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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On February 04 2014 12:37 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 12:00 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 11:53 xDaunt wrote:On February 04 2014 11:46 zusch wrote:
You want to hear a conspiracy? The President's MyRA program is the first step in an effort to confiscate the savings of American to pay for the $16 trillion federal deficit.
Impossible? Think Cyprus. Creating a voluntary investment vehicle is a far cry from wealth confiscation. Key phrase in my post is "first step." At first it is voluntary, but who know when they will change the rules and it becomes mandatory. And what really is this "investment vehicle?" Obama described it as a "guaranteed reasonable return with zero risk." The only thing he can mean is U.S. treasuries. Not even U.S. treasuries have zero risk, contrary to popular belief. The U.S. is not immune to default. You could just as well say "Government is the first step towards wealth confiscation" As an aside, if we are getting really cynical here had Obama just forced every American to have an S&P index the day he announced stocks are a good investment back in 09 when the bailout really got rolling...well, they'd be a hell of a lot richer today.
Gov't is a wealth confiscation machine...this is true, but they are capable of taking it to a whole new level. I am opposed to any President forcing any American to buy anything whether it be gov't bonds, the S&P 500, or Obamacare.
Now do you want to know why the S&P has risen so precipitously since '09? The answer is gov't intervention in capital markets. The Federal Reserve has been buying U.S. treasuries at an unsustainable pace, making U.S. treasuries a non-viable investment for money managers, pension funds, and private citizens. As a result all of that money funnels into the stock market. On December 18th, 2013, the Fed cut it Quantitative Easing program by $10 billion a month (for the record stocks rallied hard that day, which is counter-intuitive, but that is market dynamics at work). On January 29th, 2014, the Fed cut QE by an additional $10 billion a month and the S&P is currently trading lower than its Dec 18th open.
Some will debate that the economic recovery has been substantial, stock prices are fairly valued, and ending QE is being (or is already) priced into the market, but that is all opinions. The fact is since QE has been tapered slightly, the S&P has traded lower.
https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gfdblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FED-BAL-SHT1.png
This is a chart comparing the Fed's balance sheet to the S&P 500. Notice the correlation starting in 2009.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
On February 04 2014 12:45 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 08:06 itsjustatank wrote:
Per capita or not, GDP only measures the size of an economy. It does not translate to the well-being of each and every person within that economy (and certainly does not begin to measure the well-being of those people who are systematically left out of that economy). Such a silly and ridiculous thought that you can't extrapolate on a variable... very glad you're not in charge of anything analytically based at all. It's hard to have a back and forth when you present such an extreme that empirical evidence states the complete opposite (that GDP per cap is very highly correlated with standard of living).
Correlation is not causation. All you can say is things appear to be correlated with a high standard of living. Your continued posts are non-responsive to the fact that GDP terminally does not equate to well-being because the metric has a number of deficits that make it fundamentally not suitable for measuring well-being, namely, that growth and size of an economy does not translate necessarily to well-being because all it indicates is that things are being consumed.
Additionally a 'high standard of living' is not the same as a society that has a high quality of life or a high value to life, and that is where I see any credible metric for determining the well-being of society focusing its effort. The standard of living metric ignores a number of fundamental components such as destruction of the environment, respect for human rights, following the rule of law, science and education, corporate social responsibility, and more.
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On February 04 2014 12:38 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 12:35 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 12:25 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 04 2014 12:19 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 12:14 WolfintheSheep wrote:On February 04 2014 12:12 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 12:03 xDaunt wrote:On February 04 2014 12:00 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 11:53 xDaunt wrote:On February 04 2014 11:46 zusch wrote:
You want to hear a conspiracy? The President's MyRA program is the first step in an effort to confiscate the savings of American to pay for the $16 trillion federal deficit.
Impossible? Think Cyprus. Creating a voluntary investment vehicle is a far cry from wealth confiscation. Key phrase in my post is "first step." At first it is voluntary, but who know when they will change the rules and it becomes mandatory. And what really is this "investment vehicle?" Obama described it as a "guaranteed reasonable return with zero risk." The only thing he can mean is U.S. treasuries. Not even U.S. treasuries have zero risk, contrary to popular belief. The U.S. is not immune to default. It is no more of a "first step" than selling government bonds. In other words, it is "no step" whatsoever. That is the point. Soon there will no one left to sell government bonds to except U.S. citizens, who will be forced to buy them. ...I thought the entire point of Government Bonds was to sell them to citizens...? So citizens pay their taxes to the gov't...and with their leftover money they buy gov't debt because the gov't doesn't have enough tax money to run a balanced budget? See the problem? Or they could, you know, put their money into the other dozen investment options available... I don't even see why you're concerned. Investing money into Government Bonds, even if they were some nefarious, shady scheme from a corrupt power, is still a step up from the current norm for Americans...which is to not have any money and rack up thousands in credit card debts. And now we go in a circle back to my "conspiracy" that the gov't will force American's to buy gov't debt (and call it an investment). I've already explained why gov't bonds are not a viable investment option. I'm sure that if you have no money the gov't will just give you some U.S. treasuries for free since they are worthless anyway. Ah, cool. So... 1) Government bonds. 2) ???? 3) SKY IS FALLING WORLD IS DOOMED WE'RE ALL DEAD Seems sensible.
I don't think MyRA is bad.
At the same time I do think you can view it as another step towards the 'financial repression' of the post WW2 era where the government encourages the purchase of bonds along with inflation as a means to reduce government debt.
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Seems that the posters in this thread have no concept of what debt is and why it is a bad thing. Debt cannot be pilled up for forever, sooner or later enough is enough. This is true for every private citizen who racks up enough credit card debt...eventually they will be cut off from getting another credit card and bankruptcy is the only option.
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On February 04 2014 12:34 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 11:12 Danglars wrote:JON STEWART: Why do we have so much trouble executing the plans with any kind of efficiency?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, again, if you're dealing with people who have no agenda, you know, who nothing -- nothing is their agenda and never is our timetable, it's very hard to negotiate with them. So we are responsible. In other words, call us responsible. They know we're going to vote not to shut down government. They know we are going t o vote for the budget no matter how unpleasant it is. The choice we have is to be irresponsible and follow their path or we don't want to be fearmongers but to explain this to the public is very bad news. We want to be positive.
STEWART: Aside from that aspect, I meant more in terms of, 'Okay, we are going to set up a health care web site that is an exchange. People are going to come to it.' Why is it so hard to get a company to execute that competently?
PELOSI: I don't know. As one who was very --
[Laughter]
PELOSI: No, and that is my question.
STEWART: Let me get the House Minority Leader here, I can ask her. Hold on. What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know?
PELOSI: It's not my responsibility. But I will say this, we worked very hard to honor our responsibility to pass the bill that honors the vowels of our founders: life, a healthier life, liberty to pursue your happiness. sourceMany of my leftist and lean-leftist nonpolitical friends depend on Comedy Central for their news. Now the majority leader claims to be responsible (in contrast to the mean government shutdown opponents), and simultaneously claims she doesn't know why her government health plan turned out so badly. I mean, not even the standard "Well health care and health insurance is so complex and there's so many people so there was bound to be problems." I had become used to the party of Big Government downplaying the size of the problem and emphasizing the complexity of the issues. I guess focus groups showed that ignorance was better than an intricacy discussion. I think its a great question since most civilized countries actually are capable of delivering government owned healthcare at a lower cost than the Americans without nearly as much mess. It would be great to have a series of hearings on the way government contractors work in the US and it would certainly benefit the Republic. I'm with you in the primary thrust of what you're saying. We could deliver this new "essential services," subsidies, marketplace, tax package much better, if we accept for the time being that these changes will happen no matter what and its a question of how. Why is the IRS even involved in administrating the ACA to the extent of 47 tax provisions in the ACA? Democrats certainly hurt their case passing it all without a single republican vote, claiming it had to be passed first to determine how good everything inside it was, and then bungling it to this level. Simultaneously, the pre-ACA regulations that hurt the free market and privileged employer providers didn't turn up a good free-market alternative to government health insurance--it was heavily regulated already.
Some of the cost analysis of government-run health care regimes (and not every country's is the same efficiency) is pretty compelling. I'm still against, primarily for the increase in wait times and problems involving end-of-life care. Once the state pays for it, sure you have a say in how your tax money is spent in representative government. Even in low-cost schemes, the budgetary pressures on government and budgetary pressures on the individual and his/her health insurance company are different and can lead to very unintended consequences.
I'm even supportive of form of welfare for low-income individuals giving them a government voucher for health insurance to shop around with. Accomplish it with regulations leading to long-term continuation of coverage, allowing you to go to a private plan with better benefits with your own money. This effectively kills the pre-existing condition coverage we hear so much about without perversely rewarding people for waiting until they get sick to purchase insurance coverage.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
On February 04 2014 13:07 zusch wrote:
Seems that the posters in this thread have no concept of what debt is and why it is a bad thing. Debt cannot be pilled up for forever, sooner or later enough is enough. This is true for every private citizen who racks up enough credit card debt...eventually they will be cut off from getting another credit card and bankruptcy is the only option.
With fiat currencies, you actually can pile up debt forever. All you have to do is pay off the interest.
Sovereign debt is not the same as personal debt, especially for countries that matter.
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On February 04 2014 12:56 zusch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 12:37 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 12:00 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 11:53 xDaunt wrote:On February 04 2014 11:46 zusch wrote:
You want to hear a conspiracy? The President's MyRA program is the first step in an effort to confiscate the savings of American to pay for the $16 trillion federal deficit.
Impossible? Think Cyprus. Creating a voluntary investment vehicle is a far cry from wealth confiscation. Key phrase in my post is "first step." At first it is voluntary, but who know when they will change the rules and it becomes mandatory. And what really is this "investment vehicle?" Obama described it as a "guaranteed reasonable return with zero risk." The only thing he can mean is U.S. treasuries. Not even U.S. treasuries have zero risk, contrary to popular belief. The U.S. is not immune to default. You could just as well say "Government is the first step towards wealth confiscation" As an aside, if we are getting really cynical here had Obama just forced every American to have an S&P index the day he announced stocks are a good investment back in 09 when the bailout really got rolling...well, they'd be a hell of a lot richer today. Gov't is a wealth confiscation machine...this is true, but they are capable of taking it to a whole new level. I am opposed to any President forcing any American to buy anything whether it be gov't bonds, the S&P 500, or Obamacare. Now do you want to know why the S&P has risen so precipitously since '09? The answer is gov't intervention in capital markets. The Federal Reserve has been buying U.S. treasuries at an unsustainable pace, making U.S. treasuries a non-viable investment for money managers, pension funds, and private citizens. As a result all of that money funnels into the stock market. On December 18th, 2013, the Fed cut it Quantitative Easing program by $10 billion a month (for the record stocks rallied hard that day, which is counter-intuitive, but that is market dynamics at work). On January 29th, 2014, the Fed cut QE by an additional $10 billion a month and the S&P is currently trading lower than its Dec 18th open. Some will debate that the economic recovery has been substantial, stock prices are fairly valued, and ending QE is being (or is already) priced into the market, but that is all opinions. The fact is since QE has been tapered slightly, the S&P has traded lower. https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gfdblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FED-BAL-SHT1.pngThis is a chart comparing the Fed's balance sheet to the S&P 500. Notice the correlation starting in 2009.
Its more than double of where it was before QE started. Bonds actually have been a great investment because so many people have been screaming, and investing, about the coming hyper inflation and the collapse of the dollar.
Japan has been at 200% debt to GDP and has been adding to its debt for almost 30 years now and the stop that is supposed to arrive has merely wrecked the careers of thousands of investment managers who dont seem to get that analysis of complex, developed economies is much more opaque than just tracking foreign inflows of hot money into emerging markets with its inevitable short circuit and bust.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
if the treasury has trouble selling bonds they don't need to pressure the public to buy them. (higher rates etc) the fed will buy them. this is not the gold standard guys
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On February 04 2014 13:08 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 12:34 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 11:12 Danglars wrote:JON STEWART: Why do we have so much trouble executing the plans with any kind of efficiency?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, again, if you're dealing with people who have no agenda, you know, who nothing -- nothing is their agenda and never is our timetable, it's very hard to negotiate with them. So we are responsible. In other words, call us responsible. They know we're going to vote not to shut down government. They know we are going t o vote for the budget no matter how unpleasant it is. The choice we have is to be irresponsible and follow their path or we don't want to be fearmongers but to explain this to the public is very bad news. We want to be positive.
STEWART: Aside from that aspect, I meant more in terms of, 'Okay, we are going to set up a health care web site that is an exchange. People are going to come to it.' Why is it so hard to get a company to execute that competently?
PELOSI: I don't know. As one who was very --
[Laughter]
PELOSI: No, and that is my question.
STEWART: Let me get the House Minority Leader here, I can ask her. Hold on. What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know?
PELOSI: It's not my responsibility. But I will say this, we worked very hard to honor our responsibility to pass the bill that honors the vowels of our founders: life, a healthier life, liberty to pursue your happiness. sourceMany of my leftist and lean-leftist nonpolitical friends depend on Comedy Central for their news. Now the majority leader claims to be responsible (in contrast to the mean government shutdown opponents), and simultaneously claims she doesn't know why her government health plan turned out so badly. I mean, not even the standard "Well health care and health insurance is so complex and there's so many people so there was bound to be problems." I had become used to the party of Big Government downplaying the size of the problem and emphasizing the complexity of the issues. I guess focus groups showed that ignorance was better than an intricacy discussion. I think its a great question since most civilized countries actually are capable of delivering government owned healthcare at a lower cost than the Americans without nearly as much mess. It would be great to have a series of hearings on the way government contractors work in the US and it would certainly benefit the Republic. I'm with you in the primary thrust of what you're saying. We could deliver this new "essential services," subsidies, marketplace, tax package much better, if we accept for the time being that these changes will happen no matter what and its a question of how. Why is the IRS even involved in administrating the ACA to the extent of 47 tax provisions in the ACA? Democrats certainly hurt their case passing it all without a single republican vote, claiming it had to be passed first to determine how good everything inside it was, and then bungling it to this level. Simultaneously, the pre-ACA regulations that hurt the free market and privileged employer providers didn't turn up a good free-market alternative to government health insurance--it was heavily regulated already. Some of the cost analysis of government-run health care regimes (and not every country's is the same efficiency) is pretty compelling. I'm still against, primarily for the increase in wait times and problems involving end-of-life care. Once the state pays for it, sure you have a say in how your tax money is spent in representative government. Even in low-cost schemes, the budgetary pressures on government and budgetary pressures on the individual and his/her health insurance company are different and can lead to very unintended consequences. I'm even supportive of form of welfare for low-income individuals giving them a government voucher for health insurance to shop around with. Accomplish it with regulations leading to long-term continuation of coverage, allowing you to go to a private plan with better benefits with your own money. This effectively kills the pre-existing condition coverage we hear so much about without perversely rewarding people for waiting until they get sick to purchase insurance coverage.
Yes I agree broadly with you then. I too would like to see an experiment in Canada where you could buy your way out of the line for faster treatment and see where it takes us. I dont buy the argument that some Canadian have given me that once the rich can buy out of the line their next step is to gut the rest of the system since they are no longer tied into it (since the rich already bypass the line by driving down to the States anyway).
And its true, even lower cost government schemes have their problems, but as always with these things because they are much more technically hardly anyone bothers to offer cogent analysis. Which is a damn shame.
And you know why the IRS is involved. The Republican Supreme Court ruled it a tax instead of commerce clause legislation, and you can either accept that as Roberts chickening out at the last minute or Roberts the ingenious legal scholar setting up a long term plan to crush the Commerce Clause as a vehicle of federal regulation (which is ingenious of him).
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On February 04 2014 13:09 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:07 zusch wrote:
Seems that the posters in this thread have no concept of what debt is and why it is a bad thing. Debt cannot be pilled up for forever, sooner or later enough is enough. This is true for every private citizen who racks up enough credit card debt...eventually they will be cut off from getting another credit card and bankruptcy is the only option. With fiat currencies, you actually can pile up debt forever. All you have to do is pay off the interest. Sovereign debt is not the same as personal debt, especially for countries that matter.
This is a very good point and I was going to type something about it in the post you quoted, but I am trying to space out my points as to have more of a back and forth discussion.
The whole world is printing money and it is hard to tell who will hold all the chips (gold, silver, Bitcoins, real estate, natural resources, etc) when the whole system implodes. It is fact that Chinese consumers are fueling many real estate booms such as that in NYC...India has a very high demand for gold...and Bitcoin is gaining popularity by the day.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
govt health care is not a one step solution that will be heavenly and flawless. there will be problems obviously. but the current cost crisis is very clearly a structural problem with the way providers, insurance and healthcare 'consumers' interact to produce very great profit taking pressure as well as opportunity. there's a clear problem when patients have no cost accounting on their own.
if you have a private system that will make these middleman-esque structures disappear, sure let's hear them. if not, at least recognize that public option is a great way of resolving the current problems.
and obviously something has to be done because of the looming demographics
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On February 04 2014 13:18 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:08 Danglars wrote:On February 04 2014 12:34 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 11:12 Danglars wrote:JON STEWART: Why do we have so much trouble executing the plans with any kind of efficiency?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, again, if you're dealing with people who have no agenda, you know, who nothing -- nothing is their agenda and never is our timetable, it's very hard to negotiate with them. So we are responsible. In other words, call us responsible. They know we're going to vote not to shut down government. They know we are going t o vote for the budget no matter how unpleasant it is. The choice we have is to be irresponsible and follow their path or we don't want to be fearmongers but to explain this to the public is very bad news. We want to be positive.
STEWART: Aside from that aspect, I meant more in terms of, 'Okay, we are going to set up a health care web site that is an exchange. People are going to come to it.' Why is it so hard to get a company to execute that competently?
PELOSI: I don't know. As one who was very --
[Laughter]
PELOSI: No, and that is my question.
STEWART: Let me get the House Minority Leader here, I can ask her. Hold on. What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know?
PELOSI: It's not my responsibility. But I will say this, we worked very hard to honor our responsibility to pass the bill that honors the vowels of our founders: life, a healthier life, liberty to pursue your happiness. sourceMany of my leftist and lean-leftist nonpolitical friends depend on Comedy Central for their news. Now the majority leader claims to be responsible (in contrast to the mean government shutdown opponents), and simultaneously claims she doesn't know why her government health plan turned out so badly. I mean, not even the standard "Well health care and health insurance is so complex and there's so many people so there was bound to be problems." I had become used to the party of Big Government downplaying the size of the problem and emphasizing the complexity of the issues. I guess focus groups showed that ignorance was better than an intricacy discussion. I think its a great question since most civilized countries actually are capable of delivering government owned healthcare at a lower cost than the Americans without nearly as much mess. It would be great to have a series of hearings on the way government contractors work in the US and it would certainly benefit the Republic. I'm with you in the primary thrust of what you're saying. We could deliver this new "essential services," subsidies, marketplace, tax package much better, if we accept for the time being that these changes will happen no matter what and its a question of how. Why is the IRS even involved in administrating the ACA to the extent of 47 tax provisions in the ACA? Democrats certainly hurt their case passing it all without a single republican vote, claiming it had to be passed first to determine how good everything inside it was, and then bungling it to this level. Simultaneously, the pre-ACA regulations that hurt the free market and privileged employer providers didn't turn up a good free-market alternative to government health insurance--it was heavily regulated already. Some of the cost analysis of government-run health care regimes (and not every country's is the same efficiency) is pretty compelling. I'm still against, primarily for the increase in wait times and problems involving end-of-life care. Once the state pays for it, sure you have a say in how your tax money is spent in representative government. Even in low-cost schemes, the budgetary pressures on government and budgetary pressures on the individual and his/her health insurance company are different and can lead to very unintended consequences. I'm even supportive of form of welfare for low-income individuals giving them a government voucher for health insurance to shop around with. Accomplish it with regulations leading to long-term continuation of coverage, allowing you to go to a private plan with better benefits with your own money. This effectively kills the pre-existing condition coverage we hear so much about without perversely rewarding people for waiting until they get sick to purchase insurance coverage. Yes I agree broadly with you then. I too would like to see an experiment in Canada where you could buy your way out of the line for faster treatment and see where it takes us. I dont buy the argument that some Canadian have given me that once the rich can buy out of the line their next step is to gut the rest of the system since they are no longer tied into it (since the rich already bypass the line by driving down to the States anyway). And its true, even lower cost government schemes have their problems, but as always with these things because they are much more technically hardly anyone bothers to offer cogent analysis. Which is a damn shame. And you know why the IRS is involved. The Republican Supreme Court ruled it a tax instead of commerce clause legislation, and you can either accept that as Roberts chickening out at the last minute or Roberts the ingenious legal scholar setting up a long term plan to crush the Commerce Clause as a vehicle of federal regulation (which is ingenious of him).
I believe that using the IRS as enforcement was part of the original bill, before John Roberts did his gymnastics. So the question of "why the IRS?" is still a really good one.
Edit: Moreover, it's not "ingenious" of him to read the Commerce Clause in a way that is at least mildly related to its intended purpose. But I don't want to go down that road again 
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On February 04 2014 13:13 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 12:56 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 12:37 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 12:00 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 11:53 xDaunt wrote:On February 04 2014 11:46 zusch wrote:
You want to hear a conspiracy? The President's MyRA program is the first step in an effort to confiscate the savings of American to pay for the $16 trillion federal deficit.
Impossible? Think Cyprus. Creating a voluntary investment vehicle is a far cry from wealth confiscation. Key phrase in my post is "first step." At first it is voluntary, but who know when they will change the rules and it becomes mandatory. And what really is this "investment vehicle?" Obama described it as a "guaranteed reasonable return with zero risk." The only thing he can mean is U.S. treasuries. Not even U.S. treasuries have zero risk, contrary to popular belief. The U.S. is not immune to default. You could just as well say "Government is the first step towards wealth confiscation" As an aside, if we are getting really cynical here had Obama just forced every American to have an S&P index the day he announced stocks are a good investment back in 09 when the bailout really got rolling...well, they'd be a hell of a lot richer today. Gov't is a wealth confiscation machine...this is true, but they are capable of taking it to a whole new level. I am opposed to any President forcing any American to buy anything whether it be gov't bonds, the S&P 500, or Obamacare. Now do you want to know why the S&P has risen so precipitously since '09? The answer is gov't intervention in capital markets. The Federal Reserve has been buying U.S. treasuries at an unsustainable pace, making U.S. treasuries a non-viable investment for money managers, pension funds, and private citizens. As a result all of that money funnels into the stock market. On December 18th, 2013, the Fed cut it Quantitative Easing program by $10 billion a month (for the record stocks rallied hard that day, which is counter-intuitive, but that is market dynamics at work). On January 29th, 2014, the Fed cut QE by an additional $10 billion a month and the S&P is currently trading lower than its Dec 18th open. Some will debate that the economic recovery has been substantial, stock prices are fairly valued, and ending QE is being (or is already) priced into the market, but that is all opinions. The fact is since QE has been tapered slightly, the S&P has traded lower. https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gfdblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FED-BAL-SHT1.pngThis is a chart comparing the Fed's balance sheet to the S&P 500. Notice the correlation starting in 2009. Its more than double of where it was before QE started. Bonds actually have been a great investment because so many people have been screaming, and investing, about the coming hyper inflation and the collapse of the dollar. Japan has been at 200% debt to GDP and has been adding to its debt for almost 30 years now and the stop that is supposed to arrive has merely wrecked the careers of thousands of investment managers who dont seem to get that analysis of complex, developed economies is much more opaque than just tracking foreign inflows of hot money into emerging markets with its inevitable short circuit and bust.
QE1 started November 2008 so please get your facts straight. Bonds have been a terrible investment so please get your facts straight. Investment managers have made an absolute KILLING shorting the Japanese Yen after Abe essentially told them to do just that so please get your facts straight.
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On February 04 2014 13:18 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:08 Danglars wrote:On February 04 2014 12:34 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 11:12 Danglars wrote:JON STEWART: Why do we have so much trouble executing the plans with any kind of efficiency?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, again, if you're dealing with people who have no agenda, you know, who nothing -- nothing is their agenda and never is our timetable, it's very hard to negotiate with them. So we are responsible. In other words, call us responsible. They know we're going to vote not to shut down government. They know we are going t o vote for the budget no matter how unpleasant it is. The choice we have is to be irresponsible and follow their path or we don't want to be fearmongers but to explain this to the public is very bad news. We want to be positive.
STEWART: Aside from that aspect, I meant more in terms of, 'Okay, we are going to set up a health care web site that is an exchange. People are going to come to it.' Why is it so hard to get a company to execute that competently?
PELOSI: I don't know. As one who was very --
[Laughter]
PELOSI: No, and that is my question.
STEWART: Let me get the House Minority Leader here, I can ask her. Hold on. What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know?
PELOSI: It's not my responsibility. But I will say this, we worked very hard to honor our responsibility to pass the bill that honors the vowels of our founders: life, a healthier life, liberty to pursue your happiness. sourceMany of my leftist and lean-leftist nonpolitical friends depend on Comedy Central for their news. Now the majority leader claims to be responsible (in contrast to the mean government shutdown opponents), and simultaneously claims she doesn't know why her government health plan turned out so badly. I mean, not even the standard "Well health care and health insurance is so complex and there's so many people so there was bound to be problems." I had become used to the party of Big Government downplaying the size of the problem and emphasizing the complexity of the issues. I guess focus groups showed that ignorance was better than an intricacy discussion. I think its a great question since most civilized countries actually are capable of delivering government owned healthcare at a lower cost than the Americans without nearly as much mess. It would be great to have a series of hearings on the way government contractors work in the US and it would certainly benefit the Republic. I'm with you in the primary thrust of what you're saying. We could deliver this new "essential services," subsidies, marketplace, tax package much better, if we accept for the time being that these changes will happen no matter what and its a question of how. Why is the IRS even involved in administrating the ACA to the extent of 47 tax provisions in the ACA? Democrats certainly hurt their case passing it all without a single republican vote, claiming it had to be passed first to determine how good everything inside it was, and then bungling it to this level. Simultaneously, the pre-ACA regulations that hurt the free market and privileged employer providers didn't turn up a good free-market alternative to government health insurance--it was heavily regulated already. Some of the cost analysis of government-run health care regimes (and not every country's is the same efficiency) is pretty compelling. I'm still against, primarily for the increase in wait times and problems involving end-of-life care. Once the state pays for it, sure you have a say in how your tax money is spent in representative government. Even in low-cost schemes, the budgetary pressures on government and budgetary pressures on the individual and his/her health insurance company are different and can lead to very unintended consequences. I'm even supportive of form of welfare for low-income individuals giving them a government voucher for health insurance to shop around with. Accomplish it with regulations leading to long-term continuation of coverage, allowing you to go to a private plan with better benefits with your own money. This effectively kills the pre-existing condition coverage we hear so much about without perversely rewarding people for waiting until they get sick to purchase insurance coverage. And you know why the IRS is involved. The Republican Supreme Court ruled it a tax instead of commerce clause legislation, and you can either accept that as Roberts chickening out at the last minute or Roberts the ingenious legal scholar setting up a long term plan to crush the Commerce Clause as a vehicle of federal regulation (which is ingenious of him). I don't know where you're going with this last paragraph. It was passed in 2009 and the supreme court challenge came in in 2012. The wording was drafted as a cause of administration, not as some kind of legalese to get out of a constitutionality challenge. The Democrats really wanted the IRS to administer several aspects and not just the individual mandate tax-penalty penalty tax (it was found to be a penalty according to the Anti-Injunction Act, but a tax with respects to the individual mandate). That does indeed set it apart from other country's successful attempts (as we discussed in the other paragraphs). It wasn't like they had to change wording after the Supreme Court challenge ... the wording was already there.
The opinion that talked about why it wasn't a commerce clause wasn't the majority opinion, it was merely a concurring opinion. So really, the commerce clause is still the same in all its current legal interpretation glory, Roberts did not limit it.
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On February 04 2014 13:27 zusch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:13 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 12:56 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 12:37 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 12:00 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 11:53 xDaunt wrote:On February 04 2014 11:46 zusch wrote:
You want to hear a conspiracy? The President's MyRA program is the first step in an effort to confiscate the savings of American to pay for the $16 trillion federal deficit.
Impossible? Think Cyprus. Creating a voluntary investment vehicle is a far cry from wealth confiscation. Key phrase in my post is "first step." At first it is voluntary, but who know when they will change the rules and it becomes mandatory. And what really is this "investment vehicle?" Obama described it as a "guaranteed reasonable return with zero risk." The only thing he can mean is U.S. treasuries. Not even U.S. treasuries have zero risk, contrary to popular belief. The U.S. is not immune to default. You could just as well say "Government is the first step towards wealth confiscation" As an aside, if we are getting really cynical here had Obama just forced every American to have an S&P index the day he announced stocks are a good investment back in 09 when the bailout really got rolling...well, they'd be a hell of a lot richer today. Gov't is a wealth confiscation machine...this is true, but they are capable of taking it to a whole new level. I am opposed to any President forcing any American to buy anything whether it be gov't bonds, the S&P 500, or Obamacare. Now do you want to know why the S&P has risen so precipitously since '09? The answer is gov't intervention in capital markets. The Federal Reserve has been buying U.S. treasuries at an unsustainable pace, making U.S. treasuries a non-viable investment for money managers, pension funds, and private citizens. As a result all of that money funnels into the stock market. On December 18th, 2013, the Fed cut it Quantitative Easing program by $10 billion a month (for the record stocks rallied hard that day, which is counter-intuitive, but that is market dynamics at work). On January 29th, 2014, the Fed cut QE by an additional $10 billion a month and the S&P is currently trading lower than its Dec 18th open. Some will debate that the economic recovery has been substantial, stock prices are fairly valued, and ending QE is being (or is already) priced into the market, but that is all opinions. The fact is since QE has been tapered slightly, the S&P has traded lower. https://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gfdblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FED-BAL-SHT1.pngThis is a chart comparing the Fed's balance sheet to the S&P 500. Notice the correlation starting in 2009. Its more than double of where it was before QE started. Bonds actually have been a great investment because so many people have been screaming, and investing, about the coming hyper inflation and the collapse of the dollar. Japan has been at 200% debt to GDP and has been adding to its debt for almost 30 years now and the stop that is supposed to arrive has merely wrecked the careers of thousands of investment managers who dont seem to get that analysis of complex, developed economies is much more opaque than just tracking foreign inflows of hot money into emerging markets with its inevitable short circuit and bust. QE1 started November 2008 so please get your facts straight. Bonds have been a terrible investment so please get your facts straight. Investment managers have made an absolute KILLING shorting the Japanese Yen after Abe essentially told them to do just that so please get your facts straight.
I know repeating zero hedge makes you feel like you are cool, like you are part of the 'in crowd' who 'gets it' but its literally just a quick google search to confirm:
Here is how the US 10 year did starting from Nov 08 using an ETF because i am lazy: https://www.google.ca/finance?q=NYSEARCA:IEF&sq=US 10 year&sp=1&ei=52zwUqjdIqeTiAKgwAE
Making 8% on TREASURY when the real interest rate is touching zero is amazing.
Bonds have been a great investment if you want a zero risk return.
Investment managers have been attacking the Japanese bonds not the Japanese yen because they, like you, believe that there is mystical red line that once a country is too indebted it crosses and collapses and those investors, following your logic that borrowing is the devil, have repeatedly blown themselves up year after year after year, its called a widow maker for a reason.
Anyway, its great to see someone interested in finance. Unfortunately its a little bit more complicated than zero hedge makes it seem.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
On February 04 2014 13:20 zusch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:09 itsjustatank wrote:On February 04 2014 13:07 zusch wrote:
Seems that the posters in this thread have no concept of what debt is and why it is a bad thing. Debt cannot be pilled up for forever, sooner or later enough is enough. This is true for every private citizen who racks up enough credit card debt...eventually they will be cut off from getting another credit card and bankruptcy is the only option. With fiat currencies, you actually can pile up debt forever. All you have to do is pay off the interest. Sovereign debt is not the same as personal debt, especially for countries that matter. This is a very good point and I was going to type something about it in the post you quoted, but I am trying to space out my points as to have more of a back and forth discussion. The whole world is printing money and it is hard to tell who will hold all the chips (gold, silver, Bitcoins, real estate, natural resources, etc) when the whole system implodes. It is fact that Chinese consumers are fueling many real estate booms such as that in NYC...India has a very high demand for gold...and Bitcoin is gaining popularity by the day.
It will be the actor that can muster the largest amount of military force.
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On February 04 2014 13:31 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:18 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 13:08 Danglars wrote:On February 04 2014 12:34 Sub40APM wrote:On February 04 2014 11:12 Danglars wrote:JON STEWART: Why do we have so much trouble executing the plans with any kind of efficiency?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, again, if you're dealing with people who have no agenda, you know, who nothing -- nothing is their agenda and never is our timetable, it's very hard to negotiate with them. So we are responsible. In other words, call us responsible. They know we're going to vote not to shut down government. They know we are going t o vote for the budget no matter how unpleasant it is. The choice we have is to be irresponsible and follow their path or we don't want to be fearmongers but to explain this to the public is very bad news. We want to be positive.
STEWART: Aside from that aspect, I meant more in terms of, 'Okay, we are going to set up a health care web site that is an exchange. People are going to come to it.' Why is it so hard to get a company to execute that competently?
PELOSI: I don't know. As one who was very --
[Laughter]
PELOSI: No, and that is my question.
STEWART: Let me get the House Minority Leader here, I can ask her. Hold on. What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know?
PELOSI: It's not my responsibility. But I will say this, we worked very hard to honor our responsibility to pass the bill that honors the vowels of our founders: life, a healthier life, liberty to pursue your happiness. sourceMany of my leftist and lean-leftist nonpolitical friends depend on Comedy Central for their news. Now the majority leader claims to be responsible (in contrast to the mean government shutdown opponents), and simultaneously claims she doesn't know why her government health plan turned out so badly. I mean, not even the standard "Well health care and health insurance is so complex and there's so many people so there was bound to be problems." I had become used to the party of Big Government downplaying the size of the problem and emphasizing the complexity of the issues. I guess focus groups showed that ignorance was better than an intricacy discussion. I think its a great question since most civilized countries actually are capable of delivering government owned healthcare at a lower cost than the Americans without nearly as much mess. It would be great to have a series of hearings on the way government contractors work in the US and it would certainly benefit the Republic. I'm with you in the primary thrust of what you're saying. We could deliver this new "essential services," subsidies, marketplace, tax package much better, if we accept for the time being that these changes will happen no matter what and its a question of how. Why is the IRS even involved in administrating the ACA to the extent of 47 tax provisions in the ACA? Democrats certainly hurt their case passing it all without a single republican vote, claiming it had to be passed first to determine how good everything inside it was, and then bungling it to this level. Simultaneously, the pre-ACA regulations that hurt the free market and privileged employer providers didn't turn up a good free-market alternative to government health insurance--it was heavily regulated already. Some of the cost analysis of government-run health care regimes (and not every country's is the same efficiency) is pretty compelling. I'm still against, primarily for the increase in wait times and problems involving end-of-life care. Once the state pays for it, sure you have a say in how your tax money is spent in representative government. Even in low-cost schemes, the budgetary pressures on government and budgetary pressures on the individual and his/her health insurance company are different and can lead to very unintended consequences. I'm even supportive of form of welfare for low-income individuals giving them a government voucher for health insurance to shop around with. Accomplish it with regulations leading to long-term continuation of coverage, allowing you to go to a private plan with better benefits with your own money. This effectively kills the pre-existing condition coverage we hear so much about without perversely rewarding people for waiting until they get sick to purchase insurance coverage. And you know why the IRS is involved. The Republican Supreme Court ruled it a tax instead of commerce clause legislation, and you can either accept that as Roberts chickening out at the last minute or Roberts the ingenious legal scholar setting up a long term plan to crush the Commerce Clause as a vehicle of federal regulation (which is ingenious of him). I don't know where you're going with this last paragraph. It was passed in 2009 and the supreme court challenge came in in 2012. The wording was drafted as a cause of administration, not as some kind of legalese to get out of a constitutionality challenge. The Democrats really wanted the IRS to administer several aspects and not just the individual mandate tax-penalty penalty tax (it was found to be a penalty according to the Anti-Injunction Act, but a tax with respects to the individual mandate). That does indeed set it apart from other country's successful attempts (as we discussed in the other paragraphs). It wasn't like they had to change wording after the Supreme Court challenge ... the wording was already there. The opinion that talked about why it wasn't a commerce clause wasn't the majority opinion, it was merely a concurring opinion. So really, the commerce clause is still the same in all its current legal interpretation glory, Roberts did not limit it. ...it was in the bill because democrats have people who went to good law schools too and they realized in a 5-4 court the commerce clause would be attacked by a roberts court that has signaled it is going to attack the commerce clause...but like introvert said we are just going to start re-treading an argument we all feel comfortable with our positions on.
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On February 04 2014 13:40 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:20 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 13:09 itsjustatank wrote:On February 04 2014 13:07 zusch wrote:
Seems that the posters in this thread have no concept of what debt is and why it is a bad thing. Debt cannot be pilled up for forever, sooner or later enough is enough. This is true for every private citizen who racks up enough credit card debt...eventually they will be cut off from getting another credit card and bankruptcy is the only option. With fiat currencies, you actually can pile up debt forever. All you have to do is pay off the interest. Sovereign debt is not the same as personal debt, especially for countries that matter. This is a very good point and I was going to type something about it in the post you quoted, but I am trying to space out my points as to have more of a back and forth discussion. The whole world is printing money and it is hard to tell who will hold all the chips (gold, silver, Bitcoins, real estate, natural resources, etc) when the whole system implodes. It is fact that Chinese consumers are fueling many real estate booms such as that in NYC...India has a very high demand for gold...and Bitcoin is gaining popularity by the day. It will be the actor that can muster the largest amount of military force.
+1
Worthless fiat paper won't pay for a war, thats for sure.
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On February 04 2014 13:40 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2014 13:20 zusch wrote:On February 04 2014 13:09 itsjustatank wrote:On February 04 2014 13:07 zusch wrote:
Seems that the posters in this thread have no concept of what debt is and why it is a bad thing. Debt cannot be pilled up for forever, sooner or later enough is enough. This is true for every private citizen who racks up enough credit card debt...eventually they will be cut off from getting another credit card and bankruptcy is the only option. With fiat currencies, you actually can pile up debt forever. All you have to do is pay off the interest. Sovereign debt is not the same as personal debt, especially for countries that matter. This is a very good point and I was going to type something about it in the post you quoted, but I am trying to space out my points as to have more of a back and forth discussion. The whole world is printing money and it is hard to tell who will hold all the chips (gold, silver, Bitcoins, real estate, natural resources, etc) when the whole system implodes. It is fact that Chinese consumers are fueling many real estate booms such as that in NYC...India has a very high demand for gold...and Bitcoin is gaining popularity by the day. It will be the actor that can muster the largest amount of military force.
I guess Switzerland should just commit suicide, they are doomed with their 'worthless pieces of paper' and no army. Strange though how their central bank has to penalize people for trying to buy francs. Why would people want pieces of paper without a bitcoin or gold behind it!
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
Switzerland is and has been in a strategic and very-hard-to-invade position for centuries now. They will do just fine.
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EPT
