Economics Current Info - If you're not interested just pass it by!

[PineappleMama]

x2 BB... x200 for that matter. *sigh*

I'm trying to convert, and I admit that it isn't easy nor inexpensive.... but I am willing to try. I think if I could even get my family to the WILLING stage it'd be a huge improvement but so far... no such luck.

 

[Organics North]

I used to dabble in commodities trading...
... In the days before I devalued currency as a whole.....

Thanks for the news IHWIMY... I can honestly say that is the only news, I have read, seen, watched in a long time.

I simply try and exist within my own little bubble of 60%+ self sufficiency.

I do need to start paying attention.. I am seeing an opportunity to buy some commodity puts on the horizon. (IMO they are being pushed much higher than demand on speculation.)

Instead of talking more politics .. Lets talk about ways to shore up your nest egg and prepare for the impending storm. I am lucky in that both of my parents were depression era, so I feel some what confident, I remember the lessons.
(That puts a smile on my face thinking about it my Dad died a year ago this week. He always, was saying watch out, another depression is coming real soon. He said that through the 70's, 80's, 90's 00's... He actually never left the hard lessons the depression taught him,)


Remember folks nothing is forever, something always comes out the other side... The name of the game is how to better the odds that your life, health and finances come out the other side!

OK here goes my first thought:
#1 hyper inflation is great if you do not spend any money.. (Yes?)
* Change your lifestyle, get as self sufficient as you can, so you can avoid spending when the storm hits in full force.
* Consider investing in items that will go up in value, and still be desirable for large amounts of money to sell during hyper inflation.
*Do not stick your money in the mattress now.. Wait for the peak of hyper inflation then literally stuff the matteress with money and do not bring it out until post depression!

I am demented... I actually find this exciting... The game is changing! New playing field..

ON

 

[Dunkopf]

I'm worried about this deficit commission. They have 18 people, 9 from each side. So far the 2 leaders have produced an outline that nobody will support. It includes as mentioned before, the following.

1. Extend retirement age to 69 from 68 for max benefit.
2. Reduction in medicare benefits.
3. Eliminate earned income credit.
4. Eliminate child tax credit.
5. Eliminate mortgage interest deduction.
6. Cuts in defense spending. Of course no talk of ending the war. That would be a real cut.

These are just an outline. There are other things being bounced around. The lions share of the Bush tax cuts went to the top 2%. The most beneficial portion of the Bush tax cut is the child tax credit, there was also a token tax cut for all. If they simply let the tax cut for the top 2% expire it would bring the deficit under control in short order. Those tax cuts were the primary cause of the deficit created during his 8 years. That and the war of course.

At any rate that is a moot point. There's no way the new House will cut any money to their buddies. So we are left with the question of what are the lower 98% of the country going to have to give up. The deficit commission is scary. I can live with extending SS to 69. What's one more year, unless you do a physically demanding job. Medicare benefit reductions? Bad news but expected, since the one payer plan didn't pass. 3 and 4 keep a lot of people from living in the street. Eliminate mortgage interest deduction? You think the foreclosure rate is bad now, go ahead and eliminate that. Can't see it happening because people in the 250k -1 million range actually have mortgages. If it did it would destroy the housing market which is 1 of the reasons we're in such bad shape anyway.

The whole thing demonstrates the need to either cut or increase taxes for somebody. It would be better to increase on people that can afford it. Then start finding where the govt waste a lot of money and start trimming as much as possible. Some govt workers are overpaid. There are a lot of very costly things the govt does. A lot of grants and a lot of bridges to nowhere. Obama has a program that rewards govt employees for cost saving ideas. One of them was submitted by an FDA employee. They evidently take samples at food facilities and overnight the boxes to the testing facility. They use special boxes. So the they overnight the empty boxes back. They don't have a shortage of sample boxes, so the overnight fee is totally wasted. Stuff like that is small potato's, but you can imagine if they're doing something stupid like that, then they are doing a lot of stupid stuff. They need to get in there and make a serious effort at trimming the waste.

The deficit commission meanwhile needs to find ways of leaving more money at the bottom and the middle and quit trying to send it to the top. Those people are doing just fine already.

I do have hope that even though the TP's ran on a Republican ticket that they will remember who elected them and vote to help the lower 98%. I'm hoping that they give Boehner a hard time and don't just do the lock step thing that has made the Republicans such a united force. If they do that I might actually vote for someone other than a Democrat in the future.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
While at first I thought you and I had very opposite political views I'm starting to believe the differences we have are about the same as two guys who love baseball but root for different teams.

Up until a few weeks before the election I ignored most of the news too with the exception of the financials which I rely on to make bad trading decisions. Lately I find myself listening to way too much talk radio and balancing it with NPR, both a guilty pleasure.

We do need to change our lifestyles, for so many reasons. The first for me is spiritual but I won't go there for now. The second is moral. Our rampant consumption empowers and enables some rather disgusting human elements. Also, while I'm not a climate change proponent, a monkey could see the environmental damage occurring in China and many other countries, including our own (although getting much better here, not perfect, just better). We outlawed slavery here over a century ago but almost anything you buy at Walmart is supporting legal slavery in some country or another. I'm starting to rant so I'll shut up.


I must be demented too because there is a part of me brimming with a strange excitement as I watch economies and countries forced to change, hopefully for the better.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
We have no idea of the fortunate past 70 years we've had because of the "voices of experience" like your dad's. The faster his ilk has died, the faster the rest of us has sunk into the "Rome will live forever" mentality.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
These suggestions are the result of a "bipartisan" committee of Democrats and Republicans that was formed to come up with ways to actually come up with specific changes that could make a difference. Not the general meaningless blather about "Cutting Waste and Corruption" or "Taking on Washington", but real meaningful actions that can make a difference. None are going to be popular. Look at the riots in France and the UK when they were talking about raising the retirement age, for example. I agree. Nothing will be easy.

I also do not think that the crisis we went through over the past two years has made enough impact for us to actually change things. I think the vast majority of us will go back to business as usual and get complacent when things straighten out a little. Hard as it was on some people (I still have relatives looking for work) there is a difference in things being a bad for some of us and really hitting rock bottom like the 30's.

One of the best laughs I've had lately was a quote in the local paper where one of our US Senators was reported to have said this commission would take the politics out of all this. I suspect it was a misquote or taken out of context, but sometimes our politicians say some remarkable things.

Editted for spelling

 

[Dunkopf]

Quote:
These suggestions are the result of a "bipartisan" committee of Democrats and Republicans that was formed to come up with ways to actually come up with specific changes that could make a difference. Not the general meaningless blather about "Cutting Waste and Corruption" or "Taking on Washington", but real meaningful actions that can make a difference. None are going to be popular. Look at the riots in France and the UK when they were talking about raising the retirement age, for example. I agree. Nothing will be easy.

I also do not think that the crisis we went through over the past two years has made enough impact for us to actually change things. I think the vast majority of us will go back to business as usual and get complacent when things straighten out a little. Hard as it was on some people (I still have relatives looking for work) there is a difference in things being a bad for some of us and really hitting rock bottom like the 30's.

One of the best laughs I've had lately was a quote in the local paper where one of our US Senators was reported to have said this commission would take the politics out of all this. I suspect it was a misquote or taken out of context, but sometimes our politicians say some remarkable things.

Editted for spelling

Yes they say some amazing junk. My question is why Obama put a Republican and a Conservadem in charge. The current proposals are leaning heavily to the right. What happened to the dissecting government spending that was promised during the 2008 election. There is a lot of waste in government. Of course if you create another bureaucracy to control the current one it is just more money spent. It's a never ending loop.

I agree we are nowhere near the depression of the 30's and 40's. I do think we will go down again before we come up though. However I have confidence we will make it. Just like the last time. Eventually DC will make the hard decisions, either they will take everything away from us or they will upset their masters. Pretty sure I know which one it will be. I know an old guy that's a millionaire from real estate that lived through the depression. He packs his lunch and keeps the foil to reuse. His kids will get a lot since he doesn't buy anything.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Yes, "bipartisan", R's and D's sitting in the same room. No, Libs, Greens, or Inds either. I smell a rat, a dead nasty festering rat. I need to read the whole report. Oh wait, there is no report yet. Those are the top three suggestions the media is reporting. The public is probably being market tested while both parties can sit back and take no responsibility yet.

It's all just a show right now. Grab a bag of popcorn and find a comfy seat. It's just getting started.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

PC said: We do need to change our lifestyles, for so many reasons. The first for me is spiritual but I won't go there for now. The second is moral. Our rampant consumption empowers and enables some rather disgusting human elements. Also, while I'm not a climate change proponent, a monkey could see the environmental damage occurring in China and many other countries, including our own (although getting much better here, not perfect, just better). We outlawed slavery here over a century ago but almost anything you buy at Walmart is supporting legal slavery in some country or another. I'm starting to rant so I'll shut up.


I must be demented too because there is a part of me brimming with a strange excitement as I watch economies and countries forced to change, hopefully for the better.

PC I swear, there are moments when I simply love you.

We need to change our moral vein ie things like cheating. But, I am almost as worried that too many will interpret this as a need to implement some version of religion which is not the same thing at all.

Talking to my 86 year old FIL is revealing for me, as he lived through the depression and WWII and every "the world is ending" in between. The spill from the Deepwater Horizon is less than 2/3rds of the amount of petroleum that was spilled in along the east coast during WWII. It was decades before it all stopped washing ashore. But, it did....

Given my true druthers I would like to see some sort of systemic collapse. The Fed has destroyed our currency. (They're celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year!) The systemic risk at this point is unsustainable on a global scale. We have several choices and all of them are bad. The ones that are most likely to maintain our lifestyle as close to what we have now are far too socialistic (using the term inappropriately as it is being used in the general public) for the government to be able to pull them off. The rest require cultural change of ethos which is not changing any time soon, as the same things are still being taught at the university level to business and finance majors. In the absence of a coordinated series of choices the rest will happen organically. There were "end of the world as we know it" events every 20 years or so. The world as we know it ends repeatedly. We usually don't notice until after it is over...... We usually adapt.

In the meantime, I invest only money that I can afford (again loosely) to lose. I keep my house and family prepared for interruptions of services. I try to aim for a self sufficient lifestyle, fully grasping that that requires community, not hunker down siege type thinking. I invest in food - I do expect inflation in food prices. I invest in skills.

I do pay attention the news so that I can vote and complain to my representatives wisely. I watch Glenn Beck (I find this painful) and NPR. I get much of my news from BBC.

If anyone on here wants I can keep doing some of these...... up to you all​

 

[Moabite]

I'm worried I might be a "Chicken Little", but I think that the proverbial sky might be falling. This stuff with China and Europe seems a lot like what was going on toward the end of the Great Depression and the roots of WWII.