Let's be objective about "shit-hole" countries, shall we? No nation on this planet has more phucking debt than the USA; it makes the USA ... the most disgraceful, shit-hole country on the planet throughout mankind's known history.
Let's be objective about "shit-hole" countries, shall we? No nation on this planet has more phucking debt than the USA; it makes the USA ... the most disgraceful, shit-hole country on the planet throughout mankind's known history.
This merely demonstrates how dumb you are.
We have made ourselves the indispensable country that is Too Big To Fail. At least, during the present balance of power within the international community and competing economies. We maintain trade routes and safe sea lanes. We make world commerce possible. We are its biggest markets. We have keystone economic and diplomatic relations with every major country. And we have few rivals of any significance. We are the world's only real military superpower. We are the biggest energy producers in the world. The list is quite long.
In short, we are the Indispensable Country on planet Earth. I never like the claims of American exceptionalism as such talk always smacks a bit of the old manifest destiny doctrine.
We are pretty determined and pretty well-positioned to maintain our position as the Indispensable Country. And we're better at it than the British Empire ever was. They made a lot of mistakes.
We are, as we have always been, eager to diminish debt through inflation, primarily to benefit businesses large and small but also generally to the benefit of homeowners and those with considerable consumer debt.
So, don't worry quite so much about American debt.
America's run as the dominant world empire will continue for decades, perhaps even a century more. In the end, it is more likely that we will simply tire of empire rather than any other country taking the central role from us. I could imagine America retreating somewhat from the world around 2040-2050 and China becoming a dominant world empire to take up the slack. I don't really see Russia having the capacity to overcome its internal problems, let alone become a true global power again.
Anyway, I enjoyed PJW's little rant. He was having some fun dishing it out, especially on the Xlinton's robbery of Haiti. They really do hate the Xlintons down there.
Don't toot your all-mighty dollar to me, that makes America GREAT. It is collapsing world-wide.
In your dreams.
Always remember: we don't have to be all that good. We just have to be better than any likely coalition of our rivals. By that measure, America is very strong.
But you have to ask yourself, "why?" Why do otherwise rational people invest thousands upon thousands of dollars in crypto-currencies? I think the answer is staring us in the face: the US dollar is about to tank, particularly because the US federal debt continues to rise unsustainably while China rises with economic wealth already transferred into their coffers.
All around the world, there just isn't much faith in the good ol' USA anymore.
US federal debt continues to rise unsustainably while China rises with economic wealth already transferred into their coffers.
China has huge amounts of US treasuries and currency in its coffers. They send us stuff. We send them dollars that we print. If the dollar goes up, we have the stuff, they have worthless paper, and they have nowhere to sell their stuff. We go, they go. The reverse is not true.
US federal debt continues to rise unsustainably -------
China has huge amounts of US treasuries and currency in its coffers. They send us stuff. We send them dollars that we print. If the dollar goes up, we have the stuff, they have worthless paper, ----
;The question remains, -- how long can the US federal debt continue to rise unsustainably?
How long can we continue to print paper money without the rise of hyperinflation?
;The question remains, -- how long can the US federal debt continue to rise unsustainably?
How long can we continue to print paper money without the rise of hyperinflation?
The question that has to be answered to answer those questions is: "What is sustainable?"
The current deficit is probably sustainable on a permanent basis.
We start to get into dishonest rhetoric when we speak about these things, akin to the liars who claim that "50% of the people pay no taxes", pretending that the only taxes are the federal income tax. That is so far from the truth as to damage the integrity of the person asserting it.
There are not all that many people who really want to have an objective conversation about economics. Those who do, recognize that running a deficit, even forever, is not a dire thing if that deficit is within certain parameters.
The question remains, -- how long can the US federal debt continue to rise unsustainably? ----- How long can we continue to print paper money without the rise of hyperinflation?
The question is ---- "What is sustainable?" ---- The current deficit is probably sustainable on a permanent basis.
---- running a deficit, even forever, is not a dire thing if that deficit is within certain parameters.
We can control inflation by avoiding a rise in our deficit beyond current averages?
Sounds good, but put me down as having little faith..
Vicomte13 claimed that we can control inflation by avoiding a rise in our deficit beyond current averages..
--- Put me down as having little faith.. --- Because even through your theory sounds good, the USA cannot control the opinions other nations/people have of the soundness of our financial system.. -- And fiat paper money is nothing but an unsupported promise to pay..
I'll keep my faith in gold, (or any other PToPay backed by portable collateral). .. ---- tpaine
--- The prospect presented, against which I reacted strongly, was the silly notion that owning gold is going to protect you against the apocalyptic meltdown of the United States.
Even in a total meltdown, gold, silver, gems, guns, ammo, etc --- would remain valuable to the holder..
Land is only valuable to those who can hold it through the use of one type of force, -- or another... Many other people must agree with you that you 'own' it, before you actually use it, --- and that 'ownership' can change in a political instant...
Even in a total meltdown, gold, silver, gems, guns, ammo, etc --- would remain valuable to the holder...
Guns and ammo, yes.
Gems, silver, gold? Only if somebody else thinks they're valuable. You can't eat them, warm yourself with them, wear them. Granted, crows like shiny things too, but that only goes so far.
The only value of pieces of metal and stone beyond "Ooooo, shiny!" are as media of exchange to buy other things.
Here are some prices, of various staples from a camp in California during the Gold Rush. Compare them to prices today.
Before we look at those numbers, let's pull back and look at some other data. For comparison, federal statistics give us the low, high and average daily wages of workers in six different parts of America - Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania in 1849. They ranged from a low of $0.63 cents a day in New York to a high of $1.25 a day, also in New York. The average across those six states was $0.92 per day. So, Americans back then were earning on average a bit under a dollar a day. By 1900, this average had risen in America to $1.34, demonstrating the virtue of gold and silver currency at maintaining wage stability over long periods. The median daily wage (over a seven-day week) of American workers in the third quarter of 2017 is $122 per day.
So now, let's look at those prices from gold mining camps in California in 1849-1850, where the miners - like refugees from a modern apocalypse - had bags of gold in their pockets but needed goods and supplies.
In a country where people were earning 92 cents per day, these gold-rich hombres were paying, in US dollars or in gold, the prices below. (In 1849, the price of gold was $40.50, today it's $1336.)
a can of Sardines: $16 (.4 oz gold) a pound of beans: $10 (a quarter-ounce of gold) a pound of coffee: $40 (an ounce of gold - $1336 today) a bottle of juice: $8 a pound of sausage: $6 a dozen eggs: $3 8 ounces of cheese: $3 a jar of pickles: $1.60 bread: $2 per loaf (1/20th of an ounce of gold - the equivalent of $66 today). Boots: $100 a pair Underwear: $15 a pair
Money is what money does. When people are living primitively and they have gold, two eggs, eight ounces of sausage and a piece of toast cost them the modern-day equivalent of $115.76. They paid that in gold.
You can't eat gold. If the bubble goes up and you have gold but you don't have chickens, cows, picks or crops in the field, you're going to have to fork over your gold to pay for those commodities, and you're going to have to pay at least what the gold rush folks had to pay - and they were paying it under organized conditions in 1849.
True, you can always just steal the food. But it's also true that anybody can steal your gold.
And once folks know you have gold and silver and gems, because you spend it to eat, ilico presto, men with guns will show up and try to take it from you.
The only protection you will ultimately have is the same that men have always had: by banding together with other men for mutual defense...and then, guess what? Rules. And the need to pay other men for what they do to defend you. Etc.
Armies did not historically show up to defend farmers. Rather, farmers created armies, of themselves, to defend against people showing up against whom they had to defend themselves.
Those guys at Goldline and Swiss America must really be fools, selling all of the good gold and silver they can get their hands on in order to get ahold of those worthless, inflating, pieces of paper fiat currency. Any SANE gold miner would just pile up that gold in his own basement and not sell it for useless fiat money. The apocalypse is coming any day now...along with the armies of men to take that gold. So, they're going to need that gold to pay all of the men they're going to need to guard that gold!
The more general point: if the balloon goes up, government is no longer your worry. If you're hoarding gold to escape the eyes of government, you're relying on the system of law and order maintained by the government to keep things safe enough for you to hoard gold.
If the government is gone, the threat becomes other men coming and taking what you have, and that threat will be more real, and more constant, than government ever was.
