http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/04/found-sarawaks-stolen-wealth-is-locked-in-a-treasure-trove-in-the-southern-united-states/
The link reveals knowledge as a product of data mining. Otherwise known as outstanding Investigative Journalism. All of that effort by an investigator could have been greatly facilitated by deep mining using Artificial Intelligence to produce information for analysis processes leading to knowledge.
In this case a person beats a machine. Because the data is not available in a form that Artificial Intelligence can process. It would be if beneficial ownership was mandated by law and traceable. The current opaqueness is just another intentional deception to the advantage of hiding things that should otherwise be known to regulate the processes of the market.
Following the trail and putting all the clues together is old fashion detective work. The detective that wrote this did an excellent job. Now the knowledge is out there. Light has been shown on the problem. Bad guys identified. Now what? The system that produced this situation continues to function and will do so until Players in the Game and their associations with Market entities are required by law to be registered with a government in order to do business.
Something was stolen. The thief wants to get away with the theft. Secrecy is of utmost importance. If thieves can't play unless they are registered with numbers on their back tying them to the various teams and sponsors they are playing for professional then the play of the game and all the motions are visible.
All commercial entities must be officially registered and connected to beneficial owners. Accounting controls must validate relationships among the entities. Simple rule. Follow the money, associate it with all the players. Make it all public open source information. Corporate secrecy and privacy be damned. Public right to know rules.
http://www.sunchaseholdings.com/
http://news.muckety.com/ Is where I would hope to find some connections already established for the named entities and people in Sarawack link. No immediate results. Perhaps an entry with the links should be created at Muckety or some similar site that provides an appropriate format for posting investigative results from crowd sourced intelligence. The "people based" form of data mining.
http://intrix.com/ An owned subsidiary of SunChase that makes handling money so much easier.
http://www.law360.com/articles/471126/us-trustee-objects-to-developer-oceanside-s-ch-11-plan
http://sarawakheadhunter.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Legislating Change...Driverless Cars and Payment Systems in a Cashless Society
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/should-banks-be-worried-about-apple-pay.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/26/uber-google-lyft-ford-volvo-self-driving-car-lobby
Two links addressing different issues but sharing a fundamental attribute issue regarding technological change and society. Something I have wanted to blog about with an idea and these two links appeared today to induce this blog entry.
Technological advancements and the social changes that came with them have generally been welcomed by society, with a little help from advertising promotion that usually focuses on the words newer and better to push the product that is then readily pulled by the public buying it.
What links the two links? Cars and payment methods have something in common. They changed our society, our social structure. They were promoted and wanted by the public. Technology has been an easy sell. It not only changes the way we live but the nature of our society as a function of the democratic concept of voting with our consumer dollars.
Technology created things with an approach to make technology useful, beneficial to the way we live by making things "people friendly". It was easy to love something designed to serve us.
Maybe there is a tipping point here where society has to be managed to serve the technology?
That is the point of this. Change related to technology will be pushed on society to the benefit of those that are selling it and profiting from it. It will be pushed on society by laws dictating social change.
Putting driverless cars on the road will require some degree of technological compliance in the operation of current cars. A burden will be placed on the ownership of current vehicles to comply with certain requirements dictated by the operation of driverless cars. Current cars already have ODB2 installed except for very old cars. There maybe some degree of retrofit required. Not a change that owners will seek or welcome unless it can be done in the name of public safety and saving lives and property.
Seat belts were a low tech change that had an impact on social attitudes. Done in the name of safety there was a reluctance to wear them until they become the law that legislated social change to wearing them.
Awareness of other people driven cars to driveless cars and vice versa may be a barrier to getting driver less cars on the road on a large scale. It is probable that there must be some legislated change to existing vehicles to have some form of broadcast identification for two way identification as well as some degree of mechanical control of people driven cars to the extent that it can be done by adding dongles to existing OBD2. The big industry players in this situation will simply lobby to get the necessary legislation.
How will the American public react to being forced to comply with a safety requirement that necessitates retrofitting equipment that is mandatory for safe operation of driver less cars on the road? Just how far can the justification that it will save lives go in making this happen? As far as something that is more easily doable right now as having a mandatory device to measure alcholol levels to save lives by prohibiting vehicle operation? Why don't we have that? No profit in it maybe. There is big profit in driver less vehicles.
Payment method is likewise something that technology would change but acceptance of the technology may require more acceptance than society wants to give it and therefore may be legislated by forces that profit from it.
Technology has been an easy sell. Perhaps this is a tipping point for technology where it must become a hard sell for some greater benefit like safety or profit. Likely mostly profit. A hard sell by legislation mandates.
Prohibition was a legislated mandate. Not tech driven but the prime example of forcing social change through legislation.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/26/uber-google-lyft-ford-volvo-self-driving-car-lobby
Two links addressing different issues but sharing a fundamental attribute issue regarding technological change and society. Something I have wanted to blog about with an idea and these two links appeared today to induce this blog entry.
Technological advancements and the social changes that came with them have generally been welcomed by society, with a little help from advertising promotion that usually focuses on the words newer and better to push the product that is then readily pulled by the public buying it.
What links the two links? Cars and payment methods have something in common. They changed our society, our social structure. They were promoted and wanted by the public. Technology has been an easy sell. It not only changes the way we live but the nature of our society as a function of the democratic concept of voting with our consumer dollars.
Technology created things with an approach to make technology useful, beneficial to the way we live by making things "people friendly". It was easy to love something designed to serve us.
Maybe there is a tipping point here where society has to be managed to serve the technology?
That is the point of this. Change related to technology will be pushed on society to the benefit of those that are selling it and profiting from it. It will be pushed on society by laws dictating social change.
Putting driverless cars on the road will require some degree of technological compliance in the operation of current cars. A burden will be placed on the ownership of current vehicles to comply with certain requirements dictated by the operation of driverless cars. Current cars already have ODB2 installed except for very old cars. There maybe some degree of retrofit required. Not a change that owners will seek or welcome unless it can be done in the name of public safety and saving lives and property.
Seat belts were a low tech change that had an impact on social attitudes. Done in the name of safety there was a reluctance to wear them until they become the law that legislated social change to wearing them.
Awareness of other people driven cars to driveless cars and vice versa may be a barrier to getting driver less cars on the road on a large scale. It is probable that there must be some legislated change to existing vehicles to have some form of broadcast identification for two way identification as well as some degree of mechanical control of people driven cars to the extent that it can be done by adding dongles to existing OBD2. The big industry players in this situation will simply lobby to get the necessary legislation.
How will the American public react to being forced to comply with a safety requirement that necessitates retrofitting equipment that is mandatory for safe operation of driver less cars on the road? Just how far can the justification that it will save lives go in making this happen? As far as something that is more easily doable right now as having a mandatory device to measure alcholol levels to save lives by prohibiting vehicle operation? Why don't we have that? No profit in it maybe. There is big profit in driver less vehicles.
Payment method is likewise something that technology would change but acceptance of the technology may require more acceptance than society wants to give it and therefore may be legislated by forces that profit from it.
Technology has been an easy sell. Perhaps this is a tipping point for technology where it must become a hard sell for some greater benefit like safety or profit. Likely mostly profit. A hard sell by legislation mandates.
Prohibition was a legislated mandate. Not tech driven but the prime example of forcing social change through legislation.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Macro and Micro Data Mining Off Shore Accounts
Since looking at how Watt4Bob looks at things in a different way to extract a different meaning I have adopted a re-thinking approach. In the prior blog I went so far as to question the supremacy of Action over Object in the matter of which came first in the universe. Perhaps it was Action that created a binary deviation in the nature of nothing by creating a wave Object as a function of an Action. Time in the verb form therefore was pre-existent and essential to the creation of any Object noun thing. Interesting idea.
This is a different view of Macro and Micro level data mining. Data mining seeks to extract knowledge. "Wadda ya know?" is a very broad question. About anything.
"Wadda ya wanna know?" The answer narrows the scope. A simple search on "data mining" show many hits on economics being a significant sector of interest. Of course. That is where data mining makes money! Making Money is a significant focus of interest. Making money is a problem domain with a food chain. At the bottom is the individual consumer level. There is an entire upper structure of levels each making money on any or all of lower levels.
That is the frame in which I look at Macro and Micro data mining. A frame in which data is mined related to focusing on knowing the structure and function of a data mining look at any given level from Micro to Macro. Micro being the individual consumer. Macro being the top level aggregate entities. Business, government.
The question in this knowledge quest is what do we know in terms of structure and function through data mining any given entity level from the bottom individual person consumer up through levels of various entities of any type that aggregate structures and processes for some purpose that relates to individuals in terms of service and/or extraction of benefit. Gain of some type.
Simply: What can we know about institution entities, what knowledge can we discover by data mining? I think that we can learn very little about institutional entities but they can learn a vast amount of information and the knowledge it produces about us as individuals through data mining. It is an asymmetrical situation for several reasons.
Institutions have the resources to do data mining on a vast scale. They have access to data that individuals do not have. They keep their data secret as well as the information and knowledge it produces. In general the structure of institutional entities doing data mining and using the knowledge it produces is complex. Extremely complex as well as guarded by physical and crypto security as well a law.
They, at the macro entities levels, can data mine us. We can't data mine them. We can see the results of this in terms of economics by the disparity of earnings and wealth. However, we cannot connect all the dots to create the knowledge of the system that produced this obvious result.
Knowledge rules. Knowledge is gold.
We need to data mine the macro level to establish the knowledge of truth needed to determine if they are playing on a level field of information rules and transparency as well as identifying the need to change the rules if they are not.
What we need is an "NSA" focused on finding our internal as well as global "bad guys" individuals and institutional entities at the Macro institutional level. A privitized "NSA"?
ICIJ got their hands on data to mine. Off shore account data. They will release the mining rights to the public.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/26/19591/coming-soon-icij-release-panama-papers-offshore-companies-data
The database will be published at https://offshoreleaks.icij.org on May 9 at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 UTC).
It will not make private information public. ICIJ has that info but will protect it.....however it can be data mined using methods that I recently blogged about here. That is big time institutional level data mining. It can also be data mined by individual miners...I look forward to seeing the data, extracting information and knowledge. If there a vast number of independent investigators doing the same I would hope that what is discovered can be aggregated.
ICIJ previously released information related to Swiss bank accounts which is now not so easy to find but still available here:
https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/search
This is a different view of Macro and Micro level data mining. Data mining seeks to extract knowledge. "Wadda ya know?" is a very broad question. About anything.
"Wadda ya wanna know?" The answer narrows the scope. A simple search on "data mining" show many hits on economics being a significant sector of interest. Of course. That is where data mining makes money! Making Money is a significant focus of interest. Making money is a problem domain with a food chain. At the bottom is the individual consumer level. There is an entire upper structure of levels each making money on any or all of lower levels.
That is the frame in which I look at Macro and Micro data mining. A frame in which data is mined related to focusing on knowing the structure and function of a data mining look at any given level from Micro to Macro. Micro being the individual consumer. Macro being the top level aggregate entities. Business, government.
The question in this knowledge quest is what do we know in terms of structure and function through data mining any given entity level from the bottom individual person consumer up through levels of various entities of any type that aggregate structures and processes for some purpose that relates to individuals in terms of service and/or extraction of benefit. Gain of some type.
Simply: What can we know about institution entities, what knowledge can we discover by data mining? I think that we can learn very little about institutional entities but they can learn a vast amount of information and the knowledge it produces about us as individuals through data mining. It is an asymmetrical situation for several reasons.
Institutions have the resources to do data mining on a vast scale. They have access to data that individuals do not have. They keep their data secret as well as the information and knowledge it produces. In general the structure of institutional entities doing data mining and using the knowledge it produces is complex. Extremely complex as well as guarded by physical and crypto security as well a law.
They, at the macro entities levels, can data mine us. We can't data mine them. We can see the results of this in terms of economics by the disparity of earnings and wealth. However, we cannot connect all the dots to create the knowledge of the system that produced this obvious result.
Knowledge rules. Knowledge is gold.
We need to data mine the macro level to establish the knowledge of truth needed to determine if they are playing on a level field of information rules and transparency as well as identifying the need to change the rules if they are not.
What we need is an "NSA" focused on finding our internal as well as global "bad guys" individuals and institutional entities at the Macro institutional level. A privitized "NSA"?
ICIJ got their hands on data to mine. Off shore account data. They will release the mining rights to the public.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/26/19591/coming-soon-icij-release-panama-papers-offshore-companies-data
The database will be published at https://offshoreleaks.icij.org on May 9 at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 UTC).
It will not make private information public. ICIJ has that info but will protect it.....however it can be data mined using methods that I recently blogged about here. That is big time institutional level data mining. It can also be data mined by individual miners...I look forward to seeing the data, extracting information and knowledge. If there a vast number of independent investigators doing the same I would hope that what is discovered can be aggregated.
ICIJ previously released information related to Swiss bank accounts which is now not so easy to find but still available here:
https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/search
Monday, April 25, 2016
Is Love a Noun or a Verb?
https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=love+definition
The first search result says both. The rest go on to define Love in different ways. For me, my personal definition? I tend to define my world primarily with and object orientation. It is the nature, the properties and attributes of objects that determine the actions that relate objects in a Subject/Action/Object trinity structure. Noun/Verb/Noun. The basis of our natural language through which we express conceptualized abstactions.
Given my way of looking at things, I would say Love is a noun. Thinking about it, I perceive it more as a Verb first and an Noun second. One of the few cases where the Verb dominates the status of the Noun to be either the dominant thing. (Verbs are things too, just not the driver of the meaning of the Object/Action relationship).
Maybe Love is the exception to the general rule that Objects Rule. Appropriately it is the singular exception?
The closest I come to any higher level abstractions of reality in the direction of religion or even spiritualism is going to the edge to have a look but no further. There are some things however to be seen from the edge that are interesting from the standpoint of how old the view of what humans have projected as "truths" beyond the edge, which I believe is entirely their own creation, not created by a higher level entity.
A product of our human projection often attributed to a higher entity is:
Love one another!
An excellent conceptual thought at the basis of relationships!
What gave birth to the subject line of this blog entry?
Strangely a "New Economics Perspective" post by an author that often interests me with a wide range of observations from micro to macro. This one was macro!
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/04/sanders-representing-agape-ag-ah-pay-love-millenials-beyond.html#more-10313
It is first and foremost a Verb. A verb that rules the general dominance of Objects in the Object/Action relationship.
Analogous to the singularity of Love in its Verb form in the real world is Time.
Time is an Noun and Verb as well.
https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=Time+definition
Time in the verb nature in the real world is a singular dominant driver of the Object/Action relationship like Love is in the conceptual world.
Interesting way of looking at it for me.
In the physical world the role of Time as dominant is expressed, maybe, by E = MCsquared. Time, the speed of light is the dominant factor in the relationship between Mass and Energy. Time as a verb drives the relationship between Mass and Energy. Everything beyond that is a Problem Domain where Objects rules the conceptual structure of things.
Thank you, Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. He blogs at: https://greenthoughts.us/
The first search result says both. The rest go on to define Love in different ways. For me, my personal definition? I tend to define my world primarily with and object orientation. It is the nature, the properties and attributes of objects that determine the actions that relate objects in a Subject/Action/Object trinity structure. Noun/Verb/Noun. The basis of our natural language through which we express conceptualized abstactions.
Given my way of looking at things, I would say Love is a noun. Thinking about it, I perceive it more as a Verb first and an Noun second. One of the few cases where the Verb dominates the status of the Noun to be either the dominant thing. (Verbs are things too, just not the driver of the meaning of the Object/Action relationship).
Maybe Love is the exception to the general rule that Objects Rule. Appropriately it is the singular exception?
The closest I come to any higher level abstractions of reality in the direction of religion or even spiritualism is going to the edge to have a look but no further. There are some things however to be seen from the edge that are interesting from the standpoint of how old the view of what humans have projected as "truths" beyond the edge, which I believe is entirely their own creation, not created by a higher level entity.
A product of our human projection often attributed to a higher entity is:
Love one another!
An excellent conceptual thought at the basis of relationships!
What gave birth to the subject line of this blog entry?
Strangely a "New Economics Perspective" post by an author that often interests me with a wide range of observations from micro to macro. This one was macro!
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/04/sanders-representing-agape-ag-ah-pay-love-millenials-beyond.html#more-10313
It is first and foremost a Verb. A verb that rules the general dominance of Objects in the Object/Action relationship.
Analogous to the singularity of Love in its Verb form in the real world is Time.
Time is an Noun and Verb as well.
https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=Time+definition
Time in the verb nature in the real world is a singular dominant driver of the Object/Action relationship like Love is in the conceptual world.
Interesting way of looking at it for me.
In the physical world the role of Time as dominant is expressed, maybe, by E = MCsquared. Time, the speed of light is the dominant factor in the relationship between Mass and Energy. Time as a verb drives the relationship between Mass and Energy. Everything beyond that is a Problem Domain where Objects rules the conceptual structure of things.
Thank you, Michael Hoexter, Ph.D. He blogs at: https://greenthoughts.us/
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Artificial Intelligence Data Mining Private Data
This looks like it opens the door to data mining of confidential/privacy data bases held by organizations and provides an opportunity for those organizations to monetize their data base with security confidence that private data will not be compromised?
If so, it is a big door!
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601294/microsoft-and-google-want-to-let-artificial-intelligence-loose-on-our-most-private-data/#/set/id/601290/
If so, it is a big door!
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601294/microsoft-and-google-want-to-let-artificial-intelligence-loose-on-our-most-private-data/#/set/id/601290/
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
IRS Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program
Timing!
April 18: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/18/irs-urges-americans-come-clean-now-before-we-read-panama-papers.html
Fear and Panic! At least for those whose fiscal year ended on 31 Dec. 2015!
Ooops! Tax return already in the mail?
Funny thing: A google search today, 9:45 PDT 19 April shows this story as 20 hours ago. However searching on the subject line in quotes for the past week shows that it was released 17 April by NBC.
My prior post on companies In-Q-Tel invested in that related to spying on evident activity either geo located or subject oriented had an aim at data mining lots of "little fish" individuals aggregated to some statistical blip associated with actionable information.
It would be revealing to somehow apply the same techniques associating individuals at a corporate level to their corporate telling activity related to revealing data points.....whatever they might be...to see what they might be saying, where they might be saying it and where they might be going. Like tail numbers of aircraft going to off shore locations and not for vacation purposes! Tweet blips to geo locaton of big accounting firms. Probably lost however in the volume of 18 April tax stuff but maybe telling if 19 April traffic is an anomaly. From and to and content might be revealing? That of course is not known to everyone, only those with the capability. Those with capability would have had to schedule computer/analyst overtime for the 19th sting if this was a set up on the 18th.
Its an old tactic: Turn on the light at watch what scurries. Set of a bomb outside and then get whoever runs out with second one. That probably hit the key word alarm! Sorry guys, false alarm! Just an analogy.
April 18: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/18/irs-urges-americans-come-clean-now-before-we-read-panama-papers.html
Fear and Panic! At least for those whose fiscal year ended on 31 Dec. 2015!
Ooops! Tax return already in the mail?
Funny thing: A google search today, 9:45 PDT 19 April shows this story as 20 hours ago. However searching on the subject line in quotes for the past week shows that it was released 17 April by NBC.
My prior post on companies In-Q-Tel invested in that related to spying on evident activity either geo located or subject oriented had an aim at data mining lots of "little fish" individuals aggregated to some statistical blip associated with actionable information.
It would be revealing to somehow apply the same techniques associating individuals at a corporate level to their corporate telling activity related to revealing data points.....whatever they might be...to see what they might be saying, where they might be saying it and where they might be going. Like tail numbers of aircraft going to off shore locations and not for vacation purposes! Tweet blips to geo locaton of big accounting firms. Probably lost however in the volume of 18 April tax stuff but maybe telling if 19 April traffic is an anomaly. From and to and content might be revealing? That of course is not known to everyone, only those with the capability. Those with capability would have had to schedule computer/analyst overtime for the 19th sting if this was a set up on the 18th.
Its an old tactic: Turn on the light at watch what scurries. Set of a bomb outside and then get whoever runs out with second one. That probably hit the key word alarm! Sorry guys, false alarm! Just an analogy.
Watt4Bob Reads Writing (As W4B sees it)
Watt4Bob is a blogger. He writes a blog and comments on World Wide Web sites. (I refuse to call it the Internet which is its physical structure).
The comments at Naked Capitalism enhance and contribute to examination of the subject of comment as much as the original entry. They build a discourse body of thought. Light more than heat.
The original from this morning: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/obama-administration-trying-to-throw-massive-secrecy-veil-over-past-and-future-pilfering-of-fannie-and-freddie.html
I like it when I can use the link in the clear instead of linking it the the text of my blog that says the same thing. It tells where it came from as well as its title.
Among the comments were as couple made by Watt4Bob. Watt4Bob is a commenter that I have not noticed before. Maybe read some comments but never had the interest to follow them to the source and more of what the commenter has to say elsewhere.
I followed Watt4Bob to his links and maybe find his home.
Links: https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=Watt4bob
I followed links like breadcrumbs. Maybe I will find Wat4bob later but I sure like what Watt4Bob says and the places (I will use "he") he says it. All the right places all the spot on things. What I read rings a bell with what I have read before in various places but never followed to an author of the comment.
What I found were comments on sites. Like a soldier taking well aimed shots from cover called Watt4Bob. I found this which he actually wrote at Firedoglake: https://shadowproof.com/2012/09/02/clint-eastwood-the-great-communicator/ It's old. I remember the story but he applies some parsing, yes he is good at English, and comes up with a different view. He is a different view guy. Everybody thought Clint was saying something else?
W4B says: " I know you didn’t ask, but if you had, I’d say Clint Eastwood bravely stood and spoke the truth in front of a crowd of yahoos that he knew could barely understand his message."
Clint is my hero once again!!!! Back then I had to think: "Say it ain't so, Clint!"
W4B makes the case that it ain't so. At least makes a case for the possibility I want to believe.
W4B seems to have a gift for reading writing on the wall instead of shadows on the wall.
Yes, going back to it in time I can see what W4B is reading on the wall too:
He reads:
"But Clint was also talking to the rest of us, and those of us who can deal with the subtlety of our language may have heard something between the lines that I think was important.
I believe that Clint Eastwood warned us that we’re being offered, once again, is the same old shit.
Sure Clint was derisive of the Obama administration, but so am I, and so are many progressive minded people, but Clint also damned the Republican ticket with faint praise;"
My hero again! I want to believe.
The guy that presented Iwo Jima from both sides.
Makes my day!
Thanks W4B. I could spend the rest of the morning reading what I could find you see written on the wall.
W4B;
"I believe that Clint Eastwood, an avowed conservative, delivered a brilliant non-partisan speech to a ultra-partisan crowd, in which he gave us all a lot to think about, even those of us who seem incapable of thinking.
The result, so far has been for most of us to take refuge from the truth in the spin that is being dealt up from every direction, that the man is old and senile, or that he is a bitter old white guy, representative of the crowd he was addressing."
I believed there are such things as good and honest Conservatives, contrary to all the things I read and might like to believe. What Clint said is more in the frame what is said at the Press Corp dinner.
A Mother lode of Watt4Bob stuff here: https://shadowproof.com/author/watt4bob/
What happened to Watt4Bob at Shadowproof after 2014?
"Shadowproof" Excellent choice of descriptive name. Not subject to Shadows on the Wall. Looking at it from a different perspective, which it does, it takes pot shots from the Shadows revealing Shadows on the Wall. Watt4Bob remains in the shadows for now. What W4B reveals is more important for now than the revealer in the shadows.
I might have to seriously re-consider my view of who is controlling whom based on what W4B says here. He now has cred that makes a good case.
https://shadowproof.com/2010/06/06/israel-does-not-control-americas-government/
In the past year a Google search shows that "Watt4Bob" is used to publish comments solely at Naked Capitalism. https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=Watt4bob&tbs=qdr:y&start=20
Previously Watt4Bob comments linked to many different progressive sites. I would guess that continues by the person but under different alias? I'd like to find out what they or it might be.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/200pm-water-cooler-5112016.html#comment-2594693
My intuition that Watt4Bob confirmed! He, or she, is an object oriented high level thinker focused on structural design to define what must be done to solve a problem domain. Then focus on managing the resource methods to implement it through an action process called coding.
High level abstract Object Oriented design first, Object Oriented Programming to serve the design.
Everybody must learn to code? The action of the effort.
Everybody must learn to design the nature and structure of the the attributes of the thing and the methods and messages it is to be invested with to do something. It is a top down process to the bottom level of actually writing code that should be seamless.
Maybe it is like writing a novel. It starts with a plot, characters, relationships that are all supported in the final book by words symbols for things called nouns for things and verbs for actions and some helper words related to all those nouns and verbs. Calling on all those words from a data base in the reader's mind and processes in the mind that put them together to induct the printed structure of an abstract story contained in the book to a conceptually existing equivalent in the readers mind.
It is like architects and brick layers.
Watt4Bob is an architect. Knows something about bricklaying. Maybe did some once. The ones that commented on his comment see the architectural requirement and get the picture.
That is how Watt4Bob sees it?
The comments at Naked Capitalism enhance and contribute to examination of the subject of comment as much as the original entry. They build a discourse body of thought. Light more than heat.
The original from this morning: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/obama-administration-trying-to-throw-massive-secrecy-veil-over-past-and-future-pilfering-of-fannie-and-freddie.html
I like it when I can use the link in the clear instead of linking it the the text of my blog that says the same thing. It tells where it came from as well as its title.
Among the comments were as couple made by Watt4Bob. Watt4Bob is a commenter that I have not noticed before. Maybe read some comments but never had the interest to follow them to the source and more of what the commenter has to say elsewhere.
I followed Watt4Bob to his links and maybe find his home.
Links: https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=Watt4bob
I followed links like breadcrumbs. Maybe I will find Wat4bob later but I sure like what Watt4Bob says and the places (I will use "he") he says it. All the right places all the spot on things. What I read rings a bell with what I have read before in various places but never followed to an author of the comment.
What I found were comments on sites. Like a soldier taking well aimed shots from cover called Watt4Bob. I found this which he actually wrote at Firedoglake: https://shadowproof.com/2012/09/02/clint-eastwood-the-great-communicator/ It's old. I remember the story but he applies some parsing, yes he is good at English, and comes up with a different view. He is a different view guy. Everybody thought Clint was saying something else?
W4B says: " I know you didn’t ask, but if you had, I’d say Clint Eastwood bravely stood and spoke the truth in front of a crowd of yahoos that he knew could barely understand his message."
Clint is my hero once again!!!! Back then I had to think: "Say it ain't so, Clint!"
W4B makes the case that it ain't so. At least makes a case for the possibility I want to believe.
W4B seems to have a gift for reading writing on the wall instead of shadows on the wall.
Yes, going back to it in time I can see what W4B is reading on the wall too:
He reads:
"But Clint was also talking to the rest of us, and those of us who can deal with the subtlety of our language may have heard something between the lines that I think was important.
I believe that Clint Eastwood warned us that we’re being offered, once again, is the same old shit.
Sure Clint was derisive of the Obama administration, but so am I, and so are many progressive minded people, but Clint also damned the Republican ticket with faint praise;"
My hero again! I want to believe.
The guy that presented Iwo Jima from both sides.
Makes my day!
Thanks W4B. I could spend the rest of the morning reading what I could find you see written on the wall.
W4B;
"I believe that Clint Eastwood, an avowed conservative, delivered a brilliant non-partisan speech to a ultra-partisan crowd, in which he gave us all a lot to think about, even those of us who seem incapable of thinking.
The result, so far has been for most of us to take refuge from the truth in the spin that is being dealt up from every direction, that the man is old and senile, or that he is a bitter old white guy, representative of the crowd he was addressing."
I believed there are such things as good and honest Conservatives, contrary to all the things I read and might like to believe. What Clint said is more in the frame what is said at the Press Corp dinner.
A Mother lode of Watt4Bob stuff here: https://shadowproof.com/author/watt4bob/
What happened to Watt4Bob at Shadowproof after 2014?
"Shadowproof" Excellent choice of descriptive name. Not subject to Shadows on the Wall. Looking at it from a different perspective, which it does, it takes pot shots from the Shadows revealing Shadows on the Wall. Watt4Bob remains in the shadows for now. What W4B reveals is more important for now than the revealer in the shadows.
I might have to seriously re-consider my view of who is controlling whom based on what W4B says here. He now has cred that makes a good case.
https://shadowproof.com/2010/06/06/israel-does-not-control-americas-government/
In the past year a Google search shows that "Watt4Bob" is used to publish comments solely at Naked Capitalism. https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=Watt4bob&tbs=qdr:y&start=20
Previously Watt4Bob comments linked to many different progressive sites. I would guess that continues by the person but under different alias? I'd like to find out what they or it might be.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/200pm-water-cooler-5112016.html#comment-2594693
My intuition that Watt4Bob confirmed! He, or she, is an object oriented high level thinker focused on structural design to define what must be done to solve a problem domain. Then focus on managing the resource methods to implement it through an action process called coding.
High level abstract Object Oriented design first, Object Oriented Programming to serve the design.
Everybody must learn to code? The action of the effort.
Everybody must learn to design the nature and structure of the the attributes of the thing and the methods and messages it is to be invested with to do something. It is a top down process to the bottom level of actually writing code that should be seamless.
Maybe it is like writing a novel. It starts with a plot, characters, relationships that are all supported in the final book by words symbols for things called nouns for things and verbs for actions and some helper words related to all those nouns and verbs. Calling on all those words from a data base in the reader's mind and processes in the mind that put them together to induct the printed structure of an abstract story contained in the book to a conceptually existing equivalent in the readers mind.
It is like architects and brick layers.
Watt4Bob is an architect. Knows something about bricklaying. Maybe did some once. The ones that commented on his comment see the architectural requirement and get the picture.
That is how Watt4Bob sees it?
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Why Does Government Fund Party Primary Elections???
Darned good question raised here at this link generating comments.
ScottW kicks it off with this excellent logical comment that draw following comments in the thread.
Info on government paying for conventions
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/Political-Conventions/a/Taxpayers-On-The-Hook-For-Political-Conventions.htm
ScottW kicks it off with this excellent logical comment that draw following comments in the thread.
Stone Money of Yap
I love the intro to this long and complex explanation. The intro about the stone money of Yap.
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large/
A big stone representing money as a medium of exchange sat in the front yard of the owner that could buy something with it. They buy something. Instead of hauling the stone to the yard of the new owner the stone sat in place. It never moves even if spent by the new owner. The only thing that changes is who the current is as a change from old owner to new owner.
The fundamental idea of my digital dollar is that that specific unique dollar with a unit value of one is a fixed digital entity with a unique identity that sits in one place forever. Physically as well as conceptually. A server at Ft. Knox. Like it was a gold coin worth one dollar. Not really but think of it that way. It really is in the cloud. The coin never moves any more than the rock in the front yard. It always knows who "owns" it and the owner has the right to transfer ownership to a new owner of that specific unique dollar.
The aggregate of all single dollars owned by any given owner is expressed in the owner's account with an authorized accounting activity or agency. Not necessarily a bank but always and extended open ledger with an owner's public address (account number) and a private key to access it and spend money in it.
The total sum of all money in public ledger always equals the total sum of single uniquely identified unit dollars with a value of one each that sit forever in one single physical/virtual place.
I have written about the stone money model in past blog entries. It is an elegant way to introduce what money is to answer by explanation that elusive question; "What is money"
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large/
A big stone representing money as a medium of exchange sat in the front yard of the owner that could buy something with it. They buy something. Instead of hauling the stone to the yard of the new owner the stone sat in place. It never moves even if spent by the new owner. The only thing that changes is who the current is as a change from old owner to new owner.
The fundamental idea of my digital dollar is that that specific unique dollar with a unit value of one is a fixed digital entity with a unique identity that sits in one place forever. Physically as well as conceptually. A server at Ft. Knox. Like it was a gold coin worth one dollar. Not really but think of it that way. It really is in the cloud. The coin never moves any more than the rock in the front yard. It always knows who "owns" it and the owner has the right to transfer ownership to a new owner of that specific unique dollar.
The aggregate of all single dollars owned by any given owner is expressed in the owner's account with an authorized accounting activity or agency. Not necessarily a bank but always and extended open ledger with an owner's public address (account number) and a private key to access it and spend money in it.
The total sum of all money in public ledger always equals the total sum of single uniquely identified unit dollars with a value of one each that sit forever in one single physical/virtual place.
I have written about the stone money model in past blog entries. It is an elegant way to introduce what money is to answer by explanation that elusive question; "What is money"
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Textalyzer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/textalyzer-stop-texting-and-driving_us_570fcdbae4b08a2d32b94db6
Excellent. It should become law.
There is a fundamental issue here on the right to privacy and the relationship of meta data information about a person to that person. It is a complex issue. Complexity can be reduced to simplicity with algorithms to process them according to the rules that the program codifies.
Our privacy is a complex thing. In the specific situation of texting while driving there should be an app for that. It should detect speech to text. Anything that requires eyes on the keyboard while driving should be recorded with a time stamp. Cars should be equipped with "accident detectors" things like sudden impact stops, diversion of course, impact and bending of body panels, etc. to also record date time stamps.
Cars should also be equipped with biometric ID sensors to establish who was driving the car at any given time and sensors to determine if the texting device was within the view of the driver.
It would be a complicated app as far as the decision tree structure of objects and processes. Not so hard to do. The law should require it like seatbelts. It should include protection from invading personal privacy but document any violation of texting while driving.
Just a matter of building it to satisfy requirements. Some might say it can't be done. We did put a man on the moon and write a constitution as well as create bank accounts and Netflix.
Implementation of a textalyzer would open a door by establishing the legal parameters of meta data in relationship to privacy. We gave up all kinds of rights to privacy in the name of terrorism that kills American. NSA says that meta data is fair game.
OK. Let's use meta data to protect and save Americans on the road. How many died or were injured in cars this year compared to killed by terrorists in the USA?
http://www.dorcs.org/ Distracted Drivers Risk Casualties
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/29/ny-father-fights-distracted-driving/2370837/
I was in a car last month that was hit by a car running a red light. Distracted by texting? A young woman driver. Immediately after the accident a friend of hers arrived and stopped her car immediately ahead of our parked cars. Were they texting or was it coincidence.
Last year I was hit by a car that was hit by a car merging onto the freeway. Distracted by driving? A young driver in a Firebird caused the accident.
Recently there have been an unusual number of head on collisions in the vicinity of our small town. People are wondering why?
https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=head+on+collisions+bend+oregon&tbs=qdr:m
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/14/technology/texting-while-driving-textalyzer/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/first-came-the-breathalyzer-now-meet-the-roadside-police-textalyzer/
Textalyzer is a test case that opens the door to codification of the rights to personal related meta data.
Probably be a legal case and court decision someday that goes to the Supreme Court.
Excellent. It should become law.
There is a fundamental issue here on the right to privacy and the relationship of meta data information about a person to that person. It is a complex issue. Complexity can be reduced to simplicity with algorithms to process them according to the rules that the program codifies.
Our privacy is a complex thing. In the specific situation of texting while driving there should be an app for that. It should detect speech to text. Anything that requires eyes on the keyboard while driving should be recorded with a time stamp. Cars should be equipped with "accident detectors" things like sudden impact stops, diversion of course, impact and bending of body panels, etc. to also record date time stamps.
Cars should also be equipped with biometric ID sensors to establish who was driving the car at any given time and sensors to determine if the texting device was within the view of the driver.
It would be a complicated app as far as the decision tree structure of objects and processes. Not so hard to do. The law should require it like seatbelts. It should include protection from invading personal privacy but document any violation of texting while driving.
Just a matter of building it to satisfy requirements. Some might say it can't be done. We did put a man on the moon and write a constitution as well as create bank accounts and Netflix.
Implementation of a textalyzer would open a door by establishing the legal parameters of meta data in relationship to privacy. We gave up all kinds of rights to privacy in the name of terrorism that kills American. NSA says that meta data is fair game.
OK. Let's use meta data to protect and save Americans on the road. How many died or were injured in cars this year compared to killed by terrorists in the USA?
http://www.dorcs.org/ Distracted Drivers Risk Casualties
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/29/ny-father-fights-distracted-driving/2370837/
I was in a car last month that was hit by a car running a red light. Distracted by texting? A young woman driver. Immediately after the accident a friend of hers arrived and stopped her car immediately ahead of our parked cars. Were they texting or was it coincidence.
Last year I was hit by a car that was hit by a car merging onto the freeway. Distracted by driving? A young driver in a Firebird caused the accident.
Recently there have been an unusual number of head on collisions in the vicinity of our small town. People are wondering why?
https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=head+on+collisions+bend+oregon&tbs=qdr:m
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/14/technology/texting-while-driving-textalyzer/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/first-came-the-breathalyzer-now-meet-the-roadside-police-textalyzer/
Textalyzer is a test case that opens the door to codification of the rights to personal related meta data.
Probably be a legal case and court decision someday that goes to the Supreme Court.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Mossak Fonseca -- How's Business Today? Where are Their Clients Going
Update: 19 Oct 2016: Not so good today either: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/panama-the-hidden-trillions/
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/13/mossack-fonseca-raided-offices-investigators-panama
Probably not so good today. Not so good lately. Its a business that does business with customers to make money. Much of their business is about money. If customers are fleeing then where are they going? I expect they must go somewhere and hide their tracks in the stampede. The customers will continue to do business as usual....simply with a better business in the same business.
What the MF loses is another's gain?
Couldn't be a better situation for gaining more business by offering a better and more secure product unless it was planned. Was it? Professional Courtesy should dictate that one should not prey upon fellow professionals. Perhaps lament their misfortunes that benefit a competitor but never cause them. Where is the honesty in that.
Never let a good crises go unused. Create one if it does not naturally happen.
What is bad for the MF is good for a competitor service provider.
Thinking bigger it may also be good for a financial services provider that wants to capture a market segment owned by all the entities in the narrow sector of providing the same services as MF. That is even a bigger change in the way business is done.
The customers of MF are also customers of Banks. Banks themselves as business entities establish offshore accounts for themselves. Do banks do this in house or do they always go to entities like MF to get it done.? Maybe banks want a bigger slice of the take? If not officially in house operations then Bank owned (shell) subsidiaries.
How could that all be monitored? Trace where whatever relationship MF had with its client customers to a new relationship chosen by the client?
ICIJ had a year to set up the sting. I hope they created a means to trace where the rats would run to when the lights are turned on. It is called planning ahead.
There is the most obvious relationship between a given country's tax law (politicians too) and registering a business in that country. MF chose the country of registration. Also a bank resident in that country to handle the accounting?
I have the vaguest idea of how all this is structured. That of course is the intent when the structure purpose is to evade taxes and hide the entities involved in the evasion.
Kind of like saying the purpose of crime is to get away with it for profit.
That I can understand.
This is a poignant observation: http://american-idle.newsvine.com/_news/2016/04/14/35396579-panama-papers-is-the-us-giving-mossack-fonseca-a-pass
"Police in Panama, El Salvador and Peru have raided the offices of Mossack Fonseca..............
public records show it has offices in the states of Nevada and Wyoming...... Yet neither state has conducted raids on Mossack Fonseca offices."
Maybe our laws for probable cause. Seems like there should be some, any?.....Enough?
Perhaps in Nevada and Wyoming they know enough not to shoot themselves in the foot to send in the police. Maybe because there are too many clients at the door preventing them from breaking it down?
Maybe Nevada will send in the Swat Team? http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21696997-thinking-investigating-firm-mentioned-panama-papers-read-keys
Business going to Hong Kong? https://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/mossack-fonsecas-hong-kong-offices/
China is getting all the jobs!
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/13/mossack-fonseca-raided-offices-investigators-panama
Probably not so good today. Not so good lately. Its a business that does business with customers to make money. Much of their business is about money. If customers are fleeing then where are they going? I expect they must go somewhere and hide their tracks in the stampede. The customers will continue to do business as usual....simply with a better business in the same business.
What the MF loses is another's gain?
Couldn't be a better situation for gaining more business by offering a better and more secure product unless it was planned. Was it? Professional Courtesy should dictate that one should not prey upon fellow professionals. Perhaps lament their misfortunes that benefit a competitor but never cause them. Where is the honesty in that.
Never let a good crises go unused. Create one if it does not naturally happen.
What is bad for the MF is good for a competitor service provider.
Thinking bigger it may also be good for a financial services provider that wants to capture a market segment owned by all the entities in the narrow sector of providing the same services as MF. That is even a bigger change in the way business is done.
The customers of MF are also customers of Banks. Banks themselves as business entities establish offshore accounts for themselves. Do banks do this in house or do they always go to entities like MF to get it done.? Maybe banks want a bigger slice of the take? If not officially in house operations then Bank owned (shell) subsidiaries.
How could that all be monitored? Trace where whatever relationship MF had with its client customers to a new relationship chosen by the client?
ICIJ had a year to set up the sting. I hope they created a means to trace where the rats would run to when the lights are turned on. It is called planning ahead.
There is the most obvious relationship between a given country's tax law (politicians too) and registering a business in that country. MF chose the country of registration. Also a bank resident in that country to handle the accounting?
I have the vaguest idea of how all this is structured. That of course is the intent when the structure purpose is to evade taxes and hide the entities involved in the evasion.
Kind of like saying the purpose of crime is to get away with it for profit.
That I can understand.
This is a poignant observation: http://american-idle.newsvine.com/_news/2016/04/14/35396579-panama-papers-is-the-us-giving-mossack-fonseca-a-pass
"Police in Panama, El Salvador and Peru have raided the offices of Mossack Fonseca..............
public records show it has offices in the states of Nevada and Wyoming...... Yet neither state has conducted raids on Mossack Fonseca offices."
Maybe our laws for probable cause. Seems like there should be some, any?.....Enough?
Perhaps in Nevada and Wyoming they know enough not to shoot themselves in the foot to send in the police. Maybe because there are too many clients at the door preventing them from breaking it down?
Maybe Nevada will send in the Swat Team? http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21696997-thinking-investigating-firm-mentioned-panama-papers-read-keys
Business going to Hong Kong? https://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/mossack-fonsecas-hong-kong-offices/
China is getting all the jobs!
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
The Beauty of a World Wide Web Data Base
Recent posts in this blog lead to this:
The beauty of a WWW data base is that anyone can data mine it by entry at any point because the WWW relates so many entity nodes. Choose a nexus of common intersection as the crossing point core of paths of any problem domain and it leads to all points as well as relates distant points.
For Example" "1209 North Orange Street"
Nothing like a physical address location to start the exploration of connected conceptual structures!
http://freebeacon.com/issues/delaware-address-home-200000-shell-companies-including-hillary-clintons/
If anyone can't find some leads to follow here then they do not feel the primal instinct of the hunt. The WWW is much more exciting than owning a gun. More satisfying than a photo shoot. Track and identify targets, pull the trigger and hit them with exposing truth of identity an connections. The best first person shooter game ever created. Investigative Journalism.
Come on game makers! Make it the best reality game in town! The best real time detective story!
It was a dark and stormy night on the WWW at 1209 North Orange Street.
Lets all start following the clues and collaborate on this investigation!! The trails lead everywhere. We need some boots on the ground at the geographic locations they lead to.
Tweet clues! Add photos. Take your shots!
Information is a resource.
Knowledge is Power!
Crime scene: https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=1209+North+Orange+Street
Tally Ho!
Good hunting!
This from a banker in the Cayman Islands:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html
“You can have companies in Delaware that have no U.S. bank accounts, no requirements for documentation and no one knows who owns them,” says Anthony B. Travers, chairman of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange and former chairman of that country’s Financial Services Association. “There should be a level playing field and Delaware should have to comply with the same standards as the Caymans.”
Unfair! But an interesting comment: A company in Delaware that has no US Bank account. That is interesting. Elsewhere I read that there is not point in having a shell company if it is not connected to a bank account. Seems true. But what about having a Delaware registered company with no US bank account? The obvious conclusion is that it has a non-US bank account.
What if it was required that all companies registered in Delaware were required to declare a current banking entity or entities to which their funds are deposited? What privacy would that violate? What would that information be worth? Public info? Plus a declaration of percentage of total annual flow of dollars to the deposit activity bank.
Radical?
The beauty of a WWW data base is that anyone can data mine it by entry at any point because the WWW relates so many entity nodes. Choose a nexus of common intersection as the crossing point core of paths of any problem domain and it leads to all points as well as relates distant points.
For Example" "1209 North Orange Street"
Nothing like a physical address location to start the exploration of connected conceptual structures!
http://freebeacon.com/issues/delaware-address-home-200000-shell-companies-including-hillary-clintons/
If anyone can't find some leads to follow here then they do not feel the primal instinct of the hunt. The WWW is much more exciting than owning a gun. More satisfying than a photo shoot. Track and identify targets, pull the trigger and hit them with exposing truth of identity an connections. The best first person shooter game ever created. Investigative Journalism.
Come on game makers! Make it the best reality game in town! The best real time detective story!
It was a dark and stormy night on the WWW at 1209 North Orange Street.
Lets all start following the clues and collaborate on this investigation!! The trails lead everywhere. We need some boots on the ground at the geographic locations they lead to.
Tweet clues! Add photos. Take your shots!
Information is a resource.
Knowledge is Power!
Crime scene: https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=1209+North+Orange+Street
Tally Ho!
Good hunting!
This from a banker in the Cayman Islands:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thrives-as-a-corporate-tax-haven.html
“You can have companies in Delaware that have no U.S. bank accounts, no requirements for documentation and no one knows who owns them,” says Anthony B. Travers, chairman of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange and former chairman of that country’s Financial Services Association. “There should be a level playing field and Delaware should have to comply with the same standards as the Caymans.”
Unfair! But an interesting comment: A company in Delaware that has no US Bank account. That is interesting. Elsewhere I read that there is not point in having a shell company if it is not connected to a bank account. Seems true. But what about having a Delaware registered company with no US bank account? The obvious conclusion is that it has a non-US bank account.
What if it was required that all companies registered in Delaware were required to declare a current banking entity or entities to which their funds are deposited? What privacy would that violate? What would that information be worth? Public info? Plus a declaration of percentage of total annual flow of dollars to the deposit activity bank.
Radical?
The Beauty of the Empircal Approach to Create Knowledge
Illustrating thoughts express in the prior post this is a thing of beauty based on the model of nature and how things got to be the way they are:
https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-global-architecture-of-wealth-extraction-4c0a6b954a14#.tv12lilin
Its structure: Subject Noun/////Process Verbs////Object Noun Result
Does this intuitively ring a bell with The Origin of the Species?
"We intuitively get that the game has been rigged for some time. But most of us don’t know the details of how things came to be this way. As this graphic demonstrates, the architecture of wealth extraction had to be carefully built up in waves of creative destruction over the span of several hundred years. "
Wealth Extraction is a dead end species that deserves extinction. It dies when it can no longer feed on its host. That is empirical!!!!
"The architecture of wealth extraction is a cancer on this planet. It continually corrupts our governments, poisons the natural environment, and pits us against each other in a “race to the bottom” that has only one logical outcome — the wholesale destruction of life-giving capacities for the only home planet we’ll ever have."
Empirical things are written on the wall. Look.....see....think.....
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast..
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
Change the program. Deal death by millions Crowed Sourced cuts to the Beast that has taken on an Identity for all to see on the WWW with exposure of true nature and connections on the World Wide Web for us all to research and expand the true picture of not just how it got to be the way it is but where it is going to go in the future as a course not of its design history but our future dictates.
Nature must change by evolution. Conceptual structures can change by revolution due to failure in evolution to improve the nature and function of a social structure thing. Information Age is a tool to hasten evolution to a revolutionary speed without the associated destruction of revolutionary war?
https://medium.com/@joe_brewer/the-global-architecture-of-wealth-extraction-4c0a6b954a14#.tv12lilin
Its structure: Subject Noun/////Process Verbs////Object Noun Result
Does this intuitively ring a bell with The Origin of the Species?
"We intuitively get that the game has been rigged for some time. But most of us don’t know the details of how things came to be this way. As this graphic demonstrates, the architecture of wealth extraction had to be carefully built up in waves of creative destruction over the span of several hundred years. "
Wealth Extraction is a dead end species that deserves extinction. It dies when it can no longer feed on its host. That is empirical!!!!
"The architecture of wealth extraction is a cancer on this planet. It continually corrupts our governments, poisons the natural environment, and pits us against each other in a “race to the bottom” that has only one logical outcome — the wholesale destruction of life-giving capacities for the only home planet we’ll ever have."
Empirical things are written on the wall. Look.....see....think.....
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast..
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
Change the program. Deal death by millions Crowed Sourced cuts to the Beast that has taken on an Identity for all to see on the WWW with exposure of true nature and connections on the World Wide Web for us all to research and expand the true picture of not just how it got to be the way it is but where it is going to go in the future as a course not of its design history but our future dictates.
Nature must change by evolution. Conceptual structures can change by revolution due to failure in evolution to improve the nature and function of a social structure thing. Information Age is a tool to hasten evolution to a revolutionary speed without the associated destruction of revolutionary war?
Panama Papers and Lawyers
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/business/dealbook/panama-papers-show-how-lawyers-can-turn-a-blind-eye.html
"Some lawyers are willing to go right up to the line of legality. Has the legal profession lost its moral compass?"
A profound question. Easily answered by a quick empirical look at it.
Looking at this whole thing like Darwin looking at the Species and doing empirical research on what he observed to create a structural understanding on the nature of relationships and conclude what actions may implement the emergence of those relationships. If that is not the way he looked at things, like I think it is, then that is my way of looking at things.
In general I do not like to learn the established doctrine of how conceptual social systems work. I would rather do my own zero based analysis based on logic and reason. Aided of course by access to information I seek on the World Wide Web (which is not the same as the Internet if anyone simply looks at what each one is....the Internet is a physical structure...the WWW is the conceptual structure of information on networked physical devices capable of information communication and storage. It is as different as my brain and what is on my mind.
Side bar: There, I figured out the Internet and WWW just by looking at it and conclude that what people call the Internet is really the WWW. If they looked at it they would see that too. It is a basic misconception based maybe on the simple reason that the chicken or the egg came first. Of course the physical thing came first that enabled the more important conceptual thing. So call the primary conceptual thing it created by the name of the physical thing that gave it birth. As if my surname was my primary name and my given name a secondary but actually more important identification of who I am not what I derived from.
Returning to the point:
Lawyers are key players in offshore accounts. However, their exact role is as murky, by intention as the entire structure and function of off shore accounts. They are facilitators but how do they facilitate? What is their relationship to banks, corporations and clients.
It would appear that the position of the lawyer may be "in house" as an employee of a bank or corporation or out house as an independent law firm hired by anyone seeking to create an off shore account.
Fascinating to look at lawyers like they were some kind of species and figure out just exactly what made them that way and why the do the things they do.
There are many answers to that question. Most are jokes that deliver the truth about a predatory species. Most dangerous in packs and extremely dangerous in sheep's clothing.
Darwin probably had some good guesses about predators and food chain.
I look at money in this blog to figure it. Lawyers are equally elusive. Maybe I will look closer at lawyers in the problem domain of Off Shore Accounts. When the names are published as to who is related to off shore accounts then how do I find the lawyers that set these accounts up. Easy in the case of the lawyer being the only name associated with the account. Why would they do that when they are only representing a client? Because they are so well protected by the law that they have privileged privacy sanctuary in a client/lawyer relationship? Because they own the legal system to a great extent just like bankers own the monetary system?
This is where I refer to the WWW to draw the picture based on empirical observation of the relationships revealed by searching. As in a previous blog entry, that is the Information Age tool that ties things together. Data mining is an Information Tool used by computers programmed by algorithms.
Crowd Sourcing with millions of "bot" people looking at mass data is another way of distilling mass data to usable, actionable knowledge.
Make the Panama Papers public information.
Praise and glory to the leakers that make it so....
No honest people were injured in the making of this movie...........
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaoil-lawyer-anti-corruption-report_us_57043a07e4b0a506064d7f96?oba10pb9
"A prominent Washington lawyer who wrote a report finding no significant concerns of corrupt practices at Unaoil, the company now at the center of a massive bribery scandal, later provided legal services to Unaoil itself, according to internal emails obtained by The Huffington Post and Fairfax Media."
"Some lawyers are willing to go right up to the line of legality. Has the legal profession lost its moral compass?"
A profound question. Easily answered by a quick empirical look at it.
Looking at this whole thing like Darwin looking at the Species and doing empirical research on what he observed to create a structural understanding on the nature of relationships and conclude what actions may implement the emergence of those relationships. If that is not the way he looked at things, like I think it is, then that is my way of looking at things.
In general I do not like to learn the established doctrine of how conceptual social systems work. I would rather do my own zero based analysis based on logic and reason. Aided of course by access to information I seek on the World Wide Web (which is not the same as the Internet if anyone simply looks at what each one is....the Internet is a physical structure...the WWW is the conceptual structure of information on networked physical devices capable of information communication and storage. It is as different as my brain and what is on my mind.
Side bar: There, I figured out the Internet and WWW just by looking at it and conclude that what people call the Internet is really the WWW. If they looked at it they would see that too. It is a basic misconception based maybe on the simple reason that the chicken or the egg came first. Of course the physical thing came first that enabled the more important conceptual thing. So call the primary conceptual thing it created by the name of the physical thing that gave it birth. As if my surname was my primary name and my given name a secondary but actually more important identification of who I am not what I derived from.
Returning to the point:
Lawyers are key players in offshore accounts. However, their exact role is as murky, by intention as the entire structure and function of off shore accounts. They are facilitators but how do they facilitate? What is their relationship to banks, corporations and clients.
It would appear that the position of the lawyer may be "in house" as an employee of a bank or corporation or out house as an independent law firm hired by anyone seeking to create an off shore account.
Fascinating to look at lawyers like they were some kind of species and figure out just exactly what made them that way and why the do the things they do.
There are many answers to that question. Most are jokes that deliver the truth about a predatory species. Most dangerous in packs and extremely dangerous in sheep's clothing.
Darwin probably had some good guesses about predators and food chain.
I look at money in this blog to figure it. Lawyers are equally elusive. Maybe I will look closer at lawyers in the problem domain of Off Shore Accounts. When the names are published as to who is related to off shore accounts then how do I find the lawyers that set these accounts up. Easy in the case of the lawyer being the only name associated with the account. Why would they do that when they are only representing a client? Because they are so well protected by the law that they have privileged privacy sanctuary in a client/lawyer relationship? Because they own the legal system to a great extent just like bankers own the monetary system?
This is where I refer to the WWW to draw the picture based on empirical observation of the relationships revealed by searching. As in a previous blog entry, that is the Information Age tool that ties things together. Data mining is an Information Tool used by computers programmed by algorithms.
Crowd Sourcing with millions of "bot" people looking at mass data is another way of distilling mass data to usable, actionable knowledge.
Make the Panama Papers public information.
Praise and glory to the leakers that make it so....
No honest people were injured in the making of this movie...........
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaoil-lawyer-anti-corruption-report_us_57043a07e4b0a506064d7f96?oba10pb9
"A prominent Washington lawyer who wrote a report finding no significant concerns of corrupt practices at Unaoil, the company now at the center of a massive bribery scandal, later provided legal services to Unaoil itself, according to internal emails obtained by The Huffington Post and Fairfax Media."
Monday, April 11, 2016
National ID System
National biometric Identification of all citizens in a nation.
It is happening elsewhere. India for example.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-10/india-s-audacious-plan-to-bring-digital-banking-to-1-2-billion-people
National ID is riding in on the wings of a digital cashless monetary system which requires that every user of the monetary system is registered and identified. Everybody uses money. If the only money that can be used is digital every citizen must be registered to use it.
"So far, India's attempt to assign every citizen a unique 12-digit number associated with a person's unique iris, fingerprint or facial features, is succeeding—just last week, Aadhaar reached its milestone of registering 1 billion people. With more than 80 percent of Indians enrolled, it gives the payments system a solid base to build on."
Yes, but.....don't know about India but business is a citizen my friend in the USA.
India is aiming at a universal citizen ID that can be used for purposes other than digital cash but the rest of the users of digital cash are businesses. Universal biometric level ID should be, must be also applied to business as well. All business entities dealing in digital currency, which is the only currency of a country, must also be equally identified to an equivelent "biometric level". The link does not speak to that. Maybe it is happening but the subject of a different story?
It is exactly the model for the USA to follow. Biometric ID of every citizen necessary for any currency transaction in a system where the only currency is digital. "Citizen including an business entity. Application of the universal system goes beyond currency. It becomes a replacement for telephone numbers for individuals. SSN numbers. Employee ID numbers. Medical records, Census etc. At the business level it becomes the universal Federal ID. Or if administered by the state must comply with minimum Federal data requirement mandates.
Privacy? A non issue. Everyone remains secure in their papers but like our names our National ID is public. Linking info and the nature of the info is a matter of privacy. Privacy is always subordinate to a legal need to know and who may know and tests of probable cause.
It is happening elsewhere. India for example.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-10/india-s-audacious-plan-to-bring-digital-banking-to-1-2-billion-people
National ID is riding in on the wings of a digital cashless monetary system which requires that every user of the monetary system is registered and identified. Everybody uses money. If the only money that can be used is digital every citizen must be registered to use it.
"So far, India's attempt to assign every citizen a unique 12-digit number associated with a person's unique iris, fingerprint or facial features, is succeeding—just last week, Aadhaar reached its milestone of registering 1 billion people. With more than 80 percent of Indians enrolled, it gives the payments system a solid base to build on."
Yes, but.....don't know about India but business is a citizen my friend in the USA.
India is aiming at a universal citizen ID that can be used for purposes other than digital cash but the rest of the users of digital cash are businesses. Universal biometric level ID should be, must be also applied to business as well. All business entities dealing in digital currency, which is the only currency of a country, must also be equally identified to an equivelent "biometric level". The link does not speak to that. Maybe it is happening but the subject of a different story?
It is exactly the model for the USA to follow. Biometric ID of every citizen necessary for any currency transaction in a system where the only currency is digital. "Citizen including an business entity. Application of the universal system goes beyond currency. It becomes a replacement for telephone numbers for individuals. SSN numbers. Employee ID numbers. Medical records, Census etc. At the business level it becomes the universal Federal ID. Or if administered by the state must comply with minimum Federal data requirement mandates.
Privacy? A non issue. Everyone remains secure in their papers but like our names our National ID is public. Linking info and the nature of the info is a matter of privacy. Privacy is always subordinate to a legal need to know and who may know and tests of probable cause.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Elizabeth Warren takes Leonard Chanin to the Woodshed for a Well Deserved Beating
This makes my day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=squ2SAhziPo
I especially enjoy here uninterrupted statement of facts setting up the concluding questions.
Leonard Chanin has got to be the slimiest thing this side of a worm. In China he would just be executed.
How can a scum sucking slime ball like this continue to exist? In the financial sector that is a positive attribute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=squ2SAhziPo
I especially enjoy here uninterrupted statement of facts setting up the concluding questions.
Leonard Chanin has got to be the slimiest thing this side of a worm. In China he would just be executed.
How can a scum sucking slime ball like this continue to exist? In the financial sector that is a positive attribute.
Fear and Terror! The Cashless Society is Coming!
Fear! Terror! Be very afraid! The Cashless Society is coming.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/cashless-society/477411/
Too late. The horse has already left the barn!
3% of US currency in the USA is in the form of paper cash. Another 3% of all US currency is abroad.
As far as cash currency transactions go they are a larger percent of all transactions in comparing cash currency to digital currency which is probably mostly credit card transactions. Cash currency is probably generally for small day to day amounts. Larger cash currency transactions are suspect but untraceable until they are deposited but that is what money laundering is for.
Here is the news about the horse and the barn: Money is already information that will inform on you!! When the cashless system is poorly constructed in terms of protection then it is easily entered by those skilled at doing it to obtain information. If it is a well constructed system then only the privileged few have access to it.
The information sword cuts both ways.
Information for me but not for thee is a business model based on asymmetry of information and probably a related more hazard on the part of those maintaining it. By design or default.
The link is a hit piece designed by media for a purpose. Anything shouting Fear! Terror! is subject to suspicion regarding the agenda of the shouter. A public service to make us aware of a fire? A self serving shout by the seller of fire hoses?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/cashless-society/477411/
Too late. The horse has already left the barn!
3% of US currency in the USA is in the form of paper cash. Another 3% of all US currency is abroad.
As far as cash currency transactions go they are a larger percent of all transactions in comparing cash currency to digital currency which is probably mostly credit card transactions. Cash currency is probably generally for small day to day amounts. Larger cash currency transactions are suspect but untraceable until they are deposited but that is what money laundering is for.
Here is the news about the horse and the barn: Money is already information that will inform on you!! When the cashless system is poorly constructed in terms of protection then it is easily entered by those skilled at doing it to obtain information. If it is a well constructed system then only the privileged few have access to it.
The information sword cuts both ways.
Information for me but not for thee is a business model based on asymmetry of information and probably a related more hazard on the part of those maintaining it. By design or default.
The link is a hit piece designed by media for a purpose. Anything shouting Fear! Terror! is subject to suspicion regarding the agenda of the shouter. A public service to make us aware of a fire? A self serving shout by the seller of fire hoses?
Panama Papers--Money and Wealth
Thom Hartman and Richard Wolf discuss the Panama Papers and money and wealth at this site:
http://www.zillow.com/or/expensive-homes/
I admire both and learn from them. This was a double header but I am extremely disappointed.
They spoke of money and wealth as if they were one in the same thing. That is ambiguous when clarity of terms is required. They should have used the terms currency and investments (assets expressed in money value). Money value is a market dependent term.
Wealth can be holdings of currency in an account. Holdings exclusive of asset money value in an account. It can also be exclusively assets exclusive of any currency in the account. It can be any mixture of both. That mixture is wealth. Cash plus Assets. Cash is also an asset.
The point is that both assets and cash currency in an account is the money value of the account. They are two different things but are often combined to simply calling them "Money".
Thom and Richard know that and made serious mistakes in conflating the two. It only leads to public misunderstanding. There is enough of that already about Money. They talked about the Trillions of dollars in offshore accounts. The number can only be approximated by academic educated guesses that I have recently read and vary widely. Those "Trillions of Dollars" are not cash but Richard at one point said or implies that it reduces the money supply "there is no money" referring to the deficit problem and need for austerity. What he means is that wealth (currency/assets money value) is hidden from taxation. Generally currency transactions resulting in profits are taxed. Wealth in terms of assets like a house can be taxed but I don't think that asset value in an account is often taxed like that. It is taxed when assets are sold for a gain.
Banks are no longer exclusively in the Currency business. They are also in the Asset Management business. My broker is Morgan Stanley. I do cash transactions in the account as well as asset management. What kind of business is an off-shore Bank doing? Both I suppose. But where does the bank profit come from? Transactions but there are probably "Management Fees" as well unrelated to transactions.
Mossock Fonseca is a legal firm. Not a Bank by any stretch of the term?? Not involved in any bank accounting for their customer? Its role in the game is murky, of course. Any company they create for a customer has to have a banking account. Who takes the company documentation to a bank to open a banking account for the business? The customer of Mossock Fonseca or Mossock Fonseca on behalf of the customer. From reading the press it appears that Mossock Fonseca makes the choice on where geographically to do business with a bank.
A shell company identity does not have to relate to a bank to maintain the account but something I read about how easy it is to establish one said "whats the point" if there is not an associated banking account. Banking can mean both Cash and Non-Cash assets I would think. Customer choice of what is to be managed. However I can't imagine that any bank account service would not include cash management as well as non-Cash management? Possible but not likely?
It is a shell game so I will not feel badly about my lack of ability to understand it all.
The entire offshore account domain is confusing. Thom and Richard only added confusion when they could have really clarified the problem. That clarification however would have had to employ terms and knowledge of the general relationships of money wealth and economics that are not know nor easily understood by the average person....unfortunately.
That lack of understanding is what makes the wealthy.....wealthy!
I really don't know if the core problem with off shore accounts is that they shelter Currency or non-Currency assets or both. Obviously "Money Laundering" applies by reason to Currency transactions. At the upper strata of extreme wealth I would think that non-currency asset trading might make any given asset de-facto currency in terms of medium of exchange, for whatever reason the exchange involves.
"Money Lundering"? That is another case of ambiguity! It certainly means "Currency Laundering" Accuracy in the definition of terms is absolutely necessary to understand the problem. That is both a bug and a feature in the system that uses the Shell Game as a business model.
200,000 offshore companies have been set up by the Mossack Fonseca law firm.
This link lists the top ten banks requesting off shore companies for their clients. "More than 500 banks, their subsidiaries and branches registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with Mossack Fonseca, according to ICIJ’s analysis. HSBC and its affiliates created more than 2,300 in total."
How does this off shore business work? Does the client ask their bank to set it all up or does the client go directly to a law firm to have one set up for a company and then go to a bank with the company documentation from some given country and ask for an account in that company identity? An off shore company identity without any bank account means nothing beyond using it in a flim flam to make anyone think the company is legit. That however is another matter. Companies without a bank account are non functional as far as money transactions are concerned but may function as far as nominal ownership of other companies is of value to some purpose.
Who goes to whom to set this all up? Client to Bank then Bank to Law Firm? Client to Law Firm that goes to a Bank? In either case there seems to be a continuing relationship between Client/Bank/LawFirm. In some cases is a Bank the direct sole Client of the LawFirm? The Bank is a business like any other Business.
It is a shell game meant to be confusing.
Again I will use as I have used often in the past in this blog: "Who's on First?"
"What a tangled web we weave......... " This whole thing is getting so tangled up in a web of its own design that the web they have woven will be the device of their own demise. That will happen because Information Age Technology is all about establishment and definition of entity relationships to extract organized knowledge.
It is another case of my favorite method of skinning a cat. Induce the cat to skin itself. Hoist itself on it own petard. Hang itself with its own rope. All that is necessary is to establish relationships among thing so that the object of the problem is its own recursive target of itself.
The ultimate relationship is recursion. It is a unity relationship a step above binary us and them. Good and Bad. Call it recursive Bad. Recursive Bad dies. Recursive Good lasts forever.
Good wins in the end.
The Information Age grinds and refines and relates data exceedingly fine to the granular level. Everything is rateable in the search of the relational data base. Give me a relational data base and I will move the earth.
This is of course taken out of context of the full original text that the link http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/panamapapers-offshore-funds-on-the-run-with-nowhere-to-go.html refers to. However it stands alone in conflating Currency and Value of Non-currency assets...as far a I can tel from reading it. Deposits are Currency. Not stocks or bonds or similar financial paper called investment portfolios
"The largest US banks do not really want to take more deposits, or even do the cursory know-your-customer due diligence work to open new special purpose accounts for old customers. Americans I know with legitimately acquired nine- or ten-figure investment portfolios now have to scrounge around to open accounts in midsize US banks.
US banks deal in both retail and wholesale levels. Currency at the Retail, investments on the Wholesale. For example, my Morgan Stanley account handles my currency transactions as well as my stock investments. They do not hold currency for paying my bills but, I believe, hold money market accounts for my "Cash on Hand". A money market account is "near money" I perceive currency as real money. Hard money. My base money.
Maybe the problem is that they are scrounging around to open accounts in midsized banks when they should be going to the big crooks that will welcome their portfolios with open arms. What is in those portfolios anyhow?
The link goes on to state the obvious:
He also depicts banks as winding up being beneficiaries, which contradicts his message that they regard onshored money as more hassle (which means cost) that its worth:
http://www.zillow.com/or/expensive-homes/
I admire both and learn from them. This was a double header but I am extremely disappointed.
They spoke of money and wealth as if they were one in the same thing. That is ambiguous when clarity of terms is required. They should have used the terms currency and investments (assets expressed in money value). Money value is a market dependent term.
Wealth can be holdings of currency in an account. Holdings exclusive of asset money value in an account. It can also be exclusively assets exclusive of any currency in the account. It can be any mixture of both. That mixture is wealth. Cash plus Assets. Cash is also an asset.
The point is that both assets and cash currency in an account is the money value of the account. They are two different things but are often combined to simply calling them "Money".
Thom and Richard know that and made serious mistakes in conflating the two. It only leads to public misunderstanding. There is enough of that already about Money. They talked about the Trillions of dollars in offshore accounts. The number can only be approximated by academic educated guesses that I have recently read and vary widely. Those "Trillions of Dollars" are not cash but Richard at one point said or implies that it reduces the money supply "there is no money" referring to the deficit problem and need for austerity. What he means is that wealth (currency/assets money value) is hidden from taxation. Generally currency transactions resulting in profits are taxed. Wealth in terms of assets like a house can be taxed but I don't think that asset value in an account is often taxed like that. It is taxed when assets are sold for a gain.
Banks are no longer exclusively in the Currency business. They are also in the Asset Management business. My broker is Morgan Stanley. I do cash transactions in the account as well as asset management. What kind of business is an off-shore Bank doing? Both I suppose. But where does the bank profit come from? Transactions but there are probably "Management Fees" as well unrelated to transactions.
Mossock Fonseca is a legal firm. Not a Bank by any stretch of the term?? Not involved in any bank accounting for their customer? Its role in the game is murky, of course. Any company they create for a customer has to have a banking account. Who takes the company documentation to a bank to open a banking account for the business? The customer of Mossock Fonseca or Mossock Fonseca on behalf of the customer. From reading the press it appears that Mossock Fonseca makes the choice on where geographically to do business with a bank.
A shell company identity does not have to relate to a bank to maintain the account but something I read about how easy it is to establish one said "whats the point" if there is not an associated banking account. Banking can mean both Cash and Non-Cash assets I would think. Customer choice of what is to be managed. However I can't imagine that any bank account service would not include cash management as well as non-Cash management? Possible but not likely?
It is a shell game so I will not feel badly about my lack of ability to understand it all.
The entire offshore account domain is confusing. Thom and Richard only added confusion when they could have really clarified the problem. That clarification however would have had to employ terms and knowledge of the general relationships of money wealth and economics that are not know nor easily understood by the average person....unfortunately.
That lack of understanding is what makes the wealthy.....wealthy!
I really don't know if the core problem with off shore accounts is that they shelter Currency or non-Currency assets or both. Obviously "Money Laundering" applies by reason to Currency transactions. At the upper strata of extreme wealth I would think that non-currency asset trading might make any given asset de-facto currency in terms of medium of exchange, for whatever reason the exchange involves.
"Money Lundering"? That is another case of ambiguity! It certainly means "Currency Laundering" Accuracy in the definition of terms is absolutely necessary to understand the problem. That is both a bug and a feature in the system that uses the Shell Game as a business model.
200,000 offshore companies have been set up by the Mossack Fonseca law firm.
This link lists the top ten banks requesting off shore companies for their clients. "More than 500 banks, their subsidiaries and branches registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with Mossack Fonseca, according to ICIJ’s analysis. HSBC and its affiliates created more than 2,300 in total."
How does this off shore business work? Does the client ask their bank to set it all up or does the client go directly to a law firm to have one set up for a company and then go to a bank with the company documentation from some given country and ask for an account in that company identity? An off shore company identity without any bank account means nothing beyond using it in a flim flam to make anyone think the company is legit. That however is another matter. Companies without a bank account are non functional as far as money transactions are concerned but may function as far as nominal ownership of other companies is of value to some purpose.
Who goes to whom to set this all up? Client to Bank then Bank to Law Firm? Client to Law Firm that goes to a Bank? In either case there seems to be a continuing relationship between Client/Bank/LawFirm. In some cases is a Bank the direct sole Client of the LawFirm? The Bank is a business like any other Business.
It is a shell game meant to be confusing.
Again I will use as I have used often in the past in this blog: "Who's on First?"
"What a tangled web we weave......... " This whole thing is getting so tangled up in a web of its own design that the web they have woven will be the device of their own demise. That will happen because Information Age Technology is all about establishment and definition of entity relationships to extract organized knowledge.
It is another case of my favorite method of skinning a cat. Induce the cat to skin itself. Hoist itself on it own petard. Hang itself with its own rope. All that is necessary is to establish relationships among thing so that the object of the problem is its own recursive target of itself.
The ultimate relationship is recursion. It is a unity relationship a step above binary us and them. Good and Bad. Call it recursive Bad. Recursive Bad dies. Recursive Good lasts forever.
Good wins in the end.
The Information Age grinds and refines and relates data exceedingly fine to the granular level. Everything is rateable in the search of the relational data base. Give me a relational data base and I will move the earth.
This is of course taken out of context of the full original text that the link http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/panamapapers-offshore-funds-on-the-run-with-nowhere-to-go.html refers to. However it stands alone in conflating Currency and Value of Non-currency assets...as far a I can tel from reading it. Deposits are Currency. Not stocks or bonds or similar financial paper called investment portfolios
"The largest US banks do not really want to take more deposits, or even do the cursory know-your-customer due diligence work to open new special purpose accounts for old customers. Americans I know with legitimately acquired nine- or ten-figure investment portfolios now have to scrounge around to open accounts in midsize US banks.
US banks deal in both retail and wholesale levels. Currency at the Retail, investments on the Wholesale. For example, my Morgan Stanley account handles my currency transactions as well as my stock investments. They do not hold currency for paying my bills but, I believe, hold money market accounts for my "Cash on Hand". A money market account is "near money" I perceive currency as real money. Hard money. My base money.
Maybe the problem is that they are scrounging around to open accounts in midsized banks when they should be going to the big crooks that will welcome their portfolios with open arms. What is in those portfolios anyhow?
The link goes on to state the obvious:
He also depicts banks as winding up being beneficiaries, which contradicts his message that they regard onshored money as more hassle (which means cost) that its worth:
"This will, within the next two years or so, lead to a one-time transfer from the global rich to the staff and owners of US financial institutions. But that will be followed by a long drought for new business, as the global wealth that did not move quickly enough gets slotted into endless holding patterns in the mid-Atlantic or mid-Pacific."Banksters are licking their chops. The next big thing to plunder are the rich. They have plundered everything lower on the food chain.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Following Money Through Following Transactions
The prior blog entry proposed a Monetary System Structure Model where Digital Currency itself could be traced by viewing it on the basis of Digital Currency being the Fixed Record and the owning Account being variable.
Current tracing is done exclusively based on the Account being the fixed record and Digital Currency expressed as an On Hand Balance related to Transactions between Accounts.
The prior entry concluded with the idea that Transactions could be viewed as a fixed record related to variable Accounts and variable Single Uniquely Identified Units of Currency Value.
Creating the ability to view Transactions as a fixed record and the analyze its relationship to variable Currency and Account entities is an emerging thing riding into the established system on the back of the Blockchain currency system based on the validity of proving Transactions therefore making Transactions as good as money.....or the Currency of the Monetary System.
What if we could select any given transaction in the blockchain digital monetary system and search on this question: Tell me every Account and Unit of Digital Currency to which this transaction is related to in the historical blockchain history of all Accounts and All Currency Units?
The result would be a lot of data!
What management or investigative data would be possible?
Subject to privacy and right/need to know of course.
Up pops a new object entity player in the Digital Monetary System Design: Privacy. A new entity subject to blockchain management and unique identification at the entity ownership granular level of privacy. The ultimate granular level of Privacy of Digital Currency ownership is a Human Being. Call that entity the Beneficial Owner. Money means nothing if it is not ultimately owned and used by a Human Being as a medium of exchange that benefits them?
Applying this monetary system model to the Panama Papers would send the cockroaches scurrying for cover with no place to hide!
It would certainly help to clean our own house: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/06/beyond-panama-what-world-really-needs-delawarepapers
"Activists are fighting for change. Global Witness and other groups fighting tax evasion advocate for "The Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act (H.R. 4450 and S. 2489)," which would "require all American companies, with a number of exceptions, to disclose the real people who own or control them when they are formed, and to keep that information updated."
In the bigger picture the structure model of a new Monetary System has already been established in hindsight by the NSA. Owners and receivers of communication transactions. All having unique identity attributes as well as associated time and place attributes and value of exchange medium.
It is just application of "Total Information All The Time" enabled by technology.
Perhaps the lowest common denominator is that it all boils down to focus on the individual human being. Both communications and money are unique social conceptual structures created by human beings. All traceable to the individual level in a top down breakdown of any aggregate level of people to their individually unique interaction with the communication system and value of content or the money system and value of ownership and exchanges of money and communication content.
Is this model true of other uniquely human social structure models?
Religion?
Freedom?
Certain religions is premised on an all knowing entity. How does that entity organize their view and what supreme ability does it have to take any chosen view for a closer look. What are the constants and variables can be manipulated to serve any given view of humans in that system?
In the beginning humans wanted the power of that supreme view.
We seem to be getting it as we create it. The power of that view is owned by a few of us. Privacy for me but not for thee.....
Current tracing is done exclusively based on the Account being the fixed record and Digital Currency expressed as an On Hand Balance related to Transactions between Accounts.
The prior entry concluded with the idea that Transactions could be viewed as a fixed record related to variable Accounts and variable Single Uniquely Identified Units of Currency Value.
Creating the ability to view Transactions as a fixed record and the analyze its relationship to variable Currency and Account entities is an emerging thing riding into the established system on the back of the Blockchain currency system based on the validity of proving Transactions therefore making Transactions as good as money.....or the Currency of the Monetary System.
What if we could select any given transaction in the blockchain digital monetary system and search on this question: Tell me every Account and Unit of Digital Currency to which this transaction is related to in the historical blockchain history of all Accounts and All Currency Units?
The result would be a lot of data!
What management or investigative data would be possible?
Subject to privacy and right/need to know of course.
Up pops a new object entity player in the Digital Monetary System Design: Privacy. A new entity subject to blockchain management and unique identification at the entity ownership granular level of privacy. The ultimate granular level of Privacy of Digital Currency ownership is a Human Being. Call that entity the Beneficial Owner. Money means nothing if it is not ultimately owned and used by a Human Being as a medium of exchange that benefits them?
Applying this monetary system model to the Panama Papers would send the cockroaches scurrying for cover with no place to hide!
It would certainly help to clean our own house: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/06/beyond-panama-what-world-really-needs-delawarepapers
"Activists are fighting for change. Global Witness and other groups fighting tax evasion advocate for "The Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act (H.R. 4450 and S. 2489)," which would "require all American companies, with a number of exceptions, to disclose the real people who own or control them when they are formed, and to keep that information updated."
In the bigger picture the structure model of a new Monetary System has already been established in hindsight by the NSA. Owners and receivers of communication transactions. All having unique identity attributes as well as associated time and place attributes and value of exchange medium.
It is just application of "Total Information All The Time" enabled by technology.
Perhaps the lowest common denominator is that it all boils down to focus on the individual human being. Both communications and money are unique social conceptual structures created by human beings. All traceable to the individual level in a top down breakdown of any aggregate level of people to their individually unique interaction with the communication system and value of content or the money system and value of ownership and exchanges of money and communication content.
Is this model true of other uniquely human social structure models?
Religion?
Freedom?
Certain religions is premised on an all knowing entity. How does that entity organize their view and what supreme ability does it have to take any chosen view for a closer look. What are the constants and variables can be manipulated to serve any given view of humans in that system?
In the beginning humans wanted the power of that supreme view.
We seem to be getting it as we create it. The power of that view is owned by a few of us. Privacy for me but not for thee.....
Follow the Money or Follow the Account Why Not Both?
The previous post presented the contention that what is called "Following the Money" is more accurately following the Accounts that money passes through. Accounts are the primary entity and each account is a fixed record that is established with a unique identifier for its period of existence. Every account is maintained by and Accounting Activity. That activity is a bank in the Federal Reserve System or Central Bank of any specific country.
Customer accounts are a uniquely identified fixed record Parent Object each with multiple entity data elements Children Objects. Each of those Children Objects change to various degrees of rapidity. The Account itself can change. It can either created into existence or it can be extinguished. On Hand Balance in the Account is a variable number of money value units. That amount can change with variable rapidity.
The related source of change to any Account On Hand Balance has an identity. Normally another different uniquely identified Account. Changes in On Hand Balance from Account to Account are what are followed in tracing the source Account in an audit trail back to the original source. That source is a money unit of value either created out of nothing by a bank loan into a customer account
OR:
Deposit of cash by customer into their Account.
In either case that is where Following the Account trail in an audit trail ends. Other means must then be used to trace currency money unrelated to an account. Currency is tracking is difficult due to its anonymous nature. Currency is unrelated to any direct identifier as to ownership unlike Accounts ownership of the On Hand Value.
That is the situation when Account is the fixed record and the On Hand Balance of any given Account is a Child Object of that Account with a variable rate of change in unit value.
Restructure the Monetary System model with this Paradigm Shift:
Create a model where Digital Currency can be selected and viewed as a fixed record and the Account to which the Digital Currency is related is variable. Make currency a fixed unchanging object and Account Ownership variable.
This adds a new way of audit tracing in the digital monetary system while retaining the established way of tracing based on viewing Account as the fixed record and digital currency in the account being the variable related by transactions to all past fixed Account records.
This system structure design requires that each and every single basic granular unit of digital currency value be uniquely identified in its own universe of all Digital Currency. Each unit of currency is the Parent Object of an Owning Account Child Object.
This establishes the simple ability to change which of either Account or Currency Unit is the Parent or Child object in the relationship. Making the Unit of Currency the Parent establishes a true ability to "Follow the Money" by actually following the changes in its relationship of a fixed Unit of Currency record to a variable Account Object.
A whole new world of Accounting methods and Accountability Information opens up with this change in Monetary System Design.
This search question becomes possible: Tell me every past specific Account that ever owned this specific unit of Digital Currency with a fixed value of One Dollar. (Small change system dealing with less than One Dollar generally not worth tracing and subject to its own decimal related conceptual design structure).
System rule: Every Account has a identified Owner. Owners are uniquely identified by their required attributes. One of those is a link to a Beneficial Owner that is a Human Being or aggregates of Human Beings authorized to spend money from the account thru secure state of the art biometric identification.
Following the Money where Digital Currency is the fixed record and Account is the variable record is really following the Money! Not following it indirectly by its association to an account where Account is the fixed record and aggregates of related Digital Currency is the variable related to Transactions.
Blockchain transactions are the digital currency of a blockchain digital currency system. I have explained this in prior blog entries. It is a strange hybrid currency where the transaction identifiers are "owned" as currency in the Owners Account but in aggregate take on a "Fixed Record" nature to the extent that they are all provable. In my view, current Blockchain currency systems based on the cornerstone of Transactions being "Currency Money" are halfway to ultimate evolution (revolution) of Uniquely Identified Units of Monetary Value each with a Unit Value = One becoming the cornerstone foundation.
The final evolution of the Monetary System would be structured on the interaction of three Primary Foundation Object Entities
Unit of Value
Transaction
Account
The system design could be managed and viewed from any level of designating any entity as fixed and examining its relationship to variables. Each would have its own blockchain.
Customer accounts are a uniquely identified fixed record Parent Object each with multiple entity data elements Children Objects. Each of those Children Objects change to various degrees of rapidity. The Account itself can change. It can either created into existence or it can be extinguished. On Hand Balance in the Account is a variable number of money value units. That amount can change with variable rapidity.
The related source of change to any Account On Hand Balance has an identity. Normally another different uniquely identified Account. Changes in On Hand Balance from Account to Account are what are followed in tracing the source Account in an audit trail back to the original source. That source is a money unit of value either created out of nothing by a bank loan into a customer account
OR:
Deposit of cash by customer into their Account.
In either case that is where Following the Account trail in an audit trail ends. Other means must then be used to trace currency money unrelated to an account. Currency is tracking is difficult due to its anonymous nature. Currency is unrelated to any direct identifier as to ownership unlike Accounts ownership of the On Hand Value.
That is the situation when Account is the fixed record and the On Hand Balance of any given Account is a Child Object of that Account with a variable rate of change in unit value.
Restructure the Monetary System model with this Paradigm Shift:
Create a model where Digital Currency can be selected and viewed as a fixed record and the Account to which the Digital Currency is related is variable. Make currency a fixed unchanging object and Account Ownership variable.
This adds a new way of audit tracing in the digital monetary system while retaining the established way of tracing based on viewing Account as the fixed record and digital currency in the account being the variable related by transactions to all past fixed Account records.
This system structure design requires that each and every single basic granular unit of digital currency value be uniquely identified in its own universe of all Digital Currency. Each unit of currency is the Parent Object of an Owning Account Child Object.
This establishes the simple ability to change which of either Account or Currency Unit is the Parent or Child object in the relationship. Making the Unit of Currency the Parent establishes a true ability to "Follow the Money" by actually following the changes in its relationship of a fixed Unit of Currency record to a variable Account Object.
A whole new world of Accounting methods and Accountability Information opens up with this change in Monetary System Design.
This search question becomes possible: Tell me every past specific Account that ever owned this specific unit of Digital Currency with a fixed value of One Dollar. (Small change system dealing with less than One Dollar generally not worth tracing and subject to its own decimal related conceptual design structure).
System rule: Every Account has a identified Owner. Owners are uniquely identified by their required attributes. One of those is a link to a Beneficial Owner that is a Human Being or aggregates of Human Beings authorized to spend money from the account thru secure state of the art biometric identification.
Following the Money where Digital Currency is the fixed record and Account is the variable record is really following the Money! Not following it indirectly by its association to an account where Account is the fixed record and aggregates of related Digital Currency is the variable related to Transactions.
Blockchain transactions are the digital currency of a blockchain digital currency system. I have explained this in prior blog entries. It is a strange hybrid currency where the transaction identifiers are "owned" as currency in the Owners Account but in aggregate take on a "Fixed Record" nature to the extent that they are all provable. In my view, current Blockchain currency systems based on the cornerstone of Transactions being "Currency Money" are halfway to ultimate evolution (revolution) of Uniquely Identified Units of Monetary Value each with a Unit Value = One becoming the cornerstone foundation.
The final evolution of the Monetary System would be structured on the interaction of three Primary Foundation Object Entities
Unit of Value
Transaction
Account
The system design could be managed and viewed from any level of designating any entity as fixed and examining its relationship to variables. Each would have its own blockchain.
Friday, April 8, 2016
What If Crooks Could Design Our Money System?
They have designed it! It was designed long ago to serve their vested interest by providing a service to the customer. So long ago that the crooks themselves did the initial design.
Best system design spec: Make it look like there was no crime committed.
Plan B: System design spec: Don't get caught. Make any evidence of the crime disappear.
Create "Privacy" barriers for protection.
Always know the whereabouts and sum of money in accounts for total control the the stolen goods. Never permit, at all costs and by any means, for anyone to ever know or take action to reveal the same information.
Always wear a suit. Adhere to the golden rule: Hide beneficial ownership. Maybe it is best to hide it at home. Use foreign shells to hide the trail but keep the money close?
Bill Black is an expert on these criminals and how they commit their crimes.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/the-myth-that-obamas-taking-huge-contributions-from-wall-street-was-fine.html
Best system design spec: Make it look like there was no crime committed.
Plan B: System design spec: Don't get caught. Make any evidence of the crime disappear.
Create "Privacy" barriers for protection.
Always know the whereabouts and sum of money in accounts for total control the the stolen goods. Never permit, at all costs and by any means, for anyone to ever know or take action to reveal the same information.
Always wear a suit. Adhere to the golden rule: Hide beneficial ownership. Maybe it is best to hide it at home. Use foreign shells to hide the trail but keep the money close?
Bill Black is an expert on these criminals and how they commit their crimes.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/the-myth-that-obamas-taking-huge-contributions-from-wall-street-was-fine.html
Money Cannot Be Followed. Only The Accounts Through Which It Travels. There is a Better System
Money cannot be followed directly. It has no identity. It is only a number it has no other totally independent attributes that give it an identity other than a number. It has value only in relationship to a controlled account. It is the account that has independent entity attributes that enable associating one account to another as a number representing units of value travel from one account to another.
That is the problem. Digital Money cannot be followed. It cannot be directly traced any more than any arbitrary chosen random number can traced. Trace $583 for me. Trace it to its current ownership and an accounting trail of all its past ownership. Its only traceable value is in relationship to an account. Given all the account information in the world a number of accounts currently having a balance of $583 would be found. It is just probabilities of a match of the amount to the account. Then an audit trail of the account could be done to identify all past transactions in the account that resulted in the current on hand balance.
If the $583 was also identified as a single transaction amount then that is an attribute owned uniquely by the number $583. All accounts in the world could be searched for this transaction value in their account history to learn what account the transaction came from and who owned it. But that gives no real tracing value unless every transaction could be researched. Knowing a date range would narrow the search but reasonably........
It is impossible to trace money, to literally follow the money. Only accounts can be followed. The following does not start with the independent identity attributes of the money in an account.
In our financial system the Account is the dominant super class ruling entity. Forget about physical cash with a serial number. That is 3% or less of all "money" in the USA. Physical money does have specific identifying attributes designed to make each piece of currency unique. Digital money has no identifying counterpart in the current system.
Transactions in digital currency do have unique transaction identity numbers that are keys to associated information like date and time. Credit/debit card system use them for example and transaction ID is associated with an owner/receiver account.
BlockChain currency systems apply a transaction identity directly to the amount of the transaction. The blockchain wallet is in fact a collection of the unique amounts associated with each and every transaction in the blackchain wallet of the owner. It is exactly correct to literally say that the owner is spending their owned transactions when they spend blockchain currency. The first and foremost thing that happens in spending blockchain currency is that a transaction is selected from the owner's wallet to pay the required amount due. The only requirement of the selecting that transaction from the owner's wallet is that it must be exactly equal to or greater than the amount due. Multiple transaction selections may be required to do this. If the transactions selected are greater than the amount due then change is given by the receiver in the form of a "here is your change" transaction from the receivers wallet to settle the transaction.
In the Blockchain system the primary key of tracing remains the Owner Account but the tracing is facilitated by the unchangeable nature of locking in currency transactions to the Blockchain.
Here is the beef:
When the Blockchain control of information is applied to the identity of registered owner of the Blockchain account and all of the beneficial owners of the account and specific owner identity attributes of the the beneficial owners are required then there is a system created where Accounts can be followed.
This is a "halfway there" way to follow money currency by association to its related account. Better than the current system.
A pure system that enables the true ability to follow the Money Currency is to give each and every digital dollar a unique identifier. As a blockchain system establishes the control of ownership based on transactions involving sum total amounts of currency for any given transaction this is the next step that creates a locked and accountable monetary system:
Each and every dollar involved in a transaction exists as a fixed record data base as a uniquely identified unit of value in a collection of all single units of value of "one dollar".
When a block chain transaction is made the additional accounting step is to change ownership in the Total Currency Account of each and every single dollar involved in the account from current owner of the single dollar to new owner of the single dollar.
This establishes a blockchain for transactions and a blockchain for the uniquely identified serial numbered with units of value: one each.
The new balance sheet system:
The sum total of all digital currency in all all owners blockchain currency accounts always equals the sum total of all currency in the Currency Account. The total of owned currency accounts equals the sum of uniquely identified single dollar units in the other.
Any transaction change in one is recorded as a change in the other.
"Following the Money" in the Currency Account can therefore be done directly. "The Money" can be followed on a unit dollar basis in an audit trail back to ever single account that unit dollar has ever been "owned" by. Here is the most important thing: Money in the Currency Account does not move move from account to account. It is a fixed unit record of value. The account that currently "owns" that dollar is what changes. A single unique unit of currency in the Currency Account always knows its current owner and all of its past owners.
What if anyone could pull a paper dollar bill of any denomination out of their pocket today then enter the serial number into google and see the entire history of who "owned" that dollar bill all the way back to the first time it entered the monetary system and date of ownership change.
That is impossible of course. However technology makes the impossible of yesterday possible today.
Transition to a cashless monetary system throws out what remains of the baby with the bath water. It throws out the unique identity object attribute of paper currency with the bath water that is the identity essence of the baby with a unique name attribute that gives it independent stand alone conceptual value.
The digital monetary system design must perpetuate the unique independent granular identity of a single unit of value that currently resides in the disappearing dollar bill of any denomination. Various denominations of dollars are not necessary in a digital world they can all be "One". Denominations of physical cash were only a convenience dictated by physical practicality of dealing in larger payments. Conceptual dollars are free from that.
Back to the what if of pulling out a dollar bill and finding out who every owner was. First link is to an anonymous account number of the previous owner and every owner entity before them. This is based on the rule that every unit dollar in the system is always owned by some entity at any given time. There are no "unowned" or "lost" dollars. Impossible by design. They are all in a related account.
Next step: Who is, what entity is the owner of an given account that the dollar was ever owned by?
The accounting agency responsible for the maintenance of the owning account knows that. Required by law. Laws give legal access to that information when necessary on a case basis. Aggregate analysis of all transactions and ownership however is exactly like existing analytical ability of communications today. Privacy can be anonymized. However when working from anonymized data there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to obtain authority to look at specific identities it can be done.
Data mining of Accounts that are anonymous or anonymized Account to Account transactions and data mining of a separate data base of Single Uniquely Identified Units of Currency as they each record their changes in single dollar ownership is a system that will identify abuses as well as provide in depth economic analysis to manage the economy. For whatever purposes the nation wants to manage it and management by whoever is either chosen or captures the power to manage it.
That is the problem. Digital Money cannot be followed. It cannot be directly traced any more than any arbitrary chosen random number can traced. Trace $583 for me. Trace it to its current ownership and an accounting trail of all its past ownership. Its only traceable value is in relationship to an account. Given all the account information in the world a number of accounts currently having a balance of $583 would be found. It is just probabilities of a match of the amount to the account. Then an audit trail of the account could be done to identify all past transactions in the account that resulted in the current on hand balance.
If the $583 was also identified as a single transaction amount then that is an attribute owned uniquely by the number $583. All accounts in the world could be searched for this transaction value in their account history to learn what account the transaction came from and who owned it. But that gives no real tracing value unless every transaction could be researched. Knowing a date range would narrow the search but reasonably........
It is impossible to trace money, to literally follow the money. Only accounts can be followed. The following does not start with the independent identity attributes of the money in an account.
In our financial system the Account is the dominant super class ruling entity. Forget about physical cash with a serial number. That is 3% or less of all "money" in the USA. Physical money does have specific identifying attributes designed to make each piece of currency unique. Digital money has no identifying counterpart in the current system.
Transactions in digital currency do have unique transaction identity numbers that are keys to associated information like date and time. Credit/debit card system use them for example and transaction ID is associated with an owner/receiver account.
BlockChain currency systems apply a transaction identity directly to the amount of the transaction. The blockchain wallet is in fact a collection of the unique amounts associated with each and every transaction in the blackchain wallet of the owner. It is exactly correct to literally say that the owner is spending their owned transactions when they spend blockchain currency. The first and foremost thing that happens in spending blockchain currency is that a transaction is selected from the owner's wallet to pay the required amount due. The only requirement of the selecting that transaction from the owner's wallet is that it must be exactly equal to or greater than the amount due. Multiple transaction selections may be required to do this. If the transactions selected are greater than the amount due then change is given by the receiver in the form of a "here is your change" transaction from the receivers wallet to settle the transaction.
In the Blockchain system the primary key of tracing remains the Owner Account but the tracing is facilitated by the unchangeable nature of locking in currency transactions to the Blockchain.
Here is the beef:
When the Blockchain control of information is applied to the identity of registered owner of the Blockchain account and all of the beneficial owners of the account and specific owner identity attributes of the the beneficial owners are required then there is a system created where Accounts can be followed.
This is a "halfway there" way to follow money currency by association to its related account. Better than the current system.
A pure system that enables the true ability to follow the Money Currency is to give each and every digital dollar a unique identifier. As a blockchain system establishes the control of ownership based on transactions involving sum total amounts of currency for any given transaction this is the next step that creates a locked and accountable monetary system:
Each and every dollar involved in a transaction exists as a fixed record data base as a uniquely identified unit of value in a collection of all single units of value of "one dollar".
When a block chain transaction is made the additional accounting step is to change ownership in the Total Currency Account of each and every single dollar involved in the account from current owner of the single dollar to new owner of the single dollar.
This establishes a blockchain for transactions and a blockchain for the uniquely identified serial numbered with units of value: one each.
The new balance sheet system:
The sum total of all digital currency in all all owners blockchain currency accounts always equals the sum total of all currency in the Currency Account. The total of owned currency accounts equals the sum of uniquely identified single dollar units in the other.
Any transaction change in one is recorded as a change in the other.
"Following the Money" in the Currency Account can therefore be done directly. "The Money" can be followed on a unit dollar basis in an audit trail back to ever single account that unit dollar has ever been "owned" by. Here is the most important thing: Money in the Currency Account does not move move from account to account. It is a fixed unit record of value. The account that currently "owns" that dollar is what changes. A single unique unit of currency in the Currency Account always knows its current owner and all of its past owners.
What if anyone could pull a paper dollar bill of any denomination out of their pocket today then enter the serial number into google and see the entire history of who "owned" that dollar bill all the way back to the first time it entered the monetary system and date of ownership change.
That is impossible of course. However technology makes the impossible of yesterday possible today.
Transition to a cashless monetary system throws out what remains of the baby with the bath water. It throws out the unique identity object attribute of paper currency with the bath water that is the identity essence of the baby with a unique name attribute that gives it independent stand alone conceptual value.
The digital monetary system design must perpetuate the unique independent granular identity of a single unit of value that currently resides in the disappearing dollar bill of any denomination. Various denominations of dollars are not necessary in a digital world they can all be "One". Denominations of physical cash were only a convenience dictated by physical practicality of dealing in larger payments. Conceptual dollars are free from that.
Back to the what if of pulling out a dollar bill and finding out who every owner was. First link is to an anonymous account number of the previous owner and every owner entity before them. This is based on the rule that every unit dollar in the system is always owned by some entity at any given time. There are no "unowned" or "lost" dollars. Impossible by design. They are all in a related account.
Next step: Who is, what entity is the owner of an given account that the dollar was ever owned by?
The accounting agency responsible for the maintenance of the owning account knows that. Required by law. Laws give legal access to that information when necessary on a case basis. Aggregate analysis of all transactions and ownership however is exactly like existing analytical ability of communications today. Privacy can be anonymized. However when working from anonymized data there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to obtain authority to look at specific identities it can be done.
Data mining of Accounts that are anonymous or anonymized Account to Account transactions and data mining of a separate data base of Single Uniquely Identified Units of Currency as they each record their changes in single dollar ownership is a system that will identify abuses as well as provide in depth economic analysis to manage the economy. For whatever purposes the nation wants to manage it and management by whoever is either chosen or captures the power to manage it.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Watching the Watchers - Spies In the Sky
A favorite topic of mine:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/spies-in-the-skies
More on this one later. The day is too nice to spend more time on this but it looks like it is the best to date revelation.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/spies-in-the-skies
More on this one later. The day is too nice to spend more time on this but it looks like it is the best to date revelation.
Panama Papers and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
I applaud the revelation of vast amounts of stored data base information that exposes the secrecy of institutions that violate the law. Beyond exposing secret information that is dysfunctional to the basic structure of our society in terms of our nation's ideals and social objectives is vital to a the requirement of a well informed citizenry.
Investigative journalism is an entity that does that....in theory. Sometimes. Mass media does not do that today. On the contrary it caters to special interest that wishes to obscure the big picture truth through media. Captured government regulatory agencies do the same thing. The government that is supposed to be working for us.
The Panama Papers has millions of pieces of information about a hidden web of relationships that intends to hide money in accounts. Hide it to conceal what the money is doing in terms of legal and social dysfunction processes and who has control of it to benefit from them.
It would seem obvious that some government agency must vitally interested in the Panama Papers. The lead agency on the case. What agency is that. How do they get all the information in the Panama papers? If the government can get bad guys anywhere any time with a drone it should be able to get the Panama papers by any means possible. Perhaps our government has them already. The NSA seems to get whatever it wants. If not by signals intelligence then by the CIA bribing anyone that has the information to sell for millions of bucks.
The problem is that is that if the government has all that information then what to do with it? There are power players that must regulate what can be done with it. That is where it is vital that all the information in the Panama Papers be made public in a searchable data base.
If Google or any other information management entity published the Panama Papers in a searchable data base then every interested citizen would become an investigator. That might be a more interesting crowd sourcing adventure than watching Netflix. A simple get started guide would be to start with an account and find or extend relationships to real business entities and names. Get a subscription to data sources like telephone and address look up sources and find out who is connected to the same number and address.....Everybody becomes a detective.
Privacy? There is no privacy. Privacy is not for the little people. It works more for the crooks and those they capture to aid and abet them.
What is necessary is raw information. This is from the Newsweek link:
"In fact, there is no way for banks to verify such information, said Rob Rowe, a lawyer with the American Bankers Association. The ABA is "watching to see what happens with the Panama papers," he said.
"That's always been the problem. Banks can collect information but there is currently no mechanism to verify it or keep it updated, outside asking the company," he said."
Make all the Panama Paper information Public. Pass laws that identify beneficial ownership. Let the public enforce the rule of law by enabling the public to research all this information and build a description of it relationships like Wikipedia. Open Source all of it.
All Americans become the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Government Regulatory capture. Bill Black is an expert on that regarding the big banks. Regulatory capture works beyond US boarders. It is a universal problem. Mass Media should be exposing it. It is not. Government is tasked to expose it when it violates the law. It is not. They have been captured.
What government agencies are tasked with enforcing the law? What laws?
Newsweek covers one of the government agencies combating "Financial Crimes".
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) this link is the .gov site
This is the Wikipedia descriptiion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Crimes_Enforcement_Network
This is a description of FinCEN by a commercial site that proclaims to tell what the government really does: http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-the-treasury/financial-crimes-enforcement-network?agencyid=7281 It also has a view of the Panama Papers: Forget Panama: U.S. is a Leading Tax Avoidance Haven for Foreigners. The same thing is said by Bloomberg:
The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States (January 26, 2016).
The USA exeptionalism to lead the world a tax haven? Yes of course! But is it avoidance or evasion? Get a good lawyer and it is avoidance. It just takes a lot of money to make the difference.
But we have government agencies on the beat to find and prosecute the law breakers? I am sure there are many. FinCen however seems to be a lead agency on this at first look. So.....Look at FinCEN.
Returning to the Newsweek report lauding the role of FinCEN:
"ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department intends to soon issue a long-delayed rule forcing banks to seek the identities of people behind shell-company account holders, after the "Panama Papers" leak provoked a global uproar over the hiding of wealth via offshore banking devices......A department spokesman said on Wednesday the rule would "soon" be turned over to the White House for review and issuance, but did not confirm any timetable for the initiative, which has taken years...............In mid-2014, Treasury's anti-money laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), issued a proposed rule on beneficial ownership. Differences of opinion between the various financial regulators vetting the rule and an obligatory analysis of costs to industry has slowed the process, as has pushback from the banking industry."
This establishes the Congress mandate to the FinCEN.:
This statute establishes FinCEN as a bureau within the Treasury Department and describes FinCEN's duties and powers to include:
Authorities Delegated to FinCEN pursuant to TREASURY ORDER 180-01
This Treasury Order describes FinCEN's responsibilities to implement, administer, and enforce compliance with the authorities contained in what is commonly known as the "Bank Secrecy Act."
The Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970 (which legislative framework is commonly referred to as the "Bank Secrecy Act" or "BSA") requires U.S. financial institutions to assist U.S. government agencies to detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, the act requires financial institutions to keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, file reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities. It was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1970. The BSA is sometimes referred to as an "anti-money laundering" law ("AML") or jointly as "BSA/AML." Several AML acts, including provisions in Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, have been enacted up to the present to amend the BSA. (See 31 USC 5311-5330 and 31 CFR Chapter X [formerly 31 CFR Part 103] ).
That is it. That is the sum total of official authority delegated to FinCen? Enforce the BSA?
No, that is not all. FinCEN has responsibilities under the Patriot Act and Chapter X and Federal Register Notices. and Guidance under Chapter X FinCEN issues Administrative Rulings
Investigative journalism is an entity that does that....in theory. Sometimes. Mass media does not do that today. On the contrary it caters to special interest that wishes to obscure the big picture truth through media. Captured government regulatory agencies do the same thing. The government that is supposed to be working for us.
The Panama Papers has millions of pieces of information about a hidden web of relationships that intends to hide money in accounts. Hide it to conceal what the money is doing in terms of legal and social dysfunction processes and who has control of it to benefit from them.
It would seem obvious that some government agency must vitally interested in the Panama Papers. The lead agency on the case. What agency is that. How do they get all the information in the Panama papers? If the government can get bad guys anywhere any time with a drone it should be able to get the Panama papers by any means possible. Perhaps our government has them already. The NSA seems to get whatever it wants. If not by signals intelligence then by the CIA bribing anyone that has the information to sell for millions of bucks.
The problem is that is that if the government has all that information then what to do with it? There are power players that must regulate what can be done with it. That is where it is vital that all the information in the Panama Papers be made public in a searchable data base.
If Google or any other information management entity published the Panama Papers in a searchable data base then every interested citizen would become an investigator. That might be a more interesting crowd sourcing adventure than watching Netflix. A simple get started guide would be to start with an account and find or extend relationships to real business entities and names. Get a subscription to data sources like telephone and address look up sources and find out who is connected to the same number and address.....Everybody becomes a detective.
Privacy? There is no privacy. Privacy is not for the little people. It works more for the crooks and those they capture to aid and abet them.
What is necessary is raw information. This is from the Newsweek link:
"In fact, there is no way for banks to verify such information, said Rob Rowe, a lawyer with the American Bankers Association. The ABA is "watching to see what happens with the Panama papers," he said.
"That's always been the problem. Banks can collect information but there is currently no mechanism to verify it or keep it updated, outside asking the company," he said."
Make all the Panama Paper information Public. Pass laws that identify beneficial ownership. Let the public enforce the rule of law by enabling the public to research all this information and build a description of it relationships like Wikipedia. Open Source all of it.
All Americans become the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Government Regulatory capture. Bill Black is an expert on that regarding the big banks. Regulatory capture works beyond US boarders. It is a universal problem. Mass Media should be exposing it. It is not. Government is tasked to expose it when it violates the law. It is not. They have been captured.
What government agencies are tasked with enforcing the law? What laws?
Newsweek covers one of the government agencies combating "Financial Crimes".
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) this link is the .gov site
This is the Wikipedia descriptiion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Crimes_Enforcement_Network
This is a description of FinCEN by a commercial site that proclaims to tell what the government really does: http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-the-treasury/financial-crimes-enforcement-network?agencyid=7281 It also has a view of the Panama Papers: Forget Panama: U.S. is a Leading Tax Avoidance Haven for Foreigners. The same thing is said by Bloomberg:
The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States (January 26, 2016).
The USA exeptionalism to lead the world a tax haven? Yes of course! But is it avoidance or evasion? Get a good lawyer and it is avoidance. It just takes a lot of money to make the difference.
But we have government agencies on the beat to find and prosecute the law breakers? I am sure there are many. FinCen however seems to be a lead agency on this at first look. So.....Look at FinCEN.
Returning to the Newsweek report lauding the role of FinCEN:
"ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department intends to soon issue a long-delayed rule forcing banks to seek the identities of people behind shell-company account holders, after the "Panama Papers" leak provoked a global uproar over the hiding of wealth via offshore banking devices......A department spokesman said on Wednesday the rule would "soon" be turned over to the White House for review and issuance, but did not confirm any timetable for the initiative, which has taken years...............In mid-2014, Treasury's anti-money laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), issued a proposed rule on beneficial ownership. Differences of opinion between the various financial regulators vetting the rule and an obligatory analysis of costs to industry has slowed the process, as has pushback from the banking industry."
This establishes the Congress mandate to the FinCEN.:
FinCEN's Mandate From Congress
31 U.S.C. 310This statute establishes FinCEN as a bureau within the Treasury Department and describes FinCEN's duties and powers to include:
- Maintaining a government-wide data access service with a range of financial transactions information
- Analysis and dissemination of information in support of law enforcement investigatory professionals at the Federal, State, Local, and International levels
- Determine emerging trends and methods in money laundering and other financial crimes
- Serve as the Financial Intelligence Unit of the United States
- Carry out other delegated regulatory responsibilities
Authorities Delegated to FinCEN pursuant to TREASURY ORDER 180-01
This Treasury Order describes FinCEN's responsibilities to implement, administer, and enforce compliance with the authorities contained in what is commonly known as the "Bank Secrecy Act."
"Bank Secrecy Act"
To view or print PDF content, download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.
To view or print Microsoft Office content, download free Microsoft Office Viewers.The Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970 (which legislative framework is commonly referred to as the "Bank Secrecy Act" or "BSA") requires U.S. financial institutions to assist U.S. government agencies to detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, the act requires financial institutions to keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, file reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities. It was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1970. The BSA is sometimes referred to as an "anti-money laundering" law ("AML") or jointly as "BSA/AML." Several AML acts, including provisions in Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, have been enacted up to the present to amend the BSA. (See 31 USC 5311-5330 and 31 CFR Chapter X [formerly 31 CFR Part 103] ).
That is it. That is the sum total of official authority delegated to FinCen? Enforce the BSA?
No, that is not all. FinCEN has responsibilities under the Patriot Act and Chapter X and Federal Register Notices. and Guidance under Chapter X FinCEN issues Administrative Rulings
To me the nexus is government action combined with restrictions on free speech/expression. And if corporate money is considered speech, my vote should certainly be considered speech. Telling me I have to vote for selected candidates restricts that right.
Could they get away with the same thing in the general election–or would it be unconstitutional? I know–as the judge used to ask me–do you have anything other than the constitution to support your argument?"
Political parties look like private parties. Especially when someone must be a registered member to vote. OK, if that is the case then government might pay for the "voting booth" infrastructure necessary for all to vote in primaries only if all voters can vote for all candidates without restrictions.