(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best economics books

yes, but who built the machines? this is why marx says that capitalists fetishize technological innovation.

yes, the idea is that labor is the only commodity available in the market which produces surplus value. Value, in marx, is defined as 'socially necessary labor time.' one should never lose sight of this definition and confuse value with either the money form of capital or which capital sui generis.

also, let us look at the reason why machines do not produce (absolute) surplus value, but only relative surplus value. machines, again, are commodities and as such are available to the market (or at least portions of it). Let us assume a certain business invests in a $25,000 machine which will eliminate several jobs, saving the company $50,000 a year. wow, thats really great, now the company can be more competitive with their pricing or, at the very least, will have a greater surplus this year. but what happens when this company's competitors start investing in these similar machines, and start undercutting our hypothetical company's profit margin. well now we see that the surplus value that the machine created was really only relative to that singular company. over time, as the machine or technological solution (or new organizational structure, or new process, or new space....) becomes the norm of the industry, the surplus value diminishes and it becomes an assumed cost of doing business.

marx again is making a class or macro-economic argument here: he does not care too much about singular capitalists making larger profits (he does in the sense that they are useful for his data on capitalists society), he is concerned with how a class of persons is able to exploit another class. within the capitalist class, yes, some are able to gain a better competitive advantage over other capitalists by being the first to utilize the latest technological achievement; however, that advantage will either spread to the entire industry as a commonplace necessity, or the company will begin to monopolize the industry.

labor as a surplus value producing commodity is useful for the entire capital class over the working class. it is the law of economics in general that labor must produce and it is the only thing capable of turning raw (or semi-raw) materials into use values. it is the law of capitalism that to produce a profit one must hire workers at a salary less than the sum of your revenue.

i would suggest reading some david harvey. he is a contemporary and really does a fantastic job at explaining marxism for the 21st century. i suggest either a companion to marx's capital vol i or the enigma of capital. the former address your question specifically in chapter 6 'relative surplus value'.

let me know if any of this is unclear or if you would like to discuss further. cheers and happy new year comrade.

The problem here is about social norms versus market norms...

Socially you were happy to contribute (as was I), but in a market norm, the price doesn't seem like a good value (at least to me).

I donated to reddit, because I really like reddit. I have donated to support other specific media that I like as well. I donate to support This American Life and The Sound of Young America. I also support organizations that support media creation, I donate to Pro Publica and The Sundance Foundation.

I feel good about giving to all of these people, and I can give more than the "value" of what I "get", because I know I am giving. Once you are charging me, we move from a social norm to a market norm.

I think Dan Ariely explains it best...

An excerpt from Dan Ariely's Book Predictably Irrational

My good friends Uri Gneezy (a professor at the University of California at San Diego) and Aldo Rustichini (a professor at the University of Minnesota) provided a very clever test of the long-term effects of a switch from social to market norms. A few years ago, they studied a day care center in Israel to determine whether imposing a fine on parents who arrived late to pick up their children was a useful deterrent. Uri and Aldo concluded that the fine didn't work well, and in fact it had long-term negative effects. Why? Before the fine was introduced, the teachers and parents had a social contract, with social norms about being late. Thus, if parents were late — as they occasionally were — they felt guilty about it — and their guilt compelled them to be more prompt in picking up their kids in the future. (In Israel, guilt seems to be an effective way to get compliance.) But once the fine was imposed, the day care center had inadvertently replaced the social norms with market norms. Now that the parents were paying for their tardiness, they interpreted the situation in terms of market norms. In other words, since they were being fined, they could decide for themselves whether to be late or not, and they frequently chose to be late. Needless to say, this was not what the day care center intended.

But the real story only started here. The most interesting part occurred a few weeks later, when the day care center removed the fine. Now the center was back to the social norm. Would the parents also return to the social norm? Would their guilt return as well? Not at all. Once the fine was removed, the behavior of the parents didn't change. They continued to pick up their kids late. In fact, when the fine was removed, there was a slight increase in the number of tardy pickups (after all, both the social norms and the fine had been removed).

This experiment illustrates an unfortunate fact: when a social norm collides with a market norm, the social norm goes away for a long time. In other words, social relationships are not easy to reestablish. Once the bloom is off the rose — once a social norm is trumped by a market norm — it will rarely return.

The fact that we live in both the social world and the market world has many implications for our personal lives. From time to time, we all need someone to help us move something, or to watch our kids for a few hours, or to take in our mail when we're out of town. What's the best way to motivate our friends and neighbors to help us? Would cash do it — a gift, perhaps? How much? Or nothing at all? This social dance, as I'm sure you know, isn't easy to figure out — especially when there's a risk of pushing a relationship into the realm of a market exchange.

A good question, and neat coding skills :) I meant to ask, what are all the cool things you would want to add to the creator tool? Maybe it helps us add some of the tools for everyone. (We are slightly careful to not add much bias to the creator tool; say we offered a gradient maker, that would start to push the world look into having many more gradients. Which is fine if that's what the creator specifically wanted for a tile, of course, but it's hard to tell before when offering a toolbox. A line tool would almost mean we'd need to also add circle tool, polygon, oval, rectangle and so on in order to not skew into one direction. If the tool is rather sparse, then it means it's also really open to your personal style and imagination.)

Generally, intent should be more important than tool, but sometimes the two are connected. We as community will always be the ones voting on what we want to have in this world, and creativity, originality, care and craft are probably what we prefer together if we all want it to be sustainable. Transparency of the creation process helps us with that voting... e.g. was it a line tool, or a copy tool, or...

(I've had a look at some terrific new earth-grass-toned solids and slopes yesterday and was wondering, what was the creator and artist thinking? How did they go about it? Everything we understand by analyzing and then doing ourself will be a toolbox that we add to our own creativity, mixing it into a personal style that tickles other people's brains because it shares our view on the world. That's how we learn and improve, and Manyland is a shared world of abundance that can really help with that. Even looking at outside pixel art, of course, can help us understand creation processes, and maybe the currently often detrimental-to-progress copyright laws written by campaign donations will one day be changed by society into a system where the focus is voting on originality and credit, not putting up copyright barriers. As it is, we want to try together to avoid many letters from lawyers in the future as we want this to be a sustainable world.)

As far as official APIs or support for more tools go, I think we have to look at this again together in some way in the future. We're currently trying to get the fundament right together, and some things will probably more naturally fall into place. Maybe we as community decide that the 'manual' drawing is just the right thing for us to make this world ours and full of character, style and soul. In terms of support, already we are spending some time to help with reports coming in from third-party browser extensions -- say, a translation tool in Chrome that somehow throws an error -- and every minute we look into that, we can't work on the many features like adding new block types that we really want to give to you. Happines of all of us manyzens is the number one priority guiding all other decisions.

Update: Thanks again for triggering all these thoughts. We now internally discussed just what to add to the terms to clarify the stance and not leave anyone wondering, and we now added to the terms what we think benefits the Manyland world and community the best, and makes it the most sustainable and best for all of us to maintain (and live in) together. We hope you understand and can help with the goal, and thanks again for bringing up all this!

The following comment operates on the assumption that you are interested in American urban planning from an administrative or public policy focus. For real estate development, urban design/architecture, or international issues, look elsewhere.

A solid, all purpose undergraduate major: philosophy. You can teach yourself subjects and even methods, but to learn how to think critically and write about complex subjects in a clear way you need quality, focused instruction and that's the purpose of philosophy. Outside of your general major requirements, take exclusively analytic philosophy courses. Typically there is an analytic philosophy survey course but for other courses identify which professors in your department operate in this tradition (and take teaching seriously) and take whatever courses they offer, regardless of your personal interest in the subject going in. Common subjects include logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology, etc. These courses will discipline your thinking and writing in ways that other majors won't. These skills are absolutely fundamental and lay the groundwork for a successful, highly adaptable career.

Outside of that major, which will fulfill your humanities requirements, you should fill your general requirements with courses like U.S. government (typically fulfilling a social science requirement), microeconomics and macroeconomics (social science, business, and occasionally quantitative), and environmental science (natural science). Take as many economics courses as you can. You can also take a basic geography course focused on cities but in my experience these courses teach you what you can easily learn from disciplined study on your own time. Focus your electives on methods courses, specifically statistics and digital mapping (GIS). You can also easily learn these online but if you have to fill up requirements, stick with these.

"But wait, don't I need to know something about urban planning?" Definitely! But you don't need to use up valuable course time on this subjects unless you have top urban planning scholars teaching undergraduate courses at your school, which probably isn't the case. Feel free to share your program and I'm sure the great community here can point out any top scholars active there. Otherwise, focus on teaching yourself the subject over summer and winter breaks. Read books by esteemed experts/scholars/writers in the field. A few broad essentials, all of which should be available at your public library:

• "Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs (the essential urban planning text)
  
  
• "Triumph of the City" by Edward Glaeser (urban economics)
  
  
• "Zoned in the USA" by Sonia Hirt (land use planning)
  
  
• "Walkable City" by Jeff Speck (transportation/urban design)
  
  
• "Cities of Tomorrow" by Peter Hall (urban theory/history - don't hesitate to save a ton of money by buying an older edition!)
  
  Other users are welcome to contribute what they see as essentials. The key here is to read about urban planning relentlessly in your free time (important: this includes blogs!) and focus your coursework on skills development. This combination of philosophy/methods coursework and disciplined, independent reading will make you not only an issue expert, which are a dime a dozen, but a productive expert, someone who can approach a completely new problem and produce useful results.
  
  This is the path I have followed and I have been happy with the results. Hope this helps.
  
  Edit: grammar errors, typos, etc. fixes.

uuugh - distant mirror was aaaaaawful. tuchman is so dry and boring. she drills down into more minutae than you can possibly handle. she did the same thing to ww1 in the guns of august. books like that make even a history buff like me cringe.

Leopolds ghost was good, but just watch the movie- I think seeing the severed hands and jungles visually makes a stronger impact.

Best book I have read lately is EASILY 1493.

http://www.amazon.com/1493-Uncovering-World-Columbus-Created/dp/0307278247

This 1 hour video by the author gives you a great start to what it is about. If you find the video interesting, the book is GREAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bghLhJ-c8os

Its so good, I have PAID my relatives to read it because its not typically the type of book in their reading wheelhouse. They loved it. SUUUUPER interesting and very relevant to understanding our world to this very day.

THIS book is the best book oof any kind that I have ever read in my life. AMAZING, but quite long. It covers the whooooole of history from millions of years ago till 1900. That book changed my life. Watson has written some extrordinary books. Great, sophisticated writer.

http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-History-Thought-Invention-Freud/dp/0060935642

Both of these are more general history covering a longer period rather than more specifc as above

edit: guns germs and steel is good, but has a thesis that can be grasped easily with just a wiki article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

the story, backround and color and other info in 1493 kinda overlaps guns germs, and treats it in a bit more of an interesting fashion. They are both kind of "why things are the way they are" books, which IMO is a super interesting topic

All these are my opinion, so take them with a grain of salt

I'd start from reading Economics Help blog. I find it fairly objective and Tevjan writes very clearly. Econlib has very useful library of articles, but overall that website is fairly libertarian in its views. (Not that I'm saying it's bad, but it's useful to know where they are coming from).

As for books, I'd recommend firstly some basic textbooks - you can buy them for cheap used. As for pop science books, I find Naked Economics the best one I've read. It covers the orthodox economics fairly well. As for heterodox Economics and criticism of neoclassical economics, I'd read first Economyths and then How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor. Of course you can read the classical literature of Economics, such as Keynes, Hayek and Friedman, but I wouldn't dwell on them too much as the research has progressed a lot since them. Nobel Prize website has all the nobel prize of economics lectures on their webpage and all of them are worth reading (though some of them are more about finance, than economics) - here are couple of them worth reading.

There are several academic articles (usually working papers) that you can find online easily as well. Best one I can think of currently is Behavioral Economics: Past, Present and Future which summarises the field of Behavioral Economics very well. Joseph Stiglitz keeps a lot of his academic papers on his website for free download as well, so they are worth reading. There is a free e-book online too, that's more so about politics than economics, but still a great read; Dean Baker's Conservative Nanny State.

I'll try add some more resources when I have time.

Edit: P.S. If you are interested, I have a bunch of papers and articles on my computer as well that I can send.
Edit2: IDEAS keeps a list of academic articles on their site, but that will require some effort from your part because you essentially have to use search.

Edit3: If you are into something more specific there are good books about Evolutionary Economics and Complexity Theory, Economics of Knowledge, Economics of Strategy, Economics of Information Age and Economic and Technological History. All of these are excellent books that I recommend and quite beginner-friendly.

I went to one AA meeting when I first got clean and never went back. I understand people have found support and success in it but to me, personally, I felt it only increased the stigma of drug addicts as these broken hopeless people barely hanging on by a thread. It's an outdated system that relies on little science or attempting to progress the participants and relies more on holding people in place and focusing on the past. Instead I just worked towards becoming a normal person. Here are some of the resources I used:

r/Fitness - Getting Started: Exercise is probably the #1 thing that will aid you in recovering. It can help your brain learn to produce normal quantities of dopamine again as well as improve your heath, mood, well being and confidence.

Meetup: You can use this site to find people in your area with similar interests. I found a hiking group and a D&D group on here which I still regularly join.

Craigslist: Same as above - look for groups, activities, volunteer work, whatever.

Diet

This will be the other major player in your recovery. Understanding your diet will allow you to improve your health,mood, energy, and help recover whatever damage the drugs may have done to your body.

How Not To Die Cookbook

Life Changing Foods

The Plant Paradox

Power Foods For The Brain

Mental Health

Understand whats going on inside your head and how to deal with it is also an important step to not only recovery but enjoying life as a whole.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

The Emotional Life Of Your Brain

Furiously Happy

The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

Educational

If you are like me you probably felt like a dumbass when you first got clean. I think retraining your brain on learning, relearning things you may have forgot after long term drug use, and just learning new things in general will all help you in recovery. Knowledge is power and the more you learn the more confident in yourself and future learning tasks you become.

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse

Why Nations Fails

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

Thinking, Fast and Slow

The Financial Peace Planner: A Step-by-Step Guide to Restoring Your Family's Financial Health

Continued Education / Skills Development

EdX: Take tons of free college courses.

Udemy: Tons of onine courses ranging from writing to marketing to design, all kinds of stuff.

Cybrary: Teach yourself everything from IT to Network Security skills

Khan Academy: Refresh on pretty much anything from highschool/early college.

There are many more resources available these are just ones I myself have used over the past couple years of fixing my life. Remember you don't have to let your past be a monkey on your back throughout the future. There are plenty of resources available now-a-days to take matters into your own hands.

*Disclaimer: I am not here to argue about anyone's personal feelings on AA**

I'll bite.

First and foremost, there are many different breeds of libertarians (or people that call themselves libertarians). For instance, Glenn Beck has even used the word to describe himself as such--however, I don't think many libertarians really take him seriously on that claim.

More seriously, libertarians tend to be divided into two camps: those that want small government providing basic protection of individual rights (called minarchy) and those that want no government at all (usually labeled as anarcho-capitalists, voluntaryists, agorists, etc.). I consider myself a voluntaryist, which in addition to being an anarcho-capitalist, also qualifies me as someone who does not wish to participate in electoral politics and views it as an approach that really cannot help--and also means that I only prefer voluntary means through which to achieve a voluntary society.

To make matters more complicated, the anarchists of us have two different ways to speak of a free market: a David Friedman approach which concentrates on how free markets solve problems more efficiently than States, and a more deontological approach made famous by Murray Rothbard. Usually, you'll see us taking both angles--sometimes it helps to show how a free market is ipso facto better than a State, and sometimes it's better to show that we have the ethical high ground. (And some of us can be absolute in this sense--some might even recognize a failing of a free market but say that it still doesn't justify violating the ethics of libertarianism.)

There is, however a hurdle that needs to be jumped, I think, to truly grasp the libertarian position: familiarization with Austrian Economics. Austrian Economics is usually regarded as a fringe school of economics, and not taken seriously--it is taught in only a few of the colleges around the United States. In spite of that, Austrian business cycle theory, which puts the blame on fractional reserve banking, and specifically, the Federal Reserve, for the ebb and flow of today's marketplace, has proven itself time and time again. Frederick Hayek, the pioneer of this theory (and a winner of a Nobel Prize because of it), predicted the 1929 stock market crash, and more recently, Peter Schiff used it to predict the current recession. (It also explains bubbles that have inflated and popped in the past, when applied.) The best layman's explanation and the theory's real world applications that I can give you is the recent book Meltdown by Thomas Woods. It's not too long and does a great job at explaining Austrian business cycle theory.

There are many differences between Austrian Economics and the more mainstream schools, but I highlighted Austrian business cycle theory because that is the really important one. To emphasize this even more, I can say that if I could change one thing about the current State (sans abolishing it), it would be to abolish the Federal Reserve by establishing a free market currency. Unhesitatingly.

I personally arrived to my conclusion through a deontological perspective, and later familiarized myself with how free markets can provide services that most people widely regard as services that only States can provide. The deontological perspective essentially leads up to the non-aggression principle (NAP): aggression, which is defined as the initiation of physical force, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property, is inherently illegitimate. (I can hammer out the details of the NAP's justification if you like, but I've chosen to omit it here in the interest of brevity.) The most important thing to realize about the NAP is that it is proportional: if you violate my property, I don't have the right to kill you (i.e., the idea that I can shoot a little boy that trespasses onto my yard to collect his baseball). As once I have quelled your aggression, any further aggression on my part is an over-abundance, and therefore an initiation of aggression--and that is illegitimate.

So with this in light, you can see that libertarians (at least, my style, anyway) are a bit of a mix: we simultaneously believe that libertarianism is the only ethical stance consistent with the idea of liberty, and its natural conclusion, a free market, is an inherently better solution to the problem of "infinite wants" and "scare resources" then centralized control through a State. That is, the State is both illegitimate and inefficient.

So the key to the free market, or capitalism, is to understand its most fundamental truth: two individuals voluntarily committing a transaction. What does it mean to commit a transaction? It means that I am giving you X in return for Y because I value Y more than X, AND because you value X more than Y. It's a win-win scenario, and not zero-sum: we both get something we desire.

For example, if my toilet is clogged, and despite my best attempts, I cannot unclog it, I probably need to call a professional. When the plummer comes over, he tells me that it will be $100 to fix my toilet. Immediately, his actions indicate, "I value $100 more than the value of my services as a plummer." When I agree to his proposal, my action indicates, "I value your services as a plummer more than I value $100." At this most basic level, we can see the Subjective Theory of Value in action brilliantly. That is, things don't have intrinsic value, only the value that each individual assigns.

Now, with that background, I think I can answer your questions:

(Wow, I went over the character limit for comments... yikes...)

There are a couple of 'strands' of Marx's thought which you might investigate. I can't comment too much on shorter introductions to the philosophical side, as I'm more familiar with (and interested in, for the moment) works the economic side. For this, I can recommend the following:

• A Short History of Socialist Economic Thought by Gerd Hardack, Dieter Karras, Ben Fine. It's all in the title :)
  
• David Harvey's excellent A Companion to Marx's Capital. This certainly isn't a short book, but Harvey is a terrific writer, and so the time flies. I would also point to and highly recommend the series of lectures on which this book is based. Of course, the lectures are hardly an exercise in brevity, but they are very good and worthwhile.
  
• Ernest Mandel's An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory is good. Read it online here. Any Mandel is very good. He is an incredible clear author, and he really knows Marxist thought inside out. For instance, I would also recommend Ernest Mandel's introduction to the Penguin edition of Capital (the introduction is a bit shorter than the whole book of Mandels that I've mentioned above) very nicely summarises the context of his economic thought, and gives an overview thereof.
  
• Yannis Varoufakis (the former finance minister of Greece) wrote a fantastic, more general introduction to economics and economic theory called Foundations of Economics: A beginner’s companion. While Varoufakis deals with economics as a whole, and discusses, for instance, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, this serves to very well position Marx within the economic milieu of his time. This is a recurring theme for a reason: to understand Marx, I believe that it's imperative to understand what drove Marx to ruthlessly critique capitalism.
  
• Finally, I'm not trying to be glib or conceited by suggesting The Marx-Engles Reader (2nd ed.), edited by Robert C. Tucker. This is the book that I used to start studying seriously the thought of Marx and Engels, after reading Singer's introduction. I recommend the book because it has (again) a wonderful introduction, the works that are presented are quite short, and each work has a solid introduction. This is a very good volume for seeing the trajectory and evolution of Marx and Engels's economic thought without having to dive into the larger works. The book even has a very heavily reduced version of Capital vol. I. This book also deals with the philosophy of Marx more heavily than the other works I've recommended here, as it contains a number of earlier philosophical works (including the Grundisse, which is practically the philosophical sister to Capital).
  
  I hope these will be useful, even if they aren't necessarily the aspect of Marx that you are most interested in.
  
  Edit: I should state that I am a philosopher of language, and so one doesn't need any especial economics expertise to dive into the texts that I've recommended! I certainly knew very little about the field before I read these texts.

> Yet the bankers just keep doing it again and again. They do it with and without central banks.

Fractional reserve should be prosecutable as fraud. Having said that, banks would be much more responsible if they faced a risk of going out of business. The occasional bankruns of the late 19th century, did not significantly impede the surging prosperity of the gilded age. They were a good thing -- just like when a crappy restaurant goes out of business.

> > but your own devotion to Keynesianism fails to live up to the standards by which you judge the Austrian School.

> I fail to see how. Keynesianism doesn't pretend to be deductive logic.

It seems to me that Keynesians are able to put numbers around little things. Unemployment, inflations (both of which are heavily manipulated). They have graphs and charts and look very much like their distant colleagues in the hard sciences. The play empiricism, but all the big things and important decisions are made by pure deduction, just like the Austrians. For example:

We need a central bank.
We need to bailout company/industry X
The economy can be centrally steared by manipulating the reserve rate in a positive way.
We need to force people to use their state's currency.
The liquidity trap occurs when there's a shortage of money circulating.
The free market is inherently unstable.
Crashes are caused by animal spirits / the bursting of asset bubbles.

> > it just restructures production for long-term projects.

> That directly contradicts the concept of "flight to liquidity".

Not a contradiction. A flight to liquidity can mean a flight to savings and checking accounts. That's money ready for lending.

> If savers were making long term investments, we wouldn't have a problem.

Ugh. Right now, you Keynesians think we need long-term investment, and your policies are creating an illusion of savings by lowering the interest rate to zero. In actuality, there are almost no savings. People need to work, busy consumer goods, and save (or not -- it's up to them). Keynesian policies have pushed a lot of land labor and capital into long-term projects at a time when people are thinking about the short term.

Your statement presumes a "correct" way for savers to be investing. The only correct way is one which is in harmony with the level of savings, and the market signal which creates that harmony -- the interest rate -- is centrally controlled and, for the moment, pushed to near-zero, creating an illusion of savings which don't really exist.

> How do you know? [regarding consciousness] . . . There is no evidence that the human brain consists of anything but physical processes

Because physics cannot even entertain (much less provide answers for) simple questions like what do you want to do? When there's meaningful progress on the Turing test, I'll reconsider.

> if you really believe it is such a great thing and will work well in the real world, go find a small country and convince them to adopt pure Austrianism. . . . Honestly, I'd write a letter … to advocate giving you guys an island in the Pacific ocean to test your system.

Liberty is a threat to the gov't. Allowing it would mean exposure of their fraud.

I'd love to, and I think about it often. Small states have many advantages over large ones. There's a theoretical project by Friedman's grandson which involves a nation consisting of floating barges.

> Even the anarcho-capitalist advocates say that there must be private militaries that are hired by insurance companies (which is really all a state is) to protect their customers. Overall, the idea that violence is magically going to disappear is very naive.

No one says violence is going to go away. A state is not a hired insurance company, because the client does not the right to walk away. The service of security is not subject to market pressure. The state unilaterally decides both the nature of security (invading Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, bombing Somalia and Yemen, TSA, full body scanners), and the cost of security. This is the difference.

> for placing the extreme long term conservation of value for mattress stuffers

It is not just mattress stuffers. Huge quantities of wealth are transferred from people in general to whomever is closest to the place where new money enters the economy. Even Keynes admits this:

"By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens."

And I think you're full of shit for trying to muddy the waters on the ethic argument I raised. The dollar is backed by force. Voilence will be used against Americans who attempt to work around the dollar system. Yes, violence has been used before in history. No, this doesn't justify today's.

> gold

You were comparing the dollar's 97% loss in value to the instability of gold. That dog don't hunt.

> As I said, the 1921 recession ended when the fed cut rates.

I'm going to look more deeply into this. It seemed that the 29 crash happened when they stopped their easy money policies. Do you think we can get out of today's easy money without a catastrophe?

>

> Please stop calling an increase in the money supply inflation... just say "an increase in the money supply".

No.

> voluntarily decided it likes fractional reserve banking. In 400 years or so of modern banking, full reserve banking simply hasn't emerged.

Not true. It's contradicted by the video you posted. Government enshrined and protected the fractional reserve system.

> That era was a miserable failure.

Not true at all. Yes, lots of banks went out of business. (It is good when bad companies go out of business). But it was a time of sky-rocketting prosperity.

Your baromoter is laughable. When banks go out of business this is bad. When today's commercial banks survive for a long time, this is good. Dark world. How much wealth has to be taken to give irresponsible banks a long life?

> So which is it? Do you support free banking or gold? A gold standard (at least in the form that the US and most other countries had in its past) is mandated from a central government, by the way.

Free banking gets my vote, though either one would be huge, mind-blowing progress. I'll mention again that fractional reserve banking should be prosecutable as fraud instead of enshrined by law.

> Except it has been done successfully that way for long periods of time. You shouldn't get your ethics confused with your evidence. You might not like central banking, but to say that it can't work is absurd given how successful the US economy was under the periods with central banks.

Typical of your positivist and keynesian approach, whenever you connect two data points you jump for joy. Can we likewise conclude that the Soviet system worked because it brought electrification, had zero unemployment and a growing GDP?

You know, Keynesian economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson predicted into the late 1980's that the soviet union, the fucking soviet union!!!!! would outpace the US economically. He asked whether their surging economy didn't make the political oppression (43-62 million killed) worth while. But it's the Austrians who are cruel. Right?

Also, not all the evidence supports you. The biggest depression in American history. The only time there has been wide-spread malnutrition in the US. A 97% drop in purchasing power.

> I believe the burden of proof is on you if you want to make claims about government failure. You haven't done that with the CRA or with any other program.

The long history of bailouts are facts. What proving do they need?

Also:

FACT: In 2008, CRA loans accounted for just 7% of Bank of America's total mortgage lending, but 29% of its losses on home loans. Also, banks with the highest CRA ratings tend to have the lowest safety and soundness ratings.

FICTION: Only 6% of subprime loans were originated by banks subject to the CRA, so the vast majority of risky lending was not tied to the law.

FACT: Among other things, the figure does not count the trillions of dollars in CRA "commitments" that WaMu, BofA, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and other large banks pledged to radical inner-city groups like Acorn, Greenlining and Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA) after they used the public comment process to protest bank merger applications on CRA grounds.

[Earlier this week I noted that I had changed my mind on the Community Reinvestment Act. Contrary to my initial conclusion, the evidence is overwhelming that the CRA played a significant role in creating lax lending standards that fueled the housing bubble. Once I realized this, I had to abandon my suspicion that the anti-CRA case was a figment of the rhetoric of Republicans attempting to distract attention from their own role in the mortgage mess.]http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users-guide-2009-6#ixzz1RTwfW5or)

Prior to 1995, such subprime home loans constituted less than 2% of new home loans, but by 2000 they were over 9% of new home loans, and by 2008 they were 20% of new home loans. To make matters worse, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae began to buy and/or guarantee more and more of these risky subprime loans.

If you want more opinions supporting my view, look here,
here, here.

> I just finished listening to it. One of the most cerebral podcasts and there is a lot to process. I've definitely been educated. I'm very much looking forward to a lot more from /u/noname888
Thanks, there will definitely be more soon!

> That was clarity. Thanks for that awesome explanation of the recent drama on /r/AM. I'm no longer wondering wtf really happened.

You're welcome. Sometimes it's a lot easier to explain things verbally than write a long explanation.

> When he was attending Seoul University, he had quite a few Chinese classmates. When he asked them why they chose to study in Seoul University, they said that they didn't choose Seoul University because they think it's better than the Universities in China. They chose to attend Seoul University because it is more westernized. They said that they wanted to absorb the western way of thinking, take that knowledge back to China, and then help China become more competitive against the west.

I feel like this maybe has to do with the stage of industrial development in China? Today, Korea is a first-world country, so the urgency may not be there for collective growth, freeing people to think more about their own personal situation. Totally anecdotal story: I once had a long talk with a Korean college professor in the sciences. He told me that when he was a kid in the 1950s, he and his classmates would wake up every morning to build a strong Korea. If I'm remembering right, Ha Joon Chang talks about this in his book Kicking Away the Ladder. I think that during the 1950s, S. Korea as an economy was poorer than Kenya -- but today it is one of the world's most developed industrial economies. Chang attributes this to smart industrial policy that protected Korean native industries until they were strong enough to compete internationally. Basically, the enclave strategy =)

> He then moved onto the topic of Chinese acquisitions of US companies. I googled and found this graph. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on all this -- will the U.S. try to stop this? Have they already? Etc.

Chinese companies face the "problem" of holding a lot of US dollars, because for the most part they have been an export-led economy. So they want a place to put that money and get a return greater than they can get on Treasury bills (which are basically a savings account at the Federal Reserve). That pushes them to invest in the United States in things like real estate and American technology. For example, Chinese firms bought Motorola and IBM's Thinkpad division. The US government has already halted some Chinese acquisitions. About 10 years about CNOOC (Chinese oil company) tried to buy Unocal and the US government stopped them. I expect that the US government will continue to bar Chinese firms from buying assets in the US with strategic value. For example, if a Chinese firm tried to buy Cisco, I doubt the US government will let it happen. I mention Cisco because it came to light about 7 or 8 years ago that Chinese companies had built exact duplicates of Cisco routers and were selling them into the US IT market. Maybe you've heard about this? I think the FBI found out that these fake routers were backdoored. Yeah.

> Finally, he was telling me his experience while raising money for the company. He told me that in about 30% of the venture firms he's dealt with, they had at least 1 Chinese partner on the team. He also mentioned the difference between Chinese investors and US investors. U.S. investors were more concerned about how much % they would get back on their investment, whereas the Chinese investors' questions were also about the global effect the product would have (on top of the % return on their investment of course).

That's a really interesting story, and it helps me make more sense of what I'm seeing in Chinese consumer products. It seems like in the last few years, especially in mobile phones, new Chinese companies are bringing out products with international appeal.

> All of this is highly anecdotal, but he's very well educated, very well traveled, very successful so I just STFU and listened as he talked for 3 hours. I'm interested in hearing your take on all this. Maybe in another Podcast? :)

I really appreciate your comments here, I don't actually follow the China business situation that closely anymore, so it's always good to hear information from someone who is close to the action. No worries about the haste...we're all busy people!

Pareto distribution is a descriptive law, not prescriptive. It does not say that things ought to be one particular way, only that -- all other things being equal -- it will tend to be that way. Pareto had merely observed the well-known phenomenon of income inequality, and later speculated that in a truly free-market society, the most biologically superior citizens—namely the most intelligent—would migrate to the top end of the distribution. Mussolini claimed that as a younger man, he attended Pareto’s lectures at the University of Lausanne. He was struck by Pareto’s ideas, which he later thought may offer a "respectable" academic basis for fascist economics.

As Pareto’s biographer Franz Borkenau stated, “In the first years of his rule Mussolini literally executed the policy prescribed by Pareto” in matters of economic reform, “largely replacing state management by private enterprise, diminishing taxes on property, [and] favoring industrial development.” Pareto’s estimation of early fascist accomplishments entered the historical record: as he wrote in a letter to a junior colleague, “The victory of Italian fascism confirms splendidly the predictions of my sociology and articles.” When Mussolini took power in October 1922, Pareto was less than a year from death, but accepted an appointment to the Geneva Disarmament Conference that Mussolini had offered him.

If a society had a historical % rate of malaria, we would not use this as an excuse not to cure or treat malaria. If a society had a historical % probability for women to experience rape, we would not use this an excuse not to criminalize rape. You can try to apply it, but that doesn't mean it actually applies. You still need evidence.

In other words, almost every effort of human civilization is there to remedy some "natural state of affairs" that would occur if we didn't do anything at all, but in no other case do we take that as a recommendation that this is what we ought to strive for. Yet this is how some naive "classical" liberals interpret it. They paint Pareto distribution as some sort of justification for unlimited wealth concentration by elites, when in fact it shows that wealth concentration, while normal in prosperous societies, beyond certain levels; is characteristic of highly corrupt societies and late stage imperialism.

Whether the Pareto distribution correctly describes a set of phenomena is unimportant. Climate observations predict that Phoenix, AZ is not a particularly pleasant place in the summer. Yet, there is air conditioning and swimming pools. Observation of the anatomy of humans proves without a shadow of a doubt that we are incapable of flight. Yet, there are airplanes. Evidence suggests that in the past, small disagreements often escalated to conflicts in which one of the disagreeing parties was left dead or seriously injured. Today there are laws that not only lay out what is and is not allowed, but the range of punishments when people fail to abide by the laws.

Some classical liberals, and lost boys who've adopted Jordan Peterson as their new daddy, will have us believe that because Pareto distribution has been observed to apply to a variety of phenomena, that means it's inevitable and we should stop trying to decrease inequality, which is just as ridiculous as me suggesting we should just stop fighting gravity and confine ourselves to ground transportation. Social inequality exists in most societies, but the degree to which it exists varies wildly from society to society, and it is not at all a foregone conclusion that massive inequality need be the default social condition. In reality, human societies are diverse; some societies have a high concentration of wealth and income, while other societies have much lower concentrations.

The Pareto principle, often stated as "20% of the population will own 80% of the wealth", is only true for certain parameters of the Pareto distribution. Much has to do with the institutions that exist in the society. As Acemoglu and Robinson argue, when the elite control the government, they set up institutions that enrich the elite while dispossessing the majority of people. Rutherford Hayes and Einstein observed this also.

Thomas Piketty's discussion of Pareto from his book Capital in the 21st Century is good. It's a very unsettling book, but it's unsettling because it uses a wealth of data to challenge optimistic assumptions about the trajectory of inequality:

>It is worth pausing a moment to discuss some methodological and historical issues concerning the statistical measurement of inequality. In Chapter 7, I discussed the Italian statistician Corrado Gini and his famous coefficient. Although the Gini coefficient was intended to sum up inequality in a single number, it actually gives a simplistic, overly optimistic, and difficult-to-interpret picture of what is really going on. A more interesting case is that of Gini’s compatriot Vilfredo Pareto, whose major works, including a discussion of the famous “Pareto law,” were published between 1890 and 1910. In the interwar years, the Italian Fascists adopted Pareto as one of their own and promoted his theory of elites. Although they were no doubt seeking to capitalize on his prestige, it is nevertheless true that Pareto, shortly before his death in 1923, hailed Mussolini’s accession to power. Of course the Fascists would naturally have been attracted to Pareto’s theory of stable inequality and the pointlessness of trying to change it.
>
>What is more striking when one reads Pareto’s work with the benefit of hindsight is that he clearly had no evidence to support his theory of stability. Pareto was writing in 1900 or thereabouts. He used available tax tables from 1880–1890, based on data from Prussia and Saxony as well as several Swiss and Italian cities. The information was scanty and covered a decade at most. What is more, it showed a slight trend toward higher inequality, which Pareto intentionally sought to hide. In any case, it is clear that such data provide no basis whatsoever for any conclusion about the long-term behavior of inequality around the world.
>
>Pareto’s judgment was clearly influenced by his political prejudices: he was above all wary of socialists and what he took to be their redistributive illusions. In this respect he was hardly different from any number of contemporary colleagues, such as the French economist Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu, whom he admired. Pareto’s case is interesting because it illustrates the powerful illusion of eternal stability, to which the uncritical use of mathematics in the social sciences sometimes leads. Seeking to find out how rapidly the number of taxpayers decreases as one climbs higher in the income hierarchy, Pareto discovered that the rate of decrease could be approximated by a mathematical law that subsequently became known as “Pareto’s law” or, alternatively, as an instance of a general class of functions known as “power laws." Indeed, this family of functions is still used today to study distributions of wealth and income. Note, however, that the power law applies only to the upper tail of these distributions and that the relation is only approximate and locally valid. It can nevertheless be used to model processes due to multiplicative shocks, like those described earlier.
>
>Note, moreover, that we are speaking not of a single function or curve but of a family of functions: everything depends on the coefficients and parameters that define each individual curve. The data collected in the WTID as well as the data on wealth presented here show that these Pareto coefficients have varied enormously over time. When we say that a distribution of wealth is a Pareto distribution, we have not really said anything at all. It may be a distribution in which the upper decile receives only slightly more than 20 percent of total income (as in Scandinavia in 1970–1980) or one in which the upper decile receives 50 percent (as in the United States in 2000–2010) or one in which the upper decile owns more than 90 percent of total wealth (as in France and Britain in 1900–1910). In each case we are dealing with a Pareto distribution, but the coefficients are quite different. The corresponding social, economic, and political realities are clearly poles apart. Even today, some people imagine, as Pareto did, that the distribution of wealth is rock stable, as if it were somehow a law of nature. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. When we study inequality in historical perspective, the important thing to explain is not the stability of the distribution but the significant changes that occur from time to time. In the case of the wealth distribution, I have identified a way to explain the very large historical variations that occur (whether described in terms of Pareto coefficients or as shares of the top decile and centile) in terms of the difference r−g between the rate of return on capital and the growth rate of the economy.

There are two books that I have read that have done a great deal to help me understand the dynamics that allowed Europe to rise to dominance starting in the 17th century: Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Why Nations Fail. The former talks about the geographical and ecological considerations that stifled development outside of Europe. The latter talks about the role if extractive institutions, set up by colonial powers, that remained after decolonization and prevented previously-colonized nations from developing. I can't do their arguments justice here, but if you are sincerely interested in changing your view I strongly recommend reading those books. I'll try to address your specific points:

> it seems to me that those of European heritage have made the most long-lasting and significant contributions to mankind. To name a few: space travel, internet, modern technology and medicine.

All of these marvels are founded in the scientific method, which developed during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment has been successfully exported to multiple non-European countries, most notably Japan. So, it's not just Europeans who are able to appreciate Enlightenment values. But the Enlightenment did start in Europe. So, to believe that the Enlightenment proves that Europeans are superior you must prove that the cause of the enlightenment was the innate character of Europeans, and not any contingent factors. That is...very difficult to do. And, yes, the burden of proof is on you, here, since the null hypothesis is that the biological distinctiveness of Europeans is unrelated to the start of the Enlightenment.

> I realize Arabs of ancient times also contributed a lot in the realms of mathematics and medicine.

Yes. Different civilizations have become world leaders at different points in history, which makes the idea of some kind of innate superiority of one civilization really hard to believe. It just so happens that the Islamic Golden Age occurred at a time when it was impossible to communicate over large distances, while the European Golden Age (which we are now in) occurred at a time when communication is instantaneous and we can project military power across the entire world. In other words, the global dominance of Europeans is historically contingent, not an immutable fact of biology.

>One argument I frequently hear to counter this position is that other nations have failed to develop due to colonization and exploitation.

This is an excellent argument, and is, essentially, correct.

> if they were on the same level as Europeans intellectually and strength wise, why couldn't they have found the means to fight back and turn the tables?

Although they were at the same level as Europeans "intellectually and strength wise", they were not at the same level technologically. Europe was in a golden age, Africa, India, and China were not. Again, the key here is that the European Golden Age occurred at a time when it was possible to travel the oceans and project military power worldwide. That was not the case in the Islamic Golden Age or the Indian Golden Age, which explains why those civilizations didn't conquer the world in the way the Europeans of the 19th century did.

>Instead of Europeans doing what they've done to others, why couldn't it have been the other way around?

Guns, Germs, and Steel does the best job of explaining this. In short: Europeans were blessed with livestock that could be domesticated and a consistent climate that allowed them to produce lots of food more efficiently that other regions of the world could, which allowed them to spend more time on other things, like technology. Again, the full argument is the length of a (very good) book, so I suggest you pick it up to get more details.

In case you haven't read it yet, Scorecasting speaks to this problem, as well as a number of others. I.e. applying economic theory and statistical analysis to a lot of common-sense notions in sports.

MLS is in a bit of an odd position -- partly because of its rigid economics, partly because of its age, and partly because of its still small footprint in the US sports landscape.

In particular, there is little correlation between salary and on-field success, although this is a lot harder to quantify than the linked analysis implies.

One question Scorecasting tries to address is the importance of the 'star' player -- think of it as a proxy for a DP. The conclusion is that in a game with a lot of players (e.g. NFL), a single star is rarely enough to make a team.

Obviously there are exceptions -- the Colts without Peyton Manning are terrible, for example. On the other hand, Joe Gibbs' Redskins won three Super Bowls with three different QBs, none of whom are hall-of-famers.

In contrast, an NBA team more or less needs a star player to even attempt to be competitive. One player has a much bigger impact among five starters than among 22 (plus special teams).

I think one can quantify what a DP means to a team, but one has to do it in a different way. For example: what's the difference in goal differential one can expect per game from a top-flight DP?

Or to put it another way, what is the plot of expected goal differential per game vs salary for a DP?

I don't know how realistic a calculation this would be, but I bet you could arrive at some numbers -- e.g. Beckham is worth +0.5, Henry is worth +0.3, Marquez is worth -0.2 (a DP with a minus rating is terrible).

All the same, there's this fact: a correlation between salary spending and consistent on-field results is only strong in unconstrained leagues. And always with caveats, exceptions, and outliers.

The Yankees are a consistently competitive team, and are consistently the highest spenders. On the other hand, the Orioles are consistently among the highest spenders and have been a terrible team for over a decade.

Man U are consistently among the highest spenders in the EPL, and are the most consistently successful team; Liverpool are also regularly near the top of the spend table and, let's face it, have seen a lot better days.

All the same, these are unconstrained leagues. If you look at the NFL (in a CBA year), there is not much of a relationship between spending and success. The Cowboys are consistently at the top of the spend scale, but when have they last won a Super Bowl? When have they last been in one?

The salary cap in MLS is even more extreme. And one could argue that weakness at one position is not balanced out by strength at another -- e.g. if your right center back is terrible, you'll give up more goals than your DP attacking mid will create for you.

Or in other words: Do DPs matter? Yes. Are they important? Yes. How important are they? I don't know.

But I do think it's possible to quantify what a DP should be worth at a given salary in terms of extra goals per game, and therefore possible to quantify whether that DP is living up to expectations.

But as for drawing up the specific equations, I'll leave that to someone else.

tl;dr: If you like thinking about this kind of questions, read Scorecasting. And throw Soccernomics on your list as well. And as a side-note: I love this forum for having discussions like this one. Keep it up.

>This has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism. Capitalist states often have the same social programs, but they have well made economic policy that can generate the wealth to sustain it without forcing everyone into poverty (see Denmark, Canada, Australia, etc)

No, it has to do with socialism and capitalism, it is not capitalism that generates that wealth, resources and labour generate wealth. If it was capitalism, then why are Somalia and Liberia so poor, their capitalist wealth generating magic should protect them, shouldn't it? They are being exploited out of their resources, so they cannot generate wealth, also, Cuba is just as poor as these countries, but it fares much better, I wonder why.

It is convenient to only talk about Europe, North America and Australia when you have to defend capitalism.

And Australia doesn't even have that big of a welfare state tbh.

>Venezuela was only doing "fine" because they were filthy rich from oil.

Yes, so?

>Compare them to singapore which didn't have said luxury of ridiculous wealth under their land.

Singapore? Have you ever heard reports of people actually working there? It's rich because their workers are controlled and alienated by the state, again, you are reinforcing my point (which is Keynes point, which is everyone with a brain's point), it is not capitalism that creates wealth, but it is labour and capital.

>Imperialism is entirely separate from capitalism (mercantilist nations relied on it the most)

I am not only referring to classical imperialism, but especially to economic imperialism, which includes the exploitation of resources and of cheap labour from other countries.

>are you really fucking implying USSR / PRC didn't kill innocents what the fuck.

When did I imply it? Just saying that capitalism kills mostly innocents, also, numbers are definitely inflated, the 60 million figure for Stalin is a meme by itself, and it is literally backed up by nothing.

>Read a book

>Exploitation tends to harm the imperialist nations, and nations become wealthiest by providing the means to success to all their citizens. It just so happens that private property and free enterprise does this the best.

I love it when people tell me to read a book, when they do it's probably the only book they've ever read, and they usually feel so triumphant when they have actual literature backing up their claims, no matter the context, also, it is always by some American economist.

Anyways, I do love me some Acemoglu (studied him pretty intensely in university, and I am rather fascinated by his theory of institutions being a fundamental driver in a nation's development, with the whole inclusive v. extractive discourse), but data is against the fact that exploitation harms imperialists, it might harm the nations that imperialist companies are located into (I would need data for this though), but it does not harm said imperialist companies, and how much cheap labour and resources are exploited in both Asia and Africa should tell you figures about it. You are confusing trading with exploiting, it's the former that gives theoretical gains to the poorest nation in some macroeconomic models.

Also, if you'd like, Read a Paper, even for a capitalist right wing economist such as Allen the centralised functions of the USSR are finely designed to bring about economic growth (and the USSR was the fastest growing nation for 50 years), so your "most efficient" meme which originates with the neoclassical school is just empirically wrong, and what I already said about Cuba (thanks to the embargo it's just as poor as some African countries, but it fares much better) further cements it, and I'm saying this without even supporting the Stalin-driven USSR (guilty of following aggregate results more than worker benefit, like capitalists do).

And, alas

>Marxism is a meme. That's why it will never be taken seriously by people outside of New School or UMass (besides internet memers and autocrats), sorry son.

I don't want to be racist, but this is the final showing that you are an American kid stuck in your own all-American Neoliberal bubble; Marxism is taken seriously (very seriously) everywhere except for the country that has a strong propaganda against communism, a right wing skewed government where the """"left"""" is composed of liberals and a government and education system which are quite literally controlled by big corporations, I wonder why.

And fun fact, in the rest of the world your economics literature (not all of it of course, some of it is good, mostly from the salt lake schools) is what is being made fun of.

And since we're talking about the US, lolefficiency, more than 5 times more vacant homes than homeless people, truly a fair and efficient allocation of resources, wouldn't you think?

How many of you have read this book? When you've seen the growth that the USA had made since hosting in 1994 to winning their group (a group that included England hehe) in 2010, we're seeing some significant gains. U.S. Soccer is rising, perhaps not as fast as we'd like, but it's gaining in status (and subsequently talent) and anyone who's willing to deny it is, frankly put, an idiot. The USA has a tremendous talent pool to select (many Americans play in all leagues now) from and it is unfortunate that we've lost some near-World Class youth talent (Subotic and Giuseppe Rossi) to other nations. Often neglected as well, the MLS is attracting talent from all corners of the Americas (enticed perhaps by the prospect of a higher form of living in America or monetary opportunities.) Some of these individuals will have played long enough in the MLS to one day consider switching nationalities. Despite your personal beliefs, it is only an added bonus for the US talent pool and one that Americans don't make much fuss about (Claudio Reyna is a prime example of such a figure.) Most importantly, the US and MLS are now making significant investments in youth football. We saw some of the benefits that this had in producing talent like Donovan or Howard, however that was with a small and select group of individuals. Now the MLS and the USSF is extending that opportunity to a greater number of youth players, also in an effort to draw quality athletes away from competing American sports. The MLS is now commonplace in sports discussions, it is also expanding to accommodate more cities and common folks are genuinely intrigued by a game that is two 45 minute half's of solid play (uninterrupted by 5,000 commercials.) I wouldn't say that the US is a sleeping giant, it's definitely awake but not exercising it's full abilities yet.

In any case, this is all conjecture on my half but it's damn fucking exciting! For those of you who are looking for something to read, I highly recommend this book.

Nicky Case of Evolution of Trust has another explorable, this time on Crowds.

I found the sandbox element less fun and insight-inducing in Crowds, but it feels like there is a lot of potential here. I would be interested in adding a kind of RTS element, where the nodes output resources based on contagious traits. Even the ability to play with thresholds and tie strength would be nice.

> A quick response to James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds
First off, I'm not dissing this book. It's a good book, and Surowiecki was trying to tackle the same question I am: “why do some crowds turn to madness, or wisdom?”

> Surowiecki's answer: crowds make good decisions when everybody is as independent as possible. He gives the story of a county fair, where the townsfolk were invited to guess the weight of an ox. Surprisingly, the average of all their guesses was better than any one guess. But, here's the rub: the people have to guess independently of each other. Otherwise, they'd be influenced by earlier incorrect guesses, and the average answer would be highly skewed.

> But... I don't think "make everyone as independent as possible" is the full answer. Even geniuses, who we mischaracterize as the most independent thinkers, are deeply influenced by others. As Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the sholders of Giants.”

> So, which idea is correct? Does wisdom come from thinking for yourself, or thinking with others? The answer is: "yes".

> So that's what I'll try to explain in this explorable explanation: how to get that sweet spot between independence and interdependence — that is, how to get a wise crowd.

Slide 3c paints Case as prosocial consequentialist: sever friendships to encourage self-sacrifice.

> Haha, we're gonna get in the semantic mire here. My use of the word charity (I thought) kinda implies that 'is giving people direct charitable help the best form of charity'? Is the form of charity that 'charities' enforce the best use for £100 million? And who's to say the charities I pick would be the best. I can't really squeeze that all into a pithy headline. So no! Not yet haha.

Sorry, this just sounds so dishonest. Again, how does this prove that the government are the best? Again, if you don't know what's best, why are you saying they are?

I already gave you a solution if you don't know best that doesn't require the government. Quoting myself, "If you don't know which charities to donate to, why not an index fund of charities of sorts which excludes inefficient charities? For example, charities where, for every $1 donated, less than 80 cents actually goes towards helping people. We can let people vote for causes with their money and back those causes accordingly." Vote with your money or back the market of other people's votes.

> My evidence is that nothing else has done it better to raise living standards. https://humanprogress.org/

What evidence do you have that governments raise living standards?

Governments don't raise living standards. Businesses raise living standards. Governments getting out of the way of business helps businesses raise living standards.

Ensuring fair rule of law (no corporatism, no cronyism, etc.) and property rights (the promise that what you earn or have is yours to keep) for all is the only thing government can do to get out of the way of businesses.

Please read this book when you've got time.

> Do many third world countries have efficient democracies and government? To be fair, this is the best critique, because I think the utility of my point is directly relative to the amount of corruption, and rent seeking in the society. So yeah, it does depend.

No, you misunderstand how governments work and form. They (edit: third world country governments) fail to ensure fair rule of law and property rights.

> Except these fish have tried plenty of other gold fish bowls and they're rubbish.

What does this even mean?

Read. All the famous investors started reading at a young age and read ferociously (ok maybe not all but most).

Go to the library if you can, they generally will have all the quality investing tomes, without some of the "get rich quick manuals" which only benefit the authors.

Here is a few books to start with:

• The Four Pillars of Investing
  
• The Intelligent Investor
  
• The Bogleheads Guide to Investing You could start here. Pretty good introduction.
  
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street
  
• The Richest Man in Babylon (PDF) This is a quick read, and more a story than anything. Still worth it.
  
• [The Little Book of Common Sense Investing] (http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=16QN03Q9GFZ6NG5PPJ6P)
  
  Most of this stuff is investment theory. To be a successful investor as an average American, without a job in the finance industry, you probably don't have to read all of those books. If you really want to get into investing, that's a good place to start.
  
  Also, the Bogleheads book is a great one to start with because you can decide if you really are interested in investing. If not, that book is good personal financial advice regardless who you're getting paid. It will benefit the regular American.
  

>The new wealth from our growing economy is not going to the guy at the median level. It isn't going to the guy at the bottom.

Inequality, to be sure, is an issue that many Economists are focused closely on. However, here is a paper that addresses some of the more popular misconceptions regarding inequality. In short, we haven't seen the same level of growth of wages in the bottom brackets of the economy, however, focusing solely on wages paints a misleading picture. Nonwage compensation (things like benefits), when added to direct income, gives us a far less alarming view of our current situation. Which, again, is not to say a problem does not exist. Inequality is, without a doubt, growing.

>It's also pretty important to note that I don't have an alternative to your, or the current, system. At least, not one that the majority of the population would agree to.

Good on YOU for having this introspection. Contrary to what is spouted on social media/tv/etc., most Economists believe we already have a relatively successful system (here in the US, anyway). Have a look at this graph. As you can see, the Human Development Index (a measure used for standard of living) value increases as inequality decreases. A conclusion we can draw from this is that inequality is simply unsustainable in an economically successful country.

This is a fantastic book by an MIT economist that gives me great hope. I highly recommend it, or even just the first few chapters. A system that excludes people, extracts wealth from the impoverished, and uses exploitative practices to keep a ruling party in power is not one that can also have the relatively great standard of living that we enjoy in the US. They are incompatible.

Boy do I have a book for you!

Kicking Away the Ladder by Ha Joon Chang.

He's a 'heterodox' economist, in other words he doesn't agree with the 95% of economists who are writing at the moment.

He basically argues that economies have grown because they developed using protectionist policies. Then, when they were strong, forced countries to open up to their advantage, effectively 'kicking away the ladder'. The book is thoroughly well researched and well written.


Now, technological advancement. For a fun idea of this I like Brenner who writes lots about economics and how the crash happened. He also wrote a LOT about how capitalism originally developed from Feudalism: Here's a link to a copy http://www.scribd.com/doc/74325361/BrennerPropertyandProgress

Basically he's arguing that it's nothing to do with technological developments but developments in relations of production that decide social relations, what he calls 'social property relations'. It's a bit of a dull read because he's REALLY methodical but interesting because it shows how capitalism developed - it's about control from the top.


Now! To more recent times. How did America get ahead? I reccomend two articles: The American Road to Capitalism by Charles Post which talks about slave economies and how it held America back as well as how the petty agronomy was central to the development of industry (if you've read the Brenner this will sound familiar in an odd way).

The other piece I really like is by Kozul-Wright called the myth of Anglo-Saxon Capitalism, it's in a book called he Role of the State in Economic Change. He argues that America did well because it ignored Britain's 'laissez-faire' mentality and instead created a strong domestic economy backed up by a strong state which helped to develop an 'agro-industrial complex' that was the back bone. A strong state had money to spend plus it had the ability to change property laws to help the common good (think about eminent domain in developing rail accross the US which was so imperative to it's growth). Once it got big internally the state began to fade away.


Now! We come to the modern day! Technological advancement, why is it some countries roar ahead? For this I reccomend Block and Keller's excellent (recent) article "Where do Innovations Come from?". Turns out if you look at the most promising innovations of recent times they've all come from government funded labs or from universities - the private sector has little to do with R&D and technological development. They argue that the State, even if not a direct and single funder (because there are so many state and federal bodies in the US) acts as a 'networked state' that provides information and backs certain people to give others confidence in their innovations and this is central to keeping ahead.


Hope that helps! (p.s this is not economics so much as a leftward leaning political economy which seeks to explain a lot of things economics tries to gloss over).

Fellow Tech grad here! I used to do exactly what you are doing, and found it to be a not so great system. After getting hammered I decided to do my homework and learn about investing from pros and peer reviewed material.

The first lesson I learned is just because a product is doing well does not mean it will be a good thing for investors. (PDF warning)

I'm not sure what degree program you are in or if you have to take statistics, but believe it or not that course had a large impact on how I decided to invest. Market price is essentially a collective prediction, and that is usually a very accurate prediction compared to the individual predictions that make up the collection.

When you have a little free time on your hand I'd recommend reading these two books.

Four Pillars of Investing

The Intelligent Asset Allocator

I found it really easy to read and very informative. I wish I had read them 10 years ago and not wasted all those years floundering away in the market.

Warren Buffett's shareholder letters are a great resource as well. I'd start with the essay entitled "How to minimize investment returns" in the 2005 letter, page 18.

Good luck! If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Lots of great recommendations in this thread; I've added a few to my reading list. Here are my suggestions (copied from a previous thread):

• How to Win Friends and Influence People - Everyone with a mother should practice this.
  
• Tao Te Ching (S. Mitchell translation)
  
• Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy - I never cared about economics until after I was done with school, and didn't remember anything from university class. This helped explain a lot of common fallacies many people make.
  
• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets - As Taleb says in the beginning of the book, anyone from any profession could have written this book, but a financial background makes this much more interesting. Anyone interested in science and what we can learn from the world of past experience should read this. This led to the next book:
  
• How to Live: A Life of Montaigne - A biography of Montaigne, a great skeptic, always curious, interested in what it means to be human. I found I could relate a great deal with the man, as many others have in different ways. The dust-jacket description made it sound like a boring historical overview, but I think the book flowed pretty well and was always interesting.
  
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Anyone that ever creates a slideshow, or attempts to represent data visually should read this book. More than once. I'd say it changed my life.
  
  And, the following two are a look into the lives of two great men that lived in the 20th century; both offer many points worth emulating.
  
  
• Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
  
• The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (once available in full on PBS website, seems not to be the case now ...)

In addition to seconding Qwill2's suggestion of the Harvey lectures, I'd also suggest reading Marx's Preface to the Critique of Political Economy it's incredibly short and is a good very first introduction to Marx, I think.

As a really simple introduction, you should look into getting Marx's Kapital for Beginners. It's made in the same style as "Marx For Beginners" by Rius which is linked to in this subreddit's sidebar. It's basically like a comic book documentary. It might seem silly but it's actually a very effective way of communicating the basics and I think serves as a great introduction. It's also pretty cheap to get used.

If you're looking for more substantial books to help you read it, I'd actually suggest David Harvey's Companion to Marx's Capital which has a lot of the same content as his lectures, but some additional info and has the added bonus of being text that you can make notes on, refer back to etc. I used it and found it very helpful.

I'd also suggest checking out Brenden McCooney's Law of Value Series as well as all his other videos which do a great job of presenting not only Marx's ideas but some ideas of later Marxists in a very accessible way.

Also, Ernest Mandel's Introduction to Marxist Economic theory is a popular resource. You can read reviews of that here.

Edit: I agree with Ksan's advice too.

Basically, America is the most populous wealthy nation with a long history in the games. Having read a book written by an economist about why certain national soccer teams do well (this), I think the theory can be applied to the Olympics. The economist identified three important factors for international sporting success:

• Population
  
• Wealth
  
• Experience at the sport (which results in pre-existing facilities and coaches etc)
  
  If you look at India, which has a large population, it has no real experience at competing successfully at the Olympics. Basically, the only sport Indians care about is cricket. Whereas the US has been in the modern Olympics from the start.
  
  If you look at China and Russia, they have the experience and big populations, but are quite poor countries compared to the US. An even more extreme example would be; how many people in Uganda do you think can afford high spec road bikes to train on?
  
  Lastly, compared to countries like Great Britain and France, which are wealthy and have a long history at the games, the US has a much bigger population. It may only be 5% of the world population, but it is still the third most populous country.
  
  If you look at medals tables adjusted for population and GDP, both can be seen here or here, the US isn’t near the top. Then again, I would argue that athletes from countries in the Caribbean often benefit from training in the US, with its per-existing sports infrastructure and wealth – which these charts don’t adjust for. Also, European and Australasian countries will have large scale sports programs despite their smaller sizes, so that they are more likely to find talent despite their smaller populations. Nevertheless, the US does benefit from its large population, but it still captured 11% of the medals compared to having 5% of the world’s population, so I guess the rest is down to wealth and experience.
  
  I suppose this is why the Olympic organizing committee says that there is no official medal ranking, because the medals are given for individual achievements. If someone from Latvia won a medal, it is as much down to their hard work and dedication, as anything else. The Olympics is about humanity coming together to celebrate sport, this is why non-medalists, such as the Iranian judo player/fighter(?) Wojdan Shaherkani, embody the Olympic spirit as much as Usain Bolt.
  
  Now let’s all hold hands and cry because David Rhodesia is so polite…
  

> Debt usually has interest attached to it as it is considered as a loan, which needs to be paid back

This part is spot on.

> Credit is simply issuing value without expecting it to be returned with interest

This part isn't. When we talk about credit we typically are using it in one of three different ways.

1. We can mean it in the sense of "creditworthiness." When people are talking about having a good credit score, it means that the credit agencies have calculated that you are a "good" credit risk, i.e. that you will pay back the money that you borrow. (I'm assuming from your British English ("labour" vs "labor") spelling and the fact that you mentioned it was getting late while it was mid afternoon for me that you are somewhere in Europe, am I correct? If so, this may not apply to you, as I'm not sure how countries other than the US do these things.)
   
   
2. Buying things "on credit", which is just another way of saying "I'm using borrowed money to pay." It would be assumed that you will be charged interest and be expected to pay it back.
   
   
3. In a more technical accounting sense. When you incur a liability that you need to pay back, under standard dual-entry accounting, you would debit an asset account and credit a liability account. For instance, if you buy a $1,000 computer and pay with a Visa credit card, you would debit your "Electronic Hardware Asset" account the $1,000 value of the computer, and then you would offset that debit by crediting your "Visa Liability Account" the $1,000 that you now owe on it. Welcome to the world of accounting! Words don't make a whole lot of sense here, or at least they don't correspond well with their common sense meanings.
   
   > This is a very complex topic and you have made it slightly less complex for me..
   
   The whole thing is incredibly complex, and you're thought process has brought you into the convoluted conjunction that is Macro-Economics, Game Theory, and Financial Markets.
   
   If you'll accept a bit of unsolicited advice, I would really recommend reading:
   
   The Ascent of Money by Niall Fergusson. [Amazon Link] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Ascent-Money-Financial-History/dp/0718194004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382204864&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Ascent+of+Money). It's not super technical, and overgeneralizes a bit, but I think putting all of the different aspects the currency system into a historical context might help you pin what all is going on, and give you a little clearer picture of how all of the moving parts fit together.
   
   Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. [Amazon Link] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basic-Economics-4th-Edition-Economy/dp/0465022529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382205024&sr=8-1&keywords=Basic+Economics+sowell). It's a bit dry, but is still a pretty easy non-technical introduction. Sowell is also a little over the top with his "Gung-Ho Free Market Fuck Yeah!" mentality, but it's probably the best introductory text that I know of that a thoughtful person could get themselves through without any outside guidance.
   
   (I hope this doesn't come across as condescending, I certainly don't mean it be)

> But lawmakers and regulators are necessary (unless you are in favor of anarchy). If we as a people are not able to elect competent lawmakers how would you propose they be selected?

I actually am in favor of anarchy. Specifically, I'm an anarchocapitalist following the ideas of David Friedman. Ideally I would like to see systems of law develop in a competitive marketplace whereby to as large a degree as is practical, people get to pick the legal system that best meets their own idiosyncratic needs. (We already have that to some degree but I'd like to see more.)

> You at least admit that the laws do some good ("these laws do more harm than good") and yet call them "just plain evil". Which is it?

Both. The harm outweighs the good to such a degree - predictably and reliably so - that only somebody who is willfully blind to the negative side of the equation could favor these laws. Even the worst laws do some good and even the best laws do some bad, so I don't see a contradiction there.

> Before the era of labor regulation market participants had seemed to negotiate thousands of children into lives of hard and dangerous labor.

I think I am aware of the arguments for your position that child labor laws were necessary and good laws passed by good people with good intentions and producing a good outcome for the people who were affected by these laws. Are you aware of the arguments for my position that they weren't? If not, we might have to agree to disagree on this one.

Side note: I've actually worked in a factory that employed a lot of 16-year-old kids full-time. I think the lives of those kids and their families were enriched by the experience; narrowing their opportunity set by passing a law banning that work would not be doing them a favor. (I took this picture) So I find it easier than most people to extrapolate to the American situation and see some reason for concern.

> Our long term success as a society depends not on throwing out the system all together, but in learning what works and what doesn't.

The US was successful despite throwing out the system all together and starting fresh. Rand would like to return to something closer to that system - a constitutional democracy that was actually limited by its constitution instead of growing without bounds despite it. I'd actually go further and say that starting over fresh is a pretty good idea. Our ship of state has accumulated so many barnacles that it may be time to stop scraping and build a new ship.

>\> happens to the price of Bitcoin when the supply caps at 21million?

This occurs in 2140 so shouldn't be much of a concern outside of a speculative hypothetical , but removing all monetary inflation for a product in demand means that bitcoin will likely keep appreciating in value.

>How is value determined outside speculation when it's not tied to anything tangible.

Supply and demand is what determines the price for all goods and services irrespective if its digital or physical(tangible). Bitcoin has intrinsic value as well, much akin to twitter and the internet having intrinsic value. Bitcoin is a very useful tool that allows people to exchange value for high risk transactions. There is a circular economy and inelastic demand of users for bitcoin that give it value. States indirectly subsidize this value in bitcoin and will continue to as long as laws and regulations exist.

>\> Also, a gallon of milk could cost 1btc or .0001btc

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units

more likely referred to as "2 bits" in the future

>\> you can fragment a bitcoin as small as you want? So does a supply cap even matter?

Yes , sub satoshis already exist on the lightning network for microtransactions . This is not a form of inflation but further decimalization ... I.E... instead of 1 usd =100 cents , 1USD = 1,000,000 units of 1/1,000,000 a usd= 1usd without adding anything to the monetary supply. Adding more bitcoins into circulation is inflation lowering the value of everyones BTC , further dividing the unit decimalization does not have this effect.

These articles will better help you understand the economics and value of bitcoin -

https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-bitcoin-is-different-e17b813fd947

https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-bitcoin-works-fe32879a73f5

or better yet get her this book :

https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Standard-Decentralized-Alternative-Central/dp/1119473861

I don't understand. This is a well thought of economics professor...

http://www.rdwolff.com/content/capitalism-crisis-democracy-now-urging-end-austerity-new-jobs-program-democratizing-work

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-at-Work-Cure-Capitalism/dp/1608462471/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377196079&sr=1-1


He wrote this book about worker-owned coops. I've seen some video of interviews he did at the Mondragon hQ in Spain.

http://www.democracyatwork.info/about/

He's trying to lead a push for more of these style worker owned co-ops. Mondragon isn't the only worker owned co-op. So is Costco and REI.

"How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart

"...But not everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands.

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco's customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers' expense. "This is not altruistic," he said. "This is good business."

He also dismisses calls to increase Costco's product markups. Mr. Sinegal, who has been in the retailing business for more than a half-century, said that heeding Wall Street's advice to raise some prices would bring Costco's downfall....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/business/yourmoney/17costco.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Worker owner co-op are a great idea. The concept is a winner. I don't know what's going on specifically with Orbea in China. Looks like I may have been wrong on some specifics on Orbea bikes. Does not disprove the concept of worker-owned co-ops because Costco has been just as successful with the model.

Okay, here goes the barrage of questions then. Forgive me for asking a lot of random questions...

• I'm pretty familiar with DFW, and lived there for some time, liked it a lot- not a bad area to live in, pretty cheap. Used to avoid heading south of downtown Dallas at all costs- definitely not an area that I would want to get lost in at night, if you know where I'm going with that. Are you in South Dallas, or south OF Dallas, heading towards Waco? How gritty/bad of an area is it?
  
  
  
• What's the average life of a diesel engine? Are overhauls required/highly recommended after a certain period, like how airplane engines have A/B/C checks?
  
  
  
• What do you do day-to-day?
  
  
  
• What's the size of the DC you serve (sq ft), and is it dry, reefer, mixed, what?
  
  
  
• In general terms, what kind of product do you push around (food, other household consumables, industrial, etc)?
  
  
  
• Does the DC you serve do break-bulk on pallets, or mostly just full pallets of the same SKU? How much automation is in it?
  
  
  
• What's the average life for tires on a truck and/or trailer?
  
  
  
• Do you have dedicated in-house mechanics for your fleet, or how does the maintenance program work?
  
  
  
• Does your fleet do mostly regional driving, more OTR, or what?
  
  
  
• What are you thoughts on APUs? Does your fleet use them? Why / why not?
  
  
  
• Average/typical cost of a tractor? Of a trailer?
  
  
  
• Weirdest reasons/excuses for missing the delivery time? I'll occasionally hear a "Driver quit" or "Driver had accident" kind of thing in my job, but nothing too crazy.
  
  
  
• How crazy does your life get in December and right around/before major holidays? I know that for shippers, trying to get trucks around that time can be a total PITA, but I'm curious how different it is for you, given that you run dedicated freight.
  
  
  
• Are you technically a trucking company, a 3PL, what? I'm a bit new to supply chain and don't know enough about the transportation side of it.
  
  
  
• Any good books/resources you'd recommend for someone looking to learn more about the transportation and DC sides of supply chain? For supply chain "beach reading", I highly recommend The Box, which is a great read about the history of the shipping container and how it has changed the world.
  
  
  
• Is there any way to make trucking transportation more efficient? It seems to me that it would be hard to eek much more productivity out of the system given that there are time limits on the drivers and weight limits on the trucks, but I'm curious to get your take on that.
  
  
  
• Does your fleet use truck skirts (or whatever the cheap steel panels along the bottom sides of the trailers are called), or anything else to try to get better mileage or help the environment?
  
  
  
• Average load/unload times in your operation? Do you typically deliver to a single destination, or multistop?
  
  
  
• Your biggest hassle? Biggest worry? Biggest "I love this job!" moment?
  
  
  
• Any other fun/weird/crazy stories?

> current stock's price right?

No. If you own 300 shares, you can create 3 options. Think of an option is a legal contract where, depending upon the contract, someone has a CHOICE to force the buying/selling of the underlying shares.

So, you own 300 shares. You can create up to 3 options. But you only want to create 1 option in this example, for 100 shares.

Now, when you create the option, you can choose at what price you want the option to become "in the money" which basically means the option is worth >= $0.

In this case you are SELLING someone else the choice for them to purchase shares, at or before the expiration date, at or above the strike price.

You pick the strike price when you create the option.

If the current price right now of a stock is $100. You can pick any strike price, at, below, or above $100. A strike price of say, $90 - $110 is called "around the money" for selling a call. A strike price at or below the current share price is called "in the money". A strike price above the current price is called "out of the money".

So lets say you're selling a call for a stock currently at $100. The options expiration date is 30 days out. And the strike price YOU CHOOSE is $120. That option will only execute IF the stock price, within the next 30 days, goes above $120. Since the person you are selling the option to has the OPTION to buy it at $120, they don't necessarily always execute their option to. They want to make as much money as possible. So if in 1 of the 30 days, the stock price of the option hits $120.01, technically the buyer can cash in and force you to sell your 100 shares. Netting them 1 cent per share, or a grand total of $1. However, they wont because their break even cost is the strike price ($120) + cost of trade (lets just say $5) plus the cost of the option (lets say 10%). So their break even price would be $132.05. ((strike price * 1.10) + $5/100 shares)

Now, if they don't execute the option within that time period (30 days) you get the option price (10%) netting $10/share and you keep the shares. Option prices vary wildly depending upon time to expiration (the longer the option lasts for, the more expensive, because the greater chance it has of reaching that price) as well as how deep in the money or out of the money it is. There are other factors, as we get deeper into theoretical values for instruments. Things like time decay, the fed funds rate, volatility, etc are all used for a "basic" model of calculating the theoretical value of such a contract. But thats a more advanced topic.

If you're selling far out of the money options, most likely you'll make maybe 1-3%, depending.

This is also why people on /r/wallstreetbets can yolo SPY calls/puts 3 days out for like $10. Because the chance of it reaching in the money is slim to none. But sometimes happens.

The guy that taught me options wrote a really great book called Option Pricing & Volatility. I suggest this book. The first 1-3 chapters goes over the real basics of options.

I have all his teaching materials laying around somewhere, if they're not copyrighted maybe I can scan and share.

Also just a small disclaimer, I might've gotten some of the terminology wrong. I always get the whole buy/sell put/call twisted when commenting on the fly on my phone.

This is by no means either academic or comprehensive, but it's short, fun, and just might kick-start your interest, so give it a watch. There are a couple others following up. I seriously recommend you get one of the more accessible books on economics. NPR's Planet Money has a reading list of books they recommend, and a quick peek at top results in Amazon also indicate bestsellers like Basic Economics, Economics in One Lesson, or the humorously titled and fun Naked Economics.

Any of those will do wonders. Just select whichever looks like a good time.

Or don't -- what to do with scarce resources like your own time is of course your choice. An economic choice ;)

Thanks so much!

As for what to read, it really depends on what you're interested in but I always recommend the classics when it comes to anything to do with the left first.

However, if you'd like something more modern and lighter here are some of my recent favorites:

• Why Marx Was Right - Terry Eagleton is a fantastic author and this book has sold more than one friend of mine on the concept of Marxism. A great resource to learn more about the socialist left and hear the other side of the story if you've been sold the mainstream narrative on Marx.
  
  
• A Cure for Capitalism - An elegant roadmap for ethically dismantling capitalism by the most prominant Marxist economist alive today, Richard D. Wolff. Very utility-based and pretty ideologically pure to Marx while still taking into account modern economic circumstances.
  
  
• No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy - this one is a great take-down of how modern NGO organizations (especially the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) are the premium outlet for soft imperialism for the US.
  
  
• Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair - added this because it was a very impactful, recent read for me. A lot of left-of-republican people support some kind of prison reform but we usually view it through the lens of helping "non-violent offenders". This book digs into that distinction and how we, as a society, can't seriously try to broach meaningful prison reform before we confront the notion of helping those who have done violent things in their past.
  
  
• [Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women] (https://www.amazon.com/Backlash-Undeclared-Against-American-Women/dp/0307345424/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550926471&sr=1-4&keywords=backlash) - probably my favorite book on modern feminism and why it is, in fact, not obsolete and how saying/believing as much is key to the ideology behind the attacks from the patriarchal ruling class. Can't recommend it enough if you're on the fence about feminism.
  
  
• How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic - Written in the 70's by a couple of Marxists during the communist purge in Chile, this book does a fantastic job of unwrapping how ideology baked into pop culture can very effectively influence the masses. Though I can only recommend this one if you're already hard sold on Socialism because you might not even agree with some of the core premises if you're on the fence and will likely get little out of it.
  
  
• Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? - Mark Fisher's seminal work deconstructing how capitalism infects everything in modern life. He killed himself a few years after publishing it. My most recommended book, probably.

> There are indeed fundamental philosophical and ideological differences between the far left and the far right - my point is that they are both similar in that the radicals on both sides care less about individual freedom and more about using any means necessary to achieve their goals and subjugate others to their thoughts. The goals are radically different: the techniques are not, nor is the lack of interest in discussion or questions. That is where they lose me.

But it's just not true that the far left is disinterested in discussion. The dialectic is a fundamental component of leftist thought. Marx, Bakunin, Prodhon, and Stirner- sort of the 'fathers' of modern leftist thought- were all young Hegelians, for whom the dialectic was an integral component of rational thought. In fact, if you look up 'dialectic' on wikipedia, and go to the section on modern philosophy, you'll find no more than two subsections, one about the hegelian dialectic, and another about the Marxist dialectic.

> Do you really believe that the radical left is any less interested in systematically oppressing others than the far right?

Yes.

> People like the Tea Party, PeTA, and others are more than willing to do whatever it takes to get the results they want, and they're not interested in a dialog, nor in thinking that maybe someone else's point of view can be valid.

PeTA is neither left nor right. They're a single issue organization who's issue is orthogonal to economic and political structure. Also, speaking anecdotally, I have spent quite a bit of time in far left circles, and I have only ever met one PeTA supporter. Most everyone else is extremely critical of PeTA. In fact, I have been routinely criticized for not being critical enough of PeTA. Keep in mind that I am a meat-eating egoist. PeTA seems more popular among liberals and social democrats than among radicals.

Actual radical leftist groups include Radical Science, Radical Statistics, the Center for a Stateless Society, The Industrial Workers of the World, The Socialist Worker, The CNT-FAI, and The Recovered Factories Movement.

> Yep, but as I've said often, ideologues care more about imposing their beliefs on others, and I hope you recognize that there are those on the left that are just as unreasonable as those on the right.

Once again, I am not arguing that it is impossible for a radically left group/person or group/person which appears to be radically left to be disinterested in good faith discussion or to be fundamentally oppressive, but that these are intrinsic qualities of the far right, where they are not intrinsic qualities of the far left.

> And is it any less oppressive to be told that you have to give up a large percentage of what you've earned to give to others so that there is a false economic equality?

I don't think you understand what the far left is even interested in. We're not interested in high taxes or creating a welfare state. The far left wants to dismantle or compete with the existing political and economic structure because we view it as a distortion of markets/exchange which allows for an idle class to exploit a large percentage of the value generated by the working.

> is there reading on socialism you'd recommend? I'm fascinated by the examples you cite and I'd like to learn more. Probably won't change my mind, but I am curious.

To understand the theory which underlies leftist thought, you'd be best off reading Marx' Capital. However, keep in mind that this is a very academic, 3 volume, 1500 page, behemoth of a book, which you might find difficult to digest. If you do decide to read it, it might be beneficial to read David Harvey's companion to Capital along with it, or to watch his lecture series. If you're lazy (and I don't blame you) you might want to just watch the lectures.

You might also check out An Anarchist FAQ, for a much more readable, though shallow, explanation of leftist thought. And the film I posted earlier, The Take, is an interesting look into what an anarchist strategy and an anarchist society might look like.

> Of course not - that's a ridiculous argument. However, people like Mr. Chomsky, who seem to think this country is intrinsically evil bother me. Are there things here that are wrong - without a doubt. And this country is far from its ideals (and seems to be getting further away every day). But there needs to be recognition of the good as well as the bad, and there are many on both sides that refuse to do that. And that, quite honestly, annoys me.

I'm curious, then, if you're critical of e.g., Harriet Beecher Stowe for the the same reason. After all, she wrote critiques of slavery, but never really wrote anything which focused on praising the upside of slavery and world she lived in. She's never written a novel about the wonders of the transcontinental railroad, nor the telegraph, nor just how cheap cotton was at the time.

Sorry for the late response, I've been pretty busy all day.

Anyway,

> The problem, I think, is trying to make an issue that's not so black-and-white look black-and-white. In the poll you linked, read the write-in responses below. Most of the comments for the 'agrees' say things like "gains and losses are not spread evenly" or "economists understate short-term employment costs"

True. Trade is not black-and-white, there are winners and losers. There is consensus on that as well -- the losers are those who lose their jobs, and the winners are literally everyone else (not just the uber-rich). If you're interested in reading about trade and how it does and does not affect the economy, I'd suggest this Paul Krugman essay.

However, the consensus is still there. Although some particular trade deals might not be considered favorable to the US (Krugman described himself as a "lukewarm opponent" to the TPP) trade overall is seen as a massively positive benefit to the economy due to comparative advantage. The extremely quick drop in world poverty and rise in living standards can mostly be attributed to trade.

Also, I see you've noticed Acemoglu's comment. You left out

> probably less than benefits

Which makes a huge difference. I highly recommend his book, Why Nations Fail though if you are more interested in his thought process.

> It's worth noting that Sanders is only 'anti-free-trade' in the black and white world, and in reality his stance is that these agreements can be good if there are stipulations like retraining programs, comparative working condition requirements, etc.

Sander's view is about as black-and-white as you can get. He has opposed literally every single trade deal he could, whether or not they had any of those stipulations.

And, I know I've linked Krugman a lot -- I don't think he's infallible but he's one of the very best resources on trade -- here he explains in plain English why "comparative working conditions" may not lead to quite as good an outcome as you'd expect. I agree with you and Bernie that retraining programs are necessary, as would many economists (there's not quite a consensus because that is more a matter of opinion on what is "right") but the fact is that there is and has been a solid consensus in economics on the benefits of free trade, comparable almost to that of global warming for climate scientists.

>Veterans unemplotement is currently around 30%, so I would argue that the provate sector is that shallow. Some businesses are very helpful and respectful towards the men and women who have served this nation, but most, sadly, aren't. And you're right, college degrees do not automatically create success. But, college grad. unemployment is around 4% right now, while non-college educated people have an unemployment above 10%.

Even if we sent all of those unemployed veterans to college (or all of the other non-college educated), they would still face a stagnant job market with a college degree. That’s why we must seek policies that favor robust, but sound, economic expansion. Even if we assume the private sector is that shallow, which it’s not, the best way to force their hand is to generate so much growth that demand for labor outstrips supply. Siphoning more and more of their operating capital and/or increasingly regulating every corner of business simply cannot logically have this effect.

>These are not jobs added, and they would be jobs whether the tax rates on the rich are 1% or 50%.

These are jobs added/maintained. It’s simple supply/demand in this case: when more people can afford yachts, cabins in exotic locations, expensive cars, and other luxury items, demand increases. Given the prospect of profit, supply responds by increasing as well. Supply increasing doesn’t mean only existing firms expand, it also means new firms open in hopes of soaking up some of the increasing market. By taxing, you’re diminishing the demand for these products by reducing the amount of consumers who are capable of purchasing these luxury products. When demand falls, supply must respond as well: downsizing, layoffs, bankruptcies, etc. The reason is simply that the demand market for these goods can no longer sustain the existing crop of suppliers. This concept applies across the entire economy over every sector. Some firms would stay, but more would fall the more we reduce income.

> Why should we all be slaves to the rich? Why should all of oour jobs depend on what they choose to pruchese or not purchase?

We’re not slaves nor are all of our jobs dependent on what they choose to purchase. I’m only highlighting that wealthy individuals do fully/partially support certain sectors of our economy. Enormous sectors of the economy are largely supported by lower-income individuals as well: Goodwill Industries and other discount clothing retailers like TJ Maxx, McDonalds, Dollar Tree, flea-markets, etc. all quickly come to mind. Similarly, large portions of our economy are supported by the middle class” most automotive companies, casual dining restaurants, Polo Ralph Lauren, American Eagle, etc. come to mind. Importantly, though, this only represents the consumer side of our economy and not the more-important capital-investment side, but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

>They were going into bankrupcy and then government came in, and loaned them money, which they payed back, and are now workign at a profit for. Government was not in control of them under teh Bush years when thigns got fucked up to shit. Obama's stimulus package saved us from a depression, but if it was bigger, I would argure that it could have saved us from a recession.

They didn’t pay all of it back. The government still owns large shares of GM and Ally Bank, for example. Tax payers are expected to lose over 25 billion on the former. The amount of worldwide derivative debt is even larger than in 2008 (ie, the “too big to fail” banks are only bigger). All of this was only made possible by government attempting to circumvent the natural market regulation, the profit-loss incentive, which would’ve punished the firms with real bankruptcy for their mistakes and allowed their capital to redistribute to more efficient uses. Instead, their inefficient and dangerous activities were only reinforced by government, and thus they will continue until market forces ultimately win out and another bubble bursts.

Furthermore, our economic instability far pre-dates Bush and Obama. The prevailing economic philosophy, Keynesianism, in this nation has largely been unchanged since the Progressive era and all of our woes have simply been compounding. The only difference really is that the philosophy has been painted red or blue, Republican or Democrat, and called “conservative” or “liberal”. We won’t fix the economy until we fix the philosophy, which is why a large number of libertarians favor the polar-opposite philosophy of Austrian economics.

Ultimately, I think a lot of the disconnect here, as it is with the rest of the typical capitalists and the anti-capitalists is a misunderstanding of real capitalism and the result of capitalist policies. The GOP has done a wonderful job of completely misrepresenting what it means to stand for free-markets and the Democrats have done an equally wonderful job of exploiting that flawed portrayal. For that reason and since we’re limited to responding to only specific pieces of the larger argument in defense of capitalism, I strongly recommend you read these books to understand where we’re coming from. The first three are available for free (Bastiat’s are both less than 100 pages as well). These five books, along with several others, are what turned me from a born and raised neoconservative war-mongering Republican to a Libertarian today.

• Frederic Bastiat’s The Law
  
• Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson -- refutes a long list of common economic fallacies
  
• Frederic Bastiat’s That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen
  
• Tom Wood’s Meltdown -- examines the cause of the 2008 housing crisis
  
• Burt Folsom Jr.’s New Deal or Raw Deal -- examines how government stimulus does not promote recovery
  

>Anybody in the bitcoin sphere delve deep into what economies actually look like and function using bitcoin as default world currency/reserve?

No. We're all just a bunch of "lambo moon boys" and none of us have any formal study or experience in the world of economics. ^(/s)

You do realise that this is a multi-billion dollar industry? A lot of very smart people have spent a lot of time and effort examining this from many angles.

If you want a good introduction to what a world based on Bitcoin might look like, I'd recommend starting off with forgetting about Bitcoin specifically and first reading some of the basic works from the Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Once those concepts are in your head (whether you agree with them or not), then move on to "The Bitcoin Standard" by Saifedean Ammous (which also spends over half the book not talking about Bitcoin before it finally does; for good reason).

The reason I suggest to start off with the Austrian economists is that you need to first realise that you've got a lot of assumptions that might not necessarily be grounded in reality. One of the most common that I see for example is people saying, "deflation is bad!" as a general rule without further context. I agree that under our current economic model, deflation causes significant issues, but things that are true under our current model are not necessarily true under every model.

>Any experts that talk about the reality of Bitcoin adoption?

As above, Dr Ammous is an economist with multiple degrees in relevant fields. I think he qualifies as at least one kind of expert.

There's also myself, but since you don't know who I am and I have no intention of linking my pseudonym to my real name, any credentials I say that I hold are something you'd just have to trust me on, and I fully understand you have no reason to.

>And also, what will psychological make people trust a newly created digital asset class? It's untested.

Everything new is untested and untrusted at some point and over time this changes. I've seen enough "new tech" in my lifetime to know that this really isn't such an issue.

>And whether true or not people will assume it's 'so-called' security will eventually be compromised as just about every technology becomes obsolete and has breaches. I'm talking public opinion.

This is a combination of education and experience. Everybody knows that theoretically banks can get hacked, but they still trust their money to the bank. Even if they wrongly assume that Bitcoin is somehow able to completely compromised (and this definitely is wrong, because it's based on a false assumption of how the network operates), they only need to trust it to a similar or greater level than their bank in order to be willing to use it. And for that trust to be built, it only takes enough time of the system not being compromised.

This person fundamentally misunderstands and misinterprets almost every facet of urbanism and cities in the 21st century. It's absolutely incredible how willfully ignorant and purposefully dishonest this article is... the neurosis and cynicism is oozing from the page. The whole thing reads like someone attempting to veil their own depression, frustration, and anger at their own life in a bunch of pseudo-facts and floppy rhetoric. The amount of times the author tosses in 'cultural marxism' when he runs headlong into a mental wall and can't find anything meaningful to say would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing.

His reason for why cities are experiencing a renaissance and are desirable places to live for educated millennials?

>"[they] move to the big city.... in order to extend this infantile and adolescent lifestyle."

His evidence being that they want to get fucked up at festivals and hook up with people. What an incredibly intelligent and cogent analysis.

News flash, buddy: cities have been engines of innovation since Plato and Socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace. Millennials couldn't possibly be moving to cities because of their role in fostering human achievement, or how they spur innovation by facilitating face-to-face interaction, or how they attract human capital and sharpen it through competition, or how they encourage entrepreneurship, or how they allow for social and economic mobility in ways that other places just can't match? It couldn't be because of their booming economic opportunities, or how they spur artistic innovation?

Nope, it's just because people want to have fun and have sex. Actually, so what if that's true? Why is it so bad that people are increasingly choosing where to live on the basis of pleasure as well as productivity? People like amenities and things to do-- theaters, restaurants, festivals, et cetera. Would you rather live within a few blocks of a dozen restaurants, a movie theater, music venues, and parks, or would you rather have to get into a car and drive 30 minutes to reach even one of these places? An increasingly prosperous world will continue to place more value on the innovative enjoyments that cities can provide, and that's not a bad thing. This doesn't even touch on the fact that the educated millennials who are enjoying these amenities are gainfully employed and are net producers of economic output and essential services (law, health care, research, tech, design, schools, banking, et cetera). Their jobs help each other and help others and the city at large.

This entire rant sounds like the dusty, envious frustrations of a person that feels they've "missed out" and is desperately trying to justify their place in the world in whatever way they possibly can.

Whoever wrote this abysmal, sad excuse for an article should pick up this book and see what actual evidence-based research says about the history of power of cities.

>No, I just assumed you're a rich city dweller who's never actually had to work a day in the field, and look to lose the least, and gain the most from the development of the world.

Spot on. Now we're talking. I sure hope that urbanisation keeps going the way it is. It's almost as if...cities are better. It could also be that I think my ancestors made a great move by coming to the city and I want to encourage and vouch for the process so that millions more can have better lives.

Luckily for me, voters keep voting for higher growth and more development.

"Individuals matter"

Happy? There, I stated the obvious. Would you like me to state other obvious things? 2+2=4 perhaps?

There are a couple of good textbooks I am aware of:

The links to Gouverneur's textbook are here

You may also want to check out Wolff's own textbook authored with Stephen Resnick, entitled Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. (If you want to have a look through it I'm pretty sure the pdf is on Scribd.com) Apparently he is a publishing an updated edition sometime this year, but I am yet to see any details of that happening.

Also, you've probably heard this many times before, but if you want to get into Marxian economics, I highly suggest you start out by purchasing a copy of Vol. 1 of Capital and going through it alongside David Harvey's lecture series which is also invaluable (everyone on /r/socialism probably knows Harvey but i'm not sure if they're all aware of his lectures). ALSO You would probably like to grab A Companion to Marx's Capital - It's probably the most recent and thorough introduction to capital you could ask for and goes great with the lectures if you want more detail.

While I'm on a role here, you would probably benefit from reading The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism, Harvey has a great interpretation of the "GFC" and goes through a great overview of how capital works.

Other than that I highly suggest you watch Kapitalism101's bibliography videos here. I've found his knowledge and extensive bibliography of recommendations of Marxian economics books extremely invaluable.

A free market is the most efficient way to distribute scarce resources. Economics if the study of how this distribution of scarce resources happens.

Your ideals being well meaning are not rooted in reality. As of right now we don't have unlimited power sources, or even super efficient ones. We are coming to the point at which the basic necessities for humans can be provided with little effort, 3d built homes, food in abundance via advanced farming techniques (without oil though?), ubiquitous transportation thanks to computerized transport, an abundance of energy via new nuclear/solar/wind technologies. These will make the basic human life easy, but if you want to enjoy the scarcer resources, the nice property, the awesome vacations, the trip to Mars, then you will need to work and be more productive than the next guy. It is Basic Economics!

Since you like sci-fi, read about how this society deals with scarcity, this is the model we are moving towards.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

>So Bitcoin’s main goal is to let people use their money when/how/where they want and replace or bypass the banking system of the world?

Bitcoin has no main goal. It's just a ledger. It trustlessly moves tokens on a digital ledger between parties that don't trust each other.

>Is there an endless amount of Bitcoin available to the world ie printing paper and susceptible to inflation/deflation?

Bitcoin is deflationary. There will only ever be 21 million coins. A certain number are mined every 10 minutes. Every ~4 years the distribution amount halves (we call this the halvening).

>“Okay I’m ready to buy some bitcoin but this site is charging a fee for my purchase”. Where is a good place to buy bitcoin from the U.S. without having to pay a fee?

Limit orders on a professional exchange like Coinbase Pro or Gemini often have low/no fees. This is the best way to go about it.

>What is the state of Bitcoin ie is it close to being recognized as a form of currency on the world stage and from governments? If not, what would it take for Bitcoin to surpass say an entire continents financial system and maintain a regular usage instead of paper notes?

World governments are very differing in their positions on Bitcoin. Iran for example isn't a big fan. Venezuela's government isn't either, but their citizens are. The G5 countries are tolerating (and taxing) crypto earnings. The SEC is regulating some of the projects in the space. Merchants do accept it for payment, but the tax structure makes it harder to spend as a day-to-day currency currently. Calculating capital gains on every purchase of coffee is a PITA.

>Can Bitcoin handle Billions of people using the system for daily use? Is this where other crypto currency’s come into play to fill the void of an overloaded system?

Right now? No. But Bitcoin is scaling up slowly. Other crypto currencies are mostly pump/dump scams that serve no real purpose. They would have issues scaling up to a large payment network without compromising decentralization. Check out the lightning network, segwit, schnorr signatures a bit technical, but you can find some great summaries.

>Does Bitcoin become the “gold standard” and nations start to utilize hoarding Bitcoin or will it turn into nations valuing their own currency against Bitcoin like the world values everything against the USD? (If that last part makes sense)

Here's a great book. https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Standard-Decentralized-Alternative-Central/dp/1119473861

> when have we ever increased our population by billions within decades?

Increased population means increased markets, more people producing but also more desires to satisfy.

> worldwide production per worker is also exploding do to automation.

This is a good thing. This is the foundation of economic progress.

> These factors are unprecedented.

Every generation says this. It's always "different this time".

> Take trucking... It is a low skilled job.

Your "low-skill job" didn't exist three hundred years ago (when people were running around smashing mechanical looms and making the same arguments about the destruction of society because clearly society stops functioning when we can produce cheaper textiles right?). Hell, how many people could pilot a 12+ tonne combustion engine driven vehicle travelling 100 km/h one hundred years ago?

You don't realise how quickly people forget and accept skills as normal, and then delegate them to low-skill! Fifty years ago the smartest investment an independent girl could make was to take typing school so she could operate a typewriter and be a secretary - nowadays kids grow up with an iPhone in their cot.

> It can easily be automated

And it SHOULD because it will make EVERYTHING cheaper. Why do you want things to be expensive? There will always be some losers from an economic change, but why do you think they are more important than the 99.99% of humanity which will benefit?

You should read the following book: https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691136408

It is a fascinating glimpse into how this economic world you take for granted came into being. 100 years ago, you see, you know how transport worked? People loaded ships by hand. Crates, barrels, bags, everything was carried by hand and loaded into small ships. Ships spent the majority of their time in docks, transport costs were enormous. Containerised shipping slashed transit times and prices.

You know what people did? Dockworkers fought tooth and nail to prevent it. Your whole trucking industry only came into being because they didn't succeed. And everyone in the whole world benefitted, because everything got cheaper.

Economies are complex. People can and will adapt. Some people don't pay attention and adapt too slowly. Bad luck to them. You will not make anything better or save anybody by trying to stop change to save them from themselves.

There's a pretty good book on this sort of thing.You need to go digging through historical biographies and text to get a more typical view of what life was like back then (I'd start with those I recommended above.. A lot of people, myself included aren't a fan of Churchill's politics, but if you look at him through the lense of his era and keep in mind his differences to you or I... As in we weren't born in a palace as the son of a lord, on a first name basis with all of the richest & most powerful gentry. Getting to hang out in his teens & taken places by the Prince of Wales/the future King, Edward VII (who his mother was probably sleeping with)) its a great read and will give you a decent insight into what life was like for both the gentry & the people who worked for them:

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lion-Winston-Churchill-1874-1932/dp/0385313489


The book on how great today is:

https://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/1451614217

It's hard to go back and try to find what really clicked about Bitcoin. I had kind of a background on network security and cryptography (although not at the level to be a Bitcoin developer myself, unfortunately...).

I first heard about Bitcoin on the Security Now podcast probably in 2013 and completely ignored it. I didn't know anything about investing, money or the economy so I just didn't care.

Later in 2015/2016 I started to hear about it again. I was starting to get interested in economy, finance, valuation and all that stuff. So I've tried to read the wikipedia article about Bitcoin and didn't understand any of it. Public ledger and all that stuff...

Then finally I've stumbled on the original Bitcoin whitepaper. Read it. Loved it.

I was lucky enough to have just enough background in cryptography to understand it. It's very well written, very easy to read. You should read it if you haven't done it already. I believe you only need to have an idea of what a hash function is and what public key cryptography is to understand it pretty well.

Then I've started to dive into the question of "What is money?". Everyone will have a different opinion on it. In my opinion money is just a technology to help people make transactions and if possible to store some value that can be used in the future...

I've read The Bitcoin Standard which is kind of interesting and the famous post Shelling Out: The Origins of Money by Nick Szabo which some people believe might be the real Satoshi Nakamoto.

I really don't care if some economists believe that money needs "intrinsic value" or it needs to be "backed" by something. If you are trading it for goods and services and you can store it it is some sort of money.

And then there are some properties that makes some money more desirable than another.

Some of the properties of Bitcoin are very similar to the properties that make gold a good store of value. It is kind of neutral, nobody controls it, there's a limit amount of it. But it adds a lot of stuff that can make it better than gold:

• It's digital.
  
• Easier to transact.
  
• Easier to transport.
  
• Easier to conceal.
  
• You can travel with millions in Bitcoin without being noticed, without putting yourself or your family at risk (just imagine if you're running from war in your country)
  
• Easier to prove you own it.
  
• Easier to prove it's real and not a counterfeit.
  
• When demand goes higher you can't create more supply of it. (You can produce more physical gold by using more miners and machines when demand goes higher. But you can't create more Bitcoins/time)
  
• You are not dependent on monetary policies that change over time and might be subject to political and social influence. The monetary policy was defined on its creation. No one can change it.
  
• Bitcoins stock-to-flow will be greater than gold on the next halving. And will keep doubling every 4 years.
  
  I can certainly remember some more properties that make it more interesting than gold. But of course it doesn't have the track record. It just didn't exist 1000 year ago... It is not a good electrical conductor and it is not shinny and beautiful. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
  
  Bitcoin might not work out but it looks like a good asymmetrical bet to take. Gold current market cap is around $7 Trillion. Bitcoin's market cap is around $150 Billion...

You-are-full-of-SH1T: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

• I found your replies quite useful and you seem to be good at your stuff. Without giving away too much about yourself, can you tell me what your educational background is? Does one need a Ph.D. in economics to understand at your level, or is that possible by self-education, or at least a Master's degree, too?
  
  If you are being serious and not trolling, I will help.
  
  I don't want to give any personal information away, but education is important, but life experience and studying on my own (trading and studying economics 12+ hours a day) is what helped me.
  
  Education helps build the groundwork for understanding theory, but I would say on 50%.
  
  The most important thing, in my opinion, is to understand theories that are in all aspects of life. For example, everything we do (food, sex, etc) is in self-interest.
  
  Another theory, in engineering (electrical) is path-of-least-resistance.
  
  Just any life theory you can apply to economics ... economics is simply, in my opinion, how the world works and how people interact with each other. If this was the year 1000 B.C., I would be studying why you trade 10 pounds of rock for 10 pounds of wood. I would be studying why that is the current trade, and I would be studying what motivates you to do that.
  
  
• Can you please recommend some good books to read to understand the basics? This one seems good : http://www.amazon.com/Profiting-Bull-Markets-George-Dagnino/dp/0071367063. What do you think of it?
  
  Let me be very clear, DO NOT read any books that give you advice on how to make money, anything with 'bull', 'bear', 'buy', 'sell' in the title .. DO NOT BUY ... they are taking basic theory and selling it. Trading, economics is full time because the world is constantly changing, if they were good, they wouldn't have time to write a book AND the time to write a book should be less valuable than time invested into the markets.
  
  As far as books, read anything on Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Computer Science, Basic Engineering, electronic principles, at least one book on human sociology, governments, physiology, war (hint - war is economic gain), etc.
  
  STAY AWAY FROM THE WORLD IS GOING TO END BOOKS. If something bad is going to happen, it will happen, if you are not good enough now or you aren't on the 'in-crowd', than let it happen and profit from it. don't stress about what *might happen, stress about today!
  
  Specific books,
  
  A couple classic books...
  
• Reminiscences of a stock operator
  
  
• Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: A Comprehensive Guide to Trading Methods and Applications this book is sometimes considered a bible in the investment world.
  
  
• the whole 'market wizards' series is very very good.
  
  This takes years and years to get the hang of, and it is very stressful and competitive (the world is constantly moving and changing and you are competing to understand it better than anyone).
  
  Remember, if anyone is just 'talking' about it on TV freely or whatever, 99% of the time they are trying to sell bullshit book or something.
  
  Don't listen to what people say is going on, listen to the people who already made something happen. If the markets crash today, than tomorrow ... look for who knew about it and study what they were doing.
  
  
• I'm a Masters in Computer Science and do some trading, mostly successful (Options spreads), but am quite conscious that I'm missing the big picture (macro, fundamental).
  
  Didn't read this, I was replying one-by-one, if you are there .. just apply all the computer science theories that you have learned into the real world. Plan and simple, go with your gut.
  
  I assume you took a computer science/ethics class where you debated and talked about legislation, morals, ethics in the internet/digital age? apply those to economics.
  
  All you are studying is why people, businesses, and governments do what they do. In the end, it is all about self-interest.
  
  Hope this helps.
  
  Oh and if you aren't reading at least 5-10 articles a day on current events (literally pick out random articles, Rueters, bloomberg, WSJ, Scienctific America, Economist) to include foreign (german, chinese, etc) sources, than you won't get ahead.
  
  A lot of analysts, all they actually do is wake up and 4 in the morning, spead 3-4 hours reading what happened over night, and then trade based on that.

I get where you're coming from, but there are fine examples of the best the West hast to offer too: Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, et al. There are multiple high points in the cultural landscape. Japan may lay claim to one peak, but there are other (perhaps taller) ones out there.

Within America too, there are regions and groups that stack up more favorably on a hypothetical "culture-index". For instance, Minnesota seems to be working better than Mississippi for reasons beyond location and history. If I were to speculate as to why, it'd rely heavily on the theses found within Why Nations Fail. Namely, how inclusive the local economic/political/social strucures are. That's heavily dependent on culture. Thus, my earlier comment was suggesting that the fraction of America that vehemently supports Trump is more than likely identifying with an entirely different culture than the other 60%. And (in my opinion) there's no contest as to which of the two cultures tends to produce better results. Alas, that is a bias as to what factors we value and include in our "culture-index". Those differing priorities are at the heart of our nation's lamentable cultural divide.

I don't think we need to adopt a Japanese culture to improve overall. We're a young and ignorant country... baby steps. Just a nudge toward Minnesota and away from Mississippi would yield significant long term results.

The term neoliberalism is usually heard in the pejorative sense, often coming from Latin American leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. The term refers to an international economic policy that has been predominant in policy-making circles and university economics departments since the 1970's. The four faces on the cover of this book (Reagan, Deng, Pinochet, and Thatcher) are considered by David Harvey the primemovers of this economic philosophy. Reagnomics, Thatcherism, Deng's capitalism with Chinese characteristics, and Pinochet's free market policies marked the beginning of new era of global capitalism.

Neoliberlism as a philosophy holds that free markets, free trade, and the free flow of capital is the most efficient way to produce the greatest social, political, and economic good. It argues for reduced taxation, reduced regulation, and minimal government involvement in the economy. This includes the privitization of health and retirement benefits, the dismantling of trade unions, and the general opening up of the economy to foreign competition. Supporters of neoliberlism present this as an ideal system. Detractors, such as Harvey, see it as a power grab by economic elites and a race to the bottom for the rest.

http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273

Your opinion isn't how capitalism works.

I actually wrote a paper that touches on this topic a little bit. Here is an excerpt. I site this book throughout it.

"The book uses the example of Brad Pit being an insurance salesman rather than an actor. It explains how he is “one of a handful of people in the world who can ‘open’ a movie”(13) and how “millions of people around the world will go see a film just because Brad Pit is in it.”(13) It would therefore be a waste of his talents to sell insurance. There are many people who are able to sell insurance, but very few who can ‘open’ a movie with such high rates of success. This is why Brad Pit is paid so much money."

Similarly, (and I don't want to dismiss the hard work of many around the world but...) it is more likely that an individual will become a scientist than the next great basketball player or superstar of sorts. My point is that these people are valued more because they, in and of themselves are a very valuable commodity to many companies. In the brad pit example, a ton of companies would want him in a movie because he can basically guarantee that movie's success and make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sure, I can try to help you out. I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I've studied them and spent time at an options market-making firm on Wall Street. My education in derivatives started at university, where I took an options and derivatives class. We used John C Hull's book, Options, Futures and Other Derivaties (link is to latest, 9th edition; you can use previous editions). Incidentally, Hull is a professor at Universary of Toronto.

While employed, we used Sheldon Natenberg's Option Volatility & Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques. The text is on the dry-academic side but is definitely an excellent resource.

You (and others) can also check out Khan Academy's excellent introductory videos here.

I'm not sure how I'll be able to mentor you, but I'm happy to give it shot. Let me know what I can do to help you out!

>These are not false dichotomies I bring up, but genuine concerns about tradeoffs for implementing democratic processes at so many levels of a society

This is not the false dichotomy I mentioned; the problem was that the two options originally presented were the existing power relationships or a dystopian state controlling everything we do. But once you start to criticize specific details of one possible implementation of socialism, you are merely doing precisely what good socialist thinkers should do. Given some ideal, how should it be implemented? What are the inherent problems? How can we make this work? And you certainly have not given enough credit to socialist intellectuals who do consider these problems when you imply that there is one implementation of socialism and it is necessarily "a fairy tale". That is simply willful ignorance of an entire body of work stretching back centuries to the early days of capitalism.

You want to have a conversation about how socialism should work as a democratic alternative to authoritarian capitalism and find out more about what proposals have been made? Wonderful! My work is done.

>the greater the task or function of some institution, the larger the centralized body must be to orchestrate whatever task it must carry out; the greater the that this democratic, centralized body must be, the more people we need; the more people, the more statistics bear out the chance of differing opinions, differing levels of expertise, and susceptibility to corruption; then we have a slower, more inefficient operation.

You make a whole range of statements that imply things must necessarily be a certain way. Given how rare these truths are when discussing human societies, I would have to ask you to justify these claims with at least some good argument. "The greater the task or function of some institution, the larger the centralized body must be to orchestrate whatever task it must carry out"? What does "greater" even mean to begin with? Why should the importance of a task necessitate more centralized control? If greater tasks require more centralized control, why should these same tasks require more centralization when we switch to socialism? And so on and so on. None of these concerns seem valid to me; they seem to be disguised forms of fear of the unknown.

>These problems will arise; to pretend that this system is immune to problems of corruption and conflict, that it's some rosy paradise of a solution to governing a society is naive.

Nobody ever said socialism would have no problems that we'd need to solve. Again, you're misrepresenting the alternative to the current power structure instead of directly engaging with it. People who believe in revolutionary change to socialism must be "naive" because we're to scared to think about the implications of such fundamental social changes.

>But suppose we go throw with it. How deeply do you embed this democratic structure into company. Large companies admit nested hierarchical command structures. Do we elect someone at every level of management? That only magnifies the problems of democratic processes listed above, likely in some geometric fashion.

Worker cooperatives already exist and have a wealth of answers to these questions. The Mondragon corporation is an often-cited example of a pseudo-democratic institution operating within the prevailing capitalist system. Also, Richard Wolff has written and spoken about these issues extensively; to these concerns I would simply say "go and find out - engage with that conversation!"

>I'm not saying that we should ignore socialism entirely, but to swallow it wholesale is not practical.

Now these are the statements that imply a false dichotomy. What is it to "swallow socialism wholesale"? Socialism is not a single monolithic set of precepts about how society should work. Socialism is simply saying that the biggest problem you currently face is that private control of capital has created and raised a powerful monster that has simply purchased your "democratic" government and will now proceed to solidify its global power until regular people are left with lives that are barely worth living. And all of this was entirely predictable for people who are just willing to question the underlying social hierarchies instead of blindly accepting them! Socialism is a universe of possibilities that begin with one idea - nobody should rule. Surely that one single idea cannot present such an insurmountable difficulty for our digestive tracts.

Hi, Econ undergrad here!

Econ is a little special when it comes to education because the vast majority of books in bookstores and youtube videos are not based on mainstream orthodox economics as you would learn in a university. Most of it is bunk and if you attempt to learn economic theory from youtube you'll probably end up misinforming yourself(It's happened to me firsthand). I would highly recommend you pirate 1 college micro and 1 macro textbooks and go through the math problems chapter by chapter. If you want a quicker intro to econ I highly recommend reading Naked economics since it summarizes intro micro and macro very well.


I wrote up a small explanation on how to debate economics a few days ago. Here's a edited version of why theory is so important.

• First: If you don't have a foundation in theory you won't understand why a policy is favored even if you understand what economists support. What makes the current generation of new Keynesian macro models so great is that by manipulating the microfoundation a economist can adapt the model for different situations and assumptions to get varying accurate solutions.
  
• Second: Models will oftentimes give welfare maximizing answers. Therefore economists who've gone through the math beforehand can just argue about tradeoffs of policies and picking the right model, and not argue about the equations themselves.
  
• Third: The effects of policies vary heavily the longer they're implemented. Using short term models to describe changes decades in the future will oftentimes give wrong results. Some mechanics and theories from econ 101 are used even in advanced macro but you gotta have the intuition to know what is relevant and what is deceptive in order to pick optimal policies.
  
• fourth(not included in previous post): While theory may tell you roughly the effects of policies and their tradeoffs for different groups at the end of the day you still need to make choices between those tradeoffs. A good example is trade policy as theory will tell you in most circumstances that its unambiguously better to lower tariffs and redistribute the efficiency gains to the losers but in practice those who immediately lose will fight with every part of their being to stop greater free trade even if in the long run they'd be better off. That kind of struggle requires political choices in which it may be better to favor the protectionists even if the economics says its not the optimal answer.
  
  
  Edit:
  
  To answer your question of how to form good economic opinions. If you learn micro and macro theory for the short and long term you can use it to form opinions on a wide variety of policies. It's extremely important that you study the long term growth models immediately after you learn the short term growth models as their policy recommendations oftentimes directly contradict.
  
  Edit 2: Changed "current generation of macro models" to "current generation of new keynesian macro models"

If I may - I humbly recommend to read a proper book on bitcoin, not some fluff piece.. Just assuming from the way that you chose your post title that you might be interested in a more substantial bitcoin reading :) Please ignore if that's not the case, don't wanna ruin your reading pleasure or anything.

Economic perspective: The Bitcoin Standard - The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

Not technical at all, very beginner friendly, but also not a lot of practical information: The Internet Of Money

Gently technical, beginner friendly: Inventing Bitcoin: The Technology Behind the First Truly Scarce and Decentralized Money Explained

Technical deep dives:

• Mastering Bitcoin (also available for free online, as it's an open source book)
  
  
• Programming Bitcoin
  
  
• Grokking Bitcoin

Eh, you gotta do what you think is right, and internet karma is just numbers on a screen. I've watched this country slide backwards for most of my life, while at the same time technology gets better (which itself is great). I still think it's voter apathy and unawareness that causes the major problems, so that's why I do what I do. People should learn, and participate in civics, even if you can't be a 'politician.' So if I can light one lightbulb, it's worth it. Your response means something to me.

As someone who won the lottery of birth by just being born in the first world, then got even luckier be being white, and even luckier by being male; my parents actually moved us out of an upper class area (Prince Georges County) in the 1980's, because they could see the 'affluensa' even back then. We're not "rich" by any measure, but comprehend our 'position.' There are other things that influenced me as well; my dad was an interior designer and my mom was a computer programmer, both very good at what they did, so I don't believe bullshit 'popular culture' norms, as I was inoculated by reality. Me joining the military and seeing the world as it actually is, just helped me understand that people are just people. (Sagan's Pale Blue dot helps as well). So while I defend the Constitution, as flawed as it is, I still haven't seen a better idea, except in Sci-fi. The Culture isn't technically feasible, yet.

The fact that the Libertarians want equal 'opportunity' for all isn't bad itself, it's just that too many of them can't see the helping hand that got them into the position to even be contemplating it in the first place. I voted for Gary Johnson last time, but would like to vote for Bernie Sanders next time, this country is way overdue for a cultural shift, and the young are going to do that. Just look at how fast the gay/marijuana acceptance is changing.

I also recommend both Abundance and The Zero Marginal Cost Society books to people for ideas about the way forward.

EDIT: spelling and links.

>If we cut public funding to education and other services, we are taking the rug out from underneath future inventors and innovators.

I think you believe that you are presenting facts, but you are not. This is not a 'fact', this is an emotional appeal. You make your decisions based on political rhetoric, not on your understanding of how policies actually affect people in the real world.

If you want to learn how to logically and rationally understand politics, read some economics.

>It is beyond irrational to believe in such a utopian ideal

I'm glad that there are 'rational' people like yourselves who know better than idiot-libertarians like me.

Doesn't it seem strange to you that there are a higher percentage of economists that support freed markets than regular punters? The question is: how are you so sure that you're on the right side? Could this possibly be a function of the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

Chairman Mao died in 1976. This came after 10 years of the ‘cultural revolution’, an economically disastrous movement that sought to further entrench communism in the country. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping took over and it is from this point that China started on its course of development/capitalism.
Foreign money, often from Chinese Disapora (known as the bamboo network) flooded into China.
China did not go for outright free market liberalisation. No. Infant industries were protected from foreign competition behind high import tariffs (average of 55% in the 1980s) and firms were given state support through low interest loans in order to develop certain industries. Industries like manufacturing. China became the world’s manufacturer (particularly of low-tech goods but they may soon move up the value chain and produce more high tech goods). Furthermore they put in place capital controls to stop money from leaving China.
Importantly, if China had been a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which it only became in 2001, it would not have been able to hide behind high tariff barriers to protect infant industries.
This book by Ha-Joon Change talks about how the US and UK developed by nurturing industries behind high tariff barriers, but now promote the idea of trade liberalisation, which is at odds with how they developed (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Institutions-Globalization/dp/1843310279/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285252397&sr=1-1)
China would also stipulate that foreign firms had to do a certain amount of technology transfer (another thing that you can’t do so easily when you are in the WTO).
China’s growth was quick. “China has set a new record – per capita GDP in China doubled within only 9 years between 1978 and 1987, and doubled again in another 9 years between 1987 and 1996” (Cai Fang and Wang Meiyan, ‘How Fast and How Far Can China’s GDP Grow?’, China : An Economics Research Study Series, vol. 3, 2004, p. 2.)
China used its huge trade surplus to prop up the US spending boom. So Americans buy Chinese stuff, with money borrowed from China, that China got from Americans buying their stuff.
TLDR: In 1978 China decided to follow a capitalist route. Foreign money, often from Chinese overseas flooded into the country. Infant industries were protected from competition from other countries behind high tariff barriers. China was able to do this because it wasn’t in the WTO. China integrated itself into the global economy without free trade liberalization.

To add to this, I work in the Futures industry, and pretty much the place everyone starts at is the following book:

Technical Analysis of Financial Markets.

It's extremely elementary, so don't expect to read it and start making money, but it is by far the best starting point and a lot of very successful traders still treat it like the bible.

A more "narrative" style book that is respected is The Way of the Turtle.

If political ideology were a flat line with totalitarianism monarchism on one end and anarchism on the other, the libertarian ideology would represent about 10-15% of the line on the voluntary end of it. So different libertarians have different ideal societies involving maybe a limited welfare system - to - just police and military and courts - to - no State at all.

That's all philosophical stuff though. In practice, what I'd envision anarchy looking like, as I am an anarchist, is very locally oriented emergent communities and social law determined by local markets, customs, morals, and cultures. Some of these communities may be highly cosmopolitan, some may be highly agrarian or industrial, some autarchic, some highly "international."

As for taxes and opt-in or whatever other details, a purely libertarian society would not have them -- libertarian communities would allow people to pursue whatever kind of voluntary defense or public goods arrangements that they wish. Other less-libertarian communities may have taxes for public goods or common defense. Details are fuzzy.

Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman is a good book on the topic. Also, if you were to post a question in r/libertarian, you might get a good amount of different ideas. I personally prefer not to be too specific precisely because I think the market will sort everything out. When people get too specific they tend to cling to that idea. So you'll commonly get the answer of "private defense agency" or something similar and it can get redundant. I tend to think things that work must be adaptable to reality and not hypotheticals so I'd like to imagine that a free society would be diverse in too many ways to describe.

Hope that answer helps. If not, then I may be able to clarify where you think it's confusing.

I like your comment. Fair enough. The main reason is a certain frustration due to reading incorrect claims that people repeat because they heard it before, but spent absolutely zero time validating.

I've had a few chats where I tried to educate and share but realized the other person never really researched it much and just kept repeating the same common myths over and over again. "It's a ponzi" "Tulips" "Miners control it" "Same as any other coin" "too slow for coffee" "Criminals" etc, etc without the slightest interest in putting some time to check the facts.

Now and then, someone appears and really wants to learn, which can be satisfying. I'm still learning a lot and also dismissed it as nonsense years ago (wasted time), but at least never claimed to be sure before researching - it was more of a "Meeehhh don't think so, seems nonsense" and that was it. it's fine to be skeptical, I am too, but I don't think it is fine to dismiss things so publicly with these claims, without putting any time into validating them. That is noise. Fake news.


Of course it doesn't help that the "Crypto" scene is full of scams and absolute nonsense. I'm not into "crypto" or "blockchain" in general anymore because with time I realized only BTC (the oldest, longest original chain) was worth taking seriously. All the other tokens/shitcoins are an absolute waste of resources in almost all cases.

If you're curious, I'd recommend checking out these three sources for a start, as they are technically competent and legit:


-Saifedean Ammous' book (mostly about money, but also partially about BTC)

-Andreas Antonopolous videos (half are technical, the rest a bit higher level)

-Jameson Lopp's list of resources (a mix of content)

The learning curve is steep, but very rewarding. After just a bit you won't be producing these posts anymore because they won't feel accurate. That doesn't mean BTC is flawless or guaranteed to succeed, it's still highly experimental, but certainly not the nonsense some claim it to be before looking into it.

Ha Joon Chang, a Korean economist does an excellent book about this.

All those myths about how free market capitalism is the greatest is fucking bullshit.

https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Perspective/dp/1843310279

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Z9L4NA/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1

IMF and the World Bank have essentially become enforcers of the current capitalist regime and basically shame countries who try to adopt self-sufficient policies that can be better for them in the long-run.

1 excellent example he gave in the books is the steel & shipbuilding industry in Korea. 50 years ago the free market wouldn't have thought of investing in them as Korea was a poor country with no resources with super risky projects. The government took the matter into their own hands and it laid the groundwork for the economic miracle that they experienced.

Countries going into debt to invest in their long-term capabilities really made sense to me, just like how you pay for your college & post-graduate fees to better your human capital. If countries always spend within their means, huge infrastructure projects will never get off the ground.

Likewise, if Indonesia's government do not invest in long-term profitable projects, we will never really become developed. The main driver of the economy will be the private market that really don't give a fuck about infrastructure and the likes if it doesn't benefit them (e.g. RGE in Riau having their own ports and electric generators for their paper mills, Lippo having their malls/hospitals/housing relatively well-connected to each other).

One can make an argument that if the government incur debts and use it inefficiently they may well make the economy worse off, but as long as the money stays within the country, it's better than not doing it at all. The book mentions the example of Suharto vs Mobutu Sese Seko who remitted most of the money to Swiss.

But I agree, Indonesia should invest more in projects like this. Debts aren't always bad. Gimana beli rumah kalo ga ada KPR? Gimana mulai bisnis kalo ga ada pinjeman bank?

My favorite is Enhancing Trader Performance, a fantastic, easy-to-read book, very thorough but not too heavy on the technical side. I also did my best in understanding this one, that is supposed to be the bible of technical analysis, but I wasn't able to finish it or understand all of it. It is an excellent reference, though.

For the lazy, I strongly recommend following Goomboo's Journal at Bitcointalk, who gives excellent, sober and well-written daytrading tips.

The rapid change in transfer spending over the years is definitely true, and you can thank Chelsea for that.

The reality is United have been insulated due to our fantastic academy and Fergie's habit of betting on young talent instead dropping cash on established players. We HAVE been spending millions on players, just in a very different way. Our wage bill has been among the highest in the world, even before Chelsea and City started their crazy spending fees.

I agree 100% that transfer spending does not equal success, player wages are a far better indicator. If you own the best players in the world (ex. Ronaldo) you don't have to buy them, you just have to pay them. The problem is that we have struggled lately in turning our young buys into truely world class players (ex. Anderson and Young). We also gave away Pogba for nothing, which I am sure you would agree was a terrible mistake.

Check out Soccernomics it is a great read about how football finances are changing, and addresses a lot of the points you raised.

TLDR; Don't be a dick, we are all United fans here bud. :)

Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan
https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Science-Revised/dp/0393337642

Doesn't really address e-commerce, but honestly one of the better intro into economics books out there written in modern times.

For Globalization topics I also like:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118950143/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=BPHV27XJSYHBS8RKBT3J

For virtual currencies and such I think your best source that is not academic papers will just be the Internet.

Good Luck, and remember Economics is a social science and is not the only field with ideas and solutions to social problems.

> Lol I like how you cherry pick. You totally avoided the bulk of my last comment

Lol, I like how you stand up straw men... like the bulk of your last comment which I ignored because it was irrelevant. I also like how you use "lol" as an argument... just pretend your debate opponent is missing some painfully obvious point which everyone is aware of... and you don't have to argue whatever that imaginary point was.

The bulk of your comment started with this:

> So yes we’re talking about the disadvantaged. You’re pretending it doesn’t exist and you need me to spoon feed you instances where the wealthy take advantage....." yadda, yadda, yadda.

I never said there weren't people who are disadvantaged. I never said that rich people never take advantage of others. The whole bit is irrelevant and I ignored it because it didn't pose a question and contained nothing of substance with which I really disagree... just some huffing about how exhausting you find it that someone you're debating with doesn't just agree with you.

But your position is NOT that the rich sometimes take advantage of people but that they are only be rich because they take advantage of people. It's not that I "can't say anything bad about rich people" but that I'm saying there's nothing bad with being rich in-and-of itself... a rich person has to have done something bad for me to condemn them, for you it's just enough that they are rich and you assume, wrongly, that they must have done something bad to be so rich.

That is the premise which I'm contesting. I'm not bothering to argue with you about stuff on which we already agree, that rich people can be bad people and do bad things.

> Anyway have you actually read anything about income inequality? Can you link please?

Sure, here, here, really any decent economics textbook not written by by a marxist would suffice.

Given your interests, I would suggest looking at the popular books of Charles Mann, especially _1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created_. Mann does an impressive job of covering a lot of ground in the book, and it's entirely readable.

It looks at what happened in the immediate years after the "Old" and "New" worlds started to have "exchange." It is very wide-ranging — it has lots of information on the obvious stuff (Spanish conquests in South and Central America, for example) but also plenty of unexpected things.

It also includes some pirates, some falling nations, some technological history, and even some local American history. I think it's too early for Lewis and Clark but there are plenty of explorers and other folk in there.

The way I think about learning history is this: you need to develop a "skeleton" understanding of the major trends and events, and really grok those. Once you have that sensibility, it is easy to drape additional details, sub-stories, and narratives onto that skeleton, and you start to see how everything is connected, everything fits together. A book like Mann's is a fun way to develop that skeleton for the late-15th through even the 19th- and some 20th-century topics, and once you have that, it'll be easier to figure out what the next step should be.

(Plus, it's a fun read!)

Actually the way it works out is actually fair and gives you freedom, something socialism and communism doesn’t give you.

It is fair because if you work hard and are successful then you will reap the rewards. If you are a bad businessman then you will fail, a good one will succeed.

You also have the freedom to choose whatever you want. If you want to be a boss you can, if you want to work for someone you can, if you want to be lazy and not work then you can be you just won’t have any money.

Socialism isn’t freedom. If you work hard you will still make the same amount. So guess what happens? People don’t work as hard, they don’t invent things like they do in a capitalist society because they don’t have an incentive to motivate them.


You make good choices then you get rewarded, if make bad ones then you suffer as you should.

You should really read a book on economics, you will be very surprised about how much you don’t know and how much people on tv and in Congress are either economically illiterate or are purposely lying about economics/ either way it’s not good.

Read this book and open your eyes. Link is below:

link

To finish the old debate:

> not everyone is going to be a scientist

That is fine. My problem with religion is that many who would cannot because of religious non-sense.

> assuming religion (which I would include atheism)

That is odd as many define atheism as lack of religion. Is bald a hair color? Whatever, I am just picking on your wording.

Now we are now moving into a totally different argument.

I personally have "replaced" far more than 10,000 jobs, just by writing software. I am not special, if anything I am going slow for a developer with my experience.

Like it or not the genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. Automation is here and it is getting more prolific. If industry finds a better way to work it will, look at the destruction of the longshoreman's union by shipping containers. I like the book The Box by Marc Levinson, but any discussion of globalization or automation would do.

It is my opinion that "common sense" concepts like "earn" and "deserve" don't have a place in the modern world. They used to solve problems back when work was first being divided up as people specialized. Today, we have plenty and it is my opinion that these concepts actively get in the way.

There are a ton of people who just love to create things and do science. This will never be everyone. I would do it for no money, as long as I wouldn't starve. Instead because the economy works on "earn"ing things I sit in cube 8 hours per weekday and bring in an income that puts me in the 3% of Americans in one of the areas with the lowest cost of living. Do I really "deserve" all that money? What about people who are starving? What about people who would work if not for the insurance filing application I wrote that replaced their old job filing bullshit papers? Those people want not to starve and some percentage of will turn to crime to do so. Did I make the world better by making the thing I did? Do I "deserve" to be robbed when someone doesn't have enough money to pay their child support?

I am concerned about results. Not about deserving or earning. I know approximately how many jobs I replace. Some of those people, even if perfectly motivated will never be able to work again simply by virtue of ability. A 50 year filing clerk who has been filing for 30 years is now totally obsolete and bereft of skill to "earn" a living.

Maybe someday I will write some software to replace TAs that run microbiology labs ant universities. Does that mean you shouldn't do microbiology if you love it? Does that mean you shouldn't eat?

There is a simple solution separate results from earning the results. I am for a Universal Basic Income. Give everyone, every TA, every programmer, every microbiologist, every felon, every child every senior citizen, every ex filing clerk some money. We can afford it it we just stop being stupid.

The GDP of the USA is about 18 trillion dollars. Just those 5 companies (which are all growing), amount to 1/30th of that amount. If all businesses are taxed and some BS likely social security is cleaned up, then this can easily be done. We could even increase military spending while doing as long as the increase is slower than the rate the GDP increases.

People like me number in the low millions. We will replace enough effort that eventually when it comes to work Humans need not apply. Doesn't mean we need to shun them and doom them to mediocrity. Hell is a religious concept. Consequences are the concepts I work with. I think a consequence of our progress should be better quality of life, and we can choose this.

>Do you think there's no middle ground between foreigners showing up with guns and ships and taking your shit, and being separated from world trade?


Yes, I believe trade and foreign investment is that middle ground.

>Despite being grotesquely unequal (as all countries were at the time), India was once enormously wealthy. I cannot help but think that if its wealth had remained in India or been traded for other forms of wealth, rather than just being taken, India might be doing a bit better today.

Read this book it's a great book about the topic at hand.

>Wages are low

In cities? Wages are lower in rural areas and the sunbelt.

>job opportunities are limited

This is what I think about LCOL rural areas with only a few low wage opportunities.

>So leaving is the best option if you can't get into that industry

Well different cities have different predominant industries. I think getting into an industry you in enjoy in a city that is the predominant area for that industry is the best plan of action. Reading this book, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier really influenced my thinking. https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549/.

No, but I think all politics junkies regardless of ideology should be very familiar with his arguments.

I'm honestly a little intimated when it comes to reading "Das Kapital" directly. I plan on reading these two books and follow the accompanying course by Prof. David Harvey.

A Companion to Marx's Capital Volume 1

> Based on his recent lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again.

A Companion to Marx's Capital Volume 2

> Based on his recent lectures, and following the success of his companion to the first volume of Capital, Harvey turns his attention to Volume 2, aiming to bring his depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and hitherto neglected text. Whereas Volume 1 focuses on production, Volume 2 looks at how the circuits of capital, the buying and selling of goods, realize value.

> This is a must-read for everyone concerned to acquire a fuller understanding of Marx’s political economy.



The course:
http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

The book below is a fantastic read that directly addresses your question...

The shortest version is ports (anywhere) are a function of the economy, the local labor market, and the entire supply chain of delivering "stuff" from A-to-B.

​

Once containerization took over post-war, the economics quickly and irreversibly shifted in favor of inland factories.

​

So no more factories in New York City meant there was no need to maintain and service the piers to bring raw materials to those factories. The factories were only built adjacent to the piers because it was so time consuming and expensive to transfer raw materials. (Even the layout of Manhattan's "grid" of streets took this into account, with the avenues more tightly spaced on the coasts than in the middle of the island. This allowed for good to move more efficiently between factories as they came off the ships.)

​

Now, what do I mean by "take over"? I'd have to read the book again, but I recall containerization allowed for moving most goods at, without hyperbole, ~10% the cost of traditional break bulk shipping. If it could fit inside a container, you could move it for really, really cheap. No one involved in shipping could ignore the economic advantages of containerization. And those who tried to resist slowly bled out as "the box" took over.

​

(Break bulk is where individual pieces are carried on/off a ship. Think "On The Waterfront" and a bunch of people carrying bags on their shoulders. With containers, what previous could take a week could be done in less than a day.)

​

You'll note the shipping actually increased too...but it shifted to New Jersey, which constructed new piers better suited to containerization rather than break bulk shipping. By the time Manhattan and Brooklyn tried to make new piers, it was too...the containerization infrastructure was in place on the mainland.

​

But what about the longshore men? Did they have jobs to do after the piers went away? Well...automation is always rough on manual labor. Lots of longshore men lost their jobs. Crane operators were the new king. The book is an interesting history lesson in the history of American labor/management relationships, particularly in how containerization was handled differently in New York vs. San Francisco, and even Manhattan/Brooklyn vs. Newark.

​

Here's a link to the book if anyone is interested. It's well written for even a novice and consumable for a non-academic. The writing style is not overly dry either. There is a narrative to understand. The bibliography is huge too. It's basically the history of shipping "stuff", which in turn answers the question "When and why did Manhattan's ports go away?"

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger By: Marc Levinson

​

EDIT: I'll add that any actual historians can perhaps comment in better detail. But if you want a resource to answer your question, and then some, this book is tailored to do so.

My suggestions:

1. Check out pro.coinbase.com and learn how to use it. You'll use the same credentials that you do on coinbase, but save a lot on fees.
   
2. Don't bother with all the alt-coins.
   
3. Start purchasing Bitcoin with each paycheck.
   
4. Read "The Bitcoin Standard" (https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Standard-Decentralized-Alternative-Central/dp/1119473861)
   
5. Get a hardware wallet (I recommend Trezor) and start storing your Bitcoin on it.
   
6. Research the benefits of decentralized exchanges, learn how to use one (I recommend Bisq), and if it meets your needs, start using it as soon as possible.
   
7. Read "Mastering Bitcoin" (https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital-Cryptocurrencies/dp/1449374042)
   
8. Develop a long term outlook, don't worry too much about price swings.
   
   From your post, it sounds like you might be interested in just trading. In that case, my suggestions won't help a lot. I think that the majority that try trading end up losing. If you do decide to buy/sell/trade, be sure to spend some time learning about trading, limits, stops, strategies, etc. Start small, win some, lose some, learn some, before going in big.

>If I expend energy carrying a rock down a mountain does my labor give it value?

I would like individual losses to be socialized to encourage a culture of innovation. Money should always pay your material cost but the maslow's head decides what have value, scredules objectives and propose improvements.

​

>forces of supply and demand inform the market of what goods and services are desired by the economy and how much profit there is to be made in goods and services

Free marketing gold rule I guess. "Please dont bail out banks". Aka Privatizing Profits And Socializing Losses of big ones.

"Development Strategy in Historical Perspective" say:

>(...) His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing countries from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used.

>If George, Oliver, and I had entered a mutual agreement that whenever someone falls into dire straits, the others'd pitch in, I would be very inclined to coerce George to help, because he'd agreed to do so.

If it was an explicit contract, I would agree with you. The social contract cannot be substituted - it's too vague and never defined, it cannot be used to obligate someone to do something.

>First of all, democratic decisions are a concept that I'd love to hear a better alternative to, because at the moment it seems like it's the least bad option for allowing "everyone" in a society to influence how that society works.

The Machinery of Freedom

>Any form of "not everyone gets a say" means some people will be unable to give their opinion, and you could ask yourself whether you'd like to be at the mercy of someone else's vote, without even the ability to try to influence said vote with your own opinion.

Do you actually think your vote matters today? Really? It's statistically insignificant, and if you are in the minority you have no say even if your vote were to count.

>Secondly, societies with welfare-programs funded by taxes are an implicit agreement entered into by all its citizens

Sorry, but that's BS. It's an obligation forced upon people because the government will imprison you don't want to pay. Do you ever get to vote on welfare programs at the federal level? No. You have to hope and pray the person you vote for shares your view and can actually do something about it if elected. It's a major crapshoot.

>or B) leave the country in question and emigrate to a nation where the society is structured more to their liking.

Ever notice this argument is only ever used against people who want to be left alone? If you want more government involvement, I could tell you to move to Europe or North Korea and to leave me alone. Do you think that's still a reasonable argument?

>then you're probably supposed to stop enjoying the privileges of other people giving their money to you or to the common good of a society or state.

Wrong. I'm still forced to pay for these things, so I will continue to use them until I have the option of NOT paying AND not getting the service in return.

>I'm in favour of helping out those in need because the sheer idea of refusing help to someone in those dire straits of life seems immoral at the very core of it.

Fantastic! So am I. It's called voluntary donation - CHARITY! It's not charity when you don't have a choice. Liberals love to conflate taxes with charity, and I don't know why. Maybe instead of taxes that fund a ton of bad things, you could instead voluntarily donate to the poor to help them even more than the government does now! Maybe your system is hurting the poor unnecessarily.

>this applies to e.g. the Nordic countries as well, where the minimum wages are AFAIK quite higher (even compared to relative costs of living),

Sweden, Norway, and Denmark all don't have minimum wages

This is a chapter in Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think by Peter Diamandis.

Book: http://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/1451614217/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377569779&sr=8-1&keywords=abundance+the+future+is+better+than+you+think

I saw Peter Diamandis speak at a convention where he gave away this book. His speech was pretty amazing and the book is even better. Here's a short version of the speech I saw him give, this one was for TED. http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html Around 7:00 mark he speaks about aluminum. The book/speech are very entertaining as well as educational, do yourself a favor and watch the video and/or go buy the book.

Diamandis is a badass. Plain and simple.

I'm going to recommend that you read a book, not as a way of implying that 'ugh u so dum', but because it does a fantastic job of explaining away your concerns, in a way I couldn't possibly do better. The ebook is like $7, the paperback is $7, or you can get it used for even cheaper.

https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Science-Revised/dp/0393337642

You've hit upon a quite complex topic. The gist of things though, is that when automation kills one job, it is really just freeing up that labor to fill some other niche. Let's start with a hypothetical stone-age society. Everybody gets by, on their own, but planting their own crops by hand. The grow just enough to live.

One day, someone comes by, and introduces the plow. This is a machine that automates some portion of the farming process, letting farmers create more crops with the same amount of time. Those farmers would have a surplus. The plow guy starts selling and repairing plows for the community, in exchange for some of the future surplus crops. All parties are better off.

Learn how your brain and body effect your behavior subconsciously.

The first step in learning any practical skill is to familiarize yourself with your tools, if you want to be a woodworker, you need to understand how a saw, hammer and nails work, if you want to be a programmer, you need to understand how to type and how to use your IDE and compiler.

It's surprising to me that so few people take the time to examine how their automatic responses dictate their behavior, when it really is such a fundamental building block for any sort of mental/emotional development.

Here's a few books to get you started (you'll probably be able to find all of these at your local library as well):

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Predictably Irrational

Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion

Also, an oddly insightful series of fiction books, The War against the Chtorr series by David Gerrold expands upon the idea of treating your brain like a machine that you're been programming without knowing it since birth and how to become consiously aware of your 'programming' so that you can better direct your actions. The thought exercises he invents in the stories presents some intriguing ideas.

The point of all these books would be to help you build a base of understanding of the tools that we are ALL working with, and from there you can much more easily, and consciously work toward becoming the kind of person you want to be, whatever specific form that takes is up to you.

I think it's important to approach personal development like this, in the same way that it is important to understand how addition and subtraction work before you try to understand how calculus works :)

I'm drawing it from Why Nations Fail.

>Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

Those types of changes-- psychological and sociological-- aren't something economists are necessarily interested in. And that's perfectly fine. The problem is when people that are interested in those types of changes make the illicit inference that it will change the economy in some drastic way (e.g. the neo-Luddite belief I see mentioned elsewhere in this topic that automation will replace labor, despite the fact this has been empirically falsified historically again and again, and that there are good theoretical reasons to think it's false).

On the other hand, asking about things "beyond capitalism" isn't something economists are really interested in either. The reason is most economists simply don't see a viable alternative. Marx might still have some truck in philosophical circles, but he's considered an intellectual dead end in academic economics for a variety of reasons.

Yet, there are still economists that do comparative institutional analysis, i.e. study different institutions, how they structure human behavior, and so forth, and see what that implies vis-a-vis the information and incentives faced by people working within those institutions. That's probably the closest thing you'll find to mainstream economists looking at alternative arrangements and the like-- look up new institutional economics. Recently a lot of people have won Nobel prizes for looking at those questions, e.g. you might find Douglass North, Elinor Ostrom, and Ronald Coase interesting. Also Daron Acemoglu, who wrote a good popular-level book.

You should read The Machinery of Freedom and/or Chaos Theory. Both books build a case for market-based alternatives to the state better than anyone will do in this thread.

However, I should also mention that Robert Nozick – who some believe to have made the best intellectual case for libertarianism in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia – came to the conclusion that government should provide basic protective services (and only basic protective services) including police, courts, and a military. He described his ideal state as a "Night Watchman State" – and is today usually associated with minarchism. His book is the opposite of an easy read, but if you really like to nerd-out or enjoy punishment, I definitely recommend it.

In any case, my point is that academic libertarians have largely answered your questions, either by describing how a stateless society could effectively provide protective services, or by making a case for a government that is limited to providing only basic protective services.

This book is the most comprehensive one that I've read in covering all the basics of the options market and conventional trading strategies. It's a big step up from a basic "options for dummies" type introduction, but it also doesn't go super deep into the math or the more abstract theory of derivatives markets. For that you have to mostly look in academia.

http://www.amazon.com/Option-Volatility-amp-Pricing-Strategies/dp/155738486X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380603973&sr=1-2&keywords=options


SSRN.com is a wonderful resource for academic papers on the more advanced concepts of option trading and price models that may appeal to a math person like yourself. Use the search feature to find articles on any specific questions you may have. Here's an article that I found extra interesting a few years ago and got me started down the path to my current options strategies.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=375784

Also CBOE.com is a good resource too. They have links to a surprising amount of quality information, research, and historical data.

Yeah, I can imagine it would gross out a straight guy as much as a woman's beaver grosses me out. shudder

And yeah, I'm not the kind of guy that can decorate or landscape or pick out clothes, just ask my gay friends. I swear, I'm going to lose my gay card one of these days. I do make a great wingman, though. Read Predictably Irrational, there's a chapter that brings up the concept of a good wingman. I wouldn't cock-block and if you looked similar to me but better than me, I'd be a perfect wingman. Apparently I was hit on regularly in college and after but was completely oblivious to it. I just thought girls were friendly. :-)

>What if student loans were based on the job prospects their college experience grants? Degrees that result in high degree-related employment would have more loan opportunities (chemical engineering, petroleum engineering, CS, etc), while those with low degree-related employment would have fewer loan opportunities (history, [random language], etc).

This would be the case in a free market. Banks would A) look at a highschool students grades to estimate the likelihood of a student graduating college, B) evaluate the like job outlook of the career the student is getting a degree in, and C) hand out degree's to jobs that will actually make it available for the student to pay the loan back in the future.

The current student loans are going through the same process that created the housing bubble. Replace housing loans with student loans, and FannieMae/FreddieMac with Sallie Mae, and you get the same result. Banks give out student loans because they can turn around and sell them to the government sponsored entity (GSE) Sally Mae.

In a truly free market, the bankers would provide loans to students that would likely pay them back, likely graduate, and likely have a job offer after school. It would be a self regulating system.

Read Tom Wood's Meltdown, and you'll see the similarities to the housing bubble/collapse I just described.

I'm gonna go against the tide here and recommend that you don't read the older books written by Marx, Engels, etc., and find books that discuss socialism today. Here are some I would recommend:

• A Brief History of Neoliberalism from David Harvey, a Marxist political economist, is pretty good in terms of giving a cursory overview of modern capitalism
  
• Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism is a fantastic, under-appreciated book that talks about capitalism and socialism in the context of modern First World societies oriented around technology and the service sector. It also devotes a whole chapter to discussing the origins of socialist thought via Marx, 18th century debates about socialism, and so forth. Well-written and easy/fun to read.
  
• Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction is possibly my favorite book ever. It does a great job of pointing out how socialism/marxism were key to Third World struggles in the 20th century and how the Third World developed and utilized socialist/marxist theory and practice to fit their own local situations. An overall fantastic book that really brings home how socialism is not a monolithic, Eurocentric theory, but something that has a great deal many currents and competing schools of thought.

You wish. I think you should pick up Soccernomics. They have a pretty good argument as to why England will continue to under perform for years to come.

(it's basically because they don't have the networking prowess of the rest of Europe. [being an island] They also are too stubborn and self intitled to make the right decisions when it comes down to it. Don't get me wrong though, I love the English game and would love even more to see you guys win. I just thought this book made a good point.

As stated Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The region played a factor. Focusing on Europe, Europe had easy access of travel due to the Mediterranean sea. In broader view they had the silk road. There is a book called Why Nations Fail. A very interesting read. Out of dozens of examples the book shares, I will point out two that help shape Europe; the first being the story of Hercules and second the Black Death. The story of Hercule enabled a change in thought over the centuries as greek men went to the Olympics trying two win fame and glory for themseleves. The individual. The Black death on the other hand destroyed the working class and enabled a change in the current western system.

Oh no doubt their have been some great minarchist's along the way. Though I would point out that at least in the case of Friedman both subsequent generations have rejected minarchy in favour of Anarcho-Capitalism. The son David Friedman, even went on to write the book on it so to say, "The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism". The grand son Patri Friedman, is head of the Sea Steading Institute, working on building private floating cities at sea. It is true that current politics favour the minarchist over the anarchist since it is easier to fit in. But most definitely a debate for another time.

Everyone should read that book. I have some caveats though. For crowds to be wise, they must have four things:

1. Diversity of opinion: This is very hard in an age of mass mediated talking points. With cable news and the internet, you can get "facts" in any flavor you want.
   
   
2. Independence: People don't let their opinions be determined by those around them. HA!
   
   
3. Decentralization: People can draw on local (not top down/centralized) information.
   
   
4. Aggregation: Private sentiments can be converted into an organized collective judgment.
   
   I'm not saying that crowds can't be wise. They can under ideal conditions. For that to be the case though, the person has to be rational in how they construct their beliefs and all four qualities must be present. Good luck with that.
   
   I'm not trying to debunk a strawman. Surowiecki does say that all these qualities have to be present for the crowd to be wise. As is often the case with big ideas though, this one has taken on a life of its own, to the point where a lot of people think that crowds are always right, regardless of whether the qualities are there or not.

Since you are into equity research. Here are some suggestions.

Write cash protect puts on stocks that you have done the research on. For example if you think Disney is a buy at $105-110. Sell a put for disney with a 35-45% delta 30-45 days out (should be around 105-110 for an Oct monthly. This is imo the most efficient way to collect that sweet sweet theta premium.

Of you can write covered calls on stocks you own. Same idea, 30-45 days out, 35-45% delta.

There two strategies would imo be the safest ones.

There are so many options strategies you can use. You mentioned that stocks rarely move beyond 2SD anyways. But I believe the tail end risk is more than what a normal distribution might suggest, so you definitely don't want to write naked puts and get wiped out. But in a bull market, you can always write monthly put spreads just outside of the 1-2SD monthly expected move depends on your risk appetite.

My favorite strategy back in Feb/March was buying weekly SPX strangles at the 1SD weekly expected move. It was quite profitable when the VIX was high.

edit: another strategy if you want to take advantage vega. Sell an ATM straddle for a stock the week of the earnings, But protect yourself with another strangle a few weeks out when the vega impact is less.

But I would read natenberg first. There are just so many strategies out there, should learn the basics first.

A good way to look at volume is like pressure. Higher volume = higher pressure. Imagine it like pressure in a pipe. Thus if there the price is increasing, on high volume, the momentum is strong, and it takes a lot of pressure to reverse that momentum - and vice versa (price decreasing on increasing volume, you'll often see the floor drop out).

Note that virtually all modern-day trading indicators are based off price and volume. Back in the day (pre-1950's), price and volume were the primary thing traders looked at (in the absence of the 100's of different trading indicators used today).

If you want to learn more about volume and technical analysis, here are one of the best books on the subject:
https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479917231&sr=8-1&keywords=technical+analysis


This is also an awesome book, talking about how a trader in ~1950's used pretty much only price and volume to know what to invest in, an enjoyable read too I'd say (I just noticed the kindle edition is only $1, you should definitely check this book out):
https://www.amazon.com/How-Made-000-Stock-Market/dp/1614271690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479917478&sr=8-1&keywords=how+i+made+2+million+dollars

> Could you stop with the ad hominem?

Can you please stop using ad hominem incorrectly? "means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments. When used inappropriately, it is a fallacy in which a claim or argument is dismissed on the basis of some irrelevant fact or supposition about the author or the person being criticized."

I'm not attacking your character, I called your comparison ignorant, because it is.

> You've missed the point -- the point is that the market can't tell if the egg is broken or not; and behaves the same way for those twenty years until it is put to use (or not in the case of the broken egg).

I didn't miss your point at all. Your thought "experiment" is famously well known as Schrödinger's cat. The thing is, you can't use this paradox in economics. "The problem with Schrödinger's thought experiment is that the scientist doing it has to open up the box to see how the cat has fared. But the act of looking destroys the superposition. The quantum states “decohere” or collapse into one classical state or the other. In other words, whenever you actually look in the box, the cat is always either dead or alive."

You can't assume that simply because a bitcoin is not being used that it will never be used again. There has to be a consensus and way to prove to 100% of a degree that it will never be used again before it truly lowers supply.

> The act of holding is one of NOT spending. And as you seem happy with the idea that spending alters things, then so too, by definition does not spending.

Now, I'll agree that what I'm about to say is debatable, but inflation exists to encourage spending. Without it it's likely economies would collapse. Bottom line, not spending hurts instead of helps.

> Everyone does not do that though. And as I explicitly said -- that wasn't what I was advocating.

This is called Tragedy of the Commons - "an economics theory by Garrett Hardin, individuals acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource."

This is what I'm trying to give light to. Although you may think differently, your actions are in fact contrary to the whole group's long-term best interest.

> What on earth do you think "supply" means? You do understand that supply is a fluid thing, when we talk about supply and demand it is "supply at a particular price".

You are completely crossing supply with market cap. Price is completely irrelevant to supply when trying to analyze overall supply. And what price? Price compared to dollars? To gold? To tulips? It's completely arbitrary.

> I might be willing to sell my services at $100 an hour but not at $10 an hour -- hence, when I withhold my services at $10 an hour, the total supply of that service in the economy at that time is lowered.

This is called Fair market value. You don't set this, the market does. And if you think you do, well, then you're going to go out of business FAST!


> If I am a baker, and I choose not to bake some loaves does that not lower supply?

No, if it never existed in the first place it has no impact on the supply. A thought doesn't affect supply.


>If I am a baker and I choose to bake those loaves, but then throw them away, how is that any different from my not having baked them at all? Supply is lowered.

When you bake them, supply increases, when you throw them away, supply decreases. You may end up with the same total supply as there would have been if you had not baked them at all, but nonetheless, you still affected total supply during the time they existed. How do you not get this??

I don't mean to be argumentative, but I'm done trying to teach Economics 101 to you. None of your arguments have any backing and are completely suggestive. Do yourself a favor and please look at the links hyperlinked in this post and read this book. It will help you greatly.

Life got busy again and i lost track of what was happening in terms of books. You said you read Ron Paul's book, so i thought i might throw out some of the books i enjoyed.

Henry Dent

George Soros

Tom Wood & Ron Paul

They're outdated, but provided some good economic thought behind what has happened and their forecasts. Tom Wood's and Ron Paul's book was interesting, but i'm not sure how relevant it ever was. At best, it served as a warning. Don't get me wrong, i'm a fan of Ron Paul, but the system will never remove the Federal Reserve. Also looks like there's some updated editions out too.

I'm looking at new books as we speak.

>High leverage risky loans from bankers crippled our economy and we are still hurting.

If you're interested in understanding a different perspective on this particular subject, the book Meltdown by Thomas Woods is an excellent resource. I greatly enjoyed it, and I think you might as well.

>it almost sounds like you are in favor of anarchy, which I believe libertarianists don't desire

You might be surprised how many of us r/libertarians are anarcho-capitalists. Don't worry, we don't throw molotov cocktails. If you're interested in learning more, here's a good start on understanding the basic theory.

Take a look at "corporate economics" or "finance" blogs or books.

Another great book that is absolutely amazing is Naked Economics. I highly recommend it. You should buy it but you can find it on the internet easily. It goes into economic concepts first, and then once it tells you although economic concepts are self-evidently powerful, they are misused so many times and result in the fuckups we see everyday.

The issue above is called the Agency Problem. Where agents/managers' incentives do not align with the health of the company. Stock options is a huge culprit of this. Where an exec's bonus pay is tied to the stock's performance.

On What to Read


Here are some suggestions on books and websites:


The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danko - https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474


If You Can by William Bernstein - http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/2books.htm


Free version is here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tj8480ji58j00f/If%20You%20Can.pdf?dl=0


The Investor's Manifesto. Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between by William Bernstein - https://www.amazon.com/Investors-Manifesto-Prosperity-Armageddon-Everything/dp/1118073762


The Bogleheads Guide to Investing - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283


The Coffeehouse Investor - https://www.amazon.com/Coffeehouse-Investor-Wealth-Ignore-Street/dp/0976585707


The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/dp/0470455578


The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William Bernstein - https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio/dp/0071747052/


Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey - https://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-Makeover-Classic-Financial/dp/1595555277


Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson - https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1118117859


Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson - https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119320690/


The Millionaire Real Estate Investor per red-sfplus’s post (can confirm this is excellent) - https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Real-Estate-Investor/dp/0071446370/


For all the M.Ds on here and HNW individuals, you might want to check out https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ and his blog – found it to be very useful.


https://www.irs.gov/ or your government’s tax page. If you’ve been reading, you know that millionaires know more than your average bear about the tax code.


https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/7vohb3/money/


https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3hzcvn/financial_advice_from_a_financier/


https://www.artofmanliness.com/2017/09/22/4-money-tips-4-personal-finance-legends/


Personal Finance Flowchart from their wiki - https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png


Additional Lists of Books:


https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Books:_recommendations_and_reviews


https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/books-4/


Subreddits


https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/


https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ - I would highly encourage you to spend a half hour browsing their wiki - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index and investing advice - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/investing


https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/


https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/


https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/


https://www.reddit.com/r/portfolios/


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/


MRP References


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/40whjy/finally_talked_to_my_wife_about_our_finances_it/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/67nxdu/finances_with_a_sahm/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/488pa0/60_dod_week_6_finances/ (original)


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/6a6712/60_dod_week_6_finances/ (year 2)


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3xw015/how_to_prepare_for_a_talk_about_finances/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/30z704/taking_back_the_finances/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/2uzukg/married_redpill_finances_and_money/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3637q5/some_thoughts_on_mrp_and_finances/


https://www.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/8dwaqt/best_practices_for_finances_within_marriage/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/588e5o/gain_control_of_the_treasury/


Final Thoughts


There are already a lot of high net worth individuals on these subs (if you don’t believe me, look at the OYS for the past few months). This should be a review for most folks. The key points stay the same – have a plan, get out of the hole you are in, have a budget, do the right moves for wealth accumulation. Lead your family in your finances. Own it.


What are YOU doing to own your finances? Give some examples below.

>> if LN or any second layer solution is the preferred scaling method it would take ~8 years for 1Billion users to open just one LN channel, no other commerce happening on chain just opening LN channels
>
>
> In order to make it a fair apples-to-apples comparison, please think about what will happen if these 1Billion users decide to buy their morning coffee using BCH on the same day?
>
>
> I'll tell you. Only these coffee purchases alone will instantly create at least a 220GB backlog in the BCH mempool. Which will take around 48 days (!) to clear with full 32MB blocks. Of course assuming that no other commerce is happening on chain.

• If BTC can only scale on second layers ---> custodial solutions, see - Why is BTC Hard Money and all forks are Shitcoins BTC White Paper 2.0
  
  
  Now what most Core maximalists fail to grasp: I and many others are not against 2nd layers see - the need for 2nd layers Emin Gün Sirer - Scaling Bitcoin x100000: The Next Few Orders of Magnitude we favour letting the system (blocksize) grow as it had been up to 2016 & see where it can get us
  
  
  the fundamental difference
  
  
  
• BTC: 1 Billion entities to be soverign over their own money on 1MB BTC it would take about 8 years for each to get 1 channel open which is clearly unrealistic and so leads to custodial solutions - Hal Finney Bitcoin Backed Banks.
  
  
  
• BCH: Now with only 50MB blocks those same Billion people could put their discretionary spends into a 2nd layer solution once a Month (your math) and perform as many tx's as they like during that month, while still being soverign over their own money.
  
  
  Though we are actully aiming for 1GB blocks, see - jtoomim: My performance target with Blocktorrent is to be able to propagate a 1 GB block in about 5-10 seconds to all nodes in the network that have 100 Mbps connectivity and quad core CPUs. bringing channel opening for 1 Billion people to every other day plus 25% left over for all other "Big Commerce" (your $200 Million transfers.)
  
  
  The BTC future clearly is a custodial one for most people. BCH - jurys still out, I am not even against custodial solutions, I assume a hard money standard would still be a better system than what we currently have.
  
  
  I personally am not 100% convinced either way, Unforkable Ultrahard Money (BTC) or a money that can at this early stage still incorporate the best ideas of the space CTOR etc. eventually forking less and less until it too is unforkable. The latter being the better long term option imo, is the BTC protocol currently optimal? I am hedged either way are you?

AnCap here. I don't speak for all AnCaps anymore than any libertarian speaks for all libertarians. Here's my data point:

Prisons: Law would have to be reformed first. Instead of having a central legal authority we'd have different arbitration businesses who had market incentives to hold up their reputation. All law would become in the fashion of civil law as we now think of it, where enforcement becomes the recognized prerogative of the one who wins the judgement. People too poor to enforce the judgement themselves could sell part of the resulting proceeds to someone who can, or could use a rights enforcement organization to do the work.

This is not dissimilar to how a large number of historical legal systems have worked. I know David Friedman (son of Milton Friedman) is working on a book about systems like these, and his book The Machinery of Freedom has a more in depth explanation.

Prisons might be run by Rights Enforcement Agencies, or perhaps they would be companies that offer to house criminals to protect them from those avenging blood in exchange for the output of their labor. If you murdered someone and were afraid someone would be taking vengeance, you might hire a prison to shelter you while you work for them. How long you stay or how effective those prisons are at eventually helping you rebuild your life and on which terms they offer their services would determine which ones are successful.

Slavery: We catch flak for this? It's wrong. Forcing someone to work for you is wrong, whether it's in the fields, in prisons, or in the bakery.

Immigration and Borders: The only real borders are private property borders. Do immigrants use up social welfare programs? Of course-- you can't live here without interacting with government services and products. Would I do the same thing in their position? Probably. If they saw so much better opportunity here than there I can hardly blame them for doing it. Am I going to try to stop them in order to avoid them taking up social programs? No. Am I going to support social programs? No. By the time we're talking about who does and who doesn't get to cross the national border and participate in state programs, as far as I'm concerned, we've already 'divided by zero' and any solution is just as valid as any other: That is, not at all.

Race Realism: I don't care. There might be some evidence of aggregate differences between people of different genetic lines. I don't have any reason to believe these differences are likely to be larger than the differences between any two arbitrary individuals, so it hardly matters.

Even if it did matter, it's a red herring for the purposes for which it's used. I run my life, and other people run theirs. I should be free to work or not work, sell to or not sell to, buy from or not buy from, any person I please using whatever criteria I please. If I go to an establishment where I know they hate my race and try to order food there, I should expect I'll be refused. If they're forced to serve me anyway, I should expect they'll spit in my food when I'm not looking, and that I'll have more enemies in the process and no more friends than I had when I started. In such a case I'm free to build my own restaurant or patronize one that better values me. These tasks may be harder, but they give me the freedom to make my own destiny instead of depending on someone else to be nice to me, or to be forced to be nice to me.

As long as I'm not attacking or stealing from someone, or coercing someone, it's not an issue. Let people choose how they live their own lives. My expectation is that most racial tensions will eventually go away when we stop trying to either enforce them or force them to go away. Different groups will come up with different solutions, they will trade these solutions, and it will become in everyone's own selfish interest to get to know people from other races in order to profit personally. Then most of the divides will melt away of their own accord, though it may take a long time.

One would be free to ignoring a judgement of a private court, but the consequences would be severe. One might be social ostracism, the vast majority of people would be unwilling to do business with a man who had ignored the judgement of a well respected private court, for both reasons of ethics and more importantly reasons of liability. Another possibility is a writ of outlawry, that is the man in question's legal rights and protections will have been considered forfeited leaving him vulnerable to theft, mob justice, and other undesirable outcomes. There are many intricacies in a system of polycentric law, and I do not pretend to be familiar with all of them. Books like The Machinery of Freedom and For a New Liberty as well as The Ludwig von Mises Institute provide some good information on the topic. If you're curious about historical precedents early Iceland provides a fascinating albeit imperfect example.

I mostly agree with you, of course. But I'm not always sure how to parse through the issue based on historical data.

>In the last 30 years freedom has increased in the developing world and gains are economic gains increasing in the last 30 years in the west freedom has decreased and gains are slowing.

That's likely more to do with what economists call "convergence" (diminishing returns to capital). Also, what we've seen increase in these developing countries over the last 30 years has not been just freedom (not in the voluntaryist/ancap sense of the word); it's been more a shift of better property rights and more inclusive institutions, which is dominated not by lack of government, but more democratic forms of governance and all the public goods via the state that comes with this; a la Acemoglu and Bueno de Mesquita.

So, in other words, what is the relative magnitude of "freedom" as a factor in producing growth and prosperity, as opposed to the natural march and progression of technology and our evolution from bacteria into 4-dimensional beings of light?

Ouch, tough, man. It's always a delicate balance between living in your own bubble (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/03/my_beautiful_bu.html) and making compromises to expand your circle of friends.

As to how to argue more easily, see

http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/success-socratic-style/

This will allow you to exploit the weaknesses in your opponent's arguments more easily.

As to the actual topics mentioned, here's what I have:

1. You need to press him on which ones they are. This book is a good overview of why essentially all government regulations suck:
   
   http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2006/9/monetarypolicy%20winston/20061003
   
   
2. Check out the article I linked above. I apply the Socratic Method to the claim that deregulation caused the Great Recession
   
   
3. To fix this misconception, you need to understand the competitive process:
   
   http://thelibertyhq.org/learn/index.php?articleID=257&parentID=32
   
   Working conditions are just another condition of employment besides wages, and is set by supply and demand. Furthermore, about OSHA - see the book linked in #1. It shows that OSHA has had no statistically significant impact on safety. You could also try http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-handbook-policymakers/1999/9/hb106-34.pdf
   
   On occupational licensing and other licensing, see
   
   http://econjwatch.org/articles/occupational-licensing-scant-treatment-in-labor-texts
   
   http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/06/your_sort_is_pr.html
   
   http://t.co/WQKpPYM8Kw
   
   As well as the book in #1. Summary of all of the above: licensing is useless at best.
   
   
4. This might be a good starting point: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/10/roderick-t-long/corporations-versus-market-or-whip-conflation-now
   
   After that, try http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Conservatism-Reinterpretation-1900-1916/dp/0029166500
   
   The above book is written by a socialist historian who actually argues that competition was alive and kicking during the Guilded Age, and that it was the big corporations which asked government for more regulations to control competition.
   
   
5. He got that big because he was simply good. He lowered prices and increased quality. Claims of predatory pricing are baseless, upon an economic analysis. See my writeup about Standard Oil on the Mises Wiki: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
   
   
6. Start with http://mises.org/daily/2317#1
   
   Also, point out that the actually bad robber barons got big through help from the government.
   
   
7. See #2. Also, read Meldown, by Tom Woods: http://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Free-Market-Collapsed-Government-Bailouts/dp/1596985879
   
   See http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/deregulation-caused-the-financial-crisis/
   
   and http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/did-deregulation-cause-the-financial-crisis/
   
   
8. Well, it wouldn't be just ostracism. The police would still get the money back...
   
   
9. Reasons are mixed, I suppose. I don't know enough about Civil War history. You might want to read DiLorenzo on the issue, though I have also heard from some libertarians that he is sometimes dishonest in how he presents the facts.
   
   
10. The facts speak - real per-student funding has more than doubled in the last 30 years with no impact on scores. If full socialism works in education (as is essentially currently the case, and as your friend suggests would be nice), why not have the entire economy be socialistically planned?
    
    More about education: http://thelibertyhq.org/learn/index.php?listID=9
    
    If you want to see the Socratic Method in action, check out this convo of mine:
    
    http://libertyhq.freeforums.org/socratic-method-in-action-t477.html
    
    But once again, I highly recommend reading my article linked in #1. It's a super helpful debate tactic.
    
    Edit: Screw automatic fixing of numbering.

Reactionary Thought

Chartism – Thomas Carlyle
Latter-Day Pamphlets – Thomas Carlyle

The Bow of Ulysses – James Anthony Froude
Popular Government – Henry Summers Maine

Shooting Niagara – Carlyle
The Occasional Discourse – Carlyle
On Heroes, Hero Worship & the Heroic in History – Carlyle

The Handbook of Traditional Living – Raido
Men Among the Ruins – Julius Evola
Ride the Tiger – Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World – Julius Evola

Reflections of a Russian Statesman – Konstantin Pobedonostsev
Popular Government – Henry Maine
Patriarcha (the Natural Power of Kings) – Sir Robert Filmer
Decline of the West – Oswald Spengler
Hour of Decision – Oswald Spengler
On Power – Jouvenel
Against Democracy and Equality – Tomislav Sunic
New Culture, New Right – Michael O’Meara
Why We Fight – Guillaume Faye
The Rising Tide of Color – Lothrop Stoddard
Liberty or Equality – Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Democracy: The God that Failed – Hans-Hermann Hoppe

****

Economics

Economics in One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt
Basic Economics – Thomas Sowell
That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen – Frederic Bastiat***
Man, Economy, and State – Murray Rothbard
Human Action – Ludwig von Mises

****

​

If anyone else finds this area as fascinating as I do, I would strongly recommend Marc Levinson's excellent book: The Box. It's a well-written, comprehensive history of the shipping container and it's unbelievably massive impact on the world economy. As you might expect, everything in this video is covered in much greater depth in the book. I would bet the video was made by someone who read The Box, found it interested, and wanted to repeat what they'd just learned to a wider audience.

My girlfriend recently got her masters degree in sociology, and her thesis was about different types of polls and how they affect outcomes. It turns out that the differences between internet, written (snailmail) and telephone polls is not just slight, it's enormous. Of course, it's because you're tapping into different demographics. Remember who everbody in the internets was full of disbelief when noone actually voted for Ron Paul?

A better predictor for elections is probably a prediction market ('the wisdom of crowds' is an interesting read). Take a look at intrade. Over 60% of the 'investors' there predicts a win for Obama. Not only that, it seems that the Democrats were set for a win from the start, regardless of Clinton or Obama, although the grap has widened.

Omg you've moved again revealed your profound ignorance. Are you capable of reading? That quote regarding supply effects was referring to earned income rather than capital gains. Cmon at least read if your going to try to pull a gotcha.

Your land isn't being taxed, the property on your land is what is taxed. It's an important distinction and no I shouldn't have to explain basic economic terminology to you. If you deem yourself qualified to comment on economic policy you should have at least an intermediate level understanding of microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis. I'm not going to spoon feed you.

I like how you didn't address the border adjustment tax as I linked. It is very much like a VAT tax, just sold under a different name. Please read before commenting.

I have no reason to entertain beginners mistakes. You went into this discussion in bad faith. I've caught you several times being unaware of economic concepts that even undergrads know. You've been spouting talking points hoping for them to stick. You're the reason the economic discourse in this country had dropped to the level of Donald Trump.

When I was an undergraduate, then had us read a very straightforward book that doesn't require any knowledge of advanced mathematics. It conveys the complex models underpinning economics in a very digestible format. I hope you abstain from commenting on matters of economic policy until you've acquired a bare minimum understanding. The political discourse in this country is abysmal and lacks rigor. I hope you decide to take steps to buck the trend that you're clearly contributing to.

https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Science-Revised/dp/0393337642

Trading and Exchanges

Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives

Option Volatility & Pricing

Option Market Making

Trading Spreads and Seasonals

Algorithmic Trading and DMA

There are more advanced and quantitative resources out there but you will need to wrap your head around these concepts before you go further. I should mention that reading these things won't guarantee to make you a profitable trader but you will "get a better understanding of the field."

Online resources:

Investopedia

Elitetrader (most popular trading forum, lots of posters... mostly bad)

Nuclearphynance (smaller but more advanced community)

Bingo. I would like to add that people are not as simple as they tend to think they are. So some conditioning you apply to your self may not work as well as you think.

Willpower:Rediscovering Greatest Human Strength had an interesting example of this in it. It mentioned that when people were dieting and trying to resist the temptation of lets say a cookie it was easier for them to say "I'll have a cookie later. I don't need that one now" and never have it then for them to say "I am not going to eat that cookie".

More on this can be found in the book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. The author of that is a professor who will be teaching a FREE online class on the subject A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior. Also the blog You are not so smart tends to be a good read as well.

There is a readme that describes the mechanics of how Etheropt works, but it sounds like you want to learn more about options in general. The classic options book is Natenberg, and having read it cover to cover I do recommend it. For a quicker introduction, the Investopedia guides are pretty good.

I don't think "everything needs to be centralized." If people want to live in the suburbs or rural areas, good for them!

But cities are really awesome and really useful. The state officeworkers probably want some places to eat. This location is literally across the street from a sandwich shop. In addition, there are dozens of other food options within a mile or so. Because there's a big cluster of people working, people have to travel less far to get lunch and they have a wider variety of options.

All the people who work there would probably like to live nearby where they work. But so would the people who work at the lunch places, and they'd both like to live near where their kids go to school, and their church, etc. If they were far outside the city, at least some of things they'd want would be very far away and harder to access.

I could go on and on, but if you're interested, I suggest reading the very short Gated City by Ryan Avent about the economic benefits of cities or much longer (and more boring) Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser.

That's a good question. I believe the answer is split in two parts.

Optimism. I consider myself a rational optimist. I know that things can go very bad (and often times they do), but research in neuroscience suggests over and over that the way we look at the world influences greatly the outcome of our actions and that of the people around us. This of course has nothing to do with any quantum-woo bullshit, it's simply a recognition that if you feel hopeless, scared, and defeated, you are less likely to come up with solutions to whatever problem you are facing than when you are open to the possibilities.

Also, we are objectively getting better at most everything (see the book of my good friend Peter Diamandis Abundance, the Future is Better Than You Think): better health, less violence, fever wars, etc. This is an often overlooked and underplayed fact by the pessimists and by the environmentalist community. However, there are two things that are getting progressively worse: wealth inequality and environmental degradation. This is an often overlooked and underplayed fact by the techno-optimists and by the Singularity crowd. I stand right in the middle, I see the opportunities, as well as the perils, and I try to think of solutions accordingly.

Achievement. I honestly have no way of knowing if humanity will achieve the goals that I propose. All I can do is strive to make it happen, and inspire others to do the same. Since it's not an impossible goal, merely a very difficult one, it's not a delusional state of mind. It's simply a rational optimist approach. By having this attitude I'm increasing the probability of achieving the goal, and even if I contribute to a mere 1 part in 10 thousand, the collective effort of others like me has more chances of succeeding.

• Open the Roth and fund it for last year and this year, don't miss the deadline, get the money in there...if you ever need the principal you can pull it back without penalty.
  
• Next read this: The Four Pillars of Investing and allocate your funds and build a plan to ensure you will have enough money for retirement.
  
• you have a unique opportunity to create a lot of wealth. once you create your plan use the extra to have fun or invest in real estate or whatever else.

2. Works out the exact same way. If you are short a contract, you have the obligation to deliver whatever X is settled in. You must effectively buy back your contract. This is why the phrases "buy to open" and "buy to close" are important.
   
   
3. Physically settling futures and BTC futures all have a time component to what the contract is worth. What cash or commodity moves hands, as well as mark to market is how price is displayed, not how value is calculated.
   
   Essentially, the money value of time is baked into futures contracts. That's why futures that are further out in time are always worth more. You seem to not understand basic pricing models regarding futures if I'm reading your comments correctly, and prices of the underlying and arb opportunities won't yield any interesting conversation if you don't understand the basics first.
   
   EDIT: Here's a great book for options, and the first part of understanding options is understanding future contracts. As such, it's in the first couple of chapters, a long with exact formulas on why the prices are the way they are, regardless of what is being traded.

> Wat, the whole point of Cuba is that no one dies of poverty and starvation, everyone has a right to a home, food, schooling and medical treatment, no matter which medical treatment (changing sex is free too for example, if you were born with the wrong one for your gender). And all of this with an embargo (lifted recently, thankfully) that hindered its imports considerably; can the same be said for the US, for example?

This has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism. Capitalist states often have the same social programs, but they have well made economic policy that can generate the wealth to sustain it without forcing everyone into poverty (see Denmark, Canada, Australia, etc)

>Which has been fine until they decided to specialise too much in a single good (oil) which has many shocks in price, more of an incompetence problem than a structural one.

Venezuela was only doing "fine" because they were filthy rich from oil. When shit hit the fan they had no way to mitigate it. So instead they hire idiots who claim inflation is a capitalist conspiracy. Compare them to singapore which didn't have said luxury of ridiculous wealth under their land.

>I'm a huge critic of both Stalin and Mao (more of the former), but it must be clarified that

>1) The numbers are hugely inflated

The numbers are not inflated. Are they misleadingly thrown around? Yea. It wasn't murder, it was just the end result of elementary economic policy.

>2) It is true that capitalism and imperialism kill more, and they kill innocents.

Imperialism is entirely separate from capitalism (mercantilist nations relied on it the most), and are you really fucking implying USSR / PRC didn't kill innocents what the fuck.

>The richest countries are capitalist, it's easy for them to trick you into thinking that it's because "their system is superior" but it's actually because they exploit their workers and workers in other countries, which work in inhumane conditions to create their richness.

Read a book


Exploitation tends to harm the imperialist nations, and nations become wealthiest by providing the means to success to all their citizens. It just so happens that private property and free enterprise does this the best.

>Funny, because this description fits both neoliberalism and anarchism pretty well, but if you think that this describes Marxism, I think you should study a bit of Marxism, and not from memes.

Marxism is a meme. That's why it will never be taken seriously by people outside of New School or UMass (besides internet memers and autocrats), sorry son.

u/TheGreatMuffin gave you golden advice. you need a solid philosophical foundation of what bitcoin is - otherwise you'll get rekted by the price and fud.


start with andreas antonopoulos - watch every single video no matter how old they are or how long they are because all of the info is relevant to today. the q&a after his talks are sometimes even more valuable than his lecture.


then for a deep dive visit jameson's site to get into detail about what andreas talked about. andreas also has a couple of books:

https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Money-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos/dp/194791006X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540574615&sr=1-2&keywords=internet+of+money&dpID=4137Zf9hIaL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Programming-Open-Blockchain/dp/1491954388/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540574648&sr=1-1&keywords=mastering+bitcoin&dpID=51nnYGq964L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

​

also check out saifdean ammous' book: https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Standard-Decentralized-Alternative-Central/dp/1119473861


very easy read and a clear explanation to the economic significance of bitcoin. good luck.

There is nothing I said by which you can infer I was a neoliberal; further, as I pointed out, Bush and Clinton are both neoliberal in governing ideology, so that's really the angle you wanted to hit on how they're the same.

Looking through your post history, it looks like you quite like the term. If that's the case, might I recommend either Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism or Peck's Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Of the two, I prefer Harvey. You might also look into Foucault's lectures on biopolitics, he traces neoliberal thought back through the ordoliberals in Germany.

To be clear, I'm not condescending here, if you are actually interested in these ideas, I really do want you to take them up and if you already have, perhaps we could discuss why you think pointing out the previous presidents support Clinton makes one a neoliberal...

I believe (more) socialism is inevitable - both these books:
"Abundance" http://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/1451614217/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333393736&sr=1-1

and
"Race Against the Machine" http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Machine-Accelerating-Productivity/dp/0984725113/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333393762&sr=1-1

talk about us being in the 2nd half of the exponential curve for computer power, doubling every 2 years (Moore's Law). Both are great books for recommended reading. Neither book really addresses how capitalism is going to create jobs for the millions no longer needed to work - how will many/most people be able to afford the "abundance"?

The most exciting and amazing example is Google now test-operating autonomous cars on city streets. This isn't sci-fi or where we'll be in 100 years. It's now. Within the next 15 years autonomous cars are going to be reducing/eliminating the need for 4 million people who earn their living by driving...and there's not going to be 4 million new jobs created in high-tech or any other place because of autonomous cars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE&feature=player_embedded

The "boy crying wolf" of automation replacing humans has been going on since the early 1800s. But as "Race Against the Machine" points out, we're now in the "2nd half" where it's becoming generally accepted that computers now are in net eliminating human jobs.

I don't have any other answers other than "socialism" - or "capitalism that works for everyone".

I worked at the CME in Chicago as a broker and the books the guys told me to get when I first started were Options Pricing and Volitility and Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets. Learn options is the best advice, you will get WAY more return for your buck plus learn to protect yourself in your various positions using various strategies.

Very dry reading but its worth it. Good luck!

Hi, I sell books on Amazon. Those littlefreelibrary's are mainly full of what we call "penny books", which you can get essentially for free at garage/estate sales. So nobody cares when people just walk away with them. Let's take one of the #1 Anarcho-Capitalist books "Machinery for Freedom" as an example:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Machinery-Freedom-Radical-Capitalism/dp/0812690699

With shipping, the book costs roughly $15 to purchase. Now let's assume that half of the random people on the street who were to pick it up (a very generous estimate) were converted to Anarcho-Capitalism on the spot. Are you really willing to pay $30+ per person converted to the ideology? I wouldn't be, personally. I would think that just talking to people would prove to be a more viable option.

Hopefully OP is still checking in on this thread.

You'll need to start with the basics by registering for 100 level courses at your school whether or not you're already familiar with the subject, so Intro to Microecon, Macroecon and International Economics would be a start.

If you'd like to do some independent reading (which I personally recommend), here is the recommended reading list from /r/Economics. Their wiki lists books by increasing difficulty starting form the basics.

I'd also like to throw in some non textbooks I've read (and are reading) that helped me get an understanding of important fundamentals and obtain an idea of how economists think.
Both of these authors do a great job of grabbing the reader with their outlandish and interesting examples to explain various theories.

Freakonomics - Steven Levitt
Naked Economics - Charles Wheelan

First, you didn't answer my question. Do you think private reinvestment of a portion of their profits is more beneficial to the communities in which they operate than simple using that money for increased wages, pensions and benefits?

>>If efficiency comes at the cost of less wages, later retirements, shorter and closer-to-home vacations, and so on - what is the point? How does it benefit us?

>Is this a result of efficiency or a result of globalization? If globalization is reducing poverty in the developing world at the cost of making people in the rich world poorer, is that OK?

It's clearly a result of this quest for faux-efficiency. We've whittled down unions, stagnated in mandating vacation time and minimum wage increases, privatized a fair amount of the public sector and refused to nationalize some other ones. Globalization and free trade can be blamed for many things, but they are simply manifestations of the expansion of private businesses ability to undermine comprehensive labour and trade laws.

I also don't think that globalization helps poorer nations. I suggest these books, or if you aren't so inclined, at least this talk.

David Harvey's notes on capital are really helpful and provide references to relevant texts by Marx and other theorists for understanding Capital. When I last checked, Harvey's notes were available for Capital vols. 1 and 2. The lectures are available via podcast (I like listening while I'm on the move) or they can be viewed on YouTube. These are free lectures so can't do much better for understanding Capital apart from the lack of interaction.

A copy of the book based on the lectures is also helpful. And there are also various sources other than Amazon for this (and other books)...

Besides Harvey, I find Prof. Ha-Joon Chang to be a great source of introductions to "other" schools of thought. The recent Economics User's Guide is a decent place to start for basic economics, but Bad Samaritans is great for challenging the hegemony of neoliberal approaches to developmental economics. These are both available in audiobook form so the information can be received as if by lecture.

I'm not going to discuss this with someone who hasn't done basic readings on the topic because it can be pretty laborious and it's such a radical idea as to put a lot of people off.

I will however point you into the direction of Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman if you'd like to learn more. It dispels a lot of common misconceptions about this type of ideology and has direct responses to some claims you've made in your post.

Good luck, friend.

Buy and read these books (first):

Bogle on Mutual Funds https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/111908833X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Bogleheads Guide to Investing
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118921283/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The Four Pillars of Investing
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071747052/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

After reading those, download Robinhood and put $100 in (no more) and play around for like 6 months before even thinking about trying to play with larger amounts.

-- OR - skip Robinhood and download "Betterment" and just slowly put money in there and build some wealth.

Happy Learning.

I don’t know how I knew. Maybe you have a youthful and optimistic writing voice.

I’m 37, and I actually manage money for a living as an RIA (registered investment advisor). If you’re unsure about a career for yourself, I’d highly recommend it. Someone only 20 years old with your expertise would have no trouble getting into the business and be very successful.

Using Bitcoin or any hard currency as opposed to fiat adds immeasurable value to society. Read “The Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous and your perspective will be expanded

https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Standard-Decentralized-Alternative-Central/dp/1119473861 and buy

And get a copy of the reference tome: Options as a Strategic Investment

https://www.amazon.com/Options-as-Strategic-Investment-Fifth/dp/0735204659

And your investment game will be better than most advisors by the time you’re 22. That’s the best advice I can give👊

I love this topic.

I highly suggest reading The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. He goes deep into the special abilities of crowds, what factors are needed to make a "smart crowd", the different types of problems crowds can solve, and the limitations of crowds.

Also highly recommend The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon. It was published in 1896 and has a much more pessimistic view of the crowd, which I attribute to the lack of technology at the time.

I've heard this argument before, and the nothing backing it really makes no sense. I initially thought the same thing. What it represents is a transfer of value. Understanding the history of "currency" from Rai stones to jewels to precious metals on to government based fiat really explains the value in this.

If you care to see why crypto currency makes sense, I would strongly suggest reading The Bitcoin Standard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119473861?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Find the class which focuses on [system engineering/design](
http://web.mit.edu/6.033/www/) and take it slightly earlier in your undergrad career than you otherwise would. Spend time learning to communicate complex technical concepts clearly. If you find yourself interested in an area of system design like databases, networks, security, UI, etc then deep-dive into that.

In parallel with this, learn economic and technical history. Read Business Adventures and also be on the lookout for industries you might find interesting like container shipping

Nothing about the work itself was really all that interesting - we wrote pretty bog standard fleet management, revenue management, and data warehousing software. I do basically the same things now, but for the rental car industry, there are a lot of parallels. What was interesting about this job specifically was learning the history and seeing how much work goes into managing a fleet of millions of containers, which we produced in-house for quality control purposes. It wasn't something I'd ever really thought about before.

I always enjoy learning more about stuff that's normally taken for granted - without intermodal shipping, we wouldn't have the global economy. This book was really eye opening. Malcolm McLean was one of the biggest innovators in the history of the transportation industry.

I'll be wrapping up a B.S. in Economics with a minor in statistics this December.

Books:

• One of the best books that I've found is The Armchair Economist by Stephen Landsburg. It's very low tech. which makes it very accessible with respect to the rest of the subject.
  
• I've heard good things about both Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science and New Ideas from Dead Economists
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Armchair-Economist-Economics-Everyday/dp/1451651732/ref=pd_sim_b_2
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Science-Revised/dp/0393337642/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
  
• http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction/dp/0452288444/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
  
• You can get all three of these in a "bundle deal", and this is a great starting point written in laymen's terms.
  
  
  I also highly recommend the Open Course series to develop the fundamental skillset. You can generally get these texts cheap:
  
  
• Intro Micro/Macro: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/
  
• Money and Banking: http://www.virtualprofessors.com/financial-markets-yale-shiller (Shiller is a very famous financial economist)
  
• As always, the Khan Academy is a great intro resource http://www.khanacademy.org/#microeconomics
  
  
  Blogs are also okay, but be wary of partisan biases. These are what I check daily:
  
  
• Krugman (Left wing biased) - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
  
• Cowen/Tabarrok (Libertarian biased) - http://marginalrevolution.com/
  
• Scott Sumner (NGDP Targeting biased) - http://www.themoneyillusion.com/ (possibly my favorite)
  
• Greg Mankiw (GOP biased) - http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/
  
• Karl Smith/Ozimeck (Interesting) - http://blogs.forbes.com/modeledbehavior/
  
• Jodie Beggs (Interesting) - http://www.economistsdoitwithmodels.com/
  
• Becker/Posner (Law and Econ) - http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
  
• Brad Delong runs a famous blog, and there is never a shortage of highly qualified economists willing to tell you what they think you should believe.
  
  
  
  Ultimately when it comes to econ, there's no perfect substitute for a set of intro micro/macro texts and a university framework. This is contrary to what most pundits/americans seem to believe (seemingly everyone has strong opinions on issues best-explored in an economic framework, no matter how little they've studied it). Also, it's important to note that 98% of what's posted on this subreddit is NOT what economists are talking about. This subreddit is full of news links to stories that promote partisan agendas.
  
  
  
  I'll also warn you that any legitimate study of economics requires a decent handle on math. Through at least half the calc sequence. "Good economists are reborn as physicists, mediocre economists are reborn as psychologists, and bad economists are reborn as sociologists."

Asset Class|Target %|Ticker

---|:--:|:--:
US Total Stock Market| 19.2%|VTI
US Small Value|12.8%|VBR
US REITs|8%|VNQ
Int. Pacific|8%|VPL
Int. Europe|8%|VGK
Int. Value|16%|VSS
Int. Emerging Mkts.|8%|VWO
Fixed Income|20%|VARIOUS

****

My glide-path is to add 1% in fixed-income every year until it reaches 40%-50%, at which time the allocation will remain constant.

Rebalancing is done with new money (when possible). 5/25 banding is in use; i.e., if an asset class is meant to comprise < 20% of the portfolio, then the tolerance is +-25% (relative percentage) of the desired %. If the asset class is meant to comprise >= 20% of the portfolio, then the tolerance is +-5% (absolute percentage) of the desired %. (Credit for technique goes to Larry Swedroe).

Influences on my portfolio:

Bogleheads Forum

William Berstein's The Four Pillars of Investing

Rick Ferri's All About Asset Allocation

FundAdvice's Ultimate Buy and Hold

Trev H's Ultimate Buy and Hold Redux

//EDIT: Table format

Can I convince you the future will be perfect? no.
Are all of your concerns legitimate? Absolutely.

However, as NewFuturist said, this is only the latest in a long line of periods in which people thought that the world was ending. While there is a sort of deep, visceral sense that our problems are more serious than those in other times, we must examine that belief to see if its really true. Personally, although I do believe that humanity is facing its most difficult period ever, we also have the most amazing tools to defeat it.

If I could recommend one book to read to convince you that we at least have a shot, please read Abundance by Peter Diamandis. It is a wonderful book that breaks down the challenges that humanity faces one by one. You can see that there is significant progress being made in all of the areas where humanity is in trouble. We can't know for sure if we're going to make it. But personally, I believe its a very real possibility. That's why I've decided to make a career out of this stuff.

Step 1: Watch this

http://vimeo.com/34984088

Step 2: Read this

http://www.amazon.com/Abundance-Future-Better-Than-Think/dp/1451614217

Step 3: Post here. Tell me what you thought.

I enjoyed "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely, and am currently loving "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki. Behavioral Economics is fascinating.

This response ignores the fact that cities are not made up of buildings, cities are made up of people. While interstates helped create suburban sprawl (which isn't of itself a bad thing), they also lead to huge innovation in supply chain management which has led to much cheaper consumer products. Cheaper goods act as an income boost to everyone. Offsetting the large cost of investment. Triumph of the city by Edward Glaeser is a good read if you're interested about this sort of stuff

>The reason we need a government is to regulate and control those who absolutely require it. If you did not figure that in 2008.

If you think greed and a lack of regulation caused the crash in 2008, you have not been paying attention.

The crash was caused BY government regulation.

Everyone is greedy. The whole point of capitalism is to channel greed into productive uses.

Government is the one that redirects it into disaster and gets in the way of the normal market forces that punish those who are not serving the greater good. Think about it:

The market reacts rationally to the dot-com slump by reducing spending to replenish savings (government also had a leading hand in the dot-com bubble but that's a separate discussion). Savings rates reached a 17-year high. Alan Greenspan decides that saving money is destructive because consumer spending supposedly drives economic prosperity and we need more consumer spending to get out of the dot-com slump. So he pushes interest rates down quarter after quarter. Government makes mortgage interest (a result of spending) a tax deduction while taxing interest on savings and capital gains, furthering the century-long goal of America's central economic planners of punishing savings and rewarding spending, which they wrongly view as the "engine" of economic growth. They ensure anyone trying to save dollars loses out via inflation, pushing even the more conservative savers and investors to jump back into the economy despite being uncomfortable with their capital levels. Fannie and Freddie make it possible for virtually ANYONE to get a home mortgage.

Who's irresponsible? The banks who make financial trades based on the government's rules, or the government who makes the crazy rules that are not based in reality and are ACTIVELY TARGETED at doing things that don't lead to a REAL healthy economy (like making sure investment comes from capital instead of debt, making sure overvalued assets are allowed to correct, allowing bad investors to lose their capital)?

The problem is you say you want "more" regulation -- you have to realize that Fannie, Freddie, Community Reinvestment Act, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, these are ALL regulations. And if you think the problem is we didn't have ENOUGH regulations, I'm honestly afraid of what would have happened if we had any more regulations like those.

If you want to read a great book that challenges your view of who's fault the 2008 crash was, check out Tom Woods' very accessible book "Meltdown". Seriously, you'll thank me later.

>So where are they or their civilizations today?

Lehite successor states were ground to pieces by a combination of disease epidemic, climate change, and European aggression like the rest of America's endemic nations.

If you haven't read them, I highly recommend 1491 and 1493.

>Where were they when they were at their peak?

That's a great question that is not answered by modern revelation. John Clark thinks Joseph Smith believed that Book of Mormon events occurred around the Yucatan peninsula. I agree with him but I'm happy to cede ground if future evidences don't support that.

> Based on DNA and archaeology, it's a tough case, no?

Not really. This is an article you may (or may not) enjoy:

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng

I found that its cautions were very prescient.

I cringe every time I say this because, being married and gay myself, the author has some fairly horrific social beliefs on equality for people like me. If you read his other writings (he's prolific) please do not attribute them to me or think I support them in any way. The guy would be perfectly happy to rip my family apart and have us enjoy limited protections under the law.

That said, I believe in being impartial and judging people by the quality of their work. Professionally, he wrote what is simply the best introductory topic for the layperson who wants a real-world understanding of the fundamental laws of economics and how they influence day-to-day life. It's called Basic Economics by economist Thomas Sowell. It is the book I gave members of my own family when they reached adulthood and took an interest in what I do.

Read it. It will be one of the few things that can pay dividends for the rest of your life. You'll end up with at least a freshman or sophomore level understanding of college economics in terms of the big ideas; the things that matter. Just as importantly, you'll know enough to be able to research topics that interest you further and that seem counterintuitive (e.g., understanding why economists hate rent control because it always leads to worse housing conditions and out-of-control housing costs for the poor and working class due to manipulation in the supply/demand curve.). It's far easier to get through than a textbook and will give you a lot to consider.

As for tax policy, not off the top of my head. I think the big thing is to get the fundamental economic ideas right because then you can at least understand how your stated goals relate to tax policy which involve, to some degree, moral decisions about fairness. When you get into tax policy, it's more about numbers; learning to analyze the data yourself to decide whether you are being manipulated.

You make excellent points. In-group boundaries can indeed align with cultural experience, and we cannot discount the importance of past experiences - especially for groups that have been the victims of persecution, for example.

However, I think it is a testament to the larger project of human civilization that we can transcend our own personal experiences and use a more abstract form of compassion and empathy to inform policy, law, planning, and our collective efforts to structure and govern society. For example, even in the aftermath of the Holocaust following World War II, the international Jewish community made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of the humanist project worldwide. If ever there were a time when an in-group might have justification to demonize out-groups as "the enemy" that was it. And yet a broader, more abstract compassion arose as a guiding ideal. So I don't agree that hardship and persecution necessarily lends itself to a cynical view of "foolish empathy" as you phrased it.

Having said that, there is undoubtedly a tension among values like self-preservation and magnanimity, and I would never suggest that simply expanding one's sphere of empathy and the broadening of how an individual defines his or her self-interest flatly negates the reality of these types of tension. But these finer details are not an area for speculation or conjecture. Instead, this is a place where science can get to work trying to reveal what is actually going on. Jonathan Heidt has done some interesting cross-cultural research on political orientation, and so I would start by looking at his work.

As for the question of how cultures change with shifting economic, environmental, and geopolitical circumstances, there is a large and growing scientific literature that is trying to us give some answers. The disciplines where I have seen the most work along these lines are cultural anthropology and geography. There are some wonderful popular books on these topics, and I would recommend Charles C. Mann's 1491 and 1493 in particular.

Just read this:

http://jim.com/econ/

This is the famous "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt. It is still the best introduction to economics that exists, and it's easy to understand.

If you're interested in more, you can try this:

http://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Free-Market-Collapsed-Government-Bailouts/dp/1596985879

which is also easy to understand. Or this:

http://mises.org/books/mespm.pdf

which is a more systematic treatise.

• Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt
  
  
• The Law, by Frederic Bastiat
  
  
• A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
  
  
• Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises
  
  
• The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard
  
  
• The Free Market Reader: Essay in the Economics of Liberty, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, ed.
  
  
• Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman
  
  
• Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
  
  
• The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
  
  
• The Constitution of Liberty, by F. A. Hayek
  
  
• Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, by Thomas Sowell
  
  
• Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville
  
  
• Anthem, by Ayn Rand
  
  
• A Nation of Sheep, by Andrew P. Napolitano
  
  
• Meltdown, by Thomas E. Woods
  
  
• Liberalism, by Ludwig von Mises
  
  
• A Foreign Policy of Freedom, by Ron Paul
  
  
• Rules for Radicals, by Saul Salinsky
  
  
• Blowback, by Chalmers Johnson
  
  
• Liberty Defined, by Ron Paul
  
  
• With Liberty and Justice for Some, by Glenn Greenwald
  
  
• We Who Dared to Say No to War, by Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods, Eds.

yeah there is a chapter on this role/line of thinking in a good book called [Soccernomics] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584253) it's basically about having someone or a team of people at your club that works with forgone players to help them feel at home/comfortable at and around your club quickly so they bed in and feel at ease. They talk about these people helping them find apartments, getting them a cell phone, and finding restaurants and such that make them feel comfortable. I suspect that Joel is one of those people at Tottenham.

I get what you mean but there is potential though.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Wisdom-Crowds-James-Surowiecki/dp/0385721706?tag=w050b-20

>Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

It's not always "right" but overall mostly not "wrong".

'Replace' Gold as currency standard? Afaik Gold and USD were decoupled under Nixon since 1971. But a reintroduction this time using bitcoin... that'd be great.

That's also what Saifedean Ammous is talking about in his "The Bitcoin Standard".

It's a great piece of work! Everybody interested in bitcoin should have a look into it!