Monthly Archives: March 2016

Society

Sleepers went back to work

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Recently I have been reading Barry Jones’ Sleepers Wake – Technology and the future of work, written in 1982 it foresees a post service work environment, technology will have saved us from much toil and we will need a guaranteed income for all (similar to my Flat Payment) to provide for all those who are not employed with the means to survive and participate in the economic and civil life. He imagined a small privileged group who were intelligent and educated and could find high paying technical jobs and a large proportion of people who had no employment. They would need to redefine their purpose living off the guaranteed income and filling their time with community activities, small crafts and hobbies, often making bespoke items or pursuing lifelong intrinsically enriching education.

work by area

 

Almost 20 years later this hasn’t occurred, we work longer hours and there are more people in the workforce than ever before. Why? For a start we don’t have a guaranteed income so most of us still need to earn an income just to survive, so instead of embracing a new more free future we created work for ourselves. To analyse this I’ll look at my own industry banking and finance. This was one of the industries expected to be greatly impacted by technological advances, during the 80’s ATM’s (Automatic Teller Machines) were introduced to replace human tellers, computers did all the ledger work, and by the nineties internet banking allowed people to complete their own online loan applications and open accounts and transfer funds. Has the amount of people working in Finance and insurance decreased in Australia? No it’s just above the level as a percentage of population it was in 1984 and around 1990 and 2007 it was significantly above 1984 levels. Part of the reason is that we now do more transactions; open more loans, and refinance more often, but most of these actions use minimal staff. What we have done is create an environment of constant “improvement” constant change. For a period in the 90’s one bank I worked for restructured 4 times in 4 years, each time needing a large project team to implement the changes ,create the PowerPoint displays and the flowcharts and yet another team to dismantle the new procedures a year later. Banking also has a lot of people “communicating” without saying anything its normal for a middle manager to receive 200 emails a day all which need to read and responded to. Little of this “communication” seems necessary often its only purpose is to prove the sender is doing something. As you can see in the next graph we have become professionals and managers whose sole purpose is bureaucracy and change management.

 

work by level

Instead of Jones’ more leisure we have more politics, more spin, more restructures and more implementation, we have become a bunch of lawyers, accountants, project managers and IT tweakers, it keeps us busy and pays the mortgage but is essentially unnecessary. You will note from the first graph that those necessary industries like mining and agriculture don’t employ many people and their output has been increasing massively thanks to technology. And interestingly we have more people working in retail but less in sales, this is because there are more retail managers creating the branding and marketing strategies and less people directly selling. And likewise for construction, a large increase in people working in construction during our housing boom but no corresponding rise in trade employment, carpenters, electricians, and concreters, just more project managers.

 

[GARD]

Is this a good thing? Well for the unskilled it’s a disaster, for equality it’s tragic and for quality of life it’s pretty miserable too.

David J Campbell

Author of Fluidity the way to true DemoKratia

Economics, Society

The fallacy of Shareholder democracy – the owners are all opaque holding companies

Elected governments really don’t have much power any more because they have ceded most of it to corporations which we believe we control through share ownership but we are hopelessly wrong.

Corporations are some of the few organisations that have true global influence so if we were to have a global democracy we would want them in our power but as you will see they concentrate power. During the past 30 years of economic rationalism (neo-liberal economics) governments across the globe have sold off huge amounts of their power to private corporations, and deregulated markets allowing these corporations to have a lot more power and influence than ever before. In England, Australia, the USA and Canada the provision of human necessities that were formerly owned and run by the state have been sold. Far worse scenarios have played out in South america, South Est asia and Africa where the IMF and World Bank trapped governments in debt and forced them to sell basic resources to global corporations. Water supply, electricity, public transport, telecommunications, banks, airports, even emergency services were outsourced into private hands. Private schools have been encouraged as well as private health care. The argument for this is that private companies improve customer service and are more efficient, and of course there would be more choice and competition and therefore prices should come down. What we got instead was train break downs and cancellations (Connex in Melbourne), a great stink flowing over Adelaide (Effluent treatment in Adelaide), oligopolies with little competition (TRU and Origen energy), price hikes and lack of water supply in Bolivia, lower wages and more job insecurity in south East Asia and generally a concentration of wealth and power in corporate hands. We lost the power to control these organisations and hold them to account the way we could a government run entity.

These companies are mainly publicly listed companies be they Serco, MacQuarie, BHP or EDS, meaning anyone can buy shares in them and have a vote on who’s on the board of directors and therefore it’s like a small democracy, it’s a shareholder democracy.

Shareholder democracy

So you might say if you have enough money you can still democratise corporations and these are actually better democracies as they truly cross borders. Is this true? Australians are the largest share owners in the world with about 35% of people owning some shares in their own name and everyone who ever worked having some interest in shares via their superannuation fund. (Employer superannuation contributions are compulsory in Australia). So we should see a lot of influence coming from a broad range of people over our major corporations, they should be doing what is best for us because we own them! Right? No.

Let’s take two examples; BHP Billiton the biggest mining company in the world which controls more natural resources than any other public organisation, and ANZ Banking Group one of the big 4 banks in Australia. The top 20 share holders of each of these two companies are all nominee or trust (investment) companies with one exception the Australian Foundation Investment Corporation which is a private investment company based in Melbourne. (see table 1 insert table of share holders). And these top 20 shareholders own between 50% and 60% of all the shares. The majority! In ANZ’s case the top 1% of shareholders owns 90% of the shares the other 99% of shareholders 10%. this is where the OWS movement got its “we are the 99% from because it is the same in every major company.

The spin doctors at ANZ and every other major corporation claim to be owned by the people because they have over 100 000’s of shareholders therefore they are democratic. But they are not because the top 20 have all the power, even if all the other shareholders voted in unison it would have no influence at all on the election of the board of directors or resolutions passed. Or dividends paid!

So what are these nominee and trust companies? And can we influence them and therefore the corporations they own? I might add that most public companies have a similar share ownership to ANZ and BHP Billiton the majority of shares are held by a few global nominee and trust companies. A nominee company is a private company; therefore it does not need to produce publicly available annual reports showing their ownership or dealings, they are usually owned wholly by a bank, trading house or investment company. They are essentially a holding company for others, they have ownership rights to the shares and the person/s or companies that use them have beneficial rights to the capital gains and dividends the shares produce. The voting rights are owned by the nominee company but it is “usual” for the nominee company to vote under instruction from the beneficial owner. Each nominee company has its own way in which they do this and some don’t act in this way at all. Some have the beneficial owners register their desire to influence votes, the beneficial owner may not choose to use this power as one of the reasons nominee companies are used is to cut down on the paper work and obligations of share ownership. If they choose to register the nominee company collates these suggestions in private and then votes. It is not mandatory for a nominee company to consult its beneficiaries on how they use their voting rights. Of course a large beneficiary owner may direct the nominee company to use all its votes in a certain manner while hiding their own influence.

Table 1

BHP shareholders

BHP Billiton http://www.bhpbilliton.com/home/investors/reports/Documents/2012/BHPBillitonAnnualReport2012.pdf

ANZ 2011 Annual report.

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/96/96910/2011_Annual_Report_ANZ.pdf

Because of this some corporations actually have limits on the amount of votes a nominee company can exercise. UBS one of the biggest banks in the world (the GFC has had some effect on its current size) limits an individual nominee company to 5% of the total votes. As you can see the desires of the beneficiaries is quite opaque, it’s not absolute that they will have influence over the way the nominee company votes, and if they do it’s not necessary for the nominee company to make public what each beneficiary has instructed.

So why do these nominee companies own so many shares? They essentially own most of the capital in the world and therefore most of the power (votes). There are two main reasons firstly the bank owning the nominee company has lent the beneficiary money to buy the shares in the first place. This is generally called margin lending where a bank will lend 80% of the purchase of price (depending upon the borrower this can be higher or lower) of the shares and the beneficiary puts up the other 20%, and if the share price falls below a point where the loan becomes greater than the value of the shares at current market price they will make a margin call, the borrower has to put more money with the bank to reduce the bank’s exposure to loss. Margin lending is mainly used by traders who are interested in making money through price movements and dividends; they are not interested in controlling the company. As far as I can tell someone in a margin loan through ANZ has no, or at least is not made aware they have voting rights through the shares they are the beneficiary of. This actually makes sense for both parties. Traders turnover a lot of shares and it is hard to track exactly who owns what at the time a resolution needs to be voted on, also traders see the necessity to vote as an added burden, it’s not their core business and are quite happy to pay another company to take care of this for them. The UK has encouraged the use of nominee companies through its stamp duty on share trading. If one uses a nominee company to trade their shares they can reduce or eliminate the stamp duty because the nominee company will make the trades internally therefore not using the public stock exchange and hiding the trade from the tax collectors.

The other major reason is anonymity. You may not want the world to know you have a large stake in a major company. Why wouldn’t you? Well governments may think you have too much influence and are decreasing competition, you may be trying to avoid tax, you may be a board member of a competing company or supplier. You may be incredibly powerful and don’t want the masses to know your influence.

There is also another simply practical reason to use a nominee company, superfund managers often use them because they will take care of the paper work involved with buying and selling large quantities of shares, and the pesky task of voting.

I mentioned earlier that all Australians that have worked have an interest in the shares of companies through their superfund but we don’t get the voting rights, the fund does, and they will often pass this on to a nominee company. The voting rights of nominee companies is at least very opaque, possibly collusive, and most definitely it concentrates power into the hands of a few rather than the many.

Trusts are slightly different to nominee companies, and their purpose varies. Many are family or corporate trusts that are mainly set up for tax purposes to spread income and or franking credits to companies and individuals thus minimising the groups tax burden. Or they are collective trusts such as my employee share trust. The ANZ gives its non-management employees in Australia $1000 dollars worth of shares every year but holds the shares in trust for a minimum of 3 years, and as far as I am aware they hold the voting rights on these shares not us. Again though it concentrates power rather than dissipates it, shareholder democracy is a Furphy.

Governments in the wake of the GFC have called for a cap on the golden parachutes for leaving CEO’s and on short term bonuses for executives particularly in the banking sector, as they see these huge payments as one of the motivations for greedy reckless decision making which lead the world into crisis. Australia’s government has passed responsibility to the shareholders of these companies saying it is they who should take control of their companies and look after their interests by capping CEO remuniration. As you can see this is ridiculous because the shareholders are members of the same club as the board and the CEO. The shareholders are the CEO’s of the past and present. When the largest shareholder of ANZ bank is HSBC nominees it’s the CEO of HSBC and its board which selects the remuneration package for ANZ’s CEO. Note Mike Smith the current CEO of ANZ was ex-HSBC.

The CEO’s then move from the chief executive role to board member and then board manipulator as Don Argus has done moving from CEO of National Australia Bank (nab) in the nineties to chairman of the board of BHP Billiton in the 2000’s and now director of the Australian Foundation Investment Company the biggest independent owner of shares in Australia. It is in their collective best interest to move money away from the community into their own hands. They are the club so they are always going to pay high (relative to what most readers earn) amounts to their CEO’s for doing what they are told.

It’s interesting that one of the few major company’s shareholders that actually gives its CEO flack and can get them to change their policy on corporate decisions is Telstra (formerly Telecom Australia). In 2010 they backed down on charging a fee for non electronic payment of bills because their shareholders complained at the AGM (Annual General Meeting) this is because of the way Telstra was sold. It was a state owned Telco the only Telco in the country when it was privatised and the corporate ownership was limited to 20% and the rest sold to a broad range of “mum and dad” investors including me and my sister. I knew that as soon as the first issue was floated the corporates would want to get their hands on more and therefore push the price up, I sold in the first two months and doubled my money, but most held on and paid all the further instalments. This meant Telstra unlike most other major companies had a broad individual human ownership and that is why they actually must try to become more human themselves.

Telstra’s plummeting share price may be a sign that the corporate club doesn’t like having things out of its control and in the hands of the populous for they seem to put things like fees on them at a higher priority than profits and CEO bonuses.

You will notice in this that the power ratio of a publicly listed company is very similar to the way wealth is divided in the world, 80/20 or 90/10 where 80-90% of the wealth or control is held by 20-10% of the people. That’s not democratic! It’s closer to the one party system of communist China or the feudal hereditary monarchies of the middle ages.

So we can see that we are now ruled by corporations that are controlled by a few that prefer to remain anonymous, and by politicians that are controlled by narrow minded self appointed elite lobbyists, who are most likely to be the same as those that control the corporations.

Just before we leave the fable of corporate democracy I’d like to point out that the two rising superpowers of the world China and India still have most of their basic services like energy, water, telecommunications, and transport in state, or central control. Not in corporate hands. Why do I mention this? Well because they are succeeding, they have money and power on the rise and we have none, perhaps we can take a little bit of that and mix it with a lot of us.

David J Campbell

Author of Fluidity the way to true DemoKratia

Philosophy

What is the purpose of life?

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[cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]Within this question are other questions that have been asked by people for millennia. What is the meaning of Life? What amounts to a good life? Is there a reason for life? Why am I here?

I think that for people to go about existence, and be happy and fulfilled we must have some shape, no matter how hazy or fluid this shape may be, to the answer for these questions. Otherwise we just survive because we are scared of death.

Actually that may be a good place to start this, perhaps we should first ask why we fear death and from this we may find meaning to life. The existentialists have gotten to this before me and concluded that to exist was meaning in itself, life was absurd and seemed to have no reason or purpose other than to just be. Death was nothing, life was everything and should not need meaning or purpose to be preserved and enjoyed. In many ways that is the motto of our current post-modern world. Just do it.

I feel uncomfortable with that. It lacks imagination, it lacks humanity, it lacks wonder and joy.

So why do we fear death? It is not the pain of dying of which I speak but of the not-living. I think it is because we do not know anything but life and fear that great unknown, that loss of hope, that loss of dreaming about the future, the loss of things getting better, of not seeing a new, of missing out on everything. The absence of hope.

So what do we hope to come about? For this should give us insight into purpose, for what we fear missing is what we should be trying to achieve.
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_raw_content][GARD][/x_raw_content][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]As I sit writing this I can see on my wall a small velvet scroll, a gift from a friend on her return from McLeod Ganj. On it is transcribed in gold the words of the Dali Lama’s true meaning of Life.

“We must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. If you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.”

This could be read as doing good and making others happy is the purpose of life, but it is not his meaning but rather through doing good and making others happy you will find your meaning.

This I think has some truth, we discover meaning. We start with ideas, goals, purposes and meaning comes about through them not the other way around. Perhaps that is our purpose, to discover meaning in its ever changing myriad of shape and form.

I will leave you with some idea of purpose. To not do so would leave the fluid ghost of meaning as a dense impenetrable fog. A weight of burden rather than the knight of inspiration. I think through following these I find meaning in my life. I try to be good, I wish to leave the world better than when I arrived, I wish to leave a legacy and be remembered, I wish to create something grand – tangible or not. I wish to leave the world more loving and content than it is now. I do not see an end point to these goals, love to me seems eternal and infinite, as is the peace of contentment. And I like that these goals can never be achieved, and that eternity brings meaning.

David J Campbell
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”true” linkedin=”false” pinterest=”true” reddit=”true” email=”true” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]

Philosophy

Consciousness and AI – creating a mind

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[cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_custom_headline level=”h2″ looks_like=”h3″ accent=”false”]Perhaps to discover what our consciousness is we should try and create an artificial consciousness. So what would we need?
We need a few ingredients; a purpose, randomness, trial and error, genetic progression (evolution) and narrative building (boxing and seeing cause and effect).
[/x_custom_headline][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]We seem to solve problems by imagining scenarios and then possible solutions, trying each solution on the imagined stage and then discarding those that don’t work. Each time we imagine a new scenario and a new stage (situation) we make small random errors in our calculations. All natural things have a small element of unpredictability. This random element allows us to come up with solutions to problems that don’t even exist. From this we can extrapolate a narrative taking us down unknown paths to create whole new universes. This narrative is born from a logical transposition of causal relationships. See a soccer ball fly through the air when kicked and we assume other round object will fly through the air when kicked. So we can imagine kicking Mercury to the outer solar system if we were big enough.
But the process is rather simple. Encounter a problem; say getting from your bed to the fridge to eat. Note here that there must be an intrinsic purpose to drive invention. You move your legs from your bed in an attempt to stand and fall flat on your face. Pain is the result. You have not learnt to walk yet. But through a very quick process of trial and error you will both imagine and then trial in the real world a bunch of leg movements combined with hanging on to stuff to get you from your bed to the fridge. Once you have discovered walking you store the “program” away to retrieve later when ever you need to get from A to B. It does not require new thinking or trial and error, and will only be revised if it is found to fail, say walking on ice. You have created new code, the walking code.
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_raw_content][GARD][/x_raw_content][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]The same storage of solutions happens with moral and political ideas, that is why accepted frames are so difficult to dislodge. We economise our thinking to only those things that have no workable solution.
So to create this artificially we would need to give the computer an intrinsic purpose like the need for electricity, or making people happy. Then there would need to be a form of reward and punishment so thinking can be revised in response to small deviations from this need. For instance if the computer saw a person smile they would get a positive number and store what they were doing at the time as good. Then they could dissect all their previous actions and test them to see which action was considered good and try to replicate and develop it.
Evolutionary or genetic algorithms are showing that animated “people” can teach themselves to walk through a process of trial and error with randomness. And the weird thing is they look a lot like the way we walk. Not rigid and programmed but more fluid, with constant feedbacks and small adjustments, and the odd stumble and save. Evolutionary algorithms work by having many possible instructions often chosen at random, trying them all on a specific purpose and then combining those that work best, breeding them into a new set of instructions. What those in the field call Emergence. But with each generation small random errors are added to discover yet undiscovered solutions. Through this process of breeding the best fits with randomness and constantly altering the code the computer programs itself to solve the problem. Animated figures can be walking in 5-10 generations, running in a few more and playing soccer within 20. Imagine a brain (computer) doing this thinking, breeding of solutions covering 10 generations in milliseconds. That is how I imagine we think. We see a problem and can find a solution almost instantly because we can trial multiple solutions in a short period of time not even conscious that we are doing it, the consciousness comes a little later
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_image type=”none” src=”http://www.jesaurai.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/genetic-coded-walking.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]In order to create the playground, the imagined landscape to test new ideas in our minds we need a memory and the ability to create a scene, to filling gaps with new info from this trial and error. And of course our computer will also have a memory.
Another part which is necessary to our thinking is self reflection (consciousness?). The ability to analyse our own decisions as if from an external view point. This is easy enough done in a computer we simply have multiple processors, one that deals with external input, and another that just analyses the decisions made by the first against a deeper purpose. And we could have a third which amends the internal long term narrative and purpose. A ghost in the machine so to speak. Actually we could create multiple levels, ten or more, of this analysis each reviewing and feeding back information to our external selves. This is a bit like the internal “Herman’s Head” like arguments we can often have with ourself, many characters all playing different roles playing out an internal dialogue. To make quick decisions we simply shut down the reviewing layers, to contemplate we switch all layers on absorbing and evolving.
Then we would need to give the computer down-time (sleep) so the self reflective systems can review all the generations of ideas, as they would all be stored in short term memory eventually filling it. This is what we would call feeling tired. Even though many ideas may have been found unnecessary for the immediate decision to be made they may come in handy for other problems, longer term ones or future possibilities and could be stored in long term memory for later use. Others deleted.
You can imagine how dreams are formed from this down-time. Unused ideas are tested against stored scenarios to see if they have benefit, narratives are formed and extrapolated and if a solution is found for a future event before unimagined it can be stored for later use. Small fragments of code or instruction can be attached and reattached to other fragments in new and old narratives creating crazy other worlds. From this we can prepare for the unknown, and our computer, or robot can to. It will be adapted to possible eventualities.
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_video_embed no_container=”false” type=”16:9″][/x_video_embed][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]So our consciousness is nothing more than a secondary reviewing processor, and there is good evidence from neurological testing to support this. Libet saw a pause between decision made and consciousness of the decision, and the pre-frontal cortex along with the orbital frontal cortex have this review and override function on our more base reward and punishment dopamine system.
Sounds simple doesn’t it. I think we have been going about computers all wrong, we have programmed every line of code in a very deterministic way and found that our errors still crash the system. We should build in adaptability, trial and error, purpose and randomness and let the machine find its own path. Exciting, and a little scary.
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_raw_content][GARD][/x_raw_content][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]

Economics

Banks do create money from thin air

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[cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_custom_headline level=”h2″ looks_like=”h3″ accent=”false”]Banks do create credit from nothing but they need to get the money back again to balance their books.[/x_custom_headline][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]I’ve had to have a bit of a rethink on the debate about banks creating money from thin air. The Bank of England has published a report suggesting such.

First I want to back track a bit. Many of those spruiking that banks were creating money from thin air suggested that only one side of their balance sheet received an entry. Their argument is the when a bank lends you money they create an asset – a loan to you. This money enters the system and as you pay down the debt the money created disappears. This is just not standard (double entry) accounting practice.

Banks do balance off their accounts with a deposit to your account or borrowing more money from other banks, or people. They must attract a deposit to balance off their books or they must use their reserves. However the other bank can create a loan – an asset to the other bank – to the bank that has lent you the money. They essentially swap IOU’s and this does increase the base money supply and is essentially creating money from nothing.

The velocity of money and the blurring effect it can have on calculating base money is a factor. In the increase in base money over the past 10 years But there can also be brief periods where lending massively outstrips loan repayments and deposits and this would increase the money supply. Although this effect should unravel.

The affect of default – which decrease that money created – and debt repayments from savings decrease money creation. The velocity of money can compensate for this but generally during conservative times people pay down debt while decreasing economic activity – spending. So both the money expansion ceases and the velocity slows.
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_raw_content][GARD][/x_raw_content][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][cs_text id=”” class=”” style=”” text_align=””]The amount of money gambled in financial capital, forex and derivative markets in Australia. ($1,000AUD)[/cs_text][x_image type=”none” src=”http://www.jesaurai.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Financial-trade-in-Australia-AFMA.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_columnize]So why did Lehman Brothers go broke. In theory no bank should ever go. There should always be a corresponding deposit a lending bank can get its hands on from a new loan or a willing bank to lend it money in the interim. Basically it was fear of us. If we use all our borrowings to pay down debt we can decrease the money supply leaving one bank short, or in a high risk position. The other banks cut off the supply of loans to them and they fail. The debt system unravels backwards and those who lent the most die. Cash can also cause problems because as people hold cash they decrease the banking supply of money. By the same token a decrease in money velocity can have a similar effect, if the money created ceases to flow between banks because we slow spending this can leave a bank very unbalanced and nipping into its reserves or worse depleting them altogether. This scares the whole system and banks cease to lend to each other.

Of course if they just continued to give each other credit in theory the system couldn’t crash.

Again “in theory” this should create inflation and higher interest rates thus correcting the boom. But this only occurs if the increase in money supply actually filters through to the real economy. Much of it stays in the capital and derivative markets.

David J Campbell
[/x_columnize][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; ” visibility=”” parallax=”false”][cs_row id=”” class=” ” style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” visibility=”” inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=””][cs_column id=”” class=”” style=”padding: 0px; ” bg_color=”” fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][x_share title=”Share this Post” share_title=”” facebook=”false” twitter=”false” google_plus=”false” linkedin=”false” pinterest=”false” reddit=”false” email=”false” email_subject=”Hey, thought you might enjoy this! Check it out when you have a chance:”][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]

Art, Music

Jim Sullivan –“UFO”

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In 1969 the brilliant and enigmatic singer songwriter Jim Sullivan released what may be a prophetic album UFO.

In 2010 a reissue of UFO was released by Light in the Attic an American Reissue label that specializes in obscure albums. The boffins at Light in the Attic spent some time trying to locate the original Master tapes but unfortunately after an extensive search concluded that they were destroyed some time ago.

 

So they transferred the best music from the vinyl copies available and the results are of a high standard.

 

In the Title track “UFO” Jim Sullivan sings about going into the desert to look for a UFO that will abduct him “Looking at the Sun dancing through the sky. Did he come by UFO?”

[GARD]

In 1975 the Jim Sullivan story took a turn that made it the stuff of folklore or perhaps conspiracy theories. With his career going nowhere he decided to try and get some session work in Nashville. He took off from Los Angeles through the Joshua tree filled deserts of Nevada. The following day his car was found abandoned with his beloved guitar which was always by his side. Not a sign of the the musician nor any foul play. Sullivan has never been seen since. Could it be that the title track on his 1969 album would become a case of life imitating art?

 

On the whole UFO is a strangely haunting album – not only because of the back story – with some gorgeous string arrangements and accessible lyrics. The sessions also featured some members of the famous Wrecking Crew. If you are a fan of Fred Neil, Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin or Nick Drake you will easily take to this lost masterpiece .

technology

A personal story of the inter-web – it’s not as old as you think

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I just read an article online which stated the internet has been around for 30 years, and for many much shorter. This got me thinking. Thirty years! I don’t think its been around that long.

 

I’m 41 and can remember playing the first video game “Pong” in black and white on a TV with a brown and white probably Bakelite console which had dials. I can remember the first VCR’s; Beta and VHS and I can remember getting our first colour TV. These all happened around the same time. The late 70’s and early 80’s. Around 30 years ago there wasn’t any internet, actually personal computers were only just on the scene.

 

For information back then we bought large volumes of encyclopaedias that consumed the shelves in the lounge room. I recall carrying the science and nature encyclopaedias (full set) to our car from K-Mart on a hot day when I was not much taller than the full stack. I remember it because my arms were aching and I almost buckled under the weight and heat. Back then information took effort.

old pong

We got a computer in the 80’s, I cajoled and influenced my mum against my sisters wishes to buy an MC-10 by Radioshack which cost about $100. Back then $100 was a shit load, about half a weeks income for us and I think it was more than the encyclopaedias (the encyclopaedias were cheap, World Book was de rigueure at the time and Britannica was for the wealthy) we were poor and with hindsight my sister was right. It couldn’t really play games like the VIC-20 (about $220) or the epitome of computers when I was at high school the Commodore 64 ($360) and I was to lazy to learn BASIC to program it. It was an expensive 4kb piece of junk.

 

I bought my first real computer with my wages and my first credit card in 1993/4. A PC 286 which cost $2600 but I couldn’t afford the extra for a modem. I had seen “WarGames” in the 80’s and new I could dial into other computers with a modem and I really wanted this access. But this was not the internet it was something done by computer nerds.

[GARD]

I first heard of the internet at uni around the same time, so early 90’s. I was working full time and studying part time and one of my lecturers mentioned the internet as a way to connect with many other computers on a shared system. We didn’t need to know the number of the other computer we could just search using new tools called web-browsers like Netscape.

 

So the first time I heard of the internet was about 1994, it existed then but it was raw and brand new. The first time I used it came later when I was travelling in 1996. It was common by then, things moved really quickly that’s why we think it was around for a long time. I got my first email account in a hostel in London on a coin-in-the-slot internet computer. I had to ask someone to help me set it up. That feels so old now.

 

By 2002 I had my first website, JeSaurai which is still going (your viewing on this article on the same site). JeSaurai was built in Germany by a friend while I was in Adelaide – Australia, we communicated with email and ICQ, an early instant online messenger. The little “tweet.. tweet” still of an ICQ message still gets my attention. I think that’s the source of twitter. I was still using an old second hand laptop that cost me $600 which was really slow but could cope with the graphics low internet of the time.

 

So the internet for me, and I think for most people is less than 20 years old, it has just become an adult but is yet to become wise. I think the early teen years were a lot more fun. The last 10 years have not made great leaps in information or development. Yes we can stream movies now, we can download software to create our own movies, and we can view the person we are chatting to. But consider it from my perspective. I remember a time before the internet and then we got it and it was revolutionary. We were connected to the whole world and could publish our ideas for free (or very little) we could email our family from overseas and they would get it same day when the post took weeks, we could read news from around the globe without being in the country to buy the newspaper, we could explore an unknown world without having to travel there. It made the poor rich and the rich scared. But now we are connected, what next?

 

We seem a little lost.

 

 

David J Campbell

 

PS: I’m sure someone will go to wikipedia and show me the internet is 30 years old. My article is about how slowly it seeped into peoples lives and how quickly it became part of our lives.