Elon Musk has been making a lot of comments on government debt recently, and though I have a lot of respect for what he's done in electric vehicles and space travel, I couldn't restrain myself from ridiculing his views on government debt: That led to another tweeter having a go at me, because obviously someone who knows how to make money knows a lot about money:
Steve, ask any electrician, nothing clean about electricity.
Turns out the woman who invented the Messenger RNA Covid vaccine is a black woman. I grew up in my beloved Alberta; did my undergrad at U of A. I know these people and can speak fairly certainly with regard to the racial politics of the anti-vax trucker convoy crowd. Musk is an idiot.
So Canada and the United States completed the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 (year my sister was born) with grant money from their central banks. Has there ever been a better example in the history of the world of the absolute necessity of government money creation to fund important national priorities? Banks can't and won't fund everything. The Seaway carries its original cost in equivalent freight value everyday.
But the psychosis goes much deeper.
In its literature, Goldman Sachs is fond of touting its $580 billion in assets. Hold on a second. Those assets don't belong to Goldman. They're registered or encumbered on behalf of third parties, like my superannuation plan and yours. Actual capital at Goldman is much less, more like $10-20 billion.
But Goldman has $57 trillion in derivatives on the books. $57 trillion in directional bets, more than half world GDP, which risk management is quick to point out is hedged or netted out.
Sure, but what if there's a market meltdown, systemic risk or mysterious market freeze? Who's holding the cost of clean up. It's the full faith and credit of the U.S. Federal Reserve. In other words, the world economy.
The IMF, World Bank, BIS and most economists have allowed the banking sector to become a mafia numbers racket that Capone would be proud of. Economists, who should be defending the world economy from attack, are actually facilitating its ransoming with their nutter theories.
This week, the president of Club for Growth wrote an op-ed for the WSJ and said that crypto was "a hedge against inflation." It's down 75%. How is it a hedge against anything?
Later, he claimed crypto provides "banking for the unbanked." Who exactly is the unbanked? Right, I know, he's talking about the underclass. More cheesey financial software is exactly what the needy need.
We do more to protect the world economy on this blog than all the economists, financial administrators and politicians combined.
Lastly, Ted Cruz, U.S. senator from Texas, demanded this week and got food service providers working on Capitol Hill to accept crypto for meal purchases.
Someone should suggest the 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale and the 50% debt jubileee policy at point of loan signing to Musk. He might like the idea of getting his full $60k for a Tesla but the consumer only having to borrow $15k to purchase it. Might even wake him up about the benefits of government money creation. Maybe he could take the additional profits from selling autos and start developing a "matter thrower" to cleanly get matter into orbit in order to assemble and off planet the worst carbon emitting means of production.
Also, if the continual build up of private debt is what de-stabilizes domestic economies maybe a 75% rate reduction in the biggest big ticket items might help that out.
Musk says something in a field in which Steve has genuine expertise and it is transparently idiotic. Maybe this should make us reflect a bit on how respectful we are of his achievements in the field of electric vehicles and space travel - maybe these are just industries in which he has been given the abilities to extract (quasi-)monopoly rents through public funding? (I believe there is a meme in which a software engineer says something equivalent about Musk's understanding of software engineering, making him never want to get in a Tesla or Space-X vehicle...).
Steve, ask any electrician, nothing clean about electricity.
Turns out the woman who invented the Messenger RNA Covid vaccine is a black woman. I grew up in my beloved Alberta; did my undergrad at U of A. I know these people and can speak fairly certainly with regard to the racial politics of the anti-vax trucker convoy crowd. Musk is an idiot.
So Canada and the United States completed the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 (year my sister was born) with grant money from their central banks. Has there ever been a better example in the history of the world of the absolute necessity of government money creation to fund important national priorities? Banks can't and won't fund everything. The Seaway carries its original cost in equivalent freight value everyday.
But the psychosis goes much deeper.
In its literature, Goldman Sachs is fond of touting its $580 billion in assets. Hold on a second. Those assets don't belong to Goldman. They're registered or encumbered on behalf of third parties, like my superannuation plan and yours. Actual capital at Goldman is much less, more like $10-20 billion.
But Goldman has $57 trillion in derivatives on the books. $57 trillion in directional bets, more than half world GDP, which risk management is quick to point out is hedged or netted out.
Sure, but what if there's a market meltdown, systemic risk or mysterious market freeze? Who's holding the cost of clean up. It's the full faith and credit of the U.S. Federal Reserve. In other words, the world economy.
The IMF, World Bank, BIS and most economists have allowed the banking sector to become a mafia numbers racket that Capone would be proud of. Economists, who should be defending the world economy from attack, are actually facilitating its ransoming with their nutter theories.
This week, the president of Club for Growth wrote an op-ed for the WSJ and said that crypto was "a hedge against inflation." It's down 75%. How is it a hedge against anything?
Later, he claimed crypto provides "banking for the unbanked." Who exactly is the unbanked? Right, I know, he's talking about the underclass. More cheesey financial software is exactly what the needy need.
We do more to protect the world economy on this blog than all the economists, financial administrators and politicians combined.
Lastly, Ted Cruz, U.S. senator from Texas, demanded this week and got food service providers working on Capitol Hill to accept crypto for meal purchases.
Can't make this stuff up!
Someone should suggest the 50% Discount/Rebate policy at retail sale and the 50% debt jubileee policy at point of loan signing to Musk. He might like the idea of getting his full $60k for a Tesla but the consumer only having to borrow $15k to purchase it. Might even wake him up about the benefits of government money creation. Maybe he could take the additional profits from selling autos and start developing a "matter thrower" to cleanly get matter into orbit in order to assemble and off planet the worst carbon emitting means of production.
Also, if the continual build up of private debt is what de-stabilizes domestic economies maybe a 75% rate reduction in the biggest big ticket items might help that out.
Musk says something in a field in which Steve has genuine expertise and it is transparently idiotic. Maybe this should make us reflect a bit on how respectful we are of his achievements in the field of electric vehicles and space travel - maybe these are just industries in which he has been given the abilities to extract (quasi-)monopoly rents through public funding? (I believe there is a meme in which a software engineer says something equivalent about Musk's understanding of software engineering, making him never want to get in a Tesla or Space-X vehicle...).