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Pyrrhic Victory

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Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#31

Post by pjc50 »

roenxi wrote: post #3

Two parts of this short and powerful piece really leapt out at me: > all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration > Washington under any administration will have no choice but to bail out all the state and local agencies and every insolvent pension scheme wholesale There are underlying problems being forced to the surface by COVID that go deeper than political parties. Somewhere between the 1970s a…

> running up debt literally does not matter.

The creditors don't seem to mind it either, happily buying hundred-year bonds with near-zero interest rates.

Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of somebody's ledger. Quite a lot of that corporate and government debt is "savings"; $270 billion of it is owed to Apple alone. http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-inve...

> The economy is brutal. It is a fabricated social concept built on trust right up until the moment it breaks out into the physical world and things that desperately need to happen stop happening because it doesn't make any economic sense.

This was one of the questions that Keynes explored - how it is possible to have productive capacity idle because there isn't enough credit for people to buy the products.

It's also the idea behind a lot of the "green new deal" schemes; do things that need to be done but don't offer a specific return, but benefit society and the planet as a whole.

> The persistent bailouts are making losers of people who make good long term decisions

How, exactly? What "long term decisions" would not have been worse off if the 2008 bailouts hadn't been made and a large chunk of Western retail banking had gone insolvent, tying up accounts until it could have been resolved? There is an important difference between "this business is no longer viable", and "this business is perfectly viable in the future but is experiencing a temporary shock which its cashflow and trade credit cannot cover".

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#32

Post by fit2rule »

echelon wrote: post #15

You ought to see Atlanta. We have more people outside now than even live in the city. The yuppie dog parks with membership fees and booze have waiting lines. Consequently, you should also take a look at the Georgia coronavirus case volume. But it's as if nobody gives a damn.

There were more people crawling over the parks and Donau island recreation area's in Vienna during the first few weeks of the lockdown than I have ever witnessed in years.

The lockdown seemed to have the opposite intended effect, in the first few weeks.

Now, however the city is void of tourists during what would normally be a very, very busy season.

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#33

Post by orbifold »

It is interesting how different countries and cultures deal with the same challenge. Streets were pretty empty and shops were closed for maybe a month here in Germany. Now (almost) everything is open again, the streets are full. Unemployment rose somewhat but not catastrophically. The images and videos we get from the US feel apocalyptical in contrast.

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#34

Post by kasey_junk »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #25
kwhitefoot wrote: post #22

Looking at those pictures from Norway I'm struck by how different our countries actions have been during this crisis. Here hardly anything is boarded up (even business that have failed or gone online-only just have an A4 notice in the window explaining the situation and apologizing for the lack of service), and even when things were at their worst there were still people in the streets, a lot of shops, offices, and i…

The boarding up is because of the looting and rioting. Before that they were just closed as they would 'normally' close.

That was true in my neighborhood in Chicago but I’m not sure it was in San Francisco (where these pictures were taken).

I remember seeing board ups there very early in the shutdown.

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#35

Post by narag »

Kednicma wrote: post #4

One of my parents is a pensioner and their attitude towards money is that "I earned it, and so it's my money," regardless of whether that money is in their accounts or in their monthly check. They really do view all of that money which comes to them as being an entitlement which is already funded, and not part of an ecumenical system of money. > I have very clear memories of the political battles of the 1980s and 90s…

There is no law of nature that says that SS systems must work the way most do: paying current pensions with current work. You can actually save current incoming money in a fund that will grow making everybody richer, instead of depending on future generations that can shrink, actually what's happening now.

The only reason it was implemented as debt is that it works from the start up. But it's possible to transition slowly from one model to the other one. There are political reasons why they're not doing that, but honestly, I think your parents are right to ask for what they were promised to receive. Maybe it's impossible to materialize the money now, but that doesn't make them wrong.

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#38

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
roenxi wrote: post #3

Two parts of this short and powerful piece really leapt out at me: > all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration > Washington under any administration will have no choice but to bail out all the state and local agencies and every insolvent pension scheme wholesale There are underlying problems being forced to the surface by COVID that go deeper than political parties. Somewhere between the 1970s a…

> running up debt literally does not matter. The creditors don't seem to mind it either, happily buying hundred-year bonds with near-zero interest rates. Also remember that every "saving" is also a "debt" on the other side of somebody's ledger. Quite a lot of that corporate and government debt is "savings"; $270 billion of it is owed to Apple alone. http://thewire.fiig.com.au/article/2018/04/24/how-apple-inve... > Th…

There's a difference between the world as we know it cannot exist without banks as we know them,and banks cannot exist without the people who led us into this mess.

There must be strict liability against those whose bad decisions lead to incalculable suffering for countless people. Hard stop.

We can debate the specific consequences (banned from positions of authority, fines, debt, prison, etc). But we must not allow those with demonstrable bad decision making abilities to continue to play roulette with the lives of others. Likewise, good decisions cannot be allowed to justify or excuse bad ones.

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#39

Post by rbanffy »

roenxi wrote: post #3

Two parts of this short and powerful piece really leapt out at me: > all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration > Washington under any administration will have no choice but to bail out all the state and local agencies and every insolvent pension scheme wholesale There are underlying problems being forced to the surface by COVID that go deeper than political parties. Somewhere between the 1970s a…

> all under the auspices of a hard line Republican administration

This only means "socialism for the rich, brutal unregulated capitalism for everyone else, because it's their fault they aren't rich anyway".

Re: Pyrrhic Victory

#40

Post by clarkevans »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #11
gold_standard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Somewhere between the 1970s and 2000s I think you'll find it was precisely 1971.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

In March of 1971 the house eliminated "teller votes", where representatives' votes on amendments to bills were private; the system then moved to recorded votes, initially with red/green cards, and then in 1973 with electronic votes. After March of 1971, the public could learn exactly which representatives voted for exactly which amendments. In practice, this accountability change meant that lobbyists and their clients gained knowledge of which representatives defected and which ones towed line.
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