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View Full Version : Why you shouldn't spend that stimulus check.


Sanchek
06-10-2008, 10:04 AM
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/84019/

If you work for wages (or live on a pension), consider this: if every American said, "No thank you" to Bush's stimulus check and refused to cash them, the value of the dollars in your pocket right now, in terms of their purchasing power would go up by a factor greater than the face value ($600) of the stimulus check. In other words, if you didn't spend these checks, you'd be the richer for it.

The reason being that America does not have a hard-money economy, it's a debt-based fiat currency economy. All the money in circulation in America has been borrowed and then re-lent. So borrowing more money ($168 billion for the stimulus package) and then re-lending it to Americans, as Bush is doing, only increases the debt load and debases the value of the currency outstanding (against a backdrop of stagnant wages and minuscule interest rates for savers).

If an American was planning to spend $40K this year on food, clothing, shelter, health and various other expenses and they were hoping to defray some of that cost thanks to Bush's stimulus check understand that by simply adding another $168 billion of debt (the cost of the stimulus package) on top of America's current multi-trillion debt load will continue the Bush-Paulson-Benanke trend of debasing the purchasing power of your money and, therefore, raise the price of goods and services by more than the $600 'gift' (without a commensurate rise in wages or increase in interest paid on savings).

This is why America's debt problems won't go away. Every dollar spent adds debt and spawns more fiat currency issuance which has the effect of decreasing the purchasing power of the U.S. dollars in your pocket. Bush tries to make up the difference by borrowing even more; borrowing 340 million a day to fund the war and close to 3 billion a day to cover U.S. operating expenses, not to mention Wall Street borrowing over $30 billion a day to keep their Ponzi scheme going. All this borrowing keeps alive the vicious financial spiral trending lower towards permanent currency debasement and possible sovereignty loss.

It's a decent article that takes into account the reality of our monetary system, which most major new outlets refuse to even acknowledge.

Grift3r
06-10-2008, 12:00 PM
Ahh, it's so simple! Just stop spending money. ;)

Malse
06-10-2008, 12:06 PM
More like "stop spending money that isn't real."

Greystone Thorngage
06-10-2008, 12:16 PM
i spent my $300 on bill and $300 on a new xbox360...no way i could "sit" on it.

Kelraz Bladesinger
06-10-2008, 12:17 PM
However, you know 99.99999 percent of the country has or will cash that check. So, mailing it back sadly doesn't do jack.

If the Fed stops making loans, period, in a few decades we might see the inflation decline as the money plus the interest goes away. But that won't happen ;(

What I don't understand is why it is believed we can't have economic growth without making massive low interest loans to corporations, especially those that dramatically screwed up and screwed the economy in the first place.

Sanchek
06-10-2008, 12:19 PM
i spent my $300 on bill and $300 on a new xbox360...no way i could "sit" on it.

In the end, you'll just spend $300 more on food, gas, or whatever else, than you would have had to. Psychologically it might be a stimulus, but it's stimulating you to spend your preexisting money through inflation, not spending money you didn't have before.

Sanchek
06-10-2008, 04:33 PM
What I don't understand is why it is believed we can't have economic growth without making massive low interest loans to corporations, especially those that dramatically screwed up and screwed the economy in the first place.

Because our money is literally created as debt. Without creating more debt, our money system can't grow.

Like any Ponzi scam, it can't keep growing without more suckers at the bottom buying into it.

Sixee
06-18-2008, 02:11 PM
LOL State of GA ate mine up in back taxes....Couldn't win for losing.