I checked two [bls.gov] separate [westegg.com] inflation calculators
Yes, they both use CPI, the government-generated inflation calculation that shows no problems with the government's behavior.
Whihc is fine unless you find interesting that the CPI methodology keeps changing to reflect a lower standard of living (e.g. substituting hamburger for steak in the basket of prices), ignoring the price of energy, etc., while the claim of low inflation is trumpeted in the newspapers. Check out what CPI looks like if only the BLS methodology in place from the late 70's to the early 90's is continued as it was previously calculated.
It's not news that people can lie with statistics. It's incumbent upon people who use statistical indicators to verify the validity of those indicators before using them as proof of anything.
Median wages did grow from 1913 to 1971 - at a rate relative to the increase of productivity, and relative to a stable currency, that was fantastic. Many people were lifted out of poverty and the middle class soared.
Since 1971, on an inflation adjusted basis, median wages have been nearly flat, despite a continuance of the productivity increases.
I'm not sure if you're mistaken, or you feel that wages *should* be flat in light of increasing productivity. The usual view is that improved productivity should lead to higher wages and/or more leisure. If you feel that people should be working harder or for less money when productivity improves, I'd like to hear the basis for that view, especially if it's not just warmed-over Calvinism.
Can you please explain the $1.25 -> $25 calculation. Do you have a source for this information?
It's just arithmetic, but perhaps I can explain how to do the calculation. In 1964 a quarter was 90% silver. It weighed 6.25 grams, so 5.625 grams of pure silver. data source.
Five quarters ($1.25) was therefore 28.125 grams of silver. A troy ounce is 31.1 grams, so minimum wage was almost exactly 0.9oz of silver.
The 52-week range of silver has been between $21.12 and $35.30 - currencies are fluctuating wildly with the current financial crisis, but even within that chaos, an equivalent wage would be between $19.00 and $31.78 for the past year. $25.39 is the middle of that range. We also know that the market price is manipulated (like LIBOR and other benchmark rates) since paper funds can't fill their physical orders, so one can consider that price to be depressed to some degree (how much is unknown because it's not a real market).
So, how many of the current financial problems (cost of education, cost of health care, cost of gas, cost of food, etc.) would really be problems if the wages had held steady? The obvious explanation is that those prices are all rising together with monetary inflation and it's just wages that are falling relative to it, causing the economic suffering.
If you follow the 20th Century wage chart, from the beginning to 1971, when the US went off the real-money system, wages rose (in terms of real money) right in step with productivity improvements. Since 1971, productivity has continued to increase steadily, but wages have been flat (the difference goes to the financial sector, on net). If the slope of that chart is extended out to present day, it intersects at about $29/hr, fairly consistent with the real-money methodology. $29 has been the price of 0.9oz of silver in the past year, so with the caveat that prices bounce around from day to day and week to week, on an smoothed basis it's right in the zone of where we should be, or a bit lower.
People aren't taught in school that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation owned by its member banks, with its board and president composed of representatives of the biggest multinational banks. Even though its charge is to protect the value of the US Dollar, the USD has lost 98% of its value over the past century (this year marked 100 years of Federal Reserve control of the currency). However, if anybody suggests that the Fed's policies, which have fabulously enriched the financial sector, led to this currency failure for any reason other than pure chance or bad luck, then they are labelled a 'conspiracy nut'. To avoid being called names, pure faith in their virtue is required and any skepticism must be jettisoned.
I am actually surprised the poor are not starting to band together and start killing the rich and stealing their stuff.
And that's why the rich banded together to cause the State to take money from the middle class and give it to the poor. Aka the "Progressive Era" (16th Amendment, Federal Reserve, etc.).
But, yes, that system cannot keep up with a collapsing currency. When I tell people who area concerned about the poor that the 1964 minimum wage was just under an ounce of silver per hour (~$1.25) and that today's value would be around $25 per hour, their eyes glaze over in disbelief. They cannot believe their State would do that to them, because the State cares for them like Mom does; it's not a bunch of corrupt, rich, and powerful actors only looking out for others to the extent it protects their own interests. It's especially unbelievable to Democrats who are bickering about the difference between $7 and $8 per hour. If I suggest to them that the difference in value has gone to the financial sector through steadily controlled inflation that has taken wealth out of local economies and sent it to the Wall Street/Financial Sector fatcats, they know for sure I must be one of those Occupy loonies. And forget about it if I tell them that 2/3 of their 401(k) appreciation winds up as fees to the same group - that Just Can't Be(TM).
That should greatly shorten this discussion. Did I miss any memes?
Only if you want to count the Drug War, which drives up drug prices and prevents treatment, leaving addicts to turn to petty crime. I think the last estimate was in the low 80% range of home burglaries being drug-addict related. Talk about externalities - all the people who are being robbed and burglarized are paying to this government program.
Capitalism has failed, therefore we need more government regulation.
Oh, right, the goal is more government, so this is working as intended. And the CIA needs to fund its black ops off-budget. Anybody who still thinks Nixon was a Man of the People...
Well, without looking into the matter, it sounds like a TOS issue here. Its either against the terms of service or not.
Good, maybe this will force Google to be a bit more community-minded then because they won't want to drag out a court fight with Microsoft. I'm talking about Google conspiring with Roku to disable the YouTube channels and stuff. It's about control for them, not revenue. Even a YouTube app on Roku that shows the ads will get C&D'ed.
This doesn't work in Lynx. Do you have another method?
Yes, subscribe to the monthly printed digest version of Slashdot, which includes a glossary of unfamiliar terms in the back. Contact the subscription department for further information.
It's this delusion that anybody other than the military industrial complex, corporate donors and special interest groups have a voice in such decisions that perpetuates the current system. Wake up and smell the corruption.
Yes, I am subsidizing your nut-choice because you reduce your taxes (hence increase the proportion of my burden) by donating to that nut-bag organization.
As if your taxes don't fund Congress and provide collateral to the Federal Reserve.
Why is that tax-exempt status is granted to organizations
It's those same nuts who are attempting to engage in social engineering to try to mold society to their desires. How many churches speak out against psychopathic leaders? Marking WORKSASINTENDED.
I'm working with one currently. It's postfix under the covers, so you can at least see what it's doing. The app is tomcat. More importantly, many of their business partners use the same solution, so they have an easy, if proprietary way to interconnect.
My e-mail is on the TLS list so it goes through normally, but if I got the "You've got a new message from foo@exmaple.com, go to this website for your message" e-mail instead of a real one, I'd probably just delete it.
I understand why people do this, but the results are too close to phishing and scams for me to participate.
My e-mail systems can all do end-to-end and transport-layer encryption; the gateways are so often so others don't have to bother with a decent setup. And often the others are customers of large ISP's who don't know any better. But the problems aren't technical so much as ease-of-use and integration.
Your questions are exactly the right ones, but it's completely consistent if you follow McCain. He's a very strong authoritarian, believing that everything that the People see, hear, do, and say needs to be strongly regulated. The Internet represents everything that he hates and fears in terms of freedom and control.
Now, we all know (McCain included) that al-la-carte on the Internet will kill bundled on cable, so what do you do if you're anti-Internet? First you try to reign in the Internet (SOPA, PIPA, CISPA). McCain was only against CISPA because his pet control bill "SECURE IT" competes with it. You'll see McCain, Lieberman, Graham, and Ayotte's fingerprints over all these kinds of pro-Establishment bills. But, when those fail, you go in and try to "save" the cartels that enable the control you seek - in this case, Cable companies. Cable news, for instance, does a wonderful job of controlling the news in McCain's favor.
If everybody were getting their news from several of hundreds of competitive Internet media sources, McCain and his ilk would have a very tough time maintaining control.
TFTFY. My Roku device has a YouTube channel, but AIUI YouTube and Roku conspired to remove it from the private channels list for new installs. And they want me to upgrade to a newer device... ha! My kids absolutely love it, if that's any indication of what the future holds.
Let's assume this is true for a moment. We have an existing stockpile of high-level nuclear waste that's going to be radioactive for the next 300,000 years. We can see that burying it in the ground fails after 50 years or less, yet that's what many propose we continue to do.
In the meantime, we have the technology to convert it into 600-year low-level waste and generate all the world's power needs for the next century without emitting any new CO2 beyond the construction machinery of the first few power plants. This compares well to solar panels, which are only barely net-CO2-negative as of last year (they're just trivially better than coal at this point).
Cleaning up the existing waste and reducing atmospheric CO2 is what people who "oppose nuclear power" are actually opposing in the 21st Century.
The simpsons greedy bastard running a nuke plant isn't a fiction.
Yet due to the reliance on existing, outdated and obsolete plants, the anti-progress people are enforcing the status quo, instead of allowing these plants to be replaced with safer technology.
Most corporations are like big dumb 5 year olds, take what they want with no respect for anyone else and if they don't like it, drop it.. never admit their mistake and never look back.
Both five year olds and corporations have limitations on liability for their poor behaviors. In the case of the five year old, the goal is to get him out of that behavior as soon as possible. In the case of corporations, the goal is to encourage that behavior. The losses society suffers for it are converted into corporate tax revenue for the government - that's why it creates and encourages them.
Yeah, silly English. I was coming to look if it was specifically black, white, green, tellicherry, or Szechuan. I wish people would just call "bell peppers" "sweet bell chilis", along with all the rest of the species.
Perhaps it was the universe's way of letting us let Rick know he forgot ServerTokens ProductOnly, or to tell him about Apache Traffic Server for his new endeavor.
His prior one was one of the few sites I've bothered to keep in my RSS reader, so I look forward to his impending success and traffic.
You can't have a modern language unless its binary name contains shell meta characters that will forever fuck up the first version of every script that ever has to work with it.
Yeah, this will be great for tiny laptops where there's no mSATA connector for an SSD. Once flash chips become common, distros or filesystems will start knowing how to use them.
I'd rather have that part on the drive than the motherboard, as others have wished for, so we can replace it if the NAND fails.
Those people care about whether their apps work or not. Go look at the cheap tablets on eBay and look for how many are advertising that Netflix works (because often it doesn't).
Nobody cares about drivers, but people do care about what drivers enable.
Yeah, I went through this process a few months ago for a handful of devices I needed, and this is the only reason why they weren't cheap Allwinner devices. I know my project isn't a bleep on a blip on their production scale, but if I made this decision then others probably have too.
A whole different class of projects can exist when devices are $60 instead of $200 - I hope their software can catch up to their hardware sooner rather than later.
Slashdot Mirror
I checked two [bls.gov] separate [westegg.com] inflation calculators
Yes, they both use CPI, the government-generated inflation calculation that shows no problems with the government's behavior.
Whihc is fine unless you find interesting that the CPI methodology keeps changing to reflect a lower standard of living (e.g. substituting hamburger for steak in the basket of prices), ignoring the price of energy, etc., while the claim of low inflation is trumpeted in the newspapers. Check out what CPI looks like if only the BLS methodology in place from the late 70's to the early 90's is continued as it was previously calculated.
It's not news that people can lie with statistics. It's incumbent upon people who use statistical indicators to verify the validity of those indicators before using them as proof of anything.
that the real-terms value of silver
How do you define "real"? In terms of a paper currency? Certainly not in terms of any other commodity that's on the market, right?
There's no great reason for silver to be more valuable this year than it was 1964. I'm interested to hear reasons if you think it should be.
median wages grew to compensate and more
Median wages did grow from 1913 to 1971 - at a rate relative to the increase of productivity, and relative to a stable currency, that was fantastic. Many people were lifted out of poverty and the middle class soared.
Since 1971, on an inflation adjusted basis, median wages have been nearly flat, despite a continuance of the productivity increases.
I'm not sure if you're mistaken, or you feel that wages *should* be flat in light of increasing productivity. The usual view is that improved productivity should lead to higher wages and/or more leisure. If you feel that people should be working harder or for less money when productivity improves, I'd like to hear the basis for that view, especially if it's not just warmed-over Calvinism.
Can you please explain the $1.25 -> $25 calculation. Do you have a source for this information?
It's just arithmetic, but perhaps I can explain how to do the calculation. In 1964 a quarter was 90% silver. It weighed 6.25 grams, so 5.625 grams of pure silver. data source.
Five quarters ($1.25) was therefore 28.125 grams of silver. A troy ounce is 31.1 grams, so minimum wage was almost exactly 0.9oz of silver.
The 52-week range of silver has been between $21.12 and $35.30 - currencies are fluctuating wildly with the current financial crisis, but even within that chaos, an equivalent wage would be between $19.00 and $31.78 for the past year. $25.39 is the middle of that range. We also know that the market price is manipulated (like LIBOR and other benchmark rates) since paper funds can't fill their physical orders, so one can consider that price to be depressed to some degree (how much is unknown because it's not a real market).
So, how many of the current financial problems (cost of education, cost of health care, cost of gas, cost of food, etc.) would really be problems if the wages had held steady? The obvious explanation is that those prices are all rising together with monetary inflation and it's just wages that are falling relative to it, causing the economic suffering.
If you follow the 20th Century wage chart, from the beginning to 1971, when the US went off the real-money system, wages rose (in terms of real money) right in step with productivity improvements. Since 1971, productivity has continued to increase steadily, but wages have been flat (the difference goes to the financial sector, on net). If the slope of that chart is extended out to present day, it intersects at about $29/hr, fairly consistent with the real-money methodology. $29 has been the price of 0.9oz of silver in the past year, so with the caveat that prices bounce around from day to day and week to week, on an smoothed basis it's right in the zone of where we should be, or a bit lower.
People aren't taught in school that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation owned by its member banks, with its board and president composed of representatives of the biggest multinational banks. Even though its charge is to protect the value of the US Dollar, the USD has lost 98% of its value over the past century (this year marked 100 years of Federal Reserve control of the currency). However, if anybody suggests that the Fed's policies, which have fabulously enriched the financial sector, led to this currency failure for any reason other than pure chance or bad luck, then they are labelled a 'conspiracy nut'. To avoid being called names, pure faith in their virtue is required and any skepticism must be jettisoned.
Which brings us back to bitcoin...
So if my computer crashes, I can call someone and get all my bitcoins back?
No? Well then it's a scam.
Do you hold all your cash in person or do you use a trusted third party to hold most of your cash (digitally)?
I am actually surprised the poor are not starting to band together and start killing the rich and stealing their stuff.
And that's why the rich banded together to cause the State to take money from the middle class and give it to the poor. Aka the "Progressive Era" (16th Amendment, Federal Reserve, etc.).
But, yes, that system cannot keep up with a collapsing currency. When I tell people who area concerned about the poor that the 1964 minimum wage was just under an ounce of silver per hour (~$1.25) and that today's value would be around $25 per hour, their eyes glaze over in disbelief. They cannot believe their State would do that to them, because the State cares for them like Mom does; it's not a bunch of corrupt, rich, and powerful actors only looking out for others to the extent it protects their own interests. It's especially unbelievable to Democrats who are bickering about the difference between $7 and $8 per hour. If I suggest to them that the difference in value has gone to the financial sector through steadily controlled inflation that has taken wealth out of local economies and sent it to the Wall Street/Financial Sector fatcats, they know for sure I must be one of those Occupy loonies. And forget about it if I tell them that 2/3 of their 401(k) appreciation winds up as fees to the same group - that Just Can't Be(TM).
That should greatly shorten this discussion. Did I miss any memes?
Only if you want to count the Drug War, which drives up drug prices and prevents treatment, leaving addicts to turn to petty crime. I think the last estimate was in the low 80% range of home burglaries being drug-addict related. Talk about externalities - all the people who are being robbed and burglarized are paying to this government program.
Capitalism has failed, therefore we need more government regulation.
Oh, right, the goal is more government, so this is working as intended. And the CIA needs to fund its black ops off-budget. Anybody who still thinks Nixon was a Man of the People...
Well, without looking into the matter, it sounds like a TOS issue here. Its either against the terms of service or not.
Good, maybe this will force Google to be a bit more community-minded then because they won't want to drag out a court fight with Microsoft. I'm talking about Google conspiring with Roku to disable the YouTube channels and stuff. It's about control for them, not revenue. Even a YouTube app on Roku that shows the ads will get C&D'ed.
This doesn't work in Lynx. Do you have another method?
Yes, subscribe to the monthly printed digest version of Slashdot, which includes a glossary of unfamiliar terms in the back. Contact the subscription department for further information.
Let's work out how and how much to spend
It's this delusion that anybody other than the military industrial complex, corporate donors and special interest groups have a voice in such decisions that perpetuates the current system. Wake up and smell the corruption.
Yes, I am subsidizing your nut-choice because you reduce your taxes (hence increase the proportion of my burden) by donating to that nut-bag organization.
As if your taxes don't fund Congress and provide collateral to the Federal Reserve.
Why is that tax-exempt status is granted to organizations
It's those same nuts who are attempting to engage in social engineering to try to mold society to their desires. How many churches speak out against psychopathic leaders? Marking WORKSASINTENDED.
Remember that anything used against one side can be used against the other.
Not if your "side" is the authoritarian establishment types.
I'm working with one currently. It's postfix under the covers, so you can at least see what it's doing. The app is tomcat. More importantly, many of their business partners use the same solution, so they have an easy, if proprietary way to interconnect.
My e-mail is on the TLS list so it goes through normally, but if I got the "You've got a new message from foo@exmaple.com, go to this website for your message" e-mail instead of a real one, I'd probably just delete it.
I understand why people do this, but the results are too close to phishing and scams for me to participate.
My e-mail systems can all do end-to-end and transport-layer encryption; the gateways are so often so others don't have to bother with a decent setup. And often the others are customers of large ISP's who don't know any better. But the problems aren't technical so much as ease-of-use and integration.
Your questions are exactly the right ones, but it's completely consistent if you follow McCain. He's a very strong authoritarian, believing that everything that the People see, hear, do, and say needs to be strongly regulated. The Internet represents everything that he hates and fears in terms of freedom and control.
Now, we all know (McCain included) that al-la-carte on the Internet will kill bundled on cable, so what do you do if you're anti-Internet? First you try to reign in the Internet (SOPA, PIPA, CISPA). McCain was only against CISPA because his pet control bill "SECURE IT" competes with it. You'll see McCain, Lieberman, Graham, and Ayotte's fingerprints over all these kinds of pro-Establishment bills. But, when those fail, you go in and try to "save" the cartels that enable the control you seek - in this case, Cable companies. Cable news, for instance, does a wonderful job of controlling the news in McCain's favor.
If everybody were getting their news from several of hundreds of competitive Internet media sources, McCain and his ilk would have a very tough time maintaining control.
Roku doesn't do YouTube anymore.
TFTFY. My Roku device has a YouTube channel, but AIUI YouTube and Roku conspired to remove it from the private channels list for new installs. And they want me to upgrade to a newer device... ha! My kids absolutely love it, if that's any indication of what the future holds.
All those cartoon and movie monsters that gain youth by sucking the life force from young victims....
Hey, man, try to keep up - it's the biotech companies who make this stuff available that are cast as the monsters these days.
And this is why people oppose nuclear power
Let's assume this is true for a moment. We have an existing stockpile of high-level nuclear waste that's going to be radioactive for the next 300,000 years. We can see that burying it in the ground fails after 50 years or less, yet that's what many propose we continue to do.
In the meantime, we have the technology to convert it into 600-year low-level waste and generate all the world's power needs for the next century without emitting any new CO2 beyond the construction machinery of the first few power plants. This compares well to solar panels, which are only barely net-CO2-negative as of last year (they're just trivially better than coal at this point).
Cleaning up the existing waste and reducing atmospheric CO2 is what people who "oppose nuclear power" are actually opposing in the 21st Century.
The simpsons greedy bastard running a nuke plant isn't a fiction.
Yet due to the reliance on existing, outdated and obsolete plants, the anti-progress people are enforcing the status quo, instead of allowing these plants to be replaced with safer technology.
Playing the "corporations pay no taxes" card may work well on OWS posters, but it's not a good way to excel in a public policy debate.
Most corporations are like big dumb 5 year olds, take what they want with no respect for anyone else and if they don't like it, drop it .. never admit their mistake and never look back.
Both five year olds and corporations have limitations on liability for their poor behaviors. In the case of the five year old, the goal is to get him out of that behavior as soon as possible. In the case of corporations, the goal is to encourage that behavior. The losses society suffers for it are converted into corporate tax revenue for the government - that's why it creates and encourages them.
Yeah, silly English. I was coming to look if it was specifically black, white, green, tellicherry, or Szechuan. I wish people would just call "bell peppers" "sweet bell chilis", along with all the rest of the species.
Perhaps it was the universe's way of letting us let Rick know he forgot ServerTokens ProductOnly, or to tell him about Apache Traffic Server for his new endeavor.
His prior one was one of the few sites I've bothered to keep in my RSS reader, so I look forward to his impending success and traffic.
You can't have a modern language unless its binary name contains shell meta characters that will forever fuck up the first version of every script that ever has to work with it.
Much kudos to the perl, python, and ruby devs.
Yeah, this will be great for tiny laptops where there's no mSATA connector for an SSD. Once flash chips become common, distros or filesystems will start knowing how to use them.
I'd rather have that part on the drive than the motherboard, as others have wished for, so we can replace it if the NAND fails.
Those people care about whether their apps work or not. Go look at the cheap tablets on eBay and look for how many are advertising that Netflix works (because often it doesn't).
Nobody cares about drivers, but people do care about what drivers enable.
Yeah, I went through this process a few months ago for a handful of devices I needed, and this is the only reason why they weren't cheap Allwinner devices. I know my project isn't a bleep on a blip on their production scale, but if I made this decision then others probably have too.
A whole different class of projects can exist when devices are $60 instead of $200 - I hope their software can catch up to their hardware sooner rather than later.