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[wierd]

indeed. that was a big problem back in the dark ages. banks would extend credit hundreds of % outside thier holdings. switching to gold would INSTANTLY cause the 1929 collapse. bad juju.

in the case of these bonds though, the holding is done directly with the federal reserve bank, through a local bank as a proxy. instead of the 90% rule, we impose something like a 10% rule. The fed generates the inflation itself, and sets the rate. the holding cannot be released on demand, because it is not that kind of holding. the bank still profits from the deposit, just not nearly as much, except where the INCOME payment comes in. the INCOME payment from the deposit is deposited into the local bank and counted as holdings, allowing the bank to loan out 90% of it as usual.

[Reelya]

indeed. that was a big problem back in the dark ages. banks would extend credit hundreds of % outside thier holdings. switching to gold would INSTANTLY cause the 1929 collapse. bad juju.

in the case of these bonds though, the holding is done directly with the federal reserve bank, through a local bank as a proxy. instead of the 90% rule, we impose something like a 10% rule. The fed generates the inflation itself, and sets the rate. the holding cannot be released on demand, because it is not that kind of holding. the bank still profits from the deposit, just not nearly as much, except where the INCOME payment comes in. the INCOME payment from the deposit is deposited into the local bank and counted as holdings, allowing the bank to loan out 90% of it as usual.

What happens to the 90% then that the bank loans out? Surely, that's money that then gets deposited with a different bank? How exactly are you preventing it being loaned out again? You seem to be thinking you've done away with frac. reserve banking.

But the problem with your thinking is that: are you upset that there's too much money around? The exact amount of money going around is a result of the 90% rule and inflation targets. If you propose a change in the rules to e.g. 10% frac reserve banking, you're shrinking the existing money supply by about 90%, which would be far worse than going to the gold standard for causing a crash.

The fed generates the inflation itself

This is the most idiotic statement of the thread.

[smjjames]

Why do we keep gold in Fort Knox then?..... maybe I oughta google that question.

[TheBiggerFish]

Why do we keep gold in Fort Knox then?..... maybe I oughta google that question.

The US Government likes shinies as much as the next world power.  That, and those bars of gold, they're still worth money, even if it's not backing any anymore.

[Reelya]

Gold's a decent investment in itself. Just not enough to based your entire currency on.

The reason there is a Fort Knox isn't even to do with the gold standard: during the depression, they outlawed holding gold, because hoarding precious metals is often a way liquidity leaves the market during a downturn. By forcing people to accept US dollars instead of their gold, you keep paper money in circulation. The government then ended up with more gold than they knew what to do with, so they needed to build somewhere to keep it.

[wierd]

security.

say our dollar goes belly up. th gold has value still, and we can use it to get or pay off credit from other economies.

reelya: the income is what is paid back to the depositor. it is no different than any other deposit.
the principle is not permitted to be loaned out, it is held by the fed itself, with the local bank as the proxy.

ee bonds are income bonds. they pay an income that gets direct deposited. that income is a normal deposit. it gets normal inflation. the principle holding of the bond itself is not, and does not.

you are thinking that the 400$ wk deposits are being used as normal holdings. they are not. they are being held by the fed, via the local bank. (the local bank takes the currency, and opens a line of credit, under special rules with the federal reserve. this is handled similar to a virtual bond holding. it is not an on demand deposit. you cannot request it back until the maturation date. the fed then sets how it is going to pay the proxy bank, and sets the interest rate. (this is not silly, you just arent reading, and seeing only what you want to see.) this is no different than getting a bond account so far. when the fed pays its interest payment, it goes to the local bank which opened the holding INTO A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT, which the local bank controls, and sets the rates on.  this is pennies on the dollar. 

you can see how it works this way:  you put X dollars in, and that money stops being in the normal bnking system. it is tied up by the fed, and only the fed. the fed releases Y dollars, which is some fraction of X deposit, on a periodic basis. Y dollars enters the banking system, and magnifies normally. the amount Y magnifies is less than the amount X would magnify over the period of the deposit.

what you do is not really remove the magnification of X$, you sequester where it gets magnified (the fed), and its location in the economy (that one bank).  over the course of the year, the depositor gets paid the full sum of the total inflation of the sequestered currency for that year. this makes the impact on the maket exactly the same as if it had been deposited normally and fractionlly amplified, but instead of the surplus being in the hands of banks, it ends up in the hands of the depositor.  where the resulting income is deposited after that is unimportant.

[Rockphed]

1. No.  The most effective birth control, physical barriers, cost less per month than going to the movies twice.  The pill costs about $20 per month.  IUDs cost about $250 and last 3-5 years, which averages to about $7 a month. They just don't think that making other people pay for your birth control is compatible with various claims that "I'm an adult and should be able to do what I want."  Especially in light of various campaigns to convince the world that "my body is not your business", they balk at paying for things that aren't their business.

What do you mean, "paying for birth control"? Are you referring to governmental funding of PP? Or are you talking about insurance covering birth control?

Both really.  You might have noticed various people trotted out to bewail the impending doom of feminism whereby the republicans are going to make them pay for their own birth control.

2. No, they believe that abortion should be illegal, full stop.  Or they concede that there should be exceptions for (possibly rape and incest) and saving the mother's life.

Still, the poor tend to have a harder time planning their families, and a harder time dealing with larger families... abortion access helps the poor most.

Or is the best at exterminating...undesirable populations (boys, girls, minorities, the possibilities are endless).  Or keeping undesirable populations controlled (as in China).

3. Nobody should get government assistance.  They are at least as up in arms about corporate welfare as the left ostensibly is, they just point out that Tesla, GM, and Solyndra all got corporate welfare on the industrial scale.

Ahaha, this is some nice conservatism you've got, it's a shame most Republicans aren't True Conservatives. Tax cuts for all the rich guys!

The rich tend to get bigger tax cuts under Republican tax plans because conservatives believe in flat tax schemes. Hence Herman Cain's infamous 9,9,9 plan.

4. Public schools should be accountable for how effectively they teach children.  Their current kick is to encourage the formation of charter schools in an effort to increase the effectiveness of schools.  They take as an example of this working New Orleans after Katrina.  Also, school achievement is hardly correlated with school spending.  For example, Utah ranks about 40th for education, but spends dead last.

You've shown a single example. I am incredibly doubtful that school funding doesn't correlate with success. You need more than one example, or you're not statistically significant.

Okay then, consider Detroit's public schools, which spend more per student on instruction than any school district in Macomb county (the one just north of Detroit).  Yet every district in Macomb County is doing better academically than Detroit City School District.  Detroit Public Schools have the added problem of a huge debt burden (from decades of neglect) and an apathetic populace (that has been failed by the schools for 3 or 4 generations).  My brother works for a school in Detroit, and often talks about the problems thereunto appertaining.

5. Not particularly.  They expect people to provide for themselves, not have the government provide for them. This goes back to 1 where it is hard to claim to be an adult if you aren't supporting yourself.

Support net and shit, you know? And besides, they expect people to provide for themselves, well why don't we set people on an even playing field? Or just let the poor fail, I guess they don't see a problem with that.

The words I often see are "hand up, not a hand out".  Also, they expect local charities to take over support net services.  If you pay attention, you will notice that republicans pay significantly more to charities than democrats.  Take Romney and Obama, for example.  Romney paid about 10 times as much in charitable donations as Obama in 2011.

[Reelya]

Utah ranks about 40th for education, but spends dead last.

So, they are the 40th out of 50 worst system, but 50th out of 50 lowest spenders. Such a good advert for slashing education spending: you might not end up dead last.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Both really.  You might have noticed various people trotted out to bewail the impending doom of feminism whereby the republicans are going to make them pay for their own birth control.

It is no more unreasonable for insurance to cover contraceptives than any other aspect of health.

Or is the best at exterminating...undesirable populations (boys, girls, minorities, the possibilities are endless).  Or keeping undesirable populations controlled (as in China).

Oh please. If the state sought extermination I'm sure they could come up with a better plan than not hindering Planned Parenthood. What's next, is FEMA going to break out the SS badges and go to town?

The rich tend to get bigger tax cuts under Republican tax plans because conservatives believe in flat tax schemes.

And flat taxes are inherently destructive to the wealth of the nation. It is beyond nonsensical that the tax burden be shifted towards non-income tax sources, where taxation will be placed upon the backs of those with the least money via purchasing power. The whole concept of flat tax is predicated upon the idea that it is effective and it is fair, when in reality it both slashes revenues and gives the rich a free ticket.

Hence Herman Cain's infamous 9,9,9 plan.

God damn you, Will Wright.

Okay then, consider Detroit's public schools, which spend more per student on instruction than any school district in Macomb county (the one just north of Detroit).  Yet every district in Macomb County is doing better academically than Detroit City School District.  Detroit Public Schools have the added problem of a huge debt burden (from decades of neglect) and an apathetic populace (that has been failed by the schools for 3 or 4 generations).  My brother works for a school in Detroit, and often talks about the problems thereunto appertaining.

Education is cheap. Good education is expensive. Detroit may have more money per student, but they also have a bigger overhead due to the population and location. And debt, as you said.

These education deficits will only get more expensive as time goes on, and will in fact become permanently more expensive for every student that goes out into the wider world with a shit education. The rational thing to do is to take the hit and fund them now, because it's as cheap as it's ever going to be (barring an unforeseen asteroid strike on Detroit, not impossible given the events of 2016 thus far).

The words I often see are "hand up, not a hand out".  Also, they expect local charities to take over support net services.  If you pay attention, you will notice that republicans pay significantly more to charities than democrats.  Take Romney and Obama, for example.  Romney paid about 10 times as much in charitable donations as Obama in 2011.

This is fallacious. No charity could ever hope to accomplish even one percent of the efficacy of a state support network. I'm sure Republicans believe in their own concept and thus donate charitably more often, but the concept is just wrong. Charities have no direct access to the population as a whole, only the network they themselves can establish. They don't have government data available to them most of the time either. Imagine if the DMV had to determine if someone was eligible for a passport without being able to tell if they have a social security number.

Saying charities need to replace government support is like saying because your wall has a crack in it you should tear the whole thing down and replace it with a wall of made of caulk, instead of using caulk on the crack. Charities are effective for cleaning up the people who fall through the cracks (see how I set that up it was unintentional but god I'm clever) and evening out system failures, not for doing the job proper.

[Neonivek]

What is funny is that education costs SHOULD be going down... but we bogged down the system so much it is incapable of change.

[Reelya]

The median income for a household in the county was $52,102, and the median income for a family was $62,816. Males had a median income of $48,303 versus $30,215 for females. The per capita income for the county was $24,446. About 4.00% of families and 5.60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.00% of those under age 18 and 6.40% of those age 65 or over.

In the 2010 American Community Survey, median household income in the city was $25,787, and the median income for a family was $31,011. The per capita income for the city was $14,118. 32.3% of families had income at or below the federally defined poverty level.

Marcomb County is a wealthy area, Detroit is poverty-stricken. A simplistic "education spending => outcome" argument is basically ridiculous. If you want equality of opportunity you have to provide more resources to the poor area than the rich area per capita. That's the only way you get equal chance of success regardless of wealth.

[Egan_BW]

As I said earlier, our government decided in recent times to become as rigid and inflexible as possible, despite the growing flow of a clamor for change (regardless of direction or ideology). You know what happens to a stick under too much strain at either end, right?

It snaps.

If the stick is flexible enough, it's just bend out of the way as both weights fall down, unsupported, into the abyss below.

[Reelya]

Yeah, an analogy taken too far becomes meaningless / off-topic.

[Neonivek]

It is a shame that the worst case scenario is that the Democrats or Republicans unequivocavely win.

Their inability to compromise and push their agendas against the American people shouldn't be underestimated.

[martinuzz]

Trump might have just accidentally declared war on China, by acknowledging the president of Taiwan in a direct phonecall, and calling him president in public. Chinese are furious. According to China, Taiwan is a rebel province, not a nation.