Swiss Franc is generally very stable so a good yard stick for other currencies over the long term
Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
561–570 of 697 posts
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#562Earlier quoted context omitted.
ensure that stored wealth is best re-invested in the economy at large Pretty sure the vast, vast bulk of wealth held by the richest US households is indeed “reinvested in the economy at large”. Where do you think it is instead?
Supporting companies that profit off of misery, reduce human meaningfulness, those that innovate the surveillance state; why is it so hard to support policies like giving US school children free breakfast + lunch, medicare for all, public housing, universal childcare, federally mandated paid time off, universal higher education + vocational training, and a public jobs program (all things that have 70-90% voter approv…
imagine the horror of free loaders eating free lunches, living in affordable apartments close to school, and riding high speed rail each weekend to visit nature. will anyone think of our lords? and what about my iphone? obviously phones will cease to exist once we implement these communist pipe dreams. just look at china, they've got all of this and they clearly hate it. no phones, no brand clothes, oh the terror. you should be locked up in an insane asylum immediately
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#563We can’t know when it’s going to happen, but there is a good chance that one is going to be super bad.
We basically borrowed our way out of the 2008 crash and through covid, but we havent repaid the debt. It is so high I doubt we can do the same next time.
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#564Earlier quoted context omitted.
China is ruled by the Communist Party. It does not seem unreasonable to call them a communist country. Yes, I know, they have moved away from historical communism, and it's more of a "brand name" than an ideological description. Still, it is their chosen name for what they're doing.
Sure but this is like calling North Korea a democracy because the official name of the country is the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"
It's essentially a dogwhistle to spot idiots. Anyone who says "China isn't communist" completely lacks even the most basic comprehension of ideological concepts.
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#565Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#566Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rules based order is mostly a fabrication of recent history. Perhaps between the fall of the Soviet Union, China becoming more open, and the general peace and prosperity it seemed like it existed. Politics between countries has always been around interests. Countries have no interest in giving up their sovereignty. They may pretend to respect these "rules" when it suits them and then ignore them when it doesn't.…
> Russia and China (and many others) have never even pretended to play or accept these "rules". This false. They have pretended to play by the rules, and when breaking them, to at least manufacture some pretext, or to deny it was a state activity at all. One example I can give you is that when invading Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet Union convinced a few Czechoslovak politicians to write a letter inviting the for…
> They have pretended to play by the rules
@YZF is unwittingly agreeing with Carney. The rules-based order is partially a fiction. Relevant snips from Carney's Davos speech.
"The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source."
"For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection."
"We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false ..."
"This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes."
When the US invaded Iraq, it at least pretended it was following the rules. It appealed to the UN for approval, it justified the invasion in the name of freedom and democracy.
It was all bullshit, but at least the US sustained the myth of a system of rules and a moral order.
But the US no longer pretends. It invades Venezuela and publicly states it was all about oil.
So even the pretense is gone now, and the benefits that came from pretending are gone. That's the "rupture" Carney is talking about, that sustaining the myths is not longer useful, so it's time to stop pretending.
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#567Maybe simultaneous with the crash of the Chinese economy, which was predicted for 40 years now
I don't understand why people expect the Chinese economy to crash - they can basically make everything, a lot of which is internationally competitive, they can trade for the resources they don't have with the goods that they do - with basically the whole world dependent on them. They have a huge internal base of poor people, and lifting them to a middle class level will alone fuel domestic demand for years to come. T…
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#568Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were worries that they'd issued a lot of debt to build real estate that wasn't needed resulting in ghost towns and people thought prices would fall and the banks lending would collapse but they seem to have managed ok. The Chinese actually seem quite smart at managing their system.
They managed okay up until now because the Chinese gov takes a ton of revenue directly from their industry. They have very low income taxes on the public and instead make a lot of money from their huge state companies and investments in their manufacturing, industrial, and tech businesses which are still booming. That helps offset the losses from real estate, which they also make money off from land sales. They act m…
As for deflation - why is it bad anyways? We were taught in school the problem is that if I have $1 in the bank and that will buy me a loaf of bread today, but 2 loaves a week from now, I might want to hold on to it, so deflation destroys consumption.
But that makes no sense, because I can buy bonds or stocks from $1, and capitalize on the gains, so I get the same two loaves of bread - the effects are the same, I dont consume today, and I have money for tomorrow.
The difference is I have to trust my money to either a company or the government, and involve a lot of intermediaries and take on risk.
As for your link you posted, I feel like for finance people, a market they cant make money from is indistinguishable from one thats performing poorly, never mind what sort of lifestyle it supports for the everyman.
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#569What is different about this time is how much a crash is expected, which is reflected in the run up in the gold price, for one. It’s also reflected in the public discourse about the high probability of a crash - as with this post and many others over the past couple years. 2008 was sudden and unexpected by most. The dot com crash was sudden and unexpected by most. If we crashed today it would have been expected by mo…
Re: Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
#570> It feels as though all we need is a spark. And yet, many sparks seem to have come and gone. Big market moves, in stocks or yields, that have recovered Yes, in a five year span we've had three 20% drawdowns in the stock market that have all recovered which is unprecedented. IMO, anyone who thinks we're going to crash and have a lost decade is not looking at the bigger picture. The Federal Reserve exists to allow the…
Quoting someone else: "Bears sound smart, Bulls make money"