What's a Trillion? and do we have an Echo Forum?

One question, and one fact:

Question: Is Cprogramming.com linked somehow with Dev Shed C Programming forum?
Just was over there today, and they have 3 reposts on the first page, that are nearly, or entirely, copies of posts made here, by the same posters. (One name was changed from Typonius to Typhos, others are unchanged).

It's like going back in time, 2 days.

Fact:

How much is a trillion dollars?

If you spent a million dollars *every day*, starting at the birth of Christ, you would not have spent a trillion dollars!

Well, there's American trillion and British trillion -- our trillion would run out, using your idea, in the year 2737, while the British would run out in 2737000000.

>Just was over there today, and they have 3 reposts on the first page, that
>are nearly, or entirely, copies of posts made here, by the same posters.
You find it shocking that people cross-post between forum sites?

Have you ever been hit in the face really hard?

EDIT:

I realize I gotta make my first comment PC...have you ever been hit in the face really hard with kindness ?

if you spent $1 every second it would take over 30,000 years to spend $1 trillion US.

It's largely irrelevant though, since expanding the money supply is the worse thing they can do right now. The crash is coming, but the longer it get sput off, the worse it will be and the longer it will take to recover. Bailing out the investors that made these bad investments will not prevent the collapse, it will only encourage even worse investments. Yes it sucks that people will lose their homes and teh country is headed into a financial collapse, but throwing money at the problem isn't the answer. Any real solution will require deep and broad based fundamental changes to the global financial system itself and will it will not be without painful value corrections at every level of society. The bad capital investments have already been made, and the resources expended. The losses have already been incurred, the only thing left to do now is balance the books and assign the losses to those that made the poor decisions. Capitalism only works if there is a financial penalty for making poor economic decisions.

Yeah, I'm shocked that someone who was answered completely, including working out code (and I mean a complete program), would then go to another forum and ask the same question they asked here, two days ago. Huh?

Makes no sense, since they already have a complete working program.

I figure it's either a bot set up to get more posts on programming forum, or it's someone collecting a ton of CS assignments off the forums, so they can sell them, over the net. So they need a bunch of different programs - the same old one's won't do.

Well, the majority wanted a socialist type president, and a leftist Senate and House, as well. Now we have one. Heaven help us.

Another $800 Million is being sent out soon - probably by Tuesday of next week they'll have reconciled the Senate and House versions of the bill.

Now that the Census will be handled from the White House for the first time EVER, the Democrats will be able to "work" the stats as they wish, without any "stupid" interference of the truth, from the Commerce Dept. Secretary.

Obama keeps this up, he's going to be looking like a first class liar after all his talk about "transparency" and "working for all Americans".

Maybe not as dumb as Bush though: "I'm acting against the laws of Capitalism, in order to save Capitalism". (or some dumb ........ like that). D'oh!

Well, we needed some kind of change, after 8 years of Bu........ economics. The economy is crippled. Instead of pointing the finger at Obama, how about pointing that finger at the last 8 years.

Why is it OK for the government to print new money, but if I do it it's illegal?
Wouldn't printing new money just make the money people already have worth less?

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Originally Posted by cpjust

Why is it OK for the government to print new money, but if I do it it's illegal?
Wouldn't printing new money just make the money people already have worth less?

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I think if you ask the people of zimbabwe (where this was done recently), they would certainly agree.

How to solve the current economic crisis is a much harder question to answer, as there is really nothing the politicians can do as a quick fix - we just have to suffer bad economy until the people who control huge amounts of money feel confident to lend it to people who can't afford it again. That is, after all, how it works. Most of the worlds money is held by a relatively small number of people... And when that small number of people decide that it's a better investment to sit on a pile of money than to invest it in various business ventures, then that is how it will be. Nothing can really fix that.

Edit: There are also interesting qualities to rescue projects such as the car industry and banks - should the government (in the UK, US or elsewhere) allow large companies and banks to go under, simply to save money. If that happens, how does that affect the confidence of those people who have lots of money? How does it affect those with a little bit of money. Is it better to have a little bit of inflation, a lot of inflation, or people loosing their entire savings/pension, because the institute that held it went out of business and had to give whatever you had in a savings account to some other institution that ranked higher on the "get money from a failed company" list? Likewise, the US (and UK, German, etc) car industry is affecting a lot of other companies - like various suppliers, distribution networks, subcontractors and such. The consequence of this chain of industries failing/reducing staff will have huge consequences for the local and global economy.

--
Mats

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I think if you ask the people of zimbabwe (where this was done recently), they would certainly agree.

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It doesn't matter who prints their money - it's still worthless.

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Originally Posted by sean

It doesn't matter who prints their money - it's still worthless.

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Yes, my point was more that printing more money doesn't in itself help the economy of the country - [although a new zimbawean dollar has SOME value, whilst you needed LOTS of them to buy a match-stick a few days ago - before they devalued the currency by 1E+12].

--
Mats

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Originally Posted by cpjust

Why is it OK for the government to print new money, but if I do it it's illegal?
Wouldn't printing new money just make the money people already have worth less?

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Are you arguing for a privatized currency?

And let's evaluate the opposite extreme. If you never printed money, deflation would soon arise.

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

Are you arguing for a privatized currency?

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No, I'm being sarcastic.

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

And let's evaluate the opposite extreme. If you never printed money, deflation would soon arise.

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Then my money would be worth more. Hey, that's fine with me. :p

Until everybody puts off purchases waiting for things to be even cheaper. That means aggregate demand falls, companies won't earn enough to reinvest. The economy goes into a deflationary spiral because you refused to increase the money supply.

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Originally Posted by cpjust

Why is it OK for the government to print new money, but if I do it it's illegal?
Wouldn't printing new money just make the money people already have worth less?

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That is a complex question. Under a representative currency that is certainly the case, however, the US and most countries are under a fiat currency system. The perceived value of money is its utility to facilitate the exchange of goods and services, So to some extent increasing the supply of physical currency actually increases its value to a point as long as the goods and services are available on demand, which in the US they are. In Zimbabwe the supply of money outstripped the supply of goods and services, which is one of the reasons its currency crashed. [/extremely oversimplified explanation]

The problem with increasing the money supply when unemployment is high is it does cause inflation. The demand for goods and services doesnt increase but there is more money available, hence inflation. Increasing the M2/M3 money supply is what got us into this mess in the first place. The fed lowering interest rates allowed banks to increase their fractional reserve ratio's, because the cost of borrowing money to cover any short term cash demand spikes is lower. This increase in available money naturally leads to increased investment, no dollar can long sit uninvested. As these dollars began to chase ever increasingly inefficient investments it created an environment where highly risky investments with high prima facie yields became feasable. In a normal money supply these investments would not be attractive to investors, but with large amounts fo latent cash, the expectation to invest in something allowed them to happen. When these investments (e.g. mortgage backed securities) turned south, it created a flurry of cash demands as people moved their investments to other more stable but lower yielding investments. This spike in cash demands increased the cost of maintaining the fractional reserve ration. The federal reserve, seeing this lowered interest rates (again and again adn again and again some more) in an attempt to keep the problem at bay, which is exactly the wrong thing to do, since it lead to a further increase in the FRR.

However not putting liquidity back into the system would certainly lead to another Depression. If you study the depression several financial decisions were made by the government that only made the problem worse. While we may only be staving off the inevitable I believe it is the hope that the economy may recover long before we have to inject more and more to keep it going and thus really hurt it more.

I see a couple of things that worry me that the government is considering and/or advocating.

• Raising taxes in a recession. Major no-no. Do some research on the what happened prior to the depression and the steps the government took that really paved the way for it rather than avert it.
• Investing in energy that has little or no benefit to the current economy. Whether you agree or disagree about our reliance on supposed fossil fuels I think most can agree that our system is not ready for a huge energy upheaval nor do we have the technology to completely support ourselves with any of the new systems...save for nuclear which has it's own inherent and difficult problems. Creating green jobs may actually backfire and make things worse. Imposing huge fines and ridiculous standards on manufacturing cannot and will not lead to a better economy. If you have worked in this sector at all you realize that the current standards are ludicrous as they currently stand. The EPA in my mind is a complete waste of money in their current capacity. They should be finding solutions to the issues rather than hindering industry and sectors of the economy that actually could bring jobs. Green may be in but green is expensive due to the fact that it is new and the infrastructure for it is simply not there. Changing to green energy amidst a booming economy would be extremely difficult much less trying to do it inside of a very deep recession.
• Placing earmarks and essentially 're-modelling' funds into a stimulus plan. Some of the current stimulus plan is outright ridiculous. $6,200,000,000 of it is going towards weatherization of buildings? Some $2,500,000,000 of it is going towards rebuilding and restructing federal buildings to make them more green? So in the middle of the deepest recession since the Great Depression the federal government is...remodeling? Nice.
• Government gaining more of a stake in the day to day affairs of commercial business. This is never a good thing in a democratic capitalist system. The government cannot balance the budget yet they are going to tell banks how to conduct their affairs? The very reason that Bank of America is in dire straits now is because the government played hardball on their purchase of Merril Lynch. Essentially BOA wanted to back out knowing that Merril Lynch was going to lose almost 14 billion prior to the purchase. BOA was not sure they could handle this type of loss or make up for it. As it stands now I believe BOA lost 1 billion last quarter. However the government having injected money into BOA told them essentially that if they did not purchase ML that they would not look to favorably on helping BOA in the near future should they need it. So the government figured what was good for the economy or the image of the economy was good for BOA. However we can clearly see it was not. The government needs to get out of the affairs of companies as soon as possible and allow them to get back to the business of making money. I realize they had to inject money but they shouldn't be calling the shots. Thats the pot calling the kettle black since the government and money have never been a good combination.
• Blaming the problem on consumers, the executive branch, and whoever else they may. The problem is not just consumers but the fact that banks allowed the consumers to 'slip by' and purchase property way out of their budget. The problem was not the President nor his cabinet since this office does not act in a vacuum in our system and is limited by several checks and balances put there for good reason. The problem of oversight really belonged to Congressional oversight groups and they alone had the clout and the power to enforce the policies which they clearly did not. So if the Congress and the banks want to find someone to blame all they need to do is look in the mirror because they got us here.
• Advocation of protectionism and isolationism. These types of policies will result in a trade war with many many nations. The current economy is global and America cannot act as if we can meet all of our own demands because we simply cannot. Without the influx of imports we currently have America would be in a huge mess. Many factories that I worked at built factories in other nations in order to supply that nation. American factories simply could not handle the demand. One could make the argument they could meet the demand now but when the economy ramps back up, and it will, it will be capped by our own refusal to admit that we simply cannot produce fast enough or gain access to enough raw materials to meet the demand. Isolationism is probably the biggest deterent to economic growth you could ever have and yet we have those who are suggesting it. History shows that it simply does not work.

All of these to me are scary. We can continue our social expirements and free energy, no pollution pie in the sky ideals at a later date. Right now we need to go with what works.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

However not putting liquidity back into the system would certainly lead to another Depression.

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I agree there is a liquidity problem, but shoving money at wallstreet won't solve it. Employment has to rise, the ratio of M3 to M1/M2 has to decrease in order to improve liquidity. Increasing M3 will only constrict liquidity further as smaller businesses and individuals will not be able to effectively compete for resources, including financing, against large corporations. Until we stabilize employment in this country, defaults on personal credit are the only possible outcome.

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• Raising taxes in a recession.

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The budget has to be balanced, otherwise we are just exchanging one form of debt for another. Noone likes paying taxes, but the system doesnt work without them.

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Investing in energy that has little or no benefit to the current economy.

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While I agree that we shouldn't be wasting money on research that doesn't benefit th economy, I disagree that energy research doesnt benefit the economy. I will sya that I've doen the numbers and solar power is just as economical as nuclear, so we don't need to waste money researchign it, we need to spend that money developing it, i.e. actually building solar farms. The major problem with that right now is that noone wants to invest in solar power, they jsut want to lend money to people who will invest it. Well, sorry people, but while solar power is economically feasable, it isn't going to pay 12% on top of recouping its expenses. The other problem is failure of companies to make large quantites of commercial solar cells actually available. I wrote a business plan a few years back, btu when I started callign up to get pricing and availability, BP told me there was a 2 year lead time and I couldnt get more than 1000 units at a time. Then when I checked on available land, there wasn't any at reasonable prices due to the expanding (at the time) housing bubble. So the technology si already feasable, its just there are too many economic and logistical hurdles in the way to make it worth developing. I'm not going to do all the work, take all the risk, and then hand someone else all the profit.

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Placing earmarks and essentially 're-modelling' funds into a stimulus plan.
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... employing thousands of construction workers, which then in turn improves liquidity ...

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Government gaining more of a stake in the day to day affairs of commercial business.

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Sorry but Businees has already shown that it cannot run its own affairs without regulation. They had their chance and they blew it again, again. No you can't leave it up to choice, because the prisoners dilemna will always force teh Nash equilibrium into the least effective mode of operation. When your actions effect the lives of others who do not have a direct say in those actions, your actions must be regulated, PERIOD. When banks invest money they arent investign THEIR money they are investign the money of their depositers, therefor the methods they use to invest that money must be in place to prevent abuse and incredibly obvious misjudgements.

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Blaming the problem on consumers, the executive branch, and whoever else they may.

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The indisputable fact is that there IS a problem. I'm not blaming anyone, but I will identify what is causing the problem, and if that cause is the decisions being made and defended by some group then too bad so sad, get over your ego trip. I hate to use a cliche but if you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem.

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Advocation of protectionism and isolationism.

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I never advocated protectionism, but I will say that we need to level the playing field. If we pass a law saying you can't use slave labor then a company should not be able to step across an imaginary line and still sell us products made with slave labor.

>> Raising taxes in a recession.
Nobody's advocating raising taxes, all plans include lower taxes, right?

>> [The EPA] should be finding solutions to the issues
Isn't that what the market is supposed to do? If you make it more profitable for companies to find the solutions then you spur innovation in a much better way than letting an agency try to figure things out itself.

>> Green may be in but green is expensive
The stimulus bill is subsidizing the cost of making things green so that it gets done and that jobs are created and supplies are purchased to get it done. I don't think anybody is being forced to go green, the government is just providing incentives so that they will be better off if they do.

>> Placing earmarks
There are no earmarks in either version of the bill.

>> So in the middle of the deepest recession since the Great Depression the federal government is...remodeling? Nice.
My understanding is that the money spent on supplies helps the companies that make those supplies, and the money spent on the labor obviously creates jobs. That money is hopefully then spent on other things which overall helps to stimulate the economy. Do you disagree with that assessment?

>> Advocation of protectionism and isolationism.
I agree this is not a good thing. I have heard that some are trying to remove some of these components of the stimulus bill but I'm not sure if they have or will succeed.

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I never advocated protectionism, but I will say that we need to level the playing field. If we pass a law saying you can't use slave labor then a company should not be able to step across an imaginary line and still sell us products made with slave labor.

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If you can tell a pair of shoes was made by a sweaty brown person in Honduras rather than a well-paid sweaty brown person in Honduras, then by all means, help regulate importers.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-...epression.html

This is an early article from back in Sept 08. There were talks then of raising taxes and we were 9 months into a recession. Admittedly I don't think it was concrete until it was announced some months later that were were definitely in one. Taxes will have to be raised eventually to pay for the plan. Hopefully by then we will be out of the woods. However if industry and business is forced to pay more that will also be a problem. Also if green jobs which are at best unsteady at the moment replace industry jobs then you are taking from one sector to give to another with nearly no net job growth. This is what some call the broken window theory. Essentially if a boy breaks a window in a shop is that good or bad? Those for the theory say its good because then a company has to produce and install the new glass so therefore the boy actually created jobs. However it fails to take into account the company that had to pay for the broken window and possibly the insurance that took a loss on the broken window. So while jobs were gained in one area just as many were lost in another. If the company had not had a broken window then they could have spent the money to replace it on something more constructive rather than repairing what is already there. Of course this is a story and one broken window isn't going to cause all that but you get the idea. Going green at the expense of others is not going to produce growth. It will have to be both and for quite some time.

In essence it is similar to Katrina. Was it good for the economy or was it bad? It raised gas prices significantly, raised demand for lumber and building materials and created thousands of jobs. However it destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, and put just as many out of work as it later put to work. No net gain.

Here is a breakdown of the plan. It is 1588 pages long and I, for one, am not going to read the entire thing so this graph from the Washington Post should give a good overview.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020100154.html

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Sorry but Businees has already shown that it cannot run its own affairs without regulation. They had their chance and they blew it again, again. No you can't leave it up to choice, because the prisoners dilemna will always force teh Nash equilibrium into the least effective mode of operation. When your actions effect the lives of others who do not have a direct say in those actions, your actions must be regulated, PERIOD. When banks invest money they arent investign THEIR money they are investign the money of their depositers, therefor the methods they use to invest that money must be in place to prevent abuse and incredibly obvious misjudgements.

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While I don't disagree completely with your statements surely you must agree that the best path forward for a capitalist society is to get government back to governing and businesses back to making profits? It is a sad affair when business is propped up and/or saved by the government in a capitalist economy. I'm not saying it wasn't necessary to put liquidity back in the market but I am saying if it does not stop somewhere bad things are on the horizon. Just because a sector of the economy failed to practice ethical business does not mean that capitalism as a whole is a failure and we should over-regulate the entire system. It does mean we need oversight but it does not mean that government meddles with everyday business decisions. But since America is definitely reactive and not pro-active we will over regulate till it gets under people's skin. At that point it will calm down as it always does and companies can get back to making money the old fashioned way. By earning it instead of begging for it.

I couldn't care less whether the SBG in honduras is makign a good living or not, but when you continually export dollars to honduras, it effects liquidity locally. Which is fine if there is a constrained labor market or an expanding M1, which there isn't. A great many things that we are currently doing in this country are perfectly fine by themselves, but taken together they create a situation where teh economy slowly bleeds to death from 1000 paper cuts.

We are very very far from over-regulation, in fact the financial system is so under-regulated that its basically a huge free for all. If the nash equilibrium produces undesireable behavior, you have to make changes that create a new equilibrium, you cannot just expect people to make the less selfish choice of their own free will. You will never get everyone to cooperate by choice, its human nature. Therefor regulations are required to make everyone play by the same rules, or suffer the legal consequences.

I just don't see how it is reasonable to regulate products produced from slave labor in the manner you described. There is often no observable difference... that doesn't mean an effort cannot be made, but I have to wonder about unintended consequences. Particularly if the people in these poor countries will be able to sell anything anymore: I expect business owners to be very uncooperative about any sort of investigation just to get on the "white list" to export here.

Exactly, noone wants anything that will actually require effort, or produce results or in the least way interfere with 'business' doing what ever the hell it wants. Well, too bad 'business' can't stabilize itself, so everyone else has to go through a recession, lose their homes and live in poverty, again. God forbid we change the way things are done... :rolleyes:

Let's be honest, it has nothing to do with what's best for the country, it has everything to do with an elite few staying in control with no interference regardless of the consequences to everyone else. All the math, economic theory, and logic points to a solution, but that solution requires self control and restraints on behavior, so it wont happen.

Meanwhile, we can't import anything anymore because all the ICE agents are busy globetrotting, trying to get sweatshops to reveal themselves and somehow keep them in one spot so that they don't accidentally sell us goods produced by slave labor. Not to mention that we would need constant support from foreign governments to do this without starting some sort of war, and everyone knows America is so great at diplomacy.

We basically can only do something about slave labor if the sweatshops come here or try to leave our borders because that's our jurisdiction.

Hell, America is dumb enough to declare war on a tactic (the war on terror) and try to eliminate it from the outside in. It clearly hasn't worked; I don't see why it does for anything else; I don't think an eventual war would be worth it.

>> This is an early article from back in Sept 08
That's just a blog discussing what not to do, not anybody actually proposing tax raises. Nobody has any plans to raise federal taxes to help the economy, so you don't have to worry too much about that.

>> you are taking from one sector to give to another with nearly no net job growth.
The problem is that the jobs are being taken from one sector whether we like it or not. In fact, it would be great if we ended up with no net job growth. The alternative is a continuing rise in unemployment. Right now windows are already cracked or broken, the government is just deciding to fix them.

I should've voted for Bubba...

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That's just a blog discussing what not to do, not anybody actually proposing tax raises. Nobody has any plans to raise federal taxes to help the economy, so you don't have to worry too much about that.

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The blog was brought on based on issues that arose out of the two Presidential campaigns. For a bit there the Dems were talking of raising taxes as they usually do. I'm sure they have backed off that stance now realizing that would be a very bad idea.

But in the long run the final bailout and stimulus bills have to be paid by someone. That boils down to you and I in the form of tax increases. The money has to come from somewhere. And the really really really bad part of the whole thing is not one politician has even suggested as to how we are going to pay this back and what it is going to take to pay it. They don't want to discuss it because they know the ONLY way to regain the money is through higher taxes. The Repubs know it and the Dems know it. None of them seem to have viable solutions for the long term and continue to be short-sighted. Congress has continually written checks that they cannot cash or expect the taxpayer to cash even though they know there is no way possible taxes could begin to pick up the tab.

So all this is change we can believe in? I seriously doubt it. The only change I see is in the amount of red ink in the budget.

Holy crap! The U.S. national debt is up to $11 trillion now! :eek:
So what happens when a country declares bankrupcy anyways? :p

11 x 10 ^ 12
or
11 x 10 ^ 15?

These accursed american twisted mathematical names for numbers...

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Originally Posted by Elysia

11 x 10 ^ 12

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Yes.

Long scaled trillion would be 10^18, anyway.

I don't quite see why so many nations follow the long scale anyway... I mean England was sensible enough to switch 20 years ago or so. Numbers are seperated every power of 1000 (1,000,000,000,000,000.00). I'm pretty sure that system is universal (albeit with different delimiters) Doesn't it make sense that those seperators should represent the start of a new term? I just don't get the "thousand million" nonsense.

I just found about about the stupid scales. Didn't know about that before...
I was under the impression that US had simply "skipped" a step ahead.
That 10^6 = million, 10^9 = billion (should be milliard), 10^12 = trillion (should be billion), etc.
Dang US and UK for using such stupid scales :/
I say long rules and short falls short. Well, that's just my opinion anyway...

I think I am going to use numerical representations instead of alphabetical in the future... It's the only thing that's standardized.

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Originally Posted by Elysia

I was under the impression that US had simply "skipped" a step ahead.
That 10^6 = million, 10^9 = billion (should be milliard), 10^12 = trillion (should be billion), etc.

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That's right.

Or better, you can think of it in powers of 1,000, rather than powers of 1,000,000 as long scale.

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Short Scale

1,000                  1,000 x 1,000 ^ 0
1,000,000              1,000 x 1,000 ^ 1
1,000,000,000          1,000 x 1,000 ^ 2
1,000,000,000,000      1,000 x 1,000 ^ 3
1,000,000,000,000,000  1,000 x 1,000 ^ 4


Long Scale

1,000,000              1,000,000 x 1,000,000 ^ 0
1,000,000,000          1,000,000 x 1,000,000 ^ 0.5
1,000,000,000,000      1,000,000 x 1,000,000 ^ 1
1,000,000,000,000,000  1,000,000 x 1,000,000 ^ 1.5

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I do believe the use of decimals in the long scale is sense enough to recognize an issue.

The fact is, the English language (and many, many other languages) don't have a designated word for "one thousand million."

Some countries use milliard (with distinct words, you might as well assume a power of 1000), but many countries use "one thousand million" or their local variation (mil million, etc). Why they do this is beyond me... so as long as we're speaking in English, a language that generally uses the short scale and lacks the vocabulary for the long scale... you should really assume the short-scale regardless of what your own country uses.

I have to assume short-scale, and with this new information, the world is now dark. The fact that they use the short-scale means the words cannot be directly translated due to some stupid oversight in the numbering system.
Why does there have to be two numbering systems!?! Of everything there are so many variants.
Well, I object. Math is international, so that it what I will use, and what I urge everyone else to use.

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Originally Posted by Elysia

Math is international, so that it what I will use, and what I urge everyone else to use.

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So does every modern education system from the age of 5. :)

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Originally Posted by Elysia

I think I am going to use numerical representations instead of alphabetical in the future... It's the only thing that's standardized.

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Except when it comes to grouping thousands: comma versus period :(

>> For a bit there the Dems were talking of raising taxes as they usually do.
Technically, Obama (the democratic nominee)'s plan was to lower taxes for most people. It did include higher taxes for a few, but when the severity of the financial crisis became clear he quickly removed that part of the plan. So again you really have nothing to worry about here.

>> not one politician has even suggested as to how we are going to pay this back and what it is going to take to pay it.
I am very curious as well what the plan is to pay this stuff back, although I won't assume no politician has addressed it (I don't think it's safe for you to assume that either). My impression is that higher taxes and budget cuts will have to be made once the economy recovers.

It is possible to have a good economy and a balanced budget or even a surplus. That was happening just fine about a decade ago. Again, my guess is that the hope is to return to such a situation and use that surplus to pay off the debt accumulated now.

What I sense from you though is that you are worried about things like increased taxes and how the debt will be paid off, but you don't seem too concerned about the half million jobs lost last month and the half million jobs lost the month before. My impression is that the people in government, and especially the executive branch, feel that it is critical to stem the rise in unemployment and get people working again. I think they're keeping in mind the ramifications of what they're doing now, but feel it is worth the expected cost. What I haven't heard from opponents of the stimulus package is how the current crisis can be solved without increasing the debt.

>> So all this is change we can believe in?
While the congress seems to be business as usual on both sides of the aisle, there is definitely a major change (that "we can believe in") in the White House.

>> The only change I see is in the amount of red ink in the budget.
Look closer.

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Originally Posted by Elysia

I have to assume short-scale, and with this new information, the world is now dark. The fact that they use the short-scale means the words cannot be directly translated due to some stupid oversight in the numbering system.
Why does there have to be two numbering systems!?! Of everything there are so many variants.
Well, I object. Math is international, so that it what I will use, and what I urge everyone else to use.

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The metric system is based on scales of 1000 (milligram, gram, kilogram...) so in that respect, I'm surprised it isn't the U.S. that's backwards and the rest of the world should all be using the "short scale". :D

Which countries don't use the short scale, and why?

My country, for example. Why? Who knows why? I didn't even know of short and long scale before today.
And the metric system at least is standard...

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Originally Posted by laserlight

Except when it comes to grouping thousands: comma versus period :(

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I don't see what the fuss is about. If Americans were better at fractions we'd learn to say "one-two-thousandth" (for example) rather than "point" something most of the time, removing the cultural bias. I'd expect scientific notation to be used with larger numbers especially since you'd only see them carried to several places in math and science. So there really is one area where this matters: financials, and that's simply a matter of dollars and cents, or whatever you people use. :p Language worked around that holy war.

The CEO of my company went to see Paul Kruger (the Nobel Prize winning economist) at a local auditorium a few weeks ago. He recounted the lecture to us.

Kruger's general attitude about our current economic situation is pessimistic, to say the least. His opinion is that a proper recovery package is going to be more like $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion. He was also confident that even though lawmakers might balk at such numbers right now, they will have to come around eventually. The alternative is complete economic collapse.

Just one guy's opinion, but he's the sort of person that legislators listen to, and he did win the Prize... And he's not the only economist saying such things.

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...and he did win the Prize...

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Which used to mean something. I'm sure his does but there is one select individual who attained it who definitely did not deserve it. However that's a completely different topic.

@Daved:
I guess I haven't seen any politician come close to expressing how we are going to pay for it. I truly cannot say none have but publically few have mentioned anything about repayment options. I really don't think it's because they are more concentrated on unemployment but rather that the stark truth behind repayment would not be popular politics at the current time. They don't have to say it though. We all know where the money will come from. Don't people get it when they say taxpayers have to foot the bill? That's code for we will eventually have to raise taxes to pay the bills.

I'm not for or against Obama but so far much of what he has done is business as usual. Troops out of Iraq in 16 months, which was the original plan anyways, more bailouts and money, which was the norm at the time, etc. He closed Guatanamo which was a different direction but has said nothing about the possible repercussions. I frankly don't see anything different but to be fair he hasn't been in office that long. But Presidential activity seems to be logarithmic in that the most activity is in the first 6 months of office and it begins to wane after that. Probably because Congress has chosen sides by then and we are back to good old partisan politics. Obama probably won't even get 6 months of b/c partisan politics are already in full swing

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His opinion is that a proper recovery package is going to be more like $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion.

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I would say he is fairly accurate in his numbers. However politicians know they cannot ask for that up front but if they ask for it throughout several strategically placed spending bills or possibly more stimulus plans they will eventually get to the number and possibly beyond.

My biggest gripe is the lack of information on how it will get paid off as well, so I'm with you there.

I know that part of the idea is that some of these plans will bring return on investment. For example, when Geithner says that part of his plan will include $1 trillion dollars made available to banks for lending, that doesn't mean the government will have to come up with $1 trillion. In that case it means that maybe the government spends $300 billion and convinces banks to adjust their valuations of some assets in such a way that the mechanism for allowing about $1 trillion dollars to be lent is opened up. Also, some portions of the TARP bill are investments that can and have made money for the government. So an $800 billion plan won't necessarily cost $800 billion, it could very likely cost less (and of course it might cost more).

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

I don't see what the fuss is about. If Americans were better at fractions we'd learn to say "one-two-thousandth" (for example) rather than "point" something most of the time, removing the cultural bias. I'd expect scientific notation to be used with larger numbers especially since you'd only see them carried to several places in math and science. So there really is one area where this matters: financials, and that's simply a matter of dollars and cents, or whatever you people use. :p Language worked around that holy war.

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fractions, lol, yeah try to calculate the resonant frequency of a colpitts oscillator using fractions...

oh, and most complex financial accounting s done with integers or fixed point math, which amounts to teh same thing, not floatign point.

I think you missed the point. We were talking about separators, as some countries transpose the point and the comma. I know Norway does.

1.500,75 rather than 1,500.75

There's really not a major difference either way and I was only talking about steps to remove the cultural bias that one way was better than the other.

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

I think you missed the point. We were talking about separators, as some countries transpose the point and the comma. I know Norway does.

1.500,75 rather than 1,500.75

There's really not a major difference either way and I was only talking about steps to remove the cultural bias that one way was better than the other.

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The only problem is when two different people are communicating and someone writes: 1.500
Does that mean 1500 or 3/2 ?
I think numbers need to be standardized, along with many other things.

I tend to use spaces: 1 500
No confusion there.
There are so many things that needs to be standardized!

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Originally Posted by Elysia

I tend to use spaces: 1 500
No confusion there.
There are so many things that needs to be standardized!

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Yeah, that's what my elementary school teachers tried to get us to do, but that just looks like 2 numbers: 1 & 500.

If it's two numbers, they must be separated by "and", "&" or a comma ",". Otherwise it's a single number.

Why are there two discussions going on here? Am I off topic? If so I apologize for the hijack. Hard to tell looking back through posts just exactly what we are talking about in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Why are there two discussions going on here? Am I off topic? If so I apologize for the hijack. Hard to tell looking back through posts just exactly what we are talking about in this thread.

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Well, if you look at the original post and the first few replies, the discussion regarding how we write numbers and how we define a trillion is significantly more pertinent than the political discussion. I don't see anyone whining about hijacking, though. I think you should feel free to continue whatever discussion you wish.

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Originally Posted by Bubba

Why are there two discussions going on here? Am I off topic? If so I apologize for the hijack. Hard to tell looking back through posts just exactly what we are talking about in this thread.

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The US public debt is an example of very important trillions; I think it answers the original question :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/d...ancial-pyramid


I still do not understand why governments are giving so much money to the people who lost it in the first place.

Especially after it gave them US$120 billion and they gave themselves US$20 billion in bonuses.

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

We basically can only do something about slave labor if the sweatshops come here or try to leave our borders because that's our jurisdiction.

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People moved from the farms to the city because factory work was better paid.

The reason is produce prices are very low.

Produce prices are low because the US and Europe subsidize their farmers.

But reducing/removing farm subsidies would transfer the economic pain to the US and Europe (and so will not happen).

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Originally Posted by novacain

I still do not understand why governments are giving so much money to the people who lost it in the first place.

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Because teh ........storm that is coming will end the careers of many politicians, and noone wants to be seen as the guy that did nothing...

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Especially after it gave them US$120 billion and they gave themselves US$20 billion in bonuses.

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yeah, noone saw that one coming 1000 miles away ...

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People moved from the farms to the city because factory work was better paid.

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Its more complex than that, the industrial revolution freed up a lot of labor that traditionally was used to work the farm, so rather than do nothing, many 3rd and 4th sons worked in the factories rather than work the farm, since their labor was no longer necessary on the farm.

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Produce prices are low because the US and Europe subsidize their farmers.

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as does every other country. Food production is a strategic necessity and is therefor exempt from international free trade law. BTW, The U.S. is not bound by international law on trade, we only go along with it for political expediency. Our constitution in fact forbids any such agreement, as it woudl fall under '... no laws respecting any person or group of people ...". So we cannot legally enter into any agreement that would give a foreign power any legal power of enforcement. This is one of the reasons we required a veto in the U.N., as membership without a veto would be unconstitutional.

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But reducing/removing farm subsidies would transfer the economic pain to the US and Europe (and so will not happen).

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Actually you have it backwards. If we stopped subsidizing our agriculture, it would reduce exports, not increase imports. We subsidize farms so that they can afford to sell their crops overseas in markets that otherwise coudl not afford to buy American crops. But yeah, Im all for reducing farm subsidies adn lettign the 3rd world starve itself back to a sustainable population.

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Originally Posted by abachler

Its more complex than that, the industrial revolution freed up a lot of labor that traditionally was used to work the farm, so rather than do nothing, many 3rd and 4th sons worked in the factories rather than work the farm, since their labor was no longer necessary on the farm.

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In China there is a law on how many children you can have, 3-4 children is not allowed.

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Originally Posted by abachler

as does every other country.

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No, not all countries. Only Europe and the US.

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Originally Posted by abachler

Food production is a strategic necessity and is therefor exempt from international free trade law. BTW, The U.S. is not bound by international law on trade, we only go along with it for political expediency. Our constitution in fact forbids any such agreement, as it woudl fall under '... no laws respecting any person or group of people ...". So we cannot legally enter into any agreement that would give a foreign power any legal power of enforcement. This is one of the reasons we required a veto in the U.N., as membership without a veto would be unconstitutional.

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How about the WTO? Which is allowing Antigua to ignore US$21 mill of US copyrights for violating the FTA (not that the US accepts the umpires descision...)

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071221/110211.shtml

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Originally Posted by abachler

Actually you have it backwards. If we stopped subsidizing our agriculture, it would reduce exports, not increase imports.

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Without subsidies your farmers would go broke, move to more viable crops or have to charge a realistic price (ie greater than cost of production).

This would raise prices as supply drops, which would make prices viable for farmers in the third world.

US imports would increase, if not in volume but at least in $ value.

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Originally Posted by abachler

We subsidize farms so that they can afford to sell their crops overseas in markets that otherwise coudl not afford to buy American crops. But yeah, Im all for reducing farm subsidies adn lettign the 3rd world starve itself back to a sustainable population.

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By 'afford to buy American crops' you mean 'can buy American crops at below cost of production'. Which means other countries can not charge reasonable prices.

The result being lower prices, less/no profit for third world farmers.

This makes farming unsustainable in the third world.

This supplies third world manufacturing with cheap labour (as traditional farm work is unavailable).

Which makes US manufacturing too expensive.

As manufacturing (not services) generates a multiplier to emplyment, the US is having unemployment issues.

Look at India, too many service based industries and not enough manufacturing (compared to China). Result is massive unemployment. This has divided the population into a third world rural and first world urban.

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People moved from the farms to the city because factory work was better paid.

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I was not aware that my argument had anything to do with that, but you are preaching to the choir on the subsidy issue. I think. Your position is unclear to me.

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Without subsidies your farmers would go broke, move to more viable crops or have to charge a realistic price (ie greater than cost of production).

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For all your edict, the story is actually massively different for US agriculture. Our farming is among the most efficient in the world, but it appears to be shrinking anyway regardless of the subsidies. People have gotten tired of supporting big time farmers that gross millions when cheap food can now be imported: Price controls squeezed profitability of domestic agriculture on a long term scale, hampering farmers in making their own investments (source). These, which have been in place since the recovery period of the Great Depression, distorted the market value of crops to the point that we cannot compete.

But I love how "move to more viable crops" is written with negative connotation. To me that means "crop rotation" which subsidies have never encouraged in the slightest. Under such scenario, you could make the same money planting the same things consistently. Eventually that practice makes arable land unsuitable for farming.

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Without subsidies your farmers would go broke, move to more viable crops or have to charge a realistic price (ie greater than cost of production).

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I'm not sure what more viable crops means. I come from the Midwest and have worked at a large company that is essentially a corn giant that literally feeds the world. Having been associated with both the farm side of crops and the after-farm or market side of them I know our system is extremely efficient as it is. There isn't one crop that is more viable than corn since it is in pretty much everything you eat from day to day. It's also used in some other applications that you might not think of. During my stint in the research lab at the company I was privy to projects that used corn in some fashion that had nothing to do with food. The most viable crop for the USA to grow is corn. The world's entire food system relies on corn in some manner.

What more viable crops do you suggest? How would you make the system more efficient? What do you currently know about the farms and/or the marketing of US crops? Farms are shrinking in the US because laws combined with low buying prices make it extremely expensive and difficult to make a profit. Average return on crops is around 3 to 4 percent with beans being a bit higher since bean prices are usually higher than corn. With ethanol becoming more popular it should drive corn price a bit higher. Nitrogen, herbicides, and pesticides are also extremely expensive. Equipment for farming is also not cheap. One combine is extremely expensive and can run as high as $250,000. Due to this many small farmers are stuck with their old equipment and cannot get money to buy newer more efficient equipment. Just go to a farm sometime and suggest they purchase 'new' equipment. You will get laughed off the property. Nothing's new on a midwest farm unless it is subsidized by a large company such as ADM or Tate and Lyle. Most elevators in Illinois are now run by either ADM or Tate and Lyle but were formerly run by smaller companies and/or families. Crops are big business and big business has taken them over. It's all about the numbers come harvest time. All it takes is one storm with high speed straight-line winds, an early frost, or not enough rain to ruin an entire crop and put the farm way over budget. Crops that are not insured against straight-line winds (blown over corn, etc) are simply chalked up as a complete loss.

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People moved from the farms to the city because factory work was better paid.

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I know several farmers who do both and. Many farmers have taken jobs but are also maintaining and operating the family farm. It's usually more about keeping the family tradition alive than it is about making cold hard cash anymore. You have to farm a lot of land to make good money and to make a living off of it. There is also share-farming where a family decides they do not want to farm their land but will allow another farmer to do it - at a price. There are also company run farms that farm gigantic pieces of land comprised of many many fields that are basically employing people to farm and take care of the crops. But as for the old country farmer, most work part-time and/or full time jobs to keep the farm alive.

I'm also puzzled by the crop rotation comment. Crops must be rotated to keep the land fertile and productive. Beans one year, corn next, etc., etc. Then some fields are left untouched for 1 year and the cycle starts over. Farming corn or beans continuously without rotation from year to year will ruin the ground and bankrupt the farm. Just trust me when I say that America and the Midwest have farming all figured out. We do it very well. Almost every university in the Midwest has a huge Agricultural department focused on ag science. High schools have Ag related clubs full of members. Farming is big business in the Midwest and no one in the world produces as much we do with the quality we have.

US and Eurpoean subsidies have lowered the price of crops in the 3rd world.

Because of farm subsidies 3rd world farmers have become factory workers.

Because of the unlimited labour supply and limited opportunities, wages are very low.

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Originally Posted by whiteflags

But I love how "move to more viable crops" is written with negative connotation. To me that means "crop rotation" which subsidies have never encouraged in the slightest. Under such scenario, you could make the same money planting the same things consistently. Eventually that practice makes arable land unsuitable for farming.

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I meant move to high value, premium crops, usually seasonal.
Basically high price per weight crops (saffron, truffles or aqua-culture for abalone and freshwater crayfish are all being grown in my state in OZ).

or value add to the produce. (Turning your grapes into wine, milk into cheese, fruit into jam etc.)

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Originally Posted by bubba

Just go to a farm sometime and suggest they purchase 'new' equipment. You will get laughed off the property.

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Visit a 3rd world farm and ask to see their machinery.....

You also forgot to mention the evil one, Monsanto.

I mean a patent on raising pigs, identified by a gene marker carried by over 80% of all pigs (not raised by this method) and covering all offspring...

I know almost all of the number names out to "novemnonagintanongentillion" (that's a 1 followed by 3000 zeros in the US system, a 1 followed by 5994 zeros in the British system). It would be a real shocker to see a mother giving birth to "novemnonagintanongentuplets" (999 babies)! Googol (not to be confused with Google, the search engine), is 1E100, or 10 duotrigintillion. From the millions, the number names are million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion, and so on. For the "tens" you have decillion, vigintillion, trigintillion, quadragintillion, quinquagintillion, sexagintillion, septuagintillion, octuagintillion, and nonagintillion. For the "hundreds", of which I don't have memorized, it's centillion, ducentillion, trecentillion, quadringentillion, quinquagentillion (?), ?, septingentillion (?), octogentillion (?), and nongentillion. It's then just a matter of combining prefixes in the ones, tens, hundreds order (reverse on how the numbers are said). You rarely see anything beyond the quintillions being used as it is anyway.

Closed. Please do not bump old threads.