Way to go Joe

[JoeMemphis]

You can’t have it both ways Drak. Either policy matters or it doesn’t. You can’t on the one hand claim that it’s a global problem and on the other hand blame the previous POTUS. Either Presidents can and do affect the economy in this country and worldwide or they do not.

I find it ironic the you guys blame the previous administration for following economic policies during the pandemic that your party fully and enthusiastically supported. I didn’t hear you whine when we shut down 1/3 of the economy. You supported that policy. Your party kept those restrictive policies as long as you could until the public simply had enough of it. So the policies that idles so many workers were policies you supported. I assume you had no issue with the trillions of dollars spent to pay for all that. To prop up the economic policy you supported. Now you take credit for the rebound in jobs when finally against all the admins efforts people tried to go back to normal living. Those aren’t created jobs. They are recovered jobs. Many of them wouldn’t have been lost in the first place if we hadn’t overreacted to the pandemic.

So Presidents matter and what they do matters or it doesn’t. If you want to take victory laps when times are good you also have to be prepared to take responsibility when times are bad. So no it’s not all Bidens fault. I Never said it was. But he’s not helping things. Spending money, lots of money during inflationary times leads to more inflation. The reason the FED is raising rates isn’t because we don’t have enough money in the economy.

So yeah the President and the FED are not rowing the boat in the same direction. So we wind up going in circles.

So according to GoU, “fictional” money has a very real value. Glad you figured that out. So if you run out of this “fictional” money, there are very real consequences. So money isn’t fiction. It’s very real. And the debt is real and inflation is real and the deficit is real. The numbers are real. It’s all important. It isn’t something to be ignored or dismissed as “fictional”. Anyone making such a statement doesn’t understand money or the value thereof.

[gounion]

So according to GoU, “fictional” money has a very real value. Glad you figured that out. So if you run out of this “fictional” money, there are very real consequences. So money isn’t fiction. It’s very real. And the debt is real and inflation is real and the deficit is real. The numbers are real. It’s all important. It isn’t something to be ignored or dismissed as “fictional”. Anyone making such a statement doesn’t understand money or the value thereof.

It only has real value if you believe it does. Keep clapping so Tinkerbell won’t die.

You’re a special kind of stupid. You have a worthless degree, because you don’t even know what money is.

BTW, if money and debt is so real, how can a judge make it disappear when you declare bankruptcy?

[gounion]

BTW, Joe, if money isn’t a fiction, explain cryptocurrency.

[JoeMemphis]

BTW, Joe, if money isn’t a fiction, explain cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency isn’t money and isn’t included in the calculation of M1. It isn’t legal tender.

[JoeMemphis]

It only has real value if you believe it does. Keep clapping so Tinkerbell won’t die.

You’re a special kind of stupid. You have a worthless degree, because you don’t even know what money is.

BTW, if money and debt is so real, how can a judge make it disappear when you declare bankruptcy?

Judges don’t make it disappear. There are very real consequences to creditors. They absorb the losses. Real losses.

[JoeMemphis]

No, Joe. It’s not. Money is a fiction. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/book ... ticleShare

Well next time you go to a restaurant and order your meal, leave Monopoly money and a copy of that article. Or pay your utility bill with Monopoly money and a copy of that article. Explain to them that money is fiction.

You are confusing someone’s economic theory with reality. We don’t live in a comic book world. You don’t pay your bills with real money you will suffer very real consequences. You don’t pay the bank with theories. They want money. Real money.

I guess when they shutoff your utilities you can go live with Mr Goldstein.

[ZoWie]

1. Money is real. Unfortunately, it is also more complicated than we believe, and likely more complicated than we can believe.

2. Economists have a tendency to look for mathematical models with predictive power. After all, that is essentially the mandate of hard science nowadays. (They bend it a bit in social science, but there's still a lot of statistical mumbo jumbo that doesn't always work.)

The problem is that this paradigm works great in physics, the study of systems too simple to be described any other way, but not in a complex interface between allocation of scarcity and human irrationality.

3. Indeed, the money supply used to be a lot simpler. The gold standard had one big advantage, which was basically that whoever had the gold had the money. When they struck gold in California, there was suddenly a massive and transformative increase in the potential money supply, and the resulting tensions are what enormously exacerbated the long-simmering debate between the Northern and Southern economic systems, finally pushing the country over the edge into the Civil War.

The gold standard proved unfeasible in a modern economy for a lot of reasons. It just doesn't work very well in the current situation of a very high population, with statistically double the life span, and a more equitable distribution of wealth where the ruling class, aka the descendants of the tribal elders or the people with the weapons and foot soldiers to impose themselves, does not essentially own everyone else.

What finally killed off whatever was left of it in the United States was the ill-advised and seemingly endless war in Indochina, notably Vietnam. It lasted, what, 25 years? Essentially, it was ultimately a lost cause, though we could spend years debating why. Afterward, the US was technically broke, and that's when the final decoupling of money from gold reserves took place.

4. I really don't know very much about the money supply. Economists are the people who learned how to take data and churn equations, and they don't always get it right either. It's obviously complicated shit, and not entirely predictable. You have to put human behavior into the model somewhere, and damned if I know where.

[gounion]

Well next time you go to a restaurant and order your meal, leave Monopoly money and a copy of that article. Or pay your utility bill with Monopoly money and a copy of that article. Explain to them that money is fiction.

You are confusing someone’s economic theory with reality. We don’t live in a comic book world. You don’t pay your bills with real money you will suffer very real consequences. You don’t pay the bank with theories. They want money. Real money.

I guess when they shutoff your utilities you can go live with Mr Goldstein.

both sides have to believe in it.

Explain cryptocurrency. I mean people HAVE got rich from it.

[ZoWie]

Crypto is not so much currency as a token. That's how NFTs got started. They are a nonfungible token. Whether it's a graphic file or an imaginary coin, either way it's been obtained in exchange for some other resource with a distant but far more real relationship to the kind of money the government prints. You take some of your bank balance which derives from deposited currency and use it for the token, and some blockchain computer stores its value out in the ether somewhere, and it becomes worth whatever someone else will pay for it. However it's all paper wealth, without the paper, until someone else converts it back into government recognized currency.

One bitcoin originally sold for one dollar. You give us a buck, we give you a token that you can get a buck for... today. One bitcoin is now worth somewhere between 17 and 28 grand... it changes from minute to minute dependent on the whims of crypto mining computers peering into the blockchains maintained on other computers. Like with any of these artificial economic bubbles, a few people who got in at the start made out like bandits... everyone since has been a sucker.

It's really a credit system, and a rather defective one, since right now it's essentially a gambling casino with no hard asset on the line. Some country (El Salvador?) actually adopted it as the official legal tender, and its economy promptly collapsed.

[JoeMemphis]

both sides have to believe in it.

Explain cryptocurrency. I mean people HAVE got rich from it.

I already addressed cryptocurrency. It’s not legal tender. It’s not money. Like many things you believe in, just because it has currency in the name doesn’t make it money. Just because it has insurance in the name doesn’t make it insurance. Just because you name it the inflation reduction act, doesn’t make it so. It’s marketing and it’s effective on you.

You said yourself, you can’t just conjure up money. If money were fiction as you claim, you could conjure up as much as you want. After all, it’s fiction. But it’s not. If you don’t pay your bills, there will be very real consequences. You don’t have to have a college degree to understand that. Money is fiction is an attitude of an entitled teenager.

[Glennfs]

Again, inflation is a world wide situation, factors explained. That said.

Inflation under Reagan was 4.7 percent. Not much different than today’s number. Unemployment was 5.4 percent. Higher than under Biden. But nothing is said by the board clown.


Under Ford inflation was 5.2 percent. With a 7.5 unemployment.

Nixon, who is touted as a good president by said clown, had an inflation rate of 10.9 percent.

He’s not here for honest objective discussion. Just to attack.

Reagan inherited double digit inflation unemployment and interest rates

[ProfX]

Hard to believe, but "money" has only existed for about 7000 years or so. If BTW we mean some type of physical object - a slip of paper, a metal coin, or a gigantic stone disc that represents value - then yeah.

Imagine taking this to the bank. But the Yap people of the Pacific used these as mediums of exchange -- Rai stones.



That stone disc, BTW, is about 8 feet tall and weighs more than a ton. Not exactly as portable as metal coinage. The thing is, at some point in the past, humans came to realize that it gets complicated exchanging goods and services (reciprocity and barter). OK, so how many cows and chickens is it worth it to you to get you to come thatch my hut? What if you want 2.5 cows and 5.7 chickens. Do I up that to 2.8 cows if it took more straw than I thought it would at first? So money was invented. We need a medium of exchange that goes beyond directly trading goods and services. Plus what if we want to store value, and you want to borrow my cow for a year. After a year, do you give me 1 1/2 cows in exchange for me lending it to you? This is why money was created.

There's no doubt it is entirely socially real. As socially real as race. And there is a reason I made that comparison. Both are inescapable social realities of human existence. If not always representing anything of physical value.

I am not an economist. I just happen to be related to one. I could go into long sermons on the separation between fiscal and monetary policy, BTW my brother once worked for the Federal Reserve, so he really got to see the secrets of the temple. Not really interested right now.

Oh yes, money is socially real. Like so many social realities, you can ignore it, but that won't make it go away. However, human beings managed to do without it for millions of years, too. Both things happen to be true.

[bird]

I already addressed cryptocurrency. It’s not legal tender. It’s not money. Like many things you believe in, just because it has currency in the name doesn’t make it money. Just because it has insurance in the name doesn’t make it insurance. Just because you name it the inflation reduction act, doesn’t make it so. It’s marketing and it’s effective on you.

You said yourself, you can’t just conjure up money. If money were fiction as you claim, you could conjure up as much as you want. After all, it’s fiction. But it’s not. If you don’t pay your bills, there will be very real consequences. You don’t have to have a college degree to understand that. Money is fiction is an attitude of an entitled teenager.

Actually bitcoin is becoming legal tender. Whether it should or not is irrelevant for the purposes of alleged reality. The moral/philosophical consideration of bitcoin or any other so-called cryptocurrency is a much more important debate. Despite the love struck musings of libertarians and/or anarchists someone will always control the system. Governments derided as being evil/bumbling are far better in the long run than the whims of individuals and their irrationality. Crypto transaction records are hackable. Crypto like any commodity is subject to violent dislocations in the so-called “market”. De-evolution of the state, a wet dream of conservatives and others, is not a pretty sight. Control of the currency by the state while inherently flawed and subject to issues is far safer than the roller coaster of crypto. It may not always be so but it likely is for the next several decades.

Delusional Utopianism in the form of Market Uber Alles is equally dangerous. The stupidity of Kevin McCarthy who, imo, lacks any moral/philosophical code or belief structure beyond wanting to be speaker, is far more dangerous than the boogeyman of The Debt. We know this because Republicans NEVER reduce the deficit or debt when a Republican is in the White House but scream bloody murder about it when it is a Democratic administration. The debt ceiling was raised three times without a peep when the Velveeta Vulgaerian held the White House. Republicans said not a word when Trump’s tax cuts incurred an enormous amount of the debt. The same applied with Bush2’s tax cuts. All we heard was Saint Ronald the Dim-Witted “proved” deficits don’t matter. Except they matter when Republicans want them to matter.

We have also been told that government should be “run like a business” by Republicans. Tell me what business deliberately destroys their sole or main revenue stream?

[gounion]

I already addressed cryptocurrency. It’s not legal tender. It’s not money. Like many things you believe in, just because it has currency in the name doesn’t make it money. Just because it has insurance in the name doesn’t make it insurance. Just because you name it the inflation reduction act, doesn’t make it so. It’s marketing and it’s effective on you.

You said yourself, you can’t just conjure up money. If money were fiction as you claim, you could conjure up as much as you want. After all, it’s fiction. But it’s not. If you don’t pay your bills, there will be very real consequences. You don’t have to have a college degree to understand that. Money is fiction is an attitude of an entitled teenager.

Cryptocurrency IS money, because people believe it's money.

Money is a fiction. Money isn't real. It was made up by people. It's not natural. Money started because people needed a medium of trade. It's all something that men made up and if enough people believed in it, it was real.

That's why nuts on your side are so much for the Gold Standard. They say any money that's not based on gold isn't real.

[gounion]

Hard to believe, but "money" has only existed for about 7000 years or so. If BTW we mean some type of physical object - a slip of paper, a metal coin, or a gigantic stone disc that represents value - then yeah.

Imagine taking this to the bank. But the Yap people of the Pacific used these as mediums of exchange -- Rai stones.

That stone disc, BTW, is about 8 feet tall and weighs more than a ton. Not exactly as portable as metal coinage. The thing is, at some point in the past, humans came to realize that it gets complicated exchanging goods and services (reciprocity and barter). OK, so how many cows and chickens is it worth it to you to get you to come thatch my hut? What if you want 2.5 cows and 5.7 chickens. Do I up that to 2.8 cows if it took more straw than I thought it would at first? So money was invented. We need a medium of exchange that goes beyond directly trading goods and services. Plus what if we want to store value, and you want to borrow my cow for a year. After a year, do you give me 1 1/2 cows in exchange for me lending it to you? This is why money was created.

There's no doubt it is entirely socially real. As socially real as race. And there is a reason I made that comparison. Both are inescapable social realities of human existence. If not always representing anything of physical value.

I am not an economist. I just happen to be related to one. I could go into long sermons on the separation between fiscal and monetary policy, BTW my brother once worked for the Federal Reserve, so he really got to see the secrets of the temple. Not really interested right now.

Oh yes, money is socially real. Like so many social realities, you can ignore it, but that won't make it go away. However, human beings managed to do without it for millions of years, too. Both things happen to be true.

Yep - it's SOCIALLY real, because people believe in it. That's how I can go buy a house and never exchanged one bill. It's all numbers in a computer now. That's also how billions can disappear overnight on the stock market.

The minute we stop believing in it, we're screwed. Keep clapping!

[ProfX]

I understand your point. My counterpoint is, race is not biologically or scientifically real, either. It's largely a fiction human beings impose on real phenotypic differences in skin color and facial features.

And I can keep saying "it's not real" till I'm blue to the face, and the local racially segregated bar can still keep a black person from using the front entrance, even though I know it's not real. That's how social reality works.

Laws which we obey are social realities too. After all, it's not the universe who says we should punish you for murder. It's other human beings.

And unfortunately, those laws also say we can use force to make sure you pay a debt. Unless you declare bankruptcy. How and when you can do that, well, heck, there's a whole 'nother subject.

[gounion]

I understand your point. My counterpoint is, race is not biologically or scientifically real, either. It's largely a fiction human beings impose on real phenotypic differences in skin color and facial features.

And I can keep saying "it's not real" till I'm blue to the face, and the local racially segregated bar can still keep a black person from using the front entrance, even though I know it's not real. That's how social reality works.

Laws which we obey are social realities too. After all, it's not the universe who says we should punish you for murder. It's other human beings.

And unfortunately, those laws also say we can use force to make sure you pay a debt. Unless you declare bankruptcy. How and when you can do that, well, heck, there's a whole 'nother subject.

Thanks, Prof, you're exactly right. It's all part of a social construct. We collectively believe in it, so it works. It's why rich people never have to work, and people can work from when they wake till they drop and still starve to death.

Joe hasn't explain how, if money is real, that a judge can make your debt disappear and tells the people who loaned you money can't ever get it back.

Again, it's a fiction, one that's required in society to make our economy run.

Of course, I'm clapping along with everyone else, because I like what the fiction of money brings us.

[Glennfs]

Thanks, Prof, you're exactly right. It's all part of a social construct. We collectively believe in it, so it works. It's why rich people never have to work, and people can work from when they wake till they drop and still starve to death.

Joe hasn't explain how, if money is real, that a judge can make your debt disappear and tells the people who loaned you money can't ever get it back.

Again, it's a fiction, one that's required in society to make our economy run.

Of course, I'm clapping along with everyone else, because I like what the fiction of money brings us.

Rich people don't have to work? That's odd most of the rich people I know worked 16 hour days to get there and still put in 60 hour work weeks.

As for money not being real I believe I once had that exact same conversation when I was 15 and smoking pot in a friend's garage

[ProfX]

This is still a usable currency.



Disney World issued them from 1982 to 2016. No one issues them any more. However, even in a Disney Store anywhere on the planet, as well as their resorts, cruise ships, etc. they are accepted as tender.

If you try and hand them to any other merchant anywhere, they will just think you're f'n Goofy.

Props to GoU, they almost always had an image of Tinkerbell on them.

But like it says on that Federal Reserve note, that's the only thing everybody in the U.S. has to accept. Our only universal tender. Whether they will take it in other countries - yeah, almost always, but check the exchange rate. They don't have to and in fact the only reason the dollar is accepted in so many countries is because, well, its power.

No, Bitcoin is not legal or universal tender. Does the merchant you're visiting accept it? Ask first, the answer is often no. It's basically Goofy bucks that way.

[gounion]

Rich people don't have to work? That's odd most of the rich people I know worked 16 hour days to get there and still put in 60 hour work weeks.

As for money not being real I believe I once had that exact same conversation when I was 15 and smoking pot in a friend's garage

You don't know any RICH people.

And most rich people were born that way. Only about a quarter were truly "self made".

I mean, you think Trump was so damned successful and self-made, but his dad was really rich, and her inherited most of it.

Again, money isn't a fiction. I guess it's best for our system that most people are like you, they don't know it.

[Glennfs]

You don't know any RICH people.

And most rich people were born that way. Only about a quarter were truly "self made".

I mean, you think Trump was so damned successful and self-made, but his dad was really rich, and her inherited most of it.

Again, money isn't a fiction. I guess it's best for our system that most people are like you, they don't know it.

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirem ... eir-wealth

I am thinking about starting a TV show liberal myth busters

[gounion]

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirem ... eir-wealth

I am thinking about starting a TV show liberal myth busters

You'll starve to death, Glenn.

And I saw you palm that card, Glenn. I'm sorry, but today "millionaires" aren't rich, they're just upper-class. Most Doctors are probably millionaires.

A net worth of a million dollars don't get you a seat in the rich man's club.

To be truly rich, there needs to be a lot of zeros added. As to the TRULY wealthy, here's the truth: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/persona ... self-made/

Let’s cut Mitt Romney some slack. Not every off-the-cuff comment he made at that now infamous, secretly taped $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in Boca Raton reveals an utterly shocking personal failing. Take, for instance, Mitt’s remark that he has “inherited nothing.”

A variety of commentators have jumped on Romney for that. They’ve pointed out that Mitt, the son of a wealthy CEO, has enjoyed plenty of privilege — everything from an elite private school education to a rolodex full of rich family friends he could tap to start up his business career. On top of that, the struggling young Mitt had $1 million worth of stock his father threw his way to tide him over until the big paydays started arriving.

Not quite “nothing.” But there’s no reason to pick on Mitt either. Most deep pockets, not just Mitt, consider themselves “self-made.” The best evidence of this predilection to claim “self-made” status? The annual September release of the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans.

Each year Forbes celebrates the billionaires who populate its 400 list as paragons of get-up-and-go. The latest list, according to Forbes itself, “instills confidence that the American dream is still very much alive.” Of America’s current 400 richest, says the magazine, 70 percent “made their fortunes entirely from scratch.”

Forbes made the same observation last year, too, and most news outlets took that claim at face value. But United for a Fair Economy did not. The Boston-based group’s analysts took the time to investigate the actual backgrounds of last year’s Forbes 400. They released their findings on the same day Forbes released the new 2012 list.

The basic conclusion from these findings: Forbes is spinning “a misleading tale of what it takes to become wealthy in America.” Most of the Forbes 400, like Mitt, have benefited from a level of privilege unknown to the vast majority of Americans.

As commentator Jim Hightower has colorfully put it, most of our super rich were born on third base and think they hit a triple.

United for a Fair Economy extends this baseball analogy in its new Forbes 400 analysis. UFE defines as “born in the batter’s box” those Forbes 400 rich who hail from poor to middle-class circumstances. Some had nothing growing up. Others had parents who ran small businesses.

About 95 percent of Americans, overall, currently live in these “batter’s box” situations. Just over a third, 35 percent, of the Forbes 400 come from these backgrounds.

Just over 3 percent of the Forbes 400, United for a Fair Economy found, have left no good paper trail on their economic backgrounds. Of the over 60 percent remaining, all grew up in substantial privilege.

Those “born on first base” — in upper-class families, with inheritances up to $1 million — make up 22 percent of the 400. On “second base,” from households wealthy enough to generate inheritances over $1 million, UFE found another 11.5 percent.

On “third base,” with inherited wealth of more than $50 million, sits 7 percent of America’s 400 richest. Last but not least, is the “born on home plate” crowd. These high-rollers, 21.25 percent of the total Forbes list, all inherited enough to “earn” their Forbes 400 status.

Forbes, the United for a Fair Economy researchers sum up, has glamorized the myth of the “self-made man” and minimized “the many other factors that enable wealth,” including tax breaks and other government policies that help the really rich get ever richer.

The narrative of wealth and achievement that Forbes is pushing, the new UFE study adds, “ignores the other side of the coin — namely, that the opportunity to build wealth is not equally or broadly shared in contemporary society.”

And many of those who do have that opportunity — like the mega millionaires in Boca Raton who applauded Mitt Romney’s bogus assertion that he “inherited nothing” — see absolutely no reason to turn that coin over.

[Toonces]

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/retirem ... eir-wealth

I am thinking about starting a TV show liberal myth busters

It doesn't seem the most objective source, though I won't suggest that it's entirely a lie but it could be misleading. I mean, their game is investing, isn't it? So it would make sense to minimize the avenues that don't use their core business.

For example, Jeff Bezos was middle to upper-middle class. He did not inherit his cash but his grandparents supported him during the early stages of Amazon, allowing him to quit his job and concentrate on the endeavor. Without them, he might not have been able to do what he did.

Opportunity plays a big role in becoming a millionaire. Lots of people put in hard work and long hours and never become a millionaire.

Of course, many people aren't interested in becoming a millionaire. Would I like to be a millionaire? Yes and no. I want enough money to be comfortable, if it's a million, if not that's good as well.

[gounion]

Fox News freaks out when inflation drops to 4%! https://www.rawstory.com/fox-news-freak ... two-years/

Way to go Joe! The Inflation Reduction Act worked - passed without one GOP vote.

[ZoWie]

The fed is raising rates because it's the only policy tool they have, and they'll be the first to admit that it's a very blunt one.

The inflation is due to many factors. If anything, Covid should have been deflationary. It was inflationary because it added to existing problems with short supplies due to too much offshoring.

What Covid mostly did here was reveal the inadequacy of our preparations for the inevitable, and you can blame both parties for that.

I don't know if TFG would have been elected without covert help from Russian oligarchs. That's still in the research stage and I don't have anything definitive to add to the question. It does seem as if some very effective and sophisticated information warfare tactics were used by foreign actors to help him in 2016, but I can't say for sure.

I don't know if Putin would have started the first major land war in Europe since WWII all on his own without an erroneous expectation that the US would view with alarm but not really do anything about it. My feeling was always that he thought he had the US wired, thanks to all his fat cat oligarch buddies here.

I'm not going to reduce an unfortunate confluence of negative trends to anything as stupid as babbling the Republican disinfo about Bidenflation.