>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:
The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll correct you.

The Treasury Department borrows the money by selling Treasury bonds on the open market. Domestic investors and banks buy most of it, a big chunk of it is bought by other governments. Some might be purchased by the Fed using freshly printed money, but that's entirely based on what the Fed wants to do with the money supply, and has nothing to do with whether we did stimulus or not.

Not to mention, even if the Fed prints money and buys a treasury, there's no guarantee the buyer won't just hold the dollars as a reserve of some sort, and keep it out of circulation.

>> ^blankfist:
And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know

An honest answer. Too bad you kept writing...

>> ^blankfist:
[L]et's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)."

Yes, inflation can happen. But looking at nominal price levels alone doesn't answer why inflation is bad.

>> ^blankfist:
But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

Well here's the thing, have you actually looked at what's happened to the wage level in Zimbabwe? Is the problem that wages never increased at all, and that inflation meant no one had any purchasing power at all?

Or was it something a little more esoteric like a collapse of market confidence that really buggered them?

>> ^blankfist:
It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

Again, you're hamstrung by not actually understanding the underlying economic principles. If the main issue with inflation was really this confiscatory debasement you're talking about, then that would in large part be fixed by greater wage flexibility.

>> ^blankfist:
And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

The answer there is that inflation screws people with large amounts of liquid money (the rich), and helps people with debt (the not-so-rich), while making holding assets look more promising than holding cash in any form. People who saved for retirement by stuffing $100 bills into their mattress get screwed. People who put their money in a savings account may get screwed if the bank doesn't offer them competitive interest rates. People who invested in a mix of stocks and bonds will see those stocks go up in nominal value, while the bonds will likely become worthless (depends on the exact terms though).

People who rely on Social Security will be fine, so long as a) wages as a whole go up with inflation, and b) conservative morons don't come in and cut the COLA below inflation for no reason. It's part of why anyone who wants to privatize Social Security is pretty much a fuckwad.

In the end, the negative effects of stable but high (~10% or so) inflation wouldn't be so bad. There's basically no downside to inflation around 2-4%. And by the way, we're sitting somewhere around 1% right now, with not even the remotest hint of hyperinflation.

The only way for us to really trigger hyperinflation right now is if conservatives follow through on threats to make the US go into default on its debt. But that won't be hyperinflation because of the Fed printing money, it'll be because conservatives will have trashed our nation's credit rating because they're stupid.

Why are you kidding? Are seeds really around that much any longer? I haven't seen one in years.

At any rate, you do want to grind what you put in the vape anyway, so seeds will be obvious and you just remove them. My old buyer would buy them back from you if you ever found them, which I never did.

Vaporizers are the way to go. I've used a VaporBrother for almost 10 years now, and couldn't imagine life without it. This is why I always laugh at the anti-legalization argument about how its so harmful to your lungs! Oh no!! Right, because there's only one way to ingest THC?

This is the one I have. Cost me $120 brand new, with 2 year warranty.
http://www.vaporbrothers.com/pages/products/vaporizers.html

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
What happens when you get a seed gets in?

Don't buy shit weed. Problem solved.
Kidding. I don't think it really matters. Probably just bakes it down with everything else.

>> ^misterwight:

Look, I'm sorry, but no member of the GOP can complain about "abuse of the process" for at least the next few terms. Where were these defenders of just process for the last 20 years?


That's some sweet logic there. That way the democrats can "abuse the process" for a few terms and be voted out, then the Republicans can get in and "abuse the process" some more... you know, to even it up for past indiscretions... and on and on and on.... *vomit

>> ^MilkmanDan:

Yep, I have Fable 1. I'd agree that Fable 1 isn't really a sandbox game, but there are so few games that are that I tend to take games that aren't really in that mold and play them as if they were. As long as I don't have to screw around with too much story to get to where I can just run along and do my own thing, I can live with it.
Even the GTA series, probably the most popular example of a fairly "pure" sandbox design, often require you to do some random story crap before you actually open up the map... There's always roadblocks at the start of the game unless you mod them out!


The reason I'd say this isn't a sandbox game is not because you can't dick around, but that dicking around is not actually any fun. If you choose to ignore your quests and just go exploring, what you find is some random enemies, a bunch of locked doors and locked treasure chests.

This is because every bit of the world is designed for one quest or another. Exploring only allows you to go through a broken version of a place you WILL definitely be lead through on a quest a bit later.

And the minigames of lutehero, real estate buyer and idiot NPC seducer don't count because, again, they're each just terrible.

Then again I'm not impartial, I have a special hatred for this game because my savegame got corrupted 10 hours in. There's exactly one autosave slot, no backups and no manual saves allowed. So you're just screwed if that happens. And it happens for no apparent reason, it's not linked to any hardware or power failure.

These people interviewed are full of bs when they talk about angery rhetoric. They intentionally, incorrectly blame the anger/coverage on the pundits, news reporters and other such scapegoats--when those people only sell their product to a demanding auidence. It is like a drug, and so long as a drug is popular, so too will there be dealers out there.

But do those who complain point the finger rightly at the buyers (To the people?) No, they need their votes and viewers, and so they cower out and in the process solve nothing.

Fox is popular for its hate, not its respect. Fox and MSNBC could both take the high ground, but then you take away their viewers. And then Moxy and DXMSC would put them out of business and take their place with the angery, average American.

>> ^Enzoblue:
^ ^ ^ unless oil starts being traded in Euros. Then our entire economy collapses overnight.


I don't think it would be that extreme, but there's no denying it would have a negative impact on the overall US economy.

Personally I welcome the idea of buyers being able to pay with their own currencies, and removing an intermediary currency from the exchange. It might have something to do with my dislike of the middle-man culture in general, I need to learn more about the global economic market before I can justify my stance though. Like most things in life, I've got enough info to form an opinion but not enough insight into the bigger picture to be absolute with my opinions.

I used to be a Powerseller back in the early 2000's.

Things may have changed, but back then when you signed up for an account it clearly stated that bidding for and winning an item was a legal contractual agreement. This was a form of protection for the seller.

Unless things have changed, when she bid for and won those tickets she was contractually obligated to pay for it. Now, if this were taken to court, I believe the findings would be that it was indeed her that bought the tickets and did so at the time of sound mind. It was only after that some other person got involved and said no (the husband) because he thinks she bid too much.

I'm sure there are a few loopholes; but I feel no sympathy for this women if the entirely of this story is 100% true. These kind of people made me sick back then, and make me sick today. Good on this guy, and I say that because I know I am not the kind of person that would ever do what this woman, if true, did. I know my role as a buyer on Ebay.

I bid, I buy.

Cramer is just being vocal about a real, and pervasive problem in the current wall street investor mentality. He advocating the investor mentality of sucking money out of companies instead of the older, and some would say antiquated, notion of finding companies that are going to successful and invest in them.

Which sounds easier, to invest in winners and gain over time, or to invest a short into any company and instill a sense of panic in the company that causes a run on it to collect your short? The later is much easier, and done often even though it is illegal. The gains are multimillion as well, the risk can usually be obfuscated away with front companies that only exist in paper.

While Cramer here is doing wrong, he is only a small fish in the pool of wrong doers. The huge mutual funds do the same, and have been implicated in the death by stock manipulation of many companies. The SEC is mostly helpless in regulating such things. I think stock owners, buyers and sellers, should demand more transparency in all stock exchanges. It is beneficial to nearly all people to have complete transparency, and beneficial to a select few when the books are closed. Stockholders and companies really need to advocate a sort of "stock exchange bill of rights", because government oversight is a joke and problems like Cramer are all to common.

>> ^misterwight:

Look, I'm sorry, but no member of the GOP can complain about "abuse of the process" for at least the next few terms. Where were these defenders of just process for the last 20 years?


I wish I could quality this comment.

Attention buyers: you got screwed.

> I don't think so, I think people were just blown away
> and wanted to share with the guys on stage what had happened.

Right, but then consider that immediately afterwards the ticket buyer was torn to shreds by an angry mob.

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.

Turns out this guys was just that... some guy. Not the bomber.
They tracked down the person that Craigslisted the SUV and he described the buyer (hundred dollar bills) as either middle-eastern or hispanic or something like that.

>> ^Crake:
^Voldemort quote. Nice
I agree that fairness it often an abused term when it comes to real-life issues (such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
I'm not sure that's the issue here, though. I think Lewis is working from the basic assumption of Capitalism everywhere: It's voluntary, therefore it is fair (this is where the pirate comparison becomes problematic).
If I win the lottery, I don't deserve the winnings. Same goes if I sell a mint condition comic book for tens of thousands of dollars. I don't have to worry about the buyer's reason for paying that price, it may be because he's a sucker, or because he really sees that much value in it (or because he knows he can resell it for even more later, which is probably the usual case).
So, there is a disconnect between buyer and seller, that allows for a lack of compassion for mistakes, I guess, but it's on a solid moral footing (voluntary, presumably rational actors) , so it's hard to change.
nor should it be changed, but that's just my own Capitalist opinion


I think you're wrong.

Capitalism is not voluntary. It's mandatory.

The pirate comparison is not out of line. You've heard of T. Boone Pickens? You've heard of hostile takeovers?

And lastly, the fairness question is not "an abused term" -- it is the heart of the issue.

Any system that considers fairness as being something that need not be adhered to, that need not be included in decision-making, and that need not be a goal of policy is, at heart, a criminal system.

>> ^Crake:
"assymetries between buyers an sellers" is the basis for having an economy in the first place, though
I think I can see what you think should be rewarded: "hard work, intelligence, talent and perseverance". However, the only thing that Capitalism rewards is how useful or valued your product or service is to someone else.

By asymmetries between buyer and seller, I'm not talking about division of labor and economies of scale -- those are definitely good asymmetries. Instead, I'm talking more about market power and differences in information. If I own all the gas stations within 100 miles of a city, and I charge $9/gallon, I'm going to make a lot of money, but I won't have done it by "providing a service", I'll have done it by stamping out competition. If I do something like this, I'm taking advantage of people with low levels of market information (and low brain cell counts).

I agree that capitalism isn't a system that rewards people on the basis of personal merit, but instead their ability to convince people to give them money by convincing them that they got something of equal value out of the transaction. Some people do that by trying to provide a good or service that's actually valuable, some people don't.

What I don't understand is why people act as though it's some sort of righteous meritocracy where resources accumulated in someone's hands is always "hard earned" (and therefore should never be taxed), when most evidence indicates that the people with the most resources generally haven't done anything hard to accumulate it at all. Then you look at the people who wind up needing assistance from charity or the state and you find they usually haven't done anything wrong, and work harder than a spoiled brat like me ever would.

I agree with the premise of your hyperbolic example. I'm not saying we should abandon markets, but that "free markets" leave a lot to be desired when it comes to social justice. For now the best game in town seems to be a mix of mostly-free markets with a social safety net, and a regulatory framework aimed at maximizing the number of people trying to provide actually valuable goods and services, rather than exploiting the imperfect nature of real-world markets.