@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

GhostOnTheHalfShell

@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai

opinionated lurker of the intarwebs.

Used to write code, still do. c/c++, java, php, js, c#, gdscript, gnawed on sql, sparql, unix/windows etc etc billions of years ago.

tech, graphics, anything STEM
anything anthropology, history, linguistics
anything blender, gimp (although i scream using it), audacity
prefers not to be run over by cars

I drink Philz.

I do a (non-monetized) video or so a week on yt.

Tyranny and poverty are everywhere a mainstream economics phenomenon.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Pillage economics, lovingly crafted by the most ardent anti-market anti prosperity advocates. This is the insanity of a school of economics that successfully conned people into suspending their rational faculties. They don’t need facts, they need an intervention.

15 min

https://youtu.be/ca36ChrdV6M

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works
@economics

#economics #uspol

May 21

7 min

https://youtu.be/eknE5NjNMQg

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

#SteveKeen
#economics

If economists had all fallen into a hole and a couple physicists or engineers replaced them, the discipline would be different game.

https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/the-role-of-energy-in-production

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Many of us have been sounding the alarm on this for years.

Welp.

Via Kyle Griffin:

In an interview with KDKA-TV, says he's "looking at" policies that would restrict access to

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@GottaLaff

The GOP are way ahead on this. They may catch the other car pressing for it.

molly0xfff , to random
@molly0xfff@hachyderm.io avatar

back in my day we called this spyware

#AI #privacy #Microsoft

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@molly0xfff

So my next computer (been using Mac anyway) will be a Linux box. Fuck enclosed platforms.

breadandcircuses , to random
@breadandcircuses@climatejustice.social avatar

George Monbiot says: "Trashing the planet and hiding the money isn’t a perversion of capitalism – it is capitalism."

Capitalism is not, as its defenders insist, a system designed to distribute wealth, but one designed to capture and concentrate it.

The story capitalism tells about itself – that you become rich through hard work and enterprise – is the greatest propaganda coup in human history.

LEARN MORE -- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/06/offshoring-wealth-capitalism-pandora-papers

#Capitalism #History #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@breadandcircuses

Roger Hallam is right to call it a murder project.

There’s a reason the organization is called Extinction Rebellion.

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

I call bullshit on Friedman for every having written this. This shit should never have been allowed to survive. Get this atrocity out of here.

"Truly important and significant hypotheses will be found to have "assumptions" that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality, and, in general, the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions (in this sense) (p. 14)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in_Positive_Economics#The_Methodology_of_Positive_Economics

parismarx , to random
@parismarx@mastodon.online avatar

“I have seen the extremely restrictive off-boarding agreement that contains nondisclosure and non-disparagement provisions former OpenAI employees are subject to. It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer.”

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2024/5/17/24158478/openai-departures-sam-altman-employees-chatgpt-release

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@parismarx

this is called fascism. such legal restrictions are an affront to the 1st. Companies that dictate these terms should be seized and dismantled.

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Let's play economics RPG. Who's the main streamer and who's heterodox?

2 min

https://youtu.be/ebjNf4I88nk

gerrymcgovern , to random
@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green avatar

"Degrowth calls for an organized slowing down of society, to minimize harm to humans and other species. Degrowth and post-growth proponents conceive economic growth as a major driver of environmental degradation. Beyond a certain scale, the economy is seen to enter into conflict with ecological life-support systems, the costs of growth accelerate, and environmental conflicts multiply."

https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(24)00146-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2590332224001465%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@breadandcircuses @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @gerrymcgovern

The economic pathway we’re on needs to go for more than one reason. The common pattern is everywhere. In the US, we face a housing crisis after so many decades of the suburban experiment, but this is coupled urgency of adaptation to the warmer atmosphere. In poorer regions of the world they face existential crises of subsistence (food, water, housing) because of development, and climate adaptation is need is dire

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@breadandcircuses @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @gerrymcgovern

In the US, cities have begun to change zoning laws, legalizing the flexibility the US had before the 50s, but there’s one more needed ingredient: finance. The mortgage business was engineered to subsidize suburban housing. It’s not capable of financing the unmet demands for housing rework and until finance is available, the rework will never evolve, the business can’t without $$.

The problems for the global poor are similar.

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@breadandcircuses @Captain_Jack_Sparrow @gerrymcgovern

but for local finance, they are stuck.

But in rich or poor world, credit is desperately needed to restore ecology regionally and green towns/cities, but also local self sufficiency is necessary for supply chain disruption resilience. Permaculture elements address this.

Finance is obsessed with energy transition, big expensive, industrial scale development; that’s its design. It is unfit for purpose. We need ground level transformation.

auschwitzmuseum , to random
@auschwitzmuseum@mastodon.world avatar

19 May 1931 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Selma Spanjer, was born in Amsterdam.

In February 1943 she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after selection.

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@auschwitzmuseum

I though I view each of these that I see, some images enrage me more than others.

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Bair Fix has a YouTube account!

https://mastodon.online/@blair_fix/112462407478539455

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Hot off the presses. The next serialized chapter of his book.

https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/why-are-economists-trying-to-hide

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

One aspect of the current state of affairs in a modern economy are the number of corporations that are financial institutions now. GE, GM, Ivy league, the airlines, etc.

And loyalty points offered by banks and these entities are mini monetary systems.

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

“ d/dt Deposits = The equation describing this process is simply the translation of the Bank’s English into the formal language of mathematics. … This equation then is the mathematical form of the Bank of England’s declaration that “bank lending creates deposits”: d/dt Deposits = Lending

I still nit here over terminology. The bank ledger records a loan. Lending is an process, more like, a function, which creates both loan and deposit.

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

It’s more appropriate to use different terminology, as a physicist would:

EG elementary “particles” are quantum phenomena. You can’t pull them apart.

A loan and the deposit are the same thing in that sense. Debt and credit are two sides of a social contract.

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Regarding mainstream preference to make money / credit irrelevant, with fractional reserve banking.
—

“ If there’s too much money—and therefore inflation—it’s the government’s fault; if there’s too little money—and therefore deflation—it’s the government’s fault. The private banking sector gets off scot-free.

Well, the Fed could use reserve requirements to fiddle bank’s balance sheets, instead of messing with interest rates (?)

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

That also depends which elevation it’s looked at I think. It’d didn’t lose money, it lost what I would call wealth. I reserve money to mean legal tender and begrudgingly “liquid” entries, those entires that can be used to discharge debt (like legal tender).

But yes, prolly in the giant ledger in the sky that makes sense. The question is, is that how it actually works out?

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

If the loan was insured, or peddled off as part of a security how does all that percolate?

In the end of a successful loan payback, the bank has a profit, “more”. Because the loan, and deposit are accounted in entries but not the interest service, sale of the asset means the bank has walked off with a gain and the effect shows elsewhere.

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

You know, maybe that’s more subtle? Because the bank doesn’t “pay” anything for the write off. The asset simply disappears. If the credit (the liquid thing) is still percolating around in its ledgers as the One Bank. The total asset (principal and interest) and the borrower liability are stricken, but the deposit doesn’t seem to.

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

The payout seems the victim here, but banks can lend to businesses freely. It’s just balance sheet management. They can’t be in the red at the end of a business day and even so, there’s always the discount window.

So yeh, that seems solid. Banks come away with interest (less expenses) from the transaction, always.

dlakelan , to economics-that-works group
@dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

@economics-that-works #economics #mmt #money

Steve Keen discusses the money creation mechanisms here https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/why-are-economists-trying-to-hide

A thing I think he doesn't give enough attention to is the role the Fed DOES play. The Fed indirectly controls bank lending rate through a couple mechanisms. The first is whatever rules it has for declaring a bank solvent. They've eliminated reserve requirements but now it's something like a stress test or whatever. A bank can't keep lending

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

The equations governing a bank's ability to lend is related to its deposit market share by

d = deposit share
F = 1 / ( K ( 1 - d))
Z = bank's reserves

Lending ability of a bank is something like

L = d ((F-1) + (F*Z))

At the limit, a monopoly bank has infinite ability to lend.

🧵
https://archive.org/details/monetarytheoryof0000graz/page/93/mode/1up

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

The more likely deposits remain endogenous, the bank suffers no constrains or fiscal risk from them.

Only when people transfer to another bank or extract cash do the run into problems.

As far as reserves go, they settle between banks who minimize transfers by canceling mutual obligations and if they really need some reserves, they borrow it from the discount window (from the fed).

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

One should also remember there's that secondary loan market, Fannie Mae etc where home loans are packaged and sold off to insurance, pensions and hedge funds. They can take the non-monetary load asset and make it liquid.

Banks have so many ways to engineer their balance sheets.

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

Reserves could be zero, one of the terms is d * ((1/F - 1)) which blows to infinity.

At the limit, a reserve of $1 or 0 doesn't matter.

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

market share, a bank's internal reserve preference, and probability 'money' leaves (as cash or bank transfer), the latter two define K

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

Exactly. In today's financial environment, the whales are well buffered against any liquidity issues.

What I don't feel I understand is how much the reality differs from the way standard policy determines it.

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

Also, they can borrow money to buy the bonds.. from the Fed, IRRC.

We all need to incorporate as banks. License to print money. Really!

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

I keep harping on him to spend less time in debunk and bomb the area with all the math.

He’s stripping his models down to the basics because, well, the mainstream and those under its influence are durably resistant to it. I’d rather get Principia and not 95 thesis.

He’s handicapping what he could (should) be saying.

DemocracyMattersALot , to random
@DemocracyMattersALot@mstdn.social avatar

Rudy Giuliani is a putz. LOL.
Happy 80th birthday, Rudy!

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@DemocracyMattersALot

Shudder.

blair_fix , to random
@blair_fix@mastodon.online avatar

Counterintuitively, efficiency is not a tool for conservation. It's a catalyst for technological sprawl.

Here's my deep dive into the Jevons paradox.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/05/18/a-tour-of-the-jevons-paradox-how-energy-efficiency-backfires/

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@blair_fix

I think it could be said that efficiency is applied to the wrong thing. It was an implied thesis that efficiency in manufacturing would paper over a model intrinsically driven to volume sales.

But the imperatives of mass product already are driven to cost reduction and it’s the fixed costs that drive volume. Market share also gates maximum profits.

also on an epochal scale, eukaryotic o2 biological pathways is example of the paradox.🧵

@economics @economics-that-works

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@blair_fix @economics @economics-that-works

The o2 metabolic pathway generates ~10x anoxic metabolism. This created new chemical toolkits and opened entirely new biological pathways for eukaryotes; an entirely new level of signaling. Useful for coordinating the symbionts comprising eukaryotes and eventually multicellular life.

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@blair_fix @economics @economics-that-works

Also, "efficiency" :ablobgrin:

https://youtu.be/gsfIHiBB6xE

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

#mmt

"The result is that the presence of taxes increases profits. The logic is that the payment of taxes forces wager to reduce their propensity to save out of income before taxes, even if the propensity to save out of income after taxes is unchanged."

😮 In brief, Graziani is saying that taxes don't affect corporate profits, but here taxes on us lumpen increase their profits (on pretax income)

https://archive.org/details/monetarytheoryof0000graz/page/109/mode/1up?view=theater

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

#SteveKeen #SteveKeenAndFriends

Live stream Sat @ 9 am, PST.

Great guest queued for this weekend!

https://www.youtube.com/live/jrquIAehcn0

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

One aspect of the current state of affairs in a modern economy are the number of corporations that are financial institutions now. GE, GM, Ivy league, the airlines, etc.

And loyalty points offered by banks and these entities are mini monetary systems.

rbreich , to random
@rbreich@masto.ai avatar

Half of Amazon warehouse workers struggle with food and housing costs.

A third of the workers have had to rely on at least one government assistance program.

Amazon's stock hit an all time high in April. Jeff Bezos is now worth $203 billion.

This is what oligarchy looks like.

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@rbreich

More specifically, plutocracy.

dlakelan , to economics-that-works group
@dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

So I'm probably going to be nerd sniped into developing a Jupyter notebook to examine the question of how well are mid income families 2 adults and 2 kids doing relative to how well their parents were doing 30 years earlier. I'm going to use a dirichlet prior over the weights on a 5 item CPI based expense index. The missing part is paired nominal earnings of people and their parents... Anyone know a dataset @economics-that-works

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

It looks like global warming images. For the uninitiated like me, the different lines represent what?

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

Gotcha, thanks. 🙇‍♂️

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

The latter, obv. Unless one clings to certain orthodoxies..

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@dlakelan @economics-that-works

Pssh there you go again with a silly idea people live on a budget.

figstick , to israel group
@figstick@mas.to avatar

They're rounding up the historians now.

https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/1790874217828827473?s=48

@histodons @academicchatter @academiccommunity @academicsunite @israel @palestine

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@figstick @histodons @academicchatter @academiccommunity @academicsunite @israel @palestine

shit. :ablobcatknitsweats:

oatmeal , to israel group
@oatmeal@kolektiva.social avatar

#Israel / Mainstream media is mobilized to conceal information from the public, especially the atrocities of the war in Gaza

The sharp spike in the Israeli military censor's intervention in journalists' work in 2023 was mainly due to the war on Gaza. The censor blocked the publication of 613 articles and censored parts of 2,703 additional articles - which even by Israeli standards is a new record.

According to a report in Local Call (Sikha Mekomit) Intervention was especially high during the last quarter of the year. The censor cited security issues for the heightened censorship.

But the most stringent censorship in Israeli mainstream media remains self-censorship by journalists and editors choosing not to cover the impacts of the war on Gaza's civilian population.

Even worse for historians and researchers, in recent years, the censorship has also begun intervening in documents from the State Archives, as part of the digitization of the archives and uploading the documents to the internet. Local Call reporter says that in response to their request, it was reported that the censorship handled 2,962 documents, and that the "absolute majority" were approved for upload to the internet without intervention.

[Hebrew] https://www.mekomit.co.il/שיא-חדש-הצנזורה-הצבאית-מנעה-פרסום-של-613-כ/

@israel
@palestine
@academicchatter #Israel #IDF #IsraelWarCrimes
#PressFreedom
#Nakba #Zionism

GhostOnTheHalfShell ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@oatmeal @israel @palestine @academicchatter

The surest sign of tyranny.

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Toothsome 1995 paper.

Finance and Economic Breakdown: Modeling Minsky's "Financial Instability Hypothesis"

https://keenomics.s3.amazonaws.com/debtdeflation_media/papers/JPKE1995PageImage9509152794.pdf

also on JSTOR

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4538470

🧵

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

Of the thoughts I have of

  1. what happens to system dynamics if a “big enough” portion worker & capitalist sector merges under co-ops?
  2. interest pricing to control debt demand is economic cancer
  3. financial institutions were/are lending factories by policy construction. in today’s economy they are agents of the ponzi scheme, see GFC.
  4. from the paper not weak taxation destabilizes system dynamics of the economy (economic cancer)
GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@HistoPol @economics-that-works

https://www.usworker.coop/what-is-a-worker-cooperative/

GhostOnTheHalfShell , to economics-that-works group
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

#SteveKeen #economics

https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/your-margin-and-your-life

GhostOnTheHalfShell OP ,
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

@economics-that-works

#economics #SteveKeen

I’m kind of curious what the system response (of housing prices) to a deceleration of interest rates. If price changes reflect acceleration of home loan interest rates, how does a deceleration propagate into the economy? The US economy is built upon the housing sector. It plays an outsized role in economic health.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •