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On the Global Numbers - CIA Edition
The CIA has some new 2011/2012 numbers for the world's economy. These numbers are as "good" as the countries who post the individual data, so it's safe to be suspect. That said, I found them interesting.
There's 7B of us. I love the CIA's precise estimate.
Only 47% of the population is in the workforce. 28% of the population is under 14 years of age, 8% is older than 65.
Of the 3.3 potential workers, fully 9.2% are unemployed.
I was surprised to see that the global unemployment rate had risen in 2012 by .8%. That's a big change, It comes to an additional 26m people. Overall, some 300m people are looking for work. The numbers are big, the direction is bad. There is a case to be made about political stability with this many people not working.
The estimate for the USA is that 13m people are now unemployed. The US share of world unemployment is 4.3%, while US population is 4.4%. In other words, the US is right in the middle of the pack on unemployment. Not bad for the leading industrial economy........
2012 was a so-so year for global growth, down YoY and down significantly from 2010.
The CIA measures total GDP, it came to a whopping $83T in 2012. The US share is 19%.
Global GDP rose $2.2T in 2012. How did that happen? Easy, more debt, money and inflation. The stock of money rose $6.1T, about 3Xs the increase in GDP. Given this, why is gold falling?
Where did all the new money come from? Debt, of course. Domestic and cross border debt marched ever higher:
Domestic debt rose by $5.1T, while cross bordered indebtedness rose $5.4T. Total debt is up by $10.5T while GDP rose only $2.2T. From this I conclude that it takes $1 of debt to produce a measly 20 cents of growth. Who was it that said that debt was an efficient stimulus for growth? There is no evidence of that in the CIA numbers.
The world is running a budget deficit. The government deficits increased by 3.8% (Vs. GDP of 3.3%) and by $2.7T (Vs. $2.2T of real growth). On balance, for each $1 increase in government debt, GDP rose by 80 cents.
Total government debt as a share of GDP is now at 65%.
The large deficits are happening even though global tax rates are high. There is not much blood to be had from the taxpayer's stone:
Inflation was tame in 2012. With all that money sloshing around, one would think that the inflation numbers have to be headed higher.
The CIA data for 2012 is a mixed bag. There is no crisis at the moment, but there are troubling signs:
- Unemployment is dangerously high, social problems will be the result.
-Global growth is occurring as a result of ever higher debt loads, and a rapidly expanding money supply. Total debt is rising much faster than economic output. Every year we get more leveraged. The "efficiency" of debt is waning.
-Inflation is not a big issue today, but there is every reason to believe that this can't be sustained.
Spy versus Spy
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So let's have a thermonuclear war, and then plaster the whole of Sahara desert with solar panels? :-)
And who among them will take the bullet first ? Yeah, I thought not.
The birth Rate is declining and has been declining for decades. They will get their wish. The pill and virtual sex will completely replace rolling Momma over for entertainment.
i like how inflation is being exported to developing nations,
that's the plan
the central plan
-Inflation is not a big issue today, but there is every reason to believe that this can't be sustained.
Gas is certainly higher. Food price is masked to some extent by smaller portions per container and less weight per container. But the per pound of produce tells a truer story. Used cars are way up. I dont see much that has held price over the last year or several years.
As the cost of owning goes down...
=not inflation.
:D
i agree with the next one, but the cost of owning is not going down . hedge funds which are going into the landlord business are betting the fed will keep the value of their rental property from falling farther, while they rake in hyperinflated rents. teaser rates on car leases ($89) are offset by higher cash payments up front, sales tax, (10%), insurance rates, license, as well as gasoline. you drive 12k miles a year, 30mpg @ $4 a gallon you paid $1600 in fuel, which is about what the lease with the down payment are costing you. you could call that a user fee, but i call it an owner fee, because i can take rapid transit and avoid all those costs of ownership. (bit like the bush ownership society which turned into the renter society, but with all the obligations) i would say the cost of owning goes up, which is why more people want condos and lease cars, and the vendors try to make them pay like they actually owned something.
Gimmicks and "creative financing" to ream the public does not inflation make.
you could argue that's the only real source of inflation or reflation. semantically there is no more inflation, no more than god creates the world every week and rests the following sunday. without inflation there's none of the other thing either.[semantically :]
Yeah. I can see that argument. In a very basic kinda way...
Split chicken breasts: $1.00/lb. Less than five years ago.
Boneless, skinless cheicken breasts: $1.97/lb. Same as five years ago.
T-bone steak: outrageous as it ever was.
Hedda Lettuce: $1.09. 5% less than last year.
Gasoline: $3.64/gallon. Same as five years ago.
Bag of sugar: $2.12. Same as five years ago.
Bacon: $4.12. Much higher than five years ago.
My home's value hasn't changed in five years.
Brand-spanking new Honda Accord: same as five years ago.
News Flash:
We are in a deflationary environment, y'all. All this talk about inflation is nonsense. Maybe you should get out shopping once in a while?
Leave the inflation fear-mongering to the spook trolls. It's what they do.
:D
You are quite wrong. We are in a bifurcated price environment. Stuff is in deflation, for the most part. But anything provided by people is getting more expensive - medical/dental care, education, government services, for example. Banks nickle and dime you on everything. And since services form a large portion of the economy, the result is overall inflation.
Five years ago a bag of sugar was FIVE POUNDS. It is now FOUR POUNDS.
Do you actually buy the stuff? If you did you would have noticed.
real estate is crashing for a lot of complex reasons most of them criminal
the SIZE of grocery items (as observed by many here) are shrinking NOT along with the price
the CPI is a joke (on us)
the price of oil (the thing that makes and moves everything) is not only steadily going up but the TRUE cost of it (our military and military medical and PTSD criminal and support system costs) are indeed going up.
forest through the trees.
oh, and old growth is running out and wood is going up too
I'm sorry there is no way what you say is true if you live in the US. Unless you are buying cast offs GMO poison food from a discounter like food for less or Walmart. This shit is laden with highly resistant campylobacter and salmonella. You unknowingly may be killing your family. I kid you not. No you can't cook it all away, it will incorporate in your colon eventually and lie dormant until you become ill. Think, it's cheap for a reason. I have tried to raise my own chicken and the numbers are staggering. One 40lb bag of organic food is $30. Five years ago it was 15. I am now investigating free ranging with food as a supplement but that generally saves about 1/3. You're living in a deflationary dream, wake up it's not real!
Miffed;-)
If anyone here lives in Texas, will you vouche for me, please?
Cheap. Cheap, cheap. Relative to the rest of the country.
"Cheap" does not equate to non-rising prices.
You are discussing a snapshot --- I am (vainly) trying to make you focus on the entire film.
Good points all, Miffed, as usual.
+1
Wow....where do you shop?????
In my area boneless chicken breasts are now north of $3.00/lbs for your standard liquid injected crap. I can't even get bone in thighs for under $2.75.
Please do pay attention to those items that are not defined by weight/volume but just unit (i.e. head of lettuce, bag of sugar) as the volume is greatly reduced in many packages.
T-bone steaks are more expensive now than two years ago most definately.
I can find somethings in food at the same price as two years ago but they are special 'price leader' sale items.
That said...must this forum always be subjected to stupid cursing and personal attacks just due to a difference of opinion?
At our local health food store we buy a brand called Smart Chicken. It is processed without water and air chilled. It's around $4.00/lb but he will discount it near expiration date to three. It is the most flavorful chicken I have ever had besides home killed. Any other chicken tastes like water downed cardboard. The problem is when you know what reall food tastes like its hard to have anything but. Yes it is very expensive but we scale down our lives to afford it. Right now it costs us $1000/ month for groceries for a family of 3. If we are über frugal we sometimes get it down to $900. We drink no soda and have very little grain (little bit of rice) because my husband is gluten sensitive. A diet of meat and veggies is just very expensive. But we are very healthy, take no Pharma, and watch no tv so that is how we pay for it.
Miffed;-)
Sounds like New Jersey. You must work in New Brunswick?
Whatever happened with Nanobac? Just curious...
Blatant (and absurdly dishonest) denial of reality is NOT "a difference of opinion"!
Don't be a jellyfish --- stiffen your spine and don't be afraid to judge others negatively when judgement is called for.
Really?
You really need to be schooled on how to conduct a discussion and judge negatively without the personal attacks and such?
It is quite possible.
Well, it helps to have a lot of competition around. There's an HEB, a Kroger's, a Fiesta, a Randall's (joke!), a Whole Foods (biggest joke of all!)...and pay attention to their sales.
Have a freezer. Buy in bulk. There's no way we can eat all those chicken breasts at once, so we have to freeze some. Use coupons only when it is useful. Too many people buy stuff just because there's a coupon.
Shop often and you'll see your bill goes way down. Instead of buying a bunch of stuff once a month and have it rot in the pantry, buy fresh every day or every other day.
Eat leftovers and be creative with what you can do with it. You would be surprised that with some pro-active shopping and meal planning how low your food bill can go.
That having been said, though, that does not detract from what I was saying earlier. I haven't seen food prices get out of hand and, believe, I would be the first to know because I literally go to the store every single day.
:D
Throw away the TV and never learn about the crap you cannot live without. Cable generally is $1000+/year in most metro areas ($90/month).
Get rid of the car and walk to the store. Earn a 60% rent subsidy with no car to pay for + insurance + gas + crap that goes with it.
Jettison drugs, gambling and excess alcohol, buy a bike. Vacation = camping trip ... it's 'training' ... for what's coming.
My wife, who like Orly, shops almost every other day, (it keeps our bunnies in fresh greens), would agree. You have to be real smart when you shop and know your stores and the people that work at them. She also works after the purchase to catch almost all of the computer "errors" at checkout and takes stuff back for a credit or when fresh food spoils in less than a day.
I believe that knowledgeable people can make a go of it in this world, if they keep thier heads about themselves rather than loosing it due to our government's moral promiscuity and lust for selfish aggrandizement.
While you may be okay with it, I am not. There is more to come. It is not going to stop here. Property will be next. Taxed out of ability to own it or having the land deemed blighted for the good of global warming. Usyfromal Ceaser owns everything (spelled that wrong).
Does anyone else have a google add to the left with an eye wide open, blue eye, staring right at them? It's not blinking but seems to be LOOKING RIGHT AT ME. lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubbQDVrxYac Dr. Michael Coffman talks about the seige. The overthrow of the USA via an agenda backed by the concept human population has impact on global warming.
I picked up a cleanser for my face, scrub with sugar granules, cranberry sent..5.99..small jar with very small amount of product. Took a look at the receipt when I got home to find i was charged 13.99. It's a jungle out there.
you go shopping every day and you haven't noticed the size of things going down?
I am talking about stuff not in a specified package. Brocolli, lettuce, etc.
So apparently being packaged makes those foods immune to inflation.
Gotcha.
But on a broader note, I would love for you, Orly, to flat-out state, as you implicitly have here many times, including today, that the US dollar is NOT depreciating, and has not in fact annually and continually depreciated in value since the end of the gold standard in the 1930s. Please, say it directly --- I need the laugh.
We have had this discussion before. I'll summarise because I find it boring and you seem to have a learning disability.
The USD has been deliberately debased since the onset of the FED in 1913. That was and is the plan. Now, we are close to the end-game and parity with the rest of the world.
Now, have prices, especially food prices, skyrocketed over the past five years- enough to make you want to mortgage your house and deny your children a college education so that you can purchase tubes of gold and sit there, staring out the window, fondling your ammo, stroking your gold; your kids looking at you askance, your wife afraid of you?
NO. THEY HAVE NOT.
Get over yourself, you stupid ass. If you think you're doing anyone in your family a good service by being an asshole, I have news for you, pal, you're not.
Now, don't ask me again. I have explined this three times and I'm not doing it again. Get a book and learn something, how 'bout it? The third time's the charm.
Got it?
No, I do NOT got it, as you directly contradict yourself between this post acknowledging the ongoing inflation (i.e., currency depreciation) in the US dollar, and the other posts in which you claim that there has been NO inflation in food prices in the last six years --- something which makes you nothing but a laughing stock for even suggesting.
Oh, and did I ever claim that those food price increases were high enough to mortage the house, deny the kids an education, etc. etc. etc.? NO. (Let's put aside your strawman, Nadleresque mischaracterizations of gold owners for another discussion). But YOU were and are the one directly denying reality by claiming that there have overall been NO such food price increases in the last six years, when ALL of the real-world evidence (even the lowballed CPI statistics of the US government itself!) clearly and unambiguously demonstrates otherwise.
So what is you point here, anyway, first claiming one thing and then directly stating the contrary, you bloviating, dissembling liar?
Why, akak. I had forgotten you were there.
Uh, you may go now.
Apparently, when cornered the rat curls up into a ball.
I cant believe anyone would ever agree with Orly about inflation.
She is completely fucking clueless.
Fuck you, Orly, simply FUCK YOU, if you have both the audacity and the mendacity to dare declare that fiat currency depreciation is NOT currently in play, has not in fact ALWAYS been in play, and that the US dollar has not lost significant value overall in the last five years --- or ten ---- or twenty.
Just who the fuck is the troll here?
Go grab a mirror, you outrageously dishonest asswipe.
I have utterly zero respect for anyone as maliciously dishonest, and downright STUPID, as you.
hey don't talk like that to a woman who knows how to cook and add and subtract, and is gracious and outspoken without being vulgar.
Whats biting you friend; has ananonymous bitten you bad today?
Her point is that even if the dollar value has depreciated she doesn't see it in every day matters. Maybe she has no debt.
Thanks, falak.
Or, maybe I am responsible for the family budget, not esoteric things.
I cook to put food- literally- put food on the table. I know how much things cost and I can tell you that, despite seasonal fluctuations, there has been minimal change in the prices of what I buy on a daily basis in the past five years.
You can't put a head of lettuce in a different container. A chicken breast is a chicken breast.
They have tried those tricks with bacon and ice cream...and toilet paper (that's the one that gets me...the TP. Bigger roller, so less paper...)
But the problem is these guys are just spoiled rotten. The ice cream bar is a half-ounce smaller! Ach! Inflation! Gimme a break.
Truth is, they wouldn't know inflation if it came up and took all their gold away. Inflation is, I suppose, like porno. It's hard to describe but you'll know it when you see it. And akak and friends, you ain't seen it!
:D
Orly:
You alluded to shrinking portion/package sizes, while at the same time stating that 'prices are relatively unchanged'.
What exactly do you call this, if it isn't a form of inflation?
I didn't really speak to the shrinking package size. That was thrust upon the argument.
I am talking about a head of lettuce. A breast of chicken.
Yes, I have noticed that they are doing this, especially with the toilet paper. Doesn't mean I am going to go out and sell my daughter for a coin, though.
What a vacuous and specious bunch of red herring crap you just threw into the conversation there, yet again. Just because these price increases are not quite high enough to make you "sell your daughter", they can therefore be dismissed as irrelevant or nonexistent? Really, is there a single intelligent or honest bone in your body?
You consistently fail to squarely address the valid points that have been brought up by myself and others here regarding rising food (and general) prices --- not only the clear trend of rising prices over the last five or ten or however many years (clear to everyone here but you), but the shrinking package sizes with no corresponding decline in associated price, as well as the even more insidious, and growing, decline in the quality of products as manufacturers deceptively try to hold down their product prices, and not just food. Obviously, the reason you repeatedly fail to address these points is because you cannot logically do so while maintaining your absurd and laughable "there is no inflation" argument.
Poofter's right, Orly. If they charged you $4.00 for 7/8 gallon of gas, would that be inlation? Answer: yes.
Poofter the Priest.
That's sick but it makes me laugh.
:D
Well, a four ounce ice cream bar that is a 1/2 ounce smaller reflects a 12% inflation.
We could live with less junk food but it is still inflation.
They really have developed behavioural pricing models. It used to be they just rounded [sic] things to .9x, now they really mess with peoples minds and guess what? It works.
i remember the 70s and generic products and warehouse stores. my father bought a CD paying 16%. and there was asset deflation, if you were trying to sell a used car the vultures would show up and offer you $50, just to take it off your hands. then the price of gold took off and that scared everybody. banks went under, and they replaced with fast food restaurants, and ten years later the fast food places closed, and the banks were back. now we have both.
Thanks not at all for more of your specious twaddle, you dishonest bitch.
But most others here know the reality of the situation, and the last laugh (bitter as it will be) will be ours, as we watch you lemmings who trust and believe in all the government lies go down with the ship. Have fun watching your bank accounts, your annuities, and your other savings continually lose value and purchasing power as you ignorantly continue to spout your "no inflation!" bullshit even as prices continue to rise, as they always have, all around you.
I have nothing but contempt for such willful ignorance, and/or outright dishonesty, as you display here.
If you two weren't going at it you'd see that you could both be right.
Gas may be up. I heard they set some sort of record in California, but they insist on being California and specifying a different blend... It's still three something here.
I just bought pork chops for $1.99 which I've been able to do for at least two or three years. They may not be that price every week, but they hit it every month or two.
Beer seems to be up a bit in the last five years and wine seems to be down recently. Maybe they can't push the prices too high when no one seems to be getting raises.
Real estate has been declining here for 6 years in a row.
Maybe they are inflating other things to balance out the real estate market? I do know that sometimes I sense deflation and sometimes inflation and I'm not the person to run around taking notes so I just wrote on what I actually know.
Sorry, Falak, but such absurd, outrageous, bald-faced lies need to be confronted, and forcefully. There is NOTHING that I despise more than straight-out and intellectually insulting dishonesty, and that is EXACTLY what Orly has repeatedly engaged in with all of her "there is no inflation" bullshit.
There is a time for civility (which is most of the time), and then there is a time to confront lies, and I refuse to be civil to those who would dare try to tell me to my face that up is down and black is white.
When was the last time you shopped groceries for a family of six, akak?
Ever?
Do it every day? Hmmmm?
Okay, until then, take your potty mouth somewhere else, as I do not need to be called disingenuous and worse because my empirical observations do not match your desired bias.
Sorry. I am going to the store now and buying three packages of chicken breasts, boneless, skinless and I am going to divide them and put them in my freezer.
You should try it some time. It's actually quite edumactional.
:D