Falling prices.....yay!

[Kirkland Laing]

A couple of years ago you were saying we had massive inflation because commodity prices (oil, gold, etc.) were soaring. Now those prices are collapsing. So by your logic we must be seeing massive deflation at the moment, right?

If you look at a commodity index (basket of commodities to show a represenitive trade-weighted price indicator for commodities) chart over the last couple of decades you'll see the graph line going up and down like a seismograph in an earthquake. That's why we don't include things like food and energy prices in how we measure inflation because it gives a false reading.

Here is headline inflation, which includes food and energy prices, and core inflation, which doesn't.




But how do we know that the government isn't making the inflation numbers up? Because clearly that's what's happening according to the fucknuts who've been predicting hyperinflation for the last six years. Because it's impossible that they're wrong -- the only reason for the fact that we're hearing about deflation and not hyperinflation must be that governments are lying.

Except no. Here's an independent measure of inflation, the billion price index, run by MIT it meausres hundreds of millions of consumer and producer prices on the internet. Here it is.



From when it started look how closely it maps the consumer price index (government measure of inflation).

Up to date numbers here.




You could also look at the yearly nominal GDP increaseand add on the government inflation numbers and see if it looks legit, then imagine that you really did have ten or fifteen percent inflation that this would mean that the economy was really contracting about ten percent a year. We know what that looks like -- at the end of the Bush administration it really was contracting that much and America was losing a million jobs a month. Now it's gaining 250 000 a month which is what it should be doing if the numbers are legit. Which they fucking are and the numbers prove it. But this last paragraph is far beyond the comprehension ability of a Korean English teacher.

Stick to teaching English and don't worry your little head about things you don't understand.

I know a good bit of Politics & will gladly duke it out on anythread, but when it comes to stuff like GDP? I do a Floyd & cherry pick my way out these fights...

It's the value of goods and services produced by a country in a calendar year. If you own a factory it's like working out how much stuff you make every year. GDP is just how much USA Inc. produces every year. That's it. Not complicated. Easy to understand, unless like Miles you have a nutter force field around your brain that prevents non-looney information entering.

You now know one concrete fact about economics and finance. This means you know more facts about economics and finance than Miles does. Congratulations.

[Gandalf]

That is outrageous, I read and follow my financial news daily and read excellent writers like Ha Joon Chang. I know my fundamentals and can interpret the year on year price of things which is inflation. If you lot knew your basics, the world wouldn't be in such a stew. I live in the world of common sense and not endless charts. You are so bothered by my common sense you have replied to the same person twice. Stop inflating your post count with replies to yourself......that is my forte! Inflation! The only deflation is in wages, oil and in banks hoarding printed money as they should be bankrupt. Everything else is INFLATION. Even fuel is inflation as the price is not being passed onto the consumer. Corporations are making more money! It is faux deflation for the consumer.

You were mocking me about my inability to forecast last years collapse too, but with QE it was very difficult. Are you feeling it a little more for this year? I hope prices do come down some, but not a load of unemployed people as the price worth paying. Bankers really have to go with their make it up as they go along nonsense. They should stick to common sense. And this is all at ZIRP!

[Kirkland Laing]

That is outrageous, I read and follow my financial news daily and read excellent writers like Ha Joon Chang. I know my fundamentals and can interpret the year on year price of things which is inflation. If you lot knew your basics, the world wouldn't be in such a stew. I live in the world of common sense and not endless charts. You are so bothered by my common sense you have replied to the same person twice. Stop inflating your post count with replies to yourself......that is my forte! Inflation! The only deflation is in wages, oil and in banks hoarding printed money as they should be bankrupt. Everything else is INFLATION. Even fuel is inflation as the price is not being passed onto the consumer. Corporations are making more money! It is faux deflation for the consumer.

You were mocking me about my inability to forecast last years collapse too, but with QE it was very difficult. Are you feeling it a little more for this year? I hope prices do come down some, but not a load of unemployed people as the price worth paying. Bankers really have to go with their make it up as they go along nonsense. They should stick to common sense. And this is all at ZIRP!

I googled this name and this is the first thing that comes up :

Why did Britain’s political class buy into the Tories’ economic fairytale? | Ha-Joon Chang | Comment is free | The Guardian

This guy is a conventional economist. He knows what he's talking about.

How the fuck did he get through the force field? You'll note in that article he quotes GDP figures and inflation numbers and doesn't question their accuracy. In fact those numbers are the basis for the arguments he's making in the article.

So how the fuck does this square with you and your nutty ideas about bullshit statistics? Hmmm?

[Kirkland Laing]

Also, too. Yes I'm mocking your ability to forecast anything. That's because you're a Korean English teacher with zero background in economics or finance, somebody who a few months ago didn't even know basic fundamental facts about how banking works, and somebody who thinks most of the numbers and statistics produced by various bodies are nonsense. So yeah you do invite a little bit of mockery.


When I joined this board I had to listen people telling me how the free market system and particularly the post-Reagan system of deregulation and tax cuts was producing the greatest, strongest economy ever. I pointed out that this was not the case and that we were actually about to see the biggest economic crash since the 1929 crash. I said that after the crash happened the heads of finance and government would do everything but do what was needed, which is to re-regulate the financial system and to effect a major downward redistribution of wealth to counteract the major upward redistribution of wealth that had happended since the Reagan/Thatcher class warriors took office in 1980. I said that markets and the financial system would remain volatile and fragile until this was done.

When you look back at what I've been saying here for nearly a decade and the fact that I celebrate quarter of a century working in the financial industry this year you'd have to say that I have a credible background to make predictions and also an actual track record of being right.

I'm now looking at the GOP 2016 presidential candidates sounding like I did a decade ago. Mitt Hedge Fund Romney talking about how we now have to help low income people, Ted Cruz, the rightiest of righties, talking about how the median wage has stagnated for decades, and I'm thinking that I'm starting to look quite prescient. Don't you think so too?

[Kirkland Laing]

Romney criticized President Obama and sketched out a three-pronged campaign platform should he seek the presidency for a third time. He said the 2016 campaign should center on making the world safer, offering opportunity for all Americans and lifting people out of poverty.“Under President Obama the rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse and there are more people in poverty in American than ever before,” Mr. Romney said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/us...ttom-well&_r=0




In his first major speech since stepping into the 2016 presidential sweepstakes in December, the Republican former Florida governor spoke confidently and in significant detail about the broad range of issues beginning to shape the campaign for the White House. Bush signaled he would offer the country the “adult conversations” he said are lacking in Washington and would focus on people who have been left out of the economic revival.
“Sixty percent of Americans believe that we’re still in a recession,” Bush said. “They’re not dumb. It’s because they are in a recession. They’re frustrated, and they see a small portion of the population on the economy’s up escalator. Portfolios are strong, but paychecks are weak. Millions of Americans want to move forward in their lives — they want to rise — but they’re losing hope.”


Jeb Bush previews 2016 run, promising ‘adult conversations’ on big issues - The Washington Post




On Tuesday night, Senator Ted Cruz appeared on Fox News to respond to the State of the Union address — and talked about how the US economy was only working for the "top 1 percent," who he said have gotten "fat and happy" under Obama's administration.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Cruz's rhetorical move is unusual for a prominent Republican, particularly a presidential contender. This emphasis on the "the 1 percent" has long been condemned by many in the party as class warfare.

[...]

KELLY: He says it is working. He calls it "middle-class economics" and says "the verdict is in, it’s working." Some of the stats offered by the president and in some of the news reports today: Unemployment down to 5.6 percent. Gasoline prices down. Stock markets are up. Economy grew by 5 percent in the third quarter of last year, its fastest rate for more than a decade. How can you hit him on the economy?
CRUZ: Because the facts are, we’re facing a divided America right now when it comes to the economy. It is true that the top 1 percent are doing great under Barack Obama. Today, the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928.

He continued by citing wage stagnation, Americans dropping out of the workforce, and even said that the "rich and powerful" have gotten "fat and happy":

CRUZ: "The sad reality is, with big government under the Obama administration, the rich and powerful, those who walk the corridors of power in the Obama administration, have gotten fat and happy. But working men and women across this country — we have the lowest labor force participation since 1978. The reason the unemployment rate keeps dropping is millions of people keep dropping out of the workforce altogether so they’re not counted in that number. And, I’ll tell you, wage stagnation. For over a decade now, median wages have stagnated, and this is an administration that benefits those with connections to Washington with influence."


Ted Cruz sounded a whole lot like Elizabeth Warren on Fox News last night - Vox


Now I've no doubt that these fuckers think that the way to solve the problem is to give a gigantic tax cut to the top 1% and slash what little financial and other business regulation that remains. But the problems with western economies are now so obvious that even the GOP can't ignore them. All we need to do now is get the Germands and the Bundesbank to recognise them too. And the Greek people*, peace be upon them, made a start on that last night.




The longer it takes for them all to realise that I was right in the first place the better it makes me look eventually. Not that that bothers me any, I already know that I'm right, but I expect the major heads of government, the heads of the world's major central banks and the heads of the world's global financial institutions to eventually offer me a full public apology for their arrogance in believing that they could deal with the greatest economic meltdown since 1929 without following my advice.




*The EU will do everything possible to fuck Syriza up if they make any serious attempt to renegotiate their debt. If they get a bank run going Greece is going to be in serious trouble. If they think things are bad now wait till food and fuel imports stop coming because there's no money to pay for them. If Greece manages to come through this and prosper it'll destroy the EU so they're going to try and make sure it doesn't happen.

[Kirkland Laing]

That is outrageous, I read and follow my financial news daily and read excellent writers like Ha Joon Chang. I know my fundamentals and can interpret the year on year price of things which is inflation. If you lot knew your basics, the world wouldn't be in such a stew. I live in the world of common sense and not endless charts. You are so bothered by my common sense you have replied to the same person twice. Stop inflating your post count with replies to yourself......that is my forte! Inflation! The only deflation is in wages, oil and in banks hoarding printed money as they should be bankrupt. Everything else is INFLATION. Even fuel is inflation as the price is not being passed onto the consumer. Corporations are making more money! It is faux deflation for the consumer.

You were mocking me about my inability to forecast last years collapse too, but with QE it was very difficult. Are you feeling it a little more for this year? I hope prices do come down some, but not a load of unemployed people as the price worth paying. Bankers really have to go with their make it up as they go along nonsense. They should stick to common sense. And this is all at ZIRP!

I googled this name and this is the first thing that comes up :

Why did Britain’s political class buy into the Tories’ economic fairytale? | Ha-Joon Chang | Comment is free | The Guardian

This guy is a conventional economist. He knows what he's talking about.

How the fuck did he get through the force field? You'll note in that article he quotes GDP figures and inflation numbers and doesn't question their accuracy. In fact those numbers are the basis for the arguments he's making in the article.

So how the fuck does this square with you and your nutty ideas about bullshit statistics? Hmmm?

Hmmmm?

[El Kabong]

You read/follow Vox HAHAHAHAHA...how typical

[Gandalf]

Kirkland, I am surprised that you are being so petty and immature. You are wearing the forum gay crown exceedingly well!

Firstly, please don't twist my words to suit your perspective. When I start a thread on fractional reserve banking, it is hardly because I had a 'Eureka' moment in the shower, it is simply because most people have no idea what banking is all about and if I could share a few basic ideas (most economics is basic) then I thought I would do so. I am no economics expert, but do have a useless A level in the subject and read on the subject daily for a good 40 minutes.

Also, you keep having digs at my trade, which as far as trades go, is a very honest one. Furthermore, being so gifted, I don't really spend very much time doing any work and so that gives me time to read about finance, global politics and piss about with my fads. Don't knock English teaching, at a certain point it is very conducive to alternative learning and provides ample leisure time to do so.

Ha Joon Chang is a very respected economist and it is a good article. All I am saying in this thread however is that there is significant inflation and it is not a myth. Stop twisting with talk about hyper inflation.....there can't be when printed money is taken by the banks and used to pump up stocks and hide their own bankruptcy. Though stocks of course are vastly overinflated too. The fact that natives cannot even live in their own capital anymore indicates that serious inflation has been going on for a long, long time. Yes, house price are down to demand and overseas buyers want their pound of flesh etc, but that still means massive INFLATION. Ask the person paying his energy bills if prices have remained stagnant since 2008. His answer will be 'It's fricking expensive, way up!'. And likewise, his wages are down, down, down. Everything goes UP, but wages go NOWHERE. That's called a squeeze and INFLATION has paid its part in that squeeze. Now if we were to talk about somewhere like Greece, then fine, how could there not be deflation? But the UK? Here? It's still inflation. Maybe that will change when there are no more PT jobs to hide unemployment reduction and sanctions, but still people are being squeezed and that Cadbury's chocolate bar ain't no illusion. It even got melted in the Middle East, it is reality.

Also you are quite batty for still holding any credence to that party politics stuff and your ego is well out of control. We are long overdue a banking cull.

[Gandalf]

BTW only having a laugh at the end there, so no pedagogic gags please.

[Kirkland Laing]

You read/follow Vox HAHAHAHAHA...how typical

No, I saw Ted Cruz talking about the median wage and redistribution on the Daily Show the other day and googled ted cruz median wage and got this list of hits :

https://www.google.com/search?q=ted+...utf-8&oe=utf-8

Interestingly, Vox isa website founded and partly owned by the guy who started wonkblog in the Washington Post, a website you've sometimes linked to yourself when you were having a temporary diminution in your hostility to facts and evidence.

[Kirkland Laing]

Kirkland, I am surprised that you are being so petty and immature. You are wearing the forum gay crown exceedingly well!

Firstly, please don't twist my words to suit your perspective. When I start a thread on fractional reserve banking, it is hardly because I had a 'Eureka' moment in the shower, it is simply because most people have no idea what banking is all about and if I could share a few basic ideas (most economics is basic) then I thought I would do so. I am no economics expert, but do have a useless A level in the subject and read on the subject daily for a good 40 minutes.

Also, you keep having digs at my trade, which as far as trades go, is a very honest one. Furthermore, being so gifted, I don't really spend very much time doing any work and so that gives me time to read about finance, global politics and piss about with my fads. Don't knock English teaching, at a certain point it is very conducive to alternative learning and provides ample leisure time to do so.

Ha Joon Chang is a very respected economist and it is a good article. All I am saying in this thread however is that there is significant inflation and it is not a myth. Stop twisting with talk about hyper inflation.....there can't be when printed money is taken by the banks and used to pump up stocks and hide their own bankruptcy. Though stocks of course are vastly overinflated too. The fact that natives cannot even live in their own capital anymore indicates that serious inflation has been going on for a long, long time. Yes, house price are down to demand and overseas buyers want their pound of flesh etc, but that still means massive INFLATION. Ask the person paying his energy bills if prices have remained stagnant since 2008. His answer will be 'It's fricking expensive, way up!'. And likewise, his wages are down, down, down. Everything goes UP, but wages go NOWHERE. That's called a squeeze and INFLATION has paid its part in that squeeze. Now if we were to talk about somewhere like Greece, then fine, how could there not be deflation? But the UK? Here? It's still inflation. Maybe that will change when there are no more PT jobs to hide unemployment reduction and sanctions, but still people are being squeezed and that Cadbury's chocolate bar ain't no illusion. It even got melted in the Middle East, it is reality.

Also you are quite batty for still holding any credence to that party politics stuff and your ego is well out of control. We are long overdue a banking cull.

You started a thread that made it clear you'd only just discovered how fractional reserve banking worked.

And you can't claim that you acceot conventional economics and economists and then make wild-eyed claims that there's really massive inflation and all the numbers are wrong. You either believe what conventional people like me and that Chang guy are saying or you believe that all the numbers are made up. You can't have it both ways.

And the rest of your post is all just demonstrating what an ignoramus you are about economics and finance. It's like a Lyle post.

I told you there ws an economic meltdown coming, I told you how it would shake out and how the economy would go over the next decade afterwards. While you were bleating away about hyperinflation and the collapse of the dollar I was telling you what would happen. Now you're reduced to claiming the numbers aren't the numbers because your force field won't accept the fact you were wrong and don't have a fucking clue.

I don't have an ego, I'm actually being quite humble. With a prediction record like mine I could have made a few quid over the last decade if only I'd known something about the financial industry. Like Ali said, it isn't bragging if you can back it up.

[Kirkland Laing]

Now I've no doubt that these fuckers think that the way to solve the problem is to give a gigantic tax cut to the top 1% and slash what little financial and other business regulation that remains. But the problems with western economies are now so obvious that even the GOP can't ignore them.

Talking about always being right about everything all the time :

https://kickass.so/the-daily-show-20...t10132240.html


If you're blocked from that link watch or download the Daily Show from 26/1 and watch the second segment, from minute ten onwards.

[El Kabong]

You read/follow Vox HAHAHAHAHA...how typical

No, I saw Ted Cruz talking about the median wage and redistribution on the Daily Show the other day and googled ted cruz median wage and got this list of hits :

https://www.google.com/search?q=ted+...utf-8&oe=utf-8

Interestingly, Vox isa website founded and partly owned by the guy who started wonkblog in the Washington Post, a website you've sometimes linked to yourself when you were having a temporary diminution in your hostility to facts and evidence.

Yeah the guy's name is Ezra Klein who is an Obama fan before he's a "journalist" and I use that term oh so loosely . Vox is less a "website" and more of a Ministry of Propaganda.

True I have linked to the Washington Post before...although I highly doubt I linked anything to Klein lest I was being sarcastic or making light of his views.

[Gandalf]

Kilrkland, I am beginning to see why Lyle uses such horrible language to describe you. You contort and twist and abuse, whilst at the same time fail to acknowledge all the obvious and real examples of inflation in the economy. House prices, energy bills, public transportation costs, stock market etc all display real and obvious inflationary pressures. Yet for some reason you want to tell me that I have only just learned that banking is a fraud, I'm an idiot, and that there is 'No inflation, nothing to see here because I am just great'. Talk about deflection and an inability to talk about inflation. You are a very rude man and I have no reason to converse with you. You should learn an honest trade and act with grace.

[Kirkland Laing]

You read/follow Vox HAHAHAHAHA...how typical

No, I saw Ted Cruz talking about the median wage and redistribution on the Daily Show the other day and googled ted cruz median wage and got this list of hits :

https://www.google.com/search?q=ted+...utf-8&oe=utf-8

Interestingly, Vox isa website founded and partly owned by the guy who started wonkblog in the Washington Post, a website you've sometimes linked to yourself when you were having a temporary diminution in your hostility to facts and evidence.

Yeah the guy's name is Ezra Klein who is an Obama fan before he's a "journalist" and I use that term oh so loosely . Vox is less a "website" and more of a Ministry of Propaganda.

True I have linked to the Washington Post before...although I highly doubt I linked anything to Klein lest I was being sarcastic or making light of his views.

Yes you have. And even if you haven't and he's a biased journalist it doesn't make any difference because what I linked to was an actual quote with an actual video to back it up. Trying to say it's rubbish because of where it comes from is just dodging the actual content, which was Ted Cruz, the rightiest of righties, talking about redistribution of wealth.

Back when the Occupy Wall Street thing was ongoing and even many years before that I was telling you that the big future issues in US politics and current affairs would be income inequality, redistribution of wealth, the collapse of the median wage and the unbalanced unequal economy ruining economic growth.

You strongly disagreed. I told you that as usual I was right and you were wrong and that even while you refused to accept facts and evidence to prove this, unfortunately for you actual future events would prove me right and you wrong.

Now you have all the GOP 2016 presidential candidates talking about inequality and the redistribution of wealth. What I told you would eventually happen is now starting to happen in real time in front of your eyes. How do you feel about that, hmmm?


http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfor...ml#post1201992

When I said this I didn't realise the popular mass movement I was talking about would be the Republican party.


Also

http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfor...ml#post1201299


I can actually rmember writing how eventually you'd have to at some point in the future admit to yourself that I was right and you were wrong. It looks like that day might be sooner rather than later.

Go on, double down and ignore the fact that even the party of plutocrats are starting to sound like me from a decade ago. The longer you go on ignoring reality the more enjoyable future events will be.