Actually, as someone who has lived in Ecuador for almost 13 years now, South America is not broadly dangerous. There are places that I would avoid, just as there are places in the US that I would avoid, but anyone inclined to come for a visit should do so. Personal experience is so much more enlightening than the lies we read in the mainstream press.
And I would recommend bringing a bunch of cash, probably mostly in $20 bills, for walking around money. But check the rules for bringing dollars into Argentina.
Hey Gordon. My experience is exactly. My sister has a home in Ecuador for probably about 20 years. Just outside out of Otavalla. We have been there several times, and my wife and I consider it very safe. The only time you were scared was driving down the Panna vi all coming from Quito. Now that my friend was scary!!
Houses on average are liveable anywhere from 50 to 100 years. Baby boomers who owned houses or bought while interest rates were declining are now sitting on properties worth 35,000 hours of work after paying as low as 8,000 hours of work. Obviously over the last 50 years the gap as closed but the boomers are now spending that ‘gained’ time. And, they feel good about themselves while younger generations do not but both for the wrong reasons. The former group thinks it made it, the latter have already spent it.
In reality the hours ‘gained’ by the boomers were a result of 2 events back in the 70’s. Firstly, the abandonment of the gold standard and secondly globalisation. In other words money printing in the West while consuming things made in the East.
Fiat money results in surplus money which results in lower interest rates which in turn resulted in higher asset prices. Why bother manufacturing, negotiating with unions and government red tape when you could just buy an existing asset and watch its value increase without doing anything? Why bother when at the same time the Chinese were prepared to send us those same manufactured consumables for less and more importantly on credit?
The problem now, after 50 years is that all those ‘gained’ hours have been spent. At the same time Governments worldwide are indebted to the hilt and all they can now effectively do is print inflation.
The real marvel is that the sham lasted so long, and that people had so much faith in governments. The real tragedy is that I’m not sure people we have learnt anything except for intergenerational mistrust. The question for me… was it all planned or simply democracy at work destroying itself as explained by Bill (18 August 2023 - The Democracy trap)?
I am a licensed CPA and have studied, broadly, about the erosion of wages. My theory, is that "the woeking stiff" was never supposed to have a "real" increase in wages. There are only 3 basic needs and they require real hands getting real dirty. Technology has reduced the need for as many hands to do this work. (For example, 4 men can now farm 4000 acres and produce 250 bushels per acre or more in corn plus grow another crop in a year. It would have taken hundred of people to farm the same crop for half the results 200 years ago.) So, to keep people busy, "soft" jobs were created, doing what I call non-productive work. Examples include finance managers, safety inspectors, middle managers, government workers, consultants, think tanks, tax preparers, attorneys, half of banking, most of wall street. The reduction of the working man's purchasing power all contribute to the wages that these non productive jobs need. I basically quit accounting because I wanted to feel more useful with my efforts. I build houses and solve construction issues for people now and contribute to one of the basic three needs......food, clothing and shelter. Let this settle in your thoughts. It is the best explanation that I can come up with.
Bill there are NO CONSTANTS in reality .. more below and Joel wonderful to be abroad and watching the circus from a distance .. so here is a quick excerpt from science that basically states that 95% of all we know is UNKNOWN .. imagine that ..I N 1973, physicist Steven Weinberg gave a talk in Aix-en-Provence, France. It was there, according to Weinberg, that he first used the term “standard model” to describe the nascent description of the fundamental constituents of the universe and their interactions. Fifty years on, the standard model of particle physics is a stunningly accurate picture of what everything is made of and how it all works to produce reality. Practically everything, anyway. Because although the 50th anniversary is well worth celebrating, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the theory is incomplete. It doesn’t explain gravity, or why we have so much matter in the universe and so little antimatter. And it says nothing about so-called dark matter and dark energy, postulated to explain why the cosmos behaves in certain ways.
This is why physicists are casting around for clues that could lead us to a better theory. But which, if any, will deliver an upgrade to the standard model? How do we find the deluxe version? We let six of today’s leading physicists explain how they think we will finally discover a more complete picture of reality. NOW can you realise that they don't even know what reality is ..? so maybe a 1923 FORD truck was never a reality ? maybe we are just all dreaming up all this stuff ? It's no wonder that over 30+ million Americans are addicted on fentanyl .. as a species where are we going ? LIES and more LIES and not a drop of truth to drink except this one little drop of BPR !!!
I believe your argument is generally sound, but your leaving out an important component in the housing equation, the one that drives a lot of the economic issues we are experiencing.
You don’t just buy a house. You buy a house that sits on a piece of land. The increase in land values over time drives the housing price up more than would be explained by materials and labor in construction. Plus one other thing at the moment - price gouging is a thing and is prevalent right now in the building trades. Supply vs. demand isn’t a perfectly linear relationship. It seems logarithmic sometimes.
It seems like U.S. Citizens will continue to spend spend spend regardless of the views at Bonner. As long as they can have what they want, the cost is irrelevant. I guess most figure if we're going down, they may as well go down with a bang and enjoy the ride on the way.
According to Brietbart and many other reports
The idea that economic growth is faltering received another blow on Wednesday when the Institute for Supply Management reported that the services sector expanded for the eighth straight month in August.
The ISM services index rose to 54.5 in August, up from 52.7 in July.
Yes Kelly, just drive around NC and see all the new Ford F150s in the driveways/on the front lawns of tiny little shacks and dilapidated doublewides, and it would wake up even the dead to the facts of our broken third world banana republic.
It wouldn't surprise me coming from government agencies, as they've changed the rules for most ways in factoring the results in their reports they present to us, and most sources just report them verbatim. Excepting the likes of Bonner and company.
Didnt I see in yesterdays news that Argentina was one of the attendees at the Bricks meeting in S.Africa last month? How will that effect the upcoming election, or will it? How will it effect Argentina?
Why would you expect the average wage to rise? After all, in the long run, prices are set by supply and demand. The supply of labor has risen rapidly, without regard to the demand for it. Productivity has increased which means you need fewer people to do the job, therefore, the price of labor must go down.
Leaders around the world have a string of lies longer than our memories. My vote is against the status quo regardless of their arguments. Certainly here in America we've had 40 years of lower rates and yet we are 33 T in debt with a 24T economy. Is something not working?
Bill, just wondering if your housing price comparison should differentiate between the value of the house and the land. Land does not have new materials or pipes, and perhaps the comparison would be a better one.
A house is a tangible asset, while land is intangible. Thats what l was told by a property agent , therefore you can cost a house to the last cent, while land is "worth" what a person will pay. And with so much credit available, the inflated value of the land has no limit. That is the story in Australia, and probably everywhere else too !
Bill...In a recent email you mentioned that your Maryland Eastern Shore family goes back 300 years. We are time-neighbors! My gr gr gr grandfather John Anthony was a Revolutionary War soldier who bought a grist mill in Galena, Md around 1780. It stayed in the family for 100 years. I have visted the site, where only his dam, mill pond and grave are left. Glenn
Succinct comments from both Bill and Joel on inflation and the comparisons to 1923 and other year's prices with acknowledgement of technological achievements along the way.
Two thoughts, how about a comparison of initial prices for such as TVs and other electronic gadgets when first introduced vs. current vs. hours worked? My gut is that technological and productivity gains have reduced the hours worked total while providing an ever more capable product.
Second, in my mind without any specific statistics to back it up (you guys have the staff to find that info), it is my perception that taxes and "entitlement contributions" (aka FICA/Medicare taxes) are an ever increasing percentage of wages than they were in 1923 or even 1973. Isn't this a big factor in inflation?
How can we compare one banana republic to the next? Yes they both start with an A, and both have elites pulling their strings 🤔 but other than the obvious, one is hundreds times more in debt then the other…and will never get out of it. The Paris of the south is looking good 😊
Planning a xmas holiday in Buenos Aires. Should I take a suitcase for the pesos, a wallet for the dollars or..... just stay home? waddayathink?
Bring USD... drop me a line when you’re in town. Buen viaje!
stay home where ever that is it'll be safer than anywhere in S America !
Actually, as someone who has lived in Ecuador for almost 13 years now, South America is not broadly dangerous. There are places that I would avoid, just as there are places in the US that I would avoid, but anyone inclined to come for a visit should do so. Personal experience is so much more enlightening than the lies we read in the mainstream press.
And I would recommend bringing a bunch of cash, probably mostly in $20 bills, for walking around money. But check the rules for bringing dollars into Argentina.
Hey Gordon. My experience is exactly. My sister has a home in Ecuador for probably about 20 years. Just outside out of Otavalla. We have been there several times, and my wife and I consider it very safe. The only time you were scared was driving down the Panna vi all coming from Quito. Now that my friend was scary!!
It could be worse. Best always. PM
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/06/delta-diarrhea-flight-spain
Yes Paul, many people are full of shit, but some have disturbing ways of expelling it…like most of our politicians 🤔
Houses on average are liveable anywhere from 50 to 100 years. Baby boomers who owned houses or bought while interest rates were declining are now sitting on properties worth 35,000 hours of work after paying as low as 8,000 hours of work. Obviously over the last 50 years the gap as closed but the boomers are now spending that ‘gained’ time. And, they feel good about themselves while younger generations do not but both for the wrong reasons. The former group thinks it made it, the latter have already spent it.
In reality the hours ‘gained’ by the boomers were a result of 2 events back in the 70’s. Firstly, the abandonment of the gold standard and secondly globalisation. In other words money printing in the West while consuming things made in the East.
Fiat money results in surplus money which results in lower interest rates which in turn resulted in higher asset prices. Why bother manufacturing, negotiating with unions and government red tape when you could just buy an existing asset and watch its value increase without doing anything? Why bother when at the same time the Chinese were prepared to send us those same manufactured consumables for less and more importantly on credit?
The problem now, after 50 years is that all those ‘gained’ hours have been spent. At the same time Governments worldwide are indebted to the hilt and all they can now effectively do is print inflation.
The real marvel is that the sham lasted so long, and that people had so much faith in governments. The real tragedy is that I’m not sure people we have learnt anything except for intergenerational mistrust. The question for me… was it all planned or simply democracy at work destroying itself as explained by Bill (18 August 2023 - The Democracy trap)?
Isn't it explained by the comment attributed to Jefferson. When the public learns it can vote itself free money you will no longer have a democracy.
I am a licensed CPA and have studied, broadly, about the erosion of wages. My theory, is that "the woeking stiff" was never supposed to have a "real" increase in wages. There are only 3 basic needs and they require real hands getting real dirty. Technology has reduced the need for as many hands to do this work. (For example, 4 men can now farm 4000 acres and produce 250 bushels per acre or more in corn plus grow another crop in a year. It would have taken hundred of people to farm the same crop for half the results 200 years ago.) So, to keep people busy, "soft" jobs were created, doing what I call non-productive work. Examples include finance managers, safety inspectors, middle managers, government workers, consultants, think tanks, tax preparers, attorneys, half of banking, most of wall street. The reduction of the working man's purchasing power all contribute to the wages that these non productive jobs need. I basically quit accounting because I wanted to feel more useful with my efforts. I build houses and solve construction issues for people now and contribute to one of the basic three needs......food, clothing and shelter. Let this settle in your thoughts. It is the best explanation that I can come up with.
The basics, are what matters, everything else is just flim flam.
Bill there are NO CONSTANTS in reality .. more below and Joel wonderful to be abroad and watching the circus from a distance .. so here is a quick excerpt from science that basically states that 95% of all we know is UNKNOWN .. imagine that ..I N 1973, physicist Steven Weinberg gave a talk in Aix-en-Provence, France. It was there, according to Weinberg, that he first used the term “standard model” to describe the nascent description of the fundamental constituents of the universe and their interactions. Fifty years on, the standard model of particle physics is a stunningly accurate picture of what everything is made of and how it all works to produce reality. Practically everything, anyway. Because although the 50th anniversary is well worth celebrating, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the theory is incomplete. It doesn’t explain gravity, or why we have so much matter in the universe and so little antimatter. And it says nothing about so-called dark matter and dark energy, postulated to explain why the cosmos behaves in certain ways.
This is why physicists are casting around for clues that could lead us to a better theory. But which, if any, will deliver an upgrade to the standard model? How do we find the deluxe version? We let six of today’s leading physicists explain how they think we will finally discover a more complete picture of reality. NOW can you realise that they don't even know what reality is ..? so maybe a 1923 FORD truck was never a reality ? maybe we are just all dreaming up all this stuff ? It's no wonder that over 30+ million Americans are addicted on fentanyl .. as a species where are we going ? LIES and more LIES and not a drop of truth to drink except this one little drop of BPR !!!
I believe your argument is generally sound, but your leaving out an important component in the housing equation, the one that drives a lot of the economic issues we are experiencing.
You don’t just buy a house. You buy a house that sits on a piece of land. The increase in land values over time drives the housing price up more than would be explained by materials and labor in construction. Plus one other thing at the moment - price gouging is a thing and is prevalent right now in the building trades. Supply vs. demand isn’t a perfectly linear relationship. It seems logarithmic sometimes.
Right on the money.
While Rome burns.....
It seems like U.S. Citizens will continue to spend spend spend regardless of the views at Bonner. As long as they can have what they want, the cost is irrelevant. I guess most figure if we're going down, they may as well go down with a bang and enjoy the ride on the way.
According to Brietbart and many other reports
The idea that economic growth is faltering received another blow on Wednesday when the Institute for Supply Management reported that the services sector expanded for the eighth straight month in August.
The ISM services index rose to 54.5 in August, up from 52.7 in July.
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/09/06/breitbart-business-digest-services-sector-shrugs-off-recession-talk/
Yes Kelly, just drive around NC and see all the new Ford F150s in the driveways/on the front lawns of tiny little shacks and dilapidated doublewides, and it would wake up even the dead to the facts of our broken third world banana republic.
The repo man will be coming soon...
Never fear brother Steve - the "government" has got our back...
Hey star that made me chuckle out loud
Hi Kelly -
I recently saw a study that concluded 85.37% of all statistics cited in a given "news" article are made up on-the-spot...
It wouldn't surprise me coming from government agencies, as they've changed the rules for most ways in factoring the results in their reports they present to us, and most sources just report them verbatim. Excepting the likes of Bonner and company.
Didnt I see in yesterdays news that Argentina was one of the attendees at the Bricks meeting in S.Africa last month? How will that effect the upcoming election, or will it? How will it effect Argentina?
Why would you expect the average wage to rise? After all, in the long run, prices are set by supply and demand. The supply of labor has risen rapidly, without regard to the demand for it. Productivity has increased which means you need fewer people to do the job, therefore, the price of labor must go down.
Leaders around the world have a string of lies longer than our memories. My vote is against the status quo regardless of their arguments. Certainly here in America we've had 40 years of lower rates and yet we are 33 T in debt with a 24T economy. Is something not working?
I think the plan is working perfectly, it has always been so, the "elite" taking from the not so elite. Bound to end in a mess, as per past history.
Hey Mac. It is working exactly as they wanted to. Wealth extraction for them and lower steering of living for us. All by design.
well surprise surprise every once in a while the comments are all worth reading well done audience !
Today’s hourly wage $11 per hour?
Bill, just wondering if your housing price comparison should differentiate between the value of the house and the land. Land does not have new materials or pipes, and perhaps the comparison would be a better one.
Thank you,
J.
A house is a tangible asset, while land is intangible. Thats what l was told by a property agent , therefore you can cost a house to the last cent, while land is "worth" what a person will pay. And with so much credit available, the inflated value of the land has no limit. That is the story in Australia, and probably everywhere else too !
Bill...In a recent email you mentioned that your Maryland Eastern Shore family goes back 300 years. We are time-neighbors! My gr gr gr grandfather John Anthony was a Revolutionary War soldier who bought a grist mill in Galena, Md around 1780. It stayed in the family for 100 years. I have visted the site, where only his dam, mill pond and grave are left. Glenn
Succinct comments from both Bill and Joel on inflation and the comparisons to 1923 and other year's prices with acknowledgement of technological achievements along the way.
Two thoughts, how about a comparison of initial prices for such as TVs and other electronic gadgets when first introduced vs. current vs. hours worked? My gut is that technological and productivity gains have reduced the hours worked total while providing an ever more capable product.
Second, in my mind without any specific statistics to back it up (you guys have the staff to find that info), it is my perception that taxes and "entitlement contributions" (aka FICA/Medicare taxes) are an ever increasing percentage of wages than they were in 1923 or even 1973. Isn't this a big factor in inflation?
How can we compare one banana republic to the next? Yes they both start with an A, and both have elites pulling their strings 🤔 but other than the obvious, one is hundreds times more in debt then the other…and will never get out of it. The Paris of the south is looking good 😊
SL: Dud...What is the Paris of the south location?
Buenos Aires of course!
SL: Thanks!
💕
Y'all get a room...
:)
Any comments about Mexico and their pesos?