Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Econ Lessons" channel.

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  9.  @peter-pi8bc  I do not wanna get into politics and tell people to vote for this or that party, and I think republicans and democrats have their reasons to vote they way they do. However, I cannot ignore the utter hypocrisy of the Christian rightwing in the Republican party that made an impeachment on Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky... as if this issue has anything to do with his ability to govern the country. 🙄 And don't get me wrong, I have no love for Bill Clinton. I believe that the average Republican probably likes him more than I do. And yes cheating on ones wife is a scumbag move, but I do not think this is a political issue. With that said, do I think it is utterly hypocritical that the republican party 20 years later makes all kinds of apologies for Trumps behaviour with talking points like "we have all done bad things in our past", "we all made stupid mistakes in our youth" and yada yada... And sure one could have that opinion. But then one should also grant that generousity of forgiveness to ones political opponents as well. And I do not think Trump was exactly young as a spring chicken when he made his "locker room talk" on the bus and the things he is going to court for now. A man with less power, influence and fame would certainly have been convicted by now if he had done the same acts like Trump when he violated the 14th ammendment. I realize that the courts would not dare to give him a just sentence before he loses the election, because otherwise might the entire federal government lose trust with almost half of the US electorate... which could have very serious and dangerous consequences for the future of the country, and perhaps even a civil war. This stupid circus needs to stop. I hope Biden will win next september and put the last nail in the coffin for MAGA. Trump might then be too old to ever run again for president. Tucker might have a hard time replacing him as the MAGA successor. And the other names in the party are too radical and too weak to get anywhere. Taylor Greene is even hated among fellow radical republicans.
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  11. I think the mentality was formed of this time period. When you look at old peoples homes you always see them save up things, including total garbage. They truely embraced the 2nd hand trend so to say. They rather kept things and tried to repair them than throwing them away. And in old peoples homes you can see old ugly butter packages being repurposed after the butter is gone, and becoming used as boxes. Compare that to the current day mentality of throwing away things and buying something new. Its often cheaper to buy a new computer than repairing and old lap top that is a little bit broken. I think that says a lot. Resources was scarce during the great depression and people had to make do with what ever little they had. And even if some people did get rich and succesful later on, would their values and habits still live on long after the economic crisis was gone and economic growth was strong. Its also clear that people have their worldview stuck in the past. People who had their worldview formed in the 1950s often have an over romanticised view of free trade, the EU and an obsessive fear about inflation leading to Hitler. We who was born in the 1980s see a society without any progress like more vacation, shorter workdays, better healthcare, better pensions, full employment. But rather a failed economy without affordable housing where it is hard to form families and have kids. I think there are pros and cons with those worldviews and values. One thing I think we should however avoid is to let these biases of the elderly generations getting too much power over decision making. I think outdated beliefs are harmful. Just like using tactics that worked on the battlefields of the old days do more harm than good on a modern battlefield. The worldview must constantly be updated. Just like the military. Walking in line formations and wearing colorful uniforms and letting flutes and drums play is not very effiecent if you fight against an enemy with minefields, machine guns, barbed wire, and HIMARS artillery. Many laws of economics from the past are still valid today, just like some general principles of strategy and logistics. However the world today is not the same as in the past. And that needs to be taken into account.
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  12. I think most improvement reforms in history have taken place after disasters, and when people are angry and will not take it anymore and the working class and middle class demand for example the right to vote and universal healthcare and veterans benefits in exchange for fighting for the capitalists against USSR or Hitler. In France it was 1789 that led to the French revolution and the end of the ineffiecent parasitical feudal state. The disasterous defeat of Denmark in 1658 led to the end of the corrupt rule of the nobles, and a strong Danish state was created with a permanent tax system that could support a standing army. In the past did Denmark not have any peace time army since the nobles did not wanna pay taxes for it. And as a result did the Danish army not have any well trained regiments, and the armies were quickly put togheter in times of war against Sweden who had a well trained army with men who had trained togheter with each other for years and therefore knew each other well and would fight and die for their best friends. That team spirit did not exist in the Danish army before a new army was created that existed both in times of peace and war. Likewise did Swedens military setback against Poland at Kircholm in 1605 force drastistic military changes to how the military was organized. And the defeat against Denmark in 1613 forced Sweden to make drastic changes to its tax system and resource mobilization. And the result of these changes made Sweden the strongest military power in Europe of the 1600s, capable of conquering Moscow in 1610, defeating Denmark twice, occupying all of modern day Germany in 1630 and defeating the might Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And the rise of corrupt nobles that put self-interest before national interest and refused to spend taxes for a strong military led to the disasterous Scanian war for Sweden in 1679. And the result became strong public anger, and the King, the people, the clergy and the mechant class united against the nobles and forced them to resign much of the wealth they had gained the last decades. And the result became good government finances and a strong military. The catastrophic defeat of Japan 1853, forced the country to make drastic changes to its society. It modernized it military according to German model, its navy according to the British model, its education system to the american model and later on German model, its banking system and legal system was modelled after Belgium and France and so on. And soon would Japan rise as a great strong economic power and a military power. So necessity seems to be a mother of innovation.
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  15.  @D.von.N  I think British innovation fell behind the curve during the second industrial revolution when German and American industry grew and outclassed Britain in the new growth industries such as electro-mechanics, chemicals, combustion engines (cars etc), petroleum, and steel. Britain got outcompeted. And its free trade dogma prevented it from protecting its own industry from foreign competition like the Germans and Americans had done, so its industry got crushed in foreign competition after the 1860's. But Britain itself never fell into ruins because it had two other large sources of income: Banking and the merchant marine. The majority of all goods in the world was transported on British ships and Britain got an income for that from other countries. And British banks did give out loans to other countries, like Latin America to build railroads and the interest from all those loans flowed into Britain and helped to keep Britains economy afloat while its industry was doing so poorly. The overseas income from loans from colonies and dominions was of course also important. However the unwillingness to deal with Britains weak industrial performance did become harmful to Britain in the long run. I also don't think exploitation made Britain rich. Rather was it the early adoption of thought-through industrial policy that made Britain the workshop of the world. Edward III (1327-1377) is believed to have been the first king who deliberately tried to develop local wool cloth manufacturing. He banned the imports of foreign wool clothes and encouraged home based production of such clothes. The Netherlands was a world leader in this industry at that time - it was an industry considered the ultimate high tech industry of its time, so the Netherlands was considered the Silicon Valley of that time period. However the British wool industry was protected from being outcompeted and destroyed by foreign competition thanks to the protective tariffs. So the British wool industry could grow larger, and more effiecent. And later on would it become strong enough to outcompete and destroy competitors from the Netherlands, and Britain become the high tech economy of the world.
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  24. Freedom and self-determination is the most important thing. Silly imperalist games is a mindset that should belong to the 1500s and 1600s. It only brings about deaths and pointless wars. Russia should focus on their own land instead of trying to steal others land and spend money to subvert democracy in other countries and make hostile take overs by bribing foreign politicians. If russia do not like that happen to themselves, then they should stay out from other countries internal affairs. Russia already got the biggest landmass on the planet. And if global warming is true, and the rest of the world turns into desert, then will russia have more lands available in Siberia when the snow is gone. Russia have great oppurtunities. It just have to focus inwards instead of playing silly imperialist games. And frankly, with such a tiny economy and technological backwardness is it impossible for russia to play the game of big politics in the long run. If a country cannot build stealth fighters and is too poor to build CATOBAR aircraft carriers then it cannot play the role as a world power. Russia is trying to play poker with a pair of fives at their hand. And a tiny wallet of a few ten thousand dollar notes does not take you far when USA and China got millions. And then are many other players far stronger than russia.. like Japan that is much richer and more technologically advanced, or India with nukes, a huge army, a large economy and endless manpower reserves. And EU with its much larger economy, technological advantage and larger population.
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  25. Russia will never become an east-asian miracle economy, and especially not in times of war. And all ridiculous talk about BRICS being their ally (which they are not) are they still a minority of the world economy while west still controls 60% of it. And some countries that are not western or BRICS do also control some portions of the world economy as well. Regardless I think the russian government is not dumb enough to believe its own silly propaganda that is created to appeal to simpletons. Their goal is wage a succesful war economy. And I do not think that will succeed as they run low on good microchips and foreign currency reserves that will allow them to buy stuff from other countries. They are already rather bring back old garbage tanks like T-62 to life rather than building modern T-90 tanks. And I think that says a lot about russias lack of manufacturing capabilities. And when russia lose as much manpower in the last 5 days as they lost in 10 years of war in Afghanistan, then I think they are burning through Soviet stockpiles at such a fast rate that manufacturing cannot keep up and replace all losses of equipment. There are of course stuff the west needs to do to harm russia even more. We should put pressure on Turkey so they stop providing 70% of russias nitrocellulose they need for explosives. Before the war did Turkey only make up 1% of that export to Russia. And China should be aware of that any aid to russia will be punished very hard with sanctions from Europe. If things continue on the current path do things not look good for russia. By 2025 will west outproduce russia in artillery shells. And in better quality of artillery. From that moment onwards will Ukraine be able compensate a lack of manpower with superior fire power. And that advantage will only grew more and more. And that will mean lower Ukrainian losses and higher russian losses. And Ukraine could start trading artillery shells for land and take back its territory.
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  27. There are evil people who were vegetarians like Hitler. And there were evil people who were meat eaters like Pol Pot. Some of histories worst mass murderers were Muslims and Christians, while others were atheists. For some of them did religion play a big role in their motivation for killing people, while in other cases had their religion nothing to do with their deeds. In Putins case, it seems like he is just a soulless person. He cares about himself, and his ideology seems to be russian imperalism and supremacism. He wants a life in endless luxury and expanding the russian empire and he is prepared to walk over millions of dead bodies to get reach his goal. He knows that what he is doing is wrong but do it anyways. This war was always totally avoidable. Just like his other wars. Before the invasion 2022 he even manufactured hitlists for Ukrainians he wanted arrested and murdered. Ukrainian patriots and people in leadership position that had the potential to lead a rebellion against the new russian opressive russian rule was to be murdered the same way as the nazis murdered people in Poland as they hoped to destroy Polish culture and national identity. Professors, teachers, Officers, priests and even boy scouts were killed by the nazis in their 'Intelligenzaktion' and Putin have copied this recipy. Putin was even so disgusting that he provided his invasion army with crematorium trucks - another idea borrowed from the nazis I guess - so that he could burn all people wanted to kill into ashes. And without any dead bodies in mass graves would there not be any evidence left that could help to prove that Putin was commiting a genocide. Putins regime has even sunk so low that they built torture chambers for children in Khersun. And stealing Ukrainian children and murdering their parents is another idea he borrowed from the nazis. Just like all nazi talking points to justify his invasion with "retaking russian historical lands" and "protecting the opressed russian minority inside Ukraine/Georgia". Truth is that he does not care one bit about the russian speakers in Ukraine. Its not just Ukrainian speaking cities he have destroyed, but he has also destroyed the russian speaking city Mariupol and killing 200.000 civilians in the process. And he have done daily missile attacks against other russian speaking towns like Odesa, Charkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizjzja. To me Putin just seem like a childish nazi wannabe ruling a mafia gang.
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  37. I think a problem with Spains Latin American empire was that it was exploitative. Native americans was enslaved. Many died from diseases, and some died from harsh treatment and in violent uprisings. So many died that Spain felt it was better to transition towards a semi-slavery/semi-paid labor workforce. So the native Americans took a forced labor job for spain and got underpaid, over-taxed, over-charged for the food and other stuff they were forced to buy from their slave masters, and the Spainish crown and the local rulers got very rich, while the native americans became very poor. Society became unequal, and this prevented the rise of a mass consumer economy and therefore could no mass production economy rise either when people were too poor to buy good that were produced. And when England began to rule the waves it became difficult for Spain to rely on their old economic model of selling things to Asia and maintain division of labor. And when the silver mines ran out of silver, then did the economic engine that kept all other industries alive also die out. And places like Mexico deindustrialized. So sucking the value out as much as possible and letting the rich benefit at the expense of the many is a recipy for economic stagnation. However economic resources can be a big help to make countries rich - USA and Sweden shows that. But thankfully can also countries witout much natural resources also become rich thanks to innovation and manufacturing - like Japan, Prussia, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea. Countries that are cold can become rich like Scandinavia and Canada. Countries that are hot tropical climate can also become rich like Singapore. Landlocked countries like Switzerland and Austria have also became rich. So I think that geological determinism belongs to a time of the past.
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