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Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

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Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#21

Post by lazyasciiart »

djsumdog wrote: post #15
acwan93 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of me thinks that this is exaggerations as there’s no way all food banks have lines that are miles long, as stated in the article. I did notice that there are security guards outside my Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s now though. > Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated. The bigger test may be once the PPP funds ar…

Most high income nations have been overproduce food via subsidies for decades. For most countries, food security is part of national security. The obesity crisis is a side effect of that: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon... I think there's enough slack in the system we won't see food shortage. The lines at food banks are a different problem entirely. That's because people don't have jobs,…

There doesn't have to be a shortage for people to be hungry - just a breakdown in distribution, and we are already seeing that.

And....no, people aren't lining up at food banks because they are "afraid to spend what they have". They mostly don't have anything to spend. Free food means they can afford the electricity bill, not that they can leave savings untouched.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#22

Post by Aperocky »

kube-system wrote: post #4

> Because tomorrow, every piece of consumer electronics, even your lowly coffee machine or microwave or toaster, is going to have a 5G chip. That’s what the internet of things is about. If the Chinese can listen to you through your smartphone, they can listen to you through your toaster. Once we declare that 5G is going to allow China to listen to our communication, we will also have to ban all household electronics…

The article just want you to believe that 'The Chinese' would want to put a microphone with 5G into your toaster.

So that they could listen to YOU through the said toaster, because whatever shit you said near the toaster is obviously very important to the Chinese.

Is there a more moronic idea? If someone were to listen to you, wouldn't it be easier to say... do it through the phone?

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#23

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #12
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

What I've been reminded of this year is that panicking is not useful. Shit can happen at anytime, and being prepared to weather a downturn of any type is always in fashion. Have a 3 to 6 month emergency fund is a good idea, improving your skills for unexpected job loss is a good idea, regular disciplined investing if a good idea, yada yada. So I'm just doing my best to ensure my butt is covered for if/when the defeca…

I agree with a lot of what you're saying - assuming it's possible for someone to do it - low wages make much of that difficult.

> improving your skills for unexpected job loss is a good idea

This is the one I struggle with when I see it - if your industry collapses what skills are the ones you should have been working on? Software is our own special beast, but I don't know what skills in a lesser paid profession should work on that will keep them employable. I suppose they could dabble in something like code, but that's not relevant to their current profession and if the economy goes all topsy turvy it'll be hard to get a job with little skill and no experience in your plan b.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#24

Post by sremani »

djsumdog wrote: post #11

Predicting the future is inherently stupid. Trying to show what will happen in our complex world using models is the stuff of Science Fiction. Going back to the article and economics, if you follow David Graber (Debt The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs), he talks in his books about how every great civilization needs to have debt resets. Going back to the Babylonians, the Sumerians, and tons of others, there were…

Predicting is stupid.. but since we do many stupid things -- predicting what will not change is less stupid than what will.

What will not change -- US will still have the most powerful navy in a economically declining world. What would that mean?

If there is one country that can go from free trade to mercantile on a dime.. its Murica!

In a world full of zero sum games -- Hard Power matters.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#25

Post by lumost »

pm90 wrote: post #7
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

Wait what? Unemployment payments are the only things that are preventing a full scale depression and hardship for millions. These people have lost their jobs, have no savings or assets, nothing. How are they going to get food? Pay rent? The quick action by Congress in boosting unemployment payments has been the only thing keeping the economy from going belly up. If that stops, we’re in for a lot of hurt.

I do not want to downplay the severity of such an outcome, but it is worth recalling that this type of event ( and worse ) has occurred to multiple developed nations within recent memory. Ultimately the economy will recover and normalize, even if the availability of certain items is limited for a period of time.

The fall of the soviet union saw unemployment at 40% and widespread food rationing/limitations. I don't believe there is historic precedent for unemployment growing beyond 20-25% without widespread economic and societal restructuring, the great depression in the US saw the change from a government spending .3% of the economy to >30%.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#26

Post by luckylion »

Jommi wrote: post #14
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

I don't know man, just looked at front page of /r/ unemployment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Unemployment/comments/gofuf5/illino... The "anti-rich" topic has been going on for so long without a real conclusion, I definitely would not discredit the possibility of riots in certain US cities.

From that thread:

> Can we riot on the internet?

And I think that hits the core issue. There's a lot of "eat the rich" on reddit and imgur and undoubtedly other platforms, but that's like #kony2012: clicktivism and online LARPing as revolutionaries.

Riots are always a possibility, a sports event can be the cause, and so may be severe economic issues, but I doubt that they will be widespread and large. If they happen, I expect swift and violent suppression, and since they won't be bi-partisan, that suppression will find a lot of support in the population.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#27

Post by 0x262d »

Important to understand with all the US-China stuff - working class people in both countries should mutually benefit from higher productivity, the open development and sharing of technology, from trade, etc. The only thing driving a rift and opening up a "cold war" is that US and Chinese capitalists can never get along because they are competing for the same pool of profits. Everyone else has pretty mutually beneficial material interests.

So when you read about "the Chinese" (who in China?) listening to you through your toaster, there's really no reason to care or pay attention to that absurdly nationalist sentence, just as there's no reason for anyone in China specifically to listen, unless you're the owner of a significant portion of a technology company and are hiding that company's tech knowledge from the rest of the world in order to profit from it. And that's against all of the rest of our interests.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#28

Post by elindbe2 »

Aperocky wrote: post #22
kube-system wrote: post #4

> Because tomorrow, every piece of consumer electronics, even your lowly coffee machine or microwave or toaster, is going to have a 5G chip. That’s what the internet of things is about. If the Chinese can listen to you through your smartphone, they can listen to you through your toaster. Once we declare that 5G is going to allow China to listen to our communication, we will also have to ban all household electronics…

The article just want you to believe that 'The Chinese' would want to put a microphone with 5G into your toaster. So that they could listen to YOU through the said toaster, because whatever shit you said near the toaster is obviously very important to the Chinese. Is there a more moronic idea? If someone were to listen to you, wouldn't it be easier to say... do it through the phone?

I don't know about you, but I have very sensitive conversations with my self--out loud--while making toast.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#29

Post by chroem- »

0x262d wrote: post #27

Important to understand with all the US-China stuff - working class people in both countries should mutually benefit from higher productivity, the open development and sharing of technology, from trade, etc. The only thing driving a rift and opening up a "cold war" is that US and Chinese capitalists can never get along because they are competing for the same pool of profits. Everyone else has pretty mutually benefici…

A lot of people in this country have lost their jobs due to outsourcing.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#30

Post by gregkerzhner »

kube-system wrote: post #20
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I ran across some scaremongers on Twitter 6 months ago who were going on about vaccines (??) And 5G. I had and still have no clue about that. As a real aside, networking everything does definitely have upsides and downsides. Upsides: seamless monitoring, remote control via api, integration across a house/car/phone, remote presence (never worry that door was open, or coffee pot is on, or garage door up). Downside…

Networking things makes sense when remote interaction is useful. There is very little you can do with a toaster, microwave, or coffee machine while you are not physically present. You can't send toast, coffee, or leftovers over a network. The 'internet of things' isn't useful in and of itself. There has to first be a practical use-case that justifies it. I haven't had to worry about the coffee pot being on for decade…

Playing devil's advocate, but I can see how people would appreciate a network connected coffee maker. My wife likes to stay in bed and scroll through her newsfeeds in the morning. If she could start the coffee maker from her phone, it would probably get her out of bed a lot faster.
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