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> It's late stage capitalism. It's going to get so much worse. Years from now you'll look back at the 2020s and think "I though THAT was the late stage? Boy

> It's late stage capitalism. It's going to get so much worse. Years from now you'll look back at the 2020s and think "I though THAT was the late stage? Boy I had no idea."

pas 4y ago
why will it get worse? what's the model that predicts this?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  There seems to be no limit to the insanity people will tolerate with sufficient conditioning, so there is no reason to think there is a natural limit to how bad any economic or political system, capitalism or otherwise, can degrade. If you can't imagine how things could get even worse, then watch some science fiction or read some history books. Tearing people's hearts out to appease the sun god, or to repossess the organ after unpaid medical bills. We're not there yet, but that could be the sort of madness we're heading into.
  - pas 4y ago
    I agree, people can adapt to basically anything, but we have pretty clear precedents about who does what when faced with this or that. In the face of constant legally sanctioned/mandated exploitation the frequency of outlaw group appearances increases, similarly revolts start from time to time. (Not saying their success rate was any great.) Repossessing organs doesn't sound scary. The fanatics do scare me more, after all North Korea and every other successful oppressive regime was built on that. But it remains to be seen if it's possible to scale up totalitarianism to bigger scales.
- BirAdam 4y ago
  It will get worse because the US federal government will not be able to pay debt service indefinitely. This will either mean a lowering of interest rates and acceleration of both inflation and debt accumulation (merely delaying the collapse of the dollar system) or US federal default which will collapse the dollar system. When dollars quit flowing to the states in return for federal program enforcement there will be little incentive for state governments to continue adhering to federal rules. Warriors likewise don't usually fight for free, so there's unlikely to be a large military presence to hold it all together. From many perspectives, you could consider this to be not the end of capitalism in the USA, but the end of empire altogether. Of course, the politicians, bankers, and managerial elite of the USA have kept this going far longer than I thought possible, so it may not happen that way at all.
  - pas 4y ago
    The spectrum between yaay everything is amazing and the dollar system collapses is ... pretty big. "U.S. interest costs won’t rise catastrophically in the short term, and there’s not really a reason to expect interest rates to stay high for decades. Furthermore, inflation will itself erode some of the national debt, reducing long-term interest costs relative to GDP." "Right now, interest payments haven’t even begun to rise as a percent of tax revenue, and one big reason is inflation. Interest rates are set in dollar amounts, and inflation increases the number of dollars in the economy, meaning that tax revenues increase in dollar terms as well." + debt rollover "the weighted average duration is only about 4 years." (so about half of the debt has to be renewed in about 4 years) "The Fed currently predicts that it will start cutting rates in 2023. And markets expect this to happen too." https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/us-government-debt-is-not-a-ticking https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/us-government-debt-is-not-... [sorry paywall] "a growing surplus of savings worldwide." https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/i/70962695/aging-populations-save-more https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/i/70962695/aging-populati... > end of empire that's unlikely though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVQDUQR8I4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVQDUQR8I4

> It's late stage capitalism. It's going to get so much worse. Years from now you'll look back at the 2020s and think "I though THAT was the late stage? Boy I had no idea."

pas 4y ago

why will it get worse? what's the model that predicts this?

MichaelCollins 4y ago
There seems to be no limit to the insanity people will tolerate with sufficient conditioning, so there is no reason to think there is a natural limit to how bad any economic or political system, capitalism or otherwise, can degrade. If you can't imagine how things could get even worse, then watch some science fiction or read some history books. Tearing people's hearts out to appease the sun god, or to repossess the organ after unpaid medical bills. We're not there yet, but that could be the sort of madness we're heading into.
- pas 4y ago
  I agree, people can adapt to basically anything, but we have pretty clear precedents about who does what when faced with this or that. In the face of constant legally sanctioned/mandated exploitation the frequency of outlaw group appearances increases, similarly revolts start from time to time. (Not saying their success rate was any great.) Repossessing organs doesn't sound scary. The fanatics do scare me more, after all North Korea and every other successful oppressive regime was built on that. But it remains to be seen if it's possible to scale up totalitarianism to bigger scales.
BirAdam 4y ago
It will get worse because the US federal government will not be able to pay debt service indefinitely. This will either mean a lowering of interest rates and acceleration of both inflation and debt accumulation (merely delaying the collapse of the dollar system) or US federal default which will collapse the dollar system. When dollars quit flowing to the states in return for federal program enforcement there will be little incentive for state governments to continue adhering to federal rules. Warriors likewise don't usually fight for free, so there's unlikely to be a large military presence to hold it all together. From many perspectives, you could consider this to be not the end of capitalism in the USA, but the end of empire altogether. Of course, the politicians, bankers, and managerial elite of the USA have kept this going far longer than I thought possible, so it may not happen that way at all.
- pas 4y ago
  The spectrum between yaay everything is amazing and the dollar system collapses is ... pretty big. "U.S. interest costs won’t rise catastrophically in the short term, and there’s not really a reason to expect interest rates to stay high for decades. Furthermore, inflation will itself erode some of the national debt, reducing long-term interest costs relative to GDP." "Right now, interest payments haven’t even begun to rise as a percent of tax revenue, and one big reason is inflation. Interest rates are set in dollar amounts, and inflation increases the number of dollars in the economy, meaning that tax revenues increase in dollar terms as well." + debt rollover "the weighted average duration is only about 4 years." (so about half of the debt has to be renewed in about 4 years) "The Fed currently predicts that it will start cutting rates in 2023. And markets expect this to happen too." https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/us-government-debt-is-not-a-ticking https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/us-government-debt-is-not-... [sorry paywall] "a growing surplus of savings worldwide." https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/i/70962695/aging-populations-save-more https://www.fullstackeconomics.com/i/70962695/aging-populati... > end of empire that's unlikely though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVQDUQR8I4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVQDUQR8I4