The problem is they never want degrowth on themselves, us peasants are the ones who will eat bugs and live in a pod to make the degrowth happen. There's a lot of ways of sustainably halting growth that wouldn't really impact your life other than shit like not buying a new iPhone every year or taking 5 vacations. There are studies showing that material wealth indeed isn't happiness, and that once a country hits about 10,000 USD in GDP per capita, their happiness levels are unlikely to rise specifically from wealth alone. People in the 1950s were much poorer than today, but enjoyed the same happiness as now.
An actually good degrowth program could solve a lot of problems we don't have the money to solve today because we prioritize economic growth. I think it would essentially be an alternative to the Green New Deal since it would inevitably transition the economy to 100% green energy (could be nuclear power, could be something else, not the point of this discussion) because it needs such a huge capital influx but isn't going to make back much money for the banks. I would expect the rising costs of a lot of goods (since they'd be locally manufactured) would be offset by higher wages and subsidies on energy so material prosperity would not decrease by much, it would merely remain frozen. Imports and exports would slow and things would be more regional since we wouldn't have as much cross-country shipping. We'd probably see a lot of money invested in research and science, especially space if we're assuming degrowth for the sake of energy/resource independence and environmentalism.
The powers that be don't want this, since then they couldn't control countries by having them acquire massive levels of debt, they couldn't have their climate apocalypse (which they want so they can finish blending every race and culture into one ball of globohomo and kill billions of people to control the population), and they couldn't watch their lines go up while humiliating us peasants as we slave for them for extra bug rations. It defeats the purpose of banks as they are now to loan money like this, because banks rarely run on common morality like "give away money for the sake of the country and its people" or even actual green stuff instead of the faggy pseudo-environmentalism these banks do now.
About these studies... Well, it's definitely not a happy life if you worry where your next meal is coming from, but it got debunked that you need like 90K to have diminishing returns on happiness extracted from more money. The keyword phrase here is income disparity. You are not happy if you know that other people earn in a month much more than you in a year. If the country from your example hits 10K per capita without substantial growth of income disparity, then yes, the overall happiness of the citizens will probably be high. Unhappiness from income disparity is palpable even in your post. And the people in 1950 were happier because the income disparity in US was much lower then than now.
I think we are plagued by two major curses: financialization and crony capitalism. Financialization is what led to crisis of 2008. These exotic financial instruments didn't go away, the balance sheets of major investment banks are still full of derivatives. Plus all the suppression of silver price. That's why I have a feeling that Eisman is full of it when he says that major banks are deleveraged and regulated now. I don't think they are safe. I mean they are safe as in they can get another bailout, but it's not what he says.
The problem is they never want degrowth on themselves, us peasants are the ones who will eat bugs and live in a pod to make the degrowth happen. There's a lot of ways of sustainably halting growth that wouldn't really impact your life other than shit like not buying a new iPhone every year or taking 5 vacations. There are studies showing that material wealth indeed isn't happiness, and that once a country hits about 10,000 USD in GDP per capita, their happiness levels are unlikely to rise specifically from wealth alone. People in the 1950s were much poorer than today, but enjoyed the same happiness as now.
An actually good degrowth program could solve a lot of problems we don't have the money to solve today because we prioritize economic growth. I think it would essentially be an alternative to the Green New Deal since it would inevitably transition the economy to 100% green energy (could be nuclear power, could be something else, not the point of this discussion) because it needs such a huge capital influx but isn't going to make back much money for the banks. I would expect the rising costs of a lot of goods (since they'd be locally manufactured) would be offset by higher wages and subsidies on energy so material prosperity would not decrease by much, it would merely remain frozen. Imports and exports would slow and things would be more regional since we wouldn't have as much cross-country shipping. We'd probably see a lot of money invested in research and science, especially space if we're assuming degrowth for the sake of energy/resource independence and environmentalism.
The powers that be don't want this, since then they couldn't control countries by having them acquire massive levels of debt, they couldn't have their climate apocalypse (which they want so they can finish blending every race and culture into one ball of globohomo and kill billions of people to control the population), and they couldn't watch their lines go up while humiliating us peasants as we slave for them for extra bug rations. It defeats the purpose of banks as they are now to loan money like this, because banks rarely run on common morality like "give away money for the sake of the country and its people" or even actual green stuff instead of the faggy pseudo-environmentalism these banks do now.
Going to pick on one point. You reference the popular notion that happiness from wealth diminishes rapidly after a certain point. Whilst I don't think money alone can make you happy this idea got really popularized from one study which said something people wanted to hear but was actually pretty flawed as a study. How Money Works (good channel) did a short video on it which is worth watching:
Going to pick on one point. You reference the popular notion that happiness from wealth diminishes rapidly after a certain point. Whilst I don't think money alone can make you happy this idea got really popularized from one study which said something people wanted to hear but was actually pretty flawed as a study. How Money Works (good channel) did a short video on it which is worth watching:
Thanks for the video, I have read about the debunk some time ago, and I didn't save the link. Or maybe I've read about it in a book. Without too much powerleveling, I am an anecdotal example of the phenomenon. I nearly doubled my income last year, and I already was above the happiness limit. Guess what, I feel definitely happier because I can see certain things more achievable than before. However, the initial excitement faded away with time. Now, it's my new baseline. After watching this video, I guess this feeling will never happen to me again, because it's unlikely I will double my income in one year. At best I might raise it 30%.
Thank you for this nice write-up @attractive_pneumonia Can you recommend some blog? I started looking up reverse repo crisis in September 2019 and while I found some sources I don't know if they are legit. I know I can't really trust ZeroHedge. I was thinking that someone linked a blog on this thread, but I skimmed all the pages, and I didn't catch this link.
Those didn't really focus directly on the aftermath of 2008, but did discuss how the Fed has caused our current problems starting with the bailouts, unending QE, etc. All that liquidity had to go somewhere, and it basically ended up mostly inflating asset prices the past 10 years, especially through corporate stock buybacks.
You can poke around that site for plenty more articles covering the Fed's poor decisions of the past 20+ years and how they've effectively painted themselves into a corner. (I started following these guys right before Sept. 2019 repo crisis you mentioned, and find them to be very informative about macro issues, inflation, and the Fed.)
Retail giants like IKEA and Tysons foods are looking to raise prices in the new year; they claim that they've absorbed as much of the rising cost of production as they can, and if they want to retain any semblance of a profit margin they need to pass it onto consumers, they've also stated that they'll be looking to increase prices ahead of expected inflation in the future.
Rafi our friendly neighborhood Israeli has a nice video breaking down what's been said, as well as detailing the importance of this shift in corporations forward thinking business models.
I would make a more detailed post, but I'm phone posting and it's a bit tedious.
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Thanks for the video, I have read about the debunk some time ago, and I didn't save the link. Or maybe I've read about it in a book. Without too much powerleveling, I am an anecdotal example of the phenomenon. I nearly doubled my income last year, and I already was above the happiness limit. Guess what, I feel definitely happier because I can see certain things more achievable than before. However, the initial excitement faded away with time. Now, it's my new baseline. After watching this video, I guess this feeling will never happen to me again, because it's unlikely I will double my income in one year. At best I might raise it 30%.
Not quite the same for me but I went from not having much money at all to doing quite well. It definitely helped. I have also somewhat reset the amount of money I need not to be happy, but to feel safe. That's a consequence of changing work environments and home ownership. There's a big difference between having £5000 in the bank when you're bouncing around doing casual work and living in a shared house and when you own a house and are worried about your career.
Ironically that when you own nothing, sometimes you are happier. :/
He opens by talking about Omicron, vaccinations and how vaccination hesitancy may hold back growth. Immediately gives me reservations about how good his analysis as the impact of vaccinations on the economy is almost wholly a question of the laws requiring them rather than any actual health impacts. Then he carries on talking about lack of vaccinations holding back the global economy. Then he says the US dollar will likely continue to do well throughout 2022 which it might but isn't something I'd be confident stating. Then he starts talking about how five years of progress on poverty has been wiped out by the pandemic. No, by the response to the pandemic. Honestly, I don't really rate his analysis well.
Comments turned off - always a bad sign.
EDIT: A 2022 forecast I liked. I find Wion an interesting source, non-Western but accessible to Westerners.
I did watch the whole thing and that I disagree with. However, it's very nice to be able to get an outside perspective on the West and Wion do interesting coverage.
He opens by talking about Omicron, vaccinations and how vaccination hesitancy may hold back growth. Immediately gives me reservations about how good his analysis as the impact of vaccinations on the economy is almost wholly a question of the laws requiring them rather than any actual health impacts. Then he carries on talking about lack of vaccinations holding back the global economy. Then he says the US dollar will likely continue to do well throughout 2022 which it might but isn't something I'd be confident stating. Then he starts talking about how five years of progress on poverty has been wiped out by the pandemic. No, by the response to the pandemic. Honestly, I don't really rate his analysis well.
This is the sort of analysis that comes out of pencil-necked liberal spergs who worship the Kennedy School of Government and actually pay real money to read the Economist. This type thinks that government officials are dispassionate administrators who follow science and data, occasionally beleaguered by the petty demands of the occasional right-of-center politician who somehow manages to win an election, but otherwise always doing the correct, rational thing.
In other words, it is absolutely detached from reality. There is no vaccination threshold at which governments have promised to stop printing money, stop strangling retail, and stop throwing new wrenches into the gears of human civilization every day. The only way this changes is politically.
This is the sort of analysis that comes out of pencil-necked liberal spergs who worship the Kennedy School of Government and actually pay real money to read the Economist. This type things that government officials are dispassionate administrators who follow science and data, occasionally beleaguered by the petty demands of the occasional right-of-center politician who somehow manages to win an election, but otherwise always doing the correct, rational thing.
In other words, it is absolutely detached from reality. There is no vaccination threshold at which governments have promised to stop printing money, stop strangling retail, and stop throwing new wrenches into the gears of human civilization every day. The only way this changes is politically.
Yep. And for context I used to buy the Economist. I was of the view that financial news and services like Stratfor were less prone to propaganda because people were actually giving them money in turn for information to make meaningful financial decisions on. Not to simply be informed or for entertainment. There's probably still some truth to that but honestly my faith in that has been quite shattered. I did like the level of detail and the topics covered by the Economist (and Stratfor - though you have to pay quite a bit for their real analysis). However, the first real alarm bell I recall was when the Economist predicted that Hollande couldn't win the election in France because he was "too socialist". I remember thinking - 'have you met the French?'
They also ran an editorial saying how Rugby should be banned in schools because it was 'dangerous'. And then on another occasion arguing that fox hunting should be un-banned because it's traditional, iirc. Nevermind that per capita people get far worse injuries falling from horses tearing around the countryside than they do on the rugby pitch.
So TL;DR: I agree with you. They're not nearly as connected to reality as I used to believe and very probably do have pencil necks as you describe.
KF seems to be one of the best places to get information these days - because it's actual people allowed to anonymously give their actual opinions. Plus we have confetti.
My two cents on unemployment. In the UK, lower-skilled workers are either; moving between jobs as a wage battle rages between employers, do a more half-arsed job than usual because if they're fired, there are a dozen more employers desperate to hire or are happy to top up the savings, then sit on benefits, as COVID showed them an alternate lifestyle. Take in to consideration the training period of new staff, and how long it takes them to 'get up to speed'.
While employment numbers may be OK, the productivity of those employed is down (I've no solid evidence of this, just anectodal). We know that WFH killed productivity, we see it in our own lives. That and the supply chain crash has had a knock on effect of sales, staff and again productivity.
I wonder what value of 1 manhour is worth today vs 2,3 or 10 years ago.
For example (spitballed numbers); 2004: 10 million in the workforce, producing an average of 0.9 manhours worth of labour per hour.
2021/22: 12 million in the workforce, producing an average of 0.6 manhours worth of work.
More people are employed, but you're getting less bang for your buck. Just a thought.
Yep. And for context I used to buy the Economist. I was of the view that financial news and services like Stratfor were less prone to propaganda because people were actually giving them money in turn for information to make meaningful financial decisions on. Not to simply be informed or for entertainment. There's probably still some truth to that but honestly my faith in that has been quite shattered. I did like the level of detail and the topics covered by the Economist (and Stratfor - though you have to pay quite a bit for their real analysis). However, the first real alarm bell I recall was when the Economist predicted that Hollande couldn't win the election in France because he was "too socialist". I remember thinking - 'have you met the French?'
I stopped reading the Economist when they started talking about how competent the Obama administration was as it careened from one fuckup to the next. The simmering disdain the liberal establishment always had for people who work for a living metastasized into mindless partisan hackery during the Bush administration. Bush was really one of them, but his public aw-shucks persona was a deliberate appeal to the voting power of Flyover America, and having to acknowledge the political weight of those people drove the elites mad.
My chief objection to liberal establishment writers in the Economist, Foreign Policy, etc, isn't that they're liberal, it's that they've become absolutely fucking brainless. Since Bush, they've all felt some kind of compulsive obligation to ensure no reader will ever think there is a good reason to not vote Democrat (at least in the USA, I don't know who they're behind in the UK...Tories?).
This means that no Democratic policy failure, no matter how egregious or incompetent, ever gets taken to task for what it is. No Democratic corruption, no matter how blatant or mendacious, ever gets called to account. These people transformed themselves from public intellectuals to rentboys for the party establishment. I couldn't care less what they say.
The problem with the kinds of nerds who grow up to write for the Economist is they don't understand that organized sports are a much safer alternative to what boys with high testosterone would otherwise do.
This is the sort of analysis that comes out of pencil-necked liberal spergs who worship the Kennedy School of Government and actually pay real money to read the Economist. This type thinks that government officials are dispassionate administrators who follow science and data, occasionally beleaguered by the petty demands of the occasional right-of-center politician who somehow manages to win an election, but otherwise always doing the correct, rational thing.
In other words, it is absolutely detached from reality. There is no vaccination threshold at which governments have promised to stop printing money, stop strangling retail, and stop throwing new wrenches into the gears of human civilization every day. The only way this changes is politically.
I agree up until your last sentence. This isn't just a political problem, when the money is bad your whole society degenerates(in both the literal and internet sense); our political systems are broken, and stopping short of a literal revolution, which lol, they wont be fixed. What I think will happen is not a political change or shift within America, but a destined date with reality. We can only live on credit for so long, when it dries up and no one wants our shitty fiat notes anymore the gig is up, it wont matter what politicans promise the public, because they simply won't be able to deliver.
People assign too much power to "Globalists" (AKA a bunch of larping faggots) in their own minds, they're worried about UBI and the great reset, yet they've not stopped to think about how any of this will be funded or paid for. When the dollar collapses other countries aren't going to want some new shitty treasury note, they're going to want proof of labor, aka commodities, aka gold and silver, aka real money. The eastern world and central and eastern europe aren't just going to go along with another ponzi scheme, and I can't envision a world in which one power can broker a deal like Breton Woods again, putting themselves at the head of a ponzi like the USA currently occupies.
It's hard to decouple the dollar from the concept of value in your mind, it will be a terrifying thing for most people, but it will happen and it will be a sudden and horrible catastrophe for those not in the know about monetary history.
Sorry if none of the above statements really make sense, or are too cryptic( I plan at some point to try and explain my world view with more nuance both for the sake of other farmers so that they can understand wtf I'm trying to elucidate, and for myself as I find the best way to organize my thoughts is to write them down).
Essentially my biggest gripe with the great reset conspiracy is not that someone or a group of people couldn't form some nefarious plan, or that no one is malicious enough to try and enact it, I believe all of that is very possible and perhaps real. My issue arises when people actually lend any credence to these retarded machinations; you could only every formulate such plans with any hope of actually affecting them from such a position of unquestionable power that the mind boggles. Stalin and Mao would fill five freight trucks with cum at the thought of this, literally the entire globe would need to rest under your thumb (or at least the solid majority). As I've said in the Covid mega thread the mere existence of China and Russia call's into question the legitimacy of American Hegemony, which clearly has eroded from its height's, if your hegemony is called into question you don't have absolute power, in fact if you've reigned supreme for any amount of time and have a legitimate threat to your power base its likely you're now on the decline, you're fading into irrelevance whether you'd like to acknowledge it or not.
All you have to do is observe foreign affairs in recent years to see this decline in the American empire; look at how our diplomats and politicians seethe and cope at the notion of a world outside of US influence. These are not the actions of a confident and proud super power, these are the actions of a wounded and retreating nation.
Really my worst fear is that the American people are sleep walking into such a reversal of fortune that there is no comparison in history. I was thinking the other day about how it used to be a meme that Chinese factories had suicide nets wrapping around the roofs of their buildings, and now all that I can think is that's going to be the US in a couple years.
LOL sorry if this is even more nonsensical typing this half asleep.
I agree up until your last sentence. This isn't just a political problem, when the money is bad your whole society degenerates(in both the literal and internet sense); our political systems are broken, and stopping short of a literal revolution, which lol, they wont be fixed. What I think will happen is not a political change or shift within America, but a destined date with reality. We can only live on credit for so long, when it dries up and no one wants our shitty fiat notes anymore the gig is up, it wont matter what politicans promise the public, because they simply won't be able to deliver.
By a political problem, I mean it is imposed on us by the government, and it won't change until for one reason or another, the government is forced to change its ways. I'd prefer that to be via a popular mandate at the ballot box rather than, say, our government so weakening us that gangs of Mexican cartels move as far north as Missouri and establish independent fiefdoms. But even that would still be a political change.
I agree up until your last sentence. This isn't just a political problem, when the money is bad your whole society degenerates(in both the literal and internet sense); our political systems are broken, and stopping short of a literal revolution, which lol, they wont be fixed. What I think will happen is not a political change or shift within America, but a destined date with reality. We can only live on credit for so long, when it dries up and no one wants our shitty fiat notes anymore the gig is up, it wont matter what politicans promise the public, because they simply won't be able to deliver.
People assign too much power to "Globalists" (AKA a bunch of larping faggots) in their own minds, they're worried about UBI and the great reset, yet they've not stopped to think about how any of this will be funded or paid for. When the dollar collapses other countries aren't going to want some new shitty treasury note, they're going to want proof of labor, aka commodities, aka gold and silver, aka real money. The eastern world and central and eastern europe aren't just going to go along with another ponzi scheme, and I can't envision a world in which one power can broker a deal like Breton Woods again, putting themselves at the head of a ponzi like the USA currently occupies.
It's hard to decouple the dollar from the concept of value in your mind, it will be a terrifying thing for most people, but it will happen and it will be a sudden and horrible catastrophe for those not in the know about monetary history.
Sorry if none of the above statements really make sense, or are too cryptic( I plan at some point to try and explain my world view with more nuance both for the sake of other farmers so that they can understand wtf I'm trying to elucidate, and for myself as I find the best way to organize my thoughts is to write them down).
Essentially my biggest gripe with the great reset conspiracy is not that someone or a group of people couldn't form some nefarious plan, or that no one is malicious enough to try and enact it, I believe all of that is very possible and perhaps real. My issue arises when people actually lend any credence to these retarded machinations; you could only every formulate such plans with any hope of actually affecting them from such a position of unquestionable power that the mind boggles. Stalin and Mao would fill five freight trucks with cum at the thought of this, literally the entire globe would need to rest under your thumb (or at least the solid majority). As I've said in the Covid mega thread the mere existence of China and Russia call's into question the legitimacy of American Hegemony, which clearly has eroded from its height's, if your hegemony is called into question you don't have absolute power, in fact if you've reigned supreme for any amount of time and have a legitimate threat to your power base its likely you're now on the decline, you're fading into irrelevance whether you'd like to acknowledge it or not.
All you have to do is observe foreign affairs in recent years to see this decline in the American empire; look at how our diplomats and politicians seethe and cope at the notion of a world outside of US influence. These are not the actions of a confident and proud super power, these are the actions of a wounded and retreating nation.
Really my worst fear is that the American people are sleep walking into such a reversal of fortune that there is no comparison in history. I was thinking the other day about how it used to be a meme that Chinese factories had suicide nets wrapping around the roofs of their buildings, and now all that I can think is that's going to be the US in a couple years.
LOL sorry if this is even more nonsensical typing this half asleep.
The entire world economy is a Ponzi scheme and a suicide pact rolled into one. Don't kid yourself, if the US "crashes and burns" it is taking the rest of the world with it.
All you have to do is observe foreign affairs in recent years to see this decline in the American empire; look at how our diplomats and politicians seethe and cope at the notion of a world outside of US influence. These are not the actions of a confident and proud super power, these are the actions of a wounded and retreating nation.
As with many things, Shakespeare already put it well:
"Tis better playing with a lion's whelp, than with an old one, dying" (Antony and Cleopatra, about Mark Antony starting to lose it as his power slips, for context)
Really my worst fear is that the American people are sleep walking into such a reversal of fortune that there is no comparison in history. I was thinking the other day about how it used to be a meme that Chinese factories had suicide nets wrapping around the roofs of their buildings, and now all that I can think is that's going to be the US in a couple years.
I don't know - that assumes there is value in manufacturing things. The main role of the American citizen today is to buy stuff. I think if people want to push back a popular movement to stop buying things would be one of the most effective things that could be done. No violence, just not shopping.
I said on here one time that we would see laws compelling buying stuff in the next five years. I don't mean stuff you have to buy to live and would anyway. I mean consumer goods and services. Some sort of state-funded Netflix subscriptions for example. How about this - some sort of UBI / Digital benefits system. It can be spent as money, is denominated in dollars, but there are restrictions on how it can be spent. If you don't spend it, it vanishes / is returned to the government. With digital currency you can do such things. Your entertainment portion of the UBI / welfare has a list of options. Netflix is one. This UBI / welfare is paid for by taxes (corporate and personal). Bang - state subsidised Netflix that you pretty much have to buy (or an alternate provider) because otherwise the money goes poof as you evidently don't need it and perhaps that may even trigger an assessment procedure to check if you really need the welfare (this is the stick to keep you spending).
A big money churning machine of controlled consumption with an angry army of voters and rioters at the ready should anyone try to take their goodies away from each other.
