Thursday, September 4, 2008

Ponzi Pyramids

(Click title above)


House of Ponzi:


(Amway ... Fractional Lending... Debt Management ...)


Ponzi Pyramids -- of People, Populations, Pennies, and Penury


Population:
http://www.csa.com/factsheets/humanpop-set-c.php.


SOCIAL PYRAMIDS:

An economic expansion is an increase in the level of economic activity, and of the goods and services available in the market place.

Of course, we assume a perspective from a human culture. After all, the total amount of matter and energy itself does not increase, but remains constant (although it is continuously subject to informational reorganization).

In that sense, an “economic expansion” occurs when we conceive (or believe?) that our interrelations have been “reduced” to an increasing sum of particular transactions, which, as a whole, fulfill our value quantifications in respect of a medium of price. Our economic market expands insofar as we, by our price associations, believe it has increased in gross value. However, the environment in which we entertain such belief does not increase in respect of its fundamental total of matter and energy.

In other words, much of “economics” has to do with a society’s or culture’s mental manipulations for how it comes to express or value its continuously churning reorganizations of matter, energy, and conceptualized information.

Our economic activity has to do with the extent to which we engage in mutual full faith and credit, through a symbolic medium of wampum (or money). Whether there is perceived an economic expansion or contraction has much to do with how our culture comes to allocate that which we are led or inspired to share in trusting and valuing. (Indeed, whether there actually exists any “physical” basis at all for that for which we barter has much to do with each spiritual individuals’s wilful faith and empathy.)

The civilizing faith, trust, credit, and empathy requisite to support and leverage our marketplace tends to become more and more difficult to sustain as we begin to believe that our economic market is contracting (or even collapsing).

Imagine trying to pedal across a terrain of roads made subject to an increasing number of random hills, volcanos, tollway stops, and unexpected detours. After awhile, many may become tempted to switch to an entirely different terrain, economy, or currency, perhaps tipping a panic or harsh correction.

Stresses will push many Associations to "evolve" for conspiring to trust in a common ability of members to abuse trust.

Thus, each system of mutual faith and credit will eventually collapse towards a replacement, even though germs and remains of the first will no doubt continue to migrate to, or infect, the second.

Such a symptology of social (“artificial”) economic stress and upheaval seems not altogether unlike a physical (“natural”) process of tectonic plate subduction with associated volcanization. In respect of random or unexpected violence, social pyramid processes seem comparable to natural volcanic processes. Both processes occur in cyclic respect of underlying causes, which may be delayed, diverted, or redistributed, but not stopped.

To stave or mitigate catastrophic upheavals, the moral challenge for our civilization pertains to whether, how, and when to try to effect temporal delays, diversions, and redistributions in the pyramid of human faith and trust. Nevertheless, there will be catastrophic upheavals.

In sum, intuition suggests we should pursue civilization that is satisfying, stable, sustainable, and amenable of surpassage. Helpful to appreciate, assimilate, and facilitate particulars in respect of such purpose is a basis for sharing empathetic faith, regardless of whether such faith-basis is rationalized in respect of "spiritual" terms or in respect of pursuing "logic" to a point of exhaustion in deference to secular tradition.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Snippets from http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/another_fine_mess.html:
Another Fine Mess
Randall Hoven
September 08, 2008

....

Not to put too fine a point on it, Andrew Cuomo "gave birth to the mortgage crisis." That's not me talking. That's not Rush Limbaugh or some other conservative talking. That's what Wayne Barrett at the very liberal Village Voice wrote:

"Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that-in combination with many other factors-helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

"Steven Holmes, a reporter from the [New York] Times's Washington bureau, wrote at the time: ‘In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But, he added, ‘the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980s.'"

Congratulations to Steven Holmes for calling this one exactly right.

Anonymous said...

Civilizing Pursuit-Of-Happiness Pyramid:

Intuitively, each of us experiences our own separate consciousness of our own separate perspective of our own holographically incomplete interpretation of the holistic spiritual and/or physical environment that encompasses and expresses all of us. Intuitively, the Will of each of us is expressed in respect of an encompassing Holism that is superior to all of us. Intuitively, we inter-connect in respect of one holistic consciousness, aka “God.”

If we each experience our interconnection as a sort of flux, not altogether unlike a perpetually up-heaving volcano, then the opportunity for each of us to scale towards the top may be fulfilled partly in respect of chance and partly in respect of diligence.

In such, we have no choice but to make and experience choices. Whether we apply ourselves or not, the social pyramid upon which we find ourselves will perpetually flux, much as a volcano may flux in respect of continuously subducting currents of lava.

The extent to which we feel free to make choices relating to our respective holographies marks the extent to which we may pursue opportunities to fulfill our selves and our posterity, rather than merely to fulfill some herd-mind, aka “Borg.”

Even for a pyramid, its foundation is part of a larger system, which may require the pyramid to expand and contract, be born and die, cyclically. A pyramid does not engage in such cyclic functions in itself, but only insofar as founded on a wider system for supporting and sustaining it.

Could our pyramidal economy stop growing, without collapsing? Suppose no one died, but people continued to be born. Then, we would have a grand Ponzi situation.

Because of advantages of wealth and limits of land, a gulf between the “have most” and the “have least” would continuously widen. Such a situation could only be stable so long as it was expanding towards convulsive disaster. Under such a supposition, periodic readjustments would occur, but only by way of upheaval, such as by war, plague, or abrupt ecological disaster.

Can our models handle contractions in population or economic activity? It seems our money strategies rely upon expanding pyramids of markets and populations. Suppose a civilization became skilled for modeling, computing, predicting, and managing upheavals, in order to effect periodic adjustments for delaying, diverting, or reformulating against catastrophes. Well, then, upon what commonly acceptable moral basis could members of such a social pyramid decide how to allocate for who should “merit” treatment or preference for bodily design, genetic assistance, cyborg auxiliarization, position, wealth, or power?

Because of inherent-unfairness in advantages of birth and position, there would be little moral-fairness were there not enforced periodic, random, indifferent catastrophe and “corrective” upheaval. It is against the potential for random catastrophe that we aspire, as counterpoint, to be noble, virtuous, and to pursue happiness.

At the top of the pyramid of holographic consciousness, does consciousness organize machines to work and organize for it? May there come a time when we delegate even the holographic appreciation of our bodies and choices to levels below our consciousness?

If so, even such a holographic top of the pyramid of human consciousness would not equate to Holistic God. Between holography and holism, there is a chasm that we cannot, except by grace, span.

Intuitively, “God” is the simplest, most irreducible form of Will, of which each of our bodies apprehends different fluxing perspectives of only holographies, not holism. Within our holographies, no God precludes our shifting, pyramidal advancements.

However, insofar as any power in myself to predict my own “willful choices” very far in advance of their exercise, intuition of a Source of Synchronizing Will that exists beyond my measure necessarily remains beyond my measure --- but not necessarily beyond my intuition, however necessarily ambiguous my intuition of any such Source of Enlightened Empathy may be.

The source and measure for Enlightened Empathy (and moral fairness or merit) remains beyond objective measure, but not beyond worthwhile, civilizing pursuit.

Anonymous said...

OF PONZI PROMISES:

BLAME LEFTIST ANTI-REDLINING:

From http://townhall.com/Columnists/NealBoortz/2008/09/19/the_rest_of_the_meltdown_story:

Right now this crisis is being sold to the American public by the left as evidence the failure of the free market and capitalism. Not so. What we’re seeing is the inevitable result of political interference in free market economics. Acme bank didn’t want to loan money to Joe Homebuyer because Joe had a spotty job history, owed too much money on his credit cards, and wasn’t all that good at making payments on time. The politicians told Acme Bank to figure out a way to make that loan, because, after all, Joe is a bona-fide minority-American, or forget about opening that new branch office on the Southside. The loan was made under politicial pressure; the loan, with millions like it, failed – and now we are left to enjoy today’s headlines.

So … why aren’t you reading the whole story in the mainstream media? Come on, are you kidding me? Do you really expect the media to blame this mess on deadbeat borrowers and political interference in the free market when it is so easy to put the blame on greedy lenders and evil capitalists? Remember … there’s an election going on. One candidate is decidedly anti-capitalist. Do the math.

****

CHEAP LABOR REVENGES BOOMER GIMMES:

From http://townhall.com/Columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/09/19/the_partys_over:

Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.

But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.

....

What we are witnessing today is how empires end.

The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

....

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.

What the Greatest Generation handed down to us -- the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved -- the baby boomers, oblivious and self-indulgent to the end, have frittered away.

Anonymous said...

BAG OF TRICKS FOR MARKET MANIPULATORS:
(Money Changers — Heads I win, tails you lose; I make money, and you’re out of a job; and you pay the insurance.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/business/19backlash.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1221853957-48nDmRIygcFf1dU3K30btA:

Short selling — a bet that a stock price will decline — is the practice of selling stock without owning it, hoping to buy it later at a lower price, and thus make a profit. It has often been blamed for forcing prices down in times of market stress, but the level of anger has intensified as the American government has been forced to bail out major financial institutions and the leaders of some investment banks have asked for action to protect their shares.
....
While short sellers are supposed to borrow shares before selling them, naked shorts do not borrow. That saves the cost of borrowing, though the trader is still vulnerable to losses if the share price rises.
Opponents of short selling believe that it can force share prices down and destroy confidence in a company that might otherwise survive.
....
The latest moves against short sellers began Wednesday. In the morning, Mr. Cox announced new rules to prevent brokerage firms from selling a stock short if they previously had sold the stock short without having borrowed it. That night, he said that he would propose more rules, to force large short sellers to disclose their positions.
The rules were needed, he said, “to ensure that hidden manipulation, illegal naked short selling or illegitimate trading tactics do not drive market behavior and undermine confidence.”

Anonymous said...

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-couples-tricked-into-buying-houses:
So which is it?
We need to give everyone a chance to buy their own house.
Or are people being tricked into buying houses?

****

Community Organizing:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/acorn_obama_and_the_mortgage_m.html