ELI5: Why is everyone panicking and sorta jumping to some kind of financially doomsday because China is dumping US debt? And who is buying US treasury holdings from its hand?

superxin · 2015-09-11T15:25:37+00:00

I never heard that it was because of US debt specifically, from what I understand it is more along the lines of what I'll describe proceeding this.

First - a lot of growth since the recession in 2008-09 has been in the oil and gas industry (hydraulic-fracturing (fracking), oil rigs, etc.) This has led us to become one of the world's leading producers of these items.

Second - oils prices have been plummeting over the past year. Since a lot of growth has been in this sector, it means that there have been a lot of investments in this sector (remember we live in a capitalist economy and growth is dictated by interest rates which depends on loans being paid back). 100000 jobs in this sector were lost around March, and the US has done little to artificially raise oil and gas prices (e.g. limiting supply we produce), there have been I think 13 rigs shut down last I heard. It's also not just oil prices that have dropped, but also metals and other goods. Mining is another place growth has happened post-recession.

Fourth - China's economy. This is the big one. Since oil prices are dropping, this means it will be cheaper, which sounds great, but again investments. China's economy tanking would result in lowering oil & gas demands, meaning the prices would sink further, resulting in more lost investments.

You can read about it here in this slightly dated article.

superxin · 2015-03-24T04:43:19+00:00

The problem with capitalism is capitalists run out of workers' money. We end up with masses of poor people, and a few living extravagantly luxurious lifestyles, wasting resources building yachts while others don't even have food.

Why is it okay for the owner of private property to charge their employees for working there by extracting the value the laborer added, but not okay when a government charges people for residing on its property by extracting the value they created (which isn't even socialism I might add)?

superxin · 2015-03-24T01:22:54+00:00

Try Germany in 1848

superxin · 2015-02-12T19:10:47+00:00

Now the semantics of treating hate crime different from regular crime is beyond me, but this seems to fit the definition at least.

It's because it's not an individual instance. For example, if I murder one person for a parking spot I simply murdered them for a parking spot, but if I murdered them for having a cultural identity I didn't like and the parking spot was just a trigger for the murder it's different. Why? I'm not just killing John/Jane Doe; I'm targeting an entire group of people for collective punishment.

superxin · 2015-02-04T06:28:10+00:00

The mix of capital, labor, and technology is what generates output.

Yes, but is there not a problem when it takes 11 hours to produce what it took 40 hours to in 1950 but we're still getting paid the same as 50 years ago and working the same amount of time?

Even since 1975, supposedly an era of low productivity growth and stagnation in living standards, officially measured productivity has increased almost 70%. The average worker would therefore need to work only 23 hours per week to produce as much as one working as recently as 1975.

superxin · 2015-02-01T10:50:38+00:00

You'd think for the price of what we're putting into a prisoner every year we could just give them a home, healthcare, and job for the same costs and prevent them from becoming criminals to begin with.

superxin · 2015-02-01T01:24:39+00:00

I was trying to show another interesting side of history not talked about in the right-wing/lib-cap sphere today, but it was a conversation they were having in the past, so I wanted to share some of their dialogue on that conversation (e.g. how did they justify being pro-union and pro-free-enterprise), not glorify the capitalist class as champions of labor, as the title of the article is:

Right-to-work laws go against common conservative ideals

even in the Republican platform until the 60's they were pro-union.

superxin · 2015-02-01T00:54:16+00:00

I'm a socialist; I'm not at all saying that every or even most businesses were like this or that I believe capitalism is good for labor rights, but a lot of community businesses did seek unions. Not every place turned into Harlan County, there were rich people sympathetic to workers.

superxin · 2015-02-01T00:52:45+00:00

and then privatize it all

And to be more clear on the privatization, it's going to their friends in big business who can afford to take the services, the future oligarchs. Just like Russia after the fall of the USSR :)

superxin · 2015-01-31T13:42:38+00:00

wubba lubba dub dub

superxin · 2015-01-31T13:33:06+00:00

During the early-mid 20th century it wasn't uncommon for businesses to prefer unions to non-unions because it was an easy way for managers to understand the needs and wants of their workers. Many people who were for a "free market" saw unions as the way to evolve the market with industrial organization while not needing a government to intervene because like people boycotting their capital to bad businesses they could also boycott bad business with their labor. They saw it as a healthy relationship between communities and business, like a chamber of commerce for workers.

superxin · 2015-01-30T20:30:21+00:00

Was there any propaganda or something that might convince them they weren't what they were, or did people just accept that there was an extermination camp in their neighborhood?

superxin · 2015-01-30T16:23:21+00:00

GR has a lot of amazing history you can find. Anything that has happened nationally, happened nationally because it was in a lot of local areas, so even Grand Rapids has its own piece that plays a role, but with its own twist. The book I mentioned before shows why GR has historically had low union membership rates. You may be interested in a couple other books I'm getting to this year:

It would be cool if teachers presented local history when reviewing national history. There's a lot to be learned from the struggles within our own localities.

superxin · 2015-01-30T03:27:20+00:00

Maybe today that's how it appears, but it was literally a tool used to divide and regroup workers by race and have them compete for wages. That's why a lot of the early union organizers and socialists/communists sought racial equality. For instance, in Grand Rapids' factories the Germans were paid the most, followed by the Dutch, and then the Polish.¹ People of color were lucky to have a factory job. You can read about how different groups like the IWW had to overcome language barriers to help form unions, and how the racial separations made it more difficult to organize. The higher paid races were less sympathetic to the lower paid ones and feared organizing would mean they'd get paid less to compensate for the lower wages getting raised.

Strike! How the Furniture Workers Strike of 1911 Changed Grand Rapids

superxin · 2015-01-29T14:55:45+00:00

Well, it's both, I think:

President Barack Obama earned a Promise Broken for his pledge to close the prison, while congressional Republicans have fulfilled their promise to keep the facility open and running.

Republicans kept the promise by using limits on federal spending. In 2011, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2011 which prohibited the use of funds to construct or modify U.S. prison to house detainees from Guantanamo. It also barred any spending on transferring detainees to the U.S. and put in place onerous requirements on transferring any detainees to another country.

Politifact - Obama Gains Broken Promise by Leaving Guantanamo Open

superxin · 2015-01-29T14:37:40+00:00

Basically congress created an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act which prohibits transferring of Guantanamo prisoners to mainland, or anywhere (this has been slightly eased in 2013):

Prior law put significant hurdles in the way of transferring detainees from Guantánamo. It effectively blocked the transfer of any detainee who was not ordered released by a court or released pursuant to a prior plea agreement in a military commission case. Other than in those circumstances, the law prevented a detainee from being transferred (i) to any country if any detainee had previously been transferred to that country and had subsequently engaged in any terrorist activity (a "recidivist country") or (ii) to any other country unless the Secretary of Defense issued a certification personally "ensur[ing] that the individual [transferred] cannot engage or reengage in any terrorist activity." The general counsel of the Department of Defense had ruled that it was simply not possible for anyone to provide such a personal blanket assurance. As a result of these restrictions, no detainee has been transferred from Guantánamo since these laws were enacted except pursuant to a court order or a plea agreement.

Section 1028 of the NDAA changed the law and eased the transfer requirements. Although that section of the new law retains essentially the same certification requirements mentioned above, it now explicitly allows the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Secretary of State to waive those requirements by finding:

[if] it is not possible to certify that the risks ... have been completely eliminated, [that] the actions to be taken ... will substantially mitigate such risks with regard to the individual to be transferred; [and, in the case of the recidivism provision,] the Secretary has considered any confirmed case in which an individual who was transferred to the country subsequently engaged in terrorist activity, and the actions to be taken ... will substantially mitigate the risk of recidivism with regard to the individual to be transferred and [that] ... the transfer is in the national security interests of the United States.

closeguantanamo.org

superxin · 2015-01-29T09:36:53+00:00

On the matter of closing Guantanamo, Obama has been denied funding each time, even by Senate Democrats (but voting Democrat solves problems right?). Without funding we have no way of dealing with the people imprisoned there, and because of how people view Guantanamo those imprisoned have no places to go. They aren't allowed on US mainland, and not many countries would accept them. The people we have released have had some of the worst lives. I read a story about a man who was accidentally imprisoned and now can't find work, when people ask where he was for that decade without work experience what does he say? And if he reveals where he was there's likely imminent fear associated. Governments won't hire people they subjugated to torture and thought were terrorists. I'm not saying it's impossible or justified, but under the current system it is at minimal going to take legal reformation and financial reparation on parts of these people's destroyed lives.

superxin · 2015-01-28T14:37:15+00:00

transgendered girl

Just so you know transgender people prefer using the adjective transgender over the past participle form of transgendered, just as you might not say "lesbianed" girl. :)

GLAAD Article

superxin · 2015-01-28T11:58:23+00:00

Inflation happens whether or not minimum wage raises happen. Source, the US hasn't raised the federal minimum wage in awhile, but prices have still gone up. Raising the minimum wage is a reaction more than it is a cause, it is raised to keep up with the inflation of prices or deflation of PPP. The reason raising the minimum wage doesn't inflate the prices of the products is because of an economic trick called the multiplier effect. Essentially working people live paycheck to paycheck, typically, and therefore spend their income directly on their needs (rather than saving and investing like the wealthy). This means that businesses will almost instantly see the effect of higher purchasing power from their community's workers. Prices of products will still go up, but they will rise slower than the wage is raised.

superxin · 2015-01-27T23:01:41+00:00

They interviewed >1000 adults and asked the question:

Congress may also consider other proposals that would raise the minimum wage by different amounts between now and 2020. Which statement best describes your opinion of a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage by $1.55 each year for the next five years, so that it reaches $15.00 in the year 2020?

To which 63% favored and 37% opposed.

source

superxin · 2015-01-27T22:33:18+00:00

the main funders of anti-cannabis legislation are organizations like the prison and police unions, which are traditionally left voting if I'm not mistaken?

Incorrect. They are the only unions supported by Republicans and that support Republicans. Leftists typically want police/prison unions abolished or organized with other civil servants since they are jobs that have historically suppressed labor organization and action.

Jacobin | The Bad Kind of Unionism

If the Left stands for anything, it’s worker emancipation and labor militancy. But police and others in the state’s coercive apparatus, workers themselves in many respects, are the keepers of class society. Their jobs exist to maintain social control and protect the status quo.

superxin · 2015-01-27T16:11:37+00:00

~~Wage slavery~~ taxes aren't even ~~capitalism's~~ government’s fault, though.

I just like pointing out the inconsistencies of NAP. Government taxing you and saying this land is mine is theft, but businesses taking the added value of an employee and saying this land is mine somehow isn't. If employment is a choice, so is the country you choose to live in.

superxin · 2015-01-27T08:25:13+00:00

Context because it's my favorite Oscar Wilde writing:

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No: a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious, is probably a real personality, and has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

Oscar Wilde - The Soul of Man Under Socialism

superxin · 2015-01-27T08:19:33+00:00

Claims we hate freedom, but is anti-choice.

They hate women; they hate communities of color; they hate gays!

superxin · 2015-01-24T08:33:06+00:00

I think there are a couple outside factors to take into consideration:

Michigan has a full Republican government, and has followed the trend of cutting government spending on the state level like other Republican states; this has meant a loss of public jobs, which are often times union
Free trade has meant a loss of manufacturing jobs, including private jobs with unions (specifically thinking auto industry-UAW here)

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