Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • MINIMIZE RATHER THAN MAXIMIZE ECONOMIC ENTANGLEMENT —“I sympathize, therefore,

    MINIMIZE RATHER THAN MAXIMIZE ECONOMIC ENTANGLEMENT

    —“I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel–these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national. Yet, at the same time, those who seek to disembarrass a country of its entanglements should be very slow and wary. It should not be a matter of tearing up roots but of slowly training a plant to grow in a different direction.

    For these strong reasons, therefore, I am inclined to the belief that, after the transition is accomplished, a greater measure of national self-sufficiency and economic isolation among countries than existed in 1914 may tend to serve the cause of peace, rather than otherwise. At any rate, the age of economic internationalism was not particularly successful in avoiding war; and if its friends retort, that the imperfection of its success never gave it a fair chance, it is reasonable to point out that a greater success is scarcely probable in the coming years.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:52:19 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576497596581911

  • UNDERSTANDING TRUMP’S FRUSTRATION WITH EUROPE —“So the EU is undermining the p

    UNDERSTANDING TRUMP’S FRUSTRATION WITH EUROPE

    —“So the EU is undermining the petro dollar/sanctions by wanting to purchase Iranian oil with the Euro? Meanwhile the US uses the petro$ to finance the world policing. That sums up the problem with the irreciprocal relationship between the US and the EU or is there more to it?”— A Friend

    Mostly, but in addition, the EU then counter-signals and virtue-signals its ability to afford social programs that they could not afford if they paid their share of the military and maintained sufficient and equal readiness. This then drives demand in the USA for social programs that the USA cannot afford. So yes.

    It depends on how carefully you examine the US Federal budget. While yes, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, $2.841T, revenue is only $3.44T (plus state $2.11T; local $1.47T) Total Military is ~$1T before military retirement benefits. So military and benefits alone > Income.

    So then we have ~1.1T in debt, which includes all US government discretionary spending on EVERYTHING, of which only about 600B are for other than benefits and military spending. So we have to finance our entire federal government expenditures because we pay policing the world.

    The combined military expenditure of EU member states amounts to just over is €192.5 billion. This represents 1.55% of European Union GDP. the military expenditure of the United States €503 billion. This represents 4.66% of United States GDP or 300% off EU.

    However, this does not include the actual war and deployment costs which brings the number to €886 billon, or 5% of GDP €17.52T. It’s not easy to account for readiness, since the europeans spend money but cannot deploy fighting forces, this means EU’s low returns on spending.

    Which only increases the asymmetry. in other words, the european expenditures are relatively worthless compared to american and british expenditures. (Outside of France in Africa, and the British in the world – which will soon depart the EU.)

    So this is why Trump is agitated at everyone ‘free riding’ on the american middle class.

    (Whiny Closing: France in particular is the enemy of western civilization and german failure to counter french interambitions to rule all of europe like a french monarchical despot is the causal problem, and a female german minster as well as her female defense ministers are exacerbating the problem. Conversely it is in european interests to ally german technology and culture with russian resources and labor, and instead of empowering france to parasitically prey upon europe as she has always intended, to provide a balance of powers between the latin, german, slavic, and russian sectors.)

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:46:57 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576476414725850

  • THE CORRECTION OF DYSGENICS —“Norway and Sweden have eliminated dysgenic trend

    THE CORRECTION OF DYSGENICS

    —“Norway and Sweden have eliminated dysgenic trends thanks to an egalitarian society;”— Lynn

    Turns out this isn’t true, but it’s a solution.

    1. End immigration “Send Them Back”
    2. Definancialize the economy and monetary distribution.
    3. Separation into small homogenous nation states
    4. small homogenous redistributive polities.
    5. pay the underclass not to reproduce (or sterilize them).
    6. provide redistribution to simplify reproduction

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:42:08 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576457529566958

  • WHY IS OIL PRICED IN DOLLARS (AND WHY DOES IRAN WANT TO CHANGE THAT?) by Michael

    WHY IS OIL PRICED IN DOLLARS (AND WHY DOES IRAN WANT TO CHANGE THAT?)
    by Michael Kosh

    Oil is priced in dollars because through Bretton Woods the dollar was pegged to gold and everything else was essentially pegged or floated to the dollar. The world was flooded with dollars after WWII which partially led to the present American consumerism, but it also enabled the world to essentially use the dollar as they would gold. Reserves soon played a role and in order to maintain stability the gold window was closed and eventually the US went off the gold standard all together. In the meantime though, oil, which is a global commodity, was traded using the dollar which drastically simplified the whole system. The system has remained in place due to inertia.

    In order to change the currency used, the world would have to be flooded with a different currency (which doesn’t make sense since the US has the world’s largest economy except for perhaps the Euro which is extremely unstable) and while the Fed may whit away the value of the dollar, it’s highly unlikely that it will default and therefore it is not susceptible realistically to any speculative attacks. While currencies such as the Euro hold a substantial percentage of reserve holdings, the dollar is still THE reserve currency and those holding dollars wouldn’t want to see their holdings drop in value from a drop in demand (it’s bad enough for them that QE3 is skyrocketing the supply and at some point it could possibly be abandoned, but not until a certain level of desperation kicks in).

    Under the present circumstances, the only realistic alternative would be to have a somewhat balanced basket of currencies including the dollar be the drivers of world trade, but then do you buy oil with yen one week and pounds the next? A basket of currencies is inherently unstable from a global perspective since the constant shifting of portfolios would add volatility to the market. Granted, the Federal Reserve has somewhat of a blank check, but there is no perfect system. If not the dollar, what currency? In addition, how do you transfer from a system based on one currency to one based on another smoothly?

    An analogy I would make is look at Russia with the New Economic Policy in 1921 and then following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In one case the shift was to a command economy and the other it was a shift away (although Putin still has his hands in the oil industry through companies like Gazprom) but both put considerable strains on the economy. This actually brings up another point though, if the shift away from the dollar were to occur it would likely stem largely from Russia’s initiatives. Regardless, there’s too much at stake with the oil trade to risk a global fiasco in order to change currencies. The price of American hegemony in the currency realm is still the cheapest option to other countries for the time being at least.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:40:49 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576452262591997

  • TEACHER’S SALARIES VS ATHLETE’S SALARIES by Luke Weinhagen Having school age chi

    TEACHER’S SALARIES VS ATHLETE’S SALARIES
    by Luke Weinhagen

    Having school age children I often hear complaints about teachers salaries.

    They frequently take the form of “there is something wrong with a society that values entertainment so much more than education that it pays its athletes millions while teachers struggle to get by”.

    Right comparison, wrong complaint.

    There is something wrong with a society who’s standards and application of rigor to be a professional teacher are so significantly lower than those required to be a professional athlete that this pay disparity can survive.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:40:17 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576450229603777

  • Dysgenic reproduction is economically rewarding …. until it isn’t. It isn’t

    Dysgenic reproduction is economically rewarding
    …. until it isn’t.

    It isn’t.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:38:43 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576444114340761

  • IN PROPERTARIANISM, SOCIOLOGY = COMPATIBILISM You see, in Propertarianism, we de

    IN PROPERTARIANISM, SOCIOLOGY = COMPATIBILISM

    You see, in Propertarianism, we deal in a inequality, inequality of interests, compatibilism, and compromise, through exchange between genders and classes, rather than trying to define ideals or utopias. Why? Ideals and utopias are just scams we use to coerce others into your interests against theirs, without engaging in trade.

    We are wealthy enough for the feminine reproductive strategy of the underclasses, and the masculine strategy of the aristocratic classes, to separate, form new polities, new governments, and to return to the speciation we pursued prior to the european unification of the world in the age of sale, trade, industry, technology, science, finance, and law.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:33:53 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576425050609084

  • BTC has market cap equal to a speculative technology company. What will Apple co

    BTC has market cap equal to a speculative technology company. What will Apple correct to with iphone purchases abate? What happens to all overpriced tech stocks? Because BTC are a share of STOCK in the BTC network. This is the optimum use of BTC technology: eliminating the stock markets and their trading fees: ie; “fractional trade of interest in title.”

    Excuse making and evidence are two different things:

    – The tech is open to monopolization.
    – The tech is easily open to state seizure.
    – The assets are stolen all the time.
    – The tokens aren’t insurable by the insurer of last resort.
    – The tech is fragile.
    – The usability is sh*t and appears unsolvable.
    – The transaction time is waaaay too long for widespread use.
    – The data storage scheme is waaaay to big for widespread use.
    – There is no means for expiration or consolidation of fractional amounts.
    – The entry and exit points require real world conversions to real world currencies (torrents do not).

    What will happen is what I said will happen: states will move to the next monetary system, which is direct access to treasury, tagged money (tracable), using high response time, redundant, central data stores, taxed per transaction rather than requiring organizations to collect taxes.

    AFAIK BTC was developed for the purpose of simplifying the drug and arms trade. That is how it will be prosecuted. Because the state will mandate its own currency as it does now. Every state will do so out of necessity of protecting state financing.

    Furthermore the internet will be balkanized within the next ten to twenty years (if not sooner by china), ending the open borders unregulated wild west of the internet exchange of information – largely because it is in tolerable for authoritarian countries to permit political competition on the western model. It will happen in china first then russia, then it will spread from there.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:27:02 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576398118185773

  • BTC RISKS That’s misrepresentation. BTC are tokens (purchased) not debts) so the

    BTC RISKS

    That’s misrepresentation. BTC are tokens (purchased) not debts) so there is no counterparty risk because there is no debt. But that misrepresents the risk.

    On the other hand, it’s entirely possible to shut down the network so that the Tokens aren’t REDEEMABLE, because unlike other instruments redemption is monolithic. ie: the network is a monopoly and the tokens are not tradable without the network.

    So yes there is risk. There is risk of being stolen (happens all the time) there is risk of collapse in price (happens all the time) there is risk of state seizure. There is zero access in duress scenarios.

    As a store of value (a stock without backing in anything other than demand for savings), yes it has value. As a means of competing with the state and treasuries then no. In fact, the poor transaction performance of BTC is a great example of a bad tech being a market benefit: btc is prevented from functioning as money, only as a stock, and as a stock, only as a token, even if a divisible share (shares divisible into additional token shares.)

    So if you mean BTC will serve as an alternative to gold as a means of savings, then I think such a thing is maybe possible if it becomes vastly easier to use, at vastly lower transaction costs.

    But it is not the ‘future’ you propose with your overarching argument. In other words, to say a thing has value is not to say it has sufficient value.

    I have been consistently right on this subject over time and as far as I know I will remain so and that is because I understand the spectrum of monetary instruments from commodity to money to instruments to debts, and how they function in economies – as such I don’t make the mistake of conflating different types of instruments (when doing so is an act of fraud actually).

    I only got involved in the discussion when people in the libertarian and BTC community asked me to. And it’s because it’s not money. it’s a divisible share of stock, sold as a token (dependent upon the network) in a network (dominated by a few vendors) without asset backing only demand backing, and that is costly (in energy and time) to manage. It is less open to scamming than buying interest in gold because it has no reserve (margin) utility. It is however more open to loss so far than any other asset we know of.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:26:49 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576397247171650

  • THE VEIL OF MONEY by Michael Churchill There is a concept called “the veil of mo

    THE VEIL OF MONEY
    by Michael Churchill

    There is a concept called “the veil of money” which is that money is the means of exchange (and/or unit of account) but that that’s basically all it is. You change the number of zeros on the currency but it doesn’t really change anything. Somebody still has to make widgets. And each widget will have a certain value relative to a bushel of corn etc etc

    MONEY IS A VEIL IN THE LONG RUN
    The veil of money and, as a related issue, the quantity theory of money have special importance in economic theory throughout the 20th century. Actually, 20th century economics can be interpreted as a sequence of theoretical answers to the question whether money is only a veil or not. Different theories can be judged by their implied ideas as to the neutrality of money. In the simplest models and in the simplest form of the quantity theory of money, money is completely neutral, that is, changes in the money supply do not affect anything real. However, in the more elaborated models the neutrality theorem was applied rather to long-run considerations. For both Milton Friedman and Robert E. Lucas money was not a mere veil in the short run, so money was assumed to have real effects in the short run. The mechanisms through which money could exert these real effects were radically different and so were the sets of assumptions these authors created to establish their models. For example, Friedman postulated adaptive expectations, while Lucas assumed his economic agents to be able to form rational expectations. For both of them, money was only neutral in the long-run – that is, money was not just a veil in the short-run – but the scope of countercyclical economic policy was radically curtailed in new classical macroeconomics. In the case of rational expectations the monetary authority is not able to carry out systematic countercyclical economic policy – that is, it cannot exploit the existing short-run Phillips curve. However, it can be realized that if any of the conditions necessary to the ineffectiveness of systematic economic policy is not met, economic policy can be effective again, so, money is not only a veil.

    Source date (UTC): 2019-08-07 15:25:33 UTC

    Original post: https://gab.com/curtd/posts/102576392223596795