CURIOSITY that is the key to Everything


COMMENT:

Sorry, the question being, how could it or could it be possible for, people first-time buyers, and foreign buyers to all happily own houses while supporting growth and the economy. I hope one day and highly think plausible in thousands of years time u will be looked back on as our generations Socrates , only this time hopefully all your information will be saved a spread for education, and s new renaissance, what with information storage, internet, and common sense must prevail common sense from understanding this education.

All the very best will get to one of those conferences, one day enjoy.

Ps best education comes from grieving I reckon sorry for your loss, she’ll be even prouder, all the very best and to your health sir and dedicated staff.

 

 

REPLY: We are all on a journey through this life to gain knowledge. If you do not assume you know everything, then you keep your mind open and you actually learn at all ages. There was a professor at Princeton University who knew Einstein. He would tell me that I reminded him of Albert. I was totally surprised for I certainly did not put myself in his category. I asked how was that possible? He explained to me that it was not the subject matter, but I was always curious and wanted to understand how things worked and why.

It was that CURIOSITY that drove me to put together the world monetary system from coins. It was the ONLY way to definitively understand HOW empires, nations, and city-states rose and fell. The daunting question was always: HOW did Rome fall? Was it like a gradual decline as a 747 plane coming in a for a landing or was it abrupt appearing like a crash out of nowhere?

When I gathered the coins and mapped out both the money supply by studying the dies and the metal content, then and only then was it possible to answer that question. That was the CURIOSITY that reminded the professor of Einstein. It is the pursuit of knowledge that is our purpose in life. It is all we leave behind to prove we even existed. The greatest obstacles to advancing human society are bias, prejudice, and self-interest.

The key to everything is CURIOSITY. If we do not try to figure out how everything works without ASSUMING we know everything so why bother, we just may learn something. Therein lies the seeds to the advancement of human society. Here is a passage from the Last Lion by William Manchester. It really explains what a true genius is. We wrongly assume that such a person just knows everything like an encyclopedia. The true genius is someone who challenges the prevailing school of thought and asks WHY?

This is what Manchester wrote on the subject about genius and Winston Churchill. It is something that is important and we should keep this in mind with our children.

“Samuel Butler defined genius as “a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds,” and it is ironic that geniuses are likeliest to be misunderstood in classrooms. Studies at the University of Chicago and the University of Minnesota have found that teachers smile on children with high IQs and frown upon those with creative minds. Intelligent but uncreative students accept conformity, never rebel, and complete their assignments with dispatch and to perfection. The creative child, on the other hand, is manipulative, imaginative, and intuitive. He is likely to harass the teacher. He is regarded as wild, naughty, silly, undependable, lacking in seriousness or even promise. His behavior is distracting; he doesn’t seem to be trying; he gives unique answers to banal questions, touching off laughter among the other children. E. Paul Tor-rance of Minnesota found that 70 percent of pupils rated high in creativ¬ity were rejected by teachers picking a special class for the intellectually gifted. The Goertzels concluded that a Stanford study of genius, under which teachers selected bright children, would have excluded Churchill, Edison, Picasso, and Mark Twain.”

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This is also why A students work for C students, and B students work for the government. Critical thinking is the key to everything and it is CURIOSITY that drives the advancement of society. Sadly, the number of people who question their immediate surroundings takes place in less than 10% of the population. People who often write asking what if everyone followed Socrates, the answer is rather simple – that would never happen. It is like saying what if 100% of the people voted for Democrat/Labor or Republican/Conservative?

It is CURIOSITY that is the key to everything

What is an Assault Rife?


I spent two months shy of 4 years in the army from 1965 to 1969 first as enlisted and then as an officer. I had one partial tour in Nam where I was wounded and sent home to recover after 4 months in combat. I was qualified with most infantry weapons and used a CAR-15 (Colt Automatic Rifle-15) in Vietnam which was a short barrel version of the M16 riffle. The more modern version of that rifle line is the M4 and a civilian look alike is commonly referred to as the AR-15 Assault rifle. The civilian AR-15 cannot fire full auto even with a “bump stock” add on, it still requires a separate trigger pull for each round fired. In Vietnam on patrol I never fired my CAR-15 on full auto; it’s a waste of ammo in most cases. In the jungle often with no communications you didn’t waste your ammo.

The following is a quick summary of the various kinds of guns or weapons made as simple as possible. Manufacturers and others give brand names and descriptions to models they make and there are all kind of fancy add-on’s most, if not all, are meaningless to the actual function of the weapon; which is feed a round into the chamber and fire it with a trigger pull. Not considered here, are the various kinds of bullets but it must be kept in mind that the bullets are designed to kill, there is no such thing as a safe bullet.

But first I have a test for you, below are the images of two weapons, what is the main functional difference between them, assume they are civilian weapons?  At the end of this post I will give you the answer.

Forgetting muzzle loaders there are really only two kinds of guns (including; hand guns, rifles, machine guns and shot guns) the first and most common kind is where one trigger pull fires one round. The other kind is when a trigger is pulled, and held, the weapon will continue to fire until either the supply of bullets is gone or the trigger is released. Some of the different common names are: machine gun, revolver, semi-automatic, rifle, carbine, long riffle, shot gun and derringer that refer to the means of feeding a bullet into the weapon and the length of the barrel.

Bullets can be placed in one at a time as in a derringer, or 6 in a cylinder that can be placed in the revolver, or a small number from 3 to 8 or more in a feed tube under the barrel of a lever action rifle, or a pump action shot gun, or in a clip of 5 bullets that can be pushed into the opening under the bolt as in the old M-1 Garand rifle of WW II, or in a magazine that holds 5 to 30 bullets or more like a AR-15 or M4 or AK-47, or a belt of bullets held together by small metal clip of 100 or more bullets as in a M-60 machine gun.

The next consideration is how the bullets get into the position to be fired; which can be a rotating cylinder, a hand operated bolt, a pump action, a lever action, a mechanism related to the energy contained in the detonated charge in the bullet that will directly or indirectly cause the bolt to move back into a position where the next bullet can be feed in (commonly referred to as a semi-automatic).

For all practical purposes, from a functional point of view, there are only 4 kinds of guns or weapons:

 

Civilian Weapons (some also used by the military):

1 Semi-automatic single pull and release trigger with a short barrel

2 Semi-automatic single pull and release trigger with a long barrel

Military Weapons: 

3 Full-automatic and single pull and hold trigger with a short barrel

4 Full-automatic and single pull and hold trigger with a long barrel

 

The problem that the people that don’t like the 2nd Amendment, and want to ban guns, have is that there is no way to actually ban “assault” rifles as it does not appear as a type of weapon: it’s a look, not a kind of weapon. It would be like trying banning Kleenex tissue. The closest actual type would be a scout rifle or a carbine which are short barreled rifles. Legislation that these people try to write, as to what constitutes an assault rifle, end up having a great many pages of descriptions as they try and describe something that does not actually exist.

The answer to the quiz is the biggest functional difference between those two weapons is the length of the barrel.

Russia’s Wheat Crop Fails?


The weather turned very cold this year as our computer has been forecasting. The importance of our model’s forecasts lies in determining what will be the next cycle focus. Each cycle tends to shift from one to the next sector. While we still risk a strong dollar rally into 2020 creating the economic recession through deflation as assets decline, the next 8.6-year cycle appears to be setting up to be a commodity cycle. As the climate changes to bitter cold, we have warned this is when FAMINE and DISEASE rise. The flu season is always when it turns cold – not warm.

It is important to keep an eye on the climate cycle and prepare for the next real bull market. This year, the wheat crop in Russia has failed because of the bitter cold with even April coming in as the coldest in more than 140 years. The people who want to believe in global warming are so enamored with this idea mixing up pollution with climate change that they fail to see the trend coming. As crops fail with colder winters, food supplies will decline and prices will rise. So look for the next 8.6-year Economic Confidence Model Wave to bring higher prices in food

The Crisis in Analysis – Is it Just Hopeless?


A new study has come out taking issue with the entire climate change forecasts putting forth that it is at best 45% as intense as the prognostications put forth. The greatest flaw is just how poor these people do their research. They are TOTALLY ignorant of any cyclical trend and project that if the temperature rises 1 degree this year, then they project that will continue without change for decades. Honestly, they do the same in just about every field with the same results. Economists assume they cannot predict the business cycle so why bother. Projections for growth into the next year are always based upon the trend this year.

 As that famous interview of Larry Summers by Bloomberg reveals, Summers was asked why you “smart” people can never predict a recession? It is the methodology that makes all of these forecasts worthless. The one thing we can count on is that whatever trend is in motion this year, by no means guarantees we will see the same next year.

Just how do we ever get all of these fields to stop and consider cycles is beyond comprehension. When you forecast the future trend correctly, they accuse you of causing the trend because of influence. It often seems hopeless to ever get a change in how analysis is conducted. It will just take a crash and burn before anything changes.

Summer states the very theory why the NY banks accused me of manipulating the world. The assumption is you cannot, and if you do manage to do it, then it is attributed to influence. You just cannot win.

Greece & the Debt Crisis


The entire EU Crisis began precisely on schedule on the Political Pi Turning point from the major high in 2007. Precisely on the day of the ECM turning point, April 16, 2010 (2010.29) Greece notified the IMF it was on the verge of bankruptcy. By April 22nd, the Euro fell to near year-low levels amid concerns about Greece’s debt crisis. The IMF activated the loan facility and Greece received its first €45 billion on April 23rd, 2010. Then on May 9th, the IMF approved a bailout package for Greece with the largest loan and exceptional, fast-track access. Of course, that turning point of April 16th, 2010 was also the first time the SEC charged Goldman Sachs with outright FRAUD is selling its Mortgage Backed Securities.

Mother-MerkelIn dealing with Greece, the German head of state Chancellor Angela Merkel, had promised the German taxpayers that any loan to Greece they will be held to the fire and forced to repay. The polls were turning hard against Merkel as she was being bashed in the world press for Greece had forgiven Germany’s debt after World War II, but Merkel refused to provide any relief for Greece because of her campaign promise. The divert the press from here hardline policy on Greece, Merkel then summarily announced that she would take the refugees from Syria with open arms. That then began the European Refugee Crisis and Merkel then force the rest of Europe to share the burden she created unilaterally. The entire European Refugee Crisis was created by Merkel, and this has been at the center of the crisis which is tearing Europe apart at the seams. That came as the next ECM wave turned from its peak 2015.75.

Now as we approach the next political Pi Turning Point due on November 21st, 2018, which will be 8.6 years from when the Greek debt crisis began, the EU Commission has demanded from the Eurozone states that debt relief should be provided to Greece. “We need to find a mechanism that will ease the debt burden that is on the Greek people today,” EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Friday at a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers in Sofia. The creditors would have to show “solidarity with Greece” in order to secure the recovery of the long-term crisis country.

The Greek government creditors addressed by Moscovici are the taxpayers from those Eurozone states that had granted loans to the country in recent years – especially German taxpayers. With these loans, the Greek government paid the debts that it had with major international banks. All the loans in Christendom to Greece will not solve the debt crisis. The design of the Euro was seriously flawed. They implemented only a single currency and left all member states with their national debts instead of consolidating them. Then the Euro rose from 80 cents to $1.60 and suddenly Southern Europe saw their national debts double in real value. It was no different from borrowing to buy a home in Swiss franc to save interest and watching the Swiss double in value and now you owed twice as much on your home. Debt relief of 50% is needed on the entire national debt – not just the loans since 2010.

Fully Automatic Assault Van!


Published on Apr 26, 2018

A man in Toronto drives a van into a crowd of people, killing 10. No one calls for banning vans. So why does the left call to ban guns when we all know its people who are the problem?

Britain Cancels its Currency but Keeps £1 million notes


COMMENT:

Message: I am a great fan of your blog and read all with interest. I was surprised to read £10 notes have been canceled, as I still regularly get £10 and £20 notes and send them even though electronic money transfer is increasingly the norm

MR

REPLY: Britain introduced the new “tenners” last September. There was a period when both could circulate. That term expired here in the Spring of 2018. You can exchange them at a bank, but you must have an account. If you do not have an account like myself, the currency exchange operations charge 20%. The eliminated the paper one pound notes back in 1984. They will be doing the same with £20 notes. They have not yet announced any release date for that one. The speculation is that the £50 notes will be discontinued.

The Bank of England actually prints itself internally £1 million and £100 million pound notes. They are used only internally to back the paper currency issued by other banks such as the Bank of Scotland. They are used to back those notes which are exchangeable to Bank of England notes.


Juncker Celebrates 200th Birthday of Karl Marx


The head of the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker celebrates the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx in Germany. What is really stunning, is that Karl Marx is not merely the champion of Communism which he adopted from the French Commune experiment during the French Revolution, but he has ignored the little fact that no other person in history is responsible for killing tens of millions of people, more than all the wars combined, who gave their lives for his ideology.

To celebrate Karl Marx which advocates suppressing the people and taking all wealth from them and handing it to the state politicians is in itself a demonstration of exactly how the EU looks at its role today. We live in a very dangerous era for this is the collapse of Marxism and they will fight back with every ruthless means possible to save their theory of living off of other people’s money.

China – Is There an Asian Debt Crisis on the Horizon?


China is on its way to reaching the title of the Financial Capital of the World post-2032. However, that is also NOT going to be accomplished all on its own. In part, this is the moving trend and the shift our computer has been forecasting also because the West is in a Sovereign Debt Crisis and by raising taxes and imposing stiff regulations to try to keep the game going, GDP in the West will decline.

Nevertheless, China has some adjustment it must go through before it reaches that goal. It will surpass the EU, but the EU is hard at work of just trying to protect the jobs of bureaucrats rather than to actually make Europe a better place to live. Right now, China’s Debt to GDP stands at 250% mainly because to stimulate their economy, they actually lent money to people. The Western government bought their own bonds back to the “indirectly stimulate” the economy which never made it to the people. This is why Europe is still in deep trouble. The US took the bad loans from the banks and stuffed them in Freddie & Fannie. The EU left the bad loans on the books of the banks because it was seen as a bailout for Southern Europe. Now we have a banking crisis in Europe that never ends.

China’s debt problem is quite different. On the back of a boom in property prices, household borrowing has been climbing for the past 10 years straight. We are now approaching the correction point in this trend. The borrowing had expanded at a pace that exceeded the biggest speculative booms in the West. Now, some $6.7 trillion in personal debt also exists and this is now 50% of GDP. Private debt is now approaching crimping consumer spending power and therefore lies the recession ahead.

We will be focusing on China at the Singapore World Economic Conference in June 2018.

China’s New Silk Road


The Chinese government had finished its rail freight service between China and London. This is expanding the New Silk Road creating a direct rail link straight from China to Great Britain. This route moves from Beijing, across Asia and Europe, and then reaches London. Of course, this will move both ways. This will certainly enable a greater array of products to move compared to shipping