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REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS
A thread for Democrats Only
Sunday, August 5, 2018 7:14 AM
SECOND
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Sunday, August 5, 2018 5:52 PM
THG
Monday, August 6, 2018 6:21 AM
Monday, August 6, 2018 7:53 AM
6IXSTRINGJACK
Quote:Originally posted by THG: Trump says Don Jr. wanted dirt on Clinton from Russian lawyer Donald Trump acknowledged Sunday that his oldest son was trying to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton when he met a woman linked to the Kremlin in 2016 — an attempt to re-cast the Trump Tower meeting as an innocuous part of campaigning as the president gets energized about hitting the trail again this year. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/05/trump-donald-junior-clinton-russia-764357 T
Monday, August 6, 2018 7:58 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: For decades the right has tried to shout down any attempt to sand down some of the rough edges of capitalism, whether through health guarantees, income supports, or anything else, by yelling “socialism.” Sooner or later people were bound to say that if any attempt to make our system less harsh is socialism, well, they’re socialists. The truth is that there are hardly any people in the U.S. who want the government to seize the means of production, or even the economy’s commanding heights. What they want is social democracy – the kinds of basic guarantees of health care, protection against poverty, etc., that almost every other advanced country provides. The GOP is opposed. Denmark, where tax receipts are 46 percent of GDP compared with 26 percent in the U.S., is arguably the most social-democratic country in the world. According to conservative doctrine, the combination of high taxes and aid to “takers” must really destroy incentives both to create jobs and to take them in any case. So Denmark must suffer from mass unemployment, right? The GOP is wrong. Denmark runs a welfare state beyond the wildest dreams of U.S. progressives and still has a highly successful economy. More at www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/opinion/notes-on-a-butter-republic.html The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Monday, August 6, 2018 8:59 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: If I paid 46% of my income to taxes instead of what I currently do, I'd be homeless. I'll pay 15% for Social Security and Medicare (Yes, you absolutely do count the half the company pays for you). I'll pay 10% on roughly 4k income Federal tax, so about 3% more. 5% on almost every dime to the state. About 10% of my income will pay my property taxes, and since I'm looking at spending about 80% of what I make this year another 7.5% is going to sales taxes. Oh... silly me. I'm already going to be paying 40.5% of my income to taxes this year. And I make signifigantly less than the Federal Poverty level for a single person. Sucks to be me, huh? Do Right, Be Right. :)
Monday, August 6, 2018 9:18 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: If I paid 46% of my income to taxes instead of what I currently do, I'd be homeless. I'll pay 15% for Social Security and Medicare (Yes, you absolutely do count the half the company pays for you). I'll pay 10% on roughly 4k income Federal tax, so about 3% more. 5% on almost every dime to the state. About 10% of my income will pay my property taxes, and since I'm looking at spending about 80% of what I make this year another 7.5% is going to sales taxes. Oh... silly me. I'm already going to be paying 40.5% of my income to taxes this year. And I make signifigantly less than the Federal Poverty level for a single person. Sucks to be me, huh? Do Right, Be Right. :)There is poverty in Denmark, but far less than in America. Unless you learned to speak Danish, you would be poor there, too, 6ixStringJack. www.demos.org/blog/10/20/15/united-states-vs-denmark-17-charts The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Monday, August 6, 2018 10:45 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by THG: Trump says Don Jr. wanted dirt on Clinton from Russian lawyer Donald Trump acknowledged Sunday that his oldest son was trying to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton when he met a woman linked to the Kremlin in 2016 — an attempt to re-cast the Trump Tower meeting as an innocuous part of campaigning as the president gets energized about hitting the trail again this year. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/05/trump-donald-junior-clinton-russia-764357 T Isn't that story over a year old now? Do Right, Be Right. :)
Monday, August 6, 2018 3:27 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: And I make signifigantly less than the Federal Poverty level for a single person. Sucks to be me, huh? Do Right, Be Right. :)
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: I'm not poor. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Monday, August 6, 2018 6:14 PM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: And I make signifigantly less than the Federal Poverty level for a single person. Sucks to be me, huh? Do Right, Be Right. :)a second quote:Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: I'm not poor. Do Right, Be Right. :) You are confusing me, 6ixStringJack. You say "I'm not poor" and you also say "And I make signifigantly less than the Federal Poverty level for a single person. Sucks to be me, huh?" Maybe the word "signifigantly" with two g's (your spelling, not mine) means something different than the alternative word significantly with one g? 6ixStringJack, it might be time to decide if you are a member of the political party for poor people or the political party for rich people. Or are you in the political party of independent people? I don't know the name of that party. I don't think it exists. This is probably as good a place as any to say that the Democratic party is extremely different from the Republican party. I know it is to the advantage of Russia to claim both parties are equal failures, but I believe that is absolutely false. Russia wants indecision, gridlock or random chaos in American government. One party really is superior to the other. Decide one way or the other. And there is no third way. The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Monday, August 6, 2018 6:56 PM
Monday, August 6, 2018 6:58 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Both sides suck. Neither is superior to the other. I don't have to decide anything. And if you're going to play the Russian card and call all people who believe the truth that both sides suck Russians, I'm going to choose whatever side your not on every time. Think about that when Trump gets re-elected in 2020. There's a whole world of grey in the middle, Second. You need to stop looking at everything in only Black or White. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Quote:“I do hope we are wrong, but as scientists we have a responsibility to explore whether this is real. We need to know now. It’s so urgent. This is one of the most existential questions in science.”
Monday, August 6, 2018 9:01 PM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Did you see Avengers Infinity War?
Quote: We need Thanos to create two Earths. In one, the Democrats rule America. In the other, the Republicans. Then Thanos compares results and destroys one or the other Earth.
Monday, August 6, 2018 9:59 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: Did you see Avengers Infinity War? Nope. Not into Hollywood schlock, and I go out of my way not to support any of them. I'd say that's one of the reasons I'm not poor, but truth be told I could have watched it for quite a while on KODI for free and still I can't be bothered with it. Quote: We need Thanos to create two Earths. In one, the Democrats rule America. In the other, the Republicans. Then Thanos compares results and destroys one or the other Earth. Thanos won't take any of my calls. Maybe you 1%'ers might have better luck reaching him. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 6:28 AM
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 7:29 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: lol Do Right, Be Right. :)
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 7:35 AM
SIGNYM
I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.
Quote:You should laugh.
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 7:41 AM
Quote:So, you don't care that Trump is working as hard as he can to burn the Earth, with him operating under the assumption that CO2 can't possibly do what scientists suspect it can.
Quote:Do you care that Trump is also working to repeat the crash of 2008, which affected you? It was a great opportunity for me to buy stocks cheap, half price sale, but maybe it was bad for your job history, leaving years-long gaps in your employment.
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 7:56 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Quote:So, you don't care that Trump is working as hard as he can to burn the Earth, with him operating under the assumption that CO2 can't possibly do what scientists suspect it can. Of course I care. But there is life after Trump, who will only be on office 4 or 8 years, while this problem has been going on for over 50 years under Dems and Repubs alike.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 6:40 AM
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 8:58 AM
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 9:11 AM
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 9:59 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: I'm reading thru your link but fail to see how it is related to the comment by Romer. It's just sort of a picture of America, "before and after" but doesn't have anything specific about regulatory weakness in it. Did you possibly post the wrong link? If so, can you please post the correct link? "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 5:06 PM
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 6:48 PM
Quote:Originally posted by THG: Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations: Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-secretly-taped-white-house-conversations-report T
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:00 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by THG: Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations: Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-secretly-taped-white-house-conversations-report T
Quote: "May have", huh? Probably shouldn't report on it unless you know for a fact.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:57 PM
Quote:Originally posted by THG: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by THG: Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations: Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-secretly-taped-white-house-conversations-report T
Thursday, August 9, 2018 6:23 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Quote: Signym, you started with the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. I don't believe that is true. Well, then you're religious about your politics because (for you) it's a matter of belief and not fact. Quote: Politics is entertainment for the masses and Democrats are the equivalent of documentary makers, while Republicans make the equivalent of Hollywood's summer movies. Wrong. BOTH Dems and Repubs engage together in creating a Punch-and-Judy show for the masses. But while they're performing .... whatever it is that they're performing ... the oligarchs (the REAL persons in power) get to decide where manufacturing goes, what our tax rates will be, what monetary policy the central banks will follow and whether "austerity" will be visited on the populace, how much our pockets will be picked by TPTB, and where we will go to war. The Dems have not slowed down this process one jot.
Quote: Signym, you started with the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. I don't believe that is true.
Quote: Politics is entertainment for the masses and Democrats are the equivalent of documentary makers, while Republicans make the equivalent of Hollywood's summer movies.
Thursday, August 9, 2018 6:46 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by THG: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by THG: Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations: Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-secretly-taped-white-house-conversations-report T Quote: "May have", huh? Probably shouldn't report on it unless you know for a fact. Hey dummy. Read or follow the link. The Hill is the one who wrote the story. And since they are not a fake news outlet it's worth mentioning here. T
Thursday, August 9, 2018 11:03 AM
Quote: It didn't point the accusing finger at the GOP. The blame is placed vaguely on "government" in order to not offend Republican book purchasers.
Quote: ... the growth of income inequality, the polarization and paralysis of American democracy, the dominance of political money, or the recklessness that precipitated the financial crash of 2008–9 and the ensuing failure to hold anyone accountable.
Quote: BOTH Dems and Repubs engage together in creating a Punch-and-Judy show for the masses. But while they're performing .... whatever it is that they're performing ... the oligarchs (the REAL persons in power) get to decide where manufacturing goes, what our tax rates will be, what monetary policy the central banks will follow and whether "austerity" will be visited on the populace, how much our pockets will be picked by TPTB, and where we will go to war. The Dems have not slowed down this process one jot.
Quote: over 30,000 criminal referrals ... over 1,000 felony convictions in cases designated as “major” by the Department of Justice .... [with] a list of ... the 100 worst fraud schemes. They involved roughly 300 savings and loans and 600 individuals, and virtually all of those people were prosecuted. We had a 90 percent conviction rate, which is the greatest success against elite white-collar crime (in terms of prosecution) in history.
Quote: In response to the DOJ's excuse-making that these criminal cases are too hard to win, numerous experts - Senators, top Hill staffers, former DOJ prosecutors - emphasized the key point: Obama officials never even tried. ... Jeff Connaughton, wrote a book in 2011 - "The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins" - devoted to alerting the nation that the Obama DOJ refused even to try to find criminal culprits on Wall Street. In the book, this career-Democratic-aide-turned-whistleblower details how the levers of Washington power are used to shield and protect high-level Wall Street executives, many of whom have close ties to the leaders of both parties. ... In the documentary "Inside Job", the economist Nouriel Roubini, when asked why there have been no such investigations, replied: "Because then you'd find the culprits."
Friday, August 10, 2018 7:05 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: SECOND, with all due respect, I have to point out that . . . "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND America is an oligarchy
Friday, August 10, 2018 9:02 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: SECOND, with all due respect, I have to point out that . . . "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND America is an oligarchy You'll like this better since it blames Hillary and oligopolistic firms. "America is an oligarchy" - Signym: The Democrats first step is to tell a clear and accurate story of what has gone wrong in the country economically, something they utterly failed to do in 2016. With Barack Obama still president, Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, felt compelled to tell voters that they should feel good about the economic progress of the previous eight years, even though, as they knew, wages had barely budged. Into that vacuum stepped Donald Trump, who had a simpler story: Average Americans were suffering from long-term downward mobility because elites and Washington had abandoned them to the depredations of immigrants and China, and he would put things right. The particulars were wrong, and dishonest, but the overall portrait of generational decline hit home for much of the country. In 2019 and 2020, the burden of defending the status quo will be reversed. That will give Democrats an opportunity to finally take the lead on telling the story of the deeper trends that actually explain the past two decades of wage stagnation. The most important part of that story is the concentration of corporate power. With more and more industries controlled by fewer and fewer big firms, corporate managers face little pressure to raise wages, since many workers, especially in rural America, have nowhere else to go. Combine that with the continuing decline of unions, the erosion of the real value of the minimum wage, and the spread of employment contracts with anti-worker provisions—like mandatory arbitration and noncompete clauses—and you have an economy in which workers have little or no bargaining power. A growing chorus of economists now thinks that this phenomenon—more than trade, and certainly more than immigration—is the best explanation for why real wages aren’t rising even after nine years of economic expansion, near-record-low unemployment, and record corporate profits. But most Americans don’t know any of this, because their leaders haven’t bothered to tell them. They may have seen firsthand the number of potential employers in their hometown shrink because of corporate mergers, or they may have been turned down for a raise even though their company is making huge profits. They may have tried to expand their small business, only to be blocked by market barriers erected by larger corporations. But most folks perceive such setbacks as private tragedies. They don’t know that millions of fellow citizens are suffering them, too. Nor do they understand that their plight is not some inevitable result of “the market.” Rather, it is the consequence of choices made in Washington—especially the decision, beginning in the Reagan administration, to abandon tough antitrust enforcement and instead green-light wave after wave of corporate mergers and anticompetitive practices to the point where a handful of oligopolistic firms have enormous power not only over markets but also, through their lobbying and campaign cash, over the machinery of government itself. Finally, they don’t know that these conditions can be changed—that, in fact, the American economy produced broad-based prosperity for much of the twentieth century with strict rules that made markets more competitive. The advantage of centering policy debate around this narrative is that it’s both true and new. It counters the GOP’s scapegoating of immigrants and foreigners, and it allows Democrats to transcend their tired role as advocates of increased welfare spending. More at https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2018/winning-is-not-enough/ The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Quote:The Democrats first step is to tell a clear and accurate story of what has gone wrong in the country economically, something they utterly failed to do in 2016. With Barack Obama still president, Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, felt compelled to tell voters that they should feel good about the economic progress of the previous eight years, even though, as they knew, wages had barely budged.
Friday, August 10, 2018 10:07 AM
Quote:Into that vacuum stepped Donald Trump, who had a simpler story: Average Americans were suffering from long-term downward mobility because elites and Washington had abandoned them to the depredations of immigrants and China, and he would put things right. The particulars were wrong, and dishonest ...
Friday, August 10, 2018 11:17 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: So there are some general trends one can see, but one of the BIG ones was the permanent loss of manufacturing jobs beginning in late 2000, which began during a recession but never recovered after the recession was over ... a structural change, as opposed to a financial one. Any thoughts as to what happened in late 2001-early 2002, when manufacturing should have been recovering? "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND America is an oligarchy
Quote:Abstract The development of the US manufacturing sector over the last half-century displays two striking and somewhat contradictory features: 1) the growth of real output in the US manufacturing sector, measured by real value added, has equaled or exceeded that of total GDP, keeping the manufacturing share of the economy constant in price-adjusted terms; and 2) there is a long-standing decline in the share of total employment attributable to manufacturing. The persistence of these trends seems inconsistent with stories of a recent or sudden crisis in the US manufacturing sector. After all, as recently as 2010, the United States had the world's largest manufacturing sector measured by its valued-added, and while it has now been surpassed by China, the United States remains a very large manufacturer. On the other hand, there are some potential causes for concern. First, though manufacturing's output share of GDP has remained stable over 50 years, and manufacturing retains a reputation as a sector of rapid productivity improvements, this is largely due to the spectacular performance of one subsector of manufacturing: computers and electronics. Second, recently there has been a large drop in the absolute level of manufacturing employment that many find alarming. Third, the US manufacturing sector runs an enormous trade deficit, equaling $460 billion in 2012, which is also very concentrated in trade with Asia. Finally, we consider the future evolution of the manufacturing sector and its importance for the US economy. Many of the largest US corporations continue to shift their production facilities overseas. It is important to understand why the United States is not perceived to be an attractive base for their production.
Quote:Even though Edwards and Lawrence (2013) argue that trade does not explain the post-2000 drop in manufacturing employment, they do show that the trade deficit does have a large jobs component, and its elimination would raise manufacturing employment by about 25 percent. During the boom years, Americans were relatively indifferent to the consequences of large trade deficits, but in the future, the United States cannot afford ongoing trade deficits of 3 percent and more of its GDP. Because of the domination of manufacturing in tradables, much of any adjustment will have to be concentrated in that sector. We now turn to a discussion of the future of US manufacturing and policies that would assist in reducing manufacturing trade deficits.
Friday, August 10, 2018 1:23 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: I'm not sure if you artfully removed the things that Mr. Glastris says in his article that you know would get opposition here, or if you removed what you actually didn't agree with.
Friday, August 10, 2018 1:29 PM
Quote:Reducing the trade deficit to zero would increase manufacturing employment by, maybe, 25%. Since manufacturing employment is around 13 million, call it 4 million more jobs.
Quote: What that will cost in higher prices for the manufactured goods, the paper does not say, but all 333 million Americans will be paying to employ an extra 4 million.
Friday, August 10, 2018 3:07 PM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: Quote:Reducing the trade deficit to zero would increase manufacturing employment by, maybe, 25%. Since manufacturing employment is around 13 million, call it 4 million more jobs. A significant number of jobs! Quote: What that will cost in higher prices for the manufactured goods, the paper does not say, but all 333 million Americans will be paying to employ an extra 4 million. As opposed to paying unemployment and other government benefits. ----------- Pity would be no more, If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND America is an oligarchy
Quote:Real income loss = 0.5*tariff rate*reduction in imports This formula suggests only moderate costs even from a major trade war. Suppose that worldwide tariff were to rise to 40 percent, and world trade were to fall by 15 percent of world GDP, a 50% reduction. Even so, world real income would fall only 3 percent.
Friday, August 10, 2018 3:38 PM
1KIKI
Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.
Friday, August 10, 2018 3:54 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: "3% loss of real income" doesn't equal loss from total GDP. You're comparing apples to blue. If you want to calculated the cost of the extra jobs, I suggest you calculate 3% of total US income.
Friday, August 10, 2018 4:16 PM
Friday, August 10, 2018 4:18 PM
Quote: Paul Krugman warned to not get carried away with over-estimating the cost of a Trumpian trade war. He wasn't willing to risk his reputation by giving a dollar value. The closest he would go is a formula ...
Quote:But it's only $158,000 per job per year.
Friday, August 10, 2018 4:32 PM
Quote:Originally posted by 1kiki: If you can find where Krugman got his figures then you'll know what his '3% of real income' meant. And not to harp, but 'profits' aren't 'income' either. Though what businesses consider 'income' is subject to interpretation. "The real issue is what goes into that income number. ...About the best you can do is try to compare apples to apples — from one quarter to the next, or one company to another. But even that takes a bit of digging." nbcnews 'Income' for families and individuals is much easier to determine, since we have fewer categories for exclusion.
Quote:I’ve always ended up being really sorry when I let my political feelings override what my economic analysis says. And simple trade models, while they do say that trade wars are bad, don’t say that they’re catastrophic. To do this right, we should use one of those computable general equilibrium models I mentioned above. These suggest substantial but not huge losses – 2 or 3 percent of GDP. What I’d like to do is offer a bit of intuition about why those losses aren’t bigger, then explain why a trade war would nonetheless be highly disruptive. To do this, I’ll exploit a dirty little secret of trade theory: while ultimately stories about trade have to be general equilibrium, that is, they must make sure that you’ve kept track of all markets simultaneously, trade policy analysis using partial equilibrium – ordinary supply and demand – usually gets you more or less the right answer.
Quote:The U.S. currently exports about 12 percent of GDP. Not all of that is domestic value added, because some components are imported. But there’s still a lot of the economy, maybe 9 or 10 percent, engaged in production for foreign markets. And if we have the kind of trade war I’ve been envisaging, something like 70 percent of that part of the economy – say, 9 or 10 million workers – will have to start doing something else. And there would be a multiplier effect on many communities now built around export industries, which would lose service jobs too. . . . O.K., there’s no certainty that any of this will happen. In fact, I still find it hard to believe that we’re really going to go down this path. But I also don’t have any plausible stories about what’s going to make Trump stop, or induce other big players to give in to his demands.
Saturday, August 11, 2018 7:19 AM
Saturday, August 11, 2018 8:26 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: At some point, however, the party comes to an end. It doesn’t matter much what causes a “sudden stop” in foreign lending: it could be domestic events, like appointing your son-in-law to oversee economic policy
Saturday, August 11, 2018 9:23 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: At some point, however, the party comes to an end. It doesn’t matter much what causes a “sudden stop” in foreign lending: it could be domestic events, like appointing your son-in-law to oversee economic policy Yep. That or quantitative easing. Doesn't matter which. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Saturday, August 11, 2018 10:08 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: It’s a good thing America's foreign debts are in domestic dollars, not foreign currency. Here’s the script: start with a country that, for whatever reason, became a favorite of foreign lenders, and experienced a large inflow of foreign capital over a number of years. Crucially, the debt thus incurred is denominated in foreign currency, not domestic (which is why the U.S., also a recipient of large inflows in the past, isn’t similarly vulnerable – we borrow in dollars.) At some point, however, the party comes to an end. It doesn’t matter much what causes a “sudden stop” in foreign lending: it could be domestic events, like appointing your son-in-law to oversee economic policy, it could be a rise in U.S. interest rates, it could be a crisis in another country investors see as being similar to you. Whatever the shock, the crucial thing is that foreign debt has made your economy vulnerable to a death spiral. Loss of confidence causes your currency to drop; this makes it harder to repay debts in foreign currency; this hurts the real economy and further reduces confidence, leading to a further decline in your currency; and so on in The Loop of Doom.
Quote:The U.S. dollar is the most common currency for international reserves, for good reason. First, because of the size of our economy, there are plenty of dollar-denominated securities available. The market for United States Treasury securities is liquid and deep. “Liquid” means that the securities can be sold quickly. “Deep” means that a substantial amount can be bought or sold without affecting the price too much. These are desirable features of a foreign reserve currency. If Ruritania were to hold an obscure currency, such as the the Pa’anga of the Kingdom of Tonga, it might not find willing buyers on short notice. Even if it did, there is no way that Ruritania could quickly sell billions of Pa’anga without pushing the foreign exchange rate disastrously low. Thus Ruritania needs to own currencies of large countries, which are traded in large amounts on a daily basis. The dollar fits the need pretty well. The Euro plays second fiddle, with Japanese Yen and British pounds sterling just barely in the band. A number of other currencies are used in small amounts. An additional requirement for a good reserve currency is that assets denominated in that currency are unlikely to lose value to a great extent. Here’s the tricky point. If defaults or credit downgrades were widely expected to reduce the price of U.S. Treasury securities, then other countries would prefer to hold their reserves in some other asset.
Saturday, August 11, 2018 2:33 PM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: Quote:Originally posted by second: At some point, however, the party comes to an end. It doesn’t matter much what causes a “sudden stop” in foreign lending: it could be domestic events, like appointing your son-in-law to oversee economic policy Yep. That or quantitative easing. Doesn't matter which. Do Right, Be Right. :)6ixStringJack, policy recommendations for future crises ought to flow from our best analytical shot, not from ideological preconceptions. But who among Trump voters/defenders can really do actual economic analysis rather than lazily depend on their own GOP approved brand of highly imaginative preconceptions? The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Sunday, August 12, 2018 5:51 AM
Quote:Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK: And who among Democrats could do the same? You should probably notice a pattern here, Second. I rarely disagree with your take on the GOP. My only issue with you is that you're foolish enough to believe the Democrats are somehow any better. Do Right, Be Right. :)
Sunday, August 12, 2018 5:57 AM
Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2013/10/25/future-of-the-dollar-as-world-reserve-currency/#76a78362e065 The ONE THING that has propelled the dollar into reserve status is the USD as the PETRODOLLAR. Since 1973 until recently, oil sellers have universally agreed to accept only US dollars for oil; thus, you could ALWAYS get something of value for the dollar, even if it wasn't from the USA directly! However, China is working mightily hard to replace the petrodollar with the gold-backed petroyuan, at least for its own oil purchases, and since China is the largest oil importer it has considerable say in what happens in the oil market. Well, I have to stop this on-the-fly research and analysis for now. There still needs to be an accounting of the derivatives market and the BIS. "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND America is an oligarchy
Sunday, August 12, 2018 6:39 AM
Quote:Originally posted by second: Quote:Originally posted by SIGNYM: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2013/10/25/future-of-the-dollar-as-world-reserve-currency/#76a78362e065 The ONE THING that has propelled the dollar into reserve status is the USD as the PETRODOLLAR. Since 1973 until recently, oil sellers have universally agreed to accept only US dollars for oil; thus, you could ALWAYS get something of value for the dollar, even if it wasn't from the USA directly! However, China is working mightily hard to replace the petrodollar with the gold-backed petroyuan, at least for its own oil purchases, and since China is the largest oil importer it has considerable say in what happens in the oil market. Well, I have to stop this on-the-fly research and analysis for now. There still needs to be an accounting of the derivatives market and the BIS. "The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND America is an oligarchy I am from Texas and we ain't taking any petroyuan for our natural gas or crude. China will pay in U.S. dollars or else we are not selling to them. Obviously the day will come when Texas reservoirs run dry, but until then no petroyuan, only dollars. The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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