Brief reminder: I'm going to be doing a reading and signing this Saturday at 7pm at Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge (Mass, not UK) — that's at 4 Pleasant Street Cambridge, MA 02139.
I'm then planning on having at least one beer in the Cambridge Brewing Company on Kendall Square, from 9pm onwards — that's at 1 Kendall Sq, Building 100, Cambridge, MA 02139. This is, in my case, to celebrate having killed the monster handed in the copy edits on "The Rapture of the Nerds".
Books! Beer! What else is best in life, Conan?
"What else is best in life, Conan?"
Please don't ask Warren Ellis that.
To hear the lamentations of the Singulatarians!
"Books! Beer! What else is best in life, Conan?"
The peace to enjoy them.
The company of good friends, and a bottle of good wine.
What is best in life ?
"Imagine if every American woke up tomorrow with $ 10,000,000 in their cking account? " -bindar dundat on zerohedge.com
The above could be done with a mass hack....
Should make for a good near future sci ftory or may even become reality.
Let us say that this happens at 12:00 GMT, and all Americans have $1E8, no more and no less.
ISTR that at 12:15, the first "paupers" appear, at 12:45 the first $1E13ers appear, and within a week the distribution of net worth would be pretty much like it is now, albeit with some different individuals in the "rich" and "pauper" categories.
Well, for a start, massive inflation...
Everyone who only has savings would see them wiped out, and everyone with control over physical assets would be rich. In the short term it would probably benefit the rich more than the poor.
"What else is best in life?"
I've always had a soft spot for pathological programming (google it), mixing it with beer is even better, for extremely brief periods...
Soft toilet paper.
Don't forget the good dentishtry (and the hot water).
You know, I'm down in MA that day. I'm totally staying down there a couple of hours longer.
For the $1E8 hack after-effects? I'd suggest Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck story Financial Fable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Financial_Fable
An old sign: Every man deserves in life one good woman and at least one good dog.
To which I would add, and a good book.
Are you coming to DC at all?
The bank hack would basically be debt Jubilee. Inequality would grow again, but the equalizing effects wouldn't go away overnight. All credit card debt, medical bills, car payments, student loans, and mortgages could be paid off immediately. The US and the US dollar is a large enough part of the global economy that I think the spillover would affect much of the world -- government and corporate finances as well as households. I don't see how it would benefit the rich. A middle class family suddenly gets millions of dollars and still keeps their house/cars/other possessions despite hyperinflation. How many billionaires have even close to a billion dollars in tangible property, as opposed to currency or financial instruments that will suffer almost like currency in case of hyperinflation?
No.
Well, we would be out of debt. And I'd put some nice old books up on E-bay (like the complete Ace edition of LoTR, some of my dad's old stuff, etc.) and watch the fun begin. We live in a fairly agricultural area of the country, so we might end up getting paid in potatoes and the occasional quarter beef, but I think we'd weather the hyperinflation fairly well. I wouldn't quit the day job, that's for sure.
"It is enough to have the strength and knowledge to raise our dream machines into the sky" Laibach, B Mashina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgqjnzkYPnA
Are you defining a stock holding in $megacorp as intangible? Stocks generally (unless in a clear bear market, and it's far from clear that this would create a bear market) grow at inflation or slightly above.
What else is best in life?
To only visit Boston; I've been trying to get out for years....
Oh, smegging Hell... It's 11:57 EST on Sunday and I just saw this.
This is exactly what happened to me.