Rohan Grey, who taught us to understand money as a creature of law, is back for his tenth appearance on Macro N Cheese.

Steve and Rohan dissect the humor and horror of the political landscape. They make a realistic assessment of the Biden administration and look at figures like Elon Musk and Ramaswamy as part of a new wave of governance setting out to undermine the fabric of federal institutions.

The inherent assumption in “big computer” socialism is that the problems in the Soviet system of planning were not insurmountable, and other alternative planning systems, like the brief Cybersyn experiment in Chile show a way forward. Indeed, there was a glimmer of this possibility in the USSR. Faced with a stagnating economy in the 60s, it was clear to many that the Soviet planning system needed reforms. The road taken was that of the Kosygin-Lieberman 1965 reforms which introduced some market mechanisms, such as using profitability and sales as the two key indicators of enterprise success. These substituted the old Stalinist principle of “business bookkeeping”, where enterprises had to meet planners’ expectations within a system of fixed prices for inputs/outputs, causing perverse incentives such as making badly-made surpluses or increases in product weight as a net positive for the enterprise.

However, there was another option to the introduction of some market mechanisms in the economy: the road of using the available computing technology to help the planners plan and eliminate the perverse incentives. This was the main idea of Victor Glushkov, and his OGAS system. OGAS was not just “the Soviet internet” as it has sometimes been referred to; in its original form, it was supposed to be a system for radically modifying the planning systems of the economy. The original idea of OGAS was never implemented. Instead, it was downgraded and gutted to the point it became a ghost of itself, failing to provide a line of flight for the creation of a new economy. However, the principles behind it still hold, and can guide us in thinking about what shape the future can take. It is in this context that we present a short biography of Victor Gluskhov and the Soviet attempt at having a “big computer” plan its economy.

“The need is infrastructure,” he said. “You may produce all this light sweet crude oil in Texas. But if you don’t have pipelines to the nation’s refineries to deliver it, how are you going to be able to utilize it?”

So importing foreign crude oil is cheaper. Meanwhile, De Haan said, increasing renewable energy demand is making investments in fossil fuels riskier.

So we buy and refine the cheaper stuff, and we sell our more expensive stuff to places that can’t do that. There’s one more discount: The majority of our oil comes from our closest neighbor.

I've posted this in response to Trump's promise to "drill, baby, drill" as well as for all the people who have fuel prices as one of their primary concerns.

The reason gas prices are high is because it doesn't make fiscal sense for corporations to invest in the infrastructure to refine locally sourced crude oil. And, as it seems, refining local crude may actually increase prices at the pumps.

From everything I've read (please share anything that's contradictory), it seems like Trump's agenda is going to increase the cost of everything. For the number of people who voted based on 'the economy', I wish we had had more transparent discussions about the impact of his plans. I'm already scared for whomever has to inherit this pending catastrophe.

Not completely sure I'm doing it right, but a 2:1 safe state for swing state swap seems like a bad deal. Here's my reasoning:

• In New Jersey, as an example of a safe state for Harris, Fivethirtyeight has Harris winning in 993 out of 1000 simulated elections. Assuming the same turnout as 2020 of 4,549,457 votes, there's a 0.500546 chance, on average, that a NJ voter will vote for Harris. I figured that out using the BINOM.DIST.RANGE function and the Goal Seek tool in Excel.
• In Michigan, with a turnout of 5,539,302 voters in 2020, Harris wins in only 605 out of 1000 simulations. Using the same tools above, if you randomly picked any Michigan voter, there's a 0.500059 chance that he or she is voting for Harris.
• Using the BINOMDIST function with the assumed turnouts and the chances we determined that voters in each of the above states would go for Harris, there's a 3.25986e-4 chance that Michigan is decided by a single vote. Likewise, there's a 2.47681e-5 chance for the same in NJ. Based on the probability that it could shift electoral college votes, a Michigan ballot is distinctly more powerful than an NJ one.
• If you could could reliably convince one more person to vote like you in NJ, your chances of affecting the NJ outcome only increase to 2.48222e-5.
• For an NJ voter to match their chances of affecting the Michigan outcome, they would have to command about 1,925 votes besides their own. In other words, there's an almost equal chance of a single vote Harris victory in MI as a 1,926 vote victory in NJ.
• Therefore, if a Michigan voter values their power, they should not trade their vote for anything less than 1,926 New Jersey votes. The rate should actually be greater to account for welching and Michigan having one more electoral vote than NJ.

Am I missing something?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22156613

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22156612

Matt Sledge
November 4 2024, 1:56 p.m.#

ahead of Germany and Japan. Using PPP GDP measure.

a more detailed, but biased, article https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/11/no_author/russian-economy-zooms-ahead-outpaces-us-and-eu-growth/

There is more likely to be a collapse on the west from supporting a Ukraine war. There is zero resonance of "NATO is a purely defensive alliance" propaganda meant to be a friend to the world or to Russia inside of Russia. It is fully understood as an existential threat in Russia, while it is a casual inconvenience to those who trust western media in the west. A deep concern for the world/west is that Russia's extreme growth in military production means that we will soon be asked to boost competing military production and compromise our own sustainability and leisure.

Re-publishing this, because I rewrote the post a bit.

Target audience is people who like to talk about "negative externalities" and the need to "internalize" them.

Although at this point, it might make strategic sense to use the language of neoclassical economists to push for (e.g.) a carbon tax, we should recognize the fundamental flaws in the underlying world view.

https://mishathings.org/posts/internalize-this-environmental-economics/

#CarbonTax #EnvironmentalJustice #ClimateDiary @economics

In article's first chart, it lists China as competitive this year in robotics and machine tools. It is far more appropriate to call it a global leader in these categories, as that is where all of the manufacturing customers are.

While Musk is referring to the magical $2T+ in budget cuts to US budget he will sail through magical congressional unanimity...

Hardship has to include the extreme difficulty in reindustrializing the US in an environment where labour is deported, and reciprocal tariffs means serving a local declining market where fewer people have money left over if they are overpaying for imported goods.

Recessions not only reduce tax revenue, they also are typically responded to by significant government investment to pull out of recession, and the US is nearly maxed out already.

Offshore wind output surged 37% year on year, hydropower generation grew 21%, solar was up 20%, and onshore wind 6%. On the other hand, coal-fired generation fell 7% and gas output dropped 24%

double digit declines in coal and NG use were also present every earlier month of this year. Europe has by far achieved the biggest emission reductions in the world this year. 16% point market share drop for fossil fuels electricity since just 2023.

This is the most comprehensive reporting on Chinese emissions released regularly. There is still an expectation/possibility that China's emissions will be lower than 2023, and then a near certainty that the peak will be 2023 or 2024.

Some notes:

China is only committed to peaking by 2030. Ministry doesn't view an early peak as a new goal.

7.8% electricity demand growth in Q3 was huge, and so slight emission increase from power sector. Oil (EVs and LNG truck success), Steel and Cement (construction downturn) emissions were down to make overall emissions flat.

A worrying national/energy security measure is China is expanding its ability to make oil and gas chemicals from coal instead.

Much better article than just the rise of central bank rates to 21%.

It's possible to read between the lines for how the oligarchs are complaining the economy is ruined, vs. high wages for ordinary people making ordinary people better off and happy.

This is a good expectation of what a UBI/Freedom dividends economy would look like when people have the freedom to say no to work offers because they have better options. Except that instead of tying up people into military defense of nation, they can be training for better opportunities than what is currently offered.