ThePythonicCow
29th April 2014, 03:32
After giving this blistering speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joITmEr4SjY) at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam on Friday (April 25, 2014), Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio (http://www.freedomainradio.com) Youtube channel, with over 1500 videos on philosophy and other topics, along with associated gmail, Google+, and gdrive (Google cloud storage) accounts were shut down, without notice or explanation, for two hours on Monday (April 28, 2014).
Stefan Molyneux discusses the recent and unexplained disabling of the Freedomain Radio YouTube channel:FIBriSfx8wo
(Perhaps this means that there is a secret Molyneux fan buried inside Google, who wanted to bring more attention to his Amsterdam speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joITmEr4SjY) on political corruption, war mongering and such :).)
araucaria
29th April 2014, 18:17
Interesting, this analysis of warfare in relation to fiat money. We find an example of how war was financed in the context of a limited money supply in the Diary of Samuel Pepys, covering the 1660s, a period when the English were at war with the Dutch. [Paul, please move this if off topic]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Dutch_War
Pepys was a high public official, the first civil servant, and a very competent accountant, priding himself on being ‘right to a farthing in an account of £127,000’. A farthing was a quarter of a penny (240 pence to the pound), so this is like not losing a cent in a sum of almost 122 million dollars. However, on the larger scale of the nation’s finances, a large amount of cash does seem to have gone missing, as we shall see.
We start with an assessment of the total money supply at the end of 1665. The figure arrived at is almost doubled to account for a rush to sell, ahead of likely depreciation of the old currency (this is shortly after the Restoration of the monarchy).
(…) Of this money there was upon the calling of it in, £650,000 at least brought in to the Tower; and from thence he computes that the whole money of England must be full £16,250,000. But for all this believes that there is about £30,000,000 (…) because if there were but £16,250,000 the King having £2,000,000 every year, would have the whole money of the kingdom in his hands in eight years. He tells about £350,000 sterling was coined out of the French money, the proceeds of Dunkirke; so that, with what was coined of the Cross money, there is new coined about £1,000,000 besides the gold, which is guessed at £500,000. He tells me, that, although the king did deposit the French money in pawn all the while for the £350,000 he was forced to borrow thereupon till the tools could be made for the new Minting in the present form. Yet the interest he paid for that time come to £35,000. Viner having to his knowledge £10,000 for the use of £100,000 of it. [my emphasis] Here we have a careful calculation of 16 million plus under 2 million, which comes to a grand total of… thirty million!? The only sense I can make of this sudden sloppiness to the tune of close on 100% is that the king’s share was indeed indecently large.It could hardly be admitted that he ‘would have the whole money of the kingdom in his hands’ in eight or even ten years, but that is what the not-so-rough computation indicates.
When it comes to the financial statement regarding the war against Holland, in September 1666 (days after the Great Fire of London), we again find something strange. While Parliament has put up 4 million, the actual cost over 25 months is only 3.2 million, with just 2.2 million actually paid out to date.
Mr Wayth and I by water to White Hall, and there at Sir G. Carteret’s lodgings Sir W. Coventry met, and we did debate the whole business of our accounts to the Parliament; where it appears to us that the charge of the war from September 1, 1664, to this Michaelmas [Sept. 29 1666], will have been but £3,200,000, and we have paid in that time somewhat about £2,200,000, so that we owe above £900,000: but our method of accounting, though it cannot, I believe, be far wide from the mark, yet will not abide a strict examination if the Parliament should be troublesome. Here happened a pretty question of Sir W. Coventry, whether this account of ours will not put my Lord Treasurer to a difficulty to tell what is become of all the money the Parliament have given in this time for the war, which hath amounted to about £4,000,000, which nobody there could answer; but I perceive they did doubt what his answer could be. It’s amazing just how important it is to choose the right accounting method! Pepys actually admits a few days later to a degree of largesse in the calculations – probably most of the £200,000 over 3 million:
Sir W. Coventry and I find to our great joy, that the wages, victuals, wear and tear, cast by the medium of the men, will come to above £3,000,000, and that the extraordinaries, which all the world will allow us, will arise to more than will justify the expence we have declared to have been at since the war; viz, £320,000. We then come to Pepys’s wedding anniversary (or so he believes), an eventful day when he listens to a conspiracy theory expounded by the bishop in a church at Westminster before the Parliamentarians. He pretends to like it, but he has better things to do, such as drinking and screwing a wench.
Thence with him to Westminster, to the parish church, where the Parliament-men and Stillingfleete in the pulpit. So full, no standing there; so he and I to eat herrings at the Dog Tavern. And then to church again, and there was Mr Frampton in the pulpit, whom they cry up so much, a young man, and of a mighty ready tongue. I heard a little of his sermon, and liked it; but the crowd so great, I could not stay. So to the Swan, and baise a fille, and drank, and then home by coach, and took father, wife, brother and W. Hewer to Islington, where I find mine host dead. Here eat and drank, and merry; and so home, and to the office a while, and then to Sir W. Batten to talk a while, and then with Captain Cocke, who is mighty conversant with Garraway and those people, tells me what they object as to the mal-administration of things as to money. But that they mean well, and will do well; but their reckonings are very good, and show great faults, as I will insert here. They say the King hath had towards this war expressly thus much:–
Royal Ayde £2,450,000
More £1,250,000
Three months tax given the King by a power
of raising a month’s tax of £70,000 every
year for three years £210,000
Customes, out of which the King did promise
to pay £240,000 which for two years come to £480,000
Prizes, which they moderately reckon at £300,000
A debt declared by the Navy, by us £900,000
________
£5,590,000
________
The whole charge of the Navy, as we state
it for two years and a month, hath been but £3,200,000
________
So, what is become of all this sum? £2,390,000
He and I did bemoan our public condition. He tells me the Duke of Albemarle is under a cloud, and they have a mind at Court to lay him aside. This I know not; but all things are not right with him: and I am glad of it, but sorry for the time. So home to supper and to bed, it being my wedding night [not!], but how many years I cannot tell, but my wife says ten [actually eleven]. Understandably, even the first edition of Pepys’s diary was abridged – he does not come across as a very savoury character. He goes on to say that Parliament deducted £150,000 of the ‘extraordinaries’. But even, so, reading between the lines, this is a huge scam, denounced not by crazy conspiracists but by senior clergymen from their pulpits, with an admiral’s - Albemarle’s - job on the line.
Finally, to give an idea of the inflation in war expenditures, we are talking about a hundredfold over a period of just fifty years:
they do talk of 6 to £800,000 gone into the Privy-purse this war, when in King James’s time [d.1625] it arose to but £5,000, and in King Charles’s [d.1649] but £10,000 in a year
jsl2837
30th April 2014, 02:50
Forgive me for being daft, but this is something that often perplexes me whenever I hear about youtube banning videos or taking down accounts... Why do we consumers put up with this? Why don't we see competitive video-sharing websites springing up and challenging what appears to me to be a monopoly way too friendly with the State Department? I dunno. TrueTube? How hard would it be to launch a non-censored video-sharing website to fall back on (if nothing more to keep YouTube in check)?
What am I missing???
Seems like it mainly comes down to peering (https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+peering) costs. ISPs have to be paid for carrying all that video bandwidth. Without a good peering arrangement, speed slows to a crawl for viewers in other countries. I think this is why so many people piggyback on Youtube instead of running their own website at a higher cost.
ThePythonicCow
30th April 2014, 03:47
Seems like it mainly comes down to peering (https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+peering) costs. ISPs have to be paid for carrying all that video bandwidth. Without a good peering arrangement, speed slows to a crawl for viewers in other countries. I think this is why so many people piggyback on Youtube instead of running their own website at a higher cost.
Also (1) audience, (2) browser accessibility, and (3) revenue generation apply.
I could record a video of myself taking into my videocam and upload the MP4 file onto my own webserver, thepythoniccow.us.
I would have no problem with the peering cost because the video would get such few hits that my web hosting service wouldn't even notice.
But anyone wanting to view it would have to find it, and then download it to play it offline.
I could get some downloads by announcing such here, on Avalon, where I have more visibility than many less well known Youtube uploaders, but that would be the extent of it.
Major web browsers have flash modules builtin that can play embedded Youtube videos conveniently, but they don't handle MP4 (or other major video file formats) as conveniently.
Most of the popular Youtube channels generate a worthwhile income, from the clicks on ads that Youtube places over, before, and next to the video.
So ... basically ... if I don't use Youtube, or one of its weak competitors, "no one" views my video, and I get paid nothing. If I do use Youtube, and gain a following, then I could make a living off just that.
ghostrider
30th April 2014, 04:35
Many websites I check here and there for news and updates have been shut down over the last two weeks . The information clamp down is at an all time high ... Some YouTube channels went down this week , these are some I know make there own videos, as I have followed them for the last five years ... No warnings, no strikes , just bang. They are shut down ... Dutch, Chrissy Sumer, tat , max Malone, etc...
ThePythonicCow
30th April 2014, 04:57
Some YouTube channels went down this week , these are some I know make there own videos, as I have followed them for the last five years ... No warnings, no strikes , just bang. They are shut down ... Dutch, Chrissy Sumer, tat , max Malone, etc...
Hmm ... none of the computer geek Youtube channels that I follow went down. Must be pure happenstance :).
Powered by vBulletin™ Version 4.1.1 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.