Posts by G Mac

Re: What's sixze got to do with it?

The Trieste was not a true submarine, it was a bathyscaphe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe.

Essentially a sphere for us humans (= best shape to withstand pressure) suspended below a large tank of gasoline (= less dense than water and incompressible). It got back to the surface by releasing it's iron shot ballast.

What I noted about the article's submarine was that it had portholes! I would of thought that was a major weak spot.

Re: Glad we're catching the top crooks

In this case, someone steals a Honda and gets prosecuted while folks are being home invaded, bound, pistol whipped and their life savings stolen, all in front of the kids, and the perps get a slap on the wrist.

This prosecution is an example of 'regulatory theater' where captured regulators and politicians take a victory lap and say 'look, something is being done' while far more corrosive crimes get a free pass because they are corporations.

Your comment pretty much reflects that the regulatory theater is working.

Can we get that even so please?

That is, the minimum/average/median/maximum request times?

Re: Must try harder

Seems a bit thin and maybe misleading...

It looks like the documentation was hashed in the blockchain, not the funds itself which were sent via Swift - so technically the trade was documented by blockchain, but the trade was executed normally.

So having completed a number of electronically signed documents amongst multiple parties (aka a mortgage), I guess the key for this is that it was distributed.

But my understanding - correct me if wrong, is that verification of the blockchain must be done by some quorum of processors of which none have a majority (45%) of processing power. In this case, who did what to who? And how do you known given anonymity in the real world?

I am curious to see how this could work in a distributed manner - that is after all the selling point beyond what is in place now.

Re: Inflation prediction please - update 3

Latest in:

"Euro-Area Spell of Sub-Zero Inflation Ends as Unemployment Falls"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-30/euro-area-spell-of-sub-zero-inflation-ends-as-unemployment-falls

So SUCCESS!!!! From -0.1 to 0.0 - that must count as a major coup for the projection made by the article. Not.

What is annoying is that by making the pronouncement that all that is needed is QE and 'proving' it via this post's math, it has frozen policy in place. That is, it becomes a wait and see versus doing something Keynesian/stimulus (and the ECB doing more QE, which may be the new definition of insanity).

Of course we are talking about the EU, so providing stimulus via Euro-area action is a tall order to get agreement. But taking it off the table because of an ideological "QE works" without any evidence is not correct.

Re: Some quibbles...

You will find the writing of time recording debts to temple and the monarch. Please show the extensive records of private debt *not* to those.

As for bankruptcy, it is something that can be used only under pretty extreme measures, at least in the US. Multiple laws have gone into effect to restrict bankruptcy for student loans, credit cards and even personal. What is more, the law doesn't allow for expunging of debt by decree, which is what a Jubilee Year is. Please show me the law allowing debts being wiped by decree. Ah yes there is one for sovereigns, but that isn't private, is it?

"Do you have the faintest idea what that actually means? The 'resource constraint' in question is whether you've rounded up all the Jews yet and taken their money, or if there's still more to steal.

I find the term _modern_ monetary theory to be absolutely laughable. It's not modern at all, it's just a rehash of some very old antisemitic claptrap.

Clue for you: there is no magic money tree, the Jews aren't stealing the fruit, and so gassing them won't actually help everyone else pig out on the fruit instead."

Do you actually know what MMT is? Please provide a link where you got the above idea...

Re: Bonds

The key element of that in Tim's argument is:

"It's also, going back to our technical discussion, making M0 to spend: and as that MV=PQ again tells us, making M0 to spend *can* be highly inflationary."

I highlighted the 'can' - yes it can, but it doesn't automatically follow, as MMTers have pointed out to Tim, and, from memory, he acknowledges, but won't accept for the simple economic reasoning of 'I don't trust the government'.

(Which strikes me as a bit weird given how comfortable Tim must be with the number of nuclear weapons in the hands of the government.)

Be that as it may, it doesn't have to be inflationary - as long as the government isn't competing for *real* resources - commodities, people, etc, then inflation doesn't have to follow. Again, MMTers know this because they follow how money works in real-life, not just a theory on how it should work in a perfect world.

Re: "Can somebody explain why this is a real-world problem for normal people?"

Which why folks rely on 'experts', in much the same way you go to mechanics, doctors, accountants etc. In this case, they go to appraisers.

Of course, that relies on appraisers being something called 'honest', which doesn't generally appear when economists speak (because they also don't know how to pronounce 'fraud').

For example, a petition by 11,000 appraisers (collected from 2000-2007) was being collected and finally submitted during this 'mysterious' bubble period. See this in 2001:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/02/realestate/appraisers-and-the-pressure-to-inflate-valuations.html

Essentially, honest appraisers were being pressured by lenders (not buyers) to inflate prices. If they didn't, they were black listed - you can see an example here:

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Real-estate-appraiser-sues-WaMu-1261946.php

Of course, lenders/banks denied this. Any attempt to stop it was stymied. Any attempt by a US state (I think it was Virginia - one of those around there) to institute their controls on predatory lending was overruled (Bush, after being lobbied by banks etc.) and so the bubble went on.

This was not rocket science to stop. But the gravy train was paying off big time for loan officers and the C-suiters. When the Greenspan (Chairman of the Federal Reserve), a big believer that there is no such thing as 'fraud' failed to do enforcement (aka, regulation), being of the Chicago School of economics where fraud is sorted out by the market, things turned out as expect.

Of course, Greenspan after the GFC was 'shocked, shocked, that there is gambling in this establishment', but by then it was all over bar the shouting. See here http://business.time.com/2008/10/23/alan_greenspan_changes_his_min/.

Re: horse and cart

Unless you expected to be somewhere in 120 miles away in say a few hours. Of course that was solved by something like the Pony Express (where is that business now anyway? For those without access to petrol?).

Of course this is classic:

"In its submission to the FCC's comment period, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) said that people simply didn't need 25Mbps, complaining about the "hypothetical use cases" that would explain why that speed would be useful and noting that they "dramatically exaggerate the amount of bandwidth needed by the typical broadband user."

Yes, but your members (Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and RCN - latter of which I have) is advertising faster speeds than competitor (*limited time only) every damn @&!(ing night, so obviously speed is not important (insert sarcasm icon).

Re: strange...

Bias.

If it was situational awareness there would be more publicised arrests for the white-collar use of prostitutes and Bolivian marching powder, particularly the Wall Street types. I live in NYC and don't see any.

Guys, any visibility of that in The City (of London)?

Re: A rewrite of history - I wonder why?

Not sure who is missing the point here. The companies could default or suspend payments. That affects the payback to the western banks et al - that has the ripple effect.

As for further foreign financing, absolutely that is an issue, and one Putin will desperately try to remedy. But losses on existing bonds was my point, which you missed.

As for clear breaks between governments and oligarchs, well the GFC proved the west also has a bunch that get bailed out too.

Re: Some gaps

Please direct me to the statistics supporting these claims.

Note that size of the household actually *increased* post GFC due to folks a) being unable to support mortgages, and b) young folk cannot afford even the reduced prices given wage and wage security conditions. There is a low level moan from the MBA/NRA (National Realtors Association - not the other!) about the fact that household creation is stalled (at least for this period). Irony given their refusal to countenance the word 'fraud' in the lead up to the GFC (except by buyers! A joke in itself).

Also, what pensions are you referring to? Those run by corporations/municipalities that have been seen to be rather vulnerable to being wacked in BK? On the 401(k)s that folks cannot get to until 55+, unless they need it for emergency/housing, in which case it gets wacked in the long term? Also, can you show how pensions and HC insurance are treated elsewhere? And how does a pension factor in when you are still in the working period?

Inflation has always been argued about, especially the hedonic pricing (and the productivity gains there were not passed to workers...). Still, references please.

So, given the above, you have an unsubstantiated claim of 25% increase per capita. Again, references please.