Quote from: bitseedmike on May 05, 2016, 06:44:36 AM

Shadowstats, http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data , uses the original formulas to calculate CPI and other figures before they were changed in the 1990s to make things look better. The US has actually been in continuous recession for a long time, but it has been masked by a massive increase in money supply which has been used to prop up the stock, bond, and real estate markets with negative real interest rates (interest - actual inflation = negative interest of around -4%).

Anyone who buys food and other items in the US sees this. Food prices are up 50-100% over the last 10 years. Package weights have steadily decreased since 2008. As an example, I have seen Ritz crackers go from 16 oz. to 13.2 oz over the last fiver years. When I first noticed the Ritz have 2 different box sizes with 16 and 15.1 oz, I asked the checkout clerk about it, he said a lot of products were downsizing. I last saw this in the mid 70s - especially candy bars. Airlines mask inflation by reducing leg room to add seats and charge fees for luggage, food, much more for alcohol, and 'fuel' surcharges. A lot more of the inflation has been exported from the US to other countries with export economies, which continue to devalue their currencies to match the devaluation of the dollar to remain competitive.

The so-called experts from academia all drink the Keynesian Koolaid since they will not keep their jobs otherwise. Paul Krugman is an idiot. Monetarism and Keynesianism are just two sides of the same silver plated copper coin since money supply is increased by creating government debt.

I did hear a very good point, though, at a recent Ethereum meetup regarding money from Steve Waldman's talk, http://www.meetup.com/EthereumSiliconValley/events/228772099/ . His observation is that what gives money value is it purchases human behavior. I didn't agree with his dismissal of gold as an obsolete form of money, but I also don't see gold has having an intrinsic value beyond the belief people have in it to store value - it just has a much, much longer history than fiat or crypto of being universally accepted, the supply of physical metal can't be arbitrarily created like fiat, and it doesn't rely on modern technology to be usable, like crypto.

The dollar as a reserve currency is propped up by it being required to buy oil. Oil producing countries which start to accept currencies other than USD end up with regime changes. Russia is too big for this, so instead they get drawn into a conflict in the Ukraine and the oil markets are manipulated to crash the price of oil. The dollar is on the decline as the single global reserve currency as the BRICS countries and Asian countries continue to develop alternatives to SWIFT, BIS, and the IMF. It seemed like the dollar was the stern of the Titanic popping up out of the water, with the Euro at the bow, before the whole thing goes under (physical gold and silver are the lifeboats), but now it is more like they're flooding all the compartments with currency devaluations so it all sinks on an even keel in a race to the bottom.

The negative interest rates are really hilarious. I can imagine the 'experts' writing more numerical fiction, trying to plug negative numbers into their log functions as they attempt to model an economy with negative interest rates.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/jmdg.gif

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