The word of the day is Bifurcation-buy and pay later, where is Alfred E Neuman when we need him the most. We live in a world where corruption is rewarded and honesty becomes a sacrifice.
So true. It's not a mistake that the world started spiralling out of control when MAD magazine and National Lampoon went away. Even The Onion was wokified. Once we stopped laughing at ourselves, everything was lost.
If I'm not wrong, that Executive Order is still in effect, too. When I was a kid, gold and silver certificates were still in circulation, and coins were 75% silver until 1965, I believe. I've even held in my sweaty little hands a box full of $100,000 gold bonds, worth about $3.2 million. Since 1913, the wealth of an entire nation has been completely gutted, and no one seems to care or even realize it. And now, even the paper is going away, and hitting the "ENTER" key can make anyone filthy rich or flat broke. Ain't it grand!
You rent, we own. I very much believe you're right about that order being in effect, even now. Wartime (lawless) economy is a bankster's best friend, aside from war itself, corporations, and governments. Who bow and scrape to the bloody neon gods they make. Monopoly isn't just a game. It's war against the people whose shoulders the oligarchy stands on.
It seems Daddy Warbucks, er...Trump has bought into the whole game, assuming he was ever outside it. Somewhere there is a family tree of corporations, and when you view it, everything makes sense. They are all owned and operated by a tiny group of people, though from down here, it looks competitive and diverse. It's all a fraud run by generational hucksters for the sole benefit of a handful of "power brokers". George Carlin put it best.
Don't have much to say about all of that except one does need to take control of their financial situation. Something I had to learn the hard way, but found that when I came out the otherside, I always had enough for my NEEDs. Yes, I do use a couple of credit cards on a regular basis, but pay the balance in full every month (no interest for the bankers that way). Probably spend more on feeding all the critters than any other monthly expense, and own most of the ranch free and clear, while the rest will be payed off early by the end of this year. Of course, I drive a long payed off 20 year old car and an ex forest service 09 PU truck, so no extravagant auto loans (and even more interest for the MAN. Again, becoming aware of the differences between wants and needs is in my opinion the key to financial security, and my little social security check and VA disability are enough to make ends meet and even put a little bullion away once in a while.
It's amazing how much we can save after getting out of the credit trap. It wasn't easy, and too a few months of no-frills living, but the payoff has been worth it. Mrs. FarSide socks away a little gold and silver every month, and I save my pennies to buy some crypto once in a while. Our investments have done quite well over the past 5 years. Even if we had no health insurance, we could still afford major surgery (Zeus forbid) if that were to happen. Credit is the biggest life-sucking killer out there. No matter how cheap you buy something on credit, after you calculate the interest, it's no bargain at all.
Every time I get a little down when the skies get painted by those silver streaks crop dusting us, I like to turn on the "Big short" for a little shot of happiness. Even the moonshine has lost its zip! Must be that GMO corn-Oh well thank the MIC.
Hard to find good 'shine any more. I miss a warm jug of squeezin's. Now you got me wanting to set up a still again. A little pisca distilled from homemade wine...now there's a kick in the pants!
Indeed it is. I see silver at $93 this morning. It really is a good movie, and it surprised me because I didn't think it would be that good from the log line and plot description. And as you note, the story is timeless.
I suspect there is another issue in the income measure. Much of the poor (a rapidly growing segment of the economy from what I can see) are not in the measuring stick, driving the average up, I suspect. All that you discussed is very pertinent and accurate. I just suspect the "black" market is hiding a lot of low numbers that would drag the average down.
Black and grey markets, including barter, disguises a lot of economic activity. By its nature, those sorts of transactions are hard to quantify, so we are locked into the published numbers to analyze these things, but I think the story is the same with modest modifications. For many years, I deliberately lived outside the "mainstream" economy. Obviously, a great number of people have fallen out of the mainstream in recent years, and perforce we have to roll them up in the black and grey markets. Good points.
Exceptional breakdown of the purchasing power paradox. The housing multiplier shift from 2.2x to 6x median income is what really drives the squeeze, everything else compounds from there. I've watched friends in tech making solid six figures still struggle with homeownership in HCOL areas, which would've been unthinkable in 1960. The credit trap feedback loop you describe, where easy acces to debt inflates inelastic goods prices, is basically the entire modern economy in a nutshell.
From my research, I have to agree...the eye of the storm is housing. Back in the day, folks bought houses for cash, or at most had a 10-year mortgage. Recently, I've heard talk of a 5-year mortgage. Insane. And that feeds into the foundation of the entire economy. Just an example: my father bought a 4-story, 7-bedroom, 3-1/2 bath house with formals, a large swimming pool, and a 3-car garage with a 1-bedroom garage apartment 5 minutes from downtown Houston for $55,000 in 1968. He sold it 20 years later for over a million. That, my friend, is lunacy.
In 1981 my full-time tuition at Memphis State University was $256/semester, or $512/yr. That's $1814.72 in today's money. I still have the receipt. My rent was $68/month, or $816/yr, or $2892.21 in today's dollars. I didn't really have any food costs because I worked in a restaurant and they fed us for free.
In 2025, my daughter's full-time tuition at Georgia Southern is $7,144. Housing & food: $11,492.
So, $1814 vs $7144 for tuition/fees, and $2893 vs $11,492 for living expenses.
My tuition in 1982 was about $700/semester with fees and books, at University of Houston. Similar story. I remember paying $125/month rent for a 2-bedroom in Albuquerque in 1981. I certainly can't help it make sense, all I can do is point out exactly how nuts it is. By contrast, my daughter's tuition here in Jakarta was $400/semester all in 10 years ago. My rent is $4,000/year on a 2-story, 2-bedroom near city center. We grow a lot of veggies and fruit on the porch, so most of the food costs are for protein and fats, which are high by local standards, but eye-bulgingly low by US/EU standards. Up in the mountains, I can buy a kilo of avocadoes for $1.25, for example. It's about $5 in the city. The annual property tax on the mountain house is $25, and there's no inheritance/death tax. Socialized healthcare costs $2.50/month, but that's a different story. Maybe you should move here. :)
I would rather dangle by my yarbles over the Abyss. I got a taste of that world doing a couple of IPOs, and it made me feel filthy. I'm still scrubbing the stain off my soul.
Keep an eye on the silver market, 16th Jan Options expire-19th is a holiday, but Shanghai is still open where the real silver market is going to burst. The CME is probably going take a vacation and suspend paper trading for a 24th hour cooling period. The hot war is heating up, as China dumped 1/2 trillion$ of US debt! The greenland urgency is totally exposed, as is Ven and Iran
All for control of silver for You and Me and my new EV
The word of the day is Bifurcation-buy and pay later, where is Alfred E Neuman when we need him the most. We live in a world where corruption is rewarded and honesty becomes a sacrifice.
So true. It's not a mistake that the world started spiralling out of control when MAD magazine and National Lampoon went away. Even The Onion was wokified. Once we stopped laughing at ourselves, everything was lost.
Remember how FDR stole American's gold in order to save the banks? Purchasing power......
If I'm not wrong, that Executive Order is still in effect, too. When I was a kid, gold and silver certificates were still in circulation, and coins were 75% silver until 1965, I believe. I've even held in my sweaty little hands a box full of $100,000 gold bonds, worth about $3.2 million. Since 1913, the wealth of an entire nation has been completely gutted, and no one seems to care or even realize it. And now, even the paper is going away, and hitting the "ENTER" key can make anyone filthy rich or flat broke. Ain't it grand!
You rent, we own. I very much believe you're right about that order being in effect, even now. Wartime (lawless) economy is a bankster's best friend, aside from war itself, corporations, and governments. Who bow and scrape to the bloody neon gods they make. Monopoly isn't just a game. It's war against the people whose shoulders the oligarchy stands on.
It seems Daddy Warbucks, er...Trump has bought into the whole game, assuming he was ever outside it. Somewhere there is a family tree of corporations, and when you view it, everything makes sense. They are all owned and operated by a tiny group of people, though from down here, it looks competitive and diverse. It's all a fraud run by generational hucksters for the sole benefit of a handful of "power brokers". George Carlin put it best.
Don't have much to say about all of that except one does need to take control of their financial situation. Something I had to learn the hard way, but found that when I came out the otherside, I always had enough for my NEEDs. Yes, I do use a couple of credit cards on a regular basis, but pay the balance in full every month (no interest for the bankers that way). Probably spend more on feeding all the critters than any other monthly expense, and own most of the ranch free and clear, while the rest will be payed off early by the end of this year. Of course, I drive a long payed off 20 year old car and an ex forest service 09 PU truck, so no extravagant auto loans (and even more interest for the MAN. Again, becoming aware of the differences between wants and needs is in my opinion the key to financial security, and my little social security check and VA disability are enough to make ends meet and even put a little bullion away once in a while.
It's amazing how much we can save after getting out of the credit trap. It wasn't easy, and too a few months of no-frills living, but the payoff has been worth it. Mrs. FarSide socks away a little gold and silver every month, and I save my pennies to buy some crypto once in a while. Our investments have done quite well over the past 5 years. Even if we had no health insurance, we could still afford major surgery (Zeus forbid) if that were to happen. Credit is the biggest life-sucking killer out there. No matter how cheap you buy something on credit, after you calculate the interest, it's no bargain at all.
Amen Brother
Every time I get a little down when the skies get painted by those silver streaks crop dusting us, I like to turn on the "Big short" for a little shot of happiness. Even the moonshine has lost its zip! Must be that GMO corn-Oh well thank the MIC.
Hard to find good 'shine any more. I miss a warm jug of squeezin's. Now you got me wanting to set up a still again. A little pisca distilled from homemade wine...now there's a kick in the pants!
One of my fave go-to flicks! It's never out of style. It's happening in silver right now.
Indeed it is. I see silver at $93 this morning. It really is a good movie, and it surprised me because I didn't think it would be that good from the log line and plot description. And as you note, the story is timeless.
I suspect there is another issue in the income measure. Much of the poor (a rapidly growing segment of the economy from what I can see) are not in the measuring stick, driving the average up, I suspect. All that you discussed is very pertinent and accurate. I just suspect the "black" market is hiding a lot of low numbers that would drag the average down.
Black and grey markets, including barter, disguises a lot of economic activity. By its nature, those sorts of transactions are hard to quantify, so we are locked into the published numbers to analyze these things, but I think the story is the same with modest modifications. For many years, I deliberately lived outside the "mainstream" economy. Obviously, a great number of people have fallen out of the mainstream in recent years, and perforce we have to roll them up in the black and grey markets. Good points.
That's why I stick to that warm jug of squeezin juice!
Rumors are that JPM is sitting on 1 billion ounces of SHORT positioning!
I can hear the bone-crunching squeeze from here, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.
Exceptional breakdown of the purchasing power paradox. The housing multiplier shift from 2.2x to 6x median income is what really drives the squeeze, everything else compounds from there. I've watched friends in tech making solid six figures still struggle with homeownership in HCOL areas, which would've been unthinkable in 1960. The credit trap feedback loop you describe, where easy acces to debt inflates inelastic goods prices, is basically the entire modern economy in a nutshell.
From my research, I have to agree...the eye of the storm is housing. Back in the day, folks bought houses for cash, or at most had a 10-year mortgage. Recently, I've heard talk of a 5-year mortgage. Insane. And that feeds into the foundation of the entire economy. Just an example: my father bought a 4-story, 7-bedroom, 3-1/2 bath house with formals, a large swimming pool, and a 3-car garage with a 1-bedroom garage apartment 5 minutes from downtown Houston for $55,000 in 1968. He sold it 20 years later for over a million. That, my friend, is lunacy.
In 1981 my full-time tuition at Memphis State University was $256/semester, or $512/yr. That's $1814.72 in today's money. I still have the receipt. My rent was $68/month, or $816/yr, or $2892.21 in today's dollars. I didn't really have any food costs because I worked in a restaurant and they fed us for free.
In 2025, my daughter's full-time tuition at Georgia Southern is $7,144. Housing & food: $11,492.
So, $1814 vs $7144 for tuition/fees, and $2893 vs $11,492 for living expenses.
Someone please make this make sense.
My tuition in 1982 was about $700/semester with fees and books, at University of Houston. Similar story. I remember paying $125/month rent for a 2-bedroom in Albuquerque in 1981. I certainly can't help it make sense, all I can do is point out exactly how nuts it is. By contrast, my daughter's tuition here in Jakarta was $400/semester all in 10 years ago. My rent is $4,000/year on a 2-story, 2-bedroom near city center. We grow a lot of veggies and fruit on the porch, so most of the food costs are for protein and fats, which are high by local standards, but eye-bulgingly low by US/EU standards. Up in the mountains, I can buy a kilo of avocadoes for $1.25, for example. It's about $5 in the city. The annual property tax on the mountain house is $25, and there's no inheritance/death tax. Socialized healthcare costs $2.50/month, but that's a different story. Maybe you should move here. :)
Great economics article. With Buffet gone, maybe send your resume' to Berkshire Hathaway.
I would rather dangle by my yarbles over the Abyss. I got a taste of that world doing a couple of IPOs, and it made me feel filthy. I'm still scrubbing the stain off my soul.
Keep an eye on the silver market, 16th Jan Options expire-19th is a holiday, but Shanghai is still open where the real silver market is going to burst. The CME is probably going take a vacation and suspend paper trading for a 24th hour cooling period. The hot war is heating up, as China dumped 1/2 trillion$ of US debt! The greenland urgency is totally exposed, as is Ven and Iran
All for control of silver for You and Me and my new EV