Dana Blankenhorn

Money is a Verb and Nations Are Banks

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 34 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Money is a verb, not a noun. Nations are banks, not families, and for banks loans are called assets.

This is what I’ve learned over a lifetime of studying money. And most conservatives still don’t get it. They think gold is money. They also think governments are families, or businesses. Governments are banks, not businesses.

But let’s take this one step at a time.

First, gold isn’t money, unless everyone agrees gold is money. For the last 40 years oil has been money, because everyone has accepted it as a medium of exchange, it defines value in trade. But that’s going to change real soon, and then what’s money? The answer is we’ll find out. It’s going to be whatever is deemed most essential in a post-energy economy.

Money is a verb, it’s the exchange. It’s not any particular thing. The thing that’s essential, that everyone is willing to exchange other things (including things called money) for, that’s money. But it’s the exchange that defines the transaction, not any one thing being exchanged. No one thing can be held indefinitely and called “money,” for just this reason.

Save Us From Hillary Clinton

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 33 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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There is a reason why the sixth year of any President's term is the hardest for his own advocates. History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. 

By this time we know the President's personality. We know how he will react to events. Satirists can “do” him. Their program has been enacted, and none works perfectly. Defending any President in their sixth year is exhausting. Ask Democrats in 1998, or Republicans in 1986.

Right now we're playing what I would have called, a decade ago, the 1974 Game. That year represented the six year mark following the election of Richard Nixon, which was the election that transformed American politics for a generation. Take Nixon's votes, add Wallace's, and you get an unstoppable coalition. Ronald Reagan and both Bushes would take full advantage. It defines Republicanism to this day.

But it doesn't have to turn out the way it did for Nixon. Despite Republican fever dreams there is nothing in Barack Obama's record to merit impeachment. Especially in comparison with his predecessor, whom those attacking him now defended.

Suicide saved my life

by Martin Kenneth Bayne 

(Note: Martin has taken the place of a minister in my life for many years. He has had Parkinson's for 20 years, has lived in nursing care for over a dozen years, and still accomplishes more in a week than many people accomplish in a year. Those looking for my own thoughts on Robin Williams might refer to my 2007 piece on ADHD, "The Robin Williams In My Head."  RIP.)

 

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I mean no disrespect to the surviving family with this statement, nor do I seek to make light of another’s suffering. I’m simply recounting my experience.

 

In 1995, at the age of 45, and in the ascendancy of my life professionally, socially and spiritually, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease.

 

Today, nearly 20 years later, I look back in astonishment at the last two decades and wonder how I managed to not only survive, but to actually grow emotionally, creatively and spiritually. Make no mistake: Parkinson’s is as ruthless as it is cunning – always searching for weakened neurological conduits and components; taking every opportunity to enslave you psychologically; always making it more difficult to live with dignity and purpose. There were days it took an hour just to get out of bed. (I now sleep in a two-motor electric lift chair).

 

To what do I attribute my success? I decided to fight. I made a covenant with myself, vowing to never let Parkinson's get the upper hand.

 

Am I Any Good?

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 32 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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While I have made some reputation as a technology journalist since 1982, I was actually trained as a general financial journalist, and spent my first few years in the field as a generalist. (The picture is of me and my best friend. Liked her so much I married her on December 23, 1977. I'm a buy-and-hold kind of guy.)

I was fortunate, it turned out, to be canned by ZDNet at the end of 2010. The tech journalism business, it turned out, was dying. Today they just want pretty young faces to cover devices, because there's nothing to learn. They want some programmers to cover cloud, because cloud is complicated. But very, very few people want to read about the details in cloud.

My journey went first to Renewableenergyworld.com, which it turned out wasn't interested in paying anyone for anything. Then another writer suggested I try SeekingAlpha.com, which he said was paying a penny a page view for financial views. I did, and a year later TheStreet contacted me. I've been with them ever since.

But am I any good at what I do? This week I took a look at some of my early work there to find out.

Some Thoughts on Ferguson (No One Has Mentioned)

I drove through Ferguson several times on our recent vacation.

First. Ferguson, Missouri illustrates one of the most important trends of the last decade, the transformation of our suburbs. Ferguson is close to the St. Louis airport, and a location that once meant easy escape now means only noise. Whites have moved further out, along I-70, and their children have moved closer-in, near university campuses. Blacks escaping ghetto conditions have replaced them, drawn by lawns and trees and reasonable prices.

The result is a black city with a white government. The people running the place see their own citizens as an “other,” because the new majority has yet to seize the power their numbers have given them. Not that it would do them much good. In places like Clayton County, Georgia, black government has only accelerated white flight, incompetence followed by bankruptcy and ghettoization. And similar scenes – albeit not as dramatic – took place there as the white structure fought to hang on in the 1990s.

Winning the War Against The Lines

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 31 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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The problem of lines, and line jumpers,  has something in common with the problem of global warming, and the problem of slow economic growth.

That is its solution. I've been writing about it for over five years now.

The solution is renewable energy.

Think about it. What's fueling the present conflict between Israel and Hamas? Oil money, from Qatar and the other Gulf states, without which Hamas would collapse. As would ISIS in Syria and Iraq. What fuels the Boko Haram in Nigeria? Oil money, or the hope of obtaining it. What makes Putin feel invulnerable in Ukraine? Oil money.

Yet think about this. Texas now gets over 10% of its grid energy from wind. New Jersey gets the same amount from solar. Efficiency and the drive to kick oil is driving all sorts of innovations, from Tesla cars to LED light bulbs. Efficiency pays for itself in energy savings. The amount of grid energy needed by the U.S. has barely changed in a half-decade, thanks to efficiency. The amount of gasoline consumed has also stayed about the same, thanks to efficiency.

Every day, still, there are new breakthroughs happening, in terms of energy storage, in solar panel efficiency and cost, in windmill efficiency and cost, in biomass catalysts. It's all approaching a tipping point.

And that tipping point is closer than it appears.

Weighing the War Against the Lines

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 30 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Right now the battle over lines is one between short-term and long-term goals.

It's not a fair fight. Short-term goals always win such a battle. That's why extremist religions defeat more peaceful ones, even though peace is what every religion proclaims. That's why extreme political rhetoric is always used by a party seeking support. That's why doom-and-gloom economic newsletters always sell, even though collapses are very rare.

In the long run we're all dead. In the short run we're all manipulable.

Here's another problem. Those who oppose the lines, or who seek to extend policies across lines, tend to be mild-mannered. President Obama never seems to really get angry, and that's considered a weakness. Those who traffic in anger exploit it relentlessly, squeezing the center, expanding the left and the right.

Both leftists and rightists act, politically, in favor of lines. Those on the left protest international agreements they say will limit democracy or liberty. Those on the right protest internationalism as a matter of course. Both see this as a fight for autonomy, for individualism against the “collective.”

But we're all in a collective. Our churches are collective. Our families are collective. Our businesses are collective. For anyone to claim they're “anti-collectivist” who owns a business, attends a church and has a family is ridiculous.

The question is whether our collectives are also part of a collective, whether there is some urgency in cooperating across these very tiny lines that mark our lives.