Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person • Hacker News Board

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#181

Post by slededit » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

spectrum1234 wrote: post #173

cecilpl2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that the public projects increase everyone's wealth by a greater amount than the interest on the debt. If you take money out of the equation and just consider that we have a large pool of labor to make use of, government's purpose in spending on projects is to allocate some of that labor towards long-term goals that no company would involve itself in as the pure profit potential is too risky, distant, or…

This might be true. However it's fact that poor people lose the most from inflation. Which is better?

The poor don’t have savings. If you spend as much or more than you make inflation benefits you by devaluing the debt you owe.

If you have a large 401k on the other hand it deflates the value of your retirement savings. You may have to work in old age.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#182

Post by anoncoward111 » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 7:05 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #180

anoncoward111 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this way every time someone recommends a study or a book to me. If you can't summarize it for a 5 year old, then you are either lazy or don't understand it yourself. For example, instead of telling me to read a 500 page book, you can say "the Big Bang is this really crazy but suprisingly plausible theory that our universe just suddenly exploded from nothing into this really hot and dense and chaotic realm, and…

Explain the Riemann hypothesis to me, including the contexts and the current work, without using technical language, to a general audience, in three sentences or less. What about the Japanese language? The history of Israeli-Palestine relations maybe? Some things are complicated and take 200 pages. There's nothing more to it.

"The Japanese language is a very interesting and unique human language. With over 250m speakers and a rich linguistic history, everything from its orthography to grammar to pronunciation provides interesting areas to explore further."

At least now the reader can ask, "what makes the orthography so interesting"? To which a deeper conversation can be had about its symbolic writing method and efforts to romanize and digitize it efficiently.

Now the reader has more reason to check out the book with just 4 or 5 sentences of info. Its like an outline vs a headline.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#183

Post by cribbles » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 7:06 AM UTC

djrobstep wrote: post #166

shoo wrote: post #132

To anyone wondering what debt "means", or if some debts will ever be repaid, or wondering about "jubilees" where debts are forgiven, I recommend David Graeber's book "Debt: The First 5000 Years". I am not sure if some of the ideas about debt that Graeber argues are correct, but he does discuss a lot of interesting examples of debt from societies throughout history. https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/debt/ https://en.wiki…

While I'm very sympathetic to the themes of the book, I found it so verbose, unstructured and meandering as to be unreadable.

Me too. I gave up after a couple hundred pages. At times interesting, but too unfocused, not to mention daunting due to the extreme length. Note that none of the commenters here have been able to supply a much more thorough synopsis than “debt has taken lots of different forms in different societies throughout history, including our own today.”

By contrast, I found Graeber’s follow up collection “The Utopia of Rules” startlingly provocative and a super fun read - one of my favorite books. I think Graeber’s divergent writing style and argumentative form work better in the essay format.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#184

Post by ssalka » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 7:07 AM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #170

nonbel wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "To anyone wondering what debt "means", or if some debts will ever be repaid, or wondering about "jubilees" where debts are forgiven" Can you just give the answers to these questions?

I'll give a crack at some cliffnotes: A debt is a very natural thing for humans, because we feel compelled to provide value to people who can't pay us yet. Even before money people had gifts and favors - we give with the expectation that we'll be given something in the future - or we say 'you owe me one' when someone has helped us through an issue without sending us an invoice. So the genius of fiat currency is that…

The problem is that if everyone were to try to collect all the debts owed to them, there would not be enough currency to fulfill it all. We freely create debt, but the result is a deficit that can only be resolved by creating enough value to offset the debt. And if that is somehow infeasible, economic collapse occurs.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#185

Post by cinquemb » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 7:17 AM UTC

nonbel wrote: post #159

heartbreak wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day it's still a house.

What does that have to do with owing a bank 300k and then your assets are worth ~150k?

I made the joke (about what is considered a depreciating asset or not) on an S&P e-mini forum a couple of days ago that went something this:

Most people don't buy houses, they buy mortgages worth $x00,000 on an "asset" that goes to being valued at $x00,000 / 2 when interests rates double…

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#186

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 7:46 AM UTC

anoncoward111 wrote: post #171

toasterlovin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is three sentences asking too much?

I feel this way every time someone recommends a study or a book to me. If you can't summarize it for a 5 year old, then you are either lazy or don't understand it yourself. For example, instead of telling me to read a 500 page book, you can say "the Big Bang is this really crazy but suprisingly plausible theory that our universe just suddenly exploded from nothing into this really hot and dense and chaotic realm, and…

To be fair, the OP could just be time poor at present.

Perhaps the laziness, then, lies with those who will not duck.com !w debt the first 5000 years

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#187

Post by RobLach » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 7:55 AM UTC

ssalka wrote: post #184

jazzyjackson wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give a crack at some cliffnotes: A debt is a very natural thing for humans, because we feel compelled to provide value to people who can't pay us yet. Even before money people had gifts and favors - we give with the expectation that we'll be given something in the future - or we say 'you owe me one' when someone has helped us through an issue without sending us an invoice. So the genius of fiat currency is that…

The problem is that if everyone were to try to collect all the debts owed to them, there would not be enough currency to fulfill it all. We freely create debt, but the result is a deficit that can only be resolved by creating enough value to offset the debt. And if that is somehow infeasible, economic collapse occurs.

Or society works because people do things for others without expecting repayment and there’s enough social pressure for the vast majority to not exploit that system.

Problems really only arise if debt is systemically expected, like a housing market that works only on a foundation of mortgages.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#188

Post by recycledmatt » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 8:00 AM UTC

mamcx wrote: post #109

lotsofpulp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all debt was forgiven every 50 years, why would any lender lend money with a term going past the year before the jubilee?

Well, in part the ideas was not get into big debts. People could self-sustain much more easily in the past. No need to buy iPhone each year help on that. Is important to note that the jubilee was a measure against the worst case scenarios: Persons that sell themselves as slaves (or sons of slaves), people that lost the hereditary land and things like that. This also means the society was based around this expectation…

>> No need to buy iPhone each year help on that.

89K per person - means we could buy them all an iPhone with 88.5K left over. Corporations and Governments have a huge role to play in this.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#189

Post by ThrowMeDown01 » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 8:14 AM UTC

djrobstep wrote: post #166

shoo wrote: post #132

To anyone wondering what debt "means", or if some debts will ever be repaid, or wondering about "jubilees" where debts are forgiven, I recommend David Graeber's book "Debt: The First 5000 Years". I am not sure if some of the ideas about debt that Graeber argues are correct, but he does discuss a lot of interesting examples of debt from societies throughout history. https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/debt/ https://en.wiki…

While I'm very sympathetic to the themes of the book, I found it so verbose, unstructured and meandering as to be unreadable.

Since this subthread is about personal anecdotes of reading experience, mine was completely different. I had no problem finishing the book in record time and I'm glad I bought (and read) it.

Re: Debt Worldwide Hits Record $86k per Person

#190

Post by ThrowMeDown01 » Sat, Dec 15, 2018, 8:16 AM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #77

wufufufu wrote: post #5

I'm ignorant on this, but to me there are two kinds of debt. 1) Personal debt, like I took out a car loan and I can get the car repossessed or the loan sold to debt collectors. 2) Debt that exists just to create more money i.e. the IMF or Fed Reserve decide to have an expansionary monetary policy and they lend from... what exactly? The purpose is to just control inflation. I'm guessing this is the second kind of debt…

My understanding is that reserve banks create money out of thin air and then 'loan' it to governments. Then governments use the money to pay for public projects. A lot of the money ends up going to large corporations through significant government contracts, grants and subsidies. When a government takes a loan from the reserve bank and puts it into circulation by giving the money to corporations to pay for public pro…

> My understanding is that reserve banks create money out of thin air

"Money creation in the modern economy" (Bank of England, PDF)

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...

Quote:

In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood: the principal way is through commercial banks making loans. Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money. The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks:

• Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.

• In normal times, the central bank does not fix the amount of money in circulation, nor is central bank money ‘multiplied up’ into more loans and deposits.