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[Magistrum]

Intervention is unreasonable. It would forever taint the new government, with the added bonus of creating ties to the "liberating" country, which could be anything from Brazil's "please participate fully in the mercosul" to the United States' "These fine people are going to help you run your oil rigs, please don't mind the mercenaries".

[Teneb]

Intervention is unreasonable. It would forever taint the new government, with the added bonus of creating ties to the "liberating" country, which could be anything from Brazil's "please participate fully in the mercosul" to the United States' "These fine people are going to help you run your oil rigs, please don't mind the mercenaries".

I forgot to post it in LAmeripol (I forgot to post a lot of things), but Mercosul ain't looking too hot now that the Pocket Monster and the other reactionaries around the continent murdered Unasul to create Prosul (It's the reactionary doppelganger of Unasul, but without Venezuela or Uruguay because "our banner shall never be red" (actual quote from several BR government officials)).

[McTraveller]

So if "external intervention" is not an option, and there isn't enough internal support/resource to affect change - what are you suggesting?

This seems like a 'perfect is the greatest enemy of good enough' situation to me.

Yes, I would not want my country beholden to another, but it might be better than the current situation.

[LordBaal]

The layman is comparing it to being kidnaped and having to release yourself, blind folded and tied, against armed guards. While everyone knows where you are and who are the kidnapers, because that's like your problem man.

[Magistrum]

Yep, such is the world of international politics. Simón Bolívar you tell you all about how frisky people are about foreign armies liberating their country. While Intellectuals and the educated classes may be all for it, those guys are the ones prone to fleeing the country. The people who stayed behind have a high change of getting even more pissed at someone attempting to help.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I very much am growing towards the opinion that the "next one" (which I stand by my previous name of Great Annihilation for) is going to be the death knell and exceed all those that have come before. Reasons to believe this:

1. The rate of profit continues to decrease and make capitalism cycle faster, which will translate to worse average crashes.

2. The cushion of wealth held by working people in the countries directing global commerce and has not returned, that money has been claimed by the ruling class and now funds their useless finance games instead. The majority of the population in the US at least cannot survive a serious economic strike, even short-term.

3. There is a real world outside the useless finance games and the material conditions of the population have worsened considerably. Destitution and especially collapse into mental illness have spread like wildfire. There are more homeless people and beggars on the streets now than I've seen in a decade. Corps are playing things very close to the chest right now, and this increasingly cuts off the ability of workers to receive wages, as well as taking further from them by neglecting their "customers" when the industries in question are medical, housing, or transportation related. Precariousness related to car payments and loan payments has increased greatly, and this in turn increases precariousness for what remains to pay rent and power.

4. Extreme degradation of infrastructure combined with worsening climate conditions will harshly limit any recovery and increase the chances of reaching a crisis point.

I do not have a International Monetary Fund-approved study to prove any of this, but since "actual economists" just make all their shit up too I feel like we're on a working playing field. I am increasingly confident that the next hammer blow will shatter the workers, and their sharp remains will cut the ruling class. If there's another shell game to play this one off into, I sure as hell don't see it.

[MrRoboto75]

So, I've been doing some reading across various sources, and I've come to the conclusion that the expected "next recession" (which economists swear won't be bad at all) might actually trigger (or be triggered by) a debt collapse. It's already starting to happen in Canada, for one (debt insolvency rates are increasing rapidly), and I believe companies in China are starting to go insolvent as well.

The problem? After the Great Recession, the replacement to bundled mortgage deals was bundled debt deals. Massive global debt insolvency could very well trigger the same sort of bank catastrophe that the Great Recession did. Increased market volatility, the inversion of the yield curve, and increasingly lowering market share of the 90% versus the 10% might send the whole global economy into a collapse should that "debt gun" go off, and it's starting to look like that very well might be what's going on.


Keep in mind, I say this from the perspective of someone who isn't an economist. Additionally, no current economists hold this position to my knowledge. I've mostly just pieced this together from various different sources.

Its another debt bubble.  IMO I'm thinking its going to be either auto debt, as they're basically doing to auto loans what they did to housing, or it'll be student debt defaulting on a massive scale.  It doesn't help that student debt is actually starting to slow the economy as a whole, as its getting in the way of young people taking other debts for, say, housing.  They're forced into delaying life milestones.

Frankly, the economy has only really been 'good' for stockholders and the like.  Nothing else has really recovered since the last one, especially as job producers love to embrace the 'gig economy'.

[smjjames]

I very much am growing towards the opinion that the "next one" (which I stand by my previous name of Great Annihilation for) is going to be the death knell and exceed all those that have come before. Reasons to believe this:

Well, it doesn't have to be greater since a Great Depression level crisis would definetly hit harder due to the global economy being more interconnected than it was back then.

2. The cushion of wealth held by working people in the countries directing global commerce and has not returned, that money has been claimed by the ruling class and now funds their useless finance games instead. The majority of the population in the US at least cannot survive a serious economic strike, even short-term.

That'd be true of the entire rest of the world, it's not US exclusive, though obviously the thread is of US politics.

4. Extreme degradation of infrastructure combined with worsening climate conditions will harshly limit any recovery and increase the chances of reaching a crisis point.

That'd end up being more of a complicating factor than an ignition factor though.

I'd probably add a 5. The government response may or may not botch it up.

So, I've been doing some reading across various sources, and I've come to the conclusion that the expected "next recession" (which economists swear won't be bad at all) might actually trigger (or be triggered by) a debt collapse. It's already starting to happen in Canada, for one (debt insolvency rates are increasing rapidly), and I believe companies in China are starting to go insolvent as well.

The problem? After the Great Recession, the replacement to bundled mortgage deals was bundled debt deals. Massive global debt insolvency could very well trigger the same sort of bank catastrophe that the Great Recession did. Increased market volatility, the inversion of the yield curve, and increasingly lowering market share of the 90% versus the 10% might send the whole global economy into a collapse should that "debt gun" go off, and it's starting to look like that very well might be what's going on.


Keep in mind, I say this from the perspective of someone who isn't an economist. Additionally, no current economists hold this position to my knowledge. I've mostly just pieced this together from various different sources.

What exactly would debt insolvency mean for the national debt?

I've definetly heard about things like China slowing down (boom times always end at some point) and things about red flags, theres an article on The Guardian about a slump in Chinese imports. But it's all been a 'lets keep an eye on this' rather than blaring the air raid sirens.

Theres also been speculation that Trump is trying to set up the Fed as a scapegoat in case of a downturn since Trump is certainly aware that a recession could happen and some have projected that the next downturn is due in 2020.

[Reelya]

1. The rate of profit continues to decrease and make capitalism cycle faster, which will translate to worse average crashes.

It's exactly the opposite of this, sorry. Big crashes come after periods of above-average returns, because in those times the cost of credit lags behind the rate of profit, so entities take out more loans to expand.

With generally declining profitability you're more likely to end in a whimper rather than a bang. I can't see how generally lower profits are going to make capitalism "cycle faster" either. In fact, that will generally dissuade people from expanding credit so quickly, so the bumps get smaller, not bigger.

[McTraveller]

Where's the "armchair economics" thread?   

I often muse that the best way to minimize recessions is to simply encourage consumers to get themselves out of situations where they have continuous payments into things where they just own everything.

I'd love if we had laws that limited mortgages to 10 years or something and bring housing prices down.  I'd love if durable- good rental always conferred ownership (that is, you can't be a perpetual landlord).

Stuff like that.

[Folly]

After the Trump administration failed to turn over Trump's tax returns by the April 10th deadline, congressional Democrats have issued a new 'final deadline' of April 24th.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/democrats-demand-trump-tax-returns-april-23-190413202554593.html

The White House have responded with their best tax-withholding excuse so far:

I don't think Congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that President Trump's taxes will be.

[Kagus]

The White House have responded with their best tax-withholding excuse so far:

I don't think Congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that President Trump's taxes will be.

"I want the taxes!"

"You can't handle the taxes!"

[Trolldefender99]

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/marianne-williamson-town-hall/index.html

Seems Andrew Yang has really good policies. And he wants to give ALL americans 1000 USD in basic monthly income. Which thats been done to a smaller extent in parts of canada and other parts of the world, and it helps so many people and stimulates the economy of those places quite a lot.

Plus I could finally afford to upgrade my PC lol. I still have an i5 660 CPU

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He wants to eliminate all other forms of welfare and get that basic income from regressive taxation. Yang is no friend of the workers, and UBI will serve as a prelude to the managed destruction of those it is given to.

[Frumple]

It'd have to be a hell of a tax. Quick check suggests our welfare spending is only in maybe the 1trillion range, with estimates between ~670 billion and 2.7 trillion (which includes SS, both medis, etc.), and that 1k/month for everyone between 18 and 64 (which suggests SS wouldn't be touched...) would have a 2.5ish trillion dollars pricetag. What sort of taxation is this guy suggesting?