Tariffs and sky high audio prices.

Back to gold for a moment.  I'm not sure that it is good from the standpoint of backing currency....or from the standpoint of owning mines. 


Getting it out of the ground and turning it into 99% pure bricks has an operating/production cost in the  $600 per oz range...now add the cost of buying the mining property, royalties and fees to the countries you operate in, reclaiming the land....and you are between $900-1000 per oz total cost.


So, if gold were not a commodity but a product that sold in the 2x cost range ...it would likely be in the $1700-2000 per oz.  For the last 10 years it has pretty much been in the $1300 range with a high of $1900 and a low of $900.

rodman99999 writes:

The only reason we have an economy; the US Dollar is currently the world’s standard currency. Too bad, it’s backed by nothing but trust that we can repay the debts, incurred by the government and owed by every American citizen, whether they’re aware it’s owed or not. China has been hoarding gold for decades(if not centuries) and it’s currency/economy is backed by gold. The US Dollar is backed by imagination("fiat money"). Just wait, ’til the rest of the world catches on, the Juan takes center stage in the world economy and renders your, "money" worthless. Keep your eyes open/coming soon, to a neighborhood near YOU(unfortunately/hope I’m wrong)!

A lot of which is correct and shows he's paying attention. Of course its not the "only" reason we have an economy. Go back far enough, to the beginning, it was tariffs that made British and other imported goods more expensive, that in turn made domestic goods more profitable and led to decades of the strongest economic growth the US has ever had. With zero inflation too, I might add. (The cost of a bushel of corn was the same from the 1600's for 300 years! What came 300 years later? The Fed was created in 1913.)

Lamestream media does such a good job delivering fake news that most people see gold as an anachronism and know pretty much nothing about how money works. Even though its hard to see the national interest in pretty much any of the many military actions we've been engaged in without knowing.

One anchor of the USD is the agreement Kissinger worked out with the Saudi's to require payment for oil with USD. This created global demand to suck up the excess supply we created with our deficit spending. All that money creation without the oil payment demand and the US would have seen massive inflation. Instead it was the whole world that got the inflation. When you hear someone say the US exports inflation this is what they're talking about. 

Saddam Hussein started selling his oil for Euros. Can't have that. No more Saddam. We were told one reason. Anyone who understands monetary theory knows the real reason. Now you do too.

The world, and the US, was just fine with Muhammar Qaddafi. Even when he started building nukes, Reagan sends him a message, what's one cruise missile between friends? But then he wanted to launch a gold coin currency for the Arab world. Way too close to home, he got it even worse than Saddam. In the end, so to speak. 

Both these guys by the way held many tons of gold. Gold that somehow disappeared. In spite of their territory being under US military lock-down.

Yeah. Right.

So who are the Bad Guys now? China and Russia. The two countries on the planet adding most consistently to their official gold stores. The two countries working most diligently and cooperatively to move the world towards trade settlement in currencies other than the dollar. China even has the nerve to start conducting actual physical gold bullion settlement in Yuan. 

As far as audio gear goes, it seems to me we will do just fine. We already have some if not most of the world's best high end audio manufacturers. If tariffs drive up the cost of cheap imports it seems to me we can look forward to even more great gear being made where it should be, right here in America. 

All of these falsehoods about Social Security when the real data is readily available. A truly sorry state of affairs.
https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/info-2016/debunking-six-more-myths-about-social-security.html

It will run out in 2034 but still be able to pay 80% of what you'd normally get if the present state of affairs remains the same. Just raising the cap on S.S. from  to around 135,000 will extend the 100% payout about 30% further into the future. Before this year the cap was around $128,400 and this year it will go up to $132,900. Part of the problem was recognized.

It's hard for me to follow and retain all the figures but it's not rocket science. It's policy. As long as you have one side of the equation believing that S.S. should fail (since they believe government shouldn't be involved), then they will do and say everything they can to ensure it's failure.

Those on the other side of the equation, see a very simple way to keep it going, and under ideal conditions, double the payout and still be solvent forever.

If the cap is removed, entirely, then you could double the monthly payout, which would be nice for those who've been robbed and deprived of their pensions. Also, if you grant a path to citizenship for the undocumented who already work here (and pay 10-12 billion a year in taxes for services they will never receive), you'll have that base that will pay into the fund, paying it forward. It's how our S.S. has operated since it's inception.

Again, it can be done if you want it to work in your favor, or you can cut your nose off to spite your face, just to affirm some misplaced convictions.

All the best,
Nonoise

The Chinese people are not the bad guys, their system simply doesn't value intellectual property or the rights of an individual. Be thankful they don't in the case of gun powder or pasta, since the Chinese invented these things among many others and did not patent/copyright. Jokes aside, intellectual property is a western concept. Inna, every society makes its own rules...trade or don't trade but the subject of trade should be a no whining, no resentment zone. If you must trade, then get the best deal you can and everyone just move on down the road. If someone breaks their deal, stop trading. If you can't afford to stop trading with someone then you have a different problem to fix.

@oregonpapa 

Social Security is a nice concept but it would be nice if everyone would refresh on their history from time to time. At its origin, Social Security is a tax, plain and simple.  The tax was imposed on the workers at the time and paid out to those too old/infirm and of a certain age. I dont remember the exact life expectantcy when payments began but IIRC it was scheduled to begin paying a couple of years PAST the average lifespan. It was never intended to be an individuals retirement plan.  As far as someone dying before the got to collect all they paid in? Thats the way it works. It is equally as fair as someone collecting MORE than they paid in because they lived too long. As I stated above, the only fair way to do it is to pay you back all of your contributions compunded and you are on your own! Oregonpapa, doing some quick math, you would have lost out on that deal many years ago!!!

Any way you slice it, if your present budgeting for old age/retirement includes social security as a requirement to make ends meet, stop buying audio gear immediately and save more money before you get there. Not because Social Security may or may not be there, it will be there. You should save more because it was never intended to underwrite your retirement, it was meant to supplement. I'm not going to begin taking distributions until they force me (presently age 70 I think) and even then, I will donate it to various good causes. I don't know if I will win or lose actuarily by waiting because I don't know at what I age will pass away. Once again, some people get a good deal, some don't, that's the why we look at averages. I have paid in the maximum allowable to Social Security every year since the 1980's. Most of those years I was maxed out easily within the 1st quarter. Now if I were like many I would grouse about whether or not I will get MY money back and whether it was a good deal for ME.  But I choose to be a little more philosophical about it. My responsibility as an inheritor of my piece of this great country is to pay it forward...and backward!  Backward in the sense that my contribution pay Oregonpapa because he paid for those before him.  My responsibility forward is to be generous, enjoy my life, consume what I need (who defines need?), help those who are less fortunate and share a positive outlook with anyone who will listen.

Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled around 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K, per year,  over your working life, that’s close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) compounded at a simple 5% after 49 years of working, you’d have $892,919.98. If you bought an annuity and it paid only 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. The average S.S. recipient, since 2011,  gets around $1200/month. The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever thought of.    And; they put HIM in jail..