Money

The Car Question - Buy or Lease?

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In Vancouver, life is difficult if you don't have a car.  Why? Because the public transit is not the best in the world. If you live near a Skytrain station, and if where you need to go is also near a Skytrain station, then you might be OK. Otherwise, from my experience it is no fun trying to commute by bus. First of all, busses are slow, and they are not frequent unless on major routes. Secondly, if you are on a major route, chances are you may not be able to get on because it is full...

On Efficient Market Hypothesis

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Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is an economic theory proposed by Eugene Fama in 1970. The efficiency here basically refers to how fast does information about a stock affect its price. In simple terms, the theory believes that the price of a stock always quickly adjusts to newly available information. Therefore it suggests that technical analysis is basically useless. The only way to beat the market is through luck, not skill.

Whether this theory is valid has been a point of debate for years amongst economists and scholars. Those that agree to it believe there since there is no way to beat the...

Money as Debt

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In the modern banking system, the true meaning of money has been distorted. The money supply which was once governed by the gold standard, has been replaced by fiat currencies that do not really have any intrinsic value. The money that exists in the market today, are more debt than money.  The reason is simple: the fractional reserve banking system basically allows the printing of money out of thin air, and banks are allow to charge interests on the lending of this money.

Just the idea of interests is a mind boggling one. In the middle ages, wasn't the charging of interest considered...

On Fractional Reserve Banking

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In banking, when banks take a deposit from customers, they must keep a portion of it and not use it for lending, in case the customers need to withdraw their money. This portion is called the deposit reserve. The ratio between the deposit reserve and the total deposit amount is the reserve ratio. This kind of banking system is called the fractional reserve banking system.

What this implies is that banks basically have the ability to do what is called "money-printing". As an example: let's say a country's reserve ratio is 10%, then if you deposit $100 into the bank, the bank can lend out $90 to others, and charge them...