This family blog continues the one originally started by Luke. It is hoped through the sharing of stories, ponderisms, and pictures of family and events, that this online journal will serve to enhance and nurture our relationship and draw us closer to God and each other as we travel along life's road. Buckle-up!
This guy forgot to mention that U.S. quarters minted from 1932-64 only contained 90% silver. That would shave 46 cents of of that $4.55 making it $3.99. Also incuded is a link to coin values as you can see many of these quarters sell for $2. How can this be?
I agree with the video. The price of gas has finally adjusted to meet inflation. I would ask the question, why now? Other items, like houses, food and cars seemed to adjust right along with inflation. Why not Gas?
I don't know the answer, but I can see that though inflation is probably the primary problem, there are more factors involved than just inflation, like the Iraq war and the threat of war with Iran. These things unarguably affect supply and cause speculators to speculate that prices will still go up, so of course they keep going up.
The American oil companies may not be evil, but they aren't doing a good job. And the government may be to blame more than the companies for that. You can still buy gas in Venezuala for 17 cents a gallon. It's a little higher in Mexico, but still under a dollar I think. In China, I think it's about 2 dollars. How do they do keep prices so low? Well for one, most of their oil goes to peaceful civilian purposes. In the US, the military is the largest consumer of oil. In fact the US military consumes more oil than most entire countries. And so this keeps demand for oil in the US artificially inflated, and thus makes for higher prices. Also there is the issue of intensive government regulation. For all America's claims about freedom, this is a lousy place to do business, and the oil companies I suppose are victims in this mess like the rest of us.
Have you read the news stories about the inflation in Zimbabwe? It is over a million percent. The government there just began printing a 100 billion dollar note. A pound of coffee there today costs the same as 60 new cars would have cost 10 years ago!
Wow! I'm grabbing my coffee can and going to Zimbabwe. On a serious "note" though. A debased currency system is set up to fail from the beggining,but what dosn't make sense is that inflation can go that high if wages don't follow. Unless everything they produce is exported then it would be impossibe for inflation to outpace wages. If people can not afford it then it dosn't sell and it must force inflation to reverse. The only way I see that this economic principle would not stand is if all or at least a huge majority of products were exported, which I think is the case in these instances. There is also probably alot of persecution by militant groups ( I'm not refering to the U.S. in this instance)and leaders who want it this way which makes it very difficult for the people to make what seem to us easy changes.
Well I'm not sure if wages are following inflation but I did find a website that stated that the minimum wage in Zimbabwe was $120,000 a month. Another site said that the average person is faced with having to calculate their living expenses in the trillions!
The one bright spot in the American economy seems to be falling house prices. Ironically, the government and major media treat that as a bad thing and do everything they can to keep house prices high, while (at least in theory) they do everything they can to keep other prices, like gas and food low. The falling price of houses is a natural correction that should be allowed to take it's course. But of course, the government will not let that happen. Instead they will print more money to bail out the banks and thus cause more inflation, which of course just perpetuates the problem of high prices, and robs people who have saved money.
I read up on it and it's not that to much is being exported but rather hardly anything is being produced make demand much higher than supply. The average wage over there is about the equivilent of making a dollar a day here. I just cant see spending my whole day at work for a dollar. It seems like it would be much more profitable to spend all day trying to catch a bird or a fish. You would get a lot more food for your time.
Good discussion guys! I believe when the government prints money and just gives it away to anyone who barks loud enough is a mistake that may have serious consequences for the over all economy. The way I see it, the Fed is trying to jump start a stalled system. Kind of like taking ex-lax to get the bowels moving again. The problem is this beast "USA" is very large and so far it hasn't worked. The dollar is shrinking more and more everyday. I believe it's going to take more than simple monetary policy and truckloads of money from the federal reserve to get things moving again. Divine intervention may be needed for this one!
I love the idea of the Gold Standard, but because control of the currency gives the government so much power, it will probably not ever happen. I'm curious what you guys think about owning gold in general. I tend to shy away from it a little, because it seems like storing up treasure on earth, though I know that's not exactly what the Bible is talking about there. Inflation seems to make saving money a bad idea, because it loses value, but spending it seems no real better solution, unless it's for an appreciable asset, but those tend to be expensive. I generally keep just enough money for emergencies on hand, and put everything else I can on debt (the mortgage) because I'm losing more than the rate of inflation there due to the interest. I would like to someday be able to homestead and live without money, or at least very little, but that's not possible until the mortgage is gone. It seems like if one was a producer rather than a consumer, high prices might actually be a good thing. For instance, if the price of food doubled or tripled, and people were actually willing to pay that much, I might be able to quit my job and take up farming. That would be cool. Right now, farming is not possible for me as a full time option because the price of food is too cheap. One other benefit I can see of inflation is that assets that are otherwise stagnant or depreciating in value suddenly start to appreciate. This can make buying, holding, and re-selling used items a great investment.
9 comments:
This guy forgot to mention that U.S. quarters minted from 1932-64 only contained 90% silver. That would shave 46 cents of of that $4.55 making it $3.99. Also incuded is a link to coin values as you can see many of these quarters sell for $2. How can this be?
http://sammler.com/coins/washington_silver_quarter.htm
Thats .htm at the end and you'll have to cut and paste.
I agree with the video. The price of gas has finally adjusted to meet inflation. I would ask the question, why now? Other items, like houses, food and cars seemed to adjust right along with inflation. Why not Gas?
I don't know the answer, but I can see that though inflation is probably the primary problem, there are more factors involved than just inflation, like the Iraq war and the threat of war with Iran. These things unarguably affect supply and cause speculators to speculate that prices will still go up, so of course they keep going up.
The American oil companies may not be evil, but they aren't doing a good job. And the government may be to blame more than the companies for that. You can still buy gas in Venezuala for 17 cents a gallon. It's a little higher in Mexico, but still under a dollar I think. In China, I think it's about 2 dollars. How do they do keep prices so low? Well for one, most of their oil goes to peaceful civilian purposes. In the US, the military is the largest consumer of oil. In fact the US military consumes more oil than most entire countries. And so this keeps demand for oil in the US artificially inflated, and thus makes for higher prices. Also there is the issue of intensive government regulation. For all America's claims about freedom, this is a lousy place to do business, and the oil companies I suppose are victims in this mess like the rest of us.
Have you read the news stories about the inflation in Zimbabwe? It is over a million percent. The government there just began printing a 100 billion dollar note. A pound of coffee there today costs the same as 60 new cars would have cost 10 years ago!
Wow! I'm grabbing my coffee can and going to Zimbabwe.
On a serious "note" though. A debased currency system is set up to fail from the beggining,but what dosn't make sense is that inflation can go that high if wages don't follow. Unless everything they produce is exported then it would be impossibe for inflation to outpace wages. If people can not afford it then it dosn't sell and it must force inflation to reverse.
The only way I see that this economic principle would not stand is if all or at least a huge majority of products were exported, which I think is the case in these instances.
There is also probably alot of persecution by militant groups ( I'm not refering to the U.S. in this instance)and leaders who want it this way which makes it very difficult for the people to make what seem to us easy changes.
Well I'm not sure if wages are following inflation but I did find a website that stated that the minimum wage in Zimbabwe was $120,000 a month. Another site said that the average person is faced with having to calculate their living expenses in the trillions!
The one bright spot in the American economy seems to be falling house prices. Ironically, the government and major media treat that as a bad thing and do everything they can to keep house prices high, while (at least in theory) they do everything they can to keep other prices, like gas and food low. The falling price of houses is a natural correction that should be allowed to take it's course. But of course, the government will not let that happen. Instead they will print more money to bail out the banks and thus cause more inflation, which of course just perpetuates the problem of high prices, and robs people who have saved money.
I read up on it and it's not that to much is being exported but rather hardly anything is being produced make demand much higher than supply. The average wage over there is about the equivilent of making a dollar a day here. I just cant see spending my whole day at work for a dollar. It seems like it would be much more profitable to spend all day trying to catch a bird or a fish. You would get a lot more food for your time.
Good discussion guys! I believe when the government prints money and just gives it away to anyone who barks loud enough is a mistake that may have serious consequences for the over all economy. The way I see it, the Fed is trying to jump start a stalled system. Kind of like taking ex-lax to get the bowels moving again. The problem is this beast "USA" is very large and so far it hasn't worked. The dollar is shrinking more and more everyday. I believe it's going to take more than simple monetary policy and truckloads of money from the federal reserve to get things moving again. Divine intervention may be needed for this one!
I love the idea of the Gold Standard, but because control of the currency gives the government so much power, it will probably not ever happen. I'm curious what you guys think about owning gold in general. I tend to shy away from it a little, because it seems like storing up treasure on earth, though I know that's not exactly what the Bible is talking about there. Inflation seems to make saving money a bad idea, because it loses value, but spending it seems no real better solution, unless it's for an appreciable asset, but those tend to be expensive. I generally keep just enough money for emergencies on hand, and put everything else I can on debt (the mortgage) because I'm losing more than the rate of inflation there due to the interest. I would like to someday be able to homestead and live without money, or at least very little, but that's not possible until the mortgage is gone.
It seems like if one was a producer rather than a consumer, high prices might actually be a good thing. For instance, if the price of food doubled or tripled, and people were actually willing to pay that much, I might be able to quit my job and take up farming. That would be cool. Right now, farming is not possible for me as a full time option because the price of food is too cheap.
One other benefit I can see of inflation is that assets that are otherwise stagnant or depreciating in value suddenly start to appreciate. This can make buying, holding, and re-selling used items a great investment.
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