sutton038

[Note: for my more recent article about bitcoin, see How to Explain Bitcoin to your Granny ] By now many people will have heard about Bitcoin. That’s the global, decentralised, online crypto-currency (check out this Wired Magazine article for some background). You can either buy it on online exchanges , or your can ‘mine’ it by running algorithms that are likely to cause your laptop to catch fire. You can then use it to buy things from vendors who’ll accept it, albeit Sainsbury’s still only accepts British Pounds. There are even mainstream currency traders who actively trade Bitcoin now . I’ll bet all the Bitcoins I have though, that very few people actually understand what the hell Bitcoin is. I myself do not understand it. Try listen to this guy explain it, and feel your mind frazzle. More than anything, I have the sense that Bitcoin is a cult . A strange cybernetic cult. An anarchic techno-pirate, quasi-mystical collective on a dystopian mission to subvert the global monetary sys...

Yesterday's Jubilee caused great jubilation, or at least that's what BBC was saying. I kind of missed it, but I did think it was fitting to at least commemorate the occasion by writing a modest proposal in Bright Green Scotland , entitled Securitise the Queen . I proposed that the British Government issue Monarch-backed securities. Here's a quote: "Monarch-backed securities are innovative new financial instruments that will securitise the Queen, using her as collateral against which the government can borrow money...  ...The technicalities of the monarch-backed sovereign debt could be ironed out fairly quickly. We put the Queen into an SPV (a special purpose vehicle, of financial crisis fame), which issues 20-year bonds to investors. The SPV is bankruptcy remote, which means that if the entity defaults, the investors can claim the Queen, but no government assets. Of course we tranche the returns: Risk-averse investors take the upper tranches, backed by the stable cash ...