November 2021 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Ginger, lemon juice, garlic and aspirin to combat COVID?
by professor rat 27 Nov '21

27 Nov '21

Is Jim Bell in Africa at the moment? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/omicron-covid-variant-hits-south-afr… Jesus Fucking Christie - its like those Batshit-Crazy AIDs deniers are loose again.

2 1

RF Hacks: "Anonymous" Broadcast 1987
by grarpamp 27 Nov '21

27 Nov '21

There were many Anonymous before Anonymous, and there will be more, expect them... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdgAMYjYSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1mUk04_ho https://soundcloud.com/bpoag/max-headroom-incident-112287audio-enhancement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDqjl6FvyUY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Television_broadcast_interruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking https://www.vice.com/en/article/pgay3n/headroom-hacker Captain Midnight hack in 1986 Playboy TV hack in 1987 https://www.learnastronomyhq.com/articles/how-would-our-sun-look-from-alpha… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUwt-JFSQx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgbci2Zf7ms

1 0

Cryptocurrency: Biden Pick for OCC Omarova to Nationalize All Bank Accounts and Investments per MarxSocComSov
by grarpamp 27 Nov '21

27 Nov '21

Joe Biden Corrupt Traitor literally picked Soviet born sworn and raised Marxist Agent Saule Omarova to head US Office Comptroller Currency publicly stating will Nationalize All Bank Accounts... There's that "democratize" word again, hardly means any good people think it means. Multiple channels have been reporting... “No More Private Bank Deposits” – Biden’s Radical Currency Nominee Wants All Bank Accounts To Be Controlled By The Fed https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/no-private-bank-deposits-biden-cur… https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/toomey-calls-on-omarova-to… https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-banking-nominee-scrubs-ka… https://twitter.com/TrumpJew2/status/1459213417764556812 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/11/12/bidens-communist-trea… https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-pick-comptroller-currency-pro-commu… https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/bidens-pick-comptroller-currency-b… https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/bidens-pick-comptroller-currency-s… https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3715735 Biden’s radical nominees continue to show their true colors. Biden’s Marxist currency nominee Saule Omarova said that all private bank accounts should be taken over and controlled by the Federal Reserve. Saule Omaraova is the most radical and extreme nominee ever pushed forward by a US president. Proposal by Biden’s Treasury nominee Saule Omarova: "There will be no more private bank deposit accounts and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed" pic.twitter.com/ojQviX74Bz — Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) November 12, 2021 TRENDING: MUST WATCH: Texas HHS DENIES Monoclonal Antibody Treatments For Whites - "If I Were Black or Hispanic Then I Would Qualify?" - Nurse: "Yep, That's Right" - (Video) Townhall reported: In September President Joe Biden nominated Saule Omarova to become comptroller of the currency at the Department of Treasury. If confirmed, Omarova would be in charge of overseeing banking in the United States. Omarova believes private bank accounts should be taken over and controlled by the Federal Reserve. “Imagine what it would be like instead of just a public option for deposit banking, this would be actually the full transition. In other words, there would be no more private bank deposit accounts and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed,” Omarova said during recent remarks. “How is it politically feasible for the central bank to take money away from people’s accounts.” Saule Omarova has come under fire for her prior comments praising the Soviet economy. Fox News reported: President Biden’s pick for Comptroller of the Currency has provoked sharp criticism for past and recent comments that praised the Soviet economy. Biden on Sept. 23 nominated Saul Omarova, a law school professor at Cornell University, for the office responsible with the regulation and supervision of all national banks. Omarova’s nomination drew immediate pushback from powerful voices who criticized her background and past comments that indicated a favor for the policies of the USSR. Omarova was born in the Soviet Union in what is now called Kazakhstan and graduated from Moscow State University in 1989. She has pointed to the USSR’s practices as recently as 2019, when she tweeted about the gender pay gap, citing the USSR as a better model. Omarova was born in the Soviet Union in what is now called Kazakhstan and graduated from Moscow State University in 1989. She has pointed to the USSR’s practices as recently as 2019, when she tweeted about the gender pay gap, citing the USSR as a better model. “Until I came to the US, I couldn’t imagine that things like gender pay gap still existed in today’s world,” Omarova wrote. “Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’” She also refuses to hand over her thesis on Marxism she wrote. Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), is refusing to hand over to the Senate Banking Committee her university thesis on Marxism written during her time in the Soviet Union. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, ranking member of the committee, had sent a letter to Omarova on Oct. 6 asking the Cornell Law School professor to hand over her Moscow State University thesis, titled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital,” by Oct. 13, citing the committee’s need to “fully assess the fitness of individuals to serve in Senate-confirmed executive and independent agency positions.” Omarova, who grew up in the Soviet Union, had scrubbed mention of the thesis from her resume, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Biden's Communist Treasury Nominee Wants All Bank Accounts to be Controlled by the Fed Katie Pavlich Katie Pavlich | @KatiePavlich | Posted: Nov 12, 2021 4:00 PM Biden's Communist Treasury Nominee Wants All Bank Accounts to be Controlled by the Fed In September President Joe Biden nominated Saule Omarova to become comptroller of the currency at the Department of Treasury. If confirmed, Omarova would be in charge of overseeing banking in the United States. Omarova believes private bank accounts should be taken over and controlled by the Federal Reserve. "Imagine what it would be like instead of just a public option for deposit banking, this would be actually the full transition. In other words, there would be no more private bank deposit accounts and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed," Omarova said during recent remarks. "How is it politically feasible for the central bank to take money away from people's accounts." Proposal by Biden’s Treasury nominee Saule Omarova: "There will be no more private bank deposit accounts and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed" pic.twitter.com/ojQviX74Bz — Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) November 12, 2021 Omarova has also stated that in order for the country and the world to tackle climate change, governments must bankrupt the oil industry through regulation. Biden nominee Saule Omarova saying the quiet part out loud. On the oil, coal and gas industries: "We want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change." pic.twitter.com/luMR2HEMK9 — BidenNoms, A Project of AAF (@bidennoms) November 9, 2021 Omarova is a communist who grew up in the USSR. While in college at Moscow State University on a Lenin academic excellence scholarship, she titled her thesis, "Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital." Recommended The Lynching of Kyle Rittenhouse Derek Hunter If confirmed, Omarova would be in charge of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC "charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks." Biden's pick for Comptroller of the Currency blasted over past pro-communism remarks Omarova has praised the USSR in the past By Peter Aitken | Fox News Fox News Flash top headlines for October 3 Video Fox News Flash top headlines for October 3 Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. President Biden’s pick for Comptroller of the Currency has provoked sharp criticism for past and recent comments that praised the Soviet economy. Biden on Sept. 23 nominated Saul Omarova, a law school professor at Cornell University, for the office responsible with the regulation and supervision of all national banks. Omarova’s nomination drew immediate pushback from powerful voices who criticized her background and past comments that indicated a favor for the policies of the USSR. Omarova was born in the Soviet Union in what is now called Kazakhstan and graduated from Moscow State University in 1989. She has pointed to the USSR’s practices as recently as 2019, when she tweeted about the gender pay gap, citing the USSR as a better model. (Twitter) "Until I came to the US, I couldn’t imagine that things like gender pay gap still existed in today’s world," Omarova wrote. "Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’" Some officials were quick to release criticism and urge Biden to reconsider the nomination. SEN. SANDERS SAYS HIS INITIAL $6T SPENDING PACKAGE ‘TOO LITTLE,’ ‘AMERICANS’ SUPPORT ON ‘OUR SIDE’ "I have serious reservations about her nomination," U.S. Senate Banking Committee ranking member Pat Toomey, R-Pa., wrote. "Ms. Omarova has called for ‘radically reshaping the basic architecture and dynamics of modern finance’ including nationalizing retail banking and having the Federal Reserve allocate credit." "She has also advocated for ‘effectively ending banking as we know it,’" Toomey added. ARIZONA SENATOR KRYSTEN SINEMA FACES PROTESTERS IN PHOENIX: ‘CLOWN OF ARIZONA’ The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also wrote a letter in opposition to Omarova’s nomination, pointing to comments from 2020 that laid out her intention to reshape "the basic architecture and dynamics of modern finance." "The Chamber generally believes that presidents deserve some degree of deference towards their nominees," wrote Neil Bradley, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "That deference assumes nominees are inclined to the faithful execution of the law, not the pursuit of radical policy agendas inconsistent with the obligations of the position of trust they are being nominated to hold." DEMOCRAT TAMMY DUCKWORTH HASN'T PAID PROPERTY TAX ON HER ILLINOIS HOME SINCE 2016, REPORT SAYS "We believe someone who holds the expressed desire to ‘effectively ‘end banking’ as we know it’ should not serve as the primary regulator of this industry," Bradley stressed. Omarova’s comment that the government should "effectively ‘end banking’ as we know it" comes from a recently authored paper called "The People’s Ledger," to which Republicans and industry experts have pointed as prime evidence to disqualify Omarova. CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP "As comptroller, Ms. Omarova would supervise some 1,200 financial institutions," The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in an op-ed. "While she couldn’t enact her People’s Agenda without legislation, she would have sweeping powers to punish banks that don’t follow her diktats. "Ms. Omarova is the wrong nominee for the wrong industry in the wrong country in the wrong century." The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 20-45 74 Vanderbilt Law Review 1231 (2021) 71 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2020 Last revised: 15 Oct 2021 Saule T. Omarova Cornell University - Law School Date Written: October 20, 2020 Abstract The COVID-19 crisis underscored the urgency of digitizing sovereign money and ensuring universal access to banking services. It pushed two related ideas—the issuance of central bank digital currency and the provision of retail deposit accounts by central banks—to the forefront of the public policy debate. To date, however, the debate has not produced a coherent vision of how democratizing access to central bank money would—and should—transform and democratize the entire financial system. This lack of a systemic perspective obscures the enormity of the challenge and dilutes our ability to tackle it. This Article takes up that challenge. It offers a blueprint for a comprehensive restructuring of the central bank balance sheet as the basis for redesigning the core architecture of modern finance. Focusing on the U.S. Federal Reserve System (the Fed), the Article outlines a series of structural reforms that would radically redefine the role of a central bank as the ultimate public platform for generating, modulating, and allocating financial resources in a democratic economy—the People’s Ledger. On the liability side of the ledger, the Article envisions the complete migration of demand deposit accounts to the Fed’s balance sheet and explores the full range of new, more direct and flexible, monetary policy tools enabled by this shift. On the asset side, it advocates a comprehensive qualitative restructuring of the Fed’s investment portfolio, which would maximize its capacity to channel credit to productive uses in the nation’s economy. This compositional overhaul of the Fed’s balance sheet would fundamentally alter the operations and systemic footprints of private banks, funds, derivatives dealers, and other financial institutions and markets. Analyzing these structural implications, the Article shows how the proposed reforms would make the financial system less complex, more stable, and more efficient in serving the long-term needs of the American people. Keywords: central banking, Federal Reserve, CBDC, digital dollar, digital currency, FedAccounts, central bank balance sheet, financial system, systemic risk, shadow banking, structural reform, Glass-Steagall, fintech, financial stability, monetary policy, National Investment Authority, infrastructure finance, Suggested Citation: Omarova, Saule T., The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy (October 20, 2020). Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 20-45, 74 Vanderbilt Law Review 1231 (2021), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3715735 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3715735 Biden’s Pick for Comptroller of the Currency, Born and Raised in Communist USSR, Won’t Hand Over Her Thesis on Marxism Written When She Was in the USSR By Joe Hoft Published October 20, 2021 at 11:47am Comment Biden’s pick for Comptroller of the Currency was born and raised in communist USSR. Now she won’t hand over her university thesis on Marxism. We reported previously that Biden’s pick for Comptroller of the Currency was raised in communist USSR. Biden’s Pick for Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, Born In the USSR Is Known for Her Pro-Communist Remarks Ms. Omarova is the last pick you would make for Comptroller of the Currency if you were attempting to build a better and freer America. Now she won’t hand over the thesis she wrote from when she was in school in the USSR. TRENDING: MUST WATCH: Texas HHS DENIES Monoclonal Antibody Treatments For Whites - "If I Were Black or Hispanic Then I Would Qualify?" - Nurse: "Yep, That's Right" - (Video) Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), is refusing to hand over to the Senate Banking Committee her university thesis on Marxism written during her time in the Soviet Union. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, ranking member of the committee, had sent a letter to Omarova on Oct. 6 asking the Cornell Law School professor to hand over her Moscow State University thesis, titled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital,” by Oct. 13, citing the committee’s need to “fully assess the fitness of individuals to serve in Senate-confirmed executive and independent agency positions.” Omarova, who grew up in the Soviet Union, had scrubbed mention of the thesis from her resume, the Washington Free Beacon reported. She also praised the now-defunct socialist government for its lack of “gender pay gap” in 2019. This crackpot communist should not be working anywhere in our government. She’s an insane pick for the Comptroller of the Currency. Biden Banking Nominee Scrubs Karl Marx Paper From Résumé Saule Omarova attended Moscow State University on a Lenin scholarship Saule Omarova in 2018 / Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Chuck Ross • October 6, 2021 11:55 am President Joe Biden’s pick for the nation’s top banking regulator, who received a scholarship named for Vladimir Lenin, scrubbed her résumé of a reference to a thesis she wrote on Karl Marx while a student at Moscow State University. Saule Omarova, who Biden tapped to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, listed a paper titled "Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital" on her résumé as recently as 2017. But the paper was not disclosed on the version of the résumé reported last month by the Washington Free Beacon. Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, pressed Omarova about the discrepancy in a letter on Tuesday asking her to hand over a copy of her report. Omarova, a professor at Cornell Law School, has already proved a controversial nominee. She has said she wants to "end banking as we know it" by providing bank services through the Federal Reserve rather than private banks. She has also proposed the creation of a federal agency called the National Investment Authority, which would coordinate long-term national economic strategy and infrastructure development for the United States. Omarova, who left the Soviet Union after graduating from Moscow State in 1989, has praised the Soviet Union for eliminating the gender pay gap. Toomey asked Omarova to provide a copy of the original thesis to the Senate banking committee by Oct. 13. He said in a statement that neither Omarova nor the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency agreed to hand over the thesis. He noted that presidential nominees are required to submit all copies of their published writings. Omarova did not respond to questions about the thesis or the revision to her résumé. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also did not respond to requests for comment. Omarova has received support from progressive lawmakers and special interest groups who support more regulation of the banking system. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) called her nomination "tremendous news." The Sierra Club said that Omarova would erect "guardrails against Wall Street's risky fossil fuel investments" to fight "climate chaos."

1 1

Cryptocurrency: Perry "The Censor" Metzger Appoints "Libertarian" Self To Define Word "Crypto"
by grarpamp 27 Nov '21

27 Nov '21

Matt Blaze sells out crypto.com, approves Tor Project Inc's Censorship Regime via his position on their Corporate Board. Cockroaches scatter, Closeted Fiat holdouts and apologists exposed, GovBankCorp panties all in a jam, Censors abound. Crypto is working ;) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cryptocurrency-cr… https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/05/crypto-com-mco/ Cryptographers are not happy with how you’re using the word ‘crypto’ The renamed Crypto.com Arena is a win for cryptocurrency fans but strikes a blow against the word’s original meaning Construction workers put the finishing touches on the Staples Center sign outside the arena in downtown Los Angeles on 16 September 1999. Construction workers put the finishing touches on the Staples Center sign outside the arena in downtown Los Angeles on 16 September 1999. Photograph: Xerro Ryan Covarrubias/AP Matthew Cantor @CantorMatthew Thu 18 Nov 2021 16.14 GMT Last modified on Fri 19 Nov 2021 20.13 GMT The stadium that is home to the Los Angeles Lakers is getting a new name: the Crypto.com Arena. The name reflects the arena’s new sponsorship agreement with a Singapore-based cryptocurrency trading platform. That may be good news for cryptocurrency fanatics – but perhaps not so much for another faction within the digital landscape: cryptographers. Look up the word “crypto” in Webster’s dictionary, and you’ll see it refers to cryptography, which in turn is defined as “the computerized encoding and decoding of information”. Search “crypto” on Google, however, and you’ll see a host of top results pointing to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. This lexical shift has weighed heavily on cryptographers, who, over the past few years, have repeated the rallying cry “Crypto means cryptography” on social media. T-shirts and hoodies trumpet the phrase and variations on it; there’s a website dedicated solely to clarifying the issue. “‘Crypto’ for decades has been used as shorthand and as a prefix for things related to cryptography,” said Amie Stepanovich, executive director of Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado Law School and creator of the pro-cryptography T-shirts, which have become a hit at conferences. “In fact, in the term cryptocurrency, the prefix crypto refers back to cryptography.” Why yes, I do have a picture of myself in one of my favorite tees! pic.twitter.com/EaK17c8zOC — Lea Kissner (@LeaKissner) November 17, 2021 It’s often a losing battle, and that appears to have played out in the case of crypto.com itself. Beginning in 1993, as the Verge reported, the crypto.com domain was owned by Matt Blaze, a cryptography expert who repeatedly rejected would-be buyers – even as the rise of cryptocurrency meant he could have made millions of dollars. “I think calling cryptocurrencies ‘crypto’ is a poor choice, with bad consequences for both cryptography and cryptocurrencies,” he tweeted in 2018. Ultimately, however, the domain was sold, and now if you go to Crypto.com you’ll see a giant video of Matt Damon indicating that investing in cryptocurrencies is roughly as courageous as scaling an icy cliff or blasting into space. Yet there remains an internecine feud among the tech savvy about the word. As Parker Higgins of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who has spent years involved in cryptography activism, pointed out, the cryptography crowd is by nature deeply invested in precision – after all, designing and cracking codes is an endeavor in which, if you get things “a little wrong, it can blow the whole thing up”. There are global debates over both cryptography – for instance, questions over whether chat services should offer “backdoors” that skirt encryption – and the regulation of cryptocurrency. “There is a need to distinguish between those two areas to avoid absolutely foreseeable confusion,” Stepanovich said, a particular issue when it comes to “legislators and regulators who are not always subject matter experts in these areas, even if they are charged with overseeing them”. Higgins agreed. “Crypto as shorthand for cryptography really was in widespread use. You could talk about crypto even on Capitol Hill and people would know what you were talking about – that really did hold a lot of, forgive this, but currency.” And at a time when many still aren’t sure what cryptocurrency is, the confusion over the terms just makes things muddier. “Strong cryptography is a cornerstone of the way that people talk about privacy and security, and it has been under attack for decades” by governments, law enforcement, and “all sorts of bad actors”, Higgins said. For its defenders, confusion over terminology creates yet another challenge. PSA: Crypto means Cryptography. #usesec18 cc @mattblaze @astepanovich pic.twitter.com/E5WTIanwCE — Kurt Opsahl (@kurtopsahl) August 15, 2018 Stepanovich acknowledged the challenge of opposing the trend, but said the weight of history is on her side. “The study of crypto has been around for ever,” she said. “The most famous code is known as the Caesar cipher, referring to Julius Caesar. This is not new.” Cryptocurrency, on the other hand, is a relatively recent development, and she is not ready to concede to “a concept that may or may not survive government regulation”. She remains invested in the linguistic debate because it’s so closely linked to policy. “Allowing people to develop and use encryption is hugely important in protecting human rights, privacy and protecting the basis on which cryptocurrency has been built,” Stepanovich said. “We all have hills we are willing to die on – this might be mine.”

1 0

Right-wing politics has been embroiled in a cryptocurrency story - again
by professor rat 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

Conservatives around America may be getting excited about the LGB and FJB coins, but they aren’t exactly taking the crypto world by storm. The LGB coin is currently worth $0.00000095, with an unknown market cap. The FJB coin doesn’t even feature on CoinGecko. Yet, this is not the first time right-wing politics has been embroiled in a cryptocurrency story. Earlier this year, an investigation revealed that Andrew Anglin—founder of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer—received approximately $5 million worth of Bitcoin since January 2017. https://decrypt.co/86923/conservative-pundits-us-pump-right-wing-cryptocurr… Link not endorsement, etc

1 0

Cryptocurrency: Economic Morons Declare Debasement Is Moral
by grarpamp 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

https://mises.org/wire/joe-weisenthal-thinks-debasing-dollar-moral-thing-do Joe Weisenthal Thinks Debasing The Dollar Is The Moral Thing To Do https://www.bobmurphyshow.com/episodes/ep-26-capital-and-interest-in-the-au… https://www.bobmurphyshow.com/episodes/ep-28-capital-and-interest-in-the-au… https://www.bobmurphyshow.com/episodes/ep-31-capital-and-interest-in-the-au… https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/1460636183860588547 https://twitter.com/BobMurphyEcon/status/1460725467992973316 https://mises.org/library/human-action-0/html/pp/804 Joe Weisenthal is an editor and host at Bloomberg who has recently been using his large Twitter platform to cast stones at the inflation hawks. In one recent thread, Weisenthal mocked the people worried about the falling purchasing power of the US dollar, and claimed in fact that it would be immoral for currency to maintain its value over time. As we’ll see, although Weisenthal’s thought experiment of a time traveler is a bit whimsical, it provides a good opportunity for us to explore the underlying economics. The whole episode underscores, once again, why the Austrian school provides the public with a beacon of light amid the confusion of our financial punditry. Weisenthal’s Time Traveler Below is the original tweet, which is largely self-explanatory, though interested readers can see me grappling with Weisenthal by clicking here. In context, Weisenthal (and Adam Singer) are poking fun at the Ron Paul–types who are upset at the steady decline in the dollar’s purchasing power since the Fed was formed in late 1913. Weisenthal thinks it is absurd to expect that actual currency would maintain its market value over the course of a century. Why, what would such a “hoarder” have done to benefit society all that while? Shrinking the Time Scale To cut to the chase, Weisenthal is completely mistaken: there was nothing immoral about the classical gold standard and its maintenance of the dollar’s purchasing power over long stretches. But it will be easier to pinpoint the flaw in Weisenthal’s thinking if we first consider a simple story. Suppose Joey is a teenager who cuts lawns for extra income and he typically makes $25 a weekend. Joey wants to buy a $300 Xbox, so he saves his weekly lawn-mowing money under his mattress. After three months, Joey takes the saved $300 in cash to the mall and buys the coveted electronics. Does Joe Weisenthal have a problem with this scenario? Did the market economy function immorally by allowing Joey to transfer his purchasing power from the start of the summer to the end of the summer? Was Joey supposed to have done something in addition to cutting lawns to earn the ability to defer his potential consumption through time? I trust Weisenthal would not object to Joey saving up his currency over the summer. But then, what is the principled difference between Joey’s three-month deferral and Weisenthal’s time traveler who executed a hundred-year consumption deferral? Present Goods Trade at a Premium for Future Goods In fact, not only should a time traveler not be penalized for deferring consumption a century, he should be actively rewarded. This is because present goods are more valuable than future goods. (Note that we are here getting into some very technical issues. The interested reader can check out my three-part podcast series—one, two, and three—to hear the intricate details of interest theory in the Austrian tradition.) So to go back to the original tweets, if a guy in 1921 has two quarters in his pocket, and that would be enough for him to buy a delicious hamburger, then for his willingness to effectively trade away his 1921 hamburger for a burger to be delivered in 2021, the guy should at least get to trade at par. And in fact, he would (normally) be able to obtain a promise for more than one burger in the future, since the former are more valued. (This is no more mysterious than one present burger trading for more than one present hot dog.) It’s easy to understand why, subjectively, people would need to be promised a greater number of goods in the future to give up potentially consuming their goods today. But how, mechanically, can the borrowers deliver on these promises? How is it possible, technologically speaking, to transform 100 units of present goods into (say) 150 units of future goods? The answer is that the longer we are willing to wait, generally speaking, the greater physical output we can obtain for a given amount of today’s inputs. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk famously referred to the superior physical productivity of wisely chosen, more roundabout processes. For example, if a man is in the woods and wants to get water from a stream into his nearby cabin, he has different techniques he could use. A very fast and direct method is to cup his hands and run back and forth from the stream to his cabin. This delivers some water to his cabin very quickly, but the yield—measured in gallons of water per hour of his labor—is also very low. An intermediate method would be to hollow out two coconuts to make little buckets, and then go back and forth armed with the newly created capital goods. This would take longer to get the initial water to his cabin, but once the process is underway, it would deliver far more gallons per hour of invested labor—even including the time spent constructing the buckets. Finally, the man might take several months digging a small path from the stream to his cabin, so that the water flowed directly to him. Once completed, his renovations would be extremely productive if we measure in terms of water volume per hour of his labor time. And so we see society would be willing and able to reward Weisenthal’s hypothetical time traveler for earning $100 in 1921 and then postponing his consumption for a century. The real resources that would have gone into satisfying him in 1921 would be freed up to be invested in longer processes, which had a higher physical yield. To put it simply, it makes perfect sense that a 1921 hamburger would trade on the forward market for several 2021 hamburgers. Bonds versus Cash We can really see the weakness in Weisenthal’s analysis if we suppose the time traveler took his original cash and deposited it into a savings account at the bank. Would it be immoral for a bank account to have $100 in 1921, and to grow to more than that amount by 2021? Or for another example, what if the time traveler from 1921 initially bought a very long-term bond that would come due in 2021? The time traveler jams the bond into his pocket, activates the time machine, and shows up at Weisenthal’s doorstep. He asks Joe to help him cash his matured bond (and working at Bloomberg, Weisenthal is just the guy). The time traveler is pleased to discover that the nominal interest he earned on the hundred-year bond is just enough to have maintained his purchasing power, since goods are much more expensive than the traveler is used to seeing. Has the market economy behaved immorally by allowing such a transaction to occur? In principle, the same type of intertemporal trade occurs if people invest their savings not in bank account balances or bonds, but instead in the accumulation of actual cash. Even here, the initial drop in consumption frees up real resources that can be channeled into the production of a greater amount of future goods. As Ludwig von Mises explains in Human Action: If an individual employs a sum of money not for consumption but for the purchase of factors of production, saving is directly turned into capital accumulation. If the individual saver employs his additional savings for increasing his cash holding because this is in his eyes the most advantageous mode of using them, he brings about a tendency toward a fall in commodity prices and a rise in the monetary unit's purchasing power. If we assume that the supply of money in the market system does not change, this conduct on the part of the saver will not directly influence the accumulation of capital and its employment for an expansion of production. The effect of our saver's saving, i.e., the surplus of goods produced over goods consumed, does not disappear on account of his hoarding. The prices of capital goods do not rise to the height they would have attained in the absence of such hoarding. But the fact that more capital goods are available is not affected by the striving of a number of people to increase their cash holdings. If nobody employs the goods—the nonconsumption of which brought about the additional saving—for an expansion of his consumptive spending, they remain as an increment in the amount of capital goods available, whatever their prices may be. Those two processes—increased cash holding of some people and increased capital accumulation—take place side by side. It is a fascinating topic to ponder the ideal money (if such a concept makes sense) and whether its purchasing power would fall, rise, or remain steady over long periods. What we can say for certain is that rapid and unpredictable changes are undesirable, because a wildly fluctuating money defeats the effectiveness of monetary calculation, which is one of the underpinnings of civilization itself. To wit, double-entry bookkeeping only works when the money units of revenues and costs are comparable. Conclusion Contrary to Joe Weisenthal’s musings, there is nothing immoral if a money retains its purchasing power over long stretches. In general, when people channel their savings into conventional vehicles (such as bank accounts or bonds), this frees up real resources that can be used to yield a greater physical amount of output down the road. In principle, holding currency could be merely a different financial asset for achieving the same purpose.

1 0

MAGA-world is lousy with Russian agents.
by professor rat 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

description of the significance of Rinat Akhmetov https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1464282355980541953

1 0

Assange deadenders should just own the Russian stuff rather than spewing conspiracy theories.
by professor rat 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

Update on another journalist-fraud-criminal piece-of-GOP-shit https://twitter.com/emptywheel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwg…

1 0

Longtime Trump aide Katrina Pierson, accused of being “deeply involved in the violent & unlawful acts of Jan 6.”
by professor rat 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

Whose a rat? https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/roger-stone-is-already-throwing-peopl… Link provided as is and no endorsement of any site politics is implied.

1 0

Cryptocurrency: Socialism = Fail... Then, Now, Always
by grarpamp 26 Nov '21

26 Nov '21

https://schiffgold.com/commentaries/the-pilgrims-did-socialism-and-died-try… The Pilgrims Did Socialism And Died Trying Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com, When I was a kid, we used to say some things only “sound good on paper.” In other words, they seem like good plans, but there is no way they’re going to work in the real world. That’s socialism in a nutshell. The Pilgrims found this out the hard way during their first couple of years in North America. Socialism really does sound good on paper though, right? We’re all going to own everything together and take care of each other. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.“ It sounds so nice. And we all want to be nice, right? People are emotionally drawn to socialism because it sounds nice. It sounds fair. It sounds good. Except when people start dying. Do you know what’s not nice? Corpses. That’s exactly what happened when the Pilgrims took a stab at socialism. Most Americans don’t know that the Plymouth colony was originally an experiment in socialist utopianism and were it not for a complete 180 a couple of years in, we probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the bountiful feasts most of us will indulge in today. There would have been no Thanksgiving because there would have been nobody left to give thanks. When the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts on November 11, 1620, they placed all their food and provisions in a “common store.” These folks were forward thinkers. They didn’t even have Marx’s scribblings to appeal to. They set things up on the socialist principle of, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Well, things got off to a bad start. Conditions were miserable, as William Bradford described them. That which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months time half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases, so as there died sometimes two or three of a day, in the aforesaid time; that of 100 and odd persons, scarce 50 remained.” Now, the Pilgrim’s initial struggles didn’t have anything to do with socialism. They just had the misfortune of landing in Massachusetts at the onset of winter. Anyway, the following fall, the Pilgrims harvested their first crops and they all went into the common store. Now, wasn’t that nice? No greed. Nobody getting any more than they should. Of course, nobody was getting much of anything at all – but still – they had to feel good about themselves, right? So, in November the ship Fortune arrived with more than 30 new settlers, mostly young men. More manpower was welcome, but according to accounts, they brought “not so much as a bisket-cake” with them. The future looked bleak as food supplies ran out and the “planned socialist” community faced starvation yet again. The following year, the harvest was poor in spite of the added manpower. Nevertheless, the pilgrims again put the meager harvest in the common store. Because, you know, it’s going to work this time! It didn’t. That winter, they starved. The colonists were learning economics the hard way. Richard Grant in The Incredible Bread Machine wrote: “For two years the Pilgrims faithfully practiced communal ownership of the means of production. And for two years nearly starved to death, rationed at times to “but a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person.” Governor Bradford wrote that “famine must still ensue the next year also if not some way prevented.” He described how the colonists finally decided to introduce private property: [The colonists] began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. [In 1623] after much debate of things, the Gov. (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set down every man for his own … and to trust themselves … so assigned to every family a parcel of land. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Gov. or any other could use, … and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little-ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” Reflecting on the experience of the previous two years, Bradford goes on to describe the folly of communal ownership: “The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Platosand other ancients, applauded by some of later times; — that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young-men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more indivision of victuals and cloths, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice…” Woah! Some people resented doing all the work? They didn’t work as hard when they knew they weren’t going to directly benefit? Shocking. Actually, it’s not shocking at all. It’s human nature. And we all know it. Now, we can lament the fact. We can say it shouldn’t be that way. We can finger-point and talk about greed. We can get all holier-than-thou and say we wouldn’t act that way (in other words lie). But people will still be people. Here’s a harsh truth: good intentions and feel-good policies can’t trump basic economics. You can dream unicorns and lollipops all day, but it won’t change reality. Scarcity. Human behavior. Incentives. The experience of the Pilgrims vividly demonstrates basic economic principles. Their good intentions could not overpower the cold hard realities of economic principles. They never have. They never will.

1 0