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Topic: Martin Armstrong Discussion - page 359. (Read 647257 times)

sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Knowledge could but approximate existence.
August 11, 2015, 05:06:03 PM
Interesting as this comes just a week or so after the IMF announced that China's joining to the SDR basket will be delayed until next September.

http://www.imf.org/external/pp/longres.aspx?id=4975

What odds China was maintaining the unofficial Yuan peg to show it can toe the line even in the midst of a declining economy (and using as many alternative to devalue as needed)? Now that it is delayed they've decided to act swiftly and a new round of currency wars begin......


Quote from: Martin Armstrong, "China Devalues Yuan—Why?", 2015
...this devaluation has a similar impact to raising interest rates to stem speculation. Foreign capital just lost 2%.

If Yuan should not be more immediately "join[ed] to the SDR basket" (tabnloz), "[f]oreign captial" (Armstrong) will be made to suffer more losses. That incentivizes "the IMF" (tabnloz) to expedite the Yuan's induction into "the SDR basket" (tabnloz).
legendary
Activity: 2968
Merit: 1895
August 11, 2015, 11:26:03 AM
...

tabnloz

There is so much that is interesting about the Yuan devaluation.  The first and obvious effect is that Chinese exports will become cheaper, although marginally so in our case (our company imports automotive bearings from Asia into Peru, including Chinese).

Armstrong today has his comments on the devaluation:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/35842

*   *   *

Agree that a devaluation will only hurt China's (now ceased?) efforts to include the Yuan into the SDR.  The IMF (and Europe and the USA, not to mention Japan -- a prime victim of China's devaluation) will look dimly on China now...

China does continue to build its gold reserves, which is about the ONLY good news coming from China lately.

*   *   *

And how do Korea and Japan react to this?  We buy bearings from all three countries, so our costs will go down.  But, if Peru's own currency joins "The Currency War" and also devalues, that is a net minus (pay in dollars, receive local currency for sales).
legendary
Activity: 961
Merit: 1000
August 11, 2015, 07:33:06 AM
China Rattles Markets With Yuan Devaluation

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-11/china-weakens-yuan-reference-rate-by-record-1-9-amid-slowdown

China devalued the yuan by the most in two decades, a move that rippled through global markets as policy makers stepped up efforts to support exporters and boost the role of market pricing in Asia’s largest economy.
The central bank cut its daily reference rate by 1.9 percent, triggering the yuan’s biggest one-day drop since China ended a dual-currency system in January 1994. The People’s Bank of China called the change a one-time adjustment and said its fixing will become more aligned with supply and demand.


It seems they're trying to resolve their issues by devaluation. I doubt they will do them any good than just gaining some time towards the inevitable...

Interesting as this comes just a week or so after the IMF announced that China's joining to the SDR basket will be delayed until next September.

http://www.imf.org/external/pp/longres.aspx?id=4975

What odds China was maintaining the unofficial Yuan peg to show it can toe the line even in the midst of a declining economy (and using as many alternative to devalue as needed)? Now that it is delayed they've decided to act swiftly and a new round of currency wars begin......
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1002
Strange, yet attractive.
August 11, 2015, 07:29:34 AM
OTOH, Laplace's equations still remain, why not his "demon"? (I know he got it defied by science, but look it as a concept)

We're way better science-wise right now, but certain sacrosanct truths still remain (until proven wrong). Just my 20c.

It's just an extremely one-sided view of reality, one strain of many in philosophical discourse. If you think about it, any objective interpretation of the world can only be merely subjective as well. Ok, then you might say this is my subjective view of things. Indeed, if this line of deductive reasoning would be expressed in a language of formal logic, we would get an infinite regress. That's why there is no answer yet.

To get more concrete, the opposite view of something like Laplace's demon goes back to Plato's cave. Modern variations would be the Brain in a vat, the Matrix metaphor, the Simulation argument, etc... Solipsism was already mentioned in this thread.

But also in a more materialistic world view, when aligned with insights of more modern physics, you'll reach the conclusion that Laplace's demon is merely an obsolete representation of the age of Newton. When applying Einstein's theory of relativity, it doesn't seem to be a sufficient model anymore. As a thought experiment, try to imagine the universe from the perspective of a light ray. Further, without delving too much into false quantum mysticism, phenomenons like the observer effect or quantum entanglement remind me of a nature of reality that indeed seems to rather resemble a virtual world, i.e. particles don't really exist, but rather are rendered on-demand like in a 3D game. I'm not saying this is what the nature reality is, I'm just saying that for now this seems to be a better model.

First things first; in order to have a common ground, we must agree to talk the same language. Theories and hypothesis could vary regarding the physis of reality, but none is adequate to completely describe it. This is what we Physicists call "the holy grail" of Science. The so called TOE (Theory of Everything). Whether we like it or not, certain facts point us to the inability of our knowledge (at least so far) to form such a TOE.

This is not a bad thing. It means we have some time(space) left to explore our options. Another thing to look for is the fact we may see the whole situation completely from the wrong angle. Look at the paradigm of the light ray you've posted; could you explain it to a 5 year old child?

Mandatory reading:
http://www.askamathematician.com/2010/07/q-if-we-find-a-theory-of-everything-will-we-be-done/
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1007
August 11, 2015, 07:13:17 AM
OTOH, Laplace's equations still remain, why not his "demon"? (I know he got it defied by science, but look it as a concept)

We're way better science-wise right now, but certain sacrosanct truths still remain (until proven wrong). Just my 20c.

It's just an extremely one-sided view of reality, one strain of many in philosophical discourse. If you think about it, any objective interpretation of the world can only be merely subjective as well. Ok, then you might say this is my subjective view of things. Indeed, if this line of deductive reasoning would be expressed in a language of formal logic, we would get an infinite regress. That's why there is no answer yet.

To get more concrete, the opposite view of something like Laplace's demon goes back to Plato's cave. Modern variations would be the Brain in a vat, the Matrix metaphor, the Simulation argument, etc... Solipsism was already mentioned in this thread.

But also in a more materialistic world view, when aligned with insights of more modern physics, you'll reach the conclusion that Laplace's demon is merely an obsolete representation of the age of Newton. When applying Einstein's theory of relativity, it doesn't seem to be a sufficient model anymore. As a thought experiment, try to imagine the universe from the perspective of a light ray. Further, without delving too much into false quantum mysticism, phenomenons like the observer effect or quantum entanglement remind me of a nature of reality that indeed seems to rather resemble a virtual world, i.e. particles don't really exist, but rather are rendered on-demand like in a 3D game. I'm not saying this is what the nature reality is, I'm just saying that for now this seems to be a better model.
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1002
Strange, yet attractive.
August 11, 2015, 06:53:11 AM
China Rattles Markets With Yuan Devaluation

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-11/china-weakens-yuan-reference-rate-by-record-1-9-amid-slowdown

China devalued the yuan by the most in two decades, a move that rippled through global markets as policy makers stepped up efforts to support exporters and boost the role of market pricing in Asia’s largest economy.
The central bank cut its daily reference rate by 1.9 percent, triggering the yuan’s biggest one-day drop since China ended a dual-currency system in January 1994. The People’s Bank of China called the change a one-time adjustment and said its fixing will become more aligned with supply and demand.


It seems they're trying to resolve their issues by devaluation. I doubt they will do them any good than just gaining some time towards the inevitable...
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
August 11, 2015, 06:44:25 AM
Trump is a Trojan Horse. He is for big business and military-industrial DEEP STATE power:

http://journal.ijreview.com/2015/08/246266-dont-fall-for-a-fake-conservative/

An excellent read. Rand brings up solid issues.

Yes, he does.  I would agree with Paul, I think trumps support comes from the fact that people see him as honest, even he's not politically correct.  Honesty is a rare thing these days.  Plus he gets more media than all other candidates.

But the overarching message Paul is trying to convey is clear, don't let infighting allow Hillary to march to the presidency.  Amazing that ANYONE would even consider her fit for ANY government position, let alone the presidency.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
August 11, 2015, 06:21:51 AM
FWIW: Today's news in Greece reveal 11 points of agreement with the EU representatives. What is significant enough, is the fact that they seem NOTHING like the austerity measures we expected!

Huh  Huh

They are forcing you to sell off your assets to the creditors:

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/14/greeces-55b-privatization-fund-how-it-will-work.html

All they did was lower the expected surpluses, but you weren't going to be in surplus anyway, so this effectively no change.

All the reforms are still there, including increased taxes, etc.

The IMF was holdout because it wanted to force the privatization fund.

Now the banksters got you by the balls.

Your asshole PM is playing ball with the banksters and he wants to kick out the leftists.

You're fucked.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1057
bigtimespaghetti.com
August 11, 2015, 03:51:33 AM
Trump is a Trojan Horse. He is for big business and military-industrial DEEP STATE power:

http://journal.ijreview.com/2015/08/246266-dont-fall-for-a-fake-conservative/

An excellent read. Rand brings up solid issues.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
August 10, 2015, 07:32:27 PM
Trump is a Trojan Horse. He is for big business and military-industrial DEEP STATE power:

http://journal.ijreview.com/2015/08/246266-dont-fall-for-a-fake-conservative/
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
August 10, 2015, 05:56:32 PM
https://thomasdorsey.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/the-continuous-commodity-index-uvy-theodore-modis/

"The continuous commodity index has completed a second S-shaped growth step that began in the 1990s. The downward deviation observed since the beginning of 2011 is arriving at its bottom. The turnaround point is expected between 2-Jan-2016 and 8-Aug-2016. From then onward, an upward trend should peak around 9-Aug-2019."

Last post is compliant with Martin Armstrong predictions as far as I understand.

TPTB?

I do believe BTC will make new all time highs 2017 or thereafter.

Yep. And MA's computer Socrates is remaining long gold until the first week of September. Appears that Aug. 10 (the yellow bar) is a turning point for a short-covering, short-term rally up to roughly $1140s, not for a crash. So you may want to go long again BTC for another rally up to the long-term trend line at $325±10 before we go short again for the collapse down to double digits:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/35822

What changes after 2019, is that Asia's collapse will bottom as of 2020.05 (while the West will continue to spiral off into the demographic, politico-economic decay). That is 2015.75+4.3. Half of an 8.6 year cycle on the ECM (1000 x Pi days).

So perhaps from 2020, there is enough confidence to divest gold and start investing in Asian bonds paying high interest rates. I do believe FATCA will be in full force and enforced by the Chinese against foreigners. So you won't be divesting of your gold without paying the taxman back in your home Western country which might entail very high levels of taxation or even expropriation for "money laundering" when you can't show that you purchased the gold from an "approved dealer" (and other variants of the corrupt nonsense known as Civil Asset Forfeiture). I assume physical cash won't exist by that time, at least not in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Will be interesting to see how cash is phased out in these banana republics such as the Philippines.

This rally is a short-covering rally, but the justification for the greater fools will be that the contagion will demand another QE. Except this time the Fed will be raising interest rates not doing QE.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-10/gold-silver-are-surging-heavy-volume

Quote from: Tyler Durden
Hedgies are the most short ever... and Commercials are the least hedged in 14 years... and it appears rumors of PBOC buying along with dismal data from around the world has sparked a renewed awareness of another looming QE sending gold well north of $1100 and silver back above $15.

Let's see if BTC moves up with gold or if they are anti-correlated on short-term moves. I am fairly certain they are correlated on the general down trend. That is the problem with any straightforward correlation calculation, as there are correlations within the correlations. Hidden order is fractal in chaos theory. Armstrong has a computer correlating all these possible fractal orders. Unfortunately he apparently doesn't have enough historical data on Bitcoin to model it.
legendary
Activity: 3122
Merit: 1538
yes
August 10, 2015, 05:45:24 PM
Getting back on topic, this is from NYT:

Capitalists, Arise: We Need to Deal With Income Inequality
By PETER GEORGESCU AUG. 7, 2015

I’M scared.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/capitalists-arise-we-need-to-deal-with-income-inequality.html?action=click&_r=1

Funny that the piece states nothing about returning to sound money and slashing unnecessary and bloated government (regulations and otherwise). So no solutions and no billionaire telling the truth.
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Knowledge could but approximate existence.
August 10, 2015, 04:51:29 PM
Congratulations sir; I enjoyed reading this so much that I will let you have the joy of my non-disputatious response. For what it's worth though, and to arise a virus on your theoretical approach here's a thought: Pragmatic approaches always have a falsifiable end; except for those whose limits tend to be abstract. Is the Real[] pragmatic? Can you falsify its existence when you have none of instruments of observing such a "reality"? How could you tell?

My best regards  Wink


Quote from: Axel Cleeremans. “The Radical Plasticity Thesis: How the Brain Learns to Be Conscious.” _Frontiers in Psychology_ 2 (2011). 10-1. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
That system would then be able to identify cases where the latter exists in the absence of the former, and hence, to learn to distinguish between cases of veridical perception and cases of hallucination. Such internal monitoring is viewed here as constitutive of conscious experience: A mental state is a conscious mental state when the system that possesses this mental state is (at least non-conceptually) sensitive to its existence. Thus, and unlike what is assumed to be case in HOT Theory, meta-representations can be both subpersonal and non-conceptual.

No mechanism whereby a self could ascertain the extrinsic-thereto could exist extrinsic to it; therefore, the self cannot be (conclusively) said to perceive anything beyond itself. However, “the self” is an element of the phenomenology of consciousness and exists within the real only insofar as the "meta-representations" (Cleeremans 1, 4, 6-7, 10-1) that precipitate it so exist.

An unknowable facilitator of conscious experience (i.e., “existence” [username18333]) gives cause to the operational effect thereof termed “consciousness” (a “body of knowledge”).

Those "abilities" (TPTB_need_war) exist only in the phenomenology of consciousness. Conscious experience does not physically exist (A physical system which facilitates it physically exists; however, the phenomenology of that consciousness does not.), so the second law of thermodynamics is inapplicable to it.

These are interesting perspectives; however, it would seem His entropism has not been heard.

Entropism, dervied from solipsism, starts at the belief that nothing exists beyond one's own mind. From their, it then proceeds to assert that the sentience of that mind deomonstrates the existence of that required for it - some tendancy or tendancy to become less orderly, the consciousness occupied another state. From there, it is then postulated that this/these tendencies, begetting entropy, could, in having propagated a state of a mind out of nothing, are sufficient for some form of ex nihilo generation.

From this, entropism proceeds unto an absolute tendancy to become less orderly. In considering this, and the capabilities of those tendancies previously mentioned, it is determined that absolute entropy of this tendancy would prove sufficient for ex nihilo generation of everything, including its own self.

From that, it is determined, within entropism, that, by an absolute tendancy to become less orderly, the sum of existence is absolute entropy.
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1002
Strange, yet attractive.
August 10, 2015, 04:47:27 PM
Congratulations sir; I enjoyed reading this so much that I will let you have the joy of my non-disputatious response. For what it's worth though, and to arise a virus on your theoretical approach here's a thought: Pragmatic approaches always have a falsifiable end; except for those whose limits tend to be abstract. Is the Reality pragmatic? Can you falsify its existence when you have none of the instruments of observing such a "reality"? How could you tell?

My best regards  Wink
sr. member
Activity: 378
Merit: 250
Knowledge could but approximate existence.
August 10, 2015, 04:16:20 PM
The most philosophical question of all times though, would have been, if we're on a loop. We actually maybe are, but as a scientist, I can only accept whatever I can measure; so it's a possibility but not certainty. . . .


Your limitations on what you will and will not "accept" (macsga) are wholly arbitrary unless you have disproved the unfalsifiable hypothesis cited below.

. . . On the other hand, in QM there's no certainty at all; meaning that we can never be sure if we are able to observe ALL the possible "reality" but only a fraction of it (the one we actually observe). . . .


You merely presume that knowledge even could correspond to "[veridical] observ[ation]" (macsga).



Under philosophical hyperrealism, knowledge consists of determinate symbols. Heisenberg, however, found that existence is indeterminate (see above). Analogically, therefore, a symbol approximates the real as a secant line (think: change in 𝑦 over change in 𝑥) that passes through the mathematical points (𝑎, 𝑓(𝑎)) and (𝑥, 𝑓(𝑥)) approximates the tangent line (think: change in 𝑦 over no change in 𝑥 [i.e., zero]) that passes through the like point (𝑎, 𝑓(𝑎)).

Fundamental Theorem of Hyperrealism
Code:
Knowledge : Existence : : Hyperreal : Real


. . . Here's a nice experiment that proves it:


An "experiment" (macsga) cannot prove.

Proof only exists in purely axiomatic systems (e.g., mathematics). Empirical systems have but evidence, since observation must be assumed to be veridical (should one aim to avoid solipsism). Therefore, you have not proven  anything (that genuinely corresponds to the observable universe). Furthermore, your hypothetical is so far abstracted from reality that its meaningful connections to reality, if any, are not at all apparent (which, according to your criticism of my use of language, is entirely the fault of yourself).

Regardless, I have shown that - at least, within the context of your hypotheticals - reality has to be framed around money (perhaps, via a plutocratic hyperreality) for it to be anything but an instrument of augmenting the abuse of scarcity to one's (perhaps, a plutocrat's) advantage.
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1002
Strange, yet attractive.
August 10, 2015, 01:07:51 PM
Getting back on topic, this is from NYT:

Capitalists, Arise: We Need to Deal With Income Inequality
By PETER GEORGESCU AUG. 7, 2015

I’M scared. The billionaire hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones is scared. My friend Ken Langone, a founder of the Home Depot, is scared. So are many other chief executives. Not of Al Qaeda, or the vicious Islamic State or some other evolving radical group from the Middle East, Africa or Asia. We are afraid where income inequality will lead.

For the top 20 percent of Americans, life is pretty good.

But 40 percent are broke. Every year they spend more than they have.

While so many people are struggling, even those on the higher end of the middle class have relatively little after paying the bills: on average, some $1,300 a month. One leaky roof and they’re in trouble.

If inequality is not addressed, the income gap will most likely be resolved in one of two ways: by major social unrest or through oppressive taxes, such as the 80 percent tax rate on income over $500,000 suggested by Thomas Piketty, the French economist and author of the best-selling book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/capitalists-arise-we-need-to-deal-with-income-inequality.html?action=click&_r=1

Reminds me of an article of MA I've read a couple of months ago regarding this. Funny to see this posted on NYT though...
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1002
Strange, yet attractive.
August 10, 2015, 12:56:41 PM
Handpicked:

P. 219:
Quote
In reality, nothing seems to be 'truly random, because all events have a deterministic value. Many events, such as weather, the movements of billions of atoms, or even a lottery extraction, can be based on a complex series of mechanistic events and reactions, making it appear 'random' to us, because we are not recognizing the exact deterministic values at work.

P. 274:
Quote
What I'm trying to express here is that the notion of "free will" is completely bogus. If people were to behave  more 'randomly' than not, we would be unable to communicate with each other, or have any kind of society for that matter, as all people would be doing very different things.

oh man, that's so 200 years ago philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon
(and still even older of course, Aristotle etc)


Is there a reason to believe that this is obsolete? Could you elaborate by contributing alternate (more sophisticated) principles in order to present a better definition of, let's say, "random"? I'm Greek, I know EXACTLY the Aristotle's philosophical approach on science, I cannot say I follow everything he told. OTOH, Laplace's equations still remain, why not his "demon"? (I know he got it defied by science, but look it as a concept)

We're way better science-wise right now, but certain sacrosanct truths still remain (until proven wrong). Just my 20c.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1007
August 10, 2015, 07:00:06 AM
Handpicked:

P. 219:
Quote
In reality, nothing seems to be 'truly random, because all events have a deterministic value. Many events, such as weather, the movements of billions of atoms, or even a lottery extraction, can be based on a complex series of mechanistic events and reactions, making it appear 'random' to us, because we are not recognizing the exact deterministic values at work.

P. 274:
Quote
What I'm trying to express here is that the notion of "free will" is completely bogus. If people were to behave  more 'randomly' than not, we would be unable to communicate with each other, or have any kind of society for that matter, as all people would be doing very different things.

oh man, that's so 200 years ago philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon
(and still even older of course, Aristotle etc)
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 262
August 10, 2015, 01:35:08 AM
I believe man and machine will become comingled and thus machines will gain many attributes of man. But never can you remove man from the equation for the reasons I stated in my essay:

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

If machines ever become biological reproducing species under evolution, then they are no longer machines in that sense.
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1002
Strange, yet attractive.
August 09, 2015, 04:11:23 PM
Regarding our previous conversation here (that probably caused a headache for most of the poor readers of this thread), here's a nice article for you to dive in:

http://www.joomag.com/magazine/tvp-magazine-human-vs-and-part-machine/0214079001437677240/p190

Randomness, artificial intelligence and other crazy beasts. Must read. Smiley

Do you find anything useful amongst TvP crowd as a general rule? I have found them frustratingly close minded in the past- though I think that they somewhat embody what I imagine Marx had initially envisioned in his post-capitalism paradigm. I'll take a look.

Never judge a book by the cover, or a magazine from the old issues. It's a rule I always keep. The generalization of a medium's "attitude" does not always describe a certain article and vice versa; it may well be the exeresis that certifies the rule. I just found the subject that expounds a nice read (not that I do agree with all of their opinions). It's an interesting article; you'll like it.

Handpicked:

P. 219:
Quote
In reality, nothing seems to be 'truly random, because all events have a deterministic value. Many events, such as weather, the movements of billions of atoms, or even a lottery extraction, can be based on a complex series of mechanistic events and reactions, making it appear 'random' to us, because we are not recognizing the exact deterministic values at work.

P. 274:
Quote
What I'm trying to express here is that the notion of "free will" is completely bogus. If people were to behave  more 'randomly' than not, we would be unable to communicate with each other, or have any kind of society for that matter, as all people would be doing very different things.
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