Topic: Which economy is more likely to crash sooner- Argentina or Japan? (Read 2666 times)

Agreed but there is still money to be made from it if you are smart.

Changing to a different currency is a collapse of their own currency and it transfers wealth from the poor and middle class to the super-rich, it theft and people will eventually realize that all countries and all currencies use this to steal their wealth and they will try to save what little wealth they have left by buying gold and silver and possibly bitcoin.

both is endangered but argentina is likely to crash soon.

Makes no differnece.

Lots of money to be made from the crash of either one if you are smart.

Rice as money sounds alot better then cotton dollars as money.   Naturally its used up and produced?  Where as dollars it seems there is always an endless supply and its not a useful crop produced by a farmer (yes I know cotton but you cant use the note for anything) but instead its the crap spewing out of washington and its evil twin the Fed.    Most of it isnt even cotton, its virtual and they look down on bitcoin for some reason



That has to paired with the fact Japan has the oldest working population.    Naturally people should be richer as they save earnings over a lifetime.     But then they are not working but using the money up and paying for their health treatment or whatever they need.
To presume the world oldest population will just pay for politics to perpetuate instead of spending their wages seems unrealistic.  The main point is politics and its costs are a net loss.  When people criticise gold or bitcoin or whatever they say why would you be so selfish to just store a metal but to store dollars is to store or support politics, its not productive.  

If Japans citizens do own all their debt, they are incredibly poor for that reason.  I think the confusion is that QE has labelled the debt as self owned just like USA can argue the same, but the assets used to buy the debt never existed previously.    In theory I can buy a house and pay for it with the house I just bought via some loan agreement, but does that make much sense and I think thats how QE is balanced and it'll fail just like housing boom failed as extreme sub prime loans with zero deposit also failed

The only reason I dont say Japan to fail first is they have valid businesses and I would worry that Argentina's business has become eclipsed and subverted by socialism.  Im trying to think of some global brand they operate, maybe they have the resources

He doesn't know about the 600 year Dark Age in Japan where rice was money.

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I found the original source for that data:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6629971

Google this PDF file:

One still has a strong international sway and reserve currency status that countries more or less continue to accept
The other doesn't have that large of a reserve currency capacity and so the world is less willing to give it a line of credit
Why the US can get away with its debt for the most part since the 70s

Because you never knew about what happened post war until US stepped in and the miracle of korean war happened. They were broken before, whether they like to admit it or not. Whether they want to or not.

I think Japan will never collapse knowing their culture.  Japanese culture is collective.  If it ever gets that bad the individual sacrifice himself for the good of the collective

Argentina is most likely to collapse first. When you take into account everything...

Maybe not always but when was the last time USA had a trade surplus.   The main thing for Japan and USA is they are tending towards the same point which is to have their central banks own all of their governments debt

So out all those trillions, 70% of it is owned by valid domestic entities or have both countries made fatal mistakes in their accounting procedures.   The political power is so strong, its broken its mounts and both countries have this flaw which as trading partners and Japan owning 1tn of US debt multiplies the failure I think

Those savings didn't save them from 20 years of stagnation, and they didn't prevent the economy from going into multiple recessions. If you think national and political economics work the same as personal one, you are sorely mistaken.

It's actually better to have the money flowing and building as it is in US. Eventually things find an equilibrium, and with appropriate innovation, raises the threshold. Saving that much as they do in japan may make individuals feel secure, but it's a delusional sense of security because economic growth favors those who innovate and take risks, not hold back and restrict.

Also, if you think 'net position' means the are some how in the black, then you are truly delusional. that money is not owed to the japs by the world. It's owed by the japanese government and banks to their own citizens. US can easily shorten and destroy the burden of its debt by political policies on foreign trade and exchanges, which is currently not favorable due to geopolitical climate - but that's a question of politics, not whether US is economically capable. Japs have no such leverage.

Also, why did you ignore the fact that world owes about 90% back to US for every dollar US owes them, with higher interest rates? Savings are not the only means of asset accumulation.

Remember: your analysis works like personal finance analysis. That's VERY flawed when trying to analyze national economics. If you think plus or minus being in the black is an indicator of good economy, than you must also be the type to think we always need to be in the surplus in terms of trade balance in order to have good economy.

Things are much more complex than that - and japan has no other leverage unlike US.

japan's government debt is huge, but its citizens have huge savings.
japan's Net international investment position (which is the amount of debt owed to the Japanese government and citizens by the world minus what they owe to the world) is huge, around 2.6 trillion USD.
https://www.boj.or.jp/en/research/brp/ron_2013/ron130808a.htm/
so the world owes alot of money to the Japanese.
the united states on the other hand has a Net international investment position of -$4.16 trillion, that is a debt of 4 TRILLION $ to the world by the government and citizens.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/2013/intinv313.htm

so the Japanese government could in theory pay off its debt by taxing its citizens.
the United States has no way to pay back its debt as both its government and citizens owe huge amounts of money.

Oh... then it is time to worry. I am surprised that the Japanese are not doing anything about it. Even now they are not trying to reduce the budget deficit. In 2013, the budget deficit was 9.2% of the GDP.

I wrote 500% upthread for total debt.

I can't get the chart at this link to display any more. Does it display for you?

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/11855-total-debt-in-selected-countries-around-the-world.html

That is an old statistic - their debt is already passed 235% of their GDP. You are counting total US debts of 105% vs 'only' public debt of 175%, which is not only erroneous but outdated because you fail to count their total debt while counting total debt of US.

Also, out of that 235% GDP debt, 10% or so belongs to outsiders. They constantly try to comfort themselves that they own most of the debt, yet 10% of 235% is 23.5% of their entire GDP. In contrast, about 30% of US debt (105% vs. 235%. Funny how you think 50% difference between 120 and 175 is 'not much) is owed to outsiders, but remember that for every dollar owed to outsiders, world owes 0.89 dollars back. Now add the fact that US bonds are incredibly low yield, and those US collects debts from are higher yield by orders of magnitude.

Finally, dollar being the world's premiere reserve currency is not as fragile or small as people like to think. It's fairly stable and strong, and you can easily say that inflations of the world far outpaces that of US by many times over. US has a robust economy and its birthrates are actually reversing, and not all of them are due to minority immigration and birth rates - majority birth rate is also starting to make a come back since the 90s and people are having more kids.

Considering that, you need to know argentina has been making many improvements to its financial systems openly with many painful but necessary changes. That vs. jap's complete unwillingness  to admit to even the smallest mistakes in a really meaningful way means they are like a slowly sinking titanic. Also, the fact that their trade power was an aritifically created cold war construct to show case democratic financial system in the far east eludes most naive fools who think japs did it all on their own.

The correlation between when the jap economy began to really tank vs. the geopolitical changes of that time is too convenient to ignore, no matter how hard it is to swallow. There is a lot more going on in the background than people realize or see. Simply put, japs lost their value the moment soviet union fell.

While Argentina isn't exactly solid, they are at least trying. Japs are afraid to even look at the problem properly. Abenomics was an incredibly ignorant and foolish way to do anything, and didn't solve a damn thing in japan - in fact, their trade deficit is increasing, which is pretty much a death knell for a nation so dependent on trade. However, other nations such as US can more than depend on its political and economic power and domestic markets to at least maintain a bit of status quo. Right now, US printing money is hurting others because they have been taking advantage of cheaper exchange rates, but those cheating days are up - US basically put the foot down and forced them to pay back the back pay for all those benefits which it allowed previously due to geopolitical security climates. Case in point - US inflation rate has consistently stayed below 3%, more around 2% every year since the recession, while nations such as china who got rich off of exchange rates have and will continue to be haunted by incredible inflation to their food stuffs and basic economic necessities.

235% (probably higher now) and 23.5% of your GDP belonging to foreigners is, unlike for relatively big and self-sufficient economy such as US, a complete failure in a trade dependent nation like japan. They are finished, and have little chance to move any where even without any competition. Now count in the fact that rest of Asia is coming up fast behind them with china having already surpassed japan in economics long ago, and they have a very 'personal' stake in making japan economically and politically subservient.

They be fucked.

The Japanese public debt is around 175% of the GDP. Not much higher from that of the US (120% of the GDP). And when compared to Argentina, the inflation rates are much lower. So I don't think that the Japanese economy will crash soon.

Argentina
Japan's citizens own most of their debt

In thinking more about it, although I believe Japan's economy is doomed, I think Argentina's is actually worse- why?

Because Japan's interest rates arent high yet (when it breaks loose, they'll go high, and they'll have to print franticly to preserve a semi-fuctioning economy (with high inflation and interest rates, which eventually leads to hyper-inflation // very high inflation which would lead to a bond-market crash)- but Argentina seems well on its way there to a crash alrdy w 25-30% inflation

In addition to the financial problems, Japan has the nuclear mess at Fukushima which is a long way from being cleared up. This may be their downfall.