An indirect yet very clear explanation of MMT

Emerging markets have reasons to be wary of MMT. They don’t strictly meet its preconditions. While every country does print a legal tender and collects taxes in its own currency, not all can borrow in them. Nor can they allow their exchange rates to float freely, especially if they import vital commodities like food or energy. The degree of economic freedom enjoyed by the governments of the U.S., Japan, or the U.K. is simply not available in most places.
Highly recommended Bloomberg article on the role of MMT in our modern global economy, and why many smaller / less developed countries are wary of copying the same (bad) strategies of the US and Japan.

Inspired by a Qing dynasty poem

I really enjoyed reading this poem, just something about the words and the flow of it.

I decided to write my own – half a literal translation, and half something else.

—

万里长城万里空
张廷玉

南来北往走西东,  人生杳杳在其中；
天也来空地也空,  换了多少主人公。

夜静听得三更鼓,  翻身不觉五更钟；
从头仔细思量起,  便是南柯一梦中。

一场辛苦一场空,  死后还归泥土中。

身归泥土气随风,  一片顽皮化臭胧；
在身置得万倾田,  死后只得三步地。

埋骨何须桑梓地,  人生无处不青山。

万里长城万里空,  百世英雄百世梦；
沉舟侧畔轻帆过,  病树前头万木春!

—

From north to south, and east to west,
Life springs forth, at whose behest

The sky alights, the earth is born
On we trudge, to find our unicorn

A quiet night, yet quiet stirs
A wink of sleep, a yawning blur

This night a year, this year our lives
Of all these years, faded dreams survive

We toil and rest, laugh and learn
And dissolve into dust, we shall return

And as our bodies sink below
The harvest moon dances to and fro

Those endless acres we till and plant
Heaven leaves but space to walk and stand

Our buried bones, care not that space
Mountains, fields, earth a resting place

The endless Wall, the eternal race,
The immortal stars, our immortal faith

The past is set, the old gives way
As the new is born, and accelerates

TED talk notes #5, John Lloyd: What’s invisible? More than you think

Gravity is weakest and least understood of 4 fundamental forces (strong force, weak force, nuclear)

We can’t see consciousness

Sufi masters say they’re all telepaths

Initially we thought there were 100K genes, continually revised downward, now think only 20K genes
By contrast, rice has 38K genes (!)

Every cell in your body is replaced at some point, after 7 years they’ve all been replaced

We can’t SEE beam of light, only what it hits

Think there are 100B galaxies but we can only see 5

Thomas Edison: “we don’t know one percent of one millionth about anything”

—

Full list of TED talk notes here.

5 good podcasts I’m newly subscribed to

I listen to a lot of podcasts (here’s a somewhat up to date list), and I wanted to share a few good ones that I’ve recently subscribed to:

Exponential View with Azeem Azhar [link] – a very global and sharp perspective on the somewhat under-emphasized technological forces that will shape our collective future; his newsletter is great too

DangerTalk with Russell Wilson [link] – one of the league’s best quarterbacks interviews all-stars in their respective fields, like “Tim Ferriss for jocks” lol, of the ones I’ve listened to the Chris Paul episode really stood out

Panic with Friends with Howard Lindzon [link] – Howard is just uniquely entertaining and interesting as he interviews his equally successful friends in business, investing, and tech

New Money Review with Paul Amery [link] – a very thoughtful and balanced look at the edges of global finance and fintech

My Climate Journey with Jason Jacobs [link] – a successful entrepreneur who tries to understand the challenges facing our global environment by interviewing subject matter experts, often through the lens of entrepreneurship and tech

Some more great quotes from Thoreau’s Walden

Source: Walden.org

I’ve been re-reading and wanted to share a few new favorites:

One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with”; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the possessor almost universal respect.

This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.

Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune.

The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.

Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. They have only been read as the multitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct.

The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor.

Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, “Because it was a part of the original compact—let it stand.”

Here’s an older post with more great quotes.