nopie
4hr ago
My view is slightly different. Sometimes debt is good, you would buy a house on mortgage, for example. But the current debt is purely for buying trinkets, not good. The US is also a very strong economy, the best in the world. Some more debt is not going to bankrupt it. However, excess debt can reduce growth. The fact that the US was growing faster than other developed countries, is no reason to limit this potential. Therefore this debt should be eliminated as it would allow the US to grow even faster.
Now, Musk wants more growth. Everything depends on it. It is a long game he is playing, some moves might be wrong, but it all makes sense.
nopie
5hr ago
In all those cases I was totally on Musk's side. Lockdowns were terrible and now even Scott Alexander quotes studies that they didn't do anything, only destroyed economy even more and increased mental problems of people. This is where both democrats and republicans dropped the ball on science.
Elon deserved at least some recognition for EVs.
Elon's transkid? The UK banned puberty blockers for a reason. It turns out that most “transkids” stop being “trans” by reaching adulthood, but if they are given puberty blockers, then it is almost 100% guaranteed that they will continue this transpath. Not good outcome at all and only the most ideology obsessed people cannot see why this is a problem.
The only thing I don't like about Musk is his over promises, for example, selling self-driving cars (was promised to be ready in 2024)? Clearly a fantasy although the idea to develop them is good. Of course, sometimes I don't like his talk (calling some a pedo etc.). But that is not important in the great scheme of things.
nopie
15hr ago
Not true. There have been times when printing money was correct policy, for example, after big crises of 2008.
nopie
15hr ago
Inflate? It doesn't work mathematically. Sorry, you are not making any sense.
nopie
1d ago
You probably are better with numbers and can provide better estimates. Tyler Cowen has analytical blog post about this issue: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/06/claims-about-debt-and-productivity-growth.html
My understanding is that it is a time to become “fiscally responsible”, i.e., try to cut expenses. The current growth is not enough to stop interest payments to skyrocket.
nopie
1d ago
Yes. When I hear “fiscally responsible” on news I have no idea what it means. I just tried to offer a better phrasing that could resonate with people. If something wasn't clear, now I have provided interpretation above: https://www.themotte.org/post/2015/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/332917?context=8#context
To be sure, I was saying how I would act and it would be a similar tantrum like what Elon does. But I am no politician nor a successful man and I don't know if Elon's actions will be ultimately victorious or destructive. The later is more likely. But his track record shows the opposite. Obviously, we don't understand the world well enough to predict the outcome. But from what we know, the world has a potential of unlimited growth. We are in a different era now, the humanity in all of its history was static, with no growth or very little growth over centuries, but then something changed and rapid growth appeared. It started with the industrial revolution and the world has never been the same since.
Musk vs Trump is the new world vs the old one. The new world will win for sure but expect many battles.
What? You interpret what I said in the worst way. What about a different interpretation – the US reduces borrowing. The borrowing is only a small part of the budget which means that by small reduction, let's say 10%, you could even not only stop borrowing but also pay off some of the debt (the numbers are as example only), and in 5 or 10 years, the US has no debt at all or very insignificant one.
As apposed to in 20 years the US debt is 100% or 200% of the GDP and interest payments comprise 20% of the GDP.
nopie
1d ago
Not staged, it is real.
Obviously, many things said in anger now, can and will be taken back. Don't take them too seriously. But the fight is real.
nopie
1d ago
To me it seems that if you have to pay 10% on interest payments for the debt, you could easily reduce spending by 10% and not to pay this interest payment and be in the same situation. Obviously, that would cause short term pain but long term benefits.
I personally can easily spend 4-5 years at college and/or training and live frugally to get better job or whatever. Everybody can.
nopie
1d ago
I don't know why people are so upset. Trump was awful, Elon tried to use him for his purposes, it failed, so he is now against him. There is no point for Elon not to be against Trump now. It all seems totally normal to me, that's how I would act in his place.
nopie
1mo ago
"You should deal with COVID a certain way Or We'll All Die" has built-in life-or-death stakes,
The problem is that it is not true. Covid wasn't ”we'll all die”, it was just framed that way.
Thanks for this overview.
In Latvia melatonin is over the counter and people sometimes buy it but generally they find it ineffective. Benzos are commonly prescribed although recently the health authorities have started to push back. Still, when someone is hospitalized, the patient is almost always given alprazolam at night. My elderly mother doesn't like benzos and she has to instruct the hospital staff every time to not give any benzos to her. She tells that she has a paradoxical reaction to them that she becomes even more agitated. You would think that by now it would mentioned in her medical records but no, she still has to actively refuse them every time. I think doctors are completely irresponsible in this regard. There was a case of one famous elderly person dying from a fall while normally walking through the city. I am 100% that was due to benzos she was prescribed.
Quetiapine gets prescribed a lot for sleep but in cases when doctors suspect that anxiety or depression is the cause. In the UK it is much more restricted. Quetiapine on prescription indicates rather serious psychiatric problems or strong anxiety that is not resolved by usual antidepressants. Tricyclic antidepresants especially mirtazapine or amitriptyline get often prescribed as sleeping pills too especially when if pain keeps a person awake at night but can also prescribed just for sleep.
Interestingly that melatonin is prescription only in the UK. Most commonly it is prescribed to autistic children. I cannot believe that it works so well for them but carers seem desperate to get the prescription filled. I wonder if a placebo effect by proxy is involved. The UK guidelines are very strict that no medication is effective for autism, so all benzos, antipsychotics, even antidepressants are out of question unless one can prove respective co-morbidity indication.
The US had the Great Depression. I think post-Soviet dip was even deeper than that but clearly Americans have experienced something similar. It is just that people who experienced it are no longer alive, so you don't think that it was a big deal.
I really hope that Trump doesn't cause something similar to great depression. But you should listen to those who warn about that possibility and work hard to prevent it. It is a serious matter.
GDP by definition is an abstract measure of the country and not of an individual. It makes no sense to go back and say “hey, this one person is poor despite rising GDP”. Maybe some people are not able to see the big picture and will get stuck on individual examples?
Latvians suffered tremendously in the first years of the post-Soviet period. We never experienced famine, all the services were still working and everybody got basic healthcare and social needs covered. But income, or rather inflation made everyone very poor and limited of what we could buy. And the fact that goods finally were freely available in shops but no money to buy them probably was like psychological torture. Depression, alcoholism, suicides increased, life expectancy decreased.
Eventually the economy grew, people started earning more money, Latvia joined the EU which accelerated growth even more, some industries were restarted, yet many people emigrated to western countries for work because they wanted even higher income now instead of waiting 20-30 years until Latvia catches up with the west.
nopie
1mo ago
it sounds like an alien value
To be honest, it could be that some people have so different world view from others that it is indeed completely alien.
For me I cannot reconcile the idea that “societies didn't really need economic growth in the past”.
All societies wanted more, at all times. Obviously, some people are happy to be monks, live life in rejection of worldly pleasures and engage only in reading, talking about philosophy and commenting in online forums (he-he). I can understand them. But majority want more things, not less. It was never that they didn't need it, they simply couldn't have it.
nopie
1mo ago
Except the fentanyl trafficked to the United States comes from China and Mexico, not from Purdue Pharma. And I doubt it would reach our shores nearly as easily (particularly from China) without the free trade apparatus we've constructed.
Even without fentanyl they would still be addicts. Fentanyl is just a cheaper option which in a way made those addicts to commit less crime to obtain funds to finance their drug habit. The problem with the fentanyl is that it is so potent that it needs extreme care handling and diluting it. It is too easy to overdose which leads to more deaths. It is sad but most opioid addicts are for life. They could have received opioid replacement therapy from the government and lead somewhat functional lives.
This was clearly government's fault for not regulating opioids better initially.
And that is similarly true in the immediate post-Soviet-breakup aftermath: life expectancy dropped!
This proves again that economic growth is super important. Indeed, GDP dropped substantially in the shock after the breakup of the USSR. People didn't starve but they were very unhappy, alcoholism, depression, reduced healthcare etc. all contributed to shorter life expectancy.
Maybe this shock severely traumatized some people and that's why they still argue after 30 years that the Soviet system was better. Because it was so terrible experience in their lives, they are unable to see that eventually we recovered and greatly surpassed the Soviet baseline.
This was one of the reasons why I was so adamant against widespread lockdowns and closing of schools during covid. It traumatized children too much. In Latvia math results for children who missed this time at school are still considerably lower than to others. The whole generation will be less competitive in job market. Undeveloped social skills were already serious problem in some countries and all this made it even worse.
The economy suffered during covid but this time economists did the right thing by showering people with free money. It caused terrible inflation later on but they knew that effects of suffering from more poverty would cause even greater trauma similar to what people experienced after the breakup of the USSR. By their efforts it didn't happen and at least people were prevented from this trauma. Most people don't even realize that economists are the real heroes in the pandemic.
I think that both left and right makes the same mistake by not valuing economy enough.
Obviously, all people in the past depended on economy 100%. When it was on a subsistence level and they run out of game to hunt, they had to change to agriculture. When crops failed, a lot of people died from famine etc.
Only relatively recently in the history we have something more in our lives than just food to survive. But some of the values that ensure growth are not intuitive, for example, free trade. No wonder people have difficulty getting their heads around.
When Latvia got independence from the USSR, its nationalistic government didn't think clearly about economy, their idea was that we are finally free from the Soviet occupiers we should concentrate on agriculture and close all factories because they pollute. That shows this primeval thinking of economy only as a food source. In a way it is right, we would die without food. But they were unable to grasp the idea that economy is something bigger than that and people got very unhappy when they couldn't get stuff other than food. Food is to survive, what makes life worth living are other things that is not food.
This narrative that the US has not prospered since 1960s is wrong. I used to believe that wages have been stagnant but recent data by economists have proved me wrong. A lot of middle class have migrated to upper class. Even the low earners have seen their incomes grow.
Obviously there are some areas which have suffered like Detroit. It is government's failure to provide sufficient subsidies to them to reorganize their economy. In this sense it is true that some people have it worse due to free trade. But as a country in total it has prospered. These problems could be solved by transfers to those areas. The US needs to build much more infrastructure, for example.
People are very bad at estimating progress. I come from Latvia, which used to be part of the USSR. It was closed economy, better than third world countries due to socialistic programs to ensure education and industries but lagged behind the west. It was behind the “iron curtain” and had to produce everything themselves. I could clearly see that due to lack of competition and free market, the products were of low quality and shortages were everywhere. Even basic things like shoes or furniture were very hard to buy.
Since the dissolution of the USSR, the GDP of Latvia has grown about 10 times. That is very impressive growth and we all notice the difference. During Soviet times very few people had cars. Now practically everybody in my enlarged family have a car. During Soviet times it was very hard to travel even within country, hotels were rare and could be reserved only with special permission. Now every year we go on vacation to European countries, to Paris or London etc. Clearly things are much better even though Latvia is still one of the poorest EU countries. And yet, every time we have a discussion about the economy, there are people always complaining that economy is worse than during the Soviet times. Either they have a poor memory, or are very unlucky, or they are just people who maliciously or naively spread memes online similar to “hitler was actually good”. No amount of data will convince them, they will always find some contra-argument that GDP is a false measure, that data is false, that inequality makes it useless, that true measure is fertility which has fallen and so on and so on. And if that fails, they will quote some examples of poor or homeless people and will say that we had no homeless people during the Soviet times which is true but misses the point.
One specific example that opioid crisis in the US was caused by free trade is wrong. It was caused by Purdue Pharma, an American company, now defunct, that provided misinformation that their synthetic opioids don't cause addiction. Apparently regulators failed to act sooner before damage was done and a lot of people became addicts. The cause is definitely not access to fentanyl because that is the result.
nopie
1mo ago
We are totally dependent on global trade. The United States is not, no.
I work with medicines and the US despite being the most advanced in pharmaceutical industry, depend strongly on global trade for their drug supply. The industry is so global that it is not possible to be independent. I remember the situation some years ago when some European companies refused to supply thiopental used in capital punishment, the US had to rely on alternative methods to execute their death row prisoners. Even such a simple drug was not made in the US.
Not necessarily true - in this system there are losers as well as winners, at least proportionately.
The trade makes everyone better off. Maybe you can find an example of some third world country that was exploited for its resources and consider it to be a loser. That is slightly different situation from a voluntary trade. Exploitation could also be caused by bullying – sell us these resources otherwise I will make things bad for you. But discounting those examples, it benefits all. The economy is not zero sum game.
In any case, the US has benefitted the most from global trade. You could consider that, for example, Vietnam leaders are exploiting their workers to produce cheap things for Americans to buy. You could make a moral case about that. But the US is clearly a winner in this situation.
I don't think this is the consensus of economists. At a minimum there appear to be differing schools of thought on it.
This thing is pretty definite. During covid we had a lot of discussions about masks, if they are effective and so on. Cochrane review clearly showed we have no evidence that masks are effective which in other words means that in medicine we don't use them. We use only things that have evidence of effectiveness. You can sometimes use experimentally, but you cannot claim that they are effective. Mask mandates are out of question, just a recommendation for voluntary use.
Yet, a lot of governments and even medical professionals were adamant that masks definitely help. All these different opinions mean nothing. People just don't want to admit the best evidence that we have and follow their own beliefs.
I understand that I am not going to convince anyone. It is just that I haven't seen trustable evidence of the contrary. Economics are different from medicine therefore maybe I am wrong. I still would need to see good reason that would explain why trade deficits are the problem per se.
In such situation the US would indeed just print the money to save itself from bankruptcy causing immense inflation. It will cause worldwide financial crisis. It is possible that the GDP for many countries will fall by 50% or even more.
That will not be good neither for the US, nor the world peace. Possible some other countries will arise more arise more powerful, especially China, Russia or Iran. The countries who have learned to become more resilient due to constant sanctions.
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