patrick.net

bob2356 says

Was I somehow forbidden to expand on the the topic? Who died and left you king?

Huh? YOU were the one claiming I "can't differentiate", when YOU were the one throwing a different subject into the discussion. I merely responded to your stupid accusation. I didn't say you were forbidden to do anything.

Jesus. Enough with the silly "gotcha" games.

bob2356 says

Well if extensive reports from Medicare and the CBO, along with detailed analysis from entities like Forbes and Rand don't satisfy your definition of facts and data, then I have to agree, to you it will always be theoretical.

You didn't present any data. Simply making an oblique reference to data that might exist, after the fact, is not presenting data.

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

Say hey! This was in the Wall Street Journal on March 30, 1999. Note "... how much it will buy."

Holy cow/interesting/compelling ...!

And where is it up to date??? Right here ... see the first chart shown in this thread.
Recent Dow day is Thursday, November 21, 2013 __ Level is 102.5

WOW! It is hideous that this is hidden! Is there any such "Homes, Inflation Adjusted"? Yes! This was in the New York Times on August 27, 2006:

And up to date (by me) is here:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219038&c=999083#comment-999083

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

And http://patrick.net/?p=1230886

I'm not convinced at the moment that Zimmerman is guilty of domestic violence. The whole case seems a bit fishy.

And this from a guy that is quite convinced that Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin.

Gold and silver to the moon ANY DAY NOW!

Chart of the day
http://www.chartoftheday.com/20131120.htm?H

Maybe they lost their innocence because of the JFK assassination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico

Dunross is buying gold on margin.

Ditto, psychotic bot!

Welcome to Patnet, but you'll have to brush up on your personal insults.

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

Say hey! This was in the Wall Street Journal on March 30, 1999. Note "... how much it will buy."

Holy cow/interesting/compelling ...!

And where is it up to date??? Right here ... see the first chart shown in this thread.
Recent Dow day is Friday, November 22, 2013 __ Level is 102.8

WOW! It is hideous that this is hidden! Is there any such "Homes, Inflation Adjusted"? Yes! This was in the New York Times on August 27, 2006:

And up to date (by me) is here:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219038&c=999083#comment-999083

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

And http://patrick.net/?p=1230886

Many still are, but for the most part - they were, and most likely financing operations at great rates, they buy equipment that lasts a long time like your car/truck, etc. ;)

thunderlips11 says

Gold and Silver doesn't look too great. Caterpillar has reduced profits and expectations, Mining companies aren't expanding operations.

China will stack the gold at any price until the weight of it's reserves becomes king.

This all plays out over time, this gold rush that we are in, is fairly new, and was initially over blown by ZIRP.

It's going to be awhile yet, takes time for big bets like ZIRP to play out.

bgamall4 says

You would think it would take demand for houses down, but it appears to be taking supply for houses down unless the cuts to the growth of SS cause people to be forced to sell after a few years.

Ever hear of a reverse mortgage?

marco says

".....we end up with a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in blackface,
with Barack Obama.... a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet
of corporate plutocrats.”

Dr. Cornel West
Princeton University

Dr. West thanks you because before Obama was elected, you right wingers would never give him the time of day, and now you quote him if he lambasts Obama. Sucker, 'cause not only is he playing you, but he's used your own biased ideology to drastically elevate his income and exposure by playing you.

When you talk to a black stranger, do you tell him/her that you know a black person and then ask if they know them? LOL

And it's gone

http://www.youtube.com/embed/-DT7bX-B1Mg

egads101 says

Robot mining technology will drop the price to $600 an ounce, when combined with unwinding of irrational inflation fears.

that is my buy point.

The same robot technology will be able to build houses for 20K a pop.

As a hedge, if gold gets to $1000 it would be a great buy.

Death by E-coli!

It's clear from this video that the biggest problem in the US is the fact that the bottom 25% of citizens don't pay any taxes.

bgamall4 says

tatupu70 says

It's clear from this video that the biggest problem in the US is the fact that the bottom 25% of citizens don't pay any taxes.

Only to a madman. You apparently are going crazy.

It's called sarcasm

Can't we spare a three-burrito dump for this guy's face?

Notice how all the fixes, which always lump Social Security and Medicare together, even though only one of them is broken, are always about kicking the muddle class and below?

GS via ZH at http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-25/japan-drowns-food-energy-inflation-chinas-liquidity-tinkering-continues-does-shibor- on 10/25/13

The national core CPI (excluding fresh foods) was up 0.7% yoy in September. Despite slightly narrowing from +0.8% in August, the figure remained high. The breakdown continues to shows high positive contribution from energy costs, which were up 7.4% yoy (contribution: +0.64 pp), but the figure was slightly lower compared to August (+9.2% yoy; +0.78 pp).

Aside from energy costs, foods (excluding fresh foods) turned positive at +0.1% yoy (August: 0.0% yoy) for the first time since July 2012, while prices of clothing/footwear continued to rise steadily (September: +0.7%, August: +0.8%).

Cultural/recreational durables (e.g. TV), which has been a significant driver of price decline, rose 0.1% yoy in August for the first time since January 1992, and continued to rise in September, at +0.4%. The September core-core figure (excluding foods and energy) pulled out from the negative territory for the first time since December 2008, at 0.0% (August: -0.1%).

Now guess what has been inflating quite significantly? Energy and fresh foods.

The sad part is that people have a tendency to look down the chain when determining the source of the problem. It's real easy to look at the folks who depend on government assistance and blame them for not contributing. It's an excellent distraction and keeps people from focusing their attention on the fact that we have billionaires who don't even come close to contributing their fair share. This type of government assistance goes all but unnoticed. All the pressure hits the middle. The powers that be like to pretend that people making $250 - 500k are the solution, as if this level of income is as high as it gets. However, many are just regular w-2 wage earners who find themselves too poor -- and too rich -- to be eligible for anything even resembling a break. So, they get to contribute the most, while those making a million a month enjoy laughably low effective tax rates. Speaking as a pretty conservative person, I think it's time we stop looking downward for solutions and instead look upwards. Try attacking the real problem rather than allowing ourselves to be distracted by an easy target who lives each day trying to keep his head above the poverty line. Just my 2 cents.

bgamall4 says

He is an evil hoarder.

This is very interesting.
Is Wealth Hoarding just as dysfunctional as any other kind of pathological, compulsive accumulation?
Hard to see the distinction between endless heaping up of money that will never be spent and any other isolating, paranoid hoarding behavior.
It is inarguably more harmful to the community than some house full of cats.

turtledove says

It's an excellent distraction and keeps people from focusing their attention on the fact that we have billionaires who don't even come close to contributing their fair share.

It's worse than that, a growing proportion of tax revenues comes precisely from the lower classes. As corporate taxes have dropped to record lows, numerous other ways are found to attempt to make up for it from John & Jane Q. Public. Billionaires get as much and more protection of "American interests" when their corporations are troubled here or anywhere on the globe, but they pay less and less for it. Don't let any American Master of the Universe tell you, they get nothing for the taxes they pay, they get PLENTY.

That's a cool video. As bad as the ACA rollout has been, I am pleased that the embedded taxes (net investment income tax, addt'l medicare tax) in the law will start to redistribute more of that wealth. The dividend and capital gains tax rates for the rich are a joke.

tatupu70 says

It's clear from this video that the biggest problem in the US is the fact that the bottom 25% of citizens don't pay any taxes.

This is still better than the greatest possible outrage: a bracketed, progressive income-tax system.

(I need to vomit now - can't even think about it without becoming nauseated.)

Call it Crazy says

Hitting close to home now.... I wonder if these aides will get waivers????

when 2014 and 2016 roll in .. they can vote on their disapproval

else suck it up like so many others... !

If we really had a liberal media... They would be playing that video on loop 24/7 until America woke up to the problem and FOX news had to comment on it directly.

Thanks.

This helps me keep up with the latest facts about Benghazicare that winger editorialists are making up.

What a dilemma. Too old to provide sexual favors to politicians, and too young for Medicare.

No wage hyperinflation, no hyperinflation.

Weimar and Zimbabwe came about when the PTB started printing money to pay people while the shelves were empty.

We're not in any scarcity economy now. The hyperinflationists have to figure out how that comes to pass before the hyperinflation will actually arrive.

If anything, with the boomers turning 60 now we're going to be see more demand shock since old people don't consume like the young.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNU00000060

At least I don't. My clothing expense for the past 3 years has been $100, total.

thomaswong.1986 says

when 2014 and 2016 roll in .. they can vote on their disapproval

Since it was Republican Chuck Grassley's idea to force Congress to buy their insurance from the exchange, I guess they would have to vote Democrat to voice their disapproval.

tr6 says

The only place in the economy where I see serious inflation is in healthcare because it's been legislated by ACA

The trees can't grow to the sky.

My prediction is that the government will finance this inflation by subsidizing many policies next year for those with incomes between 30 and 60K

Yes, this is how ObamaCare works. Singles making $20k-30k and families of 4 making up to $90K get massive insurance subsidies.

Thing is, nobody really wants to go out and get medical care unless they need it, and health care is already such a massive wealth sink that even if it does grow it's not going to take over much more than it already has.

Now, Medicare is going to explode this decade and next. But you have to blame LBJ for that, not the Kenyan.

mell says

Aside from energy costs

other than that Mrs Lincoln . . .

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=oPc

Homeboy says

I guess they would have to vote Democrat to voice their disapproval.

We shall see! Thunderdome... two men enter one man leaves....

"But the federal government is the largest employer in the country. So Grassley's amendment means that the largest employer in the country is required to put some of its employees -- the ones working for Congress -- on the exchanges. But the exchanges don't have any procedures for handling premium contributions for large employers.

That's where the problem comes in. This was an offhand amendment that was supposed to be rejected. It's not clear that the federal government has the authority to pay for congressional staffers on the exchanges, the way it pays for them now in the federal benefits program. That could lead to a lot of staffers quitting Congress because they can't afford to shoulder 100 percent of their premiums. (There's also a smaller issue related to how retiree benefits might be calculated. But I'm only willing to go so far into the weeds here.)"

This has nothing to do with Real Estate Patrick, so why is this story here?

fedwatcher says

This has nothing to do with Real Estate Patrick, so why is this story here?

The suspect could be a realtor.

The only options seem to be extermination, followed by mass freezing for post-collapse consumption, or letting them roam the streets freely to prey on the weak, who won't survive the transitional paradigm-shift anyway.

Freezing that much realtor for a few more months of civilization is just not cost-effective. Keep a couple in the big garage freezer, and cull more as needed, but for now just think of them as fat and protein storage for the coming lean times.

After the supermarkets close and the supply chains break down, they'll be everywhere, groveling and slavering at the slightest hint that you want to list. Invite one to inspect the finished basement - really a fully-equipped kill floor with freezers and meat hooks, and you've fed your household for another two weeks.

tr6 says

Japan's economy worked for such a long time because they had domestic savers that financed the debt. I am not sure US has the same capacity.

Correct and that has been changing slowly.

indigenous says

The reasons we are not seeing hyperinflation are that the credit market has shrunk to a fraction of it's size, the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, as fucked up as the US monetary policy is Europe's is worse, China is raising the value of the Yuan this forces the value of the dollar to be lowered, inflation is always realized at the crony level (insiders) first before it filters down to the middle class.

Agreed. Also to debate hyperinflation vs high inflation (>= 2%) or stagflation is moot IMO as all 3 forms are harmful and the US has been clearly suffering from high inflation in daily necessities for a while now. I agree that there was additional scarcity involved in Zimbabwe and Weimar to really hyperinflate the prices, which (scarcity) is not that easy to occur these days with the ease of modern transportation, technology and production and a highly globalized economy. Doesn't mean the middle class cannot suffer from continuous inflation/stagflation as it clearly has been.

I'm working with a Chinese manufacturer on a key lock box that opens using any four-digit combination and then unlatches a trap door in the entryway, covering a greased chute to the kill floor.

A captive-bolt pistol on a hydraulic robot arm then dispatches the prey, now hanging from the basement ceiling, and leaves it hanging for your convenience. A conveyor of the sort you'd see in a dry cleaners is possible here, leading to a walk-in freezer. This would cut out the need to lie in wait - you could take your spouse to dinner or a movie knowing the the freezer will stock itself while you're gone - but there is the problem of accumulating too many parked Audis if you leave the system on while you're away on vacation: depriving your neighbors of parking is an inexcusable moral breach.