Aesop, whom we've met in these pages on many occasions, is back from his blogging hiatus and demonstrating that sarcasm, acerbic wit, and not giving a damn do, indeed, convey points of view very well. Here he is discussing the US dollar and fiat currency in general.
Wages since 1985 have cratered. Case in point, my parents' combined household income in 1985 was at the 50th percentile at the time, i.e the mid-point, nationally. Or notionally. Mine is currently at the 90th percentile nationwide, all by my ownself, IOW, better than 90% of US households. But for me to have the purchasing power they enjoyed near the household median in 1985, my paycheck would need to be larger than it is by seven- to ten-fold. IOW, I make 500% of what mom and pop did, yet the purchasing power of my income is only about 40% of what theirs was then. That's how much nothing my fiatbux "Real wages" command currently, and how badly "Real wages" have dropped.
Gold is gold, which is why the spot price is USD$4500/oz as I write this, compared to +/- USD$300 in 1985. That means a dollar in 2026 is worth less than 7% in real terms what it was 40 years ago.
. . .
For Common Core grads, that means your dollar now is worth less than 5/1000ths - 0.005% - of what a dollar was worth in 1932. ($1 x 0.065 x 0.07 = 0.00455. QED) A dollar currently is worth less, in real terms, than the cost for the ink and paper to print it. Maybe write that down on your hand in Sharpie, lest ye forget. We don't need zinc pennies anymore, because $1 bills are the new 1/2¢ coin. And the only people who've figured that out are EVERYONE who's selling you anything, worldwide, and why all your s***, from cars to houses to Happy Meals, has zoomed in price. Gold hasn't zoomed. Your dollars are simply worth Jack, and S***. That's how inflation works, with the Treasury printing fiatbux three shifts a day, and inflating the unbacked money supply by trillions, year after year. Fun times, dead ahead.
. . .
This reality is why Fiatbux - dollars, francs, yen, renminbi, whatever - are all finely engraved toilet paper. Don't make me do a retard crayon talk here. The only things that have cratered harder than "real wages" since 1985 are Russian armored regiment performance, or possibly Minnesota fraud investigations. Even Catholic church child abuse investigations have improved more than real wages since 1985. To suggest otherwise makes CNN economic reporters and hosts on The View sound wise.
. . .
Sometime between tomorrow and death, most of the world is going to discover firsthand what the inhabitants of Weimar, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela all learned about financial reality. It isn't going to be pretty. In a Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff kind of way. Mind the drop.
Just saying.
There's more at the link.
Of course, he's saying nothing new to those of you who've been following our discussions on this blog over the past few years. We most recently addressed the problem less than a week ago. Nevertheless, there are relatively few people, in my experience, who actually understand the issues and/or will reorient their lives in such a way as to live according to reality as it truly is. Most people will continue to spend money, not on things of lasting worth or that will retain their value, but rather on what the Bible calls "riotous living": weekends in Vegas, fashionable clothes, fancy frou-frou imitations of coffee, and so on. If most people would spend on true necessities what they spend every month on such fripperies, they could prepare themselves and their families for hard times and sleep easier at night. However, most don't bother.
If you want a glaring example of evidence about our present situation, it's actually the absence of a piece of evidence. It's simply this: What happened to the audit of US gold reserves in Fort Knox that we were promised? Where is it? Where are the results? The subject has literally vanished from view. My conclusion is that it's being deliberately suppressed; and if that's the case, then I can only assume that our gold reserves simply aren't there any more. Where they are, and/or what happened to them, I have no idea: but if we had them, there's no reason at all why we, the people who (in theory) own them, just as we own (hah!) our government, should not be told about them. I'm pretty sure the powers that be understand full well that if they aren't there, they no longer underpin the value (such as it is) of the US dollar, so they'd rather ignore them and pretend the problem doesn't exist. Trouble is, after we've been lied to and misled so often by so many administrations, nobody with two or more working brain cells trusts the deafening silence which is all we hear about the subject.
(If you think differently, I have this bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I'd like to sell you. It's beautiful! You'll make a mint out of charging people tolls to cross it! Price on application. Cash only, please, and in small bills.)
Oh, well . . .
Peter
11 comments:
What the times call for is a cheerful ditty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSA5C8mQcLQ&list=RDtSA5C8mQcLQ&start_radio=1
This is precisely wht I've been calling for years now: inflation; perhaps my definition of the word is wrong; I never took a course in economics.
Just think: what about the surviving members of the "Silent Generation"? Those of us who worked our a$$es off and didn't spend our hard-earned lucre on fripperies; who put aside enough for our old age (or estate, as the case may be) based upon what we thought "inflation" would reduce the buying power to be in our declining years: we didn't see Obama and Biden ru(i)nning our country/economy.
The majority of the middle-class are commies, they voted for commie politicians, and the politicians implemented communism. Social Security was a Ponzi scheme from day one. Humans are not a blank slate with no instincts; the political instincts carried in human DNA were inherited from earlier primates, and they specify extended family group communism for a group numbering about 150. When human group sizes expanded 2 million times, this inherited instinctual firmware no longer worked so well, because the alpha primate now had too large of a tax base and thus too much military power. If you want peace and prosperity you must switch to political behavior which doesn't "feel right". You can start by electing only libertarians for politicians, and forming grand juries to prosecute corruption.
My bet is whatever "gold" is left in Ft. Knox is plated tungsten bars.
With the massive failings of our "education" system combined with the precipitous drop in IQ most people are incapable of understanding well exactly what's happening economically. All they know is they are suffering and that is making them mad.
@ tweell
Nah! tungsten's too expensive; more likely plated dog droppings
Just wait until the Gold/Silver ETF Pyramid Scheme collapses... THEN we'll see some fun, spicy times...
I mean the Mint itself yesterday suspended ALL sales of Silver Coins to reprice/reevaluate as the prices listed online (their sales website) were so out of whack w/the current spot price, they HAD to shut down to readjust, and there's even questions if they even HAVE silver to sell at this point, never mind gold...
I mean for real, the current COMEX Spot price is a heapin' steamin' pile o'doggie donuts... (I'm being polite as it's your house Peter LOL)
IRL Silver (as an example) is selling/buying at around $120-$140 per ounce spot... Shanghai/Korean/Japan/China/Kuwait/Dubai.... never mind 'on the street' retailers in India... and that's SPOT... just the price of the metal... add in the 'nut' for the sale? That usually SHOULD be about $7+/- per oz, unless buying in bulk)
Numismatic pricing?
Well...to buy ONE 2026 US Silver Eagle Dollar using a Credit Card or Paypal is $112.71. That's $19.34 which is an INSANE Premium by normal standards. The China Panda? That particular coin, as I type right NOW, is running $135.32...
You tell me amiright?
We're about to get economically cornholed, and it's going to be interesting to say the least....
Well now, with my seven Morgan dollars, I'm about ready to retire!
Hey. You know something? I'm a millionaire. You know something else? I have to watch every penny (oops, no pennies) dollar I spend. The time is coming when the $100 bill will become the new 90¢ piece (the govt will take an additional 10% off the currency conversion) just to make the numbers look more tolerable. Your 401K? If not out and out confiscated (like FDR and gold), the "laws" will be manipulated so that the banks get to keep at least some of it to remain solvent: "too big to fail" ... but you're not.
There are some things that are more expensive, but there are a lot of things that were just not available in 1985
The poor in the US have access to a world of things that the richest people in the world did not have in 1985, let alone the middle class or the 90%
access to education, information, communications and entertainment for example
the local supermarket has fresh food from around the world that in 1985 would have been only available to the top 1% (by flying in supplies themselves)
Just pointing at the price of Gold is not a valid thing to do. Like everything else, the price of Gold is a matter of supply and demand. The supply of Gold has not remotely kept up with the supply of other things.
Houses are more expensive, they are also larger and more comfortable (and you can point at regulations that make them more expensive on top of that)
I'm not saying that inflation isn't under-reported, but I am old enough that in 1985 I was in high school, I remember those times and know what I have now.
David Lang
The gold standard is effectively impossible given the US economy. The M1 (the amount of cash currently extent according to the Fed, essentially the cash float that would have to be backed by gold) is ~19 trillion Dollars. At $4600 a troy ounce that represents ~4.1 billion troy Ounces. The official US reserves are 261.5 Million troy ounces (presuming they are actually there). The known Holdings of gold by all governments represent about 1.25 billion ounces still a little more than 1/4 what we'd need to back the M1. Maybe there is that again in private hands, but likely not. Yearly world production is ~115 million troy ounces (upper bound) produced per year with Large quantities produced from China, Russia and Australia, NOT the US. it would take 38 years of the whole world gold production to bring the US reserves to the level required to back the M1 at 1-1 in gold at current levels.
I will note the M1 took a HUGE jump from April to May of 2020 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL). That said even the pre May 2020 M1 of ~4 trillion Dollars would require increasing the reserves to 1 billion ounces would require purchasing the full world production of gold for 5-6 years.
President Trump has done well but in his first term he got played by the existing republicans and the "Experts" he hired that held to Keynesian economic models. A large portion of that jump in the M1 is likely due to all the various Covid funds handed out in 2020 and beyond. That economic damage may mitigate the good being done in trying to fix our immigration and voting issues in this term and the judges from the first term.
Post a Comment