611–620 of 812 posts
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…
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Of course the same can be said for BTC: finite supply, needs to be mined.
Unlike gold, the "finite supply" of BTC is socially constructed. That's my whole argument for gold. The finite supply isn't socially constructed, and getting more requires building real infrastructure.
2. What do you mean by "real" infrastructure? Crypto-mining rigs are no less real than actual mines.
My argument would be that gold's value is as much a social construct as that of crypto; value is just a function of supply and demand.
I'm guessing you might post that there is a third input: utility. "Currency" is one use for gold, but can certainly serve many purposes, whereas crypto coins are strictly used as currency. That fact is presumably taken into account by a coin's price; nonetheless, it still has whatever value the market says it has at any time.
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Of course the same can be said for BTC: finite supply, needs to be mined.
Unlike gold, the "finite supply" of BTC is socially constructed. That's my whole argument for gold. The finite supply isn't socially constructed, and getting more requires building real infrastructure.
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…
Kenyesian economics, through inflationism and fiscal policy, has been trying to solve this problem since the New Deal. When they actually make any progress on that front, why don't you let me know?
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People like to forget China was aggressively combating financialization [1] long before Jack Ma was forced to step down. Ant financials ambitions were an absolute disaster in the making [2]. I still remember my wife casually mentioning, back in 2019 or something (well before Evergrande), that China was restricting property speculation. Prohibiting folks from taking out loans on third properties etc. As an Australian…
Most chinese are storing wealth in real estate its the prime investment vehicle. People in china have been speculating on properties for decades. The chinese government realized a bubble was forming because house builders started using crazy leverage. The fact this crazy bubble formed has shown the regulators were in fact asleep.
Before 3RL, RE bubble was being addressed since 2010s, TLDR is policies led to domestic construction slump in 2012-2017 - where indicators like floor space completion and construction employment peaked. ~2017 crack down on shadow banking which drove developers + local gov to increase presales, turning it into a financial instrument to keep the taps going. Then hard 3RL in 2020.
Could have probably smashed skulls harder, sooner, but they've been regulating for 10+ years, developers kept finding loopholes thinking central gov would be soft, until central gov wasn't.
See:
https://www.ceicdata.com/datapage/charts/o_china_cn-floor-sp...
At minimum getting floor space completion to peak in 2014 = mitigated bubble.
E: IMO also important to note 3RL happened AFTER 12TH & 13th 5YR PLAN that build out PRC renewable manufacturing. Reason why 3RL is feasible was it became possible to shift construction to renewable rollout to keep jobs and gdp, minus RE speculation, i.e. why PRC can grow at ~5% instead of 5% + 3% RE speculation. RE was never 30% economy, about 15% + 15% in construction and downstream industries. The 15% RE growth got cut down, but other 15% shifted to growing renewable infra.
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…
Isn't this a good thing? Otherwise, what incentive is there for financial discipline?
> The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stick to it.
Have stuck with it for over 75 years. Not too shabby. Also why is empire in quotes?
> China has been quietly debt trapping a whole bunch of nations that have strategic things they need.
I know the US and Europe has for centuries. Which ones has china "debt trapped"? Or are we sticking to the propaganda that china helping develop other nations is "debt trapping".
> Something neither the president or congress have the ability to do.
Neither the president nor congress sets the "plan" for the US. Do you really think trump gets to decide geopolitics? Do you really think congress decides the direction of the nation? Or do you think they listen to the elites who fund and control them? One has to be extraordinarly naive to think that a superpower with nukes is run by the masses.
The president and congress sells the plan decided by the powerful to the masses. It's why they exist. They don't plan or decide anything. Most of their time is spent raising money for elections. When do you think trump or congress has the time to develop any expertise in anything.
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The US, Canada and Australia were all formed at times where the origin countries where not liberal democracies, so where did that "democratic seed" come from, and why should people fleeing totalitarian regimes not have it? This argument really does not make sense, and lest we forget those "enlightened democratic western cultures" created some pretty gruesome dictatorships in the intermittent years.
The modern Bangladesh constitution, created in the 1970s, has concepts like “due process.” That phrase comes from a 1354 English law implementing the Magna Carta: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5-5-2/ALD... . If you study British history, you’ll see that foundation for what became America, Canada, and Australia has being built for 900 years, even when British society was ruled by a king. Turning t…
Actually if you study British history you'll find that what is most striking is that the United States is a departure from rather than a continuation of British legal or governance norms.
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.
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My friend, not everyone makes 150K/year. Like yes, we can do it, and choose our freedom because of the industry we live in. But you might be very disconnected from an average person’s life. Average or poorer person in the US does not get to choose where they retire either. I promise, 70 year retired old ojiisans over here in Tokyo don’t think their life would’ve been better if they lived in Oklahoma. You guys think e…
> Average or poorer person in the US does not get to choose where they retire either. I've already addressed this in another thread. We're talking about brain drain. That means we are talking about highly skilled professionals for in-demand fields that can easily get this level of pay. A skilled senior SWE can very realistically demand $300k+ comp in US tech companies. In the startup space $150k + equity has become t…
If you're single and flexible to move away if any part of that calculation changes it's definitely a great deal, but the more attachments you have in life, the worse the deal becomes arguably.
> Because people in the aforementioned circles can retire in their 30s, and spend the rest of their lives traveling the world, taking care of their family, and pursing their passions without worries. Is that somehow controversial?
I think you have an unrealistically rosy view of the average outcome here. I work in this field, and people "retiring in their 30s and traveling the world while providing for their family and pursuing their passions" is still an extreme outlier.
> Ok, so tell me, what are things people want?
Maybe I'm an outlier here too, but personally, I value long-term societal stability and safety quite highly, as I don't have many illusions about being able to buy my way out of certain kinds of problems caused by a large and increasing rift between people of various income levels.
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I don't think economists overall, even when generalizing, have a good track record. Too often hidden interests modify the core of their messages. Krugman for example has a poor record on predictions, not sure about the other ones. That said, this isn't all "gold" either in my opinion. Money is still tied to productivity. At least it works as long as people believe debts can be repaid. If they wouldn't, there would be…
I always find gold weird. It has value for exactly same reason any money has. People believe they can later trade it for something else. And main argument for proponents seem to be that it was always valuable so it should also be now and in future. And when market changes drastically(extra gold, or lot of removed supply). The value also swings a lot. Possibly even more than with other currencies. Some level of floati…
I think the answer is to tie it to lifespan.
How many years does it take for a family to purchase a home on the gold standard? 200? 350?
In our time, we have turned the dial so far that some families can purchase a home in five years.
So it becomes a question of expansion over time for real people - and nobody wants to live in a world where it takes 400 years to save for a house.
Perhaps, however, it should take more than five…