The first link ignores payroll taxes because it doesn't paint the same picture. The second link seems to show the US tax rates are significantly lower for the upper echelon compared to other first world countries.
Name 1 example of a currency crisis where the debtor nation had debt denominated in their own currency.
I'll save you the time. There are no examples.
Every currency crisis has debt denominated in a foreign currency.
- Germany in the 1930 (WW1 reparations were gold marks)
- Argetina (foreign borrow and currency peg to USD).
- Thailand.
- Turkey (now, borrowed in Euro).
But yes, it has happened. Russia 1998 is the most well-known example. Everyone believed that because Russia could issue GKOs in RUB, they wouldn't blow up like Asia...they did. This also happened, to a large extent, in Mexico in 1994 (Mexico actually issued tesobonos, they were domestic currency denominated but shifted the currency risk to taxpayers, they were quite a security).
The reason why is fairly simple: it doesn't matter if the debt is denominated in domestic or not, because people buy the bonds and then hedge their currency exposure which leads (eventually) to the domestic banking system having the same synthetic position as if your debt was denominated in a foreign currency.
The slight issue with historical examples is that the situation is correlated to high levels of financial globalization, which largely didn't happen until the 90s. But because something has never happened, doesn't mean it is impossible.
The point is confused though. The causes of currency crises are changes in capital flows. That is really just saying: the reason why currencies fall is because people sell. They don't really need some "explanation", they definitely contra-indicate with stuff like domestic currency debt...but there is no universal theory possible beyond: people sold the currency (and so currency crises have happened with capital outflows for some exogenous reason, war, etc.).
In 1998, Russia was propping up their currency by buying USD and Eurobonds at staggering rates.. The crisis wasn't due to anything to do what the US is facing but not being able to pay their foreign creditors, not being able to call the Soviet-era debt back from debtors, and owing the IMF billions of dollars they couldn't repay.
Russia wouldn't have had a currency collapse if they had a floating currency to begin with;
> After reviewing the three generations of currency crisis models, we conclude that four key ingredients can trigger a crisis: a fixed exchange rate, fiscal deficits and debt, the conduct of monetary policy, and expectations of impending default.
Correct, four things can trigger a crisis...in addition to many other things.
And that occurred after the currency crisis had started (the debt swap into Eurobonds was because of the GKOs). I am not sure what the US has to do with it. I am not sure what "Soviet-era debt" has to do with it (that debt was very soft, was rolled over multiple times in the early 90s, and wasn't related to Russia's problems). I am not sure what the IMF has to do with it (the IMF came in after it started...that is why the IMF came in).
Yes, it would have...that is self-evident. The reason the peg collapsed was because the free market/floating rate was lower. The only purpose of the peg is to stop the currency going down (again, this is a weird, self-evident proof...saying that the currency wouldn't have collapsed if they had a floating rate makes no sense, it would have collapsed faster).
> I am not sure what "Soviet-era debt" has to do with it (that debt was very soft, was rolled over multiple times in the early 90s, and wasn't related to Russia's problems).
A large portion of their foreign denominated debt was from the Soviet era -- just a few years prior to 1998 they committed to repaying nearly $100 billion of that old debt. Russia was accepted into the "Paris Club" based on a valuation of their sovereign assets -- 1/4 of which were loans due to them from the Soviet era from Cuba/Vietnam and other satellite countries that had no capability to repay those loans. So the Soviet Era debt was a big portion of their liability and made up a substantial portion of their assets.
None of these things are remotely similar to the US situation of almost universally US debt denominated in USD. So I think GP is spot on when they say there's 0 chance of a currency crisis.
GP agrees with you: They're saying the currency crisis starting in Asia is USD-denominated (the international bonds in particular), which is creating a positive feedback loop when USD-RMB exchange rates spike. They're saying you might see this manifest as big movements in bond redemptions or sales as people scramble to secure USD.
> The entire world (including the US federal government) has taken a short position on the US dollar
I read this as a prediction of some type of crisis.
Anyway, wrt the US Federal Government, having government debt is not that same as having a short position. For one, the US Fed govt's revenue (i.e. tax collection) is denominated in the same USD as the debt. So if USD goes up, tax collection go up.
"I read this as a prediction of some type of crisis."
I think your parent was suggesting that the behavior of the entire world is effectively a short-dollar position - whether they intended it to be or not.
Currencies going up usually leads to a reduction of exports which subsequently leads to an economic downturn, which leads to less taxes.
Apart from that, mass sell offs of government debt leads to increasing interest rates. You can buy that off with quantitative easing but probably that has limits too.
"The price index for used vehicles rose 0.2% in July, after having risen at least 7.3% in each of the previous three months. The category was one of the few, along with hotel rooms and airfares, that drove recent inflation, the economist Paul Krugman pointed out on Twitter. “Combined, these three sectors account for…more than 1/2 [half] of inflation over the past three months,” Krugman wrote. In May, in fact, a full third of the overall price rise was due to the surge in used car prices."
Regardless of prior academic work, Krugman's Twitter and NYT opinions are blatantly partisan rather than scientific. Whatever he says, do the opposite.
https://contrakrugman.com/
(edit: slightly more specific and less ad-hominem)
The price of a new car is whatever the dealer is willing to let it go for. MSRP is a starting point, not the final price, which can be literally anything.
Yeah, I normally buy used, and this time I just bought new (technically I leased new, but it's the first time I'm leasing a car in my entire life), because it just didn't make any sense to me to buy a used car for almost the same price as a new car.
> Donald Trump declared a national emergency so he could bypass Congress and raid the military budget to build a wall.
your argument is that Obama should be more like Trump? Declaring a fake national emergency and raiding the military budget is dubious action. Obama was never going to do ish like that and we should all be happy about that.
Also as Obama pointed out in his medium posts, policy positions get converted into action through electoral wins.
I'm old enough to remember that Trump was elected in part due to Obama backlash.
I'm also old enough to remember the backlash when Obama said Cambridge police acted stupidly (the police arrested a Harvard professor in his own house when he had to go through a window bc he lost his keys)
I know people are disappointed Obama didn't accomplish more. Obama is such an impressive person you just assume he can work magic. But Obama was constrained by the system of democracy and that limits what is possible.
>your argument is that Obama should be more like Trump?
No. I even pointed out that if you were to consider that type of move to be unlawful there were still PLENTY of other legitimate actions he could have taken.
Again, the President is in charge of the entire federal executive branch. That means the FBI, DEA, DoJ, Homeland Security, ICE, and others. There are numerous changes and reforms he could have enacted at the federal level.
>Also as Obama pointed out in his medium posts, policy positions get converted into action through electoral wins.
Obama was elected President twice. What more of a mandate did he think he needed to feel confident enough to take action?
I'm sad this comment hasn't been upvoted higher. The comment explain how the mutation could be possible.
The key is that the mutation would prevent reproduction. If you never age, you never reproduce.
You can think about different cancers. A mutation that causes fatal childhood cancer doesn't get passed on. A mutation that causes prostate cancer can spread.
Aging/death and reproduction seem to be closely related. I suppose maxander would counter that some mutation, given the many people who have lived before, should preserve reproducibility and youthfulness if fractional plasma is able to, but I'd counter that maxander is measuring (or guessing really) the probabilities wrong.
The incentives in capitalism "crash the economy". Yes, there was bad behavior. However focusing on individual behavior misses the forest for the trees.
Here's how it works.
Banks start off conservative. Banks only offer loans that pay themselves off. There's a run of good years. The incentive in capitalism is to make more money, and based off the recent history of good years, Bank A realizes they can offer more aggressive loans (e.g. interest only), take market share, and make more money. So Bank A does that.
Bank B now has the choice of matching Bank A, or losing market share (and maybe their business). So Bank B matches and maybe also offers less money down. This cycle continues with progressively more aggressive loan offerings until there's a run of bad years and things and people are stuck with too aggressive financing.
That sounds like an evasion of agency and responsibility that wouldn't be accepted from a lowly soldier, burglar, or even athlete for why they massacred a village, robbed houses, or cheated to get ahead respectively so why the hell should we accept that excuse from the privileged who had myraids moral alternative options?
>But what about their propensity to drive really slow?
You mean like a bicycle, moped, a new parent driving extra slow, an elderly driver, or any other street legal slow vehicle does?
I understand that drivers assume the speed LIMIT is a speed suggestion, and experience road rage when driving under the limit, but there is nothing -- nothing -- illegal or unsafe about staying under the speed limit.
If there is something unsafe about it, there should be a minimum posted speed (many places have this).
I've seen the result of a driver unexpectedly doing just over 35mph on a moderately busy 70mph motorway. Not nice. I don't even think 35mph is that much slower really - trucks are at 56mph and they get along fine but 35ish resulted in all sorts of crazy last minute swerves.
It's generally wise not to do anything other drivers will find surprising and I guess 35mph on a motorway falls in that category.
At least in the US you can get a ticket for going under the speed limit if it is deemed to be impeding traffic even if there is no posted minimum limit. Especially if it is a multi-lane road and you are not in the rightmost lane.
As a US citizen I will tell you this is false. We have basically no national traffic laws.
Your local state, city or other local government may have passed a law like this.
For example, in my area, it was made illegal to stay in the left lane moving more slowly than those behind you -- you must yield to the right if they want to go more quickly.
But some 99% of Americans do not live under this local law I'm discussing.
There are some highways that have a "minimum speed limit" sign posted. Not often, but they do exist, and you can get a ticket on those highways.
Also, a Google Self-driving car got pulled over the other day for simply going the speed limit, it did not get a ticket but I thought I would mention it.
You're right, it's not national. But as far as I'm aware, all states have general rules against impeding traffic. Many don't have explicit laws against moving too slow in the left lane, but the general law can and will be used against you for egregious violations.
Slowing down is the single most effective thing to reduce traffic accidents and injury. Not good for efficiency or smooth flow, sure. But can't claim its not safer.
> Slowing down is the single most effective thing to reduce traffic accidents and injury. Not good for efficiency or smooth flow, sure. But can't claim its not safer.
Go to any motorcycle riding school and all their instructors will teach you that riding slower than the traffic around you is more dangerous than maintaining the average traffic speed, even when above the legal speed limit.
Its a matter of degree; of course stopping on the freeway is not a good idea. Here's a stat:
Samuel C. Tignor and Davey Warren. "Driver Speed Behavior on U.S. Streets and Highways." Institute of Transportation Engineers: 1990 Compendium of Technical Papers, 1990 August, p. 85.
"The accident involvement rates on streets and highways in urban areas was highest for the slowest 5 percent of traffic, lowest for traffic in the 30 to 95 percentile range and increased for the fastest 5 percent of traffic."
Sure, I can make that claim. People driving slow, as you state, aren't good for smooth flow. Have you ever been driving at night at the speed limit and suddenly come upon someone going 15mph under? It's really dangerous.
True, but pot isn't making people do that. It's even more dangerous if people completely stop completely, or reverse, at night, on a curved stretch of highway with a 75mph speed limit, but pot isn't making people do that either.
I don't even think that pot makes people drive slowly. IMO it's a result of stoned people being afraid of giving the police any excuse to pull them over.
Warren Buffet is on the phone for you ... He says when the intrinsic value of a company is greater then the price implied by the stock, buybacks benefit the shareholders .. And when the intrinsic value is less than the price implied by the market price of the stock buybacks are bad for shareholders.
You have to keep in mind the source. Let me put it this way. A VC's job is to buy X (where X is equity in a startup). Of course every VC would love for X to go on 50% sale ... or even better 75% sale.
You saw this with hedge fund managers and the stock market as well. Lots of hedge fund managers went on and on about how irresponsible Bernanke was because he kept interest rates low which raised asset prices.
To be clear, I don't think this is a nefarious or even conscious process. However, I think if someone really wants a particular scenario it tends to color their thinking.
Also the actual claim made isn't as sensational as the headline. Just says that 90% might take a lower valuation. All that requires is a general market decline.
Buying lower means a lower exit is required to get the same multiple. So buying lower is always better for a VC. Worst case they make less money on the same multiple, better case they make a much higher multiple. It's all about the rate of return, not the actual amount (assuming the amounts are still worth the effort of investing, obviously there are some lower bounds here).
not really
https://www.federalbudgetinpictures.com/do-the-rich-pay-thei...
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/eu/taxing-high-income...