Are peoples head in the sand about the looming economic catostrophe?

Deficits and debt are irrelevant. For every dollar owed by A, there is a dollar owed to B, so it effectively becomes a zero sum game.

The real determinant of economy prosperity is the production of goods and services. The ability for Western countries to be productive will diminish as the workforce (as a % of the population) shrinks and the number of elderly skyrockets. The dependency ratio (Group 1: people aged 18 to 64; Group 2 people aged 65 and over PLUS people aged 0 to 17) is shrinking. The result will be long term economic stagnation.

DanM wrote:

Deficits and debt are irrelevant. For every dollar owed by A, there is a dollar owed to B, so it effectively becomes a zero sum game.

The real determinant of economy prosperity is the production of goods and services. The ability for Western countries to be productive will diminish as the workforce (as a % of the population) shrinks and the number of elderly skyrockets. The dependency ratio (Group 1: people aged 18 to 64; Group 2 people aged 65 and over PLUS people aged 0 to 17) is shrinking. The result will be long term economic stagnation.

A great argument for expanding immigration

Houses made of cards eventually fall down.

Knuckledragger wrote:

Who are we borrowing our own money from?

What?

Mostly our grandchildren

jamin wrote:

Knuckledragger wrote:

Who are we borrowing our own money from?

What?

It's your own tax money that fiscal conservatives complain when taken and now apparently complain when it's returned.

The deficit is eliminated once you have economic growth again. If you allow people to become homeless and/or live in poverty economic growth will take longer to return.

55YO wrote:

Knuckledragger wrote:

Who are we borrowing our own money from?

Mostly our grandchildren

If I'm borrowing money from grandchildren, then I'm pretty sure that I'm borrowing it from other people's grandchildren.

Capitalism is simply eating itself. In the UK at least, many young people earn a relatively poor wage and cannot afford to buy a house. House prices continue to rise. Many are not having children for various reasons.

clarissa wrote:

Capitalism is simply eating itself. In the UK at least, many young people earn a relatively poor wage and cannot afford to buy a house. House prices continue to rise. Many are not having children for various reasons.

The UK loves to talk free market economy, but it's policies are decidedly socialist. Been that way since 1945. Brexit or no Brexit, the UK is not worth mentioning in a serious discussion about global economics.

The biggest economic threat on the horizon is inflation. Unfortunately, the unnecessary $1.9 trillion stimulus that is poised to breeze through the Democrat controlled congress only will make the situation worse. As the stimulus doesn't look to do much to create jobs, it mostly bails out governments that put people out of work with unnecessary, ineffective economic shut downs. The rising interest rates with the additional debts run up during the shutdowns will cripple this nation:

https://twitter.com/michaeljburry/status/1363622240324001793

As long as people are working and getting stuff done we're fine. Any amount of money made is because people are consuming a good or service. If a company does go under, that just means that some other company will take up that section of the market and that other company will now be making the money. Only when everyone is sitting at home on their butt will there be problems. But after a certain amount of people sitting at home on their butt they will go out and get a job again doing something.

The only way we will get in real trouble is if the government keeps doing handouts, allowing for people to sit at home on their butts without helping produce anything. Then eventually we will run out of whatever is being consumed, and there will be nothing for the government to handout.

anonamoose2222 wrote:

Curious, alot of white collar people I know dont seem to be phased about the economy.

There is zero chance that this whole situation wont materialize into a crisis that hits them. Massive white collar layoffs and paycuts, home foreclosures, IRA raiding, and asset impairments are simply unavoidable within the next 2 years.

They seem to not understand how spending multipliers work in society or that big companies can and do go bankrupt.

Furthermore alot of people think that peoples consumption habits are not forever changed.

At a very obvious level, lots of people are going to succumb to lifelong depression, depressed people participate little in the economy.

You made zero substantive arguments for why you are convinced there is an imminent collapse coming - just used vague doomsday language.

The odds of a post-pandemic boom are very good. US debt levels are high, but the borrowing costs are way less than what they were during Reagan's deficit spending. As long as the US dollar and bonds are the preferred safe haven for investors, there will be no hyper inflation. Consumer prices will not drive inflation significantly absent some sort of big shock like a steep rise in energy prices or a trade war.

What will happen is a massive expansion of large publicly traded companies into the spaces that have been left by local businesses that could not survive the pandemic (or more correctly were left to die by policy makers who preferred big business). Big chains for everything from gyms to restaurants and bars to coffee shops and so on will have huge expansions across the US to fill in where smaller businesses have failed and disappeared. Profits will be massive because the US labor force will have no bargaining power and wages will be kept low and rents will also be very low due to the depressed commercial real estate market. It will just be a continuation of the massive shift in wealth in the US that has been taking place since the 1980s.

Well I put my head in the sand because it was nice and warm and I felt safe there. But then apart from that I realised I had:

- thrown about 50% of my possessions away

- fixed loads of shonk that was wrong or not working

- invested in items that will last 20-30+ years

- paid off my debt

- bought loads of Doges and then resold them

- invested in a shipping container

To gloom and doomers (the ones conservatives love to call fear mongers, although the irony of this situation doesn't escape me as the ones who love to yell about the left being fear mongers in regards to COVID are doing so now for the economy): what does an economic collapse look like? If we keep printing money and the dollar devalues, what would America look like?

welp wrote:

To gloom and doomers (the ones conservatives love to call fear mongers, although the irony of this situation doesn't escape me as the ones who love to yell about the left being fear mongers in regards to COVID are doing so now for the economy): what does an economic collapse look like? If we keep printing money and the dollar devalues, what would America look like?

Greece

No I don't think so. Greece has a very unique outline.

A moose once bit my sister.

Biden's policies are creating some of the things you admit would create issues. His climate measures are artificially going to cause energy prices to rise. His stimulus spending to bail out governments that mismanaged their COVID response by shutting everything down will not only increase US debt, but will cause inflation, which will be a double whammy in terms of it will reduce the amount of money the government will be able to spend on necessary programs as more money will have to go to paying off interest on the debt. His strengthening of labor laws, minimum wage, etc. will cause an increase in unemployment. We are in store for Jimmy Carter Version 2.0 with high inflation, high unemployment, etc.