1,833 karma · joined September 19, 2013
I don't know where you get that from. Any examples?
> You have to be aware of their biases, though.
A point of view is not a bias. The Economist was founded as a pro-market liberal (classically liberal) publication. A Marxist would consider that a bias I guess?
The sheer joy of browsing Hatchards... last time I visited I found a first English edition of Proust and I just had to have it.
But the EU cannot wait for Trump to go away because if he wins reelection that could be 5 years away. We don't have that time. The EU needs to work with what its got - work with India, Australia, PacRim countries.
The problem is that the EU is itself split with different interests. Someone has to provide leadership. The US president is the natural option but Trump has not stepped up. Someone else needs to - it cannot be Merkel as she's stepping down soon, but we urgently need leadership on the issue.
Trump's only interest is re-election.
The US govt is a huge entity with may players of which the president is one, albeit an important one. The US military, State, academia and other institutions are all actors and they do have an interest in peace and prosperity.
Presidents come and go, but institutions remain and it is important that the relevant institutions adopt a common posture towards China.
The EU cannot afford to wait that long. China isn't taking a pause on its aggression. Indeed, its exploiting the US under Trump, Covid, etc to move aggressively now.
> The current situation is nuts and it's not Europe's fault.
"fault"? It doesn't have to be your fault if the mess still ends on your lap. And Europe (and I'm a European) being neighbours with Eurasia doesnt have the luxury of huge oceans separating it from revanchist powers.
Of course! All countries that value a rules-based order should ally, and that would include the EU, the US, India, Australia, and the many other smaller countries.
> Also, do you think there's no argument to be made for changing China's behaviour through a partnership?
Been tried. India was trying that by letting China have a stake in the economy. It hasn't ummmm worked out so well.
China uses the economy as a tool for its own political aims.
China is already harassing and sinking fishing vessels and trying to close the South China Sea. It may soon try to enforce an ADIZ over the SC Sea as well. Not great.
China is a growing aggressive power with cyber attacks across a multitude of countries and is running, like Russia, disinformation campaigns to undermine democracy.
It is in the interest of EU and the US, and indeed many countries, to have a rules-based international order. It is increasingly in the interests of the US as its power is in relative decline.
Because it undermines CB policy and leads to hyper inflation and ruining the economy. Some CBs are legally proscribed from engaging in helicopter money for good reason.
> There have to be liabilities to it.
You mean balance sheet liabilities? None. The money is recorded as an asset "receivable" on CB balance sheet.
It does add up :D Japan has been doing it for a decade (for the wrong reasons unfortunately).
For layman overview; most mainstream financial news sites like the FT and Bloomberg do a good job:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-05/how-long-...
https://www.ft.com/content/fd1d35c4-7804-11ea-9840-1b8019d9a...
Austerity takes money out of a contracting economy making the situation worse, creating a vicious cycle, and whats worse hollowing out govt services (NHS, policing, education). Austerity is dangerous on a number of levels.
> Is this any different from a person getting indebted on a credit card? Honest question.
Yes, its completely different. Debt creates a liability, it needs to be paid back.
Monetary financing - aka helicopter money - is precisely the opposite.
The central bank "prints" money: it can be credited to the govt's account, or the CB can directly credit household bank accounts with money created from thin air. No new liabilities are created.
The problems with monetary financing is that it can get addictive; its use outside of situations of extreme economic distress is the biggest risk with its use.
The UK has the advantage of printing its own currency so it can engage in monetary financing if the situation warrants it; an option not available to Euro economies.
I'm afraid you are seriously mistaken. Just take court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament.
Politics is very much not economics, at least when it comes to Brexit.
It is standard negotiating OP by both sides. Just take a look at the Troika / Greece negotiations: breakthroughs come at the very last minute.
Extending the transition period merely lengthens the phoney negotiations.
> There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess.
Viewed through an economic lens, Brexit will do damadge, certainly in the short term. Medium to long term depends on whether the Tories learn drop austerity and to love Keynes . It seems Sunak does, going by short record so far.
Viewed through a political / sovereignty lens the argument for Brexit is on a stronger footing.
While Brexit is bad economically, the political argument is different.
Which is crazy; either the UK has left the EU and so cannot enjoy the same market access as a member, and the EU correspondingly has reduced access to UK market, or else there is full access for both parties.
Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-wa...
So yes, both the extreme left and the extreme right are not only wrong, but morally repugnant.
The whole point of classical political liberalism is of how to get multiple incompatible ideas of what is the good life (broadly understood) to coexist peacefully. Without it there is only tyranny or chaos.
Ideologues assume that there is a single version / source of the truth whether it is a religious text, or a secular one (Marx, Hayek, etc). 'Intentional moderates' are not monist (as are idealogues), but to the contrary triangulate. If anything, intentional moderates reject the notion that there is an objective position.
Accidental moderates - idealised - are actually just being reasonable and weighing different considerations, thus arriving at a considered position.
Intentional moderates may not necessarily be cowards. To take an exampe: most people are ignorant of economics and so their position on, say, the interest rate is not an informed one.
Intentional moderates use a centrist heuristic in the belief that the reasonable answer is somewhere between the two extremes. There is nothing wrong with this; one cannot expect voters to be experts or even well informed on all the posible issues of government.
As adults we know what an apple is because we understand it as a concept, the ideal "apple", and can manipulate the concept into areas way outside the original concept (say, the phrase "apple of my eye").
https://open.spotify.com/track/4XWqS8UGO5x4ClB2yH0nbW?si=Ewz...
And congrats on the good taste, even if I say so myself.
Making people pay to access Facebook etc would be the best possible move for society ever.