Posted on 12/17/2021 6:21:22 AM PST by MtnClimber
Here’s a question -- what happens when you crush entire sectors of your own economy for nearly two years and then, to compensate for your crime, you decide to inject trillions of dollars of freshly printed cash into the system? What happens if you do that? Well, honestly, we don't really know what happens when you do that, because no one in history has ever been stupid enough to try it. It's going to be years before we really understand the consequences of all this, of our government's reckless coronavirus policy. But in the meantime, we can say with total confidence that the American economy is getting very weird.
Not all of it. Some of what we're seeing isn't weird in the slightest. It was, in fact entirely predictable. If you create trillions of us dollars out of nothing, US dollars are going to be worth less. Much less. This is called inflation, and we're suffering through it right now. Inflation, very simply, is the result of too much money in the system. If you have too much of something, its value falls. Supply and demand. Remember?
This is what's causing the rise in real estate prices and of Bitcoin, and of other assets that investors run to when they no longer trust the country's currency. Why can't you afford a house right now? Simple. Because Washington printed too much money. No one should be surprised by this. It's a cycle as old as money itself. Political leaders devalue the currency for short-term gain. In the end, this leads to long-term collapse. Debasing the coinage, that's what they used to call it. For example, by the middle of the third century, the Roman Daenerys the silver coin was only about two percent actual silver.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It could be “The Rise and Fall of the USA”.
It really isn’t too hard to figure out why people don’t want to work. One thinktank calculated the total welfare benefits at something like $45,000/year. That’s one reason. The second, I hope, is that one of the family heads are staying home with the kids. perhaps homeschooling or just helping their children grow into smart adults and good citizens. This whole two earner family stuff came about 50-60 years ago when taxes were such that one earner wasn’t enough.
I saw Tucker’s segment & it was very good. One thing he didn’t, or couldn’t, answer is what happened to all the workers. That’s what I have been wondering too. There are 10-11 million job openings.
I get it, while the gov’t was handing out “free money” people quit. But now that unemployment benefits & rent relief ended several months ago, how are the people who quit their jobs paying their bills? Prices are higher, yet people who previously had to work to pay their bills, are now not working? It doesn’t make sense. How are the 10 million or so people, who presumably had to work before, now affording to live?
Saw this last night. Mike Rowe was on just after the opening monologue. This is scary stuff...
The vaccines killed them... /s?
I wonder, too. Maybe these programs are offering extensions of many sorts. Some people have a way of sniffing out programs the rest of us never hear about. But it is a good question that I'd surely like answered.
Good post. It doesn’t add up.
How many of those 10 million are early retirements from people that have the savings or pension to retire early?
It’s baffling to me. You could say people are just buying less, living leaner, but there is no evidence of a consumer slow down. I don’t see reports of bankruptcies increasing or credit card defaults increasing.
Also, what about fixed costs like rent/mortgage, food, phone bills, car payments, utilities....? Where are people getting the money to pay for these costs?
Maybe there are extensions, but even most, if not all, states have stopped & any extension would cover only a percentage of total living expenses.
The crazy high stock market has allowed many folks to tell employers to “take their jab and shove it” and retire early.
Ture, that could account for a portion. But the job openings I keep hearing about are skilled workers - service workers, truck drivers.... I would guess many were not of retiring age &/or at those types of jobs, you wouldn't necessarily have a large savings to last you through retirement.
There are several factors.
The stock market has exploded, providing ready cash for those who own stocks.
On the less pleasant side, check out the credit card debt trends:
https://wallethub.com/edu/cc/credit-card-debt-study/24400
I think one factor is that a lot of people retired and are existing with Social Security and Medicare.
Cloward-Piven. The Biden administration is crashing the economy. COVID is nothing more than the continuation of Obama’s policy to crash the healthcare industry.
Many service workers (particularly retail) are older folks who enjoy the work and use it for socialization and a little extra income.
Covid (and of course vaxx mandates) convinced many of them to stay out of the workforce for a while—they can get back in when the Covid mania and vaxx mandates are over.
This is the assumption.
Thanks for the credit card data. However, I don’t see bankruptcies increasing, so presumably people are making their payments. It could be that bankruptcies will pick up & it is a lagging indicator.
Also yes, people might be selling stocks, but the market doesn’t seem to be crashing (although down right now). Also, the types of job openings among lower-skilled, would indicate they don’t have a large stock portfolio to fall back on. I could be wrong.
Saw Mike too and got me thinking about Obama declaring the Fundamental Transformation of the United States. Looks like that’s the only thing working.
It is tough to over-generalize, but I know a lot of older couples where they do not have enough money to permanently retire, but do have enough money so they can stay out of the workforce for a couple of years if they want.
Many say they are waiting for the workplaces to get “back to normal”.
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