My most recent essays are available below for free.
Masonomics, the full compilation, is available for purchase on Amazon Kindle. It's up to 34 pages!!!
Suit from Alton Lane.
Photo taken by Heather Edmunds.
Also, I can find no record of my essay "I Love The Smell of Asymmetric Warfare in the Morning." So, if anyone has it, please send me a copy. It was only the first draft.
The full essay compilation.
Nomics: The combination of logic and rules that define an individual or group of similar people.
Cover design by Rachel Bostwick.
Cover art by Shiny.
Inflation vs. Deflation:
Embracing Incentives and Reality
Mr. Mason Hawley Ballowe
Trigger Warning
Background:
First, what is the dollar? It’s a store of labor. You trade your time for money under the belief it will have the same value when you need to use it in the future. It is just a small contract. Every day, the creator of that contract, violates it.
In the current American macroeconomy, the federal reserve controls the supply of money, and the interest rate at which the money is lent. This is an insane amount of power for an unelected entity, especially when there is a law outlawing competition, as minting money is illegal.
Interest Rates: In the previous article on student debt relief, I did a deep dive on the true cost of interest rates. Roughly a one percent interest rate change, is an actual five percent cost increase. It’s using math to hide cost.
Supply Of Money: If you increase the quantity of something, its value decreases. Every day when the fed prints money, or creates it digitally, it decreases the value of every existing dollar. This is what they call inflation. Strangely, without the fed creating new money, deflation would become the natural state. As dollars were destroyed through poor care, the dollar would naturally increase in value daily.
Inflation Deep Dive.
There are proponents of inflation. There are people who say devaluing the bedrock of the economy is a good thing. They are idiots. These retards state that by devaluing the currency, it’ll incentivize investment, because the cost of failure is lower as investors will be paying for the failure in future devalued money. The tyrant also apparently believes that only the investor matters. Finally, the fool doesn’t understand the long term opportunity cost of labor.
First, the argument of the idiot who thinks there is value in devalueing currency. The fiduciary stability of an economy is the foundation upon which all other things rest. Devaluing it just makes numbers in reports look bigger. The Sound of Music only made $287M in 1965. Avengers made $1.52B in 2012. Which is better? An additional cost the idiot forgets, is the loss in confidence in trust of the dollar, as well as the actual efficiency loss of carrying more tokens to achieve the same objective.
Next, the argument of the retard. Incentivizing investment can be a good thing, if you think you’re smarter than the free market. No individual is. Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit extrapolates this quite well. The retard is conceited enough to think he or she knows you better than you know yourself. As a result, they invest in market inefficient options. These inefficient investments are more likely to fail, creating a compounding systemic collapse of businesses that were never market efficient and never had a chance to succeed in the first place.
Then, there’s the argument of the tyrant. The tyrant only values himself or herself. No value is placed on labor. This is why salaries do not keep pace with inflation or the cost of living. The tyrant doesn’t value his customer either. As a result, the tyrant no longer has workers that can afford to work for him, or customers to afford to acquire his products, and his entire venture becomes lost.
Finally, there's the cry of the fool. The catastrophic cost of this market intervention is long term inefficiency also known as the opportunity cost of labor. We have a generation of students learning pronouns instead of how to repair anything of value. Our infrastructure is crumbling, and we have more individuals skilled at fixing our feelings than fixing our foundations.
Deflation Deep Dive:
Deflation occurs when the value of the dollar increases in a given year. Talk about a negative sales pitch or modern witchcraft. The word choice just sounds bad, calling it deflating the dollar, when it’s increasing the value of the dollar?
Deflation, as already stated, is the natural state of any finite asset. The world is entropic in many ways. This creates value for the dollar annually.
Deflation means every worker gets a natural raise annually, without adjusting their salary. Managers can greedily offer new workers lower wages to compensate, naturally rewarding seniority.
The Mind Boggling Inversion
Assume 3% annual inflation in this example:
The grand impact is insane. Every year, every worker with a stable wage, makes 3 percent less than the year before. This means they likely will consume less, or take on debt. Debt becomes a compounding negative to their demand, as they are now paying off debt and usury interest instead of investing in their local markets.
Since the fed’s inception, the dollar has lost roughly 99% of its value. Imagine if instead, the dollar was worth double its value of 1913.
In my high school, one of my favorite English teachers had a sign hanging in the back of the classroom. It was an old aluminum advertisement for a single coca cola classic in a glass bottle. I do not know the size. It said “a nickel drink worth a dime.” because it only cost a nickel.
We toss nickels in the cupholders in case we run into a toll one day, but imagine if a penny could buy a coke. That’s what the federal reserve has taken from you.
Finally, I want to go into game theory. Specifically, the "Prisoner's Dilemma." This theory states that in a given set of circumstances, an individual may be forced to surrender their values and take an action to survive or maximize. In an inflationary world individuals take out debt to create a business because that is the only path offered, especially with federal interest rates as high as they currently are. Currently, almost no one can make money anymore. The anaconda of regulation and banking has stifled free thinking and prosperity to the point the prisoner is now the warden, unable to see the jailhouse as his own prison. The dilemma is both real, and compounding.
Solution:
End the Fed. Create a localized fed at each state. I have no idea what each state will create. Likely one will be great. Enable each state’s currency to be traded without restriction within all 50 states. Issuing its own currency, with its own interest rates. Require loans to US Citizens be zero interest or lower. Loans to foreign investors can be higher. Which state’s currency will be a good investment? Likely not California.
There are probably better solutions that do not involve government. What Would Ron Paul Say?
Thank you for reading.
How to Use Zero Interest Rates To Solve Our Usury Interest Problem And Save A Generation In Debt.
Mr. Mason Hawley Ballowe
Generation Y is buried in debt, enhancing the current demand problem facing the global economy. They can’t buy homes. They can’t buy cars. Long term: with no savings they can’t invest in their start up business dreams. The debt is a job killer. This article is an example of utilizing the power of the federal government and the existing banking mechanism to stimulate the economy. The objective of the proposed plan is to stimulate commerce through demand stimulus at the consumer level. I believe a targeted refinancing of personal liabilities by the government through reduced interest rates is the solution.
So, how does this work? Current student loan terms for fixed rate loans range from 5.99% to 11.24% interest over 18 years. Let’s look at an example of John:
-John is a 22 year old American. He graduated from college 6 months ago, and is starting to make payments on his student loans.
-John has $10,000.00 in student loan debt, at 6% interest fixed over 18 years through Discover.
-His monthly payment for the next 18 years will be $75.82.
-Utilizing my plan, his new monthly payment would be $46.30
How did John get an extra $29.52, or a 39% reduction in monthly price? Let’s examine how to make it work:
Step 1: John asks for a loan for $10,000.00 from a bank of his choice. For this example, we’ll say John chooses to start using Bank of America.
Step 2: The Department of Education loans Bank of America the $10,000.00 with the terms below to buy the liability from the current servicer (Discover).
Step 3: Bank of America pays off John’s debt with Discover.
Step 4: Bank of America refinances John’s debt to 0% interest. The total liability amount remains unchanged.
Step 5: As a reward to Bank of America for facilitating the transaction, it only must repay 95%, of the value of the loan, or $9,500.00, to the Department of Education over 18 years.
Outcome: John’s monthly payment decreased by $29.52, or 39%. The bank made 5%, or $500. The banks and servicing entities also make money on transaction costs, processing fees, and other overhead.
PS: That's one way to make a "negative interest rate" work. It's that easy, no fancy math.
In the above example, everyone seems to win. Who bears the cost? The government. The government loses 5%. However, as explained above, that 5% loss is profit for the bank. That’s why this is stimulus. This is the government helping, and here’s the best part: The government gets most of the money back in the end.
Let’s look at an example of a $550 Billion dollar stimulus to the student loan market. Assume $50B of the money covers the transaction costs, processing fees, defaults, and other overhead. That leaves $500B to refinance liabilities. Assuming all liabilities to be refinanced have an average interest rate of 6% (very optimistic since the lowest possible rate for new loans is 5.99%) Enacting this plan would instantly put $1.48B directly into the hand of consumers monthly. Let’s break it down:
1: Congress makes $550B available to the Department of Education to fund the program.
2: New servicing banks make $50B in overhead fees. That’s $50B in instant up front stimulus to the banking industry.
3: Old servicing banks have an account closed, paid in full. They can now lend this money out again, with the banking multiplier.
4: John, and other current student loan holders have a combined $1,476,185,185.19 or $1.48B monthly. That money can be spent, saved, invested at the individual discretion, monthly.
5: The new servicing banks repay $475B to the Department of Education over 18 years
Summary: Total long term cost: $75B. This infuses banks and other servicing entities with $75B up front and puts $1.48B into the hand of consumers each month, or $17.7B per year for a total of $394B in surplus generated by government stimulus.
Deep Dive:
The $394B = 17.7B * 18 years + 75B up front.
The monthly surplus will decrease over time as loans are paid in full. The benefit will also change based on the liability refinanced. The higher the current interest rate, the greater the benefit. Therefore, the final law should include the following stipulations:
Existing liability must be at least 5% interest
Existing liability must have at least 5 years remaining in the loan term
These stipulations will ensure 5 years of max return, or $88.6B of surplus over 5 years (does not include the up front $75B)
These numbers do not include any trickle down impacts. For example: month 1 John celebrates his $29.00 by taking his girlfriend to dinner.
The restaurant owner now makes profit.
The restaurant server and other staff (cooks, busboys) get a tip or payout.
The restaurant supplier backfills the inventory, making money, using distribution networks who then make money.
All the while, the government is taxing each transaction
What will the owner, server, supplier, logisticians, do with their cut of the money?
In order to make this more profitable for the new servicing banks, capital requirements on banks should be waived for these loans.
Dependant on default rates, a separate default allocation pool may be needed.
The Department of Education must back the loan, meaning if an individual defaults, part of the $50B overhead can be used to cover the delinquency. This means zero risk for banks.
opponents of this plan state that the previous bank (discover, in the example above) will lose because the student loan return of 6% is profitable. If that is true, the banks are saying they cannot get a return better than 6% with all available options. Even then, by definition of opportunity cost, the bank will not lose all 6% return. The truly sad part is: the opponent statement is saying the best investment for a bank is to hold the future of our youth hostage.
Interest Rate Breakdown for a $10,000.00 liability. It’s pretty amazing to see how a 1% interest rate increase translates to a roughly 5% increase in real cost. Remember, at 0% the payment is $46.30:
Just imagine people with a 25% interest rate on credit cards...
Let’s take one final, more realistic individual example. I say more realistic, because very few individuals have only $10,000 in loans. For example: a year of study at local Georgetown University runs anywhere from $40,000 - $85,0000. Federal student loans are capped at $138,500. I know several individuals who financed both undergraduate degrees and graduate degrees, far exceeding this cap. Let’s take an example of Tom:
-Tom has $250,000.00 in remaining debt, 3 years after graduation.
-Tom has $130,000.00 in federal student loans at 6%.
-Tom has $120,000.00 in private student loans at 7% interest.
-Tom’s monthly federal student loan payment is $1097
-Tom’s monthly private student loan payment is $1079
-Tom’s total monthly payment is $2176
Let that sink in for a moment: Tom is paying $26,112 annually just for student loans. How can a new grad survive with that much taken off the top? With the proposed plan, Tom would start paying $1157.40 per month over 18 years. That’s a 47% reduction in monthly cost. Let’s break it down further.
-Tom owed $250,000 over 15 years, the refinance made it 18 years
-The new bank will instantly take $12,500 in profits from the 95% discount
-Tom now has an additional $1018.59 per month to pay rent, buy food, and survive
-Long term: the decreased likelihood of default will increase the probability of Tom having good credit in the future, meaning increased availability of loans for future home loans, small business loans, etc.
The student loan debt problem is over $1T dollars. This debt will affect the economy for generations if we don’t help out now. This proposal is not a clean slate for those in debt. It’s a helping hand from the government. It’s a minimum of a 34.14% cost reduction, and a payback over time. Everyone wins, and that’s with conservative numbers. Just imagine, what a generation of millennials would do with a little extra cash each month. What will they buy/invest/save with 1.48 Billion dollars? How about next month? The one after that?
The key for this program to be successful is to use this stimulus to remove government intervention in the student loan and education markets. The Federal Reserve controls the market and all competition is outlawed. Finally, if the government is going to intervene in the market, it should do it to lower the interest rate for the citizen, not raise it. US Citizens should borrow at 0 percent interest.
If The Fed wants to make money off the citizen, it can. It does this by protecting the value of the dollar and lending to foreign investors at a high interest rates. Currently we throw away our sovereignity to the IMF to accomplish this while the Fed abuses the citizen. This must end.
Negative interest rates can exist.
Thank You For Reading.