QM...where do you get your information? From Trump?
As far as I can tell, most if not all jobs 'created' (moved) by Trump are NOT in this country. Indications are that the net job gain/loss in this country are squarely in the negative column for Trump, probably internationally too, but that's much harder to tell. You can say he lost, then won, but indications are that the losses are larger than the wins, and the wins are wins for him alone (and other chair-persons who get large payoffs for bankrupting and 'strip-mining' companies), not his company's American employees or the companies themselves for the most part. By his account, his involvement with the bankrupt casino was most likely considered a 'win' because HE made money selling his name, the fact that the business failed and the employees lost their jobs doesn't seem to bother him in the least, or even register.
Also, the numbers I've seen show large private sector job growth, true, not back to pre-Bush levels yet, but Bush drove/spent us into the ground for 8 years, turning surplus into insurmountable debt and deficit while also deferring payment of many of his 'project's' costs until after he left office (the sneakiest thing he did as president, he found a way to make the next president find a way to pay for many of his failed policies and projects (can you say unpaid for tax cuts?), amazing), climbing back up is bound to take time. The stock market is back higher than pre-Obama and moving in the right direction, jobs are sure to follow.
And as to 'his earness', why not quit parsing your words and come out and say 'his browness', it's fairly obvious that's the problem most of the far right have with him, a little honesty would be refreshing. Making up BS and infantile names to call someone because you're afraid to admit and confront your REAL issue with them is what spoiled little girls do, not grown men and women. I'm sure you won't agree, but you can't possibly defend your childish name calling over the years, or your incessant unpatriotic attacks against YOUR president during war(s). Sometimes your vitriol IS as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump because it comes from the same uninformed, hyper arrogant, infantile, inexplicably self righteous attitude (I call it "Peggy Hill Syndrome").
Then there's the real question for you, what if you got what you wanted and removed Obama, do the Retardicans really think Biden would be better for them somehow? Perhaps so, if what they really want is someone to give them gaffs to exploit, he almost certainly would. If they want reason and thoughtfulness, they had better hope with all their might that Obama stays right where he is. Compared to most Dumbocrats, his plans seem hyper-conservative.

>> ^quantumushroom
Trump creates jobs that create wealth. Trump has lost and won, lost and won again, the real deal who earned his arrogance. What the fuck is a community organizer?
His Earness created more government jobs, which actually drain taxpayer money. Otherwise he hasn't done shit, unless you count making things worse as "doing something".
This is nowhere near as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump during Trump's Comedy Central roast.

>> ^marinara:

If the government didn't spend money inflating the stock market (that's money you'll never see again) and spend money constantly (never ever saving) this keynesian stuff could actually work


I can certainly see that side of it. But I prefer the power of the economy being in the people's hands rather than a few central planners, though.

If the government didn't spend money inflating the stock market (that's money you'll never see again) and spend money constantly (never ever saving) this keynesian stuff could actually work

Democrats are jointly responsible with Republicans in the destruction of the middle class. Cutting the corporate tax rates would serve primarily to increase corporate profits. If the demand isn't there for goods and services, corporations won't increase production and hire more workers. Not to mention this won't help deficits. You definitely would help the stock market in the short run, which is disproportionately invested in by the rich, thereby stratifying the population even more along class lines.

The stats you're pointing to are horrible stats for useful data points about economic policy. It's true that the bottom 50% of the population are paying less as a percentage of total tax revenues collected today compared to five years ago. When unemployment went to 10% and higher, who typically lost their jobs? The bottom 50%. Whose houses typically got foreclosed on? The bottom 50%. When pay was cut, who most often lost out on that? The bottom 50%.

If you're paying taxes, it means you're earning income. Ask the unemployed what they'd rather be - taxpayers or jobless? They'd go with having to pay taxes. It's not all roses for the bottom 50% who are not paying taxes right now. But the point still stands - when the economy goes into a tailspin, it distorts who's shouldering the burden for paying the taxes.

This data varies too widely to be useful due to extraneous influences.

>> ^bobknight33:

Fuck that. The democrats had the chance and the duty to pass a budget when they were in complete control. This issue lays on their door step.
Cut corporate taxes jobs will come back and bring more opportunity fro all of us. Then pass the budget proposal for 2012 that cuts more than $5.8 trillion spread over a few years. These ex FED employees could then go back to private employment.
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all income taxes,
the top 10% pay 71%,
and the top 50% pay 97% of all taxes.
The bottom 50% pays less than 3% of all income taxes paid.

>> ^dapper:

as Lao-Tse said, "Nothing breeds fear like nationalism". This line has always resonated with me, particularly when I see these kinds of xenophobic protests in America (Tea Party) or Germany (Neo Nazis) or elsewhere. America seems intent in proving that it got things wrong... be it national pride, health care, education, the environment, banking, mortgages, the stock market... And still, we follow.


Here in Germany every demonstration/march of neonazis meets a group of counter-protesters, from the political center-rigth to left (and yes, far left), and the counter-protest is always bigger, very often 10 times bigger. When I see videos like this about the tea-party or other far-rights in the usa, i always wonder where the counter-protest is.

as Lao-Tse said, "Nothing breeds fear like nationalism". This line has always resonated with me, particularly when I see these kinds of xenophobic protests in America (Tea Party) or Germany (Neo Nazis) or elsewhere. America seems intent in proving that it got things wrong... be it national pride, health care, education, the environment, banking, mortgages, the stock market... And still, we follow.

>> ^legacy0100:

Is he trying to be sarcastic or is he being serious? I can't tell without more background info of this show.


Sadly, he is being dead serious. I first saw this clip surface when Cramer was a guest on the daily show and he didn't deny a word of it and became... uncomfortable, to say the least.

ETFs are flexible enough depending on the risk you want to take on. You could buy into a fund that literally holds the gold reserves for you remotely or you could buy into one that tracks the price through derivatives. Obviously the fund manager adds some kind of risk regardless of their discretion. I'm sure you probably know all this. Point is, I think it's hard to deny that buying into a fund rather than being an individual investor cuts down on transaction and obviously shipping cost. You say that you keep your holdings in a safe, and that adds an additional expense for the security you would otherwise not need.

As for liquidity, ETFs allow the liquidation of holdings on the appropriate stock exchange on the internet instantly. Comparatively for local storefronts, imagine if the price began dropping precipitously and on the assumption that they would be overpaying currently, those storefronts decided to temporarily stop buying. In that case you would have a far better chance finding a willing buyer in a deeper globalised stock exchange.

My point is, that kind of negative scenario is far more plausible than losing your holdings through stock market collapse.
>> ^dgandhi:

It's not just the doomsday scenario, it the mismanagement scenario. Any of the ETFs could be subject to abuse or mismanagement, whereas coins in my floorboard safe are much more in my control.
Since I got the whole minting cost of the coins I bought back, it's not as though it cost me any money to hold coins.
As to liquidity, How fast can you get cash in hand from liquidation of ETF shares? I can turn a 1oz coin to cash in 15min at any number of nearby storefront resellers.
>> ^RedSky:
Don't waste your money on a less liquid form of the same commodity investment based on the prediction of some highly unlikely doomsday scenario.

I don't think a Keynesian economic structure has much to do with it. When you put mobsters in control of anything they're still going to rob you blind. "The Legitimate Businessman's Club" of America has turned it into an art form.

The problem is that we've allowed a handful of people to rig the system to suit their needs at the expense of ours. The Fed is a problem, in as much as it is controlled and owned by these people. The Stock Market is the mirror image of that problem, in as much as the needs of stock holders trump the needs of everybody else. Our government is the third rail of the problem, in as much as it is controlled by the two (one?) entities mentioned above.

I don't think that there is a solution to the dilemma we're in. I wish there were. I don't see things getting better, ever, in my lifetime.

I do see one basic right, and one thread of our safety net, being snipped away slowly year after year until we do nothing but work all of our lives and wallow in a sea of inextricable debt.

@quantumushroom

Really? Reagan? I see you've bought into an incorrect historical narrative, a.k.a myth, that paints Reagan as some sort of conservative/libertarian god. Allow me to type some stuff that you won't believe because you're clearly in some sort of fantasy land, but is true anyway.

The economic model put into place during the Reagan years (supply-side economics) was, to put it bluntly, a one-hit wonder. It worked in that situation, in that time, and it has "worked" pretty well until recently, though its collapse has been fairly inevitable.

Our legal tender law forces everyone to use our governmentt-issued fiat currency. This combined with our fractional reserve banking system is what allows Reaganomics to seem like a good idea. All of our money is debt. If everyone (including the government) paid back all their debt there would be no money. So, when you vastly increase the national debt (defense spending in Reagan's case), there is more money(debt) created. Banks create money(debt) from nothing when someone signs a piece of paper promising to pay the money back with interest. When there's more money(debt) in the system, it's a lot easier to get credit and therefore easier to start businesses, etc. Combine this with low taxes and corporations will invest in factories and such and create jobs.

That's the logic, anyway.

Problem is, the reality of what has actually occurred as a result of supply-side policy is vastly different. The frustrations expressed in this video are a direct result of that. Really, since legal tender law was passed under Nixon, we've had a series of boom/bust failures in our economic system that everyone's pissed about in one way or another. This includes all subsequent administrations regardless of political affiliation.

We can go through all the stuff...the 1987 stock market meltdown, the S&L crisis, the creation of complex speculative financial instruments, the Financial Services Modernization Act...the list goes on. This stuff occurred under Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush again. It's not a Democrat vs. Republican thing. It's not a Right/Left thing. Until you open your mind to realizing that, you're going to be effectively asleep.

Most people don't even know how to express their problem with what's going on economically in our country, and so you have this sort of general anger that's let out in various ways. Tea party, Obama haters, Bush haters, etc. None of that matters, though...none of these (important) social issues like abortion, gun rights, gay rights, etc, really matter until our money system is reconstructed in a way that jives with reality and sustainability.

>> ^Trancecoach:

The type of libertarianism that believes in the separation of Business and State isn't anti-Business or anti-State. Just anti-mixing them up, and against the mix that leads to untold levels of corruption and incompetence.


Yes it does...but letting business people simply make decisions based on their bottom line is equally crazy as was demonstrated in the stock market crash. You let people do what they want...they'll slit eachothers throats sometimes. Best to find a happy medium.

^Really though, you can't expect stimulus to last much longer. You run the risk of spreading so many bubbles through the system that the next time it crashes it is insurmountable. Moreover, once price inflation starts to show its ugly face it will be much much worse for everyday ordinary people who have saving left from this first crash. I know my parents lost about 40% of their savings from the stock market plummet, but what would be even worse is the value of their savings being eroded away as it sits there in computers year after heartbreaking year. I am sad to think that our truly hardest times still lay ahead, but I actually have hope that if the system does come a tumbling down that it really was time for it. Ideologically our country seems to of lost its way. We need a revolution of mind and hard work instead of celebrity worship and recreation...trying to retire before we hit midlife. Then again...maybe I am just getting old.

The so-called "wisdom of the crowds" is not well studied, if at all. At best, it could be valid for limited domains where the average person -has- some knowledge of the question, at worst, it's complete fabrication.

Or shall we bring up flat Earth beliefs, stock market bubbles, and mob lynchings of the innocent, to show how reliable it is?

It may deserve more research, but it's a damned flimsy argument for rule-by-morons.

*promote this day in history.

Al Gore Gives Up... So The Stock Market Could Keep Going Up

It's not capitalism, per se, that needs changing.

It's the way we let our stock market and financiers run rough-shod over everybody else and then bail them out after the fact without making them change the model that caused all of the problems to begin with.