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A new report from Reuters, citing CoinShares, indicates that China’s Bitcoin miners now control a whopping 66% of the world’s crypto network’s processing power. This could be bad news for US miners as it signals China is quickly advancing.

Also known as “hashrate,” it’s the speed at which a computer is performing an operation in Bitcoin code to unlock coins, China has been steadily gaining hashrate share this year.

In June, China’s Bitcoin miners controlled 60% of the global hashrate, and now the figure is up to 66% in December.

Chris Bendkisen, head of research at CoinShares, believes the rapid increase in the Chinese share of hashrate could be due to the deployment of advanced mining technology.

“This is beneficial to the Chinese mining industry,” said Bendiksen. “If you are the first to increase your proportion of the hashrate, and you can do that before your competitors, that’s generally good.”

Mining crypto has become more difficult over the last several years as profitability sags. The overall Bitcoin hashrate has risen 80% since June, which in recent times, has created stronger profitability for miners who have access to cheap energy.

With China controlling more and more of the world’s Bitcoin hashrate, some worry that the US could be falling behind the crypto curve, as Beijing is making a state effort to be a leader in blockchain.

Xiao Wunan, an executive vice-chairman of the China-backed Asia Pacific Exchange and Co-operation Foundation (APECF), recently told CNBC that Beijing’s crypto initiatives are strategically important to the communist party.

“Blockchain is the technology field that China started to develop almost at the same time as other countries in the world,” said Xiao, who was employed by the Chinese government. “It’s hard for China to claim technological supremacy on fields like Internet Plus [China’s initiative on information technology] or artificial intelligence, but the blockchain technology would be a perfect fit for China’s technological dominance.”

“It’s called ‘corner overtaking’ strategy in Chinese,” Xiao added.

The largest mining facilities in China are in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, CoinShares said, which account for at least half the world’s hashrate.

Other top mining hubs are in the US, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

China could be laying the groundwork for a state-backed digital currency in the mid-2020s as it wants to become a leader in crypto in the intermediate timeframe.

So what’s next for Bitcoin? 

Authored by Eoin Higgins via CommonDreams.org,

A Nativity scene in the southern California city of Claremont depicting the Holy Family as a separated family held in cages at the U.S. border is sparking controversy and conversations over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

“If this isn’t your church’s politics, you’ve got the wrong faith,” tweeted music journalist Zel McCarthy.

Vanity Fair writer Anthony Breznican said that the Claremont United Methodist Church tableau, depicting Joseph and Mary in cages on either side of a caged baby Jesus Christ, was an accurate representation of the meaning of the Bible story.

“I love the Nativity story,” said Breznican.

“I love it not because it is warm and fuzzy, but because it is about perseverance against cruelty.”

I love the Nativity story. I love it not because it is warm and fuzzy, but because it is about perseverance against cruelty.

No one saves them. The child is born in squalor, hiding among animals. He rests in a manger — which is not a hay-stuffed crib but a feeding trough. pic.twitter.com/KGmKeqgbU6

— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) December 8, 2019

Breznican added that the Nativity story points the finger at those who, when faced with evil, do nothing.

“The monster of the Nativity story is not King Herod, the bloodthirsty tyrant,” said Breznican. “He is just the backdrop.”

“The villain is the innkeeper, a common everyday person, who sees their dire situation and chooses not to help,” Breznican continued.

“No room. Sorry. America is full of innkeepers these days.”

The exhibit represents “a not-so implicit criticism of the Trump administration’s border separation policies,” said Politico reporter Dan Goldberg.

Claremont United Methodist Church Rev. Karen Clark Ristine told L.A. Times reporter James Queally that the scene was intended to use the Holy Family to highlight the “nameless families” who are victims of the border crackdown.

“We’ve heard of their plight; we’ve seen how these asylum seekers have been greeted and treated,” said Ristine.

“We wanted the Holy Family to stand in for those nameless people because they also were refugees.”

“We don’t see it as political; we see it as theological,” she added.

Ristine’s sharing of a photo of the scene on Facebook sparked controversy, with some commenters calling the pastor “an instigator; a trouble maker who does not have this country’s best interests,” and questioning the purpose of the scene.

In her post, Ristine said that the Nativity scene was meant to send a message.

“Imagine Joseph and Mary separated at the border and Jesus no older than two taken from his mother and placed behind the fences of a Border Patrol detention center as more than 5,500 children have been the past three years,” wrote Ristine. “Jesus grew up to teach us kindness and mercy and a radical welcome of all people.”

After a decade of record growth, the global mobile phone industry peaked in 2016/17. Innovation has slowed as phones reach the masses on a massive scale.

The loss of momentum in phone shipments is becoming increasingly visible on the manufacturer side, as shipments in China have contracted on the year.

Bloomberg cites a statement from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), an institute under the industry ministry, that said mobile phone shipments dropped to 34.8 million units in Nov.

CAICT said mobile phone shipments dropped 1.5% Y/Y last month, continuing the fall seen in Oct. when shipments plunged 6.7% on the year.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), global smartphone shipments are expected to drop to 1.37 billion units in 2019, down 7% from the 2016 peak.

Sangeetika Srivastava, the senior research analyst at IDC, said “Consumers continue to hold their devices for lengthier times, making sales difficult for the vendors and channels alike.”

The IDC expects the global synchronized slowdown and an ongoing trade war between the US and China to continue the challenging environment into 2020.

The arrival of 5G phones could rebound the industry by 2023, with mobile phone sales expected to reach 1.48 billion, slightly above the peak from 2016. This means the mobile phone industry will remain below trend for the next several years.

 

Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

This week saw the Washington Post published a bombshell report titled “The Afghanistan Papers,” highlighting the degree to which the American government lied to the public about the ongoing status of the war in Afghanistan. Within the thousands of pages, consisting of internal documents, interviews, and other never-before-released intel, is a vivid depiction of a Pentagon painfully aware of the need to keep from the public the true state of the conflict and the doubts, confusion, and desperation of decision-makers spanning almost 20 years of battle.

As the report states:

The interviews, through an extensive array of voices, bring into sharp relief the core failings of the war that war is inseparable from propaganda, lies, hatred, impoverishment, cultural degradation, and moral corruption. It is the most horrific outcome of the moral and political legitimacy people are taught to grant the state. persist to this day. They underscore how three presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and their military commanders have been unable to deliver on their promises to prevail in Afghanistan.

With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would not become public, U.S. officials acknowledged that their warfighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation….

The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.

None of these conclusions surprise anyone that has been following America’s fool’s errand in Afghanistan. 

What makes this release noteworthy is the degree to which it shows the lengths to which Washington to knowingly deceive the public about the state of the conflict. This deception extends even to the federal government’s accounting practices. Notes the report, the “U.S. government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan.”

As the war has dragged on, the struggle to justify America’s military presence accelerated. As the report notes:

A person identified only as a senior National Security Council official said there was constant pressure from the Obama White House and Pentagon to produce figures to show the troop surge of 2009 to 2011 was working, despite hard evidence to the contrary.

“It was impossible to create good metrics. We tried using troop numbers trained, violence levels, control of territory and none of it painted an accurate picture,” the senior NSC official told government interviewers in 2016. “The metrics were always manipulated for the duration of the war.

Making Washington’s failure in Afghanistan all the more horrific is how easily predictable it was for those who desired to see the warfare state for what it is.

In the words of Lew Rockwell, in reflecting on the anti-war legacy of Murray Rothbard:

War is inseparable from propaganda, lies, hatred, impoverishment, cultural degradation, and moral corruption. It is the most horrific outcome of the moral and political legitimacy people are taught to grant the state. 

On this note, it is important to note that the significance of the Washington Post’s report should not distract from another major story that has largely been ignored by mainstream news outlets.

Recently, multiple inspectors with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have come forward claiming that relevant evidence related to their analysis of the reported 2017 chemical gas attack in Syria. As Counterpunch.org has reported:

Assessing the damage to the cylinder casings and to the roofs, the inspectors considered the hypothesis that the cylinders had been dropped from Syrian government helicopters, as the rebels claimed. All but one member of the team concurred with Henderson in concluding that there was a higher probability that the cylinders had been placed manually. Henderson did not go so far as to suggest that opposition activists on the ground had staged the incident, but this inference could be drawn. Nevertheless Henderson’s findings were not mentioned in the published OPCW report.

The staging scenario has long been promoted by the Syrian government and its Russian protectors, though without producing evidence. By contrast Henderson and the new whistleblower appear to be completely non-political scientists who worked for the OPCW for many years and would not have been sent to Douma if they had strong political views. They feel dismayed that professional conclusions have been set aside so as to favour the agenda of certain states.

At the time, those who dared question the official narrative about the attack – including Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. Thomas Massie, and Fox News’s Tucker Carlson – were derided for being conspiracy theorists by many of the same Serious People who not only bought the Pentagon’s lies about Afghanistan but also the justifications for the Iraq War.  

Once again we are reminded of the wise words of George Orwell, “truth is treason in an empire of lies.”

These attacks promoted as justification for America to escalate its military engagement in the country, with the beltway consensus lobbying President Trump to reverse his administration’s policy of pivoting away from the Obama-era mission of toppling the Assad regime. While Trump did respond with a limited missile attack, the administration rejected the more militant proposals promoted by some of its more hawkish voices, such as then-UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. 

In a better timeline, the ability of someone like Rep. Gabbard to see through what increasingly looks like another attempt to lie America into war would warrant increased support in her ongoing presidential campaign.

Instead, we are likely to continue to see those that advocate peace attacked by the bipartisan consensus that provides cover for continued, reckless military action abroad.

Around 700,000 people left California last year, with more than 10% moving to Texas.

According to a new report by Yardi Systems, over 86,000 people abandoned the Golden State. In terms new Texas residents overall, ex-Californians constituted around 15%, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The influx of Californians should come as no surprise, as businesses have been migrating out of the high-tax, high-crime, heavily regulated state for cheaper pastures.

Last month, we reported that Charles Schwab’s relocation of their headquarters from San Francisco to Dallas, a move they expect to complete in the second half of 2020. Announced following the company’s $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade, their new 70-acre Dallas-Fort Worth campus will cost around $100 million, and provide 500,000 square-feet of office space.

Chairman and founder Charles Schwab noted that one of the drivers behind the move from California was that “the costs of doing business here are so much higher than some other place.”

Schwab is far from alone, as some 660 companies have moved 765 facilities out of California over the last 24 months, according to a new report.

The departures from the Golden State between January 2018 and now involve corporate headquarters, manufacturing facilities, data centers, research hubs, software and engineering centers and a few warehouses, according to business relocation expert Joe Vranich, president of Spectrum Location Services.

“Obviously a lot of them are going to Texas,” Vranich said in an interview with the Dallas Business Journal. “It just makes sense.”

California companies large, midsize and small are shifting their regional or corporate headquarters to North Texas because of the DFW area’s generally lower taxes, more affordable housing, lower expenses, central location, access to an international airport and other factors. –Dallas Business Journal

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal noted last month that ” The Lone Star State imposes a 0.75% franchise tax on business margins (total revenue minus compensation), which is substantially less than the corporate tax rates in California (8.84%) and Nebraska (7.81%), where TD Ameritrade is currently headquartered. The city of San Francisco also imposes a 0.38% payroll tax and a 0.6% gross receipts tax on financial service companies.”

One California law cited in the exodus requires companies to hire workers as employees, not independent contractors, with limited exceptions. Aimed at giving basic labor rights and benefits to hundreds of thousands if people working for Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and similar companies, the companies affected say it’s not feasible.

“I don’t know how companies can continue to deal with this brutal assault that is on them,” said Joe Vranch, adding “Most of the municipalities in Texas are easier to get along with, and that’s a benefit in addition to things like no income tax and an easier regulatory environment.”

Authored by Charles “Sam” Faddis via AndMagazine.com,

The Hidden Hand

The essence of a coup, which some might refer to as covert action, is the hidden hand.  One does not announce that a foreign power is overthrowing the government and installing a new government.  One pulls strings as if from behind a curtain, making events that are all part of a carefully orchestrated plan appear disconnected, spontaneous and serendipitous.

As I read through the recently released IG report for the second time, as someone with a great deal of experience in military and intelligence matters, I see that hand everywhere.

Per the IG report, a single report is delivered to the FBI in the summer of 2016.  It concerns a meeting between a cooperative contact of a foreign intelligence service and a junior level employee of the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos.  The report relates what are frankly very amorphous comments by Papadopoulos concerning the Russian government and its alleged possession of information on Hillary Clinton.

On any other day this report would command no attention whatsoever.  The source in question has no track record of any kind with the FBI. Papadopoulos has been employed by the Trump campaign for perhaps 90 days at this point, and there is no reason to believe he has contacts of significance in the Kremlin.

Not on this occasion.  This one report from a foreign intelligence service goes directly to the top of the FBI.  The Director himself, James Comey is briefed.  A full investigation is launched.  Multiple confidential human sources are tasked.  Wiretaps are ordered.  A task force is organized. Crossfire Hurricane is born.

There is a problem, though.  This hand, perhaps because it is controlled by individuals who have made their bones riding desks in Washington, DC and not in the field running actual operations, is clumsy.  The information regarding Papadopoulos provided the needed pretext to start an investigation, but most of the people who will now form the investigative team are not in on the plot.  They will have to be led to the pre-ordained conclusion, so that it appears that they did so without outside interference.

And these investigators have a pesky habit of actually doing their jobs.

Almost immediately these investigators demonstrate that Papadopoulos does not have the access within the Trump campaign necessary for the suspected Russian connections.  If there is a conduit, Papadopoulos cannot be it.

Suddenly, Carter Page is shoved forward as the new focus of the investigation.  His contacts with Russians are long-standing and well-known.  He will serve well as the new target.  Human sources are mobilized.  Wiretaps are ordered.

But, there is another problem.  Those wielding the clumsy hidden hand have forgotten the first rule of real operational personnel.  Never move against a target until you have run “traces.” until you have run the individual’s name through our databases, checked the records and found out what we already know about him.  Maybe the conspirators really don’t know that.  Maybe they just don’t dare do so, because it will mean involving working-level personnel who are not in on the joke.

In any event, they apparently did not run “traces” and as a consequence they clearly do not know that, yes, Mr. Page has extensive Russian contacts and, yes, he has been reporting to “another government agency” for many years on those contacts.  Page is a source.  Our source.

This is problem.  It is a huge, never fully resolved problem for the conspirators.  The “other government agency” sends a formal memo documenting the fact that Page is a source.  The hidden hand tries hiding that.  Any mention of it is removed from applications for FISA warrants, and it is never mentioned in renewal applications either.

But, again, as new FBI personnel, unwitting of the plot are assigned to the investigation they keep doing their jobs.  Already they have determined that the only evidence they can develop is exculpatory.  Already they have established that there is no basis to believe any of the allegations against Donald Trump and his campaign.  Now, they circle back to the issue of Page.

Are they, in effect, focusing investigative resources on a man, Page, who has been cooperating with American intelligence for years?  If so, this is the definition of “crossing lines.”  Inquiries are made.  A second memorandum is sent by the “other government agency.”  This one spells out in excruciating detail Page’s relationship with that agency.

The conspirators, behind their curtain, are now desperate.  What was supposed to be an elegant plot is now in danger of collapsing.  The hand directs crude measures.  An attorney assigned to the investigation materially alters the memorandum inserting words not found in the original and making it appear to say exactly the opposite of what it said, in plain English, originally.  The trail is covered, temporarily, but there is now hard, physical evidence of the conspirators intervention.  The “other government agency” retains the memorandum in its original form, waiting to be discovered by investigators scrutinizing the record at a later date.

This pattern of often clumsy manipulation of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation is everywhere in the record.  It is at the heart, for instance, of the entire Christopher Steele narrative.

Shortly after Crossfire Hurricane is initiated, Steele, a former British intelligence officer, appears to provide a dossier, actually multiple files, concerning alleged connections between Donald Trump and his campaign and the Kremlin.  The dossier also includes a number of gratuitously salacious allegations concerning President Trump and Russian prostitutes, which likely says more about Steele and the way his mind works than anything else.

Steele is working for a law firm employed by Fusion GPS, which is in effect, an extension of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  He is in Washington, DC frequently.  He has a wide range of contacts at senior levels on multiple continents.  He has had contact of some kind with the FBI for years.

Yet, when Steele appears to deliver his information he chooses to pass that information to a junior FBI agent working for an FBI Legal Attache (Legatt) in a European city and then rely on this individual to get the “intelligence” to the right people.  Why?  Because in the minds of those individuals masterminding this operation this will make the information more “organic.”  It will not arrive on the desks of the special agents working Crossfire Hurricane as if hand delivered.  It will not appear to be too neatly packaged and perhaps arouse suspicion.  It will seem to the people working the investigation, most of whom of necessity can never know what is really happening, that this information was developed in the field and therefore is more credible and to be afforded more weight.

But, again, the hand is clumsy.  Steele is a loose cannon.  He talks to the press.  He discusses his contact with the FBI.  This is discovered.  Formal contact with Steele is shut down.  He is no longer an FBI source.

As with the alteration of the memo from the “other government agency” the conspirators must become more forceful and more visible.  If Steele’s “intelligence” cannot continue to be fed into the investigation there is no plot.  There is no way to lead the investigators in the desired direction and ensure the desired result.  The entire operation is in danger of collapsing.

Again, per the IG report, Bruce Ohr, a senior Department of Justice lawyer with no role of any kind in the investigation, but a wife who works for Fusion GPS, suddenly appears and makes himself a conduit between Steele and the FBI.  Beyond that, in fact, he meets directly with the head of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, obtains at least one thumb drive full of Steele’s reports and ferries those to the FBI. The pipeline is reestablished.

No one in the Department of Justice or FBI has asked Ohr to play this role.  It is, in fact, in direct conflict with his status as an attorney.  Ohr actively hides his actions from his superiors.  His behavior is transparent and without justification.  It is almost certain to attract attention.  This is not all the way covert action should work, but the conspirators, backed into a corner by the FBI’s refusal to meet Steele directly have no choice.  It is the files compiled by Steele, which are the key to their efforts to delegitimize and destroy Donald Trump.

The IG report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation runs to hundreds of pages, and it contains a wealth of information.  It is the product of what can only have been a massive amount of investigative work by a team of dedicated professionals and is a huge resource for those attempting to understand the origins of the Russian collusion hoax.  Yet, at the same time it misses the essence of what just transpired.  It is like reading a description of the actions and motivations of a troupe of marionettes in a stage play and missing the fact that they are all simply doing what those pulling the strings make them do.

The FBI did not conduct an investigation of Donald Trump and his associates that ultimately proved to be based on false information and continue that investigation long past the time it should have been shut down simply because some people made some errors in judgment or some procedures need to be changed.  That investigation was simply the most visible piece of a deliberate, covert attempt to overthrow the democratic process.  The perpetrators of that crime have yet to be brought to justice and identified. 

Let’s hope that happens soon.

Time for the hidden hand to be revealed.

A team of Deutsche Bank macro analysts led by Oliver Harvey has produced its latest note economic note about Brexit expounding on the bank’s near-to-medium-term view on the outlook for British markets.

The bulk of the note is an examination of how the Conservative policy manifesto stacks up against Labour, while also examining how each party’s platform might impact longstanding economic trends in Britannia, including weak productivity (since the crisis, the UK has exhibited the most tepid productivity performance of any major economy, according to the OECD’s data)…

…and a standard of living that hasn’t yet recovered to surpass its pre-crisis peak.

And let’s not forget about taxes. Labour hopes to hike the capital gains tax on investment income, while also raising the inheritance tax and several other levies.

Looking further down the road, DB’s team said they “find it difficult to be bullish sterling until more detail is provided on Brexit outcome.” Strategists are increasingly expressing trepidation about Boris Johnson’s insistence that the Conservatives won’t allow an extension of the next meaningful Brexit deadline (that is, the Dec. 31, 2020 deadline to finish trade-deal talks)

In the near term, the biggest risks are related to the outcome of Thursday’s vote. Conservatives are ahead in the polls, but it’s likely they won’t win an outright majority. So, the first question is what kind of coalition will they form? Two possible iterations are: an alliance with the DUP and/or Brexit Party, or a minority government with the support of the Liberal Democrats. In the event of the former we would be very negative on the pound and bullish UK rates.

Neither route is free of problems for the Tories. The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) has been a persistent thorn in No. 10’s side since last summer, and both they and the Brexit Party have criticized Johnson’s deal. If they win enough seats, they could try to force Johnson to scrap the deal and push for another round of negotiations, which would probably infuriate both the EU27 and the British public. If the Conservatives end up partnering with the Lib Dems, they might need to commit to a second Brexit referendum in order to pass Johnson’s deal. In the short term, at least, this would present a more optimistic outlook for the pound and UK markets more broadly.

In terms of growth, a Conservative majority followed by implementation of the government’s Brexit deal in January could trigger a bounce in consumer sentiment, in turn lifting growth in the short term. It probably goes without saying, but however the Tories choose to handle the situation, the composition of the governing coalition will be of critical importance to markets.

For example, DB’s team believes business investment would rise if the government (presuming a Tory plurality) agrees to extend the Dec. 2020 deadline, thereby increasing the chances of a lasting trade deal that’s agreeable to both sides.

Polls have consistently shown Conservatives with a sizable lead. But as DB shows, there’s not much of a relationship between the percentage of the vote and number of seats won.

Still, Labour’s program of massive public spending hikes is attractive to the average Joe who is tired of austerity and eager for better broadband access.

Labour’s party manifesto is ambitious, and includes nationalizing the broadband arm of BT Group (formerly British Telecom) to bring free broadband to all of Britain before 2030. The manifesto also calls for much higher regional investment to help smooth out the stark economic inequalities between various regions.

Johnson’s Conservatives are way ahead in the polls. But as investors learned during the Brexit referendum, polls can’t always be trusted.

And anybody who agrees with DB’s long-term skepticism about the pound can probably pick up some OTM puts for a reasonable price. 

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Artwork Made from Old Bananas Shows Value Is Subjective

Last week, Miami art gallery Art Basel sold, for $120,000, a piece of art composed of a banana duct taped to a wall. At least one other identical piece sold for a similar amount. A third piece was priced at $150,000. The banana used in the display is a real banana, and on Saturday, a performance artist named David Datuna ate some of it.

Datuna’s stunt merely illustrated what everyone should have already known: the value of the artwork had almost nothing to do with the banana itself. Its value came not from the amount of labor that went into it or from the cost of the physical materials involved. A spokeswoman for the museum summed up the real source of the item’s value, noting, “He [Datuna] did not destroy the artwork. The banana is the idea.”

In other words, the people who purchased the art weren’t actually purchasing a banana and tape. The person who purchased the art was buying the opportunity to communicate to peers that he or she was rich enough to throw around $120,000 on a work of art that would soon cease to exist. This was a transaction that involved purchasing status in exchange for money. The banana was only a tiny part of the exchange.

Moreover, the transaction offered the opportunity for the gallery, the art seller, and the art buyer to all further increase their status by being the topic of discussion in countless news articles and discussions in social media. As was surely anticipated by the artists and everyone else in the banana sale, the media could be counted on to act as if this art was something new, outrageous, or exciting. “Art world gone mad,” the New York Post announced on its front page. Hundreds of thousands of commentators in various social media forums chimed in to comment on the matter.

One wonders, however, how many times this shtick can be repeated over and over until people lose interest. Apparently: many times. After all, this sort of art is not a new thing. For decades, avant-garde artists have been using garbage and other found objects to create art. And people with a lot of disposable income have been willing to pay a lot of money for it. It’s all basically an inside joke among rich people. And regular people have the same reaction over and over again.

But there’s absolutely nothing at all that’s shocking, confusing, or incomprehensible from the point of view of sound economics. Transactions like these should only surprise us if we’re still in the thrall of faulty theories of value, such as the idea that goods and services are valued based on how much labor and materials went into them. That’s not true of any good or service. And it’s certainly not true of art.

Is It Garbage or Is It Art?

In fact, two identical items can be valued in two completely different ways simply if the context and description of the objects changes.

According to the Daily Mail, a 2016 study suggests that people value ordinary objects differently depending on what they are told about the objects:

“According to the new research, being told that something is art automatically changes our response to it, both on a neural and a behavioural level.”

In this case, researchers in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, told subjects to rate how they valued objects in photographs. When told that those objects were “art” people valued them differently. 

In other words, the perceived value of objects could change without any additional labor being added to them, and without any physical changes at all. 

The value, it seems, is determined by the viewer, and we’re reminded of Carl Menger’s trailblazing observations about value: 

Value is a judgment economizing men make about the importance of the goods at their disposal for the maintenance of their lives and well-being. Hence value does not exist outside the consciousness of men.

One moment the viewer may think he’s looking at garbage, which he has likely learned is of little value. When told that said junk is really “art,” the entire situation changes. (Of course, we would need to see their preferences put into real action via economic exchange to know their preferences for sure.)

The change, as both Menger and Mises understood it, is brought about not by changes to the object itself, but by changes in context and in the subjective valuation of the viewer. 

A glass of water’s value in a parched desert is different from that of a glass next to a clean river. Indeed, a glass of water displayed in a museum as art — as in the case of Michael Craig-Martin’s “An Oak Tree” — is different from water found in both deserts and along rivers. Similarly, the value of a urinal displayed in a museum as art — as with Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” — is different from a physically identical urinal in a restroom. 

The Daily Mail article attempts to tie the researchers’ observations to the theories of Immanuel Kant on aesthetics. But, one need know nothing about aesthetics at all to see how this study simply shows us something about economic value: it is, to paraphrase Menger, found in the “consciousness of men.” 

And it is largely due to this fact that centrally planning an economy is so impossible. How can a central planner account for enormous changes in perceived value based on little more than being told something is art? 

Is a glass of water best utilized on a shelf in a museum, or is it best used for drinking? Maybe water is best used for hydroelectric power? Exactly how much should be used for each purpose? 

When discussing the problems of economic calculation in socialism, Mises observed that without the price system, there simply is no way to say that a specific amount of water is best used for drinking instead of being used for modern-art displays. Nor is the fact that people need water for drinking the key to determining the value of water. (See the diamond-water paradox.)

In a functioning market, consumers will engage in exchanges involving water in a way that reflects how much they prefer each use of water to other uses. At some moments, some consumers may prefer to drink it. At other moments, they may prefer to water plants with it. At still other moments, they may want to contemplate an art display composed of little more than a glass of water. The price of water at each time and place will reflect these activities. 

Without these price signals, attempting to create a central plan for how each ounce of water should be used is an impossible task.

Do we need to know why people change their views of object when told they are art? We do not. Indeed, were he here, Mises would perhaps be among the first to remind us that economics need not tell us the mental processes that lead to people preferring different uses for different objects, although we can certainly hazard a guess. It’s unlikely that the buyer of the taped banana bought it because he or she planned to eat it.

But even if we are wrong about the buyer’s motivation, the fact remains that the buyer valued the banana at $120,000 for some reason — and the value was subjective to the buyer.

Similarly, we can’t know for sure why each individual values water for drinking over “art water” or vice versa. And a government planner or regulator — it should be noted — can’t know this either.