101–110 of 814 posts
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The more I hear about this Nixon feller the less I like him. Seems like a real scoundrel.
Dumping the gold standard was one of the best moves nixon made. The gold standard was directly responsible for untold economic suffering in the country.
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> We literally murder people and bomb countries that even joke about not buying and using our worthless currency, Citation needed
The entire 1991 conflict is actually quite confusing, the majority western cold war apparatus moved to Saudi Arabia to fight the war. There aren't many reasons for why this was done.
Using a national currency as the de facto global reserve guarantees a trade deficit for that country. No one else can manufacture USD's, so other countries have to acquire them by shaping their economies to supply goods and services demanded by the US. They can then use these earned dollars to transact with other countries, as the US itself insists they do. For the US, this is a simple trade off - gain massive politi…
Do they? It is my understanding that the (originally London based) Eurodollar market deals in USD without US treasury oversight.
As will Hong Kong soon.
I've always disliked economics because it never seems to make much sense. The first equation in the article -- the basis on which the entire premise rests -- just feels wrong. > Spending is either on the consumption of goods and services or investment spending on equipment, structures, and intellectual property products. Income is allocated to either consumption or to saving by households, businesses, and government.…
I've always disliked economics because it never seems to make much sense. The first equation in the article -- the basis on which the entire premise rests -- just feels wrong. > Spending is either on the consumption of goods and services or investment spending on equipment, structures, and intellectual property products. Income is allocated to either consumption or to saving by households, businesses, and government.…
Isn't it just that one person's spending on consumption is another person's income from that consumption?
I've always disliked economics because it never seems to make much sense. The first equation in the article -- the basis on which the entire premise rests -- just feels wrong. > Spending is either on the consumption of goods and services or investment spending on equipment, structures, and intellectual property products. Income is allocated to either consumption or to saving by households, businesses, and government.…
The model they are using is a simplified macroeconomic model. In their model, they are simply saying that when you account for Income--the total amount of money earned across the entire economy--it can only fall into two mutually exclusive buckets. Either the income is related to Consumption (purchasing goods and services), or Saving (as you mention, deferred spending--money in banks, or surpluses in the budget for states etc.--anything that is not in the consumption bucket).
> who is to say the consumption on the income side is the same as the consumption on the spending side such that they balance out?
By definition, it has to be. The way national income accounting works is that you can look at things from the perspective of expenditures or income. Since GDP is total output and total income, the total amount of consumption is the same, which is why it drops out in the equation from their model.
I always thought the plan was we give them pieces of paper for their stuff. Then if we ever needed to we could say those pieces of paper(or bits in a computer) are no longer worth anything unless you're a citizen. But I had a bunch of gift certificates for ChiChis when they went out of business, and I have been jaded to this sort of thing ever since.
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iPhones also used to be carrier subsidized. I remember getting a new one for $200 - $300 thanks to AT&T.
They still are, in the same exact way: with contracts. I haven't paid for an iPhone with cash, ever; I only have to sign a multi-year contract, just like it was in the past. I am currently using an iPhone 16 for 'free' in this way. It's just that people now want the latest and greatest NOW and are willing to pay monthly rates to do so, instead of waiting a few months for whatever carrier deal there is.
I've always disliked economics because it never seems to make much sense. The first equation in the article -- the basis on which the entire premise rests -- just feels wrong. > Spending is either on the consumption of goods and services or investment spending on equipment, structures, and intellectual property products. Income is allocated to either consumption or to saving by households, businesses, and government.…
That's because you're reading an econ 101 equation, similarly how basic physics blogs use spherical cows in equations to simplify them. Most of internet (and even media) discourse about economcs never grows out of this level - it's like having people debate physics of nuclear reactors while their knowledge is stuck on Newtonian level.
Or, as some academic once put it - first year in economics college you learn econ101... and the rest of the years you're taught all the ways that model doesn't apply to real life.