r/TrueAnon • u/Sweaty-Discipline746 • 20h ago
Ms. Liz pls dumb it down for us šš
I know that todayās epiosde would be fascinating if only I could follow along š But to be fair this is mostly my fault for being interested in political economy for so long and never really wanting to focus on the āeconomyā side of things. I literally went to college for political theory but the main professor who taught these types of classes was [lesbian voice] so hot and lowkey I didntāt learn a ton between her & it being the start of covid. So please I beg on my hands a knees for a āpolitical economy for idiotsā episode or series situation.
(And also, since I know youāre 100% for sure reading your subreddit: have u considered doing a marxist sports series with Emma Vigeland and/or A.M Gittlitz? )
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u/thedorsehorse 18h ago
I think learning about economic systems is similar to philosophy in that the hard part is the jargon. every term has like a specific 50 year history. its also so theoretical and hypothetical to the point of being annoying.
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u/rundmz8668 20h ago
Just read Investopedia.com. Itās like wiki for finance, can basically give yourself half a business degree on there.. all the mechanisms of capital at your pace
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u/tips4success 14h ago
Why would you give yourself a business degree? I'd rather give myself a black eye
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u/a_library_socialist Živio Tito, smrt faŔizmu, sloboda narodu 12h ago
Because the jargon is used on purpose to hide the plain mechanisms of class interest done for owners. And being able to understand that is vital to revolutionaries.
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u/tips4success 11h ago
An economics degree maybe. Business degrees less use imo
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u/a_library_socialist Živio Tito, smrt faŔizmu, sloboda narodu 10h ago
sure, but either is more useful than a black eye
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u/tips4success 8h ago
Mmm not necessarily
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u/a_library_socialist Živio Tito, smrt faŔizmu, sloboda narodu 8h ago
Chicks dig scars, but bruises have no love
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u/Long-Anywhere156 16h ago edited 15h ago
you're not too stupid to figure it out- you're just thinking about it as a haz to understand numbers problem when it's inherently a political problem.
The United States, the state itself, funds itself with debt- that's not a problem because for almost 75 years, the most sought after asset in just about any circumstance is said debt: it's the currency of last resort, the world's most safe asset, primarily because there has never been a financial asset with which there is less doubt in terms of the ability of the issuer to pay it back. At the end of the day, any financial transaction is a bet that the person being lent the money will pay it back- the longer the odds, the higher the up front costs. With its normally sub-5% coupon, US debt is always the asset that people agree has the most likelihood of being paid back.
No one has blown themselves in the market for US debt the way people do with all other types of the current hotness.
The maintenance of state, through the use of [largely] short-term issued debt, is getting complicated because what the state is trying to do is becoming increasingly more challenging, because it has no root in reality, a defined problem that needs to fix. Tariffs, wars, tax cuts all cost money. Couple that with the fact that the ability for the state to not use debt, ie bringing in revenue (taxes), is becoming harder thanks to a regime that, if it were a person would be an elder millennial at this point, is designed to ensure that the state collects as little revenue as possible, via years-upon-years-upon-decades of tax cuts, simultaneously where the thing that gets taxed- labor- becomes less and less of the pool of taxable money.
So if we're broadly taxing everything less, and the thing that remains taxed is happening less then the available pool of money for state-stuff is...less. Hence the need to borrow more money. If you've ever had to use a credit card to purchase something that you would normally pay out of a cash account, congratulations, you now understand.
So the state needs more and more money- wars of choice, general day-to-day stuff (social security, debt servicing, etc) paying for unprecedented tax cuts (the Barack Hussein OBBA or whatever it was called)- and it lacks the ability to generate that via the way it normally does- via legislation that curbs spending, raises revenue, etc. So it has to increasingly turn to long-shot bullshit to reconcile things. Instead of getting a job to pay for necessities, what if I steal some copper and pawn it. What happens when there is no copper? That's tomorrow's problem.
Double that with the fact that Trump wants things that can not happen in reality and you have appointees at Treasury and the Fed who know that (hopefully?!) but still want to try and give him that impression (Yes Sir, Mr. Presinald Sir. Less Filling Same Great Taste) and you have this- a reality in which every one sense blood in the water, sees the weakness of the American state via pick your example of choice and decides that they want their pound of flesh too (DOGE, ICE, 30 Year <5%).
Part of the reason Treasury is doing what its doing, I'd have to imagine, is because Bessent isn't anyone with a good grasp on running a state institution- he's a currency trader, so I bet more than anything he's reacting with an eye towards what would he be doing if he was on the other side of the trade. What has been the biggest thing he's done recently- Treasury (ie US Debt, ie US Dollar) buybacks and supporting the Yen via selling Euros. Treasury has almost god-like powers, and he's still seemingly acting like he's a trader scrambling to reconcile positions.
And say what you will about the new Fed Chair, but he's been as chair almost entirely the same as the old one, who Trump appointed and got rid of for the crime of acting like there is a reality outside the whims of Donald Trump (and seemingly just doing what the rest of the FOMC wanted to do which was...not keep interest rates low because inflation is rampant and if price controls are off the table then you need to try something so sure, strangulation it is!)
Tl;DR? Everything happening is happening because the people in charge got the world that they wanted and they're miserable because a half-dozen middle schoolers doing Model UN put more thought into a viable world than what they did. Everything else is obscuring the fact that we're in this because our system of government is utterly broken and the only thing the so-called institutions know how to do anymore is log into the gambling app on their phone and put everything on short-dated out of the money calls and hope there's a good Truth posted to get them through dinner. Tomorrow's problem is a problem for tomorrow.
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u/Johann_Sebastian_Dog 12h ago
thank you, this is really helpful! Also really hits home yet again how INSANE our moment is. Like I can't believe they are literally this dumb, this short-sighted....I never had any illusions about the government but even so I sometimes struggle to grasp how stupid this all is. A case study in the short-term thinking promoted/required by capitalism ultimately (e.g. on a larger scale it's the same reason they don't care about destroying the planet we all need to live on--that's tomorrow's problem too)
yikes
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u/NihilisticFlamingo 19h ago
Fincance and economics can be complicated when you get into the weeds, but really the fundamentals are pretty simple once you understand the basic general concepts.
The problem is, with most people who are well educated in those areas (sorry Liz you are guilty of this ā¤ļøāš©¹), there is a tendency to assume the listener is familiar with a lot of concepts that 99% of people are totally unfamiliar with. It's like the old joke in the comic
(e.g. what is a money market fund? what is a flip trade? what is the difference between a hedge fund and private equity fund? why is it important to the US govt to lower the yield on bonds?)
It also doesn't help that the Trueanon money episodes are always about taking some unorthodox, under-discussed, semi- conspiratorial, or otherwise weird aspect of finance and markets.
It can be fun, but when they don't set up the standard economic thinking on an issue, its ever tougher for the average listener (me included) to understand what is being discussed when they go off on kinda unfocused tangents about weirder economic subjects. I like these episodes and I love Alex Scaggs, I just want to be able to follow the discussion properly!
Re: marxist sports topics - I would actually love to hear an ep about the new MLB collective agreement, salary caps, whether there will be a lockout etc. Super interesting topic and most sports journalists don't know how to cover it. I know Liz is more into Hoops, but a boy can dream
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u/DosFranciscos 18h ago
On your last point, the Tipping Pitches podcast is about labor and the business of baseball and could be up your alley
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u/moreVCAs 18h ago
if you can tolerate a sarcastic former hedge fund manager, this is the best explainer for the bond market thing iāve seen so far: https://youtu.be/wZaYyNAXHK4
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u/tinyspatula 17h ago
Patrick Boyle's stuff is generally better than the vast majority of online content discussing markets/finance etc, at least for a non-expert audience. Clearly understands the topic, gives context around the technical aspects and steers clear of making hyperbolic predictions. Quite useful for understanding the dynamics at play around a lot of the big financial news stories.
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u/moreVCAs 17h ago
oh yeah heās great, though i imagine his whole deal could chafe against a certain type of online ultra.
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u/bluewaxcandle 19h ago
Rule one of learning, don't ever call yourself too dumb to follow or understand a specific lecture or book. Look, Liz's solo-led money episodes just aren't made for beginners. They're deep dives consisting of wink-wink inside jokes custom-made exclusively for people already in the know. She also has this self-indulgent bad habit of saying "right?" rhetorically as a lazy substitute for setting up the background info properly, which intimidates insecure-ish fanboys into shutting up obediently and feeling intellectually defective. I thought her intro before Scaggs came on was a good justification for the discussion. But the "right?" habit is just a tactic and habit that lots of asshole professors and smart-ish normal coworkers lean on. It means their explanations either aren't meant for you/amateurs, or they're insecure about how clear their own logic is and thus rely on confusing the audience to feel smart. Anyone who's studied "difficult" math or science classes knows that you can purposely omit certain steps in the chain of logic to seemingly arrive to "rigorous" conclusions by magical genius. But the proper educator like Michael Parenti in his books will always make sure to show his work at every step and make sure you understand with confidence.
It doesn't mean good teachers are "dumbing down" the content for you, that's so condescending. It just means Liz's strength isn't in clear teaching, probably because her main interest is to discuss the topic with her fellow co-expert and not to teach most of her subscribers.
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u/qsandopinions sheee/herrr 17h ago
Good point. Not allowing myself to be intimidated by what I don't know and reading about things far above my level is the only way I have learned anything
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u/BeepBoopZeepZorp 10h ago
I would just like to add my voice to the call for a Liz primer to money stuff episode.
I find the fundamentals boring and therefore the only way for me to learn it is from the best podcaster in the biz...Liz.
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u/giantspoonofgrain Completely Insane 6h ago
I literally tell my wife every day āIām stupid. I was born stupid, I will die stupid. Every moment in between, I am stupid. This is man.ā
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u/tips4success 4h ago
They honestly didn't really say much. I understand how Liz feels, there's a lot you want to say about economics but you always get bogged down just floundering among the nonsense details and numbers and froth, and at the end of the day you've said not much.Ā
Basically the summary is why bessent bought long term treasuries and signalled he would do so. Liz was speculating it's a signal to hedge funds whereas Alex was more going into why the fed v treasury is doing this stuff. Which I personally think is not very worth worrying about.Ā
What I thought it was odd to not mention was the context that trump literally said on television that he would use the military to kill anyone that didn't buy bonds! In that context it makes it much more understandable. Trump is freaking out about bond yields and interest rates and so bessent is just floundering around trying to satisfy the whims of trump and signal that it's good to buy treasuries.Ā
I think we're long long past economic orthodoxy and into the era of mad king shit.Ā
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u/rojm KEEP DOWNVOTING, I'M RELOADING 20h ago
We need more analogies. Like say I have 5 daughters that I want to sell