Check out this great video by Stefan Molyneux. This video discusses the dangers of Bitcoin for central banks, governments, and also Bitcoin users as well. Must see.

Kind of sad...

Trying to convince the new hipster bar in town of why they should take bitcoin. I hoped they got it already.....


 Shit.

Current state of oil supply and demand

"We frequently see stories telling us how well the United States is doing at oil extraction. The fact that there are stories in the press about the US wanting to export crude oil adds to the hype. How much of these stories are really true?"

RTWT

On cash and black markets

"The fact that cash enables black market transactions is one of its greatest benefits to the poor and undercapitalized. The poor cannot afford to navigate regulatory thickets installed by bored bureaucrats on behalf of the powerful. The choice, then, is to set up an informal, cash-based business, or none at all. Recent debates over Uber’s taxi-services or Mom-and-Pop hair braiding remind us of the never-ending roadblocks placed in the way of entrepreneurs, and especially small entrepreneurs, by government. Indeed, without government who would harass small business? Government definitely built that."

Read more at Mises.org.

The Sharing Economy

It sounds like free market reforms to me. And I tend to believe that free markets allocate scarce resources in the most efficient ways possible because innovation is encouraged.

So, lefties and libertarians unite!

http://reason.com/archives/2014/05/13/all-hail-the-sharing-economy-a-mushy-phr

Mike Rowe tries to give away free money...

...and apparently is having a time of it.

Via The Smallest Minority:

Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) has an organization he runs, MikeRoweWorks.com, that gives scholarships to students studying the trades. He posts on Facebook today:

Question: If I were to form "The American Idol Scholarship Fund" and announce $15,000 of professional training for anyone who wished to become a pop star, how long do you think it would take to give away a million dollars?

A day? An hour? A minute?

What if I offered the same money to anyone who wanted to learn how to maintain and repair diesel engines? How fast would the million dollars go then?

Currently, this question has no official answer. But I can tell you this - for the last month, mikeroweWORKS has been offering FULL-RIDE scholarships to one of the best trade schools in the country. And as of now - a big chunk of that million dollars is still up for grabs. Why? Because mikeroweWORKS scholarships do not reward fame or celebrity. They reward work ethic, and the willingness to learn a necessary skill. In other words, they are designed to train people for jobs that actually exist.

Last month, I shot a few commercials to announce my latest partnership with Universal Technical Institute https://www.uti.edu/mrw As you may know, UTI trains the technicians that keep America's trucks on the road. Not as sexy perhaps as the next American Idol, but a great place to find a few American Icons. Truth is, our Trade Schools play an important role in maintaining this thing we call "civilization," and given the preponderance of Help Wanted signs currently papering our transportation industry, I wanted to help draw some attention to another specific career that too many people simply overlook.

Anyway, this particular commercial didn't make it past Standards and Practices, for obvious reasons. But since I’m the only censor in these parts, I've made it available here, for the refined taste and sophisticated worldview of my 835,000 closest friends. http://profoundlydisconnected.com/naked-mike-unauthorized-video/ (Warning - Partial Nudity and Poor Judgment abound.)

Mike

I really like the work Mike Rowe is doing with this. For those of you who don't know me, I tried college and gave it up because it wasn't working for me. I picked a trade, applied my self and was making pretty good money in a couple years. With no student loan debt.

Now my case may not be typical, but who's is? The point is there are other paths to making a decent living besides college.

Here's a fairly recent Reason.tv interview with Rowe that sums up his thinking on these things. Well worth the watch.

Dark wallet

If you watched the whole video with Cody Wilson that I posted recently, you probably were intrigued by the bit where he talks about his new project, Dark Wallet.

Here is a pretty decent little overview from Wired. Enjoy!

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/dark-wallet

Permacredits

What happens when you combine the convenience of a premier cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, the crowd funding of Kickstarter, and the democratic aspects of Reddit?

You get Permacredits.

Distributed technologies like this are changing our society and the face of the planet. In good ways I hope. But that is up to us. If you don't like what you see, and want to change it, I encourage you to educate yourself on these tools, use them, and support those who are out doing the work.

For once in human history, average people of little to modest means have the ability to make truly sweeping changes in a non-violent way. I certainly prefer that to the other way of altering the social order, don't you?

Good interview

If you are like me and have been wondering what has been going on with Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed, wonder no more.

The Perils of HFT

I always thought that high frequency trading was inherently, well, bullshit because it doesn't add anything to a business.

In theory when you invest in a company they will use your funds to expand operations by purchasing physical capital (i.e. real estate, machinery, etc) and/or labor of more quality or quantity.

With HFT (High Frequency Trade) those funds may be invested for less than a second. I think anyone with sense can see that these rapid swings can make it very difficult to plan out business expenditures. It can also make it difficult to compete for non-HFT investors, as HFT trades will always be faster.

It leads to destabilizing effects on the broader economy and exacerbated wealth inequality, as this is very much a rich man's advantage.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-31/market-rigged-michael-lewis-explains-how-hfts-screw-investors-every-day

I didn't get to watch the 60 minutes episode they refer to but hope to watch these clips when I have better access to data.