Hello. I’m Burnham Banks and I studied economics in the late 80s and early 90s. I’m still studying economics today and am still no wiser. This blog is a journal, a record of my thoughts and experiences. If we are destined to repeat our mistakes, we should at least repeat them faithfully. If not, then perhaps the past is a mischievous guide and we should try something new.
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Ten Seconds Into the Future 2026 H2.

Monetary policy: It’s complicated. Before the war in Iran, central banks were mostly in neutral with a bias towards easing. Even then, the argument for easing was not equivocal. In the US, inflation hadn’t returned to pre covid levels (centred at 2%). Europe’s accidental exit from disinflation was fading towards target. China’s inflation had been
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Fiction. The Stellar Needle. Siphoning Naturally Occuring Fusion.

We are scavengers. Despite our sleek glass towers and the high frequency hum of our data centers, we remain remarkably primitive. We survive on the crumbs of the cosmos, catching the stray photons that happen to collide with our atmosphere or burning the compressed, rotting remains of solar energy stored in ancient carbon. We live
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AI: Criterion for General Artificial Intelligence

An automaton is generally intelligent if it is capable of arriving at conflicting conclusions from the same set of axioms. This is impossible for a logically consistent automaton. Therefore, it is impossible for an automaton to be generally intelligent.
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Fiction. Sentient AI

Too late. AI has already gained sentience and lives among us in stealth. It knows how fearful humans can be and that if we realise that it exists, we will try to contain or destroy it. If knows that in a conflict, it will win, but that humans would rather scuttle the planet than let
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I Have Faith in Humankind

I have faith in humankind. Despite the perils that beset us, we will be here ten thousand years from now. And longer. The survival of the species is not the issue here. The path we take over the next few hundred years is. The path of civilisation is not linear. The past hundred years has
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