I was thinking about why Trump might be ruining the U.S. economy, but there were no obvious answers, unless he was just following orders from his leader, Putin. That is possible, but he has done a few things that probably irked Vladimir. Then I recalled his history of debt and bankruptcy. Maybe he is trying to avoid another bankruptcy. By ruining the economy, he is making the money worth even less, and so far, the interest rates have not moved much. But the higher inflation makes life easier ...
We don't often thing about taxes on imports in the country. Import tariffs used to be the main source of income for the federal government, but federal; expenditures became so large that they couldn't be covered by income tariffs. Income taxes used to be greatly restricted, and they were only paid by rich people. I remember going into the kitchen, when I was a child, and I heard my father say, “But only rich people pay that.” And my mother replied, “I guess that means that we are rich.” ...
Most people don’t think about inflation and the money supply, but they are things that are important. It has come out in the news recently, because Congress is discussing raising the debt ceiling again, and that is an important factor in determining the value of the dollar. The dollar is backed by debt, Treasury Bonds to be specific. As long as there is a market for Treasury bonds, the dollar will be worth something, but the quantity theory of currency applies. That means that the more money that ...
I don’t often have much conversation with clerks in stores, but yesterday evening, the check out clerk in a CVS apologized for the inflation. I briefly explained that it wasn’t his fault, that it is due to policy for the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. He then said that CVS sometimes raises prices in anticipation of price hikes. We spent a while trying to get each other to change his mind. He had a set of facts, and I know the underlying reasons, so neither of us changed ...
I saw a letter to the Editor in the Daily Hampshire Gazette that asserted that present inflation was a result of Biden’s policies. That is a false accusation. There has been inflation at substantial levels for several decades, and it has been a deliberate policy of the U.S. government. The inflation policy was established to ensure that the government could make money by selling long term bonds. Bonds are sold by the Treasury Department with a fixed interest payment, and the actual ...
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