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Author Topic: Armchair Economics Thread - Re-Resurrection  (Read 34022 times)

Great Order

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #180 on: September 29, 2022, 12:36:34 pm »

Well, to continue on the theme of Lizzy's idiocy, she's insisting on steering the ship towards the waterfall.

She's acting like a literal child here. She'd rather crash the economy *and* be humiliated later than be humiliated now. It was nice guys, I enjoyed being part of a rich nation while I could. No amount of schadenfreude can overcome the horror of watching the UK economy collapse in real time because 0.02% of the population voted for an actual drooling moron despite being told, repeatedly, that she was an actual drooling moron.
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McTraveller

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #181 on: September 29, 2022, 01:17:00 pm »

Please stick to economics, not politics, thanks!  We have other threads for political discussion. If you can focus on the economic theory behind it - what is different about this economic cycle than previous ones, for example?
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Great Order

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #182 on: September 29, 2022, 03:10:09 pm »

We've got insane inflation and she's insisting on tax cuts is what it boils down to. She's subscribing to trickle-down economics which, as is well known, doesn't work. Effectively she's pumping money into a system that needs less money, and even worse she's ensuring that the inflation comes from the top, so it's not that poor people get more money but it's worth less, rich people get more money that's worth less AND poor people get the same amount of money that's worth less. The BoE is trying its damndest to prevent the economy from imploding so it's directly contradicting the government's policies, and it's already had to take some pro-inflationary measures to stop everyone's pensions from being wiped out. The markets are reacting accordingly and utterly shitting themselves, and even the IMF is saying that this is unprecedented. There was a guy from there on the news saying this is the sort of thing they've only witnessed in emerging economies, not mature ones. Truss also told everyone else they need to cut taxes to increase growth.

To sum it up: The economy was heading towards a cliff edge. Rather than put on the brakes, Truss and Kwarteng have decided that the better course of action is the press their foot on the accelerator on the basis that we might actually fly instead. Everyone on the planet's calling them idiots because the economy doesn't actually have wings, but they're insisting that it does. In fact, they've told everyone else their economies have wings and will take off if they just press the accelerator down too, which everyone else ignored because it's insanity.
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McTraveller

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #183 on: September 29, 2022, 03:25:06 pm »

I'd argue they indeed are putting their foot on the wrong accelerator.  For an economy to grow you need production of goods and services; so policies should be encouraging that.  I agree that putting your foot on the "increase money supply" accelerator seems like a foolish policy.

Higher velocity of money is only useful if it produces new goods and services; it only creates inflation if there is static (or falling) real productivity.

For example: I want to buy a new car in the US, but there just isn't enough production for me to buy it.  I can't buy literally something that effectively costs a person's annual wage, because there is no production.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2022, 03:40:38 pm by McTraveller »
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MrRoboto75

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #184 on: September 29, 2022, 03:25:49 pm »

Please stick to economics, not politics, thanks!  We have other threads for political discussion. If you can focus on the economic theory behind it - what is different about this economic cycle than previous ones, for example?

It's hard to not be political when the problem is literally macroeconomics/monetary policy at work.
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Great Order

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #185 on: October 01, 2022, 09:36:17 am »

Interesting article about the study that helped prompt Britain's descent into austerity from 9 years ago:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

Turns out there was a mistake in it. Debt-to-GDP ratio doesn't have anywhere near as much of an impact as the original study predicted.
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EuchreJack

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #186 on: October 01, 2022, 10:43:01 am »

Interesting article about the study that helped prompt Britain's descent into austerity from 9 years ago:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

Turns out there was a mistake in it. Debt-to-GDP ratio doesn't have anywhere near as much of an impact as the original study predicted.
Oh, it looks like it's had quite an impact  :P

da_nang

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #187 on: October 03, 2022, 04:31:35 pm »


For context, Lehman Brothers collapsed at approximately 750–850.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #188 on: October 03, 2022, 05:19:16 pm »

Damn. I didn't turn all my sterling into tinned beans yet

EuchreJack

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #189 on: October 03, 2022, 08:41:12 pm »

I guess this removes one barrier to the UK joining the European Union....

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #190 on: October 04, 2022, 01:06:11 am »

OK, can someone translate that for me? I've no idea what that means.
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da_nang

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #191 on: October 04, 2022, 02:40:35 am »

A credit default swap (CDS) is essentially an insurance for investors who fear the company in question may be close to default. If the price for Credit Suisse CDS is going up then that will mean the investors believe there is an increased risk that Credit Suisse goes belly up.
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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #192 on: October 04, 2022, 07:39:42 am »

OK, can someone translate that for me? I've no idea what that means.
Lets pretend I am a dickhead banker. Through fractional reserve banking I make money lending money I don't have to people who have less and charging them interest on it. But there's a problem: I could actually lose money if everyone I opened debt accounts or can't pay back. Because I am a dickhead banker I would rather have someone else pay for the consequences of my actions. And so you get the credit default swap.
The way it works is that I offer to enter into a contracted arrangement with another person or firm. I offer to pay them a premium every month/quarter/annum in exchange for them for them offering to pay the full debt amount outstanding if the original holder of debt cannot repay. The seller is happy with this arrangement because they can stand to generate a great income for doing nothing and no cost of capital as long as the original debt is repaid. The banker is happy with this arrangement because the seller of the CDS just took on all the risk for him. In theory bank loans should be regulated by the bank to ensure that high risks of default are unlikely, and the CDS is effectively just an insurance policy for the odd 1 in 100 loans that will default. In practice we get 2008 because greed is good and being a responsible human being is not for bankers.

But that's besides the point here. What is important is that:
CDS's are purchased to protect holders of debt against the borrower of that debt becoming unlikely to ever repay it. Credit Suisse issued a lot of bonds to a lot of people, so there's a lot of Credit Suisse debt owned by a lot of people (or more accurately, by a few funds and banks who own a lot of their bonds). These institutions have reason to believe Credit Suisse will not be able to honour their bonds and repay them when they mature, so they are buying CDS's en masse to protect against this event. The absolute mad fuckers who are selling the CDS's are willing to bet that Credit Suisse will be able to repay their bonds, on the basis that they enjoy receiving huge fat record-breaking premiums at the low low risk of losing everything they own to Satan's bumhole

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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #193 on: October 04, 2022, 11:59:08 pm »

Oh.

OOOOOH.

I think I remember there being a thing a few years back about a lot of the regulations designed to stop 2008 happening again being repealed because, y'know it couldn't happen a second time and they paid us money, guessing this might be the fallout from that?

But to sum it up, the banks have debtor insurance, the problem is that the debtor insurance looks like it might not actually be able to afford to insure the bank because the banks, being the Very Stable Geniuses that they are, decided to give way too much money to people who couldn't afford it? A bit like the difference between insurance paying for one house that burned down versus paying for a whole city?
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Re: Armchair Economics Thread - Resurrection
« Reply #194 on: October 05, 2022, 07:18:31 am »

Well in this case I imagine it has loads to do with Credit Suisse having already given money to high stakes gamblers like Archegos and Greensill, and both of the gamblers in this case lost big. And yeah, it is that Greensill, the one that hired David Cameron to try and convince government to give Covid loans to bail them out. So it's more that the bank has already lost loads of money and investors fear the bank is unable to pay back its own debts. That's why Credit Suisse bonds were plummeting and CDS skyrocketing
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