why "The Minimalist Hobo"?

So someone asked me recently "Why the whole minimalist attitude thingy?", and since I was just leaving a party with an open bar, I was unable to put together a coherent string of sentences to convey the minimalist philosophy; this entry is going to rectify that.

Minimalism as a concept is a reaction to the "Consumerist" mentality of modern society. There is a consistent belief in the Post Modern School of Thought that the genealogy of the discourse matters -- that is, the historical discourse that we have been told is fact and that we have accepted as fact is, in reality, the subjective point of view of the "powerful". Now this does not mean that there is a conscious conspiratorial effort to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses of society. Rather, this is a byproduct of the winners of any given conflict (whether it's a military conflict or a "conflict" in the market) being able to shape and control the discourse. Over time the discourse is predicated upon the prior premise and before anyone realizes it, society is trapped in a parochial mindset that is unwilling, or unable to question who is promoting the discourse and for what purpose.

To paraphrase Noam Chomsky "The New York Times is writing history". What Chomsky means is that when future scholars look to document and study history they will look to sources such as the New York Times archives to determine what important events occurred at any given time. This means that what is supposed to be a completely objective examination of history may viewed through the lens of an organization and reporters that may have a subjective interpretation. Ultimately this subjective interpretation will be regarded as "truth".

In all societies the manufacturers of truth are the powerful and in American Society the powerful are often those with commercial interests. These commercial interest have been successful in co-opting a mind share of American Consumers with their subjective messages therein forging an attitude of "buy! buy! buy!". In every magazine the reader is bombarded with ads for name brand crap, Television programs inundate with a string of commercials promoting the latest and greatest whatever. None of which can ever bring fulfillment or happiness. Minimalism is an attempt to question, analyze, or at least ignore the message of the day. The ultimate goal is to break free from the consumerist mindset which exhausts the monetary resources of a society. Buying things in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing--Inequality, however, is. Once a society is able to break free from the consumerist mindset excess resources (i.e., savings) can be used to promote development in underprivileged societies.

Now it was posed to me that this theory reeks of communism with the whole "wealth redistribution" thing. In actuality this is way different; Communism relies on a centrally planned economy which dictates how the resources will be distributed. In minimalist theory the consumer is free to earn what the market is willing to pay for their skill set; the consumer then chooses what to spend their income on. The minimalist should only purchase what is needed for survival and some minimal level of comfort and security. Excess resources, which are garnered by not giving in to the commercial demands, can be then redistributed to the underprivileged in the form of micro-credit loans. The difference in this form of redistribution is that the consumer has the choice of how when and where to distribute the resources; participation in microcredit programs is encouraged but the consumer may choose to donate money to NGOs or any number of development programs. So there it is in a nutshell...questions?

I Literally LOL-ed.

This Australian Guy, David Thorne, has a blog wherein he will sometimes send prank emails to people. This is some of the funniest stuff I've ever read. In one email thread he has a dialog with one of his new neighbors that sent him a notice that he was having a housewarming party. The intent of the neighbor was to let David know that he was having a party and to warn him about possible noise; definitely not an invite. Well David proceeds to invite himself and hilarity ensues! In another email thread David responds to an email notification from his bank...classic! Note the subject line on the 8th email in this thread, hahaha. This is good stuff.

Going Negative...

How worried are investors these days? Well here's a good indication as commented on in the Financial Times; investors are scared to death of putting their money in traditional banks for fear that the money wont be there in the future, or worse yet, the bank itself wont be there. Even more frightening is the prospect of investing in an increasingly volatile market. The safe haven for investors these days seems to be US government debt, and the demand for US Treasury bills shows it.

The demand for t-bills has been so great that the interest rates actually went negative earlier this week...what does this mean? It means that investors are actually willing to pay the US government to hold their debt...The way t-bills traditionally work is that the government proposes a debt; investors "loan" the government money by purchasing t-bills; the government pays the investor interest on the t-bill.

So let's say that I loan the government $1000 (by buying a $1000 treasury bill) at 5% interest; at the end of one year the US government will owe me $1050 ($1000 x 1.05). With a negative interest rate investors are willing to take a loss in exchange for the peace of mind that their money will be there in the future. Let's pretend I purchase that same $1000 treasury bill at -5% interest; at the end of one year the government will owe me $950...I would actually be paying the US government ($50.00) to borrow money from me! And yet, with the mess that financial institutions and the markets are in this is the best bet! How's that for worried?!?!!?