Economic Troubles and Trump

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Trump has a track record of driving businesses into bankruptcy.. He is now tasked , as President, to manage the largest economy on earth ever in all of history. He made some highly unorthodox suggestions involving defaulting during the campaign .. and he has recently threatened to hold his breath stamp his feet and close down the government. Not to mention the mind games or recently switching parties for an afternoon of legislation of managing the nation's money.

Trump has a couple of appointments to the FED to make and may hav an opportunity to make a couple more including "Head of the FED" .. some presume to assume he will no more respect tradional thought and procedure or independence of the FED than he has for , oh, say, Justice/ DOJ.. when he has a majority on the FED nd that replacements will be selected for loyalty or agreeing with Trump and Alex Jones on fiscal matters.. plus.. nothing was solved this week, the can was kicked down the road to Dec 8 and that after throwing a hornets nest into Congress.

Some folks in the precious metals school of sound money have been speculating one possible approach to solving all our money problems by revaluing the dollar, much like FDR did back in the day.. and has been done at least 8 times in our history..( that's counting creating the FED itself , revaluing the price of gold, unbacking the money from gold.. Taking the silver out of coinage).

A lot of folks talk about a 16 to 1 ratio between the price of gold and silver.. the Constitution says money can only be gold or silver.. the original money law .. declared the value of a dollar in the Coinage act of 1792 to be "the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units … of the value [mass or weight] of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure … silver." and sets the ratio. Gold and silver were not speculative investments when ther p[rice and ratio was controlled by law.. they didn't go up or down on some commodities market, they were circulating money and 1 troy ounce gold coin had dollar value stamp on it ( $20) that just didn't change, just like a silver dollar said $1 for over a hundred of year 1792 until 1964.

From time to time the market for and presumably the cost of gold ad silver could be set lower, but never higher.. to make gold $33 a troy ounce in 1933 they first had to take all the gold coin out of circulation .. and even though the official price of silver was not increased in the same way once the took the silver out of the coins, they did their dangedest to round all the silver up and melt it down.

Since 1964 silver has gone from below $1.30 and ounce to someplace in the $18's today with episodes of reaching up to around $50, Gold from $42.42 an ounce ( officially) in 1971 to over $1300 today with the occasional spike to just under $2000

And we have with subsequent laws set the price of gold and silver, just like the kings of old.. We enforced our set price by law price of gold and silver world wide by buying all gold and silver just slightly below the set price and selling gold and silver to anybody who wanted some for a few pennies over the set price.. made it very difficult to charge more than the official price and find buyers, and almost impossible to get anybody to sell for less.. price stability in currency is good for business. Rome, Byzantium, Britain, France all do exactly the same thing in turn , Rome and Byzantium for centuries .. until like us , the reduce or removed the precious metal in their coins and inflated themselves into history as minor players.

We have about a much gold as the next 8 biggest countries/ gold holders like the IMF.

There is some speculation that once gaining control of the FED and nominally having the House and Senate (just nice to have, not really a requirement).. Secretary or the Treasury sets the price and says what money is and isn't and what you can do with it in exchange for making it payable for all debts ect...
Trump may be considering reinstating the gold backed dollar and raising the price of gold to $10,000 Troy ounce.. not a random number.. the value of our gold at that price would be equal to a 40% backing of all Current US Debt and circulating money.

It would be disruptive and inflationary .. but mostly because it is 800% this time instead of the 60% in 1933 But it would get rid of our debt and the cost of $600 billion we budget every year to service our current debt and allow us to raise interest rates, assuming any of our debt holders would like to trade 10,000 dollar of US Bonds or Treasuries for a single ounce of gold.

Some folks have made Million dollar options bets on silver based on this speculation, some exceptionally well connected financial and wall street insiders .. however I did notice that they structured their bets on silver going over $25 an ounce sometime before the end of the year in order for them to make a profit.. the more it goes over $25 the more crazy high profits they make.

I don't think there is a terribly high chance of this happening in the short term.. but it can't be ruled out completely given the players involved and the problem of having a 100%+ debt to GDP ratio we are unlikely to ever pay off merely by using the conventional means of cutting spending and raising taxes .

Trump is deliberately weakening the dollar.. this is obvious down about 8% just since inauguration.. which effectively does raise the price of gold and silver , just a whole lot slower.. and the US dollar becomes less and less the worlds reserve currency every day, which would change immediately upon the dollar being back by gold to any degree.

real possibility, if remote, that real world people who should know, or know better, are actually betting on.

I have a little of each, gold and silver.. and if this is even partially true or slightly possible means a nice windfall for me... silver prices particularly, are still low enough it would be hard to get hurt much if silver went down within the historical range instead of up, even if it stayed in the historical range going up .. which this conspiracy/ intentional dollar reset Is intended to exceed.. silver staying in the recent ratio historically ( since both were freed to trade as commodities and not have their prices fixed by law ( 16 to 1) as necessary for currencies of around 70 o 1 to gold open market).

Just a thought

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Sarge:
The argument for gold as "real" money has been made for years, but it's a false argument.
Gold is a commodity, just like any other commodity, but has taken on some sort of "magical" power as the cure to our money ills. It won't. Ayn Rand wrote that gold had a real objective value, but she was totally wrong.
Gold, like anything else, responds to supply, and demand. Relatively speaking, there's not that much gold in the world which contributes to its scarcity, but it's a mistake to think that scarcity drives demand, because something can be scarce, but nobody really gives a damn that it's scarce--like Yugos! :thumbsdown:

Here's what happens as soon as you return to "hard" money: The currency gets debased. Ridged edges on coins developed because people would literally clip off bits from gold and silver coins. Do it enough times and you have lots of extra gold and silver. People would hollow out gold coins and fill them with lead. It was ironic that at one time, ersatz gold coins were filled with...platinum!

On top of that, governments (kings) regularly debased the currency. Usually, the standard would be the "Crown" (Britain called it the "Sovereign"). When the king needed money, he's make the "Crown" a little smaller, but say "A crown is a crown!" and pay his bills with, well, less money. Didn't take long for people to pick up on that, and they'd raise prices accordingly, leading to...inflation.

Revaluing the currency is what you do when you want to cool down the economy. Right now, it's one of the worst things we can do and will IMMEDIATELY kick us into a recession if not a depression. The Fed has, for years now, tried to get the economy to heat up, following the horrible collapse under Bush II. The Fed's actions haven't worked as well as they like but despite that, unemployment has been solved (we're at technical Full Employment) and the economy has continued to grow, though not nearly as fast as we'd all like.

Supply and Demand works in international trade as well. A cheaper dollar makes our exports cheaper and therefore more desirable. A more expensive dollar makes them less attractive. Only certain luxury items seem to be immune to this: Mercedes, BMWs, Rolexes, etc don't seem to lower prices in response to their native currencies revaluing.

As attractive as simply answers sound, we are 320 million actors, each making hundreds of financial decisions every day and every week, from whether to buy the Large or Extra Large eggs, to whether we can manage the mortgage on a $200K house or a $250K house, a fixed rate 30year, or a 15 year ARM mortgage, Ford 150 or Chevy 1500, etc. That's billions and trillions of individual decisions that ALL make prediction difficult.

In the late 1800's, the Populist Party pushed HARD against the Gold Standard, seeking "bi-metalism". Why? They WANTED inflation to increase farm crop prices and, never having seen it, they thought it would cure their financial ills. A simple solution to a very complex problem. Simple, and therefore, wrong.

Financial confidence in the currency is both real and ephemeral at the same time. If people and investors THINK the currency is strong, it is. If they don't, it isn't.
Case Study: The German HyperInflation of 1923. The Reichsmark devalued so fast that people were paid several times a day. The courts refused to recognize that the money was worth a millionth or a billionth of what it had been worth before the War and held "A Mark is a Mark". Lenders were ruined as borrowers paid off massive debts for the cost of a few packs of cigarettes.
Finally, the Weimar Government devalued the currency one last time, and issued a new currency, the "RentenMark" (Land Mark) valued at 1 trillion Reichsmarks. It was based (somehow) on the value of the land of Germany. Because people WANTED the RentenMark to work, it did, and the inflation was turned off like a faucet.

A few years ago, Turkey did something similar. Remember when Howard Stern had "Who wants to be a Turkish Millionaire?" with people who didn't realize that a million Turkish lira was worth about a buck and a half! (I have a 500,000 Lira note somewhere :see_stars: )

Of course, if gold was $12k/troy ounce you'd see people selling every bit of gold as fast as they could---unless $12,000 would buy what $1,350 (gold's current price) buys now. Then, it will have gained NOTHING.

As an aside, Gold has been jumping in price since the Trump-tastrophe because, despite what Wall Street says, Gold rises in price as confidence in the US government suffers world-wide because it's the hedge against loss of confidence in government.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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It is a shift in thinking but money has shifted from the concept of "hard, objective value" to that of simply "a promise", as it has always been. The moment that the Chinese shifted to paper currency, the idea of the promise that money represents a certain amount of precious metals was cemented into commerce and society. Now we have moved from paper into digital, a further abstraction of that promise from precious metal into something else...

If you ask what the promise is, the answer has shifted quietly beneath the human consciousness. From promise of a certain amount of precious metals, the value of money (that Yankee alluded to) actually shifts according to people's views. The real promise which money represents today is of human capital. The idea that, "I do work for you, you do work form someone else, and that collective work comes back around when I need work done." Food is work. Durable goods is work. Everything is the result of work and services by many people over time. And direct control of one's work-power is the promise that the digital currency truly represents.

To debase money back to the value of a commodity like precious metals is taking steps backwards in human evolution. Yet we naturally do that still when we lose faith in the promise of work exchange, whether than means losing faith a country's leadership or its people: the price of gold rises.

But to eschew money in favor of barter (one for one work) is a truly an act of desperation. Money represents and organizes collective work.

The logical progression of money, therefore, is further and further toward the ephemeral state of human interconnectedness. Therein lay the potential for ending oligarchy, when people finally understand that the value the money represents, has always been, the value of their own contribution to society as co-opted by the very few.

The closest working model of that consciousness in the world right now is democracy: one person, one vote. And it's no mystery why the saying, "vote with your wallet," has caught the public's imagination. Money is not just the power to move people in directed ways, money actually represents that power of work. When people wake up to their power and simply shift their allegiance or investment of their work value from one currency (US Dollar) to another currency that is more difficult to consolidate without public oversight (another form of Bitcoin?), we will experience a paradigm shift in human consciousness that may lead to another flowering of human creativity and consciousness, or at the very least prevent the degradation of our environment (due to the greed and short-sightedness of very few individuals) to ensure a few more generations of human survival on this planet.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Trump won't do anything seriously economically disruptive. It's the only thing that could actually get congress to impeach. Trump's base is made up of people screwed by capitalism who don't understand how capitalism works, but the folks who could move him out (not congress, but their bosses) understand it just fine.

All he will do is rubber stamp congressional plans to transfer more money up the chain by way of "tax reform". Fascist economic policy is pretty straightforward; without business dictating policy for their own benefit, the fake-populism that motivates the base is not actually enough to maintain power. You want to predict Trump's options on economic policy? Look at what Pinichet did: That's the entirety of the palette that 45 has to paint with.
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Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Bisbee,
Interesting analysis. Let me see if I can distill it: Money is the "universal translator" of the values of various forms of production. Because it's hard to make change of 3.75 barrels of wine for 2 1/2 canoes, we use the Universal Translator. It doesn't matter if it's a gold coin, a rare, beautiful rock (like a diamond) or a piece of paper with a signature on it--it's always an agreement of value until someone tries to cheat that value.

DeBeers has artificially created a shortage of diamonds over many, many decades as it holds the lion's share. When you sell a diamond you'd be shocked--like a used car you won't anything CLOSE to what you paid for it. That's why other gems are better investments.

So Money is the medium of exchange and its value comes down to whatever the hell people believe it's worth. You can define a "dollar" as worth 1/8th of a peck of Winter Wheat (a dry quart) or, instead, a liter of it and make THAT the standard of value. It doesn't matter. ALL commodities are, fundamentally, the basis of value of money, because that's what a commodity is-- a fixed definite amount of a REAL value that is then arbitrarily assigned a "price" based on supply and demand.

But a kilo of Jasmine Rice is a kilo of Jasmine Rice.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Why? Because we are Rebels! We occupy all quarters of this site!

Money acts as a Universal Translator of value. Hmm, I like that, Yankee.

Value is such a fickle thing to pin down and is highly dependent on situations. There have been times of war and famine when a kilo of Jasmine Rice is actually worth a diamond ring. But outside of the collapse of normal society, money really is the most convenient medium by which we gauge value.

But I really am starting to see money in a different way from the perspective of human capital, creativity, and ingenuity. Because it is humans who produce all wealth in the world (even a raw bag of gold dust has value because it was panned out of the river over several weeks or months by a prospector). It is humans who employ the abstract and consensual concept of money in daily life. Elong Musk have shown us the importance of money in pushing the development of clean, renewable energy and space exploration. Yet the way that we humans give money life through agreement is much like animating the mythical Golem through a word or idea. The idea of money is or can be is very deep and powerful motivator for the human race and yet it is primarily an idea.

The tallest buildings of any city throughout the world wear the badges of insurance companies and banks, organizations that work with money -and only money. Leftist criticize the financial sector and I agree there is a problem with the finacialization of basic resources like water and clean air. But maybe there is something something to be learned and mastered about money (and the world of finance) in the same way that activists and environmentalists no longer sit in trees or form human chains but do their work of protecting people. the environment, and endangered species through the courts, by filing injunctions/lawsuits against banks, logging, and mining companies through the legal system (another human idea).
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Inquisitor wrote:Why is this in this forum?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Ask Sarge! (to be frank, I didn't notice what forum it was in... :oops2: )

Banks and investment houses forget that they are facilitators, not producers. It's like too many IT departments in companies. They need to constantly be reminded that they are OVERHEAD, not producers, and their JOB is to facilitate the producers.

My point to Busbee is that a kilo of Jasmine Rice, regardless of whether it's valued at 25¢ or an ounce of gold or a diamond, is a kilo of Jasmine Rice with a well-defined set of properties that doesn't change. So does a ton of steel, or a kilo of lead. And the convenient medium of exchange, money, is the Universal Translator of how those commodities are currently valued vis-a-vis each other and other products, services and commodities.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Aside from needing a move to the right location on the forum, the basic premise is a red herring. Yes, there's a Trump effect happening in various markets, but the problem's been growing far longer than the 2016 election cycle.

For proper background, I highly recommend The Crash Course - either in book or video form.
https://www.amazon.com/Crash-Course-Uns ... 47092764X/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7up38J ... A1OwAGDRdR


The TL;DR: We're on a finite planet. We're using the equivalent of 3 Earths worth of raw materials and ecological services (food and clean water, anyone?). We're completely dependent on fossil fuels and all are past peak while demand continues to rise exponentially. Last time the price of oil spiked, it triggered a global financial meltdown which popped a ton of bubbles, including debt and house values. Today, after almost a decade of the planet's master banks printing money to prop-up the financial and stock markets, we have a larger series of bubbles today than we did in 2008. The next shock will result in another global financial meltdown, but this time interest rates can't come down any farther - the only method the Fed has left is to print money faster than they already are.

Precious metals are always pushed by hucksters when things look rocky and they make a ...mint... each time. But in the event of an actual crisis, gold bars or gold coins aren't going to be liquid enough. Many groups have been working this problem for decades and many forms of local currencies are in use. There are also hundreds of electronic crypto currencies in use, but they rely on the internet and electricity.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/pf/loca ... /index.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ted_States
http://www.transitionus.org/transition-towns

FWIW. That's my 0.02 LTC.

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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And speaking of local currencies...

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http://theoffice.wikia.com/wiki/Schrute_Buck :)
According to Dwight Schrute, the Schrute Buck is worth 0.0001 US Dollars. 1 000 Schrute Bucks can also be exchanged for an extra five minutes of lunch break. It can be extrapolated that the exchange rate of US Dollars to Schrute Bucks is approximately 10 000 and the exchange rate of Schrute Bucks to Extra Minutes at Lunch is approximately 0.005. The exchange rate of US Dollars to Extra Minutes at Lunch is approximately 50.
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Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Inquisitor wrote:Why is this in this forum?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
My thinking was an economic disruption , whatever the cause is an economic disruption.. Irma Harvey dollar collapse

I don't see the difference between not having water and food or shelter because a Hurricane just came thru, and not having water food shelter because you can't afford to buy it off full shelves or had you utilities turned off or you were evicted.

I know there are two sides to gold and silver some like it some don't .. but the arguments against sometimes get a little weird or are not well thought thru..

For example... from Yankee Tarheel

"Of course, if gold was $12k/troy ounce you'd see people selling every bit of gold as fast as they could---unless $12,000 would buy what $1,350 (gold's current price) buys now. Then, it will have gained NOTHING."

Now think about that .. say that did happen you buy an ounce of gold for 1350 and it goes up to 12K and it still buys the same.. very likely scenario you say you have gained nothing

Well lets say you have 1350 and you don't buy gold nd you have 1350 .. gold goes to 12K which buys the same as 1350 bought back in the day.. but all you got is 1350, with gold you have lost nothing, with your 1350 worth of paper you can only buy 11.25% of what it used to buy, you lost almost everything... That is why two dimes would buy a gallon of gas in 1960 .. and two 1960 90% silver dimes will buy a gallon of gas today and two of todays dimes won't http://www.coinflation.com/ the melt value of the silver in a silver dime is worth about $1.28 today... much more of an increase percentage wise than 1350 going to 12K 1280% V 890%.

Just saying

The value of legal tender is always based on something.. at one time it was based or bcked by gold and a Dollar was defined by so many grains of silver ( grains as a weight, as in bullets and powder same grains)

Now it is based of faith in the government, literally the full faith and credit of the government .. I don't see Trump as inspiring faith and we all know his multiple bankruptcy credit history, to the point no US Bank will loan to him.. given the existing skepticism on our ability to repay our existing debt .. literally the ability or likelihood to tax the people enough to pay off 20 Trillion in debt, balance the budget, and make good on about 80 Trillion in future promises I don't see Trump and his plans to increase spending and cut taxes as helping restore faith

Actually, economic collapse, historically, is usually a prerequisite for a dictatorial take over..

The thing I like about gold is it doesn't matter who's face is on the coin or what millennium they ruled in, when they were the god on an actual religion people practiced or if the Kingdom or Empire or Government that made it still exists and ounce of gold is worth an ounce of gold.. if for whatever reason you felt moving to a different country would be wise.. it's worth as much there as here in any country on earth.. It's price is set pretty much by the world market not one country setting the price ( within the limits I mention above where what nation will pay for it matters more than what they sell it for .. you can say you will sell gold for 12K all day long and folks will just check the completed auctions and see what the going price is.. you say you will pay 12K for an ounce and folks will hand you their gold assuming your currency is worth 12K when they go to buy something.

And if the dollar collapses it , like Polish money in 1941, you can't use it to bribe the border guards to get out of Dodgeski .. Gold and Diamonds and ancient illegally dug artifacts are still working today.. ask any Middle East or African refuge in Germany, people smugglers don't take Syrian Pounds ... it's amazing, it takes roughly 2 years of the local median wage to get smuggled out of Syria Angola Mexico China North Korea almost any where .. and they don't take the local currency.

About that bartering, which will be a factor when or if the dollar collapses .. bartering is more about your skill at bartering than what you have to barter with.. Consider grocery shopping.. anybody here wait until the put the perishables on sale because they are at the sell by date? Same for a lot of things have to barter with.. they got to move it before it spoils

Anybody know the story 'bout "One Red Paperclip" http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/201 ... story.html

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Sarge wrote:Now it is based of faith in the government, literally the full faith and credit of the government .. I don't see Trump as inspiring faith
Here, I think, is where the argument goes off the rails. A dollar in our debt-based fractional reserve system is a unit of debt. Government debt. It's not a unit of any president, regardless of his or her (un)wholesomeness. TL;DR - it's really not about Trump.

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Sarge you make some good points, but we've left out explicitly discussing THE critical element and for that I'm sorry and should have included it. BTW, I don't dislike gold at all, and see it as one of the most fungible portable SHTF tradable commodities. That and common-sized cartridges. The stuff looks better than bullets, too!

OK: what is the elephant in the room we've missed? It's the Money Supply. At its best, money is like fertilizer, you have to spread it around if you want stuff to grow. But if your supply of land increases, so does your need for fertilizer. And that's the rub.

The supply of Gold, silver and other precious metals simply cannot grow as fast as our economy, or the world's economy. When the super-giant ancient stars, thousands of times bigger than the sun, generated the pressures necessary to fuse lighter atoms into Gold (et al) and then cast the stuff out in the void, where it was collected to make OUR sun and solar system, they made a finite amount of the stuff and it wasn't much, compared to say, iron, carbon, oxygen, copper and other useful elements.
We can't mine it fast enough and the alchemists' dream of making gold from lead, while it came true, it came true at a cost millions (if not billions) of times more than the gold is worth.

And we know that economies MUST grow or die. And that's the problem. See, those 2 silver dimes may still be worth a gallon of gas today as they were in 1960 (Actually, gas cost a bit more even then, and even in the lowest octane in NJ --always a cheap-gas state--except in my town :evil: ). But that's a total mis-perception and is due SOLELY because silver is traded as a commodity, but not as a backer of the currency. If we TRIED to back the currency with those silver dimes again, it would kick of a recession so deep it couldn't be stopped. Why? Because there just ain't enough silver for all the dimes we'd need. Yes, it would drive prices down, 'way, 'way down till that dime bought 10 or 20 or 50 gallons of gas. But your wages would fall just as far, and just as fast. Actually, they'd fall a LOT more. And your mortgage? GOTCHA! It wouldn't change, but YOU couldn't afford it. Maybe banks would renegotiate, but...they have to pay investors back, too, so they HAVE to recoup what they can. And many will fail, far more than the FDIC or FSLIC can support. Catastrophic collapse.

Oh, a few will make out, like the "Mr. Potter" of "It's a Wonderful Life", but most will be caught back in the hurricane of depression and economic collapse.

There just isn't enough gold and silver in the world to support economic growth. I take you back AGAIN to the bi-metalists of the 19th century. Silver then was far more plentiful vis a vis the economy, but only gold supported the currency, which couldn't even then match the economic expansion of America. While there were silver coins, of course, there wasn't enough, again. Paper money was supported by gold alone, and therefore thee wasn't enough of THAT either. So the bi-metalists pushed for backing the currency with silver as well, so the money supply could keep up with the economy.

Because money doesn't sit in a pile somewhere. It has to move and circulate--there's even a measure of this called the "Velocity of Money".

You argued for gold and silver. But who wants to carry around the damned stuff? It's heavy as shit! That's AGAIN why paper money was invented--to allow money to be easily transported. And even that increases the ability of money to work, because it can move faster, far faster. But there still won't be enough of the stuff even if it's backed by gold and printed on paper. And that paper, that does all the work, IS built on trust.

Did you know that many Asian people in Europe and the Americas have a nearly untraceable, yet safe way to send money back home without it being stolen? It's based on trust. I don't know the name of the type of trader but it works like this: I walk into my trader's office and give him the money to send home. He takes an agreed upon fee, but he doesn't send the money, at least not then. He puts it in his bank account, then calls his brother/father/cousin whatever in the city or town I'm sending the money to. He says to him: "Fred, YTH is sending is mother $500 US, converted to local currency." And Fred simply pays YTH's mother the money. Fred and my trader settle up however they settle up. I trust my trader, he trusts Fred, and I therefore trust Fred. The money doesn't actually have to move. In fact, Fred may WELL have transactions where he sends money to my trader, the same way. In the past, before phones or telegraphs, my trader would send "Fred" a letter (coded, I guess) for how to settle up. Such a system works and is based on trust. If the gold/silver actually had to move it would be frightfully dangerous, risky, and expensive.

One final point: If you actually trade in gold and silver, how do you know if the other guy isn't cutting it to get a few grains, or more, of gold? Do you weigh, measure and assay each coin?

Trust. Money doesn't work well without it.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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YankeeTarheel wrote:Sarge you make some good points, but we've left out explicitly discussing THE critical element and for that I'm sorry and should have included it. BTW, I don't dislike gold at all, and see it as one of the most fungible portable SHTF tradable commodities. That and common-sized cartridges. The stuff looks better than bullets, too!

OK: what is the elephant in the room we've missed? It's the Money Supply. At its best, money is like fertilizer, you have to spread it around if you want stuff to grow. But if your supply of land increases, so does your need for fertilizer. And that's the rub.

The supply of Gold, silver and other precious metals simply cannot grow as fast as our economy, or the world's economy. When the super-giant ancient stars, thousands of times bigger than the sun, generated the pressures necessary to fuse lighter atoms into Gold (et al) and then cast the stuff out in the void, where it was collected to make OUR sun and solar system, they made a finite amount of the stuff and it wasn't much, compared to say, iron, carbon, oxygen, copper and other useful elements.
We can't mine it fast enough and the alchemists' dream of making gold from lead, while it came true, it came true at a cost millions (if not billions) of times more than the gold is worth.

And we know that economies MUST grow or die. And that's the problem. See, those 2 silver dimes may still be worth a gallon of gas today as they were in 1960 (Actually, gas cost a bit more even then, and even in the lowest octane in NJ --always a cheap-gas state--except in my town :evil: ). But that's a total mis-perception and is due SOLELY because silver is traded as a commodity, but not as a backer of the currency. If we TRIED to back the currency with those silver dimes again, it would kick of a recession so deep it couldn't be stopped. Why? Because there just ain't enough silver for all the dimes we'd need. Yes, it would drive prices down, 'way, 'way down till that dime bought 10 or 20 or 50 gallons of gas. But your wages would fall just as far, and just as fast. Actually, they'd fall a LOT more. And your mortgage? GOTCHA! It wouldn't change, but YOU couldn't afford it. Maybe banks would renegotiate, but...they have to pay investors back, too, so they HAVE to recoup what they can. And many will fail, far more than the FDIC or FSLIC can support. Catastrophic collapse.

Oh, a few will make out, like the "Mr. Potter" of "It's a Wonderful Life", but most will be caught back in the hurricane of depression and economic collapse.

There just isn't enough gold and silver in the world to support economic growth. I take you back AGAIN to the bi-metalists of the 19th century. Silver then was far more plentiful vis a vis the economy, but only gold supported the currency, which couldn't even then match the economic expansion of America. While there were silver coins, of course, there wasn't enough, again. Paper money was supported by gold alone, and therefore thee wasn't enough of THAT either. So the bi-metalists pushed for backing the currency with silver as well, so the money supply could keep up with the economy.

Because money doesn't sit in a pile somewhere. It has to move and circulate--there's even a measure of this called the "Velocity of Money".

You argued for gold and silver. But who wants to carry around the damned stuff? It's heavy as shit! That's AGAIN why paper money was invented--to allow money to be easily transported. And even that increases the ability of money to work, because it can move faster, far faster. But there still won't be enough of the stuff even if it's backed by gold and printed on paper. And that paper, that does all the work, IS built on trust.

Did you know that many Asian people in Europe and the Americas have a nearly untraceable, yet safe way to send money back home without it being stolen? It's based on trust. I don't know the name of the type of trader but it works like this: I walk into my trader's office and give him the money to send home. He takes an agreed upon fee, but he doesn't send the money, at least not then. He puts it in his bank account, then calls his brother/father/cousin whatever in the city or town I'm sending the money to. He says to him: "Fred, YTH is sending is mother $500 US, converted to local currency." And Fred simply pays YTH's mother the money. Fred and my trader settle up however they settle up. I trust my trader, he trusts Fred, and I therefore trust Fred. The money doesn't actually have to move. In fact, Fred may WELL have transactions where he sends money to my trader, the same way. In the past, before phones or telegraphs, my trader would send "Fred" a letter (coded, I guess) for how to settle up. Such a system works and is based on trust. If the gold/silver actually had to move it would be frightfully dangerous, risky, and expensive.

One final point: If you actually trade in gold and silver, how do you know if the other guy isn't cutting it to get a few grains, or more, of gold? Do you weigh, measure and assay each coin?

Trust. Money doesn't work well without it.
Yeah, actually, I do, as necessary, weight, measure, test volumetrically, and chemically .. test kits are cheap and simple to use

There was a time when paper money was lighter and smaller than gold.. a US Bill regardless of denomination weights 1 gram.. a 1 troy ounce gold piece weights 31.1 grams 1350 in 20's weights 67.5 grams and is thicker wider and longer than a 1 troy ounce coin... just saying.. if you use 50's it's 27 grams but it is still bigger than a coin If you fold over 100's in half it's a scosh lighter and smaller than an unfold stack of bills but still a little larger than the coin , and again folded thicker..

There is always enough gold to cover all circulating money regardless of the money supply or even how you count the money supply M1 thru M6 at the right price for gold.. the economic stagnation in the past was due to a fixed price of gold and silver which was necessary so we didn't have to remint the coins with increasing face value.. the rumored Trump proposal is reportedly talking a 40% fractional backing ..

Hugo Salinas Price http://www.plata.com.mx/mplata/articulos/articles.asp ( owner of the Electra retail store chain in South America and inventor of the Silver Liberdad coin which he mints and distributes thru his stores as a private effort to bring back silver coins ) is the leading economist ( he's from Mexico , the number one silver producing country) and leading exponent of a return to hard money.. silver , natch.. wants to do silver coins without face value just weight .. and have, by law, the value of the coins only go up to match the price of silver .. but never go down. Ii don't totally agree with him on some key points.. but it isn't like he isn't putting his mouth where his money is..

So there is enough Gold .. even if there is just one ounce of gold in the world .. value it at 67 Trillion and you covered everything.. totally impractical.. but there is more than one ounce and at 40% backing all the money ,M2 IIRC in this rumored trump plan is covered by the alledged 8000_+ tons in the US reserve https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/fsrepor ... report.htm note the note at the bottom of the page they value gold at $42.42 per ounce ( the last official fixed by law price for gold .. irony.. that makes Gold a FIAT currency any "money" who's value is set by law is FIAT which I find hilarious )
So yes when gold was circulating money pre 1933 it's value was set by law and t was just as much FIAT as paper.

Back then they had to take the gold out of circulation and make payment in gold illegal before they could reset the price which is what FDR did in '33, so what changed back then was how much a dollar could buy.. shortage of money, a depression/ recession, the dollar was rarer but bought more , if you had inflation there was more dollars that bought less.. You could more or less coerce more labor for a quarter in bad times...anyway..

If 10K @40% didn't cover things then 17.254K at 29.54% might but yes in large part when you have an ounce coin carved in metal that says $20 and you invent and market and manufacture radios and automobile and vacuum cleaners faster than you mine gold, it screws up the economy.

If you are willing to change the price of gold or reduce the degree of fractional backing you can cover any amount of cash and still have enough left over to plate Trump's bathroom fixtures .

It would be crazy inflationary ( a known prerequisite to a dictatorship ) that would wipe out the saved wealth of the little guy but make the US debt easy pesey to pay off. And you could sell it to the little guy, because he is up to his eyeballs in debt as well and given enough inflation 100K student loan could be paid off with about $10 old US dollars at the original value they were borrowed at ... Zimbabwe was about to print a Billion whatever note but they decided to adopt the US dollar as their official currency and a Billionwhatevers were close enough to a dollar in value they just rounded it off .. Historical note The Zimbabwe pound started at 1 Zpound = US$ 1.20 while an ounce of gold not only increased in the number of dollars as the dollar went down relative to gold.. but it also went up more in purchasing power to the Zpound .

There is a story that supposedly occurred during the breakup and hyperinflation of Yugoslavia back in the days of expensive long distance phone calls where a reporter ran up a phone bill reporting on the events and finally got recalled back home.. he had already exchanged out all his local money and he was on the way to the airport when he remembered he forgot to pay his phone bill so he swung into the post office at the airport to pay his bill .. he was used to several hundred dollars of phone bill .. but when he said all he had was German marks they agreed to convert the bill to Marks, and he paid it off with a 10 Pfennig coin....

Crazy inflation means the dollars in existing debt become pennies and everybody gets to be a millionaire if and only if wages go up with prices .. which I am pretty sure is NOT the plan ... plus dictators don't have elections so that stops the Russians from tampering .. all sorts of problems solved .. It sounds crazy .. it could never happen here .. but just in case I have a little silver and much less gold .. not trying to make a profit, just using it as a store of wealth. Seriously.. I hold gold and silver as a store of wealth .. I don't worry about if it goes up or down so much as it retains my purchasing power .. that it has gone up about 4 fold since I started buying little quarter ounce Brit Sovereigns.. is actually disturbing.. my 401K and real estate hasn't gone up 4 fold .. so I'm losing purchasing power,overall , even as the numbers get bigger.

Yeah ammo is a barter item ( but what is 30-06 round worth in a .223 / 7.62 x 39 world?).. so are guns .. VCR tapes and 4 track not so much Skills are good .. as are chickens and bushels of wheat... wait your kid needs a appendectomy? oh shit.. that 500 chickens.. what do you mean the doc has done 3 appendectomies this month and doesn't take chickens any more, he can't feed the ones he has .. okay 260 bushels of wheat.. what? he says he can't eat 8 tons of wheat in a lifetime?.. he wants what? Gold? okay I was saving three ounces for just this kind of emergency .. 1 ounce to the doc and my kid lives ... but before I turn it over see how much Okra he wants .. want to save the gold for when nothing else works if I can.

Yankee you seem to think Trump would only do this is it was somehow fair to everybody.. but are willing to believe in other matters Trump and trump like corporate characters are out to screw the little guy.. as Trump has been quoted as saying.. The Golden Rule "He who has the Gold makes the Rules"

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Sorry, Sarge. That's just not how money works, nor how it has ever worked, and there's plenty of empirical evidence to back me up.

I have a problem with the bullion dealers advocating the gold standard the same way I have a problem taking at face value the coal industry promoting "Clean Coal" or the entire Fossil Fuel industry producing studies "proving" there is no global warming--or if there is, it's not from man's pollution.

It's not necessarily that they are lying, it's more like Upton Sinclair put it:
'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

Mr. Price stands to make BILLIONS if we go back on the hard money standard. His life is bullion, so his bias is unavoidable.

And, no, there hasn't and isn't enough gold to back the currency unless you are OK with decades of recession and depression. That's like saying we don't need any more food if the population triples, we'll all just eat 1/3 of what we eat now! Then people starve. We've been there down the millennia, all over the world.

Sorry, Sarge. Got too much econ behind me. There are far better ways to fix things, but they aren't easy, or simple, and nobody likes them much. Remember when Jimmy Carter presided over "stagflation" and Ronald Reagan "fixed" the economy? Fantasy. Totally. Paul Volcker, Carter's pick for Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank IS a brilliant economist and HE saved the economy, by first tightening the money, which raised interest rates to nearly intolerable levels, but that broke the back of the inflation we had suffered since early in LBJ's era. Unfortunately, that and the Iran hostage crisis cost Carter the WH. Reagan, smartly, kept Volcker in his chair, and as Volcker slowly lowered the interest rate, the economy rebounded. Reagan's tax cut nearly killed the recovery as the deficit exploded and put upward pressure on the interest rate again (Federal deficits do that, far more than the National Debt), and he had to back off on it, and allow Volcker's steps to work.

That's just a thumbnail sketch of what happened.

This is why Keynes is so misunderstood, and only his preferred prescription is remembered and not his total analysis.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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YankeeTarheel wrote:Sorry, Sarge. That's just not how money works, nor how it has ever worked, and there's plenty of empirical evidence to back me up.

I have a problem with the bullion dealers advocating the gold standard the same way I have a problem taking at face value the coal industry promoting "Clean Coal" or the entire Fossil Fuel industry producing studies "proving" there is no global warming--or if there is, it's not from man's pollution.

It's not necessarily that they are lying, it's more like Upton Sinclair put it:
'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

Mr. Price stands to make BILLIONS if we go back on the hard money standard. His life is bullion, so his bias is unavoidable.

And, no, there hasn't and isn't enough gold to back the currency unless you are OK with decades of recession and depression. That's like saying we don't need any more food if the population triples, we'll all just eat 1/3 of what we eat now! Then people starve. We've been there down the millennia, all over the world.

Sorry, Sarge. Got too much econ behind me. There are far better ways to fix things, but they aren't easy, or simple, and nobody likes them much. Remember when Jimmy Carter presided over "stagflation" and Ronald Reagan "fixed" the economy? Fantasy. Totally. Paul Volcker, Carter's pick for Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank IS a brilliant economist and HE saved the economy, by first tightening the money, which raised interest rates to nearly intolerable levels, but that broke the back of the inflation we had suffered since early in LBJ's era. Unfortunately, that and the Iran hostage crisis cost Carter the WH. Reagan, smartly, kept Volcker in his chair, and as Volcker slowly lowered the interest rate, the economy rebounded. Reagan's tax cut nearly killed the recovery as the deficit exploded and put upward pressure on the interest rate again (Federal deficits do that, far more than the National Debt), and he had to back off on it, and allow Volcker's steps to work.

That's just a thumbnail sketch of what happened.

This is why Keynes is so misunderstood, and only his preferred prescription is remembered and not his total analysis.
That doesn't make any sense.. you say hard money is bad because it restricts the money supply.. well if gold price is variable it not longer restricts the money supply .. same with silver and HS Price. You keep talking Gold Standard.. I've not once mentioned a Gold Standard.. I'm saying the Government is talking about backing money with gold redeemable at 40 cents to the dollar,, the world exchanges paper money for gold and silver and fava beans and Chianti now, that wouldn't change.. Are you are talking all gold is government gold, private ownership is illegal ? As it was between 1933 and 1971 with exceptions for dentists and jewelry and a thriving Black Market?

Keynes is misunderstood deliberately because the discipline of "overtaxing" in good times to build up reserves of cash to spend in bad times to stimulate .. if beyond the self discipline of those that spend the money and angers the people who pay the taxes... Much easier to spend it all if you have it please the voters and borrow it when you don't to please the voters and get re-elected .. And why would HS Price profit more than others? He has retail stores not silver mines

And how does any of this affect private citizens who want to hold gold as a hedge against government foolishness?

I might also ask.. who are you arguing with.. do you think, because I say there is this rumor and that some of the very wealth are making million dollar options bets on silver based on it .. that I am for it or against it? I never took a side.. it is like the current concerns that some have that there is a conspiracy by the government to hold the price of gold down to make the dollar look better.. I say hey.. if the game is fixed, then I'll play the governments or banks or whoever's game and make profits too. The Patterns could be a conspiracy or a natural pattern I take no sides I just keep enough cash on hand to buy when the price is low and only sell when the price is high.. because I never have to sell.. it's a small side line, it's like an asset that I don't have in the budget .. my financial life and plans move totally in every day investments stocks bonds real estate and I only sell gold or silver above spot.. usually well above spot..

silver nickels for example, I buy $1.59 plastic frames for WW2 silver nickels and make complete sets .. eleven nickels each with a silver value of 99 cents at this writing and a plastic frame with good graphics for $20

90% Junk coins "Junk" meaning they have no particular numismatic value according to the blue book, because the blue book works off minted numbers ... but what most folks miss is that tons and tons of silver coins were melted down.. first by the government in 1964-1965 when they took the silver out of coins .. that silver was used to make silver eagles until it ran out and then in the 80's Hunt brothers silver spike even more was melted down.. for the longest time 90% junk sold at a 10% discount because smelters charged 10% of the total weight of silver to refine your old coins into new 99.9% pure bars.. so you could get the bars essentially at spot... nobody knows how many of what date or mint mark got melted .. so what is a rare coin and what is a common coin is no longer known.. at least if you go by the blue book like a coin collector .. PCGS rates and slabs coins, they keep track and publish exactly how many of each year and grade they have seen and graded and what they appraised them for https://www.pcgs.com/prices/priceguided ... on+quarter ( current melt value for a silver quarter is $3.21 anything over that is potential profit doesn't have to be a perfect coin.. but you have to learn to grade https://www.pcgs.com/photograde/ and if you look any 1932 quarter is worth at least $8) .. coins thought common are sometimes surprisingly rare.. key dates or mints have shifted drastically .. I pick thru a $100 face bag of dimes, that's 1000 chances of finding a few coins that are worth some multiple of melt value.. that are no longer actually junk .. that have numismatic value.. anybody can do it.. I'm well better than zero basis on silver ...

Gold for cash rip offs pay 15-25% for melt value, if that .. throw a gold party where folks bring their old and busted jewelry single earrings and pay 50% of spot at least double what the local rip off "we buy gold" store fronts pay .. and sell it on to places like http://www.midwestrefineries.com/ they pay 90% of melt value .. I just take some of my payment in 99.9 fine .. it's one of those "the more you know"

I don't approve of anything Trump does just on principle .. but I definitely don't approve of anything Trump does with money, especially my money.. doesn't mean I don't try and get a little of mine back.. legally and with at least greater fairness than the commercial market.. it's a hobby

It's like trolling antique shops and swap meets and garage sales with a working knowledge of silver hallmarks or gun stores with a working knowledge of what variants of Mosin's or Mausers or S&W pistols are rare and command a premium from collectors... and knowing how to sell for the better price.. Gun stores get milslurp rifles by the case and price them all the same ... 225 variants of the Mosin .. what are the odds .... surplus ammo for way below component prices .. back in the day I was buying 7.62 x54 from Sportsman's Guide for 19.95 -29.95 a spam can of 440 .. .303 for 11 cents you might remember those days didn't have to be a genius to know that would last for long.. serviceable ammo for less than scrap value of the fired cases .. I made money shooting it up and selling the scrap .. the Albanian and Chinese had brass cases ... other folks were bad mouthing the Albanian because half a dozen rounds wouldn't chamber from out of spec rims per spam can they had wrinkles in the case mouth too .. ugly ugly ammo, shot great didn't stick in the chamber.. so most folks avoided it ... to say nothing about what a spam can goes for these days .. and I still have a few ..
I'm well past zero basis cost on milslurp ...silver gold ammo firearms one rule have a cash cushion so you get to choose when to sell and only at your price.. do the scut work to add value.. sometimes that's acquiring a certain expertise.. sometimes It is sorting and grading coins for hours on end ... you still have to work for it.. but the pay is great.

It is truly amazing how much solid sterling silver is out there being sold at plated prices ... rare patterns being sold for common servingware just saying..

I vary between agnostic and hostile to what the government does, especially financially .. it just a hobby with me...

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Sarge:

Not a clue WTF you're talking about.

The Gold Standard / Gold Silver standard means PRECISELY that the money is backed by the bullion. That's just what it is, by definition.

HS Price, being a DEALER will have huge stocks of bullion. And, ironically, most of it will be in "paper gold" that he has to convert to bullion when he sells it. Like if you buy bullion coins from Monex, you'll pony up the bucks then WAIT for Monex to actually get you the bullion.
So, when the government decides to go back on the gold standard, the demand for gold with skyrocket.

And people who own / control large stocks of gold will have their investments go up multiple times.

Funny you should mention numismatics, because much of what goes on in that rather limited market is a paradigm for bigger markets. In that world, the pressures of Supply & Demand are frequently governed by the fact that a thing is worth a lot because people think it is. Rarity has less to do with it except in special unique cases, like the 1804 Dollar and the late Jascha Heifetz's proof set struck in...aluminum!

About 25 years ago, all of a sudden slabbed BU Morgan dollars started going up in price. Coins with no particular scarcity were jumping from $30 up to $100. Why? There were plenty of them around and the scarce years and mint marks had their own price range. But for no damn good reason, generic BU Morgans more than tripled in price. I argued with a friend about this, saying this is a market bubble and will pop, soon, which it did.

But a far, far rarer coin, the silver 20 cent piece didn't command nearly the price of those Morgans because there wasn't much demand for 20 cent silver double-dimes.

My point is that gold does not have a fixed value and is, like anything else, only worth what someone, anyone is willing to pay for it, and not one cent more.

But it does come into the world in fixed quantities, and from 3 places only: Mines, old-gold (coins, jewelry, and, now, electronics), and government hordes. That's it.
Occasionally there's a sunken treasure horde, like the SS Central America salvage, that collapsed much of the collectors' $10 gold piece market, but that's rare.

Again, money is like manure, you gotta spread it around, and if you double your land, you're gonna need double the manure. And "hard" money just cannot expand fast enough.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Marlene wrote:There is an relatively simple solution to the problems of capitalist wealth flow systems:

Issues of debt? expunge
Issues of capital accumulation? collectivize
Issues of labor failing to yield a living? remove the mechanism by which labor's value is skimmed by dint of accumulated wealth
Okay.. what is the practical doable first step and who is working on it ? Any Particular organization advancing this agenda? Any model bills or legislation pending? Any place on the Planet where this is working so I can see how it came about/ understand it better.. and if it is actually accomplishing it's intended goals ?

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Cuba (actual home of the best healthcare in the world) and Vietnam are probably the closest things to it currently on the planet. Most nations that try it (or versions of it) see insurrections, coups, economic blockades, propaganda war, and sometimes outright shooting war sponsored by governments controlled by those who skim the value of others' labor. See also: Chile for about a minute, Venezuela (better example of the consequences of outside subversion than a developed system), France (about 1945 to 1989), some of China's history, Ethiopia in the 1970s. The economic programs of Mohammad Mosaddegh, Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende, Daniel Ortega, Abdullah Ocalan, or Bobby Seale may also shed some light on variations on this approach.

If all of that is too brown, or too red, or too opaque for you to relate to, try Woody Guthrie, Boots Riley, and Joe Strummer.
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Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Marlene wrote:Cuba (actual home of the best healthcare in the world) and Vietnam are probably the closest things to it currently on the planet. Most nations that try it (or versions of it) see insurrections, coups, economic blockades, propaganda war, and sometimes outright shooting war sponsored by governments controlled by those who skim the value of others' labor. See also: Chile for about a minute, Venezuela (better example of the consequences of outside subversion than a developed system), France (about 1945 to 1989), some of China's history, Ethiopia in the 1970s. The economic programs of Mohammad Mosaddegh, Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende, Daniel Ortega, Abdullah Ocalan, or Bobby Seale may also shed some light on variations on this approach.

If all of that is too brown, or too red, or too opaque for you to relate to, try Woody Guthrie, Boots Riley, and Joe Strummer.
I have no idea where you got the notion that Cuba has the best health care in the world. It doesn't. It does have surprisingly GOOD health care, and many Bahamians who can't afford treatment in the US go there instead, but it's far from "the best" by any reasonable measurable standard. For example, infant mortality rates in Cuba are about the same as the USA, and both are far behind most Western European nations, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

As for most of the nations you mentioned, other than France, I'm pretty damn sure I don't want to live in them. Chile? Maybe under Allende. Maybe now, too.

The problem with pure Communism (as opposed to Socialism) is that it only works in very peculiar circumstances that usually only occur in traditional subsistence societies, not the industrialized world. Neither does Wild West free-booting Capitalism.

What works is a set of rules that allows profit-making companies to develop and grow, but sets and ENFORCES strict rules of the road and requires everyone able to, to contribute a share to maintain the society commensurate with the benefits they accrue. It's not simple. It's not easy. And it's certainly not Republican, as Republicans have been since Reagan. And it's not Democratic, either, but it's more Democratic than Republican. It's a way to find a balance between competing interests among all 320 million Americans, something neither party has been willing to face.

But there are no easy solutions. Well, actually, there are, but as H.L.Mencken pointed out, those easy solutions are all, all wrong. Everyone of them.

BTW, as much as I admire and revere Woody Guthrie, and appreciate his deep, deep empathy for all the down-trodden of America, I don't consider him a significant political thinker. And my dad and his pals actually had the privilege one night of getting drunk with Woody, a long, long time ago.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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What's the difference between communism and socialism in your usage? I'm definitely not understanding what you mean by that. I'm not sure what you mean about communism only working in subsistence societies either? I'm guessing that you mean to say that "communism" is some particular thing that only runs one way (which is entirely different from my use and understanding of the word), but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

The question about what works depends very much on what you think it is for an economic system to work. What is the end goal of setting up a society's rules? Certainly economic precarity of the kind that this thread is discussing is characteristic of the boom and bust cycles of capitalism. The assumptions of that system are not the only way for people to live.
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Re: Economic Troubles and Trump

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Marlene wrote:What's the difference between communism and socialism in your usage? I'm definitely not understanding what you mean by that. I'm not sure what you mean about communism only working in subsistence societies either? I'm guessing that you mean to say that "communism" is some particular thing that only runs one way (which is entirely different from my use and understanding of the word), but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

The question about what works depends very much on what you think it is for an economic system to work. What is the end goal of setting up a society's rules? Certainly economic precarity of the kind that this thread is discussing is characteristic of the boom and bust cycles of capitalism. The assumptions of that system are not the only way for people to live.
Communism and Socialism are definitely NOT the same thing. Anyone who thinks they are hasn't given Marx even a cursory reading. Even in the simple, simplistic and bombastic "Communist Manifesto" of 1848, it's clear they aren't the same. I thought it was brilliant when I was 14...in 1969, but I'm LONG past that 14 year old naive teenager in the Summer of Woodstock, the moon landing, and the Mets winning the World Series. Now? I realize it was more a reaction and follow-through on the backwash of the 1848 revolutions throughout Europe. That was 169 years ago.

But if you don't know the fundamental difference between Communism and Socialism, as defined by Marx, then spouting about how wonderful it is doesn't reflect well, especially to people who DO know the difference.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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Marlene .. I'm giving myself a head ache trying to figure out what I am supposed to be looking at.. and I didn't appreciate the cheap shot about the colors .. I am totally serious about trying to figure out what some of you guys are talking about.

Per capita GDP is less than $8000 which includes the free, subsidized, or state provided stuff medical education housing food .. wages are $17 to $40 a month.. heavy government regulation private restaurants can't have more than 12 tables and can only Family members .. by and large folks can't pick their own careers or choose their educational track .. Exceptionally good infant mortality rate.. but not the highest in South America Life expectancy is just one rank world wide under ours we are 31 Cuba 32nd.. so not the best in the world but first world .. Problem is half of their doctors leave the Island, most come here.. and access to care is more or less concentrated in the big cities .. small Island not a major problem ..

The crucial thing, since I suppose we are mostly talking economics' .. is Cuba is not self sustaining .. they get subsidized first by Russia for about 1/3rd of their economy and when the Russian Economy collapsed they went thru some serious hard times .. then the Venezuelans stepped in and now that they are collapsing bad times are back.. I'm not talking Trade.. subsidies .. outside charity including food.. lot of very unhappy Cuban have fled the country .. hate the government/economic system and again mostly come here.. we are closest I supposed and end money home.. they don't export much so hard currency is a problem and can't import much.. so I assume the basis for needing outside donations subsidies assistance to keep the economy afloat main trading partners are Holland and Canada and they severely restrict foreign investment allow limited business partnerships with only Venezuela companies to operate independently in the country.
If an economic system can't sustain itself and can't provide more than a subsistence existence with very limited self expression .. how is it better or even desirable .. not picking of Cuba, first country you listed .. and in trying to find advantages Ii got a splitting headache... a quick look at the others indicated many of the same basic issues .. with no apparent or visible advantages

Give me a clue.. what am I looking for or what do you see that puts these countries / economic systems on you list of good/ desirable examples .. a very high proportion on their natives find their systems intolerable to the point they leave.. that incudes Iran

I know the common excuse is US interference meddling sanctions CIA plots .. and I don't wish to discount that.. but I can't help but notice the resistance to improved relations mostly comes from Expats and it's the Expats that are most vocal about special immigration rules to facilitate getting friends family and fellow countrymen out of those countries. By whatever label communist or socialist people republic folk wanting to leave for a variety of reasons.. economic, not least among them, seems to be a universal issue ( I'm including property laws that fueled much of Trumps real estate business and made the Chinese prime targets for investment based visas to say nothing of corrupt banking world wide fueled by folks trying to protect their capital )

Which comes right back to the basic question of why you offer them as desirable models of what you say is a better system ? What did you want me to see.. what am I missing?

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