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Originally posted by TheodoreBundy
Ron Paul will never be president. Too many sleeping people in the US.
Originally posted by Skewed
Until they decide to target the head of the problem, they are only chopping off the arms, only to grow back.
Until the Federal Reserve is closed down, the problem will never be solved.
By the way, everyone should have a signature banner that looks just like mine.
John Maynard Keynes...
"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.... The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose." John Maynard Keynes Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920)
www.overlordsofchaos.com...
.... While much of Professor Yeager’s work in monetary disequilibrium theory is compatible with Austrian economic thought, his view of injection effects and intermediation is remarkably similar to the views of John Maynard Keynes.4 Yeager (ibid., p. 162) argues that fractional-reserve banking provides an important intermediary service, “Demands for additional ‘money’ thereby get intermediated into additional supplies of ‘credit.’ And this intermediation is appropriate. It does not counterfeit or misrepresent the availability of resources.” If banks do not engage in such intermediation an increased demand for money may “impair the allocation of resources as savers and investors (and consumers) desire” (ibid.).5
mises.org...
money is the reason why there is poverty...
money is the reason why there is oppression...
money is the reason why there is starvation...
money is the reason why there is war...
... money exists to facilitate trade when basic barter isn’t practical....
Perhaps I am in one group with a surplus of dried meat and you are in the other with a surplus of tubers. It would stand to reason that we would agree to trade some quantity of one for the other. But what if I don’t want your tubers? ...
Eventually you show me some flint knife blades and I don’t need them because I have plenty of my own knife blades but I realize the following…
* They never go bad, rot, etc.(durable)
* I can trade them later for something I do want (intrinsic worth)
* It took me less energy to get my meat then to make a blade (profit)
* I can trade multiple blades with multiple individuals (divisible)
www.trtam.com...
...Given the previous hyperinflation, clearly there was ample reason for currency revulsion. So you can consider this argument a necessary but not sufficient precondition. What makes the universal acceptance stick is that government accepts its own money to expunge liabilities to it. In plain English, fiat money has value because it is the only money you can use to pay taxes. ....The fact that this money is also the medium of exchange only entrenches its use.So the tax liability is a necessary pre-condition for fiat currency to work, something I will return to....
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none is so effectual as that which deludes them with paper money. It is the most perfect expedient ever invented for fertilizing the rich man’s fields by the sweat of the poor man’s brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the community compared with fraudulent currencies and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. [inflation cv] Our own history has recorded enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice and intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by law, or in any way countenanced by Government. ~Nelson W. Aldrich, United States Senator, at a New York City dinner speech on October 15, 1913 IV Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science #1, at 38 (Columbia University, New York (1914)). [He was quoting Andrew Jackson. cv] www.linuxtoday.com...
Originally posted by buster2010
reply to post by getreadyalready
By the way, everyone should have a signature banner that looks just like mine.
Why? He lost my support when he signed the Susan B. Anthony pledge
I officially say that The SHTF already.
...Given the previous hyperinflation, clearly there was ample reason for currency revulsion. So you can consider this argument a necessary but not sufficient precondition. What makes the universal acceptance stick is that government accepts its own money to expunge liabilities to it. In plain English, fiat money has value because it is the only money you can use to pay taxes. ....The fact that this money is also the medium of exchange only entrenches its use. So the tax liability is a necessary pre-condition for fiat currency to work, something I will return to....
[No wonder Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified was Ratified 2/3/1913, a couple months after the Federal Reserve Act. cv]
Weimar Germany 1919-1923
The key to Weimar's hyperinflation was two-fold.
1. The German government had a large foreign currency debt obligation.
2. The German economy lost huge amounts of productive capacity causing prices to soar as demand outstripped supply....
Zimbabwe
While the facts in Zimbabwe are different, the underlying causes for hyperinflation were the same: foreign currency obligations and a loss of productive capacity.
Zimbabwe had established Independence from Britain in 1980. Yet, by the late 1990s 70% of productive arable land was still held by the small minority 1% of white farmers in the country. After years of talk about redistribution, in 2000, the President Robert Mugabe began to redistribute this land.
The redistribution process was a disaster, .... With agricultural production having plummeted, Zimbabwe was forced to pay to import food in hard currency.
Meanwhile, the government turned to the printing presses to fulfil its domestic obligations. as in Germany, the foreign currency obligations, the loss of productive capacity and the money printing was a toxic brew which ended in hyperinflation.
Hyperinflation in the USA, May 2010
As you can see from the two most severe cases of hyperinflation, the problem in each case was a loss of productive capacity, foreign currency liabilities, and a loss of the ability to tax....
In the German example, the Germans had a huge foreign currency liability that it had to pay, meaning it could not make good on the liability by printing money. It was a currency user as far as these liabilities went. Meanwhile, with productive capacity limited, the government was then unable to ease price pressure through the tax lever. The shortage of goods drove up prices inexorably and the government was forced to turn to the printing press in order to meet its domestic obligations.
In the Zimbabwe example, taxes were again central. Unable to recoup enough tax revenue and with large foreign currency obligations and a loss of productive capacity, the government resorted to printing money in an environment where prices were rising.
So, hyperinflation has very specific preconditions that are not apparent in the U.S..
1. No foreign currency liability: The U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency so the U.S. can pay for trade goods in U.S. dollars.. The U.S. does not have a peg to gold or some other currency which acts as a de facto foreign currency liability. And the U.S. government has substantially no foreign currency liabilities. All of the debt is issued in domestic currency.
2. Price pressures are still anchored: While commodity prices are rising, they are rising in all currencies, not just in USD. Moreover, their rise will create demand destruction before any hyperinflation could occur. Why? Unemployment is high and capacity utilization is low, meaning there are no inflationary pressures on that front to help push inflation higher before demand destruction sets in.
3. Currency revulsion has not set in: Tax compliance is high in the U.S. We are not talking about Russia, Greece or Argentina where government has had a difficult time in raising tax. Moreover, as the USD is still the world's reserve currency, there has been no freefall sell off of dollars, nor do I anticipate any in the near-to-medium term.
In short, there will be no hyperinflation in the U.S. any time soon.... www.creditwritedowns.com...
Originally posted by Grimbone
This is a joke. I must balance my budget and so should the government. They should be forced to balance the budget and stop spending money NOW or our future generations will suffer drastically. We are already seeing the beginning of it.
Why we continue to let them play by a different set of rules is beyond me.
Originally posted by buster2010
reply to post by getreadyalready
By the way, everyone should have a signature banner that looks just like mine.
Why? He lost my support when he signed the Susan B. Anthony pledge