+1 to brain drain. Though it's probably net beneficial for the US to remain the reserve currency, as long as we stop getting high on our supply.
The Demoralization is just Beginning
151–160 of 812 posts
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they were rebutting that, it's just that Bitcoin supply is only capped if you consider it the one true currency, but there is no cap on the supply of forks that perform identical function, only difference being adoption. It's like you could take the entire gold supply and put it through a Star Trek replicator, but now you have the job of convincing the world that your vault is full of gold too
But even in a world of only Bitcoin and no way to make alternate coins, all kinds of bad things are still possible, as there is no mechanism to prevent people from starting fractional reserve banking all over. The only way to prevent that is to somehow completely eliminate all trust from all economic activity. Without trust, breach of trust becomes trivially impossible.
Of course. My comment doesn't claim it doesn't. My only point was that BTC has limited supply.
In almost all other ways, crypto is not great.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#153I 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…
> 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.
People who have dedicated multiple years of their lives to this topic, at a bare minimum. Technologists are not knowledgeable in economics, medicine, or the other technical fields they routinely embarrass themselves in. Narcissistic overconfidence can look like expertise to an outsider but it isn't. Being high IQ is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
If you want a center-right take on economics, go to someone like Tyler Cowen. There are also plenty of economists who argue in favor of onshoring some manufacturing under a security/defense as public good argument.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, if you're a professional in high demand, you can live a great life in the US. But how does the quality of life of everybody below the median look like? > This gets amplified if you're a highly sought after professional. Top senior engineers are getting paid $500k-$1M in the US. These are figures you'll never find in Europe or Asia, not even close. But what does that buy you really, in a high cost of living area?…
> But how does the quality of life of everybody below the median look like? This discussion is about whether or not the US is a top brain drain destination. That means we're talking about exceptionally skilled or promising scientists/engineers/doctors at the top of their field. I'm not claiming life is great for everyone in America. I agree it isn't. > But what does that buy you really, in a high cost of living area?…
> This discussion is about whether or not the US is a top brain drain destination.
And my point is that this is increasingly the case due to a combination of inertia and people’s bad EV calculations:
> They will already be able to retire in 99% of the world, with enough savings to lead incredibly comfortable and luxurious lives.
Just demographically, this will never be viable for a large fraction of the population, regardless of any economic concerns.
This leaves truly exceptional talents, and those that incorrectly assume that that’s them.
And this isn’t even considering how AI is potentially going to shake up knowledge work.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#155For his solutions: "Brain drain" is what we had been doing for the past 80 years or so. It worked great. We're specifically driving people away now. "Gold standard" is an idea every sane economist rejected decades ago.
> "Gold standard" is an idea every sane economist rejected decades ago. I don't think any sane economists have ever "rejected" the gold standard, it is known to work. Pretty much any empire ever founded was built on a gold standard. The US jumped away from it because they were going to go bankrupt and picked a system that put the pain off until a later date. Now, 50 years later, they appear to have lost the title of…
The gold standard works until it doesn't. Then the only option is to bail from it. That's why no one is on it anymore. It's not a sufficiently flexible currency.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arguing that manufacturing is strategic is not the same thing as manufacturing being “all that matters in an economy.” There’s a logical fallacy in your rebuttal.
How about I put it this way: Manufacturing is the bedrock of power. Everything else above it, particularly fiat currency, is built on that bedrock. While those cards can be mighty attractive, losing the bedrock for any reason would destroy everything. Apple isn’t going to be worth $3 trillion when they can’t sell an iPhone for the next decade. Heck, General Mills won’t be selling much breakfast cereal, when the parts…
The endpoint of this argument is pure self-reliance, for strategic reasons. And that endpoint is North Korea.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
“there is more to an economy than manufacturing” Not really, no. If China cut off the US, for any reason, who gets hurt more? Who has a bigger house of cards to collapse? Who will have a harder time rebuilding? If the next leader is bolder than Xi, and is of the same kind that once killed tens of millions of people, losing an arm and a leg to behead an enemy might be a viable strategy.
> Not really, no. If China cut off the US, for any reason, who gets hurt more? China gets hurt more. They are an export economy. US will face some temporary pain, sure, but other countries build stuff as well. Meanwhile what does China do with all the materials piling up, millions out of jobs and a half a trillion dollar hole in their economy?
I do think there's some mutually-assured destruction here. If trade truly ends, I suspect it might end in a hot war, and no one knows how that would go. (Though to support some of the comments here, and the implied point of the original essay -- China's manufacturing base becomes much more strategically important in a hot war scenario.)
I mean, we've sort of long assumed that increasing trade ties led to peace, and the detente between the US and China was long taken as proof of that axiom. But morons with half-formed ideas about trade policy can blow up detente in less than 100 days, as it turns out.
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Democracy isn't created by intentions or "commitment," but rather the culture of the people, their attitudes, and mental processes. An Iowan born in Iowa to Iowan parents who were born to Iowan parents is steeped from birth in a culture that is very different from someone born in India or China--or even the American-born children of Indians and Chinese immigrants. Immigrants may become legally American overnight, but…
The book you cite and more generally the arguments traced in the Deep Roots literature are not very strong and often deployed to support anti-immigrant, anti-assimiliationist views.
I'm not persuaded we could recreate America even if we took any 1000 people, even people who can trace their apple pie eating back to the Mayflower, because you know, America is a country and more generally complex arrangement of stuff that involves and entangles hundreds of millions of people (if not the entire planet).
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#159The big mistake of this kind of analysis is to assume that it depends only on the desires of the US. But other countries have agency too, they can also decide to be first class economies. The current status of China is due to its focus on achieving greatness. There's not much that the US could or can do to derail China from its achievements. Let's stop trying to block other countries and step up to work harder.
China has major structural weaknesses in its economy that are currently overshadowed by the US cr*pping its own and its allies’ pants. Specifically: there is not much of a home grown consumer economy; they have driven growth too heavily on exports and infrastructure build, leading to a massive overhang in building, a housing bubble that is teetering dangerously close to unwinding, and a major shortage of domestic con…
China is collapsing!
Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning
#160I 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…
Ibn Khaldoun said that once a state economics start deteriorating, everyone becomes an expert.
The way I see it, if the markets led by PhD and Noble laureates fails, people start looking for alternatives. Since the "establishment" has been proven useless, the door is open for "anyone" to chime in. The reality is that the economist at the top do not want to see the deficiencies because they have their salaries on the line.