For those who want to understand the basics of Monetary Economics, credit and Economy in general, I usually recommend seeing the video:
How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio
For more advanced knowledge, the video I post before:
Princes of the Yen by Richard Werner
@RLX did a degree in economics so I will watch the yen
Enjoy yourself. Itās becoming a little dated, but itās about Economic History, and Japan is still on a more or less the same situation. Europe and US have negative or near zero interest rates, and doing QEs due the COVID shock.
@RLX Just finished watching Princes of the Yen. So basically you have a group of american liberals that want to privatize the world in order to overthrow the old conservative order and to do so, they create financial crisis after financial crisis all over the place, ask for reforms in exchange of help and pressurize people until structural change is being widely asked for. The objective being the supremacy of financial markets on the world economy and the triumph of the american model of development.
Did I get that right (at least roughly) ?
For what I remember, as I saw the doc some time ago, I suppose you nail it.
The general idea, is a critique to economic and financial liberalism, Japanese & US monetary policies and the unchecked Central Banks power (for me, the Central Banks are puppet masters of all).
As liberal, I liked the doc, it make me think from a different point of view, although in some things, I had some differences of opinion. (I like to see different visions and opinions from mine, it helps growing up.)
I mean the video is a bit manipulating itself, teaching us something but not the full picture.
The situation is to complex to be understood in such a short span of time, but I have to agree when the IMF came to Romania in the 90s their policy was not very good.
But the question is if the trend of interest rates are to be low and negative for the next decades, will cash move into stocks/crypto/ housing market making them more unaffordable?
We canāt predict the future nor should we need toā¦
Maybe we are destined after all to be like Japan, low growth, a more sustainable future and who knowsā¦
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Romania source: Wikipedia
Removing the restrictions on prices led to a 250% inflation.[16] The IMF identified the monetary surplus, rather than the economic depression, as the main priority for the government[17] and the government tried to limit as much as possible the spending, having a budget surplus in 1991.[18] This program led to a crisis which affected much of the economy, leading to the impossibility for companies to pay their suppliers (arrears reached 40% of the companiesā turnover).[17]
The government broke the terms of the agreement in order to prevent a collapse of the entire economy, forcing the National Bank to take over debts from state-owned companies.[17] The IMF canceled the stand-by agreement and recommended the National Bank to force the companiesā to pay their credits before maturation, thereby neutralizing much of the effects of the governmentās program.[17] This led to the collapse of a third of the nationās industry and the destruction of nearly one million jobs.[17]
Another agreement was signed in November 1991, Romania getting $300 million in IMF loans and $200 million in other loans. In exchange for this loans, Romania agreed to take austerity measures resulting in higher food and fuel prices.[19]
The IMF also demanded raising the prices of energy to international levels despite the fact that Romanian energy was cheaper to produce.[21] Due to these divergences, both the 1993 and the 1995 agreements with the IMF failed, the Fund arguing that the state violated the independence of the central bank by demanding lower interest rates.[21]
And then people in the west wonder why so many Romanians, because we lost so many jobs in the 90s!
The Romanian diaspora is the fifth largest in the world and is growing. In 2015/16, around 3.6 million people born in Romania were living in OECD countries, of which 54% were women.
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www.oecd-ilibrary.org āŗ sites āŗ comā¦
@RLX I sort of understand the idea behind the liberal doctrine. They wanted to find a way to redistribute wealth more efficiently through market mechanisms rather than having some sort of state aristocracy in charge. Only problem is they fucked it up big time causing tremendous pain, loss of confidence and anger everywhere. In the end, state control and intervention might be a necessary evil even if liberals donāt like it. Let me thank you for the time you took exchanging ideas. Itās always nice 
@Tedk99 I havenāt read that book but Iām sort of familiar with the idea. I donāt think degrowth is the way to go. Iām not saying itās a bad idea but it would require a cultural revolution so great that Iām not even sure it would be compatible with our human nature. Denying human nature is probably the worse thing to do. People donāt want to compromise with the shit they own. If anything itās the complete opposite. In France where I live, we had the Gilets Jaunes movement because of a gazoline price increase and higher taxes. That movement lead to a mini revolution that is still going on now. We have riots all the time and this is the case in many countries across the globe. And that not even the beginning of a degrowth policy. There is no point saving nature if we lose social cohesion on the way. I will try and get a copy of the book and read it but Iām skeptical to say the least thx
@Tedk99 So far this is whatās going on and unless some policies are put into place I donāt see why it would stop unfortunately. And if it doesnāt stop we will have social unrest. The level of inequalities we have right now is a social disaster in the making.
Edit: got the book on PirateBay 
@Enlil I see what u mean.
Tha k you for the time in getting the book.
Compounding the economy every year and doubling it it is not sustainable as the earth has limited resources but read the book if u can please.
I agree with you, the doc have some bias and not complete, but we have to see beyond that, some matters are relevant. Japanese economic history seems so far away from Europe and US, that this doc is breath of air.
The IMF is US-controlled/biased, they have their own agenda, and there recipe is almost the same, austerity and the same results, worse social and economy. Reading your transcript about the 90ās Romania IMF intervention, resembles the IMF intervention in 2011-2015 in Portugal (troika intervention).
And the Romania diaspora is 2nd after Siria a war torn country.
But Germany and the west got a lot of working class people IN Romanias disadvantage.
The problem with liberalism as with other ideology is human weakness, the greed, egoism, power hungry, etc.
I think that there isnāt a perfect economic ideology (the political ideology is just a mirror of economic ideology), not 100% liberalism, but not also a 100% centralized economy (state-control).
The free-markets and economy (liberalism) is the first decentralized mindset that exists, even before the Bitcoin and similar assets. Is like no one controls everything, the people regulate themselves, wisdom of the crowds, which served as base to statistical distributions and models.
Charts and graphs can reverse they arenāt one way. Why canāt they start increasing interest rates in a few years? Company goes bust someone gains from it somewhere the money/assets donāt disappear. Ever heard destruction breeds creation? In my eyes 5G, EV, autonomous vehicles etc will form a new kondratiev wave. Why cant we a see a ānew dealā 2.0? Donāt have heard mentality, itās never that simple. Negative interest rates wouldnāt work, stupid idea.
The 700 year trend tells a different story
Countries are loading up more debt also because of growing existing tax evasion and aggressive tax optimization by the rich people, national and multinational companies.
When countries donāt have enough revenues (taxes), they must ask for loans (bonds mainly). Or face the unpopular alternative of raising the taxes for middle and lower classes.
A recent alternative is financialization of the public services though PublicāPrivate Partnership (PPP) that outsource the State functions and costs in the end more than if the State did itself.
Donāt forget the conflict of interests between the politicians, public servants and the tax dodgers.
I learnt a lot about the UK establishment with this documentary:
The Spiderās Web: Britainās Second Empire based on āTreasure Islandsā book by Nicholas Shaxson
The author estimates in the book that around $12 trillion, a quarter of the worldās wealth, goes untaxed in tax havens. If banks and companies were included, the amount would be at least twice that. Every FTSE 100 company has subsidiaries or partners in tax havens to avoid tax.
1897 - perpetual bond rate UK - 2.2%
1974 - perpetual bond rate UK - 14.2%
It goes up and down?
700 year trend sounds like something a bitcoin guru would come up with.
Iām skeptical about that. If they really believed in the wisdom of the crowd, they wouldnāt have manipulated people for decades in order to manufacture consent for their new world order. Actually one of the reasons for populism success is exactly that: a feeling of having been betrayed by an elite that decided it had supra-national and supra-democratic rights to decide for all of us. So Iād say they believe in the wisdom of the crowd in theory but not really in practice. But as you said, behind every system, you have human nature and itās always fucking things up somehow. That will never changeā¦
@Tedk99 Iāve started ready the book. What is being said more or less corroborates what I knew already. Yet I think itās delusional to think itās doable. If you make a link with our current discussion: look at the mess to simply try and transition from a conservative capitalism to a more liberal one. Global clusterfuck. So I canāt even start to imagine the allergic reaction of society if decision was made tomorrow to degrowth (even though it might lead to a better life in the end). One thing that the author is forgetting is that pollution is more and more connected to countries like China or India that are really gaining momentum. Good luck explaining to them, theyāll have to degrowth. They donāt give a ā ā ā ā : they wanna better their lives. Same in Africa where the population bomb is starting to blow up. I think humans are simply to dumb to cope with the sacrifices needed. Will finish the book though 
@Gfclappah Donāt you think all those destructive creation and kondratiev wave theories are essentially bullshit ? I mean itās based on an historical record as thin as cigarette paper and it seems to me it has more to do with our old human habit of seeing patterns where there is nothing than anything else. Those things are the reason Iām having a hard time seeing economy as a science. 
Regardless of your chart interest rates were pretty much at their highest ever in the 70s 80sā¦this is looking at BOE data using sources dating back to 3000BC lol. Plus using nominal rates or whatever what do you expect merchants/historical banks would rip off people as loan sharks in medevial times, more regulation to protect consumers now and loans were not available to peasants like us.
