Ominous prediction indeed.

[RobDownSouth]

He didn't miss the point, he merely choose to ignore the point and attempted to change the subject.

The calculations to come up with the CPI in 1980 and 1990 are now "shadow stats" but the calculation used today is 'real.' Why is that? Yesterdays reality is today's fiction?

I suppose that it would be fruitless to point out that the greatest beneficiary of the downwardly revised CPI is the government that is doing the revisions.

Ishmael

Good morning, Ishmael! Another day closer to the grave for you!

I see you're still clinging to those bogus shadowstats like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

Why?

Because it fits your narrow bigoted worldview.

You asked why the formula was modified? Times change, old man. We no longer care about the price of horses or buggywhips, yet you seem to want to believe that the inflation formula is somehow sacrosanct and ought to include both.

Housing, for example, is way up since the days when you last held gainful employment, and the total percentage of income it consumes is represented in the formula.

I'm not "ignoring" anything. If anyone is doin' some "ignoring", it's you...you're ignoring reality.

 

[kbate]

Pure bat-guano crazy Sophistry.

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
Frédéric Bastiat

Of course I want free and open borders to Capital and Labor, but a semipermeable "membrane" is nothing short of national suicide.

Are you sure you're not an Objectivist arguing in such 'absolutes' fashion? You've gone all black and white on us. Careful that your transmission does not degrade into snow...

So basically you cannot reconcile your attitude about foreign labour with your John Galt based "Labour Deserves Nothing" economic philosophy any more than your Bro can reconcile his, "a minimum wage hike will kill jobs and raise prices" with his "raising wages won't raise prices" idea in this thread".

So in stead you pop a canned Bastiat about how bad socialists are, a bit of personal 'national suicide' sophistry and a little ad hominem.

Very good.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

So basically you cannot reconcile your attitude about foreign labour with your John Galt based "Labour Deserves Nothing" economic philosophy any more than your Bro can reconcile his, "a minimum wage hike will kill jobs and raise prices" with his "raising wages won't raise prices" idea in this thread".

So in stead you pop a canned Bastiat about how bad socialists are, a bit of personal 'national suicide' sophistry and a little ad hominem.

Very good.

So we're so crazy now that we're not even going to try and read and process thoughts.



Oh well, I tried. All roads lead to Rome...

 

[kbate]

So we're so crazy now that we're not even going to try and read and process thoughts.

Oh well, I tried. All roads lead to Rome...

No, you deflected, you didn't try.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I feel bad for you.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Inflation is immediate and government action is tardy so the pols discovered that they could fuck over people using the delay to do it.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Maybe if I type slower.

I agree with the Austrian School of Economics (and Bastiat) that barriers to the free flow of trade are, indeed, harmful be that trade goods and services or labor and 'wealth." That is the way it should be. However, if our nation puts that into practice and no other nation does, then all we will import will be the needy and all that we will export will be our wealth. Now if we want to become poor and impoverished, then we would be ideologically pure and engage in just such a behavior.

Similarly, while I oppose the death penalty, to not kill our external enemies out of a sense of maintaining ideological purity of thought, would be death sentence to liberty and the ability to even engage in ideas that differ from the ideas of the conquerors...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Inflation is immediate and government action is tardy so the pols discovered that they could fuck over people using the delay to do it.

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
John Maynard Keynes

 

[Ishmael]

Maybe if I type slower.

I agree with the Austrian School of Economics (and Bastiat) that barriers to the free flow of trade are, indeed, harmful be that trade goods and services or labor and 'wealth." That is the way it should be. However, if our nation puts that into practice and no other nation does, then all we will import will be the needy and all that we will export will be our wealth. Now if we want to become poor and impoverished, then we would be ideologically pure and engage in just such a behavior.

Similarly, while I oppose the death penalty, to not kill our external enemies out of a sense of maintaining ideological purity of thought, would be death sentence to liberty and the ability to even engage in ideas that differ from the ideas of the conquerors...

Let's narrow this down a little bit. That classical school presupposes that the free flow of labor will be from where there is a surplus to where there is a shortage. There is no demonstrable shortage of labor that would be eased by the wholesale importation of unskilled, uneducated, unhealthy, non-English speaking immigrants. That school also presupposes that nation states will not take actions that are damaging to it's economy or it's citizens.

A significant percentage of these new arrivals are of the criminal class or children that by law are not allowed to be in the labor force to begin with. Both classes are a net drain on the economy and the citizens wallet.

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."
John Maynard Keynes

You've committed a mortal sin there bro. You've used the patron saint of the re-distribution class to undermine their Holy Grail.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Let's narrow this down a little bit. That classical school presupposes that the free flow of labor will be from where there is a surplus to where there is a shortage. There is no demonstrable shortage of labor that would be eased by the wholesale importation of unskilled, uneducated, unhealthy, non-English speaking immigrants. That school also presupposes that nation states will not take actions that are damaging to it's economy or it's citizens.

A significant percentage of these new arrivals are of the criminal class or children that by law are not allowed to be in the labor force to begin with. Both classes are a net drain on the economy and the citizens wallet.

Ishmael

You've committed a mortal sin there bro. You've used the patron saint of the re-distribution class to undermine their Holy Grail.

Ishmael

Thanks for the clarification, but I doubt it makes any difference to :kbate:.

The support for the new government spending paradigm is very crazy; the believers in government can clearly see that the Middle Class is shrinking and stagnating while those closest to government are gaining in (paper) wealth even as Capital is shrinking and the only thought they have is that we need a little more government in order to bring relief to the Middle Class, thinking that perhaps we should tax the artificially created wealth and use it to grow more Government Largess while denying that all we will do is increase inflation by causing more dollars to chase fewer goods. Minimum wage hikes and our investments in the children of illegals are what are going to make us 'rich' as a nation, but at the same time, high taxes and increased health care premiums are the preferred method of reducing newly emerging socially unacceptable behaviors and conditions.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The question, for me, is: Do you welcome termites to your home because they make plenty of work for others? We seem confused about termites and bees.

 

[RobDownSouth]

No, you deflected, you didn't try.

4est_4est_Gump is the MASTER of deflection...
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/dflct.gif

 

[kbate]

Let's narrow this down a little bit. That classical school presupposes that the free flow of labor will be from where there is a surplus to where there is a shortage. There is no demonstrable shortage of labor that would be eased by the wholesale importation of unskilled, uneducated, unhealthy, non-English speaking immigrants. That school also presupposes that nation states will not take actions that are damaging to it's economy or it's citizens.

A significant percentage of these new arrivals are of the criminal class or children that by law are not allowed to be in the labor force to begin with. Both classes are a net drain on the economy and the citizens wallet.

You need to re-read your first paragraph and then back it with some facts. First of all, not every immigrant is 'unskilled, uneducated, unhealthy, non-english speaking. Not even a majority are all of that. But it sounds scary and makes great Limbaugh.

Second: you need to subtract all of the immigrants you wish to remove from the labour pool before you declare that there is no labour shortage. Then you need a way to fill those jobs.

To fill jobs: you need to evolve the labour force, or you need to evolve wages to entice worker mobility. Historically changing the labour force is the preferred method for a lot of reasons. (from slavery to illegals this has always been preferred to higher wages)

For the last few years, we have had farm labour shortages and despite raising pay 40%, we still cannot get enough workers so we bring in immigrants (legally). We do not have the choice of raising our product price because our product prices are set by commodities traders in New York and we cannot refuse to sell once the product is produced. The only way farmers can affect prices is to refuse to produce and in the global economy, another nation will simply step up and take profits.

A lot of your precious Austrian theory does not work unless the entire globe all plays on the same page. Your solution: Close the doors, lock them and play alone.

That a significant percentage are "Criminal Class" is an unproven statement. You just made that up - the same as you made up the unhealthy, etc.... to be scary. "oh snap" you consider the immigration itself enough to make them criminal class - that makes it close to 100%.

At least your "deport them all" plan will create jobs among those who are contracted to move them out. They'll be government jobs which strangely aren't a net drain on the economy when you like what they do, but jobs they'll be.

 

[kbate]

You've committed a mortal sin there bro. You've used the patron saint of the re-distribution class to undermine their Holy Grail.

No, he brought "Lenin" in, which is technically the same as claiming "HITLER!". But hey, it sounded good to you so cheer on!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

4est_4est_Gump is the MASTER of deflection...
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/dflct.gif

^^^^^The Master of Defecation.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Hey Ishmael! Didja see that the FBI redefined rape today? They removed the qualifier that sexual assault must be "forcible". Maybe your buddies at Shadowstats can start trackin' rape the "old" way and the "new" way now!!!

 

[Que]

You need to re-read your first paragraph and then back it with some facts. First of all, not every immigrant is 'unskilled, uneducated, unhealthy, non-english speaking. Not even a majority are all of that. But it sounds scary and makes great Limbaugh.

How about parsing that, then?

Are the majority skilled, educated, healthy, and fluent in English?

You have facts to back that the majority are any two of those things?

I would guess that 51% of illegal immigrants are, arguably, healthy. At least to the extent that the average overweight native-born American is. I doubt that 51% of the population of illegals has a communicable disease when they enter. How many of them are immunized? How many of them have exposure to and are possibly carriers of third-world diseases that we have nearly eradicated here?

What would you consider "skilled?"

You are not seriously arguing that anything close to half of all illegals are "educated" in any classical sense of the word, are you?

I am not that concerned about English fluency; in my area most people are bilingual enough for those with no English to get by. I see illegals with very little Spanish, either. Not that we don't have plenty of places in the US where swaths of population have no proficiency in any language. That doesn't mean we need to import more illiteracy.

 

[Sean Renaud]

In a real world with currency that had real value that could be the case. But that isn't the world we live in. We live in a world where nation states manipulate the value of their currencies for their own ends. The US, one of the main architects of this reality, is, like all the other participating nations, caught up in a trap of it's own devise.

And, of course, if you are the worlds reserve currency you have to print enough for everybody the world round to have some, don't you?

Ishmael

How would a currency have real value? I notice you ignored me earlier when I asked if you wanted to real answer or the text book one about why inflation happens.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

You are insane. In your world freedom means no law, no law enforcement. Why would we allow "illegals" to benefit from their illegal activity? No doubt you believe a thief should be allowed to keep what he stole as well.

Actually Sean, you're too fucking stupid, ignorant, and unaware, to understand any point, let alone this one.



That's because you're too stupid to see that one line is trending higher than the other. Like I said you are too uneducated to become involved in these conversations in the first place. You have no idea what inflation really is, what it does, who benefits from it, and why it is politically employed.

Freedom does mean minimum law. That's not insanity it's reality. You just like to play with it's definition. The question isn't why weould be allow illegals to benefit from their illegal activity it's why are they illegal in the first fucking place. By what right have we declared the illegal?

I'm not stupid, you are unable to illustrate your point about why it's better for a factory to be in China (employing Chinese) than it is to be in Texas (employing Mexicans). You refuse to even touch the point at all.

Instead you're chosing to talk about the law as if that weren't something we control and we couldn't simply change.

The line is trending higher, it's also constantly inline with the other one. So ultimately it means the exact same thing once you stop talking to morons. Since you insist on pretending you're a moron I'll talk to you like one.

 

[Que]

He didn't miss the point, he merely choose to ignore the point and attempted to change the subject.

The calculations to come up with the CPI in 1980 and 1990 are now "shadow stats" but the calculation used today is 'real.' Why is that? Yesterdays reality is today's fiction?

I suppose that it would be fruitless to point out that the greatest beneficiary of the downwardly revised CPI is the government that is doing the revisions.

Ishmael

I've dipped in and out of this thread and others and am not sure where I read it today. 4st quoting Lennin maybe?

The bit about attacking currency as the best way to benefit a regime without raising the ire of the populous. Not even a paraphrase by me, more of a re-characterization.

Inflation is how our Government does what it hasn't the balls to do above the table. It is how they are keeping SS and Mediscare on life-support.

As the rate of increase fails to keep up with actual living expenses it slowly trains the elderly to do without, or supplement their SS with work, or other savings. Financial Planners are already revising downward the expected benefit of SS in one's portfolio.

By making the "doc fix" less and less of a fix each year, more and more doctors drop out, making it harder and harder to find a doc so the elderly now delay care, do without if it seems minor. Gone are the days a medicare card got you in to see a doc same day. Now seniors with means at all go see a doc in the box out of pocket.

It is subtle means testing.

The only plan..if you can call it that..for the mess that is the reality of what has been promised vs what can possibly be delivered is to inflate the problems away.

It is now done with such sophistication that the usual suspects drag out the Gov't stats to show that the doubling of food prices in the last 1/2 decade didn't happen, when a simple trip to the grocery store shows otherwise.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Precisely!

Nope.

As I showed earlier, your beloved shadowstats simply added a constant to make growth appear more in line with your preconceived political notions.

It's intellectually dishonest, just like you.

 

[RobDownSouth]

It is now done with such sophistication that the usual suspects drag out the Gov't stats to show that the doubling of food prices in the last 1/2 decade didn't happen, when a simple trip to the grocery store shows otherwise.

Screw verifiable statistics, you've got ANECDATA!


Seriously, for someone who claims to be Lit's Smartest Poster Ever, the above statement of yours is remarkably stupid.

First of all, food prices bottomed out in late 2008, during the depths of the Bush Recession. Since then they have climbed back to historical norms.

The price index as calculated by the Federal government in November 2009 was 218, it's now 244. Usin' my trusty calculator, that's an annual inflation rate of a whoppin' 2.33%