US Politics Mega-thread - Page 846

On February 05 2014 01:41 KwarK wrote:
The fall of Rome was not caused by debasing currency. Source: 4 years study at a good university doing Ancient History, in particular Rome.


Gold as a reserve currency is just fucking retarded anyway. As an economy expands you need more currency to have shit working. Investors want to get interest, people want their assets to retain value, population grows, the amount of currency in existence must grow with the economy. This causes huge issues in a gold standard economy because it means you have to subdivide gold which means those who hoarded gold rather than invested it have seen a greater return because currency itself is becoming a scarce commodity. The economic boom of the 18th and 19th centuries would not have been possible on the gold standard without the emergence of huge new gold sources which flooded the economies with a shiny metal to make the new currency representing the economic growth out of.

The metal itself has very little value, the industrial value of gold is far, far, far below the current market value of gold for example. It's not even especially rare, there is far more of it stocked up than is ever reasonably likely to be used. It's an ongoing greater fool fallacy, people value it because they expect to find someone who values it even more to pass it onto and not actually be holding it when someone finally goes "wait, why are we stockpiling this gold stuff again?". The idea that you think paper money is questionable but gold is precious is pretty laughable. If you couldn't trade either they're both pretty worthless, they're both just physical representations of value that are no stronger than the trading partner's faith that they will keep their value. The emperor has no clothes.

On February 05 2014 02:46 Nyxisto wrote:
Gold is so valuable because it's scarce and the amount of gold in circulation is practically fixed. Also it's a long and well established currency.

And please stop this currency conspiracy nonsense, the government isn't "scared of Bitcoins".

On February 05 2014 02:40 farvacola wrote:
Bitcoin is interesting because it is new and exciting, not because it provides any sort of realistic alternative to nationalized fiat currencies. The only threat it presents to governments is the nightmare that comes with all the unforeseen liability and potential for fraud.

On February 05 2014 02:46 Nyxisto wrote:
Gold is so valuable because it's scarce and the amount of gold in circulation is practically fixed. Also it's a long and well established currency.

And please stop this currency conspiracy nonsense, the government isn't "scared of Bitcoins".

On February 05 2014 02:49 KwarK wrote:

Gold isn't even slightly scarce. We have far more than we consume. The amount of pretty much anything in circulation is fixed.

Government is scared of losing their monopoly on the money supply and losing tax revenue. Not really a conspiracy as much as a logical conclusion.

On February 05 2014 02:54 Nyxisto wrote:

scarce in the sense that the amount of gold will not significantly increase anymore.

How Much Will the ACA Reduce Employment in the Longer Term?

The ACA’s largest impact on labor markets will probably occur after 2016, once its major provisions have taken full effect and overall economic output nears its maxi-mum sustainable level. CBO estimates that the ACA willreduce the total number of hours worked, on net, byabout 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive. Because the largest declines in labor supply will probably occur among lower-wage workers, the reduction in aggregate compensation (wages, salaries, and fringe benefits) and the impact on the overall econ-omy will be proportionally smaller than the reduction in hours worked. Specifically, CBO estimates that the ACA will cause a reduction of roughly 1 percent in aggregate labor compensation over the 2017–2024 period, com-pared with what it would have been otherwise. Although such effects are likely to continue after 2024 (the end of the current 10-year budget window), CBO has not esti-mated their magnitude or duration over a longer period.

Incentives to Change Labor Supply and Groups Affected.

For some people, the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid will reduce the incentive to work—but among other people it will increase that incentive. As with exchange subsidies, access to Medicaid confers financial benefits that are phased out with rising income or (more commonly) elim-inated when income exceeds a threshold; some people will thus work fewer hours or withdraw from the labor force to become or remain eligible (the substitution effect). Moreover, those financial benefits will lead some people to work less because the increase in their available resources enables them to reduce work without a decline in their standard of living (the income effect).

The Magnitude of the Incentive to Reduce Labor Supply.

For some people, the availability of exchange subsidies under the ACA will reduce incentives to work both through a substitution effect and through an income effect. The former arises because subsidies decline with rising income (and increase as income falls), thus making work less attractive. As a result, some people will choose not to work or will work less—thus substituting other activities for work. The income effect arises because subsidies increase available resources—similar to giving people greater income—thereby allowing some people to maintain the same standard of living while working less. The magnitude of the incentive to reduce labor supply thus depends on the size of the subsidies and the rate at which they are phased out.

The reduction in full-time-equivalent employment that CBO expects will arise from the ACA includes some
people choosing not to work at all and other people choosing to work fewer hours than they would have in
the absence of the law; however, CBO has not tried to quantify those two components of the overall effect.
Because some people will reduce the amount of hours they work rather than stopping work altogether, the
number who will choose to leave employment because of the ACA in 2024 is likely to be substantially less than
2.5 million. At the same time, more than 2.5 million people are likely to reduce the amount of labor they
choose to supply to some degree because of the ACA, even though many of them will not leave the labor force
entirely.

On February 05 2014 02:49 KwarK wrote:

Gold isn't even slightly scarce. We have far more than we consume. The amount of pretty much anything in circulation is fixed.

On February 05 2014 02:57 KwarK wrote:

Nor will the amount of iron. There's less gold than iron on earth but there's less iridium on earth than gold. Scarcity is relative to consumption and consumption of gold is pretty low.

On February 05 2014 02:57 KwarK wrote:

Nor will the amount of iron. There's less gold than iron on earth but there's less iridium on earth than gold. Scarcity is relative to consumption and consumption of gold is pretty low.

On February 05 2014 03:02 Mercy13 wrote:
So how do you value gold?

On February 05 2014 02:49 KwarK wrote:

Gold isn't even slightly scarce. We have far more than we consume. The amount of pretty much anything in circulation is fixed.

On February 05 2014 02:58 Roe wrote:


how do you guys know these kinds of things O.o

On February 05 2014 03:07 KwarK wrote:

It's not especially useful, especially not at its current price, it just sits in vaults with the people who own it hoping that they'll find some other guy with a vault who wants gold even more than them. And that guy is in turn hoping he can then find someone who wants it even more.

On February 05 2014 03:05 zusch wrote:

Gold is valued by the collective opinions of all market participants, like any commodity or asset class should be.

On February 04 2014 18:27 Sub40APM wrote:


Ya but Obama also clearly is an excellent electioneer, whatever else you want to say about him the guy crushed the Clinton machine completely and utterly and then won one of the most improbable elections in '12. Ya the Republicans went out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot but he definitely wakes up for the elections. After that disaster show that was the GOP primary I wonder who would be as solid in the other side.

Out of interest:

What exactly did change since the last election when the republicans seemed to live in their own imaginationland were they had good chances?
Yeah, Obamacare implementation was bad, but so was the (useless) goverment shutdown and as far as i can tell the blame for the incapable congress also falls more on the republicans?
You also had problems getting Women to vote for you… Has this changed in any way? Did you get the hispanic vote back? What changed?

You just got wrecked 2 times due to having candidates that had to act way too conservative in the pre-elections and had to nominate vice presidential candidates that make « moderate » people cringe just to get the conservative vote (which reps would/should get anyway ?)…
Now your suggesting to get these hardliners on the ticket directly? When they allready most likely were a good enough reason for many people to not vote for McCain and Romney?