What the World Needs Now is Real Wealth
Not another Bill Gates or Jackie Ma, or Elon Musk or other titan on global financial fields, but a wealth that begins in the minds and spirits of all of us Would it be good to have enough to eat and enough to wear and a home to own without worrying about tomorrow? There has been a lot said about cryptocurrencies in 2021. The reader will have the advantage of hindsight, but his is what I see.
There will be a squeeze on cryptocurrencies. There is so much at stake with the invested power centers of national banks to tolerate them much longer. However, if they survive and thrive I think they possess some amazing opportunities for creating wealth, particularly in the third world and among the poor. The wealthy have realized the wealth potentials and have quickly run in to pluck the low-hanging fruit, but over the long run if a poor man can learn how, this offers an amazingly efficient way to create wealth that could break the back of poverty.
If I could have my way in government, I would institute a 4 day a month training for everyone who collects social welfare benefits. It would start on a voluntary basis, and maybe move into a requirement. In this place, I would set up a way of inculcating a wealth mentality in the minds of the poor. Everyone would learn to balance a cheque book, to start a business, create income streams, and learn to be satisfied by the income they earn. People with this training could earn income on top of their welfare checks tax free to 150,000.00. With no cutbacks until income exceeds 100k, and then reduced by degree to 150k. Similar training could be offered to the working poor, who earn under 75k per annum.
Some worry, wouldn't this create inflation by putting too much disposable income in the hands of the poor? Not if the program is able to establish investment guidelines where money is set aside in relatively untouchable accounts like RRSPs, TFSAs. REITS and other investment vehicles as opposed to being funneled into consumption exclusively.
Currently with Government spending in trillions of dollars, runaway inflation is coming like a freight train at full speed. When its far away you can see it coming, as it approaches you can hear the horn blasting, but when it passing you and the ground is rumbling and terror of the noise is discomfiting--then you know it is upon ou without doubt.
A story is told, and many of us have heard it before:
A little boy with great glee runs across a field collecting grasshoppers.
He bends down to cup on in his hands and it leaps and flies away. He chases it but as he does there in front of him two more fly away in opposite directions. After seemingly hours of fun and frivolity, he has several. He has put them in a box and collected grasses and dandelions for them to eat. He learns quickly has to be very careful as he lifts the flaps of his box to make sure they have everything they need before going to bed. The next day, after lunch he remembers his treasures and the fun he had, so he decides to release them, maybe to play tag again. Only he finds they don't fly out as soon as he lifts the lid, he has to dump them on the ground. And those grasshoppers don't fly away and leap dozens of feet with a single bound, but rather they crawl around and he has to coax them to jump at all.
So it is with human societies. Made to leap and climb and joy over every gift, we have found ourselves living in a box. Most of us are as unaware of our confines as an insect, but we learn early there are limits we are born to. We learn them inately. We learn them without thinking. The grasshoppers learned that they could not jump and fly--it only took a few attempts. And so, although they were free they continued to live in a box.
This can be seen everywhere in the world. So often it is obvious when we look abroad and see other's prejudice and hatred. We see other's hypocrisy. Others oppressions--others ineptitude and malaise, but we are oblivious to our own.
I believe in the human spirit is a desire to live limitless lives. Where does it come from? God, the unlimited Spirit? Do we have the minds of our Maker, as GK Chesterton suggested? Do we have Eternity in our hearts? Maybe, but are we open even to the possibility?
The Mystery of Virtual Economies and Online Social Networks.
In the disclaimer on a social network, it is stated, that credits purchased have no monetary value. So what that is saying is that a customer gives money and gets nothing in return. And with nothing purchases a right to read and write a letter, view a picture or a video. Which have no value. It costs the company nothing more to give a customer 100 credits or 1000. What it buys is customer satisfaction. A satisfied customer give the enterprise money for nothing. An unhappy customer does not. Make customers happy, make money for nothing.
1/2 of Bitcoin Miners move to Kazakhstan from China
So Bitcoin faces a real test. A major economy moves against in on several levels. China has announced it is going to produce its own digital currency. Fine, that makes sense. Sovereign fiats face a real threat. A totalitarian society can't risk losing control so it offers a competing product then outlaws the competition. The world is reminded that China is not really a capitalist system, lo and behold are we surprised it moves to further establish its close-fisted approach to the markets. Surely not.
It will be interesting. No doubt China will be dumping any crypto reserves or will have done so already. So there is downward pressure on the Currency... JPM and others announce Bitcoin in a portfolio is rat poison. No doubt they have been playing the squeeze taking short positions as well. In a depressed market the smart money is going short--surprise surprise. What is their real risk? That they can't dump their shorts and go long when the next buying opportunity presents? No, they will be the first out. The first to flip thier positons Then instead of crying "Rat Poison", they will just pat themselves on the back for their brilliant marketing strategy.
But now all these BitCoin Miners will be in Kazakhstan. Hardly tthe bastion of the freemarket, no doubt Kaz has made some deal to provide power at very competitive rates. Congratulations. I do sympathize with the citizens of Kaz. No doubt they will be subsidizing the crypto industry--already in a squeeze. Without having a significant portion of its citizenry prepared to take advantage of sophisticated opportunity to profit from the upheaval.
Would that there were. Would that there were many educated investors in the 3rd world, because cryptocurrency offers real hope to peasant and king alike.
The comment was made in refuting my assertions:
"You have it here reliable source from NASA climate about sea level rise, it is not 1mm but 3.3 mm. 1mm was before 1900 year. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ Also you have huge fossil fuel lobby interest and funding for faking climate science and to saw distrust and denial into climate science and climate scientists. Just put it on paper how much you pay every month for heating in winter, transportation and electricity, almost all comes from burning coal, oil and gas, 85% of it."
It is a common accusation the fuel lobby is behind the rise of skepticism of "Climate science." It is tempting to believe that. However, quite frankly there is no evidence of this. The fuel lobby won't touch this with a 10 foot pole. There is no money trail, there is no convictions, in fact there is no accusation because it isn't happening. Examine the lives of the skeptics. They aren't multimillionaires like Al Gore or Michael Mann. They typically are poor threadbare scientists who are calling for a return to the data, and a return to skepticism. The money is entirely on the side of the AGW. For you to suggest the money is anywhere else discloses just how deluded you really are by this movement. If power and money corrupts absolutely, follow the money. There you will find the corruption. There is no money on the side of the skeptics. To be a skeptic means repudiation. To be a skeptic means you will never get a whiff of any grant money. No, compare the sides of this debate. If you want a lucrative career, become a climate scientist. No other field of science is more lucrative. Repeat the words "Climate Change" and become instantly credible. There is virtually no critical analysis of this. Al Gore uses those magic words and proclaims the polar ice caps will melt by 2012 and he is forgiven, no he is heralded as a popular hero. Others use those magic words, and the supposedly the all the glaciers have vanished. Others use those magic words and half of Florida is gone by now. Others use those magic words and the snowfall on the northern hemisphere has vanished for the winter. It might as well be Abracadabra in the days of Shakespear, Copernicus, Galileo, Michelangelo, Pascal, and Newton. All the money, all the power, and all the corruption was on the side of the status quo, not on the side of the true scientists that have changed the world by their integrity and skepticism and truth.
Also, to be precise, and in full disclosure, 100% of my electricity comes from a hydro dam about 20 minutes of my house. I heat my house with natural gas: Supposedly one of the least carbon intensive footprints. However, to engage in this presupposes that climate data for the past 10 years hasn't radically departed from the exponential increases of CO2 in the atmosphere. In 10 years, when the world is in the grips of a mini-ice age, and this foolishness is fully exposed. They will ask, where were you when they said CO2 caused global warming? My answer will be that I was saying show me the unadulterated data!
First of all thank you for saying somethings heretofore unsaid. I feel your argument was weak for the following reasons: First of all, you criticize empiricim because it lacked imagination. That is certainly falsifiable. Are we to say the work of Isaac Newton for example, lacked imagination? That is simply ridiculous. We call Newton's theories on motion "Laws" for good reason. Not because they have no problems, but because there has probably been no theory more rigorously tested and confirmed in all of science. There are hosts of scientists and their theories that have been profoundly tested and found to be true. Einstein, a 20th century scientist if there ever was one, produced the most profound and rigorously tested theories. Did either Einstein or Newton lack imagination? No. Imagination wasn't injected into science in the 1900s as you assume. It has been at the heart of it since Plato. So it is a fundamentally flawed assumption to accept imagination was spawned in the 1900s. No, as you present it, it became an excuse for accepting the extremes of the uncertainties of AGW. What needs to be discussed are the prejudices that are accepted by certain quarters of science to be true. Criticism today needs to include the vast streams of research dollars that are only awarded to "science" that tows the line. Imaginative science needs to include the research that is suggesting a Milankovitch cycle that has us trending cooler until at least 2050. Why isn't that included in your graph? Because your prejudice precludes it even though it supposedly has a weight of uncertainty to it. I reflect the weight of "science" that existed in Pascal's day. The abiogenists were definitely the accepted group. They definitely had the funding. But it was the relatively lone voice of one obscure scientist who paved the way to heart transplants today. Similar phenomena existed in the days of Copernicus. The weight of science in his day, was not heliocentric. Vast sums were paid to scientist to produce tomes predicting the position of the planets, which were used for political horoscopes, the timing of wars and battles all paid huge sums of money to those "scientists" who could write those predictions based on the earth as the center of the universe. With vast sums of money at stake Copernicus' simple maths were a huge threat so much so after losing debate, they appealed to the pope and the church to weigh in on the argument. So it is today that when for example a skeptic points out, according the IPCC committee on sea level rise, the chair declares the rise to be a steady 1mm a year, and that his committee was stacked with non-scienctists (at least without sea-level expertise) we see an appeal to non-science "consensus" for validation instead of a frank look at the data. Without this new criticism, without demanding funding for science that does not agree with consensus, I am very concerned for our future. We have abandoned empiricism now in our school system, and as you conclude your piece, you refer to the need for worry to sharpen our need for change, you conclude with what is most worrisome about the direction of science: The implementation of emotion to guide our conclusions.
https://youtu.be/_fQZfFy9cFs
My wife and I have separated. Its been over a year and a half. We have determined to remain friends. I have nothing but admiration for her. She is as close to a saint as a saint can be. She loves God, she has been a fantastic mother to our kids who are now all grown up. I honor her.
I don't want to excuse my own failings for the work of God. However, it is true I have found that God does more through our brokenness than He does when we are unbroken. This truth leads the scriptures to say: "What then, shall we sin that grace may it abound? May it never be!" Still there is a mystery indeed the whole of the bible is about God working through human brokenness. In a peculiar way the fall was necessary for salvation to occur. It would be hard to refute that it would have been better had there never been a fall, but God planned for it nonetheless.
So in this place of brokenness, I sense the hand of God moving in such a way that the end becomes greater than the beginning. I am 60 now. I estimate I have 10 years to change the world. Ann Kimmel's book: "I am out to Change my World" still calls to me. I feel I am yet to change the world.
I have made acquaintances with some phenomenal people around the world recently. The web site we have been involved in employs a form of tyranny and extorts me of way too much money. So I am posting here my address: 820 31st Ave. S., Cranbrook, BC, V1C5J9. And my phone is (250)464-5673. My WeChat is: wxid_cwc8kvqq495d12. My email is oabrey@gmail.com.
First, billionaire Barack Obama supporter Warren Buffet said the Keystone XL pipeline delivering bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to the Gulf Coast should have been approved by now and the U.S. refusal to do so risks damaging relations with Canada.
Second the Washington Post gave the U.S. president its worst possible “Four Pinocchios” rating for refusing to approve Keystone for almost six years.
“Four Pinocchios,” as explained by Glenn Kessler who writes the Post’s regular “Fact Checker” feature, means the individual being scrutinized is telling “whoppers.”
Or, if you prefer, lies.
As the Canadian Press noted, Buffet’s support of Keystone is significant since his investments in the U.S. rail industry and his friendship with Obama previously resulted in the widely held perception he was opposed to Keystone XL and in favour of transporting bitumen by rail.
But in an interview with CNBC, Buffet -- who says his shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock have gone up almost 2,000,000% over the last 50 years -- was unequivocal.
He said Canada has been “a terrific partner to the United States over the decades” and “to thumb our nose” at it is wrong.
“I would have passed Keystone,” Buffet said. “I think that we have an enormous interest in working with Canada, as they have in working with us. That oil is going to get sold. If we make it more difficult for them, who knows how they’ll feel about making things more difficult for us some day?”
The Post’s Fact Checker criticized Obama for claiming Keystone only benefits Canada because the oil it delivers will simply pass through the United States before being exported abroad.
It noted that’s untrue and ignores the findings of Obama’s own State Department, which has the lead role in reviewing Keystone and has concluded much of the oil it delivers will be used in the United States.
The completion of Keystone will also benefit U.S. oil producers in North Dakota and Montana in getting their oil to the Gulf Coast, as well as American companies operating in the oilsands, where they control about 30% of production.
All of these facts undermine Obama’s contention that only Canadians will benefit from the pipeline, according to the Post.
The Fact Checker feature doesn’t take a position for or against Keystone and has been critical of all sides in the debate for spreading inaccuracies.
For example, it recently awarded Three Pinocchios to pipeline developer TransCanada Corp. -- meaning a significant factual error or obvious contradiction -- for arguing Keystone will reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil, since Canadian oil is, in fact, foreign oil.
But what it does indicate is a growing awareness in the United States that Obama is simply making up excuses as he goes along for not approving Keystone that don’t stand up to scrutiny.