Gregory's Server
 44 comments
  @sjolsen The pile of "shit "we're eating is the Earth. It's unsustainable. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/the-economy-we-need-to-save-ourselves @gdeihl @sjolsen to be fair, consuming the waste output of another still-breathing mammal is actually a great example of the circular economy at work. #EatShitAndThinkNutrients 10/10 best economics joke I've heard in years. Also a great way to teach how shitty a measure GDP is! At a deeper level, these economists each are willing pay the other $100 to eat shit while also being willing to accept the same $100 to eat it, implying they value watching someone else eat shit more than they dislike eating shit themselves. If this doesn't capture why the Republican base has been voting against their own economic self-interest for generations, I don't know what does!  The hardest thing to wrap my mind around when it comes to the economy is that only debt actually creates money. Someone's debt supposedly brings new money into the world. Don't ask me how. It's all voodoo when it comes down to it. @MyWoolyMastadon @sjolsen debt comes before money in fact, don't let that barter myth fool ya
@MyWoolyMastadon @sjolsen Your checking account balance is just a measure of the bank’s debt to you. When a bank lends (eg a housing loan), it actually creates debts in both directions: the bank’s debt to you is recorded as an increase in the balance of your checking account (“new money”). @MyWoolyMastadon @sjolsen I think the bank of England explains it quite nicely https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf  @sjolsen - The real Economist answer is that each has derived $100 worth of enjoyment out of watching the other eat shit, to their net benefit, because they are rational actors. Very, very rational.   @sjolsen this is why my parents said they'd help me as much as possible with college tuition... as long as I didn't study economics or philosophy I laughed. I might have also cringed at the thought of the taste of, uh, shit, but then I laughed again.   @NorCalWineLady @sjolsen don't go walking with economists. They're into some weird shit. Literally.  @sjolsen It is well known in the business that GDP is a shit (ha ha) metric. The problem is that it's an internationally defined metric, and decades of attempts have failed to get enough international agreement to shift the bureaucratic machine. @sjolsen To be fair, anything that gets economists to eat shit is a net gain for society  @sjolsen Which only goes to prove that economic theory is full of shit.  |
@sjolsen This post has somehow taught me more than a semester of macroeconomics