Richard Feynman explains everything
Here are some great short clips of Feynman explaining all sorts of things you were probably never taught (properly) in school. What keeps a train on the track Niall Ferguson – The Ascent of Money
Niall is a Professor of History at Harvard, he has a written a book about the history of money. What follows is a PBS documentary of his book. Part 1 We already have hyperinflation… in the shadow banking system
We have two banking systems, the official banking system and the shadow banking system. The official banking system runs on dollars, the shadow banking system runs on collateralized debt and other derivatives that trade as if they were dollars, I will call those derivatives shadow bucks. The reason dollars increased in value (which many people, myself included, didn’t expect) is due to what I call a “hyperinflation” of shadow bucks. The value of shadow bucks collapsed (as the housing and credit bubbles burst) causing prices measured in shadow bucks to soar. As any intelligent Zimbabwean with Zimbabwe dollars has already demonstrated, when the value of your money collapses you find alternate forms of money. Zimbabweans fled to US dollars, so did the holders of shadow bucks. The effect may not have been that significant if it weren’t for the size of this market — I didn’t appreciate the extent to which the shadow banking system dwarfs the official banking system. The buying pressure from economic refugees overwhelmed any other consideration. The case for gold in our time
I hear many people predicting gold will drop below $500. If it does, it would represent the buying opportunity of a lifetime, perhaps of several lifetimes. Those who believe gold should not continue its bull market advance believe we are entering a long-term economic bust that will reduce demand for everything other than money and consumer essentials. Indeed that would be true should the government sit idle, and they’re not, but that’s a topic for another post. Even if we experience a long term quasi-deflationary bust, here is where their analysis is mistaken — they presume people will always consider dollars the best form of money. Some say, “inflation in what you need, deflation in what you don’t” and since gold isn’t edible the price should drop, but that assumes people don’t need savings. Of course people need savings, especially rich people, and when you have a distribution of income as unequal as today, that means an enormous amount of savings may be looking for a new home. “I’ve seen kids making guns with their bare hands. In Caves.”
Very interesting look at the tribal areas of north west Pakistan. |
Highest Rated
|
