Tariffs. How are you affected?

I was about to LIKE your post except for the last paragraph. BUT I know that is a common conception. (I agree with you on crypto.)

What people forget is that any form of currency maintains an abstract value. Regardless of whether it is backed by another commodity or not. That commodity in an indirect sense becomes the currency and it too has an abstract value. In other words, it is only worth what someone else will pay for it. To make the point to people that argue for a gold standard, I tell them to think about what would happen if we actually had this economic meltdown they talk about. One of their main goals would become securing food, water, and medicine, maybe clothing at some point. You could have all kinds of gold, and do you think someone else will want your gold? No. Gold will be worthless!

So, being an abstract value, obviously you want to maintain the value of your currency through credibility, political strength, and national ethics. That is the only way to authentically prop up its 'inherent' value and maintain it. How it compares to other currencies is then a matter of market values (supply and demand, etc.) around that inherent value. And of course, if you are the biggest player and have the largest currency in circulation, the world's Central Banks will be filled with your currency and it becomes the standard of trade. This is why China, which has tried for years to come up with an alternative reserve currency, cannot. There are dollars everywhere.

Back in the late '80's, after I had predicted the crash of the Tokyo market and the upcoming Japanese credit crisis, I was already planning to start my own investment company, and I wanted to know where my investment focus would be. I decided to do this by researching and writing a book. Originally it was for myself, but people kept urging me to publish it----I never finished it so that never happened. But much of the research was done at Shearson, and I loved to talk about it----including to one of the guys in our New York office who was our global strategist. I forget his name, but he was often on CNBC in the late 80's and 90's. Much of the research department didn't like him because, despite being very intelligent, he couldn't see the forest for the trees---so he would take everyone else's research and present it as his own. Sometimes I would spend hours on the phone with him talking about my book and my research. Years later I found many of my ideas in a book written by one of the directors of the investment firm, KKR. The author quoted this guy quite a bit, and attributed much of the ideas to him. The title was something like The Coming Economic Boom, or something like that. It was cool to see some of my ideas in print, but I also saw how stupid it was to share so freely with him. (As for my goals, my Japanese first wife stole much of the money I was going to invest in my investment company, the night after we incorporated in Manila, there was a coup attempt against the Aquino government, which provided me an excuse to shut it down, because I wanted to work for me, not my investors, and I no longer had the money. Then life got in the way as I tried to rebuild my capital, and so the book got set aside till later. Eventually I ended up back in the States, working in the stock market again, but the things I had predicted were already happening. And if I wanted to write the book I would have to update it with so much that happened, so I gave up on that.) BUT I DIGRESS.

The book was steeped in Schumpeterian economics. It was also influenced by such things as the Kondratiev Wave as I identified a similar roughly 60 year cycle in American wholesale inflation, when converting data to decennial data. I determined that this cycle relied on a primary coefficient of production in the US economy---first wood, then steam, then oil, and what I call today, Silicon. We left the era of oil in the early1990's as I recall---I haven't looked at the book for years (It is actually on floppy disks)---entering into the era of silicon. There was a second cycle that I identified that was connected to bull markets in the stock market, but actually represented peaks in corruption and business activity. This one is not as easy to objectively measure, but it follows a 2 decade pattern. In other words, every other decade sees a super bull market peak, which is accompanied by a crescendo of business activity and corruption. We are in that second decade now when it all peaks. (In fact, with the corruption happening in the 2010's, I thought maybe that cycle had changed-----but no-----it is still valid as, for example, Trump has used his second term to pocket $3.2 Billion so far! The overall corruption so far this decade is much worse than the 2010's)

The reason why I mention all this is because in researching this book, I gathered wholesale inflation data going back to the founding of our country (granted the earliest data used different measures and commodities, but...) then I converted it to a decennial moving average, i.e. a decade moving average. You could look at this and see a very clear picture of America's business, or boom and bust, cycle all the way back to its beginning. There were very large spikes in inflation, and periods of deflation. To experience deflation is far worse than inflation. We think, falling prices, that would be great! But the reality is pretty bad---for one thing, factories spend more money to make products than to sell them, as revenues drop below expenses. That is what a depression is all about.

The Federal Reserve was created with one purpose in mind----to prevent deflation. And when you look at this chart (which I still have somewhere. If anyone wants to see it I'll dig it out and post it) they did an incredible job. We had deflation in the Great Depression but that was it. And the FED also smoothed out the business cycle eliminating the inflationary spikes that we had in previous centuries. We all think that the stagflation of the early 80's was terrible, but you should see the spikes before the Fed was created. And don't forget---we had a credit crisis in 2008. A credit crisis is a depressionary event! There are only 3 cases in history of a credit crisis not becoming a depression. Japan was one of the cases in 1990, and they survived because the Japanese were so obsessed with saving money. But 36 years later, and they have still never fully recovered. Then there is the US in 2008. Not only did we avoid a depression, but we had a recovery that was, by economic standards, miraculous! (The other historical case was a European country that I always forget.)

So is the FED secretly controlled by a nefarious cabal of the evil rich? I've never seen real proof of this, so I can't say. But what the FED has done is amazing for the nation, and I can prove that. They are humans and they are operating on monetary theory so obviously they make mistakes and learn, but their track record of working to optimize the US economy, and the actual results, is amazing, and contributes to why the dollar is so respected as a global reserve currency. Not to mention that it is why US treasuries are the standard of risk-free.

This graph also shows an upward shift of the trend after the creation of the FED. This takes us back to the actual or classical definition of inflation--increase in the money supply. And this is what discussions of a fiat currency love to harp on---that our money supply is growing. But they fail to realize, or choose to ignore, that a growing economy requires growth. A growing population, a growing money supply, etc. They talk about the price of a Model T and how bad inflation is. The problem is, what were the salaries of the people making the Model T's and everyone else at that time, and the price of the raw materials, and all goods in the 20's? Think about the size of the US population in the 1920's and how it was only a small fraction of what it is today. If we still had the same money supply that we had then, most people would have no money at all. There wouldn't be enough money to go around!

Those who talk of fiat currencies love to provide historical cases, but in those cases, money was primarily used only by the privileged class and merchants. Most of the populations lived by barter and self subsistence. For example, stories about currency in ancient China affected only the very wealthy. Most peasants never even saw money. Even in later examples, where money was more integrated into daily business, the collapse of a currency had little to do with the peasants, who simply traded their own produce for goods. These examples have little relevance to modern economies.

Very few people talk about the real reason we went off the gold standard: it retards economic growth by limiting the size of the currency to the size of the commodity that backs it. In this way it actually takes part in creating recessions and depressions. As an economy tries to grow beyond the size of the money supply (or even if its population grows) the gold supply forces it back to the size of the gold backing by pulling the economy down. This is why we tried to add silver to the backing of the currency, before eliminating the gold standard. There is not enough gold and silver in the world in order to back the economy and population we have today.

Monetary policy dictates the size of the money supply---that is response to actual economic data. This is actually different than a fiat currency where the size is set by 'decree,' and is why independence of the FED is extremely vital to the US economy and the value of the Dollar. We certainly don't want a president to dictate policy because he wants to artificially raise the economy ahead of elections, or to appease the people or make him look strong. This is especially true when you have an actual moron for a president as we do now. How can we know that the FED is not dictating policy to meet the goals of a cabal of nefarious bankers set on world domination? Because every movement they make is literally in response to economic data and their projection of that data---right or wrong, it is data based and their interpretation of that data. Furthermore, all we have to do is look at a graph of decennial wholesale inflation to see exactly how well they have done this.

The FED does not determine the size of the money supply by decree (by fiat). But Trump wants to strengthen a weakening economy that is facing inflationary forces that he has created and aggravated, and that is weakening as a direct result of his actions and policies. He wants to lower interest rates that will directly raise inflationary pressures. He thinks this will stimulate job growth, and it could temporarily. Fascist dictators often promote short term growth before their policies decimate the economy. Trump has destroyed our export markets, is mass deporting essential workers (and a great source of tax revenues), enacting a brain drain and so forth. His actions to manipulate currency and interest rates would be a literal fiat or decree!

There is one thing we can agree on---there are evil wealthy people that are hijacking our economy over their own interests, taking advantage of the people of America. Trump is aiding them and working for them. He is selling the soul of America to them for his own selfish gains.

 

Seeing that Gold has hit Five Thousand Dollars per troy ounce.

 

“The FED”, a private entity, prints/creates our country’s money supply and issues our government’s debt.

I understand that our politicians’ spending decisions are so irresponsible that investors would not accept our currency were they not guaranteed some sort of interest/return for doing so. I also understand that, were the printing and issuing back in the hands of the politicians, they would sooner or later, and probably sooner and frequently, use those powers unwisely. I still want them to have that power directly and for the people to be able to see it.

As it is, the “buffer” on accountability offered by a supposedly independent and benevolent FED allows obscured manipulation of the economy by financial interests, who also get to “drink from the tap”, and for the politicians to shield themselves from the inflationary consequences of their obscene deficit spending.

 

Inflation in general has a great effect on working class Americans. like many other older members on the forum. We depend on pension to live, and we have had to cut many things in the past few years. So, unless you are just rich you are going to be affected by tariffs.

 

Agreed. Keynes’ dismissal of inflation with, “in the long run, we’re all dead,” struck me, upon first encountering it, as the short-sighted perspective of a flaming aristocrat. And that is precisely what he was.

 

Well, with all due respect, the Treasury Department both prints money and issues our government's debt. The Fed manipulates the money supply by buying and selling government debt, raising and lowering bank reserves, which determines what banks can loan, thus providing the multiplier effect, which roughly means, banks can lend more or less on their deposits, while keeping the deposits available for the people who keep their money in the bank. The FED can also set the Federal Funds rate which is the rate banks charge each other or the Fed charges to lend money overnight. The Fed Funds Rate has a large influence over interest rates in general.

But the rates on treasury bills and bonds, and in turn the overall bond market are determined by investors in the bond markets. Of course, it is influenced by the Fed Funds rate, as bond traders take that into consideration. The Fed Funds rate directly influences the rate that banks lend money out, but again, this can also be influenced by what investors want to lend money, which is dominantly influenced directly by bond rates.

Investors also need to get a return for the time they allow the use of their money. Why would an investor say, you can use my money for the next 3 months for free? Time is money.

The world respects the US, and the strength of its economy so much so, that Treasury bills and bonds are the bellwether or standard of what is determined to be risk-free. In other words, both the global markets, and the markets within the US consider the interest on government bonds to be risk-free and therefore the literal cost of money for the time it is provided. Since it is largely determined by the markets---how much investors and traders will pay for the bonds--then, of course, risk is calculated into the rate by how investors feel about the economy or interest rates over that time frame. Therefore the yield curve is an important indicator of what bond investors are feeling about the future.

This is the part I just can't understand about these narratives. What this is saying is that you want to inflict pain and suffering on everyone. Is that really what you want?

I assume that you live here in the United States, and are not a Russian provocateur doing what he can to sabotage the West. It doesn't matter whether the Fed is a cover for evil manipulations by large financial interests or not, if we tarnish the credibility of US Treasuries and the Fed, we would not find ourselves in a simple recession, or even a bad recession----it would be a horrible credit crisis that would plunge the world into depression. If there was a Nation that was strong enough financially and had a global presence great enough to take our place, then it may not be so bad for the world, but it would still put the US into a depression that would be hard to rise up from.
I say, 'may not be' because such an event would be the tipping point I warned about earlier that would mark the very end of capitalism, and a new dark ages for human kind. The world would be fine if there had already been a significant shift from the US as purveyor of Risk-Free assets, to whatever such new Risk-Free assets would be. This new nation would have to have a strong consumer market and manufacturing sector, and be able to replace the US as the biggest market and economy in the world. Then goods would continue to flow, money would continue to be made, governments and central banks would continue to be solvent and viable. This happened before---when the British Pound lost its Reserve Currency status. At that time, the US was the new economy, and the shift had already been happening for sometime. And this had a lot to do with the development of infrastructure that the US had created in the second world war. We built roads and landing strips, created a foreign demand for American products, created markets, etc. American companies replaced our soldiers through out the world, and we were viewed as the heroes of the war. And then we were successful in creating a new economic powerhouse because of our amazing and booming post-war economy. Everything fit perfectly into place for us----from factories that could now create consumer goods after pounding out weapons, to babies (us baby boomers that is), to previous years of having fewer babies, which meant that many American workers were in such high demand that they could almost name their salary------which created affluence and wealth. There was so much that happened in our favor after World War II that created the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

China wants to be that new American-style global leader. But they don't have the economy, they don't have the influence, or the income and wealth, etc.

No, the economic collapse that this would entail, would stop the global economy. Supply chains would break down, factories would stop, goods would stop flowing, services would end. People wouldn't be able to get medicine or food. This is not a game of Monopoly or Risk. Real people's lives are on the line here. This is not an exaggeration----the whole world holds US debt, from Central Banks, to private banks, to multinational corporations, etc. And all the other assets that make up the financial assets were priced based on these rates as the standard. Global currencies are priced in relation to the US dollar. So much would collapse. And this would happen in a world where no one can be even partially self-sufficient any more.

If the American Empire is coming to an end, then it is far better that Trump destroys our lead position and we enter into a period of slow decay and economic ruin, that will give the world time to react and build on a more decentralized global strength----which, by the way----we built through the global market place we created and could have reaped great benefits from. But if we were to destroy the FED, or otherwise get pushed into a credit crisis that is centered in our government debt it will be very bad! (The credit crisis in 2008, for example, dealt with mortgage backed securities and commercial debt, which was still depressionay, but the world was relatively safe from such a total collapse...)

Is there reckless deficit spending? Certainly. US government debt is a big problem and a potential looming crisis. Trump is making it far worse, as he did in his first term. He is making it less likely for us to be able to deal with it---disastrously so. This is not something that is masked over by the Fed which enables it to happen. Congress and the President are creating debt for all the world to see--right in front of us. Their mismanagement is as clear as day. And yet people still support him and voted him back in-----which baffles me at the sheer stupidity of the American people right now.

We don't need a secret cabal of bankers to manipulate us out of our money in secret. Because the greed of America's wealthy, and their success at avoiding taxation, and a system that enables them to profit off the suffering of the people, the financial idiocy of the creators of Project 2025 and their control over policies, the racism of the American people and how they would rather everyone to suffer rather than allow people of color to have a piece of the pie, and how Christian Nationalists would gladly destroy everything we have in hopes that it would make their Jesus come down to save us----these people are all doing it fine, right in front of us! (And this is why I think these conspiracy theories are so dangerous. We should be facing the problem at hand and stopping the instigators, instead of blaming some secret group that is mysteriously supposed to be the problem. And then in turn we destroy the very institution that is there to help us---and hand the keys to the real culprits!)

 

Not only do tariffs raise prices, it takes more of your money and hands it to the government, while the president tries to tell you he's lowering taxes, which he is really only doing for the very wealthy!

 

I know that what I am telling you is a challenge to probably years of reading and hearing narratives and so forth. But these are the facts about what the FED is and does that you can check yourself.

Conspiracy theories are like religious beliefs---and to challenge one is akin to challenging someone's religious beliefs. But consider this, my general rule for dealing with conspiracy theories is that the real conspiracy is what the conspiracy theory is trying to point you away from.

In this case, the theory is telling you to, 'look over there at those evil Rothschilds. They are doing this!' So while you are looking over there----your own government is doing the evil stuff. And then if you ask, 'Hey, what are you doing? That's not right!' Then the response is, 'Yes, I'm bad, because of them. Look back over there at those evil Rothschilds! We need to stop them!"

 

Or that the fed is neither federal, nor does it have any reserve....

 

There was some hope during the 2024 campaign that he would be fiscally conservative by cutting/gutting liberal pork projects (no, not social security). Since the election, while there was some hope early on as programs and funding were slashed, those hopes have largely faded and no one really believes he’s a fiscal conservative.

As to why so many voted him back in; we were fed up with all the leftist-globohomo agenda being forced down our throats and the not just un-enforced border, but the open invitation to come and take our country and its wealth from us. It’s not racist to want to keep your country’s wealth, character, and culture the way it was and that you prefer. Every other non-western country does so without being deprived of the choice to do so. But the changes forced on us were so large and fast that many finally said “fuck it! If it’s racist to want to keep your own country and culture, then let’s just adopt the label and give the the other side the racism that they are claiming we carry as an original sin.”

As I’ve said here in other conversations, it’s not that we thought highly of trump - I don’t know anyone who really does. It’s that we were so fed up with the maladaptive liberal ideology and policies that were being forced on us. Trump was not only preferable to that, he was a “great big middle finger” to it.

I’d speculate that he may have just been a temporary pressure relief valve.

 

But couldn't you see how fiscally responsible he was during his first term? I guess you could say that some of the debt he created was due to the pandemic, but we shouldn't have had a pandemic to begin with. Obama dealt with two potential pandemics, and he set up a global agency to prevent pandemics. Trump destroyed it on day 1 of his first term. (Biden recreated it as president, with a slightly different name, and once more, Trump stopped it as soon as he became president again!) And then when COVID had clearly entered the US, he thought it would hurt his re-election, and completely downplayed it! And then supported conspiracy theories about its spread or how serious it was! Trump's incompetence created the pandemic, pure and simple.

And then there was his tax bill. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to actually read the tax bill and see that most Americans were given a little bit of scraps so that the very wealthy and corporations could be given a huge feast. And for 2024 he campaigned on continuing with that

Then there was his unforgiveable lies----just about every word that came out of his mouth was a lie. He destroyed the moral compass of Republican leadership and brought in dishonesty as the GOP modus operandi! Nixon lied, Clinton lied, and they got impeached for it (and as some people on this forum have pointed out Clinton didn't even deserve it). Campaign promises are one thing----when Bush said, "Read my lips. I will not raise taxes." he probably sincerely hoped that would be the case. I accept that as part of the political process. Once in office he was faced with the reality of his statements. But that is nothing like the constant and very deliberate dishonesty that Trump displays every day! And by 2024, the GOP leadership followed in that path, embracing dishonesty. I don't understand how anyone could trust a politician or party that is so openly dishonest.

Project 2025, and Trump's actions toward the end of his last term (e.g. Schedule F) told everyone exactly what he was going to do with DOGE and his plans for cutting back fiscal spending. It shouldn't be hard for anyone to think about what that meant, and what it would do to our nation. It just takes a little critical thinking. If you have a party that lies straight out of its ass, you can't trust what they say-----you have to read and critically think about what they are saying!

But I don't think any MAGA voter wanted to do that----because Trump was selling something they wanted more than the truth----

It's not racist to want to protect your own wealth, character, and culture. But it is racist to force your character and culture down someone else's throat, and to deprive them of protecting their own culture and character--regardless of whether they are trying to preserve their own culture for themselves within your country or their own. If you have ever lived in a foreign country you might understand this. I spent some 20 plus years living in Asia. I first lived in Japan, beginning as a student in college. I wanted so much to experience the culture as authentically as possible. And I did a really good job of assimilating and fitting into the culture. Enough that Japanese were surprised how well I fit in and understood the culture (probably helped by the fact that I first lived in Osaka which is a bit of a rebellious part of Japan). It probably also helped that I became fluent in Japanese and have a knack for accents (though Tokyo people do not like my Osaka accent). But, I am an American. And I relished the time I could spend with Americans at American clubs, and watching American TV, listening to American music, etc. The longer I lived there, the more I decided how I was going to not fit in, where I would rebel against the culture----because I am me.

But is anyone forcing their culture down your throat? Are the people of China Town in your nearest big city, forcing the whole city to only eat Chinese food and participate in Chinese traditions and culture? Is someone taking away all the restaurants in your town and replacing them with Argentine restaurants only, and every radio and TV station is now Argentine? I doubt it. Or are you just upset because you hear Mexican music from another car at a stop light. Well, if you are sitting next to my car, you will definitely hear rock or blues music as I listen to it loud. But I'm not forcing you to change your musical tastes. Or are you upset that there is a mosque in your neighborhood? Maybe you should go check it out sometime. If you ask them, they would gladly show you how Islam is a very loving and accepting religion, and is not all die by the sword BS that Christians say it is. But the one thing they won't do is come to your door and force it upon you. No, there are American religions that do that however.

But do you want America to be the strongest leader in the world, the greatest country in the world, then you will have people of the world come to you. And they will bring their culture with them. That's how it has always worked since the dawn of Nations. But you can still go to McDonald's or a steakhouse or a Cracker Barrel. No one is taking that from you.

And the same is true with all the gay stuff. I've never watched Broke Back Mountain, and I never intend to. But no one is forcing it upon me. I don't even engage in anal, for me the butt is a one-way exit only. It does not interest me. But I know there are a lot of guys that like it. I don't really care. No girl has ever requested that of me, and if they did, I would simply say I'm not interested. In fact, I would be more concerned if I made a big deal of it. If the idea of there being a movie like Broke Back Mountain angered me. I know enough about psychology to realize that if it actually angered me that someone else was doing something in the bedroom that I didn't approve of or watching a movie that I didn't approve of, that there are repressed sexual urges I should deal with. I don't want anyone to force their sexual morals on me, and I'm not going to force it upon them.

Do you understand what you are saying here? You want America to be like a third world country-----and I'm sure there are still corners of America that are hill billy havens where there is no real local economy, and the local church is filled with snake handlers, and most of the people haven't ever been more than 50 miles from home.

After World War II, Japan's economy was decimated. In fact, before World War II it was a relatively backward country without a world class industry. When I went to Japan in about 1980, many people would ask me, "Why do you want to go to Japan? No one goes to Japan?" World War II vets would literally caution me that the Japanese have no respect for life, and that I won't be respected at all. And then when I got there, I was treated like a celebrity. Kids would follow me saying Harro (hello). Everyone wanted to meet me. I really stood out. And it was actually really cool for the most part. I was always the focus of attention. But outside of McDonald's there was no real American food. If I went to Denny's or Big Boys, they served dishes that looked like American food, and I could pretend it was American food, but the flavor was definitely suited for Japanese taste buds. I was often disappointed in it. Sometimes I was surprised----the absolute best fried chicken I have ever eaten in my life (and I can still remember the flavor) was in a small Japanese bar between Osaka and Kyoto. I would pay big money just to try that chicken one more time...

But I spent over 15 years in Japan, spread out and not all at once. I watched it change as it became a bigger player on the world stage. More foreigners arrived. More foreign restaurants appeared. Food started getting to be more authentic. I saw the first tacos in the late 1980's in Japan. I was so anxious to try them, and instantly hated them. One big problem was the cheese. In the early 1990's I did some consulting for a Japanese businessman, who owned a bunch of clubs in Tokyo that he wanted to diversify. We opened up the first authentic texmex restaurant in Tokyo. We even hired an America to cook it---a young man fresh out of the Navy and married to a Japanese girl. Everyone who tried it loved it. I would spend an hour or two after the restaurant closed and everyone left, just eating the delicious food the cook had prepared (I was in heaven). It would have been very big except the Japanese businessman wanted to see results before he would put money into advertising. And he wanted me to manage it, which was not my interest, and then my wife thought I was fooling around with the girls that worked for him, and insisted I stop my consulting work, and the restaurant died. But today there are all kinds of texmex and mexican restaurants, including taco bell there. And foreigners are not the celebrities they used to be. And Japanese culture itself has drastically changed.

It was the same when I went to the Philippines. I was like a celebrity and kids would follow me around trying to get my attention with Hey Joe. American and Spanish culture were certainly present from its colonial past. There was a lot of TV in english and shows imported from the States. But there were only a few American restaurants---McDonald's, Wendy's, Shakey's Pizza. And good American food and groceries was only found at high end department stores. (granted there were items like Tang and Ovaltine, and of course, Coke and Pepsi, that were everywhere.) But as the economy grew and affluence picked up, more foreigners started going there. More foreign establishments arrived. Western culture the way a Westerner lived it, became more available.

In contrast look at a former world giant---the UK. I was jealous when I was younger of how I could eat Indian food all over in London decades before you could find easily it here. Everyone in England knew about Chicken Tikka Masala there. And at the time if I mentioned it here, Americans would have had no idea what I was talking about.

I think the real problem is that the GOP and FOX News stirred up racist sentiment by creating these Culture Wars. They told you who you should hate and you all listened. Take transvestites, for example. I have been in numerous places, including the Philippines where there are far more transvestites than you would see in the US. But somehow it is a big serious problem here. So much so that we are told they are ruining teen sports. You should look at the actual statistics of how many trans athletes actually participate in High School sports and you'd be shocked actually---that they could even make stories about that crap. It's not even a handfull. And as it turns out---much of the sensationalist news that got so much attention, was manufactured over things that didn't actually happen.

You've been played. And what the world saw was not Americans playing a part, or owning a narrative just to show the Libs. No, what the world saw was actual intolerance, xenophobia, and racism.

 

Glad to hear you and a wonderful, almost Hollywood style, experience with diversity in all of your travels.

I don’t watch Fox News or any other for that matter. Much like with modern movies, the frenetic edits and tone give me a headache. I do work in the corporate world where the diversity mantra has elevated incompetent people into made up do-nothing positions. The only qualifications needed often seem to be ticking a diversity/deviant check box. Some are an actual detriment to the work and productivity of their coworkers but any mention of it is forbidden.

I also got to see Canada be taken over by Chinese and Indians and, in small areas, Africans. All of them are severely clannish/tribal and will protect the worst in their own communities from criticism or consequences. They all bring the various maladies of their home culture with them, from which they were supposedly trying to escape. The Chinese are the least bothersome. They at least tend to behave well. Their culture is one of corruption and exclusion of other ethnicities.

As to the trannies: didn’t care until they started the drag show for kids and promoting the sterilization and transition of kids.

 

More summarily, I was a classical liberal (economic and social) until well into my 30s. But experience and maturity taught me that classical liberal economics was as much of a fairy tale as communism. And the social polices espoused by the left came to make the slippery slope arguments of the 1980s religious right seem like they were prescient yet reserved.

Again, you can bitch all you want about orange-man-bad. I’ll probably agree with at least most or your evaluations. But he was the response of a large number of people who have had enough of what was on offer. They will happily elect a person as horrible as he supposedly is just to say, “Fuck off and die! We’ve had enough of your shit!”

 

“Well that’s just like your opinion man.”

 

You say you don't watch FOX News and then you say this:

LMAO! Where do you guys get this stuff?! Seriously----we are living in two different worlds. And I sure as heck do not want to live in yours!

 

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Well gold is up again today. The Dow Industrial, and S&P 500 are at all time highs.
The Murdoch media is all chest thumping and fist bumping. But not so fast.

This indicates that the US Dollar is weaker. Trump said he doesn't mind and then the almighty dollar dropped even some more. Trumps big spending, though stimulative is diluting the value of our dollars; driving investors to gold, commodities and other.

The weak dollar is about the current international trade wars. Now our former trade partners are purchasing Gold & Silver while letting their treasury securities pay off without renewal. Removing support for the dollar.

When we are paying more; it's about tariffs, and also loss of value of The Dollar.

 

I still don't know what you mean by liberal economics, though you have spoken ill of Keynes. And you seem to buy into this conspiracy stuff that is forever predicting the demise of the dollar and so forth. I know there are so-called libertarian economists (I'm sure they are libertarian but they certainly aren't credible economists) that are popular with people on the Right now. But I will say this---the economics that I learned in college was definitely not a fairy tale. I was able to use it to identify trends and predict economic growth and pull backs very well. I have always been able to understand what is happening in the US economy and elsewhere through understanding the priniciples of those teachings. And not only did I get paid big bucks to use those economics for Shearson Lehman, but I was a 'star' analyst for it.

The actual economist for Shearson Lehman, who also had a good track record of prediction, always said that, "Economics is not rocket science. It isn't something that we can always quantifiably measure in a laboratory. It can turn on a dime." So yes, it has its limitations. But it does extremely well at explaining what has happened, and it is very good at explaining what is happening, and is the best we got at projecting what will happen. I predicted the strength in the Japanese economy in the 80's very accurately. I predicted the collapse of the Japanese economy with surprising accuracy. I predicted the spectacular growth of the US economy going into the 21st Century. In 2007 I knew what was coming with the Credit Crisis. I preached what would save us (and while I didn't have the ear of Obama, that is what he did.) I saw the post-recession boom. And all of this is based on the economics I learned in college. You can also add in, Philosophy and psychology, technical analysis, and so forth. If there was any time when I would sincerely hope I am wrong, it is now, and about what is coming, especially as long as we don't change course.

(BTW: speaking of communism----I hung out at an underground bookstore in the 70's and I loved to argue with the Marxists and Communists in the back room. I spoke from what was clearly a hippie perspective: There were 2 main points, 1) Because Marx embraced materialism over Idealism, he misunderstood the irrational nature of man. In other words, he thought he could use science (if you could even call Hegellian philosophy as science) to shape mankind which would never work, and 2.) because Marx misunderstood the role of the market, thinking it was a product of capitalism, Marxism was economically doomed to failure. Now how I understood that as a teenager, I may never know, or remember. But that is the exact argument I have used all through my life, and I think history has certainly validated that point.)

I was not here in the US during the 1980's to see the Religious Right rise up. I couldn't take the Silent Majority of the '70's. I left before Reagan and watched from abroad. I understood what his supply-side economics (or trickle-down economics) would do. I was not a fan. So I didn't evolve politically with America. I returned in the late '90's to live here, and as a 70's liberal I was confused by the ongoing political philosophy.

I disagree. I don't think a lot of people were authentically fed up. They had been lied to----so they were programmed to be fed up. But they were disenfranchised and struggling. They felt abandoned by both the Left and the Right. I am certain that if you paid attention to the economics you learned in school that you probably would have understood the real problem: Trickle-down economics was a dismal failure. Any chart on wealth and income distribution will show you very clearly that, going back to Reagan, trickle-down economics was creating a 2-class society----a society of the rich and the poor. When the wealthy can take advantage of their position and shift the tax burden onto the poor, which in turn gives the wealthy more leverage, to push for greater wealth at the expense of everyone else----how the people will struggle is not a fairy tale. This takes away income, opportunity, and the ability to financially rise. And then the wealthy push to destroy the liberal ideals of social safety nets, and public assistance, and even labor safety protocols to keep the people safe. And then they greedily create a health system, that only the wealthy can actually afford, and tell you that talk of healthcare as a right is liberal nonsense! The people are fed up! They just don't understand what they are actually fed up with.

I believe that Obama would have started the shift away from trickle-down economics. But he was too busy putting out the fires that Bush created. Biden had the same problem, but Biden was the first president since Reagan that actually started taking steps away from trickle-down economics. Harris would have continued with that. The stupidest thing about the damn Democrats is they didn't even try to get that message out there to the people! I guess we are living in an idiocracy, just as bad as the one in the movie! Trickle-down economics is now in hyper-drive, and MAGA has given us the suicidal dose that will destroy us.

History is painfully being repeated. Do you know what really led to the French Revolution? It wasn't that an Austrian, who was now the Queen, was shamelessly flaunting her wealth and had no consideration for the well-being of the poor (both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVIth actually did care). The real problem was that for many decades, the court understood that the very wealthy and the aristocracy needed to pay taxes to solve the ongoing financial crisis. They could never make that happen.

 

My news comes almost entirely from my daily commute time with npr. Hardly anything like Fox News except for the fact that they both repeatedly try to make an absurd claim that their reporting is fair and unbiased.

Are you suggesting the drag shows for kids and promotion of transitioning kids didn’t/doesn’t occur? If so, then yes, we are living in different worlds.

 

LMAO!! Do you know what my wife did in Japan?!


But my advice to any young kid is to go study and live abroad. I am certain that living abroad as an American opened tons of doors for me, gave me connections, positioned me in places... I would have just been another face in Wall Street, or in anything I would have tried to do. I didn't achieve all that I wanted to, or become as rich as I had planned. There were opportunities I chose not to take, and there was so much more I could have achieved if I was a little smarter, or if I didn't give so much of it away for the love of the most beautiful women I had ever seen (no regrets on that however). Maybe much of that was luck.

But to any young person----go on that hero's journey-----go study and live abroad! A few have followed my advice on that----and they have stories to tell too!