This Varafoukis Lecture on The Nature of Money was brought to mind today after watching a more recent interview he gave to a French interview channel in February 2019, recommended to me by a French friend today.

In the second one He is asked to explain the Exponential Function. @ 24.08 income was around 55 trillion just say
25:51
55 there are too many zeros to worry
25:52
about 55 the total size of financial
25:57
derivatives was 70 okay so total income
26:02
another world 55
26:05
total derivatives 70 2007 exponential
26:12
growth okay this is this global income
26:17
had risen because of globalization from
26:19
55 to 70 from in six years as a lot from
26:23
55 to 70 growth in the size magnitude
26:28
volume of the river
26:30
others from 70 to 780 sooo nice so to
26:38
put it bluntly planet Earth was not big
26:40
enough for this bubble say burst in 2008

Steve Keen A good friend of Varafoukis has published and been linked to here on the Physiocrats and the Energy aspects of the Economic System.
The point is though that it’s not only about Energy qua energy.
Which brings me to Dominic Cummings?
I actually read all of the linked-to papers and blogs,

After the whole exercise I have more doubts about Dominic Cummings before I started, The Un-necessary, “I will bin you”, machismo is rather off-putting.

This Talk on the Edge web site is very good, Cummings would do well to watch it and internalise the ideas.

https://www.edge.org/conversation/lee_smolin-the-causal-theory-of-views

This is a very good video on Di-Electric Magnetism, now this guy is a proper misfit. What’s more, he is I think very close to scientific truth as we would get to, absent vested interests.

Smolin really is onto something as is this man.

https://www.edge.org/conversation/stephen_wolfram-mining-the-computational-universe

1. IRAN – a SEEDS take on the economy

   Re. assessing the tensions between Iran and the US/West, here are some findings on the economy of the Islamic Republic, drawn from SEEDS.

   I should caveat that available data for Iran is not wholly satisfactory, particularly over debt numbers. IMF data is useful, the BIS doesn’t list Iran in its credit data, and official Iranian stats are hard to navigate. Other sources are patchy on Iran.

   Starting with estimated GDP for 2019, the local number translates to $450bn based on market F/X rates, but the PPP equivalent (about $1,450bn) is probably much more reliable. C-GDP is probably very similar, in that there seems, unsurprisingly, to have been little or no ‘debt-bingeing’ “credit effect” behind Iranian GDP.

   ECoE, put by SEEDS at 7.0% (2019), is surprisingly high for a significant energy-exporting country. In USD PPP, prosperity per person is estimated at $16,300 (though only $5,080 in market dollars).

   Importantly, prosperity per capita is falling quite rapidly. SEEDS data shows it down by 16%, both local and USD PPP, since the recent peak in 2011. (It has dropped even further in market dollars, but what markets think about the Iranian currency isn’t ‘fact’). Prosperity in constant Rial is falling by between 3% and 4% annually, according to SEEDS.

   I’m posting this comment because realistic and useful economic info on Iran seems thin on the ground. Data converted into USD at market rates is virtually meaningless.

   Objectively, Iran has a problem in that prosperity per person is falling rapidly – but it hasn’t ‘collapsed’, as some might think or assume.

   Reply ↓

   • Iran is an Islamic state, as such, it does not have the Deadweight of usury around its neck, merely of US sanctions. The Usury point is not to be trifled with although remains one of the great enduring taboos of Finacialised Capitalism and the Dismal Science.
     Prof. Helmuth Kreutz’s The Money Syndrome or Gringons Money Lent Twice to see how Usury is the problem and driver of a Growth imperative and all the absurd wastes and inefficiencies baked into the Cake to privilege the Financial parasite class.

   • The Islamic ban on usury is also in the Bible, and was enforced in Christian Europe until the sixteenth century. Opposition to usury seems a wise principle.

     This needn’t mean that all debt is necessarily bad (mortgages have helped many). But opposition to usury means, to me, that exploitation of others is always bad, and few instruments offer as much scope for exploitation as debt.

   • Collapse of the credit system has likely the best chance of decreasing what you call usury. Until then, interest rates matching inflation should not be termed usurious, as retirees and those saving for it merely break even over time if rates of interest match inflation. If zero interest, they are pauperized over time.

   • It must be almost entirely the reduction of imports, isn’t it?

   • Tim we agree on that, manipulated behaviour is not the same as determined behaviour it is a flaw at the centre of atomist logic. Graeber is very good on Debt Jubilees they were the ancients solution to the “Problem of Usury”. It’s a huge subject area I actually blame Jeremy Benthams In defence of Usury for the fall of sensible political defence against Usury. Bentham wrote that in an attempt to get Adam Smith to recant from his views against Usury. It’s a delicious Irony of all the Adam Smith fan boys who have not taken the Trouble to read Wealth of Nations let alone Smiths substantial Body of other work. Darwin is in many respects as dumbed down and bumper stickered as is Malthus.

   • Its a tautology, Chicken and egg.

     The Solution is to create bonds bearing equity returns on real investment, not Casino Captial Debt perpetuating the Hubris of the Financial Oligarchical class and its cronies sand henchmen.
     Taleb calls it asymmetric Risk and its a Skin in the game problem, too many dilettantes and not enough stakeholders. Moral Hazard no longer exists in the current bankrupt Model, there are people who are to Blame for this Steven, we all must acknowledge our own part in the idiotic artifice, some are more guilty than others, we all know which side we stand on when we clean our teeth or shave whilst looking in the mirror.

   • http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/kennedy/english/
     Margrit Kennedy: Interest and Inflation Free Money
     (Published by Seva International; ISBN 0-9643025-0-0;
     1. Four Basic Misconceptions About Money 15
     …First Misconception: There Is Only One Type of Growth 18
     …Second Misconception: We Pay Interest Only If We Borrow Money 24
     …Third Misconception: In the Present Monetary System
     We Are All Equally Affected by Interest 25
     …Fourth Misconception: Inflation Is an Integral Part of Free Market Economies 29
     Interest on money drives need for expansion.
     Reliance on one currency ( the dollar is a defacto gold standard.with no monetisation of an analogue for silver to provide circulation and a multiplier due to velocity.
     ”Patriarchal Value Coherence
     All patriarchal societies in history have had the tendency to impose
     a monopoly of a single currency, hierarchically issued, naturally scarce or artificially kept scarce, and with positive interest rates. This was, for instance, the case in Sumer and Babylon, in Greece and Rome, and from the Renaissance onwards in Western societies all the way to today. The form of these currencies has varied widely, ranging from standardized commodities, precious metals, paper or electronic bits. But what they all have in
     common is that governments accepted only that specific currency for payment of taxes, that this currency could be stored and accumulated, and that borrowing such currencies implied payment of interest. They all have in common Yang characteristics as illustrated in Figure 1.”
     https://www.scribd.com/doc/34659324/The-Monetary-Blind-Spot-by-Bernard-Lietaer

     The Monetary Blind Spot by … by tesasilvestre on Scribd

     123

     An Integral View on Money a… by tesasilvestre on Scribd

   • “Academic Taboo
     Challenging a paradigm in any field is always a risky business. In particular, challenging
     the monetary paradigm can be interpreted as violating an academic taboo. It somehow
     gets in the way in being invited to the top conferences or getting published in the most

     prestigious “peer-reviewed” journals. Let us take as example the most prestigious award
     of all, the “Nobel Prize in Economics”. Many people ignore that there is a significant
     difference between that economics prize and the other five established in 1901; the ones
     in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The Economics prize is the only
     one that wasn’t created by the will of Alfred Nobel, nor is it funded by the Nobel
     Foundation. Its technical name is the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in
     Memory of Alfred Nobel”, and it was first awarded in 1969. Its laureates are selected
     exclusively by the Board of the Swedish central bank, and its funding is coming from the
     central bank. Is it surprising that none of the 64 Nobel Laureates in economics so far have
     made the mistake of challenging the monetary paradigm?

     Paul Krugman told the author personally in 2002 in Seoul, Korea, that he has always
     followed one piece of advice that his MIT professors had given him: “never touch the
     money system”. He did get the Nobel in 2008.

     Conclusions
     The four layers that generate the blind spot in the monetary paradigm reinforce each other
     to the point of locking us into a pretty tight straightjacket around what is perceived as
     “normal” or “acceptable” in the monetary domain.”
     Bernard Lietaer. The Monetary Blind Spot by Bernard Lietaer

     Bernards Integral Theory of Money is also very good.
     https://www.scribd.com/document/31690240/An-Integral-View-on-Money-and-Financial-Crashes

   • http://paulgrignon.netfirms.com/MoneyasDebt/MAD2016/essays.htm

     Grigons work, not just cartoon films are excellent. Hardly surprisingly the work is massively shadowbanned and kept from a wider audience.

2. Regarding Mis Pricing and misallocation of resources under advanced Financialised Capitalism this paper from 2010 by Saskia Sassen
   http://www.columbia.edu/~sjs2/PDFs/savage.pdf
   is very good regarding Debt as an instrument of Primitive accumulation, or Coercive Aggregation. These trends are Capital / Political and Ideological in nature and not I would argue driven by Energy imperatives but a necessity for keeping the medium of Exchange scarce so as to privilege one ingroup of Finacial Capitalists, the Roving Cavaliers of Credit as Marx called them. as such SEEDS is forecasting a problem which will arrive but could be postponed a little longer by Changing the Management.

   Reply ↓

   • http://paulgrignon.netfirms.com/MoneyasDebt/Grignon_Recursive_Re-lending_Analysis.pdf

https://dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/

What do other sloggers make of this)
I sent a CV but suspect my lack of elitist sympathies and academic badges mark me out as the wrong sort of MisFit.

I actually read all of the linked-to papers and blogs,

After the whole exercise I have more doubts about Dominic Cummings before I started, The Un-necessary, “I will bin you”, machismo is rather off-putting.

This Talk on the Edge web site is very good, Cummings would do well to watch it and internalise the ideas.

This is a very good video on Di-Electric Magnetism, now this guy is a proper misfit. What’s more, he is I think very close to scientific truth as we would get to, absent vested interests.

This from 1968 is also a breath of fresh air.

and this Fred Hoyle and Richard Feynman.

 

Roger Lewis <rogerglewis13@gmail.com>	Jan 4, 2020, 9:58 AM (1 day ago)
to ideasfornumber10

Dear Algorithm,

almost (4) apply (4) around (5) bad (7) best (4) better (4) changes (4) cognitive (5) data (9) digital (4) diversity (5) experience (5) experts (6) general (5) government (8) hire (4) ideas (12) important (5) interested (6) interesting (7) large (6) lot (5) management (4) managers (4) mathematicians (4) maths (5) officials (4) papers (6) people (31) physicists (4) policy (7) prediction (4) problems (6) project (9) really (5) science (6) scientists (8) skills (10) software (5) sort (7) statistical (4) systems (4) theories (5) things (9) think (5) tools (4) unusual (4) weirdos (4) work (11) world (8)

created at TagCrowd.com

Dear Dominic.

I am a Developer, Programmer, Entrepreneur and Misfit.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lady-luck-investment-strategy-roger-lewis/

http://www.ressources-actuarielles.net/EXT/ISFA/1226.nsf/0/9b2387d0efc27c37c125790b0066595a/$FILE/VPPI-CPPI-ACDFLP-12-02-20.pdf

A variation on the notion that ”you have to be in it to win it´´ and the way to remain in the game is to eliminate risk from your portfolio so that you have a portfolio at all and trust to Lady Luck ( The Tychastic reservoir) ´´to generate your ”hits”.

I have been working on Open Internet Protocol (OIP) and Smart Contracts, permissionless end to end encrypted computing and metadata mining for content creation. I am an open-source GNU / Linux guy, Musician ( Guitar Player ) , Poet, Doer and self-starter. My Github shows what my computing interests are

 https://github.com/tonefreqhz

My Professional Background is as a Chartered Surveyor and Property Developer. from which I retired back in 2003. 

  

I will be in London next week I am doing my first deal in the UK for 20 years for a Web 3 computing private members club with cellular accommodation. Our Working title for the project is The 0’s an 1’s club

If you would like to interview me I am on Skype, Zoom, Google or Facebook this is my long-form CV. You mention “If you want an example of the sort of people we need to find in Britain, look at this on CC Myers — the legendary builders. SPEED. We urgently need people with these sort of skills and attitude. (If you think you are such a company and you could dual carriageway the A1 north of Newcastle in record time, then get in touch!)”  I could do that, Gissa Go!

 

 

Yosser Meets Bozzer?

P.S I have a puerile sense of humour.

P.P.S. I would not have sent this email if I wasn’t prepared to commit the two years you ask for.

You might Find this email I sent to a Co-Working operation in London the other day.

“Obviously, I am just looking for a temporary office whilst we build-out.

The Not the Grub Street Journal Blog may have been what you found on Line.

I am not a corporate guy, I am a proper free market Anarchist and obviously, my Blog reflects that position, I am coming back to London Because of Brexit, if Brexit does not happen I will not proceed, the harder the Brexit the better I like it!”

Best wishes,

Roger

roger@grubstreetnews.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerglewis/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/grub-street-journal-roger-lewis/

Happy New Year all,

I watched this earlier, about Surveillance Capitalism.

Welcome to the Matrix?

I am a very Keen Fan of Andrew Nicols Work, His 2018 Effort Anon, is well worth watching, In time, Gattica, The Truman Show, S1mone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Niccol I have seen all his films several times and for me his filmography takes up where Kubric Left off.

When we were kids, travelling long distances all over Europe from our base in West Germany We Kids always asked the question, Are we nearly there yet? how much longer.

It was always another five minutes. In the Zuboff Interview and the Niccol film Anon truth and fiction are not merely overlapping there is a full eclipse of Dystopian Fiction and Our Lived realities. Are we there yet, YES!!!

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/12/07/159-the-perils-of-equilibria/

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/12/20/160-new-years-revolutions/

rogerglewis
on December 25, 2019 at 8:11 am said:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Hi David,
Its an excellent question and also one which Tim has addressed up to a point here before.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/06/20/129-why-what-how/#comment-7389

drtimmorgan
on June 28, 2018 at 8:21 am said:
Thanks Roger.

I think we can start with the observation that what conventional economics should measure – but doesn’t – is prosperity. The article explains how SEEDS calculates it.

There are two points I’d make now. First, prosperity determines material satisfaction, not least because it reduces stress and worry, so this has political repercussions, and goes a long way to explain why the “unpopulists” are losing out.

Second, prosperity decides how able people are to carry financial burdens, most obviously debt, but ‘social burdens’ too, such as health, education, care for the elderly and defence.

From this, it follows that any school of economics which cannot measure prosperity effectively is of very little use. I think that recognition of this is now dawning on the ‘customers’ of economics – including government, businesses and finance.

What I’m looking at now is the remarkable predicament of China. Countries like the US and the UK typically add to debt at rates of between 5% and 6% of GDP annually – not satisfactory, of course, and far higher than growth, so not a sustainable model. But China, albeit with growth in the range 6% to 7%, borrows more than 30% of GDP each year. That is totally unsustainable – and has been happening for ten years.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2019/07/14/153-one-for-the-sceptics/comment-page-4/#comments

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/05/19/126-whats-next-for-seeds/

drtimmorgan
on March 7, 2018 at 2:39 pm said:
With ECoE by fuel group, you need to remember that the energy used in contructing renewables equipment comes overwhelmingly from fossil fuels. Therefore, even as technology and economies of scale are lowering the ECoEs of renewables, the ECoE of their input costs will be rising. I am very far from convinced that we could – for example – extract or process copper or steel without using fossil fuel energy.

I look at every information source that I can, trying to avoid anything that looks like lobbying. Taking PV just as an example, there are some arguments that it will never cover its energy costs, and others saying it’ll almost “too cheap to meter”.

As you may know, I’m convinced that big commercial and official organisations are going to need to build something like SEEDS as conventional models become ever less useful. I’m not going to hand them the information to do that. So that’s why I publish ECoEs by fuel groups, but not by fuel types – it gives readers what they need, but doesn’t enable someone to build something like SEEDS.

@David Hughes on December 20, 2019 at 11:13 pm said:
Just wondering how you calculated your ECoE and where the data came from. Thanks.

We do Christmas on Christmas Eve in Sweden. Christmas Day is a Chillax day as is Boxing Day. This is kind of appropriate today and here in many ways.

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2019/12/23/over-population-paper-how-big-a-waste-paper-basket-ayers-quite-so-twofingers2brino-4pamphleteers-grubstreetjorno-wiki_ballot-financialeyes-iabato-sam-ge2019-roger-lewis-porthos-joebl/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/03/10/energy-returned-on-energy-invested-surplus-energy-economics-data-base-seeds-embodied-energy-circular-economy/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/05/19/whats-next-for-seeds-shifting-from-gdp-to-prosperity/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/07/05/grand-bargains-dangerous-choices-false-equivalences-land-of-brave-or-the-rising-sun-trumps-trade-war-or-who-ate-all-the-pies/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/07/08/redefining-fiscal-conservatism-the-terra-energy-based-fiscal-unit-fores-and-lagom-white-paper-boundary-conditions-for-a-fiscal-conservatism-based-upon-circular-economics-part-one-scope/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/06/30/end-of-ownership-circular-economy-proof-of-brain-and-primary-intermediary-and-consumption-energy-tokens-a-framework-evolves/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/02/26/possibilist-perspective-on-post-growth-sustainable-money-and-sustainable-energy-whos-reality/

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/06/29/embodied-energy-cost-of-opportunity-cost-which-would-be-a-true-metric-of-decision-making-where-resource-constraints-involve-mutually-exclusive-investment-decisions/

http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2019/11/24/the-economic-oil-nexus-eon-part-1-why-have-low-oil-prices-and-various-economic-stimuli-over-the-past-several-years-failed-to-restore-global-economic-growth/

Don Stewart on December 22, 2019 at 1:38 am said:

Geoffrey Chia on Peak Oil and Economic Collapse
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2019/11/24/the-economic-oil-nexus-eon-part-1-why-have-low-oil-prices-and-various-economic-stimuli-over-the-past-several-years-failed-to-restore-global-economic-growth/

This was published about a month ago. I probably read his article a few years ago on Bardi’s blog, but had forgotten about it. In a nutshell, in this article, after spending some time lambasting nitwits, he tries to explain why low oil prices have not stimulated a genuine economic recovery. His answer (oversimplified by me) is that the previous GFC destroyed demand from the middle class. Supply and demand curves still work, so reduced demand equals lower price.

If we consider ShadowStat’s inflation numbers as real, and the hedrnically adjusted and massaged official numbers as fiction, then look at the destruction aimed at the middle class:
*hollowing out of the bonds backing pensions
*hollowing out of stocks backing pensions as companies purchase their own shares using borrowed money
*failure of social security payments to match the real cost of inflation
*the continued retail apocalypse…which cannot be explained away by Amazon
*failure of wages to rise anywhere near the level of real inflation

When I look at that list, it gives me some confidence that Chia is providing a plausible explanation. Falling interest rates may have prevented total collapse, but they have not created organic growth. He looks to falling EROI for conventional oil as the underlying factor.

Don StewartReply ↓

• austrianpeteron December 22, 2019 at 10:14 am said:Many thanks Don, great article and exactly as Tim describes in his book – the chart is exactly the same! i wonder where they got it?
• rogerglewison December 25, 2019 at 9:02 am said:Your comment is awaiting moderation.
  That’s an interesting Web site and the article is also interesting two glaring missing questions are State Licensing of Oil Extraction and also State Taxation of the Product along with State privatisation of the FIAT Currency Unit as Debt.Stripping out Oil Taxation from EROI and Prosperity measures, This will make the real underlying EROI evident and also bring light on the question of the Dynamic between the Economic Unit of currency ( FIAT) and the State choice of FIAT based world economies to accept sanctioning the privatised FIAT money System.https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2019/12/08/159-the-perils-of-equilibria/What are the economic principles of taxation?
  Hi, Tim Seasons Greetings.
  On the post, I do not think it is one of your best.
  It says that seeds predicts all of this and then gives a straightforward monetary analysis.
  I find this disappointing. I am going to download the resources and look for the correlations you are claiming but which you have not explained here.One glaring point missing from your analysis, even though you give per capita GDP and Debt figures are that wealth redistribution and increased inequality is not stripped out of your figures.
  I have become increasingly persuaded that the precariat is a matter of political Design and not some accident or necessity due to energy constraint realities. I believe it is explained by the oldest cause of want and that is the greed of a corrupted elite.Let’s Look at Norway. Brino is a deceased Norweigan Blue. Yet Corbyn’s sit on the fence “Credible leave Option”, points to a revival of the dead Norwegian Parrot. #EUMilitaryUnion and the Norwegian Option? #TwoFingers2Brino #4Pamphleteers @GrubStreetJorno @Survation @wiki_ballot @financialeyes #WIKIBALLOTPICK #IABATO #SAM #GE2019 Roger Lewis ( Porthos) @JoeBlob20 @GloriaDePiero
  rogerglewis Uncategorized December 11, 2019 12 MinutesWiki_Ballot
  @wiki_ballot
  David James, Baron James of Blackheath #EUMilitaryUnification @ukcolumn https://www.bitchute.com/video/zRZMTnxrlDEb/ … #BitChuteTonefreqhz
  David James, Baron James of Blackheath #EUMilitaryUnification @ukcolumnbitchute.com
  9:45 AM – Dec 11, 2019
  Twitter Ads info and privacy
  See Wiki_Ballot’s other Tweets
  Why did Theresa May allegedly turn down the EU offer of a ‘free-trade’ deal with Europe?
  Keith Young
  Keith Young, studied History at Birbeck College, University of London
  Answered Nov 28, 2018
  I am not sure she did. However, a free trade deal was always a possibility (and still is).She did not want a free trade deal because she wanted to be in the single market and customs union, because she is a Remainer. What she tried to negotiate was access to the single market and customs union without membership. The end result is a deal to remain in the EU but with no say in EU policy. This is why Remainers are claiming (correctly) this is worse than Remain. It is a dog’s breakfast that will be rejected by parliament. I doubt the majority against will be much under 200. The more she advoca…How Norway Does State Oil and Political Economy COntrasted with the UK Neo-Liberal Experiment is quite fruitful.These 3 posts together will go into the excellent report called Drilling into Debt.https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2018/04/20/the-black-and-the-green-debt-oil-and-arms-zionist-imperialism-and-international-banking/
  http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2011/01/DrillingIntoDebt.pdf