Testing The Financial Apologists

You are right, Phat. We may indeed be headed in that direction. You think you can do anything about it? You think your insignificant (though fee generating thus income generating for someone else, thank you very much) investment can alter anything except to boost the seller's income?Even in concert, Phat, do you think the American middle class can protect itself from such a thing by buying up a few pounds of gold while all the rest of their meger wealth evaporates?You're along for the ride, Phat. Haven't you anything other to do with your money? I'm sure jar and ringo can suggest some.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Your "ignore responses, repeat claims" approach is a waste of people's time. You've been doing this for a while now, for my own posts most recently completely ignoring Message 16 and Message 20, and responding to Message 17 but not addressing a single point. If you're not going to respond to what people say, why should anyone respond to you?You remind me of people who don't realize they've been idiots until they end up on ventilators and realize that maybe they should have listened and gotten the vaccine. In your case I don't think it's that you haven't learned to listen but that you haven't learned how to achieve an understanding of things you don't yet understand. Instead of expending the effort necessary to understand something you follow whoever captures your fancy. Entire industries have been built upon reliance that people like you exist, like religion, Dutch tulip futures, and South Sea Company stock.--Percy

OK Percy I will give it the old college try. Message 16-- I own my car, though it is a clunker and a money pit. (2002 Buick). The price of used cars has shot up exponentially just in the past year and I dont have much of a nest egg. Gold is not an investment. It is an insurance policy to protect against bad investments and financial corrections. AZPaul3 is correct, however in that a man of my limited means will never outbid the wealthy people who can afford diversification. Im better off buying stable groceries to save up and use once inflation does its work on our prices. Current conservative predicions average 6% a year for 3 years followed by more stable radings, but as they found out in the late seventies, inflation is not easily stopped without raising interest rates. What other way can it be stopped? And keep in mind that were it not for debt there would be no inflation nor deflation. Message 17 -- I learn slowly through trial and error but I also am intuitive beyond what most critical thinkers dare not do. Granted I am anxious yet fascinated by doomsday prognostications for reasons yet unknown. It feels good thinking that the majority of people do not see what I see. My challenge now is figuring out what if anything I actually DO see. So lets keep talking. Message 20-- Im still learning which facts are relevant and which are part of a con.I think that you think that everything is cyclical and that life goes on year after year with out any major reset, apocolyptic or otherwise. But we can both agree that global warming is potentially apocolyptic and they seem slow at addressing that. I would further argue that human nature is intrinsically self serving rather than empathetic. I dont want to see the US middle class and myself suffer.We have gone off the rails since 2007 and I'm not sure we will ever return to where we were as a nation and indeed globally with secure financial resources. And yet you would love for all of the Christian Middle class to give all that they have (and join your ranks in so doing) simply so you dont have to work so hard struggling to pay bills and eat! I see too many people who would rather steal than get a minimum wage job. And its flat-out evil evil evil. Yes we know. You want to sit around at the park with the other homeless people and enjoy life. If you know any of them who steal, you would do well to tell them to cut it out.

This is surely false. I blame the Republicans. They run up debt, and then they block the attempts of Democrats to increase taxes to pay down that debt.Responding to ringo, Phat writes: That's not what I read ringo as saying.

You have that backwards. Critical thinkers are the ones who dare - to defy their intuition. Will you ever learn to read? It's JESUS who wants you to do that. Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, the guy you claim to believe in. That's a vile thing to say. I worked fairly hard all my life for relatively little money and you have the gall to scoff at me giving a few dollars away. I don't expect to gain ANYTHING from you doing what your "leader" wants you to do. How is that a bad thing?

In your response you only quoted me to launch into remaking your old points. You never addressed anything I said. If you "don't have much of a nest egg" then you have no business messing with speculative financial vehicles like gold. Gold mostly makes money for dealers, not their customers. Since you "don't have much a nest egg", you have no meaningful investments that need protection from financial corrections. One of the significant contributors to inflation is wages. If inflation causes significant price increases, wages will increase, too.Consider this. Too many dollars chasing too few goods causes price inflation. Once prices have increased to the point where excess dollars have been soakded up then sales decrease because there's no longer any excess dollars. Decreasing sales cause prices to drop or at least stop rising. Price inflation is self limitiing.But wage increases can keep price inflation going by providing an increasing number of dollars to chase the price of inflated goods. It's known as an inflationary spiral. Artificially slowing business activity by raising interest rates is the way inflationary spirals have traditionally been halted, as you yourself note later. Here's an inflation projection from Statista - The Statistics Portal for Market Data, Market Research and Market Studies showing nothing higher than 2.5% for the next five years. This projection is from April and likely the projections are a little higher now, but not by much: You're being scaremongered, and even if inflation ever did rise to 5% or 10% annually your wages would rise, too. None of that and what follows has anything to do with what I said. I explained in pretty good detail why that article is wrong. Look at it this way. Say you buy a nice used car for $20,000 and finance it with a fixed-rate 5% 5-year loan that costs you $377/month. But let's say that by the end of the year inflation has really taken hold and car loans go up to 10%. How much will you then pay on your car loan. Still $377/month, right? It's not going to change, right?So if interest rates rise, why do you think the federal government's loan payments would increase for existing loans? Yes, it would increase for loans that mature and have to be refinanced, but less than 20% of the federal governments loan portfolio has to be refinanced every year. The interest rate would only increase on less than 20% of the national debt, not all of it. You are not intuitive. All you do is respond to emotional appeals like scare mongering ("the coming inflationary apocalypse will destroy civilization"), and that's how you decide who to listen to.For reasons having nothing to do with facts or rational thinking you've decided that the YouTube guys are right, and nothing can talk you out of it. In particular facts and reason cannot talk you out of it because it wasn't facts and reason that talked you into it in the first place. You find these YouTube guys appealing, and because you lack the math skills and reasoning capabilities to see the fallacious nature of what they're telling you, and because they're skilled at making emotional appeals, you fall for it, and then you come here and fill posts with their lines of malarkey.You'd probably find my arguments a lot more appealing if they were accompanied by predictions of the end of civilization. You're aware you're a sucker for "doomsday prognostications" yet you come here and repeat the nonsense anyway, and then defend it here at length for days and days on end. Please stop. You've just defined delusional. There is no point in continued discussion with you about gold and inflation. Your blood sugar addled brain is hopeless on this topic. A lifetime spent in puzzlement at what makes the world work is unlikely to be remedied now. Yeah, right, I never heard of WWI, the Depression, WWII, the Vietnam War, the World Trade Center attack, Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Great Recession of 2008. Climate change has the potential to end "life as we know it" in many parts of the world. The world lacks the resolve to cut back on greenhouse gases in the necessary timeframe. We're going to need other solutions, and radical ones may have to be considered, like space sunshades. Who does, but your messianic mission is misinformed. You're ranting again.--Percy

I think Percy has done a fine job of showing the error in your economic thinking, as Ringo has shown your limited understanding of Christianity so I will not cover those topics here. Rather I would like to point out this the above sounds just like Donald Trump. Essentially you are saying your mental abilities far exceed our meager talents and that your intuition is more valuable than their knowledge, Like Trump, you are also claiming more insight into any subject than all PhDs ever without having to read, directly study, or take formal coursework.Your case should be studied as a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.We already have Mike the Wiz claiming the mantle of Wiley E, Coyote, super-genius, we don't need two.

In response to Message 876OK I relocated the topic here. We can all continue. (And I think it's odd that you mention "we" as if the EvC peanut gallery is the Supreme Court. I've noticed that a lot of you use the same terminology.You all are wrong about finance in general. It may take me a while to prove it, using my own words. But I will try.
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It's been nearly a week. Is "a while" longer than a week?I don't know for sure, but I get the impression that a number of people here have engineering or engineering-like backgrounds. That means they are *very* good with numbers, logical thinking, and attention to detail. The likelihood that they're all "wrong about finance in general" is miniscule.You, on the other hand, are terrible with numbers. I can pretty much predict which of my messages you won't reply to. If they contain numerical arguments, I won't get a reply.If only you could begin recognizing what your strengths and weaknesses are. I don't know your strengths, but your weaknesses are clear. You have to stop basing your decisions upon whose YouTube videos or websites you like best. Anyone who's found the secret to making a fortune in gold would keep it to themselves, not make YouTube videos encouraging you to buy gold from them.I'm at Schiff's website now. The only options for purchase are email or phone. I chatted with a William Xiong who sent me two price lists, one for purchase and one for buyback. Delivery is a $25 flat rate for orders less than 10oz (i.e., orders less than about $18,000), free for more. Here's an example using 2 10oz gold bars, which has free delivery: Gold has to rise 4.8% before you break even. The current price is $1,731, so it would have to rise to$1,814 before you make a penny.At a discount broker the commission on $35,000 worth of stock is around $5.00. If you bought $35,000 worth of stock at $100/share you would pay a total of $35,005, but when you sell you pay $5.00 again, so let's add it in now and make your total cost $35,010. Before you broke even and your stock began making money it would have to rise to $100.03, an increase of 0.03%. Compare that to the 4.8% your gold would have to rise before you make money. Stocks and gold have behaved comparably over the past 10 years, but gold carries that 4.8% overhead.Gold is a fine investment. Keep it as part of your portfolio. But gold isn't some stellar performer that outshines other investment vehicles, and it certainly isn't practical as a store of value for currencies.--Percy

I know you claim that I dont understand numbers and you are partly right. If I see something explained, it helps a bit. It always did in math/economics/accounting classes at any rate.This article recently appeared in Business Insider.(6/24/22)
Russia and China are brewing up a challenge to dollar dominance by creating a new reserve currency Basically, there is a financial "war" of sorts between the dollar friendly nations and the BRIC alliance. (Brazil, Russia, India, China.) George Gammon explains the macro-economics behind this and how the US dollar, though weaponized and high right now, will face some big challenges. Putin and China just did the unthinkable and the West is in big trouble
George Gammon explains it quite well on a whiteboard. I can almost see the logic, but admit that I dont understand economics all that well. I have been accused of accepting conman arguments, but see nothing wrong with Gammons whiteboard argument.
Are The Global Elite Weaponizing The Fed?
Greg Mannarino also explains the whole scenario. He is actually quite easy to listen to. And he does not sell gold! System Will ‘Wipe Out’ Entire Class as Global Economy Spins Into Free Fall, Warns Greg MannarinoDon't let sensationalist titles prevent you from listening. Everyone wants to push their videos. Daniella Cambone works for Stansberry Research.What I think I do understand is that soon, all money will be digital and out of the control of private ownership. While you may see this as a good thing, (to keep the wealthy from hiding their wealth and pulling it out of the banking system) I see it as trouble for the US shrinking middle class. And I see the charge that the Dollar based (Euro-dollar) system is being challenged by BRIC as concerning. We are unstable financially even though Russia is "broke" now.

Edited by Phat, .

What are financial apologists? What does this even mean? Message 4
Can you explain how the dollar is being "weaponized?" How are precious metals being suppressed, and how does that make the dollar "stronger" and does that mean you can buy more with a dollar or less?

For one thing, it's on a white board. Sometimes a thousand words is worth more than a picture. Strike two. Easy-to-listen-to does not equate to knows-what-he's-talking-about. Why not? Sensational titles are for the National Enquirer. (What's the Bat Baby up to lately?)

How about attempting an argument to show you actually even understand what they are saying? Does it not concern you that these guys make their arguments on youtube instead of in mainstream financial papers?Why do I bother? Skip this. Crawl back under your rock.

I repeat, the fact that you're numbers-challenged means that you shouldn't be questioning what people here explain to you about financial matters. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but you don't have the ability to tell. You should be saying, "I don't understand," a lot more than you do, but instead you do a lot of arguing while not having a clue what you're talking about. Why do you argue? Because you've seen videos. You don't really understand the videos, you can't explain what they say, all you can do is implore us to watch them.So please stop recommending videos you don't understand. First make the effort to understand them and only then post about them, and only in your own words. Do not say something like, "Watch this video that explains the macroeconomics of a financial war that threatens the hegemony of the currently weaponized dollar." All you've done is dropped some lingo from the video into a paragraph followed by a link to the video (There's a [YouTube] code you should use to when posting YouTube videos). Please stop doing that.The right way to accept an argument is to understand it. Your way, the wrong way, is to look for the most compelling stories or presentations. If you can't quite see the logic, why do you think Gammon is worth listening to? Did the sensational title catch your attention? Does Gammow have a compelling style of presentation? A compelling story? What?Clearly you have no valid reason for accepting Gammow. I watched the first 10 seconds of his video: Yeah, he's got one of those captivating styles of presentation. Good for him, it gets eyeballs on his videos, including yours.When you can explain what he's saying in your own words then come back and we'll talk about it. I'm certainly not going to watch a video that you don't understand yourself and that I'll have to explain to you but that you won't believe the explanation because he just feels so right to you about whatever it is he's saying that you don't understand.You remind me of a friend's elderly parents who had to get completely new checking accounts every year or so because some scammer would call them on the phone and convince them to provide all their financial information, and then the money in the checking account would disappear. How many turnip twaddlers do you own?--Percy