4 ms·

I would love someone more knowledge than me to red-team that narrative.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
I can't speak on the China stuff, but the initial comments about the origins of money are quoting from David Graeber's work without saying so. That's all true, though Cory is giving a bit of an oversimplified version.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  From “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”, presumably?
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    Yes. He's mentioning things in essentially the same terms and narrative order as the book.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  No, he's quoting Modern Monetary Theory. The state theory of money is not due to Graeber -- it goes back to the 19th century.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    No, he is very much directly referencing Graeber in the same terms and narrative order as the book.
refurb 6y ago
I’m not sure how much I buy into his analysis. It’s a lot of hyperbole and technical term dropping. His whole theory is that Jack Ma was going to go forward with an IPO the gov’t would never let happen. So why was the IPO date still scheduled up until this speech? Why wouldn’t the govt pull the approval from the beginning?
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Govt is not a singular entity, not in US, not in China. Xi is one person and he can't run the whole country by himself. I don't even think Xi's work involved any particular IPO, the stock exchange and regulators on that level rushed the process likely knowing what's to come and having huge amount to gain from it. Which made them competing interest against the central government, and in the murky waters local/lower level functionaries often win because central government can't focus on all of them. This happened in Wuhan, with disastrous consequences. But the saving grace is when things no longer stay murky, that it has drawn the full attention of the central government, the center always win, often the opposition will just cease to exist. That has also happened in Wuhan/Hubei. This is likely the case here.
  - refurb 6y ago
    I don't disagree with your take. Xi isn't going to know everything that's going on. It's just seems odd that it's a speech (and a relatively benign one from a layman's perspective) that set it all off. This was a world record setting IPO and I can't see China's leadership not knowing about it well in advance considering the international media attention it was getting far before it all blew up. It just feels like there must be a lot more to the story. Was Jack told he could have his IPO as long as he kept his mouth shut? Was there something in the speech that directly contradicted what either Jack was told by leadership? Or what leadership had been telling the Chinese financial industry?
CamperBob2 6y ago
Same here. I don't agree with the parts I understand, especially when he veers off into an attack on Proposition 22, but I also don't really know enough about the larger subject to hold a qualified opinion one way or the other. Is the primary purpose of money to facilitate taxation? Beats the hell outta me. It sounds like he's basically refuting the whole of Austrian economics. Is that a reasonable birds'-eye view of his position?

I can't speak on the China stuff, but the initial comments about the origins of money are quoting from David Graeber's work without saying so. That's all true, though Cory is giving a bit of an oversimplified version.

germinalphrase 6y ago
From “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”, presumably?
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Yes. He's mentioning things in essentially the same terms and narrative order as the book.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
No, he's quoting Modern Monetary Theory. The state theory of money is not due to Graeber -- it goes back to the 19th century.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  No, he is very much directly referencing Graeber in the same terms and narrative order as the book.

refurb 6y ago

I’m not sure how much I buy into his analysis. It’s a lot of hyperbole and technical term dropping. His whole theory is that Jack Ma was going to go forward with an IPO the gov’t would never let happen. So why was the IPO date still scheduled up until this speech? Why wouldn’t the govt pull the approval from the beginning?

Aperocky 6y ago
Govt is not a singular entity, not in US, not in China. Xi is one person and he can't run the whole country by himself. I don't even think Xi's work involved any particular IPO, the stock exchange and regulators on that level rushed the process likely knowing what's to come and having huge amount to gain from it. Which made them competing interest against the central government, and in the murky waters local/lower level functionaries often win because central government can't focus on all of them. This happened in Wuhan, with disastrous consequences. But the saving grace is when things no longer stay murky, that it has drawn the full attention of the central government, the center always win, often the opposition will just cease to exist. That has also happened in Wuhan/Hubei. This is likely the case here.
- refurb 6y ago
  I don't disagree with your take. Xi isn't going to know everything that's going on. It's just seems odd that it's a speech (and a relatively benign one from a layman's perspective) that set it all off. This was a world record setting IPO and I can't see China's leadership not knowing about it well in advance considering the international media attention it was getting far before it all blew up. It just feels like there must be a lot more to the story. Was Jack told he could have his IPO as long as he kept his mouth shut? Was there something in the speech that directly contradicted what either Jack was told by leadership? Or what leadership had been telling the Chinese financial industry?

CamperBob2 6y ago

Same here. I don't agree with the parts I understand, especially when he veers off into an attack on Proposition 22, but I also don't really know enough about the larger subject to hold a qualified opinion one way or the other. Is the primary purpose of money to facilitate taxation? Beats the hell outta me. It sounds like he's basically refuting the whole of Austrian economics. Is that a reasonable birds'-eye view of his position?