Showing posts with label Paul Krugman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Krugman. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

May 17: Li Jin, Paul Krugman

Web3 Is Our Chance to Make a Better Internet Web3 proponents envision an internet in which users can wrest back power from a small number of extractive, centralized institutions, and in which everyone with an internet connection can participate on a level playing field. ....... But Web2, the current era of the internet defined by companies built on proprietary data (such as Facebook and Google), started with a similar promise of empowering individual creators and removing intermediaries — a promise left unfulfilled. Now, standing at the precipice of a new era, we should ask ourselves: Is Web3 actually democratizing opportunity? And if not, how can we better design platforms and governance systems to promote fairness? ......... A just society is one “that if you knew everything about it, you’d be willing to enter it in a random place.” .......... Web3 presents the opportunity to build an entirely new internet — indeed, entire new economies — from scratch. .......... questions about impacts and externalities were left too late in the design of Web2, with consequences ranging from election manipulation to widespread vaccine misinformation. Some indicators show that early design choices in Web3 are replicating or compounding the inequalities of Web2 and the real world. ......... If we want Web3 to make good on the promise that it can materially improve the situations of everyone within the ecosystem, and not just a handful of people at the top, we need to design it according to principles that will make that happen. ........ it’s acceptable that doctors earn more than janitors, because that compensation differential incentivizes doctors to pursue their careers and ensures that janitors (and everyone else) will receive quality care if they fall ill. ......... Before the internet, access to participation in various industries was limited by a handful of gatekeepers, ranging from movie studios to music labels. The internet and social media platforms made it possible for anyone to participate in content creation and distribution, and therefore enabled more creators to succeed. ........ Gig economy platforms bring in billions of dollars in revenue, while the frontline workers who deliver their services earn poverty wages and are shut out of decisions that impact their lives. Social media companies and media platforms earn billions of dollars in ad revenue from algorithmic feeds that elevate misinformation and damage vulnerable communities. Platforms’ creator funds typically reward creators with the most views and engagement, leading to the concentration of income among those who already have ample sources of revenue while failing to broaden access for less-well-off aspiring creators. And we’ve written before about how the internet’s original sin of not enabling payments led to the extractive, advertising-based business models that define the Web2 economy today. ........ But it’s not just Web2 platforms that fail to reach Rawls’s standard of justice. Web3 in its current form is also exacerbating inequalities. Web3 projects commonly issue crypto tokens as digital representations of value. Early versions of token distributions have led to unsustainable dynamics wherein speculators are rewarded instead of those who are adding consistent value to networks through actual usage. ........ strong parallels between some current non-fungible token (NFT) projects and multi-level marketing schemes, in which later arrivals to the ecosystem are structurally unable to achieve the same level of success as early adopters due to system design. ............ We’ve seen how both the Web2 internet and early iterations of Web3 fall short of ensuring a free, fair playing field that benefits the least advantaged. ....... Unlike in Web2 platforms, with a cadre of founders, executives, and shareholders holding all the power, Web3 communities will be controlled by their members. ........ Early governance structures have largely instituted token-weighted voting, with the result being plutocracies that are not all that different from the boardrooms they’re meant to be a corrective to. ....... Web2 platforms coerce user loyalty through network effects and closed data, and exiting a platform leaves creators without access to their audiences or content. Web3 affords the opportunity to build systems that foster user agency and self-determination through true digital ownership, open data, and networks that are built atop open-source software. ......... A core philosophical tenet of Web3 is that there are more ways to provide value to an ecosystem than through capital — and furthermore, that value should be able to be earned, not just purchased. This is a radical departure from the existing structure, where those with capital earn more through investments than people can earn through work — resulting in a widening wealth gap over time.



What a DAO Can — and Can’t — Do

it remains unclear whether, and how, DAOs might supplant traditional organizational structures.

..... In November 2021, a group of individuals formed a legal entity that bought 40 acres of land in Wyoming. ....... The purchasing group included approximately 6,000 people. They met via online discussion platforms such as Discord and bought the land not with dollars, yen, or any other fiat currency, but instead with cryptocurrency. ........ the strangest part of this deal is that no one runs the entity that purchased the land — it doesn’t have a CEO, a board of directors, managers, or other decision-makers ........ DAO (pronounced as “Dow,” like the Dow Jones Industrial Average) is the acronym for decentralized autonomous organization. A DAO is a new type of digital-first entity that shares similarities with a traditional company structure but has some additional features, such as the automatic enforcement of operating rules via smart contracts ......... No single person exerts control in the way a conventional CEO or senior management team would. ....... Like most other Web3 technologies, DAOs are currently in an experimental phase. The forms, structures, legalities, and use cases are all still emergent. While the United States has seen tens of millions of corporations registered over the past two centuries, there are fewer than 5,000 DAOs worldwide today ........ fewer than 100 have assets of more than $1 million ....... Once the DAO has established a core set of rules and embedded them into smart contracts, it needs to raise funds. DAOs typically raise funds by issuing tokens, a form of digital currency tied to the smart contract. Sales happen through public or private offerings, and the money raised goes to the DAO’s treasury. The tokens represent a form of ownership but are not the same as traditional equity and do not function as investment contracts; rather, they are akin to contributions that bestow governance rights but not ownership. Most DAOs are not directly owned by anyone in the traditional sense. ........... Information related to issues such as currency transactions and internal decisions is available for everyone to see on blockchain. This transparency forms the basis for trust among members. ......... An important feature of this process is that voting mechanisms are defined in advance and not easily modified. This differs from what happens in traditional organizations, where a CEO or CFO can ignore consensus when making a decision. In a DAO, the community votes on activities such as spending money. Although the scope of decisions that can be made this way is more limited than in a traditional organization, once everyone agrees to the rules, there’s no ambiguity or wiggle room in how they are applied. .........

The majority of existing DAOs are unregistered and have an uncertain legal status, and they are perhaps viewed as “alegal” rather than illegal.

........ Most jurisdictions around the world require a company to provide a unique name, a physical office address, and the name of at least one director in order for the company to receive its own identification number and be entered into the formal business register. .......... DAOs in Wyoming are considered a distinct form of limited liability company (LLC), which grants them a legal personality and confers a wide range of rights, such as limited liability for members. Without this protection, a DAO could be viewed as a general partnership, exposing its members to personal liability for any of the DAO’s obligations or actions. ......... CityDAO’s first investment (named Parcel 0) was the 40-acre plot of land in Wyoming. ........ It’s unlikely that DAOs will replace traditional organizations, or at least they won’t anytime soon. But their current shortcomings should be viewed through the lens of early-stage innovation: It’s not clear exactly what they will become and where they are most beneficial, but DAOs have obviously created a lot of interest and excitement in the Web3 community. Will DAOs take the place of traditional organizations for some types of group-level activity? Will we see hybrids form, where, for example, “normal” companies use smart contracts to make ironclad, irrevocable commitments to a constituency? Imagine using something like a DAO to let your employees vote on which philanthropies to support or users decide which features to incorporate in the next version of an offering. With Web3, there’s plenty to imagine.

https://upstreamapp.com



Crashing Crypto: Is This Time Different? In any case, as we look forward, the value of cryptocurrencies will have to rest on their underlying economic uses, which are … Well, that’s just the thing. I’ve heard many discussions in which crypto supporters have been asked exactly what economic role crypto can play that isn’t more easily and cheaply achieved through other means — debit cards, Venmo, etc. Other than illegal transactions, in which crypto may sometimes offer anonymity, I have yet to hear a coherent answer.

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Sunday, August 05, 2018

The Blockchain And The Bitcoin



Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by Paul Krugman
comes down to two things: transaction costs and the absence of tethering ...... the enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies seems very odd, because it goes exactly in the opposite of the long-run trend. Instead of near-frictionless transactions, we have high costs of doing business, because transferring a Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency unit requires providing a complete history of past transactions. Instead of money created by the click of a mouse, we have money that must be mined — created through resource-intensive computations. ........ you need the digital equivalent of biting a gold coin to be sure it’s the real deal, and the costs of producing something that satisfies that test have to be high enough to discourage fraud. ........ cryptocurrency enthusiasts are effectively celebrating the use of cutting-edge technology to set the monetary system back 300 years ......... please answer the question, what problem does cryptocurrency solve? Don’t just try to shout down the skeptics with a mixture of technobabble and libertarian derp.



The Blockchain is like the Internet, the Bitcoin is like a search engine built on top of that internet. A dozen search engines failed and then Google came along. It is not surprising that several cryptocurrencies have failed. That does not take away from the promise of the Blockchain. The Blockchain will be 1,000 times more promising than the Internet.

You could not have built Facebook or YouTube in 1998. There simply was not enough bandwidth to go around. I think Blockchain technology is waiting for a similar quantum jump in computational power to take off. Perhaps quantum computers will do the trick. And then the Blockchain goes mainstream.

Bitcoin (1/31/2014)
The Blockchain Is About Trust (12/07/2014)

Crypto token roundup
Crypto Tokens: A Breakthrough in Open Network Design
crypto tokens — a new way to design open networks that arose from the cryptocurrency movement that began with the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008 and accelerated with the introduction of Ethereum in 2014. Tokens are a breakthrough in open network design that enable: 1) the creation of open, decentralized networks that combine the best architectural properties of open and proprietary networks, and 2) new ways to incentivize open network participants, including users, developers, investors, and service providers. By enabling the development of new open networks, tokens could help reverse the centralization of the internet, thereby keeping it accessible, vibrant and fair, and resulting in greater innovation.








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Monday, October 22, 2012

The Stimulus Was Too Small

Description: Front side (obverse) of one of th...
Description: Front side (obverse) of one of the Nobel Prize medals in Physiology or Medicine awarded in 1950 to researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I agree with Paul Krugman, my favorite political columnist. How many political columnists have a Nobel Prize? But I liked him plenty before he won the prize. Actually I was in disbelief he did. Columnists are not supposed to win Nobel Prizes, I remember thinking.

The Secret of Our Non-Success
the stimulus was both too small and too short-lived, partly because of administration errors but mainly because of scorched-earth Republican obstruction
And I argued the stimulus was too small back in 2009. Paul was going on deep knowledge, I was going on instinct.

The faster way to reduce the debt would be for this country to do another stimulus, this time a full trillion. But I don't see it happening. Such common sense would be too much to ask of the political system.

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Monday, September 06, 2010

Treating This Like It Were A 1992 Or 1980 Recession: A Mistake

Paul Krugman, Laureate of the Sveriges Riksban...Image via Wikipedia

The government stepped in to bail out the banks. The government stepped in with a stimulus bill. But the government did not step in to create about five million jobs. That third part is the missing part of the zigsaw puzzle. The Great Recession has not been fed the Tennessee Valley Authorities of these times. It has been for the government to dream up the jobs of tomorrow and bring them home. And I am not talking cutting edge stuff that perhaps is best left to the visionaries and the qualified in the private sector, although even there, it can be argued, bold would be beautiful. Perhaps this is just the time for a Manhattan Project for the environment, or to take a man/human to the environmental moon.

The first stimulus bill was a little misguided. It was too small, the tax cuts were unnecessary. Too much of it went to just paying people unemployment and salaries until the economy went back to normal. That normal has not happened. Because this is not 2001 or 1992 or 1980. This is more like the FDR times. It is a great crisis that can be steered to create a better future than ever before existed. This is a time for big, bold action still.

Band aid solutions will not work. And caving into GOP fervor to go back in time will fare even worse. The electorate has to be saved from itself. The electorate has to be relentlessly educated to do the right thing in November.

What are the options?

Some say a second stimulus is a fiscal non event. It is not happening. I am not so sure.

The Fed has not exercised all the monetary options available. Paul Krugman seems to suggest that. And I agree. Letting inflation go up a little so it becomes expensive for the private sector to sit on the near two trillion dollars it is sitting on would be a great idea.

The president has to engage in vision talk. He has to start talking like he is the nation's CEO, which he is. You engage the leaders of all segments of the private sector in brainstorming sessions. You let them help you think in terms of the jobs, companies and industries of tomorrow. And you give a series of speeches. You are not proposing to spend. It is not about money. It is about making speeches to prop up private sector confidence. It is about pumping vision. Where there is no vision, the people shall perish. This is as important as fiscal and monetary moves, and the most in command of the top guy. And it does not cost money.

These are not normal times. The wheels of capitalism are not churning like they are supposed to. Capitalism is fish outside water right now. Political leadership matters more, not less.

This is not like 2001. This is not like 1992. This is not like 1982. This is more like 1938. What finally got America out of the flunk back then was the massive spending of World War II. For the American voter to vote for the cut-the-deficit people in November would be suicidal. This is time for more, not less spending. But more alone will not work. The spending has to be about creating the five million jobs of tomorrow. I am thinking more along the lines of basic retraining for solar panel installation and the like.

America does not need World War III, but it does need a second stimulus bill that will be geared towards giving history a push. It has to be about the government actively creating about five millions jobs of tomorrow. They would be to do with green tech, education, with health.

I am for a second stimulus bill that is a trillion dollars. Its primary component would be to guarantee 100 MB broadband to all Americans. It would require freeing up wireless spectrum not 10 years from now, but today. It would require South Korea like competition into the broadband sector. The Internet is the interstate highway of today. People telecommuting are people not having to drive to work. Save the sky. There would be a massive spending on retraining the jobless for the jobs of tomorrow. Shovel-ready is a worker who only needs three months of training. Dream up five million jobs in green/clean tech, in education, in health. Install tens of millions of solar panels. Cut the obesity in the country by half in five years. Send out health care workers with the task. Bring the illiteracy down. Send mobs of mentors into the inner cities. Pay them. Turn this into a country of 75% college graduates in five years by taking all courses and lectures and textbooks and journals online that anyone anywhere can access for free, ad supported.

This second stimulus has to be a declaration of war. America can afford to go from a 13 trillion debt to a 14 trillion debt, but it can not afford Great Depression II or World War III.

A trillion dollars is what America spent in Iraq alone. Some say it is but a third of what America spent in Iraq alone. A trillion dollars is not a lot of money in the big scheme of things.

New York Times

Housing Woes Bring New Cry: Let Market Fall: Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates, government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live...... a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash. .... Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that is not happening.... “They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.” ..... Sales of new homes are lower than in the depths of the recession of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates were double what they are now, unemployment was pervasive and the gloom was at least as thick...... “extend and pretend” or “delay and pray”

That ’70s Feeling:Steven Slater, a flight attendant for JetBlue, ended his career by cursing at his passengers over the intercom and grabbing a couple of beers before sliding down the emergency-evacuation chute ..... The “blue-collar blues” were so widespread that the Senate opened an investigation into worker “alienation.” ...... “I’d give the shirt right off of my back / If I had the nerve to say / Take this job and shove it!” ...... Workers have learned to internalize and mask powerlessness, but the internal frustration and struggle remain. ..... Today the concerns of the working class have less space in our civic imagination than at any time since the Industrial Revolution.

Paul Krugman: 1938 in 2010: The president’s policies have limited the damage, but they were too cautious, and unemployment remains disastrously high..... the year is 1938..... the nature of the recovery that followed refutes the arguments dominating today’s public debate, discouraging because it’s hard to see anything like the miracle of the 1940s happening again..... the stimulus raised growth while it lasted, but it made only a small dent in unemployment — and now it’s fading out......More stimulus is desperately needed ..... March 1938. Asked whether government spending should be increased to fight the slump, 63 percent of those polled said no. Asked whether it would be better to increase spending or to cut business taxes, only 15 percent favored spending; 63 percent favored tax cuts. And the 1938 election was a disaster for the Democrats, who lost 70 seats in the House and seven in the Senate....... World War II was, above all, a burst of deficit-financed government spending ..... the federal government borrowed an amount equal to roughly twice the value of G.D.P. in 1940 — the equivalent of roughly $30 trillion today. .... Deficit spending created an economic boom — and the boom laid the foundation for long-run prosperity. Overall debt in the economy — public plus private — actually fell as a percentage of G.D.P., thanks to economic growth and, yes, some inflation, which reduced the real value of outstanding debts. And after the war, thanks to the improved financial position of the private sector, the economy was able to thrive without continuing deficits. ....... when the economy is deeply depressed, the usual rules don’t apply. Austerity is self-defeating: when everyone tries to pay down debt at the same time, the result is depression and deflation, and debt problems grow even worse ...... Even under F.D.R., there was never the political will to do what was needed to end the Great Depression; its eventual resolution came essentially by accident. ..... politicians and economists alike have spent decades unlearning the lessons of the 1930s, and are determined to repeat all the old mistakes..... the big winners in the midterm elections are likely to be the very people who first got us into this mess, then did everything in their power to block action to get us out .... a little bit of intellectual clarity, and a lot of political will.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results On Cupcake Android


It is a sweet spot to be. That is number four out of over 1.2 million.

Donut Android: Windows 95, Android 2009?
Cupcake Android Delay Reason: Donut Android
Google Analytics Says I Am Paul Krugman Friend, Cupcake Android Expert
Cupcake: Android 1.5
David Gelernter: Manifesto


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