“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
When the Current Ideas No Longer Function, Even a Bad Idea Seems Preferable
The more dollars employers are forced to pay the less purchasing power the money has.
A million dollars today has about the same purchasing power a hundred thousand did fifty years ago.
I've lived long enough to see this play out in real time.
The house my parents bought for $13,000.00 in 1948 is now "worth" $450,000.00. Same house, same lot, no additions, and the place is SIXTY-EGHT YEARS OLDER than it was when we lived there.
This is not "progress," this is INFLATION –– "the cruelest tax of all," as President Reagan so aptly put it.
Oh and the finest homes on "Quality Street" we dreamt about possibly owing one day cost a whopping $40,000.00 back in the day. Well, I could easily afford that now, but you can't even dream of buying one of those still-fine places for less than Three-to-Seven-MILLION.
The Pennsylvania Dutch have a saying I quote often.
The farther ahead I go, the behinder I get."
We've simply reimagined the Feudal System and put it in modern dress. The Government is King, the Rich are the new Lords, Dukes, Earls, Counts and Barons, and we are the Vassals and Serfs.
We were among great strides towards true "equality," until the Industrial Revolution which effectively pushed us back into the quasi-Feudal environment we live with today.
Nothing ever really changes except the Costumes and the Settings. It's the same old play that's been continuously staged since organized society began.
People who imagines themselves smart like the young man in the video merely change the terms by inventing new vocabularies for the same old ess-aitch-eye-tea.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many are so gullible and so hopelessly obtuse as to believe that calling ess-aitch-eye-tea by another name will stop it from stinking.
It's actually downright COMICAL when you think about it.
Freethinke correctly identifies rising wages as a source of inflation, but we keep hearing that most peoples' wages have not risen since Reagan at least.
So what's been driving recent inflation? In my opinion: cheap credit.
An across-the-board increase in income might be beneficial if it were balanced with a rise in interest rates.
Credit certainly plays a role. But how do you explain the quantitative easing policy of the fed? Since there's no "cap" upon the total "supply" of credit available, the Fed has replaced high interest rate debt with much lower (near zero) interest rate debt, doubling the total national debt amount, but at a much reduced debt-servicing cost. There's even talk of a future "negative" interest rate being charged on T bills. The "inflation" seems to have been at least "temporarily" transferred from "hard assets" (ie-housing prices) to softer "financial" ones (more T-bills).
The interest "rate" on credit seems to be one thing, unlimited "credit availability", another. And when you make credit "easy" to come by, no one in their right mind would pay a higher interest rate for it. Making credit scarcer is what makes the interest rate rise.
I'm not sure that the normal rules of monetary policy function unless credit availability becomes "capped" somehow.
20 comments:
I like it. Will probably nab it too! Thanks.
Anyway, with Pence declaring himself a Reaganite, everthang's going to be yooooooge! ;-)
Perhaps becoming a higher skilled / higher paid worker should be incentivized by the fact you can't afford the burgers you're flipping.
The more dollars employers are forced to pay the less purchasing power the money has.
A million dollars today has about the same purchasing power a hundred thousand did fifty years ago.
I've lived long enough to see this play out in real time.
The house my parents bought for $13,000.00 in 1948 is now "worth" $450,000.00. Same house, same lot, no additions, and the place is SIXTY-EGHT YEARS OLDER than it was when we lived there.
This is not "progress," this is INFLATION –– "the cruelest tax of all," as President Reagan so aptly put it.
Oh and the finest homes on "Quality Street" we dreamt about possibly owing one day cost a whopping $40,000.00 back in the day. Well, I could easily afford that now, but you can't even dream of buying one of those still-fine places for less than Three-to-Seven-MILLION.
The Pennsylvania Dutch have a saying I quote often.
The farther ahead I go, the behinder I get."
We've simply reimagined the Feudal System and put it in modern dress. The Government is King, the Rich are the new Lords, Dukes, Earls, Counts and Barons, and we are the Vassals and Serfs.
We were among great strides towards true "equality," until the Industrial Revolution which effectively pushed us back into the quasi-Feudal environment we live with today.
Nothing ever really changes except the Costumes and the Settings. It's the same old play that's been continuously staged since organized society began.
People who imagines themselves smart like the young man in the video merely change the terms by inventing new vocabularies for the same old ess-aitch-eye-tea.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many are so gullible and so hopelessly obtuse as to believe that calling ess-aitch-eye-tea by another name will stop it from stinking.
It's actually downright COMICAL when you think about it.
I see logic in FreeThinke's statement. The person who made the video is deluded as people on the left always are.
Freethinke correctly identifies rising wages as a source of inflation, but we keep hearing that most peoples' wages have not risen since Reagan at least.
So what's been driving recent inflation? In my opinion: cheap credit.
An across-the-board increase in income might be beneficial if it were balanced with a rise in interest rates.
Credit certainly plays a role. But how do you explain the quantitative easing policy of the fed? Since there's no "cap" upon the total "supply" of credit available, the Fed has replaced high interest rate debt with much lower (near zero) interest rate debt, doubling the total national debt amount, but at a much reduced debt-servicing cost. There's even talk of a future "negative" interest rate being charged on T bills. The "inflation" seems to have been at least "temporarily" transferred from "hard assets" (ie-housing prices) to softer "financial" ones (more T-bills).
The interest "rate" on credit seems to be one thing, unlimited "credit availability", another. And when you make credit "easy" to come by, no one in their right mind would pay a higher interest rate for it. Making credit scarcer is what makes the interest rate rise.
I'm not sure that the normal rules of monetary policy function unless credit availability becomes "capped" somehow.
...and for my next magical trick...
Mandating a raising of the minimum wage....
Perhaps becoming a higher skilled / higher paid worker should be incentivized by the fact you can't afford the burgers you're flipping.
And who'll be flippin' the burgers then? Illegal Messicans? ;-)
Works for me. Although I prefer to cook my own bulgogi at my table at the Korean barbecue place down by the airport ;)
$20 all I can eat. Challenge accepted.
$20 all I can eat. Challenge accepted.
You're such a sophisticate. Bet you know how to treat a lady, huh? ;-)
Oh, I embarrass her in public. It why she married me.;)
"Is this bulgogi made with Sharpei? It tastes like Rottweiler..."
A refined palate is so hard to acquire in the fast-food multiculture which is America...
Where is Benjamin Raspail when you need him?
Oh, I embarrass her in public. It why she married me.;)
'Treat'm mean to keep'm keen?'
Nah. My sense of humor requires that my partner's IQ minus 120 not equal a negative number.
It's almost certainly a sign of intelligence if you can convince another of the usefulness of "IQ". In the way a snake oil merchant can be clever...
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. - Naguib Mahfouz
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