Economics

[jgk3]

Re: Economics

Nice video series. Your assertions about India and China make a lot of sense.

[Haykakan]

Re: Economics

I was reading some of the earlier posts and Serjik is right about the coming asian domination. To understand why it is happening you have to understand history. Asia was far more advanced then the rest of the world untill the industrial revolution. Since asia was pretty much closed off during the industrial revolution it did not benefit from it thus it fell behind the west. Countries like China and India lost their sovreighnty and fell under the control of the british empire and this loss of independence guaranteed that they would not develop. You can see the effects independence by looking at the economies of China and India after they won their freedom from the imperialists. Asia is on track to once again dominate the world like it had for thousends of years before the industrial revolution. The question is will the West give up its leading position or will it fight the innevitable.

[Haykakan]

Re: Economics

Here is a good summery of the depression we are facing now. Two important things to understand here is that the lack of demand is caused by the fact that people are poorer now since the value of their real estate has plummeted and people who are poor will generate less demand. The other important thing to in this vid is the fact that this lack of demand (which did not have to occure) reduces our long run GDP. SInce the demand is weak businesses will reduce capacity over time if the weakness in demand persists. So why is this a bad thing? It is a very bad thing because by reducing capacity we limit GDP we can generate as a nation. GDP is the productivity level of our nation and by limiting productivity we reduce our income because productivity is what drives income. By only bailing out the banks and not the public the government ensured low long range aggregate demand thus a lower gdp. The persistance of this low demand is leading to reduction in capacity (firms that expect lower demand for a long period of time will sell some of their buildings and equipment and lay off workers) which in turn leads to lower long range GDP. This is bad because it means we will not be making as much money as we should be. The redused capacity will make increasing the level of GDP far more difficult later. If you watch this video till the end it will take you to the next video in the series and in this next video around 1:15 it starts discussing income inequality in USA. Income inequality is a important subject and this video does a good job of showing you where the money in USA goes. The statistics this second video uses is a few years old and the numbers are even more disturbing today then these stats imply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZvQdk5UpU&list=PLT-vY3f9uw3ADgyYqUVo2R8kxM4Agc3aw

[jgk3]

Re: Economics

Alright, since you asked for it. So like... in your absence we're all doomed then eh?

[Serjik]

Re: Economics

@jgk3

Listen bro, if you gonna ban me because of a intellectual argument with self-haters and walking dead zombies please go right ahead. trust me bro, you need me here more than I need to be here. because of how wonderful all you mods are doing your work this place is already half dead. go ahead bro kill it totally.

[jgk3]

Re: Economics

Good point Haykakan

[Haykakan]

Re: Economics

The free market is not a magic pill. Free markets work well for many things but they cannot be trusted with depletable resources like fish. If you are a fisherman the more fish you catch the more money you make. This motivates the fisherman to catch as many fish as possible thus with many fisherman doing this it leads to the collapse of the fishery. The thing is that the less fish there are -the more they are worth thus the lower the fish population - the higher the motivation to catch them in the free market. Many examples of depleted resources fall into this catagory a good example is the depleted cod fishery in the USA waters which never recovered from overfishing. The free market cannot be trusted to regulate these kinds of resources and this is where the role of government becomes important.

[jgk3]

Re: Economics

Character assassination is now part of the forum rule, or did you just made it up to protect your buddy? Bro, I wasn't trying to character assassinate it was the russian imperialists LOL!!!!

The following is an example of character assassination, using insulting remarks to debase the value of what other members have to say. It basically violates the rule that tells you not to make attacks on other members. This will get you banned if you do it again. By the same token, if other members do the same, they also run this risk.

unlike you brainwashed walking dead people here I get my news from alternative sources and I talk to a lot of smart people who are NOT brainwashed.

I know about the dangers of shale gas and fracking for more than one year. Also capitalism is not healthy it works only for large empires like england and america where they control a lot of land, power, people and resources. and even then capitalism will work only for a while. So sooner or later the economy in england and america will fall because of capitalism. Capitalism is not good, you people like to look at history from a very narrow and false angle. Adam Smith is full of kaka LOL! Go ask the most successful nations in the world like scandinavian nations and china they will agree. Anyway, just start learning Chinese, maybe you can start by watching Ni How Kay lan cartoons on nickelodeon LOL!!!!

From what I've seen, Scandinavia (namely Sweden, Finland and Denmark), excel because they create socialistic systems that motivate employees to reach high levels of attainment, in order to get a suitable reward. Criteria for receiving rewards for hard work are well established in society, so people don't complain if they have to contribute with high taxes. I think Germany does something similar.

The other nations in Europe with a flagging economy either have high expectations but don't want to work as hard to achieve it, basically, like spoiled children, or are under economic agreements that are exploiting their resources for the benefits of richer nations, or both.

China is powerful today because the communist government used Machiavellian means over the course of several decades to train their enormous population to agree upon being of a single ethnic group, Han Chinese, with a singular hatred of all other races, and to work very hard for very little, and to have a love hate relationship with their government, hating them for its cruelty, but loving them for the sense of power it gives their identity as Chinese vis a vis the rest of the world.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with the pursuit of wealth outlined in capitalism, but it has to be combined with social values that reflect the interest of the people. Furthermore, capitalism today does not really exist in the mainstream business world, because the "wealth" created by it is not valued accordingly to actual assets, but by speculation on future returns. This is pseudo-capitalism that basically feeds those who know how to play the stock market, and since the major industries today exist as corporations, they are all, from head to toe interested in wooing investors whether or not their returns on investment are based on a healthy model of economic growth. As long as it pays them now, it's ok.

It does not care about benefiting any people, and it only creates assets insofar as to keep investors confident. In the time of Adam Smith however, economic theories and philosophies about progress and technological development leading to greater well being were earnestly believed in. Because the industrial revolution had just begun to transform the world, it was thought that more efficient methods of production could help humanity by creating more supplies that make life easier (more food, inexpensive clothes, shelter, speedy travel, better tools, etc...) . It was thought that a free market system would be ideal to distribute these things to the population, but alas, as soon as one member of society is greedy and clever enough to damage their competitors via non-market related means (violence, government lobbying, central banks), the whole fabric of the free market falls apart.

[Serjik]

Re: Economics

Character assassination is now part of the forum rule, or did you just made it up to protect your buddy? Bro, I wasn't trying to character assassinate it was the russian imperialists LOL!!!!

But was I talking to you? But if you need to know, unlike you brainwashed walking dead people here I get my news from alternative sources and I talk to a lot of smart people who are NOT brainwashed. I know about the dangers of shale gas and fracking for more than one year. Also capitalism is not healthy it works only for large empires like england and america where they control a lot of land, power, people and resources. and even then capitalism will work only for a while. So sooner or later the economy in england and america will fall because of capitalism. Capitalism is not good, you people like to look at history from a very narrow and false angle. Adam Smith is full of kaka LOL! Go ask the most successful nations in the world like scandinavian nations and china they will agree. Anyway, just start learning Chinese, maybe you can start by watching Ni How Kay lan cartoons on nickelodeon LOL!!!!

Serjik, after agreeing to stop breaking the rules with your character assassinations, could you answer me these questions? When did you learn about shale gas? I learned about it only last week. What does that say about my education vis a vis yours? Without some of the West's innovations in economics (Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations comes to mind), do you think the expansion of England's mercantile empire to essentially dominate the world during the 19th century would've been possible?

What makes you think China will dominate the world?

[Haykakan]

Re: Economics

U.S., EU to Start Talks on Massive Free-Trade Deal

The European Union and United States have confirmed plans to begin negotiating what could be the largest-ever free-trade deal of its kind. President Obama noted the potential agreement in his State of the Union speech Tuesday. Lori Wallach of the group Public Citizen criticized the plan, writing, "These talks are aimed at eliminating a list of what multinational corporations call 'trade irritants,' but the rest of us know as strong food safety, environmental and health safeguards," she wrote.