BS: Solution for Rotten Economy

Subject: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 03:52 PM

Stay with me on this. So simple yet elegant, simple yet complex, simple yet I'll be right back because I need a pee.

OK, I'm back. Here it is.


MOVE THE DECIMAL TWO PLACES TO THE LEFT.

Q: So, uh, how would that work?
A: Take every wage earner--read anyone who has any money at all. For example, let's say that the richest person in the country has a hundred million (and stop already because I know the richest person has more than that, but it's an example) and the poorest person has two dollars. I'll be right back because I need another pee.

I'm back. Gotta go. I will elusedate/elloosadate/elussidait explain later.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:02 PM

Be still my beating bladder.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:04 PM

Sniff... sniff... what is that funny odour coming from the can? You been in BC lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:05 PM

Elucidate. You think up the words, I'll spell 'em.

Q: Huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:09 PM

I've got a quick solution too, Peace! ;-) Pardon all existing debts (specially the really big ones, like the national debt), and start over on Day 1. Issue new currency. Everyone who has an existing bank balance gets exactly that much in the new currency, guaranteed by the government, and we start off from there.

As for the existing lending institutions whose crazy lending practices have perpetrated the mess we are in, place them under very strict governmental regulation as to how much they can lend out and how much interest they can charge for it.

We already have real people, real farmland, real products, real resources, and a real ability to produce the goods and services we need for a decent life. What is killing it is the mountain of debts that have accumulated through the practice of lending and borrowing.

So remove the mountain. Erase all the past debts and start over. They will have to be erased at some point anyway, because they simply cannot be paid. The money isn't there to pay them.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:14 PM

OK. Thanks for all the comments. Even yours, Gnu. (It needs repainting anyway.)

NOW (I'm continuing on here from where I was before I was so RUDEly interrupted).

We put everyone on the scale which is like a thermmetur/thurmometer/thurmommiter Jeri, do uer thing.

We then move the decimal to the right by as many places as we need to to have the guy/gal with $2 have a living wage. OK. So, we now have it figured out. I need another pee.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:15 PM

Hmmm... well... either you pay me the money you owe me or I am coming over to your place with a baseball bat. Erase that. I'll issue some currency and a few splinters up yer

I guess I just don't grasp your concept, LH... sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:17 PM

Seems like this may develope into a pissing contest.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:22 PM

ONCE MORE for the slower members . . . .

Now, rank the people who have money from most to lease. So the 100 million guy--or whatever number he had will end up wit a thousand times that if we move the decimal three places. And the guy with $2 will now have 20,000 dollars or something like that. We take excesses from the top when we move the decimal back to the left, but not for people at the $20,000 spot. They RECEIVE money. FROM the guys at the top.

The secret to the World Recession is that simple. Yet complex.

There. Now I need to take another pee.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:31 PM

Thermometer.
Hey, we could just convert from metric to whateverthehell the non-metric scale is. If you owed $100, that would be 39.37 non-metric dollars.

Your idea would make for more of a difference though, and I could make my mortgage payment with what I've lost under my car seat.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:39 PM

Oh! You mean just change the decimal on the supply side. Kind of like LH says move it in the other direction on the liabilities side.

It's Reaganesque!

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:41 PM

Elegant, huh? UH, who was Reaganesque? Like did he/she have a last name? I'm lost here. Need another pee.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:44 PM

B'y, you're rhetoric!

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:48 PM

Jeez - how many cases of beer you goin' through an hour!?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:49 PM

Yes. that last one was a reach around.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:52 PM

Dang. Just sat down to explain the whole thing and now I gotta go flush! See ya later.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 04:55 PM

Better warn the folks downstream.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 06:37 PM

Peace, what you are suggesting would VASTLY increase the money supply. The money supply has already been vastly increased by inflation, and the inflation was created by massive lending of fictional money. The result of that is, a dollar is worth a lot less than it used to be and prices are a lot higher than they used to be.

What would stop an inflationary reaction to what you are proposing? I think if you increase everyone's available cash by 10 x or 100 x, you would soon see prices increasing by 10 x or 100 x.

So for your plan to work as you envision, you would have to also pass legislation to fix prices at their present levels on everything that is being sold. That's the only way you could avoid an inflationary surge which naturally follows a surge in the money supply.

Any country, for example, can issue billions of new paper bills to its populace...but what then happens is rampant inflation. That's what it's like in Zimbabwe now. It now takes a huge amount of whatever their currency is to buy a loaf of bread. That happened in Germany after the First World War too. People had tons of paper money, but it was practically worthless.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 06:55 PM

gnu - "either you pay me the money you owe me or I am coming over to your place with a baseball bat"

That works for the Mafia. But in normal society it works this way...as long as a person or a company or a country is still capable of paying off a debt, then you can arrange some kind of schedule of payments. If, however, they have gone so far into debt that there is simply no way of them ever paying it off...well, that's a different story! That's what we call "bankruptcy". Such debts must be written off because they are uncollectable.

We are in such a position now as a society. It is unrealistic to imagine that the collective money debts of various societies across the world can be paid off as they now exist. I don't believe they can be, because they were created by rampant speculation using vast amounts of imaginary money that didn't exist. That's why I suggest doing what you do with a debt that's unpayable: Write it off.

I'll give you a real life example. I knew a man who spent money like water, and who borrowed money like there was no tomorrow. He put it all into his business activities which were largely based on total fantasy (but it was a fantasy that he believed in). He spent money he didn't have, always thinking his lucky strike was just around the corner. He maxed out his credit cards. He was a good talker, and he believed his own talk, and that made him very persuasive. Banks lent him money. Private individuals lent him money. He blew it all on his unrealistic business activities and he borrowed more. Those few people who knew him really well could see that it was all just a fantasy, but everyone else (including he himself) was fooled.

Well, this man finally got sick and died, and the chickens came home to roost. There was $200 left in his bank account. he owed money to lawyers, friends, banks, family. His company had no real assets and was worthless. He had virtually no other real assets...he didn't own a house or a car or much of anything aside from a computer, a canoe, a camera, a little office furniture, some personal effects...

He owed the banks maybe 50,000 dollars. He owed some private individuals about another 50,000 dollars. He owed his wife at least that much. It was all gone.

What do you do in such a case? There's nothing you can do. There's no one to chase, no one's legs to break with a baseball bat, no one to sue...nada. You write it off.

I am suggesting that our society is presently in much the same position that this man's creditors were in when he died. We are under a burden of debt that cannot be paid at all. It is the burden of debt itself that is now killing us, so wipe it. Start over.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 06:59 PM

Geeziz....I take 80mg of Lasix a day plus Spironolactone and even I don't piss that much!!!

I am however fascinated with the concept of leasing money that you mentioned.........


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 07:02 PM

Have you tried hanging your dick out a second story window for several hours at night, Spaw? I've heard that that can help. You don't want to do it in the daytime, because people might be offended.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 07:15 PM

Little Hawk, how do you propose convincing China that they should just write off what we owe them?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: michaelr
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 07:17 PM

Solution for Rotten Economy? Legalize and tax marijuana. Problem solved.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 07:52 PM

I don't propose convincing anyone of anything, Ebbie, least of all China...!!!   ;-)

I'm speaking strictly in theoretical (philosophical) terms. I think we would all be best off to write off past debts and grievances and start anew, but I don't imagine for one instant that that is really going to happen! No siree. What I imagine is going to happen is more of the same kind of thing we've seen in the past: war, poverty, sorrow, disaster, conflict, and broken dreams...accompanied by birth, renewal, adaptability, creativity, and hope springing afresh in new young hearts. It will be the best of times...and the worst of times, as it always has been.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 08:26 PM

Why stop at pot???

Legalize everything where there in no victim...

But that alone ain't gonna get us outta this mess so here's my idea... The South has gotten per capita more money outta the federal governemnt for ever so here's what we're gonna do... Tax NASCAR, TAX chewing tobacco, Tax stupidity, Tax country music, Tax cars with bald tires, Tax Confederate flags, Tax cigarettes, Tax Cameros, Tax "Gophers Need Love" bumper stickers and then take that money...

...and establish a guarenteed national income...

Simple...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: John Hardly
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 08:33 PM

This is, like, such a great idea. I simply must ascribe to it. Where can I buy an ascription?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 08:50 PM

Soon as I stop peeing I'll let ya know.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 08:54 PM

"Little Hawk, how do you propose convincing China that they should just write off what we owe them?"


                No! Just let the dollar inflate and pay them with money that's worth 2 cents of the dollar. That's what they do to our labor.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: John Hardly
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 10:02 PM

Have you considered a catheter? (They work better than protestanters. They have to.)

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 10:41 PM

The proper procedure would be to line everybody up in order of how much money they have, select the guy in the middle, and then everybody moves their decimal point one position away from the middle.

Those above median move the decimal point to the left, and then give away money (to those lower down the list) until the amount they have matches the number they get.

Those below median move the decimal point to the right, and get money (from those higher up, until they're brought up to the number they got.

The guy with 1,000,000.00 ends up with 100,000.00, and the gal with 2.00 ends up with 20.00. (It's perfectly reasonable to expect the one with the least money to be a gal, so that's not a sexist statement.)

Of course we might have to do it over several times until the economy is stabilized, since 0.02% of the people start of with 99.47% of the money, and it will take lots of dollar or ten dollar increments to bring the 60% of people who are below poverty to come up to livable; but it's a perfectly iterable process, and it only has to run until everybody's just sufficiently satisfied to get tired of trading money with a bunch of strangers.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 10:53 PM

That's what I said in between pees. How many times did you go, JIC?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 11:11 PM

No, JIK, it would not be a gal who has the least money! Haven't you ever heard what you call a (male) musician who doesn't have a girlfriend???

Homeless! ;-) The girlfriend is the one who has a paying job.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 11:20 PM

I figured that most of the lower tiers of people have gone so long without seeing any discretionary cash that they'd wear down after about 3 or 4 passes, so the millionaires might be down to around 1 to 10 K$ in cash and most of the po' folk' would wander off when they got a couple of hundred bucks in their pockets.

I'd figure on the transfers peterin' out with something like the top 10% still having 90% of the money, but maybe pulling at least another 10 to 20% (probably temporarily) above the poverty line.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 11:25 PM

Little Hawk -

From what I read recently on MSNBC (I think it was actually a Newsweek article) the only female segment of the population enjoying a recent rapid rise in income was in the field of pornography production and distribution.

In most other lines of work there's still something of the old glass ceiling. It's getting a little scuffed up, but there are only a few cracks. (except in the porn business)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:04 AM

I realize that. But the really tragic demographic out there is chimps. Did you know that most of them don't even make minimum wage? And they also get zip from the porno industry. We're talkin' nada here. Not even small change. Considering the sexual stamina and erotic imaginativeness of the average chimp, it hardly seems fair.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: bald headed step child
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 06:43 AM

LH maybe I could help with that. I keep receiving some VERY strange emails. I don't open them for fear of viruses, but the titles imply that the animal kingdom is breaking into that are as we speak, so I assume that chimps are probably included. ;}

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: bald headed step child
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 06:53 AM

I could probably forward those to you unopened if you want to do some research.LOL

I think there's around 50 in my junk folder now.

Just gotta love that hotmail acct.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 08:05 AM

Hmm. Well, no thanks, I guess. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 11:12 AM

Tax politicians... then maybe the corrupt would stay the hell out?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:28 PM

all that decimal moving is pretty dull stuff.
I suggest starting a "Junior Robin Hood League" and issuing the landlubbers equivalent of "letters of marque" to anyone below the poverty line....

SOMETHING would change.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:37 PM

They have done that already in Somalia...

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 03:17 PM

Solution for shortening dole queues - make them stand closer together!

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 03:29 PM

Or they could stand on one another's shoulders.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Peace
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 10:33 PM

I need a pee.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 10:50 PM

Look, why not just get a long hose, connect it to your..., run it to the bathroom, and you would never have to leave your computer.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 11:18 PM

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Budget Committee, said he wouldn't reject the idea of nationalizing U.S. banks.

"I'm very much afraid that any program to salvage the banks is going to require the government," the South Carolina senator said today in an interview on ABC's "This Week" program. "I would not take off the idea of the nationalizing the banks."

And guess who's opposing it: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer (who seem to be some sort of bastion against creeping Republican Socialism)

Who woulda thunk it?

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:01 PM

Some of you have seen this rant in other threads but it bears repeating here. The US dollar is backed by..."the GOOD FAITH of the US government." PERIOD. Uncle Squirrel is the Man Behind the Curtain" telling us that those nifty looking little colored bits of paper are really money. The reality is, they aren't as much worth as toilet paper. At least tp is soft and clean, by comparison. 1933, thanks to the economic genius of FDR, goodbye Gold Standard. 1964, thanks to the economic genius of JFK, goodbye Silver Standard. 1982, thanks to the law of diminishing returns and the genius of RWR, Goodbye copper, which was never really a standard by modern terminology but nevertheless did have a real intrinsic value. Good faith has turned to bad, too bad.

Argentina (Land of Silver) did the old sliding decimal point thing to a fare-thee-well, at least once a year. Heck, it may still be doing it. It has been years since I last tracked such things. On our way to "Third World" status, we could sure give it a try. All us little bourgeoise wage-slaves are Uncle Sweetums' real money tree. and tax is just their way of harvesting the crop. Can't buy gas to drive to work? take public transportation. Think of all the "green benefits". Can't afford bus fare anymore? Walk! It will do you good and think of all the "green benefits"! What? You're 70 and crippled up with arthritis and you need five more years to retirement? How selfish. There is always euthanasia. Get out of the road and let the younger generation have a chance at it. It will be good for the economy, good for Social Security and think of all the "Green" benefits: Soylent Green that is. Yes, always trust your government children. They have YOUR best interests at heart.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:22 PM

Jubilee (Bibilical):   the Year of Jubilee is a special year for the remission of sins and universal pardon where debts are forgiven, slaves and prisoners freed, and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, a Jubilee year is to occur every forty-nine years (seven times seven).

Every 49 years, everybody goes back to square-one and they start over again on a level playing field.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Feb 09 - 10:39 PM

You're quite correct, Slag, those nifty little bits of colored paper are worthless. The only thing that backs them is, as you say, the "good faith" of the US government. The same is true of our Canadian dollars, which are even more colourful, but equally devoid of real worth. When the dollar was taken off the gold and silver standard (meaning no longer redeemable in gold or silver) it became a potentially worthless piece of paper. A promise, nothing more.

As long as we all pretend it's worth something, then it still seems like it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Solution for Rotten Economy
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 01:54 AM

Yes Don F! The Hebrew/Jewish state also had the rule of non-usury as far as plying it to other Jews. Gentiles were fair game. Whoever owns the debt, owns YOU. Right now Red China holds about a trillion US dollars in bonds and other negotiable securities and they are really pissed at the idea of our devaluing our currency and I don't blame them. I'm pissed too. The wealth of this country is in its people and their ability to produce.

Compensation for our Calvinist work ethic is only legal in terms of the US dollar. Just like the money the term "legal" is by fiat also. When folks stop believing all the lies Uncle Speakeasy puts out there you will see raw capitalism come into play. Uncle Sweetlips will call it "barter", "grey market" and "black market" but it will prevail because people have a sense of justice and fairness and they will finally know that Uncle S--- has neither.