RobertoG

I suspect China was left out because it already had an important role in his previous novel "Red Moon".

I have read your long comment and I'm less than convinced by any of your arguments.

Specifically, I would say that number three is mostly false. The companies that receive those contracts are not, at least in my experience, small local shops (and there is an argument that they should be), but instead big consulting companies that know the correct people and procedures.

>>"Alot of folks in government (including me when I was there) wanted to release our stuff as OSS, but there is only so far you can go with opensourcing modules that depend on SAP code, IBM code, or systems that are supplied by the federal government"

The point of the endeavor is precisely to change that.

That's not how it works.

Banks lend and then try to find reserves, after the fact, because they have legal requirements. No bank loss a good lending business because they have not reserves enough.

When a bank make a loan, there are two possibilities: they have enough reserves, then they don't need to do anything.

Or they don't have enough reserves, so they have to borrow them from other banks or from the central bank.

If they borrow them from other banks they are creating demand for reserves in the inter-bank market. That makes the interest rate go up.

The central banks don't try to control the quantity of money, but the interest rate. If there are a lot of demand for reserves and the Central Bank don't add reserves to the system the interest rate will go up. So, the Central Bank add or retire reserves in order to keep the interest rate in the range they want.

The quantity of money is decided by the demand of lending in the economy.

The Central Bank can choose to try to control the quantity of money or the interest rate, but not both. All modern Central Banks try to control the interest rate.

I read it again recently and I found it still pretty interesting.

From a SF aficionado point of view, Neuromancer world has:

-An economy that rely on ubiquitous computer networks.

-Colonization of low orbit.

-An AI rebelling and doing its own thing.

-Digital downloads of personalities.

In 1984.. I mean, OK, the concepts already existed, but it really break with most of the SF that was being done until then.

It's the beginning of a really dark SF, that I suppose was the point: "If we follow the current path, the future will look like corporate feudalism".

By the way, from a political point of view, the fear of the Japanese taking over is now the fear of the Chinese taking over. I will let the "dystopian future dominated by megacorps" comment as an exercise for the reader.

I think being a patriot is caring about the people of your country, all of them, even the ones you don't like, not the country or the state.

If you do that, war is the last thing you want.

Is that liberal democracy thing some time in the past when this kind of things didn't happen? what period would be that?

It seems to me, that nobody is denying the existence of barter. For instance, barter exist in our current modern societies. The question is if there are any evidence that the history of money is fundamentally the history of barter.

So, you have record-keeping that contradict the barter history and you have anthropology evidence that human semi-nomad tribes, even if they could barter sometimes, don't organize their society around barter, but, somehow, the more plausible evidence is barter. Don't know what to say to that.

The fact that public debt in its totality will never will be zero, doesn't mean that the tenants of that debt will not receive what they were promised.

In fact, you probably don't want the public debt to be payed.

If debt is a liability, that means that is also an asset of somebody. In the case of public debt is an asset of the private sector. A country without public debt would mean those senior citizens wouldn't have safe assets.

Also, a reduction of public debt means a lower deficit, that means less public expenses, that means, or a GDP fall or a higher private debt. Everything has to balance.

>>"The issue with Graeber and others is they are looking for a historical account of barter pre-dating a historical record of debt, but they will never find it, because the record-keeping begin for the purpose of recording debt."

Is this is the case, it seems to me that the issue is not with Graeber and others but, with the guys that claim something about which there is not historical account.

>>"We have actual case studies of communities developing money prices from scratch: "

The point is not if barter is used sometimes or if some people, in some circumstances, would start using cigarettes as money, but if that's the main history of money, specifically in the context of early states, as has been claimed for many years without any kind of evidence.

The burden of proof is not in the guys that examine the historic and archeology evidence, but in the ones that want to sell a narrative without evidence.

If they do it would be because the Fed has decided so and could decide the opposite at any point in time.

It would be a good thing coming from a bad thing if space get more funding in the EU.

Now, without the Soyuz, maybe there is a chance of a manned spaceflight program. Starting from the Space Rider (1) all the components are there, I think.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Rider

I didn't say anything about the USA, and, maybe I'm wrong, but somehow I doubt there was not people becoming homeless, after a disease, in the USA, 30 years ago.

Anyway, if you are not going to use the official indicators of inflation there is not point in discussing anything. I could tell you that my indicator is computing process per dollar and claim a terrible deflation.

So, you have some guys that predict inflation for 30 years and are always wrong, after a global pandemic and an energetic crisis, inflation happen and they feel vindicate.

It has to be great to have a model that's never wrong because you just have to wait enough. Not very scientific but great.

You forget to mention that if you diminish the number of available burgers you'll need, also, more dollars to the get the same amount of cheeseburgers.

And if you diminish the quantity of some essential product used for everything, as, for instance, energy, you will get the same effect.

Also, people confuse a one time increase of prices with inflation (that is a constant increase in time), and inflation with hyperinflation (two different phenomena).

Increasing the number of dollars spent beyond the economy capacity will cause inflation (at least if the spending is not done in investments that increase capacity) but that's almost never (never?) the cause of hyperinflation. See (1) for hyperinflation examples.

(1) - http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3773

"[..] entire countries register days where all their energy needs come from renewables and even overproduce energy [..]"

I think you mean electric needs. That it's around 30% of the needs of the average country. It's important to be very clear about those distinctions. I think, in this issue, overselling is so dangerous as underselling.

As everyone I have my own perspective, informed by my readings and experiences.

However, it was not my intention to upset you and I'm very sorry innocent people get caught in the middle of this.

These look almost there (I know, I know, "almost"):

https://ambri.com/ (liquid metal battery)

https://www.hydrostor.ca/ (compressed air)

By the way, I don't mean that American citizens are special in this. We are all brainwashed in supporting what was already decided.

That's all very nice, but, unfortunately is not how the world works.

What about the Donbas region, do they have the right to decide in an internal debate?

Instead of trying to be pro-Russian or pro-West, Ukraine have lost a chance of become Switzerland and make a live getting presents from both sides. Now, I think, it's going to be split.

You seems to see Russia as expanding, they perception, I think, it's exactly the opposite. Putin is not thinking in expanding is thinking in making an stand.

Some question that nobody is asking is, "what's the role of NATO?" The historical original reason for its existence have disappeared, so what is it for now?

Sure, because American citizens don't accept USA invading other countries.

Two week of 24 hours news with the proper perspective and the people would be asking in the streets for the invasion of Canada.

Ukraine is in the middle of two "powers" and the proper role would be one of buffer. They could even benefit from that. Unfortunately, the Russian and the USA have both tried to take that part of the board for them and the Ukrainian population is split on their loyalties.

Russian, simply can't allow more of the board, specially one part so close, to be dominated by the opponent.

Anyone that think this conflict in terms of "good" or "bad" have been drinking the kool-aid.

My prediction: A repetition of Crimea. The Donbas will be incorporate to the Russian area of influence, but not the rest of Ukraine, some noises will be done by the West about sanctions or whatever and in five years nobody will remember. Hope to be right, because other scenarios are really scary.

But what if it's the other way around? What if, because sanctions or war or whatever causes inflation, governments, in order to avoid the worse outcome of what would happen if they stop working totally, have to create more money.

Then, inflation is what creates money, not the other way around, and the narrative should be a very different one.

Well, following this view, I suppose that there is not point in sanctioning Russia as they are threatening them, as sanctions can't cause inflation.

from: https://sanaacenter.org/publications/analysis/8674

"The Sana’a-based branch continued to operate under Houthi control, having kept the vast majority of the central bank’s staff, informational archives and purview over Houthi-held areas, which include the country’s largest population centers, commercial markets, and business and financial hubs."

So, you split the country in two, one with "the largest population centers, commercial markets and business and financial hubs" but the loss of value of the currency is because the poorer side print more notes.

I suppose that when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, and when you have a website about "sound money" everything supports your theories.

You literally said that Andalusian and others "are dialects because they have not been politicized like Catalan or Basque", suggesting that what makes a language a language instead of a dialect it's its political weight.

Certainly, Catalan is used as a political tool, but it's a little hypocritical to think that Spanish is not. We all know how political questions should be solved in a democracy.

Catalan is derived from Latin not Spanish, and Basque roots are not even Latin. So, it seems to me, that to say they are not dialects because they have been politicized is a politic statement in itself.

Maybe, but how do you distinguish it from the natural emergence of a government and legal system?

I would appreciate recommendations for learning about SMT solvers. A good book, for instance?