Imagineur

Introduction. “The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.”  Andrew Jackson. But we can improve upon it. The system in the US is:   A. Ineffective. The regressive structure of social security taxation for working class and middle class workers distorts incentives; the maximum rate for social [...]

Introduction. “If I owe you a pound, I have a problem; but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours.” John Maynard Keynes Keynes might have added: “and if we collectively owe each other trillions, the problem is ours.” In a previous post I discussed how the static nature of nominal debt has [...]

The problem with the standard model is it fails to explain both gravity and the other forces together, or to connect relativity with quantum physics. Let us assume that space is simply an expanded un-resolved probability field. And that time is what happens when probability waves collapse into particles in a particular space segment. In [...]

If Angela Merkel had been president of the US in 2008 and 2009, the Federal government would not have invested $700 billion to bail out the financial and automobile industries; she would have lent the money instead to New York and Michigan, forcing these states into bankruptcy and subsequently ejecting them from the dollar zone. [...]

When private equity invests their own money to purchase and/or capitalize a firm, and then takes whatever decision makes sense, including restructuring employees, there is no problem. That is the way capitalism is supposed to work. However, when a PE firm borrows money to acquire a firm, and then leverages the company to pay itself [...]

It is clear to most observers that the Eurozone is in deep trouble. As the crisis deepens, a potential breakup is no longer considered a hypothetical “dark swan” outlier, but rather a very real and frightening possibility. This is leading savers and investors in “peripheral” nations to move their assets offshore, thus accentuating the crisis. [...]

An Underleveraged Channel for US Exports. The US Trade Deficit. The latest monthly figures show a monthly trade deficit of over $52 billion in January 2012, and over $550 billion in 2011, equivalent to 3.6% of nominal GNP. The US has not had an annual trade surplus since 1973. The Internet. Due to a more [...]

It may seem counter intuitive, but they are not. What they are is “coherent” and the rules and proceses used to interact with them are consistent throughout; so even if you have to “learn” a new methodology of interaction, once you learn it, you are never surprised because it is applied commonly throught the user [...]

Why cash is debt. The invention of paper money is attributed to China around 806 AD, as a private substitute for a lack of copper. Its usage on a significant scale through public issuance was started in 1023 AD by the Song dynasty. Kublai Khan, by decreeing its acceptance on pain of death, and by [...]

Original Wall Street Journal Article In marketing, getting a message across is often more important than how it’s gotten across.  This is doubly true for newcomers into a given market, which not only have to make themselves look good but also overcome the public inclination toward the status quo in the process.  People are averse to [...]