patrick.net

And really I don’t see the term “raiding” SS as so incorrect.

It was wise social policy to force the baby boom to invest for their retirement.

This money, unlike say the Norwegian Pension Fund, or the Alaskan Permanent Fund, was placed solely in UST.

"Raiding" implies the money is gone and can't be returned when needed. We know who has the money and it's now a political problem of getting tax rates raised such that the general fund can pay it back to the SSTF, starting around now.

For all I know this political problem will in fact not be solved, and the baby boom and Gen X will see $2.5T stolen from them (since the FICA overpayments ran from 1989 through 2009).

The larger problem is fixing the system's desire to run massive deficits. We don't have to do this, but we are.

1) Learn about investing.
2) If you are uncomfortable learning about investing, hire a flat-fee financial adviser.
3) Whatever you do, don't ask random yahoos on the internets about statements made by other random yahoos.
4) ????????
5) PROFIT!!!

Not to steal another poster's thunder, but I'd plant potatoes.

"And the union pork is just one of NINETY-SEVEN amendments/alterations of the original Bush pacts that the Reps haven’t even read though yet,"

And what does one of the other amendments have in it? An anti abortion provision. That's right, the GOP is so quick to ban abortion they will even put it into a trade bill. Because clearly abortion and trade are directly connected.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/orrin-hatch-abortion_n_887866.html

HRHMedia says

I am a saver and under attack

Let me approach this a different way. What article or news are you talking about? I went to http://finance.yahoo.com/, http://www.marketwatch.com/, and http://online.wsj.com/home-page and did not see any headline like that. What is the bias of the author and where is he/she getting his/her information? What substantively did the author say?

I think you are nuts if you think our government will let the dollar collapse.

they have already dumped their affilliates in CA.

michaelsch says

I think this should go to investments discussions.

Yep.

HRHMedia says

So I ask this forum what should a humble renter do who has savings?

If you think dollar will collapse, yeah gold/silver are decent bets. Anyone should have at least 15-25% (based on their risk appetite of course) in precious metals, purely because all countries are debasing currencies.

You did not link the news where it says dollar will collapse by the end of the year.

Here's an optimistic link: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/dow-20000-or-bust-or-how-james-altucher-stole-birinyis-ruler

Dow 20, 000 ...measured in printed fiat dollars of course lol.

stocks - YES, Selectively.
currencies - YES, not USD though
investment - R.E. (there are cheap & good ones out there)
bonds - No
Gold or Metals- Yes, but not at this price point
Energy or Food - Yes, always

Guns & Ammunition

They are always going up in price and also provide excellent security for your other assets.

Regarding the concerns:

- ipad clones getting very good
^-- I don't think the clones are that good. It can't replace ipad

- Google is entering the market
^-- Yes, Google is there but I played with several different tablet. They don't have what Apple has. The User Experience and the way the ipad device touches the user's heart & mind. Google don't have 'it'.

- iphone and droid sales currently about even
^-- iPhone don't have to grow tremulously, just steadily will just be fine for Apple to be very profitable

- product shortages for apple coming
^-- Not a bad thing, it drives demand and higher revenue. I am sure they know the pros and cons of factory ramp-up. So, this is priced in already (to me)

- chart looks identical to Google in late 2007
^-- Past result from a different company cannot be used to judge Apple. They have a very different philosophy behind what they do.

I have both Apple & Google stocks and I think they will both prosper. Nokia, RIMM, Motorola etc, I don't know..

Long on Apple & Google.

Thunderlips, I have been to China. There are 1000 million poor people. There are still 300 million who have a few bucks to spend.
Having seen human nature in other situations, people who have had less in life are MORE brand conscious than you or I are.
I for example can own a virginmobile android phone and do not care, but my friends in China all want Apple. My father and my neice and nephew are also unsatisfied with anything less than Apple.
My friend in Mexico was ecstatic with her little iPod I bought a couple of Christmases ago and gave her.
My Chinese girlfriend from Shanghai told me that it seems crazy to her how Chinese struggle to buy Apple products. But, she herself is also extremely brand conscious. She will give her parents in Shanghai an Apple computer so she can video chat with them, although any crummy windows paperweight will suffice. She would not insult them with a Dell hunk of junk.
Apple will go to at least $500/share in a few years. Depending on Jobs' health, it could be $1000 in a few more.
Women decide in China what is bought in the household. For better or worse,a guy in China must shuck out the dough if he has it.
Think about it, has your girlfriend ever asked you if you had paid for your retirement or health insurance or PG&E before she requested the lobster at that restaurant?

What currency is there available to replace the dollar?

The Euro? Yen? Yuan? Swiss Franc? None of those will work.

As there is nothing right now to replace the dollar with, so it will remain the world reserve currency for the foreseeable future.

humble,

those are not the only choices for investment.

You can invest in yourself, or invest in others, to pay for good training, education and the like. Or you can live off the cash while you startup a business.

C Boy says

What currency is there available to replace the dollar?

Bancor, proposed by IMF which is a version of SDR (composition of different currencies). US wouldn't want that for sure, as it cannot print its way out of its deficits, while having the luxury of being the world reserve currency.

C Boy says

As there is nothing right now to replace the dollar with, so it will remain the world reserve currency for the foreseeable future.

until it won't. The US Govt is in a Catch-22 situation. They can raise taxes and cut spending, which will push us into a recession. Or the Fed can print more money for Govt spending, which means inflation will be worse. So really inflation + recession = stagflation. Sure US can borrow money, but then 14 trillion $ of debt doesn't sit well with foreign creditors.

She had Vadge bruises where the Old Dirty Bastard grabbed her Cootch. What kind of sick mother fucker grabs a girls junk like he's grabbing a rope. Maybe he was looking for other equipment, and didn't like what he found.
One thing is for certain, there ain't no woman signed up for the treatment her lawyer described, how that bastard abused her. I don't care what the circumstances are. He deserves every thing he's gotten to date for it.

The Lawyer hit the nail on the head about the inept prosecutor that will probably end his career if he loses this case. He's lost every high profile case to date. Why is this fucker even on the pay role if he can't deliver? Probably in training for the next supreme court judge head scratcher appointment.

learn to garden for food.
study yoga.
learn to live with less.

End of capitalism? doubtful. Even if you removed the dollar as areserve currency it would still exist. Technically even if you removed all currencies it would still exist.

How about these for ideas

get an ebook reader and chock it full of books on various diy stuff. I say a ereader because laptops are heavier and the battery life isn't as long. kindle and nook (I think) can read pdf's. How to cook, how to preserve foods etc.

Make friends with people that can fix things. Cars are obvious but if you use power tools that might help as well.

I've heard Chinese women were tough, but I never knew they were this tough.

You get NOTHING! Now good day Sir!

Is that from the movie Producers? That was a great film.

I think that's the original Willy Wonka.

no.

government only knows how to waste resources, not create it.

Take any private company, lets assume Apple. If it was ran by the government we would still be walking around with tape players instead of smart phones, they would be bankrupt, there would be public service unions fighting tooth and nail to keep their bloated pensions and salaries while providing absolutely no benefit while the government would be bailing them out on a daily basis like Fannie and Freddie.

This smells like communism.

Anyone that can rack up a 100,000 bar bill on a plane is my hero. You go girl. Who says dems aren't any fun?

What can't be paid won't be paid. The money is gone. Tax rates high enough to balance the budget won't happen. Inflation or default are it.

Okay, so Bachman is not only a very stupid right wing nut job, but also a liar.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/21/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-accuses-nancy-pelosi-spending-100/

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-04-04/story/fact-check-pelosis-100000-expenses-was-not-all-food-booze

And then there are stupid and dishonest people who pass this stuff around in emails (eg shirkworm).

shrekgrinch says

And then there’s Biden….who wants to touch that one?

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww! Shrek wants to "touch" Biden!

And I wouldn’t be surprised if they just keep the $25 I supposedly earned. Probably some fine print says they can do that.

I looked it up. Amazon actually owes me $57 in commissions on referrals from Patrick.net, and there is no way to request payment on the affiliate site. It just says "account closed" and does not explain how to get the commission money. I wrote their support email yesterday, but did not get any response yet.

Tenouncetrout says

You get NOTHING! Now good day Sir!

Yup, that seems to be what Amazon is saying to all of its former CA affiliates.

Damn it Marcus, there you go again fact checking. If you'd just believe everything you heard and read on the interwebs, you wouldn't have ruined shirworm's day.

You know if they say it in the interwebs, it must be true.

The Guy was a bigger Idiot, than I thought.
Just days before the episode, he tells everyone to keep their eyes peeled and their ears open, less there be a Prostitute that will ensnare him in a scandal. Then the first chance he gets after saying that, is goes and gets his freak on with a hotel Maid that looks like she just fell of the cover of Jet magazine.

Are all Hotel Maids that hot in his fantasy world?

Big head:"We've got to be Vigilant! never can we waiver from our duty and responsibility that I carry to the free world and the future of France..."

Little head:"Well helllllooooo NURSE!"

This too bad really, I was really enjoying watching a powerful French guy, sulk like a Friday night DUI suspect, and the perp walks really gave France the finger. You gotta love any reason that pisses that lot off. Perp walks 24/7 in this country, it's the norm, and not a word out of them. We've been doing perp walks since before they gave us the statue of Liberty to make people do perp walks. And not a word out of them over 200 years. But when our justice system makes a powerful Money pig do the perp walk they get all up in arms and sanctimonious about it. Don't they have someone to stick in the Guillotine?

EMan says

This smells like communism.

Exactly. Crony Capitalism is nothing but that.

People mistake socialism (which is good, works in Sweden) for what's going on now. What is going on is rigged market, manipulated, fraudulent form of capitalism.

Consider what we spend on our military.

The only way to get ANY return on that investment is war. Therefore we do like to involve ourselves in wars on a regular basis. But that costs even more.

I agree about the waste in government, but I also believe that government can and often does work fairly well.

http://physioprof.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/i-am-an-american-conservative-shitheel/

http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/?p=5025

marcus says

The only way to get ANY return on that investment is war. Therefore we do like to involve ourselves in wars on a regular basis. But that costs even more.

lol, war expenditure graph will also look like a hockey stick and all hockey stick graphs end only one way. collapse.

marcus says

I agree about the waste in government, but I also believe that government can and often does work fairly well.

I agree too. When there is minimal or no corruption in governance, it works well.

And there is no corruption in the private sector austrian man? You really think the private sector is so honest?

HousingWatcher says

And there is no corruption in the private sector austrian man? You really think the private sector is so honest?

No I'm not saying that. Of course, I know there are special private interests that hire lobbying firms to get Congressional approvals favoring their needs. But I think the breeding ground for corruption is the unsound monetary system.

The breeding ground is that we don't have publcicly financed elections.

I'm not a big fan of public works projects in general. I think the rail stuff is a real boondoggle (a minivan carrying a family of 4 is pretty damn energy efficient even at 20mpg).

But what we do need is to stop importing so much oil. I don't know/care how this can be accomplished, but we should have a goal and concentrate a WW2-level of national focus of getting there.

Our trade deficit in oil is over $200B/yr. That doesn't sound like much but it is 4 million jobs being sent overseas.

Same thing with our $250B/yr trade deficit with China, and $60B deficit with Mexico. That $300B/yr is another 6 million jobs being lost.

Where the economy is fucked is in there being not enough work for people to make a living, and taxes being way way too low vs. gov't spending.

We could in fact double income and payroll taxes. This would put us on par with Denmark, Germany, and other high-tax states. It works for them, it would work for us.

But we are intellectual children and want everything without having to pay for it. This will work until it doesn't.

We talk about cutting defense 50%, but defense is $1T or thereabouts. We can cut, but the millions of middle-class jobs that are lost will be an immense disruption to hundreds of local economies.

HousingWatcher says

The breeding ground is that we don’t have publcicly financed elections.

Again, root-cause is unsound money.

Troy says

But what we do need is to stop importing so much oil. I don’t know/care how this can be accomplished, but we should have a goal and concentrate a WW2-level of national focus of getting there.

I agree Troy. Private Interests entangled in a nexus fashion with the Government is again the reason. It is like we won't do anything meaningful until SHTF.

Troy says

We can cut, but the millions of middle-class jobs that are lost will be an immense disruption to hundreds of local economies.

One can defend one's own borders with an expense much less than $1T (that figure seems too low, but whatever) and ensure these middle-class jobs are not lost. one does not need to be world policeman.

Troy says

Where the economy is fucked is in there being not enough work for people to make a living, and taxes being way way too low vs. gov’t spending.

We could in fact double income and payroll taxes. This would put us on par with Denmark, Germany, and other high-tax states. It works for them, it would work for us.

Agree on taxes, but taxes should be implemented for the wealthy first and then if needed, for the middle class. My guess is if you eliminate tax cuts for the wealthy, you can more than make up for the revenue without cutting taxes for the middle-class.

Wealth disparity came about because of these draconian tax cuts for the wealthy.

The problem as I see it is on both sides - Democrat and Republican. But I think all this bickering over which party is better, is actually a joke. Private Corporations buy Congress members in both parties and take care of their needs, while the sheeple argue over stupid things and fight as factions.

There are good politicians on both sides too -- but they are so few in number that they can't pluck a hair being in the Congress.

You are wise austrian_man

austrian_man says

There are good politicians on both sides too — but they are so few in number that they can’t pluck a hair being in the Congress.

I agree, but in my opinion, 30 years ago there were a lot more good Republicans in congress than there are now. Now they are forced to tow the line, to be extreme or be replaced. HW is right about publicly financed elections being the first solution that will have to precede all the others.

But yes, the divide and conquer bs is long past being tiresome.

This link again (from Patrick a couple days back), if anyone reading this missed it, about buying our government back from the special interests.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune11/buy-congress-back6-11.html