Category: Economics | Page 6

Concept cryptographic NFT. Blockchain network, cryptographic non-fungible tokens. NFT with a network and a growing schedule, search. New technologies, financial schedule, future concept, banknotes

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News
Date
August 17, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Bernard Fickser, Featured}

How Can Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Be Made To Work Better?

_{Bernard Fickser offers twelve steps to handling NFTs in a way that dispenses with cryptocurrency-based blockchains and works in ordinary online marketplaces like eBay} _{News
August 17, 2021

8

Business and Finance, Economics}

Introduction: At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser explains that a non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique token in cryptography that represents, say, real estate or art rather than money. Because the tokens have unique identities (non-fungible), they can be bought or sold while reducing the risk of fraud. So how do they work?: The series is called How Non-Fungible Tokens Work: NFTs Explained, Debunked, and Legitimized (July 30, 2021). In Part 7, we look at 12 steps to make NFTs economically viable without Ethereum. 7 A Protocol for Handling NFTs on eBay The best way to challenge an existing idea is to replace it with a better one. In this last section, I’m going to lay out a protocol for handling NFTs Read More ›

Man at work signing legal contract by using digital signature

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News
Date
August 4, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Bernard Fickser, Blockchain, Cryptography (NFTs), Expensivity, Featured, Jack Dorsey's tweet, Non-fungible token (NFT)}

Can Digital Signatures Protect NFTs in Digital Marketplaces?

_{The concept of owning an NFT on a blockchain is specific to the blockchain, with no legal force in society at large} _{News
August 4, 2021

13

Business and Finance, Economics}

Introduction: At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser explains that a non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique token in cryptography that represents, say, real estate or art rather than money. Because the tokens have unique identities (non-fungible), they can be bought or sold while reducing the risk of fraud. So how do they work?: The series is called How Non-Fungible Tokens Work: NFTs Explained, Debunked, and Legitimized (July 30, 2021). In Part 2, we look at digital signatures 2 Digital signatures in digital marketplaces Of course, there’s more to the story. As already suggested, when someone buys a non-fungible token, they’re not simply buying a digital file of some collectible that can be readily copied. So what exactly are they buying? To understand Read More ›

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Richard W. Stevens
Date
July 21, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Economics

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, capitalism, free market, Friedrich Hayek, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)), Ryan Abbott, Socialism, Steven Cherry, Tax policy, The Reasonable Robot (book), Universal Basic Income}

Should Robots Pay Taxes?

_{Taxing artificial intelligence is the latest proposal to expand centralized control of human life} _{Richard W. Stevens
July 21, 2021

13

Artificial Intelligence, Economics}

In June 2021, we started considering the provocatively titled podcast transcript, “Can a Robot Be Arrested? Hold a Patent? Pay Income Taxes?”, posted on the IEEE Spectrum site. Steven Cherry interviewed Ryan Abbott, physician, lawyer, and professor, about these topics and referencing his 2019 book, The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law. We’ve discussed whether artificial intelligence (AI) systems could be charged with crimes or can hold a patent. Whether “robots should pay taxes” turns out to be the scariest question yet. Touching upon the subject only lightly in the podcast, Abbott details the problem of taxing AI in Reasonable Robot, following this thought process: Automation using AI threatens to increase human unemployment. Current U.S. tax law encourages automation through favorable treatment Read More ›

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Gary Smith
Date
July 13, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Benford's Law, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, John Maynard Keynes, stock market}

Using Benford’s Law to Detect Bitcoin Manipulation

_{Market prices are not invariably equal to intrinsic values} _{Gary Smith
July 13, 2021

12

Business and Finance, Economics}

For a while, there was a popular belief among finance professors that the stock market is “efficient” in the sense that stock prices are always correct — the prices that an all-knowing God would set. Thus, investors can buy any stock, even a randomly selected stock, and be confident that they are paying a fair price. This belief was based on seemingly overwhelming evidence that changes in stock prices are difficult to predict. Efficient market enthusiasts argued that if stock prices are always correct, taking into account all currently available information, then any changes in stock prices must be due to new information which, by definition, is impossible to predict. Therefore, the evidence that changes in stock prices are hard to Read More ›

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Jonathan Bartlett
Date
June 29, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NFT, Stablecoins}

June Crypto Mayhem: A Tough Month for Cryptocurrencies

_{What has caused the dramatic drops in Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Etherium, and NFT values?} _{Jonathan Bartlett
June 29, 2021

5

Business and Finance, Economics}

The month of June has been tough on the world of cryptocurrencies, with the past week being especially harsh. It is difficult to pin down a single, specific cause behind the pullback, as a variety of new and nagging concerns about the viability of cryptocurrencies continue to mount. As for the price action, Bitcoin dropped like a rock down below $30k this past week, less than half of what its high in the last year has been. The meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin lost over 60% of its value, down to $0.24 from a high of $0.72 earlier this year. Etherium has been cut in half, as have many other cryptocurrencies. The NFT market, whose enthusiasm has ridden on the back of Read More ›

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News
Date
June 6, 2021

Categorized
Economics, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
China, free will, Population}

Is More Coercion — in Principle — an “Extension” of Morality?

_{Activist Garrett Hardin popularized government coercion to “save the planet” in 1968} _{News
June 6, 2021

5

Economics, Philosophy of Mind}

Recently, the Communist Party of China has announced permission for the three-child family, possibly because of the demographic ruin that the previous one-child family has occasioned in that country. But the basic idea that government should control everything is not new and it did not originate in China. Let’s go back to the 1960s in the United States. In 1968, Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) made a famous appeal in the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s magazine, Science, for good old-fashioned coercion of human beings to stop having so many children: The abstract for his “Tragedy of the Commons” (Science, 1968), a Cool concept at the time, read simply “The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental Read More ›

Prosthetic robotic arm with palm in fist, 3d rendering on black background

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News
Date
May 25, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics, Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Gary Smith, Jeffrey Funk, Ray Kurzweil}

Nobel Prize Economist Tells The Guardian, AI Will Win

_{But when we hear why he thinks so, don’t be too sure} _{News
May 25, 2021

6

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics, Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind}

Nobel Prize-winning economist (2002) Daniel Kahneman, 87 (pictured), gave an interview this month to The Guardian in which he observed that belief in science is not much different from belief in religion with respect to the risks of unproductive noise clouding our judgment. He’s been in the news lately as one of the authors of a new book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, which applies his ideas about human error and bias to organizations. He told The Guardian that he places faith “if there is any faith to be placed,” in organizations rather than individuals, for example. Curiously, he doesn’t seem to privilege science organizations: I was struck watching the American elections by just how often politicians of both Read More ›

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Jonathan Bartlett
Date
April 27, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Bitcoin (currency), cryptocurrencies, Fiat currency, Inflation (currency), PayPal}

Will Popularity Spell Doom for Bitcoin?

_{How is that possible? Well, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have a hidden weakness…} _{Jonathan Bartlett
April 27, 2021

3

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics}

Cryptocurrencies, from Ethereum to Bitcoin to Dogecoin, seem to be all the rage these days. Altcoins (i.e., lesser-known cryptocurrencies) have become increasingly mainstream. The increasing fracturing and pluralism in the cryptocurrency space has meant that few people are directly trading with any particular currency. Most users go through trading and wallet platforms where the platform —not their own computers—hosts the cryptocurrency. Additionally, transactions are increasingly processed via third parties as well, not directly on the cryptocurrency platform. This separation between the user and the direct cryptocurrency platform has enabled a new option: a payment gateway for a website that collects payments in a number of different cryptocurrencies using a single set of tools. PayPal, one of the top gateways, recently Read More ›

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News
Date
April 19, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics, Global Technology

Tagged
Apple (company), Moore's Law, Sony}

Why the Global Shortage in Computer Chips Matters to You

_{What? A global shortage in chips? Delays? Higher costs? Whatever happened to Moore’s Law?} _{News
April 19, 2021

3

Business and Finance, Economics, Global Technology}

Read on. Moore’s Law only holds when chip supply isn’t an issue. Just now, the microchips that make every electronic device work are in short supply. The COVID-19 pandemic and unexpectedly cold weather in Texas temporarily closed chip factories. As news of the shortage spread, “panic buying” cleaned out inventory. Several other factors drive a continuing shortage as well: ● The switch to 5G phones is increasing chip demand, leading to delays: Even the mighty Apple, a $2tn company and the world’s biggest buyer of semiconductors spending $58bn annually, was forced to delay the launch of the much-hyped iPhone 12 by two months last year due to the shortage. Mark Sweney, “Global shortage in computer chips ‘reaches crisis point’” at Read More ›

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Heather Zeiger
Date
March 11, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics, Ethics, Global Technology

Tagged
bitcoin, China, Cotton, cryptocurrencies, Falun Gong, Featured, Forced labor, Uyghurs, Xinjiang}

In China, Forced Uyghur Labor Produces Many Fashionable Products

_{Industries such as fashion and solar panels rely heavily on supplies from detention centers and concentration camps in China} _{Heather Zeiger
March 11, 2021

8

Business and Finance, Economics, Ethics, Global Technology}

China has been called the “world’s factory.” American companies like Apple, may assemble their tech in the U.S., but the parts are made elsewhere, including Xinjiang, China (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). Industries such as fashion and solar panels also rely heavily on Xinjiang for their supply lines. Reports from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the U.S., as well as testimonials from Uyghurs, show that many such factories in Xinjiang involve the forced labor of Uyghurs in what are called “vocational training schools.” These vocational training schools are more appropriately described as detention centers. In many cases, they are essentially concentration camps. Many Uyghurs are also sent from Xinjiang to other Read More ›

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News
Date
March 8, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernard Fickser, Cashless society, cryptocurrencies, Digital currency, Fiat currency, Inflation (currency), Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), Paul Krugman}

Central Banks vs. Cryptocurrencies: Why the Growing Tension?

_{Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which is gaining ground, holds that government should just print as much money as it feels it needs and then raise taxes to cover shortfalls} _{News
March 8, 2021

5

Business and Finance, Economics}

On the way to explaining how a cryptocurrency system might work, financial analyst Bernard Fickser asks readers to think about the crucial difference between money, as held by a private bank — we’ll call it Merchant Navy Bank — and a central bank operated by a government, say the U.S. Federal Reserve System (the Fed). In his short online book, The Creation of Money, Fickser distinguishes between private banks and central government banks. Private banks start with money that already exists. The money that Merchant Navy Bank lends for mortgages, for example, is contributed by depositors who agree to tie up their money for several years in savings certificates. In return, they get a higher than average rate of interest. Read More ›

Hand holding smartphone with media icons and symbol

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News
Date
March 5, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics, Law

Tagged
Android, Apple (company), Big Tech, Google, iPhone, Monopoly (in business), Steve Jobs}

Arizona Fights Back Against Big Tech App Store Monopoly

_{North Dakota’s anti-monopoly legislation was defeated but Arizona’s passed} _{News
March 5, 2021

3

Business and Finance, Economics, Law}

Big tech, flexing political muscles, is starting to get pushback at the state level. Political analyst Matt Stoller tells us a tale of two states: A loser and a winner: Two weeks ago, Apple and Google managed to defeat a major bill in North Dakota to force competition in app stores. This week, the Arizona House of Representatives defied the tech giants and passed the very same bill… Matt Stoller, “Apple Threatens North Dakota, Suffers Crushing Loss in Arizona: “A Lot of It is Just Fear”” at Substack Even sovereign states like Australia have felt the heat from pushing back against the likes of Facebook. Facebook blocked access to the Australian government’s Facebook pages during the forest fire season, due Read More ›

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Eric Holloway
Date
February 3, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Featured, Human intelligence, Outsourcing}

Will Ordinary Human Intelligence Become the New “Oil”?

_{At one time, the tech craze was for outsourcing jobs. Maybe it’s time to look at “insourcing” instead} _{Eric Holloway
February 3, 2021

4

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics}

Outsourcing is the silver bullet of the IT age. Everything can be made more cheaply and more profitably by sourcing the work from places with a lower cost of living. But do those places always have to be overseas? Not necessarily. The perils of overseas outsourcing are well known, ranging from communication through cultural or time zone incompatibilities. What if there were a way to eliminate those incompatibilities while still retaining the benefits of workers who live in an area with a lower cost of living? This is possible through “insourcing.” There are regions of the United States where the cost of living is quite low, allowing companies to have their cake and eat it too. Work can be done Read More ›

Closeup of witcher cauldron with magical mixture for Halloween

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Gary Smith
Date
February 1, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Greater Fool Theory, reddit}

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Here We Go Again

_{Trouble brews when inexperienced traders try their hand at the stock market} _{Gary Smith
February 1, 2021

8

Business and Finance, Economics}

The extraordinary investor and statesman Bernard Baruch once warned that, When beggars and shoeshine boys, barbers and beauticians can tell you how to get rich, it is time to remind yourself that there is no more dangerous illusion than the belief that one can get something for nothing. Over and over and over again, the unwary fall for money-for-nothing illusions — Dutch tulip bulbs, South Sea stocks, Japanese real estate, dot-com stocks, and bitcoin, not to mention baseball cards, beanie babies, and other so-called collectibles. Now we have a torrent of Reddit chatter inspiring the gullible to gobble up shares of GameStop, AMC, and whatever catches the crowd’s collective attention. Many Reddit-pumped buyers claim that they are part of a noble battle to punish Read More ›

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Jonathan Bartlett
Date
January 30, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Featured, Investors, stock market}

Who Is Allowed in the Smoke-Filled Rooms of Investment?

_{How the stock market is manipulated, using the GameStop episode as an example} _{Jonathan Bartlett
January 30, 2021

6

Business and Finance, Economics}

Full disclosure: I continue to maintain positions in some of the stocks mentioned in this article. But, as you will see, my goal here is neither to promote stock or dissuade from it, but rather to ask a deeper question about who is allowed to do what about a stock. For those who are unaware, the last two weeks in the stock market have gone crazy. GameStop (GME), a company that continues to lose money, skyrocketed from $18/share to, as of the time I’m writing, just about $450 per share. That’s right the stock soared over 20 times in value over the period of a few weeks. Several other stocks have also skyrocketed, including AMC Entertainment (AMC) and Koss Corporation Read More ›

Crypto currency background with various of shiny silver and golden physical cryptocurrencies symbol coins, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, zcash, ripple

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News
Date
January 27, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
bitcoin, cryptocurrencies}

What If Many People Ditched Government Currencies for Bitcoin?

_{Are cryptocurrencies our best bet for a fair global currency system?} _{News
January 27, 2021

2

Business and Finance, Economics}

Picture a world racked by economic issues like coronavirus, where people begin ditching government (fiat) currencies for Bitcoin. Small changes are are underway: The chief economist did not mention that a growing number of jurisdictions are already embracing bitcoin for tax payments. For example, the canton of Zug in Switzerland announced that it will start accepting bitcoin for tax payments this year. Several other local governments in Switzerland have made a similar announcement, such as Zermatt. Recently, the mayor of Miami said that he is working on allowing payments for city services in bitcoin. Furthermore, a growing number of stores are accepting bitcoin payments. Payments giant Paypal, for example, is planning to allow people to use cryptocurrency to pay for Read More ›

Convergence Background, Converge Toward Objective

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Gary Smith
Date
January 25, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics}

Will Mediocrity Triumph? The Fallacy That Will Not Die

_{Economist claims: It is a fundamental economic truth that businesses converge to mediocrity. Is he right?} _{Gary Smith
January 25, 2021

8

Business and Finance, Economics}

Nearly 100 years ago, a famous economist named Horace Secrist wrote a book with the provocative title, The Triumph of Mediocrity in Business. He had spent ten years collecting and analyzing data on the success of dozens of companies in dozens of industries during the years 1920 to 1930. For each measure of success, he used the 1920 data to divide the companies in each industry into quartiles: the top 25%, second 25%, third 25%, and bottom 25%. He then calculated the average value of the success metric for the 1920 top-quartile companies every year from 1920 to 1930. He did the same for the other three quartiles. In every case, the companies in both the top two quartiles and the bottom two Read More ›

Golden bitcoin coin in fire flame, water splashes and lightning. Bitcoin Gold blockchain hard fork concept. Cryptocurrency symbol in storm illustration with peer to peer network background.

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Jonathan Bartlett
Date
January 19, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
bitcoin, Featured, Inflation}

Bitcoin: What’s Good, What’s Bad and What’s the Future?

_{Bitcoins are currently bouncing in the range of $30,000 to $40,000 each} _{Jonathan Bartlett
January 19, 2021

5

Business and Finance, Economics}

Bitcoin has been having quite the wild ride over the last several months, and especially the last several weeks. During 2020, the price of a single bitcoin dipped below $5,000, then soared past $20,000 in December. It is currently bouncing in the range of $30,000 to $40,000.So what is the attraction of the digital currency Bitcoin? Why is the value of a bitcoin so high and what are people doing with it? To begin with, keep in mind that a “single bitcoin” is a bit of a misnomer. While a single bitcoin is indeed expensive, coins can be split. The smallest unit in Bitcoin is known as a satoshi, which is 0.00000001 bitcoin. While the quoted price is always given Read More ›

SEO symbol on the keyboard of a latop, 3d rendering,conceptual image. online google and search concepts.

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News
Date
December 18, 2020

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics, Ethics

Tagged
Google, Lawsuits, Russ White, search engines}

Why Are 38 American States Suing Google?

_{Better question: What search engine results do you NEVER see?} _{News
December 18, 2020

3

Business and Finance, Economics, Ethics}

The current lawsuit was announced by Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser but 38 states are signatories. The big issue is alleged suppression of competition. First, a bit of background: This is not the first big time lawsuit. That one would be from the U.S. Department of Justice in October: In October, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google, owned by Alphabet, for violating antitrust laws and actively enabling a monopoly in search engines and search advertising. The announcement followed a year’s worth of investigation by prosecutors, who “have spoken with Google’s rivals in technology and media, collecting information and documents that could be used to build a case.” The suit focuses on the tech giant’s illegal actions Read More ›

Senior Woman Giving Credit Card Details On The Phone

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News
Date
December 16, 2020

Categorized
Business and Finance, Economics, Ethics

Tagged
Bernard Fickser, Expensivity, financial fraud}

How Do We Know Financial Transactions Are Honest?

_{Let’s look at the steps we can take to find out} _{News
December 16, 2020

4

Business and Finance, Economics, Ethics}

Recently, we’ve been asking readers to think about Alice and Bob, the famous pair in physics used to demonstrate propositions, for example, as if as if they were running for office. At Expensivity, a blog about that expensive and unpleasant subject, money, Bernard Fickser asks about better ways of preventing financial fraud: We focus on financial Alice (the situation with financial Bob is parallel). Alice wants the record of deposits and disbursements in her ledger to reflect deposits that she has knowingly and willingly received as well as disbursements that she has authorized to go to the intended parties. If this is the case, the record of deposits and disbursements in her ledger as well as the running totals will Read More ›