Is The United States Over?

[Asimov]

Dude are you serious?? Do you not understand the difference between a cost and an asset? One is on the income statement, the other is on the balance sheet. How long did you search through google to find that little snippet that has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation? This is pretty basic GAAP.

Employee benefits are a tangible cost to the employer because knows what he's going to pay to receive those benefits.

Employee benefits are an intangible asset to the employee because he does NOT know how much value he's going to receive from those benefits.

If employee benefits would count towards your net worth, so would future wages, your work ethic, and lucky lottery numbers. but they can't.....because you don't know when/if/how much you'll ever receive of any of these things.......they don't count towards your net worth........no one who's not a complete idiot counts any of these things towards your net worth....

Again....I don't want to waste my time trying to convince you to be a grown up and take responsibility for your own lot in life. Good luck kiddo. You'll need it.

 

[jaguar43]

Dude are you serious?? Do you not understand the difference between a cost and an asset? One is on the income statement, the other is on the balance sheet. How long did you search through google to find that little snippet that has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation? This is pretty basic GAAP.

Employee benefits are a tangible cost to the employer because knows what he's going to pay to receive those benefits.

Employee benefits are an intangible asset to the employee because he does NOT know how much value he's going to receive from those benefits.

If employee benefits would count towards your net worth, so would future wages, your work ethic, and lucky lottery numbers. but they can't.....because you don't know when/if/how much you'll ever receive of any of these things.......they don't count towards your net worth........no one who's not a complete idiot counts any of these things towards your net worth....

Again....I don't want to waste my time trying to convince you to be a grown up and take responsibility for your own lot in life. Good luck kiddo. You'll need it.

NEWS FLASH! your cash at hand is an asset.Every financial decision is going to effect your net worth, maybe by a majority or minority. If you receive your pension every month guess what? That is part of your total net worth ( specifically your asset). If you are in debt with medical bills because you cannot afford health insurance, guess what? It's going to effect your total net worth ( specifically your liabilities). Everything is interconnected and interdependent, guess who else speaks in those terms, I'll give you a hint its in the URL.



I am still waiting for the statistics.....

P.S ( aren't you that person that told the diabetic to eat no carbohydrates.... what are you doing in this forum?)

 

[Asimov]

P.S ( aren't you that person that told the diabetic to eat no carbohydrates.... what are you doing in this forum?)

Trying to educate the ignorant. Witness my glorious failure.

BRB-Going to go find a loan shark to lend me money based on the suspected future value of my house. I'm sure this will work out well, you've made a compelling argument for it

 

[Swandattur]

So, Asimov, I presume you are a troll and/or one of the rich with no desire to see beyond your own happiness to what is happening to other people.

 

[Asimov]

You assume wrong. I'm just someone who's accepted the reality that to move forward and better yourself, you need to take responsibility for your own lot in life rather than blame some nebulous other group, like "the rich".

 

[4peatssake]

You assume wrong. I'm just someone who's accepted the reality that to move forward and better yourself, you need to take responsibility for your own lot in life rather than blame some nebulous other group, like "the rich".

Your arguments are completely ridiculous.

Recognition of Truth and "blame" are two very different things.
It's like telling a person (man or woman) who has been raped to take responsibility for the actions of the rapist.

I question your understanding of Ray Peat.
Do you even know how he came to do what he does and why?
He has stated that very clearly.

He surely recognized the evil to which you claim does not exist in the world and rather than resort to "blame" or complain about his "lot in life," he is doing something about it - for himself as well as others.

What he doesn't do is resort to ridicule and contempt.

 

[Asimov]

pst.....Ray Peat is not god. He's quite fallible and is wrong about LOTS of things....

I respect your right to think my arguments are ridiculous. Truthfully I don't care what you think however. I long ago gave up trying to convince people to agree with me.

You can live your life how your wish (I assume casting blame for your and your husbands shortcomings), and I will accept responsibility for every negative thing that happens to me and fix the situation, whether I caused it or not.

Who do you think will have a happier, healthier, wealthier, and more productive life?

 

[4peatssake]

OH Brother!

pst.....Ray Peat is not god. He's quite fallible and is wrong about LOTS of things....

Who said he was god or infallible? And I'm quite aware of your view of him. It's well documented.

I respect your right to think my arguments are ridiculous. Truthfully I don't care what you think however. I long ago gave up trying to convince people to agree with me.

Same.

You can live your life how your wish (I assume casting blame for your and your husbands shortcomings), and I will accept responsibility for every negative thing that happens to me and fix the situation, whether I caused it or not.

Oh here we go, another classic example of the creation of a straw man.

I bolded the part of your sentence where you reiterated my actual point.

Not a single person in this conversation is arguing for blame and victimhood, nor against taking responsibility for what happens in their lives. And to suggest that anyone's life experience is the result of their "shortcomings" is appalling to say the least, especially when you have absolutely zero knowledge of them. Truly bad form.

What we are not blind to or in denial of, however, is the existence of very powerful forces with a vested interest in controlling the masses through various nefarious means, all of which has destroyed the United States as a Republic.

“More than 50 years ago, I realized that the US culture had become effectively totalitarian, with decorations, and even the decorations were being fixed by the specialists (the Congress for Cultural Freedom, for example). I went through a series of graduate studies and projects looking for places where reality could influence the culture, rather than being obliterated by it. The academic culture, though, was rapidly changing for the worse. Over a period of a few years I happened to see a few people recover immediately from what doctors had considered incurable problems, using simple and inexpensive methods, and then I realized that some people were willing to discard their old ideas when those conflicted with useful facts, especially when the useful facts could save their life. I started doing evening and weekend classes in nutrition and endocrinology, seeing health as a way to get reality into the culture. My newsletter grew out of the classes, and that led to answering mail, which is cheaper and easier on the internet.”
— Ray Peat

Who do you think will have a happier, healthier, wealthier, and more productive life?

Depends on your definition of the above. I dare say Ray Peat leads an extremely happy, healthy, wealthy and very productive life - not perfect nor infallible of course.

 

[juanitacarlos]

That's what this article says:
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/20 ... 34436.html

I've been reading this online a lot the last year. What do you think?

Hi Gretchen

I think you should stop reading apocalyptic piffle like this. I think the US is in some financial trouble which has global implications, but seriously what that guy is describing is ridiculous. He makes Alex Jones seems measured and considered. Asians after the water. Islamists taking over the north. Packs of marauding children tickling people to death. Silliness.

 

[4peatssake]

I think the US is in some financial trouble which has global implications....

This is some financial trouble.

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 27 May 2013 at 08:01:54 AM GMT is:
$ 1 6 , 7 4 6 , 3 2 6 , 3 9 0 , 6 6 5 . 3 3

The estimated population of the United States is 315,934,454
so each citizen's share of this debt is $53,005.70.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$2.85 billion per day since September 30, 2012!

 

[juanitacarlos]

Yes I've seen those numbers before and they look obscene to me, too. But who's calling in the loans? Since when has national debt reduced significantly? This is pretty interesting blog post discussing US public debt. It's a few years old, but still relevant I feel.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=15490

I'm not one to defend the current system but it's not that simple.

Now where did I put my cigar???

 

[4peatssake]

Now where did I put my cigar???

Cigars and Hooch first.

I'm not one to defend the current system but it's not that simple.

It's a house of cards.

Here's a terrific 30 minute interview from Casey Research with former US comptroller General David Stockman.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/david-stockman-austerity-not-discretionary

Here's a few snippets from the interview - I think from last July.

Alex: What do you think: is the United States economy on the road to recovery?

David: I don't think we are at the beginning of the recovery. I think we are at the end of a disastrous debt supercycle that has gone on for the last thirty or forty years, really. It started when Nixon defaulted on our obligations under Bretton Woods and closed the gold window. Incrementally, year after year since then, we have been going in a direction of extremely unsound money, of massive borrowing in both the private and the public sector. We now have an economy that is saturated with debt: $54 trillion or $53 trillion – 3.5 times the GDP – way off the charts from where it was for a hundred years prior to the beginning of this. The idea that somehow all of that debt is irrelevant, as the Keynesians would tell us, is fundamentally wrong – and the reason why the economy can't get up off the mat.

We're doing all the wrong things. We're adding to the problem, not subtracting. We are not allowing the debt to be worked down and liquidated. We're not asking people to save more and consume less, which is what we really need to do. And so therefore I think policy is just making it worse, and any day now we will have another recurrence of the kind of economic crisis we had a few years ago.

Alex: Last night you told our audience that if you were elected president, the first thing you would do is quit. Or at least demand a recount, I believe were your words, which I thought was telling. Are you saying there are no policy changes we could make today that would get us out of this? Or at least that wouldn't get you assassinated?

David: Yeah, there is a paper blueprint. People who believe in sound money and fiscal responsibility, that you create wealth the old-fashioned way through savings and work and effort and not simply by printing money and trading pieces of paper – there is a plan that they could put together. One would be to put the Fed out of business. You don't have to "end the Fed," although I like Ron Paul's phrase. You have to get them out of discretionary, active, day-to-day meddling in the money markets. Abolish the Open Market Committee.

The Fed has taken its balance sheet to $3 trillion. That's enough for the next 50 years. They don't have to do a damn thing except maybe have a discount window that floats above the market, and if things get tight, let the interest rate go up. People who have been speculating will be carried out on a stretcher. That's how they used to do it. It worked prior to 1914. That's the first step: abolish the Open Market Committee. Abolish discretionary monetary policy.

Let the Fed, if you're going to keep it – I don't even know that you need to do that, but if you are going to keep it – be only a standby source. As Badgett said (Walter Badgett, the great 19th-century British financial thinker): provide liquidity at a penalty rate to sound collateral.

Now, that's what J.P. Morgan did in 1907, in the great crisis of 1907, from his library. He didn't have a printing press. He didn't bail out everybody. He didn't do what Bernanke did and say: "Stop the presses, freeze everybody, and prop up Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and all the rest of the speculators." The interest rate, the call-money interest rate, which was the open-market interest rate at the time, some days went to 30, 40, 70% – and they were carrying out the speculators left and right, liquidating margin debt, taking out the real estate speculators. Eight or ten railroads went bankrupt within a couple of months. The copper magnates got carried out on their shields.

This is the only way a capital market can work, but it needs an honest interest rate. And we have no interest rate, so therefore we solve nothing and we have the kind of impaired, incapacitated markets that we have today. They're very dangerous, because they're all dependent on twelve people. It is what I call "the monetary Politburo of the Western world," and they are just as dangerous as the Politburo in Beijing or the Politburo of memory in Moscow.

I think threads and conversations like these belong on the forum despite their potential to create disharmony and conflict. These are not easy subjects. They are important and necessary nonetheless if we have any hope of truly resolving our problems, individually and collectively.

“When you start looking for ulterior motives, you might conclude that your physician is greedy, that your chemistry professor has a contract with the rubber company that makes ice cream, and that food producers are so pleased with their profits that they don’t care about the increasing numbers of deformed and mentally retarded babies, or the increasing rate of cancer and diabetes. If you do this, then you are probably involved in a demystification of the world. Eating good food can alter your consciousness; so can thinking about how we’re going to get it.” Dr. Ray Peat

If ignorance is bliss, how does a person unravel it all without becoming overwhelmed? How does a person balance peace of mind with increased awareness?

“Having your own mind, a critical and constructive ability, makes you aware of possibilities and threats. The “go along to get along” attitude represents a denial of your mentality. Recognizing the reasons for the evils and obstacles is an intrinsic part of moving toward your goals. Without a realistic view of where you are, you can’t expect to go anywhere.”

— Raymond Peat, PhD

 

[juanitacarlos]

Cigars and Hooch first.

Why thank you, I don't mind if I do...

Here's a terrific 30 minute interview from Casey Research with former US comptroller General David Stockman.

Again, I'm not defending the current system or not critical of it. But I definitely can't stomach David Stockman that massive hypocrite and defender of all that is pure and good in the world i.e. capitalism, lecturing anyone on what's good for the country (US). Honestly, he's a laissez-faire fundamentalist. What a dog-eat-dog world that guy would have us barely surviving in. I do respect him though that he at least puts it all on the table and you know where you stand with him.

I think threads and conversations like these belong on the forum despite their potential to create disharmony and conflict. These are not easy subjects. They are important and necessary nonetheless if we have any hope of truly resolving our problems, individually and collectively.

Totes agree.

“When you start looking for ulterior motives, you might conclude that your physician is greedy, that your chemistry professor has a contract with the rubber company that makes ice cream, and that food producers are so pleased with their profits that they don’t care about the increasing numbers of deformed and mentally retarded babies, or the increasing rate of cancer and diabetes. If you do this, then you are probably involved in a demystification of the world. Eating good food can alter your consciousness; so can thinking about how we’re going to get it.” Dr. Ray Peat

If ignorance is bliss, how does a person unravel it all without becoming overwhelmed? How does a person balance peace of mind with increased awareness?

“Having your own mind, a critical and constructive ability, makes you aware of possibilities and threats. The “go along to get along” attitude represents a denial of your mentality. Recognizing the reasons for the evils and obstacles is an intrinsic part of moving toward your goals. Without a realistic view of where you are, you can’t expect to go anywhere.”

— Raymond Peat, PhD

Brilliant quotes. I particularly have struggled with standing out from the pack; being on the outside. But I can't really be any other way. I bet nearly all people on this forum feel that way. Once you know something, you can't "unknow" it.

 

[gretchen]

The latest article exploring the idea that U.S. economic growth is over:
http://nymag.com/news/features/economic-growth-2013-7/

 

[mandance]

US growth would have never been able to keep going. It has to level off and decline eventually. The problem is that we based ourselves on an infinite growth scale...obviously infinite growth is not possible.
I cant speculate to the future of the country, I dont really believe in extreme scenarios. I dont think the end is near or anything like that...I just think the days of buying 50 dollar steaks and driving a mercedes is over. People will reconnect with what is real once again, family and friends, gardening, being more self reliant...Sortuv like what happened with Cuba...When the were cut off and the goverment was no longer able to help them what happened? Real growth...people learned how to grow their own food on rooftops, they are doing better than ever now.

I am not fearful of the future, its all part of the process of human kind reaching evolution, if we die trying, at least the good ones can die peacefully knowing they lived, loved and did try but I think things will go on as always.

 

[Swandattur]

It is said that people with mild depression see the world the most clearly. These days I have lots of ups and downs, kind of a roller coaster. I also have a Vietnam Vet husband with PTSD who for years overwhelmed me with very upsetting facts about the political situation. So, I have picked up his sense of betrayal and great concern about where this country is headed. Lately,he doesn't talk about it anymore. He doesn't usually talk much at all. Actually, if I think about it much I get scared. Is this country becoming a police state? I am really not very political, but I have a bad feeling. There are certain things that this country has done that outrage every moral sense and ignore basic tenants of the Constitution. How can I have any faith in a system whose leaders get away with these bad things? In my more paranoid moments, I am afraid to have said what I have just said. So, I may wake up in the night and be sick with fear. I just feel that I should say this. My husband who was very political before the stress got to him, I guess, feels that things started going downhill after WWII, which seems to go along with what Peat says about the wrong turn everything took about then. If I'm too negative in outlook, maybe someone can tell me how it isn't so. :/

 

[mandance]

It is said that people with mild depression see the world the most clearly. These days I have lots of ups and downs, kind of a roller coaster. I also have a Vietnam Vet husband with PTSD who for years overwhelmed me with very upsetting facts about the political situation. So, I have picked up his sense of betrayal and great concern about where this country is headed. Lately,he doesn't talk about it anymore. He doesn't usually talk much at all. Actually, if I think about it much I get scared. Is this country becoming a police state? I am really not very political, but I have a bad feeling. There are certain things that this country has done that outrage every moral sense and ignore basic tenants of the Constitution. How can I have any faith in a system whose leaders get away with these bad things? In my more paranoid moments, I am afraid to have said what I have just said. So, I may wake up in the night and be sick with fear. I just feel that I should say this. My husband who was very political before the stress got to him, I guess, feels that things started going downhill after WWII, which seems to go along with what Peat says about the wrong turn everything took about then. If I'm too negative in outlook, maybe someone can tell me how it isn't so. :/

I used to be upset also about the way things are going, but we cant be attached to the past, anymore than we are attached to some idea of what we think the future could be like, because no one can predict it. I know a lot of older guys from the war that dont fly their flags anymore. A lot of people are pissed off. Its hard to accept the fact that we are living in a decline, but I dont think you should let it get you down. What matters is what you do today. Be kind to people, let go of racism, love everyone like you love your family. Once we all learn to do that, we can change the world. Keep hope and faith alive in your fellow man, and in love, believe in hope, there is still much hope for this world and I see it more than ever now. The fact that people are challenging and asking questions is a great sign...the fact that gays are starting to have equal rights is a great sign, the fact that people are standing up to monsanto all over the world is a great sign. This could be the beginning to a new wave of enlightenment for all mankind and you are a part of it right now.

 

[Swandattur]

Mandance, That is a wonderfully encouraging post. You're right that we should remember that some things have actually improved. When I was a kid there was segregation and gays had to stay in the closet or even not acknowledge it to themselves. Things are much better in those areas. As you say, focusing on what you can do to make things better where you are able is important, and also loving and caring for others. It really helps to know other people are of the same mind, that we need to make the world a better place for everyone. The psychiatrist I go to for my medication said something similar about focusing on what you can do in your own sphere and hopefully the good will have a ripple effect. That does make sense. I hope things get better for you with getting off the medication by the way. I know how unnerving that can be.

 

[mandance]

Thanks, yeah. I have to constantly remind myself of these things. But I can say that there is one universal truth to everything. That by helping someone else, both people benefit from it. If you see someone on the side of the road, and you pulled over to help that person, you not only helped that person, but you also helped yourself. The happiest people I have ever encountered are often the most disciplined, compassionate and caring. I think if you can focus on what you can do for others, it makes a huge difference in your own soul and you are one step closer to peace. People that walk that path have no fear of death, or disease, or loss because they always love no matter how much they have been hurt. At least thats what I like to tell myself, and what I strive for.

Ive spent plenty of time, in my own selfish world. Trying to fufill my own agendas...the fact that I can see what matters though now, fills me with much hope, because I now am filled with love for people, when I felt like I hated them for so many years. It was never them that I hated...it was myself. Hard things we have to realize in life, but I think knowledge, and loving relationships are the key to life, at least for me. Its one wild ride, but im excited to see how it all unfolds, and again, no matter what the future brings...even if its more suffering...I will gladly take it knowing I can love and be loved.

 

[mandance]

I forgot to add, in light of the main topic...we are all in this together, so that is something to take comfort in :) Also its awesome you are in therapy...therapy has really helped me in many ways in this past year, I cant even begin to describe. I think of it as more of having a life coach. Anyone can benefit from someone else with an un biased opinion, giving you some insights on yourself.