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Paul Grignon's Money as Debt

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 11/02/2012 - 15:26

 

A couple of weeks ago Zero Hedge posted it's list of the top 15 "Economic Truth" documentaries.

We've been methodically grinding through them.

I think we'll probably post them all as so far I've liked every one of the eight I've sat through.

If you don't want to wait for me, hit the little gear above and watch them all back to back to back.

The following video, Money as Debt 1 a short animated documentery by Paul Grignon explains just what exactly money is and where it comes from.

Hint, mostly it ain't the mint.

I know you think you know what money is, and maybe you do, but you may not know where it comes from.

At 47 minutes it's about all I can handle in one sitting.

Way double highly recommended.

 

 

To quote Milton Friedman over and and over and ...

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 05:16

Governments never learn.  Only people learn.
 
We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
 
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. 
 
According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so.  Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
 
Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.
 
The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.
 
The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.
 
So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible?  And my answer to that is, no they do not.
 
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.
 
What kind of society isn't structured on greed?  The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.
 
History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom.
 
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.
 
The black market a way of getting around government controls.  It was a way of enabling the free market to work.  It was a way of opening up, enabling people.
 
Most economic fallacies derive - from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
 
Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.
 
 

GDP = C + I + G + (X-M)

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 09/23/2010 - 06:25

 

So anyway, I'm at a fundraiser last night for one of the local guys running for a local office, just standing around minding my own business and only about half listening to the conversation when somebody says, "How the hell is GDP calculated anyway?"

And then then they all turn and look at me.

Huh?

So ...... being me, I made something up about total industrial something plus savings and something but really all that matters is something having to do with always making sure they do it the same way every time.

Then I said something about the cannolis being really good and I'm going to go over and get me another one.

That was a close one.

So ..... still being me, I got up at 4:10 this morning and looked it up.

Just to make sure this kind of thing never happens to you.

Say, "Thank you Uncle Roany."

 

GDP = C + I + G + (X-M)

 

Where GDP is Gross Domestic Product.

C is consumption.

I is Investment.

G is Government Spending.

X is Exports.

M is Imports (The I having been already taken).

 

You're welcome.

 

Empire State Manufacturing

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 09/19/2010 - 10:27

 

From EconomPicData with analysis from The Street.

EconomPicData operates a little like we do around here.

The difference being that we are a lot more random, Jake is primarily interested in ... well? ... economic data ... pics.

Recommended.

 

The New York Federal Reserve's key manufacturing index that measures activity in the New York region came up short Wednesday morning.

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey index dropped 3 points to 4.1 for early September, after rising 2 points for a reading of 7.1 in August.

Economists expected the index to decline to a reading of 6.4, according to Briefing.com, though any reading above zero indicates growth.

 

 

Two Points of View

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 08/10/2010 - 07:07

 

An editorial from CNN Money the title of which pretty much explains it all.

Click anywhere below for the entire story.

A 30 second read, easy, small words.

Apologies for snide editorialization.

I'm starting to crack.

 

Raise taxes now -- the elders of the economy say so

Because, as we all know, all these guys really know what they're doing.

By Lex Haris, managing editor 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- First it was Greenspan. Now one by one other elders of the economy are speaking out against deficits, and they're making the surprising argument for higher taxes.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was first and has taken the most extreme position, arguing that all of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 should be allowed to expire.

 

Greenspan, no fan of big government and an initial backer of the Bush tax cuts, allows that higher taxes now could lead to slower economic growth, but has said that chipping away at the deficit is more important.

 

Joining him -- at varying degrees -- are David Stockman, former budget director in the Reagan White House, and former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Paul O'Neill.

 

 

From The Wall Street Journal 8/10/2010, a letter from Michael P. Fleischer, president of Bogan Communications Inc of Ramsey, New Jersey.

Click anywhere below to link up Mr. Fleischer's letter.

Not a very tough read, recommended.


 

Why I'm Not Hiring

 

When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits.


By MICHAEL P. FLEISCHER

With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it's going to be later—much later. Here's why.

Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy).

Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings.

She's been with us for over 15 years. She's a high school graduate with some specialized training.

She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.

It's the arithmetic stupid. 

A letter to the WSJ from a guy in Eastpointe

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 06/16/2010 - 06:12

 

I like it a lot when the local guy steps up.

The letter below from Mark Maisonneuve of Eastpointe (formerly East Detroit, formerly Halfway) Michigan, was written in response to an op-ed written by Daniel B. Klein and published in the Wall Street Journal a week or so ago under the following title.

The original op-ed is recommended.

I liked the letter even better.  

 

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

  

Prof. Klein's survey results provide an important insight into the reason liberals and progressives, including President Barack Obama, are so obsessed with fairness over growth.
They truly do not understand how wealth is created and therefore believe it is largely a matter of luck.
In that case, it is only reasonable to transfer wealth from the lucky to the unlucky.
Relentless education about the idea that luck is only a small part relative to hard work, ingenuity and rewards is a desperately needed antidote.
Mark Maisonneuve,  Eastpointe, Mich.
 
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