World Economy Thread

[Deleted member]

Basically, this is the thread outside of the DH to discuss current and future affairs referring to the World Economy, Politics, and the like.

Please try to cite any claims you make with reliable sources.



Anyway, continuing the conversation from another thread:

No, that is not why. There are three things I see happening in 2014 that wasn't a problem in 2008.
The economic environment has greatly changed. Japan isn't doing very well and Europe has their own crisis. The US is the only country looking OK but this will likely change. People are not going to want to spend money on videogames, or at least, not as much. The market is becoming more frugal. I believe games around the board are going to decline in sales. It will be hard for Smash to maintain it's numbers.
The Wii U wont be doing well. Even now, it gets beaten by PS3 and 360 on a weekly basis. Smash will moves systems, but I'm not sure how many. Gamers are more hostile to Nintendo then they were during the Gamecube days. Nintendo doesn't have the same level of respect they once had. We also STILL don't know about the game, even after launch. We got, what, Pikmin and Wii U Fit? A system needs games. Smash can't sell the system if it's the only game people want.
I expect the next game to sell more like Melee. It will start slower and sell over a longer period of time as people buy Wii Us.

You're wrong here. I may not be too keen when it comes to videogame history, but if there is one thing I know a lot about it is about politics and the economy. As an English teacher, this is a hot-topic with my students. So I do well to make sure I stay up to date and well informed on current matters.

You're completely wrong on Japan. In fact, Asia in general is booming, and Japan is predicted to recover very soon.
Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor...about-to-boom/
http://www.iol.co.za/business/intern...2#.UNiCH28k9O8
http://www.news.com.au/business/brea...-1226542797378

The new Prime Minister is putting a lot of pressure on the Bank of Japan, which has been the cause for a lot of their problems this past decade. In fact, you can defintely bet Japan will be the first to come out of their recession. If anything, western countries should be looking towards them as an example of how to deal with the current crisis (read up on the Lost (Two) Decade(s)).

Japan still has its problem to deal with, but the way this crisis has played out for them has caused a bit of "spring effect" based on what I read. It's only a matter of time before Japan bounces back.

This is that MAIN reason why I plan on moving there in a couple years to be honest. Europe and US don't have that sort of future. Let alone those opportunities. With rumors that the European Union will fall apart and the Euro cease to exist things look very grim over here. Same goes for the US, currently it is going through a very delicate recovery, however, if things get any worse in Europe (read: Spain), the US is gonna have it worse, simply because of its strong economic ties with Europe. Not to mention with countries like China and Russia rejecting the Petro-Dollar status, the Dollar is beginning to lose it's market value.

What we are seeing right now with the economic crisis, is a shift in the World Order in my opinion. No longer will we live in an Era dominated by ONE Superpower. In my personal (and limited) opinion, the pillars of Modern Society, in the future, will be Latin America and Asia. I believe we are in for a very interesting (and conflicted) future, in the coming decades. Many people are paying close attention to what will be happening in the next 50 or so years on this planet as we are indeed living through a very important period of time in human history.

I would recommend you check this (theoretical) webpage out, it's a very interesting read:
http://www.futuretimeline.net/

Japan likely wont recover. It's hard to believe they will just spring back after a 20 year recession. They also have an upsidedown population which is going to cost more and reduce their economy as well as Debt to GDP of 200%. That last one is why I don't Japan will bounce back. Any disruption and they get crushed by debt. China is also declining as the world can't take on any more debt and can't buy Chinese goods.
http://www.richdad.com/Resources/Ric...0Duncan&page=2

We have only just started the new depression. There are a lot of problems.
The US will not be able to pay social security or medicare. It has become unaffordable and will crash
All of the nations in the world are in debt to each other. When one can't pay back the interest, everyone can't pay off the interest. The European Crisis is that on a smaller scale.
The fiat currencies will likely crash as they always have. This will put most nations into a hyperinflation

I do agree that South American and Asia will be the new powers, but it will be more Korea and Singapor and not Chin and Japan.
http://www.richdad.com/Resources/Ric...New-Stage.aspx

Oh, and I don't wanna turn this into a WiiU discussion thread, but in reply to SmashChu from a couple days back.

Check your sources on the WiiU bro, it certainly isn't doing as bad as you claim. In fact Japanese WiiU sales for it's first month have surpassed the Japanese Wii sales for ITS first month. According to the thread I read, EU and NA sources aren't accurate, but just some food for thought on that discussion.

Oh and your RichDad sources were too biased (Read: US centric) to be a credible prediction of the future Asian Economy, not to mention your sources said nothing about Japan and its future so my point made a couple days back still stands. I'm not sure where you got your info on that, as my sources say otherwise, and I don't know WHERE you heard that Singapore of all countries is going to be an economic titan.

As it stands it is still generally agreed on that Russia, China, India, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand will be the leaders of the East, and Brazil, Mexico and to a lesser extent Chile, Colombia and Argentina the leaders of Latin America as the future pillars of the world economy (by 2050). If you want to further discuss this I'll gladly make a thread for it in the offtopic section so we don't derail this one.
__________________

 

[Big-Cat]

This thread should prove to be rather educational for me.

I definitely agree that we won't be ruled by one superpower sometime in the future. Rather, you'll have a number of powerful countries, but no superpower. To a lot of people, America may be the best country in the world, but I say, as an American, that we need to open our eyes and ears to other countries, especially non-European ones. Nothing against European countries, but others along with them. I also think we need to wake up and listen to other countries from a cultural standpoint as well, but that's for another thread.

 

[Froggy]

Reading those quotes I think people need to put things into perspective. Japan's recession wasn't anything nearly as bad as the U.S'

 

[Deleted member]

Agreed, based on what I've read the Japanese people didn't feel their 20 year recession as badly as the Europeans and Americans have felt their current crisis. Don't quite me on this, but the main reason according to some is because the Japanese are supposedly more frugal.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I am sure that Japan has a better shot at recovering than the USA or other countries do. The reason for that is that, while the japanese government is up to its ears in dept, they owe almost all of it to their own citizens which means that they neither depend on outside factors as much as other countries do, nor will they be in danger of an actual crisis as long as the general consumption power of the japanese remains intact. Relatively speaking, Japan might lose some economic power in the event that their most important partners - the USA in particular - fall into a recession that they can't recover from so easily. Even then it's more a matter of the opposition gaining, rather than Japan losing.

The USA on the other hand are astronomically indepted to China and the government is currently spending billions of dollars to restore Goldmann Sachs aka the same criminal organisation that played a major role as trigger of the ecenomy crisis. I can't help but feel that the USA have reached the end of an era by now - after all, this is the first time that they don't even have the economic future of their own country in hand anymore. Tellingly, Obama being forced to feed so much money into the cancer cell that caused the whole problem in the first place just goes to show how little power he actually has over the economiocal situation - not that electing Romney would've have changed anything. He wouldn't have had any other choice in the matter either, making the whole economical aspect of the presidental debates look mostly obsolete in retrospect. For all intents and purposes, there really wasn't any "election" to make in the first place. The cynical reality of the ruthless capitalism that the USA has embraced ever since has exposed all the talk about democratic values, equality and chances for everybody to climb the ladder of success as nothing but empty platitudes. You can't govern a country in a democratic fashion when you have a dictatorship of the financial market at the same time. This is a contradiction that the USA need to resolve if they want a healthy economical future. Right now, it doesn't look like it will happen that way. Just one look at the financial interactions between the US government and big corporations should be enough to make you understand why.

The main advantage the EU has in this situation is that most of our population seems to be aware that we're currently under a dictatorship. We acknowledge that there is a problem and understand that something fundamental needs to be done. Whereas it seems like a lot of americans still think that Mr President will be there to fix all the issues such sentiments never seemed to be part of the european's way of thinking. Our mistrust against the EU leadership and acknowledgement of the fact that all their attempted solutions so far have been nothing more than fake compromise make the idea that the governments have to come up with more substantial plans not entirely unreasonable. Whereas it seems like the future for the american economy is pretty much set to go downward it doesn't look very clear to me where the EU is heading, although with the uprise of China, Russia, Brazil et al it's inevitable that the EU will lose economic power in relative terms but to what extent? That's something I'm rather curious about.
I'd like to add though that a lot of the EU crisis happens in a handful of countries while a good part of the members are still doing fine. And since the EU is more than just an economic union I'm not sure if a disintegration of the union will really come to pass. Even an "official" dissolution of the EU would not end the economical network between those countries that were less affected by the crisis: the central european axis of Germany, Poland and Austria with scandinavian countries as well as the Benelux states. Regardless of whether they will all operate under the official label of a "union" or not - as they have shown, they are capable of functioning well even under the pressure of the crisis and thus the assumption that together they will remain a relatively powerful economical block in the future does not seem entirely unreasonable. And let's not forget that Italy is on a good way out of the crisis as well and they didn't even need financial support from the union to achieve that. It's not looking very good for Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Ireland and Greece though.

That's my view on things right now. Japan will likely do fine, the USA will lose power and influence and the EU is pretty much split on where it's heading.

 

[Deleted member]

This thread should prove to be rather educational for me.

I definitely agree that we won't be ruled by one superpower sometime in the future. Rather, you'll have a number of powerful countries, but no superpower. To a lot of people, America may be the best country in the world, but I say, as an American, that we need to open our eyes and ears to other countries, especially non-European ones. Nothing against European countries, but others along with them. I also think we need to wake up and listen to other countries from a cultural standpoint as well, but that's for another thread.

Same with me. Been trying to get into politics (subscribed to The Economists, should get an issue soon) and any areas where there isn't a ridiculous amount of bias (AKA Political Forum on both side, MSNBC, Fox News) is good with me. Also, I myself would definitely consider moving to Japan if the Japanese economy is going to spike again (especially if the USA loses it's superpower status).

In regards to superpower nations, could China become the next superpower? I mean, China has been rapidly increasing in power over the past forty years and growth, while stabilizing, should be around 8%. I expect China to be one of the powerful nations, even if/when the USA loses it's superpower status.

 

[Froggy]

Same with me. Been trying to get into politics (subscribed to The Economists, should get an issue soon) and any areas where there isn't a ridiculous amount of bias (AKA Political Forum on both side, MSNBC, Fox News) is good with me. Also, I myself would definitely consider moving to Japan if the Japanese economy is going to spike again (especially if the USA loses it's superpower status).

In regards to superpower nations, could China become the next superpower? I mean, China has been rapidly increasing in power over the past forty years and growth, while stabilizing, should be around 8%. I expect China to be one of the powerful nations, even if/when the USA loses it's superpower status.

The economic disparity in China is quite staggering. A great deal of the country lives below the poverty line and hunger is a big problem in a lot of the rural areas. It's possible that with the developed sector alone China could become a superpower, but I'm a bit doubtful it'll happen too soon..

 

[Deleted member]

The economic disparity in China is quite staggering. A great deal of the country lives below the poverty line and hunger is a big problem in a lot of the rural areas. It's possible that with the developed sector alone China could become a superpower, but I'm a bit doubtful it'll happen too soon..

Which is unfortunate as China has a disparity of 0.61 in the Gini scale. That said, I was referring to the developed section when saying that China would become a superpower. If this does come to past, it won't be because China has almost everyone well fed but because of the very strong developed section.

 

[Deleted member]

So lets talk about the fiscal cliff.

That was a big buzz last week, thoughts on it? Good? Bad?

Shame it fell through apparently...

 

[Jon Farron]

I honestly don't really know what it was about, I was too busy with Christmas, Work, New Years and homework D:

Is it worth researching? Or will it just make me mad or something... lol

 

[Deleted member]

Well, I'm not too informed on the subject (hence why I wanted to talk about it), but from what I heard it will likely make you angry. According to what I heard it was essentially a Robin Hood-esque plan that would tax the rich a large percentage of money.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mknc2pE7rQ

But apparently it fell through, and nothing happened...

 

[Big-Cat]

Isn't that what Obama has been more or less advocating since 2008? From what I've heard every now and then though, his "plans" would do nothing for those that are wealthy because of assets and not because of income.

Regardless, I think we will have to learn how to say, "Wo ai ni Zhuongguo." sometime in our lifetimes.

Shame this thread isn't active enough.

 

[-Jumpman-]

The US doesn't tax assets, just the increase in assets and income. In any case, such a plan wouldn't make much of a difference.

 

[Pheta Ray]

Bump.

I think no matter how we slice it, the US is gonna chock up a loss and switch to the yuan as a monetary system. Currently we (being the United States) have about $17.3 trillion in debt (TIME Summer Double Issue, July 8/ July 15, 2013, pg.56), this being entirely if not mostly to the Chinese. Government spending is higher than it's been in years, even though we're trying to take steps to cut it down. "If taxes can only go down, then each economic downturn or new expense must be met by more spending cuts..." (ibid)

And to be honest, I'm thinking the government isn't going to like spending cuts so they can balance the checkbooks. I think they'd rather ramp up the taxes and rake in the dough they don't have instead of saying "Hey, instead of punishing the 300 million people we govern over because we can't stop spending money, why don't we stop spending so much cash?" I know I'm not a politician, but really, there has got to be a better way to revalue the dollar, deflate inflation, and fix up our debt.

P.S. Once the US makes the switch over to the yuan, be it in 5 years or 50 years, China officially owns the economy. That's when it's curtains for the old Stars and Stripes. Glad I'm taking classes in learning Chinese.

 

[CRASHiC]

Except the yuan would then be worthless because its backed by the American dollar.

You're best not thinking about this kind of stuff because its clear you aren't capable of doing so.

The post in this thread are really quite funny.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't think the USA is indepted to China that much. Actually, it's more that the chinese economy still heavily relies on a stable USA. Though, I think in the long run the US economy will crash and the whole country will go bankrupt. Though I think China will definitely be able to wiggle its way out. They're making some incredible smart and efficient investments, while the USA is betting on all the wrong horses and will end up in a dead-end.

 

[Pheta Ray]

Point taken.

 

[JoshCube2]

I blame America and China. It's greed.