Random Guy

I'm actually a bit disappointed our discussion digressed into name calming, as it so frequently does. Anyway, feel free to carry on the discussion. Edit: for torque.

What would you prefer?

This is not a particularly good technique for spreading information that supports your argument. I'm happy to read opposing points of view. When you've identified which pieces best apply to your argument, let me know so I can read them. The intersection of economics and war is an underdeveloped space. War and violence finds its source in economic systems and phenomenon. No need to be coy with useful data if you have it. Share it.

As the Fed raises rates and begins to reduce the size of its balance sheet (sell assets it purchased, also referred to as 'Quantitative Tightening'), the total value of its assets will be less than its liabilities. In other words, the Federal Reserve will be insolvent. To offset this imbalance, it will begin to record a 'deferred asset', which will reflect the total value of the losses it records over time. Essentially, the Fed is recording its losses as an asset. Another way to think about this is the instruments on the Fed ledger themselves. The Fed purchased many US Treasuries during the COVID crisis, which pay a low rate of interest (~0%). The Fed itself must pay a rate on interest on its liabilities held by banks (Interest on reserves ~2%). As the Fed raises the rate it pays on reserve deposits, the income from its US Treasuries becomes less than the amount of new Reserve Deposits it creates for banks that hold existing reserve deposits. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/an-analysis-of-the-interest-rate-risk-of-the-federal-reserves-balance-sheet-part-2-20220715.htm

Which paper, preferably a specific paper? If you would like others to read and learn about a specific topic as it relates to an argument, it is best practice to provide a citation. For example, if I want you to learn about financial instability, I wouldn't say 'read Minky', as Minsky has a great deal of writing and that provides no useful starting point for you to learn those key concepts. Put in just a little bit more effort, please.

The EU does actually have 'technically' stricter abortion laws than nearly all US states. The comparison isn't 1:1, because there are situations where in the EU an abortion will be performed but in some US states it would not be performed. Again, Congress can at any time pass laws that people want, whether its about harassment or abortion. If people in the US want particular abortion laws, write and pass those laws. For the sake of argument, I voted for Trump. Given that context, why do you consider me a 'Leftist'? And, what is a 'Leftist', in your opinion? Honest questions. Again, I'm not a lawyer. Law folks can offer their professional opinions. But this is fair counter argument of sorts, because clearly words are not violence. If its not violence, not sexual harassment, not intimidation, not expressing political opinion or political speech, what is it? And do we want this type of discourse in our society? Is it helpful? Which work by Paul Collier, can you share a link? Again, if you are unwilling to enter into 'violence' territory, but you skirt along the edge of it, then you clearly are still in a 'discourse' phase, and the economic repercussions of violence outweigh the status quo. Northern Ireland may be a good case study here. I don't consider the 'your wife' as an emotional appeal. But, let's replace 'your wife' with 'any woman', or for that matter, 'anyone', or 'yourself'. If you are the subject of his statements, do you think to yourself 'Alex is expressing his political beliefs' and I ask you: what are the political beliefs he's expressing? Edit: condensed.

I'm an American, former pilot, live in Europe at the moment. Remember that ALL parties in the US are liberal. I get that you mean 'Democrats' when you use the word 'liberal' though. The logical check of 'your wife' is not an appeal to emotion, it is a check of the original premise that his statement's were political. If we change the political_affiliation variable and hold the sex variable constant, we can check to see how his statements relate to the recipient. This does not qualify as a 'whataboutism'. I think in this context you are misinterpreting my usage of the term 'violence'. 'Alex' has a political objective, and his actions qualify as sexual intimidation (my position). He hopes to achieve a political objective through sexual intimidation, which is a lesser form of violence. Discourse has clearly failed, 'Alex' is operating on the border of US law and is tentatively entering the realm of violence. Right? Why is he so tentatively entering the realm of violence? Edit: condensed.

Gotcha, mistook your post for BO sarcasm. Seems like a valid point. So, to sum up: if you are going to do it, do it properly. That means discourse should be educated and civil. And when discourse fails, violence should be well targeted against the appropriate political institutions. No fussing about with "Your my favorite big-booty latina!!" bullsh***.

Me right now: Which gives: 🤷‍♂️

These forms of violence, and the harassment we see in the video, have economic origins. Liberal economic systems are unstable, and when they break down, this is expressed very violently. This break down is inevitable. The fact that 'Alex', if that's his name, didn't assassinate the political figure in the video implies we still have a ways to go in terms of the economic system's cycle duration. Here's an example of how that behaviour we see if the video is treated in the UK: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/taking-action-about-discrimination/taking-action-about-harassment/ And in Germany: https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/SharedDocs/downloads/EN/publikationen/agg_wegweiser_engl_guide_to_the_general_equal_treatment_act.pdf?__blob=publicationFile UK Deutschland In Europe, 'Alex' would have been arrested for sexual harassment of a public official.

Are you a lawyer, because I am not. If you are, how is harassment treated at law currently in the US (DC) area? As a citizen I can say that if his behavior does not constitute harassment which affords legal consequences, I support Congress passing laws which would provide that outcome. Certainly I think replacing the political figure he's speaking to with our wives we can agree nothing he said is related to our wives' politics in any way, but rather is purely sexual in nature. Edit: I suppose as a society we should simply demand better discourse. We can communicate better than this, can we not? And if you pass beyond discourse to violence, then take up proper violence. But shouting sexually at someone as a form of soft-intimidation is an unnecessary middle ground we shouldn't dwell in. Talk properly or fight I say.

Well, in the context of my statement about sexual harassment, if the woman in the face of the [police] official was saying: "Look at his sexy booty, look at that fat booty. Your my favorite big-ass Latino." It would 1) yes, still be considered sexual harassment, and 2) the non-symmetric dynamic between men and women might lead the male officer to 'not really care about it'. He didn't go to her home, he went to her work, and sexually harassed her at work. Meanwhile, calling someone dumb (incompetent) is surely valid political discourse of a very low level. An official pursuing poor policy due to incompetence, for example. Right?

I remember them firing them off at Kandyland as well. Always made me wonder what we were actually shooting at. Probably the producer's EBITDA margin.

I guess we have to ask ourselves if there is a difference between a protest and sexual harassment? And if sexual harassment, construed as protest, is protected under the first amendment, what other types of behaviour can protesters engage in, along the lines of that video? Because it seemed like he wasn't actually protesting anything in particular? Or was the clip I saw too short, and his political argument was made earlier in the video? -------------- EDIT: To put it another way, if someone did that to your wife, for example, would you think that person was protesting your wife's politics?

People can express counterfactuals and develop contrarian takes. Its ok to discuss what could be, or what might be, or state some assumptions and develop an argument based on those assumptions. Russia's tactics make alot more sense given a narrative of 'self-defense', compared to 'imperial intent'. Why leave the power on? Why ignore leadership targets? Why let the oil flow? It all seems very odd. Imagine going into Iraq without striking any critical targets ahead of time. Zelensky is within striking distance, broadcasting from known locations, but they don't strike. Doesn't make much sense.

Video arguing the US provocated the conflict in Ukraine by pushing NATO membership. Not familiar with the author.

Well, it's a matter of if they have sufficient power to impose that condition on the population, not whether it's is desirable or not from the population's perspective. They will likely have sufficient power to successfully implement it, as the neoliberals hold the majority in both parties.

I'm hesitant to go there but... let's tie these threads together (abortion, demographics) in the spirit of that guy's wacky briefing. Sometimes, when you talk with family offices or HNWI in New York, you will hear discussion of demographics and a need to increase the total number of balance sheets (people) who can take on debt, as that debt is required to sustain asset prices and consume real output produced. One of the subjects that has been talked about over the past 5-8 years is banning abortion & birth control. [economic] Liberals, aka Neoliberals, in both parties, are fearful of a world of negative population growth rates, as it can unwind asset prices and reduce relative power of asset holders (empty houses aren't worth anything, and, having spent 40 years moving households from gov retirement guarantees to private investment retirement plans which siphon management fees, households are reliant upon asset prices not falling to sustain consumption in old age). We need to 'recreate birth rates currently seen in Africa, which means reducing access to birth control and abortion', paraphrasing. This means an increase to population would occur in tandem with decreasing wages, that is, an overall increase in total output and productivity but a decrease in quality of life for all households (more children, more work, but less income, as household negotiation power is crippled by Fed wage inflation targeting +asset price backstops, and active gov support for anti-union and pro-monopoly policies). In such a world (!), as an asset holder, you want your local protectors of your accumulated private property (police) to be very well armed (ex: MRAPs).

Using the CDC, the total deaths for 2020 was 3.358M vs 3.605M briths, correct? A difference of about 250k excluding net migration (0.07% pop increase)? So, with net migration (~500k) total pop increase of about 750k? https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

Where are you getting your data from? Doesn't the latest US Census data show the 2020 - 2021 total population change at ~400k? https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-total.html And the projection dataset is from 2017, is that correct?

(Just FYI, and apologies for spamming this thread). The Fed has released a paper last week (linked above), which asserts that mainstream economics theories of inflation are incorrect, and that the competing heterodox theories of inflation are correct. The Fed just shot Milton Freidman's Monetarism in the face with a shotgun.

Here is a Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) founder's response to the Fed paper release, for folks interested in how political monetary economy fights affect gov policy over the long term: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=49871

ICYMI: The Federal Reserve has released a paper taking a heterodox econ position which refutes the argument made by Monetarists (Freidman) about inflation. Inflation is not always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Note that the source of this argument is classical Marxism, which is one of the foundations of heterodox econ (power & class based analysis). https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2022028pap.pdf

Note that all currencies are digital (USD, EUR, etc), I'm assuming you are asking about crypto. In Mainstream econ, money is a numeraire, which means that it's not a commodity like gold or corn, but rather a token with no consumption or investment use, that is agreed upon as an instrument for conducting all exchange and is fixed in supply (generally by the gov). Folks in the crypto space tried to create the numeraire (a ledger where a token for exchange can exist and bank or gov money is peripheral, rather than the other way around). Except that BTC, for example, has a real input requirement in order to exist (energy). If crypto had no input requirement, it simply existed like a phantom, then it would have the properties of a numeraire. There are lots of interesting perspectives on crypto, many conflicting one another, which makes it a very large topic. One of the best places to start on the topic would be Desan, because coinage and crypto are similar in that the quantities are [generally] fixed, and we have thousands of years of data on coinage economic systems. Crypto addresses many of the problems identified with coinage: [nearly] infinite divisibility, no loss through wear, and it cannot be diluted [recoined], these are common examples of issues people bring up related to coinage. Because metal content in coinage in early UK was usually fixed compared to the continent, as the crown made explicit their support for creditors (owners of real wealth and holders of coin). The population generally never owned any coinage and it was not used in exchange where the price of goods and services required breaking the coins into pieces so small that they were easy to lose or be destroyed quickly through use. Typically instead of using coinage, simple IOUs were arranged within local communities, based in the unit of account (coinage). Coinage was used mostly for conducting large trade, often long distance trade. Given a growing population, the purchasing power of a fixed stock of coinage had a tendency to rise, which led to hoarding and outflows from Britain toward the continent, where it was regularly recoined and diluted by reducing the amount of metal per coin in order to create more coins for circulation at a value specified by the state. If the value of the metal in the coins was worth more somewhere else due to a redenomination (dilution), people would melt coins down for the metal and take it there, leaving the domestic population without any coinage for settling IOUs or paying taxes. This lead to compeitive redonominations between states who needed coinage to make payments related to war. When the quantity of coinage in the UK economy fell, it reduced economic activity and the outcome was a great deal of innovation in finance in Britain between the crown and creditors facing shortages of metal and war demands, such as gov borrowing, tally sticks, and later bank notes. The holders of coin in Medieval Britain successfully fought against dilution in order to maintain their own power to command real resources. The crown had an opposite interest in ensuring the real resources it wanted or needed could be acquired. When the value of coin was too high, the crown would benefit by ordering that only newly minted money was valid and require all old coins be brought to the mint for recoining (making them 'current'). By creating more coins (reducing weight or adding other metal) than what was brought to them, the crown could create tokens for themselves for making payments. The gov did not have to source the metal, as coining was a monopoly of the crown, people dug it up or collected coins and brought it to the mint. At play here is a dynamic between a state, which needs things and is the sole issuer of money, and holders of those coins, who do not have legal authority to command resources like the crown does, instead they use the money issued by the state. Diluting and issuing coinage was a source of income for the crown (seigniorage) and a means to correct imbalances between the need for coin to conduct exchange, a growing population, prices, and a fixed supply of metal. If crypto is adopted, like any foreign currency outside control of the state, it means that state no longer has to power to fund itself through money issuance, and in many respects can be summarized as a removal of state sovereignty: the capacity of the state to govern is reduced. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) fall into two broad categories: Account-based and Hardware-based tokens. If a CBDC is created in the form of accounts, this means you and I have access to reserve deposits on the Fed ledger, either directly, or via some private provider who organize the interface to the central bank's ledger. This means you can hold cash in an online account at the Fed. Digital cash. A Hardware-based token CBDC is essentially cash on a hardware wallet. You load it just like you put cash in your wallet, and those tokens are Fed liabilities, just like cash. Hardware-based tokens are anonymous, like cash. Account-based CBDCs are just like online banking with the Fed. If cash is eliminated then the Fed can push rates negative, and you can't remove your money from the bank, as cash no longer exists. The idea is that by pushing rates negative, and taking money our of your account every day, it compels people to spend their money. Which is false. The desire to save increases as rates become more negative, such as in Germany.

Edit after finishing the video: The logic of his argument is remarkably empty from a production standpoint: China & Germany (current sources of most global production) don't need current levels of energy if their export market disappears, their factories and machines will be turned off. Meanwhile the US (current destination for most exports) will be heavily reliant on imports to 1) survive in the short term and 2) to onshore productive capacity and build a domestic industrial base for the long term. The US needs those imports (think 'we have no PPE!' during the initial shutdowns). If global trade stops... surplus states are in bargaining positions because their industrial capacity already exists. This was the position of the US following WW2, and its surplus position was the source of bargaining power that led to Bretton Woods in the first place (not of gold or financial claims on others, but of real resources and output capacity). A massive increase in unemployment from a collapse in export markets can be managed by surplus states, they produce everything they need in real terms to sustain their non-working population (they are not reliant on imports). It's largely naive to think that the US's dependence upon imports does not place it in a very vulnerable position, but he doesn't mention this once in the briefing. The biggest benefactor of global trade is the US, which can exchange a currency it creates for real goods & services. But, his presentation is oriented in a way that makes it sound like it's actually the rest of the world that are the biggest benefactors of globalisation, which is false. I would argue he certainly got it right, that the US is in the position to use or withhold its military to extract exports it needs from the rest of the world because some of its military capability is not reliant on imports and it has abundant energy to fuel itself, but that makes us the bad guy from the perspective of the rest of the world. I can't tress this point enough, in the context of this briefing, given how he's arguing that a US with ample energy and no industrial capacity will be in a secure position [because they can use their military & energy to guarantee access to commodities elsewhere in the world]. This secord part in [brackets] that is the unspoken core premise of his briefing's argument is almost a literal restatement of British imperial ideology.