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Eagle Cash

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Re: Eagle Cash

#101

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

Youden wrote: post #99
AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m ESL, how far should the “thou should pluralize a loanword as it was in the original language” rule go? It seems to be not universal. I mean, it’s “hamburgers”, not “die Hamburger”, “robots”, not “roboti”, and “rubles”, not “rubli”/“рубли”.

Just curious, is your mother tongue a language where borrowed words are pluralized consistently? I'm a native English speaker but also speak German and Russian and all three languages pluralize loanwords inconsistently. e.g. in Russian, some loanwords are treated like native words, like "computer" or "restaurant", while others don't seem to have plurals at all, like "cafe", "coffee", "radio" and "coat" [0]. And in Ge…

My mother tongue was a Russian-Ukrainian mix :)

In Russian, some loanwords are not pluralized, because in order to make a plural, we need to know the word’s declension first, judging from words’ ending, gender and sometimes stress. So for loanwords, it can be hard for the “language feeling” to choose a correct declension form, because no nouns with similar ending and gender can be found. And if no form is found, the word is not declined at all. I think that’s the reason some loanwords in Russian have no declension.

This means that no nouns, except for a limited amount of old native irregular nouns, can “bypass” Russian declension tables - loanwords are never loaned together with their plural forms as it happens in English, they are either pluralized as native words or not pluralized at all. So it’s probably a little bit more consistent. (Ukrainian also works this way, declension tables are just different.)

Re: Eagle Cash

#102

Post by md_ »

jl2718 wrote: post #98
md_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is #1 a goal? I’m assuming because of some desire to maintain the independence of a central bank in the occupied country?

Yes. Very much so. In the beginning of my first deployment, the provisional government of Iraq rejected the BSA, so we pulled out and I redeployed to Afghanistan. During my second deployment, the Karzai government significantly reduced the BSA, and all regular forces pulled out around me. Both times, one of the biggest issues was dollars coming into the economy through US contracts and on-base merchants. This is good…

I don’t understand why using USD results in an import economy. There’s nothing that stops dollars from circulating domestically, is there?

I was suggesting it reduces the government’s ability to apply monetary policy, but that’s a bit different than your point I think, no?

Re: Eagle Cash

#103

Post by md_ »

Qub3d wrote: post #75
md_ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is #1 a goal? I’m assuming because of some desire to maintain the independence of a central bank in the occupied country?

I imagine part of it is reducing the incentive for nation state actors to engage in counterfeiting.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

I don’t really buy that. USD is still sufficiently used (in cash) in high denominations. Reducing that usage to the point that it deters counterfeiting would presumably reduce the impact of the dollar globally, which is likely against the US’s national interest.

Re: Eagle Cash

#104

Post by Youden »

AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #101
Youden wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, is your mother tongue a language where borrowed words are pluralized consistently? I'm a native English speaker but also speak German and Russian and all three languages pluralize loanwords inconsistently. e.g. in Russian, some loanwords are treated like native words, like "computer" or "restaurant", while others don't seem to have plurals at all, like "cafe", "coffee", "radio" and "coat" [0]. And in Ge…

My mother tongue was a Russian-Ukrainian mix :) In Russian, some loanwords are not pluralized, because in order to make a plural, we need to know the word’s declension first, judging from words’ ending, gender and sometimes stress. So for loanwords, it can be hard for the “language feeling” to choose a correct declension form, because no nouns with similar ending and gender can be found. And if no form is found, the…

Do you happen to know why there's no plural form for the borrowed nouns ending in "o", like "radio"? Russian treats these words as neuter, which usually replaces the "o" with an "a" to form the plural (e.g. window), why doesn't it do it here?

Re: Eagle Cash

#105

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

Youden wrote: post #104
AndriyKunitsyn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother tongue was a Russian-Ukrainian mix :) In Russian, some loanwords are not pluralized, because in order to make a plural, we need to know the word’s declension first, judging from words’ ending, gender and sometimes stress. So for loanwords, it can be hard for the “language feeling” to choose a correct declension form, because no nouns with similar ending and gender can be found. And if no form is found, the…

Do you happen to know why there's no plural form for the borrowed nouns ending in "o", like "radio"? Russian treats these words as neuter, which usually replaces the "o" with an "a" to form the plural (e.g. window), why doesn't it do it here?

I can't say for sure, I'm not a linguist.

But it's probably because of a declension choosing process which I described. Take "ра́дио", for example - it has this "ио" thing in the ending that is really not typical to Russian, so it made people think "hey, this word is weird, we probably shouldn't touch it when speaking", and since a lot of people thought this way, this became codified.

Now, some other loanwords are not that weird, for example "пальто́" - it's not that different from "окно́", or "весло́", or "ремесло́", and in fact, rarely people do decline it, like "пальта́", "у меня есть два пальта́", "у меня есть пятеро па́льт" - but it's rare, and "officially", it also has no declensions, probably to make things simpler.

Re: Eagle Cash

#106

Post by max_ »

texse wrote: post #50
max_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason I am interested in Bitcoin is that it doesn't rely on violence to enforce it's rules.

If someone can round up 51% of Bitcoin's miners and hold them at gunpoint, then they have full control over Bitcoin's rules. Well over 51% of bitcoin mining happens in China, so Xi Jinping can probably change Bitcoin's rules tomorrow if he desires.

> if someone can round up 51% of Bitcoin's miners and hold them at gunpoint, then they have full control over Bitcoin's rules.

This is not true. Most of the rules are maintained using cryptography and game theory.

For someone to break bitcoin, they need to be irrational. i.e spend more than they will benefit from an attack.

And even if such an attack happens, it's very trivial to roll back & undo the damages.

It's not a democracy, it's a game.

Re: Eagle Cash

#107

Post by max_ »

eecc wrote: post #88
max_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason I am interested in Bitcoin is that it doesn't rely on violence to enforce it's rules.

It still acts as a token for debt, and the underlying force of that is violent retribution for default

No. contemporary economies have figured out that everyone is better of doing "wealth exchange" instead of coercing people for their wealth.

Re: Eagle Cash

#108

Post by eru »

sneak wrote: post #44
eru wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't soldiers also just use cash to augment their trading? Or is that specifically banned?

Hard to get much of your US bank account contents as USD cash when you're off on a military base enclave in some foreign land. It's less hard (but still expensive and inconvenient) to get it in the local currency. You're also capped at relatively small amounts (a few hundred bucks of local currency per day).

Yes, that is true. Though I'd image normal USD cash is still more convenient for soldiers than eg instant noodles?

Re: Eagle Cash

#109

Post by jl2718 »

md_ wrote: post #102
jl2718 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Very much so. In the beginning of my first deployment, the provisional government of Iraq rejected the BSA, so we pulled out and I redeployed to Afghanistan. During my second deployment, the Karzai government significantly reduced the BSA, and all regular forces pulled out around me. Both times, one of the biggest issues was dollars coming into the economy through US contracts and on-base merchants. This is good…

I don’t understand why using USD results in an import economy. There’s nothing that stops dollars from circulating domestically, is there? I was suggesting it reduces the government’s ability to apply monetary policy, but that’s a bit different than your point I think, no?

There are a couple of things. The simplest one is that dollars leave the economy as soon as you deposit them in a bank because they get lent internationally versus local currency loans that stay local. The other is that imports are generally preferred in developing economies. It’s also hard for the government to tax transactions made in a foreign currency because they only really see local bank transactions and foreign exchanges.
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