After all, he did point out that there’s some perks in his position. He did say that his favorite part of the job is that he doesn’t have to go through airport security.

As for being wrong, well, in government that simply means you get a larger budget next go around. Of course since he can print his own money, it makes it even easier.

@Inquisitor
Thanks for answering. I’m not satisfied with your answer frankly. And the arrogant tone is uncalled for. Especially since you’re not as bright as you think.

You say: “And no, money is not “created” from real estate”
OK. Read carefully now.

Q: What is the biggest loan you as a person can and will take out in your life?
A: Your home

Q: Where does the money come from, the banks vault?
A: No it’s created out of thin air.

Ask the same questions for commercial real estate. Conclusion the higher the price and the lower the interest rate the bigger the money supply. And yes money is created from Real Estate – All of it.

I hope not this is the average level of understanding in here.

Why would money be pouring into an area that just suffered a massive bust? Right now money is pouring into commodities, stock markets, Silicon Valley, and not construction or housing, precisely because of the mess banks got themselves into with respect to those industries. And no, money is not “created” from real estate, whatever that means. Inflation reflects an increase in the money supply in excess of demand (or in Rothbard’s view, of paper money in excess of the commodity it represents.) You’re referring to its consequence, price inflation. Austrians tend to be very specific what they mean by inflation. Monetary inflation is definitely happening and has happened to unprecedented scales. Price inflation is on its way.

And no, a falling dollar is not “good”. It means domestic citizens have less purchasing power and are effectively impoverished. Simply because it benefits some exporters, it does not mean it’s a net gain. Of course, currency should be a free market like any other.

I hear those arguments about a coming inflation all the time. But money is created from real estate. Real estate prices are falling, so how can that translate into inflation? I just don’t see it in a practical sense.
And inflation in the 70ties – Isn’t it obvious from the gold/oil chart on this very page that it happened because Nixon closed the gold window? Meaning: from then on money was created only from real estate and no longer tied to gold? It was like releasing a spring.

Seems to me that the current commodities bubble is a perfect storm between a falling dollar and uncertainty about real estate. money that used to go into real estate now goes into commodities. And it has become a bubble. The oil price probably should be around $60. The almighty Feds press down one bubble and another one rises. Money has to be somewhere, no? i would love to see a long term chart with oil prices, real estate and stocks.

A falling dollar – doesn’t that increase competitiveness and export? Why are people worried about loss of overseas purchasing power, when the problem for the USA as a country is over consuming and under producing? To me it sounds like the cure. Though I’d prefer it happened naturally and not because of FED intervention.

When the Chinese buy US T-bonds with dollars earned by selling Chinese goods at unnaturally low prices, doesn’t that just mean that they are giving away free money? I mean, when they can’t artificially hold down the currency any longer they’ll lose a good chunk of the bond value, no? What are the consequences, when that happens?

The only semi natural way for the Chinese government to keep down their currency is to buy overseas bonds. So when presidential hopeful Donald Trump tells the Chinese to stop manipulating currency, doesn’t that mean that the US has to stop borrowing in dollars immediately or suffer higher interest rates? How will that work with Trumps vow NOT to cut government spending, hmm?

I hope someone with more insight than me can put me straight here?

I tried to link to a example, but I am afraid I fell into a spam trap.

Typically these are priced between a dollar and 10 dollars depending on how fancy you want.

Of course nowadays my phone is far better then any ‘scientific graphing calculator’ from just a few years ago. I just need to download a app.

The reason why we have the current type of computers we have is because that is the most economically viable design then can create. The most important cost features for processors and other integrated circuits is the purity of the silicon wafer they use and the manufacturing process they use.

This is how it goes:
1. The purer the wafer the less you lose during production
2. the larger the wafer the more you can manufacture at each pass
3. The smaller the lithography process the more items you can fit into the wafer.
4. The smaller the lithography the faster you can make the processor.

Fantastic stuff.
As the technology progresses the silicon becomes purer, becomes bigger, the cpus become smaller and faster. Were originally you could only produce dozens of processors of processors on each wafer with large amount of faults, now we produce hundreds of processors with much lower amount of faults.

So not only are modern computer much cheaper for consumers then in 1986… they are much more inexpensive to produce then in 1986. That is the the efficiency of the production facilities has improved exponentially.

The technology is moving at such a pace that there is not even any point in modernizing factories. When Intel and other companies develop new manufacturing processes they just build new factories. It’s cheaper to build all-new factories then it is to re-use old ones. Old ones will go from producing CPUs to producing other types of integrated circuits.

It’s obvious that they are wrong when it comes to the computer market.

Computers are cheaper, faster, more reliable, and have far greater capacity and far more features then they had in the past. This is because they are unregulated.

If we regulated computers like we do automobiles we would be stuck with 4 thousand dollar laptops that weigh 10 pounds and have a 45 minute battery life.

Computer processors are the most complex and most advanced human invention of all time. It requires all levels human intelligence and different types of technologies. It requires lithography, metallurgy, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, stamping, assembly line techniques, computer science, and even quantum mathematics to make a processor.

My CPU is a AMD 1090T Phenom II. It features six processors.

It’s ‘process’, the assembly technique… the lithography…(it’s a printed and etched thing), can reliably produce features down to 45nm in size. For comparison sake: a single copper atom is 0.2551 nm in size. The thickness of a _cell_wall_ on the smallest of bacteria is 10nm.

It has over 940,000,000 transistors. The size of the six cores and cache for it is about 346mm2 The size of a penny is 283mm2

It performs up to 3,200,000,000 operations per second.

The cost?

200 dollars.

I just bought a damn Bicycle, a low-end Trek mountain bike, for well over 300 dollars.

I can’t believe that people can look at their computer and argue on the internet the value of capitalism. FFS, people, capitalism is responsible for providing you the ability to use a computer and argue on the internet! The only thing that your government wants is to control it!

Sione

There is US failure a-coming, but when and how is presently unknown. It will be most interesting to watch and see.

BTW the reason I do not expect the real big collapse or crisis in May is the expectation the financial/political class will to do all it can to hide dangerous financical problems and paper over them (by doing things like printing more wallpaper- those sly paper hangers!) to delay events until after the next election cycle. After that it’s a matter of how much further things can be kicked just a little further down the road.

If you are retired, or getting ready to retire in the US, you are definitely going to be harmed- likely “allowed” to die early. Stay away from hospitals or clinics or social workers. Else it’s watch out for the triage needle and the nil-water order!

Sione

The skyrocketing price of oil resembles the exponential leap taken before 1980, but I don’t think that anybody expects the trend to be halted with high interest rates anytime soon.

This whole hardware deflation is causing a massive increase in wealth and an acceleration of development. Something not seen in traditional industries.

You get more for less.

What? You mean there were actually people who thought he was serious?

Also, gold, at least if held in banks or brokerage firms, is subject to the risk of confiscation or ‘windfall’ taxes, so its not necessarily all that rosy…

Of course, direct comparisons are next to impossible because even a low powered $200 Netbook has many orders of magnitude more capability and power than the best 1986 had to offer.

In 24 years, computer hardware expanded at a exponential rate and costs 10% as much. There’s a huge recession there according to economists.