Cash is still king.

mmm....shiney! said:
And despite all of the atrocities, life expectancy has risen thanks to rising incomes, technology, demographic change and the expansion of credit, and the spread of democratic values and legal systems codifying property rights.

Are we there yet? No, we've still got a long way to go.

Edit to add: mate, I've got grandkids and the future for them doesn't faze me. I've started my granddaughters early: https://www.superhero.com.au/product/minor-account-superhero. They've even got exposure to a gold etf in there, not that they can read yet, but the older one can count to ten mostly, though she does throw the odd 11 in after 8. ;)
Click to expand...
Incomes are not rising, they are stagnating and tech has done more to enslave us then help us, IMO. Democracy, if you haven't noticed (as if you didn't notice during Covid) is in a death spiral. Politicians lie, they know we know that they lie, and they don't care. How Linda Thorpe and Barnaby Joyce have survived in politics shows how corrupt and fucked up the system is. 30 years ago they would be instantly fired... now they even refuse to resign!


Regarding kids, grandkids, well of course you want them to be one of the haves and not the have nots. When wealth is earnt, it needs to be kept and you wouldn't want (for example) your grandchildren marrying someone who will waste those hard-fought gains. And i will check this out https://www.superhero.com.au/product/minor-account-superhero

But the have nots are becoming more and more, and the middle class is disappearing... driven to extinction. Soon the pitchforks will come out and we will need social credit, massive surveillance state and underground bunkers (which only the 1% can afford) to keep the hoards out.

Just because we haven't had to deal with famine and economic collapse here does not mean we are immune to history. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst I say.
 
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.

Screenshot 2024-04-06 at 10.27.00 am.png

And I try to not be so goddam negative as some others. ;) :D

 
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. :cool:
 
mmm....shiney! said:
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. :cool:
Click to expand...
In short, it's an industry in crisis, with 50% of workers wanting to, or about to quit.

There's much literature about this, but basically:

"Participants cited different reasons for leaving their positions, including the intensification of workload, a general lack of respect for their roles, and not acknowledging a teacher's skill and expertise."

In short, high workloads and unappreciative and often downright rude pupils and parents. 100k a year for 60+ hours a week.


https://federation.edu.au/news/arti...t reasons for,a teacher's skill and expertise.
 
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. :D

Or bombardiers :p
 
From the center of the continental United States to the middle of Australia is 9,241 miles. It’s a little further from London to Sydney—about 10,572 miles. But in economic matters—the laws of economics being both immutable and universal—the distances between the world’s cities and countries are far smaller.

I was recently reminded of this fact while researching the economic history of the Land Down Under. Curious to find out if Australia’s move away from a gold standard bore any similarities to events in the US and the UK, I discovered that the parallels are striking.

The United States and the United Kingdom (indeed, most of the world) began the 20th Century with currencies tied to the yellow metal. In the U.S., the dollar was “as good as gold”—defined as approximately 1/20 of an ounce. (The United States government steadfastly honored its commitment to redeem dollars for gold at $20.67 per ounce.)

Sir Isaac Newton, as head of the Mint, established the official ratio of gold to the British pound in 1717. An ounce of gold equated to £4.25. Except for the years of the Napoleonic Wars, that rate remained virtually unchanged until 1914. Prices of goods and services were stable, and citizens had to learn about “inflation” from history books. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th Centuries, which yielded the greatest improvement in living standards in world history, was essentially financed by sound, metallic money.
...
Click to expand...

More:

https://fee.org/articles/australia-...-parallels-with-the-united-states-and-the-uk/
 
Wage growth in Australia:

1. Long term overall trend:

fredgraph (2).png

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

fredgraph (3).png

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.
 

Attachments

  • fredgraph (2).png
    fredgraph (2).png
    58.8 KB · Views: 1
  • fredgraph (3).png
    fredgraph (3).png
    103.3 KB · Views: 1
  • All sector WPI, quarterly and annual movement (%), seasonally adjusted (a) (1).jpeg
    All sector WPI, quarterly and annual movement (%), seasonally adjusted (a) (1).jpeg
    86.3 KB · Views: 1
pmbug said:
https://www.silverstackers.com/forums/index.php?threads/broken-money.108036/
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
pmbug said:
Wage growth means nothing if you aren't factoring monetary inflation.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-22/wages-growing-at-3-3-per-cent-december-quarter-2022/102007390
Click to expand...

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.



Screenshot 2024-04-16 at 9.46.40 pm.png

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:

fredgraph (1).png

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. :(
 
Inflation has eaten all wage growth and then some for the past 50. We are much much poorer than our ancestors.
This is what you don't seem to comprehend with your flawed theory.
There is no real growth.
Sure we might have access to all kinds of tech and advancements but it's unaffordable now because the fiat is worthless and govt has subsidized everything to the stratosphere.
 
JohnnyBravo300 said:
Inflation has eaten all wage growth and then some for the past 50. We are much much poorer than our ancestors.
This is what you don't seem to comprehend.
There is no real growth.
Click to expand...

The data above doesn't support your argument. But keep drinking that golden Kool Aid.
 
You should stop drinking the bong water. The evidence is all around you.
You shouldn't take theory a person writes as gospel. Especially some crazy person.
 
JohnnyBravo300 said:
There is no real growth.
Sure we might have access to all kinds of tech and advancements but it's unaffordable now because the fiat is worthless and govt has subsidized everything to the stratosphere.
Click to expand...

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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top