Numbers

[nitro]

Quote from Bernard111:

You mean the $200+ book edition?

Can probably get it from the library. I remember shelling out $100 for it 20 years ago.

nitro

 

[FuturesTrader71]

Quote from nitro:

Can probably get it from the library. I remember shelling out $100 for it 20 years ago.

nitro

Interesting... I guess that's another way to gauge inflation. You have to pay twice as much for the same book now.

 

[nitro]

Quote from FuturesTrader71:

Interesting... I guess that's another way to gauge inflation. You have to pay twice as much for the same book now.

The standard way to do it is to measure anything in the price of gold to normalize it. That is a simple way and it gets you close.

The value of the US$ goes from 1 to .05 in about 40 years in purchasing power. That is why it is such a joke when people say you should stick your money in the bank.

It is no accident that oil is going higher in these days of massive debt. Either the $ devalues, or commodities go higher.

nitro

 

[2cents]

no, man, not u...

why the daft comparison instead of looking at MM compounded returns over periods of time including & excluding World Wars, and isolating the last 10 years for instance (pre EUR, Y2K craze and internet bubble burst if you will)... you really thing gold is going to look so pretty?

 

[newbunch]

Quote from nitro:

The standard way to do it is to measure anything in the price of gold to normalize it. That is a simple way and it gets you close.

It may be a standard way, but....
"Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
What everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labour as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They contain the value of a certain quantity of labour which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command." Wealth of Nations

 

[2cents]

Quote from nitro:

It is no accident that oil is going higher in these days of massive debt. Either the $ devalues, or commodities go higher.

nitro

alternative viewpoint: the oil & commodities exporting countries are building massive credit & asset price bubbles... not sthg emerging economies are well-equiped to manage / deflate in an orderly manner according to even recent historical evidence... lets see what happens when the 1st one blows up and everyone wants out... there may not be so long to wait...

 

[Bernard111]

Quote from FuturesTrader71:

Interesting... I guess that's another way to gauge inflation. You have to pay twice as much for the same book now.

Alternative inflation measurement?!...
And what about the collectible version that is sold at $800+ at Amazon or the previous editions that are sold at only $2-40?

 

[FuturesTrader71]

Quote from Bernard111:

Alternative inflation measurement?!...
And what about the collectible version that is sold at $800+ at Amazon or the previous editions that are sold at only $2-40?

I was just teasing. You are right. There is a supply side problem with this that has nothing to do with the cost of money. I wanted to throw that in anyway.

 

[nitro]

From Barron's this weekend. This realization is so devilishly obvious I completetly missed it:

Warning: Sticker Shock Ahead
June 21: The latest official annual rate of inflation is 4.2%. Four point two percent! [that's the best they can get] even after rubbing and scrubbing...raw price-inflation numbers and adjusting the contents of the market...And total nominal retail sales [were] up a scanty 0.1% in May...

If you think that gingerly raising interest rates will stop rising inflation, you are wrong. Until rates get so high that they cripple the economy, higher interest rates only produce higher prices, which is defacto inflation: As producers of goods and services borrow money to finance ongoing business, the higher costs of that borrowing have to be figured into the higher prices of the final output of goods and services, so that businesses can make profits.

So in the short run, higher interest rates ACTUALLY CAUSE HIGHER PRICES [!!!! my emphasis] And that's another compelling reason, as if you needed any more reasons, not to let inflation in prices get started by letting inflation in the money supply get started. The only thing that will stop inflation is the inability or unwillingness (or both) of consumers to consume goods and services at those higher prices. This will cause economic contraction.

So the FED is actually responsible in the short term for creating inflationary pressures, the very thing it is trying to fight!!!! Too funny, but deadly serious.

nitro

 

[ElectricSavant]

Well,

We wouldn't want an Argentina or a former Yugoslavia type of inflation..

What would that do to the dollar?

Quote from nitro:

From Barron's this weekend. This realization is so devilishly obvious I completetly missed it:



So the FED is actually responsible in the short term for creating inflationary pressures, the very thing it is trying to fight!!!! Too funny, but deadly serious.

nitro