It would be an incredibly stupid instruction to tell someone to spend $x on rifles, without any conditions on how many or what quality they should be. There is no incentive to get a good deal.

The proper instruction should be to procure x rifles of y quality, with a mximum budget of z. Give the procurement officer an incentive to come in lower than z and also measure and enforce y, and you have a decent incentive structure that is more likely to get results.

Your /. ID is low enough that you should know that mod points aren't used to indicate agreement or disagreement with a line of reasoning.

With a history of 200 - 300 years only, and a shared history, language, culture and economy.

Not quite the same as comparing Spaniards, with their history going back the Roman Empire, to Finland.

Language in particular, I think, makes a huge difference to how people approach the world.

"Trying to sway people to a false dichotomy? Fuck you."

Is this what political discourse in the US is like? What's wrong with using good manners while talking to people you disagree with?

Hello khallow,

"That isn't the point of debt. Debt is borrowing money or resources now and paying for them with future income or resources. So you can borrow more to produce more, but as a consequence, you will be producing less in the future for a period of time.

Let's put this into perspective. Suppose the interest rate on that public debt was very considerable 100% per year for ten years and adjusted for inflation. That is, every dollar you borrowed, you had to pay back each year for ten years. According to your view, you get massive creation of "output" in that first year followed by ten years of lost "output" of the same amount each year. I'm sure it'd be great to be the lender, at least till year two or so when the borrower and economy collapses without paying back enough of the loan to make it worthwhile."

That can be how debt works if done badly, but it isn't supposed to be (if you're a sensible borrower).

Let's say I am a writer (I chose a profession that doesn't use any physical resources of note). I have a crappy biro and some cheap paper. I can write 1000 words per day, and have trouble with QC (since I can't use software spell checks, etc.), so I can sell my work for $100 per day.

I borrow $1000 to buy a computer and a printer.

I can now output 10,000 words per day, which are off higher quality. I can earn (roughly) 10 times as much per day. I can sell my work for $1100 per day.

I can pay of the debt and easily have plenty left over.

The general amount of productivity in society has increase by 10 times, and I have only 10 days work required to pay of the debt.

I have obviously exagerated the numbers here, but most debbt is like this - borrowed to invest in improvements. Recessions tend to happen when large amounts of a nation's capital are put into investments that are not productive, and so the debt (in the aggregate) cannot be paid back by the returns.

Hello reve_etrange,

Please ignore my previous post to you mentioning money creation and fr-banking, which on reflection was a bit patronising. It is clear that you understand the subtleties involved and we are operating at different levels of abstraction.

I agree with your points above, and with your general theme that money is an abstraction used to account for real resources, and that balance of trade accounts merely record (rather than dictate) the exchange of resources or investments.

It isn't true that it is only the US (or other national governments) that are the only creators of money. Most western countries operate a fractional reserve banking system, so the banks create a fair amount of money.

You could argue that the banks' scope for lending and money creation is regulated, and so limited, but it is limited by the central bank (in most countries) which is mostly independent of the government.

Inflation expectations are factored into the price of government debt. Unexpected inflation surges will be priced into future gilt purchase prices.

Plus a fair amont of US govt. debt is in TIPS, which are indexed against the CPI.

Which is why there are other terms in use than just 'recession'. A recession is a reasonably short term description. Medium and longer term descriptions such as stagnation and depression exist too.

It is useful to have precise language available so we can communicate precisely. If everyone understands the recession = 2 quarters of GDP decline then we know where we are and can analyse patterns over time.

I think the solution is to remember that 'recession' has a technical definition, rather than a coloquial one.

Then what do you call the bit in-between?

There were economic bibbles all the way through the 19th century. There was a huge depression in the 1870's that puts the current problems to shame - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression

The first known bubble being a stock market explosion in Britain in the 18th C known as the south sea bubble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

Keynsian counter-cyclical policy is a useful way of mitigating boom-bust business cycles, but it is more or less politically impossible in the western world - when has a democratically elected goverment ever raised taces and interest rates and cut spending during a boom period? (and if they have/had, do they win the next election?)

"Innocent until proven guilty" is a judicial issue. I can accuse you of being a criminal, but all I'm doing is usimg words, nothing more.

The police and the courts have a burdon of proof, since they have legal power.

Manning was a member of the armed forces, and so subject to a ifferent judicial process. This is no secret.

Britain was not the British Empire. The British Empire was the territory that Britain ruled. The empire is not the ruling entity, the empire is the territory ruled. An imperial power does the ruling, but the empire is the recipient of rule, not the originator.

Well, this is what I would expect in a 2 party system over a long period of time. When you have 2 parties in power on and off over a long period and there are a small number of central issues then both parties will converge on an acceptable middle position. The alternative would be constant political strife leading to either unrest or a strong third party.

Keep in mind that for each of the issue you mention above there are a lot of people who care strongly about one of them, but very few who care strongly about all of them - there is very little strong consensus about all central issues, and very few people care strongly about al of them.

Many voters may care strongly about a single issue, or a couple. But few care strongly about many issues.

Most people care strongly about their own economic well being more than other issues, and so (this being an issue affected a lot by government) this is generally the strongest area of contention in politics in western governments.

Britain is much the same. There is a little bit of different on social issues such as immigration, gay marriage, etc. but really very little, and a fair amount of disagreement on economic issues (within the generally accepted framework of standard economics - e.g. debating furiously about a few percent of govt.. spending and taxing)