Thermophiles, ASX, John McClane

- I went to a seminar on "How to Invest in the Australian Stock Exchange" a month ago. I was ..'persuaded' by the registration fee (it was free) and the location (it was 50 metres from where I live). The seminar itself wasn't that great. It's only a psuedo-faux-stock trader who claims he knew all about the stock market. Bollocks. I could learn all that stuff he told me about the market (in 3 hours) in 10 minutes. It's all common sense. Well, most of it. Half. Ok, fine, I didn't know anything about the ASX before the seminar. The point I'm trying to make here, the point..

- What I find interesting was his bedside story on the history of money. Many people fell asleep during this time, as it was 2 hours into the seminar. You see, back then we used land, women and salt as currencies. It was all beautiful and splendid. Bunnies were dancing, and cows were singing. That is, until the Europeans discovered faraway lands such as China. This is when Europeans realized that they can't carry their lands (or in some cases, women, to China; Not many girls would want to backpack/travel to Shanghai. Most would opted to go to Southern Europe to see the handbag sale and hot guys..) to faraway lands, and thus they cannot use such commodities in barter/trade. What about coin money, you say? Well, the cost of minting coins is more expensive than a parcel of land. Plus, 100 Medieval coins doesn't always translate to 100 bags of rice.

- So what happened then was, a couple of guys in Europe decided to build the first ever bank. Its first documented use in Medieval Europe was for travelling knights (for pilgrimages? crusades?). John Medieval deposits gold at London, pickup gold at Turkey. Abdul Arab deposits gold at Jerusalem, pickups gold at Istanbul. Simple. Then the bank introduced a new service: money lending. So John Medieval would deposit 1000 gold at London, Paul Medieval borrows 800 gold at London, use the money to buy new plows, makes about 2000 gold in the process, then returned the 800 gold along with an interest of 400 gold. Two months later, it's payday for John Medieval's estate. John does not want to give his real estate to his workers, so he pays them in gold coins. He withdraw his 1000 gold coins, John is happy, AND the bank is happy because it has an extra 200 gold coins. And just so you know, the money you deposit in the Commonwealth bank this morning is actually being used right now by a guy paying for internet porn and his electric bill. It's called circulation. Found in oceanography, geology and banking.

Moving on..

- This whole process, this 'banking' process, revolves around transactions. Nowadays, transactions are being done every second, electronically. One might say that the digital nature of banking is an evolution of the old black-on-white transaction papers. It's obvious. But what's NOT obvious is the fact that the world's monetary system is fragile. Ok, an example. Only a tiny percentage of all the money circulating is actually 'real'. I.e. gold, coins, paper money. Another example: say, if every person withdraws all his money from the bank at the same time, what would happen? The system will collapse, and here's why, there's not enough money in circulation for everyone.

- Hypothetical: What would happen if Al-Qaeda launched an attack on oilfield refineries in the Persian Gulf? Gold and oil price goes up. Bank collapses, people withdraw money from the bank, stocks are sold, some yuppies will cry, OPEC countries become filthy rich, and I will cry because I can't shop at Safeway anymore.

- Lately, I've been seing how scared we are of climate changes. What most people don't know is, the Earth has been subject to much changes in the last few billion years. And in the few tens of thousands of years that we've been here, we have managed to adapt to changes and become advanced enough as to become an agent of change in this planet. Global warming happened plenty of times over the last, uh, billions of years. Ice ages happens every 10 thousand years. It's not a question of whether we will change the planet, as the planet is changing every second. Continents move by micrometers every day, oceans rise and fall, animals driven to extinction. The question is, can we survive through these changes?

- Cockroaches and bacterias can survive a worldwide nuclear winter. That's pretty cool.

- In other news, (omg, you're still reading?) Die Hard 4: Live Free or DIE HARD is coming out. I've been wanting to write this since last week. Bruce Willis reprising his role as John McClane. Kyknya lagi ngetrend nih film yg isinya jagoan yg udh tua2 (dan harusnya udah pensiun, hahah). Gw pingin liat Hulk Hogan, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Van Damme sama Arnold main film lagi. Ototnya men.. beuh.. udh pada kendor2. Hahah. Sori.

- Tadi gw diajakin nonton 300 lagi. Di iMax. Personally, I'm not a big fan of watching the same movie twice in the cinema. Unless it's Star Wars. I watched Episode 3 twice at the movies, and about 6 times on dvd. Best star wars movie evah? 2nd best, probably. But NOT the best. The best would be Episode 4, followed by Episode 3, then Episode 5.

- Music Recommendation gw buat minggu ini: Nial Djualiarso. Judul albumnya Nial Djualiarso At Julliard. Jazz pianist. Keren abis. Nadanya damai, harum, soothing, bikin tidur. Tapi enak banget. Ahh..
Kalau mau, gw ada cdnya.

- My desperate-emo-rant of the day: Melbourne gede banget.. sampe sekarang belum ketemu dia lagi. -_- meh.. Sesepuh2 Melben! Bikin acara (yg gede) lagi donnnnnnng!

Whoa, that's a long post. Halright, I'm going to make another cup of coffee, load Medieval 2 or CoH, and play till my eyes are red. A sound plan, that.

Take care.
Putra

Playlist: Nial Djualiarso, Manchester Orchestra, The Black Keys