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Politics : Welcome to Slider's Dugout -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pogohere who wrote (4783)	3/27/2007 10:48:44 AM
From: kaydee	Respond to of 50014

What the calculator shows is based on the inflation numbers of our "never-manipulative" government. <ng>

To: pogohere who wrote (4783)	3/28/2007 3:08:21 PM
From: Fun-da-Mental#1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50014

First of all let me say I am invested in gold right now. But we have to get past this flat-earth, the-fed-is-the-enemy, let's-go-back-to-the-gold-standard thinking. I looked at that inflation calculator. $1 in 1913 = $20.56 today. So does that mean that inflation has eroded our purchasing power? No, because wages have increased too. No, because if you invested that dollar in treasury bonds and kept reinvesting it at an average 6% interest it would be worth $239.19 today. If you invested it in gold it would be worth $32.26. Would we be better off if the Fed was abolished and we went back on the gold standard? Admittedly the Great Depression happened on the Fed's watch. But what is more significant is that there have been no more depressions and panics since then (meaning a GDP decline of over 10%, runs on banks, collapse of currency in some cases), whereas in the 1800s these things happened regularly: en.wikipedia.org It seems to me the Fed has become pretty good at what it does and it deserves some appreciation. Fun-da-Mental