Impossible! The deficit is falling as well as unemployment Obama wrecking economy

[sunni]

Ahh ok, if you buy basics in bulk then just top up I can understand.

Tokenperv above wants us to believe he can live off 1913 equivalent wages now tho (which is ridiculous).

yeah i shouldve read it more thoroughly, cause i have my basics, like my grains and pastas and flours and sugars ect, and condiments and than i probably pay like i said no more than 90$ usually round 75$

 

[tokeprep]

Probably whatever % of the American taxpayers who pay taxes?

Keep opening your mouth and proving what a fool you are.

The FDIC is funded by premiums the banks pay on their deposits. TARP won't cost the taxpayer a dime.

$75 a week for two people? Good luck keeping the woman by your side...

How much do you spend on groceries in a week, and what do you buy?

 

[Nutes and Nugs]

yeah i shouldve read it more thoroughly, cause i have my basics, like my grains and pastas and flours and sugars ect, and condiments and than i probably pay like i said no more than 90$ usually round 75$

You really don't have to buy in bulk, just build a pantry with the basics.

I spent like $25. last week for fresh foods.
All the side dishes were either dry , canned of frozen and on hand.
Had some fresh spring onions from the garden tonight.
The garden will provide veggy sides from March to November.
Year round if I went back to canning.

 

[tokeprep]

$75 a week for two people is eminently doable if you buy beans and rice and flour in bulk, and don't mind spending much much time cooking. cn

I really want to know what people are buying and what they're paying for it. I've bought groceries in three different states within the past 4 years, and in two of them, two people could definitely eat on $75 a week without even buying in bulk (if I did that it would be even cheaper). The only place where my $75 number didn't hold was Arlington, where groceries were outrageously expensive (along with everything else in Arlington).

 

[sunni]

You really don't have to buy in bulk, just build a pantry with the basics.

I spent like $25. last week for fresh foods.
All the side dishes were either dry , canned of frozen and on hand.
Had some fresh spring onions from the garden tonight.
The garden will provide veggy sides from March to November.
Year round if I went back to canning.

I never said I buy in bulk I said I keep those items always stocked

 

[Nutes and Nugs]

I really want to know what people are buying and what they're paying for it. I've bought groceries in three different states within the past 4 years, and in two of them, two people could definitely eat on $75 a week without even buying in bulk (if I did that it would be even cheaper). The only place where my $75 number didn't hold was Arlington, where groceries were outrageously expensive (along with everything else in Arlington).

Big cities suck if you don't know where to shop.
I shop at about 5 different stores.
It's like 'the Price Is right' game. You have to learn pricing for your area.
Everything is within a few miles so jumping around doesn't cost too much.

 

[Nutes and Nugs]

I never said I buy in bulk I said I keep those items always stocked

Happy Harrekin said that.

I keep a rotating stock of stock and don't spend much each week on edibles, much like your family.

 

[tokeprep]

Tokenperv above wants us to believe he can live off 1913 equivalent wages now tho (which is ridiculous).

That's actually not what I've been saying. The 1913 average wage would be equivalent to earning a little more than minimum wage today (working 40 hours a week, but probably slightly more than 1913 average wage if you include transfer payments), and minimum wage with one earner definitely doesn't support a family today.

The discussion is about whether you need two wager earners today to make a living. My argument is that if you live the way people did in 1913, you don't, since the average wage of one earner today is about $27,000. If you aren't making car payments/buying gas, have no cable/cell phone/internet bill, own no electronics, have no health insurance, and otherwise don't pay costs for things that didn't exist in 1913, you don't need two wage earners. The typical household has two wage earners because we want to have all that stuff, not because it's necessary. If you want stuff, you have to pay for it. Simple.

The complaint shouldn't be about how much people earn now versus then, since they undoubtedly earn more and get more now in real terms; instead it should be able how ridiculous our consumer culture is. Why do people need so much money? Because they piss away all the wealth they've earned on bullshit, driven by relentless marketing, and then they turn around afterward and rant about the wealth inequality their ridiculous spending encourages. The fact that modern people are so incredibly lazy and possess this perverted notion that more, bigger, nicer stuff translates into more happiness does not mean that we're getting less for more work.

 

[Harrekin]

Happy Harrekin said that.

I keep a rotating stock of stock and don't spend much each week on edibles, much like your family.

As Iv stated previously, the whole subject was tokenperv saying you could live on 1913 equivalent wages today, which is flat out ridiculous.

 

[Nutes and Nugs]

It's about "The Cost of Living" adjustment I guess.
Be hard to eat on .39 cents a week or whatever but the cost of living adjustment.
Should be about the same.
I see these welfare people on the street whom are very well fed.

 

[twostrokenut]

Pardon my slight dyslexia......

Evidently you don't understand that the multiplier is achieved by deposits, on which interest is paid.

I don't have to worry myself what a multiplier is because I invest in Constitutional money.

Again, you don't actually understand what the multiplier is. Before you offer your criticism, you really do need to understand that.

You think I'm going to fetch that shit don't you.

Don't take payments in checks if you expect to pay a transaction fee, then. Simple enough.

Like I really have a choice it was my paycheck....I suppose I could have gotten another job where they pay cash but that pesky SSN I contracted to have as a newborn kinda prevents it.

"They" is the US taxpayer. So you're complaining that the US taxpayer profits before any of the banks?

Your claim that Federal Reserve System banks hand all profits or a majority thereof to the people is naive and false.

If by profit you mean re-invested in programs on my behalf without my consent that don't benefit me whatsoever...with or without congressional approval......then that does not fit the definition of profit......

If by taxpayer you mean citizens that receive benefits while having paid no taxes then that does not fit the definition of taxpayer.....I certainly don't receive a Federal Reserve Profit Sharing check ever, just pay my taxes.

BTW "They" is who I said "they" is in my post, please define "they" on your own post about "they" however you like. They means Fed System Banks, just cause you read their mission statement, doesn't mean I need help with definitions from my own comment.

Most banks didn't need to be bailed out. TARP was engineered in an effort to cast public confidence on the entire banking sector, not out of necessity. Indeed, this should be apparent from the fact that most banks paid their TARP loans back very quickly--they never needed or wanted the money but were forced to take it by Hank Paulson.

An institution that can turn 10 dollars into 90 dollars, by an accounting entry, because the law allows them to, is being praised for paying shit back?

According to your understanding of banking, the banks should have trillions of dollars in additional revenue. I present the same challenges to you that I presented to Kynes in the past (which he could not meet): point out the extra trillions your understanding requires to exist

I never gave an exact number as to their revenue. Just that they can't lose. I present to you the Audit of the Fed that has never happened. I present you long lists of REO properties. I present to you a seemingly never ending budget to feed, house, fix, fight and fuck anyone in the world...I present to you penis pumps for the elderly, hell that's a trillion just for that....endless money to fund the study of whale dicks and how cow farts make hurricanes. I present to you our military budget.....but those "extra trillions" don't even begin to cover these costs....which is why we are operating in a deficit, in the red, below the x-axis.

If population isn't fixed and the supply of gold and silver is fixed, how can you claim that the prices of those commodities are stable? You cannot.

I never said the supply was fixed, just that production volume is fixed. Population can potentially multiply exponentially, gold and silver production are fixed.

Gold is worth more with 7 billion people than it is with 1 billion people. Everyone else in this forum, arguing for and against me right now, will agree with that, and yet your statement does not.

Yes, this supports my statements that gold is more stable than paper because its production is limited.

You never did answer my question about the practicability of the gold standard, did you? Tell me, with 7 billion people and $80 trillion of economic activity, how can the same amount of gold be used versus having 2 billion people and $5 trillion of economic activity?

idkwtf you're talking about is that total world population and world economic activity for different years?

 

[twostrokenut]

I pretended nothing. My point was that the earned income of one wage earner in the present is sufficient to live in the way a 1913 household would have, and that's true without any consideration of transfer payments, which didn't exist in 1913. The fact that transfer payments leave households with even more money today makes my case stronger, not weaker.

Not when you're talking about purchasing power and diluted ass money it doesn't.

 

[tokeprep]

Pardon my slight dyslexia......

I don't have to worry myself what a multiplier is because I invest in Constitutional money.

You think I'm going to fetch that shit don't you.

I gave an explanation and anyone is welcome to criticize it. The point is that banks don't just create money they can do as they please with. The multiplier arises from additional deposits and additional borrowing; the fact that

Your claim that Federal Reserve System banks hand all profits or a majority thereof to the people is naive and false.

If by profit you mean re-invested in programs on my behalf without my consent that don't benefit me whatsoever...with or without congressional approval......then that does not fit the definition of profit......

If by taxpayer you mean citizens that receive benefits while having paid no taxes then that does not fit the definition of taxpayer.....I certainly don't receive a Federal Reserve Profit Sharing check ever, just pay my taxes.

BTW "They" is who I said "they" is in my post, please define "they" on your own post about "they" however you like. They means Fed System Banks, just cause you read their mission statement, doesn't mean I need help with definitions from my own comment.

I literally mean the Fed cuts a check to the treasury for the balance of its profit, about $90 billion last year. The Fed has zero say in how that money is spent--it's sitting in the treasury. I don't understand how you can possibly maintain that this doesn't occur when it happens every single year. Talk about naive and false...http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/15/us-usa-fed-financials-idUSBRE92E0QV20130315.

Oh yes, I already know, you don't believe their books: every set of books, public and private, is just a giant web of lies in furtherance of the evil banking conspiracy. Audits are meaningless--the truth is whatever you say it is even though you have no evidence aside from your naked assertions. I'm standing here happy to listen to your case, but you're going to have to actually make one. If it's so apparent that the Fed doesn't pay its profits to the government, fudges its books, and really does whatever it pleases, why don't you have a single scrap of evidence?

An institution that can turn 10 dollars into 90 dollars, by an accounting entry, because the law allows them to, is being praised for paying shit back?

See, if you understood the money multiplier you wouldn't say something so ignorant. First of all, an individual bank can't just turn $10 into $90 unless the money is lent out and deposited into exactly the same bank by every borrower and depositor. Obviously that's not reality. When you deposit $100 into Bank of America and it lends $90 to me, I deposit the cash in Chase. Chase can then lend $81 to Ben Bernanke, who deposits it in Citi. Citi can then lend $72.90 to Obama, who deposits it somewhere else and keeps the cycle going for another 200 or so iterations. Clearly an individual bank can't just create $90 from a $10 deposit with an accounting entry and do whatever it wants with the cash--it has no cash from this process, only sets of reciprocal obligations, and the credit expansion is systemic, not specific to individual institutions. This is why banks with $1 trillion in deposits don't have $10 trillion in loans outstanding.

I can understand why you would be concerned about this, given that money is constantly moving throughout the banking system, but it's actually quite stable. The bank is always vigilantly monitoring the cash demands of depositors, adjusting its loan book to reflect those needs (if you have higher than expected cash withdrawals, you let loans mature without making new ones or you sell loans to another bank for cash). The banks paid TARP back with very real money.

I never gave an exact number as to their revenue. Just that they can't lose. I present to you the Audit of the Fed that has never happened. I present you long lists of REO properties. I present to you a seemingly never ending budget to feed, house, fix, fight and fuck anyone in the world...I present to you penis pumps for the elderly, hell that's a trillion just for that....endless money to fund the study of whale dicks and how cow farts make hurricanes. I present to you our military budget.....but those "extra trillions" don't even begin to cover these costs....which is why we are operating in a deficit, in the red, below the x-axis.

The Fed is audited every single year, repeatedly, as already explained. The fact that you don't believe the numbers and want another audit doesn't mean that audits aren't already taking place. Here's my question: who would you have conducting the audit? You don't trust GAO, so they can't do it. You don't trust the private accounting firms that are currently auditing the Fed, so none of them can do it. Who's going to conduct the audit you want?

As for government spending, you should be blaming Congress for that, not the Fed. The Fed doesn't set the federal budget or make spending decisions. If you're suggesting the Fed funds a lot of the government's borrowing, that's not even true. Are you suggesting the government is lying about how much of the federal debt the Fed owns?

I never said the supply was fixed, just that production volume is fixed. Population can potentially multiply exponentially, gold and silver production are fixed.

Yes, this supports my statements that gold is more stable than paper because its production is limited.

This is what you said: "Gold and silver do not go up or down, only what they are measured against goes up and down." Your assertion was that gold and silver have stable buying power, but that cannot possibly be true. If there are 7 billion people today and 170,000 tons of gold in existence, the relative value of gold should certainly increase with 10 billion people and 190,000 tons of gold in existence. That's why people invest in gold--as long as the population is growing, there is less and less of it, relatively, and it should be worth more than it was.

I would sincerely love to hear an explanation about how the renewed gold standard would function given the higher volume of economic activity and the vast increases in the human population. If precious metal supply is growing at a much slower rate than the population, how does the system work? Anyone is welcome to chime in...

idkwtf you're talking about is that total world population and world economic activity for different years?

2013 and 1913, respectively.

 

[tokeprep]

Not when you're talking about purchasing power and diluted ass money it doesn't.

We are talking about purchasing power, that's the point! If the price of sirloin steak was 23 cents a pound in 1913 and today it's $5.50 a pound, the latter price certainly reflects substantial inflation. But if the average worker only earned $750 a year in 1913 versus $27,000 a year today, their purchasing power has actually increased with respect to sirloin steak. One pound of sirloin steak was 0.0307% of the worker's income in 1913 versus 0.0204% of the worker's income in 2013.

If prices increased by 24 times but wages increased by 36 times, the worker gained purchasing power. Why would you only consider inflation without also considering increases in wages and asset valuations?

Please explain to me how the 2013 worker actually has less purchasing power than the 1913 worker.

Note: I am not suggesting that inflation should be measured according to the price change in one item, just using a real example we already discussed (which I think is buried back in this thread).

 

[Harrekin]

Infact, gold production isn't fixed, it's actually starting to diminish... South Africa's mines no longer fully support production of the Kruggerand and they a huge trade deficit with the US because they're now importing all the gold the US will sell them.

 

[twostrokenut]

Whatever, keep thinking there's something in the Treasury and Reuters is the word of God. I have never began to touch on how to implement a world wide gold standard but I imagine it would be as simple as implementing it in the US and the world would anchor to that....just like before.... Everything else has already been covered, maybe convince a mod to get the thread search fixed.

 

[twostrokenut]

Infact, gold production isn't fixed, it's actually starting to diminish... South Africa's mines no longer fully support production of the Kruggerand and they a huge trade deficit with the US because they're now importing all the gold the US will sell them.

There ya go.

 

[NoDrama]

back when their money had substance and people simply profited from saving.

Amen!

This! THIS! is WHY we have a central bank. Governments have a difficult time borrowing money, but its ohh sooo much easier to borrow when the environment is inflationary. Inflation begets dishoarding, low interest rates beget dishoarding, easy credit terms beget dishoarding.

GOld? Gold begets HOARDING, as do high interest rates and an actual return on sound monetary principles. If you knew tomorrow your gold or cash would buy you a bit more, you would be inclined to save it. If you save it the government cannot tax it, without taxation the government can still borrow, but with gold as money government can only borrow up to the amount of gold in the coffers.

The ability of governments to borrow unlimited sums and endless taxation is what makes them powerful, and us the citizen weak. Gold(And silver) takes the power away from government and places it back into the hands of the people to decide their own fate and lets freedom flourish!

Some people believe that a gamble on a company doing well in the unknowable future is the secret to wealth. Its a gamble, not unlike Vegas. Anyone who tells you that gambling is the way to a bright future of golden years is a charlatan or a fool.

 

[twostrokenut]

I used to not spend shit on food....grew my own veggies and worked in a Meat Dept as a butcher.....after 3 days they make you throw a steak away but will sell it at heavily reduced prices. Since being in California I finally get to have Tri-Tip everyone asked for in the East Coast and it is awesome.

 

[NoDrama]

Infact, gold production isn't fixed, it's actually starting to diminish... South Africa's mines no longer fully support production of the Kruggerand and they a huge trade deficit with the US because they're now importing all the gold the US will sell them.

No way a US sale of 400 tons of gold to S Africa could make the paper markets react.

Just like removing 25% of the US Silver production actually had prices going DOWN.

The worse the earnings of companies are, the higher the markets go up.

We live in Bizarro world, where up is down, left is right.