http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/07/04/independence-day-3/
From a discussion with a befuddled fool who’s had the wool pulled over his eyes.title
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Author: Ace Duggery
Comment:
You’re a moron. First of all, I had to debate whether or not to even respond to a posting with dozens of grammatical errors. Obviously you’re a very smart person, your command of the written English language shows that. NO matter what you use as a currency, whether it’s a commodity or a piece of paper, somebody will have to control the issuance of such currency. Unless you want a barter economy, do you know what that is reinkefj?, you will never get true value from an exchange and there will constantly be a change in value of whatever you use for currency. If we used gold or silver, or even a note that is backed by such commodities, like the United States used to do, we would have to constantly revalue how much our currency is worth per oz. of these commodities. Do your research, this has happened several times over the course of history. And the reason we stopped using volatile commodities as a peg for our currency is that the prices of gold and silver fluctuated so much that we had to frequently change
Oh…and the dollar has not depreciated 95% since 1970. That is a blatant lie, did you make that number up?
I understand your points, and I even agree with you to the effect that the government, “gooferment”, whatever you want to call it, is, at times, corrupt. This is no perfect society, get over it. No such place exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist. There will always be shortcomings. I am not advocating that we completely ignore these problems, but let’s at least come up with a better idea than commodity backed currency. And seriously what the hell was Ron Paul talking about in the last debate? 9/11 happened because we were bombing Iraq and the middle east? Are you trying to say we “deserved” 9/11 because we were over there fighting against countries in the Middle East?
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Here’s my response:
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>somebody will have to control the issuance of such currency.
No, why can’t we have a free market in currencies as we did before the legal tender laws were passed mandating that everyone had to accept these phony unconstitutional federal reserve notes.
>And the reason we stopped using volatile commodities as a peg for our currency is that the prices of gold and >silver fluctuated so much that we had to frequently change how much the paper backing was worth to the metals.
No, the reason FDR took us off the gold standard was so that he could spend as much as he wanted on welfare and warfare. And the people were to dumb to see the con.
>The dollar has not depreciated 95% since 1970. That is a blatant lie, did you make that number up?
No even the Federal Reserve will admit that the dollar has depreciated.
http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/econrev/98-3/3-16.pdf
between 61 & 97 2.39% per year average by the Fed’s own numbers. The math is a little tortured to minimize the impact.
However, other credible sources
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/CPIAUCSL.txt
1970-01-01 37.900
2001-01-01 175.600
CPI 175 from 37 looks a lot more than 95%
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Inflation_Rate_Calculator.asp#results
435.49%
And no one seems to dispute the impact.
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.cfm?lesson=EM168
Costs of Inflation
4. Inflation does reduce the purchasing power of money.
5. Inflation does redistribute income. On average, individuals’ incomes do increase as inflation increases. However, some peoples’ wages go up faster than inflation. Other wages are slower to adjust. People on fixed incomes such as pensions or whose salaries are slow to adjust are negatively affected by unexpected inflation.
>You’re a moron.
You’re right “Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it beautiful and annoys the pig.”
One can’t reason with a “true believer”. If you wish to believe that everything in money is just peach keen, then do so in peace. But, let’s not kid around with the what is the single biggest crime of the gooferment messing with the money. It’s what brings down civilizations (i.e., Romans; Germans; English) and our turn is coming. Quickly.
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Which made me think of an interesting comparison.
If the CPI was 38 in 1970 and 176 in 2001, that’s a 463% increase.
If the S&P500 was 85 and 1394, that’s 1643% increase.
If the DJ was 619 and 11501, that’s 1857%.
So the markets have out performed inflation.
Using my real estate as a proxy, 55 to 350 47 to 335 40 to 350. That’s about 142 to 1035. Or, 728%.
Those are the good things.
Purchasing power has declined. SO a “depreciation factor” would make all these “paper gains” what?
$4559.73 in the year 2001 has the same “purchase power” as $1000 in the year 1970. www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/result.php
So that’s about 79%!
But, it I think it understates it. For example, I’m paying property taxes on an inflated value. I’m paying capital gains taxes on an inflated value. And, the various taxes are all based on a percentage of inflated value.
Exponential Arghs!
One thing is for sure. You don’t want to be holding cash. Ever!
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