* Posts by Tim Worstal

1389 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Feb 2008

So Quantitative Easing in the eurozone is working, then?

Tim Worstal

Re: Keep Tim

"According to the book, the western countries in general and the US in particular are controlled by a clique of international bankers, which use currency manipulation (hence the title) to gain wealth by first loaning money in USD to developing nations and then shorting their currency. The Japanese Lost decade, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the Latin American financial crisis and others are attributed to this cause. It also claims that the Rothschild Family has the wealth of 5 trillion dollars whereas Bill Gates only has 40 billion dollars.[14]

Song also is of the opinion that the famous U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, is not a department of state functions, but several private banks operated by the private sector, and that these private banks are loyal to the ubiquitous Rothschild family."

I would file this along with the Grey Alien Lizards n'stuff. Without having read any more than the Wiki piece on it. On the grounds that it's hardly new for someone to be saying "It's all the Jooos!"

Au oh, there's gold in them thar server farms, so lead the way

Tim Worstal

Re: @Tim

The more scrap you've got of anything the more each piece is worth. One piece might be worth x, each piece of 100 pieces 2x and each piece of 1,000 pieces 3x. Not scaling like that, but definitely each piece increasing in value the more pieces you have.

Precisely because you need to get to a certain volume before it's worth trying to process it.

Tim Worstal

Re: Civic Amenity

Bloke I know had a lovely system.

Sn/Pb solders form a eutetic alloy (posh word for "dissolves instantly into") with Au at 280 oC or so.

So, have a bath of molten solder, run the circuit boards through it. All the solder and Au will end up in the bath, the Cu and the fibre of the board can then be processed separately (chopped, Cu extracted, then make bricks from the fibre).

Now you've an ever increasing amount of solder plus Au in your bath. You cool, then electrolytically refine. This commands a 10% premium over virgin solder as it is more pure. And the gold ends up as sludge on the bottom of your refining tank.

Cute system.

West's only rare earth mine closes. Yet Chinese monopoly fears are baseless

Tim Worstal

Re: The comic book element Thorium..

Everyone would certainly love to have someone willing to buy thorium. As an example of how small the market is I once shipped 13 lbs to a customer and as far as the official trade stats were that year that was the only trade in the US for the year.

And yes, there's definitely Th in those tailings which can be extracted. Currently it's a cost to store it, would be very nice if it could become a profit centre.

Tim Worstal

Re: Surely the final line should be prefaced with 'contestable'?

Part of the assumption is that someone with a contestable monopoly won't take the piss too much because they know that will call into being that competition. The Chinese rare earth disaster being a lovely example sufficient for a few decades perhaps.

Tim Worstal

Re: Other issues

"The "red mud" from bauxite processing, for example, can be used as a source of rare earths."

I even funded some of the work that proved this.....

Tim Worstal

Re: *sigh*

Most of this is buried in the assumptions that are being made about "contestable" in the jargon.

You can have a monopoly just because no one else has caught up yet. That's contestable, obviously. Because no one else can be bothered (ie, you're the lowest cost producer, as China was). Because one global supplier is still gaining economies of scale (Much of Krugman's work was exploring this). Because copyright or patent law says you've got a monopoly. And finally there's natural monopolies: water pipes in a city say.

What the economists want to say is that only that last is a real, real, monopoly, one that we've got to use the law to regulate. What the politicians say (and many business people who would get fat off subsidies) is that any and all of them deserve regulation.

Thus this idea of contestable. If it's possible to set up in competition then it's not really something we need to worry about. Only if it's not actually possible do we need to act.

Or at least that's the free market end of economics discussion of it.

Tim Worstal

Re: Mothballing a mine

Yes, modern mining permits include a trust fund to keep the mine ticking over and not polluting if on care and maintenance (ie, you might open it again) or properly capping it if it's really dead.

Old mines didn't have this, thus that river problem.

Tim Worstal

Re: Spot price doesnt answer the exam question

Oh, and the Siemens plant was in Texas and didn't, so far as I know, move.

Tim Worstal

Re: Spot price doesnt answer the exam question

"Was China able to profit enough during its monopoly to have made its behaviour worthwhile?"

Almost certainly not. The price boost lasted maybe 3 years. I cannot see the glut passing in under a decade.

So, was it really the Commies that caused the early 20th Century inequality collapse?

Tim Worstal

Re: Thoughts, Tim?

Haven't read it so can't really comment

Tim Worstal

Re: Where's the balance El Reg ?

1) I'm not an economist.

2) I'm just me.

3) My opinion pieces are my opinion.

4) If El Reg wishes to publish opinion pieces that don't agree with my opinions that's just great by me.

Actually, with point 4), I wonder if the powers that be would like to have, say, Richard Murphy.....

Tim Worstal

Re: Since the 80's

Hugely cynical but, umm, maybe.....

Tim Worstal

Re: Money has to go somewhere

Gold star there. The reason that the US has lower connectivity at high speed couldn't possibly, maybe, related to population density, could it?

Tim Worstal

Re: Where's the balance El Reg ?

Given my income sources ("being at" the ASI is an unpaid position, I get maybe a burger, but a nice one!, and a glass or two of wine if I'm in London) I'm rather more El Reg's rep to the right wing think tank world than the other way around....

Tim Worstal

Re: Since the 80's

"one with no earners and one with a male AND a female earner, then the inequality is far higher?"

It gets worse than that: assortative mating. Lawyers marry lawyers these days, not lawyer the legal secretary who then retires to raise the kids. We therefore have much greater household income inequality simply because we get two professional income households up at the top in a manner we never used to.

And barring some form of state control over who one may marry there ain't much anyone can do about it.

Tim Worstal

"So how does it explain the sudden and accelerating increase in inequality"

I'm not trying to explain inequality, I'm trying to explain growth rates. Largely on the grounds that I don't care very much about inequality but do about growth rates.

But since you insist: standard models would suggest that if you add a few billion low productivity and low pay people to the economy then the low skill and low pay people originally in the economy are going to get the shaft. And that's what globalisation has done since 1980 or so (really, 1978 started it in China).

So, increasing inequality within rich countries is a result of globalisation. I've even written a piece about it for this very publication:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/28/inequality_rising_screw_the_one_per_cent/

For if I am to worry about inequality and or poverty then I'm not going to worry about within rich country inequality. I'm going to worry about global inequality and absolute, not relative, poverty. And since globalisation reduces global inequality and massively reduces absolute poverty then to hell with relative poverty in the UK and bugger rising inequality in already rich countries.

Tim Worstal

Re: Not so much public ownership but public wealth creation

" From the 1920s through the 1970s, there was large investment in council housing. After 1947, there was also large investment in the health service."

Not so much really. The 30s housing boom was private sector driven. And the NHS was simply the nationalisation of previously extant health care facilities. The NHS didn't actually build a hospital until 1963.

Tim Worstal

Re: A bit simplistic

I generally argue that capitalism v socialism isn't the important part. It's markets v not markets that are. And yes, the SOEs are a large part of the Chinese economy and they are state owned enterprises. But they're also competing in what is possibly the most vicious free market on the planet currently.

FORKING BitcoinXT: Is it really a coup or just more crypto-FUD?

Tim Worstal

What's always puzzled me is, where are the fraudsters?

In the alt-coin world, just where are they?

I've still not worked out whether Karpeles was simply gloriously incompetent or what and of course there's been a few standard ponzi schemes like bitcoin hedge funds and the like. But where are the real financial fraudsters?

Given my interest as a connoisseur in financial "schemes" I can think of a couple of ways in which a small team (someone who actually understands the psychology of financial markets and a couple of tech heads) could wander off with a couple of $10s of millions by Christmas.

It would even, probably, be legal. And yet I can't see this being done, or at least we're not hearing about it. And I really cannot work out why.

And I don't mean running the usual scams just using alt-coins. The basic design of the very systems is an open invitation to anyone willing to try. So, why aren't they?

Just don't get it myself.

Perhaps the AIpocalypse isn't imminent – if Google Translate is anything to go by, that is

Tim Worstal

Re: What should have been looked at

The general assumption here about the economics is that someone is on the fiddle. Which I'm happy enough to put in the comments as an opinion, but not in the article as a statement or rumination....

The good burghers of Palo Alto are entirely insane

Tim Worstal

"Can somebody say "squashed salamander"?"

Some days, before lunch, yes. After lunch, some other days, weeeeel.....journos do have a reputation to keep up.....

Tim Worstal

Re: I'm shocked!

It's not " a taking" in law, no.

Tim Worstal

Re: Insurance value?

Yes, you're right, sorry phrased that rather badly. Maxima culpa etc.....

Tim Worstal

Re: Ownership and liability

Well, sorta. Actually, the Rentenmark, and to deal with the Weimar inflation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Rentenmark

And sorta, sorta, a pledge of the land values. But also sorta a pledge of the tax revenues to be had over time from those recorded land values.

But Germany though.....

Tim Worstal

Re: I'm shocked!

ERM, I've not suggested that the current permission be withdrawn, which would indeed be a taking.

Instead, that they grant new permission on another piece of land.

Tim Worstal

Re: Free Market Consistency

Umm, true, but I fear it's a little bit Randian even for me.....

Tim Worstal

Re: so why can't

Taking away the permission in US law would be a "taking". Something that they must compensate for at full value. Creating new stuff they can do.

Hey, folks. Meet the economics 'genius' behind Jeremy Corbyn

Tim Worstal

Re: interesting on Murphy's education

"I'm not even sure if Tim has a degree in anything."

Amazingly, Murphy and I did pretty much the same degree. Accounting and Finance/ Accounting and Economics. He at Southampton, me at the LSE, about the same time too, early 80s.

Our technical qualifications in economics are about the same: pretty sparse in fact. Which is why I always say that I am not an economist, just someone interested in the subject.

Tim Worstal

Re: whereas ...

Quite, it isn't true. I've had one and it ain't.

Weirdly tho; the US does tax writers on their writing income made writing for American publications, even if you're not a citizen or resident. Or at least they try to....

Tim Worstal

Re: Next time, do some research first

"The Bank of England published a report very carefully explaining the transmission channels through which QE was meant to work. The idea was to push down the yield curve and thus encourage borrowing, spending, and investment."

Err, yes, I say that, that they wanted people to move out along the risk curve in the chase for yield.

Tim Worstal

Not really, no......I can claim some credit for some of Ukip's income tax policies but more in a "Hey, this is a bonzer idea" sense than "I've worked this out and you should do it" one.

Tim Worstal

Just for the record, I do not stroke my lap.

I have people who do that for me.....

Tim Worstal

Re: @Super Fast Jellyfish - John Lewis

Nope, because the Co Op is owned by the customers: thus the divi

Tim Worstal

Re: Bonds

Hmm.

"As an example, I don't believe that QE will in fact be unwound. "

Think it will be you know. Because those bonds mature over time. And in order to maintain QE that means that BoE must go buy more bonds to replace those maturing.

So, unwinding QE is as simple as not continuing to do QE......and just letting the stock mature.

Tim Worstal

Re: It's OK

The road that we're both talking about (A 22 through the Algarve) has only had tolls for 3 years or so. Maybe only 2.....

Tim Worstal

Re: Did anyone else...

That Steve Keen agrees with an economic idea is not generally regarded as proof of that idea's usefulness.

But obviously that's jut another axe being ground.

Yes, I do know Keen's analysis iof why standard economics is all wet, have discussed it directly with him and no, am not convinced.

Tim Worstal

Re: It's OK

This is EU law. Motorways built with EU money must be toll roads. A 22 was partly EU money. Thus....

Tim Worstal

If we're going to talk international economics, the current system which has just given us the largest fall in absolute poverty in the history of our entire species?

Tim Worstal

Re: Where next?

Markets do not equal capitalism. Ownership of productive assets by capitalists equals capitalism. JL and Co Op are owned by, respectively, the workers and the consumers. They're not capitalist organisations.

Tim Worstal

Re: MV = PQ = WTF?

Proper equation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantity_theory_of_money

Tim Worstal

Re: Where next?

"BTW, thanks for bringing the work of Ha Joon Chang to my attention. He's my kind of economist."

Might not be quite what I intended, given that I wrote a whole book arguing against Chang's ideas.....

"why not let a few small alternatives run to show what a disaster they are (e.g. the "nationalised" East Coast line)? Then we can all have a good laugh at this softy, leftie rot."

There's vast areas of the economy that are left to themselves in that manner. John Lewis, the Co Op, these are hardly capitalist enterprises now, are they?

The proper neoliberals (ie, me and my two mates) are the ones who absolutely delight in such too: we're not just fine with we positively glory in a market in methods of ownership and organisation as well as markets in goods and services.

Which is rather why we get so pissed off when people start to insist that one or another sector of he economy must be run in one particular manner. Let the different methods compete and see what works best.

Tim Worstal

Re: At least you declared an interest this time

Possibly because I take the worries here seriously, think that the issue is important.....

Tim Worstal

Re: Did anyone else...

Well, yes. Although in my defence I'd point out that I've read and digested more or Murphy's output over the years than practically anyone else. Even possibly than Murphy: for I understand his mistakes rather better than he does.

It really isn't just because he's sorta lefty (Chris Dillow is flat out Marxist and yet has some very good policy proposals) it's because he's incompetent, in my opinion, as an economist. Which is not a notable recommendation in one who would recommend the economic course the Kingdom should follow.

Tim Worstal

Re: It's OK

"And remember Mrs. Thatcher's adviser who suggested all roads should be privatised and the owners allowed to put tolls on them, so you would have to pay a series of tolls to get to town in the morning? He'd obviously read about the 18th century and failed to notice what happened in the 19th."

Well, yes, but Alan Walters was also the intellectual origin of the London Congestion Charge as well. Tolls and fees are not an entirely barking idea....

Auto erotica bonk shocker: ja das ist gut, say 56% of Germans

Tim Worstal

There was a story about this......

Bloke had a crash on the M4 (I think it was) and he and the bird with him were dead. But his penis was severed and in her mouth.

So, reconstructed, she's giving him a blow job as he's driving. Crashes. Steering wheel hits her in back of head, slamming jaw shut......

Why do driverless car makers have this insatiable need for speed?

Tim Worstal

Re: Wait a minute

That's a reasonable alternative model. And I guess my assumption is that the car manufacturers want to avoid that one happening.

Tim Worstal

Re: Descisions

This is the "trolley problem". And there's not really a solution.

I did once write a piece called "When Should Your Google Car Be Allowed To Kill You?" because one possible solution (obviously, depends upon the set up but....) is that your car drives you into a wall so as to kill you but save more other people.

Tricky really....

Australia to capture biometrics at the border under new law

Tim Worstal

I thought the drop bear used its comfy bottom to stun its prey by falling onto it.....

You gotta be in it to win it: The Register presents its official Programming Competition

Tim Worstal

Re: No scruples

"and really shouldn't pose a problem to anyone here."

Hmm....I'm still struggling mightily to find a supplier of the 1s and 0s that I'm told code is made of. And where is the tank on the computer that you pour them into?