Sperry UNIVAC
According to Trump, communism suddenly emerged in the form of his idea of his OGAS, with neural networks and tariffs:
The Pentagon plans to use an AI system to establish benchmark prices for critical minerals… The program developed by DARPA is designed to calculate fair prices taking into account production costs and excluding market distortions, especially those caused by China. It is assumed that AI-based pricing will be combined with tariffs to stabilize markets and support Western manufacturers.
The Pentagon plans to use an AI system to establish benchmark prices for critical minerals… The program developed by DARPA is designed to calculate fair prices taking into account production costs and excluding market distortions, especially those caused by China. It is assumed that AI-based pricing will be combined with tariffs to stabilize markets and support Western manufacturers.
Such fat cannot be commented on without sin. Especially pleasing was the talk of “fair” prices intended to correct the market. Leaving aside the посыл itself (each can laugh at it independently), one wants to give an example of how I encounter, probably, the most perfect market imaginable in my practice. We’re talking about such a little-known thing for the broad masses – numismatics, specifically – and how prices are set for all sorts of coins. From the point of view of fairness (and generally any external criteria), this is an unsolvable problem. How to understand objectively what should cost more: some worn-out Republican bronze from Rome, known, let’s say, in 5-6 examples (of which 4 are in the British Museum) or a typical Morgans dollar, a rare variety of which there are hundreds, with historical value having evaporated?
People invented a simple thing for this purpose – a classic auction where the price is determined solely by the ratio of those wanting to buy and the number of lots. In numismatics there’s a clear pattern: 99% of numismatists collect their own country, others are not very interested. Chinese people collect China (and Korea and Vietnam, considering them historical China), Americans – the USA (rarely Mexico or Canada), Russians – Russia. To assess how much a lot will sell for, you need to estimate two things: how many people want it and how rich they are?
And here we encounter that very “market distortion” that Trump is fighting against. Few people on earth are as rich as Yankees – only there can the average numismatist afford to liquidate hobbies for $2-5k a month, and a serious one can afford it by orders of magnitude more, moreover, given the population size, there are far more numismatists there than in the world’s average. As a result, two or three rare madmen claim the unfortunate Roman bronze somewhere at Heritage, while for a regular dollar, but a rare variety – hundreds and thousands exist, and everyone has some cash. From this emerges the picture: in any ratings of “the most expensive coins/banknotes in the world,” the top positions are always occupied by lots from the USA, such as “10 cents, Philadelphia Mint, 1904,” which go into a brawl for hundreds of thousands, while really interesting positions with important cultural value and rarer ones – gain $20-30k. What will happen upon attempting to “correct” such blatant injustice? Coin trading will collapse, and a black market will emerge, like the one that existed in the USSR, when people exchanged interesting lots semi-undergroundly, printed them out with a copier and distributed among their friends approximate prices, and generally built their parallel economy, doing exactly what legal auctions do. The difference is that at an auction, both the auctioneer (and quite substantially – a typical commission makes up 20-25% of the winning price of the lot) and the state profit, as they take tax from the auctioneer. But in a clandestine market, only its underground participants win. Some things simply don’t work, whether we like it or not. Let’s wait for a black market for germanium and lithium?