- “That’s a tenet of progressivism: that progress is inevitable. So if you get something designated as progress, then your party, which was responsible for it, will get the credit for it, will always get to attack the other party for opposing it, and will find a continual source of votes in future elections by defending it. And that assumes that people will passively accept this narrowing of the range of political controversy and enjoy the individual relationship that each person has with this huge government that sends checks in the mail.”
A rather old interview (from 2012), but the article I linked to yesterday about dole outs in India induced some additional research that helped me land up on this article – and it makes some interesting points, none of which is more interesting than the one quoted above. - “The case of these surviving princes in our socialist republic is, in some ways, reflective of the countless ironies that make up Indian democracy. India remains, in many ways, a marriage of awkward histories and feudal legacies with the idealism of liberal thought and constitutional values. They do not sit easily with each other always, and sometimes jostle with force to make their presence felt. And yet the enterprise moves forward, one way or another: which perhaps explains why, even as we celebrate a Dalit president, newspapers descend into a frenzy at the advent of babies to freshly adopted maharajas; how even as a “chaiwallah” rises against the odds to become prime minister, there are princes and rajas to whom his government still owes a royal pension.”
Manu S. Pillai on the wonder that is India today – its many contradictions and confusions. This one happens to be about how we still pay out pensions to princes and zamorins. - “In short, what happened since September 2018 was the trifecta of trade tariffs, inadequate fiscal firepower from the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and a consistently hawkish PBOC. The 10% tariff on $250 billion of Chinese exports weakened domestic demand more than fiscal support was able to offset, which was reflected in both slower growth and lower inflation. And as inflation fell, the PBOC chose not to adjust the nominal interest rate, so the real interest rate effectively rose as a result. This confluence of factors put significant downward pressure on economic growth.”
The article contains some forecasts as well – make what you will of them. But the analysis of why China did not use either fiscal or monetary tools is worth reading. - “One story I’ve found myself revisiting over and over again is Asimov’s ‘Franchise,’ published as a short story in the August 1955 edition of If magazine. In it, a future America (2008), decides to reduce voting to a statistical model that extrapolates the outcomes of all elections based on a set of questions answered by one, extremely representative person.”
The Verge has put together a list of books you might want to read to understand AI better. I am delighted to say that I haven’t read a single one of these, and therefore have a lot of reading to do. - “The supporters are known as ‘Umans’ and control the team using the free United Managers’ app – a start-up which began working with the club in 2017.Before the game Umans can decide on the starting line-up, substitutes, the formation, set-pieces and communicate with staff and players.They vote using coins that they receive by using the app, or they can purchase a premium subscription. The more a Uman plays the game, the more weight their vote is worth.”
What a fascinating experiment. A football club that is run, on the fly, by the fans. With the advent of technology, what else might be run this way in the future? With what consequences?
EconForEverybody 