Connecting Dots

Connections not Coincidence

Two Characteristics of Money

This is the first of a couple of posts which will be directly related. What is money anyway? Money by itself is fundamentally useless as a true asset. Its value is the result of a societal construct. An asset is something that has value to the holder, and the funny thing with money is that […]

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One-sided currencies and banking

In the modern banking system money is created through lending. For every dollar in existence there is a corresponding amount owed.[1]  By and large, in the commercial banking system S≠I, no money is transferred from savers to investors. One way to describe this phenomenon is that banks print money out of thin air. That may […]

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Looking at cash from April 2015

This post was written in 2015 but I decided to dust it off – most of it is relevant today. As fixed income returns have been compressing, it has become harder and harder for banks for find investments which have no capital charge under Basel III and have a positive enough yield to cover the […]

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Currency, Carry and Entropy

Things ain’t what they used to be or How currencies are not stores of value. One of the standard attributes that money is claimed to have is that it acts as a store of value. “Store of value” tells you that it is the current holder’s intent to keep the currency for a while before […]

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