Value for Value
My friend Hugo Salinas Price wrote a short post that I agree with.
Please consider A World that Operates by Cheating Is Doomed
In ages past, gold and silver provided humanity with a system of economic co-operation among productive humans, which was fair to all participants.
With gold and silver, humans were trading value-for-value: what changed hands were amounts of physical gold or silver, or at least, Bills which were unquestioned claims upon gold or silver.
When the exchange had taken place, everyone was happy! The seller because he had gold or silver, in exchange for the goods or services he offered; and the buyer was pleased because he had the goods or services he wanted, and he got them by tendering gold or silver in exchange.
So, everyone was pleased: the buyer because he got the goods or services he wanted, in exchange for his gold or silver; and the seller was pleased because he traded the goods or services he had to offer, tor gold or silver.
Under the present monetary system, there can be no justice or “fair trading”, because all the World’s MONEY IS FAKE MONEY. No money in today’s world is gold or silver, nor does it represent an unquestioned claim upon a stated amount of gold or silver.
And a gigantic shooting war will mark the end of our times, as a result of the cheating involved – all because fake money was forced upon humanity.
No Consequences, Yet
Except in isolated hyperinflation cases, governments have learned there are no consequences to the ruling class (at least yet) for unsound money.
Never ending wars are one result. Look at Afghanistan. If people had to pay for wars with real money, their own, they would revolt.
On an ongoing basis, Democrats want unlimited social spending and Republicans want endless military spending. The compromise is both sides mostly get their way and the value of the dollar sinks.
It’s all phony money so there are few practical constraints.
Meanwhile, the rich get richer and the middle class shrinks but the reason isn’t obvious. The media blames Google, Microsoft, and Amazon instead of unsound money, the Fed, and Congress.
The dollar would collapse except for the simple fact the EU, Japan, and China are all doing similar things to varying degrees.
So we plod along, war after war, with some of them never ending as debt piles up so high that no one can even comprehend the numbers involved.
This will end in a currency crisis of some sort perhaps in conjunction with the shooting war Hugo envisions.
I am not suggesting the end is near. How long the shrinking middle class will put up with this is a mystery.
But when the currency crisis does arrive, expect this global cry: No one could possibly have seen it coming.
Mish
“A Fed president predicts the Bitcoin boom won’t last.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/business/rosengren-bitcoin.html
Time to buy bitcoin!!!!
As long as dollars are used by the US government for payments and receipts (taxes), and the US is among the largest economies in the world, the dollar will remain the primary medium of exchange. Try paying your taxes in bullion and see what happens.
Yes, because there were no wars before fiat currency was introduced…
“A World that Operates by Financial Cheating and Unsound Money Is Doomed”
The Year of Jubilee came around every 50 years in Biblical times. Today we call it the Kondratieff cycle. Human nature never changes. It is the movie Groundhog Day over and over again.
Glass-Steagall was created so that what happened in the roaring 1920’s couldn’t happen again. At the end of the 1990’s, Glass Steagall was dismantled so that what happened in the roaring 1920’s could happen again. What is old, becomes new again.
WW2 made the U.S. producer to the world. The 1950’s were the biggest growth in the U.S. middle class. The rest of the world eventually recovered and the process reversed. Wage growth peaked in the early 1970’s. China eventually became producer to the world. The U.S. middle class is being decimated. A cycle rises, peaks and falls into a trough.
No country has ever permanently stayed on a sound money gold standard. The pressure becomes too great as a cycle inverts. As was written recently by a protester, “Where’s My Check?” What happens when the Bread and Circuses stop?
Guns and butter broke the gold window. Martin Armstrong recently said that the dollars day as world reserve currency will end as of 2028.
Way forward:
Use the so far dormant power of a state, where their resources in a legal issue are necessary.
The Constitution requires states to tender gold or silver coin in payment of debts. The US mints those coins, but then the US charges a capital gains tax on those coins. Obviously, such a tax means those coins will never circulate as money.
How upside down is that? Consider this: a dollar is defined in the US Code as an ounce of silver (ref: 31 USC § 5112). Federal reserve notes are neither a dollar nor are they redeemable in dollars or anything else (perhaps they would be effectively redeemable in gold and silver coins without a capital gains tax levied upon those coins). However, there is no capital gains tax levied on federal reserve notes, but there is a tax levied on what is defined by statute as a dollar.
How to rectify this bizarre state of monetary affairs?
A state brings a claim in proper venue advantageous to it based on the holding from McCullough v. Maryland, where the court held that the power to tax is the power to destroy such that a state couldn’t lay a tax on US bank notes. As applied to this issue of whether the US can tax what the states must use to pay their debts, based on the holding from McCullough, no the US may not.
Get rid of the capital gains tax on monetary coins, and let the market decide the price and whether they circulate. Waiting for the US Congress to pass laws eliminating the capital gains tax on monetary coins shows a lack of understanding of human nature. It simply is not in the interest of any member of Congress to make their duties substantially more difficult because it would significantly reduce their ability to create infinite amounts of credit and currency. It is in the interest of a state to establish a means to eliminate debts without having to first acquire federal reserve notes.
Great post.
I can’t see them removing the capital gains tax very easily, they don’t want real competition for their monopoly dollars. Incidentally the average us weekly wage in silver dollars is about $14.75.
Edit $36
In the UK, brittish coins are legal tender and are exempted from cgt.
Re: Hugo’s post… I think its time to address the lie within “real money”. Nobody thinks it realistic to go back to ‘weighing out ounces of gold” to buy a loaf of bread. What’s more, even relying on the “value” of an ounce of gold (or silver) is still just relying on second (or third) hand information. Even in a time of instant information distribution, its not “real value” unless you have some idea of how much the gold coin in your hand represents as a portion of all the gold that is mined or known to be mine-able. Meaning, you would have to have “faith” in the reports from the gold mining industry (and the central banks, and any other repositories of significant amounts of gold). In other words, even a ‘gold-based’ currency requires a huge amount of faith. And, even if known/existing supply could be relied upon, there is little to no reason that you could rely on “tomorrow’s” supply (given new discoveries, new sales from holders/hoarders, etc.) Once you get past the realization that all currencies have value that is dependent on some element of faith, the argument against a ‘fiat’ currency weakens. (At least to the extent that a fiat based currency’s value is a function in the faith of its users that it will have value tomorrow.) To the extent that fiat based currencies reflect the confidence its users have in the promises made by its issuers, the question is not about the currency but about the promise-makers. That should be the focus of the concern, not whether or not the coin/piece of paper has any relation to some physical commodity that is (or isn’t) in some vault somewhere.
The longer the BOOM the bigger the BUST. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcVQQ_uVRIk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=PePPeMusic
FYI
Got scrubbed again…..I was attempting to link to something about BTC. Let me try this link.
Elon Musk just bought $1.5B bitcoins.
The question is: who is the smart guy: Musk or Taleb?
You mean 1.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoin at today’s price. Only 21 million BTC can ever possibly be mined……leaving the whole “forking” thing out of it.
That’s the argument for BTC…it is not inflationary and therefore makes a store of wealth.
This might be true in a perfect world, but in this world? In this world the same people who mine almost all of the bitcoin own most of the bitcoin…..they also create ALL the Tether…and running the ledger uses more electricity each year that a country the size of Ireland.
Elon Musk can afford to take a chance…but I’m not in his position. In the short run BTC can moon…but as some long term FutureCoin……nah, not so much.
The smartest con is the one to jump off the bitcoin-Ponzi first.
… Musk or Taleb… The winner is the one to jump off the Ponzi-Bitcoin scheme first or, ‘who shorts it before the other’.
“It was taken over by Covid denying sociopaths w/the sophistication of amoebas” whew! I think he is refering to Elon Musk! Elon is a wee bit on the spectrum however its amazing what he has accomplished
I think this can go on for at least another 200 years which means it’ll definitely outlive me and all of my descendants.
“It’s all phony money but there’s no revolt yet.”
This is exactly correct…..but maybe we should ask……”Why no revolt yet?”.
I would argue that most people have it pretty good in the US and most other advanced western countries.
Maybe we are seeing the beginnings of revolt with Antifa and France’s Yellow Vests.
But it isn’t any kind of persuasive movement that gets big numbers of people out in the streets.
I like to look at certain things….how many people int he US have smart phones……the most recent number I see is from 2019….at that time it was 81% and rising…..96% have a cell phone.
Over 90% of households have access to a car.
What is the real homelessness rate? Nobody really knows….but a reasonable guess would still be way under 1% of the population….and a fair number of those are addicts and people with mental illness. My belief is that homelessness of less than 0.5% is unlikely to EVER happen, in the best of times.
The fact is that even the people at the bottom in this country seldom go hungry. A few do….more right now….in this pandemic time when work is scarce for laborers and the uneducated and under-educated…..but that will get better. We feed poor kids two meals a day at school in most places.
My point is that even our poor social safety net is so much better than what existed a hundred years ago….that not that much impetus exists to overthrow the rich and take back the means of production….or to change the way we create money.
Maybe we will see people eventually lose confidence in the phony money….but only if the present system changes to something much more austere…that’s my guess.
Now you are getting to the heart of the matter. If the system doesn’t work, then the system needs to change. Why does the system not work ? It is for multiple reasons but it ISN’T because another system would somehow end all this. Why ? Because technology and automation are obviating the need for human beings. At some point, I think every government will be forced to make more productive uses of people’s lives. Think more like Star Trek Next Generation. In about 100 years, there will be little need for doing anything except exploring the world and our systems and others around it. The Musks, Bezos and others like them already understand this. We have to think beyond jobs, productivity and usual means of economic growth. Automation and technology will take care of our basic needs and even things that aren’t basic. Whatever system you want to create based on competition and capitalism will always leave the middle to lower classes behind. Why can’t people understand this is a failure of those people.
I am of the same mind, both textually and judging by the photo. Only debt created by borrowing the excess of production, less consumption (savings), is real. Debt created by bookkeeping entries is fake. Fiat money and fake debt is a bad combination. Add in derivatives etc. and the result is implosion.
“Ray Dalio’s essay” Guru words of wisdom ….. from the 14 billion dollar net worth financial predator. He’s obviously obsessed with trying to seem a “big thinker”. And giving the serfs a piece of his brilliant advice. Forgive me if I pass.
I think Dalio’s heart is in the right place….he seems to be trying to teach young people how to think about saving and investing….and he hits the some of the main important points.
But at this point, the pie is already so unevenly split…..intergenerational wealth has been building for 150 years or more…..financial predators (like Dalio’s Bridgewater) are too good at what they do…..and the general public is so ignorant about money.
I’d like to survey the readership to see what everyone’s expectations are…..of exactly…..or approximately…..when the coming currency crisis will hit.
And what country’s banks will go down first….and which one will be last man standing, so to speak.
The banking system will not fail. The central banks learned from the lessons of the 2000s. Currency crises take a specific set of circumstances and dont happen to reserve currencies. Also who exactly has the trust that the US gained and Britain lost in the 1900s? Do we think there is some transparent, open democracy that is better than the US and going to replace the US reserve currency?
Now that US national debt is about to cross $28T, it seems to me that the goal should be to keep growing the economy so that the debt:GDP ratio stays near 100%. US GDP needs to grow to $40T. Is that possible? Can it be done without inflation or devaluation?
Japan is hanging on at 250% debt:GDP. Can the whole world?
Maybe when global debt:GDP reaches 250% we’ll find out. At some point the interest will be unable to be paid and will have to be defaulted on or recapitalized ad infinitum starting the death spiral.
Then we will either have Breton Woods II or World War III. I could see this crisis leading to One World Government.
I suspect IRS tax collections (after April 15, with refunds etc) will fall short by a trillion or so. While they may be offset by investment gains in the stock market, I expect increased borrowing/debt creation through 2021. I also expect worsening relations with China and China, despite the Biden admin, with increased pressure from Russia and China (reference the recent Putin speech abut the Reset etc) to do away with the petrodollar. That will likely be the straw that brings the dollar down.
Let’s face it. No one individual knows how this is going to end. Irredeemable currencies have a pretty bad track record as we all know. My biggest fear is if there is a huge global currency meltdown of some kind, TBTB will use it to restrict liberties.
So keep some bullion, cash and maybe a rosary if your a RC.
Don’t forget the guns and ammo + food and water
Lot’s of false stuff here. Historically, people didn’t buy and sell in silver and gold. Metal money was the province of the nobility and bankers. Real people traded in credit. The farmer got credit from the blacksmith to fix his plow, and when his crop came in, paid him back with food. The blacksmith then used the food to pay his own debts.
If the world actually traded in a fixed amount currency, there would only be a fixed amount of work that could be done. Fiat money, even though we don’t really use it that way, allows for the creation of enough money that everyone can potentially sell what they produce, meaning more work. But, alas, we still think in terms of gold, so we treat our fiat as if it is a commodity currency.
You may not be thinking of say, $500,000/ounce gold.
Even the “price” of gold must float otherwise pinning a value would be akin to price fixing.
Excellent Mish. It doesn’t have to be gold or silver (they have just been used in the past) tie the money to something that us pions can hold so that we can maintain some value in or hard earned monies and not just let the politicos continue to print ad nauseam. And not just another piece of paper like a stock certificate….
So how do you envision a currency crisis playing out? Why would the dollar fall more than other currencies? Why would any of it matter? It’s all fake money…
Everyone prints. A race to debase. You will start to see sovereign defaults, that will be the start of the currency crisis. At then end of it, the dollar will be king of the terds
Likely correct, imho. It has worked that way in the past…and I see little reason it won’t work out the same way next time.
I am keeping my monopoly money..
The winner will be the country/countries that introduce(s) a gold-backed digital currency for international trade, not necessarily the countries’ own currency, or a basket of fiat currencies. If the world is as tired of US hegemony (eg. using its currency to force compliance) as I think they are, the end could come at any time.
“Justice is driven back,
and righteousness stands at a distance;
truth has stumbled in the streets,
honesty cannot enter.
Truth is nowhere to be found,
and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.”
(Isaiah chapter fifty-nine)
Sometimes I wonder if you are posting these stories about gold and silver to confuse and excite the masses. Paper currencies have been around for centuries. In 7th Century China, they used paper currencies. There is not enough gold and silver in the world to support trade and commerce and especially for ease and comfort (you would need leather pants pockets to carry a few hundred dollars in silver coins in U.S. to buy something or pay for a service — joke), paper currrencies were much better. With the backing of stable governments, paper currencies were introduced. What is downside. One is counterfitting, and the other is what happens when a government fails and can’t back their currency. I think long before a goverment fails, citizens will be transferring their wealth to other vehicles than paper money. for instance, digital money, credit cards, and bitcoins have presently allowed people to easily transcend borders. Moving your money to another country’s currency is simple. What are the chances of all countries in the world failing or having a depression or hyperinflation all at once are infinitesimally small. Countries have failed in the recent past with hyperinflation, but in the 21st Century, I believe that the digital currencies may give the forewarned, an example of an alternative currency vehicle.
J.R.
I think you overlook the Great Depression that took most of the world down. Now with countries ever more tied together a severe financial crisis in a major power could be devastating for the world once again. Socioeconomic crises have been the catalyst for violent revolution throughout human history. The economic perils of the 1930’s lead to Fascism, Communism, and the like. Things people don’t like seeing is their neighbor having more and going hungry.
There is plenty of gold and silver its just the price is not correct.
It will end look at history fiat always goes to zero.The human race can not handle greed it becomes obsessed with more and more and eventually these means less and less for the masses who eventually figure it out and down comes the castle.
Thats what we would like to avoid.
Pray tell what is gold and silver priced in ?
As Kick’n noted, most of the world suffered through the Great Depression. It took a unique set of conditions, but it can happen again. The thing about gold/silver is its historical use, which enables a belief in its utility for exchange, store of value etc.
Amigator is also correct in the pricing of gold and silver. It can be priced in any currency. That is its strength. It is a reliable medium of exchange between currencies for international trade, without the USA trying to run the show. Converting it to digital form, based on gold/silver stocks held in reserve is entirely logical–no need to carry coins, or fiat paper.
“What are the chances of all countries in the world failing or having a depression or hyperinflation all at once are infinitesimally small.” One word: Interconnectedness. As mentioned above, (below?) correlations are extreme as between western (and even eastern) economies. I would argue that the chances of all the (major) economies of the world NOT having a depression (in the event one or more falls into depression) is what is infinitesimally small.
The middle class is growing not shrinking. It is just growing globally and not just in one country or region. We live in a global economy whether you like it or not. The global currency is the US dollar no matter what currency you want to count it in. Precious metals are traded in dollars. Value is measured in dollars.
The dollar is the global reserve currency for the moment but there is no guarantee that it will remain so. I perSonally think that it will be replaced by a crypto currency (definitely not Bitcoin) some time in the not too distant future.
Sovereign money won’t go away with the switch to crypto…..just financial privacy.
Pretty soon we will have crypto Dollars and crypto Euros and crypto Turkish Lira…..and a CB crypto for interbank lending.
Cryptocurrencies were for security but dark markets for crypto actually are no better than online sex trade and other illegal activities that were shutdown. To me there are no good outcomes here. If drug dealers take crypto in addition to good old fashioned cash, why does it matter ? The whole point of crypto in theory was to get rid of the underground economy and money laundering. It has promoted more of the same.
What financial privacy? The USA has already done away with the privacy of foreign accounts. If you don’t believe me, don’t report your foreign accounts and see what happens. Most international transactions are already monitored, which is why Bitcoin’s days are numbered.
It’s true financial privacy is going away already….but you have no idea how much worse it can get. Way, way worse.
We have a 2.2 trillion/year black market economy in this country, that runs on cash and bitcoin. With a transparent blockchain dollar (and bitcoin and Monero made illegal)….none of that could happen.
Tax evasion is estimated to account for about a half trillion a year in lost federal tax revenue.
Right now you could still use Monero to offshore money if you know how. But not bitcoin.
I happen to have traded crypto for a while….and I can tell you that the first phase is already accomplished. An American cannot legally use offshore crypto exchanges. You can only use the very few who pass the US government sniff test. To use any foreign ones you have to lie now…..I got kicked off of several over the last couple of years…as of now a VPN is still a workaround…..but who wants to risk losing ALL your assets? Not me.
For what its worth seems like i remember reading the romans mixing increasing amounts of cheaper metals into those gold coins when they were on the decline.
Now the question is: did Mish mean to have a bitcoin coin in the top picture, or was that an accident? 😉 Although it does kind of look like it’s made of gold.
Bridgewater published an analysis of Bitcoin today. It’s below Ray Dalio’s essay. Interesting stuff. They throw out some numbers that the real market value of a Bitcoin, if gold owners sell up to half of their gold (to whom???) and diversify into Bitcoin as another “store of value”, is somewhere in $30K to $90K.
Last line: “Bitcoin, for now, feels more to us like an option on a potential storehold of wealth.” I read that as: it’s still highly speculative.
The people who own most of the bitcoin paid almost nothing to get it…..and they are slowly and steadily swapping theirs for gold….they might swap some back when BTC tanks…and reload the trade….but the long term strategy is to trade beads and baubles for real money.
I’m not really a hard money guy…..but the idea BTC replacing gold is….a NARRATIVE…..one being pushed by people who can profit from it.
Gold and silver do have tangible value. BTC has none.
BTC has so many flaws anyway….1st gen crypto…..hackable because it isn’t very well decentralized after all…..it’s incredibly resource dependent…..it wastes a massive amount of energy……it posts to the ledger slowly at the best of times….and int the worst of times it takes days.
It is amazing the cult around Bitcoin, truly something to behold, these people on Twitter who regurgitate the talking points but … can’t think, for lack of a more polite description.
I have a tiny bit of exposure, as a hedge, and it is probably the only asset I have with a decent chance of doubling in the next couple of months, lol.
Jeremy Grantham has a so-sensible-its-boring take within this (great) interview:
Thanks for posting….I had already watched the Grantham interview…..I agree it’s very good.
Mastercard to accept cryptocurrencies on its network https://www.iafrikan.com/2021/02/10/mastercard-set-to-accept-cryptocurrencies-on-its-network/
I guess that there were no wars prior to Bretton-Woods. Oh wait, there was WWII, WWI, Spanish-American War, Civil War, and plenty of other wars going back to antiquity. Fiat currency might enable certain undesirable features of the international economy but war isn’t one of them.
I think that there will be some repercussions, many unforeseen, due to the money supply expanding faster than real goods and services (GDP) but you are overstating the effect of fiat currencies.
The ability for kings and countries to wage war on a large scale….and more importantly…….on credit…..is directly related to the emergence of the bond market.
Niall Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money” is a good reference on this.
The Dutch were the first, I think, to take on a national debt, in 1517. So it was debt that enabled war….not gold or silver.
Most of our capitalist system goes straight back to Amsterdam in 1600…but they didn’t have fiat money AFAIK.
“The ability for kings and countries to wage war on a large scale….and more importantly…….on credit…..is directly related to the emergence of the bond market.”
Genghis khan, Attila the Hun, Alexander…all prolific bond issuers.
Perhaps I should have said “modern war”….the kind that began to occur in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Of course there were wars before then, but they were limited to what could be paid for by pillaging….and by the spoils of battle…and the money in the treasury at the outset. Taxation was around long before bonds.
Alexander, Genghis Khan, and Attila the Huns wars…and the Crusades…..although they were large wars…..all were limited to the money and resources available to pay for them.
Wars usually did end, in fact, when he ability to pay the army ran out. The point I was trying to make, perhaps poorly, is an important point.
“Perhaps I should have said “modern war”…”
I got your point Eddie, just couldn’t resist.
Best example of the point you were making would be the Roman Empire, imo.
Since your money is “fake” why don’t you send me
a big pile of it… I’ll pay for you to ship it to me.
I think for the states maybe its different but sound money in the UK wasn’t so great because of land. There was a landowner class of around 5% and everyone else had to pay rent. The monopoly of land ownership doesn’t seem like its very likely to be overturned. You could argue that land ownership is the true base of the pyramid.
Actually, in regard to ‘land’, the UK at the height of its empire controlled almost 3/4 of the land surface, and the resources below, of the planet. They still faded into the background. The difference is: the UK turned from an industrial power to a financial power, and after 2 major wars, most of its industry was destroyed or obsolete. The US has destroyed its own industry by itself due to corporate quest for greater profit.
-10f and windy here let’s just bet this shooting war over with i’m ready to kick the bucket as it is
“The dollar would collapse except for the simple fact the EU, Japan, and China are all doing similar things to varying degrees.”
If you truly believe this author’s premise – invest in countries according to debt to GDP ratio, as certain countries competitively increase their debt to “cheat”, maybe that ratio is a measure of which countries have more “ammo” for the long haul, or once the proposed “event” occurs.
Where Japan is at #1 by a far stretch at 237%, S Korea, Sweden, Norway have dramatically lower ratio’s.
Worth noting, countries with higher natural resource’s appear to have lower ratio’s….go figure.
IMO, best long term investment is tangible natural resources, not speculative (like GOLD or SLV) but grains, commodities, materials.
I studied this years ago now….with the idea that it would make sense to hold the money of a country with something to back it up….and decided that Norway was the winner, hands down.
And so, what of the Krone? Over a twelve year period starting in 2008, the Krone went from 20 cents US down to below 10 cents…..although it seems to be starting to slightly rebound, finally. It’s still only up to 12 cents.
And what about the Loonie? Canada has great natural resources. But the Loonie went from being above parity with the US dollar in 2007…..down to 70 cents last year…..also rebounding with the dollar weakness (that incidentally has coincided with COVID perfectly)…but still 20 cents lower agains the USD than it was 14 years ago.
Rumors of the death of the US dollar have been greatly exaggerated, to borrow from Mark Twain….
The strength in the dollar is a thorn in the side of the hard money crowd….but it simply is…and you can’t deny that. I spent years trying to understand why…and I think there are a couple of good reasons.
One is that there is no other place with such a deep and safe bond market….when global capital needs liquidity, the dollar is still number one. The other more recent argument about the so-called Eurodollar…is also a part of it. imho.
Priceless response Eddie, I’ll take that to mean “…. a gigantic shooting war will mark the end of our times” isn’t really investing advice.
While I thoroughly agree with the article’s sentiment on cheating via currency manipulation, the “end of days” routine these guys use to stress the importance gets old.
Yes, I burned myself on Krone, too.
I studied it and gave it a pass, actually.
bitcoin
Beanie Babies
have fun staying poor
…..have fun being virtually rich….
When China commands their resident Bitcoin mining pools to conduct a 51% attack to rewrite the Blockchain, then Bitcoin will be with zero.
typo: worth zero…
I wonder the about significance of a reserve currency with todays weapons characteristics. We so far, are the last country on earth to hold reserve currency status. In the past, reserve currency status required a large navy to patrol and secure the shipping lanes. If it’s true that nations have or are close to developing hypersonic missiles that can easily take out an enemy, US aircraft carriers and and other visible naval vessels would increasingly become useless against the new weapon, submarines being the only viable survivor.
“On an ongoing basis, Democrats want unlimited social spending and Republicans want endless military spending. The compromise is both sides mostly get their way and the value of the dollar sinks.”
Check.
“Meanwhile, the rich get richer and the middle class shrinks but the reason isn’t obvious. The media blames Google, Microsoft, and Amazon instead of unsound money, the Fed, and Congress.”
Check.
So depressing. The only solution I ever came up with was to get rich myself instead of continually getting screwed. I’m not exactly there yet, but at least I have a goal in life.
“On an ongoing basis, Democrats want unlimited social spending and Republicans want endless military spending.”
Disagree with you and Mish on the point that only Rs want endless military spending. The current administration is firing up things in Syria and the last two D administrations certainly weren’t averse to foreign excursions. End result is the same, but the both major parties are effectively war parties, not just the R side of the coin.
….Not there yet Eddy ? I don’t say it goes for you but it is typical how rich people in general never have enough, even living frugally to achieve their sick goal of MORE and more …Being the richest man on the cemetery must be prestigious….
Yes, you’re correct…that is an overgeneralization. LBJ spent a ton of money on Vietnam….and the modern Democrat neoliberal war party is a thing.
But as far as invading places……when in power in the White House……..the Republicans win hands down since Eisenhower. I give them Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq…..not to mention Grenada. They also carried on a clandestine war in Nicaragua in the Reagan years.
Meant that one for Al.
Don’t be a silly ass….FAILURE to save and invest wisely is the ticket to living VERY frugally in one’s old age……whether you want to or not.
Anyone who doesn’t understand how money works…..anyone who fails to use that knowledge to provide for their own needs and that of their family…..is roadkill in the world we live in.
You can use the system as it exists….or you can claim your moral superiority…and maybe go hungry.
I save and invest and accumulate wealth so that I can live out my life in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed…which is not particularly frugal. When I’m dead I won’t need money..but until then it comes in quite handy.
Where do you think the money comes from, btw, that gets collected for charity?….It comes from people who have created a surplus.
Your false righteousness ….and that of all the people who parrot that line “Live simply so that others might simply live!”….are living in a fantasy of their own making.
“live simply so that others might simply live…are giving in a fantasy of their own making.” Actually, no. Not of their own making. It goes back at least as afar as Jesus.
Oh, you’re going to school me about Jesus now?
I would direct your attention to Mathew 25:14….commonly known as the parable of the Talents. It applies rather directly to the exact point I was trying to make.
Well yearly inflation of even 10% is sustainable. It’s only issue is a constant shift of wealth, but as the media are now well-trained in making the middle class focus on other stuff, that’s not a big problem. I mean there’s always that football match, some celeb dress failure, some group A vs group B problem… You name it!
“Gold is not Money”. I’ve posted this link to the Ron Paul/Bernanke spitting match on here before. Here, it is again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQc8iPxG8v4
We must follow our leaders and the monetary system they have given us. Anything else is sedition.
Well, what is the price of gold? Think about that statement. The “price” of gold. It means gold can be bought and sold. It’s not “what can gold buy me?” Gold is never expressed as “how many camels can I buy with an ounce today?” In that regard gold is just an asset. Every thing is an asset, commodity, whatever you want to call it. Money has just become a place holder, a ledger. The problem is there is nothing of tangible value that we can all agree upon. But then there are services which aren’t exactly tangible either. Even having a gold standard hasn’t kept inflation from rising and debt from accumulating. In the end debt can be destroyed and people holding it can lose out. But I guess if money were tangible people would be more careful with it.
Our democracy’s elected leaders often appear to be symbolically in charge, second to the most power entrenched corporate interests and institutions.
Those doubting the powerful persuasion of big business lobbyists need to consider how governing officials can feel crippled by implicit or explicit corporate threats to transfer or eliminate jobs and capital investment, thus economic stability, all of which is being made even worse by a blaring news-media naturally critical of the government.
American (and Canadian) governance typically maintains thinly veiled yet strong ties to large corporations, as though elected heads are meant to represent big money interests over those of the working citizenry and poor.
I believe it reflects why those powerful interests generally resist proportional representation electoral systems of governance, the latter which tends to dilute the corporate lobbyist influence on governments.
The first-past-the-post electoral system seems to barely qualify as democratic (within the democracy spectrum), and it best serves corporate interests.
Also concerning is that corporate representatives actually write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, typically word for word, supposedly to save the elected officials their time.