Understanding Leftist Mentality

[Wikkiwallana]

On savings: you have never had to pay for your own health coverage, have you?

"Bad habits": So if I get cancer at age 30 from breathing in trace amounts of benzene and PAHs for several years in an unregulated workplace, it's due to my own bad habits? Seems legit.

Allow me too reiterate my point. If tomorrow a giant tornado randomly appeared and tore apart your house or some other random unforeseen accident occurred than no it is not your fault. Not having the savings available though to weather against unexpected occurrences is entirely your fault. Working 30 years and not having any money saved up in case such an emergency occurred is entirely your fault.

Of course I will wait for the obvious retort "WHAT IF MY HOUSE SAVINGS AND EVERY I EARNED WAS SUCKED INTO THE DARK ABYSS NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN AND THEN EVERYBODY ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH DIED SO IT WAS ONLY ME WITH NOTHING AND BABIES WERE TRAPPED IN OVENS!?THEN I WOULD NEED WELFARE!!!YOU GREEDY CAPITALIST". In which case refer to the last sentence.

Being prepared for whatever may occur and not taking certain risks is entirely your responsibility in a free-market capitalistic society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor

Where are these people supposed to get the money for savings?

[Neutraligon]

So you want the world economy to collapse in a deflationary crisis because... gold makes it more difficult to expand the money supply, imposing needless limits on growth? Why do you hate capitalism?

First of all what the Federal reserve does isn't capitalism. It's socialism and wealth redistribution. They're taking away the value of dollar in order to fund public welfare programs it is a indirect tax.

Second of all, all paper currencies imposes limits on growth because it allows for governments to inflate the currency thereby underhandedly destroying savings and if there are no savings than no credit will be available to invest in infrastructure.

I'm not saying that we have to necessarily go back to the Gold standard. You will find societies prefer gold for the reasons I've stated in my prior posts. Personally I keep all of my savings in gold and silver and would prefer to deal in gold. The price of gold has more than doubled in the past 4 years. Also I would like to add that historically these currencies have always been the most reliable and the most preferred currencies in any free-market based society.

Random question, but how will the poor manage to buy the gold or other precious metals, it is as you said, expensive?

[Wikkiwallana]

So you want the world economy to collapse in a deflationary crisis because... gold makes it more difficult to expand the money supply, imposing needless limits on growth? Why do you hate capitalism?

First of all what the Federal reserve does isn't capitalism. It's socialism and wealth redistribution. They're taking away the value of dollar in order to fund public welfare programs it is a indirect tax.

Second of all, all paper currencies imposes limits on growth because it allows for governments to inflate the currency thereby underhandedly destroying savings and if there are no savings than no credit will be available to invest in infrastructure.

I'm not saying that we have to necessarily go back to the Gold standard. You will find societies prefer gold for the reasons I've stated in my prior posts. Personally I keep all of my savings in gold and silver and would prefer to deal in gold. The price of gold has more than doubled in the past 4 years. Also I would like to add that historically these currencies have always been the most reliable and the most preferred currencies in any free-market based society.

Enjoy having that bubble pop.

[Svobodu]

First of all what the Federal reserve does isn't capitalism. It's socialism and wealth redistribution. They're taking away the value of dollar in order to fund public welfare programs it is a indirect tax.

Second of all, all paper currencies imposes limits on growth because it allows for governments to inflate the currency thereby underhandedly destroying savings and if there are no savings than no credit will be available to invest in infrastructure.

I'm not saying that we have to necessarily go back to the Gold standard. You will find societies prefer gold for the reasons I've stated in my prior posts. Personally I keep all of my savings in gold and silver and would prefer to deal in gold. The price of gold has more than doubled in the past 4 years. Also I would like to add that historically these currencies have always been the most reliable and the most preferred currencies in any free-market based society.

Enjoy having that bubble pop.

What bubble? Gold has been by far more stable than fiat currencies. Fiat currencies contribute to bubbles.

http://www.investitwisely.com/gold-vers ... l-bubbles/

[Hydesland]

Second of all, all paper currencies imposes limits on growth because it allows for governments to inflate the currency thereby underhandedly destroying savings and if there are no savings than no credit will be available to invest in infrastructure.

In the real world there are these things called laws. Often it is the law that the central bank must aim for an inflation target of 2% with a margin for error, this means that there is an effective upper-bound constraint on how much the government can inflate the currency.

edit: and don't argue that the law is too weak a constraint, gold standard was a law during the great depression but that didn't stop the price reflation of FDR, there is no reason an inflation target is less constraining than a gold standard.

[Hittanryan]

Enjoy having that bubble pop.

What bubble? Gold has been by far more stable than fiat currencies. Fiat currencies contribute to bubbles.

http://www.investitwisely.com/gold-vers ... l-bubbles/

The financial panics of the 19th century argue otherwise.

[Amacia]

Second of all, all paper currencies imposes limits on growth because it allows for governments to inflate the currency thereby underhandedly destroying savings and if there are no savings than no credit will be available to invest in infrastructure.

In the real world there are these things called laws. Often it is the law that the central bank must aim for an inflation target of 2% with a margin for error, this means that there is an effective upper-bound constraint on how much the government can inflate the currency.

Not in the US.

[Svobodu]

What bubble? Gold has been by far more stable than fiat currencies. Fiat currencies contribute to bubbles.

http://www.investitwisely.com/gold-vers ... l-bubbles/

The financial panics of the 19th century argue otherwise.

What financial panics? The industrial revolution? Yeah, that was bad. Pff.

[Hydesland]

In the real world there are these things called laws. Often it is the law that the central bank must aim for an inflation target of 2% with a margin for error, this means that there is an effective upper-bound constraint on how much the government can inflate the currency.

Not in the US.

In the US the federal reserve adopts an explicit target in the region of 2 ~ 3% for the past two decades, it has another mandate to aim for full employment which allows for flexibility of this on the short term, however there is still a very clear constraint. If there was no constraint then the FOMC today would have announced additional easing today, they didn't.

[Hydesland]

The financial panics of the 19th century argue otherwise.

What financial panics? The industrial revolution? Yeah, that was bad. Pff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... ted_States

[Amacia]

Not in the US.

In the US the federal reserve adopts an explicit target in the region of 2 ~ 3% for the past two decades, it has another mandate to aim for full employment which allows for flexibility of this on the short term, however there is still a very clear constraint. If there was no constraint then the FOMC today would have announced additional easing today, they didn't.

I think you mean implicit target, explicit targeting as I understand it is a feature of inflation targeting.

[Hydesland]

In the US the federal reserve adopts an explicit target in the region of 2 ~ 3% for the past two decades, it has another mandate to aim for full employment which allows for flexibility of this on the short term, however there is still a very clear constraint. If there was no constraint then the FOMC today would have announced additional easing today, they didn't.

I think you mean implicit target, explicit targeting as I understand it is a feature of inflation targeting.

It's effectively an explicit target now, Bernanke has already stated clearly that is around 2%, however under Greenspan it was implicit. Nevertheless, it being an implicit one that everyone is aware of is no less of a constraint.

Furthermore, neither is the free market solution. The free market solution is free banking; the gold standard is the central bank controlling the money supply to peg the price of gold: central planning.

[Hittanryan]

What financial panics? The industrial revolution? Yeah, that was bad. Pff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... ted_States

Thank you.

[Tmutarakhan]

The financial panics of the 19th century argue otherwise.

What financial panics? The industrial revolution? Yeah, that was bad. Pff.

1817, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893 were the "panic" years, all followed by prolonged depressions. Gold is the least stable currency; its value relative to basic goods and services has always fluctuated widely depending on the amount of hoarding behavior. When it was the basis of most moneys, it exaggerated business cycles intolerably.

[Hittanryan]

What financial panics? The industrial revolution? Yeah, that was bad. Pff.

1817, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893 were the "panic" years, all followed by prolonged depressions. Gold is the least stable currency; its value relative to basic goods and services has always fluctuated widely depending on the amount of hoarding behavior. When it was the basis of most moneys, it exaggerated business cycles intolerably.

Hoarding behavior and the amount of shiny rocks dug up from the ground. Gold has no intrinsic value, just "It looks shiny."

[Farnhamia]

1817, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893 were the "panic" years, all followed by prolonged depressions. Gold is the least stable currency; its value relative to basic goods and services has always fluctuated widely depending on the amount of hoarding behavior. When it was the basis of most moneys, it exaggerated business cycles intolerably.

Hoarding behavior and the amount of shiny rocks dug up from the ground. Gold has no intrinsic value, just "It looks shiny."

Well, doesn't it?

[Svobodu]

What financial panics? The industrial revolution? Yeah, that was bad. Pff.

1817, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893 were the "panic" years, all followed by prolonged depressions. Gold is the least stable currency; its value relative to basic goods and services has always fluctuated widely depending on the amount of hoarding behavior. When it was the basis of most moneys, it exaggerated business cycles intolerably.

Wrong. There were not many prolonged depressions. Those were considered recessions.
Look historically at the value of gold. When the USD was tied to gold, it was its most stable. Once off the gold standard, inflation has been rampant.

[Farnhamia]

1817, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893 were the "panic" years, all followed by prolonged depressions. Gold is the least stable currency; its value relative to basic goods and services has always fluctuated widely depending on the amount of hoarding behavior. When it was the basis of most moneys, it exaggerated business cycles intolerably.

Wrong. There were not many prolonged depressions. Those were considered recessions.
Look historically at the value of gold. When the USD was tied to gold, it was its most stable. Once off the gold standard, inflation has been rampant.

What's inflation at these days, anyway?

[Khadgar]

http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/ ... ation.aspx

Hey, look at that rampant inflation. 1917-1920 were pretty damned rough.

[Hittanryan]

1817, 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893 were the "panic" years, all followed by prolonged depressions. Gold is the least stable currency; its value relative to basic goods and services has always fluctuated widely depending on the amount of hoarding behavior. When it was the basis of most moneys, it exaggerated business cycles intolerably.

Wrong. There were not many prolonged depressions. Those were considered recessions.
Look historically at the value of gold. When the USD was tied to gold, it was its most stable. Once off the gold standard, inflation has been rampant.

Those goalposts must be getting heavy. First you say there were no panics, then you say they don't count because some were recessions? What do you think a panic is?

Also, no, you're not right on inflation either.

[Svobodu]

Wrong. There were not many prolonged depressions. Those were considered recessions.
Look historically at the value of gold. When the USD was tied to gold, it was its most stable. Once off the gold standard, inflation has been rampant.

Those goalposts must be getting heavy. First you say there were no panics, then you say they don't count because some were recessions? What do you think a panic is?

Also, no, you're not right on inflation either.

Yes, I am.

http://iaconoresearch.com/2012/03/21/in ... l-reserve/

[Hittanryan]

Those goalposts must be getting heavy. First you say there were no panics, then you say they don't count because some were recessions? What do you think a panic is?

Also, no, you're not right on inflation either.

Yes, I am.

http://iaconoresearch.com/2012/03/21/in ... l-reserve/

My source uses figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yours is a partisan blog that attempts to assign inflation rates to a time before substantive data on inflation rates was collected.

[Hydesland]

Those goalposts must be getting heavy. First you say there were no panics, then you say they don't count because some were recessions? What do you think a panic is?

Also, no, you're not right on inflation either.

Yes, I am.

http://iaconoresearch.com/2012/03/21/in ... l-reserve/

Why is the dichotomy between every possible policy that a central bank can run or the gold standard? What if I favour a specific policy vs the gold standard, such as inflation targeting, which formally started in the 90s and has been massively more successful in stabilizing prices than the gold standard which goes through periods of massive bouts of deflation followed by inflation, which is much worse than predictable inflation because it causes hoarding.

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

Reposting this.

Gold is worth money because people think it's worth money, just like everything else people attach price tags to. It has no inherent value because the very idea of value is a human social construct. In fact, if the niceties of civilization were stripped away it would be valued less than goddamned near everything else (including paper money) because its only practical use for an average person is that of a paperweight. Gold fanatics love to go on about how it will still be worth something when the fiat monetary system collapses, but in the case of that sort of societal collapse I sure as fuck wouldn't take gold in exchange for something useful like food or tools or ammunition, and I really doubt anybody else would either. Fuck, I'd take paper money first because I could at least burn it.

[Alien Space Bats]

You left out the "return to our hunter-gather past" model [Dances with Wolves].

I chose to be an optimist and leave it out, especially because it follows the Wild West model [Dances with Colts].