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Extrapolating the consquences of debt relief in ancient egypt into modern economies is nonsensical for a wide variety of reasons. Every modern economy has some function whereby a productive enterprise otherwise saddled by debt can retain it's productive capacity without dissolution through bankruptcy, and similarly there's some mechanic for individuals whereby debt doesn't starve you (personal bankrupcty, abolishment of debtors prison, minimum guaranteed income etc). That said there's empirical evidence that states can default without being frozen out of the bond market (argentina is the most common example) as the default-risk is priced into the bond, but that's very different from the idea that the US could say default on the roughly $1 trillion treasury bonds owned by China without crashing its economy and getting a skyrocketing interest rate. Actual sovereign defaults (like argentina) is actually either some form of repayment postponement (extending the payment schedule) or a debt restructuring whereby bondholders get paid less (basically the bond yield is reduced). Defaulting on debt is an asset-loss on someones ledger no matter how you twist.
Dante fucked around with this message at 15:01 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 14:48
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Grevling posted:Michael Hudson has also written extensively about debt forgiveness in ancient Mesopotamia and other places, he's a marxian economist and cooperates with archeologists, assyrologists etc. on a project about this topic. His book on it is called "...And Forgive Them Their Debts". That sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out. I remember reading a few amusing bits; for example, in Babylon, they capped debt-slavery at three years, I think. So if you couldn't pay your debts, you could sell your wife & kids into debt slavery, and they'd get released in three years! Sounds like a good deal. Another one was a Sumerian law that prevented home-buyers from sending thugs to beat the home-sellers into submission, which sounds good too, although I have to wonder how it affected property values...
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May 29, 2020 15:45
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sullat posted:although I have to wonder how it affected property values...
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May 29, 2020 15:48
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OctaviusBeaver posted:No I'm pretty sure setting the value of the US bond market to $0 overnight is a great idea. I know right. Hopefully that will be a platform policy soon.
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May 29, 2020 15:48
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Dante posted:Extrapolating the consquences of debt relief in ancient egypt into modern economies is nonsensical for a wide variety of reasons. Every modern economy has some function whereby a productive enterprise otherwise saddled by debt can retain it's productive capacity without dissolution through bankruptcy, and similarly there's some mechanic for individuals whereby debt doesn't starve you (personal bankrupcty, abolishment of debtors prison, minimum guaranteed income etc).
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May 29, 2020 15:53
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Dante posted:Extrapolating the consquences of debt relief in ancient egypt into modern economies is nonsensical for a wide variety of reasons. Every modern economy has some function whereby a productive enterprise otherwise saddled by debt can retain it's productive capacity without dissolution through bankruptcy, and similarly there's some mechanic for individuals whereby debt doesn't starve you (personal bankrupcty, abolishment of debtors prison, minimum guaranteed income etc). lol
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May 29, 2020 16:56
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May 29, 2020 18:07
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Yeah bankruptcy is already a form of debt forgiveness. It's inadequate for a number of reasons, but it's releasing at least some of the pressure on the time bomb, to use the same analogy. In the earliest recorded Roman pushes for debt forgiveness (earlier than Caesar's by a few centuries) one of the demands of the plebeians was not just debt forgiveness, but outlawing loans where the collateral is your own body as a slave. The debt situation in the modern world is fairly bad but it's been a lot worse at various points in history, so it's unclear how closely the rhetoric around modern debt will follow the same paths. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. e: I'm not really taking a stance on what the economic policy re: consumer debt ought to be in the modern world, at least in this post. Just speculating on whether the factors that led to people taking to the streets demanding debt forgiveness historically are present in sufficient quantities today cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 20:12 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 20:09
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 Anyone what kind of officer ranks these are?
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May 29, 2020 20:17
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I think the horizontal plume is centurion
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May 29, 2020 20:19
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Dante posted:Extrapolating the consquences of debt relief in ancient egypt into modern economies is nonsensical for a wide variety of reasons. Uh, well. About that. Bankruptcy in theory is supposed to allow natural debt forgiveness, but there have been holes made in the bankruptcy system that prevents people from defaulting on the debt that is destroying them. Most famously, student debt is incredibly hard to get rid of, between actual legal exemptions made for it and purposeful discouragement spread to prevent debtors from knowing that they can access debt forgiveness. And even with bankruptcy as a functional release valve, there's a lot of distress caused in the leadup to it. We also do still have debtor's prison even though we're not supposed to. Low-income people who slip up and wind up with a bunch of fines can quickly be drawn into a debt spiral to put them in jail. Many state and local governments are economically motivated to provoke these circumstances from the classic dynamic of trying to draw revenue from the lower income stratas through regressive taxes and fines, because the upper income stratas are the ones that will complain harder about being used as revenue streams. For-profit jails also are motivated to increase recidivism to maintain their labor force. Prison slave labor is specifically allowed by the constitution. Outside of the fact that our modern-day society isn't exactly as advanced or enlightened as we like to think we are, the economics of ancient societies are also worth consideration because of how they had a lot more latitude to set up their own weird unique economic model rather than just echoing the last big empire that passed through. Obviously there's a lot of differences, but there'll be a lot of similarities from people being driven by the same forces like the need for housing, food, and stable assets to assure their future access to housing and food.
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May 29, 2020 20:22
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physeter posted:That modern economies have a more legislated, organized process to avoid catastrophe does not mean that catastrophe is not a threat, quite the opposite. Why wouldn't we analyze societies that didn't have this process so as to develop a more perfect system...? Dante fucked around with this message at 20:33 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 20:25
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Arglebargle III posted:
The guy with the crest behind the centurion is probably supposed to be an optio. The one with the animal hide is a cornicen or signifer, though the hide is a point of contention. Guy up front might be a primus pilus, idk.
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May 29, 2020 20:29
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OctaviusBeaver posted:No I'm pretty sure setting the value of the US bond market to $0 overnight is a great idea. This but unironically.
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May 29, 2020 22:29
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Dante posted:I don't know what you mean by threat in this context, but analyzing debt relief in an ancient barter economy won't tell you anything about the consequences of defaulting on treasury bonds in a modern economy because they're entirely different systems. Economic history on ancient societies is interesting by itself, but it's sort of like analyzing how the content of precious metal in ancient coins declined due to currency debasement. It's interesting by itself to understand the economic forces of the era, but it's not applicable to how monetary systems in the contemporary period work in terms of inflation. I feel like equating the palace/temple economic complexes of the bronze age to "ancient barter economies" kind of undermines your entire argument but ymmv
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May 29, 2020 23:51
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:I feel like equating the palace/temple economic complexes of the bronze age to "ancient barter economies" kind of undermines your entire argument but ymmv it's a handy own that does literally nothing to undermine their argument
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May 30, 2020 00:31
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 Gold and silver drinking vessels (rhytons), Achaemenid Persian, 6th century BC.
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May 30, 2020 01:16
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Dante posted:I don't know what you mean by threat in this context, but analyzing debt relief in an ancient barter economy won't tell you anything about the consequences of defaulting on treasury bonds in a modern economy because they're entirely different systems. Economic history on ancient societies is interesting by itself, but it's sort of like analyzing how the content of precious metal in ancient coins declined due to currency debasement. It's interesting by itself to understand the economic forces of the era, but it's not applicable to how monetary systems in the contemporary period work in terms of inflation. But that program isn't "just forgive all debts. just forgive them. they're made up. (optional: lol/lmao)" Plus you have to build a consensus around what debts to forgive and so on now, and I imagine this is harder now than it would have been if you could have said it for "all townies" or "all peasants in hock"
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May 30, 2020 01:38
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Arglebargle III posted:
Way more metal than leather to be properly historical
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May 30, 2020 04:28
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Wow Thucydides gives a 100% correct account of how tsunamis work.
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May 30, 2020 08:45
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Arglebargle III posted:
sick
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May 30, 2020 15:37
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Arglebargle III posted:
Some sick craftmanship there, amazing details.
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May 30, 2020 16:03
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can you not put it down until you've drank it? that's rad
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May 30, 2020 16:04
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CoolCab posted:can you not put it down until you've drank it? that's rad They seem flat enough you should be able to put them down
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May 30, 2020 16:10
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I guess that the person that comissioned these pieces was more concerned about looking wealthy and fabulous while holding them rather than the practicality of their design.
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May 30, 2020 16:14
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Angry Lobster posted:I guess that the person that comissioned these pieces was more concerned about looking wealthy and fabulous while holding them rather than the practicality of their design. As it should be.
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May 30, 2020 16:24
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CoolCab posted:can you not put it down until you've drank it? that's rad probally just a hole in the table. nobody's that cool
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May 30, 2020 16:27
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If the animal heads are solid castings then they could probably counterbalance the weight of the liquid fine
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May 30, 2020 16:30
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I've been playing Assassin's Creed Origins, and it seems like a lot of its story hinges on the tensions between the ruling class of Greeks and the native Egyptians, which seems weird to me, since by this point the Egyptians have been under Greek rule for over 200 years and under rule of foreign peoples for near 500. Seems like they'd have figured out an equilibrium at that point. Was there a lot of conflict between the Egyptians and the Greeks under ptolemaic rule? Nessus posted:Plus you have to build a consensus around what debts to forgive and so on now, and I imagine this is harder now than it would have been if you could have said it for "all townies" or "all peasants in hock" If banks' debt to their patrons was forgiven, that would be disastrous, because all those bank accounts disappear.
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May 30, 2020 16:42
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OK, I have a dumb question for the thread: Recently I tried finding the Egyptian history podcast someone in this thread mentioned, but it turns out there are like, 19 of those things. My question would be: Which one is the good one?
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May 30, 2020 16:43
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I see I'm not the only one who picked up Origins and Odyssey while they're super cheap. God knows when I'll have time to get into them.Libluini posted:OK, I have a dumb question for the thread: https://egyptianhistorypodcast.com/ is the one I have been listening to.
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May 30, 2020 17:01
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Angry Lobster posted:I guess that the person that comissioned these pieces was more concerned about looking wealthy and fabulous while holding them rather than the practicality of their design. They would have had cupbearers whose job was just to stand there and hold the thing.
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May 30, 2020 17:27
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've been playing Assassin's Creed Origins, and it seems like a lot of its story hinges on the tensions between the ruling class of Greeks and the native Egyptians, which seems weird to me, since by this point the Egyptians have been under Greek rule for over 200 years and under rule of foreign peoples for near 500. Seems like they'd have figured out an equilibrium at that point. quote:With the authority of the papal bull Laudabiliter from Adrian IV, Henry landed with a large fleet at Waterford in 1171, becoming the first King of England to set foot on Irish soil. Henry awarded his Irish territories to his younger son John with the title Dominus Hiberniae ("Lord of Ireland"). When John unexpectedly succeeded his brother as King John of England, the "Lordship of Ireland" fell directly under the English Crown.
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May 30, 2020 17:28
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've been playing Assassin's Creed Origins, and it seems like a lot of its story hinges on the tensions between the ruling class of Greeks and the native Egyptians, which seems weird to me, since by this point the Egyptians have been under Greek rule for over 200 years and under rule of foreign peoples for near 500. Seems like they'd have figured out an equilibrium at that point. Idk when the game takes place but the Ptolemies broadly weren’t interested in equilibrium with the natives and definitely ran into trouble with them. Famously Cleopatra VII was the first of them to even speak Egyptian. Ptolemy IV (probably) got palace-couped as a result of his failure to deal with the fact that Upper Egypt had revolted and declared its own native pharaoh Horwennefer. The text of the Rosetta Stone praises Ptolemy V for putting down another native revolt in the Delta, but it was made at a time when Horwennefer’s revolt was still going on, though you’d never know that from reading it.
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May 30, 2020 17:31
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https://twitter.com/mikeduncan/status/1266682497900908544 Mike Duncan getting radicalized by his own podcasting. SlothfulCobra posted:I've been playing Assassin's Creed Origins, and it seems like a lot of its story hinges on the tensions between the ruling class of Greeks and the native Egyptians, which seems weird to me, since by this point the Egyptians have been under Greek rule for over 200 years and under rule of foreign peoples for near 500. Seems like they'd have figured out an equilibrium at that point. One of the big-picture things I've taken away from history is that there is no equilibrium between the rich and the poor. It seems to me the screw keeps turning until either the poor grab back capital through violence or top-down reform, or society collapses. You see the same thing in the 2nd century Han dynasty, the Latifundia, the land crisis in the later Tang dynasty, the Clutch Plague and the rise of fascism through WWII, and of course now. With modern neuroscience we seem to be finding that having access to wealth and power suppresses regions in the brain responsible for empathy. I would be interested to hear whether this theory holds up for medieval or early modern Europe because I don't know much about the evolution of the manorial system into the modern economy. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 18:42 on May 30, 2020 |
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May 30, 2020 18:37
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've been playing Assassin's Creed Origins, and it seems like a lot of its story hinges on the tensions between the ruling class of Greeks and the native Egyptians, which seems weird to me, since by this point the Egyptians have been under Greek rule for over 200 years and under rule of foreign peoples for near 500. Seems like they'd have figured out an equilibrium at that point. There was a strong divide between the urban hellenic civilization that we associate with the ptolemies and the native egyptian peasantry/priestly elites. The dynasty itself basically said 'gently caress it' and forged an alliance of convenience with the latter group, centered in cult centers like Memphis, but the weight of ptolemaic power definitely rested in the nile delta and alexandria. We have records of native egyptians rising through the state bureaucracy and taking up worship of hellenic cults, but greeks and macedonians seem to have been pretty uninterested in the indigenous culture.
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May 30, 2020 19:06
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Lower class resenting the upper class is easy to understand, what I don't really get is how it's framed as these damned foreigners coming in here with their foreign gods and pushing out Egyptians and their Egyptian gods. The game is also presenting the difference between Egyptians and Greeks with skin color, which I feel like I've heard people talking about how greeks in the real world weren't that light-skinned and egyptians weren't that dark-skinned so the skintone contrast wouldn't be that obvious, but I don't really know anything for sure. As an artistic decision, it does link the culture clash with modern racial issues, so it's not like it's a particularly bad choice even if it's not historical, but I'm not sure if it is or isn't. What's definitely not historical is the Final Fantasy promo that gave me a chocobo camel.
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May 30, 2020 19:25
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Grand Fromage posted:I see I'm not the only one who picked up Origins and Odyssey while they're super cheap. God knows when I'll have time to get into them. Thanks! I actually found that one, but dismissed it because the website looked far too fancy for a mere podcast so I thought I was at the wrong place. Teaches me to actually read what I'm seeing first! 
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May 30, 2020 19:31
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May 30, 2020 20:10
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SlothfulCobra posted:Lower class resenting the upper class is easy to understand, what I don't really get is how it's framed as these damned foreigners coming in here with their foreign gods and pushing out Egyptians and their Egyptian gods. Greeks aren't Scandinavian pale white but are very much in the light skinned camp. Maybe the modern world's lack of being outside all day and more fair skinned people emigrating to greece over centuries lightened their skin or something idk I'm just wildly guessing but they weren't that different in colour to the average Australian when I was there. Maybe a bit darker but not much. There are definitely very distinctly greek looking facial features but like thats a different thing again and pretty arbitrary. I dunno what Egyptians look like IRL or anything how they may have changed through the ages but the only way I could see someone saying greeks aren't what most people would call white is if they were trying to do some dumb fashy mental gymnastics about race. Miss Broccoli fucked around with this message at 20:52 on May 30, 2020 |
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May 30, 2020 20:42
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