Eric Z

Inflation-Linked Savings Base (ILSB) A proposal. The ILSB is a system where the first $10,000 of every citizen’s bank savings is automatically protected against inflation by being backed with Treasury debt or interest on Federal Reserve reserves. The basic idea is that banks would hold (or the Fed would allocate) inflation-indexed Treasuries or reserve interest to ensure that small savers never lose purchasing power on the first $10k they keep in the financial system. This does not create new spending or subsidies; it simply reallocates a portion of the interest the government already pays on Treasury debt or the interest the Fed already pays to banks on reserves. The result is a universal, inflation-safe base of savings for all citizens without increasing total government expenditures. 🧵🪡

@ArthurSteggles @JoshuaLWatson That’s two things.

@JoshuaLWatson To paraphrase another philosopher, I refute it thus: bollocks!

there is a consensus among experts in philosophy that there is something rather than nothing

@edelnougat So no right to roads, defense, law enforcement, court system, fraud protection, product safety, public disclosure of public affairs, schools, writ of habeas corpus, ect…. Meh. Oversimplified philosophy for minds without nuance.

@thesatrace @ProfSteveKeen No. It’s a fact. Do you have a theory that says what we call fossil fuels are not actually fossil fuels?

@CascadiaEric @ProfSteveKeen Is that a theory

Bitcoin’s energy black hole could sink it - and no one’s talking about it enough. I’ve long argued that Bitcoin’s proof-of-work relies on insane energy consumption to keep the network secure. That same feature turns into a fatal flaw as the world clamps down on carbon emissions and energy waste. Will this kill crypto’s momentum? #Bitcoin #Crypto #EnergyCrisis #Economics #FinancialInstability

@jared_corr16302 @PaulAustin3w Oops I got it confused with this one. Simon came out first but both in the same year.

@CascadiaEric @PaulAustin3w This one ebay.com/itm/1362363045…

Your resting brain has a neural fingerprint that's as unique to you as the one on your thumb. Psilocybin appears to wipe it clean. In July 2024, a team led by Joshua Siegel at Washington University School of Medicine published a study in Nature that is unique in its scope. They scanned the same human brains roughly 18 times each, before, during, and for three weeks after a single high dose of psilocybin. What they found is extreme, to say the least. Psilocybin caused a brain-wide disruption of functional connectivity more than three times greater than the control drug, methylphenidate. The disruption was driven by something called desynchronization: when brain regions that normally fire in coordinated patterns fell out of sync with one another across all spatial scales they measured. The default mode network got hit hardest. This is the network most associated with self-referential thinking, mind-wandering, rumination, and the constructed sense of self. Under psilocybin, it temporarily scrambled. Normally, every person's resting brain activity is distinctive enough that researchers can identify individuals from a brain scan alone. But with psilocybin introduced, the brains of people on psilocybin started looking more similar to each other than to their own sober selves. What blows my mind (though it also makes sense)... The magnitude of the desynchronization scaled directly with the intensity of each person's subjective experience. So, the deeper the brain came apart, the more profound the experience reported on the Mystical Experience Questionnaire. There is biological evidence that we can feel the intensity of our own brain reshaping. When the team had participants focus on the external world during the experience, rather than resting with their eyes closed, desynchronization decreased significantly. We know that what you pay attention to during a psychedelic experience changes what the substance does to your brain in the moment. When the self temporarily dissolves at a brain level, and attention becomes the variable that shapes the rewiring, what are you actually directing yourself towards during that window?

@KniveCross @ProfSteveKeen War crimes

@CascadiaEric @ProfSteveKeen What crimes? He is getting nuclear arms away from mad men who are absolutely set on destroying Israel & The US via nuclear annihilation to bring in their 12th Imam. Of course you probably have no idea who or what the Mahdi is or why they want to bring in because you are clueless.

@thesatrace @ProfSteveKeen Fossil fuels are limited and we will run out eventually. Thats real.

@ProfSteveKeen Global warming isn't real though

If global warming isn’t going to happen any more than it already has then the problem persists because we absolutely will run out of the major sources of energy which are fossil fuels. Waste energy for heating in buildings can be 100% though if the computation is distributed and heating is happening anyway. But in most places thats only part of the year.

@ProfSteveKeen @pabo3000 @JanWues What if your foundational premise about Global Warming is flawed? IF it is flawed, then your conclusion about Bitcoin is off. I would say most Bitcoiners do not hold your view on Global Warming which explains the divergence of perceived value.

@jared_corr16302 @PaulAustin3w I think Simon was the first computer game. Looked like a big old boxy red phone.

@PaulAustin3w I’m thinking people could rewire their brains for extreme memory by playing that old game Simon says. You know the one with the lighted panels and you have to hit the buttons in the right order to keep going. I wanna do this…

@PaulAustin3w The desynchronization in parts of the brain like the default mode network is also accompanied by coherence in other parts and wavelengths in the brain and coherence between parts and wavelengths. It’s not all desynchronization. There is an experience of new coherence.

It can’t help but make it loose money because of how it operates. It would be a strange coincidence if everything balanced. The law requires profits be returned to the Treasury. However, it now pays interest on reserves so that eats up the excess. There are way thats it’s run that favors wealthy owners over workers like it’s use of the Phillips curve and paying interest on reserves. So it’s corrupt in my opinion. But it’s corrupt in its role as a government agent.

@CascadiaEric @BuddyWells1 -It shouldn't operate on a for-profit basis and that money shouldn't be added to a 'national debt', should it. -The Fed doesn't return all profits to the gov, it returns profits over about 6% I believe. 6% will harvest the entire money supply in <17 yrs.

How do people ever take this guy seriously? The state is the currency issuer. The private sector are currency users. Without state (central bank and govt) spending, you would not have any currency).

Treating people as equals is just normal human behavior. It’s not contrarian. Not that they are the same or have the same abilities, but that they have their own inherent value. Hierarchy if treated as a specific and temporary organizational structure is normal too. Some people just get their sense of worth from power over people or the idea that they are fundamentally better so it’s more important to them.

If you’re looking to reduce the volatility look to the activity of private banks when they create money. What do you mean by “sound money” if not an inflexible source of money? Are you sure it’s the right answer for a constantly changing dynamic system? If so, okay. Odd but okay. You do you.

@CascadiaEric @4TaxFairness 100% but the point is the same. Sound money fixes both problems.

You really have to stop and wonder how the hell everything can be so expensive when all we’ve done for 40+ years is give corporations the tax breaks they swore they needed to hire workers, cut prices, and give everyone raises.

@moneytruth_org @BuddyWells1 Profits are returned to the Treasury to be more specific

@CascadiaEric @BuddyWells1 The US government is self-evidently capitalist. (And a 'borrower' of USD.) Of course, we all pay taxes with common currency. Not sure what point you're trying to make. It sounds like you think the gov/Fed relationship is of such a nature that it's oddly 'not capitalist'.

Bank credit is counted as deposits and in the M2 money supply. Yes there are distinct types of money but bank credit is the number one kind that spends. Cash is the only government money that in the possession of consumers because only banks can hold reserves at the Fed. Cash is tiny compared to bank credit. The volatility of credit is much more than the volatility of fiscal policy.

Banks create credit, not money. Credit and money are two distinct things. The countries I listed had debts in a foreign currency because foreign states and markets don't want or trust their currency. They had already destroyed the trust and reputation of their national currencies.

@caitoz He needs a “golden bridge” to peace that makes him look good. Let him take it. Prosecute him for crimes later.

This is nuts, Trump really did do exactly what Ryan Grim suggested he do hours earlier: pretend Iran's ten-point plan is a new proposal, counting on the fact that the media hasn't been reporting on Iran's demands to make it look like a new offer Tehran put forward in desperation.

@MovetheWorld9 @BuddyWells1 @sioneill Private banks create far more money than the federal government. They also do it in a in a more volatile way. The countries you listed had debts denominated in other currencies that they did not control.

There is a limit to the amount of currency a government can create before the public and industry no longer trust it or use it: people and the market stop producing to earn it. You are then in the realm of hyperinflation and total collapse of industrial output which leads to widespread shortages in everything, I mean everything to the point that salt becomes a rationed good. You are at the point being a failed state like Cuba, Venezuela, East Germany, Iran, the Soviet Union etc, etc. Britain is at that stage now.

@AutodidacDad @4TaxFairness What most people mean by “Sound money” is something that is inflexible. In a dynamic world that’s not wise. You just get different and more difficult problems like the Great Depression.

@sunspotjones @4TaxFairness Private banks create much more money than the federal government does. Their activity is much more volatile and consequential to prices.

@4TaxFairness Our government is slave to a fiat currency system. The only way to maintain power is to keep printing money, causing inflation (purposeful, it is easier to pay debt off with money that is worth less), which caused all prices to rise. Why all the lies if it is such a good idea

@AutodidacDad @4TaxFairness Private banks create far more money than the federal government

@4TaxFairness I like the enthusiasm but you never pick the correct villain. The government has been printing money since we went off the gold standard. Housing prices are 15x because the money supply is 15x.