Just for an “economics lesson”, watch an old “Let’s Make A Deal” on Game Show Network. Pick any episode. They’re all from the Sixities. Watch for the final prize giveaway. It’s usually a car. Guess the price?
A beautiful Buick LeSabre. Base price 3,000 dollars.
Different dollars!
It makes you laugh!
But, it should make us all cry.
Some store of value.
In 40 years, will people be looking back wistfully about what a dollar could buy!
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MONEY | Tagged: economic, economic freedom, Economics, Education, Inflation, Revolt | 
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Posted by reinkefj
http://www.garynorth.com/public/4879.cfm
The Emperor’s New Tools
Gary North
April 25, 2009
*** begin quote ***
Bernanke assured his listeners that the FED has lots of ways to deal with this threat — painless, politically acceptable ways, he implied.
We have a number of tools we can use to reduce bank reserves or increase short-term interest rates when that becomes necessary. First, many of our lending programs extend credit primarily on a short-term basis and thus could be wound down relatively quickly. In addition, since the lending rates in these programs are typically set above the rates that prevail in normal market conditions, borrower demand for these facilities should wane as conditions improve.
Translation: “The money we have created to bail out the financial system will return to the FED and be mopped up. It will not be lent out again.” The word “many” means “we aren’t saying how much, and we will not tell you if you ask.”
*** end quote ***
# – # – #
They have no tools. Only the ability to pull the wool over the sheep’s eyes using their own wool.
I don’t understand: (1) Why the Chinese will hold more dollars? (2) Who’s going to buy Obama’s trillion dollar deficits? (3) What’s going to become of those on fixed income when inflation takes off? (4) What’s going to happen to the American economy when foreigners what to get paid with real money for the stuff they are sending us?
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: FED, Inflation, Obama | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=59
The Fed and the Golden Fleece
By William Anderson
Published 04/22/09
*** begin quote ***
When I teach my economics classes about money, I pass around a $10 gold coin that is a replica of those that were in circulation around 1913, the year Congress created the Federal Reserve System. The coin is made from one-half of an ounce of gold, dating from the time when the dollar was based upon a standard of $20 an ounce.
If I were to value that coin today, according to current gold prices, it would sell for more than $400, which means that according to this way of measuring the value of money, the dollar is worth about 1/40 of what it was when the Fed came into being. Now, this is not necessarily the best or most accurate measure of the decline of the dollar, but it is good enough for the purposes of this article.
*** end quote ***
Regardless of how you calculate it or the timeframe you use, the dollar is NOT a store of value.
In my book Church (page 113), “Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.”
The dollar, after the 1913 creation of the Fed, was no longer a measure, standard, or store.
As a youth, reading the Count of Monte Cristo, I dreamt of someday finding a pirate’s treasure. (Hard to imagine anyone not dreaming to find that chest, win the lotto, or such.)
Imagine instead of a chest of gold, finding a chest of dollars. When they were put in, they were valuable. Now they’re worth a fraction.
I often remember my now deceased father-in-law carrying a fifty dollar bill in his wallet ever since he was a young man. He always said: “With that, I’m never poor!” Sad to say, that each year, the value that fifty represented was inflated away. Stolen by the govenrment!
Gold is the only defense.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Economics, Inflation, Moral Hazard | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.garynorth.com/public/4857.cfm
Why Gold Owners Are Targets of the Government
Gary North
*** end quote ***
At some point, the number of investors who figure out that they had better buy gold is going to go from less than 1% of the public to 5%. When that happens, the supply of gold will not increase, and the price of gold will skyrocket. If as many as 10% of the investing public tries to put 10% of their assets in gold, I suspect the price of gold would go to $10,000 an ounce. The gold market is so marginal in the overall commodities market that the attempted 10% of investors to increase their holdings of gold to 10% of their assets would make today’s holders of gold very rich and very happy. I think at some point this is going to happen, but I think it is going to happen in a time of price inflation so bad that the purchasing power of the currencies will decline so fast and so far that the fact that you can get rich in fiat money by selling your gold will not persuade you to sell your gold.
*** end quote ***
Like musical chairs, when the music stops, will you be left with worthless paper?
OH, I forgot, it can’t happen here!
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Leave a Comment » | GOLDBUG | Tagged: Economics, FED, Inflation | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.impactlab.com/2009/03/27/watching-the-income-tax-system-implode/
March 27th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Watching The Income Tax System Implode
*** begin quote ***
Change does not happen because everyone gets together first and decides a change is going to happen. Momentum will build quickly around a single event or thought leader. When the general public senses that the end is near, an overwhelming flood of support will rapidly hasten its demise.
*** end quote ***
I think it ends when the productive class decides to produce less. They pay less tax. And, the gooferment can’t find enough to tax.
The Chinese decide that 5T$ is too much. And, the world refuses to lend more to the American “banana republic government”.
The world decides that era of the American dollar as a reserve currency is over. And, the American Empire slides into the dustbin of history.
Tax revolt?
Even if we don’t have one here, the one overseas will be much worse.
See inflation is a tax on those foreigners holding dollars.
Gold anyone?
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Gooferment, Inflation, Tax Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/dinosaur-economists-and-their-paper-currency/
Dinosaur Economists and their Paper Currency
By The Mogambo Guru
*** begin quote ***
So the question is, “Is all that spending additive?” I mean, do you add 14% plus 7%? If so, then isn’t government spending 21% of Gross Domestic Product enough to kill the economy a dozen times over, which is what happens every other time in all of history when some brain-dead government of some idiotic country full of childishly-trusting morons allows their corrupt government to spend more than it takes in by creating as much fiat currency as it wants?
*** end quote ***
Amazing about the amount of “counterfeit money” the gooferment is going to push out.
Where does it end? Who winds up holding the bag? When does the “barbara streisand” hit the fan?
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Bailouts, Inflation, Moral Hazard | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhtTfK6Vuz8&feature=player_embedded
Worst Case: The Day The Dollar Falls Part 1/6
A 2005 Dutch film about TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) caused by a financial panic. All caused by big US deficits.
Interesting?
Maybe the fellow just had the year and President wrong.
Now we have Trillion Dollar Deficits for forever.
Scary!
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Leave a Comment » | INTERESTING | Tagged: Depression, Economics, Gooferment, Inflation, Obama, POTUS, sound money | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan108.html
Should We Kill the Fed?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
*** begin quote ***
Should not this creature from Jekyll Island, for all its manifold crimes and sins against the republic, also be summarily put to death?
*** end quote ***
The Federal Reserve Bank!
It’s neither ‘federal” since not even the US Congress can get its books audited.
It “reserves” nothing; it merely manipulates and prints.
And, it’s not a “bank”.
So what is it?
What is the creature from Jekyll Island?
(The name comes from the location of a secret collusion between bankers where the arrangement was hammered out.)
It’s a price fixing cartel a la OPEC for “american” banks.
As PJB alludes, Andrew Jackson must be rolling over in his grave, he killed one of it’s predecessors the “United States Bank”.
Of course, I agree that if we had commodity money, we would NOT have the artificial booms and busts that come with manipulating interest rates. Interest rates are the key indicator to business as to what projects are worth doing and what are not. AND, without a fiat currency, (where the Fed prints all the Congress can spend), the Congress would be restrained in its spending. AND, our poor and those on fixed income wouldn’t have to pay the brunt of the “inflation tax”.
Before leaving the Gold Standard in 1913 and before the FED embarked on manipulating us for the benefit of the rich and their banks, America was in decades of stable slightly declining prices. Money was a stable store of value.
(“Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store.” p116 in my novel “CHURCH 10●19●62”)
How does one plan in post WW1 Germany, Argentina in the 80’s, Zimbabwe today, or the USA in the next decade? Runaway inflation of the money supply and high interest rates are going to hurt everyone.
I have only heard one real objection and one minor objection to the Gold Standard.
Bob Brinker (bobbrinker dot com) had the minor objection that there would no ability for the government to supply stimulus to the economy with monetary policy. That’s is the problem, Bob; the politicians want inflation so they can spend to buy votes, reward their friends, and punish their enemies.
More substantially, Brinker objected to giving Congress the power to value money. He feared runaway inflation as the the COngress, as did the French Kings, inflate uncontrollably. That we agree on. Congress is like drunken sailors. Except their ship is always in.
Returning to the Gold Standard, where a dollar is defined as some amount of gold and / or silver, will impose discipline on the world.
How do we get there?
Let people be free to use whatever they want for money. The King, the government, the criminals in DC should just repeal the mandatory tender laws that force everyone to accept the dollar. The marketplace will quickly adjust.
And, Americans can get back to work.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Economics, Inflation, Morality | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/shostak7.html
Would Cleansing Banks’ Balance Sheets Kick-start the US Economy?
by Frank Shostak
*** begin quote ***
Again, note that what makes the lending possible here is not money but the saved consumer goods. Money just serves here as a facilitator. Or we can say that the act of lending here is about the transfer of final consumer goods from lender to a borrower with the help of money.
The essence of credit will not be altered by the introduction of banks. Instead of lending money directly, John could now engage in lending through the intermediary. (John transfers his money to the bank. The bank lends the money to a borrower.)
Real savings determines the size of credit. What people really want is real stuff, i.e., real savings and not money as such. Hence, as long as banks facilitate credit that is fully backed by real savings, they should be seen as the agents in the transmission of wealth.
*** end quote ***
(Disclaimer: I’m an injineer that got D’s in economics.)
This little morality play about savings misses three factors that I think are significant.
The theft of money by inflation. It in effect “steals” from every dollar holder and acts as a hidden tax.
The interest rate controlled by the central bank “taxes” savings both when the rate is too high and too low.
The baker and all who consume bread are forced to “save” by virtue of these taxes.
When money is debased, all economic calculations are done with a “broken calculator”.
IMHO!
As I said I’m just a dumb old injineer!
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Leave a Comment » | INTERESTING | Tagged: economic freedom, Economics, Gooferment, Inflation, Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy152.html
Defend the Gold Standard
by Bob Murphy
*** begin quote ***
I don’t trust central bankers to stick to a gold standard; that’s why I think the government should get out of the money industry altogether. Suppose we were starting in an initial state of pure laissez-faire in money and banking, and someone said, “Hey I know! Let’s give this Princeton professor – what was your name, sir, was it Ben? – a printing press, but be very stern that he can’t overdo it and allow the gold price to rise more than 1 percent from the day he starts. Does that sound like a good idea?” In response, I would obviously say, “No, that seems rather risky. I think we should stick to the current system, where the market determines how much new money is brought into the economy through gold production.”
*** end quote ***
We fall prey to these bozo bureaucrats when we let them mess with the money supply.
If we tie the value of a dollar to gold, then the Fed can’t just manufacture dollars out of thin air. And, congress critters can’t spend what they don’t take it.
It restores honesty to finances. It disciplines them into husbandry. It forces them to live with in OUR means.
After all in fiat currency, what is a dollar?
A toilet paper alternative?
Argh!
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Leave a Comment » | GOLDBUG | Tagged: Economics, Inflation, Morality, Tax Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52H2CY20090318
U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar
Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:16am EDT
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
*** begin quote ***
LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar.
*** end quote ***
The end of the US Dollar as the World’s reserve currency? That would be unbelievable. “Everyone” said that it could never happen! SO, what happens when it does? Are we on the road to being like Zimbabwe?
Why are we still funding the UN. We should ditch them!
Gold and silver — the Dead Old White Guys were right — The Palladium rounds (i.e., medallions — the Gooferment gets mad if you call them coins. But thy look like coins to me.) at about 300$/oz seem like a bargain. Rarer than Platinum at 1200$/oz.
But, plan for a Carter-like inflation; did you see Carter visited the Obama White House yesterday. Why? To get advice on how to print “Whip Inflation Now” buttons?
Will Obama on Leno distract everyone with how incredibly screwed we are? And what a good guy he is personally.
Humbly, I think he’s drowning us in the deep end of the pool while he tries to distract us. Ain’t gonna work. At least, I’m not distracted as to what this means to us low fixed income folks. I hope it’s not distracting the People or you.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Inflation, Obama, POTUS2008 | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5565&Itemid=48
The Money Meltdown: A Conversation with Thomas Woods Jr. by Brian Saint-Paul 3/11/09
*** begin quote ***
Q: We’ve had bailouts and stimulus packages, and possibly more of both in the near future. If you were to look into a crystal ball, where are we going to be in 20 years? Where is all of this heading? Will we reach a point of total economic collapse? Or will we wind up as the newest Euro-style state?
It seems to me that the best-case scenario is a kind of European third-way stagnation: high unemployment, anemic growth (if any), and a whole bunch of people scratching their heads and wondering why this is happening. That could be our fate.
Of course, it could be worse. It may turn into something like what Japan endured in the 1990s and beyond — though at least Japan had some domestic savings as a cushion. Or there could well be a complete collapse of the system, with the dollar destroyed. This is all conditional, because it depends in large part on what the government does. Its cure is almost sure to be worse than the disease.
I’d love to think that if a collapse came, people would say, “Obviously, intervention doesn’t work, so let’s try what the Austrians have been suggesting.” But I think instead a demagogue would rise up to say — as usual — that the problem is not enough government involvement, and that he’s going to rescue us.
That’s the most likely outcome.
*** and ***
Thomas E. Woods Jr. is senior fellow in American history at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author of nine books, including two New York Times bestsellers: The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History and the just-released Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, as well as the award-winning The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy. Visit his new Web site.
* end quote *
Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Bailout, Bailouts, Depression, Economics, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Morality, personal liberty | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff7.html
March 14, 2009
Credit Card Cancer
by Peter Schiff
Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author
*** begin quote ***
Lastly, savings can always be relied upon whereas credit is ephemeral. Remarks this week from the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao should serve notice to all Americans that the day will soon come when the Chinese stop lending us their umbrellas. When that happens, the average American will be soaked to the bone.
*** end quote ***
One does NOT have to have a crystal ball to see the future.
The Chinese will stop buying Treasury debt. Interest rates to will go thru the roof. And, the economy will slow further.
The only defense is to have ZERO bad debt. That is nothing but a fixed rate mortgage that is well below 15% of your annual income.
Maybe Dave Ramsey is right. ZERO debt is best?
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Economics, Inflation | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911_pf.html
Obama’s First Budget Seeks To Trim Deficit
Plan Would Cut War Spending, Increase Taxes on the Wealthy
By Lori Montgomery and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 22, 2009; A01
*** begin quote ***
President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.
*** end quote ***
Companies don’t pay taxes; people do. So raising the corporate tax is essentially a tax increase for everyone; poor included.
Rich folks have the ability to defer income and shit it and even “coast”. Watch how revenues “fail to appear”!
Stupidity!
Ignores the lessons of Kennedy and Regan.
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Leave a Comment » | ADMINISTRIVIA | Tagged: Corporate Tax, Depression, economic freedom, Economics, Gooferment, Income Tax, Inflation, Obama, Policy, POTUS, POTUS08, Presidential2008, Revolt, Tax, Tax Rates, Tax Revolt, Taxes | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Ron Paul rocks on Bill Mahr’s show!
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Leave a Comment » | Political, Ron Paul | Tagged: Bailout, Drug War, Economics, Inflation, Libertarian, Morality, Nonintervention, Peace, personal liberty, Problems, Ron Paul | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://news.goldseek.com/JamesTurk/1232989200.php
Restoring Sound Money in America
By: James Turk, Founder & Chairman of GoldMoney.com
— Posted Monday, 26 January 2009 | Digg This ArticleDigg It! | Source: GoldSeek.com
*** begin quote ***
There is a determined grassroots movement in the United States seeking the restoration of sound money. There are many different groups comprising this movement, but all share the same aim. It is to restore gold and silver to its rightful role as the money of the United States, as mandated by the Constitution.
I have written about this movement before. In “The Quest for Sound Money in New Hampshire” in May 2005 I discussed the bill, called the “New Hampshire Sound Money Bill”, that was drafted by Constitutional scholar and lawyer, Dr. Edwin Vieira. It was presented to the New Hampshire legislature, but sadly, remains pending in committee.
If enacted, the bill will enable people to use gold and silver in their transactions with the state of New Hampshire. An article by me discussing this bill, the aims of its several sponsors and some important background information on the monetary provisions of the Constitution can be found at the following link: http://www.goldmoneybill.org/turk.html
*** end quote ***
Sad to say, imho, not without a revolution.
When the people realize that gooferment is funded with inflation of fiat dollars, then they might wise up.
Saving in gold ounces is one option still open to the average bloke.
Buy one or more gold coins from a “paperless source” and bury it in your backyard.
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Leave a Comment » | GOLDBUG | Tagged: Gooferment, Inflation, Moral Hazard | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rajiva/rajiva12.html
Fiat Law and Fiat Currencies – the Relic of Barbarians
by Lila Rajiva
*** begin quote ***
The free market arose wherever there were laws and systems like that – whether in Europe or Africa or Asia. One way to think about this difference would be to see it as the difference between a fiat money, like paper, and a real store of value, like gold. You can print all the money you want, but if there’s nothing to back it up, then you’re in a bit of trouble. Your creditors are unlikely to put much store in you as a credit risk, just as the world’s wringing its hands today over the dollar. Pretty soon, they come calling for their loans with cudgels and pitchforks.
Gold does not have the same problem, because there’s a limited supply of it. It has to occur in nature. It has to be found somewhere underground and then mined and refined. It’s an expensive business – that takes risk, time, and money. There are costs attached to it that someone has to pay. Paper money, on the other hand, can be printed any time you want. Just ask Ben Bernanke. He’s dropping it by the helicopter load from the clouds.
*** end quote ***
They are “counterfeiting value” by printing more money electronically. It’s slight of hand. To understand, you have to understand the answer to the question: “What is a dollar?” and proceed from there.
The answer is it’s NOW an imaginary unit, backed by the belief that you can exchange a green peice of paper for something. A Keynesian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian) will never talk about what the definition of money is. An Austrian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School) will insist that the pricing mechanism in the economy have commodity money. It USED to be tied to gold.
Sadly, as an Austrian, I think you are in for hard times. O is going to “finance” 2T$ in current spending. By monetizing it. A fancy word for counterfeiting. And, the value of the dollar is going down even further.
To understand, you have to go to Robinson Crusoe’s island, that economist’s use to simplify ideas. A fisherman, egg gatherer, and a fruit gatherer are on the island. (Magic; don’t ask questions yet!) They barter between themselves. After a while, 1 fish = 2 eggs = 4 coconuts. Due to the relative difficulty of effort. But the fisherman and fruit gatherer don’t deal directly. The egg gather is the middle man. Then a banker arrives. He creates money so that the Fisherman can deal directly with the Egg guy. He uses seashells. Then the value equation is 1 fish = 2 eggs = 4 coconuts = 8 seashells. The evil banker after a while introduces more seashells into circulation by spending them. So he get more stuff. Similarly through out the ages, the King (Government) seeks to enrich itself that way. When the currency is gold coins, it’s much harder. (I first learned this when I saw an exhibit at the Smithsonian of French Francs over time. The French Franc of Louis I was a gold hockey puck; Louis XIV’s was a very thin button. Inflation!) When the currency is pretty green pieces of paper, it’s much easier.
So there you have how O44 is goign to spend 2T$ that we don’t have.
Basically, it’s a “tax” on anyone who has a dollar or dollar denominated assets. By adding a “seashell”, the value of all the other seashells is adulterated. Watered down.
So who get’s screwed?
The Chinese have 5T$. There’s a lot of dollars out there. The poor and people on fixed incomes (i.e., the purchasing power of their few dollars goes down) get less for their money.
Who makes out?
The US Government mostly. People who have “valuable stuff”. Commodities, commodity producers, land owners, people who produce stuff that others want.
So that’s how O will spend what he ain’t got.
He’s betting that before the inflation comes, the economy will “restart” and we won’t notice. (Think LBJ and Carter!) It worked for Kennedy because he lowered taxes on the productive class and everyone was motivated to get to work. His quote was: “A rising tide raise all boats!”
Sadly, I don’t see O or his staff being that smart.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Economics, Foreign Exchange, FRAUD, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Obama, POTUS, POTUS08, Presidential2008, Problems | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Years @ 5.0%
1 $0.952381
2 $0.907029
3 $0.863838
4 $0.822702
5 $0.783526
6 $0.746215
7 $0.710681
8 $0.676839
9 $0.644609
10 $0.613913
11 $0.584679
12 $0.556837
13 $0.530321
14 $0.505068
15 $0.481017
16 $0.458112
17 $0.436297
18 $0.415521
19 $0.395734
20 $0.376889
21 $0.358942
22 $0.341850
23 $0.325571
24 $0.310068
25 $0.295303
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Inflation | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/stewart9.html
The Crisis in 10 Points
by Robert Stewart
*** begin quote ***
2. The Federal Reserve System (the Fed – created in 1913) has accommodated government’s policy of spending to excess by inflating the money supply and keeping interest rates artificially low. Today’s dollar will buy what in 1913 would cost less than a nickel. This easy-money policy has not only led to inflation but has resulted in investments taking place that would not be justified had the money supply been constrained, and had interest rates more clearly reflected economic reality.
*** end quote ***
IMHO, this is the root of so many evils since 1913. Even the “income tax” wasn’t as bad as this. The FED allows the political class to extract value from the poor and middle class without the “bother” of taxes. It’s the hidden silent tax. And, it extracts more “wealth” than even the “death tax”.
I can’t believe that people are so stupid!
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: FED, FRAUD, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Problems | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi101.html
What Is the National Debt?
by Bill Sardi
*** begin quote ***
The national debt is owed to many, including foreign governments, investment groups, and so on. But one thing I don’t understand is that the national debt is said to amount to $10.6 trillion before the federal government apparently came up with hundreds of billions to trillions more out of thin air in the recent bailouts. They didn’t loan this bailout money from anybody. Where did it come from? It appears to be fiat money, printed into existence. Does this pretend-money then get added to the national debt? Do we pay interest (taxes) on this imaginary money? Don’t know, and don’t know anybody who can answer this question. It’s all part of the secrecy of government.
*** end quote ***
A National disgrace. A National crime. A National millstone around the neck of our children.
Quick like a bunny, tactically, the gooferment should sell 30, 40, and 50 years bonds. With a sinking fund to pay them off!
Eventually this is one big chicken coming home to roost.
It’ll make the Cater inflation look good!
Gold anyone?
Buried in your back yard!
Don’t forget FDR’s gold grab. And, remember the congresscritters are eyeing your 401Ks!
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Inflation | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/huff/huff24.html
*** begin quote ***
You might also ask your US Representative to co-sponsor the Bill to Abolish the Fed. So far Ron Paul’s Bill has no co-sponsor. What does that tell us?
*** end quote ***
[JR: That politicians are happy with the blank check that the current system provides them? ]
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-2755
*** begin quote ***
Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act – Abolishes the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and each Federal reserve bank.
Repeals the Federal Reserve Act.
This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate. The majority of bills never make it out of committee.
*** end quote ***
Arhhh!
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY, Ron Paul | Tagged: DOWNSIZING, Economics, Education, FED, Foreign Exchange, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Morality, Revolt, Ron Paul, Tax Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/austrian-econ-more-than-ever.html
Why Austrian Economics Matters More Than Ever
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
*** begin quote ***
Abolishing the Fed would put a huge brake on the planning state. Without the ability to expand the money supply at will, the federal government would become about as threatening as state or local government. That is to say, the federal government would still be an intolerable imposition on life, liberty, and property. But we wouldn’t be worrying about hyperinflation, large scale bubbles in specific sectors, crazy business cycles, trillion-dollar bailouts, controls that reach into every nook and cranny of our lives, a cradle to grave welfare state, or a global empire that invades any and every country at will, and makes America the enemy to whole regions of the world.
That’s only the beginning of what the end of the Fed would mean. It would dramatically change the political culture in this country. Bureaucracies would tumble. Trade would stabilize. The investment-risk calculus would accord with the free market. The left could no longer live out its pipe dreams of socialist utopia at our expense. The right would have to give up its wacky notion of a world police state. The power ambitions of whole sectors of society would be scaled back.
The state is always and everywhere a danger, even when it has no monopoly on money and no printing press that can create money tickets at will. But a state with the ability to make its own money is a grave and relentless threat to prosperity and freedom. It leaves the future entirely to the discretion of the money managers. Every day we live under the threat that the US could be the next Weimar Republic or even another Zimbabwe. All that stands between us and that day is the wisdom and prudence of the Fed.
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There was a fundamental shift in America that was done without the People even being aware of the terrible path they were being taken down.
With the financial meltdown (i.e., criminal collusion between Congress and Wall Street), it seems like an appropriate time to put the Fed out of business.
It’s un-American!
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: Bailout, Bailouts, FED, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Morality, Tax Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lifetrekcoaching.com/current/
PROVISION #589 (11/02/08): ELECTION ENERGY
>You’re also participating in that great movement called democracy. The opposite of democratic
>is not republican; the opposite of democratic is aristocratic. “Democratic” means rule of the
> people, the “demos” in Greek, while “aristocratic” means rule of the best, the “aristos”.
You have got to be kidding. This is a joke. Right? You can’t be serious. This is what the Founding Fathers feared most; the inflamed passions of the mob.
Sorry, given today’s education system, which is right out of the Socialist Horace Mann’s playbook, we have functionally illiterate people picking based on TV. I’ve got more respect for “Dancing with the Stars” election process than I do “the gooferment’s one”. (Have you seen the mechanics of voting?) Mann wanted an education system to create good factory workers and soldiers for the army. People who were easily lead by the elite.
See any elite in this election?
I sure do!
Sarah is the only wild card in the deck. And, at least she has some demonstrated executive ability. She is probably the most qualified of all of them. At least she hasn’t been in Washington DC at all.
No, this isn’t about an Athenian democracy. Or Plato’s “Republic”. This is about “manipulation”. Yes, you did see raw intelligent passion as folks came out for Ron Paul. There was a TRUE choice. A completely different path! Hopeless; throwing themselves against the entrenched elites of the Republican Party. Mao said “All power comes from the end of a gun”. He was dead on.
We have an American because some Dead Old White Guys stood up to the entrached power elite and said “hell, no!” and were willing to die for their liberty. We’ve seen from time to time that fighting spirit come out — the Second American Revolution aka the War of Norther Aggression aka the Civil War (there’s a misnomer).
The elite allows “elections” on the hope that the sheeple will carry on the illusion of “their government”. In fact, it is a fraud. Your friend was absolutely right there’s no difference between the two “parties”. In the election that you abhor the Supreme Court deciding, there was only two choices the Harvard guy with the blue tie and the Harvard guy with the red tie. They are so much alike I can even remember who wore what!
No, the whole thing is a farce! Except at the end of it, the gooferment kills. It kills with its diversion of our attention to REAL problems. To the real loss of liberty here at home and abroad. Eventually, the chickens do come home to roost.
At some point in time, the oppressed decide that they are tired of “the shit end of the stick”. They look at their lot in life and make a decision to say “enuf”! If we are lucky, it’s relatively peaceful like Ghandi, the Polish Soladarity, or the Russian Communism collapse. If we are not, it’s bloody like the French Revolution, Mao taking China Communicst, North Korea, Nazi Germany.
I fear we are merely traveling the road that ends in disaster. Election, or not. When you have Socialism, whether it be from a Democrat or a Republican, that takes an ever increasing percentage of wealth and earnings, while one’s accumulated wealth is inflated away, you have the focus point of revolution. At some point, even American’s will say “enuf”?
Can’t tell you at what point exactly that is. When the taxes so much, that survival is in doubt? When a life’s savings are stolen? When the insame gooferment diktats about drugs have half the people in prison? When the unemployment is 50%? When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency and we have a Zimbabwe inflation? When Hispanics become the dominent race here in America? If Obama loses and half the people think the other half are racists? If McCain loses and half the people think the other half are Marxist Communist Socialists?
Eventually, all gooferments get around to killing their citizens. Like the JPFO says: “Frist comes disarmament; then genocide.” We will have a “vote” then. I pray it’s Ghandi-like. But, I’m not so sure of that. I do know that “cold dead hands” will decide the issue eventually. Not ballots.
Peace,
fjohn
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Leave a Comment » | Political, Ron Paul | Tagged: Inflation, McCain, Moral Hazard, Obama, POTUS08, Presidential2008, Revolt, Ron Paul, Tax Revolt | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2008/10/use-public-works-to-put-public-to-work.html
Friday, October 17, 2008
Use public works to put the public to work
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Anyone who thinks we can balance the federal budget and dig ourselves out of the financial quagmire is just fooling themselves. We can’t, and Paul Krugman explains why today:
{Extraneous Deleted}
On the other hand, there’s a lot the federal government can do for the economy. It can provide extended benefits to the unemployed, which will both help distressed families cope and put money in the hands of people likely to spend it. It can provide emergency aid to state and local governments, so that they aren’t forced into steep spending cuts that both degrade public services and destroy jobs. It can buy up mortgages (but not at face value, as John McCain has proposed) and restructure the terms to help families stay in their homes.
And this is also a good time to engage in some serious infrastructure spending, which the country badly needs in any case. The usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that they take too long: by the time you get around to repairing that bridge and upgrading that rail line, the slump is over and the stimulus isn’t needed. Well, that argument has no force now, since the chances that this slump will be over anytime soon are virtually nil. So let’s get those projects rolling.
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Amen.
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Posted by Hank Kalet at 5:38 PM
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fjohn said…
Can’t you see the utter absurdity of the gooferment printing more money to spend on make work projects? They are counterfeiters! See that’s why they want you confused about what is money. (And have done a superb job of dumbing down the entire population!)
Forget the “dollar”. It’s meaningless. It’s not a store of value, unit of account, or useful intermediary.
Lets pretend that a gallon of gas is a unit of money. How can the gooferment just print gallons of gass? It can certainly print more receits for gallons of gas, but someone is going to get screwed when they can’t redeem their receit for the gallon it represents.
So too, regardless of what you think a dollar represents, somebody in this “printing press” money gets screwed.
Let’s have a guessing game?
Senior citizens on fixed income as prices rise! Very good.
Anyone who holds an “old dollar” as the new ones get printed. Excellent!
Any one who has to buy something. You get the prize!
Who wins? (If there are losers, there has to be winners!)
Politicians who get to spend these counterfiet dollars first.
Unions, especially gooferment ones, who have contracts tied to the minimum wage or inflation escaators.
Those who hold commodities and land. (The gooferment can’t print more of those.)
So, now maybe, just maybe, you will see this as the fraud, the theft, the cheating of the poor, that it really is.
How fortunate we have the gooferment to save us all.
{Shaking my head in disbelief. How can smart people be soooo blind!}
Sheeple!
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: Bailout, Depression, Economics, Gooferment, Gouging, Inflation | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.impactlab.com/2008/10/11/studying-japans-dark-years-to-see-how-the-us-might-fare/
October 11th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Studying Japan’s Dark Years to See How the U.S. Might Fare
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Japan in the 1990s saw billions of dollars worth of wealth disappear. A generation of “parasite singles” grew up, living with their parents well into their 30s. The suicide rate spiked, and university graduates spent years in part-time jobs. Japanese entrepreneurs had no or limited access to capital, stymieing innovation. Yet the standard of living for the average Japanese did not dramatically change — the pain of the crisis unfolded over many years and the government refrained from dire pronouncements.
Unemployment would peak at only 5.5 percent, an enviable rate for much of the world in good times. Deflation — or price declines as gloomy consumers and skeptical businesses put off purchasing — sickened the economy. Yet leading experts now agree its impact was not as severe as originally thought.
Japan saw repeated years of low or negative growth, but the final tally was something short of a decade-long recession — with the 10 years leading up to 2000 averaging out at almost 1 percent growth. Companies like Toyota would prosper in adverse times, forced to sharpen their competitive edge. Emerging in the 2000s as the leader in hybrid cars, Toyota found itself on stronger footing than its U.S. counterparts.
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Well, our politicians are dumber than the average bear in the woods. So what is our five or ten year forecast?
On the plus side, they can’t hide the distress. Unlike the Japanese did.
On the minus side, the Japanese people are savers; we aren’t. (As a nation. Not me personally. Now that I’m in the retirement red zone, I’m trying to make up for lost time and all my relatives will have to fend for themselves. Unless one of my books goes platinum, they would be kept in the style that they’d like to become accustomed to! And Frau Reinke could make a frugal squirrel look like a spendthrift.)
On the minus side, more than half of the people work for the gooferment. That’s not a model that can sustain itself. Especially, if the gooferment raises taxes and “producers” decide to chuck it all and go on the dole.
Inflation is unavoidable. Where do they get all these billions they are printing? Certainly not from savings. “Re capital ization”, my tush. Capital only comes from savings. You know Robinson Crusoe forgoes eating a fish so he can eat while he makes a fish net. Savings. Real savings.
Unfortunately, the sheeple are going to get a real “eddykation in ecckkyynomicks”. It’s called the dismal science for a reason. It’s dismal. There are NO silver bullets in real life. You can’t have it all. And, no amount of printing press money is going to make it so.
Forecast: Runaway inflation. More gooferment spending. More pain in the country at below the Teddie Kennedy level. (Don’t you love how rich politicians — redundant repetition of terms –have the audacity to say “i feel your pain”!) Fixed income folk takes the brunt.
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Leave a Comment » | GLOBAL | Tagged: Bailouts, Depression, Economics, Inflation, Moral Hazard, Problems, Recession | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sennholz/sennholz19.html
Hyperinflation in Germany, 1914–1923 by Hans F. Sennholz
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How stupendous! Practically every economic good and service was costing trillions of marks. The American dollar was quoted at 4.2 trillion marks, the American penny at 42 billion marks. How could a European nation that prided itself on its high levels of education and scholarly knowledge suffer such a thorough destruction of its money? Who would inflict on a great nation such evil which had ominous economic, social, and political ramifications not only for Germany but for the whole world? Was it the victors of World War I who, in diabolical revenge, devastated the vanquished country through ruinous financial manipulation and plunder? Every mark was printed by Germans and issued by a central bank that was governed by Germans under a government that was purely German. It was German political parties, such as the Socialists, the Catholic Centre Party, and the Democrats, forming various coalition governments, that were solely responsible for the policies they conducted. Of course, admission of responsibility for any calamity cannot be expected from any political party.
*** end quote ***
If you ever talked to someone who lived thru that era, you could see fear on their faces. Only stuff was valuable. I remember being told by an old lady: “Each day at lunch time, I would go to Papa’s law office and take the money he collected for services and go buy something immediately. Anything. Didn’t matter what. Things had value; money did not. Papa would do the smae at night when he left the office.” I never forgot that conversation.
I had a fantasy as a child. I bet all kids do. At least kids who want more of what they can’t have. “What if all monopoly money was real?” I’m sure my Mom thought it was very funny
Then as the nerdy bookworm I was, I was on a quest to learn about money. Digesting a few good “iicky nom icks” books — can they be any more boring? — I was a diligent researcher in those days.
I read about the six characteristics of money — medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account, divisible, fungible, and measurable. Learned about how difficulty in barter lead to money. I could differentiate between Commodity, Representative, Credit, and Fiat money. I could define liquidity, velocity, demand curves, and even derivatives. But my young mind blundered on a realization.
It was all monopoly money!
Yes, dear reader, we’ve been defrauded by our own gooferment. Today’s dollar is not the dollar of our parents or grandparents. And, it won’t be the dollar of our posterity.
Fasten your seat belts. The 25% Carter inflation will seem tame after the politicians get finished screwing us.
The only funny thing is that, while every holder of a dollar today is going to be screwed, the biggest holders of dollars is the Chinese Communists. INflation is going to ravage their 5 Trillion Dollars.
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Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: Gooferment, Inflation | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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FJohn Reinke
Consultant at Technology Legacies LLC
Advisor, Computer Governance Committee at Manhattan College
Editor / Publisher at Jasper Jottings
Greater New York City Area
JJ Positraction JJ Endnotes Downsize DC
Philosophy of Liberty
I have NOT received any gagged governmental information requests
Reinke Faces Life 
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