US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4073

On September 29 2023 07:52 KwarK wrote:

You made an argument from infinity as an attempt to disprove something finite. If you don’t want your bad math skills held against you then get better math skills or don’t try to make arguments using math.

You’re still not getting the fundamentals of how this works. We’re not paying for it later, the token that we give them is the thing that they wanted, they’ve been paid. Just like if the US owned all the gold mines and we gave people gold tokens in exchange for goods. Until you can understand this fundamental premise of the role of the dollar I don’t think you’re really able to meaningfully engage with the subject.

This isn’t “China gives the US Chinese manufactured goods and the US promises to give China more US manufactured goods later in return as payment plus interest”. This is “China gives the US goods and the US gives China special US manufactured tokens that can be used to successfully barter with Argentina or store value between trades”. The exchange is complete. Both sides produced something that had value to the other and then exchanged it so that both sides got what they wanted.

On September 29 2023 08:17 Introvert wrote:


The infinity "example" was an exaggeration to make my point, unless you seriously think I don't know infinity is not a number. The point was that there is an amount of dollars in debt that we can have which will be impossible to pay off (in practice, even if we can just create dollars).

I am getting it, you are being far too narrow. There are actually very many people on the planet who want dollars and expect to use them to get actual things from the US. If you devalue those dollars too much too fast, people won't want them anymore. It's wild to see people who so often criticize the idea of a perfectly rational actor make arguments that require perfect response and elasticity ("you are just being underpaid"). Whatever is theoretically possible, we know from firsthand experience why you cannot simply increase the monetary supply without consequence and expect everyone to say "well, we can still get the same amount of LABOR from the United States." People have to want to trade in your token or it loses all its value and then nobody expect to get anything in return for it, from the US or anyone else. Fiat implies trust. Again I don't know if I should be surprised to see such a non-mainstream view exposited here or not.

On September 29 2023 08:17 Introvert wrote:


The infinity "example" was an exaggeration to make my point, unless you seriously think I don't know infinity is not a number. The point was that there is an amount of dollars in debt that we can have which will be impossible to pay off (in practice, even if we can just create dollars).

I am getting it, you are being far too narrow. There are actually very many people on the planet who want dollars and expect to use them to get actual things from the US. If you devalue those dollars too much too fast, people won't want them anymore. It's wild to see people who so often criticize the idea of a perfectly rational actor make arguments that require perfect response and elasticity ("you are just being underpaid"). Whatever is theoretically possible, we know from firsthand experience why you cannot simply increase the monetary supply without consequence and expect everyone to say "well, we can still get the same amount of LABOR from the United States." People have to want to trade in your token or it loses all its value and then nobody expect to get anything in return for it, from the US or anyone else. Fiat implies trust. Again I don't know if I should be surprised to see such a non-mainstream view exposited here or not.

There are actually very many people on the planet who want dollars and expect to use them to get actual things from the US. If you devalue those dollars too much too fast, people won't want them anymore.

Whatever is theoretically possible, we know from firsthand experience why you cannot simply increase the monetary supply without consequence and expect everyone to say "well, we can still get the same amount of LABOR from the United States."

People have to want to trade in your token or it loses all its value and then nobody expect to get anything in return for it, from the US or anyone else. Fiat implies trust.

On September 29 2023 08:32 KwarK wrote:

Okay, so when you said infinite you didn’t mean infinite because that’d obviously be wrong and apparently you wouldn’t say something so dumb.

Please would you share with the class what the number you meant to say is? I ask because otherwise you literally haven’t said anything of value on the subject. So far it’s just:
Me: “the current size of the number isn’t a problem”
You: “what if it was infinity though, what then”
Me: “that’s not a number”
You: “well obviously I didn’t literally mean infinity because only an idiot would say that”

We’ve got what your argument isn’t. We’re still waiting on what it is. Quantify “too much too fast”. Explain why you believe we’re there.

On September 29 2023 08:37 Mohdoo wrote:


There are things you are saying that are clearly true. The issue is that they don't prove or show what you are trying to argue is true.



Yes.



This is also mostly true, but the extent, specifics, and situations where this is true is not something you have explained. How does it specifically relate to your point?



This is also true. The issue is that you are taking these very, very, very basic premises of what it means for a currency to exist, and then saying it proves something remarkably complicated. I think you are aware of the fact that world currencies, government budgets, and other such monstrously complex financial systems are not some kind of linear "input, output" situation.

What is the exact point you are trying to make? What are you specifically saying should happen?

On September 29 2023 08:55 Introvert wrote:


I gave the example that IIRC the debt service will cost more than the entire defense budget in a decade. This crowds out dollars that need to be spent on other things, since, as I have argued, you cannot simply print the problem away. My argument is that there is a number at which there are so many dollars in circulation that the dollars currently held by others will decrease in value to the point where they aren't worth acquiring anymore. Because this system is not perfectly knowable, I don't know exactly where that point is. But we have seen what happens when other sovereign nations attempt to inflate their debt away. It's not just that it hurts the value in the moment, but it also erodes the very necessary trust for the future. If I'm in India and I hold $100k in debt and you suddenly double the amount of dollars in the world then mine are worth less, even if I never intended to use those dollars on US products. From big economies to farm debt crises, we know the problems with inflation. Default isn't actually the scariest thing that can happen. As we have seen from the latest round of inflation we are currently suffering from, extra debt we add today in the form of liquid cash moving out into the world has real harmful effects on actual people.

On September 29 2023 08:57 Introvert wrote:
We know it is true, even if we don't know when

On September 29 2023 08:13 RenSC2 wrote:

Those tokens have value because people think they have value. If people ever stop believing they have value, it's massively devastating for the world economy and also the Americans who use those tokens to buy everything they buy.

The US has more room to work with than probably any other civilization in human history. However, it's not infinite. If the US keeps running up more and more debt, there will be a point where people finally let the emperor know that he has no clothes. It won't necessarily happen overnight. It will instead be more of a slow drip into the Euro or bitcoin or something backed by a tangible good (like if OPEC created their own currency pegged to a barrel of oil).

If the US takes its stewardship of the world economy seriously, it could maintain its hegemony for generations. However, if it acts like MMT is correct and goes further and further into a debt it has no ability to pay back (except by printing more money), people are going to stop playing that game.

On September 29 2023 09:21 KwarK wrote:

The US is not like other nations with fiat debt that default, those nation's currency was not the primary global means of exchange.

As I said earlier, as global trade increases the demand for dollars necessarily also increases. The more economic activity and trade taking place, the more currency you need to represent that activity. If the amount of currency does not increase in line with economic activity then you end up in a deflationary environment in which the purchasing power of the currency increases as a static amount of currency is spread across a growing pool of transactions and subsequently divided into smaller and smaller denominations to represent the same intrinsic value. That's an extremely bad scenario (and part of the reason why the gold standard etc. fell apart, you can't leave monetary policy to gold prospectors).

The world needs the US to keep issuing new dollar denominated debt so that countries can keep buying it so that they have enough to meet the increasing demands for settlement and store of value. And the US is happy to do so because for them it's free stuff, simply a perk of being the global hegemon after WW2 and inheriting the British commercial empire. Sure, you have to police the sea lanes and overlook the crimes of Saudi Arabia but that's a small price to pay for the absurdly high standard of living that the dollar has given Americans compared to their trading partners.

We know that we're not at that tipping point where too much debt has been issued because the demand for US debt is stronger than ever. The US still borrows at extremely low rates and as global instability increases more and more people flee to dollar debt as a safe harbour. Not to spend it, simply to hold it in the knowledge that it's both secure and fungible.

Conservatives have been dooming the debt for decades based on this false idea that the US must somehow buy it back one day like you would a credit card. They have been dooming that it is unsustainable, that it is excessive, that it will inevitably all come crumbling down. It must be nice to be a conservative debt doomer because whenever anyone points out that you were wrong a year ago and you're just as wrong today you can simply say "well I just haven't been proven right yet". People who thought 5T was unsustainable and would surely result in inflation as everyone realized it was worthless saw it go to 10T without any lessening of demand for dollar denominated debt. Then 20T. Then 30T. All the while insisting that any new increase in the number would inevitably trigger the mass inflation as supply outpaced demand, and never acknowledging the last 52 consecutive years of being wrong on the subject. Bizarrely they've also been the ones pushing the greatest increases in debt with their tax cuts and spending increases but presumably nobody can turn down a free lunch.

But hey, maybe you're just not right yet. In which year do you plan on being right? When will the demand for dollars as a store of value and mode of exchange cease?

On September 29 2023 09:25 KwarK wrote:

Well that certainly must make things easier for you.

On September 29 2023 11:21 Introvert wrote:


I'm not advocating for something like the gold standard, I think people who want to go back to that have to grapple with some serious issues, but...

Conservatives are not the only ones concerned. Yes, the US has a bunch of advantages, but even aside from an apocalyptic scenario, we have seen the unfortunate results of pumping money into the system over the last 3 years. We know we can't spend as much as we want willy-nilly, whether borrowed or not.

Criticizing people for dooming too early is valid, but I don't think the alternative is to turn around and say the debt doesn't matter. That's too far in the other direction. Yes, the US has an edge. But it's not invincible, and we have other examples too learn from when things go bad. No reason to think it can't happen here were the conditions right.



You can be one of only a handful left or right saying we're totally fine at basically any level of debt. I hope you are right.

On September 29 2023 08:57 Introvert wrote:


What I'm saying is actually very simple, in the sense that it's a well worn road by this point. We know it is true, even if we don't know when we will suffer from it being true. Again, since a lot of this is trust and there is more going on the world than just those things that involve dollars, it's hard to know when exactly things will go wrong. but our current spending habits are giving us little wiggle room. Our spending over the last 3 years has already had unfortunate consequences.

On September 29 2023 11:21 Introvert wrote:


I'm not advocating for something like the gold standard, I think people who want to go back to that have to grapple with some serious issues, but...

Conservatives are not the only ones concerned. Yes, the US has a bunch of advantages, but even aside from an apocalyptic scenario, we have seen the unfortunate results of pumping money into the system over the last 3 years. We know we can't spend as much as we want willy-nilly, whether borrowed or not.

Criticizing people for dooming too early is valid, but I don't think the alternative is to turn around and say the debt doesn't matter. That's too far in the other direction. Yes, the US has an edge. But it's not invincible, and we have other examples too learn from when things go bad. No reason to think it can't happen here were the conditions right.



You can be one of only a handful left or right saying we're totally fine at basically any level of debt. I hope you are right.

On September 29 2023 13:27 Acrofales wrote:


You seem rather worries about this specific possible future problem. Is it reasonable to say that "yes, that may or may not be a problem at some point in the future, and it would indeed be prudent to take it into account in future planning? However there are a few very real and very urgent future problems that *WILL* definitely happen if we don't do something about them now, ranging from an opioids epidemic, through severely aging infrastructure all the way to global climate change, all of which need investments. So reducing the debt solves a potential future problem, but we can also spend that same money on definite future problems?"

And if you think we can deal with more than one future problem at once, if only we raise taxes in a sensible way, then we are in complete agreement!

On the Use That the Americans Make of
Association in Civil Life

I do not wish to speak of those political associations with the aid of which men seek to defend themselves against the despotic action of a majority or against the encroachments of royal power. I have already treated this subject elsewhere. It is clear that if each citizen, as he becomes individually weaker and consequently more incapable in isolation of preserving his freedom, does not learn the art of uniting with those like him to defend it, tyranny will necessarily grow with equality.

Here it is a question only of the associations that are formed in civil life and which have an object that is in no way political.

The political associations that exist in the United States form only a detail in the midst of the immense picture that the sum of associations presents there.

Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Finally, if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.

In America I encountered sorts of associations of which, I confess, I had no idea, and I often admired the infinite art with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal to the efforts of many men and to get them to advance to it freely.

I have since traveled through England, from which the Americans took some of their laws and many of their usages, and it appeared to me that there they were very far from making as constant and as skilled a use of association.

It often happens that the English execute very great things in isolation, whereas there is scarcely an undertaking so small that Americans do not unite for it. It is evident that the former consider association as a powerful means of action; but the latter seem to see in it the sole means they have of acting.

Thus the most democratic country on earth is found to be, above all, the one where men in our day have most perfected the art of pursuing the object of their common desires in common and have applied this new science to the most objects. Does this result from an accident or could it be that there in fact exists a necessary relation between associations and equality?

Aristocratic societies always include within them, in the midst of a multitude of individuals who can do nothing by themselves, a few very powerful and very wealthy citizens; each of these can execute great undertakings by himself.

In aristocratic societies men have no need to unite to act because they are kept very much together.

Each wealthy and powerful citizen in them forms as it were the head of a permanent and obligatory association that is composed of all those he holds in dependence to him, whom he makes cooperate in the execution of his designs.

In democratic peoples, on the contrary, all citizens are independent and weak; they can do almost nothing by themselves, and none of them can oblige those like themselves to lend them their cooperation. They therefore all fall into impotence if they do not learn to aid each other freely.

If men who live in democratic countries had neither the right nor the taste to unite in political goals, their independence would run great risks, but they could preserve their wealth and their enlightenment for a long time; whereas if they did not acquire the practice of associating with each other in ordinary life, civilization itself would be in peril. A people among whom particular persons lost the power of doing great things in isolation, without acquiring the ability to produce them in common, would soon return to barbarism.

Unhappily, the same social state that renders associations so necessary to democratic peoples renders them more difficult for them than for all others.

When several members of an aristocracy want to associate with each other they easily succeed in doing so. As each of them brings great force to society, the number of members can be very few, and, when the members are few in number, it is very easy for them to know each other, to understand each other, and to establish fixed rules.

The same facility is not found in democratic nations, where it is always necessary that those associating be very numerous in order that the association have some power.

I know that there are many of my contemporaries whom this does not embarrass. They judge that as citizens become weaker and more incapable, it is necessary to render the government more skillful and more active in order that society be able to execute what individuals can no longer do. They believe they have answered everything in saying that. But I think they are mistaken.

A government could take the place of some of the greatest American associations, and within the Union several particular states already have attempted it. But what political power would ever be in a state to suffice for the innumerable multitude of small undertakings that American citizens execute every day with the aid of an association?

It is easy to foresee that the time is approaching when a man by himself alone will be less and less in a state to produce the things that are the most common and the most necessary to his life. The task of the social power will therefore constantly increase, and its very efforts will make it vaster each day. The more it puts itself in place of associations, the more particular persons, losing the idea of associating with each other, will need it to come to their aid: these are causes and effects that generate each other without rest. Will the public administration in the end direct all the industries for which an isolated citizen cannot suffice? and if there finally comes a moment when, as a consequence of the extreme division of landed property, the land is partitioned infinitely, so that it can no longer be cultivated except by associations of laborers, will the head of the government have to leave the helm of state to come hold the plow?

The morality and intelligence of a democratic people would risk no fewer dangers than its business and its industry if the government came to take the place of associations everywhere.

Sentiments and ideas renew themselves, the heart is enlarged, and the human mind is developed only by the reciprocal action of men upon one another.

I have shown that this action is almost nonexistent in a democratic country. It is therefore necessary to create it artificially there. And this is what associations alone can do.

When the members of an aristocracy adopt a new idea or conceive a novel sentiment, they place it in a way next to themselves on the great stage they are on, and in thus exposing it to the view of the crowd, they easily introduce it into the minds or hearts of all those who surround them.

In democratic countries, only the social power is naturally in a state to act like this, but it is easy to see that its action is always insufficient and often dangerous.

A government can no more suffice on its own to maintain and renew the circulation of sentiments and ideas in a great people than to conduct all its industrial undertakings. As soon as it tries to leave the political sphere to project itself on this new track, it will exercise an insupportable tyranny even without wishing to; for a government knows only how to dictate precise rules; it imposes the sentiments and the ideas that it favors, and it is always hard to distinguish its counsels from its orders.

This will be still worse if it believes itself really interested in having nothing stir. It will then hold itself motionless and let itself be numbed by a voluntary somnolence.

It is therefore necessary that it not act alone.

In democratic peoples, associations must take the place of the powerful particular persons whom equality of conditions has made disappear.

As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have conceived a sentiment or an idea that they want to produce in the world, they seek each other out; and when they have found each other, they unite. From then on, they are no longer isolated men, but a power one sees from afar, whose actions serve as an example; a power that speaks, and to which one listens.

The first time I heard it said in the United States that a hundred thousand men publicly engaged not to make use of strong liquors, the thing appeared to me more amusing than serious, and at first I did not see well why such temperate citizens were not content to drink water within their families.

In the end I understood that those hundred thousand Americans, frightened by the progress that drunkenness was making around them, wanted to provide their patronage to sobriety. They had acted precisely like a great lord who would dress himself very plainly in order to inspire the scorn of luxury in simple citizens. It is to be believed that if those hundred thousand men had lived in France, each of them would have addressed himself individually to the government, begging it to oversee the cabarets all over the realm.

There is nothing, according to me, that deserves more to attract our regard than the intellectual and moral associations of America. We easily perceive the political and industrial associations of the Americans, but the others escape us; and if we discover them, we understand them badly because we have almost never seen anything analogous. One ought however to recognize that they are as necessary as the first to the American people, and perhaps more so.

In democratic countries the science of association is the mother science; the progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one.

Among the laws that rule human societies there is one that seems more precise and clearer than all the others. In order that men remain civilized or become so, the art of associating must be developed and perfected among them in the same ratio as equality of conditions increases.

On September 29 2023 14:51 KwarK wrote:
Americans already accept European tax rates, America just has a shitload of stealth taxes which results in Americans having no idea what they're actually paying in tax. It's bizarre, Americans hate government so much that they go out of their way to create as much of it as possible. They'll happily live in condos or suburbs with HOAs and pay the dues imposed upon them for trash pickup and maintenance etc. without recognizing they've formed a very local government with tax powers. Or they'll live in an apartment complex where part of their rent is allocated to communal facilities without recognizing that they've privatized what would be a function of the town council in the UK. They'll pay $1000 for a hospital appointment that should only cost $500 without recognizing that the other $500 is a privately levied tax on hospital users to go into a pool for subsidizing those unable to pay. They'll complain about death panels while building them in as an intrinsic part of the function of private healthcare.

Americans are constantly inventing new kinds of governments without any concerns about planning, bureaucracy, accountability, or reining in petty tyrants. And all these new governments they create are empowered to compel payment from citizens attempting to live their lives. But we all know Americans would never accept European tax rates and so all of those payments compelled from citizens by bureaucrats to pay for communal services must be something else.

On September 29 2023 18:01 EnDeR_ wrote:


This to me is the key and something I don't understand. Why would you want to save $100 in tax/year, but have to arrange your own private trash collection for $120/year? or wastewater disposal, or the infinite number of things that are cheaper when done in a more structured, communal way?