TranscendentalEmpire

Lol, I'm not gonna bother breaking down your arguments again. You clearly aren't interested in any kind of honest discourse. The constant flip flop between being purposely obtuse and then aggressively pedantic is a wild way of trying to get your point across.

It's actually kind of impressive that you can work in a variety of different logical fallacies into so many of the responses while never addressing the original topic.

Have a great rest of your day.

China has been actively dumping US securities for years now. Given the openly hostile stance US is taking towards China, I fully expect that this trend will only accelerate going forward https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202303/1287406.shtml

And yet there is obviously still enough demand for US securities to allow the US to borrow more money every year.

oil is a small portion of Russian overall economy.

It's like 30-40% of their federal revenue and funds the entirety of their national wealth fund... Which is what they are utilizing instead of issuing securities. I would hardly call it a small portion of their economy.

The whole point of buying securities is that you expect them to retain value, hence why it's important for them to be backed by something tangible.

The whole point of buying securities is to have a reserve of foreign currency with high liquidity at large volumes. Gold is tangible, but it holds no inherent value, it isn't exactly the easiest thing to move around the globe, and is a fairly easy market to disrupt if attempting to liquidate at significant volumes. There's a reason everyone moved away from the gold standard in the first place.

That's a process of issuing currency, you're not borrowing anything from anybody.

Ahh, yes. Lending value and then being paid back that value with interest isn't "borrowing". I have some calls to make to some credit card companies.....

Fluctuations in trade obviously impact domestic economy, but they can be weathered and they're not catastrophic in the long run.

I think you're moving the goal post here..... Also, "can be weathered and they're not catastrophic in the long run" requires supporting evidence.

That's precisely what Russia illustrated at the start of the war when the west put the most severe sanctions it could come up with.

How? The Russian government moved to a war time economy, growth isn't exactly a surprise in that scenario. The hard part is sticking the landing, what happens if they are succeeded or fail in Ukraine? It's not like war actually creates material value that is tangible and lasting for the majority of citizens.

Misallocation of labour and resources as I've explained several different ways in this very thread.

And what causes the misallocation of labour and resources.....? You are just utilizing cyclical logic.

Politics encompass more than simply allocation of resources. In this particular case, the politics were that Yeltsin decided he'd rather be the president of Russia than a deputy of USSR

So economic collapses are always caused by a misallocation of resources and productive forces..... but not in the case of the USSR. Their economic collapse was solely because of Yeltsin. Got it....

economic decline was the core reason, then you wouldn't have seen high level of public support for USSR.

We weren't talking about the dissolution of the USSR, when I brought up them as an example I was solely talking about the economic crisis of the late 80's and 90's.

You'd see a situation that's similar to what we see in US today where majority of the population no longer believes that their country is working in their interest.

You're conflating voting to keep the USSR and "believing the country no longer working for their interest". It's not like 30% of the country is voting to change their nationality/economic system.

grew up in USSR, so I'm speaking from personal experience here. The kinds of horrors that are happening in US today, were completely beyond imagination.

A bit anecdotal don't you think? I'm sure if I asked some nepo baby if America is doing well I'd get the same exact answer as someone who grew up in the projects.

The shortages started after the dissolution, and introduction of liberal reforms. One thing USSR did quite well was ensuring that everyone had a decent minimum standard of living.

Your link is from 83', aka not the late 80s and early 90s. Here's one from 1990

Again, we were originally talking about a specific monetary policy. You seem to be wanting to bring this all back to a gish gallop about the Soviet Union, and not even about their economic policy.

Again, that's my original point that labor and resources aren't being allocated in the interest of the majority which is leading to discontent and civil unrest among the public.

And how does civil unrest connect back to debt monetization? How is modern Russia allocating nearly half of their federal spending on the military and "secret" spending, serving the interest of the majority?

I'm not arguing against backing debt with securities though.

What was the whole point of the entire conversation?

What I've been saying is that Russia is in a good position to do so.

I don't agree with your assessment. If they were able to sell securities they would be selling more securities, it's kinda a no brainer. However, securities are susceptible to sanction activities. They'd rather use their gold reserves as a way to move around sanctions than to give the US another easily trackable and sanctionable resource.

The main item with high liquidity that's not being heavily targeted by sanctions is oil and gas. But, utilizing those for securities would effect revenue already earmarked for the Fed and their national monetary fund.

I never claimed Russia is on the brink of collapse or anything. So long as oil stays above $60 a barrel, allowing them to fund their nwf and maintain wartime spending, they'll probably be fine for a while. But that doesn't mean they can solve indefinite deficit spending via "printing money like the US".

It's very obviously shrinking in the long run given that now there's a whole alternate world economy forming around BRICS

If US debt is growing at an ever faster past, that logically demands that us securities are being sold at an ever higher pace....

China is one of the largest buyers of US securities. Having a large foreign exchange reserve is beneficial for export economics whose government mainly relies on vat taxes for revenue.

hence why sanctions against Russia failed in the first place. So, it's pretty clear that Russia would have no problem backing their security with tangible stuff that countries need.

Sanctions failed because oil is still 80$ a barrel and the vast majority of governments are run by people wanting to line pockets.

It's an example of a tangible asset Russia can back securities with

The whole point of buying securities is that they are liquid assets that can be traded as or like currency.

Borrowing money in a currency you yourself issue is a nonsensical concept.

It's not really a radical concept....? Especially considering that every major economy does some form of debt monetization.

There is a difference between domestic market and international trade. The value of the currency domestically is not directly related to its trade value.

I think "Not only that, but currency being valued lower internationally actually plays in favor of the government in a country that's primarily an exporter of goods." Is kinda proof that there is a direct correlation. In a globalized economy domestic and international markets are inherently intertwined.

These collapses all directly relate to the decline in material conditions.

You don't say..........so what is causing the decline in material conditions?

Meanwhile, the dissolution of USSR was primarily political in nature.

Isn't how we allocate productive forces always political in nature?

The economy of USSR was certainly in a far better shape than US is today where millions of people are currently starving, unable to get healthcare, or even afford housing.

You really think that the current US economy is doing worse than the Soviet Union in the late 80's and early 90's?

Food shortages were rampant in the 90s, even in Moscow. If we were utilizing the same metrics as America for "starving" (aka food insecurity) then the majority of the Soviet Union would have been "starving".

Healthcare by the late 80s in the USSR had fallen tremendously, mostly because their transition to prioritizing outpatient care, which caused their hospital system started falling apart.

As far as housing.... Yeah, America is always gonna win that particular shitty trophy. Though that's not exactly because of an inability of production, moreso an inability to empathize with the working class.

I'm not claiming that America has a great economy, or that capitalism is the best economic system to distribute resources. Just that certain economic principals are relevant wether you have a command economy or not. China is a socialist state and they still back their debt with securities, because not doing so leads to currency instabilities in both the domestic and international sectors of the economy.

Collapses aren't caused by loss of production capacity, they're caused by misallocation of resources that leads to an unacceptable decline in the standard of living for the majority.

Oh, like 39% of the federal budget going to the military? You don't think that might catch up with them at some point?

They're very much printing money, meanwhile the demand for US bonds globally is in fact dropping.

Lol, I mean money is being printed in the literal sense. But, it's still backed by securities.

As far as bond demand goes, it tends to dip and surge in popularity based on its yield.

There's absolutely nothing preventing Russia from backing its currency with securities as well. In fact, Russia is in a much better position to do so because they've been stockpiling gold.

Securities are only valuable if the buyer believes they will be paid out once they have matured. Russia could start borrowing and utilizing securities, but they don't exactly have a wide market to borrow from. Basically they'd have to borrow from China or maybe India, and those two likely wouldn't be interested in gold reserves.

Gold isn't a currency or even like a currency, it's value declines the more it moves. It's not exactly the best thing to back securities with, it's more geared for purchasing when you have currency instabilities. More than likely they would have to back their securities with interest in oil/natural gass. However, that wouldn't really help their problems too much, as that's how they find their National Wealth Fund.

mean the fact that it can is literally the premise behind MMT.

Borrowing money is not the same as "printing money".

very nature of currency is that it's just a social contract. What actually matters is whether the country is able to allocate its productive forces effectively.

Yes, currency is a social contract, one that's based on trust. How that currency performs and what it represents can influence that trust. Currency is not completely insulated from material realities, and the gap between the stated worth of the currency and the material realities of the country that determine that worth can determine how people outside the country will value it.

What actually matters is whether the country is able to allocate its productive forces effectively. As long as a country can continue to produce the things people need then the economy will be fine.

I mean..... That's a neat theory, but it kinda is easily disputed by nearly all economic collapses of the 19th century and onwards. If this is true, then did the Soviet Union's economy explode simply due to an inability to allocate productive forces accordingly?

Has there been an economic collapse outside of a major war that was caused simply by a country losing its production capacity?

You could also argue that being indicted by the Justice Department in 2012 forced Assange to seek the favor of governments who weren't aligned with U.S. interests. It's certainly a betrayal of Wikileaks founding principles that it passed in those Russian documents in 2017, but if I were already the target of the U.S. government, I probably wouldn't want to piss off the Russian government as well.

That's a fair point, however I would like to point out that being indicted by the government you're leaking information against is a foreseeable conclusion. The thing that made WikiLeaks credible to begin with was their founding principles, abandoning those principles is also abandoning your credibility.

Also, please don't take my defense of Assange against the U.S. government as a defense of Assange as a man. Just because I didn't want to see him in a U.S. prison, doesn't mean I didn't want to see him in a Swedish prison.

I'm in the same boat, I don't think anyone should go to jail for journalism. However, Assange towards his later years in the embassy had definitely been engaging in actions I would be hard pressed to label as journalism.

I still don't think he should be in jail, but if he were still running WikiLeaks today I don't know if it would still be a net positive. That's depending on your geopolitical outlook though.

This means there's no risk of default because the government can simply print money to pay off its debts. That's how US is able to have national debt of $34.4 trillion right now. If The Economist thinks that Russia’s financial reserves will be exhausted in five years or so, then they have some explaining to do regarding the US.

The US is able to have a national debt of 34.4 trillion because people are still willing to lend them money. They aren't just printing money, they are selling securities, which is similar to taking out a loan.

Printing more money in your own currency without backing it with some sort of security is just going to devalue your buying power and increase inflation. The Russian government is currently utilizing their reserves to sustain their spending, but if they run through those reserves they're going to have to stop spending, or start selling securities. Either way, deficit spending cannot be solved via printing press.

I think we can agree that having an unbiased publisher who is willing to report on state secrets that can negatively affect society is truly important. I think the debate is whether what WikiLeaks morphed into over the years qualifies as that.

Post 2016, I think it would be hard to argue that WikiLeaks is anything but a propaganda arm of certain state governments.

I guess better late than never? I wonder when this went into effect? I've noticed a slump from frequent pro-russian posters on .ml and hexbear.

I was wondering if they were going dark because of Ukraine's recent activity in Kursk, but maybe they just lost access to the fountainhead of propaganda that they've been utilizing.

Not only that, but since the fall of print journalism the amount of actual journalists has shrunken to the point where any new hires are just a byproduct of nepotism.

Want to work as a journalist at NPR? Well, you better have an ivy league education, be able to afford to do a 2 year internship, and it would help if your parents worked here or are significant donors.

That's mainly because America mostly moves freight via trucks, and thus has very outdated rolling stock. It's not unusual to see freight chassis that are 50 plus years old.

Russia on the other hand moves the majority of their freight via rail, and like most countries utilize tapered roller bearings for their trains. This allows them to carry a lot more weight, and the bearings last nearly 3x as long.

I'm not quite sure what would be harder, to import new bearings, build a production line from the ground up for bearings, or retrofit all their rolling stock with outdated technology.

Each choice is going to be expensive and extremely time consuming.

My hobby > The children

The reddit community will up vote them, and even down vote people who try correcting them.

Yeap..... Especially with any topic where there's a big hobbyist community.

I work in orthotics and prosthetics for a university hospital as both an educator and a healthcare provider. I can't tell you how many times I've been down voted by 3d printer enthusiasts for critiquing untrained and uneducated people fitting children with medical devices that can severely injure or debilitate them.