Yes, I have. Groceries and fuel have been largely flat over the last years. That old canard: "but REAL inflation is UP! UP! UP!" is simply bonkers. Alternative inflation measures like Billion Prices Project agree with the official inflation numbers.
First, central bankers have shown a remarkable restraint. There haven't been ANY hyperinflation episodes in developed countries for more than 50 years. Even in developing countries or xUSSR countries most hyperinflation episodes are linked with political upheavals.
In fact, right now ECB doesn't print _enough_ money - inflation is way under the targeted level, threatening to go into outright deflation.
Nope. That 'insufficient grazing' theory is bullshit. Animals are known to ruin nascent ecologies. In practice, desertification is caused simply by insufficient water.
Actually, government needs to start spending _more_ and taxing (rich people) even more. That _will_ help the economy right now. As it is, government has been contracting for 6 years now.
Incorrect. A crooked bank teller would be put into prison and bank would have to compensate you. In the case of a crooked bank president the _government_ (or state-run bank insurance organization like FDIC) would have to compensate you.
The classic banking system evolved for a LONG time to minimize the effects of bank failures and bad bank employees. Besides, it's almost impossible to actually _steal_ money from a bank. Sure, you can rob a bank and maybe get a couple hundred thousands in cash. But stealing any non-trivial sum is impossible, because accounts are not kept in anonymous cash.
Correction: for Polywell it's 13 registered neutrons. I've been following them and it _looks_ like scaling laws seem to work for Polywell, but it's also becoming more and more complex to build them.
Just make a machine that does "Ping!" and be done with it.
I used to work in a lab with nitric acid and azides and those nice sniffer dogs and complicated explosive-detection machines (that puff air at you) never detected anything. Even though I probably had more materials indistinguishable from explosives on my clothes than an average terrorist.
Then once I tried replacing an auxiliary laptop battery with clay. Nothing from those X-Ray scanners as well.
And Boston? And Chicago? And the whole eastern coast? Most people in the US live in 'cities' (densely populated areas) with population larger than 100k.
My house in Ukraine is served by multiple competing ISPs. My ISP offers 100Mbit (can be upgraded to 1Gb) for about $15 a month with a public IP and a TV service. Optional phone service is also offered, but nobody bothers (everyone has a cellphone these days).
How do they survive? Switching one ISP to another is a hassle. It has a non-zero cost - you need to be at home when the workers come to install wires, for example. And your new TV service might lack a channel that you like.
Oldsters here remember 90-s with multiple competing dial-up ISPs - switching them was literally as easy as it gets, yet almost every city had multiple ISPs.
ESPN should go and fuck itself, sideways. In the past they forced net operators to pay them in order to make online streaming accessible to their customers.
That's right, you probably sponsor Joe Shmuck's ESPN habit even if you are not interested in watching the fucking 'football' or baseball. And now they want me to sponsor his mobile data?
2. Japan has a 4.5% unemployment rate and among the highest standard of living in the world, can you tell me just what problem they are trying to solve?
Slow destruction of society? Like near 2% of people completely withdrawing from life ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... )? Raw unemployment numbers don't mean much in isolation.
3. China - Its called "The low hanging (economic) fruit"
And it negates anything I've stated?
And they "started growing almost immediately after the central bank and the government decided to be 'irresponsible". Why is their trade deficit exploding if they are "growing" so rapidly. I will bet you any amount of money the unemployment rate rises now that QE has started in earnest in Japan.
Trade deficit has no direct relation to economic growth. It's perfectly possible to have a stable growth and sizable deficits.
4. "Inflation hurts 1%-ers". I just about fell off my chair laughing. Yes tell that to all the 1%-ers crying about their prime-real estate exploding in price, along with their stock portfolios. As someone working hard to become a 1%-er, I consider inflation my BEST FRIEND.
And?
Inflation transfers real wealth from workers, to the owners of capital. Asset and consumer prices go up, wages don't. The top 10% own ~80% of the capital stock, therefore inflation transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.
The US tried doing the same three times and it didn't help them.
Three times? Wrong. There was only one direct stimulus and it was much smaller (around $300). It also doesn't matter what YOU did - in general people spent the money, so it helped to restart the stalled economy.
Also, Europe did not have similar regulations, they may have had tougher regulations but they were the wrong regulations. Australian banks had limits about how much they could lend vs how much they had in assets as well as rules on how much they had to keep in liquid assets (again relative to how much they could lend) which made the conditions that created the sub prime crisis in the US and Europe impossible to have in Australia.
[citation needed]
The reason that Australia went through a brief period of recession is because our market is interdependent on other markets (most notably the US market) so when things went belly up there, it had a huge effect here. But because the same conditions weren't replicated here, nor in China we were able to recover very quickly.
Well, the recession was so short exactly because the payout helped - you can't expect such policy measures to act immediately. And no, tougher banking regulations were not the reason - Europe in general had similar regulations, yet they didn't help. Public debt also has no direct relation to recovery - Spain had very little public debt (and it was running surpluses for many years), for example.
Sure. Cash from the government (in form of mailed checks or tax rebates) is the most efficient way to get out of a liquidity trap quickly, it's followed by federally-funded shovel-ready projects. Obama managed to push through such a stimulus and it helped, but it was about 3 times smaller than needed. Australia did the right thing and so it had experienced next to no recession pain: https://www.google.com/publicd... On the other hand, EU did exactly the wrong thing and imposed harsh austerity and still hasn't reached the pre-crisis level.
It's also correct that purely monetary policy can do little in case of liquidity traps - a loose monetary policy is necessary to get out of liquidity trap, but by itself it can't really affect investment and demand levels.
1) In case of deflation most likely you simply won't have enough savings. Simply because deflation is caused by an insufficient demand because an average income is too small.
2) Most people simply can not save enough money (several yearly incomes) to buy a house/apartment. So for the most of their lives they either have a negative net worth or live as renters.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and the whole 'technical revolution' pyramid scheme lasted only for 250 years.
Yes, I have. Groceries and fuel have been largely flat over the last years. That old canard: "but REAL inflation is UP! UP! UP!" is simply bonkers. Alternative inflation measures like Billion Prices Project agree with the official inflation numbers.
First, central bankers have shown a remarkable restraint. There haven't been ANY hyperinflation episodes in developed countries for more than 50 years. Even in developing countries or xUSSR countries most hyperinflation episodes are linked with political upheavals.
In fact, right now ECB doesn't print _enough_ money - inflation is way under the targeted level, threatening to go into outright deflation.
Nope. That 'insufficient grazing' theory is bullshit. Animals are known to ruin nascent ecologies. In practice, desertification is caused simply by insufficient water.
Actually, government needs to start spending _more_ and taxing (rich people) even more. That _will_ help the economy right now. As it is, government has been contracting for 6 years now.
Incorrect. A crooked bank teller would be put into prison and bank would have to compensate you. In the case of a crooked bank president the _government_ (or state-run bank insurance organization like FDIC) would have to compensate you.
The classic banking system evolved for a LONG time to minimize the effects of bank failures and bad bank employees. Besides, it's almost impossible to actually _steal_ money from a bank. Sure, you can rob a bank and maybe get a couple hundred thousands in cash. But stealing any non-trivial sum is impossible, because accounts are not kept in anonymous cash.
Correction: for Polywell it's 13 registered neutrons. I've been following them and it _looks_ like scaling laws seem to work for Polywell, but it's also becoming more and more complex to build them.
Yes, they should be forced. The same argument applies. Of course, a black photographer at a KKK rally might reasonably ask for security guarantees.
Answer is: "Yes, they should be compelled". If they don't want to be compelled, they're always free to switch to a different carrier.
I do like living in apartments. Sharing walls is a non-issue in proper houses with actual sound insulation (also doubles as heat insulation).
Just make a machine that does "Ping!" and be done with it.
I used to work in a lab with nitric acid and azides and those nice sniffer dogs and complicated explosive-detection machines (that puff air at you) never detected anything. Even though I probably had more materials indistinguishable from explosives on my clothes than an average terrorist.
Then once I tried replacing an auxiliary laptop battery with clay. Nothing from those X-Ray scanners as well.
And Boston? And Chicago? And the whole eastern coast? Most people in the US live in 'cities' (densely populated areas) with population larger than 100k.
My house in Ukraine is served by multiple competing ISPs. My ISP offers 100Mbit (can be upgraded to 1Gb) for about $15 a month with a public IP and a TV service. Optional phone service is also offered, but nobody bothers (everyone has a cellphone these days).
How do they survive? Switching one ISP to another is a hassle. It has a non-zero cost - you need to be at home when the workers come to install wires, for example. And your new TV service might lack a channel that you like.
Oldsters here remember 90-s with multiple competing dial-up ISPs - switching them was literally as easy as it gets, yet almost every city had multiple ISPs.
Most of the heat goes into melting the polar caps and into the ocean. It doesn't persist in the atmosphere.
ESPN should go and fuck itself, sideways. In the past they forced net operators to pay them in order to make online streaming accessible to their customers.
That's right, you probably sponsor Joe Shmuck's ESPN habit even if you are not interested in watching the fucking 'football' or baseball. And now they want me to sponsor his mobile data?
Well, technically all Perl scripts are 'voodoo' by default.
Why should it rise? They use mostly dirt-cheap coal and nuclear for most of the baseline: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...
Nope, The Great Depression lasted so long because of invention of lollipops. Look it up!
2. Japan has a 4.5% unemployment rate and among the highest standard of living in the world, can you tell me just what problem they are trying to solve?
Slow destruction of society? Like near 2% of people completely withdrawing from life ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... )? Raw unemployment numbers don't mean much in isolation.
3. China - Its called "The low hanging (economic) fruit"
And it negates anything I've stated?
And they "started growing almost immediately after the central bank and the government decided to be 'irresponsible". Why is their trade deficit exploding if they are "growing" so rapidly. I will bet you any amount of money the unemployment rate rises now that QE has started in earnest in Japan.
Trade deficit has no direct relation to economic growth. It's perfectly possible to have a stable growth and sizable deficits.
4. "Inflation hurts 1%-ers". I just about fell off my chair laughing. Yes tell that to all the 1%-ers crying about their prime-real estate exploding in price, along with their stock portfolios. As someone working hard to become a 1%-er, I consider inflation my BEST FRIEND.
And?
Inflation transfers real wealth from workers, to the owners of capital. Asset and consumer prices go up, wages don't. The top 10% own ~80% of the capital stock, therefore inflation transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.
How? What's the mechanism?
And you're proposing using poor people to feed animals, right? Or maybe return to slavery? In short, stop making strawmen.
The US tried doing the same three times and it didn't help them.
Three times? Wrong. There was only one direct stimulus and it was much smaller (around $300). It also doesn't matter what YOU did - in general people spent the money, so it helped to restart the stalled economy.
Also, Europe did not have similar regulations, they may have had tougher regulations but they were the wrong regulations. Australian banks had limits about how much they could lend vs how much they had in assets as well as rules on how much they had to keep in liquid assets (again relative to how much they could lend) which made the conditions that created the sub prime crisis in the US and Europe impossible to have in Australia.
[citation needed]
The reason that Australia went through a brief period of recession is because our market is interdependent on other markets (most notably the US market) so when things went belly up there, it had a huge effect here. But because the same conditions weren't replicated here, nor in China we were able to recover very quickly.
Do you have any model that can explain this?
And? It doesn't contradict anything I said. China still has quite high inflation levels with impressive growth.
Well, the recession was so short exactly because the payout helped - you can't expect such policy measures to act immediately. And no, tougher banking regulations were not the reason - Europe in general had similar regulations, yet they didn't help. Public debt also has no direct relation to recovery - Spain had very little public debt (and it was running surpluses for many years), for example.
Sure. Cash from the government (in form of mailed checks or tax rebates) is the most efficient way to get out of a liquidity trap quickly, it's followed by federally-funded shovel-ready projects. Obama managed to push through such a stimulus and it helped, but it was about 3 times smaller than needed. Australia did the right thing and so it had experienced next to no recession pain: https://www.google.com/publicd... On the other hand, EU did exactly the wrong thing and imposed harsh austerity and still hasn't reached the pre-crisis level.
It's also correct that purely monetary policy can do little in case of liquidity traps - a loose monetary policy is necessary to get out of liquidity trap, but by itself it can't really affect investment and demand levels.
Doesn't matter for various reasons.
1) In case of deflation most likely you simply won't have enough savings. Simply because deflation is caused by an insufficient demand because an average income is too small.
2) Most people simply can not save enough money (several yearly incomes) to buy a house/apartment. So for the most of their lives they either have a negative net worth or live as renters.