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The Demoralization is just Beginning

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Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#391

Post by Rhapso »

KaiserPro wrote: post #349

Going back to a gold standard will limit the money supply. This means that there will be less capital for building $thing. A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stic…

If you are trying to pin a currency to a standard, gold isn't great. Its value is almost entirely speculative and it lacks meaninful intrinsic value at this point. If you demand to leave fiat currency, an aluminum or steel standard might make more sense. Rare earth metals, or even just petroleum would be my proposal. Maybe someday we will have a duterium pinned currency.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#392

Post by energy123 »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

This is basically an argument that China should become more like North Korea rather than the other way around.

Reality is that remittances and the skills that emigrants eventually bring back to their home country far exceeds any negative effects. Policymakers know this which is why they don't deter this from happening. In many countries they actively encourage it, such as is Philippines.

When economists talk about "no free lunch" they are specifically talking about abnormal profits. They are not talking about the fact that voluntary decisions of private actors can lead to positive sum outcomes in utility.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#393

Post by mambru »

Seems like George is inching towards learning about Triffin Dilemma[0].

To meet global demand, the issuer must supply enough currency, potentially weakening its own economy, but restricting supply would harm international trade and finance

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#394

Post by stereolambda »

coliveira wrote: post #10

The 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.

> But other countries have agency too, they can also decide to be first class economies.

An interesting thing is that they likely cannot, outside of some exceptional circumstances--which might include the current clownish situation. Lots of countries would like to be among leading economies. But they don't have enough capital, cannot get it on really favorable terms, don't have the know-how, cannot have effective protectionism to start up (blocked by international rules and retaliations).

You can attract foreign capital and corporations, but it's much harder to tie their people and wealth to you permanently. There is a term 'middle income trap' for example. The impressive thing about PRC is how they've had enough power leverage and ability to play into turn-of-Millennium Western establishment's mentality to really push ahead. But there are many countries that couldn't.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#396

Post by rsanek »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

> We need to put as much effort into helping every other country develop and thrive - and by doing that we'll create many more customers for the products/services produced in our own countries, and everyone can end up richer.

this was the logic in letting eg China into the WTO and allowing them to become such a big trading partner. turns out, this doesn't necessarily result in liberalization (see Germany's experience with Russia for another example).

we should only be seeking to shift trade from repressive regimes to democracies, not working with everyone equally.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#397

Post by jgilias »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Brain drain, despite the name, is not really a zero-sum game. The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country.

I know of more than one example where someone has been “brain-drained” to the states, who has subsequently moved back to start a successful business. Sometimes leveraging gained contacts directly, sometimes leveraging the newfound experience and knowledge.

Whether this works out this way depends on how open the world (or at least the respective countries between each other) is when it comes to movement of people, money, and trade.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#398

Post by underdeserver »

tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

Problem is in these countries there just aren't enough opportunities. There are very, very few places in the world you can get a Stanford PhD - including the atmosphere, colleagues, labs, money.

Before you can even invest the immense time and effort needed to build that kind of environment, you need the will of the people, and in most of the world you don't have that.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#399

Post by energy123 »

jgilias wrote: post #397
tomhoward wrote: post #355

There's an implicit assumption in the article and the comments here that "brain drain the world" is a free lunch. But does anyone think through to the end-game of that? That when you drain the most smart/productive people away from every other country, all those countries become less wealthy and more dysfunctional, leading to societal decline, poverty, resentment, radicalisation, war, etc? Aside from anything else, t…

I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Brain drain, despite the name, is not really a zero-sum game. The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country. I know of more than one example where someone has been “brain-drained” to the states, who has subsequently moved back to start a success…

The only reason the Chinese solar industry exists is because of so called "brain drain" from China to Australia and Germany.

The reality is far less zero sum. These Chinese scientists learned about and contributed to solar research overseas, and some of them went back to China and made China wealthier.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#400

Post by rsanek »

pif wrote: post #388
KaiserPro wrote: post #349

Going back to a gold standard will limit the money supply. This means that there will be less capital for building $thing. A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stic…

> That takes planning, money vision and time. And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans, unless you either make huge efforts to ensure everyone gets their fair share (see Scandinavia) or you have a good plan for people being rich with not too much effort (see Switzerland and other tax havens). Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too la…

income inequality today is about the same as it was 100 years ago. https://ourworldindata.org/how-has-income-inequality-within-...
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