you are fifth to post a comment as a response to mine, looking at your 'arguments' I believe I have no reason to debate you, it's worthless waste of time.
you're confusing US demand with world demand. yes, america's demand is down, but china is growing at 8% a year. china and india are buying up every spare drop of crude on the market, creating an overall high demand.
- USA used to consume near 30% of world's production, so China and India need to see their demand grow by another 50% COMBINED before they catch up to USA. So if USA consumption shrinks by 10%, it more than offsets the growth in consumption of the rest of the countries, and that's what happened.
All this, while fracking and shale oil came on line and provided more than enough production output to cover all current consumption.
He continues the spending spree, which prevents contraction of the federal government, which promotes further destruction of the currency by the Fed.
His talks about 'no new taxes on middle class and poor', yet every cent he spends is a new tax, be it in health insurance (and fines for not buying what gov't mandates are taxes), or be it wars, or just base line growth of government at the time when the economy cannot afford the government it has and needs the gov't to shrink by 99% to survive.
Supply is growing, but demand is growing faster. You do understand that supply-and-demand is about the imbalance between the two? As that imbalance grows, the price of oil will continue to climb.
- market is a balance game, that's why with increased demand, the prices will go up and cause more supply to come on line, and that's exactly what we observe with fracking and shale oil. Oil sands were not coming on line until the prices (but in reality inflation) allowed the companies doing it to become nominally profitable. The real innovation is of-course in fracking, not in shale.
America is no longer the primary driver of either the world economy as a oil, or the oil market. Again, you really need to open a newspaper and see how the world has changed the past 10 years.
- tell me something I don't know.
You do understand that supply-and-demand applies to cash as well as oil? The US didn't "set" the Fed rate low.
- that's a failing sentence. The Fed sets the rate based on what it perceives to be its mandate, but in reality the Fed sets the rate based on what the member banks and the Treasury and the government want.
The Fed is providing the member banks with 'credit' (it's fake) at 0%, while Treasury provide the banks with bonds (fake investment) at some 2-4%, depending on what they buy and how they buy it. They make the spread.
The Fed is actively buying US Treasuries, almost all of the new debt issued by the Treasury is bought by the Fed. That's how they attempt to keep the interest rates low, and they have no escape from this, the moment they allow the market to set the interest without creating the new currency, the interest rates will skyrocket and the US economy will be obliterated, all banks will fail (they are all bankrupt, only held afloat with fake 0% interest rate that allows them to show a fake 2-4% spread in the black).
The world economy is awash with capital looking for a safe harbor, and relatively little demand for that capital.
- the world economy is awash of fake money, not real savings, and this is exactly what inflation is, and that's why the prices are rising for oil and all other things that are not currencies.
However there is huge shortage of real savings that could be used as investment, and that's why nobody can get a business loan - real interest rates are enormous, real interest rates cannot even be imagined, millions of percent, nobody can get them. There is enormous shortage of savings and real capital. And demand/supply ratio sets real interest rates to be so high, nobody can afford them. All this while only governments are able to get credit from banks, but only because it's fake credit created by the central banks.
When the supply is high, and the demand is low, the price (in this case interest rate) falls.
- demand for savings and investment is higher than ever and that's why real interest rates are higher than ever, and that's why nobody can get any business loans.
Conspiracy nuts have a hard time understanding that the Fed doesn't "set" the rate. It looks where the market has shot the arrow, and moves the target there.
- talking to you, is like explaining to a microbe what the Sun is all about.
Because that worthless Keynesian shamanism has proven remarkably adept at making predictions on inflation and growth on an economy against the zero-bound? Just because you personally don't like Keynes, doesn't make it any less right, any more than hating the fact that 2+2=4 will make it suddenly equal 5.
- Keynesians are everywhere, and now they are faced with the final stage of their existence. No longer can the people stay blind to the fact that printing money is not good for economy and no longer can Keynesians explain why all of their theories are falling apart, including the nonsense about lac
You do understand that global oil supply has nearly peaked,
- the output is growing, again, thanks to new technologies, like fracking and shale oil.
while global demand is growing rapidly.
- the global demand is down because USA demand is massively down, and USA actually used to consume near 1/3 of all production. When US consumption falls by 10%, that's significant for the global consumption.
Rising oil prices aren't caused by some liberal conspiracy to debase the currency.
- I don't believe it's a massive LIBERAL conspiracy, it's just a massive actual fact. They've been printing money and setting interest rates at near 0 for the entire Bush presidency. They set interest rates very low during Clinton and the other Bush before him. They printed so much money by the time Nixon arrived, that USA defaulted on the gold dollar.
I remember you from a previous thread, and I suggest you go to a community college and actually take a class on economics and pass it with a A/B before you start chiming in with your opinion on how the world should work.
- why would you want me to subject myself to worthless Keynesian shamanism? Economics classes are worthless pretty much all over the world, not just in USA. There is very little economics going on in those classes, there plenty of politics though.
Your idea of how the world works, and how it actually *does* work, don't intersect at any two contiguous points.
That's right - they cannot do it themselves. They get government to do it for them, because the people have allowed government to do all kinds of unconstitutional things. People have sold out to the money that government promised them - free shit. There is no free shit, the payment comes in form of corporations getting their way, because people allowed government to do things that are unconstitutional.
What, you can't actually read? For the fiftieth time: people who care about their purchasing power should sell and move assets out of US dollars and companies, for people who don't care, they should allow the system destroy their purchasing power, they are not smart enough to own assets.
Adjusted for inflation based on government CPI, the same CPI they use to tell you there is just under 4% inflation today (though Nixon started wage and price controls at 4%, not that it is the right thing to do, it's wrong, like all things that governments do).
In real money price of gas has fell. The cheapest gas USA ever saw at the pump was 20 cents.
Yes - housing prices should be prevented from obeying market forces. The fixed supply and increasing demand should not cause an increase in value.
- do I have to spell out every single sentence? Under the circumstances that USA is in, housing prices must fall.
Jobs are gone, the economy is in a depression, prices on houses must go down in real terms (and they do, they fell by over 50% just in the last 3 years in terms of gold, and then the nominal prices also went down). House prices must come down to the level where they can be actually bought by people with some savings, and I am not talking about price fixing, I am talking about the bubble that was inflated in housing over the last 15 years, just like the one inflated in equity during dot-com bubble, and what's being inflated in US bond prices today - it's all due to money printing.
I can believe, because he has an intuitive understanding of how economics works. You on the other hand...
- he has 0 understanding of economics, you are apparently on the same level with him.
Should average person be able to risk his/her own life, regardless of whether they even understand the risk? It is their life, it does not belong to you or the government in any way.
AFAIC the only thing that the person must do before taking this type of a risk is to sign a form stating that he is absolutely willingly gambling with his own life and no government must be able to stop them.
You are the guy, who pretends Obama didn't sign indefinite detentions of US civilians by military force, so it is not a surprise you are on the wrong side of this issue as well.
People's LIVES belong to THEM, not to government, but you clearly don't think so. We have our liberties, which includes our liberties to take RISK with our own LIVES.
You believe that risk to our lives is only justified when president is the one administering it.
I hope you all recognise that the prices of gas are being moved up by inflation, not by any increase in demand (demand in US is lower than 5 years ago), not by any decrease in supply (supply is greater now, with the demand being lower, and shale oil came online, there is more output).
It has nothing to do with any speculation on oil prices - speculators only discover the price that the economy sets for the underlying asset in whatever currency that is being speculated in. There are always 2 sides in every speculative action - some bet that prices go up and some bet that prices go down, you don't see politicians come out and blame speculators for LOWER prices, politicians like to take credit for lowering prices themselves, but speculators are always blamed by the politicians for higher prices.
In totalitarian nations (like former USSR), speculators were actually sent to prison, if not worse, all while government was printing billions of worthless paper and fixing prices, which always creates black markets and causes prices in the devalued currency to spike.
USA will not see lower prices as long as the Fed keeps printing, and the Fed will keep printing to prevent interest rates from spiking during T-bill and bond auctions, Feds promise to keep interest rates down for years, and this is done by buying up the Treasury debt with fake money.
I had a funny thread going on here, the guy can't understand basic inflation and that his house price is falling in terms of real money and in terms of his purchasing power, he expects the value of his house to go up, believe it or not.
Real values of the houses cannot and should not go up, the Fed is trying to preserve the nominal values, so money supply is inflated, real prices are falling, while nominal prices are staying up pumped by inflation that the Fed creates. This will cause all nominal prices to go up, but real prices are falling because of under-consumption, but not because people are saving. USA is using less energy than before (even less electricity), this is inconsistent with any recovery, it's not a recovery, people cannot afford to spend. But they can't afford to spend because they are not producing anything themselves, and they are not producing anything, because manufacturing left the country and manufacturing left because money is not good, inflation is killing savings and investment and taxes are historic high.
They'll tell you that taxes are very low based on % of GDP, but that's nonsense, GDP has been falling for 2 decades as real inflation is 11-15%, and so the deflater that is applied to the GDP is fake. USA is in a real depression, not a recovery, not a recession even. This is all done with fake money. The banks' earnings are fake, they are moving Fed's money and Treasury debt around, that's all they do. You can't have real investment credit because there are no savings, savers are being wiped out or pushed out of the country, all while the politicians are using every tool in their arsenal to gain popular vote, it's called class warfare and it's being used against you to destroy your economy.
Apple or Google are businesses, not paper and not money. As I said, income producing assets are good to own to have revenue streams, gold is not going to increase your possession, you won't get more ounces by holding ounces, but it does preserve value, because it is money.
Apple and Google are OK as investment, but not when government of US will decide to confiscate their savings when they will need them for the 'greater good', there will be windfall taxes upon any revenue generating companies (that are catering to foreign customers, not to US customers, who have less and less ability to pay), so it's better to own parts of businesses outside of USA and likely outside of most of Europe, and it's good to have real businesses - mining, agriculture, manufacturing.
Your house will only appreciate if it's in Washington DC area, but it didn't appreciate over these 3 years, thus you don't live in Washington DC area. More importantly, what you use for money - US dollars, will lose value, so while your nominal house value may stay the same (that's why the Fed is printing, to keep fools happy about their nominal asset values), your actual purchasing power will keep falling, thus you have now 210 ounces of gold in your house (iff your house can be sold for 375K, but you can't), and 3 years ago it was 400 ounces.
You can measure in other things, if you have a particular distaste for real money. Gallons of gas. Tons of aluminium or copper or steel. Pounds of cotton, it doesn't matter, you are losing value. US dollar is losing value and your Fed is on a mission to keep zombie banks and other businesses alive by taxing the value of everybody's dollars via inflation - counterfeiting.
Don't sell, I don't think you can find use for real assets after the crash, you don't need them.
It would be very weird if all the matter and all the antimatter that was created just got all those matter and antimatter particles close enough to destroy themselves. I think it's not a surprise at all, there definitely were clumps of matter that never saw a single antimatter particles, and the opposite should be true, so some matter and antimatter got in a fight and some didn't. I actually wonder if there are galaxies or at least star systems that are completely made of antimatter and have very little matter there?
Just found the 20th of February, 2009 (3 years ago)
GOLD: $1,001.80 / ounce
Your house: 400,000 (you think).
That is roughly 400 ounces of gold
Today, your house: 375000 (you THINK)
GOLD: 1694.50
that's 221 ounces of gold.
So tell me again how housing is a great way to store value, tell me again.
Price of gas at a pump 2009: just about $1.80. Today price of gas at a pump is what? You know what it is. How is your house working out as a store of value, pretty good?
This will keep happening, and you have 200K in your house, and you will see that money being destroyed. What 200K buys today, it won't buy the same by the year end, it will buy maybe 3/4 to a half. Your fed is working hard to keep the nominal prices of houses up, and you are sitting on 200K for 3 years and talking about being smart?
You would be better off selling your house and buying a house at a foreclosure auction if it meant you'd free up 150K to invest in real store of value or income producing assets, you dumb sob.
Real estate is a better store of value than gold? Maybe 1/5 of a brain.
In gold, the oil prices are dropping. In gold the stock market is going down. In gold housing prices are nowhere, and especially currency itself.
Housing only makes sense when it's located where people have jobs and get income in meaningful currencies. Housing in the middle of nowhere is nowhere, that's what is happening to places like Detroit.
How are those houses holding up in Detroit? People are just leaving and not even locking down, because they aren't even thinking about coming back.
Anybody wants to buy those houses?
If they have a gold bar or some gold coins or even just gold chains, they don't leave it behind, they take it with them. If they have a SILVER QUARTER from a while back in America, they can buy 11 GALLONS of gas at a pump.
If they sold their house back in the 2000, they'd buy MORE gallons of gas back then, then if they sell their house today, IF they can sell at all, and not just leave the place and take off.
Yeah, 1/8th of a brain.
You owe 200,000 on a house that was worth 400,000 3 years ago. Today you THINK you can get 375,000 and you are NOT SELLING?:) You have 1/10 of a brain.
Here is a free advice: sell your house, get your money (and it won't be 375K), pay down your mortgage, put the difference into gold and maybe a spread of mining stocks (preferably in Canada, Australia, maybe Africa, not in US, US companies will face windfall taxes eventually, as currency collapses) or buy dividend paying stocks in Asia, hell, do some research and become a part owner of some farming business, and rent.
Even a guy with little brain deserves an useful advice once in a while.
You are a lying egotisitcal bastard. You make incorrect guesses that match with your assumptions and then don't listen if the answers don't match your assumptions.
- yeah, well, did the market value of your house go up or down in the past 3 years? If it's down, you just may be overpaying, I don't know your specific situation and I don't care, I know that for many people it makes no sense to keep paying the principal+interest on their mortgages now, that the actual market prices of their houses are down AND WILL KEEP FALLING. At some point it stops being rational to keep paying at those rates, there is always a breaking point, after which it is irrational to continue paying that mortgage, at which point the rational thing to stop the payments and let the bank come and collect the collateral, especially now, that banks have huge backlogs in processing all of these foreclosures, you can even live there for a year or two without paying mortgage, taxes or maintenance before they kick you out.
Those of us who are fiscally responsible manage to save money, and with a thing called a "down payment" are never underwater.
- only if you are ignorant of simple arithmetic. If the market price of the house keeps falling, at some point you are underwater regardless of your downpayment. If you have no mortgage, you can sell and take a loss or keep living there, if you have a mortgage, the price of the house can be so low, that it goes over the cliff, maybe the value of the house IS your downpayment at that point (or close to it), and you are forced to pay the rest of the principal and interest on the entire mortgage.
There is always a breaking point, downpayment or not, when it makes sense to drop it, let the bank foreclose at some point and even auction it off on the market and then, if you like the house, you can buy it at that auction.
Of-course you can simply threaten the bank with leaving and offer them to lower your mortgage without the hassle of all of the above mentioned steps, they just may decide it makes sense (or not), but that's why the gov't shouldn't be meddling. The falling house prices would force banks to take a haircut anyway, one way or another, as long as the people living in the house have half a brain.
You are wrong. The *only* reason it could ever be considered cheaper to rent is that people often rent worse than they'd buy. They'll rent a $100,000 apartment and compare that to a $300,000 house and declare buying expensive.
- you do have half a brain.
It is cheaper to rent than to buy at any point if you take the money you would have had to give to the bank as a downpayment, and instead put the money into any business, any bond, any stock, anything that produces cash flow or appreciates at a rate that is above the interest on the mortgage (of-course assuming the rent payment is about the same as the monthly mortgage payment + tax + maintenance, which is pretty much never the case).
If instead of buying the house and the mortgage and paying 3-5% whatever you pay, you instead take the downpayment and put it into value producing asset, into a dividend paying stock (not in USA or Europe of-course, most likely in Asia, or it could be gold as an example of store of value), then if the interest you get is above your 3-5% you are definitely better with that income and renting than with that house.
Arithmetic. Do you know it?
Fuck you, you lying condescending prick. How old are you anyway, "dad"?
- let's say it doesn't matter, but old enough to hand your ass to you, which I did.
Worst detail: The whole mess is not a compiled exe.. it all runs in debug mode from visual studio on a machine in a small cabinet.
down in the cellar, in the display department, you need to take a torch, the lights are out, so are the stairs. The code is there, in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a door that said "Beware of the tiger".
I wish I could have a sig with all this excellent stuff:
DHS & Other Agencies
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Coast Guard (USCG)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Border Patrol
Secret Service (USSS)
National Operations Center (NOC)
Homeland Defense
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Agent
Task Force
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Air Marshal
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Guard
Red Cross
United Nations (UN)
Domestic Security
Assassination
Attack
Domestic security
Drill
Exercise
Cops
Law enforcement
Authorities
Disaster assistance
Disaster management
DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
National preparedness
Mitigation
Prevention
Response
Recovery
Dirty Bomb
Domestic nuclear detection
Emergency management
Emergency response
First responder
Homeland security
Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
National preparedness initiative
Militia
Shooting
Shots fired
Evacuation
Deaths
Hostage
Explosion (explosive)
Police
Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
Organized crime
Gangs
National security
State of emergency
Security
Breach
Threat
Standoff
SWAT
Screening
Lockdown
Bomb (squad or threat)
Crash
Looting
Riot
Emergency Landing
Pipe bomb
Incident
Facility
I agree only with one item (and I don't think you are talking about that), that the Chinese are preventing their own people from being able to enjoy the fruits of their own labour by subsidising the world by destroying their own currency (and everybody else does, but those who don't manufacture win in this war until it all crashes, because those who don't manufacture don't have any fruits of labour, they don't produce anything, so they are not subsidising, they are being subsidised by those, who work and see their currency being wiped out as a response to their fake clients wiping out their currency). Eventually China will have to stop it, it's economically impossible to continue on that path and finally Chinese will see their own quality of life sky-rocket, maybe that's what the Party is afraid of - people who are too damn independent because finally they can actually enjoy what they produce, and it makes them wealthy and independent of their government manipulations.
As to maximising profits - I hope we all do that every day, otherwise we are slowing economy down.
I took out 3 loans in the bubble and paid back all but one of those (and I'm still making regular payments on that one).
- so? You probably are overpaying unless you actually have equity there. Most mortgages don't have equity, it's all vapour based on price to model valuations. If they try to sell, they'll find out what market actually thinks about their property.
The loans were based on the idea that I needed a place to live and buying is cheaper than renting.
- three loans for one place to live?
If you want to fix the housing bubble, drop the stupid deductions for loan interest and property taxes.
- that is a correct thing, but it wouldn't fix the bubble, bubble wasn't formed because of it, though it helped. Bubble was formed because of free money handed to the banks and the fake insurance.
Most other mature countries have a more active home rental market, but not the US
- because of fixing the price on money and because of regulations. There are many places where there are no regulations to 'protect renters', and renters are protected their much better with much lower cost of rent. When gov't subsidises something, it makes it unaffordable.
It's cheaper to buy than rent.
- not if you look at total cost of ownership, including maintenance, property taxes, land transfer taxes. Not if you actually maintain the place and pay taxes. Not if you look at depreciation IF you had a real downpayment, that would force you to have skin in the game.
I've lived abroad, and many other places don't have the same breaks/incentives and the result is renting is cheaper than owning.
- congratulations.
Nah, you just dig it up. Only different to people with a grudge and a point to prove.
- you should try and go and dig some gold, see if you can increase global production rate from 1.5%. You got your ass handed to you, son, when you can grow gold, like they do with tulips, when you can issue gold, like the Fed does with paper or electronic currency, then you'll stop seeming like a dimwit.
It could easily have happened. Even with all the foreclosures, if the government backed no individual loans, the loans made were still profitable.
- no, the risk was taken off by the government guarantee.
For a 30 year loan to be profitable it is not enough for the buyers to pay for 6 years and then collapse together with the entire market, the risk was removed by government, just like with every loan and guarantee that government gives. Insurance costs are going up all the time because of government mandates and supposed price insensitivity of the client, because it's the employer who buys insurance, and people without jobs can't even afford it, which was not the case before Medicare came around. Student debt is over 1Trillion, and it's all bad debt, it can't be repaid in this economy, created by the government destroying currency. Students are getting loans that free market would never give them.
As a bank, why would I give thousands of loans to students in sociology, philosophy, literature or even economics? Those are worthless degrees, they will never be able to truly pay back the loans at real interest rates, and return on all bonds today is negative.
People buying houses on loans is a pretty new development, people used to buy things with cash, and the reason was because banks were not risking the money - real savings, nobody would give you a credit card the way they do now, just so that you'd buy consumer goods, without government standing behind the banks and giving them free money.
Realise this: without free money flowing from the Fed to the banks, the banks would have to have actual savings in people's accounts, that they could draw against in order to give loans, and the people, whose savings would be used to give loans would also expect some return for that risk.
You think you are giving money to a bank, and it's a 'deposit'? There is no such thing in today's USA of FDIC fake insurance, nobody gives a crap what banks do with their money, because the gov't will just print the cash and FDIC will hand it out; but it was never a deposit, it's a loan. Lenders are supposed to do a credit check on people they give money to, did you do credit check on your bank? Did you care what bank it was (well, except maybe it was close to your home)? FDIC is moral hazard, so is every other risk 'removing' government guarantee, that's what creates consumer debt.
Sure, a wealthy consumer can get a credit card in normal economy, that's because banks would get collateral from them in some form if their payments stop. What can a POOR consumer give to a bank if they stop paying? Nothing. Their house values are nothing, it's all predicated on Fed printing currency and buying up more assets, but it's not 'buying', it's stealing purchasing power from everybody, who holds USD to steal those assets. It's the entire economy of theft, and it originates and propagates in government. Banks? Well, they are now government institutions, but even before that - they were bailed out during the Great Depression that the Federal reserve and Hoover + FDR caused. FDIC was created then just to ensure that the banks are bailed out.
God damn niggers getting things!
- to me this is a dead argument. I am quite certain that majority of people taking on debt and not being able to repay it are in fact whites. We know this for a fact, over 50% of mortgages today are F&F or FHA 'insured', and there are more 'refinancing' programs, the 50K that Obama decided to give to every under-water home 'owner', that's just more of the same nonsense. The house isn't worth what the bank thinks it is now, it definitely can't be worth that + 50K.
It used to be F&F that did most of 'insuring' (I always put quotes around these things, because it's not real insurance, it's gov't guarantee, which is based on ability to destroy value of money), today FHA 'insures' 95% of any new/refinanced mortgages, with 5Billion of so called assets, they 'insured' ove
Slashdot Mirror
you are fifth to post a comment as a response to mine, looking at your 'arguments' I believe I have no reason to debate you, it's worthless waste of time.
you're confusing US demand with world demand. yes, america's demand is down, but china is growing at 8% a year. china and india are buying up every spare drop of crude on the market, creating an overall high demand.
- USA used to consume near 30% of world's production, so China and India need to see their demand grow by another 50% COMBINED before they catch up to USA. So if USA consumption shrinks by 10%, it more than offsets the growth in consumption of the rest of the countries, and that's what happened.
All this, while fracking and shale oil came on line and provided more than enough production output to cover all current consumption.
He continues the spending spree, which prevents contraction of the federal government, which promotes further destruction of the currency by the Fed.
His talks about 'no new taxes on middle class and poor', yet every cent he spends is a new tax, be it in health insurance (and fines for not buying what gov't mandates are taxes), or be it wars, or just base line growth of government at the time when the economy cannot afford the government it has and needs the gov't to shrink by 99% to survive.
It's all about inflation.
Supply is growing, but demand is growing faster. You do understand that supply-and-demand is about the imbalance between the two? As that imbalance grows, the price of oil will continue to climb.
- market is a balance game, that's why with increased demand, the prices will go up and cause more supply to come on line, and that's exactly what we observe with fracking and shale oil. Oil sands were not coming on line until the prices (but in reality inflation) allowed the companies doing it to become nominally profitable. The real innovation is of-course in fracking, not in shale.
America is no longer the primary driver of either the world economy as a oil, or the oil market. Again, you really need to open a newspaper and see how the world has changed the past 10 years.
- tell me something I don't know.
You do understand that supply-and-demand applies to cash as well as oil? The US didn't "set" the Fed rate low.
- that's a failing sentence. The Fed sets the rate based on what it perceives to be its mandate, but in reality the Fed sets the rate based on what the member banks and the Treasury and the government want.
The Fed is providing the member banks with 'credit' (it's fake) at 0%, while Treasury provide the banks with bonds (fake investment) at some 2-4%, depending on what they buy and how they buy it. They make the spread.
The Fed is actively buying US Treasuries, almost all of the new debt issued by the Treasury is bought by the Fed. That's how they attempt to keep the interest rates low, and they have no escape from this, the moment they allow the market to set the interest without creating the new currency, the interest rates will skyrocket and the US economy will be obliterated, all banks will fail (they are all bankrupt, only held afloat with fake 0% interest rate that allows them to show a fake 2-4% spread in the black).
The world economy is awash with capital looking for a safe harbor, and relatively little demand for that capital.
- the world economy is awash of fake money, not real savings, and this is exactly what inflation is, and that's why the prices are rising for oil and all other things that are not currencies.
However there is huge shortage of real savings that could be used as investment, and that's why nobody can get a business loan - real interest rates are enormous, real interest rates cannot even be imagined, millions of percent, nobody can get them. There is enormous shortage of savings and real capital. And demand/supply ratio sets real interest rates to be so high, nobody can afford them. All this while only governments are able to get credit from banks, but only because it's fake credit created by the central banks.
When the supply is high, and the demand is low, the price (in this case interest rate) falls.
- demand for savings and investment is higher than ever and that's why real interest rates are higher than ever, and that's why nobody can get any business loans.
Conspiracy nuts have a hard time understanding that the Fed doesn't "set" the rate. It looks where the market has shot the arrow, and moves the target there.
- talking to you, is like explaining to a microbe what the Sun is all about.
Because that worthless Keynesian shamanism has proven remarkably adept at making predictions on inflation and growth on an economy against the zero-bound? Just because you personally don't like Keynes, doesn't make it any less right, any more than hating the fact that 2+2=4 will make it suddenly equal 5.
- Keynesians are everywhere, and now they are faced with the final stage of their existence. No longer can the people stay blind to the fact that printing money is not good for economy and no longer can Keynesians explain why all of their theories are falling apart, including the nonsense about lac
You do understand that global oil supply has nearly peaked,
- the output is growing, again, thanks to new technologies, like fracking and shale oil.
while global demand is growing rapidly.
- the global demand is down because USA demand is massively down, and USA actually used to consume near 1/3 of all production. When US consumption falls by 10%, that's significant for the global consumption.
Rising oil prices aren't caused by some liberal conspiracy to debase the currency.
- I don't believe it's a massive LIBERAL conspiracy, it's just a massive actual fact. They've been printing money and setting interest rates at near 0 for the entire Bush presidency. They set interest rates very low during Clinton and the other Bush before him. They printed so much money by the time Nixon arrived, that USA defaulted on the gold dollar.
I remember you from a previous thread, and I suggest you go to a community college and actually take a class on economics and pass it with a A/B before you start chiming in with your opinion on how the world should work.
- why would you want me to subject myself to worthless Keynesian shamanism? Economics classes are worthless pretty much all over the world, not just in USA. There is very little economics going on in those classes, there plenty of politics though.
Your idea of how the world works, and how it actually *does* work, don't intersect at any two contiguous points.
- I haven't been wrong yet.
That's right - they cannot do it themselves. They get government to do it for them, because the people have allowed government to do all kinds of unconstitutional things. People have sold out to the money that government promised them - free shit. There is no free shit, the payment comes in form of corporations getting their way, because people allowed government to do things that are unconstitutional.
What, you can't actually read? For the fiftieth time: people who care about their purchasing power should sell and move assets out of US dollars and companies, for people who don't care, they should allow the system destroy their purchasing power, they are not smart enough to own assets.
Adjusted for inflation based on government CPI, the same CPI they use to tell you there is just under 4% inflation today (though Nixon started wage and price controls at 4%, not that it is the right thing to do, it's wrong, like all things that governments do).
In real money price of gas has fell. The cheapest gas USA ever saw at the pump was 20 cents.
If you take a silver dime and melt it, you'll get $2.53 worth of US dollars.
Not of the auto industry. Auto industry can't just give itself a massive 'interstate highway' subsidy.
Yes - housing prices should be prevented from obeying market forces. The fixed supply and increasing demand should not cause an increase in value.
- do I have to spell out every single sentence? Under the circumstances that USA is in, housing prices must fall.
Jobs are gone, the economy is in a depression, prices on houses must go down in real terms (and they do, they fell by over 50% just in the last 3 years in terms of gold, and then the nominal prices also went down). House prices must come down to the level where they can be actually bought by people with some savings, and I am not talking about price fixing, I am talking about the bubble that was inflated in housing over the last 15 years, just like the one inflated in equity during dot-com bubble, and what's being inflated in US bond prices today - it's all due to money printing.
I can believe, because he has an intuitive understanding of how economics works. You on the other hand...
- he has 0 understanding of economics, you are apparently on the same level with him.
He doesn't need assets, he doesn't need to sell, he can't handle money.
Should average person be able to risk his/her own life, regardless of whether they even understand the risk? It is their life, it does not belong to you or the government in any way.
AFAIC the only thing that the person must do before taking this type of a risk is to sign a form stating that he is absolutely willingly gambling with his own life and no government must be able to stop them.
You are the guy, who pretends Obama didn't sign indefinite detentions of US civilians by military force, so it is not a surprise you are on the wrong side of this issue as well.
People's LIVES belong to THEM, not to government, but you clearly don't think so. We have our liberties, which includes our liberties to take RISK with our own LIVES.
You believe that risk to our lives is only justified when president is the one administering it.
I hope you all recognise that the prices of gas are being moved up by inflation, not by any increase in demand (demand in US is lower than 5 years ago), not by any decrease in supply (supply is greater now, with the demand being lower, and shale oil came online, there is more output).
It has nothing to do with any speculation on oil prices - speculators only discover the price that the economy sets for the underlying asset in whatever currency that is being speculated in. There are always 2 sides in every speculative action - some bet that prices go up and some bet that prices go down, you don't see politicians come out and blame speculators for LOWER prices, politicians like to take credit for lowering prices themselves, but speculators are always blamed by the politicians for higher prices.
In totalitarian nations (like former USSR), speculators were actually sent to prison, if not worse, all while government was printing billions of worthless paper and fixing prices, which always creates black markets and causes prices in the devalued currency to spike.
USA will not see lower prices as long as the Fed keeps printing, and the Fed will keep printing to prevent interest rates from spiking during T-bill and bond auctions, Feds promise to keep interest rates down for years, and this is done by buying up the Treasury debt with fake money.
I had a funny thread going on here, the guy can't understand basic inflation and that his house price is falling in terms of real money and in terms of his purchasing power, he expects the value of his house to go up, believe it or not.
Real values of the houses cannot and should not go up, the Fed is trying to preserve the nominal values, so money supply is inflated, real prices are falling, while nominal prices are staying up pumped by inflation that the Fed creates. This will cause all nominal prices to go up, but real prices are falling because of under-consumption, but not because people are saving. USA is using less energy than before (even less electricity), this is inconsistent with any recovery, it's not a recovery, people cannot afford to spend. But they can't afford to spend because they are not producing anything themselves, and they are not producing anything, because manufacturing left the country and manufacturing left because money is not good, inflation is killing savings and investment and taxes are historic high.
They'll tell you that taxes are very low based on % of GDP, but that's nonsense, GDP has been falling for 2 decades as real inflation is 11-15%, and so the deflater that is applied to the GDP is fake. USA is in a real depression, not a recovery, not a recession even. This is all done with fake money. The banks' earnings are fake, they are moving Fed's money and Treasury debt around, that's all they do. You can't have real investment credit because there are no savings, savers are being wiped out or pushed out of the country, all while the politicians are using every tool in their arsenal to gain popular vote, it's called class warfare and it's being used against you to destroy your economy.
Apple or Google are businesses, not paper and not money. As I said, income producing assets are good to own to have revenue streams, gold is not going to increase your possession, you won't get more ounces by holding ounces, but it does preserve value, because it is money.
Apple and Google are OK as investment, but not when government of US will decide to confiscate their savings when they will need them for the 'greater good', there will be windfall taxes upon any revenue generating companies (that are catering to foreign customers, not to US customers, who have less and less ability to pay), so it's better to own parts of businesses outside of USA and likely outside of most of Europe, and it's good to have real businesses - mining, agriculture, manufacturing.
Your house will only appreciate if it's in Washington DC area, but it didn't appreciate over these 3 years, thus you don't live in Washington DC area. More importantly, what you use for money - US dollars, will lose value, so while your nominal house value may stay the same (that's why the Fed is printing, to keep fools happy about their nominal asset values), your actual purchasing power will keep falling, thus you have now 210 ounces of gold in your house (iff your house can be sold for 375K, but you can't), and 3 years ago it was 400 ounces.
You can measure in other things, if you have a particular distaste for real money. Gallons of gas. Tons of aluminium or copper or steel. Pounds of cotton, it doesn't matter, you are losing value. US dollar is losing value and your Fed is on a mission to keep zombie banks and other businesses alive by taxing the value of everybody's dollars via inflation - counterfeiting.
Don't sell, I don't think you can find use for real assets after the crash, you don't need them.
It would be very weird if all the matter and all the antimatter that was created just got all those matter and antimatter particles close enough to destroy themselves. I think it's not a surprise at all, there definitely were clumps of matter that never saw a single antimatter particles, and the opposite should be true, so some matter and antimatter got in a fight and some didn't. I actually wonder if there are galaxies or at least star systems that are completely made of antimatter and have very little matter there?
Just found the 20th of February, 2009 (3 years ago)
GOLD: $1,001.80 / ounce
Your house: 400,000 (you think).
That is roughly 400 ounces of gold
Today, your house: 375000 (you THINK)
GOLD: 1694.50
that's 221 ounces of gold.
So tell me again how housing is a great way to store value, tell me again.
Price of gas at a pump 2009: just about $1.80.
Today price of gas at a pump is what? You know what it is. How is your house working out as a store of value, pretty good?
This will keep happening, and you have 200K in your house, and you will see that money being destroyed. What 200K buys today, it won't buy the same by the year end, it will buy maybe 3/4 to a half. Your fed is working hard to keep the nominal prices of houses up, and you are sitting on 200K for 3 years and talking about being smart?
You would be better off selling your house and buying a house at a foreclosure auction if it meant you'd free up 150K to invest in real store of value or income producing assets, you dumb sob.
Real estate is a better store of value than gold? Maybe 1/5 of a brain.
In gold, the oil prices are dropping. In gold the stock market is going down. In gold housing prices are nowhere, and especially currency itself.
Housing only makes sense when it's located where people have jobs and get income in meaningful currencies. Housing in the middle of nowhere is nowhere, that's what is happening to places like Detroit.
How are those houses holding up in Detroit? People are just leaving and not even locking down, because they aren't even thinking about coming back.
Anybody wants to buy those houses?
If they have a gold bar or some gold coins or even just gold chains, they don't leave it behind, they take it with them. If they have a SILVER QUARTER from a while back in America, they can buy 11 GALLONS of gas at a pump.
If they sold their house back in the 2000, they'd buy MORE gallons of gas back then, then if they sell their house today, IF they can sell at all, and not just leave the place and take off.
Yeah, 1/8th of a brain.
You owe 200,000 on a house that was worth 400,000 3 years ago. Today you THINK you can get 375,000 and you are NOT SELLING? :) You have 1/10 of a brain.
Here is a free advice: sell your house, get your money (and it won't be 375K), pay down your mortgage, put the difference into gold and maybe a spread of mining stocks (preferably in Canada, Australia, maybe Africa, not in US, US companies will face windfall taxes eventually, as currency collapses) or buy dividend paying stocks in Asia, hell, do some research and become a part owner of some farming business, and rent.
Even a guy with little brain deserves an useful advice once in a while.
You are a lying egotisitcal bastard. You make incorrect guesses that match with your assumptions and then don't listen if the answers don't match your assumptions.
- yeah, well, did the market value of your house go up or down in the past 3 years? If it's down, you just may be overpaying, I don't know your specific situation and I don't care, I know that for many people it makes no sense to keep paying the principal+interest on their mortgages now, that the actual market prices of their houses are down AND WILL KEEP FALLING. At some point it stops being rational to keep paying at those rates, there is always a breaking point, after which it is irrational to continue paying that mortgage, at which point the rational thing to stop the payments and let the bank come and collect the collateral, especially now, that banks have huge backlogs in processing all of these foreclosures, you can even live there for a year or two without paying mortgage, taxes or maintenance before they kick you out.
Those of us who are fiscally responsible manage to save money, and with a thing called a "down payment" are never underwater.
- only if you are ignorant of simple arithmetic. If the market price of the house keeps falling, at some point you are underwater regardless of your downpayment. If you have no mortgage, you can sell and take a loss or keep living there, if you have a mortgage, the price of the house can be so low, that it goes over the cliff, maybe the value of the house IS your downpayment at that point (or close to it), and you are forced to pay the rest of the principal and interest on the entire mortgage.
There is always a breaking point, downpayment or not, when it makes sense to drop it, let the bank foreclose at some point and even auction it off on the market and then, if you like the house, you can buy it at that auction.
Of-course you can simply threaten the bank with leaving and offer them to lower your mortgage without the hassle of all of the above mentioned steps, they just may decide it makes sense (or not), but that's why the gov't shouldn't be meddling. The falling house prices would force banks to take a haircut anyway, one way or another, as long as the people living in the house have half a brain.
You are wrong. The *only* reason it could ever be considered cheaper to rent is that people often rent worse than they'd buy. They'll rent a $100,000 apartment and compare that to a $300,000 house and declare buying expensive.
- you do have half a brain.
It is cheaper to rent than to buy at any point if you take the money you would have had to give to the bank as a downpayment, and instead put the money into any business, any bond, any stock, anything that produces cash flow or appreciates at a rate that is above the interest on the mortgage (of-course assuming the rent payment is about the same as the monthly mortgage payment + tax + maintenance, which is pretty much never the case).
If instead of buying the house and the mortgage and paying 3-5% whatever you pay, you instead take the downpayment and put it into value producing asset, into a dividend paying stock (not in USA or Europe of-course, most likely in Asia, or it could be gold as an example of store of value), then if the interest you get is above your 3-5% you are definitely better with that income and renting than with that house.
Arithmetic. Do you know it?
Fuck you, you lying condescending prick. How old are you anyway, "dad"?
- let's say it doesn't matter, but old enough to hand your ass to you, which I did.
$90/hour? multiply that by 5 and add 3000 flat just to start.
Worst detail: The whole mess is not a compiled exe.. it all runs in debug mode from visual studio on a machine in a small cabinet.
down in the cellar, in the display department, you need to take a torch, the lights are out, so are the stairs. The code is there, in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a door that said "Beware of the tiger".
I wish I could have a sig with all this excellent stuff:
DHS & Other Agencies
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Coast Guard (USCG)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Border Patrol
Secret Service (USSS)
National Operations Center (NOC)
Homeland Defense
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Agent
Task Force
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Air Marshal
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Guard
Red Cross
United Nations (UN)
Domestic Security
Assassination
Attack
Domestic security
Drill
Exercise
Cops
Law enforcement
Authorities
Disaster assistance
Disaster management
DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
National preparedness
Mitigation
Prevention
Response
Recovery
Dirty Bomb
Domestic nuclear detection
Emergency management
Emergency response
First responder
Homeland security
Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
National preparedness initiative
Militia
Shooting
Shots fired
Evacuation
Deaths
Hostage
Explosion (explosive)
Police
Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
Organized crime
Gangs
National security
State of emergency
Security
Breach
Threat
Standoff
SWAT
Screening
Lockdown
Bomb (squad or threat)
Crash
Looting
Riot
Emergency Landing
Pipe bomb
Incident
Facility
HAZMAT & Nuclear
Hazmat
I agree only with one item (and I don't think you are talking about that), that the Chinese are preventing their own people from being able to enjoy the fruits of their own labour by subsidising the world by destroying their own currency (and everybody else does, but those who don't manufacture win in this war until it all crashes, because those who don't manufacture don't have any fruits of labour, they don't produce anything, so they are not subsidising, they are being subsidised by those, who work and see their currency being wiped out as a response to their fake clients wiping out their currency). Eventually China will have to stop it, it's economically impossible to continue on that path and finally Chinese will see their own quality of life sky-rocket, maybe that's what the Party is afraid of - people who are too damn independent because finally they can actually enjoy what they produce, and it makes them wealthy and independent of their government manipulations.
As to maximising profits - I hope we all do that every day, otherwise we are slowing economy down.
I took out 3 loans in the bubble and paid back all but one of those (and I'm still making regular payments on that one).
- so? You probably are overpaying unless you actually have equity there. Most mortgages don't have equity, it's all vapour based on price to model valuations. If they try to sell, they'll find out what market actually thinks about their property.
The loans were based on the idea that I needed a place to live and buying is cheaper than renting.
- three loans for one place to live?
If you want to fix the housing bubble, drop the stupid deductions for loan interest and property taxes.
- that is a correct thing, but it wouldn't fix the bubble, bubble wasn't formed because of it, though it helped. Bubble was formed because of free money handed to the banks and the fake insurance.
Most other mature countries have a more active home rental market, but not the US
- because of fixing the price on money and because of regulations. There are many places where there are no regulations to 'protect renters', and renters are protected their much better with much lower cost of rent. When gov't subsidises something, it makes it unaffordable.
It's cheaper to buy than rent.
- not if you look at total cost of ownership, including maintenance, property taxes, land transfer taxes. Not if you actually maintain the place and pay taxes. Not if you look at depreciation IF you had a real downpayment, that would force you to have skin in the game.
I've lived abroad, and many other places don't have the same breaks/incentives and the result is renting is cheaper than owning.
- congratulations.
Nah, you just dig it up. Only different to people with a grudge and a point to prove.
- you should try and go and dig some gold, see if you can increase global production rate from 1.5%. You got your ass handed to you, son, when you can grow gold, like they do with tulips, when you can issue gold, like the Fed does with paper or electronic currency, then you'll stop seeming like a dimwit.
It could easily have happened. Even with all the foreclosures, if the government backed no individual loans, the loans made were still profitable.
- no, the risk was taken off by the government guarantee.
For a 30 year loan to be profitable it is not enough for the buyers to pay for 6 years and then collapse together with the entire market, the risk was removed by government, just like with every loan and guarantee that government gives. Insurance costs are going up all the time because of government mandates and supposed price insensitivity of the client, because it's the employer who buys insurance, and people without jobs can't even afford it, which was not the case before Medicare came around. Student debt is over 1Trillion, and it's all bad debt, it can't be repaid in this economy, created by the government destroying currency. Students are getting loans that free market would never give them.
As a bank, why would I give thousands of loans to students in sociology, philosophy, literature or even economics? Those are worthless degrees, they will never be able to truly pay back the loans at real interest rates, and return on all bonds today is negative.
People buying houses on loans is a pretty new development, people used to buy things with cash, and the reason was because banks were not risking the money - real savings, nobody would give you a credit card the way they do now, just so that you'd buy consumer goods, without government standing behind the banks and giving them free money.
Realise this: without free money flowing from the Fed to the banks, the banks would have to have actual savings in people's accounts, that they could draw against in order to give loans, and the people, whose savings would be used to give loans would also expect some return for that risk.
You think you are giving money to a bank, and it's a 'deposit'? There is no such thing in today's USA of FDIC fake insurance, nobody gives a crap what banks do with their money, because the gov't will just print the cash and FDIC will hand it out; but it was never a deposit, it's a loan. Lenders are supposed to do a credit check on people they give money to, did you do credit check on your bank? Did you care what bank it was (well, except maybe it was close to your home)? FDIC is moral hazard, so is every other risk 'removing' government guarantee, that's what creates consumer debt.
Sure, a wealthy consumer can get a credit card in normal economy, that's because banks would get collateral from them in some form if their payments stop. What can a POOR consumer give to a bank if they stop paying? Nothing. Their house values are nothing, it's all predicated on Fed printing currency and buying up more assets, but it's not 'buying', it's stealing purchasing power from everybody, who holds USD to steal those assets. It's the entire economy of theft, and it originates and propagates in government. Banks? Well, they are now government institutions, but even before that - they were bailed out during the Great Depression that the Federal reserve and Hoover + FDR caused. FDIC was created then just to ensure that the banks are bailed out.
God damn niggers getting things!
- to me this is a dead argument. I am quite certain that majority of people taking on debt and not being able to repay it are in fact whites. We know this for a fact, over 50% of mortgages today are F&F or FHA 'insured', and there are more 'refinancing' programs, the 50K that Obama decided to give to every under-water home 'owner', that's just more of the same nonsense. The house isn't worth what the bank thinks it is now, it definitely can't be worth that + 50K.
It used to be F&F that did most of 'insuring' (I always put quotes around these things, because it's not real insurance, it's gov't guarantee, which is based on ability to destroy value of money), today FHA 'insures' 95% of any new/refinanced mortgages, with 5Billion of so called assets, they 'insured' ove