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Article Bank
The articles in this Article Bank are written by nonpartisan Gini staff, economists, professors, and political scientists who understand and appreciate the economic principles and philosophies of the Gini Foundation. The best of these articles will be integrated into the Gini School of Economics curriculum.
To understand how and why communism emerged in the 20th Century, it’s useful to understand something about the unique economic and cultural history of Russia, which spawned Russia’s revolutionary environment in the late 19th and 20th Centuries. For this purpose, we highly recommend the most comprehensive history book on this topic, A People’s Tragedy: The […]
It’s interesting how different threads of economic history converge in unexpected ways. In the book, Broken Capitalism: This Is How We Fix It, I said: The 2008 Wall Street Communist Revolution. The 2008 Wall Street bailout was the largest government intervention (as a percentage of GDP) in world history. It was even larger than Russia’s […]
In a world of fragmented media and powerful corporate and political entities flooding all media channels with their own version of reality to serve their narrow agendas, perception and reality are often disconnected. In this environment, it can be very difficult (even for smart humans) to distinguish between facts vs. fictions, emotionally-driven debates vs. empirical […]
In Why is Gini Different? we briefly mentioned that all successful economies on Earth today followed the same general principles of economic development during their early growth phases. These principles are not the neoliberal dogma that dominates our dysfunctional and inequitable global economy today. They are “developmental economic principles”, which is why the Gini ecosystem is […]
“Perception is reality” is a polite way of saying the human mind is rarely connected to objective truth. More frequently, perception is unreality when humans get their information from so-called trusted sources that are not trustworthy at all. Broken perceptions produce broken economies and societies. As you’ll see from this article, the perception of billions […]
The Gini whitepaper summarizes many reasons why Gini is different from other cryptocurrencies/blockchains, but some people may not have time to read the whitepaper and all the other articles in the Gini Knowledge Base. So, here we briefly summarize a few of the most significant concepts and features that make Gini different. Different Philosophy = […]
The concept of productivity is probably the most cherished principle in textbook economics. It’s easy to blindly accept the general principle that national productivity is good, which is why politicians and corporations focus citizens on GDP as the primary measure of a nation’s prosperity. However, what they almost never to tell you is this: “Productivity” is […]
The field of economics is dying because “economics” as we know it from school and mainstream financial news media is rapidly disintegrating. The field of economics today is a rusting time-capsule filled with supply-and-demand charts, utility functions, and obsolete assumptions that have virtually no meaning or purpose in a world where the supply-side of every […]
In addition to the technical economic factors discussed in What Caused the Great Depression, in 1929 just before the massive stock market crash, 33% of U.S. national income went to the top-5% of the income-earning population.1 This high concentration of income at the top of the distribution ladder had many negative consequences that directly caused and […]
This is a stub article for a more detailed article coming soon. Did You Like This Resource? Gini is doing important work that no other organization is willing or able to do. Please support us by joining the Gini Newsletter below to be alerted about important Gini news and events and follow Gini on Twitter. […]
Many economists believe that central banks (and the partisan politicians that control them) should have the power to manipulate their money supplies. Their primary argument is this: When cyclical deflationary or inflationary trends occur, politicians should be able to inject or remove money from an economy to offset those trends, thereby restoring balance to the […]
In one of our previous books (Broken Capitalism: This Is How We Fix It), I wrote the following excerpts to debunk several destructive myths that are obliterating the purchasing power of virtually all humans in Western countries today. These excerpts (and that book in general) provide important context to understand Gini’s monetary policies. The Trojan […]
The structure of the global economy today is sick, just like a terminally ill cancer patient. It can be difficult for some people to really understand why this is true unless they’ve spent a significant amount of time studying economic history, the economic data within many economies, and the geopolitical events that have shaped our […]
After we published the Broken Capitalism book somebody asked me, “Are you blaming rich people?” Whenever anybody asks that question, we instantly know they have never read our books or any of our detailed articles where we carefully analyze many aspects of our economic and geopolitical systems on Earth today. After one of my friends asked me […]
This question was inspired by one of the many debates that I had with several members of another cryptocurrency team and their community. Regarding the issue of A.I. gobbling up human jobs and how that should be perceived within the context of building a new economy, one of them said, “The whole point of the […]
To understand how and why Gini’s Community Governance System works, why the Gini Platform is based upon egalitarian principles, and why broad-based wealth creation and distribution is so important to every human ecosystem, it’s useful to briefly explore the biological basis of human cooperation. Every Ecosystem is Governed by Something. Some ecosystems are governed by highly centralized governments, […]
What is a “market”? What exactly is the purpose of the light-speed buying and selling of abstract contracts in a so-called marketplace? The reason proponents of algorithmic trading, and high-frequency trading (HFT) in particular, do not acknowledge a distinction between market volume and market liquidity is because they do not ask those basic existential questions […]
Many people have a vague sense that the financial system is broken and corrupt, but they often don’t know how to explain exactly what is wrong. This is understandable because there is so much noise, false information and propaganda spewed in the mainstream media. Additionally, many politicians and corporate executives deliberately manipulate public perceptions of […]
Many people have never read Adam Smith’s book, The Wealth of Nations; and far fewer have read the complete, unabridged version, which exceeds 1,100 pages. This is understandable considering the 100s of pages that Smith devotes to mundane topics like exchange rates, corn production, purchasing power parity, labor wage rates, the virtues of the division of labor, […]
To avoid political and ideological confusion and to ensure that our analysis remains as objective and politically neutral as possible in the articles and books I write, it’s important to understand that the adjective “neoliberal” is primarily an economic classification, not a political classification. Thus, the “new economic liberalism” (“Neoliberalism”) that began to dominate global […]
Americans Are Sentenced to Generational Debtor’s Prison. As we learned in Part 1 and Part 2 of this “What Caused the Great Depression?” series, specific humans in the U.S. Congress, White House, and the Federal Reserve made conscious choices to sentence the American people to debtor’s prison to pay for a foreign war that posed no significant existential or economic threat to the United States. By dumping approximately $500 […]
Too Much Debt. The total private debt-to-GDP ratio in the United States was nearly 300% by the time the Great Depression started in 1929. In fact, “never before in this country had such a volume of funds been available at such low rates for such a long period,” said Harry Jerome in Mechanization in Industry (1934). The reasons for all this […]
Bad Diagnosis Leads to Bad Solutions. This is the most important question that any person can ask if they want to understand how an economy works and what is wrong with their economy today. We’ve all heard various explanations from partisan politicians and political pundits, but given the severity of the Political and Economic Toxic Cloud in the […]
America is Heading in the Wrong Direction. Every major public opinion poll conducted over the past several years indicates a significant majority of Americans believe the United States is heading in the wrong direction economically and politically. They are right, but many Americans don’t know exactly who to blame, what is causing the problems, or what to […]
Preface. To avoid any confusion, I want to emphasize up-front that all the functions of the Federal Reserve (and any central bank) are entirely unnecessary in an economy based on a well-designed cryptocurrency, which automatically provides the relatively useful technical functions that central banks provide. Additionally, all the toxic elements of central banking that plague […]
(Note: This article was originally published on October 30th, 2016 at Eanfar.org. The significance of this will be apparent by the time you finish reading it.) Dangerous Products Should Have Warning Labels. Products that come with plastic bags that can suffocate and kill children have warning labels. Economic policies that can suffocate and kill a country’s […]
Economic Models Collapse in the Real World. Economic neoliberalism is a theoretical economic framework that many academics and political and business leaders like to promote because it performs well inside clean-room laboratory conditions (i.e., economic models).1 Some people embrace these models in good faith; others use them strategically to manipulate and deceive. Regardless, in the […]
Is Indonesia’s neoliberal free trade policy today achieving broadly shared prosperity? If it is, then we should see economic and human health outcomes that result in the broad creation and broad distribution of wealth and health for the majority of the Indonesian people. This would be considered a “democratic free-trade outcome.” If, instead, we find […]
This article was originally in the Gini book. However, some people said it was too data-heavy for the book’s general audience. So, the article now lives here. To begin this case study, let’s examine a snapshot of the U.S. economy because the ideology of Neoliberalism has been most energetic in the United States. If the […]
This article was originally in the Gini book. However, some people said it was too data-heavy for the book’s general audience. So, the article now lives here. (Note: “Neoliberalism” is an economic philosophy that has nothing to do with political Liberalism. So, this is not a political article. If you’re not sure about the difference between political Liberalism and […]
This presentation was produced for a university lecture that Ferris gave. It covers the basic mechanics of the global currency exchange rate system. He was asked to critique another economist’s article and present his conclusions within the context of a broader discussion of monetary policy in the U.S. and several other countries. You can view […]
The difference between “Classical Liberalism” and “Neoliberalism” is confusing to many people; so, let’s briefly summarize these terms and some of the people and ideas associated with them. Classical Liberalism Was Rooted in Humanism. In the field of Economics, “Classical Liberalism” typically refers to the body of socioeconomic scholarship of Adam Smith (a “classical liberal”) […]
Ancient Roots. The interdependent fields of modern Economics and Political Economy today are the result of thousands of years of accumulated economic ideas and philosophical inquiry, dating all the way back to Ancient Greece when Hesiod wrote about the earliest known economic ideas in his poem, Works and Days (circa 750 to 650 BC). Later, Ancient Classical Period […]
Like most aspects of life, the true nature of capitalism and its impact on humanity can only be understood as continuously shifting shades of reality. Karl Marx famously stated that Democracy is undemocratic and he developed a philosophical framework to empower workers to improve their working conditions, which he believed could only improve if capitalism […]
The hostilities between Germany and the Allied Powers during World War I officially ended with the signing of an armistice on November 18, 1918. Thereafter, the Treaty of Versailles, executed on June 28, 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, was the first of several international treaties and agreements after World War I. However, the Treaty […]
I’ve seen many people ask questions like, “How was it possible for Hitler to amass so much power so quickly without any resistance from the other European countries?” This is an important question because the answer reveals how dictators can rise quickly when geopolitical conditions create cultures of fear. Today, we are entering a new […]
True Capitalism vs. Sociopathic Corporatocracy. In a capitalistic society, nothing else can survive if the society is not able to preserve the most essential pillar of the value creation process: the duality between capital and labor. This is not about fighting for labor rights or shareholder rights. It transcends all that myopic drama and noise. This is […]
(This article was originally published at Eanfar.org.) Angry Humans. I often see well-intending, angry humans talking about the problems in our world today. Many of them blame Capitalism. Some of them seek a revolution at any cost. I understand their anger, but it’s easy to say something is broken; it’s much harder to present and persuasively defend specific, nonpartisan, […]
Human civilization is propelled by incentives; and all human ecosystems are driven by incentive structures, which are combinations of interdependent incentives embedded within every human environment. This is true in socioeconomic systems like capitalism and democracy and it’s true for all human governance systems, including the political institutions of governments, profit-driven boardrooms of banks and […]
The following pie charts illustrate a common money supply distribution used by many other cryptocurrencies today compared to Gini’s money supply. Existing Cryptocurrencies Do Not Produce Equitable Wealth Distributions. In the left-side pie chart above, notice the “Remaining for Mining” piece of the pie. In most cryptocurrencies, most of that portion actually goes to a […]
This is an important question that every monetary policy should address. If a monetary policy is guided solely by the fantasy of the pure free market, value will inevitably concentrate in the hands of groups who can manipulate the laws and regulations that control the flow of value throughout an economy. Value can flow through […]
The articles in this Article Bank are written by nonpartisan Gini staff, economists, professors, and political scientists who understand and appreciate the economic principles and philosophies of the Gini Foundation. The best of these articles will be integrated into the Gini School of Economics curriculum. Did You Like This Resource? Gini is doing important work […]
Every economy’s money supply must start at some amount and increase to another amount over time to accommodate real economic growth, but how much money is the correct amount? The answer to that question depends on many factors and each economy has different socioeconomic characteristics throughout its lifespan that require different amounts of money at […]
To put everything described in the Gini book and this website into perspective, below is a summary of an epic months-long debate that I had with several members of another major blockchain project community. Several colleagues and I were heavily invested in and deeply passionate about that project. My sadness after discovering that project’s broken […]
Economic Freedom Is Not Equal to Business Freedom. Confusing business freedom with economic freedom inevitably destroys the economic and political freedom of the general population while it protects the business freedom of a small number of oligarchs. This is what happened in Italy during Mussolini’s dictatorship (1925–1943), which Hitler then emulated in Nazi Germany (1933–1945). See the following extremely well-documented books […]
Whenever a society asks a question about what should be, the question obviously implies certain trade-offs and value judgments. Logically, these judgments should be based on a society’s highest priorities and purpose. When rules and institutions are not aligned with a population’s highest priorities and purpose as expressed by a majority vote of that population, […]
Although these words are often used interchangeably and confused with one another, the concept of “equality” is very different from the concept of “equity.” The dictionary definition of “equality” encompasses concepts like “quantity” and “uniformity,” which are more precisely understood as mathematical principles rather than philosophical principles. A mathematical equation like 9 + 1 = […]
In contrast to the concept of “equality,” the concept of “equity” has been an integral feature of the U.S. legal system from its founding. American courts of equity are based on the centuries-old English Court of Chancery, which today is a division of the British High Court of Justice. The dictionary definition of “equity” encompasses […]
Living in Denial About the Economy. I still see many Americans living in denial about the fate of the USD. Even when they know that past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, they still say things like “Yes, the 2008 bailouts were bad, but our economy has stabilized and we’ll be OK.” No, […]
Some people acknowledge that the Stake Stream feature within Gini’s Value Streams System creates structural incentives for stakeholders to save their Gini, but they wonder if it might have long-run deflationary consequences. Let’s spend a few minutes debunking the sinister myth that fuels the fear of runaway deflation in any economy. The Origin of Deflation […]
If you take the time to read this article, you will learn three important things: (1) Why cryptocurrency “Market Cap” is broken; (2) How to fix the “Market Cap” (actually, what to replace it with); (3) How to resolve the violent volatility that is holding back all cryptocurrencies from becoming truly stable currencies for real-world […]
Somebody recently asked me: “Can other cryptocurrencies reach the $10,000 point like Bitcoin?” Below is a summary of my responses. Yes, the Price of Any Well-Designed Cryptocurrency Can Reach $10,000 and Far Higher. To understand why this is true, we need to understand how asset prices and economic price levels work. The price of any asset […]
For approximately 99.5% of all cryptocurrencies and crypto-tokens, no rational justification can be made to defend their valuations. (Excluding a hyper-inflationary fiat currency environment.) In fact, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies are just huge ponzi schemes. So, we welcome the recent government scrutiny within the cryptocurrency industry that has emerged in recent months. But what […]
All Human Communities Must Inject Money Into Their Economies. In the fiat world, central banks create money out of thin air, then they inject that money into highly concentrated commercial banks, which then distribute that money to the rest of the population using the highly inflationary fractional reserve banking system. That’s one way of injecting […]
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