"ricochetboy" <philzberg@e...> wrote:
We have untold millions living in poverty.
We have 36 million living in poverty. See the graph at
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty03/pov03fig03.pdf. The "war on
poverty" in the 1960s reduced the poverty rate from over 20% to under 15%,
where it remains. Meanwhile, the material standard of living of people
classified as "poor" has been steadily improving. According to a Heritage
Foundation <http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm> study:
* Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own
homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census
Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a
porch or patio.
* Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By
contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population
enjoyed air conditioning.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than
two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the average
individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities
throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign
countries, not to those classified as poor.)
* Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own
two or more cars.
* Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television;
over half own two or more color televisions.
* Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have
cable or satellite TV reception.
* Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a
stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
adjusted for inflation the loss of
wealth from the recession from 1966 to 1982 was
as severe as the great depression.
Yes, the percentage drop in the inflation-adjusted Dow from 1966 to 1982 was
comparable to that between 1929 and 1933, but it's a mistake to call the
former period a recession. A recession is two consecutive quarters of
declining GDP. From 1929 to 1933, real GDP declined 26%, whereas from 1966
to 1982 real GDP increased 53%. You can try to distort and cherry-pick the
data to fit your apocalyptic visions, but the facts of long-term prosperity
are indisputable. Just look at real GDP per capita since 1900
(The First Measured Century: Book: Section 14.1), or the inflation-adjusted Dow
since 1900 (http://www.dogsofthedow.com/dow1925cpilog.htm). And as I said
earlier: to understand the historical returns to equities since 1871 without
cherry-picking, see http://www.vakkur.com/financial/spx_real_rtns_1871.htm.
There has never been a 30-year period with negative real returns, and more
than 90% of 20-year periods have had positive returns.
It is true that Bretton Woods succeeded in increasing the
wealth of the finacial and government classes in the US to a far
greater degree than could ever have been omagined or planned in
1944.
Mere assertion, no data.
By making the US dollar the worlds standrd of value, the Fed has
been anle to dilute the coin of the realm for sixty years and pass
the resulting inflation onto the rest of the world
Mere assertion, no data.
This enabled a tremendous
trandfer of wealth tothe american finacial elite and it's governmemnt
benefactor. The continuous debasement of the currencypunished savers
and rewarded debtors worldwide, but especially in the US. Viet Nam was
funded this way, as is Iraq.
Mere assertion, no data.
the currency has been significantly overvalued for a very
long time,and this has contributed to the declinein the manufacturing
base.
A truism teetering on an unsubstantiated assertion.
The US is now runnig a 6 percent current account deficit which is
unsustainablw.
I already responded to this, and blogged the response as point 2 at
Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos.
we may continue
to prosper despote the predation of continuous monetary debasement.
A "debasement" that I already pointed out is invisible in a quarter century
of gold price data.
The fed , if it wants
to keep long term rates from rising dramatically will bave t montize,
is buy long term treasuries. This is highly inflationary.
We already know U.S. interest rates are going to rise; "dramatically" is
your spin. It's untenable to claim the Fed is going to just throw away the
anti-inflation credibility that it's worked so hard to earn since 1982.
The trillions in overseas US
assets that have silently watched over 40 percent declines since Bush
took office, may finally reach the threshold of pain, and all run for
the exits at once.
Unsourced assertion plus apocalyptic vision.
I would say that the populat hubris that the Fed
can centrally plan the finacil syustem indefinitely now that we are on
a totlal faith based system is a mass delusion bordering ona religion.
The mainstram gold bashers who are legion, have much to gain from the
staus quo, and are at least as Religous as the most pious gold bug.
Thank you for not denying that being a gold bug is a religion. 
By
contrast, the belief that the Fed can continue to provide stable monetary
policy is not based on faith, but on decades of hard data and on the
peer-reviewed consensus of economic science.
P.S. I can't promise I'll bother to keep rebutting your gold-bug postings,
as it's somewhat like debating creationism or JFK assassination conspiracy.
The only reason I do so at all is to limit the damage that gold buggery does
to the intellectual credibility of the LP.
Brian Holtz
Yahoo! Inc.
2004 Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley)
http://marketliberal.org/>
blog: http://knowinghumans.net/>
book: http://humanknowledge.net/>
