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[Reelya]

EDIT: Here's some risky loan practices out of China, too. Notice a theme yet?

Nah, that's very different to the situation in America. Those Chinese loans seem mostly to be about getting people started with small businesses, not pouring money into a "commodity" like housing. With assets such as property, the more money gets lent, the more the prices rise, thus the more demand for credit there is.

For micro-loans for small business it's a lot different. If too many people get loans to open computer-repair shops then there is instant feedback reducing the demand for getting more loans to open more of the same type of shop, so you don't get the positive-feedback-loop you get with a housing or stock bubble.

One key difference is probably that China is a fast-growing emerging economy, whereas America is a slow-growing mature economy. A lot of people have spare cash to "invest" in America, but there aren't many fast-growing industries left. So they invest in static "stuff". The bubble comes because there's too much spare capital compared to the actual productive part of the economy.

China's growth rate is triple that of the USA, so the higher interest rates on these micro-loans can be explained in part by that. Loan interest rates are subject to supply and demand.

[McTraveller]

The bubble comes because there's too much spare capital compared to the actual productive part of the economy.

If you wrote "there's too much spare money compared to the actual productive part of the economy" I would 100% agree.

Capital is equipment, resources, and education.  If you have excess equipment, resources, and education then prices should fall, not rise - assuming, of course, there are no other influences like monopoly effects or regulatory capture that mean the market is not competitive.

[Doomblade187]

If you have excess equipment, resources, and education then prices should fall, not rise - assuming, of course, there are no other influences like monopoly effects or regulatory capture that mean the market is not competitive.

Hmmm.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

[Naturegirl1999]

If you have excess equipment, resources, and education then prices should fall, not rise - assuming, of course, there are no other influences like monopoly effects or regulatory capture that mean the market is not competitive.

Hmmm.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Mayhaps monopolies are common here

[Mephisto]

I would like very much to hear from our House Republicans how they're the good guys who were just doing what they were told and how they differ from the last group of people who were just doing what they were told and coincidentally also had concentration camps.

[scriver]

2015 Germany?

[Iduno]

I would like very much to hear from our House Republicans how they're the good guys who were just doing what they were told and how they differ from the last group of people who were just doing what they were told and coincidentally also had concentration camps.

The United States in the 40's?

[Doomblade187]

I would like very much to hear from our House Republicans how they're the good guys who were just doing what they were told and how they differ from the last group of people who were just doing what they were told and coincidentally also had concentration camps.

The United States in the 40's?

And we paid reparations to the Asian-Americans we put in concentration camps, too.

[Max™]

Well, I mean, Oklahoma--as I often joke--could be translated as "the place you go around" but an equally accurate version would be "where we pushed as many of the native americans who weren't fighting us anymore--but also not dead yet--as we could before neighboring states started complaining" so yeah, don't leave out the mountains of corpses we built this land on while being suitably enraged about kids and asylum seekers in cages.

I mean, as much as we love the idea of the US as G.I. Joe, Global Police Officer, we aren't fighting many good fights around the world when we're hunting down the various friends and allies who later pissed us off enough to get labeled terrorists. It's good to clean up those messes, no doubt, but if we had been a bit neater in the first place then we wouldn't end up casually ruining lives and lands in their general vicinity when we catch back up to them.

I mean, I'm not saying we should have capped bin Laden right after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, but we probably should have capped him back then or at least taken his balls, tongue, and like mashed his hands into goo so he'd know how badly we're going to fuck over everything he cares about if he crosses us... you know, the american way!

We come about our heritage of evil and awfulness honestly, but on the other hand: fuck nazis, their sympathizers, their general white supremacist kin, and most of all fuck every last one of their powerful enablers who sat by and watched a bunch of fucking cunts sitting around going "man, nazis are cool" but casually ignored them... or quietly cheered them on... or openly defended the unfairly maligned "good guys" on the side of fucking nazi bitchbois. Fuck em to death if need be, but allow them the chance to say "hey I am sorry about deciding to become something vile and evil for the fuck of it, I won't do it anymore, please stop smashing your fist into my face, or at least take off the spiky and barbed flensing glove?"

We were able to balance the books some after WWII because we didn't stop to consider if maybe polite discussion and civil discourse would work better than throwing huge numbers of our own lives across the ocean until they ran out of nazis to punch.

It wasn't a noble cause because we saved france or some shit, who the fuck cares about fucking france? Do the french even give a fuck about it?

It was because we were up against something which is thankfully not TERRIBLY common in global conflicts: evil monsters with expansive plans and goals involving piling ever more bodies on their already horrific heap of atrocities, and they were allies with somebody that picked a fight with us beforehand.

Naturally I'd be a whole lot more goddamn patriotic and proud as fuck of us as a people if we had put on our shitstomping boots and gone about stomping nazi shitstains a bit earlier, but we were doing a bunch of shit to fuck them over indirectly, covertly, and helping prop up the folks who didn't have an ocean or two of insulation from "the situation in france" as the missus once wonderfully summed up WWII for me when she was trying to figure out what all she didn't know she didn't know about it.

In the end we had a good long run where people could take comfort knowing if nazis decided to poke their head up out of their parents basements and try to start doing nazi shit again, they would be worried because at any time they could hear an eagle's cry ring out and a bunch of pissed off and heavily armed USian soldiers would begin jumping up and down on their heads.

Then some fucking asshole--I'll admit, it was probably me--pointed out that they were probably thinking of the awesome "SKRREEEEEEOOOOWWWWWWRRRNNNNN" type cries which some hawks make, rather than the frankly ridiculous "pyee-pyee-pyee-cheeeeerrroooooooo-pip-pip-pip" nonsense you get coming out of a bald eagle, and next thing you know we're trying to figure out why a mutant cheetoh controlled by the spirit of the dead cat it wears is president? Meanwhile britain turned into a 14 year old girl who gets importantly and maturedly angry at her boyfriend so she tells him they're breaking up but then when he comes over to get his CD collection back they both realize nobody knows what those are anymore and start making out until he refuses to consider her ridiculous idea that Aragorn is anything but an ISTP and she screams and says they're breaking up again but it's already dark so he has to go home in the morning, also call her later?

[Enemy post]

Beto O’Rourke is dropping out of the race.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Goodnight, you skate shoe, church taxing, gun stealing, debate fistfight, oil boy.

[SalmonGod]

When you vote D for no other reason than to stop R, the wealthy are literally laughing at you.

I mean literally.

Link:  Bill Maher unironically promoting "ignore progressives because they have nowhere else to go anyway" as the punchline and central message of an entire segment on his show.  Can we stop giving them the benefit of the doubt that this isn't the whole sum of their political strategy yet?

[Lord Shonus]

Bill Maher is a massively bigoted piece of shit. We'd all be better off if people stopped giving him attention, just like the right-wing nuts.

[PTTG??]

I can think of no more serious insult than to say, "Bill Maher voted for Hillary in the primary."

[Iduno]

When you vote D for no other reason than to stop R, the wealthy are literally laughing at you.

I mean literally.

Link:  Bill Maher unironically promoting "ignore progressives because they have nowhere else to go anyway" as the punchline and central message of an entire segment on his show.  Can we stop giving them the benefit of the doubt that this isn't the whole sum of their political strategy yet?

You know you have issues when Bill Maher is laughing at you from what I presume is beyond the grave. He has a good point, though. A lot of "liberals" who are terrified by ideas that passed in the 1920's, or that the ultra-rich might be slightly bothered by anything.