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Topic: Bitcoin: The Digital Kill Switch - page 4. (Read 55246 times)

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 08, 2013, 08:14:15 PM
Quote from: email
>>Inflation is not a problem, because it benefits the working class, whose
>>wages will rise proportionally and depletes the idle capital of the
>>capitalists who are not investing in new technology and productivity.

There is no problem for workers when their wages keep up with inflation.

And the data from 1790 to 2012 says:

http://www.measuringworth.com/growth/

http://www.measuringworth.com/growth/growth_resultf.php?begin%5B%5D=1790&end%5B%5D=2012&beginP%5B%5D=&endP%5B%5D=&US%5B%5D=UNSKILLED&US%5B%5D=MANCOMP&US%5B%5D=NOMINALGDP&US%5B%5D=NOMGDPCP&US%5B%5D=SAP&US%5B%5D=POPULATION&UK%5B%5D=GDPC&UK%5B%5D=GDPCP&UK%5B%5D=POP&gold%5B%5D=NEWYORK&gold%5B%5D=SILVERRATIO

The average annualized values from 1790 - 2012 are as follows.

3.26% - Production Worker Compensation
5.24% - Nominal GDP   
3.18% - Nominal GDP per capita
1.99% - Population (millions)

3.26 + 1.99 = 5.25 which is very close to 5.24%

In other words, the increase in nominal GDP was spread proportionally to the workers, diluted by the increase in the population.

So the only problem was if the money supply was increasing faster than the nominal GDP, i.e. if the velocity of money was declining. Indeed the velocity of money is declining now, because the bastards have their hands on the levers of money supply creation and are hoarding it for themselves.

Here is the same data again 1970 - 2000:

5.46% - Production Worker Compensation
7.82% - Nominal GDP   
6.68% - Nominal GDP per capita
1.07% - Population (millions)

So we see that lately the workers have been cheated.

5.46 + 1.07 = 6.53, which is 1.5% less than 7.82%.

M2 increased only 7.12% from 1970 to 2000, so velocity was increasing:

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/frbH6/m2

So it appears the bastards were able to steal about 1.5% per year from the working class from 1970 - 2000. Hopefully we could eliminate that by eliminating their control over the printing of money.

Without inflation, the economy can't grow. I already explained why in my prior email where I explained that the investors who fund a project need to get back more than they put in. But this can't happen with a strict gold standard where only gold is the money, because money supply is limited to 2 - 3% per year.

I am sorry if you can't grasp this. It is exclusively to be understood by people with an IQ above 140. Most can never get this.

In the Quantity Theory of Money:

M x V = P x Q

The investor could be paid by increasing V, but we can't just keep increasing the velocity of money forever. M has to increase.

If you can't grasp that, I don't know how else to explain it to you, that you could grasp.

The problem is top-down control over money printing. Decentralized money printing is absolutely necessary, else the economy can't grow.

Only people with very high IQ are going to understand this.

Quote from: email
> I understand your own improved
> Bitcoin has no feature for stealing either. So what gives?

The printing is given to those who mine the Bitcoin. And now I will be proposing that the M scales with the P x Q. Completely decentralized. No one can steal. Money supply will grow with the economy. No central bank needed.

So ideally we want to scale the money supply by the optimum nominal GDP growth rate. That appears to be 5% historically. Bitcoin will not scale its money supply after 2033, and thus MUST be debased by external credit else the economy would stop growing if Bitcoin was the only currency.

I will be proposing for my new alternative to Bitcoin, that the mining of new money follows a similar curve to Bitcoin but never declines below 5%. That way it can support an economy whose average annual growth rate is 5%.

Note the growth rate can go higher or lower, because the velocity of money can change, but over time it will have to average the same as the growth rate of the money supply.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 08, 2013, 02:08:26 PM
Quote from: email
> I'm not getting fooled by anybody, just listening to different
> view points. And hers [Fitts] is not all bad. But true? Who knows.
> Nobody knows the future in all points, including Armstrong.
> Refer to my recent 1781 example.

Indeed no one knows every individual action, and Armstrong doesn't attempt to predict what his model does not model.

The misconceptions of the British in 1781 have nothing to do with the validity of Armstrong's Pi model. His model was found by inputting $100 million in data from the history of the world into a computer which then searched for repeating patterns. Thus it was discovered that Pi is fundamental. Well that makes plausible sense, since The Universe is composed of frequencies which are multiples of Pi (in the Fourier domain of
spacetime).

I am searching for one instance since 1970 where Armstrong's prediction of trend and timing was grossly incorrect. Have you found one? I haven't found one yet.

His computer validated that the Pi cycles were always correct since the beginning of recorded time.

It is difficult for me to deny the scientific method. How about you, you prefer to believe in the tooth fairy?
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 08, 2013, 01:04:17 PM
They got their $40 trillion and have it positioned. For example, they are building pipelines across the USA to carry natural gas to new export terminals so they can export to Asia which they keep dependent on imports, because for example they come to the aid of Japan Senkaku islands and Philippines Spratly islands to keep China from developing these huge natural gas fields.

The elite are planning to use the hitech community in the USA as slaves, while keeping Asia as slaves by controlling key inputs such as energy.

I'm bored Anony what's the news?

How will Asia be kept slaves with energy ?


http://pro.contrarianprofits.com/Cameron49/LJMTP800?h=true

(click close on your browser tab for the above link, then click "stay on page", then the transcript will appear so you don't have to listen to the whole video)

That came from a link in a Casey Research post:

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/how-to-invest-to-avoid-a-chinese-slowdown

Here is more about it:

http://stockgumshoe.com/reviews/macro-trader/whats-the-mysterious-400-billion-cameron-parish-project/
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 08, 2013, 12:46:48 PM
Quote from: email
>>Inflation is not a problem, because it benefits the working class, whose
>>wages will rise proportionally and depletes the idle capital of the
>>capitalists who are not investing in new technology and productivity.
>
>
> That is a really stupid thing to say. Inflation,
> i.e. fiat money printing or stealth theft, is
> precisely the problem.

There is no problem for workers when their wages keep up with inflation.

Quote from: email
> If it wasn't for the
> stolen wealth through money printing, the SOB's
> wouldn't be interested in fractional reserve in
> the first place.

Exactly. Who is receiving the QE?

With Bitcoin mining, the elite don't receive the printing.

Wink :wink:

Quote from: email
> That is the raison d'être. And
> inflation rises faster than wages,

Inflation rises faster than wages because the elite are wasting the printed money, i.e. capital misallocation, thus causing economic decline.

Without inflation, the economy can't grow. I already explained why in my prior email where I explained that the investors who fund a project need to get back more than they put in. But this can't happen with a strict gold standard where only gold is the money, because money supply is limited to 2 - 3% per year.

I am sorry if you can't grasp this. It is exclusively to be understood by people with an IQ above 140. Most can never get this.

In the Quantity Theory of Money:

M x V = P x Q

The investor could be paid by increasing V, but we can't just keep increasing the velocity of money forever. M has to increase.

If you can't grasp that, I don't know how else to explain it to you, that you could grasp.

The problem is top-down control over money printing. Decentralized money printing is absolutely necessary, else the economy can't grow.

Only people with very high IQ are going to understand this.

Quote from: email
> ...
> justify the cheating. America was built with
> honest money.

Incorrect. It was built on fractional reserves by the private banks all through the 1800s at least.

Quote from: email
> I understand your own improved
> Bitcoin has no feature for stealing either. So what gives?

The printing is given to those who mine the Bitcoin. And now I will be proposing that the M scales with the P x Q. Completely decentralized. No one can steal. Money supply will grow with the economy. No central bank needed.

Quote from: email
> If the claim is true that a modern economy cannot
> function without lending, which I doubt,

You deny the facts above.

Quote from: email
> ...
> No way, that interest has to go to the people,
> wholly.

Interest goes to the lenders and savers. Giving it away to all the people is stealing via socialism.

Quote from: email
> ...
> money, etc. Let myriads of local councils decide
> about credit and specially marked credit money be
> printed for the purpose.

You propose more top-down statism, which leads always to socialism. Top-down organization is not decentralized. It always leads to politics and vested interests.

Iron Law of Political Economics:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984

Quote from: email
> All of a sudden you have
> people who are very interested in politics and
> check and doublecheck every action of the
> officials. No more mickey mouse money,
> derivatives shit and financial casino. That will
> take the power away from these SOB's and
> everybody's share of the pie will get bigger.

Have you not learned anything in 3000+ years of recorded human history?

The moneychangers buy the government and the politics.

You propose more of the same.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 08, 2013, 08:01:21 AM
bcc: Kristen Linton @ Solari to pass on to Catherine

Three more points of evidence that seem to argue that Catherine's optimism is unrealistic:

1. Obama's Health Care plan is going to significantly impact to the negative any business where labor is a significant component. How do we get widespread recovery of the economy without widespread involvement of labor?

2. Catherine's model of individuals and small (rural!) communities reinventing themselves is precisely what happens when empires fail. The cities become empty and only those who fend for themselves in the rural areas survive. It is not a model for society wide recovery, rather it is THE model for collapse:

http://blog.jim.com/culture/radish-explains-what-racism-means.html/comment-page-1#comment-345588

Quote from: AnonyMint a.k.a. JustSaying a.k.a. Shelby
The population of Rome plummeted -97% from 1.4 million in 450AD to 40,000 over the next 1000+ years.[1]

Dark Ages where the population abandons cities occurred in Greece from 1600 – 1200BC (with coinage only re-appearing in 7th century BC), after the collapse of Rome that lasted 600 years, and in Japan for 600 years during which no coinage was created.[2]

[1] Sovereign Debt Crisis Conference, Armstrong
[2] Are we Headed into a Mad Max Scenario?, Armstrong

3. What Catherine describes as a slow burn (e.g. the now sick small farmers in her region being turned into welfare dependents eating GMO by the greed of the fascism which outlawed their organic farming in favor of GMO, Monsanto, and corporate farming) is analagous to how the end came about in Rome:

http://blog.jim.com/culture/radish-explains-what-racism-means.html/comment-page-1#comment-344589

Quote from: AnonyMint a.k.a. JustSaying a.k.a. Shelby
@Winter:
You attempt to remove blame from the effects of top-down governance. Agriculture in Western Europe declined for numerous reasons all of which can be attributed to mismanagement due to top-down control and the funding of such misallocation. Socialized debt is a future tax. The agricultural sector was suffering under increasing taxes after the hyperinflation of the 3rd century had adversely impacted funding for the military while there were increasing military threats to the east. Pottery records indicate production increased through the 4th, as the rural sector was squeezed for every drop by Rome. As with all debt funding, growth was too rapid, and irrigation was polluted by clearing for too many new
settlements. The resultant malnutrition, declining production, localized warlords, and thus disease coincided with the collapse of Western Europe due to the bankruptcy of its top-down militarized, servitude model.

We will likely find the same top-down cause applies to of all Dark Ages– even the famines in Africa.

Quote from: James A. Donald
Quote from: Winter
Indeed, probably due to plagues of various kinds

Pinker attributes the entire population decline to the fall of Rome, even though it set in before the fall or Rome.

In fact, what happened was that Rome was in financial trouble because, like much of Europe, it was taxing well above the Laffer limit. Well, thought Diocletian, if overtaxed people will not work, make them work. So he in large part instituted a command economy, which probably caused rises in the death rates for the usual reasons that we observe command economies killing people today and during the twentieth century. Basically, in a command economy, you have to murder people to get stuff done.

My further comments are interleaved within yours below.

Quote from: email
> Thank you for the feedback, you make good points.  However, my sense is that the centralization of global economic power has reached the point where TPTB can manipulate just about every variable swiftly and
> effectively, including interest rates - i.e. for several more years under the dollar fiat and then when that system is no longer viable they will make their move to a digital global currency.

Even if the elite were entirely in control (which Armstrong argues is impossible and I agree), why would they want to hold interest rates down? The ROI on each new dollar of debt has reached a few pennies in China and just about every where in the world. There is overcapacity in every sector, e.g. even here in the Philipppines they are building a shopping mall on every corner while the people still only earn $200 per month.

If they continue pumping more debt into the global economy, they will cause massive social unrest because of the waste. They have to move now to next stage which is defaults, which will bankrupt everyone but themselves. They can use the Public sector to hunt down all the remaining capital and assets that isn't theirs (so they will own the growth phase that comes after this wipeout). They got their $40 trillion and have it positioned. For example, they are building pipelines across the USA to carry natural gas to new export terminals so they can export to Asia which they keep dependent on imports, because for example they come to the aid of Japan Senkaku islands and Philippines Spratly islands to keep China from developing these huge natural gas fields.

They have given Dept of Homelove (hands down kid's pants) Security the right to purchase billions of hollow point bullets (which are illegal in war because they are so gruesome) and 2714 tank-like vehicles. Does that sound to you like they are preparing for a subtle slow down and
slow-cooked frogs in the boiling pot?

Nothing every crashes like that. In nature, all exponential phenomenon have a long period of exponential gestation, a phase-shift blow off where the nominal change is now large, an then a waterfall collapse that is much shorter than the gestation period.

Quote from: email
> In the interview I believe Fitts spoke about how derivatives are used to manipulate interest rates.  Makes sense that the derivatives market is a powerful tool in this context.  How much longer can this work?

Exactly. And now the Fed and the Treasury Dept is telling all the banks that their derivative books won't be bailed out in 2016 and that they need to start unwinding. This is another reason we are seeing the interest rates going up radically since May. The derivatives will take priority to the bond holders and the depositors, e.g. bail-ins are coming.

They are getting ready to default the global economy and they will be the only ones left standing after the dust clears.

They will use this leverage to force the developing world to follow their aims. But remember, they are not entirely in control. And their plan will leak. For example, I am creating the better Bitcoin that will enable private capital to run and hide (and still be liquid unlike gold in large size will be trapped by taxation, but the better anonymous Bitcoin will not be).

Quote from: email
> We should also consider compensatory mechanisms.
> Interesting side note, about 9 years ago, I had an online forum chat with an old insider economist (he authored widely used economics textbooks, was Ivy League, bragged about being a close friend of Milton Friedman, etc.) about the dismantling of the U.S. manufacturing sector and he told me he was confident that the U.S. would be in a position to quickly rebuild a large manufacturing sector.

You know I have been calling for that too for past several months.

The point is that the elite will own this sector. The proprietor's capital won't survive the coming wipeout unless they play ball with the elite, except for the leakage I am talking about above.

Also this sector will either be very low labor (thus not a big impact on the general economy in the USA), else they will play ball with the elite (e.g. to get a waiver from the Obama administration on health care or otherwise not abused by the IRS).

Fascism 101.

Quote from: email
>  Of course, that seemed very unlikely given
> the U.S. debt situation and China's advantages of slave labor and lack of regulation.

China and Asia will still win on anything that is labor intensive. This is why Asia will be #1 as we come out the crisis.

The elite are planning to use the hitech community in the USA as slaves, while keeping Asia as slaves by controlling key inputs such as energy.

Quote from: email
>  In retrospect, remembering other commentary he posited, at
> the time he seemed delusional but now I have to think he was, like Carroll Quigley, being given access to deep insider intel.
> Thanks again for the info and your input.  I will be thinking about your points on interest rates.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 07, 2013, 11:15:50 PM
In addition to mining, other than risky personal meetups, one can be paid anonymously, i.e. only known by their private key, e.g. license some digital works where the author is only identified by the private key.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 07, 2013, 09:00:48 PM
Fitts and you (and everyone else too) are being fooled to some degree by the international capital fleeing Europe and the developing world into the dollar assets forming a bubble. This is a deadcat bounce.

This will drive capital out of bonds (so it can chase also these higher returns) and these high interest rates will choke off the US economy (and globe) by 2016.

Be aware that many people are locking in 5/1 ARMs because they are still 3% while fixed mortage rate loans moved to 4+% recently. Thus this boost in the economy is going to get killed by the higher interest rates coming with those ARMS adjust in 5 years. Many other examples like that of why this bounce is going to collapse.

Armstrong is always correct, because he does not do analysis based on fundamentals which are always questionable. Rather his timing models relate how international capital looks at relative opportunity cost OVER TIME:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/08/07/fundamental-analysis-always-questionable/

Quote from: email
> Thanks for the youtube link, it was a great summary by Fitts of all the
> various predictions and analyses she has been making.  My gut tells me she
> is absolutely spot on and her view jives with many other bits of
> information I am picking up.
> BTW, I am also witnessing a huge explosion of prosperity and
> infrastructure development and people are spending money like crazy.  I've
> been hearing anecdotal reports by friends and their extended families
> getting huge increases in their salaries or large revenue boosts from
> their private businesses.  In the metro area I live in, billions are being
> spent on new hospital and research centers and billions more on massive
> transportation projects...
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 07, 2013, 07:24:55 PM
Quote
The answer to the problems of deflation/ austerity due to a fixed supply of currency, is and always has been to increase spending by printing or otherwise debasing that currency, creating inflation. Inflation is a form of net worth tax, although a flawed version, as discussed below. Once this flaw is removed, this naturally occurring tax can be allowed to deflate the nominal values of all wealth (not just money). The result is that everyone's relative wealth remains unchanged by the tax, meaning that the currency ends up not debased!

You are responding to my point that gold can never be the only money because it would penalize investing for productivity by giving the returns to those who sit on their gold, because the gold supply doesn't expand fast enough to pay the investors the ROI on the expansion of the economy due to their efforts and risk.

The problem with any tax is that the elite capture it in the Olsen scramble. Top-down is not a solution. We need decentralized solutions.

Inflation is not a problem, because it benefits the working class, whose wages will rise proportionally and depletes the idle capital of the capitalists who are not investing in new technology and productivity.

The problem with inflation as it is created now, is that the elite get their hands on the levers that create inflation and thus give the debased money to themselves.

This problem elite capture won't be possible in a better Bitcoin, that contains sufficient continuous debasement (i.e. inflation), because no entity can control the rate of debasement.

Quote
In any event the exponential ramp in technology as we approach the singularity may eventually render the capitalism/ socialism model obsolete.

The technological singularity is nonsense. I refuted it here:

http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html

Note that Nicolas Taleb agreed with me.

But I do agree that if we earn our ROI in knowledge gained, instead of dollars saved, then for those who are in that new economy they will not be controlled by monetary capital. And thus knowledge capital can grow much faster without being burdened by monetary controls (how much capital do you need to write a new software program in your bedroom?) and in a decentralized manner. My Copute plans are all about that model of the future.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 07, 2013, 06:40:14 PM
Here is the direct link to that Catherine Austin Fitts video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EiMUPdtFXI

Excellent video to bring to my attention.

Essentially she is arguing that the Private sector is extracting itself from the Public sector, as the socialism (statism) is dying.

But she makes the mistake of not identifying which portion of the private sector is allowed to go free and which portion is being held slave to the Public sector.

Btw, Martin Armstrong's ECM Pi (8.6 years = 3145.9 days) model also has the Public sector wave ending in 1981, and the Private sector wave extending to and peaking in 2033, and 2033 is also when the 26 year down portion of the Real Estate cycle bottoms:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/models/7219-2/

Armstrong has also called for the dollar to strengthen and the developing world to crash due to being short the dollar (as they received massive dollar loans as this was only place for international capital to earn a decent return, but now the flow is reversing back to the USA as Fitts also noted).

W.r.t. to old and new economy (robotics, etc) and return to USA of more hitech manufacturing, good to see she read my emails a few months ago, as she is now repeating my theme. Well I can't assume she learned that from me Smiley

Fitts calls for long-term boom in the stock market (when asked about China becoming new reserve currency she said "impossible now, something to study 20 years out"), so her view of the USA stock market possibly rising through 2033 I guess wouldn't be an anathema to Armstrong.

However, Armstrong has called for crash in 2016 that will be worse than 2008. Fitts rather views collapse as more likely for the developing world-- not for the USA. Rather she sees a slow-burn (to 2033?) of defaulting on socialism for the USA (at least, does she include Europe and G7? I think so). She sees roving failures globally and nationally, but not one big catastrophic moment of failure globally.

She agrees with Armstrong that the G7 (in defense of the Public sector) is attacking safe havens. She mentions her estimate of $40 trillion stolen from the public sector by those in the Private sector (banks, military establishment, etc) who own the government.

She didn't acknowledge that those powers that be are not attacking safe havens that include themselves and their $40 trillion, rather the
attacking of the safe havens is to go after all the competition from the millionaires and the upper middle class. So this is power consolidation, power grab. She could refer to my recent emails about how empires die, and how they destroy themselves by destroying their tax base-- the upper middle class who create businesses.

She agrees with Armstrong that the USA (G7) empire will not go quietly into the night and they are twisting the arm of the G20, and they will use their power to attack anyone who is not playing ball in their system.

Fitts argues that the USA can reinvent itself, but she misses one very important point. Demographics. Europe even more so. The West can excel at high tech but it can't become lean overall as a society until the boomers die off (i.e. another 20 years or so, i.e. 2033 again). Whereas, the developing world can quickly grow after resetting itself with defaults. Heritage foundation data shows the developing countries have a very low level of government as share of GDP unlike the West, so they are poised to grow after the recent influx of credit is purged in a collapse coming soon (2016). Young people simply adapt more quickly and are highly motivated to do so. Old people are hanging for a "few more good years".

Armstrong thinks the rising interest rates will choke off the old economy and exacerbate the sovereign and local government fiscal positions (not to mention how this will set off derivative defaults on the interest rate swaps, and derivatives get first priority over bond holders and depositors), thus causing a collapse into deflation, i.e. austerity along with rising taxes and hunting down all capital. This is not so different than Fitt's slow burn, except for key point.

Armstrong thinks "safe haven" will come to mean any capital that is not buying a "get out of jail free card" from the government, i.e. all middle class wealth will be targeted.

So this is the difference between Fitts and Armstrong, and I am sure Armstrong is correct, because Fitts missed the point that demographics don't afford her scenario of a widespread recovery and the powers that be want a bunch of slaves with them in control (i.e. they don't want to give up control to millions of free enterprice, they want fascism).

The reality will probably end up being somewhere in between Fitt's optimism and Armstrong's pessimism, especially since yours truly is working on a better Bitcoin that can hide capital from the bastards and build the new economy under their nose.



Quote from: email
> http://www.bmgbullion.com/document/buzz/2013-08-07
> ...and she is making some very good points. My
> big question is how many will be left behind by
> the new economy and what's going to happen to
> them? Will they let those in the new economy
> dance while they starve? How peaceful or messy
> will that be That's easily 50M-80M people that
> are "excess" and don't really fit into the new
> world because they will never get the skills to
> be useful. Will they just be plowed under or induced to mass suicide? By
the way if her scenario with a strong
> industrial America
> (oil/agro/technology/manufacturing) is true, the
> moonshot in metals will never come, and gold
> won't even reach 3000, unless there is war.
> Silver might go higher because of industrial use and shortage.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 07, 2013, 03:25:39 PM
Btw, I don't why but suddenly (ever since I became more convinced of a hard landing for China and Armstrong's Pi model) it seems Michael Pettis is censoring my comments on his blog. So the following comment I posted to his blog may not appear on his blog. Oh well, his loss if so. Thought we were on amicable terms.

http://blog.mpettis.com/2013/08/the-changing-debate-over-chinas-economy/#comment-233

Michael, I don't understand how you can expect a soft landing, when apparently the trajectories that need adjusting have not been reversed yet?

The debt-to-GDP ratios are as high as any where when non-official debt is factored in. There has been no sustained deflation of China's housing bubble yet.

For the elite within the Communist Party to give up wealth to the masses, seems to be the antithesis of what makes the Communist Party exist. They will only do this when they are losing more money by holding on to the old, than they could make by privatizing.

Michael if the western world collapses in a sovereign debt collapse where aggregate global demand is reduced by 30 - 50%, are you claiming China could have a soft landing?

If I am correct about such a global implosion starting 2016, then the process of the elite adjusting will occur with a depression in China.

The Pi model says the center of the global empire moves period round-robin from Europe, Americas, Asia, and that the USA had its depression in 1929 as the handoff from Europe to USA of the global empire. 78 years later in the Pi model (78 = 26 x 3.159, 26 = 8.6 x 3.1459, 8.6 = 1000 x 3.1459), China will have its 1929 starting in 2016/7 as the handoff from USA to Asia of the global empire enters the next phase.
hero member
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August 06, 2013, 10:23:41 PM
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/08/05/confiscation-of-gold-possible-or-not/

About the above "Confiscation of gold", the key points to remember are:

1. They can't confiscate what you physically hide, but other than coins for barter (no need to assay, trusted), you won't be able to invest that wealth (easily and efficiently in large size) without paying the confiscation or taxes, because the powers that be control the avenues for investment. So all this BS from goldbugs about they can't confiscate what you bury in a hole, is only valid for the Madmax scenario, not for the scenario where they make a new money system after the crisis and you can't enter it without paying the confiscation or taxes. I warned of this years ago:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article20327.html (End Game - Gold Investors Destroyed)
http://www.financialsensearchive.com/fsu/editorials/moore/2010/0615.html (copy)
http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/no-money-exists-without-majority (No Money Exists Without The Majority)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/no-money-exists-without-the-majority-226033 (discussion)

2. They won't bother confiscating gold if there isn't that much wealth to attack (if the payoff is less than the effort and cost). So bear in mind, that a more anonymous Bitcoin alternative (coming soon), which they can not confiscate, will pull wealth away from gold. A possible reason the Bible speaks of a 666 mark on the forehead and hand (governments will need to physically track you to re-enable their power to tax you after I am done destroying that power), is because the governments are going to be destroyed by a truly anonymous Bitcoin alternative which they can not confiscate. Most people don't realize this is actually possible:

http://blog.jim.com/economics/bitcoin-as-a-speculative-bet.html/comment-page-1#comment-342148
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2847982


3. Physical gold can't create a new economy. We can't go back to physical barter and have any where near the maximum divison-of-labor we have now (thus quality of life would plummet). Forget it. An alternative to Bitcoin which is is truly anonymous and thus can't be confiscated, could potentially render the USA empire fiscally impotent sending it away powerless with its tail between its legs.
hero member
Activity: 518
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August 06, 2013, 09:31:54 PM
Quote from: AnonyMint a.k.a. Shelby
Martin Armstrong has not said that gold isn't money. He has said that a strict gold standard is never sustainable, and he explained why. Society must oscillate between gold and fiat money, because of at least two reasons:

1. Debt isn't possible on a strict gold standard (no fractional reserves)

2. Strict gold standard means savings is 100% more important than production and knowledge formation, because savers (who do nothing but sit on their gold) always get wealthier. You can't pay investors more, because the supply of gold doesn't increase as fast as the increased production value.

Point #2 above hasn't been explained clearly enough for most people to understand.

Martin explained this very abstractly by saying the supply of gold can't expand with the expansion of the economy. Goldbugs ignore this explanation, because they say the value of gold can increase accordingly.

What is missing is that when investors invest in a productive business, they expect to get a ROI which is greater than just sitting on their gold. So if via such investments, the economy grows at X% where X is greater than the expansion of the physical gold supply, then some of the investors can't be paid, i.e. the savers in gold take the gains from the investors in the form of price deflation.

Why can't otherwise smart people see that? I dunno. Cognitive dissonance? I mean I know one guy who claims he scored higher than me on the SAT (but not on the Math) and is a famous silver promoter, and for some reason he just can't seem to understand that (or at least hasn't indicated to me he got the point).

Some people point to the Byzantine empire (Eastern Rome) as an example of a sustainable gold standard. In every case where there was a gold standard, either it wasn't the only money (i.e. banks were creating gold receipts which were backed only by fractional reserves) and/or gold was being imported into the economy thus expanding the supply of gold faster than the 2% per annum expansion of global supply due to mining.

How can anyone make this any more clear? Whoever can't get this, should shut up, they don't have sufficient IQ to be commenting on the matter then.

P.S. Bitcoin is worse than gold, as the increase in supply stops entirely in 2033. Clearly a flawed design, for the reasons above, and also because mining of new coins is the only SURE way to anonymously obtain bit coins.
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August 06, 2013, 06:52:39 AM
Discussion between myself and James A. Donald (the first person who interacted with Satoshi at the cryptography forum where Satoshi announced Bitcoin):

http://blog.jim.com/culture/radish-explains-what-racism-means.html/comment-page-1#comment-345629

Quote from: James A. Donald
If bitcoin is fixed – made scalable so as to remain truly peer to peer all the way to volumes comparable to Visa, that would be a huge win. Also, being in on that at the start would get one rich.

Wink

I hope you saw my proposed solution.

I also feel strong anonymity is very important, because I think the government may become oppressive as end-stage Rome. The only way I can see to obtain digital coin anonymously is through mining (not an exchange) using a mix-net or dc-net that is more anonymous than Tor, i.e. tradeoff high latency for better anonymity (become impervious to timing attacks). Mining in Bitcon is falling fast (as a % of existing coin supply) to be at 0 in 2033.
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August 06, 2013, 05:25:36 AM
Click this first link below to read the following text in the context of a longer discussion between myself and James A. Donald (the first person who interacted with Satoshi at the cryptography forum where Satoshi announced Bitcoin).

http://blog.jim.com/culture/radish-explains-what-racism-means.html/comment-page-1#comment-345588

Apologies for this long comment, but I wanted to make it very clear that when empires fall, it is very dangerous for the citizens of the empire.

Quote from: James A. Donald
Rome during and after Diocletian attempted to tax above the Laffer limit. ... Economy collapsed and population declined. It was extremely unpleasant, and the collapse of empire did not make things better.

Indeed, when empires collapse, there isn't hyperinflation, rather the empire state exerts its power until it has destroyed itself (and the citizens) from within. Armstrong wrote more about that today quoted as follows.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/08/05/nsa-collects-word-for-word-according-to-pbs/

Quote from: Martin Armstrong
...

This is all about the financial crisis and this is how ALL governments have collapsed – sheer economic implosion as they turn against their own people. As I have said before. You will pray for the hyperinflation where government simply prints and does not try to confiscate assets. That has just never been the case in developed nations where assets exist. Hyperinflation is associated with governments that are typically new and revolutionary where hard assets are hoarded and not present in banks and there is not debt market for nobody will lend to them. We are not at that stage at this time. We first have to see confidence collapse and the bond market implode with nobody buying. But where does ca[ital then go since there is no alternative? The future is just not going to be such a easy way out.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/08/05/how-empires-collapse-a-orderly-path-to-conclusion/

Quote from: Martin Armstrong
A number of people have asked what does the future really hold with the civil unrest/war cycle turning up next year. Government NEVER collapse because of revolution. Let’s get this one very straight. Any government as long as it is strong will crush into dust any resistance. The key to the collapse of empires is the die from inside normally by their own hand. Communism fell of its own accord. We did not do a damn thing. Communism was economically unsustainable. As that worked its way through the veins of power, their economies simply imploded.

This is why I am warning that socialism is collapsing. Government is hunting down every penny it can find. It will destroy the economy in the process and that is the ultimate irony. Western government are simply unsustainable. We cannot constantly confiscate assets and pour them into interest and pension to sustain government. The economy grows weaker and the revenues decline as they become more and more aggressive.

The Barbarians were at the gates of Rome for more than a century. They could not make any headway until the 3rd century when the financial of Rome were imploding. Undermine the economy, you weaken the government, and then it falls. The rise of people in arms is NEVER the actual event the changes the cycle. It is the final act that completes the cycle. The cycle is already declining and then when the people cannot take it any more, they will rise up. They get the credit, but in fact, the government is declining just as we saw in China. When the man stood before the tanks, it did not take long for the government to really fail.

Revolution is the final act, never the first. Here is a famous Maryland Propaganda Note intended to justify war because of the injustice of the King. The king of England played a game with the American colonies. Anything they bought from England had to be paid in silver or gold. However, whatever they sold to England was paid in copper. Hence, he was extorting the American Colonies and bleeding them dry. First comes the economic decline – then comes the Revolution. So what must take place FIRST is the economic collapse and that will then lead to discontent. Why do you think they are passing all these [dracronian] laws one step at a time that follows a planned path only an idiot cannot see because they do not wish to.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/08/05/obama-trying-to-cover-up-another-investigative-program/

Quote from: Martin Armstrong
Bloomberg News has reported that Federal courts now allow the IRS to issue summonses to US banks at the request of the Norwegian government, to hunt down their citizens with assets in the USA.  All of these government are hunting money – not terrorists. This is the collapse of fiscal mismanagement. Forget the hyperinflation. These people will not go quietly into the night or light. They are kicking and screaming and will die like an insane madman in a violent oppression of the people.

You wrote more about that here:

Quote from: James A. Donald
Quote from: Winter
Indeed, probably due to plagues of various kinds

Pinker attributes the entire population decline to the fall of Rome, even though it set in before the fall or Rome.

In fact, what happened was that Rome was in financial trouble because, like much of Europe, it was taxing well above the Laffer limit. Well, thought Diocletian, if overtaxed people will not work, make them work. So he in large part instituted a command economy, which probably caused rises in the death rates for the usual reasons that we observe command economies killing people today and during the twentieth century. Basically, in a command economy, you have to murder people to get stuff done.

Before I was banned, I also rebutted Winter's theories on the decline of Rome here:

Quote from: JustSaying a.k.a. AnonyMint a.k.a. Shelby
@Winter:
You attempt to remove blame from the effects of top-down governance. Agriculture in Western Europe declined for numerous reasons all of which can be attributed to mismanagement due to top-down control and the funding of such misallocation. Socialized debt is a future tax. The agricultural sector was suffering under increasing taxes after the hyperinflation of the 3rd century had adversely impacted funding for the military while there were increasing military threats to the east. Pottery records indicate production increased through the 4th, as the rural sector was squeezed for every drop by Rome. As with all debt funding, growth was too rapid, and irrigation was polluted by clearing for too many new settlements. The resultant malnutrition, declining production, localized warlords, and thus disease coincided with the collapse of Western Europe due to the bankruptcy of its top-down militarized, servitude model.

We will likely find the same top-down cause applies to of all Dark Ages– even the famines in Africa.

And here:

Quote from: JustSaying a.k.a. AnonyMint a.k.a. Shelby
The population of Rome plummeted -97% from 1.4 million in 450AD to 40,000 over the next 1000+ years.[1]

Dark Ages where the population abandons cities occurred in Greece from 1600 – 1200BC (with coinage only re-appearing in 7th century BC), after the collapse of Rome that lasted 600 years, and in Japan for 600 years during which no coinage was created.[2]

[1] Sovereign Debt Crisis Conference, Armstrong
[2] Are we Headed into a Mad Max Scenario?, Armstrong
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 521
August 04, 2013, 03:09:31 PM
Wow lots of speculation, just got to make sure corps dont own all the hashing/coin power.

There is no speculation. I am telling you how it always happens. Every time.

What I wrote in the other thread applies:

Do you think I care about your call for Bitcoin to go to $200, when I am writing about how you are going to lose it all because you are not anonymous and there will be a wealth tax. I am writing about how empires die. You are writing about speculation.

Get off my lawn child.
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August 04, 2013, 02:43:55 PM
Wow lots of speculation, just got to make sure corps dont own all the hashing/coin power.
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August 04, 2013, 02:28:47 PM
> Be careful. Going to 1/50th the value is still hyperinflation, even if he
> does not like to apply that word.   A 98% loss of value of the currency is
> still loss, still hyperinflation, still devaluation, still deadly if you
> hold that.  Armstrong is master of confusion and
> illusion.

1/50th of the value, but you still had to pay your taxes in Rome in 99% gold! A two-tier money system. We have the same thing now.

Your gold investments will go up from $1000 to $3000 - $5000, but they will tax you at 90%. Go look at the tax rates after 1929.

You are missing the point. In empire collapse, you are squeezed between deflation and inflation.

Now the things you must use go up in price, but the things you invest in (houses) go down in price (and even if you invest in gold, they will make sure you lose just as in Rome).

You can't beat the empire. There is no place to run to, except the mountains.

This time the mountains is Bitcoin. But Bitcoin has flaws. I am working on it.

Armstrong is not at all confusing for me.

He has never said that gold won't go up. What he said was that gold would go down first from 2011 to 2013/4/5 (three possibilities for the bottom). Then gold will NOT make a new all-time high until after 2015.75.

And gold will NOT go to $50,000! It will go somewhere in the $3000 - $8000 range, probably $5000.

He has not said that gold isn't money. He has said that a strict gold standard is never sustainable, and he explained why. Society must oscillate between gold and fiat money, because of at least two reasons:

1. Debt isn't possible on a strict gold standard (no fractional reserves)

2. Strict gold standard means savings is 100% more important than production and knowledge formation, because savers (who do nothing but sit on their gold) always get wealthier. You can't pay investors more, because the supply of gold doesn't increase as fast as the increased production value.

Really this is so elemental. Armstrong is just a lot smarter than most people.
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August 04, 2013, 12:09:15 PM
So again I ask you, do you have any numbers or any evidence to show that transaction fees alone cannot support the Bitcoin network in the future?

Sure it can if you accept the mining won't be available as the only way to get true anonymity, and that the large corporations will take over mining (because they can offer transaction fees of zero or even less than zero because they make it back with a cartel and higher prices).

I guess you guys never heard of Visa and MasterCard.  Roll Eyes
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August 04, 2013, 09:37:51 AM
More pointedly why we sink into deflation, not hyperinflation.

AGAIN THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW NOW.

SEE ARMSTRONG's 100s OF CORRECT PREDICTIONS NEAR BOTTOM OF THIS EMAIL.

Click this first link below to read the following in context of larger discussion about hyperinflation vs. deflation as how fiat dies when empires die.

http://blog.jim.com/culture/radish-explains-what-racism-means.html/comment-page-1#comment-344394

My prior explanation didn't pointedly clarify what is recognizably distinct (different) between hyperinflation and the deflation where people discard the fiat (for anything they can until no one will accept it). In both cases, there is deflation relative to the value of hard assets (e.g. gold and land that wasn't fiat financed overvalued, e.g. undeveloped rural land that banks won't provide loans for).

The pointed distinction is that in the hyperinflationary case the government prints 10,000, 100,000, 1 million notes (or physically debased the physical coin to the same effect). Thus you see the value of gold go to 10,000, 100,000, etc. You will not see $100,000 dollar notes during this crisis.

The debasement of storing QE generated reserves at the Fed by the banks, caused massive dollar loans (leveraged on those reserves) in the developing world (not in the USA). Now those (fractional reserve created) dollars are returning home causing this bounce in the USA that will end 2015.75 because of the feedback loop effect I described upthread. That feedback loop is causing rest of world to collapse in deflation.

At the death of the empire, the powers that be maintain control by squeezing the middle class between inflation and deflation simultaneously. The currency is debased (but not exponential spiral unless they create a two-tier currency where the monetary unit for paying taxes isn't debased, note even 500 A.D. Roman coin was only debased 1/50, not 1/100,000) while increasing taxes. The middle class eventually disappears and flees the cities where the powers are extracting unlivable taxes, to places where they can produce without interference of the pathological end-game of statism.

The key difference is there is no state to run to with the collapse of the global empire, you can only run away to the mountains (the Madmax outcome depending on how the handoff from one empire to the next transpires, hopefully we won't get a Dark Ages this time, probably not because Asia is so rich in billions of educated youth with good family values that the western empire hasn't destroyed yet). Whereas, with hyperinflation, you can run to another state and its currency and continue functioning normally.

The global empire collapses in deflation and then the center of the empire transfers to where there isn't this huge statism taxing the economy, i.e. as Heritage Foundation data shows Asia (including China) has much lower government share of GDP than the West (with the exception of Switzerland). I explained why China and Asia are the future.

Anarcho-capitalism is the technological mountains this time around. Wink

James A. Donald, you were there at the beginning with Satoshi. Now stay with me as I fix Bitcoin. But you won’t be able to prove it is me doing the work Wink


=====================================
Another line of summary at the following link:

http://relativisticobserver.blogspot.com/2013/07/observing-microsoft-part-3.html?showComment=1375616451672#c6434436042918130550

First a macro-economic point w.r.t the relative trajectories of Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Some details were in the prior blog.

The western empire is dying (empires move periodically from Europe to America to Asia to Europe...), but empires never collapse with hyperinflation, rather always deflation and onerous taxation (police states devolution into abandonment of the cities).

The future (after 2016 when the USA begins its big economic collapse) after China has its 1929 handoff depression in 2016, is consumer economic volume and growth will be focused in the developing world predominantly Asia. The stock valuation of these companies should be based on their market share in Asia. The collapse starting in 2016 (maybe ending 2020 for Asia, 2033 for West) will do that.

I hope Tim Cook (Ballmer is hopeless) is aware. You may not agree, yet I have studied the evidence that this repeats every 78 and 224 years. The Google people may not understand this, but they understand that global market share is the future, so they arrive at the same optimum long-term strategy.

=====================================
Here is a general rebuttal for anyone who thinks the above is not coming from a real economist who has successfully predicted every major turn in the global economy since the 1970s (except his own imprisonment):

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2865057

birdbrain, it will be proven by 2016 that everything about the coming deflation is correct. Now stay on ignore with your other dimwitted commentators who have nothing intelligent to say.

All of what I wrote is just a re-summary of Martin Armstrong's Pi model of international capital flows. It has enabled him to make the following correct predictions years in advance of the predictions coming true. He spent $100 million developing the research and having his computer find all the correlations. That is when he discovered that human nature and thus international capital flows also move in waves, just like everything else in the The Universe (my blog) does. That doesn't mean we can predict what any individual human will do, only that we can predict the macro waves. Martin Armstrong helped me to make a public prediction that gold would decline from $1550 to under $1200. I was also the person who exactly predicted the 2011 price moves of silver back in Oct 2010. So shut your birdmouth. It is also allowing me to predict that the DJIA will go to 39,000 before 2015.75 and that gold will probably go up to 1424 - 1550, then crash back down to 1050 or below. Gold will not make new highs under after 2015.75. Now you just wait and see if I am correct again or not. I made one mistake betting too early on China's collapse last year, because I wasn't reading Armstrong (who makes it very clear China won't collapse until 2016).


=================================

Note I was starting to lean towards Armstrong's cycles when I INDEPENDENTLY discovered his 78 year cycle in Feb. 2013. The key was looking at long-term charts for strange patterns that stand out like a bloody nose. This caused me to integrate his 3 x 26 = 78 year model into my understanding of technological unemployment (follow the sub-links at the above linked pages to get to a table of historical dates evidence of the 78 year cycles).
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August 03, 2013, 02:02:22 AM
Click the link to read it in context of a discussion.

THIS WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT EMAIL YOU READ.

http://blog.jim.com/culture/radish-explains-what-racism-means.html/comment-page-1#comment-343342

You have provided no counter example. No empire has ever collapsed with hyperinflation. As you admit, Rome survived the inflationary crisis and only collapsed with deflation when the people abandoned the currency and the city too. Hyperinflation is where a country can't sell its bonds and pays its bills by printing money. The key difference is that in hyperinflation you can get more fiat for your gold. In deflation, you get less fiat, or you don't want the fiat because no one will accept it anymore at any valuation. Deflation is the state vs. the people madmax scenario, hyperinflation is running on a treadmill where people lose confidence but the government is not attacking the people, rather just printing money to fund its operations in an exponential spiral. You will pray for hyperinflation, when you see what is coming to us. You don't understand that Rome had a two-tier money system, and the people abandoned their land and the currency, because of the onerous taxes that had to be paid in the first tier currency that wasn't debased!! The G20 is going to hunt everyone down and tax them to death. You can't argue with Martin Armstrong, he has spent $millions on researching the history of world. He spent $10 million just to create a chart of the silver price during the Roman era, by collecting every silver coin from the era. He had researchers compile information from the media archives in London and else where. Read How Empires Die.

Note the empire rotates around the world from Europe to America to Asia. USA is peaking and Asia is next up. Britian handed it to USA, but we had our 1929 at the handoff, and China will have its 1929 in 2016.

China wasn't an empire when they hyperinflated, they were an isolated Yuan Dynasty in middle ages or the socialist failure of the Republic of China in the 1940s.
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