

When 9 Trillion dollars from Fed Reserve goes missing what can we do about it? - adamstac
http://thechangelog.com/post/2596290871/opengovernment-empower-individuals-and-organizations

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jonknee
For starters, it didn't go missing and for the most part wasn't spent or even
actually exist. Loan guarantees and overnight loans are a whole different ball
game. If provide a $1B overnight loan for you 10 times, I haven't spent $10B
dollars. Same if I had guaranteed $100B. Save for a default, I haven't spent
anything (actually I made money). The reason why the Fed didn't announce which
banks were in trouble is stunningly obvious, which is why outside of internet
conspiracy circles this video isn't big news.

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raheemm
As I understand, when the fed increases a bank's lending window, it is not
actually giving more money to the bank. It is akin to increasing the credit
limit of the bank. If the bank actually does borrow up to the increased limit,
it pays interest on that loan.

~~~
jonknee
That jives with what I've read as well. Also a number is incremented in the
database, no currency is actually printed. So when it's returned no currency
has to be taken out of supply.

For whatever reason, overnight loans are standard which grossly inflates
totals over a period of time (I think it's just conspiracy theorists that use
totals like that as they count on people not knowing it's an overnight loan
that has been returned). A billion dollars a night for a year is $365B. It
doesn't take long at all with a handful of large accounts before you hit $9T.

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tplummer
Wipe up our worthless tears because we gave these idiots way too much power in
the first place.

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tibbon
I've never understood 'gone missing'. Wherever the money was last is where is
it right? These are numbers, not poofs of air.

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pilom
Someone knows where the money went it just wasn't the woman in that video. She
oversees the lending to the regional reserve banks who loan out money. There
is no possible way she could know who that money goes to.

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maresca
OpenGovernment is a great idea and I wish the team building it all of the
best. OpenGovernment will be the only competitor so far to a startup I've been
working on the past 3 years: <http://www.openpoll.us>. It's exciting to see
other people prove your idea is a good one. That being said, I think a release
of OpenGovernment with only 5 states is a little premature.(I'm waiting to
have all states complete before releasing my MVP.) I am very interested in
seeing what they come up with.

~~~
arst
If the site can provide value to people interested in the 5 launch states, why
is it premature for them to release a beta?

~~~
maresca
If you heard of a website launch with partial data without your state, how
often would you go back to check if your state was added? My opinion is that
users would initially see the site, and not visit again for a few months. You
have a larger target-able market by waiting.

The truth is they have a lot more than 5 states in github. They could have
probably gotten away with launching 20 or 25 states.

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JonnieCache
CDN Cache: [http://thechangelog.com/post/2596290871/opengovernment-
empow...](http://thechangelog.com/post/2596290871/opengovernment-empower-
individuals-and-organizations?coral-no-serve)

I was thinking of hacking something like this for the UK legislature. Guess
this goes on The List.

~~~
jamesturk
you might be interested in the underlying scraper project we run @
<http://openstates.sunlightlabs.com> \- this is the first step to getting all
of the data so it can be used by OpenGovernment and other sites

~~~
JonnieCache
Thanks. I have to warn you though, The List is pretty long.

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micaelwidell
Vote for Ron Paul?

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MaysonL
Flagged as hysterical BS.

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rorrr
Well, what did you expect would happen? It's the same buddies sitting at the
Fed, the SEC, Goldman Sachs. There's no real oversight. Why wouldn't they
abuse it? There's a ton of money to be stolen, and nobody is watching.

~~~
adamstac
Exactly. All the more reason that the efforts of Participatory Politics
Foundation and Sunlight Foundation with OpenGovernment are needed. Even
better, it's open source, so we can all dig in and do our part to help better
prevent this madness from happening right under our noses.

We also plan to have them on a future podcast episode. Maybe later this month
or early next after they launch the beta.

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maeon3
Create a currency that cant be stolen/diluted without breaking 1024 bit
encryption and a password. Entities like the federal reserve can just print
money out of thin air, diluting my past hard work.

It shouldn't be too hard to create a system of person to person wealth
transfer utilizing thumb drives and laptops that exchange receipts of units of
human labor that can't be diluted by simply making more human labor receipts.

Of course, whoever champions this kind of thing will disappear in the night
along with their family. Imagine working a days labor, and being able to
redeem that 100 years later in full. Something like this would have to begin
operation after a complete revolution, and would have to earn a place next to
the right to free speech. The basic right of encryption in data and currency.

~~~
joe_the_user
First, An ordinary thumb drive wouldn't enough for such a system. Encryption
doesn't telepathy. You copy data from Bob. You and Bob show up at the bank
with the same data. What is the bank supposed to do? Encryption-based money
systems require either a smart card or a central repository.

But even more, just assume that a "wealth transfer system" could be created by
a bunch of random individuals who create N unduplicable units of value. Why
should I accept particular units of value. I'd be better off doing the same
thing myself - then it would be _mine_.

I think the lack of understanding of money-dynamics in these schemes comes
from people reacting morally to it rather than rationally.

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maeon3
You say it can't be done!

1\. Create 100 trillion units of wealth in some kind of software system,
generate keys with a strong algorithm.

2\. Completely destroy the private key, give everyone the public key. So
everyone can find out if a key is one of "the original" wealth units, and not
one created after the fact by nefarious entities.

3\. Give everybody in the world, equally, these 100 trillion units.

4\. Let them exchange them for goods and services. If you want more of them,
you have to acquire it from someone who has them.

~~~
joe_the_user
A. _If a "unit of wealth" is just a number, why can't I give ten identical
copies of this number to ten people?_ The way encrypted exchange has been
envisioned and really how it has to work is that the values are kept on
smartcards and smartcard's possessors don't know all the information on the
card and can't change that information at will. But a smartcard system is
clearly far from the "utopia" you envision.

B. Assuming the impossibility that an encypted number would be enough, What
"algorithm" could prove you've the destroyed the private key anyway?

C. Why couldn't someone else do the same thing and so why should we work with
Bob's system when Mary's seems just as appealing? If Bob is German and Mary is
French, it's logical to expect the German's to go with Bob's system and the
French to go with Mary's. If human beings suddenly became massively more
cooperative than they are today, a system of this sort might conceivably be
organized - but in that case why bother since any money inherently
adverserial. If everyone in the world is cooperating, they can just organize
society in that fashion. If not, we'll muddle along with our current currency
system as we muddle along with everything else.

D. An economy with only a fixed amount of value units actually doesn't work
that well. Think about it. There is more and more valuable stuff produced each
day for a larger and larger population. So with a fixed amount of value units,
those units become more valuable each day. That is call "deflation". It
creates a _disincentive_ to buy stuff since your money will buy more tomorrow.
That tends to cripple economic activity in the infamous "deflationary spiral".
And, yes, the Gold standard did have this problem. The economy was not well
served in the days when people actually carried gold (bank deposits
representing are something different).

\-- So yes indeed, seven ways from Sunday it can't be done and probably
shouldn't be done. What could be done is returning to the gold standard but
that still shouldn't be done (and certainly won't be done since it would
require the acquiescence of the world's governments who stand to lose by it,
not that many people would win from it).

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noinput
Reminds me of that scene at the end of the Bourne Identity where they're at
the hearing and question Treadstone, write it off as a loss, and move on.

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1010011010
... wait for Keynesians and Krugmanites to tell us that this is good for the
economy?

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geoffw8
As much as I would love for OpenGovernment to succeed. You guys have got NO
chance, your just standard average Joes. You could be the President's son and
it still wouldn't make a difference. There are so many layers of corruption,
collusion, old boys networks and John McCain's that you will never change how
the government works.

Not to mention that the Federal reserve is a completely different beast. You
would literally have to physically destroy the government before you have any
chance of change.

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nhangen
If everyone thought the way you do, we'd still be paying taxes to the King.

~~~
geoffw8
Errr. I don't really see how your point is relevant. I guess you thought I
meant "I didn't want change", or that "there's no point in trying because it
will never happen".

What I actually said, and perhaps I should have been clearer was: there is not
a single thing any group of people (we), any size, no matter of what
"civillian" importance you are can do to change a single thing about how your
government operates, or how it regulates its money supply.

Least of all, an online community of any type, _especially_ one thats
campaigning for data. I know this is going to read like I'm a dick, but I'm
not. I just know there is one thing I am certain of: the world if fu __ __*
corrupt. AWFULLY so.

If the government official in the video, who was hired by Obama to oversee the
fed, _doesn't_ have access to the data, and won't answer that/those questions
- then who does? Nobody within the organisation we call "the government".

Moreso, if they do have the data and they just aren't sharing it, then its
double bull __ __because that in my book, is a bit hooky.

Edit: so I suppose my conclusion is, given that the government either doesn't
have, or isn't sharing the data. How are you peaceful protestors going to get
this data out of them? Assuming of course if the government doesn't have the
data your battling a faceless, nameless, infinitely wealthy enemy. Or that if
its the government, well, they have an army.

So now, you can see why I think a campaign for data is borderline ridiculous.
But very commendable given I'm not doing a single thing to change things. That
goes without saying.

Edit 2: It all comes down to incentives, and I would be surprised if anybody
could fathom and incentive that would make them hand over all the money, all
the power, all the land and all the fun in the world. Which is this campaigns
ultimate aim, through uncovering bad behaviour in the data. Unless of course
you have a jar of flying powder, or eternal life juice.

~~~
geoffw8
Very relevant: [http://crushingbastards.org/blog/2011/01/04/i-am-a-us-air-
fo...](http://crushingbastards.org/blog/2011/01/04/i-am-a-us-air-force-
intelligence-veteran-of-the-war-in-afghanistan-and-i-support-wikileaks/)

