Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * on Dienstag, 18. August 2015 at 19:27, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: has an unrealistic take on the amount of work it would take to modify Greek computer systems to handle a return to the drachma. Reading your article leaves me open mouthed unable to understand the problem which you seem trying to solve. I can't see one. One would simply declare all bank accounts to be in the New Drachma instead of Euro, and that's it. Either 1:1 or at a given exchange rate. Just as it happened in the other direction, when the national currencies where converted by a given exchange rate (fixed a few years before) to Euro. In the German case, the exchange rate was fixed to 1.95583 DEM/EUR. And the account was changed from being made out in DEM to made out in EUR. The GDR people had two changes in one decade, first from DDR-Mark to DEM, then from DEM to EUR. Cash was changed by the banks in the given exchange rate. What the fuck are you fantasizing about? The only problem is to have the neccesary amoung of coins and bills in the new currency, and producing that takes time. Cheers, Lüko Willms _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Recently I learned that an EBook on Amazon.com titled “Austerity, Greece’s Debt Crisis and the Theft of Democracy” included a chapter titled “The Information Technology Problem” that discussed my articles on Naked Capitalism and those of Australian economist Billy Mitchell who has an unrealistic take on the amount of work it would take to modify Greek computer systems to handle a return to the drachma. Joseph Firestone, the author of the EBook, has a PhD in Political Science from Michigan State, over 150 articles to his name, and an extensive background in IT but mostly at the management level. Right now he is the Chief Knowledge Officer of a company called Executive Information Systems, a title that most likely has something to do with Knowledge Management, his area of expertise. This is apparently a field that has emerged since 1991 but one that somehow managed to elude Columbia University where I worked from that year until my retirement in 2012. There will be something about it later in this article by another expert in the field. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/08/18/once-more-on-it-and-a-return-to-the-drachma/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Well now Ralph- I side with Louis on the possible complexities of an IT project (been through a few myself), but it's one of those if you ain't been there, you wouldn't understand kinds of things. While the technological developments since the first trash 80 computer (and its ilk) have been truly incredible, Louis and others can easily make a list of multi-million dollar projects that failed miserably. Maybe, since I gather none of us is actually going to be in Athens programming the changes, we should just sit back and watch? (With fingers crossed, of course.) - Bill On 08/18/2015 4:41 PM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/18/15 2:12 PM, Lüko Willms wrote: * * Reading your article leaves me open mouthed unable to understand the problem which you seem trying to solve. I can't see one.Don't blame me. I once tried to explain to my mom what I did for a living. I should also say that when Peter Camejo used to try to explain butterfly spreads in covered option calls (or whatever the fuck it was he had in my portfolio), my eyes would glaze over as well. Come on, Lou, funny ha ha but you can do better. I'm not that good at bullet points either, but with a little time devoted to it there are relatively straightforward ways to make the complex intelligible - if that's really the problem here. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/quimbywm%40gmail.com --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * on Dienstag, 18. August 2015 at 23:07, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: I have written 3 articles now on IT issues relating to the Grexit. which I have not read because first Grexit doesnt interest me, and secondly because I can't see any IT issue with that catastrophy for the Greek workers, and thirdly because I do not break my head to solve political problems for the bourgeoisie. It is a bit hard to explain the issues to non-IT people but basically they involve understanding that mainframe systems are written in COBOL, some, and large parts of it, but the banks are working hard to change that. a language that is not easy to modify even when you have defined the requirements. depends on how good or badly written the program is. COBOL has been my specialty as application programmer, and I had written a handbook for my colleagues at that mainframe computer company on how to write COBOL programs compatible to all three operating systems and very different hardware architectures. I have made it a rule that no GOTO may be written without the corresponding COME FROM. In essence, converting existing banking systems to the drachma is like finding a needle in a haystack. Whenever a program refers to some currency amount that is being used as a limit (such as checking to make sure that an account has a certain amount to make it eligible for free checking), you have to make sure that it is adjusted for the drachma. For the number cruncher, it is irrelevant if the account is denominated in EUR or GRN (for Greek New Drachma). The program code might look like this: if account_total 1000 perform free_checking_rtn for one, I don't know in how far such primitive payment system as checks are still being used in Greece, but I know from news reports that many of the old age pensioners do not have bank accounts at all, but rely completely on cash. Here in Germany, payment by check is completely irrelevant. I have not filled out a single check form for at least a decade, maybe even more. Most payments, if not in cash, are done by direct transfer from account to account, or direct debit, or card payments with either direct debit or credit cards. That piece of code assumes that you are talking about 1000 euros but if you switch to a drachma, it would have to be modified to reflect a different amount such as 1. As said: For the number cruncher, it is irrelevant if the account is denominated in EUR or GRN (for Greek New Drachma). And: Greece joined the Euro only in 2001, two years later than the official start. The fixed exchange rate was 340.750 GRD (Greek Drachma) for 1 Euro, so the financial systems had been capable to deal with not simply one digit more, but 2 digits more than in Euro. And please consider that the biggest industry in Greece is shipping, and the shippers are accustomed to work in USD anyway, and to convert USD to GRD, and USD to EUR. A New Drachma (in my abreviation GRN) would not have to calculate such an odd exchange rate, but could start with a 1:1 relation to the Euro, before the GRN falls into the abyss of a 100:1 exchange rate of GRN/EUR. These odd exchange rates had been necessary because 19 countries had to synchronise their currencies to a common one. A country leaving the Eurozone for a solitary existence could easily start with a 1:1 conversion, and then let the new currency float against EUR, USD, GBP etc. When the Greek bankers and businesses have managed the transistion from GRD to EUR by 340.750:1, then they should be able to cope with a 1:1 change from EUR to GRN. And especially I can't understand why this which doctor Varofakis thinks that the devaluation of the Greek currency needs a new payment system. But, as I said, Grexit is something which I rather want to avoid, and I am not interested in preparing it. Cheers, Lüko Willms _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/18/15 4:41 PM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism wrote: Come on, Lou, funny ha ha but you can do better. I'm not that good at bullet points either, but with a little time devoted to it there are relatively straightforward ways to make the complex intelligible - if that's really the problem here. I have written 3 articles now on IT issues relating to the Grexit. Most of the people who have engaged with my arguments on Naked Capitalism are very experienced IT people like myself. It is a bit hard to explain the issues to non-IT people but basically they involve understanding that mainframe systems are written in COBOL, a language that is not easy to modify even when you have defined the requirements. In essence, converting existing banking systems to the drachma is like finding a needle in a haystack. Whenever a program refers to some currency amount that is being used as a limit (such as checking to make sure that an account has a certain amount to make it eligible for free checking), you have to make sure that it is adjusted for the drachma. The program code might look like this: if account_total 1000 perform free_checking_rtn That piece of code assumes that you are talking about 1000 euros but if you switch to a drachma, it would have to be modified to reflect a different amount such as 1. Finding code that relies on such evaluations is very difficult since programmers cannot be relied upon to name data in an appropriate manner. For example, 'account_total' is fairly meaningful but there's nothing to prevent a programmer from calling it a_tot. We spent a year at Columbia University in a Y2K conversion just locating date fields that had to be changed from mmddyy to mmdd. Good programming practices dictates calling fields something like acceptance_date in a student information system but nothing prevents a programmer from calling it a_dt. Shit happens. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Once more on IT and a return to the drachma | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (Got a chuckle out of this comment on my latest article, coming apparently from someone in the Communist Party in Virginia, of all places...) I have really enjoyed this series of articles Louis. As someone who is just starting out on the path of working in IT even I can attest to how a seemingly simple task can grow mind-bogglingly difficult given the quirks various software packages have. Combining those little quirks with integrated systems using various different technologies that would each require experts to evaluate and implement changes would indeed be very difficult. Sure, it could be done. However a change on this scale would require both time and resources that Greece probably doesn’t have if the switch were to work as intended and make the Greek economy competitive through devaluation. Without proper planning and sufficient resources I could easily see the entire Greek financial system grinding to a screeching halt. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
