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Schiff: The Real State of the Union 2013


Yamato

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The entire US history of the government not intervening is the precedent of what I just asserted. The banks should have been run on. That's what they deserved. I ran on my bank voluntarily and I'll never go back to that scum of a corporation again. That was the solution. And I'm glad I solved the problem for myself. I haven't had credit taken out for a long time. I've made sacrifices. I'm still here and I'm responsible now. My spending problem was duly solved, not enabled. And I know who I am and how I'm valued. I pay my bills and I have an excellent credit score for not having a dime of credit card debt, student loan debt, or mortgage debt.

The thing you seem to fail to understand is that the entire history of the government not intervening in the economy during recession happened before the great depression and those recessions were much longer and deeper. This history of non-interventionist policy culminated in the Great Depression, towards the end of which the US government was forced to intervene as a direct result of our entry into WWII. The government then intervened, spending massive amounts of money at a deficit to ramp up the industrial war machine, drafting millions of troops, putting pretty much everyone else in the country who was not drafted to work, women and men alike, building war machines, ammunition, gun powder, food, etc. This massive deficit spending was the end of the great depression. Yes austerity was needed for civilians at home (but this was not the same as economic austerity like the kind you see in Greece today), because all the money and work had to be put towards the war. After the war was over, and the troops came home, there were far more factories, industrial machines, etc. than there were before the war. And guess what? Europe was a disaster zone. So guess what we did? We started building building building, using those factories and machines the US government financed at a deficit to help Europe re-build. We made out the best after the war, because our factories and industries were never destroyed like the ones in Europe. It is because of this fact that the US became a world superpower after WW2, and it was a direct result of the massive deficit spending done for the war effort. In fact after the war our deficit was so high that congress raised taxes up to over 90% marginal rate on the richest people for a number of years yet you do not hear people talk about that very much.

World War II was a disaster for the economy here at home. If you want to know what austerity is, you have no idea unless you lived in the US in WW2. This cream puff generation can't stand to get a little boo boo on its finger before it whines for the establishment to go print something. The economic recovery didn't start until long after WW2 when the government collapsed into its own footprint. Government spending collapsed. It went off a cliff, and the free market exploded after that happened. That's what we need to do right now. It might be a horrible two years of austerity and our people won't have a big bad bogeyman in Europe as the faceman for all their pain either. It'll be a lot closer to home this time, and maybe even as close as the mirror, and so a lot more politically difficult to accept. But that's no excuse. The only good thing the war did was dramatically accelerate technologies and the economy got a boost from innovations in transportation, automation, communication, materials, and so on. It was a bankrupting waste of men and material otherwise. A horrible allocation of resources. We had some 60,000 surplus aircraft at the end of the war and most of them went to the scrap yard. That's the same kind of ruinous mentality we have with these Keynesians today. The Broken Window Fallacy lives on.

WW2 was not an economic disaster here. During the war yes times were tough, but it was for a good cause and so people shouldered the burden and did their part. Rich and poor alike shared in the sacrifice needed to win the war. But as I stated earlier it was the huge increase in industrial might that the war caused, and the fact that we helped rebuild Europe after the war that was the cause for our rise to economic world superpower status. It was not because we had the best economic system, it was because of the position we found ourselves in after the war.

Yes, the free market exploded in the 50's, when the marginal tax rates were: (income adjusted for inflation)

22.2% $0-$2,000

62% $20,000-$22,000

75% $44,000-$50,000

92% $200,000+

You do not seem to understand the fact that austerity is a horrible plan, and should only be a plan of last resort. Also, it would not just be 2 years, austerity would cripple our economy as it ALWAYS does, and would have lead to another great depression like period and massive deflation- which again you do not seem to understand is horribly bad for our economy as a whole. You really do not seem to understand very basic economics and economic history in this country.

Edited by Einsteinium
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The best and most honest thing that could happen to this country is God forbid, a few years of deflation, to get our people off these impossible expectations of endless inflation. The purpose of this system was supposed to be currency stability, now they shamelessly admit that their purpose is to maintain continuous inflation and call that stability. There's nothing magic about constant inflation, this shell game of endless demand, endless supply and endless growth nearly imploded as it naturally should have but we bandaided over it with massive federal capital injections. Well now we have piled on more debt courtesy of George W. Bush and Barack Obama than the entire history of the United States. How much do you make a year in "Ho Chi Minh City, Frank"? Run your debt up to 4.7 times your annual income and tell me how any bank in their right mind is going to treat you. You'd be bankrupt 5 times over again. Telling me that it's different for the US government than it is for individuals isn't telling me anything valuable I can apply in life. The reason why they're different is because I can't print money on my printing press in the basement. Well I could, but if I did it on the right 100% cotton paper and with the right ink, and made it look all official like, I'd go to prison and rightfully so. The government would put you in a cage for doing what it does with no known limits in the proud moral decay year of 2013. Because you're not the best decider for what to do with your own money, you've got to hand it over to Goldman Sachs who knows better what to do with it than you do.

Just so I am clear, you want to wipe out the current fiscal system in the United States and replace it with a hard asset backed currency that will not inflate, such as going back to the gold standard? Is that what you think would help us?

Because ever since the establishment of the federal reserve system every single dollar issued is created with debt. attached to it. Meaning that our system from this point on was never intended to have a stable value currency, but was in fact designed to have a stable inflationary rate currency. Whereby the federal reserve was to ensure that the rate of inflation was to remain stable, not the value of our currency. This was done on purpose to provide the central bank with the tools necessary to regulate the rate of inflation. By allowing inflation and an elastic money supply the idea was that out government along with the central bank (they are separate entities by the way, the central bank acts of its own accord) can thus manipulate the money supply when needed specifically to balance the cut throat business cycle and level out the peaks and valleys of the cycle. This was the idea and basic reasoning behind our current monetary system. I do not agree with every part of it, but again I am not a finance or economics professional and so I am not an expert by any means. But you are proposing to wipe out this system and replace it with the old gold standard system correct?

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The thing you seem to fail to understand is that the entire history of the government not intervening in the economy during recession happened before the great depression and those recessions were much longer and deeper. This history of non-interventionist policy culminated in the Great Depression, towards the end of which the US government was forced to intervene as a direct result of our entry into WWII. The government then intervened, spending massive amounts of money at a deficit to ramp up the industrial war machine, drafting millions of troops, putting pretty much everyone else in the country who was not drafted to work, women and men alike, building war machines, ammunition, gun powder, food, etc. This massive deficit spending was the end of the great depression. Yes austerity was needed for civilians at home (but this was not the same as economic austerity like the kind you see in Greece today), because all the money and work had to be put towards the war. After the war was over, and the troops came home, there were far more factories, industrial machines, etc. than there were before the war. And guess what? Europe was a disaster zone. So guess what we did? We started building building building, using those factories and machines the US government financed at a deficit to help Europe re-build. We made out the best after the war, because our factories and industries were never destroyed like the ones in Europe. It is because of this fact that the US became a world superpower after WW2, and it was a direct result of the massive deficit spending done for the war effort. In fact after the war our deficit was so high that congress raised taxes up to over 90% marginal rate on the richest people for a number of years yet you do not hear people talk about that very much.

WW2 was not an economic disaster here. During the war yes times were tough, but it was for a good cause and so people shouldered the burden and did their part. Rich and poor alike shared in the sacrifice needed to win the war. But as I stated earlier it was the huge increase in industrial might that the war caused, and the fact that we helped rebuild Europe after the war that was the cause for our rise to economic world superpower status. It was not because we had the best economic system, it was because of the position we found ourselves in after the war.

Yes, the free market exploded in the 50's, when the marginal tax rates were: (income adjusted for inflation)

22.2% $0-$2,000

62% $20,000-$22,000

75% $44,000-$50,000

92% $200,000+

You do not seem to understand the fact that austerity is a horrible plan, and should only be a plan of last resort. Also, it would not just be 2 years, austerity would cripple our economy as it ALWAYS does, and would have lead to another great depression like period and massive deflation- which again you do not seem to understand is horribly bad for our economy as a whole. You really do not seem to understand very basic economics and economic history in this country.

What recessions before WWII were a lot longer and deeper? Every example proves you wrong except for ONE. You're talking about the periods of the greatest prosperity in US history. You've got to be kidding me with this mythos that the Great Depression was caused by the government not intervening. The government in power in 1913 was the most interventionist and deplorable government in all of US history. The spending boom of the 1920s wasn't caused by the free marketplace, it was caused by Wilsonianism and American Exceptionalism, the creation of the Income Tax, the creation of the Federal Reserve System, and the vaunted need to spread American values all across the world.

The real free market growth of the 19th century was unprecedented and unrivaled to this day. Something forming from nothing, which is a concept hard for Keynesians to believe. Our recessions have always been recovered from quickly except for FDR's. So telling me what I don't understand is pretty bold of you. If you can admit that austerity was needed at home in WW2 then if you were consistent in your own position you would have to admit that austerity is needed right now. Spending is spending. The debt doesn't care one iota whether it's a republican that put it there or a democrat. It's a dollar of debt and it is owed by the people. If debt wasn't a problem, if people back then had the attitude that people of today have, that they can mortgage the future of this country away to no end, then there would have been no austerity and then your Keyneisan claims would make some sense. After all these decades, we would have proven in grand fashion just how much that debt really mattered. But we still had some fiscal sense back then and did what I'm suggesting that we do now and that was the period of the real recovery. The '50s and the power of our market economy made the middle class. The middle class didn't make the economy.

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Just so I am clear, you want to wipe out the current fiscal system in the United States and replace it with a hard asset backed currency that will not inflate, such as going back to the gold standard? Is that what you think would help us?

Because ever since the establishment of the federal reserve system every single dollar issued is created with debt. attached to it. Meaning that our system from this point on was never intended to have a stable value currency, but was in fact designed to have a stable inflationary rate currency. Whereby the federal reserve was to ensure that the rate of inflation was to remain stable, not the value of our currency. This was done on purpose to provide the central bank with the tools necessary to regulate the rate of inflation. By allowing inflation and an elastic money supply the idea was that out government along with the central bank (they are separate entities by the way, the central bank acts of its own accord) can thus manipulate the money supply when needed specifically to balance the cut throat business cycle and level out the peaks and valleys of the cycle. This was the idea and basic reasoning behind our current monetary system. I do not agree with every part of it, but again I am not a finance or economics professional and so I am not an expert by any means. But you are proposing to wipe out this system and replace it with the old gold standard system correct?

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12594.htm

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stability

"Inflation stability" is a nonsense idea. It's an oxymoron. Just call it what it is, inflation.

Commodity-based currencies like the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, the New Zealand dollar have proven better holders of value than the US dollar, although paper money is in a state of global devaluation right now vs. real assets when central banks are printing massive amounts of it. Returning to the gold standard, if we were to do so, would be a process of transition. It couldn't happen overnight. What I would suggest as one step in that direction is to nullify Nixon Shock. The US dollar as the world's reserve currency is propped up by nothing but market sentiment. So it's extreme irony that someone who doesn't believe in the power of market sentiment, or the fact that market sentiment is the keeper of real value in the economy, can ride on this wave of fiat currency having value as if the promise of government is what matters. The government can print more money and hand us our nominal dollars back, it's proven itself to be a consummate catastrophe at maintaining the real value of our money.

If it's never been intended to have stable currency, then that really shouldn't be the primary reason for the Fed's existence then should it? It's a charade, as you point out. If the purpose is "stable inflation" then they should lower themselves into the well of truth and admit it. You would need to be able to cite your sources for believing your claim though as you're not an expert and I have no idea where you're getting your information at.

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In summary, the end of the recession of 2008 was artificial, the growth we've created since is unsustainable because eventually the market is going to put its foot down and rein this charade of overspending in. Government can spend all the money it can dream of, it can blow humankind back into the stone age, it can kick and scream and cry as loud as it wants to, and in the end, the market will always win. It's fighting an irresistible force, it's delaying the inevitable. No government lasts forever, no State is a bastion of sameness or stability, the only thing that endures from the beginning of civilization until the end and beyond, is the market.

My advice to anyone reading this is to protect themselves by pinning their savings, investments, and lifestyles onto real assets. Buy farmland, invest in equities denominated in superior currencies, invest in energy, agriculture, precious metals, exciting new technologies particularly right after they become investable in China, and generally in the geographic regions that represent the greatest creditor nations, not the greatest debtor nations. The US is the greatest debtor nation in the history of mankind. The value of the US dollar is continually devalued by the Fed, and continually propped up by the rest of the world who still see it as the reserve currency. This isn't going to continue for another generation. If you're a young person who's starting out in life and wants to know where to put your money, don't hand it to the forces that are busily ripping you off and making you pay the price for their transgressions. Protect yourself now before it's too late. The real collapse that we printed over and didn't allow to heal properly in 2008 might happen in 2013 or it might be 2028, the idea is to be ahead of the curve, not left holding the bag behind it.

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http://www.federalre...about_12594.htm

http://www.thefreedi...y.com/stability

"Inflation stability" is a nonsense idea. It's an oxymoron. Just call it what it is, inflation.

Commodity-based currencies like the Australian dollar, the Canadian dollar, the New Zealand dollar have proven better holders of value than the US dollar, although paper money is in a state of global devaluation right now vs. real assets when central banks are printing massive amounts of it. Returning to the gold standard, if we were to do so, would be a process of transition. It couldn't happen overnight. What I would suggest as one step in that direction is to nullify Nixon Shock. The US dollar as the world's reserve currency is propped up by nothing but market sentiment. So it's extreme irony that someone who doesn't believe in the power of market sentiment, or the fact that market sentiment is the keeper of real value in the economy, can ride on this wave of fiat currency having value as if the promise of government is what matters. The government can print more money and hand us our nominal dollars back, it's proven itself to be a consummate catastrophe at maintaining the real value of our money.

If it's never been intended to have stable currency, then that really shouldn't be the primary reason for the Fed's existence then should it? It's a charade, as you point out. If the purpose is "stable inflation" then they should lower themselves into the well of truth and admit it. You would need to be able to cite your sources for believing your claim though as you're not an expert and I have no idea where you're getting your information at.

The federal reserve website itself is my source.

From the site:

The Federal Reserve System, often referred to as the Federal Reserve or simply "the Fed," is the central bank of the United States. It was created by the Congress to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. The Federal Reserve was created on December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Today, the Federal Reserve's responsibilities fall into four general areas.

  • Conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices.
  • Supervising and regulating banks and other important financial institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers.
  • Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.
  • Providing certain financial services to the U.S. government, U.S. financial institutions, and foreign official institutions, and playing a major role in operating and overseeing the nation's payments systems.

So you can see. The goal of maintaining a stable value for our currency is not stated. Just the goal of maintaining the stability of THE SYSTEM and stable PRICES. I had to dig a little to find exactly what is meant by 'stable prices' and I found the answer the the site for the European Central Bank:

  • "Price stability is defined as a year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area of below 2%."

The Governing Council has also clarified that, in the pursuit of price stability, it aims to maintain inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term.

So as you can see, in order to maintain so called 'price stability' a stable rate of inflation is necessary. And by the way. A stable rate of inflation is not an oxymoron. It is simply a stable rate of change. If you cannot grasp this idea imagine a car accelerating. The car can accelerate at a constant rate, but its speed will be increasing. Say its rate of acceleration is 5mph per second. So every second its speed increases by 5mph. The speed represents the value of our currency (in reverse, the faster the car goes, the less our money is worth) and the acceleration represents inflation. I agree that I think that this type of system is unsustainable. Your assertion that our currency is fiat is true, it is not backed by any hard asset. But market sentiment gives value to everything. Gold has value because the market gives it value. If nobody wanted gold, it would have no value. So if the market gives value to our currency, who are we to challenge the market? For as you say, the market is always right and always will dominate. So the market giving value to our currency therefore our currency has value, for as long as the market gives it value.

All I am trying to say is that things are not as simple as you see them to be. But your view is the commonsense view that I think we would all be smart to pay attention to and learn, but common sense and logic are not the things the market or our government follow, sadly.

SOURCE1

SOURCE2

Edited by Einsteinium
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The federal reserve website itself is my source.

From the site:

The Federal Reserve System, often referred to as the Federal Reserve or simply "the Fed," is the central bank of the United States. It was created by the Congress to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. The Federal Reserve was created on December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Today, the Federal Reserve's responsibilities fall into four general areas.

  • Conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices.
  • Supervising and regulating banks and other important financial institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers.
  • Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.
  • Providing certain financial services to the U.S. government, U.S. financial institutions, and foreign official institutions, and playing a major role in operating and overseeing the nation's payments systems.

So you can see. The goal of maintaining a stable value for our currency is not stated. Just the goal of maintaining the stability of THE SYSTEM and stable PRICES. I had to dig a little to find exactly what is meant by 'stable prices' and I found the answer the the site for the European Central Bank:

  • "Price stability is defined as a year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area of below 2%."

The Governing Council has also clarified that, in the pursuit of price stability, it aims to maintain inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term.

So as you can see, in order to maintain so called 'price stability' a stable rate of inflation is necessary. And by the way. A stable rate of inflation is not an oxymoron. It is simply a stable rate of change. If you cannot grasp this idea imagine a car accelerating. The car can accelerate at a constant rate, but its speed will be increasing. Say its rate of acceleration is 5mph per second. So every second its speed increases by 5mph. The speed represents the value of our currency (in reverse, the faster the car goes, the less our money is worth) and the acceleration represents inflation. I agree that I think that this type of system is unsustainable. Your assertion that our currency is fiat is true, it is not backed by any hard asset. But market sentiment gives value to everything. Gold has value because the market gives it value. If nobody wanted gold, it would have no value. So if the market gives value to our currency, who are we to challenge the market? For as you say, the market is always right and always will dominate. So the market giving value to our currency therefore our currency has value, for as long as the market gives it value.

All I am trying to say is that things are not as simple as you see them to be. But your view is the commonsense view that I think we would all be smart to pay attention to and learn, but common sense and logic are not the things the market or our government follow, sadly.

SOURCE1

SOURCE2

The stable rate of inflation serves to enable the stable rate of growth of government. The way our politicians are handling the sequester today is proof enough to see what this shell game really is. They're speaking about miniscule reductions to the increases in future spending as if they're a coming nightmare. That's the kind of entitlement complex they have to ever-greater amounts of spending in future years. These permanent increases in government spending through time are sacrosanct for the bureaucrats. The growth in our economy has no such guarantee. They're putting the cart before the horse by laying out their spending plans ahead of time and worrying about revenues to pay for it in retrospect, and fear mongering about immaterial adjustments to their plans just to put the first bandaid on the nation's books. So then, how are they ever going to feed an ever-growing government? With omnipresent inflation, and permanent erosion of the purchasing power of our money. So the benefit that we get from this is bigger government. That's no benefit I'm interested in having down the road, that's a terrible cost, to our economy, our freedom, and our security. There is no such thing as permanent growth as the previous video showed. People who have been indoctrinated into believing it's possible are duly misled, and I'll take the former Comptroller General's word that we're not going to be able to grow our way out of this fiscal cancer that is itself growing exponentially inside of us.

201302222_Overall.jpg

Edited by Yamato
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Whereby the federal reserve was to ensure that the rate of inflation was to remain stable, not the value of our currency. This was done on purpose to provide the central bank with the tools necessary to regulate the rate of inflation. By allowing inflation and an elastic money supply the idea was that out government along with the central bank (they are separate entities by the way, the central bank acts of its own accord) can thus manipulate the money supply when needed specifically to balance the cut throat business cycle and level out the peaks and valleys of the cycle.

I agree and think it is basically a smart way to go. Trying to keep a currency absolutely stable implies that you have to have periodic deflation, and deflation is not achieved without major suffering, high suicides, poor health, stress, and so on. At the same time, however, whatever inflation is to be allowed must be kept as stable as possible, so that people can plan and so that indexed contracts can work.

Unemployment is a far worse problem for a people than slow inflation -- provided pensions are indexed to protect the elderly.

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I agree and think it is basically a smart way to go. Trying to keep a currency absolutely stable implies that you have to have periodic deflation, and deflation is not achieved without major suffering, high suicides, poor health, stress, and so on. At the same time, however, whatever inflation is to be allowed must be kept as stable as possible, so that people can plan and so that indexed contracts can work.

Unemployment is a far worse problem for a people than slow inflation -- provided pensions are indexed to protect the elderly.

Dreams of endless inflation is a dream for the Haves. If you own land, homes, currencies, commodities, equities, and the prices for these things deflate a little, yeah then you get hurt a little. The more of these things you own, the more you get hurt. If someone owns 100 mansions and the housing market collapses they get hurt 100 times as much as the guy who owns one. If someone owns 100,000 ounces of gold, they get hurt 100,000 times as much as someone who owns one. What's wrong with that? They make 100,000 times more when the prices are inflating. Why can't they take their lumps on the flip side?

Nobody said "absolutely" except the Fed's bulldog stubbornness to have chronic inflation absolutely. Everything goes up and down, as the video disproving endless growth showed you. Only government growth goes in one direction, and only for so long. This is a game of diminishing returns and diminishing value for unsustainable growth and unimaginable debt as our reward.

Explain this "major suffering, high suicides, poor health, stress and so on when prices come down 2% every now and then, and then. Take me down that slippery slope. These indoctrinated expectations of endless inflation have been the game they're playing since Alan Greenspan and under that Keynesian ideology, we see market cap deflation at 50+% in one year in the major indexes. There must have been plenty of suicides there but you're just bilking for Wall St. if that's what you are about.

When something goes down 50% it has to go back up 100% to return to break even. Real assets like gold have more than doubled in the same period during that dollar-denominated fiasco that took five years to return to flat line. When your loved ones get sick and their insurance doesn't cover what ailment they have and you realize you have to pay out of pocket to save their lives, and then you see what the bill is, you'll know how painful inflation is then.

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Its all written in a language 99% of the Americans dont understand yet are forced to live under. Repeal the Act of 1871 and start to see things go straight.

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Its all written in a language 99% of the Americans dont understand yet are forced to live under. Repeal the Act of 1871 and start to see things go straight.

I'm a feriner; please explain or elaborate or educate. Thanks.
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Dreams of endless inflation is a dream for the Haves. If you own land, homes, currencies, commodities, equities, and the prices for these things deflate a little, yeah then you get hurt a little. The more of these things you own, the more you get hurt. If someone owns 100 mansions and the housing market collapses they get hurt 100 times as much as the guy who owns one. If someone owns 100,000 ounces of gold, they get hurt 100,000 times as much as someone who owns one. What's wrong with that? They make 100,000 times more when the prices are inflating. Why can't they take their lumps on the flip side?

Nobody said "absolutely" except the Fed's bulldog stubbornness to have chronic inflation absolutely. Everything goes up and down, as the video disproving endless growth showed you. Only government growth goes in one direction, and only for so long. This is a game of diminishing returns and diminishing value for unsustainable growth and unimaginable debt as our reward.

Explain this "major suffering, high suicides, poor health, stress and so on when prices come down 2% every now and then, and then. Take me down that slippery slope. These indoctrinated expectations of endless inflation have been the game they're playing since Alan Greenspan and under that Keynesian ideology, we see market cap deflation at 50+% in one year in the major indexes. There must have been plenty of suicides there but you're just bilking for Wall St. if that's what you are about.

When something goes down 50% it has to go back up 100% to return to break even. Real assets like gold have more than doubled in the same period during that dollar-denominated fiasco that took five years to return to flat line. When your loved ones get sick and their insurance doesn't cover what ailment they have and you realize you have to pay out of pocket to save their lives, and then you see what the bill is, you'll know how painful inflation is then.

Please explain why endless inflation is impossible? All that is required is a steadily increasing money supply relative to population.

Furthermore, as I have stated before, the vast majority of economists favor a low but steady rate of inflation. So you are saying here that you know better than the vast majority of economists, and that they not only have it wrong, but have it so wrong that it is comparable to having a PhD mathematician getting 2+2 wrong.

Edited by Einsteinium
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Please explain why endless inflation is impossible? All that is required is a steadily increasing money supply relative to population.

Furthermore, as I have stated before, the vast majority of economists favor a low but steady rate of inflation. So you are saying here that you know better than the vast majority of economists, and that they not only have it wrong, but have it so wrong that it is comparable to having a PhD mathematician getting 2+2 wrong.

Again, endless inflation is impossible because it's just another example of endless growth. Endless growth is impossible (as already shown by the video you're still invited to view so you can understand the math) because simply put, the capacity to serve that endless growth is impossible. There are limits to growth, whether that is capital and resources, or physical limitations like geography, space, or time. A city's population growth is limited by many factors and certainly all of the aforementioned as just one example.

You're justifying endless growth of one thing because it coincides and supports endless growth of another thing. Why do you want endless population growth? Aren't there enough people already? Are your "vast majority" of economists ecologists? Do they prevent wars? Are they interested in altruism or benevolence, or the minimization of suffering?

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Again, endless inflation is impossible because it's just another example of endless growth. Endless growth is impossible (as already shown by the video you're still invited to view so you can understand the math) because simply put, the capacity to serve that endless growth is impossible. There are limits to growth, whether that is capital and resources, or physical limitations like geography, space, or time. A city's population growth is limited by many factors and certainly all of the aforementioned as just one example.

You're justifying endless growth of one thing because it coincides and supports endless growth of another thing. Why do you want endless population growth? Aren't there enough people already? Are your "vast majority" of economists ecologists? Do they prevent wars? Are they interested in altruism or benevolence, or the minimization of suffering?

I did watch the video and I did not learn anything new. I understand compound interest and I understand that 7% growth means a doubling every 10 years. I am not justifying endless economic growth, I agree with you that endless economic growth is impossible with finite resources. Endless population growth is also impossible. What I am trying to explain to you, is that endless inflation is not impossible. Because it is not growth, it is a slow and steady de-valuation of the worlds currencies. There are no mathematical limits on devaluation because it is not growth. At 2% inflation $1,000 now will be the same value as $2,208 40 years from now. Eventually it gets ridiculous at even a modest 2% rate. Tens of thousands of years from now we would have to bring wheelbarrows of cash to the store to buy a loaf of bread for example. But there is no limit to devaluation. Growth yes, but devaluation which is the basis for inflation, no. That is all I am saying.

I do not know what the vast majority of economists think about ecology, war, altruism, or the minimization of suffering. But I do know that they are experts in analyzing the ways in which society allocates scarce resources and how certain pressures or changes can effect the allocation of resources for a given society.

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I dare say endless growth is possible. Once population is stable and the resource base is put on a self-sustaining basis (probably this century) there will still be steady technological advance, resulting in steadily improving living standards and therefore unending growth.

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I dare say endless growth is possible. Once population is stable and the resource base is put on a self-sustaining basis (probably this century) there will still be steady technological advance, resulting in steadily improving living standards and therefore unending growth.

Then you don't understand the central tenet of economics, the allocation of scarce resources. To presume endless growth you must also presume endless resources. This is the scourge of the world right now. Overpopulation, dying ecosystems, the successful indoctrination of people like you to believe that endless growth is possible. You can't or refuse to understand the math, you don't have any respect for the virtues of fiscal much less ecological responsibility and you think that limitless growth of one thing (population or government, take your pick, but you get both, it's a two-for-one) is reason enough for endless growth of another (money supply --> prices).

My questions from #113 weren't answered. Even if you believe something is possible, and as the entire history of mankind proves it is for a LIMITED time, it doesn't mean it's right. You understand minutia like whales or other small examples of this great topic, but you can't put it together yet and see the big picture. When I'm discussing the environment, the global ecosystem would be the big picture. This big picture here is even bigger than that.

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