I have seen a lot of claims that the US has a K-shaped economy. What does this mean? And is this claim true? Are there other countries with K-shaped economies?
I work a 9 to 5 corporate job, put money into a 401k and into an index fund each paycheck, and hope for the best. I'm not a complete idiot (others opinions may vary) but I don't have any education or insight into how to tell if the market is strong or not, and find it hard to tell which news sources (if any) are trustworthy.
I'm not prone to panic or freaking out, but I would say my faith in current world leaders is low, and I'm concerned about the impact on my finances if they were to do something stupid like, oh, i don't know, disrupt the worlds oil market on a whim.
Are there 1-3 indicators that I could keep an eye on to maybe have some heads up that its time to move money into bonds or other low risk options? The opposite of a get rich quick scheme, a "don't go broke quick" scheme.
Is there some other, smarter approach someone unfamiliar with the ins and outs of global finance should take?
Any and all advice welcome, thanks in advance.
I'm not sure I have the right words to explain what I'm talking about, so bear with me here. Apologies if this makes no sense
Currency inflates over time, right? Stuff costs more next year than it will last year, but wages also increase so stuff doesn't really get more expensive, relatively speaking
But as that goes on, lower denominations of money become useless and you require higher and higher numbers on the paper, right? Theoretically, given enough time, instead of dollar bills being the smallest type of bill people carry in their wallets, it would be hundreds, that sort of thing?
Well, is there a point in which a government can say 'Right, the numbers on all our money are getting silly. We're going to move the decimal' or something to that effect? And how does one actually go about that without the economy crashing?
I am defining the Progressive Era as between 1890-1930s.
I used to call this the "guilded age" but was corrected. That this was actually the Progressive Era.
For my family, this Era was terrible.
The 1920s would have been the years of the Labor Wars.
My Great-Grandfather was a coal miner earning company scrip. Worker safety wasnt a thing.
The Family was only able to get out once company scrip was outlawed.
Why was this economic time frame so terrible?
Did it have anything to do with the fact that the America Dollar had not yet become the preferred currency?
If inflation is being driven by a supply side effect leading to increased prices in non-discretionary goods, why do central banks raise rates to further limit discretionary spending? Is the effect the bank is looking for already being achieved by the consumer having to allocate more of their budget to non-discretionary goods and if so why double down here?
My assumption is to move CPI faster but then there is an assumed trade off that it may limit growth. Why not just let it play out?
Context: I am Australian and we have increased rates at one of the fastest rates globally this cycle.
Has this ever been looked at? If businesses carry debt, and the prevailing view is that interest rates on debt will go up over the short terms (1-3 years), do those businesses try to get ahead of increasing liabilities by increasing prices now, thereby actually adding to the inflation rate the interest rate increases are meant to curtail?
I mean, if I was a SME carrying debt I'd be at least thinking about doing it. Heck, I'm an employee with debt and it's exactly my thought process as far as seeking a higher paying job goes.
Right now there is a riff between the EU and the US over the price of barrel and the whole “Europe doesn’t contribute to its defense and has to rely on the US for protection”.
What if the European powers decide to become less dependent on the US through creating markets for its products elsewhere? Like say…in Nigeria for example?
Can the EU central bank purchase the currency of Nigeria? Thereby increasing the value of the Nigerian currency and therefore Nigerian spending power and in the process devalue its currency to make its products cheaper? In that situation, wouldn’t it be able to export its products to said country (in this case Nigeria) and be able to grow economically while being less dependent on the United States?
If that is the case, can the EU central bank actually engage in a practice like this to advance geopolitical agenda? Or is it strictly limited to domestic inflation management?
Note: Am not economist. Am barely able to handle my own financial nonsense, just curious. Hope I might get some straightforward answers and links on how to educate myself on the topic.
Thinking about New York's pied-à-terre taxes, it was about "stagnant assets" (homes sitting empty - assets stagnant in the grand scheme of things).
Joe Smoe at the corner store's money comes in and goes out in about a week, nearly 100%.
Franklin P. Moneybags (1% or 0.001%, whatever) is sitting on twelve houses and cars, and whatnot. Assets and incoming just accrue. Some is "invested" to accrue more - but not actually "spent".
What percentage of Moneybag's money is actually "moving"? Is there a term for that? If he has a ton "on paper", that's effectively stagnant for my purposes... So does FPM actually "contribute" to the % of money moving around?
I'm just wondering if the "actually participates in the economy" is inverted as wealth is accumulated.
Not UBI. Assume everyone is guaranteed basic food, shelter, healthcare and utilities whether they work or not, and those entitlements cannot be sold or accumulated, and are insulated from the market
Anything above that floor still needs money. Any economic system, including free markets can operate above it, and assume wealth inequality above the floor is possible.
What would happen to labour supply, wages and low paying jobs if people no longer had to work to survive? What else?
edit for clarity:
Survival below floor is guaranteed and excluded from the economy. Everything above the floor that is desirable is subject to scarcity and market prices.
I am interested in pursuing a second university title, and I cannot rejoin the university I'm currently in. Are there any full programs in economics which offer remote/online learning? I'm willing to travel for final exams but that's as much as I can move.
Hi everyone, I'm looking for some honest advice about how I should approach Economics as a possible long-term career.
I'm 25 and currently working full-time as a Content Writer/SEO professional. I have around 3+ years of professional experience. My current job actually pays fairly well, especially considering the current job market, and I have a stable remote position. So I'm not looking to change careers because I'm unhappy with my current financial situation or because I can't find work.
Instead, I've been thinking seriously about Economics because it's a subject I've genuinely liked for a long time. I enjoyed Economics in high school, and now that I've started studying it again, I'm finding that I still really enjoy it. I'm wondering whether I could eventually build a career around it.
My academic background is:
I'm currently studying MIT OpenCourseWare's Principles of Microeconomics independently and working through lectures, readings, problem sets and numerical questions.
The confusing part is figuring out what I should actually do from here.
Are high digital tarrifs inevitable
Currently the global trade of services is double the rate of global trade of goods.
The compounding effect will be very huge.
However, this is dominated by a few countries,
So my theory is that eventually when global trades of services will become higher than goods .
I think for many countries globally around the world it will cause large trade deficits which is the reason why tarrifs are implemented.
So I think digital tarrifs will rise around the world. Currently the world focuses very less on digital services because its 5 trillion compared to 25 trillion in goods.
The EU is already planning a 2 to 3% digital tarrifs. That I think is the start of it. Initially low
Like normal goods it will go to 10% or 20%
There's a case in Thailand right now, Cambodian businessman named Yim Leak, where the government's anti-money laundering agency has frozen over $600 million in assets, apparently over a single $150,000 currency exchange transaction. No criminal charges have been filed.
Not really asking about the specifics of this case, more the general economics of it: how do investors and markets actually price in this kind of risk, a government being able to freeze huge amounts of money without ever proving anything in court? Is this the kind of thing that shows up in country risk models, or is it too rare and case-specific to really be quantified?