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Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

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Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#41

Post by mlyle »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #38
mlyle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While keeping something running via an informal system is better than nothing, and most people might be okay... if you're just kinda shifty looking or unpopular at the moment in your local pub and have a much harder time than everyone else, that's not exactly great. That is, it's not only the common experience that matters, but the outliers too. The basic tools of society should be available even if you're ugly, anno…

This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one. If there are five local pubs and one of them won't have you, well, still four more. If there is only one bank and their loan officer doesn't like the cut of your jib, or their algorithm has decided to have a false positive, you're done. Though of course the modern problem isn't that there is only one bank, it's that there is only one bank…

> This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one.

They can break in different ways. If you're in an out-group or unpopular, it's not clear whether you're better off with n local pubs making a decision to accept your money informally or n/2 national banks making a decision while subject to oversight.

In any case, this is a false premise: it's not like you're choosing from 5 local pubs. The question is whether the pub you attend likes you enough to take your check.

> What you need for this is something permissionless.

Far better to have things work okay without any other entity being involved, sure. But there are reasons why banks exist.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#43

Post by AnthonyMouse »

robertlagrant wrote: post #32
kaashif wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hollywood actors and famous football players are often very rich, but they sell their labor to get by. But there's a key difference. They don't need to continue to sell their labor, they can stop at any time and live on e.g. income from dividends. Or maybe they have enough cash they could literally not even invest it and still live fine. Although they may not own the means of production right at this moment, they e…

You tomorrow could start out as a carpenter, buy a hammer and own the means of production. It's not a high bar to clear.

Ironically it's more often governments that interfere with this. Go to the library and read some books and you can learn how to be a plumber or an electrician, buy a toolbox and you're on your way. Presumably there is some kind of licensing exam?

No, first you've got to find an existing tradesperson and apprentice under them, even if you could already pass the exam on your own. For a few weeks is it? Years, typically. To become a journeyman. Still can't work for yourself, now you have to work under them for a few more years.

Figure out how to file papers for an LLC. Maybe you need a lawyer. Tax accounting will be fun too. Do any of the cities you operate in have a different sales tax rate? Which of your business expenses can be deducted in the current year and which have to be depreciated? Is that the same for things you resell?

Guess what happens if you want to move to another state.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#44

Post by AnthonyMouse »

RecycledEle wrote: post #30
booleandilemma wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's whether you have hire/fire powers and you make money off of other people's labour I think creating a hierarchy of managers and workers is just another tool that the people with power use to control everyone else. Surely my direct manager has more in common with me than the CEO? Am I wrong to think this? Wouldn't the CEO see both managers and their teams as mere workers?

I see the divide as being between those of us who created wealth by working vs. those who do not create wealth and instead play zero sum and negative sum games.

That's something else entirely.

You could have someone who is solidly in the investment class and only works three hours a year, but during those three hours they tell their pet executives to put the capital into energy storage tech and new housing construction and do a lot of good in the world.

You could have a low-level white collar worker who isn't making very much money at all, all of it in wages, who decides to screw over the company's customers with something economically inefficient because it gives them some advantage in internal corporate politics.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#45

Post by jon-wood »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #38
mlyle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While keeping something running via an informal system is better than nothing, and most people might be okay... if you're just kinda shifty looking or unpopular at the moment in your local pub and have a much harder time than everyone else, that's not exactly great. That is, it's not only the common experience that matters, but the outliers too. The basic tools of society should be available even if you're ugly, anno…

This problem is far worse with a concentrated system than a decentralized one. If there are five local pubs and one of them won't have you, well, still four more. If there is only one bank and their loan officer doesn't like the cut of your jib, or their algorithm has decided to have a false positive, you're done. Though of course the modern problem isn't that there is only one bank, it's that there is only one bank…

Fun fact for you, a lot of pubs in the UK are shifting to requiring photo ID to enter, and scanning that ID into a centralised system, often as a requirement from the police to retain their license to serve alcohol.

I ended up chatting to one of the bouncers at a bar a while back and he was telling me about how they refused entry to someone not long before because they were flagged as having caused trouble in a bar 70 miles away.

In some regards I’m not even against this, if you have a record of attacking women in bars I don’t want you in the bar I’m at, but this does seem incredibly prone to abuse. I can totally see someone who has a grudge getting people banned from every pub in the country.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#46

Post by fullspectrumdev »

kmonsen wrote: post #36
ehnto wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1970s Ireland was very homogenous, which is to say white. It wasn't until the 90s that immigration began flowing in the other direction to a meaningful degree. So while I agree with you, it was unlikely a problem at the time. Although that doesn't cover gender or class discrimination so I suppose that was still an issue.

Or more importantly in Ireland, religions based discrimination

More so an issue in NI than RoI, even back then according to older relatives the division was a lot less in RoI.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#47

Post by rsynnott »

As an Irish person, I would not _particularly_ recommend Ireland in 1970 as a model to aspire to.

And even given that, the banks did not actually fail, they just weren’t operating, and the expectation was that they would start back up again at some point. When Ireland actually faced the banks failing, in 2008, we bailed them out and nationalised most of them, at a cost of almost 10,000 euro per capita.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#48

Post by fullspectrumdev »

corethree wrote: post #24
tekla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't own the means of production They literally own the means of production, their bodies and minds. No one is forcing them to sign contracts for a million dollar salary, they can do the exact same acting/athelete-ing with a $100 smartphone.

Relax AI are now in the verge of evening the playing field for actors. Athletes not yet, unless we have AI starting to generate completely made up sporting events. The later is extremely possible given how much data there is and how similar it all is.

A fair while back I was actually reading about a proposed system for literally CGI/virtual horse racing specifically for gambling purposes, backed by gambling industry money.

Unsure if it ever went anywhere, I kind of mentally filed it as “insane gambling nonsense”.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#49

Post by rsynnott »

corethree wrote: post #27
wodenokoto wrote: post #22

The article really wants to imply that because this worked, we shouldn't be afraid of "too big to fail", but it doesn't dare say that and kinda of ends up sitting between two chairs. "I'm not saying that banks crashing isn't bad, but it wasn't a problem for Ireland to have banks disappear" but the thing is, according to the article, trust in banks never disappeared, neither did the banks. People kept writing cheques…

How were bankers not skinned alive? If someone owes you or I money and then suddenly they go on strike there will be a vicious reckoning.

Most people, presumably, aren’t as bloodthirsty as you; strikes, no matter how inconvenient, rarely result in mass murder of the strikers by the general public. Sometimes by the state, in totalitarian systems, but not by random people.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#50

Post by fullspectrumdev »

barrkel wrote: post #29

Back in the 90s in Ireland, my mother would occasionally cash a cheque at the pub - if it's not crossed payee a/c only, the bearer can generally cash it themselves. Going further back, pubs were the local shops for general dry goods, particularly in rural communities. I recall some dusty window displays in some pubs even in the 1980s, when I was a kid.

Recently I found that in a few of the more touristic areas in Ireland (which I rarely visit, being from here, was showing friends some places), a lot of pubs will offer a foreign exchange service of dubious legitimacy with debatably fair rates.

Same thing in the border counties up north - you can often spend or exchange Sterling and Euro currency, but the rates will suck.

In the 1990’s where I grew up, one of the two shops in the village was basically a room off one of the pubs. The other, larger shop was also the post office, hardware store, etc.

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