The Epson R2000 is probably quite
adequate for the task at hand.

Have you ever wished you could just print your own money when you need some? I mean the US government does it, why can’t you? Well, the simple fact that you can may surprise you. Most of the laws that make printing your own money illegal have to do with printing someone else’s money. If you print off a bunch of US hundred dollar bills, there’s a really good chance you’ll end up in jail. Even if you’re just a brilliant aging artist who’s really just obsessed with doing a good job. But the fact is that as much as the people (and by “people” we mean banksters and politicians) who make it their entire life’s purpose to reap personal benefit from screwing you over a fictitious commodity would prefer that you think otherwise, in most of the states in America, there is nothing stopping you from creating your own fictitious commodity and using it for every day commerce. In fact it’s already happening with varying degrees of success all over the country; there are about 150 currencies on this Wikipedia list of local currencies, from the Berkshire BerkShares to the Detroit Cheers, to the Fairfax Fairbuck. And aside from these physical currencies, there are huge economies evolving right now that are entirely digital, like BitCoin or Ripple, and recently, even Amazon is getting in on the “let’s make our own money” game with Amazon Coins. I personally find it ironic that the people who claim to be the only ones who know how to manage currency and the economy are the ones who have made such a mess of both. All the while somehow managing to maintain their own hordes of cash and liquidity. Okay, actually it’s not ironic at all, we’re just a bunch of ignorant suckers who are taking part in the biggest con in the history of the world. Aren’t you getting tired of it? So let’s take things into our own hands. We couldn’t do any worse than the goons at the Fed, could we? And the time is ripe for a paradigm shift. One of the core problems with global economics right now is that speculative wealth is entirely untethered from the real-world resources that create it. There is a literal monopoly on the production and control of currency and wealth simply because we make it easy for the centralized power of banks to exist, simply by sheepishly playing along with the big Ponzi scheme. So there’s an interesting angle – maybe we could file a class action suit against the federal government and banks for colluding to monopolize the money supply! We jest of course. This is part one of a three part series; we’re just having some fun here, but in parts two and three we’ll look at the history of money, and the realistic obstacles to decentralizing the control of it. For now, I’m going to go make millions of dollars. On my fancy Epson inkjet.

Context here if you don’t get this joke

How’s your Mandarin? Do you like Chinese food? These are good questions, because if you’re tired of the same old fear-mongering about radical Islamic terrorists, we have an even more terrifying thought for you. What if suddenly you couldn’t afford a new cell phone or flat-screen TV because China started restricting their exports of rare earth metals? Now there’s something the average American would go to war over. And the idea of war with China isn’t so preposterous; we’re already at war, and have been for a while now. So far we’ve been just fighting about who’s state-controlled capitalism is better for the world. Their brand, in which they cleverly make the Japanese buy dollars by buying Yen to manipulate currency? Or our brand, in which Ben Bernanke just prints more money to manipulate currency? Some think China is flipping off America with their strategies, while others take a more balanced view, pointing out that we need China to do this. And still others take a longer view and suggest we need to turn this “financial cold war” into a new game of Mutual Assured Destruction, only this time based on economics. But it’s not really just the sanctity of our electronic gadgets or the once almighty dollar we have to worry about, because China’s defense minister said yesterday that China is preparing for armed conflict ‘in every direction’. So what would war with China look like for the US? Pretty grim, according to a RAND study published a few months ago. Not only do they have submarines that can pop out of nowhere and a missile that can take out an aircraft carrier, but if you believe the stats on this page, China has twice as many people fit for military service as there are people in the United States. I’ll just be signing up for that Mandarin class now, so I can welcome our new overlords with a hearty Ni Hao! By the way, if you don’t understand why Ben Bernanke likes the money printing solution, see the video below.

Ben Bernanke’s Money Printing Explained:

Wow. Just when I had stopped worrying about how the collapse of Ireland’s economy might trigger the broader collapse of the global economy (it turns out Ireland’s economy isn’t dead, it’s just resting ), now I have to worry about the collapse of India’s economy. After watching America’s banking system get gutted by smart rich guys loaning tons of money to people to buy houses they couldn’t afford, SOMEONE should have noticed the potential for the same to happen with the massive microcredit industry in India. The parallels are actually rather remarkable, except the consequences are much more dramatic. This Globe And Mail piece politely refers to how the poorly-regulated microloan industry in India has resorted to “usurious interest rates and coercive means” to operate. Meaning they’ve apparently been operating much like the local loan sharks everyone was happy to see them replace. This has led to suicides by microcredit-bankrupted individuals who are now being urged by Indian legislators to “strategically default”. Which then gives the banks a fright, because they’re exposed to the tune of $4 billion on all of this lending. The tragic thing on the human end of this scenario? The worst of these overextended borrowers who are choosing suicide as a solution may only owe as little as $2,000. Too bad the Gates Foundation and others didn’t speak up sooner about how the microcredit model was so flawed. For a refresher on how this sort of crisis can play out, see the graphic below.

For the full story, see The Subprime Primer.

I think it’s obvious if you take a quick look at the Politics section here on Dissociated Press that I’m no political science expert. But I do think I’m a little more aware than the average Bible-thumping Palin supporter, or all-bark-no-bite liberal intellectual. Which is why, although I feel comfortable in saying that politicians by and large are a bunch of money hungry, morally decrepit philanderers, I can still take a broader view and realize that although the media is already trying to link Obama administration policy to the economy, that this is patently absurd. So who’s to blame for the economic situation? Well, Time Magazine has 25 suggestions. But maybe it’s testosterone, or a glitch in our brains. Or maybe mathematics is to blame. Personally, I think it’s all at once both a little simpler, and a little more complex than all of this. I think it’s greed, and a long-term crisis of values. At least with Enron, there was a feeling that someone was going after the bad guys. And as a result, Enron no longer exists. In the case of the recent massive financial industry failures though, we’ve mostly sat back as citizens and coughed up the loot while the responsible parties move through the magic revolving door of business and government. This Vanity Fair piece about Joseph Cassano is one of the few in-depth looks at the real people behind this catastrophe that I’ve seen, and Cassano is just one of dozens of his type. I don’t know about you, but I’m broke, a little angry, and a little confused. Part of me wants to make an updated Leave Barack Alone video, and part of me wants to join Jon Stewart in saying “That’s great. Now fix the economy!” What do you think?