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The thing is that hyperinflation has been redefined as when the wealth of rentiers is lowered in relation to the wealth of workers. If you start getting richer by doing actual productive work than by merely being a financial parasite draining the lifeblood of society, then inflation is far too hyper and we need deflation ASAP to make sure useless wastes of oxygen remain at the top.
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Mar 28, 2020 16:38
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Owling Howl posted:Ok but can't high inflation lead to a collapse in public trust in the currency? Only if you're in "banknotes with eight zeros" territory.
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Mar 28, 2020 17:19
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Owling Howl posted:Ok but can't high inflation lead to a collapse in public trust in the currency? Not on it’s own. Or at least I’m not aware of a single case of that happening. Keep in mind that high inflation basically evaporates debt. Mortgages, student loans, credit cards, all things that help offset the pressure of higher prices for ordinary people. Plus inflation pressures wages to go up. This incidentally is the reasons the wealthy always want inflation as close to 0 as possible.
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Mar 28, 2020 17:37
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Like let’s do a thought experiment. Bezos has 100 billion dollars. You and your neighbour are middle class stiffs each with about 10k net worth and a modest mortgage. Bezos is worth 10 million of you. Now the government gives everyone a 100 billion dollars. Clearly all prices of everything would suddenly have a whole bunch of 0s tacked on. You and your neighbour would demand the same number of 0s tacked onto your wages. The company you worked for can sell (note I’m ignoring international trade here to make a basic point) at the inflated prices, so they can afford the wage raises as wage costs as a % of production costs remain constant, which is the part that matters for the company. So compared to your neighbour your relative economic position hasn’t changed, although you now both can trivially pay of your mortgages and thus significantst improve your monthly budgets. Even compared to your employer your relative position hasn’t really changed much. But compared to Bezos? That dude is now worth only two of you, instead of 10 million. So who really has the incentive to prevent high inflation here. Note that Bezos real asset even in the nee situation though would be that he owns Amazon. An importantbfact that has not changed and which would allow him to very rapidly once again pull ahead and restore the status quo. This is why the object of socialism can never be limited to wealth redistribution. The real prize is and always has been the ownership of the means of production.
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Mar 28, 2020 17:53
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Argentina has been running with annual inflation in the double digits for decades now and their economy still functions with no hyperinflation. It's not the best thing for your country, but if people get used to a new normal not much changes.
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Mar 28, 2020 18:01
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Orange Devil posted:Like let’s do a thought experiment. Bezos has 100 billion dollars. You and your neighbour are middle class stiffs each with about 10k net worth and a modest mortgage. Bezos is worth 10 million of you. Wouldn't the inflation also gently caress deeply with the real rate of return on capitals, which could also jeopardize Bezos' long term position as top dog in the economy?
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Mar 28, 2020 19:25
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Argentina has been running with annual inflation in the double digits for decades now and their economy still functions with no hyperinflation. It's not the best thing for your country, but if people get used to a new normal not much changes. Except when their foreign exchange accounts crater on the regular and they have to ask the IMF for bailouts, which creates austerity like clockwork and then civil unrest, also like clockwork. And then they recover, issue a 100-year bond which is oversubscribed, and then reneg on their debt again. Argentina is an absurdly repeating boom-bust.
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Mar 30, 2020 11:21
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So... Spanish newspapers had a tame piece of news about the Eurozone ministers not agreeing a Europen response because Northern ministers (Rutte etc.) want to save money. :Any insight into how badly they EU response is being bungled? Is the lack of one proof enough? Am I wrong and they are going to come out with the greatest plan ecer, which includes Vand Der Leyen and Lagarde doing karate kicks against the virus? I'd be interested if we could pool some reports, so that I get out of my bubble.
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Mar 30, 2020 11:50
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Don't get your hopes up.
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Mar 30, 2020 11:58
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Oh don't fret. Hope is a lie.
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Mar 30, 2020 12:03
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The Dutch and German governments are doing their very best to undermine the foundations of the EU.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:27
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Hungary just turned into a full scale fascist dictatorship:- https://twitter.com/balazscseko/status/1244612142831198209?s=21
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Mar 30, 2020 14:40
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Ayup. Also to be entirely correct: "Hungary has just turned into a full scale fascist dictatorship, again". France has gone worryingly close to that as well. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:43
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Orange Devil posted:Ayup. Also to be entirely correct: "Hungary has just turned into a full scale fascist dictatorship, again". so isnt there some sort of Clause in the EU that requires member states to be democracies? they should (probably wont) immediately kick hungary out and insitute economic sanctions.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:50
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Al-Saqr posted:Hungary just turned into a full scale fascist dictatorship:- Watch the EU take serious action on this Wait, I'm hearing they aren't going to do anything because it's okay, they aren't spending too much money so it's all okay. False alarm.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:50
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Al-Saqr posted:so isnt there some sort of Clause in the EU that requires member states to be democracies? they should (probably wont) immediately kick hungary out and insitute economic sanctions. To join, sure. Once you're in though, you need unanimous consent of all other members to do anything to them. And Poland and Hungary have been best bros for a long time, so that ain't happening, oops. The only mechanism that could do something now is the courts.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:57
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Orange Devil posted:The Dutch and German governments are doing their very best to undermine the foundations of the EU. I've rarely been so revolted by the actions of my home government as I have been this week. The Dutch in their traditional Calvinist-finger-wagging role as attack dogs for German conservatives, it's absolutely gross that they're still holding up Euro/Corona bonds because of their mental addiction to the ant and grasshopper fairy tale. It makes me want to puke. forkboy84 posted:Watch the EU take serious action on this The fact that Fidesz is still in the EPP tells you all you need to know about the right's tolerance for fascism.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:02
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Emperor Orban: Unlimited Powerrrrrrrrrr
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Mar 30, 2020 15:12
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Junior G-man posted:I've rarely been so revolted by the actions of my home government as I have been this week. The Dutch in their traditional Calvinist-finger-wagging role as attack dogs for German conservatives, it's absolutely gross that they're still holding up Euro/Corona bonds because of their mental addiction to the ant and grasshopper fairy tale. It makes me want to puke. It's kind of ironic, because I've heard some (very self conscious) people in Spain defend the Dutch and German position using that same fairy tale.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:13
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I just want to make clear how deranged the Netherlands is getting. This was a piece in the Dutch news yesterday. Translation mine. Tone part of the original piece.quote:Two Dutch corona patients have been admitted in a German hospital. They have plenty of hospital capacity for the moment. "And that says something about Germany", correspondent Wouter Zwart says in <NOS (Dutch public news) show>. "They have about 28.000 IC beds and that is by far the highest per capita in all of Europe." Those weird, backwards Germans with their inexplicable healthcare capacity and quaint attachment to local hospitals.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:17
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Junior G-man posted:I've rarely been so revolted by the actions of my home government as I have been this week. The Dutch in their traditional Calvinist-finger-wagging role as attack dogs for German conservatives, it's absolutely gross that they're still holding up Euro/Corona bonds because of their mental addiction to the ant and grasshopper fairy tale. It makes me want to puke. It's really funny how these people are so adverse to spending money that they will murder their own populace and break the entire EU over it.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:17
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https://www.politico.eu/article/spanish-government-under-fire-after-defective-testing-kits-fiasco/ Remember those lovely tests that the Spanish bought from China. Turns out they had gotten them from a no-name drop-shipper rather than a respectable manufacturer. Even in this time of crises, do not trust random crap off alibaba. quote:But excitement turned into despair when it emerged that 58,000 of the kits, which had already arrived in the country, were unreliable, offering only a 30 percent detection rate. The government pulled the entire batch, leading to a host of questions about the process the government followed when it purchased them.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:21
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mortons stork posted:It's really funny how these people are so adverse to spending money that they will murder their own populace and break the entire EU over it. Well, in particular they will break the EU and their people to protect a very specific fraction of their own population; the home-owning pensioner (i.e. the most reliable voting bloc).
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Mar 30, 2020 15:24
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Tough to be a reliable voting bloc when you are dying of corona en masse tbh.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:36
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Orange Devil posted:Ayup. Also to be entirely correct: "Hungary has just turned into a full scale fascist dictatorship, again". In December 2018, the Belgian government became a minority government after the N-VA left. To spare himself the humiliation of getting a Vote of No-Confidence, the current European president Charles Michel announced the resignation of his government, turning into a minority caretaker government that'd run out the clock until the elections we had in 2019. Those elections went well for the populist opposition (both far left and right), but made sure that the 'regular' parties couldn't really make a coalition cause the two biggest mainstream parties can't get along. Several of the ministers in the minority caretaker government got elected to the European parliament and got replaced or their areas of responsibility got given to other ministers, as it was all a temporary affair. Charles Michel got picked for European President, so his party (with the least seats in the government) assigned a replacement, our first female prime minister, there to keep the seat warm until an actual ("newly" elected) government and prime minister present themselves. Last week the Belgian parliament (temporarily, lol) gave up part of their power to allow this minority caretaker government to have actual decision-making power without having to take the parliament into account, so they can act with some authority in regards to the covid-19 crisis. Parliament is not convening because of the risk of spreading the virus, so they just gave the non-elected government (that's already resigned a year and half ago) more power. The worst thing is that this might be actually working, because the lockdown is an overall success. There's idiots still organising home-parties or just straight up ignoring the 'stay-at-home' order, but our curve is showing signs of flattening. All hail absolute rule!
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Mar 30, 2020 15:38
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Orange Devil posted:Tough to be a reliable voting bloc when you are dying of corona en masse tbh. All the boomers with houses I know are all pretending this is flu season and are still hosting dinner parties. They really do think they're invincible.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:42
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Junior G-man posted:The fact that Fidesz is still in the EPP tells you all you need to know about the right's tolerance for fascism. Imagining a world where the EPP weren't outriders for the fash for a moment, what mechanisms actually exist? Is it more than having their voting rights suspended? Can a country actually be kicked out?
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Mar 30, 2020 15:44
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I mean let's be honest, if enough serious other countries (read Germany, France, Italy, Spain) were serious enough about wanting to dump a member state, they totally could, whether or not any formal mechanisms exist or not. They would've done it to Greece if their own banks hadn't been so exposed.
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Mar 30, 2020 15:48
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forkboy84 posted:Imagining a world where the EPP weren't outriders for the fash for a moment, what mechanisms actually exist? Is it more than having their voting rights suspended? Can a country actually be kicked out? Presumably they could have their funding cut and have extra fees levied on them, to the point where they'd quit. There's no actual requirement as such that EU funding is equitable or even reasonable really. Not to mention there's a whole raft of ways the EU comeptencies could be used to make a state hurt.
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Mar 30, 2020 16:00
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Al-Saqr posted:so isnt there some sort of Clause in the EU that requires member states to be democracies? they should (probably wont) immediately kick hungary out and insitute economic sanctions. Refer to what happened when Austria first went fash in the early '00s.
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Mar 30, 2020 16:40
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Not the first time Austria went fash.
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Mar 30, 2020 16:55
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Orange Devil posted:Not the first time Austria went fash. In relation to the EU, obviously, but touché.
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Mar 30, 2020 18:09
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Orange Devil posted:I just want to make clear how deranged the Netherlands is getting. This was a piece in the Dutch news yesterday. Translation mine. Tone part of the original piece. lol
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Mar 30, 2020 21:10
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lol https://twitter.com/MehreenKhn/status/1244658701568524289
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Mar 30, 2020 21:18
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Orange Devil posted:I just want to make clear how deranged the Netherlands is getting. This was a piece in the Dutch news yesterday. Translation mine. Tone part of the original piece. I mean in all honesty, the Germans having so much emergency capacity might less the result of human-centeted planning, but more a lingering echo of "the russians are coming, any day now"
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Mar 30, 2020 22:47
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I heard that a large portion of France's farms are cooperatives. Is that true?
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Mar 31, 2020 07:48
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punk rebel ecks posted:I heard that a large portion of France's farms are cooperatives. Is that true? France has a really weird and really strictly regulated agricultural sector where (unless you can get around it, which you can, but it's v political) no farmer can technically own more than 120ha (called the SAFER) so there's an overall greater need for cooperatives. Added to this is the fact that a lot of French farms are still fairly small in size (definitely not over 120ha), and they all need processing facilities. Plus, French cooperatives sound cute but at least a few of them are completely vertically integrated corporations that take raw materials and put out billions of loaves of bread etc at the end, so it's a lot less cute and much more industrial than you'd think. When they get to that scale they also tend to behave more like a corporation in terms of how they treat the farmers too. So yeah, more cooperatives, but it's very sui generis.
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Mar 31, 2020 08:32
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The farms themselves are also not cooperatives (in the sense of being cooperatively owned), at least in most cases.
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Mar 31, 2020 09:52
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Kassad posted:The farms themselves are also not cooperatives (in the sense of being cooperatively owned), at least in most cases. Oh yeah for sure - farms are individually owned but work together in cooperatives to have better negotiating with supermarkets and buy machinery together etc.
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Mar 31, 2020 09:53
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For all the talk about the ant and the grasshopper, people forget that the ant actually spent their summer gathering food, a vital resource to weather a period of difficulty, rather than a pile of money that can't be used for anything.
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Mar 31, 2020 10:07
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