It is true that the US gov can print and spend whatever it wants, but that ability will only last as long as the dollar is the global reserve currency. Confidence can be broken very quickly.
But this is a result of the pandemic and shouldn't be taken as a direct indicator of economy health. We haven't had something of this magnitude in almost 100 years, and so far we've fared MUCH better than the 30s.
I don’t think you understand what it means for the inflation rate to be above the return rate of promissory notes, but the only incentive to buy such notes is to prop the system with the belief this is temporary—otherwise, by definition, you are just throwing money away (sans considerations of ownership).
There was an entire decade between the Spanish influenza pandemic and the beginning of the depression - it's not obvious to me why we should already presume to have mastered economic effects that trailed the historical "equivalent" by a decade
Didn't it take years to feel the effects of the 1929 crash (just as it _may_ with our current crisis), and didn't FDR's Keynesian economic polices actually make things worse, albeit while providing hope of recovery to those affected? What might have actually got us out of that decade long slump towards the end?
I am also hopeful that it won't be as bad this time around, and who's to say since we're all still in the middle of this.
The way the fed control interest rates is through it’s buying of federal debt (through “new” dollars). We can borrow cheaper than inflation because the feds just print new dollars.
And during the 30’s the strategy was not “spend our way out” but rather “cut back spending”. Different strategy so not sure why you’re saying we’re doing better - that would imply the same strategy is working better?
I don't follow the logic here. Suppose a pandemic wipes out 50% of the world population. The economy would collapse. You wouldn't say what you said if that happened.
The health of an economy is affected by real world occurrences, it is in fact nothing more than a measure of the aggregate cumulative things happening in the world. A shock is a shock no matter what causes it, crises are crises precisely because something unexpected caused them.
(looks in the direction of an aircraft carrier)
Not at the scale of a planet, especially when the US is neither the economic nor the military powerhouse it once was.
A nation can launch a nuke from a carrier, a silo, a submarine, a mobile platform. Those aren't used right now, obviously.
Carrier groups are the current state-of-the-art for regional modern warfare. They aren't for invasion, but are useful for activity suppression and area control (derived from air superiority). The US has 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers with 2 more on the way. The next largest fleet is China with 2 + 3 lesser ships they call carriers (but they are more like troop carriers, battleships, depending on how you want to classify them) with 2 more aircraft carriers on the way.
Fat lot of good it did them in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam.
No, it doesn't. Active military China and India are bigger. Active + Reserve military, China, India, Russia, Taiwan, and Vietnam are bigger. Active + Reserve military + Paramilitary, North Korea and Vietnam are bigger.
https://data.imf.org/?sk=E6A5F467-C14B-4AA8-9F6D-5A09EC4E62A...