[Swordmaker]

Most people don’t have a clue about money at all. It’s good to meet a fellow traveler. I’m one who believes you can take all of us economists and lay us end to end and never reach a conclusion. There are more than enough theories to go around and some are horrid, like the idea of inflating our way out of the depression. . . which, until they tried that was a minor blip. . . Mostly caused by government regulation. It is nice to talk to someone who knows. Thanks. I’m still trying to figure out where all of the money from the quantitative easing, not to mention Obama running the treasury’s 100 dollar printing presses day and night, really went. It can’t just go into the financial market, boost its value, and disappear with out appearing somewhere.

We should have seen it move out into the economy and be available for spending during the last eight years, but it didn’t seem to trickle out. It should have appeared in a higher inflation rate because productivity was down. Work hours were down. We saw a lot of smoke and mirrors being played with numbers from the government statistics. . . especially the inflation indicators. Yet unless they were REALLY hiding a huge rise in prices somewhere as those more dollars chased fewer goods and services, then those pump priming dollars were going somewhere else than into OUR economy. (Some was certainly in higher healthcare costs due to Ocare) Do you think that money was going off shore like I do?

[greeneyes]

I think that money was going everywhere to the crooks and criminals money laundering operations, and good bit of it likely into various Soros funds to keep the agitation going etc. The stunt he pulled with the car companies, and the “green” energy was blatant pay off to cronies and various voting groups.

There certainly was quite a bit of inflation of food prices, a lot of it in smaller packaging verses price hikes. The business reports all said that Bernake was worried about deflation at the time. We really had to watch our budget since 2008.

I sold off half of all my mutual funds and stocks in IRAs in Dec. 2007, because when I was looking for a stock to buy, I couldn’t find a single one that was not overvalued. So when the market crashed in 2008, I bought some stuff real cheap.

Mostly financial, but also some Ford. When prices doubled, I sold half to get back the principal, and let the rest ride. I didn’t reinvest all of it, because I had retired, and wanted to leave some in liquid, but conservative investments to pay off a loan if push came to shove.

I might have invested more, if I had had the time. I was staying with my Dad at the hospital 24/7, and only had access to computer for 20 min. per day.