damptowel

I much prefer unhurried cultures, the west takes itself way too seriously.

A certain EU country exports it’s supposed tax revenue to Greece so they can use 90% of it to pay their multinational banks. They have to do it in a currency they don’t own and is overvalued relative to their economy. The country mostly pressing for this is meanwhile running an export surplus and apparently asking the same for every economy in the region. This is not sensible economics any way you slice it.

It’s happened before in history and even has a name: debt bondage.

Weimar :)

Private sector debt is at the highest level in recorded history. This is why the post 2008 recovery was so sluggish, since on average every unit of currency circulated has to pay for a fraction of the debt servicing cost. If it stops doing this a crisis will occur, which will either be contractionary or bubble financed by creating new debt to finance old debt. The national authority, with it’s monopoly on coercion can use it’s power to declare debts null and void (this happens all throughout history), create new currency free of debt (pure credit) and spend it into the economy. It can also create an artificial hyperinflation to reduce debt burdens, instate a new currency region altogether (money is simply legal tender subject to the laws the state dictates for it), etc

> You're drawing a false equivalence. A dollar (or a gold bar) does not represent a specific amount of goods or services that any specific counterparty is bound to deliver. So in general no, money is not inherently debt.

This is confused. A dollar is a debt/credit dual created by central bank and private finance operations.

A dollar is a unit of monetary accounting, a physical dollar is a token representation of a debt/credit entry inside an accounting ledger.

A bar of gold is a commodity denominated in a monetary value. It is not a token representation of a state enforced contract.

The government should just run deficits for financing projects and use tax for redistribution and inflation control, like it does today. The issue today is excessive private sector money creation and lack of federal deficits to offset the debt overhang created by private finance.

That’s only true of external debt. I.e. debts owed to other currency areas. Government debt is just the number of funds from the currency originator (central bank) to it’s distributor (treasury). Both institutions are a subject of the nation state, which is controlled by the government. So it’s not a “debt” in any colloquial sense of the term, neither is it an intergenerational transfer, since the souvereign nation state is an institution that both creates and enforces it’s own currency... which by definition implies it can create as much money (“debt”/“credit”) as it seems fit.

Inflation is not a tax...

Inflation also reduces the value of old debt in relation to current income.

Government debt isn’t “debt” in the classical sense. Let me suggest an analogy: a bank lends you a loan at intrest, but no expiry date. You can pay back the loan at any point in the future. Not only that, the bank has no ways of enforcing you to pay it back through legal action. On top of that, you are infinitely credit worthy, you can get as much loans as you want, including loans to cover existing loans. Would you consider this a “debt”. The answer is that it’s nothing like a debt in any meaningful sense of the term, it is merely a label used because of accounting convention.

Could you “print”* an amount of money several times the world GDP and get inflation?

That depends whether te money is circulated at all. Inflation is not a function of the money stock, it happens when sellers collectively mark up their price above current market rate. This is easier to do with rising expectations of higher return. The money stock is not some magical denominator on top of a real goods numerator.

*(it’s really just incrementing a number in a database, zero production cost, so print is another misnomer)

Well, we can always eat the immigrants!

You mean if I don't have the freedom to decide I don't like freedom, your goons will punch some freedom into me? Sound very un-free to me.

Reminds me I still have my unread copy of Nozick gathering dust.

Sounds like feudalist Europe ;)

I would love to see some research touching upon the finer points of this, I've always assumed child mortality was the leading factor. The education thing I think might be some causal reversal, women have time to study because they have less children to take care of. She can study (as well as invest in daycare) because she is more wealthy? This is just armchair theorizing, haven't bothered to look it up.

Haha, i love that analogy, you should build some predator-prey model out of that.

I feel like personal responsibility is one of those things that work nice on paper, but that requires forethought, correct information, good education, processing power. Then there's things like genetics, bad upbringing, peer pressure, propaganda (adverts), etc... which all subvert those. Human beings are not rational actors who can be expected to make optimal choices even most of the time. Even if we were robots in the sense of a computer program we would still have to deal with limits to complexity, information and processing time. Exerting restraint and self control is known to take time and energy, energy which is in limited supply and requires replenishing through intake of calories.

Humans are still hardwired for the state of nature where high caloric foods are a scarcity, evolution has not caught up yet. It is very silly and unrealistic to suggest that raising the profit motive above others will bring out the best results in every sphere of human endeavours.

This is a commonly held belief, but it's wrong, the dominant economic models in use today are neither rigorous (internally inconsistent, extremely poor empirical verification, major aggregation errors, lack of essential inputs) nor representative of an economy (a dynamic system, not an extremely stylized static equillibrium model). You should read Keen's book, it's point is not that those assumptions don't always hold, it's that they under _any_ real world circumstance will invalidate themselves.

* Grow a beard * Exploring vegetarian recipes * Get to a 100 push ups * Learn Racket * Learn to weld and make some furniture * Sit less

And it's called a hypothesis for a very good reason.

Rational markets fly in the face of complexity theory. I would very much like to see the evidence.

I dont't get how people can choose possible local disaster (nuclear) over certain global disaster (co2 emmiting power generation). Not to mention deaths from air polution.

I'm all for solar and improved storage solutions, but we have something we know works and works right now, without uncertainties regarding constant baseload.

Worst of all are green parties everywhere wanting to shut down nuclear, resulting in the building of gas, coal, or paying for importing either those or nuclear. In which universe is that the green solution?

For the uninitiated, I found this a good introduction

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/

(It seems to have a pro nuclear bias, the author claims neutrality)

502 Bad Gateway

(chuckles)

Never fall into the mindset that a partner is a requirement for personal fulfilment, that will just make you feel anxious while dating and miserable when it doesn't work out. Rather focus on just enjoying the moment. If you give the impression of being carefree and fun company that will make you more attractive to outsiders. If you are are positive, supporting and upbeat people will subconciously see you as a way to increase their own happiness. If you have the mindset of being unfulfilled and wanting, this will show. It's very difficult to act your way out of that as this requires mental energy that will fatigue you and woman have an inbred sixth sense for these things. I would focus on just forgetting about having to have a partner and think about yourself. That would mean finding and spending time with people who you enjoy. Thing will become much easier when you have friends to meet new people with together.

Talk to women, no matter how they look. Most guys are anxious about this, women find it refreshing to talk to men who don't have an agenda. If you're lucky they might even introduce you to their single friends. Even if none of that happens it's worth it for the friendships alone.

And don't forget to smile to strangers!

If there's a big influx in the supply of money bit it only flows into one sector of the economy then the average inflation might be higher, but won't necessarily mean a constant rise in all prices. So I would argue distribution matters also. Likewise, all that new money being spent inside a certain market might raise the average price level if it's supply constrained, but it might also grow the numbers of players in the market leading to higher supply and price competition.

The inflation would probably not be homogenous, different markets have different pricing mechanics and characteristics. Another variable is percentage going to debt financing, which will have a stimulating effect. One in increased gdp because the percentage of gdp going to repayments would likely drop, and secondly one in higher degrees of business leverage are likely, leading to bubbles in certain markets. Inflation probably won't be a general issue while the economy is not approaching max capacity, but there might be inflation in some markets, much like QE is acting like a basic income for the top percentiles through financial asset inflation. Employers in certain sectors will probably lose a lot of leverage over low schooled workers, might increase prices through cost and demand, finance will probably try to siphon off as much as possible of the extra income. Assumptions assumptions, probably way off base :)

McCullough interview video: https://youtu.be/MTmR6X2w8Tg

He seems quite the figure.

Hitler seemed like a more capable leader though, and less of a bigot. I believe he also had better taste in furniture.

(Yeah sure downvote me all you want, gneeeh!)

I'm not sure I understand when you mention academia as some monolithic structure. You mean certain dominant strands of sociology and political theory? I think that's a pretty broad generalization. Also something I notice again and again, and this was especially prevalent in the elections. That when the average US citizen talks about government he or she talks about it as some outside force imposed upon them. You have society and you have government intruding and controlling it. In other developed countries i get the impression the government is seen more as a some entity existing within society, something which can be influenced and entered into.

Design is often a victim of mutually excluding constraints, i'm not so sure it's easier to achieve perfection. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't.