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I wasn't exaggerating when I said we spent more than $2 trillion in Afghanistan alone. But that number should send off your bullshit detector. That's $15,000+ f

I wasn't exaggerating when I said we spent more than $2 trillion in Afghanistan alone. But that number should send off your bullshit detector. That's $15,000+ from every single household in the US. Even spread out over time that's an obscene amount of money. So where did the money come from? Well the US gets money/debt by selling treasuries. And the largest 'private' buyer of those treasuries is the Federal Reserve who has infinite money. The war was funded by money printed out of thin air, funny money. But of course there is a cost - inflation. But the US has historically been in a unique place owing to a number of factors to export our inflation [1], particularly after our bait and switch with Bretton Woods. But many of those factors (largest consumer economy, global reserve currency, petrodollar) are on the way out or already, more or less, done with. And as those factors decline we get economically closer to Bahrain, Maldives, Laos, and Cape Verde - our distinguished economic peers in terms of debt:GDP ratios. So long as we don't just replace the USD with the Yuan, this will be the case for all countries in a multipolar world. Money having value dramatically changes the cost:reward ratio of war. For instance I think this is the main reason China is implicitly accepting of a worsening situation in Taiwan. It's not because they don't think they could win, but because they don't want to pay for it. And so a deteriorating situation is seen as more desirable than a costly war. [1] - https://search.brave.com/search?q=exporting+inflation https://search.brave.com/search?q=exporting+inflation

Pigalowda 2y ago
You really want me to acknowledge that $2T so I will. The Republican Party started 2 wars and spent trillions of dollars. The democrats spent billions in dollars in military aid. Neither party achieved their objectives, both parties had their positions reversed after they were electorally defeated. Hundreds of thousands of people have died because of these mistakes. And now you think the US should default on the debt so money is worth money again? Is that not tautological? And the argument is that war should be expensive? If the US can default on this old debt and create dollar 3.0 what would stop it from defaulting on this new “real” money in the future? New money, new wars, new debts, new defaults.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  I don't expect the US will default on our debt. Rather I expect we will continue to print money endlessly. But what I am arguing is that the world becoming multipolar will mean that the result of that will be more in line with other countries who might try such things - which means you mostly just end up pumping up inflation. What this means is that the US will need to gradually cut down on spending, and eventually work on also bringing down our debt, or at least our debt:gdp. As will other countries who have gone a bit too far down the funny money hole. Well that, or just enter into stagflation. And should this prediction hold true, then war is going to become much more difficult to wage in the future.
  - Pigalowda 2y ago
    It’s easy to talk about stagflation and have this little academic discussion. However when this political motivated recession drops your party’s popularity drastically - which will happen - what will you do? How will you keep the ball moving? Do you think it be done before mid term elections? Or are elections irrelevant now?
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      This isn't about any given party or their actions. It's about a changing world order as well as the emergence of larger economies. In the future money printing will increasingly be met with little more than inflation. To some degree we're already seeing this. The COVID inflation is still nowhere near gone, let alone the dramatic increase it had on CPI.
      - Pigalowda 2y ago
        So you think this greater good is going to happen in less than 2 years? Inducing a recession to change the world order back to mercantilism isn’t going to be popular in practice. Drunks in a pub might think it sounds great over their back of the napkin math - but that’s just talk. When the rubber meets the road and the Republican party fails here, which it will, what happens? They either have a perfectly executed plan and everything is miraculously wonderful or they lose the midterms and that’s it. So either the plan is to suppress or prevent elections or just transfer wealth and lose while the world order gets overturned.

Pigalowda 2y ago

You really want me to acknowledge that $2T so I will. The Republican Party started 2 wars and spent trillions of dollars. The democrats spent billions in dollars in military aid. Neither party achieved their objectives, both parties had their positions reversed after they were electorally defeated. Hundreds of thousands of people have died because of these mistakes. And now you think the US should default on the debt so money is worth money again? Is that not tautological? And the argument is that war should be expensive? If the US can default on this old debt and create dollar 3.0 what would stop it from defaulting on this new “real” money in the future? New money, new wars, new debts, new defaults.

somenameforme 2y ago
I don't expect the US will default on our debt. Rather I expect we will continue to print money endlessly. But what I am arguing is that the world becoming multipolar will mean that the result of that will be more in line with other countries who might try such things - which means you mostly just end up pumping up inflation. What this means is that the US will need to gradually cut down on spending, and eventually work on also bringing down our debt, or at least our debt:gdp. As will other countries who have gone a bit too far down the funny money hole. Well that, or just enter into stagflation. And should this prediction hold true, then war is going to become much more difficult to wage in the future.
- Pigalowda 2y ago
  It’s easy to talk about stagflation and have this little academic discussion. However when this political motivated recession drops your party’s popularity drastically - which will happen - what will you do? How will you keep the ball moving? Do you think it be done before mid term elections? Or are elections irrelevant now?
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    This isn't about any given party or their actions. It's about a changing world order as well as the emergence of larger economies. In the future money printing will increasingly be met with little more than inflation. To some degree we're already seeing this. The COVID inflation is still nowhere near gone, let alone the dramatic increase it had on CPI.
    - Pigalowda 2y ago
      So you think this greater good is going to happen in less than 2 years? Inducing a recession to change the world order back to mercantilism isn’t going to be popular in practice. Drunks in a pub might think it sounds great over their back of the napkin math - but that’s just talk. When the rubber meets the road and the Republican party fails here, which it will, what happens? They either have a perfectly executed plan and everything is miraculously wonderful or they lose the midterms and that’s it. So either the plan is to suppress or prevent elections or just transfer wealth and lose while the world order gets overturned.