To: RetiredNow who wrote (756115 ) 12/5/2013 1:19:17 PM From: Bilow 1 RecommendationRecommended By Road Walker
Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 1574854 Hi mindmeld; Re: "what you are missing in my arguments is that I am showing the logical fallacies of the Fed and Dem claims that loose monetary policies benefit the 99%. I've amply demonstrated that they do not. They are the ones claiming their policies benefit the 99%, yet even you admit that this recovery is stagnant. So is QE doing the trick? No. "; I do not claim that QE is a silver bullet that instantaneously solves all stagnation problems. QE is not a "trick" that cures depression. No such silver bullet exists. Go read the literature. There is no cure for depressions. You have to wait them out. What QE does is reduce the pain. Depressions have been with the capitalist world for hundreds of years. No one has found a solution for them before and there are no solutions to them now. This is life. Get used to it. Quit whining that QE hasn't fixed something that's been broken (or not broken, depending on how you look at it) for 500 years. Of course QE hasn't fixed the depression. Doing anti-QE (and it's been tried before!) won't fix the depression either. Quit looking for an easy fix. Re: "I think hard money is better than the stealth tax of fiat plus a 2% targeted inflation rate. " Of course you do. You've always believed this. I'm reminded of when Obama was elected, one of their guys said "never let a crisis go to waste" or something to that effect. You're doing the same thing. You're trying to use the current economic crisis as an excuse for getting something you've wanted long before this crisis. There are 500 years of capitalism in dozens of countries. Some of them were hard money and some were not. The record is undeniable. Hard money economies have booms and busts that are worse than the ones experienced by soft money economies. The people who do nothing but research economics know this. This is why they're not going to bring back hard money (especially in the middle of a depression). Get used to it. Re: "So why is gold taxed and why are they trying to scuttle bit coin? " When you make a profit buying and selling gold, that is taxed of course. And it is true that inflation can cause an unprofitable gold transaction to look as if it is profitable. Is that what you're talking about? So who is it that owns the gold. Is that the 99% or the 1%. Of course it's the wealthy that own the gold and they're the ones who pay the inflation tax when they take profits on it. This is another example of how easy money is bad for the very wealthy. I suppose you'll be telling me that it's the poor people who own gold, LOL. You're an idiot. Same thing applies to real estate. When some rich actor buys a house for $10 million and sells it 5 years later for $20 million (because of inflation) they end up paying a huge tax on it partly because of inflation. I suppose you're going to tell me that the people who own most of the real estate in the country are poor people. You're an idiot. Why do I argue with you? And I didn't know that they were trying to scuttle bit coin. But of course I don't think much of bit coin. I like my money hard. I believe in gold. I just don't think that a hard gold currency is a good idea, or even a realistic idea, in the 21st century US. Re: "In addition, the price of money should be allowed to float. The Fed sets the interest rates, which in a debt backed fiat currency like the USD, simply means the interest rate is the price of money. So why won't the Fed let the market decide what the price of money is? " The basic economic problem we have (as compared to our economy of 2007) is that people with money aren't spending as much as they used to. The "velocity of money" has dropped precipitously. The Fed is leaning against this. The only way they can lean against it is to increase the amount of money so the GDP, which is the product of velocity of money and amount of money, does not also drop precipitously. This is what QE is doing. Re: "Simply, because they are manipulating rates, to manipulate currency, to make carrying our debt easier, while implementing a stealth tax that absolutely CLOBBERS the 99%, while enriching the 1%, who get access to the newly printed QE and low rates first. " The number who are being enriched by QE activity is not the 1%. It's at best the 1% of the 1%. Most of the 1% are guys like rich doctors who will lose money to inflation. Simple fact is that easy money (i.e. QE) is good on the debtors of a society and bad on the lenders. And it is the rich that are lenders and middle class that are debtors. Of course you might be able to find rare examples of rich people where this is reversed but the general rule is that rich people have money, poor people have debt. And easy money is tough on lenders, easy on debtors. This pattern has been repeated in every depression for 500 years. This is not new theory, easy money has always been bad for the wealthier portion of society. Nothing new. And you've not shown any evidence that QE "CLOBBERS" the 99%. What you've shown is that the 99% is still hurting. But the 99% hurt in *every* depression. It's what defines a depression, more or less. It is not QE that clobbered the 99%, it's the depression that clobbered them. They were getting clobbered before QE began you moron. Re: "One rule in economics we should all agree is true is that the people who get access to new money and low rates first ring in 99% of the benefits of that largesse. Think about that. "; Interesting point. Okay. Show me how you calculate the "99% of the benefits ". Why aren't you claiming 98% or 100%? Really, I don't think you have any idea on this. What you have are some moral beliefs. You're looking at the problem emotionally, like the Democrats do. Next thing I expect you to do is quit taking baths and start carrying an "Occupy Wall Street" sign around downtown. -- Carl P.S. I love gold. I own gold. I've owned gold stocks (not any at the moment, I think stocks are too high priced right now due to the low interest rates the Fed is pushing and those low interest rates are going to hurt people heavily invested in the stock market, eventually). I've commented on gold stocks and gold on SI. For example: (BIlow 1997, on South African gold stocks) I bought some FSCNY the other day, I'll take a look at DRFNY, I made money on both stocks many years ago.Message 2282898 (Bilow, 1999, on Battle Mountain Gold) The stock is still looking pretty strong, as does the price of gold. Message 11387355 (Bilow, 2001 on ASL Ashanti Gold Fields)Hi nutxspirit; I'm holding, gonna hold for a couple more years, what's there to post? Also picked up some cheap HL some time ago. Message 16073427 If there were anyone who wanted to bring back a gold standard that would be me. I'd tell you how much of a gold bug I really am but I value my privacy on SI and I don't let out very many hints as to who I am. But if there were anyone who was going to say "yeah, we need a gold standard to solve our economic problems" that would be me. I don't believe that, because I know a lot more economics than my friends (most of whom are also gold bugs like me). I get into the same arguments with them that I argue with you. Exact same arguments except that I don't inform them that they're stupid. You're not my friend, I don't mind telling you the truth. But I've heard all the hard money arguments already. I read on this subject constantly and know far more about it than you do.