• BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I can’t believe the Republicans are appeasers. They beat the drum for decades how Democrats couldn’t stand up to tyrants, and now Republicans are literally appeasers. It’s 1984 levels of turnaround.

        • hemmes@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s not like you’re gonna find them all flying over to Russia together, like during the 4th of July or some crazy shit like that…

      • weedazz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They will verbally jerk off Ronald Regan for “outspending the USSR into dust” and then act like Ukraine Aid doesn’t do the exact same thing

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s a whole party caught between giving head to their long term partner, the Military Industrial Complex, or their new side fuck, Vladimir Putin. Either way, the rest of us are forced to lick up the leftovers.

      • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        They always were and always will be appeasers and bootlickers. Democrats are also appeasers who lack conviction and courage, but they’re not (anywhere near as often) bootlickers.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fun fact for those on the fence about this, the US has monetary sovereignty in a fiat currency, which means that the US government has essentially infinite money.

      Edit: for those that are curious, yes, the game about the federal budget is exactly that. The deficit is essentially tracking the amount of money that the federal government owes to itself. Remember, fiat currency means that the value of money exists because the government says that it holds that specific value. A $2 dollar bill is still worth $2 when purchasing items, but worth several $ more than the printed value.

      Edit 2: I didn’t think it needed to be said, but I’ve been proven wrong. I don’t literally mean infinite money.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Holy Zimbabwe Batman!

        For those that are curious this is not even remotely close to how the economy words. The us government absolutely does not have unlimited real money, sure they can print money and it will become worthless. But that’s not the same.

          • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I got a degree in economics. I’m not going to watch up trash on YouTube. If you can’t condense it and make a point it is obviously meaningless.

            The government buys things with US dollars, if it uses huge huge amounts of US dollars to buy things you get inflation. It’s a basic premise…

            Just look at Germany pre ww2 or look at Zimbabwe after it stopped being Rhodesia.

            • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Just look at Germany pre ww2

              The German government in the early '20s engineered their hyperinflation as part of an attempt to demonstrate an inability to pay the ruinous war reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty. It’s really not a good example of “natural” inflation.

            • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
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              1 year ago

              As someone who is not informed on this and just is going by what is written in this thread, the videos seemed high quality and informative, and you saying “I got a degree” and refusing to engage because you don’t like YouTube is absolutely unhelpful and uninformative.

              It seems like @rockSlayer@lemmy.world is right, based on the information available right here. If you really disagree and would like like to show otherwise, please do engage and provide more information, I find this interesting.

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              neither of those governments had monetary sovereignty. Zimbabwe was also an exceedingly rare case of hyperinflation within a country using fiat currency.

              Edit: please, engage with the source material. What about monetary sovereignty is incorrect?

              • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                YouTube isnt a source.

                If what you are claiming is true that the government has unlimited real money this means three things. 1 any government could make as much real money as they like and massively improve the livelihoods of all citizens but choose not to. There is a guaranteed Nobel prize in economics and probably physics. Someone somewhere is hiding a huge conspiracy for whatever reason.

                That at a minimum requires a paper on the topic. A YouTube video isn’t up to that standard.

                The claim you are making is extraordinary. I’m not going to watch 1.5 hour worth of YouTube to prove you wrong just as I wouldn’t for a flat earther.

                It really is up to you to explain this world changing information succinctly and coherently. To at least raise the topic. What you are saying is all the governments and universities are wrong here is a a load of YouTube videos. Not worth my time sorry.

                • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Fine, let me grab you some of the sources used in one of these highly researched videos.

                  Books:

                  • the deficit myth - Stephanie Kelson
                  • Debt: the First 5000 years - David Graeber
                  • Soft Currency Economics II - L Randall Wray
                  • Modern Money Theory: A Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems - L Randall Wray
                  • The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy - Warren Mosler

                  Articles:

                  Looks like you have a lot of reading to do. If only there were an easily digestible way to consume all of this information in a way that only had the relevant parts for our discussion.

                  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    Article by Forbes.

                    Yes inflation erodes money. Yes nothing in that article proves what you are saying or has anything I disagree with.

                    If the government starts buying more stuff it will cause demand-pull inflation. That goes against what you say.

                    Article on zimbabwe

                    “Further, the response of the government to buy political favours by increasing its net spending without adding to productive capacity was always going to generate inflation and then hyperinflation.”

                    That goes against what you say. They increasing spending (looks like they were going for infinite money cheat) that didn’t work. Therefore that also proves the point I am making you cant just spend spend spend and the world will be perfect.

                    Third article. I would copy and past but I can’t. 3 The MMT perspective .

                    Just read that. Government spending caused inflation. Therefore they don’t have unlimited money they destroyed their economy overbuying.

                    Take a step back. I have looked at your sources and they go against what you are saying. You need to reanalyse your views and see if they are right or if you just want them to be right.

                    I have responded to what you have stated so now it’s your turn to answer the questions without YouTube or books or articles. Just answer.

                    The question is this how does the US government have infinite money?

                    How does the government buying huge amounts not cause hyperinflation and therefore stop them buying everything?

                    How does the government print money without it causing inflation?

                    Just to be clear I understand government deficit and a government running a deficit is not an example of governments having unlimited spending power. It’s spending now and paying for it later. This differs from personal spending in the fact that humans have to pay off their loans in their lifetime, the government does not. So don’t use that as an explanation for the above points as it is invalid.

            • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              If you can’t condense it and make a point it is obviously meaningless.

              That’s literally what he did in the first comment you replied to.

              He posted the sources to back up his point because you were disputing it, and then you said “you don’t have a point!” Ridiculous.

              • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                He talked about fiat money being unlimited but it isn’t unlimited.

                Fiat money is a type of currency that is not backed by a commodity, such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender.

                In no way did he explain why fiat money is unlimited money. That’s the bit that needs explaining.

                If you flood the economy with money that money becomes less valuable (inflation) and therefore you need more money to buy things. At no point does that mean you can buy unlimited goods, it just means you can print worthless paper.

                So yea I need to know what evidence I’m disputing to dispute something. It’s not up to me to disprove an argument that hasn’t even been explained.

                • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  He didn’t say that it wouldn’t affect inflation. He didn’t say it’s value doesn’t go down by printing more. He simply said it’s possible to print an unlimited amount (I assume barring a shortage of paper or ink or labor), and that remains true.

                  On the other hand, he’s now apparently changed his mind. It would seem he did indeed mean to imply more than just his words.

                • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
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                  1 year ago

                  “infinite” is hyperbole. In this context, it means “more than enough”.

                  It should be obvious, “infinite” can never apply to real world situations like this.

                • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  Yep. “I know better, so just shut up!”

                  He’ll make a typical politician one day.

            • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              People just don’t seem to understand the supply-and-demand aspect of inflation, which is what causes these braindead takes; nor do these YouTube videos bother explaining it.

              • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                It’s madness.

                They get a viewpoint and then just agree with everything that everyone remotely says close to it without judging it.

                Then to win an argument you spam a huge amount of information that doesn’t prove the point in question but all does need to be disproved or they are magically right.

                I just hope some people reading comments and not replying at least gain some knowledge of the system they are using.

                • Dark_Blade@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I mean, when your worldview is challenged then you only have two options:

                  a) Concede, learn, move on

                  b) Stand your ground, no matter what

                  The former is hard, so people pick the latter. It’s that simple.

                  Also, there’s a form of comfort to be found in burying your head in the sand and pretending that simple solutions exist to complex problems. It requires less critical thinking and gives you hope that someday, somebody will say they’ve ‘had enough’ and solve problems like world hunger or poverty in one fell swoop. It’s a lot more difficult to admit that, in reality, money is inherently worthless and the labor and resources that give it value are usually finite quantities.

                  Well, that or they just think economic problems are super easy to fix because their only source is a poorly-sourced YouTube video.

          • Kellamity@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Can we please not have YouTube videos be sources

            At best, they’re a tertiary source consistimg of a bunch of condensed summaries of other sources

            More often they’re cherrypicked by content creators to build a narrative for entertainment

            And like, in this context (Lemmy comment debate) you’re asking people to watch a bunch of videos with ads and debunk the points inside. Maybe thats not too much to ask in other contexts, but you must know nobody arguing with you here is going to spend their time doing that

            I could link to a bunch of flat earth videos as sources, and although they would be easily debunked, nobody here is gonna sit through them and follow up the specific claims they make

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The Second Thought video is indeed a tertiary source, but the 1Dime videos has all sources in the comments. I understand that people don’t “like” it as a source, but that doesn’t invalidate them either. They are essentially longer form content explaining what I said in greater detail. If someone came in and said inflation was due to the flat earth, then we can dismiss those claims. Any “sources” would not be backed by economic or scientific theory. This doesn’t change based on the format of the source.

            • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
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              1 year ago

              This is an internet comment section. You need to chill about youtube videos as sources. It almost comes off as snobbish. No one here is under any obligation to do anything for each other. If you wanna ignore a long video someone posted because you don’t want to sit through it, fine. You are allowed to do that.

              The existence of flat earth videos doesn’t invalidate the entire concept of information in videos.

              Get an ad blocker or use piped or something.

      • HububBub@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Absolutely correct. And for more detail on how non-fiat economies work and why the deficit is essentially a fiction to keep bond markets functioning, I recommend reading “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton. This also explains why the EU will never rival the US (TLDR: EU member states are not able to control their individual monetary policies).