Thursday, September 10, 2015

A Revisitation of Scarcity and Why It's a Good Thing

A classic from a couple years back that reminds us that without scarcity there is no value.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

living space and tranquility are starting to become really scarce in this overpopulated and high paced world.

You might want a car and a mcmansion, I want distance between me and my neighbors.

Distance is becoming more valuable than gold.

Anonymous said...

Why can't the saudis build their own medical installations and then send some of their brightest students to get medical training in the USA ?

Bring them back to Saudi Arabia and have them care for the entire Saudi aristocracy. With 1500 members in the Saudi aristocracy, the physicians would have well paid full time jobs. Furthermore, those USA trained Saudi physicians could consult Mayo professions through teleconference and telemedicine. Send X-ray pictures and blood sample analysis results for a through analysis and independent verification.

Finally, when it's absolutely necessary, have the Mayo professionals come to Saudi Arabia for surgery or really demanding health care procedures.

The Mayo doctors would love to travel and the Saudis would save a lot of money which could be reinvested in their own medical installations. They could even treat the doctors with gifts and luxury resort stays for taking the time to travel to Saudi Arabia and it would still be a lot more economical than travelling to the Mayo clinic. It would be a win win situation.

If they are that wealthy and if even Qatar can build refrigerated ski slopes in the desert. There is no excuse for them to not have their own medical installations and their own trained staff.

USA universities would be more than happy to train the Saudi envoys for an inflated college bubble price. They would not need student loans.

If they are that wealthy and they still need to travel to the USA, something is wrong. Somebody is not going his job properly.

FINALLY ...

What Oil is doing to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait ... CREDIT is doing to Europe and America.

Again, maybe the US economy is in shambles because easy credit has destroyed the sense of value that comes with sound money.

People would be a lot more careful with their money if they couldn't buy now and pay later in 48 easy payments. If they had to first save the money before they spend, chances are they would be more careful about what they spend on.

The problem is, the FED can print an infinite amount of money while the Saudis can only pump a finite amount of oil. The Saudis will run out of oil before the FED runs out of money.

At least the Saudis are wasting wealth they have. The FED is wasting wealth we don't have. A financial black hole.

Stephen Hawking was worried about the Large Hadron Collider creating a real nano black hole that could swallow the world, only to realize later that it would be so short lived that it would represent no danger.

The FED's financial blackhole, which is pure fiction, is more dangerous to the world than the real black holes generated in the LHC. Because this fictitious black hole can last forever and swallow the world's economy.

Maybe, just maybe, the Saudis are pumping all that oil into the markets in order to protect their dollar denominated assets from hyperinflation ?

Something tells me that The FED and Riyadh share the same bed. Effectively turning the US dollar into an oil standard. QE from one hand = Saudi Pump from the other. I don't think that Riyadh is competing against The Bakken, I think they are competing against hyperinflation.

This must mean that the Saudis are extremely invested in the US economy through leverage and that they have a lot more financial wealth than oil wealth and therefore it makes sense to dump oil to support their investments.

This means that the Saudis have invested on credit with their oil as a mere down payment. So the Saudis income comes mostly from over leveraged financial derivatives and not from their oil. So the whole Saudi economy is a big house of cards that depends on a strong US dollar.

The FED basically owns the Saudi's oil. Print = pump. Saudi Arabia is where all the QE wealth is going.

Anonymous said...

I don't think it was Stephen Hawking that predicted the micro black hole.