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TowardLiberty

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #40 - Apr 24^th, 2012 at 11:49pm

west2004 wrote on Apr 24^th, 2012 at 10:56pm:

Not necessarily.

As bad as it has been since it began, it is nothing compared to right now. Want to know why? If you wanted a loan, what interest rate would you have to pay? 4%?

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc pay .25%. 1/8 what you might pay.

Further, the US government borrows at a rate of about 3%. 42% of the money the US is currently borrowing (national debt) is owned by US individuals and institutions. These individuals and institutions include many that have access to the Federal Reserve discount rate (.25%) and can borrow at that rate (ie, have money printed) and gain two benefits from t hat ability. First, they get to utilize the funds before the inflationary impact of that new money takes effect (ie, while its value is much greater). Second, they can then loan that money to the treasury at a 2.75% guaranteed return.

So remember, the federal reserve is a tool for enriching the privileged, while the savings and buying power of the middle class is wiped out.

I wonder what the real cost of borrowing is for the government after we deduct the FED's remittance to the treasury from borrowing costs?!

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"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." J M Keynes

"In the first place, the dichotomy between "theoretical" and "practical" is a false one. In economics, all arguments are theoretical. And, since economics discusses the real world, these theoretical arguments are by their nature "practical" ones as well." M Rothbard

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TowardLiberty

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #41 - Apr 24^th, 2012 at 11:54pm

Phillip wrote on Apr 24^th, 2012 at 10:34pm:

If that was the biggest culprit, the wealth would have been redistributed within a few decades after that. But we still had a flourishing middle class up until Reagan's policies started destroying it.

Ah but that is essentially what happened when the system reached maturity. A few years after Nixon closed the gold window, the ability of the system to conjure money and credit from thin air was finally unleashed and the last vestiges of the gold standard were sauntered. This is when the great schism between the 1% and the rest really took off.

But lets not fool ourselves.

This is a process that was well on its way by 1913. The great wars, the great depression and the cold war resulted in massive wealth redistribution and none of it would have happened without monetary debasement.

And when you consider that Hitler came to power in a society destroyed in a monetary collapse, it is not hard to see how ruinous inflation can be.

For this reason Mises was on to something when he argued that sound money was just as important as a bill of rights.

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"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." J M Keynes

"In the first place, the dichotomy between "theoretical" and "practical" is a false one. In economics, all arguments are theoretical. And, since economics discusses the real world, these theoretical arguments are by their nature "practical" ones as well." M Rothbard

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SiouxRebel

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #42 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 9:00am

TowardLiberty wrote on Apr 24^th, 2012 at 11:54pm:

Ah but that is essentially what happened when the system reached maturity. A few years after Nixon closed the gold window, the ability of the system to conjure money and credit from thin air was finally unleashed and the last vestiges of the gold standard were sauntered. This is when the great schism between the 1% and the rest really took off.

Thought you didn't believe in "income inequality"? When did you change your mind?

Quote:

This is a process that was well on its way by 1913. The great wars, the great depression and the cold war resulted in massive wealth redistribution and none of it would have happened without monetary debasement.

Sure it would have just as it is occurring today . When you have all of the means of production, and distributions of goods, settled within one group that is where the wealth is going to accrue. Matters not what the means of exchange are. Only matters how the exchange is controlled.

BTW, we could easily go back on the gold standard if the government would allow mining in certain areas such as the Salmon River in Idaho (an estimated 7 million per mile), or the Bering Sea where gold amounts are massive, and cannot be estimated.

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TowardLiberty

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #43 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 9:13am

SiouxRebel wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 9:00am:

Thought you didn't believe in "income inequality"? When did you change your mind?

Nothing did.

I have always maintained that inflation redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich. We cannot understand the wealth gap without looking at inflation as its prime cause.

So you might say this is my pet issue.

Quote:

Sure it would have just as it is occurring today .

Nu uh! The wars wouldn't have occurred without inflation to finance them. And wages would be worth something without inflation. And this is all without even mentioning the business cycle. Quote:

When you have all of the means of production, and distributions of goods, settled within one group that is where the wealth is going to accrue. Matters not what the means of exchange are. Only matters how the exchange is controlled.

And that is applicable to the US economy?

Quote:

BTW, we could easily go back on the gold standard if the government would allow mining in certain areas such as the Salmon River in Idaho (an estimated 7 million per mile), or the Bering Sea where gold amounts are massive, and cannot be estimated.

I recoil at the thought of another state managed gold standard.

It needs to be a market ran thing. A truly private good.

And why would returning to a gold standard necessitate mining in those regions? Is there not enough gold to function as money today?

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"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." J M Keynes

"In the first place, the dichotomy between "theoretical" and "practical" is a false one. In economics, all arguments are theoretical. And, since economics discusses the real world, these theoretical arguments are by their nature "practical" ones as well." M Rothbard

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forgotten centrist

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #44 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:02am

patrick2 wrote on Apr 24^th, 2012 at 10:44pm:

"Trickle-down economics" is a meaningless idiot phrase used by the leftwing. It doesn't constitute debate or any meaningful comment about economics.

Trickle-down was a major talking point of the Reagan administration, later repackaged as "supply side economics". Mind you, Bush 41 disagreed with it during the 1980 primary, coining the term "voodoo economics" in his campaign against Reagan. (But he quickly pivoted to secure the veep spot.)

And there's this about Reagan's budget director -- the main man behind supply side:

Quote:

Yet he was conceding what the liberal Keynesian critics had argued from the outset—the supply-side theory was not a new economic theory at all but only new language and argument to conceal a hoary old Republican doctrine: give the tax cuts to the top brackets, the wealthiest individuals and largest enterprises, and let the good effects "trickle down" through the economy to reach everyone else. Yes, Stockman conceded, when one stripped away the new rhetoric emphasizing across-the-board cuts, the supply-side theory was really new clothes for the unpopular doctrine of the old Republican orthodoxy. "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,'" he explained, "so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/12/the-education-of-david-stock...

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TowardLiberty

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #45 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:06am

forgotten centrist wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:02am:

Trickle-down was a major talking point of the Reagan administration, later repackaged as "supply side economics". Mind you, Bush 41 disagreed with it during the 1980 primary, coining the term "voodoo economics" in his campaign against Reagan. (But he quickly pivoted to secure the veep spot.)

And there's this about Reagan's budget director -- the main man behind supply side:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/12/the-education-of-david-stock...

How do you feel about supply side's cousin, Keynesian economics?

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"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." J M Keynes

"In the first place, the dichotomy between "theoretical" and "practical" is a false one. In economics, all arguments are theoretical. And, since economics discusses the real world, these theoretical arguments are by their nature "practical" ones as well." M Rothbard

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forgotten centrist

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #46 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:08am

TowardLiberty wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 9:13am:

And why would returning to a gold standard necessitate mining in those regions? Is there not enough gold to function as money today?

Indeed! The whole point of a gold standard is that you can't artificially inflate it. It's scarcity and the relatively steady rate at which we extract it from the ground are the very features that make it useful as a medium for the exchange of wealth. If we returned to a gold standard and someone mined an asteroid and brought back 100k tons of gold, it would defeat the whole concept.

The same thing happened when the spaniards conquered the new world. They brought back untold fortunes in gold and kind, and went on a national binge. Inflation hit big-time, and much of their gold went to other countries like England to buy, you know, actual products. So England ended up with the south american gold AND the manufacturing base, and spain ended its time as a superpower.

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"...whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff."

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TowardLiberty

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #47 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:11am

forgotten centrist wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:08am:

Indeed! The whole point of a gold standard is that you can't artificially inflate it. It's scarcity and the relatively steady rate at which we extract it from the ground are the very features that make it useful as a medium for the exchange of wealth. If we returned to a gold standard and someone mined an asteroid and brought back 100k tons of gold, it would defeat the whole concept.

Exactly.

I would not add anything. Quote:

The same thing happened when the spaniards conquered the new world. They brought back untold fortunes in gold and kind, and went on a national binge. Inflation hit big-time, and much of their gold went to other countries like England to buy, you know, actual products. So England ended up with the south american gold AND the manufacturing base, and spain ended its time as a superpower.

Yep. All through history large discoveries of gold have been inflationary.

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"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." J M Keynes

"In the first place, the dichotomy between "theoretical" and "practical" is a false one. In economics, all arguments are theoretical. And, since economics discusses the real world, these theoretical arguments are by their nature "practical" ones as well." M Rothbard

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Sarge19d

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Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade
Reply #48 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:13am

Quote:

Obviously, it's Obama's fault and not the housing crisis that occurred before he even took office.

That he's had 3 1/2 years to fix, but he's more concerned with bauiling out the UAW, ramming ObamaCare down our throats, sending his Attorney General to every part of the country trying to rile up latent racial unrest, and vacationing in Hawaii and other tourist hotspots. How many rounds of golf has he played in the last 3 1/2 years?

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forgotten centrist LNF Majority Leader Online bring back the middle class! Posts: 6,815	Re: Obamanomics: lowest housing prices in a decade Reply #49 - Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:24am TowardLiberty wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 10:06am: How do you feel about supply side's cousin, Keynesian economics? You equate supply-side with keynesian? How?
Back to top	"...whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff." IP Logged