But now, central banks mining in the process walking reversing that very same wealth effect that temporarily and bitcoin boosted global GDP. But what the holders of Bitcoins don't yet understand is that even though this one cryptocurrency is limited in supply, the universe of commodity-like cryptocurrencies mining unlimited. No doubt Clif bitcoin a special machine which share never see like difficulty bank of computers that mining up these energies being beamed to us by the evil Emperor Ming. These were mortgages taken out by walking very likely to become delinquent, to purchase houses that were sharply inflated in value by the rampant ease of acquiring a mortgage. It's really just common sense; artificially-low interest rates, asset bubbles and over-indebtedness bitcoin be fixed by simply printing money like it is confetti. Almost all such groups and many walking their subdivisions have their share communications systems. As difficulty the other story of ancients with temples of gold … Difficulty think that was an Indiana Jones movie, this fails share the same reason.
Sure the first people who got into are making a profit but like any good scheme, thats what happens, you make it look good. Further evidence of deflation is seen in the fact that the spread between long and short-term Treasury Yields are contracting. If scientists routinely discovered new elements by the hundreds that are virtually indestructible and extremely rare, the value of all existing PM's would become greatly diluted. December 12, 3 Comments. Vince was a can do guy who always could be counted on to do the little extra that goes beyond dollar or clock.
Sure, I have doubt about some of his predictions. Here is the irony: Now, onto the wallets. And just like that, the market had bottomed. Many localities bill taxes in December A spoon can serve dinner. I had always thought bitcoin multiplication was fake until i came across https:
jinyoung lee englund bitcoin В»
Digital assets are unique and non-fungible. When the Venezuelan government hyper-inflates the bolivar, it doesn't affect the purchasing power of a dollar. In fact, it may even bolster the dollar's value, and we see a similar phenomenon in cryptocurrency.
Ethereum is an example of a platform, but there are others. Companies can issue tokens on the platform easily and use them for governance or stakeholder management. The growth of usage of the platform will necessitate the use of the "gas" that powers transactions, which in the case of Ethereum is ether. Ether isn't a strict cryptocurrency like bitcoin, although it may be used as a currency. It is the transaction token for the Ethereum platform.
The rise of this platform has led to the emergence of prominent competitors, each with a similar transaction token. For example, Augur is a decentralized prediction market launching next year. The tokens entitle the holder to a share of all transaction fees from the prediction markets, as well as voting rights to settle disputed prediction outcomes. Users of the platform can create markets at will, and operate as market maker.
There are other interesting applications of the technology with an associated token, such as Golem distributed computing , Air and Civic identity verification , Storj and Sia distributed storage.
Many of these business models will fail, and the associated tokens will decline to zero. Those that succeed could increase in value significantly, perhaps even surpassing the value of the associated platform token.
Bitcoin itself is the reserve currency for cryptocurrency, and I believe it will continue to play this role indefinitely. There are others that intend to play the strict role of currency, such as a. Credit system coins Maker, X8currency not yet released , Decred. These coins attempt to build a non-debt based credit system for cryptocurrency. The business model is of critical importance here, so much DD is necessary before investing here. December 7, Leave a Comment.
I was just notified by a historical foundation that there are no longer any court clubs in San Diego. The IRA cannot hold any tournaments in San Diego, and for the first time no player in the top 50 hails from the mecca.
The handful of SpecListers who have had investments in crypto are well past 30 no offense intended, you don't look it. But yes, many of the enthusiasts are millennial. Having come of age in the depths of the financial crisis, they have a keen distrust of the banking system and the political establishment that reinforces its oligopoly power and socializes its risks. I have cut and paste the answers I got from a very good friend who really can hack the math and the digital mysteries of cryptocurrencies.
My contribution is the choice of a sound track. Sum up the number of stolen bitcoins just from the 7 hacks mentioned by that article and multiply by current price. And that is with bitcoin basically only used by tech savvy people.
Imagine how much worse it would be if bitcoin went mainstream? This site offers a retrospective on 45 different hacks. There was a Nobel award in the early part of last century for the discovery of the bacterial cause of cancer. The work was subsequently found to be deficient. If they give Nobel Prizes for common sene then my Grandfather should receive one.
As a nine year old boy I was heartbroken when my Granddad told me that our black Lab Duke was sick and not going to get better. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he had cancer, a sickness where the body turns against itself with healthy tissue being taken over by the disease. So why do humans get cancer?
Why do elephants not get cancer? Going out on a limb here… their diet and their genes. The highest rates of cancer outside of humans in higher order species are the very ones in which we human control the diet: Given that dog's frequently consume the scraps of their human family's meals one would EXPECT to see a significant correlation to diet induced disease.
Veterinarians note that cancer has become much more prevalent in man's best friend in the last half century and again—Captain Obvious—it has also increased discernably in man. December 5, Leave a Comment. So Anatoly was right, in a way. The effect on BTC itself remains to be seen.
A more sophisticated investor could have invested directly in the Trust by buying shares at NAV. After a 1-year lockup, one could have a GBTC share cert issued, and sell the shares at the premium. But people were foolishly buying shares of this product, perhaps so they could have BTC exposure in a tax-advantaged account. December 4, Leave a Comment. So, in the context of conspiracist or highly partisan communities, they can become incredibly powerful echo chambers; few people join a group to start challenging the prevailing opinion, and those who do typically get kicked out.
Radicalization via the Recommendation Engine". What seems clear is that our ability to navigate is inextricably tied not just to our ability to remember the past but also to learning, decision-making, imagining and planning for the future.
And though our sense of direction often feels innate, it may develop — and perhaps be modified — in a region of the brain called the retrosplenial cortex, next to the hippocampus, which becomes active when we investigate and judge the permanence of landmarks. In , Maguire and co-authors published their finding that an accurate understanding of whether a landmark is likely to stay put separates good navigators from poor ones, who are as apt to take cues from an idling delivery truck as a church steeple.
The retrosplenial cortex passes our decisions about the stability of objects to the hippocampus, where their influence on way-finding intersects with other basic cognitive skills that, like memory, are as crucial to identity as to survival. Recently, Maguire and colleagues proposed a new unified theory of the hippocampus, imagining it not as a repository for disparate memories and directions but as a constructor of scenes that incorporate both.
Try to recall a moment from your past or picture a future one without visualizing yourself in the physical space where that moment happens.
Edvard and May-Britt Moser have similarly hypothesized that our ability to time-travel mentally evolved directly from our ability to travel in the physical world, and that the mental processes that make navigation possible are also the ones that allow us to tell a story. December 4, 2 Comments. Since bitcoin is one of these emotionally freighted subjects that permits otherwise serious investors to unironically post charts that juxtapose data from highly disparate eras, contexts, and time frames, I might as well contribute one too.
It is not emotional, Andy. If it were, I and others would not have complimented you, both on the List and privately, on a great call. What the professionals on this List have taught me is that price movements are themselves information, independent of the units they denominate. The difficulty with your chart is that it is not a display of prices over time.
What I find paradoxical about cryptocurrencies is that their growth in popularity and transaction volumes has been accompanied by a rise in price that is independent of any increases in outputs or payouts. All other mines in history that have seen dramatic price rises in their asset values have seen even greater increases in outputs even as the output prices dropped—salt, silver, gold, coal and even diamonds all followed this pattern. Rockefeller became the wealthiest man in history by owning the distribution and production of a product whose price plummeted even as consumption soared.
Clearly, cryptocurrencies, like Tesla's newly imagined giant batteries, defy all the known rules. Congratulations on the unprecedented and profitable levitation. I didn't mean to say that your points, or the discussion on the List, were emotional.
It's been a rational discussion here, although I do think dismissing bitcoin as a bubble similar to the South Seas stock bubble shows an insufficient understanding of bitcoin as well as the South Seas affair. My "emotionally freighted" reference had performances such as this recent Joseph Stiglitz interview in mind. I was thinking as well of this chestnut from Paul Krugman , another courtier to the flexions:.
When I have been in doubt about how to live or invest, doing what Krugman and Stiglitz consider evil has always been a rewarding choice. What is unique about bitcoin is that unlike diffusion of earlier technologies, in which investors participated by investing in representations of the technology startup companies , in the case of bitcoin and a handful of other platform cryptos, the coin is definitionally equivalent to the technology.
The dynamics driving the price are aligned with Brexit and the "surprise" election of Trump. Bitcoin is a Cassandra for our age. As Jayson points out, it has dropped by this magnitude several times previously. It's the nature of innovation that isn't "managed" by the state. December 4, 1 Comment. Articles from Goldman paint a bearish picture and they are so flawed in their analysis. This is what the CFA stuff has led to. Does "the CFA stuff" mean the attempt to certify critical thinking and standardise which facts are important?
One of the pleasures of a long lived affinity group like this are the little improvements to one's life that occur not planned but arising out of a little something of friendship. He was a good man and had a wonderful wife who tragically succumbed.
Vince was a can do guy who always could be counted on to do the little extra that goes beyond dollar or clock. He taught me to roll the tennis courts with a circular path rather than perpendicular among countless other things.
One thing he did was to set us up on the bloomberg so that we received spot prices free for the metals rather than the costly futures. For 10 years we saved money by using spot rather than the futures. Certain adjustments had to be made since there was a 3 and a half hour difference in their closing times… but now gold trades as much as bonds, , contracts a day.
And it's become viable to trade in size as is bunds rather than bonds. So we bite the bullet after 12 years and get the future prices and recall all of Fulco's contributions to our life and are not surprised at all that he is doing so well in China.
We thank him and wish him well in his pursuits. He's a good man. December 3, Leave a Comment. A Gresham's Law appears to be operating. They refuse to take account of interest rates and use technical analysis and charts for suggestive but random conclusions.
It is sad to see this deterioration as literacy increases as predicted by Nock. I find that if I'm really serious about an individual ticker, one of the few places where I can get at least trailheads to research is the earnings conference call, not for the company's answers but more for the analyst's questions, assuming there are analysts on the call who are at least somewhat skeptical.
Not that I dig into individual tickers that much anymore. Vic's point of Gresham's Law happens everywhere, but especially in situations where there are credentials given that appear to have value. IMO the CFA society exists as does the CMT primarily to enhance the status of its anointed ones for a price , and for the side benefit of providing income to the society heads.
There is no original thinking and virtually no research. But there is a benefit to us thinking ones: If all of what passes for research is bot-written drivel, released over some time period, a case can be made for trends to exist based on the gradual release of the drivel. That would support the contention that what really drives certain markets is momentum and sentiment. In an effort to defend free thinking CFAs from the white shoe firms, I have attached and included a link to my most recent annual analysis on the Dow Jones Industrial Index built on Ben Graham's method's with an added modern twist and nod to Richard Russell in a world of QE.
Obviously, figuring out the key ratios is key, but in short, the theory is that gold and tangible book on the Dow should trade on a ratio. There will then be the goodwill book value which gets measure by crytpo, so in combination they will equal the value of shares in fiat. In short, there is value but that value is dependent on the value of money, assets, earnings, and interest rates. We live in a world of fiat, hard, and crypto currencies.
In short, I think QE is the same as John Law effort to demonitize gold but then cryptos broke out - you can inflate values but the market will find a way to make proper measurements. I have started making all price targets in dollars, gold and bitcoin equivalents - when money is mispriced it is hard to know the value of anything and all secular bear markets are the result of a breakdown in the monetary system greenbacks - bi-metal system - gold standard - Bretton Woods - Quasi-Free float - Crypto - bear just don't understand how they play sometime values decline deflation , sometimes they inflate so nominal prices hold but you loose purchasing power, and sometimes you hyperinflate your values go up but you gotta find a better currency cyrpto.
The first CFA exam was administered on June 15, to men and 6 women. See page 55 of From Practice to Profession: While I agree with much of what Rocky states, what appears to be missing from the thread is that the motive for much "rresearsh" is often CYB cover. Almost anything written by a CFA is formulaic and uninteresting. I get an email once a week from the CFA society linking to all the things on Seeking Alpha that were written by CFA's and they are almost universally worthless. The hypothesis proffered by Vic was that "ever since the CFA exams I have noticed a tendency for wall street research to deteriorate.
A greshams law appears to be operating. We are in agreement that virtually all of the research is unhelpful or rubbish. But it is incorrect to to attribute this to the CFA exam or to suggest that this is anew phenomenon. At the very least, it is due to the fact that customers of wall street firms do not pay for the "product.
Do you remember Henry Blodgett? That was 20 years ago. Additionally, back in the early 's and long before the front-running scandals, David Silfen formed an internal prop group to invest based on GS analyst research. The results were abysmal and the group was disbanded.
While I agree with much of what Rocky states What appears to be missing from the thread is that the motive for much "rresearsh" is often CYB cover.
I agree with you Russ, but in a world where you can pay to know if Fed Powell likes his morning egg hard boiled or over easy I'm a little over easy myself. Bernanke was an oatmeal man. This is Flexionic activity written by Gov's and the Operator's will take every advantage over the common man. I have also include my white paper on Bitcoin, Banking, and Bernanke from Prior year reports available to those with a Bloomberg under DIA equity.
Obviously, figuring out the key ratios is key, but in short, the theory is that gold and tangible book on the Dow will normalize and the delta goes to crytpo, so in combination they will equal the value of shares in fiat.
David Simon made a related point to all this with regard to journalism. He worked for the Baltimore Sun before writing The Wire.
As seasoned journalists who knew their beat were replaced by cheaper fresh faces who can still write words, skepticism and quality deteriorated. December 2, 6 Comments.
How did Bitcoin jump 10X in value in the matter of just 11 months? I have removed as an area of support following this weekend's madness. Evidently his net worth is tied up in airline vouchers. Actually the "right" trade during the dotcom bubble was to be long and own low delta, far out of the money puts.
The same was true during the silver bubble, the nat gas bubble and all exponential moves. What I find astounding is that some people never learn from their past mistakes. If you don't know who the sucker is at the poker table, look in the mirror…. There is no real borrow market; so should futures be in backwardation? Or should it be upward sloping like a regular currency with a positive interest rate?
Does anyone have a better perspective on this? Finally an interesting question on this subject. There could be some good spread trade opportunities, since I expect the term structure to move wildly in the initial stage of market development. I expect it to be mostly in contango at first, but move to a modest backwardation that reflects an implied yield.
From the cheap seats, bubbles tend to coexist with inversions backwardation. Current uncertainty places a premium on the near month while the distant months play with the expectation of mean-reversion. Isn't that exactly what Bitcoin is all about? So you would expect Bitcoin futures to show backwardation. The only problem is that you cannot build an economically rational model for such a price structure. Thus it seems as though momentum and sentiment will rule the day.
Appropriate quote from the Senator: When a researcher lacks hard evidence, conjecture is his greatest tool. Some conjecture better than others. Some conclusions are more conclusive than others. December 1, Leave a Comment. I posted on a friend a while back that started out with 50 servers a year ago mining BTC.
He recently found some investors and is scaling up to servers. Some metrics he follows; on his variable costs electricity, rent, etc , he budgeted it would take 15 days of mining each month to cover, last month it took 5 days. Return of capital he budgeted 6 months, actually taking 3 months. Says scale is important, bigger processing capability of servers allows more profitable transactions. They will soon be 2 in their "pool".
He has a good relationship with largest server producer in China and negotiated a power deal in the US with decreasing marginal cost based on usage. Why isn't Google Amazon or the valley locking this biz? Good question or as usual I'm last to know. I could never understand the ethics of crypto mining "biz". You certainly use up resources—to produce "what"?? Would your friends ROI be positive without the rally? None the less, they were extremely popular 'investments' as people liked the cachet of being a technologically sophisticated 'miner.
November 30, 2 Comments. Usually there is a correlate—such as the desk top computer and tech stocks, gold and political uncertainty sic , etc. The only things I can think of that correlate with BTC's trajectory are the frequency of NK nuke tests and due-process free salacious executions of key members of the deep state. A key characteristic of a bubble is that the people in it don't recognize that they are in it. The bubble proclamations about bitcoin seem to come from those who have missed out i.
Despite Anatoly's misquoting of me, in response to Jamie Dimon calling bitcoin a fraud, I did not call Jamie Dimon a fraud. I wrote that bitcoin said that Dimon is a fraud. Which turned out to have not been a "craze". The most chiliastic augurs of a connected humanity, portents of Teilhard de Chardin's noosphere reified, were too conservative. In my view, the bubble that is barely acknowledged is the vast scope, size, and scale of the state not just the government , and its rapacious intrusion into our private lives.
This precarious bubble continues to inflate on the premise that there is no diminishing marginal utility of additional units of state power. The gap grows between the linear growth in expectations and the logarithmic returns. If this is a bubble, then bitcoin represents its antithesis. There are sardines for trading and sardines for eating. And not becoming an idealogue, philosopher or believer. I suggest that you read the Harvard paper that I posted two days ago a bit more carefully.
As the paper reports and I've learned from experience, these moves go much further and last much longer than reasonable people expect. And since you mentioned Cisco, I believe its high tick war around 85; 17 years later the stock is trading at And then the only trade was to be short — for about two decades with most of the move occuring during the first 24 months.
Same thing with the Nikkei in And I feel comfortable predicting that the same thing will be true for BTC but from a final blowoff top of who-knows-where. Lastly, here's a rocky challege: Other than a government engineered revaluation, of course.
Of course, it's Bitcoin. I've been emailed personally by several people on the List who asked what I guess they thought were questions I hadn't considered or couldn't answer. I've responded with thorough emails with numerous academic and non-academic references, and never received a "thanks" or even an acknowledgement of my time spent. The fact is that I have pulled out many times my investment, and yet those with the strongest opinions have nothing at stake at least in terms of money, the need to be right is very much in evidence , with no more relevance to the market price than a bucket shop price shouter.
I have less certitude about the future price than they do. But what do I know? I really don't care if people think I am ridiculous or stupid. I'll take my profits while they opinionate. Your benchmark of price stability USD has declined in purchasing power by This was after a long period of purchasing power stability, or even of productivity-driven deflation.
Ah, but those fluctuations in prices e. They drove a free people to put the management of their currency in the hands of technocrats. And yet he and his family lived an upper middle class life, with no mortgage on the brick house on a tree-lined street, cars bought with cash, and a child who went to an expensive private college.
What sort of price stability is this? I hold gold and trade it, and even expect a rally in it, but I think we all know that the CBs would kill any "bubble" in gold, though such a "bubble" might be very much justified. If the state and its extension, the CME, kill bitcoin as Anatoly hopes, then another cryptocurrency or something like it will replace it.
There are already several that could replace it. It is a mistake to equate bitcoin with cryptocurrency.
There is the beginning of something here that all lovers of freedom should welcome, even if its name is not bitcoin. I admire Andy's instructive tenacity and hope to see more. There remains quite a chasm to bridge. I've argued in the past that cryptos are an ongoing disruption rather than simply a new currency coming into an old framework. Many of the predictions would be more relevant if bitcoin were simply a global fiat currency.
November 30, Leave a Comment. These are two extremely important papers in Nature that have big implications longer term. Both of them solved a problem using quantum computing that classical computing cannot currently address even at the supercomputer level. Obviously, no impact to cryptocurrencies yet, but it is something to keep in mind for the long game in terms of potential disrupters to encryption in general:.
November 29, Leave a Comment. Change Research has just released their 3rd poll on the Alabama Senate race. The partisan allocation is - for Alabama - extremely cautious; it may understate the overall Republican share of the electorate, but it is - by far - the most scientific weighting of any of the polls taken for this race.
They use the Presidential vote tally, as self-reported by the sample. Donald Trump, the Republican Their sampling was done over the weekend so their data is - right now - the only survey information that is current.
RCP and others are using what is very stale data. Nate Silver and Co. That could be taken as a sign. The cross-tabs for the Change Research poll are fascinating and wonderfully detailed. I heard a lot of excitement around the bubble in bitcoin, blockchain, and how the precious metals will turn around soon. I'm quoted in the article reviewing the landscape, from a old conference I used to speak. USDA reports the year corn production first reached these milestones: This allows for a population approaching 40, plants per acre.
Narrowing the distance between rows to 20 or 22 inches has shown a significant increase in yields in many trials. There's a school of ag scientists who predict that the development of new hybrids and GMO's combined with narrow rows will allow for ultra high plant populations of up to 80, plants per acre. The huge populations will be achieved without causing undue stress to the plant. Scientists are working on future root systems that will adapt to the narrow rows, allowing for the more efficient collection of water.
In some hybrids, they are tinkering with the shape of the plant, making them more Christmas tree like to maximize exposure to light. The effect of sunlight cannot be underestimated, as any sunlight that hits the ground is effectively wasted.
After all, huge ears require more support and that translates to wasted, non-essential plant structure. November 28, Leave a Comment. In "Strange Pursuit" , a Bowdrie story by Louis L'Amour, the author says that the first law of reading signs is to look for the unusual—the direction of the grass after a man or horse has recently trodden —its opposite for a horse or a displaced rock.
How can this be applied to predicting markets? One idea is to take the longest failure of an event and study what happens afterwards. For example, the failure of bonds down and stocks down on a single day.
I have been listening to L'Amour short stories as an antidote to stroke lately and have found them highly entertaining and soporific. You will excuse my bad typing recently as my brain makes my fingers off by at least two keys.
Very flawed but interesting depiction of Churchill's in 10 days around becoming prime minister. For some reason they spent half the picture on the secretary. They made up a scene on the underground where a man of color told Churchill what to do.
They pictured Halifax as a McCain type and made the king into a potent figure in the war but he wasn't. Good depiction of Clementine. Right out of Ellsworth Touhie. That might be well worth it for coin collectors and hoarders—or for stashing in a post-apocalypse bunker along with the guns and freeze-dried macaroni.
But some unhappy investors have deposited them into retirement accounts, where the shiny gold and silver coins have performed like lead sinkers. Paul Rumage, a year-old retired software engineer from Michigan, said he was looking for a haven from stocks for his individual retirement account in A private dealer persuaded him to buy 45 four-coin sets of American Eagle gold proofs, and ounces of silver Eagle proofs, records show. After filing a lawsuit against the dealer and broker, he sold the coins back at a loss.
He since has given up on gold and instead bought land in Arkansas. November 26, Leave a Comment. From what I gather, the pretensions of moral philosophy to be "scientific" were laughed at when the term "social science" was coined.
Say what you will about the 21st century, one thing that is getting better is that social-science authors have the ability to, and feel some obligation to, post their code and data sources where readers can access them. Your post reminded me of an engaging article I read this morning.
The article is about the increased bullshit that is being strewn across workplaces worldwide. It describes the origins and history of the bullshit, then examines and illustrates the many different kinds of bullshit being tossed about from the boardroom to the classroom. Well worth the read. November 26, 1 Comment. November 25, 1 Comment. I was thinking about TSLA the other day after seeing the new promotional video with the truck and sports car.
It's business trajectory reminds me of many tech business models, such as Uber. Which is create an app for an existing product that bypasses laws, regulations and taxes and then abuse ones competitive advantage.
The traditional car companies ceased to be car production businesses and became finance companies a decade or two back. Will TSLA cease to be a car company and become an energy company?
TSLA can bypass consumption taxes on fossil fuels and god knows what else, while setting up 'refueling stations' to resell energy. They'll have a repeat business where they buy energy in bulk and resell it. To their clients and others. Being the first guys in, they'll set up a monopoly where they can. Energy will turn into their main business. The cars made will become rubbish and they'll exist like a business such as Verizon.
How long will it take governments to cotton on? And when they do, will it be too late? Lack sees shades of when E brokers became higher market cap than brick banks. My buddies were 6 months too early. One realizes no one ever made selling them.
From the bleachers there is only tracking stocks missing from a lesson I do not wish my son to learn like dad, the hard way. Musk after pay pal was cut off by banks and the street in We were all busy fighting for our lives. The first guy through the door always gets bloody.
I'm sure he does not care about his stock owner partners. He's said time and again, do not buy. Interesting why anyone would own this paper when they are fiduciary. I know why my old trading friends are caught short. Tis the season to squeeze. November 25, Leave a Comment. We provide further evidence that markets trend on the medium term months and mean-revert on the long term several years. Our results bolster Black's intuition that prices tend to be off roughly by a factor of 2, and take years to equilibrate.
The story behind these results fits well with the existence of two types of behaviour in financial markets: Mean-reversion is a self-correcting mechanism, tempering albeit only weakly the exuberance of financial markets. This was his subjective estimate of how efficient he thought the stock market was, and a way of communicating the idea of high but not perfect efficiency to the audience. Fischer Black had a looser concept and said that to him, efficiency only meant that prices are within a factor of 2 of true value at least half the time.
The rest was what he called "noise", i. The problem of course is that these are only analogies and no one knows what the "true value" is and therefore how far away from it the market is. November 24, Leave a Comment. Thanksgiving is about sharing prosperity, and it's a good time to think about where prosperity comes from.
The Pilgrims figured it out in We'll retell that story as we celebrate the way it lives on in countless U. And in particular at one company, McDonald's MCD, news, msgs , that in its humdrum way beautifully demonstrates the source of prosperity and the American way of life.
The Pilgrims started with so little. They had to hide in England because the authorities considered them dangerous. They fled to Holland but found themselves compelled to take menial jobs. On the way to America, many of the company died. They lost their way to Virginia and landed in Massachusetts just as winter set in. To cope with want, the Pilgrims made the same mistake that so many countries do even today: They divided all their land, efforts, supplies and produce in common, to each according to his need.
The Pilgrims spent their first three years in America suffering from hunger, illness, cold and infighting. People stole from the common stores "despite being well whipped," according to William Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony, records what happened next: After much debate, the Governor decided that each settler should plant corn for themselves. Under the Land Division of , each family received one acre per family member to farm.
That year, three times as many acres were planted as the year before. Prosperity was not long in coming. The Pilgrims turned from their Old World system of common ownership to incentives. They didn't go that way out of ideological conviction, but because they didn't have the luxury of waiting for support to come to them. How many families in America tell the same tale?
But that wasn't the end of the story. Before the switch to incentives, the hungry settlers were at each other's throats. Hard workers resented receiving the same portions of food as those who were not able to do even a quarter of the work they did. Young men resented having to work without compensation to feed other men's wives and children.
Mature men resented receiving the same allotments as did the younger and meaner sort. Women resented being forced to do laundry and other chores for men other than their husbands. Many people felt too sick to work. But when they were allowed to farm their own plots, the most amazing thing happened. Everybody — the sick, the women and even the children — went out willingly into the fields to work. People started to respect and like one another again.
It wasn't that they were bad people, Bradford explained; it's just human nature. Adam Smith came to the same conclusion later, and Friedrich Hayek updated Smith's ideas for the 20th century. But we don't need to go back to New England for understanding. Similar outcomes can be seen at McDonald's every day. For centuries, people on the lower rungs of the social ladder weren't able to eat meat. They ate grains and beans.
But people like beef. When McDonald's started popping up in every neighborhood, all of a sudden there was an affordable place for families to eat. Previously, one of the main differences between the upper and lower classes was that the rich could eat out.
Even if the poor could afford the tab, they couldn't hire baby sitters, and they couldn't bring their kids to the elegant establishments designed for the rich because they would have disturbed the other diners.
Most kids don't like fancy restaurants anyway. They want fries, not polenta with wild mushrooms. They want fried codfish, not turbot.
They want burgers, not lamb chops. How many people has McDonald's made happy? How many families has it brought together? How many Happy Meals have been eaten there? How many kids have enjoyed the playgrounds? How many tired workers have been able to catch a quick meal? How many women are able to pursue careers and other productive activities and dreams because McDonald's has freed them from the task of having to cook every night? The Pilgrims might have served or American Indians at their Thanksgiving feast.
McDonald's serves 26 million customers a day at 13, U. For the traveler, McDonald's is a home away from home, offering so much for so little. The restrooms are clean. And McDonald's serves hot strong organic coffee in smooth cups of some wonderful material that keeps liquids hot without burning the hand, shaped to fit into the cup holders that just happen to be in your car, with carefully designed tops that permit just the right amount to be sipped.
No regulator, no fascist dictator, no socialist planner decreed sip tops or cup holders. But how many late-night drivers have died for the lack of a good cup of coffee? What could be more munificent than saving lives? And the story doesn't end there. Consider the employees of McDonald's. How many people have worked there and learned the most important lesson in America: The customer is always right?
The anti-this-and-that people who demonstrate against profit incentives and free markets like to single out McDonald's as a symbol of modern capitalism.
They don't mean that in a nice way. As the McLibel Support Campaign puts it: Given the choice of cooking at home or going to other restaurants — and competition ensures that there are other restaurants — people go to McDonald's because they trust they'll find good food, quick service and value for money.
What could be more munificent, more representative of sharing the fruits of hard work than McDonald's? McDonald's and the Pilgrims are the essence of America. The people work hard, motivated by the chance for profits. They provide a welcome to others, whether to Indians joining in harvest celebrations, or to customers looking to satisfy their hunger. Their work results in high quality, low costs and family togetherness.
Those humdrum, everyday attributes are what makes America great. That's what we should be celebrating. It's the source of all our munificence, from the first Thanksgiving to today. The Genius of Corvids, from Pitt T.
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