Chicago protest against Obama

Yet more fallacious arguments, the economic growth of our nation has slowed down drastically as a result of the implementation of the income tax and of the federal reserve.

From 1800 - 1912 REAL (adjusted for inflation) economic growth was 9600%, Inflation was actually a -15% meaning that the Gold Dollar was worth 15% more in 1912 than it was in 1800.

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From 1913 (Fed. Reserve Creation, Income Tax Creation) - 2007 Real Economic Growth was a miniscule 1600%, and inflation was a staggering 2200%. Everyone's dollar was worth only 1/22 of what it was in 1913.

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Of course, there is also the fact that the growth that you point at is not a result of government interference in the markets. The majority of the growth stems from increases in productivity, which means that the time invested in producing goods shrinks, meaning that they can be sold for less, because more can be produced.

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However, with increased automation comes an increased demand for trained specialists, who of course get paid more than a common laborer, thus the middle class grows, and gets to spend money on all the cheap goods that they make available.

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Industrial and Economic Growth is only slowed by government interference, because 1% stolen in one year snowballs in the amount of lost capital over 100 years.

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They also demonstrate an astounding propensity to assume that it is government that keeps people from acting insane, maybe you should visit a pshrink, because it's not government that keeps me from going around murdering, raping and killing people, it's more a matter of not being inclined to do that because its wrong.

And government clearly doesn't stop the people that don't think it's wrong from murdering, raping and killing people, all it does is lock them up (usually for their own benefit, as the community at large would likely be more than happy to put them 6 feet under with no chance of parole.)

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I blame the school system that exists on the basis of the use of legal force, fraud and coercion. Perhaps it should put the gun down.

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Uhm, perhaps you can try to explain this, because you are making an incredible leap of stupidity.

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Private Roads have been used in the past. It was only with the creation of the US Postal Service, and its privileged position of being a monopoly that the Government even got involved in roads, and before that it was local communities that typically paid for roads.

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Fallacious argument, perhaps you are unaware of how many schools are privately ran. The public schools that provide their services for free of course are failures, and this can be illustrated by comparing their costs to private school costs. Public Schools are inefficient, bloated, and wasteful.

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I really don't think that society would suddenly become overburdened with Sociopaths. I believe the opposite would happen if private citizens were free to handle such matters the way they want. Of course, innocent people might be killed, but innocent people are routinely killed in the inner cities in drive by shootings, yet another illustration of the ineptitude of the state that can be pointed to. If the State was as efficient as you make-believe in your twisted fairy-tale it would be able to prevent gang violence.

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If there is sufficient demand businesses will open, arguing that supply must be created for demand to exist is ignorant, and ignores the fact that businesses open where they want. It is only through government zoning laws that businesses are forced into central areas far away from residential areas, where they would make it possible for people to avoid driving. Yet another failure of government, and its ever increasing attempts to dictate every aspect of every individual's life.

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Government doesn't make jobs, it doesn't provide a damn thing, and that 3% in taxes adds up quickly. Of course, based on your insipid arguments above I can definitely see how you would believe otherwise.

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Try a worse place to live, the continued destruction of the middle class at the hands of your God named Government should be evident to even to you.

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Once again you are attempting to state that with out government everyone would become sociopaths, which clearly illustrates a very limited understanding of human nature. Perhaps you should go visit a pshrink yourself.

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Lol, government give us back anything, don't make me laugh. What are you 10? Never held a decent job, worked an honest day in your life, and never finished school?

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33% at 50K a year, and you act like only the top 1% feel the burden of the onerous burden of taxation that you wish to ram down everyone's throat. Besides, who the f* are you judge what people should or should not do with their money. I wouldn't trust you to pick up after my dog, let alone make anything resembling public policy, because you clearly have no understanding of economics, or taxation.

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Do you even know where the top 1% starts?

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ViRedd said:

Oh yeah! I'd LOVE to have a bumper sticker that reads: THE CHANGE SUCKS!

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hanimmal said:

Fun discussion we are having here so maybe bring down the hostility a bit man. You have some good arguments, but some is a bit off.



Lets look at one thing at a time. Some of the government programs that may have spurred such a huge economic boom (I am not sure that those numbers are right since I don't know where they came from, but I will give you the benefit of a doubt since you seem to do some homework on it which is a great thing to do, but can you point me in the direction of those numbers please, since i am guessing it is taken from a low in a depression and the peak of a boom cycle).

Pacific Railway Act of 1862: Opened up the ability to cheaply move massive amounts of goods all around the nation and let businesses take advantage of it and expand their 'empires'.

Blah blah, I don't want to research forever for this as I am not writing a term paper on it. But if you look at the economic infrastructure airports, canals, dams, dikes, pipelines, roads, tunnels, artificial harbours, electrical grid ect. The government has always played a very large part in getting it done on mass. Which expedites economic growth.

The private sector is great at most economic developement, ingenuity, processes of efficency, on and on, but just doesn't work on a aggregate level as well since it is generally greed (for lack of a better word) that spurs most developemnet.

Greed spurs development. Yes, it does, and it does it a lot better than government. The desire to see the benefit of busting one's ass building a company that provides people THINGS THAT THEY WANT.


Which is at the heart of a free enterprise system. There is not just corporations producing, because no amount of production is going to create demand, which means a corporation that produces items that people do not want will go out of business (pending government intervention) thus allowing the resources that were wasted on pointless production of undesired goods to be moved to other sectors of the economy to produce desired goods. The peoples' collective voice determines what is produced, or not produced, not the whims of the business owners. All the business owners can do is figure out if they can find a way to convince people that they need a product.


Again unsure where those numbers are from so any info on that would be appreciated (as a general rule of thumb about 2.5% inflation rate is ideal so no clue where that 2200% is from).

Cumulative Inflation, 2% * 2% * 2% * 2% * 2% * 2% ad infinitum. Your 2.5% inflation is the hand of thieves wrapped around the larynx of the nation slowly strangling the economy by making everything more expensive. Over 10 years your 2.5% inflation would be 28% inflation, over the course of 1913 - 2007 (94 years) it's over 1000% inflation, but inflation has not been held steady at a mere 2.5%, but has consistently bounced between a low of 1 - 8 - 10%.

2.5% inflation over a stream of time, not just one year.


But in 1913 the fed was a direct result of bank failures (I think the big one was called Bank of the united states)

There were no bank failures in 1913.

There was a slight liquidity crisis in 1908 that might have been the result of the existing banks manipulating the economy by reducing credit, and thus denying existing business credit.

The bank failures you are talking about didn't take place until the 1930s (Great Depression).

The Bank of the United States was the first centralized bank that was dismantled before the War of 1812.

The Second Bank of the United States was founded after the War of 1812 and dismantled by Andrew Jackson who pulled the national assets held by the bank out of the bank, and deposited them in smaller state banks.


that would cause all the people that do the right thing (save and grow their wealth) to all of a sudden lose everything and have no way to get it back (or a good old fashion bank robbery crashing the bank). So the FED was made as a bank of last resort to lend to failing banks and ensure that people were not crushed in crashes and to move us away from having to store so much gold in the banks.

The Federal Reserve is a colossal failure.


Before the great depression we lived in a boom and bust economy where it was a mini depression every decade or so wiping out peoples modest wealth. And the money that was lost by some was gained by others, who were the wealthy that kept gaining that wealth.

There's been booms and busts since the great depression. More often than before, because boom and busts are linked to either War (and the ending of War) or the expansion and deflation of credit. They are also a natural way of the economy to correct mistakes. Busts occur when bubbles form and malinvestment takes place. Booms occur when an industry sees higher than expected demand and prices start going up. As demand goes up, production goes up, because there is more demand (profit margins may not necessarily increase, and net profits may not either, as the boom drives up demand for raw materials.)

Busts are a natural flow of business, and represent corrections of malinvestment as a result of Booms. With out Busts there would be a decrease in capital funding available for new businesses, because failed business would still remain in business, soaking up resources and capital that would be given to other businesses.

With out Booms and Busts we'd all still be riding horses, or walking.





We fully are in agreement here. I was just saying that having a stable government allows businesses to do this. If their is no government or it is fully corrupt, then the benefits of real hard work is diminished and that will slow that production exponentially.

Yes, a stable government that does not swing like the crazed pendulum like our government does would create a better growth rate, because businesses and individuals would know what to expect and thus would not be as inclined to spend billions on bribes to influence the decisions of the legislative bodies, thus allowing for more capital to be reinvested in building up property, plant and equipment, and upgrading existing facilities.



And those people historically have been trained for the more skilled jobs through schools. Which is a direct result of government intervention. I won't say cheap goods though since it is not just the price that is reduced, but an increase in quality and features. Which is why most the numbers of inflation get tossed out the window.

Schools are not the result of government intervention, Yale, Harvard, MIT and the other top ivy league schools are private institutions that predate the existence of the Department of Education and the government's attempt to engage in mass brainwashing.


Think about things that have created inflation. In 1990 a cheap ford vs a cheap ford today. Today you can argue that the price has inflated 100% but how do you look at things like better handling, power steering, power windows, fm radio along with every other feature that is standard today. It is hard to say that is simply inflation.

Yeah, it is not simply inflation, but inflation is unnatural, because the natural trend has been for labor to become cheaper, leading to cheaper costs, leading to cheaper goods, leading to deflation. While some price inflation for additional features naturally occurs, that is also a result of competition. If Ford offered A/C in their vehicles as a standard feature and no other car company did, Ford would soon dominate the market. Instead all the companies are motivated to find ways to supply A/C to compete, or MP3 players, or Satellite Radio, or Airbags, and Seatbelts.



Absolutly, but there will always be leakages (of money) in our society. Right now the black market has estimates around 8% of GDP (about 1 trillion dollars a year). I am saying that the government officials are not stealing anything that is even close to really affecting anything. Most the money they get that is shady is from the private sector buying their votes.

I wouldn't say it's "shady" its done right in front of our eyes through campaign contributions. As far as the size of the Black Economy, I've heard figures ranging up to 25% ($3.5 Trillion) from 10% ($1.4 Trillion), but there's no real way to determine how big the black market is, but it can be assured that it will just get bigger as taxes get higher, and thus the incentives to avoid taxes become greater.


Which if someone is anti government, they shouldn't complain about since it is not money being taken from them. The industry is saying that this is something we would want if the government wasn't here, so we are willing to pay off the government to get it.

Taxes go down hill, those companies are in business to make profits, any cost increases (as a result of taxation, or raw materials being more expensive) is going to be passed onto the consumers. Taxes ultimately hit the lower classes hardest by increasing the cost of everything they purchase.


Hopefully you will see that I am not ignorant of these issues, I have just looked at them in a less paranoid way. We will continue to live one of the best standards of living in the world if we keep moving forward with education and investing in the things that matter.

Well, you might be a little off on some things. Of course, I'm cursed (and blessed) with an incredibly effective memory, but even I can not remember everything.


I never said we would have total anarchy instantly. But their will always be people that will look to take advantage any way they can with total disregard of others. Those are the people to worry about in that situation.

2 Words - LYNCH MOBS

At least now with the government we have (I am not saying it is even close to perfect, but it is one of the best ever created to date)

I'd say it reached its peak in the 80s, probably a good balance of regulation, and low taxation. I just think we need alternative methods of taxation (like the fairTax) which would tax the blackmarket indirectly and thus bring in more government revenues.

I know that unless I go out looking for trouble or an extremley unlucky I am relitivley safe, and don't need to worry about being dragged off in the middle of the night by people unknown. But if we didn't have a governing body people with more money could simply hire thugs to strongarm anything they wanted.

You mean like the government does?

See what happens if you decide that taxes are voluntary. The government is going to threaten you with fines and imprisonment if you refuse. The threat of force is the only thing that keeps government from being ignored, and thus demonstrates that government should be kept to a minimal as to avoid the amount of coercion it must apply to the citizenry to get them to pay taxes.

Im not niave enough to say it doesn't happen now, but its on a very small scale compared to places where the government is corrupt or non existant it is uncomparable.

Depends on how you define corruption, the massive contributions politicians receive could be considered bribes, in which case it might be necessary to question the claims to the lack of corruption...


There is many many ways that we could improve our government, but without a total dismantalling and installation of something that is created we need to slowly adjust it through educated decisions.

If it was slowly adjusted then it would be likely that income taxes would not be nearly as high. All too often the most onerous of legislation has been knee jerk reaction to a vocal minority attempting to force their opinions upon the rest of the nation, instead of using logic and reason to bring people into agreement that some change is necessary.


By making our society more informed we can make better decisions and become educated on the subjects, and the people we chose to have the power to decide.

Yes, but I don't see any plans to reform the education system in such a way that people would receive a better education in both History (especially US History), Civics and Economics, which would really be necessary to encourage the formation of a vocal population that stays informed about politics and is not afraid to exercise their ability to tell their "representatives" what they want to see happen.


I would love to see people start to vote for people because they study the subject and surround themselves with the brightest minds in anything that they do. Not just because they look good on camera and have charisma.

Yes, we definitely need more statesman and less corporate sponsored celebrities.

And if the voting public don't understand the issue or have time to learn all the ins and outs of it, they are educated enough to know where to go for that info and don't just take the word of people making millions off of advertisments on the radio or TV. People who sell panic and mistrust to keep people riveted.

That is true.


And not to go on with my book here but a couple quick follow ups you made in my post:


I see what your saying now. And yes our public school system is crumbling. As a majjority I disagree with the fraud/coercion ect. But many places are seeing that. We need to despratley improve this area if we are going to continue to move forward as a country.

This is where you start to get a bit testy. Read the (blah balh) stuff to get an idea of what i mean. If you don't see the link of what I mean after this one I will to clarify it further.

I was getting bored, please excuse my attitude, even I can get bored of reading what I'm typing.


Here is a fun paper on this http://nexus.umn.edu/Papers/PoliticalEconPrivateRoads.pdf . If the people pooled their money and made roads and allowed anyone to use them within a set of guidelines it would work.... But it is basically the system we have now exept we call it gas tax and government owned. Which the government essentially are our employees even if most of the time they need to be reminded of that.

Taxation, I'm not going to list the amount of taxes that faces a person on a yearly basis, I don't have the energy to do something so depressing.



Here we will have to disagree. If you look at the majority of americans in the middle class I would bet that most of them were educated at public schools. That is a great success in my eyes. And I love private schools too since if you have the means to get an above standard education you should do everyhting in your power to take advantage of it.

Yes, but public schools are still wasteful. Too many entrenched bureaucrats, and too much clout wielded by the unions. I personally think that a lot of school administrators should be axed, and teachers either given raises, or more hired, but I also think that requirements should be higher. It should not be possible to teach highschool mathematics, science and history with out actually having real knowledge of the topic, instead of a "teaching certificate."

Not enough graduate level (Doctorates and Masters) individuals in the ranks of teachers, but some how the US still spends around $10,000 a year, per student. That's $200,000/year in a classroom of 20 students, $300,000 in a crowded classroom of 30. Too much overhead, too much fat in the public school system, but bureaucracies can not be trusted to slim down themselves down, unless they are forced to compete with the private market.

I think the crux is here. I don't have the faith you do in humanity. I think that the few almost always spoil it for the many. I don't have blind faith in the government either, but it is better than the alternative. I could say this fairy tale that you have of people always doing the right thing, but I don't really think that is how you feel about it. Let me know if I am wrong.

You're right, there always will be people that are out for their own benefit, I just think the damage they could do would be more limited if some of them were not able to pursue government careers, due to some kind of qualification being required to allow a person to become a politician. Right now it's nothing more than a popularity contest which means that the most capable of telling everyone what they want to hear is going to win, all too often they then go and do the exact opposite.


And as far as inner cities look at the poverty rate and amount of taxes per capita collected. Of course the government is crappy in those places due to underfunding and a desperation and unhappiness of the people living there. I mean we don't dump the returning criminals into wealthy suburbs do we? No we release them onto the places that can least afford to protect themselves.

Why should we even be releasing violent criminals?

They violated the laws of society, they should be executed (at least rapists, murderers, and large-scale theft, embezzlement, fraud.)

If it was up to me Madoff would have fried an hour after being found guilty.

Keynsian economics (demand creates supply) vs. Neoclassical economics (Supply creates demand). I think the majority of time it is Keynes that wins out, but there are times that neoclassical senerios will happen.

Keynesian Economics doesn't state that demand creates supply (that's Austrian Economics.) Keynes argued that government spending could encourage economic growth, of course any economic growth encouraged by the government comes at the cost of economic growth that people would really want. No one really wants a F-22, and thus the production of F-22s or Supercarriers would cease with out government. Of course, I personally think that the navy is one of the few branches of government that should be fully funded (I also think it should be used slightly more aggressively against pirates.)

But what I was saying is in a corrupt setting when the bribes/theft/ect get too out of hand noone will be willing to open up shop since it will no longer be economically viable. Just look at the lack of grocery stores in the inner cities for this.

That's also a result of high taxation. No one enters business with out wanting to at least earn a decent (middle class) income from it. Though, I'm curious what effect zoning laws have on urban blight near high density areas, now.

Unfortunantly I don't know the history of that law. But I would also think a possiblility is that businesses and communities lobbied to have those laws passed, and not just a whim of the government. Much like lawn rules in subdivisions today set not by the government but by the people of the community.

Yes, lots of lobbying, the creation of the Fed was the result of lobbying. Income Tax, more lobbying. Instead of a Republic we have a Democracy dominated by the voices of the mob. It is not a system that can last, but one that will collapse as more and more people realize they can steal more and more via the government from the rest of the population.



The government allows the private sector a very stable base to build on and provide the jobs and increase in standard of living we all need and want.

If it would stay consistent instead of swinging between right and left extremes it most definitely would, but having to deal with inconsistent politics and inconsistent tax rates complicates business, and slows down the growth of businesses and prevents opportunities from being pursued, because every decision has to be checked against regulation, and every decision has to be examined for possible tax effects.

The government should just scrap the tax system and replace it with a flat tax (at least.) I personally would like a fairTax (National Retail Sales Tax)



oi.

Churchill said it best, "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the 'worst' form of Government except all those others
that have been tried from time to time."

Unfortunately we're slipping into socialism/statism due to the manipulation of individuals by the media and by both parties. I don't want to have to ask government for permission to wipe my own ass and flush the toilet.



I actually feel very good about everything and don't need a shrink due to the fact that I don't expect people or things to be perfect and am perfectly happy to enjoy what I do have. I don't feel entitled to anything and because of that I am a very happy person since I am pleasantly suprised every day.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the only day I dread are paydays, because then I get to see the cost of government, which is not fairly distributed across all citizens, and all too often provides unreasonable benefit to others at the expense of a portion of the populous.

Way to pull out the fangs there. You didn't get a paultry $400 rebate check a couple years ago? You never visited a public school or library? Drove on a highway? Got mail at your home? Of course you have you are educated. These few things and so much more are how the government gives back. There is not some vaccuumous hole that $3.5 trillion goes into and gets divided up for the politicians.

The $400 was a slap in the face compared to what I pay in taxes (I think I got $600 actually) The government could have just sent an IRS agent to backhand me and I would have had a similar feeling after receiving that "rebate" check.

Most of the mail I get I don't want. I don't see mail as a service if I have no control over who sends me shit. Actually, I'd say companies (Geico) that spam me consistently are less likely to get my business, so they are doing themselves a disservice.

TV commercials I'll handle, because that's how TV is paid for. Newspaper ads, magazine ads, those are all okay, they are funding a service that I use. Mail, not so much, I don't use it all that much.

What's a high way?

Sorry, being a smart ass, yes I've driven on the highway, but I like th toll roads better and personally would rather see those erected everywhere, at least then I'm paying for the roads I use, and not the roads in the middle of podunk nowhere that were only built to purchase votes.

Sorry that I got you so hostile. So you know that the 25% federal tax bracket you are in hasnt changed. The 8% state (I am guessing) sucks.

15% Pay Roll (Yes, I'm including Employer's Portion
10% Federal
5% State
2.25% Local

It's still 33% of my income, which is absurd, I don't make that much. And know that I need help, I don't see the fucking government anywhere to be found.

Oh well, tax season should result in a nice big tax refund this year. Though I still would rather get it all right now to spend or save as I see fit.


But you wouldn't be making that much if you didn't get a high school diploma. $25,900 is the high end estimates. So just by having that government issued paper you have doubled your gross income. After taxes $19,900 (non diploma) vs. $33,500 (with) or a 68% improvement for a 33% investment (Difference in salaries % over the Tax %).

You're low balling my income, of course, the upper figure you give is what I get after taxes...


$364,657. Not to mention all the power and perks they get from running huge companies and having everything at their disposal.

The top 1% wealth is even more rediculous since that is what they earn yearly. But the things that they own are paid off it doesn't work the same as us that make under 250k a year where we pay on most everything we have. That is unspent money that is aloud to just grow into more wealth.

Yes, and my unspent money (if it wasn't taxed into the cavernous maw of government) would be used to grow more wealth, instead of funding more poverty.

Sorry for the book, but this is stuff I am interested in and passionate about. Look forward to your response.

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If it was slowly adjusted then it would be likely that income taxes would not be nearly as high. All too often the most onerous of legislation has been knee jerk reaction to a vocal minority attempting to force their opinions upon the rest of the nation, instead of using logic and reason to bring people into agreement that some change is necessary.

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Why should we even be releasing violent criminals?

They violated the laws of society, they should be executed (at least rapists, murderers, and large-scale theft, embezzlement, fraud.)

If it was up to me Madoff would have fried an hour after being found guilty.

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Keynesian Economics doesn't state that demand creates supply (that's Austrian Economics.) Keynes argued that government spending could encourage economic growth, of course any economic growth encouraged by the government comes at the cost of economic growth that people would really want. No one really wants a F-22, and thus the production of F-22s or Supercarriers would cease with out government. Of course, I personally think that the navy is one of the few branches of government that should be fully funded (I also think it should be used slightly more aggressively against pirates.)

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That's also a result of high taxation. No one enters business with out wanting to at least earn a decent (middle class) income from it. Though, I'm curious what effect zoning laws have on urban blight near high density areas, now.

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If it would stay consistent instead of swinging between right and left extremes it most definitely would, but having to deal with inconsistent politics and inconsistent tax rates complicates business, and slows down the growth of businesses and prevents opportunities from being pursued, because every decision has to be checked against regulation, and every decision has to be examined for possible tax effects.

The government should just scrap the tax system and replace it with a flat tax (at least.) I personally would like a fairTax (National Retail Sales Tax)

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hanimmal said:

Good debate! You have a lot of interesting points, and really we are all similar to what goes on in the economy and government. A few differences, but that is the wonderful thing about living in this country we can have open debate in order to find better solutions and move forward in positive directions.

One area where we start to differ is a simple explanation (for me anyway, you may disagree). Maybe it is not the system that is in ruins and moving in the extreme ends of economic idiology but the people that we elect that are, and the vocal minority (i.e. the very pictures that spurred this debate fall into that category) that make so much noise and throw so much money around that they are impossible to ignore.

The simple solution to fixing this is not changing the system, but putting better more educated people in places of power and get rid of career politicians that are essentially lawyers looking to increase their pocket books, power, and notoriety with out actually doing anything to get them in the first place.

We need to get the economist, teachers, urban developers, social workers, scientists, doctors, ect in these offices, and have the lawyers who are in power now advise them on what the definition of law is and how they can format bills within the confines of it. Instead of the other way around.

I feel strongly that the social safety nets that have been put into place (FDIC, Social Security, Unemployment, ect) have taken us from the total devistation of the boom and busts of old into a place where people who were responsible (savers) don't lose everything because of bad decisions of others (borrowers).

Like anything people will find ways to exploit any system in place, crooked politicians, people having more and more kids to get more welfare, whatever level it happens. But that is not why the system is there. It is for the people that use it in order to pull themselves up and make their lives better. And you cannot have that without a collective 'pot' that money goes into from the society as a whole.

The money we save from not having to deal with is worth the 40% taxes to me.

I would like to go over a few things here, I am not trying to ignore some of your posts, I tried to hit as many as I could in the above, but here are just some things I picked out. I look forward to a lively debate and you are right in a lot of the areas you mention, but the fun part is the disagreement and formulating ideas. If this thread dies it dies, but it was fun and I thank you for it.

FYI: I always like to do the entire quote. I hate when I read news articles or blogs and they pick apart a few sentances that are taken out of context (not saying you have done it, but just wanted to clarify). This way if someone reads this they get a full understanding of what your quote was and not a select peice.



The economy is said to be like a pair of scissors. You cannot have one side without the other, and if you do it wont work well. If some businesses didn't take a chance and create a supply there would never have a building of demand. So that is an instance of Supply creating demand. But once developed the demand will then create supply. I feel like that was nitpicky sorry if it is.



Ha! I already lied and cut up a quote of yours! But I just wanted to say this is very interesting to me because in my econ classes this has not came up yet. I am very interested in this and am going to research it fully. And just wanted to say thank you for giving me something to think about!

But generally speaking inflation is not really real. Not to say it is not happening, but what money is is just a representation of your work. We come up the term inflation to quantify the change in the amount of paper needed to buy the products, not nessecarilly that the price of goods are increasing in value.



It was the bank panics of 1907, that directly caused the FED's creation. But the major characteristic of our nation is fear of strong centeralized government which is why the FED has the checks and balances that it does. Long and short, The FED is not part of the government, it is a blend between government and private. The government doesn't really have any direct power of it, and neither does the private secor, but they at the same time both sectors have influence. If the senate decides to interveine too much business owners and private banks will jump in and lobby against it, and if it starts to swing too much to private whims, the senate jumps in and threatens to reign them back in.

I am not naive enough to say that there is not corruption, but with both side being corrupt pulling against eachother it should aways stay fairly in the middle. At least that was before private sector got smart enough to skip bribes and just advertise the piss and get the public in such a panic and use us to sway the politicians.



I disagree with this. I think that it would be much more devestating if it wasn't here. Just look at the Continental Illinois Bank failure in the 80's. Or what happened after Leihman Bros or Bare Sterns collapse, and imagine if the FED hadn't jumped in so far to stop the rest of the collapse. It would have been very nasty.

People like to say that WWII brought us out of the great depression, but in my reading I came to the conclusion that if the banks would have not collapsed and earned the mistrust of the nation we would have gotten out much sooner. Which is wy Bernake who arguably knows more about the Great Depression than anyone else acted the way he did.



There still are booms and busts, but it is not as devistating as before due to the safeguards the government has in place (Social Security, unemployent, Food stamps, ect). The rest is right on the money (well we would be riding horses is a bit of a leap, but the effect is good). And I will add to it. The boom leads to an unnaturally high Employment rate (or Low unemployment) and this leads to a increase in inflation.

The natural rate of unemployment seems to be between 4-6% to keep inflation around 2.5% a year. If unemployment goes up inflation drops (which is why we can dump 1 trillion into the economy with 10% unemployment and not get a inflation rise in the PPI). And vise versa.



Too true.



With the exeption of MIT which was founded in the mid 1800's the rest of the early (well maybe a few others out there but not many) private foundations where religious schools. And I appologize if I am stepping on anyones beleifs but I don't feel that the church (Which was the best earliest government for a couple thousand years) is the best example of not brainwashing or stiffling scientific advancements.

I love private schools and do feel that they are the best in the nation. But to deny people that would otherwise not have access to pay for it lack we would be stuck.

Not that we are doing well for our childrens education. But we still have excellent access to a "Free" education. And the top minds will always have options open to the best education.

As far as Brainwashing though we need to focus more on the real sciences in school. They are things that can be proven over and over again and no matter what the government tries to do or the vocal minority wants to do real science cannot be supressed.

Things like History (which was my major before I switched to Econ) can be. Here we are notorious to manipulate the truth to less squeemish alternate realities that won't hurt our delicate children (joke).



I think this falls into the explanation above about inflation. But I will add that the opportunity costs of an item do indeed drop over time as production increases up to a point.

Deflation is essentianty the same as inflation in reverse. If the price is dropping and labor costs is dropping at the same rate it will still cost the same.

But with a decrease in price should lead to an increase in demand, which would mean that there would be scarcity and then it would lead to an increase in price to take advantage of it. At the same time the business would want to ramp up production meaning more people with jobs and more money in circulation so again inflation would occur.



Right on the money. But the benefit would be enterprising legit people would crush the black market competition. You can get black market alchohol but it doesn't happen on a large scale (I really don't know if this is true but it feels right).



Again you are right. But eventually the price is too high and people will chose another company. So how should the company responsibly act? I feel that they should fix issues with production. Take the electric companies that are saying this increase will be put on the public.

Right now the infastructure is so decayed and outdated that 50% of the generated electricity is lost before it gets to a home. And we pay for it. So if they could decrease that to 40% lost we would still come out ahead.

Better yet if say GE wanted to actually make a difference they would develope a system that they pay to put on Solar panels on many of the homes across america (that they service) for free and get away from having to pay for new power plants and electrical grids. That would mean they would produce less while stabilizing our nations power grid.



True and funny.



I would scale that back to the early 70's or maybe even the 60's. The Regan years had big swings in taxes a few years of of low taxes then a couple of high taxes to pay for the huge government spending that took place (like the several trillion we paid for the nukes we were stockpiling) over 10% unemployment rate to scale back the rediculous inflation rate that was from the unnaturally high unemployment rate in the 70's, and ramped up the pulling back of the regulations that were finalized in the 90's.

But life then wasn't nessecarily better. Check this link http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php . The tax rates were above 50% most years until 1987. It was above 90% for a long time too, and these times are during the golden years of our nation. This is the top 1%. All that Obama did to occur the wrath of these "tea parties" was repleal the breaks that Bush put in place to the top percent.



I think that can be put under corruption. But if I want to open up a new business I don't have to stuff envelopes with cash to do so, like you do in most underdeveloped countries.



Agreement again, we really are not far from eachother on this. Same with people exploding about a repealing of tax breaks that is going on now. We need to get better decisions and better educated people that are willing to work together for the betterment of our society as a whole, and not just playing to their constituents whims to ensure they get voted in again.



This is the conundrum that leads to societies crumbling. Eventually our country will too if we continue on this path, we will not fall completely but eventually be forced to take a back seat similar to england, france before them, spain before them..... It is amazing that by keeping people stupid and uninformed they become easily manipulated. This is scary but we have a edge that no other society ever has had.

This thing called the internet. We can now get out and find any information we need. And with educated people discussing these issues eventually more and more people will see the light and real change can happen. This discussion has been between you and I but there have been people reading it, and maybe they will post things in other sites and the real information will spread.

But it is important that we continue to check eachother and debate it to ensure that the information is correct and moving in one direction and not branching off too much lies and soundbites we get from the media. Eventually through this we can touch almost every american and help to make real change.



No Problem!



It is confusing and sickening. My old lady just got her Pharmacy Doctor and she had paid more taxes in 4 months than she made in an entire year ever before.



This is why I love Obama's Education secratary. His idea for school reform is to go into failing schools and fire everyone (they are aloud to reapply for their jobs but are not garaunteed them). He said something along the lines of "Someone fired for doing a poor job can go back and get better educated at it and become better, or they can find a new carreer. But the children only have one shot at their first education and we cannot allow substandard teachers to destroy that chance." Brillant.

I don't think that Obama is much different than recent presidents in most ways. But in the most important way he is. He wants to get the brightest and best minds surrounding him that are not clouded in the ways things have been done for a long time and try to get things done the way they should be. And in doing that he should go down as a great president.

But it is up to us to continue to monitor him and let everyone know when that stops. So although I disagree with the subject of most the 'protests' (really I think they are mostly just media sponsored parties at this point) that are happening, I do think they are nessecary. We just need better issues to protest.



Holy cow yes. And even more when they all have essentially the same message but just alter the name and rederic.



If we could be 100% certain that the worst where guilty then even through I don't like the death penalty there would be little opposition. But too often we get it wrong to do that.



Not sure about Austrian Economics, but the Keynes argued that shifts in the demant curve cause most economic fluctuations and recessions and developed the aggregate supply/demand curved based off of this. The talking heads love to point at the spending, but forget that it was only in times of economic depression that it should happen.

He argued that if people stopped spending (lower demand) then it was the responsibity of the government to step in and bring that demand back up to get through the tough time until the normal demand resumed. Hence Demand creating the supply.

Better yet would just be to fund the pirates to fight eachother. Then build them some schools and hospitals and step away.

Shit I am utopian sometimes.



True but that didn't stop the steady growth of the 50's and 60's when the top 1% Tax bracket was in the 90%'s.

It would be interesting, but mostly it is the high price of crime that stops growth in inner cities. I am actually gathering info to write a book about this issue, so I can go on forever about this. But think about a grocery store in the suburbs. Huge parking lots (lots of customers, no parking in cities for cars which means less groceries bought), no security really (inner city lots of extra insurance, security guards, extra cost of armoured cars, theft, cleaning up destruction of property and graffity, ect), a more stretched police force working with a smaller tax base (poor people pay less taxes of course). On and On.

So in the inner cities to have a store is a immence cost which in turn increases costs on the people that cannot afford to pay more for the same goods. So with a smaller customer base stores are unwilling to open up in them.

Interesting take on zoning laws! Mind if I steal that thought and look into maybe putting it in my book?



I just looked at the fair tax and in the short time I skimmed it I didn't see many actual numbers, but I will look into it more. But flat tax so overwhelmingly benefits the rich it is insane.

If you think about the essentials of life being part of the cost of living along with taxes and look at the actual % spent it is scary. Two people one rich one poor need the same amount, but if someone is making a 350k a year and another is making 50k a year, when you add up food, electricity, home costs, clothing, transportation, water, taxes, ect. (This is obvious I know but bears mentioning) The person who makes more money has so much more money to reinvest and grow as a %. Several tens of thousands of dollars verse a few thousand a year really adds up long term.

So most the arguments for a fair or flat tax disportunantly affects the middle and poor classes, while the benefits of roads, rail, even healthcare (they need healthy happy and educated employees to make them money) go mostly to the wealthy.



This is not something I worry about, we will have a social revolt long before this happens. I just don't like seeing the protest being about what the news media, politicians, and businesses want us to protest.

But instead of that we jsut need to keep up the work educating ourselves and others to make better decisions.




I am sorry that I got into personal stuff (income wise) I was just using that as an example since it was out there, to show the benefit that we do receive from the government. I think that people forget how much we do benefit on a daily basis from it. When I wake up in the morning and take a shower which was helped developed by the government, flush a toilet that goes to treatment plants that are government based, I get in my car and drive to work or school on public roads which saves me time from having to pay several tolls losing me time, traffic lights that help me to not get in car accidents which would cost me money, jump on internet which was developed by the government and they helped to fund the lines to get it to my house. On and on.



If nothing else we wouldnt write this all out if we didn't enjoy it somewhere. Politics is an amazing social experiment that has been around forever, heck look at chimps, they have politics too. But as humans we can analyze and improve.

So keep up with your typing we need more people that can think and develope good ideas and spread it. You are helping make our country a better place.

Even though you don't want to do it you are helping the very people that funded your schooling and life until now. Social Security is not here for you, it is to help the people that paid for almost everything that we have today. They are the people that paid for our roads, schools, everything. So if nothing else you may get a little solice from the fact that your contributions are helping to pay for some little old lady that has noone to help her and nothing to fall back on to live.

When you were born in this country of ours you were essentially signed up against your will to benefit from all the good without paying for a couple decades that starts your life and the couple that you end your life with, by paying for them with the middle 40 years.

Click to expand...

how do you post this much? u must have some goood weed

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

Good debate! You have a lot of interesting points, and really we are all similar to what goes on in the economy and government. A few differences, but that is the wonderful thing about living in this country we can have open debate in order to find better solutions and move forward in positive directions.

One area where we start to differ is a simple explanation (for me anyway, you may disagree). Maybe it is not the system that is in ruins and moving in the extreme ends of economic idiology but the people that we elect that are, and the vocal minority (i.e. the very pictures that spurred this debate fall into that category) that make so much noise and throw so much money around that they are impossible to ignore.

The simple solution to fixing this is not changing the system, but putting better more educated people in places of power and get rid of career politicians that are essentially lawyers looking to increase their pocket books, power, and notoriety with out actually doing anything to get them in the first place.

We need to get the economist, teachers, urban developers, social workers, scientists, doctors, ect in these offices, and have the lawyers who are in power now advise them on what the definition of law is and how they can format bills within the confines of it. Instead of the other way around.

I feel strongly that the social safety nets that have been put into place (FDIC, Social Security, Unemployment, ect) have taken us from the total devistation of the boom and busts of old into a place where people who were responsible (savers) don't lose everything because of bad decisions of others (borrowers).

Like anything people will find ways to exploit any system in place, crooked politicians, people having more and more kids to get more welfare, whatever level it happens. But that is not why the system is there. It is for the people that use it in order to pull themselves up and make their lives better. And you cannot have that without a collective 'pot' that money goes into from the society as a whole.

The money we save from not having to deal with is worth the 40% taxes to me.

I would like to go over a few things here, I am not trying to ignore some of your posts, I tried to hit as many as I could in the above, but here are just some things I picked out. I look forward to a lively debate and you are right in a lot of the areas you mention, but the fun part is the disagreement and formulating ideas. If this thread dies it dies, but it was fun and I thank you for it.

FYI: I always like to do the entire quote. I hate when I read news articles or blogs and they pick apart a few sentances that are taken out of context (not saying you have done it, but just wanted to clarify). This way if someone reads this they get a full understanding of what your quote was and not a select peice.



The economy is said to be like a pair of scissors. You cannot have one side without the other, and if you do it wont work well. If some businesses didn't take a chance and create a supply there would never have a building of demand. So that is an instance of Supply creating demand. But once developed the demand will then create supply. I feel like that was nitpicky sorry if it is.



Ha! I already lied and cut up a quote of yours! But I just wanted to say this is very interesting to me because in my econ classes this has not came up yet. I am very interested in this and am going to research it fully. And just wanted to say thank you for giving me something to think about!

But generally speaking inflation is not really real. Not to say it is not happening, but what money is is just a representation of your work. We come up the term inflation to quantify the change in the amount of paper needed to buy the products, not nessecarilly that the price of goods are increasing in value.



It was the bank panics of 1907, that directly caused the FED's creation. But the major characteristic of our nation is fear of strong centeralized government which is why the FED has the checks and balances that it does. Long and short, The FED is not part of the government, it is a blend between government and private. The government doesn't really have any direct power of it, and neither does the private secor, but they at the same time both sectors have influence. If the senate decides to interveine too much business owners and private banks will jump in and lobby against it, and if it starts to swing too much to private whims, the senate jumps in and threatens to reign them back in.

I am not naive enough to say that there is not corruption, but with both side being corrupt pulling against eachother it should aways stay fairly in the middle. At least that was before private sector got smart enough to skip bribes and just advertise the piss and get the public in such a panic and use us to sway the politicians.



I disagree with this. I think that it would be much more devestating if it wasn't here. Just look at the Continental Illinois Bank failure in the 80's. Or what happened after Leihman Bros or Bare Sterns collapse, and imagine if the FED hadn't jumped in so far to stop the rest of the collapse. It would have been very nasty.

People like to say that WWII brought us out of the great depression, but in my reading I came to the conclusion that if the banks would have not collapsed and earned the mistrust of the nation we would have gotten out much sooner. Which is wy Bernake who arguably knows more about the Great Depression than anyone else acted the way he did.



There still are booms and busts, but it is not as devistating as before due to the safeguards the government has in place (Social Security, unemployent, Food stamps, ect). The rest is right on the money (well we would be riding horses is a bit of a leap, but the effect is good). And I will add to it. The boom leads to an unnaturally high Employment rate (or Low unemployment) and this leads to a increase in inflation.

The natural rate of unemployment seems to be between 4-6% to keep inflation around 2.5% a year. If unemployment goes up inflation drops (which is why we can dump 1 trillion into the economy with 10% unemployment and not get a inflation rise in the PPI). And vise versa.



Too true.



With the exeption of MIT which was founded in the mid 1800's the rest of the early (well maybe a few others out there but not many) private foundations where religious schools. And I appologize if I am stepping on anyones beleifs but I don't feel that the church (Which was the best earliest government for a couple thousand years) is the best example of not brainwashing or stiffling scientific advancements.

I love private schools and do feel that they are the best in the nation. But to deny people that would otherwise not have access to pay for it lack we would be stuck.

Not that we are doing well for our childrens education. But we still have excellent access to a "Free" education. And the top minds will always have options open to the best education.

As far as Brainwashing though we need to focus more on the real sciences in school. They are things that can be proven over and over again and no matter what the government tries to do or the vocal minority wants to do real science cannot be supressed.

Things like History (which was my major before I switched to Econ) can be. Here we are notorious to manipulate the truth to less squeemish alternate realities that won't hurt our delicate children (joke).



I think this falls into the explanation above about inflation. But I will add that the opportunity costs of an item do indeed drop over time as production increases up to a point.

Deflation is essentianty the same as inflation in reverse. If the price is dropping and labor costs is dropping at the same rate it will still cost the same.

But with a decrease in price should lead to an increase in demand, which would mean that there would be scarcity and then it would lead to an increase in price to take advantage of it. At the same time the business would want to ramp up production meaning more people with jobs and more money in circulation so again inflation would occur.



Right on the money. But the benefit would be enterprising legit people would crush the black market competition. You can get black market alchohol but it doesn't happen on a large scale (I really don't know if this is true but it feels right).



Again you are right. But eventually the price is too high and people will chose another company. So how should the company responsibly act? I feel that they should fix issues with production. Take the electric companies that are saying this increase will be put on the public.

Right now the infastructure is so decayed and outdated that 50% of the generated electricity is lost before it gets to a home. And we pay for it. So if they could decrease that to 40% lost we would still come out ahead.

Better yet if say GE wanted to actually make a difference they would develope a system that they pay to put on Solar panels on many of the homes across america (that they service) for free and get away from having to pay for new power plants and electrical grids. That would mean they would produce less while stabilizing our nations power grid.



True and funny.



I would scale that back to the early 70's or maybe even the 60's. The Regan years had big swings in taxes a few years of of low taxes then a couple of high taxes to pay for the huge government spending that took place (like the several trillion we paid for the nukes we were stockpiling) over 10% unemployment rate to scale back the rediculous inflation rate that was from the unnaturally high unemployment rate in the 70's, and ramped up the pulling back of the regulations that were finalized in the 90's.

But life then wasn't nessecarily better. Check this link http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php . The tax rates were above 50% most years until 1987. It was above 90% for a long time too, and these times are during the golden years of our nation. This is the top 1%. All that Obama did to occur the wrath of these "tea parties" was repleal the breaks that Bush put in place to the top percent.



I think that can be put under corruption. But if I want to open up a new business I don't have to stuff envelopes with cash to do so, like you do in most underdeveloped countries.



Agreement again, we really are not far from eachother on this. Same with people exploding about a repealing of tax breaks that is going on now. We need to get better decisions and better educated people that are willing to work together for the betterment of our society as a whole, and not just playing to their constituents whims to ensure they get voted in again.



This is the conundrum that leads to societies crumbling. Eventually our country will too if we continue on this path, we will not fall completely but eventually be forced to take a back seat similar to england, france before them, spain before them..... It is amazing that by keeping people stupid and uninformed they become easily manipulated. This is scary but we have a edge that no other society ever has had.

This thing called the internet. We can now get out and find any information we need. And with educated people discussing these issues eventually more and more people will see the light and real change can happen. This discussion has been between you and I but there have been people reading it, and maybe they will post things in other sites and the real information will spread.

But it is important that we continue to check eachother and debate it to ensure that the information is correct and moving in one direction and not branching off too much lies and soundbites we get from the media. Eventually through this we can touch almost every american and help to make real change.



No Problem!



It is confusing and sickening. My old lady just got her Pharmacy Doctor and she had paid more taxes in 4 months than she made in an entire year ever before.



This is why I love Obama's Education secratary. His idea for school reform is to go into failing schools and fire everyone (they are aloud to reapply for their jobs but are not garaunteed them). He said something along the lines of "Someone fired for doing a poor job can go back and get better educated at it and become better, or they can find a new carreer. But the children only have one shot at their first education and we cannot allow substandard teachers to destroy that chance." Brillant.

I don't think that Obama is much different than recent presidents in most ways. But in the most important way he is. He wants to get the brightest and best minds surrounding him that are not clouded in the ways things have been done for a long time and try to get things done the way they should be. And in doing that he should go down as a great president.

But it is up to us to continue to monitor him and let everyone know when that stops. So although I disagree with the subject of most the 'protests' (really I think they are mostly just media sponsored parties at this point) that are happening, I do think they are nessecary. We just need better issues to protest.



Holy cow yes. And even more when they all have essentially the same message but just alter the name and rederic.



If we could be 100% certain that the worst where guilty then even through I don't like the death penalty there would be little opposition. But too often we get it wrong to do that.



Not sure about Austrian Economics, but the Keynes argued that shifts in the demant curve cause most economic fluctuations and recessions and developed the aggregate supply/demand curved based off of this. The talking heads love to point at the spending, but forget that it was only in times of economic depression that it should happen.

He argued that if people stopped spending (lower demand) then it was the responsibity of the government to step in and bring that demand back up to get through the tough time until the normal demand resumed. Hence Demand creating the supply.

Better yet would just be to fund the pirates to fight eachother. Then build them some schools and hospitals and step away.

Shit I am utopian sometimes.



True but that didn't stop the steady growth of the 50's and 60's when the top 1% Tax bracket was in the 90%'s.

It would be interesting, but mostly it is the high price of crime that stops growth in inner cities. I am actually gathering info to write a book about this issue, so I can go on forever about this. But think about a grocery store in the suburbs. Huge parking lots (lots of customers, no parking in cities for cars which means less groceries bought), no security really (inner city lots of extra insurance, security guards, extra cost of armoured cars, theft, cleaning up destruction of property and graffity, ect), a more stretched police force working with a smaller tax base (poor people pay less taxes of course). On and On.

So in the inner cities to have a store is a immence cost which in turn increases costs on the people that cannot afford to pay more for the same goods. So with a smaller customer base stores are unwilling to open up in them.

Interesting take on zoning laws! Mind if I steal that thought and look into maybe putting it in my book?



I just looked at the fair tax and in the short time I skimmed it I didn't see many actual numbers, but I will look into it more. But flat tax so overwhelmingly benefits the rich it is insane.

If you think about the essentials of life being part of the cost of living along with taxes and look at the actual % spent it is scary. Two people one rich one poor need the same amount, but if someone is making a 350k a year and another is making 50k a year, when you add up food, electricity, home costs, clothing, transportation, water, taxes, ect. (This is obvious I know but bears mentioning) The person who makes more money has so much more money to reinvest and grow as a %. Several tens of thousands of dollars verse a few thousand a year really adds up long term.

So most the arguments for a fair or flat tax disportunantly affects the middle and poor classes, while the benefits of roads, rail, even healthcare (they need healthy happy and educated employees to make them money) go mostly to the wealthy.



This is not something I worry about, we will have a social revolt long before this happens. I just don't like seeing the protest being about what the news media, politicians, and businesses want us to protest.

But instead of that we jsut need to keep up the work educating ourselves and others to make better decisions.




I am sorry that I got into personal stuff (income wise) I was just using that as an example since it was out there, to show the benefit that we do receive from the government. I think that people forget how much we do benefit on a daily basis from it. When I wake up in the morning and take a shower which was helped developed by the government, flush a toilet that goes to treatment plants that are government based, I get in my car and drive to work or school on public roads which saves me time from having to pay several tolls losing me time, traffic lights that help me to not get in car accidents which would cost me money, jump on internet which was developed by the government and they helped to fund the lines to get it to my house. On and on.



If nothing else we wouldnt write this all out if we didn't enjoy it somewhere. Politics is an amazing social experiment that has been around forever, heck look at chimps, they have politics too. But as humans we can analyze and improve.

So keep up with your typing we need more people that can think and develope good ideas and spread it. You are helping make our country a better place.

Even though you don't want to do it you are helping the very people that funded your schooling and life until now. Social Security is not here for you, it is to help the people that paid for almost everything that we have today. They are the people that paid for our roads, schools, everything. So if nothing else you may get a little solice from the fact that your contributions are helping to pay for some little old lady that has noone to help her and nothing to fall back on to live.

When you were born in this country of ours you were essentially signed up against your will to benefit from all the good without paying for a couple decades that starts your life and the couple that you end your life with, by paying for them with the middle 40 years.

Click to expand...

TheBrutalTruth said:

The problem with Social Security is that
1. Its bankrupt (or soon will be)
2. It has a piss poor return rate that has probably dipped into negative real returns after accounting for inflation.
3. It deprives the lowest of the ability to improve themselves, by stealing extra income from them, when they can least afford it. I'm not in favor of giving them a free ride, but I am in favor of either abolishing the entire system (which would net $2,000/year to a McDonald's employee, and $2,000 is enough to cover going to a Community College for two terms a year (maybe even 3)), or allowing people to opt out perhaps with some kind of disclosure about the risks that they are purportedly taking by choosing to leave the suffocating embrace of the government.

As far as facts and figures

www.measuringworth.org
should have all the relevant raw data for you to manipulate as you see fit.

In general I'm basing inflation on the Dollar vs Gold, as originally the Dollar was a unit of Gold, not a Unit of Debt. (I personally think we should return to free market currencies such as gold, silver and copper that are not under the control of government, or private entities (Fed) except with in regards to regulations requiring that for a Gold Coin to be called a Dollar it must meet purity and weight requirements.

As far as the random thought about the effects of Zoning on Urban Blight, go ahead and use it, but I'll want a free copy of the book if it gets published.

Click to expand...

medicineman said:

Why don't you go to a sign shop and have one made. I happen to know "Fast Signs " will make you one. They are one of my wifes accounts. In fact, for not much more you can get a few made for all your friends., both of them.

Click to expand...

Gee Med ... you really know how to hurt a guy, don't you?

Scubasteve420 said:

Honk if you see a minority in the crowd. LOL that's the sign I'd hold up. I agree with them somewhat, but I doubt they were protesting the Iraq war we shouldn't of ever been fighting wasting 10 billion a month on. I'd rather see our gov waste money on green projects than a BS war.

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

In a few years when it is finished for sure you can get a free copy!

I am not diluted enough to think I will ever get out what I paid into S.S. It is a good idea to allow people to opt out, until you figure that if they do the people that can least afford to opt out would be among the first to do so. And it would be impossible to turn your backs on the thousands of elderly that would be totally broke for not having a clue on how to handle money, and getting ripped off by the people that do.

The baby boomers that are leaving the workforce soon is going to be the big test. If nothing else it won't just go bankrupt. It would slowly be fazed out at the earliest 2020ish (when it would start).

But it isn't a ponzi scheme although it is a neat analogy.

The money coming in is paying for the people going out, is very much like a ponzi set up, but the difference is a ponzi scheme has the majority of the money going into the pockets of the people setting it up and totally screwing the people that stay in. Here the government is spending it on the people that are retiring at a constant rate until it starts to cap out. Once too many people are drawing on it than the money going in (right now we have about $150 billion surplus of money in vs going out) the 100% that they are receiving now will drop to the level coming in, say 87% (if our generation don't have as many workers/wages as the baby boomers) then the amount going out will equal the amount coming in, forever it could go on, just at different levels.

Theoretically it could go from 100% (Today to 2020 say) to 80% (baby boomers) to 70% (as more retire) and slowly back up tp 100% if population retiring falls due to less people in america. Most likely wont happen but it could.

Thanks for that website, saves me time figuring out CPI and doing the math!


And as far as gold currency, how could politicians get butt loads of cash into envelopes without it tearing?

The amount of money we would be able to carry would be so heavy.

But the best thing that the Central bank (FED) gives to our system is the speed of transactions by allowing banks to use it to send money back and forth.

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Dolce Vita said:

i would rather see a small govt with absolutely no wasteful spending, but that's just me. i guess that makes me a cook

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Scubasteve420 said:

Agreed... not the part about the cook though, but we both know they aren't going to start downsizing the govt.

We both know they are going to waste our money indefinitely or at least in our lifetime, but what do you want them to waste it on is the question?

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hanimmal said:

In a few years when it is finished for sure you can get a free copy!

I am not diluted enough to think I will ever get out what I paid into S.S. It is a good idea to allow people to opt out, until you figure that if they do the people that can least afford to opt out would be among the first to do so. And it would be impossible to turn your backs on the thousands of elderly that would be totally broke for not having a clue on how to handle money, and getting ripped off by the people that do.

The baby boomers that are leaving the workforce soon is going to be the big test. If nothing else it won't just go bankrupt. It would slowly be fazed out at the earliest 2020ish (when it would start).

But it isn't a ponzi scheme although it is a neat analogy.

The money coming in is paying for the people going out, is very much like a ponzi set up, but the difference is a ponzi scheme has the majority of the money going into the pockets of the people setting it up and totally screwing the people that stay in. Here the government is spending it on the people that are retiring at a constant rate until it starts to cap out. Once too many people are drawing on it than the money going in (right now we have about $150 billion surplus of money in vs going out) the 100% that they are receiving now will drop to the level coming in, say 87% (if our generation don't have as many workers/wages as the baby boomers) then the amount going out will equal the amount coming in, forever it could go on, just at different levels.

Theoretically it could go from 100% (Today to 2020 say) to 80% (baby boomers) to 70% (as more retire) and slowly back up tp 100% if population retiring falls due to less people in america. Most likely wont happen but it could.

Thanks for that website, saves me time figuring out CPI and doing the math!


And as far as gold currency, how could politicians get butt loads of cash into envelopes without it tearing?

The amount of money we would be able to carry would be so heavy.

But the best thing that the Central bank (FED) gives to our system is the speed of transactions by allowing banks to use it to send money back and forth.

Click to expand...

hanimmal said:

cracks me up how people just regurgitate what they are told from the talking heads on the radio and tv.

We all are in debt when we are born. We all pay taxes in order to have the roads we drive on traffic lights, electricity, plumbing, internet school ect.

And it kills me the shortsightedness of people when it comes to politics. The people that will have to pay the most taxes have the most to gain from it. They benefit the most from having roads (it helps them to get employees to work and offers ways for them to get their products to where they need to go.

Any aspect you will see why taxes are not a bad thing.

And if I have to pay 1-3% of my income to get universal healthcare I am all about it since it sure beats the 3-5% healthcare that those of us lucky enough to have it pay.

And if everyone has it prices will be driven down through things like getting check ups and not having to go to the emergency room for something a regular doctor could handle.



Thing about school. Our parents, grandparents, ect paid taxes to build public schools and who benefits? We did with the education we received, but it is nothing compared to the money the business owners have made with a more educated/productive workforce.

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