…Inflation doesn’t matter. Food stamps are a sign of prosperity. Down is up. Orwell would be proud of our financial press….
Click to go to original article at My Budget 360
The Dow has now reached a new peak. The media is prancing up and down like a giddy school girl as if this had a significant impact on the bottom line for most Americans. Don’t let the details out that many companies have increased their bottom line by squeezing wages and cutting worker benefits. Yet the mainstream press can’t even get one thing straight with inflation. The Dow is actually down 11 percent from where it was in 2000 adjusting for inflation. After all, a dollar is only worth as much as it can purchase in the economy. The US dollar has been hit over this period as well. Real household wages are back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s. So the Dow “peak” is really more symbolic and many Americans realize this. Let us take a look at where the stock market stands today through the lens of inflation.
Inflation erodes stock gains. The Dow really isn’t the best indicator of overall stock performance since it only follows a small number of companies. These are handpicked companies and the track record isn’t perfect. After all, they even had AIG and Citigroup until a few years ago. A better measure would be the S&P 500. The S&P 500 adjusting for inflation is down in real terms about 26 percent from the peak reached in 2000… via My Budget360…
Overview. The United States government has five interrelated motivations for destroying the value of the dollar:
Creating money out of thin air on a massive basis is all that stands between the current state of hidden depression, and overt depression with unemployment levels in excess of those seen in the US Great Depression of the 1930s.
It is the most effective way to meet not just current crushing debt levels, but to deal with the rapidly approaching massive generational crisis of paying for Boomer retirement promises.
It creates a lucratively profitable $500 billion a year hidden tax for the benefit of the US government which is not understood by voters or debated in elections.
It is the weapon of choice being used to wage currency war and reboot US economic growth; and
It is an essential component of political survival and enhanced power for incumbent politicians.In this article we will take a holistic approach to how individual short term, medium and long term pressures all come together to leave the government with effectively no choice but to create a substantial rate of inflation that will steadily destroy the value of the dollar…via FINANCIAL SENSE….
Can you manage your money? A personal finance quiz.
Are you financially literate enough to manage your own money? Teenagers say less than half of their families have had a discussion about money management, according to a 2011 Junior Achievement/Allstate Foundation survey. Another poll by Yahoo Finance found that 37 percent of adults have no retirement savings, and 38 percent plan to live off Social Security after retirement. When it comes to making good decisions about money, are you a beginner, a financial whiz, or somewhere in-between? Take the quiz to find out.
The Grey Enigma 