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The current inflation is real and is being caused by our own gov't. The Feds decision to constantly cut rates, and the current administrations policy of devaluing the dollar in 2004, has sent our currency into a free fall. We are a country of consumers and our weak dollar is making all our imports, including oil, cost more.
We need to start showing some fiscal restraint and stop using our Federal Reserve System as an ATM machine.
There is a difference between reported inflation for government purposes and real inflation based on whatever basket of goods and services that affects you.
The US government, and most European governments, are facing aging populations to whom they've promised social security checks every month for life and health care services for life.
We are in an economic tight box. One way out is to technically keep those commitments, but the real value of those checks and those services will be significantly downsized going forward.
As it stands now, most social security checks just about cover food for two and some utilities, and that's about it. In about ten years, maybe much fewer, that same check, even increased at 3% per year as per the official inflation rate, will cover probably just food. And if they raise income taxes, which includes income from social security checks, that same check, even adjusted for "official" inflation, will buy even less. And even less than that if we keep producing food products like corn to fuel vehicles.
Analogous remarks apply to medicare services.
This theory makes a lot of sense. There are many people who also believe that the Federal Government sees illegal immigration as a partial answer to the coming deficits in Social Security and Medicare by providing more workers per recipient than there would otherwise be. It is easier to inflate the currency and import workers than to make any meaningful systemic changes that no one has the political backbone for anyway.
This theory makes a lot of sense. There are many people who also believe that the Federal Government sees illegal immigration as a partial answer to the coming deficits in Social Security and Medicare by providing more workers per recipient than there would otherwise be. It is easier to inflate the currency and import workers than to make any meaningful systemic changes that no one has the political backbone for anyway.
Good point, many European governments are allowing the same to happen for similar reasons ... and these immigrants will be even easier to rip off than television-watching, sterile whitey.
Dispense with the education of the schools, and have good masters at home instead.
Both y'all are pretty far out along the gangplank there. But since we are not at the dock, that plan would get us in pretty deep water, fast.
Biggest problem we have in America is turning the keys over to dumb folks with low ethics and letting them drive the thing. Been running that way much of my life, and more so all the time.
Might have heard the phrase -- Think education is expensive? See how much ignorance costs.
Look at most everything that most everyone agrees is a mess in America. Bush-Cheney-Iraq. The banking mess. The ARM mess. The energy mess. on and on. You will always find a situation where it leaves one asking -- Are the people involved in creating this situation Dumb or are they Crooks?
Have studied this enough to find the answer always turns out They are Dumb Crooks. Same answer over and over.
We cannot afford another dime's worth of dumb.
As far as salvation coming from the home front for education or moral behavior -- In case you have not noticed there is also no one at home. Either the parents are split up, and/or both are working chasing the buck, and/or on and on.
From what I am seeing the kids need more education -- but not necessarily the corporate-government school path. Along with moral guidance -- not less education and not abandonment.
From what I am seeing the kids need more education -- but not necessarily the corporate-government school path. Along with moral guidance -- not less education and not abandonment.
Exactly, Rep for you! We agree then.
Dispense with the education of the schools, and have good masters at home instead.
I'm absolutely dumbfounded by people who say that gas prices going up is a sign of inflation. If that is your definition of inflation why is it no one screamed inflation when housing prices double and tripled over the last seven years. If rising food prices signal inflation right now then how can we have inflation when housing prices are collapsing. How can anyone claim there is "real inflation" when housing price fall every day. It defies their own silly logic. The standards used to define inflation on this board have no basis in economics whatsoever.
The United States hasn't experienced "real inflation" since the 1980-1982 recession. Please get a grasp and deal in facts instead of fantasies. It is the path to true knowledge.
I'm absolutely dumbfounded by people who say that gas prices going up is a sign of inflation. If that is your definition of inflation why is it no one screamed inflation when housing prices double and tripled over the last seven years. If rising food prices signal inflation right now then how can we have inflation when housing prices are collapsing. How can anyone claim there is "real inflation" when housing price fall every day. It defies their own silly logic. The standards used to define inflation on this board have no basis in economics whatsoever.
The United States hasn't experienced "real inflation" since the 1980-1982 recession. Please get a grasp and deal in facts instead of fantasies. It is the path to true knowledge.
Wait a minute Dave... let us not be too narrow in this definition of inflation. This is what dictionaries (financial and otherwise) say it is:
"An increase in the amount of currency in circulation, resulting in a relatively sharp and sudden fall in its value and rise in prices...
"A persistent increase in the level of consumer prices or a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money, ...
inflation 1: a general and progressive increase in prices; "in inflation everything gets more valuable except money"
I'm absolutely dumbfounded by people who say that gas prices going up is a sign of inflation. If that is your definition of inflation why is it no one screamed inflation when housing prices double and tripled over the last seven years. If rising food prices signal inflation right now then how can we have inflation when housing prices are collapsing. How can anyone claim there is "real inflation" when housing price fall every day. It defies their own silly logic. The standards used to define inflation on this board have no basis in economics whatsoever.
The United States hasn't experienced "real inflation" since the 1980-1982 recession. Please get a grasp and deal in facts instead of fantasies. It is the path to true knowledge.
Besides what cdelena provided above, the real issue here is the value of the US dollar as money: the means of exchange, the unit of account, and the store of value, with an emphasis on the latter of the three.
The fact is, in the past several years, with its suicidal monetary and credit policies, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-educated, all-responsible US ruling class has contaminated the money supply to the point where the price mechanism is grossly distorted.
That helps to explain why for a few years we have hyper-inflation in one sector, real estate for example, and a few years later deflation in the same sector, while we have above official average inflation in other sectors, say energy, food, health care and education, and about average inflation in imported goods, while domestic economic agents can't figure out where the hell to invest their savings in a domestic productive enterprise.
I know I can't, I put all my savings in overseas assets, and at the least I earn income, but I can't figure out where to do that in the US without being pulverized by the ruling classes' suicidal monetary and credit policies, suicidal for domestic savers and investors, that is. Can you help?
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How can there be inflation?
