Bitcoin Is Venice: Essays on the Past and Future of Capitalism

We think it is a vicious interplay of three factors, each as unfortunate as the last, each feeding and fed by the others. First: physics envy. This is well understood and is not an original insight. Second, a more specific, material effect of physics envy in this realm: It pushes academic economists to search for what can be measured and quantified

This suggests a far more sophisticated understanding of “the risk/reward trade-off” and “the equity premium” than is generally accepted in the realm of modern portfolio theory, and, by extension, the EMH: Bonds are likely to get a lower return than stocks not because they are less “risky” (which in that context is even more questionably interpreted

These people’s wealth is determined almost exclusively by how high they can push flows — stocks and rates of return be damned. Everybody else is left with low or negative real returns and depleted stocks of capital and wealth. This is why GDP growth can be positive, while almost everybody feels poorer. Almost everybody is poorer. Objectively so. Th

Credit card income represented 40% of Macy’s profit before its recent bankruptcy.

“What does Wall Street get out of financialization? A valuation story to sell. What does management get out of financialization? Stock-based compensation. What does the Fed get out of financialization? A (very) grateful Wall Street. What does the White House get out of financialization? Re-election. What do YOU get out of financialization? You get

Bitcoin mining will never siphon away power that would otherwise go to some other activity deemed entirely subjectively by objectors to be “more worthwhile” because anything anybody deems even remotely worthwhile will outbid miners.

Fourth, this artificially expanded opportunity will favor general bigness and concentration in finance itself.

This will change when people start selling not just their fiat, and not just their time, but when they start liquidating real assets.

Second, those who hold return-seeking capital assets but who do not lever up are comparatively disadvantaged if their competitors do.

It does not bow to authority nor look to convince with aesthetics. It appeals to reason, or Logos, and it grants knowledge in the form of what James C. Scott calls mētis, in his magisterial Seeing Like a State, which we reference repeatedly.