Recent content by thriftybob

Actually, I think you are dead on target there. As I see it, the dollar itself is the biggest fraud in the history of the earth. Its well beyond the French Assignat's of the 1700's that put the fear of paper money into the founders of the US, because all the world uses the dollar for payments...

We haven't been. We have been borrowing from the rest of the world every year since the 70's. The DEBT is the other big problem. We can't repay it, either.

If only we needed to PRODUCE as much as we CONSUME, we would need 20 million more people working to accomplish that, solving the big problem, which is 20 million unemployed. It would also have the secondary effect of increasing tax revenues at the same time as reducing government outlays...

You need to take time off from the meds, LOL The problem is the DEBT and the fact that it keeps GROWING and is already so HUGE it can NEVER be repaid.

Roughly $3500 an oz, for gold and $175 for silver, then? I couldn't find historical data, though. Could you provide a link where to find the data? When was it at those ratios previously? The $3500 for gold number sounds rational to me based on the amount of paper money and credit...

I sent him money and tried to vote for him, but he wasn't on the ballot in Illinois, and write in's don't get counted there. He does advocate bringing the troops home and getting out of world policing. I don't recall him saying anything on religion, which to me is fine because it has no...

You might want to look at a page I found showing the facts of how they originally promised Social Security and how they changed it over time. It also says the fund is in the red, ie spent or will spend too much as it sits, by $16 or $17 Trillion as of 2010...

And that, my friend is what a Ponzi scheme is. Promising people things that are not possible by collecting it from the next guy coming in. It all works fine till the next guy isn't there or can't/won't pay. And yes, you can just make the money worthless instead to create the illusion of...

As long as getting checks for worth less money is ok, any checks are great, huh? My IQ is 135 and I know the difference between 2% and 12.4%, thank you very much. I was self employed all my working years and paid both sides of the tax. You never answered why there isn't enough money...

You asked for detailed proof, and now are angry I provided it? Her VERY FIRST CHECK was about equal to the TOTAL AMOUNT she put in. How many more people collected similar sums in excess of their payments? What was the withholding percentage and cap back then? If the money had been SAVED...

Ok, then why isn't there enough money (including the IOUs) there to pay off all all the people still alive that have contributed, if you stopped collecting taxes and stopped accumulating new benefits today? THERE ISN'T, IS THERE? ITS JUST THAT SIMPLE. THE DIFFERENCE WAS EITHER NEVER...

Forgetting about the fact that all the money SS taxes took in was spent and all they have is a bunch of IOU's owed by a country that is only able to collect 2/3 or so of what it spends, and prints the rest, the fact is that the very first person to file for Social Security paid in less than $25...

HELLO? Just WHO is EVER going to be able to PAY for all these PONZI schemes? They gave everything out to people who didn't pay in, and now its time to pay the piper because the people that were paying it, now all want to collect. There were no savings. They are just PRINTING the money...

Not true. NONE of them have pinched any pennies, let alone the TRILLIONS that now need to be cut. The very best has been to reduce the rate of increase while raising taxes, and still only resulted in a surplus because they stole $150 billion from Social Security that year. The basic...

I agree. When things go parabolic, its smart to unwind at least part of a position and take profits. That said, I wish I hadn't started selling in the low 30's. If I had waited a bit longer, I'd have made more on what I sold, and had more left to sell. Only have 1/6 th left...