Category Archives: Economics

PROMPT: Cryptocurrency

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What are your thoughts about cryptocurrency?

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Cryptocurrency is the ultimate symbol of the absurdity of our species. People are using tremendous amounts of electricity to “mine coin,” running up everyone’s electricity bills and hastening climate disruption for a something that can lose value in an instant in any number of ways from governments enforcing a monopoly on minting money to buyers realizing that not everything that is kept scarce has inherent value. (One-armed juggling midgets are rare, but there’re not any giving Elon Musk (Vladimir Putin?) a run for his money for the highest net worth slot.) It will have a prominent role in the second great depression, mark my words. Ballooning pseudo-value may kill us all.

BOOK: “Reinventing the Bazaar” by John McMillan

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Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of MarketsReinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets by John McMillan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Norton

This is a highly readable overview of markets: how they work, how they fail, what they’re good for, and what they aren’t. It’s an objective accounting of markets that neither cheerleads nor condemns but rather seeks to get at how markets form a system that is at once both the best of worlds and the worst.

The key to this book’s success is the selection of case studies, many of which are fascinating. While the subtitle, “A Natural History of Markets,” might lead the reader to think that this is a much bigger and more boring book than it is, McMillan actually picks a case or two to illustrate each of the seventeen topical chapters. Topics include: the peculiarities of markets for information, approaches to auctions, issues around intellectual property, inequality, governance and policy interaction with markets, etc.

It’s not easy to enjoy reading a book about economics, but this one certainly draws the reader into its web. I’d highly recommend this as a go-to guide for anyone who wants a compelling and objective introduction to markets.

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PROMPT: Financial Success

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How does your mindset affect your financial success?

Nonlinearly. First, positively with increasing marginality. Then, with decreasing marginality. And, finally, negatively.

PROMPT: Best Purchase

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Daily writing prompt
What is the best purchase you have ever made?
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I can’t claim I’ve ever done as well as Peter Minuit (buying Manhattan for $24) or Thomas Jefferson (picking up the Louisiana Territory at $0.04 / acre,) or the USG (acquiring Alaska for $0.02 / acre.)

I once bought a nice stick (which still have,) but it was not a tremendous bargain.

BOOK: “The Attention Merchants” by Tim Wu

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The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our HeadsThe Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Penguin

This book explores the evolution of capturing attention for commercial purposes. It delves into the history of attention economics from the development of print ads to the pursuit of virality via the internet and social media. Wu outlines how different media (e.g. print, radio, television, cable tv, and the internet) learned different lessons about how to make advertising work given the unique nature of each platform. The book also offers insight into how advertising spawned a market for people’s personal consumer information as the internet era began to allow companies to target ads for maximum effect, rather than using the scattershot approach that was all that was available to radio and broadcast television.

I found this book to be informative and it’s a subject of which people should be aware. William James famously said, “…what we attend to is reality.” If James was right, our reality is being shaped by forces that often remain outside our awareness. If you are curious about the attention economy, this is a highly readable overview of the subject.

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PROMPT: Erase

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Daily writing prompt
If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be?
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I’ll preface my comment by saying this kind of thinking is fraught with peril. The law of unintended consequences makes knowing whether one’s counterfactual would produce the intended results impossible.

For example, in the US (and some other countries of the developed world,) there has been a proclivity to run up massive debt — both budget and trade. In the US, servicing debt has passed defense spending and (given current trends) will surpass entitlements to become the largest component of the Federal deficit. I am among those who think this will probably end catastrophically, given the complete lack of effort to correct the situation. (Jaw-jacking and firing civil servants whose salaries make up a pittance in comparison to interest payments — while building yet more debt-inducing budgets — has [unsurprisingly] not proved useful.)

So, this is definitely a trend I wish didn’t exist, but almost certainly the American and world economies would not be as well off to date as they are had this trend been kept in check, and it’s possible something might be figured out that allows a softer landing than I presently expect. The old man lost his horse. Good news? Bad news? Who’s to say?

PROMPT: 20 Years

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
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I think cell phones will be replaced by cheap cyborg implants that fulfill the same myriad functions and more. Just as we were convinced that we were being given a great benefit with social media, when — in fact — we were just handing over our attention and data on the cheap. This time we’ll be signing away a great deal more — we’ll be meat puppets for the billionaires, carrying out consumption function programming as ignorantly blissful as Cypher from The Matrix. Welcome to the Cyber-Sheep economy. BAHaaaaah.

Proviso: People (me included) are shite at forecasting. We call broken clocks “genius” based on those two times a day they are right, but forecasting genius is just selection bias plus Mrs. Cleo pseudo-psychic tactics (be vague, sound specific.) Also, remember we are always one nuclear winter away from flint knapping being the prevailing mode of technology.

PROMPT: Loyal Subscribers

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Daily writing prompt
How do you build loyal subscribers?
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I don’t know and I kind of hate the term “loyal” applied to commercial and / or attention capturing domains. There can’t be any reasonable expectation that someone who bought your product once (either in cash or attention) owes you their attention and / or dollars in the future. If the answer is anything else than do your best work EVERY. SINGLE. TIME, then I think we’ve jumped the shark as a species.

PROMPT: Won’t Live to Witness

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Daily writing prompt
What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?
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I would love to see an era in which AI and robotics frees up humans to work on the project of being better humans physically, mentally, creatively, emotionally, artistically, etc.

However, I suspect that on the way to that point there will be periods of dystopia, chaos, and quasi-Armageddon. As near as I can tell, it will involve the invention of a new form of economy (and possibly governance,) which I haven’t seen anyone discussing in the merited depths.

PROMPT: Minimalism

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Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in minimalism?
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Absolutely. The IKEA Nesting Instinct has run amok, and Consumer is a definitionally discontented state of being.

Personally, I hate that I know what a duvet is.