dtwest

Your core assumption is that flooding the system with money will cause inflation. However, in many modern cases we do not see that occurring in the traditional sense. Recently CPI-based inflation is non existent in the large economies of the world, but asset inflation is, which exacerbates wealth/income inequality and leaves the potential for a Japanese-style "Lost Decade" (which has been going on for much longer than 10 years at this point).

Asset bubbles, misallocation of capital, and mortgaging the future to support the present are the pressing concerns with easy money that should be addressed.

I completely agree, my understanding of why the US did not is due to India's ties with the Soviet Union and Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Russia_relations

Would love to hear more detail from those who know more on the subject.

My point was that this technology should not be used as evidence, and should not be grounds to take any forceful action against someone. If a cop abuses this, it is the cop's fault and we should hold them accountable. If the cop acted ignorantly because they were lied to by marketers, their boss, or a software company, those parties should be held accountable as well.

If your strategy is to get rid of all pretexts for police action, I don't think that is the right one. Instead we need to set a high standard of conduct and make sure it is upheld. If you don't understand a tool, don't use it. If you do something horrible while using a tool you don't understand, it is negligent/irresponsible/maybe even malevolent, because it was your responsibility to understand it before using it.

A weatherman saying there is a 90% chance of rain is not evidence that it rained. And I understand the fear that a prediction can be abused, and we need to make sure it isn't abused. But abolishing the weatherman isn't the way to do it.

Software can kill if we put blind trust in it and give it full control over the situation. But we shouldn't do that.

Even if it was correct 99% of the time, we need to recognize that software can make mistakes. It is a tool, and people need to be responsible enough to use it correctly. I think I agree with your general idea here, but to put all of the blame on software strikes me as an incomplete assessment. Technically the software isn't killing anyone, irresponsible users of it are.

Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma! - First Book of Bokonon

I don't think what the US did was as bad as Versailles (which was a disaster). And I don't see how it was eye for an eye. Japan attempted global domination and genocide with their friend Nazi Germany. Eye for an eye implies an equal punishment, what could be equal to that? Certainly not restrictions on semiconductor development and forced currency rebalancing. Lets keep things in context here.

War occupations are never rosy, I didn't mean to paint it that way. But you could certainly make the argument it was rosy compared to the Japanese occupation of China.

Or maybe traced to WW2. Let's not forget what Japan did to get the US involved at all. After Japan surrendered, the US helped Japan back on their feet, much to the surprise of many older Japanese who were expecting to be raped and pillaged. After all, that's what Japan was doing to China at the time, and probably what it had planned to do to the US if they won.

I don't see how it is mind boggling that the winner of an armed conflict would try to install a friendly post war government. Or that the US still had influence lasting decades after the conflict.

I am replying to a comment which stated:

> But in the past few years they have started committing to "returning 100% of free cash flow to investors"

I was not commenting on IBM's long term history. They made short sighted decisions, I think everyone can see that. As it stands now, investors don't want to give them any more money to continue along that path.

Companies like Amazon reinvest in themselves with no dividend. Investors encourage this because they believe in what Amazon is investing in.

Just wanted to provide a different perspective on why dividends/distributions are desired by investors in certain scenarios. A common view on here is that Wall Street is ruining things, but it is often a much more nuanced situation.

There is another way of looking at this. IBM isn't what it used to be, it is essentially a consulting company rather than an R&D powerhouse. Investors are not particularly excited about its growth prospects and do not think it should invest a bunch of money to grow. It may be more efficient for the economy as a whole for IBM to distribute its profits so that money could be allocated to companies where growth makes more sense.

What you are suggesting is that every company should prioritize growth by reinvesting in itself. It doesn't always make sense to do so though.

The original comment said "Detroit has more murders than New York, Los Angeles and Chicago combined".

They also said "Detroit, the city with the most violent crime per capita in the US"

These statements are false. Chicago has more murders than Detroit. St. Louis has a higher murder rate than Detroit. The person you are commenting on is correct.

NYC public transit usage is more similar to Paris or London than it is to any of the cities you listed. 56.5% of New Yorkers commute with public transit (2015), seems pretty on par with European standards to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_...

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/10/riding-bikes-...

Are you saying NYC is car centric? It isn't, that's why it is struggling without public transit.

In the vast majority of American cities a large portion of workers drive to work during normal conditions. They already have the road capacity, parking, etc needed. The car-centric American cities are actually much better suited for this crisis than NYC is.

I am simply stating there are more deaths in Europe than in the US. I can prove that with only 3 countries. Please don't interpret my statement as a comment on each individual country. There seems to be miscommunication here.

I agree Norway has been a bright spot. If Norway was a US state, it would be ranked 14th in deaths per capita. So better than average. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

I'm completely aware that there are different countries in Europe that have different strategies for containing this thing. But so do the states in the US.

Yes, well actually if the economy grows at all, a constant tax rate brings in more revenue, while we tend to spend more too. But I agree it is theoretically possible.

In Andrew Jackson's case they also raised taxes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations

The lack of civility is pretty disappointing. I linked a bunch of data for you, ignore it if you wish.

And another similar country:

UK deaths per million = 488

If you add together UK, Spain, and Italy they have more deaths than the US as a whole.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data

How about we compare Wisconsin to Sweden? The article is about Wisconsin.

Wisconsin (pop 5.8 mil, 10.6k cases, 418 deaths). Sweden (pop 10.2 mil, 27.9k cases, 3460 deaths).

Sweden has 342 COVID deaths per million. The US has 254 deaths per million. Germany is doing better, but the rest of Western Europe has much higher rates of death than the US.

There seems to be a myth going around that Europe is handling this better than the US and the statistics don't really support that claim. If you have to bash Golden Corral to make your claim, you're probably a bit biased against Americans.

That being said, none of these countries are handling this well, it's just annoying to see the double standard.

Debt spending tends to turn into tax increases if you actually plan on paying the money back

You completely misquoted the parent.

This man is accused of several cases of assault, he may have seriously hurt somebody and they want to take it to court. I also do not see how your US race and gender comments below are relevant to this thread about a German man.

It would be terrible to be wrongly accused of assault. But it doesn't seem like something people should just ignore and give people the benefit of the doubt on.

But if you asked those people to spread out, wouldn't they use more resources? Longer distances to transport goods, more land to live on, less opportunities to walk or use mass transit, etc.

Everyone's stock price is not down. Another false statement. The majority are down though, as they should be.

I am not defending bailouts, I'm saying you should get your facts straight.

Wow this is misinformed. Posting incorrect information in such a cocky way is detrimental to the forum.

Look at any global bank's stock price throughout this crisis. Being a lender to the businesses of a shut down economy is not very profitable.

"Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie"

"every commenter on reddit and HN were saying China was covering it up"

Stop using absolutes. There are plenty of people in the US that realize the US numbers have been suppressed by a lack of testing. There are plenty of people in the US who actually think China has handled the situation better than our own dysfunctional government.

The only absolute truth is that we don't have all of the information yet.

Yes, I live in NYC, I decided to stay in NYC for this reason.

"For example, if a stock goes up 10% up pre-market because it beats earnings, it usually stays at that price level during the day. Just because people see the price up in pre-market."

1) No, it is not just because people see the price pre-market. It is because it beat earnings. Futures are not an arbitrary marker price.

2) There is so much arbing going on that I don't agree with you.

1) Why? Futures do not prevent the market from "deciding for itself". Global equity markets don't just trade on New York time. Getting rid of futures would not fix the problem you are trying to solve, while creating many new problems.

2) If short selling actually did exacerbate the situation, wouldn't that create a buying opportunity for other market participants? In reality, short selling does not systematically force markets to price things incorrectly.