BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2023-11-15 We
Dan Drezner notes that Tom Friedman finally has more than one non-embarrassing column in a row; the entire Supreme Court winks at bribery and corruption; the possibility that Tether is way underwater; ; Martha Wells’s MurderBot novel “System Collapse”; the two genders; very briefly noted; & a bunch of drafts—from feudal to applied-science society, entitled homeowners, & perception & reality of the economy, plus Briefly Noted for 2023-11-11 Sa…
SubStack NOTES:
Journamalism: I realize that I should not be surprised that people are much better thinkers when they are writing about something that they know about rather than about something that they do not. Somehow, when journalism became a profession, reporters begin thinking that they should not know too much about what they were covering, or else they would be “biased “–which I take to mean that they would be unable to write their necessary beat-sweeteners with straight faces. And that habit then spread out from beat reporting to the whole enterprise. Tom Friedman over the past month is a sign of what a better world might look like. And Dan Drezner takes note:
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-paradox-of-tom-friedmans-resurgence?publication_id=1010841&post_id=138769963&isFreemail=false&r=d0v","target":"_blank","rel":"noopener noreferrer nofollow","class":"note-link"}}],"text":"https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-paradox-of-tom-friedmans-resurgence?publication_id=1010841&post_id=138769963&isFreemail=false&r=d0v"},{"type":"text","text":": ‘The longstanding "},{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"New York Times"},{"type":"text","text":" columnist has had a good month of commentary. What does that mean?… Friedman is on a hot streak because he’s writing about the region about which he possesses the deepest reservoir of knowledge. That does not erase all of his earlier, somewhat-more-vapid columns…. Term limits for columnists… five years…. When a crisis emerges that touches on their initial area of expertise, be prepared to take former columnists and give them a temporary stint…"}]}]}]},"restacks":0,"reaction_count":0,"attachments":[{"id":"aea96a1b-fa43-4c06-bad0-09878b6184ff","type":"post","publication":{"apple_pay_disabled":false,"author_id":46261221,"byline_images_enabled":true,"bylines_enabled":true,"chartable_token":null,"community_enabled":true,"copyright":"Daniel W. 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Neofascism: The Supreme Court—all nine justices—say: “Clarence Thomas’s bribery and corruption is absolutely fine with us”. I cannot see this as anything but a sign that all nine of them need to go: that they have all nine seriously lost the plot with respect to what their responsibilities are:
https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable","target":"_blank","rel":"noopener noreferrer nofollow","class":"note-link"}}],"text":"https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable"},{"type":"text","text":": ‘The code is so weak that it serves to legitimize Clarence Thomas’s corruption. It is literally worse than nothing…"}]}]}]},"restacks":0,"reaction_count":0,"attachments":[{"id":"877c5fee-c06e-4927-b5e1-ca65c2a4b7df","type":"link","linkMetadata":{"image":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/30236a68-448a-4ceb-9485-99948f92af43_1200x628.jpeg","title":"The Supreme Court’s new ethics code is a joke","description":"The code is so weak that it serves to legitimize Clarence Thomas’s corruption. It is literally worse than nothing.","url":"https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/11/14/23960027/supreme-court-new-ethics-code-clarence-thomas-unenforceable","host":"vox.com"},"explicit":false}],"name":"Brad DeLong","user_id":16879,"photo_url":"https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ea5ae644-9822-4ca5-ac6b-e18c017d8fbc_1189x1208.png","user_bestseller_tier":100}}" data-component-name=“CommentPlaceholder”>
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CryptoGrifters: I confess that the possibility that the fundamental value of $1 in the Tether StableCoin is only $0.50 is rather unnerving. Right now Tether should be making net profits of $3 billion a year. And it would take someone wishing and willing to make a $40 billion run-on-the-bank bet to bust it if it is massively insolvent to the tune of 50%—and correspondingly more if the hole in the balance sheet is smaller. That would seem unlikely. But such an attack or a run is not an order of magnitude more unlikely in our models than the run that took down the Terra-Luna Algorithmic StableCoin:
protos.com/tether-pa…>… fined and banned from doing business in New York after the Office of the Attorney General discovered <ag.ny.gov/press-rel…> they were lying…. The company has spent years promising to publish audits of the more than $80 billion Tethers (abbreviated to USDT) in circulation, they have produced none. Besides exchanges, Alameda Research was Tether’s largest customer. We know that the company received around 40 billion of the tokens: almost half of the token’s current circulating supply, and 20% of the tokens ever issued by the company. What we don’t know is why, or with what money they purchased such a massive quantity of tokens…. Alameda Research appears to have only ever redeemed a small portion (around $4 billion) of the USDT they bought…. Some… have suggested that Alameda and FTX may have in fact been using the tokens to enable money laundering and capital flight (particularly out of China, which has strict capital controls). Others… have questioned whether Alameda ever actually sent Tether the roughly $40 billion in cash… to properly back the tokens, or if the tokens could have been minted with no backing—which would mean that a substantial portion of USDT on the market today could never be redeemed…","body_json":{"type":"doc","attrs":{"schemaVersion":"v1"},"content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"CryptoGrifters"},{"type":"text","text":": I confess that the possibility that the fundamental value of $1 in the Tether StableCoin is only $0.50 is rather unnerving. Right now Tether should be making net profits of $3 billion a year. And it would take someone wishing and willing to make a $40 billion run-on-the-bank bet to bust it if it is massively insolvent to the tune of 50%—and correspondingly more if the hole in the balance sheet is smaller. That would seem unlikely. But such an attack or a run is not an order of magnitude more unlikely in our models than the run that took down Terra-Luna’s Algorithmic StableCoin:"}]},{"type":"paragraph"},{"type":"blockquote","content":[{"type":"orderedList","attrs":{"start":1},"content":[{"type":"listItem","content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Molly White"},{"type":"text","text":": The stones left unturned in the Sam Bankman-Fried trial <"},{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"link","attrs":{"href":"newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-sto…","target":"_blank","rel":"noopener noreferrer nofollow","class":"note-link"}}],"text":"newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-sto…"},{"type":"text","text":": ‘From billions of mysterious Tethers to the apparent identity theft of Thai sex workers, many questions remain about what happened at Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire…. The elephant in the room throughout the trial was Tether… a shadowy stablecoin provider <"},{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"link","attrs":{"href":"protos.com/tether-pa…","target":"_blank","rel":"","class":"note-link"}}],"text":"protos.com/tether-pa…"},{"type":"text","text":"… fined and banned from doing business in New York after the Office of the Attorney General discovered <"},{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"link","attrs":{"href":"ag.ny.gov/press-rel…","target":"_blank","rel":"","class":"note-link"}}],"text":"ag.ny.gov/press-rel…"},{"type":"text","text":" they were lying…. The company has spent years promising to publish audits of the more than $80 billion Tethers (abbreviated to USDT) in circulation, they have produced none. Besides exchanges, Alameda Research was Tether’s largest customer. We know that the company received around 40 billion of the tokens: almost half of the token’s current circulating supply, and 20% of the tokens ever issued by the company. What we don’t know is "},{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":"why"},{"type":"text","text":", or with what money they purchased such a massive quantity of tokens…. Alameda Research appears to have only ever redeemed a small portion (around $4 billion) of the USDT they bought…. Some… have suggested that Alameda and FTX may have in fact been using the tokens to enable money laundering and capital flight (particularly out of China, which has strict capital controls). Others… have questioned whether Alameda ever actually sent Tether the roughly $40 billion in cash… to properly back the tokens, or if the tokens could have been minted with no backing—which would mean that a substantial portion of USDT on the market today could never be redeemed…"}]}]}]}]}]},"restacks":0,"reaction_count":0,"attachments":[{"id":"370f1144-469d-4903-8511-a4953ee81743","type":"link","linkMetadata":{"image":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a109920a-3e82-4964-be2b-7044f498fc9f_1200x675.png","title":"Attorney General James Ends Virtual Currency Trading Platform Bitfinex’s Illegal Activities in New York","description":"Bitfinex and Tether Must Submit to Mandatory Reporting on Efforts to Stop New York Trading Bitfinex and Tether Deceived Clients and Market by Overstating","url":"ag.ny.gov/press-rel…","host":"ag.ny.gov"},"explicit":false}],"name":"Brad DeLong","user_id":16879,"photo_url":"https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ea5ae644-9822-4ca5-ac6b-e18c017d8fbc_1189x1208.png","user_bestseller_tier":100}}" data-component-name=“CommentPlaceholder”>
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THREE VIDEOS: Yesterday Was the Release Date for Martha Wells’s New MurderBot Novel System Collapse:
Wells, Martha. 2023. System Collapse. The Murderbot Diaries, Book 7. New York: Tordotcom Publishing. <https://www.amazon.com/System-Collapse-Murderbot-Diaries-Book-ebook/dp/B0BQGJHG3Q/>
MurderBot: <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FK8SNWY>
ONE IMAGE:
Very Briefly Noted:
Economics: Augusta Saraiva: US Inflation Broadly Slows, Erasing Bets on More Fed Rate Hikes: ‘Traders pull forward timing of when Fed will first cut rates…. Shelter prices… a third of the overall CPI… climbed 0.3%, half the prior month’s pace…. Excluding housing and energy, services prices climbed 0.2% from September…. So-called core goods prices, which exclude food and energy commodities, fell for a fifth month…
Katia Dmitrieva: Here Are the Key Takeaways From US CPI Report for October: ‘Consumer prices rose at a slower-than-expected pace across the board: CPI was flat from the prior month and up 3.2% from the prior year. On a core basis, which excludes food and fuel, prices were up 0.2% on the month and 4% on the year…. More good news in supercore… core services minus housing…. Stocks soared after the report, with S&P 500 futures up 1.3%…. Treasury yields plunged, with 2-year yields down about 20 basis points and 10-year yields down about 18 points…
Julia Coranado: The return of productivity gains for the US economy: ‘If companies reap anything close to a historical average return on recent investments, we are likely to see an improving trend…. Businesses kept investing in equipment and intellectual property at a historically high rate to meet the needs of remote work, as well as offset some of the need for workers amid a very tight labour market. The technological tools companies have at their disposal to re-engineer business processes and realise efficiencies have arguably never been more abundant. If they realise anything close to a historical average return on investments made over the past few years, we may very well be in for a better productivity trend this cycle…
Robert Armstrong: Why consumers feel so glum: ‘Prices are up almost 20 per cent since the pandemic began; the price of food is up 24 per cent, energy 37 per cent. That this should make the world feel malign and unpredictable is only natural. It doesn’t matter that wages have, on average, kept pace. If I get a raise, I earned it; it is not a mere symptom of a strong national output. If the price of food is spiralling upwards, that’s a bad economy, or the government’s fault…
Joseph E. Stiglitz: A Victory Lap for the Transitory Inflation Team: ‘More than two years after economists divided into opposing camps over the nature of the post-pandemic inflation, we now know which side was right. Disinflation has confirmed that the earlier price increases were “transitory,” driven largely by supply disruptions and sectoral shifts in demand…
Michael R. Strain: The Jobless AI Future Is Still a Long Way Off: ‘Much of the concern about technological advances eliminating the need for human workers is rooted in a zero-sum mentality that fundamentally misunderstands how economies evolve…. Remarkable advances in information and communications technology and robotics… have had profound effects on the labor market… substantially reducing the employment share of manufacturing and clerical occupations…. But it has not become more difficult for workers to find jobs. There has not been an upward trend in the unemployment rate…
Economic History: William Cockriel: Machines Eating Men: Shoemakers and their Children After the McKay Stitcher: ‘I examine the long-run impacts of a deskilling technology on workers and their children. The McKay stitcher dramatically changed shoe production in the late 19th century by replacing skilled artisans with machines and less-skilled workers. It was licensed in only a few counties and impacted workers across counties unevenly through the transportation network. More-exposed shoemakers left traditional shoemaking for lower wages and did not migrate. The transfer of occupation from father to son was disrupted, and the children of shoemakers entered lower income occupations. New entrants to shoe factories came from poorer and less educated families. Using a model of occupation selection, I infer the change in life-time earnings implied by the impact of the technology on occupation exit. I find that the most exposed shoemakers and their children lost 2.2 and 2.5 years of wages, respectively…
Human Capital: Sanjoy Mahajan: Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing & Opportunistic Problem Solving…
CyberGrifts: Matthew Crawford: Misanthropic uses of the nudge: ‘And the inadequacy of any libertarian response…. Machine gambling terminals, designed to create addiction, represent the tip of a larger iceberg: the dark arts of “behavior design,” which are sometimes turned to purposes that can only be called misanthropic…
GPT-LLM-ML: John Warner: Writing in the uncanny valley: ‘To me, my Assistant Biblioracle had a kind of Stepford quality to it, reasonably pleasing on a surface level, but all of it just too much… a kind of textual uncanny valley… a certain resemblance to my writing, but was also off in ways that triggered disgust. I often write with a certain sentimentality in the column, but the bot almost invariably pushed past sentiment into schmaltz…. The Biblioracle bot is made from my words, and bears a resemblance to me, but it is not me in ways that are frankly, sort of disturbing. I hope that others are similarly disturbed, but who knows?…