And the delusions continue.

I am not speaking specifically about buy gold on the market, but rather the people who see those Gold Line type commercials. They buy gold thinking now their money is secure. Those are not investments in the traditional sense and if they tried to sell back the gold they purchased to the gold 'buyers' they will get about a 60% ROI

We haven't been on the gold standard for a very long time. The Gold Standard as I understand it was that US Currency was guaranteed by our gold reserves. It is screamingly obvious that reserve, while it still exists, does not guarantee the nations monetary system.

WE are not on the Federal Rserve System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System


spaz

Oh I know rofl. That shit is a scam.

We got off in 1971. The Gold standard works very well, even if we are low on gold deposits, we could use the Gold Cover Clause ratio. Growth with the gold standard is slow, but we don't have deficits.

Yes, the stimulus was a good thing even though it increased national debt, it supported the financial powers that be. Without them = total socio-economic collapse. However it failed on 2 major fronts and that is it has done nothing to improve the infrastructure which is in a serious state if degradation and it has completely failed to generate jobs on any level only, at best slowing the growth of unemployment. One of the problems, probably the biggest, with the American economy is that we have moved almost all manufacturing over seas.

Manufacturing was the largest producer of 'middle class' jobs that kept the economic engine running. Give people money to spend and they will spend it. With the money being moved outside of the US by US Corporations they work against a strong healthy US economy. The divide between those with great wealth and the poor becomes wider and wider. Couple that with the apathy rampant in US society and you have a country of people who see no way out, think there is no way out and they are powerless to act on their own behalf

it is not liberal or conservative, republican or democratic, it is ugly and as long as though those who speak out are called unpatriotic it is a slow cycle that America can't escape. I don't have a crystal ball but I feel that the United States 20 years from now would be unrecognizable to those of us alive today who witnessed the slow demise of the middle class since the 1980s


spaz

Actually, the stimulus was NOT good. It did NOT do anything other than create artificial growth and a false sense of security. The only people who believe we'd have a total collapse without stimulus are the government stimulus loving Keynesians. If we allow certain things to fail that are meant to fail, we would be out of the recession/depression cycles quickly. Deficit spending in the form of stimulus programs not only prolonges the inevitable, but makes the upcoming collapse even worse.

And yes, we used to be a manufacturing economy and turned into a service/consumption economy starting in the 70's. It's sad. That's why our trade deficit is huge.

Post WWII we experienced the greatest amount of economic prosperity in human history.

My memory is weak on this but I believe that is also the time period that the government started getting all deficit spending happy. To quote Jeff Foxworthy

"OH A CHECK!?............I thought you wanted money"

If you will remember back to that time the US had the strongest middle class in the world, manufacturing, while suffering from quality issues, was extremely strong. No one said "Buy American" because we already were. The OPEC fucked us over, cheap but higher quality Japanese autos began their slow rise to dominance in the auto market and when the 80s hit Reaganomics hit with the philosophy that you could get fewer workers to do more work and cut down on your biggest expense (employees) and once that was in place Clinton signed NAFTA and BOOM, it was done, I believe that was the tipping point for the American economy. After those 2 events our hostory was already written


spaz

True the stimulus plans helped - even though I think they didn't need to be so damn big... but spending in the time of a recession/depression has always pulled us out before, so I'm willing to wait and see if history repeats itself for about the 5th time.

Jobs are the very last thing to return, normally after a recession ends or right at the very end.

Manufacturing is over, it was dieing 30 years ago before they started to move out of the Country. Everything gets cheaper, other than what we pay Americans, pay for benefits, insurance, etc... something HAD to give.

We have more than enough jobs to replace these people, but they need to move and they aren't at $30-60 an hour with full benefits and retirement plans that are crazy. But young dumb and full of cum Americans blew it on bullshit and now have nothing.

The stimulus parts that focus on infrastructure is going to be a huge shot in the arm.. rebuilding America from the inside out, it's pretty much the strongest growth points in our history.. railroads, bridges, roads.. it's time for the next round.

There is no point in arguing if the stimulus had any positive effect or not. If you get a dozen people in the same room you will get a dozen different opinions. I think the stimulus saved the financial institutions, but I think without regulation... just a return to what was established after the depression, is pointless... more abuse is going to take place so nothing is solved... so in that regard, prolonging the inevitable you and dead on
True about post WWII, baby boomers grew up in a good time, but I was speaking more along the lines of my Gen (both just post baby boomer)

Historically employment has been a leading indicator, spending is a lagging. That is what makes this 'recovery' so hard for Americans to accept. Its hard to tell a man the recession is on its way out when he cant find a job
The reason for the costs of pay and benefits for employees being 'crazy' is because of the corporations. Someone mentioned health care before and it strangles entrepreneurs. There is a roll for the government. Some people act that the government should not exist, I mean they do not come right out and say that but you can tell thats exactly what they are thinking. The government exist for the benefit of the people who elected them, I think that the government working with companies and examining things like tarriffs could go a long way towards re-establishing American economic power. But thats a lot of work and companies would have to tighten their belts and accept lower profit margins. But that shit aint never gonna happen!

Great point, as long as some politicians scream about socialism, vote no on every spending bill as welfare but then pump hands and pose for pictures when they can spend that money, then it will never happen. a high speed rail system in the US is my wet dream the same goes for clean energy. Not because I wear hemp sandals but because in the long term it will have a dramatic effect on foriegn policy and create cheaper energy


spaz

If it's an indicator, wouldn't that mean that we are really pulling out, if not already out?

From what I remember, the jobs took off in the 80's pretty much after everything else turned around... but I can't say if something else did that or not.

Not some bad ideas at all... I'm all about the capital gains tax, drop it to the floor and let companies bring money into America, hell maybe that wouldn't work today - I don't know.

America was BUILT on our social policies... good ones and bad ones, just more Americans don't realize it and think socialism means communism for some reason.

I like my hemp sandals... :)

Like I said, we had the strongest middle class post WWII. The OPEC didn't fuck us over, we fucked each other over. The tipping point was in the 70's when we got off the gold standard, started printing money, stopped saving money, and started spending more than we had. THAT is why we're fucked, for the most part. This is disregarding the sub prime mortgage crisis.

Bro, opinions are irrelevant, it's the indicators you need to look at. I'm a fiscal conservative who follows the Austrian School of Economics. I don't believe the institutions needed to be saved. We were rewarding them for their stupidity. I love the private sector and if they can get away with ripping Americans off, they should be allowed to fail as well. Instead, Wall Street gets away with ripping people off, and gets bailed out. This is not how things are supposed to work.

We fucked up allowing Unions to take over the manufacturing industry, increasing the wages and ergo, increasing the prices.

In a 'normal' recession or slump it is usually employment that is the first thing to improve, with more jobs comes more spending which moves the whole process forward


spaz

The problem is, when we moved away from the manufactoring economy and into the service economy, we were dooming a LOT of jobs. Those jobs aren't coming back anytime soon, probably not in our lifetime. We need to decrease the power of unions, we need to start producing again. According to various economic indicators, Americans are slowly beginning to understand that Obama and Bernanke are full of shit, and that our economy is NOT improving but leading towards a double dip depression.

OK you are a fiscal conservative so by definition you and I will agree very little. I dont generally label myself but in this case I will. I am a social liberal and fiscal left leaning moderate.

As an example. I enthusiastically endorsed and voted for Obama, With gleaming optimism I looked forward to his first term as being historical and I placed zero import on his race. I do not care that he is the first black President, in that case I am color blind.

Now I view him as completely ineffectual with no helm and absolutely no ability to lead. I will not vote for him again unless there are major changes that I had expected to see and not this spineless bobblehead that caves quicker then a bridge made of sand that is constantly on his knees to people who are laughing at him and winning the war of words

Of course opinions matter, I would rather here yours, take it in and decide if it changes my view then to debate it in an attempt to win you over to my way of thinking. I read your previous posts, realized that you are quite comfortable and committed to your point of view so it benefits me more to simply state what my views are and allow you to express yours while respecting your right to have them

Let me sum up my point by saying I have seen an awful lot of debates on GFY with almost all parties involved thinking the opposing views are morons LOL


spaz

p.s. I have enjoyed this quite a lot, the banter between you and the doc and me. But my kids are calling me out to Family Guy on [Adult Swim] :)

quick note before I lean the office for the night.... you do realize that it is exactly the work place reforms that the unions created that gave the US that strong middle class right? heh heh

BTW, I used to be a member of the UAW in Springfield Ohio, I worked for International (they build trucks and school bus chasis :) )


spaz

I agree with all of this.

Well, I want to know why you think the stimulus programs helped.

The majority of people on GFY are morons. Spearheaded by the infinitely incompetent people such as TheDoc and BFT3k, I'm wondering how these people were able to find their way to a computer. If someone has an opposing view and can explain his view in a clear and concise manner as you're doing, then I'm happy to listen.

Enjoyed it as well....and same here, off to melt the brain on some adult cartoons...

Anyway, it was no banter between me and the demon, the kid is a grade A douche bag, a proven liar and isn't in our Industry at all - mater of fact, he has bashed those in our Industry - everyone, including you.

So don't give that slime ball the time of day... he shouldn't even be posting here.

Hey Spaz, ignore the forum clown, everyone else usually does. The guy has to make up hilarious bullshit, and then project his insecurities on others. The guy is a true joke and an example why college degrees might be necessary.

Posted this on the 2nd page - I'm sure the idiot has or will bump the thread, trust me.... he will - same old shit, different day.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7023

This is from StuartD, it's bad ass and totally worth it to filter out the dolts. It drops the replies, the posts, threads, it's slick!

In which case, this social outcast will cease to exist on this forum!

i dont know why people get so overly intellectual about things. fact is, once the apollo program was scrapped in 74, rockets scientists had nothing to do, so wall street hired them to manufacture the exotic financial instruments that created the calamity. it may have been prevented if the pols in DC weren't so in bed with big money special interests that they turned over the levers of government to them. But pols are weak by nature & money corrupts all massive entities. No matter what happens, the rich will be fine. That is all that history teaches us.

Smartest economists alive? Commodities are the only way to go? Been buying for two years now?

Since the 2008 top in the CRB you have lost 58% to the low in 2009 and 44% at current levels.

:2 cents:

just peeking in... i would have voted for a ron paul obama ticket btw. and also imho Sarah Palin is the dumbest bitch the republicans could ever have as a spokesperson in any sense of the word. God, I hope she runs for pres in 2012.
Not taking sides at all, I am an independent. Good points on both ends.
~ta ta

its showup of world economy

That's a bit simple, don't you think??

And maybe you mean "wealthy" instead of "rich" cuz many, many rich people got wiped out in the last few years as they first lost on their home(s), then their stocks, and if they were dumb enough to seek shelter in commodities they got killed there, too (with the exception of gold and sugar).

I agree that we need to start manufactoring things again and unions are a lot of bloat but in my opinion, necessary to some extent. Should people take pay cuts and lose their benefits to bring jobs back here? I don't think they should have to. Look at the clothing industry..in 1995 50% of clothes sold in America were made in America. In 2008 its now 5%. A HUGE drop in just 15 years. Even if people took pay cuts and lost their benefits they still couldnt compete with foreign labor.

Save your breath.... he studied under the best and posts on GFY too - It's a deadly combo of lies and stupid mixed into one.

please revisit this thread... email me... send me 100 hundo. ty

http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?t=952482

email is listed 2 times

Yeah, he does not seem too interested in responding to the points I made.

I'm interested in the inflation vs deflation scenario. It seems to me that 99% of the bears (who I think are on the right side) have this dooms day scenario of dollar demise / hyperinflation even though that is not what is taking place currently.

If one is just theorizing or prognosticating on the future, that is one thing. But, if one is actually investing / trading, mistaking what is at play will be painful.

You're going to have to repeat that. If I correctly understood you, I've lost 58% investing in gold and silver. Is this what you're saying?

Once again, everybody already ignores you. Your notoriety for making shit up, getting called out, and then running away like a bitch, is apparently on the rise. Now please, to save yourself further embarrassment, quit typing.

Yup yup. This is what moronic companies don't understand. Outsourcing undermines our economy.

Correct, hyperinflation isn't happening.... our eco deflated 3% last year, that's with some inflation in other areas. To me if you want the rich to be richer and the poor to be really poor, you super deflate everything. Making my house, car, tv's, everything worth nothing - that's class separation - when nothing I have is worth anything.

No, what I am saying is that based on your statement that commodities is the way to go, the CRB Index, which is a basket of commodities has lost the %'s I cited since 2008.

Don't get me wrong, I have invested heavily in metals in the past and still own some physical, and I am on record as far back as 1999 calling for decline in the dollar and a rise in gold. That was when gold was under $300.

What I am really challenging, is the idea that inflation is the existing threat and trend vs. deflation.

You haven't made any points. You made an outrageous claim without backing it up. Shall I provide you the historical charts of gold and silver from 2008 compared to now? Next thing you're going to do is lecture me about inflation regarding precious metals. Aka LOL

The doomsday scenario predicted by Schiff and Paul is inevitable. It's the government intervention that's delaying it and making it worse when it does happen. Everything that has happened, Schiff had predicted in 2008 and was ridiculed. I'm not sure you understand the concept of dollar demise. It's lost 96% of its value, and Bernanke is desperately trying to hold inflation at bay without raising rates. However, he WILL have to raise interest rates within the next year which will increase inflation. I'm not sure where the deflation theorists are coming from because that is NOT what's going to happen, unless someone can give me a viable scenario. However, both sides of the spectrum both agree that the market WILL crash, which is why I'm short and have been for a while although I've taken some losses. I have some investments in a few triple leveraged etfs that will make a fortune if we should retest the March lows(6000), which I'm confident we will.

Finally, hyperinflation is what us "doom and gloom" theorists think is going to be the end game, and it's slowly manifesting itself. I believe pretty soon, the US dollar will cease to be the reserve currency. That will cause billions of treasury securities to come back and flood America, and there's the end game.

The only "losses" I've taken was predicting we'd be under 10,000 in December, so I was about 2 months off. Right now it's rallying a day at a time but it's finally going downhill.

I didn't know he wasn't in the biz but even taking that into consideration it does not matter much to me. While politics plays a role in our business (say good bye to net neutrality thank you Supreme Court), this is more of a pure political discussion and I'll listen to anyone in that case. Last night certainly was enjoyable for me and I like to think I learned a little :)

Oh hell yeah I saw that, it is awesome that StuartD created that and made it available for everyone. He's the man. However, in the past I put people on iggy but found my own curiosity kept me un-ignoring them more often then not. So I now if I don't want to read something I just scroll down past it

First the stimulus. I think that it helped the financial markets somewhat stable and move up from the record lows. IMHO it helped to give some confidence to investors which prevented a total collapse and I am speaking globally here. It was done completely wrong, zero regulations, zero oversight, just a HUGE dumping of cash at people who have proven track records of not being worthy of that level of trust.

The banks learned nothing, the stimulus was intended to free up lending, so banks could help out home owners bent over and getting banged and small/medium sized businesses grow and increase employment. They chose to use the money the same way they have been using money, by gambling on high risk ventures. No one stopped them and even though a lot of the banks have paid back or are in the process of paying back the money they received, without the regulation and oversight it is only a matter of time before we face the same problem again.

The problem is that this could have been fixed, it could have been done right OR Congress could catch their breath and make meaningful reforms. I hate to beat this dead horse some more but the Supreme Court decision entitling corporations to have the same rights as individuals has made the prospect or reform almost laughable. Corporations will not allow anything with teeth to be passed.

About the general population of GFY I have to say I disagree. Lots of very smart people here, it is ironic that a webmaster board called 'gofuckyourself' could have so many bright, friendly and helpful people, but I find that it does.

If a college degree or even attendance was required I would find my happy ass outside staring in. Im a high school grad and that was barely :1orglaugh


spaz

Yep... Cash is king during deflation.

What I am really challenging, is the idea that inflation is the existing threat and trend vs. deflation.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps I should have clarified then because when I say commodities, I USUALLY speak of the precious metals. Inflation is still the existing threat, how can it not be? Please explain the trend of deflation that you think is more prevalent than inflation.

I appreciate that but don't worry, nobody takes him seriously.

This confidence is misplaced. The government keeps misrepresenting the position of our economy and people are slowly starting to catch on. The confidence overseas is slowly waining because they've started to catch on a well. They're seeing the tremendous deficit spending Obama and Bernanke are engaging in and are slowly pulling out of the dollar.

The banks actually increased lending to consumers for a period last year, and decreased lending to small businesses, which increases our capital investments. What that means is, they're morons.

I don't think it could have been fixed. We've dug ourselves into this hole that we won't get out of without a collapse and a reinvention of our system. I think it could have been done more efficiently and postponed a collapse for a few decades.