Title: Dot Money
Author: Eric Majors
Publisher: Dot Money
ISBN: 978-0986291708
Pages: 245
Genre: Finance/Economics
Interviewed by: Ella Vincent, Pacific Book Review
About the Author
The author, Eric Majors, is an expert in financial market analysis and algorithms, with a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado. Mr. Majors is a former U.S. Registered Investment Advisor and business owner who worked with the CIA. He has served as an officer and director of a number of publicly traded companies and as a principal of an international investment banking firm. He is an expert on global currencies and was the principal inventor of Trade Series Management Theory and the associated TSM financial market software systems. Mr. Majors is a certified Consciousness Coach, business advisor, speaker, teacher and author. Mr. Majors is the author of “Financial Markets And Technical Analysis” (2005) and “Dot Money” (2014). From 2010 to 2013, Mr. Majors spent over 3 years in a U.S. Federal Prison after pleading guilty in 2009 to charges stemming from his work with the CIA and Insider Trading. As a result of the diverse experiences and international exposure that led to his incarceration Mr. Majors is now able to share his unique prospective on life and the global financial markets. He does so from the viewpoint of an insider who speaks candidly and openly. For more information about this book and Eric Majors visit: www.EricMajors.com
Today we are talking to Eric Majors, author of “Dot Money”.
PBR: Dot Money is a timely book about virtual currency. How do you think Dot Money would work in addition to paper currency in a global economy?
There is now an effort going on to implement Dot Money in real life by an organization called the Global Currency Reserve.
Essentially the concept is that the Global Currency Reserve (the GCR) is the administrator of Dot Money who is also in control of creating “Dots” which is the unit of Dot Money. By fixing the price of one Dot within specific ranges when traded with other currencies (within a specific ‘bid’ and ‘ask’ prices) the GCR makes the market in Dot Money which means that you can then buy and sell Dot Money back and forth with the GCR and other secondary market makers, banks and liquidity providers at fixed prices.
Thus, if you have something like the Dot that you can buy and sell within specific price boundaries in relation to all other currencies then you have essentially created something that retains its value in relation to all other currencies of the world over time. This is a valuable tool that can be used by ordinary people to protect the value of the money that they have worked so hard to earn. It also creates the same benefit for the governments, banks and businesses.
The biggest problem and next big financial bubble that all experts all agree is waiting to happen is the rapid devaluations of major currencies. This very situation has just recently happened to the Russian Ruble in December 2014.
According to experts in the CIA and all of the financial experts around the world and businesses who are trying to sell you gold and silver, the U.S. and other major countries are headed for similar devaluations.
As I point out in my book this exposure to potential economic disaster and unpredictable currency devaluation is a completely unnecessary risk that would not exist if the US, the EU and Asian countries would get together and create treaties to only trade each other’s currencies within specific ranges, like we used to do using the Bretton Wood Accord but with more advanced features.
Many politicians and people in the U.S. have been conditioned in their thinking to criticize China for their practices and negotiations to maintain currency valuations in a world where there is no financial stability. The truth is that the rest of the civilized countries in the world need to wake up and start doing something similar to China before it is too late. There is simply no logical reason to leave the uncertainty in the valuations of global currencies and the risks associated with that uncertainty. By sitting still we are literally making our own problems and exposing ourselves to risk unnecessarily and irresponsibly every day.
Ordinary people and business owners from all classes and political parties are tired of the economic booms and busts and as such many are now ready to turn to private sector solutions like using Dot Money in order to solve the problem on their own. Dot Money aims to solve the problem not just for individuals, but also for the governments, banks, business and literally every other effected party in the world. What Dot Money and the Global Currency Reserve are effectively doing is creating something that can be bought sold and traded with the same currency rates today, as they can tomorrow.
PBR: Dot Money has a mix of influences from Star Trek to the Bible. How did such diverse sources influence your economic theories?
When I was a child my brothers and I loved the original Star Trek series and I always wanted to be Capitan Kirk and I loved the idea that we could all evolve into so much more. Later in life those child hood aspirations and imitations of the values of Capitan Kirk would lead me into some great trouble as a result of my working with the CIA and also as the officer of an international public traded company with offices all over the world, but that is another story.
I am a Professional Consciousness Coach and I have a real passion for trying to understand how human beings work. I suppose my interest comes from a desire to evolve my own self and live the best life and have the best relationships with people that I can create for myself and everyone.
It is generally accepted by most people that a human being consists of a mind, a body and a spirit or “higher self.” During various periods of my life as a human I lived under subjugation by the desires and lusts of the body, the incessant thinking of the mind, and fortunately I have also experienced the gifts of the Spirit. In the past I’ve been financially rich and poor and in debt. I have made and lost fortunes at least 3 times in my life. Even though I have always believed in God and I always did pray, I didn’t really read the entire Bible until much later in life and so like so many Christians I had the love for God but I didn’t have the tools to express that love that are found in the Bible. So for a long time I was like many other people who had good intentions but left to make the decisions about how to live life without any clear instruction or role models I ended up drifting where my random feelings and broken thinking took me. As a result there were times when I have been a very “bad boy”, I’ve lived the high life, in excess and then lost everything, I’ve been close to death through accidents, dealt with addictions of several kinds and I have even been imprisoned and lived to tell about it all. Again, I always believed in God and did always pray my whole life and I never had any conscious intentions of hurting anyone, including myself, yet I often hurt others and myself only realizing it after the facts.
At some point in time, I grew up just enough to be able to become the observer of myself and not just the being subjugated by the thinking and feeling. When I studied under Marc Steinberg to become a Consciousness Coach it changed my life and I consider it another gift from God. It was then that I began to see the relationship between the mind, the body and the spirit and began the serious pursuit of self development and I dare say I was even able to achieve fulfillment.
I am thankful to have had what I believe were several direct interventions in my own life where I actually experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus that literally shifted my consciousness and saved my life. I believe that God and Jesus have literally forgiven me and taken care of my family and myself throughout my entire life and particularly when I literally could not do anything to take care of myself or anyone else and even when I really did not deserve it. I believe God did all this because God knew my true heart and intentions in spite of my own ignorance.
When I was in prison I made a three year intensive study of all religions, some psychology, and other spiritual pursuits. In fact, I am writing a series of books to help others in regards to my studies and the things that I learned and practiced while I was in prison that helped to sustain me. And so I have experienced that a human being is indeed a mind a body and a spirit and it is important to keep all components in balance as much as possible. If anything in my life is out of balance it I prefer to lead with the Spirit now days.
Getting back to your question, where I am going with all of this is that I know what it is to be a human being and I am grateful for all of the experiences of my life both the good and the undesirable and the wonderful relationships with people that I have had and continue the experience.
Economics and money are both human inventions. Thus, when we are talking about money we are talking about human nature and so it cannot be properly addressed without including the mental, physical and spiritual (or higher self) components of the subject.
In fact, one of the greatest problems that I perceive in the world today is the lack of balance that people have in relation to their thinking of money where there is a tendency to compartmentalize money into the physical elements of greed and lust alone. Without any attention to keeping balance between the mental, physical and spiritual elements of money, most people, in my opinion are like addicts out of control in regards to money who are not making proper decisions in relation to money or the global economy. In other cases people have many thoughts and ideas about money that are not based on fact but that are based on mental conditioning or tradition. Wrong thinking about money causes us to oppress ourselves, mentally physically and spiritually. The very idea of the 40 hour work week is a perfect example. Why 40 hours why not 20 hours? From my experience 40 hours does not leave enough time for relationships and family. Yet some people will defend 40 hours of work and many more additional hours with the false notions of “hard work” being the only way to get ahead. The obvious question is how long and how hard does the work have to be and who makes all this up? Still people defend these ridicules standards even at their own loss of life and happiness.
PBR: Who are the economists that have influenced your writing the most?
Actually, other than the research that I did for my book in confirming that my ideas were not completely insane and that my numbers were right and who was for and who was against my ideas I don’t read a lot about economics. Other than a few classes in college I don’t study economics by reading very many books rather I have direct practical experience of economics.
My knowledge of economics doesn’t come from books, but it comes from my experience as a trader in financial markets. Ever since 1989 when I opened my first Charles Schwab account and then when I worked while in college at Dean Witter as an assistant to a broker, I have been fascinated with global financial markets.
I dedicated my entire career as an electrical engineer to the pursuit of developing and using live trading of technical market software systems. As a result of my passion for the markets, I have traded in virtually every significant financial market in the world either directly or indirectly. Sometimes with my own money sometimes with other people’s money. By the time I was 27 I had written a book on technical market analysis and had formulated a strategy that is still a staple method of trading in the U.S. stock market today. The method was simply using computers to find the fast moving stocks in early morning hours of trading and jumping in for the ride. Later in my life, I developed Trade Series Management Theory which is a probabilistic method of trading in financial markets that does not require any predictive analysis. TSM is still widely in use and being developed further today.
In between all of that I became a Registered Investment Advisor when I was 29 and built my own International Registered Investment Advising Firm. I worked to help raise money for over 26 publicly traded companies, I’ve served as an officer and director of 2 international publicly traded companies, I’ve taken 4 companies public and was the former founding member of an international investment banking firm based in South Africa where I lived from 2003 to 2008. In my own former public company we had offices in all over the world including China, Mexico, Africa, Denmark, the EU and the U.S.A.. I have worked with analysts, brokers, bankers, market makers, investment advisors, and investors from all over the world. I have done a study and written a business plan for a public, private partnership community bank for South Africa that implemented banking and other services for the underprivileged and the privileged alike where I learned a great deal about banking.
Unfortunately my lack of experience in corporate governance resulted in that company being delisted from the U.S. Stock Markets and later resulted in the bankruptcy and closing of the company because of regulatory issues just when we were about to finalize billions of dollars worth of international business contracts in several countries. I grew the company so rapidly that it literally went out of my control too quickly. This eventually led to civil and criminal charges against me and sadly the loss of jobs for people and losses of some investors who believe. My family and I lost everything as well while living in a foreign country. Sadly many of the sustainable humanitarian business projects that I had launched in South Africa and Mexico where all unable to get off the ground without the critical financing that was lost.
I have made and lost fortunes in the stock market and in my related businesses. I have experienced the dark side of how markets are made and investors can be hurt and the positive effects that the markets have on businesses and investors. I have felt the joy of high valuations where people praised me for the fortunes that I have made for them and I have experienced the suffering and pain of my own loss and the loss of others who believed in me.
I have risked my life and unfortunately placed the lives of my own family at risk in the past as a result of working with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in regards to international financial work. Some of the work I did for the CIA added to my problems in criminal case and the rest was all my responsibility. I thought I knew the risks and the bulk of all that did happen and to everything to which I was exposed will remain known only to myself and others directly involved.
Unfortunately, I have even been indicted and later plead guilty to federal securities fraud charges related to insider trading and spent over 3 years in U.S. Federal Prison. It was a very heavy cost for my loved ones and myself.
Being in the business of money has been my life. I have seen how money can bring out the worst and the best in people. I have seen people struggle to come to terms with new financial wealth and I have seen people lose everything, go into debt and even go to prison as a result of money. And I have the hands on technical experience in many aspects financial markets and banking in various countries that few people have had a chance to see.
All that said the attainment of financial wealth is not the most important thing in my life these days. I’m older and I’m more interested in spending time with my family and friends and using all that I’ve learned and my coaching to do something help other people. What I’m trying to do these days is to share my experiences and ideas with others through my fiction and non-fiction books, screenplays and music. I am not afraid any more in my life and I have a great deal of faith. I consider myself an activist that is willing to take stand for the greater good of the human race. I am not here to say that everything I think is right and correct, I’m here to participate in whatever way I think is best.
These are some of my experiences that I believe qualify me in regards to speaking about economics.
PBR: Dot Money has a mix of conservative theories (no income tax) and liberal theories (monthly stipends). How can Dot Money work without being politicized by both parties?
Dot Money is not for everyone and those who are not in favor of using it or getting the monthly stipend need not use it. Dot Money is not designed to replace any existing currencies, but to work with existing currencies. Because Dot Money is not created in the same way that debt based money is created, native currencies and existing banking practices will need to remain in place.
While I do expect major support for Dot Money and the Global Currency Reserve from most rational people, I am also a realist who knows that the concepts are not for everyone and some may even have fear about the concepts and even consider some of the concepts dangerous or offensive to their way of thinking. I understand the great need for some people to be “right” by making others “wrong.” This is not really an issue of right or wrong it is an issue of freedom to choice a new way. Fortunately there are many people both financially rich and poor who do support my work however there are many people who don’t understand it.
When I tell people about the living stipend many automatically respond from their conditioned minds by telling me that I’m a communist even though, as I point out in my book Dot Money, these ideas are not communist or capitalist they are functional tools for a monetary system. For those people who may be scared of Dot Money and the concepts inside the book I have taken great pains in my book to answer most of their concerns. I hope that people will read the book if they are scared in any way by Dot Money so that they can understand that there is nothing to be afraid of.
Recently during the filming of a commercial for Dot Money and the Global Currency Reserve, I was in a shopping mall asking ordinary people if they would be interested in receiving $1,600 USD per month for the rest of their lives with no strings attached. To my shock 2 out of 6 people said they would not take the money, even if no strings were attached. Their reason? “It just feels suspicious,” and one, “it could be put to a better use…” Other people did also express concern that if people were handed $1,600 USD per month then people would revert to drug use and lower themselves to laziness and basic animal consciousness levels.
I do not believe that every person who receives $1,600 USD per month will become a drug addict and I provide more practical evidence in my book to support these facts. Although, obviously some people would fall victim to addiction, my question is what percentage of people would need to become addicted to drugs in order for us to abandon the practice of ending poverty for everyone else in the world.
Even though thousands of people die in motor vehicle accidents every year and cars are often even used as weapons and they pollute the environment and are even used to facilitate the buying and selling and smuggling of drugs, somehow, the use of vehicles has not lost enough utility to cause us to outlaw the use of cars.
Other arguments include the argument about the notion that it does not seem right for people to get something for nothing. But this does not account for the very issues that I raise in my book that people have already had their rights to use of property taken away from them at birth and are thus entitled to some compensation as a result of the governments of the world to which we have all become dependent regardless of their form (i.e. Capitalist, Statist, Communist, etc.).
These dialogs in the mall have proven to me that many people have become so conditioned that they will resist something even if it is good for them. This is the kind of cognitive emotive dissonance that we are going to have to overcome if we are going to evolve to the next level of economic consciousness and prosperity. In my book I do write about the needs and reasons why we must work to expose and release ourselves from our current broken and diseased thinking about money which is literally the only thing that inhibits us from realizing actual financial prosperity and global economic stability. The ideas are there, we just need to use them.
I saw this recently in 2009 through 2013 where currency trading rules in the U.S. were actually enacted that restricted people from going long and short in the same currency trading account. Never mind that the rest of the people in the world can still do this, in the U.S. rules were passed to keep people from exercising their rights to do so. Measures were even taken to prevent U.S. residents from opening accounts at other currency brokers overseas that continue to allow the practices of going long and short. To this day no U.S. resident can even get an account at major European firms like Aplari because of these rules. As investors in the U.S. we are the least free and the least sophisticated in the world by virtue of all of the facades and infrastructure that are designed to “protect” us from the financial markets but that continually fail to do so. The U.S. financial markets are literally going backwards in terms of technology, access and choice while the rest of the world moves ahead. The reasons for these new rules according to the regulators in the case of Forex were the complaints of some people who thought that Forex brokers were making too much money on the spread between long and short trades. In other words, we are lead to believe by regulators that these kinds of rules were made because some people didn’t believe in going long and short in their own account and they wanted to take that right away from other people. The new rules devastated the U.S. Forex business and sent our country and our traders back into the stone ages when compared with other developed countries. But this is nothing new this is business as usual in the U.S.. The rules were obviously secretly being pushed by other older commercial interests in businesses which I will not identify here but which only go to show the lengths to which our policy makers are controlled by big business to our own detriment.
My only hope is that the anger and fear of the naysayers of Dot Money do not lead to political action and legislation that will prevent those people who do believe in Dot Money and the Global Currency Reserve from using these fantastic life changing facilities. The good news is that most of the major governments have already taken their positions on virtual currencies like BitCoin, which has not been outlawed and thus is able to be used in most countries around the world. I think that the bankers are beginning to see there is much more in it for them and see that there is no threat.
PBR: How do you hope to inspire readers who are influenced by Dot Money?
My hope is that a whether people agree with my solutions or not that this important dialog is started now about how we are going to fix the problems with our economy moving forward by using new ideas instead of beating our heads against the wall with the current infrastructure that is inadequate to deal with the problems that it has created. Things like simply lowering taxes and paying the national debt even if you could do it are not going to fix these problems in the long term. The focus of the arguments needs to change from adjusting the old broken system to what we can add to fix the problems in the long term. This is going to take something new like Dot Money.
More importantly I want to inspire people to stop blaming others, like the politicians, bankers, business people and the rich and the poor people for the problems with our economy. I want to inspire people to stop leaving solutions for these problems in the hands of others and to start to do the hard work of thinking of ways that we can solve the problems ourselves and implementing things. I want people to stop throwing their arms up in the air and saying they give up and start addressing these problems and taking action.
In my book Dot Money I have offered several solutions based on ideas of many who came before me and my vast experience in dealing in the world of money. It’s ok if you don’t like my ideas, but then I must challenge you to give me good reasons why and more importantly to make counter proposals.
I love writing and I have many more books to come. But I never wanted to be one of these writers that just points out and complains about problems without offering some potential solutions. We have more than enough complainers and blamers in society what we need are more people who are willing to do the hard work that is the lost art called “thinking.” Thinking can be hard work but it is some of the most rewarding work you can do in your life.
If anyone is inspired by the ideas in my book then please join the movement by helping us with the Dot Money Project at www.DotMoney.Cash. Buying my book helps to support it Dot Money, there are crowd funding efforts being put in place today and other products that you can buy until Dot Money launches. People who don’t agree with my idea for Dot Money need not subscribe, support or use it, but I do ask that they not prevent others from using Dot Money. If you are against Dot Money or any of the ideas I hope you at least read the book so that you are properly informed about what it is that you are opposing.
The implementation of Dot Money by the private sector creates a potential solution that can literally help save the entire financial world that we have created and help all currencies and countries around the world to whether tough times.
Right now, we are standing on the brink of an entire collapse and meltdown of the value of all currencies in the world. And in response to this all that appears to be happening is that we continue to simply revisit the current system that has got us into this mess in the first place without even talking about doing something new. In this way we are like the frail person in a B rated movie who is standing in front of an oncoming bus and simply screaming rather than taking the obvious step out of the way of the impending disaster.
PBR: If Dot Money is implemented, how do you think the global economy will change?
If Dot Money is implemented, there would be a new product whose, use and buying and selling would stabilize the global economy, provide liquidity for governments, substantially lower or even eliminate taxes and take the pressure off of every person who receives the monthly stipend of having to sacrifice their entire lives just to get enough money to be in debt.
If Dot Money is implemented, the tool of money will become a valuable utility for people that will help enable them to take lower paying jobs that they would like to take without having to worry about how they will survive. If Dot Money were implemented I know of thousands of new startup businesses and inventions that would literally be capitalized because the most expense startup cost of human resources would be covered. There would be a revolution in new technology; there would be new demand for all kinds of goods and services from all kinds of people all over the world who would now have the money to buy things, where they don’t today. I was a starving artist once myself. I was a musician and I even had an album of my music financed by a small independent label when I was young but they could not afford to pay me an advance salary, so I literally know what it is like to be a starving artist. You can still by my songs from the old album from my website EricMajors.com. Imagine the works of art that people would have more time to create. Imagine the people who could leave abusive relationships because they would have the financial means to do so.
If Dot Money were implemented the future financial prosperity of our children would be insured and we would be protected from almost every financial crisis that could arise as a result of any manmade or natural disasters. In other words people’s lives would be literally saved. Education would be able to be purchased by everyone and there would be more money to cover basic medical care. The sick and elderly would be properly cared for financially.
All of this would be able to happen without taking a dime from anyone. The financially rich could remain rich and the financially poor would be uplifted and compensated for the use of property by others.
Of course there would be new problems. There would be a strain on the environment as more consumers would have money to buy more things. But there would also be more money to pay people who are passionate about saving the environment and so there would potential be new revolutionary action groups that would actually be working with and for businesses today on environmental cleanup. Environmental cleanup would become a highly profitable business.
Of course some more people would abuse the system and use money for drugs and revert to other carnal and lower animal levels of living, however there would also be more money available for their rehabilitation. Based on my experience in prison crime would likely plummet as those who are addicted to drugs would not need to go out and steal for the money. The terms of use for people to receive the monthly stipend would be that the money could not be used for creating terror or for violent or criminal purposes. Obviously this would not completely weed out abuse of the system; however, every monetary system and welfare state is already subject to the same abuse.
I don’t see any of the potential risks worth abandoning the idea of bringing Dot Money online. Dot Money will not solve all of the problems of the world and human nature, but it will help those peace loving people of the world to have a better experience of life. The rich can remain rich, businesses can make and keep more of their profits, governments will be relieved of some of their greatest expenses and ordinary people will not have to live under the oppression of the requirement to make ends meet.
For more information please see www.DotMoney.Cash
To learn more about “Dot Money” please read the review at: Pacific Book Review
