Sure, it sounds really nasty when you see that Time Magazine's cover price is so much higher than it used to be. But then you realize that, as a percentage of income, the cover price ain't all that different now than it was then.
Poor Joe -- next thing you know, he'll be blamin' it all on the neocon Jooz.
I’m no economist; these are just some of my rough indices of how prices have risen in my memory
Though there are some serious issues with the way the US runs it's montary system, I have always believed this type of argument to be overly simple and quite possibly the weakest. I am reminded of what my late father told me concerning 'the good old days'. His response that the only thing 'good' about them was that he was young. He mentioned the often cited rhetoric about a movie costing a nickel, but then plainly and simply stated, "But no one I knew had a nickel". His comparison was that in his youth he would never have been able to get a steak dinner, but today, most every working man or woman can afford the occasional steak dinner for their family. Price comparisons mean little, spending power has much more meaning.
As I point out frequently, a dollar was defined as 1/35 of an ounce of gold...before Nixon devalued the dollar by stealth. Now gold is $400+ per ounce, meaning that every "dollar" is worth less than a dime, relative to the pre-Nixon dollar. It is not suprising, therefore, that 'things in general now cost ten to twenty times as much as they used to.'
--Boris
Any time a country prints more money than it takes in in tax revenues, and any time a country imports more than it exports, its currency will fall in value.
We must balance our federal budget and balance of trade, and get healthy surpluses in both of them. The easiest way to do that, is to get all the unemployed back to work and get them to make/produce american made products and get them to pay income taxes again.
Isaiah 1
21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22 THY SILVER IS BECOME DROSS, thy wine mixed with water: 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them
Yup, it's a moral issue, all right...
Anyone interested in taking up Sobran's point ought to Google up Franz Pick, an Austrian economist who understood the central banking methodology.
'Certificates of Guaranteed Confiscation' is how he styled Government bonds. ;^)
WorldCom took billions of dollars from our public, swindled it on its corporate thieves, and then went bankrupt. The Dept. of Defense decided that it is the only company good enough to do the Iraqi telecom infrastructure! Go figure!