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#41
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Trillion Dollar Coin
"oly" wrote in message
... snips While the present system of passing out Social Security benefits will likely go on for a long time to come, the purchasing power of every financial thing presently expressed in fiat U.S. Dollars is likely to plummet. Plummet real soon. Why do you think people with discretionary earnings are soaking up gold and silver coins like there is no tommorrow??? Probably because there IS NO tommorrow for paper money and there goes the purchasing power of a Social Security check. Unless you are already 80 years old, you will most likely live to see a U.S. dollar with a purchasing power of one-fifth or less of what we have today. Long-term savings in paper money, bank deposits and bonds and the like are a chimaera and a trap. oly ------- Oly, we've been experiencing this gradual purchasing power loss for generations now, and people haven't been the worse for it. That loss hasn't been in a vacuum, since wages have risen accordingly. When I started at $6K a year, a home could be bought for $10K and a new full-size car at $2-3K. That proportion has pretty much held through today. The numbers change, but the salary vs COL relationship hasn't changed that drastically. I agree that the purchasing power of a SS check doesn't keep pace with the true increase in COL, but then it was never meant to provide the retiree with a living wage. Lately, the price of gold and silver hasn't kept up with rising prices either. The external factors that used to cause them to advance or decline don't seem to be that predictable anymore. Gold seems scared to death to go back above $1700 and silver may take several years to get back to that $40 level. They seem to retreat at slightest uncertainty. I see silver stuck in the $30's through this year, but then I don't do TV commercials. Meanwhile, the COL keeps going up. |
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#42
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Trillion Dollar Coin
On Jan 21, 10:23*pm, "bremick" wrote:
"oly" *wrote in message ... snips While the present system of passing out Social Security benefits will likely go on for a long time to come, the purchasing power of every financial thing presently expressed in fiat U.S. Dollars is likely to plummet. *Plummet real soon. Why do you think people with discretionary earnings are soaking up gold and silver coins like there is no tommorrow??? *Probably because there IS NO tommorrow for paper money and there goes the purchasing power of a Social Security check. Unless you are already 80 years old, you will most likely live to see a U..S. dollar with a purchasing power of one-fifth or less of what we have today.. Long-term savings in paper money, bank deposits and bonds and the like are a chimaera and a trap. oly ------- * * Oly, we've been experiencing this gradual purchasing power loss for generations now, and people haven't been the worse for it. *That loss hasn't been in a vacuum, since wages have risen accordingly. *When I started at $6K a year, a home could be bought for $10K and a new full-size car at $2-3K. That proportion has pretty much held through today. *The numbers change, but the salary vs COL relationship hasn't changed that drastically. I agree that the purchasing power of a SS check doesn't keep pace with the true increase in COL, but then it was never meant to provide the retiree with a living wage. *Lately, the price of gold and silver hasn't kept up with rising prices either. *The external factors that used to cause them to advance or decline don't seem to be that predictable anymore. *Gold seems scared to death to go back above $1700 and silver may take several years to get back to that $40 level. *They seem to retreat at slightest uncertainty. I see silver stuck in the $30's through this year, but then I don't do TV commercials. *Meanwhile, the COL keeps going up. It took me a while to collect my thoughts on this one. (1) Actually, much of the inflation since the Second World War came in two rather long time frames, from 1946 to 1951 and then from 1967 to 1982. There was also some pretty strong inflation in the late '80s and early '90s but not to the same degree as the two earlier periods. The immediate postwar inflation was pretty predictable, as people who stayed at home and worked in anything related to the War effort got paid pretty well and had nothing to spend it on until after the War was over. Most people attribute the 1960s inflation to LBJ's simulataneous guns and butter and and social welfare policies; Nixon's damn lies exacerbated everything and Ford was an usurper and Carter was (and is) a giant doink. see link: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com...flation-rates/ The point of mentioning this is that U.S. inflationary experience has not aleays been gradual, not at all - it has been concentrated in a very few years and holding financial assets just before these bursts of inflation is very very tough on the traditional saver. (2) Of course, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has greatly changed their method of calculating inflation since the last Bush 41/ Clinton 42 eras. They now assume if tuna is too expensive, that Grandma will substitute with a can of Friskies, and that is for her own consumption, mind you, and go frig whatever the cat eats. They make these substitutions to their indexes practically ad infinitum to tamp down the resulting inflation numbers. (3) If you follow things like commodity contract margin requirements, you likely know that the insiders at the U.S. exchanges have made it tougher for the paper speculators in precious metal (especially silver). People who trade the paper gold and paper silver have to put up bigger downpayments to carry their contract positions. Reportedly some of the biggest banks in the U.S. financial system have been "short" in the silver markets on a vast scale. Their speculations have not been happy for them and they cannot liquidate those positions in anything like a short period of time. People who can explain all this much better than me include John Emery (Sprott Financial) and Ted Butler and others. Google them. Even now, there is a big disconnect between paper commodity prices of precious metals and the availability of physical coins and bars (especially in silver; gold is less volatile but the people in the Far East are sucking up a lot of western gold too). So, for these and many other reasons, you simply can't convince me that Gold and Silver have limited futures in terms of price appreciation and, particularly in the case of silver, much greater purchasing power in the future. (4) I don't think that it is worth the while to write a lot on it, but I would also suggest that traditional inflation measures (and some other statistics) don't mean too much today, because the Federal Reserve Bank has "screwed up the American pricing system". By buying up so many good and crappy financial assets in the last five years or so, prices in the U.S. have become messed up and today prices don't send "real" or accurate signals about what is expensive and what is cheap. Accordingly, investors and consumers can't make informed decisions anymore or at least not as good decisions as in the past. This is a very esoteric idea and line of thought (not original to me) but the pricing system is essential for capitalism to maximize wealth and the pricing system doesn't seem to be working so well right now. If the FRB stopped interferring, perhaps things would correct and precious metal might move to different prices than they are today. Finally, (5) I would suggest that your premise that gradual inflation is O.K. is a false hope or false comfort. Inflation is intentional. National Treasuries and their related central banks debase their currencies intentionally. It is a form of a stealth tax in which no citizen has a vote or a voice. It is a tax which mocks people who would save for their futures and the futures of their descendants. Do you care to be stolen from slowly, or do you care to be stolen from quickly??? That choice offers me no comfort. I will straight out tell you; financially, the worst is still ahead for the U.S.A. and is NOT behind us. This will generally hurt the hobby of numismatics and help bullion accumulators, but even people who invest in rare coins will do better than traditional savers and people relying on traditional financial products and fixed pensions and the like. Sauve qui peut... baybee. oly |
#43
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Trillion Dollar Coin
"oly" wrote in message
... On Jan 21, 10:23 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" wrote in message ... snips While the present system of passing out Social Security benefits will likely go on for a long time to come, the purchasing power of every financial thing presently expressed in fiat U.S. Dollars is likely to plummet. Plummet real soon. Why do you think people with discretionary earnings are soaking up gold and silver coins like there is no tommorrow??? Probably because there IS NO tommorrow for paper money and there goes the purchasing power of a Social Security check. Unless you are already 80 years old, you will most likely live to see a U.S. dollar with a purchasing power of one-fifth or less of what we have today. Long-term savings in paper money, bank deposits and bonds and the like are a chimaera and a trap. oly ------- Oly, we've been experiencing this gradual purchasing power loss for generations now, and people haven't been the worse for it. That loss hasn't been in a vacuum, since wages have risen accordingly. When I started at $6K a year, a home could be bought for $10K and a new full-size car at $2-3K. That proportion has pretty much held through today. The numbers change, but the salary vs COL relationship hasn't changed that drastically. I agree that the purchasing power of a SS check doesn't keep pace with the true increase in COL, but then it was never meant to provide the retiree with a living wage. Lately, the price of gold and silver hasn't kept up with rising prices either. The external factors that used to cause them to advance or decline don't seem to be that predictable anymore. Gold seems scared to death to go back above $1700 and silver may take several years to get back to that $40 level. They seem to retreat at slightest uncertainty. I see silver stuck in the $30's through this year, but then I don't do TV commercials. Meanwhile, the COL keeps going up. It took me a while to collect my thoughts on this one. (1) Actually, much of the inflation since the Second World War came in two rather long time frames, from 1946 to 1951 and then from 1967 to 1982. There was also some pretty strong inflation in the late '80s and early '90s but not to the same degree as the two earlier periods. The immediate postwar inflation was pretty predictable, as people who stayed at home and worked in anything related to the War effort got paid pretty well and had nothing to spend it on until after the War was over. Most people attribute the 1960s inflation to LBJ's simulataneous guns and butter and and social welfare policies; Nixon's damn lies exacerbated everything and Ford was an usurper and Carter was (and is) a giant doink. see link: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com...flation-rates/ The point of mentioning this is that U.S. inflationary experience has not aleays been gradual, not at all - it has been concentrated in a very few years and holding financial assets just before these bursts of inflation is very very tough on the traditional saver. (2) Of course, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has greatly changed their method of calculating inflation since the last Bush 41/ Clinton 42 eras. They now assume if tuna is too expensive, that Grandma will substitute with a can of Friskies, and that is for her own consumption, mind you, and go frig whatever the cat eats. They make these substitutions to their indexes practically ad infinitum to tamp down the resulting inflation numbers. (3) If you follow things like commodity contract margin requirements, you likely know that the insiders at the U.S. exchanges have made it tougher for the paper speculators in precious metal (especially silver). People who trade the paper gold and paper silver have to put up bigger downpayments to carry their contract positions. Reportedly some of the biggest banks in the U.S. financial system have been "short" in the silver markets on a vast scale. Their speculations have not been happy for them and they cannot liquidate those positions in anything like a short period of time. People who can explain all this much better than me include John Emery (Sprott Financial) and Ted Butler and others. Google them. Even now, there is a big disconnect between paper commodity prices of precious metals and the availability of physical coins and bars (especially in silver; gold is less volatile but the people in the Far East are sucking up a lot of western gold too). So, for these and many other reasons, you simply can't convince me that Gold and Silver have limited futures in terms of price appreciation and, particularly in the case of silver, much greater purchasing power in the future. (4) I don't think that it is worth the while to write a lot on it, but I would also suggest that traditional inflation measures (and some other statistics) don't mean too much today, because the Federal Reserve Bank has "screwed up the American pricing system". By buying up so many good and crappy financial assets in the last five years or so, prices in the U.S. have become messed up and today prices don't send "real" or accurate signals about what is expensive and what is cheap. Accordingly, investors and consumers can't make informed decisions anymore or at least not as good decisions as in the past. This is a very esoteric idea and line of thought (not original to me) but the pricing system is essential for capitalism to maximize wealth and the pricing system doesn't seem to be working so well right now. If the FRB stopped interferring, perhaps things would correct and precious metal might move to different prices than they are today. Finally, (5) I would suggest that your premise that gradual inflation is O.K. is a false hope or false comfort. Inflation is intentional. National Treasuries and their related central banks debase their currencies intentionally. It is a form of a stealth tax in which no citizen has a vote or a voice. It is a tax which mocks people who would save for their futures and the futures of their descendants. Do you care to be stolen from slowly, or do you care to be stolen from quickly??? That choice offers me no comfort. I will straight out tell you; financially, the worst is still ahead for the U.S.A. and is NOT behind us. This will generally hurt the hobby of numismatics and help bullion accumulators, but even people who invest in rare coins will do better than traditional savers and people relying on traditional financial products and fixed pensions and the like. Sauve qui peut... baybee. oly --------------- I didn't say, or mean to say, that I thought gradual inflation is okay. I do think it's just something we will have to live with over time, as we always have. I don't care when the inflation "spurts" came, or what caused them. Over time the numbers just have gone up. From the penny loaf of bread in Washington's time when people may have earned a shilling a day to today's fifty cent "nickel" candy bar with a minimum wage at $7-$8.00. But I, too, believe we're in so deep now that it's hard to picture how we'd ever become solvent again as a country. I think the tone of the hobby will evolve in the next twenty years as traditional coins and bills become less relevant in our commercial lives, and maybe even disappear. True collectors then will concentrate their focus on the past while others will take pleasure in the inevitable Mint-issued bullion products. High roller collectors still will be able to pounce on those six and seven figure rarities and then auction them at a profit, and pundits will continue to cite those sales as indicative of a "healthy hobby". Meanwhile, anyone researching affordable coins as an investment might also do some research in the stock market at the same time. My actual market profits over the years have been much greater than my paper profits form my coin collection. But I still enjoy the coins more. |
#44
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Trillion Dollar Coin
On Jan 23, 8:22*am, "bremick" wrote:
"oly" *wrote in message ... On Jan 21, 10:23 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" *wrote in message ... snips While the present system of passing out Social Security benefits will likely go on for a long time to come, the purchasing power of every financial thing presently expressed in fiat U.S. Dollars is likely to plummet. *Plummet real soon. Why do you think people with discretionary earnings are soaking up gold and silver coins like there is no tommorrow??? *Probably because there IS NO tommorrow for paper money and there goes the purchasing power of a Social Security check. Unless you are already 80 years old, you will most likely live to see a U.S. dollar with a purchasing power of one-fifth or less of what we have today. Long-term savings in paper money, bank deposits and bonds and the like are a chimaera and a trap. oly ------- * * Oly, we've been experiencing this gradual purchasing power loss for generations now, and people haven't been the worse for it. *That loss hasn't been in a vacuum, since wages have risen accordingly. *When I started at $6K a year, a home could be bought for $10K and a new full-size car at $2-3K. That proportion has pretty much held through today. *The numbers change, but the salary vs COL relationship hasn't changed that drastically. I agree that the purchasing power of a SS check doesn't keep pace with the true increase in COL, but then it was never meant to provide the retiree with a living wage. *Lately, the price of gold and silver hasn't kept up with rising prices either. *The external factors that used to cause them to advance or decline don't seem to be that predictable anymore. *Gold seems scared to death to go back above $1700 and silver may take several years to get back to that $40 level. *They seem to retreat at slightest uncertainty. I see silver stuck in the $30's through this year, but then I don't do TV commercials. *Meanwhile, the COL keeps going up. It took me a while to collect my thoughts on this one. (1) Actually, much of the inflation since the Second World War came in two rather long time frames, from 1946 to 1951 and then from 1967 to 1982. *There was also some pretty strong inflation in the late '80s and early '90s but not to the same degree as the two earlier periods. The immediate postwar inflation was pretty predictable, as people who stayed at home and worked in anything related to the War effort got paid pretty well and had nothing to spend it on until after the War was over. *Most people attribute the 1960s inflation to LBJ's simulataneous guns and butter and and social welfare policies; Nixon's @#!*% lies exacerbated everything and Ford was an usurper and Carter was (and is) a giant doink. see link: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com...al-inflation-r... The point of mentioning this is that U.S. inflationary experience has not aleays been gradual, not at all - it has been concentrated in a very few years and holding financial assets just before these bursts of inflation is very very tough on the traditional saver. (2) Of course, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has greatly changed their method of calculating inflation since the last Bush 41/ Clinton 42 eras. *They now assume if tuna is too expensive, that Grandma will substitute with a can of Friskies, and that is for her own consumption, mind you, and go frig whatever the cat eats. *They make these substitutions to their indexes practically ad infinitum to tamp down the resulting inflation numbers. (3) If you follow things like commodity contract margin requirements, you likely know that the insiders at the U.S. exchanges have made it tougher for the paper speculators in precious metal (especially silver). *People who trade the paper gold and paper silver have to put up bigger downpayments to carry their contract positions. *Reportedly some of the biggest banks in the U.S. financial system have been "short" in the silver markets on a vast scale. *Their speculations have not been happy for them and they cannot liquidate those positions in anything like a short period of time. *People who can explain all this much better than me include John Emery (Sprott Financial) and Ted Butler and others. *Google them. *Even now, there is a big disconnect between paper commodity prices of precious metals and the availability of physical coins and bars (especially in silver; gold is less volatile but the people in the Far East are sucking up a lot of western gold too). So, for these and many other reasons, you simply can't convince me that Gold and Silver have limited futures in terms of price appreciation and, particularly in the case of silver, much greater purchasing power in the future. (4) I don't think that it is worth the while to write a lot on it, but I would also suggest that traditional inflation measures (and some other statistics) don't mean too much today, because the Federal Reserve Bank has "screwed up the American pricing system". *By buying up so many good and crappy financial assets in the last five years or so, prices in the U.S. have become messed up and today prices don't send "real" or accurate signals about what is expensive and what is cheap. *Accordingly, investors and consumers can't make informed decisions anymore or at least not as good decisions as in the past. This is a very esoteric idea and line of thought (not original to me) but the pricing system is essential for capitalism to maximize wealth and the pricing system doesn't seem to be working so well right now. If the FRB stopped interferring, perhaps things would correct and precious metal might move to different prices than they are today. Finally, (5) I would suggest that your premise that gradual inflation is O.K. is a false hope or false comfort. *Inflation is intentional. National Treasuries and their related central banks debase their currencies intentionally. *It is a form of a stealth tax in which no citizen has a vote or a voice. *It is a tax which mocks people who would save for their futures and the futures of their descendants. *Do you care to be stolen from slowly, or do you care to be stolen from quickly??? *That choice offers me no comfort. I will straight out tell you; financially, the worst is still ahead for the U.S.A. and is NOT behind us. *This will generally hurt the hobby of numismatics and help bullion accumulators, but even people who invest in rare coins will do better than traditional savers and people relying on traditional financial products and fixed pensions and the like. Sauve qui peut... baybee. oly --------------- I didn't say, or mean to say, that I thought gradual inflation is okay. *I do think it's just something we will have to live with over time, as we always have. *I don't care when the inflation "spurts" came, or what caused them. *Over time the numbers just have gone up. *From the penny loaf of bread in Washington's time when people may have earned a shilling a day to today's fifty cent "nickel" candy bar with a minimum wage at $7-$8.00. *But I, too, believe we're in so deep now that it's hard to picture how we'd ever become solvent again as a country. I think the tone of the hobby will evolve in the next twenty years as traditional coins and bills become less relevant in our commercial lives, and maybe even disappear. *True collectors then will concentrate their focus on the past while others will take pleasure in the inevitable Mint-issued bullion products. *High roller collectors still will be able to pounce on those six and seven figure rarities and then auction them at a profit, and pundits will continue to cite those sales as indicative of a "healthy hobby". *Meanwhile, anyone researching affordable coins as an investment might also do some research in the stock market at the same time. *My actual market profits over the years have been much greater than my paper profits form my coin collection. *But I still enjoy the coins more.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Actually, the rise in the price of silver from much less than $20 to $49 and then back to the low $30s has had a tremendous negtaive impact on the availability and affordability of the U.S. silver coins that many people start with when they enter the hobby. Even for me, I find that the availability of many common world silver crowns is much less than two or three years ago, and when I find them the prices can be shocking. It will be a long-term negative for the entry of new collectors with average incomes. I don't much like the U.S. stock market (on lots of levels or from lots of angles), although if my premise about strong inflation/ currency depreciation is correct, equities will benefit sooner or later (or at least that's what reading history suggests). I'd suggest that very few individual investors are doing much trading at the present time. oly |
#45
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Trillion Dollar Coin
bremick wrote:
"Frank Galikanokus" wrote in message ... oly wrote: On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:16:53 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 11, 1:34 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 10, 6:02 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: oly wrote: On Jan 8, 9:56 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" wrote in message ... On Jan 8, 8:17 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in ... oly wrote: On Jan 5, 10:11 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Jerry Dennis" wrote in message ... No link to this rumor, but it was on TV on The Five last night, and Huffington Post ran a blurb on its web site. Seems the feds are seriously considering issuing a platinum coin worth a trillion dollars to avoid the debt ceiling. I did a little math on the deal using the current $100 Platinum Eagle as a base. Using the ratios for 1 oz. PAEs, it would take 10 billion troy oz., or just over 342,857.142 86 tons (US), for a single trillion dollar eagle. Kind of makes the 2007 Canadian $1,000,000 Maple Leaf (100 kg) and the 2012 Austrailian $1,000,000 Kangaroo (1000 kg) seem like chump change. Jerry ---------- Would it actually be money if it isn't intended for circulation? I'm thinking of those 1933 Saints here. If so, what would that really accomplish? I'm sure there probably were a bunch of legal experts involved if the govt ever seriously considered it. Could it be legally "worth" a trillion if it simply said so on it with a Congressional blessing? Or would it require a trillion worth of platinum? Sadly, this government seems to be reduced to weirdness rather than common sense to reduce our debt. I think the idea (which is just an accounting trick) would be to take a simple one ounce platinum blank and stamp it "one trillion dollars". There is no need to attempt to make the intrinsic value of such a coin anywhere close to its "face". The Traesury Secretary would have the very few of these coins which were required to be made up sent to some vault in New York City or Washington D.C. Congressional approval probably doesn't mean squat. But there is simply no point to minting such a coin; the Federal Reserve Bank effectively does this every day with their computers and gee, they don't do a sum of one trillion dollars more than two or three times per year. In Weimar Germany in 1922-23, they didn't use any more paper to print a million mark note than they did to print the Imperial pre-war one hundred mark note (indeed they used a smaller price of paper). Wrap your head around this thought: "Money" means nothing anymore. Work, careers, business skills, effort means nothing anymore. The money cheaters can create more "money" in a computer keystroke than you or I could "earn" by ten thousand lifetimes of "work". oly I agree! So what are we going to do about the millionaires and billionaires and their tools that are trashing our economy and threatening our freedom? JAM -------- I say let's vote them out of Congress!!- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I think that the old comic strip "Pogo" (Walt Kelly) quote went something like "We have met the enemy and it is us" and that it applies here. Lots and lots of people get more from "the System" than they ever put in. My poor old paternal grandparents clearly did towards the end of their lives. My parents did too (but they were very successful and they did put in quite a lot first, up-front). I am now angling to game "the System" for myself. Being personally honest about what you tell yourself about yourself is still rather important. Sauve qui peut, baayy-beeee. oly ------- For every person who is fortunate and healthy enough to "game the system", there are two or three who pass away well before recouping what they put in. On the other hand, there are some who work for a only couple years but incur a disability and then collect for the rest of their lives. I'd prefer to stay healthy and take my chances. Good luck to you as you enter a new phase of you life. Bruce- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - And if I'm being ****y, I'll take issue with your demographics and return of retirement contributions. Most people who have been presently been retired for two decades got their own contributions back within three years or less. Presently, more recent retirees are looking at five to seven years before they start playing on the house's money. There are NOT two or three people dying early for every one that actually reaches retirement age. NOT the case at all. If that was true, the crap debt would not be piling up the way it is. Maybe Timmy should mint about a dozen of them trillion dollar platinums. oly Social Security does not contribute to the national debt. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Actually, it does. FICA taxes are collected. The tax money is then used to purchase Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are, in reality, IOU's to Social Security. The taxes used to purchase the Treasury Bonds are then deposited into the General Fund, which Congress loves because they get to spend it, thus adding to the national debt. The Social Security Act is one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever perpetrated on the American people. Jerry Where did you get this information, fox? Your statement that SS is a Ponzi scheme is bull**** and proves your lack of knowledge on the subject. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Easy, Frank. I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest with you. Everything I mentioned is on the Social Security Administration's web site. www.ssa.gov. The deductions of that information is my own, and blatantly obvious. If there really was a fund, as you mentioned to oly, and there was no way for Congress to get its greedy hands on it, Social Security would still be viable. Jerry Yep, you are clue less. JAM Old ****ers like you are eating your grandchildren and great granchildren alive and can't even be intellectually honest about it. You are taking out many many many multiples of anything you ever possibly put into "The System". oly I've ben putting into the system since I volunteered for military service when I was 18. So we are supposed to toss the previous generations on the scrap heap? Are we supposed to do away with any hope of current generations for a better future? There is plenty to go around if we can stop the trickling up of the nations wealth in to the hands of the wealthy elite that threaten our freedom. JAM ---------- Just curious. What would you do if you found your income was "trickling up" to a level where you would be considered wealthy? Give it to the poor? Argue that you weren't elite, it's those OTHER rich guys? I can't imagine a single wealthy elite who threatens my freedom. Don't fall through that flimsy soap box. The current working generations have dozens more options to prepare for their retirement than we did when I started working. We had Social Security and maybe a pension, if we were lucky. There were no IRA's, 401k's, or convenient day trading on your smart phone. Congress could easily raise the SS ages a notch as well as the highest wage for withholding with little impact on today's 20-30 year olds when they retire. Thirty or 40 years from now, anyone who retires and still counts on SS payments for survival will have to blame themselves for not planning better. Sometimes, when I buy a couple of numbers on the mega millions, I think about what I would do with all that money. I'd spend it all. I'd give it all away to family, friends and worthy groups and individuals. Or maybe I could found a financial and political dynasty. Yano, like they have done throughout history, until the America Revolution and Constitution showed the world a better way. What good would it do to be worth millions or billions when you die? JAM |
#46
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Trillion Dollar Coin
On Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:29:56 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote:
bremick wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in message ... oly wrote: On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:16:53 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 11, 1:34 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 10, 6:02 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: oly wrote: On Jan 8, 9:56 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" wrote in message ... On Jan 8, 8:17 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in .... oly wrote: On Jan 5, 10:11 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Jerry Dennis" wrote in message ... No link to this rumor, but it was on TV on The Five last night, and Huffington Post ran a blurb on its web site. Seems the feds are seriously considering issuing a platinum coin worth a trillion dollars to avoid the debt ceiling. I did a little math on the deal using the current $100 Platinum Eagle as a base. Using the ratios for 1 oz. PAEs, it would take 10 billion troy oz., or just over 342,857.142 86 tons (US), for a single trillion dollar eagle. Kind of makes the 2007 Canadian $1,000,000 Maple Leaf (100 kg) and the 2012 Austrailian $1,000,000 Kangaroo (1000 kg) seem like chump change. Jerry ---------- Would it actually be money if it isn't intended for circulation? I'm thinking of those 1933 Saints here. If so, what would that really accomplish? I'm sure there probably were a bunch of legal experts involved if the govt ever seriously considered it. Could it be legally "worth" a trillion if it simply said so on it with a Congressional blessing? Or would it require a trillion worth of platinum? Sadly, this government seems to be reduced to weirdness rather than common sense to reduce our debt. I think the idea (which is just an accounting trick) would be to take a simple one ounce platinum blank and stamp it "one trillion dollars". There is no need to attempt to make the intrinsic value of such a coin anywhere close to its "face". The Traesury Secretary would have the very few of these coins which were required to be made up sent to some vault in New York City or Washington D.C. Congressional approval probably doesn't mean squat. But there is simply no point to minting such a coin; the Federal Reserve Bank effectively does this every day with their computers and gee, they don't do a sum of one trillion dollars more than two or three times per year. In Weimar Germany in 1922-23, they didn't use any more paper to print a million mark note than they did to print the Imperial pre-war one hundred mark note (indeed they used a smaller price of paper). Wrap your head around this thought: "Money" means nothing anymore. Work, careers, business skills, effort means nothing anymore. The money cheaters can create more "money" in a computer keystroke than you or I could "earn" by ten thousand lifetimes of "work". oly I agree! So what are we going to do about the millionaires and billionaires and their tools that are trashing our economy and threatening our freedom? JAM -------- I say let's vote them out of Congress!!- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I think that the old comic strip "Pogo" (Walt Kelly) quote went something like "We have met the enemy and it is us" and that it applies here. Lots and lots of people get more from "the System" than they ever put in. My poor old paternal grandparents clearly did towards the end of their lives. My parents did too (but they were very successful and they did put in quite a lot first, up-front). I am now angling to game "the System" for myself. Being personally honest about what you tell yourself about yourself is still rather important. Sauve qui peut, baayy-beeee. oly ------- For every person who is fortunate and healthy enough to "game the system", there are two or three who pass away well before recouping what they put in. On the other hand, there are some who work for a only couple years but incur a disability and then collect for the rest of their lives. I'd prefer to stay healthy and take my chances. Good luck to you as you enter a new phase of you life. Bruce- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - And if I'm being ****y, I'll take issue with your demographics and return of retirement contributions. Most people who have been presently been retired for two decades got their own contributions back within three years or less. Presently, more recent retirees are looking at five to seven years before they start playing on the house's money. There are NOT two or three people dying early for every one that actually reaches retirement age. NOT the case at all. If that was true, the crap debt would not be piling up the way it is. Maybe Timmy should mint about a dozen of them trillion dollar platinums. oly Social Security does not contribute to the national debt. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Actually, it does. FICA taxes are collected.. The tax money is then used to purchase Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are, in reality, IOU's to Social Security. The taxes used to purchase the Treasury Bonds are then deposited into the General Fund, which Congress loves because they get to spend it, thus adding to the national debt. The Social Security Act is one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever perpetrated on the American people. Jerry Where did you get this information, fox? Your statement that SS is a Ponzi scheme is bull**** and proves your lack of knowledge on the subject. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Easy, Frank. I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest with you. Everything I mentioned is on the Social Security Administration's web site. www.ssa.gov. The deductions of that information is my own, and blatantly obvious. If there really was a fund, as you mentioned to oly, and there was no way for Congress to get its greedy hands on it, Social Security would still be viable. Jerry Yep, you are clue less. JAM Old ****ers like you are eating your grandchildren and great granchildren alive and can't even be intellectually honest about it. You are taking out many many many multiples of anything you ever possibly put into "The System".. oly I've ben putting into the system since I volunteered for military service when I was 18. So we are supposed to toss the previous generations on the scrap heap? Are we supposed to do away with any hope of current generations for a better future? There is plenty to go around if we can stop the trickling up of the nations wealth in to the hands of the wealthy elite that threaten our freedom. JAM ---------- Just curious. What would you do if you found your income was "trickling up" to a level where you would be considered wealthy? Give it to the poor? Argue that you weren't elite, it's those OTHER rich guys? I can't imagine a single wealthy elite who threatens my freedom. Don't fall through that flimsy soap box. The current working generations have dozens more options to prepare for their retirement than we did when I started working. We had Social Security and maybe a pension, if we were lucky. There were no IRA's, 401k's, or convenient day trading on your smart phone. Congress could easily raise the SS ages a notch as well as the highest wage for withholding with little impact on today's 20-30 year olds when they retire. Thirty or 40 years from now, anyone who retires and still counts on SS payments for survival will have to blame themselves for not planning better. Sometimes, when I buy a couple of numbers on the mega millions, I think about what I would do with all that money. I'd spend it all. I'd give it all away to family, friends and worthy groups and individuals. Or maybe I could found a financial and political dynasty. Yano, like they have done throughout history, until the America Revolution and Constitution showed the world a better way. What good would it do to be worth millions or billions when you die? JAM Yesterday, I came into the (mostly) dregs of a "collection" that was formed from the early 1970s to 1998. A lot of it was Franklin Mint (thank God for all the sterling silver) and the collector kept a great deal of the original FM paperwork and all the little "gifts" that the FM would send you if you paid about $10 a year to be in their collectors club. The stuff brought back a lot of memories for me. There were also a lot of clad U.S. proof sets 1974 through 1998 (many many dregs here) and then thankfully again, quite a few modern U.S. commemorative silver dollars. The collector who put it all together has been dead more than ten or twelve years; I didn't personally know him or his descendants. So, I asked myself, searchingly, what was the point of all this collecting??? The collection that I saw was hardly memorable (but, there was a hint dropped that there might be some foreign coins to see at a later date). It would not have provided a super hedge against inflation and the chance for a profit wasn't great either (well, the family did have four or five modern gold commemoratives in the lot, including some tens, and IMHO they wisely decided to keep these). If the fellow was happy with all this "stuff", well yes, that counts but thank goodness he didn't try to dispose of the stuff in his later life, he could not have been too happy with the metals prices of the late 1990s. It is better today, but still not enough to beat the cumulative decline in the purchasing power of the dollar over thirty of forty years. And I asked myself, is there any more purpose to what I am doing with my accumulation of coins than what this fellow did??? Do I need to focus better??? If I owned some nice Swedish plate money or if I owned a nice Charles II five guineas (or better yet, more than one), would that make me happier than the dross that I already have??? If I won big money on the Lottery, would it be better to have nice apartments in Springfield, London, Key West and Seattle??? Would it be better to rent some insincere affection to fill in the hours instead of fighting with the wife over idiocies twenty-four hours-a-day, at least five days a week??? The big thing about life is the ticking of the time clock. The pursuit of money (or old coins or books or other "things") is kind of trap-like. Saturday was just a kind of reflective day. oly |
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Trillion Dollar Coin
"Frank Galikanokus" wrote in message ...
bremick wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in message ... oly wrote: On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:16:53 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 11, 1:34 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 10, 6:02 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: oly wrote: On Jan 8, 9:56 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" wrote in message ... On Jan 8, 8:17 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in ... oly wrote: On Jan 5, 10:11 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Jerry Dennis" wrote in message ... No link to this rumor, but it was on TV on The Five last night, and Huffington Post ran a blurb on its web site. Seems the feds are seriously considering issuing a platinum coin worth a trillion dollars to avoid the debt ceiling. I did a little math on the deal using the current $100 Platinum Eagle as a base. Using the ratios for 1 oz. PAEs, it would take 10 billion troy oz., or just over 342,857.142 86 tons (US), for a single trillion dollar eagle. Kind of makes the 2007 Canadian $1,000,000 Maple Leaf (100 kg) and the 2012 Austrailian $1,000,000 Kangaroo (1000 kg) seem like chump change. Jerry ---------- Would it actually be money if it isn't intended for circulation? I'm thinking of those 1933 Saints here. If so, what would that really accomplish? I'm sure there probably were a bunch of legal experts involved if the govt ever seriously considered it. Could it be legally "worth" a trillion if it simply said so on it with a Congressional blessing? Or would it require a trillion worth of platinum? Sadly, this government seems to be reduced to weirdness rather than common sense to reduce our debt. I think the idea (which is just an accounting trick) would be to take a simple one ounce platinum blank and stamp it "one trillion dollars". There is no need to attempt to make the intrinsic value of such a coin anywhere close to its "face". The Traesury Secretary would have the very few of these coins which were required to be made up sent to some vault in New York City or Washington D.C. Congressional approval probably doesn't mean squat. But there is simply no point to minting such a coin; the Federal Reserve Bank effectively does this every day with their computers and gee, they don't do a sum of one trillion dollars more than two or three times per year. In Weimar Germany in 1922-23, they didn't use any more paper to print a million mark note than they did to print the Imperial pre-war one hundred mark note (indeed they used a smaller price of paper). Wrap your head around this thought: "Money" means nothing anymore. Work, careers, business skills, effort means nothing anymore. The money cheaters can create more "money" in a computer keystroke than you or I could "earn" by ten thousand lifetimes of "work". oly I agree! So what are we going to do about the millionaires and billionaires and their tools that are trashing our economy and threatening our freedom? JAM -------- I say let's vote them out of Congress!!- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I think that the old comic strip "Pogo" (Walt Kelly) quote went something like "We have met the enemy and it is us" and that it applies here. Lots and lots of people get more from "the System" than they ever put in. My poor old paternal grandparents clearly did towards the end of their lives. My parents did too (but they were very successful and they did put in quite a lot first, up-front). I am now angling to game "the System" for myself. Being personally honest about what you tell yourself about yourself is still rather important. Sauve qui peut, baayy-beeee. oly ------- For every person who is fortunate and healthy enough to "game the system", there are two or three who pass away well before recouping what they put in. On the other hand, there are some who work for a only couple years but incur a disability and then collect for the rest of their lives. I'd prefer to stay healthy and take my chances. Good luck to you as you enter a new phase of you life. Bruce- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - And if I'm being ****y, I'll take issue with your demographics and return of retirement contributions. Most people who have been presently been retired for two decades got their own contributions back within three years or less. Presently, more recent retirees are looking at five to seven years before they start playing on the house's money. There are NOT two or three people dying early for every one that actually reaches retirement age. NOT the case at all. If that was true, the crap debt would not be piling up the way it is. Maybe Timmy should mint about a dozen of them trillion dollar platinums. oly Social Security does not contribute to the national debt. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Actually, it does. FICA taxes are collected. The tax money is then used to purchase Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are, in reality, IOU's to Social Security. The taxes used to purchase the Treasury Bonds are then deposited into the General Fund, which Congress loves because they get to spend it, thus adding to the national debt. The Social Security Act is one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever perpetrated on the American people. Jerry Where did you get this information, fox? Your statement that SS is a Ponzi scheme is bull**** and proves your lack of knowledge on the subject. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Easy, Frank. I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest with you. Everything I mentioned is on the Social Security Administration's web site. www.ssa.gov. The deductions of that information is my own, and blatantly obvious. If there really was a fund, as you mentioned to oly, and there was no way for Congress to get its greedy hands on it, Social Security would still be viable. Jerry Yep, you are clue less. JAM Old ****ers like you are eating your grandchildren and great granchildren alive and can't even be intellectually honest about it. You are taking out many many many multiples of anything you ever possibly put into "The System". oly I've ben putting into the system since I volunteered for military service when I was 18. So we are supposed to toss the previous generations on the scrap heap? Are we supposed to do away with any hope of current generations for a better future? There is plenty to go around if we can stop the trickling up of the nations wealth in to the hands of the wealthy elite that threaten our freedom. JAM ---------- Just curious. What would you do if you found your income was "trickling up" to a level where you would be considered wealthy? Give it to the poor? Argue that you weren't elite, it's those OTHER rich guys? I can't imagine a single wealthy elite who threatens my freedom. Don't fall through that flimsy soap box. The current working generations have dozens more options to prepare for their retirement than we did when I started working. We had Social Security and maybe a pension, if we were lucky. There were no IRA's, 401k's, or convenient day trading on your smart phone. Congress could easily raise the SS ages a notch as well as the highest wage for withholding with little impact on today's 20-30 year olds when they retire. Thirty or 40 years from now, anyone who retires and still counts on SS payments for survival will have to blame themselves for not planning better. Sometimes, when I buy a couple of numbers on the mega millions, I think about what I would do with all that money. I'd spend it all. I'd give it all away to family, friends and worthy groups and individuals. Or maybe I could found a financial and political dynasty. Yano, like they have done throughout history, until the America Revolution and Constitution showed the world a better way. What good would it do to be worth millions or billions when you die? JAM ---------------- You might ask your wife and kids. |
#48
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Trillion Dollar Coin
"oly" wrote in message
... On Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:29:56 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: bremick wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in message ... oly wrote: On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:16:53 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 11, 1:34 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 10, 6:02 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: oly wrote: On Jan 8, 9:56 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" wrote in message ... On Jan 8, 8:17 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in ... oly wrote: On Jan 5, 10:11 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Jerry Dennis" wrote in message ... No link to this rumor, but it was on TV on The Five last night, and Huffington Post ran a blurb on its web site. Seems the feds are seriously considering issuing a platinum coin worth a trillion dollars to avoid the debt ceiling. I did a little math on the deal using the current $100 Platinum Eagle as a base. Using the ratios for 1 oz. PAEs, it would take 10 billion troy oz., or just over 342,857.142 86 tons (US), for a single trillion dollar eagle. Kind of makes the 2007 Canadian $1,000,000 Maple Leaf (100 kg) and the 2012 Austrailian $1,000,000 Kangaroo (1000 kg) seem like chump change. Jerry ---------- Would it actually be money if it isn't intended for circulation? I'm thinking of those 1933 Saints here. If so, what would that really accomplish? I'm sure there probably were a bunch of legal experts involved if the govt ever seriously considered it. Could it be legally "worth" a trillion if it simply said so on it with a Congressional blessing? Or would it require a trillion worth of platinum? Sadly, this government seems to be reduced to weirdness rather than common sense to reduce our debt. I think the idea (which is just an accounting trick) would be to take a simple one ounce platinum blank and stamp it "one trillion dollars". There is no need to attempt to make the intrinsic value of such a coin anywhere close to its "face". The Traesury Secretary would have the very few of these coins which were required to be made up sent to some vault in New York City or Washington D.C. Congressional approval probably doesn't mean squat. But there is simply no point to minting such a coin; the Federal Reserve Bank effectively does this every day with their computers and gee, they don't do a sum of one trillion dollars more than two or three times per year. In Weimar Germany in 1922-23, they didn't use any more paper to print a million mark note than they did to print the Imperial pre-war one hundred mark note (indeed they used a smaller price of paper). Wrap your head around this thought: "Money" means nothing anymore. Work, careers, business skills, effort means nothing anymore. The money cheaters can create more "money" in a computer keystroke than you or I could "earn" by ten thousand lifetimes of "work". oly I agree! So what are we going to do about the millionaires and billionaires and their tools that are trashing our economy and threatening our freedom? JAM -------- I say let's vote them out of Congress!!- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I think that the old comic strip "Pogo" (Walt Kelly) quote went something like "We have met the enemy and it is us" and that it applies here. Lots and lots of people get more from "the System" than they ever put in. My poor old paternal grandparents clearly did towards the end of their lives. My parents did too (but they were very successful and they did put in quite a lot first, up-front). I am now angling to game "the System" for myself. Being personally honest about what you tell yourself about yourself is still rather important. Sauve qui peut, baayy-beeee. oly ------- For every person who is fortunate and healthy enough to "game the system", there are two or three who pass away well before recouping what they put in. On the other hand, there are some who work for a only couple years but incur a disability and then collect for the rest of their lives. I'd prefer to stay healthy and take my chances. Good luck to you as you enter a new phase of you life. Bruce- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - And if I'm being ****y, I'll take issue with your demographics and return of retirement contributions. Most people who have been presently been retired for two decades got their own contributions back within three years or less. Presently, more recent retirees are looking at five to seven years before they start playing on the house's money. There are NOT two or three people dying early for every one that actually reaches retirement age. NOT the case at all. If that was true, the crap debt would not be piling up the way it is. Maybe Timmy should mint about a dozen of them trillion dollar platinums. oly Social Security does not contribute to the national debt. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Actually, it does. FICA taxes are collected. The tax money is then used to purchase Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are, in reality, IOU's to Social Security. The taxes used to purchase the Treasury Bonds are then deposited into the General Fund, which Congress loves because they get to spend it, thus adding to the national debt. The Social Security Act is one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever perpetrated on the American people. Jerry Where did you get this information, fox? Your statement that SS is a Ponzi scheme is bull**** and proves your lack of knowledge on the subject. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Easy, Frank. I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest with you. Everything I mentioned is on the Social Security Administration's web site. www.ssa.gov. The deductions of that information is my own, and blatantly obvious. If there really was a fund, as you mentioned to oly, and there was no way for Congress to get its greedy hands on it, Social Security would still be viable. Jerry Yep, you are clue less. JAM Old ****ers like you are eating your grandchildren and great granchildren alive and can't even be intellectually honest about it. You are taking out many many many multiples of anything you ever possibly put into "The System". oly I've ben putting into the system since I volunteered for military service when I was 18. So we are supposed to toss the previous generations on the scrap heap? Are we supposed to do away with any hope of current generations for a better future? There is plenty to go around if we can stop the trickling up of the nations wealth in to the hands of the wealthy elite that threaten our freedom. JAM ---------- Just curious. What would you do if you found your income was "trickling up" to a level where you would be considered wealthy? Give it to the poor? Argue that you weren't elite, it's those OTHER rich guys? I can't imagine a single wealthy elite who threatens my freedom. Don't fall through that flimsy soap box. The current working generations have dozens more options to prepare for their retirement than we did when I started working. We had Social Security and maybe a pension, if we were lucky. There were no IRA's, 401k's, or convenient day trading on your smart phone. Congress could easily raise the SS ages a notch as well as the highest wage for withholding with little impact on today's 20-30 year olds when they retire. Thirty or 40 years from now, anyone who retires and still counts on SS payments for survival will have to blame themselves for not planning better. Sometimes, when I buy a couple of numbers on the mega millions, I think about what I would do with all that money. I'd spend it all. I'd give it all away to family, friends and worthy groups and individuals. Or maybe I could found a financial and political dynasty. Yano, like they have done throughout history, until the America Revolution and Constitution showed the world a better way. What good would it do to be worth millions or billions when you die? JAM Yesterday, I came into the (mostly) dregs of a "collection" that was formed from the early 1970s to 1998. A lot of it was Franklin Mint (thank God for all the sterling silver) and the collector kept a great deal of the original FM paperwork and all the little "gifts" that the FM would send you if you paid about $10 a year to be in their collectors club. The stuff brought back a lot of memories for me. There were also a lot of clad U.S. proof sets 1974 through 1998 (many many dregs here) and then thankfully again, quite a few modern U.S. commemorative silver dollars. The collector who put it all together has been dead more than ten or twelve years; I didn't personally know him or his descendants. So, I asked myself, searchingly, what was the point of all this collecting??? The collection that I saw was hardly memorable (but, there was a hint dropped that there might be some foreign coins to see at a later date). It would not have provided a super hedge against inflation and the chance for a profit wasn't great either (well, the family did have four or five modern gold commemoratives in the lot, including some tens, and IMHO they wisely decided to keep these). If the fellow was happy with all this "stuff", well yes, that counts but thank goodness he didn't try to dispose of the stuff in his later life, he could not have been too happy with the metals prices of the late 1990s. It is better today, but still not enough to beat the cumulative decline in the purchasing power of the dollar over thirty of forty years. And I asked myself, is there any more purpose to what I am doing with my accumulation of coins than what this fellow did??? Do I need to focus better??? If I owned some nice Swedish plate money or if I owned a nice Charles II five guineas (or better yet, more than one), would that make me happier than the dross that I already have??? If I won big money on the Lottery, would it be better to have nice apartments in Springfield, London, Key West and Seattle??? Would it be better to rent some insincere affection to fill in the hours instead of fighting with the wife over idiocies twenty-four hours-a-day, at least five days a week??? The big thing about life is the ticking of the time clock. The pursuit of money (or old coins or books or other "things") is kind of trap-like. Saturday was just a kind of reflective day. oly ---------- Wait until you begin that retirement, Oly, and you don't need the pleasant diversion from the rat race anymore that coin or "thing" collecting had given you. That's when your attitude might really evolve. I know I'll never win any big lottery because I never buy any tickets. Saving my money for something. I just can't remember what. |
#49
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Trillion Dollar Coin
oly wrote:
On Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:29:56 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: bremick wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in message ... oly wrote: On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:16:53 PM UTC-6, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 11, 1:34 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: Jerry Dennis wrote: On Jan 10, 6:02 pm, Frank Galikanokus wrote: oly wrote: On Jan 8, 9:56 pm, "bremick" wrote: "oly" wrote in message ... On Jan 8, 8:17 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Frank Galikanokus" wrote in ... oly wrote: On Jan 5, 10:11 pm, "bremick" wrote: "Jerry Dennis" wrote in message ... No link to this rumor, but it was on TV on The Five last night, and Huffington Post ran a blurb on its web site. Seems the feds are seriously considering issuing a platinum coin worth a trillion dollars to avoid the debt ceiling. I did a little math on the deal using the current $100 Platinum Eagle as a base. Using the ratios for 1 oz. PAEs, it would take 10 billion troy oz., or just over 342,857.142 86 tons (US), for a single trillion dollar eagle. Kind of makes the 2007 Canadian $1,000,000 Maple Leaf (100 kg) and the 2012 Austrailian $1,000,000 Kangaroo (1000 kg) seem like chump change. Jerry ---------- Would it actually be money if it isn't intended for circulation? I'm thinking of those 1933 Saints here. If so, what would that really accomplish? I'm sure there probably were a bunch of legal experts involved if the govt ever seriously considered it. Could it be legally "worth" a trillion if it simply said so on it with a Congressional blessing? Or would it require a trillion worth of platinum? Sadly, this government seems to be reduced to weirdness rather than common sense to reduce our debt. I think the idea (which is just an accounting trick) would be to take a simple one ounce platinum blank and stamp it "one trillion dollars". There is no need to attempt to make the intrinsic value of such a coin anywhere close to its "face". The Traesury Secretary would have the very few of these coins which were required to be made up sent to some vault in New York City or Washington D.C. Congressional approval probably doesn't mean squat. But there is simply no point to minting such a coin; the Federal Reserve Bank effectively does this every day with their computers and gee, they don't do a sum of one trillion dollars more than two or three times per year. In Weimar Germany in 1922-23, they didn't use any more paper to print a million mark note than they did to print the Imperial pre-war one hundred mark note (indeed they used a smaller price of paper). Wrap your head around this thought: "Money" means nothing anymore. Work, careers, business skills, effort means nothing anymore. The money cheaters can create more "money" in a computer keystroke than you or I could "earn" by ten thousand lifetimes of "work". oly I agree! So what are we going to do about the millionaires and billionaires and their tools that are trashing our economy and threatening our freedom? JAM -------- I say let's vote them out of Congress!!- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I think that the old comic strip "Pogo" (Walt Kelly) quote went something like "We have met the enemy and it is us" and that it applies here. Lots and lots of people get more from "the System" than they ever put in. My poor old paternal grandparents clearly did towards the end of their lives. My parents did too (but they were very successful and they did put in quite a lot first, up-front). I am now angling to game "the System" for myself. Being personally honest about what you tell yourself about yourself is still rather important. Sauve qui peut, baayy-beeee. oly ------- For every person who is fortunate and healthy enough to "game the system", there are two or three who pass away well before recouping what they put in. On the other hand, there are some who work for a only couple years but incur a disability and then collect for the rest of their lives. I'd prefer to stay healthy and take my chances. Good luck to you as you enter a new phase of you life. Bruce- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - And if I'm being ****y, I'll take issue with your demographics and return of retirement contributions. Most people who have been presently been retired for two decades got their own contributions back within three years or less. Presently, more recent retirees are looking at five to seven years before they start playing on the house's money. There are NOT two or three people dying early for every one that actually reaches retirement age. NOT the case at all. If that was true, the crap debt would not be piling up the way it is. Maybe Timmy should mint about a dozen of them trillion dollar platinums. oly Social Security does not contribute to the national debt. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Actually, it does. FICA taxes are collected. The tax money is then used to purchase Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds are, in reality, IOU's to Social Security. The taxes used to purchase the Treasury Bonds are then deposited into the General Fund, which Congress loves because they get to spend it, thus adding to the national debt. The Social Security Act is one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever perpetrated on the American people. Jerry Where did you get this information, fox? Your statement that SS is a Ponzi scheme is bull**** and proves your lack of knowledge on the subject. JAM- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Easy, Frank. I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest with you. Everything I mentioned is on the Social Security Administration's web site. www.ssa.gov. The deductions of that information is my own, and blatantly obvious. If there really was a fund, as you mentioned to oly, and there was no way for Congress to get its greedy hands on it, Social Security would still be viable. Jerry Yep, you are clue less. JAM Old ****ers like you are eating your grandchildren and great granchildren alive and can't even be intellectually honest about it. You are taking out many many many multiples of anything you ever possibly put into "The System". oly I've ben putting into the system since I volunteered for military service when I was 18. So we are supposed to toss the previous generations on the scrap heap? Are we supposed to do away with any hope of current generations for a better future? There is plenty to go around if we can stop the trickling up of the nations wealth in to the hands of the wealthy elite that threaten our freedom. JAM ---------- Just curious. What would you do if you found your income was "trickling up" to a level where you would be considered wealthy? Give it to the poor? Argue that you weren't elite, it's those OTHER rich guys? I can't imagine a single wealthy elite who threatens my freedom. Don't fall through that flimsy soap box. The current working generations have dozens more options to prepare for their retirement than we did when I started working. We had Social Security and maybe a pension, if we were lucky. There were no IRA's, 401k's, or convenient day trading on your smart phone. Congress could easily raise the SS ages a notch as well as the highest wage for withholding with little impact on today's 20-30 year olds when they retire. Thirty or 40 years from now, anyone who retires and still counts on SS payments for survival will have to blame themselves for not planning better. Sometimes, when I buy a couple of numbers on the mega millions, I think about what I would do with all that money. I'd spend it all. I'd give it all away to family, friends and worthy groups and individuals. Or maybe I could found a financial and political dynasty. Yano, like they have done throughout history, until the America Revolution and Constitution showed the world a better way. What good would it do to be worth millions or billions when you die? JAM Yesterday, I came into the (mostly) dregs of a "collection" that was formed from the early 1970s to 1998. A lot of it was Franklin Mint (thank God for all the sterling silver) and the collector kept a great deal of the original FM paperwork and all the little "gifts" that the FM would send you if you paid about $10 a year to be in their collectors club. The stuff brought back a lot of memories for me. There were also a lot of clad U.S. proof sets 1974 through 1998 (many many dregs here) and then thankfully again, quite a few modern U.S. commemorative silver dollars. The collector who put it all together has been dead more than ten or twelve years; I didn't personally know him or his descendants. So, I asked myself, searchingly, what was the point of all this collecting??? The collection that I saw was hardly memorable (but, there was a hint dropped that there might be some foreign coins to see at a later date). It would not have provided a super hedge against inflation and the chance for a profit wasn't great either (well, the family did have four or five modern gold commemoratives in the lot, including some tens, and IMHO they wisely decided to keep these). If the fellow was happy with all this "stuff", well yes, that counts but thank goodness he didn't try to dispose of the stuff in his later life, he could not have been too happy with the metals prices of the late 1990s. It is better today, but still not enough to beat the cumulative decline in the purchasing power of the dollar over thirty of forty years. And I asked myself, is there any more purpose to what I am doing with my accumulation of coins than what this fellow did??? Do I need to focus better??? If I owned some nice Swedish plate money or if I owned a nice Charles II five guineas (or better yet, more than one), would that make me happier than the dross that I already have??? If I won big money on the Lottery, would it be better to have nice apartments in Springfield, London, Key West and Seattle??? Would it be better to rent some insincere affection to fill in the hours instead of fighting with the wife over idiocies twenty-four hours-a-day, at least five days a week??? The big thing about life is the ticking of the time clock. The pursuit of money (or old coins or books or other "things") is kind of trap-like. Saturday was just a kind of reflective day. oly Yes, that is the thing, you can always earn more money but you will never get even one more tick of the clock. JAM |
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