Tom's Opinion

I recently watched a two-part, 15 minute clip about the current global financial meltdown and how it’s similar to what happened in Argentina. I know little of the Argentine history but Adrian Salbuchi (the gent in the video clip) claims to be an Argentinian and also claims that he’s lived through three such meltdowns in his nation.

The basic thesis is that “financial” capitalism has usurped the place of the “real” capitalism. I really like the idea. Finance has conquered economics I believe is a phrase he used. What is the “financial” capitalism? According to Adrian Salbuchi it’s what occurs when people who don’t produce or add value to the system take over. They ingrain themselves and make it so that the system can’t function without them. The problem is that they don’t add value which means they will eternally be a drain. If the equation becomes unbalanced enough they will absorb more than the system can sustain and the entire thing becomes unstable.

So what’s a “real” economy? It’s the one that naturally exists when one person produces and another wishes to have said item and a trade between them ensues to the satisfaction of both sides. A “real” economy doesn’t have room for a third person to come between these two individuals and demand that they both pay him so he can physically take the item from one and give it to another.

Salbuchi neatly summed up, in four points, what the flaw with the “financial” capitalism is:

1. Planned monetary insufficiency. This is what happens when legal tender is issued at a pace slower than banks are producing money. In other words the fractional reserve system deployed in a way to always benefit a certain group.

2. The private banking system having the power to do #1. All that this entails is massive of course but issue at the centre is how these organizations are given the power and permission to do this.

3. Easy credit.

4. Privatizing profit and socializing losses. (Remind you of the quote: “Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.”)

The problems listed above, claims Salbuchi, are all the larger because most in the Western world don’t see them. Argentina had three such meltdowns in his lifetime and so he claims to be able to see the cycles and the reasons for them. Westerners on the other hand have never seen an entire cycle, perhaps the oldest have, those that can remember the Great Depression.

It’s a worthwhile watch and I recommend it to anyone who has an interest and 15 minutes to spare.

I have something to confess. I have taken a step in embracing the new, technologically advanced, completely plugged-in, hive-minded world. Over the last few days/weeks I’ve begun to use things, almost entirely computer related that I would never have considered only a few months ago. Google Calendar, a cellphone, MS OneNote, and soon probably Google Documents and facebook to a small degree.

So what does it all mean? Not so long ago I didn’t like these things because they cluttered my life. Well now I’ve found that without them my life is more cluttered. And I’m asking myself was I against the tools/devices or against the clutter? Microsoft’s cool little product OneNote made me ask these questions. You see I’m writing a thesis for a master’s degree. Before I started using OneNote I had papers and notes everywhere. It was awful. I did the best I could and even succeeded to some extent when I bought a Moleskine notebook. Somehow though, I still ended up with loose, odd-sized pieces of paper, ALL OVER THE PLACE. So I sat down and decided to install OneNote. I had tried it once long ago but found it was just “stupid.” Then it came up when my father told me about it and how clever it is.

In the midst of my unhappiness with all of the floating papers with thesis stuff on them I decided to give OneNote another shot. Now I use it, it’s incredible. Of course after discovering how wonderful it was I immediately sought an alternative to Microsoft, as I don’t like their methods. Not finding any, I continue to use it. The point is I can now free one portion of my life of some clutter. Back in the day I would never have considered having actual notes exclusively on my computer, I always had a paper back up. Well, not anymore. While I don’t throw out any paper notes I make that I transfer to computer, I certainly don’t print out the computer notes to keep just in case.

Google calendar is another example. I used to use a desktop based calendar system. But that had problems with accessibility because it was only on one machine. With the calendar stored on a server somewhere I have access to it from everywhere. It’s quite amazing. Not only that, Google calendar can be sync-ed with mobile devices, a new one of which I’ve been looking at for a few weeks now.

What’s all the hype then? To be honest it’s more of a personal rediscovery, but I’m a technophile, I like being plugged in. Not because I feel some inane social pressure to be but because it makes many things in my life easier. And the easier it is to do something the less time I have to spend on doing it which in turn means I have more time for the people and things I love.

Here’s to the future.

Wow!

What a job the man found himself. Can you imagine what he must be feeling. Here’s just a short list of things he is charged with doing:

1. Fix global warming.
2. Fix the US and global economy.
3. Fix terrorism.
4. Fix the US health care system.
5. Fix the US pension problems.
6. Fix the global energy problems.
7. Fix the mid-east problems.

More detailed:
1. Close gitmo.
2. Make the auto industry sustainable.
3. Iran, North Korea

These things in themselves are not the problem because a good enough leader might be able to do them, and Obama may be a good enough leader for that. The problem is he has to do all of this without a single dollar.

For a man who has to be everything to everyone, I sure don’t envy him.

Here’s to hoping he fixes things.

Yes I’ve returned to original theme that I used for this blog. I prefer it because it seems more organized and I feel it is a better reflection of the content presented here.

Or maybe I think it’s cooler for some other, deeply psychological reason. Regardless, it is what it is.

I was thinking about something while riding the subway the other day. It was about judging, or perhaps a better word is “assessing.” The question today is: is it possible to judge a situation or “event” without prior knowledge and experience and have the result be useful, meaningful, relevant, and non-trivial.

As usual I’m going to use an analogy here. Picture yourself in deep space (the sci-fi lover in me comes out) and your floating there minding your own business when a circle appears in front of you. To bring this back to my original point, can you judge/assess the distance of the circle from your point in space? An example, in this case, of what I mean by “useful, meaningful, relevant, and non-trivial.” Since we’re interested in just the distance, an assessment telling us that it is a circle, or that it is blue is useless/meaningless/irrelevant/trivial to the needs and requirements of the judgment of distance.

It would seem to me that the answer to that question is no and the reason why is what really got me thinking. The reason why is because you have no information about the given situation. You do not have the size of the circle therefore some simple Pythagorean math is out, you do not have any form of comparison such as a car or planet with which to compare the circle etc. The point is that you could judge the distance to the circle if you had some prior knowledge, such as its size or something of known size with which to compare it. All of the cases though require some givens without which you cannot EVER find the distance to the circle (as far as I know).

So then, can we as humans judge any situation well or fairly if we have no connection or prior knowledge of it? Can the one who’s never felt love advise his brother on such a thing? Can a philosopher tell an engineer how to do his job? And would a childless, unmarried CEO really know what’s better for “labourers and their families?”

Part of what we do of course is try and find commonalities and similarities between situations, thereby giving us something on which to place our foundations for judgment. We’re all human and we crave security and food and warmth. But how far does that go, and how far can it go before we have to recognize that we’re out of our depth? It would seem that experience is the key to being a good judge. I suppose that’s the central idea of the concept of wisdom. A wise person is not one who necessarily knows everything but one who has experienced much and can offer valuable insights.

Rules and regulations attempt to be some sort of judge but they always seem to fall woefully short. Mind you, this could all be wrong, there may be a simple way to judge without the need for prior information and if you know what it is, I would love to hear it.