I got that from economic data submitted to the World Bank, from the Fed, etc. I've no idea why you're talking about "progressive" economists. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BN.GSR.GNFS.CD?locations=US https://seekingalpha.com/article/164163-krugman-and-the-pied-pipers-of-debt BTW, real wages went down from the '70s onward, then went up again, likely debt-driven.
OK. I am not what one of the world would call a smart person. But 'political figures' are not the answer. They are the problem; in bed with other world 'leaders' and big companies like pharma and oil. It is all well and good to point to Putin and China and say it is their fault. But Who made us the policeman of the world. Who sent all our industry to China and then bought all of their cheap crap. The country was built by 'commanders of industry' who got the gov't to offer free land to immigrants who stirred up the Indians and took their land so the gov't destroyed all their nations (yes, they were NATIONS) to finalize our theft. I was just listening to what I considered to be a nut case, up until recently. Nut case just said we destroyed our strength. No one will listen to us anymore with nothing to back our currency. Russia and China will join with Saudis, Iran, Iraq, Brazil, Venezuela. They have been building gold backed digital currencies. Iran actually has a digital sub cutaneous ID it is putting together to track and control consumption. Even our citizens are starting to smarten up. North American and Europe must unite. OUR gov't does not want the killings to stop. They want it to escalate because the only control we will have will be our guns. And gov't does not want us to have control. Enough violence will give them excuse to enforce martial law. Even If we can control ourselves, Things will get very bad. No real money. No food or supplies. The people I see as progressives think the gov't can keep taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Look at all the free money it gave to the needy during covid! But they don't see these massive expenditures as the cause of inflation. They believe it is Putin or China. Remember when it was Japan and Taiwan? They made all the cheap stuff back in 50's and 60's. It is always someone else's fault. We will have to help each other as much as we are able because we will be all that we will have. Maybe help the Salvation Army or a church or our neighbors. Be Don Quixote for a couple of years. Nut case said build up food reserves and physical silver ( I know of a physical silver fund. I couldn't even carry an actual bag of silver up the stairs or put it into my car) All the digital currencies now have actual gold backing. Ours will have to to if 'the politicians' ever get it together.
That sounds exactly like what I was listening to last night, @Mary Stetler ! I was listening to youtube, David Nino Rodriguez, and he had Jim Willie on as a guest speaker, and they were talking about the housing situation, the money situation, and why other countries are refusing to have anything to do with America now that our money is almost worthless, and that we need a gold backed currency again. I enjoy listening to quite a few of David’s guest speakers (especially Juan O”Savin) and have a subscription to Ninoscorner.tv , which has even more of his interviews that he can’t put on youtube without being kicked off of his channel.
You mentioned that I could find a "'progressive' economist" to support my claim, and all I did was show you that I didn't need to do that. I just used economic data submitted by the U.S. to the World Bank, something that even "non-progressive" economists can verify.
Why would you believe anything coming out of Washington? Or the World Bank, for that matter? The safest way to think (and is nearly always right) is that everything the government says is a lie.
Then tell me what are the correct data sets for GDP growth rate per annum, balance of trade, and even debt levels that I should use.
Ok, We are all in trouble. The US Board of Disinformation has stated that anyone encouraging and/or teaching home grown food is now promoting disinformation and will be added to 'the list'. I wonder if that includes eating weeds or 'weeding'. Who will bail me out? It is like the parents who spoke up as school board meetings were labeled traitors!
This is something that we have been seeing for a while now, and it is getting a lot worse at this point. Plants that were used as food for centuries, like comfrey and sassafras , are now listed as being dangerous to eat. They took and extract of part of the comfrey root (where it is found much more than in the leaves, which are the part people eat), and then they gave huge doses of this isolated extract to lab rats, and some of them developed liver problems. This is a huge difference to some animal or person just eating a few leaves as part of their greens in their diet; but since they were able to show even a little example of the extract causing liver problems, now we are told not to ever eat comfrey. It is actually one of the few (maybe the only ?) vegetarian sources of vitamin B-12, so most vegans take B-12 supplements since they do not consume animal products. Milk is another good example. Raw milk is actually healthy, and was used in healing for years and years. After they started processing the milk with homogenizing and pasteurizing it, then it became harder for a human to digest the milk, and all of the healing enzymes are lost. However, you can’t even buy raw milk at most grocery stores any more, and farmers are not allowed to sell raw milk, at least in some states. What they do to get around this is to sell people “pet milk”, and since it is not being sold for human consumption, it can still be done. People have also formed a kind of cow-commune, where they pay to be a part owner in the milk cow, since it is legal to have your own cow and drink the milk.
The same for natural vitamins, like E and lab created. The benefits vitamins can provide can be 'scientifically' proven wrong or non existent. The carrier oils can actually be bad for the people taking them if one doesn't do one's own research. I used to think the fda protected us.
I do believe that America can and will get better, but I am not sure how long that will take. We have let our politicians and bankers dig us into a pretty deep mud hole, and the person who appears to be occupying the White House right now is not making decisions that are for our country’s benefit. We have all heard the saying about alcoholics and drug addicts that they have to hit rock bottom before they are ready and willing to change. Our country is struggling with that same thing right now. There are people who are just sleepwalking through life, listening to the news media blame Putin, global warming, President Trump, or just about anything else except their decisions, for what is happening in the United States right now. Until enough of those “Woke” people actually become “awake” people, they are not going to be ready to try and change America back to a healthy and great country. As ridiculous as it seems, we have Biden to thank for more and more people actually waking up. They wouldn’t listen to us when we tried to tell them what was coming, just kept following the other sheep; but now many of these people are becoming former liberals, and leaving the liberal Democratic Party. Not that the Republican Party is all wonderful either, but of the two, they seem to be making at least somewhat smarter decisions. Sometimes, we lose everything in life, and have to make a fresh start and rebuild from the ground up. I think that is where this country is at right now, and we are going to keep losing everything until enough people get ready to stop what we are doing, and supporting the people we are supporting, and start rebuilding America again.
What I gave were "gov't numbers." But I'm told they're not to be trusted. Maybe you can help out and tell me what data sets to use. As for money backed by gold, that hasn't been taking place for decades, and for obvious reasons. If you take the total amount of gold and silver worldwide and divide that by the world population, it only comes out to a few troy oz. per person. That not only makes the use of gold as currency impractical it also makes the idea of backing money by gold illogical, as the world population will need more gold each time, and that means inflating its value. One more funny thing about gold and even silver: they have little practical value. They're too soft to be used for weapons, armor, and even tools. They only have limited applications for certain appliance parts, dental needs, and some chemical processes, but beyond that their value essentially lies in their rarity. And they look pretty when used for jewelry, etc.