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This is deleterious beyond just economics. Put people out of a job and they go sick, die more frequently and have a general unpleasant time. None of these fol

This is deleterious beyond just economics. Put people out of a job and they go sick, die more frequently and have a general unpleasant time. None of these folks are willing to look at how profits are at record high... take money out of the richest hands and redistribute. The cards are stacked against the common people and asking the non-wealthy to take the brunt of the hit here is a cash grab by the elite who aren't doing their part.

taolegal 4y ago
> This is deleterious beyond just economics. Put people out of a job and they go sick, die more frequently and have a general unpleasant time. This "people are going die" justification has been behind so much catastrophically unwise policy, because there is no argument against it that matches the visceral alarms-blaring rhetoric. It's a blunt weapon and there's not a matching response, since the honest & sincere response is abstract arguments about the fallibility of human judgement & how every decision has costs and benefits, intended and unintended, associated with estimated probabilities. The problem is that this inflation is so obviously tied to the moral hazard of 2008, bailing out corporations (a result of progressive policy arguing to protect people) and then, the very much similar in spirit, policy enacted during the pandemic. Even 9/11 & the whole apparatus of the 2000s is similar in spirit. All these things were enacted under the pretense of emergency & collectivism. Totalitarian rhetoric and orwellian redefinitions of language were used to silence & stigmatize opposition. Money was printed recklessly in order to finance even more precarious and unsustainable economic dynamics & govt projects. Guess what? It's all crashing down now. This isn't austerity & libertarianism. Those people have practically no power, only a handful of politicians qualify for that label. We're ruled by big government. The New Deal won over American government, and by any reasonable analysis has reigned supreme ever since and these are the results. Constant crises spilling over into each other, eking out a couple years of relief before the dam gets ready to burst again even more spectacularly.
- polio 4y ago
  It should be possible to bail out the people without bailing out the companies, and it should be doable without generic QE. What if the government builds its own farms and grocery stores and housing complexes? Would that be bad because of how much control it would give the government or would it be good because of how much control it wrests away from private industry?
  - taolegal 4y ago
    It's bad because the ultimate truth that's been proven over the entirety of human history is that a small group of people simply do not possess the knowledge required to operate economies & plan peoples' lives. That knowledge is often only available to individuals themselves (their preferences!).
koheripbal 4y ago
Unemployment is still near record low levels. The Fed isn't firing people - they are correctly raising interest rates to keep up with inflation. There's not much wiggle room for them. If we all want this problem to go away, we should be focusing on improving our own energy independence and energy transportation quickly and ending the war in Ukraine which is disrupting markets and causing economic havoc in Europe.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > If we all want this problem to go away, we should be focusing on ending the war in Ukraine which is disrupting energy markets and causing economic havoc in Europe. If you have contacts in the Kremlin feel free, but otherwise that's an empty idea. There are two ways to do that - Ukraine gives up, which it won't, or Russia does, which it won't. Putin cannot afford to show how weak he is or he might be gone, and Ukraine will no longer compromise on it's territorial integrity now that it has the upper hand in the fighting, and moral justification (they were invaded by a brutal genocidal regime that has murder thousands of their civilians, why would they compromise with them, especially now that they're beating them?).
  - koheripbal 4y ago
    There is a lot of hopium on social media about this right now because we mostly only see the Ukrainian side of this conflict. The likely outcome to this war is Ukraine losing territory. There is no reasonably likely outcome where Ukraine will liberate ALL of the occupied territories. Putin will indeed use tactical nukes, or at least demonstrate them, should Ukraine push much further into the occupied land. ...but you are right that little of that is in our hands. Domestically, we need to ramp up energy production. Both in the US and EU.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > There is no reasonably likely outcome where Ukraine will liberate ALL of the occupied territories. Of course there is. The Russian army is a disaster reminding of their WWI performances, so it being defeated until they're out of Ukraine isn't unreasonable. > Putin will indeed use tactical nukes, or at least demonstrate them, should Ukraine push much further into the occupied land. Nobody should pretend to understand what Putin will do. He has subverted expectations many times. I hope Macron, Truss and Biden have explicitly made it clear to him that any sort of nukes are the red line that must not be crossed. That's the message i heard, i hope he has too and is not desperate enough to start a nuclear war to save his ass.

taolegal 4y ago

> This is deleterious beyond just economics. Put people out of a job and they go sick, die more frequently and have a general unpleasant time. This "people are going die" justification has been behind so much catastrophically unwise policy, because there is no argument against it that matches the visceral alarms-blaring rhetoric. It's a blunt weapon and there's not a matching response, since the honest & sincere response is abstract arguments about the fallibility of human judgement & how every decision has costs and benefits, intended and unintended, associated with estimated probabilities. The problem is that this inflation is so obviously tied to the moral hazard of 2008, bailing out corporations (a result of progressive policy arguing to protect people) and then, the very much similar in spirit, policy enacted during the pandemic. Even 9/11 & the whole apparatus of the 2000s is similar in spirit. All these things were enacted under the pretense of emergency & collectivism. Totalitarian rhetoric and orwellian redefinitions of language were used to silence & stigmatize opposition. Money was printed recklessly in order to finance even more precarious and unsustainable economic dynamics & govt projects. Guess what? It's all crashing down now. This isn't austerity & libertarianism. Those people have practically no power, only a handful of politicians qualify for that label. We're ruled by big government. The New Deal won over American government, and by any reasonable analysis has reigned supreme ever since and these are the results. Constant crises spilling over into each other, eking out a couple years of relief before the dam gets ready to burst again even more spectacularly.

polio 4y ago
It should be possible to bail out the people without bailing out the companies, and it should be doable without generic QE. What if the government builds its own farms and grocery stores and housing complexes? Would that be bad because of how much control it would give the government or would it be good because of how much control it wrests away from private industry?
- taolegal 4y ago
  It's bad because the ultimate truth that's been proven over the entirety of human history is that a small group of people simply do not possess the knowledge required to operate economies & plan peoples' lives. That knowledge is often only available to individuals themselves (their preferences!).

koheripbal 4y ago

Unemployment is still near record low levels. The Fed isn't firing people - they are correctly raising interest rates to keep up with inflation. There's not much wiggle room for them. If we all want this problem to go away, we should be focusing on improving our own energy independence and energy transportation quickly and ending the war in Ukraine which is disrupting markets and causing economic havoc in Europe.

sofixa 4y ago
> If we all want this problem to go away, we should be focusing on ending the war in Ukraine which is disrupting energy markets and causing economic havoc in Europe. If you have contacts in the Kremlin feel free, but otherwise that's an empty idea. There are two ways to do that - Ukraine gives up, which it won't, or Russia does, which it won't. Putin cannot afford to show how weak he is or he might be gone, and Ukraine will no longer compromise on it's territorial integrity now that it has the upper hand in the fighting, and moral justification (they were invaded by a brutal genocidal regime that has murder thousands of their civilians, why would they compromise with them, especially now that they're beating them?).
- koheripbal 4y ago
  There is a lot of hopium on social media about this right now because we mostly only see the Ukrainian side of this conflict. The likely outcome to this war is Ukraine losing territory. There is no reasonably likely outcome where Ukraine will liberate ALL of the occupied territories. Putin will indeed use tactical nukes, or at least demonstrate them, should Ukraine push much further into the occupied land. ...but you are right that little of that is in our hands. Domestically, we need to ramp up energy production. Both in the US and EU.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > There is no reasonably likely outcome where Ukraine will liberate ALL of the occupied territories. Of course there is. The Russian army is a disaster reminding of their WWI performances, so it being defeated until they're out of Ukraine isn't unreasonable. > Putin will indeed use tactical nukes, or at least demonstrate them, should Ukraine push much further into the occupied land. Nobody should pretend to understand what Putin will do. He has subverted expectations many times. I hope Macron, Truss and Biden have explicitly made it clear to him that any sort of nukes are the red line that must not be crossed. That's the message i heard, i hope he has too and is not desperate enough to start a nuclear war to save his ass.