[charles brough]

For about the last three years, wherever you drove, shops, stores, businesses of all kinds blatently advertised "We Buy Gold!." All over the country people who became unemployed and those behind in their morgage sold what gold they had to help them survive.

Where did it all go? It was refined and turned into investment form for the rich!
Those poor people who sold now see how much more it is worth (in dollars) than it was when they gave up their gold rings, bracelets and even teeth fillings. The rich now look back and see how they, the ones who bought that gold from the refiners who got it from the poor, how much profit they have from the misfortune of the poor, the poor, that is who were once the middle class.

Will the people ever get back their gold? Or will it ciliontinue to be used in yacht bathroom plumbing and stored in wealth-owners safes?

[CraigD]

Selling personal property to make ends meet isn’t new. It goes back to the earliest days that people in lower-privilege classes (that is, “peasants”) could have valuable possessions with a reasonable assurance that people in higher-privilege classes (“nobles”) could not simply take it at will without fear of legal repercussions. Prior to this time, one can reasonably say money didn’t exists, and precious metals like gold had only commodity value based on their uses, which were largely ornamental.

I recall the first time I saw a loud, attention-getting “we buy gold!” add on television feeling a sense of shock and impending bad times at the evoked image of impoverished people selling their sentimentally valuable jewelry to be melted down as gold scrap. After encountering this thread and thinking a bit more deeply about it, though, I imagine that heavily add-based gold buyers like cash4gold.com do with what they buy about what pawnbrokers and jewelers have long done – inspect it, separating and selling jewelry worth more than the gold it contains to jewelry sellers, and melting the rest. By paying only a discounted fraction of the listed price of gold at the time of sale, and selling either intact jewelry or refined gold, they maximize their profit.

The gold buyer's profit is, of course, its seller's loss, so a wiser thing to do if you find yourself with gold jewelry and desperate for cash is to show your pieces to and get offers from several jewelers and pawnbrokers, then sell at the highest price. Cash4gold’s website actually recommends this, promoting its services as a convenience, not one offering the highest payment.

The present-day redistribution of wealth from the many to the few disturbs me. Opportunistic gold buyers preying on the desperate is, I’m confident, a symptom, not a cause of this trend. Its cause, I think, is the mistaken belief of a majority or significant minority that it is somehow good for them, a belief that has been expertly encouraged by right-wing politicians for several decades.

The class war for “the people to get back their gold”, metaphorically speaking, will, I think and hope, be a political one. In the US, I believed the 2008 election of Barak Obama was a victory for the poor over the rich, because it would lead to the restoration of a more progressive taxes. 3 years later, it still has not. I remain hopeful, however, that it will, and that wealth will trend back to a mid 20th century distribution, allowing more people in the US and worldwide to enjoy greater pleasure and luxury at the expense of the most wealthy. The prospect of a growing poverty class slaving to death for the enrichment of a small super-rich class disgusts and chills me.

I’ve no great insight into how to achieve this political goal, though, other than to vote against those who propose that making the rich richer is better for the poor, and leave the class warfare to better and more enthusiastic political activists than me, with my wholehearted best wishes and support.

[Deepwater6]

Very well said by both of you. What I can't understand is why more people can't grasp the wealth tranfer trend. Our economy seems set up to give the poor, little other options to fighting this, other than starting a revolution to reverse it. Although Americans are losing there middle class most can still go to Walmart and buy a few things from China every now and then. I think this plays into their mentality that things aren't so bad for me. Unlike people in North Korea who I think should have started a revolution years ago. They have so many that starving over there and have nothing to call their own other than a military. In a situation like that what do you have to lose if your revolt doesn't work? They can starve in prison just as easily as they do on the outside.

I can understand CEO's and wealthy people not wanting the rich to pay higher taxes. They (in my mind) are greedy. That's their way of thinking and probably always has been, but these middle class recently layed-off stay at home dads and soccer moms signing up for the tea party just leaves me mystified. Do they really beleive in trickle down economics or do they just hate Barak Obama?

The republicans of course are helping themselves by fighting Obama at every turn. During George W. term congress signed off on (7)that's seven debt limit increases for the country. We all saw what happened when Obama tried to change it earlier this year. Like you CraigD I continue to be hopeful for a more progressive tax structure under Obama, but the hate on the otherside runs very deep. I also think there is only so much a president can control in the government. In my opinion people only tend to look at the headlines to make their thinking on how the deem politicians. "Oh we are heading into another recession and Obama is taking a vacation this week? That must be why I don't have a job."

[charles brough]

CraigD, on 19 August 2011 - 06:09 AM, said:

The present-day redistribution of wealth from the many to the few disturbs me. Opportunistic gold buyers preying on the desperate is, I’m confident, a symptom, not a cause of this trend. Its cause, I think, is the mistaken belief of a majority or significant minority that it is somehow good for them, a belief that has been expertly encouraged by right-wing politicians for several decades.

The class war for “the people to get back their gold”, metaphorically speaking, will, I think and hope, be a political one. In the US, I believed the 2008 election of Barak Obama was a victory for the poor over the rich, because it would lead to the restoration of a more progressive taxes. 3 years later, it still has not. I remain hopeful, however, that it will, and that wealth will trend back to a mid 20th century distribution, allowing more people in the US and worldwide to enjoy greater pleasure and luxury at the expense of the most wealthy. The prospect of a growing poverty class slaving to death for the enrichment of a small super-rich class disgusts and chills me.

I’ve no great insight into how to achieve this political goal, though, other than to vote against those who propose that making the rich richer is better for the poor, and leave the class warfare to better and more enthusiastic political activists than me, with my wholehearted best wishes and support.

When I was young, I had a little sideline business of collecting spent fixer solution from film developing businesses. I would dump it into a 30 gal plastic can, throw in some very find steel wool and let it set. After several days, the iron would precipitate all the silver out into a black sludge at the bottom. It was a smelly business because fixer has a strong odor! I poured off the fixer (unhappily for the sewer system!) and took the dried sludge to the city's refinery. They sent me a check once it was asseyed and processed into silver for use again.

Yes, I also hate to see the growing extremes in wealth. It happens with the decline of every civilization, as I have noted in "The Last Civilization." I buy silver and gold eagles minted by the US mint from time to time as the price rises. It is a way for me to protect what little I have if infation accelerates, and it seems certain to do just that.

[charles brough]

Deepwater6, on 19 August 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

Very well said by both of you. What I can't understand is why more people can't grasp the wealth tranfer trend. Our economy seems set up to give the poor, little other options to fighting this, other than starting a revolution to reverse it. Although Americans are losing there middle class .

The republicans of course are helping themselves by fighting Obama at every turn. During George W. term congress signed off on (7)that's seven debt limit increases for the country. We all saw what happened when Obama tried to change it earlier this year. Like you CraigD I continue to be hopeful for a more progressive tax structure under Obama, but the hate on the otherside runs very deep. I also think there is only so much a president can control in the government. In my opinion people only tend to look at the headlines to make their thinking on how the deem politicians. "Oh we are heading into another recession and Obama is taking a vacation this week? That must be why I don't have a job."

I do agree with the conservatives in that our medicare system is too expensive and needs a severe overhaul. Too much of our national wealth is spent in hopeless tests and proceedures for those at the very end of their lives. I have seen it and am in awe of how much it is costing. However, in all cuts in the educational system, medical aid, unemplyment etc. costs should be equalled by an increase in upper income taxes and loop-whole closing of the corporate tax structure. This Obama was unable to achieve because of the brutal resistance of Tea Party Republican alliance. Had he not given up on it, we would have defaulted and caused untold damage.

The public is very irrantional in ways. It forgets important things. Everything that happens is the result of cause and effect, and what the President is dealing with is the legacy of Geo W Bush. He lowered taxes, claiming (I remember it in the papers!) "deficits don't count!". Then he started a war but then left the country torn up and pushed us into a war with Iraq. Then, because of the neglect, we have had to go back into Afghanistan. We are still paying the heavy cost and suffering the heavy damage he caused to the economy. Moreover, the financial bubble came on his watch as did the stimulus which he began.

Then Pres. Obama is supposed to solve all this!? The public expects miracles! He has to be everywhere at once dealing with all the problems he inherited from the patently worst president in the history of the United States. And as you say, they complain when their poor exhausted and over-worked president desperately needs and seeks to have a little vacation!

[CraigD]

Deepwater6, on 19 August 2011 - 10:40 AM, said:

What I can't understand is why more people can't grasp the wealth tranfer trend.

I’ve long been puzzled by this, too.

One explanation that’s come to mind is that most people have a poor grasp of accounting and little ability to research actual financial information, and often little interest in the subject. I personally gave it little serious thought until 1981, following the enactment of the first Regan tax “simplification”. The contrast between the “trickled down” political rhetoric attending this, and even more the enactment of the second Regan tax act in 1986, and my public school civics class extolling a “give according to ability, take according to need” progressing tax was jarring to me. Not until reading journalist Bartlett and Steele’s 1991 America: What Went Wrong? did I encounter a serious, systematic exploration of the subject. (Despite its age, I think this book is still relevant, and recommend it – its full text is available via the above link)

Another is that many people have an unrealistic belief that flat or regressive taxes increase their chances of becoming rich – that a substantial number of the poor love, and aspire to be, rich, and loath the poor.

Attending both of these explanations are fundamental ideas that flat taxes are “fair”, and political philosophies such as Ayn Rand’s, which depict the poor as “parasites” of the rich.

Quote

I can understand CEO's and wealthy people not wanting the rich to pay higher taxes. They (in my mind) are greedy. That's their way of thinking and probably always has been ...

While I sure some wealthy people are greedy, many of the most wealthy clearly are not. Case in point, this recent op-ed by Warren Buffet, and the “Giving Pledge” made by over 70 wealthy people to give over 50% of their wealth to charities.

Unfortunately, it takes only a minority of greedy rich folk to influence government to enact tax and other policies to make themselves richer, and the poor poorer. However, I’m not sure this is what has actually happened. Equally or more likely, to the best of my limited political scholarship, is that the flattening of US tax rates was influenced mostly by an economic theory explained in 1974 by academic economist Arthur Laffer to journalist Jude Wanniski, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld's deputy press secretary Grace-Marie Arnet – the “Laffer curve”.

Whatever its origin, I think the flattening of taxes has had a bad effect on the US and world economy and civilization in general, and should, as Buffet, Obama, and other argue, be undone.

charles brough, on 19 August 2011 - 02:04 PM, said:

I do agree with the conservatives in that our medicare system is too expensive and needs a severe overhaul. Too much of our national wealth is spent in hopeless tests and proceedures for those at the very end of their lives.

My hope is that the “overhaul” of Medicare need not be too severe. I hope that, as the various provision of the PPACA continue to take effect, an increasing number of Americans will be insured by HMOs with Medicare Risk contracts, resulting in fewer fee-for-service Medicare claim payments. Risk contracts compensate insurers at a utilization-independent per person per month rate, eliminating the incentive to perform and bill for medically unnecessary tests and procedures.

For this to occur, however Risk contracts must pay higher rates, and insurers must be prohibited from opting out of them.

Quote

Had he [Obama] not given up on it [the “debt ceiling debate”], we would have defaulted and caused untold damage.

I’m suspicious of this assertion, made so widely that I believe it is a “big lie”.

Had the debt ceiling not been raised by the Budget Control Act of 2011, the US Executives department of Treasury would not have been required to default on payment of the US debt. It would have been prohibited from incurring more debt – that is, from issuing new bonds or securing new commercial loans, or repaying debt at less than its rate of accumulated interest. The Executive would have had to cancel planned spending on other expenses.

These expenses could have been for high-visibility services on which many people depend, such as Social Security benefits, or could have been for such things as contracts to developing future military weapons.

Quote

Then Pres. Obama is supposed to solve all this!? The public expects miracles! He has to be everywhere at once dealing with all the problems he inherited from the patently worst president in the history of the United States.

I like Obama, voted for him, and will vote for him again. I disliked G. W. Bush, voted against him twice, and believe he was an incompetent US president. However, I think calling him the patently worst President in US history is an exaggeration. According to the various polls of historians sourced in this wikipedia article, Bush is considered on average the 10th (of 43) worst President in history, not IMHO in the same league of badness of, say, post-Civil War reconstruction era President Andrew Johnson.

Though I take everybody’s point of the limited ability of the President to control the debt, This thread and the recent public discussion of the US debt prompted me to update this 2006 “best and worst presidents based on debt” post.

G. W. Bush does earn a fictional “most worsened” deficit rate designation, for assuming a -0.5% deficit in 2001, and handing Obama a +19.2% one. At a mere 69% increase in CPI-adjusted dollars, he falls far short of besting Regan’s 103.6% for the “worst debt-reducer” award.

No post-WWII President has presided over an annual debt increase greater than 1943’s 77.8% or 1918’s 116.3%.

Excerpted from that post:

Year  Debt            Increase  Debt in 2000 $  Increase
2011 14620196583424.20   0.078 11144744805956.83   0.041
2010 13561623030891.79   0.139 10707526299493.66   0.120
2009 11909829003511.75   0.188  9561177409812.23   0.192  Obama
2008 10024724896912.49   0.113  8017917451223.09   0.072  
2007  9007653372262.48   0.059  7482479067552.34   0.030
2006  8506973899215.23   0.072  7302596737013.27   0.044
2005  7932709661723.50   0.075  6994432174852.98   0.040
2004  7379052696330.32   0.088  6726695999513.40   0.060
2003  6783231062743.62   0.089  6348219505458.97   0.065
2002  6228235965597.16   0.072  5961657772517.13   0.056
2001  5807463412200.06   0.023  5646782606328.91  -0.005  W.Bush

Note that actual treasury department accounting contradicts the popular assertion that the debt is “spiraling out of control, as the deficit has decreased dramatically since it’s post WWII record in 2009.

[Deepwater6]

Sorry, I was accidentally copied your whole message CraigD. I wanted to only respond to your point about "W" being near the top of presidents that put us in debt. I think it's important not only to look at what a president agrees to pursue or spend funds on during his term. We must also look at what things he started that the incoming president must continue.

I like Obama and voted for him also, and I will again, but I think he did not have a choice when it came to Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He not only had to keep them going, but needed to insert a surge of troops to get what his generals told him was needed to end the conflicts. Unlike an unpopular weapons program under design by the last president that would create many lost jobs if canceled. He cannot turn the light switch off and stop the wars. In a sense "W" and his regime shaped the Obama policy on that. Obama will more than likely help shape whomever follows him as well, but I hope it's not as costly.

[charles brough]

CraigD, on 21 August 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

.. . .good information . . .

As to the belief that we would have been in default if the Pres had not compormised as being propaganda, I question that. You gave a detailed description of what would follow, but even that would seem to me to be damanging. Our whole civilization and the Global Economy is held together by a secular ideology that is essentially now based upon the US Constitution. Our strength as a nation is what makes that ideology convincing and viable. When we show weakness, it has a serious effect on the whole world and the secular world begins to lose hope. Already, Zakaria has come on TV and actually criticized the US Constitution because it formed a presidential instead of a parlamentary system and the reason Congress is able to become locked and hence potentially disastrous. He was right, but even the truth is damaging. No system is perfect and signs of ours in decline are inevitable, but still saddening.

The big lie? I saved your URL or contact to study later. In "The Last Civilization," I list twenty-one strategems used in social theory rationalizing. Some of them I see are on the same list you showed. I'll cull it to see if there are more!)

Yes, there are generous people including ones who are very wealthy, but the whole corporate system is geared to profit for stockholder gain and higher management wages. We have over decades and generations become less idealistic and more materialistic. Corporate advertising has moulded us into "consumers" dedicated to getting more "stuff" than "the others." This trend has happened in ever civilization towards its end as each goes through the same cause and effect process. It is not just a matter of the rich being greedy but all of us. It is the trend.

Your statistics on the national debt are interesting and informative. I get your point. I think we are in a "fix" now only because we cannot inflate ourselves out of it as we did in such previous and similar recessions.

I judge W. Bush as the worst on not just the way he mishandled Afghanistan and got us into an avoidable war with Iraq but as well on him blatently involving religion into national affairs---as with his referring to the otherside always as "evil."
I have cause to believe that the fate of Medicare is a slow multi-year death by a thousand cuts. This is exactly what is happening with the abortion law.

[phillip1882]

personally i dislike Obama, and his policies, but then i'm a fan of ron paul, so guess that's no surprize.
yes, i'm in favor of a flat tax. churches don't ask for more than 10% of your income, and niether should the government.
no, i'm not in favor of having 1000 loop holes in the tax code. the people that benifit the most from this are the people that have the most resourses to devote to studying and exploiting them (ie the rich.) and when i say 10% i mean 10% no matter how you earn your income, whether through investing or otherwise. in my mind the government owes the public only two rights. the ability to express yourself, and defend your actions.
economically, agian the government should only enforce two laws, honesty and fidelity. for example, when bp spilled the oil, they were drilling far more deeply then they told inspectors. therefore bp should be burdened with the clean up and payment of damages, not the government, not the taxpayers. when the banks become insolvent, they where the ones taking the risks. it was thier burden to bear, not the tax payers, not the government.
unrealistic? maybe. but in my opinion, unless we develop and consistantly stick to a stable set of rules, we are destined for far worse calamities.

[Turtle]

CraigD, on 21 August 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

...Unfortunately, it takes only a minority of greedy rich folk to influence government to enact tax and other policies to make themselves richer, and the poor poorer. However, I’m not sure this is what has actually happened. ...

it appears that, poor-getting-poorer aside, more people are getting poor. more so than at any time since the statistic was collected according to this new(s) release.

U.S. poverty rate reaches 15.1 percent

Michael A. Fletcher said:

The nation’s poverty rate spiked to 15.1 percent in 2010, the highest level since 1993, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday, providing vivid new evidence about the country’s inability to escape the lingering effects of the recession.

About 46.2 million Americans lived in poverty last year, marking an increase of 2.6 million over 2009 and the fourth consecutive annual increase in poverty.

The total number of people living below the poverty line — which in 2010 was set at an income of $22,314 for a family of four — is now at the highest level in the 52 years the statistic has been collected.

The continued rise in poverty was just the latest manifestation of a troubled economy that has left 14 million Americans out of work and caused unemployment to hover above 9 percent for 25 of the past 27 months.

As poverty has spiked, median household income declined by 2.3 percent to $49,445 between 2009 and 2010. The typical household now earns less than it did in 1997, when inflation is factored in, a troubling sign of economic stagnation.
...

charles brough, on 19 August 2011 - 02:04 PM, said:

I do agree with the conservatives in that our medicare system is too expensive and needs a severe overhaul. Too much of our national wealth is spent in hopeless tests and proceedures for those at the very end of their lives. I have seen it and am in awe of how much it is costing. ...

well, if you remember they, the conservatives, referred -and do still refer- to the idea of end of life counseling as "obama's death panels". congress took out the provision in the health care bill, but the medicare administrator put it back in under the wellness care statute.

>>Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule

[lawcat]

It's just jewelry. There are more alternatives for fair compensation today than ever, as in ebay, amazon etc. Of all things this is one that no one should feel bad about.