Impossible! The deficit is falling as well as unemployment Obama wrecking economy

Mr Neutron

Well-Known Member
You realize you're just repeating a myth, right? The government's headline CPI number includes everything--including food and energy prices. This headline CPI is used to calculate cost of living adjustments.

You're referring to core CPI, which isn't used to calculate anything. The Fed doesn't use core CPI in making policy either, so I'm not sure what you want me to tell them.
"The preferred measure by the Federal Reserve of core inflation in the United States is the change in the core Personal consumption expenditures price index(PCE). This index is based on a dynamic consumption basket. Economic variables adjusted by this price deflator are expressed in chained dollars, rather than the alternative constant-dollar measure based on a fixed goods' basket."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_inflation
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
Your housing comments reminded me of a vital fact that hasn't been considered in these income comparisons: people in 1913 worked substantially more hours for their pay.
How do you figure? 50 is much less than 80.

in 1913 it was a single worker per household. Today it is almost all 2 earner households. 2 people working 40+ hours a week is more than a single worker working 50 hours per week to provide the same standard of living.

Most people were farmers in 1913.

Land can still be gotten cheaply, as long as you don't plan on that land being able to produce anything that is. For land that can produce, its going to cost you a shit ton.

Women and Children were employed?

Children made up less than 5% of the workforce and less than 1/4th of able bodied women had jobs. Less than 10% of the workforce was women.

75 years ago less than 20% of the workforce was women.

Work was DOMINATED by men in 1913.

There were NOT a lot of women and children working, they were clearly, clearly in the minority.
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
Until the Fed has a thorough audit, how can we know? I didn't know the US federal government was a "for profit" organization. Where's my share?
The Fed is audited constantly. You can go look at the audit reports for each year on their web site.

The Fed prefers using core inflation numbers. Others use CPI, PCE, trimmed mean PCE, median CPI, median PCE or if the numbers don't show the preferred results, another formula will be manufactured that will.
Using the governments numbers to reveal the fraud is like asking the burglar to submit a manifest of what he stole.
The Fed doesn't use core CPI for anything. Period. Do they look at it? Sure. Is it the basis of policy? Evidently not. You haven't been able to identify anyone who uses core CPI for anything.

IDK, how about more than 10%?
Silver prices from 1880 to 1913?
 

Mr Neutron

Well-Known Member
If very few people saved them, it means there would no silver coins today? That's not even logical.
You're right, that statement makes no sense. However, what I said was that if few people had NOT saved them, there would be none today.

Tell me, how much silver coinage did the treasury remove from circulation? Do you know the answer?
As far as I know, the treasury did not remove any in the last 35 years of the last century but do you think they are letting dimes that have $2 worth of silver in them stay in circulation, now?
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
"The preferred measure by the Federal Reserve of core inflation in the United States is the change in the core Personal consumption expenditures price index(PCE). This index is based on a dynamic consumption basket. Economic variables adjusted by this price deflator are expressed in chained dollars, rather than the alternative constant-dollar measure based on a fixed goods' basket."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_inflation
You realize your Wikipedia article has no sources supporting that proposition, right? Indeed, that shouldn't be a surprise, because it's false. The Fed purports to use PCE as a measure of inflation, not core PCE. PCE includes everything just like headline CPI includes everything. The Fed's informal inflation target is based on PCE.
 

NoDrama

Well-Known Member
China and India were importing vast amounts of gold for domestic consumption (generally not as an investment, as people in this forum will try to tell you--in India most of the demand is for jewelry).
Jewelry is still worth the gold value it has. People in India buy gold so that it can be used as part of a Dowry. Jewelry is just a convenient and pretty way to carry wealth. Gold is worth exactly the same whether it is in the form of a ring or minted into a coin.

China is the worlds second largest importer of gold. China is the worlds #1 producer of gold. China is the world's smallest exporter of gold.

Why would the second largest economy in the world be hoarding gold like it was going extinct?
 

Mr Neutron

Well-Known Member
You live in Mexico.
You get 900 a month income which means you pay zero taxes
In other words you dont contribute shit to the USA
Why do you keep spewing bullshit? Where in the world do you get the idea that I pay no taxes? Don't take my word for it. Go to irs.gov and check it out. Moving out of the country does NOT exempt anyone from taxation. Unless you're a socialist from Iowa that moves to Switzerland, gets elected mayor of a Swiss town and then you give up your US citizenship so you don't have to pay US taxes on your foreign earned income.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-18/zurich-mayor-renounces-u-s-citizenship-amid-tighter-tax-rules.html
Then calculate $900/mn and see what the tax due is.
Until then, your accusations are are of no value.

What do you think your "share" is worth?
Why do you defend theft, extortion and terrorist activities?
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
You're right, that statement makes no sense. However, what I said was that if few people had NOT saved them, there would be none today.

As far as I know, the treasury did not remove any in the last 35 years of the last century but do you think they are letting dimes that have $2 worth of silver in them stay in circulation, now?
Most of them just circulated in commerce normally as if nothing had changed. That's my only point--average people weren't saving silver coins but spending them. Hoarders and investors are the ones who saved them, and they melted most of that coinage down in 1980 when the price of silver was ridiculously high. That's why so few silver coins survived.

Because really, how many average people know how much an ounce of silver costs? How many average people know how much silver is contained in a coin? How many average people knew how to unlock the value from the coin? The majority of the population was totally ignorant.
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
How do you figure? 50 is much less than 80.

in 1913 it was a single worker per household. Today it is almost all 2 earner households. 2 people working 40+ hours a week is more than a single worker working 50 hours per week to provide the same standard of living.

Most people were farmers in 1913.

Land can still be gotten cheaply, as long as you don't plan on that land being able to produce anything that is. For land that can produce, its going to cost you a shit ton.

Women and Children were employed?

Children made up less than 5% of the workforce and less than 1/4th of able bodied women had jobs. Less than 10% of the workforce was women.

75 years ago less than 20% of the workforce was women.

Work was DOMINATED by men in 1913.

There were NOT a lot of women and children working, they were clearly, clearly in the minority.
Household income in 1913 with one worker per household = approximately $750, which is equivalent to $17,615.98 in 2013. 50 hours per week for 52 weeks a year = 2,600 hours. $17,615.98 / 2,600 = $6.77 an hour.

Household income today with two workers per household = approximately $50,000 in 2013. 80 hours per week for 52 weeks a year = 4,160 hours. $50,000 / 4,160 = $12.02 an hour.

So no, it doesn't take two people working 40 hours a week to provide the same standard of living that one worker who worked 50 hours a week in 1913 had. I would also point out that the latter number is skewed because many households with two wage earners have a worker who only works part time. I wasn't able to find data that would enable me to make an exact calculation.
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
Jewelry is still worth the gold value it has. People in India buy gold so that it can be used as part of a Dowry. Jewelry is just a convenient and pretty way to carry wealth. Gold is worth exactly the same whether it is in the form of a ring or minted into a coin.

China is the worlds second largest importer of gold. China is the worlds #1 producer of gold. China is the world's smallest exporter of gold.

Why would the second largest economy in the world be hoarding gold like it was going extinct?
Because newly wealthy people who could never possibly afford gold before want to buy gold and there are hundreds of millions of them. It's incredibly simple and it's not about investment, it's about consumption. We both know that the jewelry is mostly worn as decoration, not sold, not held as an investment.
 

Mr Neutron

Well-Known Member
The Fed is audited constantly. You can go look at the audit reports for each year on their web site.
rotflmao... yup and the moon is made of cheese. I wonder why they are fighting tooth and nail to fend off congressional attempts to FULLY audit their actions.
Do you honestly expect me to believe the information that the FED puts on THEIR website about THEMSELVES?

The Fed doesn't use core CPI for anything. Period. Do they look at it? Sure. Is it the basis of policy? Evidently not. You haven't been able to identify anyone who uses core CPI for anything.
"New data on consumer prices out today revealed that consumer prices were up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis when stripping out food and energy, two volatile components that have been dragged down recently by a big sell-off in the commodity space.
The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, however – core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) – is only up 1.1% from a year ago, well short of the Fed's 2% inflation target."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-hilsenrath-bernanke-2013-5#ixzz2TemlvHn5

Silver prices from 1880 to 1913?
A 33 year period? Hardly a good comparison to the fluctuations since.
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
rotflmao... yup and the moon is made of cheese. I wonder why they are fighting tooth and nail to fend off congressional attempts to FULLY audit their actions.
Do you honestly expect me to believe the information that the FED puts on THEIR website about THEMSELVES?
The Fed is already subject to multiple audits every year. The GAO already has the authority to poke around and review thing; the Board's statements are audited by a major independent accounting firm; each of the regional banks' statements are audited by a major independent accounting firm; and the Board itself reviews the statements of each regional bank.

If you don't believe what the Fed reports about itself, I don't see why you would believe any other government statistic. But maybe you already don't. In that case, why are you so focused on auditing the Fed? Why don't we audit the whole government?

"New data on consumer prices out today revealed that consumer prices were up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis when stripping out food and energy, two volatile components that have been dragged down recently by a big sell-off in the commodity space.
The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, however – core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) – is only up 1.1% from a year ago, well short of the Fed's 2% inflation target."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-hilsenrath-bernanke-2013-5#ixzz2TemlvHn5
The Fed's own web site says PCE, not core PCE. http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14419.htm.

Here's another article that says "The Fed's preferred measure of inflation," except it reports the straight PCE number, not core PCE. http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/04/29/the-feds-favorite-measure-of-inflation-continues-to-fall-qe-is-here-to-stay/.

A 33 year period? Hardly a good comparison to the fluctuations since.
You asked for it and you got it.

The average wage in 1913 was 25 cents an hour; now it's $13 an hour. If you want to talk about how the value of $1 has declined so much, you need to consider that average wages have increased by 520%. 25 cents in 1913 = $5.87 today; $13 today = $13 today. Where is that huge decline in purchasing power at?
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
Did huge harvesting machines exist in 1913? You or Kynes might know. I live in a state with a lot of farms, and I see these huge things rolling through the fields everywhere. I'm not even sure they're all human operated--I've heard that you can run them on GPS coordinates.
yes the combine existed in 1913, but it was usually horse drawn, they did NOT have the chemical fertilizers which turned food from a constant struggle to a reliable resource, and allowed far fewer farmers to produce far more food on less land, but they also did not know that the result of such intensive agriculture would be the dust bowl, and 40 years of slow land reclamation.

you are slapping simplistic (and illogical) bandaids on a systemic problem, the dollar is DESIGNED to lose 1.5%-3% of it's vvalue every year, this is in the plan, it's their "target'

this kind of system is a perpetual motion spanking machine for those who do not already have sufficient wealth to become members of the investment class.

supporting a system which forces everyone to gamble their shit in a casino, or lose it slowly but surely to deliberate erosion is CRIMINAL

the system is designed to ensure the wealth and prosperity of the people who created it (The Money Trust) and does so by FUCKING everyone who doesnt give the Money Trust all their shit, so the fatcats can gamble with other people's money


you cannot deny that this is the goal, since it is plainly obvious.

your insistence that the dollar is a rock solid currency, and everything else is just becoming more expensive is BULLSHIT.

everything else is getting more expensive because the dollar is circling the drain. the basin is so huge, and so many people are pouring their sweat and tears into it that it will take a very long time before the basin empties, and occaisional deluges of additional liquid assets can send the waterlevel back up quite significantly, but likewise extended droughts can speed the process


you are arguing that the booms prove shit is going perfectly and the economy will never stop growing, while the busts prove that of course you were right all along, and everybody should get on board with this Cant Miss Opportunity of the Decade and BUY BUY BUY.

you dont care how many people lose their shirt, or how unfair the system is to the rest of the people who arent on top of the dudepile, as long as the system keeps working for you, theres nothing wrong with it.
 

bwest

Well-Known Member
Did huge harvesting machines exist in 1913? You or Kynes might know. I live in a state with a lot of farms, and I see these huge things rolling through the fields everywhere. I'm not even sure they're all human operated--I've heard that you can run them on GPS coordinates.
No, huge farm equipment did not exist back then.
The tractor does run on gps coordinates, but there has to be an operator in the seat. There are sensors in the seat.
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
your insistence that the dollar is a rock solid currency, and everything else is just becoming more expensive is BULLSHIT.

everything else is getting more expensive because the dollar is circling the drain. the basin is so huge, and so many people are pouring their sweat and tears into it that it will take a very long time before the basin empties, and occaisional deluges of additional liquid assets can send the waterlevel back up quite significantly, but likewise extended droughts can speed the process
Real Change in Purchasing Power = Original Purchasing Power - Inflation + Wage Growth.

I really don't care about the value of an individual dollar so long as purchasing power is maintained. On that basis, as always, you have no case.

you are arguing that the booms prove shit is going perfectly and the economy will never stop growing, while the busts prove that of course you were right all along, and everybody should get on board with this Cant Miss Opportunity of the Decade and BUY BUY BUY.

you dont care how many people lose their shirt, or how unfair the system is to the rest of the people who arent on top of the dudepile, as long as the system keeps working for you, theres nothing wrong with it.
Like I just said, I have absolutely no investment in the system. I don't work in economics, banking, or finance (I don't work in anything, for that matter), and I own no financial assets. I am solely interested in facts and in mathematical reality.

You can rant about the evil money trust and the destitute dollar all you like, but that's all you can do--you lost on all the math, which is why you don't bother bringing it up anymore.
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
Real Change in Purchasing Power = Original Purchasing Power - Inflation + Wage Growth.

I really don't care about the value of an individual dollar so long as purchasing power is maintained. On that basis, as always, you have no case.



Like I just said, I have absolutely no investment in the system. I don't work in economics, banking, or finance (I don't work in anything, for that matter), and I own no financial assets. I am solely interested in facts and in mathematical reality.

You can rant about the evil money trust and the destitute dollar all you like, but that's all you can do--you lost on all the math, which is why you don't bother bringing it up anymore.
i did not lose on any math, you created a fantasylqand where the dollar is the measure for value, aand as such the dollar is incapable of losing value, much in the way the sun moves across the sky and disappears at night only to mysterious rea[ppear in the east to begin it's journey again.

the foollish claims that the earth is circling the sun are clearly retarded, cuz we cant feel the earth move!

no! dont you dare interrupt!! why cant we feel the earth moving smart guy! intellectual checkmate! you lost on the math! youre just repeating a foolish claim, and we STILL cant feel the earth moving, even after all these years!

cuz everybody has to be wrong, and the new base model honda accord now costs nearly 3 x as much as it did ten years ago, for the same accord dx with no options. but the dollar is ROCK SOLID.


http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G404

the graph displaying the cost of arable land in the us, with a focus on missouri shows that in fact the same resource which previously cost $54/acre in 1913, now costs $2900/acre (and thats is a VERY low estimate)

but yeah i totally lost on the math.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106020105661;view=1up;seq=100
jump to page 98 for the fun stuff.

in 1913 sirloin steak cost 23 cents a pound, and thats without refigeration, high speed railway transport, air freight, etc. thats what it cost from Floyd The Butcher, in his little shop started by his grandfather, and Floyd cuts that shit to order. now beef sirloin cost $6/pound at the super walmart and it comes frozen in a bag (mind the bone chips)
it's cheaper to produce, cheaper to transport, and easy to store for long periods of time, but the price is more than 24x higher. yep, no inflation there.

YOU lost on the math, but are in denial, you want to create elaborate mathematical fictions based on the bullshit stats provided for the media, designed to reassure everybody that everything is going to plan, and Obama's hand is firmly on the tiller.

NOBODY's hand has been on the tiller for several decades, not even the invisible hand of the market, our ship of state is being steered by the limp pallid fingers of the bureaucracy, and the blind faith of the economics weenies who think keynes and krugman speak with the voice of the gods.
 

tokeprep

Well-Known Member
i did not lose on any math, you created a fantasylqand where the dollar is the measure for value, aand as such the dollar is incapable of losing value, much in the way the sun moves across the sky and disappears at night only to mysterious rea[ppear in the east to begin it's journey again.
I've never said any such thing. Individual dollars have lost value; individual purchasing power has not lost value--it's increased substantially since the Federal Reserve was created.

Why are you so obsessed with the value of an individual dollar if that value doesn't meaningfully reflect the purchasing power people have?
the foollish claims that the earth is circling the sun are clearly retarded, cuz we cant feel the earth move!

no! dont you dare interrupt!! why cant we feel the earth moving smart guy! intellectual checkmate! you lost on the math! youre just repeating a foolish claim, and we STILL cant feel the earth moving, even after all these years!

cuz everybody has to be wrong, and the new base model honda accord now costs nearly 3 x as much as it did ten years ago, for the same accord dx with no options. but the dollar is ROCK SOLID.
You're going to have to explain the Honda thing to me. I visited several car web sites and couldn't find a price for a DX model in 2013; I'm going to use a 2.4 LX 4dr Sedan because it's the next lowest priced car common to 2003 and 2013. The MSRP of that car in 2003 was $19,200; the MSRP of that car in 2013 was $21,680. I get $21,680 - $19,200 = $2,480 more expensive in 2013. How did you get a 300% increase?

Indeed, we can go a step further. $19,200, adjusting for all that pesky inflation, is equivalent to $24,264.10 in 2013. So in real terms, your Honda car seems to have gotten less expensive, not more. If it had increased at the inflation rate, it would cost $24,264.10 today.

http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G404

the graph displaying the cost of arable land in the us, with a focus on missouri shows that in fact the same resource which previously cost $54/acre in 1913, now costs $2900/acre (and thats is a VERY low estimate)

but yeah i totally lost on the math.
As I've already suggested, land prices don't meaningfully reflect inflation. We can build more houses and more cars, but we can't build more land. There were only 98 million people in 1913; there are 310 million today living on exactly the same amount of land. If the population in a place increases by 216%, isn't there going to be increased demand that drives land prices up regardless of whether inflation exists?

Indeed, $54 in 1913 was equivalent to $1,268.35 in 2013. $1,268.35 x 216% = $2,739.64. I would posit that land costs reflect 100 years of population growth on exactly the same amount of land, not the effect of inflation (although there would be a small decline in real purchasing power for land specifically, as I just demonstrated, but it's only $160).

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106020105661;view=1up;seq=100
jump to page 98 for the fun stuff.

in 1913 sirloin steak cost 23 cents a pound, and thats without refigeration, high speed railway transport, air freight, etc. thats what it cost from Floyd The Butcher, in his little shop started by his grandfather, and Floyd cuts that shit to order. now beef sirloin cost $6/pound at the super walmart and it comes frozen in a bag (mind the bone chips)
it's cheaper to produce, cheaper to transport, and easy to store for long periods of time, but the price is more than 24x higher. yep, no inflation there.
You already know how I feel about these individual food prices, but this one isn't a winner for you. 23 cents in 1913 was equivalent to $5.40 in 2013. The average retail price of a pound of sirloin steak in April 2013 was $5.53. 13 cents of inflation. Indeed, a tiny amount of inflation there. http://www.bls.gov/ro3/apmw.htm.

YOU lost on the math, but are in denial, you want to create elaborate mathematical fictions based on the bullshit stats provided for the media, designed to reassure everybody that everything is going to plan, and Obama's hand is firmly on the tiller.

NOBODY's hand has been on the tiller for several decades, not even the invisible hand of the market, our ship of state is being steered by the limp pallid fingers of the bureaucracy, and the blind faith of the economics weenies who think keynes and krugman speak with the voice of the gods.
By all means, refute the math.

Purchasing power isn't a fiction. If the average American only earned $750 in 1913, that 23 cents for sirloin was 0.03% of his income. If the average American earns $27,000 in 2013, that $5.53 a pound for sirloin is 0.02% of his income. Even though sirloin is 13 cents more expensive in real terms, the 2013 American paid less of his income for exactly the same amount of meat in 2013. You cannot possibly rant about price increases without also considering income.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
The claim was that the only price fluctuations were due to the Banks of the United States, but the largest price fluctuations occurred during the Civil War. I searched that term in the thread but got no results.



Of course those details matter. Doesn't an audio system cost money? Don't larger, more comfortable seats cost money? Doesn't an air conditioner cost money? Doesn't a bigger car require more materials to build? Isn't a bigger engine more expensive than a smaller one? The same is true for a house! Your focus on man hours makes no sense. If we drove cars that were actually similar to Model Ts, they'd be a lot cheaper. Go study a picture of a Model T right now and try to tell me otherwise (consider that it weighed 1,200 pounds, whereas a modern car weighs 4,000 pounds--there's substantially more material in the car).

Things shouldn't cost less just because we have more of them. In 1913, most of the world's population was impoverished, enabling a couple hundred million people in countries like the United States to use all of the resources that existed in the world. Today, there are several billion people using the same amount of resources. You should expect that those resources are going to be more expensive, relatively, even though supplies increased, because demand outpaced those supply increases.

See China driving up the cost of building materials. We're paying more than we used to in order to put buildings up, but that's not a matter of inflation. There's only so much iron in the world, and only so much steel fabrication capacity, until we build more.

General Caveat on Commodity Prices
: For the past 10 years, commodity prices skyrocketed as hundreds of millions of people in countries like India and China suddenly became well-to-do for the first time in the world's history. I think this was the real driver of gold prices, for example: China and India were importing vast amounts of gold for domestic consumption (generally not as an investment, as people in this forum will try to tell you--in India most of the demand is for jewelry). Everyone here thinks the recent crash in gold prices was due to paper manipulation, but there may be a significantly better explanation: the Indian government has begun implementing all kinds of measures to try to restrict gold imports (draining tens of billions of dollars out of the country every year to buy gold to make jewelry is hurting domestic investment), and India is one of the largest buyers in the market. What happens when you lose a huge buyer? The price goes down.

Anyway, the general sentiment in the investment community, including among people who have played commodities for the last ten years, is that this cycle is coming to an end now that the world has adjusted. Trillions of dollars have been invested over this period in obtaining new commodity supplies, and since it takes a very long time to build a mine/whatever and all the infrastructure you need to transport stuff out of it, many of these projects are just starting to come online. In a few years, we'll see where things stand.



People have been saying the system would collapse ever since it was created. Instead, we have the modern world.



Anyone who wants to exist that way today can do so. But no one wants to exist that way.
Minor aside about the bolded. I once was told by an Indian expat, and I independently read, that for traditionalist Indians the two are the same. You wore your wealth. cn
 
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