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War is a general consequence of monetary system problems, so just blaming it on the military wanting to be bigger (which is true for every organization) doesn't

War is a general consequence of monetary system problems, so just blaming it on the military wanting to be bigger (which is true for every organization) doesn't look totally at the big picture. I love Shelling out: The origins of money blog post from Nick Szabo as it's a great explanation of how having a hard monetary system with small inflation shared by everybody the parties to be more peaceful. US had a trade relation with China where China was buying US bonds, but as US was issuing lots of new bonds China lost trust, and started selling it thereby opting out of the US bonds based monetary system.

itsoktocry 4y ago
China has reduced some of its holdings of treasuries (<10%), but still have a trillion dollars worth. They are diversifying, but they still hold a ton of USD.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  I guess they can't dump it all at once, but the current US policy won't help.
  - adventured 4y ago
    China could have very easily dumped all of their holdings by now. They're choosing to hold that pile. It's no longer a meaningful pile of treasuries vs the overall size of the US Government debt load. Ignorant people used to joke that China owned the US because of their treasury position (despite the fact that Japan's holdings were roughly as large). Well that position has been massively diluted over the past decade and is now largely meaningless. The Fed can eat China's position with a snap of its finger. It's to China's benefit to hold the position, at present.
panick21_ 4y ago
War for the most part is not the result of currency problems. Unless you consider dictators wanting more currency to be a currency problem.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I think the theory would be more like, dictator mismanages economy, uses saber rattling as a distraction, and then things spiral out of control from there. I think this is still wrong in the sense that pointing toward any one thing as the only cause of big geopolitical stuff is wrong, but at least it is a coherent theory.

itsoktocry 4y ago

China has reduced some of its holdings of treasuries (<10%), but still have a trillion dollars worth. They are diversifying, but they still hold a ton of USD.

xiphias2 4y ago
I guess they can't dump it all at once, but the current US policy won't help.
- adventured 4y ago
  China could have very easily dumped all of their holdings by now. They're choosing to hold that pile. It's no longer a meaningful pile of treasuries vs the overall size of the US Government debt load. Ignorant people used to joke that China owned the US because of their treasury position (despite the fact that Japan's holdings were roughly as large). Well that position has been massively diluted over the past decade and is now largely meaningless. The Fed can eat China's position with a snap of its finger. It's to China's benefit to hold the position, at present.

panick21_ 4y ago

War for the most part is not the result of currency problems. Unless you consider dictators wanting more currency to be a currency problem.

bee_rider 4y ago
I think the theory would be more like, dictator mismanages economy, uses saber rattling as a distraction, and then things spiral out of control from there. I think this is still wrong in the sense that pointing toward any one thing as the only cause of big geopolitical stuff is wrong, but at least it is a coherent theory.