Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 December 20

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December 20

Do average German people speak English?

^ --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 18:30, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Most, yes. More than in Southern Europe, a little less than in Northern Europe, with quite a good school level and happy to speak it. Akseli9 (talk) 21:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

In what sense? In the sense that 51% of Germans speak English? In the sense that the average German person has slightly less than one testicle and one ovary? This German-sourced article says that only 16% of German adults claim proficiency in English. List of countries by English-speaking population says 48 out of 80.6 million Germans "speak" English as a foreign language. I can tell you from experience in West Germany (in urban and tourist areas) in the Eighties that the only people who did not attempt to speak English to me when they discerned I was American were foreigners also visiting Germany. μηδείς (talk) 21:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The compulsory foreign language in German schools has been predominantly English for many years, so the majority of younger German adults will have some familiarity with English, but may well claim to be "not proficient" in the language. (I spent seven years learning French, many years ago, but I don't claim to be able to speak French.) In tourist areas of Germany, almost everyone will be willing to speak English, but in more remote areas, and amongst older German people, proficiency might be rare. Dbfirs 22:11, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I admit I don't know how many years of English they do in German schools, but it is easier for them to learn English than for you to learn French. That is just because of the closeness of the languages, although French and English are not totally different either. The extreme case that illustrates the situation is that Chinese students do 10 years of English, but the distance between the languages means they do not reach the level of Germans, as far as I can tell, and are often reluctant to try it. Chinese, likewise, is frightfully difficult for me, and each new word is hard-won. IBE (talk) 03:00, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

English is easier for another reason. It is easier because it is everywhere. Akseli9 (talk) 12:33, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

where does the government get the money to pay maturing T-Bills?

So, treasury bills mature and turn into their face value. Where does the government get the money to pay these? 1) from sales of t-bills maturing later 2) from taxes 3) from ohter markte activity (things that would fall under 'sales' if anyone else did it) 4) out of thin air, i.e. increasing the money supply by changing a database value?

Thanks. Q1q2 (talk) 21:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I assume you are talking about the United States, correct? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 22:25, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes. And of course the US government collected about $3 trillion in taxes last year (about 18% of the U.S. GDP), so it certainly could pay them from taxes. I'm asking the source that it actually pays them from. i.e. in practice, if the government transfers you dollars by maturing a t-bill into its face value, then where were those specific dollars immediately before? :) thank you. Q1q2 (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

If the government did not have any source of income besides T-bills, they'd be in trouble. But there's taxes, tariffs, and people buying bonds and bills, so it works out. It's mostly the same principle as bonds (either government or corporate), or even student loans. Say the government's income is $15 a week (extreme oversimplification), usually needs to pay $5 a week to their employees, but they need to make an additional $50 payment right now for some contract. You buy a $100 T-bill for $50 from the government, and it comes with the condition that you can't collect it for ten weeks. During those ten weeks, the government sets aside $10 every week to pay you off. It's not really any different than my college loans: I couldn't afford to pay $50,000 for college upfront, but I'm paying it off bit-by-bit over the next decade or two instead. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:34, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

So are you stating that the source of government t-bill payments is taxes that had been collected? Q1q2 (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm saying there are a variety of sources of income, among which taxes are but one. Did you mean to ask "what are the specific sources of income for the United States government, and which of those goes toward repaying t-bills?" Because your question does require knowing which government you are talking about, since they all operate differently. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:59, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, close - I didn't ask for the list of all government sources of revenue, so you can rephrase my question as "what specific sources of income [or other sources of dollars] goes toward repaying t-bills?" or alternatively,: 'immediatley before they were used to mature a t-bill, where were the dollars that the government uses to do that? Walk back through their lifetime including the immediate previous possessor.' I think this question is simple albeit technical. And yes, I mean in the United States! Q1q2 (talk) 23:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

There are no specific revenue streams committed to debt repayment. Instead, debts are paid from general government funds. Those funds include all general government revenues, consisting of taxes and fees. In the event that those revenues are insufficient to cover expenditures, government funds are supplemented by additional borrowing. So, in effect, the government borrows new money to pay off part of its maturing debt. When quantitative easing was underway, the Federal Reserve System created new money to lend to the government. Now that that program has ended, the money is lent by banks, corporations, and individuals. Some of those lenders are foreign, and part of the money they lend is dollars they hold as a result of the U.S. current account deficit. Note that in recent years both the federal deficit and the current account deficit have been shrinking fairly rapidly, so an increasing proportion of debt service is coming from revenues. Marco polo (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Marco Polo, thank you so much for your extremely detailed response. I've found it extremely helpful and you've also given me some more articles to read, e.g. about the current account deficit etc. I've left a message on your talk page. Q1q2 (talk) 17:00, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

NOT about wealth: exact way and point the money supply increases

[EDIT: this question is not about wealth, but officially mandated US Government money supply, i.e. official U.S. dollars both in printed form and recognized accounts. It is a question strictly about official us government currency called U.S. Dollars and its representation.]

assume at some point there were 3 trillion actual dollars in existence. (including in databases etc.) How did this become 3 trillion and 1 dollars? at what point does the number of dollars increase? (other than through counterfeiting.)

try to walk me through the exact place and time where the fixed money supply becomes a slightly larger fixed money supply. I don't mean debts - I mean actual money in accounts. Q1q2 (talk) 21:42, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

the question was amended with the points below, at the top in brackets.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The question is flawed, wealth isn't a closed system. Even at it's simplest form, barter, there's still new materials to be gathered and processed into goods, more laborers to sell their time, more livestock to breed, and so on. A cheap cell phone from today would be worth more than any computer in the 1970s. In the case of commodity currencies (gold standard and such), more gold mined = more coins the government could mint if it needs to. Whether it's Fiat money or minted commodity currencies, the issuing government simply needs to print more money. This can be a bad idea if done too much or too often, but never doing so would destabilize the economy. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:22, 20 December 2014 (UTC) Ian, I've struck your answer out. (Since you would be clearly embarrassed to realize you misread my question.) I said the word 'dollar', not wealth, and this question is about (official) dollars only. This is why I specifically mentioned counterfeiting. i.e. if I get you to believe that I have 10,000 dollars but it's not true, they're not official dollars, then that 10,000 that I created hasn't actually increased the money supply by 10,000 dollars. (since htye're not real official dollars. by contrast if I create 10,000 in value by producing something, and get you and the rest of the economy to believe it - then that is real. dollars are special because the us government has a monopoly on their definition and production.) Only the government can do that. I am asking specifically about under what conditions and specific places the number of official dollars (not wealth or any other currency or anything else) increases. Thank you. Q1q2 (talk) 22:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC) You do realize that dollars only symbolize wealth and are in themselves meaningless without the government declaring them to represent a set unit of wealth, right? And your original question was not "under what conditions do governments print more currency?" which is what you appear to be trying to ask. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC) Yes, of course I realize this. My original question is very close to what you quoted, but you're making a mistake changing it to what you just quoted: printed currency only represents a fraction of dollars in existence, the rest are just entries in a database. Fewer pieces of dollars exist in printed form than the amount of dollars that exist. Perhaps you didn't realize this, so I have struck your response as well. I am asking specifically about the official dollars that the us government defines and has a monopoly on producing and controlling and setting the rules over (whether in database form or in printed form.) Q1q2 (talk) 23:00, 20 December 2014 (UTC) Again, your use of dollars specifies a government mandated unit of wealth, not necessarily printed money. Also, striking other's comments when they're made in good faith is considered disrespectful. Strike this comment or restrike my previous comments and I will assume you're here to troll and collapse this thread under WP:DFTT. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC) My use doesn't 'imply' a government mandated unit of wealth - it's my whole question!! You are the one who tried to change my question to concern printed US Dollars rather than all US Dollars (including in accounts.) Look, Ian: you are trying to talk about wealth. I'm trying to talk about Official Government Mandated US Dollars. If you want to talk about wealth, open another thread. I'm just asking about the unit of currency. All of your responses in here so far have been hugely distracting and misinterpret my extremely specific question. I've added an Edit at the top of this thread. Q1q2 (talk) 23:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC) (edit conflict)Your original question was unclear and I was not the only person who interpreted it to be discussing wealth broadly, instead of interpreting it along the lines of "under what conditions does the US government decide that its currency does not adequately represent the real wealth it represents and produce more of that currency?" Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also use currencies called dollars, so there was no guarantee that your question was about US dollars. Your question originally did not distinguish your use of dollar as the symbol of currency itself independent of the wealth it represents. You didn't specify that you meant the government's role in the matter. Your question was vague and open ended, and it is not everyone else's fault for not understanding what you meant. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:38, 20 December 2014 (UTC) I don't think this is true, because I said 'actual dollars in existence'. In fact any answers about the mechanisms by which new Australian, Canadian, or New Zealand actual dollars become created may have been relevant as well. Anyway, with the addition of the edit at the top, the question is now super explicit. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Q1q2 (talk) 23:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC) See any economics text -- "wealth" ("dollars") represents deferred consumption ... people deposit the dollars in banks which then can lend out some part of that money - resulting in a "multiplier effect" on the deferred consumption. [1] As a result there is no "÷specific amount of dollars in an economy". Collect (talk) 22:56, 20 December 2014 (UTC) With respect, collect, my question is not about wealth, but about dollars. Dollars are extremely well-defined. A lot of people in Europe own 0 dollars for example. They have a few euros and euro coins in their homes, but no dollars or cents in their home, and they hold euros in bank accounts, but no dollars in bank accounts. No dollars. Got it? We are not talking about wealth. We are talking about dollars (US dollars, only). Maybe instead of dollars I should call it, 'officially-sanctioned-us-government-representation-of-value-or-its-representation-in-an-account-which-are-called-US-Dollars.' So, with that said: what are the SPECIFIC times that the TOTAL WORLD-WIDE NUMBER of 'officially-sanctioned-us-government-representation-of-value-or-its-representation-in-an-account-which-are-called-US-Dollars' increases? Q1q2 (talk) 23:05, 20 December 2014 (UTC) You don't seem to understand that dollars (printed, credit, or any other hypothetical form) only represent wealth and are worthless without a government saying "a dollar represents this much wealth." Also, striking other's comments when they're made in good faith is considered disrespectful. Strike this comment or restrike my previous comments and I will assume you're here to troll and collapse this thread under WP:DFTT. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:10, 20 December 2014 (UTC) Please don't be uncivil Ian. Now what I think the OP is trying to ask, or at least the answer is similar, is let's say the total wealth within the US today was $10 trillion, and let's say it magically grew to $20 trillion tomorrow, assuming those who print USD had perfect knowledge, how much USD would they print/type into a digital account? 76.68.49.155 (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC) (edit conflict)Please assume good faith. The OP's initial question was completely unclear, and he responded to good-faith attempts to answer that question by defacing the responses. Asking an unclear question is fine, but pompously assuming the any miscommunication must be some fault of the reader and then vandalizing their post in response is not acceptable. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:38, 20 December 2014 (UTC) I think you mean my original question was 'completely clear', though open to misreading if someone is hasty. You cannot be more clear than the way I set up my question. I didn't deface your answer - I did not want to derail the thread with a wall of text on misreading. I literally said "assume at some point there were 3 trillion actual dollars in existence. (including in databases etc.) How did this become 3 trillion and 1 dollars?" Why would I mention 'actual dollars', 'in existence', 'including in databases.' The idea that you responded by referring to wealth, and even barter, shows that you grossly misread my question. Even after I made it clear that I was asking what I actually asked, and not what you think I asked, you kept berating me for 'not understanding wealth'. I'm at a loss as to why you would like to completely derail my question rather than let it stay about the subject I'm actually interested in which was very very narrow. Q1q2 (talk) 23:51, 20 December 2014 (UTC) Nonononono, this isn't what I'm asking :) :) This is what Ian thought I was asking but it's not. I'm NOT asking about an increase in wealth. At all. I'm not even asking about "how much USD would they print". You seem to completely ignore my actual question. Let's say the government does print extra money. How does this get into circulation? For example, here is one way 1 trillion extra dollars could be put into circulation. The 1 trillion dollars, which previously didn't exist, can be printed every October 1st as 200 notes, like $1 notes and $5 notes, but actually in the form of $50 billion notes, 200 of them. They are then surreptitiously slipped to the current sitting president. The President then spends the next 50 weeks buying a hamburger a week at a specific McDonald's in Washington, which has a listed hamburger for $50 billion. He pays in exact change using a $50 billion bill. The McDonald's company then deposits this in a bank, and the $1 trillion per year in earnings due to this transfer of money is why McDonald's is a $20 trillion company that is worth 50 times as much as the next-biggest company. Some of the money goes back to shareholders. Some of it is spent on building mcdonald's worldwide. For example, the revenue from McDonald's in 2013 was $28 billion from all sources other than the President of the United States, and $1 trillion from the President. Okay, see? This is ONE mechanism that could be used to introduce new dollars into the economy. It's not the actual mechanism used. Tell me the actual mechanism used. Q1q2 (talk) 23:27, 20 December 2014 (UTC) Ian, I'm at a loss as to why you are soapboxing about You don't seem to understand that dollars (printed, credit, or any other hypothetical form) only represent wealth and are worthless without a government saying 'a dollar represents this much wealth' . This has nothing to do with the question! It's like my asking what the average age is in America and your responding, "You do realize that knowing the average age in America won't make you live any longer or give you any insight into 20th century poetry, don't you?" It simply has nothing whatsoever to do with my question. It's like I had only asked, "How many $2 us government notes are in circulation" and your answering, "you don't seem to realize that it's just cotton and ink, the only reason it has any value is that people seem to accept it and the government mandates its use an acceptance." Well, gee, thanks Ian. So, how many $2 us government notes are in circulation? Seroiusly. It's extremely rude of you to derail this thread by misinterpreting my question, which was very explicit. Nobody even mentioned anything that you're trying to talk about! Rather than guess what I'm 'really' trying to ask, simply accept that I'm actually asking what I did ask. By the way, your answers in the previous thread (above this one) were fine. Q1q2 (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2014 (UTC) (edit conflict)Your question was not as clear or explicit as "how many $2 bills are in circulation," which is why no one has been able to approach the subject to your satisfaction. That's a sign that the miscommunication is not on the reader's end. We wouldn't be guessing if you had been clear to begin with. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:38, 20 December 2014 (UTC) You (alone) derailed the subject by trying to imply I'm asking about wealth - I tried to strike the highly misleading response, and we could have gotten normal answers (such as the below) sooner. Instead it's a wall of text where you are trying to explain that I'm asking about something different. I could not POSSIBLY have been clearer than "assume at some point there were 3 trillion actual dollars in existence. (including in databases etc.) How did this become 3 trillion and 1 dollars? " That is way clearer than the question about the number of $2 bills in circulation, since 'in circulation' is not well-defined at all. I could not possibly make it more explicit than what I wrote. And I would very much appreciate if the wall of text above could all be struck, from my question to the line below which is the first answer. Q1q2 (talk) 23:46, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

See Money creation, Money supply, and Monetary base. And WP:CIVIL. Tevildo (talk) 23:36, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. The first link is extremely helpful and is what I was asking about. Q1q2 (talk) 23:59, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so Tevildo, it sounds, with fractional reserve banking, that banks are allowed to lend out dollars they don't possess (which don't exist until the moment they lend them out, which didn't get created by the government and transferred to them, but which only start existing in a monetary-base-inflationary way when they start lending them out). Is this true - did I read this right? Q1q2 (talk) 00:09, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by "possess" and "exist" - see the distinction between M1 and M3 described in the money supply article, and, of course, Fractional-reserve banking. The banks cannot give a piece of paper, let alone a lump of silver, to everyone who has an account with them - if we restrict the meaning of "dollar" to pieces of paper and lumps of silver, your statement is correct. However, if we allow it to include numbers in a spreadsheet, we have to interpret "possessed" as a much more abstract term, meaning something like "the maximum value that a particular number in a spreadsheet at the Federal Reserve is permitted to take", for your statement to be true. Tevildo (talk) 00:57, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Tevildo, thanks, I think you actually understand that article better than me. No, I would not like to just ask only about pieces of cotton and metal, but also accounts at parity with the same. If my bank account shows $1000, then that is clearly "real, actual" dollars. They're part of the dollars in existence, surely. (Unless the bank is being run fictitiously run.) Of course, I could pretend to be a bank and send the world's 7 billion people an ATM card, and when they check it I could reflect a balance of a hundred thousand dollars each. In what sense is that not 'real, actual dollars'? Because the US Government does not authorize it and I will end up in jail as soon as this is discovered. BUt if the US Government did let me do this, then clearly it would entail the actual creation of an actual 7 billion * 100K = 700 trillion actual, real US dollars. If other banks were forced to accept my transfer and treat them as real dollars, then they really would be real dollars. This is the sense in which I mean. Intuitively, it has to be obvious that there are strict limits on how many actual dollars of this kind banks can have in the sum of all their accounts. My question in part concerned the way in which these extra balances are generated. Oh, by the way, I'm now a bank and you have a balance of a quadrillion dollars with me - simply reply to my talk page with your signature if you would like me to transfer it to any bank account of your choice. See? The only sense in which I did not just create quadrillion dollars is that other banks would not accept my transfers, since I am not an actual banking institution and just made this up. But if they did accept my transfers, then I would have just created quadrillion dollars (which hopefully you wouldn't blow all in one place causing massive hyperinflation, as the current money supply is only in the single-digit trillions. of dollars worldwide.) Q1q2 (talk) 04:40, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

The thing stopping you from issuing the zillion ATM cards is the reserve requirement. Q1q2 (talk)

No, the thing that stops me from telling you that you now have quadrillion dollars with me and sending you an ATM you can use to withdraw as much as you want of it, is that I'm not actually a bank, not set up to wire anything, and have nothing to wire from. Even though the quadrillion dollars you have with me are 'real' in the sense that I can claim you have this money sitting in your account, it's not real in the sense that I don't actually have the means to wire it to you because I'm not an actual bank or even participate in the interbank transfer system. So you can say that "reserve requirements" are what's stopping me - but I can add, and, you know, actually being a bank, following rules, having dollars, etc. So there is a HUGE difference between a bank's real dollars that it shows you in your account, and my fictitious quadrillion dollars that I claim as your banker I have, also in your account, and ready to withdraw at any time (although we are closed 7 days a week through 2017). Huge difference. Q1q2 (talk)

"If my bank account shows $1000, then that is clearly "real, actual" dollars. They're part of the dollars in existence, surely. (Unless the bank is being run fictitiously run.)" No, they aren't part of the dollars in existence. That's the essence of fractional-reserve banking, what you call "fictitiously run". Various books explain this, and I would recommend The Future of Money by Mary Mellor. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Could you summarize the sense in which they're not 'part of the dollars in existence'? To me (by my definition) they are - there is no risk that they're not 'really there', I can transfer them to you or withdraw them, they are in every sense real. Just like if I tell you that you now have a quadrillion dollars with me, just ask for any portion and I'll transfer it to you - that is a total fabrication, no part of it is true, those quadrillion dollars don't exist. By contrast every part of dollars in accounts exists in every way. Now, I guess you're taking about something like 'high-powered' money (monetary base)? (the original money that is somewhat multiplied?) But when I have dollars in my own account, I don't care if they have been multiplied or not. They're totally real dollars. (For my purposes.) Thanks for explaining anything I'm missing. Q1q2 (talk)

The point is that there _is_ a risk they're not "really there", that your bank will _not_ be able to give you the cash. See bank run. It's not a large risk (which is why other banks are prepared to consider the money in your account as "real"), but it's not zero. The risk that the "Bank of Q1Q2" will be unable to pay out its depositors is, of course, much closer to 100%, which is why other banks will not accept transfers from it. But, get that risk down to an acceptable figure (and what is "acceptable" is a question for the politicians), and you _can_ create money in that way. Tevildo (talk) 19:15, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why you say my bank has to 'give me the cash' (i.e. cotton or metal) - it's enough for another bank to accept its wire transfer, and then that other bank can give you the cash. Likewise, doesn't the Central Bank act as a lender of last resort, in case in some sense the bank needed more liquidity to cover its database entries? (Though I'm not sure of the details here.) Tevildo, since they're database entries that are accepted by other banks, how can it possibly not actually be paid out? Q1q2 (talk) 20:31, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but can you be sure that every other bank will accept the transfer? At this time of year, I'm sure it's impossible to switch on a television set in the USA without It's A Wonderful Life being on at least 15 channels, so you can watch that to see a fictitious (but still fairly realistic) depiction of a bank run. Or see Northern Rock for a recent example. The risk factor mentioned above increases, for any number of reasons. Corporate investors begin to doubt that the bank can meet all its obligations. Private investors get wind of this, and stop trusting the bank - they all want their cash instead. The various branches of the bank don't physically have enough cash to pay all of them at the same time - the risk has eventuated! The corporate investors call in their loans in the hope of recovering some of their money - the "virtual" cash has gone, as well as the real cash. Now, at this point, the government (or Mr Potter) may step in and give the private investors _some_ of their money - probably all of it if it's $1000, probably not very much of it if it's $2000000. But there isn't some universal law that says they have to. Without those lumps of silver, your money isn't as safe in a bank as you apparently think it is. Tevildo (talk) 21:14, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

This scenario doesn't seem very accurate to me, because the government would provide those necessarily dollars since the banks are too big to fail; it's also the lender of last resort. More to the point, any individual can withdraw all of it without the bank having to shuffle around the rest. The fact that it's sitting in accounts but not quite ready to be given out doesn't make it less real for this reason. It truly is real money. Let's make an analogy. Suppose some spore came on earth all at once and made all bills extremely brittle and very hard to handle, they disintegrate. People are advised to just set their bills down until a replacement process is worked out. The bills remain easy to identify, but handling them too much causes them to disintegrate, so people collectively just keep them in situ for a while. The government ends up giving out slips of plastic to put the bills into. You can then bring it to the government, who can easily and exactly identify the bills and replace them with equivalent ones. So, now what if the government's capacity is in some sense limited - what if there are only so many machines that have been built, today, that can identify the crumbling bills accurately and quickly? Then even though the dollars that can't be touched for a bit aren't QUITE as good as normal replacement dollars immune to the spores, is it fair to say they're not 'actual' dollars? They're still actual dollars because they're recognized as such and can be traded as such. (Specifically, they're recognized by the government.) Since they retain their value (parity with a newly printed dollar bill) it is hard to call them anything but genuine dollars. But what else retains parity with newly printed dollars: the numbers in bank accounts do. They are literally at parity with printed dollars, and banks do not actually fail and make it impossible to withdraw these actual dollars. So in my view, since they are so obviously and clearly withdrawable as dollars, they simply are some. These bank account database entries aren't subject to an exchange rate, or the vagaries of the "market for dollars" or anything else . Each number literally just represents that many dollars. I mean, if you need to go to a bank during bank hours to get your dollars out of your account, then would you say the money supply dwindles on the weekend (since it doesn't include your inaccessible database entries) but increases during working hours (when they are included)? It just doesn't make sense to me. If you can completely rely on getting an exact amount out, then that really does exist. I don't see how I can view it in a different way. This isn't 10,000 dollars that Uncle Bob says he will pay you one day - which doesn't make 10,000 extra dollars exist - it's actual entries in a bank which it is prepared to withdraw to you at any time without further contingencies, and banked by a central bank which agrees to help it do so and has access to unlimited dollars out of thin air. Q1q2 (talk) 23:54, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Your initial statement is just not true, I'm afraid. Have you read bank run? Tevildo (talk) 01:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Surely you are not saying a bank run can occcur in 2014 in the United States? Although withdrawals may be suspended briefly, there is no way the government would fail to bail out these banks so they could meet their clients' withdrawal requirements. When was the last time banks lost money from checking accounts due to a bank run in the United States? It just can't happen. THe government would prefer 70% inflation to the failure of the Dollar and loss of faith in the banking system, ATM's not working. They would just print money and give it to the banks - in fact, exactly as they did under the controversial "quantitative easing" regime. Don't you agree? Q1q2 (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It's getting a bit late for a bank run in the USA in 2014, but there could be one in 2015. Because this could so easily happen in any country during the current economic crisis, the UK government guarantees individuals' savings - up to a point. A generous point, because no-one really needs to have such a large amount deposited with just one bank. You can read about it here http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-1623147/Safe-savings-advice-Compensation-rules.html. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

If the government has a willingness to hand us dollars - which it controls unlimited amounts of - to banks to keep them from failing, then logically the only way for a bank run to cause a bank to fail is for the bank not to ask for a bail-out. This is impossible. Therefore, it is completely logically necessary that a bank run in 2015 or anytime in the near future, that causes a bank to fail, is simply impossible. At worst money can be delayed by a few days or weeks. If you don't see this, then you haven't been keeping up with news about the bailout, or the government's willingness to lend money at near 0%, or to print money and use it in 'quantitative easing' to simply give to commercial enterprises like banks. What you're describing is completely outside of the realm of possibility. Please do a modicum of research and you will agree this is the case. Q1q2 (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

[unindent] Bank failure certainly is possible in modern times. Consider the case of Northern Rock. Nationalization as a last resort to protect guaranteed depositors is a form of bank failure. Marco polo (talk) 21:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Did normal account holders (checking accounts etc) in Northern Rock actually have their money 'destroyed' (in my sense - it existed before, and stopped existing) due to a bank failure? The article says that it had to borrow money from the Bank of England.. . Q1q2 (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

The legal position at the time was that personal deposits were guaranteed up to £20,000, so any balance in an account above that figure was indeed destroyed. The government made a _political_ decision to bail out the bank, but they were under no obligation of any other sort to do so. Depositors in Northern Rock _could_ have lost their money (and not just in some abstract theoretical sense, it came very close to actually happening). This, in my opinion (and, I would judge, the opinion of other contributors to this thread and the writers of our various articles on the subject, mentioned already), means that such sums have, at least, a precarious or contingent existence, and can't be described as "real" without qualification. Tevildo (talk) 11:17, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

That the government tends to make a political decision to do so is precisely what gives these accounts this status. If my opinion is that they will choose to do so 100% of the time in case of a bank run, then I can consider these accounts quite real without contingent existence. We're not talking about being able to withdraw gold, and the government deciding to give the bank gold. That would be a different kind of "contingence." We're talking about being able to withdraw FIAT - official scrips by decree, something literally invented by the government. So I think there is no case where the government would ever make a political decision to let a bank fail and cause loss of faith in its scrips. I mean scrips are pieces of authorization by government decree, that it has unlimited, infinite supply of. The government could create quintillion pounds without having to relocate a continent - unlike mining quintillion quintillion pounds of gold, which is the amount of gold in the galaxy. (I'm making up the numbers but you get the idea - it can just write "One quintillion quintillion pounds" and it would be true, you can't do something that isn't by decree.) So the fact that no bank is allowed to fail while holding holder's accounts, due to a bank run, and there is no incentive for the government to do so, is quite strong evidence for me that it's as good as if the government ran the bank itself and printed any money that was required on demand. Because, in fact, it does do so. Q1q2 (talk) 13:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

All that you are saying is that bank failure has different consequences today, when governments issue fiat currency and act as guarantors of the financial system, than it did in the days of the gold standard and laissez-faire. And of course that is correct. Marco polo (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that is what I'm saying. If it's more likely that pieces of cotton are burned irrecoverably (in a hypothetical fire - give this a probability) with the possessor and government unable to determine how many pieces and what denomination had been burned from the ashes (or they are scattered etc), than it is for checking accounts to have sums disappear due to a bank run that the government refuses to ease through its mechanisms (because in practice it always will) -- then I am simply justified in considering the latter to be actual dollars as much as (indeed, more than) the former. Checking account values may be more so actual dollars than cotton pieces of paper. Because pieces of cotton can be destroyed or lost, but checking accounts really can't (probability in actual reality is lower). Remember, the subject wasn't really what the effects are of a bank failure. It's whether bank accounts are 'actual' money. (part of the 'actual' m2 money supply.) Q1q2 (talk) 22:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Gurkha soldier language issues

How do the various countries who field Gurkha units handle the language issue? Let's take UK for example. Are the Gurkha fresh recruits proficient in English? Or does the UK MoD provide them with English lesson after they're recruited? Or do the Gurkha soldiers communicate in their native language with their commanding officers (who, in effect, doubles as a translator)? I'm mostly interested in the UK and Indian Gurkha units. WinterWall (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The British Army appears to set potential Gurkha recruits proficiency tests in English and mathematics - see the sample documents at the bottom of the recruitment page. [2] They also give non-Gurkha officers training in the Nepali language if needed. [3] AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I used to teach basic English to Gurkhas at a barracks in England. Mostly they start with a little English but they are very quick learners. I can't say how they communicate with their COs though. --TammyMoet (talk) 22:42, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

"All Officers are expected to speak Nepali and will attend a language course in Nepal." Ministry of Defence - The Royal Gurkha Rifles. Alansplodge (talk) 20:48, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Andy, I didn't see that you'd already linked to that page. Learning Development Wing is also pertinent; I suspect that the shorter Nepali courses are for those who will have dealings with Gurkhas but won't actually command them. Alansplodge (talk) 20:51, 21 December 2014 (UTC)