Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[Random Guy]

I see some posts about money, debt, deficits, foreign aid support and NATO membership vs spending, etc.

 

I can offer some insight to this topic, whatever it's worth, as its not very complicated but rather unintuitive. Ultimately, this isn't the thread for this discussion, but... I'll add something here briefly hopefully to redirect energy toward the topic. 

 

First and foremost, money is debt (but what about coinage! we can talk about coins and barley and salt as well, but for now let's stick with money today).

 

This means that for every unit of money, such as a digital bank deposit in your account at USAA, has a corresponding debt component. So if you have $1 in your bank account, then someone, somewhere, has a $1 liability the owe to someone as well. This is true for all financial assets. For every contract there is always an asset and liability component, and these two always sum to zero at any given point in time.

 

When we say that you have $100,000 in your savings account, then I must have $100,000 in liabilities, if we are the only two account holders in this example. Here is an example of a bank holding 100k in loan contracts and the associated bank deposits. You have hoarded, I have borrowed (which created the money), and the bank created that money by writing the entries on its ledger. 

When we say that the Fed has X in debt, that means someone else has X in assets, typically Treasury securities. This number is not particularly relevant from the perspective of the US Gov, because it can create any amount of $USD at any time (the Fed just marks up an account holder at a Federal Reserve Bank, and likewise the recipient's bank will mark up their account holder's account [because you and I cannot be account holders at the Fed, we hold a lower tier of money known as commercial bank money]).

The US Gov's budgeting process is about allocating real resources, which are finite, and the $USD they create in order to assign these real resources to different tasks and projects is just a tool to facilitate allocation in a highly decentralized manner. In the periphery, away from direct state purchases, where we all spend most of our time acquiring and exchanging these units of money, we often misunderstand that the purpose of the currency was not and is not peripheral exchange between third parties in the state's unit of account ($USD). The purpose of the currency is to achieve objectives set out by the government.

Back to the question: when the US creates USD in a Federal Reserve Bank, for an account holder like a foreign bank and the recipient then spends those USD in a foreign market, real resources are assigned (if they were unemployed or idle) or re-assigned (lured away from existing employment or projects), and this is not directly related to the US itself--the US Gov is mobilizing real resources in a foreign territory. The US can spend any amount in foreign territories to allocate idle resources, or even 'overspend' if $USD is the predominant exchange currency and intentionally cause [classical monetary] inflation and associated disruption, for example. There is no 'trade off' between spending at home and spending on foreign aid, generally. When we say 'the US should be using that foreign aid at home'... Congress is generally ok with how income and wealth is distributed in the US, and spending more on certain people (say by spending the same amount as a given foreign aid program) would alter the distribution of income and wealth that Congress has rather carefully or clumsily sculpted, which would re-assign resources or employ people that they would prefer be unemployed.

 

Lastly, because money is debt, and all units are entries on bank ledgers, and the US gov controls the most important ledger (the Fed) which the rest of the world accumulates and holds as financial savings, there is no 'funding constraint' on US gov spending. That is, the US can always write numbers on its bank's ledger. What it can't do, is manifest a specific real resource upon command at a specific time. It must try to create that real resource over time by allocating resources that produce what it actually wants far ahead of time. From this perspective, the 'US National Debt' is not a particularly relevant number. And, if we want to consider this from a stability perspective, where system participants are each eager to be net savers of financial assets (because money is debt) there must be someone or something that holds the corresponding liabilities. Make sense?

 

 

[ViperMan]

1 hour ago, Random Guy said:

Make sense?

No. Framing something like this from such a one-sided perspective (i.e. money is debt) doesn't illuminate very much. You may as well re-write your whole post from the perspective that money is credit - it would be as valid and would make about the same amount of sense.

1 hour ago, Random Guy said:

Ultimately, this isn't the thread for this discussion, but... I'll add something here briefly hopefully to redirect energy toward the topic. 

Yeah, a post like this in the Russia/Ukraine discussion board is gyro-tumbling, but is seems you knew that??? Make a new thread if you want to discuss monetary theory.

[nunya]

  

1 hour ago, Guardian said:

What are you talking about? Republican Party started because it was anti slavery. Republicans in the 1950’s and 60’s were more likely to vote for civil rights bills than democrats. What are you talking about?

Trying to change history?

Freak out much?  The Democrats were the party of slavery because they were the party of the southern farm economy.  Now the same party depends on the black vote.

[waveshaper]

1 hour ago, Random Guy said:

Make sense?

 

 

A little more Gyro-Tumbling: This is way too complicated for my feeble-mind.  I'm with this crew on how to handle money, debt, deficits, foreign aid support, etc, etc. Let these guys run this shit-show for a few decades and see how things turnout. 

"Money for nothin' and your chicks for free (Dire Straits)"

https://vk.com/video-88133688_456239532

Edited May 16, 2022 by waveshaper

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, Random Guy said:

I see some posts about money, debt, deficits, foreign aid support and NATO membership vs spending, etc.

 

I can offer some insight to this topic, whatever it's worth, as its not very complicated but rather unintuitive. Ultimately, this isn't the thread for this discussion, but... I'll add something here briefly hopefully to redirect energy toward the topic. 

 

First and foremost, money is debt (but what about coinage! we can talk about coins and barley and salt as well, but for now let's stick with money today).

 

This means that for every unit of money, such as a digital bank deposit in your account at USAA, has a corresponding debt component. So if you have $1 in your bank account, then someone, somewhere, has a $1 liability the owe to someone as well. This is true for all financial assets. For every contract there is always an asset and liability component, and these two always sum to zero at any given point in time.

 

When we say that you have $100,000 in your savings account, then I must have $100,000 in liabilities, if we are the only two account holders in this example. Here is an example of a bank holding 100k in loan contracts and the associated bank deposits. You have hoarded, I have borrowed (which created the money), and the bank created that money by writing the entries on its ledger. 

When we say that the Fed has X in debt, that means someone else has X in assets, typically Treasury securities. This number is not particularly relevant from the perspective of the US Gov, because it can create any amount of $USD at any time (the Fed just marks up an account holder at a Federal Reserve Bank, and likewise the recipient's bank will mark up their account holder's account [because you and I cannot be account holders at the Fed, we hold a lower tier of money known as commercial bank money]).

The US Gov's budgeting process is about allocating real resources, which are finite, and the $USD they create in order to assign these real resources to different tasks and projects is just a tool to facilitate allocation in a highly decentralized manner. In the periphery, away from direct state purchases, where we all spend most of our time acquiring and exchanging these units of money, we often misunderstand that the purpose of the currency was not and is not peripheral exchange between third parties in the state's unit of account ($USD). The purpose of the currency is to achieve objectives set out by the government.

Back to the question: when the US creates USD in a Federal Reserve Bank, for an account holder like a foreign bank and the recipient then spends those USD in a foreign market, real resources are assigned (if they were unemployed or idle) or re-assigned (lured away from existing employment or projects), and this is not directly related to the US itself--the US Gov is mobilizing real resources in a foreign territory. The US can spend any amount in foreign territories to allocate idle resources, or even 'overspend' if $USD is the predominant exchange currency and intentionally cause [classical monetary] inflation and associated disruption, for example. There is no 'trade off' between spending at home and spending on foreign aid, generally. When we say 'the US should be using that foreign aid at home'... Congress is generally ok with how income and wealth is distributed in the US, and spending more on certain people (say by spending the same amount as a given foreign aid program) would alter the distribution of income and wealth that Congress has rather carefully or clumsily sculpted, which would re-assign resources or employ people that they would prefer be unemployed.

 

Lastly, because money is debt, and all units are entries on bank ledgers, and the US gov controls the most important ledger (the Fed) which the rest of the world accumulates and holds as financial savings, there is no 'funding constraint' on US gov spending. That is, the US can always write numbers on its bank's ledger. What it can't do, is manifest a specific real resource upon command at a specific time. It must try to create that real resource over time by allocating resources that produce what it actually wants far ahead of time. From this perspective, the 'US National Debt' is not a particularly relevant number. And, if we want to consider this from a stability perspective, where system participants are each eager to be net savers of financial assets (because money is debt) there must be someone or something that holds the corresponding liabilities. Make sense?

 

 

I hope you’re prepared to duck…

😎

[Guardian]

  
Freak out much?  The Democrats were the party of slavery because they were the party of the southern farm economy.  Now the same party depends on the black vote.

Read emotion into emotionless text much?

You still didn’t answer my question which is ultimately to please justify your original comment. Just because democrats depend on the black vote doesn’t equate to anything in your statement about flipping.

[nunya]

7 minutes ago, Guardian said:

Read emotion into emotionless text much?

You still didn’t answer my question which is ultimately to please justify your original comment. Just because democrats depend on the black vote doesn’t equate to anything in your statement about flipping.

If you can't see how supporting slavery to supporting BLM is flipping I can't help you.

[Guardian]

I didn’t say I don’t have my opinions.

I am just asking for you to explain your comment. Some people claim that making a federal and state that is a welfare state is making those who are being supported to support their agenda and the equivalent of societal slaves. Hence not a flip at all. Supporting BLM doesn’t equate to anti slavery. In fact one could say that BLM in inherently racist and bigoted.

Your argument up to this point doesn’t seem to hold water. Or if I am missing what you are saying, please explain.

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, nunya said:

If you can't see how supporting slavery to supporting BLM is flipping I can't help you.

What hasn't changed is how the Democratic party still strongly believes that race is a person's most important attribute in determining who they are. 

[BFM this]

Is this another General Chang thing?  We being trolled again?

[Day Man]

this shit has nothing to do with Ukraine/Russia

[DirkDiggler]

20 minutes ago, Day Man said:

this shit has nothing to do with Ukraine/Russia

2, I really hope this thread doesn’t devolve into another left vs right pissing contest, literally half a dozen other threads to argue that shit in.

[ClearedHot]

7 minutes ago, DirkDiggler said:

2, I really hope this thread doesn’t devolve into another left vs right pissing contest, literally half a dozen other threads to argue that shit in.

Amen,

Lets get back to how the Russians suck.  In this case deliberately hurting themselves to get off the battlefield.

 

[DirkDiggler]

  To get back on track, good video of another set of Russian BMP crews getting snuffed out.

[uhhello]

2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Amen,

Lets get back to how the Russians suck.  In this case deliberately hurting themselves to get off the battlefield.

 

Picked up a few of those in my career in AFG.  Probably not to the same scale as Ukraine operations though.  

[HeloDude]

There’s a line…and Demonrat crossed it. His recent posts and subsequent replies have been deleted.  

[DirkDiggler]

https://apple.news/AHHeYXlCnQh-8_FelwSQwVA
 

  Bunch of tough motherfuckers, hopefully they’re exchanged and get the recognition they deserve.

[Lord Ratner]

On 5/15/2022 at 12:06 PM, Prozac said:

This is a VERY recent development & it kind of boggles my mind. It has been far more common for traditional “leftists” to argue that military alliances, globalism, and extensive foreign aid (specifically military aid) should take a back seat to solving issues at home. It’s only recently that the nativist wing of the Republican Party has taken over and made this issue it’s own. The Republican Party I grew up with (the people you now call Rinos) remembered the lessons of the Second World War and understood the benefits of a more “globalist” (now a dirty word for the new “conservatives”) outlook and it was commonplace to see the more left leaning folks criticize them for it. I feel like I’m living in bizarro world now when I hear conservatives rabidly sounding the mil/industrial complex alarm and liberals advocating NATO expansion. 

Wasn't Eisenhower a republican?

 

Everything goes in waves. 

[BashiChuni]

were getting played by ukraine.

how many more BILLIONS are we going to give them?

 

[Boomer6]

On 5/19/2022 at 12:17 PM, BashiChuni said:

were getting played by ukraine.

how many more BILLIONS are we going to give them?

 

Ok, I’ll bite. How and why?

From my narrow military point of view, funding Ukraine is helping to weaken a near peer adversary. Also, I’m sure the nerds are picking apart as many of the Su-34s and Su-35s (not sure if it was multiple) components as they can to increase our SA on their capes and limitations. Additionally, I have to suspect we’re able to collect valuable data on Russian missile capes, particularly the Adder and it’s variants. No doubt there are significant amounts of intel the US can gain in all domains concerning how Russia executes combat operations.

From my narrow geopolitical point of view, if there is even a chance that our backing, along with a large number of other western/non-western nations, can push China’s timeline to the right on Taiwan, then I think it’s worth it. China is slowly distancing itself from Russia in certain aspects (to look good on the world stage of course), which will be ammunition for the rest of the world if they move against Taiwan. Ultimately, my belief is if our support for a non-NATO ally will make China rethink their plans for Taiwan and the timeline of their invasion, then the billions we’re spending in Ukraine will be a drop in the bucket to what I’m worried it will cost us in lives, assets, and treasure if China invades Taiwan in the next 10 years.

Europe reducing their reliance on Russian energy seems like a great way to cut the leash Putin has had around European leaders’ necks for some time. Hopefully that will make it easier for those same leaders to impose other sanctions on Russia without fear that their population will freeze to death. Not saying Europe has made it to this point yet, but they’re moving in the right direction. Russia, in some serious miscalculations, has helped the process along by cutting off power and demanding payment in rubles.

That’s all without addressing the horrible human toll that is taking place against non-combatants. I morally have issue with a government openly allowing their troops to rape and murder at will. For this reason alone I’m happy to send my taxpayer dollars to make sure those individuals get wiped from the earth.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Boomer6

[DirkDiggler]

  Another good video of Russians burning.

[08Dawg]

On 5/19/2022 at 6:38 AM, Boomer6 said:

Good words

Agreed. I really hope for the sake of the Ukrainian people that this doesn’t turn into a multi year slog ala Afghanistan, but I am absolutely thrilled to see the Russians getting their shit pushed in, and laughing at the absolutely incredible whiff Russian leadership made, both in how they thought the invasion would proceed, and in how they thought NATO would react. Now if somebody would just Operation Valkyrie Putin’s ass…

[DirkDiggler]

  Phenomenal shot of a Russian’s joyride cut tragically short.

[fire4effect]

On 5/19/2022 at 7:40 PM, DirkDiggler said:

  Another good video of Russians burning.

Love a good turret throwing contest

[Clayton Bigsby]

I thought this was an interesting read.  The stuff about the fight at Hostomel (Antonov) airport particularly.

https://thedebrief.org/know-no-mercy-the-russian-cops-who-tried-to-storm-kyiv-by-themselves/