ShankThatSnitch

ShankThatSnitch t1_ixvid3h wrote

Well, the Fed is not exactly part of the Gov't. In theory it is separate, but in practice it is more connected. The president can do certain things through executive order, to try and spur economic growth, but there is no guarantee it will work, or for how long. The simple fact is that the way the global financial/monetary system works, basically guarantees cycles of growth, followed by recessions.

There are a few cycles. The 10 year cycle, which is the basic growth cycle, then there is a generational cycle, which is based on major population generations, and when they become earners or start retiring etc. because if causes certain spending habits to change on a large scale, like everyone in a specific generation starting to buy houses and have kids, which comes with a ton of economic activity. Then there is the long term debt cycle, which is more like 70-100 years, and involves bigger economic trends that also include sovereign debt, and the stability of nations as a whole.

There are things that can be done to delay the cycles to an extent, but you can't prevent them from happening, because it all ties into how money and debt works. Watch the video, and you will understand a lot more.

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ShankThatSnitch t1_ixvf65s wrote

Well, the only real tool is the fed lowering the Fed rate. The fed could also start doing yield curve control, by buying up specific US treasuries, but this is not a real solution, and just kicks the can down the road. This is essentially what the Bank of Japan has been doing, and is arguably a large factor in why they have super slow economic growth for the past 10-20 years. The other major factor, is their population is getting very old.

The issue with lowering the Fed rate right now, is that they could reverse progress on trying to get inflation under control. The fed and Gov't WANT to cause a recession, because it is a sure fire way to kill inflation. And the reason they would do that, is because the longer and worse inflation carry on, the more devastating the resulting recession will be. So they want to get it out of the way, cause a bunch of bankruptcies and defaults in the short term to kill inflation now, rather than have utter catastrophe later on.

A recession also fixes the yield curve, because is washes out a ton of bad debt, which is a drag on economic growth. Once a bunch of bad debt is cleared away, a new growth/debt cycle can start, and the curve will naturally return to a normalized curve.

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You should watch this video by Ray Dalio, which breaks down the debt cycles in a very simple way, they makes it much easier to understand the big picture of all this stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0

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ShankThatSnitch t1_ixvasp7 wrote

The reason the yield curve is important, is it tells you how the liquidity will be in the financial system. If you don't know, liquidity basically means the availability of money, and the ease of which it moves around the financial system/economy.

If you look at the first graph on the left, you see the "Fed Rate". This is the rate the federal reserve sets, that determines what banks charge each other to lend money to one another. everything to the right of that are the different treasuries that the US gov't sells, with different maturities, ranging from 1 month to 30 years. In a normal, healthy economy/financial environment, the shortest end of the curve is supposed to be very close to the fed funds rate, and should slope upward the further to the right it goes, because the longer you are loaning your money out, the more risk you are taking, and the more return you should get.

The short end of the curve (1month - 2 years) is heavily influenced by the fed funds rate, and where the market believes the fend funds rate will be going forward in those time frames. the medium/long end (3 year to - 30 year), is determined mostly by the markets expectation of where economic growth and inflation are headed longer term. So this chart basically says, the market thinks the fed will keep increasing rates over the next 9-12 months, but will have to ease, as the economy starts to significantly slow after that, and that our economy is going to remain at slow growth for the foreseeable future.

TL:DR. The reason this curve is such a good predictor of recession, is because bank borrow money from the fed and eachother at the Fed Rate, and loan out money at the longer rates, for car loans, mortgages and business loans. If it costs more for banks to borrow, thank they can charge for long term loan products, they stop lending, which mean businesses invest less, which means less hiring. Regular people are not able to borrow as easily for cars, homes...etc. The banks instead go out and start buying long term treasuries instead to get a guaranteed return from the gov't, which accelerates the inverted yield curve and economic slowdown. So we are basically near 100% chance of recession, and it will remain that way until the fed reverse and brings the front end of the yield curve back down.

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ShankThatSnitch t1_ixrnt9i wrote

I wouldnt be worried. Not sure why they are jumping strait to diabetes. Sugar and salt both cause cells to lose water and make you thirsty. Unless you are becoming ridiculously thirsty and peeing a ton more, you shouldn't be concerned.

I think people who aren't getting thirsty just aren't noticing it in the same way that you notice it with salt. I think its probably because salt has a stronger effect on your mouth feel, which can make you feel thirsty, even before the salt really effects the water levels in your cells.. also we are much more accustom to eating sugar in ways that also include liquid, like soda and juice, where as salty liquids are pretty much only with soup broth or something.

But salt and sugar both have nearly the same effect on the water within cells, which is what will truly make your body thirsty, past the feeling of a salty mouth that needs to be quenched.

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ShankThatSnitch t1_ixn0xaa wrote

I am very much not a diabetic nor pre-diabetic, and I get thirsty if I eat stuff that is too sweet. So although you may be right about OP, this is not an automatic conclusion at all. Sugar acts similarly on your cells as salt, is regard to sapping them of their water content. That is why sugar works as a preservative the way salt does.

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ShankThatSnitch t1_ixh7yzp wrote

It would take us 80-90 thousand years to get there, unless we massively increase or space travel speed. Now think of how do we get people that far, and is this a viable plan, and more viable than fixing our problems on earth?

Let's fix earth, try out Mars and some Jupiter moons, then we can worry about a planet 24 trillion miles away.

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ShankThatSnitch t1_iuii5ai wrote

Basically bacteria, fungus and oxidation are what make food go bad. Without these things, decay doesn't happen. In fact before certain bacteria and fugus existed on earth, vegetation would just pile up in massive amounts. If I am not mistaken, this is why we have oil and coal. Massive piles of vegetation built up, which allowed for those to slowly convert to fossil fuels, since they didn't get eaten by bacteria and fungus.

So basically the canning process involves a few things.

  • Cooking
  • Preservatives
  • Air tight seal.

You cook the food until all contaminants have died, then you seal while it us hot, which removes most of the oxygen. Since the hot air is thinner, when it cools it creates a vaccum seal with minimal oxygen, and prevents anything else from entering. Canned things can have vinegar, salt, citric acid, or other preservatives also, those also prevent any bacteria growth.

You now have a sterile environment that doesn't allow for decay, at least for a very long time. It isn't 100% perfect though.

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