THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO “HMMMM…”: NASA AND THAT TEN ...
So many people sent me versions of this story that it is definitely one of those things that's been "in the aether" this past week. And it really does take me back to elementary school, and learning my arithmetical "illions", you know: million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, and so on. The idea of thinking in terms of amounts of money when connected to all those "illions" however, is something that they avoided (except in Congress when they're spending everyone else's money). But speaking of money, and all those "illions," there may be a story behind this story, but that's our high octane speculation of the day.
Here's the story itself, in the UK's Daily Mail tabloid financial apocalypse version:
What concerns us here are these paragraphs(and by the way, lamestream media, didn't your teachers teach you that normally paragraphs should be about three sentences in length?):
Psyche is one of the most mysterious objects in our solar system, and scientists could soon be getting a close-up view thanks to a newly confirmed Nasa mission.
If the asteroid could be transported back to Earth, the iron alone would be worth $10,000 quadrillion (£8,072 quadrillion).
...
Dr Elkins-Tanton has calculated that the iron in 16 Psyche alone, would be worth $10,000 quadrillion (£8,072 quadrillion).
Assuming the market for asteroid materials is on Earth, this could cause the value of precious metals to plummet, completely devaluing all holdings including those of Governments, and all companies involved in mining, distributing and trading such commodities.
Ultimately, it could lead to the collapse of the entire economy.
$10,000 quadrillion dollars. That's $10,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 for those of you writing the check.
Needless to say this has my high octane speculative gears turning in overtime, not the least because what sort of economic and fiscal models exist as precedents for such an influx of commodities from asteroid mining. We've certainly seen a spate of articles in previous years about mining celestial bodies, and a number of private space companies have begun on this premise, and the US Congress and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg have passed laws stating that nations and corporations can own what they recover on celestial bodies. Thus, like it or not, sooner or later, celestial mining is coming. The question is, what effect will it have? We have no precedent in human history for such a sudden massive injection of commodities into the global economy. The closest example, perhaps, is the Spanish conquest of central and South America, and the sudden and massive injection of gold and silver bullion into the Spanish, and ultimately the European, economy. And it was a harsh lesson: the sudden influx of financial wealth devastated Spanish production wealth, as inflation and high prices drove manufacturing out of Spain and into the Spanish Netherlands: the wealth remained concentrated at the top, and with the flight of production, the middle class collapsed. But even then, Spain was a more or less closed economic system. Would the same thing happen to the corporation or nation that accessed such wealth on celestial bodies? Or would it suddenly strike the entire global economy? And what would happen?
We really don't know. And I am moreover intrigued to notice that with all the space mining talk, there haven't been that many acknowledgements in the popular press of any studies that have addressed this issue.
But that's not really even what's at the center of my high octane speculative cogitations today. What's really at the center of them is yet another of those "unusual coincidences" that one notices when one connects discrete and apparently completely unrelated dots. In this case, the dots in our pointillistic picture are the quadrillions of dollars worth of derivatives sloshing around on bank ledgers in our "system" of finance, the enormous amount of cash that is also sloshing around in the system as a result of central bank quantitative easing, and, of course, all that "stuff" out there in space just waiting for us to go and get. It has always struck me as extremely odd that while we were watching the financial meltdown of 2007-2008, the bailout hearings, and the massive derivatives fraud (again, in the quadrillions of dollars), that this same time period saw the beginning of all those articles on space mining, asteroid mining, and so on. It was as if all those people who were asking "if there's seventeen quadrillion dollars of derivatives out there, which is several times the entire GDP of planet Earth, how are we possibly going to pay for it?" In other words, people were noticing the books simply didn't balance at all.
Well, I've been maintaining for a long time the possibility that space was long ago secretly "collaterallized", and that all that paper liquidity might not, in fact, be mere paper liquidity at all, but actually "backed" by something, like, the asteroid belt. In that admittedly high octane speculative financial universe (pun intended: think the South Sea Bubble here, only replace the Caribbean with outer space), the books might balance after all. One loan asteroid can balance out all those derivatives, and then some.
So I noticed, with some interest, not only the Goldman Sachs influx into the new Trump administration, but also noted he made space a priority in his inauguration address.
I don't know about you, but all these things make me go "Hmmmm..."
See you on the flip side...
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“One loan asteroid can balance out all those derivatives, and then some.”
I am not sure if loan (as opposed to lone) was a typo, or an intentional pun. Either way, it suits my sense of humor, thanks!
If they could successfully tether up to an asteroid made of unobtanium the economics might work.
Now’s the time for the venture capitalists to swoop in and make some dough before the ensorcelled realize they’ve been hyped again.
Merchants of Venice…
If one did find a hunk of money in outer space who would it belong too?
Its a question they’ve been asking themselves for some time now 🙂 : https://www.engadget.com/2015/11/25/president-signs-asteroid-mining-law/ (Planetary Ressouces… (half Greek CEO..cough cough..) are the only other site I’ve seen who scooped the story on the 25th November..Looks like they were following that closely at the senate.
“Assuming the market for asteroid materials is on Earth…” Um, where else could such a market exist? Do we have some extant trading partners out there that the public has yet to meet?
here is an article suggesting Miners May Be About To Go Galactic – As In Asteroid Mining http://seekingalpha.com/article/4034859-miners-may-go-galactic-asteroid-mining?lift_email_rec=true
Since the corporations already rule governments[corporate fascism]; of course, they take it as another give – They Will Rule Space. They already rule the supply & demand sides of economic fundamentalism by fiat. They are the economy by virtue of the fact that their private international banking cartel issues their vassal nation state currencies.
Again, it’s private power versus public power.
In a real economy so much iron would be worth as much as sand. Unless, like De Beers[corporate fascists], they controlled the supply.
In all the universe; it is addition of power that truly rules.
It was n in given and c in addiction.
It always something.
Looks like Trump is another Corporate Fascist:
https://ellenbrown.com/2017/01/26/how-to-cut-the-infrastructure-costs-in-half/
Oops!
https://ellenbrown.com/2017/01/26/how-to-cut-infrastructure-costs-in-half/
or simply
https://ellenbrown.com/
Free Trade, Peace and Good-Will Among Breakaways.
Free Trade to the Powers That Be
means
no public ownership
no regulations
Maybe in the future free trade will be everything you could possibly want will be free because of near infinite supply of resources and designer and maker bots. The only limit to a person’s possessions would be the amount of storage space a person could acquire. What would happen then with unlimited free time and everything you could ever want there for the asking from your local designer, maker and intersteller resource collecting bots? Would we all become mad philosophers? Fat depressed drug addicts from endless partying and experiencing everything to the point of perpetual boredom once AI conquers death and aging for us as well?
I’ll drink to that Roger.
Of course, that goes against the Zionist:
The More Fore Me;
The Less For Your
religious belief.
childhoods end
What are these creative accountants complaining about we have billions of useless eaters here on Earth. Put them to work building a true solar system economy instead they turning the planet into a shooting gallery gladiatorial arena killing ground. Don’t they believe in capitalism or just looting torturing and murder cooking the books is all they have been trained for.
They should put us to work terra forming Venus. We’ll strap some engines on to Mercury and position it into orbit around Venus for starters. Might as well turn at least one of the giant nickel/iron asteroids into one giant small planet moving rocket engine or EM drive.
Could this be an excuse to release new technology for the general public, and bring up our current level of technology to … lets say even more current? After all we haven’t advance for like 50 or 70 years in our transportation, we still stuck at the “Rocket” or “Jet” era, that is a bit of ridiculous. And if they telling us – “Look folks, antigravity technology already available during 50s, but we just don’t let you have them, see those UFO/UAP up there? There are ours.” What will the public think?
If you have been watching any of the space movies over the last 20 years, you will have noticed that space seems to be “ruled” by corporations, not nations. So what is it really that they are pushing, space mining or corporate, space fascism. You will also have noticed that these corporations seem more than willing to sacrifice their employees, treated as little more than slaves, for the almighty dollar. Sorry, not a future I really care for.
I think my next corporation I start will be called, NEW ALTERNATIVE ROYAL SHEEPLE HERDER, INCOPORATED. Who wouldn’t want to buy stock in a company with a name like that or sign the most productive years of their life away by signing on the dotted line of one of my countless applications. You’ll even get paid in company script redeemable at any of my company stores built and run by you!
Time to start construction of the Dyson sphere! I can’t wait for the space pirates and their lusty adventures…
What a silly and simplistic premise, put out there as click bait. The infrastructure investment needed to mine asteroids will be phenomenal.
First, you need a large, cheap and reliable fleet of LEO freight shuttles; then you have to build a massive orbital space station to serve as a hub for all your activities, and where you will process the ores and build all the actual mining equipment in zero gravity, because you sure aren’t going to be launching such behemoths from earth. Then you need a fleet of transport vehicles — space trucks — to get the ore to the hub. Then you’ve got to get it back to earth, feed and house thousands in space, and make it all profitable and safe.
Sure, this is all just around the corner! If you believe that, I’ve got this bridge in Brooklyn which was just foreclosed on, and I can get it for you really cheap.
(I’m referring to the Daily Mail article, btw, just to be clear.)
Actually, a space elevator would do the job nicely. Graphene would be the material. It could be afforded bybthe collateral., 3d printed as the device rose into the sky.
And will there be a Union for the space truckers?
Space Wars Episode XII – A New Fraud