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Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

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Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#301

Post by cute_boi »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #224
hunglee2 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'bad government must be authoritarian' meme is interesting to observe, as if it is impossible for bad governance to occur in democratic systems. Sri Lanka clearly is a democracy, albeit a degenerate one

Its entirely possible for democratic systems to be authoritarian. Sri Lanka is a democracy, in that they have elections, but it is also hilariously corrupt, with extremely authoritarian governance.

Which country isn't corrupt? I know many nations that are more corrupt than Srilanka. The major difference is Srilanka depended on tourism which led to this downfall.

Regarding the authoritarian governance, can you please supply the valid examples? Srilanka is just one example. There are many countries like Bhutan, Nepal which seems to be sliding day by day. I hope we won't label them authoritarian when they fail?

Democracy is not immune as people expect. We can't label demagouge who sways people as authoritarian. Democracy is only sucessful if majority of people aren't biased and vote based on merit rather than religion, greed etc.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#302

Post by raxxorraxor »

pjc50 wrote: post #256
londons_explore wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has a whole government department to answer your questions: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food... Result: The UK grows enough wheat alone to give enough calories to support its population, with plenty to spare. It also produces all the major food groups in quite large quantities. If cut off from the world, the UK people wouldn't starve, but they might have to switch out their caviar f…

That's quite an impressive report and it's good to see someone's taking this seriously, even if they might end up ignored by whoever the agriculture secretary of the day is. > but they might have to switch out their caviar for something else That's frivolous: the report talks about meeting 100% of caloric requirements from grain in an emergency scenario. The mostly-bread diet would be comparable or worse than WW2 rat…

The Brits have gas which can be converted to good fertilizer. They eat a lot of beans too.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#303

Post by oblio »

mjevans wrote: post #217
pjc50 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(The original article is very good at providing a beginner's explanation of forex crises, and should be bookmarked for every time someone wants to talk about inflation) > A country ought to feed its people This is much harder than it sounds, not just for dense tiny countries like Singapore but for much of Western Europe. The UK hasn't been able to feed its population from native production only since before WW2. I se…

Arguably countries are on a logical trajectory to consolidate into economic superblocks, if not in literal than in defacto status. Gundam 00 comes to mind as an example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00 , one of the main characters is a former child warrior from the then severely economically depressed post-oil 'middle east' region, while each of the three economic superblocks has it's own space el…

I mean, Gundam 00 is cool and all, but it's from 2007 or so.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (from 1949) literally has Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia :-)

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#304

Post by ip26 »

UkrainianJew wrote: post #79
ip26 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s when it goes bad, but borrowing against the future to kickstart today is also the principal behind innumerable success stories.

May I humbly ask for an example? In my personal experience, trying to rush a short-term solution while ignoring the long-term implications always makes situation worse. Like eating planting stock to address immediate hunger would cause a devastating famine next season.

Let’s say you have land but don’t have any planting stock or enough money to buy it. So, you borrow some from a guy who has extra, promising to give him twice as much back next year. You grow food, and collect enough planting stock to pay back the lender and plant next year’s harvest.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#305

Post by mannerheim »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #276
mannerheim wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The organic movement that led to a nationwide chemical fertiliser ban is in fact part of a CIA operation to destabilise food-insecure nations.

> The organic movement that led to a nationwide chemical fertiliser ban is in fact part of a CIA operation to destabilise food-insecure nations. This is absurd... I grant you that the CIA is in the business of destabilizing nations and use the World bank and IMF to that end, but what possible proof do you have that this is the case? It's clear to see that myopic policy (even I as a former Biodynamic farmer thought th…

> what possible proof do you have that this is the case?

None, I made it up.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#306

Post by namdnay »

logicchains wrote: post #272
cinntaile wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Merkel is pro nuclear, the public sentiment forced her hand after Fukushima though.

>the public sentiment forced her hand after Fukushima though I wonder how many people died in Fukushima vs how many Ukrainians were killed by Russian soldiers this year.

Or vs how many people die every day due to German coal plants :(

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#307

Post by philliphaydon »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #300
philliphaydon wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Started with Trump lol people have been talking about China Debt Trap since early 2000. People have been critical of the CCP massively since Xi took power and started causing conflicts with all neighbouring countries with his power push. Please lol blaming trump lol that’s funny on a whole new level.

I mean it's literally in the Atlantic article: "The Trump administration pointed to Hambantota to warn of China’s strategic use of debt: In 2018, former Vice President Mike Pence called it “debt-trap diplomacy”—a phrase he used through the last days of the administration—and evidence of China’s military ambitions." Look, you keep lol'ing, moving the goalpost and making new claims, but how about you actually discuss b…

So are we talking about the term 'debt-trap diplomacy' or the narrative? The term start in 2017 not 2018. But doesn't change the fact its been discussed for about 20 years now.

By changing from the narrative to a term you're shifting the goal post.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#308

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

trhway wrote: post #192
murukesh_s wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think its an unfortunate combination of many things, covid being the main. this shows that democracies are not immune to leaders resorting to populist measures to win elections.. hope its a good lesson to lankans and rest of us.

democracy isn't just about elections (otherwise even the totalitarian fascist Russia could have been called democratic :). Elections is just a basic necessary condition of democracy, a starting point. Many of those populist regimes aren't democracies really, they are more like ochlocracies naturally hijacked by authoritarians.

Yes - exactly. Genuine democracies are a complex patchwork of competing interests which somehow balance to generate policy that benefits most of the population.

As soon as you have a government run for the benefit of a small group, you no longer have a democracy.

Elections don't change this. Not even nominally free and fair ones.

The problem - as always - is that any system of government trends towards capture by Dark Tetrad types. No matter what decisions they appear to make, and no matter whether they're left/right populist/monarchist democratic/authoritarian, the consequences are always disastrous.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#309

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

lkrubner wrote: post #87
nostromo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is actually lucky to understand this at the deepest levels of policy and law making, with massive aid packages to prevent total collapse. The current inflation crisis suggests that even the US economy can reach its limit with endless money printing and stimulus. With the cost of borrowing going up, the executive and congress are going to start feeling pressure to cut spending or dramatically raise taxes.

The current spike in inflation is a world-wide phenomena, effecting every country on Earth, and therefore it seems unlikely to have much to do with the USA's creation of new money. The USA printed trillions of dollars of new money after 2008 and yet inflation remained very low for the next decade. If, now, the USA's printing of money is having some new effect, you have to explain why Argentina, South Africa, India, V…

Except Japan, Switzerland or Norway just to name the few. Meanwhile, it's rising in countries that followed Fed's playbook (notably the EU block and specifically Eurozone countries which fall under ECB's policy).

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#310

Post by denton-scratch »

londons_explore wrote: post #263
pjc50 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite an impressive report and it's good to see someone's taking this seriously, even if they might end up ignored by whoever the agriculture secretary of the day is. > but they might have to switch out their caviar for something else That's frivolous: the report talks about meeting 100% of caloric requirements from grain in an emergency scenario. The mostly-bread diet would be comparable or worse than WW2 rat…

> The mostly-bread diet See the section on meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, etc... It would be a decent diet. And obviously within a year or so, land use could be adjusted to make it an even better diet.

The UK produces a surplus of animal shit; I don't understand why it isn't all being used to fertilize the ground.

For that matter, I don't understand why human poo is treated as pollution, rather than being composted.

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