Moving away from fossil fuels is a big task, these are the first signs that things are happening.

It's hard to make something foolproof, because fools are so ingenious

The gist is that this was always done when people were arrested for criminal offences. They're now doing it for civil offences and, like with all the ICE stuff, it seems to be do first, ask questions later. So you can be a citizen but your data might end up in their systems anyway as it's submitted before they find out you are a citizen...

However, it's a bit moot in my opinion. When the US owes me $100B and they pay that by 'creating' $100B through the central bank, in terms of value of the currency that's bad because there value of that payment dropped.

You can do this, it's what the quantitative easing policy did, but only in very limited amounts. If you were to do it because you were no longer solvent I would expect it to be the end of the trust and value of your currency. So in a sense it's not very different.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49132668

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

If a country ever decides to use your 'monetary sovereignty' they might as well just stop playing their debts as any holder of the debt will see that as the same thing. They're not getting their money back, or when they do they get it in a currency now worth a lot less. At this point you can say you're still solvent in the same way as you can say you did repay all your debts.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_R...

And when was the last time that happened? Pretty much only during inflation spikes. The vast majority of time, inflation is around 2% or maybe 3 or 4 recently, 10 year Treasury yields is well above 4.5%.

So maybe you have 40T USD lying around, and you're willing to lend it all to uncle Sam for inflation -.1%. if that's not the case then it's finance 101, and wishful thinking

As soon as you start devaluing your currency to get out of debt, not so much. I believe Argentina is a fine example of that

You might want to look up Zimbabwe or Germany (after WW1). When your money becomes worth less than the paper it's printed on...

So, it's possible, and has happened before.

Yes, I think the question of whether or not the US is living above its means is settled. Where you cut is a political decision. I certainly think the US can reduce its military spending, with an emphasis on reduce.

> The strength of the dollar is because of the actual physical reality and capabilities of the United States.

I don't think this is true at all. It's value is a result of being the reserve currency of the world and as a result a lot of things being denominated in USD. The financial system will lose so much if the dollar devalues significantly that that's a bad outcome to almost everyone, not just the US.

I think the actual capabilities of the US have 0 influence there. Certainly military capabilities. That kind of stuff is true for drug cartels, not global financial stability. You cannot force anyone to buy dollars by force.

> You're directionally right but also wrong w.r.t America.

I think you're wrong here. But not in the sense you might expect.

You present your reading as a fact. I think how you read the current situation with Iran is a question of how you interpret the situation.

For example, you say

> Iran's economy literally doesn't function due to our blockade (which means we also control the Strait of Hormuz).

The US has never controlled the strait. The biggest win for Iran is that it has asserted being able to block it. The US can block any ships going to and coming from Iran's ports. It cannot and has never been able to guarantee safe passage through the strait. That last fact is Iran's biggest win of the conflict as it has now shown that even when the US goes full scale war, it can still shut off the strait for all intents and purposes.

The other miscalculation is that while you might have air superiority, it should be clear by now that the US can't win from the air alone. And Iran might have known/gambled that the US wasn't willing to commit to a ground offensive. As bad as it sounds to be bombed whenever your enemy wants, from a strategic point of view I think this makes sense. Horrible for the population but the regime doesn't care.

> The worst outcome is some MAGA coal rollers have to pay more for gas.

Uh no. The US lost quite a bit of respect I think for this intervention. We need to see what a final cease fire might look like but the whole world is essentially asking what the hell this whole endeavour was for. The whole world is paying higher gas prices and in a lot of other countries especially south east Asia there is a much bigger dependency on Middle East oil. Those people aren't happy about this at all. It might not even be higher prices but outright shortages. And wait for food prices to shoot up because of more expensive fertilizer for example.

The problem with a lot of this is that the American view doesn't extend past its borders. You see spending on bombs and some higher gas prices. Other countries see shortages and higher food prices. Just remember how pissed off America was when egg prices went up because of avian flu. Now imagine a foreign power being responsible. The decision makers can't even explain the actual goal, and when they try it seems to be shifting all the time.

> But this also reinforces the need for a higher military budget and the need to spend more to acquire more arms and capabilities.

In the end I think it comes down to one simple assumption. You seem to be convinced that with enough military spending the US can force a country to do what it wants. I think that that's not possible at all (see Russia and the Iran conflict right now) let alone at a cost that any country can bear. The US clearly is already struggling to pay for it all.

> By the way, the military budget isn't actually that high as a percentage of GDP. You're welcome to do that comparison yourself.

Sure, but I never said that. The problem is that you don't raise the money to pay for your spending. It's a significant chunk of the federal budget and that will need to be balanced at some point. Every US household knows this, they have to do it every month.

I didn't do anything, that wasn't me.

> You're not making a serious claim that we're overspending.

This is the thread about debt to GDP ratio hitting 123%. I don't claim anything, but if this isn't overspending then I think we agree to disagree.

> Not really. Most US debt is owed to Americans, and in the circumstances in which we're worried about some other country amassing so much debt that they can leverage us, well, it's a good thing we bought all those ships, planes, and tanks and whatnot so we can fix the issue with kinetic force.

According to [1], 23.5% is owned by foreign investors. That's a minority of the total, but you don't need a majority to cause a big problem because trust is all that matters (see 2008).

You want to solve that with weapons?? That'll only make everyone drop the dollar, as simple as that.

> But I'm certainly interested in your view here.

The US military is there in all of those countries for influence, more so than for actual defense. The US can defend every NATO country simply by reaffirming article 5, you don't have to be present.

Not even Russia would attempt an attack, they've been in a war of attrition for years now with a non NATO country with no end in sight for limited gains in territory.

They've done this for the past 70 years, starting from 1945. Whether this is something the US has benefitted from can be debated, I think they certainly have.

The Russia vs Ukraine war and the Iran conflict show that super powers can try to use their military power but 'winning' is hard. No matter how superior you are based on the numbers. Iran isn't winning on the battlefield, their most potent weapon is economic, that has turned out to be more powerful than all their weapons combined.

1: https://www.us-debt-clock.com/blog/who-owns-us-debt-breakdow...

This is being generous. It's much simpler.

The poor don't pay any federal taxes at all so you can't give them a tax cut because they don't pay any. You can give them a credit at best.

Edit:

Some data

> Another 60.3 million returns showed AGIs of less than $30,000. The average effective tax rate for those taxpayers was 1.5%, even before refundable tax credits were applied.

From: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-...

> you have no expertise or authority to make claims as to whether we're spending the right amount of money

To

> Maybe the US is actually spending too little, and other countries are spending proportionally much less on vaporware?

But more on topic, the real question is if this is spending that is worth going into debt for. No family anywhere in the world can sustain a long period of overspending relative to income.

You talk about weapons and stuff but just understand that you're handing over your bargaining power because the rest of the world controls your debt. And at these ratios thats significant leverage.

By now you can win a war without a single shot being fired.

Most of that money ends up being spent in communities (grocery stores etc) and hospitals. So at least that money flows back into a local community.

There's plenty wrong with the US healthcare system, but since the vast majority gets their healthcare through their employer you'll have to come up with something for when they retire or unable to work. That's just an outcome of how the system was set up.

Because the private sector doesn't spend any money on things that don't work out.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

You talk about millions, that's not even a rounding error. Look around you in any private entity, you don't see them spending any tiny fraction on things you don't think are worthwhile?

> $1.7 billion maintaining empty buildings

Assuming they at some point become occupied again, I don't see the issue. The vacancy rate in the private sector isn't anywhere near 0% either.

> In 2021 alone, the government managed to misplace $281 billion in payments

You'll need to be way more specific than 'misplaced'

Do you know who Platini is?

This is only because Europe cares about soccer. If this was basketball, ice hockey or baseball then I don't think Europe would care and would be the country to bribe

Some island in the Caribbean has equal say compared to Spain for example.

That's why it's so easy. Bribe the people in the countries where the people don't care about soccer.

https://floodlightnews.org/saudi-owned-corporate-farms-are-d...

Now, the codebase is managed by agents and, while the company has the source, it's as if they bought it from a vendor and pay the vendor for changes. The vendor of their own system is the AI company selling them tokens.