Posts by neonhound10

The real trick is learning exactly when it’s time to put down the pen and just step back...

No matter how much you think your writing is absolutely brilliant, there’s always going to be someone out there who thinks it’s total garbage, and vice versa...

So, here’s a quick summary of what I was trying to tell you earlier...

Take a breather...
Regardless of how many facts you have lined up, sometimes it’s worth realizing that you might just be getting on people's nerves...

Your purpose here isn't to act as the moral compass telling everyone else what's right and what's wrong...

That’s the whole beauty of being alive, after all—some people actually enjoy walking blindfolded along a tightrope stretched between two planets...

So go out there, live your life, take some risks, and really make something of yourself!

Cheers...

That really ought to be called metadata rather than just being attributed to 😬
...

Well, it doesn't really matter anyway, I'm sure it'll get the job done just fine 😁

I put everything you need to know right there in New York City.

It’s mostly because you have this habit of dragging out arguments that don't need to happen... You say what you have to say and then just let it go, but instead, people keep telling you that you're being a bit much and it's time to end the conversation...

And if the guidelines aren't clicking for you, let me remind you that any attempt to step in and micromanage the PDF moderation is a direct violation of the sub-forum rules...

Yeah, I definitely wasn't feeling particularly motivated ☕

First, you gotta lay those assets on the table, then we can talk business...

Hopefully things don't go south right after the start and during the race itself

Well, Alonso thinks he's got enough grip to make it work 😬

Maria Thomas48 said:Fair enough. But look at it this way. If you tell a farmer out in rural Kansas that there's a fox raiding his coop and stealing three chickens every single day, should he wait until he's down to his last three birds before he does something about it? Or should he act sooner?

See, destruction is just so much easier for people than actually building something up...

It’s way simpler to talk someone into drilling holes and sawing through their own foundation than it is to convince them to stop doing it...

It’s the same thing here; a farmer might wait until he’s forced to cull livestock just to survive. That’s why the government provides subsidies for livestock lost to predators—it’s meant to discourage people from taking matters into their own hands by hunting wolves or bears...

Human beings find it incredibly easy to tear things down, but building something lasting is a whole different struggle...

The thing is, the entire economy is essentially built on psychology and how people feel, and honestly, I think that's exactly why economic models fail so often...

Economics isn't quite like physics or pure mathematics where you can just work solely with hard facts, though we really ought to treat it that way. Psychology exists to analyze what happened, not necessarily to predict the future, yet everyone expects these American caricatures who get celebrated whenever they fly over to the US to give a lecture to act like prophets...

Of course, you can learn a lot from those experts, but they’re really just sharing past experiences. It’s never going to be a universal recipe or a one-size-fits-all solution for anyone else because you have to account for every specific circumstance and the unique behavior of society...

It's just like how you can't truly compare two different economies, even though people try to do it all the time...

What you’re saying at the end there really boils down to basic human psychology...

You could spend all day trying to convince someone that smoking is wrecking their health, even showing them graphic photos of what happens to people who don't quit, and yet they still won't lift a finger to stop. It’s the same pattern with everything else, honestly; that's just how these massive systems operate, by leaning right into human inertia...

It's just the way it is...

The system is just what it is. It was designed by some clever mind, but to me, it feels like seeing those same old pyramids just wearing different masks. I saw through the whole thing a long time ago... it’s always the same story, where the people at the very top of the food chain get to enjoy everything while everyone else watches.

I’d argue that this entire setup only really makes sense as long as there are enough resources spread across the globe to go around. We shouldn't kid ourselves thinking that countries like Germany or France wouldn't pull the trigger on a war if they suddenly ran out of the essential stuff they need to function. The USA has been doing exactly that for decades now, all while hiding behind the guise of fighting terrorism or responding to some kind of perceived threat...

I’ve been following your posts, and even as someone who isn't an expert, I find myself agreeing with quite a bit of what you're saying...

The part I can't quite wrap my head around, though, is what you actually suggest we do to fix this?
What do you think would be the absolute worst-case scenario here?
And why do you feel like people won't just "mutate" into something entirely different?

I did a little digging on my own regarding the Argentine Syndrome...

http://www.mojnovac.net/forumi/showthread.php?t=197

It seems like certain things just move in cycles. Honestly, we're all just slaves to the 21st century and there's really no way around it... People are just way too dependent on money these days, which explains why everyone panics so much during a crisis or when one is looming.

Of course, the first thing people fear is seeing their current standard of living drop—which, in the US right now, feels totally disconnected from reality due to the fallout from recent conflicts...

I know I can be a bit stubborn about these things, but as long as we have such a massive percentage of retirees who haven't even finished a full career, plus hundreds of thousands of disabled veterans and those serving our country, I'd say there is plenty of room for budget cuts here...

But I truly believe that we need to start by looking at ourselves first...

Terry Howard said:Actually, the term you're looking for is "correspondent banking," which basically just means one bank holds an account with another. If the bank you're sending from doesn't have that kind of setup with the destination bank, they have to go through an intermediary that's connected to both. Sometimes the cash ends up bouncing through several different banks—and yeah, every single stop along the way takes its little slice of the pie.
The whole banking group thing doesn't really change that. You could send money from Chase straight to the Austrian Central Bank without any drama.

That’s exactly what I was getting at... there really has to be some kind of connected chain of events tying all of this together...

Of course you can do that, and from the user's perspective, everything will look exactly right, though when you actually dive into the fine print, the details will end up looking just like what you mentioned... 👍

electricsailor13 said:How could that even work? Where would we get enough physical paper to cover 97% of all electronic transactions? Where’s the ink coming from? And where would we find the time to pay everyone at once?

That sounds like a disaster movie script straight out of a sequel to "2012." 😁

Look, if we actually start making deals today, we might just have that movie finished before the world actually ends...😬

electricsailor13 said:The world would collapse! And I mean literally 😉

I don't think it would actually collapse, though things would definitely get pretty messy...

In general, the whole economy has just spiraled out of control lately, which explains why everything feels so chaotic right now...

It used to be that the economy provided a solid foundation and clear rules for everyone to follow, but nowadays, it’s more like this massive, floating monster created by Frankenstein that just wreaks havoc on everything in its path...

I’ve been giving this a bit more thought lately... and if my logic holds up, money like this can really only move through affiliated banks. You'd likely see a transfer from the Austrian Central Bank over to a major US bank like Chase, probably with a hefty commission attached to the deal along the way...

Of course, there are also those wire transfer services like Western Union where you end up paying high fees, though those operate on a different model since they rely on their own physical branch networks...

But hey, I'm sure there are plenty of brilliant economists out there who understand exactly how these global flows work. Looking back, once the US moved away from the gold standard in the 1970s, money lost its true intrinsic value... Nowadays, everything just feels like a collection of ones and zeros sitting in some digital database...

What I’m actually curious about is what would happen if we all collectively decided to pull our money out at the exact same moment...

Charles Ramos7 said:Bank of America - pay off your American Express without any extra fees ☕

?!

🤣

Gregory Williams7 said:The situation in the USA was nothing less than a systematic dismantling of the economy at every single level. Profitable companies that served as the backbone of local employment were sold off and quite literally stripped down for scrap metal.

On the other hand, the entire world faced identical circumstances, yet nothing changed.

So, I must ask: what happened when money was printed in Germany? In the former Soviet Union? In Russia? Even in the Roman Empire? There are a billion similar examples out there...

I’m telling you, there is eventually an end point, no matter how we choose to look at it...

It's likely the same for this system, too—it probably has an end, it's just that since we're just tiny ants, it feels like it goes on forever. To a bacterium, the whole world seems infinite, yet we know perfectly well that it's finite 😉

Gregory Williams7 said:I disagree. I understand how the system works, and quite frankly, I have no need for its assistance. For those who struggle to grasp these mechanics, however, such guidance is essential. But knowledge comes at a price. It takes a full year at a business school to truly master it. $1667The postgraduate tuition is $3,000. If someone wants to pay it, that is their prerogative. I have already explained how things work at a forum level. You seem unable to grasp the concept. Pay for your degree first. Only then can we have a conversation.

It is a clear demonstration that your argument lacks foundation. The financial system—complete with inflation and interest rates—has existed since the very invention of currency, and it hasn't collapsed yet. Therefore, one of us must be mistaken. Which one is it?

I'm certainly no expert on these things, but I was just sitting here wondering... what exactly was going on over in the USA lately?...

It’s not always about having some genius mastermind behind it (though I suppose it can be, just not in the way people usually think)... It really just comes down to spotting certain market shifts before they pass you by. Around here, the strategy is often just to jump on whatever happens to be profitable at the moment. Take video rental stores, for instance; the whole concept is dead and buried, and there's just no way to build a sustainable career out of it anymore...

Another good example would be the massive influx of window and door installation companies lately. There’s such an overwhelming amount of competition out there that profit margins have basically been squeezed down to nothing...

So, sure, a smart business owner will pivot to a new industry when the timing is right. But those are mostly short-term fixes, which doesn't mean you aren't still walking a tightrope toward failure. That’s how a lot of these opportunistic players stay afloat—they just need to find themselves a steady, reliable market to latch onto before the window closes...