I think we both agree that capitalist logic is inherently extractive, exploitative and generally unhealthy. What I’ve been trying to point out is that we should not cherish deflationary tendencies in China or seek deflation in our own economies as a solution of sorts to the cost of living crisis, but rather pursue the power to increase our wages to at least match our ever rising productivity. In my opinion, unionizing –hard as it is– is more feasible than changing our monetary system –necessary and desirable as that would be– or overcoming capitalism.

Maybe we should see increasing prices for energy… And let “the free and open market” fully control how much consumers pay for fossil fuels at the pump?

Although I’m all for letting free market advocates get fisted by the invisible hand they worship, high energy prices have arguably contributed to the wave of obnoxious populism sweeping the world. I’m not saying we should keep fossil fuels to cater to the angry and fearful; I’m saying the transition should be more managed, because the sudden economic disruption you suggest is politically fraught.

My understanding is that a slight and stable increase in the money supply is beneficial regardless of the monetary system in use, because it incentivizes economic activity. That said, I’m only somewhat familiar with our current fractional-reserve banking system and don’t know enough about other systems, historical or hypothetical, to present my understanding as fact.

If money should never become an asset worth holding, how can inflation be better than deflation for the working class?

It’s deflation that turns money into an asset worth holding and thus slows down economies. Too much inflation isn’t good either, for different reasons. A slight and stable inflation is the sweet spot.

Proportionately, the rich hold a lot more money assets than the poor, who generally don’t hold any or very little.

Indeed, the rich do proportionately hold a lot more money than the poor, but it isn’t much. The rich mostly have shares in corporations, bonds and real estate.

Inflation is generally worse for workers because the rich have more pricing power. If both your living expenses and your income after taxes increased by 20%, you’d even end up with more money than before, assuming your living expenses were a fraction of your income. Unfortunately, prices haven’t risen equally; the cost of living increase has generally outpaced real wage growth. The rich have been able to set higher prices; workers haven’t been able to extract high enough wage raises.

Neither high inflation nor deflation are good for workers. What workers need is pricing power through strong unions and political support.

Those predictions said: “if things stay the course, Russia will run out”. Things didn’t stay the course: Russia got drones from Iran, shells and soldiers from North Korea, and so on.

Let’s say a company makes X amount in profits in 2024, and everyone—employees, shareholders, stakeholders—are happy and well-compensated. Why should the expectation be that profits must increase in 2025, even if the company is already performing well?

Many of the products and services that businesses depend on will or might raise in price. This is by design; most central banks target a low inflation rate, often around 2%. Without an increase in profits, raising prices on inputs will eat away at a business’ profit margin.

China owns large parts of the debt of the US. Deflation makes them stronger.

I don’t follow you here. How does deflation in China make the debt of the US stronger? Am I understanding you wrong?

If the renminbi appreciated over time against the US dollar, any dollar-denominated debt held by the People’s Republic would yield less and less, wouldn’t it?

“The economy” in this instance being a playground for the rich.

People won’t stop paying for food or rent just because their money might be worth a little more tomorrow.

Indeed, people won’t stop paying for everyday necessities, but the economy consists of more than just individual people: there’s the state and there are businesses too. You conflate the latter with “the rich”, which is generally true for corporations, but corporations are not the only form of business; there are cooperatives, partnerships, and others which can distribute profits more fairly. In any case, deflation affects all businesses, including fair ones, and the state itself. As another commentator suggested, money is meant to change hands and should never become an asset worth holding.

They feign concern about the national debt.

Exactly. Government debt promotes wealth concentration: instead of paying tax, the rich lend their money, earning interest on it. They do not advocate for less government spending to “balance the books”, but to (a) make people more reliant on their employers and thus supress wages (“labour cost”) and (b) weaken the state agencies that check their power. I’m convinced every Republican threat of a government shutdown is a bluff.

So what should be done to the country that blew up Germany’s oil pipes?

Thank them, whomever they were, for forcing Germany to finally move on from an economic model that was untenable not only for her international partners, but for her own population. Had the Nord Stream pipelines not been so severely damaged, the prospect of cheap industrial inputs may once more have tempted the business establishment to sell out Germany’s partners and public interest for higher private margins; now, even if the upcoming election should yield a government friendlier towards Russia, rebuilding the Nord Stream pipelines –and with them a Trojan horse that had been looming over the European project– would be impracticable.

The reason they’re cheaper is because they don’t need to charge tax on them.

I understand. Thank you for confirming it.

I’ve heard people here in Europe sometimes save on cigarettes in a similar way, by buying them across the border, where taxes are lower, or in duty-free shops at airports, but that’s possibly outdated or even made-up hearsay I’ve never checked.

That’s interesting there isn’t anything on wiki about it. It’s not a secret or anything.

There may be something I missed, or it might be such an inconsequential and uncontroversial phenomenon that no one deemed it worth documenting.

Reservation cigarettes negate those prices though.

TIL that, on at least some Indian reservations in the United States, cigarettes are sold, sold at a lower price and sold to the general public. I could not find a reference on Wikipedia; all I found was a seemingly unofficial webpage.

I see. I find it sad and alarming that a disease, however infectious, would reach Antarctica and wreak such havoc, but then again, all ecosystems are ultimately linked and little ever stays local. Thank you for replying and linking a source.

To my knowledge, Zelenskyy only expressed support for Israel after October the 7th, 2023, over a year and a half after Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine — a year and a half during which Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority could have condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine. They didn’t, presumably, for the same reason Zelenskyy has expressed support for Israel: to avoid antagonizing their allies, morals be damned. Given their dire situation –both Ukraine and the Palestinians rely heavily on their respective allies for military and diplomatic support–, I think we ought to give them a pass. If you disagree, at least apply the same logic to both and condemn them equally.

If building them becomes difficult because of missing materials, the prices would rise, which is not happening at the moment.

Solar panels have indeed become cheaper and cheaper, and you are right to argue that the materials used to build solar panels are priced in. However, solar requires some infrastructure besides the panels themselves, such as inverters and storage, and that infrastructure needs additional materials, some of which are expensive. Copper, for instance, surged in price in 2020, and there is not enough investment to expand mining operations despite the great profits it has been yielding. This is an ongoing saga in the mining industry, with BHP attempting to take over Anglo American in part for its copper portfolio.

I am not arguing against solar; I just think it cannot be scaled to the extent necessary to cover most of our current and projected future electricity consumption. To get rid of fossil fuels and generate ever more electricity for EVs, the AI black hole and goddamn cryptocurrencies, I think we will need nuclear. I wish we would build more public transportation, break from the AI spell and ban cryptocurrencies, but I’m not hopeful. In any case, the pace solar has picked up these past years is very encouraging and we should do what we can to push it further.

That article is a sobering read. I wasn’t aware of the extent of the spread and thank you for sharing it.

If pigs get it […]. That’s how the “spanish” flu started in the USA.

That is indeed a theory, hypothesized in a paper from 2005 and mentioned on the Wikipedia article about the Spanish flu:

[The hospital] also was home to a piggery and poultry was regularly brought in from surrounding villages to feed the camp. Oxford and his team postulated that a precursor virus, harbored in birds, mutated and then migrated to pigs kept near the front.

Because pigs are more readily infected with avian influenza viruses than are humans, they were suggested as the original recipients of the virus, passing the virus to humans sometime between 1913 and 1918.

[I fact-check as much as my time and preexisting knowledge allow. I post what I found to vouch for your comment and save other people time. I hope I don’t come across in the wrong way.]

penguin populations in the arctic

There are no penguins in the Arctic and the article you linked to doesn’t mention them. Where has bird flu infected penguins?

I would characterize Tesla stock not as a pump & dump scheme anymore, but as a bet on Musk’s position to extract concessions from his political connections. He has got his way already with Trump planning to end EV subsidies that mostly benefited Tesla’s competitors (although Trump may have intended to do so anyway) and he might yet push against regulation that would threaten Tesla’s market position in the US, like federal charging standards. He may also get Trump to impose harsher tariffs on Chinese electrical vehicles than he otherwise would, although such tariffs enjoy bipartisan support.

To be fair :P, English is not my mother tongue, so I don’t necessarily realize how pedantic some expressions I use come across. Fair enough?

To be fair, fearing for one’s life is understandable in a society where gun ownership, social injustice and mental illness are not only relatively widespread, but correlated, and the chances of being hurt in even simple altercations correspondingly high. The solution, though, is not allowing police to resort to violence routinely, disproportionately and indiscriminately, but to address the root causes of the danger with socioeconomic justice and safeguards, proper universal healthcare and at least some restrictions in gun ownership. Those who either aren’t willing to solve these underlying issues or deny their existence outright often resort to the charge of terrorism as both a convenient deflection and an instrument of suppression and oppression. It is in our interest to push back against such misuse and keep the public discourse centered on the origins of conflict.

If I understand your quotation correctly, unlawful gathering warrants the charge of terrorism only when “intended to […] (a) influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and (b) affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping”. Then again, (a) and (b) seem redundant and the law and the judiciary might see intimidation or coercion where we do not.