History Of FIAT CURRENCY Foretells '$' Destruction

POSTED BY: out2theblack
UPDATED: Monday, April 7, 2025 22:05
VIEWED: 5979
PAGE 4 of 5

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT PAGE

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 4:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
Quote:
Originally posted by out2theblack:
Fiat Money = Toilet Paper Money
Hear, Hear.

Now if we could only get others on here to understand that unmutable fact. Like Signym, rue, and kwicko.

I think the word you're looking for is "immutable".

And I think you have me mistaken for somebody else. I'm putting my spare "toilet paper" into things I can actually USE if it all goes to hell: guns, ammo, and toilet paper. :) Maybe not as popular as gold, but every bit as useful if society collapses around your head and the gold exchange is in flames...

Hell, I work for a living. I need every scrap of that fiat money I can get my hands on right now. Is it the best system going? Dunno. Probably not. On the other hand, if you find the current money so worthless... can I have all yours? I'd love to see a system where our money is backed by something more than our reputation in the world, especially the way that reputation has been squandered in a post-9/11 world. If you've got a plan, then as Obama might say, "I'm all ears."

And just for snark's sake:

Isn't "FIAT money" what we're going to be using to buy Chryslers in a couple weeks?

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 4:23 AM

Quote:
And so enters the socialist arguement which is ever flawed, focusing upon the drifting of wealth to the rich and demanding that the wealth be spread back out across the people like so much manure upon a farmfield.

Pardon me, but I'm very late to this discussion, and am still catching up, and responding to things as I read them...

BSCM, to keep with your analogy, you're focusing upon the wealth not as manure to be spread across a farm field for fertilizer to help the crops grow, but rather as heaping it all together in one place. All you end up with that way is a big steaming pile of shit just sitting there rotting.

I think Rue's argument is that you can't maintain economic growth without printing (or minting) more money UNLESS you distribute at least a goodly portion of that money back down to the bottom levels, where it will once again begin it inexorable trickle back up the ladder to the top. And for that matter, you can't even maintain an economic plateau and keep things stable at a sustainable level unless you also do this. That doesn't mean we're taking away your precious lucre at gunpoint or through "socialist" programs - it means if a capitalist pays a living, fair wage, his workers will have more money to spend on his products, and he'll still make a fair profit. When you devalue labor and inflation kicks the prices sky-high, only the capitalists at the top can afford the things they pay others to produce.

And if anyone thinks the world would collapse without those capitalist investors and owners, I'd ask them to consider what would happen to those factories and stores without workers and customers. It's not a sin, and it's not a "socialist" belief to imagine that workers and customers are as valuable to an economic system as are owners and investors.

At least, that's my take on it, simplified and boiled down.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 4:27 AM

Quote:
Posted by Fremdfirma:

...I never thought I'd find myself more thankful to the damn Bosnians, but they did give us both Tomos and IGMAN, so warm fuzzies for the lot of em.
(And I'll even forgive them for the Yugo!)

And on a lighter note...

You did know that during the recent troubles in the former Yugoslavia, U.S. airstrikes completely obliterated the Yugo factory, right?

Damage estimates ran as high as seven dollars.

You know how to double the resale value of a Yugo?

Fill up the gas tank.

You know why Yugos have rear-window defrosters?

So you can keep your hands warm while you're pushing it.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 4:43 AM

Quote:
But the subject of the thread was to be the value of the american fiat and why it always decreases. Rue would have us believe that it happens because the wealthy collect more fiat than the poor do.

Economics is absolutely NOT my forte, so maybe you need to put this in cap'n-dummy talk. Asking why the value of money always decreases is the same as asking why the prices of goods always increases, isn't it?

And would the value of the money decrease if there were a set amount in circulation, and no more? Or would it hold steady or even increase a bit due to its now "limited" availability.

Seems to me printing more of it drives down the worth of what's already out there, which in turn causes prices to go up, which means I now need more of it, so I demand a raise, as does everyone else, and the fed decides to print more money to feed the beast. And so the cycle starts all over again. Inflation-adjusted, I'm actually making less than I was 10 years ago, even though I'm making more in terms of actual dollars earned. It just buys less now. Of course, an ounce of gold then cost less than it does today, but if you sold it to buy something, my bet is you'd still end up with the same purchasing power from that gold.

I'm just sayin'.

Like I say, I don't pretend to get economics. One thing I have learned, though, is that while it's fun to say "soak the rich" and "screw the rich", when it happens, it's always the poor who get hurt so much more. If you have a billion dollars and lose 90% of it, you've still got a hundred million; you'll probably be okay. You're not missing too many Happy Meals. If you've got a thousand dollars to your name and lose 90% of it, you're pretty well screwed. If you've got a hundred to start with, you're worth more dead.

Anyhoo... It's late, I'm rambling, and I'm off to bed.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 4:52 AM

Quote:
I've heard all the arguments about how we should ignore the value of any currency and live our lives like star trek. That cannot work unless the overwhelming majority of the population becomes enlightened which will never happen. The human species is hardwired to hoard and survive. Only a scant few can rise above it with thought.

Dang, and here I was almost in bed... and I had to keep reading!

BSCM, if this is true, then you're fighting a battle you've already lost. You're trying to "enlighten" us, while admitting that the overwhelming majority of the population can never be enlightened. If that's so, why waste your time?

And if hoarding is inevitable, then it doesn't matter what your currency is backed with, because once one person has hoarded it all, then in a very real sense it's worthless to everyone else, because they have none, and it's worthless to the one who has it all, because there's nothing more he needs that can be bought with this currency. Others will have moved to something else that they can trade amongst themselves as currency.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 5:00 AM

Quote:
You often ask for real world examples. Look to Zimbabwe. Their national equity was already small because they were a third world nation. Their borrowing was no place near as large as the US's but in scale to their equity it was bad enough.

So I have to ask, by way of clarification, and not just to be dickish...

Do you have the same problem with corporations borrowing these huge piles of "not-money", or is it just governments do it that it grinds your gears?

Reason I ask is, some of the Wall Street giants had borrowed, through their sale and use of CDOs and CDSs, far more than the GDP of the U.S., far more than the value of the entire U.S. stock market, and far more than the national debt. Doesn't this enormous debt of "fiat money" further teeter the U.S. economy over the brink, or is this what has been holding us all up for the last several years?

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

FREMDFIRMA

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 8:01 AM

Quote:
Isn't "FIAT money" what we're going to be using to buy Chryslers in a couple weeks?

Ouch, that's downright painful...

I place Fiat in the same quality category as Renault, which gave us one of the worst cars in history, the Renault Alliance.

My mother bought one of those shitheaps on the reccommendation of (bought and paid for) outstanding "reviews" in auto mags, and it spent so much time in the shop the neighbors thought the dealer loaner WAS our car, and it being an Alliance as well, THAT broke down twice and they had to bring us ANOTHER loaner while they fixed that heap too.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/high_performance/best_wo
rst_lists/dishonorable_mention_the_10_most_embarrassing_award_winners_in_automotive_history_feature

Then there was "Le Carcass", which was a Renault Le Car a friend got on the cheap from a junkyard, which more or less came apart four days later in the parking lot of the school, and remained there all year - for all I know the damn thing is STILL there.

Fiat's the same crap, and while I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a Fiat 500R, the hell if imma pay 20k for a piece of shit worth maybe 4k.

All I need is a tiny little box with an engine in it to carry groceries anyhows, yanno ?

Oh, and I did once get to drive a Yugo, a fellow trooper was backing out of a parking spot in the PX after drill, and the gearshift snapped out of place with such velocity that it broke her arm quite badly - and I wound up having to drive that little horror for her, one hand FIRMLY holding that damn gear lever in place the whole time.

Apparently that was a common occurance with them, and later the plant was converted to making Ak-47's, which is why it was bombed, but given the average quality of THAT plant, and the likelyhood they could even screw up a Kalishnikov (and that AIN'T easy!) we prolly did em a favor.

Tomos quality has gone downhill ever since they replaced the Golden Bullet and it's indestructible A3 engine with the crappy A5 and even worse A55 in current use - one of the ways they saved money was replacing the real clutch pads (70,000 miles) used in the A3 with three tiny little strips of CORK, yes, corkboard cork (4,000miles, IF that) in the A5 engine.

They also cut the gear teeth square, dead on instead of angled like the A3 which increased wear and tear and shifts quite poorly when you're depending on those clutches and tiny strips of chewed up cork in a damn centrifugal clutch.

And of course, a lighter, but far more fragile piston with wispy-thin rings that don't last for shit - the only benefit the A5 had was a reed valve, and you could retrofit an A3 with one by using an A3N intake, or the custom side mount I use to avoid having to drop the whole damn engine to tune the carb or change jets.

Just for reference, so you get an idea of the insanity of tuning on these little bitty things - here's two vids of a hot rodded Puch Maxi with the Metrakit, bear in mind that I can catch that with a Tomos Airsal despite him having 10cc's on me, cause his HP is mostly at the bottom, and mine are all at the top.

-F

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 11:47 AM

Fremmie, if you need a box to haul groceries with, and you like the Smart ForTwo, I've got just the thing for you. May I present the Smart Diablo...

Enjoy.

BLUESUNCOMPANYMAN

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 3:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
I think the word you're looking for is "immutable".

"An F in English? But that's unpossible!" - Ralph Wiggum

Color me blessed to be the beneficiary of professor Kwicko's red pen.

KWICKO

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 5:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bluesuncompanyman:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
I think the word you're looking for is "immutable".
"An F in English? But that's unpossible!" - Ralph Wiggum

Color me blessed to be the beneficiary of professor Kwicko's red pen.

I love Ralphie Wiggum!

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT PAGE