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AManFromEarth

Abdhyius wrote: »

AManFromEarth wrote: »

My family were Noble and Elite.

Then history happened and now we're farmers.

Nobility don't mean shit.

on the other hand, prince albert II still got his monaco and he's rich as shit.

yeah but he's got to stay locked up in that can all the time

Irond Will

Gooey wrote: »

japan wrote: »

Gooey wrote: »

if china were a free market and i was a hedge fund manager i would short the shit out of them

There is an investing podcast called The Motley Fool which I used to listen to out of general interest but the guy that does it has the weirdest hardon for investing in China.

the motley fool is a pretty big investing/stock info site

they do have a boner for china

i disagree

i like china a lot. i would live there and work there. but i wouldn't invest there.

is it more because you think that they're hopelessly economically dysfunctional

or because the interests of investors are about one hundredth on their list of priorities?

AManFromEarth

it's all about the little compromises in life

Caveman Paws

Downside of living a couple doors down from an elementary school:

Lounging around your house in just your boxers feels wicked unwholesome.

override367

my understanding of China is completely from the voiceovers of the Chinese units in C&C Generals by the way

this needs to be kept in mind whenever I talk about China

MadCaddy

Will, if we were playing fuck, marry, kill. You'd be the mod I'd marry. I'll let the other mods just worry about other placements.

We'd argue about NOFX and Goldfinger not really being punk like an old married couple, and our babies would be all, "Dah, not this again!"

ronya

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

MadCaddy wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

the thing about population issues in growth is that it is completely dominated by industrial takeoff. as long you have some surplus to divert to takeoff - and, in the modern world, you can always borrow this surplus from a country that has already taken off - population has little obvious relation how well you can vault into growth.

We are drowning in so many possible explanations where population increases takeoff growth through the availability of local markets for industrially-produced consumer goods; certainly the raw regressions tell us nothing.

it is true that as long growth is principally agricultural, population determines growth. But if you're stuck in this trap, you're screwed already anyway. There are no wealthy countries whose economic output is predominantly agricultural. Even if you have very low population per arable area.

I watched the vice on Friday that spoke about how China's current Finance ministry is propagating a real estate bubble, and it just kept showing on the vacant McMansions in the ghost cities. Chinas prospects really aren't looking to hot with their current leadership, hopefully Bo has an ace up his sleeve for their sake.

strong similarities to the 1997 asian financial crisis

and it should be noted that whilst it was severe, the 97 crisis had essentially no impact on long-term growth

Apparently China creates construction projects that never sell and adds them into its GDP, and this (according to VICE, so its probably exaggerated a lil bit) to the tune of 5 trillion dollars over the last 30 years

I don't think it's quite so dire but China will be in for some turmoil if they hit a recession

it turns out that it's actually rather hard to pour completely useless concrete; malinvestment is not as high as the Austrians would prefer. the world is more Keynesian: even if you added capital really, really badly, the amount of damage to wealth this does is second-order to first-order concerns like "how much capital do you have, and how low is your unemployment"

I agree, and in the present term this is a huge boon

The problem this is all a hugely inefficient use of resources and they can't keep up this pace forever, eventually it's going to be need to be replaced by some sustainable economic activity or they're going to have a huge problem

it is sustainable

they have a ton of people, who are not in cities, who want to be in cities

you really think they can have a 10% growth in construction (off the top of my head) every single year forever? Construction can certainly be a big part of their GDP forever, there's no question, it's the rate of growth and percentage of GDP that trouble me

by this definition of sustainable, no country is sustainable. look at every western country's burst of growth in healthcare/education.

Construction is like 50% of their GDP

You're the economics expert and if you don't see that as problematic I'll defer to you, but it kind of worries me (especially when much of it is financed by borrowing from their middle class)

Edit: And I sure as hell see America's healthcare spending and increase as problematic and a recession in the making

someone has to pour all the concrete that industrial societies live in. you are trying to argue that this concrete will not turn out to be useful. well, stare at a rural population chart until you have convinced yourself otherwise.

and if you are trying to argue that construction must remain at 50% at GDP in order to avoid disaster, this is patently silly; stare at a history of Western sectoral change until you have convinced yourself otherwise.

Their construction sector is full of corruption and inefficiency. Reporting bad numbers results in being told to stop being a trouble maker.

I just can't parse how this is better than say, providing cheap housing for your rural citizenry, because that's not what they are doing. They are building housing that nobody can afford to live in.

In fact the locations where this construction is happening are displacing rural economies and the people who live there can't even afford to live in the cities being built right over their farms

then the price of it will drop abruptly, and someone's balance sheet will be wiped out, you get a 1997-style financial crisis, and the economy will contract by the extent to which the capital was badly invested. but, as I said, the world is more Keynesian than Austrian, and malinvestment effects are completely dominated by the primary forces of "how much capital do you have to begin with?"

So we're in agreement, then, because this is basically what I've been trying to suggest will probably happen at some point?

The reason this is significant for China is their current political climate basically has their fingers in their ears at the possibility of such a thing happening, anyone suggesting such up the chain is told to be quiet because PRC will grow #1 forever. I can't begin to predict the specifics though, if I had to guess either a shift further towards authoritarianism or towards democracy (given China's attitudes, likely the former)

and as I said earlier, the 1997 crisis had essentially no impact on the pace of long-term growth. this is despite the tremendous variation in government responses from utter collapse and chaos in Indonesia, to staid and rapid recovery elsewhere

TTODewback

japan wrote: »

TTODewback wrote: »

the drinkers with a running problem is like the official motto I think.
I don't necessarily have a problem with weird orgies though.
Although that story some chatter told about having to tiptoe over unconscious naked people was kind of freaky.

Hash House Harriers?

yep, well I dont think the phrase was invented until it went big.

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

Raaaaaaaargh

RiemannLives

you need to go back a little further than the mid 13th century (Ghengis Khan) to have the odds in favor of really large swathes of the population being descended from a single person. Just about anyone who had surviving grandchildren at the time of Charlemagne is the ancestor of just about everyone with European ancestry of any kind today.

Gooey

Irond Will wrote: »

Gooey wrote: »

japan wrote: »

Gooey wrote: »

if china were a free market and i was a hedge fund manager i would short the shit out of them

There is an investing podcast called The Motley Fool which I used to listen to out of general interest but the guy that does it has the weirdest hardon for investing in China.

the motley fool is a pretty big investing/stock info site

they do have a boner for china

i disagree

i like china a lot. i would live there and work there. but i wouldn't invest there.

is it more because you think that they're hopelessly economically dysfunctional

or because the interests of investors are about one hundredth on their list of priorities?

more the former than the latter i would say

china's economy is super dysfunctional, but at the same time i wouldn't trust the government to protect the investor

like, i have visions of the chinese government just seizing assets in a recession, do not pass go, too bad, etc.

Hamurabi

I remember a large contingent of Kazakh kids I knew who were really upset about having "Genghis Khan's blood."

Irond Will

MadCaddy wrote: »

Will, if we were playing fuck, marry, kill. You'd be the mod I'd marry. I'll let the other mods just worry about other placements.

We'd argue about NOFX and Goldfinger not really being punk like an old married couple, and our babies would be all, "Dah, not this again!"

i still wouldn't move to LA, i'm afraid

AManFromEarth

MalReynolds

I will be using my modest character writing skills to try and launch a pilot based on my experiences as a patron of a quasi-hipster-dive-jazz-bar

The show will be called Pour Decisions.

let's do this

TheNomadicCircle

Hamurabi wrote: »

I remember a large contingent of Kazakh kids I knew who were really upset about having "Genghis Khan's blood."

Of course they would. The Kazakhs never historically supported Chinggis Khan.

Caveman Paws

RiemannLives wrote: »

you need to go back a little further than the mid 13th century (Ghengis Khan) to have the odds in favor of really large swathes of the population being descended from a single person. Just about anyone who had surviving grandchildren at the time of Charlemagne is the ancestor of just about everyone with European ancestry of any kind today.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/

japan

The Guardian, on Nigel Farage wrote:

"We've proved we can get votes in Wales, England and Northern Ireland, We're still untested in Scotland," he said. "We've not had an opportunity to test Ukip policies with the Scottish people for a very long time." Asked about Ukip's chances, he was optimistic. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if we did quite creditably."

Less than 30 minutes after speaking those words, the MEP for South-East Counties was sitting hunched on the rear seat of a police riot van being driven off at speed, his plans to introduce Otto Inglis, Ukip's ever hopeful candidate for the Scottish parliament byelection on 20 June, forgotten.

AManFromEarth

RiemannLives wrote: »

you need to go back a little further than the mid 13th century (Ghengis Khan) to have the odds in favor of really large swathes of the population being descended from a single person. Just about anyone who had surviving grandchildren at the time of Charlemagne is the ancestor of just about everyone with European ancestry of any kind today.

Well yeah, they've been running around having sex with people for 700+ years.

Abdhyius

My great-great something grandfather was one of the men who wrote the constitution and chose the new king

I feel like Kingmaker is a title that should be inheritable.

Cinders

We are all actually Attila the Hun.

Gooey

TTODewback wrote: »

My ancestor killed all of the American Indians.
So I'm pretty much cursed for eternity.

nonono

that's only if you killed the indians and then built a house on the graves

Solomaxwell6

Abdhyius wrote: »

8 percent of everyone living in the former mongol empire are directly descended from genghis khan.

Given the exponential nature of ancestry over time (ancestral generation n has 2^n members, including duplicates), pretty much everyone living in the former Mongol Empire are directly descended from Genghis Khan. You're talking specifically about patrilineal descent, although even that isn't exclusive to Genghis Khan (he wasn't the only Mongol with that Y-chromosome).

RiemannLives

Caveman Paws wrote: »

RiemannLives wrote: »

you need to go back a little further than the mid 13th century (Ghengis Khan) to have the odds in favor of really large swathes of the population being descended from a single person. Just about anyone who had surviving grandchildren at the time of Charlemagne is the ancestor of just about everyone with European ancestry of any kind today.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/

yeah, that's pretty small percentage. If you let geometric progression do its work for another few hundred years then it's more like the overwhelming majority of the population is a descendant of any given person at all.

Winky

RiemannLives wrote: »

you need to go back a little further than the mid 13th century (Ghengis Khan) to have the odds in favor of really large swathes of the population being descended from a single person. Just about anyone who had surviving grandchildren at the time of Charlemagne is the ancestor of just about everyone with European ancestry of any kind today.

There is actual genetic data suggesting that this is the case:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/#.UZU66ZBDuoI

Ravenhpltc24

TTODewback wrote: »

My ancestor killed all of the American Indians.
So I'm pretty much cursed for eternity.

Sucks don't it.

Hamurabi

I'm descended from a Star.

override367

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

MadCaddy wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

the thing about population issues in growth is that it is completely dominated by industrial takeoff. as long you have some surplus to divert to takeoff - and, in the modern world, you can always borrow this surplus from a country that has already taken off - population has little obvious relation how well you can vault into growth.

We are drowning in so many possible explanations where population increases takeoff growth through the availability of local markets for industrially-produced consumer goods; certainly the raw regressions tell us nothing.

it is true that as long growth is principally agricultural, population determines growth. But if you're stuck in this trap, you're screwed already anyway. There are no wealthy countries whose economic output is predominantly agricultural. Even if you have very low population per arable area.

I watched the vice on Friday that spoke about how China's current Finance ministry is propagating a real estate bubble, and it just kept showing on the vacant McMansions in the ghost cities. Chinas prospects really aren't looking to hot with their current leadership, hopefully Bo has an ace up his sleeve for their sake.

strong similarities to the 1997 asian financial crisis

and it should be noted that whilst it was severe, the 97 crisis had essentially no impact on long-term growth

Apparently China creates construction projects that never sell and adds them into its GDP, and this (according to VICE, so its probably exaggerated a lil bit) to the tune of 5 trillion dollars over the last 30 years

I don't think it's quite so dire but China will be in for some turmoil if they hit a recession

it turns out that it's actually rather hard to pour completely useless concrete; malinvestment is not as high as the Austrians would prefer. the world is more Keynesian: even if you added capital really, really badly, the amount of damage to wealth this does is second-order to first-order concerns like "how much capital do you have, and how low is your unemployment"

I agree, and in the present term this is a huge boon

The problem this is all a hugely inefficient use of resources and they can't keep up this pace forever, eventually it's going to be need to be replaced by some sustainable economic activity or they're going to have a huge problem

it is sustainable

they have a ton of people, who are not in cities, who want to be in cities

you really think they can have a 10% growth in construction (off the top of my head) every single year forever? Construction can certainly be a big part of their GDP forever, there's no question, it's the rate of growth and percentage of GDP that trouble me

by this definition of sustainable, no country is sustainable. look at every western country's burst of growth in healthcare/education.

Construction is like 50% of their GDP

You're the economics expert and if you don't see that as problematic I'll defer to you, but it kind of worries me (especially when much of it is financed by borrowing from their middle class)

Edit: And I sure as hell see America's healthcare spending and increase as problematic and a recession in the making

someone has to pour all the concrete that industrial societies live in. you are trying to argue that this concrete will not turn out to be useful. well, stare at a rural population chart until you have convinced yourself otherwise.

and if you are trying to argue that construction must remain at 50% at GDP in order to avoid disaster, this is patently silly; stare at a history of Western sectoral change until you have convinced yourself otherwise.

Their construction sector is full of corruption and inefficiency. Reporting bad numbers results in being told to stop being a trouble maker.

I just can't parse how this is better than say, providing cheap housing for your rural citizenry, because that's not what they are doing. They are building housing that nobody can afford to live in.

In fact the locations where this construction is happening are displacing rural economies and the people who live there can't even afford to live in the cities being built right over their farms

then the price of it will drop abruptly, and someone's balance sheet will be wiped out, you get a 1997-style financial crisis, and the economy will contract by the extent to which the capital was badly invested. but, as I said, the world is more Keynesian than Austrian, and malinvestment effects are completely dominated by the primary forces of "how much capital do you have to begin with?"

So we're in agreement, then, because this is basically what I've been trying to suggest will probably happen at some point?

The reason this is significant for China is their current political climate basically has their fingers in their ears at the possibility of such a thing happening, anyone suggesting such up the chain is told to be quiet because PRC will grow #1 forever. I can't begin to predict the specifics though, if I had to guess either a shift further towards authoritarianism or towards democracy (given China's attitudes, likely the former)

and as I said earlier, the 1997 crisis had essentially no impact on the pace of long-term growth. this is despite the tremendous variation in government responses from utter collapse and chaos in Indonesia, to staid and rapid recovery elsewhere

And on a long enough timeline none of our lives are even noticeable; if China has a housing collapse it'll recover from it eventually, it doesn't mean it won't be painful. It might be really bad for a lot of people for many years and it could be avoided or at least less bad if there was some better planning behind this.

It just strikes me as folly to try to skip directly from farming village to Manhattan for a given area, that level of population density doesn't just occur in the middle of nowhere without reason because you tell it to.

AManFromEarth

Look, I've seen Immortals. We're all descended from Mickey Rourke.

TTODewback

Gooey wrote: »

TTODewback wrote: »

My ancestor killed all of the American Indians.
So I'm pretty much cursed for eternity.

nonono

that's only if you killed the indians and then built a house on the graves

We built something called "The Trail of Tears"
I mean that sounds pretty fucking bad to me.

ronya

TheNomadicCircle wrote: »

Hamurabi wrote: »

I remember a large contingent of Kazakh kids I knew who were really upset about having "Genghis Khan's blood."

Of course they would. The Kazakhs never historically supported Chinggis Khan.

and the english today are the descendent of tribes who raped and murdered their way onto the british isles, but you don't see them moaning about it today

Abdhyius

if you're from the british isles odds are my ancestors came over and killed, raped, and robbed some of your ancestors

you're welcome

Knuckle Dragger

I have no evidence that Portland's streets were designed by the same guy who did the Autopia but...



I have my suspicions.

TL DR

Abdhyius wrote: »

I don't remember which norwegian king it was or which part he was king of

but one of them had an inordinate number of bastards running around

and in those days being a bastard did not preclude you from the throne - you had to be the son of a king, and that was it

so succession got fun.

Was this at all related to what you were saying about Norway being the world murder capital and everyone being all drunk and stabby 24-7?

RiemannLives

Solomaxwell6 wrote: »

Abdhyius wrote: »

8 percent of everyone living in the former mongol empire are directly descended from genghis khan.

Given the exponential nature of ancestry over time (ancestral generation n has 2^n members, including duplicates), pretty much everyone living in the former Mongol Empire are directly descended from Genghis Khan. You're talking specifically about patrilineal descent, although even that isn't exclusive to Genghis Khan (he wasn't the only Mongol with that Y-chromosome).

I don't think enough time has passed for that. You could make an argument that, for example, any person alive today is descended from Ramses II (or just about any other person at all alive that long ago who had surviving children and grandchildren) but Genghis Khan is only 800ish years ago.

Donkey Kong

skippydumptruck wrote: »

I wonder if garmin and other nav makers are imploding with the proliferation of smart phones

also car-based nav systems are universally terrible right?

They are sort of panicking at the moment but sales aren't as bad as you'd think. Smartphones are still p awful at reliable turn by turn. For any serious GPS user in a car, you typically buy a dedicated unit so it doesn't suddenly crash or quit or take a phone call right when you need it most. Garmin's newest dedicated ones are p boss. Capacitive touch, excellent POI databases, google-maps-esque searching and autocomplete, free traffic info. Garmin makes their own phone in collaboration with Asus. I don't know how popular it is.

Other makers are branching into offline nav apps from smart phones, which is a p great market too.

ronya

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

override367 wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

MadCaddy wrote: »

ronya wrote: »

the thing about population issues in growth is that it is completely dominated by industrial takeoff. as long you have some surplus to divert to takeoff - and, in the modern world, you can always borrow this surplus from a country that has already taken off - population has little obvious relation how well you can vault into growth.

We are drowning in so many possible explanations where population increases takeoff growth through the availability of local markets for industrially-produced consumer goods; certainly the raw regressions tell us nothing.

it is true that as long growth is principally agricultural, population determines growth. But if you're stuck in this trap, you're screwed already anyway. There are no wealthy countries whose economic output is predominantly agricultural. Even if you have very low population per arable area.

I watched the vice on Friday that spoke about how China's current Finance ministry is propagating a real estate bubble, and it just kept showing on the vacant McMansions in the ghost cities. Chinas prospects really aren't looking to hot with their current leadership, hopefully Bo has an ace up his sleeve for their sake.

strong similarities to the 1997 asian financial crisis

and it should be noted that whilst it was severe, the 97 crisis had essentially no impact on long-term growth

Apparently China creates construction projects that never sell and adds them into its GDP, and this (according to VICE, so its probably exaggerated a lil bit) to the tune of 5 trillion dollars over the last 30 years

I don't think it's quite so dire but China will be in for some turmoil if they hit a recession

it turns out that it's actually rather hard to pour completely useless concrete; malinvestment is not as high as the Austrians would prefer. the world is more Keynesian: even if you added capital really, really badly, the amount of damage to wealth this does is second-order to first-order concerns like "how much capital do you have, and how low is your unemployment"

I agree, and in the present term this is a huge boon

The problem this is all a hugely inefficient use of resources and they can't keep up this pace forever, eventually it's going to be need to be replaced by some sustainable economic activity or they're going to have a huge problem

it is sustainable

they have a ton of people, who are not in cities, who want to be in cities

you really think they can have a 10% growth in construction (off the top of my head) every single year forever? Construction can certainly be a big part of their GDP forever, there's no question, it's the rate of growth and percentage of GDP that trouble me

by this definition of sustainable, no country is sustainable. look at every western country's burst of growth in healthcare/education.

Construction is like 50% of their GDP

You're the economics expert and if you don't see that as problematic I'll defer to you, but it kind of worries me (especially when much of it is financed by borrowing from their middle class)

Edit: And I sure as hell see America's healthcare spending and increase as problematic and a recession in the making

someone has to pour all the concrete that industrial societies live in. you are trying to argue that this concrete will not turn out to be useful. well, stare at a rural population chart until you have convinced yourself otherwise.

and if you are trying to argue that construction must remain at 50% at GDP in order to avoid disaster, this is patently silly; stare at a history of Western sectoral change until you have convinced yourself otherwise.

Their construction sector is full of corruption and inefficiency. Reporting bad numbers results in being told to stop being a trouble maker.

I just can't parse how this is better than say, providing cheap housing for your rural citizenry, because that's not what they are doing. They are building housing that nobody can afford to live in.

In fact the locations where this construction is happening are displacing rural economies and the people who live there can't even afford to live in the cities being built right over their farms

then the price of it will drop abruptly, and someone's balance sheet will be wiped out, you get a 1997-style financial crisis, and the economy will contract by the extent to which the capital was badly invested. but, as I said, the world is more Keynesian than Austrian, and malinvestment effects are completely dominated by the primary forces of "how much capital do you have to begin with?"

So we're in agreement, then, because this is basically what I've been trying to suggest will probably happen at some point?

The reason this is significant for China is their current political climate basically has their fingers in their ears at the possibility of such a thing happening, anyone suggesting such up the chain is told to be quiet because PRC will grow #1 forever. I can't begin to predict the specifics though, if I had to guess either a shift further towards authoritarianism or towards democracy (given China's attitudes, likely the former)

and as I said earlier, the 1997 crisis had essentially no impact on the pace of long-term growth. this is despite the tremendous variation in government responses from utter collapse and chaos in Indonesia, to staid and rapid recovery elsewhere

And on a long enough timeline none of lives are even noticeable; if China has a housing collapse it'll recover from it eventually, it doesn't mean it won't be painful

sure. but the recovery from the 97 crisis was very rapid. again, keynesian over austrian. capital malinvestment is real and exists, but it just doesn't matter as much as the narrative suggests.

Caveman Paws

RiemannLives wrote: »

Caveman Paws wrote: »

RiemannLives wrote: »

you need to go back a little further than the mid 13th century (Ghengis Khan) to have the odds in favor of really large swathes of the population being descended from a single person. Just about anyone who had surviving grandchildren at the time of Charlemagne is the ancestor of just about everyone with European ancestry of any kind today.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/

yeah, that's pretty small percentage. If you let geometric progression do its work for another few hundred years then it's more like the overwhelming majority of the population is a descendant of any given person at all.

You're just jelly big papa khan ain't your ancestor.

Gooey

TTODewback wrote: »

Gooey wrote: »

TTODewback wrote: »

My ancestor killed all of the American Indians.
So I'm pretty much cursed for eternity.

nonono

that's only if you killed the indians and then built a house on the graves

We built something called "The Trail of Tears"
I mean that sounds pretty fucking bad to me.

like

the trail was made out of messed up clothing or what?

Abdhyius

Solomaxwell6 wrote: »

Abdhyius wrote: »

8 percent of everyone living in the former mongol empire are directly descended from genghis khan.

Given the exponential nature of ancestry over time (ancestral generation n has 2^n members, including duplicates), pretty much everyone living in the former Mongol Empire are directly descended from Genghis Khan. You're talking specifically about patrilineal descent, although even that isn't exclusive to Genghis Khan (he wasn't the only Mongol with that Y-chromosome).

when I say directly I mean partilineal, yeah

because sexism.