At this point I just stopped listening to pretty much anyone regarding the economy. It has become plain as day to me that the whole field is kaput and that no one can really predict anything in this incredibly complex, multivariate chaotic system.

Well, inflation is an actual danger (see Turkey) and Federal Reserve deserves credit for handling inflation well.

I agree semiconductor is an industry well known to be cyclic and prophecies of doom are ridiculous.

Interest rates were already increasing when Trump was elected. They jacked rates to cool the economy, as they should have done.

Rates were already decreasing when COVID hit, and they dropped rates to zero when the economy shut down, as they should have done.

Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, as I'm sure you know.

You could have simply looked up a long-term chart of the FED funds rate to verify your political belief, but you chose not to. Why?

https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/reference-rates/effr

February 2020 discount rate was 2.25. March 2020 it was 0.25. Was that the biggest drop ever? Just two weeks to slow the spread, ha!

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INTDSRUSM193N

I can't tell if you're being disingenuous or if you're just not very bright.

That was a full year before Trump left office though. Are you confused about dates?

"Forced" or not, they still raised rates. They could have done otherwise, which would have been disastrous.

They followed war events in a reactionary manner. It would be cheaper and transparent to set rates algorithmically. The Fed can stay in business by continuing to inadequately regulate banks like SVB.

> What's with all the doomslinging in modern discourse?

Because public trust in the ability of governments to manage a crisis has gone completely fucking downhill, worldwide:

- the US couldn't even manage to beat a gang of cave-living Islamist terrorists using kalashnikovs in 20 years, and had to flee the country in shame

- we went through three years of a worldwide pandemic, then panicked governments acted like it was all over due to pressure by the far right - and yet, despite mounting evidence of millions of cases of long covid and almost all nation leaders silently insisting on covid tests prior to meetings, for the citizens it's a free for all for the virus, at the risk of disabled people and other at-risk groups. Governments didn't do anything to meaningfully curb the onslaught of propaganda as well.

- compared to prior environmental threats such as CFC coolants or lead, no one is doing anything meaningful (i.e. something that actually costs Big Money some wealth) against climate change. Instead, again, climate change denial runs rampant.

- we've got Russia invading Ukraine in a land-grab and it took us a year of brutal slaughter, rape and terrorism to send a handful of fucking tanks, and fighter jets are still many months away. I'm not advocating to glass the Kremlin, but NATO could do way way WAY more to stop this shit.

- China has been stealing Western IP for decades and used obvious price dumping to destroy our economies, and yet our politicians and companies keep kneeling before Xi despite the constant Chinese saber rattling against Taiwan

- housing prices and cost of living have been exploding for years and no one cares, despite tent cities of homeless in every major warm US city and people defecating on the streets because they don't have any safe place.

- on top of all of that (literal) shit, Nazis and other authoritarian politicians are back worldwide, to a large degree financed by the Kremlin, and guess what, politicians aren't taking care about that either, instead they let their parties be taken over by them or refuse to fight and go under in elections.

- ETA: And in the US, people will probably have the choice come next election between someone who should have retired from politics decades ago on the Democrat side and on the Republican side either someone who has incited a putsch, stole top-secret documents and hid them in a fucking toilet or someone who thinks it's a good idea to take on Disney of all companies or to fight everyone who doesn't think like him as "woke" and wants to eradicate them. JFC America what are you doing?

So yes, it's completely rational for people to assume doom when politicians don't give us any reason to hope that the situation will improve. It makes more sense to prepare for the worst case because it's increasingly more likely.

> NATO could do way way WAY more

Where in NATO charter are they to interfere for a non-NATO country?

We could have delivered tanks from our storages the very second the first Russian crossed the border, we could have delivered fighter jets, we could have done a lot without directly involving us into the war.

Instead we got Biden being afraid of Republicans (most importantly the Russian asset that was the 45th President), our German Olaf Scholz being afraid of his own party and its close ties to Russia and the far-right and far-left and their even closer ties, and French Macron and Turkey's Erdogan both trying to act like they're kingmakers. Oh and we got Ukraine to agree not to use the pittances we send to hurt the Russians on their own soil.

All while hundreds of thousands of civilians and troops died in Ukraine. What a disgrace - our hesitation cost real human lives for nothing.

USA provided munitions before WW1 and Germans took out the Lusitania after warning Americans not to set sail on that boat.

https://archive.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html

Providing munitions to non-NATO country is meddling and could be considered an act of war. Where is USA Congress to vote on this war?

> Providing munitions to non-NATO country is meddling and could be considered an act of war. Where is USA Congress to vote on this war?

There is absolutely no relevant precedence for the supplying of weapons to a country at war to be considered an 'act of war'. It just isn't a thing.

The US Congress has repeatedly voted to approve those arms sales and transfers.

Under Article 4, which was invoked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the NAC can formally lead a joint response to any threat to any member (prior to any war). This led to a bunch of logistic support and prepositioning for closer NATO nations. It also led a joint decision for military material support for Ukraine, under the theory that it was cheaper support Ukraine today than fight Russia later.

This is probably the most depressing comment that I've ever upvoted.

Nothing but the truth though. For me the question is not if we get a serious left-wing terrorist uprising out of all the shit happening at the moment, it is when. Personal guess it's going to be either UK or German's environmental activists or Israel, with a serious leaning to the latter given that everyone over there gets a ton of military mandatory experience.

> if we get a serious left-wing terrorist uprising out of all the shit happening at the moment, it is when.

What do you mean by left-wing terrorist uprising? Isn't left-wing ideology kind of relative to each country e.g. Icelandic left-wing/right-wing is not like Chinese Japanese left-wing/right-wing.

What would be the goal of these terrorist?

> What do you mean by left-wing terrorist uprising?

A lot of the issues I stated - e.g. the rise of the authoritarian/far right, climate change, wealth disparity - are usually associated with the (far) left, or at least the left is the one pushing for reforms.

Generally, people don't become terrorists... if they don't have the feeling they have no other choice left. Israel is the closest to that tipping point, with soldiers threatening to hand in their papers (which is very unusual as it puts the country at a serious risk should any of its enemies attack), but climate change protestors in the UK and Germany have recently escalated their methods (and so has public response, including a lorry driver running over a protestor blocking a street here in Germany), and god only knows what will happen in the US should Trump gain a second term or, worse, DeSantis.

That is why I'm relatively certain at least some people will choose violence - the question is how many will follow them.

Very astutely put!

> That is why I'm relatively certain at least some people will choose violence - the question is how many will follow them

Judging by history, long periods of wealth disparity, inequality, hunger, authoritarianism, etc, are inevitably met with brutal uprisings: e.g the French/Russian/Chinese Revolution.

As for how many will follow such a revolution: any kind of right(or right policies disguised as left as we have/had in Russia/China) politics, continued over a long period of time, will eventually have the effect of creating a small privileged ruler class out of touch with the rest of society. Thus, it's no wonder that usually EVERYBODY joins such upheavals to dethrone the rich/powerful.