"After the Money's Gone..."

Of course my situation differs in scale and other ways as a design consultant, but I now demand payment in advance. I work until the pre-payment is used up and then we get more to continue going forward. I realize this is not broadly feasible and part of why I am able to do this is that I am damn good at what I do and there's never enough of me to go around. Consequently, I can't afford to deal with people that don't have money, I would likely be ignoring someone with money and that just doesn't make any sense.

I learned my lesson a few years ago with what was a good long term customer. They started getting behind but I kept investing my time hoping for the payoff. The payoff ended up being in the minus to the tune of $50,000. That will never happen again.

Excellent! A man after my own thoughts.

I would also throw in Insurance. Just another money handling racket that produces no tangible product.

We have seen how greed has parleyed these rackets into the current global crisis.

It is just another way of concentrating excessive power into the hands of a few greedy humans. All these services are useful but they should be done in a way that no one profits from them. We should reward innovation, creativity and productivity, not the fact that you control wealth. If simply having a large sum of money did not enable you to accumulate a larger sum of money then perhaps people would be forced to be more creative and productive in order to build their "fortune". If you get there by doing something that lifts up humanity then great. But that fact that you have wealth should not be a means of robbing the masses by playing money games.

Insurance is covered more scientifically in RV (risk value.) I said that insurance rates would stabilize because of the comprehensive evaluation of risk. Insurance is a system where risk factors are translated into relative value(money) The problem is that the determinations of risk are being made by those who have the most to gain, namely the insurance companies.

Risk is a natural phenomena, and as such should be scientifically studied, and agreed upon by all. The results of this research neeeeed to be incorruptible, evidence based, reproducible, etc.. consistent with the tenets of 'best practice' science publishing. That is fair.

My one big idea here, is that "Comparison" can be used to solve all problems, know all things. Comparison is the absolute foundation of our brains and our computers. Even if our brains are quantum computers, comparison is still essential to understanding and giving value to the results. Therefore, comparison is the absolute basis for Knowing value. (again, that which is truly valuable is valuable because of its uniqueness, such as life or beauty, but is knowable by comparison)

chris

All these services are useful but they should be done in a way that no one profits from them. We should reward innovation, creativity and productivity, not the fact that you control wealth.

I'd like to agree, but really do not. I'd argue that all value is intangible. When you ask your customer for money in advance, they are extending you credit. If you buy something with that money before you have finished the job, you are buying something with money you have not earned. Your customer builds that risk into their cost structure, effectively charging their customers for interest that you are not paying.

I could walk to work, or bicycle there, or ride a motor scooter, or a crotch rocket, or a Honda Accord, or a Lexus or a Ferrari. The Ferrari has no more intrinsic value than my shoe leather. If I place a value on my own time, then a crotch rocket will get me to work faster than the Ferrari will, and at a small fraction of the cost.

My daughter underwent six figure surgery not long ago, so for me health insurance has far more tangible worth that a Ferrari.

Re my own business, I'd love to think that there is a realistic way of manufacturing thousands of vehicles without using other people's money, but I don't think there is. In my own case, who would buy an econocar for the $100,000 it would cast to make them in small volume? There is simply not the realistic possibility of bootstrapping most manufacturing or construction businesses. We need people to loan money, to sell stock, to insure against risks... all of which, in this capitalistic society, is motivated by greed, pure and simple. By law, CEO's of public companies must operate on greed: they have to "deliver shareholder value" -- the only valid reason for a company "giving back to the community" is to increase shareholder value by improving brand image, so that more product can be sold.

I worked for a while in a health insurance company. From the view within the company, it is painfully clear that the only reason they are in business is to make money: everything they do in the application process is designed to weed out anyone who might actually use the insurance.

But that's the way is is in every capitalistic company: you don't charge what the product costs to make, you charge as much as you can for its intangible value: therefore we have $200 I-Pods and $20 mp3 players. As a car company, you tart up a $15,000 pickup truck and sell it for $50,000, all intangible.

The auto industry is among the more tangible of our industries, but its very existence hinges on intangibles. When people start to think about what they really need, (as they are now) the business collapses. If people continue to think this way, (rationally, looking for tangible value) all three of the big three will fail, bailout or not. BASF has already closed 80 plants due to the slowdown in the auto industry, Dow annnounced closings today, and things will only get worse, until people once again experience irrational exuberance, and start to believe there is a reason to buy a fancy car, a fancy stereo, a fancy insurance policy, a fancy stock, or a fancy consultant.

Ken, these are all valid thoughts.. within a certain context. the context of the existing paradigms. I simply do not consider 'credit' thinking absolute. I could be wrong. who knows. How do things get built in nature? what kind of leverage does the DNA apply to build cells? I don't know absolutely for sure that there isn't some kind of natural credit system for building.. but on the surface, it doesn't seem to be there. I see a plan (dna) and materials, and energy.. and opportunity. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism.. what do you think?

I agree with your ideas about the changing value. Context is everything. I see a hierarchy of needs laid on a lazy-susan. which ever need is high at any given time is the one that is closest to you.. things change. change is constant. but I think a properly design value system and calculator will understand and implement based on this. that is why value must be calculated based on context, personal and global.

I think that Value, however intangible, is knowable and calculatable.. we do it all the time in our heads. I am basically saying we create an international system of market data and research that supports it.

chris

Consider this, DNA will extract resources and materials from the body to produce necessary components, even before you have eaten, digested, and absorbed these components. As your body becomes depleted of these components you will become hungry for these components to replenish the losses. This is a natural process working on credit, your systems extract resources and materials before they provide any benefit and before the resources are replenished. Credit is an extremely old concept roughly as old as human civilization. It is the idea of provide me the resources to do something today and i will pay you back tomorrow with something extra for your trouble (as I am depleting your resources available to use today).

The problem isn't credit, it is the way we in western countries have started using credit and understanding it over the past 30 years. We have started giving out high risk credits to people who can never pay the loans back, because the governments favor such loan behaviors (free money keeps the voters happy). People and corporations have started to perceive credit as free money, rather than something they will really have to pay back, and who can blame them governments have been doing this since world war II. If Mexico had to actually take credit based on the risk of repayment they would never receive any loans, and the countries would have to figure out how to develop without the support of their neighbors. It isn't credit that is the problem, but rather that supplying high-risk credit has become a means of political lobbying.

It seems to me that living organisms do not work on credit so much as on savings (fat), reallocation (bone calcium), cannibalization of lower priority cells (apoptosis) and income (digestion).

However, the most important property is that inherited optimization functions are being shuffled and tweaked in every species, in every generation, within every individual.

That is a huge amount of parallel data processing!

"the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear."

Wittgenstein.

.....likewise reading your post this early morning is most inspiring.

This all sounds very good. But are you talking about the people on this planet? Stability is so far away from human nature that I'm surprised we actually have a word for it.

"This is why it is wrong to have currency that is not tied to product (GNP) or material (Gold, Silver, etc) because it is not tied to the humans that create value, and as such, is uncontrollable."

This is step 1.

chrisg288,

If I read your statement correctly, you are describing a very fragile system. Even more fragile than the system we have now. It is like a just-in-time market for every need or requirement to support a society. One weak link and the whole system collapses. Like an ecosystem. Our current system, however flawed, can handle a failure now and then.

Credit is the basis of civilization. The lack of tangible product supported by a promise. Even an understood promise. In a simple barter system it is understood that the farmer who sells potatoes will always provide the potatoes provided that the chicken farmer provides eggs. The credit is there until the goods arrive at the market.

And where goods are not provided there is government. Each citizen is provided protection and services on the credit of future taxes. Societies rarely hold themselves together.

I see this credit base as a method to allow ourselves to expand as a species. Cities would not be built if we would individually attempted it. It is a means of pulling resources into a single direction. The problem today is that it has centralized too much and society has grown too fast. The world market is anarchy.

Nature is a very delicate balance developed over .... well depends on your views but let's just say a long time. It is very fragile. Similarly it will take a very long time to develop a new financial system.

In nature what is needed is taken and rarely supplied. Some symbiosis exists but it seems rare in comparison. A nature theory would sure take care of any overpopulation issues.

I know you are not saying that we should live like animals, but if you want a nature based theory I think we are there right now. World market is survival of the geediest. (is that a word?)

The best natural examples I can think of is colonization. And I doubt many people would go for that.

I believe a credit system works if it is not tainted as you have mentioned in your examples. Giving someone the opportunity to better themselves on the merit of their talent and their word helps us all. But it just doesn't work that way in a capitalist society. Our governments have allowed the corruption of a very corruptible system.

Our economy is like our democracy here in Canada. It is a false system with no basis other than centralized greed. The only good thing about a false economy is that you really don't have very far to fall because it's not really there.

Not sure where smart people came in but they can't be very "smart" if the economy is crashing. HOWEVER.... you can guarentee that there is someone making a very large sum of money in the economy right now. They are smart.

"Nature: Red in Tooth and Claw"... Darwinian. I think nature has been shown in the last few years to be far more symbiotic than ever previously understood. However, I agree with you, the current system does operate that way. That is not the laws I'm talking about. I am thinking about Newton, and how he clarified the scientific world by developing his everlasting laws of motion.

1) "Every body continutes in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it."

2) "Force equals mass times acceleration."

3) "To every action force, there is an equal and opposite reaction force."

Now imagine there are laws of Value that are as fundamental as these! If known, they would change the economy because of their undeniability, just like newton's did the scientific world of his day.

Also... To grow an organism, first a seed must exist. Then Nature provides energy, water, oxygen, temperate climate, and a lack of violence, directly to the seed. Is this Credit? Does the plant have to repay? with Interest? How can we come to understand the basic REQUIREMENTS of life, and grow plants indoors, if this is truly Chaotic. It is knowable, and reproducible. this has allowed our species to become what it is through the practice of planting, nurturing, and harvesting. We've learned about the seasons, we've learned about photosynthesis, nitrogen based fertilizers, irrigation, genetic breeding, etc.. all because these processes are basically repeatable, knowable, and predictable. Therefore, something of a science has developed around this agricultural system that feeds us. How would it be if we simply said "it's all chaos" and threw our seeds to the wind, and said Laissez Faire!

What we need is Savoir Faire, when it comes to our economic reform, as a people. Right now, the profiteers are making the rules, and the money. I postulate that a value system does not need to be as opaque as our current financial systems.

Chris

Nature does use credit ...Plants harvest sunlight banking the results for the darker time and repaying the system with oxygen,moisture etc..Farmers plant seed with the anticipation that it will multiple enourmously based on natural inputs and his/her own efforts to encourage the growth of the crop..etc etc...While a utopian system of value based happy happy would be nice it is the tension driven capitalistic method that has gotten us(humanity)to this place and time..Really its not so bad...Central heating/cooling/plumbing/individual living units from 600 to 60,000 sq feet /ability to communicate instantly/computer blogs etc etc..The Greed drivers of course went a bit to far shelling the same loans out to each other umpteen times utilizing derivative trading schemes that theoretically could go on for ever...and if the schillers of schemes hadn't kept taking out too much for themselves for too long than the calculian equations (all sum over time)might have gone on for decades .perhaps longer with the basic expectation that the rest of the world(India/china/russia/brazil/kenya/nigeria etc.) would continue to generate more middle class collecters(hoarders) of material goods(houses/insurance policies/cars/caviar tastes) and services(eco-vacations/all exclusive cruises etc.)..However as a group the extractors took out too much too soon to stockpile there own ,shall we call them, overflowing graneries taking the confidenace out of the market...All the players in it are responsible(pension fund holders included as are the individual investor on a small scale trying for the big score) but we all know that the top took too much out and should probably give some back to get the wheel going again...Chances are slim that that will happen so governments will get it going and we all know where those billions will be coming from ...Don't look for tax cuts in any capitalistic country in the near term...Regards..Marty W.

While I like your ideas in general I have to disagree on several points..

1) Credit: The granting of a loan and the creation of debt (Wikipedia)

There is no debt incurred by the plants, and if the plants don't pay the sun back the light given, the sun doesn't foreclose!

2) The real progress in our capitalistic society has actually come from relative few geniuses, and many engineers, and billions of hours of labour on the part of the people. The negative side comes from the money lenders, power mongers, warlords, etc.

3) I look to the 'people' to drive the correction of errors in the system, but we can't just complain. We MUST provide alternatives! That is why I have submitted my ideas.

Dear Seaplaneguy,

you are misreading me. In my original quote, I made several statements that show that I've considered all the aspects of value, especially the personal. The entire first term of the equation HN is based on this. The purpose of the whole equation in the first place is so that any PERSON can determine the total value of something they are examining. I described a PDA that would allow a person to determine value, also based on their evolving personal preference profile. I also said that HN contains the power of veto. This means, that even if the rest of the formulas shows something to be completely worthless to others, that that person may completely override all other factors, simply by desire, and thereby Assign a value to the object or item, relative to their own determination. Therefore, we are in greater agreement with each other.

I've put much more thought and writing into this than is reasonable for a discussion group to read. I will have to put it into a book.

I agree with you about the rest..

Chris

Good points but in a word the problem is fractal interest.

AI Processing of the Value Equation

You perhaps know that

• hard coding AI safety logic will fail,
• 3 laws of robotics would be way too "interesting" - like a million iRobot stories,
• using deep learning would produce inscrutable and unexplainable results.

We need AI behavior that is fundamentally altruistic towards humanity. The hard problem is developing AI recognition parameters that correctly match "altruism" and "humanity" at the abstraction level of concepts instead of character strings.

The way for AI to consistently recognise these two fundamental concepts is to develop a complete parameterization of

1. everything human, and
2. all human values.

This where your value equation becomes relevant.

The Value Equation is an excellent step in categorizing all Human Values.

We can already use AI to recognise humans, activity, etc. It not much harder than recognising cats.

We need the AI to watch everyone (fiction, nonfiction, TV, online videos, blogs, chat, contracts, and AI agent requests), and fill these equations with observed human behavioral parameters, contradictions, uncertainties, and sigmas.

Combine this with humanity's comprehension of the value equation.

After a while, the AI could list what we Globally Agree is best practices of: ethical, humane, empathic, charitable, altruistic, tough love, negotiation, etc.

Solves two hard problems with the same project:

• Best practice Human Value equations for us,
• Rigorously define AI caring and altruism.

That is, we would finally be able to parameterize what it means for a Super Human AI to care about humanity, so that their actions always benefit us, no matter how stupid our individual commands and no matter how shortsighted our ascribed collective goals.

Since altruism towards humanity and a degree of introspective uncertainty would be the underlying traits of all AI, these musings would be what preoccupy them in every idle time slice, and include in all non-trivial reality-checks.

I am actually going to try and get a Small Bussiness Loan to start a new project. I need about $14 million to buy 200 ac of land and build my project. I should be albe to supply about 900 people over all with jobs in many different business for at least 2 years.

I am going to use the system against it's self to get my project done. They have turned me down before because there is a similar place 140 miles away that spends a lot of money to prevent competition from springing up. These anti competitive laws have got to go that allow old estiblished business to use out dated cheap technology while demanding new business spend millions more to compete on new technology.

I think of it as using the broken window effect of economics to bushwhack the old hacks. lol

The Security Equipment business is hiring every good Enginner they can get. Sokme have 2 and 3 years of back log orders.

We are pretty much insisting on payment up front for small (e.g. less than 30 days) jobs and have the money down set to enough to cover the first 30 days for longer projects and then rolling payments based on 30 days expenses.

Needless to say accurate quotes are critical as well.

It's not going to be easy for the next months, maybe years. Insist on net 30 and remember that cash talks, BS walks.

When I was working contract I would insist on a weekly cycle of bill and payment. This way I could cut my losses to only a one week loss in the event that they ran out of funds. More than once I walked off of a job when my payment was not in my hand by the end of the day. Business is business, and the bean counters sure jumped when the project manager started screaming that their designer wasn't getting paid.

It is not only a one way street. Contractors and suppliers have been known to take payment and then fold the next day.

It's almost to the point where a laywer needs to get involved and hold the funds to make the payments back and forth.

But then it wouldn't be the first time a lawyer jumped ship with the cash either.

I think I will just move into the woods, build a cabin and hunt bambi to survive.

As the owner of a small instrumentation repair shop my business has recently fallen off by 80%.

Three years ago the warning signs were in place that a crash was coming and when the French pulled out their investment money it was just a question of time. Similar events in the early 80's and 90's preceded this and the formula was much the same....the credit machine was overloaded forcing the banks to protect themselves.

......what next I asks myself. Machine shops going bust. Doom and gloom everywhere....broker joining up with the Somali pirates.......bank manager cancelling his Caribbean vacation.....not good sez I

I figured many will not be able to afford a new car every year (maybe 10 or more)sooooo........ they'll fix the one they got now.

Figuring on rebuilding cylinder heads, I sold my sailboat and bought some engine tooling and machinery from a fella about to go belly up.

You bring up a good point. For those that have prepared themselves for the economic low times, it's a great buyers market for equipment and human resources.

Even personally, I've thought of taking advantage of the low mortgage rates and buy a property or two........

It's a great buyers market. I just bought a $20k overhead grinder for $2g's.

Once the debts are written off and credit values stabilize the economy will rebound. Hopefully Wall Street will evolve but I doubt it.

A good start would be to annually tar and feather the Lehman Bros.

Well, here we are, with the economy seizing-up, credit (getting even more) tight, and unemployment continuing to rise...

And yet, there is a lot of money on the sidelines, in effect collecting dust, and (project developers) begging for funding... So then, isn't the most meaningful question about how to get both (sides) to meet somewhere in the middle?...

So, what would happen if enterprenuers posted their projected projects on the internet, and invited fully qualified investors, banks, etc., to "bid" (individually or collectively) on the interest rates of the project funding, with the lowest interest rate bid effectively being declared the winner, subject to final bidder qualification acceptability?...

Wouldn't that tend to help loosen up the lending market, hastening the economic recovery, at least a little bit?...

Hey man...you've got my vote!

That's how it should be although the 'trust' factor will ultimately play the pivotal role....in other words: you got to get out there, become known, get a measure of respect and pay the monkey.

The economy was unsustainable as it was in the past few years, everyone with at least a high school education recognize that. However, much like gambling many of those people dumped everything they had into it without good consideration for consequence. The consequence of building more stuff then the market can support over the long run is that soon you have excess inventory and prices have to drop. The problem has been that in order to buy up the inventory and keep the economy going, lenders were loanig money to with extreme risk, and as they used up that sector of the market they started loaning to even riskier clients and in even greater amounts on very speculative repayment plans. Well they hit the wall, and first thing the high risk people did was bail out on their loan repayments. Just like a gambling addict might try to do with a booky when he didn't want to pay what he owed. So the banks who gambled now want the governemnt to bail them out. The auto industry that gambled that the economy would be maintained for ever at such a high level the common laborer would always afford a new escalade, didn't bother to prepare for a change in the market, the environment and the customer taste. Contractors who under most circumstance would have been out of business long ago, were working because of the labor shortage, now act like they don't understand the shortfall in work. Foreclosed home owners act like they don't understand why they have to pay their loans on homes that have depreciated drastically (even though it was obvious 8 years ago that there was a speculative housing bubble developing). Good projects can always get financing. The problem was that for a awhile any hairbrained scheme was getting financing, and those financiers got caught when the schemes collapsed, and now they (much like all the other gamblers) want no consequences. If a car company goes out of business, another smaller more flexible company with reduced labor costs will arise to fill the market with much improved products, more suited to the market, at a better price. Same with contractors, the good quality reasonably priced contractor will stay in the business, the incompetant or overpriced will fall by the way-side. Those peple who suffer the consequences will have learned a lesson on financial management and do better next time. Seems like many people in our society who claim to be the more invested in capitalism and the free market, which involves both ups trends and down trends, are now wanting governmental socialism for those same corporations and people who gambled big when things were going up. thus with no skills or value, they can make tons of money when things are good, and then when things go bad as a direct consequence of their previous decisions the government will bail them out. This seems to reward those who are ignorant intentionally (why spend the effort learning if you have no risk for not knowing what you are doing) or behave the worst.

The degree of trust will always be a critical factor in any relationship between any two human beings...

As a clarification, "...final acceptability..." was specifically intended to imply that, simplistically, if the lowest interest rate that was bid was still too high for the particular (project developer), then the bid would simply not (qualify), and no binding contract would be signed at all. The (project developer) would not be bound to accept any such bid, lowest or not...

The intent of the (reply) was to suggest one possibly additional way that the (project developer) could become in contact with possible, and previously unknown to (him/her/them), various finance sources where a possible deal could subsequently be struck, subject to further negotiations after the lowest-interest-rate-bidding had taken place...

By the same token, lenders could similarly advertise that they had money which they actually were interested in lending, and were soliciting viable investment opportunities from qualified (project developers), as another way to facilitate the (union...) of (money) with (project-motivation). That type of connection is, after all, a contructively capitalistic way by which recessions can be more quickly ended, without the need for the creation of necessarily more expensive government jobs, etc., ...

Simplistically, the cure for mis-directed capitalism can be effectively-directed capitalism...

TMF, offering this info and opinion, as both a successful Building Contractor and a person who has been beaten out of several hundred thousands of dollars for trusting that the "Contract" was enough to protect me from being taken advantage of.

Constructing Contracting is little more than a license to gamble your financial life away, attempting to earn your living. If you were to add Attorney's fees and Court costs as part of your contract just insure that you "MIGHT" be paid, you would likely never have any work at all.

I have lost thousands due to the fact that the Developers, owners and lenders have bankrupted, leaving the work unfinished and un paid for. For years many states required that even residential contractors must have active bonding status and were not permitted to contract work that exceeded their bonding limits. Unfortunately that is sometimes not enough. We find that out when the bonding Company applies to the Court for permission to reorganize under our Bankruptsy Laws and worse Total Bankruptsy.

Unfortunately, pay as you go is not an option in the business world, any where in the world. This is especially evident in the agracultural business. One borrows the funds to prepare the soil, then plant, and irrigate, and furtilize, apply pesticides, etc. and prays for a crop good enough to sell to repay the loan, and our Govt. opens our borders to other countries to flood the market with substandard products, that our Super Market Chains buy in huge quantities, ignoring local products that are much fresher and superior in quality. The local shopper is not given a choice as to whether or not they would choose locally grown over inferior imported products.

The Auto industry has it all wrong, with the products it offers the consumer. That is why they are asking for a bail out. The Big Lenders/Big Spenders/Big Investor Portfolio Controllers, who bare the primary responsibility for the runaway crude oil prices, should be held responsible for the crisis that has trickled down through the entire industrial world. This means that those persons who earn enough money to make investments that insure themselves a comfortable retirement will get a bit less, and I know that idea doesn't set well with the investors, but no one was complaining about the millions of dollars in salary and bonuses that these fund managers were paying themselves while the investments seemed to be gaining great value and paying huge profits, etc.

Those who never were able to make these investments in the first place cannot lose what they never had, but their little bit of once available credit is vanishing, and creating great difficulty for their ability to even pay for food, clothing, medical services, and a roof over their heads. The numbers of homeless and unemployed folks will ultimately rival and maybe exceed those of the 1930's. Pressures from dunners and collection companies will drive the weaker individuals to suicide, credit card companies will continue their march of the credit card users into bankruptcy, with their high interest rates and outrageous penalties that are also permitted to gain interest that often will eventually far exceed the original debt.

Our Govt. simply must stop the credit card companies from this abuse, or even the quality credit extenders will be eaten alive by the cancer of greed that has enveloped our society.

There was once a time when interest rates were strictly controlled, and a return to that may be the only way to rein in the losses to society as a whole. When those who's earned income is far greater than the average employee, find that they are not going to get rich playing the market because of the tight interest limits the surpluses in the investment industry, those like the auto companies will no longer be paying the nice dividens, and then borrowing to make improvements to property and fund product and paying high interest on loans. Those persons at the top of the pay scale will then be spending their personal surplus on products that they desire more than need and that will be one of the many spin offs of tight interest rate controls. Slowing down the flow of easy money to the very richest will keep more of it available for the masses. Unfortunately those feeding at the top of the food chain will always fight to maintain their status, and will invest some of their fortunes, bankrolling legislatures to resist the inevitable.

TMF

Two words-----barter----survival---- no interest, no payments, no taxes!

TMF

Damn right........in a perfect world!

Works pretty good in an imperfect world too, that is as long as one of the barterers dose not place too great a value on his services/labor/etc. When we get down to starvation time, all of your gold will not buy you my last stale sandwitch. You will starve to death and I will have your gold anyway, if only for a little while.

TMF

That's how it started. We may be going back there.

Money was just to make barter a bit easier. It also allowed taxes to be levied more easily.

Folks that like insurance, just like selling their risk. When they buy an insurance policy, they just sell their risk for a 'premium'. The premium includes the 'risk factor' as the insurance seller sees it, plus profit. ... Insurance is one of the few games where both the pigon and house hopes the house wins.

Banks, or any lender, lends to make a profit. If there wasn't a profit in it for them, they won't lend it. Yea, there are '0% inetrest', but that just means the price already has the interest factored in.

Money, borrowing, insurance, none of it is either good or bad. It is how you use it, and the risks you are willing to accept.

Now days we have more lying and 'non-truth telling' that seems more obvious than we have in earlier history (but I could be proven wrong on that). When fraudulent statements are made, we cannot tell what our REAL RISK factors are. We have had a rash of obfuscated and down right un-truths told to investors (anyone who puts up capital of any kind on the word of others) that makes me believe the risk cannot be appropriately calculated with any degree of certainty.

Enough of my pontificating, it won't keep me from being taken in by yet another politician or 'investment councelor'. I hate it when this kind of history keeps repeating itself.

There is a mechanism available called a "mechanic's lien. In the event the customer defaults on his obligation, you have recourse to take him to court and recover what is owed. The mechanic, (you) get paid first before anyone else makes a claim, even a mortgage foreclosure. You must file the lien as soon as you present him with a bill. If you don't, your lien becomes subordinate to any other claims.

Let me understand this for a sec.

If the customer is delinquent in paying the original bill (in my case it's 30 days upon completion of work done for him) then a lien would be in order with the presentation of the second bill? Or are you saying that a lien should be filed upon immediate presentation of the first billing?

Perhaps all future Contracts must include a Clause where The Client shall also provide a Banker's Guarantee or Insurance Bond to pay for all works done in case The Client suffers from any Financial Problem, sort of The Client's Financial Performance Bond.

Capitalism is based on a conflict between owners, and labor, with borrowers in between. To give parity to labor with capital whole life insurance policies awarded at birth to citizens offer an avenue whereby your life, and work would have parity with capital. When picking a job, look for Good People, Good Project, and Good money. : Must have two out of three. Tools jewels and Land hold value. :A gun is a tool too. - we try to avoid using them. Since I have worked in Aviation Ground Services, and Motion Picture production, and had to deal with similar sorts, been independent, and been in the Union, ran a business and was freelance, and am now getting old with arthritis and all, just another throwaway life. I recommend Whole Life Insurance, coupled with investments in R&D. I also recommend now not just State, or US Federal minimum wages, but also at least an understanding of what an International Minimum Wage ought to be. (Don't look to the UN for help on any of this. For evidence of that as futile wonder why there is no UNTV at least as good as C-Span.) Savings are a good idea, though they are best not available to your wife or the bank or the government.