• 9 Posts
  • 167 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: July 10th, 2023
  • Brainsploosh@lemmy.worldtoUkraine@sopuli.xyz•Ukraine holds at 15.5% as Russia’s rate swings
    8·
    17 days ago

    I liked this explanation:

    Inflation is a balancing act, too much inflation and money becomes worth too little to buy anything with, too low inflation and we don’t have enough economic growth meaning not enough things for everyone.

    So many governments use a central bank or similar to try to regulate inflation. They’ve tried many things, but the only tool that reliably works is the interest rates, affecting the cost of debt. The tool is slow and not very effective, as many many things affect inflation, but it typically does something. Lower rates means cheaper money means inflation goes up, and higher rates the opposite.

    Most countries want an inflation rate around 2%, Russia has had 19% and is currently at 5-7 %. Lowering the rates is expected to increase inflation even further which is bad for the Russian households that will need to work at least 5-7 % harder/longer to afford the same life next year.

    What might be worse though is widespread bankruptcy and collapse of industries as they default on their debt due to high rates.

    Russia is in a war economy and has forced several producers to retool and change production, basically for borrowed money. The state is then paying for this by injecting money (from savings) into the economy. These serve to make goods of living more scarce (fewer producers) and household money worth less (outside money only reaches a few who afford rising prices). While the producers are stuck with the interest of high debt, and rising costs of business.

    This is a lesser evil bargain, and Russia is borrowing from it’s own future to keep the war going.

  • Brainsploosh@lemmy.worldtoBuy European@feddit.uk•Why Europe Is Winning from America’s DeclineEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    The highest wages are indeed lower, but disposable income is higher (due to lower CoL), higher QoL, more stability, less need for emergency fund (due to robust healthcare, unemployment support, worker’s rights, less guns, etc.) and cheaper accommodation.

    You can buy a good house with a yard from $20-30 k in famously expensive Sweden (although you’ll need a car then as well at another $2-12 k). In the IG reel I saw it also included a couple hectares of industrial forest you can farm to offset costs.

  • Brainsploosh@lemmy.worldtoUkraine@sopuli.xyz•Ukraine hits key Russian military sites in Crimea, Krasnodar Krai, General Staff says
    2·
    11 months ago

    Lol, if only there was a way to verify or critique news…

    For real though, you should definitely start scrutinising your media diet, no single source will be unbiased and trustworthy at every point in time. Nor while they have the whole picture.

    Start at sources with a history of credibility, watch for biases, amateur speculation or omissions, compare to independent reporting/verification of the same events.

    In the current information age, you should really do this for all information you consume, including this.

    You can search for media literacy, how to counter fake news/disinformation/misinformation, or similar terms.