{"id":1970181,"date":"2014-04-10T12:15:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T06:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/?p=1970181"},"modified":"2014-09-09T12:30:47","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T07:00:47","slug":"financialization-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/2014\/04\/10\/financialization-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Financialization of People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Konczal has a thought provoking article in TheNewInquiry that connects the dots on futures trading and comes a full circle:<\/p>\n

\nFutures allow people to buy and sell a specific quantity of a product now for cash, with the product delivered at some point in the future.
\n 
\nFor example, contracts for the future delivery of cattle have existed since at least the 1850s, when farmers met in Chicago agreed to buy and sell corn. But how do you know that you aren\u2019t going to get screwed on delivery? If you agree to buy new cattle years from now, what\u2019s to say that you won\u2019t get the weakest, malnourished cattle available?
\n 
\nThe CME’s rulebook for a Live Cattle Future specifies what qualifies as a \u201cdeliverable\u201d cattle. First off, \u201cNo individual animal weighing less than 1,050 pounds or more than 1,500 pounds\u201d shall be deliverable as a cattle. \u201cUnmerchantable\u201d cattle, such as those that are \u201ccrippled, sick, obviously damaged or bruised,\u201d are not acceptable.
\n 
\nCattle that don\u2019t fit the relatively wide characteristics aren\u2019t tossed aside. They are \u201cdiscounted\u201d \u2014 sold at a loss for a smaller percentage of the contract. This discount is meant to penalize the grower while reducing immediate waste of unsellable merchandise.\n<\/div>\n

 
\nAnd now comes the scary part:<\/p>\n

Can “human capital” be traded?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nThe most likely route for human-capital futures is standardizing through funding for individual education. One can imagine contracts that would mark using your degree for certain kinds of low-paying social work as \u201cundeliverable\u201d on the promise of your human capital, with your debt burden being adjusted accordingly.\n<\/div>\n

 
\nRead the whole thing: Buying the Future<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Konczal has a thought provoking article in TheNewInquiry that connects the dots on futures trading and comes a full circle: Futures allow people to buy and sell a specific quantity of a product now for cash, with the product delivered at some point in the future.   For example, contracts for the future delivery … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3471,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1970181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-investing-insight","category-your-money","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockviz.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}