Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[Random Guy]

2 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Ah yes, the AI chatbot with no actual point is back.

Those of us humans with a budget already have the answer.

Well, the point is everyone is worse off because firms have pricing power, and military wages are calculated based on the assumption that only wage increases cause inflation. 

But wages did not cause the inflation, so using the Employment Cost Index to set wage increases leaves military personnel worse off (just like all other workers). 

So, TLDR, owners increased their slice of the pie and took a bit of yours this time. Which is usually a dangerous move.

[Random Guy]

Here's your US print:

https://x.com/LizAnnSonders/status/1823338314277011467

 

Edited August 13, 2024 by Random Guy

[brabus]

1 hour ago, Random Guy said:

So, TLDR, owners increased their slice of the pie and took a bit of yours this time

Are you arguing business owners have increased their margins at the expense of employee pay, and that’s the root cause for non-owners feeling the significant financial squeeze over the last few years?

[Random Guy]

7 minutes ago, brabus said:

Are you arguing business owners have increased their margins at the expense of employee pay, and that’s the root cause for non-owners feeling the significant financial squeeze over the last few years?

The flow of money over any period of time accrues to either workers (as wages) or owners (as profits), once it's created by bankers and before it's destroyed by repaying the loans. This is a macro finance truism. Concepts like margins are micro, a practice for accountants. Accounting doesn't hold the same at different levels of aggregation and different time horizons. That's why Mehrling euphemistically refers to it as 'alchemy'. 

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states

[HeloDude]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

Are you arguing business owners have increased their margins at the expense of employee pay, and that’s the root cause for non-owners feeling the significant financial squeeze over the last few years?

He’s a leftist who is (in a fancy way) suggesting that inflation was due to “corporate greed” vs a massive increase of the money supply without an associated economic growth (ie too many dollars chasing the same/fewer good and resources).  

[brabus]

@HeloDude Agreed, just like to make them actually articulate their viewpoint, but as expected, it was dodged via a re-direct/non-answer. 

[Majestik Møøse]

The USG spent $6.13T in FY23. $69B of that went to Ukraine, sort of, because a significant portion went to our defense industry.

If you think our budget problems are due to giving munitions to Ukraine, maybe you’ve been listening to too many clowns.

[Random Guy]

Growth is a measure of spending, if the gov spends, growth increases by definition.

 

Edit: @HeloDude "GDP, the most popular way to measure economic growth, is calculated by adding up all of the money spent by consumers, businesses, and the government in a given period. The formula is: GDP = consumer spending + business investment + government spending + net exports."

I get that most Helo guys aren't sharp, but there's really no excuse here dude. You get this, right?

Edited August 14, 2024 by Random Guy

[Random Guy]

16 hours ago, brabus said:

@HeloDude Agreed, just like to make them actually articulate their viewpoint, but as expected, it was dodged via a re-direct/non-answer. 

How was my response a non-answer?

Profit share of income rose, margins for some firms increased, but all firms cannot increase margins simultaneously, holding wages constant and maintaining a solvent banking sector.

You understand why an aggregate margin calculation wouldn't give you the answer you're looking for?

 

[HeloDude]

1 hour ago, Majestik Møøse said:

The USG spent $6.13T in FY23. $69B of that went to Ukraine, sort of, because a significant portion went to our defense industry.

If you think our budget problems are due to giving munitions to Ukraine, maybe you’ve been listening to too many clowns.

If you don’t think that all of our unnecessary spending doesn’t add up, maybe you’d be been listening to too many clowns. 

[Random Guy]

1 minute ago, HeloDude said:

If you don’t think that all of our unnecessary spending doesn’t add up, maybe you’d be been listening to too many clowns. 

What proportion of that is in-kind transfers?

[Random Guy]

You can go through the data here: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

 

About 20B is reserve deposits to purchase USD goods or services. The rest is real. You get the difference between real and financial, yeah?

[Majestik Møøse]

The anti-Ukraine movement is Russian propaganda that MAGA has stupidly bitten off on because it’s a counter to a wildly successful venture by the current administration. For a pittance (<1% of our normal defense spending), we’ve enabled the Russian military to destroy itself by proving the overwhelming superiority of American weapons (very old ones, at that) in the hands of motivated locals. The effort has helped deter those who use FSU-derived weaponry while upending the idea that a modern Army can just steamroll a determined (and well-equipped) local populace at will. Taiwan would be wise to use the same posture to deter China.

Putin is a shithead sacrificing Russian youth to overcompensate for his insecurities. He is a tiny-dicked fuck that deserves a horrible death, which he will eventually get because the oligarchs would rather make money than see it dissolve in a war.

[HeloDude]

18 minutes ago, Majestik Møøse said:

The anti-Ukraine movement is Russian propaganda that MAGA has stupidly bitten off on because it’s a counter to a wildly successful venture by the current administration.

Dude, you’ve lost me if your position is that someone can’t be against giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine without believing/being part of some “Russian propaganda” nonsense.

[Day Man]

3 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine

this is where your position falls apart

[HeloDude]

7 minutes ago, Day Man said:

this is where your position falls apart

Afraid not…and it’s irrelevant if some of that money appropriated for Ukraine goes to our military industrial complex.  It only continues to add to our current $2 Trillion deficit.  You can think this helps our economy, but I very much disagree. 

[Random Guy]

8 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

Afraid not…and it’s irrelevant if some of that money appropriated for Ukraine goes to our military industrial complex.  It only continues to add to our current $2 Trillion deficit.  You can think this helps our economy, but I very much disagree. 

Why is the deficit (debt) bad?

[Day Man]

15 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

Afraid not…and it’s irrelevant if some of that money appropriated for Ukraine goes to our military industrial complex.  It only continues to add to our current $2 Trillion deficit.  You can think this helps our economy, but I very much disagree. 

- "giving hundreds of billions" (wrong)

"of dollars to Ukraine" (also wrong)

what are you missing here dude?

[Majestik Møøse]

1 hour ago, HeloDude said:

Dude, you’ve lost me if your position is that someone can’t be against giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine without believing/being part of some “Russian propaganda” nonsense.

Russian propaganda is directly influencing conservative media and indirectly influencing you if you think that specific 0.01% of the budget is the problem to focus on. Best ROR of any defense spending program ever. Because fuck Putin, that’s why.

[Random Guy]

21 hours ago, brabus said:

Are you arguing business owners have increased their margins at the expense of employee pay, and that’s the root cause for non-owners feeling the significant financial squeeze over the last few years?

 

[Lord Ratner]

3 hours ago, Random Guy said:

Growth is a measure of spending, if the gov spends, growth increases by definition.

 

Edit: @HeloDude "GDP, the most popular way to measure economic growth, is calculated by adding up all of the money spent by consumers, businesses, and the government in a given period. The formula is: GDP = consumer spending + business investment + government spending + net exports."

I get that most Helo guys aren't sharp, but there's really no excuse here dude. You get this, right?

Yes, but the problem is that the formula does not subtract out deficit spending. That's not growth, which is explicitly the change in the size of the population and the increase or decrease in the productive output of the individuals in the population.

 

Adjust the "G" component downward by the deficit amount and the growth goes bye bye. 

 

You demonstrate perfectly the uselessness of modern economics. A bunch of novel concepts are created and measured with painstaking precision, yet the underlying metric is irrelevant in any practical situation. 

 

OER is a perfect example. When the practical reality of home prices became inconvenient, the fantasy of Owners Equivalent Rent was created to keep the charade chugging along.

 

It's funny, if the debt was so sustainable, why is the Treasury so anxious to get interest rates back down? Why did Japan just eat shit over an aborted tiny hike in their interest rates? Why is their currency diving? 

And regardless of the distribution of GDP, even *with* the deficit spending, growth is drafted by debt expansion

[Random Guy]

30 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

Yes, but the problem is that the formula does not subtract out deficit spending. That's not growth, which is explicitly the change in the size of the population and the increase or decrease in the productive output of the individuals in the population.

All money is a liability on bank balance sheets (that means it debt). The source of money is bank loans, created to fund spending where current bank deposits are less than the planned spending amount (a deficit). If you apply your rule to subtract deficits (the loan) from spending (also the loan) the the result will always be zero.

 

30 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

You demonstrate perfectly the uselessness of modern economics. A bunch of novel concepts are created and measured with painstaking precision, yet the underlying metric is irrelevant in any practical situation. 

I didn't bring up growth--you did.

 

30 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

OER is a perfect example. When the practical reality of home prices became inconvenient, the fantasy of Owners Equivalent Rent was created to keep the charade chugging along.

When was I advocating for housing statistic X or Y? 

 

30 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

It's funny, if the debt was so sustainable, why is the Treasury so anxious to get interest rates back down? Why did Japan just eat shit over an aborted tiny hike in their interest rates? Why is their currency diving? 

Treasury is not anxious about rates. Where are you getting this?

What does Japan eats shit even mean? A .25% change to the floor rate in Japan hasn't led anyone to eat feces, lol. If folks levered in Yen to buy USG debt and that trade unwound that's not eating shit, it's pretty normal for one sided bets to unwind. 

 

30 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

And regardless of the distribution of GDP, even *with* the deficit spending, growth is drafted by debt expansion

Honestly not sure if you have any idea what you're talking about. Growth is a measure of spending, that's it. No one is counting actual output, because then someone would be recording all the unpaid labour.

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, Day Man said:

- "giving hundreds of billions" (wrong)

"of dollars to Ukraine" (also wrong)

what are you missing here dude?

$175 Billion…sorry, there you go.

https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine

 

[HeloDude]

2 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:

Russian propaganda is directly influencing conservative media and indirectly influencing you if you think that specific 0.01% of the budget is the problem to focus on. Best ROR of any defense spending program ever. Because fuck Putin, that’s why.

No, it’s really not.  I’m able to think for myself without having Putin influence me.  Your argument is the same as those saying someone was pro-Saddam Hussein if that person was against the invasion of Iraq.  I can be anti-Putin and also anti spending $175 Billion thus far on supporting Ukraine.  Nothing will ever get cut if the argument is “X is only tens of billions of dollars”.

[Majestik Møøse]

Thought experiment: If the cost of Ukraine assistance was a tenth of what it currently is but still as effective in pushing Russia’s shit in, would the same American commentators still be complaining? Of course they would, because it’s not really about the money, it’s about a combination of 1.) politically countering Democrat administration successes and 2.) actual sympathy towards Russian efforts.