Fantastic article. The banking system especially is a scam... the "fractional reserve system" basically allows elite friends of the government to create new dollars ($100 loaned for every $1 deposit). Move to gold and get rid of the corruption.
The Demoralization is just Beginning
71–80 of 812 posts
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But solution point 1 — brain drain the rest of the world — is an absolutely first rate policy. The fact that the US requires newly-minted PhDs educated here to get a different visa or leave is absolutely self-defeating. We should be welcoming skilled immigration from everywhere. Even better, let them keep their visa and if they revoke their citizenship, we'll relocate their entire family if they come from a repress…
> Brain-draining the world is really the key to cementing American Hegemony in a post-Cold War world. Why should we want that instead of an orderly, well-governed democracy? Do you think people in Sweden or Denmark are upset their countries aren't hegemons? And what would that do to the country? Do you really think that, say, the top 5% of India and China (100 million people) would do better maintaining a democracy t…
India despite flaws is a democracy same as the US. It's a very different country then China. Plenty of immigrants from tyrannical countries are as if not more committed to democracy as those born here
And just because someone was born in China or India it doesn't make them any less American then someone born in Iowa. Their children might be born in Iowa
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#73I prefer my economic takes from economists, or people who actually study these things. -there is more to an economy than manufacturing. Using manufacturing metrics to rate an economy is like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run: in some contexts correlated with “winning” but in others it’s not. -gold is not a good currency or basis for monetary policy. -these ideas only sound self consistent withou…
seemed like a good article until he went into "back the dollar on gold" and revealed he was a total crackpot, sad
Care to elaborate? It’s thought provoking as a mechanism to reduce all of this zero sum (or even worse, parasitic) effort that dominates our system.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> like scoring a soccer game based on how far your players run That’s a pretty good analogy for what GDP is counting, actually. But I think the larger point is that manufacturing is grounded in something real. It’s a measure of how many tanks and fighter jets you can make, no matter how much they cost to make.
Right, velocity of money! I think this is the meatier part of the essay and I wish geohot would have skipped the bit about the gold standard - our main measure of growth is how quickly we hand money back and forth (is there another measure that allows expenditures to cancel out ? Net Domestic Product ?) The graph that shocked me tho was the electricity production, I didn't realize US was so flat but it rings true, I…
Two quick thoughts… one, because every transaction in theory happens because the purchasing party values the good or service more than the money, every transaction does — in theory — create wealth, velocity of money is sort of measuring a proxy for growth. But I agree it’s weird.
Second, “GDP/watt” is absolutely an economic metric, and it captures something about energy efficiency but also the mix of an economy. Software and services scores highly; aluminum smelting does not.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#75We used to have gold certificates. If you had a $20 gold certificate and converted it to gold in the 1930s, you would get one ounce of gold worth nearly $3k today.
Then the government did an exit scam, passing a law that the gold trade in statements on the certificates are void. You can still spend one of these bills today though. For $20.
Why should anyone expect any government to indefinitely honor gold certificates?
The only currency that can avoid being devalued by a single government, is a currency no single government can control.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> or people who actually study these things How do you define "actually study" here, and what makes you think the author didn't study the topic at all? Its totally fine if you disagree with the author's view or have additional information that they missed or didn't consider. Writing it off as coming from someone who didn't "actually study" the topic is unnecessarily dismissive.
Well, it's deferring to experts, but whether economists are experts at anything is a hot debate.
I have a lot of respect for economists, I know several.
They are among the most rational people you shall ever meet. And they are very aware of how incomplete their tools are. But they do a lot with such tools that is worth knowing.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#77Well this was embarrassing to read. Good god man read an economics textbook or at least talk to an economist before posting.
Is industrial capacity important? Sure. Is it the top of the value chain? No.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> or people who actually study these things How do you define "actually study" here, and what makes you think the author didn't study the topic at all? Its totally fine if you disagree with the author's view or have additional information that they missed or didn't consider. Writing it off as coming from someone who didn't "actually study" the topic is unnecessarily dismissive.
Well, it's deferring to experts, but whether economists are experts at anything is a hot debate.
It's only a debate if you reject the very principals of science. I realize we're getting there for a lot of people, but merely disbelieving in science is not a refutal of it.
This ignores so called Austrian economists however, who are just flat out lying to either themselves or everyone else depending on the person.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#79He is pretty clueless about a few things, namely 1) China inflated an even bigger asset bubble in the form of real estate and they are using dumping and aggressive trade to keep afloat, and 2)the regime can be ended in a few months without importing food since it’s not self sufficient in terms of food supply
China owns a lot of food generation overseas, so while they may "import" it, they effectively own it.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, velocity of money! I think this is the meatier part of the essay and I wish geohot would have skipped the bit about the gold standard - our main measure of growth is how quickly we hand money back and forth (is there another measure that allows expenditures to cancel out ? Net Domestic Product ?) The graph that shocked me tho was the electricity production, I didn't realize US was so flat but it rings true, I…
Two quick thoughts… one, because every transaction in theory happens because the purchasing party values the good or service more than the money, every transaction does — in theory — create wealth, velocity of money is sort of measuring a proxy for growth. But I agree it’s weird. Second, “GDP/watt” is absolutely an economic metric, and it captures something about energy efficiency but also the mix of an economy. Soft…
I know you qualified it as "in theory", yet I find myself thinking of wash-trading as an example where transactional value is neutral or even very slightly negative, because they actually value manipulating the metrics.