Blockchain and the holy real-time settlement grail
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/02/26/2154510/blockchain-and-the-holy-real-time-settlement-grail/

too much of everything
{http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/02/25/abundance/}

Bitcoin the sewer rat
http://boingboing.net/2016/02/22/bitcoin-is-the-sewer-rat-of-cu.html

What will P2P lending look like 5 years from now?
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/02/19/2119569/what-will-p2p-lending-look-like-5-years-from-now/
'The really interesting thing about the potential for P2P to displace traditional banks and their clones is that it shows how easy it is to separate the business of taking deposits and running the payments system from the fundamentally unrelated business of allocating credit. Banks like combining these business lines to extract rents from the rest of society but there isn’t really any good reason why we let them do it. (Also, it’s not even clear they do a particularly good job at allocating credit to productive investments.)'

The worrying signal from US online lending
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/02/22/2153904/the-worrying-signal-from-us-online-lending/}

Help to Buy? More like Help to Cry for London’s first-time buyers
{http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0989bc0c-d0b0-11e5-831d-09f7778e7377.html#axzz40FCwNGnM}

Monopoly spoiled {http://imgur.com/topic/The_More_You_Know/vX3zm}

and
Monopoly Ultimate Banking Eliminates Cash With a Tiny ATM That Scans Property Cards
{http://toyland.gizmodo.com/monopoly-ultimate-banking-eliminates-cash-with-a-tiny-a-1759240688}

Unobtainium
The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age
{https://literaryreview.co.uk/unobtainium}

Broader questions to be asked about the efficacy of capitalism...

Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs Says It May Be Forced to Fundamentally Question How Capitalism Is Working
{http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/goldman-sachs-says-it-may-be-forced-to-fundamentally-question-how-capitalism-is-working}



The NIM force awakens ft

So what the hell is going on? Is capitalism broken? Or is the simpler answer that global capital availability isn’t what we thought it was?

Is the capital stock we think we have actually illusion? And does negative NIM represent not a capital glut …. but perhaps weirdly enough the exact opposite: a large liquid layer atop a very slim capital share?

Perhaps what’s really been happening is that the digitisation of the market since the 1980s has led to the creation of a Gosplan 2.0 mechanism for the world? Which is to say, market signals have been entirely contaminated by the digital sector’s obsession with “eco-systems” and conglomerisation — a Silicon Valley euphemism for cross-subsidisation.

If that’s true, it’s entirely possible the cost of essential goods (internet, telecoms, base foods, base clothes, base transport) has been massively underpriced for years versus their true cost of production at the same that the price of quality goods has been entirely overpriced versus their cost of production as well?

{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/02/04/2152160/the-nim-force-awakens/}

top 100 jokes
http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/100-jokes-shaped-modern-comedy-c-v-r.html