Young Master Smeet
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Thanks ALB, that looks really good, must point more people to it.
So, thinking further about the content, this seems to be the crux:
The idea being to get rid of the secondary market in government bonds; but I can’t see how that can work, since even if the bond itself isn’t tradable, the owner can make a contract to give the interest and the bond redemption to a third party. These alternative contracts will then become available, and people will buy them rather than government gilts, and therefore this will affect the interest rate that the government will have to pay.
I think he admits as much here: “The objection is narrower: against a tradable gilt of the same term, the holder gives up the right to sell, and will want paying for it.” i.e. off-market financing will be more expensive than open market financing.
The alternative would be to actively forbid the bond holders from forming such contracts, this could be done via institutional investors (local governments, pensions, etc.) but then we are approaching state capitalism and an almost entirely planned market economy.
I wasn’t questioning your translations, but the fact that at the top is says “Traducción y notas por Edmund Griffiths (2026).” which gives the implication that the translations are by EG, when he’s only responsible for the English translation from the Russian.
I think if we’re posting French and Spanish translations of Edmund’s English translation, we should make a note that he isn’t responsible for those translations (are these machine translations?).
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.
