Monday, August 29, 2005

Can state and private monies fire up and flesh out gender theory?

Here are some (162) gooooooglies for "Georg Friedrich Knapp" state money
unfortunately, when adding gender there ain't much goin on but if you read german go for evi Genetti (at the U of Vienna); her little essay connecting state theory to gender is found at 3 lefty sites.


Brought back to a manageable 19 results by simply adding 'risk'; the first page carries two authors from my private pantheon of world classy clarity consciousness card carrying cash currentseeing clarion callers; can you tell which ones my favorites are? You may consult 2 of the links on the right, if that is enough for you a prize is waiting (a return visit to your fingertippy tapsell).


Some sampling:

Max Weber and the State Theory of Money
by Fiona Maclachlan
I hope for the approval of those who take the monetary system as a branch of political science.--G.F. Knapp (1924, p. viii)



PKT list:

On Fri, 18 Aug 2000 11:22:53 -0400, Per Gunnar Berglund BergP867@newschool.edu wrote, under the title "Re: Expanding the definition of chartalist money",
---- Great posts! This discussion is finally getting somewhere. May I suggest the following points to summarise - and slightly amend - what has beensaid hitherto?
1. Currencies are names that are state monopolies, functioning muchlike a 'registered trademark' of a government - or Keynes's'dictionary' for that matter.
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Now this is getting closer. Money is an institution (a system ofestablished behaviour), and this definition is getting away fromtreating money like "stuff" and closer to treating it as asystem of interactions between people.
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2. Tokens (like notes and coins) denominated in a currency becomeliquid by means of general acceptability. This is a generallyaccepted definition of 'money' (liquid financial assets), embracedby 'everybody' ranging from Metallists like Menger to Chartalistslike Lerner.
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As does anything else denominated in a currency, includedstrings of 1's and 0's in a banks computer system somewhere.
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3. General acceptability is driven by state acceptance in payment oftaxes and other liabilities. (This is the Chartalist standpoint, cf.Knapp's 'State Theory of Money', Lerner's 'Money as a Creatrue of theState', Randy Wray's 'Understanding Modern Money', and others.) Suchacceptance also involves fixing the nominal value of tokens in termsof the currency unit (e.g. a piece of paper with a certain printedportrait of Hamilton is worth 'ten U.S. dollars', etc.
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We ought not expect something as critical to the economic systemin general as acceptability of the nation's currency to be drivenby a single factor. Also driving the acceptability of currencyis the fact that entrepeneurs on the whole are net borrowers, andmust offer something acceptable to their creditors in payment.The support of the legal system for contracts denominated in the nation's currency helps drive that acceptability, as does theneed for commercial banks to satisfy the demands of the nation's central bank. The two are even made explicit on US notes, whichare both labelled as legal for all debts public and private, and as Reserve Notes -- that is, as permitted to be used as an addition to Reserves at a bank as soon as they get into the register. On Australian notes, this is less explicit, as the notes aresimply labelled as legal tender. However, these notes weredesigned more recently in a society where there was lesscontroversy over paper (now plastic) notes. Virtually, Bruce McFarling, Shortland, NSWecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au

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From: UMKC Center for Full Employment To: 'Bruce McFarling ' Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2000 2:40 PMSubject:
RE: Expanding the definition of chartalist money
===
Bruce wrote: This is fine as long as it is not read "is *exclusively* driven by state acceptance ..."
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A key point of the Chartalist 'Revival,' if one will, is that whilethere now seems to be little controversy concerning this point, one ishard-pressed to find statements to this effect in the large PK literature prior to therevival (outside of the now familiar statements by people such as Lerner,Minsky, etc.) or discussions of Keynes's explicit acceptance of Knapp's prime point.This holds even for the many explorations of various components of the demandfor money, etc. So part of the source of the heavy emphasis by the 'newChartalists' has been as something of a corrective, and an explorationof its implications.One may also approach 'taxes-drive-money' not as descriptive, but as*prescriptive*--the power to declare twintopt, along with a variety ofother state powers, is a powerful policy tool for managing a currency andpursuing certain policy goals. Mat

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From: Ronald Calitri To: UMKC Center for Full Employment Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 9:10 PM

Subject: Re: Expanding the definition of chartalist money-----
Three issues 1) "law abiding", 2) Knapp, 3) "aggregates"

1) That citizens who disobey the chartalist principal are not "lawabiding" is somewhat questionable. Even though Hart, Kaldor and Tinbergen (1964)put it this way, their choice of language may have been for diplomaticpurposes.
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Paul Davidson wrote:
The moral of this historical episode is that if a population is nolonger law abiding -- the goveRnment can raise taxes in anything it wants and aslong as the population produces more than the government buys ... [etc]
===========
ronc asks (rhetorically):
whether a "law abiding" population is half as important as a "law abiding" State? This question used to be discussed around the issue of "legitimacy" of government. In this case of business activity, legitimacy boils down to the issue of whether thegovernment is willing to enforce contracts, and has been extended by most modern democratic folks to the idea that government's burdens on the population should be economic rather than personal.
The legitimacy of a government precedes the willingness of its population to be law-abiding. The population who are not "law abiding" in such instances are obeying a deeper economic "law" governing economic relations, one that has been fought for through history through a succession of apparently"solid" states. The more solid a state money is, the more intertwined with healthy economic relations, the more of a shadow creature it actually gives the appearance of being. The more adaptive a state is to the deeper economic needs of its population, the more legitimacy it wins.
An "illegitimate" government that tramples on people's historical observation of "economic laws" based on currency used for transactions isdue for overthrow. A theory of "State money" is probably just as bogus as a theory of "Sovereignty" based on the idea that the king is closest to god.
In any case it seems rather strange for the proponents of a commodity-backed currency to be held out as exemplars of a whimisical state value theory.

2) Keynes' acclaim for Knapp may not be fully related to an "acceptance"of the chartalist "prime point". He may also have been referring to thelatter two-thirds of Knapp's book where the more "advanced" portion of his thesis discusses the manners of money transmission through a variety of commercial circuits. I was left with the impression from the GT that the value of currency is much dependent on these and that Knapp's studentesque chartalism may not havebeen his major selling point.
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Mat provided an explanation of Keynes' position (privately): "Knappaccepts as "Money"--rightly, I think--anything which the Stateundertakes to accept at its pay-offices, whether or not it is declared legal tenderbetween citizens." (_Treatise on Money_, Volume 1)
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I really cannot buy this argument, one that apparently made its way intoHicks' Market Theory of Money. There ignorance ofhis own country's history really shows, and is embarassing for 1968 historiography. In Keyne's 1920s "beknighted" era, it is more excusable.
If that were indeed the case, then since peasants did not have money and hadto give labor-days as taxes, I suppose then labor was money.
The main "philosophical basis" for my disagreement with the chartalistperspective may be put this way: The principals of a "caring" government often say -"we should have a police force because our people are killing each other".
They may also say, "We should have a money because our people aretransacting with each other.
"Taxes may be collected in any currency. It may be more convenient fora small, cruel state to collect taxes in dollars and circulate asubordinate "own" currency to among the peasantry who are thereby keptsubordinate and out of touch. Similarly "corporate cash" to fox thecustomers.
In a similar spirit it would probably be desirable to determine whetherthe Soviet ruble ran on the basis of your theory. I do not suppose thiscurrency can be dismissed as a "rare anomaly"?

3) Aggregates: Most battlers against monetarism have taken the positionthat M4 is better than M3, than M2, than M1, than reserves, etc.
Indeed some of the more thoughtful analysts have argued for allowinghousework and other non-compensated transactions into the GNP. This arguesthe most useful "expansion" of money will be to all transactions, and toall sources of liquidity in a country, and to all countries.Ronald Calitri

===============

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 18:53:51 -0400 ----
Reply to Colin's Challenge - Mat's Answer

Who is the sanest one of all (on a good day)? Mat offers a compromisesolution that chartalism is needed to balance transaction-drivenneoclassicism followed by a very real question:""'What are the possibilities for managing 'money'/'currency' in certainways to effectively pursue certain policy goals, such as full employment, price stability, rising living standards, etc.?"""
-----Obviously, the reciprocal question would be whether the chartalist theoryof money offers any difference of policy methods? Not being a proponent I donot wish to see any; but given the torrents of sand being kicked onchartalism's hearth by its hastily retreating supplicants, it does seemdesirable to make an end-run for the last ember.
------Sorry for the above sentence - I just read Colin's paper, concluding that itis not really targeted at the present PK debate but offers a key to Mat'sproblem in what it does not discuss and in misconclusion. [Well, Colin, whatdo you expect when deprecating, "that few consumers are solving Lagrangiansin their heads as they shop in the supermarket." Of course they are, and awide variety of other dynamic methodologies. The gender problem is partlythat females in our culture are more trained in multidimensional thinking than males.]
-------What Colin just misses in his analysis is a possible answer to what, beyondgoods, is being transacted in the "gift exchange". That I would argue - is"time", the "long view". My question for your anthropologists has to do with whether it was a "good" time or a "bad" time. The MACRO dimension your argument is lacking. There, "position" - the political purpose of potlatchbeing to give the recipient a feeling of "safety", "satiety" and "good ofall" that is predisposing to good policy reasoning in council or discourse. But this is a "trick" practiced in every culture; and for all that it beats"pork" nomenclatura-lly, just reminds us that the spirit of heterodox economics lies in a "potlatch in every pot" kind of goal-setting.-------
That aside, is what I am afraid of is what may be the unconscious reason thechartalists are kicking in their fire. This, I fear, may be a need tobelieve that "State" power is something different from the "private" kind. To avoid seeing that it is not, they would rather withdraw.-------
So here is the "ember" I would rather save from extinction: the "state",after all, is no more than an "executive committee" of interests. ALL thatchartalism offers ["inductively"] is that relatively preponderant interestsmay be rallied to defend a state's currency. That is an historical truth ofit, though the demographical economic BENEFIT of it may have been eitherpositive or negative, the "legitimate" state always argued the balance ofconsequences was positive.--------
So there IS something useful in chartalism, but nothing MORE useful than thePK analytical preference for imperfect competition. So Mat, the state, b-byd-damn, especially if democratic c-can g-give better potlatch! B-but t-thatis because it can rearrange the stream of transactions by f-fiat, or in thelanguage of our debate, byv-volkswagen.------
In-carriage-ingly,
-----Ronald Calitri--------

'sleazy world of "subprime" finance'

June 12, 2003 DH on economic news * Michael Hudson, author of a report on the sleazy world of "subprime" finance [ignore the promises of listener phone calls - they're not included in the archive versions] --- low and hi fi stream and download

Google to the rescue (resolution of cueing):
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism MaxSpeak on the March of Democracy ... we find people like Michael Hudson and groups like the Geonomics Society arguing for the collection of rent not only ... mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/ 02/extended-free-association-rap-loosely.html

Further toward the left end of the Geolibertarian spectrum, we find people like Michael Hudson and groups like the Geonomics Society arguing for the collection of rent not only on land and natural resources, but on "social commons" like the radio spectrum. Many of the same groups advocate distributing, as a "citizen's dividend," the surplus rent that remains after all public goods are fully funded.

http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_kenmacleod_archive.html
Kind readers: Kevin pointed me to two interviews with Professor Michael Hudson, applying a Georgist analysis of privatization to Russia and to broadcasting.



Sunday, August 28, 2005

measuring digital traffic

masternewmedia.org/2004/08/11/.. August 11, 2004 PACmeter - Popularity, Authority, Credibility Online.

I go: hi, first I'd like to thank you for your work. Quite astounding you can keep up with all these puzzling (puzzlepushing) developments.

Most of it seems to fit the category I would circumscribe as 'work' which leaves us with less time to leave 'it' out fostering, due to and in growth conducive conditons when we are busy cutting it up and studying cleavage lines changes from differently angled, weighted and timed blows.In other words the abstractive sterilizing mere mime and surrogative symbolizatory ritualization of the actually effective action (I had gotten tired of repeating this type of phrase and shied away from it for a long while but you bring it all back up).

Anyway, that's not (very obviously got much to do with) the reasons I decided to comment, which are:I have owned/operated one of the oldest and most old fashioned types of blogs for years so consistently that google was following me very closely and bringing three to four hundred daily clicks (how many amongst those were robots or with what searchterms they came I never struggled through the ins and outs that seem to be your strengths, to find out) to my static (most bloglike) url alone (spinning off 2-3 160K files a month).

So, my question: was I a great source of revenue for my host Lycos? Why did their stats show 15 'visits' a week for years? Were they only counting clicks on their ads?Why won't they answer enquiries about why they blocked my account and broke a promise made at the same time to allow 3 months worth of time for me to save my files?????


masternewmedia.org/news/.. How to think outside the box -- video footage of an interview Robin did with nomorefaknews.com man Jon Rapoport


masternewmedia.org/I.. August 05, 2005 Internet Television First Independent Channel Features Quality Grassroots News And Views

current.tv/studio/ Current follows the global news pulse via Google Current, a new short video segment which provides a real-time view of what the world's searching for, presented every half-hour around the clock. Google essentially reports on what its users are looking for in popular culture and on the breaking issues happening around the world.Content on Current is about topics ranging from technology, fashion, music and videogames, to the environment, relationships, spirituality, politics, finance, and parenting... subjects not easily found on mainstream TV channels.

kolabora.com

Saturday, August 27, 2005

JFK on this blog's theme

On 8/26/05, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote: The point is: telemarketing not only contributes> nothing to that total but is really an annoying *disservice* and> would be counted as negative in any objective system of> economic measurement were such a system to exist.> > Shane Mage


"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered communityexcellence and community values in the mere accumulation of materialthings. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America bythat - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulancesto clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for ourdoors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead,and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of ourchildren, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity ofour public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except thatwhich makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about Americaexcept why we are proud that we are Americans."

Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968-- Michael Pugliese


Milton S. Gwirtzman must have been a good speechwriter. Still and all, don't you hate to be lectured by a Kennedy on "the mere accumulation of material things?"

I created an online store <cafepress.com/montages> where nothing is sold, featuring this remark by Walter Benjamin:

"The collector dreams his way not only into a distant or bygone world but also into a better one -- one in which, to be sure, human beings are no better provided with what they need than in the everyday world, but in which things are freed from the drudgery of being useful." -- Walter Benjamin

If only Michael P. can always (like in this instance) free his collection of quotations from the drudgery of being useful. . . .

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
<http://mrzine.org/>

The LBO-talk list funnies

The momma tries to maintain a 3 post a day limit (loosely but untiringly); he gets his members to start counting a lot quicker than they start stopping.

At 05:50 PM 8/26/2005, Chris Doss wrote:
>Come to think of it, I do that all the time too,
>mentioning Russian political celebs like Kadyrov,
>Zhirinovsky, Limonov, Dugin, etc., whereas probably
>many people here have never heard of them.

good. you should. make people work at it.
Yo mama's so stupid she sold her car to buy gas.
Yo mama so stupid, I told her it was chilly outside, so she went outside
with a spoon.
Yo mama so stupid, she climbed up a tree talkin' about branch management.
doin' the dozens,
kelley
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin


on the not so funny front (but still speaking about real mothers):

On Friday, August 26, 2005 7:34 AM [PDT], Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:> I've heard from a couple of sources now that Fenton Communications,> the "progressive" PR outfit that's handling Cindy Sheehan's> publicity, is keeping the press away from her, apparently because> she's given to making intemperately strong statements of the sort> that embarrasses publicists. They're only allowing organized press> conferences, and not individual interviews.> > Free Cindy Sheehan!>


Assuming this is true, a positive outcome would depend on whether she can as strongly apply her personality to this issue as she's appliedher self to the demand to meet GWB. Which insinuates that her energytoward her goal would be diverted, drained, just confronting the situation, and within the gaze of the media, which would feed on the story like sharks.But given the directness of the naming of names here, I'd saysomeone has a personal problem with Fenton Communications.And it's probably not Cindy Sheehan.

Just a little gnawing feeling at the back of my brainpan say it'sall probably B.S., or Cindy Sheehan is aware of it and it's not a problem for her, but it might be for other interested parties.Including the media. When's the last time anyone we know was "ratpacked" by the national & international media in full feeding frenzy.

Without Fenton, and people like them, Cindy Sheehan would be psychologically raped by AP/CNN/Reuters stringers and other assorted parasitic vermin that prey on: "celebrities".

Travus T. Hipp Commentary [ August 22 2005 ]: Critiquing Camp Casey: There are two forces in the universe - One that gets it together, and one that takes it apart http://www.snurl.com/tth_050822


Why progressive in scare quotes? Fenton started in the Liberation News Service in the 60's (read theRay Mungo autobios. on LNS, howlingly funny), did PR for the Angolansof the MPLA vs. Savimbi, worked for Maurice Bishop (I assume w/ DonRojas), the FSLN and the FMLN.-- Michael Pugliese

Friday, August 26, 2005

indexation has entered its (st)age of usefulness

I hope to find lots of relevant stuff; for now you could go visit the most recent time I had occasion to peruse some of Ulrich von Beckerath's thoughts (always a pleasure: proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/18880/ This post concerns Pat Robertson's Fatwah over Chavez -----

I go: Here's the much improved version of what I posted at 8.13 AM the 24th of august: /monies-mystics-and-marksmen.html -

this long comment is concluded with:

The centralized sort that has even just about managed to do away with the distinction between state and open market money (feminine types geared to the satisfaction of immediate and intimate needs, non-profit and local vs the fast boy high risk stuff that have in the past managed to keep each other honest as long as there is some naturally incremental standard that keeps pace, I would suggest using ((regional)) photosynthesis rates and diversities figured into basic indexed commodity baskets* ((voluntariness not to mention volutarization factored in)) for that soon).

Piet: A second reading was more enlightening, but could you clarify the last sentence for me?
Thanks. --- Posted by insomni permalink on 08/24 at 03:43 PM

I go: find ‘8. 4. 1949’ in (the last sixth of) http://liecause.tripod.com/Beckerath-Meulen-corr3.htm - quoting from John Zube’s note to the letter by Beckerath written on said date: “--- I do believe that one should clearly distinguish between those index standards which are intended only for optional, competing and privately or cooperatively issued currencies, which are refusable and discountable and those index standards meant for an exclusive and forced currency, i.e., one with compulsory acceptance and a compulsory value. The former are a problem at most only for those who voluntarily use them. The latter are a problem for all who are forced to use them. As a mathematician and statistician, who had himself calculated index numbers for the “Festmark Bank” and possibly others, B. objected only to the tyrannical aspects of many of the index currency advocates. E.g., Gesell wanted to “stabilise” the general price level by adding to or reducing the volume of the circulation of an exclusive and forced currency, and others, having only legal tender currencies in mind, do not want to abolish their monopoly or their coercion, but merely to “improve” or to mitigate (as in Israel) their effects by “stabilising” this monetary despotism via one index or the other.”

I am just thinking of ways to take the positive properties of the late gold standard applicable to an even and especially this day and age sorely missed ecological orientation regarding e- and direction of values standards.
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