Shorter Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations, Book II

Chapter I: When people have more stuff than they can use, they will try to make money off the excess somehow. Having a stable government helps.

Chapter II: Money is not really tokens of precious metal, but the incorporeal value represented by them. Thus, there is nothing wrong with using banknotes as money instead. Smith does not quite talk himself into supporting fiat money, but he sees nothing wrong with banks issuing more paper than they have gold and silver in reserve, on the grounds that conserving use of metal money frees up metal for other uses. Futhermore, he strongly supports government regulation of the supply of paper money.

Chapter III: Labor and the use of capital are divided into productive and unproductive uses, defined by whether they generate profits directly or not. Pains are taken to emphasize that some resource sinks provide a benefit to society, such as maintaining a government. Employing servants is categorized as both unproductive and useless, an odd moment in a book which is otherwise in favor of the specialization of labor.

Chapter IV: Sometimes people lend out their stuff to make a profit on the interest. Governments which ban it (this was at a time when many people considered the Bible to be strictly against it) are simply encouraging a black market, but governments should put caps on it. What's a good cap?

In a country, such as Great Britain, where money is lent to the government at three per cent. and to private people on good security at four, and four and a half, the present legal rate, five per cent., is perhaps, as proper as any.

The legal rate, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent., the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest.

Chapter V: Capital is used in many different industries, at home and abroad. It will naturally find its way into foreign markets if there is an imbalance, and governments should not force it into being used for imports and exports.

Con report: Pop-Up Gen Con

To cater to all the people who can't make it to Gen Con, the organizers this year announced Pop-Up Gen Con, where people could go to participating local game stores for a taste of the Gen Con experience. There would be free game demos, maybe some streaming direct from the con.

Well, the streaming didn't happen, so it was more of a local game day with fancy badges (and the collectible pin).



( Many games were played... )

It was fun, and I generally endorse this idea and would be happy to participate next year. I'd just like to see it be a little more Gen Con-y.

Weekly diary, August 4, 2019

After the user conference excursion day, there is the first day of the conference proper, when the users get to invade the office for an evening, then two more days of conference sessions. It went well, I learned a useful thing or two, I got to wear the blouses that sit at the back of the closet for the rest of the year.

Cat

Shy Cat is another of Phosphor's outdoor relatives. Over the years, she's become less and less shy. When I bring her some canned food, she's willing to be almost within arm's reach. Any attempt to actually reach out, though, results in the hand being swatted.

Fandom

Anime commentary was posted. Also I went to that sort-of convention I just posted about.

Gaming

In addition to the con, still playing Fallen London about every other day.

In Fire Emblem Awakening, I'd forgotten how quickly the chapter where Chrom chooses a bride comes up. Unfortunately, since the player character is the first of his potential matches to be in the story, one has to work hard to make sure he gets more attached to a different character, if one doesn't want to marry the player character off to him. Restarted and have been replaying with Chrom under the Mike Pence rule.

(Though Fire Emblem Fates also included the romantic pairing mechanic, it gives you full transparency about it and lets you take as long as you want to pair up the exact characters you want.)

Books and media

New approach for trying to get through The Wealth of Nations: after I finish a book of that, I let myself read one book from my unread pile. This week it was Jhereg, first of the Dragaera novels. Whatever I expected, fantasy noir about a guy and his fire lizard was not quite it. (The person responsible for the cover copy, though, recognized the appeal of fire lizards and played up that aspect bigtime.)

Jhereg gives the impression of walking in in the middle of a story; events are referred to that I presume are fleshed out in later books, and revelations are dropped casually which sound like they should be the payoffs to multiple volumes of setup. I know there's an argument about whether the books should be read in chronological or publication order. I went with publication order since that's the author's recommendation, but I'm rethinking that. I already have the next two in publication order, though, so I guess I'll just see how those go.

I'm still watching BEM on the side even though I'm not blogging it, except I'm not. Episode 4 has been delayed two weeks on account of content which apparently has too much resemblance to the KyoAni arson. It's not the first show this has happened to (not surprisingly, the first was Fire Force).

( Politics )