While people are dying of a pandemic and economic consequences, the smart people are talking about how Martians might repo Earth.

  • spinachupper [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    global debt

    bitch who the fuck does the globe owe debt to, mars?

  • snackage [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    The more you know about finance the crazier you sound. Try explaining to a normal person that there's more debt than there is money and value in the world.

    Edit: it's only higher than global M2.

      • snackage [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Global debt, that is the sum of all government, corps, houshold etc debts, is $253 trillion and is 322% of global GDP (basically the value of all paid labour in the world for I assume a year). The global Money Supply, that's all the money available to move around (cash, numbers on computers etc.) is $95.7 trillion. There's literally not enough money around to pay of all debt.

        Nice graphes

            • Lrak [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I borrow 5 dollars from you, you borrowed these 5 dollars from a buddy and he borrowed it from his sister. We are accumulatively 15 dollars in debt even if there were ever 5 dollars in the whole world. The worlds economic system is fucked obviously and I'm not even sure my analogy applies but it could easily.

          • MichelLouise [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            And if then Z uses that money to pay back a million he owned to X, $3 million worth of debt have been erased while everyone has exactly the same amount of money as before.

          • snackage [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            For that to work you have to have a staggered default. What if Y, Z and A need the money AT THE SAME TIME and X doesn't have any?

              • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Now interest rates are back to zero and Japan and Europe have already tried negative rates and they don’t work.

                Negative rates as in "I borrow $100 today and owe only $99 next year"? Lmao fucking capitalists

                • snackage [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  What you have to understand is that Banks have accounts at the central bank and they can just like you and me keep money on those accounts, overdraw etc. That's actually how the central banks get money into the system: they create the, from thin air and just transfer them to the Banks' accounts. Negative rates work by punishing banks if they don't withdraw enough money from those accounts and get them into circulation. So if a Bank had money on that account that money would start getting less. That's what they called Negative rates. It's a bad name. When rates are positive the bank has to pay back the central bank with interest namely the famous "interest rate" that's for the US Fed at 0% to 0.25% so lol.

                  Source: I used to work at a bank. Nothing to do with money mind. Software dev. That stuff was part of the apprenticeship course.

                  I might be wrong though so CC @President_Satan to check or add anything.

              • snackage [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                The result of every action is you have more debt then you had before. I'll tell you what will happen: debt jubilee but only for banks. The other side of the coin is a debt jubilee for people but that means a bolshevik style revolution has already happened in either the US or the entirety of the EU-core (lol).

          • eduardog3000 [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            Why not just settle those chains away? Just say X no longer owes Y, Y no longer owes Z, Z no longer owes A, instead X directly owes A.

            Hell, I'd imagine it's possible A owes X $1 million, so $4 million of "debt" represents absolutely fucking nothing.

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          And how is the money needed to pay off these debts created? By issuing more debt!

  • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I have a lib friend who is apparently turning into a debt/deficit hawk. It's really annoying tbh.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Now that the libs are in power they need an excuse for not doing anything to help people.

      • Sphere [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        He explicitly disagrees with MMT, actually, so it wouldn't help even if I managed to convince him to read it.

        • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          In theory it could address whatever criticisms he has of MMT, but yeah, he might just be a lost cause on this issue.

        • rolly6cast [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Even via orthodox modern neoclassical economics debt/deficit hawkery isn't necessary, you might want to use Japan's debt to GDP ratio for example. Don't need MMT, and MMT has its own flaws.

  • ami [they/them,he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Imagine the remnants of society in the future, just pockets of humanity around the globe asking why the people of the past destroyed the planet and why, with all the resources available to them, they didn't provide for everyone, and the response is basically boiled down to "idk some fucking imaginary numbers in a comp said we couldn't because a handful of rich dudes would be upset if they had to part with a fraction of their wealth."

    And then you just go back to looking for anything edible by digging in soil that's been depleted of any nutrients by being used to grow fucking uhhh cotton for 100 years or whatever and you just die from exposure. Cool.

    • threshold [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I fully agree, but how do you best combat someone who unironically fears about debt? Who owes who money? Where does money come from?

  • gay [any]
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 years ago

    Fuck, capitalism is mad gay.