[Godstud]

Wow, @Tainari88, you really don't know anything about Canada, do you? Canada gets a trivial amount of labour from Mexico. It's too far away: 2,250 miles.

USA is not going to have a civil war. That's a ridiculous assertion made by ridiculous people.

Mexico has harsher illegal immigration rules than the USA. They aren't afraid to deport people who are illegally in their country.... unlike USA.

If people are illegally in your country, then they are criminals. They are breaking the law and pretending that they are something else is simply ignoring reality.

[Rugoz]

I love how everybody is rambling about printing money but nobody bothers to look up the numbers for money supplies, or, for that matter, bothers to quantify the "exorbitant privilege".

It's more comfortable put together one's own little conspiracy from random shit on the internet I suppose.

[Tainari88]

Wow, @Tainari88, you really don't know anything about Canada, do you? Canada gets a trivial amount of labour from Mexico. It's too far away: 2,250 miles.

USA is not going to have a civil war. That's a ridiculous assertion made by ridiculous people.

Mexico has harsher illegal immigration rules than the USA. They aren't afraid to deport people who are illegally in their country.... unlike USA.

If people are illegally in your country, then they are criminals. They are breaking the law and pretending that they are something else is simply ignoring reality.

Yeah, criminals. No. Most of them want to make more than one dollar an hour. That is why getting decent wages in Latin America and a decent standard of living is going to cut back drastically on the 'criminals' forcing their way into nations who are paying decently or at least better than in Latin America. Stop the fucking poverty and pay that is abysmal and you will have a total zero crossing of people without permission entering into some territory Godstud. Poverty is gone? People are not into crime. It is that SIMPLE. Poverty and no eating or paying bills? Crime is gonna happen. They will jump through fences, jump through holes, pay human traffickers and break every damn rule in the fucking world to EAT and pay bills and get their kids educated. That is reality. It is about POVERTY. If you fail to understand that? Then get a gun and blow kids away and women who want to fucking eat and get a job at some fast food dump to live. Go and shoot them because they are only criminals. Think about it.

No, Godstud, Mexico may have illegal immigration rules but the resources to enforce them are trivial. It is very hard to get a person with visas who are expired to be deported out of Mexico. That is the issue with Mexico. Their legal enforcement of all laws are lax in the extreme. No one chases down illegal aliens or undocumented people. The control issue in Mexico is about low salaries and not making any money whether you are legal or illegal. No money to be had in Mexico. People can't live on $2 dollars an hour salaries. That is why the Hondurans want out of Mexico and into the USA. They make a lot more money in the USA or Canada.

And Canada recruits Mexican labor. Here are the stats.

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

This last year more than 25,000 plus sought asylum visas based on violence from the Cartels or DV or something. Mostly to get higher wages in Canada. It is not an invented stat. Over a quarter of a million Mexican origin Canadians are there. WORKING. Or about to get some work. For a country that has what?

39,107,046 Canada

128.9 million Mexico.

Mexico is way more populous and a lot cheaper to live in for your standard of living.

The likelihood of a civil war breaks out in the USA? A lot of people are not going to Canada. It is cold and expensive and the US dollar is not going to get you any kind of standard of living. That is why Mexico has over 1.7 million US citizens living there.

For Canadians Mexico is their first retirement destination. Fleeing the cold weather. That is the number one reason I never visited Canada. I hate the cold. I always have and always will. Hate it badly. Colorado is the coldest state I ever lived in and I did not like the long drawn out winters. Hate it to this day. Will die hating the fucking cold.

https://dailyhive.com/canada/canadians-moving-to-mexico

BTW, who said I was an expert on Canada? I am not. Never have been.

Again, I never learned much about Canada because I thought about how fucking cold the weather was and I was turned off completely. I hated the winter. I grew up in warm spots most of my growing up years. And in my adult years I lived in Colorado and other cold weather states and HATED IT BADLY. Every damn day with the ice off the windshield and the snow on the ground and sliding cars and cold winds and more cold shit all the time...hate it and hate it some more.

Never will like it....EVER.

If I go it better not be in the winter. No way. They can keep that Winnipeg nightmare shit of -60 degrees below zero and freezing your ass off like Yakustk or something. Siberian nightmare. I hate it hate it hate it.

[Rancid]

I love how everybody is rambling about printing money but nobody bothers to look up the numbers for money supplies, or, for that matter, bothers to quantify the "exorbitant privilege".

It's more comfortable put together one's own little conspiracy from random shit on the internet I suppose.

That's sort of the point I was trying to get it. There are so many valid things to complain about with respect to the American Empire, that focusing on money printing makes little sense. Further, the money printing is like a symptom. People should be trying to understand why is it even possible to print this money without having the entire America Empire collapse rapidly. When other nations do it, they collapse (see Venezuela). The explanation, clearly has to be something larger than just "THE DOLLAR!". It's not the dollar itself that propagates the dollar, but all the economic, military, and geopolitical structures around it. It's like people want to ignore all that shit and yell "it's the dollar".

[Tainari88]

That's sort of the point I was trying to get it. There are so many valid things to complain about with respect to the American Empire, that focusing on money printing makes little sense. Further, the money printing is like a symptom. People should be trying to understand why is it even possible to print this money without having the entire America Empire collapse rapidly. When other nations do it, they collapse (see Venezuela). The explanation, clearly has to be something larger than just "THE DOLLAR!". It's not the dollar itself that propagates the dollar, but all the economic, military, and geopolitical structures around it. It's like people want to ignore all that shit and yell "it's the dollar".

This is why they are committed to warmongering. Because it the surest way to retain control of the leading position in the world. When you think about how morally wrong seeking and propagating war in other countries is? The USA government has BAD karma. In a big way.

[QatzelOk]

Don't most nations use money that isn't the dollar?
... magical "dollar mafia" ...

i do agree that we can't print money infinitely BUT...

The act of printing lots and lots of paper money... normally has the effect of devaluating the currency because no one wants to give all their bananas to a country that just printed a trillion dollars out of thin air. But with warfare, you can FORCE other countries to sell your resources for your funny money by threatening to JUST STEAL THEIR RESOURCES if they even publicly speak about using other currencies than the US dollar - for international trade.

According to Stoltenberg, they need to keep the "U.S. dollar-based international financial system" propped up...

...This is also the same reason why the US started the war in Ukraine to turn all of Europe into an irrelevant vassal...

The last economic collapse in the 30s ended in a world war that cost about 100 million lives, including the aftermath. This one will a much bigger economic collapse (of the West) so I imagine the wars that our money-managers are preparing will kill many more human animals this time.

Their seized property will help refresh our bankrupt banking system.

You and I might not be around to see the corrupt banking families "rise yet again" from other people's ashes.

***

[Rancid]

This is why they are committed to warmongering. Because it the surest way to retain control of the leading position in the world. When you think about how morally wrong seeking and propagating war in other countries is? The USA government has BAD karma. In a big way.

Hopefully, we will all get what we deserve.

[Potemkin]

Hopefully, we will all get what we deserve.

Friedrich Engels once said, “All that exists deserves to perish.” So yes, we will all get what we deserve, by the nature of things.

[Tainari88]

Friedrich Engels once said, “All that exists deserves to perish.” So yes, we will all get what we deserve, by the nature of things.

Yes, but I still want you around Potemkin. Do not book on out of the Earth plane if you do not have fun first. Lol.

[Godstud]

@Tainari88, if someone enters your house without your permission, then they are trespassing/breaking and entering. That's illegal. They are committing an illegal act, regardless of their intentions, or how good or bad they might be. If you enter a country illegally, you are a criminal and should be treated as such.

@Tainari88 Per your source: While approximately 5,000 people of Mexico origin enter Canada each year as temporary students or contract workers for agriculture.

Over a quarter of a million Mexican origin Canadians are there. WORKING. Or about to get some work. For a country that has what?

Talking about residents, and legitimate immigrants, is not the same as seasonal workers which they noted was only about 5,000. 5,000 is insignificant.

Canadians don't want illegal(criminal) immigrants, any more than any other country wants that.

Mexico is way more populous and a lot cheaper to live in for your standard of living.

Then why do Mexicans keep going to USA?

It's true you know nothing about Canada. You know even less than you think you do, as well.

[Rancid]

Then why do Mexicans keep going to USA?

IIRC, more non-Mexicans cross the boarder through Mexico than Mexicans. Partly because the Mexican economy is growing and doing well. It's also projected to do very well into the future.

[Rugoz]

Here's a good paper/article on the "privilege":

Explaining the Decline of the US’ Net Foreign Asset Position



For decades, the United States appeared to enjoy a special privilege: although it imported more goods and services than it exported, its net foreign asset (NFA) position remained only slightly negative. Since the Great Recession, that privilege has disappeared and the NFA position — the difference between the foreign assets held by Americans and the US assets owned by foreigners — has declined sharply, even when measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).

In The End of Privilege: A Reexamination of the Net Foreign Asset Position of the United States (NBER Working Paper 29771), Andrew Atkeson, Jonathan Heathcote, and Fabrizio Perri analyze why the NFA has deteriorated so much. They find that most of the change can be explained by a boom in US equity values that was not matched by foreign stock prices. Their paper upends the conventional explanation for America’s so-called special privilege, which for a time allowed the United States to fund its large trade deficit with its earnings on foreign assets.

Since the Great Recession, Americans have earned only moderate returns on their foreign investments while foreigners have reaped a bonanza on the boom in US stocks.

In the early years of this millennium, the most common explanation for the US’ small NFA position was that Americans owned high-return foreign equities while foreigners held low-return US assets such as Treasury bonds. Data available at the time supported that view. By analyzing newer federal data, however, more finely tuned to capturing economic and financial flows and balance sheet positions, the researchers uncover a different explanation. They find that the relative performance of foreign and US holdings within asset classes, rather than differences in the type of assets held, accounts for most of the changes in the US NFA position between 2010 and 2021.

The researchers divide the dynamics of the US NFA position into three phases. In the first, from 1992 to 2002, the US NFA position deteriorated from minus 5 to minus 18 percent of GDP, paralleling rising deficits in the current account. During the second phase, from 2002 to 2010, the NFA position was roughly stable while the current account continued its negative trend. This was the era of America’s special privilege, as previous researchers dubbed it, because it appeared that the US could finance its trade deficits with the high returns earned on foreign assets. That privilege came to an end in the third phase, 2010–21, when the NFA position fell by more than 40 percent even though the current account as a percentage of GDP was roughly stable. By 2021, the decline in the US NFA position had not only negated the phase of special privilege, but had fallen to a lower level than would be indicated by the cumulated current account deficits over the full period from 1992–2021.

The reason for the plunge during the third phase was a boom in US stock prices that was not matched elsewhere. While Americans were earning moderate returns on their foreign stocks and other financial investments, foreigners were earning very high returns on their US holdings.

The researchers consider two possible explanations for the stronger returns on US stocks than their global counterparts during the last decade. One is that US firms made substantial investments in productive capital that are not measured in the national accounts, while the other is that they experienced a rise in market power and a corresponding increase in monopoly profits. If the first explanation was correct, the US would have experienced a period of low or negative measured output and a huge trade and current account deficit, far beyond the deficit actually reported. The researchers conclude that since this was not observed, unmeasured investments may have contributed to the decline of the NFA position, but they are unlikely to be a dominant factor. A rise in monopoly profits and a larger share of value added accruing to the owners of firms, however, appears much more consistent with the NFA movement and other macroeconomic data. Since foreign investors own roughly 30 percent of the US corporate sector, their share of the increased profitability of this sector corresponds to an annual flow of about 1.3 percent of US GDP.

https://www.nber.org/digest/202204/expl ... t-position
https://www.nber.org/papers/w29771

[paeng]

I love how everybody is rambling about printing money but nobody bothers to look up the numbers for money supplies, or, for that matter, bothers to quantify the "exorbitant privilege".

It's more comfortable put together one's own little conspiracy from random shit on the internet I suppose.

You should impose your own standards on yourself. For example, why is M2 more than ten times higher than money base given a money multiplier that's supposed to restrict that?

Endogenous money or more "conspiracy"?

You really love using that word, and I get this feeling you do that for anything you can't or don't want to understand.

[Rugoz]

You should impose your own standards on yourself. For example, why is M2 more than ten times higher than money base given a money multiplier that's supposed to restrict that?

I'm not the one making outlandish claims about "printing money". The money multiplier (M2/monetary base) has actually decreased significantly since the great recession. E.g. https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2023/07 ... activities.

Either way, central banks care about interest rates on assets of various maturities. They don't care about the money supply. They create as much money as needed to bring interest rates to target. The entire debate is archaic.

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88, if someone enters your house without your permission, then they are trespassing/breaking and entering. That's illegal. They are committing an illegal act, regardless of their intentions, or how good or bad they might be. If you enter a country illegally, you are a criminal and should be treated as such.

@Tainari88 Per your source: While approximately 5,000 people of Mexico origin enter Canada each year as temporary students or contract workers for agriculture.

Talking about residents, and legitimate immigrants, is not the same as seasonal workers which they noted was only about 5,000. 5,000 is insignificant.

Canadians don't want illegal(criminal) immigrants, any more than any other country wants that.

Then why do Mexicans keep going to USA?

It's true you know nothing about Canada. You know even less than you think you do, as well.

Mexicans go to the USA because over 12% of the US population has Mexican ancestry or ties. So it is a large demographic.

And? They go there to make more money to flee violence or crime in Mexico or to get a higher standard of living. They believe in the American Dream. Is it going to come true for them? Some people get the dream and others do not. Depends on a lot of factors. Many wind up working hard and do not really get much social mobility. But just calling them criminals is simplistic Godstud.

No one has broken into my house here in Mexico. They broke into an apartment I rented in the USA. Stole everything. In the USA they broke in. Crime happens Godstud. That is not the argument I am presenting.

Why are thousands of people trying to force their way into the USA via the Southern border? What is their motivation? Because they are criminals and want to commit mass crimes in the USA. Some are criminals. Very few of them are criminals. The vast majority are your average poverty person who can't find a job and lives with inflation and problems. I have said over and over in this forum over the years. Latin Americans have an unrealistic and distorted view of the USA and life in the USA. They only believe the Hollywood version of what life is like in the North, both in the USA and in Canada. They do not have any realistic assessment of what it is like there. They do not know Godstud.

Look, I had a couple here from a small Yucatecan town sit with me and visit me here the last week that just went by. The husband is called Saul and the wife is called Karina. They are from Maxunah. A small Mayan town near Merida is about an hour's drive away. He is a construction worker and she is a housewife that sells stuff once in a while to make a living. They wanted me to tell them how it is in the USA. Because they want to join that caravan shit due to her husband's bad salary in town that is not doing much for their three kids and extended family members. They eat soup made of noodles and mangos when they are in season. They want something a bit better.

I told them not to waste their damn time in those stupid caravans. Saul might be robbed and stabbed, Karina might be raped and kidnapped. Anything could happen. For what? The US is saturated with low-skill people with no formal education, or English skills that are zero. Saul says proudly he finished the eighth grade in school. Karina got to sixth grade. They are proud of that but want their kids to get through high school at least. They are both bright, charming, and good people. I met Saul when he wanted to get a job fixing my roof. I gave him the job. Wound up feeding him and his cousin Rosendo for weeks while they worked. They got attached to me. And now they visit once in a while.

Anyway, back to the story. He wants to make that great salary in Colorado agriculture or construction of $16.50 an hour. He can get a legit H21 Visa for agricultural work through contacts. But? I explain what the issue is with that. What happens in reality with slaughterhouse work, dairy farm work, and ag worker work in the USA? It is hazardous, lonely, difficult, and a lot of danger in terms of farm work is about losing limbs and sometimes you lose your life with that kind of work. It is not easy money and never has been. The housing is temporary, and many employers stiff the workers, out of a lot of their contracted work. Many times they agree to pay them overtime now and they do not. They pay them normal wages and not the twenty hours a week they do of overtime during the peak season.

I do know about that because one of the nonprofits I do interpretation and translation work for is specifically about farming and farm worker organizations all over the state of Colorado. They specifically only deal with the Department of Agriculture in the USA and the farmers in rural towns and counties all over Colorado and they have networks of people who work with them and they need to communicate from English to Spanish a lot.

So, are they criminals? No. They are desperate people with totally false and unrealistic ideas about the USA and the reality of working in the USA. And in Canada. One guy from here who is in his fifties got a work visa for Canada. Toronto. He arrived in February and he said he was freezing his ass off and working in a bakery for 140 US Canadian dollars a week and it was not nearly enough for anything he hoped it would be.

They have no fucking clue what it is about Godstud. Are they criminals? In my estimation no. They do not dedicate their day-to-day to drug dealing, human trafficking, raping, kidnapping, and holding for ransom people or breaking homes and burglarizing. They want to make enough money to live a better life. They are economic refugees. Economic refugees are in the BILLIONS in the world. A lot of nations do not have good-paying jobs for people. They fail to educate them formally for professions that pay middle-class salaries.

Their kids get inadequate education. It is easy to hate them. They are poor, without education, unrealistic, and uninformed. But they know what hard work is and what struggle is. They do not understand system changes, law, and order in societies with money for enforcement, they do not understand cultural and linguistic rules that shift and change. They do not understand the societies they are entering. AT ALL.

Who is going to prepare them eh?

Sometimes they ask me how I did it? How did I make it such a society? How do you explain a family's struggle, and the pain of struggle for a decent education, for working hard towards a goal? For learning a new language and a new cultural paradigm? For the experience of being an outsider that is not really accepted because a society is not going to change to magically accommodate a group that is not a dominant culture in a nation? How do people fight for something better and the sacrifices they have to make to be able to make sense of their worlds? And not fall into assimilation and loss of language and culture? Or not believing they are inferior and not worthy? How to avoid all that psychological damage done to the poor and the uneducated all over the world?

How to explain how power is about internal fortitude to those who still think they can make more money and have a better life by crossing a land border only? Do they understand what self-transformation in this life is about?

How do you explain that to them Godstud? Life is not that simple Señor.

[Rich]

I love how everybody is rambling about printing money but nobody bothers to look up the numbers for money supplies, or, for that matter, bothers to quantify the "exorbitant privilege".

It's more comfortable put together one's own little conspiracy from random shit on the internet I suppose.

My views or understanding on this probably fairly similar to yours. However it strikes me that its not really surprising that people are to these more narrative driven, rather than quantitative and statistical based descriptions of the world economy. Maybe its different in your country, but in my country Britain kids leave school without being taught the most basic understanding of the finance system. The BBC makes no effort to educate people either.

[Godstud]

Why are thousands of people trying to force their way into the USA via the Southern border? What is their motivation? Because they are criminals and want to commit mass crimes in the USA. Some are criminals. Very few of them are criminals. The vast majority are your average poverty person who can't find a job and lives with inflation and problems. I have said over and over in this forum over the years. Latin Americans have an unrealistic and distorted view of the USA and life in the USA. They only believe the Hollywood version of what life is like in the North, both in the USA and in Canada. They do not have any realistic assessment of what it is like there. They do not know Godstud.

They do know that entering a foreign country without permission is illegal. Are you suggesting that these people are too stupid to know better?

So, are they criminals? No.

If they enter a country illegally they are considered criminals(That is what illegal means).

They have no fucking clue what it is about Godstud. Are they criminals? In my estimation no. hey do not dedicate their day-to-day to drug dealing, human trafficking, raping, kidnapping, and holding for ransom people or breaking homes and burglarizing. They want to make enough money to live a better life. They are economic refugees. Economic refugees are in the BILLIONS in the world. A lot of nations do not have good-paying jobs for people. They fail to educate them formally for professions that pay middle-class salaries.

I stated that the law is quite clear on this. You know this, as well as I do. If you are there illegally, then you are a criminal, regardless of if you pay taxes and don't commit any other crimes. Your estimation is incorrect, and not based in reality.

Their kids get inadequate education. It is easy to hate them. They are poor, without education, unrealistic, and uninformed. But they know what hard work is and what struggle is. They do not understand system changes, law, and order in societies with money for enforcement, they do not understand cultural and linguistic rules that shift and change. They do not understand the societies they are entering. AT ALL.

Nobody is hating anyone. They understand that what they are doing is illegal. They are not dumb, unless you are racist.. and I don't believe you are.

Life is complex, but laws are simple @Tainari88. If you break the law, you are a criminal, regardless of if you think it is justified, or not. The law is quite clear on this. If you are fleeing persecution and break into a house for safety, you are still guilty of a crime, regardless of what you consider the justification. You are relying on feelings to justify criminality. I am talking about fact.

[late]

Life is complex, but laws are simple

Whatever you're using, I want a hit..

[Godstud]

Whatever you're using, I want a hit.

You already have enough problems with reality. What I said is fact.

If you enter a country illegally, you are a criminal.

[late]

[quote='ate"]Whatever you're using, I want a hit.

You already have enough problems with reality. What I said is fact.

If you enter a country illegally, you are a criminal.

[/quote]

The intent of the law is simple, the execution is anything but.

Add to that, the fact that historically, immigration has been a bone of contention, with the attitudes toward immigration running hot, then cold.

In addition, immigration has added a source of cheap labor, and not just for business. This has resulted in a lack of effort to control immigration.

Add to that, we are largely responsible for the nightmares forcing people out, and you have a wildly complex stew that is way above your pay grade.