The thing is I intuitively understand it but can't yet explain it in words. I just know when something is right. (Or think I do)
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox
“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.” - Criss Jami, Killo
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).
quote:The thing is I intuitively understand it but can't yet explain it in words. I just know when something is right. (Or think I do)
Belief and understanding are not the same thing. If you can’t explain it in words it is likely that you don’t understand it.
More importantly the claim you expect us to accept goes directly against basic economics. If you didn’t understand that it’s hardly likely that you understand what you’re talking about.
It seems to me far more likely that you’ve fallen for a sales pitch.
When FDR outlawed the public possession(hoarding) of Gold and paid out $20.67 per ounce, ordering the public to surrender their metal...then raising the price to $35.00 an ounce which instantly devalued the US dollar by 60+% he had (or "they" ...Central Bankers and Governments) a reason to do so. The currencies can be manipulated. Gold and Silver cannot.
What????
First, you say "they" manipulated the price of gold so that its price went up to $35 an ounce, and they you say the price of gold and silver can't be manipulated. WHICH IS IT????
It is a bit of both, Taq. Gold and Silver will always have an intrinsic value. The manipulators can never take away the value. They can, however, hold the price down and discourage the general public from investing in the metals as they would, say, Bitcoin. As I have said before, the precious metals are more of an insurance policy than they are an investment. The Reddit raiders could never control the silver market. Bigger fish than them would do whatever it took to dump on the price if it increased measurably. One such big fish is JP Morgan. Statistics show that they own the 2nd largest amount among the big fish.
Who Owns the Most Silver Bullion Today? A quick check of otther sources in the search engine confirms the basic accuracy of the report.
Unlike investors, the big fish seem to use their large stashes to dampen speculation and keep the prices controlled in order to prevent the disciplines naturally present in Gold and Silver trading to expose the soft underbelly of traditional investments. Does that make any sense or do I need to try and explain myself even in more detail?
Essentially, all investments can be manipulated through various means, and profits can be skimmed on the way up and on the way down. Its all a giant game for those with the money to play it.
Elon Musk knew how to play the game well with his publically uttered statements on Bitcoin.
My point regarding the metals is that once the real truth about the price suppression becomes known to the general investor in what you call traditional economics, and once the realization that a correction is inevitable, the investors and their money will be looking to park it in a stable and safe haven while the correction occurs. 30% corrections in stocks, for example, are not uncommon over the course of years and cycles. The problem with the current situation is compounded by several factors.
Quantitative Easing and a runaway national debt. The debt is essentially in checkmate due to the fact that interest rates now MUST be kept low to keep us out of default on the interest payments. One of you asked the hypothetical question of what would happen after a possible default or national "bankruptcy"? Do we know? Is it a problem? Answer these questions yourselves.
The rise of other competing global interests and rivals to the dollars traditional role in global commerce.
The role of the Federal Reserve in the midst of all of this
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox
“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.” - Criss Jami, Killo
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).
One way to make profits would be to fool people into thinking that the price of gold would hugely increase in the near future and then to sell them gold (often at a premium) or investments (or “investments”) that will supposedly profit when that happens.
That’s exactly what this looks like.
)Indeed, the whole idea that the prices are being suppressed might be an attempt to cover for a previous scam of the same sort. After a while people begin to notice that they aren’t getting the profits they were told to expect.)
Trade deficit isn’t a problem until it’s a crisis.
Home sales fall while home prices rise.
Rent prices increased 25% year over year.
Fed’s only monetary policy is talk.
Markets may have begun calling the Fed’s bluff.
Powell finally admits this inflation is permanent.
Edited by Phat, : added link
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox
“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.” - Criss Jami, Killo
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).
quote:Your scenario COULD be another possibility. It remains to be seen how everything will play out.
Why else would they try to deceive you into thinking that the price of gold was being held down. Let me remind you:
quote:If you doubt the manipulation and if you think that gold is, as John Maynard Keynes proclaimed, "a barbarous relic", explain to me why the central banks own nearly half of the world's gold and expect to increase that number? The price is definitely manipulated to keep the true value low.
This gives no reason to believe in the supposed manipulation. None.
It is a bit of both, Taq. Gold and Silver will always have an intrinsic value.
They don't have an intrinsic value. The only reason they do have value is people are willing to trade them for dollars. They are as much of a fiat currency as any other. What other function do those metals have outside of trading for currency? If silver was only sold for its use in photographic film, what would its price be? If gold were only traded for its use in products, what would its price be?
In fact, stocks have more intrinsic value than gold or silver. Business still produce things, but gold and silver do not. What does a gold bar do for you? Does it mow your lawn? Does it make cars? Is it used to build houses? What does it do, other than sit there?
It is a bit of both, Taq. Gold and Silver will always have an intrinsic value. The manipulators can never take away the value. They can, however, hold the price down and discourage the general public from investing in the metals as they would, say, Bitcoin.
You keep saying that, but offer no evidence that this is actually the case. You even make the contradictory statement that they restrict supply which increases prices.
Phat, do you really want to show these smart-asses a thing or two? Take every cent you can lay your hands on - sell every thing you own and second mortgage your house - and invest every penny in Nikola Motor Company. In a few years you will be richer than all of them put together and they will finally realize who really understands markets and finances.
The sugars are coming down, by the way, and I am owning responsibility for my health. I took a month off from work in order to address these concerns...
Please explain your position in your own words, because I think the likelihood too great that what they're saying and what you think they're saying are two different things.
My basic argument regarding the financial realm in a global context is that much goes on behind the scenes and under the radar (or concern) of the Treasury Secretary, the head of the Federal Reserve, and the day-to-day news of the financial media.
Probably. But the people you're listening to aren't privy to this information either. They're just claiming to know this secret stuff that no one knows, you're gullible enough to believe them, plus it just feels so empowering to think you're one of the special people who know the "real truth".
My sister loves crazy conspiracy theories as much as you, and these days she's excited to be one of the few people who know that the UFO's are actually the reptilian alien race, who were also responsible for the huge explosion in Beirut last year. We'd know this except that it was covered up. Why she thinks she knows something that was covered up is beyond me, but the people who originate these crazy conspiracy theories know that telling people they're being given secret information is one sure way to reel them in.
For the record, I have a local close friend, a man whom I have known for 38 years, who tells me I am scared of reality. He would argue that booms and busts, stock market expansion and contraction, and US inflation itself are cycles that always happen and that there is no undue cause for concern.
Your friend is mostly right, but I'd question that there's no cause for concern. There's always cause for concern. It's always possible that an economic crisis could be the end of the US. We've survived every economic crisis so far, but that doesn't mean there's no economic crisis that could bring us down. They're nothing sacred or eternal about the US.
One favor that I ask in this thread is if you can help me add a few MP3 audio clips so that I can advance my argument verbally rather than only in writing. Is that easy to do or not?
MP3's and videos are less than ideal. Reading is much faster than viewing or listening, and one cannot skim an audio or video for the key points.
I can create the basic MP3 files, but as of yet there is no way to paste them into Forums such as this and I was unaware of how this affects your bandwidths.
YouTube hosts videos - maybe there are sites that host MP3's.
I DO know that we are able to have YouTube videos here, but I wanted to find a way to share some audio clips.
Do you need somewhere to upload an MP3 to, or do you just want to include an MP3 in a message. If the latter then just do this:
Without linking to any video or webpage, explain the following:
Define the "US lifestyle in the early 70's" and enumerate which of its qualities you think we risk losing and that should be preserved.
I was ranting. Upon reflection, the only thing I wish that we had now that we had in the 70's is a lower National Debt. The numbers seem totally out of control and nobody seems to care any more.
The party that seems to care least about the national debt is the Republicans. The pandemic related debt can't be helped, but the largest increase in debt before that was because of the 2008 economic crisis brought on by Republican repeal of Glass-Steagel because it led directly to the mortgage security collapse.
There have been periods of higher inflation all through our history. The inflation that began in the 60's and extended through the 70's (Remember Nixon's wage/price controls? It wasn't just the oil shocks of the late 70's causing inflation.) was back to normal by the mid-80's. Explain how we were different from other countries before that period of inflation, and how we were just like them afterwards.
What I miss is the cocoon of exceptionalism and power that we used to have. And I know how you all will likely respond to that statement!
How would we be likely respond?
What forces and/or circumstances are placing the dollar's status as a global currency at risk?
The excessive quantitative easing, the suppression of Gold and Silver which should by all logical standards be soaring as high as bit-coin, and the resulting creation of inflation which in my opinion is anything but "transitory".
Please explain your "all logical standards" that should have sent gold and silver soaring.
The US ranks 15th in quality of life (Standard Of Living By Country 2021). None of the countries in front of us have a global currency, unless you count the Euro which doesn't belong to any single country. How do you explain that, for example, Finland, Estonia, and Slovenia are in front of us?
Probably because we have a GOP bent on reducing taxes for the rich and also have an enormous and ever-increasing National Debt. Keep in mind, however, that both political parties add to this debt and I fear that kicking the can down the road has reached its limit very soon.
Finland, Estonia and Slovenia's ratio of national debt to GDP is not all that much less than our own, 69% ,88% and 56% as compared to our own 108%, and much of that acquired in just the past year - a year ago it was around 80%.
You're going to have to seek another explanation - stop pulling excuses out of your ass and start thinking.
Percy writes:
Until you learn how to think through the data and to reason for yourself you'll continue reaching in the dark toward voices that resonate most strongly with you, no matter how nonsensical and fact-free they are.
... and that old Texas Horse has been beaten to death!
So that's a Texasism like my father's favorite?: I'll have to set you down and explain to you how the cow ate the cabbage. (that one would confuse my older son immensely)
I like a variation on beating a dead horse which went something like "Beating a patch of ground where there once laid a dead horse decades ago." Which describes what it's like to deal with creationist claims. This forum's term for that, PRATT, is much more succinct.
He would argue that booms and busts, stock market expansion and contraction, and US inflation itself are cycles that always happen and that there is no undue cause for concern.
Yes, they do happen, repeatedly. And economic models largely ignore them. And, yes, they are cause for concern. Weeeell ... concern for us poor working slobs. The rich not only ride out those downturns, but even grow even richer because of them.
For example, a similar situation though not quite the same thing. During WWI, German industrialists were making tons of Marks hand-over-fist with war production for which they were not taxed. Then after the war, those same industrialists were still not taxed, not even when the Weimar Republic suffered that infamous period of hyper-inflation (tons more on that as explained to me one evening by a graduate student of history).
Watch Terry Jones' documentary, Boom Bust Boom (Wikipedia has practically nothing on it). You can view it for free on TUBI, VUDU, and Crackle (according to my Roku's search function). Very informative and also fun to watch. Among other things, he covers Tulip Mania (an investment bubble where tulip bulbs fetched enormous prices in the 1600's until one big sellers' convention where not a single buyer showed up), a South American trade scheme which proved very lucrative even though hostilities with Spain prohibited any trade with South America, investment in Great Britain's new railroads in which entire families lost all their savings, etc, etc, etc. We just sold the last of our father's investment properties, basically single lots in the middle of deserts, which were sparked by rumors of an airport being built there (a woman at a recent atheists' breakfast meeting talked about her aunt having done the same thing) -- BTW, we sold all those properties at a loss just to keep from saddling our kids with that burden.
Here's the trailer:
Watch it. It is rather good as well as informative.
Also watch The Big Short -- I loved that movie so much that it was the first to become a permanent resident on my DVR. The collapse of the housing market in 2008. The movie frequently has the cast members break down the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience, plus celebrities would appear to explain economics to us (eg, Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining subprime mortgages to us ("So every time you hear 'subprime', just think 'shit'.")).
Or this classic Las Vegas appearance of Selena Gomez demonstrating how most investment consists of gambling and tons of side bets, none of which does anything at all for the actual economy, you know, the one that we both live in and depend on. Not only side bets on the actual play, but even side bets on other side bets.
I think I was one of the few in the audience to catch this in the next scene. It's Jared Vennett's pitch that explains CDOs and how they are loaded with "dog shit wrapped in cat shit" and given AAA ratings because they're "diversified." Let's see if you can spot it too.
Did you spot it? At about the five minute mark. He explains what a CDO is and a woman asks him to repeat that. What woman? Read the room. Nothing but men there. IOW, breaking the fourth wall suddenly became bi-directional. That woman was us, the audience, asking WTF was going on. I thought it was brilliant.
BTW, I had never heard that word, "tranche" (a piece of something), before, but I've heard it used several times since this movie came out. And always in a different context.
A point that both films make is that not only do we not learn from our financial mistakes, but (as per BBB) we even go into the next repeat of our previous mistake thinking that we don't need any safeguards because we know better now. Even though we clearly do not!
Part of what brought on the bank failures of the Great Depression was the banks mixing commercial and investment banking, so the Glass–Steagall legislation of 1932 kept that from happening. Then in the 1990's we got rid of Glass-Steagall thinking that "we know better now". Then 2008 happened and to keep that from happening again we got Dodd-Frank in 2010. Then under Trump they got rid of Dodd-Frank.
It's like me buying another bottle of tequila: "This time I'll be able to manage it. I'm smarter now, so I can do it." It never works! We just keep making the same mistakes over and over again!
But seriously, both films are great! And very informative.
Our high school history text had a long section on Tulip Mania and on the South Sea Bubble. This was in W. Australia. I don't think we spent much time on that in class, but I remember reading it.
I took it as a lesson on where Laissez Faire capitalism ends up. But it seems that nobody ever learns that lesson.
Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity
It can be interesting to see the difference in what some countries (and even regions therein, such as individual states) choose to teach as history or to leave out. I'm not just talking about different versions of the same event (such as the winning and losing sides of a conflict), but just plain what they even choose to mention.
For example, there's the Fenian Invasion of Canada (listed as "Fenian Raids") after the US Civil War. Basically, Irish veterans from both sides of the Civil War teamed together to use their combat experience to attack the British in Canada. They massed next to the border in New York and there were a few skirmishes during incursions (hence raids instead of an actual invasion) until the police in the US made arrests.
My point is that we never learned about in US history class (in Southern California); I had only ever heard of it by following links in Wikipedia. But when I asked a friend at church (UU) who was from Canada, he confirmed that, oh yes indeed, they did learn about that in school.
1848: what historic events happened in that year? All we ever learned about in school was the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill which triggered the California Gold Rush in 1849 (and the "Forty-Niners"). It wasn't until college US history that I ever even heard of the Mexican-American War ("From the Halls of Montezuma ... ") at the end of which we annexed the Southwest including California from Mexico. I assume that it's part of history classes in Texas, where most of the fighting had started on the border, and maybe also in Arizona and New Mexico.
Of course, Mexico remembers that war very well, including monuments to the "Three Heroes", military cadets who leapt to their deaths with the Mexican flag from Carlota's Castle rather than let that flag fall into the invaders' hands. They also remember "Los Sanpatricios", the Saint Patrick's Battalion, Irish immigrant soldiers who deserted from the US Army to fight on the side of the Mexicans with whom they had much more in common. I only heard of them because a local Irish band, The Fenians, does a song about them.
But if you ask a Continental European about 1848 ... ; well, that year saw waves of revolutions blaze their way across Europe. The March Revolutions as a failed attempt to create a unified Germany (eventually put down, so unification had to wait until the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871). Italy's first step towards independence from Austrian rule and unification. Hungary's failed attempt at independence from Austria (put down very decisively -- story is that since the Austrians were clinking their glasses of beer in celebration of Hungary's defeat, you do not clink beer glasses in Hungary). And of course there was the French Revolution of 1848 which ended the "July Monarchy" and started the French Second Republic (which President Napoleon III later turned into the Second Empire which was destroyed by Prussia in 1871 right before the German Second Empire was formed). And Switzerland became a federal state. And lots lots more.
There is so very much more to history than gets taught in school. And it's mind-boggling what schools will choose to leave out.
One thing I noticed with the history curriculum that was taught to my kids, is that there has been an increasing focus on late 19th and 20th century history.
My take on the reason for this ? I think it's because there is so much more access to audio visual material to study - and the thinking goes that kids learn better that way.
If I'm right, we are seriously underestimating the intelligence of our youth- and worse, we are narrowing the scope of that intelligence, by moving them away from reading and imagination.
(And, of course, in the case of England, reducing the focus on the horrors wrought by our imperialistic past).
Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?
™ Version 4.2
(1)