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I don't believe they do

I do

have faith in inimalist

Originally posted by inimalist
I do

have faith in inimalist



*Lays his burden's upon inimalist*

Southpark?

Det. Lester Freamon: You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the f*** it's gonna take you.

^

This is why The Wire is the greatest TV show of all time.

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/capitalism1.gif

Originally posted by Mikey no 1
I don't believe they do It can't hurt to expect that a lot of the "big bad guys" know what they're doing before you sign a contract. It also can't hurt to assume politicians don't have the faintest idea how the economy works. The hell if I know how right you'd be in either scenario.

to be honest, I hardly think most of our economic problems are a result of people not understanding the economy (sure, there is that, like reducing spending during a recession), but rather that there are a small group of people who understand it well enough to exploit the marketplace at the expense of everyone else, for their own limited gain.

It isn't a matter of ignorance that causes the big problems. Investors and the lot knew exactly what they were doing, and many did try to whistle-blow on the system before 2008

The Tea Party does. Put your faith in them, and they will save us.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Originally posted by Harbinger
The Tea Party does. Put your faith in them, and they will save us. The modern equivalent of Mussolini's Black Shirts or Pelley's Silver Legion are economists now?

Originally posted by Harbinger
I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I can't even support them in jest

One question if the banks owe money and the countries owe money- Who do they owe money to? As everyone seems to owe.

Not everyone owns NET money. Banks owe money but they also loan money. I'd be very interested to see the flowchart.

Originally posted by Quark_666
Not everyone owns NET money. Banks owe money but they also loan money. I'd be very interested to see the flowchart.

it starts with the banks getting 0% interest loans which they loan back to the federal government for 4%, and ends with you in high heels and a mini skirt bent over the kitchen table

No, but some people understand it better than others.

It's probably worth noting that many places have laws specifically to prevent anyone from understanding the economy. Preventing insider trading, for example, locks away key pieces of information that you need to figure it out.

Originally posted by Anarchy UK
One question if the banks owe money and the countries owe money- Who do they owe money to? As everyone seems to owe.

As I understand it that's kind the point. The modern world uses mostly debt backed currency, the idea is to make sure that money keeps flowing. It's also where people have a problem with our current economic model. One way of describing it is as a massive Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme.

Unlike a person running such a scam, however, large governments and banks have no where to go and are functionally immortal, they cannot cut and run even if they want to. Everyone is chasing someone else's debt but, no, it's ultimately not owed to anyone in particular because it doesn't exist . . . yet. That's the key to it.

In the case of real Ponzi schemes the pool of investors is limited to a fraction of the market and if they pull out the scheme collapses. In our market the pool of investors is everyone everywhere, but it can still be damaged by large players pulling out. So long as the economy keep growing the wealth that's owed to people will eventually exist. This is another point of contention that people have, unlimited growth probably isn't possible (but predicting the limit is impossible) and many people don't think its desirable because of the resources consumed.

TL;DR if everyone suddenly demanded their debts be paid immediately there wouldn't be enough money in the world but the system assumes the majority of debts will be in the form of investments, so people don't want to suddenly cash stuff in

: The pro-debt argument is that if we don't use such a system people will have to stockpile money in order to buy expensive things (imagine buying a house without being able to take out a loan) and that will slow the economy.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
: The pro-debt argument is that if we don't use such a system people will have to stockpile money in order to buy expensive things (imagine buying a house without being able to take out a loan) and that will slow the economy.

What happens in an economic system that has been running like that for 50 years? Doesn't that "slowness" factor eventually "catch up" to the debt system as the accumulated-wealth-system takes root? I see no real long-term difference except the "accumulated" system does not allow for most forms of debt making it much more stable.

What gets me is the interest, if you lend money and have to pay interest back then where does the interest come from? And there are a lot of loans out there which means a lot of interest!! take the US Dept and 15 Trillion or whatever it is, friggin hell is there that much money in the world???

i think the complexity as well as the fact of human perception of events along with the specificites as well as largeness of cultural reactions {which are different throughout the world}make the economy very chaotic as well as orderly enough on the macrological scale to spredict certain threads of causality.

To take your point a step further Leon, I think it's Pro-America religious peoples' fault.

Originally posted by leonheartmm
i think the complexity as well as the fact of human perception of events along with the specificites as well as largeness of cultural reactions {which are different throughout the world}make the economy very chaotic as well as orderly enough on the macrological scale to spredict certain threads of causality.

facepalm

You can't just use big words randomly and hope it sounds smart, man.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
What gets me is the interest, if you lend money and have to pay interest back then where does the interest come from? And there are a lot of loans out there which means a lot of interest!! take the US Dept and 15 Trillion or whatever it is, friggin hell is there that much money in the world???
According to Wikipedia (lol I know) the combined GDP of all the world's nations is 62-63 trillion dollars.

America is #1 if you count single nations with 14 trillion dollars while the European Union possesses a combined GDP of 16 trillion.

computers are evil

Originally posted by dadudemon
facepalm

You can't just use big words randomly and hope it sounds smart, man. I find your opinion toward the grammatically-challenged and egotistically-inclined to be both shallow and pedantic.

Originally posted by dadudemon
facepalm

You can't just use big words randomly and hope it sounds smart, man.

idk, I do it all the time

If they do, they don't seem to be able to do much about it.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
The modern world uses mostly debt backed currency, the idea is to make sure that money keeps flowing. It's also where people have a problem with our current economic model. One way of describing it is as a massive Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme.

Unlike a person running such a scam, however, large governments and banks have no where to go and are functionally immortal, they cannot cut and run even if they want to. Everyone is chasing someone else's debt but, no, it's ultimately not owed to anyone in particular because it doesn't exist . . . yet. That's the key to it. Nicely put. It's all supported by air, and it'll work, only so long as everyone keeps flapping their wings.

Money has more faith in it these days than religion.


So no, no one understands it.

I think I really learned from this site a lot of important information and hope this site will be more to do better.