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> What solution do you propose to ending US money hegemony over the world? I don't, it's the least-worst option. The US hegemonic order is better than a Russia

> What solution do you propose to ending US money hegemony over the world? I don't, it's the least-worst option. The US hegemonic order is better than a Russian hegemonic order, which is in turn better than a PRC hegemonic order. But make no mistake, the currency alone isn't the reason for US hegemony. > Or do you support that? I mean, are you like, F those children in the middle east, let's send more of our boys to be cannon fodder, etc.? Hey remember that there World War? That was fought on hard money. Napoleonic Wars? Hard money. Boer War? Hard money. Basically any war in any history book covering pre-mid-century 1900s was fought on hard money. All of colonialism happened on hard money. There will always be sufficient lending resources available to fight a war. That's not a function of monetary policy that's a function of social policy - a matter for congress, not the Fed. > Do you LIKE letting the big banks steal the country's wealth? Surely you have some citation. Retail banks serve the Fed in that they expand and contract the money supply via lending. They make very little actual profit for their role. Return on assets on deposit for major US retail banks is roughly 1% annually. That's their fee for managing the money supply on behalf of the federal reserve, which exists at the whim of congress.

javert 5y ago
> Hey remember that there World War? Wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan could not be financed or prosecuted under a hard money regime. The wars you name as examples were "real" wars, i.e. they required real sacrifices of the nations involved, political buy-in, and were financially limited in a way that modern US fakewars are not. (Aside: Of course, our fakewars do require limited sacrifices---of our young "grunts" that are recruited from high schools and haven't received a good enough education to know that signing up for Iraq makes you a sacrificial victim, not a war hero; and that sacrificing yourself in the Middle East hurts our country and is anti-patriotic, rather than the reverse.) > Surely you have some citation The rich are getting richer by buying assets (like equities, US homes en masse turning us into a nation of renters, farmland, etc.) while borrowing for nearly nothing. The Fed is what allows the rich to borrow at near zero interest. It isn't literally the banks as corporate institutions that are getting rich; I was referring to "banking" in a more general sense. If you're serious in asking for a citation, you'll know that in modern scientific and semi-scientific literature works in such a way that there are dozens of "citations" for any position anyone wants to take. "Citations" are not the way to go. Understanding fundamentals is what is needed. That's why we have these conversations. The answer does not lie "in the literature." I'm leaving the conversation now.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > Wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan could not be financed or prosecuted under a hard money regime. And yet World War 1 could? C'mon now. There is no reason to think that lending would be impossible under hard money. That's how wars are financed now lol. > The rich are getting richer by buying assets. Yes, this is social policy not monetary policy and can be addressed easily with a wealth tax. It's a question of appetite not means. > "Citations" are not the way to go. Yeah, they are...
  - seibelj 5y ago
    Citizens of Britain were destroyed financially by WW1, and the British Empire fell apart. Afghanistan lasted far longer and had no real sacrifice of current citizens, other than debt which will be paid by debasement. The benefit of hard money is citizens actually feel the pain of taxation. With forever wars financed by fiat money, we can funnel freshly printed cash into the meat grinder forever.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > Citizens of Britain were destroyed financially by WW1, and the British Empire fell apart. They were destroyed financially because they were destroyed physically. There are a lot of reasons the British empire fell apart, including losing Hong Kong to the Japanese showing the world they were no longer able to protect their territorial posessions. Pinning this on hard money is really difficult IMO but if it was actually hard money, that sounds like a great reason not to adopt it? Empire collapse sounds bad... > Afghanistan lasted far longer and had no real sacrifice of current citizens, other than debt which will be paid by debasement. What makes you think lending won't be possible in a hard money environment? Afghanistan was expensive but not that expensive. US GDP is 21T. Afganistan cost $100B/yr, or 0.47% of GDP. America can fight forever-wars because of its largesse, not its ability to create debt. That's just accounting. You can't make a $21T GDP country feel $0.1T/yr. That's a rounding error in appropriations. The Defense budget alone is $700B/yr. > With forever wars financed by fiat money, we can funnel freshly printed cash into the meat grinder forever. This is social policy not monetary policy. Japan has a soft monetary system, struggles constantly with deflation and has no army.

javert 5y ago

> Hey remember that there World War? Wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan could not be financed or prosecuted under a hard money regime. The wars you name as examples were "real" wars, i.e. they required real sacrifices of the nations involved, political buy-in, and were financially limited in a way that modern US fakewars are not. (Aside: Of course, our fakewars do require limited sacrifices---of our young "grunts" that are recruited from high schools and haven't received a good enough education to know that signing up for Iraq makes you a sacrificial victim, not a war hero; and that sacrificing yourself in the Middle East hurts our country and is anti-patriotic, rather than the reverse.) > Surely you have some citation The rich are getting richer by buying assets (like equities, US homes en masse turning us into a nation of renters, farmland, etc.) while borrowing for nearly nothing. The Fed is what allows the rich to borrow at near zero interest. It isn't literally the banks as corporate institutions that are getting rich; I was referring to "banking" in a more general sense. If you're serious in asking for a citation, you'll know that in modern scientific and semi-scientific literature works in such a way that there are dozens of "citations" for any position anyone wants to take. "Citations" are not the way to go. Understanding fundamentals is what is needed. That's why we have these conversations. The answer does not lie "in the literature." I'm leaving the conversation now.

arcticbull 5y ago
> Wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan could not be financed or prosecuted under a hard money regime. And yet World War 1 could? C'mon now. There is no reason to think that lending would be impossible under hard money. That's how wars are financed now lol. > The rich are getting richer by buying assets. Yes, this is social policy not monetary policy and can be addressed easily with a wealth tax. It's a question of appetite not means. > "Citations" are not the way to go. Yeah, they are...
- seibelj 5y ago
  Citizens of Britain were destroyed financially by WW1, and the British Empire fell apart. Afghanistan lasted far longer and had no real sacrifice of current citizens, other than debt which will be paid by debasement. The benefit of hard money is citizens actually feel the pain of taxation. With forever wars financed by fiat money, we can funnel freshly printed cash into the meat grinder forever.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > Citizens of Britain were destroyed financially by WW1, and the British Empire fell apart. They were destroyed financially because they were destroyed physically. There are a lot of reasons the British empire fell apart, including losing Hong Kong to the Japanese showing the world they were no longer able to protect their territorial posessions. Pinning this on hard money is really difficult IMO but if it was actually hard money, that sounds like a great reason not to adopt it? Empire collapse sounds bad... > Afghanistan lasted far longer and had no real sacrifice of current citizens, other than debt which will be paid by debasement. What makes you think lending won't be possible in a hard money environment? Afghanistan was expensive but not that expensive. US GDP is 21T. Afganistan cost $100B/yr, or 0.47% of GDP. America can fight forever-wars because of its largesse, not its ability to create debt. That's just accounting. You can't make a $21T GDP country feel $0.1T/yr. That's a rounding error in appropriations. The Defense budget alone is $700B/yr. > With forever wars financed by fiat money, we can funnel freshly printed cash into the meat grinder forever. This is social policy not monetary policy. Japan has a soft monetary system, struggles constantly with deflation and has no army.