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The number of people in this thread living in the West and saying "let's blindly copy an authoritarian policy made by an authoritarian regime", without consider
by brap 4y ago
The number of people in this thread living in the West and saying "let's blindly copy an authoritarian policy made by an authoritarian regime", without considering any 2nd or 3rd order effects this might have, is alarming.
- neural_thing 4y agoAlso, people here REALLY misunderstand why China is doing the things it's doing. Their FX reserves are running perilously low. They are looking for ANYTHING they can do to get foreign cash. I'm hearing rumors that they are the ones who tapped out the FIMA facility. Could get ugly. I know somebody is going to @ me with the 3T number, but the only data I trust is China's holding of Treasuries. That's been falling quickly.
- thriftwy 4y agoHow did China even managed to run out of foreign cash? This is huge news for me. They were always swimming in export profits / probably still are / travel limits since COVID means that obvious leak of travelling and spending abroad is plugged. How could they run out of cash?
- unity1001 4y agoThey didnt. He is just making it up. China has been dumping US treasuries recently. Maybe he is confusing that with China's foreign reserves drying up. ... In any case, Yuan is the new foreign currency. And China has, well, all of it...
- reaperman 4y agoFor clarity, China de-prioritizes T-bills in favor of US Federal agency bonds which are nearly the same risk but slightly higher returns/interest rates. They currently hold $1.2 trillion in federal USD Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/SBA/FHA bonds. Higher reward, similar risk, still perfectly reasonable USD FX reserves.
- typon 4y agoThe last point is all that matters. It will be painful and take a while for Americans to come to grips with it, or we will all die in an apocalypse when they can't accept it.
- LeFantome 4y agoRemains to be seen. It is not clear that China has the rule of law that the world needs in a foreign currency. Even the US has been pushing their luck on this front but they are better than China. Economically, demographics are insanely against China and it is not clear that immigration is a viable way for them to close that gap. Finally, their unique political system has not been tested during a period of low growth. It is not clear they have the political stability to be a reserve currency. Again, the US has been pushing their luck.
- unity1001 4y ago[flagged]
- reaperman 4y agohttps://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-rising-holdings-us-agency-bonds https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-rising-holdings-us-agency-bo... > the only data I trust is China's holding of Treasuries - Do you not trust China's holding of US Federal Agency bonds? like Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/FHA/SBA? China holds $1.2 Trillion of these, slightly higher interest rates than T-bills. - Even at their peak, T-bills only formed <7% of China's USD reserves. You really think China only needed $200 billion of FX reserves and everything else is probably faked?
- neural_thing 4y ago<7%? You must be REALLY misreading the data. China now holds <$900B in treasuries. Their official reserve number is over $3T, I'd argue it's probably $1.5T. It's never gone as low as 7%, not even close lol Source on china Treasury holdings - https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt Source on offical China reserves - https://tradingeconomics.com/china/foreign-exchange-reserves https://tradingeconomics.com/china/foreign-exchange-reserves but as I mention, I don't trust this
- neural_thing 4y agoLike, for real, look at the chart in your link. It shows agency debt as being much smaller than Treasury notes and bonds.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoThe Sherman Antitrust Act is authoritarian policy? Nobody is saying to blindly copy China.
- brap 4y ago[flagged]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoExplain your reasoning, I'm interested.
- digdugdirk 4y agoWhile I wholeheartedly disagree with you, I'm curious as to your reasoning why. Would you mind explaining your controversial opinion?
- uoaei 4y agoTechnically true, I guess, but only in the narrow sense that it is opposite to libertarianism. But this is the kind of freedom (absolute de-regulation) that nullifies the freedoms of others (agency in the market). Overall the first is more deleterious than the others, and removing it causes far fewer victims and far more upsides.
- KyeRussell 4y agoYep. This is why a certain sort of libertarianism attracts a certain sort of (sheltered, systems-obsessed) engineer type. The run-on consequences and hidden contradictions of libertarianism make the whole thing fall apart, but the definition of the system, in its own language, isn’t aware of itself.
- uoaei 4y agoWhich is ironic considering [complex] systems [like large economies] in the real world are all about nth-order effects. Anyone doing a solely first-order analysis is simply misunderstanding what systems are and can be.
- swsieber 4y agoI'm not hearing any of the "blindly" stuff. It's more like "China has done to their monopolies what I've wished would happen to ours for a while now".
- pookah 4y agoLike strong arming US companies into putting party shills onto their boards? Disappearing CEO's for months at a time? I'm glad the US doesn't have to resort to CCP corporate facism and thugery. We're all doomed if they do.
- DanHulton 4y agoStraw man. Please don't do this.
- vinyl7 4y agoThe US is already a corporate fascist state. The difference between the US and CCP is that in the US, the corporations control the government.
- tiny_ta 4y agoSimilarly outrageous things could be said about any country. <faux outrage> Would you prefer politicians who are in the pockets of lobbyists? Politicians who repeal regulation that keeps a bank with subpar risk management from getting too big to fail? </faux outrage> No one has to blindly copy anyone. However, nuance seems to missing in western discussions these days (I say western because these are the discussions I'm mostly aware of). Nuance is difficult. When everything becomes hyperbole, it gets harder to learn best practices from other countries. Edit: Added <faux outrage> tags
- Aunche 4y agoIt's ironic that you say "nuance seems to missing in western discussions these days" after making a sweeping allegation about politicians and lobbyists.
- uoaei 4y agoJust because you haven't been thinking about this kind of thing for a while, doesn't mean others haven't.
- my_city 4y ago[flagged]
- roho124 4y agoIt seems to me you are the one using buzz words
- decremental 4y ago[flagged]
- chaostheory 4y ago> China is an "authoritarian regime" that breaks down monopolies and imprisons corrupt billionaires Yes, Jack Ma had the audacity to criticize his government. That is why he and his company are being targeted, and not larger monopolies like Tencent. Anti-corruption drives in China are just thinly disguised political purges. There are plenty of flaws and problems with modern democracies, but they still serve the people’s interests better than authoritarian dictatorships.
- rfoo 4y agoChina ran the worst brutal crackdown against working class protesters (and students trying to help) in the recent years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasic_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasic_incident
- my_city 4y ago[flagged]
- rfoo 4y agoA few dozen people arrested won't make me think it's the worst. But how about a few student activitists disappeared, beaten to confess in a video clip, and two of them still missing even today? From the Wikipedia: > In January 2019, police summoned several activists and showed them an allegedly "forced confession" video in which four activists (including Yue and Qiu) claimed to renounce labor radicalism. Some activists later wrote blog posts criticizing the police's action, saying it was a "ridiculous performance put on by the police". Seven more people were taken away again. > Several organizers and student activists remain missing, including Yue Xin and Zhang Shengye. Apologize for the confusion, I didn't read en wiki before post, apparently this isn't emphasized in the en version. And yes, I'm a native Chinese speaker.
- moneywoes 4y agoGame theory wise what do you see as some of these 2nd3rd order effects?
- drowsspa 4y agoSo just because China is doing it, we shouldn't break up monopolies, even though they by their own nature weaken democracy?
- humanistbot 4y agoThat is a gross misrepresentation. "A broken clock is right twice a day." Antitrust is not an inherently authoritarian policy. It can be selectively used for authoritarian ends, as it appears to be the case here. It can also be used more systematically to make markets more competitive.
- walkhour 4y agoSupporting these kind of policies many times is not a result of thinking about any kind of consequences, even first order consequences. They just want to get back at something they don't like. Unfortunately this is the basis of too many policies, regardless of whether they are a net positive or not.