Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 109 posts

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#11

Post by mempko »

It's easy to solve the debt crisis. Just cancel the debts. The issue these countries have is they lost their sovereignty by getting into debt in a currency they don't control. Going into debt in a foreign currency means you lose sovereignty. Better issue more money in your own currency and risk inflation instead of lose sovereignty.

Because the most important thing for a state is to make sure it does what it promises to. As soon as you let the IMF in, they will force you to break promises and gut public spending. This weakens the country and makes it easier to exploit.

Debts just need to be cancelled. It's all accounting in the end.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#12

Post by eastbound »

asfdgionio wrote: post #9
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

>There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. What are you talking about? There most certainly was, and a successful one at that. The mob had firearms and pipe bombs and a wide variety of melee weapons. They smashed their way into the building. Rioters intended to hold lawmakers captive and planned to execute the vice president. Several people died. The sitting president led a mob to levy war again…

> several people died

Care to list which side the people were killed? And were they armed?

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#14

Post by whythre »

Raptor22 wrote: post #8
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

> It was neither particularly violent Wow. I know perhaps this makes sense from a non-American perspective, but as an American, January 6 was incredibly violent. I think some people forget that this isn't normal .

I am an American and I don’t think it was particularly violet. There were 4 deaths. Not 400 or 40 (not like I wanted there to be more). But pearl clutching over some people protesting where they shouldn’t have when Congress wasn’t in session is just silly.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#15

Post by madengr »

Raptor22 wrote: post #8
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

> It was neither particularly violent Wow. I know perhaps this makes sense from a non-American perspective, but as an American, January 6 was incredibly violent. I think some people forget that this isn't normal .

[dead]

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#16

Post by TheDudeMan »

Raptor22 wrote: post #8
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

> It was neither particularly violent Wow. I know perhaps this makes sense from a non-American perspective, but as an American, January 6 was incredibly violent. I think some people forget that this isn't normal .

How many people were killed or injured?

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#17

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

mempko wrote: post #11

It's easy to solve the debt crisis. Just cancel the debts. The issue these countries have is they lost their sovereignty by getting into debt in a currency they don't control. Going into debt in a foreign currency means you lose sovereignty. Better issue more money in your own currency and risk inflation instead of lose sovereignty. Because the most important thing for a state is to make sure it does what it promises…

So cancel dollars? Or is that debt ok because it's an "IOU nothing"?

Everything comes back to flows, and debt is simply a symptom of a political system unwilling or unable to balance their books. If you start "cancelling" debt, first of all you just cancelled the Federal Reserve so you cancelled yourself. Second of all, you just stole a bunch of money from a bunch of people some of whom may have a standing army ready to ask for it back. Third, you just required yourself to do the budget-balancing you refused or were unwilling to do that got you in this mess in the first place-- because no one will lend to you ever again. Fourth, where does the cancelling end? Social Security? Medicare? Government pensions? No, "just cancel the debts" is not a solution.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#18

Post by fjgvcjygjvh »

asfdgionio wrote: post #9
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

>There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. What are you talking about? There most certainly was, and a successful one at that. The mob had firearms and pipe bombs and a wide variety of melee weapons. They smashed their way into the building. Rioters intended to hold lawmakers captive and planned to execute the vice president. Several people died. The sitting president led a mob to levy war again…

Sure but it was a disorganized mob rather than a real coup attempt.

Of course the Pentagon's reluctance to send in the National Guard until there was an > 0% chance that the governor of Virginia would order an "invasion" (with the consent of the city mayor) was pretty concerning but incompetence rather than some conspiracy seems like more likely explanation.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#19

Post by vGPU »

asfdgionio wrote: post #9
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

>There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. What are you talking about? There most certainly was, and a successful one at that. The mob had firearms and pipe bombs and a wide variety of melee weapons. They smashed their way into the building. Rioters intended to hold lawmakers captive and planned to execute the vice president. Several people died. The sitting president led a mob to levy war again…

And yet the BLM “peaceful protests” that burned and looted parts of well over a dozen major cities is considered perfectly acceptable.

Both of them were ultimately political protests and yet everyone seems to have forgotten about the actually violent one.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#20

Post by serf »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #2

“In all honesty, it was the Debt Crisis that ended the Roman Republic. There was a Sovereign Debt Crisis during the Roman Republic period resulted in a dictatorship and a debt default. … Therefore, we find that the debt crisis was correlated with a separatist movement – which we are beginning to see worldwide starting in Europe, but will eventually become a contagion in the United States as the conflict between left…

>Timing was pretty bang on if you consider Jan 6th as a turning point

of all the things happening around that same time-frame, the Jan 6th events seem to have been some of the least impactful, aside from just being a huge talking point in these type of "world is decaying" conversations

the media decided to report on that event in such a way as to draw more outrage than the other stuff -- but looking back the other stuff seems to have created a larger last impact; BLM/lock-down/pandemic/WFH/disaster-recession/George Floyd/Rittenhouse/social-distancing, just about any affect of that time period seems to have created deeper scars than the Jan 6th stuff.

now, Jan 6th stuff drew a lot of public outrage -- the sanctity of the office and so on and so fourth -- but real social and physical trauma that has lasted into today? There were more important events during that time-frame in that regard, personal opinion.

If you're just counting physical violence/death/injury then there are more severe events to consider unless we're weighing stuff like "a politician's life is more valuable than a bystander" type rationalization.

and to be clear : i'm not even debating the whole fall-of-Rome premise, i'm just saying that as an individual that witnessed this whole history it feels as if there was greater chinks in the armor than the Jan 6th events.

Post reply on HN