Lmst

A quotation from Marcus Aurelius

   Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died, after furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’ ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on death and immortality. How many warriors, after inflicting thousands of casualties themselves. How many tyrants, after abusing the power of life and death atrociously, as if they were themselves immortal.
   How many whole cities have met their end: Helike, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others.
   And all the ones you know yourself, one after another. One who laid out another for burial, and was buried himself, and then the man who buried him — all in the same short space of time.

[Ἐννοεῖν συνεχῶς πόσοι μὲν ἰατροὶ ἀποτεθνήκασι, πολλάκις τὰς ὀφρῦς ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀρρώστων συσπάσαντες: πόσοι δὲ μαθηματικοί, ἄλλων θανάτους ὥς τι μέγα προειπόντες: πόσοι δὲ φιλόσοφοι, περὶ θανάτου ἢ ἀθανασίας μυρία διατεινάμενοι: πόσοι δὲ ἀριστεῖς, πολλοὺς ἀποκτείναντες: πόσοι δὲ τύραννοι, ἐξουσίᾳ ψυχῶν μετὰ δεινοῦ φρυάγματος ὡς ἀθάνατοι κεχρημένοι: πόσαι δὲ πόλεις ὅλαι, ἵν̓ οὕτως εἴπω, τεθνήκασιν, Ἑλίκη καὶ Πομπήιοι καὶ Ἡρκλᾶνον καὶ ἄλλαι ἀναρίθμητοι. ἔπιθι δὲ καὶ ὅσους οἶδας, ἄλλον ἐπ̓ ἄλλῳ: ὁ μὲν τοῦτον κηδεύσας εἶτα ἐξετάθη, ὁ δὲ ἐκεῖνον, πάντα δὲ ἐν βραχεῖ.]

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations [To Himself; Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν], Book 4, ch. 48 (4.48) (AD 161-180) [tr. Hays (2003)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/marcus-aureleus/7678…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #marcusaurelius #death #mortality #shortlived #transitory

A quotation from Marcus Aurelius

He that does a Memorable Action, and those that Report it, are all but short-liv’d Things.

[Πᾶν ἐφήμερον, καὶ τὸ μνημονεῦον καὶ τὸ μνημονευόμενον.]

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations [To Himself; Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν], Book 4, ch. 35 (4.35) (AD 161-180) [tr. Collier (1701)]

Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/marcus-aureleus/7613…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #marcusaurelius #brevity #brief #historian #history #life #moment #perspective #remembrance #shortlived #transitory

On the
other hand, in the commodity form the #value #perishes with the use value
in which it is contained, since use value is a #transitory thing and as
such would be #dissolved simply by the #metabolic process of nature. And
if it is really utilised as a use value, i.e. consumed, the exchange
value contained in the use value perishes along with it.

An increase in value means nothing other than an increase in objectified
labour; but it is only through #living labour that objectified labour can
be preserved or increased.

[I-18] Value, the /objectified /labour which exists in the form of
money, could grow only by exchange with a commodity whose /use value
/itself consisted in the ability to increase exchange value, whose
consumption would be equivalent to the creation of value or the
objectification of labour. /(No /commodity has any direct use value at
all for the value which is to be valorised, except in so far as its use
itself constitutes the creation of value; in so far as it is useful for
increasing value.) But such use value is only possessed by /living
labour capacity/. Value, money, can therefore only be transformed into
capital through exchange with living labour capacity. Its transformation
into capital requires that it be exchanged, on the one hand, for labour
capacity and, on the other, for the material conditions prerequisite to
the objectification of labour capacity. [#Marx, MECW 30: 36]

If #inflation in the #eurozone was #transitory after all, the risk that @ECB has #overtightened is clearly heightened.

(like it or not) This is called #transitory #inflation: In #Switzerland - the average annual inflation amounted to +2.1% in 2023, chart @SwissStat https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/aktuell/neue-veroeffentlichungen.assetdetail.30225916.html

#disinflation is real, yet #ECB seems unwilling to believe the good news, putting the economy through a #stagnation in #Europa --- The decline in the #transitory price surge does not call for long-lasting #unemployment

The thing about theater is that it is transitory and immediate. BAT closed The Twelve Dates of Christmas yesterday, and we are on to Trouble in Mind today.

#BATthatre #BurienTheater #Transitory #TroubleInMind

@iamcanehdian don’t rule out the #TransiTory

(The fall of the #transitory inflation in #Switzerland was so rapid and #SNB didn’t block it with over-tightening) #Swiss inflation CPI in Nov 2023: +1.4%Y, -0.2%M, core: +1.4%Y, 0.0%M, price index for import goods: -0.6%Y, -1.1%M, chart @StatSchweiz https://www.bfs.admin.ch/news/de/2023-0456

BREAKING: Dec PPI inflation prints -5.9%.

Avg of 8 prints from 3 indexes over 3 months: 1.5%

Avg of 17 prints over 6 months: 1.3%

Got #transitory much?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=YU63

@arindube: https://econtwitter.net/@arindube/109684222999080465

"Team #transitory got its unconditional forecast wrong, but got its conditional forecast right"

💯 No one predicted the full duration of the #pandemic & its multiple new variant waves, nor did they predict the global economic effects of the 🇺🇦 war.

But TT was correct that the #inflation was primarily a cross-national, war- & pandemic-induced phenomenon & not mainly caused by #Biden & the ARP, as you were told by The Oracle of Summer(s) & co. for over a year.

I mean, were the economic models really wrong? #Inflation is coming down - about a year later than people originally thought, sure, but again, no one predicted multiple subsequent COVID waves or the war in Europe - more or less exactly in line with the logic that "team #transitory" articulated way back in mid-2021. Shocks happen. International politics happens. I guess I just don't see the "track record is bad." And I <certainly> don't see Bayesian updating from Summers & co. on their theories 🤷‍♂️

@pkrugman Yes on good news & caution, though I don't love the symmetry here. A year ago, serious people were making good-faith arguments that the #inflation was (don't say it...) #transitory, an argument which has turned out largely to be true, once one factors in the unexpected duration of the pandemic & the Ukraine war no economist predicted

Perhaps some of the current pessimists are equally serious...the loudest ones, I'm afraid, don't really appear to be so. We should also acknowledge that.