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The only reason you have this opinion is because perhaps you have mentally disconnected from the basic idea of money. Imagine we were all still using salt to t

The only reason you have this opinion is because perhaps you have mentally disconnected from the basic idea of money. Imagine we were all still using salt to trade for goods and services. Then things might start to make sense. If a country produces nothing (or not enough) and counts on borrowed salt to survive, failure is guaranteed. If a country gives away salt to people who do nothing in exchange for it, failure is guaranteed. If a country does not develop financial discipline, failure is guaranteed. If a country elects people to government who are only there to enrich themselves and don't do what's right, failure is guaranteed. If a country manufactures starts to use devalued sand that no other country will accept instead of salt, failure is guaranteed. etc. On a global market a country IS a business. In order to be successful it has to operate at a profit. Period. This understanding is what seems to be lacking in many electorates. They vote with emotion and out of selfish positions at the cost of completely ignoring that the national balance sheet is, perhaps, the single most important determinant of how well they, their children and future generations will live. Banks have nothing to do with it. They can't force you to consume or produce salt. How responsible you are with salt is what determines the outcome. Banks just hold it and loan it. Yes, brutally oversimplified. Yet sometimes oversimplification can sometimes help someone think and understand something. Yes, reality is far more complex than you and I walking around with little sacks of salt. And yet sometimes it isn't much more complex than just that.

seliopou 11y ago
> On a global market a country IS a business. In order to be successful it has to operate at a profit. Period. This understanding is what seems to be lacking in many electorates. So if countries are businesses, and they all have to operate at a profit, and one country's revenue is another country's expenditure, where are all the deficits that balance out all the surpluses? The fact of the matter is that it is impossible, like squaring the circle is impossible, for every country in the world to be surplus country as you propose. Also, as an aside, using a barter metaphor to describe a global, industrialized economy is overly simplistic to the point of being useless, as you pointed out. It's useless the point of being misleading and leading to no more of an understanding of a very complex system.
- robomartin 11y ago
  > where are all the deficits that balance out all the surpluses? Where did I say that the system would balance out? There are countries that will under-perform for a myriad of factors. That's a fact. These countries will require the charity of those doing well (with rules as to how that assistance is to be used). It's also a dynamic system. Today I make a profit and tomorrow you do. It's a pendulum that achieves some degree of balance at the right time scale. Also, resources and economies change over time. Compare the world 1,000 years ago to today. It's not a static playground.

seliopou 11y ago

> On a global market a country IS a business. In order to be successful it has to operate at a profit. Period. This understanding is what seems to be lacking in many electorates. So if countries are businesses, and they all have to operate at a profit, and one country's revenue is another country's expenditure, where are all the deficits that balance out all the surpluses? The fact of the matter is that it is impossible, like squaring the circle is impossible, for every country in the world to be surplus country as you propose. Also, as an aside, using a barter metaphor to describe a global, industrialized economy is overly simplistic to the point of being useless, as you pointed out. It's useless the point of being misleading and leading to no more of an understanding of a very complex system.

robomartin 11y ago
> where are all the deficits that balance out all the surpluses? Where did I say that the system would balance out? There are countries that will under-perform for a myriad of factors. That's a fact. These countries will require the charity of those doing well (with rules as to how that assistance is to be used). It's also a dynamic system. Today I make a profit and tomorrow you do. It's a pendulum that achieves some degree of balance at the right time scale. Also, resources and economies change over time. Compare the world 1,000 years ago to today. It's not a static playground.