If you have experience its worth the risk. I was in a much smaller storm on a boat as small as the one in the video, and we were lucky to reach the harbor. One other (bigger boat) wasnt that lucky, they werent even on board because they spend time somewhere inland. Everything they had on board was spread all over the ocean. An air mattress even flew right into the harbor, and they were about 1 km out. Their anchor also got loose and it drifted about 5 km away. Lucky it didnt crash.

" 1. The Left dominates the news media in America; and around the world, leftwing media are almost the only news media.

2. The media report most news in the light of their Leftwing values (whether consciously or not).

3. Most people understandably believe what they read, watch or listen to.

4. This is a major reason most people on the Left are on the Left. They have been given a lifetime of leftist perceptions of the world (especially when one includes higher education) and therefore regard what they believe about the world as reality rather than as a leftwing perception of reality."


The Left measures things in terms of "equality", not quality. If two patients in Cuba lie on filthy mattresses placed on the floor in a dirty hospital wing, that's better than one patient with health insurance and an illegal with "free" health care in America.


November 2nd can't get here fast enough. The people who are fooled ALL the time will finally be outnumbered by everyone else PLUS those numbskull 'independents' who had to learn the hard way this communism bullshit doesn't work; never has, never will.

Say "That's that" Mattress man!

clearly done as a parody of that other video, but very well done.

>> ^bmacs27:

They did inflate the currency. The definition of inflation has nothing to do with the value of the currency. It has to do with the quantity of currency. The actions they've taken have increased the money supply. That's what I meant by the dollar is being irrationally overvalued. The markets haven't priced in their actions yet.

Eh, I know I'm being nitpicky, but the definition of inflation is general price level going up. These days people talk more about second order movements of the CPI, not the rate of change, but the direction and size of the change in the change in CPI, (i.e. inflation rate falling from 2% baseline to more like 0.8%).

There are several categories of definitions for "money supply", but under most of them, they're talking about money that's actually circulating and changing hands, not what's being stuffed into mattresses, or being put into reserve accounts at the Fed (which is where most of the money created by the Fed wound up).

If I print up a trillion dollars, and then bury it in my back yard, I won't have caused any inflation. That's not the market failing to price in my actions, that's the market rightfully ignoring irrelevant cash that's not actually doing anything. If I eventually come to my senses, and realize that's a waste of a trillion dollars, and start investing it and spending it, that will put some upward pressure on CPI.

So far, the people who've gotten the money from the Fed have been doing the equivalent of burying it in their back yard, rather than doing what the Fed wants them to do, and invest it in businesses. One of the ways around that problem is for the Fed to bypass the banks, and directly purchase financial assets. It did that, but it had started pulling back on that, and letting its overall holdings drop as the assets matured.

It could stand to do a bit more. It probably wouldn't fix unemployment entirely, but it would help.

@jwray, you're right. I'm mixing T-bills with longer term bonds. But that kinda just reinforces my overall point -- the return on T-bills is already below inflation, and we're still seeing a dearth of private investment. Fed Funds rate is similarly low as well.

If they got much lower (negative return, say) or went away, people banks would stuff their mattresses reserves with cash, and that's no good either.

An expectation of inflation might help prevent that, but it seems that even a near 0% fed rate isn't doing the job.

>> ^jwray:

If people aren't investing in T-Bills, they're either going to invest that money somewhere else or hoard it under their mattress. So deficit spending will help when confidence is low but won't be worthwhile at other times.
Ideally T-Bill interest rates shouldn't even be as much as inflation. You should actually have to make an informed choice and take a risk to make money, rather than participating in an ever-snowballing hereditary aristocracy.


The price on T-bills is set by auction, and I'm not so sure it'd be a wise idea to put a thumb on the scale with them. If we systematically undervalued them, then people who (randomly?) got them for less than others were willing to pay would just sell them to the people willing to pay more.

As for stopping a snowballing hereditary aristocracy, you can't eliminate the market for safe investment instruments entirely. For example, you can still buy Canadian debt, British debt, German debt, Japanese debt, AT&T debt, Microsoft debt, McDonald's debt, WalMart debt, etc.

Besides which, that's not how the snowballing hereditary aristocracies I'm familiar with have maintained an empire. Instead they hire talented people to manage their investments to maximize return while managing risk, and enjoy the endless flood of riches that result.

It seems like estate taxes, capital gains taxes, progressive income taxes and the like are the only reliable way to stop hereditary aristocracies from snowballing into virtual monarchies.

If people aren't investing in T-Bills, they're either going to invest that money somewhere else or hoard it under their mattress. So deficit spending will help when confidence is low but won't be worthwhile at other times.

Ideally T-Bill interest rates shouldn't even be as much as inflation. You should actually have to make an informed choice and take a risk to make money, rather than participating in an ever-snowballing hereditary aristocracy.

You're not winning any converts by calling anyone morons. Since BHO's election, we've got new months of data--hard evidence--that the left's schemes don't work, and in the ongoing example of Statist Europe, proof that going further left doesn't increase prosperity even as it reduces individual liberty to a speck.

If socialism "worked", the EU would be an economic powerhouse. Instead they are an economic powermouse. But that's the left's folly, measuring everything in terms of "equality". If everyone gets a dirty mattress in a filthy hospital with a 6-month wait, that's better than one guy with health insurance and another without.

FDR's follies now have to be repeated because government schools are--surprise!--pro-Big Government and anti-capitalist; warnings of FDR's failures go unheeded, if they're even pointed out at all.

In 1939, ten years after the crash on Wall Street, the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., told the House Ways and Means Committee:

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong…somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…And an enormous debt to boot!”


Guess there was no other way to learn except by direct experience that government spending doesn't stimulate squat and oppressive wealth redistribution puts unearned money in the hands of the less capable who can't create anything with it.

One thing I'll never understand about the American far left (they exist, they're called communists) is why they simply don't pack up and move to Europe. I'm not saying love it or leave it, it's just the logical solution. The EU is large enough to simulate any climate or locale in America and all the entitlement goodies taxocrats use to buy voters here already exist: "free" health care, college, child care, etc...

There is no such place for right-wingers to move, where liberty and risk are more prominent than Statism. The United States was the last place on earth where government knew its proper role, with laws to keep its powers in check. That is no longer the case.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by Deano.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by thinker247. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Gary-s-Mattress-Commercial

How silly.

What economic issue is it that this video is claiming is the Fed's fault?

Income inequality? Good argument for a more progressive tax, and a larger system of social welfare.

Fraud? Good argument for a strong regulatory regime for banks, and a Fed chair who's got a basic mistrust of corporate greed.

Inflation? Maybe, but it seems like low, constant inflation is a good thing in everyone's theory of macroeconomics, and a central bank is a key tool for keeping your inflation where you want it.

Unemployment? Maybe, but again, fixing your money supply to some constant (e.g. pegged to the dollar, or the dollar pegged to gold) takes a big tool for managing unemployment out of your toolbox.

Mostly though, people need to remember that all money is ultimately fake.

Gold is just as worthless as paper money -- you can't eat it, you can't smoke it, you can't drink it, you can't even use it as a raw material for anything useful unless you're a jeweler, a dentist, or a semiconductor fabricator (and even then, you really should use something more common like copper or tin).

Money is a consensual hallucination meant to keep us all working. I'm really, really sorry if you reached adult age thinking that stuffing cash into your mattress was the route to riches.

Rich people understand that cash is intrinsically worthless. It's why they invest, rather than build giant Scrooge McDuck-style money bins full of coins.

All money is the same, whether it's in the form of stamped $20 gold coins, promissory notes (i.e. a green piece of paper that says "this $20 bill can be redeemed for an ounce of gold at the US treasury office"), or fiat currency, it's only worth whatever you can buy with $20.

Part of basic financial literacy is understanding that the overall trend is for prices to go up, and therefore that if you aren't getting a raise equal to or greater than the inflation rate every year, you're taking a pay cut.

Which is a good argument for unionizing, even if you're a salaried professional...

i was expecting far worse but seas like that can wear on ya.getting smacked around for days is tiresome.you have to put shoes or something under the lip of your mattress otherwise you may find yourself being chucked out of bed.

That bukowski sure.. uhm.. smells.

I'll get a mattress out for your visit to denmark.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
love the new avatar!
and if you berate bukowski any more i will be forced to fly to europe,track you down and force you to listen to all his spoken word tapes.
ill do it! i am a man on the edge!
dont make me!

My Dog from Hell

It was the day I got laid off
Boss said I was lazy

I heard that word
On my way back home
With each footstep through the snow

La-zy, laz-y, la-zy

With a cold key
In an old door
I twisted the knob

From a blue void
I stepped into the orange glow
Of my lazy world
Reeking of patchouli
And crock-pot stew

Saw my dog, Tessie, lying on the couch
Awakened from a dream

“We're professionals here,” said my boss.
“Everybody works long hours.”

Tessie blinked her
Coal-black teddy bear eyes
Smiled immediately

“You just don't get it,” said my boss.
“When you get to this level, you have to sacrifice.”

She leapt to greet me
Turning pirouettes in the air
Jumping so high
Nipping at my fingers
With her tiny hell-hound fangs

I said, “Did he sacrifice, Tessie?”
“When he bought that membership to the Denver Country Club?”
“Or when his wife toured Europe last summer?”

Tessie rolled on her back
And offered me her belly

I trudged past her to my bedroom
Loosened my tie
Collapsed on the mattress

My attache sprung open
As it hit the wall
A flurry of pseudo-code
Littered my world

“I thought you were more mature than that,” said my boss.

Like
A furry little Lipizzaner
Tessie huffed and marched
With high paws through the
Blizzard of hard copy

She laid down on my chest
Licked me on the nose

Darkly, outside my window
The winter's gloom gathered

I pushed her off
“Not now!”
Rolled to my side

All of me
Turned against the world
Wingtips
Pleated pants
Bill Blass silk tie
Yves Saint Laurent jacket

Unfazed
At the base of my back
She curled into a little ball
Facing the doorway
And guarded me from demons
As I wept