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That is right, "He can't"
Obama and his smear campaign has nothing for Ron Paul, unless they want to go through the racist writing in the newsletters, again.
Ron Paul would pick Obama apart, in simple terms, that everyone can understand, putting the complete puzzle together for all to see..
The puzzle has already been put together imo. The information age has exposed the big government candidates, the problem is getting the blinders off them.
Economics, both Obama & Romney have nothing to fix this mess. Ron does.
Foreign policy, both Obama and Romney like using our military and innocent lives to rule the world. Do as I say or be punished.
Immigration, who is calling for enforcing the laws that were put in place, so this mess would never happen and be able to uphold President Reagan's promise of "this will be a one time deal"
Marriage, not you but the government gets to decide if you are a winner or a loser, by who you co-habitat with. Get government out of the marriage business with benefits.
Income tax, Both Mitt and Obama, want to tax you based on your prosperity. Penalize you for the fruits you bare. Only Ron Paul wants to eliminate this penalty for being productive.
Healthcare, Ron Paul is a Doctor, need I say more?
Right to work, and you have Union Obama and flip flopper Progressive Mitt? Hmmm Union money!
Gun rights, both Obama & Mitt have expressed restrictions on the 2nd Amendment & gun ownership.
Slackjaw. You are MISSING THE POINT. The point is to compare what things cost and the standard of living when there was NO CENTRAL BANK which was when our country was most prosperous. That would be after President Jackson got rid of them in the mid 1830's until President Wilson lost his mind and signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 (and later regreted it).
No, I'm not missing the point your entire premise leans on the country being more prosperous and having a better standard of living 150 years ago and that simply isn't true. Today people are more comfortable with more amenities and things we take for granted that only the wealthy could dream of back then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by emilybh
Besides, where did you get your little charts from? Did you make them yourself on Powerpoint? They certainly don't look credible or accurate or verifiable to me.
Of course I didn't make them, you're just dismissing them because they sink your entire argument. The source is BEA, and whether they look credible to you isn't relevant since you I doubt you have any expertise on the subject and aren't presenting any hard data to counter it other than pictures of Victorian dinner parties.
Quote:
Originally Posted by emilybh
With all due respect YOU go look at Literacy Rates.
Using an "average" income is dumb because you'd be averaging in those that make billions a year along with those who make $12k a year. It would make a lot more sense to look at the MEAN income. In other words, of all the people working what is the income figure MOST employed Americans make? I bet it is nowhere near $40K I bet it is more like $25K if that!
Average and mean are usually synonymous in common usage, and the example you are giving for for most common income would be the mode (not the MEAN) although median is probably the preferred statistical measure for income. Kinda funny in previous post you lecturing about how dumb younger people are today because they don't know "their" from "there" do you think maybe they have a grasp of common statistics terms?
Quote:
Originally Posted by emilybh
Well the bread I buy today is around $4 to $7 a loaf.
What on earth? What bread do you buy for $7 a loaf? Does it have gold dust in the recipe? I can buy a cheapo loaf of bread for about a dollar, a fresh baked one from the grocery store for $1.50, and artisan loaf of bread (whatever that means) for $3. Again, confirmation bias. You are lying to yourself to chase your conclusions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by emilybh
Rents have also skyrocketed. What I used to pay $250/month for now rents for $1500 or more! Most people's income has not increased by 6 to 10 times what it was when they started out on their own in the late 70's.
Note food and housing in chart:
Quote:
Originally Posted by emilybh
Besides back then they didn't need as much money. That is why their standard of living was SO MUCH HIGHER that ours doesn't even COMPARE with what it was back then.
Not true. We have far more conveniences, live in far more stable indoor temperatures, have far more information available to us, have far more varieties of food, aren't worries about our kids catching polio or pox, etc. I could live like people in the 1800s for far less money than I'm spending for a simple lifestyle today. Get rid of the car, get rid the air conditioning, turn off electricity, rip out the insulation in my house, turn off water and build an outhouse and hand pump, can/pickle so I can eat fruits and veggies when it isn't harvest season, no more internet, use wood or coal for heating and cooking, etc.
Not true. We have far more conveniences, live in far more stable indoor temperatures, have far more information available to us, have far more varieties of food, aren't worries about our kids catching polio or pox, etc. I could live like people in the 1800s for far less money than I'm spending for a simple lifestyle today. Get rid of the car, get rid the air conditioning, turn off electricity, rip out the insulation in my house, turn off water and build an outhouse and hand pump, can/pickle so I can eat fruits and veggies when it isn't harvest season, no more internet, use wood or coal for heating and cooking, etc.
Yet for a lot of families both parents have to work for the family to make it. Technology made the difference not the wasteful, ineffective big government that you love. Take off the blinders.
The ability to get a loan vs. saving to pay for what you need.
To do that they must inflate the dollar. It is then the dollar that sits on the bubble eventually.
Look at your chart, once we went off the gold standard. Free money, that was really worthless.
Maybe it affects them less, don't know. Again you are arguing against x by pointing out not y. I've not made a single claim about how it affects the rich, or whether they are hurting.
So to be clear, since you have the above examples it is not true that wealthy people lost more during the recession? You're all over the place.
What was Pelosi invested in? Was it something that others could not invest in?
The point being made here about privileges of "elitism", I believe, is the conflict of interest. The insider information and imbalance in their ability to profit. Govt is the majority of the economy.
The politicians besides receiving normal excellent benefits and salary get insider privilege and ability to benefit from their decisions in a big way. The expense accts alone these politicians have is entirely unique.
Many you can argue made tons of money off their connections. These people are equivalent to the "royalty" of old. They most definitely are receiving major "economic" advantage over Joe Citizen.
Trying to compare standards of living to pre-tech or even pre-industrial is difficult. There are too many variables. I think the only real way to focus on such things is to look simply at the avg income for most. Even that is very difficult because of major changes in Real Estate, for example. NM that you have to try to come up with an avg for very different times.
The major change to a debt based economy is highly significant. Too me it is very unsustainable long term and quite insane. Making black and white arguments on either side of the fence I think would be a mistake.
My view is simply Big Govt has more downsides than not. Govt is a unique mechanism, with unique privileges, designed to serve some specific centralized functions, therefore needs to be limited. If not this unique functioning creates imbalance in many areas.
Look who is calling the kettle black! You are the Bunk Master if there ever was one. First of all, everyone knows ....and even YOU should know... that wages haven't gone up nearly high enough to compensate for inflation (that is 100% caused by the FED expanding the money supply when they should be doing NOTHING)! Using an "average" income is dumb because you'd be averaging in those that make billions a year along with those who make $12k a year. It would make a lot more sense to look at the MEAN income. In other words, of all the people working what is the income figure MOST employed Americans make? I bet it is nowhere near $40K I bet it is more like $25K if that!
I don't think you have any idea what the purchasing power of the dollar used to be do you? I'll tell you. In the 1890's through 1912 you could buy over $4.40 worth of stuff --- food especially ---for a dollar. You could get a loaf of bread for 4 cents which was less than it cost in the late 1700s when it cost half again as much (but they had a central bank back then)! The last time a dollar bought a dollar's worth of stuff was in 1967 when you could buy a loaf of bread for 28 cents.
How much do you pay for bread and how many loaves of bread do you consume in a year? Let's say a couple consumes 2 loaves in a week or 100 per year. Well the bread I buy today is around $4 to $7 a loaf. When I was on my own and started working it was around 50cents or maybe 68 cents a loaf. So just to be able to spend the same percentage of my income on food as I did then, I'd need to be making 7 to 10 times what I was making then.
Rents have also skyrocketed. What I used to pay $250/month for now rents for $1500 or more! Most people's income has not increased by 6 to 10 times what it was when they started out on their own in the late 70's. Even if it has done so, all they've done is maintained their standard of living they certainly haven't INCREASED it. Those who have always had menial jobs have seen their standard of living drop like a rock! So you don't know what you are talking about as far as that goes.
You can see for yourself your premise is completely wrong. When people where making $750 a year, today's $100 bought over $2500 worth of STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET IT, Finally? Besides back then they didn't need as much money. That is why their standard of living was SO MUCH HIGHER that ours doesn't even COMPARE with what it was back then.
I'd respond to all this nonsense but it appears slackjaw has already done so, so there's not a lot of reason to repeat it. About all I need to add is that ANYONE who actually thought you could buy a brand new bungalow for $5 (as you did) - when the item for sale for that price was merely the house PLAN (not to mention the fact that you seem to think that the average person actually had servants) - is not really qualified to argue ANYTHING about economics.
As for your silly graph - you DO realize that the author of that chart (R. C. Sahr) is NOT an even an economist (he's a Political Science professor) - not mention that the chart is so vague it really doesn't show anything and has nothing really to back it up.
And as I said, anyone who seems to think that you could buy a brand new bungalow for $5 clearly has NO UNDERSTANDING of what the cost of items were back then so you are not really in a position to be taken seriously in that regard. Even plain old common sense should have told you that a brand new house was NOT $5 - I mean come on!
Gotcha on elitism and advantages in investing, I agree 100% both for business insiders and policy makers. It is tough nut to crack though I can't imagine creating rules that, for example, say congressmen who happen to be on any finance committees that they cannot invest any money anywhere. Insider trading is such gray area that currently one has to really make an obvious and stupid act to be charged with it. A CEO calling his cousin to sell Mortimer sell because he knows they are about to announce huge business losses with their new line of smart phones is one thing, but it gets really blurred when you have someone in the house energy committee selling their own shares of a natural gas company.
Yeah its almost impossible to compare something like incomes over different eras, especially as far back as the 1800s when far fewer people even had an income. Some had farms, some worked on farms for room and board, some were slaves and worked to not feel a whip crack on their back, etc. but I think one can make a claim on overall standard of living then vs. now and it isn't even close. As I said one can easily simulate the lifestyle of someone pre-civil war era and it usually involves getting rid of a lot of stuff that we take for granted which makes our lives more comfortable.
Yup big government is bad, I like the trend downwards in govt employees headcount that recession caused but I'd sure like to see the level of spending take a similar direction.
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