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.
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__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
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I havn´t got a clue what all those people with weird suits on with numbers on, who are waving pieces of paper about and shouting all friggin day ( stock markets ) are doing.
I like the old way, where you buy raw material for x make something with it and sell it for y making a profit.
All this derivative, hedge fonds etc confused the crap out of me, even though I´ve watched videos on it.
Mind you I never had a mind for boring mind numbing lawyer like stuff.
Re: Does anyone really understand the world economy
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 modern equivalent of Mussolini's Black Shirts or Pelley's Silver Legion are economists now?
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
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.
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
[edit]: 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.
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Last edited by Symmetric Chaos on Aug 13th, 2011 at 04:43 AM
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???
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Aug 11th, 2011 12:59 AM
