None of this is sustainable longterm. The money printer comes with tremendous responsibility and it was repeatedly turned on to flood money to the most wealthy through banks and collaterals, always with the idea that they were “creating jobs/wealth/increasing everyone’s portfolio.”
It now runs on a prayer that AI will usher in some era of tremendous prosperity.
... while a small group benefits from wealth that, if properly managed, would ensure their family is leisurely, content, and labor free for infinite generations.
Cant hurt to educate instead of keeping our mouths closed. I have a lot to learn but am aware there is a financial syndicate robbing all of us. So I try to speak about it in a non conspiratorial manner.
Oh that’s not how economic collapse works. No one is having a good time, and being a “have” in a sea of “have nots” that YOU CREATED comes with its own set of risks.
The really hilarious part is the entire point of the electoral college was a safeguard for when the populace votes for someone clearly unfit for office.
The electors were supposed to be a last line of defense against precisely what just happened.
> The Electoral College was officially selected as the means of electing the president towards the end of the Constitutional Convention, due to pressure from slave states wanting to increase their voting power, since they could count slaves as 3/5 of a person when allocating electors, and by small states who increased their power given the minimum of three electors per state.
Do note that the section you quote comes from a single citation of a 2023 book by two political scientists, neither of whom have expertise in late 1700s America. Saying the purpose was to increase slave states' voting power is incredibly reductive, and not supported by the rest of that Background section (or really, non-Wikipedia sources).
> At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
I'm not saying slavery wasn't a factor; it was the issue, of course, and impacted essentially everything. I'm saying reducing the entire institution to "it was to increase power of slave states" is, well, needlessly reductive.
It’s so disappointing to see as an American, yet the saddest part is a good chunk of Americans see this admin’s “dick waving” globally and assume it projects strength and prosperity for the country.
In reality, what even is US if there is no dollar/bond dominance and the world decides to shun our markets?
You are going to be finding out. You are now a pariah state with very few allies. There is no interest in proping up your bond market or paying your silly 'tarrifs'. Ten year treasuries well above 5 per cent now.
Yes. And our children are shackled with the weight of an unbearable debt that is hitting escape velocity. They stole our children’s future to pay for their past, and people should be very angry
Well only if the debt is honoured. At some point the unimaginable becomes a lesser evil. It has happened before. Ancient civilisations even turned it into a regular event every few decades or so. And there is a kind of logic to it. Prevents both debt and assets accumulating across generations.
Of course. Bush tax cuts...ok you had a surplus. NOt great use. 2008. Largest recession since the great depression. 2018 tax cuts. No. 2020 covid yes. 2026 tax cuts no.
Every administration since Bush has had the money printer going full tilt. Nobody has been willing to end the party. Trump, then Biden, then Trump again have just skyrocketed the problem.
We have been overdue for a correction/recession since 2018 - and endless federal stimulus has been propping it up, resulting in accelerating inflation.
America is addicted to borrowing its way out of overspending, and it WILL catch up with us.
I mean you say that because democrats always inherit an economy in the shitter from republican handling. A money printer during recession is fine.
Under clinton a surplus. Under bush a deficit. Under obama the deficit went down. Under trump it went up. Under biden it went back down again.
So again this both siding is simply more bullshit. If you give dems a halfway decent economy rather fixing republican destorying everything we wouldnt have this issue
Money printing under obama had us literally below 2% inflation for 10 years or so. There are also things more important than debt.
> I mean you say that because democrats always inherit an economy in the shitter from republican handling.
True. But Democrats for some time have proven themselves complicit and repeatedly stop short of implementing change when it is well within their power to do so. Endless quantitative easing and corporate bailouts under Obama were terrible policy that rewarded the Investment Class for reckless behavior while not really helping working Americans. Cash for Clunkers was a wrong-headed disaster that permanently rat-fucked the car market. Biden's abject failure to reign in PPP fraud resulted in hundreds of billions in fraud, including the company belonging to Mitch McConnell's wife's family getting a million dollars with no recourse - while doing nothing to push to raise the Federal minimum wage, which would have done more to sustainably help working Americans than a couple of $2K stimulus checks.
Not to mention how 'just enough' Democrats in Congress continue to come out and help Republicans pass their wretched budgets every time. Americans aren't all stupid. We can see how right and left establishment-DNC Democrats keep lining up next to their GOP colleagues and fucking us, which is why their approval ratings continue to remain in the toilet. The only thing propping up the Democratic party for the last ten year has been "Not Trump". And that isn't enough.
Cash for clunkers got rid of 677K cars.There is 15 million new cars sold a year in the USA with 35 million total new and used. So this ridiculous notion that cash for clunkers greatly affected anything is stupid. And part of it was based on the notion of newer more efficient cars would pollute less which was true.
> Biden's abject failure to reign in PPP fraud resulted in hundreds of billions in fraud, including the company belonging to Mitch McConnell's wife's family getting a million dollars with no recourse - while doing nothing to push to raise the Federal minimum wage, which would have done more to sustainably help working Americans than a couple of $2K stimulus checks.
Biden certainly was enforcing fraud on PPP loans and others. The problem is you both siders elect people like trump who do this corruption and think it can be instantly cleaned up. Remember the whole minnesota somalia thing? That was bidens enforcement of fraud where they were arrested in 2022 and charged with fraud.
You say complicitly but reality is its within the confounds of the laws created. You elected a lawless republican who fired the guard rails of inspector generals so no one would oversee as he put out the loans and then complain when your over flowing toilet of shit isnt immediately cleaned.
Under Bidens economy the bottom 40% had their best wages of a generation beating inflation by a fair margin.
Yes obama was too green and bailed out the banks vs the people which was a mistake. Thats why hilary would have been better.
>Not to mention how 'just enough' Democrats in Congress continue to come out and help Republicans pass their wretched budgets every time. Americans aren't all stupid. We can see how right and left establishment-DNC Democrats keep lining up next to their GOP colleagues and fucking us, which is why their approval ratings continue to remain in the toilet. The only thing propping up the Democratic party for the last ten year has been "Not Trump". And that isn't enough.
Not trump is what both siders pretend democrats run on. Kamala ran on tax cuts for small business. Going after price gouging business. Maternity leave. Universal child care.
DNC rating will always be in the toilet because they want to blame them for losing rather than understanding voters simply wanted trump and listened to his lies.
Right now the generic ballot is D+8 which is about the same as 2018. Do you think thats a coincidence? Its because people forgot how bad trump was the first time.
People immediately turn now if everything isnt fixed in a year. Look at trump. Even his 12 year cultist are starting to break.
Easier to destory then create and now with low trust in government youll find it impossible to make any large changes for things like medicare for all or the like. cause then the next trump will just refuse healthcare for blue states
One memo from pedophile Epstein associate Larry Summers who wanted to give even MORE taxpayer money to AIG and Goldman Sachs.
He can go fuck himself - that is if he's done raping children at Epstein island. That fucker should be buried under the prison. I would not be looking at that corrupt piece of shit for economic policy.
This is not a fringe take, either. If you look it up you’ll see a pretty wide ideological range of think-tanks and advocacy orgs calculating that our debt is at least 50% from the Bush-Trump tax cuts (which, it needs to be said, Obama and Biden failed to roll back). Only extremely conservative orgs that have their own kind of math, and who ideologically consider tax cuts to be “free,” will argue this point.
It was not defensible because they never bothered to fix the underlying issues while simultaneously reaping the benefits via cantillion effect.. They use "Well that's congress's job, not the Fed or the banks", meanwhile the banks lobby to keep congress from doing those very things.
The core issue is that economic liberalism always revives utopian lies about libertarian, deregulatory economic environments. Once that deregulatory seed is planted, cartels and monopolies seize/ursurp sovereign control.
Deregulation only fosters competition when it eliminates bureaucratic barriers that block new businesses from entering a market. The funny thing is the lobbies that champion deregulation also just-so-happens to near-always come along with axing anti-monopoly rules and merger oversight, so dominant corporations inevitably exploit that freedom to merge, collude, and kill off competition to maximize profits. People misunderstand monopolies as being about "high-prices", when it's entirely about poltical/economic leverage. It's about pricing power, leverage over concentrated employment, leverage over export volume, and all the political leverage/influence it all carries.
Deregulation increases pricing cartel formation. People constantly run on the false assumption that companies intrinsically want to compete, even in spite of collusion, tacit or otherwise, being far more profitable. In a highly consolidated market, companies engage in conscious parallelism. They do not actively sit in a room and fix prices, which would violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, they just watch each other and match price hikes.
Libertarian capitalists continue to ignore reality because they want capitalism to work how they perceive it should work, rather than how it does. We keep getting these irresponsible children in very powerful positions.
You might recall when Greenspan was questioned whether his free-market ideology had caused him to make disastrous (lack of) regulatory decisions.
>Greenspan: I have found a flaw... I don’t know how significant or permanent it is still, but I’ve been very distressed by that fact.
>Waxman: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,
>Greenspan: Absolutely, precisely. You know, that’s the reason I was so shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.... I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.
Oh look! A sudden realization of a fundamental miscalculation about human nature and corporate incentives. He learned that unregulated corporate self-interest does not lead to a stable, self-policing market. Instead, when given total freedom and zero oversight, corporations will enthusiastically take on catastrophic, systemic risks to maximize short-term profits. If the system looks like it will break, they are incentivized to take on even more apocalyptic risk, because then the system is at stake and they have to be bailed out. He failed to realize that in a highly deregulated world, giant corporations do not wait for new competitors to challenge their cartel. They use their massive wealth to build insurmountable, non-governmental barriers to entry, like buying out startups, controlling supply chains, or deploying aggressive parallel pricing, allowing cartels to flourish without any help from the state, and once they are large and indispensable enough, the begin to capture the regulatory body and become the state, robbing people of their sovereignty and rendering democracy to pageantry.
This is why we are where we are, and this isn't a new story. It is literally the revolutionary origin story of the US; had everything to do with the people's control over their currency, and therefore, the value of their labor in a market economy, not all that BS about tea and taxes.
It’s completely over and they - private financial entities who direct our government- are pretending as if we’re not going to seek out every hedge fund and private equity firm from NY to Chicago. It’s utterly insane. The Fed is trying to inflate through the eighth credit cycle We’ve had since 1971. It’s not working. It’s only chasing risk asset prices higher. The business cycle is completely insolvent. We tap out you win you can’t leave us like this.
The turning point for the debt was under Reagan, when he declared that we would bulk up the military to defeat the Soviets AND cut taxes at the same time, putting us on war footing in terms of stimulus. It’s quite telling that the subsequent two presidential terms heavily featured spending cuts and tax increases, resulting in a federal surplus in the early aughts. That was washed away with—you guessed it—simultaneous war spending and tax cuts again.
The GFC and COVID obviously created huge amounts of debt, but all but the most partisan organizations that track such matters will tell you that various tax cuts enacted and preserved from Bush II until now account for, AT MINIMUM, a full half of our outstanding sovereign debt.
The blame for this, IMO, lies squarely with Reagan, who set the standard that Americans would always be able to have their cake and eat it to. Unlimited spending AND lower taxes.
Don't forget about the PPP loans that were forgiven. People committed literal theft of millions of dollars and got away with it. Money printer went straight into their pockets.
This is a foreseeable consequence of a fiat money supply monopolized not by the public, but by an oligarchy of private beneficiaries of the printer - that is, the banks.
What do you think pulling money from thin air against future tax proceeds, so that a small group of beneficiaries - the equity owners of the banks that benefit from the increased deposits and balance sheet impact of future repayment - is, other than "robbing the future to enjoy today"?
People have been pointing out this inevitability for more than 100 years only to be constantly pooh-poohed by financiers and economists as, at best, worrywarts, and more frequently, conspiracists.
And now when the exact thing people have been warned about is undeniable and extremely visible, we get all the pearl clutching about "Oh why did no one warn us of this? Nobody could have seen this happening!"
Personally I find the fake shock and fake outrage to be quite tedious. Anyone paying attention knew this was going to happen and were denigrated for daring to say so.
> it was repeatedly turned on to flood money to the most wealthy through banks and collaterals
Nothing is more stark of an example of this than when, during Covid, rent payments were frozen, but missed balances needed to be repaid like the average pandemic-furloughed worker ever makes up enough money to square that. The alternative could have been allowing banks or those with rental properties to write off property taxes and mortgage payments according to lost rental incomes/mortgage interest. Then only the State loses, and at worst, property owners and banks are forced to break even. But instead, the workers and renters shouldered the entire cost of the pandemic, with stimulus payments that were not COLA-adjusted and almost irrelevant in many parts of the country.
And now the workers are taking the brunt of the long-term fallout too.
The 70s we were able to inflate through and still have willing market participants on the outset of the next credit cycle. That’s the difference between then and now. 75% of citizens are already priced out of the market as is. In the 70s people leaned on the new charge card and a second job. Now you can’t get a job because the employers are financing payroll borrowing every week to pay employees. So people will be leaning on the grass outside at their local parks.
Every day there's a headline similar to this where the year listed gets earlier and earlier lol. Getting harder and harder to see how we manage to wiggle our way outta this pickle
Yup. More taxes and less spending. We will need to do both. And it won't just be the rich who pay, because there actually isn't enough money there. And it can't just come from the military, because there isn't enough money there.
I think people are dramatically underestimating the impact having 20% of the federal budget being interest payments will have. We aren't there yet, but very soon.
The really interesting thing will be in politics in 2028... any politician who promises new spending will basically be lying. So how many people will believe whatever flavor of populism we get in that election?
Baloney. Plenty of first world countries manage to tax rich people and provide WAY MORE public services than the US does, and yet those countries aren't flirting with the insane debt levels that we have.
It's an absolute lie that the US is the only place where the rich can't possibly be taxed enough and the poor just have to suck it up without healthcare, education, or housing.
It's not that the rich don't need to be taxed. It is the fact the debt problem is so bad that they need to back taxed, but taxing them won't solve the problem. The amount of money all the rich people have in the states is a tiny fraction of the nation's debt, and the interest that needs to be paid on top of that.
The US is so far in debt that there's no way to realistically pay it down within a generation even with the needed reforms.
Then it must be a surprise to you that our WWII debt was ever paid down? And to be sure, the economic boom after the war made that much faster than it would have been otherwise ... but the fact that it WAS paid down is the point here.
Really should be taxing non-profits like the NFL and large mega churches, too.
And I think people would be more supportive to taxing the rich if they understood how tax brackets work. A shocking amount of people don't understand that you if add a new bracket, say at 600k, only the taxable income over that amount is taxed. Instead they fear moving into the next tax bracket, it's really quite crazy how things like this are not taught.
Yes. An overhauling of the central banking system. Many of us fight about left and right however the real levers of power and influence stem from the private entities that are member shareholders of the federal reserve. Living in CT we have a section where all of these financiers live. It makes a brain surgeon who’s married to a lawyer look like peasants. As clandestine and conspiratorial as it comes across, there are only about 10,000 of these people and their bloodlines. All doing the same thing. Private Equity, quantitative hedge funders. Central bankers and investment bankers. These people make nothing they produce nothing of value they simply are parasites we are hosting. I had a little too much time on my hands and Googled these massive mansions in new Canaan, Connecticut, Greenwich, Connecticut, Westport, Connecticut, Darien, Connecticut all of the owners of the homes have no political affiliation all of them work in one of those three financial entities. Private equity. Hedge fund. Investment banking. We’re talking helicopter on yacht money.
Don't know if it's a true story, but it reminds me of one: Japanese civilians during WWII realizing their government was lying to them because the "imperial military's glorious victories" were occuring closer and closer to mainland Japan.
I believe it’s apocryphal but there’s a similar quote about the Emperor musing that if the Navy keeps winning at this rate the Americans will be in Tokyo in no time
It’s interesting how quickly sentiment has changed because in the not too distant past you would be dismissed as a doomer for pointing out what was to come. There are some difficult choices ahead and everyone thinks they will be ones to avoid their fallout.
Instead of investing, America simply used the privileged Dollar reserve status to live beyond its means by treating it as a credit card with no limit and thinking the rest of the world would always be there to make the minimum montly payments.
Well, the rest of the world are fed up with paying for Americas extravagance and are withdrawing the trust fund payment.
If Americans truly understood the implications of losing the dollar reserve status, they'd be freaking out right now.
It isn't the dollar reserve status that allows this sort of money printing, it's The US's robust economy, political stability, a free, transparent and liquid market, and a strong military on the backs of which the US gov't can offer stable gov't bonds that effectively provide investors risk free returns. The dollar's strength also lies on the same foundations that represent stability. Of course the current admin is hell bent of wrecking that as well, but you've got your logic reversed. No other country in the world provides this level of stability and combined value propostion that provides investors a level of assurance and US dollar liquidity for global trade that the US does. Not even crypto.
Good point but one correction, that is what the US did. DJT Trump 1.0 was devastating but 2.0 irrevocably destroyed that idea of the US. The decline of US monetary and financial dominance is nearly guaranteed now and its just a question of how long the process is, save some extreme saving measure like comprehensive constitutional reform.
Can't wait for someone to snarkily quote this in 3 months with a "see the cities aren't on fire!" type response.
The decline has been in motion for years, but the fact it doesn't happen immediately means the layman has a hard time conceptualizing and accepting it.
I'm only in my early 30s and I feel like it's not hard to clock if you're pragmatic and genuinely have a desire to understand how our world works.
It's become increasingly clear as I age that the vast majority of people just don't care, and don't want to know. They need their world to be fine and to actually conceptualize reality is simply too unpleasant and scary to the point most people outright reject reality and willing believe convenient lies so they can get through their day.
yeah I mean massive austerity is where we're heading unless the gov't finally starts taxing the rich and the corps their fair share to pay off the national debt. Either that or we're getting civil unrest and rising crime induced by rising wealth inequality, personal debt burdens, austerity and larger tax burdens on the middle/lower class in order to pay off the national debt. That said other SDR currencies still don't have the capacity or stability for global trade to replace the USD. The question is, if not the USD, then what else?
For one I think there is just less need for a single currency in the information age when the internet has created global, liquid markets and computers can automatically account for changes in price levels and interest rates. For example, private contracts can feasibly bake in benchmark interest rates or reference inflation indices or prices of specific inputs goods. There is just less need for third party reference asset with stable value.
So the future may just be less demand for sovereign debt in general, when the premium for stability has been consistently abused by governments. Or you could just see a more diverse set of currencies being used for shorter periods of time.
But also, the EU may position itself to offer the Euro as a reserve currency, if its political process can work out a strategy to avoid blowing up fixed rate debt by proper monetary expansion with good investment.
Then there is always reverting back to gold, or decentralized currencies as reserve assets.
I think the opposite. There is so much chaos and distrust in the world right now, the least we can have is a single currency that we can base trade on. Doesn't have to be the USD, but maybe something else. Having a decentralized pricing system is all well and good until we have a global financial crisis and recession and suddenly central banks don't have the tools they need to get liquidity, capital flight, and run on the banks under control, while making asset valuations assessments even more difficult. Besides at least short term interest rates depend on central bank operations globally.
The USD actually removes the premium, because premiums are tied to risk, and doing global trade with a bunch of less stable currencies only makes risk worse which demands a premium. The more diverse the currency especially if it comes from countries with less stable foundations vs the US, the more risk and volatility you need to account for.
EUR is a good middle ground, but even they have internal political issues, making it less feasible. That's why the USD continues to be a relatively safer and stable currency for world trade. The Gold standard also has issues because if there is a global financial crisis and countries start redeeming their gold, you'll have a run on the banks.
The decline in US debt is because people are loosing trust tho. Yeah, it would be great if we could trust the US system like we did 10 years ago. But the cats out of the bag. There is no going back without major reform to fix the glaring issues in the US political system.
Less centralized management tools are just a reality of trend driven by individual incentives. The US has abused its investors with reckless waste, violence, and corrupt use of public funds. Theoretically sure, if the system could be trusted, everyone may be better off investing in it, but unfortunately it just can't. So individuals have to watch out for their own interests.
Although I do think the modern era, banks have lost a lot of their fundamental importance. In the digital age they are not actually needed for the basic custodianship and transacting functions anymore. Consumer banks are so regulated, the money supply so much expanded, they are becoming more and more just thin middlemen between deposits and government digital money. Bank runs are a pretty antiquated concept. I don't think many are worrying about getting their deposits - they worry about how much value the units of currency will have.
A world without a singular, critical central entity, like a centralized reserve currency, is also inherently more resilient to crises having less singular, centralized systems to spread systemic risk.
The reserve currency status creates foreign demand for dollar, which means that when the US inflates, they're essentially spreading the cost between domestic and foreign holders. But if foreign holders reduce their exposure, then the domestic holders will gradually eat a bigger portion of the cost, reducing The ability of the US to inflate themselves out of every problem.
It's slowly what's happening. At least in Sweden multiple pension funds are reported to have reduced their exposure to US treasuries quite significantly citing increased risk and political insecurity.
Right. Investors don't care about that. But the consequences remain the same. The US has been able to fund their "extravagance" through their reserve status. It represents an ability to essentially tax foreigners through inflation. If foreigners reduce their exposure, then then the US will lose that ability which implies a significant reduction of their standard of living.
You were disagreeing with a point where it were no real disagreement. I acknowledged your point and clarified mine. No need to look for arguments everywhere.
It is in a way about that. They’re basically saying they don’t think America will make good on its debts, which means they think America is mismanaging their spending and won’t actually be able to pay them back.
This thread seems to be filled with braindead responses from people who seem to know nothing about economics.
Heck, there are a bunch of comments where if you just read them without the headline you'd be assuming the article said interest rates were LOW not high.
Theoretically we invested in maintaining our role as a military superpower, but IMO we still spent that money very unwisely. I’m also not sure I’ve ever heard of a military power whose supply lines for armaments were not riddled with corruption and graft, like ours is.
This is destroying all forms of real estate which needs low rates. Almost every deal I’ve looked at the past year has been destroyed by the higher rates. We’re about to see some major price cuts coming
Your dollar also would have been worth 61 cents 20 years ago. I couldn't afford to build a garage for 20% of my very ordinary middle class home and I'd be underwater on my mortgage and unable to leave (except by bankruptcy) until I was 50. Hooray for the middle class I guess?
It's when people start burning down their houses instead of selling them since they're so far underwater. Or they just walk away and they sit unoccupied for years until the tax sale, where they get vandalized and slowly rot away, while liens pile up.
It also means anything relying on property taxes collapses -- teacher layoffs, fire stations closed, libraries closed, and a million other things.
Then we just replace property taxes with something else. Having society's ability to function be predicated on an unsustainable growth pattern that lowers quality of life for the majority of the population isn't a good thing.
I mean I can’t afford my life now and there is zero chance the government is going to fix this issue, so for most young people a complete crash doesn’t seem too bad.
As someone that graduated in 2008, it would be very bad. An economy where real estate crashes is one where there are no jobs. My family lived out of a trailer, after my parents were laid off, for a few years because of it. We were lucky.
I had friends with parents that kept their jobs, but couldn't afford their payments on their variable rate mortgages and had to have their houses foreclosed any ways.
Young people have no money. It doesn't make a difference if houses crash 40% or 90% because no bank would risk them a loan, especially if they have no jobs.
All it would likely result in is the rich and corporations owning infinitely more, since they are they ones with the money to capitalize on a crash.
Americans don't understand how privileged they are.
But if those 3/4ths of society have made it practically impossible for me to achieve the same milestones they worked so hard to achieve, why should I care if their lives are destroyed? My life can’t get off the ground.
I do think it would be bad, and I don’t want society to collapse, but we live in an extremely selfish world and it feels like 3/4ths of society already chose the option to pull the ladder up behind them - so I’ll be selfish right back and hope for a significant crash.
Look at what a starter house cost to build at the edge of your city. In my city it’s $350k. Build the same house just a little closer to city center, on a $80k lot, and that house is now $860k.
Raise your hand if you knew that the guy who managed to bankrupt multiple Atlantic casinos, which should be money printing machines, would bankrupt the county.
When you purchase an investment security, your hope is simple: it appreciates in value, so when you move to sell, it isn't a challenge. You sell quickly, you get your money back (and then some!), and you have more cash next time to invest in something else.
The hope is that the security has a greater value over time, and when you liquidate, you forever determine what the sale value was at that time. You hoped the investment worked out, and once you sell, the story is done.
The more securities in circulation, the more "hope" in the market; and the more securities, the more derivatives (options, futures contracts, etc).
After a certain point, you can't rely on "hope"; you need numbers.
When everyone channels the same "hope", usually it becomes less organic and more risky. For 1 security, you were fortunate when 1 buyer was there to purchase your appreciated asset, because they saw more appreciation on the value and were happy to hold the asset for you. After all, it went up for you, so it will go up for me!
When risk becomes a pressure, and hope isn't enough to break through, how do you create stability to maintain the expectation of a hope-filled outcome?
Manipulation. Manipulation is OK, so long as wealth is being created (for whoever), and Americans appear to be on top (irrational exuberance). That's how you can have people dying, and in the midst of turmoil and fear (not much "hope"), you can still have US officials at a microphone saying "The DOW is above 50,000!" and get fired shortly thereafter (they did their job).
So manipulation was OK because it did both things: maintain high sentiment of the American economy, and made someone somewhere wealthier.
But the person now holding the security is concerned: how high can this thing fly? And how can I make money, maintain "American economy #1", but also I keep the security in the mean time? Stock pledges. Shadow credit. A pledge: now that my liquidity is a fraction of my asset value, I will do everything possible to keep the security value high (and if I don't, I face a margin call). I don't even need to sell it, I just pledge the options.
However, here comes the problem: you need someone to keep buying the securities, to keep the value high. You've done your part: endless pump, mindful dump. The bubble has become so large, you need someone with MORE money to come and buy your securities. What happens when the price of the items on top of the bubble are out of the market's reach, and at a time when the fundamentals are looking shaky?
Normally, you'd look for a buy-in price, and maybe that price is below where it is right now? So what happens when the market reflects the pumped up price, and the buyers that are needed want to buy, but at a lower price? Governments want the price to remain high, and buyers want it to get low.
Right now, the US economy is juggling a LOT of bubbles, many which are bubbles on top of bubbles: AI on top of the stock market, bond markets on top of housing and government debt, etc.
They all have the same problem: the bubbles were inflated by "hope" that the money available would be sufficient now (in the past's "future") for new buyers to afford high value homes, high value stocks, high value assets and securities that new holders could steward into the future.
During a historically high national debt, we are seeing a squeeze on Americans, investors, overseas buyers, and more, and these bond yields are the ONLY way to push back against an Administration doing everything it can to NOT face the music.
US Treasury attempts some quantitative easing? The market gobbled it up in 24 hours.
Everyone makes clear that the 10-year yield has a danger zone specifically demarcated at 4.8-5.5%. Yields blast right through, and are now sitting at ~5.17%.
Some people were worried about a 10-year/30-year inversion. Don't worry, they're both going up in cadence with each other.
The market is calling out the US economy's corruption and manipulation.
"If you're going to keep allowing so much wealth to undermine this economy, so much so that it's just a Ponzi scheme, then we're going to demand more interest yield to be a part of this charade."
A huge federal government means a huge ability to spend recklessly and a huge ability to arrogate power to itself and impose its will on state governments.
A weaker more constrained federal government would avoid these problems but that’s not what either party really wants. (Despite protesting Trump’s actions, the response from the left has been “he shouldn’t do those things” not “he shouldn’t be able to do those things”.)
Even Gavin Newsom was talking carefully like if he was president he might try to leave some of the illegal Trump tariffs in place. You know because of reasons.
Maybe Libertarians shouldn't have voted for the Republicans all these years, then. Because there is zero question who is responsible for our fiscal situation
Wipe all outstanding fiat debt. Pin the dollar to a basket of real tangible commodities. Implement one flat tax rate on everything. Abort interest and financial markets containing computer generated derivatives. Take what remains in the equity markets and distribute to rightful owners. Yes those who are extremely wealthy will hate this including yourselves. However we’ve run out of options here. For a future generation to enter this world I hope you consider.
So the plan is to stiff every other government that loaned us money via bonds and stiff every single US retiree that loaned the government money via bonds?
It’s fiat backed bonds. Made up. All central banks globally are piling into gold not for fun. The deflation this would create for would leave us less worried about our bonds. More time to spend with family. Coupled with technology a transition into abundance vs scarcity based economics can ensue. Maybe return market capital to its rightful owner. Not a broad scale distribution.
I get your point 100%. It’s ending though. What are the other options? Fiat currency systems are dependent on perpetual growth. Growth now can only be synthesized by the central banks in the form of Quantitative Easing. This worked for the last 2 credit cycles but is failing now leaving the business cycle insolvent. The dollar is too weak to receive treatment and there’s mathematical proof of that in the bond market. Im just thinking what will work best? It’s not as if we can will the current system back to life. In CT we will be boiling water to shower this winter and leaving on the faucet so the pipes don’t freeze.
It would crash the economy, resulting in hundreds of thousands of layoffs and millions of people's retirement becoming worthless. What do you think would happen to our healthcare system or food system in such a scenario?
We would need to rely on humanity. I’m aware it’s not an easy task. Again I am not some far left 22 year old making tik toks videos. I’m a financial professional who is aware it’s ending. Regardless of what your advisor or tv personality tells you. I’m trying to brainstorm a viable option forward. Wiping all debt would only be problematic severely problematic if we are still under a system of debt monetization and financial derivative instruments used to steel out of the working classes pocket. In a debit based economy with a one time start payment we would need to be fiscally responsible. Yet not doomed.
We would need to rely on humanity. I’m aware it’s not an easy task. Again I am not some far left 22 year old making tik toks videos. I’m a financial professional who is aware it’s ending. Regardless of what your advisor or tv personality tells you. I’m trying to brainstorm a viable option forward. Wiping all debt would only be problematic severely problematic if we are still under a system of debt monetization and financial derivative instruments used to steel out of the working classes pocket. In a debit based economy with a one time start payment we would need to be fiscally responsible. Yet not doomed.
Let me ask you this Corwin. If we woke up tomorrow and money didn’t exist you believe we’d all go extinct? If the paper faces and financial computer generated derivatives stopped. Would that be the end all? I do know my neighbors I’m not sure who’s holding. The same outcome comes if we keep this system. I’m partial to leveling the playing field to avert an upheaval.
You can want money to go away all you want and long term yea man lets do it. If it happened tomorrow it would be awful chaos and your life would be ruined, full stop.
The answer would be war, famine, and people looking out for themselves as their sense of stability and security is erased. The same people that could depend on their check coming in to pay for groceries would have to figure out where to get food real quick, and that would likely mean your home.
Accelerationism isn't the answer. Hoping for the end times only shows how privileged and out of touch you are.
If we wake up and money doesn't exist we would immediately reinvent it as well as everything that goes with it like debts and derivatives. If we don't a lot of people will die because productivity will be much lower without it
Econmajorhere | 13 hours ago
None of this is sustainable longterm. The money printer comes with tremendous responsibility and it was repeatedly turned on to flood money to the most wealthy through banks and collaterals, always with the idea that they were “creating jobs/wealth/increasing everyone’s portfolio.”
It now runs on a prayer that AI will usher in some era of tremendous prosperity.
These guys robbed the future to enjoy today.
candlecup | 13 hours ago
Robbed our future to enjoy today
FifaBribes | 12 hours ago
Don’t forget that they will be enjoying tomorrow and every day after as well.
It’s the rest of us that will suffer.
TimSylvester_ | 9 hours ago
... while a small group benefits from wealth that, if properly managed, would ensure their family is leisurely, content, and labor free for infinite generations.
psynautic | 11 hours ago
some people might consider what they did criminal
crowcawer | 9 hours ago
Thank heavens the voters understand what this all means.
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
Cant hurt to educate instead of keeping our mouths closed. I have a lot to learn but am aware there is a financial syndicate robbing all of us. So I try to speak about it in a non conspiratorial manner.
Electrical-Box-4845 | 8 hours ago
This is true for almost all western neoliberal democracies. How people still support patriotism despite this criminal system is beyond my logic
Weak_Crab_6828 | an hour ago
Oh that’s not how economic collapse works. No one is having a good time, and being a “have” in a sea of “have nots” that YOU CREATED comes with its own set of risks.
artisanrox | 2 minutes ago
mmmmm. Maybe not.
jellyhessman | 10 hours ago
Every raise you didn't get, every school that wasn't built, every person who dies of a preventable disease.
You gave them to the rich because they managed to convince a society that 1 persons success is more important than the whole.
So_HauserAspen | 12 hours ago
Robbed our future to enjoy their today
bobs_monkey | 3 hours ago
Yeah I'm not enjoying my today
IClosetheDealz | 8 hours ago
Thank a boomer next time you see one
TitanicChurro | 11 hours ago
So America is getting what it voted for.
TheWurstOfMe | 8 hours ago
35% of America is getting what it voted for.
35% of America is getting what they couldn't be bothered to vote for.
The rest of us are fucked.
J_NonServiam | 8 hours ago
Technically about 18% of the population (swing states), and of that 18% maybe about half, with a little over a quarter not participating.
Non-battleground states are unlikely to flip no matter what so it really comes down to the 7 battleground states deciding on behalf of everyone
dust4ngel | 6 hours ago
democracy: when the outcome doesn't really depend on whether most people vote because of the electoral college and 2-party system
pagerussell | 6 hours ago
The really hilarious part is the entire point of the electoral college was a safeguard for when the populace votes for someone clearly unfit for office.
The electors were supposed to be a last line of defense against precisely what just happened.
dust4ngel | 6 hours ago
the purpose of the electoral college was to increase the voting power of slave states:
> The Electoral College was officially selected as the means of electing the president towards the end of the Constitutional Convention, due to pressure from slave states wanting to increase their voting power, since they could count slaves as 3/5 of a person when allocating electors, and by small states who increased their power given the minimum of three electors per state.
dyslexda | 5 hours ago
Do note that the section you quote comes from a single citation of a 2023 book by two political scientists, neither of whom have expertise in late 1700s America. Saying the purpose was to increase slave states' voting power is incredibly reductive, and not supported by the rest of that Background section (or really, non-Wikipedia sources).
dust4ngel | 5 hours ago
while it's true that "wikipedia bad", it remains true. how's james madison as a source?
> At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
dyslexda | 4 hours ago
Sure, that's one author's take on Madison. What about Hamilton, who doesn't use the same explanation?
I'm not saying slavery wasn't a factor; it was the issue, of course, and impacted essentially everything. I'm saying reducing the entire institution to "it was to increase power of slave states" is, well, needlessly reductive.
Forward_Guess4163 | 13 hours ago
It’s called Kleptocracy, and it’s happening before your very eyes.
Econmajorhere | 13 hours ago
It’s so disappointing to see as an American, yet the saddest part is a good chunk of Americans see this admin’s “dick waving” globally and assume it projects strength and prosperity for the country.
In reality, what even is US if there is no dollar/bond dominance and the world decides to shun our markets?
Horatio2200 | 11 hours ago
You are going to be finding out. You are now a pariah state with very few allies. There is no interest in proping up your bond market or paying your silly 'tarrifs'. Ten year treasuries well above 5 per cent now.
Automatoboto | 11 hours ago
they robbed the future to build out the apathy machine to keep you scrolling sloptok.
it worked.
Runfasterbitch | 10 hours ago
Yes. And our children are shackled with the weight of an unbearable debt that is hitting escape velocity. They stole our children’s future to pay for their past, and people should be very angry
brutaljackmccormick | 6 hours ago
Well only if the debt is honoured. At some point the unimaginable becomes a lesser evil. It has happened before. Ancient civilisations even turned it into a regular event every few decades or so. And there is a kind of logic to it. Prevents both debt and assets accumulating across generations.
Mbstranche08 | 4 hours ago
Solon debt jubilee. It is coming.
LoudestHoward | 11 hours ago
I feel the money printing through the GFC/Covid crisises is defensible, the repeated tax cuts during the good times though...
HumorAccomplished611 | 11 hours ago
Of course. Bush tax cuts...ok you had a surplus. NOt great use. 2008. Largest recession since the great depression. 2018 tax cuts. No. 2020 covid yes. 2026 tax cuts no.
Constant-Plant-9378 | 8 hours ago
Every administration since Bush has had the money printer going full tilt. Nobody has been willing to end the party. Trump, then Biden, then Trump again have just skyrocketed the problem.
We have been overdue for a correction/recession since 2018 - and endless federal stimulus has been propping it up, resulting in accelerating inflation.
America is addicted to borrowing its way out of overspending, and it WILL catch up with us.
HumorAccomplished611 | 8 hours ago
I mean you say that because democrats always inherit an economy in the shitter from republican handling. A money printer during recession is fine.
Under clinton a surplus. Under bush a deficit. Under obama the deficit went down. Under trump it went up. Under biden it went back down again.
So again this both siding is simply more bullshit. If you give dems a halfway decent economy rather fixing republican destorying everything we wouldnt have this issue
Money printing under obama had us literally below 2% inflation for 10 years or so. There are also things more important than debt.
Constant-Plant-9378 | 8 hours ago
> I mean you say that because democrats always inherit an economy in the shitter from republican handling.
True. But Democrats for some time have proven themselves complicit and repeatedly stop short of implementing change when it is well within their power to do so. Endless quantitative easing and corporate bailouts under Obama were terrible policy that rewarded the Investment Class for reckless behavior while not really helping working Americans. Cash for Clunkers was a wrong-headed disaster that permanently rat-fucked the car market. Biden's abject failure to reign in PPP fraud resulted in hundreds of billions in fraud, including the company belonging to Mitch McConnell's wife's family getting a million dollars with no recourse - while doing nothing to push to raise the Federal minimum wage, which would have done more to sustainably help working Americans than a couple of $2K stimulus checks.
Not to mention how 'just enough' Democrats in Congress continue to come out and help Republicans pass their wretched budgets every time. Americans aren't all stupid. We can see how right and left establishment-DNC Democrats keep lining up next to their GOP colleagues and fucking us, which is why their approval ratings continue to remain in the toilet. The only thing propping up the Democratic party for the last ten year has been "Not Trump". And that isn't enough.
HumorAccomplished611 | 8 hours ago
Cash for clunkers got rid of 677K cars.There is 15 million new cars sold a year in the USA with 35 million total new and used. So this ridiculous notion that cash for clunkers greatly affected anything is stupid. And part of it was based on the notion of newer more efficient cars would pollute less which was true.
> Biden's abject failure to reign in PPP fraud resulted in hundreds of billions in fraud, including the company belonging to Mitch McConnell's wife's family getting a million dollars with no recourse - while doing nothing to push to raise the Federal minimum wage, which would have done more to sustainably help working Americans than a couple of $2K stimulus checks.
Biden certainly was enforcing fraud on PPP loans and others. The problem is you both siders elect people like trump who do this corruption and think it can be instantly cleaned up. Remember the whole minnesota somalia thing? That was bidens enforcement of fraud where they were arrested in 2022 and charged with fraud.
You say complicitly but reality is its within the confounds of the laws created. You elected a lawless republican who fired the guard rails of inspector generals so no one would oversee as he put out the loans and then complain when your over flowing toilet of shit isnt immediately cleaned.
Under Bidens economy the bottom 40% had their best wages of a generation beating inflation by a fair margin.
Yes obama was too green and bailed out the banks vs the people which was a mistake. Thats why hilary would have been better.
>Not to mention how 'just enough' Democrats in Congress continue to come out and help Republicans pass their wretched budgets every time. Americans aren't all stupid. We can see how right and left establishment-DNC Democrats keep lining up next to their GOP colleagues and fucking us, which is why their approval ratings continue to remain in the toilet. The only thing propping up the Democratic party for the last ten year has been "Not Trump". And that isn't enough.
Not trump is what both siders pretend democrats run on. Kamala ran on tax cuts for small business. Going after price gouging business. Maternity leave. Universal child care.
DNC rating will always be in the toilet because they want to blame them for losing rather than understanding voters simply wanted trump and listened to his lies.
Right now the generic ballot is D+8 which is about the same as 2018. Do you think thats a coincidence? Its because people forgot how bad trump was the first time.
People immediately turn now if everything isnt fixed in a year. Look at trump. Even his 12 year cultist are starting to break.
Easier to destory then create and now with low trust in government youll find it impossible to make any large changes for things like medicare for all or the like. cause then the next trump will just refuse healthcare for blue states
Sryzon | 7 hours ago
>Every administration since Bush
The Obama administration has been criticized for not providing enough fiscal stimulus during his first term.
Constant-Plant-9378 | 7 hours ago
One memo from pedophile Epstein associate Larry Summers who wanted to give even MORE taxpayer money to AIG and Goldman Sachs.
He can go fuck himself - that is if he's done raping children at Epstein island. That fucker should be buried under the prison. I would not be looking at that corrupt piece of shit for economic policy.
Sryzon | 7 hours ago
The Larry Summers Obama chose to appoint, yes. It's just one example of many.
>I would not be looking at that corrupt piece of shit for economic policy.
And that's exactly what Obama did. I'm guessing you didn't actually read the article?
Gamer_Grease | 9 hours ago
This is not a fringe take, either. If you look it up you’ll see a pretty wide ideological range of think-tanks and advocacy orgs calculating that our debt is at least 50% from the Bush-Trump tax cuts (which, it needs to be said, Obama and Biden failed to roll back). Only extremely conservative orgs that have their own kind of math, and who ideologically consider tax cuts to be “free,” will argue this point.
Were_all_dead_anyhow | 6 hours ago
It was not defensible because they never bothered to fix the underlying issues while simultaneously reaping the benefits via cantillion effect.. They use "Well that's congress's job, not the Fed or the banks", meanwhile the banks lobby to keep congress from doing those very things.
The core issue is that economic liberalism always revives utopian lies about libertarian, deregulatory economic environments. Once that deregulatory seed is planted, cartels and monopolies seize/ursurp sovereign control.
Deregulation only fosters competition when it eliminates bureaucratic barriers that block new businesses from entering a market. The funny thing is the lobbies that champion deregulation also just-so-happens to near-always come along with axing anti-monopoly rules and merger oversight, so dominant corporations inevitably exploit that freedom to merge, collude, and kill off competition to maximize profits. People misunderstand monopolies as being about "high-prices", when it's entirely about poltical/economic leverage. It's about pricing power, leverage over concentrated employment, leverage over export volume, and all the political leverage/influence it all carries.
Deregulation increases pricing cartel formation. People constantly run on the false assumption that companies intrinsically want to compete, even in spite of collusion, tacit or otherwise, being far more profitable. In a highly consolidated market, companies engage in conscious parallelism. They do not actively sit in a room and fix prices, which would violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, they just watch each other and match price hikes.
Libertarian capitalists continue to ignore reality because they want capitalism to work how they perceive it should work, rather than how it does. We keep getting these irresponsible children in very powerful positions.
You might recall when Greenspan was questioned whether his free-market ideology had caused him to make disastrous (lack of) regulatory decisions.
>Greenspan: I have found a flaw... I don’t know how significant or permanent it is still, but I’ve been very distressed by that fact.
>Waxman: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,
>Greenspan: Absolutely, precisely. You know, that’s the reason I was so shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.... I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.
Oh look! A sudden realization of a fundamental miscalculation about human nature and corporate incentives. He learned that unregulated corporate self-interest does not lead to a stable, self-policing market. Instead, when given total freedom and zero oversight, corporations will enthusiastically take on catastrophic, systemic risks to maximize short-term profits. If the system looks like it will break, they are incentivized to take on even more apocalyptic risk, because then the system is at stake and they have to be bailed out. He failed to realize that in a highly deregulated world, giant corporations do not wait for new competitors to challenge their cartel. They use their massive wealth to build insurmountable, non-governmental barriers to entry, like buying out startups, controlling supply chains, or deploying aggressive parallel pricing, allowing cartels to flourish without any help from the state, and once they are large and indispensable enough, the begin to capture the regulatory body and become the state, robbing people of their sovereignty and rendering democracy to pageantry.
This is why we are where we are, and this isn't a new story. It is literally the revolutionary origin story of the US; had everything to do with the people's control over their currency, and therefore, the value of their labor in a market economy, not all that BS about tea and taxes.
Mbstranche08 | 10 hours ago
It’s completely over and they - private financial entities who direct our government- are pretending as if we’re not going to seek out every hedge fund and private equity firm from NY to Chicago. It’s utterly insane. The Fed is trying to inflate through the eighth credit cycle We’ve had since 1971. It’s not working. It’s only chasing risk asset prices higher. The business cycle is completely insolvent. We tap out you win you can’t leave us like this.
Gamer_Grease | 9 hours ago
The turning point for the debt was under Reagan, when he declared that we would bulk up the military to defeat the Soviets AND cut taxes at the same time, putting us on war footing in terms of stimulus. It’s quite telling that the subsequent two presidential terms heavily featured spending cuts and tax increases, resulting in a federal surplus in the early aughts. That was washed away with—you guessed it—simultaneous war spending and tax cuts again.
The GFC and COVID obviously created huge amounts of debt, but all but the most partisan organizations that track such matters will tell you that various tax cuts enacted and preserved from Bush II until now account for, AT MINIMUM, a full half of our outstanding sovereign debt.
The blame for this, IMO, lies squarely with Reagan, who set the standard that Americans would always be able to have their cake and eat it to. Unlimited spending AND lower taxes.
NextGen-Panic | 11 hours ago
Worse; they're deliberately ushering in the Apocalypse to avoid paying Reparations for everything they've done.
There's a reason they're feverishly building bunkers while everyone's hung up on the bullshit-du-jour.
The Central Banks are FUCKED fucked.
Mbstranche08 | 10 hours ago
EXACTLY I will be reading this until further notice
dy-113x | 5 hours ago
Don't forget about the PPP loans that were forgiven. People committed literal theft of millions of dollars and got away with it. Money printer went straight into their pockets.
TimSylvester_ | 9 hours ago
This is a foreseeable consequence of a fiat money supply monopolized not by the public, but by an oligarchy of private beneficiaries of the printer - that is, the banks.
What do you think pulling money from thin air against future tax proceeds, so that a small group of beneficiaries - the equity owners of the banks that benefit from the increased deposits and balance sheet impact of future repayment - is, other than "robbing the future to enjoy today"?
People have been pointing out this inevitability for more than 100 years only to be constantly pooh-poohed by financiers and economists as, at best, worrywarts, and more frequently, conspiracists.
And now when the exact thing people have been warned about is undeniable and extremely visible, we get all the pearl clutching about "Oh why did no one warn us of this? Nobody could have seen this happening!"
Personally I find the fake shock and fake outrage to be quite tedious. Anyone paying attention knew this was going to happen and were denigrated for daring to say so.
Constant-Plant-9378 | 8 hours ago
These guys are robbing our present to enjoy today.
ry8919 | 6 hours ago
> These guys robbed the future to enjoy today.
Really robbing the future just to tamp down on the damage they are doing today.
VeteranSergeant | 4 hours ago
> it was repeatedly turned on to flood money to the most wealthy through banks and collaterals
Nothing is more stark of an example of this than when, during Covid, rent payments were frozen, but missed balances needed to be repaid like the average pandemic-furloughed worker ever makes up enough money to square that. The alternative could have been allowing banks or those with rental properties to write off property taxes and mortgage payments according to lost rental incomes/mortgage interest. Then only the State loses, and at worst, property owners and banks are forced to break even. But instead, the workers and renters shouldered the entire cost of the pandemic, with stimulus payments that were not COLA-adjusted and almost irrelevant in many parts of the country.
And now the workers are taking the brunt of the long-term fallout too.
3_Thumbs_Up | 3 hours ago
>None of this is sustainable longterm.
At the rate they yields are increasing it's starting to look very unsustainable short-term as well.
snoogins355 | 11 hours ago
If Boomers had a motto it would be that last sentence
Departmentoka1024 | 9 hours ago
Using Ai to collapse the USD. Financial reset. Have something to point the finger at, not someone. It can be stopped however...
Zocalo_Photo | 4 hours ago
Happy cake day!
saln1 | 13 hours ago
It’s good for investors though, 5.4% free money for 30 years, what is the point of working?
sentrypetal | 13 hours ago
Only problem is real inflation is higher.
Arristotelis | 13 hours ago
Is 5.4% going to be enough? That's probably basically zero return with true inflation?
vote-morepork | 12 hours ago
TIPS is over 3%, which is decent, unless they start fudging the inflation numbers
Ancient-Reporter-546 | 13 hours ago
Stocks be going down though
Hedkandi1210 | 10 hours ago
Nah they’ll think of a headline to get the algos to pump
chewie_were_home | 12 hours ago
You need a shit load of cash to make money with this and inflation will be higher.
saln1 | 12 hours ago
Inflation will be higher than 5.4%? Where did you get that lmao
bry0816 | 11 hours ago
Go read about US inflation in the 1970s
Mbstranche08 | 10 hours ago
The 70s we were able to inflate through and still have willing market participants on the outset of the next credit cycle. That’s the difference between then and now. 75% of citizens are already priced out of the market as is. In the 70s people leaned on the new charge card and a second job. Now you can’t get a job because the employers are financing payroll borrowing every week to pay employees. So people will be leaning on the grass outside at their local parks.
Gamer_Grease | 9 hours ago
Pick up a book
LookInTheMirrorPryk | 9 hours ago
Good luck surviving another 30 years.
moodytenure | 10 hours ago
Every day there's a headline similar to this where the year listed gets earlier and earlier lol. Getting harder and harder to see how we manage to wiggle our way outta this pickle
3_Thumbs_Up | 10 hours ago
It would take very serious reforms that neither the political class (especially not the current administration) or the public are ready for.
mcsul | 7 hours ago
Yup. More taxes and less spending. We will need to do both. And it won't just be the rich who pay, because there actually isn't enough money there. And it can't just come from the military, because there isn't enough money there.
I think people are dramatically underestimating the impact having 20% of the federal budget being interest payments will have. We aren't there yet, but very soon.
The really interesting thing will be in politics in 2028... any politician who promises new spending will basically be lying. So how many people will believe whatever flavor of populism we get in that election?
wocka-jocka-blocka | 6 hours ago
Baloney. Plenty of first world countries manage to tax rich people and provide WAY MORE public services than the US does, and yet those countries aren't flirting with the insane debt levels that we have.
It's an absolute lie that the US is the only place where the rich can't possibly be taxed enough and the poor just have to suck it up without healthcare, education, or housing.
jellyhessman | 3 hours ago
It's not that the rich don't need to be taxed. It is the fact the debt problem is so bad that they need to back taxed, but taxing them won't solve the problem. The amount of money all the rich people have in the states is a tiny fraction of the nation's debt, and the interest that needs to be paid on top of that.
The US is so far in debt that there's no way to realistically pay it down within a generation even with the needed reforms.
wocka-jocka-blocka | 3 hours ago
Then it must be a surprise to you that our WWII debt was ever paid down? And to be sure, the economic boom after the war made that much faster than it would have been otherwise ... but the fact that it WAS paid down is the point here.
jpoolio | 2 hours ago
Really should be taxing non-profits like the NFL and large mega churches, too.
And I think people would be more supportive to taxing the rich if they understood how tax brackets work. A shocking amount of people don't understand that you if add a new bracket, say at 600k, only the taxable income over that amount is taxed. Instead they fear moving into the next tax bracket, it's really quite crazy how things like this are not taught.
Mbstranche08 | 5 hours ago
Yes. An overhauling of the central banking system. Many of us fight about left and right however the real levers of power and influence stem from the private entities that are member shareholders of the federal reserve. Living in CT we have a section where all of these financiers live. It makes a brain surgeon who’s married to a lawyer look like peasants. As clandestine and conspiratorial as it comes across, there are only about 10,000 of these people and their bloodlines. All doing the same thing. Private Equity, quantitative hedge funders. Central bankers and investment bankers. These people make nothing they produce nothing of value they simply are parasites we are hosting. I had a little too much time on my hands and Googled these massive mansions in new Canaan, Connecticut, Greenwich, Connecticut, Westport, Connecticut, Darien, Connecticut all of the owners of the homes have no political affiliation all of them work in one of those three financial entities. Private equity. Hedge fund. Investment banking. We’re talking helicopter on yacht money.
Data-Bard | 7 hours ago
Don't know if it's a true story, but it reminds me of one: Japanese civilians during WWII realizing their government was lying to them because the "imperial military's glorious victories" were occuring closer and closer to mainland Japan.
elykl12 | 4 hours ago
I believe it’s apocryphal but there’s a similar quote about the Emperor musing that if the Navy keeps winning at this rate the Americans will be in Tokyo in no time
Turgid_Donkey | 5 hours ago
Kind of like we keep seeing more and more "once in 100 years" flood/storm.
cynicalsearching | 8 hours ago
It’s interesting how quickly sentiment has changed because in the not too distant past you would be dismissed as a doomer for pointing out what was to come. There are some difficult choices ahead and everyone thinks they will be ones to avoid their fallout.
mistermpm | 12 hours ago
Instead of investing, America simply used the privileged Dollar reserve status to live beyond its means by treating it as a credit card with no limit and thinking the rest of the world would always be there to make the minimum montly payments.
Well, the rest of the world are fed up with paying for Americas extravagance and are withdrawing the trust fund payment.
If Americans truly understood the implications of losing the dollar reserve status, they'd be freaking out right now.
BoinkDoinkKoink | 11 hours ago
It isn't the dollar reserve status that allows this sort of money printing, it's The US's robust economy, political stability, a free, transparent and liquid market, and a strong military on the backs of which the US gov't can offer stable gov't bonds that effectively provide investors risk free returns. The dollar's strength also lies on the same foundations that represent stability. Of course the current admin is hell bent of wrecking that as well, but you've got your logic reversed. No other country in the world provides this level of stability and combined value propostion that provides investors a level of assurance and US dollar liquidity for global trade that the US does. Not even crypto.
Illustrious-Lime-878 | 11 hours ago
Good point but one correction, that is what the US did. DJT Trump 1.0 was devastating but 2.0 irrevocably destroyed that idea of the US. The decline of US monetary and financial dominance is nearly guaranteed now and its just a question of how long the process is, save some extreme saving measure like comprehensive constitutional reform.
jellyhessman | 10 hours ago
Can't wait for someone to snarkily quote this in 3 months with a "see the cities aren't on fire!" type response.
The decline has been in motion for years, but the fact it doesn't happen immediately means the layman has a hard time conceptualizing and accepting it.
albc5023 | 9 hours ago
There is a consistent “nothing ever happens” phrase that I am seeing everywhere, from since a couple months ago but as of late as well.
Anyone is then labeled a “doomsayer” for trying to analyze arguments as to why something could not be going so sweet and dandy.
So it will absolutely be twisted in a “see, the world is not over” in the not so long future.
Z3r0sama2017 | 4 hours ago
Which is crazy, because if you are old enough you have seen the baseline shift several times. Younger folks are like "always been like this".
jellyhessman | 4 hours ago
I'm only in my early 30s and I feel like it's not hard to clock if you're pragmatic and genuinely have a desire to understand how our world works.
It's become increasingly clear as I age that the vast majority of people just don't care, and don't want to know. They need their world to be fine and to actually conceptualize reality is simply too unpleasant and scary to the point most people outright reject reality and willing believe convenient lies so they can get through their day.
Z3r0sama2017 | 4 hours ago
To be fair, we humans are geared too, at best, 1 year timescales. As soon as winter was over, you began preparing for the next winter.
BoinkDoinkKoink | 11 hours ago
yeah I mean massive austerity is where we're heading unless the gov't finally starts taxing the rich and the corps their fair share to pay off the national debt. Either that or we're getting civil unrest and rising crime induced by rising wealth inequality, personal debt burdens, austerity and larger tax burdens on the middle/lower class in order to pay off the national debt. That said other SDR currencies still don't have the capacity or stability for global trade to replace the USD. The question is, if not the USD, then what else?
Illustrious-Lime-878 | 10 hours ago
For one I think there is just less need for a single currency in the information age when the internet has created global, liquid markets and computers can automatically account for changes in price levels and interest rates. For example, private contracts can feasibly bake in benchmark interest rates or reference inflation indices or prices of specific inputs goods. There is just less need for third party reference asset with stable value.
So the future may just be less demand for sovereign debt in general, when the premium for stability has been consistently abused by governments. Or you could just see a more diverse set of currencies being used for shorter periods of time.
But also, the EU may position itself to offer the Euro as a reserve currency, if its political process can work out a strategy to avoid blowing up fixed rate debt by proper monetary expansion with good investment.
Then there is always reverting back to gold, or decentralized currencies as reserve assets.
BoinkDoinkKoink | 5 hours ago
I think the opposite. There is so much chaos and distrust in the world right now, the least we can have is a single currency that we can base trade on. Doesn't have to be the USD, but maybe something else. Having a decentralized pricing system is all well and good until we have a global financial crisis and recession and suddenly central banks don't have the tools they need to get liquidity, capital flight, and run on the banks under control, while making asset valuations assessments even more difficult. Besides at least short term interest rates depend on central bank operations globally.
The USD actually removes the premium, because premiums are tied to risk, and doing global trade with a bunch of less stable currencies only makes risk worse which demands a premium. The more diverse the currency especially if it comes from countries with less stable foundations vs the US, the more risk and volatility you need to account for.
EUR is a good middle ground, but even they have internal political issues, making it less feasible. That's why the USD continues to be a relatively safer and stable currency for world trade. The Gold standard also has issues because if there is a global financial crisis and countries start redeeming their gold, you'll have a run on the banks.
Illustrious-Lime-878 | an hour ago
The decline in US debt is because people are loosing trust tho. Yeah, it would be great if we could trust the US system like we did 10 years ago. But the cats out of the bag. There is no going back without major reform to fix the glaring issues in the US political system.
Less centralized management tools are just a reality of trend driven by individual incentives. The US has abused its investors with reckless waste, violence, and corrupt use of public funds. Theoretically sure, if the system could be trusted, everyone may be better off investing in it, but unfortunately it just can't. So individuals have to watch out for their own interests.
Although I do think the modern era, banks have lost a lot of their fundamental importance. In the digital age they are not actually needed for the basic custodianship and transacting functions anymore. Consumer banks are so regulated, the money supply so much expanded, they are becoming more and more just thin middlemen between deposits and government digital money. Bank runs are a pretty antiquated concept. I don't think many are worrying about getting their deposits - they worry about how much value the units of currency will have.
A world without a singular, critical central entity, like a centralized reserve currency, is also inherently more resilient to crises having less singular, centralized systems to spread systemic risk.
3_Thumbs_Up | 10 hours ago
The dollar reserve status has certainly helped.
The reserve currency status creates foreign demand for dollar, which means that when the US inflates, they're essentially spreading the cost between domestic and foreign holders. But if foreign holders reduce their exposure, then the domestic holders will gradually eat a bigger portion of the cost, reducing The ability of the US to inflate themselves out of every problem.
Puzzleheaded-Tap9977 | 10 hours ago
It used to be like this. MAGA fucked that up for the US.
biscuitarse | 11 hours ago
Have you cracked open a newspaper over the last 10 years? Good lord.
Gamer_Grease | 9 hours ago
To be somewhat pedantic, all of that is why the dollar is a reserve currency.
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
20 years ago I would agree completely. We didn’t get away with the financial crisis of 08 like we thought we did.
mistermpm | 11 hours ago
BS.
Everyday_ImSchefflen | 12 hours ago
This is literally not what is happening
3_Thumbs_Up | 10 hours ago
It's slowly what's happening. At least in Sweden multiple pension funds are reported to have reduced their exposure to US treasuries quite significantly citing increased risk and political insecurity.
Everyday_ImSchefflen | 10 hours ago
Yes. The rate is increasing because of increased risk. Thats how it works.
It's not happening because "the world are fed up with paying for Americas extravagance"
3_Thumbs_Up | 10 hours ago
Right. Investors don't care about that. But the consequences remain the same. The US has been able to fund their "extravagance" through their reserve status. It represents an ability to essentially tax foreigners through inflation. If foreigners reduce their exposure, then then the US will lose that ability which implies a significant reduction of their standard of living.
Everyday_ImSchefflen | 10 hours ago
You are changing the conversation
3_Thumbs_Up | 10 hours ago
You were disagreeing with a point where it were no real disagreement. I acknowledged your point and clarified mine. No need to look for arguments everywhere.
Everyday_ImSchefflen | 10 hours ago
Cash me outside dough
Gamer_Grease | 9 hours ago
It hasn’t happened until it has. That’s very literally what happened to the Breton Woods agreement.
Vtakkin | 3 hours ago
It is in a way about that. They’re basically saying they don’t think America will make good on its debts, which means they think America is mismanaging their spending and won’t actually be able to pay them back.
RegulatoryCapture | 9 hours ago
This thread seems to be filled with braindead responses from people who seem to know nothing about economics.
Heck, there are a bunch of comments where if you just read them without the headline you'd be assuming the article said interest rates were LOW not high.
notkevin_durant | 10 hours ago
I can’t believe this nonsense is upvoted
j12 | 3 hours ago
And America didn’t invest much into infrastructure so everything is falling apart and old as shit lol
Gamer_Grease | 9 hours ago
Theoretically we invested in maintaining our role as a military superpower, but IMO we still spent that money very unwisely. I’m also not sure I’ve ever heard of a military power whose supply lines for armaments were not riddled with corruption and graft, like ours is.
Alaska_Engineer | 6 hours ago
https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2025/02/14/china-deployed-and-exported-cruise-missile-filled-with-water-instead-of-fuel-in-major-corruption-scandal/
BriefAvailable9799 | 7 hours ago
108 upvotes for bad info. this sub in a nut shell.
Boo-Bees67 | 11 hours ago
This is destroying all forms of real estate which needs low rates. Almost every deal I’ve looked at the past year has been destroyed by the higher rates. We’re about to see some major price cuts coming
ironteddybear | 10 hours ago
Real estate is overvalued. The correction is long overdue.
Stunning_Mast2001 | 9 hours ago
I’m a homeowner and I would like to see real estate crash by 80%
Boo-Bees67 | 9 hours ago
No you don’t. That’s Great Depression shit
Stunning_Mast2001 | 8 hours ago
80% crash is what my very ordinary middle class starter home would have costed about 20 years ago
bub166 | 3 hours ago
Your dollar also would have been worth 61 cents 20 years ago. I couldn't afford to build a garage for 20% of my very ordinary middle class home and I'd be underwater on my mortgage and unable to leave (except by bankruptcy) until I was 50. Hooray for the middle class I guess?
mottledmussel | 7 hours ago
It's when people start burning down their houses instead of selling them since they're so far underwater. Or they just walk away and they sit unoccupied for years until the tax sale, where they get vandalized and slowly rot away, while liens pile up.
It also means anything relying on property taxes collapses -- teacher layoffs, fire stations closed, libraries closed, and a million other things.
VeteranSergeant | 4 hours ago
Then we just replace property taxes with something else. Having society's ability to function be predicated on an unsustainable growth pattern that lowers quality of life for the majority of the population isn't a good thing.
wilsont18 | 8 hours ago
I mean I can’t afford my life now and there is zero chance the government is going to fix this issue, so for most young people a complete crash doesn’t seem too bad.
corwin-normandy | 8 hours ago
As someone that graduated in 2008, it would be very bad. An economy where real estate crashes is one where there are no jobs. My family lived out of a trailer, after my parents were laid off, for a few years because of it. We were lucky.
I had friends with parents that kept their jobs, but couldn't afford their payments on their variable rate mortgages and had to have their houses foreclosed any ways.
Young people have no money. It doesn't make a difference if houses crash 40% or 90% because no bank would risk them a loan, especially if they have no jobs.
All it would likely result in is the rich and corporations owning infinitely more, since they are they ones with the money to capitalize on a crash.
Americans don't understand how privileged they are.
Boo-Bees67 | 8 hours ago
Yeah but you’re asking 3/4ths of society to have everything they’ve worked for destroyed so you can afford life.
wilsont18 | 6 hours ago
But if those 3/4ths of society have made it practically impossible for me to achieve the same milestones they worked so hard to achieve, why should I care if their lives are destroyed? My life can’t get off the ground.
I do think it would be bad, and I don’t want society to collapse, but we live in an extremely selfish world and it feels like 3/4ths of society already chose the option to pull the ladder up behind them - so I’ll be selfish right back and hope for a significant crash.
Boo-Bees67 | 6 hours ago
I don’t know your age but struggling is quite common in that age bracket. I didn’t buy my first house until 30
Mbstranche08 | 7 hours ago
Inflation is entrenched it’s only going to be 5-8% of society. Who would need to live in bunkers.
jellyhessman | 3 hours ago
Lol, and what would ypu call the hyperinflation that's happening right now?
Fair-Lingonberry-268 | 9 hours ago
80% still too low
Alarming-Table-8351 | 8 hours ago
Unfortunately they’re about to money print. Inflation will most likely raise prices or stagnate
dyangu | an hour ago
It is BUT the cost to build houses is extremely high and higher interest rates costs developers too, so we’re just not getting enough supply.
lmaccaro | 41 minutes ago
It’s not. It’s all margin.
Look at what a starter house cost to build at the edge of your city. In my city it’s $350k. Build the same house just a little closer to city center, on a $80k lot, and that house is now $860k.
j12 | 3 hours ago
lol commercial real estate values are going to get fucked when rates start readjusting.
deadra_axilea | 8 hours ago
Ah, so my feeling like this IS worse than the market downturn in 2006 that lead to the 2008 bubble bursting was accurate.
God damnit. Why are we here again? Literally all of this is attributable to Trumps tarrifs, trade manipulation, and deciding to bomb Iran.
dust4ngel | 6 hours ago
> Literally all of this is attributable to Trumps tarrifs, trade manipulation, and deciding to bomb Iran
america elected an arsonist - now we burn
whawkins4 | 49 minutes ago
Raise your hand if you knew that the guy who managed to bankrupt multiple Atlantic casinos, which should be money printing machines, would bankrupt the county.
Holy fuck, that’s a lot of hands!!!
Vlisa | 9 minutes ago
>Holy fuck, that’s a lot of hands!!!
Less than you’d think actually. :P
vertigo3pc | 8 hours ago
When you purchase an investment security, your hope is simple: it appreciates in value, so when you move to sell, it isn't a challenge. You sell quickly, you get your money back (and then some!), and you have more cash next time to invest in something else.
The hope is that the security has a greater value over time, and when you liquidate, you forever determine what the sale value was at that time. You hoped the investment worked out, and once you sell, the story is done.
The more securities in circulation, the more "hope" in the market; and the more securities, the more derivatives (options, futures contracts, etc).
After a certain point, you can't rely on "hope"; you need numbers.
When everyone channels the same "hope", usually it becomes less organic and more risky. For 1 security, you were fortunate when 1 buyer was there to purchase your appreciated asset, because they saw more appreciation on the value and were happy to hold the asset for you. After all, it went up for you, so it will go up for me!
When risk becomes a pressure, and hope isn't enough to break through, how do you create stability to maintain the expectation of a hope-filled outcome?
Manipulation. Manipulation is OK, so long as wealth is being created (for whoever), and Americans appear to be on top (irrational exuberance). That's how you can have people dying, and in the midst of turmoil and fear (not much "hope"), you can still have US officials at a microphone saying "The DOW is above 50,000!" and get fired shortly thereafter (they did their job).
So manipulation was OK because it did both things: maintain high sentiment of the American economy, and made someone somewhere wealthier.
But the person now holding the security is concerned: how high can this thing fly? And how can I make money, maintain "American economy #1", but also I keep the security in the mean time? Stock pledges. Shadow credit. A pledge: now that my liquidity is a fraction of my asset value, I will do everything possible to keep the security value high (and if I don't, I face a margin call). I don't even need to sell it, I just pledge the options.
However, here comes the problem: you need someone to keep buying the securities, to keep the value high. You've done your part: endless pump, mindful dump. The bubble has become so large, you need someone with MORE money to come and buy your securities. What happens when the price of the items on top of the bubble are out of the market's reach, and at a time when the fundamentals are looking shaky?
Normally, you'd look for a buy-in price, and maybe that price is below where it is right now? So what happens when the market reflects the pumped up price, and the buyers that are needed want to buy, but at a lower price? Governments want the price to remain high, and buyers want it to get low.
Right now, the US economy is juggling a LOT of bubbles, many which are bubbles on top of bubbles: AI on top of the stock market, bond markets on top of housing and government debt, etc.
They all have the same problem: the bubbles were inflated by "hope" that the money available would be sufficient now (in the past's "future") for new buyers to afford high value homes, high value stocks, high value assets and securities that new holders could steward into the future.
During a historically high national debt, we are seeing a squeeze on Americans, investors, overseas buyers, and more, and these bond yields are the ONLY way to push back against an Administration doing everything it can to NOT face the music.
US Treasury attempts some quantitative easing? The market gobbled it up in 24 hours.
Everyone makes clear that the 10-year yield has a danger zone specifically demarcated at 4.8-5.5%. Yields blast right through, and are now sitting at ~5.17%.
Some people were worried about a 10-year/30-year inversion. Don't worry, they're both going up in cadence with each other.
The market is calling out the US economy's corruption and manipulation.
"If you're going to keep allowing so much wealth to undermine this economy, so much so that it's just a Ponzi scheme, then we're going to demand more interest yield to be a part of this charade."
CosmicQuantum42 | 7 hours ago
Libertarians saw this coming a long time ago.
A huge federal government means a huge ability to spend recklessly and a huge ability to arrogate power to itself and impose its will on state governments.
A weaker more constrained federal government would avoid these problems but that’s not what either party really wants. (Despite protesting Trump’s actions, the response from the left has been “he shouldn’t do those things” not “he shouldn’t be able to do those things”.)
Even Gavin Newsom was talking carefully like if he was president he might try to leave some of the illegal Trump tariffs in place. You know because of reasons.
Wellontheotherhand1 | 4 hours ago
Maybe Libertarians shouldn't have voted for the Republicans all these years, then. Because there is zero question who is responsible for our fiscal situation
Mbstranche08 | 10 hours ago
Dear government.
Wipe all outstanding fiat debt. Pin the dollar to a basket of real tangible commodities. Implement one flat tax rate on everything. Abort interest and financial markets containing computer generated derivatives. Take what remains in the equity markets and distribute to rightful owners. Yes those who are extremely wealthy will hate this including yourselves. However we’ve run out of options here. For a future generation to enter this world I hope you consider.
Sincerely- Adam
500_Shames | 9 hours ago
So the plan is to stiff every other government that loaned us money via bonds and stiff every single US retiree that loaned the government money via bonds?
Mbstranche08 | 9 hours ago
It’s fiat backed bonds. Made up. All central banks globally are piling into gold not for fun. The deflation this would create for would leave us less worried about our bonds. More time to spend with family. Coupled with technology a transition into abundance vs scarcity based economics can ensue. Maybe return market capital to its rightful owner. Not a broad scale distribution.
Mbstranche08 | 9 hours ago
I get your point 100%. It’s ending though. What are the other options? Fiat currency systems are dependent on perpetual growth. Growth now can only be synthesized by the central banks in the form of Quantitative Easing. This worked for the last 2 credit cycles but is failing now leaving the business cycle insolvent. The dollar is too weak to receive treatment and there’s mathematical proof of that in the bond market. Im just thinking what will work best? It’s not as if we can will the current system back to life. In CT we will be boiling water to shower this winter and leaving on the faucet so the pipes don’t freeze.
Richandler | 7 hours ago
> Pin the dollar to a basket of real tangible commodities.
Get off of YouTube kid. You're being propagandized by morons with an agenda to sell you bullshit.
Goodbye_Sky_Harbor | 8 hours ago
This is an absolutely terrible plan that would kill millions of people
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
How is that?
corwin-normandy | 8 hours ago
It would crash the economy, resulting in hundreds of thousands of layoffs and millions of people's retirement becoming worthless. What do you think would happen to our healthcare system or food system in such a scenario?
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
We would need to rely on humanity. I’m aware it’s not an easy task. Again I am not some far left 22 year old making tik toks videos. I’m a financial professional who is aware it’s ending. Regardless of what your advisor or tv personality tells you. I’m trying to brainstorm a viable option forward. Wiping all debt would only be problematic severely problematic if we are still under a system of debt monetization and financial derivative instruments used to steel out of the working classes pocket. In a debit based economy with a one time start payment we would need to be fiscally responsible. Yet not doomed.
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
We would need to rely on humanity. I’m aware it’s not an easy task. Again I am not some far left 22 year old making tik toks videos. I’m a financial professional who is aware it’s ending. Regardless of what your advisor or tv personality tells you. I’m trying to brainstorm a viable option forward. Wiping all debt would only be problematic severely problematic if we are still under a system of debt monetization and financial derivative instruments used to steel out of the working classes pocket. In a debit based economy with a one time start payment we would need to be fiscally responsible. Yet not doomed.
corwin-normandy | 8 hours ago
>We would need to rely on humanity.
Do you even like your neighbors? Do you know which of them can grow food? Which of them has guns?
What do you have to offer them in return for feeding and protecting you?
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
Let me ask you this Corwin. If we woke up tomorrow and money didn’t exist you believe we’d all go extinct? If the paper faces and financial computer generated derivatives stopped. Would that be the end all? I do know my neighbors I’m not sure who’s holding. The same outcome comes if we keep this system. I’m partial to leveling the playing field to avert an upheaval.
Goodbye_Sky_Harbor | 8 hours ago
This is such broken internet brain dude.
You can want money to go away all you want and long term yea man lets do it. If it happened tomorrow it would be awful chaos and your life would be ruined, full stop.
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
God bless. No sarcasm implemented.
corwin-normandy | 8 hours ago
The answer would be war, famine, and people looking out for themselves as their sense of stability and security is erased. The same people that could depend on their check coming in to pay for groceries would have to figure out where to get food real quick, and that would likely mean your home.
Accelerationism isn't the answer. Hoping for the end times only shows how privileged and out of touch you are.
Mbstranche08 | 8 hours ago
Fair enough. 🤝
devliegende | 4 hours ago
If we wake up and money doesn't exist we would immediately reinvent it as well as everything that goes with it like debts and derivatives. If we don't a lot of people will die because productivity will be much lower without it
Mbstranche08 | 3 hours ago
Like right after covid when we were locked down. Only essential workers willing. As society cheered them on. Yea I hear you.