Poundering Italy

19 years after Pulp Fiction, in Italy McRoyal becomes Quarter Pounder.

Progress? 


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This IS about a park

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A slogan circulates on social networks about the protests in Istanbul: "This is not about a park, this is about democracy". I understand why it may appear important to whoever invented the slogan to show their demands fit into a greater scheme of things. Their intuition is right on one point: it certainly works better for drawing the attention of the world's public if you characterise your struggle as that for democracy other than just for "some stupid park". These other things – being heard, condemnation of the abuse of state power, freedom of expression and of the press, respect of minorities' rights – are of course all valuable, and don't misunderstand me, I am all for it: fully, unconditionally, with no cynicism, and for those who are genuinely advancing this more general democratic agenda. However, there is nothing wrong had it all been only about a park. It's perfectly ok, even more than that. Let me explain why. Cases like this are a
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A Minimalist's Monetary Economy – Excel Edition (and one way in which capitalism will not end)

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I've  tried to recreate an embryonic monetary economy in an Excel, inspired by Steve Keen's basic model of endogenous-money economy. The guy does it with all the bells and whistles, differential equations and system dynamics modelling, so if you're after that sorts of stuff, go and read  his paper . But I thought the whole thing may be simplified in an Excel spreadsheet without lost of the essential. Heck, isn't Excel an economist's best friend these days? This is a minimalistic approach, even sort of a suprematism of economic modelling, but it nonetheless hints at answers to few questions which seem to puzzle so many people, such as:  If the firms have to repay loans with interests, where is that extra money supposed to come from on aggregate?  How are profits possible, if the loans have to be repaid with interests and there is only that much money in the economy? Are further loans the only possible source of money to repay the interests on the existing l
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Trump Saved by Democrats’ Takeover of the House

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In his perceptive reading of James Cameron’s 1997 film “Titanic”, Slavoj Žižek neatly illustrates how a catastrophe can save a fantasy, or an ideal. There is a scene in the film, where Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) make each other a promise of eternal love:  “When this ship docks, I'm getting off with you“ , Rose says. That , and not the Titanic going down, Žižek claims, would have been the true catastrophe. Indeed, we can easily imagine how, once in New York, maybe after a few weeks of good sex, this fantasy of pure untainted love would have faded away, crumbling perhaps under the pressure of social expectations, of their objective cultural and social status differences, combined with the dullness after the inevitable loss of novelty and euphoria of falling in love. This then was the true function of the iceberg sinking the Titanic in the film: a momentous real catastrophe has to happen, so that the fantasy (or the ideal) can live on. (
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On the Innocence of Guilty Scapegoats (a brief sketch)

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If Robots Could Desire?

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Skin-in-the-game principle as a justification for conscription/draft military service

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Antifragile Trump

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