To get a close look go HERE.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Quote - Stephan Kinsella
"The question is, is knowledge economically classified as scarce means or scarce goods or not, and I think clearly its not. Its almost the paradigm example of a non-scarce resource. By scarcity we do not mean just not very abundant. We mean that its contestable. That only one person can use it at a time. One person's use excludes another." - Stephan Kinsella @ Mises Institute 2009
If you disagree with the use of the word "scarce", make up a word and define it as a resource or good that is contestable, that only one person can use at a time, that one person's use of excludes another. Then, replace that new word you made up with the word "scarce" in the quote; this way the logic will still stand and your problem with the use of the word "scarce" will be satisfied.
If you disagree with the use of the word "scarce", make up a word and define it as a resource or good that is contestable, that only one person can use at a time, that one person's use of excludes another. Then, replace that new word you made up with the word "scarce" in the quote; this way the logic will still stand and your problem with the use of the word "scarce" will be satisfied.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
History of Chinese Currency: The Continual Failure of Paper Money
I enjoyed reading the following excerpt from Wikipedia, I decided to post it:
During the early Song dynasty (Chinese: 宋, 960-1279) China again reunited the currency system displacing coinages from ten or so independent states. Among pre-Song coins, the northern states tended to prefer copper coins. The southern states tended to use lead or iron coins with Sichuan using its own heavy iron coins which continued to circulate for a short period into the Song dynasty. By 1000 unification was complete and China experienced a rapid period of economic growth. This was reflected in the growth of coining. In 1073, the peak year for minting coins in the Northern Song, the government produced an estimated six million strings containing a thousand copper coins each. The Northern Song is thought to have minted over two hundred million strings of coins which were often exported to Inner Asia, Japan, and South-East Asia where they often formed the dominant form of coinage. Song merchants rapidly adopted forms of paper currency starting with promissary notes in Sichuan called "flying money" (feiqian). These proved so useful the state took over production of this form of paper money with the first state-backed printing in 1024. By the twelfth century various forms of paper money had become the dominant forms of currency in China and were known by a variety of names such as jiaozi, qianyin, kuaizi, or guanzi.
The Mongol-founded Yuan dynasty (Chinese: 元, 1271-1368) also attempted to use paper currency. Unlike the Song dynasty they created a unified, national system that was not backed by silver or gold. The currency issued by the Yuan was the world's first fiat currency, known as Chao. The Yuan government attempted to prohibit all transactions in or possession of silver or gold, which had to be turned over to the government. Inflation in 1260 caused the government to replace the existing paper currency with a new paper currency in 1287, but inflation caused by undisciplined printing remained a problem for the Yuan court until the end of the Dynasty.
Silver sycee (yuanbao) ingots
The early Ming dynasty (Chinese: 明; pinyin: Míng, 1368-1644) also attempted to use paper currency in the early re-unification period. This currency also experienced rapid inflation and issues were suspended in 1450 although notes remained in circulation until 1573. It was only in the very last years of the Ming dynasty when Li Zicheng threatened Beijing in 1643 and 1644 that printing took place again. For most of the Ming China had a purely private system of currency for all important transactions. Silver, which flowed in from overseas, began to be used as a currency in the Far South province of Guangdong where it spread to the lower Yangzi region by 1423 when it became legal tender for payment of taxes. Provincial taxes had to be remitted to the capital in silver after 1465, salt producers had to pay in silver from 1475 and corvée exemptions had to be paid in silver from 1485. The Chinese demand for silver was partially met by Spanish imports from the Americas, in particular Potosi in Peru and Mexico, after the Spanish became established at Manila in 1571. However the silver was not minted. It circulated as ingots (known as sycee or yuanbao) which weighed a nominal liang (about 36 grammes) although purity and weight varied from region to region. The liang was often referred to by Europeans by the Malay term tael.
Late Imperial China maintained both a silver and a copper currency system. The copper system was based on the copper cash (wen). The silver system had several units which by the Qing Dynasty were: 1 tael = 10 mace = 100 candareens = 1000 li (silver cash).
In 1889, the Chinese yuan was introduced at par with the Mexican Peso and was subdivided into 10 jiao (角, not given an English name, cf. dime), 100 fen (分, cents), and 1000 wen (文, cash). The yuan was equivalent to 7 mace and 2 candareens (or 0.72 tael) and, for a time, coins were marked as such in English.
The earliest issues were silver coins produced at the Kwangtung mint in denominations of 5 fen, 1, 2 and 5 jiao and 1 yuan. Other regional mints were opened in the 1890s producing similar coins. Copper coins in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 wen were also issued. The central government began issuing its own coins in the yuan currency system in 1903. Banknotes were issued in yuan denominations from the 1890s by several local and private banks, along with the "Imperial Bank of China" and the "Hu Pu Bank" (later the "Ta-Ch'ing Government Bank"), established by the Imperial government.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Run Rand Run
Rand Paul, the ophthalmology from Kentucky, is running for US Senate in 2010. Today he has raised almost $400,000. He's only polling 11 points behind the Washington backed Trey Grayson in the Republican primary and sitting neck and neck when polled against the likely democratic nominee. Run rand run.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
"UPS and Fedex are doing just fine, it's the post office that's always having problems"
Perhaps one of the few statements this man has made which is not a lie.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Douche-Bag Host Bullies Schiff
The left is in power for 200 days and everyone starts acting like Bill O'Reilly. Apparently this host doesn't believe that any thought that expands longer than 10 seconds of speech is worth listening to. He evens admits toward the beginning of the interview that only 30 second sound bites in politics have any value. Buddy obviously doesn't understand that Schiff is actually attempting to bring real change to politics; as opposed to the "change" brought by the great leader.
Schiff does an excellent job of keeping his composure through the entire "interview".
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
"I Regret That I Voted To Send Our Troops To Iraq . . . God Forgive Me For Making That Decision"
Congressman Walter Jones is a Republican from North Carolina. He is not part of Republican leadership and he is not one with large political aspirations. He's simply apologizing and asking forgiveness for his role in sending troops to Iraq. There's a little bit too much religion in his speech, but its still significant to see a Republican on the floor of the U.S. Congress apologizing for voting for war.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Happy One-Year Anniversary To Us
View Larger Map
Today Sarah and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary together. In doing so, we decided to get out of the city for the day. I've wanted to explore the eastern shore a bit so, as displayed on the map, we decided to take a drive through Lawrencetown, to Clam Harbour beach, and then Taylor's Head. Each place had a beach; each beach was less busy as we drove.
The beach in Lawrencetown was huge, and packed, so we didn't even bother stopping.
Clam Harbour was also busy, but we decided to stop and walk the beach a bit anyway. We both thought this would be a nice place to come again. This beach is very large and expansive, so even though it was busy, we didn't feel as if we were stepping over-top of people much. As well, its warm water and large waves made this beach a very attractive place to come again. We never took our camera out here unfortunately.
Once we got to Taylor's Head we took out our chairs and sat on the beach for a while. It was a very relaxing afternoon and I finally finished a book I've been reading. I doubt we'd go back to Taylor's Head though. Even if it wasn't 2 hours away, the beach is not very expansive, the scenery is nothing spectacular (ironic that it's the only beach at which I took out my camera), and the water is cold and calm (we'd like some waves).
On the drive back we stopped at The Lobster Shack in Jeddore and had our anniversary dinner; my first lobster dinner since Dad's going away party in South Portland. . . I think. The lobster was delicious. Sarah only finished maybe a little over half of her lobster to I got to dig at her's as well; I'm still full. The view of salmon river from our window was spectacular, the service was friendly, the home made bread scrumptious, and the Jost L'Acadie Pinot Grigio wine we drank was delightful. We very much enjoyed our dinner. The owners run a bed and breakfast in the same building and we thought we might go there sometime if we felt the need to get out of the city for a weekend without going too far.
On the way back we drove by a house we might take a look at in Wellington. . .not a day goes by when we're not tempted to look at a house somewhere that's for sale.
Once we arrived home, we sat down to a slice of our wedding cake to finish off our 1-year anniversary. We had driven up to Sarah's parents place to retrieve the cake a few weeks ago to ensure we'd be able to fulfill this tradition. The cake was still very tasty even after a year in the freezer.
Below are a few photos I took along the way.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The Hypocritical Smiley Face
The number of contradictions that exist within this passionate speech provokes me to wonder if the writer wrote it as a joke originally, and then some pro-government statist read it and thought "what a great inspiring speech for our soldiers!".
In fact, the central message of the speech is one big fucking contradiction. . .but it's inspiring, it makes my heart go thump, and triggers something within that would probably make me feel better about going to war; of course if I thought past the pretty words that were being shouted to me; if I thought about the sentences being spouted and how the prose was written, if I used my brain at all to consider what was being said to me, I probably wouldn't feel better about going to war. I'd probably just walk away.
According to the smiley face, noone should feel misery, hate or greed. These emotions should be turned off. The smiley face dictates this to us even though it acknowledges we're not robots. Though we are not robots, the smiley face seems to think we all have a switch we could just flick and eliminate all that is wrong in the world...why did it take so long for us to figure out to flick this switch so we could all live in COTTON CANDY LAND?
Anyone else find it a little bit odd we're being told to give up our humanity while being told we're not robots?
The smiley face dictates that everyone needs to sacrifice themselves, their lives, their emotions, their thoughts, their opinions to the common cause of preserving liberty and freedom all over the world. The smiley face dictates to men to fight for freedom, and at the same time tells them to not do what others tell them to do...even though the smiley face is telling them to fight...for freedom...from others who tell you what to do...so dictates the smiley face.
Wait. . .huh?
Not only that, but nasty national borders need to be eliminated to help ensure liberty is preserved! After all, those borders might prevent us from forcing liberty upon people who otherwise would choose not to have it. Need I highlight the contradiction within that thought?
I have to sacrifice myself to be free? I have to sacrifice my liberty to save liberty? I have to do as you say, so not to do what others say? People are to be free, but not free to determine their own borders with their own government?
Can I not simply choose to work to preserve my own freedom? No, dictates the smiley face. That would be greedy...and the smiley face dictates not to be greedy. Didn't we flick that switch already? Get in line and fight for democracy! Because democracies allow people to be free, well, as much as the majority says people can be free...so ya, fight for some freedom! But only for others, not yourself. Don't be greedy, and smile!
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