One of the distortions that the central banks do in keeping interest rates low is that it alters the balance between labour and capital investment. If interest rates are higher capital intensive robotics would be less profitable and make the higher ongoing cost of labour less uncompetitive in many situations.
Dick Smith doesn't say climate change is caused by foreigners and migrants... he is talking about infinite growth in Australia (and the World)... is not possible with finite resources. As in productive farm land, water, energy, materials mined out of the ground like copper and steal (iron ore). Some efficiencies can make better use of resources.... but they will always be finite and at best reusable.
Here is my improved version of the test... With proxy detection and text result output.
Gold isn't a speculative commodity, it is paper money that is the speculative commodity. Gold is money and has been for thousands of years. Gold is not the liability of anyone else (eg Central Banks). Paper money in many countries in the past has become worthless. Gold has never become worthless. Also I wouldn't say that the value of Gold has gone up, but the value of paper money has gone down.
The instantaneous cost of the commodity isn't what's at hand here, only the price obtained for the finished good relative to the commodity when it was purchased. The raw materials only cost 0.97 now? That's fantastic, until you realize that deflation still exists. Deflation is a trap for the producer that cuts into earnings. Also, I doubt many Chinese manufacturers are making a 47% margin.
To give another example... the raw material cost goes up to 1.10 but the price for the finished goods stays the same... the same problem occurs. Therefore inflation and deflation cause problems for producers when they lack pricing power (which much of china probably does).
You are the very first person I've ever heard attribute the current financial crisis to monetary inflation. At best, you could ascribe it to asset inflation, i.e. the housing crisis, but even that is a proximate cause. Inflation has been quite low over the past decade. A more immediate problem is the insane leveraging of financial institutions coupled with a serious lack of regulation.
Since you haven't heard anyone attribute the current financial crisis to monetary inflation, do some reading on the Austrian School of Economics and Austrian Business Cycle Theory.
I live in Australia and have always wondered about the security of cheques because of the place your bank account number on the cheque as well as a incrementing cheque number. The first thing I would do is make the cheque number pseudo random, so that someone who was able to get an image of a cheque wouldn't be able to create another valid cheque, just by increasing the cheque number. Even the account number could be a random number... which points to a record at the bank which determines which account the money has to come from. I think these changes could probably be implemented individually by a bank as well...ie. it wouldn't need other banks to know what is going on.
"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger
