Gyroscopic Investing

How many on here would use a cd to invest directly in start-up businesses or make loans directly to them?

It's not something I'd be likely to do, personally.

jafs wrote:A rise in prices accompanied by a rise in salaries is still inflation, isn't it? It's just inflation + a rise in salaries. If purchasing power stays constant, then it's not any different than before.

Except that there's a lot more purchasing power at the "bottom" than there had been before. Isn't that something the left normally salivates over? Don't you think that's fantastic?

jafs wrote:One could argue that giving money to people that don't need it, like you and me, is by definition fraudulent in some ways. And I can guarantee that any system we put in place will generate some people trying to scam the system - that just seems like human nature to me.

Today's non-need, is tomorrow's need. Be careful what you wish for. Medical bankruptcy is still a problem nowadays, despite ObamaCare.

I'm curious. How do you scam a system that pays out a fixed amount to each American citizen?

The point is to reduce scamming by making the rules much, much simpler. "Scam" is what currently happens in large handfuls at every government welfare program in existence.

Claim fake children, perhaps?

jafs wrote: You said investing improves productivity - the kind of investing most of us talk about is investing in the stock market, which is a secondary market. If you meant you'd invest directly in a start up business, that's a different story. But it's not part of the pp investments, which involve stock market index funds. So if you took your $15K and invested in your pp, there's no direct connection to companies.

I was pretty clear in how I defined investing and didn't refer to the PP definition, so you're making up a strawman. Nor did I bait you. I'm smart enough to understand secondary markets are bullshit for direct value creation.

It depends again on what kind of gold investments - most people on here buy gold coins. So if I go into my dealer and buy some coins, then hold them for a while and sell them back to him/her, isn't that a secondary market? It's a bunch of coins trading hands just like stocks do, not somebody buying gold bullion from a mine in South America.

It doesn't take much -- if any -- productivity to issue financial assets as they're created out of thin air. But to get a commodity the value has to be transferred all the way down the totem pole to the mining worker at the bottom. He has to get paid to dig it out and any/all tools that makes his job easier will improve his productivity and that of society's.

I remember when people were upset about buying South African Kruggerands, don't you?

Not sure what you're referring to. Over apartheid? No one was forced to buy Krugerrands, though. Blood diamonds was more of an unknown thing until that movie came out. Does that mean I shouldn't ever buy any Krugerrunds minted before apartheid was abolished?

And, please don't tell me what to discuss in my posts - I don't do that to you.

Well, you seem to keep bringing up strawman arguments about things I didnt say, so its getting a little tiring. Read what I say as literal and don't infer anything beyond that. It's a little different between me joking about you being a "token liberal" and you miscontruing what I've said.

jafs wrote:I just don't see that happening much, if the dividend is high enough to live on (in your version it's substantially higher than in WiseOne's).

Well maybe you better research the effects of welfare currently. It has similar effects like the CD would when you exclude the massive "losers" like Detroit, West Virginia, etc. which is a cultural issue not one of money.

I just advocate that the dividing line is between low class and lower middle class. I don't know exactly what the amount would be. The focus shouldn't be on the amount anyway, but getting people out of poverty and eliminating all of the social negatives it has on everyone. Do we have to limit the CD to extreme poverty only? It'll be like $15K to me, not that useful and they probably won't work because it just moves them from extreme poverty to less extreme poverty. There has to be an incentive to take risks and it seems to me like there is a sweet spot for that in terms of income. Not too high, not too low. In other words, we want people in the lower class to come out of the shadows and the biggest way that happens is they get a job and join the larger social community.

BTW, being impoverished is a constant and stressful risk. It doesn't leave room to take on anymore.

jafs wrote:And where will all of those formerly employed people work?

Beats me, but I sure hope they will work on more productive jobs than being parasites draining the taxpayer. That's what so wonderful about the CD. It's a win-win for everyone!

MangoMan wrote:They won't need to work, because they will be receiving a citizen's dividend.

Harm reduction, baby!

clacy wrote:After thinking about this some more,.... I think a CD would likely result in inflation, which would essentially adjust prices to account

But inflation depends on the gap between implementation of the CD and the actual risk of technological unemployment (which is essentially infinite productivity in a post-capitalist, post-scarcity world). It might actually be better to implement it right now while there is a lack of aggregate demand and there's an oversupply of goods/services.

WiseOne wrote:Maybe but not necessarily. I don't think increased spending is all it takes to create inflation. For that you need an expansion of the money supply, which the CD would not do. It's going to shift spending from funding government bureaucracy to consumer goods and investment. That may increase some prices but it would be a giant shot in the arm for the GDP, so salaries should rise as well.

It would obviously worsen the situation in health care and education even more, but maybe then we'll finally get some real reform? Unless Trump gets to it first.

Inflation is not exclusively a monetary phenomenom, though. It's an excess demand vs supply dearth problem. It applies to money just as anything else.

Pointedstick wrote:Claim fake children, perhaps?

We're not covering children for that exact reason!!! It would be insane.

MachineGhost wrote:

jafs wrote: You said investing improves productivity - the kind of investing most of us talk about is investing in the stock market, which is a secondary market. If you meant you'd invest directly in a start up business, that's a different story. But it's not part of the pp investments, which involve stock market index funds. So if you took your $15K and invested in your pp, there's no direct connection to companies.

I was pretty clear in how I defined investing and didn't refer to the PP definition, so you're making up a strawman. Nor did I bait you. I'm smart enough to understand secondary markets are bullshit for direct value creation.

It depends again on what kind of gold investments - most people on here buy gold coins. So if I go into my dealer and buy some coins, then hold them for a while and sell them back to him/her, isn't that a secondary market? It's a bunch of coins trading hands just like stocks do, not somebody buying gold bullion from a mine in South America.

It doesn't take much -- if any -- productivity to issue financial assets as they're created out of thin air. But to get a commodity the value has to be transferred all the way down the totem pole to the mining worker at the bottom. He has to get paid to dig it out and any/all tools that makes his job easier will improve his productivity and that of society's.

I remember when people were upset about buying South African Kruggerands, don't you?

Not sure what you're referring to. Over apartheid? No one was forced to buy Krugerrands, though. Blood diamonds was more of an unknown thing until that movie came out. Does that mean I shouldn't ever buy any Krugerrunds minted before apartheid was abolished?

And, please don't tell me what to discuss in my posts - I don't do that to you.

Well, you seem to keep bringing up strawman arguments about things I didnt say, so its getting a little tiring. Read what I say as literal and don't infer anything beyond that. It's a little different between me joking about you being a "token liberal" and you miscontruing what I've said.

I'm going to stop here, because we're both getting a bit testy, and I don't think anything further would be interesting or useful.

I can think of any number of ways people might try to scam a cd system.

Non-citizens might try to get it.
People might try to get more than their share - by faking ss#'s, claiming ones of dead people, etc.
If it uses WiseOne's idea of higher taxation, then rich and upper middle class people would try to get out of paying those taxes.

I'm sure there are more, but that's just off the top of my head.

I'll stop now, though - it's clear that some of you are very attached to this idea. I think it's an interesting one, but nowhere near the panacea that some think.

It just occurred to me that too many people would become professional protesters.
(shudder)

I feel the same.

MangoMan wrote: *Do full-on SJWs really want a real, productive job? Or are they happier spending their time protesting, etc, for their cause? Serious question.

I know several full-on SJWs that have jobs (I can't say how productive they are though, I have no information on that). The SJWs I know tend to be liberal-progressive religious types that think they (not God) can create heaven on earth now (which in my opinion is very non-Biblical). They tend to be affiliated with congregations that have endorsed same-sex marriage, abortion, worship the creature instead of the Creator, and have or endorse homosexual pastors (again, in my opinion very anti-Scriptural positions).

Thank you, Mountaineer, for finding a subset of SJW's that I can actually find common ground with.

I hope PS chimes in on this question. IIRC, he knows many "real" SJWs from his time in college.

The golden age of activism is in your 20s. My SJW acquaintances are beginning to age out of it as they realize that it doesn't bring in any real money and being dead broke all the time as an adult really sucks. However, older SJW types I know never lose the fire-- they just enter compatible careers, like journalist, magazine editor, lawyer (civil rights or criminal defense, of course) college professor, or head of a nonprofit.

dualstow wrote:Thank you, Mountaineer, for finding a subset of SJW's that I can actually find common ground with.

You are most welcome. I do hope you stick around on the bright side of the grass for a while before joining those SJWs in that common toasty ground.

Blessings Dude, and stay warm in this freezing weather (at least where I am). It will get very hot eventually.

Pointedstick wrote:The golden age of activism is in your 20s. My SJW acquaintances are beginning to age out of it as they realize that it doesn't bring in any real money and being dead broke all the time as an adult really sucks. However, older SJW types I know never lose the fire-- they just enter compatible careers, like journalist, magazine editor, lawyer (civil rights or criminal defense, of course) college professor, or head of a nonprofit.

You left out the environmentalists (though perhaps not, depending on if they are in one of the careers you mentioned) and TV preachers.

Mountaineer wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:The golden age of activism is in your 20s. My SJW acquaintances are beginning to age out of it as they realize that it doesn't bring in any real money and being dead broke all the time as an adult really sucks. However, older SJW types I know never lose the fire-- they just enter compatible careers, like journalist, magazine editor, lawyer (civil rights or criminal defense, of course) college professor, or head of a nonprofit.

You left out the environmentalists (though perhaps not, depending on if they are in one of the careers you mentioned) and TV preachers.

"Environmentalist" isn't a job. And we must live in very different worlds, because I don't think I've ever heard of a left-leaning SJW-type TV preacher. My impression is that they're all manipulative right-wing loonies.

Pointedstick wrote:

Mountaineer wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:The golden age of activism is in your 20s. My SJW acquaintances are beginning to age out of it as they realize that it doesn't bring in any real money and being dead broke all the time as an adult really sucks. However, older SJW types I know never lose the fire-- they just enter compatible careers, like journalist, magazine editor, lawyer (civil rights or criminal defense, of course) college professor, or head of a nonprofit.

You left out the environmentalists (though perhaps not, depending on if they are in one of the careers you mentioned) and TV preachers.

"Environmentalist" isn't a job. And we must live in very different worlds, because I don't think I've ever heard of a left-leaning SJW-type TV preacher. My impression is that they're all manipulative right-wing loonies.

Some in the EPA might not agree with it not being a job. As for the lefty SJW type TV preachers, you need to get out more; hint - one does not need to be ordained to "preach". For example: https://www.freespeech.org/tags/social-justice and https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 833AArrUZk