Economics by morons
So, this video about why you shouldn’t freak out about the national debt says the US can’t run out of money because it prints money. Ok, then. And, of course, the opening line is an outright lie. Debt is closer to $18T, using the .gov’s bogus number. And, if the the government accounted for obligations like companies are required to, the debt is more like $200T. The government records no obligation for social security, for instance.
March 27th, 2014 at 9:06 am
My Dad used to say that there would come a point where people would either stop paying for welfare programs and Social Security, or would be unable to pay for them.
The first option he would have considered a success story. The second, not so much.
He’s been gone for a long time, but I think he was on to something there.
March 27th, 2014 at 1:12 pm
They also claim that inflation is at the lowest it has ever been, which is a lie. The only reason it appears low is that they no longer use food and energy to calculate it.
The numbers are suspect.
March 27th, 2014 at 1:54 pm
Well why add food and energy for inflation calculation?
It’s not like you HAVE to buy it.
March 27th, 2014 at 4:57 pm
If you keep repeating a lie loudly enough, people might start believing you.
(In reference to the video, of course.)
March 27th, 2014 at 5:38 pm
1) Food and energy have never been in the core cpi numbers, that hasn’t changed.
2) Not all increases in price are inflationary. There’s that whole supply/demand thing happening too. The reason food and energy are excluded is because they are hyper sensitive to supply and demand. Only a small portion of their price changes are actually due to inflation: more noise, less signal. For example: gas prices go up in the summer, not because the currency is worth less in the summer, but because the law says oil companies must supply more costly summer blends to the market.
All price increases hurt people’s budgets, but CPI only attempts to measure the portion of that pain that is from currency debasement.
March 27th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
There is no ‘obligation’ to pay Social Security. Congress could change that law tomorrow and poof…gone. I get why people believe that can’t happen ‘politically’, but the Entitlement ‘obligations’ are just laws that can be changed at any time.
March 28th, 2014 at 9:27 am
@Yu:
So when the government requires costly additions to cars like increased gas mileage, or interconnected computers, that is inflationary and counts as currency debasement, but requiring a summer blend of gasoline does not?
In 1993, a pound of bacon, a gallon of milk, and a dozen eggs cost $3.77. In 2013, those same products cost 12.97. This is due to a volatile market situation?
Sounds like propaganda to me.
March 28th, 2014 at 9:30 am
and I would add that the CPI is massaged and adjusted. Once you begin applying adjustments and rules to raw numbers, you can make the outcome whatever you wish it to be. I don’t trust the CPI. What I see is that prices of goods are climbing when valued in dollars, and holding steady when measured against commodities like gold and silver.
That is how you know that your currency is being inflated.
March 28th, 2014 at 12:42 pm
The dollar will crash. It is only a matter of how hard and fast it craters.
Monetizing the debt will cause this fiat currency to go to zero, Zimbabwe style.
When the dollar goes down, it will drag the other currencies that use dollar reserves as a base down with it.
Buy precious metal, and enjoy the decline.
March 28th, 2014 at 7:35 pm
I’m glad I got my CCW permit…time to go to ground.
March 29th, 2014 at 12:22 am
Good lord.
Increases in price mean the buying power of the currency is lessened. That is the very definition of inflation.
Go to http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiqa.htm and you can see them actually admitting that they’re cooking the books. Example:
“When the cost of food rises, does the CPI assume that consumers switch to less desired foods, such as substituting hamburger for steak?
No. In January 1999, the BLS began using a geometric mean formula in the CPI that reflects the fact that consumers shift their purchases toward products that have fallen in relative price. Some critics charge that by reflecting consumer substitution the BLS is subtracting from the CPI a certain amount of inflation that consumers can “live with” by reducing their standard of living. This is incorrect: the CPI’s objective is to calculate the change in the amount consumers need to spend to maintain a constant level of satisfaction.”
Translation: “we’re using a ‘geometric mean formula’ to calculate the Official Truth because OLDTHINKERS UNBELLYFEEL INGSOC. When the price of steak rises, let ’em eat beans. Food is food, right? WE LOVE BIGBROTHER”
See also, http://www.shadowstats.com/article/consumer_price_index
March 29th, 2014 at 1:20 am
Me, I still don’t speak Newspeak that well, so to put it in plain English and not Newspeak, I think what you said was,
“When the cost of food rises, does the CPI assume that consumers switch to less desired foods, such as substituting hamburger for steak?
No. In January 1999, the BLS began using a geometric mean formula in the CPI that reflects the fact that consumers switch to less desired foods, such as substituting hamburger for steak.”
It is a conflict of interest to have the government in charge of the statistics that determine what it has to pay out.
March 29th, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Windy:
Yes indeed. The BLS has admitted that they’re fudging the numbers. “Buying power? No, it’d look bad if we admitted the truth about that, so we strung together some vaguely scientific or mathematical sounding words and made up some numbers that don’t look quite so bad and claim we’re measuring ‘consumer satisfaction’ instead.”
Big Brother has increased the chocolate ration from thirty grams per week to twenty grams per week. This is Official Truth, and questioning it is THOUGHTCRIME.
Did you ever watch a Charlie Chaplin film called “The Great Dictator?”
“The people are complaining about the sawdust in the bread, Herr Fuehrer!”
“What? But it comes from the finest sawmills in Germany! Have all the troublemakers arrested at once!”
March 29th, 2014 at 5:03 pm
“Debt Just Isn’t a Problem Right Now”
What kind of a fucking ass wagon could come up with such a trailer load of fresh donkey shit? “It will lead to inflation and higher prices but we should really worry about something important” like what; the Chinese knocking on our proverbial door wanting their 6 trillion dollars back!!