The Fed

[heydaralon]

What if instead of taxing, they simply made govt twice as effective? So you get more bang for your buck? For instance, lets just make the teachers teach twice as good for the same pay and make the DMV go twice as fast with the line for the same amount. We could do it with the army too. The generals will have to win twice as much as they were before with the same defense budget. I think this could actually work. Have HUD give out twice as many houses to crackbaby families too which will save money because they will just have to do it with the budget they have now. We would be getting a better deal on our government. It would be like a BOGO sale except for services and means tested programs.

I really think this is the best option for many reasons. We need to acting like adults, and I expect the same from the folks in Washington!

[Fife]

[Martin Hash]

Guys, it's ALL ABOUT THE PENSIONS. The Market MUST increase by AT LEAST 5% per year, and the VI must stay within a 4% range. The Fed manipulates the Market to make that happen (not just the Fed, all Central Banks.)

Supposedly there's $24 trillion of retirement funds in the Stock Market, but even that only represents about half of what is owed to retirees. Retirement has become a Ponzi scheme where new workers are paying in, but it's not enough, and the $24 trillion needs to earn > 5% to make payments. Unfortunately, the Market doesn't have any supposedly low risk investments of that magnitude, except for the indexes. Therefore, the Market has to increase by at least 5% to keep people from freaking out, especially retired VOTING people. The Fed uses Open Market Operations to float Government Deficits, and like Central Banks around the world, it actually participates in the Market to maintain the Volatility Index within a certain range that gives retirees comfort. They do this by buying & selling the FAANG stocks which inordinately affect the VI.

Low Interest Rates allow companies to buy back their own stock, basically for free because nobody's on the hook for the almost free loans. This spikes the share price and increases the Market Indexes which pleases the shareholders, triggers huge bonuses for management and keeps retirees happy. The loans just keep getting rolled, and as long as they're almost interest free, it can go on forever... Until they're NOT interest free, then the company goes bankrupt, and the minority stockholders and bond holders lose everything.

[Fife]

TAKE THE VICTORY

[SuburbanFarmer]

TAKE THE VICTORY

Guess who wasn’t listening to his Econ advisors.

[Fife]

Here's a holiday discussion topic, for those of us who aren't miserable atheists:

[Fife]

Take it easy kids, "inflation" is imaginary. :goteam: :drunk:

[Montegriffo]

Here's a holiday discussion topic, for those of us who aren't miserable atheists:

How about happy atheists? Do they get to join in too?

[SuburbanFarmer]

Take it easy kids, "inflation" is imaginary. :goteam: :drunk:

Quality.

[Fife]

Fake Money didn't start with the Fed. The Fed and the income tax just made the dream of mass theft and crookery come true.

Distrust of Fake Money was a thing at the time of the Counter-Revolution of 1787.

The greed and theft related to Fake Money looks to even be the prime mover of the Counter-Revolution.

Thomas Paine attracts lots of admiration and criticism for many of his views. He was probably a little too commie at the end of the day, and he certainly took a rather low-info approach to Christianity and spirituality in general (for my taste).

One thing you can't really question is Paine's contempt for thieves and crooks like Hamilton.

Thomas Paine on Paper Money and Morality

The paper money that funded the American Revolution led to post-war grievances, the most well-known of which was Shays’s Rebellion in backcountry Massachusetts. For years after the war the Boston legislature imposed taxes, falling mainly on those least able to pay, for the full payment in specie of the highly-depreciated notes issued during the war and held mostly by well-to-do legislators and bankers. As a further aggravation, the war was fought mostly by those on whom the taxes fell, while the elites stayed home.
. . .

Today, people don’t know or care enough to protest government's fake money, but in early 1786 Thomas Paine was one of those who did. The author of Common Sense and The American Crisis essays, who as a soldier in the Continental army lifted the spirits of fellow soldiers and civilians alike with the opening words of his first essay, These are the times that try men’s souls, understood the theft that the Continental Congress had committed.

As part of his essay Dissertations on Government, etc., published in February, 1786, Paine included a scathing condemnation of paper money emphasizing “The pretense for paper money has been, that there was not a sufficiency of gold and silver. This, so far from being a reason for paper emissions, is a reason against them.”

In honor of his upcoming birthday on January 29 and the publication of Common Sense on January 10, 1776, I present Paine’s insightful essay on paper money.

. . .

The pretense for paper money has been, that there was not a sufficiency of gold and silver. This, so far from being a reason for paper emissions, is a reason against them.

As gold and silver are not the productions of North America, they are, therefore, articles of importation; and if we set up a paper manufactory of money it amounts, as far as it is able, to prevent the importation of hard money, or to send it out again as fast it comes in; and by following this practice we shall continually banish the specie, till we have none left, and be continually complaining of the grievance instead of remedying the cause.

That quoted part at the bottom by Paine rings pretty true, doesn't it? Read the whole thing.