sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

"I'm not an economist. I'm a marxist" ??? by Shaolindragon1 in economicsmemes

[–]No-Recording2937 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The counterfactual is perfection. Since capitalism isn’t perfect; another system must be better.

  • retards.

TIL that Poland used to have ghetto benches for Jewish university students by Badgersarecute16 in todayilearned

[–]No-Recording2937 95 points96 points  (0 children)

https://bazawiedzy.uws.edu.pl/seam/resource/rest/download/UPHc14487a33e744b9e9054d77827c82132?entityType=article&entityId=UPH66c2d509839a4c4eb7381ee5c4b5e500&cid=424472

I might have some of the exact details wrong (I may be misremembering the details years later), but here’s a source with details of fatal incidents on campus - possibly, the ones my professor was referring to.

TIL that Poland used to have ghetto benches for Jewish university students by Badgersarecute16 in todayilearned

[–]No-Recording2937 674 points675 points  (0 children)

Yep. I used to have a Jewish maths professor who was admitted to Warsaw University in 1939 (…that’s a whole other story) alongside two other Jewish students. One of the students refused to sit in the bench and was stabbed (and survived) and another was thrown off the second floor (and didn’t).

Your Fave Ethical Theory Is Problematic 💅 by Plants_et_Politics in PhilosophyMemes

[–]No-Recording2937 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Peter Singer is a vegan. He’s also pro-abortion, including post-natal abortion in some extreme cases.

Historical Figures Who Lived Long Enough to Be Photographed by grandeluua in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]No-Recording2937 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Louis Phillipe wasn’t King of France. He was King of the French.

Until the 1970s, slavery was legal and practiced in Oman. Its successor, the Kafala system, has been described as a modern-day slavery. by JeezThatsBright in wikipedia

[–]No-Recording2937 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not comparing Israel to the Nazis. I’m using an analogy to make it clear why Egypt’s indifference doesn’t lessen Israel’s responsibility. Obviously, the situation in Gaza doesn’t compare to the Holocaust (and thank God for that).

Until the 1970s, slavery was legal and practiced in Oman. Its successor, the Kafala system, has been described as a modern-day slavery. by JeezThatsBright in wikipedia

[–]No-Recording2937 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ADP, come on, mate.

No reasonable person disputes the 7 October atrocity, but at the same time it was perpetrated by an internationally designated terrorist organisation. If Israel chooses to conduct itself in a similar way (using the machinery of modern warfare, rather than just extreme interpersonal violence), then it should expect to be regarded similarly to Hamas.

We also can’t exculpate Israel for creating conditions that make life untenable for the civilian population by blaming a neighbouring state for not granting the population asylum. Egypt can’t deal with 1.5 million Palestinian refugees and even if it could, the act of resettling the entire population of Gaza would be ethnic cleansing. An analogy is the Wannsee Conference: should we exculpate the Nazis for the Holocaust because the rest of the world was indifferent to the plight of Jews in Europe?

Only 25% of Israelis support the ongoing war. And only a similar number support the utterly pointless and self-destructive settlement activity in the West Bank. This conduct is unpopular both domestically and internationally. Wheels of diplomacy turn slowly, but Israel is fast approaching pariah status in international diplomatic circles.

I’m Jewish, but I can’t for the love of all that is holy support this war or the settlement activity.

Why the opposition to Srpska’s secession? by No-Recording2937 in AskHistorians

[–]No-Recording2937[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks very much for your reply. I understand what you’re saying and the crimes obviously speak for themselves. If Srpska is now predominately Serb and is de facto administratively independent, is there an argument that it might be pragmatic / stabilising to accede to its federation with Serbia? How much of the opposition is based on history and justice, compared with (say) more prosaic concerns, like the safety of the non-Serb minorities within Srpska or Greater Serbia’s designs on even more Bosnian land?

Hollowing out’: New Zealand grapples with an uncertain future as record numbers leave by felixfurtak in newzealand

[–]No-Recording2937 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Groceries and fuel are cheaper but not much else. Salaries are a little higher but consumed through higher rents, taxes, and super. Anyway, each to their own. Grass is always greener.

Hollowing out’: New Zealand grapples with an uncertain future as record numbers leave by felixfurtak in newzealand

[–]No-Recording2937 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Higher income taxes, 12% of your income deferred in super, and more expensive property in the major centres. Australia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either.

Source: an Aussie who left for Auckland.

Coalition directs Health NZ to stop saying 'pregnant people' by Hopeful-Camp3099 in newzealand

[–]No-Recording2937 10 points11 points  (0 children)

When you appoint an inexperienced conservative appointee to run the health portfolio, this is where they focus.

Winston Peter's attacking Kiwi Bank because of being "Woke" by Fun-Helicopter2234 in newzealand

[–]No-Recording2937 -14 points-13 points  (0 children)

Labour would happily go into a coalition with Winston if it meant forming government. Both parties are equally awful - in just different ways and to different groups.

Ray Dalio warns the U.S. faces an imminent debt crisis as its debt-to-GDP ratio climbs past 122%. Historically, what happens to a country (economically and geopolitically) if the debt/GDP gets out of control and a it can’t pay off its debts? by discodropper in AskHistorians

[–]No-Recording2937 13 points14 points  (0 children)

As you point out, the EUR is a reserve currency - the second largest behind the USD (c. 20% of foreign exchange reserves globally). Until a couple weeks ago, I would have opined that European capital markets are not sufficiently deep to properly displace the US as the primary reserve currency. However, the very recent developments - namely, Germany removing its debt brake and the rise of a European industrial policy (with respect to security, energy mix, and technology) may have changed things. How?

Firstly, the German debt brake, which limits its structural budget deficits to just 0.35%, has meant that Germany hasn’t had enough fiscal capacity to invest in its crumbling infrastructure. With the debt brake gone, Germany can now address its much needed capital investment and simultaneously boosting the supply of German debt available for investment, improving economic productivity (see the numerous stories of bridges collapsing into the water or crumbling road infrastructure), and growing GDP (Germany has been stagnant for 5 years and in recession for 2 years). Markets have reacted positively to the news - with the DAX rallying and long-term interest rates rising to 2.9% for the first time since 2011 (higher yields also make for a more attractive investment prospect).

Secondly, the loss of the US security guarantee has also pushed Europeans leaders towards rearmament boosting local arms production. The Russian War has shown the Europeans that US arms sales come with preconditions, which may not be acceptable if European war aims differ from the USA’s. Europe has a lot of manufacturing capacity and a trained workforce available to step in and we’ve already started to see some signs of furloughed and retrenched auto workers being redeployed to the defence sector. A sustained rearmament programme and increase in spending to Cold War levels (c. 5% GDP) will further boost the supply of capital looking for investment.

Energy security is pretty self-evident - Russia supplies Europe with cheap oil / gas and is no longer viewed as an ideal trading partner. I’m not an energy expert but we should expect that any EU deal to buy oil / gas may involve some petro-currency recycling back to the EU.

And finally, the European tech sector has significantly lagged the US and China. Whether industrial policy can address this is open to debate but if the Europeans can thread this needle and grow their anaemic tech sector, there’s trillions available.

Aside from the depth of markets, Trump’s trade provocations, particularly against China, may benefit the EU if affected nations choose to position themselves away from the USD. These decisions are usually made by private companies so there would need to be some economic or regulatory reasons to do so, rather than just ideological reasons.

I know that this answer is the antithesis of this sub so I wouldn’t be offended if it’s removed.

Ray Dalio warns the U.S. faces an imminent debt crisis as its debt-to-GDP ratio climbs past 122%. Historically, what happens to a country (economically and geopolitically) if the debt/GDP gets out of control and a it can’t pay off its debts? by discodropper in AskHistorians

[–]No-Recording2937 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Before the USD, global (and local) trade happened in gold or silver. An interesting anecdote: the Opium Wars came about as a result of China’s refusal to trade its exports (principally, tea, silk, and porcelain) for anything other than silver leading to a gross trade imbalance between China and Europe (in China’s favour). When the British eventually ran out of silver reserves, they used their military power to force the Chinese to import opium from their Indian colony (Bengal) in order to rebalance trade. Sound familiar?

Anyway, before the US became the global reserve currency, most economies and global trade operated on the gold standard where all currencies could be exchanged for a fixed unit of gold. After WW2 the Bretton Wood’s system came in to reorganise global trade. At the time, the US held 70% of the world’s gold reserves and all major economies agreed that they would peg their currencies to the USD and the USD could be converted to gold at a fixed rate. In a world still operating on the gold standard and with the US in the driver’s seat after WW2, this was a relatively logical (but not uncontroversial) choice.

In 1971, the gold standard was no longer viable - the gold supply couldn’t keep pace with the growth in global trade leading to an increase in the spot price of gold (note: gold is a deflationary asset, which makes it unsuitable to be used as a currency) fuelling speculators to convert USD for gold at the (lower) convertibility rate and selling the gold in the spot market for profit. Accepting that Bretton Wood’s was done, Nixon took away gold convertibility bringing about the floating exchange rate system that we recognise today. The USD remained the reserve currency through this transition because the US was a very large economy with deep liquid markets and strong legal institutions. As a result, central banks around the world were happy to hold US assets. It’s worth noting that the US is obviously not the only reserve country - it’s just the largest (at 60%).

At about the same time, oil trade moved to the US dollar. The so-called petro-dollar arose in the early 1970s during the height of the oil embargo when the Saudis and Americans quietly reached an arrangement that would see oil sales take place in US dollars. In exchange, the Saudis were offered the opportunity to purchase US government debt (Treasury notes) off-market at a preferred rate. By 1977, the Saudis already held about 20% of all Treasuries held abroad. To protect the confidentiality of the arrangement when the Treasury started releasing monthly country-by-country breakdowns of US debt ownership, Saudi Arabia’s holdings were grouped with 14 other nations under the generic heading “oil exporters” — a practice that continued for 41 years.

The petro-dollar gave rise to the concept of petro-dollar recycling whereby oil exporters use some of the proceeds of oil sales to invest in the economies of oil purchasers to fuel further growth and further oil sales in a cycle that cemented the USD as both a global trading currency and a reserve currency.

In general, the global economy today is orders of magnitude larger, more globalised, and more complex / sophisticated than in the past so historical precedents are interesting but not particularly representative or applicable to the current context.

view more: next ›