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Now that we have a new thread, 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 complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
I’m not angry and you are indeed free to present your points as you see fit. I’m merely pointing out that I agree with what underlies many of your posts and think you do those ideas a disservice by adding on unnecessary and extremely vulnerable historical comparisons.
I’ll add that the idea that the speaker bears no fault for the preconceptions of their audience misses the extent to which persuasion is not an easy game of assigning culpability based on who says or believes what. However, carry on as you wish.
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On April 29 2019 01:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 01:00 farvacola wrote:
Right, so instead of encouraging folks to engage with the substance of the wide variety of valid critiques of the US, you’re baiting people into taking offense to tangential comparisons instead. Grats I guess. It's not my fault if people choose to focus on the tangential. Your getting angry at me for others not being able to maintain both the "substance" as you see it and comparative analysis.
I not only would expect people to react poorly to such a comparison, as they regularly have here, but I also don't see what value it adds to such critiques of the US. We fuck lots of shit up here. I admit that freely, and I think most others if not all others would too. I don't think it makes a comparison to North Korea valid, nor does that make your arguments more compelling. It's just unnecessary.
And if you really wanted to get people thinking about problems in the US and how bad they are, you've done a pretty terrible job because of where the conversation ended up. Doesn't matter whose fault it is, you plainly shouldn't want to continue this pattern of discussion if you care about the results.
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It's remarkable to me that y'all are able to identify what's wrong with our engagement but unable or unwilling to correct it?
The justification being that it's reasonable to get unreasonable when NK or the USSR is brought up in a legitimate and limited comparison regarding the perception of performance relative to reality.
People regularly say the US has the best healthcare when the fact is that we don't by many measures, in this case we're the worst in the "developed" world despite our perception of being the best.
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Depends on how rich you are. We have the best for those that can afford it. Which is why almost every candidate is for some form of universal healthcare that isn't hamstringed. I think I speak for most of the thread in that regard. We want and know we can afford universal healthcare. But special interests routinely thwart any chance we have of making it a reality. That isn't the commoners fault, it's the big money in politics making it so.
The problem with the engagement is that you never miss a chance to compare the US to those places specifically. You could have said Denmark, Japan, Spain, etc. There are a whole hosts of nations with better institutions than the US, but you always refer back to Russia, NK, or Venezuela.
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On April 29 2019 01:19 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Depends on how rich you are. We have the best for those that can afford it. Which is why almost every candidate is for some form of universal healthcare that isn't hamstringed. I think I speak for most of the thread in that regard. We want and know we can afford universal healthcare. But special interests routinely thwart any chance we have of making it a reality. That isn't the commoners fault, it's the big money in politics making it so.
The problem with the engagement is that you never miss a chance to compare the US to those places specifically. You could have said Denmark, Japan, Spain, etc. There are a whole hosts of nations with better institutions than the US, but you always refer back to Russia, NK, or Venezuela.
You're conflating 2 comparisons.
1. Comparing US performance among developmental peers
2. Comparing US citizen perception of that performance against reality, to nations where people readily accept the discord between the two.
I made both and argue both are important.
The argument being made here (most clearly by farv) is that the second one makes brains go fuzzy so that we can't talk about the first or both anymore. I'm cautious to accept that all of you can identify what you're doing but it's my fault you're doing it. Or at least that it's an inherently bad thing I'm doing, rather than just uncomfortable.
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On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp
The rising maternal mortality rates are indeed concerning. I also agree with you that the monetary punishment plan is flawed.
I would have to see the raw data again for comparison among developed countries. For a time, the WHO and CDC used two different definitions: 42 days after end of pregnancy, and an entire year after the end of pregnancy. This factored into a Gates Foundation study from a few years ago. Any raw methodology and results links are appreciated.
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On April 29 2019 00:29 farvacola wrote:
Warren’s policy stuff has been substantively the strongest among Democrats; at a minimum, I expect (hope) that her platform pushes the rest of the field in the right direction even if she ends up dropping out.
I agree; I've been generally impressed with how her platforms aren't just sound bites or platitudes of "we need to do better at X" without any follow-up; she's really seemed to do a deep dive with a lot of serious issues and has proposed pretty impressive outlines and plans, even though I happen to disagree with her final conclusion on how best to deal with our maternal mortality rate. Every politician can easily bandwagon on *what* needs to be addressed; Liz Warren is one of the few presidential candidates who is putting an emphasis on the actual *how* as well, which is very appealing to me.
On April 29 2019 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp Large drivers I've seen identified are c-sections because they are faster and more profitable for hospitals, but far more dangerous, rushing births with induction, and ignoring Black mothers concerns during and immediately after birthing.While a "small" number of maternal deaths are being talked about it's also important to remind US citizens we have the worst rate in the developed world. Sometimes the US feels like how I've seen the USSR portrayed where people in the US were told people in the USSR were being tricked into believing they were on par with the rest of the developed world.
That is an interesting list of large drivers you've presented; I was of the impression that C-sections are relatively safe and are actually preferred as solutions to other pregnancy complications that would be dangerous for the mother and baby (i.e., C-sections are, on average, life-saving rather than life-endangering).
On April 29 2019 00:46 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp Yeah, I don't think tying things to performance for a hospital is a good idea. Its much much better to investigate why hospitals are performing worse then others and see what the actual reasons are.As for maternal mortality, without any further knowledge about it my initial thoughts go to, as always, the state of health insurance in the US. High deductibles and non mandatory coverage means people are less healthy when going into child birth, probably have less doctor/hospital visits during pregnancy and are less likely to go to a hospital afterwards if they feel something is wrong with themselves. To find out what is the actual problem is you would have to compare what is the causes of death are for all these 'extra' unneeded deaths.
I agree with you, and I'm confident that it wouldn't be hard to compile a list of different ways women have died during/ right after childbirth, and their frequencies, for a given hospital. Preeclampsia, placental conditions, embolism, sepsis, and so many other emergencies can be addressed early and quickly if the hospitals are aware of specific trends with their population of patients.
On April 29 2019 02:09 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp The rising maternal mortality rates are indeed concerning. I also agree with you that the monetary punishment plan is flawed. I would have to see the raw data again for comparison among developed countries. For a time, the WHO and CDC used two different definitions: 42 days after end of pregnancy, and an entire year after the end of pregnancy. This factored into a Gates Foundation study from a few years ago. Any raw methodology and results links are appreciated.
I'm not sure what the current justification is for using 42 days as a metric. UNICEF uses it too: + Show Spoiler +Definition: The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is defined as the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100,000 live births during the same time period. It depicts the risk of maternal death relative to the number of live births and essentially captures the risk of death in a single pregnancy or a single live birth. Maternal deaths: The annual number of female deaths from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes) during pregnancy and childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, expressed per 100,000 live births, for a specified time period. https://data.unicef.org/topic/maternal-health/maternal-mortality/
Here's an article that contends with using 42 days as a benchmark, considering complications of pregnancy and birth that lead to a mother's death can extend past 42 days, and also a woman who dies during childbirth or soon after could technically die for other, coincidental reasons outside of maternity as a cause. Note: this study happens to be looking at an African nation, although I think the spirit of questioning the 42-day threshold is still applicable, even if there are significant differences between the statistics gathered from American maternity morality rates and the rate from Guinea-Bissau.
Abstract:
A maternal death is defined by WHO as 'the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy em leader '. The origin of the 42 days is no longer clear. In developing countries, the burden imposed by pregnancy and birth on a woman's body may extend beyond 42 days as pregnancy-related anaemia can persist for longer and vaginal haemorrhaging and risk of infections are not necessarily over after six weeks. We therefore examined duration of excess mortality after delivery in rural Guinea-Bissau. In a prospective cohort study, we followed 15,844 women of childbearing age with biannual visits over a period of six years, resulting in a total of 60,192 person-years-at-risk. To establish cause and timing in relation to termination of pregnancy, verbal autopsy was carried out for all deaths. Mortality rates were calculated for short time intervals after each delivery or miscarriage. During the observation period we registered 14,257 pregnancies and 350 deaths. One hundred and ninety-four deaths followed termination of a registered pregnancy and thus were eligible for the analysis. Eighty-two deaths occurred during the first 42 days after delivery/miscarriage. A further 16 women died in the period from 43 to 91 days after parturition, 16 between 92 and 182 days and 18 between 183 and 365 days after delivery. Compared with baseline mortality 7-12 months after delivery, women who had recently delivered had 15.9 times higher mortality (95% CI 9.8-27.4). From days 43 to 91 the mortality was still significantly elevated (RR = 2.8 [1.4-5.4]). Where living conditions are harsh, pregnancy and delivery affect the health of the woman for more than 42 days. Using the WHO definition may result in an under-estimation of the pregnancy-related part of the reproductive age mortality. Extending the definition of maternal death to include all deaths within three months of delivery may increase current estimates of maternal mortality by 10-15%.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/9030282_Maternal_mortality_Only_42_days
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On April 29 2019 02:43 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:29 farvacola wrote:
Warren’s policy stuff has been substantively the strongest among Democrats; at a minimum, I expect (hope) that her platform pushes the rest of the field in the right direction even if she ends up dropping out. I agree; I've been generally impressed with how her platforms aren't just sound bites or platitudes of "we need to do better at X" without any follow-up; she's really seemed to do a deep dive with a lot of serious issues and has proposed pretty impressive outlines and plans, even though I happen to disagree with her final conclusion on how best to deal with our maternal mortality rate. Every politician can easily bandwagon on *what* needs to be addressed; Liz Warren is one of the few presidential candidates who is putting an emphasis on the actual *how* as well, which is very appealing to me. Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp Large drivers I've seen identified are c-sections because they are faster and more profitable for hospitals, but far more dangerous, rushing births with induction, and ignoring Black mothers concerns during and immediately after birthing.While a "small" number of maternal deaths are being talked about it's also important to remind US citizens we have the worst rate in the developed world. Sometimes the US feels like how I've seen the USSR portrayed where people in the US were told people in the USSR were being tricked into believing they were on par with the rest of the developed world. That is an interesting list of large drivers you've presented; I was of the impression that C-sections are relatively safe and are actually preferred as solutions to other pregnancy complications that would be dangerous for the mother and baby (i.e., C-sections are, on average, life-saving rather than life-endangering). Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:46 Gorsameth wrote:On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp Yeah, I don't think tying things to performance for a hospital is a good idea. Its much much better to investigate why hospitals are performing worse then others and see what the actual reasons are.As for maternal mortality, without any further knowledge about it my initial thoughts go to, as always, the state of health insurance in the US. High deductibles and non mandatory coverage means people are less healthy when going into child birth, probably have less doctor/hospital visits during pregnancy and are less likely to go to a hospital afterwards if they feel something is wrong with themselves. To find out what is the actual problem is you would have to compare what is the causes of death are for all these 'extra' unneeded deaths. I agree with you, and I'm confident that it wouldn't be hard to compile a list of different ways women have died during/ right after childbirth, and their frequencies, for a given hospital. Preeclampsia, placental conditions, embolism, sepsis, and so many other emergencies can be addressed early and quickly if the hospitals are aware of specific trends with their population of patients. Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 02:09 Danglars wrote:On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp The rising maternal mortality rates are indeed concerning. I also agree with you that the monetary punishment plan is flawed. I would have to see the raw data again for comparison among developed countries. For a time, the WHO and CDC used two different definitions: 42 days after end of pregnancy, and an entire year after the end of pregnancy. This factored into a Gates Foundation study from a few years ago. Any raw methodology and results links are appreciated. I'm not sure what the current justification is for using 42 days as a metric. UNICEF uses it too: + Show Spoiler +Definition: The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is defined as the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100,000 live births during the same time period. It depicts the risk of maternal death relative to the number of live births and essentially captures the risk of death in a single pregnancy or a single live birth. Maternal deaths: The annual number of female deaths from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes) during pregnancy and childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, expressed per 100,000 live births, for a specified time period. https://data.unicef.org/topic/maternal-health/maternal-mortality/ Here's an article that contends with using 42 days as a benchmark, considering complications of pregnancy and birth that lead to a mother's death can extend past 42 days, and also a woman who dies during childbirth or soon after could technically die for other, coincidental reasons outside of maternity as a cause. Note: this study happens to be looking at an African nation, although I think the spirit of questioning the 42-day threshold is still applicable, even if there are significant differences between the statistics gathered from American maternity morality rates and the rate from Guinea-Bissau. Abstract: Show nested quote +A maternal death is defined by WHO as 'the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy em leader '. The origin of the 42 days is no longer clear. In developing countries, the burden imposed by pregnancy and birth on a woman's body may extend beyond 42 days as pregnancy-related anaemia can persist for longer and vaginal haemorrhaging and risk of infections are not necessarily over after six weeks. We therefore examined duration of excess mortality after delivery in rural Guinea-Bissau. In a prospective cohort study, we followed 15,844 women of childbearing age with biannual visits over a period of six years, resulting in a total of 60,192 person-years-at-risk. To establish cause and timing in relation to termination of pregnancy, verbal autopsy was carried out for all deaths. Mortality rates were calculated for short time intervals after each delivery or miscarriage. During the observation period we registered 14,257 pregnancies and 350 deaths. One hundred and ninety-four deaths followed termination of a registered pregnancy and thus were eligible for the analysis. Eighty-two deaths occurred during the first 42 days after delivery/miscarriage. A further 16 women died in the period from 43 to 91 days after parturition, 16 between 92 and 182 days and 18 between 183 and 365 days after delivery. Compared with baseline mortality 7-12 months after delivery, women who had recently delivered had 15.9 times higher mortality (95% CI 9.8-27.4). From days 43 to 91 the mortality was still significantly elevated (RR = 2.8 [1.4-5.4]). Where living conditions are harsh, pregnancy and delivery affect the health of the woman for more than 42 days. Using the WHO definition may result in an under-estimation of the pregnancy-related part of the reproductive age mortality. Extending the definition of maternal death to include all deaths within three months of delivery may increase current estimates of maternal mortality by 10-15%. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/9030282_Maternal_mortality_Only_42_days
Sometime around 2011, the US also started counting the 42 day definition in addition to the 1yr. I saw at least two articles from 2-4 years ago using the 42 days vs 1 year to “prove” the American MMR was highest among developed nations. No kidding, we tracked the women for a longer period of time. So now I actively search out the data sets they’re using to make the global comparisons. It wasn’t linked in article.
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That is an interesting list of large drivers you've presented; I was of the impression that C-sections are relatively safe and are actually preferred as solutions to other pregnancy complications that would be dangerous for the mother and baby (i.e., C-sections are, on average, life-saving rather than life-endangering).
This is why I mentioned the importance of differences between perception and reality. C-sections are rising and very dangerous according to most reports I've seen, here's one from NPR about it.
The rates can be even higher in private clinics. For example, in Brazil, 80-90 percent of births in private clinics are now C-sections, compared with about 30-40 percent of births in public hospitals.
Such high rates are due mainly to an increase of elective C-sections, says Salimah Walani, the vice president of global programs at March of Dimes, a U.S. maternal and child health organization. "The procedure is done when it is not really necessary or indicated," she says.
Then the surgical procedure can do more harm than good for moms and babies, Walani says.
For a mom, an elected C-section can raise the chance of death by at least 60 percent, and in some circumstances as much as 700 percent, several studies have reported. And it increases a woman's risk of life-threatening complications during childbirth, such as bleeding, uterine rupture, hysterectomy and cardiac arrest by about fivefold. This risk rises even further in subsequent deliveries.
For babies, C-sections raise the chance of obesity and autoimmune diseases later in life. When the procedure occurs before 39 weeks, an early birth increases the infant's risk of respiratory problems.
So what's driving the global rise of C-sections?
It's likely three factors working together: financial, legal and technical, says Holly Kennedy, a professor of midwifery at the Yale School of Nursing and contributed to one of the studies.
"As an obstetrician told me ... 'You're going to pay me more [to do a C-section], you're not going to sue me and I'll be done in a hour,' " Kennedy says.
To bring these rates down, hospitals need to pay doctors equally for vaginal births, a team of researchers write in a commentary.
At the other end of the spectrum, sub-Saharan Africa is still struggling to give moms access to C-sections when required. Across this region, the C-section rate has changed very little since 2000, hovering right around 5 percent.
So many moms around the world end up with less-than-optimal care when it comes to C-sections: It's either too little too late, or too much too soon.
www.npr.org
On April 29 2019 03:56 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:55 farvacola wrote:On April 29 2019 00:51 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On April 29 2019 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp Large drivers I've seen identified are c-sections because they are faster and more profitable for hospitals, but far more dangerous, rushing births with induction, and ignoring Black mothers concerns during and immediately after birthing. While a "small" number of maternal deaths are being talked about it's also important to remind US citizens we have the worst rate in the developed world. Sometimes the US feels like how I've seen the USSR portrayed where people in the US were told people in the USSR were being tricked into believing they were on par with the rest of the developed world. Why must you always compare the US and other countires? Specifically NK, USSR, Venezuela? I don't see how anything you say in regards to this specific post helps drive the discussion. You just wanted to take a shot at the US for no other reasons than your seemingly growing hatred for the place. Was gonna say the same thing, literally every post in which GH criticizes the US would be stronger and more persuasive if they did not contain these stilted comparisons. Remember "nk would do more for their citizens than the US if they had as much money as the US?" It's not worth replying to. It is just a long chain of silly attempts to draw attention to other issues.
There's an example directly above your comment explaining why you're misrepresenting what I was doing.
This comment would be more useful if it wasn't based on not reading the posts that came after the one it was responding to but before the comment was made.
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On April 29 2019 00:55 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 00:51 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On April 29 2019 00:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2019 00:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Elizabeth Warren's many goals and plans as president of the United States is to address maternity mortality rate. Maternity mortality rate is the percentage of women who die during or shortly after childbirth. I strongly agree with her identification of the problem, but I'm wary of her response to the situation. The maternity mortality rate in the United States is .000264, which is higher than in many other first-world countries. In other words, .0264% - or about 1 in 3,788 - of American women die during childbirth or shortly after giving birth. That's obviously an incredibly low number (99.97% of American women live through childbirth), but the CDC has already made a statement saying that 60% of these deaths are preventable. We need to make a concerted effort to minimize these risk factors. And Warren points out another important fact as well: After controlling for socioeconomic status and several other variables, it appears that black women are significantly more likely to die during child birth than white women (although, again, this is in the scope of a fraction of 1%). Warren then asserts that the reason for this is due to prejudice (which might be true, or it might be partially true, but it might also be hard to justify and rectify). Warren then proposes a reward-punishment system: those hospitals that lower their maternal mortality rate will be rewarded with more money, while those hospitals who don't lower their rate will slowly become defunded and drained of resources. The article's video clip of Warren does a pretty good job of explaining her reasoning to this proposal. I worry that this proposal glosses over the hard work and tough decisions that nurses and doctors make daily, and can force the adverse effect of medical professionals turning away high-risk pregnant patients in case they end up being a a casualty that loses the hospital money. This can quickly become a numbers game and an unhealthy competition, rather than a proper medical and moral focus on patient care. I think something needs to be done about our maternity mortality rate, and we also need to figure out why minority women are a different statistic than white women, but I don't think Warren's plan is the way to go. (We've already seen this play out negatively in the fields of insurance and education: insurance companies would love to turn away clients who have pre-existing conditions to pad their numbers and profits, and tying school funding to how well students perform on standardized tests has been a recipe for disaster and shadiness.) Source, which includes the video clip of Warren's explanation and proposal: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440629-warren-unveils-plan-to-reward-hospitals-that-make-childbirth-safer-for?amp Large drivers I've seen identified are c-sections because they are faster and more profitable for hospitals, but far more dangerous, rushing births with induction, and ignoring Black mothers concerns during and immediately after birthing. While a "small" number of maternal deaths are being talked about it's also important to remind US citizens we have the worst rate in the developed world. Sometimes the US feels like how I've seen the USSR portrayed where people in the US were told people in the USSR were being tricked into believing they were on par with the rest of the developed world. Why must you always compare the US and other countires? Specifically NK, USSR, Venezuela? I don't see how anything you say in regards to this specific post helps drive the discussion. You just wanted to take a shot at the US for no other reasons than your seemingly growing hatred for the place. Was gonna say the same thing, literally every post in which GH criticizes the US would be stronger and more persuasive if they did not contain these stilted comparisons.
Remember "nk would do more for their citizens than the US if they had as much money as the US?"
It's not worth replying to. It is just a long chain of silly attempts to draw attention to other issues.
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On April 28 2019 21:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I don’t think you understand at all the interview you quoted because it’s a lesson on why inflation is good:
Suppose you want to buy a really good book about economics (for example). And the book costs 100 dollars. You are VERY tight with your money, not because you are stingy but because spoiler alert, you are a metaphor for a big company. Anyway. There is an inflation rate of 2% that means next year the book will be 102 dollars. Your most rational behaviour is to not delay and buy it immediately.
Suppose that there is a deflation of 2%. Now the book will be 98 dollars. No way you buy it now; it’s much better to put your cash under your pillow and wait for a year or two. Hell you make a profit by not investing.
Now, here is the thing: there is strictly no downside to a small dose of inflation. As long as it’s not a runaway phenomenon, it just incentivize people to spend their money and invest and punishes sleeping money, which is great.
And that’s what the interview says: inflation is great for investment, deflation for savings. And in a capitalist economy you really don’t want people to save, you want them to invest and buy shit.
On the contrary, I understand exactly what it said. You just don't understand the implications
Inflation is great for borrowing. I've already written paragraphs on this matter and included the method governments and banks use to enrich themselves at the expense of people down the ladder. This is how big banks make a killing selling US government debt that is handed out like candy (at the expense of general population) and public companies pump their stocks (since federal funds rate is so slow it's almost like they are borrowing money for free). And, since like we both agree (at least I think we do), inflation rewards borrowers, it creates a debt system that keeps the "consumers" enslaved for decades.
The idea that there is zero downside to inflation is delusional. It is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental concepts of economics - EVERYTHING has a price.
So basically, while inflation is great for people higher on the socio-economic ladder, it sucks the poorer someone is.
Keynesians like yourself either don't understand or choose to ignore the situation poorer people are in. Life 101 is that you DO need to keep some cash under your pillow (in the bank) as an emergency fund. In the real world the working and middle classes are paid in USD. Not everything is an "investment" and for the low and middle class, investments are not a concern when they barely make ends meet.
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On April 28 2019 22:52 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2019 15:25 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 11:16 Sermokala wrote:
I think Berzerk sword is confusing basic monetary policy intending to continue inflation at a steady rate as a grand conpiracy thats somehow a ponzi scam where no one gets scamed and everyone benifits. I am not On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:46 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 06:45 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:38 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 05:50 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 05:48 BerserkSword wrote:
[quote]
You're not understanding correctly. I'm just bringing up possibilities, rather than claiming to know the exact MO of the dep state. but i didn't write that well. I shouldn't have put that part in parentheses
I do think that if trump went after the fed's monetary empire something would be done to make sure he's not in office.
The fact that he is allowing a soft version of what Obama did makes me think he was compromised or he just reneged on his promises because it would make the stock market look bad/economy. That is the bottom line to me though - that he is keeping the ponzi scheme alive and well
It's not really relevant but could you explain the Ponzi scheme reference for us? The methods the government (thanks to the federal reserve) use to dump depreciating fiat currency on the majority of americans. The major culprit is the fed's easy money stance also known as quantitative easing. Which leads to inflation and ultimately a tax burdern that increases the lower on the economic totem pole you are in the U.S. (I call it a tax because wealth is transferred from the citizen to the government) When the government sells a bond for say, 100 billion dollars, a bank like JP Morgan Chase can come in and buy the bond, representing the bank lending the government 100 bil. and now the government owe's the bank principle plus interest. Government then transfers the 100 billion dollars to bureaucrats, contractors, etc. Then the federal reserves looks to buy government debt, and of course it finds the 100 billion dollar bond that JP morgan chase has. It buys the bond by printing the dollar value of the bond (100 billion + interest) and giving it to jp morgan, which is now in profit. End result is that JP morgan profited, the government owes nothing to jp morgan, and technically the government owes money to the fed, but the fed gives that money back because it is a "government corporation" The government loses nothing, the big bank actually gained money. Everyone in this deal came out richer. The people who lose out are the outsiders who do not see any of that newly printed money since their value of the money they traded for labor/capital has just went down. That entails the first part of QE. Aside from straight up printing money, they also lower short term federal funds rates, which in turn increases money supply the problem with driving the federal funds rate to near zero like has been going on for over a decade is that leads to a market distortion that has adverse consequences the poorer someone is. there is no value of saving/holding fiat money (since the interest rates on it are near zero) compared to investing it in something like the stock market or property. so while the economy in america sucked for most of the 2000s so far, anyone who had their money in stocks or property (ie anyone who could afford it) made off like bandits while middle class and lower class just got worse and worse off. the guy living pay check to pay check is seeing his hard earned peanuts become worth less and less (because all he is doing is living off of fiat) basically, the federal reserve is dumping continually depreciating fiat money on people under the disguise of macroeconomic management. this is why the wealth gap just keeps increasing without a corresponding increase in capital (aka bad economy), even under the leftist hero obama Now could you define a Ponzi scheme for us? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Every time someone gets paid in USD, he/she is investing in USD. Last time I checked Americans are paid in USD. You ignored when I said the situation in America is more nuanced and slow moving than a zimbabwe or venazuela type situation where pepole are wheelbarrowing around cash to by bread. Youre ignoring the factor of time and sequence that i described before. The basic principle is that people early in the sequence get enriched while the people at the end get impoverished. This happens in all degrees of inflation, just to a different extent depending on inflation rate. The people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid - the people who do not have access to non-depreciating assets and who live paycheck to paycheck with maybe a small cash sum in their bank account continually get fucked over. As this goes on the people who are affected spreads to higher up the economic ladder. Decades ago a high school grad had a solid chance of working 40 hrs a week in a factory and trading his labor for USD capable of getting his family a house as well as resources to live. The middle class used to NEVER worry about things like health insurance. Decades are going by and now we have the most college educated generation stuck renting most of the time and a health insurance crisis that is even affecting the middle class. On April 28 2019 12:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 12:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:46 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 06:45 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:38 BerserkSword wrote:
[quote]
The methods the government (thanks to the federal reserve) use to dump depreciating fiat currency on the majority of americans.
The major culprit is the fed's easy money stance also known as quantitative easing. Which leads to inflation and ultimately a tax burdern that increases the lower on the economic totem pole you are in the U.S. (I call it a tax because wealth is transferred from the citizen to the government)
When the government sells a bond for say, 100 billion dollars, a bank like JP Morgan Chase can come in and buy the bond, representing the bank lending the government 100 bil. and now the government owe's the bank principle plus interest. Government then transfers the 100 billion dollars to bureaucrats, contractors, etc.
Then the federal reserves looks to buy government debt, and of course it finds the 100 billion dollar bond that JP morgan chase has. It buys the bond by printing the dollar value of the bond (100 billion + interest) and giving it to jp morgan, which is now in profit.
End result is that JP morgan profited, the government owes nothing to jp morgan, and technically the government owes money to the fed, but the fed gives that money back because it is a "government corporation"
The government loses nothing, the big bank actually gained money. Everyone in this deal came out richer. The people who lose out are the outsiders who do not see any of that newly printed money since their value of the money they traded for labor/capital has just went down.
That entails the first part of QE. Aside from straight up printing money, they also lower short term federal funds rates, which in turn increases money supply
the problem with driving the federal funds rate to near zero like has been going on for over a decade is that leads to a market distortion that has adverse consequences the poorer someone is. there is no value of saving/holding fiat money (since the interest rates on it are near zero) compared to investing it in something like the stock market or property. so while the economy in america sucked for most of the 2000s so far, anyone who had their money in stocks or property (ie anyone who could afford it) made off like bandits while middle class and lower class just got worse and worse off. the guy living pay check to pay check is seeing his hard earned peanuts become worth less and less (because all he is doing is living off of fiat)
basically, the federal reserve is dumping continually depreciating fiat money on people under the disguise of macroeconomic management. this is why the wealth gap just keeps increasing without a corresponding increase in capital (aka bad economy), even under the leftist hero obama Now could you define a Ponzi scheme for us? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Indeed the value is "stored" in private ownership and the expansion of the concept of personal property into the commons. Then the paper (and digital records) that document it and the forces which enforce those concepts. From my perspective anyway. That's to say your ownership is only as valuable as your ability to secure it against those who would claim ownership themselves, so the value of your property isn't really yours so much as it is allowed you by the system which assures you it is. The manifestation of this (because it may be confusing) would be Japanese Americans in the 40's. They had property that held value until the system (people) decided they didn't. The property I think we agree had value, but their ownership of that value is less obvious (granted there were some formal reparations). The point is that inflation only impacts cash and cash flows. If the purchasing power of cash goes down I don't give a shit because I don't have any cash and my fixed cash outflows (mortgage payments) are greater than my fixed cash inflows (possibly my rate of pay but that's not really fixed, it increases with cost of living). The idea that inflation is stealing wealth from the general population makes no sense. It's also not a Ponzi scheme, for what it's worth. Dude. It's good to hear that you are doing alright, but we are not talking about you, specifically.... And I explained in two ways (defining quantitative easing and your Mr Ponzi Adam, Bob, Charlie scenario) how inflation transfers wealth from the bottom to the top. As long as the general population gets paid in USD, inflation takes wealth from them. I’ll try to explain it a different way. Consider a car. In a period of inflation does it go slower? Is the mpg worse? Or is the utility provided by the car exactly the same? Because if it’s the same then the car can always be traded for whatever amount of currency represents that value, whether it’s ten thousand dollars or a million dollars, the value represented by each unit of currency does not impact the value of the car. Now consider the car note. The bank wants 48 equal monthly payments of $300. In a period of inflation are those $300 payments easier to get or harder? Inflation hurts people holding large amounts of cash and large amounts of fixed rate cash flows. Conversely it helps people who have assets and fixed rate debt payments.
Yes I know lol
Now tell me how any of this applies to a working class or middle class person working 60 hrs a week, living paycheck to paycheck, and drowning in debt.
Inflation is great for people like you and me. I literally owe my great life to inflation (Obama's QE). I quit my career as a physician, and went balls deep in property, the stock market, and bitcoin because that's what the feds policy rewards the most......NOT slaving away at an extremely high stress, high responsiblity, profession, one that is being bogged down by more and more red tape, and having no life. Now I make money from the comfort of my home and do whatever i want.
But how does my or your success help lower and middle classl people who are struggling in the U.S?
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On April 29 2019 05:50 BerserkSword wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2019 21:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I don’t think you understand at all the interview you quoted because it’s a lesson on why inflation is good:
Suppose you want to buy a really good book about economics (for example). And the book costs 100 dollars. You are VERY tight with your money, not because you are stingy but because spoiler alert, you are a metaphor for a big company. Anyway. There is an inflation rate of 2% that means next year the book will be 102 dollars. Your most rational behaviour is to not delay and buy it immediately.
Suppose that there is a deflation of 2%. Now the book will be 98 dollars. No way you buy it now; it’s much better to put your cash under your pillow and wait for a year or two. Hell you make a profit by not investing.
Now, here is the thing: there is strictly no downside to a small dose of inflation. As long as it’s not a runaway phenomenon, it just incentivize people to spend their money and invest and punishes sleeping money, which is great.
And that’s what the interview says: inflation is great for investment, deflation for savings. And in a capitalist economy you really don’t want people to save, you want them to invest and buy shit. On the contrary, I understand exactly what it said. You just don't understand the implications Inflation is great for borrowing. I've already written paragraphs on this matter and included the method governments and banks use to enrich themselves at the expense of people down the ladder. This is how big banks make a killing selling US government debt that is handed out like candy (at the expense of general population) and public companies pump their stocks (since federal funds rate is so slow it's almost like they are borrowing money for free). And, since like we both agree (at least I think we do), inflation rewards borrowers, it creates a debt system that keeps the "consumers" enslaved for decades. The idea that there is zero downside to inflation is delusional. It is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental concepts of economics - EVERYTHING has a price. So basically, while inflation is great for people higher on the socio-economic ladder, it sucks the poorer someone is. Keynesians like yourself either don't understand or choose to ignore the situation poorer people are in. Life 101 is that you DO need to keep some cash under your pillow (in the bank) as an emergency fund. In the real world the working and middle classes are paid in USD. Not everything is an "investment" and for the low and middle class, investments are not a concern when they barely make ends meet.
You are right and wrong.
It is also good for regular people that have to borrow to buy a home, a car, or whatever else, instead of always renting as you complain.
The main issue is when wages do not keep up with inflation, and that should have been your main focus, instead of inflation itself if you want to target regular people and the middle class slowly disappearing. With deflation, people can't afford their mortgages and get thrown out. With (controlled) inflation, money put in banks or under a mattress loses value over time (works best with rich people, no impact on paycheck to paycheck workers), and it is an incentive to invest that money into something useful for the economy, growing it. It also allows the government to lower the value of its debt, if only they were not stupid enough to use that as an incentive to grow it even more...
Your life 101 is why in Europe, there is a guarantee on bank and savings account at 100,000€/person. Deregulation and increased power to corporations against workers (as the Supreme Court showed two days ago, getting a wonderful dissent from RBG) is why wages are not going up accordingly (basically current republican policies as I see them). Only extreme worker shortage, like there is currently, is getting the wages to catch up a little. And this is also a very fine line to thread for the economy, as it hinders its growth as companies can't find people.
Zero inflation would probably be fine if we had balanced budget, but that has very rarely been the case for the previous centuries, all across the world. Governments, kingdoms, empires, have always been in debt, thus inflation has always been needed. QE is another beast.
Of course, too much power to workers is also not good, it's always a matter of balance.
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On April 29 2019 07:05 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 05:50 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 21:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I don’t think you understand at all the interview you quoted because it’s a lesson on why inflation is good:
Suppose you want to buy a really good book about economics (for example). And the book costs 100 dollars. You are VERY tight with your money, not because you are stingy but because spoiler alert, you are a metaphor for a big company. Anyway. There is an inflation rate of 2% that means next year the book will be 102 dollars. Your most rational behaviour is to not delay and buy it immediately.
Suppose that there is a deflation of 2%. Now the book will be 98 dollars. No way you buy it now; it’s much better to put your cash under your pillow and wait for a year or two. Hell you make a profit by not investing.
Now, here is the thing: there is strictly no downside to a small dose of inflation. As long as it’s not a runaway phenomenon, it just incentivize people to spend their money and invest and punishes sleeping money, which is great.
And that’s what the interview says: inflation is great for investment, deflation for savings. And in a capitalist economy you really don’t want people to save, you want them to invest and buy shit. On the contrary, I understand exactly what it said. You just don't understand the implications Inflation is great for borrowing. I've already written paragraphs on this matter and included the method governments and banks use to enrich themselves at the expense of people down the ladder. This is how big banks make a killing selling US government debt that is handed out like candy (at the expense of general population) and public companies pump their stocks (since federal funds rate is so slow it's almost like they are borrowing money for free). And, since like we both agree (at least I think we do), inflation rewards borrowers, it creates a debt system that keeps the "consumers" enslaved for decades. The idea that there is zero downside to inflation is delusional. It is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental concepts of economics - EVERYTHING has a price. So basically, while inflation is great for people higher on the socio-economic ladder, it sucks the poorer someone is. Keynesians like yourself either don't understand or choose to ignore the situation poorer people are in. Life 101 is that you DO need to keep some cash under your pillow (in the bank) as an emergency fund. In the real world the working and middle classes are paid in USD. Not everything is an "investment" and for the low and middle class, investments are not a concern when they barely make ends meet. You are right and wrong. It is also good for regular people that have to borrow to buy a home, a car, or whatever else, instead of always renting as you complain. The main issue is when wages do not keep up with inflation, and that should have been your main focus, instead of inflation itself if you want to target regular people and the middle class slowly disappearing. With deflation, people can't afford their mortgages and get thrown out. With (controlled) inflation, money put in banks or under a mattress loses value over time (works best with rich people, no impact on paycheck to paycheck workers), and it is an incentive to invest that money into something useful for the economy, growing it. It also allows the government to lower the value of its debt, if only they were not stupid enough to use that as an incentive to grow it even more... Your life 101 is why in Europe, there is a guarantee on bank and savings account at 100,000€/person. Deregulation and increased power to corporations against workers (as the Supreme Court showed two days ago, getting a wonderful dissent from RBG) is why wages are not going up accordingly (basically current republican policies as I see them). Only extreme worker shortage, like there is currently, is getting the wages to catch up a little. And this is also a very fine line to thread for the economy, as it hinders its growth as companies can't find people. Of course, too much power to workers is also not good, it's always a matter of balance.
The "guarantee" isn't really backed by any hard assets though is it? I know it's not even backed by currency in the US.
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On April 29 2019 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 07:05 Nouar wrote:On April 29 2019 05:50 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 21:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I don’t think you understand at all the interview you quoted because it’s a lesson on why inflation is good:
Suppose you want to buy a really good book about economics (for example). And the book costs 100 dollars. You are VERY tight with your money, not because you are stingy but because spoiler alert, you are a metaphor for a big company. Anyway. There is an inflation rate of 2% that means next year the book will be 102 dollars. Your most rational behaviour is to not delay and buy it immediately.
Suppose that there is a deflation of 2%. Now the book will be 98 dollars. No way you buy it now; it’s much better to put your cash under your pillow and wait for a year or two. Hell you make a profit by not investing.
Now, here is the thing: there is strictly no downside to a small dose of inflation. As long as it’s not a runaway phenomenon, it just incentivize people to spend their money and invest and punishes sleeping money, which is great.
And that’s what the interview says: inflation is great for investment, deflation for savings. And in a capitalist economy you really don’t want people to save, you want them to invest and buy shit. On the contrary, I understand exactly what it said. You just don't understand the implications Inflation is great for borrowing. I've already written paragraphs on this matter and included the method governments and banks use to enrich themselves at the expense of people down the ladder. This is how big banks make a killing selling US government debt that is handed out like candy (at the expense of general population) and public companies pump their stocks (since federal funds rate is so slow it's almost like they are borrowing money for free). And, since like we both agree (at least I think we do), inflation rewards borrowers, it creates a debt system that keeps the "consumers" enslaved for decades. The idea that there is zero downside to inflation is delusional. It is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental concepts of economics - EVERYTHING has a price. So basically, while inflation is great for people higher on the socio-economic ladder, it sucks the poorer someone is. Keynesians like yourself either don't understand or choose to ignore the situation poorer people are in. Life 101 is that you DO need to keep some cash under your pillow (in the bank) as an emergency fund. In the real world the working and middle classes are paid in USD. Not everything is an "investment" and for the low and middle class, investments are not a concern when they barely make ends meet. You are right and wrong. It is also good for regular people that have to borrow to buy a home, a car, or whatever else, instead of always renting as you complain. The main issue is when wages do not keep up with inflation, and that should have been your main focus, instead of inflation itself if you want to target regular people and the middle class slowly disappearing. With deflation, people can't afford their mortgages and get thrown out. With (controlled) inflation, money put in banks or under a mattress loses value over time (works best with rich people, no impact on paycheck to paycheck workers), and it is an incentive to invest that money into something useful for the economy, growing it. It also allows the government to lower the value of its debt, if only they were not stupid enough to use that as an incentive to grow it even more... Your life 101 is why in Europe, there is a guarantee on bank and savings account at 100,000€/person. Deregulation and increased power to corporations against workers (as the Supreme Court showed two days ago, getting a wonderful dissent from RBG) is why wages are not going up accordingly (basically current republican policies as I see them). Only extreme worker shortage, like there is currently, is getting the wages to catch up a little. And this is also a very fine line to thread for the economy, as it hinders its growth as companies can't find people. Of course, too much power to workers is also not good, it's always a matter of balance. The "guarantee" isn't really backed by any hard assets though is it? I know it's not even backed by currency in the US.
Mainly a moral guarantee as long as the system doesn't *entirely* crash in all banks of all countries at once I guess. It's supposed to be the states priority, and they had better, if they don't want riots/revolutions all across :-)
Banks are supposed to have hard assets to cover that, and this guarantee is covered by insurance companies and dedicated organisms, but I wouldn't trust that too much... in a limited crash though, it should work.
France :
Les réserves du Fonds de garantie des dépôts sont d'environ 3,4 milliards d'euros (ce qui correspond à 50 euros par habitant)12. Ces fonds seraient donc suffisants pour garantir seulement 34 000 comptes à la hauteur maximale prévue par la loi. Face à une crise bancaire systémique, le fonds compterait sur l'intervention de l'État comme cela a été le cas aux États-Unis lors de la faillite de la banque Indymac en juillet 2008, placée sous contrôle du Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (les comptes ont été garantis jusqu'à 100 000 $ par l'État américain).
Current reserves at 3.4 billion, largely insufficient in a large scale crash. Banks provide yearly money to it. Some countries let the bank deal with that entirely (lol)
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On April 29 2019 07:15 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 29 2019 07:05 Nouar wrote:On April 29 2019 05:50 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 21:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I don’t think you understand at all the interview you quoted because it’s a lesson on why inflation is good:
Suppose you want to buy a really good book about economics (for example). And the book costs 100 dollars. You are VERY tight with your money, not because you are stingy but because spoiler alert, you are a metaphor for a big company. Anyway. There is an inflation rate of 2% that means next year the book will be 102 dollars. Your most rational behaviour is to not delay and buy it immediately.
Suppose that there is a deflation of 2%. Now the book will be 98 dollars. No way you buy it now; it’s much better to put your cash under your pillow and wait for a year or two. Hell you make a profit by not investing.
Now, here is the thing: there is strictly no downside to a small dose of inflation. As long as it’s not a runaway phenomenon, it just incentivize people to spend their money and invest and punishes sleeping money, which is great.
And that’s what the interview says: inflation is great for investment, deflation for savings. And in a capitalist economy you really don’t want people to save, you want them to invest and buy shit. On the contrary, I understand exactly what it said. You just don't understand the implications Inflation is great for borrowing. I've already written paragraphs on this matter and included the method governments and banks use to enrich themselves at the expense of people down the ladder. This is how big banks make a killing selling US government debt that is handed out like candy (at the expense of general population) and public companies pump their stocks (since federal funds rate is so slow it's almost like they are borrowing money for free). And, since like we both agree (at least I think we do), inflation rewards borrowers, it creates a debt system that keeps the "consumers" enslaved for decades. The idea that there is zero downside to inflation is delusional. It is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental concepts of economics - EVERYTHING has a price. So basically, while inflation is great for people higher on the socio-economic ladder, it sucks the poorer someone is. Keynesians like yourself either don't understand or choose to ignore the situation poorer people are in. Life 101 is that you DO need to keep some cash under your pillow (in the bank) as an emergency fund. In the real world the working and middle classes are paid in USD. Not everything is an "investment" and for the low and middle class, investments are not a concern when they barely make ends meet. You are right and wrong. It is also good for regular people that have to borrow to buy a home, a car, or whatever else, instead of always renting as you complain. The main issue is when wages do not keep up with inflation, and that should have been your main focus, instead of inflation itself if you want to target regular people and the middle class slowly disappearing. With deflation, people can't afford their mortgages and get thrown out. With (controlled) inflation, money put in banks or under a mattress loses value over time (works best with rich people, no impact on paycheck to paycheck workers), and it is an incentive to invest that money into something useful for the economy, growing it. It also allows the government to lower the value of its debt, if only they were not stupid enough to use that as an incentive to grow it even more... Your life 101 is why in Europe, there is a guarantee on bank and savings account at 100,000€/person. Deregulation and increased power to corporations against workers (as the Supreme Court showed two days ago, getting a wonderful dissent from RBG) is why wages are not going up accordingly (basically current republican policies as I see them). Only extreme worker shortage, like there is currently, is getting the wages to catch up a little. And this is also a very fine line to thread for the economy, as it hinders its growth as companies can't find people. Of course, too much power to workers is also not good, it's always a matter of balance. The "guarantee" isn't really backed by any hard assets though is it? I know it's not even backed by currency in the US. Mainly a moral guarantee as long as the system doesn't *entirely* crash in all banks of all countries at once I guess. It's supposed to be the states priority, and they had better, if they don't want riots/revolutions all across :-) Banks are supposed to have hard assets to cover that, and this guarantee is covered by insurance companies and dedicated organisms, but I wouldn't trust that too much... in a limited crash though, it should work.
I mean this was 2008 more or less no? The banks lost trillions of wealth and then the fed just absorbed the losses for the banks, treasury printed money, and we saw a massive "tax" or wealth transfer from the bottom to the top basically as Bezerk is describing?
This is supported by pretty much every analysis of accumulated wealth over the last decade I've seen. As well as reflected anecdotally in the people I see in my everyday life.
That as Bezerk elaborated in his most recent post, inflation "working" in this case was essentially a massive theft to cover gambling losses.
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United States41470 Posts
On April 29 2019 05:59 BerserkSword wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2019 22:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 15:25 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 11:16 Sermokala wrote:
I think Berzerk sword is confusing basic monetary policy intending to continue inflation at a steady rate as a grand conpiracy thats somehow a ponzi scam where no one gets scamed and everyone benifits. I am not On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:46 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 06:45 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:38 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 05:50 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
It's not really relevant but could you explain the Ponzi scheme reference for us? The methods the government (thanks to the federal reserve) use to dump depreciating fiat currency on the majority of americans. The major culprit is the fed's easy money stance also known as quantitative easing. Which leads to inflation and ultimately a tax burdern that increases the lower on the economic totem pole you are in the U.S. (I call it a tax because wealth is transferred from the citizen to the government) When the government sells a bond for say, 100 billion dollars, a bank like JP Morgan Chase can come in and buy the bond, representing the bank lending the government 100 bil. and now the government owe's the bank principle plus interest. Government then transfers the 100 billion dollars to bureaucrats, contractors, etc. Then the federal reserves looks to buy government debt, and of course it finds the 100 billion dollar bond that JP morgan chase has. It buys the bond by printing the dollar value of the bond (100 billion + interest) and giving it to jp morgan, which is now in profit. End result is that JP morgan profited, the government owes nothing to jp morgan, and technically the government owes money to the fed, but the fed gives that money back because it is a "government corporation" The government loses nothing, the big bank actually gained money. Everyone in this deal came out richer. The people who lose out are the outsiders who do not see any of that newly printed money since their value of the money they traded for labor/capital has just went down. That entails the first part of QE. Aside from straight up printing money, they also lower short term federal funds rates, which in turn increases money supply the problem with driving the federal funds rate to near zero like has been going on for over a decade is that leads to a market distortion that has adverse consequences the poorer someone is. there is no value of saving/holding fiat money (since the interest rates on it are near zero) compared to investing it in something like the stock market or property. so while the economy in america sucked for most of the 2000s so far, anyone who had their money in stocks or property (ie anyone who could afford it) made off like bandits while middle class and lower class just got worse and worse off. the guy living pay check to pay check is seeing his hard earned peanuts become worth less and less (because all he is doing is living off of fiat) basically, the federal reserve is dumping continually depreciating fiat money on people under the disguise of macroeconomic management. this is why the wealth gap just keeps increasing without a corresponding increase in capital (aka bad economy), even under the leftist hero obama Now could you define a Ponzi scheme for us? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Every time someone gets paid in USD, he/she is investing in USD. Last time I checked Americans are paid in USD. You ignored when I said the situation in America is more nuanced and slow moving than a zimbabwe or venazuela type situation where pepole are wheelbarrowing around cash to by bread. Youre ignoring the factor of time and sequence that i described before. The basic principle is that people early in the sequence get enriched while the people at the end get impoverished. This happens in all degrees of inflation, just to a different extent depending on inflation rate. The people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid - the people who do not have access to non-depreciating assets and who live paycheck to paycheck with maybe a small cash sum in their bank account continually get fucked over. As this goes on the people who are affected spreads to higher up the economic ladder. Decades ago a high school grad had a solid chance of working 40 hrs a week in a factory and trading his labor for USD capable of getting his family a house as well as resources to live. The middle class used to NEVER worry about things like health insurance. Decades are going by and now we have the most college educated generation stuck renting most of the time and a health insurance crisis that is even affecting the middle class. On April 28 2019 12:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 12:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Indeed the value is "stored" in private ownership and the expansion of the concept of personal property into the commons. Then the paper (and digital records) that document it and the forces which enforce those concepts. From my perspective anyway. That's to say your ownership is only as valuable as your ability to secure it against those who would claim ownership themselves, so the value of your property isn't really yours so much as it is allowed you by the system which assures you it is. The manifestation of this (because it may be confusing) would be Japanese Americans in the 40's. They had property that held value until the system (people) decided they didn't. The property I think we agree had value, but their ownership of that value is less obvious (granted there were some formal reparations). The point is that inflation only impacts cash and cash flows. If the purchasing power of cash goes down I don't give a shit because I don't have any cash and my fixed cash outflows (mortgage payments) are greater than my fixed cash inflows (possibly my rate of pay but that's not really fixed, it increases with cost of living). The idea that inflation is stealing wealth from the general population makes no sense. It's also not a Ponzi scheme, for what it's worth. Dude. It's good to hear that you are doing alright, but we are not talking about you, specifically.... And I explained in two ways (defining quantitative easing and your Mr Ponzi Adam, Bob, Charlie scenario) how inflation transfers wealth from the bottom to the top. As long as the general population gets paid in USD, inflation takes wealth from them. I’ll try to explain it a different way. Consider a car. In a period of inflation does it go slower? Is the mpg worse? Or is the utility provided by the car exactly the same? Because if it’s the same then the car can always be traded for whatever amount of currency represents that value, whether it’s ten thousand dollars or a million dollars, the value represented by each unit of currency does not impact the value of the car. Now consider the car note. The bank wants 48 equal monthly payments of $300. In a period of inflation are those $300 payments easier to get or harder? Inflation hurts people holding large amounts of cash and large amounts of fixed rate cash flows. Conversely it helps people who have assets and fixed rate debt payments. Yes I know lol Now tell me how any of this applies to a working class or middle class person working 60 hrs a week, living paycheck to paycheck, and drowning in debt. Inflation is great for people like you and me. I literally owe my great life to inflation (Obama's QE). I quit my career as a physician, and went balls deep in property, the stock market, and bitcoin because that's what the feds policy rewards the most......NOT slaving away at an extremely high stress, high responsiblity, profession, one that is being bogged down by more and more red tape, and having no life. Now I make money from the comfort of my home and do whatever i want. But how does my or your success help lower and middle classl people who are struggling in the U.S?
Inflation is great if you're drowning in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Paycheck to paycheck means 0 cash on hand. Debt means your future cash outflows exceed your future cash inflows. If cash becomes less precious and you have negative cash that means your debt has, in real terms, gone down.
I explain, in pretty simple terms, how inflation is a good thing to people with no cash and lots of debt to which you respond "yes, I know, but how does any of that help people with no cash and lots of debt".
This is economics 101. If you have cash and the value of cash goes down then you lose. If you have negative cash and the value of cash goes down then you win. The working American has negative cash.
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On April 29 2019 07:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 05:59 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 22:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 15:25 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 11:16 Sermokala wrote:
I think Berzerk sword is confusing basic monetary policy intending to continue inflation at a steady rate as a grand conpiracy thats somehow a ponzi scam where no one gets scamed and everyone benifits. I am not On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:46 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 06:45 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:38 BerserkSword wrote:
[quote]
The methods the government (thanks to the federal reserve) use to dump depreciating fiat currency on the majority of americans.
The major culprit is the fed's easy money stance also known as quantitative easing. Which leads to inflation and ultimately a tax burdern that increases the lower on the economic totem pole you are in the U.S. (I call it a tax because wealth is transferred from the citizen to the government)
When the government sells a bond for say, 100 billion dollars, a bank like JP Morgan Chase can come in and buy the bond, representing the bank lending the government 100 bil. and now the government owe's the bank principle plus interest. Government then transfers the 100 billion dollars to bureaucrats, contractors, etc.
Then the federal reserves looks to buy government debt, and of course it finds the 100 billion dollar bond that JP morgan chase has. It buys the bond by printing the dollar value of the bond (100 billion + interest) and giving it to jp morgan, which is now in profit.
End result is that JP morgan profited, the government owes nothing to jp morgan, and technically the government owes money to the fed, but the fed gives that money back because it is a "government corporation"
The government loses nothing, the big bank actually gained money. Everyone in this deal came out richer. The people who lose out are the outsiders who do not see any of that newly printed money since their value of the money they traded for labor/capital has just went down.
That entails the first part of QE. Aside from straight up printing money, they also lower short term federal funds rates, which in turn increases money supply
the problem with driving the federal funds rate to near zero like has been going on for over a decade is that leads to a market distortion that has adverse consequences the poorer someone is. there is no value of saving/holding fiat money (since the interest rates on it are near zero) compared to investing it in something like the stock market or property. so while the economy in america sucked for most of the 2000s so far, anyone who had their money in stocks or property (ie anyone who could afford it) made off like bandits while middle class and lower class just got worse and worse off. the guy living pay check to pay check is seeing his hard earned peanuts become worth less and less (because all he is doing is living off of fiat)
basically, the federal reserve is dumping continually depreciating fiat money on people under the disguise of macroeconomic management. this is why the wealth gap just keeps increasing without a corresponding increase in capital (aka bad economy), even under the leftist hero obama Now could you define a Ponzi scheme for us? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Every time someone gets paid in USD, he/she is investing in USD. Last time I checked Americans are paid in USD. You ignored when I said the situation in America is more nuanced and slow moving than a zimbabwe or venazuela type situation where pepole are wheelbarrowing around cash to by bread. Youre ignoring the factor of time and sequence that i described before. The basic principle is that people early in the sequence get enriched while the people at the end get impoverished. This happens in all degrees of inflation, just to a different extent depending on inflation rate. The people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid - the people who do not have access to non-depreciating assets and who live paycheck to paycheck with maybe a small cash sum in their bank account continually get fucked over. As this goes on the people who are affected spreads to higher up the economic ladder. Decades ago a high school grad had a solid chance of working 40 hrs a week in a factory and trading his labor for USD capable of getting his family a house as well as resources to live. The middle class used to NEVER worry about things like health insurance. Decades are going by and now we have the most college educated generation stuck renting most of the time and a health insurance crisis that is even affecting the middle class. On April 28 2019 12:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 12:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Indeed the value is "stored" in private ownership and the expansion of the concept of personal property into the commons. Then the paper (and digital records) that document it and the forces which enforce those concepts. From my perspective anyway. That's to say your ownership is only as valuable as your ability to secure it against those who would claim ownership themselves, so the value of your property isn't really yours so much as it is allowed you by the system which assures you it is. The manifestation of this (because it may be confusing) would be Japanese Americans in the 40's. They had property that held value until the system (people) decided they didn't. The property I think we agree had value, but their ownership of that value is less obvious (granted there were some formal reparations). The point is that inflation only impacts cash and cash flows. If the purchasing power of cash goes down I don't give a shit because I don't have any cash and my fixed cash outflows (mortgage payments) are greater than my fixed cash inflows (possibly my rate of pay but that's not really fixed, it increases with cost of living). The idea that inflation is stealing wealth from the general population makes no sense. It's also not a Ponzi scheme, for what it's worth. Dude. It's good to hear that you are doing alright, but we are not talking about you, specifically.... And I explained in two ways (defining quantitative easing and your Mr Ponzi Adam, Bob, Charlie scenario) how inflation transfers wealth from the bottom to the top. As long as the general population gets paid in USD, inflation takes wealth from them. I’ll try to explain it a different way. Consider a car. In a period of inflation does it go slower? Is the mpg worse? Or is the utility provided by the car exactly the same? Because if it’s the same then the car can always be traded for whatever amount of currency represents that value, whether it’s ten thousand dollars or a million dollars, the value represented by each unit of currency does not impact the value of the car. Now consider the car note. The bank wants 48 equal monthly payments of $300. In a period of inflation are those $300 payments easier to get or harder? Inflation hurts people holding large amounts of cash and large amounts of fixed rate cash flows. Conversely it helps people who have assets and fixed rate debt payments. Yes I know lol Now tell me how any of this applies to a working class or middle class person working 60 hrs a week, living paycheck to paycheck, and drowning in debt. Inflation is great for people like you and me. I literally owe my great life to inflation (Obama's QE). I quit my career as a physician, and went balls deep in property, the stock market, and bitcoin because that's what the feds policy rewards the most......NOT slaving away at an extremely high stress, high responsiblity, profession, one that is being bogged down by more and more red tape, and having no life. Now I make money from the comfort of my home and do whatever i want. But how does my or your success help lower and middle classl people who are struggling in the U.S? Inflation is great if you're drowning in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Paycheck to paycheck means 0 cash on hand. Debt means your future cash outflows exceed your future cash inflows. If cash becomes less precious and you have negative cash that means your debt has, in real terms, gone down. I explain, in pretty simple terms, how inflation is a good thing to people with no cash lots of debt to which you respond "yes, I know, but how does any of that help people with no cash and lots of debt".
They still have no cash and lots of debt and are essentially "fucked", so I'm pretty sure you didn't answer his question or at least the intent?
That is to say in pure economic terms it's a positive, in their life it's not much more than a moral victory, if that.
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United States41470 Posts
On April 29 2019 07:32 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 07:29 KwarK wrote:On April 29 2019 05:59 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 22:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 15:25 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 11:16 Sermokala wrote:
I think Berzerk sword is confusing basic monetary policy intending to continue inflation at a steady rate as a grand conpiracy thats somehow a ponzi scam where no one gets scamed and everyone benifits. I am not On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Every time someone gets paid in USD, he/she is investing in USD. Last time I checked Americans are paid in USD. You ignored when I said the situation in America is more nuanced and slow moving than a zimbabwe or venazuela type situation where pepole are wheelbarrowing around cash to by bread. Youre ignoring the factor of time and sequence that i described before. The basic principle is that people early in the sequence get enriched while the people at the end get impoverished. This happens in all degrees of inflation, just to a different extent depending on inflation rate. The people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid - the people who do not have access to non-depreciating assets and who live paycheck to paycheck with maybe a small cash sum in their bank account continually get fucked over. As this goes on the people who are affected spreads to higher up the economic ladder. Decades ago a high school grad had a solid chance of working 40 hrs a week in a factory and trading his labor for USD capable of getting his family a house as well as resources to live. The middle class used to NEVER worry about things like health insurance. Decades are going by and now we have the most college educated generation stuck renting most of the time and a health insurance crisis that is even affecting the middle class. On April 28 2019 12:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 12:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round.
What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme.
Let's put it in relatively simple terms.
The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven.
Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Indeed the value is "stored" in private ownership and the expansion of the concept of personal property into the commons. Then the paper (and digital records) that document it and the forces which enforce those concepts. From my perspective anyway. That's to say your ownership is only as valuable as your ability to secure it against those who would claim ownership themselves, so the value of your property isn't really yours so much as it is allowed you by the system which assures you it is. The manifestation of this (because it may be confusing) would be Japanese Americans in the 40's. They had property that held value until the system (people) decided they didn't. The property I think we agree had value, but their ownership of that value is less obvious (granted there were some formal reparations). The point is that inflation only impacts cash and cash flows. If the purchasing power of cash goes down I don't give a shit because I don't have any cash and my fixed cash outflows (mortgage payments) are greater than my fixed cash inflows (possibly my rate of pay but that's not really fixed, it increases with cost of living). The idea that inflation is stealing wealth from the general population makes no sense. It's also not a Ponzi scheme, for what it's worth. Dude. It's good to hear that you are doing alright, but we are not talking about you, specifically.... And I explained in two ways (defining quantitative easing and your Mr Ponzi Adam, Bob, Charlie scenario) how inflation transfers wealth from the bottom to the top. As long as the general population gets paid in USD, inflation takes wealth from them. I’ll try to explain it a different way. Consider a car. In a period of inflation does it go slower? Is the mpg worse? Or is the utility provided by the car exactly the same? Because if it’s the same then the car can always be traded for whatever amount of currency represents that value, whether it’s ten thousand dollars or a million dollars, the value represented by each unit of currency does not impact the value of the car. Now consider the car note. The bank wants 48 equal monthly payments of $300. In a period of inflation are those $300 payments easier to get or harder? Inflation hurts people holding large amounts of cash and large amounts of fixed rate cash flows. Conversely it helps people who have assets and fixed rate debt payments. Yes I know lol Now tell me how any of this applies to a working class or middle class person working 60 hrs a week, living paycheck to paycheck, and drowning in debt. Inflation is great for people like you and me. I literally owe my great life to inflation (Obama's QE). I quit my career as a physician, and went balls deep in property, the stock market, and bitcoin because that's what the feds policy rewards the most......NOT slaving away at an extremely high stress, high responsiblity, profession, one that is being bogged down by more and more red tape, and having no life. Now I make money from the comfort of my home and do whatever i want. But how does my or your success help lower and middle classl people who are struggling in the U.S? Inflation is great if you're drowning in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Paycheck to paycheck means 0 cash on hand. Debt means your future cash outflows exceed your future cash inflows. If cash becomes less precious and you have negative cash that means your debt has, in real terms, gone down. I explain, in pretty simple terms, how inflation is a good thing to people with no cash lots of debt to which you respond "yes, I know, but how does any of that help people with no cash and lots of debt". They still have no cash and lots of debt and are essentially "fucked", so I'm pretty sure you didn't answer his question or at least the intent? That is to say in pure economic terms it's a positive, in their life it's not much more than a moral victory, if that.
His argument was that "the Fed" are stealing wealth from the workers through monetary policy devaluing cash. It was in purely theoretical economic terms, but it's also backwards. If you have cash (plus future fixed rate cash inflows minus future fixed rate cash outflows) then inflation hurts you. If you have negative cash then inflation helps you. Wages can be considered a variable rate future cash inflows because wages generally vary with cost of living. Most debt is a fixed rate future cash outflow, for example a 30 year mortgage will generally have a fixed cash payment each month.
This is just one of those things where he's accidentally got it backwards and is taking a while to work it out. If you give him time he'll go back to his textbook and reread this chapter, then insist that what he meant was that deflation is hurting the workers.
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On April 29 2019 07:05 Nouar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 05:50 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 21:00 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I don’t think you understand at all the interview you quoted because it’s a lesson on why inflation is good:
Suppose you want to buy a really good book about economics (for example). And the book costs 100 dollars. You are VERY tight with your money, not because you are stingy but because spoiler alert, you are a metaphor for a big company. Anyway. There is an inflation rate of 2% that means next year the book will be 102 dollars. Your most rational behaviour is to not delay and buy it immediately.
Suppose that there is a deflation of 2%. Now the book will be 98 dollars. No way you buy it now; it’s much better to put your cash under your pillow and wait for a year or two. Hell you make a profit by not investing.
Now, here is the thing: there is strictly no downside to a small dose of inflation. As long as it’s not a runaway phenomenon, it just incentivize people to spend their money and invest and punishes sleeping money, which is great.
And that’s what the interview says: inflation is great for investment, deflation for savings. And in a capitalist economy you really don’t want people to save, you want them to invest and buy shit. On the contrary, I understand exactly what it said. You just don't understand the implications Inflation is great for borrowing. I've already written paragraphs on this matter and included the method governments and banks use to enrich themselves at the expense of people down the ladder. This is how big banks make a killing selling US government debt that is handed out like candy (at the expense of general population) and public companies pump their stocks (since federal funds rate is so slow it's almost like they are borrowing money for free). And, since like we both agree (at least I think we do), inflation rewards borrowers, it creates a debt system that keeps the "consumers" enslaved for decades. The idea that there is zero downside to inflation is delusional. It is in direct conflict with one of the fundamental concepts of economics - EVERYTHING has a price. So basically, while inflation is great for people higher on the socio-economic ladder, it sucks the poorer someone is. Keynesians like yourself either don't understand or choose to ignore the situation poorer people are in. Life 101 is that you DO need to keep some cash under your pillow (in the bank) as an emergency fund. In the real world the working and middle classes are paid in USD. Not everything is an "investment" and for the low and middle class, investments are not a concern when they barely make ends meet. You are right and wrong. It is also good for regular people that have to borrow to buy a home, a car, or whatever else, instead of always renting as you complain. The main issue is when wages do not keep up with inflation, and that should have been your main focus, instead of inflation itself if you want to target regular people and the middle class slowly disappearing. With deflation, people can't afford their mortgages and get thrown out. With (controlled) inflation, money put in banks or under a mattress loses value over time (works best with rich people, no impact on paycheck to paycheck workers), and it is an incentive to invest that money into something useful for the economy, growing it. It also allows the government to lower the value of its debt, if only they were not stupid enough to use that as an incentive to grow it even more... Your life 101 is why in Europe, there is a guarantee on bank and savings account at 100,000€/person. Deregulation and increased power to corporations against workers (as the Supreme Court showed two days ago, getting a wonderful dissent from RBG) is why wages are not going up accordingly (basically current republican policies as I see them). Only extreme worker shortage, like there is currently, is getting the wages to catch up a little. And this is also a very fine line to thread for the economy, as it hinders its growth as companies can't find people. Of course, too much power to workers is also not good, it's always a matter of balance.
Wages and money kept sitting in banks/under the mattress are irrelevant to what I am talking about. Wage control is another form on keynesianism which, together with the inflation, only fucks over poor people.
Also, no doubt that the current debt system won't work if there is no inflation....that's the whole reason inflation exists - it's to create a borrowing friendly environment aka the debt slave system. Is that what we really want though? a system that has been, over the last several decades of keynesian monetary expansionist policy, leaving a continually increasing percentage of society unable to even dream of owning a home?
Also, you say that inflation keeps rich people from hording fiat and that's a "good thing" as if most or rich people's net worth is composed of fiat money. The fact of the matter is that rich people keep so much of their wealth in non-fiat assets, whether it's property, equities, stores of value, capital, etc. This is how inflation helps rich people because the inflationary policies like QE artificially pump things like the stock market and make actual non-fiat assets more valuable (compared to basic unit of fiat) in comparison to the decreasing value of the cash money
Inflation literally helps the rich
I dont understand how you are all claiming that "controlled" inflation has no impact on paycheck to paycheck type working and middle class individuals. It is an entirely baseless claim that is in direct odds with the essence of inflation detailed in basic economics. Inflation hits hardest those who are at the bottom of the ladder and latest to see the new circulation, and it hits hardest those who deal the most with fiat money compared to other assets....
On April 29 2019 07:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2019 05:59 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 22:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 15:25 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 11:16 Sermokala wrote:
I think Berzerk sword is confusing basic monetary policy intending to continue inflation at a steady rate as a grand conpiracy thats somehow a ponzi scam where no one gets scamed and everyone benifits. I am not On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:46 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 06:45 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 06:38 BerserkSword wrote:
[quote]
The methods the government (thanks to the federal reserve) use to dump depreciating fiat currency on the majority of americans.
The major culprit is the fed's easy money stance also known as quantitative easing. Which leads to inflation and ultimately a tax burdern that increases the lower on the economic totem pole you are in the U.S. (I call it a tax because wealth is transferred from the citizen to the government)
When the government sells a bond for say, 100 billion dollars, a bank like JP Morgan Chase can come in and buy the bond, representing the bank lending the government 100 bil. and now the government owe's the bank principle plus interest. Government then transfers the 100 billion dollars to bureaucrats, contractors, etc.
Then the federal reserves looks to buy government debt, and of course it finds the 100 billion dollar bond that JP morgan chase has. It buys the bond by printing the dollar value of the bond (100 billion + interest) and giving it to jp morgan, which is now in profit.
End result is that JP morgan profited, the government owes nothing to jp morgan, and technically the government owes money to the fed, but the fed gives that money back because it is a "government corporation"
The government loses nothing, the big bank actually gained money. Everyone in this deal came out richer. The people who lose out are the outsiders who do not see any of that newly printed money since their value of the money they traded for labor/capital has just went down.
That entails the first part of QE. Aside from straight up printing money, they also lower short term federal funds rates, which in turn increases money supply
the problem with driving the federal funds rate to near zero like has been going on for over a decade is that leads to a market distortion that has adverse consequences the poorer someone is. there is no value of saving/holding fiat money (since the interest rates on it are near zero) compared to investing it in something like the stock market or property. so while the economy in america sucked for most of the 2000s so far, anyone who had their money in stocks or property (ie anyone who could afford it) made off like bandits while middle class and lower class just got worse and worse off. the guy living pay check to pay check is seeing his hard earned peanuts become worth less and less (because all he is doing is living off of fiat)
basically, the federal reserve is dumping continually depreciating fiat money on people under the disguise of macroeconomic management. this is why the wealth gap just keeps increasing without a corresponding increase in capital (aka bad economy), even under the leftist hero obama Now could you define a Ponzi scheme for us? https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Every time someone gets paid in USD, he/she is investing in USD. Last time I checked Americans are paid in USD. You ignored when I said the situation in America is more nuanced and slow moving than a zimbabwe or venazuela type situation where pepole are wheelbarrowing around cash to by bread. Youre ignoring the factor of time and sequence that i described before. The basic principle is that people early in the sequence get enriched while the people at the end get impoverished. This happens in all degrees of inflation, just to a different extent depending on inflation rate. The people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid - the people who do not have access to non-depreciating assets and who live paycheck to paycheck with maybe a small cash sum in their bank account continually get fucked over. As this goes on the people who are affected spreads to higher up the economic ladder. Decades ago a high school grad had a solid chance of working 40 hrs a week in a factory and trading his labor for USD capable of getting his family a house as well as resources to live. The middle class used to NEVER worry about things like health insurance. Decades are going by and now we have the most college educated generation stuck renting most of the time and a health insurance crisis that is even affecting the middle class. On April 28 2019 12:52 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 12:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2019 11:53 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2019 07:33 BerserkSword wrote:On April 28 2019 07:00 KwarK wrote:I think you're missing the point. I know what a Ponzi scheme is, it's a scheme where you steal from each subsequent round of "investors" to return the investment to the previous round. What I don't understand is why you're describing monetary policy as a Ponzi scheme. Let's put it in relatively simple terms. The way a Ponzi scheme works is that Mr Ponzi offers Adam the opportunity to double his money with a high yield investment if Adam gives Ponzi the money. Adam gives Ponzi the money. Ponzi gives Adam regular account statements showing an increasing balance and Adam is so happy he tells Bob and Charlie about it too and they buy in. When Adam asks for his money back Ponzi can't give him the real investment returns because the investment never existed and so Ponzi steals money from Bob and Charlie's investments to give to Adam. Then when they want their returns he takes money from the next wave of investors (David, Ed, Fred, and George), and so forth. It continues much like a pyramid scheme until the number of new investors joining is insufficient to pay those leaving at which point Ponzi simply takes all the money and flees to a non extradition haven. Could you explain why monetary policy is a Ponzi scheme in terms of which entity plays the part of Ponzi, Adam, Bob, and Charlie, what exactly the high yield investment they're offered is, what mechanism is used to transfer the money from Bob and Charlie to Adam and Ponzi, and what Ponzi's exit strategy is, ideally including the safe haven? I'm guessing you didnt understand my explanation then lol Mr. Ponzi = U.S government circle as i described above The high yield investment Adam - Zach is offered is investment in the U.S. Dollar. Adam - Zach are told they should invest their labor/skills/capital into USD. The mechanism of transfer is getting people to invest in the USD (exchange it for skills/capital/etc) and then decreasing the ability of the dollar to exchange for goods/services. keep in mind i am talking about the transfer of wealth/capital to Mr. Ponzi, not raw fiat money. It continues until the Yaneck's and Zach's are virtually no longer able to be paid for their dollars (ie, the dollars they hold cannot buy anything). The exit strategy is amassing a bunch of food and shelter and other excesses (remember these are the things Yaneck and Zack want to trade their USD for but really cant) and live like kings for when the economy collapses. The safe haven is the military compound surrounded by slums and starvation. See zimbabwe, venezuela, or so. Or maybe some other country. I dont know the detailed plans of the world's elite obviously it's more nuanced than that and I am not saying the U.S is going to replicate zimbabwe (at least anytime soon) but that is the concept. the essence of this whole thign is a ponzi scheme But individuals aren't investing in USD, the vast majority of US families can't lay their hands on $400. They've got clothes, cars, houses, food, land, many even have stocks and shares, but they don't generally have large amounts of liquid cash. It wouldn't make sense for them to have cash either, cash is a medium of exchange to avoid bartering. Wealth is still kept in noncash assets, cash simply lets you sell your noncash asset to person A for tokens and then give those tokens to person B for his noncash asset because person B didn't want the asset you would have bartered. If cash becomes worthless people will be fine. The average American doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars under his mattress, he has physical possession of a house and a car, a loan on both of those denominated in dollars which is now essentially settled, student loan debt which is also now settled, and some credit cards. If he's lucky he also has some investments which, while valued in dollars, are ownership stakes in tangible things which will have preserved their value. Dollars are lubrication, a way of making tangible assets exchangeable, it's not the value itself. If the dollars go we'll find something else, the physical paper is a negligible portion of overall wealth. Hell, I'm doing pretty well for myself but I generally have negative dollars on hand at any given time. If assets kept their value but currency ceased to be worth anything my net worth would rise because my liabilities are dollars but my assets are value generating. Indeed the value is "stored" in private ownership and the expansion of the concept of personal property into the commons. Then the paper (and digital records) that document it and the forces which enforce those concepts. From my perspective anyway. That's to say your ownership is only as valuable as your ability to secure it against those who would claim ownership themselves, so the value of your property isn't really yours so much as it is allowed you by the system which assures you it is. The manifestation of this (because it may be confusing) would be Japanese Americans in the 40's. They had property that held value until the system (people) decided they didn't. The property I think we agree had value, but their ownership of that value is less obvious (granted there were some formal reparations). The point is that inflation only impacts cash and cash flows. If the purchasing power of cash goes down I don't give a shit because I don't have any cash and my fixed cash outflows (mortgage payments) are greater than my fixed cash inflows (possibly my rate of pay but that's not really fixed, it increases with cost of living). The idea that inflation is stealing wealth from the general population makes no sense. It's also not a Ponzi scheme, for what it's worth. Dude. It's good to hear that you are doing alright, but we are not talking about you, specifically.... And I explained in two ways (defining quantitative easing and your Mr Ponzi Adam, Bob, Charlie scenario) how inflation transfers wealth from the bottom to the top. As long as the general population gets paid in USD, inflation takes wealth from them. I’ll try to explain it a different way. Consider a car. In a period of inflation does it go slower? Is the mpg worse? Or is the utility provided by the car exactly the same? Because if it’s the same then the car can always be traded for whatever amount of currency represents that value, whether it’s ten thousand dollars or a million dollars, the value represented by each unit of currency does not impact the value of the car. Now consider the car note. The bank wants 48 equal monthly payments of $300. In a period of inflation are those $300 payments easier to get or harder? Inflation hurts people holding large amounts of cash and large amounts of fixed rate cash flows. Conversely it helps people who have assets and fixed rate debt payments. Yes I know lol Now tell me how any of this applies to a working class or middle class person working 60 hrs a week, living paycheck to paycheck, and drowning in debt. Inflation is great for people like you and me. I literally owe my great life to inflation (Obama's QE). I quit my career as a physician, and went balls deep in property, the stock market, and bitcoin because that's what the feds policy rewards the most......NOT slaving away at an extremely high stress, high responsiblity, profession, one that is being bogged down by more and more red tape, and having no life. Now I make money from the comfort of my home and do whatever i want. But how does my or your success help lower and middle classl people who are struggling in the U.S? Inflation is great if you're drowning in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. Paycheck to paycheck means 0 cash on hand. Debt means your future cash outflows exceed your future cash inflows. If cash becomes less precious and you have negative cash that means your debt has, in real terms, gone down. I explain, in pretty simple terms, how inflation is a good thing to people with no cash and lots of debt to which you respond "yes, I know, but how does any of that help people with no cash and lots of debt". This is economics 101. If you have cash and the value of cash goes down then you lose. If you have negative cash and the value of cash goes down then you win. The working American has negative cash.
"paycheck to paycheck means 0 cash on hand"
you do realize that when these people receive paychecks, they have cash on hand....that cash must be used to survive though.
working/middle class literally spend 40 hrs or more per week working to obtain cash. They then use that cash to live.
inflation is good for me and you who have most of net worth in something that is NOT cash, that increases in value at a higher rate than cash
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