Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by mdavid626 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

mdavid626

What is Europe/USA fueled by?

Debt. The Bubble.

Is that sustainable? I don’t think so.

What’s the point of the article? To prove the west’s superiority?

View on HN

I think you do not quite understand what debt is. Just like most people in our beloved Russia.

Or maybe you don’t understand what debt actually is.

Right, it must be biggest country in the world with the economy size of Italy, ostracized by everyone except other outcasts, fully dependent on selling cheap carbon fuel under market rates, and that struggles to occupy Donbass for 12 years.

Say I produce furniture.

I borrow from you. I now have debt.

I sell furniture. Now I can pay you back some part of it (up to 100%).

You (and other parties) see that I'm quite good at what I do and my products sells.

I now can borrow from you and other parties again to produce more (and possibly diversify my business).

I sell more, I open new businesses etc. I pay you and other parties back. And borrow again.

I can and will have debt (and it will grow over time) because this is what allows me and my business to grow.

I can borrow and be in debt till the day I die.

This basic concept is too foreign for people for whom "debt" is just a sum of money they borrowed from their friend and somehow now feel ashamed.

I didn’t say debt is bad in general.

I say the current amount of debt and the promise of we have unlimited money is what’s wrong.

>I say the current amount of debt and the promise of we have unlimited money is what’s wrong.

What does this have to do with "unlimited money"? USD is just a "contract".

A trillion in debt is not the sum of fiat paper the US owes anybody.

> we

Of course мы do, tovarisch.

Debt is the money supply.

There’s a decent article in the Economist right now warning of Brazilification in the west. A particular kind of debt fuelled economic death spiral on which Brazil is unfortunately a pioneer.

The West's part in this is also part of the article making the content of your comment superfluous. You'd know if you'd have read it.

So what's the point of the comment? Your fear that it might be superior?

> Debt

That is the very basis of our currency, and the basic idea is a good one in an idea-heavy economy more reliant on innovation than natural resource constraints. Also, if truly becomes too much we will just have one of the many many currency changes. My grandparents lived with about five (could be as many as seven) currencies throughout their (German) lives, for example.

As long as the real values remain, the factories, the people, the roads, the buildings, that is not a problem overall. It's not like people can emigrate to alien worlds, and on earth the places with the best real economy will be where they will go - have to go.

Money is the carrot dangled in front of us to keep us moving and to create real value things. The carrot can be updated and changed if the current one starts to lose its appeal, it is not what ultimately matters. The point of view of an individual and the big picture are very different things.

And I'll just use this opportunity to recommend David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" - a wonderful book about the history of economy, demonstrating how it always boils down to effective use of debt.

There are tons of great parts in it, but one that really stuck with me is his analysis of the social dynamics whereby when someone brings you a gift or otherwise does something expensive for you, you are temporarily in debt to them, and the polite expectation is that you always pay it back in a way whereby you give more than you owe, such that they will then be in debt to you (generally for approximately the same amount), and the relationship can continue oscillating, with each of you being in debt about half the time. Paying back exactly what you were given and not a penny more is thus considered to be an indication that you want to discontinue the relationship.

So you say, that current debt levels are good?

I'm not sure why you ask me what I say. I left it as a written comment for you to peruse at any time and as many times as you want to see what I'm saying.

Don’t bother responding, it’s one of the Russian trolls:

- nuclear threat rhetoric

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47051983

- news are propaganda

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47052056

- Unsustainable debt

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47051964

Yeah, my bad, the question might be for some other comment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com