As IF Times

link Citi Economist Says It Might Be Time to Abolish Cash – Bloomberg Business.

I think it’s a fair comment to make that if an economist says it’s a good idea, then the idea must be suspect.  There’s the old joke that the reason that there are decimal points is because economists have a sense of humor.  As many will know, economists live in the most esoteric of worlds in which arcane models are developed to explain movements in prices and in the supply and demand dynamics of goods and services in an economy.  If convincing enough, such models are used to form political policies which greatly affect the lives of citizens. Often, these models are created with the most fundamental error in assumption: namely, that people are rational.

Do they work? One word: Keynes. Another one: Obamacare.  So the musings of Citibank’s Mr. Buiter who thinks that the time is nigh to consider abolishing cash is a clarion call to go exactly the opposite way.  As many should have realized by now, the pervasive invasion of everyone’s privacy by all manner of intrusions whether mandated by law or volunteered via the seduction of social media has made everyone a drone whose activities can be traced at almost any given time.  You don’t need to wear tinfoil hats to be a bit wary of that.  Who isn’t a bit creeped out when an ad for electric dog polishers shows up on your favorite website right after you were searching for the prices of them the day before?

If all money is electronically stored and there is no cash, there is a trail of every activity that you engage in.  This will make life entirely more cumbersome for the regular people who don’t live in the make believe world of economists.  While this can put a crimp into nefarious activities such as drug deals, it will also make it difficult to bribe doormen at bars and restaurants, to say nothing of how to discreetly show appreciation for your favorite exotic dancer.

A world in which cash is eliminated is  a world in which we all become just numbers to be picked up as if we were in some futuristic Tom Cruise sci-fi flick.  I think we should go the other way.  Rather than having our net worth governed by some geek bureaucrat with access to a keyboard, we should go back to paying for things in cash.  Judging by what has happened when you allow lawyers to make laws and accountants to oversee taxes, it would be fatal to allow economists to eliminate cash.

link The Kardashian Kingdom—Get the Breakdown on How the Kardashians Rule the World! on Kardashians | E! Online Canada.

Just as the most recent breathless headline on Kim is released, it finally dawns on me that Kim and Hillary have the same public relations company pushing their respective brands.   For the public relations company, it’s a bonus because they do their work with exactly the same material, but get paid twice for it.

The parallels are blatantly evident once you analyze the circumstances of the two women.   Firstly, neither one of them have done anything in their lives that would beget the kind of merciless exposure and adulation that the media creates for them.  They are both famous for being famous, just like the immortal Rula Lenska of the 1960’s VO5 commercials.

Both have come to fame as a function of their relationships to famous men and both have had elements of questionable morality tied to their rise to public prominence.   Next to Oprah, they are probably the most recognized female faces in America.  As pointed out in earlier pieces, the public is fed a regular diet of Kim-isms including her most revelation of sex 500 times  a day, presumably with her hubby Kanye.  I didn’t even think that human skin could take that kind of wear.  There seems to be a loyal fan-base out there hungering for every morsel of her life.

The same can be said of course for Hillary, whose burning desire to attain the office of President of the United States is the worst kept secret since Neil Patrick Harris revealed that he was gay.  Despite having no real record of accomplishment other than being a darling of the Democratic machine, she has had, on paper at least, a most stellar political career, achieving senator status in New York, then on to being appointed US Secretary of State and now of course the presumptive shoe in for the Democratic nomination in 2016.  This presumed fait accompli is worn by Hillary as obviously as Kim’s cleavage for an evening out on the town.  The intellectual gulf between the two women is laughably wide of course, but in terms of milking the crowd, they are both equals.

There is a line that claims that the easiest way to silence a Democrat is to ask them to point out Hillary’s accomplishments.  Like Kim, while being admired and even revered by loyal fans, Hillary’s position of fame and reverence is in the absence of having done anything in her life that would justify them.

But, as we all know, that doesn’t disqualify one from becoming President.