Cash is still king.

I talk on long time frames because it generally takes whole lifetimes to change systems and conditions and I don't focus on individual events but rather overarching trends. Incomes have risen on a long term basis, tech has unquestionably delivered greater freedoms and politicians have always lied. I was an adult when Joh was in Power with his merry henchmen like big Russ Hinze and that was over 30 years ago and it took 17 years to kick him out. There are going to be blips in progress that's only natural especially as the old drivers of growth are largely ineffective in advanced economies, maybe AI will change that who knows.

I don't plan for the worst because I have no control over it happening. As you said I can't afford an underground bunker should the next to unthinkable actually occur. Instead I plan to make the best out of what I have. I put 99% of my efforts and resources into what has delivered 99% of gains, and if I do dabble in the endgame stuff it only gets the 1% of which is left.



And I try to not be so goddam negative as some others.

 

And if your kid wants to be a teacher, support him in his choice. Decent pay, great holidays, good superannuation scheme, job for life. That's advice from someone who regrets pushing his kid into a career he never really wanted to be in. Take it or leave it.

 

I agree, it's a shit job, but if it's what he/she wants to do...

I know lots of teachers, they're nearly all miserable. They'd make good SilverStackers.

Or bombardiers

 

Wage growth in Australia:

1. Long term overall trend:



2. Short term cyclical trends within the long term overall trend:



Many other factors eg incidents of violence in society, weather patterns etc follow a similar story with short term cyclical up/down trends contained within long term steadily rising or falling overall trends. Being aware of the "big picture" helps anchor our perspective, being attune to the small changes allows us to adapt our short term strategies as required. Only focussing on one or the other either clouds our perspective or impairs our day-to-day judgments.

 

A good example of the falsehoods that A Mitchell Innes argues can prevail widely in economic circles. We discussed it briefly here: https://www.silverstackers.com/foru...babwe-to-introduce-gold-coins-as-currency.104

 

Just like you.

 

Have you listened to the interview?

I listened to it when it was released and had a few issues with it though I usually am in agreement with most of her work.

My memory is very hazy however and I can't address those issues without going back over it but essentially she's on about trust* and acknowledges that gold and silver's function was as a unit of account, rather than as a medium of exchange. And it was this unit of account that was supposed to instil trust in the ledger containing credits and debts. Of course that didn't happen as we all know.

Fast forward to our times and she argues that our system of money is broken as the issuer of currencies can screw with the ledgers "read" create lots more of it. Which is fine in my books, and fine in the books of a host of other commentators and experts living and long dead for a whole variety of reasons I've already laid out.

She and I agree that money doesn't have to exist in physical form, she and I disagree that the money supply must inflate. I think. As a result, I certainly don't agree with her that BTC would make a suitable economy wide currency to replace government issued fiat, it would have to exist in a market of alternative currencies and fulfil a different purpose to what fiat currently does.

* this is where her advocacy of BTC as an alternative currency comes into play.

 

Moving the goalposts much?

So we have a post citing an article that wages have been in decline since the GFC, then we have the same member posting about real wages which actually challenges the first post's assumptions that wages have been in decline since the GFC. Both arguments are presented as an attempt to rebut my view that government issued fiat has promoted the rise in living standards across the globe. Let's ignore the absurdity that the two contrasting arguments present and just examine the data again.

The graph below shows that for the past 20 years, the average annual wage growth in Australia has exceeded the inflation rate. At best there are short term cycles of real wage growth combined with short term cycles of an absence of real wage growth and now for the first time since 2018 we've seen 3 consecutive periods of real wage growth.





Source: Trading Economics

Clearly the rate of change generally rose in the decade prior to the GFC, for a couple of very good reasons and clearly the rate of growth declined since the GFC, again for a couple of very good reasons even touched on somewhere else in this thread. But real wage growth is now back to where it was prior to the GFC and unfortunately for those like me who dislike the current Labor government, gives the current Treasurer wind for his trumpet.

So for the majority of the past 20 years under a fiat system workers have been delivered real growth. It's unfortunate that the data doesn't extend further back.

In the US a similar trend has emerged, a steady long-term rise in real wage growth punctuated by cycles of rises and falls in the short term:



And unfortunately that's as far back as that data goes.

That will do.

Edit to add: and no one has answered my question yet as to why the current level of debt is unsustainable.

 

The data above doesn't support your argument. But keep drinking that golden Kool Aid.

 

I think you're talking about something different. I'm referring to real wage growth as growth that has accounted for inflation, I think when you talk about real growth you mean "not fake".

And I don't know who the crazy lady is to whom you're referring.