161–170 of 179 posts
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> like they did in Ukraine in 2014 Which "they" are you referring to?
Europe and USA. Victoria Nuland was there. I think it was a joint effort.
Victoria Nuland giving out sandwiches (literally) in Kyiv is not the same as unmarked Russian special forces opening police arsenals and giving out weapons to criminals in Slovyansk.
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Can't speak to the US lockdown, but Melbourne, Victoria, Australia had restrictive lockdowns (1 hour outdoor exercise with up to 2 people together, 1 daily trip to the supermarket per household, couldn't travel more than 5km from your house, police roadblocks out of the city and out of the state, non-essential industries shut down and some essential ones operating at significantly reduced capacity, 8pm-5am curfew) an…
> was accompanied by a 22% spike in calls to the largest suicide hotline A counterfactual: how many people would be affected if their spouse/parent died without the lockdown? These tragedies are unfolding in many countries, and by this misfortune we'll be able to see, in retrospect, the impact of government interventions vs outcomes in a pandemic.
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I think the opposite; as society continues to get better at responding to disease and preventing death, the social allowance for "expected" deaths declines. The U.S. Civil War 150 years ago is a good benchmark. We look back now at the level of death with horror, especially deaths among those receiving what passed for medical treatment back then. But of course back then, that was how medicine worked and it was not rem…
The trouble is that people's expectations for what a "competent response" should be able to achieve don't actually seem to have any basis in reality. Pandemic response plans just fundamentally aren't designed to stop a respiratory pandemic like this one, at best they try to mitigate a little of the damage and even a lot of that is experimental and untested. (We don't even know something as basic as how effective scho…
The Trump administration failed to staff, fund, and prioritize that work at the same level.
There is tremendous leverage at the beginning of a pandemic, but it dissipates quickly. That’s why continuous planning and preparation are so important.
By the time the Trump administration got serious about the response, it was too late, they had lost most of that leverage. Most of the things people argue about now—lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, etc.—happened well after that point.
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Also, I’m not sure exactly how you meant it, so I won’t direct this at you, just generally... I can’t get over the techbro straw man of the “lockdown” I’ve seen thrown around a lot. First, compared to most of Asia that actually got this virus under control, we have never really had much of a true lockdown here. Second, it’s not the lockdown, its the pandemic. In most areas economic activity dropped off well before an…
Can't speak to the US lockdown, but Melbourne, Victoria, Australia had restrictive lockdowns (1 hour outdoor exercise with up to 2 people together, 1 daily trip to the supermarket per household, couldn't travel more than 5km from your house, police roadblocks out of the city and out of the state, non-essential industries shut down and some essential ones operating at significantly reduced capacity, 8pm-5am curfew) an…
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Also, I’m not sure exactly how you meant it, so I won’t direct this at you, just generally... I can’t get over the techbro straw man of the “lockdown” I’ve seen thrown around a lot. First, compared to most of Asia that actually got this virus under control, we have never really had much of a true lockdown here. Second, it’s not the lockdown, its the pandemic. In most areas economic activity dropped off well before an…
> we have never really had much of a true lockdown here. And parts of europe had more of a lockdown than the US and the population fatality rate is worse. I wonder if covid just doesn't care about lockdowns; the countries that haven't gotten hit badly are 1) an island. 2) an isolated continent. 3) an island 4) a country that sits on a peninsula that has a hugely militarized impermeable border. and 5) a group of islan…
B.1.1.7 variant. Coming (already in) the US.
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Economic activity: > The velocity of money (or the velocity of circulation of money) is a measure of the number of times that the average unit of currency is used to purchase goods and services within a given time period.[3] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money Good video by a CFA trainer: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0mh7cCjwDU The first 10 minutes (maybe 20) probably has the most pertinent inform…
What's the logic behind economic activity leading to inflation? That seems very counterintuitive. From that equation, if you were to look at the extreme and print a ton of money and have zero usage there would no inflation. I would think the opposite would be true.
That sounds correct, under the assumptions of classical economics.
Inflation is the cost of things going up. Classically, price is considered an equilibrium of supply and demand. If I print money, but don't use it to demand goods, why would the price of goods change?
Reality is more complex than classical economics (and I should note, I'm not an economist). Expectations of inflation (due to say, seeing a giant pile of cash coming off the printing press) can trigger prices to rise.
But hopefully that helps to explain why it's generally accepted that velocity plays an important role in inflation, not simply supply of money.
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Europe and USA. Victoria Nuland was there. I think it was a joint effort.
I was there too Victoria Nuland giving out sandwiches (literally) in Kyiv is not the same as unmarked Russian special forces opening police arsenals and giving out weapons to criminals in Slovyansk.
Also, my initial point wasn't about Ukraine which served it part already - there's almost nothing left to plunder.
I wanted to leave a prediction that in 2021-2022 there will be a new war because USA desperately needs it. For many reasons, mostly economical. I've also named next most probable targets.
Just to say "I said so" when it'll happen and point to the original comment.
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I was there too Victoria Nuland giving out sandwiches (literally) in Kyiv is not the same as unmarked Russian special forces opening police arsenals and giving out weapons to criminals in Slovyansk.
Revolution happened before Slavyansk. It had achieved its goals: now Ukraine is the poorest state in Europe, on par with African countries. Biden's son company Burisma had stolen trillions from Ukraine. All the industry is destroyed. Only Motor Sich still barely survives, but obviously not for long. Besides it was already sold to China, but now there's some dirty scandal about it. Also, my initial point wasn't about…
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> As far as a stable society goes, low interest rates are a good sign Zero are even better. We've known for literally thousands of years that interest (usury) is parasitic, immoral, and dangerous. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all outlaw it. Yet we continue to engage in it and wonder why we end up in mess after mess.
At zero interest I can borrow money to meet my debt obligations.
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> As far as a stable society goes, low interest rates are a good sign Zero are even better. We've known for literally thousands of years that interest (usury) is parasitic, immoral, and dangerous. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all outlaw it. Yet we continue to engage in it and wonder why we end up in mess after mess.
I disagree. The price of money across a period of time, denominated in monetary units, is the most important price in a diverse economy and setting it to zero causes all sorts of distortions. If someone can’t afford to pay interest on a debt then they should not take on the debt. My opinion of “usury” is that it refers to loans where the interest continues to accumulate if the debt is not paid. I think this can be so…
We're not going to have any meaningful progress if this issue is not tackled. Any talk of "equity" is nonsense until then.
> setting it to zero causes all sorts of distortions
It doesn't, because under Islamic law, loans are purely an act of charity. That's how the Islamic world has operated for a very long time now, until relatively recently where some people have succumbed to the Western economic practices post WWII. If you want to make money, you invest it, where the investor and invetee both take on risk, not like the basically one-sided interest contract where the lender is all but guaranteed to profit.