Imperial Delusions • Hacker News Board

Re: Imperial Delusions

#71

Post by ben_w » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #52

Godel_unicode wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very common practice for economies to peg their sovereign currency to a trading partner; there are on the order of 66 countries pegged to the US Dollar, and 20-odd pegged to the euro. If a country wanted to move off of the euro, it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank. Then in the future they could simply unpeg (or change the rate) if that bec…

"it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank" How will you protect the peg? If moving off the euro is taken as a sign of your weakness, defending the peg against the market shorting you will bleed your central bank dry.

IIRC, this was effectively what happened with the U.K. on Black Wednesday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

Re: Imperial Delusions

#72

Post by exoque » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #62

inglor_cz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank" How will you protect the peg? If moving off the euro is taken as a sign of your weakness, defending the peg against the market shorting you will bleed your central bank dry.

It’s easy to put a ceiling on your country’s currency trading range. The Swiss did this. Whenever the franc got too high their central bank would sell however much was necessary to stabilize the price.

And they stopped doing that because it wasn't maintainable.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#73

Post by smnrchrds » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #65

gambiting wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, it's exactly right. Poland agreed to adopt the Euro as one of the conditions of being accepted, and then the global financial crash happened and basically said you know what guys, we won't be doing that after all. If a country wants to stop using Euro they absolutely can - it was proposed as one of the solutions to the issue of Greek national debt, them going back to the lir…

Greece's own currency was the Drachma. The Lira belonged to Italy.

Lira is also the currency of Turkey. Perhaps that's what they were referring to.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#74

Post by rantwasp » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

namelessoracle wrote: post #38

rantwasp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the EU is not an empire. and it’s members are loosely coupled at best. Look at what happened to the UK: they just got their toys and left. the EU just does not have the cohesion to act like and empire and conquer anything. It’s more like a big market

So was the US once. All it takes is a big external or internal threat to get power centralized....

yes but no.

us was formed roughly around the same time (+/- couple hundred years).

the states in the EU have a long history (thousands of years) and a long tradition of doing things their way.

i’m not ruling out the possibility but I think it’s highly unlikely

Re: Imperial Delusions

#75

Post by rvba » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:04 PM UTC

When we talk about Britain and their former empire, it is worth noting that times might have changed, but they still plunder their former colonies by providing tax evasion services.

If you are some warlord, dictator or just dirty businessperson, Britain will gladly launder your money through one of its multiple territories such as Jersey, Guernsey or whatever - which is some island whose sole export is providing "tax advisory" (which means not paying any taxes at all).

There is also the City of London Corporation with its secret laws and treaties, which doesnt seem to be controlled by UK government, basically group of friends with everyone in each pocket - instead of sending gunboats to plunder countries, they now use the banking system: dirty money comes in, clean money comes out, with minimum taxation.

Yet they sit on moral high ground, about supposedly helping third world. Books like "Treasure Islands" tried to shine some light on this - author even claimed that if Britain and its various island stopped the money laundering, then Africa wouldnt need external help - the untaxed money would be taxed and used for own people.

Sadly the topic of rampant and blatant tax evasion is swept under the rug, since multiple countries provide it (UK, Cyprus, Ireland, even Delaware..). There are some movements to get some common CIT rate, but those tax havens will probably find ways.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#76

Post by bserge » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #6

bserge wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah? Heard of the USA, China, India, Russia and pretty much any other regional and world power ever?

Indeed I have. What is your point? Can you express yourself more clearly and without the passive-aggressive tone?

No, I don't argue with ridiculous shit.

> Of course, the EU empire works in a different way; economic hostility towards outsiders (high tariffs and compliance cost when importing anything), access to a big common market and a lot of subventions for the insiders. It might be the first attempt to build an empire on money only.

All of the states I listed do the same.

EU empire, my ass. Find something useful to do with your life.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#77

Post by the-dude » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #67

the-dude wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess he is Czech. I have heard similar sentiments from former East Bloc's. I can't blame 'em.

Which I find funny, maybe it's some form of Stockholm syndrome from the URSS days.

Obviously you are not a diplomat.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#78

Post by Mizza » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

How is this any different than how the US maintains its empire now?

David Brooks' column in the NYTimes this week is the same thing - using the excuse of LGBT rights to justify American colonial projects in Iraq, Afhanistan and Palestine, with an eye on Iran, China and Cuba. Use force to show the savages how it should be done. Empire has always been forged in the name of social justice. See the (racist) 1899 political cartoon, "The White Man's Burden."

As I read Adolph Reed say recently, ideology is the mechanism that harmonizes the principles that you want to believe you hold with what advances your material interests.

Same old story.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#79

Post by peteretep » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #66

peteretep wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we saying a country with 1.4bn people, 22 official languages, 5 major religions, over 100 ethnic groups isn’t an empire? Before the Raj, most of it was the Mughal Empire (1500-1800). Before that, the Delhi Sultanate, pretty definitely an empire (1200-1500). The only thing missing is the nomenclature.

How do you define an empire? Your definition is quite odd to me. India is structured like the USA, a collection of states, with central and regional powers. But they are very much internally focused, and rarely venture into global politics. They don’t intend to colonize any other states, nor make any attempts at militarizing anything outside their borders. I would find it hard to ever compare India to a British-like…

Do you believe it was an empire under the Mughals? If so, what's changed?

Re: Imperial Delusions

#80

Post by bserge » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #9

bserge wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah? Heard of the USA, China, India, Russia and pretty much any other regional and world power ever?

What makes you think India is building an empire? I believe that they are focussed on lifting their masses out of poverty.

You're misunderstanding me. The EU is no more of an empire than all of those nations.

It's just a new regional power and some people hate that. The same kind of people who would've been against pretty much any country back when it was formed.

Just thinking their small city state was enough. Hell, they would've been against city states, against tribes unifying, just against any society beyond their own tribe/family.

Small minded fools who blame everything on someone else. Usually anti-vaccine and anti-science in general, suspicious of any smart person in the world who tries to save and help their worthless stupid lives.

Who does that for no apparent reason, right? Why is Bill Gates spending billions on fighting diseases? Is he insane? No, clearly he has an ulterior motive. Just dumb.