, his life experiences that I found to be so rich and fascinating the more he told me about them.
If his daughter had not called I could have talked to him until the sun set. Long after he left I thought about all my memories of San Diego. Like him, before I sat down, nobody to share them with yet happy to have them in my mind at that time and place.
San Diego has been a place where the trail of my travels has crossed often since the first time I saw the Pacific Ocean here in 1951 or 1952. Thinking about it I counted 20 times I had been here and remembered something from each time. Remembering changes in the place as well as changes in me.
Going to new places and doing new things creates new memories. Renewing old ones in old places did not seem as adventurous but doing that now seems to bring much personal enjoyment.
James and Julie have an affinity to San Diego and now Dec does also at the University of San Diego. Maybe Drew and Quinn will too in the future.
This leg of the journey is concluding. Soon I will return to Oregon then go to Hawaii and Australia. Places I have also been many times before. I am sure that old memories will surface in places I have been and new memories will be made.
Like sitting with my old friend on the bay in San Diego, memories made and shared with someone are the best. The only thing better is sharing the same memories with the same person for a long time. Sometimes just sharing them with a stranger where the sharing is simply a matter of the same place for a brief time is satisfying.
Maybe I should talk to old people more often! That however is what I intended to do when I sat down next to him. While I enjoyed his memories, maybe what I gave and what he appreciated when he shook my hand is that I placed value on his memories told to me. Stories of his life.
On a bike trip across country we all did different things at the end of the daily ride. I learned that one lady went to a retirement residence and just asked to talk to a resident that otherwise did not have many visitors and would enjoy talking to someone. Receptionists alway know who that type of resident would be.
I admire things others do. Like Ironman. I want to do or be what I admire. Ironman is something but what the lady on the bike trip did was as inspiring. Maybe after all these years since that ride in 1991 or 1992 her inspiration finally inspired me to do something similar?
I think we often never know the things we do that inpire others or when, much later, they influence others.
Do good things and let the inspiration fall where it may.
My thought for the day.
This is the view from where we were sitting.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Money as a Thing on the Internet of Things
My conceptual structure design for debt free Positive Money makes it an object thing in an object oriented system at the Class level and as a unique identified singular instance of its parent Cass:Money. The granular instance is a single uniquely identified dollar with a unit value of $1.
One simple way to uniquely identify each dollar is with a serial number. In a prior post I suggested that another way would be the assignment of an IPv6 number. That was prior to the IoT becoming a popular concept. I now like the idea of money as a thing on the Internet of things. Every dollar in the cloud has its own IPv6 unique number. It is a permanent thing. Always residing in one place but always knowing, because it is on the great internet of things, the account that claims its singular ownership. All accounts have an owning entity. That entity being a thing on the Internet of things
Money does not move from account to account. It is a fixed thing. Only the relationship to an owning account changes with transactions.
Money therefore satisfies the definition of a thing on the Internet of things. It is always known in real time where it is at any given time by its IP number and by association who on the Internet of Things owns it in an account on the Internet of things. The owner is a thing on the Internet of thigs as well because they are identified by an IP number and have verified communication abilty to act as a thing on the Internet of things.
It gives new meaning to the phrase: No man is an island. Everything is a thing.
One simple way to uniquely identify each dollar is with a serial number. In a prior post I suggested that another way would be the assignment of an IPv6 number. That was prior to the IoT becoming a popular concept. I now like the idea of money as a thing on the Internet of things. Every dollar in the cloud has its own IPv6 unique number. It is a permanent thing. Always residing in one place but always knowing, because it is on the great internet of things, the account that claims its singular ownership. All accounts have an owning entity. That entity being a thing on the Internet of things
Money does not move from account to account. It is a fixed thing. Only the relationship to an owning account changes with transactions.
Money therefore satisfies the definition of a thing on the Internet of things. It is always known in real time where it is at any given time by its IP number and by association who on the Internet of Things owns it in an account on the Internet of things. The owner is a thing on the Internet of thigs as well because they are identified by an IP number and have verified communication abilty to act as a thing on the Internet of things.
It gives new meaning to the phrase: No man is an island. Everything is a thing.
A thing on the IoT if it has an IP address and is connected.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Reinvent Democracy . Net - Joe Firestone
Way to go Joe: I liked your platinum coin, I like reinventing Democracy!
Both of his abstract conceptual ideas get down to the core of the problem domain in the same way: Identify (or establish if there is none or a dysfunctional one existing) the core relationship that the conceptual structure is built upon. It will have this feature; a one to one exclusive mandatory relationship between two elemental things (nouns) that are chosen as the most granular building blocks of the entire conceptual system. The cornerstone. The rule, the truth, the absolute. That is a good point to build anything on.
What is that cornerstone of democracy?
One person relationship to one vote.
What implements that relationship between those two things and gives it life?
Voting. A verb between the two nouns. Casting a vote. It is an unalienable right. A truth. An absolute that shall not be infringed. (Unless a felon or dead)
A entire solid conceptual structure built on this foundation of one person one vote must have a direct connection at all levels to the founding principal. For example: It is like the entire computer internet that is built on the binary relationship between the presence and the absence of a thing. It can be an electrical charge of plus or minus (absence of a positive charge) or the presence or absence of light, etc. The mental backflip trick here is to say that the absence of one thing makes it a different thing than the presence of the same thing. In other word, simply because a single unique thing is not in existence, its absence can be considered a different conceptual thing because it is in a different state of being. That state of being (being.......ta da...): non-being.
A vote is essentially a binary fundamental thing. It becomes when cast is a choice between two things or in the absence of being cast it also becomes a choice between two different things; voting or not voting.
A vote, a choice formulated in the concept of a vote is a beautiful thing. It is the essence form of our natural language structure: Subject Noun///Verb//Object Noun. Voter//Casts//Vote.
This is where this block post is going: Joe proposes a system that reduces a wide range of interests related to stakeholder groups that aggregate/analyze/refine positions for political influence representing/promoting the special interest stakeholder objectives/goals/ideology.
While the internet, the physical devices of the internet, the computers, networks operate on physical properties of electricity/optics based on binary code, that code is abstracted to letters/numbers/pixels/sounds that form the building blocks of abstract thoughts, conscious constructions in the human mind.
All that stuff in the human mind and how it is organized in the individual as well as the collective mind is what Joe is aiming at to reduce, based on stakeholder areas of interest down to the binary level of a vote at the most granular level of our social system:
The franchised voting citizen.
What Joe proposes is analogous to the physical internet but in reverse. The physical internet is a bottom up assembly based on binary code. Hand in hand with that bottom up assembly is the piggy backed translation of code to abstracted meaning and process. Take all that abstraction as it exists in the cloud of the World Wide Web and reduce it down to the most basic level of operation (binary vote choice) and that becomes what Joe proposes......I think.....but it looks like that to me.
Reinventing democracy as Joe proposes requires a vast amount of data, mining that data for information and then analyzing that information to produce knowledge. Knowledge is what is acted upon by stakeholders, being anyone with any interest in whatever the stakeholding matter might be. Freedom of choice.
Voting, of course is not exactly an exclusive binary choice between two alternative proposals. Perhaps more than two if there are alternate choices but they become a final choice. The third choice in this binary voting (yes/no) on a proposal is not to vote at all. Then it looks like a presence/absence situation where the absence of a thing is in fact a thing that means something. A thing to which conceptual meaning can be attached. Whatever that conceptual meaning may be.
Those that do not vote have no power? All the power is in participation?
Darn good questions. Where does the power reside? The simple majority of the vote results? No way when those results are the product of an ideology that does not support the public interest.
Maybe what is important here is in this system that Joe proposes there is a conceptual structure created on an issue that concerns stakeholders that is founded on concrete logic and reason that makes ultimate choice on the the matter transparently self evident. That gets down to basics of truth and ideology absolutes. Some believe that ideology is religious, others secular social, still others the fundamentals of capitalism. That is the battleground for hearts and minds.
In any battle that benefits all it requires a level battle field, a level playing field with agreed upon rules and regs, who enforces them as impartial refs.
Decisive football games have been recently played to determine ultimate winners and the flip side of that, the losers. The joy of victory and the agony of defeat. Maybe the most important thing is that both teams did their best and enjoyed the game, shook hands afterward.
Letsgetitdone!
Excellent comments on Joe's proposal at this link.
Many of the regulars that I also respect expressing some excellent comments. Others throw monkey wrenches into the plan. Minor points to which they ascribe the power of "deal breakers". In a way Joe introduces the idea as well as develop the idea in the fashion that he proposes.
Both of his abstract conceptual ideas get down to the core of the problem domain in the same way: Identify (or establish if there is none or a dysfunctional one existing) the core relationship that the conceptual structure is built upon. It will have this feature; a one to one exclusive mandatory relationship between two elemental things (nouns) that are chosen as the most granular building blocks of the entire conceptual system. The cornerstone. The rule, the truth, the absolute. That is a good point to build anything on.
What is that cornerstone of democracy?
One person relationship to one vote.
What implements that relationship between those two things and gives it life?
Voting. A verb between the two nouns. Casting a vote. It is an unalienable right. A truth. An absolute that shall not be infringed. (Unless a felon or dead)
A entire solid conceptual structure built on this foundation of one person one vote must have a direct connection at all levels to the founding principal. For example: It is like the entire computer internet that is built on the binary relationship between the presence and the absence of a thing. It can be an electrical charge of plus or minus (absence of a positive charge) or the presence or absence of light, etc. The mental backflip trick here is to say that the absence of one thing makes it a different thing than the presence of the same thing. In other word, simply because a single unique thing is not in existence, its absence can be considered a different conceptual thing because it is in a different state of being. That state of being (being.......ta da...): non-being.
A vote is essentially a binary fundamental thing. It becomes when cast is a choice between two things or in the absence of being cast it also becomes a choice between two different things; voting or not voting.
A vote, a choice formulated in the concept of a vote is a beautiful thing. It is the essence form of our natural language structure: Subject Noun///Verb//Object Noun. Voter//Casts//Vote.
This is where this block post is going: Joe proposes a system that reduces a wide range of interests related to stakeholder groups that aggregate/analyze/refine positions for political influence representing/promoting the special interest stakeholder objectives/goals/ideology.
While the internet, the physical devices of the internet, the computers, networks operate on physical properties of electricity/optics based on binary code, that code is abstracted to letters/numbers/pixels/sounds that form the building blocks of abstract thoughts, conscious constructions in the human mind.
All that stuff in the human mind and how it is organized in the individual as well as the collective mind is what Joe is aiming at to reduce, based on stakeholder areas of interest down to the binary level of a vote at the most granular level of our social system:
The franchised voting citizen.
What Joe proposes is analogous to the physical internet but in reverse. The physical internet is a bottom up assembly based on binary code. Hand in hand with that bottom up assembly is the piggy backed translation of code to abstracted meaning and process. Take all that abstraction as it exists in the cloud of the World Wide Web and reduce it down to the most basic level of operation (binary vote choice) and that becomes what Joe proposes......I think.....but it looks like that to me.
Reinventing democracy as Joe proposes requires a vast amount of data, mining that data for information and then analyzing that information to produce knowledge. Knowledge is what is acted upon by stakeholders, being anyone with any interest in whatever the stakeholding matter might be. Freedom of choice.
Voting, of course is not exactly an exclusive binary choice between two alternative proposals. Perhaps more than two if there are alternate choices but they become a final choice. The third choice in this binary voting (yes/no) on a proposal is not to vote at all. Then it looks like a presence/absence situation where the absence of a thing is in fact a thing that means something. A thing to which conceptual meaning can be attached. Whatever that conceptual meaning may be.
Those that do not vote have no power? All the power is in participation?
Darn good questions. Where does the power reside? The simple majority of the vote results? No way when those results are the product of an ideology that does not support the public interest.
Maybe what is important here is in this system that Joe proposes there is a conceptual structure created on an issue that concerns stakeholders that is founded on concrete logic and reason that makes ultimate choice on the the matter transparently self evident. That gets down to basics of truth and ideology absolutes. Some believe that ideology is religious, others secular social, still others the fundamentals of capitalism. That is the battleground for hearts and minds.
In any battle that benefits all it requires a level battle field, a level playing field with agreed upon rules and regs, who enforces them as impartial refs.
Decisive football games have been recently played to determine ultimate winners and the flip side of that, the losers. The joy of victory and the agony of defeat. Maybe the most important thing is that both teams did their best and enjoyed the game, shook hands afterward.
Letsgetitdone!
Excellent comments on Joe's proposal at this link.
Many of the regulars that I also respect expressing some excellent comments. Others throw monkey wrenches into the plan. Minor points to which they ascribe the power of "deal breakers". In a way Joe introduces the idea as well as develop the idea in the fashion that he proposes.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
CELAC
CELAC: "Community of Latin American and Caribbean States" Described here by Wikipedia
More telling about the nature of CELAC is who does not attend the party: US and Canada. If and when Canada joins then the cheese stands alone.
China is getting involved in CELAC as displayed by this google search on the words; CELAC China.
"Representatives of more than 30 countries are meeting in Beijing to discuss South-South cooperation."
The 30 countries are CELAC nations.
This blog entry presents an interesting view of US interest in the rest of the Americas.
What really motivated the recognition of Cuba? Maybe we are more afraid of China influence than bowing to the interests of Cuban Americans. Finally! Cuba and all the other countries in CELAC will do better with China than the USA? Either one is an extractive nation but one pays a more reasonable price for extraction than the other that has an extortion/power business model exercised through both a financial system and a Department of Defense.
More telling about the nature of CELAC is who does not attend the party: US and Canada. If and when Canada joins then the cheese stands alone.
China is getting involved in CELAC as displayed by this google search on the words; CELAC China.
"Representatives of more than 30 countries are meeting in Beijing to discuss South-South cooperation."
The 30 countries are CELAC nations.
This blog entry presents an interesting view of US interest in the rest of the Americas.
What really motivated the recognition of Cuba? Maybe we are more afraid of China influence than bowing to the interests of Cuban Americans. Finally! Cuba and all the other countries in CELAC will do better with China than the USA? Either one is an extractive nation but one pays a more reasonable price for extraction than the other that has an extortion/power business model exercised through both a financial system and a Department of Defense.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
2015: The Year a Person Becomes a Thing on the Internet of Things
The subject line is my prediction for 2015. I am not the only one gazing into the crystal ball and reading the tea leaves there. Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity Corporation, a provider of single sign-on and identity management software sees it and expresses it here:
"Prediction No. 4: The IoT will become the Identity of Things
Biometrics will go mainstream and natural UIs will evolve at a fast rate, driven by the IoT. Consistent user experience (UX) for binding identities to things will be more and more recognized as critical for usability and meaningful consent."
When does a person become a thing on the Internet of Things (IoT)? Maybe when they have an Identity locked to the thing connected to the IoT. The granular identity of a thing on the IoT is an IP address.
IoT defined here by Wikipedia.
The technology roadmap at this link displays the progress of IoT. The last step in the roadmap is "software agents and advanced sensor fusion". That, of course is just the step before what comes next in the time line and that is not given so I will project it: Human beings become the unique software agents fused with advanced sensors. Their bodies have an Information Age soul identified by an IPv6 address. Also at the Wikipedia link: "In an Internet of Things, the precise geographic location of a thing—and also the precise geographic dimensions of a thing—will be critical." When a person is a thing on the internet of things their physical location becomes an important data element.
Physical thing devices on the IoT will be identified at the granular level by an IPv6 address. For all practical purposes the number of unique IPv6 granular unique distinct address available is infinite. Actually, a number to a power that I can't even imagine. It will be a long time before IPv6 runs out of numbers.
When does a person, a unique individual human being, become a thing on the IoT? It all depends on the degree of binding between the identity of the person to the identity of the thing they are associated with that has a IPv6 address. For example: What is the tightest possible degree of binding between a person and their unique identity? The absolutely absolute binding?
Body and soul. Of course that is the binding of a living person. When that binding is broken the person is in the history file as far as temporal time is concerned for the body. The eternity file for the soul. Some believe that, if it matters. Others believe we are just history.
Body and soul are tight binding in a living person.
When a person becomes as tightly bound to their IPv6 identifier that they do not exist without it then they are a thing on the IoT to the absolute degree. Their physical being and logical existence on the internet are bound together like body and soul. If a person does not have an IPv6 identity they are stateless. They have no state of being in the definition terms of the computer based information age. They have no state. In other words, "Stateless".
State and Stateless are discussed here.
What happens when the Internet of Things meets Artificial Intelligence? Some thought provoking observations at this link.
When does a person become a thing on the IoT? Maybe the best determining factor is when a persons identity is definitely/absolutely determined in relation to their device on the internet of things and the location of the device/person is transmitted to the internet. In other words: When a device is conclusively linked to a person in time and place. The person is therefore absolutely fixed in time and place because the person's thing is absolutely fixed in time and place. The time and place may be a snapshot of a given time and place or a real time (for some length of time beyond a snapshot) continuous data of current time and place.
For example: If a person has a heart pacemaker or artificial heart in their body that has internet connectivity (IP address on the IoT) then that person is a thing on the IoT. The nature of IoT connectivity may be reporting to a medical center for monitoring in real time. The person and their device are inseparable!
Another example: A person pays for an item at checkout (brick and mortar store) using an iPhone with Apple Pay and their fingerprint ID. A snapshot in time and place goes into a sales record. For that instant the person was a thing on the IoT. Absolutely identified in time and place by association to their device.
There are many degrees of "soft" association of a person to their device that relate to probability that a certain person is in fact the person associated with the device.
For example: A license plate reader scans a car license going through a red light or a car simply parked or in motion anywhere for any reason. It is likely, to some degree of probability that the registered owner of the vehicle is in it, if occupied or nearby if it is parked in their driveway but maybe not if they are parked in an airport parking lot unless the time of entry to the parking lot is more than a couple hours or lesser probability if the car is in long term parking. At one time in history as documented by time of entry to the parking lot the probability is absolute that somebody was associated with the vehicle (unless it is a Google drive) and that someone was likely the owner or someone associated with the owner.
In the prior example the same goes for a cell phone identified by an IMSI. In that case the probability is high that the person carrying it is the person paying the bill or making the call unless it is a business phone but then the business that owns the phone has a record of the person using it.
We will be getting progressively closer by degrees to becoming locked into a device with an IP address on the IoT as it increasingly requires a personal biometric verification to enable access to the Internet. It may often be several data factors that combined might conclusively identify a person to time an place on the IoT. That would be the equivalent of a single biometric identifier like a fingerprint.
If my style of writing this blog entry could be input to an AI program that had access to everything else written on this blog (and/or elsewhere) it could determine that it was me writing this and the geographic location where it was written. When I talked to my insurance company the other day it had the number I was calling from (caller ID) without me giving it and checked my voice print against its history of conversation file. Most likely me but they also asked for last four and birthday just to be sure. They called me a valued customer for 50 years affiliation (just had that anniversary and there was certainly a notification on the customer rep screen to recognize my status and thank me for my business. Actually I am just a thing, always was, still am. A thing on the IoT to the insurance company.
"Prediction No. 4: The IoT will become the Identity of Things
Biometrics will go mainstream and natural UIs will evolve at a fast rate, driven by the IoT. Consistent user experience (UX) for binding identities to things will be more and more recognized as critical for usability and meaningful consent."
When does a person become a thing on the Internet of Things (IoT)? Maybe when they have an Identity locked to the thing connected to the IoT. The granular identity of a thing on the IoT is an IP address.
IoT defined here by Wikipedia.
The technology roadmap at this link displays the progress of IoT. The last step in the roadmap is "software agents and advanced sensor fusion". That, of course is just the step before what comes next in the time line and that is not given so I will project it: Human beings become the unique software agents fused with advanced sensors. Their bodies have an Information Age soul identified by an IPv6 address. Also at the Wikipedia link: "In an Internet of Things, the precise geographic location of a thing—and also the precise geographic dimensions of a thing—will be critical." When a person is a thing on the internet of things their physical location becomes an important data element.
Physical thing devices on the IoT will be identified at the granular level by an IPv6 address. For all practical purposes the number of unique IPv6 granular unique distinct address available is infinite. Actually, a number to a power that I can't even imagine. It will be a long time before IPv6 runs out of numbers.
When does a person, a unique individual human being, become a thing on the IoT? It all depends on the degree of binding between the identity of the person to the identity of the thing they are associated with that has a IPv6 address. For example: What is the tightest possible degree of binding between a person and their unique identity? The absolutely absolute binding?
Body and soul. Of course that is the binding of a living person. When that binding is broken the person is in the history file as far as temporal time is concerned for the body. The eternity file for the soul. Some believe that, if it matters. Others believe we are just history.
Body and soul are tight binding in a living person.
When a person becomes as tightly bound to their IPv6 identifier that they do not exist without it then they are a thing on the IoT to the absolute degree. Their physical being and logical existence on the internet are bound together like body and soul. If a person does not have an IPv6 identity they are stateless. They have no state of being in the definition terms of the computer based information age. They have no state. In other words, "Stateless".
State and Stateless are discussed here.
What happens when the Internet of Things meets Artificial Intelligence? Some thought provoking observations at this link.
When does a person become a thing on the IoT? Maybe the best determining factor is when a persons identity is definitely/absolutely determined in relation to their device on the internet of things and the location of the device/person is transmitted to the internet. In other words: When a device is conclusively linked to a person in time and place. The person is therefore absolutely fixed in time and place because the person's thing is absolutely fixed in time and place. The time and place may be a snapshot of a given time and place or a real time (for some length of time beyond a snapshot) continuous data of current time and place.
For example: If a person has a heart pacemaker or artificial heart in their body that has internet connectivity (IP address on the IoT) then that person is a thing on the IoT. The nature of IoT connectivity may be reporting to a medical center for monitoring in real time. The person and their device are inseparable!
Another example: A person pays for an item at checkout (brick and mortar store) using an iPhone with Apple Pay and their fingerprint ID. A snapshot in time and place goes into a sales record. For that instant the person was a thing on the IoT. Absolutely identified in time and place by association to their device.
There are many degrees of "soft" association of a person to their device that relate to probability that a certain person is in fact the person associated with the device.
For example: A license plate reader scans a car license going through a red light or a car simply parked or in motion anywhere for any reason. It is likely, to some degree of probability that the registered owner of the vehicle is in it, if occupied or nearby if it is parked in their driveway but maybe not if they are parked in an airport parking lot unless the time of entry to the parking lot is more than a couple hours or lesser probability if the car is in long term parking. At one time in history as documented by time of entry to the parking lot the probability is absolute that somebody was associated with the vehicle (unless it is a Google drive) and that someone was likely the owner or someone associated with the owner.
In the prior example the same goes for a cell phone identified by an IMSI. In that case the probability is high that the person carrying it is the person paying the bill or making the call unless it is a business phone but then the business that owns the phone has a record of the person using it.
We will be getting progressively closer by degrees to becoming locked into a device with an IP address on the IoT as it increasingly requires a personal biometric verification to enable access to the Internet. It may often be several data factors that combined might conclusively identify a person to time an place on the IoT. That would be the equivalent of a single biometric identifier like a fingerprint.
If my style of writing this blog entry could be input to an AI program that had access to everything else written on this blog (and/or elsewhere) it could determine that it was me writing this and the geographic location where it was written. When I talked to my insurance company the other day it had the number I was calling from (caller ID) without me giving it and checked my voice print against its history of conversation file. Most likely me but they also asked for last four and birthday just to be sure. They called me a valued customer for 50 years affiliation (just had that anniversary and there was certainly a notification on the customer rep screen to recognize my status and thank me for my business. Actually I am just a thing, always was, still am. A thing on the IoT to the insurance company.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Terror 2.0-- Never let a good crisis go to waste
Canada had its terrorist incident recently paving the way to more security on the part of government. Now France. This is a equal opportunity crises situation. Everyone that stands to benefit from it can take advantage of it.
More security, more surveillance. Fox calls for more surveillance and detection based on the fact that the French terrorists had past records. On the no fly list. They were known. Unlike 9/11 when they were not known. So after all the security and surveillance now we can know the history of terrorists when they commit acts of terror. That however does little good when it does not result in increased surveillance of those with a past history of some sort that warrants closer control of these people to prevent future acts of terrorism. This might be called predictive policing based on identifying individuals that are most likely to commit future crime and preventing it before they do.
Seems like there was a movie about that. In another movie time travel was used to go back and correct the situation before it could happen. Otherwise we just lock the door after the horse is gone.
Maybe one of the good news aspects of this recent terror tragedy is that there will be less heat on the NSA for surveillance of everyone to identify potential terrorists among US citizens.
Invest in surveillance contractors.
With total information all the time for everyone then when a terrorist incident happens then all those that are identified by surveillance records to be associated with them can be rounded up for interrogation. Doesn't work to well in the lone wolf nut job scenario. That is where predictive behavior applied to everyone identifies the loners. It all depends on how big the dragnet is designed to be to catch the undesirables, also the definition of what an undesirable is and what their identifying traits are.
Privacy? That is the price to be paid for security, or so they say.
What is the future? More militarizing of police forces. Its a war. More terrorist response training for every police force in every town. More surveillance at the local level by police forces. Integration of police forces from the local level to the Fusion Centers as agencies of the Federal government.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has issued a global travel warning after recent terror attacks in France, Australia and Canada.
All terror, all the time on Fox News
More security, more surveillance. Fox calls for more surveillance and detection based on the fact that the French terrorists had past records. On the no fly list. They were known. Unlike 9/11 when they were not known. So after all the security and surveillance now we can know the history of terrorists when they commit acts of terror. That however does little good when it does not result in increased surveillance of those with a past history of some sort that warrants closer control of these people to prevent future acts of terrorism. This might be called predictive policing based on identifying individuals that are most likely to commit future crime and preventing it before they do.
Seems like there was a movie about that. In another movie time travel was used to go back and correct the situation before it could happen. Otherwise we just lock the door after the horse is gone.
Maybe one of the good news aspects of this recent terror tragedy is that there will be less heat on the NSA for surveillance of everyone to identify potential terrorists among US citizens.
Invest in surveillance contractors.
With total information all the time for everyone then when a terrorist incident happens then all those that are identified by surveillance records to be associated with them can be rounded up for interrogation. Doesn't work to well in the lone wolf nut job scenario. That is where predictive behavior applied to everyone identifies the loners. It all depends on how big the dragnet is designed to be to catch the undesirables, also the definition of what an undesirable is and what their identifying traits are.
Privacy? That is the price to be paid for security, or so they say.
What is the future? More militarizing of police forces. Its a war. More terrorist response training for every police force in every town. More surveillance at the local level by police forces. Integration of police forces from the local level to the Fusion Centers as agencies of the Federal government.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has issued a global travel warning after recent terror attacks in France, Australia and Canada.
All terror, all the time on Fox News
TPP Sellout - Obama Legacy
Obama's final shot at the interests of the public as opposed to big business. He is a tool of big business.
This link at Naked Capitalism with Yves intro to what Bill Black says about TPP.
The amazing thing is how this can happen. How it can even get close to happening. It is not the first time. Clinton gave away the family fortune to big business near the end of his term with the termination of controls over banks that were established to resolve the causes of the Great Depression. See what that got us. A democratic president! Sad.
TPP gives away a big chunk of our government's sovereign rights to global business interest. It is simply another case of giving away sovereign rights of government to the "coinage of money" to the Federal Reserve bank.
This link at Naked Capitalism with Yves intro to what Bill Black says about TPP.
The amazing thing is how this can happen. How it can even get close to happening. It is not the first time. Clinton gave away the family fortune to big business near the end of his term with the termination of controls over banks that were established to resolve the causes of the Great Depression. See what that got us. A democratic president! Sad.
TPP gives away a big chunk of our government's sovereign rights to global business interest. It is simply another case of giving away sovereign rights of government to the "coinage of money" to the Federal Reserve bank.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Ecuador Shift From US Currency to Digital Monetary System
Ecuador's shift from US Dollars as their national currency to a digital currency continues to fascinate me. This link is a short description of the shift that has been put into action.
What is not described anywhere that I have looked is a full transition plan. I should look harder.
Maybe I will have to read it in Spanish!
Maybe I better look for a translation!
Key numbers: 37% of adults have a bank account but there are 17 million cell phones in a country with a population of 16 million.
Equador's currency is the US Dollar. Small change in amounts less than a dollar are produced by Equador as a medium of exchange.
The link is the first paragraph of this blog contains this:
"Ecuador has been a dollarised economy since 2000, and has enjoyed stable growth since 2002. “It is important to note that this is not a cryptocurrency, and neither is Ecuador launching a new currency,” said Lafferty researcher Patrick Houlihan. “Instead, US dollars will be used, with users going to non-banking correspondent agents, where they may credit their mobile wallet with mobile money.”
Concluding from this statement that an Equadorian holding US Dollar currency goes to a designated agent after registering for the electronic money system and exchanges paper US currency for a digital dollar in the Ecuadorian central bank on a one for one trade.
Then what happens to the paper US dollar? It goes to the central bank. Then what happens to that US Dollar?
Hmm....
Ecuador has a National Plan for Well Being. The link is in Spanish. I must find a translation to English. It is a comprehensive plan and the monetary system is part the plan as is the environment and all the other important things that government and governance should do for its people. From the link:
"For the implementation of the system, the state had to amend the Monetary Regime and State Bank Law (Ley de Régimen Monetario y Banco del Estado). One of the main provisions of this regulation is that “electronic money issuance must be an exclusive function of the state, which ensures and gives confidence to the carrier of this payment method, its free availability, and its condition as legal tender.” This limits the development of private projects of mobile money in Ecuador."
Somebody has thought out this entire plan in advance. I am sure that they are not making it up as they go.
This entire monetary system change being implemented by the sovereign nation of Ecuador seems to be flying way below the radar. Not much mention of it and the documentation on it exists in Spanish but the Spanish language translator says the document is too big to translate to English.
The Central Bank of Ecuador is the issuer of this e-money. Bitcoin is an e-money that people obtain by exchanging paper US currency or electonic dollars in a bank account for the Bitcoin e-currency. In the situation of Ecuador it is the first nation (maybe Jordan was first?) where its central bank issues the currency?
From the link in the first paragraph:
The launch will also be closely watched by Panama, which like Ecuador is fully dollarised, and Uruguay and Costa Rica, which are partly dollarised economies.
I am sure that there are many more entities closely watching what Ecuador is doing.
I would like to see the full plan. There is something big happening here.
Google search on: ecuador electronic currency. There is a lot of talk about it at the google hits but not much specific info or plan.
This link says this about the new system: "On the downside, it also means the government can keep a careful watch of each and every transaction made using the service." Maybe that is a feature, not a bug or a potential problem but a potential benefit creating responsible social control over the social monetary medium of exchange as a decision making tool.
This link says this: "Interestingly, the EMS system has more similarities to a primitive version of Apple Pay than to Bitcoin’s Blockchain or any current crypto-currency."
The Sound Money Project attacks the idea at this link
Professor White, directly tackling the idea of an electronic currency that would be handled by the Ecuadorian government, notes that:
There is no plausibly efficient or honorable reason for the Ecuadoran government to go into the business of providing an exclusive medium for mobile payments. Consequently it is hard to make any sense of the project other than as fiscal maneuver that paves the way toward official de-dollarization. I gather that President Correa does not like the way that dollarization limits his government’s power to manage the economy. He has compared the limitation to “boxing with one arm.” But as I have already emphasized, retiring the government from boxing against the economy by means of money-printing is precisely dollarization’s great virtue.
This is an excellent link at IMTFI that presents the purpose of Ecuador's plan in a socio-political context. That is what money is (should be). A creature of a socio-political context. Not a thing of a Financio-Political context. Financio being a word that I just created that is really just a sub-set component of a greater Socio-Political context. The best role of politics in the relationship is the one it plays as "We the People", not "We the Banksters". Private money interests get upset when there is any discussion of the sovereign government asserts its right to the monetary system. Bitcoiners don't like it. This from the link at the beginning of this paragraph:
"One of the most groundbreaking components of this New Financial Architecture is the implementation of an electronic monetary system, operated mainly through mobile phones, for which the Central Bank of Ecuador (CBE) will serve as the issuer and administrator. Officials at the CBE consider money to be a public good and see the electronic money system as a way to democratize its use."
Ecuador is doing a revolutionary thing that poses a great threat to the established structure of big Finance! It is a dangerous thing to do that. Big Finance is big money and rules the world, rules the USA. Government taking back its sovereign right to the monetary system will not be allowed by Finance!
China grants 5.3 billion dollar line of credit to Ecuador.
How does that play in relation to Ecuador's monetary system plan?
What is not described anywhere that I have looked is a full transition plan. I should look harder.
Maybe I will have to read it in Spanish!
Maybe I better look for a translation!
Key numbers: 37% of adults have a bank account but there are 17 million cell phones in a country with a population of 16 million.
Equador's currency is the US Dollar. Small change in amounts less than a dollar are produced by Equador as a medium of exchange.
The link is the first paragraph of this blog contains this:
"Ecuador has been a dollarised economy since 2000, and has enjoyed stable growth since 2002. “It is important to note that this is not a cryptocurrency, and neither is Ecuador launching a new currency,” said Lafferty researcher Patrick Houlihan. “Instead, US dollars will be used, with users going to non-banking correspondent agents, where they may credit their mobile wallet with mobile money.”
Concluding from this statement that an Equadorian holding US Dollar currency goes to a designated agent after registering for the electronic money system and exchanges paper US currency for a digital dollar in the Ecuadorian central bank on a one for one trade.
Then what happens to the paper US dollar? It goes to the central bank. Then what happens to that US Dollar?
Hmm....
Ecuador has a National Plan for Well Being. The link is in Spanish. I must find a translation to English. It is a comprehensive plan and the monetary system is part the plan as is the environment and all the other important things that government and governance should do for its people. From the link:
"For the implementation of the system, the state had to amend the Monetary Regime and State Bank Law (Ley de Régimen Monetario y Banco del Estado). One of the main provisions of this regulation is that “electronic money issuance must be an exclusive function of the state, which ensures and gives confidence to the carrier of this payment method, its free availability, and its condition as legal tender.” This limits the development of private projects of mobile money in Ecuador."
Somebody has thought out this entire plan in advance. I am sure that they are not making it up as they go.
This entire monetary system change being implemented by the sovereign nation of Ecuador seems to be flying way below the radar. Not much mention of it and the documentation on it exists in Spanish but the Spanish language translator says the document is too big to translate to English.
The Central Bank of Ecuador is the issuer of this e-money. Bitcoin is an e-money that people obtain by exchanging paper US currency or electonic dollars in a bank account for the Bitcoin e-currency. In the situation of Ecuador it is the first nation (maybe Jordan was first?) where its central bank issues the currency?
From the link in the first paragraph:
The launch will also be closely watched by Panama, which like Ecuador is fully dollarised, and Uruguay and Costa Rica, which are partly dollarised economies.
I am sure that there are many more entities closely watching what Ecuador is doing.
I would like to see the full plan. There is something big happening here.
Google search on: ecuador electronic currency. There is a lot of talk about it at the google hits but not much specific info or plan.
This link says this about the new system: "On the downside, it also means the government can keep a careful watch of each and every transaction made using the service." Maybe that is a feature, not a bug or a potential problem but a potential benefit creating responsible social control over the social monetary medium of exchange as a decision making tool.
This link says this: "Interestingly, the EMS system has more similarities to a primitive version of Apple Pay than to Bitcoin’s Blockchain or any current crypto-currency."
The Sound Money Project attacks the idea at this link
Professor White, directly tackling the idea of an electronic currency that would be handled by the Ecuadorian government, notes that:
There is no plausibly efficient or honorable reason for the Ecuadoran government to go into the business of providing an exclusive medium for mobile payments. Consequently it is hard to make any sense of the project other than as fiscal maneuver that paves the way toward official de-dollarization. I gather that President Correa does not like the way that dollarization limits his government’s power to manage the economy. He has compared the limitation to “boxing with one arm.” But as I have already emphasized, retiring the government from boxing against the economy by means of money-printing is precisely dollarization’s great virtue.
This is an excellent link at IMTFI that presents the purpose of Ecuador's plan in a socio-political context. That is what money is (should be). A creature of a socio-political context. Not a thing of a Financio-Political context. Financio being a word that I just created that is really just a sub-set component of a greater Socio-Political context. The best role of politics in the relationship is the one it plays as "We the People", not "We the Banksters". Private money interests get upset when there is any discussion of the sovereign government asserts its right to the monetary system. Bitcoiners don't like it. This from the link at the beginning of this paragraph:
"One of the most groundbreaking components of this New Financial Architecture is the implementation of an electronic monetary system, operated mainly through mobile phones, for which the Central Bank of Ecuador (CBE) will serve as the issuer and administrator. Officials at the CBE consider money to be a public good and see the electronic money system as a way to democratize its use."
Ecuador is doing a revolutionary thing that poses a great threat to the established structure of big Finance! It is a dangerous thing to do that. Big Finance is big money and rules the world, rules the USA. Government taking back its sovereign right to the monetary system will not be allowed by Finance!
China grants 5.3 billion dollar line of credit to Ecuador.
How does that play in relation to Ecuador's monetary system plan?
What I Think About The US Security State
I think exactly what Tom Englehardt expresses in his post: "Feeling Insecure in 2015"
Sometimes I think that Tom is a brother by another mother. We are the same age and over the years I have discovered an increasing number of traits, thoughts and experiences in common.
Sometimes I think that Tom is a brother by another mother. We are the same age and over the years I have discovered an increasing number of traits, thoughts and experiences in common.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
The real bank of America
Subject line is about the real bank of America. The US Government. It is the title of a feature in Politico today
TIFIA
WIFIA
BIFIA
Privatizing water systems at this link
TIFIA
WIFIA
BIFIA
Privatizing water systems at this link
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Ultimate Money Laundering 2.0
How is the monetary system going to be change from a debt based to a debt free money system?
How it is done is the ultimate money laundering challenge. It goes in as money, it comes out as money but...... it comes out as money with a totally different attribute.
I spend laundered money, we all do. Traces of drugs can be found on much of what we spend, especially larger denominations. Spends the same to me. I can't tell the difference. However the system that the money went through and carries the evidence, if I cared to test it was "dirty" input clean output.
Laundering money from debt based to debt free would make no difference to those that spend it. Big difference to those that finance live off finance with it like drug dealers. Conversion to debt free money through some kind of magic wand laundering creates money that persists. The conversion is a one way trip. It never goes out of existence like debt based money to be created out of nothing to circulate again by the banking loan system that gives it existence. Consequently the entire finance game of credit changes. It puts the old system of finance and all of its dysfunction that depletes the common good like a fungus out of business.
Maybe there are two ways to launder debt money and have it come out debt free money. One way is that when loans by the banking system are paid the payment does not extinguish the money back to the nothing it came from but places the money into an account as debt free money. As the account grows the reserve ratio the bank is require to maintain for its loans also increases up to 100% while the bank continues to make loans by creating more debt money from nothing as they have always done. Banks become constrained by loanable funds control. The total amount of loans can't exceed all of their reserves once 100% reserve is reached. Injection of new money to the economy becomes a function of government spending debt free into the economy.
Would that work?
The other way of laundering the money from debt based to debt free is to make it a matter of public decision about what kind of money system it wants. Anyone with debt based money (all money is debt based money) could exchange it for debt free money. Post offices might be the agent to do this. Otherwise a private enterprise business (maybe non-profit credit unions) that does it under a monopoly granted by the government to operate a debt free monetary system. Apple + Google? Lowest bidder? Whatever the entity is then it becomes a traditional savings bank. This draws money out of the debt category into a one for one debt free category. No net change in the total money system. Debt based money received by the government or its agent is used to pay off the National Debt. Is that fallacious double accounting? Who is left holding the debt bag then if it is not bond holders to whom the government sold debt? The government is still the entity of last resort to make good on money in the monetary system. That obviously contradicts an essential factor. I have to think about what it is.
I like the public choice. It seems to be what Ecuador is doing with the conversion of paper currency US Dollars to digital dollars. Is it any different to exchange one type of digital money (debt) for another type of digital money (debt free).
Sounds crazy.
How it is done is the ultimate money laundering challenge. It goes in as money, it comes out as money but...... it comes out as money with a totally different attribute.
I spend laundered money, we all do. Traces of drugs can be found on much of what we spend, especially larger denominations. Spends the same to me. I can't tell the difference. However the system that the money went through and carries the evidence, if I cared to test it was "dirty" input clean output.
Laundering money from debt based to debt free would make no difference to those that spend it. Big difference to those that finance live off finance with it like drug dealers. Conversion to debt free money through some kind of magic wand laundering creates money that persists. The conversion is a one way trip. It never goes out of existence like debt based money to be created out of nothing to circulate again by the banking loan system that gives it existence. Consequently the entire finance game of credit changes. It puts the old system of finance and all of its dysfunction that depletes the common good like a fungus out of business.
Maybe there are two ways to launder debt money and have it come out debt free money. One way is that when loans by the banking system are paid the payment does not extinguish the money back to the nothing it came from but places the money into an account as debt free money. As the account grows the reserve ratio the bank is require to maintain for its loans also increases up to 100% while the bank continues to make loans by creating more debt money from nothing as they have always done. Banks become constrained by loanable funds control. The total amount of loans can't exceed all of their reserves once 100% reserve is reached. Injection of new money to the economy becomes a function of government spending debt free into the economy.
Would that work?
The other way of laundering the money from debt based to debt free is to make it a matter of public decision about what kind of money system it wants. Anyone with debt based money (all money is debt based money) could exchange it for debt free money. Post offices might be the agent to do this. Otherwise a private enterprise business (maybe non-profit credit unions) that does it under a monopoly granted by the government to operate a debt free monetary system. Apple + Google? Lowest bidder? Whatever the entity is then it becomes a traditional savings bank. This draws money out of the debt category into a one for one debt free category. No net change in the total money system. Debt based money received by the government or its agent is used to pay off the National Debt. Is that fallacious double accounting? Who is left holding the debt bag then if it is not bond holders to whom the government sold debt? The government is still the entity of last resort to make good on money in the monetary system. That obviously contradicts an essential factor. I have to think about what it is.
I like the public choice. It seems to be what Ecuador is doing with the conversion of paper currency US Dollars to digital dollars. Is it any different to exchange one type of digital money (debt) for another type of digital money (debt free).
Sounds crazy.
The War on Pensions
The subject line of this blog entry is taken from Michael Hudson's analysis linked at Naked Capitalism.
Recently I viewed a Netflix movie where an investigating detective asked a suspect the question "How could you not know?" about a family situation that was so obvious to anyone would have known it. The same detective was later asked the same question by a friend about a situation in the detective's family.
How could we not know what Michael Hudson writes about pension plans and how they are being manipulated to the extent that it is criminal. Criminal is a moving goal post but how could we not know? How can this happen but that is the question that is being asked more often and even more in the future as what happens as a result of this will be seen in hindsight. The money that is seen to have disappeared in hindsight will of course be gone and never come back to whom it was due.
We have lost the war on pensions. How could we not know it now. It will dawn on us after the fact.
Fool's paradise.
As I write this in a public place where Fox is playing on the TV and advertising Lifelock. A product of Affinion. A scam based business model company. Selling a security product. I guess it tells how it is that people do not know. Commentator just called Obama a serial liar. This is a military base, the most popular channel. Now talking about deficits. Certainly what must follow is cheer leading for austerity. How could people not know?
It was an easy prediction: They just said that Congress must shrink the budget. The biggest problem is Obama Care! Now talking Constitutional issue.
I think that there is a trend line in media presentation that should measure the pure blatant brazenness of what is being presented. The trend line looks like it is going up quick.
How could we not know?
Funny thing. All the people in this room are on military pensions.
Recently I viewed a Netflix movie where an investigating detective asked a suspect the question "How could you not know?" about a family situation that was so obvious to anyone would have known it. The same detective was later asked the same question by a friend about a situation in the detective's family.
How could we not know what Michael Hudson writes about pension plans and how they are being manipulated to the extent that it is criminal. Criminal is a moving goal post but how could we not know? How can this happen but that is the question that is being asked more often and even more in the future as what happens as a result of this will be seen in hindsight. The money that is seen to have disappeared in hindsight will of course be gone and never come back to whom it was due.
We have lost the war on pensions. How could we not know it now. It will dawn on us after the fact.
Fool's paradise.
As I write this in a public place where Fox is playing on the TV and advertising Lifelock. A product of Affinion. A scam based business model company. Selling a security product. I guess it tells how it is that people do not know. Commentator just called Obama a serial liar. This is a military base, the most popular channel. Now talking about deficits. Certainly what must follow is cheer leading for austerity. How could people not know?
It was an easy prediction: They just said that Congress must shrink the budget. The biggest problem is Obama Care! Now talking Constitutional issue.
I think that there is a trend line in media presentation that should measure the pure blatant brazenness of what is being presented. The trend line looks like it is going up quick.
How could we not know?
Funny thing. All the people in this room are on military pensions.
Friday, January 2, 2015
What Is Happening In Ecuador With US Dollars?
I didn't even know that the national currency of Ecuador is the US Dollar?
It is!
It is not only the national currency but the dominant form of currency is the paper greenback dollar.
Ecuador is implementing a new electronic currency system that is described here. Its a Bitcoin oriented site. Phase I was implemented Christmas Eve 2014 with the ability to create an account on a cell phone. Bitcoin was banned by Ecuador. Bitcoiners pissed.
Ecuadorians exchange US paper currency for digital dollars.
Evidently the US Dollars are held to back up 100% of the digital dollars they were exchanged for. Digital dollars could be exchanged for paper dollars.
It is all voluntary.
There may be association with a bigger picture for Ecuador. Way down in the long and detailed description of this bigger picture of a Commons Transition Plan is a statement about the State of Ecuador's role in this plan with one of the specific things being something I like big time:
I speculated in prior blog entries here that Apple Pay might just be a stealth phase I implementation of a debt free monetary system. Get everybody using it to pay for things instead of credit cards. Then introduce a cash for clunkers program where the cash is digital and the clunkers are paper currency dollars. Dangle an incentive. Paper currency to be held by Apple as 100% reserve. Digital dollars convertible to paper any time. Later on pull the plug on convertibility to paper and offer a digital dollar in exchange for a digital dollar. That is a replay of a paper dollar for a paper dollar after going off the gold standard.
How could debt based money be converted to debt free money through a digital currency conversion system? Sounds like making gold of of lead but.....if debt money is created out of nothing to become "real money" in circulation (until it is extinguished to nothing later in the loan time line) how, while it exists as what we perceive as currency could it be diverted to become debt free money?
The answer to that would apparently be to absolve the debt that would otherwise be paid off to settle the loan. How does that happen? I guess it is called bankruptcy or not having to pay back the loan because you do not have the money. Some might like "Jubilee" as a better method! That way deadbeats have no guilt! On the other hand it would make most all of us winners and the 1% losers?
Back to the question: How to convert debt money to debt free money that does not go out of existence, ever. How does a business model based on giving the product away for free work? Seems to be the same problem but it works for Google.
Money is a sleight of hand trick in the first place. It seems that it should be susceptible to a sleight of hand trick to turn it into debt free money. What is that trick? Is the trick up Apple's sleeve. The con man always needs a partner to work the mark. A partner operating in the background. Google?
Conspiracy Theory!
If the US government enters a partnership with Apple it could produce all the paper dollars necessary to to provide people with the currency for one to one conversion to debt free digital dollars.
Sounds like an idea.
Keep an eye on Ecuador. Of course the government has to establish a debt free money system to support an economy based on the commons philosophy. Debt based capitalist monetary systems do not play well with the concept of the commons.
Ecuador with a foot in the door of positive money.
There seems not to be too much hard info on the Ecuador system other than general reports. Where are the details? This link offers some details.
The only other comparable system is operation in Jordan. JoMoPay
A description of the plan at this link:
"Jordan has a 155-percent mobile phone penetration rate, while 75 percent of Jordanian adults do not have bank accounts, according to The Jordan Times.
Mobile operators or companies that issue mobile wallets will have to abide by the CBJ's mobile payment regulations, and deposit collateral at the CBJ that is equivalent to the value of the e-wallets they want to issue.
Future JCB plans include facilitating benefit payments to e-wallets, NFC payments, and international transfers, Bahou said."
Note that there must be a "deposit collateral" Same as a checking account?
BOJ mobile is the app at the iTunes store
It is!
It is not only the national currency but the dominant form of currency is the paper greenback dollar.
Ecuador is implementing a new electronic currency system that is described here. Its a Bitcoin oriented site. Phase I was implemented Christmas Eve 2014 with the ability to create an account on a cell phone. Bitcoin was banned by Ecuador. Bitcoiners pissed.
Ecuadorians exchange US paper currency for digital dollars.
Evidently the US Dollars are held to back up 100% of the digital dollars they were exchanged for. Digital dollars could be exchanged for paper dollars.
It is all voluntary.
There may be association with a bigger picture for Ecuador. Way down in the long and detailed description of this bigger picture of a Commons Transition Plan is a statement about the State of Ecuador's role in this plan with one of the specific things being something I like big time:
- The state engages in debt-free public monetary creation and supports a structure of specialized complementary currencies
I speculated in prior blog entries here that Apple Pay might just be a stealth phase I implementation of a debt free monetary system. Get everybody using it to pay for things instead of credit cards. Then introduce a cash for clunkers program where the cash is digital and the clunkers are paper currency dollars. Dangle an incentive. Paper currency to be held by Apple as 100% reserve. Digital dollars convertible to paper any time. Later on pull the plug on convertibility to paper and offer a digital dollar in exchange for a digital dollar. That is a replay of a paper dollar for a paper dollar after going off the gold standard.
How could debt based money be converted to debt free money through a digital currency conversion system? Sounds like making gold of of lead but.....if debt money is created out of nothing to become "real money" in circulation (until it is extinguished to nothing later in the loan time line) how, while it exists as what we perceive as currency could it be diverted to become debt free money?
The answer to that would apparently be to absolve the debt that would otherwise be paid off to settle the loan. How does that happen? I guess it is called bankruptcy or not having to pay back the loan because you do not have the money. Some might like "Jubilee" as a better method! That way deadbeats have no guilt! On the other hand it would make most all of us winners and the 1% losers?
Back to the question: How to convert debt money to debt free money that does not go out of existence, ever. How does a business model based on giving the product away for free work? Seems to be the same problem but it works for Google.
Money is a sleight of hand trick in the first place. It seems that it should be susceptible to a sleight of hand trick to turn it into debt free money. What is that trick? Is the trick up Apple's sleeve. The con man always needs a partner to work the mark. A partner operating in the background. Google?
Conspiracy Theory!
If the US government enters a partnership with Apple it could produce all the paper dollars necessary to to provide people with the currency for one to one conversion to debt free digital dollars.
Sounds like an idea.
Keep an eye on Ecuador. Of course the government has to establish a debt free money system to support an economy based on the commons philosophy. Debt based capitalist monetary systems do not play well with the concept of the commons.
Ecuador with a foot in the door of positive money.
There seems not to be too much hard info on the Ecuador system other than general reports. Where are the details? This link offers some details.
The only other comparable system is operation in Jordan. JoMoPay
A description of the plan at this link:
"Jordan has a 155-percent mobile phone penetration rate, while 75 percent of Jordanian adults do not have bank accounts, according to The Jordan Times.
Mobile operators or companies that issue mobile wallets will have to abide by the CBJ's mobile payment regulations, and deposit collateral at the CBJ that is equivalent to the value of the e-wallets they want to issue.
Future JCB plans include facilitating benefit payments to e-wallets, NFC payments, and international transfers, Bahou said."
Note that there must be a "deposit collateral" Same as a checking account?
BOJ mobile is the app at the iTunes store
Say It Ain't So Bill Moyers!
Signing off for the last time?
Bill, you have given so much.
You have enlightened and inspired.
Thank you.
You may sign off, we all do in the end.
Your inspiration will continue. The best thing any of us can leave behind and you leave so much more than most.
We will all miss you Bill Moyers.
Bill, you have given so much.
You have enlightened and inspired.
Thank you.
You may sign off, we all do in the end.
Your inspiration will continue. The best thing any of us can leave behind and you leave so much more than most.
We will all miss you Bill Moyers.
Yves Smith Looks Backward and Forward on 2 Jan. 2015 - Perspective
700 blog entries in this blog that I started to discover what money is. The blog explores other things, some related to the original intent, some just because they interest me. However, looking back at all entries they do coalesce to some 6 to 10 basic conceptual categories. I thought about that on New Years Day, 2015 and thought about describing what I think those general categories are.
It looks like Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism might have had the same thoughts that looked back at what started it all and where it went from there in hindsight to become and come to the point where it is now in structuring some rational view of a complicated thing revolving around money, finance and all the things that relate to that and that is a whole lot of stuff.
My gratitude goes to Yves to organize so much into some comprehensive platform to present and intelligently analyze what she sees. Not just her comments to kick off the discussion but those that support her by their contributions to deal with grasping the big marshmallow called the "Market", understanding it and work toward managing it rather than it managing us, detrimentally, either through self serving interest or our own failure to really see how it is working against the general well being.
Today Yves published her lengthy review and big picture comments.
Thanks Yves, you are the greatest inspiration. Essentially, inspiration is the greatest thing to give.
Her last line from the link:
"And in contrast to the implosion that began in 1914, not only is the social order at risk, but so to is the environment on which we depend. The first time around, the struggle between market forces and social opposition was relatively novel, and some of the pushback came from businesses themselves. Now, we seem to have the veneer of democracy while in fact moving strongly in the direction of an authoritarian business-state combine, an improved version of Mussolini-style corporatism. Even though it seems unlikely that this system will unravel, the dissolution of a much more successful-looking world order was simply minconceivable in the summer of 1914. Highly-integrated cross-border market systems are more fragile than they seem, and we are stressing this one in far more ways than was the case a century ago."
The comments on her perspective are pure gold!
It looks like Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism might have had the same thoughts that looked back at what started it all and where it went from there in hindsight to become and come to the point where it is now in structuring some rational view of a complicated thing revolving around money, finance and all the things that relate to that and that is a whole lot of stuff.
My gratitude goes to Yves to organize so much into some comprehensive platform to present and intelligently analyze what she sees. Not just her comments to kick off the discussion but those that support her by their contributions to deal with grasping the big marshmallow called the "Market", understanding it and work toward managing it rather than it managing us, detrimentally, either through self serving interest or our own failure to really see how it is working against the general well being.
Today Yves published her lengthy review and big picture comments.
Thanks Yves, you are the greatest inspiration. Essentially, inspiration is the greatest thing to give.
Her last line from the link:
"And in contrast to the implosion that began in 1914, not only is the social order at risk, but so to is the environment on which we depend. The first time around, the struggle between market forces and social opposition was relatively novel, and some of the pushback came from businesses themselves. Now, we seem to have the veneer of democracy while in fact moving strongly in the direction of an authoritarian business-state combine, an improved version of Mussolini-style corporatism. Even though it seems unlikely that this system will unravel, the dissolution of a much more successful-looking world order was simply minconceivable in the summer of 1914. Highly-integrated cross-border market systems are more fragile than they seem, and we are stressing this one in far more ways than was the case a century ago."
The comments on her perspective are pure gold!
A Person Is A Thing In The Internet Of Things
I googled the title of this blog in quotes and there was no match return hit from google on the prior use of the phrase in quotes.
Score another one for me. The first to make an entry into the great google index of a unique word phrase that also has the bewildering status of nobody ever having stated it before. Bewildering because it is such an obvious fundamental truth that has a great magnitude of importance in the conceptual structure of things in the Information age.
I can find hits that say people are a thing like any other thing object that can be a thing in the internet of things. Therefore I can't claim the statement as a revelation of truth. I can only claim saying the bald truth of the matter in the most flat out simple way possible. That is something important because a person is a Big Thing among all other things in the Internet of Things Scheme of Things.
To say the last thing I said in the prior paragraph: A Person is a Proper Noun in the Internet of Things where all Things are now Proper Nouns because to enter the Internet of Things each thing must be uniquely identified as an instance of a class with a unique identifier. Conversely, a person is not a proper noun as a non unique entity external to the Internet of things is a common noun unless somehow uniquely identified by name.
All Things in the Internet of Things are by definition Proper Nouns.
Natural Language is so simple and fun to play with.
Someday, and the day is coming, a person will be a nobody if they are not in the Internet of Things. When that day comes they will be officially designated as known to exist as a common noun unidentified instance of the class people and will be hunted down and made a Proper Noun in the Internet of Things because common nouns relating to important things in the system cannot be allowed to exist outside of unique identification of "Proper Noun" status in the Internet of Things.
The hunting of renegades evading Proper Noun status will be a conceptual thing. Tracking clues to their existence will expose them. People who have principle unique identifiers on record but no relationship to their Internet of Things identifier. They will be in the New Limbo of persons without a country. Unacceptable. People that do not have an Internet of Things Identifier but have any one or many of these identifiers: Social Security number, bank account number, drivers license number, cell phone number, Face Book page, etc. Easy to find especially if they must by law have an crucial Internet of Things unique ID in order to receive or spend money or access the World Wide Web with biometric ID to watch Netflix.
A Person just gots ta have an Internet of Things number. That is a future thing of Science Fiction.
What is the number?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is described here. All things are identified by an Internet of Things Internet Protocol Adress (IP Address). They are assigned to physical devices connected to the internet. Another description of the IoT is here.
It describes a person with a heart implant device with an IP address (probably a static one!) that communicates with the internet as a thing (the person them self) as a thing on the the IoT. A person as a thing on the IoT by virtue of their inseparable association with a physical thing that is connected to the IoT. That person therefore becomes the owner of and directly identified by the IP address of their heart implant device. That is a more persistent and lasting identification of their Face Book page identified by an HTTP address.
IP is an internet address. Assigned to physical devices on a network.
HTTP is a World Wide Web address identification number scheme assigned to structure the conceptual information system that exists on the physically connected internet. Web Pages.
It can be expressed in plain language that translates to a number for system structure.
IPv6 is the new IP numbering system. It provides enough numbers to uniquely identify every single atom on the surface of the earth 100 times over. Maybe, maybe not. That claim is made and discussed here. In any event it is a lot of numbers and that is probably an understatement.
It seems that there may be a good probability to me that there will be a convergence of IP/HTTP in the future. Maybe not a convergence but a direct translation from the conceptual structure of the world wide web to the physical structure of the internet device network.
This is the point of conversion/association: When a person becomes so inseparably associated with a unique identifying association that it cannot be changed, is life long, is their (soul and sole) identity for all time that identifying attribute might as well be an IP number.
Dynamic IP numbers simply save a lot of unnecessary overhead to maintain and therefore give them a purpose different from a static IP address. When dynamic IP addresses have no associated overhead cost and there are more than enough IPv6 numbers to assign then there will not only be a transition to more static IP numbers but a benefit to the use of the system, whatever purpose that might be.
In general, persistence of a conceptual object in a conceptually structured data base is the essential foundation of an object oriented system. That is my thought. Maybe more true than not true. Maybe purely true in terms of time where infinite persistence is the ultimate thing to base anything on?????
Conclusion: (For example) God gots our number! But I am agnostic. However, when the system gots our IoT number that is a different thing. A good thing or a bad thing. I conclude by virtue of a WAG (wild ass guess) that the NSA has everyone numbered. They simply have to number everyone in the haystack to find the bad guy needle. Same way google works. Index everything.
If that is possibly true then the NSA identifying number for each and every person may become, (when they are declared to be transparent by law because we will not tolerate spying upon our citizens) the genesis of an open system not aimed at violating our privacy but protecting our privacy in scheme like the one proposed by HTTPa
Score another one for me. The first to make an entry into the great google index of a unique word phrase that also has the bewildering status of nobody ever having stated it before. Bewildering because it is such an obvious fundamental truth that has a great magnitude of importance in the conceptual structure of things in the Information age.
I can find hits that say people are a thing like any other thing object that can be a thing in the internet of things. Therefore I can't claim the statement as a revelation of truth. I can only claim saying the bald truth of the matter in the most flat out simple way possible. That is something important because a person is a Big Thing among all other things in the Internet of Things Scheme of Things.
To say the last thing I said in the prior paragraph: A Person is a Proper Noun in the Internet of Things where all Things are now Proper Nouns because to enter the Internet of Things each thing must be uniquely identified as an instance of a class with a unique identifier. Conversely, a person is not a proper noun as a non unique entity external to the Internet of things is a common noun unless somehow uniquely identified by name.
All Things in the Internet of Things are by definition Proper Nouns.
Natural Language is so simple and fun to play with.
Someday, and the day is coming, a person will be a nobody if they are not in the Internet of Things. When that day comes they will be officially designated as known to exist as a common noun unidentified instance of the class people and will be hunted down and made a Proper Noun in the Internet of Things because common nouns relating to important things in the system cannot be allowed to exist outside of unique identification of "Proper Noun" status in the Internet of Things.
The hunting of renegades evading Proper Noun status will be a conceptual thing. Tracking clues to their existence will expose them. People who have principle unique identifiers on record but no relationship to their Internet of Things identifier. They will be in the New Limbo of persons without a country. Unacceptable. People that do not have an Internet of Things Identifier but have any one or many of these identifiers: Social Security number, bank account number, drivers license number, cell phone number, Face Book page, etc. Easy to find especially if they must by law have an crucial Internet of Things unique ID in order to receive or spend money or access the World Wide Web with biometric ID to watch Netflix.
A Person just gots ta have an Internet of Things number. That is a future thing of Science Fiction.
What is the number?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is described here. All things are identified by an Internet of Things Internet Protocol Adress (IP Address). They are assigned to physical devices connected to the internet. Another description of the IoT is here.
It describes a person with a heart implant device with an IP address (probably a static one!) that communicates with the internet as a thing (the person them self) as a thing on the the IoT. A person as a thing on the IoT by virtue of their inseparable association with a physical thing that is connected to the IoT. That person therefore becomes the owner of and directly identified by the IP address of their heart implant device. That is a more persistent and lasting identification of their Face Book page identified by an HTTP address.
IP is an internet address. Assigned to physical devices on a network.
HTTP is a World Wide Web address identification number scheme assigned to structure the conceptual information system that exists on the physically connected internet. Web Pages.
It can be expressed in plain language that translates to a number for system structure.
IPv6 is the new IP numbering system. It provides enough numbers to uniquely identify every single atom on the surface of the earth 100 times over. Maybe, maybe not. That claim is made and discussed here. In any event it is a lot of numbers and that is probably an understatement.
It seems that there may be a good probability to me that there will be a convergence of IP/HTTP in the future. Maybe not a convergence but a direct translation from the conceptual structure of the world wide web to the physical structure of the internet device network.
This is the point of conversion/association: When a person becomes so inseparably associated with a unique identifying association that it cannot be changed, is life long, is their (soul and sole) identity for all time that identifying attribute might as well be an IP number.
Dynamic IP numbers simply save a lot of unnecessary overhead to maintain and therefore give them a purpose different from a static IP address. When dynamic IP addresses have no associated overhead cost and there are more than enough IPv6 numbers to assign then there will not only be a transition to more static IP numbers but a benefit to the use of the system, whatever purpose that might be.
In general, persistence of a conceptual object in a conceptually structured data base is the essential foundation of an object oriented system. That is my thought. Maybe more true than not true. Maybe purely true in terms of time where infinite persistence is the ultimate thing to base anything on?????
Conclusion: (For example) God gots our number! But I am agnostic. However, when the system gots our IoT number that is a different thing. A good thing or a bad thing. I conclude by virtue of a WAG (wild ass guess) that the NSA has everyone numbered. They simply have to number everyone in the haystack to find the bad guy needle. Same way google works. Index everything.
If that is possibly true then the NSA identifying number for each and every person may become, (when they are declared to be transparent by law because we will not tolerate spying upon our citizens) the genesis of an open system not aimed at violating our privacy but protecting our privacy in scheme like the one proposed by HTTPa
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Mainly Macro (Stupid or Evil)
The subject line of this blog entry is the title of Simon-Wren Lewis blog post.
I feel his pain!
It is painful to see such a bad situation that is also so stupid -- or is it evil?
His blog entry was linked at Naked Capitalism and introduced there with this comment:
"The eternal question: Stupid, or evil? I don’t agree that it’s the stupid. Austerity is the preferred policy outcome for elites because it works in their interests, as they perceive and define them, and who else is going to? Start with cheaper and more “loyal” servants. And the Cossacks work for the Czar. This really isn’t hard, people. "
The pain is that it isn't really hard people! Simon-Wren feels the pain even more because he is an intelligent expert on Economics and writing about a situation that even his peers in the general profession are too stupid or evil to either comprehend or say something about other than spout the desired framing of those with honestly evil intention to take advantage of an obviously wrong (in terms of the general public good) but immensely beneficial to their private profit/power well being.
Its the Profit/Power stupid!
As clearly as Simon Wren tries to explain it, people generally will not get it. There has been too much austerity propaganda foisted on the public in an attempt for the public to demand it like a penitent begging for a whipping!
It pains me too!
Blacklisted Economics Professor Found Dead. His last letter. Economist, not surprisingly are influence like banksters by the moral hazard situation. It is tempting to assure the preservation of systems and procedures that feed self interest that are counter to the general interest or even law or foundation of established truth and principle designed to protect the general interest. Evil banksters and economists operate in collusion on the dark side.
This is what he said in response to a question. Absolutely reasonable answer.
"Isn’t it offensive to assume that economists, for motives of personal gain, shade their theoretical allegiances in the directions preferred by powerful interest groups? How could it ever be offensive to assume that a person acts rationally in pursuit of maximizing his or her own utility? I’m afraid I don’t understand this question."
Light and transparency are the best disinfectants. So is Bill Black.
Monetary and Fiscal. Smoke and mirror words that mask what they are: Money and Spending. Two different things!
Bankers control both.
Take money away from the bankers. Leave them only with power to control spending of it through financing. Then they will be in the same boat with everybody else that spend money because they have somehow earned the right to spend it by contributing a utility of value.
Take the power away from banksters to create money. Take it away through the action of our government to assert is sovereign right to create money. A sovereign right that was outsourced to banks long ago and established in this country by the Federal Reserve banking system.
The Federal Reserve banking system is debt based money with the Fed having the right to create money by loaning it into existence.
When our government creates money it is created as a positive debt free thing. A utility for all of us to use as a tool to attained the common good, the general welfare in the pursuit of happiness.
It is so simple people! That is why those that benefit financially from obscuring the truth, the obvious, spend so much money on capturing government power to do anything about it and spending money on controlling public perception that not only keeps the public in the dark but gets the public to actually support a fallacious monetary system of debt based money and private enterprise in control of creating it to the detriment of their own self interest.
Stupid or Evil?
An Evil few are manipulating a Stupid public. Nobody is stupid by design, by their own design they may be "not intelligent" if they fail to learn. If the public fails to learn or comprehend as a function of some few in a position of great power to create and project deception inducing public stupidity the Evil few are winning big time and the score is measured in money and power accruing to them at the expense of a manipulated public stupidity that the Evil few must expend a lot of money and gain a lot of power to perpetuate.
The "Evil Few" of the Money/Power sector are smart. We (some of us) can see that they are spending increasing amounts of money across the broad spectrum of public propaganda and government control to maintain their control and dominance of the Monetary/Financial system. It is called a "trend line" extrapolate it into the future and you can make some good guesses as to where it is going and what will result. It really is a Ponzi scheme that all falls apart when the curtain is pulled back to reveal the sorry little man behind the curtain manipulating the levers to deceive us.
Its the Wizard of Oz, people. The trend line of the what the Evil few are doing has an ultimate decisive conclusion of the "wake up" public recognition. The Evil few know it and rather than fight tooth and nail to preserve and continue to perpetuate the structure that serves them so well and us so poorly they have a plan B when the stuff hits the fan and we are coming with rope and pitch forks.
As it always was, the teeth of power, police and armed forces are not the tools to protect their house of cards. Their Plan B is something else this time. A plan "B" that will either drive the stake that entrenches their system of control for a long time into the future to assure that their Plan A continues to operate.
The public welfare of the common good that we formed our government to establish and maintain must have a Plan A that drives the stake into the heart of a financial monstrosity vampire that will live forever as long as it has a source of blood to feed on. That source of blood is money that it will live forever on if it continues to create is as debt free money. Money belongs to the public under the control of our government (that we consent to govern us) to create. NOT to create by borrowing it from a private institution entity to which he have outsourced our rights to.
Evil is perpetuated by a condition of stupidity. It is like the old joke of being fat and ugly. Called fat by an ugly fat person gets the response: I may be fat but that can change. Truely Ugly is ugly forever.
The true of debt free money will set us free.
Today is New Years day when many make resolutions. We should all make a resolution to reduce our stupidity this year by increasing our resistance and discipline to push back from the fat diet of deceit that we, the general public, has been feeding on.
When we get smart enough to see the Evil of the current Money/Financial system it is going to change and the only change to make it right is a paradigm shift to a debt free money system, a universal one because the banking system is trans-border and universal.
It will be a revolution. This revolution need not be a violent one since the Monetary/Financial system is a conceptual one that can be restructured without violence but those that will lose the power to control it will, as a last resort turn to the forces of power to protect and preserve their domination. Their greatest fear is that those dogs won't hunt.
A showdown is coming. A tipping point. Conceptually like the police beating up on innocent victims. It is the few among the police that do that but they are black shirted agents of very few powerful authorities that use their positions to unofficially enforce unacceptable methods of social control, much like torture, to preserve and protect a corrupt use of socially necessary internal police institution or our military our national external police force (not to be used internally to protect and serve).
Enough is enough.
Strange and ironic that this blog entry is written from the place where I am sitting.
There is a basic difference between the structural foundation of the natural world and the our social conceptual world. Both are based on truth(s). In the natural world they are given truths of nature and the physical universe. We can create a conceptual scientific description of this physical world structure. It is merely a translation of what it discovered to be truths in the physical world to a conceptual mirror image description in languages we use and understand. Mathematics being an exact language and our natural language to which the math can be translated (some loss in translation or even intentional manipulation) to say the same thing in a form more easily comprehended by the general public.
On the other hand conceptual social systems are structured on what is proclaimed to be an established truth(s) that are true on the basis of being self evident as a secular reason or established as absolute truth by spiritual authority. The latter works for many, the former works for all. The latter will by the nature of their belief be less inclined to change? Much less if they are fundamentalists! The former more inclined to changed based on the principal: "Works for me" which the latter might view as situational ethics or in the more extreme view unacceptable moral corruption.
Social system conceptual structures are subject to change depending on what truths are chosen as their foundation base. Readily changed when they become entrenched in implementing data management systems. The greater the amount of social data that is collected, stored and subject to data mining the more information that can be produced and a greater the amount of knowledge derived from this information.
Money and Finance is a social conceptual system. It is subject to a great amount of data generation as a function of its nature. The information age is producing a quantum amount of data/information/knowledge about the conceptual system. If that system is seen as a result to be fallacious by sufficient numbers of people that are no longer duped to believe that there is no alternative then it is going to change. The nature of the Information Age means that any conceptual system not based on the dictates of the natural physical world but more on the purely conceptual world can change quickly.
I feel his pain!
It is painful to see such a bad situation that is also so stupid -- or is it evil?
His blog entry was linked at Naked Capitalism and introduced there with this comment:
"The eternal question: Stupid, or evil? I don’t agree that it’s the stupid. Austerity is the preferred policy outcome for elites because it works in their interests, as they perceive and define them, and who else is going to? Start with cheaper and more “loyal” servants. And the Cossacks work for the Czar. This really isn’t hard, people. "
The pain is that it isn't really hard people! Simon-Wren feels the pain even more because he is an intelligent expert on Economics and writing about a situation that even his peers in the general profession are too stupid or evil to either comprehend or say something about other than spout the desired framing of those with honestly evil intention to take advantage of an obviously wrong (in terms of the general public good) but immensely beneficial to their private profit/power well being.
Its the Profit/Power stupid!
As clearly as Simon Wren tries to explain it, people generally will not get it. There has been too much austerity propaganda foisted on the public in an attempt for the public to demand it like a penitent begging for a whipping!
It pains me too!
Blacklisted Economics Professor Found Dead. His last letter. Economist, not surprisingly are influence like banksters by the moral hazard situation. It is tempting to assure the preservation of systems and procedures that feed self interest that are counter to the general interest or even law or foundation of established truth and principle designed to protect the general interest. Evil banksters and economists operate in collusion on the dark side.
This is what he said in response to a question. Absolutely reasonable answer.
"Isn’t it offensive to assume that economists, for motives of personal gain, shade their theoretical allegiances in the directions preferred by powerful interest groups? How could it ever be offensive to assume that a person acts rationally in pursuit of maximizing his or her own utility? I’m afraid I don’t understand this question."
Light and transparency are the best disinfectants. So is Bill Black.
Monetary and Fiscal. Smoke and mirror words that mask what they are: Money and Spending. Two different things!
Bankers control both.
Take money away from the bankers. Leave them only with power to control spending of it through financing. Then they will be in the same boat with everybody else that spend money because they have somehow earned the right to spend it by contributing a utility of value.
Take the power away from banksters to create money. Take it away through the action of our government to assert is sovereign right to create money. A sovereign right that was outsourced to banks long ago and established in this country by the Federal Reserve banking system.
The Federal Reserve banking system is debt based money with the Fed having the right to create money by loaning it into existence.
When our government creates money it is created as a positive debt free thing. A utility for all of us to use as a tool to attained the common good, the general welfare in the pursuit of happiness.
It is so simple people! That is why those that benefit financially from obscuring the truth, the obvious, spend so much money on capturing government power to do anything about it and spending money on controlling public perception that not only keeps the public in the dark but gets the public to actually support a fallacious monetary system of debt based money and private enterprise in control of creating it to the detriment of their own self interest.
Stupid or Evil?
An Evil few are manipulating a Stupid public. Nobody is stupid by design, by their own design they may be "not intelligent" if they fail to learn. If the public fails to learn or comprehend as a function of some few in a position of great power to create and project deception inducing public stupidity the Evil few are winning big time and the score is measured in money and power accruing to them at the expense of a manipulated public stupidity that the Evil few must expend a lot of money and gain a lot of power to perpetuate.
The "Evil Few" of the Money/Power sector are smart. We (some of us) can see that they are spending increasing amounts of money across the broad spectrum of public propaganda and government control to maintain their control and dominance of the Monetary/Financial system. It is called a "trend line" extrapolate it into the future and you can make some good guesses as to where it is going and what will result. It really is a Ponzi scheme that all falls apart when the curtain is pulled back to reveal the sorry little man behind the curtain manipulating the levers to deceive us.
Its the Wizard of Oz, people. The trend line of the what the Evil few are doing has an ultimate decisive conclusion of the "wake up" public recognition. The Evil few know it and rather than fight tooth and nail to preserve and continue to perpetuate the structure that serves them so well and us so poorly they have a plan B when the stuff hits the fan and we are coming with rope and pitch forks.
As it always was, the teeth of power, police and armed forces are not the tools to protect their house of cards. Their Plan B is something else this time. A plan "B" that will either drive the stake that entrenches their system of control for a long time into the future to assure that their Plan A continues to operate.
The public welfare of the common good that we formed our government to establish and maintain must have a Plan A that drives the stake into the heart of a financial monstrosity vampire that will live forever as long as it has a source of blood to feed on. That source of blood is money that it will live forever on if it continues to create is as debt free money. Money belongs to the public under the control of our government (that we consent to govern us) to create. NOT to create by borrowing it from a private institution entity to which he have outsourced our rights to.
Evil is perpetuated by a condition of stupidity. It is like the old joke of being fat and ugly. Called fat by an ugly fat person gets the response: I may be fat but that can change. Truely Ugly is ugly forever.
The true of debt free money will set us free.
Today is New Years day when many make resolutions. We should all make a resolution to reduce our stupidity this year by increasing our resistance and discipline to push back from the fat diet of deceit that we, the general public, has been feeding on.
When we get smart enough to see the Evil of the current Money/Financial system it is going to change and the only change to make it right is a paradigm shift to a debt free money system, a universal one because the banking system is trans-border and universal.
It will be a revolution. This revolution need not be a violent one since the Monetary/Financial system is a conceptual one that can be restructured without violence but those that will lose the power to control it will, as a last resort turn to the forces of power to protect and preserve their domination. Their greatest fear is that those dogs won't hunt.
A showdown is coming. A tipping point. Conceptually like the police beating up on innocent victims. It is the few among the police that do that but they are black shirted agents of very few powerful authorities that use their positions to unofficially enforce unacceptable methods of social control, much like torture, to preserve and protect a corrupt use of socially necessary internal police institution or our military our national external police force (not to be used internally to protect and serve).
Enough is enough.
Strange and ironic that this blog entry is written from the place where I am sitting.
There is a basic difference between the structural foundation of the natural world and the our social conceptual world. Both are based on truth(s). In the natural world they are given truths of nature and the physical universe. We can create a conceptual scientific description of this physical world structure. It is merely a translation of what it discovered to be truths in the physical world to a conceptual mirror image description in languages we use and understand. Mathematics being an exact language and our natural language to which the math can be translated (some loss in translation or even intentional manipulation) to say the same thing in a form more easily comprehended by the general public.
On the other hand conceptual social systems are structured on what is proclaimed to be an established truth(s) that are true on the basis of being self evident as a secular reason or established as absolute truth by spiritual authority. The latter works for many, the former works for all. The latter will by the nature of their belief be less inclined to change? Much less if they are fundamentalists! The former more inclined to changed based on the principal: "Works for me" which the latter might view as situational ethics or in the more extreme view unacceptable moral corruption.
Social system conceptual structures are subject to change depending on what truths are chosen as their foundation base. Readily changed when they become entrenched in implementing data management systems. The greater the amount of social data that is collected, stored and subject to data mining the more information that can be produced and a greater the amount of knowledge derived from this information.
Money and Finance is a social conceptual system. It is subject to a great amount of data generation as a function of its nature. The information age is producing a quantum amount of data/information/knowledge about the conceptual system. If that system is seen as a result to be fallacious by sufficient numbers of people that are no longer duped to believe that there is no alternative then it is going to change. The nature of the Information Age means that any conceptual system not based on the dictates of the natural physical world but more on the purely conceptual world can change quickly.