Zmartmoney

Let the Public See What They Pay for Health Care

People, please! This isn't about healthcare, it's about power and control. After the elite "give" us free healthcare, we're supposed to all be indebted forever to their kindness, and do everything we can to keep them in power. And, judging from the level of smarts of the average voter, that plan looks like it might work pretty well. After we completely break the bank covering illegal aliens, and resume the Weimar dream, healthcare will be something we think about wistfully, from the "good ol' days..."

What Does Bloomberg Have Against Gold?

Seeking Alpha isn't "pumping" anything. It's just reflecting the biases of many hard-jawed investors that have seen way too many bubbles and what their fallout was. Currently, we have a dollar that's being shot behind the barn in order to monetize the debt by an out-of-control government. Is that "pumping" in your book? BTW - who's juking the dollar this week? Something is up and it's so hard to see what the bankers and robber barons are up to that it's hard to know who's milking your cow these days. Oil is in a slump due to consumption - it won't stay there. The dollar is momentarily up - it won't stay there.


On Dec 08 07:59 AM synstelien wrote:

> Wouldn't the real question be "Why does Seeking Alpha pump gold?"

Mortgage Mess: A Quarter of All Borrowers Are Underwater

They did come by it honestly, if you can call it that.


On Nov 25 04:50 AM chris coonan wrote:

> The Western US is really having some bad times. Florida as well.
> The economy punishes areas for boom times, it is such a destructive
> force.

Mortgage Mess: A Quarter of All Borrowers Are Underwater

I agree - non-recourse states are largely responsible for fueling the drunk-hanging-onto-punch bowl behavior that got us into a lot of this mess. With so many people sitting around watching Flip This House and dreaming of becoming Donald Trump (remember his last bankruptcy?), and encouraged by NO downside, what did we expect? This was truly socialization of losses, thanks to stupid state laws created by stupid state congresses. How about some reality in the marketplace? This is going to get a lot uglier in the non-recourse states.


On Nov 24 10:11 PM woollyB wrote:

> Just wait until the avalanche of walk-aways starts in the non-recourse
> states. There's only so far underwater a rational person will go
> before throwing in the towel.

Elizabeth Warren: The End of the Middle Class

As long as half the people in the country pay NO INCOME TAXES AT ALL, they will be jumping up and down excitedly over the RULING ELITE throwing them another yummy bone (sounds like a dog...). When everyone has some skin in the game, the electorate won't be quite so easy for our "masters" to divide and conquer for their money/power/prestige game. BHO (mmm, mmm, mmm) is just another crooked, smooth-talking shill for the robber barons who want to continue to own you, but plan on continuing to treat you like a rented mule. Wake up.

An Alternative View on the Rising Price of Gold

I remember being able to buy a split-window Stingray for a little over $4000...ah, for such a price now I can only see it in brief dreams. All I can say is I'm glad I have all these dollars. Now, if I could just afford to buy a Corvette off the showroom floor.

The Truth Behind China's Currency Peg

Great. Let's all do stupid things to make it even. Wage laws are poorly conceived, and universally badly implemented, which almost always kicks in the theory of unintended consequences, for things to be worse, not better. Free markets work - enforce honesty in markets, not wages. Enforcement of honesty would confuse all of DC - "How would things work then?", they would ask....
TERM LIMITS is how.


On Nov 22 12:01 PM User 499426 wrote:

> I complement this article. However, I wonder how in a global economy
> without a universal minimum wage, where in 2008 the average Chinese
> worker made roughly $3,400 and the average American worker $28,000,
> how will American manufacturing regain much traction, even in a de-pegged
> environment? It will still be Chinese quasi slave labor against a
> much more generous American pay scale. Or should Americans accept
> the Chinese pay scale? There are two answers to that question: 'no'
> and 'no way'.
>
> The global economy should be transparent with a minimum wage and
> no trade barriers whatsoever so that politics, trade manipulation
> and exploitation are replaced by fair and humane business competition.
>
>
> But the global economy slave trade that has made America into a non-manufacturing
> nation is strong. The only thing that seems to throw a monkey wrench
> in it is when fuel prices rise to levels that make shipping goods
> from exploiter to exploitee too expensive, like when oil goes north
> of $120, which it will again. Then America will have to manufacturer
> its own goods out of necessity. But we shouldn't wait passively for
> that time, but instead should be manufacturing and inventing now,
> especially in alternative energy.
>
> The best way to correct currency disparities is to correct the business/trading
> environment, which will benefit the majority of the people on the
> planet. That is not to counter Mr. Schiff's observation that there
> will be a great quantity of pain comingwhen de-pegging occurs, but
> that this is the correct, hard-medicine route that we need to take,
> removing a great market manipulation from the system.

Faber: Gold a Better Buy than at $300/oz.

With so many entities gaming the system for all they're worth, anything can happen at any time. This isn't a financial market, this is a roulette wheel.

Roubini on Unemployment: 'The Worst Is Yet to Come'

You've been watching the Looney Tunes again, haven't you...? Tch! Tch! And, I know that you'll agree for sure with the logic that all those licensed handgun owners out there are the reason for violent crime. Oh Puhleeze! How about a government that enforces the laws we DO have? How about holding white collar hoodlums responsible for their gigantic failures? This isn't about Capitalism - we haven't had that around since we junked the Constitution. Gimme a break! The fascists are arm wrestling the socialists for control - but, relax, they'll learn to share.


On Nov 16 04:00 PM Alan Young wrote:

> Very good article; I have to agree with the author.
>
> Many comments protest against using government spending to solve
> the problem, based on some philosophical argument that pure capitalism
> is somehow better.
> This is crazy talk, and I do mean truly delusional. It was unfettered
> capitalism that got us into this mess—yes, enabled by gov't policies
> to be sure, but not directly caused by government. We're going to
> have to face the fact that the countries that have bounced back from
> the crash more strongly that we have, have done so with lots of government
> support—China being the extreme and unambiguously successful example.
> There are plenty of people who would rather be politically correct
> (i.e. Libertarian or conservative Republican) than pragmatic, but
> that's a very expensive choice for most of us.
>
> This is not spending just for the sake of spending. Our infrastructure
> is a mess. Boston is losing more drinking water from its leaky plumbing
> system than it is consuming. The SF-Oakland Bay Bridge is literally
> falling apart. New Orleans is no better off than it was the day Katrina
> hit it. Our interstate power grid is no better off than it was a
> few years ago when everything from Ohio to New York got blacked out.
> There is PLENTY of constructive work that could be done with government
> funding, but local governments have nothing to spend. Get money in
> the hands of people who need it to spend—not to banks to cover their
> shiddy ass't sheets—and get them off unemployment, while establishing
> a stronger infrastructure foundation to support badly-needed re-industrialization.
>
>
> If the people who insist on Pure Capitalism keep driving our economy
> the way it's been going, public unrest may replace our leadership
> with proponents of Pure Socialism. I don't think anyone would enjoy
> that trip. It's time to get pragmatic.

Roubini on Unemployment: 'The Worst Is Yet to Come'

You're right - I know a couple of people with advanced degrees and loads of experience who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. AND, they STILL haven't given up and gone down to MIckey Dee's and gotten a job serving McNuggets and coffee... Don't worry - they'll come around and grab that dream again.


On Nov 16 09:07 AM Adonis wrote:

> One of the issues with the unemployment rate, is I know people you
> aren't willing to work in just any job. They are fine with staying
> on unemployment until a precise job comes around. This was not the
> case in the Depression. People would take any paying job just to
> put food on the table, but today's laziness keeps the unemployment
> rate higher.

Current Gold Price Is Not a Bubble

From the site you reference:
"As is pointed out, gold is worth nothing unto itself. And worse, gold is not consumed, so supply forever increases. This ever-increasing supply dynamic is NOT the hallmark of a good investment."
How much "money" is in circulation now, as compared to 50 years ago? One need only compare the supply dynamic of gold to the supply dynamic of paper money to see that paper is outstripping gold at a horrendous pace. The fact that investors around the globe bought worthless investment "paper" in the form of CDOs, etc, highlights this fact. There are plenty more trees than mines. Anything I can print on the color copier in my office takes a back seat to having to dig something out of the earth and refine it.


On Nov 15 01:07 PM Brian McMorris wrote:

> Gold may be a hedge against inflation, but it does no good against
> a deflationary contraction. To deflate assets requires the value
> of the currency those assets are denominated in to increase (this
> is math that most goldbugs can't handle) as the quantity decreases.
> In essence, $15T of dollars were destroyed or disappeared (not physically,
> but notionally with debt paper markdowns). Less supply at a given
> demand = higher price / value. Central bankers everywhere understand
> this dynamic. So, in a coordinated way to restore stability to global
> assets, currencies are being expanded to replace those notionally
> destroyed (through markdowns during 2008 of the paper that underpinned
> all those assets, CDOs, RMBS, etc).
>
> The most intelligent dissertation I have seen on repairing a deflation
> was printed in Barrons last February. Ray Dalio, a rare Barrons contributor,
> was interviewed. I reference this interview on my blog
>
> wealth-ed.com/2009/11/.../

U.S. Job Losses Demystified

Who is America in your equation? It sounds like you equate America with Government. That is our problem - America is not equal to Government. Government shouldn't be doing all this "investing" to begin with - they invest badly, almost without exception, and then give the "profits" to those who didn't earn them. This is all about power. Wake up! Waging wars??? No doubt. Let's just wait here - the jihadists will eventually come to us. Anyway, it's more fun street-fighting on your own block - you can go home for lunch. Sheesh. You still think the govt is the solution.


On Nov 16 02:46 AM chris coonan wrote:

> America needs to support small business, innovation and creation.
> If government can invest in infrastructure, making the world better,
> more beautiful and safer, that is great. Hiring creative Architects
> and Engineers is a good use of resources.
>
> America investing in failed institutions, waging wars, and outsourcing
> industry, not a productive investment.
>
> It is as simple as looking at what things give returns, and what
> things give losses. The government can be part of the solution, but
> by investing in the wrong things, they can be a leading part of the
> problem. Seems like it is part of the problem right now.

U.S. Job Losses Demystified

You are correct - destroying us is their aim - how else would we accept one world government? The goal is exactly that - I can almost hear Orwell muttering, "I told you so..."


On Nov 15 03:48 PM Northern Dancer wrote:

> On Nov 15 03:00 PM SAS70 wrote:

U.S. Job Losses Demystified

User, as always I agree with your assessment. However, I think it's unfair to blame any of this on the middle class except for that part of it that put these maniacs in office. My suggestion remains:
1. Term limits for ALL of Congress
2. No retirement program - collect social security if you retire, or go back to work like the rest of us.
3. If you've been a Congressman, you can't be a lobbyist.
4. If you've been a lobbyist, you can't be a Congressman.

Drain the cesspool that DC has become. Eat your own dogfood Congress!!!


On Nov 15 03:13 PM User 353732 wrote:

> 1. Is the purpose of this "Jobs Summit" to count all those many and
> varied, high paying, high quality jobs that have been " created and
> saved" ?
>
> The reason Middle Class unemployment keeps rising is that the Middle
> class is simply too blind to see these jobs, too indolent to apply
> for them if they actually happen to see them and just too unskilled
> to be hired , if, remarkably they actually do apply. No doubt the
> summit will make this very clear.
>
> 2. Jobs are created when free, fair and fast markets continually
> reallocate resources, via efficiency and bankruptcy , from low or
> no or negative value added uses to higher value added uses.
> In a productive economy where price signals are true; where work,
> innovation, entrepreneurship and savings are applauded; where the
> alignment of risks and rewards is just and where credit and equity
> are based on merit, there is a "jobs summit" every day in which millions
> of free people eagerly participate.
>
> It is only when the parasitic economy consumes the substance of the
> productive economy, when transfer payments and unmerited entitlements
> are glorified, when capital is allocated based on political favoritism,
> when unjust taxes and suffocating regulations are deemed good government
> and when anti-capitalism is the ruling ideology of the corrupt and
> thieving elite that a physical "jobs summit" organized by the anointed
> and attended by the self absorbed is needed: as yet another form
> of extravagant propaganda....... and self adoration.

U.S. Job Losses Demystified

If you think that's a reasonable scenario, you haven't really lived through a serious deflation. Another massive loss of wealth across the US will only serve to further disassemble the middle class. The MC carries the country. Half of the US doesn't pay taxes, instead COLLECTS taxes from our pockets. You know - poor folks, with only three color TVs and cellphones for only those over 10 years of age. The rich (you know - like Congressmen) know how to protect their capital and have the resources to do so. That leaves us - the poor suckers who go to work every day and hope to someday be able to retire, while we watch our "wealth" evaporate from the crazed policies of the STATE (in the Marxist sense). A big bout of deflation would be almost as bad as the inflation which is looming on the horizon. Nobama only wants to be loved - everyone send him a Christmas card and a word of encouragement, so maybe he won't single-handedly destroy what remains of the free world.


On Nov 15 01:58 PM AmateurFarmBoy wrote:

> A healthy bout of deflation may be just the medicine needed for high
> unemployment if it results in breaking wage inflexibility and government
> regulation of private business. But Gutenberg-nanke is making that
> a long-shot hope.