jakobsteffen

[jakobsteffen]

A government agency's market share is the extent of its remit. - JS

[jakobsteffen]

Bubbles on financial #markets, past and present.

But this time surely is different, isn't it...?

[jakobsteffen]

Power is the key to Western culture

It has been stated often aready; but it cannot be repeated often enough. I'll try to give it a particularly succinct edge:

The Western outlook on life, for all its cult of individualism, is about power: Who holds it over whom or what, and by what means?

Ever since the advent of Christianity, mankind, as the assumed pinnacle of the Creation, claims power over other creatures and nature in its entirety. Each and every individual, thus, claims power, if not over other people, then over their animals, plants or tract of land in general.

Exploitation as a basic concept of life, thus, is immanent to Western society; cooperation, by contrast, is deemed inferior and if anything, a means to an end; that is, the better to exploit nature.

Capitalism has simply developed an economic system around this concept, while thoroughly expanding its reach by introducing material wealth as a source of power independent of the political variant. Formerly, people held power over others by dint of their divine right of birth; their projection of religious authority; or by sheer force.

Yet in capitalism, money is what constitutes power. Simultaneously, people aspire to climb a career ladder so as to reach corporate power over others. Of course, many people are quite content to stay where there are in the great wheel of society, quite happy to receive orders rather than to give them; still, they are affected by power, if on the receiving end.

Hence, when liberalism protests the freedom of the individual, it is always but the freedom from the power of others (Isaiah Berlin's concept of negative freedom), while claiming power for the individual at the same time: Over their own land, house or corporation, brokered by material wealth.

So you cannot escape the tyranny of power in 'liberal' Western societies: You either have it, or you are subject to it. Perhaps its purest form, dating back to the ancient Greeks, is when you are lent it temporarily by others via a societal contract, i.e. by an election, complete with the option to take it away from you if you abuse it.

In this context, power is at least wielded under agreed terms, within specific limits, and for agreed purposes. Yet it may still be corrupted by capitalism's ultimate power: material wealth. So accept power for what it is - an inescapable fact of the Western way of living.

[jakobsteffen]

...and another collection of photos of my #birthplace and its vicinity - heartfelt #home.

[jakobsteffen]

A motley compilation of photos of my beloved Edinburgh, collected over the past 20 odd-years.

[jakobsteffen]

"Process is a worthy means to an end. The trouble is its tendency to become an end. [The result] is a continuous loop of deliberation not decision." - Tony Blair, On Leadership

[jakobsteffen]

My own angel investing and investment research boutique has published a handy guide to what to expect in terms of financial markets from different trade war scenarios this year

[jakobsteffen]

In diesem Beitrag setze ich mich kontrovers mit Schuldenbremse auseinander, inwiefern sie stets ein Irrtum war, und warum Staatsschulden vor allem hierzulande meist nur einseitig und damit verzerrt wahrgenommen werden.

[jakobsteffen]

Mein gemeinsamer Podcast mit Thomas Lämmer-Gamp geht in sein fünftes Jahr - hier Teil 3/3 der ausgewählten Folgen der letzten Jahre.

[jakobsteffen]

Mein gemeinsamer Podcast mit Thomas Lämmer-Gamp geht in sein fünftes Jahr - hier Teil 2/3 der ausgewählten Folgen der letzten Jahre.

[jakobsteffen]

Mein gemeinsamer Podcast mit Thomas Lämmer-Gamp geht in sein fünftes Jahr - hier Teil 1/3 der ausgewählten Folgen der letzten Jahre.

[jakobsteffen]

Bergisches #Stilleben #Schiefer #Radevormwald #angles #colourfilter #dasbergische https://www.instagram.com/p/CfKd0entNtV/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[jakobsteffen]

Epsiode 8 des Podcasts von Thomas Lämmer-Gamp und mir beschäftigt sich passend zur Bundestagswahl mit historischen Wahlen in der Bundesrepublik: Von der sozialliberalen Wende 1969 bis zur ersten rot-grünen Bundesregierung 1998 machen wir eine Zeitreise durch bundesdeutsche Nachkriegsgeschichte und zeichnen die Linien nach, die in diesem Winter vielleicht eine Fortsetzung erfahren könnten.

[jakobsteffen]

A thread on Herbert Marcuse’s outrageous advocating the repression of all those views and arguments deemed non-conducive to the progress of society, thus constituting one of the pillars of the self-righeous cancel culture.

[jakobsteffen]

Writing to an intellectual is what building a wall is to a mason - it might vary in quality, but it is still something to show for your day's work.

JS

[jakobsteffen]

Eine neue Folge meines Podcasts mit Thomas Lämmer-Gamp ist verfügbar! Angesichts des folgenreichen Abzugs der NATO aus Afghanistan befassen wir uns dieses Mal sowohl mit dem dortigen Einsatz selbst als auch dem (gescheiterten?) Konzept des Nation-Building im Allgemeinen.

[jakobsteffen]

It is ridiculous to think that theoretical debate hasn't got a place in modern economics.

For in the end, all boils down to money:

If some economic theory does not accept the perfect logic (!) of people necessarily holding yieldless liquidity in a fiat money regime at all times, it cannot arrive at accurate conclusions even on a purely theoretical basis.

To entertain the thought of neutral money - no matter in which time frame - under these circumstances amounts to defining away what ought to be explained.