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EightBit.Me Living life through a tiny little you |
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The line between computer games and real life continues to blur, or,
in the case of South Korea, crystallize in a terrifying way that
leaves you nostalgic for blurriness. Moving the West further down
the digitized path, EightBit.me, just launched.Out of the American
city both most and least attached to reality (San Francisco), 8-Bit harnesses
the combined powers of foursquare and Twitter to create
a system where engaging in real activities rewards not you (with mayor status, etc.),
but your online avatar, who, merely by cruising around
town popping into places, will craft a more compelling plot than James
Cameron. The first step's to build a blocky, NES-type alter-you via a surprisingly
fast 10-step process (hair, clothes, skin colour, etc.),
who'll inhabit a virtual world populated by similarly pixelated
representations of foursquare-repped local spots you know and love,
as well as others' avatars, which you can see upon checking into the
same establishments, creating a hilarious scene where a bunch of
people stare at each other and avoid each others' gazes at the same
time. Check-ins and subsequent "Shouts" (tweetable micro-messages)
earn you Mario-esque gold coins spendable on playing TBC mini-
games againstothers, or on enhancing your avatar with awesome
clothing, etc.; specialized prizesare accrued though multiple visitations --
hit the same bar often for a pair of beer goggles, or the same tea-house
for a "Madhatter Hat", something the real you would only wear after a
very long time at that bar. The team plans to continually update with
mini-games, as well as add new fun such as betting virtual currency
on local sports fixtures -- though with the added excitement of
fake-money on the line, that Starcraft match between the Terrans and
the Zerg will become even more of a blur. |
The Daily Reckoning Presents
Patriotic Expatriates by Doug Casey
I've written many times about the importance of
internationalizing your assets, your mode of living,
and your way of thinking. I suspect most readers
have treated those articles as they might a travelogue
to some distant and exotic land: interesting fodder for
cocktail party chatter, but basically academic and of
little immediate personal relevance.
All very well, you may say. But there are practical
issues, you also say. A person can't just pick up and
leave and go where he wants and do what he wants
...can he? Get real, Casey. There are reasons a person
has to stay where he is, aren't there?
Let's look at some of those reasons.
"America is the best country in the world. I'd be a fool
to leave." That was absolutely true, not so very long ago.
America certainly was the best - and it was unique. But
it no longer exists, except as an ideal. The geography it
occupied has been co-opted by the United States, which
today is just another nation-state. And, most
unfortunately,one that's become especially predatory
toward its citizens.
"My parents and grandparents were born here; I have
roots in this country." An understandable emotion;
everyone has an atavistic affinity for his place of birth,
including your most distantrelatives born long, long ago,
and far, far away. I suppose if Lucy, apparently the first
more-or-less human we know of, had been able to speak,
she might have pled roots if you'd asked her to leave her
valley in East Africa. If you buy this argument, then it's
clear your forefathers, who came from Europe, Asia, or
Africa, were made of sterner stuff than you are.
"I'm not going to be unpatriotic." Patriotism is one of
those things very few even question and even fewer
examine closely. I'm a patriot, you're a nationalist, he's
a jingoist. But let's put such a tendentious and emotion-
laden subject aside. Today a true patriot - an effective
patriot - would be accumulating capital elsewhere, to
have assets he can repatriate and use for rebuilding
when the time is right. And a real patriot understands
that America is not a place; it's an idea. It deserves to
be spread.
"I can't leave my aging mother behind." Not to sound
callous, but your aging parent will soon leave you behind.
Why not offer her the chance to come along, though? She
might enjoy a good live-in maid in your own house (which
I challenge you to get in the US) more than a sterile,
dismal and overpriced old people's home, where she's
likely to wind up.
"I might not be able to earn a living." Spoken like a
person with little imagination and even less self-
confidence. And likely little experience or knowledge of
economics. Everyone everywhere, has to produce at
least as much as he consumes - that won't change
whether you stay in your living room or go to Timbuktu.
In point of fact, though, it tends to be easier to earn
big money in a foreign country, because you will have
knowledge, experience, skills, and connections the
locals don't.
"I don't have enough capital to make a move." Well, that
was one thing that kept serfs down on the farm. Capital
gives you freedom. On the other hand, a certain amount
of poverty can underwrite your freedom, since possessions
act as chains for many.
"I'm afraid I won't fit in." As I explained a little earlier,
the real danger that's headed your way is not fitting in at
home. This objection is often proffered by people who've
never traveled abroad. Here's a suggestion. If you don't
have a valid passport, apply for one tomorrow morning.
Then, at the next opportunity, book a trip to somewhere
that seems interesting. Make an effort to meet people.
Find out if you're really as abject a wallflower as you fear.
"I don't speak the language." It's said that Sir Richard
Burton, the 19th-century explorer, spoke 10 languages
fluently and 15 more "reasonably well." I've always liked
that distinction although, personally, I'm not a good
linguist. And it gets harder to learn a language as you
get older - although it's also true that learning a new
language actually keeps your brain limber. In point of
fact, though, English is the world's language. Almost
anyone who is anyone, and the typical school kid, has
some grasp of it.
"I'm too old to make such a big change." Yes, I guess it
makes more sense to just take a seat and await the
arrival of the Grim Reaper. Or, perhaps, is your life
already so exciting and wonderful that you can't handle
a little change? Better, I think, that you might adopt the
attitude of the 85-year-old woman who has just
transplanted herself to Argentina from the frozen north.
Even after many years of adventure, she simply feels
ready for a change and was getting tired of the same
old people with the same old stories and habits.
"I've got to wait until the kids are out of school. It
would disrupt their lives." This is actually one of the
lamest excuses in the book. I'm sympathetic to the view
that kids ought to live with wolves for a couple of years
to get a proper grounding in life - although I'm not
advocating anything that radical. It's one of the greatest
gifts you can give your kids: to live in another culture,
learn a new language, and associate with a better class of
people (as an expat, you'll almost automatically move to
the upper rungs - arguably a big plus). After a little
whining, the kids will love it. When they're grown, if they
discover you passed up the opportunity, they won't
forgive you.
"I don't want to give up my US citizenship." There's no
need to. Anyway, if you have a lot of deferred income
and untaxed gains, it can be punitive to do so; the US
government wants to keep you as a milk cow. But then,
you may cotton to the idea of living free of any taxing
government, while having the travel documents offered
by several. And you may want to save your children from
becoming cannon fodder or indentured servants, should
the US reinstitute the draft or start a program of
"national service" - which is not unlikely.
But these arguments are unimportant. The real problem
is one of psychology. In that regard, I like to point to my
old friend Paul Terhorst, who 30 years ago was the
youngest partner at a national accounting firm. He and
his wife, Vicki, decided that "keeping up with the Joneses"
for the rest of their lives just wasn't for them. They
sold everything - cars, house, clothes, artwork, the works
and decided to live around the world. Paul then had the
time to read books, play chess, and generally enjoy
himself. He wrote about it in Cashing In on the American
Dream: How to Retire at 35. As a bonus, the advantages
of not being a tax resident anywhere and having time to
scope out proper investments has put Paul way ahead in
the money game. He typically spends about half his year
in Argentina; we usually have lunch every week when in
residence.
I could go on. But perhaps it's pointless to offer rational
counters to irrational fears and preconceptions. As
Gibbon noted with his signature brand of irony, "The
power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except
in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."
Let me say again, time is getting short. And the reasons
for looking abroad are changing.
In the past, the best argument for expatriation was an
automatic increase in one's standard of living. In the '50s
and '60s, a book called Europe on $5 a Day accurately
reflected all-in costs for a tourist. In those days a
middle-class American could live like a king in Europe;
but those days are long gone. Now it's the rare American
who can afford to visit Europe except on a cheesy
package tour. That situation may actually improve soon,
if only because the standard of living in Europe is likely to
fall even faster than in the US. But the improvement will
be temporary. One thing you can plan your life around is
that, for the average American, foreign travel is going
to become much more expensive in the next few years
as the dollar loses value at an accelerating rate.
Affordability is going to be a real problem for Americans,
who've long been used to being the world's "rich guys." But
an even bigger problem will be presented by foreign
exchange controls of some nature, which the government
will impose in its efforts to "do something."
FX controls - perhaps in the form of taxes on money
that goes abroad, perhaps restrictions on amounts and
reasons, perhaps the requirement of official approval,
perhaps all of these things - are a natural progression
during the next stage of the crisis. After all, only rich
people can afford to send money abroad, and only the
unpatriotic would think of doing so.
I would like to reemphasize that it's pure foolishness to
have your loyalties dictated by the lines on a map or the
dictates of some ruler. The nation-state itself is on its
way out. The world will increasingly be aligned with what
we call phyles, groups of people who consider themselves
countrymen based on their interests and values, not on
which government's ID they share. I believe the sooner
you start thinking that way, the freer, the richer, and
the more secure you will become.
The most important first step is to get out of the
danger zone. Let's list the steps, in order of importance.
* Establish a financial account in a second country and
transfer assets to it, immediately.
* Purchase a crib in a suitable third country, somewhere
you might enjoy whether in good times or bad.
* Get moving toward an alternative citizenship in a
fourth country; you don't want to be stuck geographically,
and you don't want to live like a refugee.
* Keep your eyes open for business and investment
opportunities in those four countries, plus the other 225;
you'll greatly increase your perspective and your chances
of success.
Where to go? The personal conclusion I came to was
Argentina (followed by Uruguay), where I spend a good
part of my year, and even more when my house at La
Estancia de Cafayate is completed.
In general, I would suggest you look most seriously at
countries whose governments aren't overly cozy with the US and whose people maintain an inbred suspicion of the police, the
military, and the fiscal authorities. These criteria tilt
the scales against past favorites like Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, and the UK.
And one more piece of sage advice: stop thinking like
your neighbors, which is to say stop thinking and acting
like a serf. Most people - although they can be perfectly
affable and even seem sensible - have the attitudes of
medieval peasants that objected to going further than
a day's round-trip from their hut, for fear the stories of
dragons that live over the hill might be true. We covered
the modern versions of that objection a bit earlier.
I'm not saying that you'll make your fortune and find
happiness by venturing out. But you'll greatly increase
your odds of doing so, greatly increase your security, and,
I suspect, have a much more interesting time.
Let me end by reminding you what Rick Blaine, Bogart's
character in Casablanca, had to say in only a slightly
different context. Appropriately, Rick was an early but
also an archetypical international man. Let's just imagine
he's talking about what will happen if you don't effectively
internationalize yourself, now. He said: "You may not
regret it now, but you'll regret it soon. And for the rest
of your life."
Whiskey and Gunpowder
By Gary North
March 9, 2011
Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
How to End the Fed
Things are not always as complicated as they seem. With respect to the Federal Reserve System, it is a deliberate mystery. It was deliberately designed in 1910 to deceive the public, who were opposed the idea of a central bank. The conspirators who met on Jekyll Island in November 1910 knew this. They did good work from their point of view. They concealed the beast.
The general public today knows little about the FED. Prior to Ron Paul’s Presidential run in 2007-8, far fewer people understood it.
I have been asked: “How could we get rid of the Federal Reserve? What will replace it?” The answer: either the free market or Congress.
People who think of themselves as free market people often are not. The tax-funded public schools and the state-regulated and accredited university faculties have taught that the modern system of intrusive civil government is necessary for an orderly society. People cannot imagine a market-based society.
There is an old saying, “You can’t beat something with nothing.” But the free market social order is not nothing. It is expanding around the world, which is why the world is getting richer.
At the Federal level, a free market social order in banking existed prior to 1914. That was back when the dollar was worth over 20 times what it is worth today. (On this point, see the inflation calculator of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
We can go back to that system. We will go back to it. The question is: When? The other question is: At what price?
Ending the Fed By Law
Ron Paul could introduce a bill to end the Federal Reserve System. He could call it: “The Monetary Liberty Act.” It would get known as the “End the Fed Act.” Here is what the text might say:
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is hereby repealed. So are all subsequent acts based on the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
All authority of the Federal Reserve System to act in the name of the United States government is hereby revoked.
The assets of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which are already the property of the United States Government, are hereby transferred to the Department of the Treasury. This includes all of the assets listed on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve System.
The twelve (12) privately owned Federal Reserve Banks will return all assets held in trust for the United States government within thirty (30) calendar days of the signing of this bill into law.
The gold reserves of the United States government that are held in storage by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will be transferred to the Government’s depository at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, within one calendar year after this bill becomes law. The Government Accountability Office will conduct an inventory of the gold held in storage by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before and after this transfer.
The Board of Governors will vacate the premises of the Federal Reserve building within thirty (30) calendar days of the signing of this bill into law.
Any pension fund assets of the employees of the various Federal Reserve Banks will remain under the control of those banks. All pension obligations under the authority of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System are hereby transferred to the Department of the Treasury, to be administered under the retirement program of the Department of the Treasury.
This is simple. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is a government agency. Its authority would be transferred to the U.S. Treasury.
The dozen Federal Reserve Banks are privately owned. All authority of these 12 banks that derives from their connection to the Board of Governors will cease. If they can make a profit, fine. If not, equally fine. The free market will determine which will survive and which will not.
Is this radical? Not at all. There are two historical precedents: the refusal of Congress to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States in 1811, and the refusal of Congress to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836. Both of them went bust.
The standard response is that there must be independence between the Federal Reserve System and the U.S. government. Let us apply this to other agencies:
* The Department of Defense * The Department of the Treasury * The Department of State * The Department of Education
I could go on, one by one, to list all of the thousands of agencies that are funded by Federal taxes and which operate by means of the authority of the U.S. government. Only one government agency is defended by publicists, both on and off the payroll of the Federal Reserve System, as deserving to be independent of the government that has transferred authority to it: the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
The phrase, “the independence of the Federal Reserve System,” is a code phrase for “the independence of the four largest U.S. banks from the threat of losses.” A growing number of voters has figured this out since the fall of 2008. This is why the Federal Reserve System is facing public criticism for the first time since 1914. This criticism will grow.
All of this may seem Utopian. Ron Paul could not get Congress to audit the FED, which by law possesses this authority. The Congress has been in the hip pocket of the FED for almost a century. The Congress lets the FED run the nation’s economy.
But as criticism spreads, there will be more voters who figure out what the FED is and has always been: a government-created cartel of the banks. It operates for the benefit of the largest banks.
Will Ron Paul get such a law passed by Congress and signed into law? No. Does this mean that the FED is forever untouchable? No.
We need the following:
1. A wave of price inflation caused by the FED 2. A subsequent recession caused by the FED 3. A depression caused by the FED 4. A wave of outage in response to the FED 5. An endless series of criticisms of the FED
This will result, ultimately, in the abolition of the FED. Whatever replaces it will decide the economic fate of Americans: Congress (hyperinflation) or the free market (economic stability).
But could the free market replace the FED without a catastrophe following? Yes. We are already seeing this in another sector of the economy.
“You’ve Got Almost No Mail!”
From the days of America’s most famous postmaster, Benjamin Franklin, two decades before the American Revolution, residents of North America have thought that the country could not do without a government- funded postal system. In the past 15 years, this faith has quietly died. The United States Postal Service now delivers mostly subsidized opportunity mail. (I hate the work “junk mail,” for I built my business on opportunity mail. But I have not used it for 15 years.) With email, UPS, FedEx, and text messaging, the first class letter is an anachronism. Historians will not be able to trace much after 1998 based on copies of letters.
With no fanfare, the postal system has become optional. The public does not go to the local Post Office often. If it were not for Netflix, a lot of people would not check their mailboxes daily.
All of this has happened without any new legislation. The once unbreakable monopoly of the Post Office is a rusted- out shell, staffed by union-protected workers who probably know their jobs are peripheral. Its volume declined by over 12% in 2010. This is expected to continue. That would cut volume by 50% by 2017. About 40,000 employees were fired in 2010. Saturday delivery will be dropped soon. There is another rate hike scheduled. Yet the outfit will lose $10 billion this year.
All this has happened without any enabling legislation. It has happened quietly. Market competition has reduced the USPS to an anachronism. It is a leftover shell of a bygone era.
In an essay about his youth, sociologist Robert Nisbet remarked that in the year he was born, 1913, the only contact that most Americans had with the Federal government was the Post Office. Later that year, the Federal Reserve Act was passed in a late session, just before Christmas break. Also in that year, the income tax came into effect. The expansion of the Federal government has been relentless ever since.
Nevertheless, the Post Office is slowly dying. No one planned this. The free market has replaced it, despite its official monopoly.
This offers hope. It means that free market solutions can come into existence before a government entity is shut down by law. The Post Office officially is a monopoly, yet its monopoly status has been eroded over the last four decades. It has been almost entirely replaced over the last two decades.
I think of a TV commercial that did not directly attack the Post Office. It was targeted at UPS. But UPS responded much faster than the Post Office could.
While critics of the postal monopoly had for decades tried to get Congress to revoke the Post Office’s monopoly, all attempts failed. They were associated with the fringe. Yet, year by year, the Post Office fell behind. It is irrelevant in American life today.
This was not planned by any political group. It was the result of new technologies. People made decisions, day by day, to bypass the Post Office.
An End Run Around the Fed
I do not expect Congress to revoke the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 in this decade. The powers that be who run this country do so by means of the Federal Reserve System more than by any other semi-private institution. It is at the center of control, because the monetary system is at the center of the economy.
But the central bank faces a problem. To maintain the boom, the FED must inflate. To cease inflating would allow the credit bubble to implode on a scale far more devastating than what happened in 2008. The FED has placed us all on the back of the tiger.
Yet if it does not reverse its policy, it must produce hyperinflation at some point. That will destroy the FED’s ability to guide the economy. Hyperinflation will lead to alternative currencies. Digital technology is now international. If buying and selling digital U.S. dollars is no longer profitable, because long-term contracts are not possible under hyperinflation, then the citizens of the United States will do what citizens of Zimbabwe did. They will use other currencies.
If the FED produces a Third World economy through hyperinflation, then people will do what Third World citizens do: find reliable currencies elsewhere. This can be done on-line nearly for free. The Internet has reduced the transaction costs of using rival currencies.
The FED economists know this. They know that transaction costs for using other currencies are low. If the FED’s policies undermine long-term contracts, the citizens are not helpless. They can switch.
It will not take legislation to end the FED. All it will take is the FED. If the FED continues to inflate, it will destroy its base: the monetary system based on the FED. But if it ceases to inflate, by ceasing to buy Treasury debt, it will create Great Depression 2.
QE2
Bernanke can get away with QE2 today only because commercial banks are not lending. If they start lending, M1 will rise, the M1 money multiplier will rise, and price inflation will return.
He has bought time with QE2, but he has not bought a way out of the credit bubble that Greenspan created and he created.
He can play hide and go seek with Ron Paul, refusing to show up at the hearings of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee. Congress cooperates. But he cannot play hide and go seek with the business cycle. Greenspan did, but he got out in 2006. He passed on the Old Maid to Bernanke.
The Federal Reserve System bases its power on its ability to control the monetary base. It swapped T-bills for toxic assets to save the big banks, but to replenish its supply of swappable liquid assets, it has to inflate, as it is now doing. QE2 is replenishing the supply of Treasury debt to swap with large banks.
The FED did not bail out any small banks in 2008. It never has. Its unofficial mandate is to bail out the largest commercial banks. This it has done.
I think Bernanke sees another banking crisis coming. This is why he has pushed QE2. Only Hoenig has voted against it. Bernanke has his way with the other members of the Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee. He has not said why this massive increase in the monetary base is mandatory for the economy. To talk about this would create doubts. He does not want to rock the boat. So, he gets away with another $600 billion in monetary base creation.
This is working for now. But the results are unavoidable: either price inflation or continued high unemployment and stagnation, because commercial banks thwart the stimulation. He is on the tiger’s back. So are we.
Conclusion
The Post Office looked unbeatable for over 250 years. Technology has made it peripheral. The same will happen to the Federal Reserve System. It looks unbeatable. But the Internet can beat it. There are ways out of the FED’s trap.
A lot of people will pay a heavy price for Bernanke’s policies. That will be the price of persuading those people with the bulk of their assets in digital dollars to sell those assets and replace them with other digits.
This is why I do not think the FED will resort to hyperinflation. The economists know that the FED’s victims can escape. The FED will risk mass inflation, but at some point it must say: “We will buy no more Treasury debt.” That will be the moment of truth. That will be the day it climbs off the back of the tiger.
So will we all.
I believe that America is at a turning point, I read that
400 wealthy people control more money than 150 million
Americans, this is a serious situation to be in, and cannot
continue without the middle class taking some kind of
stand (Riots, Protests, Uprisings). The World needs to
wake up to the fact that so many elitists wealthy
individuals are corrupting society, ordinary working
people are suffering at the hands of these so called
leaders, who quite frankly have no fucking clue what they
are doing. It amazes me that human beings such as
Ghadafi, Mubarek, Ben Ali and the Saudi Royal family had
an opportunity to make life for their citizens good, with
all the wealth from oil over the years, but squandered it
on themselves. Citizens in the USA are beginning to
realize that what they once had has been squandered by
the corrupt Banks, Fed, Insurance companies,
Corporations et al. It time for all everyone to take a
stand and demand change for the good of all.
Quote of the Day
Though no one can go back and make a brand new
start,anyone can start from now and make a brand
new ending.
- Carl Bard Peace, love and happiness...until next time...
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