The most disturbing thing of it is that the economy is perceived as the most important thing in our lifes. It has to grow or else we lose money and our life standard might drop. While this may seem true it is only so because we believe it is so and maintain this perception and live up to it. It's all about competition but with economics it isn't really the law of nature indeed. It's man made and if we didn't believe in it so much economics could benefit people even more and not be such a terrible influence on peoples jobs and the environment etc. If lots of people are needed to keep an economy healthy and have to make sacrifices because of it, as opposed to have an economy that is primarily maintained to keep the people healthy and makes sacrifices because of that there's something off. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that an economy that has to grow chronically will cause problems. Already when it just keeps on growing but especially of course when at some point the economy has trouble to grow and (suprise!) workers have to give in or else.
Rat But we do talk about it I even think we have been through this before - anyway - The thing is that the prices of goods and services fluctuate that is why some things go up and down in price. That is part of the market and is due to many factors, for example technology - many of us have in our pockets computers that are more powerful than the ones that once could only be afforded by large corporations or governments. In fact many goods and services have gone down in price relative terms. A price is a price – the price of a pig in 19th century America may have been say 1 dollar when wages stood at 2 dollars a week and today a similar pig might cost 60 dollars when the weekly wage is 200 dollars a week, has the pig become more expensive or cheaper in relative terms? So it is the price relationship that is important, the problems arises when the relationships don’t add up as in the pig going up to 100 dollars when people still only earned 2 dollars. The problem for many is that in relative terms their wages have gone down or stagnated. And that is due to free market neolibralism not socialism.
scratcho Economics like many disciplines the closer you get the more complex it becomes, I always keep at least three steps back. But basically it comes down to who you wish to benefit the most out of your society – that can have a moral, political and ideological dimension. The dominant economic idea at the moment basically says that equality is impossible it make an economic system sluggish and therefore brings down the living standards of everyone therefore trying for it was stupid that only by ‘releasing’ the free market would a system become dynamic and although that would increase inequality it would be a tide that ‘raised all boats’. It was the favourite economic model of wealth and the wealthy and the major beneficiary has been wealth and the wealthy. I think the neoliberal experiment hasn’t worked in fact it has been disastrous (for many people) and we need a new economic approach.
6 Basically you are describing the boom and bust of a basic free market economy, the rise in predator numbers in a ‘boom’ followed by the ‘bust’ when they die. But do you just let humans die of want when the economy tanks? Many people died as a direct result of the Great Depression, people that would have lived if it hadn’t happened and the economy had been directed to help them. There have been people here following free market economic models that have basically said that people should die of want in such economic downturns that it was better economically that they should. That is why I say economic can have a moral dimension. Thing is Keynesian economic models can help in lessening the impact of the boom bust business cycle. To me that makes economic as well as moral sense.
Supply and demand is a natural law, and when some force pushes a market too far away from its natural supply and demand balance point, there are always consequences. Freaky things start to happen. I like to live below my means. My grandparents used to be fascinated by inflation, which bugged the hell out of me. All that matters is what something costs as expressed as a percentage of your income. The numbers or the name of the currency... trivial. Have workers lost ground over the last 20 years? Hard to say. Expectations have gone up so much. People who work at McDonald's consider a smartphone with a $120 a month data plan to be a basic necessity of life. 20 years ago, a voice only cell phone was more like $60 a month and was considered a luxury. The thing that's changed the most is that the income imbalance between the rich and poor has reverted to what it was like in the late 1800's.
Absolutely absurd and just plain erroneous. If inflation is irrelevant, tell that to Venezuela, which is a country currently under collapse because of a currency crisis. If your grandparents were "fascinated by inflation," then it's probably because they've seen just how much things increased in price within their lifetime. The fact that hearing about it "bugged" you is rather telling, but indicative of most people's mindset when it comes to such issues. The reason the economy is tanking boils down to the fact that the currency is increasingly being devalued from all the manipulation that has been allowed to go on over the years where the Federal Reserve prints money out of nothing (fractional reserve banking) while manipulating interest rates. But feel free to repeat something you read in Time magazine.
What I see is a system that can be easily manipulated to the advantage of those that have made up all the gimmicks, bells and whistles of that very system. Everything we see, that has been affected by humans is obviously man made, with the exception of whatever is left undisturbed in nature and can/could be changed into any type of system wanted. Commodities don't rise from the ground with price tags on them and prices of 'wants' rather than needs is now the determining factor in the exchange of goods & services, not "actual" values. If NEEDS instead of wants were a factor in the health, happiness, and security of all humans, it would be understood that capitalism itself is to blame for providing the vehicle for one of the worst of human traits---that is greed. We were born into the system and it's natural to accept that if that's the way it's done, it must be correct to continue to do so. So, if we accept the basic premise, then more than likely, we will accept all the follows from that premise. The discussions concerning how to FIX a system out of balance are necessarily within the parameters of the system in which it stands at any given time. That's what we see with this election and why Sanders is offering a somewhat differing view as to fixing inequities. It's still the same because his fixes, if he could ever get anything done with the current line up of blockheads in the legislature, still are within the parameters I mentioned. Hell, I've lived it and had big bucks sometimes and little bucks at other times. It is true that if one plays the game successfully, one can have much "stuff." Yeah, "stuff" is fun--I've had "stuff" and at other times I've had almost no "stuff." But I have to say--again--I would invite anyone to look up Inflation on Wiki and come away with a solid handle on the terms and the ins and outs of a ( perhaps purposeful ) obfuscation of how the manipulators lay out the bullshit. I concede that I'm not smart enough or even have the desire to try and understand the BS that economists, wall streeters, legislators put out concerning what "WE" NEED" to do now. At any rate, I hope Sanders gets a shot at trying to at least bring some semblance of justice to the system while it lasts.
They could afford to buy a lot more at that time than they could in the past, so they had nothing to complain about. Inflation appeared to be benefiting them. Their house was probably worth ten times what it cost them. Their obsession with meaningless numbers was fucking annoying. I clearly understood that a dollar was worth exactly what I could buy with it. No more, no less. Is that still being published? If so, feel free to shove a printed copy up your ass.
So convictive/too judgemental as usual. Someone says it bugged her, you know rightaway why, with absolute certainty of course... until she explains why it bugged. This example is well, lets use your own words, rather telling of your own mindset Hope you take notice
[SIZE=11pt]Rat[/SIZE] [SIZE=11pt]I think you seem to be specifically referring to Quantitative easing rather than Fractional-reserve banking (QE the printing or these days the electronic production of money). [/SIZE] Now this is a policy that was championed by that doyen of the free marketeer’s – Milton Friedman. The basic idea seems to be that in a financial dip new money could be pumped into the financial system until the ‘free market’ recovered and then the money could be slowly withdrawn. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1990’s and I don’t think it has worked anywhere else were the problem has been anything more than a mild dip. Keynes and many Keynesians are not such supporters of quantitative easing and Keynes even warned against its use. He seems to have seen it as a not very effective short term stop gap to give time so that other more effective solutions could be put in place such as getting wages back into the system, through direct government investment in an economy. Read – Utopia, no just Keynes http://www.hipforums...ad.php?t=328353
The problem is that everything already costs more. The only thing that hasn't grown with inflation is the minimum wage. Which means instead of negating $15/hr by inflation rising to meet the minimum wage, it's devalued $7.25/hr by outgrowing the minimum wage.
You're right... because the issue is the opposite of what you mentioned. Generally speaking it's "inflation happens - (eventually) wages go up".
But getting back on topic... is either Bernie or Hillary not qualified to be president? Because they both seem to think that of the other. Sure, Sanders said Hillary said "quote unquote" that he wasn't qualified... but she didn't say those exact words. And Sanders didn't specifically say "Hillary is not qualified", instead referring to reasons that would disqualify a candidate... in his eyes. But, I think they're both qualified to run for president. (Although, in my opinion, if anyone wasn't qualified it would (could) be Hillary, due to her lies, failed and/or damaging international policies, and untrustworthy positions on just about anything... for starters.) And then there's Bill, who should really never have been allowed out of the house. His only big news has been ways he's screwing shit up... going into a polling station during voting hours, telling BLM protesters they're protecting crack fueled murdering drug dealers, and so on...) He's like the guy who had too much to drink and think he's still cool when he's actually just making an ass out of himself.
Increasing the minimum wage only has a significant impact on inflation when a large percentage of a country's workforce makes the minimum wage. Not the case here. I wish there was a formula to automatically adjust the minimum wage for inflation. I would think Bernie would be in favor of that. I haven't heard anything specific from him on it.
oops, double post..... Why would someone delete the post with the content in it, i posted, and not this one? Well, here is what i posted again....that was here two times. quoted verbatum from an email I received earlier.... Bernie To Meet With Francis... “I am delighted to have been invited by the Vatican to a meeting on restoring social justice and environmental sustainability to the world economy,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “Pope Francis has made clear that we must overcome ‘the globalization of indifference’ in order to reduce economic inequalities, stop financial corruption and protect the natural environment. That is our challenge in the United States and in the world.” “He has played an unbelievable role, an unbelievable role of injecting a moral consequence into the economy,” said Mr. Sanders, who would become the first Jewish president in the United States if elected. “He is talking about the idolatry of money, the worship of money, the greed that’s out there, how our whole culture is based on: ‘I need more and more and more. And, I don’t have to worry about veterans sleeping out on the street or elderly people who can’t afford their prescriptions.’”
As quiet as it’d kept Bernie Sanders is too old to be President. He’s currently 74 and will be 75 in September. The oldest President to assume office was Reagan and he was 69, 6 years Sanders junior. The last 4 years of the Reagan administration was Orchestrated under the haze and fog of Alzheimer’s Disease Hotwater
No way. Sanders released his records and he's in great shape. Don't you watch his speeches? The guy has more energy than I do and I'm only thirty-five. She's not winning more delegates. The bullshit media you're watching keeps adding "superdelegates" to her count, as if she has already won that many delegates. Superdelegates are subject to change at any time. So Bernie flipped Nevada and it looks like today he flipped Missouri too! Another state in Bernie's column!
That is just an ageist thing to say.....Ihave known old people in their 90's more with it it than many young people I knew......things strike people of all ages.....some old people may show you one day. Some suffer from alzeimer's, and some do not....Hopefully, he would pick a great VP, with that kind of thing in mind. I don't think he would want to leave anything high and dry.
The point isnt really for bernie to remain healthy in the white house for 8 years (although it is possible. He could live to be 100 for all we know). The point is that he is creating a grassroots political movement that will outlive him and moving american politics further to the left from where we've been stuck in far right territory for too long. A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit under
