[Q&A] Questions you want answered (D&D Edition)

Reviving for the new D&D:
-ask or answer questions better suited for D&D than EE
-not intended as a debate thread; if people want to debate a particular issue feel free to create a new thread for it.

What's the difference between the DNC and the DCCC? Does it make sense to donate to one more than the other? How do I choose between donating to them vs individual campaigns in non-local races?

DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) only covers the House of Representatives.

The DCCC changed their rules to blacklist any one who works on a campaign that challanges an incumbent democrat during a primary in response to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Dems beating out establishment-friendly incumbent Dems. I wouldn't donate to them if you want more people like her in Congress. She has her own PAC called Courage to Change that goes to candidates she supports.

Does the wealth being accumulated by the millionaires and especially billionaires of the world (but the US in particular) have any impact on inflation? Ie if they're not using the money, does it effectively take it out of circulation?

It has an outsized effect on inflation of the stock market and other investment vehicles. It affects consumer price inflation slightly.

LeapingGnome wrote:

It has an outsized effect on inflation of the stock market and other investment vehicles. It affects consumer price inflation slightly.

This. Billionaires are NOT not using the money. They don't have mansions full of mattresses stuffed with crisp Benjamins. That money is invested somewhere. And if the question is "do those investements affect inflation", the obvious answer is "depends on where it's invested".

I genuinely think that the much longer lever for the billionaires to influence inflation is more direct anyway - money buys political influence. Sufficient political influence can affect interest rates.

One thing it does is drive up house prices like crazy. The problem with that kind of inflation is that A) it's extremely dangerous, and B) people love it. They want their house to go up 15% a year forever.

It can't, and won't, and that's why the economy blew up in 2008. It will probably happen again.

LeapingGnome wrote:

It has an outsized effect on inflation of the stock market and other investment vehicles. It affects consumer price inflation slightly.

I don't know. Have you seen the prices of super yachts lately? They're out of control!

Huh I read in this article that of people worth $1 million or more, they hold 28% of their assets in cash on average, and that rate has been increasing. That sounds like quite a significant amount of money that's just not doing anything at the moment.

That said I agree it's not likely to have a major impact on consumer prices because they wouldn't be increasing demand much for the same things the rest of us buy if they started using it. They literally have nothing to spend it on, and yet so many people could use a small bit of it to have reliable access to basic needs, food, clothing, shelter. Which is to say, if they're not going to spend it, either tax them for it--but it's hard to prevent them skipping out through loopholes--or just print that trillion dollar coin and give people that need it the money. I'm convinced doing so would barely move the needle on inflation.

Huh I read in this article that of people worth $1 million or more, they hold 28% of their assets in cash on average, and that rate has been increasing. That sounds like quite a significant amount of money that's just not doing anything at the moment.

Unless it's under their mattresses, it's probably in banks, meaning it's out there flying around being multiple dollars at once.

I haven't followed too closely but I thought commercial banks are pretty limited in how much they're allowed to put into investments. Most of their money comes from loans. If I'm understanding that article correctly, that 28% must be in commercial banks rather than investment banks, and it's specifically called out as cash assets, so it can't be stuck in some investment vehicle. They're basically hoarding money for an apocalyptic rainy day that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

$1 million isn't what it used to be... those numbers for people worth $100 million or more would be more telling since that is the where the wealth is concentrated, and are undoubtedly more in single digit percentages.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

I haven't followed too closely but I thought commercial banks are pretty limited in how much they're allowed to put into investments. Most of their money comes from loans. If I'm understanding that article correctly, that 28% must be in commercial banks rather than investment banks, and it's specifically called out as cash assets, so it can't be stuck in some investment vehicle. They're basically hoarding money for an apocalyptic rainy day that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't know what the current percentages are, but for a long time, fractional reserve banking meant that a bank only had to hold about 5% of its outstanding loans as cash. If you deposited $100, that meant that $95 of it would immediately be lent out or invested. Then other banks would eventually get that $95, and loan out another $90.25. That money would trickle into other banks (maybe even the first bank) and they'd lend out $85.74, and so on.

In other words, at a 5% margin rate, for each dollar you put into a bank, about 20 notional dollars get created in the banking system. I don't know what the current margin requirement is, but if you happen to spot it, a simple 1/X will give you the money multiplier. IIRC, this is part of the M3 count of money. There are tons of other notional derivatives of M3, most of which end up taking on a lot of 'moneyness', because they're specified in dollars and trade in the open market, so they end up getting treated a lot like actual dollars. That is, until the inevitable debt contraction, when all these structures start to blow up because there's nothing close to the actual number of dollars required for them to all be serviced at par. The Fed rides to the rescue and prints a whole hell of a lot of new M1 money to bail out its buddies and keep them from collapsing, at which point the spiral takes off again.

This is why stocks and real estate just keep going up and up and up, because anytime they threaten to go down, the Fed intervenes.

This is why all the money in the system is flowing to fewer and fewer people; it's far far far more profitable to manipulate wealth tokens than it is to actually generate wealth.

Malor I remember you predicting this literal exact scenario over a decade ago - before even the 08 crash. I remember thinking it was a bit pessimist at the time but holy sh*t you were right.

Is The Lincoln Project tweeting about "principled conservatives" peak irony?

Mixolyde wrote:

Is The Lincoln Project tweeting about "principled conservatives" peak irony?

Well, the principles are about dog whistling racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc., and not explicitly stating them.

Did the Greatest Generation whine as much as Boomers?

I'm too young to know for sure, but my guess is no, because they hadn't screwed things up enough for the Boomers to be really mad or feel like they'd been treated unfairly.

The Boomers, on the other hand, have thoroughly screwed things up for the young people coming up now, and they don't like being confronted with that fact.

Malor wrote:

I'm too young to know for sure, but my guess is no, because they hadn't screwed things up enough for the Boomers to be really mad or feel like they'd been treated unfairly.

The Boomers, on the other hand, have thoroughly screwed things up for the young people coming up now, and they don't like being confronted with that fact.

From my observations of having Greatest Gen, Reagan loving grandparents, they sometimes did go nuts about the damn liberals and possible Communist takeover. But on the other hand nobody really f’ed with them because they could pull out the “without us you’d be speaking German” card. The Boomers don’t have that same big win as a group. (I recognize individuals did some amazing things to fight racism and sexism.)

This kinda goes back to where I view things currently but two questions:

1. Why haven't the "people" in general overthrown our terribly toxic government that threaten their lives?

2. Do the politicians think that this state of events can go on forever?

3. How can people be so *STUPID*

Drazzil wrote:

This kinda goes back to where I view things currently but two questions:

1. Why haven't the "people" in general overthrown our terribly toxic government that threaten their lives?

2. Do the politicians think that this state of events can go on forever?

3. How can people be so *STUPID*

not sure admit your second question, but to the first, if you're talking about the federal government, we did that by voting for Biden.

1. Laziness, busy with trying to get by, uninformed, believe lies, not personally affected, too optimistic, too pessimistic, tired, waiting for someone else to fix it. I also think that two halves of the country can't agree on what the toxic parts even are is a big factor. Revolutions happen in other places because an overwhelming percentage of people know something is wrong and want to stand up with each other. There's no coalition of anti-oligarchy here.
2. Yes, they do. People that believe in magic like trickle down and the invisible hand are not going to be particularly adept at seeing the future or caring about it. They think they are insulated from consequences by their money, and so far they have been.
3. People taught religion and lies instead of critical thinking.

Mixolyde wrote:

There's no coalition of anti-oligarchy here.

True, and to build on that: It's hard to form a coalition of anti-oligarchy when both sides are oligarchs.

One side is waaaaaaaay less evil, and waaaaaaaay more committed to things like an actual meritocracy and a society that treats all of its members responsibly

but both sides are still oligarchs. even if one side shows signs of trying to change and the other is doubling down on it while pretending to be populists for fun and profit, literally.

right wing is evil, left wing is not, just to be clear.

also I think I put the same number of 'a' letters in both of those because I'm too lazy to figure out if one is more imbalanced than the other. Add extra 'a' letters according to how you see things.

Drazzil wrote:

This kinda goes back to where I view things currently but two questions:

1. Why haven't the "people" in general overthrown our terribly toxic government that threaten their lives?

Because we are just animals. Not in a particularly bad way but in the same way that wolves will over eat a population of deer until the wolves don't have enough food and start dying off. The same way rabbits will over eat and over produce until they start dying off due to disease and starvation.

Humans have society which we believe makes us above this animal instinct but it really doesn't. It is just different kinds of limits.

Humans will not act against a toxic government until it gets so bad that life is threatened. The fall of the Roman empire, the French revolution, etc. none of those really happened until it gets so bad for so many that there is a real threat to the continuation of life

Unfortunately by that tipping point the revolution is usually quite bloody but it isn't because humans are "bad" but because we have the same hard wired instincts of all animals.

I'm not ready to overthrow the government because I don't want to start killing people.
Humans are animals but we're social animals and killing our own kind doesn't come easy to those of us predisposed to empathy and compassion.
While you'll find many that agree that Republicans are toxic and dangerous and should be removed from power, you won't find that many that are willing to start outright murdering them, which would be required to overthrow them. That's why the preference is to work within the existing system to remove them from power.

Stengah wrote:

I'm not ready to overthrow the government because I don't want to start killing people.
Humans are animals but we're social animals and killing our own kind doesn't come easy to those of us predisposed to empathy and compassion.
While you'll find many that agree that Republicans are toxic and dangerous and should be removed from power, you won't find that many that are willing to start outright murdering them, which would be required to overthrow them. That's why the preference is to work within the existing system to remove them from power.

Which may be why societies fail in general, because the conservatives are much less worried about that. Many are looking for an excuse to kill the opposition. See: a subset of police interacting with minorities for a current example.

~mod~
Wishing death upon people is not acceptable on Gamers With Jobs.
mudbunny

I don’t want violence but it feels like it’s becoming an increasing inevitability.

My only advice is to find out what mutual aid networks are organized in your area and get involved, whether that means actively volunteering or just donating money/resources.

I'm not against violence being done to them if they try something like another coup attempt or Charlottesville, I'm talking about rounding up Republican politicians, donors, and possibly even voters and straight-up executing them.