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What’s going on, open thread 12/19

https://t.co/jcUfxbzvRv


https://t.co/P06PsHzRyu
Alright, 1 hour worth of thoughts on:

Spatial metaphors for human systems

for @threadapalooza


1/ Okay, let's start with BRIDGES!

(first that came to mind)

This is a common human system metaphor, people talking about bridging between cultures or perspectives, or communities/individuals.


2/ In fact it's the metaphor @vgr used in the prompt he gave me for @threadapalooza last year, in a thread I never


3/ The bridge metaphor is kind of an obvious one: forging some kind of translation connection between two different perspectives.

It's a kinda limited connection though. In fact, the word "translation", in the context of mathematics, means "to move across" which matches bridge


4/ So a bridge, as a metaphor, is a way to move one perspective across to another. But let's contrast that with the metaphor of "depth perception", where the two perspectives are integrated into a larger whole.

Way harder than bridging, & more
A lot of people dismissively mocking this tweet but it's worth pausing to recognize its Marxist roots.

This "thinking" traces back to Critical Theory, The Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno & ultimately Antonio Gramsci.


The Frankfurt School employed a technique called Critical Theory – a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole.

The point of the theory is to criticize every traditional social institution – and to specifically avoid offering any alternatives – as a means to breaking down Western Culture.

Theodor Adorno wrote the influential book The Authoritarian Personality which argued that anyone who defended traditional culture was a Fascist.

Sound familiar?

Antonio Gramsci was a Marxist theorist and a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy who created the Theory of Cultural Hegemony. And Counter Hegemony.

Gramsci felt that in order to change society, the entire value systems of Societal Institutions must be overturned.
The ECB's long-standing negative rates policy remains unpopular in a union of chronic high savings (demand deficits) & yield-hungry investors. Here I argue that the ECB must do everything it can to escape its liquidity trap of “negative rates forever” CC @elerianm @VMRConstancio


First, negative rates are a reflection of a problem. Sub-zero arrived in Europe in 2014 in response to a critical problem of policy credibility – the arrival of the zero lower bound for the ECB’s main policy rate in the face of persistently low inflation expectations /thread/ 2/n

Europe, like much of the developed world, had seen a secular decline in the trend real rate even before the Covid19 shock, reflecting ageing populations and slower trend productivity growth - higher hhlds savings demand, lower business demand for capital #ECB #negativerates 3/n

The structural shock of the pandemic only accelerated the processes that began a decade ago with the Global Financial Crisis and the Euro government debt crises, pushing the eurozone trend rate even lower. #ECB #negativerates 4/n

This leaves the ECB facing a symmetric credibility challenge. In normal times, the ECB policy rate will follow the trend rate lower. If expected inflation adjusts to the demand-determined output gap, then the policy rate must fall below the equilibrium rate to bridge the gap. 5/n