Recent Comments

1. over 2 years ago on The Norm Classics

   Seems you are falling in the pitfall of “charities” not being all equal. While it is stated that small-government conservative “give more”, the point is that this is based on what they claim as charitable deduction (i.e. giving without claiming back and therefore not having a tax credit means that the tax payers in general end up paying some of it…), and that they ‘give’ to church (have you seen how lavish a lifestyle those televangelist have?), to their college and even to PACs.

   https://nonprofitquarterly.org/republicans-give-more-to-charity-than-democrats-but-theres-a-bigger-story-here/

2. almost 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Look, from the very beginning, all I was arguing was for a measure to STOP inflation. And gold standard is one way of doing it. In the US, minimum wages was $1.60 back in 1968, inflation adjusted to $12.49 today. But the minimum wages have been $7.25 since 2009 ($9.18 inflation adjusted). In other words, people paid minimum wages get 20% less than they did 12 years ago, and only 58% of what someone made 53 years ago.Have a gold standard, and one could lock minimum wages to inflation, without anyone having any kind of credibility claiming that adjusting it is an ‘increase’.

   And if you took a minute to properly parse what I wrote “locking away FROM INFLATION” means exactly that. I am not suggesting they be locked from the normal supply and demand fluctuations, but from the silly cycle of “you rise the price of my rent, then I will have to ask for a salary adjustment at my job, which will prompt my employer to increase the price of its products/services, prompting my landlord to increase my rent again”. I am sick and tired of those real estate agents always being on the prowl to “help sell” houses using the pretext that value has ‘increased’ 50% in 20 years; that is irrelevant rubbish; if I was to move, I would have to buy another house that too would have increased 50%, unless not as well located or not as nice. With a gold standard, houses would keep the same official value, unless the area became more attractive and popular.Your claim that falling prices is devastating is wrong. Just look at the price of computers. In 1984, an Apple Macintosh was selling for $2495 ($6524 inflation adjusted). Show me a computer selling for $2500 today for comparison. Yet today Apple is worth $2.44 trillion, 1218 times its 1984 market cap.In 1910, a Ford model T was $900; in 1925, it was down to $260. Where do you see devastation?

   As to you, I suggest you refrain from interpreting what other people say.

3. almost 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Yes, the government can print more money than they have gold, and that is what they did, all along, as far back as anyone can remember. If they print a lot more than the country produces, then it dilutes the value of the currency and creates inflation.What you are arguing about is CONVERTIBILITY. And all along, what I was mentioning is the STANDARD, the VALUE ascribed to the dollar relative to an ounce of gold. They DO NOT have to be linked. Convertibility means that if your had $20.67, you could back then go to the government and demand to be given one ounce of gold in exchange for a $20 bill, a pair of quarters, a dime, a nickel and two pennies — and a government therefore has to keep as much gold as there are dollar in circulation. That is NOT what the gold standard means. Sure, convertibility implies gold standard, but the opposite is not true; there is nothing that says that a government that has gold HAS to convert the currency, not anymore than you are allowed to force someone to sell you anything they have even at a fair market price.

   What you did here is a called a strawman argument. You decided that I meant something different from what I wrote and argued about something else.

4. almost 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Wow, you actually completely failed to understand that the gold standard does not mean that you have to have as much gold as there are dollars around, simply that the currency is locked with the value of a given quantity of gold.

   Here, I will make an extra effort.Go to https://www.measuringworth.com/graphs, select “US GDP nominal” and specify ‘start year: 1834; end year 1933’.(Why those two years? Because that was the period where the US was under the gold standard, during which an ounce of gold was fixed at $20.67).Notice how the GDP was growing? Notice how it plummeted in 1929?That means more or less production. Under a dollar value that was FIXED relative to gold. Pretty sure the gold did not vanish overnight in 1929.But even more to the point, in 1933, the US GDP per capita for the US was $455.09 (falling after the peak of $858 in 1929). Back then, the US population was 126 million. $455.09 * 126 million / $20.67 = 2.77 billion ounces of gold equivalent.Right now, there are 2.5 billion ounces of gold in ‘circulation’ on the planet, TOTAL. Pretty sure the mining operations have carried on since 1933, and that a large proportion of the gold always was in other countries besides the US.

   Now do you understand how completely wrong your ‘explanation’ is?

5. almost 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Which bit are you missing? That is precisely the point: if the dollar was gold standard between 1990 and 2019, then an ounce of gold would STILL be worth $410, meaning that the dollar in your pocket would have followed the inflation of an ounce of gold and would have the SAME purchasing power now as it did back then. No inflation.I had a teacher in the 1970 who stated that one ounce of gold was essentially what a hand tailored suit in New York would cost; and that is more or less a constant.You can expand the notion: one ounce of gold buys about 700 loaves of bread. A new car averages 20 ounces. And so on. It does not matter that more bread are made.If the price of goods according to a gold standard was to fluctuate, then it would have to be explained by either a change in supply and demand, or by improvements in the production chain. But there is no need to change the reference.If you want to call it a “unit of GDP”, or the “price of a suit”, that does not change the point; it is still a reference; and since one could take any reference, how about using an ounce of gold?

6. almost 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   I fail to see how this could be relevant. The quantity of goods and services was expanding even when the gold standard existed. The GDP for the USA was 5.963 trillion in 1990. In 2019, the GDP was 21.43 trillion, 3.59 more (using inflation affected dollars).Now, look at the value of an ounce of gold. In January 1990, an ounce of gold was around $410 (1990 US $); while in January 2019 (2019 US $), it was $1322.50, that is 3.22 more. Using the gold standard, the US GDP would still have been considered having grown 11.4% over the period. It is just that the dollar in your pocket would have kept its value, and the price of everything would have more or less kept constant, in actual fact, some items might actually have gone cheaper due to increase in productivity.Unless you think that the gold standard implies that the government has to have as much worth in gold in reserve somewhere as there are dollars in circulation, which is NOT the definition.

7. almost 3 years ago on Non Sequitur

   Of course we should. But the banks would never want it. With the gold standard, the value of the currency is locked with that of gold, ending (1) speculation on the precious metal and (2) essentially locking the price of anything away from inflation.And the reason banks would not like it is that it would be readily apparent that the current interest rates on deposits are negative when inflation adjusted, meaning that banks do not pay interest, but charge rental on money.

8. almost 3 years ago on Lola

   They didn’t bother checking Lola’s noggin?

9. almost 3 years ago on Luann

   Who is going to take the vid then?

10. almost 3 years ago on Agnes

    Because it was originally written in French, and it makes reference to how tall the maple tree get around here (“haut” is French for ‘high’).