Young Master Smeet
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I opted not to go in studs first over the monopoly thing, but it does take up a good chunk of my review. I could have gone on more about the ‘monopolies’ competing for investment so still being subject ultimately to market discipline, but I thought that would be too complex to deal with in a short review.
I think her point about planning is not that the market is defunct, but in many ways, even a free market is a result of planning and design, the the choice isn’t between a planned economy and a market economy, but democratic planning versus oligarchic, it’s more a tone/rhetoric thing than substantive analysis.
Reading the Epstein story more generally, including the article published in the New York Times yesterday, it seems Epstein was very good at cultivating contacts and trading off light associations (which he would exaggerate to his own ends).
“Epstein exaggerated his association with David Rockefeller as a crucial calling card.
Few Americans were better connected in the 1990s than David Rockefeller, the heir to the industrial fortune. We found that Epstein managed to insinuate himself into Rockefeller’s world by having his foundation donate tens of thousands of dollars to Rockefeller University and the Trilateral Commission. On at least one occasion that has not been previously reported, Epstein hosted Rockefeller at his Manhattan mansion for a small group discussion about estate planning, an attendee told us.
Epstein also claimed that he managed money for the Rockefeller family, which appears to have been a lie; a person who helped manage the family’s wealth told us that Epstein didn’t even pitch Rockefeller on any investments. Nonetheless, we found that Epstein used the Rockefeller name to impress powerful people and institutions.”
“Les Wexner, the billionaire behind such brands as the Limited and Victoria’s Secret, was probably Epstein’s biggest benefactor, but he also offered another kind of currency: credibility and credentials.
In the late ’80s, Epstein used his association with Wexner to develop relationships with men like Ken Lipper, a prominent hedge-fund manager; we discovered that Epstein then falsely claimed on a regulatory filing that he worked for a Lipper hedge fund. He used Wexner’s money to rescue the lawyer Alan Dershowitz from a failed investment; Dershowitz went on to become one of Epstein’s chief defenders.”
Noticeably, Epstein procured letters of reference from some of these people, seemingly like the one Chomsky penned.
Mod note: Please avoid posting bare links, it’s good manners to at least describe what you are linking to and why readers of this forum may find it relevant.
So Connolly won by a landslide, on a slightly increased turnout.
103K people voted for a candidate who withdrew from the contest.
213K joined a spoilt ballot contest, organise by the far right, ostensibly because the system was ‘rigged’ because their candidate was unable to get nominated by parliamentarians or councils (apparently it is unusual for Fine Gael to whip its councillors to not support an independent, but it is hardly unfair nor unreasonable to expect them to not back an opponent to their party’s candidate – as matter of fact, with the ranking voting system Ireland uses, it wouldn’t matter if there were further candidates, except for media exposure, Steen could not have won). The various left parties, including Sinn FeinThis is useful to us, because it shows how a spoilt ballot campaign can punch through, in this case, reaching 16% in some quarters.
Well, all markets are designed markets, and all markets (despite the propaganda) are creatures of the state and law, so in essence, China isn’t doing anything that Western states haven’t already done, as I understand it, Xi’s big thing is the central role of the party:
See, https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c1dmwn4r
(about a third of the points concern the Party).(I knew he is a Red Prince, but didn’t realise how significant his father was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Zhongxun)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98jjgqyd6po
This is also relevant:
“The process starts with yeast that has been genetically modified to produce casein, the key protein in milk, instead of alcohol. Jevan says this is the same technique used to produce insulin without having to harvest it from pigs.
Other companies also use bacteria or fungi to produce casein.
Once the casein is made through this precision fermentation, it is mixed with plant-based fat and the other components of milk needed for cheese, and then the traditional cheese-making process ensues.”
https://rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-britannia-063
This is wonderful, a list of defunct unions and party names. I particularly liked
“Committee of the Useful Classes”
and
“The London Corresponding Society of the Unrepresented Part of the People of Great Britain”Shop staff, train drivers, security guards don’t directly produce surplus value, but they are a cost and an essential part of the overall realisation of value: the collective working class produces the surplus value.
To take my usual example of a cricket ball factory, some of the team will be directly involved in creating the ball, some just put it in a box, or move the boxes to the loading bay for collection. None of the directly productive staff can say how much value they added, since it is a collective act, and the box fillers and movers are essential to getting the product out.
It’s disheartening to see so many people online cheering on Iran’s bombardment of Israel (just as much as any cheering for the bombing of Tehran is abhorrent). the loss of life is a loss of potential for all humanity, mute inglorious Miltons (or future cancer researchers, AI specialists, or whatever) are dying, useful housing is being destroyed and the environment despoiled and resources depleted. It’s awful to watch.
On money as a token. That token is a claim to wealth: when a government issue a token, it has the force of violence behind it. “Use this money, or face the consequences”, hence why taxation is an essential part of issuing money.
Anyone can issue an IOU, and that IOU might circulate (if people trust you sufficiently), but for it not to be fraud, you have to be capable of making good the promise on the IOU if it ever gets called in. Of course, it is not fraud if you don’t have the goods to redeem the IOU in your pocket at the moment of its creation, if you have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to pay when the note gets called. An IOU does not transfer money from one person to the next, it transfers a claim to money.
Whilst a good solid IOU is written on paper, properly notarised, signed, counter signed and stamped, there is nothing to stop an IOU being electronic, so long as the eIOU can be validated and verified.
When a bank issues a loan they (should) carefully check that the borrower is capable of paying it back, they are creating a sort of IOU for their customer saying ‘they are capable of paying for an asset worth £X thousand.’ depending on the nature of the loan, they’re also certifying that the borrower has sufficient wherewithal to cover the loan in the event of default through cash flow issues. If anything, it would be the borrower (and their work) that creates the money, not the lending bank.
But the borrower hasn’t created the wealth yet, and needs time to realise that, which is where the bank comes in, the bank covers the IOU, to prevent it being fraudulent. But, in turn, the bank has to be good for that over the counter demand, or it is committing fraud. Only the state, which gets to define fraud, can issue money without needing to back it from elsewhere: but, of course, when a state issues unbacked currency to appropriate resources, that is a form of taxation, so even then, it is only taking from wealth already created elsewhere.
(Final wee point, in the UK many banks don’t pay interest on current accounts, but in lieu of interest they also don’t charge for services).
“Limousin, the archetype of an unchanging peasant land, experienced the Commune of 1871 intensely. We do not know it. The Limousin workers paid a heavy price. We do not count the dead on the barricades, nor the shot, nor the imprisoned, nor the deported to New Caledonia and Guyana. We have almost forgotten them.
The Communard uprising of the spring of 1871 has long been treated as a brief convulsion of history, a very Parisian anecdote without consequences, quickly erased by the indifference or hostility of rural France. Recent work has challenged this preconceived idea and it is in this research perspective that this book is set: the Commune is also a Limousin story.”
That actually sounds very interesting: seems there was an earlier book on the subject:
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Oubli%C3%A9s-lHistoire-Limousins-Commune-Paris-1871/30975808480/bdSadly, can’t find anything in English on the subject.
A bit late to the party: I revised my view of boxing some years ago, there was a fight on the telly in the pub, and some flyweights were giving each other welly. I realised at any moment either of them could stop, just walk away: its a sport not so much of inflicting damage but of demonstrating resilience in the face of damage and carrying on. It’s also a sport, at the top level, about the skill of not being hit, and having tremendous reserves of energy and fitness.
Partly that’s why I’ve shied away from MMA, although they’ve (mercifully) stopped head kicks on the floor, they still have ground and pound punching, which is unpleasant to watch.
I’ve been along to some exhibition chess boxing matches (yes, really), but the chess players, even with some moderate boxing skill, didn’t have the energy to have any power in their shots by the third round.
All that said, I think in socialism, where we won’t have police or armies to settle disputes like this, we will have some terrific arguments, and one town or village might take a different view than another for how their venues might be used. There won’t be money to gamble, prizes to give out, advertising, pay-per-view, or anything of that sort. If people still wanted to test themselves in this way, I imagine they’d find a way.
