So many good things to reply to in this. But before that an opinion on GDP. Opening post remarks that it's a widely accepted measure of a country's economic health. This is true - it
is widely accepted. But is it a good measure? A lot of people don't understand what it actually means. It's simply a measure of purchases. To illustrate, if your rent goes up - that's an increase in GDP. If houses are selling for twice what they used to, that's an increase in GDP. Does that mean GDP is a good thing? Well, it is for
some people. Essentially the owning class. For other people it's more of a mixed bag. Is "how much are people spending" a good measure of the economy's health? That's not a simple question. Just keep in mind when someone tells you "immigration increases GDP" which was the mantra some years ago, increased pressure on housing and rent pushing up prices doesn't sound quite as good now, does it?
good thread, but are we gonna require another World War and post-war economy to get out of this?
A war between governments wont fix things. It's arguably a big part of how we got here. Now a war between people and governments is a different matter.
If shit truly does hit the fan how likely is it that we're not gonna have some sort race war/civil war in the US? People have already been primed to hate each other, all they need is an excuse, if suddenly even basic shit like food gets called into question then I can imagine people fighting to the death over it.
The greater the risk of class warfare, the greater the efforts to stoke division amongst the people. Example: Occupy movement which went from class based to IdPol in-fighting and collapse within months. Absolutely the Jussie Smollets will be out in force if the wealthy think kicking off some race wars will help them.
what kind of minecrafting would be needed to fix everything.
I joked about a war between the people and the government above. (I hope it's a joke - violent revolutions tend to just end up with a different set of power-mad in control). What is actually needed is to retake the machinery of power. Get honest (non-Soros) people in as judges, DAs, school boards, politicians. There are good people everywhere. They need your support. If you can't fine one be one yourself - it's easier to get involved than you think. And if you get involved there are two possible outcomes:
(a) You help save your country.
(b) Your country fails anyway but you feel a lot better for having done
something instead of sit and sadly watch; and you'll have made like-minded rl contacts who can all stick together when the streets are on fire.
Either way, the solution is not yet "blow everything up and start from scratch". It's get involved, prosecute, vote, elect and speak out publically instead of sitting at home saying "I might lose my job" and hoping someone else will fix things. The economy is a huge mess. But America is also THE most powerful military force in the world, THE biggest economy. And there's the will to work with it to unwind the mess of its economy. Like the old joke about when you owe the bank $10,000 it's your problem; and when you owe the bank $10,000,000 it's the banks problem. The USA is the person who owes ten million. If it tips over, the tsunami is going to affect everyone. So people will work with the USA to avoid that.
You can't fuck it, eat it, get high off it, get drunk off it nor is it very practical as a weapon, I mean I guess you can technically eat it, but it won't keep you alive.
You can understand that not everyone has the same values that you do and furthermore that they will act according to those values even if you do not share them, right? It takes a special sort of narcissism to think that your view of gold is going to matter more than the entire history of its use by humanity. You're going to watch billions spent on it by governments and private investors and say to yourself: "Nah, it is useless as a means of preserving my wealth because I can't fuck it"?
Question for all you economics aficionados, when will there actually be a collapse that affects the broad mass of the population? Or will this miserable situation of slowly declining real living standards propped by up debt and hedonism go on indefinitely?
Well, imo, we're currently witnessing an attempt at a managed decline. It's unarguable that the US economy is a timebomb. In fact, it's more than that. It's like a bomb that went off (in 200
and people are building a big box around it trying to keep it contained. You can credibly argue that the vaccines and the Covid restrictions aren't about human health (as they're doing more harm than good right now to people's health). They're about preventing or suppressing popular unrest. The debt can't go on forever, but a restructuring of society a la 'Great Reset' could still lead to that declining living standards, mobility and freedom.
If we see massive inflation that can wipe away the USA's debt which is I suspect a big part of what they want. Doing so will wipe away the savings of everyone who doesn't have it translated into assets. That's bad. More on this later. But I think the USA can pull it all together and slowly ""unexplode" that bomb over the course of the next thirty or forty years if its people can stop the elites mass importing people from abroad to pump another debt cycle.
I dunno, people have predicted collapse since 2008 and before. Sure, some people sink but there has never been a great depression level fall in living standards.
Apart of me wonders if the economy can be kept wheezing along indefinitely now that the Fed can just print money ad infinitum until the end of time?
Or am I wrong?
They can't endlessly print money. That means keeping interest rates low. Keeping interest rates low means the govt. doesn't get money and inflation takes off. Someone else mentioned Modern Monetary Theory. They were right - it's a theory you can just keep printing money and it wont cause inflation if (emphasize the if) that money doesn't make it into ordinary people's pockets but stays in the the hands of 'the right people'. I.e. hedge funds, banks, big asset buying companies like Black Rock. The logic is that the price of a loaf of bread wont go up if the only people getting the extra money are putting it in the stock market, houses, etc. And that is actually true to an extent, short term. But you know how I visualise Modern Monetary Theory?
(That's the Three Gorges Dam, for those that don't recognise it).
But when is that point reached though? It seems to me that unless some massive external crisis hits, they can just continue pressing buttons on a computer and generating money out of nothing(or at least seemingly so). When and what causes gravity to re assert itself?
There are a number of possible triggers. A switch away from the US dollar as the global reserve currency and / or denominating oil in something other than dollars (kind of the same thing). A major bursting of what is believed to be an asset bubble which the Fed simply can no longer afford to bail out (doing so would essentially cause hyper-inflation). Hell, even deadlock in Congress if the Republicans and Democrats ever went all the way with their periodic game of chicken over raising the debt ceiling and the US defaulted on its debt. I don't know how many matches there are that could ignite that fuse. It's not off the cards, though. If people lose faith in the US dollar then it has no intrinsic value. (I.e.
@Dom Cruise can neither fuck it, nor drink it, nor eat it). Gold standard is gone.
Tangent, I was amused to see that these sorts of discussions are even making it into kid's cartoons these days:
Are they the people on the balcony during Occupy? I had respect for the old banker who came down and actually tried to discuss economics with the crowd.
