Comments by "Wojtek The Bear" (@wojtekthebear4958) on "The History of Paper Money - Barebones Economy - Extra History - Part 3" video.

  1. As long as you took out an affordable loan that you shouldn't have much trouble with, it's perfectly fine, even beneficial. If you default on it though, it's horrible. It's not a one size fits all kind of deal.
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  2. That video is so factually inaccurate that it's not even funny.
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  3. But you already took trade ideas so what are you going to do?
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  4. Mercantilism is better understood as the belief that trade is zero-sum. If one person benefits from it, the other must lose. This is wrong economic thinking though as trade improves the productivity of both countries as shown here (http://www.policonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/Production-Possibility-Frontier.jpg). Points A and B are the productivity levels of the two countries without trade or under mercantilist theory, and point D is the productivity levels of both countries with trade.
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  5. Eh, possibly? Probably not. There are several characteristics something needs to have before it is considered "money". These can be found here: https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1207/money/money-explained/ The biggest problems I see coming up is A: How to store all the energy once bought/produced, and B: How to easily distribute it. This distribution would be different from the one we have today as we are talking about spacefaring civilization across multiple planets, not a single nation on a continent like the US. Furthermore, you run the risk of the energy being used to cause hyperinflation since it's production isn't being regulated. Even if not, it definitely would have higher inflation than something like the USD, meaning it wouldn't be a good store of value.
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  6. ....You mean economists? Specifically monetary economists?
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  7. Well I'm getting a degree in economics and listen a lot to economists in the field as well as Federal Reserve reports so....a lot. I don't pay attention to sports at all, but I'm not going to claim that no one is analyzing or paying attention to them.
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  8. Unlike what a lot of Trump supporters will tell you, the tax breaks are almost definitely a net negative. In economics there is what's known as the Laffer Curve: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/2009/09/laffer-curve.jpg Basically at a 1% tax rate on income the government just isn't making enough revenue, and at a 99% tax rate on income people aren' incentivized to work for an income, meaning the government still doesn't get enough revenue. Somewhere between the two is a point where the government can maximize revenue without hurting incentives too much. The US current tax system is to the left of this point. Because of this, the tax cuts will be revenue negative for the US government. As our government provides critical resources to the economy and already runs a deficit, this is definitely not a good thing. Some countries like France are probably to the right of this maximum point and could increase revenue from this, but we are not France. Recent economic history: China's industry grew way faster than economists in the US thought it would, leading to a lot of displacement in the US work force due to our trade with China. That was the early 2000's anyway. Since before even the Financial Crisis automation has been the main job displacer (not job killer. Big difference). This has resulted in a lot of the US' unskilled workforce being left unemployed and without sufficient means to acquire a new stable job. Even when the economy started to improve after the Financial Crisis and jobs began to return, they didn't return in these unskilled industries, leading to a dissatisfied workforce in some areas. Trump blamed the immigrants and unfair trade deals (which is laughable to most economists), committed a huge lump of labor fallacy: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lump-of-labour-fallacy.asp and so here we are, undoing a lot of the work we helped create, and annoying our trade partners in the process. 99% of economists support free trade with government programs set up to help the disadvantaged. The problem was that these programs weren't prepared for the amount of worker displacement seen because of China's growing industry. Even then, this is still a big slap in the face for a vast majority of economists: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/free-trade
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