HI everyone, I was going to give a lecture on Marx tomorrow, but I'm finding the combination of travelling (for work mainly) and lecturing very difficult, both in terms of time and the physical conditions for recording a lecture. So since I'm in London this week and Bangkok next, I'll cancel the Legacy Lectures for those weeks. The "Rebel Challenge" lectures will continue, though I will have to change the time for next week's, since 1pm New York/6pm London is about midnight in Bangkok. I'll let you know when I've chosen the alternative time for next week.

Fix has just published what looks like a masterwork - about 15,000 words analysing the emergence (or should that be re-emergence?) of plutocracy in America in recent decades. See - https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/01/31/partisan-politics-and-the-road-to-plutocracy/ He starts by quoting the Ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch, saying - " [H]e who has more than enough and yet hungers for still more will find no remedy in gold or silver … for his ailment is not poverty, but insatiability and avarice. — Plutarch, ‘On love of wealth’ " Fix continues - "As billionaires dance in the halls of the second Trump administration, it’s haunting how well Plutarch’s two-thousand-year-old words describe the state of American politics. It’s a barren landscape of plutocratic insatiability. How did it get this way?". Fix's 'near-book' is as usual replete with diagrams, graphs and data. It has a useful 'Contents' section, showing how broad-ranging his analysis is. He concludes with what I think is an ingenious and revealing metaphor, saying - "In my mind, this evidence illustrates how the trappings of democracy can be used to ensconce plutocracy. As the rich get richer, they use their time and resources to become information-sucking machines. Meanwhile, as the poor get poorer, they fall into a pit of political ignorance where they become easy victims of propaganda. In a sense, this asymmetry is why reactionary politics are so easy, and why progressive politics are so difficult. Reactionary politics push snake oil downhill. Progressive politics push knowledge and solidarity uphill.". It's Greek myrh rather than philosphy, but maybe Fix should have ended his analysis with Sisyphus, condemned to push a great mass uphill during the day, only to have it roll back down overnight.

Just a reminder that I'm giving a talk in London tomorrow (PPTX file attached), and then flying to Sydney on Thursday to work with Russell (Standish) to finalise Ravel for commercial release. Both activities kybosh this week's lectures, and I'll be in Sydney till at least May 3rd. So I expect to resume classes in the week beginning either May 6 or May 13--I'll let you all know closer to the date. Ravel is getting very close now. Here's the latest version: https://www.hpcoders.com.au/ravel-3.4.0-alpha.11.exe I would appreciate people downloading it and checking it out. I have almost completed an introductory tutorial (attached) to guide you in how to use it.

This is a draft, but I think important for economists. How does a hightech country function? I put together a model based on what I found from my research at Gävle University, and from my own experience. Fortunately, there are good statistics around if you start from the right place. In my case it is the Swedish Standard Industrial Classification (SNI) is used to classify enterprises and workplaces according to the activity carried out. SNI is important for economic statistics, among other things. So we can connect what they earn their money selling with the damage they are doing and their drawdown of resources. What I like is that it might give a good basis for modelling, too. Anyway, here is a pre-publication version of an article about the whole thing. Important: the people who make the money from products do not have to pay the environmental damage. Meaning they COULD do if they chose, but no legislation is forcing them, so they don't. And the blame is going to the industries who make little money and have the least resources to invest. Talk about being stuck in a trench with BAU! Gimme your thoughts! All of them!

You will maybe recall that the briefing, as yet unpublished and just shared with Rebels, suggests that multi-capital accounting is a better basis for policy decisions than economics alone. As such I encourage all who communicate with decision and policy makers when crafting policy decision material to use the real capital approach. The latest is here:https://www.skool.com/debunking-economics-7964/latest-version-of-crafting-policy-from-science?p=7add19d6 Now, you may be wondering if the whole thing can be modelled in Minsky to show how decisions create the what-if possibilities attached to decisions. The picture enclosed shows how to do it. The real capital involved is Human - healthy happy people and we concentrate on health. Remember that Real Capital has a state, and production. In this case we only look at state. The various states of the capital (stocks) are Susceptible, Exposed, Infected Recovered and Total, The flows are things that affect the state of the capital: Birth, flu, exposure, infection, recovery, dying from flu etc. Note that the equity column does not include money. If you want ot include money - like investment in PPE you can add an extra equity column (Thank you @Steve Keen). This is just the start, and I hope that Minslky can be a powerful tool for scientists creating decision bases. I am trying to get my institution (IAAM.se) to use it as such. Of course, modelling the other capitals will require a bit of head work that will inevitably hurt the old head. However just now things look as if they could open up. I am especially interested in modellng Natural, Living capital scenarios. Forest depletion, for one. Let me know your thoughts, The whole series from Ty is here highly brilliant as usual. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUewi-IqLtRRqcVni88dqg73O_9zOGLiX