The Plight of the Founder

submitted by jwithrow.
Click here to get the Journal of a Wayward Philosopher by Email

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Plight of the Founder

August 10, 2016
Hot Springs, VA

Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” – Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 12:57

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,181. Gold closed at $1,338 per ounce. Crude Oil closed at $42.69 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 1.545%. Bitcoin is trading around $590 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

My mind wanders off of the beaten path once again this week as I finish up A Lodging of Wayfaring Men by Paul Rosenberg for the second time. As I read this book, I can almost ‘see’ the plight of the founder as it has played out over and over again throughout human history.

In order to understand the plight of the founder, we must first understand a key function of life… all life. The basic laws of thermodynamics tell us that closed systems naturally evolve towards a state of maximum entropy; entropy being the amount of energy not available for work.

Life systematically reverses entropy. Continue reading “The Plight of the Founder”

The Future of Commerce

submitted by jwithrow.
Click here to get the Journal of a Wayward Philosopher by Email

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Future of Commerce

April 20, 2016
Hot Springs, VA

Commerce, by its very nature, is born free. And more than this, it forever fights to remain free. At almost every time and place, commerce evades regulations and controls; it serves its own will, not the wills of rulers. Markets spontaneously emerge at every opportunity, even when they are outlawed and punished. Commerce seems to have an existence of its own, like an independent organism.” – Paul Rosenberg

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,100. Gold closed at $1,252 per ounce. Crude Oil closed at $42.46 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 1.78%. Bitcoin is trading around $437 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

The institutional foundation of the Industrial world is crumbling all around us. Governments are broke. Social welfare programs are severely underfunded. Unions are broke. Pension plans are underfunded. National currencies have been trashed. Blue-collar jobs in the developed world have been lost to low-wage countries. Low-wage jobs have been lost to robotics and automation. Many of the jobs just disappeared entirely. Everyone’s retirement account is propped up by the constant creation of money out of thin air required to keep the financial markets afloat.

Welcome to the Information Age! Continue reading “The Future of Commerce”