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Judge Orders Verizon Subscriber Identities Sealed
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In one of the mass 'John Doe' cases based on single BitTorrent downloads of films, Malibu Media v. Does 1-13, a pro se litigant made a motion to quash the subpoena. The Court granted a stay of the subpoena, pending its decision on the motion to quash. Unfortunately for John Doe, Verizon had turned over its subscribers' identities 5 days BEFORE the response was due, thus possibly mooting both the stay and the motion to quash. Fortunately for John Doe, the Judge wasn't too happy about this, ordered the information sealed, directed plaintiff's lawyers to destroy any copies, and ruled that they can't use the information unless and until the Court denies the motion to quash."
What did you expect? Come on...
Copying is not stealing, nothing is lost, as a matter of fact. things are duplicated. I for one, welcome my new Overlord 'thief' that duplicates my money! (and then there is this other little detail... they haven't been found guilty... (yet) )
Basically what we've got is Verizon saying, "Oh goodie, we're so eager to ignore our user's privacy that we're going to jump right on mailing out their personal information to any third party who might be interested." Yeah, yeah, they have a court order, and obviously you have to comply with that, but you certainly don't have to go and do it early.
can someone translate story to Engrish prease?
Actually duplicating money would cause its value to drop, thus making everyone who isn't duplicating a little bit poorer.
But ISPs do shit like that all the time. If they get a subpoena for your info in a "John Doe" form what they are supposed to do is notify you so you can fight it, if you wish. While filing a "John Doe" suit is a common and valid legal strategy when you are going after someone but lack the ability to identify them directly yet, that doesn't mean it is automatic. It is also used as a fishing expedition, as seen in these cases, and in those cases courts may quash it.
Hence, your ISP tells you, and then if it isn't quashed (because you don't contest it or because a judge decides it is fine), they hand over the info.
The problem is many ISPs just don't give a fuck about their customers because they know they lack options.
Copying is not stealing
Indeed, if it were then there would have been no need for copyright or infringement thereof as formal and separate concepts in the law because the property laws would have covered it. The fact that "copyright" does NOT fall under property law and that the "promotion of the progress of useful arts and sciences" is mentioned specifically and separately in the US Constitution, apart from any language concerning property, underscores their separateness and distinctness. The term "intellectual property" was invented and promoted by those whose interests were served by erroneously conflating the concepts of property and copyright or patent law. Indeed, the term "intellectual property" ought not to be used when referring to these matters because it injects bias and error into any discussion of patent or copyright.
A common misconception. Since money isn't tied to anything physical, there is no reason that more of it need lower the value. The current value is already arbitrary.
Wow, you've really skipped economics 101 haven't you...
The price of things is based on offer and demand. Suppose I offer to sell you a satsuma at $1 and you earn only $10 a day, I've priced it too high and you won't buy, so I'll lower my price until you and I agree that the price is okay for you and me (i.e. when you estimate the satsuma is worth whatever portion of your work I ask for it - your money, that is - and I estimate I can make a reasonable profit with your purchase).
Now suppose you photocopy a bunch of dollar bills: you come to be with $1000 in your pocket and buy my satsuma for $1 like it was nothing. What do you think I'm gonna do when I see you're so rich? I'll raise my price since I can make a bundle out of you and you don't care. So I'll sell my satsumas at, say, $20 a pop.
And if enough people photocopy dollar bills, everybody will rise their prices. Who's losing? Those who don't photocopy dollar bills. Suddenly, they can't afford my satsumas anymore. They've lost purchasing power. For them, their money has lost value.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Be a man... don't get a hard one on (or in) my juicy ass. And come out the closet, anonymous non-hetero.
A common misconception. Since money isn't tied to anything physical, there is no reason that more of it need lower the value. The current value is already arbitrary. I will also point out that there are far more dollars in databases than we have currency, so we should be able to print quite a bit more without losing any real value at all; we would only be introducing a physical aspect to money that already exists.
I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong. This is disinformation. It never ceases to amaze me how few people have any idea how money actually works. Of course, the government is happy to encourage and promote this lack of understanding and misinformation, as it works to their advantage in effectively stealing wealth from everyone with very few even understanding why they're effectively poorer.
Money is a representation of value, either in services/labor or in goods, regardless of whether the money is tied to something like gold or not, as gold is also a representation of value in goods or services/labor.
Back in the old West, a $20 gold coin would buy you one of the finest suits made. Today, that same amount of gold still buys a fine suit. It's only the amount in dollars that's changed. The comparative actual values have not changed. Back in the 1940s when dimes had a specific amount of silver, a gallon of gas cost two dimes, today those same dimes (with that amount of silver) still buys a gallon of gas. The relative values haven't changed, just the amount of money to equal that relatively static value has increased.
Printing more money dilutes the value of the money, effectively robbing everyone of the value they exchanged either in goods or services/labor for the money they hold. This is why gold prices have rocketed recently. Gold has not gained in value, rather, the dollar used to buy it has lost value.
The Fed engaging in "quantitative easing" (printing/creating more money from thin air) has caused the value of the money to drop dramatically, thus requiring more money to purchase the same value in goods and services/labor. This effectively robs everyone holding that currency of the value of the goods or services/labor they exchanged for that money.
It's theft on a really grand scale with everyone holding US dollars as the victims.
Every time the Fed does another "quantitative easing", your salary/pay is effectively cut.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Hey, isn't hijacking considered terrorism nowadays? Maybe we can just ship the executive staff off to a nice resort in the carribean :)
I think your analysis is overly simplistic. It's true that inflation reduces the values of our savings and wages, but it also reduces the value of the debt we owe to others. That's how the country avoids paying off previously accrued debt: by inflating it into irrelevance.
I have no credit so it doesn't help me. But it's not true that inflation is only a loss for people who hold dollars, if they also owe.
.: Semper Absurda
Wow, you've really skipped economics 101 haven't you...
Actually, the problem is that it's likely he *did* take college economics. The bullshit Progressive/Keynesian fairy tales they teach the kids in schools and colleges these days is ridiculous, especially when it comes to economics. The last thing they want is for anyone to actually understand how they and future generations are being screwed.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
So building luxurity cars is stealing because it decreases the value of everone else's luxurity car?
I think your analysis is overly simplistic. It's true that inflation reduces the values of our savings and wages, but it also reduces the value of the debt we owe to others. That's how the country avoids paying off previously accrued debt: by inflating it into irrelevance.
I have no credit so it doesn't help me. But it's not true that inflation is only a loss for people who hold dollars, if they also owe.
The problem here is that it only really works out to the advantage those holding absurdly-large and unrealistic (for the overwhelming majority of private citizens) amounts/ratios of debt to income in order to make up for the increases in the prices of everything else they purchase like food, energy, goods, and services. This does not work to the advantage of the vast majority of citizens.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
"In one of mass 'John Doe' case based on singre BitTollent firm downroads, Maribu Media v. Does 1-13, plo se ritigant made subpoena quash motion. Coult glanted subpoena stay, pending quash motion decision. Unfoltunatery fol John Doe, Velizon turned over subsclibels' identities 5 days BEFORE response dued, thus possibry mooting both stay and quash motion. Fortune for John Doe, Judge was no happy about this, oldeled information seared, dilected praintiff's rawyels destloy any copies, and lured they can't use infolmation unress and UNTIR the Coult denies quash motion."
Printing more money dilutes the value of the money, effectively robbing everyone of the value they exchanged either in goods or services/labor for the money they hold. This is why gold prices have rocketed recently. Gold has not gained in value, rather, the dollar used to buy it has lost value.
The Fed engaging in "quantitative easing" (printing/creating more money from thin air) has caused the value of the money to drop dramatically, thus requiring more money to purchase the same value in goods and services/labor. This effectively robs everyone holding that currency of the value of the goods or services/labor they exchanged for that money.
It's theft on a really grand scale with everyone holding US dollars as the victims.
Every time the Fed does another "quantitative easing", your salary/pay is effectively cut.
Strat
You Ron Paul'ers types need to pay attention to the inflation charts. Even with "Quantitative Easing", inflation has been holding steady and staying low the last few years. Should have it gone up? By all accounts, yes, but it did not.
Plus, there should always be a little inflation, so asking for none or complaining there is any, shows lack econ understanding.
Linux O Muerte!
large amounts/ratios of debt to income
So, basically just the government.
.: Semper Absurda
Yeah, pretty much.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Plus, there should always be a little inflation, so asking for none or complaining there is any, shows lack econ understanding.
That's one part of Econ that I never did understand... WHY should there always be a little inflation? What possible good could there be for my daily gallon of Red Bull to cost an extra 20 cents this year than it did last year? (Higher prices provide incentive to cut back, but that's a health benefit not an economic benefit.)
Deflation makes sense - less money moving around, vendors make less, so they have less to pay in wages. The whole thing spirals down. But where's the problem with no inflation?
You Ron Paul'ers types
Who?
Even with "Quantitative Easing", inflation has been holding steady
I guess the fact that they changed the way the official inflation numbers are calculated precisely to hide the true inflation rate escaped your notice?
shows lack econ understanding.
Yes, your post demonstrates that in spades. Either that, or extreme partisanship.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Bingo
> Actually, the problem is that it's likely he *did* take college economics.
+25 Insightful, Informative and just plain "Yes." :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Your understanding of economics is childish. Inflation is a part of a healthy economy, deal with it. I hate how partisan hacks scare the plebs with pseudo-economic crap like this.
Just remember every second TV-police drama. Now they 'know' who they want, they just happen to collect more evidence that proves that person guilty. It looked righteous on television. It's not so righteous in a civil action.
That's one part of Econ that I never did understand... WHY should there always be a little inflation? What possible good could there be for my daily gallon of Red Bull to cost an extra 20 cents this year than it did last year? (Higher prices provide incentive to cut back, but that's a health benefit not an economic benefit.) Deflation makes sense - less money moving around, vendors make less, so they have less to pay in wages. The whole thing spirals down. But where's the problem with no inflation?
In theory, there is no problem with 0 inflation. The problem is attaining it. The Federal Reserve has powers, but unlike the powers of congress and the president and the supreme court, it takes a long time to see the affect of any policy they put in place. The economy is a supertanker and the Fed is a little bow thruster. It is difficult to know precisely what effect Fed policies will have, and how long it will take to get there.
That being said, we need a small amount of inflation in order to keep up with other countries. Most other counties subscribe to the "small amount of inflation" theory. If we had 0 inflation, prices overseas would rise (purchasing power would decrease) but our currency would stay the same (ie, a very strong dollar). This would be great for American tourists traveling abroad, but the companies in the US that make things would have a hard time selling things overseas. Most Japanese companies that export are having a difficult time with this. The Yen was roughly 110 Yen/Dollar about 4 years ago and now it hovers around 80 Yen/Dollar. This is a substantial difference and since most big Japanese companies source things and do machining inside Japan (their costs are mostly fixed to the Yen) some are really struggling to sell abroad.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
So he didn't take Economics 101 at a good college.
Keynes?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d0nERTFo-Sk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc&feature=fvwrel
Someone was (accused of) making a bunch of copies of something, without permission.
The accuser's lackey hands over information, before the Court decides if it's appropriate to enter it into evidence. The Court decides it isn't (yet) appropriate, and orders all copies of the evidence destroyed.
IOW, the accuser is now accused of making a bunch of copies of something, without permission. They just got a taste of their own medicine, at the hands of an unhappy judge.
As opposed to the laughable Laffer curve and the Supply side nut jobs that ran the economy off a cliff? There's nothing magicaly about Keynesian economics and it's not a fairy tale either. When nobody is spending money, somebody has to spent it or you never get anywhere.
As for future generations being screwed, when you compare the money spent by Keynes followers now with the much larger sum wasted on trickle down, I'll happily take Keynes, as at least it's done something positive for the economy, or have you forgotten what things were like before the stimulus?
If you don't believe in spontaneous wealth generation, then you sure as hell shouldn't like what the GOP keeps trying to dish up.
And duplicating a good causes its perceived value and thus market value to drop.
Its a good analogy, actually.
Bullshit.
Copyright governs the right to distribute, not the right to own. The copyright holder can distribute, others can't. Copying is still not stealing, just like speeding is not stealing.
From what I still remember of my 4th grade social studies the dollar is supposed to be tied to something physical...... "Because gold and silver in the open marketplace vary independently, the production of coins of full intrinsic worth under any ratio will nearly always result in the melting of either all silver coins or all gold coins. In the early 19th century, gold rose in relation to silver, resulting in the removal from commerce of nearly all gold coins, and their subsequent melting. Therefore, in 1834, the 15:1 ratio of silver to gold was changed to a 16:1 ratio by reducing the weight of the nation's gold coinage. This created a new U.S. dollar that was backed by 1.50 g (23.22 grains) of gold. However, the previous dollar had been represented by 1.60 g (24.75 grains) of gold. The result of this revaluation, which was the first-ever devaluation of the U.S. dollar, was that the value in gold of the dollar was reduced by 6%. Moreover, for a time, both gold and silver coins were useful in commerce."
Verizon had a window of time for which to comply with a request. They turned over information early, but it was a request that the judge was aware was made, so I have to ask, why should he be mad or upset? In this case a corporation complied with a request and didn't cause a drawn out battle. The judge had ample opportunity to note his concerns up front and order Verizon to compile the info, but not to release it. He waited until just after Verizon complied.
I don't agree with Verizon's decision to hand private information over so quickly, but nor do I feel that those who are being prosecuted for illegal downloads should be protected or get a free pass.
There must be some reasonably strong evidence against the John Doe's for Verizon to comply so quickly, and if there are any legal ramification that Verizon may face, why should a business take a hit for alleged illegal activities? Answer, they shouldn't. If there is nothing that is deemed private on the internet, then why is access to it considered private also? Privacy laws need to be more clearly defined and unanimously throughout our country, so that we don't have so many legal arguments nullifying one judgment or another.
If these John Doe's really are performing illegal activities, then I agree they need to be prosecuted.
I only wish this much effort was placed on catching other types of thieves that use the internet as their tool of theft, such as stealing credit card info or identities or other stuff.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
You're saying that Verizon actually got something done before the deadline?
Doesn't count because:
A) Done by rich people
B) Done by a company
We should start holding the heads of companies liable for their crimes when they use the company as an instrument.
The problem here is that it only really works out to the advantage those holding absurdly-large and unrealistic (for the overwhelming majority of private citizens) amounts/ratios of debt to income...
Not entirely true. For a start it is an advantage to anyone with a mortgage on their house - so while a majority might not be affected I'd drop the "overwhelming" part. However inflation has one other "good" effect - it makes people spend and invest. The continuous drop in value means that, if you have a large amount of cash, you have a very strong motivation to either spend it on what you need or invest it in the economy somehow in order to preserve its value. This investment money is where businesses get funds to grow, expand and employ more people.
And you'll probably find that judges get increasingly cranky about that sort of thing as it shows a certain lack of respect for them.
Really? I thought court orders gave deadlines by which something had to be done not "it must be done on this day". Complying quickly with an order is a sign of respect rather than dragging your heels until the last possible minute. Still this is the law so judges can be arbitrary and unreasonable on a whim and common sense rarely seems to apply!
In theory, there is no problem with 0 inflation. The problem is attaining it.
I always thought a simple solution would be to tie currency valuation to sexual services. That way, when inflation goes through the roof, we're all already fucked.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Idiot. That was his argument.
Actually duplicating a song/movie/etc would cause its value to drop, thus making everyone who isn't duplicating a little less wealthy. If it was impossible to copy music files do you really think they'd be selling songs for 99c?
And more seriously, your "everyone" is too broad. People who owe more money than they have (which is almost everyone with a mortgage on their home) will be made richer by the value of money being reduced.
Basically, inflation and deflation happen at a macroeconomic level in ways that aren't fully understood. If there wasn't any "intentional" inflation, the value of money would be sometimes inflating, and sometimes deflating.
Say you live in this world. You take out a 20-year mortgage on your house, or a 3-year loan on a car or something. Stuff we'd like to encourage; people loaning money put it to better use than leaving it under the mattress and people being loaned money can control the timings of their purchases better.
So you have this loan or mortgage, and are making payments. But the currency deflates, over a few years, and although everybody knows it's eventually going back up, it'll take a while.
Oops. Your payments are a fixed number of dollars, and suddenly those dollars cost you a lot more, since your wages have been cut in response to deflation. Theoretically, at least, you're earning the same value, but the numbers are off. This has the effect of making your payments that much more expensive.
It's not just theory. Farmers in the late 1800s were inclined to take out loans to buy new fancy equipment like tractors that they knew would make them more money, well more than needed to pay off the loan, but they were petrified that deflation would make them end up owing a lot more than they'd planned on. If inflation (its existence, not necessarily the rate) is a constant, it's no big deal, it just gets worked into the interest and everybody understands it. But it keeps a borrower from owing more than they know about up-front, which makes people more confident in borrowing, which makes the economy move.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The Laffer Curve is absolutely a real thing. It's just that we're not at the peak yet; we should be raising, not lowering, taxes.
-If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.
That is great... However this argument is often used by people who want us to go back to the gold standard or are interested in selling gold.
That day is gone. Banking and the stock market are way more complicated today then it was 150 years ago and money is more fluid.
Your response was hysterical. Unfortunately, it seems that the people with mod points didn't read carefully. Sorry about that. Whoever you are, I got it :) You should have been modded "+5, Funny". Instead you're at "-1". Bummer.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
That would create enormous scarcity. The cost of producing something has little to do with how much can be produced. If own a a small cafe that sells coffee and donuts and I price those items at the cost of production plus (say) 20%, I'll have a line out the door with people, and I'll never be able to make enough. After all, I have limited space for equipment to make donuts and coffee. I can't expand because there are stores on either side, and opening another cafe elsewhere won't solve the problem.
Now, this might not justify the prices charged by some businesses, particularly the prices for movies and music. However, there is an ultimate limit to how much the world can produce, charging whatever people are willing to pay helps avoid the world being covered with nothing but coffee shops. It means that we allocate the available space and labor more efficiently because demand is controlled.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
Lawls.
Won't work. If he's buying something from you for a buck, he's buying something from other people for a buck, too. Those other vendors are buying from your suppliers, increasing demand for the raw materials that you use to make your product. Some of those raw materials will be available in limited supply (either temporarily, such as food that takes time to grow, or permanently, such as mineral deposits). This means that either the price for those products must go up or you will have to buy supplies farther ahead so that when the market runs out of them and the price skyrockets because of desperation, you can continue to sell your goods.
And if he isn't buying extra products from your suppliers, he is buying extra products from you, and you are increasing the speed at which the raw materials are depleted.
Either way, your cost of doing business will go up, and you can either eat that cost difference as a loss or raise your prices.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Inflation requires not only the devaluation of money, but also a lack of hoarding. It isn't the quantity of money, but rather the quantity of money in active use that determines whether inflation or deflation occur. If quantitative easing injects money into a normally functioning economy, it creates inflation. If quantitative easing injects money into a collapsing economy at a rate equal to the rate at which people are pulling their money out of the economy and hoarding it under their mattresses, it creates no inflation. If it injects money at a lower rate, deflation occurs in spite of the quantitative easing.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
That is actually half the answer. When they started lower taxes, according to the curve that the Republicans modified (not the original one he proposed back in the Nixon-Ford days), taxes were just a bit too high. So they lowered them telling people that less taxes actually meant more money while chanting "lower taxes means more revenue." Eventually the chant became their slogan and next thing you know, they are using it as a justification to make taxes ZERO in some cases. Truth is, Republicans don't like talking about the Laffer curve anymore (and in their media actively attack it) because they know that under most of the curves that have been argued, they have long passed the peak.
All Taxes are regressive. The rich can always avoid some (most) taxes, while the poor cannot avoid any. The progressive liberals keep thinking that taxes on the wealthy hurt the wealthy, when they hurt those the wealthy employ.
Case in point, the "luxury" tax on new Yachts and the like. When the tax was engaged, the rich simply stopped buying those items, killing the industries targeted, and causing unemployment as companies laid off workers due to much lower demands for said Luxuries. The tax was quickly repealed when it diddn't raise anywhere near the amount of revenue it claimed, and the corresponding loss of revenue and unemployment benefits out weighed the revenue it did generate.
The problem is, the Laffer Curve is more than accurate, however we are just left guessing at where "maximum revenue" is generated. My thesis is that revenue is maxed out when people are willing to endure taxes for the things they want (not need), which is one of the reasons I'm fairly Libertarian on things like currently illicit pharmaceuticals. Legalize drugs, create jobs and industry in the process, tax (and regulate) the crap out of them, and use the revenue to fund government. At some point, the Laffer Curve kicks in, and people STOP doing drugs (good thing) and revenue starts to decline (see Cigarettes for example).
IF you do this for all products / services deemed "harmful" to society, but otherwise "victimless", such as Alcohol, Drugs, Porn and Prostitution, we'd have all the money to do all the things we want as a society. And taxes become "voluntary" for all, including the poor. You won't have to pay taxes if you don't want what is taxed.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I hate how partisan hacks scare the plebs with pseudo-economic crap like this.
Well, stop doing it. Hack.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
If they were only downloading and not sharing how did they get caught?
I think the problem with inflation is that it has been tied to growth. There always has to be a small amount of growth, but unless you see them as the same thing, that does not mean that there has to be inflation. The problem you alluded to is that each country needs growth to keep up with the others, but not inflation.
Growth is inevitable because we have a finite amount of resources and, over time, we find better and better ways to utilize them over time. Therefore, each resource is worth more every day because you can do more with it and each product is worth less because you can get more with less resources now than you could then. Therefore, over time the total amount of product increases and the economy grows.
Inflation is now used as a proxy for growth of product: as more product is introduced into the economy per resource, the value of that product falls. However, there is not enough money to represent all the product, so you need more money to represent them and the value of the money falls. Additionally, to those on Wall Street, money is the product, so it actually loses value over time as more appear each time unit. Therefore, people expect inflation over time.
The interesting alternative is when it is a proxy for the efficiency of resources. In those cases, money represents how many products you can make out of a resource. This makes the value of the money increase over time and you can buy more with each. Guess which one benefits the rich and which benefits the poor and I think you will see why we have that system. Final thought, if money were not a proxy for growth of product or efficiency of resources it would remain constant.
Indeed, I did take economics (required undergrad general studies course) and it was mostly bullshit. You mention how retarded Keynesian theory is, the Keynes theory is plain laughable. Give a rich man money and he'll pocket it. Nobody hires out of altruism, they hire because they can sell more than they can produce. If they're producing more than they're selling, no amount of tax breaks is going to get them to hire anyone. Likewise, if he's selling more than he can produce, his taxes going up (likewise his competetitors) isn't going to have him laying off workers.
OTOH, give a poor or middle class man a tax break and he'll spend it, putting right back into the economy, raising sales for everyone, encouraging him to hire.
History has proven this. Clinton got Congress to give tax breaks to middle and low income people, and by the time he left office the economy was booming, unemployment was low, and the Federal budget was balanced.
Then Bush lowered taxes on the rich "to stimulate the economy" and left office with the worst economy since the Great Depression and the highest defecit in history (and two wars which was the cause of the Bush and now Obama defecits).
Economics is by no means a science. It's all smoke, mirrors, and trickery. Little of it is logical, and most is not only unproven but has been proven false -- yet they still tech the bullshit.
Free Martian Whores!
That is the goal.
Back in the 1940s when dimes had a specific amount of silver, a gallon of gas cost two dimes, today those same dimes (with that amount of silver) still buys a gallon of gas.
Not to take away from your excellent comment, but gasoline was more like a dime a gallon in the '40s according to everyone I've known who was alive then. The lowest I ever paid for a gallon of gasoline was seventeen cents, around 1970 (there was a gas war). Even then, the normal price was about 25-30 cents. thirty years later the price quadrupled (I was paying $1.05 in 2000), six years later it had nearly quintupled and has gone down by a third since then.
Printing more money dilutes the value of the money, effectively robbing everyone of the value they exchanged either in goods or services/labor for the money they hold.
That's why we had the rampant inflation in the '70s. Thankfully (for the 1%ers anyway), Nixon instituted wage/price controls that allowed the businessman to get richer by selling more goods via export to counties that hadn't impoverised themselves with foolishg wars, while normal people saw their buying power decline. The '70s inflation is what paid for the VietNam war. I'd prefer they'd taxed those who benefitted forom that war to pay for it, rather than shielding them from the cost.
Free Martian Whores!
The Laffer curve is just a specific case of the mean value theorem in Calculus, worded slightly differently. It is indisputably correct. The only question is if we're to the left or to the right of the maximum (or if the maximum lies at 100% taxation).
Unfortunately, because it's inconvenient for certain political ideologies, people have taken to disputing it for political reasons, not realizing they're simultaneously disputing Calculus when they do so.
Basic supply/demand theory is entirely classical and neoclassical, based on the work of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, most definitely pre-Keynesian. Inflation due to money supply isn't a new concept.
After the conquest of South America, prices in Spain skyrocketed due to the influx of gold and silver into the economy. Proving that it happens with fiat currencies, gold-based currencies or any unit of measure that used to account for value, you plebeian.
My kingdom for a donkey!
Not to put this more into political debate territory, but didn't Bush also give out the tax rebates to people who were in lower and middle classes, and was criticized for it, while you are saying that when Clinton did it, it was good?
Also, I thought that Congress determined the tax system and the President just approves or vetoes?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I sure didn't get any tax breaks, when the Bush tax "cuts" went into effect, my taxes went up. My taxes did go down under Clinton.
Free Martian Whores!
The Fed engaging in "quantitative easing" (printing/creating more money from thin air) has caused the value of the money to drop dramatically, thus requiring more money to purchase the same value in goods and services/labor. This effectively robs everyone holding that currency of the value of the goods or services/labor they exchanged for that money.
It's theft on a really grand scale with everyone holding US dollars as the victims.
Every time the Fed does another "quantitative easing", your salary/pay is effectively cut.
Strat
The argument that the value of money is dropping is just false. I even took the time to make a graph!
A graph illustrating my point.
The graph begins in January of 2000 and runs until the present. All of the measures are indexed to Jan. 2000 as well and graphed as a monthly average. The dark bars indicate recessions. For those of you who are unaware, using an index makes it easier to compare different things over time. So if the index for the exchange rate is 100 in 2000, and 110 in 2001 then the exchange rate has increased by 10 percent compared to the value in 2000. Essentially, just think of the index as a percentage.
So now to let us look at all the shiny lines. The bottom most black line is the exchange rate, which is the value of the US dollar compared to other currencies. If this index is higher then the US dollar has gotten stronger and can buy more stuff abroad. If the index is lower that means the US dollar buys less stuff abroad.
Next is the dashed "Personal Consumption Expenditure" line. This is essentially a measure of inflation. And before anyone complains - yes this version contains food and energy. The differences between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the PCE are academic but they're pretty similar.
Next up is the red line M2. M2 is broadly speaking the amount of money in circulation. Savings accounts, Checking accounts, currency and a few other things are lumped in here.
And finally the green line which is the Monetary Base(MB). This line is what people are talking about when they say quantitative easing. The Fed began quantitative easing in November of 2008, right where you see the Monetary Base start to spike. Policy tweaks since then are also reflected.
If in fact the value of money is decreasing due to QE as you suggest then one would expect to see one or more of the following things: A decrease in the value of money might be reflected by a rise in inflation. Instead you see inflation actually falling slightly where the PCE and MB intersect. If the value of money were truly decreasing by some method other than inflation, then one would think that other individuals and countries would notice. Once they do notice the fall in the value of the dollar, you'd expect to see the exchange rate fall, since it has less worth than other currencies. Instead you see a slight increase in the value of the dollar, followed by a move back to an index of around 80 as has been the case since 2007.
In short, if what you say is true we would expect some response in the graph.Given that massive spike in MB I'd expect a large one. But none of those variables even hints at the reaction to QE that you suggest has occurred.
Maybe we can just ship the executive staff off to a nice resort in the carribean.
Too easy. I wonder what the Russians are doing with the Gulag Archipelago these days. Solzhenitsyn wrote that great book, yet no-one hears about it any more. Has that been decommisioned? Surely, there's room in Lubyanka these days?
A Siberian winter should wake them up. Or kill 'em; whatever.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Basic supply/demand theory is entirely classical and neoclassical, based on the work of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, most definitely pre-Keynesian. Inflation due to money supply isn't a new concept.
After the conquest of South America, prices in Spain skyrocketed due to the influx of gold and silver into the economy. Proving that it happens with fiat currencies, gold-based currencies or any unit of measure that used to account for value, you plebeian.
I'm a "plebeian" why, precisely? You just basically agreed with the whole main thrust of my position in this entire macro-thread.
Did you reply to the wrong post?
Confused I am by your post, yes.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The argument that the value of money is dropping is just false. I even took the time to make a graph!
I can make graphs as well to show anything I want. That graph means less than nothing. It doesn't mean you're using the correct/consistent formulas or that you're not including or excluding certain variables to obtain a result that backs your opinion, but NOT necessarily reality.
No matter how much you wave your hands or how many or how pretty your graphs are, it doesn't change one basic fact: If you print more money without adding any value either in goods or labor, the actual worth of a single unit of that currency is reduced.
If you increase the number of slices in a single pie, those slices must become smaller. You must then have more slices to equal the same amount of pie you got in a single slice before.
It's like you're trying to disprove basic arithmetic.
With graphs.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Your response was hysterical. Unfortunately, it seems that the people with mod points didn't read carefully.
I suspect they've probably never heard of the word "Engrish." "Transration" should have been a dead giveaway.
You should have been modded "+5, Funny".
Agreed.
Instead you're at "-1". Bummer.
Now at zero, on his way back up. Come on, metamods.
And may I say, you're not one of the lawyers I want to see at the bottom of the ocean. Just sayin'.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
All Taxes are regressive. The rich can always avoid some (most) taxes, while the poor cannot avoid any.
[cite needed] Taken to it's logical extreme your statement simply does not compute - especially when nutjobs are complaining about the fact that over 50% of the populace doesn't pay taxes [1]. Fact is, only flat dollar and flat percentage taxes are regressive. Progressive tax is progressive, unless you cap it (like FICA).
[1] http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/19/chart-of-the-week-nearly-half-of-all-americans-dont-pay-income-taxes/
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Your asking Paulites to look at the facts? Really? If they had any idea of facts they wouldnt support such rubbish!
Like I said, facts are wasted on this guy.
Like I said, facts are wasted on this guy.
Yeah, I get that feeling as well.
I must have pissed of somebody that had a fresh batch of mod points, though. LOL!
My last 10 or 15 posts across two or three of the recent past /. articles, all in a straight timeline from a couple posts back in this thread, were near-simultaneously modded down within a minute or two of each other.
I find it hilarious! I'm glad they wasted them all on me, and not some other poor, innocent poster that had the unmitigated gall to disagree with them. I contribute enough +4-+5 insightful/informative/interesting posts consistently that I'm not worried, even if they sock-puppet modded my karma down a notch or two. My karma would be back in no time. It's happened before and will probably happen again.
That's fine. It only proves I'm right and that they didn't and/or don't have an argument. And, that they have all the maturity of a 2-yo.
If I'm pissing off people like that, I *must* be doing something right! Heh!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Unless you work for Goldman Sachs or have some other sensitive position, please get an account. You're writing too many smart things to remain the anonymous coward.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Unfortunately, because it's inconvenient for certain political ideologies, people have taken to disputing it for political reasons, not realizing they're simultaneously disputing Calculus when they do so.
[sarcasm]
Oh, please! Calculus is *so* subjective! Only those terrorist teabaggers and the 1% would try to muddy the water with that "mean value theorem" scheme to rob the 99% !
Why do you hate poor black people?
[/sarcasm]
Strat :D
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Not to take away from your excellent comment, but gasoline was more like a dime a gallon in the '40s according to everyone I've known who was alive then. The lowest I ever paid for a gallon of gasoline was seventeen cents, around 1970 (there was a gas war). Even then, the normal price was about 25-30 cents. thirty years later the price quadrupled (I was paying $1.05 in 2000), six years later it had nearly quintupled and has gone down by a third since then.
Well, I'm 54, so I'm not old enough to know personally. Just from what my parents and older relatives told me, and so for the purposes of that post, I looked here:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2005/fcvt_fotw364.html
It appears from the chart there that the retail price was right around 18 to 20 cents a gallon. Doing a Google search nets a number of results, however, from the totality of what I've been able to read and deduce from the various sources, it looked to me like 20 cents was a safe median estimate for that period.
But, as you agreed, that doesn't really change the overall point.
That's why we had the rampant inflation in the '70s. Thankfully (for the 1%ers anyway), Nixon instituted wage/price controls that allowed the businessman to get richer by selling more goods via export to counties that hadn't impoverised themselves with foolishg wars, while normal people saw their buying power decline. The '70s inflation is what paid for the VietNam war. I'd prefer they'd taxed those who benefitted forom that war to pay for it, rather than shielding them from the cost.
It helped the huge corporations, but it was a disadvantage to entrepreneurs with small and medium businesses, both in raw financial terms, and as a barrier to their ability to enter and compete in the market. It also partially paid for the wildly-expanded entitlement programs during that time, which are now taking the lion's share of the Federal spending, now dwarfing every other government expenditure, including the military and all the wars.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It helped the huge corporations, but it was a disadvantage to entrepreneurs with small and medium businesses, both in raw financial terms, and as a barrier to their ability to enter and compete in the market.
For many if not most, yes. The only way for a small business to grow was to increase sales, which isn't easy during a recession. About the only companies that could grow were, as you say, multinationals, and the occasional small firm that had export outlets.
Free Martian Whores!
You're just saying that because I get your sense of humor.
:)
So your post is now at "0", up from "-1"?
I'm grad.
And may I say that I don't want you to be at the bottom of the ocean, either, at least until it's your time
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
It's like you're trying to disprove basic arithmetic.
With graphs.
Strat
Before anything else, this was funny. :-)
I can make graphs as well to show anything I want. That graph means less than nothing. It doesn't mean you're using the correct/consistent formulas or that you're not including or excluding certain variables to obtain a result that backs your opinion, but NOT necessarily reality.
A valid point. But by the same token just because that graph doesn't show what you want/expect doesn't mean it's worthless either. Some things -- the monetary base, the exchange rate are directly measurable. There isn't really a lot of wiggle room with calculation - although I'll grant you the actual arithmetic operations of trade-weighting makes me glad we have computers. But in the simplest case of say the exchange rate of US Dollars to U.K. Pounds is again directly visible. Currently 1 British Pound is worth 1.57 US Dollars.
No matter how much you wave your hands or how many or how pretty your graphs...
Oi! Just because I talk with my hands doesn't mean I'm a complete idiot. I have it on good authority I am only 1/16th idiot. Nor have I employed the old "Blind 'em with powerpoint!" ploy. As a serious response however.
No matter how much you wave your hands or how many or how pretty your graphs are, it doesn't change one basic fact: If you print more money without adding any value either in goods or labor, the actual worth of a single unit of that currency is reduced. If you increase the number of slices in a single pie, those slices must become smaller. You must then have more slices to equal the same amount of pie you got in a single slice before.
This is true. If that money you've printed enters circulation. That is the crux of my argument. Yes the Fed has "printed" hundreds of billions of dollars. But that currency hasn't entered circulation. It's sitting in bank reserves either literally or digitally. Until it's actually put out in the world through loans or interest paid on deposits, it doesn't exist in the wider economy.
Bad analogy time -- let's say we have a guy named Larry. Larry just got a new credit card with a 10,000 dollar limit on it. He has access to (reserves) of 10,000 if he needs it. But until he actually spends it somewhere, it effectively doesn't exist for everybody else.
Bad analogy 2 with the same concept: You're the great explorer Zheng He. In your travels you find an island where the natives use a form of seashell as currency. Now on this island that seashell is fairly rare. By coincidence one of your men gathered up 20kg of the exact same sea shells last time you were ashore -- for his wife he said. So you've created or brought a whole bunch of new currency to the island. You've printed more money. Yet you would find the price of fish to be relatively unchanged from the day before, even though the money didn't exist on the island then. On the other hand, if you were to take those 20 kilos and dump them in the middle of the village, the value of each individual shell would drop just as you've described.
I'm not saying prices haven't changed or that the value of the dollar hasn't fallen over time, what I'm saying is that you shouldn't just blame QE. I was going to make you a nice shiny graph showing the fall in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar since 1973 or maybe inflation but I'd rather go to bed at this point.