GhostOnTheHalfShell

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.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GhostOnTheHalfShell

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ghostonthehalfshell_at_masto.ai@momostr.pink

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relay.noswhere.com

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Last Notes

2024-10-07 13:43:13

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The source of inflation in today’s world, our corporations. End of conversation.

2024-10-06 22:42:59

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Sam Altman is on the same drugs as Zuckerberg and Elon Musk seem to be on these days

2024-08-15 20:16:45

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A troll worthy comment. The case study of Sears adopting capitalism internally is legendary. It faltered in dysfunction in short order.
As for the argument for the wider assertion, I refer you to the extensive historical information in “Debt: the first 5000 years” where many of the philosophical repudiations of a mercenary culture were made by every major religion, against usury, and profit in the wake of the Axial Age.

2024-08-15 20:02:04

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neoliberalism has always been an ask that a people surrender their sovereignty (it’s called government) to totalitarian rule by wealth (privatization and deregulation).
The essence of conservative ethics is that a society of mercenaries is utopic, instead of a world of hunger, misery and terror. Every time an entire community, say Sears, is put on this mercenary’s ethic, it collapses in dysfunction, because exploiters must have victims to survive.

2024-08-14 11:26:32

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Interest rates are a tax, a tribute, paid by all to creditors. It is inflation and austerity. Inflation from those who can raise prices and austerity for those who cannot.
Usury and profit bring hell.

2024-08-13 00:34:18

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yeh. the FAA also got pretty harsh in health requirements. I have a friend who had to give up on flying because of a trip or two to the hospital over asthma,

2024-08-13 00:32:27

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beautiful aircraft and what I imagine is a system to capture the oil drip inherent in radial engines..

2024-08-12 15:51:41

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Because the human animal is infinitely clever and power relations ever fluid.
"Money" created by private banking is destroyed on a loan's repayment, but leaves in its wake an obligation, a DEBT of interest charge, an abomination MMTers refuse to face.
Usury (any interest) had been condemned after the Axial Age for reason.
Usury is simply profit specific to the rent of money. The concepts of debt and of profit (interest) are the social cancer.

2024-08-12 15:48:26

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There is a fundamental problem in #MMT and even in #SteveKeen 's and others definitive work on modern economies:
they are but accountants who have found superior ways of journaling what is a system of murder and destruction. Worse, they imagine they've found a solution, that they can stabilize Armageddon.
The dynamic of destruction evolved before capitalism and is more enduring than capitalism. It underpins its antecedents in all their forms.
🧵

2024-08-12 15:44:22

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"and therefore, free of guilt and sin; a world where men and women were free to simply calculate their interests in full knowledge that ev erything had been prearranged by God to ensure that it will serve the greater good ... The problem with such models-at least, it always seems to happen when we model something called "the market"-is that, once created, we have a tendency to treat them as objective realities.."
🧵

2024-08-12 15:43:15

@npub1xh2…u80r
#Graeber #MMT #economics
"This is actually why Smith's work is so important. He created the vision of an imaginary world almost entirely free of debt and credit.."
🧵
p353-354 Debt: The first 5000 yrs

2024-08-10 02:21:51

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Roger Hallam made this point in a Novara Media interview Mar 2023. I have a clip of it in video “Immune to Reason”. One of the major log jams in economics consist of running into moral sentiments created by phrases, “government debt”.
I think this is true in much more daily life. Education should include awareness of it, along with a good course in rhetoric (ie persuasion).

2024-08-10 02:15:50

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When the topic touches public affairs, it’s moral sentiments, that payload of concepts we used to judge people around us, to praise or condemn.
Information is not an argument or is a very tiny part of it. People react over right or wrong so things like, “gov debt and tax payer funding” carry a payload of attitudes about these topics. Similarly, understanding that the hydrocarbon economy is a murder project, deliberately pursued by billionaires shifts sentiment

2024-08-10 01:59:50

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that might be vibe flation right there

2024-08-06 16:18:49

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We all know it’s so very extreme to think we should be a nation whose peoples enjoy prosperity and financial security. It is an extreme idea not shared by contemptuous despotic billionaire asshats
I welcome their enmity, and may we all embrace the extreme..

2024-08-06 00:05:00

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ffs.
the only sustainable road for university is strong public funding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCzUU_pbLaM

2024-08-04 21:40:03

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:ablobgrin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

2024-08-02 23:09:49

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snort. natural rate is zero. usury is inflationary and used for that. (never mind me, i just have opinions like that)

2024-08-01 22:15:25

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Hallam’s channel posted a statement from him, recorded via a phone call.
https://youtu.be/oh06hoKUlCw

2024-08-01 21:31:04

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Sado monetarists.. :ablobcatpopcorn:
you have a way with words.

2024-08-01 14:27:01

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We will all merge as neighbors when carbon life is consumed as organic slurry.
Slime+bootloaders unite!

2024-08-01 14:09:31

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I dunno, I think living under a brutal regime of total control by tech overlords burning the world to birth an imagined Silicon God has some appeal.

2024-07-31 19:45:09

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It’s truly wonderful he puts his authentic self out there for everyone to see.
It’s special I tell ya.

2024-07-30 20:14:06

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The analogy I came up with a decade ago was the kind of transition in the kind of bubbles in a pan. Compare and contrast a pan at simmer vs rolling boil. The temp isn’t that different, but the state transition is.
At least if you’re some little mote hoping for a quiet life with mild disruptions here and there.

2024-07-08 15:46:28

@npub1xh2…u80r
#economics
#SteveKeen
"How private banks create money and leave non-banks in negative financial equity"
Well, this is getting to the nub. Negative financial equity is also known as debt. Non banks would be you, me and every business.
🧵 1/n
https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/the-meme-that-is-destroying-western-2ea

2024-07-07 15:01:36

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It's almost like living on the street is bad for your health.
Can we convince billionaires to do it? It'll make great reality TV.

2024-07-07 11:24:36

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Anti trust, revolution, disaster.
Right now, it looks like the last option.

2024-07-06 05:21:44

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I sample Ryan Hall, and for the most part, if it bends North, it has more time to pick up energy over water. If it keeps South, it’ll remain weaker before landfall.

2024-06-28 17:50:59

@npub1z7x…q5jf
Some rays of sunshine.
https://urbanists.social/@straphanger/112694402959221918

2024-06-22 19:04:27

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I would correct Sanders.
Their intention for a half century has been to end democracy. They embrace the Mudsill theory and view a middle class as a menace to civilization.
So they have systematically dismantled the republic brick by brick.

2024-06-11 13:22:28

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Sinclair has skirted antitrust laws in order to own local tv and radio stations all over America. Absolutely just as influential as Fox.
He dictates what can be said, what cannot and what MUST be said. It’s tyranny. There is no “free press”.

2024-05-29 15:52:26

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the latter.
As a convict, his ability to run is ruined. Also, specifically, it’s important to reflect that by focusing on the relevant.
It will also enrage 45.

2024-05-28 17:57:05

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It's ironic that the one billionaire targeted by Koch network billionaires just happens to promote open-society and rational economics.
It's despotic fascist billionaires vs one of the economic strata that doesn't conform to their ideological identity.
If people don't know Soros is Hungarian, escaped Nazis and Stalin's USSR. He also made his money from the understanding that markets are not rational. One can criticize some of the things he's done, but he's not an an-cap.

2024-05-26 02:47:32

#askfedi #animatedMovies
There’s an Italian(?) animated short involving mosquitoes living off a sleeping human, as an allegory for modern dependence on oil.
I don’t remember the name. Anyone?

2024-05-24 02:22:33

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“ 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).”
People willing to embrace this statement have willingly surrendered their critical faculties to a conman. This is what “capitalists” embrace, at least in the US.

2024-05-23 20:44:20

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I think it’d be funny to have a demonstration, “Insurrection is an assault on the Constitution” defend the Constituency or resign.
something like that

2024-05-21 17:26:59

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Yes we can thank Friedman for advancing that false dichotomy as well as false equivalence (ie that capitalism = freedom and prosperity). Since picking over some of the classic interviews of him (Phil Donanhue'79) and being much more aware of logical fallacies, his methods glaringly mendacious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in_Positive_Economics
🧵

2024-05-21 15:44:22

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Well, it *wasn't* at one point. Shit like this going down today would have seen a CEO drop kicked out.
Today's landscape is very different. CEOs don't stay for very long anyway. But failure is rewarded with fat parachutes.

2024-05-21 05:45:05

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Boeing isn’t run like a business, it’s being strip mined. Investment practice is distinct from manufacturing practice, but the former has come to dominate in the US, UK and is creeping through Canada, despite it’s unique talent for destroying everything it touches.
Consider that very capitalist Singapore ditched neoliberalism when it blew up in their face. Their outlook is result orient, not ideological.
https://youtu.be/SSBsW3Qzqjs

2024-05-20 13:41:01

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They are indoctrinated over a style of success: big corporations.
It’s no less a cultural phenomena than the peer contests of the French Aristocracy in opulence and glory in war. That’s the standard set.
Of course telling them they aren’t innovators but fanbois upsets that apple cart.

2024-05-20 12:47:29

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From what I understand (StrongTown’s explanation), city level is best placed to extend credit. The money needs to go to small projects in order to fund the kind of construction *needed*.
The level of coordination is at the city level. Cities themselves need to act to build resilience; secure food, water, energy, housing (urban design), unique to them. It’s at that level. Communities need to secure themselves.

2024-05-20 12:29:40

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We should grasp that the home loan market (big chunk of US economy) was engineered to subsidize suburbia. It was made to power the transformation of the US economy from a war footing. It succeeded wildly for a few decades, but painted the economy into a dysfunctional corner. It will never fund enormous unmet needs.
A new system of finance must be engineered. Cities in the US are in a position to finance; globally something is needed.

2024-05-20 12:17:16

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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.

2024-05-20 12:08:26

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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.
🧵

2024-05-20 11:57:49

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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 with the 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
🧵

2024-05-17 00:17:32

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I put it under the differences of financialization (stock placement) priorities over capital investment priorities. The are at odds with each other. It’s reminiscent of hardware vs software engineer differences. The sorts of things to prioritize between the two disciplines are conflicting.
Financial business practice prolly knows they can milk the stock market with greater certainty.
Financialziation has come to dominate US business practice.

2024-05-13 18:15:19

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Investing and managing stock investments carry different priorities than investing and managing production.
The priorities are at odds with each other. Tangible failure shambles on because financial engineering is succeeding.
Because of this, the assertions of Friedman, that the market culls failure, isn't operative at least for actual output.
https://youtu.be/SSBsW3Qzqjs

2024-05-08 23:27:31

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The class of wealth they have created for themselves is truly daunting, and it’s why I think it essential to name them. The Koch Network stands supreme in this regard. The most recent and public project 2025 demonstrates why.
It’s also why I am not adverse to naming them traitors (because they seek to overthrow the US) or global genocidal mafia.
https://masto.ai/@GhostOnTheHalfShell/110148122777590567

2024-05-05 23:05:38

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I can be cheered by the cut off and remain deeply angry of the death toll guaranteed by the siege. Only long after combat has ended will be know the true numbers, made apparent by the missing, especially in women and babies.

2024-05-03 18:14:52

@npub1xh2…u80r
#SteveKeen #mmt #economics
"Before I show why he fails, I want to clarify what it means to say that banks create money “out of nothing” (Schumpeter 1934, p. 73). It definitely does not mean that banks create money via magic. What it means instead is that there is no other account from which a bank loan is financed, whereas there is such an account for a non-bank loan."
🧵
https://profstevekeen.substack.com/p/selgins-hot-air-on-bank-money-creation

2024-05-01 17:06:35

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As BeauOfTheFifth says, call a cop, call a gun.

2024-04-30 23:04:12

#climatechange #mars
Let me disabuse you of the idea that a Martian colony is the way to save mankind.
Survival on Mars is 1000x more difficult with no free flowing water, no atmosphere, no ozone, no magnetosphere, much less solar radiation to power anything including biological life.
Choosing Mars is picking the absolute worst probability to beat gambler's ruin.
Even a 3' warmer Earth is better.
🧵

2024-04-29 17:53:23

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which we? I’d go with Roger Hallam on this, a specific set of people keep us in a trajectory of mass death. Treat it as a murder project, no different than the mass killings of Lebensraum.

2024-04-23 19:53:16

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:ablobgrin: I think if I suggested you were mainstream, you’d mute, then block me and rightly.
I think you’re safe, because they prolly all on Twitter.
Also Keen comes with touches of snarl here and there, all entirely needed. His latest serial post for his book (chap 9) mentions other names. Mike Radzicki is a regular on the stream. The weekly stream resumes soon and it’s a good place to learn more faces. The list I have is gleaned from past guests.

2024-04-23 18:38:12

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I fly Keen's flag here as one of the most well known.
Keen is vocal on YT, where his talks and the weekly live stream with guests is a good introduction to more dissidents. ;)
There are others lurking here, like [@DirkEhnts](https://mastodon.social/@DirkEhnts) (over in the EU),
[@BillMitchell](https://mastodon.world/@BillMitchell) (who posts from his blog but not active) and [@blair_fix](https://mastodon.online/@blair_fix) (naughty statistics)
and [@FantasticalEconomics](https://geekdom.social/@FantasticalEconomics)

2024-04-23 18:26:39

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Yes, and image flat earthers, anti vaxxers or neoliberals in charge of public policy for 50 years.
👀 :ablobcatcoffee:
It's motivation to raise awareness that heterodox economists exist.

2024-04-23 18:00:13

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I'm in chapter 3. It's good (pleasure to read), Graziani describes the various economic schools' theory of economy. It offers a survey of the assumptions/assertions they make. I'll always get mental over neoclassical stuff, which is described, because garbage.
I agree with MMT's description of fiat monetary systems, so I am not rebuking it, but lord help me, the crutch of origins gives me hives.

2024-04-23 17:39:50

#mmt
I have one big critique of economists: it's the absurdity and questionable analytical results arrived upon _depending_ on where analysis starts in the system.
What ecologist demands a description of a bug's life cycle _must_ begin at one stage of their life cycle, and that the model constructed *depends on that choice*? Which comes first, the aphid or its egg?
🧵
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/monetary-theory-of-production/A813BE586E79CDF0DE7C3D930DBF632F

2024-04-22 17:26:50

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Not quite LiveNation level but working their way up to it.

2024-04-20 18:05:35

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send me the lyrics… and the track (i live under a rock)

2024-04-18 01:49:08

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A commons is more apt. Habitation has to be thought of as temporary, shifting every dew years and along with it the means to produce as productive areas and habitation shift.
If it sounds nomadic well..

2024-04-18 01:23:57

I don’t know if the following topic fits in your bailiwick, but a channel I follow has been covering the ever shift circumstances of certain regions in India. DownToEarth is produced in India, and the topic they covered is the plight of rural farmers as rivers change course much more frequently. People flee and rebuild only to have the river shift its course yet again.
In a world where this becomes normal, existing ideas over property become unfit for purpose.
🧵

2024-04-17 06:09:42

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Jesus.. if there’s a systemic ecological crash in the oceans, it would be very bad, like *poof* mass extinction bad. Anoxic air masses and leech from water bodies, killing anything they drift through.

2024-04-03 12:50:34

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This needs to grow every where. Bricks, rocks.
During college one crew mate (rowing team), had to cross campus in the wee hours. Her chosen safety measures was to walk, quite jauntingly, with a baseball bat and whistle.