My health ins is up 23%; heating bill up 60% but we have low inflation

[Ugnmoose]

What a crock! And people really buy this bullshit? The Govt, Fed and Wall St. would like us to believe inflation is under control. My buddy who is a homebuilder told me that his costs have gone up over 20% in the last year. The only thing that is low right now are long term interest rates so people can still afford to finance the purchase of homes, otherwise the housing industry would go into the toilet. And the only reason this is happening is that the Fed continues to flood the market with bucks. The bond market has it right however, they smell a rat and suspect a recession is around the corner.

Folks, I tell you - better brace for hyperinflation. These fukkers running the show right now are gonna whack us one good. It is the only way they can pay for stealing us blind. They'll just monetize our debt and inflate their way out of it. It's no damn wonder gold prices are going up. Paper currency soon won't be worth the paper its printed on.

[NanceGreggs]

1. Quick 'home-making tip' for the Bush economy ...

Bring your paycheque to the bank, and have it cashed - $1 bills, all of it.

Throw the bills into your fireplace, or some other container.

Light with match, gather the family around and stay warm. (Toast some marshmallows, if you can afford them).

Much cheaper than buying heating oil ...

[Jayhawk Lib]

5. Terrible Economy here in Kansas....nm

[bobbieinok]

16. in Germany in 1923? inflation was so bad people did burn money to keep

warm.....also at one point if you got paid in the morning you had to immediately buy the loaf of bread b/c if you waited bread would cost more than what you were paid in the morning

have you ever seen stamps from this period with horrendous 'costs' stamped over the original price??

[bobbieinok]

18. one internet discussion

http://ingrimayne.saintjoe.edu/econ/EconomicCatastrophe/HyperInflation.html

....

By 1924 the inflation had radically redistributed the wealth of Germany. The segment of society that was hit the hardest seems to have been the middle class. The poor had little wealth to lose while the rich were often able to get their wealth into forms not adversely affected by inflation. Wealth held in foreign bank accounts, gold and precious metals, and land maintained value.

If redistribution were the only effect of inflation, one could argue that it is not a serious problem. Since for every loser, there is a winner, society as a whole may break even (if this redistribution is not seen as being too "unfair"). However, inflation also makes ordinary decisions more difficult to make, and it causes people to change their behavior. The changes in behavior, which cause social losses, are again dramatically illustrated in a hyperinflation.

Coping with a situation in which prices could double in a day meant changes in the way people organized their financial affairs. Wages were paid daily or several times a day, and the whole family would immediately go out and spend the money before it lost value. In The Black Obelisk, a novel set in 1923, Erich Maria Remarque describes this practice:

"Workmen are given their pay twice a day now--in the morning and in the afternoon, with a recess of a half-hour each time so that they can rush out and buy things--for if they waited a few hours the value of their money would drop so far that their children would not get half enough food to feel satisfied."2
Getting rid of money was the key to financial survival since it lost its value so quickly.

Merchants eventually found that they could not mark up prices as fast as they were rising.

"So they left the price marks as they were and posted (hourly) a new multiplication factor. The actual price marked on the goods had to be multiplied by this factor to determine the price which had to be paid for the goods. Every hour the merchant would call up the bank and receive the latest quotation upon the dollar. He would then alter his multiplication factor to suit and would perhaps add a bit in anticipation of the next quotation. Banks had whole batteries of telephone boys who answered each call as follows: '100 milliarden, bitte sehr, guten Tag.' Which meant: 'The present quotation on the dollar is 100 billion marks, thank you, good day.'"3

The great inflation led to a large waste of society's resources. Just coping with the rapid change required resources--the extra bank clerks that Bopp mentions are but one example. Talented people no longer tried to earn money by productive activity, but sought ways to stay ahead of inflation, an activity unlikely to have any social benefits. Fortunes were made by those who speculated on the continued worsening of inflation. People who borrowed heavily almost always did well.

more....

[bobbieinok]

20. another discussion

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/5373/notgeld/1923life.htm

....

The inflation peaked in 1923 where for the last 5 months it was a staggering 300 million percent. When the inflation was finally stopped by the introduction of the Rentenmark on 16th November 1923, the exchange rate was 4.2 trillion marks to the US dollar - ie 4,200,000,000,000 marks.

Effects of the Inflation
Prices and incomes changed daily. A former student recalls: "One fine day, I dropped into a café to have a cup of coffee. As I went in I noted that the price was say 5,000 marks - just about what I had in my pocket. I sat down, read my paper, drank my coffee and spent altogether one hour on the café, and then asked for the bill. The waiter duly presented me with the bill for 8,000 marks. 'Why 8,000 marks?' I asked? The mark had dropped in the meantime I was told. The 'index' based on the dollar exchange rate had altered so much that the price had gone up by 60% while I was sitting at the table. So I gave the waiter all the money I had - and he was generous enough to leave it at that."

People who did not convert their savings into tangible assets (or Sachwerte) lost them. Pensions became worthless, the middle class was by and large reduced to poverty. Many starved to death. Conditions were so harsh that people even ate dog meat: around 20,000 dogs were slaughtered for human consumption in 1923 alone.

Typical is the case of a bank which, unwilling to keep open an account with 68,000 Marks, informed the customer that it was to be closed. "Since we have no banknotes in small enough denominations at our disposal, we have rounded up the sum to 1 million marks. Enclosed: one 1 million mark note."


more....

[bobbieinok]

22. a stamp

http://www.stamporama.com/exhibits/roy/germinfl.shtml

[Art_from_Ark]

24. You think that's bad, in the early 1990s in Serbia

inflation was so bad that they were printing banknotes in denominations of 500,000,000,000 dinars-- and even then, these super-super-inflated notes eventually became worthless.

[shaniqua6392]

2. I just heard an interesting statistic yesterday....

it said that in 2005 approximately 1 out of every 53 Americans filed bankruptcy. They keep saying that the economy is growing stronger every day and they can not figure out why the poll numbers do not reflect that. Duh. The economy sucks all over and it is horrible here in Michigan.

[CatholicEdHead]

12. They base it on only on Wall Street, not main street

as Wall Street bonuses hit a record $21.5 BILLION last year.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Yup

They fixed the inflation problem by revising the way they collected statistics such that all of the shit that really costs a lot that you really need to have is not counted. Voila - inflation solved. Meanwhile our real purchasing power gets lower and lower and lower.

[Ugnmoose]

4. Got one better

The Fed will no longer be publishing M3, the data that show the money supply. Why? Because they want to cover up the fact that they flooding the country with new dollars. On the one hand they tell us they are raising short term rates to curb inflation, on the other hand the s.o.b's are the ones creating it.

[PDJane]

6. They're counting on the rest of the world

NOT to let the US economy tank, because it will take a lot of folks down with it. After all, the 5% of the population that lives in the US consumes so much of world production, they figure the world will let them down easy.

Since almost everyone is diversifying to Euros, including the Iranian Oil Bourse, I'm not sure that's going to be the case.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. How else can they possibly keep it going?

It really isn't rocket science. We are running 400B+ deficit annually and the boomers are starting to ask for their SS pensions and their medicare benefits. It is crunch time in america. Lets cut some more taxes and print some more dineros. Way to go team bush!

[leftofthedial]

8. check out food too.

and my cable bill went up about 11%

and my homeowners ass'n dues went up about 8%

utilities, gas, food, health insurance . . .

what the hell IS included in the repuke economic propaganda ministry definition of inflation anyway?

[oscar111]

11. 'INFLATION IN THE NECESSITIES" is the stat yu want

A progressive group used to provide it years back, forget the name. Google inflation in the necessities.

Used food, rent and the like. exactly what you seek.

BTW, US wealth totals one hundred nine Trillion.

for source, details, see Demopedia page CAPITAL, link bottom this page. Few know this stat, but all you DU'ers ought to.

[rzemanfl]

9. The escrow on my house payment is up almost $200.00 a month

over the past two years because I have to insure my home's inflated value and because of all the hurricanes.

[bluestateguy]

10. The Bush Administration controls the agency that provides the statistics

So I don't pay any attention to the statistics that THEY PROVIDE on inflation, GDP, unemployment, or for that matter, military recruiting.

The people in the relevant data collecting agencies are all under the control of Bushco, so they numbers that they provide aren't worth the paper they're written on.

[AX10]

13. The Bush Labor Department and Treasury control what numbers...

we see. Figure it out.

[Mike Niendorff]

14. standard "gold bug" sky-is-falling rhetoric

> Folks, I tell you - better brace for hyperinflation. These fukkers running the show right now are gonna whack us
> one good. It is the only way they can pay for stealing us blind. They'll just monetize our debt and inflate their way
> out of it. It's no damn wonder gold prices are going up. Paper currency soon won't be worth the paper its printed
> on.

The gold bugs have been saying this for more than half a century, and they'll still be saying it a half century from now, waiting for the sky to fall (tomorrow! for sure! buy gold!)

It's like evangelicals waiting for Jesus to return. It's "any day now", "just around the corner", "all the signs are there" ... etc.

It's a conclusion perpetually in search of a justification.

Be careful when you see it being grafted onto other causes.


MDN

[Ugnmoose]

26. Where the hell have you been the past two years

Have you not seen the price of gold double? And guess who are now the big buyers of gold - none other than the Chinese.

When people lose faith in the underlying value of a currency they run to gold. I would say that the smart money knows the jig is up and that the only thing backing our currency right now is the fact that we are still the fiat global currency and everyone is deathly afraid to rock the boat for fear of creating a global financial collapse.

[genieroze]

15. Check out the price of food lately? OUCH!!!!

[Lorien]

23. I was just thinking of that. Spent $41 at the grocery yesterday

the same products cost less than $30 a year or so ago. It's unfreakingbelievable!

[genieroze]

25. There was a box of Lipton tea and it was eight bucks! I bought the

generic for 2 bucks. There was pasta sauce for seven bucks, FOR ONE JAR!:mad:

[SPKrazy]

17. Same here, insurance and health care costs go up every year

deductibles go up

energy prices go up ($200 gas bill after putting in fuel efficient heater!)

Inflation is rampant.

I think even the Federal reserve has noticed this.

[Habibi]

19. Right there with you

If my health insurance goes up again next year, I'm going to have to switch to something that provides less coverage, unless I get another part-time job to supplement my current job. And maybe I'll study herbology, and forget about living to 85.

All I can say is: thank god for global warming this year--it's keeping the gas bill manageable here in upstate NY.

[Deja Q]

21. No good deed goes unpunished.

I'm still pissed over NAFTA; never mind Selection 2000 (the epithet is valid, regardless of who would have won).