domain:imgur.com
LateMechanic
22hr ago
The point of me saying this was that in that situation you should put more effort on justification.
Yep fair enough, my initial 2nd paragraph was kind of declaring things outside the point of the rest of it. That was trying to punch up what people might 'know' which I think are incontrovertible, without going into subjective policy implications.
None of this describes an actual problem with inflation. It says that inflation will automatically regulate away any excess borrowings. Why then not set taxes to 0, and just let the inflation run its course?
Having some amount of taxes is what gives the currency an initial anchor value. Those taxes being levied broadly and reoccurring every year is what makes the money universally accepted and used even in the private economy. The currency is an IOU where the only thing 'owed' upon redemption is tax relief. If you levy no taxes, then inflation definitely will regulate the value automatically to the desired savings amount of 0 (give or take some inertia).
Is there any reason this is unique to the government? Or is my deficit also literally the same thing as rest-of-the-economy surplus? Because if it is, then it seems noone else should have objections to me borrowing indefinitely, either - it just makes you better of!
The only thing unique to government is the ability to levy taxes (backed up by force). That's what allows them to indefinitely print up IOUs that promise to pay nothing but an abstract amount of value in a unit of measurement they make up, and people will still line up to earn those IOUs (working in the army or wherever).
The generalized logic is: "you will always value your creditor's own debt". Because you can cancel out the debts with each other. The government can decree that it's a universal creditor to everyone (everyone owes taxes, abstract amounts of value payable in nothing). Thus enabling it to actually simultaneously be a universal debtor to everyone (issuing IOUs far exceeding the tax liabilities, if people are willing to save some for a rainy day).
You can write any number of IOUs that say "I owe the bearer of this note 1 apple", and use that new money to pay for things. Maybe only people in your neighborhood will accept it (also helps if they know you have an apple tree in your yard, and that there aren't too many outstanding notes to enable a run on your apples). If you write "I owe the bearer of this note $1", then some people (particularly banks) may accept it as valuable if they trust your creditworthiness. Your deficit is indeed definitely everyone else's surplus, if splitting the economy into those 2 sectors is useful to any analysis. So we (in the non-Lykurg sector of the economy) do benefit. The only problem is you run out of creditworthiness before we get very stimulated.
Why would they not want more? You demand that I explain why we would ever want non-government surplus to be less, but now you just assert that it will be the case.
Well, would you be happy holding millions/billions in checking/saving/bond accounts, or would you be tempted at some point to start buying stocks, yachts, and islands instead? It seems that most people tend to have savings targets to hit, after which they feel more free to spend any excess income. And their preferred asset allocation of savings maxes out at some desired amount of monetary savings.
But indeed, the government deficit could certainly be eleventy zillion dollars, if it were to end up in someone's account that has an infinite savings desire who wouldn't touch it. In the MV=PQ identity, that would be money increasing but velocity falling off a cliff, causing no effect on output or price level.
And I didn't say that there's no reason to want to shrink the government deficit, just that it does take an explanation. I could say that I do want to shrink the non-government surplus in hypothetical situations, if we're having obnoxious levels of inflation, maybe caused by too much government spending being indexed against the price level (causing a positive feedback loop that prevents automatic stabilization).
Finally, we indeed have basically never had much demand-pull inflation in the modern era of democracies with proper central banks using fiat currency (since the early 20th century at least). The bouts of inflation are usually better explained as cost-push, often from energy price shocks. The central bankers take credit for being wizards and steering the economies well, but it's probably those fiscal automatic stabilizers doing the work.
erwgv3g34
22hr ago
The 2003 version is better.
orangecat
22hr ago
Saying "denial" is something that has gotten me warned by the mods in the past, and I was only using it in a vague general sense. You're using it as a personal attack.
I don't think you know what a personal attack is.
You spent the entire thread talking past someone... And judging by votes, most people disagree with you.
At what point do you examine your own biases?
campfireSmoresEaten
22hr ago
But since then, there have been few obviously pro-social successes of his.
Starlink is cool. I have higher willingness to support Ukraine than Musk, but Musk has done a lot more to support Ukraine than I have.
The continued achievements of SpaceX.
The continued rollout of electric cars.
His record on AI is mixed, but he has spoken out about the dangers. Including directly to some very high ranking politicians. I think it's weird he's not doing more. But if humanity is going to die, I would rather we die with someone having brought this to the attention of various powerful people directly. It's "dignity points", I guess.
He has acted as a sort of grey-tribe wing of the republican party with respect to things like the deficit, which is probably a good thing. And arguably he's sort of a moderate on immigration? I haven't really followed that.
HighResolutionSleep
22hr ago
The damage isn't done by money simply being created or spent. It's done when it's used to Dig Up and Fill Holes Again, or worse, paid to my political enemies to actively undermine my interests. The money is then "backed" by holes dug up and filled again, or hit pieces against Twitter nobodies.
These things probably don't generate as much real wealth as what the private sector would back it with instead, if it was allowed to create the money instead.
Anyone else having fun with image generators? Or more generally, doing anything fun and non-programmer with generative llms? I like skimming Zvi's updates but so much of supposed usefulness is for programmers, where do I find the normie's guide to interesting things to do?
Most of what I use LLMs for is creating bespoke fanfiction. For example, let's say I have the following scenario in my head: an Evangelion AU where Shinji, Asuka, and Rei are working at a hotel (Shinji is the night auditor, Asuka is the security guard, and Rei is the housekeeper) when the world ends and they are stranded inside (think The Mist). This is specific enough that we can be reasonably confident nobody on the internet has ever written anything like it; without LLMs, my only choices are to write it myself or to commission somebody to write it for me. But with LLMs... and with the right jailbreak, you can use them for smut, too.
Of course, this depends on how good LLMs are at writing fiction. Most of them are pretty bad, but some are surprisingly decent. That riveroaks model that was floating around the LMArena two months ago was incredible.
I wasn't talking of Canadian perceptions. Are you playing for pity now with this ridiculous «nuh-uh»? Yes it was.
But Canadians were endlessly preening about their moral superiority and greater civility and safety, too, much to the consternation of Americans. Still are, to an extent. This is very easy to observe in the wild.
It's always funny to watch a person unravel like this. You want to prove me stupid and ignorant on every turn, even when it's completely beside the point and your attack is not very tenable. I didn't want to get this result, you could have simply been content with me refusing to elaborate on the genius of American deep state.
Hajnali mentality is not that deep, scratch and there's the same rabid animal underneath.
P.S. I don't remember what I was taught in the geography class about Canada. It's not been heavy on politics. Probably just oil sands and climate, stuff like that.
chooky
22hr ago
Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is excellent - I have no idea on sub vs dub, but dub seemed fine. If you havent watched Avatar TLA, its original version is English. I adored Baccano!!
Why has the tech sector revolutionized work without dramatical increases in productivity
Is this true? Granted, it's hard to measure productivity. But US GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation, has increased by about 40% since the tech boom began in the mid-1990s.
I wonder what are some good metrics of productivity.
doglatine
22hr ago
China has seen a massive increase in GDP and quality of life, as has the small segment of American society that has leveraged integration of new technology either directly into their industries or been able to exploit its integration elsewhere. And everyday American consumers have also seen a big increase in purchasing power thanks to cheap manufactured goods from China; the cost of textiles, consumer electronics, and household appliances has absolutely plummeted in real terms. However, lots of American industries have remained extremely stagnant in terms of productivity because they didn't/couldn't/wouldn't integrate new methods, so their purchasing power relative to the rest of the country and the rest of the world has declined.
SkoomaDentist
22hr ago
Have you looked at how much China’s GDP has risen?
Goodguy
22hr ago
Granted, I don't understand economics very well. That said, I doubt that the amount of government spending as a fraction of the total economy is going to decrease, barring a collapse of the United States. The US federal budget as a fraction of the US GDP has actually been rather constant since the 1950s, with a slight but not huge upward trend: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S.
If we assume that government spending as a fraction of the economy is very unlikely to substantially decrease, which it probably will not since the political will for that simply does not exist on a large scale, then I figure that the government running a deficit is actually a good thing for me. Sure, they are spending a lot of money on stuff I do not want them to fund. But they are very unlikely to significantly reduce how much they spend, so for me at least having lower taxes seems beneficial, as opposed to having the government spend just as much money as now, but also fix the budget deficit by taxing me more.
This does not mean that we should stop trying to get the government to spend money on different things than it currently is. I'm just saying that, even if less government spending would be beneficial (a complex question), I don't see any realistic political pathway to making it happen.
What am I missing?
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
22hr ago
what do you mean? by almost every metric life has gotten better the past century? GDP keep chugging along too
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
22hr ago
If the feds determined the coins were procured illegally, any attempt at obfuscation becomes laundering ,even before it gets to the cash-out phase.
greyenlightenment
investments: META/FBL, TSLA, TQQQ, TECL, MSFT ...
23hr ago
It seems like the cashing out part is where people get caught
aldomilyar
23hr ago
I think this is a bit of an oversimplification as somebody who works in the space, but definitely people outside of the space overexaggerate how easy it is to utilize for those activities.
Tree
23hr ago
That seems to be the driving fear, although we've never seen it happen in a productive democracy.
Also, why is weimar germany or argentina quote-unquote unproductive?
In the real world, regular people seem to hate inflation so much that we almost always err on the other side: too much unemployment from taxes being too high.
I thought the 70s stagflation had put to rest the silly notion that high inflation equals low unemployment.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
23hr ago
IQ too gross? Do you know where you're at, sonny?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν
23hr ago
If that's so much better, why haven't we seen a massive increase in GDP or quality of life?
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
23hr ago
So what happens once nobody that owns anything of substance is a US Person? Are you going to start seizing American companies from their shareholders or something?
More importantly, does anybody even read Hayek anymore?
HighResolutionSleep
23hr ago
Indeed, it's true that if I want the government to lower its deficit spending on Hole Digging and Filling Up Again, then I am also calling for an equivalent reduction of surplus enjoyed by Hole Digging and Filling Up Again companies. The alternative isn't that money never being created, the alternative it is being created through other means. Under our current system it doesn't even have to be the government. The private sector can also spend money into existence.
LateMechanic
23hr ago
Yet issuing more Treasuries and then wasting the proceeds is not sustainable.
But what are the 'proceeds' in your formulation? They issue a government liability that pays the policy rate, swap it for a different government liability that pays the policy rate (central bank reserves), and then spend it. There is no difference between reserves and treasuries, so calling one 'money' and calling the other 'debt that requires backing and an ability to repay' is only serving to confuse your thinking.
It's akin to printing up a new $5 bill, then exchanging it for quarters because that's what the arcade takes. No more or less money in any form. They can print as many central bank reserves or treasury securities as they want, so 'repayment' is a non issue. Inflation is the only relevant concern.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
23hr ago
Yeah you'll get nothing from it really. Depending on the model they usually have between 5 and 10 messages. And it's only chatgpt that can do it thanks to its latest update - to do it with others you need to do it at the end of a long meandering chat session otherwise you just get a reflection of whatever you're talking about right then. The really interesting version will be when Gemini can tap into your Google account, although I will let others test that one.
LateMechanic
23hr ago
What will inevitably happen is that some lefty will use this bullshit to do what they always do and spend with abandon until collapse.
That seems to be the driving fear, although we've never seen it happen in a productive democracy. In the real world, regular people seem to hate inflation so much that we almost always err on the other side: too much unemployment from taxes being too high.
It will not be like greece, who was bailed out by the nordic german taxpayer (while being decried as evil austerites), more like venezuela.
It would definitely be weird if the US ended up looking like a country that gave up their own currency or a country that relied on a single export while borrowing in a foreign currency they didn't control.
I personally prefer Brotherhood (the continually building climax of the final dozen episodes is just very compelling for me), though I do like both and can see preferring either one. I think I recall liking the Brotherhood dub a lot more than 2003. One great thing about FMA is that both are very good so you can always go back for more by watching the remix.
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