Tag Archives: distribution

Penguin Economics And The Idea Of Circularism

One day about three years ago I was laying on my living room couch and had what most would call an epiphany. Some people think that moments of clarity only happen once or twice in a lifetime, however I’m lucky to say I’ve had several in my 30 years on Earth. They’re lasting milestones in my thinking and I never forget what the memory taught me. This particular time it was a very simple concept that continued to grow and develop in my mind over the course of a year. I guess it’s still in development because yesterday it struck a new cord.

The idea is a common notion, except it is articulated very soundly in my mind. I’ll start with the basic element, which is a circle. To breeze over some deep and nerdy geometrical and mechanical physics lessons, you have to fully understand that there are no mathematical equivalents to what is considered a straight line. In short, straight lines don’t exist in nature. They are solely figments of intellectual design. What do occur in nature are fractals. To keep it simple, it is nature’s way of creating the illusion of a straight line. You see fractals when you look at a snowflake in a microscope, or when you gaze at a spiderweb. What’s interesting to one who may not know much about fractals is that they’re created by curves and semi circles, thousands of them. So until otherwise discovered thru modern science, everything in all ways are a part of and constructed by three hundred and sixty degree elemental parts.

That leads me to the first phase of my notion. Imagine a picture of a galaxy. Use a picture of the Milky Way if it makes things easier. Observe how there’s more light in the center than on the outskirts of it. Science has proven that a tremendous amount of energy resides in the center and less of it on the outlying parts. Similarly, this is the function with other observed galaxies in our close proximal universe. This happens with most sources of light in general, the center has more energy than its edges. No reason to explain why because it’s a known fact. What’s important to note is that at some point, whatever is furtherest away from the center of these systems will inevitably find its way to the center. It is also true in just about any instance of a self generating energy source like our Sun, and even the Earth. These are natural examples of self sustaining energy sources, as well as life forms.

Before I go into the next part of my thought, let me say that humans are not penguins and penguins don’t use money. That being said, I think people can learn a lot about how we use money from penguins.

I’m a capitalist. I don’t think I’d choose any other economic philosophy currently in practice today to thrive within. I believe capitalism is the best option on the market right now. I do however think there can be something better. What about something like “Circularism?” Not based on the paradigm of a triangle, but simply a circle instead. Circularism has more wealth in the center instead of the top, and the working class revolving around it instead of at the bottom holding it up. Not socialism, and heavy government regulation. Plain science and physics. Imagine an economy that distributes wealth in a natural cycle, that over time a population will have regenerated its own wealth throughout its entire self by simple geometrical forces. Take in account that goverment regulation is unavoidable to any economic philosophy, but regulation doesn’t have to be a determinate in whether a philosophy works well or not. The most crucial element to the cultivation of an economic philosophy is fear. Fear drives every social phenomenon.

Now that I’ve formed my basis, described my model, and presented my concept, let me elaborate on what I believe. As we creep into the mid part of this century, privacy will become more of a luxury to us than it is a commodity to us currently. Our privacy has everything to do with the future of our global economy. The less privacy our community has, the less value can be placed into capitalism. Wealth cannot be hoarded in a glass vault. As technology becomes more and more invasive and people become just as extraverted online, the price of privacy will shoot to new heights. The inclination of wealth distribution in this new environment will undoubtedly shift, and not in favor of the wealthy. Who does that scare? The wealthy, of course. Trillions of dollars will be spent on keeping money secure for private citizens and corporations will come in droves to cash in on the new privacy and personal data industries. As cash money digitizes and the percentages of hard cash with dead presidents printed on them grows smaller, wallets will be all the more vulnerable to pick pockets. Not only will the cyber crooks be on the prowl, but advertisers, city agencies, retailers, and anyone who needs your money will have faster and faster and faster access to your assets. This isn’t a story from a science fiction novel. This is reality.

A person’s net worth isn’t anyone’s business until they’re in the public eye. Average people don’t want anyone to know how much money they have because they simply don’t have enough of it. If they did then it wouldn’t even matter to them who knew how much they had because it’s not like it’s gonna get up and hop into someone else’s bank account without raising some law abiding eyebrows. What’s interesting is how much personal information the average person openly submits to the public via the internet, as opposed to what personal info the wealthy do. You figure hey, we know everything about the wealthy already. We do know a lot about the people who control most of our wealth, but we don’t really know details. They’d love to keep it that way. That is where capitalism wins, for now. Soon there will be a new generation of wealthy citizens who have a different perspective on what’s private and what’s public information. These people will be the people who uploaded their first profile pictures onto social media when they were 13 years old. Privacy will have a whole new meaning and people will be a lot more public about everything. That is where capitalism begins to fade into history.

Personal bank accounts will be a public affair. Maybe not the Bank of America joint account with mom, or the Chase primary checking, or the Fidelity retirement account. These institutions will hold steady as long as they can. The new accounts will be the future of our global economy, the Bitcoin account, the Paypal account, the mobile wallet you downloaded and put $15 dollars in but have yet to use. These new economic technologies are going to revolutionize the exchange of money and assets. People are currently selling their homes on their iPhones. At that rate of exchange, it will be no time before people are verifying assets for sales via instant message. Why not have your entire portfolio listed online via your “This Is Everything I Have” profile? That way people can just open that up and see if you qualify for that business loan, or that mortgage for the condo you need in Florida. “Everyone’s doing it!” Just like every trend, people will be drawn to what is popular and what makes sense to them as a person in a group and not in solitude.

Circularism is an adaptation, and not a takeover or just another revolution. You cannot regulate fear, you can only react to it. The fears I described are fears of today that will grow into the future. Capitalism can’t sustain a healthy economy in an environment where privacy is a luxury. The more people know, the less they spend. Capitalists survive primarily on the grounds of access, and keeping others away from the commodity they have access to. Access is the fundamental key to information technology. Computers are on the brink of their own turning point. The quantum computer, which relies on quantum codes or the next version of binary code, to calculate algorithms. This will also raise the stakes of how quickly we will be able to access information. The future is very bright for snooping online.

Enter the industrial snooping age. Less work, more snooping on who’s doing work and how much work they’re doing. That’s the ticket to cyclical wealth distribution. I’m not talking about little old factory worker snooping on big giant corporate CEO’s accounts in the middle of the night on a laptop. I’m talking about the freelancer on the mobile device at a coffee shop going thru lists of public account profiles of other small business owners looking for a match for a new venture, on the “Venture Match App.” Goverment economic regulators and staunch capitalists didn’t see that one coming. It won’t be an invasion of privacy that will sit capitalism down in its rocking chair. It will be publicity that will turn the tides of wealth distribution and create a free flowing cycle of economic freedom for a larger proportion of our population. The faster people trade ideas, the faster people will trade their assets, the faster people will trade their wealth.

Of course the rich will still get richer, and the poor will still get poorer, but at what rate and at what ratio? A different one. Relative to the polarity of wealth distribution today, almost anything would be more ideal. How about everyone just be poor? That would actually be better than some people having nothing while one person has everything. I don’t want everyone to be poor, but I do believe some could do just fine with less. Extravagance has always set it’s foot stern into economy. It for the most part seems to turn the wheels of the capitalistic money machine. The thing is that extravagance still looks back at fear for motivation. So the light dims on extravagance as privacy becomes less abundant. A beacon is shone on stoicism when the public is not only watching, but is also the judge. Without fail, our global economy will have to endure multiple losses in the transition into the public data age. As our thoughts become a part of the exchange of communication at the click of a button, our wallets will soon be at the whim of the tide called hysteria. We can’t avoid these certain laws of social science. We can only adapt. The good thing is there will be a new philosophy to adapt to, and I believe that philosophy will be Circularism.

What do penguins have to do with global economy?