A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on.
To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such.
John Quiggin 
Bitcoin ATMs, inviting people to “Buy crypto with cash”, have begun appearing in shopping centres in south-east Queensland. Today I discovered one such machine outside Coles at Fairfield Gardens shopping centre in Brisbane, photographed the thing and shared the photo on Facebook. A friend from the Sunshine Coast commented that a similar machine is located outside Coles at Nambour.
Bitcoin ATMs, inviting people to “Buy crypto with cash”, have begun appearing in shopping centres in south-east Queensland. Today I discovered one such machine outside Coles at the Fairfield Gardens shopping centre in Brisbane, photographed the thing, and posted the picture on Facebook. A friend from the Sunshine Coast commented that a similar machine has been installed outside Coles in Nambour.
Paul, one wonders what wonders sewerage testing might reveal in those and adjacent locations?
Maybe the local library is increasingly boosting such change:
https://library-brisbane.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/eLibCat/search/results?qu=Cryptocurrencies&st=PD
https://library-brisbane.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/eLibCat/search/results?qu=Danial%2C+Kiana%2C+author.&dt=list
– Svante
An article titled “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Economics” has been published as a discussion paper in a new section of the e-journal Economics titled Economics as an Evolutionary Science. According to the open review policy of Economics, articles are made available to the public as discussion papers while they are still under review. Anyone can submit a review, along with the reviewers chosen by the editor, and all of the reviews are made public upon final publication of the article.
This might not seem like big news. The need to rethink economics is widely appreciated, the e-journal is not one of the “big five” economic journals from which a major statement might be expected, and the article isn’t even formally accepted yet. But the status of the authors of this article suggests that something newsworthy is afoot. Dennis J. Snower is a prominent economist, well-known as a contributor to labor and macroeconomic theory and policy as well as advisor to governments and international organizations, past-president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, current President of the nonprofit Global Solutions Initiative, and currently active at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, The New Institute in Hamburg, the Blavatnik School of Government and the Institute of New Economic Thinking in Oxford, and Brookings in Washington DC. David Sloan Wilson is one of the world’s foremost evolutionary scientists who authored a major article with his colleague Edward O. Wilson in 2007 titled “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology”.
Simply put, evolutionary economic theory can be summed up in these terms:
“ Evolutionary economics has been a school of thought since Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter’s 1982 book “An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change”. It has been critiqued by Geoffrey Hodgson in a 2019 monograph titled “Evolutionary Economics: It’s Nature and Future[5]”. Hodgson reminds us that Charles Darwin was not the first person to use the word “evolution”. His specific insight (shared by Alfred Russell Wallace) was to identify the trio of variation, selection, and replication as the mechanism of evolution. A modern definition of Darwinian evolution is any process that includes this trio, including but not restricted to genetic evolution (e.g., cultural evolution, antibody evolution, computer evolutionary algorithms).“ Evolutionary economics has been a school of thought since Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter’s 1982 book “An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change”. It has been critiqued by Geoffrey Hodgson in a 2019 monograph titled “Evolutionary Economics: It’s Nature and Future[5]”. Hodgson reminds us that Charles Darwin was not the first person to use the word “evolution”. His specific insight (shared by Alfred Russell Wallace) was to identify the trio of variation, selection, and replication as the mechanism of evolution. A modern definition of Darwinian evolution is any process that includes this trio, including but not restricted to genetic evolution (e.g., cultural evolution, antibody evolution, computer evolutionary algorithms).
“”
Imagine, if you can, the evolutionary paradigm becoming the consensus view among politicians, corporate heads, and public policy experts of all stripes. Every important action would be evaluated with the global system in mind. In many cases, what takes place at a lower scale will be benign at larger scales and the time-honored principle of subsidiarity (the authority of lower-level units unless causing problems at higher scales) applies. If lower-level activities do cause problems at higher scales, then this will be recognized as wrong and in need of adjustment. The corrective need not be harsh or morally disapproving. Just as in an automobile assembly plant, there simply needs to be a swarm of activity to solve a systemic problem. But there must also be a capacity to oppose willfully predatory practices. And prosociality at all scales should be showered with the benefits of having a good reputation, in addition to correctives for behaving wrongly.”
David Sloan Wilson*
The advancement of evolutionary economics is meant to overcome the pendulum of economic history over the last 200 years. After laissez-faire economics, named as Capitalism by Karl Marx, failed it was replaced with Keynesian economics which also failed. This was replaced with monetarism which also failed. But then privatisation, deregulation and tax cuts for the rich returned western economies to a pale form of laissez-faire economics called Neo-Classical economic theory. After the GFC there was a pendulum swing back to a updated form of Keynesian economic theory now called Neo- Keynesianism. But after 2022, western economies have swung back to a new form of monetarism.
This reusing of failed economic systems, that are first rejigged for modern times, does not solve the long term economic problem. Poverty rises around the world, overconsumption causes global warming, economic development becomes a stop-start process and the price mechanism fails to eliminate oversupply problems and shortages, without extreme price volatility.
You would hope that after two hundred and fifty years of economic research, that a final solution to long term economic problems has finally arrived. Whether the theory of evolutionary economics is that final answer remains debatable.**
*David Sloan Wilson a leading evolutionary scientist
**Criticism of evolutionary economic theory can be found in:
Hodgson, G. M. (2019). Evolutionary Economics: Its Nature and Future. Cambridge University Press.
”
Home in Kyiv before Christmas?
1. On the Ukraine war, the MSM, with its short attention horizon, focuses on the absence of dramatic changes in the front lines and occupied territory. It buys into the story of a long war of quasi-stalemate. This is promoted by Russia as its best possible outcome, and by NATO ministries of defence as a worst case, advanced out of professional prudence and the political need to maintain public support “for as long as it takes”.
2. I don’t buy this. I suggest that things are going Ukraine’s way more strongly and faster than the headlines indicate. My guess is that by the end of the year Ukraine will reoccupy most of the “land bridge” to Crimea, i.e all of Kherson and Zaporizhe oblasts, and its army will be on the Sea of Azov. I make no prediction about the Crimea; but the peninsula will at that point be strategically indefensible by Russia. The only remaining supply route will be over the Kerch bridge that Ukraine has cut once and can cut again, with missiles launched from only 160km. Russian withdrawal – except for a possible redoubt round Sevastopol – will then be just a matter of time, or what is left of its army will face humiliating defeat. This will probably be the end of Putin, and in the endgame events will be determined in Moscow more than in the field, as noted by Timothy Snyder (unlike me, a real expert).
3. Look at the big picture.
• Ukraine’s armed forces showed themselves to be better than those of Russia right at the start of war and the battle for Kyiv. The qualitative gap, in motivation, leadership, weaponry, and organization has grown steadily wider as the war has dragged on.
• Russia started the war with numerical superiority in tanks, artillery, and other heavy equipment, but this has probably disappeared with steady high losses from qualitative inferiority. Inaccurate Russian artillery loses counterbattery shootouts, and its weakness is exacerbated by shortages of ammunition.
• Russia retains a nominal numerical advantage in men, aviation, and warships.
But these numerical advantages are less than they appear.
4. Since both sides possess strong air defences, neither can fly aircraft outside its controlled territory. Planes are used as missile launchers. Russia’s much larger airforce is largely intact (though poorly defended transport aircraft have taken major losses from drone strikes deep inside Russia), but has in practice not been much use.
5. Even though Ukraine has no warships of any size, its skilful use of missiles and drones has inflicted sizeable losses on the Russian Black Sea Fleet and forced it to withdraw most of its surviving ships from Sevastopol to safer but more distant harbours like Novorissisk. It is now too weak to enforce a grain blockade in the western Black Sea, though it can still make nuisance attacks on Odesa with ship-launched missiles. Russian dominance at sea will continue to shrink.
6. Russia can still raise enough troops to replace its heavy losses and maintain the overall size of its invasion force – but not its quality. Putin’s decision not to frame his invasion as a war, and to forgo full mobilisation as in Ukraine, has meant that Russia raises its new forces in an incoherent mishmash of conscripts, volunteers, mercenaries and regular contract soldiers. This exacerbates Russian weaknesses in command-and-control at the front, and in training and equipment. For instance, from May this year the MoD raised a large new force from the Far East, the 25th Combined Arms Army. Its training was based on plans to deploy it in Ukraine in December. However, this was brought forward to September, to plug gaps in the line. It is very unlikely to perform there as an effective combat force. At the same time, what is left of the professional army of the original invasion, particularly its relatively elite airborne units, is being worn away in attritional warfare in the salient round Robotyne. In short: Ukraine is maintaining or increasing its military human capital while Russia’s is a wasting asset. For now, this is not too bad for Russia since it is on the defensive, which poses a simpler challenge to poor quality troops. When Russians try to attack, as currently at Avdiivka, the results are atrocious. As the gap in quality widens, eventually a tipping point will be reached, followed by a sudden and unpredictable collapse.
7. I don’t think enough weight is being given to China’s position. It is Russia’s ally, but a curiously limited one. Putin gets rhetorical and diplomatic support, and Chinese firms are happy to help Russian ones get round economic sanctions. But note what China has not done. It has not recognized Putin’s annexations, even the 2014 one of the Crimea. It has not put its vast industrial machine at Russia’s disposal. If the Chinese government wanted to really support Russia’s war effort, as the USA did that of Soviet Russia in 1941, we would be seeing endless trains of munitions heading west, filled from large new factories built in six months. Instead Putin is forced to beg scraps from North Korea. I am not sure why China is sitting on the fence, but it is. Perhaps because none of the possible outcomes suits Chinese interests. A very unlikely victory by Putin would make him dangerously strong. Humiliating defeat would make him or his successor dangerously weak, as well as encouraging Taiwan. A long stalemate or frozen war is perhaps the least bad outcome for China, but it would be a continuing drag on the world economy China’s export industries need. Whatever the reason for this policy, it is not going to change.
8. Basically Russia has to depend on its own resources, and these are much skimpier than those of its adversaries. The German economy alone is about the same size as the Russian. Russian arms producers are hampered at every turn by their post-1991 dependence on international supply chains, which Ukraine’s allies have disrupted, in sharp contrast to the genuine self-sufficiency of the old Soviet economy. The problem is basically insoluble. Russia has no path to making its own 5 nanometer computer chips.
9. We have to consider the political weaknesses of Putin’s autocratic régime. I liken it to the Bonapartism of the French Second Empire of Napoleon III. Lacking any coherent ideology deeper than bloody-flag nationalism, it was held up by economic prosperity (concentrated in the hands of cronies), grandiose public works and flashy foreign adventures. One big military defeat led to abdication, and the system collapsed completely like a house of cards, forgotten in an instant. Contrast the staying power of both French republicanism and monarchism, which survived long periods of adversity as significant political movements. Putin’s authoritarian kleptocracy enjoys the tolerance of the Russian people, not its enthusiastic support. The economy has held up remarkably well, but is now stagnant or shrinking, and living standards have stopped improving as resources are diverted to struggling war production. Tight control of the media, especially state TV, has sheltered the typical viewer from the true cost of the war, the false pretences and insane objectives of its launch, and its fundamental failure. This is another house of cards which can – I think will – collapse in a day.
10. These broad considerations justify, in my view, a strong expectation of eventual Ukrainian victory, on its own terms of the recovery of the borders of 2013. They do not imply any particular timetable, and in particular my end-of-year bet. This is of much lower probability than undated victory. That understood, let us look at the current map.
11. the first thing that strikes the eye is that the map is greatly favourable to Ukraine, with interior lines of communication and numerous options for attack. The Russia position is spread out and lacks strategic depth in the south. This might not matter if Russia were attacking rather than defending, but the fact is that it is strategically on the defence. All the lines of communication on the “land bridge” stretching as far as the Kinburn Spit are within range of Ukrainian precision missiles, and almost half within the range of cheaper and more abundant precision artillery. The longer routes through the Crimea have chokepoints that Ukraine has been able to attack at greater distances. The problems of Russian logistics, evident from the beginning of the invasion, will continue to deteriorate, damaging morale as well as combat potential.
12. The Ukrainian advance round Robotyne, and the opportunistic smaller advances south of Bakhmut, have been slow, conducted at the walking pace of WWI rather than the tank blitzkriegs of WW2 and the two Gulf Wars. This is partly down to the surprising strength of Russian field fortifications, the mutual transparency of the battlefield created by ubiquitous cheap drones, and the virtual absence of fixed-wing aircraft above it. The deliberate pace is also a conscious choice by Ukrainian commanders. They are fighting a battle of attrition in which the prime metric is not terrain occupied but relative losses in manpower and equipment. While the Ukrainian army has kept a tight lid on its own losses, and its published estimates of consistently large Russian ones are often treated as exaggerated by NATO MoDs, there is no doubt that Ukrainian losses are much lower. In a free society, high casualties could not be concealed for long. On equipment, Russian videos of destroyed Ukrainian tanks etc. are far less common than Ukrainian ones of dead Russian ones. The Russian defence industry, unlike its Soviet predecessor, seems unable to match high battle losses. The equipment balance steadily shifts in Ukraine’s favour, in quantity as well as quality. This growing weakness erodes morale and brings collapse nearer.
13. So why do I think the inevitable collapse is coming sooner rather than later? It’s because the Russian Army has run out of decent-quality reserves. Round Robotyne, Russia has been holding Ukrainian advances to a crawl by concentrating many if no most of its better airborne (VDV) units, the remnants of the professional army that invaded Ukraine. The last remaining VDV unit that is more or less intact, the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, has just arrived there from the Luhansk front. It has been replaced there by the half-trained Siberian conscripts of the 25th CAA. The latter can be replaced, the former not.
14. A former commander of the sector, General Ivan Popov, was so concerned about the lack of essential rotation that he risked, and lost, his job complaining about it. While Gerasimov is a mediocre general, he surely recognized that Popov was right – but his demands could not be met. Attrition is steadily shredding the best of the Russian Army. You can blame Gerasimov for accelerating the process by ordering a pointless and very costly attack on the Avdiivka salient at Donetsk, a fortress the Ukrainians have been improving since 2014. Some defence positions are buried inside an old coal slag heap, presumably invulnerable to artillery fire like Douaumont at Verdun. The attack has turned into a Russian armoured vehicle turkey shoot, with over 280 destroyed and still counting.
14. Ukrainian commanders are very competent and are surely reassessing the tactical situation on the frontline regularly, including the shrinking combat ability of their Russian opponents. At some point in the coming months, the calculation will tip in favour of taking more risks and attacking with larger forces moving more aggressively, taking the probability of temporarily higher casualties.
15. The military assessment will be combined with a political one. A long war is in Putin’s interest, but not Ukraine’s. Every day of continued Russian occupation is a day of more oppression, war crimes and penury for large numbers of Ukrainian citizens under it, and random but deadly missile strikes on the free population. Every day the war goes on adds a little strain and diffidence to the support of its allies. If MAGA Republicans in the USA propose to cut back on war aid to Ukraine, it’s because the isolationist or pro-Putin message resonates with a large minority of American voters. The election in Poland turned out well for Ukraine, but not that in Slovakia. NATO leaders still vow support “for as long as it takes”, but there is an unspoken addition “but for God’s sake, not too long.” The home front of Ukrainian civilian morale is holding up remarkably well. But there must be growing strains under the surface. The macabre weighing of civilian against military casualties also tilts towards attack. Zelensky will wait until his military commanders are on board with a bold offensive, but not a moment longer. The attack will succeed.
16. That’s why I guess Christmas. Winter mud you say? The famous “rasputitsa”, worse in the spring rather than the autumn, comes from a rain-soaked surface layer of soil on top of an impermeable frozen subsoil. The south of Ukraine doesn’t get permafrost, just ordinary mud passable by tanks.
17. I am not an expert in any of this and all I offer is armchair analysis based on public information and common sense. Just ask yourself: where does Wimberley go wrong on the facts? What important factors do I ignore? On the other hand, do the arguments of “long war” gloomsayers take proper account of those I cite?
.
I think I have encountered finance bros (and sisters), along with some sisgramers, or at least prospective ones (read master students in those departments). Rather amazing considering my location. US culture just keeps spreading with a time lag, no matter what it is.