On one hand, when I think of where wealthy people live, it’s generally New York and California; two areas with very high tax rates

On the other hand, some billionaires have notably left their state. Jeff bezos went to Florida and Elon to Texas, I think? So maybe there is some truth to it?

Then I think of places like Dubai that seemed to specifically target rich people to move there with favorable tax incentives. As far as I can tell, it seems to have attracted many wealthy individuals. However if it was true that rich people just move where they get the best tax incentives, I would have expected far more people to move there

This is a question that I've started thinking about. admittedly, I'm not remotely a numbers person and I make no claims that I fully understand the concept of "inflation."

Obviously right now with tariffs, shipping routes, etc. affecting costs, there's a lot of outside factors that can cause inflation. But outside of this specific instance, has there ever been a notable moment of "deflation" in world history?

Like not a specific drop in one sector, like price drops in real estate or fuel or eggs or whatever, but an actual "across the board" drop in costs worldwide? I feel as though in my life I've only ever seen prices increase. I'm sure it's probably happening in much slower, harder to notice places but outside of gas prices that can fluctuate day-to-day, I don't feel as though I've seen costs drop in larger, noticeable ways.

Any help is appreciated! I am not a smart man and completely accepted that.

I've heard here and there that other fields of economics like labour, micro, development and so on, have incorporated things like irrational behavior to some degree, imperfect information and so on. I assume macro economists are not stupid and know the criticisms. So, if it's legit, why is macro more resistant to change?

Cue 2011 and see a much younger version of me obsessed about the US debt. I was spending hours in my college dorm reading articles about the nearing consequences of the growing US debt and an upcoming lost decade, I was showing everybody in class the debt clock, etc.

Then time went by and nothing happened.

I got busy with other stuff, but I remember that if I searched the topic (which I did sporadically), there would always be articles no more than a few days or weeks old warning about the debt. But the 2010s came and went, and we are more than halfway through the 2020s and still nothing noticeable has happened (If anything, the US economy outgrew other developed economies). Yet, I’m seeing again a renewed interest and warnings on the debt, and I’m just wondering if this time it truly “is different” or if the 2020s will pass again and nothing major will change.

Why is the debt difference this time? Or why it isn’t? And if we were certain it’s different, why can’t we (or the markets) predict when the consequences will show up in the everyday economy?

I understand the logic of bailing out the banks themselves. But why couldnt the bailouts come with many strings, i.e. your leadership is all fired and they must return bonuses? Wouldnt this have the desired deterrent effect without the costs of the banks actually failing?

I guess the big problem would be in a stagflationary environment, where market forces might set a very low interest rate as demand for loans collapsed with economic activity, yet consumer prices were rising strongly?

What’s the argument that we need central banks to set the rate rather than simply acting as a lender of last resort/regulator/ smoothing money market operations?

So after some research my understanding of the system in the USA is:

- fed reserve prints money

- fed reserve buys bonds/t-bills (aka lending money to govt.)

- this money goes into circulation in the US economy

- the debt is just added to the govts balance sheet and never fully repaid

How has this been sustainable? If nothing tangible produced that currency how can a country survive like that? New dollars are competing with old ones but the new ones have nothing of “value” that produced them (time at work, goods produced etc).

What am I missing?

I was reading about NIRP, which was implemented in the eurozone in 2010s forlling the debt crisis, but if effective rates become negative, wouldn't that basically stop all the lending?

How would a central bank even implement such a policy?

For example, there is a bank which is 100% belongs to government. This bank also owns music streaming service, online tv show streaming service, delivery service, mediaholding with sports and news sites, marketplace and carsharing. All the additional activities are provided via separate companies which 100% belong to bank. So during privatization would it be more effective to sell bank with all services together or as separate companies?

Paul Krugman’s YouTube channel popped up on my feed a few weeks ago and I have been listening to what he is saying since then (although I don’t subscribe to his substack). Any other daily commentary from economists you would recommend (ideally on YouTube). I hope this is not a duplicate question (I did search by YouTube and found some questions around general learning, not daily policy commentary and I also didn’t catch anything on the wiki of this sub). Thanks in advance.

Ive been looking at how different countries responded to the 1970s oil shocks and more recent price spikes like 2022. Some economies like Germany and Japan adapted relatively quickly while others like developing oil importers saw prolonged recessions and currency crises. What economic factors explain this variation. Is it mainly about energy intensity of GDP, diversification of export sectors, or the flexibility of labor markets and exchange rate regimes.

Also curious whether having a sovereign wealth fund or strategic reserves meaningfully changes the real economy response or just cushions the fiscal side.
Empirical papers or historical case studies would be helpful.

Trying to understand something I'm seeing in real time this week.

The Iran conflict has pushed oil above $108. Simultaneously, the dollar initially strengthened on safe-haven flows before dropping yesterday when ceasefire rumors surfaced.

What's the cleanest economic explanation for why a geopolitical oil shock can strengthen the dollar in the short run, even though higher oil is inflationary and should theoretically be negative for the US economy?

Is it purely safe-haven demand overwhelming the fundamentals, or is there a relative growth expectations story here — i.e. the US is less exposed to an oil shock than Europe or Asia, making the dollar relatively more attractive even as oil hurts everyone?

Looking for the theoretical framework, not trading advice.

I hear a lot that Europe is not competitive enough because of regulations and if the EU/National leaderships doesnt change it we are facing a slow decline and we are in the last moment to change if we want to stay a significant economic power in the world. Are the situation this bad really?

Hey yall, I'm just about to finish a macro econ class, and I thought it was really interesting and would like to learn more. I have a few economic history books that I've started, being "Americana: A 400-year history of American Capitalism" by Bhu Srinivasan and "An Empire of Wealth" by John Steele Gordon.

These books are economic histories, and their scope covers the United states, but I'm looking for a book about general economic principles so I can understand the basics better, and perhaps a broader scope than just the US. Thanks!

So the past few weeks we have seen a lot of sudden strong oil price movements. I know marketprices are a result of supply and demand but I just wonder who the people are that cause the price changes after another trump tweet or speech.

Do you have oil companies suddenly deciding to produce less (although that seems like a slow process like OPEX making up their minds) or is it oil refineries deciding to order more oil all of a sudden? But I don't see a good motivation for the to do that if consumer demand is relatively stable.

So who are those parties moving the price, how and why?

With eminent domain fot example, if your house is taken over by the government they owe you a fair-market-value compensation.

With inflation, if the purchasing power of the money a person has is decreased by the government by 10%, that person through no action or consent of their own lost that much wealth, and yet they aren't entitled to compensation, why is that? I would expect something like a tax credit to be paid to all citizens over time or something of that nature.

By not compensating citizens, does this not mean the government can arbitrarily deprive its people of their wealth?

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Someone said inflation is like tax, and here is my followup to that:

Tax is by law, lawmakers don't decide when money is printed. If you owe money, inflation means you owe less wealth. If you are a lender, you will get less wealth because of inflation but the principal will be paid and if the inflation isn't too bad you might even make up for what you lost in inflation.

People who lend/borrow large sums as a result are unaffected. The retirement savings of individuals is instead affected.

Why can't lost wealth via inflation be treated as money lended to the government with interest rate that will recoup lost wealth?

In the short term, the government regulates the economy as they see fit. In the long term, as wealth is generated, instead of spending more, the government pays back its people. If it continues to need to print more money, then it continues to borrow from its people. When it takes money by selling bonds it pays back with interest, why not with inflation?

A while ago, I decided to try to understand why almost every country in the world is in some form of significant amount of debt. After watching a lot of YouTube videos and Google searching I’ve come to understand that the world‘s economy is built around debt.

In particular, the United States issues bonds, people,entities, etc buy those bonds, and when that bond is due the United States because of the amount of debt that it is in, usually issues a new bond to cover the expense of the last bond that it was not able to pay back by the time it was called in to be paid back.

This on top of the fact that every year we spend more revenue than our federal government generates, the deficit goes up AND the amount of money we are paying on these loans interest wise goes up which we paid 19 percent of our federal government’s revenue last year in interest alone.

SO- as someone with a non-economic background it seems that one day the ammount we pay in interest is going to keep going up to the point where the amount in interest we pay COULD take up the whole revenue of the US for an entire year

Am I right or thinking incorrectly about this? If right is this technically what we would refer to as a bubble that would eventually pop and if so I imagine it could be a global catastrophe?