10 ms·

No. The US legal system, a free press, a long-standing calvinist work ethic, its asset base and continued financial infrastructure investment are much more than

by rrggrr 8y ago

No. The US legal system, a free press, a long-standing calvinist work ethic, its asset base and continued financial infrastructure investment are much more than luck. These things have proven impossible to reproduce - in aggregate - anywhere else.

cheez 8y ago
Correct. I am not a US citizen and a majority of my assets are USD denominated primarily because I believe in the system of government, recent obstructionism is part of it. Basically, stay out of the people's way and provide recourse. Decent job so far. Not perfect, but better than any other place I've had direct experience with.
loceng 8y ago
Will be interesting to see how this changes if the Trump-Russia shenanigans is successful, or not if security services, rank and order have a handle on it. Edit: A downvote? It won't be interesting? Go away shallow negativity.. Edit: -4 points. Hello darkness, my old friend..
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- emodendroket 8y ago
  The supposed influence of Putin is really poorly manifested in US policy, which remains as hostile as ever (Mattis is going around talking about the need to prepare for military conflict with Russia and China, for Heaven's sake).
  - loceng 8y ago
    The issue stems from the constitution - and perhaps general understanding and present moment psyche of what an act of war constitutes or looks like - didn't have the foresight of understanding cyber/information warfare at the efficiencies and relative cost the internet provides. It would have been great to foresee and design to counter what Facebook's structure exposed and allowed bad actors to take advantage of; it's not surprising however as Mark Zuckerberg. not understanding why the Harvard version of Facebook being developed was taking so long, thought he could do it faster: because they were actually working through privacy, security concerns, and such - whereas Mark's level of care was "break things fast" in comparison. Enough of us have hopefully learned our lesson to swing back the yin-yang cycle and to manage and counterbalance the allowance a system like Facebook created, to prevent these overly efficient systems in spreading lies, propaganda so easily - without easing into censorship and the pitfalls inherent to silencing anyone.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      I'm not sure how this response is intended to be related to mine.
      - loceng 8y ago
        Re: "The supposed influence of Putin is really poorly manifested in US policy, which remains as hostile as ever (Mattis is going around talking about the need to prepare for military conflict with Russia and China, for Heaven's sake)." I understood your comment as you either believing or not believing, doubting, that Putin and their methods aren't manifested/taken into account/written into US policy to counteract said influence? I wasn't sure if you thought it was trivial that Mattis is wanting to prepare for possible conflict with Russia and China. I expanded my comment to include Facebook and other social media as a means to manipulating a population in what hope to be democratic elections.
        emodendroket 8y ago
        In other words, I think the panic about Putin manipulating the election is hogwash, visible in part by the fact that American policy is, if anything, more hostile to Russia than before. I honestly think the reason this stuff has so much purchase is people don't want to accept that Trump could possibly be a homegrown phenomenon, because they don't like what it would say about their neighbors (plus it lets Democratic leadership off the hook for botching what really should have been a layup -- Trump was a historically unpopular candidate).
        loceng 8y ago
        There's certainly a component of homegrown to it - it wouldn't be possible otherwise to stir people's emotions up with propaganda otherwise. Are you aware of the growing list of evidence that the Mueller investigation has already uncovered, along with the people close to Trump have already been charged with crimes, etc? Likewise regarding Cambridge Analytica and what services they offered to people, to get governments/politicians into power - including admitting on video that they're willing to lie? From my view point, Bernie Sanders would have gotten more support and votes than Hilary - who to myself, felt like more of the same. There are many systems that have issues with how they are designed to function or function. We don't and perhaps can't ever know how much influence Putin (or other less obvious bad actors) had on the elections - however, I hope you'd agree that we should try our best to prevent that kind of manipulation from happening? American policy is more hostile to Russia, as is more of the world's, in part as economic punishment for bad behaviour, no? The parts of the world and society that behave well then work together.
- sctb 8y ago
  Readers want interesting comments to read now, I imagine, and this one doesn't teach us much. But please don't complain about voting: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - loceng 8y ago
    My comment was bringing attention the current climate of Trump-Russia, and counter-balancing that with bringing up security services that protect the constitution of the US - which is the foundation of the parent comment. Perhaps you're aware of this yin-yang counter-balance in the system, however others reading may not have realized that? I am sure there is more people could take from it, though I'm not them, so it would be difficult for me to brainstorm it all - and I shouldn't be naive enough to think I or even a group of people would get all of the possibilities down if we tried to write a list of value a person could get from a comment (and strangely enough in the context vs. what value does a downvote create?). You can call it complaining - I call it protest. Shallow downvotes allows people who don't even have the will nor willing to put in the effort for critical thought to turn a negative impulse/feeling into more than a single click of a downvote. Does that level impulsivity have any place in civil discourse? I don't believe so. If there truly isn't interest in a comment, and there were other more interesting/upvoted comments/discussion in a thread then they'd be upvoted and reach the top - or if something said is so "barbaric" then someone could comment with words to give context to the dislike vs. rewarding more impulsive, lazy people. To continue, user emodendroket left a thoughtful response, to which I just replied. It's an interesting premise that a comment is expected or desirable if it is to teach someone something. Perhaps part of that learning process is a comment leading to a reaction in someone - however requiring them to turn that reaction into a worded response that helps everyone reading (especially who they're replying to) understand the reasons why they've have that reaction (which they'd otherwise simply turn into a single click of a downvote, and then we're only giving our best guess based on the amount of effort we're willing to give in a moment - like you gave) - so then it's an opportunity for people learn, especially the person being responded to - instead of reacted to negatively, lazily; or to continue the opportunity for someone to learn, as your written response allowed me to respond and share my deeper views. Also, my edits were are meant to continue to trigger people who are more impulsive - which of course has the very high probability of triggering a cascade of more impulsive downvotes. What better way to show the ridiculousness of impulsive downvoting than "holding a sign" that highlights the ridiculous of downvotes - that instigates more downvotes? I think it's a disservice that the HN community has downvotes, at least how they impact structure and visually as they do now; training people to be impulsive over learning/practicing non-reaction or towards contributing with words if the urge is strong enough - which will help others better formulate their own understanding and words they use, as a positive exercise - assuming everyone involved is working towards being civil, and as long as there is forgiveness, compassion, and the like within the community. Whether my comment leads to a review of downvotes or an understanding/compassion from my perspective, I don't know, that depends on a lot of factors about the reader, the organization they are in and the acceptance/compassion/fluidity (vs. stagnancy/rigidness) of said organization and its people, etc. Thank you for responding though - I deeply appreciate it.
cm2187 8y ago
I think it is mostly inertia. The EUR probably has all the qualities required to be used where USD is used. But conventions and traditions die hard. For FX trading for instance, if you start quoting products against EUR instead of USD, you split the market, reduce liquidity, etc. For planes, I have absolutely no idea why a european manufacturer would sell a european made plane to a european airline in USD...
- dahdum 8y ago
  I'd guess that much of their supply chain is in USD and that the manufacturer would prefer not to be ones hedging the majority of the currency risk (at their expense).
- elliottlocke 8y ago
  The EUR isn't proven enough to overtake the USD. The eurozone is just now exiting a deep recession that exposed the weakness of its structure. Until the eurozone countries adopt a more coherent monetary and fiscal union, crises like Greece will still be a risk (this is before we get into the level of bailing out German banks for betting on Greece). Remedy this, and the EUR will become a serious threat to the USD.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > EUR probably has all the qualities required to be used where USD is used The U.S. doesn’t have perennial debates about breaking up or bits breaking off. If your Euro bank deposits are at risk of suddenly turning into drachma or lira, that’s a problem.
  - checkyoursudo 8y ago
    Never been to Texas, eh? Hell, the break-California-up initiative made it to the ballot this year, was removed for this year by the CA Sup Ct, and has a non-zero chance of being back on in 2020. E.g., https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_States_Initiative_(2018) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_Stat... One of the questions I was asked in a State Attorney General Office interview in 2009 was: "What state would you kick out of the union and why?" (The secession debates were raging in certain circles after Obama was elected, and I guess some AGs wanted to know if incoming lawyers were inclined that way?) Will Texas ever secede? Will CA ever actually break up? I have no idea, and I doubt it. But the debate and even the effort is there.
XorNot 8y ago
Actually you just didn't have most of your infrastructure destroyed across the span of civilization's first two large-scale industrial wars and are the beneficiaries of controlling a temperate-climate block of latitude with access to both major oceans and no nearby similarly industrialized neighbors in the span of time those wars happened.
- arcbyte 8y ago
  Not most, true; only half of it in the Civil War.
- irrational 8y ago
  How did Germany end up with the most robust economy in Europe when it seems like it should have the worst economy since it isn't located in a temperate-climate, it was divided in half for decades and had to reabsorb the poor Eastern half, was destroyed twice, underwent sanctions, etc.? Somehow Germany overcame everything (most of which it brought upon itself of course). Why couldn't France, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. replicate Germany's success?
  - panarky 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan
  - danielvf 8y ago
    Since I can't reply directly to the Marshal plan comments: The Marshal Plan gave much less money to Germany than to anyone else, per capita. Greece received, per capita, about 3 times what Germany got. The UK, with a smaller population than Germany, received 3,297 million, while a larger Germany got 1,448 million.
    - kazen44 8y ago
      Also, European economic integration and cooperation should not be understated and it's effect on rebuilding germany. Especially in the early days of the EEC/ECSC, rebuilding (west) germany was important for many other european nations at the time to increase their export markets. (Benelux especially).
howard941 8y ago
These were hard won and hard to keep. I fear that they'll be lost within my (X) generation.
emodendroket 8y ago
Yeah OK but World War II and its rich natural resources might have had something to do with it.
jorvi 8y ago
> No. Yes. > The US legal system The US legal system is not some global shining paragon of how a judicial system should operate. See the shitshow around Kavanaugh how the highest court of the US judicial system has become a plaything of partisan politics. Remember that for a proper trias politica, there needs to be clear separation between the two. > a free press America is 45th in Freedom of Press rankings, behind Burkina Faso, a country that was a dictatorship until 2014, under military control until 2015, and still somewhat in turmoil. > a long-standing calvinist work ethic Most of NW Europe has 'a long-standing calvinist work ethic'. > continued financial infrastructure investment It is not as if the rest of the worlds' financial infrastructure is in disrepair. The reason why the US has such a huge finance industry isn't 'continued upkeep' but the absurd freedom the financial industry gets to do whatever it wants. The strange thing is that the US doesn't even have the most lax regulations - they just have absurdly weak enforcement of those regulations. For a prime example look up how absurdly lightly HSBC got away with their criminal behaviour. > These things have proven impossible to reproduce - in aggregate - anywhere else. There are two reasons for the US dollar being the main reserve currency: WWII and the petro dollar. Your claim is pretty much a perfect example of American Exceptionalism. 'American exceptionalism is an ideology holding the United States as unique among nations in positive or negative connotations, with respect to its ideas of democracy and personal freedom'
panarky 8y ago
With apologies to Winston Churchill ... Many forms of money have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that the US dollar is perfect. Indeed it has been said that the US dollar is the worst form of money except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

by rrggrr 8y ago

cheez 8y ago

Correct. I am not a US citizen and a majority of my assets are USD denominated primarily because I believe in the system of government, recent obstructionism is part of it. Basically, stay out of the people's way and provide recourse. Decent job so far. Not perfect, but better than any other place I've had direct experience with.

loceng 8y ago

Will be interesting to see how this changes if the Trump-Russia shenanigans is successful, or not if security services, rank and order have a handle on it. Edit: A downvote? It won't be interesting? Go away shallow negativity.. Edit: -4 points. Hello darkness, my old friend..

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
emodendroket 8y ago
The supposed influence of Putin is really poorly manifested in US policy, which remains as hostile as ever (Mattis is going around talking about the need to prepare for military conflict with Russia and China, for Heaven's sake).
- loceng 8y ago
  The issue stems from the constitution - and perhaps general understanding and present moment psyche of what an act of war constitutes or looks like - didn't have the foresight of understanding cyber/information warfare at the efficiencies and relative cost the internet provides. It would have been great to foresee and design to counter what Facebook's structure exposed and allowed bad actors to take advantage of; it's not surprising however as Mark Zuckerberg. not understanding why the Harvard version of Facebook being developed was taking so long, thought he could do it faster: because they were actually working through privacy, security concerns, and such - whereas Mark's level of care was "break things fast" in comparison. Enough of us have hopefully learned our lesson to swing back the yin-yang cycle and to manage and counterbalance the allowance a system like Facebook created, to prevent these overly efficient systems in spreading lies, propaganda so easily - without easing into censorship and the pitfalls inherent to silencing anyone.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I'm not sure how this response is intended to be related to mine.
    - loceng 8y ago
      Re: "The supposed influence of Putin is really poorly manifested in US policy, which remains as hostile as ever (Mattis is going around talking about the need to prepare for military conflict with Russia and China, for Heaven's sake)." I understood your comment as you either believing or not believing, doubting, that Putin and their methods aren't manifested/taken into account/written into US policy to counteract said influence? I wasn't sure if you thought it was trivial that Mattis is wanting to prepare for possible conflict with Russia and China. I expanded my comment to include Facebook and other social media as a means to manipulating a population in what hope to be democratic elections.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        In other words, I think the panic about Putin manipulating the election is hogwash, visible in part by the fact that American policy is, if anything, more hostile to Russia than before. I honestly think the reason this stuff has so much purchase is people don't want to accept that Trump could possibly be a homegrown phenomenon, because they don't like what it would say about their neighbors (plus it lets Democratic leadership off the hook for botching what really should have been a layup -- Trump was a historically unpopular candidate).
        loceng 8y ago
        There's certainly a component of homegrown to it - it wouldn't be possible otherwise to stir people's emotions up with propaganda otherwise. Are you aware of the growing list of evidence that the Mueller investigation has already uncovered, along with the people close to Trump have already been charged with crimes, etc? Likewise regarding Cambridge Analytica and what services they offered to people, to get governments/politicians into power - including admitting on video that they're willing to lie? From my view point, Bernie Sanders would have gotten more support and votes than Hilary - who to myself, felt like more of the same. There are many systems that have issues with how they are designed to function or function. We don't and perhaps can't ever know how much influence Putin (or other less obvious bad actors) had on the elections - however, I hope you'd agree that we should try our best to prevent that kind of manipulation from happening? American policy is more hostile to Russia, as is more of the world's, in part as economic punishment for bad behaviour, no? The parts of the world and society that behave well then work together.
sctb 8y ago
Readers want interesting comments to read now, I imagine, and this one doesn't teach us much. But please don't complain about voting: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- loceng 8y ago
  My comment was bringing attention the current climate of Trump-Russia, and counter-balancing that with bringing up security services that protect the constitution of the US - which is the foundation of the parent comment. Perhaps you're aware of this yin-yang counter-balance in the system, however others reading may not have realized that? I am sure there is more people could take from it, though I'm not them, so it would be difficult for me to brainstorm it all - and I shouldn't be naive enough to think I or even a group of people would get all of the possibilities down if we tried to write a list of value a person could get from a comment (and strangely enough in the context vs. what value does a downvote create?). You can call it complaining - I call it protest. Shallow downvotes allows people who don't even have the will nor willing to put in the effort for critical thought to turn a negative impulse/feeling into more than a single click of a downvote. Does that level impulsivity have any place in civil discourse? I don't believe so. If there truly isn't interest in a comment, and there were other more interesting/upvoted comments/discussion in a thread then they'd be upvoted and reach the top - or if something said is so "barbaric" then someone could comment with words to give context to the dislike vs. rewarding more impulsive, lazy people. To continue, user emodendroket left a thoughtful response, to which I just replied. It's an interesting premise that a comment is expected or desirable if it is to teach someone something. Perhaps part of that learning process is a comment leading to a reaction in someone - however requiring them to turn that reaction into a worded response that helps everyone reading (especially who they're replying to) understand the reasons why they've have that reaction (which they'd otherwise simply turn into a single click of a downvote, and then we're only giving our best guess based on the amount of effort we're willing to give in a moment - like you gave) - so then it's an opportunity for people learn, especially the person being responded to - instead of reacted to negatively, lazily; or to continue the opportunity for someone to learn, as your written response allowed me to respond and share my deeper views. Also, my edits were are meant to continue to trigger people who are more impulsive - which of course has the very high probability of triggering a cascade of more impulsive downvotes. What better way to show the ridiculousness of impulsive downvoting than "holding a sign" that highlights the ridiculous of downvotes - that instigates more downvotes? I think it's a disservice that the HN community has downvotes, at least how they impact structure and visually as they do now; training people to be impulsive over learning/practicing non-reaction or towards contributing with words if the urge is strong enough - which will help others better formulate their own understanding and words they use, as a positive exercise - assuming everyone involved is working towards being civil, and as long as there is forgiveness, compassion, and the like within the community. Whether my comment leads to a review of downvotes or an understanding/compassion from my perspective, I don't know, that depends on a lot of factors about the reader, the organization they are in and the acceptance/compassion/fluidity (vs. stagnancy/rigidness) of said organization and its people, etc. Thank you for responding though - I deeply appreciate it.

cm2187 8y ago

I think it is mostly inertia. The EUR probably has all the qualities required to be used where USD is used. But conventions and traditions die hard. For FX trading for instance, if you start quoting products against EUR instead of USD, you split the market, reduce liquidity, etc. For planes, I have absolutely no idea why a european manufacturer would sell a european made plane to a european airline in USD...

dahdum 8y ago
I'd guess that much of their supply chain is in USD and that the manufacturer would prefer not to be ones hedging the majority of the currency risk (at their expense).
elliottlocke 8y ago
The EUR isn't proven enough to overtake the USD. The eurozone is just now exiting a deep recession that exposed the weakness of its structure. Until the eurozone countries adopt a more coherent monetary and fiscal union, crises like Greece will still be a risk (this is before we get into the level of bailing out German banks for betting on Greece). Remedy this, and the EUR will become a serious threat to the USD.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> EUR probably has all the qualities required to be used where USD is used The U.S. doesn’t have perennial debates about breaking up or bits breaking off. If your Euro bank deposits are at risk of suddenly turning into drachma or lira, that’s a problem.
- checkyoursudo 8y ago
  Never been to Texas, eh? Hell, the break-California-up initiative made it to the ballot this year, was removed for this year by the CA Sup Ct, and has a non-zero chance of being back on in 2020. E.g., https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_States_Initiative_(2018) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_Stat... One of the questions I was asked in a State Attorney General Office interview in 2009 was: "What state would you kick out of the union and why?" (The secession debates were raging in certain circles after Obama was elected, and I guess some AGs wanted to know if incoming lawyers were inclined that way?) Will Texas ever secede? Will CA ever actually break up? I have no idea, and I doubt it. But the debate and even the effort is there.

XorNot 8y ago

Actually you just didn't have most of your infrastructure destroyed across the span of civilization's first two large-scale industrial wars and are the beneficiaries of controlling a temperate-climate block of latitude with access to both major oceans and no nearby similarly industrialized neighbors in the span of time those wars happened.

arcbyte 8y ago
Not most, true; only half of it in the Civil War.
irrational 8y ago
How did Germany end up with the most robust economy in Europe when it seems like it should have the worst economy since it isn't located in a temperate-climate, it was divided in half for decades and had to reabsorb the poor Eastern half, was destroyed twice, underwent sanctions, etc.? Somehow Germany overcame everything (most of which it brought upon itself of course). Why couldn't France, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. replicate Germany's success?
- panarky 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan
- danielvf 8y ago
  Since I can't reply directly to the Marshal plan comments: The Marshal Plan gave much less money to Germany than to anyone else, per capita. Greece received, per capita, about 3 times what Germany got. The UK, with a smaller population than Germany, received 3,297 million, while a larger Germany got 1,448 million.
  - kazen44 8y ago
    Also, European economic integration and cooperation should not be understated and it's effect on rebuilding germany. Especially in the early days of the EEC/ECSC, rebuilding (west) germany was important for many other european nations at the time to increase their export markets. (Benelux especially).

howard941 8y ago

These were hard won and hard to keep. I fear that they'll be lost within my (X) generation.

emodendroket 8y ago

Yeah OK but World War II and its rich natural resources might have had something to do with it.

jorvi 8y ago

> No. Yes. > The US legal system The US legal system is not some global shining paragon of how a judicial system should operate. See the shitshow around Kavanaugh how the highest court of the US judicial system has become a plaything of partisan politics. Remember that for a proper trias politica, there needs to be clear separation between the two. > a free press America is 45th in Freedom of Press rankings, behind Burkina Faso, a country that was a dictatorship until 2014, under military control until 2015, and still somewhat in turmoil. > a long-standing calvinist work ethic Most of NW Europe has 'a long-standing calvinist work ethic'. > continued financial infrastructure investment It is not as if the rest of the worlds' financial infrastructure is in disrepair. The reason why the US has such a huge finance industry isn't 'continued upkeep' but the absurd freedom the financial industry gets to do whatever it wants. The strange thing is that the US doesn't even have the most lax regulations - they just have absurdly weak enforcement of those regulations. For a prime example look up how absurdly lightly HSBC got away with their criminal behaviour. > These things have proven impossible to reproduce - in aggregate - anywhere else. There are two reasons for the US dollar being the main reserve currency: WWII and the petro dollar. Your claim is pretty much a perfect example of American Exceptionalism. 'American exceptionalism is an ideology holding the United States as unique among nations in positive or negative connotations, with respect to its ideas of democracy and personal freedom'

panarky 8y ago

With apologies to Winston Churchill ... Many forms of money have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that the US dollar is perfect. Indeed it has been said that the US dollar is the worst form of money except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.