And a dictatorship. Democracy does not fit very well with long term plans, unless you either make huge efforts to ensure everyone gets their fair share (see Scandinavia) or you have a good plan for people being rich with not too much effort (see Switzerland and other tax havens).
Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too large to have a functioning country.
This more or less guarantees winning on the very longer run.
You still have gradual decay, which can unfold over centuries, and that is ok, but that is cyclical and you rise back in a century or so.
The real issues with the US/West is wars, too many of them. Even if the dollar standard guarantees a money printer. Its not exactly free. Triffin dilemma de-industrializes your country. Your politics has too much ego to stop fighting. In the meanwhile you lose industry, stability, time and just don't have focus for things that matter. Somebody who is more sane wins in the meanwhile.
UK really needed to build more industries instead of fighting WW1/2. Its a shame that Churchill won above Chmaberlain/Halifax. You get the fake thrill of winning a war, you shouldn't have even gone into, destroyed yourself fighting, all for some fake sense of bravado which led to your disaster.
If things go South for US from here. George Bush will likely have the same standing in history.
tl;dr- If you are winning, keep it that way, and don't fight wars.
Say again? If we're talking strictly about the United States as per the article that inspired this post, the U.S. is a case study of a prosperous, remarkably stable democracy steadily increasing its prosperity, wealth, influence and power while also for the vast majority of its history investing for the long term and in vital infrastructure. This process hasn't been constant or evenly incremental but it has been there for (now) literally centuries.
The same could be said of Britain and many other developed countries on shorter but still reasonably long scales. On the other hand when you look at dictatorships in the wider scope of the modern era, the vast majority of them either invest explosively only to fail catastrophically at some point before reverting to some other variant of government, or countries that see their biggest failures happen during periods of dictatorship, and their major socioeconomic successes happen during periods of something at least approaching democracy and openness.
There are exceptions to the above tendencies in favor of democracy, but China can't yet be called such. It has had only 80 years under its present dictatorship (preceded by decades of warlord rule, weakness and chaos) and of those only the last 40 have been ones of relatively stable growth, investment in major projects AND concurrent increases in prosperity. Under Mao it invested in certain major projects, but at nearly cataclysmic social, economic and human cost. Hardly a model, in those days, of dictatorship being applied to patient, wise planning.
>Concerning the USA, the divide between the extra rich and the general poor is nowadays too large to have a functioning country.
Really? Feel like sharing the mechanism by which these claims of overly severe wealth inequality will make the US collapse any time soon?
Note also that as another comment above this mentions, the U.S has had more or less similar levels of said inequality for the last 100 years.... in which it functioned as a stable, relatively peaceful, democratic, increasingly prosperous society in which overall standards of living in absolute terms have gone up enormously.
This is not what it said. It said it was about the same 100 years ago. It improved for a long time before going back up.
Accepting "the purpose of a thing is what it does" is important for these times. So is avoiding the epistemic traps of disingenuous actors.
50 years ago? Perhaps some of what you describe applied, in very limited form and only if you view a small segment of the media/political landscape with extremely rose-tinted glasses, but go read more of U.S media history to see how completely off base you really are.
Media in the United states has spent most of its history being absolutely saturated with extremely yellow, scandal-mongering political hack journalism of the absolute most dishonest kind you can imagine (yes even in the age of social media). This was the case throughout the 19th century, the whole early part of the 20th century and it certainly applied 50 years ago, which would be roughly the late 60's to the 70s.
Overall, i'd say you have no idea at all of what you're talking about and pulled this funny notion out of nowhere for the sake of forcing an alarmist point.
For decades the vast majority of those who even knew Trump existed were aware from the beginning he was a fake and it was just so curious to watch him take the pratfalls that he set himself up for. He only became widely known because he was such a complete failure compared to ordinary businessmen, and he would not shut up about how successful he was, it just emphasized how much he didn't have a clue and he was all PR. It was so cringeworthy people could not help but notice. Some things never change.
But under those media conditions he was merely a comic figure for the longest time. Bragging about how rich he is when he's actually bankrupt in more ways than one.
It just wouldn't have been very easy to build critical mass among people who would be willing to take him the least bit seriously. Especially about anything concerning money.
Now it's too late.
I get that the establishment also sometimes does good things like create the EPA but it seems like those good things only ever happen after there's a huge amount of public screeching and that the default behavior is for the establishment to wage war and enrich itself.
The establishment should not be in bed with the media IMO. While the current fragmented media landscape is causing turbulence in the short term it is a good thing in the long term IMO.
Today at least, if anything, people have access to a vast plurality of views that despite many of them being absurdly mistaken at least through the mechanism of their existence let massive cracs rapidly open in any official or propagandist narrative. On the whole, this is what major media truly hates, while couching its complaints in fear mongering about misinformation.... Much of that fear mongering surged especially strong during the recent pandemic, while media at the exact same time promoted several major official narratives that were obviously politically motivated rather than being based on any thing resembling solid editorial standards.
Maybe he tried?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_South,_Manhattan#Tel...
America's political class got complacent and lazy, and forgot that they have to sell what they were pushing to the American people. They never even FOUGHT the battle of ideas. As they age out/get pushed out new Ben Franklin with their own printing press types will rise.
people with enough skill and compatible mindsets need no management, they care, they will innovate, improve, repair
if the structure is at odds with that, they will ask to compensate the pain by large salary bumps because pleasure is turned into pain
They didn’t import millions of poor people to do all the dirty or unpleasant jobs in their countries.
Seemed almost like an elephant in the room for a minute there.
But looking back, was it a market "correction" or maybe just a rug-pull?
You probably had to be there.
But we knew there was nothing like it until the 1970's.
So many of the people who had lived through 1929 were still alive.
Unless you were quite fortunate in the early 1970's, you would realize that 2008 was a non-event by comparison.
There was the same amount of inequality a century ago in the US, so what happened at that time.
Suffice it to say that the debacle presents circumstantial evidence that "rich with not too much effort" might encourage dangerously laissez faire behavior.
Just boring right wing poltics paid for by russian rubles.
I asked who is "they" from this sentence.
Galadriel. She would be a great and terrible queen. All would love her, and despair.
> People that don't know any history?
For some reason, I find that people who accuse others of not knowing history tend to be the most ignorant of it themselves. History buffs don't seem to be walking around telling other people they "don't know any history". Just an observation.
For an example of a benevolent dictator, look at King Leopold II of Belgium, the Builder King. Loved by his people. Created the Royal Trust, donating a most of his properties to the Belgian nation. Brought culture and prestige to Belgium.
For an example of the atrocities of a malevolent dictator, look at King Leopold II of Belgium. The butcher of the Congo. Unbelievable exploitation and atrocities committed under his rule.
Or look at Ashurbanipal, the last "Great King" of Assyria, who built one of the greatest libraries in history; a collection of human knowledge surpassed in the ancient world only by the Library of Alexandria. And a genocidal maniac who spent months not just pillaging and raping opposing cities long after they had been defeated, but destroying any trace of the people who lived there, salting the land, and seeding the ground with weeds so that it would be impossible to ever re-build.
A wise builder-king with the power and drive to make the nation and world a better place for all its people would absolutely be the best government humanity has been able to achieve so far. Checks and balances are a necessity for a functioning government, but they do bog things down.
My point, of course, is that this is completely counter to human nature, and has (almost?) never been achieved, even in those times that it appears that it has.
Except for 99.9% of those millennia, humanity had very different challenges than it does today. One of the biggest being effective communication between people. There's a reason the U.S. constitution talks about sending delegates to Washington D.C. Another being an abundance of basic necessities that simply did not exist when Voltaire was writing. Increased globalization, vast changes in technology, bitcoin, AI, automation, social media, etc. Why would you assume political theory from even 100 years ago holds up in the face of all those differences?
And political theory, like history, tends to be written by the victors. What percent of all laws ever written were about maintaining the status quo for the people currently in power? It's a lot; I wouldn't be surprised if it's over 90%.
There's no reason to believe that humanity has "figured government out" by now. There's still plenty of room for experimentation in what works best in today's world. For example, why can individuals not collectively draft legislation, in the same way they can draft Wikipedia articles or open-source software? What would it take to make that happen?
And come on, "Galadriel" and some mythical pharaoh? This is your argument-viable examples? I think a little too much fantasy is overtaking your thoughts; you might want to switch to non-fiction for a few months to balance yourself out.
Preferring democracy is compatible with recognising its limits.
That's precisely the solution. The current state of the hollowed-out US economy is because of the zirp enabling a hollowed-out financialized economy riding on bloated stock prices and valuations. That is where that 'capital' came from. And like in every case of printing money, the bill eventually came due.
> A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation
That can be fixed with other measures and regulations than enabling a scammy free cash economy that causes only hollowed-out bloat.
I don't think that there is a fixed asset that could be suitable as a proper peg.
It seems like the actual value of gold is that it is useless, and thus not used up, and all the easy gold is extracted. We could just use numbers instead.
oil is fairly difficult / expensive to transport and store, certainly at volume.
More difficult for some technologies than others, which I tried to come to terms with long ago.
After over 40 years, I'm still here to help when it makes sense.
>Oil changes owners all the time without going anywhere.
Even more often when it is on open water already on the way somewhere else.
It just doesn't fulfill its destiny until its voyage is not only underway, but fully completed.
Pegging currency to gold or silver gives it the illusion of being of a fixed value, that can't be gamed or changed. However history says otherwise. Its continuously mined, and there are industrial uses so Gold and silver's actual value will still fluctuate.
plus whilst tradeable gold is normally stored in vaults, there is still a boat load of "free" gold that can move around and cause monetary problems. Its a side plot of one of the James Bond books.
You also have to remember that even if there is a physical backed standard, banks still need to lend, which means that in practice it'll still be a fiat currency, just not centrally controlled.
Kenyesian economics, through inflationism and fiscal policy, has been trying to solve this problem since the New Deal. When they actually make any progress on that front, why don't you let me know?
Inflation sucks but deflation is a death spiral. There is some more nuance, but most economists would agree that deflation is a lot scarier in general than inflation due to its feedback loop.
Moreover, the reason why we keep getting rampant inflation is more due to neoliberalism and neoconservative economic/fiscal policy rather than modern monetary theory and Keynesian monetary policy. If anything, these monetary policies have massively reduced the amount of inflation we have been feeling for the past several years.
Do you actually have any evidence for this? Considering that we haven't experienced deflation in nearly 100 years, and all. The USA certainly wasn't "death spiraling" before we went off the gold standard, quite the contrary. But now it seems we are.
Isn't this a good thing? Otherwise, what incentive is there for financial discipline?
> The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stick to it.
Have stuck with it for over 75 years. Not too shabby. Also why is empire in quotes?
> China has been quietly debt trapping a whole bunch of nations that have strategic things they need.
I know the US and Europe has for centuries. Which ones has china "debt trapped"? Or are we sticking to the propaganda that china helping develop other nations is "debt trapping".
> Something neither the president or congress have the ability to do.
Neither the president nor congress sets the "plan" for the US. Do you really think trump gets to decide geopolitics? Do you really think congress decides the direction of the nation? Or do you think they listen to the elites who fund and control them? One has to be extraordinarly naive to think that a superpower with nukes is run by the masses.
The president and congress sells the plan decided by the powerful to the masses. It's why they exist. They don't plan or decide anything. Most of their time is spent raising money for elections. When do you think trump or congress has the time to develop any expertise in anything.
Getting reelected because you managed to not tank the currency and economy.
That clearly that hasn't worked has it? Also, are you arguing against term limits?
Having to get elected is reason not to enforce financial discipline because people don't vote for those who promise financial discipline. People vote for those who promise more stuff.
What a naive comment.
there isn't one. Banks need to lend as much cash as possible to make as much money as possible. A gold standard doesn't stop that, it just means that bailing out customers of those banks much much harder. hence why the FTC was setup. Its a rich history and well worth looking into
> I know the US and Europe has for centuries.
Not really, the last "european" style colonial system died in 1989 with the collapse of the USSR. Sure France does the whole "we'll administer your currency for a huge fee", bu that only works because they are ex colonies. Invading another country and turning it into a puppet state is much more costly than people think (see Syria, Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan)
What china is doing is far more clever, far more effective, much less bloody and extremely profitable. just build a road, port, rail line, factory, mine. charge the host country a fee, bish bash bosh, massive growth for the host and china.
> Do you really think trump gets to decide geopolitics?
I mean he's not far away from deposing a president, and he's allowing another country to ethnically cleanse another(Biden did that too). Biden crashed russia's economy, Trump will un-crash it and let it re-arm to invade another country.
That sounds like geopolitics to me.
Banking systems being somewhat unstable and prone to credit crises is actually an entirely different problem, and unrelated to how the expansion is being regulated.
I think there's some truth to this.
And if you're willing to accept it for what it is, ask yourself about your own supply of money, what it is and where it comes from.
What are the current limitations if not gold any more?
And it hasn't been gold in quite some time, not just theoretically for a while.
How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since?
Is there any other bottleneck somewhere that maybe is holding back that limitless supply of money from ending up in your pocket worse than if it was gold, which we know has always been so hard to come by that most people have never had significant amounts whatsoever since the beginning of time?
It works very well when your currency is the world's reserve currency. You get way more latitude for printing money with much lower inflation vs some isolated economy win no deep reservoirs of unused currency in "reserves".
If the US loses the status of being the dominant reserve currency, the link between money supply and inflation will become much stronger. The USD is currently backed by the US hegemony , of which foreign policy is a big part of.
Inflation on one side, employment rates on the other. It's literally in most central banks' headline policy goals.
> How has that "unlimited" money supply worked out ever since?
Pretty well, seeing how it's largely coincided with unprecedented growth in living standards and helped us avoid what could have been a repeat of the 1930s due to Covid's impact on economies, among other things.
Judging that it's been 100 years since the last depression, pretty well.
But they're in the same boat as everyone else now, as far as guessing how many years til the next depression, whether or not it is overdue, by how much, and what happens this time.
People really think humanity operates on some kind of fixed physical properties, when everything we rely on in modern society is not real. Borders are not real, the value we place on a human life is not real, the stocks and bonds arn't real.
They're all relative relationships with historical and future promises, reliant upon the trust we place in the means of proof and veracity, all of which are entirely human figments.
Nerds trying to fix problems that nerds seem to have created a wind on will go nowhere.
This not a problem of fixed economies of precious metals. This is entirely about what form of governance can tackle climate change, and the zeit geist has determined fascism everywhere, zombie apocolypse where huamnity needs to be as brutal as possible will win.
Europe is now the "heros" of the zombie apcolypses interacting with the "evil" humans who want to brutalize everyone into either submission or death.
This is nice for the King because he benefits from the seigniorage. (But also potentially fatal, as he gives in to temptation to print too much and then some more, leading to hyper-inflation and the guillotine.)
Fiat money can be combined with fractional reserve banking. Now the monetary authorities can create extra money to overcome banking crises. Notice that society has a trade-off to make. Perhaps high reserves, so that the banks do not create much money, in which case the King/President will have to print extra fiat currency. Perhaps low reserves, and a small base of fiat currency. Now the banks create most of the money in circulation and get to charge interest on it, as an kind of on going seigniorage.
Which is best for the country? One off seigniorage accruing to the national treasury (due to printing), or the recurring seigniorage of interest paid to the banks on the money created by the fractional reserve system? There is something to be said for fractional reserve banking, as a kind of automatic stabilizer. If the economy contracts, there is a credit squeeze and the money supply contracts. Pick the reserve ratios and minimum lending rates correctly and it contracts the correct amount for price stability. And this works in reverse, expanding the money supply as the economy recovers, avoiding needless restrictions on growth due to deflation.
Experience shows that reserve ratios are too low, leading to economic instability. Why do we ignore this experience? Follow the money, low reserve ratios are profitable for bankers. We could have have a much more stable economic system with a two part strategy of 25% reserves and the monetary contraction implied by raising reserve rate being countered by printing the right amount of money.
A gold standard means that when the economy gets overheated it pops, then contracts and you get deflation. This makes crashes last longer and harder. It requires greater fiscal discipline to overcome.
The problem with the USA "empire" is that for a trading empire to work you need a plan, and stick to it.
China has been quietly debt trapping a whole bunch of nations that have strategic things they need. They have been investing in infra and leasing it back to the host country. That takes planning, money vision and time. Something neither the president or congress have the ability to do.
The USA in the 40/50s played a blinder, neatly using war debt and the martial plan to usurp the exhausted british empire's trading power. The dollar became the global reserve and all of the new global institutions were setup and housed in the USA.