About "Debtor's Prison"
Our principal objective at DP is to provide a platform for intelligent and rational discussion of some of the most pressing and critical issues facing the world economy. The severity of the current crisis and the unprecedented conditions we are experiencing challenge us to dust off old economic theories and re-think our entire global financial system and comfortable and cherished notions about risk management. It's during crises like this when it is most necessary to maintain a clear perspective and keep fear from justifying the same mistakes that time and time again breed the financial destruction of generation after generation of investors and tax payers. We hope to contribute to this effort by providing timely, accurate and unbiased reporting of the most important macro-economic and financial data across the globe. In addition, we intend to foster discussion of some of the relevant issues by providing some propietary commentary, analysis, research, or merely posing questions and cataloguing present unknowns in cases where no one else is. We encourage our readers to comment often and to do their own research if necessary to help us at DP become more knowledgeable and thus be better able to inform/educate others.
Another, equally important, goal is to provide a social service through basic education about some of the largest and most critical economic and monetary forces shaping our financial presents and futures. We are always amazed to think of the enormous amount of risk most people expose themselves to simply because they don't think to ask themselves a few key and easy questions. Armed with a basic understanding of the some of the most essential mechanisms and entities on which our systems, economic prospects, purchasing powers and financial security and freedom all depend, we believe that most investors would be much better able to make intelligent investment decisions that could help them preserve the most capital even during the most gruesome tsunami-avalanche of economic destruction, misery and death imaginable. We remind our readers that none of our contents constitutes investment advice whatsoever, but we do encourage you to think about some of the discussions contained within and to continue these conversations with family, friends, neighbors and colleages. By doing so, you would become an active member in this mission of capital preservation; and we worship capital preservation for all.
Finally, we aim to be transparent, clear and adaptable in everything we do here at DP; we have high expectations for ourselves and hope our readers hold us accountable to these standards. Though our "philosophy" is a constantly evolving thing, we can identity a few key principles that drive our entire approach to financial, economic and scientic research (and life!). Clearly, your tenets are likely different from ours, though this is the best we have come up with in our lifetime:
a) The first step to any problem is to properly define all variables, concepts, relationships and at the very least be aware of any assumptions, biases, uncertainties, ambiguities or approximations present in your data/model. Hence, as a baseline, we will always be happy with simply presenting data in an interesting and accurate way. If we feel compelled to comment, we will present a carefully reasoned argument along with all the assumptions that we are making and all the risk factors for our model/hypothesis. In those rare instances in which we feel the necessity to model something, we will clearly ouline all our variables, parameters and error estimates.
b) People make predictable mistakes. Though the timing of any individual mistake is not predictable (making things seems "random" at times), few would disagree that human beings make the same type of mistakes over and over and over again over the course of a lifetime. This can be explained through cognitive limitations (such as biases and limited horizons) that prevent investors from behaving rationally at all times. We believe the same can be said of our collective behavior, as reflected in the behavior of The Market, more notably the cycle of booms and busts. As such, our first approach to any intellectual process is to systematically search for errors. Our experience is that this discipline in and of itself reveals ample investment opportunities, especially in a world of such absurd contions as we live in today.
c) Reason is everything. We know feelings exist, but we don't understand them, so we apologize in advance if we trample on a few of them on our way to the truth.
We hope you check back often and help us grow. As an added bonus, we intend to put in a substantial effort to convince, entince, cajole or harass leading world experts and luminaries to contribute to DP in any number of ways; many of them are willing to donate their time to worthy intellectual causes, though most guard their time quite jealously (especially against no-name information superhighway renegade cowboys such as us). We'd love to hear any and all comments and questions, good or bad. Until then, may your investments be prosperous!
About The DP Staff or other Underground Network Communicators:
Let's face it, in our day and age, our name matters very very little, even when stated to a Police Officer (PO) all across the Globe. It matters even less when you are stuck inside a permanent little cell with a drab uniform and nothing but an alphanumeric id. More importantly however, we hate waste, and who we are does not matter, only Truth matters. Judge Us, just as you Judge everything else: with an unwavering commitment to accept nothing but the Truth, or else help your Fellow Inmates find the time and words they need to say what they are trying to express, or be prepared to Battle if Falsehood, Imprisonment and any other gross violation of Reason and Life keeps being thrust upon you or your fellow Man. So, this will contain in a single line the entire lifesheet for each of Us here at DP. The list will grow as we grow.
1. MAAA b. 07.11.1983, G;G;G
2. MAAH b. 04.15.1958, G;G;G
3. MAAL b. 01.01.1920, G;G;G
4. JAAA b. 03.25.1989, G;G;G
5. MALABdA b. 10.30.1960, G;G;G
6. DOC b. 07.11.1980, C;I;G
7. KTJ b. 07.11.1985, G;G;G