nickbauman (u/nickbauman)

nickbauman commented on Let's consign CAP to the cabinet of curiosities brooker.co.za/blog/2024/0... · Posted by u/nalgeon

slaymaker1907 · a year ago

Actually, banks use eventually consistent systems in many cases. They'd rather let a few customers overdraw a bit than stop a customer from being able to buy something on their card when they have the funds for it.

nickbauman · a year ago

Having worked at a couple of banks, this is absolutely true.

nickbauman commented on The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022) egypttoday.com/Article/4/... · Posted by u/Bluestein

kragen · a year ago

this is utter speculation; we don't have anywhere near the level of archaeological evidence about the social relations of 7th-century lydia necessary to make statements like this. no inscriptions survive in lydian from that century or the following century, except for the occasional graffito, plus of course words struck on coins. even from later in lydian history, we only have a few dozen texts of any length. the kings before gyges are quasi-mythical; we don't even know how kroisos, the most famous of gyges' successors spelled his own name. we don't know how kroisos's taxation system worked. we don't know if the peasantry was free or enslaved. we certainly don't have any contemporary accounts of social relations between soldiers and peasantry

however, we do know that rulers around the mediterranean were levying taxes and making war for thousands of years before the lydians started making specie into coins

nickbauman · a year ago

Comment was not meant to cover Lydia; just generally how money emerged. And this is a "cartoon" version of the story.

nickbauman commented on The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022) egypttoday.com/Article/4/... · Posted by u/Bluestein

kragen · a year ago

graeber is fascinating and compelling reading, and he may be right about things from time to time, but he is not a reliable guide to reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years#Cri...

nickbauman · a year ago

Huato doesn't seem to have read the first line of page 22, as Graber actually refutes the claim that money and debt co-emerged. As far as the Cato institute's criticism is concerned, that section is almost entirely free of specificity, unsurprisingly considering how right-wing Cato is in general. All accounts are flawed to some degree, these criticisms you point to are almost entirely ideological or non specific.

nickbauman commented on The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022) egypttoday.com/Article/4/... · Posted by u/Bluestein

Bluestein · a year ago

I had always (superficially) assumed the ruler as part of coinage was, somehow, to lend 'officialness' to the currency. But your informed and informative comment makes sense. Many thanks.-

nickbauman · a year ago

David Graber's book "Debt, the first 5,000 years" goes into this in great detail. Highly recommended.

nickbauman commented on The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022) egypttoday.com/Article/4/... · Posted by u/Bluestein

diggan · a year ago

What a coinkidink, I just finished watching episode 2 of "Connections" with James Burke which mentions this in the beginning of the episode, when talking about the invention of currency. The article from Egypt Today doesn't seem to mention the discovery of touchstone (which the episode does), which seemed like an important detail of "why gold?".

Seems it's available on the Internet Archive too: https://archive.org/details/james-burke-connections_s01e02

nickbauman · a year ago

Thanks for posting! Burke uses the term "barter", which is wrong. Before coinage, people used credit. Barter was extremely rare.

nickbauman commented on The Kingdom of Lydia minted gold, silver coins (2022) egypttoday.com/Article/4/... · Posted by u/Bluestein

kragen · a year ago

of course this wasn't the first currency; currencies had been in use for millennia at that point. it was the first coinage of the metals they were already using as currencies

nickbauman · a year ago

Coins (specie that had a direct connection to a ruler, usually with the name or visage of the ruler struck on them) were invented to facilitate war. They were given to soldiers to allow them to participate in the economy of the conquered. Since the free peasantry wouldn't trade with them (unreliable: they "died for a living"). The ruler demanded to be paid taxes in his own coin. This solved several important problems: reduction of military unrest against the ruler, free peasantry became a reliable source of goods and services, and the ruler could make war as needed. A market economy emerged as a side effect.

nickbauman commented on Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus group-media.mercedes-benz... · Posted by u/ofcrpls

LegitShady · 3 years ago

big german companies do it because they are required to by law.

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

nickbauman · 3 years ago

This is interesting. I sat next to a German manager of DaimlerChrysler (which really dates me, I know) on a flight. He agreed with the idea of worker unions being inside the company and having a seat at the table. He also disliked the practice of building cars "offshore" because, he said "the knowledge of building the car leaves the country".

nickbauman commented on Alpine.js alpinejs.dev/... · Posted by u/tosh

k4rli · 3 years ago

What's screwy about it? In my experience it's been painless to switch between html+vanillajs and React projects.

nickbauman · 3 years ago

JSX has an Async "tag"...

Let that sink in.

nickbauman commented on Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus group-media.mercedes-benz... · Posted by u/ofcrpls

gnrlst · 3 years ago

Not that Mercedes is a good example, but is there a name for company philosophy of being employee/team-centric versus investor centric? E.g. all profits shared among employees instead of shareholders for example. I'd like to work for a company like that.

nickbauman · 3 years ago

The most radical are Co-Ops. The workers own the company. They're called Worker-Owners. Where management is a skill, not a rank. The problem with this model is three-fold:

• Outside investment can undermine the Co-Op's autonomy (many don't allow it) • Raising capital is hard; usually you're bootstrapping (worker-owners must divert some of their income) • Sometimes worker-owners get caught up in the democratic process of collective decision-making and get frustrated

On the other hand:

• A real Co-Op is real community. They exist to support the humans through work. You're all in this together. You can be "kicked out" by vote, but when you do, you give up your share and all that share money accumulating is yours. • You are "The Man" in the worst and best way you can imagine If something is wrong with the company, you can change it. • No more perverse mgmt incentives.

The biggest Co-Op is the Mondragon. They are very successful, too.

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

nickbauman commented on Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus group-media.mercedes-benz... · Posted by u/ofcrpls

beezlebroxxxxxx · 3 years ago

Interestingly, I'm currently reading a book on the history of austerity and the author shows how worker councils were a thing in the UK during and immediately after WW1; however, austerity was put in place to systematically prioritize capital and the minority capital class over working class people. Lest that sound slightly conspiratorial the author cites specific memos and comments from the Treasury at the time that make that point explicit. They simply insisted that working class would have to "sacrifice" so that the system of capital could be restored. The interests of capital was always prioritized; it was all that mattered. People were expected to be more productive, consume less, and earn less.

nickbauman · 3 years ago

What's the title?