Author
|
Topic: Why we should not strive for complete economic equality (Read 14778 times)
|
CommanderShepard
*Many bubbles*
 Offline
Posts: 111
|
Sure, but what makes you think that people or corporations are acting in their own long-term best interest? People and corporations are stupid. Humans have lots of cognitive biases and are horrible at long-term thinking. You might be able to think a few years into the future. Not much more.
I agree, not everyone will make rational decisions. At the same time, this discussion only proves that people are capable of making rational decisions and seeing beyond bad ones, which means so are most other people. It's not really anything to do with intelligence, people are 99% the same, it's more to do with access to information.
So do you have data that suggests the world is experiencing hyperinflation? Because I live in a city with hundreds of thousands of people and I haven't seen prices go up very much.
Maybe, but if whatever you are giving to China is worth less than whatever China is giving to you, you will get a trade deficit,
Which is completely fine when the other party plans on paying it back, and both China and the U.S. have that trust which is why they keep doing it every single year after year after year after year. Apple takes out millions of dollars in loans annually, but are they bankrupt? No, they pay it back, so it doesn't matter that they keep taking out millions in loans on an annual basis because they can expect to pay it back.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CommanderShepard
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Posts: 111
|
Your country cannot be trusted mostly because your healthcare system and military complex are consuming way too much of your budget, and there is little prospect for decreasing how much those sectors are consuming.
I think you're referring to Ragonomics which predates the current U.S. presidency. While it doesn't seem to be the most rational, it doesn't seem ineffective either given that the U.S. and China have continued to trade for years after those policies were adopted. A lot of technology tends to enter society as a result of military spending, like robotics, instant coffee, auto parts, a lot of communication/networking technology like html tags and GPS and radars, drones, etc. It's not all the U.S. or China, a lot of armed forces eventually end up doing this.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: July 22, 2018, 11:32:03 pm by CommanderShepard »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Zanthius
Enlightened
Offline
Posts: 941
|
A lot of technology tends to enter society as a result of military spending, like robotics, instant coffee, auto parts, a lot of communication/networking technology like html tags and GPS and radars, drones, etc. It's not all the U.S. or China, a lot of armed forces eventually end up doing this.
So what? If I take a huge loan from my bank, and use lots of money every month on feeding poor people, it doesn't necessarily matter to the bank what I am using the money on. What matters to the bank is that I pay back.
In the current trade relationship between the US and China, China is basically just giving money to the US. There is no way in hell the US is ever going to pay China back all of the trade deficit.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 08:29:30 am by Zanthius »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CommanderShepard
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Posts: 111
|
You seem to have a lot of faith in politicians.... But what makes you think China doesn't already know?
I don't have "faith" in politicians, there are definitely corrupt politicians. But what you need to understand is that it's not quite that simple, it actually does matter a lot more what the public thinks, but you don't recognize that when you see arguments you disagree with take the spotlight.
Even if a politician disagrees with their constituents, like if for instance their constituents believe the sky is purple, senators and representatives are still compelled to agree with their constituents and would vote to rename the sky purple on behalf of their constituents, and if the issue is important enough, and they don't vote according to their constituents, they will almost surely be voted out of office. So whether public opinion matters in a democracy is indisputable, but what shapes public opinion is how corporations and the media portray different issues as important or unimportant in order to compel people to write to their representatives with particular opinions or vote for particular candidates who claim to support different political stances. Even if a decision isn't in the best interest of constituents, the people in a democracy still ultimately bear the responsibility for that, and that's why education and media are very important.
So lets take climate change. Even if a congress person believes in human climate change but their constituents tell them it's fake, they will be strongly compelled to vote according to their constituents and vote to pass bills that suggest human climate change is fake even if they don't want to. The constituents will compel their congress person to do so both directly in writing and indirectly through mass and social media, and since climate change is a volatile issue, the congress person knows they will almost certainly be voted out of office if they don't vote according to their constituents. The only realistic way this given congress person could consistently vote in favor of human-caused climate change is if their constituents also believe it to be true or don't take notice of the congress person's unfaithful voting.
Again, Trump doesn't hold all the power, I'm sure you've noticed by this point he boasts a lot more than what he can actually can lay claim to. I don't see an indication that Xi doesn't understand this as well.
It's like this. Lets, for example, imagine that I have deadly cancer and that there is nothing I can do to save myself. Maybe I don't want to tell my children since I know they are going to be devastated then. So, instead of telling my children, I let them keep their "false belief" about my health. At least then they can enjoy some more time with me without being devastated before I die.
But both China and the U.S. have records of their transactions in order to extrapolate the future, and the U.S. is publicly rated on the security of its currency by world-wide sources based on a long history of transactions and the health of companies in its own economy. The reason why it isn't declared risky is because it currently isn't, and the rest of the world doesn't see a legitimate reason to think it will collapse any time in the near future, that's why the dollar still has some strength, more than the yen.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 10:36:46 am by CommanderShepard »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
CommanderShepard
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Posts: 111
|
And that's why world leaders don't limit their reactions to only specific debt holders, it's a culmination of factors that considers many different companies and policies and history, and frankly panicking about the issue just makes it worse, they don't want to have to worry about global economies collapsing.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 3873
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
|
Can you both reduce the sniping and stay close to object-level discussion?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
