Can we talk about money?

[Isaac]

The dollar is doing really good at the moment ($115 to $100 Euro). However, it always does pretty good this time of year then drops a bit around December. Some people think it's going to drop harder than normal. I've only started thinking about investing outside the US or just having simple savings accounts in Euros. What are your thoughts on the Dollar's future?

I can feel myself wanting to rant, so I'll just stop here and see if anyone wants to talk.

[Jeff250]

Is USD doing good at the moment? Compared to pre-pandemic, USD is much less valuable now versus EUR, CAD, etc. This is largely believed to be due to inflation resulting from the USA's deficit spending relating to COVID, but like anything financial who really knows because it just boils down to perceived value.

If you want to hedge against USD losing more value, another currency may not be the best bet, since most everyone is deficit spending in response to the pandemic and since most all currencies will be at risk of inflation. You might consider instead investing in stocks or in real estate, especially if this is a long term investment where you don't care about short term volatility so much, i.e., you don't care if the market goes down for a period as long as it eventually grows above your purchase price after enough years.

[Isaac]

I can see that already. Houses in desirable areas in my town are shooting up. My collectable cards are going up too... Hardly an investment, because I don't expect to sell them because I love them, but many of my old cards have doubled or more since 2019. I'm pretty sure it's, like you're saying, because the dollar is dropping and not their actual value going up.

[Krom]

For the first time in nearly a century the pandemic forced conservatives to actually put money into the bottom of the economy instead of the top which naturally leads to inflation. Otherwise they are normally very good at keeping inflation in check by concentrating all the money at the top and starving the other 99% of capital.

Basically the value of the dollar is heavily dependent on how difficult they are to obtain for most people, and with the worlds elite generally being the financial equivalent of supermassive black holes from which nothing but the faintest radiation ever escapes has done an excellent job at keeping dollars sufficiently difficult to obtain for everyone else.

I'm reasonably confident conservatives will soon reassert control on behalf of the elites and once again funnel the majority of capital back to the top which will bring inflation back under control. Pretty much just expect things to return to slightly worse for everyone else than the pre-pandemic normal with the elites once again fat and happy with "strong economic numbers" that mean nothing for the vast majority of people.

[Tunnelcat]

Hell, even my used cars are now worth far more than I paid for them and my house is now worth 4 times what I paid to build it. This is a strange state of affairs and I lived through the stagflation years of the Carter Administration and the gas shortages of the 1970's. I've never seen craziness like this and I think the Covid pandemic has exacerbated a long festering political wound in this country.

As to the elites getting back to their fat and happy places, this time the road to sitting back fat and happy is going to be very bumpy, if not impassible. The U.S. is roiling politically and both political parties absolutely and blindly hate each other. McConnell now fears the Trump electorate more than the will of the elites and doesn't care about bankrupting the government because in the short term, it screws the Dems, which is what Trump wants. The Republicans are now willing to subvert democracy just to win no matter what. The fact is, Trump is going to run in 2024 and WILL win through the actions of many Republican state legislatures invaliding any vote results that said Trump lost. Because in many states, thanks to those legislatures changing voting laws and taking the powers out of the hands of Secretaries of State, now they can. A Trump presidency will be an administration of revenge and carnage and liberals and even independents everywhere will not sit still and watch a political bloodbath. Either way, a Trump win or loss, there will be violence, even perhaps a second Civil War because now a high percentage of Americans believe in seceding from the Union. 52% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats think this way now, damn near half the country. The Republicans want a Trump autocracy no matter what the cost, which will signal the end of our centuries old democracy that required just a tad of civility and compromise. RIP United States of America.

http://brightlinewatch.org/still-miles- ... residency/

[Tunnelcat]

[RANT starting ]I just paid $14 for a small 8" pizza. Not gonna buy a restaurant made pizza for awhile. Tenderloin steak is now $32 a pound. Too rich for my blood. $4.79 a gallon for non-ethanol premium gas. Ain't driving so much now. Could be worse. Some areas are seeing $7+ a gallon. And for God's sake, get rid of that goddamn ethanol welfare for farmers paid for with my tax dollars! I'm paying a premium to keep it OUT of the gas I buy. ★■◆●! Damn oil companies and all those idiot environmentalists back who knows when that mandated this crap! Ethanol has NEVER benefited the environment. In fact, it's made things worse with the wasteful farming practices required to grow acre upon acre of water and fertilizer intensive corn. In fact, they are destroying farmland for fuel that could go towards growing FOOD! So ★■◆●ing stupid! Oh, and natural gas is going up too. There goes my heating bill this winter.

Guess who's going to get blamed for all this during the next election? The Democrats and Joe Biden, all because it happened on their watch and they seemingly sat on their hands and argued like a bunch of petulant children through all of it. Stagflation screwed Jimmy Carter and gave us Reagan and the current inflation is going to screw Joe Biden and give us back Trump, whether it's Biden's fault or not. People see money bleeding out of their pocket books and blame the current president and his party. He's so wishy washy and old, he looks weak and incompetent and he's as bad to listen to as superlative blathering Trump. He's handing the next presidential election to Trump on a silver platter all because he's a wuss and can't get his own damn party in line. Even though they FINALLY passed the Infrastructure Plan, the Dems STILL keep trying to pass their insipid social Build Back Better Plan, moving their eyes off the ball, the current state of the economy. Just because it's the pandemic's fault doesn't mean you have to look like you're ignoring it. Besides, the money to pay for all of this is certainly not going to come out of the pockets of the elites because they've got the system wired for their benefit no matter who says who or what is going to pay for things. The Progressives are young, stupid idiots who don't know the ass end of who controls our dirty politics. They want the rich to pay. Well, the rich run Washington, they ain't gonna pass something that they may have to pay for OR will instead find a way to stick it to the rest of society if something DOES get passed. For example on a personal note, paid child care. Nice ideal, but forget it. That may sound heartless, but I'm on a fixed income. My mother worked when I was a kid and she paid for my child care out of her own damn pocket. But if we pass paid child care, I'M going to end up paying for it one way or another. I'm sorry, but ★■◆● that! I don't have kids and I don't want to pay to care for yours. So if you have kids, cough up for the child care if you need to work. Besides, the kiddies are starting to go back to actual school, pubic day care. Oh, but they're afraid of Covid. Well dammit, get them vaccinated all you conspiracy loving antivax idiot parents! I got vaccinated with all sorts of mandated vaccines as a kid, so get yours vaccinated today for the good of the country, get them back in school learning and get back to work and earn the money to pay for any care they need!

Along those lines of getting stuff passed, guess what got axed in all their "negotiations" in the rest of the bill they DO want to try and get passed? They left out a very important item for me and millions of seniors on fixed incomes, giving the government the sensible ability to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D. WTF! I want to thank Republicans for that little screw job, especially since Part D is now REQUIRED or you get fined! ★■◆●ing A! My stupid conservative sister didn't even know HER PARTY gave us that little gem. Now the Dems can't even be bothered to correct that mistake either! Pussy drug company butt kissers. Every time I see those ★■◆●ing expensive wall to wall drug ads on the mostly network news shows, (that all seniors are essentially paying for) I want to strangle someone in Big Pharma for being ripoff assholes. Medicare premiums are far cheaper than private insurance, but the Medicare Advantage companies find ways to nickle and dime you with their out-of-network bull★■◆●, high deductibles and copay's and other nefarious fine print. Trump's little hollow executive action, err deal, died a neglected death and did absolutely nothing to solve the problem for all those deluded conservatives who want to tout that Trump "deal".

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/13/91254509 ... rug-prices

So the Dems are going to crash and burn come 2022 AND 2024 because they haven't been able to deal with our current important problems, like inflation, our expensive national healthcare mess and the fact we as a nation are so close to civil war I can smell it. I've got a conservative friend who's a gun owner and now ready for war. They can't even come to a consensus within their own ranks, all because the Progressives are not willing to give up some of their pie in the sky platform and get ANYTHING decent done for the American people and you know what? It's their own stupid fault because they've forgotten one simple thing. You can't always get what you want and that working towards a goal means not standing in the mud defiantly flipping the bird saying my way or the highway. [END OF RANT]

On a similar note concerning public money, THIS little item will definitely burn Joe Biden with nearly ALL conservatives and probably quite a few moderates if true. Biden is being cagey out this one, so something is up his sleeve. He's already come out and stated that these separated families need compensation. Thoughts on this? I would hate to have to pay for Trump's little nasty policy. I say he needs to pay for it himself. He came up with it, implemented it, needs to own up to it and he's rich and can afford it. Contrary to crazy conservatives, Biden has never done this. There may have been other screw ups with immigrants under Biden, but not this one.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-a ... d=80958988

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... g-country/

[woodchip]

Well do you mention the trillions passed by congress , most of which goes into socialist spending plans Then have absolutely clueless admin mouthpiece tell us it is not going to cost us anything? Do you think pay people generous unemployment checks helped or hurt the economy, inflation. Still glad Trump got voted out of office.

[vision]

Do you think pay people generous unemployment checks helped or hurt the economy, inflation. Still glad Trump got voted out of office.

Did you have a stroke while writing this?

[woodchip]

Do you think pay people generous unemployment checks helped or hurt the economy, inflation. Still glad Trump got voted out of office.

Did you have a stroke while writing this?

No but it did generate taking a nice comforting dump.

[Top Gun]

Did you have a stroke while writing this?

I'm fairly certain he had a stroke at least a decade ago.

[Krom]

Well do you mention the trillions passed by congress , most of which goes into socialist spending plans Then have absolutely clueless admin mouthpiece tell us it is not going to cost us anything? Do you think pay people generous unemployment checks helped or hurt the economy, inflation. Still glad Trump got voted out of office.

Trillions on socialist spending? You know the interesting thing about the "big spending bill" was when it was initially started and Sanders wanted 6 trillion dollars over 10 years is that it is still less money than will definitely be spent on the military budget aka "department of defense" in that same 10 years. And basically ALL of that "defense" spending will go to waste and into the pockets of the already too wealthy military industrial complex never to be useful for the economy again.

For how much money we piss away on the military, I have to question why the rest of the world beyond our western allies has not been reduced to smoldering wastelands? Why are the Taliban in control of Afghanistan? Or really why is there anyone left alive in Afghanistan? Iraq? Iran? Why are Russia, China, and North Korea still places that exist on maps? What does all that "defense" spending actually get us? It certainly hasn't made us or anyone else any safer. At best other countries fear us, which honestly is not all that good of position to be in because fear is not the same as respect and motivates them in the wrong ways.

Unlike all that military spending that vanishes into the ether, if we instead spent it on social programs it would actually contribute to the economy in a meaningful way and we (plus the rest of the world) would actually be measurably better off for it.

[Jeff250]

Well do you mention the trillions passed by congress , most of which goes into socialist spending plans Then have absolutely clueless admin mouthpiece tell us it is not going to cost us anything? Do you think pay people generous unemployment checks helped or hurt the economy, inflation. Still glad Trump got voted out of office.

I would have preferred that we had raised taxes on the wealthiest earners to have paid for it, but it was nevertheless a net positive for the economy.

[Tunnelcat]

Well do you mention the trillions passed by congress , most of which goes into socialist spending plans Then have absolutely clueless admin mouthpiece tell us it is not going to cost us anything? Do you think pay people generous unemployment checks helped or hurt the economy, inflation. Still glad Trump got voted out of office.

It has NOT passed yet, and it may not if a couple of Dem Senators have their way. Personally, it's loaded with too much pork, has too many giveaways, too progressive, too expensive and adds to the humongous debt that Trump saddled us with after HIS nice unfunded giveaway to the elite with those large tax cuts and I personally hope it fails to pass. And yes, I'm still glad we got rid of our Orange Dictator. At least Biden can be voted out of office like a normal politician and would turn over power to his successor peacefully. Trump has never even conceded to this day. Trump was so desperate to stay in power he was willing to subvert election law with his hand picked DOJ, was willing to threaten state secretaries of state to overturn the will of the people and even riled up a bunch of deluded supporters to try and stop Mike Pence from certifying the election. He's still out there like a cancerous bloated tumor spreading up his Big Lie about the election to any deluded Republicans willing to listen. His conservative minions in state legislatures are actively turning all our non-partisan elections boards into partisan butt kissers, all due to threats of intimidation and violence against all those thankless election board workers who are now in fear of their lives and calling it quits and NO ONE has been arrested or prosecuted over these threats. So why in God's name Conservatives keep up their following to this idiot and keep trying to get him back in office with any underhanded undemocratic method possible dumbfounds me. You want a strong leader, pick someone in 2024 who's strong and intelligent, not a dictator idiot wannabe egomaniac womanizer with delusions of being God king for life. Conservatives who keep worshiping this guy as a leader in any form or fashion means every damn one of them is absolutely stupid to their core.

[Jeff250]

adds to the humongous debt that Trump saddled us with after HIS nice unfunded giveaway to the elite with those large tax cuts

Yeah it's funny how some people weren't concerned about inflation then.