markjgsmith

Gare Davis and Ed Zitron at CES 2025 [28:04]:

GD: Because everyone is so bought into it, if you make any objection during any Q&A panel, people are like SO surprised. It’s like you’re a heretic. It’s insane. It’s like you don’t believe in the project of humanity, to these people.

EZ: It’s like you don’t believe in Santa Claus

GD: It’s wild.

Note that Zitron has setup a sort of confessional with an actual fully stocked bar in the heart of the conference, and people are being amusingly candid about their CES experience.

They will be recording pods for the next few days. #

Git complains about a non-existent branch while npm installing

One of the odd things that happened yesterday was getting completely blocked on Github. The problem turned out to be my fault, but the world certainly didn’t make it any easier. The error I was seing during npm install in my Github action was the slightly cryptic:

npm error npm error command git --no-replace-objects checkout fix-remove-itemlistsclass npm error npm error error: pathspec 'fix-remove-itemlistsclass' did not match any file(s) known to git

I followed the troubleshooting path where it led, right down to the end, eventually deleting all branches apart from the main branch, and was completely stumped. Turned out I had innadvertantly left a bit of test config in one of the repos. It was pointing to a git hosted feature branch of one of it’s dependencies intead of the main branch.

That fact was being hidden because (1) I hadn't done a git pull following merging in it’s feature branch and (2) there was a red herring feature branch name mis-spelling that had been introduced. Bugs hidding behind bugs hiding behind bugs.

These sorts of configuration snafus are an easy mistake to make, especially when you are juggling merging in changes to 6-7 repos at once, all on a small screen. I had checked them all a couple of times, but clearly must have been momentarily distracted both times. That’s certainly not a suprise to me, my whole life feels like a big distraction at the minute.

Anyhow, I eventually found the problem when another programmer online that read the error message I had been presented with made an educated guess. In retrospec it seems obvious, but when you are neck deep in it, it’s anything but obvious. I had gotten rid of all the jungle and brambles but needed that extra pair of eyes, and a clear head, to actually see the solution, which was right in front of me.

It was a bit of a scarier issue than the norm because the only way to test it ended up being to do it on the live website, which wasn’t ideal, but I had exhausted literally all other options. So when it failed in prod, that blocked everything. Once I updated the config though, the plugin started building again and all my website builds started completing without errors.

Hopefully now that I’ve written about it, I’ll remember it in case it happens again. If git is complaining about a branch that doesn’t exist when you are npm installing, it’s probably because somewhere one of your dependencies is pointing at a feature branch that previously existed. #

Physics is so weird

Some out there thoughts I had while listening to Paul M Sutter and Peter MacCormac discussion about Einstein, aliens and the mysteries of existence.

• Black holes are probably where "they" are likely hiding all the secrets, literally the best hidding place in the universe.
• Black holes will eventually be used as the best hashing algorithm in existence.
• Physics is all just an elaborate dungeons and dragons role playing dice game to keep you enslaved while pretending to help you. It’s really just a fun way to memorise pie to infiniti number of decimel places.
• Quantum physics is suspiciously analogue to love. Don’t you think? Quantum entanglement? Seriously? Really? What are the chances? How about poly-quantum entanglement? Or quantum no strings attached brief hookup entanglement? It’s a massive psyop.
• Quantum physics is also basically perfect lying. Everything is one way while you are looking away, but as soon as you look at it, it knows to instantly be a totally different way.
• Physics is CSS for reality. It’s not a real thing. It’s just a way to do things in a structured synchronised way together.
• Entangled but separate. Sure.
• Dark matter is being used to create the mirror universe simulation.
• Dark energy is being used to keep all the "universes" separate.
• Anytime we discover some new exciting aspects of physics and reality it will immediately be used to make the prison we are trapped in a little better (or I guess worse?)
• All this talk of the universe is earily similar to conversations about the macro of the earth’s financial system.
• My static site generator will be used to free us from the aliens. Please donate. Also subscribe to the weekly newsletter. Your gonna love it :)

So yeah some kind of bizare things to be thinking about, but probably more a reflection of the strange distrustful modern world we live in at the minute than anything bad against science.

I find all this stuff fascinating. Really worth listening to the episode. #

What has happened with the FED, money printing and debt creation?

Fatastic segment at the start of the latest TFTC episode where Parker Lewis goes into the high level of what has happened with the FED, money printing and the debt creation [05:54]. I’ve transcribed the main points here, and added a few notes and questions:

• 2007: $53 trillion dollar denominated debt system wide, only $900 billion dollars base money in existence. That’s approx 50:1 ratio. With only $350-400 billion actually in the banks.
• Banks are the source of leverage. That $400 billion is essentially the money available to the banking system. So the banking system can be thought of as being leveraged approx 150:1.
• MS - liquidity ratio $400 / $900 ie 45% of system total
• After financial crisis, FED increases base money by $3.6 trillion over 3 series of QE. Taking their balance sheet from $900 million to $4.5 trillion.
• Then between 2007-2019 started taking certain of those reserves out. $700-800 billion. Which was about 33% of the liquidity from the banks.
• MS - liquidity ratio $2.4 trillion out of $4.5 trillion i.e 55% of system total
• 2019 September - repo crisis when overnight lending rates went from 2% to 10%. That was the inception, right before COVID, of the wave of money printing that happened between 2020 and 2022, where the FED created $5 trillion over the COVID lock down. But the liquidity crisis had actually started before the lockdown.
• So the FED went from $4ish trillion pre-COVID to $9ish trillion post COVID
• MS - assuming similar liquidity ratio as before that’s approx $4.5 trillion out of $9 trillion i.e ~50% of system total
• Then spring 2023 - the wave of bank crisis happened, a liquidity crisis, which is a credit crisis. Silicon Valley bank, First Republic, Signature, Silvergate. All for different reasons.
• The FED then created their BTFP program to lend to banks at par even if treasuries that banks held were underwater. So that’s when they began to put a bit of money back in the system, 16 years after starting to slowly withdraw from the system.
• MS - how much did they put back in??
• But since the bank crisis was quelled, they then began taking money out of the system again.
• From the post covid peak of $9 trillion, now there is approx $7 trillion. i.e they took out $2 trillion from the system from 2022 until today.
• MS - there was $4.5 trillion available, they took out $2 trillion, that leaves $2.5 trillion. So $2.5 trillion minus the BTFP amount is what is left??
• MS - how long will that last? Well previously $4.5 trillion lasted 12 years. Based on that $2.5 would last about 6 years, but you have to subtract the BTFP amount. Say it was 1.5 trillion, then it’s about 2-3 years. So next crisis will happen before 2027.
• MS - BUT actually current debt interest repayment is around $1.5 trillion per year, so actually you probably only have 1 year till next crisis. i.e there will be a print before 2026
• The reason they have the liquidity crisis / credit crisis is because as they were taking dollars out, and there were fewer dollars available relative to the same amount of debt, and people figured out what they were doing and started running for the exits.
• It’s essentially re-leveraging the entire system. QE first quells the credit / illiquidity crisis, by providing more liquidity, but it’s also designed to induce the actual expansion of credit.
• The system sits today at $105 trillion. That’s system wide, federal, state, local, corporate debt, financial, non-financial, consumer debt, auto loans, mortgages, student loans, credit card debt. All of that is $101.5 trillion.
• So from pre-COVID, $52 trillion, the system has doubled in size. It’s induced by the creation of money.
• $101.5 trillion of debt, $7 trillion of actual base money.
• Even though the FED went from $9 to $7 trillion, the debt hasn’t gone away, it’s continuing to expand, with the government running $2 trillion dollar deficits plus.
• As they take the money out, $9 to $7, there are not only fewer dollars that are being competed for, not just by the debt that exists, but everyone in the economy. From debt to dollars it’s functionally re-leveraging the system, 100/9 vs 100/7
• That’s a significant re-leveraging of the system
• The way to think about it: the only thing that can influence the supply side of dollar interest rates, is the supply of dollars. And the FED controls that. So even if they are reducing the overnight rates, they are still taking money out of the system. Reserves provided by the FED are still declining and that, more than anything, is driving interest rates higher across the board.
• There are fewer dollars competing for more and more dollar debt, and the competition for those dollars becomes zero sum, which influences interest rates.
• Whatever the Trump administration can do on the margin pales in comparison to what the FED is doing.
• The FED are likely focusing on inflation and all the other metrics and they aren’t focusing on the re-leveraging of the financial system and the next liquidity crisis that it will inevitably cause, which will induce the need to print even more money to quell another credit collapse.
• The system has moved from 11:1 leveraged to 15:1 leveraged

Parker Lewis [13:57]: "What’s impossible to predict is when and where. What’s possible to predict is the inevitability of there being a liquidity crisis if you are taking dollars out of the system and putting them into a black hole while this mestasticized credit system remains there and ever growing.

• MS - How is bitcoin managing to keep to a 4 year cycle if the total system refinancing time is shrinking? Did the BTFP program just prop up the BTC 4 year cycle?
• MS - what will happen if there is no new BTFP program? Printing will have to start by 2027?
• MS - how much of a print can safely make it’s way into Bitcoin?
• MS - isn’t it the case that the more money goes into Bitcoin, the tighter the system gets? Isn’t Bitcoin basically a giant pressure cooker lid, turning the entire world financial system into a pressure cooker? There will be less wiggle room for everyone.
• MS - is this even a game one wants to win? Isn’t this a case where winning is actually loosing?

The whole episode is worth listening to, lots of interesting angles discussed. There’s a whole bit where they go through possible scenarios where the US moves to using Bitcoin instead of treasuries. The game theory is very interesting indeed, because what would other countries do that already hold US treasuries?

I wonder if there might ever be a world wide run onto Bitcoin. A tipping point where literally everyone, governments, organisations and individuals scramble to get all their net worth moved into Bitcoin before all the fiat currencies lose their value.

Also at what point will goods start to be priced in Bitcoin?

How does price discovery even work in a Bitcoin world? #