The Choice: Immediate Systemic Collapse or Printin

[traelin0]

The Choice: Immediate Systemic Collapse or Printing More Dollars

In his latest interview with The Gold Report, Shadowstats founder and leading contrarian economist John Williams says hard assets, namely gold, will be insurance against the coming economic Armageddon. Williams and Gold Report’s Karen Roche discuss a host of topics from government statistics to the coming economic meltdown.

On Government Statistics

The way I describe the economy is that it started turning down in 2007, plunged throughout 2008 into 2009. Basically, it has been bottom bouncing ever since. I’d caution anyone that we’re seeing extraordinary distortions in economic reporting, due primarily to the system never having been designed to handle a downturn of this severity. Post-WWII economic reporting is based on the presumption of ongoing economic growth and is seasonally adjusted. In tracking payroll employment for example, the assumption is that if a reporting company doesn’t report, it is still in business, so the government will impute what they think would have been reported. They theorize that any jobs lost through companies going out of business generally are more than offset by jobs being created by the companies that haven’t reported.

We’ve repeatedly warned that the government statistics are manipulated, sometimes on purposes, sometimes because the people compiling the numbers suffer from normalcy bias. Whatever the case, the economic picture is not as rosy as we’ve been told, and unemployment statistics are a clear sign of this. The official government unemployment rate, the one cited by the news media and optimism opium smoking sheeple, is 9.8%. The real number of unemployed, including all those who are counted as officially no longer looking for work and those who have fallen off unemployment benefits (i.e. the 99ers), is closer to 22% according to John Williams.

Read more here.

[Deleted]

I've read these things before and heard economists speak of it. Most people choose to not believe it is true. I believe it, simply because the people I hear talk of it don't seem to be placing blame on one party or the other, just laying out the reality of it. SO-- if you remove the politics from it, why would they lie? Gov't and most MSM tell us what they want us to think, and hope we are stupid enough to believe it.

[vonnie6200]

The real number of unemployed, including all those who are counted as officially no longer looking for work and those who have fallen off unemployment benefits (i.e. the 99ers), is closer to 22% according to John Williams.

Read more: notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=politicaleconomic&action=display&thread=2571#ixzz1CS0FESy5

Isn't this close to the % during the Great Depression?

[fairlycrazy23]

A lot of people just don't know enough about how it all works, don't have the faintest idea what fraction reserve banking is, or that there are two main kinds of debt held by the government, or what it means 'for the FED to set the interest rate'

[traelin0]

Jan 29, 2011 13:35:11 GMT -5 vonnie6200 said:

The real number of unemployed, including all those who are counted as officially no longer looking for work and those who have fallen off unemployment benefits (i.e. the 99ers), is closer to 22% according to John Williams.

Read more: notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=politicaleconomic&action=display&thread=2571#ixzz1CS0FESy5

Isn't this close to the % during the Great Depression?

Not really. John Williams has talked about the fact that way more people during the GD were on farms, so the true UE percentage back then was more like 35% in today's terms. Everything was based on sampling estimates prior to 1940 because massive UE like this was unheard of, and I would argue because we didn't have an out of control central bank before 1913.

For instance, the Panic of 1837 and the Long Depression of 1873-, the worst in our history before the GD (although some say 1920 was pretty bad), had peak unemployments (measured the way John Williams does) of 11%, and that was when the initial panics hit. The mean was lower.

[fairlycrazy23]

The Federal reserve has not really done anything positive since its inception, the FDIC on the other hand is good (at least in principle) but that is not part of the FED.

[traelin0]

Jan 29, 2011 14:22:16 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

The Federal reserve has not really done anything positive since its inception, the FDIC on the other hand is good (at least in principle) but that is not part of the FED.

We have had ungodly inflation and the worst economic crises on its watch. It is impossible to do any worse than what these idiots do and it is criminal what they do to the underprivileged via debasement of the dollar.

[fairlycrazy23]

You think inflation is bad now look at this graph of the money supply:

research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/AMBNS

There is a lot of room for prices to still inflate

[traelin0]

Jan 29, 2011 14:42:31 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

You think inflation is bad now look at this graph of the money supply:

research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/AMBNS

There is a lot of room for prices to still inflate

We're exporting most of it. We won't really feel how bad it is until the world repudiates the dollar.

[fairlycrazy23]

Jan 29, 2011 14:47:16 GMT -5 @traelin0 said:

Jan 29, 2011 14:42:31 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

You think inflation is bad now look at this graph of the money supply:

research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/AMBNS

There is a lot of room for prices to still inflate

We're exporting most of it. We won't really feel how bad it is until the world repudiates the dollar.

It is not just that, a lot of the 'new' money was given to banks that are now sitting in deposit on reserve at the fed, so these banks could loan out money (many times greater than the amount they actually have on reserve..see fractional reserve banking, probably next to the listing for insanity). So inflation could probably go up astronomically.

[traelin0]

Jan 29, 2011 14:58:04 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

It is not just that, a lot of the 'new' money was given to banks that are now sitting in deposit on reserve at the fed, so these banks could loan out money (many times greater than the amount they actually have on reserve..see fractional reserve banking, probably next to the listing for insanity). So inflation could probably go up astronomically.

I'm not worried about them using it to expand the money supply because the FED is paying them .15% just to keep it in reserve, and their balance sheets are absolute messes. The real problem is the massive capital outflows from America due to severe loss of confidence in the dollar. That's where the currency-induced cost-push inflation is coming from.

[fairlycrazy23]

Jan 29, 2011 15:14:03 GMT -5 @traelin0 said:

Jan 29, 2011 14:58:04 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

It is not just that, a lot of the 'new' money was given to banks that are now sitting in deposit on reserve at the fed, so these banks could loan out money (many times greater than the amount they actually have on reserve..see fractional reserve banking, probably next to the listing for insanity). So inflation could probably go up astronomically.

I'm not worried about them using it to expand the money supply because the FED is paying them .15% just to keep it in reserve, and their balance sheets are absolute messes. The real problem is the massive capital outflows from America due to severe loss of confidence in the dollar. That's where the currency-induced cost-push inflation is coming from.

Oh yea the FEDS great idea on how to keep banks from lending, we pay them not to lend.

The whole situation is very sticky and complicated and far to interweaved for most people to even begin to understand how all these different things interact.

[traelin0]

Jan 29, 2011 15:43:56 GMT -5 fairlycrazy23 said:

Oh yea the FEDS great idea on how to keep banks from lending, we pay them not to lend.

The whole situation is very sticky and complicated and far to interweaved for most people to even begin to understand how all these different things interact.

This is why I whenever any politician or Bernanke talk all this nonsense about getting the banks to lend. They are a bunch of absolute liars and they know it. No bank is going to lend when their balance sheets are wrecks and the messes are hidden by FASB fraud...let alone the fact that the FED is PAYING them NOT to lend!

[fairlycrazy23]

As a matter of fact the number of commercial loans was going up and hit an all time high right before tarp and the fed started doing there thing, and then dropped like a rock after tarp, the exact opposite of what they thought would happen....let me rephrase opposite of what they said the purpose was for, freeing up the credit market.