What role do you mean, more specifically? — Xtrix

The deficit spending, which enables the US to spend way more than it gets (in taxes), enables it to fight perpetual wars in other continents. And the situation where the US buys stuff from China and other countries and they then just hold the dollars. Other countries would have a monetary crisis, but the US won't because the role of the dollar.

But it isn’t the world currency. There are many currencies in the world even today, but certainly in the 40s before the Euro. — Xtrix

Xtrix, it's the world's reserve currency. Below the situation from this year:



This role, being the primary reserve currency for the global economy allows the United States to borrow money more easily and impose painful financial sanctions. If you make larger payments, usually the US dollar is used. And for example major oil producers like Saudi Arabia use the US dollar in selling their oil. Do notice that even if Bretton Woods system isn't anymore (where the US dollar was linked to gold and other currencies were linked to the US dollar), that system basically morphed into the current system where the US dollar still has a important role even without the link to gold, the gold standard.

Do we need two P0m0 threads, Kenosha Kid?

Or should I pose the question to the administrators?

One vague term is balanced by using another vague term.

In the interest of both peace and economic prosperity, I advertise a global level of identification with our planet earth, our unique home in the universe. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

We are all humans living on this planet, yet it's not only that.

My wife is Mexican and I friends and in-laws in Mexico. I like them and trust them. They are nice, honest hardworking people. Yet I do not trust Mexican officials like I do Finnish officials. A Finnish policeman or government official won't ask you a bribe. A Mexican will. That trust, social cohesion found here is totally lacking there. In that state organized crime has grown as a cancer to all levels of government. Here it isn't. People might not like the politicians, but they aren't considered thieves. There and in many countries they are. When I try to explain how Mexico is like to Finns I say it would be similar in Finland, if the legal system wouldn't work and criminals could do anything they want with absolute immunity. The small amount of criminals here surely would bring chaos, deep insecurity, distrust and violence when the police would stop to do what it's doing. People can be similar, the societies and the government etc. can be totally different.

Hence perhaps Finns wouldn't be so excited about having Mexican officials or others instead of their present officials. Yet that global federation would be like that and especially feel like that.

Hence better solution is international cooperation among independent countries. That is the pathway to improve things.

I am looking at global governance mainly from an economic and game theory perspective — TheArchitectOfTheGods

And that is a far too limited approach, because it totally ignores the important aspects that bind societies together and that make people feel part of them. Social cohesion, things that makes us feel as a group, a common language, national identity, culture and so on. The popularity of the sovereign nation states isn't just a coincidence, something that just by pure luck has happened. The bigger the state is, likely the more problems there are. Or then it has to be, by necessity, a loose federation.

We treat the right to self-governance of nations as a holy cow, and it is limiting our outlook on global democracy. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Global democracy? What is global democracy? That the Chinese and the Indians decide what you will pay them? What is so wrong with independence? Have independent states cooperate. Some will make right decisions, some wrong ones.

I'm interested in hearing views about the Fed from all. I've heard many conspiracies over the years, and a lot of strong sentiment about it. I have only recently been reading the history of it, but would like to gain a better understanding. This thread is both for that and for general discussion.

Do they have too much power? Is it necessary to have a central bank? What the hell is the Fed, anyway? Etc. — Xtrix

First thing to remember: all countries with their own currencies have a central bank.

The whole global monetary system is based on fiat currencies and a debt based monetary system. The US central bank and it's currency has played a dominant role on just why the US is a Superpower: without the role of the dollar, the US could not live on issuing new debt as it has for decades now.

The Federal Reserve isn't part of the government and an construct of basically Wall Street banks with the New York Fed being the most important.

Criticism of the bank has a long tradition in the United States. President Jackson's farewell speech is quite astonishing, then it was about a precursor to the Federal Reserve:

Recent events have proved that the paper-money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine your free institutions, and that those who desire to engross all power in the hands of the few and to govern by corruption or force are aware of its power and prepared to employ it. Your banks now furnish your only circulating medium, and money is plenty or scarce according to the quantity of notes issued by them. While they have capitals not greatly disproportioned to each other, they are competitors in business, and no one of them can exercise dominion over the rest; and although in the present state of the currency these banks may and do operate injuriously upon the habits of business, the pecuniary concerns, and the moral tone of society, yet, from their number and dispersed situation, they can not combine for the purposes of political influence, and whatever may be the dispositions of some of them their power of mischief must necessarily be confined to a narrow space and felt only in their immediate neighborhoods.

But when the charter for the Bank of the United States was obtained from Congress it perfected the schemes of the paper system and gave to its advocates the position they have struggled to obtain from the commencement of the Federal Government to the present hour. The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. In other words, it asserted (and it undoubtedly possessed) the power to make money plenty or scarce at its pleasure, at any time and in any quarter of the Union, by controlling the issues of other banks and permitting an expansion or compelling a general contraction of the circulating medium, according to its own will. The other banking institutions were sensible of its strength, and they soon generally became its obedient instruments, ready at all times to execute its mandates; and with the banks necessarily went also that numerous class of persons in our commercial cities who depend altogether on bank credits for their solvency and means of business, and who are therefore obliged, for their own safety, to propitiate the favor of the money power by distinguished zeal and devotion in its service. The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head, thus organizing this particular interest as one body and securing to it unity and concert of action throughout the United States, and enabling it to bring forward upon any occasion its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure of the Government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the amount of the circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the value of property and the fruits of labor in every quarter of the Union, and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might best comport with its own interest or policy.

Independence of communities and local decision making would still be guaranteed in a global democratic federation, just like it is now in the US. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

The United State of the World.

hmmm... Don't we have already the UN?

You mean might is right, which is the real principle behind the current political state of the world? — TheArchitectOfTheGods

No. I simply mean that there hasn't been a great war between the great powers for a long time. That is one thing to be grateful of.

If there is a conflict between the US and China (or Russia or both), then we will surely miss this time now.

Francis Fukuyama and his idea of "End of History" was proven wrong ...even by himself.

I think we should be happy about having even the existing global decision making process we enjoy now. It might be the best we can get. Especially if peace among the great powers endures.

In fact, there are many arguments why huge empires or monopolies in power are bad for many reasons. So would be a singular global decision making process...and the idea that it would solve our problems. And let's not forget that local decision making, independence of communities etc. is the backbone of democracies.

Like to portray it like that? I'd be sceptical about the reason for "discrimination" being people's skin color. Let me explain.

You see, discrimination is an action done by people on other people. Yet the obvious fact is that every country will address first risk groups. Is that discrimination? If it is according to you, what is wrong with that? Every nation started with the oldest people and left children out (at first). It would be totally different (and horrifying) if COVID-19 would kill infants and little children, but older people would survive it well. Think about how that lockdown would be. The fact is that poorer communities have worse health care services available and poor people have more health issues, which is a major issue with COVID-19. I think that is an universal fact.

As this study put it last year in June 2020:

Under-resourced communities frequently have less access to high quality health care, and suffer from more illnesses that are associated with high mortality, such as diabetes, heart disease, and pulmonary issues (Link and Phelan, 1995; Braveman et al., 2005; Lutfey and Freese, 2005; Adler and Rehkopf, 2008; Elo, 2009; Williams et al., 2010; Oates et al., 2017). Therefore, a higher presence of Covid-19 within this population could be particularly disastrous in terms of mortality. Research examining the relationship between poverty and influenza has demonstrated that vaccinations in particular are less available to residents of poorer counties within the United States, than those who live in more affluent areas (Lee et al., 2011).

In the US povetry and class have this race element in them. And that's why on issues that in other countries would be about wealth and income or class, in the US they become about race. Yet discrimination by race means that the skin color is the primary or sole reason to choose who to care, who to vaccinate, irrelevant of other factors.

To look further into this, here's an investigation about this by the CDC from this July. It tells now that the earlier above study from last year was spot on:

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected non-Hispanic Black or African American (Black) and Hispanic persons in the United States (1,2). In North Carolina during January–September 2020, deaths from COVID-19 were 1.6 times higher among Black persons than among non-Hispanic White persons (3), and the rate of COVID-19 cases among Hispanic persons was 2.3 times higher than that among non-Hispanic persons (4).

Such numbers in deaths does in my view show that you are talking about a risk group. And hence the paper continues:

On January 14, 2021, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) implemented a multipronged strategy to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations among Black and Hispanic persons. This included mapping communities with larger population proportions of persons aged ≥65 years among these groups, increasing vaccine allocations to providers serving these communities, setting expectations that the share of vaccines administered to Black and Hispanic persons matched or exceeded population proportions, and facilitating community partnerships. From December 14, 2020–January 3, 2021 to March 29–April 6, 2021, the proportion of vaccines administered to Black persons increased from 9.2% to 18.7%, and the proportion administered to Hispanic persons increased from 3.9% to 9.9%, approaching the population proportion aged ≥16 years of these groups (22.3% and 8.0%, respectively). Vaccinating communities most affected by COVID-19 is a national priority.

And do note that after increased efforts the vaccinated increased "approaching the population portion".

So it's quite likely that in the case of any country, also here in Finland, with similar findings that one segment of the population is hit worse than the other, naturally the health officials would (and did) make the same kind of targeting. That targeting, or "discrimination", naturally wasn't done here by race because this country is racially far more homogenous than the state of Maine. There are only a few percent of people of "persons of colour" here. (And with a still working universal welfare system, the differences between the regions isn't so stark as in the US.)

And it should be noted that the when officials had to respond to accusations of "systemic racism", it's no wonder they talk about focusing on Blacks and Hispanics, not just "risk groups" in general. Blame it on the public discourse, if you want.

a) they're not nearly free enough from their own metanarratives to qualify — Kenosha Kid

- As if postmodernist would be.

I believe that any school or tradition of philosophy that captures enough of the public's and academia's attention is liable to degenerescence over time, due to too much security and not enough challenge. Power corrupts. — Olivier5

Put this another way: when some school of philosophy becomes popular enough, a lot of mediocre and simply bad academicians jump on the bandwagon making it stupid.

But many Americans just really don't seem to care about the world outside the US. — Manuel

Well, we should add that many people don't care what happens outside their imminent neighborhood. Americans aren't the only example of this.

Yet a lot people do care what happens in other countries. But then, be you an ardent supporter of Noam Chomsky (and criticize what the US government does) or an ardent Republican (and criticize only what a Democratic US administration does), the main focus is on the US. Thus sometimes the Noam Chomsky type criticism goes simply overboard. The US isn't a culprit in everything bad that happens in the World.

When it comes to the Corona-virus the global response is important. At least with the Biden administration global cooperation is important. I should also add that for example the discussion in the US Congress about the pandemic (or the origins of the pandemic) is very important. A similar discussion in let's say the European Parliament would be quite meaningless: the member states do in the end decide themselves the policies and are far more independent in their actions as various states of the US.

Here in the U.K. we have a distinct privileged class. An overthrow of our class system. — Punshhh

In my view the UK has a distinct and quite strict class system, where it isn't just the upper class that preserves and maintains the class structure. When you can notice the class from language, hobbies and the sports people watch, the class system has quite deep roots. For British what class they come from is very important.

These people are dead against any kind of levelling up, or Universal basic income. It suits them fine for the status quo to continue, by proving up a Tory government. — Punshhh

Yet you have universal health care and the Labour party. Something which actually the US doesn't have.

Johnson has stepped into that role, groomed by Eton college and Oxford. — Punshhh

And just like the Labour Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Harold Wilson and Clement Attlee who also graduated from Oxford. And btw, Keir Starmer, the present leader of the Labour party and the opposition leader has also graduated from Oxford. You see societies that function basically as meritocracies do not erase classes. Those who get to the top universities will make the future elite, independently of what their political views are. France is another example of this.

The thing is, would any state ever admit that they're the ones responsible for a pandemic? — Manuel

I guess Norway could... and then lose their Sovereign Wealth Fund (from Oil Revenue) by paying Corona-related indemnities.

And unfortunately for finding at how the Corona-pandemic broke out will not be helped by the following kind of discourse in the US:

(BBC) Trump gloated at a rally in Ohio on Saturday evening, and said he had been proved right.

He spoke of his belief that the coronavirus was scientifically engineered, in a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan."I said it comes out of Wuhan - it comes out of the lab," he told his supporters, men and women dressed in red Make America Great Again hats, gathered at the rally, southwest of Cleveland.

Nevermind how wrong Trump was about the pandemic and how disastrous the response of his administration was at the pandemic outbreak.

Americans, as usual, make everything a domestic political issue. They do that even with things that happened in another country on another continent. And if you then try talk about that event (that happened in Asia) you are either a Trumpist Republican or a liberal supporter of the Democrats. :roll:

The rich, some successful business people, elites and privileged people will resist the degree of sharing and cooperation required for any of these solutions to solve the problem.

Rather what I see is the super rich hoarding as much wealth as they can, by unscrupulous means sometimes. Also powerful people might prefer to live in a dystopian world, than a progressive sustainable world.Because of this fear of sharing that will be required and to continue exploitation and profiteering. — Punshhh

In any situation those that have power will not want to lose their power, hence societal change is always difficult, no matter what the situation is. And do notice that not in all societies it's just a extremely rich who have the power, in many places there is a small cabal of career political people who are in charge and who aren't exactly super rich. Thinking that in every country the rich control everything is an exaggeration.

And if you go for the wealth of the rich, the next in line all the way down to the middle class will be worried when you will go after their wealth too. Killing the rich, a genocide by class, has been several tries been done or attempted and the outcome hasn't been a rosy one, but a huge tragedy.

The most important issue is to have social cohesion and make sure that doesn't vanish. Then changes, even radical ones, are possible. Without social cohesion the society simply doesn't work.

. If that is the state of social studies across universities, then it seems we have a totalitarian metanarrative on our hands — Kenosha Kid

Well, that is the actual worry.

It's not something absolutely horrifying as Lysenkoism, which was really literally totalitarian with a genuine totalitarian narrative, it's just simply lousy academic work. Still, lousy, mediocre academic work can have bad effects. It won't create famines like Lysenkoism did, but still.

I remember my professor sighing deeply when someone of her students had the idea of make their Masters about something to do with Foucault. Those degree works would just take time and more time. (But that was a quarter of a Century ago, so I have no idea how it is now, just have some educated guesses.)

But likewise you'll still find today people who see "science is a social construct" as a blasphemy or assault. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, you do find those types too. Those are the ones who get angry at you if you refer to philosophy when they are talking about science. Usually they, as sometimes happens here in PF, simply assume to know already where the discussion is going when the words "social construct" are uttered, and they assume they have to take a stance to defend their cherished science. It's no wonder strawman arguments are so popular.

Oh, I'm a boring type. I think science is a method: the use of the scientific method.

Philosophy and science? I've sometime even myself heard scientists say, when their guard is down, that they aren't interested so much in philosophy, they just do science. Of course, then their scientific philosophy view is there in the age of Enlightenment (which likely they don't know) and they likely won't understand Kant or any philosopher after Kant. But, if you don't take the Philosophy course 1.0, you then don't take it.

how is this progress different from the progress of science. — Joshs

Science uses the same method again and again. Philosophy looks back at what has been pondered in philosophy and builds on that. Hence the German romanticism or even postmodernism are quite logical ways to try to think about reality in a different way. Yet many times these new ideas don't overthrow anything that has become before, even if some people think that they have done so.

The narrative here is that science is the best and only way to do anything, and so social studies and science studies should be scientific, right? That's a totalitarian metanarrative (as Lyotard would have it, and I'd agree). — Kenosha Kid

Right. Of course, who here is saying that science is the only way to do anything, Kenosha Kid?

Absolutely nobody.

A literary novel can depict history well, but it's not history, however well the imaginary characters might be based on and describe actual people, events and historical times. There's still the obvious difference of the author using his or her imagination or trying to explain what happened in reality. Yes, art can depict reality, but that doesn't make it science or an academic study. And nobody should have any problem with this.

The basic problem in my view is that postmodernism is basically criticism of something depicted vaguely as modernism, yet unfortunately to understand it one should first clearly know and understand what is criticized in the first place. That usually is what is missing.

Hence here is the giant pitfall where the academia can fall into and has fallen into: that this so-called "modernism" isn't taught at all, it's only criticized. Because if what you are taught only is what Foucault, Derrida and etc. have written without starting from those "age old white men from the Enlightenment" (as how they are depicted sometimes) you hardly can put the criticism into a proper context. Yet the university student who has come from high school / the gymnasium is wired to take in the lessons just like he or she did it in the seventh grade and ready to regurgitate the proper line from the proper author.

Far too easily, and I can remember this from decades ago, the student who had studied contemporary social history (with postmodernism or similar ideas) would use the observation that "science is a social construct" as a refutation, something that questions a scientific hypothesis.

Just like when you KK says that "social studies and science studies should be scientific" is "a totalitarian metanarrative", many might think of that as a criticism, because "totalitarianism" doesn't seem to go well with the open mindedness and curiosity that science should have. It sounds negative, something you should avoid.

Of course for some, at least me, the sentence "social studies and science studies should be scientific" is simply a tautology. A sentence like "birds are animals" would have an equally "totalitarian metanarrative" going far back to Aristotle.

Evidently science is a social construct, but
it is constructed via a certain method, which combines observations, hypotheses building aka modeling, and sharing and critiquing. Not everything goes. One has to anchor one's models in observations aka facts. — Olivier5

Yes.

Engineering is a social construct too.

Go tell that to engineers, btw. :joke:

I'm not against stock. Additional stock is issued and given to employees but can still be traded. — Benkei

Ok, but then our insurance system and also pension system uses these corporations too. The non-human "legal person" owner if equity is a reality. Lot of things would have to be restructured then.

In my view the problem often is about leadership of corporations, not the existence of corporations themselves. Modern corporative structure has create a class of executive level workers who sometimes can manage the corporations wealth differently then let's say a family owned business would do: squeeze everything out and throw it away, go on some self-gratifying empire building or simply not care so much as someone who has family bonds to the enterprise. The boards are made of similar executive workers. The entrepreneur-founder CEO (Gates, Jobs etc.) is very rare occurrence. Global competition creates markets ruled by oligopolies: ten or so large companies dominate the field and then there are small local niche producers.

Of course mismanagement can happen in other business structures as co-operatives. Once a cooperative grows big enough there is the possibility of the "owners" becoming a rubber stamp and then when you have bad leadership, everything goes astray. (Reminds me of the Finnish Communist Party going bankrupt and losing a considerable fortune when cooperatives close to the party went bankrupt after a speculative market bubble burst. The few times I was genuinely spiteful. Communists as businessmen...HA!!!)

The WHO acknowledges that the lab leak hypothesis is a possibility.

The head of the World Health Organization acknowledged it was premature to rule out a potential link between the COVID-19 pandemic and a laboratory leak, and he said Thursday he is asking China to be more transparent as scientists search for the origins of the coronavirus.

In a rare departure from his usual deference to powerful member countries, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said getting access to raw data had been a challenge for the international team that traveled to China earlier this year to investigate the source of COVID-19.

Tedros told reporters that the U.N. health agency based in Geneva is "asking actually China to be transparent, open and cooperate, especially on the information, raw data that we asked for at the early days of the pandemic."

He said there had been a "premature push" to rule out the theory that the virus might have escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan — undermining WHO's own March report, which concluded that a laboratory leak was "extremely unlikely."

"I was a lab technician myself, I'm an immunologist, and I have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen," Tedros said. "It's common."

Admitting that you were earlier wrong is a sign of strength in my view.

This got China to be shocked and angry:

Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of China’s National Health Commission (NHC), told reporters he was “shocked” by the plan to investigate the lab leak hypothesis and said “it is impossible for us to accept such an origin-tracing plan.”

According to the Associated Press, Zeng dismissed the theory as a rumor “that runs counter to common sense and science.”

Responding to the WHO’s earlier statement about the investigation being hampered by the lack of raw data from Chinese authorities, Zeng reiterated Beijing’s stance that some data could not be completely shared due to privacy concerns.

Zeng insisted that the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s labs have no virus that can directly infect humans and noted that a WHO-led team of experts had visited the lab earlier this year and concluded that a leak was highly unlikely.

The vice minister also dismissed media reports that staff and graduate students at the institute had fallen sick due to the virus and then transmitted it to others.

Interesting to see what the outcome is of this...

A loan has a maturity. A mortgage has a maturity. But stock doesn't. But it doesn't fulfill an essential different role than other loan instruments but it does give a right to profit in perpetuity. And this is weird, why should a shareholder who invested 100 guilders in 1910 in Shell stock still receive dividends for Shell's activities today? — Benkei

Btw, a consol bond is a perpetual bond without any maturity date. Hence they are considered equity rather than debt. Basically what is so wrong with equity? People have owned things, real estate and businesses and they have been inherited by their children for a long time in history. Family businesses have actually been quite persistent in history, even if sometimes there comes the generation that ruins the business (or spends the wealth away). With stocks that ownership can just be divided and easily bought and sold. I'm not so sure what is so wrong with that.

Besides, saving is actually important. And many people save not only to spend later, but to have something for the "rainy day" that might never come and to give to their children when they die. If inheritance would be illegal, I guess many would simply donate part of their wealth to their children.

This seems to be the sort of totalitarianism of metanarrative that's in dispute. I'm not sure that can be the answer. If the objection is that it's called 'science' (however soft), yeah I agree. — Kenosha Kid

What according to you then is the scientific method?

Or you think the scientific method is a totalitarian metanarrative? Very postmodernist.

Do you have a sort of person in mind? Scientists should use the scientific method. In my view more things should take a scientific approach. But it can't be forced on people. — Kenosha Kid

Starting from people studying the social sciences, which ought to use similar questioning, objectivity and try to refrain from subjectivity even if the answers cannot be gotten by performing laboratory tests as in the natural sciences. At least that I was taught in the university while studying economics and economic history.

I was talking from the scientist's point of view. Science rolls on pretty merrily amid, for instance, every thread you've seen on here declaring that science doesn't work! It's pretty resilient. Which only makes it more unwise to go off on one when it is criticised. The threat of 'science being undermined' was just never credible imo. — Kenosha Kid

And how was genetics in the Soviet Union with Trofim Lysenko? Prime example of what "politically correct" science becomes in the end: total bogus science with no scientific value. Lysenko's practices created literally famines. Lysenko stayed in "power" from 1940 to 1965, which basically stopped genetics research in the Soviet Union for the time.

And even if there is a very important debate to be had about what are the limits of good science, still, how many times in the US has the religious right made bans on science based on religious views? Let's not forget that the US is a country where the legislator in Indiana tried to get through the Pi Bill to get a legal court decision that it is possible to square the circle in 1897.


Doesn't matter that von Lindemann had proved this impossible in 1882 (and anybody with their right sense would notice the error). Even mathematics isn't off limits to politics and the American legislator.

I don't think postmodernism is aiming to take over the running of the state and, if it did, my principle concern wouldn't be for the health of scientific research. Postmodernism concerns discourse. Religion's need to dominate and crush doesn't obviously translate. — Kenosha Kid

Philosophical movements seldom have clear aims or objectives. Their impact comes from basically how they effect or alters the debate / discourse and just what kind of studies, investigations and research is done. What kind of research it crowds out. That still can have a major effect.

Yeah but isn't this more a function of high living standards and costs in Japan, rather than a decline in population. — ChatteringMonkey

The Swiss have high living standards too, yet their population is still growing. They don't have similar problems.

Population growth is the normal way for an economy to grow. Just think when people buy the most in their life: when they start a family. They likely move then to a new home, get a mortgage, buy a lot of stuff for the children etc. Afterwards the typical person doesn't do anymore such large investments like buying a home. And do note how positive this is for any economy: houses aren't built by robots in China, but by local people. So also is with the teachers that will teach the new children: again not robots in China. When the fertility rate of women is over 2, then the population is growing, hence there is a natural need for the economy to grow. Once it's less than 2 and there is no net immigration, you have a problem.

And when it comes to Japan, let's remember that there is nonexistent immigration to the country. Immigrants usually are people that want start their lives in a new country, hence they are also optimal individuals for that economic growth.


(Btw. a crazy sidenote: the dip in the Japanese fertility rate in 1966 was because of superstition about the Fire Horse)

I mean, it's easy to sound "leftier" than anybody if no one understand what you're saying... — Manuel

Have you read German philosophical texts from the 19th Century? Many of them were quite conservative/right wing and still extremely difficult to understand. So being difficult to understand isn't something that post-modernists have invented.

Basically what I meant was that when conservatives, like let's say Jordan Peterson, criticize postmodernism, it's easy then for many to simply assume that all those who criticize postmodernism have to share the values/arguments/political opinions of Peterson. Sokal as mentioned by is a Marxist, hence the lines for or against post-modernism don't go along the typical culture war lines people assume. And basically should not go.

As they saying goes, the most powerful mathematical language is where 0=1. How awesome to use it to prove anything!

It used to be a joke, but I think it goes in with the age old line of thinking, that simply assumes having a black box that takes care of a certain (here paradoxical) problem and we contemplate how the World would be then.

Similar like using super(hyper)tasks or something similar.

His criticism, however motivated, whatever his beliefs, was valid when it was valid and invalid when it was not. Invalid criticism isn't something to fear: it can be met quite simply to the scientist's satisfaction, if not the critic's. Valid criticism needs to be taken on board, and it was, to science's betterment hopefully. — Kenosha Kid

?
That's not the most explanatory or easiest to understand answers that I've had read, Kenosha Kid.

Yet isn't the problem when those that should use the scientific method reject it as being part of the modernist agenda? You assume it doesn't matter if this is invalid criticism. Who do you think decides what just is valid or invalid criticism? Or you think that the correct answer will just prevail somehow?

When religion trumps science, science doesn't get stronger, it simply loses. A great example in history is what happened to science in Islam after "the Golden Age" in medieval times. People are people, even scientists. If they are accused of being heretics and will be punished for that, they will shut up and tinker at the sidelines something that is politically correct.

Yeah I'm not sure I get it either. — ChatteringMonkey

That's the alarming issue here. There are enough smart people on the PF that at least someone ought to have understood it and be a firm believer in it...if it was an economic school of thought with genuinely valid ideas. Once there is nobody defending a position, then that position might not be so strong in the first place.

The mistake was in thinking that they are regular economic entities that need to balance their books, as they can't default and print money as needed... they aren't subject to standard economic theories, but rather subject to monetary theory which comes with it's own particular set of regularities. — ChatteringMonkey

I don't think that the MMT disagrees with the thought that printing too much money will create inflation and finally a total loss of trust in the currency (which basically is what hyperinflation is). There argument is basically that the US is different.

And I can understand this...partly: The global monetary system is based on the US dollar so much that other countries and market agents have let the US to take as much as debt it wants (which has basically been the reason why it has had the ability to be the sole Superpower in the world). Besides, their first worry would be if the dollar collapsed (would devaluate to other currencies) what will happen to their exports.

You print money? ;-) — ChatteringMonkey

That's the name of the game now.

But somehow it doesn't feel like a sustainable answer. So when would you be worried about the value of the currency? When the debt-to-GDP ratio is 10 000%? When the central bank has to double it's balance sheet in six months? Or every month? Or in a week? Inflation rates in the US are creeping up now...

All this comes to mind as yesterday the richest man in the World mimicked Alan Shepard's first space flight (but not Yuri's). When the internet billionaires can do things like that, some clever things towards replacing fossil fuels can be and are done also. But what happens when those financial cornucopias suddenly dry out? Suddenly the belief in tech saving us gets a whack by an anvil in the back.

I can imagine it, but I don't see why the has to follow from population decline. Has innovation slowed down in Japan? I wouldn't know exactly, but they seem relatively up to par with the rest of the world technologically. — ChatteringMonkey

Basically the thing is that the so-called "smart money" uses the low interest rates in Japan and then uses the debt to invest in some other country (usually in China and in Asian countries).



Hence the net investments in Japan have dramatically declined from earlier times:

Net investment (after covering depreciation) is very low and even gross private investment is crawling along. Japanese companies prefer to employ more labour at low wage rates rather than invest, or take their investment overseas

Ok, conservative meaning he's for those old ideas about science from the age of Enlightenment. Got it.

(Still Sokal was a leftist, similar to actually others that are politically on the left and worried about postmodernism.)

In reality, science only really gets stronger through criticism. — Kenosha Kid

How does it get stronger, if you don't believe in the goal of objectivity in science, but start from the idea that it's just a subjective power play?

I don't understand why decrease in economic growth would be a problem if it is caused by population decrease. — ChatteringMonkey

Think about the debt based monetary system of ours. Basically there has to be economic growth for the interest to be paid. Then think about the "pay-as-you-go" system of pensions (and basically health care system, as old people use it far more than the young).

Both are designed for a World were there are more younger generations than older. As I said, Japan is the case example of what is going to happen. It may not be a dramatic collapse, but Japan has serious problems. It is already in a situation where it cannot raise interest rates (as then too much of the government income would go to pay the interest). If you in this situation take more debt (as Japan has done year after year), what will you think the outcome will be?

I could see decline in population being a problem for goods and services per capita because you typically get an aging population in the short term, which means less economically active and so less production relatively. — ChatteringMonkey

It's not an aging population for the short term, it is basically permanently before some equilibrium is reached on some lower level. And that can take a long, long time.

Imagine a World the machines are as old as B-52s are now, which the youngest bombers are 58 years old. One hundred or two hundred year old power plants. A World where your fathers computer from two or three decades ago are as fast and capable of running the current programs as a new computer you can buy from the store. Great! We don't need new stuff you might think, until you notice that those old power plants are coal plants...

The Sokal affair seemed to me pretty stupid on both sides. Sokal got his paper rejected from several journals before finding one stupid enough to publish it. I don't think it says much of anything at all other than Sokal was an arsehole with a conservative axe to grind and Social Text had trouble unpacking his paper and ill-advisedly published it anyway. — Kenosha Kid

Only that similar equivalent "Sokal hoaxes" have gone through very well, which just shows how adrift the whole field is. And it's telling that you describe Sokal to be a conservative, which he isn't. As typical, anybody criticizing postmodernism has to be from the right.

I've been on a cinema binge since the beginning of the pandemic so might I recommend Mulholland Drive — Maw

Now that's a great metaphor for post-modernism or simply an example of a postmodern film. It Has enough cues and enough of traditional story telling that you try to find a logical string that will make sense of the story. Yet then look at Inland Empire from the same director and yeah, then it's just "postmodernism".

The free market capitalism model was useful for a period of technological growth during the 20th century. But is now proving to destructive, a beast with an ever growing appetite. — Punshhh

Well, Soviet-style central planning was even more destructive, but I do get your point.

For example, a way of printing money which doesn’t result in the usual negative effects. Don’t ask me how this might work, but I think such solutions are possible. — Punshhh

I've been hoping that someone would explain and basically defend modern monetary theory, because it goes over my head even with having had university-level studies in economics and economic history.

What we need to do is to do to those who run the show what they have done to us: We need to harness them like work horses and put them to work for us. Subject them to the "human resources department" like they have done to us. Milk them for all they are worth. Trickle up, not trickle down. Stimulate those who actually do all the work and who will actually spend the stimulus stimulating. If those at the top want it to trickle up, then they can work for it. And work hard and smart for it. Working for the people, instead of the other way around. Pay a god damn tax for crying out loud. — James Riley

So (if you still have the time to respond, or respond later) just what are you just exactly implying? More transfer payments in taxes? To whom are where? Just who works for whom?

18th — Germany knew the floods were coming, but the warnings didn’t work — jorndoe

I've noticed this too: weather forecast have become really accurate. They don't make mistakes on what is going to happen in the near future. A seven-day forecast can accurately predict the weather about 80 percent of the time and a five-day forecast can accurately predict the weather approximately 90 percent of the time. Regional forecasts for tomorrow (24h) are usually dead on. Wasn't like that only a decade or two ago.

Thanks to that rainfall in Central Europe, it has been nearly a drought here in Northern Europe.

I actually raised this issue when I was working at the Ministry of Finance. How to get to a circular, zero-growth, fair and just society. — Benkei

:up:
Thank you for your actual contribution. People listen to the Dutch. They are part of the smart guys in the room.

I think mostly it will be about doing more with less and technologies that will support that will continue to be implemented. I see a high risk that capital distributions will be locked in for a very long time with very little change as a result of less economic activity and mobility, which will likely lead to inescapable socio-economic classes. — Benkei

That is a well thought answer, Benkei.

If capital investments to technology will happen at good pace, then we can solve the problem where the decrease of the population will naturally decrease the size of the economy. And of course, we have two very advanced societies that are going to tackle this problem:


And other like China will face it in the future. Yet even if Japan hasn't gone off a cliff with very small economic growth, the "Japan disease" might be our future.

I myself see huge political difficulties in adapting to the new environment. Once people have benefits, they will fight for those benefits and hence transfer payments will likely win over investments to technology. Now investments in technology have been partly helped by the global financial-casino, which, we have to admit, has also given funding to smart tech research. The rapid decline in costs for renewable energy is a prime example for that.

Yeah, deal with the current disaster once they happen. That's the way it will happen.

Yet smart people can anticipate those future disasters.

You see, it's not utterly crazy to think that the present financial system can collapse. It has already been close to collapsing, but has been sustained. Such events can ruin our present plans quite quickly. Or at least hinder them dramatically. Just to give one example.

Since the "Only-Magma!" -guy has hopefully left us, here's a question for others.

The natural reason for more (energy) production is population growth. Yet population growth is decreasing globally and likely will in the future make the global population hit a peak and from there on the population will get smaller. With advances in technology that would sound at first an environment where we can tackle our present problems.

Yet the problem is that our society is built on growth. Our system to finance those technological innovations and advances are built on a growth model. The debt-based monetary system needs economic growth. The social welfare models we use need growth to pay for them. With decreasing populations you might have a perpetual economic bust where not much improvements and advances will happen. The technology might be there, but it wouldn't be implemented. Fossil fuels might be used, because there's no money to build new alternatives because of the economic slump. Decreasing populations might sound like a good thing, but it might wreck havoc with our great plans to change the society from a carbon based to renewable energy based society.

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here?

Once systems get overwhelmed, they collapse. Has happened to previous civilizations, can happen to ours. — boethius

And the civilizations you are referring to? Seems to me the civilizations in history were far more fragile to collapse.

I don't think population matters much. — boethius

I disagree.

Population growth is the natural reason for economic growth and demand growth. If populations are stable or decreasing, that is a huge issue on this issue. You don't have only decrease in use because of technological advancement, but also due to demand decrease. That is a huge issue. Besides, earlier population growth was seen as the primary reason for doom, starting from Malthus, which isn't something unimportant now.

Japan has a decreasing population. Notice what has happened to it's need of energy:

However, in the equation of Impact = Population x Technology x Affluence; it's the technology and affluence that can be changed significantly in relatively short periods of time — boethius

Technology has always been the real factor that the doomsayers have gotten wrong. The typical disaster-in-the-near-future predictions have simply ignored how technology can change the situation and also how markets adapt. And affluence? This isn't a simple thing. The naive idea would be to think that a more affluent economy would have a bigger impact. This actually doesn't go that way: the more affluent society can take into consideration environmental issues and ecological issues far better than a poorer one. Just compare West European policies and practices to let's say those in poorer countries. I think it was Jared Diamond who noticed that the biggest environmental crisis tend to happen in the poorest countries.

But the real question is why there isn't wide spread awareness and powerful movements, or then why the movements that do exist have so far failed. The denialist industry was and still is well funded, but it's not really a given they would win, and they've only really "won" in the US; here in Europe there's not really much climate denialism, but the policies are weak sauce; the "concerned" politicians of Europe never get together and do anything of significance.

I'm honestly not sure; it's not like the information is in secret books that an institution will systematically burn both the books and anyone possessing them. "Truth" seems to have gotten out far worse obstacles. — boethius

1) I blame the media.

The journalists pick up the most damning forecast (from a variety) and run with the worst possible early outcome. Some scientists are perfectly fine to go with this in order to "wake up" the people, so they go with the worst earliest hypothetical outcome. And once that worst hypothetical outcome didn't happen twenty years ago, people can come skeptical about the alarmists.

Just to name a few, in the 1960's it was the population explosion that would lead to severe famines even in the West. Then the possible torching of the Kuwaiti oil fields would lead to something like the nuclear winter. And the list of these alarmist forecasts with dates that have long gone are there. I know that referring to them will make many people extremely angry. That the forecast didn't hold seems to be totally irrelevant, as the cause is beneficial.

2) Then I blame that some issues have been overcome. DDT has been banned. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has been working: Since the ban on halocarbons, the ozone layer has slowly been recovering and the data shows a trend in decreasing area of the ozone hole – subject to annual variations. It has even closed sometime. We have already hit peak conventional oil production and oil production hasn't grown for some time.

3) And finally, I think that the society can cope with even more problems. We can have this economy limping with the pandemic limitations for years. We can not travel as much as before. Tens of millions of jobs have been lost in the tourism sector and flights have basically halved. We can change our behavior and never ever shake each others hands. Who needs so much travel? The fact is that our societies can endure radical changes. Thanks to the pandemic, carbon emissions have fallen at the most rapid rate since WW2. Primary energy consumption fell by 4.5% in 2020, the largest decline since 1945, yet solar Wind, solar and hydroelectricity all grew despite of this plummeting demand.

Above all, in 2020 we saw the lowest population growth in the World since at least 1950 with 1,05%. Just in 2012 the growth rate was 1,2%. It may be that some of us (those younger) will witness peak human population.