Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 December 11

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December 11

What is called when you know that X is a true example of Y, but you don't know that X is the only possible example of Y?

And so, you must look if there are other examples of Y besides X. This could be in like ethics. But in math, we would use the word "solution" instead of example. Then if you are looking for other solutions that fit (like sqrt(4) can be 2, and -2), what is the process called searching for all the possible solutions? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 14:22, 11 December 2022 (UTC).

Can you give a true example?  --Lambiam 21:42, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, it wouldn't be something manmade, like Monday and Tuesdays are days of the week, but we know the names of all the days of the week. So besides ethics, I would say chemistry. I.e., what are all the chemicals that have a melting point between A and B, while having this property X. And when you find 1 or 2 examples, you can't declare those are all the examples. I think philosophy has a term for this. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 00:29, 12 December 2022 (UTC).

If all known instances of swans are white, one might be led to posit that all swans – including not yet observed instances – are white. This fallacy may be called the fallacy of defective induction, or more informally the black swan fallacy, and instances may be referred to as faulty generalizations,.  --Lambiam 01:57, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Example: The Earth is an example of a planet with life, but we don't know that the Earth is the only possible planet with life. That's sample size of one. manya (talk) 10:00, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

USA: How are banks interest rates affected by the fed reserve raising interest rates?

Banks can still be privately owned. So how can the fed reserve do something that causes all the banks to raise their interest rates? Without legally forcing them to, right. Also, does the fed reserve still plan to raise interest rates in 2023? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 14:25, 11 December 2022 (UTC).

No bank is an island. They all have to borrow money from other banks in the normal course of doing business, and the Federal Reserve's interest rate determines at what rate this money will be available in the short term, thereby affecting all other interest rates (i.e. no bank will lend money at a rate below that at which it has borrowed it in the first place, unless it wishes to collapse in short order). By definition no one knows what the Federal Reserve will do next year or after; sometimes one can guess with some degree of conviction (for example, when inflation started to become a problem around a year ago, it was clear that there would be pressure on central banks around the world to raise interest rates, which is exactly what happened, but no one knew for sure exactly when this would happen and by what percentage). If you knew for sure what it was going to do, you could become very rich through speculation and arbitrage - hence the need for the central banks to operate with a large degree of independence. What the Fed will do in 2023 depends on how successful it considers it has been in meeting its long-term objective of stabilizing prices, and how it balances that with another of its fundamental objectives, which is moderating long-term interest rates. Financial analysts get paid a lot of money to try to figure this out, and they're wrong just as often as they're right. --Xuxl (talk) 15:34, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

What are the other banks, than banks have to borrow money from? Then they have to pay the other banks, with interest? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 17:33, 11 December 2022 (UTC).

Yes, banks often find themselves temporarily short of cash and have borrow from another bank, at interest. Blueboar (talk) 19:30, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

So, the government doesn't regulate a person paying interest to a bank, but it regulates loans between banks? And is it smaller banks borrowing from bug banks? Chase Bank and Bank of America are prolly the big banks that don't borrow from anyone except themselves? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 20:40, 11 December 2022 (UTC).

Its a lot more complicated than that. Suggest you start with our article on Banking in the United States, and follow the links. Blueboar (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, but at no time would you have 2 banks borrow money from each other, right? If 2 banks are giving each other free money, then that is still a net of 0? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 02:48, 12 December 2022 (UTC).

Firstly, it wouldn't be "free", because both lenders would charge the borrower interest on top of the loan. Secondly, they wouldn't be lending each other money at the same time, but it is quite usual for Bank A to borrow money from Bank B on Monday, to be repaid at the current overnight interest rate on Tuesday, and for Bank B to then borrow money from Bank A, to be repaid at the current overnight interest rate on Wednesday, and for Wednesday's rate to be different from Tuesday's – see Interbank lending market.

Most banks are doing this sort of thing much of the time, in order to balance their individual money flows from and to their customers. Someone who understands the Money market, whether working for a bank or another institution with "spare money", can make a profit at it. My father was the Chief Accountant for a firm of solicitors who routinely held sizeable sums of money for its clients for short periods, as part of ongoing house purchases and the like. It was the firm's legal duty (being in the UK) to invest those funds overnight or for short periods, to earn interest for the clients (for which, of course, the firm charged fees). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.188.15 (talk) 14:07, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

• The best article to read on the topic is the Federal funds rate. The short, oversimplified version is as follows: The banking system runs on what is called fractional reserve banking. The modern system works like this: Banks take in deposits (liabilities) and give out loans. They only need to keep (reserve) a small portion (fraction) of money on hand to cover their liabilities. Some of this is cash in the vaults, but MOST of this reserve money is kept in a central bank. In the U.S. this bank is a Federal Reserve bank, which is to say it is a bank run by the U.S. Government (Federal) which is designed to hold the Reserves (money that banks keep from the deposits customers make) of the commercial banks. Now, here's the magic of what the Federal Reserve banks do: At any given moment, some banks are going to be overdrawn, and some banks are going to be at a surplus: In other words, some banks are going to have more customers withdrawing money than the bank has in reserves that day, while other banks are going to have excess reserves that could be loaned to the overdrawn banks to cover their losses. The Fed acts a sort of clearinghouse for these transactions: They facilitate the loaning of money from Bank B (which has excess money) to Bank A (which is temporarily short on funds that day). The Federal Funds Rate is the rate that is set by regulation by which Bank B can collect interest on the loan to Bank A. When the interest rate is low, that money flows more freely, increasing the money supply, because banks are more likely to keep less in reserve, given that they know they can get free money to cover any overnight losses. When the interest rate is high, the money flow slows down, because banks have to keep more in reserve so they don't owe money in interest overnight, which means they give out less in loans, which means there is less overall money supply in the economy. I hope that all makes sense. Inflation is tied to money supply: if the money supply is increasing too rapidly, inflation happens. That's why The Fed raises the Federal Funds Rate when inflation is too high: higher overnight interest rates mean banks have to keep more in reserve to avoid going into the red overnight, which means there's less money to loan out, which means there's less money supply, which theoretically slows inflation. --Jayron32 13:40, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

So this whole thing is built on that some banks may have more customers withdrawing their money, than other banks? And other banks are forced to help the banks with the losses? Or possibly, people closing their banks? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 01:28, 17 December 2022 (UTC).

They aren't forced to do anything. They provide short-term "overnight" loans for which they are paid interest. --Jayron32 01:27, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Americans missing in Pacific war

In the discussion of the article of the war in the Pacific, for some reason they ignore me, maybe they will hear me here, do you think it is worth pointing out about 47 thousand missing? And yes, in the article about the Pacific War it is written that 161,000 Americans died, those 47 thousand missing are counted in this number or are they considered separately? Here's a source on missing persons https://pacificwrecks.com/mia/usa/index.html 37.145.63.226 (talk) 19:24, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, your edit was reverted because your reference wasn't formatted correctly. this guide and the Help Desk are good resources. Your edit does bring to light a problem with the article it is not following the referenced source Warfare and Armed Conflicts and has what looks to be some erroneous numbers. Good Luck! fiveby(zero) 20:35, 11 December 2022 (UTC)