EPTPro tipp: Spamming Jefferson quotes and random links to random papers you know nobody is going to read makes you look like a donkey. If you feel you need to show people what you have read on whatever subject make a brag blog, don't derail General threads.
The European Debt Crisis and the Euro - Page 7
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zatic
Zurich15365 Posts
Pro tipp: Spamming Jefferson quotes and random links to random papers you know nobody is going to read makes you look like a donkey. If you feel you need to show people what you have read on whatever subject make a brag blog, don't derail General threads. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 02 2010 15:42 ShaperofDreams wrote: Rothbardian can you make a blog guide on how to be ridiculously educated? With links to stuff you've studied? I'm sure 99% of TL would appreciate it. If not please PM me with some basic stuff, I just started reading squashed philosophers, up to socrates talk about justice and the "perfect" society. Will do. I don't consider myself that educated, and certainly not that smart. I merely just learn from those who built the foundations. They were smart. I can merely learn well. Give me a day or two so I can round up all the needed material and to hash out a rough structure. I'll run through Philosophy, Economics, and some basic History, and tools that helps oneself be more conducive to learning. Above all I find that the motivation to learn is key. You must have an interest in what you are learning, or you merely just repeat what you read, but do not learn the material. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 02 2010 15:53 zatic wrote: Rothbardian and others (but your mostly) do not derail this thread. We had enough economics nutcases over the last year destroying every thread in General. Pro tipp: Spamming Jefferson quotes and random links to random papers you know nobody is going to read makes you look like a donkey. If you feel you need to show people what you have read on whatever subject make a brag blog, don't derail General threads. Zatic. They were requested by forum members, and my quotes come from all sorts of different historical persons. Is there a guideline I can read that shows me what is allowed in my posts? I ask this with the utmost sincerity. Thanks. (I would really like in the future to be able to quote H.L. Mencken and Mark Twain, for instance) | ||
TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
On March 02 2010 15:42 ShaperofDreams wrote: Rothbardian can you make a blog guide on how to be ridiculously educated? With links to stuff you've studied? I'm sure 99% of TL would appreciate it. Please tell me you are serious. I highly doubt it but wouldn't mind being proven wrong. 99% is certainly an overstatement though. At least, I can safely chuckle at that. | ||
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zatic
Zurich15365 Posts
On March 02 2010 16:17 Rothbardian wrote: Zatic. They were requested by forum members, and my quotes come from all sorts of different historical persons. Is there a guideline I can read that shows me what is allowed in my posts? I ask this with the utmost sincerity. Thanks. (I would really like in the future to be able to quote H.L. Mencken and Mark Twain, for instance) If they were requested, PM them. Do not derail a thread that started out pretty well. The quoting is just a personal tipp. Parroting what smart people said 100 years ago whenever you can makes you look stupid and people won't take your posts seriously. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 02 2010 17:21 zatic wrote: If they were requested, PM them. Do not derail a thread that started out pretty well. The quoting is just a personal tipp. Parroting what smart people said 100 years ago whenever you can makes you look stupid and people won't take your posts seriously. It would be parroting if I solely used their quotes as my posts. In any work in any setting you borrow ideas from others. Some hold more stringently to those than others, and others borrow bits and pieces from multiple influences. If you have written a thesis you would understand that a large part of a thesis is not only creating your own personal assertion, but also to incorporate the views that influenced you. Read any great work and you will find multiple sources to multiple different people. Would not Einstein have been able to create his work without Newton? Or would not modern engineering be capable without Rome? If you wish to sling epithets and ad hominems then that is your perogative. I would have hoped a moderator would have been above such behavior. There is no need to go there, when the simple suggestion to PM would have sufficed. I would advise you to back and read the last two pages, as it seems that people are responding to my posts and we are having a civil dialogue, and I see people legitimately debating back and forth. I wonder why you only come after me though? | ||
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zatic
Zurich15365 Posts
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baal
10708 Posts
And how on earth is he derailing the thread? its a thread about the Euro collapse and i think we are quite on topic, its not like we are talking about fucking seagulls... terrible modding in tl.net as usual wtf. Anyway, back on topic, i am still not sure what will fall first, the euro or the Yen, Japan surpassed even the United States in reckless overspending, it looked almost like sabotage, now their debt is quite frankly hysterical and there is no escape to it they are going to crash and burn soon but the EU looks in really bad shape now too, if they bail out Greece (most likely) i think they will keep this charade going enough for the yen to collapse first. | ||
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Flyingdutchman
Netherlands858 Posts
-edit- typo | ||
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Mora
Canada5235 Posts
On March 02 2010 18:31 baal wrote: No, quoting "what smart people said 100 years ago" doesnt make him look stupid and only because you dont click the links the posts it doesnt mean anybody or the people interested in the discussion doesnt. And how on earth is he derailing the thread? its a thread about the Euro collapse and i think we are quite on topic, its not like we are talking about fucking seagulls... terrible modding in tl.net as usual wtf. Anyway, back on topic, i am still not sure what will fall first, the euro or the Yen, Japan surpassed even the United States in reckless overspending, it looked almost like sabotage, now their debt is quite frankly hysterical and there is no escape to it they are going to crash and burn soon but the EU looks in really bad shape now too, if they bail out Greece (most likely) i think they will keep this charade going enough for the yen to collapse first. hi baal! i haven't seen you in ages. still love me? | ||
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ParasitJonte
Sweden1768 Posts
On March 02 2010 14:14 koreasilver wrote: I dunno, at least the politicians don't claim to be scientists. Hahaha, ouch  . | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 02 2010 19:02 Flyingdutchman wrote: There is enough the EU and IMF can do to prevent Greece from defaulting, but it will probably entail cutting government spending a lot. The effects of that are not clear yet. The euro will only collapse if the EU wants it to. -edit- typo I'm sure the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe didn't want their currencies to crash either, but that is not up to the Government. Whether or not a currency crashes, does hinge on how the Government acts, but, enivitably, it is up to each person to decide whether to continue to use a meaningless/valueless piece of paper. Most people do not like getting stolen from. When you see that your 20,000 can only buy a loaf of bread, when before it could put a down payment on a house, you tend to say, fuck that. Fiat money has no intrinsic value, and it is an imposed medium of exchange, not a medium of exchange that organically originates in the free-market. Once a currency collapses you cannot impose another fiat currency on people. They will reject it, and moreover, there will be no pricing structure. You cannot have prices. People won't know what that paper is worth. The number on that piece of paper is not its value. The value is what that piece of paper can buy. If I print up a piece of paper and write 5 on it, you won't know what the hell its worth. The only way price mechanisms originate is through the free-market; millions of individual actors trading with each other. In order to trade with someone you have to know the value of what you are trading. Today, that 5$ is worth a pack of cigarettes or two gallons of gas, or whatever good you hold more valuable, but if the Government decided one day where before there was no pricing structure (As when a currency collapses) to impose a medium of exchange, would you know what that 5$ is worth? Would you know whether or not you are getting a good deal, or gipped? Thomas Woods has an amazing lecture on this. It is an interesting time we are living in. Will we move to USSR style totalitarianism, or towards early American liberty? Will we allow people to choose what they wish to use as mediums of exchange, and what they wish to purchase? Or, will the heavy hand of the State crush any sense of individual action and choice? Ultimately though, on purely logical grounds high to hyper inflation is certain. There is no possible way for these countries to pay back their debts, or much less keep up with their interest rates. Thus, interest rates are locked into artificially low real negatives. This means, that savings is all, but gone (Why would you hold on to that dollar that is worth less the next week, or the next month?), and in order to keep interest rates that low they must print money. It is a self-sustaining problem. If you raise interest rates then you default (Pretty much the whole world is bankrupt), and if you don't raise interest rates you run into hyper-inflation scenarios and increasingly shorter periods in between the increasingly devastating booms and busts. What is the way out? There are a few scenarios, none very pleasant in the short run. Political secession and repudiation of the debt. (Likely in parts of the world) Immediate radical spending cuts and abolition of programs (80-90%), and drastically lowering taxes while having the remaining tax revenue going to pay off debt (Thank you father, mother, grandmother, grand father, John Maynard Keynes). Cutting spending while keeping tax rates and using the "excess" tax receipts to pay off debt. Whatever the solution it won't be pretty to some segment of the population, but the fact is, all these solutions are much better in the mid and long term. Yeah, if we continue doing what we've always done, it won't hurt as much now, but in the immediate future, it's going to be much much worse than if we did the above. Really though, we are living in unprecendented times. At no time in the past has the world faced a global currency crisis. Every currency is in peril. Every currency is fiat. I wonder what the world will look like in 20 years. Definitely not as politically centralized as it is today. | ||
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Choros
Australia530 Posts
On March 02 2010 19:35 Rothbardian wrote: Once a currency collapses you cannot impose another fiat currency on people. They will reject it, and moreover, there will be no pricing structure. Actually history shows that you can. While I don't dissagree with other points that you have made. Adolf Hitler said "Gold is not neccesary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it." This was ofcourse in the immediate aftermath of the hyperinflation of the Weimar republic. All you need to do is create a new currency and/or revalue the old currency such that the supply of money is relatively static and prices in the economy will automatically adjust to the new supply of currency. A situation may exist where paper money will not work in which case just reverting to hard currency will work. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 02 2010 20:04 Choros wrote: Actually history shows that you can. While I don't dissagree with other points that you have made. Adolf Hitler said "Gold is not neccesary. I have no interest in gold. We will build a solid state, without an ounce of gold behind it." This was ofcourse in the immediate aftermath of the hyperinflation of the Weimar republic. All you need to do is create a new currency and/or revalue the old currency such that the supply of money is relatively static and prices in the economy will automatically adjust to the new supply of currency. A situation may exist where paper money will not work in which case just reverting to hard currency will work. Yes, but there was a pricing structure all ready in place. When a fiat currency collapses, there is neither a commodity currency or fiat currency. There is literally no pricing structure and people return to bartering or until a new medium of exchange comes about through individual actors in the free-market. If the dollar crashed now, there are a lot of people who are aware what silver and gold are worth, so it wouldn't take too long for a new pricing mechanism to be brought into place. The crash of the Weimar happened a decade before. As for the currency that was introduced; the Rentenmark, then the Reichsmark, it too was commodity based. There has never been a time of back to back fiat currencies. | ||
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baal
10708 Posts
On March 02 2010 19:11 Mora wrote: hi baal! i haven't seen you in ages. still love me? not anymore, im over you now. | ||
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Choros
Australia530 Posts
On March 02 2010 20:16 Rothbardian wrote: Yes, but there was a pricing structure all ready in place. When a fiat currency collapses, there is neither a commodity currency or fiat currency. There is literally no pricing structure and people return to bartering or until a new medium of exchange comes about through individual actors in the free-market. If the dollar crashed now, there are a lot of people who are aware what silver and gold are worth, so it wouldn't take too long for a new pricing mechanism to be brought into place. The crash of the Weimar happened a decade before. As for the currency that was introduced; the Rentenmark, then the Reichsmark, it too was commodity based. There has never been a time of back to back fiat currencies. Now that you mention I suppose you are correct, in Rome they had hyperinflation > hard currency > fait currency > hyperinflation repeat a few times. The US had hyperinflation in the continental then back to hard currency again. The pricing system is re-established pretty fast just by barter if nothing else. Everybody in the west is so lacking in gold and silver it could be more difficult. All you need to do is simply divide the number of dollars by your gold reserves, abolish m3 which is largely junk set that as the ratio and the hyperinflation should end practically instantly. Argentina has gone from hyperinflation to stable prices without going hard currency just by stopping printing money! It can be done depending on the severity of the crisis I suppose. In Australia the government sold around half our gold reserves about ten years ago loosing billions for the country and counting. For some reason people think that just because we have fiat money today that means it is 'modern' and you don't want to return to 'primitive' systems like a gold standard. These people clearly have not looked at history. I find it slightly upsetting to hear people call Ron Paul a kook, even if I aggressively disagree with him on many things (I am a social democrat) I tend to agree with him on monetary policy and foreign policy. | ||
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dubRa
2165 Posts
Firstly, we are needed as a market because our prices can not compete with some of the French, German, Austrian companies. Best example is the food products which in Hungary is grown/made in a more natural way(less synthetics) due to our undeveloped agriculture but because of this, it costs much more and the average Hungarian will buy the cheapest. (If you every go to Romania, try their food, you will jump centuries into to past. They have one of the most old fashioned food industry) Second, it is our relatively cheap labor that go to west EU to work for low jobs and the over aged society of the west is quite happy that someone will clean their toilets. Especially if they are not Muslims. This is not an eurosceptic opinion, we think more money goes out than in, but we are happy to have a guidance and copy paste some of the western policies so we may have a chance to develop. (Sorry about my English. It is said that Hungarian is the hardest language to learn from English, it also works the other way around) | ||
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baal
10708 Posts
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Fwmeh
1286 Posts
Science produce falsifiable propositions. That is THE most important benchmark. I dislike many things about this thread, but most of all where people try to use science where it is not applicable. | ||
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ShroomyD
Australia245 Posts
On March 02 2010 22:04 Fwmeh wrote: Logic =/= Science Science produce falsifiable propositions. That is THE most important benchmark. I dislike many things about this thread, but most of all where people try to use science where it is not applicable. Scientific method is the only method applicable in science? | ||
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