The Demoralization is just Beginning • Hacker News Board

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#671

Post by gizmo » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

berkanunal wrote: post #641

gizmo wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [media posts] reinforce the "negatively abbreviated representation" and fuels an atmosphere of fear and rejection. In explaining the verdict, Halbfas also made it clear: "Those who attack human dignity cannot invoke freedom of speech." She was found guilty of reinforcing negative stereotypes and by doing so she "violated the human dignity of a distinct group of Afghan refugees". Where is the line between having ant…

> Dragging somebody through the courts and fining them heavily for a simple social media post is pretty extreme Simple cute social media post where she equates afghan refugees to gang rapists. > Which opinions will get you a visit from the cops and a stern talking to? Racist ones that leads to violence. Argument started from "going to jail in europe for posting memes" to "posting statistics" to blatant racist xenopho…

Free speech must include unpopular and even grotesque speech. That's not moving the goal post that's the entire point.

It's no coincidence that the laws used to punish people for speech are exceptionally vague. There is no clearly defined benchmark of harm. In fact harm does not need to be demonstrated at all. Simply asserting without evidence that a blog "leads to violence" is sufficient for those who don't believe in free speech.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#672

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #273

dbtc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, so to extend the metaphor - in the game of soccer it's the scoring of goals that matters, not the raw physical stamina of the player, but if that facade of civilized competition breaks down, then it's back to the basics.

Right. This facade is what makes soccer a sport instead of a brawl . In sports, and in life in general, there's all sorts of extra rules that make activities interesting and/or prevent them from decaying into violence. Playing for keeps - like, really, seriously, going for the win no matter what, is universally frowned upon and basically a telltale sign of dangerously pathological sociopathy.

[deleted]

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#673

Post by lxgr » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

fuzzfactor wrote: post #668

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…

>a gold standard will limit the money supply. I think there's some truth to this. And if you're willing to accept it for what it is, ask yourself about your own supply of money, what it is and where it comes from. What are the current limitations if not gold any more? And it hasn't been gold in quite some time, not just theoretically for a while. How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since? Is there a…

> What are the current limitations if not gold any more?

Inflation on one side, employment rates on the other. It's literally in most central banks' headline policy goals.

> How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since?

Pretty well, seeing how it's largely coincided with unprecedented growth in living standards and helped us avoid what could have been a repeat of the 1930s due to Covid's impact on economies, among other things.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#674

Post by desumeku » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #667

desumeku wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one who understands modern economics wants to bring back the gold standard Except, of course, Miseans.

The Ludwig von Mises & Rockwell Miseans ? They want to bring back a whole lot of other bad ideas too [0]. Hence the red flag. [0] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/neo-confederates...

Did you seriously just try and conflate austrian economics with racism?

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#675

Post by tdullien » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

ryandamm wrote: post #644

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that sort of thing is predictably wrong. It's premised on the combination of low interest rates and a lack of inflation, even though low interest rates generally cause inflation. As soon as you get inflation, keeping interest rates low would make it worse, but raising them explodes the interest rate on the debt. And your other alternative to paying the high interest is to print the money to pay the debt, which al…

I think you’re confusing correlation for causation. I trust a Nobel Prize winner has thought through it more deeply and integrated the causes and effects more than most random internet commentators. I am happy to report that “low interest rates” do not cause inflation by themselves on any scale less than a decade. Source: 1995-2021. What actually causes inflation is more a function of overall demand and supply in an…

This is an important point, and thanks for pointing that out in this discussion.

The reason why raising interest rates breaks inflation is usually because it chokes off economic activity to a point where labor ceases to have bargaining ability to ask for higher wages, which then chokes demand, which then helps bring supply and demand back into equilibrium and breaks the inflationary spiral.

It's a mechanism that is quite clear, but also rarely discussed in polite company, because "breaking the bargaining power of labor by intentionally choking economic activity to create enough unemployment" is, when spelled out, prone to creating pretty emotional reactions.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#676

Post by jrflowers » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

ryandamm wrote: post #644

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that sort of thing is predictably wrong. It's premised on the combination of low interest rates and a lack of inflation, even though low interest rates generally cause inflation. As soon as you get inflation, keeping interest rates low would make it worse, but raising them explodes the interest rate on the debt. And your other alternative to paying the high interest is to print the money to pay the debt, which al…

I think you’re confusing correlation for causation. I trust a Nobel Prize winner has thought through it more deeply and integrated the causes and effects more than most random internet commentators. I am happy to report that “low interest rates” do not cause inflation by themselves on any scale less than a decade. Source: 1995-2021. What actually causes inflation is more a function of overall demand and supply in an…

I don’t think you are going to convince people to start liking or agreeing with Paul Krugman with your posts. People criticize him because they have read his stuff. The dude has been a very public figure for a very long time.

At some point “Actually he is good and strong and smart and he is my friend” posts start sounding more like a fandom argument than anything actually salient to a discussion about any particular economic subject.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#677

Post by sp527 » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

Somebody please explain Dunning-Kruger to Hotz. The secondhand embarrassment reading this is nearly unbearable.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#678

Post by lxgr » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

thrwwy001 wrote: post #616

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…

> This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome. 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…

> what incentive is there for financial discipline?

Getting reelected because you managed to not tank the currency and economy.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#679

Post by lxgr » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

desumeku wrote: post #634

citadel_melon wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me letting you know that Keynesian economics solved deflation, making it less difficult to get out of market contractions (Note, the comment you refer to specified specifically deflation to be an issue, and did not claim that it solved bubbles and poppings completely nor reduced their frequency). The last time the US had faced significant deflation has been 100 years ago. We used to face deflation much more f…

> Inflation sucks but deflation is a death spiral. Do you actually have any evidence for this? Considering that we haven't experienced deflation in nearly 100 years, and all. The USA certainly wasn't "death spiraling" before we went off the gold standard, quite the contrary. But now it seems we are.

Because the kind of USD used in global trade (Eurodollars) has been decoupled from the Fed and its gold standard for a while before Bretton-Woods was abandoned through various mechanisms.

Re: The Demoralization is just Beginning

#680

Post by sangnoir » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

fuzzfactor wrote: post #668

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…

>a gold standard will limit the money supply. I think there's some truth to this. And if you're willing to accept it for what it is, ask yourself about your own supply of money, what it is and where it comes from. What are the current limitations if not gold any more? And it hasn't been gold in quite some time, not just theoretically for a while. How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since? Is there a…

> How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since?

It works very well when your currency is the world's reserve currency. You get way more latitude for printing money with much lower inflation vs some isolated economy win no deep reservoirs of unused currency in "reserves".

If the US loses the status of being the dominant reserve currency, the link between money supply and inflation will become much stronger. The USD is currently backed by the US hegemony , of which foreign policy is a big part of.