EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

Hambilderberglar: Dec 2, 2004

punk rebel ecks posted:

There is no FBI equivalent in most European countries?

I think maybe Germany has different cops per bundesland? They definitely have the BKA but I have no idea whether they actually have more competence. As far as I know there is one national police force per country that does everything covered by local cops to the FBI. Europol is maybe a thousand people who shuffle intel and paperwork around, they have no actual investigative units.

# ? Apr 16, 2017 22:19

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# ? May 14, 2024 14:09

dogboy: Jul 21, 2009; hurr; Grimey Drawer

GaussianCopula posted:

Fun fact: The more insane members of the Die Linke are actually not former GDR politicians but grew up in West Germany (e.g. Sarah Wagenknecht, Jan van Aken).

Sahra Wagenknecht is as East German as it gets, so at least 50% of your anecdotal evidence is plain wrong.

# ? Apr 16, 2017 22:44

catfry: Oct 9, 2012; by Azathoth

uncop posted:

I would use the word fiscal stimulus for temporary spending increases rather than budget deficits, because otherwise the word loses its meaning. Basically countries don't run budget surpluses, the average budget deficit historically is about equal with inflation, because deficit spending increases the money supply (the only other way is bank lending) and you don't want the real aggregate value of the money in circulation to drop without a good reason.

When a government spends resources in excess of what it acquires, it needs to have a way of financing the difference. In almost all countries today, this is done by borrowing. So there is only one way to expand the money supply and it is through bank lending. there is no difference between a government borrowing from banks, and other sectors of the economy borrowing from banks with respect to the formation of money. It is perfectly possible for the money supply to grow concurrently with a government running a surplus.

In the olden days, the government could go to its central banker and demand creation of money by fiat, and this is also a possible way to create new money. No one does so now though.

# ? Apr 16, 2017 23:39

Pinch Me Im Meming: Jun 26, 2005

FFA I'm voting M�lenchon but if he fails I'm going to hold you personally responsible. :colbert:

# ? Apr 16, 2017 23:57

Flowers For Algeria: Dec 3, 2005; I humbly offer my services as forum inquisitor. There is absolutely no way I would abuse this power in any way.

Pinch Me Im Meming posted:

FFA I'm voting M�lenchon but if he fails I'm going to hold you personally responsible.

M�lenchon cannot fail he can only be failed.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 09:24

uncop: Oct 23, 2010

catfry posted:

When a government spends resources in excess of what it acquires, it needs to have a way of financing the difference. In almost all countries today, this is done by borrowing. So there is only one way to expand the money supply and it is through bank lending. there is no difference between a government borrowing from banks, and other sectors of the economy borrowing from banks with respect to the formation of money. It is perfectly possible for the money supply to grow concurrently with a government running a surplus.

In the olden days, the government could go to its central banker and demand creation of money by fiat, and this is also a possible way to create new money. No one does so now though.

Actually as far as I know, central banks have always been more or less independent and in the olden days government literally created money out of nowhere. A remnant of that is that in many countries the government can still mint coins, like the "trillion dollar coin" Obama was rumored to be going to mint at one point. The ability to create money was taken from the governments and given to central banks to force an accounting trick where we get this increasing public debt tally, which is completely unnecessary when the "debt" is not actually owed to anyone and the state, not any bond market, sets the interest for the loans.

Also I mentioned bank lending as an alternative, which worked for the 90's and 00's. The problem with lending it's only economically stable up to the amount of inflation. You cant have an indefinitely increasing debt, and once you stop borrowing, even if you aren't paying them back yet, you get a rapid economic contraction, i.e. 2007. This is why I don't take banks as a long-term solution and in fact think that non-investment banking should be nationalized as a public service. (As many, including the Bank of England, know by now, savings don't act as a vehicle for lending, they act as a ransom for when bad investments fail. The bigger the banking sector is, the more investments become bad due to them depending on an ever-increasing debt load in the economy. The rich know that government bonds, even at negative yields, are the superior savings account, because states are more trustworthy than banks.)

In the case of the private sector, you have to stop borrowing from the private sector when your income, debt payments excluded, is getting unsustainably low. In the case of the public sector, you techincally can have an ever-increasing debt load, but realistically have to stop borrowing from the private sector when too much of your yearly economic product goes straight in the hands of unproductive rentiers and the economy goes into a spiral of reduced growth and increasing need for annual public funds. And when your economy, either the public or the private, is heavily (let's say over 100% per sector) indebted, it's a difficult operation to reduce the debt load without triggering a recession.

The state borrowing from the private sector is economically different and also strictly inferior to the state borrowing from itself. We have a system in place that obfuscates this fact. Government bonds are issued as welfare for pension funds, banks and the rich in general. In the current digital age, we might as well have 'saving-as-a-service', where anyone can put digital money inside and get fractional zero-yield digital bonds, and exchange their bonds for money in a matter of milliseconds. Have the state issue the regular 1-year and 10-year bonds fractionally according to the demand of actual people, and buy them back at lower yields from people that need their money. And while they're at it, stop pretending that bond markets set the interest of government debt. You wouldn't even have to buy any banks or add new regulation, banks' role as the handler of savings would evaporate purely through market forces.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 10:37

Kurtofan: Feb 16, 2011; hon hon hon

Pinch Me Im Meming posted:

FFA I'm voting M�lenchon but if he fails I'm going to hold you personally responsible.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 11:39

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

uncop posted:

Actually as far as I know, central banks have always been more or less independent and in the olden days government literally created money out of nowhere. A remnant of that is that in many countries the government can still mint coins, like the "trillion dollar coin" Obama was rumored to be going to mint at one point. The ability to create money was taken from the governments and given to central banks to force an accounting trick where we get this increasing public debt tally, which is completely unnecessary when the "debt" is not actually owed to anyone and the state, not any bond market, sets the interest for the loans.

Also I mentioned bank lending as an alternative, which worked for the 90's and 00's. The problem with lending it's only economically stable up to the amount of inflation. You cant have an indefinitely increasing debt, and once you stop borrowing, even if you aren't paying them back yet, you get a rapid economic contraction, i.e. 2007. This is why I don't take banks as a long-term solution and in fact think that non-investment banking should be nationalized as a public service. (As many, including the Bank of England, know by now, savings don't act as a vehicle for lending, they act as a ransom for when bad investments fail. The bigger the banking sector is, the more investments become bad due to them depending on an ever-increasing debt load in the economy. The rich know that government bonds, even at negative yields, are the superior savings account, because states are more trustworthy than banks.)

In the case of the private sector, you have to stop borrowing from the private sector when your income, debt payments excluded, is getting unsustainably low. In the case of the public sector, you techincally can have an ever-increasing debt load, but realistically have to stop borrowing from the private sector when too much of your yearly economic product goes straight in the hands of unproductive rentiers and the economy goes into a spiral of reduced growth and increasing need for annual public funds. And when your economy, either the public or the private, is heavily (let's say over 100% per sector) indebted, it's a difficult operation to reduce the debt load without triggering a recession.

The state borrowing from the private sector is economically different and also strictly inferior to the state borrowing from itself. We have a system in place that obfuscates this fact. Government bonds are issued as welfare for pension funds, banks and the rich in general. In the current digital age, we might as well have 'saving-as-a-service', where anyone can put digital money inside and get fractional zero-yield digital bonds, and exchange their bonds for money in a matter of milliseconds. Have the state issue the regular 1-year and 10-year bonds fractionally according to the demand of actual people, and buy them back at lower yields from people that need their money. And while they're at it, stop pretending that bond markets set the interest of government debt. You wouldn't even have to buy any banks or add new regulation, banks' role as the handler of savings would evaporate purely through market forces.

a good post

# ? Apr 17, 2017 12:06

catfry: Oct 9, 2012; by Azathoth

If I understand you right, and I�m not sure I do, you assert that money is created in a process where the state borrows from the central bank and paying it back with interest that it itself sets. New money is created when the state spends more than it earns, spent money ends up in the non-state economy, while state money earned (through taxes and income) is less, thus growing the pool of money in the non-state economy, but resulting in a deficit in the state accounts.
This deficit is resolved between the state and the central bank, however which way they want since they basically both represent the state and it doesn�t really matter. Correct?

When a state budget is in deficit, the value of the work and end products that the state performs is less than the value of the resources and work purchased by the state, by definition. This means that there is a population that performs more work for the state than they receive in return, the difference is made up by the money they receive. As long as there is a deficit, the money pool in the non-state part of the economy grows, but at the same time the state represents a wealth sink in the form of a black hole for goods and services.
All else being equal, with the surrounding economy being stable in the amounts of things of value being effected/created , the state then represents something which absorbs value and spits out money. If the rest of the economy is in balance, producing the same amount of value that it consumes, the overall economy is one in which the total amount of goods and services shrink, and the amount of money grows. Over time, more and more money chase less goods. Unavoidably, the prices of things grow, and they grow in lockstep with the growth of the money supply.

There are different methods to manage the size of the money pool, ones which are not linked to how efficient the state is with the resources it consumes, but is instead linked to the size of the real economy of goods and services.
In principle (and simplified), a central bank is only allowed to loan out what it has. When the aggregate of all principals and interest returned to the bank is positive, that means the real economy must be growing, otherwise the loan takers would not have enough of a return on the money spent to pay off the loan. If the aggregate of returns were zero, because of defaulting on loans by some loan takers, this is a signal to the bank that the real economy is not growing, and the amount available for new loans will remain zero and the money stock will not grow.
This is desirable, because it keeps the supply of money proportional with the amount of stuff that can be bought and sold. Money is only a means of exchange, its purpose is to facilitate real economic activity. By itself, there is no benefit to expanding the money supply.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 12:41

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

Melechon's Venezuela comments still make me nervous. Bolivia, Ecuador, and even Argentina would be one thing as those leaders could be argued as being positive for their countries, but Venezuela...

# ? Apr 17, 2017 16:26

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

punk rebel ecks posted:

Melechon's Venezuela comments still make me nervous. Bolivia, Ecuador, and even Argentina would be one thing as those leaders could be argued as being positive for their countries, but Venezuela...

Only thing I've seen ITT about Melenchon and Venezuela is some tweet where he congratulated Maduro like five years ago. What exact comments are we talking about here?

# ? Apr 17, 2017 16:29

Sneaks McDevious: Jul 29, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

In fairness the Venezuela comments were made years ago before things became super ultra poo poo there

# ? Apr 17, 2017 16:44

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

State of play in france with less than a week to go:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/853345435393675264

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/853345072401833984

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/853340650074513411

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/853336959233781761

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/853919503067033600

(that last one has M�lenchon on 18%)

So based on the polls, all four leading candidates have a good chance of making the runoff, but Macron and Le Pen are somewhat more likely to make it than Fillon or M�lenchon. If Macron reaches the second round, he becomes president. If M�lenchon reaches the second round and Macron does not, he becomes president. If Fillon and Le Pen make the second round, Fillon becomes president (although he's the candidate most vulnerable to Le Pen). Le Pen probably can't win the presidency but has a better than evens chance of making round 2.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Apr 17, 2017

# ? Apr 17, 2017 16:56

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

I assume the Le Pen - Fillon runoff results is because most of France just abstains in disgust?

# ? Apr 17, 2017 17:09

Sneaks McDevious: Jul 29, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Agnosticnixie posted:

I assume the Le Pen - Fillon runoff results is because most of France just abstains in disgust?

I'd actually puke and sever all ties with the place

# ? Apr 17, 2017 17:11

uncop: Oct 23, 2010

catfry posted:

If I understand you right, and I�m not sure I do, you assert that money is created in a process where the state borrows from the central bank and paying it back with interest that it itself sets. New money is created when the state spends more than it earns, spent money ends up in the non-state economy, while state money earned (through taxes and income) is less, thus growing the pool of money in the non-state economy, but resulting in a deficit in the state accounts.
This deficit is resolved between the state and the central bank, however which way they want since they basically both represent the state and it doesn�t really matter. Correct?

When a state budget is in deficit, the value of the work and end products that the state performs is less than the value of the resources and work purchased by the state, by definition. This means that there is a population that performs more work for the state than they receive in return, the difference is made up by the money they receive. As long as there is a deficit, the money pool in the non-state part of the economy grows, but at the same time the state represents a wealth sink in the form of a black hole for goods and services.
All else being equal, with the surrounding economy being stable in the amounts of things of value being effected/created , the state then represents something which absorbs value and spits out money. If the rest of the economy is in balance, producing the same amount of value that it consumes, the overall economy is one in which the total amount of goods and services shrink, and the amount of money grows. Over time, more and more money chase less goods. Unavoidably, the prices of things grow, and they grow in lockstep with the growth of the money supply.

There are different methods to manage the size of the money pool, ones which are not linked to how efficient the state is with the resources it consumes, but is instead linked to the size of the real economy of goods and services.
In principle (and simplified), a central bank is only allowed to loan out what it has. When the aggregate of all principals and interest returned to the bank is positive, that means the real economy must be growing, otherwise the loan takers would not have enough of a return on the money spent to pay off the loan. If the aggregate of returns were zero, because of defaulting on loans by some loan takers, this is a signal to the bank that the real economy is not growing, and the amount available for new loans will remain zero and the money stock will not grow.
This is desirable, because it keeps the supply of money proportional with the amount of stuff that can be bought and sold. Money is only a means of exchange, its purpose is to facilitate real economic activity. By itself, there is no benefit to expanding the money supply.

You understood me correctly. I'm not gonna try to change your beliefs, since this is all pretty soft science, but I want to explain why our conclusions are so different. You use a different, neoclassical, definition of value, one that is, as you showed, incompatible with what I outlined. MMT and most other Post-Keynesian schools work under the classical notion that value and price are separate things that merely correlate and occasionally meet.

A renter can accumulate a whole lot of money while creating no economic value. Same with bankers, the renters of money. They merely have secured a position in society where their services are required for productive economic actors to accomplish things (credit, investment and real estate are all things a society has to have available). Value is the amount of resources a society has available and it is increased by working on existing resources (making products out if raw material by man or machine, producing services, producing knowledge through research...). Value can decrease if you waste resources by producing useless things out of them and so on, and while markets can usually determine usefulness, they can't approximate the value of things that extend far beyond a single market like health, knowledge or justice, and can't accurately predict that something's value will be realized or crash in 10 years.

Under this definition, government deficits don't mean draining resources out of the economy, but providing funding for people to add value into the economy. If the money is wasted on useless bureaucracy, the money supply increases but the amount of goods it chases doesn't, netting you inflation. If the government investments are sound, the value produced is equal to or greater than the money spent on it, the amount of goods increases along withbthe money supply and the deficit spending is stable.

The reason to trust in government spending being sound is historical data. Especially during recessions, the state makes better investments in the future than the paralyzed markets. You know the private sector wisdom that recessions are the best time to increase your market share through innovation? It's because your competitors are paralyzed by the risk-aversion that's a psychological consequence of the recession. The markets on average shift toward recession-safe, low-risk strategies like cutting costs and investing in rent extraction through strategies like buying patents and competitors.

Furthermore, public planners are consistently better than markets at increasing value in healthcare, social care, education, infrastructure, scientific funding, and so on. All of the fields where real value far exceeds the market price due to markets pricing in stuff like how long it takes to realize the value and how likely it is that you, the investor, specifically benefit from the increase in value. The price may be too low to make the venture monetarily profitable, but the value itself does not decrease simply because its realization is far away. Similarly, the market overallocates resources to fields that attract a lot of money while producing little value. This is why banking is the far and away largest economic sector in so many countries despite its relative uselessness in the big picture.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 17:30

Antifa Poltergeist: Jun 3, 2004; "We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you"

Goddamm once in a blue moon this thread delivers.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 19:20

Toplowtech: Aug 31, 2004

LemonDrizzle posted:

If Macron reaches the second round, he becomes president. If M�lenchon reaches the second round and Macron does not, he becomes president. If Fillon and Le Pen make the second round, Fillon becomes president (although he's the candidate most vulnerable to Le Pen). Le Pen probably can't win the presidency but has a better than evens chance of making round 2.

Yeah sure and Trump can't win, HILLARY 98% :suicide:

All those second rounds polls are not convincing me.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 19:38

Sneaks McDevious: Jul 29, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

France 2 were broadcasting from Le Pen's big rally tonight and the stadium was only 75% full. I wonder what the polls say at a regional level, I'm not sure if she rates highly in Paris

# ? Apr 17, 2017 19:52

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

I'm resigned to have a couple assholes I dislike in the second round; so I'll just call it a win if Fillon is fourth place because he's the one I hate the most as a person.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 19:58

WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

How can anyone believe polls after the debacle of the US election. polls are bought and paid for. The general public knows this greater now tham ever before. Of course MLP wont win in an online poll. Doesnt mean its an actual heartbeat of the election

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:05

Pissflaps: Oct 20, 2002; by VideoGames

The polls in America got the national result exactly right.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:09

Kurtofan: Feb 16, 2011; hon hon hon

the brexit result was within the margin of error as well

maybe the real problem isnt the polls but our polarized and divided societies.... makes u think

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:11

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

Toplowtech posted:

Yeah sure and Trump can't win, HILLARY 98% All those second rounds polls are not convincing me.

Yes, we know the american system is garbage and that 30-40% of people would still vote GOP if they literally nominated zombie Hitler.

Edit - Also the hillbots were already convinced last fall that Le Pen would win, so really like most of their political instincts we can only assume they're wrong.

Agnosticnixie fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Apr 17, 2017

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:35

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

I think it will be interesting how the first round results will compare to polling, traditionally more fringe candidates usually over poll but who knows in this race. If I had to bet, I would still bet Macron (who just needs to get into the second round to win) but I actually didn't think it would be this tight.

I still think Fillon having a shot at all is hilarious.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:48

Sneaks McDevious: Jul 29, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

He is shameless and I hope he and his wife go to jail (haha as if)

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:53

Toplowtech: Aug 31, 2004

Pissflaps posted:

The polls in America got the national result exactly right.

You do realize there are 2 weeks of campaigning between the two rounds and probably lot of silver bullets getting loaded? The polls on the eve of the second turns will probably be right but will they be the current ones? Unlikely.

Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 17, 2017

# ? Apr 17, 2017 20:54

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

Toplowtech posted:

You do realize there are 2 weeks of campaigning between the two rounds and probably lot of silver bullets getting loaded? The polls on the eve of the second turns will probably be right but will they be the current ones? Unlikely.

lol if you think anyone besides maybe Fillon is going to endorse Le Pen in the runoffs.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:05

Kurtofan: Feb 16, 2011; hon hon hon

is one of those silver bullets aimed at my head

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:07

MiddleOne: Feb 17, 2011

Agnosticnixie posted:

lol if you think anyone besides maybe Fillon is going to endorse Le Pen in the runoffs.

I don't know, I've seen centre candidates do stranger thing in their hatred of the left before.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:09

Toplowtech: Aug 31, 2004

Agnosticnixie posted:

lol if you think anyone besides maybe Fillon is going to endorse Le Pen in the runoffs.

I am more afraid of Macron having some Fillon level dumb affair or the FN preparing some kind of Plan Chaos. I remember stuff like PAPY VOISE and his house on fire in 2002, 2 days before the first round and his freshly punched old man face on all media for 4 days.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:17

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

So what was with Hollande? Noone liked him?

Pissflaps posted:

The polls in America got the national result exactly right.

Nope. It was suppose to be a much bigger blowout.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:36

Sneaks McDevious: Jul 29, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

punk rebel ecks posted:

So what was with Hollande? Noone liked him?

He won by default as most people were sick of Sarkozy.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:38

Toplowtech: Aug 31, 2004

punk rebel ecks posted:

So what was with Hollande? Noone liked him?

He went on with Valls' 'let's be sarkozy" security plan and Macron's 'let's be Fillon" economic plan so most the left wing stopped liking him and the right wing was always fated to hate him.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:39

Agnosticnixie: Jan 6, 2015

punk rebel ecks posted:

So what was with Hollande? Noone liked him?

Nope. It was suppose to be a much bigger blowout.

That's not what the actual polling was saying. They were neck and neck through november.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 21:41

Pinch Me Im Meming: Jun 26, 2005

Toplowtech posted:

I am more afraid of Macron having some Fillon level dumb affair or the FN preparing some kind of Plan Chaos. I remember stuff like PAPY VOISE and his house on fire in 2002, 2 days before the first round and his freshly punched old man face on all media for 4 days.

God drat old man papy Voise and his loving house. I remember the subsequent fuckery.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 22:17

unpacked robinhood: Feb 18, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Can't wait till it's done and I avoid all media while the winner gloats about his bigly popular mandate.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 22:42

Ramrod Hotshot: May 30, 2003

I predict that Fillon will do better than polls are indicating, as a benefit of his being from a traditional party. It could be that a liberal-conservative voter gets to the polls and thinks "ah, they're all corrupt anyway, I'll go with the experienced candidate from a party I've heard of".

It'll be interesting if this results in an upset by knocking out Le Pen or Macron from the second round. And a Le Pen - Fillon scenario could get real interesting. Fillon, other than his scandals, is from everything I've heard radically pro-free market for France, to a degree no president has ever been. So you could see a lot of left leaning voters either not voting or even voting for Le Pen, who I think economically speaking is pretty standard, boilerplate welfare state material.

Either way, I wouldn't crown Macron yet. This election feels a little deja vu-ish to me.

# ? Apr 17, 2017 22:50

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

Agnosticnixie posted:

That's not what the actual polling was saying. They were neck and neck through november.

No they weren't. Clinton won by 2% of the vote. Taking out like two outliers it was predicted that Clinton was going to win by at least double that. Not to mention the biggest surprises came from swing states. Like this tidbit for example.

punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Apr 17, 2017

# ? Apr 17, 2017 23:32

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# ? May 14, 2024 14:09

Flowers For Algeria: Dec 3, 2005; I humbly offer my services as forum inquisitor. There is absolutely no way I would abuse this power in any way.

The Last Week Tonight about the French elections was real bad and stilted, is all American comedy so utterly banal?

i mean, snail and wine jokes, it's loving 2017

# ? Apr 17, 2017 23:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: I miss Renaults(don't make fun of me)

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