Not quite right. Total Value remains the same before and after increase in productivity, assuming the labor force remains constant. But more use-value is created in the same period of time.

At the beginning, this is good for the employer, because the new socially necessary labor time has not been internalized, so the output can be sold for a price corresponding to its old Value. Maybe a bit less, to undercut competitors.

Eventually though, as competition adopts the new technique, everyone attempts to undercut each other’s prices, adjusting until prices correspond to the new Value.

    jj-workshop on  HEAD (2cab0f1) [!]
    > jj
    @  unwquwxk samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-07-29 18:47:18 f7db7c8a
    │  Part 2 first
    ○  wskswvnt samfredrickson@gmail.com 2025-07-29 18:47:13 git_head() 2cab0f16
    │  Part 2 second
    ◆  pnxpmvpz jkoppel@users.noreply.github.com 2025-07-27 21:54:50 main 4d04bcef
    │  Update README.md with link to JJ homepage
    ~
    
    jj-workshop on  HEAD (2cab0f1) [!]
    > jj show w --git
    Commit ID: 2cab0f167c64cea1d23407e12196fa6d1b8aab25
    Change ID: wskswvntlvtwzqutoowyqltsouklzmqr
    Author   : Sam Fredrickson  (2025-07-29 18:34:52)
    Committer: Sam Fredrickson  (2025-07-29 18:47:13)
    
        Part 2 second
    
    diff --git a/part1/foo.txt b/part1/foo.txt
    index 067f76475a..56c99c9cc3 100644
    --- a/part1/foo.txt
    +++ b/part1/foo.txt
    @@ -6,5 +6,5 @@
    
     * The best operating system is ______
     * The best text editor is ______
    -* The best kind of phone is _______
    -* The best superhero is ___________
    +* The best kind of phone is nothing
    +* The best superhero is nobody
    
    jj-workshop on  HEAD (2cab0f1) [!]
    > jj show u --git
    Commit ID: f7db7c8a5f37df8c29e08a6697ca6cd59c2313c4
    Change ID: unwquwxklkprlqoksmxzvoumspnmnknk
    Author   : Sam Fredrickson  (2025-07-29 18:34:52)
    Committer: Sam Fredrickson  (2025-07-29 18:47:18)
    
        Part 2 first
    
    diff --git a/part1/foo.txt b/part1/foo.txt
    index 56c99c9cc3..f48ae9b3f9 100644
    --- a/part1/foo.txt
    +++ b/part1/foo.txt
    @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
    
     Maybe fill this out?
    
    -* The best operating system is ______
    -* The best text editor is ______
    +* The best operating system is Linux
    +* The best text editor is neovim
     * The best kind of phone is nothing
     * The best superhero is nobody

> Scholars tended to associate it with the theories of economists working with the Mont Pelerin Society, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and James M. Buchanan, along with politicians and policy-makers such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Greenspan.

You also have to consider the asymmetric nature of this information. It's quite plausible that the US has its "cyber-fangs" embedded in key parts of PRC infrastructure, but how forthcoming do you think the PRC would be about that?

> Why this free worker confronts him in the sphere of circulation is a question which does not interest the owner of money, for he finds the labour-market in existence as a particular branch of the commodity-market. And for the present it interests us just as little. We confine ourselves to the fact theoretically, as he does practically. One thing, however, is clear: nature does not produce on the one hand owners of money or commodities, and on the other hand men possessing nothing but their own labour-power. This relation has no basis in natural history, nor does it have a social basis common to all periods of human history, It is clearly the result of a past historical development, the product of many economic revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older formations of social production.

Someone wants to buy a house, the bank creates $500k "out of nothing" and the two parties enter into a loan. For the buyer, their $500k asset (bank money) is balanced by a $500k liability (mortgage). It's symmetrical for the bank: a $500k liability (bank deposit) is balanced by a $500k asset (loan). Once the loan is paid off, the balances go to zero and that "new money" has effectively been completely destroyed. What the loan issuer gets in compensation, of course, is the interest.

Even with QE, when central banks "print money" to buy distressed assets, they are buying assets, not handing out new money no-strings-attached. And that new money is listed as a liability on their balance sheet, with the purchased assets balancing it on the other side.

Monetizing social security would break this balance. A central bank would create new money, adding it to their liabilities, and then give it away, receiving... nothing? The money supply would continuously increase without a corresponding sink to "suck it back up." That would (1) lead to inflation, thus (2) requiring more money creation for retirees to keep up with increased prices; goto (1).

In order for something like this to work, you would need some kind of sink. That could be done with taxes. But then we're sort of back where we started. The central bank wouldn't be monetizing social security no-strings-attached, but creating money with a promise from the government that it will tax the economy sufficiently to pay it back. It would just be another loan.

(1) Index funds purchase MSTR shares, driving up the price; (2) thus allowing Saylor to issue more debt to buy BTC, which drives that up; (3) MSTR shares appreciate due to its BTC holdings; (4) go to step 1 as funds need to rebalance and add more MSTR shares.

The weak points to this idea are definitely step 2 and even 3. MSTR won't be able to keep finding entities to buy its debt indefinitely, and MSTR is already trading well above what its BTC holdings' appreciation would justify, so there's some obviously unsustainable mania going on.

    $ du -hs /opt/homebrew/Cellar/helix/
    139M /opt/homebrew/Cellar/helix/