Skip to content

Comment on The Tradeoffs Facing Japan's Economy

Comments

It seems we are not able to talk about the economic effects of this era of capitalism as almost our entire monetary and economic theory seems to be defined by two events and institutions compeltely lack the ability to see anything else

1) The oil crisis of the 70s, inflation of getting off the gold standard

2) The invisible productivity print and GDP of the 90s due to the internet

These two solutions seem to be the only thing our current wonks can imagine as a solve for current crisis that are entirely different and need to be analyzed entirely on their own terms

For example

1) America printed 70% more currency over covid yet somehow did not experience anywhere near the global devaluation it should have (even if we experienced INTERNAL inflation) resulting in an extremely "monaco like" economy where everything is now hyper expensive and economy seems to be 'melting up.'

2) Nations like japan would dont run the world currency are experiencing MASSIVE devaluation while doing the same things, trapping their citizens inside their nation and cutting them off from global trade and weakening their borrowing position

These are net new scenarios the FED refuses to have a new playbook to deal with, and its an impressive illustration of our so called 'experts' complete lack of knowledge of what to do if it wasn't already written down in a book.

FED

You are aware this isn't an acronym and you mean "Fed"? I don't know how seriously to take your opinions about macroeconomics.

i, in no way, implied it was an acronym which would require periods (in this enviroment) if we are being a pedantic as you. Simply a stylistic choice to cause it to read clearly and stand out.

Your comment is, in its entirety, meaningless and a net negative on our community with its intellectual dishonesty, and beyond that complete inability to interact with the content.

We are all dumber having read it, may god have mercy on your soul.

Simply a stylistic choice to cause it to read clearly and stand out.

Is this actually a thing? I've seen plenty of people capitalize "FED" but rarely see it for anything else. eg. "TRUMP" or "OBAMA".

I’m not even the OP but you need to relax buddy, it’s not that serious.

If anything I feel dumber for having read your comment here. Everyone knows you’re just trying to do a cute bit from a movie with that quote.

Hey relax! NO JOKES! haha the irony here :)

intellectual dishonesty

I didn't know I lied about anything.

inability to interact with the content

s/inability/reluctance/ because of the reason I gave. But that's still fair criticism and you are right.

may god have mercy on your soul

Aww thank you

What's the crisis? I mean, what makes you feel there is a crisis? I know social media can make anyone feel extremely anxious these days, but for real?

Fair question, we are more on a edge (which who can say when truly til after the fact) but what I see as someone who has privilged position and data into global trade, GDP mandates, and monetary policy and its effects on the private sector is this:

We are locked in a GDP fight globally between powers, triggering real world trade wars and hot wars based on a few hidden factors:

1) A far worse fertiltiy crisis than is publicly known (including timelines to its real effects being far closer)

2) An overabbundance of currency needing to find return in increasingly speculative arenas, an a levered debt system built that REQUIRES that return or risks catastrophic failure

3) A GDP fight globally where in the first to falter triggers a hot war

4) A collapse in social contract between workers and capital class, where in capital class have now publically stated they believe workers are no longer a neccesarry class (contradicting the real terms of point 1)

5) A set of economic rules that are being broken, sending us into the 'no playbook' zone of global stability

This is an ultra toxic mix that is showing up all at once.

can you say more about 1?

Unsure if you’ll see this.

1) demographics are collapsing worse than expected for high value cohorts (working and fighting age men and child bearing women) because older numbers didn’t cohort ages eg real numbers can linearly decline supported but large older cohorts while younger cohorts can collapse much faster.

2) The UN failed to do math in the cohort trap (each generation of women is smaller making less children) that bends down the curve even more steeply faster

3) china is undergoing strategic compression and Russia is already in it. Russia seeks to have chosen to “go out in a flame rather than slowly decline”

4) the third and developing world was widely assumed to be our demographic bailout, latest numbers show they are collapsing faster than the developed non Asian world.

But this is not some "hard" problem, let's say in a way "peak oil" was seen as a "hard" problem 20-25 years ago: a resource limitation you can't just wish away. There's no problem with having as many babies as needed, it can be solved at a flip of a switch with only a minor readjustment of political expectations with almost no physical cost to anyone.

I'll just say that over 2 decades of trying and billions of dollars spent by the Nordics, Singapore, China, Japan, and Korea say otherwise.

Changing human motivations is significantly harder than drilling a new hole or putting up a solar panel.

No, it's a lot simpler. Governments should just have babies of their own, using donor eggs and sperm of people they consider to be high-value, using cheaply hired foreign women of any race for gestation, and raising them in specialised institutions - and funding it by abandoning all (indeed terribly inefficient) family-stimulating policies like childcare, tax benefits, etc.

To avoid political problems, make sure these new people do not become citizens so they don't vote, let them just be workers and consumers.

How is that simple? it seems like the massive cultural and political challenges are just being handwaved away

Chill out there Tyrell.

Thanks, 4 is totally news to me and had also been assuming that was the bailout

I mean, what makes you feel there is a crisis?

U.S. M2 money supply tripling in 15 years. US gov public debt more than tripling over the same period.

People from the middle class being unable to buy a house.

The money printer has been going brrrrrr since a very long time and everything got badly distorted.

My bet is that when the next financial crisis hits, we'll see helicopter Ben and hear the brrrrr again.

The crisis in one webpage:

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

P.S: that's not talking about a country like France, where the IMF shall have to intervene soon as public spendings are totally out of control and the public debt is running wild.

Debt to GDP ratio only increased by 1/3 in 15 years, not 3x. And this is a natural consequence of population ageing and is less pronounced than in almost any other developed country. Money supply to GDP is only 1/4 up from 1950s when interest rates were a lot higher. Homeownership is at nearly all-time high except a short stretch of speculative housing bubble ~20 years ago when a lot of people who couldn't afford homes, bought them to speculate, being financially illiterate and tricked by the banks to do to. Do i need to continue?

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.