Reading about debt

I often talk to friends and family about books, often in a overenthusiastic manner. I like books and I like, more than everything else, to find useful stuff for real life in books.

If you're now expecting an apology of "Mindfulness for dummies" and the like, I have to upset you; I found out that the treasures are to be found in unexpected places.

As an example, take my last two reads: Debt, the first 5000 years and Buffett, the making of an American capitalist (not finished yet, but I also learned something very useful there, which does not have anything to do with investment, but let me talk about it some other time).

Does it sounds weird to have a leftist anti-capitalist book about debt in the direct neighborhood of the very generous biography of man with US$ 87 billions net worth? Don't worry about my mental stability, I do it by purpose. 

(Which of course is not a sign of mental stability, now that I think about it)

The first book investigates the origin of money in the credit instruments of ancient civilizations. Yes, it looks like it is an established fact that the Babylonian had financial instruments recorded on clay tables in a fictive currency (the bushel) which was only used for recording these financial transactions. And yes, they knew about compound interest. And no, they did not have any money you could exchange on the street. Crazy.

Anyway, there are also pages dedicated to the fact that the precise quantification of debts between neighbors and acquaintances tends automatically to depersonalize these relationships. This being the reason, for instance, for which we do not like to precisely keep track of who owes whom how much money if we go out with our best friend for a beer.

My wife is thinking since some time about turning her year long practice in mindfulness mediation and her teacher experience with it in a full-time activity mixing self-employment and community service. We talked a lot about financial independence and the like in the last weeks. And then BANG! I read this book and I understand why the financial dependence feels so threatening in a relationship. Suddenly, I have a framework on how to talk and think about it.

I think this is the sign of great books: you find insights and inspirations there which do not have anything to do with the apparent topic in the book.

Good reading!

sugli isomorfismi nella saggezza popolare

il tempo é denaro

proverbio

qualche tempo fa ero a dresda, e discutevo con una dottoranda in economia della giustezza dell'ipotesi implicita delle scienze economiche, riassumbile in

a od ogni oggetto, astratto o concreto, é attribuibile un valore monetario.

questo ansatz é geniale e diabolico: é un voler ridurre il mondo, un vettore nello spazio di banach di dimensione mostruosamente infinita contenente tutte le possibilitá del reale, ad una sua rappresentazione nel campo dei numeri reali. in altre parole, questi economisti affermano di poter capire come va il mondo guardandone il suo duale.

ancora peggio! essi considerano una sola speciale forma lineare, ovvero quella che associa ad ogni oggetto, che mi permetto di identificare con un sottoinsieme compatto di questo mostruoso spazio di banach, il suo valore in euro.

anyway, il proverbio popolare ci azzecca in pieno: il tempo é anche solitamente rappresentato tramite il campo dei numeri reali, per cui é proprio vero:

il tempo é denaro, a meno di un isomorfismo.

ps: se qualcuno si lamenta, affermando che le forme lineari é meglio pensarle aventi valori nel campo dei numeri complessi, gli ricorderó che la teoria dei semigruppi lineari ci insegna che anche il campo naturale del tempo é quello dei numeri complessi.