Vote em out!

[speedlever]

While your beers are chillin', keep up the excellent dialogue.

[Outfitter]

My only comment on Japan/Abe and his monetary plans is that for every action, there is usually a counter action by other countries and all the countries racing to the bottom with their currencies may lead to something more than a currency war. History shows this.

"Post some of the history you refer to? "

World War 2 with Japan started with currency wars, followed by trade wars followed by embargo's and finally war.

"I forgot to mention…even relatively speaking….our trade imbalance has dwarfed Japans for decades. I don’t get the relevance of that. Life goes on."

When they were a net exporter the demands on the Yen were less. As net importers (Oil for electricity) they have to print more Yen to pay. This is a tipping point for them, IMHO and will speed up their day of reckoning for their "Lost Decade".


"The US still dwarfs other counties for gold reserves….especially Russia and china from what I see............"

Our "stated" gold reserves dwarf their "stated" reserves.
The question on everyone's mind is if ours has been leased and encumbered in any way. Many, including myself believe that the Gold and Silver ETFs were created to extend the paper game without the physical backing it. Notice how the demand for repatriation of Gold is happening? Venezuela, Germany, Swiss, Denmark are some of the names wanting their Gold that is stored here, in England and to some extent in France.
This could be a whole topic for discussion. I would say you might look at the price of gold in relation to the amount of dollars printed over the past 10 years and see if you think the price is undervalued or over valued.

[Sparkland]

Originally Posted by cdepuydt

The flaw in the logic of many of you, who see no problem with the federal government "overseeing" the retirement accounts of private individuals, is the federal gov't is the majority of the problem. The expansion and policies of the federal gov't is causing the majority of our economic problems...including the recent economic downturn, the housing bubble, and the problems the massive debt they are running up are causing...and you want them to step in and "fix" everything? That would be like calling up that person who stole your identity, who opened up all those accounts and destroyed your credit rating, to come and fix everything. It's ludicrous.

Until more people realize that private industry is the engine of the US economy...NOT gov't, NOT stimulus programs, NOT entitlement programs...the US economy will struggle. As has been sais here many times before, we have too many takers, not enough makers, and if that trend continues...we're pretty much screwed.

Until everyone realizes that the US gov't is the problem, and growing it, giving them even more control over us, and taking away more of our freedoms is not the answer, the quicker we can come to a solution. The solution is not more gov't, larger gov't, and more gov't control. The answer is the opposite of that: less gov't/entitlement programs/stimuls, smaller gov't, and less government control. The sooner the gov't can get the heck out of they way, and let America return to what it has been for decades...the engine of the world economy...the sooner we'll get back to a growing economy.

Until then...the US economy will continue to flounder...like a carp on a riverbank.

Nice post and I agree completely.

[MoosePond]

Originally Posted by Shoman90

<snip>Being retired is all the more reason to track expenses…even more important than when working IMO.

When I was working I had to keep detailed track of business expenses and it was just easier to keep track of all expenses and categorize them as they were being entered. No longer need to do that and while we keep an eye on them we no longer feel any need to record the minutiae as there is little that we can do about it other than cut back when circumstances so dictate.

Originally Posted by Shoman90

You hit the nail on the head for insurance. Perfect socialism for profit. I just got my homeowners premium yesterday. 21.60% increase. Biggest ever. I’ve never had a claim. Why you might ask:

Because the ‘collective’ pool coffers are down. Upper management needs a nice raise (maybe some more options) increase. The companies need profit for the shareholders….so we all pay to fill the bucket again. I’ll bet a fine meal that the non-climate change natural disasters are what took this money from the pool. Just think if everyone was insured? Why....…it would be as bad as private health insurance increases

Don't recall the exact percentage our combined property and auto insurance went up last year but it was something on the order of what you experienced. We just lowered our overall premiums a bit (however, by less than half of last year's increases) by consolidating all of our policies under one carrier.

[Outfitter]

Originally Posted by Shoman90

.

"I just looked at some of his writings, and frankly don’t agree with him. I’m then guessing your info above came from him. There is no way my money is worth +/-10% less than it was a year ago. …or even the 6% less on the chart you included in the link above. His hyper inflation theory keeps getting moved ahead from the article in 12/10…when “hyperflation was only months away”. Nor has global demand for greenbacks collapsed as he currently states. Far from it."

Not to be argumentative but here is the actual value of your dollar based on the Governments own statistics. I would think both sources would not be wrong.

•1960 = $7.76
•1970 = $5.92
•1980 = $2.79
•1990 = $1.76
•2000 = $1.33
•2010 - $1.05.

http://useconomy.about.com/od/inflat...llar_today.htm

This shows the value of $1.00 today (2012) and what it would have been worth in the years listed. 2012 was the base year and this clearly agrees with John Williams (Shadowstats) numbers and I'm no mathematician but using my fingers and toes I'd say 2% a year is pretty accurate for the loss of value.

Like you, I rely on facts and try to source information from multiple places.

[Shoman90]

Originally Posted by Outfitter

My only comment on Japan/Abe and his monetary plans is that for every action, there is usually a counter action by other countries and all the countries racing to the bottom with their currencies may lead to something more than a currency war. History shows this.

"Post some of the history you refer to? "

World War 2 with Japan started with currency wars, followed by trade wars followed by embargo's and finally war.

"I forgot to mention…even relatively speaking….our trade imbalance has dwarfed Japans for decades. I don’t get the relevance of that. Life goes on."

When they were a net exporter the demands on the Yen were less. As net importers (Oil for electricity) they have to print more Yen to pay. This is a tipping point for them, IMHO and will speed up their day of reckoning for their "Lost Decade".


"The US still dwarfs other counties for gold reserves….especially Russia and china from what I see............"

Our "stated" gold reserves dwarf their "stated" reserves.
The question on everyone's mind is if ours has been leased and encumbered in any way. Many, including myself believe that the Gold and Silver ETFs were created to extend the paper game without the physical backing it. Notice how the demand for repatriation of Gold is happening? Venezuela, Germany, Swiss, Denmark are some of the names wanting their Gold that is stored here, in England and to some extent in France.
This could be a whole topic for discussion. I would say you might look at the price of gold in relation to the amount of dollars printed over the past 10 years and see if you think the price is undervalued or over valued.

Currency: This sort of thing has being on since long before WWII. The Yen right now is well above its historic norm and a good part to blame for the trade imbalance. The sky will not fall if they dump some money into the system. It may not even have the desired effect. It didn’t here….yet…….contrary to dogma.

Net Exporter: Good point. ….. although I think the aging homogeneous population may likely be far more a threat to the entire system than this burp they are going through with energy and exports. The nuclear thing is a very real problem and as I believe they import pretty much all fossil fuel energy. Time will tell. With our 100% interconnected world…there will always be a Japan story to mull about.


Now..on to gold.

I’ve had a theory for a long time now…..perhaps not a theory…..maybe reality…. that:

It’s a given that: stock and commodity traders main goal is to make money. That is not to denigrate that pursuit. The country is built on that premise. I’m just stating a fact to get started here. I’m not sure how much of a player you are in commodities, but I’m writing this because of your thoughts on gold/silver …which I find to be a little outlandish and subscribing to the ‘conspiratorial’ theories which abound…especially so with the current administration.

For the same reason that I stated in a post above here that commodity speculation (with not enough skin in the game) has skewed energy and food costs……I think that if the buzz in your ranks is that Shadowstats is correct….and the gold/silver ETFs et al were part of a process to dupe us further...then the result of that is you have skewed the market yourself by the way you trade these positions. …. Possibly based on entirely incorrect hyped thinking. In other words, fundamentals are not controlling the market. Hyped rhetoric is. Traders are trading positions by virtue of what they perceive as truth. The market has been fixated on gold for the last many years when, in reality, there may be no legitimate reason to be so. One could also go a step further and say: “Oh well…perception IS reality. Could be, but that doesn’t make it right…or the best path forward for us. It will never be given up, but what is a good reason for gold to even be in the mix. It is certainly not there to back up our money. There’s also likely not nearly enough gold in the world to go back to a gold standard…and what there is controlled by a handful of players. I don’t see the gold standard coming back. IMO…a good thing.

Now let’s switch to stocks because the same holds true there. Every day inane TV/internet commentary tells us what “The Market” is doing, what ‘investors’ like, what they don’t like. Every little blip in the market is explained in detail by a pundit. They have answer for everything….then the next day they have an answer to explain why they were wrong the day before. On CNBC, 99% of the commentary is supply side based and I’m sure gold is a hot topic as well. Again, the market is driven by hyped commentary, not fundamentals. I haven’t watched anything on CNBC in many years. I hope you don’t use that channel as a main source of info. It’s hardly an objective source based on fundamental research. …Although maybe you have to watch it because it is a tool from which you can derive some ‘skewed’ info which will aid in your trading day. I hope not, but I can’t help but be very cynical about this.

Another culprit in the market for both commodities and stocks is computer generated trading. That too skews the market on a daily basis and has for years. 100s of millions of shares are traded on triggers having nothing to do with human input or a company’s fundamentals. The flash crashes were a result of such trading run amock. … But computerized trading goes on every day. Read the article below…maybe you have. Most here probably not. I find this private sector manipulation of people’s money to be far worse than the government being involved with retirement funds and possibly suggesting ways to go up against such market makers…whose only goal is to make millions of dollars on fractions of a penny in milliseconds. Also remembering that market volatility means “Cha Ching” for traders of all stripes.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...han-your-laser

I started in the stock market back in 1982. I had been out of work for a year and decided there had to be a better way to make money than by the hour. ( I must digress and say that was under Reagan’s watch. Unemployment was 10.8% for a while in 1982. I didn’t get back to work in my area until 1985..and that was 70 miles away) I have followed it closely ever since and watched this transformation to the system currently in place. …The endless financial (market manipulating) news cycle, the garbage which pops up on the internet with a mouse stroke…which many suck up as truth. I’ve watched solid blue chip companies miss their ‘mark’ by a penny and be sold off immediately…only to be scooped back up by market makers and sold back into a rally because there really was no reason to sell them off for missing their mark by a penny. To add insult to injury, many of the analysts making these calls are what I stereotype as ‘snot nosed kids’ with a little college business background who really have no clue about the ‘boots on the ground’ business of running a company. To think they are calling the shots is somewhat disgusting to me.

[Shoman90]

Originally Posted by Outfitter

"I just looked at some of his writings, and frankly don’t agree with him. I’m then guessing your info above came from him. There is no way my money is worth +/-10% less than it was a year ago. …or even the 6% less on the chart you included in the link above. His hyper inflation theory keeps getting moved ahead from the article in 12/10…when “hyperflation was only months away”. Nor has global demand for greenbacks collapsed as he currently states. Far from it."

Not to be argumentative but here is the actual value of your dollar based on the Governments own statistics. I would think both sources would not be wrong.

•1960 = $7.76
•1970 = $5.92
•1980 = $2.79
•1990 = $1.76
•2000 = $1.33
•2010 - $1.05.

http://useconomy.about.com/od/inflat...llar_today.htm

This shows the value of $1.00 today (2012) and what it would have been worth in the years listed. 2012 was the base year and this clearly agrees with John Williams (Shadowstats) numbers and I'm no mathematician but using my fingers and toes I'd say 2% a year is pretty accurate for the loss of value.

Like you, I rely on facts and try to source information from multiple places.

I believe you’re getting mixed up on your numbers. What you posted here is based on inflation…not devaluation. There is a difference. Every country has a similar chart for inflation. My post, which you copied above, refers to the +/- 10% you say I have in year over year cost of living. That is simply not true. I will agree that my buying power has diminished due to inflation, but I also pointed out to you that compared to the Euro in 2009, the dollar is about par….not roughly 8% less….which a year over year 2% decline would approximately be.

..where do you guys that work find time to do this stuff

[Shoman90]

Originally Posted by MoosePond

When I was working I had to keep detailed track of business expenses and it was just easier to keep track of all expenses and categorize them as they were being entered. No longer need to do that and while we keep an eye on them we no longer feel any need to record the minutiae as there is little that we can do about it other than cut back when circumstances so dictate.


Don't recall the exact percentage our combined property and auto insurance went up last year but it was something on the order of what you experienced. We just lowered our overall premiums a bit (however, by less than half of last year's increases) by consolidating all of our policies under one carrier.

I may be a little obsessive about tracking costs, but I guess it’s in my DNA…can’t help it

We’ve been under one carrier for houses/vehicles for over 25 years. This rate increase this time has me looking to redo the policy. I already dumped another house policy based on replacement cost and went to a market value amount. It’s a rental. If it burns, we’ll never rebuild there. That dropped the premium by 25%. It’s for sale now…all part of the financial plan.

Insurance is definitely a racket. Don’t ever use it or your premiums will rise. It’s become much worse than before…especially since Katrina, the market crash in 2008 (drained the investment coffers), and the ongoing disaster relief payouts



You posted this higher up:

Like most people I consider the fact that the government no longer considers the price of food and fuel when calculating cost of living is beyond stupid and is just one more sign that the folks in Washington are completely out of touch with those who pay for their generous salaries and perks.

I have to ask? Is the reason you find this beyond stupid that..if included…you would get more SS? Because if so, I thought entitlements were the area most of you think needs tweaking / cutting? Remember….SS was never very solvent until the huge tax increase in 1983. And yes, the fund was robbed, but as I stated above, the fix is so simple…that the word childlike comes to mind.

For the record: Food and fuel are part of the mix used to calculate the CPI. They are just placed in a different category from the core CPI. There is a very good reason for that. I addressed it above. Volatility, in large part due to commodity speculation, makes these two areas a daily moving target and not reliable to weight as heavily as the core components. The food and fuel components are included in what’s called non-core CPI….where they should be. Again, free market trading is the culprit for having to weight these two areas less. If they were included in the core CPI, the fund would be under sooner due to an incorrect COLA raise for all money distribution connected to that rate. …SS being a big one.

[Outfitter]

Originally Posted by Shoman90

I believe you’re getting mixed up on your numbers. What you posted here is based on inflation…not devaluation. There is a difference. Every country has a similar chart for inflation. My post, which you copied above, refers to the +/- 10% you say I have in year over year cost of living. That is simply not true. I will agree that my buying power has diminished due to inflation, but I also pointed out to you that compared to the Euro in 2009, the dollar is about par….not roughly 8% less….which a year over year 2% decline would approximately be.

..where do you guys that work find time to do this stuff

Coffee breaks!!

Many would argue that inflation is the result of devaluation.

The definition of Inflation is:
"A general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money."

Inflation can be measured in multiple ways to be sure but the price of the same basket of goods from year to year seems like a fair and the least manipulated approach to me.

Remember if printing money was the solution, Zimbabwe would be the wealthiest country in the world.

Comparing the USDX to the Euro and other currencies is like comparing one crook to another and trying to decide which one is better or worse.
All major currencies are being manipulated to try and jump start exports, hence my reference to the "race to the bottom".

Got to run, breaks over!

[Shoman90]

Originally Posted by Outfitter

Coffee breaks!!

Many would argue that inflation is the result of devaluation.

The definition of Inflation is:
"A general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money."

Inflation can be measured in multiple ways to be sure but the price of the same basket of goods from year to year seems like a fair and the least manipulated approach to me.

Remember if printing money was the solution, Zimbabwe would be the wealthiest country in the world.

Comparing the USDX to the Euro and other currencies is like comparing one crook to another and trying to decide which one is better or worse.
All major currencies are being manipulated to try and jump start exports, hence my reference to the "race to the bottom".

Got to run, breaks over!

No. They become connected at some point on the trail, but they are two separate things.

The basket of goods approach for inflation is fine. No argument there....but that isn't what you were referencing.

Comparing currencies is how devaluation is normally factored .... regardless of the crook spin. Due to intense pressure, China's currency has been slowly moving up since 2005....not going lower. They balked in the beginning, but it's actually in their internal best interests for this to be happening. They now need to worry more about their people having more buying power internally than always having cheap exports due to cheap currency. They are at that stage in their economic development.