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#Post#: 3688--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: August 31, 2015, 6:58 pm
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The Deliberate Erosion of Fixed Income Purchasing Power
Engineered by Fed goosed INFLATION in the USA is NON-Democratic
THEFT for the Elite.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/301.gif
Agelbert NOTE: The Federal Reserve is NOT a democratic
organization. The very clever rationale for
Fed "Independence" (from we-the-people, but NOT from elite bias)
was based on the alleged "Inflation Bias" of an elected Congress
on monetary policy.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/tissue.gif<br
/>
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/shame.gif
An "Independent" (as in YOUR VOTES DO NOT APPLY) Fed would
allegedly avoid panic and control Inflation better... [img
width=80
height=40]
HTML http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9HT4xZyDmh4/TOHhxzA0wLI/AAAAAAAAEUk/oeHDS2cfxWQ/s200/Smiley_Angel_Wings_Halo.jpg[/img]
Question 41 of a quiz on what the Fed does, why it can do it,
what it isn't authorized to do but does anyway, and what the
Congress can do about it (but since 1913, never does. ;) ).
[quote]
The case for Federal Reserve independence does not include the
idea that
A) political pressure would impart an inflationary bias to
monetary policy.
B) the principal-agent problem is perhaps worse for the Fed than
for congressmen since the former does not answer to the voters
on election day.
C) a politically insulated Fed would be more concerned with
long-run objectives and thus be a defender of a sound dollar
and a stable price level.
D) a Federal Reserve under the control of Congress or the
president might make the so-called political business cycle more
pronounced.[/quote]
The correct answer is B). :(
See below for OBJECTVE criticism of Fed independence (the
correct answer is in bold):
[quote]45) Critics of the current system of Fed independence
contend that
A) the current system is undemocratic.
B) voters have too much say about monetary policy.
C) the president has too much control over monetary policy on a
day-to-day basis.
D) all of the above are true.
46) Critics of Fed independence argue
A) that it is undemocratic to have monetary policy controlled
by an elite group responsible to no one.
B) that an independent Fed conducts monetary policy with a
consistent inflationary bias.
C) that the Fed, since it does not face a binding budget
constraint, spends too much of its earnings.
D) only A and B of the above.
47) Critics of Fed independence argue
A) that it is undemocratic to have monetary policy controlled
by an elite group responsible to no one.
B) that independence seemingly does little to guarantee good
monetary policy.
C) that its independence may encourage the Fed to pursue a
course of narrow self-interest rather than the public interest.
D) all of the above. [img width=50
height=040]
HTML http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000370273/polls_Smiley_Angry_256x256_3451_356175_answer_4_xlarge.png[/img]
[/quote]
Banking: The fed and monetary policy
Study by dwkremer
HTML https://quizlet.com/75164696/banking-the-fed-and-monetary-policy-flash-cards/
The surreptitious theft/erosion of purchasing power from the
wages of Americans is the MAIN cause of the inequality increase
in the USA. The Fed did ALL of that. MKing might whine that
we-the-people "voted" the Fed into existence in 1913 ::), but
that would be a lie as well. Even a cursory examination of how
that Christmas eve "vote" for the Fed came about would reveal
that democracy and voting did not apply.
The Fed (see Alan Greenspan), in it's "Principal Agent" role
(for you know who
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif),<br
/>also was instrumental in getting the BLS (Bureau of Labor
Statistics) to modify the cost of living calculation formula in
order to low ball "unnecessary items" like housing costs, food
and energy ::). I admit some voting was involved in that shaft
job. But really, the COLA gaming was just the icing on the elite
'wealth transfer from the masses to the rich' welfare queen
cake!
WHY? Because, while Inflation SUBTRACTS from the average Joe or
Jane's purchasing power, the Fed is GOOSING the purchasing power
of the elite by setting margin rates UNDEMOCRATICALLY.
Those margin rates that allow for generous borrowing for
speculation by the brokerage firms and big banks do NOTHING for
the main street American economy.
But for Wall Street, it gooses speculation in stock market
securities, while it wrecks normal price discovery mechanisms.
That is, they iNFLATE the paper wealth of a tiny elite sliver of
the US.
Then they claim "inflation is under control" because the COLA
fun and games make SURE the masses have their purchasing power
eroded at the same time.
Do you understand what loose margin requirements really means?
Loose margin requirements is like giving ALL potential borrowers
an A+ top tier credit rating. Do you think everybody on wall
street merits that? Of course not! But they get it. At the same
time, we-the-people get less purchasing power.
The Fed works for the Elite. Voting isn't going to change that
any time soon. :(
Surly, I agree that union contracts, environmental laws and many
other socially positive bits of legislation are the result of
elected officials with a conscience. Yes, we need to vote, OKAY?
But the Fed has been an elite tool since it was founded in 1913.
After we got off the gold standard, they got worse! And the
royalist conspiracy that Thom Hartmann mentions often has taken
apart much of the social progress made in this country.
When some duplicitous double talker like MKing brings voting
into a discussion of Inflation cause and effect, he does so with
exactly the same "we are all to blame" dissembling agenda
BALONEY the mainstream media tried to sell us in 2008. I'm
surprised you didn't see through that. :(
Not only are we NOT all to blame, but 90% of us (at least!) are
NOT to blame!
We-the-people DID vote Nixon in to become President. He pushed
some great environmental legislation. [img width=25
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-080515182559.png[/img]<br
/>
But THIS action by him was totally undemocratic. THAT action
should have required a referendum, but it did not. I suspect the
Fed dictated that action to President Nixon.
[quote]
The Nixon Shock was a series of economic measures undertaken by
United States President Richard Nixon in 1971, the most
significant of which was the unilateral cancellation of the
direct convertibility of the United States dollar to
gold.[/quote]
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock
Surly, Today I have once again confirmed what I told you some
time ago in a pm about talking to walls at the Doomstead Diner.
The flexibility I observe here is like that of one year old
cured concrete.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714183337.bmp
[center][img width=640
height=280]
HTML http://www.libertystickers.com/static/images/give-me-control-of-a-nations-money.gif[/img][/center]
#Post#: 3691--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: September 1, 2015, 12:38 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[img width=640
height=380]
HTML http://greece.greekreporter.com/files/imf_out.jpg[/img]
Honest Economist Hudson tells it like it is!
SNIPPET:
[quote]
Killing the Host
HTML http://store.counterpunch.org/product/killing-the-host-digital-book/<br
/>discloses complaints leaked by angry IMF officials who became
whistleblowers and published their complaints at Canada’s
prestigious Center for International Governance Innovation
(CIGI). These same quotes were just cited breathlessly by
Reuters. What the wire service did not report was the point that
the IMF’s former economists made.
Lagarde continues to insist that Greek debts can be paid by
“extend and pretend,” lowering the interest rate and stretching
out the maturities. This is her definition of “writing down
Greek debts.” Most peoples’ definition would mean writing down
the debt principal. Reading Reuters’ selective quotes, it is
almost as if the seemingly detailed report was written to
counter the political points Varoufakis, I and others have been
making.
What Reuters excluded from its report that provides the key to
unlock what is most politically embarrassing: The behavior of
Obama and Geithner in protecting Wall Street’s ca sino bets that
Greece could be arm-twisted to pay. Dominique Strauss-Kahn had
two conflicts of interest: He wanted to run for the presidency
of France, gaining favor by protecting French banks; and he
wanted to get the IMF back into the austerity advice business,
by joining the Eurozone troika. When Christine Lagarde started
to repeat his refusal to back the recent IMF staff report
endorsing write-down of Greek debt, the staff leaked it this
spring, much to her embarrassment when the IMF signed onto a
troika program with no real debt relief.[4]
The Reuters report throws up a cloud of disinformation saying
that she backs debt relief, as if this means backing a writedown
of unpayably high Greek debt. Quite the contrary, Lagarde has
said again and again that her idea of debt relief is simply to
extend and pretend – to stretch out the maturity of Greece’s
debt, to lower the interest rate charged.
[/quote]
Full article:
HTML http://michael-hudson.com/2015/09/reuters-public-relations-missif/
#Post#: 3713--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: September 3, 2015, 11:12 pm
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[img width=640
height=500]
HTML http://images.dailykos.com/images/162060/lightbox/bo150901.gif?1441133574[/img]
#Post#: 3725--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: September 6, 2015, 2:43 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
What Currency Is Most Often Used in China?
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191404.bmp
As of 2014, China has the largest economy in the world. Its
currency however, is not as valuable as one would expect. In
2014, 1 USD was equivalent to about 6.1 Chinese yuan. As of
2015, only 20% of Chinese trade is conducted with Chinese
currency. Foreign currency is most often used in China for
trade.
Use of the yuan for trade in China is actually on the rise. In
2009, the Chinese yuan was not used for even 1% of total trade
in the country. There is an effort by the Chinese government to
increase the value of China's currency in the hopes that it will
become a global trading currency in the future.
[b]More about Chinese economy:[/b]
•As of 2014, the Chinese economy is worth 17.6 trillion USD.
•The Chinese economy grew at a rate of about 10% for three
decades :o until 2008.
•As of 2013, US owes China 1.28 trillion USD.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/mocantina.gif
HTML http://www.wisegeek.com/what-currency-is-most-often-used-in-china.htm
#Post#: 3755--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: September 13, 2015, 7:32 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=811.msg84990#msg84990
date=1441921639]
[quote author=azozeo link=topic=811.msg84978#msg84978
date=1441913529]
Surly, you crack me up :emthup:
The system we live "under" was not designed for us to prosper.
This system is like a noose. Not so bad at 1st, until it's
tightened !
We are living in the last days & the air ain't so good and easy
to breathe now.
[/quote]
There is little doubt that the parasites are killing the host.
As luck would have it, I read Pam Marten's (Wall Street on
Parade) review of Michael Hudson's eponymous book. It is
reproduced below.
I may just get it, expect we probably all know the ending.
[html] <h2 class="entry-title"><a title="Permalink to
Michael Hudson’s New Book: Wall Street Parasites Have Devoured
Their Hosts — Your Retirement Plan and the U.S. Economy"
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/08/michael-hudsons-new-book-wall-street-parasites-have-devoured-their-hosts-your-retirement-plan-and-the-u-s-economy/"<br
/>rel="bookmark">Michael Hudson’s New Book: Wall Street Parasite
s
Have Devoured Their Hosts — Your Retirement Plan and the U.S.
Economy</a></h2> <div class="entry-meta"> </div> <div
class="entry-content"> <p><strong>By Pam Martens: August 31,
2015</strong><strong> </strong></p> <div
id="attachment_4923" class="wp-caption alignright"><a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Michael-Hudson.jpg"><img<br
/>class="size-medium wp-image-4923"
src="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Michael-Hudson-200x300.jpg"<br
/>alt="Author and Economist, Michael Hudson" width="200"
height="300" /></a> <p class="wp-caption-text">Michael
Hudson</p> </div> <p>The riveting writer, Michael
Hudson, has read our collective minds and the simmering anger in
our hearts. Millions of American have long suspected that their
inability to get financially ahead is an intentional construct
of Wall Street’s central planners. Now Hudson, in an elegant but
lethal indictment of the system, confirms that your ongoing
struggle to make ends meet is not a reflection of your lack of
talent or drive but the only possible outcome of having a
blood-sucking financial leech affixed to your body, your
retirement plan, and your economic future.</p> <p>In his new
book, “<a
href="
HTML http://store.counterpunch.org/product/killing-the-host-digital-book/">Killing<br
/>the Host</a>,” Hudson hones an exquisitely gripping journey fr
om
Wall Street’s original role as capital allocator to its
present-day parasitism that has replaced U.S. capitalism as an
entrenched, politically-enforced economic model across
America.</p> <p>This book is a must-read for anyone hoping
to escape the most corrupt era in American history with a shirt
still on his parasite-riddled back.</p> <p>Hudson writes
from his most powerful perch in chapters describing how these
financial parasites have tricked our society into accepting them
as a normal, productive part of our economy. (Since we write
about these thousands of diabolical tricks four days a week
at<em>Wall Street On Parade</em>, poignant examples came
springing to mind with every turn of the page in “Killing the
Host.” From the <a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/10/wall-street-journal-wealth-inequality-is-your-own-dumb-fault/">well-placed<br
/>articles</a> in the Wall Street Journal to<a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/06/wall-street-front-group-pleads-for-government-help-in-new-york-times-oped/">a<br
/>front group’s pleas for more Wall Street handouts</a> in a New
York Times OpEd, to the<a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/supreme-seduction-bringing-low-the-high-court/">dirty<br
/>backroom manner</a> in which corporate speech was placed on a
par with human speech in the Supreme Court’s <em>Citizens
United</em> decision, to <a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/judicial-apartheid-wall-streets-kangaroo-courts/">Wall<br
/>Street’s private justice system</a> and the <a
href="
HTML http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/12/15495/koch-foundation-proposal-college-teach-our-curriculum-get-millions">Koch<br
/>brothers’ multi-million dollar machinations to instill Ayn
Rand’s brand of “greed is good”</a> in university economic
departments across America — America has become a finely tuned
kleptocracy with a sprawling, sophisticated public relations
base.)</p> <p>How else to explain, other than kleptocracy,
the fact that Wall Street’s richest mega banks collect the life
insurance proceeds and tax benefits <a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/06/profiteering-on-banker-deaths-regulator-says-public-has-no-right-to-details/">on<br
/>the untimely deaths of their workers</a> – all codified into l
aw
by the U.S. Congress – making death a profit center on Wall
Street. Or, <a
href="
HTML http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/retirement-gamble/transcript-43/">as<br
/>Frontline revealed</a>, that two-thirds of your 401(k) plan ov
er
a working lifetime is likely to be lost to financial
fees.</p> <p>Hudson writes: “A parasite’s toolkit includes
behavior-modifying enzymes to make the host protect and nurture
it. Financial intruders into a host economy use Junk Economics
to rationalize rentier parasitism as if it makes a productive
contribution, as if the tumor they create is part of the host’s
own body, not an overgrowth living off the economy. A harmony of
interests is depicted between finance and industry, Wall Street
and Main Street, and even between creditors and debtors,
monopolists and their customers.”</p> <p>What has evolved,
says Hudson, is that Wall Street banks have “become the
economy’s central planners, and their plan is for industry and
labor to serve finance, not the other way around.”</p> <p>To
gloss over the collapse of this depraved economic model in 2008,
Hudson says these Wall Street central planners simply depict
“any adverse ‘disturbance’ as being self-correcting, not a
structural defect leading economies to fall further out of
balance. Any given development crisis is said to be a natural
product of market forces, so that there is no need to regulate
and tax the rentiers.”</p> <p>Similarly, when citizens rise
up en masse to demand a realignment of their economy, as
happened with the Occupy Wall Street movement, first the public
relations masterminds dismiss them as an unhinged gathering of
smelly hippies, followed by <a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/09/freedom-of-the-press-under-assault-in-new-york-city/">their<br
/>violent eviction</a> in the middle of the night, with military
precision, by the Praetorian Guard of the kleptocracy. In
Manhattan, the Praetorian Guard (NYPD) has a high-tech
surveillance center mutually staffed by cops and Wall Street
personnel – and <a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/60-minutes-takes-a-pass-on-wall-streets-secret-spy-center/">mainstream<br
/>media find nothing unusual about this</a>.</p> <p>Hudson
correctly calls 2008 a “dress rehearsal,” writing that “Wall
Street convinced Congress that the economy could not survive
without bailing out bankers and bondholders, whose solvency was
deemed a precondition for the ‘real’ economy to function. The
banks were saved, not the economy.” Hudson adds that the “debt
tumor” was left in place. (This is the nightmare we are
presently watching unfold.)</p> <p>The result of the
systemic disabling of regulations on Wall Street has resulted in
the following, says Hudson: “…the wealthiest One Percent have
captured nearly all the growth in income since the 2008 crash.
Holding the rest of society in debt to themselves, they have
used their wealth and creditor claims to gain control of the
election process and governments by supporting lawmakers who
un-tax them, and judges or court systems that refrain from
prosecuting them. Obliterating the logic that led society to
regulate and tax rentiers in the first place, think tanks and
business schools favor economists who portray rentier takings as
a contribution to the economy rather than as a subtrahend from
it.” (But, of course, <a
href="
HTML http://wallstreetonparade.com/resurrecting-ayn-rand-hedge-fund-money-teams-up-with-koch-bbt/">those<br
/>business schools are financially incentivized to think that
way</a>.)</p> <p>The outgrowth of these tricks to make
parasites appear to be a natural appendage to a well-functioning
economy results in a “veritable Stockholm Syndrome.” Hudson
explains:</p> <p>“Popular morality blames victims for going
into debt – not only individuals, but also national governments.
The trick in this ideological war is to convince debtors to
imagine that general prosperity depends on paying bankers and
making bondholders rich – a veritable Stockholm Syndrome in
which debtors identify with their financial
captors.”</p> <p>Hudson has much to say on the perversity of
corporations buying back their own stock. In one chapter, Hudson
writes:</p> <p>“In nature, parasites tend to kill hosts that
are dying, using their substance as food for the intruder’s own
progeny. The economic analogy takes hold when financial managers
use depreciation allowances for stock buybacks or to pay out as
dividends instead of replenishing and updating their plant and
equipment. Tangible capital investment, research and development
and employment are cut back to provide purely financial
returns.”</p> <p>On the timely debate over wealth and income
inequality, Hudson writes that “Asset-price inflation is the
primary dynamic explaining today’s polarization of wealth and
income. Yet most newscasts applaud daily rises in the stock
averages as if the wealth of the One Percent, who own the great
bulk of stocks and other financial assets, is a proxy for how
well the economy is doing. What actually occurs is that
financing corporate buyouts on credit factors interest payments
and fees into the prices that companies must charge for their
products.”</p> <p>Where this leads, says Hudson, is that
“Paying these financial charges leaves less available to invest
or hire more labor. Likewise for the overall economy, the effect
of a debt-leveraged real estate bubble and asset-price inflation
is that interest payments and fees to bankers and bondholders
leave less available to spend on goods and services. The
financial overhead rises, squeezing the ‘real’ economy and
slowing new investment and hiring.”</p> <p>Hudson is clearly
on to something. The U.S. seems to be crashing like clockwork
every 8 years with the crashes gaining in intensity. The 2000
dot.com crash wiped $4 trillion out of investment accounts
while, 8 years later, the 2008 crash brought down the whole
financial system, the U.S. and global economy, and it’s still
producing a dead weight on economic growth. Next year will mark
the eighth year since the 2008 crash and if last week’s market
convulsions were any indication, we’re in for some very rough
sledding.</p> <p>Chapter 8 of “Killing the Host” begins with
this quotation from John Maynard Keynes: “When the capital
development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities
of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.” Hudson expands
further:</p> <p>“Instead of warning against turning the
stock market into a predatory financial system that is
de-industrializing the economy, [business schools] have
jumped on the bandwagon of debt leveraging and stock buybacks.
Financial wealth is the aim, not industrial wealth creation or
overall prosperity. The result is that while raiders and
activist shareholders have debt- leveraged companies from the
outside, their internal management has followed the post-modern
business school philosophy viewing ‘wealth creation’ narrowly in
terms of a company’s share price. The result is financial
engineering that links the remuneration of managers to how much
they can increase the stock price, and by rewarding them with
stock options. This gives managers an incentive to buy up
company shares and even to borrow to finance such buybacks
instead of to invest in expanding production and
markets.”</p> <p>The net result of this, says Hudson, is an
effective “debt-financed takeover from
within.”</p> <p>Hudson writes about the revealing September
2014 <a
href="
HTML https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity">Harvard<br
/>Business Review article</a> by William Lazonick, who
noted:</p> <p>“Consider the 449 companies in the S&P 500
index that were publicly listed from 2003 through 2012. During
that period those companies used 54% of their earnings—a total
of $2.4 trillion—to buy back their own stock, almost all through
purchases on the open market. Dividends absorbed an additional
37% of their earnings.”</p> <p>“This management strategy
created financial wealth by elevating the stock price,” writes
Hudson,  “not by producing more goods. Earnings per share
rose not because companies actually earned more, but because
there were fewer shares outstanding among which to spread the
earnings. Many of the companies downsized and outsourced their
employment and production. The immediate beneficiaries were
corporate officers exercising their stock
options.”</p> <p>Hudson quotes another prolific writer on
the subject of our bankster-controlled society, Paul Craig
Roberts, who has noted the following about corporations buying
back their own stock: “The debt incurred will have to be
serviced by future earnings. This is not a picture of capitalism
that is driving the economy by investment.”</p> <p>Hudson
says that what is happening today in corporate America is very
different from the corporate raiders of the 1980s who used
leveraged buyouts to gobble up companies. Today, says Hudson,
“corporate executives raid their own company’s revenue stream.
They are backed by self-proclaimed shareholder activists. The
result is financial short-termism by managers who take the money
and run. The management philosophy is extractive, not productive
in the sense of adding to society’s means of production or
living standards.”</p> <p>Make no mistake about it: this is
a dangerous book to the status quo. It is truth-telling at its
finest in America’s darkest age of entrenched lies. Michael
Hudson has clanged the alarm bells over more continuity
government from the likes of Hillary Clinton and her fellow Wall
Street Democrats. He’s also scuttled the chances that Donald
Trump will be able to reengineer America from “Give me your
tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”
to the evil fortress that kicks out infants by directing hatred
and blame for America’s woes to impoverished immigrants running
from their own leeches.</p> <p>Hudson’s masterful book comes
at the perfect juncture of stock market convulsions and an early
election season when Americans are turning out by the tens of
thousands to hear what the candidates for the Oval Office plan
to do to return the wealth and the soul of America to the
people.</p> <p>“Killing the Host” is available <a
href="
HTML http://store.counterpunch.org/product/killing-the-host-digital-book/">as<br
/>an e-book at CounterPunch</a> and in print at<a
href="
HTML http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/3981484282/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441029215&sr=1-1&keywords=killing+the+host+michael+hudson">Amazon.com</a>.</p> </div> [/html]
[/quote]
#Post#: 4101--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: November 13, 2015, 1:30 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I believe the currency that is, and will always be, the base of
all other currencies (either as real analogs like precious
metals or "legal tender" - see a gun to your head
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191329.bmp-<br
/>counterfeits) is CLEAN energy. DIRTY energy, that is the one
that causes more entropy than prevents it, is a scam. Renewable
energy, specifically measured in a unit such as a RENEWABLE
Joule, Newton, BTU, Watt, ETC. gives LIFE to us and the
biosphere.
Of course there are intangibles that have VALUE. How much is
friendship worth in DOLLARS? That's hard to say. But perhaps it
is easier, and more appropriate, to value friendship, love,
compassion, cooperation, etc. in Joules than in 'Jewels'. [img
width=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-280515145049.png[/img]<br
/> [img
width=40]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-051113192052.png[/img]<br
/>
That would work well for real estate too.
HTML http://www.coh2.org/images/Smileys/huhsign.gif
How many joules
does it cost to keep you warm in winter and cool in summer? Of
course the one that uses more is a more "expensive" property.
But if people started thinking more logically, the one that uses
LESS Joules than the one that uses more would be considered the
better buy!
As to appliances, lights and computers, We all know about
electricity so that one is easy to measure in energy units.
Every single object made in our civilization requires a certain
amount of energy to create and maintain.
Even a work of art such as a painting must be protected from UV
degradation so it has inherent energy costs associated with it
(storage and protection energy costs must be included of
course).
The fact that the intangible "value" of a sculpture or painting
or whatever can be extremely high is just human fun and games.
There is NO intrinsic value in anything beyond how much energy
it requires to make, maintain, store and protect.
The UTILITY of anything is actually defined, if people bothered
to do it, by the task it performs. And utility and value, in a
sane world, should be solidly linked.
Now a porcelain figurine performs the "task" of WHAT, exactly?
Well, it makes you feel good to look at or your fiends like you
better because you have good taste, perhaps. That promotes your
well being and theirs so some REAL energy is part of the utility
of that figurine. So, yeah, it has VALUE in LIFE GIVING energy
(the renewable kind ONLY.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/301.gif).
Humans have a thing for things some craftsman (or woman) made
even though they are ALL imitations of what we see all around us
for the TINY energy cost of LOOKING at nature!
Beauty and symmetry is all around us in nature and we hardly
give it a thought or assign it a value. Yet a great painter puts
it on a canvas and we make up an excuse called "scarcity" to
place an arbitrary high values on it.
People PAY every second of every minute of every hour of every
day of every month of every year of their lives in ENERGY to
remain alive and well and enjoy each other's company.
So the unit we should use to value things and relationships is
the Joule instead of the Jewel (or anything else that is scare).
WATTS new?
HTML http://dl5.glitter-graphics.net/pub/3328/3328805eipbi6o30e.gif
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191456.bmp
We must all value our human family Joules.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/4fvfcja.gif
#Post#: 4158--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: December 6, 2015, 4:07 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote]"Money is just a belief system. Therefore, you're free to
create another belief system or money system of any shape or
form that you wish - and that is so liberating." says founder
Diana McCourt. [img width=25
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-080515182559.png[/img]<br
/> [/quote]
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/zzOBEcEDSt8[/center]
HTML http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/community/womanshare.html
Agelbert Note: The oligarchs will allow this until they wish to
crush it with the legal tender laws created for the express
purpose of ex nihilo money creation for the parasitical class of
conscience free capitalist bastards that are turning our
biosphere into pollution planet. >:(
I hope these ladies
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/19.gif<br
/>succeed. Any effort along the Borsodi Constant type lines is
worthy of praise.
#Post#: 4177--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: December 11, 2015, 3:16 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The IMF forgives Ukraine’s debt to Russia
December 09, 2015 
by Michael Hudson specially for the Saker Blog
SNIPPET:
[quote]Since 1947 when it really started operations, the World
Bank has acted as a branch of the U.S. Defense Department, from
its first major chairman John J. McCloy through Robert McNamara
to Robert Zoellick and neocon Paul Wolfowitz. From the outset,
it has promoted U.S. exports – especially farm exports – by
steering Third World countries to produce plantation crops
rather than feeding their own populations. (They are to import
U.S. grain.)
But it has felt obliged to wrap its U.S. export promotion and
support for the dollar area in an ostensibly internationalist
rhetoric, as if what’s good for the United States is good for
the world. ;)[/quote]
HTML http://thesaker.is/the-imf-forgives-ukraines-loan-to-russia/
#Post#: 4182--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: December 12, 2015, 6:15 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Billions of Barrels of US Oil Set to Disappear. Poof.
;D[/center]
[quote]Off the keyboard of Thomas Lewis
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/oil-fire-1024x6811-e1449933214723.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]An oil refinery in Puerto Rico burns in 2009. That’s one
way to make a bunch of oil disappear, but accountants can do it
faster. And they’re going to. [/center]
Published on The Daily Impact on December 10, 2015
In a few weeks, several billion barrels of American oil will
vanish in an instant. (I am not making this stuff up: the
headline is right there on Bloomberg Business, hardly a
chicken-little medium.) This is — shortly to be was — the oil
that just a few months ago (Remember? When we were young, and
happy?) was to return us to energy independence, to make us the
number one oil producer in the world, to bring the happy days
here again for good.
Okay, there were weasel words salted into those assurances all
along, words that we didn’t realize were there until too late.
The new American oil revolution was going to put us on the road
back in the general direction of North American energy
independence (as long as you counted Mexican and Canadian oil,
too); and we would be the number one oil producer if you
included in your definition of “oil” such things as biofuels,
refinery gains from heat expansion, spillage and, if necessary,
drippings from leaky transmissions in shopping mall parking
lots.
Well, we bought it. Even the president said we had a hundred
years of petroleum lying under our feet. Thus it would be our
great-grandchildren, not our grandchildren, whose lives we would
ruin by burning it all up. Whew, that was a relief.
But much of that oil is about to disappear, not with the boom of
an oil-train explosion or deep-well blowout or terrorist bomb,
but with the quiet click of a computer mouse. And this time it’s
not (as it often has been before) the Energy Information
Administration revising downward a previous guess about oil
reserves.
As the American shale-oil boom, a.k.a. American Oil Revolution,
was accelerating back in 2009, the Masters of the Oil Universe
demanded and got an accommodation from the Securities and
Exchange Commission: it was made easier for the oil companies to
claim as hard assets, for purposes of valuing their companies
and borrowing money, the value of all the oil they estimated to
be “in reserve,” which is to say lying somewhere under the
ground they had under their control.
The oil companies’ estimates of their own “proven reserves” were
astronomical, of course. In the careful words of one expert
observer, David Hughes, “There was too much optimism built into
their forecasts.” Translation: They lied.
It is as if you and I, on applying to the bank for a loan, were
able to claim as assets all the money we intended to make in our
lifetime. “$20 million over 20 years, you say? Why then a $10
million loan should be no problem.” And so it was for the
fracking industry, which never could have got started without
oceans of cheap borrowed money.
Remarkably, at the time the SEC snuck two tiny limitations into
the newly permissive rule, so niggling that no one thought them
worthy of mention. To be, um, legitimate, these claimed assets
had to be 1) profitable to extract under current market prices,
and 2) actually extracted within five years. Profitability went
away a year ago when oil prices collapsed from over a hundred
dollars a barrel to under 50. Despite the fact that quarterly
assessments of assets, including oil reserves, are required,
bankers and hedge funds and operators used smoke and mirrors to
avoid the Draconian restructuring that the new prices required.
But now the five years have run out.
Hence the vanishing oil (which of course is not really
vanishing, because it never existed). Chesapeake Energy
Corporation, one of the noisiest participants in the erstwhile
“Revolution” (Successful? That’s a whole ‘nother story.) is
among the hardest to be hit: at year’s end it will lose over a
billion barrels of reserves, or 45% of its assets.
Chesapeake is hardly alone. Moody’s Investment Service has just
issued a report on the “deteriorating credit quality” in the oil
and gas sector, a set of “exceptionally adverse conditions” that
are “staggering in their breadth and severity.”
So this is how the oil revolution ends, not with a bang but a
poof.
Thomas Lewis is a nationally recognized and reviewed author of
six books, a broadcaster, public speaker and advocate of
sustainable living. He also is Editor of The Daily Impact
website, and former artist-in-residence at Frostburg State
University. He has written several books about collapse issues,
including Brace for Impact and Tribulation. Learn more about
them here
HTML http://www.dailyimpact.net/about-brace-for-impact/.
[/quote]
True.
But unsaid it is that, if the EXACT SAME provisos are applied by
the SEC with regard to providing oceans of cheap money for
Renewable Energy (BOTH wind and PV qualify as "profitable under
the current market conditions"), then the banks should be
falling all over themselves to fund a massive transition to
Renewable energy that would REALLY make us energy independent
(of other countries AND fossil fuel corporations!).
But for some, uh, strange reason, those "oceans" of cheap money
ALWAYS seem to be "justified" for fossil fuels and NEVER seem to
be "justified" for Renewable Energy. It's fascinating, in a
nauseating sort of way, how reality challenged those
cheerleading fossil fuels in the government and the banks are.
There must be a reason for that...
[center]
HTML http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1375371542_tumblr_m7jevgcaFm1qzqdem.gif[/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://www.whydidyouwearthat.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/tumblr_l7j9nik8Wf1qaxxwjo1_5001.jpeg[/img][/center]
[center]All of us in "real world" know that fossil fuels are
always profitable.[/center]
#Post#: 4205--------------------------------------------------
Re: Money
By: AGelbert Date: December 21, 2015, 2:18 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Does Shipping Tell the Real Story of China? You Should
Hope Not[/center]
December 10, 2015 by Bloomberg
By Manisha Jha
(Bloomberg) — Investors betting that China’s near- insatiable
appetite for industrial raw materials will drive global economic
growth may want to skip the shipping news.
For the first time in at least a decade, combined seaborne
imports of iron ore and coal — commodities that helped fuel a
manufacturing boom in the world’s second-largest economy — are
down from a year earlier. While demand next year may be a little
better, slower-than-anticipated growth in 2015 has led to almost
perpetual disappointment for shippers, after analysts’
predictions at the end of 2014 for a rebound proved wrong.
The world has surpluses of everything from corn to crude oil,
and commodity prices are heading for their biggest annual loss
since the financial crisis. With China’s economy expanding at
the slowest pace since 1990 demand has ebbed from one of the
biggest importers. The Baltic Dry Index of shipping rates for
bulk materials fell to an all-time low last month, turning those
who watch the industry increasingly bearish.
[quote]“For dry bulk, China has gone completely belly
up,”[/quote] said Erik Nikolai Stavseth, an analyst at Arctic
Securities ASA in Oslo, talking about ships that haul everything
from coal to iron ore to grain. “Present Chinese demand is
insufficient to service dry-bulk production, which is driving
down rates and subsequently asset values as they follow each
other.”
Growth Reversal
China produces about half the world’s steel. The metal is made
from iron ore in furnaces fueled by coal, which also is used to
run power plants. While domestic mines supply both raw
materials, it isn’t enough, so the country must buy from
overseas. As the economy surged over the past decade, imports of
iron ore tripled, and coal purchases rose almost four-fold since
2008, government data show. The country accounts for two in
every three iron-ore cargoes in the world, and is the largest
importer of soybeans and rice.
But this year, demand has slowed. Combined seaborne imports of
iron ore and coal will drop 4.8 percent to 1.097 billion metric
tons, the first decline since at least 2003, according to data
from Clarkson Plc, the biggest shipbroker. A year ago, Clarkson
was anticipating a 5.5 percent increase for 2015. The broker
expects growth to increase just 0.04 percent next year.
[quote]
It may get worse. [img width=25
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-080515182559.png[/img]<br
/>
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191258.bmp<br
/>[/quote] The China Iron and Steel Association predicted
crude-steel output will tumble by 23 million tons to 783 million
tons next year. That lost output is more than a quarter of what
U.S. steelmakers produce.
The Baltic Dry Index slumped to 504 points on Nov. 19, the
lowest since 1985. It has subsequently advanced to 534 points.
While rates for iron ore-carrying Capesize ships normally rise
at the end of the year, owners are bracing for the weakest
fourth quarter since 2001, Baltic Exchange data show.
Estimates Revisited
At the end of last year, shipping analysts forecast rates for
Capesize-class vessels would jump by about a third in 2015.
Instead, they’re now expecting a decline of about that
magnitude.
Imports are weakening even as China’s economy keeps expanding
because of reduced spending by local governments that are
dominant players in the economy, according to Fielding Chen, a
Hong Kong-based economist for Bloomberg Intelligence. The
central government in January withdrew guarantees for Local
Government Financing Vehicles used to finance infrastructure
projects during the country’s boom years, when domestic capacity
surged over the past decade, he said.
“This has reduced China’s appetite for steel and copper and
other commodities that are used to build roads, subways and
reservoirs,” Chen said. “It is not good for the economy and is
one of the main reasons China cannot import more.”
Glut of Ships
Economic growth, which is still about half its pre-2008 peak, is
also being propped up by increased consumption and services, and
a higher rate of spending by the central government, he said.
Sliding Chinese demand is just part of the reason for the slump
in freight rates. There are also more ships, and low scrap-steel
prices have discouraged demolitions of older vessels, according
to Nigel Prentis, the head of consultancy at Hartland Shipping
Services Ltd. in London. The fleet will expand 4.1 percent next
year compared with an expansion in demand for dry-bulk
commodities of 1.6 percent, estimates Clarkson.
“A lot of people ordered vessels believing in the continued
growth in Chinese imports,
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/gen152.gif”
said Erik Folkeson,
an analyst at Swedbank First Securities in Oslo. “When that
failed to materialize, utilization level dipped. I struggle to
see the big triggers for a recovery.”'
[center][img
width=320]
HTML https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/TheTwilightZoneLogo.png[/img][/center]
[center]The Twilight Zone[/center]
The rout in buying showed signs of easing last month. China’s
iron-ore imports rose to 82.13 million tons, a jump of 22
percent compared with a year earlier. Even so, the extra
shipments are mostly because of rising Chinese steel exports,
rather than the nation’s own demand, according to Andy Xie, an
independent economist who predicted in February that iron-ore
prices would sink into the $30s this year, compared with $71 at
the start of the year.
Chinese steel mills have been pressured by losses, low prices
and overcapacity as demand drops to levels unseen since 2009,
cutting profits and reducing incentive for re-stocking.
“China’s slowdown has come as a major shock to the system,” said
Hartland Shipping’s Prentis. “We are now caught in the twilight
zone between shifts in China’s economy, and it is uncomfortable
as it’s causing unexpected
HTML http://www.coh2.org/images/Smileys/huhsign.gif
slowing of
demand.”
–With assistance from Naomi Christie.
©2015 Bloomberg News
HTML http://gcaptain.com/does-shipping-tell-the-real-story-of-china-you-should-hope-not/#.VnhYev9gnm4
Agelbert NOTE: One of these days, these fine folks in financial
reporting will tire of that incredibly stupid expression which
describes incredibly stupid behavior by capitalism worshipping
ideologues that believe slowing of demand should never be
"expected".
HTML http://www.desismileys.com/smileys/desismileys_6869.gif
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