[Oriz]

Originally Posted by mdovell

I think for the most part we are going to see deflation because we are consuming less and as baby boomers retire that inheritance would offset new production. Why buy a new house if you already inherit one? What about all of the cars, boats, furniture etc. Sure some of it wears down but even if someone doesn't want to keep it they can sell it so it could be an explosion more in online retail.

I agree but I think it's also alot bigger than that. It's the debt bubble and implosion that actually began many many years ago but the Federal Reserve is trying to fight it off by shoving more money into the system that doesn't want nor can handle any more money so that's why it's not really working in the real world, the only way it's worked so far but won't forever is pushing stock prices up. Everything else is a failure with the dollar up, commodities down, velocity of money still down - Velocity of M2 Money Stock - FRED - St. Louis Fed

etc.

deflation is not falling prices. Deflation is the contraction of money, whereas inflation is the expansion. Falling/rising prices are the consequence of deflation/inflation. And right now we have a clear deflationary trend everyone is trying to fight, with only partial and temporary success. Not going to take much longer for it to fail miserably and for this money bubble to burst same as the real estate bubble did, same as the high tech bubble did. It is insane what they are doing but most people can't seem to see that and think it is a good thing and that you have to fight off a crisis at any cost! NO. The world has to move in two steps forward one step back you try and mess with that all you are creating is more carnage in the long run. Without stepping back there can't be steps forward.

I do think once they get desperate enough they will do even more and more and that's when the hyperinflation period will begin. But that will be only AFTER deflation runs its course.

[cgregor]

Oriz, do you think it would have made a difference if the Fed had pumped all that quantitative easing into infrastructure repair?

[Oriz]

Would it have changed the course of what I believe to be natural cycles? No. But would it have been more useful? of course.

[Oriz]

The first 45 seconds of this video is basically what they are doing:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbsGWNXZ51I

Thank you Ice Age and Scrat I hope the kids learn from this.

[Oriz]

Originally Posted by cgregor

Oriz, do you think it would have made a difference if the Fed had pumped all that quantitative easing into infrastructure repair?

The problem with that though is, the fed actually has no interest in doing anything beneficial for infrastructure or regular people. Most people believe the fed is like a government institution or something. It is not. It is privately owned. Its shareholders are private banks(despite its own claims to the contrary). Which is how I find myself agreeing with a socialist such as Sanders that the FED should be abolished. That's the thing, like I said before, one of the only areas that real capitalists(not those disguised as such) and socialists agree is that a system like the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished. All it has ever brought into the system is more instability and volatility.

Where they disagree is that the capitalist sees the FED just as more government intervention, even though it's like I said barely even Quasi Governmental. The socialist just sees it as intervention in the wrong places - helping the banks and insurance companies instead of infrastructure, jobs and other areas. However, I don't believe in Keynesian economics, so I don't think the treasury should intervene either.

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by mdovell

"Taxes should be based on an ability to pay. That's why income tax, as much as I hate it, works. I do not agree with you on renting being better because it's easier. I hate the renter mindset and the dependence it fosters. Moreover, if you factor in the hours worked to pay the rent, you're not getting anything easier."

But it is very easy for people to not pay income taxes. They simply use revenue to create revenue and then it falls under capital gains. This is how people ultimately become wealthy. Now we don't have a tax on wealth itself just the means. Technically one can argue the estate tax is a wealth tax but anyone that really falls under it pretty much already has a trust set up and donated money away. Income taxes pretty much don't work because if work dries up so does the income. How much did Michigan lose when GM had layoffs in the 1980s? In Vermont they are shutting down the yankee plant and that's 550 jobs at an average of 105K each. Most jobs in VT outside of Burlington hardly pay anything at all. If they had structured themselves like NH this wouldn't be an issue because the baseline of state property tax is always factored in

Capital gains need to be treated the same as other sources of income.

As for peak oil frankly there is no peak. There is a limit eventually but
fraking works. Also efficiency keeps growing. In the mid 1970's the big three
tried to say a car that gets 25mpg would be a death trap the size of a Gremlin.
Now SUV's get that easily. We are less dependent on oil as we were in the past.
Email has gradually replaced mail, 3d printers replacing custom orders from
factories, teleconferencing replacing business travel, mp3's replacing cd's,
ereaders replacing books etc. As you have less to make and ship you pretty much
have less to move. I would argue we have peak car


Peak car -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





Outside of the USA there just isn't the same demand. So fraking with a lack
of significant exports pretty much causes a supply glut. Remember also that
going forward the CAFE mandates mean every new car will have a higher mpg so
demand technically can drop as you get more for your gasoline. Add in some ride
sharing and it reduces demand further. I've seen a huge increase in the number
of lyft and uber drivers in Mass as prices dropped. That creates less incentives
to need a car which further lowers demand

Peak oil is real, we jut don't know precisely when peak is hit until well afterwards. We can frack all we want but we couldn't supply ourselves long term because our reserves have peaked. Global demand is rising. China and India are headed in our direction in terms of consumption. Oil is not being produced in the earth at the rates we use it.

[mdovell]

Global demand has been shrinking otherwise we wouldn't see Nigerian oil tankers just sitting around. Remember the Minksy moment?

I've seen bubbles before and this is how they tend to break down.

1) Something is created that has at least at first high demand
2) Speculation leads to saturation. That is everyone and their grandmother gets in (see Suzanne researched this for housing)
3) The consumer has no symbol or standards for quality
4) Quality declines
5) Consumer gets confused and pulls out

Happened with video games in '83, tech in 2000, credit in 2008.

"Capital gains need to be treated the same as other sources of income."

Well they are taxed but you have to remember this. If someone is *really* rich then they don't need income because well they have it already. If you own enough and keep your consumption down then that's it.You cannot tax real richness because frankly it doesn't exist. If you take some person making six or seven figures and take away all of their funds they still have all their connections, their education and everything they've built. Equal opportunities do not mean equal outcomes.
Heck most cancers are by bad luck..
Most Cancers May Simply Be Due To Bad Luck - Forbes

I still say we're going to see deflation because frankly demand is not constant if it can be solved locally. Technologies lower the costs of operating.

[spiritbear928]

I cannot move now as I have good stability but I am intrigued by Vermont and though I have never been there I am disappointed about your governors betrayal of his people. I had hoped if Vermont could do it, other liberal states (even though my state is very divided to the point of dysfunction) would follow suit. If I were not rooted here, I would move to Vermont just because of it if it passed

[cgregor]

I don't think it was a betrayal so much as a failure of vision. The governor was unable to get beyond the convenient wisdom of the present taxation system as being sufficiently progressive and maxed out. As with most states as well as the federal government, the tax system could be massively modified to make it much fairer. A case in point-- his numbers people determined it would require an 8.5% payroll tax-- but they never considered how to structure a flexible payroll tax which would have been borne by the most rapacious employers (e.g., Wal-Mart, which paid an average-- and probably still does, given any loophole in the recently inaugurated minimum wage hike-- of $8.85 an hour, while Ed Smith, its CEO, makes 1,800 times that. Properly structured, such a tax would make participation in single-payer highly desirable to every mom and pop business in the state.

The Vermont Senate will be holding hearings on the financing of a single payer plan, and it's possible they will hear testimony on the feasibility of the concept.

And if the governor is sharp, he will introduce a plan with a 95% actuarial value in the second year of the biennium, then use it and the numbers associated with it for a strong plank in a 2016 campaign.

[Diozark]

Originally Posted by cgregor

Health care is not like any other business. When you find out you need a set of wheels to get from your house to your job, you don't suffer great pain and/or die if you don't buy a new car. You have a whole lot of other options, from bicycling to public transportation, to choose from. You also don't have just one car maker who can force you to buy a car at the price he sets. I would recommend you see the movie "SiCKO" to find out just how bad (we are 37th internationally) the American health care system is.

I am very sorry to hear that you apparently a victim of mortgage fraud, especially if you are one of the 14,000,000 householders who unfairly and unjustly lost their home because of the 2008 Wall Street collapse. I am very angry at Congress for bailing them out, at the White House for failing to jail those responsible, and at this rump congress for striking out the provisions in Dodd-Frank which would have kept the government from bailing them out again the next time it happens.

However, you are mistaken that it was "sponsored" by the US government. It was overseen by a government that believed that an unregulated market would automatically work in the best interests of all and failed to act when the dangers were pointed out; but government did not sponsor it.

If, however, you live in a state with a judicial system like Florida's and had to suffer its extremely prejudicial form of mortgage review, then you indeed are a victim of state government sponsorship of mortgage fraud. I don't know how Rick Scott--whose hospital corporation is the biggest defrauder of Medicare of any business in history-- $84 billion-- managed to get re-elected. I guess Floridians are just programmed against insurrection."

Vermont did not have the housing bubble most of the country had-- we were very lucky not to have such greedy mortgage brokers-- but we did have a few cases; I personally know one family that was almost ruined, but they could afford a good lawyer.

I hope you can find justice.

Nope Not finding Justice here in Connecticut. I have just been more victimized by more fraud, from people leaving notes on my door to call some number and pretending to be Bank Of America.
Health Care, Please I suffered needlessly for 12 years being destroyed physically and Mentally by a douche, bridgeport ct doctor.
Fortunately, I survived UC and found Lahey in Burlington. If only the loser in Bpt treated me responsibly, I could have had a healthy life, sooner. Oh We'll.

There are no lawyers to be found in Connecticut, all thats left is ambulance chasers.