Jobst

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Someone referred me to a couple of strings in which Jobst did things like post my name, address, phone number and map to my home. I couldn't quite make it out but someone also posted I was living with my mother.

The address and phone number he posted was that of my mother shortly before she died when I was still married and living in Fremont. I did indeed live with my mother when her chemotherapy was considered "experimental" and I was paying all of her medical bills. But that was years before. I had hit the big time and a stock option had made me an early millionaire. But the medical treatments took care of that. And then the divorce knocked another hole in my finances. Then I had made another million and Obama took office. I think you can guess what happened to that million.

He is just lucky that he got the right Tom Kunich since there is another in this town and the other is sue happy.

I do remember him being an insufferable ass but so were a lot of people. He was pretty knowledgeable but I seem to remember that he would grow quite angry if you corrected him and you were right.

What do you guys remember about Jobst?

I think that Jobst was a mechanical engineer like Frank. But compared to Jobst, Frank is a saint. Remember that Joerg.

[jbeattie]

On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 4:28:05 PM UTC-7, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> Someone referred me to a couple of strings in which Jobst did things like post my name, address, phone number and map to my home. I couldn't quite make it out but someone also posted I was living with my mother.
>
> The address and phone number he posted was that of my mother shortly before she died when I was still married and living in Fremont. I did indeed live with my mother when her chemotherapy was considered "experimental" and I was paying all of her medical bills. But that was years before. I had hit the big time and a stock option had made me an early millionaire. But the medical treatments took care of that. And then the divorce knocked another hole in my finances. Then I had made another million and Obama took office. I think you can guess what happened to that million.

Well, considering that the market crashed before Obama took office, if you had invested in an index fund in 2009, you would have made good money over the 8 years of the recovery. If you had invested in Amazon or Apple, you'd be living large. http://www.macrotrends.net/1358/dow-jones-industrial-average-last-10-years

>
> He is just lucky that he got the right Tom Kunich since there is another in this town and the other is sue happy.
>
> I do remember him being an insufferable ass but so were a lot of people. He was pretty knowledgeable but I seem to remember that he would grow quite angry if you corrected him and you were right.
>
> What do you guys remember about Jobst?
>
> I think that Jobst was a mechanical engineer like Frank. But compared to Jobst, Frank is a saint. Remember that Joerg.

Are you sure that was Jobst? IIRC, it was someone else who posted your number a zillion years ago. Jobst may have been in the thread, but he was usually content belittling lesser intellects and wouldn't go to the effort of posting their personal information.

-- Jay Beattie.

[lou.h...@gmail.com]

jobst passed away a couple of years ago. We remember the good things and forget the bad.

Lou

[LF]

Here's Sheldon's link to Jobst <http://sheldonbrown.com/brandt/>. I miss them both.
Best,
Larry

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Firstly - the market crashed in 2008. There was a small glitch in 2006 but the market set a new record high in 2007. Since this is all over the Internet how could you not know this? What's more - with the devaluation of the dollar from Obama running the printing presses overtime (the only time in history that the dollar was devalued - not once but twice) the real value of foreign investments - a significant percentage of all investment funds - fell through the floor. Mine have never recovered above half their value and they were nothing more than standard retirement funds. Obama purposely used the worth of our retirement funds to financed his plans and apparently you believe there was nothing wrong with that.

As for Jobst - not only did he publish my name, address, phone number and a map to my home, he spent several entries defending his doing so from outraged other posters. And the posting could have been the other Tom Kunich who is no relation who lives in San Leandro and apparently has received grief from people like the other poster whom, as I said, I had fired for total incompetence. My company went bust because degreed engineers were incapable of doing their jobs and human resources didn't supply me with resumes of others because they didn't have degrees. After the company went bust I went through the files in personnel and there were a dozen people who would have filled these positions more competently than these college educated fools.

Google and Facebook provide nothing of worth and so these sorts of engineers will find a home until some sort of real work needs to be done.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

I remember him being knowledgeable about bikes and had forgotten his reactions to being one-upped.

[Frank Krygowski]

I don't think he was often one-upped on bike technical matters.

His main fault, if you can call it a fault, was not being diplomatic
when presented with bullshit. There are times that attitude of his is
entirely appropriate.

He and I corresponded a bit. As I told him, I learned a lot from him. He
thanked me for that remark.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[jbeattie]

On Sunday, August 27, 2017 at 8:56:32 AM UTC-7, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 4:51:17 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
> > On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 4:28:05 PM UTC-7, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Someone referred me to a couple of strings in which Jobst did things like post my name, address, phone number and map to my home. I couldn't quite make it out but someone also posted I was living with my mother.
> > >
> > > The address and phone number he posted was that of my mother shortly before she died when I was still married and living in Fremont. I did indeed live with my mother when her chemotherapy was considered "experimental" and I was paying all of her medical bills. But that was years before. I had hit the big time and a stock option had made me an early millionaire. But the medical treatments took care of that. And then the divorce knocked another hole in my finances. Then I had made another million and Obama took office. I think you can guess what happened to that million.


> > Well, considering that the market crashed before Obama took office, if you had invested in an index fund in 2009, you would have made good money over the 8 years of the recovery. If you had invested in Amazon or Apple, you'd be living large. http://www.macrotrends.net/1358/dow-jones-industrial-average-last-10-years
> >
> > >
> > > He is just lucky that he got the right Tom Kunich since there is another in this town and the other is sue happy.
> > >
> > > I do remember him being an insufferable ass but so were a lot of people. He was pretty knowledgeable but I seem to remember that he would grow quite angry if you corrected him and you were right.
> > >
> > > What do you guys remember about Jobst?
> > >
> > > I think that Jobst was a mechanical engineer like Frank. But compared to Jobst, Frank is a saint. Remember that Joerg.
> >
> > Are you sure that was Jobst? IIRC, it was someone else who posted your number a zillion years ago. Jobst may have been in the thread, but he was usually content belittling lesser intellects and wouldn't go to the effort of posting their personal information.
> >
> > -- Jay Beattie.
>
> Firstly - the market crashed in 2008. There was a small glitch in 2006 but the market set a new record high in 2007. Since this is all over the Internet how could you not know this? What's more - with the devaluation of the dollar from Obama running the printing presses overtime (the only time in history that the dollar was devalued - not once but twice) the real value of foreign investments - a significant percentage of all investment funds - fell through the floor. Mine have never recovered above half their value and they were nothing more than standard retirement funds. Obama purposely used the worth of our retirement funds to financed his plans and apparently you believe there was nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it's all over the internet -- Obama inherited a post-crash mess. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6185247&page=1 To quote from a post-election news story:

"Today's market woes just shows a little of what President-elect Barack Obama will face: the worst economic crisis the country has experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

What began with the explosion of the housing bubble has unfolded into a far-reaching global financial crisis affecting everything from banks to retail sales to the auto industry. Consumer confidence is hovering at record lows and consumer spending has declined for the first time in 17 years as Americans prepare to ride out what economists think could be the most severe recession in decades."

Now, you CAN fault him for piling on the debt, but that's a whole other thing. As for your investments crashing, that's not Obama's fault. Since 2009, the market has been climbing. I assume at your age, your portfolio was bond-heavy. Bonds have risen slowly: https://us.spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-us-high-yield-corporate-bond-10-year-index Bond fund returns have sucked.

You should have bought PowerBall tickets. They ARE for investment purposes, you know.

> As for Jobst - not only did he publish my name, address, phone number and a map to my home, he spent several entries defending his doing so from outraged other posters. And the posting could have been the other Tom Kunich who is no relation who lives in San Leandro and apparently has received grief from people like the other poster whom, as I said, I had fired for total incompetence. My company went bust because degreed engineers were incapable of doing their jobs and human resources didn't supply me with resumes of others because they didn't have degrees. After the company went bust I went through the files in personnel and there were a dozen people who would have filled these positions more competently than these college educated fools.
>
> Google and Facebook provide nothing of worth and so these sorts of engineers will find a home until some sort of real work needs to be done.

Hmmm. I remembered staying out of that one, but you're right. Jobst piled on and posted identifying information in addition that that posted by someone else. https://www.cyclingforums.com/threads/tom-kunich-is-a-ass.258643/ That's very disappointing -- and uncharacteristic. Jobst didn't go to that kind of effort usually. He would just toss a jab and move on. You should feel honored that he went to the effort of researching your home address.

-- Jay Beattie.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/27/2017 3:46 PM, jbeattie wrote:
>
>
> Hmmm. I remembered staying out of that one, but you're right. Jobst piled on and posted identifying information in addition that that posted by someone else. https://www.cyclingforums.com/threads/tom-kunich-is-a-ass.258643/ That's very disappointing -- and uncharacteristic. Jobst didn't go to that kind of effort usually. He would just toss a jab and move on. You should feel honored that he went to the effort of researching your home address.
>

I'm surprised that Tom even mentioned that particular flame war. Why
resurrect it if you were the party being harmed?

--
- Frank Krygowski

[avag...@gmail.com]

well, JB and AMuzi .....forgive if I leave yawl out ....strongly objected to my pseudonym of 'datakoll' a word referring to the EQ behavioral theory I pitch and my status in the film 'Matrix' ....with Armstrong.

I explained the process but demands for ID controlled despite my not offering inflammatory arterial.

I was a friend of JB's, his help in understanding the building process pivotal. Super.

His accident is consistent with stonewalling data either purposefully or a blank out. Very subjective.

? "if I cannot explain this to you then I give up on it caws there's no more explaining I can offer.

I regret writing this over seriously nonessential egotistical whining.

[John B.]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2017 08:56:29 -0700 (PDT), cycl...@gmail.com wrote:

>On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 4:51:17 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
>> On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 4:28:05 PM UTC-7, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > Someone referred me to a couple of strings in which Jobst did things like post my name, address, phone number and map to my home. I couldn't quite make it out but someone also posted I was living with my mother.
>> >
>> > The address and phone number he posted was that of my mother shortly before she died when I was still married and living in Fremont. I did indeed live with my mother when her chemotherapy was considered "experimental" and I was paying all of her medical bills. But that was years before. I had hit the big time and a stock option had made me an early millionaire. But the medical treatments took care of that. And then the divorce knocked another hole in my finances. Then I had made another million and Obama took office. I think you can guess what happened to that million.
>>
>> Well, considering that the market crashed before Obama took office, if you had invested in an index fund in 2009, you would have made good money over the 8 years of the recovery. If you had invested in Amazon or Apple, you'd be living large. http://www.macrotrends.net/1358/dow-jones-industrial-average-last-10-years
>>
>> >
>> > He is just lucky that he got the right Tom Kunich since there is another in this town and the other is sue happy.
>> >
>> > I do remember him being an insufferable ass but so were a lot of people. He was pretty knowledgeable but I seem to remember that he would grow quite angry if you corrected him and you were right.
>> >
>> > What do you guys remember about Jobst?
>> >
>> > I think that Jobst was a mechanical engineer like Frank. But compared to Jobst, Frank is a saint. Remember that Joerg.
>>
>> Are you sure that was Jobst? IIRC, it was someone else who posted your number a zillion years ago. Jobst may have been in the thread, but he was usually content belittling lesser intellects and wouldn't go to the effort of posting their personal information.
>>
>> -- Jay Beattie.
>
>Firstly - the market crashed in 2008. There was a small glitch in 2006 but the market set a new record high in 2007. Since this is all over the Internet how could you not know this? What's more - with the devaluation of the dollar from Obama running the printing presses overtime (the only time in history that the dollar was devalued - not once but twice) the real value of foreign investments - a significant percentage of all investment funds - fell through the floor. Mine have never recovered above half their value and they were nothing more than standard retirement funds. Obama purposely used the worth of our retirement funds to financed his plans and apparently you believe there was nothing wrong with that.

Actually you are incorrect. The dollar has, throughout the history of
the U.S., had numerous ups and downs. The "Continental Currency"
issued in 1775 had by May 1781, lost so much value that it ceased to
circulate as money.

In more modern times the abandonment of the "gold standard" in 1971,
by President Richard Nixon, caused the value of the U.S. dollar to
drop from $35/oz of gold in 1971 to $500/oz gold in 1980.

It might be noted that from January of this year, the U.S. dollar has
lost 7% of its value against the Thai Baht, 4% of its value against
the Singapore dollar and worse, ~7% against the Chinese currency.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 27, 2017 at 12:46:32 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
>
> Yes, it's all over the internet -- Obama inherited a post-crash mess. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6185247&page=1 To quote from a post-election news story:
>
> "Today's market woes just shows a little of what President-elect Barack Obama will face: the worst economic crisis the country has experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
>
> What began with the explosion of the housing bubble has unfolded into a far-reaching global financial crisis affecting everything from banks to retail sales to the auto industry. Consumer confidence is hovering at record lows and consumer spending has declined for the first time in 17 years as Americans prepare to ride out what economists think could be the most severe recession in decades."
>
> Now, you CAN fault him for piling on the debt, but that's a whole other thing. As for your investments crashing, that's not Obama's fault. Since 2009, the market has been climbing. I assume at your age, your portfolio was bond-heavy. Bonds have risen slowly: https://us.spindices.com/indices/fixed-income/sp-us-high-yield-corporate-bond-10-year-index Bond fund returns have sucked.
>
> You should have bought PowerBall tickets. They ARE for investment purposes, you know.

You sound distinctly like someone that didn't have any investments and didn't see what and when things happened. Instead you are willing to believe a media that has lied about everything from what Trump said to showing pictures of the Antifa showing up at meetings of so-called "white nationalists" wearing hard hats, wearing anti-tear gas goggles and carrying weapons and then being depicted as them being the "white nationalists". Of the very film showing the Antifa attacking the peaceful "white nationalists" and the media telling us that if the "white nationalists" hadn't been there then there wouldn't have been any fighting. This as the "antifa" break store windows and loot. The media has attacked free speech since Reagan. Believing ANYTHING that comes out of them since Reagan is pure dreaming. The best you can expect is that something happened on a particular day - what or how is totally BS.

They had a report on the news yesterday that a Museum of Ice Cream was opening. The ENTIRE script writing staff of the station had tickets to it. They cost almost twice as much as a ticket to the Academy of Fine Art which had a new show opening the same day and NO ONE from the station was attending. My guess is that they don't even know where it is. But they had the address of this Museum of Ice Cream where you could "swim in sprinkles".

I can remember the media attacking Reagan from his first day in office despite the fact that Reagan won 44 states in his first election and 48 in his second. Why did they attack him? Because he wasn't a Marxist. And why did they support Obama to the point of lying about everything that happened? Because he is a Marxist.

> Hmmm. I remembered staying out of that one, but you're right. Jobst piled on and posted identifying information in addition that that posted by someone else. https://www.cyclingforums.com/threads/tom-kunich-is-a-ass.258643/ That's very disappointing -- and uncharacteristic. Jobst didn't go to that kind of effort usually. He would just toss a jab and move on. You should feel honored that he went to the effort of researching your home address.

After looking it up (with a bad memory) I was living in that house and it was six years after my mother died. I was divorced and those strings were started by two people whom I had fired. One was an engineer who couldn't do his job - I was managing five or six engineers and I was still doing half of all the design and programming myself. You gotta love college educations.

The other string was started by a white kid who was working on an assembly line. He was a worthless POS that would rather sit on his butt than do anything. He grew angry because I promoted a Mexican woman to supervisor which he believed that he deserved because he was white. But she knew more about running an assembly line in two months than he knew in a year. And I replaced him with another Mexican woman who was better on the assembly line than him in two days.

These were the people that Jobst sided with. And he knew damn well why they were mad at me.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Changing the basis of the dollar was not devaluing it. It was changing the obligatory method of payment. Why you would believe changing from the gold standard which I believe every other world currency has would make any difference I don't know. Money is nothing more than a promissory note. When suddenly that promise is broken as Bernanke and Obama did is something that should have taken world wide not but the media covered it totally up.

[AMuzi]

I'm not defending Bernanke/Yellin/Obama who are as inept as
any but the history is hardly pure before them. Besides
Martin/Nixon ( "It may be our dollar but it's your
problem.") FDR set the dollar/gold rate every morning by
choosing random numbers he thought sounded believable.
Lincoln printed money like an Argentine dictator to finance
the Civil War.


--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Frank - Because it was brought up on Facebook by some ass who apparently is stalking me. He didn't like my criticism of carbon fiber frames and forks.

And I'm not harmed. Of the three people that purposely started fights with me they all went to the emergency rooms and one is permanently disabled. I don't start fights - I end them very fast.

[Doug Landau]

On Sunday, August 27, 2017 at 5:04:07 AM UTC-7, lou.h...@gmail.com wrote:

He invented the Tom Ritchey headbadge, the term snakebite flat, and the markeleeville death ride

[Doug Landau]

On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 4:28:05 PM UTC-7, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tom+Kunich&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&tbm=isch&imgil=XWYh7IzWBq_38M%253A%253Bb2l24W3SZfoQoM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%25252Fhealth-fitness%25252Fbody%25252F20-quotes-that-capture-the-beauty-and-brutality-of-cycling%25252Fkunich%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=XWYh7IzWBq_38M%253A%252Cb2l24W3SZfoQoM%252C_&usg=__HoPCCR81rrXb2_d2QskDHjsgbDY%3D&biw=1307&bih=682&ved=0ahUKEwjy2rTWr_rVAhUowFQKHXRnBdgQyjcIOw&ei=8kekWfKZA6iA0wL0zpXADQ#imgrc=6uk8VEAz_gRpiM:

What a dweeb

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Yellin turned out to be Obama's nightmare - she was a conservative in hiding. And so far she seems to be doing everything right.

Nixon never said that. It was Secretary of the Treasury John Connolly and he was speaking about exchange rates in foreign countries and not the value of the dollar in the US.

What FDR did by taking the dollar off of the gold standard was the same thing that all socialists do - he was effectively driving the lower classes into bankruptcy without a court to fall back on. Socialists all claim to be for the people but in every case they prove they are against them.

What did Obama do the very first thing after saying that he was going to get people back to work? He allowed in millions and millions of illegal aliens and H1 and H2 visas to put Americans out of work.

Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war mongers.

Lincoln playing tag with the economy. In times of war ALL Presidents do that. Who do you suppose was paying for 10 ships every day coming out of ship yards all over the country in WWII? Who was paying for bombers and fighters and the ammunition for it all?

[AMuzi]

You're right it was Connolly. I misremembered William
McChesney Martin.

[jbeattie]

What? She's continuing QE. She's a Keynesian economists. Have you forgotten what the Orange Lord said about the love fest between Yellen and Obama? https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-asserts-low-interest-rates-a-gift-to-obama-from-fed-1473688480

> Nixon never said that. It was Secretary of the Treasury John Connolly and he was speaking about exchange rates in foreign countries and not the value of the dollar in the US.
>
> What FDR did by taking the dollar off of the gold standard was the same thing that all socialists do - he was effectively driving the lower classes into bankruptcy without a court to fall back on. Socialists all claim to be for the people but in every case they prove they are against them.

FDR did not take the dollar off the gold standard. Nixon did that. FDR tied the dollar to gold at Bretton Woods. Was Nixon a socialist? I thought he was a Quaker.

>
> What did Obama do the very first thing after saying that he was going to get people back to work? He allowed in millions and millions of illegal aliens and H1 and H2 visas to put Americans out of work.

A foreigner on a visa is by definition not "illegal." There has been no change in the H1B quota cap since 2004. https://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-total-cap-stats-from-1990-to-2017-trend-plot-until-2017/ The only mistake was letting Joerg into the country.

>
> Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war mongers.

O.K., so you're saying we shouldn't have fought in WWI or WWII? Republicans started Afghanistan and Iraq -- Viet Nam, arguably -- supporting Diem and sending money to the French, etc.

And the democrats won their wars! Republicans . . . not so much, except Lincoln and TR, both of whom couldn't get the Republican nomination for dog catcher these days. Could you imagine TR trying to run as a Republican -- a conservationist, crypto-socialist war monger. The NRA would not know what to make of him.

The democrats brought us great things, like atomic bombs! Hydrogen bombs! Rockets to the moon! Don't you like science projects? With that said, kudos to Eisenhower for the highways -- which I find more useful than hydrogen bombs, generally.

>
> Lincoln playing tag with the economy. In times of war ALL Presidents do that. Who do you suppose was paying for 10 ships every day coming out of ship yards all over the country in WWII? Who was paying for bombers and fighters and the ammunition for it all?

War bonds and taxes. Where is money supposed to come from? Mars?

-- Jay Beattie.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tom+Kunich&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&tbm=isch&imgil=XWYh7IzWBq_38M%253A%253Bb2l24W3SZfoQoM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%25252Fhealth-fitness%25252Fbody%25252F20-quotes-that-capture-the-beauty-and-brutality-of-cycling%25252Fkunich%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=XWYh7IzWBq_38M%253A%252Cb2l24W3SZfoQoM%252C_&usg=__HoPCCR81rrXb2_d2QskDHjsgbDY%3D&biw=1307&bih=682&ved=0ahUKEwjy2rTWr_rVAhUowFQKHXRnBdgQyjcIOw&ei=8kekWfKZA6iA0wL0zpXADQ#imgrc=B_meNoPvyKnTiM:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tom+Kunich&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&tbm=isch&imgil=XWYh7IzWBq_38M%253A%253Bb2l24W3SZfoQoM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%25252Fhealth-fitness%25252Fbody%25252F20-quotes-that-capture-the-beauty-and-brutality-of-cycling%25252Fkunich%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=XWYh7IzWBq_38M%253A%252Cb2l24W3SZfoQoM%252C_&usg=__HoPCCR81rrXb2_d2QskDHjsgbDY%3D&biw=1307&bih=682&ved=0ahUKEwjy2rTWr_rVAhUowFQKHXRnBdgQyjcIOw&ei=8kekWfKZA6iA0wL0zpXADQ#imgrc=EeCaSQMUjXYEyM:

Or if you prefer something on a more professional basis: https://medium.com/@tomkunich/when-to-stand-up-668c0d7cfcc0

[cycl...@gmail.com]

He was a good cyclist and a definite addition to the group. But he did have his dark sides that others almost entirely lack. While Frank appears to have his days that remind me of arthritics, in general he is a reasonable person and I haven't seen him attack a person like Jobst would. And he really enjoys a "gotcha" moment whereas Jobst never seemed to have one of those with his superiority complex.

Bicycling is better for his having been a part. But he was hardly a person without failures.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

What in hell is that supposed to mean? H1B visas were for STUDENTS. At the end of these educations the holder would return to their country of origin. Today most of these H1B holders are hidden in the working population of the USA.

H2 visas were the dangerous ones. YOU or I could be turned down for a job because these employers could then proclaim that there weren't any qualified people available for a job and bring in foreign workers that were no more if not less qualified for a position because they would work for almost minimum wage to get to this country. And they too have disappeared as those visas ran over their time limits. There are now do many of these people in the population that all companies doing any sort of classified work demand identification as being an American citizen with the right to work in these positions.

Please learn what you're talking about trying to correct others: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-takes-united-states-off-gold-standard

It is normal IN ALL WARS to run a war debt. These are normally repaid after a war until Kennedy and Vietnam. You do understand that the Democrats have been operating this country on a war footing ever since don't you? With the notable exception of Willy the Weenie who was prevented in doing so for his first 6 years by a Republican controlled Congress. These being the peaceful and profitable years after Reagan passed so many laws controlling spending. In Clinton's seventh and eighth year in office he had a Democrat controlled Congress and the spending started again. By the second year of Bush it was all gone.

Because of these Reagan era laws preventing spending outside of the budget or having government entities passing LAWS without votes from Congress Obama had a great time simply bypassing them via Presidential Order and the Republicans tucked their tails under their legs and slunk away.

I don't know how old you are Jay, but it is likely that you are going to strongly feel the effects of Obama increasing not only the Debt Held by the Public but spending the entire Intergovernmental Holdings - the social security and medicare trust funds.

I hope you are independently wealthy and somehow can protect if from government seizure because that is what is in the near future. Imagine paying your taxes and then having more than a third of those seized by the government when you try to leave it as an inheritance to your children!

[jbeattie]

I know my history. We went back on a modified gold standard with Bretton Woods. https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-history-of-the-gold-standard-3306136 That went away under Nixon. Pegging our currency to gold went away once and for all in 1971. I thought that's what this was about -- Connally and "our currency is your problem," etc. The usual rant about fiat currency.

>
> It is normal IN ALL WARS to run a war debt. These are normally repaid after a war until Kennedy and Vietnam. You do understand that the Democrats have been operating this country on a war footing ever since don't you? With the notable exception of Willy the Weenie who was prevented in doing so for his first 6 years by a Republican controlled Congress. These being the peaceful and profitable years after Reagan passed so many laws controlling spending. In Clinton's seventh and eighth year in office he had a Democrat controlled Congress and the spending started again. By the second year of Bush it was all gone.
>
> Because of these Reagan era laws preventing spending outside of the budget or having government entities passing LAWS without votes from Congress Obama had a great time simply bypassing them via Presidential Order and the Republicans tucked their tails under their legs and slunk away.
>
> I don't know how old you are Jay, but it is likely that you are going to strongly feel the effects of Obama increasing not only the Debt Held by the Public but spending the entire Intergovernmental Holdings - the social security and medicare trust funds.

Obama didn't do anything unusual, AFAIK. We've been using the SS Trust to meet general fund obligations for decades -- long before Obama. It now holds oodles of government debt -- and makes some pretty good interest. http://www.crfb.org/blogs/general-revenue-social-security-trust-funds

> I hope you are independently wealthy and somehow can protect if from government seizure because that is what is in the near future. Imagine paying your taxes and then having more than a third of those seized by the government when you try to leave it as an inheritance to your children!

Well, I'll go die in someplace with low tax rates. Hey, maybe Canada. I'd move to Australia, but I'd probably get killed by something that looks harmless.

-- Jay Beattie.

[Doug Landau]

He tipped his hat to Carl Fogel's search abilities.

[Duane]

Dude you can move to Canada for myriad reasons but low taxes ain't one of
them. Hell the Habs can't get a quality centerman because the salary cap
doesn't deal properly with the tax rate.

--
duane

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Let me say this again - Nixon did NOT take the country off of the gold standard. He ended the convertibility of "gold certificates" (old $20 bills if memory serves) to actual gold. This currency was left over from before FDR and could be turned in for silver and not actual gold. Many people had hoarded these bills when FDR took the country off of the gold standard.

The day that Obama took office:

Debt held by the Public = 6,307,310,739,681.66
Intergovernmental Holdings = 4,319,566,309,231.42

The day that Obama left office:

Debt held by the Public = 13,605,230,659,952.67
Intergovernmental Holdings = 5,336,176,239,299.48

Less than a year into Trump:

Intergovernmental Holdings = 5,447,573,984,758.44

This is a growth rate of 0.3% during Obama vs 2% in less than a year with Trump.

Also George Bush for all of his failings only raised the national debt by 1.5 trillion in his first six years. And this included 9/11. A Democrat Congress was elected and in ONE year (their first year the budget had already been set by the preceding Congress) they raised it another Trillion dollars.

So Obama spent more than double the national debt. While in office while despite the media lies to the contrary had NO effective job growth.

[jbeattie]

O.K., if you say so. https://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2011/08/15/nixons-colossal-monetary-error-the-verdict-40-years-later/#1973e33a69f7

>
> The day that Obama took office:
>
> Debt held by the Public = 6,307,310,739,681.66
> Intergovernmental Holdings = 4,319,566,309,231.42
>
> The day that Obama left office:
>
> Debt held by the Public = 13,605,230,659,952.67
> Intergovernmental Holdings = 5,336,176,239,299.48
>
> Less than a year into Trump:
>
> Intergovernmental Holdings = 5,447,573,984,758.44
>
> This is a growth rate of 0.3% during Obama vs 2% in less than a year with Trump.

Yes, growth in borrowing from the SS Trust, among other funds. I don't think you understand the stat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intragovernmental_holdings It's all part of the national debt. The numbers you cite show a growth in one part of the national debt.

(snip remaining rant, which is entirely inconsistent with actual data).

-- Jay Beattie.

[Tim McNamara]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2017 12:46:28 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie <jbeat...@msn.com>
wrote:

> On Sunday, August 27, 2017 at 8:56:32 AM UTC-7, cycl...@gmail.com
> wrote:
>>
>> Firstly - the market crashed in 2008. There was a small glitch in
>> 2006 but the market set a new record high in 2007. Since this is all
>> over the Internet how could you not know this? What's more - with the
>> devaluation of the dollar from Obama running the printing presses
>> overtime (the only time in history that the dollar was devalued - not
>> once but twice) the real value of foreign investments - a significant
>> percentage of all investment funds - fell through the floor. Mine
>> have never recovered above half their value and they were nothing
>> more than standard retirement funds. Obama purposely used the worth
>> of our retirement funds to financed his plans and apparently you
>> believe there was nothing wrong with that.
>
> Yes, it's all over the internet -- Obama inherited a post-crash mess.
> http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6185247&page=1 To
> quote from a post-election news story:
>
> "Today's market woes just shows a little of what President-elect
> Barack Obama will face: the worst economic crisis the country has
> experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Fake News, Jay. The economy has never tanked under a Republican
president or Republican Congress. It's all liberal propaganda. Those
starving homeless people? Those folks who lost their jobs and their
homes? Actors paid by the DNC. The biggest hoax since the moon
landings. Those didn't happen either, BTW. Neither did the
record-breaking crowds at Obama's inauguration- special effects
engineered by Hollywood liberal elites and paid for by Oprah.


#MakeAmericaWearTinfoilHtsAgain #MAWTHA

That's the path to grateness.

[John B.]

I see. Your logic tells you that when you have to pay more for the
same thing that your money hasn't decreased in value?

(Psst, I've got a bridge I'll sell you)
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Tim McNamara]

Hmm. Many of the wars the US was involved in were the reuslts of
treaty obligations and critical US interests, the roots of whihc
typically predated the president in office at the time (whether
Republican or Democrat) the shooting started.

Just to pick a few that started shooting under Republican presidents
post WW 1: The Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower), Lebanese Civil War (Reagan),
invasion of Grenada (Reagan), bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado
Canyon- Reagan), Operations Earnest Will/Prime Chance in the Persian
Gulf (Reagan), invasion of Panama (GHW Bush), the Gulf War (GHW Bush),
inervention in the Somali civil war (GHW Bush), the war in Afghanistan
(GW Bush), the Iraq War (GW Bush), the war in North-west Pakistan (GW
Bush). That list is not fully comprehensive of all the operations as
some are (Desert Storm, Desert Shield, etc.) are under the larger
umbrella conflicts mentioned above.

There were also conflicts that started under Democratic presidents, but
Tom didn't declare that those didn't happen so I don't need to enumerate
them.

[AMuzi]

Oh treaty obligations, eh? How about Suez 1956? That error
of omission breeds trouble right down to today.

I note some actual successes in your list by the way, not
all were debacles.

As with mismanagement of the Dollar, there's plenty of error
to go around. Campaign slogans and actual policy are two
different worlds with nary a connection, let alone any
causality.

[John B.]

Do a bit of research into the effect on the economy of (1) reducing
the "Defense" budget to zero and (2) reducing U.S. National Debt to
zero within a reasonable period, say 20 years :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Tim McNamara]

On Mon, 28 Aug 2017 19:54:59 -0500, AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

Promises made often become inconvenient, but what's your word worth? We
have a president now who has no regard for the value of one's promises,
who has throughout his life been happy to break his word in the name of
what's profitable for him. He thinks it's quite wonderful to extend the
same faithlessness to his nation. I have no respect for him whatsoever.

> I note some actual successes in your list by the way, not all were
> debacles.

No regard was given to outcome because that was irrelevant to the claim
Tom made. Just went through the list and selected the ones where the
shooting started under Republican presidents. One could do exactly the
same with Democratic presidents.

The interesting thing wuold be to analyze how that name about. For
example, was there a realistc option not to engage Japan in WW II?
Roosevelt spent a lot of time dancing around having to deal with Germany
and trying to avoid involving America in the European theater.

It was not unlike Albright's weak and cowardly claim that they "didn't
know" that Rwanda had a genocide going on- even though anyone who
watched the evening news could tell instantly. Once you admit that, you
have to do something about it. The extermination of the Jews was no
secret, even if perhaps the sheer scale of it was not recognized.

> As with mismanagement of the Dollar, there's plenty of error to go
> around. Campaign slogans and actual policy are two different worlds
> with nary a connection, let alone any causality.

Oh, what's said on the stump and what's said in the smoke filled back
room have little to do with each other. Not even a passing acquaintance
in mot cases. That's true for either party. Politicans generally say
idiot things to get people angry and to manipulate them to vote, then
get into office and mostly do something different (i.e., they go to work
for their real constituency).

[John B.]

Which has been going on since the Athenians invented the scheme :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

[AMuzi]

At least to this point the Koreans and Japanese see it
differently. I hesitate to defend the man, who is obnoxious
personified, but in this case he hasn't screwed up yet.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

This has NOTHING TO DO with social security or medicare funds which are entirely separate but can be used to demonstrate the levels of job growth.

This is simple economics and if you don't understand it please don't make stupid comments. Not a lot of people really understand economics so it isn't as if you'd be sticking out like a bright light.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

You appear to be saying the same thing I am John. But the way you cut it you think that I'm saying something else.

Let's start with inflation. The claim is that under Obama the inflation was lower than ever. That was an outright lie.

Let me explain how they did it: Originally inflation was calculated by picking a number of articles that people bought to survive. Such as gas and groceries etc. They referred to this as a "bag of groceries" though it included clothing and even telephone service.

The way that the Federal Reserve bank is supposed to work is that they predict the following years GNP growth and they print money to match that growth. But since too little money in circulation stunts growth they tend to overcompensate and print too much money. This ADDS an automatic inflation of maybe 1% in a normal year and perhaps as much as 3% in a bad guess year.

The government didn't like this because it could make them look bad for no other reason than a miscalculation of the Federal Reserve.

So they redesigned the manner in which they calculate inflation. They discovered that if a common product they bought grew too expensive people would change to a cheaper product that was usable.

So they modified the "bag of groceries" to take this into account. This is the lowest immoral thing possible. When gasoline grew too expensive at the main gas stations and people reverted to the cut rate places (cheap gasoline doesn't contain the additives that prolong engine life) they actually showed a drop in the price of gasoline. When the price of bread increased out of range for the lower income people and they reverted to buying flour and making their own the cost of bread decreased.

So in fact the modern inflation values are almost entirely lies. These are nothing more than a number designed to make the government look effective when they are not.

Obama did not have low inflation - he was pumping more cash into the economy than it could manage and inflation actually went through the roof. ANYONE that actually is living on a fixed income could have told you that in one second.

But that wouldn't stop the lies of the left. Take the "tear down the statues" BS. The south was entirely Democrat and the Democrats are the ones that put up the statues in the first place. Nancy Pelosi all over TV denigrating the Republicans for these statues when her FATHER as a politician in CHICAGO put up one of the largest and most ornate to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

The stench of the Democrats is growing to an unbelievable odor.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Eisenhower under treaty with France supplied military advisers to French Indochina as Vietnam was called then. Kennedy decided that America would be much better off with a war instead of looking on.

Your "examples" demonstrated either US policing actions to protect US citizens such as in Lebanon. Or treaty obligations as Desert Storm. Do you really believe that countries selling us a great deal of ANY product don't sign treaties with us? Or is it your position that treaties should be ignored?

[cycl...@gmail.com]

The United States and the USSR in cooperation STOPPED England and France's attempted to take over the Suez Canal. And they did it in the UN and not on a battlefield.Though Eisenhower's threats to destroy the English economy by selling off the US held English financial bonds had a large effect.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

As we all know - your word is your bond. Right.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 11:06 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> This is simple economics and if you don't understand it please don't make stupid comments. Not a lot of people really understand economics so it isn't as if you'd be sticking out like a bright light.

Hell, economists don't understand economics.

I'm just glad we have denizens of rec.bicycles.tech to explain it all to
us! ;-)

--
- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 11:28 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> But that wouldn't stop the lies of the left. Take the "tear down the statues" BS. The south was entirely Democrat and the Democrats are the ones that put up the statues in the first place. Nancy Pelosi all over TV denigrating the Republicans for these statues when her FATHER as a politician in CHICAGO put up one of the largest and most ornate to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

?? Are you saying there's a stature of Robert E. Lee in Chicago?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memorials_to_Robert_E._Lee


--
- Frank Krygowski

[cycl...@gmail.com]

My mistake - it's in Baltimore.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/24/nancy-pelosis-father-helped-dedicate-confederate-monument.html

There is a picture of it. Of course you can always pretend that your list is comprehensive and that this is photoshopped.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Not only that but me and Bernanke argued about the actions of the Federal Reserve Bank until he turned tail and ran. The fact is that economics is only complicated when you make it so as the Obama administration did. If you want to discuss all of their errors we can do so.

[jbeattie]

What are you talking about? Go to the Wiki page I cited. It will all become clear. The government borrows from certain dedicated funds and those funds are receiving interest from the government. The funds hold US bonds like IOUs, and those bonds are called intragovernmental holdings. Your statement about growth of intragovernmental holdings under Trump relates to the growth of debt, albeit a debt owed to the US and not private bondholders, including China. I said nothing about jobs. I don't know where that comes from.

-- Jay Beattie.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Intergovernmental Holdings were the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare. This was supposedly the "good debt" until it was entirely spent by the Democrats under Obama.

Where in the hell do you get your stupid ideas?

Under Trump you can see the supposed growth of this trust fund which is entirely in theory only. But it shows the large increase in real employment under Trump that didn't exist except in the minds of the Marxist under Obama.

[AMuzi]

He was thinking Thomas d'Alessandro of Baltimore.

Just as corrupt as Chicago, but without the big Chicago
papers to cover it.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Let me stress this again - the debt, Intergovernmental Holdings, is the Social Security and Medicare payments that people make. The government OWES THESE BACK TO THE PUBLIC - so it is listed as a debt. They also loan this money via Government Bonds in order to make a higher interest rate on these bonds than they pay out.

I will repeat - there is NOTHING complicated about economics unless you make it so like you just did.

[jbeattie]

Oh gawd, you go on about how people know nothing about economics and then you spew this. Nothing about that statement is right: (1) the Fed does not print money, (2) GNP should be GDP, and neither is the sole determinant of monetary policy https://www.frbatlanta.org/cqer/research/gdpnow.aspx (3) inflation is measured by the CPI/PPI and not by the amount of money in circulation. That may (or should) have an effect on inflation, but after years of QE and low inflation, it clearly is not "automatic." The Feds look at a broad range of indicators to determine monetary policy. -- jobs, inflation, production, etc., etc. It's like super complicated. Read this and report back: https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap22j.pdf

-- Jay Beattie.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

More ignorance. Please go stick your head in the toilet and flush several times to get these ideas out of your head. GDP and DNP is the same thing. Do you want to argue initials? Is that all you have to go on?

If you believe that Obama couldn't pressure Bernanke to print more money you are so far out of it that we needn't discuss this anymore.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/131903366/jon-stewart-busts-fed-s-chair-ben-bernanke-on-printing-money

He was printing money because the money being spent by Obama could not be covered by the paper in circulation.

Why don't you just admit that you are a fuc king Marxist and will do absolutely anything to cover up for this band of criminals?

[sms]

On 8/28/2017 5:35 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
>> On 8/28/2017 11:43 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while
>>> the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war
>>> mongers.
>
> Hmm. Many of the wars the US was involved in were the reuslts of
> treaty obligations and critical US interests, the roots of whihc
> typically predated the president in office at the time (whether
> Republican or Democrat) the shooting started.
>
> Just to pick a few that started shooting under Republican presidents
> post WW 1: The Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower), Lebanese Civil War (Reagan),
> invasion of Grenada (Reagan), bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado
> Canyon- Reagan), Operations Earnest Will/Prime Chance in the Persian
> Gulf (Reagan), invasion of Panama (GHW Bush), the Gulf War (GHW Bush),
> inervention in the Somali civil war (GHW Bush), the war in Afghanistan
> (GW Bush), the Iraq War (GW Bush), the war in North-west Pakistan (GW
> Bush). That list is not fully comprehensive of all the operations as
> some are (Desert Storm, Desert Shield, etc.) are under the larger
> umbrella conflicts mentioned above.

Technically, the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was started by Eisenhower,
not Kennedy. Eisenhower sent "advisors" as a prelude to sending troops.
He also supported the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, even though Diem was a
major reason for the Vietnam war.

While the U.S. exited Vietnam under Gerald Ford, it was the Democrats
that forced the exit, President Ford wanted to continue military aid.

It's a popular lie, by low-information individuals, that Democrats start
wars, when if you actually examine the evidence, since the end of WWII,
it's Democrats that tend to end wars, and Republicans that tend to start
them.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[sms]

On 8/29/2017 8:28 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:

> But that wouldn't stop the lies of the left. Take the "tear down the statues" BS. The south was entirely Democrat and the Democrats are the ones that put up the statues in the first place. Nancy Pelosi all over TV denigrating the Republicans for these statues when her FATHER as a politician in CHICAGO put up one of the largest and most ornate to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

The right-wing loves to endlessly talk about the old-Democratic south,
which vanished after LBJ's civil rights act, and became totally
Republican because Republicans were willing to embrace the racism that
the national Democratic party would not.

The statues were put up by racists who wanted to perpetuate racism in
the south after the defeat of the Confederacy. The fact that they were
Democrats when the statues were put up, is a popular refrain of the
right-wing, who conveniently ignore that they all turned Republican in
the 1960's. The Republican party and the Democratic party of today are
not the same as in the days of Lincoln.

If we want to save the U.S. from the tremendous damage that Republicans
are now inflicting upon it, and it's not just Trump, we need to move
quickly. You saw that even in two terms Obama could not undo all the
damage of George W. Bush, though he achieved significant progress. An
organization like the Partnership for a Republican Free America should
be formed to help save the country.

[jbeattie]

Medication time, Tom. DNP is Democratic National Party. GDP is gross domestic product. GNP is gross national product. GDP and GNP are similar but different. See http://www.diffen.com/difference/GDP_vs_GNP In 1991 the BEA switched to using GDP rather than GNP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Economic_Analysis

>
> If you believe that Obama couldn't pressure Bernanke to print more money you are so far out of it that we needn't discuss this anymore.
>
> http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/131903366/jon-stewart-busts-fed-s-chair-ben-bernanke-on-printing-money
>
> He was printing money because the money being spent by Obama could not be covered by the paper in circulation.
>
> Why don't you just admit that you are a fuc king Marxist and will do absolutely anything to cover up for this band of criminals?

The Fed doesn't print money. The US Treasury prints money. The Fed issues credit -- which far exceeds the currency in circulation.

What the Fed does and doesn't do isn't a matter of political belief. Its a matter of observable fact, or as we say, "reality" -- circumscribed by what we call "statutes and regulations." The Fed uses GDP as a metric of economic activity (among many others), and it doesn't print money. That's reality.

Also, I wouldn't get too mad at Marxists. Your Medicare and Social Security are a huge communist plot. You're a f****** communist! Barry and Ronnie would hate you! http://billmoyers.com/content/deja-vu-all-over-a-look-back-at-some-of-the-tirades-against-social-security-and-medicare/5/ http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-social-security-medicare-freedom

-- Jay Beattie.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

"Technically" he was required by treaty with France to help them in French Indochina. He had no intentions of sending anything other than advisers and so stated. He was a REAL general and he knew a hell of a lot more about it that you will ever even get a hint in your life.

It was Nixon that ended Vietnam and not a Democrat. Johnson was all for expanding the war but the protesters among the flower children put the kabosh on that. And it was those same flower children that voted Democrat. The ONLY reason that they protested the war was because we had the draft and they were all afraid they'd go. That ENTIRE time and history was just recently re-written by PBS. They hid everything that occurred and pushed the socialist agenda to the hilt.

In case you didn't know it, it was Clinton that started the Gulf wars. Do you think that after 9/11 Bush should have done nothing? Or do you think that he should have stopped any possibility that WMD would become available to terrorists? I worked on detection devices on a military contract so I know what they were really worried about. I also know that they captured 550 tons of yellowcake uranium from Iraq and brought it to the US. The biological weapons had degraded to useless. But the gas weapons for the most part had not. The lies from the left about this were astonishing. And they continue to this day "no WMD" even though we have hard evidence.

These wars are STILL being fought because Obama funded the Taliban, al Qaeda and generated ISIS and prevented the military from striking ISIS until they had grown so large on Obama's funding that we are still in that war.

Look - this is HISTORY. We have it all down and it is ALL Democrats right in the middle of it. If it wasn't for Russia we'd have Obama starting a war with Syria with his F-ing "red line in the sand". There was a truck convoy 20 miles long carrying ISIS supplies and Obama wouldn't let the Air Force take them out because Obama said that the truck drivers were civilians.

If you know how policing actions are supposed to be conducted look at how Trump reacted to the poison gassing of civilians. Did you see any wars start because of overwhelming force? Or have you watched as Syria STOPPED what they were doing?

[AMuzi]

the Iraqi uranium went to Canada not USA.

Even the NY Commie Times knows that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/world/africa/07iht-iraq.4.14301928.html

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Jay, first let me apologize for flying off the handle with you.

There is every single reason in the world that there should have not been any social security or medicare in the forms they are now. This put huge amount of money into the hands of politicians who simply could not control themselves from spending it. That should NEVER have been allowed to occur.

Social Security was designed by Congress and the least objectionable of all of the systems they could think of. But it also failed completely to protect those funds from the government itself.

The way it should have been and the way it will be FORCED to change to is a private insurance. Rather than paying into a government program the government will force you to pay the same sort of proportion into 401k-type programs. These will be backed up by government promises to prevent these funds from going broke but the Congress will NOT have access to these funds.

Can you suggest what difference it makes if the Fed issues credit which in turn the Federal Government uses to print money or it the Fed prints it themselves? The end result is the same: As I argued with people a whole higher on the totem pole that you or I, the issuance of any currency more than the actual growth of GDP automatically causes inflation. This puts more currency available than product to buy and hence everyone raises their prices.

I already went through how the government has fudged the way they calculate inflation for their own benefit while real inflation has been runaway. What used to be a $3 desert cake in 2006 is now $15. Explain that. Milk is four times the price it was 10 years ago. I am buying "salad kits" for $4. Why? Because if I buy the ingredients it cost me more per serving. What was a $4 steak 10 years ago is now $12 or even more. I now split one steak with my wife where previously we used to have one each. I belong to a site that sells surplus wine. The other day they had a $3,000 per bottle wine and it sold out in minutes. This site doesn't have millionaires that belong to it.

I think you better start facing reality that a large government destroys any economy.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 1:01 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> I will repeat - there is NOTHING complicated about economics unless you make it so like you just did.

I recently met a really pleasant, obviously intelligent young man. He's
the boyfriend of one of the young ladies in our extended family. Not
only is he a nice guy, he's a bicyclist! And as it happens, he just
started his sophomore year as an economics major.

After these discussions, I'm kinda torn. Apparently he's wasting his
time and money going to school. Do I have a moral obligation to tell him
to drop out of college and just read Tom's posts?

--
- Frank Krygowski

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Do you notice that what they didn't cover was he fact that the Canadian company is an enrichment firm. The US seized the uranium and sent it to an enrichment firm and then brought the enriched uranium here.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Apparently you have a moral obligation to tell me that it is so complicated that you don't understand it and so I can't.

[Frank Krygowski]

The Baltimore statue _is_ in the list. I was surprised that Chicago
would have a Lee stature. As it turns out, justifiably surprised.

Regarding Pelosi's father: My dad was a very intelligent guy. I admired
him greatly and still do. But he and I definitely disagreed on certain
issues. I suppose the same might be true of Pelosi and her father.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[sms]

Wrong. That commitment ended when Bảo Đại was deposed.

> It was Nixon that ended Vietnam and not a Democrat.

Wrong. Ford was president when we withdrew from Vietnam, but it was
because the Democratic congress would not appropriate any more money to
continue to support South Vietnam.

Johnson was all for expanding the war but the protesters among the
flower children put the kabosh on that. And it was those same flower
children that voted Democrat. The ONLY reason that they protested the
war was because we had the draft and they were all afraid they'd go.
That ENTIRE time and history was just recently re-written by PBS. They
hid everything that occurred and pushed the socialist agenda to the hilt.
>
> In case you didn't know it, it was Clinton that started the Gulf
wars. Do you think that after 9/11 Bush should have done nothing?

He could have attacked the country responsible for 9-11, which might
have made more sense than attacking a country that had nothing to do
with it. I don't think there's anyone that still believes that Iraq had
anything to do with 9-11.

Or do you think that he should have stopped any possibility that WMD
would become available to terrorists?

All the experts agreed that Iraq did not have any WMDs. Saddam Hussein
wanted to give that impression to Iran, but there was no evidence that
any WMDs still existed.

You shouldn't try to rewrite history to serve the right-wing agenda.
That's straight out of 1984.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 5:08 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I already went through how the government has fudged the way they calculate inflation for their own benefit while real inflation has been runaway. What used to be a $3 desert cake in 2006 is now $15. Explain that. Milk is four times the price it was 10 years ago. I am buying "salad kits" for $4. Why? Because if I buy the ingredients it cost me more per serving. What was a $4 steak 10 years ago is now $12 or even more. I now split one steak with my wife where previously we used to have one each.

Are those values just by memory? I'm not finding data online to support
them. For example, here's what I find about sirloin prices:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236803/retail-price-of-sirloin-steak-in-the-united-states/

This one
https://www.statista.com/statistics/462468/us-average-price-per-unit-of-baked-goods-and-desserts-by-segment/
claims the average cake costs about $6.50. That's about what I've paid,
although I only buy them for my wife's birthday.

Milk (or at least, milk futures) seem to be different than what you say,
too. http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/milk.aspx?timeframe=10y

Another site
http://future.aae.wisc.edu/data/monthly_values/by_area/10?area=US
shows milk at $14.50/cwt in 2006, vs. $19 in December 2016. That's a 30%
increase in 10 years, not the 300% increase you claim. Did you misplace
a decimal?


--
- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 5:44 PM, sms wrote:
> On 8/29/2017 1:47 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Do you think that after 9/11 Bush should have done nothing?
>
> He could have attacked the country responsible for 9-11, which might
> have made more sense than attacking a country that had nothing to do
> with it. I don't think there's anyone that still believes that Iraq had
> anything to do with 9-11.

:-) In a logical world nobody would still believe that Iraq had anything
to do with 9/11. But a brief reading of Usenet will show there are still
"true believers."

--
- Frank Krygowski

[cycl...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 2:44:38 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
>
> Wrong. That commitment ended when Bảo Đại was deposed.

I sent you the actual history privately - at what point did the political control of this country fall into your hands?

> > It was Nixon that ended Vietnam and not a Democrat.
>
> Wrong. Ford was president when we withdrew from Vietnam, but it was
> because the Democratic congress would not appropriate any more money to
> continue to support South Vietnam.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-declares-vietnam-war-is-ending

> He could have attacked the country responsible for 9-11, which might
> have made more sense than attacking a country that had nothing to do
> with it. I don't think there's anyone that still believes that Iraq had
> anything to do with 9-11.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War

> Or do you think that he should have stopped any possibility that WMD
> would become available to terrorists?
>
> All the experts agreed that Iraq did not have any WMDs. Saddam Hussein
> wanted to give that impression to Iran, but there was no evidence that

> any WMDs still existed.]

What "experts" are these?

> You shouldn't try to rewrite history to serve the right-wing agenda.
> That's straight out of 1984.

I actually worked on military contracts and know what really occurred. You on the other hand are perfectly willing to accept the words from the mouths of people with political power to gain by denying the facts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/world/middleeast/army-apologizes-for-handling-of-chemical-weapon-exposure-cases.html?mcubz=0

If these were old and useless exactly how did out troops get serious injuries from miles away from where these weapons were detonated?

If people READY for things like this were seriously injured what do you think would have occurred should a terrorist detonate one of these "old worn out" weapons in Times Square at noon on a workday?

I was seriously injured by gas because I rushed into the chamber before it was fulling evacuated. The levels HAD to be millions to one. Do you think that this is games that you can play with other's lives and pretend to be surprised if people are killed if some fool followed your jackass advice?

[cycl...@gmail.com]

I buy my food from a cut-rate place a couple of blocks away from me here. Not one single price you quoted is even close. You don't actually buy any food yourself do you? Or do you have enough money to eat out every night? Or do you keep your mind closed to anything your wife tells you?

Exactly what is going on with you when you are quoting prices of $6.50 a lb for steak and poor quality steak where I shop is over $12 lb? And that's the cheapest place around.

Inquiring minds want to know.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

In a logical world a worn out mechanical engineer wouldn't be questioning a war room of 40 of the world's most astute minds.

Tell us - why didn't Obama pull us out of either Afghanistan or Iraq? Was that because he was too stupid?

[cycl...@gmail.com]

http://plan.safeway.com/Circular/Mountain-View-570-N-Shoreline-Blvd-/6FB474246/Categories/Meat-and-Seafood/585/7

The first entry shows a poor beef steak ON SALE for $11.99 for club card holders. Can you explain to me about your references?

You can go through that sales list and find meat for staggering prices and for what appears to be cheap until you go there and look at it and discover that it appears to have been leftovers cut through a meat slicer to razor thin servings.

As I said - a cake ON SALE for $10 that would normally sell for $16.

How are you using these sorts of references that do not have any connection to reality? How is it that you don't KNOW that they don't show any reality?

[jbeattie]

Yes, that represents a type of inflation -- but does it result from federal monetary policy or greed or the ordinary operation of markets? https://hbr.org/2015/08/a-refresher-on-price-elasticity

I suspect you are being killed by the market in the Bay Area. I was in SF the other week and thought the price list at Starbucks had the decimal points misplaced. WTF? Is that in yen? Zimbawean Dollars? Nooooh . . . you've got to be kidding. I just waited and drank the swill at the client's office, which was, by the way, Starbucks. I think some of the restaurants downtown had loan officers. "Excuse me, what is the special today . . . and the interest rate? Do you require collateral for desert?" A lot of super-hot looking business women, though -- and I do like the palm trees. But the prices are ridiculous.

You know what is amazing, I was down next to the Ferry Building, and it looked great -- even after it was destroyed by that giant octopus when I was a kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEm1c-sBRfY Sushi for everyone!

-- Jay Beattie.

[John B.]

On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 08:00:21 -0500, AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

>On 8/28/2017 10:58 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Aug 2017 19:54:59 -0500, AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

>>> On 8/28/2017 7:35 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
>>>>> On 8/28/2017 11:43 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while
>>>>>> the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war
>>>>>> mongers.
>>>>
>>>> Hmm. Many of the wars the US was involved in were the reuslts of
>>>> treaty obligations and critical US interests, the roots of whihc
>>>> typically predated the president in office at the time (whether
>>>> Republican or Democrat) the shooting started.
>>>>
>>>> Just to pick a few that started shooting under Republican presidents
>>>> post WW 1: The Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower), Lebanese Civil War
>>>> (Reagan), invasion of Grenada (Reagan), bombing of Libya (Operation
>>>> El Dorado Canyon- Reagan), Operations Earnest Will/Prime Chance in
>>>> the Persian Gulf (Reagan), invasion of Panama (GHW Bush), the Gulf
>>>> War (GHW Bush), inervention in the Somali civil war (GHW Bush), the
>>>> war in Afghanistan (GW Bush), the Iraq War (GW Bush), the war in
>>>> North-west Pakistan (GW Bush). That list is not fully comprehensive
>>>> of all the operations as some are (Desert Storm, Desert Shield, etc.)
>>>> are under the larger umbrella conflicts mentioned above.
>>>>

>>>> There were also conflicts that started under Democratic presidents,
>>>> but Tom didn't declare that those didn't happen so I don't need to
>>>> enumerate them.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Oh treaty obligations, eh? How about Suez 1956? That error of omission
>>> breeds trouble right down to today.
>>
>> Promises made often become inconvenient, but what's your word worth? We
>> have a president now who has no regard for the value of one's promises,
>> who has throughout his life been happy to break his word in the name of
>> what's profitable for him. He thinks it's quite wonderful to extend the
>> same faithlessness to his nation. I have no respect for him whatsoever.
>>
>>> I note some actual successes in your list by the way, not all were
>>> debacles.
>>
>> No regard was given to outcome because that was irrelevant to the claim
>> Tom made. Just went through the list and selected the ones where the
>> shooting started under Republican presidents. One could do exactly the
>> same with Democratic presidents.
>>
>> The interesting thing wuold be to analyze how that name about. For
>> example, was there a realistc option not to engage Japan in WW II?
>> Roosevelt spent a lot of time dancing around having to deal with Germany
>> and trying to avoid involving America in the European theater.
>>
>> It was not unlike Albright's weak and cowardly claim that they "didn't
>> know" that Rwanda had a genocide going on- even though anyone who
>> watched the evening news could tell instantly. Once you admit that, you
>> have to do something about it. The extermination of the Jews was no
>> secret, even if perhaps the sheer scale of it was not recognized.
>>
>>> As with mismanagement of the Dollar, there's plenty of error to go
>>> around. Campaign slogans and actual policy are two different worlds
>>> with nary a connection, let alone any causality.
>>
>> Oh, what's said on the stump and what's said in the smoke filled back
>> room have little to do with each other. Not even a passing acquaintance
>> in mot cases. That's true for either party. Politicans generally say
>> idiot things to get people angry and to manipulate them to vote, then
>> get into office and mostly do something different (i.e., they go to work
>> for their real constituency).
>>
>
>"a president now who has no regard for the value of one's
>promises"
>
>At least to this point the Koreans and Japanese see it
>differently. I hesitate to defend the man, who is obnoxious
>personified, but in this case he hasn't screwed up yet.

Given the shenanigans that go on in the Korean "Royal Family" a
misstep might end up in Kim Jong-un sleeping with his half brother :-(
--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

I am saying that the currency of the U.S. has had almost innumerable
ups and downs and pointed out that when the U.S. stopped converting
paper dollar to gold in 1971 (was it) that the price of gold, in
dollars went from $35/oz to $500/oz in a few years.

You seem to be arguing that the fact that it now takes US$1,308 to buy
an ounce of gold is meaningless.

And I said that if that was true I've got a bridge to sell you.

>Let's start with inflation. The claim is that under Obama the inflation was lower than ever. That was an outright lie.

Lets be honest there is no difference between inflation and
devaluation. Except, of course, that inflation sounds a bit less
terrifying than deflation. But both terms mean the same thing. Fewer
potatoes for a dollar.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

Well, there goes what little claim you may have had of being an
economist.

GDP is the total value of everything produced by all the people and
companies in the country. It doesn't matter if they are citizens or
foreign-owned companies. If they are located within the country's
boundaries, it is counted as GDP.

Gross national product (GNP) is an estimate of total value of all the
final products and services produced in a given period by the means of
production owned by a country's residents.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

According to stories my grandfather told that when my grandfather and
grandmother were married and moved off the farm to town my grandfather
worked as a carpenter for $1.00 a day.

Now this seemed like pretty poor money to me (I worked for 50 cents an
hour after school and weekends in a service station) and I asked my
grandmother about this and she assured me that when they first moved
to town my grandfather did work for $1.00 a day.

When I asked her how a man and his wife could live for a dollar a day
she replied that "of course you can. Bread only cost three cents a
loaf".

More recently my wife's elder sister and her family visited Thailand
(from central California) and her grandson was telling stories about
"working for the dollar store". When I asked him how much he made he
told me $10 an hour.

I checked the Web and it tells me that a loaf of bread in California
now costs $3.06.

So... $1.00 / 3 cents = 33.3 loaves of bread and $80 / 3.06 = 26.1
loaves of bread

--
Cheers,

John B.

[John B.]

On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 08:45:25 -0700 (PDT), cycl...@gmail.com wrote:

>On Monday, August 28, 2017 at 5:35:31 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
>> > On 8/28/2017 11:43 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >
>> >> Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while
>> >> the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war
>> >> mongers.
>>
>> Hmm. Many of the wars the US was involved in were the reuslts of
>> treaty obligations and critical US interests, the roots of whihc
>> typically predated the president in office at the time (whether
>> Republican or Democrat) the shooting started.
>>
>> Just to pick a few that started shooting under Republican presidents
>> post WW 1: The Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower), Lebanese Civil War (Reagan),
>> invasion of Grenada (Reagan), bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado
>> Canyon- Reagan), Operations Earnest Will/Prime Chance in the Persian
>> Gulf (Reagan), invasion of Panama (GHW Bush), the Gulf War (GHW Bush),
>> inervention in the Somali civil war (GHW Bush), the war in Afghanistan
>> (GW Bush), the Iraq War (GW Bush), the war in North-west Pakistan (GW
>> Bush). That list is not fully comprehensive of all the operations as
>> some are (Desert Storm, Desert Shield, etc.) are under the larger
>> umbrella conflicts mentioned above.
>>
>> There were also conflicts that started under Democratic presidents, but
>> Tom didn't declare that those didn't happen so I don't need to enumerate
>> them.
>

>Eisenhower under treaty with France supplied military advisers to French Indochina as Vietnam was called then. Kennedy decided that America would be much better off with a war instead of looking on.

You got it wrong again. In about 1950 the U.S. formed a so called
Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) which managed the supply of
some 10 million dollars in military equipment to support the French
efforts in Vietnam.

MAAG, by the way is simply a term used to denote a group which liaises
with another government's military, that may or may not include
advisers.

As part of this "assistance" the U.S. loaned, lend leased, whatever
you call it, some B-26 aircraft and supplied maintenance crews and
parts for the airplanes, which were stationed at Saigon's airport.
these aircraft were flown by French flight crews.

In addition I believe there were a number of transport aircraft
airplanes.

As far as I know, from friends who were assigned to the B-26 group and
went to Vietnam there were no so called military advisors. U.S.A.F.
people maintained the airplanes and the French flew them.

--
Cheers,

John B.

[sms]

On 8/29/2017 2:08 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:

> I already went through how the government has fudged the way they calculate inflation for their own benefit while real inflation has been runaway. What used to be a $3 desert cake in 2006 is now $15. Explain that. Milk is four times the price it was 10 years ago. I am buying "salad kits" for $4. Why? Because if I buy the ingredients it cost me more per serving. What was a $4 steak 10 years ago is now $12 or even more. I now split one steak with my wife where previously we used to have one each. I belong to a site that sells surplus wine. The other day they had a $3,000 per bottle wine and it sold out in minutes. This site doesn't have millionaires that belong to it.

Actually the problem is not in your dumb examples about desert <sic>
cake, or steak, or salad mix. Food prices have not been subject to much
inflation. You can educate yourself at
<https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/food-inflation>.

Many years ago the government took housing out of the CPI, rationalizing
that consumers don't buy houses very often. They did this at a time of
high housing inflation and they didn't want to be adjusting stuff like
Social Security based on that.

The other big increase in prices is in prepared food and restaurant
meals, caused by a combination of labor shortages, high lease rates, and
high wages. But these are discretionary items.

> I think you better start facing reality that a large government destroys any economy.

There is no evidence of this. In some cases, government is more
efficient than the private sector. Look at health care spending versus
outcomes in the U.S. versus countries with socialized medicine. In the
agricultural sector, massive government subsidies and price supports
have made U.S. a big food exporter, and now, thanks to Obama a net
exporter of oil and gas.

[John B.]

On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 10:37:47 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
wrote:

>On 8/28/2017 5:35 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
>>> On 8/28/2017 11:43 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> Every war since WW I was gone into from a Democrat President while
>>>> the Democrat party has been accusing Republicans of being war
>>>> mongers.
>>
>> Hmm. Many of the wars the US was involved in were the reuslts of
>> treaty obligations and critical US interests, the roots of whihc
>> typically predated the president in office at the time (whether
>> Republican or Democrat) the shooting started.
>>
>> Just to pick a few that started shooting under Republican presidents
>> post WW 1: The Lebanon Crisis (Eisenhower), Lebanese Civil War (Reagan),
>> invasion of Grenada (Reagan), bombing of Libya (Operation El Dorado
>> Canyon- Reagan), Operations Earnest Will/Prime Chance in the Persian
>> Gulf (Reagan), invasion of Panama (GHW Bush), the Gulf War (GHW Bush),
>> inervention in the Somali civil war (GHW Bush), the war in Afghanistan
>> (GW Bush), the Iraq War (GW Bush), the war in North-west Pakistan (GW
>> Bush). That list is not fully comprehensive of all the operations as
>> some are (Desert Storm, Desert Shield, etc.) are under the larger
>> umbrella conflicts mentioned above.
>
>Technically, the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was started by Eisenhower,
>not Kennedy. Eisenhower sent "advisors" as a prelude to sending troops.
>He also supported the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, even though Diem was a
>major reason for the Vietnam war.

The Geneva Accords in 1954 partitioned the country temporarily in two
at the 17th parallel until 1956, when democratic elections would be
held under international supervision. All parties involved agreed to
this (Ho Chi Minh had strong support in the north, which was more
populous than the south, and was thus comfortable that he would win an
election), except for the US, who did not want to see Communism
spreading in a domino effect throughout Asia.

The U.S., supporting the South, installed Ngo Dinh Diem, initially as
Prime Minister to Bao Dai, the Emperor, and later after a rigged
election as President of the Republic of South Vietnam. He and his
brother were assassinated in 1963 during a coup led by General Duong
Van Minh.

While Diem was a fanatical Catholic and did contribute to the
Buddhist/Christian problems in S. Vietnam he was not responsible for
the Vietnam war which was almost entirely a U.S. effort.

Had the original Geneva Accords been followed and the elections been
held Vietnam would have been united, in 1956, under a Communist
government.

It might be noted that while engaged in a war in Vietnam to make the
world safe from communism the U.S. was buying supplies used in the war
from Yugoslavia.

The so called Domino effect espoused by the Eisenhower Administration
is, in retrospect a bunch of whooee. The two greatest heroes of
Vietnam are the Trung Sisters who lead a revolution against Chinese
dominance of Vietnam and Vietnam fought a (small) war against China in
1979.

>
>While the U.S. exited Vietnam under Gerald Ford, it was the Democrats
>that forced the exit, President Ford wanted to continue military aid.

My guess is that the U.S.'s abandonment of the Vietnam war was
primarily an effort to get out of the war in any manner possible
rather then a political scheme of either political party as to be
frank the North had won the war.
--
Cheers,

John B.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 7:00 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 3:01:54 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>> On 8/29/2017 5:08 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> I already went through how the government has fudged the way they calculate inflation for their own benefit while real inflation has been runaway. What used to be a $3 desert cake in 2006 is now $15. Explain that. Milk is four times the price it was 10 years ago. I am buying "salad kits" for $4. Why? Because if I buy the ingredients it cost me more per serving. What was a $4 steak 10 years ago is now $12 or even more. I now split one steak with my wife where previously we used to have one each.
>>
>> Are those values just by memory? I'm not finding data online to support
>> them. For example, here's what I find about sirloin prices:
>> https://www.statista.com/statistics/236803/retail-price-of-sirloin-steak-in-the-united-states/
>>
>> This one
>> https://www.statista.com/statistics/462468/us-average-price-per-unit-of-baked-goods-and-desserts-by-segment/
>> claims the average cake costs about $6.50. That's about what I've paid,
>> although I only buy them for my wife's birthday.
>>
>> Milk (or at least, milk futures) seem to be different than what you say,
>> too. http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/milk.aspx?timeframe=10y
>>
>> Another site
>> http://future.aae.wisc.edu/data/monthly_values/by_area/10?area=US
>> shows milk at $14.50/cwt in 2006, vs. $19 in December 2016. That's a 30%
>> increase in 10 years, not the 300% increase you claim. Did you misplace
>> a decimal?
>
> I buy my food from a cut-rate place a couple of blocks away from me here. Not one single price you quoted is even close. You don't actually buy any food yourself do you? Or do you have enough money to eat out every night? Or do you keep your mind closed to anything your wife tells you?

Actually, we normally do the grocery shopping together, getting there on
our bikes.

I came from a large family. My mom, a child of the depression, read
newspaper ads and memorized prices. If there was much price difference,
she would drive to one store to buy cans of beans, a different store to
buy cans of peas.

I don't do that. At this point in my life, it's easy to live on my
retirement income. We shop at a grocery store that's known to be a bit
expensive; but it's a nice bike ride.

Your store has New York Strip Steak for $12 per pound.
http://plan.safeway.com/Circular/Mountain-View-570-N-Shoreline-Blvd-/6FB474246/Search/steak
I can't tell if yours really was $4 per pound ten years ago. Frankly,
I'm not sure you can tell either, unless you kept receipts.

Mine sells it for $14.50 per pound. But I'm not whining.

> Exactly what is going on with you when you are quoting prices of $6.50 a lb for steak and poor quality steak where I shop is over $12 lb? And that's the cheapest place around.

I just hit Google and posted the links I saw.

Unfortunately, that one with steak prices is now behind a paywall, so I
can't even see what the price was claimed to be. I should have put some
more numbers in my post.


--
- Frank Krygowski

[Frank Krygowski]

On 8/29/2017 7:16 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> How are you using these sorts of references that do not have any connection to reality? How is it that you don't KNOW that they don't show any reality?

Again, I just googled. I don't track prices. I'm not having financial
trouble, and unless our country's health care system turns on me (always
a possibility, I admit) I don't expect to have financial trouble.

Just lucky, I guess.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[cycl...@gmail.com]

It's not just in San Francisco. At a tappan restaurant in Dublin, dinner for six was over $200 plus the expected 20% tip. That's a hell of a lot of money for rice and shrimp. Here in San Lorenzo I took my wife for a Mexican lunch and had nothing special and it was $40.

Yesterday I did a ride up to Montclair in Oakland and had a little slice of cake and a small coffee - $6.30. And I had to sit in a place where behind me this guy was giving a prospective client a sales job for some sort of software for keeping track of inventory. Loudly. For that sort of money for a coffee I would expect a library-like atmosphere.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

While I was recovering my nutcake older brother talked me into putting money into gold because it was at $2500 and rising according to him forever. Since I didn't have much reasoning power at that time I bought and of course it immediately dropped to $1250 and my investment was cut in half.

It never bothered older brother that I lost a good deal of money.

But I learned that gold is nothing to EVER worry about. I means absolutely nothing. There isn't enough gold in all of the vaults in all of the world to cover just the currency in the US let alone the other countries.

So even pretending that it should mean anything is stupid. The strength of a currency is based on the economic strength of a nation and no more.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 5:58:10 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
>
> Lets be honest there is no difference between inflation and
> devaluation. Except, of course, that inflation sounds a bit less
> terrifying than deflation. But both terms mean the same thing. Fewer
> potatoes for a dollar.

Actually there is a very large difference. Inflation is internal values while devaluation is external values.

In a world economy inflation of the American dollar doesn't mean much. But devaluation means a whole lot.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

That would be mass produced factory white bread that only poor people eat. Bread with nutritional value like the stuff your grandmother ate costs $6 a loaf. Though my friend that moved to Phoenix continues to send me stories of going out to nice restaurants for $25 for him and his wife. He's been there only three years and things have dramatically inflated. He bought a 2000 sq ft home on a large lot with a swimming pool in the back for $150K and the same thing now is double. Of course the 2000 sq ft home he sold here only only the property the house was sitting on he sold for $800K because he really wanted to leave. And and identical home went for $1.2M a month after he left.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Since I got that directly from the New York Times you'll have to explain it to them.

But maintenance crews can hardly be called combat troops would it? I never felt I was in the war until I was being shot at. What do you suppose that service cross was for?

[cycl...@gmail.com]

What is clear is that you, like Frank, don't buy anything. You let your wife do everything and then don't listen to her complaints of the cost of things because that's what women do - right?

And I see there's definitely something not working in your mind when you think that government spending on healthcare is more efficient. In fact it is by far the opposite. Let's just take for instance my bother's surgery for glaucoma - they can do an extremely complicated and expensive surgery that punctures the eyeball in several locations and then he must use eye drops forever. This runs into the $10,000's of dollars here. But there is a simpler method - they can insert a needle that contains a tube. This goes across the eye and punctures the other side and inserts a plastic tube. This takes minutes, has shown almost no dangers and once inserted and healed (which takes a week) the need for eye drops is generally not needed. What will the government pay for? Of course the more expensive and dangerous procedure.

Time after time the government's choice is the most dangerous and less effective procedures.

You idea that the government is in any way more effective in health care is bordering on insanity. I pay out of pocket for most of my medical procedures and most of them have been 100% safe and effective. I just had a sinus lift for a dental implant. It cost me $4K. The government won't even pay for this and it's a medical procedure. After one week I was healed and after two weeks the sutures dissolved and all I have to do is wait out the natural bone replacement and I will have a dental implant to replace the bridge that broke because a tooth supporting it broke.

I wonder about the things that you write. Are you living in the outback of Arkansas where you don't do any medical treatments?

[cycl...@gmail.com]

Well we can always say you certainly look out for the common man. We can see the great advances for the communist state of North Korea. Instead of the North this could have been the entire country. But I guess that living in Thailand has taught you to totally ignore the common man as most of Asia does.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Satellite+picture+of+North+Korea&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS532US532&tbm=isch&imgil=_Px3RCbfyWplDM%253A%253Bvym3_MxN4RMkiM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%25252Fsciencetech%25252Farticle-2725415%25252FNasa-satellite-images-North-Korea-secretive-space.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=_Px3RCbfyWplDM%253A%252Cvym3_MxN4RMkiM%252C_&usg=__3ZGoAXqsphaJMw-hWcGfVKKGd_g%3D&biw=1162&bih=590&ved=0ahUKEwi5grDLof_VAhXGLmMKHeMlAgoQyjcINQ&ei=Q9imWfnUHsbdjAPjy4hQ#imgrc=_Px3RCbfyWplDM:

[cycl...@gmail.com]

So you know that a decent steak in your area cost almost $15/lb but contradicted me only to contradict me. OK.

[sms]

On 8/30/2017 7:47 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 5:58:10 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:

<snip>

>> Lets be honest there is no difference between inflation and
>> devaluation. Except, of course, that inflation sounds a bit less
>> terrifying than deflation. But both terms mean the same thing. Fewer
>> potatoes for a dollar.
>
> While I was recovering my nutcake older brother talked me into putting money into gold because it was at $2500 and rising according to him forever. Since I didn't have much reasoning power at that time I bought and of course it immediately dropped to $1250 and my investment was cut in half.

And of course, there is a huge difference between inflation and
devaluation. The effect on the price of a specific item can be the same,
but that does not mean that inflation and devaluation are the same.

For devaluation, an imported item often costs more when the country in
which it is sold devalues their currency, though not necessarily, since
the seller sometimes chooses to accept lower margins in order to keep
the volumes up; Japanese vehicle makers are famous for doing this since
they do not want to lose market share. The price of many items in Canada
were not raised to offset the devaluation of their currency.

Devaluation can be one cause of inflation, but inflation can have other
causes as well. Let's be honest, inflation and devaluation are not the same.

The Federal Reserve is now considering taking steps to combat deflation.
Falling prices for commodities, automobiles.

The high cost of falling prices
<https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21644196-low-or-negative-inflation-spreading-around-world-more-worry>

Kroger Tumbles After Food Deflation Brings Dimmer Outlook
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/kroger-declines-after-grocery-deflation-brings-dimmer-outlook>

Are Bonds And Commodities Signaling Deflation Forever?
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrich/2017/06/19/are-bonds-and-commodities-signaling-deflation-forever/#4357c0ba21a3>

> But I learned that gold is nothing to EVER worry about. I means absolutely nothing. There isn't enough gold in all of the vaults in all of the world to cover just the currency in the US let alone the other countries.

True, the price of gold is meaningless. But similarly, choosing any
single product or commodity and claiming that its cost proves that there
is inflation or deflation is meaningless. The price of beef is up, but
the price of cars, consumer electronics, petroleum, milk, etc., are
down. Milk is interesting because of the wild swings in prices
<http://www.in2013dollars.com/Milk/price-inflation/2007-to-2017?amount=5>
but it's been going up much slower than the inflation rate.

Sadly, no economist is calculating the inflation rate of desert <sic> cakes.

> So even pretending that it should mean anything is stupid. The strength of a currency is based on the economic strength of a nation and no more.

True. Gold has some inherent value as a metal used in manufacturing.
Gold production has been on a steady increase, devaluing it because
there's so much more of it; it's akin to the government printing more
money. The low for gold is a long way off. And you can see how poor of
an investment it is by listening to the shills on right-wing-radio
promoting it!

[jbeattie]

You apparently don't follow the Hostess Index. I've been thinking of making a big move into Twinkies in light of Hurricane Harvey. They're light and spongy -- high calorie, low weight, indefinite shelf-life, and if you have enough of them, they make excellent personal floatation devices. I can see the unit price going above $3-4 short-term. I could become a hundredaire, assuming I don't get killed on transportation costs. Make America fat some more!

-- Jay Beattie.

[Duane]

You can go with the Big Mac index. That's what we were taught in
commerce (my minor) that was used to give a ball park idea of the price
index. You want fat, that's fat.

[sms]

On 8/30/2017 9:22 AM, Duane wrote:

<snip>

> You can go with the Big Mac index.  That's what we were taught in
> commerce (my minor) that was used to give a ball park idea of the price
> index.  You want fat, that's fat.

The Economist used to have the Big Mac index. It was pretty stupid
because McDonald's, like most companies, sets their prices based on what
the market will bear, not on the cost of ingredients, labor, property,
gas & electricity, etc..

The iPhone index may be more applicable, but the variance in prices is
mostly due to taxes and fees.
<http://bgr.com/2017/05/04/iphone-price-cheapest-countries-most-expensive/>.
Turkey has extremely high import tariffs, VAT, and other fees, none of
which go to Apple.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 8:55:07 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:

All I've seen is vastly overpriced things coming down to a competitive level and only on products sold at "junk" stores like Walmart.

[sms]

On 8/30/2017 10:26 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 8:55:07 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:
>
> All I've seen is vastly overpriced things coming down to a competitive level and only on products sold at "junk" stores like Walmart.

Go look at mass market cars. Not the MSRP, but what they actually sell
for. We helped my daughter buy a new car two weeks ago for my daughter.
Well under $14K for a new Corolla LE (MSRP of $20,044). Plus,
manufacturers have been adding features even to the base models. Lane
departure, collision warning, rear camera, Bluetooth, all used to be
high priced options, but now are standard. Ditto for ABS, TPMS, VSC, TC,
RKE, etc.

Manufactured goods are in a deflationary period due to over-supply and
falling demand. But you're right about things like beef, because demand
is way up.

[Duane]

On 30/08/2017 1:05 PM, sms wrote:
> On 8/30/2017 9:22 AM, Duane wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> You can go with the Big Mac index.  That's what we were taught in
>> commerce (my minor) that was used to give a ball park idea of the
>> price index.  You want fat, that's fat.
>
> The Economist used to have the Big Mac index. It was pretty stupid
> because McDonald's, like most companies, sets their prices based on what
> the market will bear, not on the cost of ingredients, labor, property,
> gas & electricity, etc..
>
> The iPhone index may be more applicable, but the variance in prices is
> mostly due to taxes and fees.
> <http://bgr.com/2017/05/04/iphone-price-cheapest-countries-most-expensive/>.
> Turkey has extremely high import tariffs, VAT, and other fees, none of
> which go to Apple.
>
>

You haven't studied economics. The Big Mac Index is just a name, not to
be taken literally. The implication is to use the cost of wheat, beef
and vegetables as an estimate. Not the price of big macs.

[cycl...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 11:16:04 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:
> On 8/30/2017 10:26 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 8:55:07 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:
> >
> > All I've seen is vastly overpriced things coming down to a competitive level and only on products sold at "junk" stores like Walmart.
>
> Go look at mass market cars. Not the MSRP, but what they actually sell
> for. We helped my daughter buy a new car two weeks ago for my daughter.
> Well under $14K for a new Corolla LE (MSRP of $20,044). Plus,
> manufacturers have been adding features even to the base models. Lane
> departure, collision warning, rear camera, Bluetooth, all used to be
> high priced options, but now are standard. Ditto for ABS, TPMS, VSC, TC,
> RKE, etc.
>
> Manufactured goods are in a deflationary period due to over-supply and
> falling demand. But you're right about things like beef, because demand
> is way up.

It isn't very widely mentioned but car sales are WAY down. When inflation has grown so much and wages have not you have to expect that.

I did talk to one dealer and asked him if sales were so low how come I was seeing so many new cars. His answer was "no down payment and six months before the payments start".

[sms]

On 8/30/2017 11:18 AM, Duane wrote:
> On 30/08/2017 1:05 PM, sms wrote:
>> On 8/30/2017 9:22 AM, Duane wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> You can go with the Big Mac index.  That's what we were taught in
>>> commerce (my minor) that was used to give a ball park idea of the
>>> price index.  You want fat, that's fat.
>>
>> The Economist used to have the Big Mac index. It was pretty stupid
>> because McDonald's, like most companies, sets their prices based on
>> what the market will bear, not on the cost of ingredients, labor,
>> property, gas & electricity, etc..
>>
>> The iPhone index may be more applicable, but the variance in prices is
>> mostly due to taxes and fees.
>> <http://bgr.com/2017/05/04/iphone-price-cheapest-countries-most-expensive/>.
>> Turkey has extremely high import tariffs, VAT, and other fees, none of
>> which go to Apple.
>>
>>
>
> You haven't studied economics.  The Big Mac Index is just a name, not to
> be taken literally.

See <http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index>

[John B.]

Some years ago, in an argument about the gold standard, I read that
the world's annual gold production was not sufficient to pay General
Motors annual dividends.

>So even pretending that it should mean anything is stupid. The strength of a currency is based on the economic strength of a nation and no more.

--
Cheers,

John B.

[sms]

On 8/30/2017 1:15 PM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 11:16:04 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:
>> On 8/30/2017 10:26 AM, cycl...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, August 30, 2017 at 8:55:07 AM UTC-7, sms wrote:
>>>
>>> All I've seen is vastly overpriced things coming down to a competitive level and only on products sold at "junk" stores like Walmart.
>>
>> Go look at mass market cars. Not the MSRP, but what they actually sell
>> for. We helped my daughter buy a new car two weeks ago for my daughter.
>> Well under $14K for a new Corolla LE (MSRP of $20,044). Plus,
>> manufacturers have been adding features even to the base models. Lane
>> departure, collision warning, rear camera, Bluetooth, all used to be
>> high priced options, but now are standard. Ditto for ABS, TPMS, VSC, TC,
>> RKE, etc.
>>
>> Manufactured goods are in a deflationary period due to over-supply and
>> falling demand. But you're right about things like beef, because demand
>> is way up.
>
> It isn't very widely mentioned but car sales are WAY down. When inflation has grown so much and wages have not you have to expect that.

2015 and 2016 were record sales years, but 2017 sales are not down much.
You can see a chart at
<http://www.macrotrends.net/1372/auto-and-light-truck-sales-historical-chart>.

Not sure why you keep claiming that bizarre things like "inflation has
grown so much," when it's been repeatedly shown that it is actually very
low, except for desert <sic> cake of course.

One of the big problems for the auto industry is that people are keeping
their vehicles much longer. The vehicle we purchased two weeks ago
replaces a 21 year old Toyota Camry that was a tad under $17K when new.
Paying less than $14K for a similarly sized new car, 21 years later is
pretty incredible. Even the 2017 Camry had only gone up in street price
by about $2.5K in 21 years, less than 3/4 of 1% per year. And that's not
even fare since it's a much larger car than the 1996, with better fuel
economy, and many features that the 21 year old vehicle lacked.

[John B.]

On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 08:55:03 -0700, sms <scharf...@geemail.com>
wrote:

That theory doesn't stand the light of day as a large percentage of
the world's population sees gold as a safe way to hold their wealth
and gold production seems to have peaked in 2015 at 3,217 tonnes and
was 3,169 tonnes in 2016 and further decreases are expected during
2017.

In contrast the demand for gold, largely as jewelry, i.e. a safe way
to hold wealth, has increased steadily, at an average rate of 2.0% pa
from 1,367 tonnes to 3,349 tonnes over the past 50 years.

As an aside, the population of India, probably the largest single user
of gold jewelry, increased by 14.5% from 2006 to 2016.

Gold jewelry accounts for the majority of gold use with the
electronics industry in second place.

https://blogs.thomsonreuters.com/answerson/gold-industry-developments-changes-last-50-years/
(published 8 May 2017)
--
Cheers,

John B.