Quote:
Originally Posted by kwoldtimer
The living will envy the dead.
(Too soon, perhaps?)  |
You might joke but I am struggling with my understanding of the global economy.
From what I understand we have every reason to suspect there "might/possibly/potentially/theoretically" be a collapse of our economic system.
My understanding of currencies is that they are more less a system of IOU's where value is enforced by confidence in that currency.
This IOU system, tends to fall apart quite rapidly in economic systems that are not as substantial as our own.
The problem with this virus is that India/Africa may not be able to cope due to over population and extreme lack of sanitation. Not to mention sentiments that start reflecting a certain amount of inevitability with this outbreak. If herd immunity becomes the only practical option than we might be in some real trouble.
There's lots of room for miscalculation with this type of complexity. There is an obvious scenario where their economies disappear from our frame of reference.
In this scenario you can imagine world leaders trying to freeze all currency markets and begin pegging pricing to prexisting values.
I.e. a box of kraft diner is frozen at $2 a box.
What seems like simple government intervention could break down rather quickly. As we rely on market shifts to properly allocate resources.
We take for granted that market forces determine the value and we as the consumers have the final say.
What happens if consumers loose faith in fixed pricing?
If we have mass unemployment what value does new housing, cars, and other non essentials have? If we have some sort of fixed pricing people might loose confidence in this entire system altogether.
At that point you have a rapid devaluation in the value of that currency. If nobody wants cars and everyone wants food, yet prices are fixed money becomes worthless.
If that occurs we'll devolve into a command economy where governments take control of our resources and start telling people what they are making. For all effective purposes we have lost our democracy as we know it.
With a breakdown in democratic systems you can easily imagine breakdowns in public trust. Why should a farmer be forced to give up his food when it is in such high demand.
Ironically the 1% percenters in our food supply could turn into the default super rich as all other nonessential goods loose value. This in turn creates hording and other break downs in trade. Governments are no longer seen as legitimates but proxies for the fascist elites, or vice versa the spoiled technocrats.
This will of course work itself out in several years years but in the short time we could see mass food shortages as our overly complex just in time food supply collaspes.
People simply do not understand how complex our food production is and how little excess their truly is.
We have endless amounts of land, especially if we stop wasting crop land on livestock. However food only grows so quickly and if all our off season producers of food refuse to do business with us we can't bump up our food supply until Octoberish 2021.
In short grow local will supersede all other systems causing people to fulfill their local food needs first. Food poor regions like Canada will suffer a temporary famine some time in 2021.
And there's a lot of evidence to suggest this "may be a possibility".
You can look at human history, you can look at the engineered famines of the Soviet Union, China etc.
You can look at the more obvious data which was the potential for the 2008 financial crisis to collapse into a depression. If someone tells you that wasn't a "possibility" you weren't paying attention.
Obviously current day situations are radically different. We really can't know much about anything right now as the level of complexity on this planet is completely beyond our comprehension. All our assumptions about how the world works are currently in freefall.
We simply do not know and you can't assume government coercion can really do anything other than make it worst. We have no case study for this that looks good.
If you are a westerner this entire topic is literally foreign. You've lived through your entire life "relatively" protected from even the thought of such thing occurring. But if your well versed in international politics or history you know these types of localized events are incredibly common.
Obviously we are different we are far better developed than a lot of these case studies, the only contrast to this is the fast that this is a deeply globalized event, and our default defense is intense isolation.
We don't know how things may work out.
And whatever political orientation you have there is room for concern.
If you're a right winger your defense of capitalism is paramount to your understanding of society prosperity and stability.
If you're a left winger you believe the system is already corrupt and if we resort to fascist economic policies you might assume this system will only favor the rich elites and will end up leaving the poor to starve.
If you're a centrist you're equally screwed because your entire basis for understanding society is based on appreciating the status quo. When the status quo breaks down your frame of reference and ability to understand the world is gone.
Keep in mind I'm spit balling here, no one knows what to expect. Just keep in mind I'm autistic and am relatively obsessed with the magic of our industrial society. I have a unique appreciation for as it is a hobby. I'm certainty not an expert, but I prone to have insight just because of my poor understandings of things. Keeping in mind in radical situations a solid proportion of experts tend to end up being categorically wrong.
Regardless in any scenario I don't give two fucks. I'm going home. Either I spent this summer playing video games and building my father a cabin on my families land, or I'll spend this summer farming(this is more of a hobby tbh) the land that has been in my family for 130 years. I'm from a place where there are 2-3 moose per person. If things get bad in the next few weeks I may be heading to the mountains to build an icehouse for the preservation of moose meat if poaching becomes a thing.
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