Paper Money and Fiat Currency is the Mark of the Beast

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Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
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Electronics have nothing to do with wealth. People are indebted now, to epic proportions, that is why we are poorer now than our forefathers were who we not indebted to the magnitude that we are today. All the things people have today, electronics, fancy cars, fancy degrees from fancy universities, etc, are all an illusion of wealth, for most everyone have it through debt. Why else do you suppose that a person that comes out of college already has debt at an average of $50,000 USD or more? We live in an economy of debt, as a result of fiat currency and its deliberate devaluation. In layman's terms, we are poorer, not wealthier. Having a mortgaged house and furniture all paid with credit cards and a fancy car with an auto loan and a college degree with a huge student loan just makes you a glorified slave, not a true wealthy person. Welcome to America. Open your eyes. Understand.
electronics can be used as a measurement of wealth, just as debt can be used as a measurement of wealth.

Is inflation the only factor in the growth of per capita debt in the USA?

I think people's attitudes about debt is playing a large role. When I was growing up, my parents almost never bought something on credit, and only use credit cards for emergencies. and then paid off the balance as soon as they could.

But today, people often have the attitude of
I want everything, and I want it now.
And credit card companies and automobile loan companies are happy to oblige.

And they often present loans in ways that common people don't understand.
For example, I often get things in the mail saying that if I just go to this car dealer, I can drive away with a brand-new pickup truck, and they'll give me $1,000 in cash, too! And a 0% interest rate loan!

Many people don't realize that they are actually paying for all that, including the actual cost of the 0% loan, through their car payments over the next six years or so.

So it's definitely a form of oppression, I'll agree with that!

Would you agree that people ("kids these days") with an attitude of
I want everything now
are contributing to the high per capita debt?
 
Oct 24, 2019
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electronics can be used as a measurement of wealth, just as debt can be used as a measurement of wealth.

Is inflation the only factor in the growth of per capita debt in the USA?

I think people's attitudes about debt is playing a large role. When I was growing up, my parents almost never bought something on credit, and only use credit cards for emergencies. and then paid off the balance as soon as they could.

But today, people often have the attitude of
I want everything, and I want it now.
And credit card companies and automobile loan companies are happy to oblige.

And they often present loans in ways that common people don't understand.
For example, I often get things in the mail saying that if I just go to this car dealer, I can drive away with a brand-new pickup truck, and they'll give me $1,000 in cash, too! And a 0% interest rate loan!

Many people don't realize that they are actually paying for all that, including the actual cost of the 0% loan, through their car payments over the next six years or so.

So it's definitely a form of oppression, I'll agree with that!

Would you agree that people ("kids these days") with an attitude of
I want everything now
are contributing to the high per capita debt?
No. Things are less affordable to the common person, that is why people must get into debt.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
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No. Things are less affordable to the common person, that is why people must get into debt.
Do you have a reference for that assertion?

Also by "things" do you mean basic necessities like food, or luxury items like status symbol pickup trucks?
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
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1,051
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@gaviriachristian
Do you have a reference for that assertion?

Also by "things" do you mean basic necessities like food, or luxury items like status symbol pickup trucks?
Perhaps you will recommend that I research it myself?

Here's what I found so far
"Some 69 percent of the survey respondents indicated that while nonmortgage debt was a necessity for them, they preferred not to have it—but 68 percent said loans and credit cards had enabled them to make purchases or investments that expanded their opportunities."
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/29/eight-in-10-americans-are-in-debt.html

So it sounds like a lot of people are going into debt as a choice, believing that it will give them a better situation in the future.
 
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Do you have a reference for that assertion?

Also by "things" do you mean basic necessities like food, or luxury items like status symbol pickup trucks?
References are not needed to see the obvious. And even if I gave you a reference, you will not believe. So in all we are wasting each other's time. I see the great evil being done through fiat currency, whereas you think a great good is being done through fiat currency. Soon enough we will see who was right.
 
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@gaviriachristian

Perhaps you will recommend that I research it myself?

Here's what I found so far
"Some 69 percent of the survey respondents indicated that while nonmortgage debt was a necessity for them, they preferred not to have it—but 68 percent said loans and credit cards had enabled them to make purchases or investments that expanded their opportunities."
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/29/eight-in-10-americans-are-in-debt.html

So it sounds like a lot of people are going into debt as a choice, believing that it will give them a better situation in the future.
I find it comical how slow you are to believe what I say, if any belief at all, yet how quick you are to believe the news. You only want to believe what you want to believe, which is not the truth.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
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"We have divided the 1979 nominal prices by 1979 average nominal hourly wages and 2015 nominal prices by 2015 average nominal hourly wages, to calculate the "time cost" of common household items in each year (i.e., the number of hours the average American would have to work to earn enough money to purchase various household items at the nominal prices). Thus, the "time cost" of a 13 Cu. Ft. refrigerator fell by 52 percent in terms of the hours of work required at the average hourly nominal wage, etc.

Needless to say, the above price reductions greatly underestimate the totality of welfare gains by an average American, by ignoring qualitative, aesthetic and environmental improvements on commonly used items. (To give just one example, a refrigerator today uses one-third of the electricity used by a refrigerator in the 1970s.)"

https://reason.com/2016/01/19/cost-of-living-vs-wage-stagnation-in-the/

I heartly recommend the entire article, it talks about the basic question of are people in the USA better off today than they were in 1979.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
9,054
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References are not needed to see the obvious. And even if I gave you a reference, you will not believe. So in all we are wasting each other's time. I see the great evil being done through fiat currency, whereas you think a great good is being done through fiat currency. Soon enough we will see who was right.
How about posting a reference, and seeing if I believe or not?

Another quote from the article I just mentioned
"True, adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees in the private sector (closest approximation for the quintessential blue-collar worker that I could find) have barely changed between 1979 and 2015."

https://reason.com/2016/01/19/cost-of-living-vs-wage-stagnation-in-the/
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
9,054
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References are not needed to see the obvious.
Actually, from what I've seen, people are predisposed to believe that they are worse off now than they were before.

Hence the saying
The good old days

It was happening in Bible times too
Ecclesiastes 7: 10. Don't say, "Why were the former days better than these?" For you do not ask wisely about this.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
9,054
1,051
113
I find it comical how slow you are to believe what I say, if any belief at all, yet how quick you are to believe the news. You only want to believe what you want to believe, which is not the truth.
I will be happy to believe what you say if it is the truth.

How do we decide if something is true?

It wouldn't be very wise of me to believe something is true just because someone says it is true, would it?
 

Lightskin

Well-known member
Aug 16, 2019
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Obedience is not legalism. The reason you object to what I teach is because you yourself are not in obedience, because if you were indeed in obedience, you would love me because of what I teach, which is the Torah, which is the Law of God, and is the truth, through belief in Yeshuah. You people love to throw around words like love and grace and peace and prosperity, but when it comes down the the itty gritty details of your daily lives, none of you are in obedience, because all of you discard the Torah, which is the Law of God. So you get angry at people like me who remind you people that are you not in obedience, and call me "legalistic" and "judgmental" and "false teacher" and "false prophet" and blah blah blah, because of your own disobedience, not because I am not telling you the truth.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t get past your first four words. Here are two words you need to embrace with fullness. JESUS SAVES!
 
Oct 24, 2019
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I will be happy to believe what you say if it is the truth.

How do we decide if something is true?

It wouldn't be very wise of me to believe something is true just because someone says it is true, would it?
But that's essentially what you are doing, you are readily believing "them", as in the example of the news, and not what I am telling. But, let's take a few step backs, all the way to the beginning, and let us reason together. I am going to lay out a scenario, and I would like you to answer with a simple yes or no.

Suppose we were living in a time where people were buying and selling with gold, meaning using gold as money, as it was done for thousands of years. And let us say I became a banker, and promised to keep your gold safe in my vault if you gave me your gold, and I would give you a certificate that would redeem back your gold, and if you gave that certificate to anyone else, they could redeem back that gold, for the gold was redeemable by the bearer of the certificate. So let us say you give me 100 ounces of gold to store for you, and I gave you a certificate that said "100 ounces". So then you put the certificate away in a drawer, and forgot about it, and 2 years later you came to my bank to redeem your gold, but I only gave you 50 ounces of gold for your certificate that said 100 ounces. So my question is, have I stolen from you or not?
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
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Another thought about observations.

References are not needed to see the obvious
I live in the Northeast USA, the rust bowl.

Yet I sit on my front porch, and see an awful lot of expensive pickup trucks going by. Jacked up on expensive tires. During the summer the windows are rolled up, and the AC is cranked. These are luxury items, and gas guzzlers on top of it all.

I conclude that if people have this much disposable income to buy luxury items, the economy must be going great.

what happens next, how do we decide whose observation is correct?
 
Oct 24, 2019
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Another thought about observations.



I live in the Northeast USA, the rust bowl.

Yet I sit on my front porch, and see an awful lot of expensive pickup trucks going by. Jacked up on expensive tires. During the summer the windows are rolled up, and the AC is cranked. These are luxury items, and gas guzzlers on top of it all.

I conclude that if people have this much disposable income to buy luxury items, the economy must be going great.

what happens next, how do we decide whose observation is correct?
Have you traveled outside the USA?
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
9,054
1,051
113
But that's essentially what you are doing, you are readily believing "them", as in the example of the news, and not what I am telling. But, let's take a few step backs, all the way to the beginning, and let us reason together. I am going to lay out a scenario, and I would like you to answer with a simple yes or no.

Suppose we were living in a time where people were buying and selling with gold, meaning using gold as money, as it was done for thousands of years. And let us say I became a banker, and promised to keep your gold safe in my vault if you gave me your gold, and I would give you a certificate that would redeem back your gold, and if you gave that certificate to anyone else, they could redeem back that gold, for the gold was redeemable by the bearer of the certificate. So let us say you give me 100 ounces of gold to store for you, and I gave you a certificate that said "100 ounces". So then you put the certificate away in a drawer, and forgot about it, and 2 years later you came to my bank to redeem your gold, but I only gave you 50 ounces of gold for your certificate that said 100 ounces. So my question is, have I stolen from you or not?
Yes, you have stolen from me.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
9,054
1,051
113
But that's essentially what you are doing, you are readily believing "them", as in the example of the news, and not what I am telling.
Also, I want to note that I do not believe every reference that I put up entirely.

I put them up so we have a basis for discussion, something we can both read and evaluate.

So that particular link talked about a large percentage of people using credit because they perceived that it would improve their lives. So we can evaluate that. If that study is on to something, it means that a significant part of people's personal debt comes from their attitude. I wouldn't blame Fiat money for that part of the situation.
 

Dan_473

Senior Member
Mar 11, 2014
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Have you traveled outside the USA?
No, except for a tourist visit to Mexico. :D

But I thought we were talking about people in the USA having lots of debt, big student loans, etc. And evaluating whether or not that was a result of Fiat money.
 
Oct 24, 2019
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No, except for a tourist visit to Mexico. :D

But I thought we were talking about people in the USA having lots of debt, big student loans, etc. And evaluating whether or not that was a result of Fiat money.
Just a moment ago you were gloating about how prosperous the American economy is, like a rich man who gloats about how beautiful his neighborhood is, but then every neighborhood around his is in misery. I have traveled the world, and I can tell you from firsthand experience I have seen extreme poverty, and probably the worst poverty I saw was in Egypt. Egypt has no reason to be so poor, it has ample natural resources at its disposal to be very rich, but they are impoverished through fiat currency. What they make in minimum wage in their fiat currency in one day is sufficient enough to buy food for one day in the US. Their fiat currency is utterly devalued. Do you not understand what is happening at a global scale through fiat currency? Do you not see what is happening in Venezuela, with people eating out of garbage cans, because of the devaluation of paper money? It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant the common American is.
 

tourist

Senior Member
Mar 13, 2014
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Tennessee
Just a moment ago you were gloating about how prosperous the American economy is, like a rich man who gloats about how beautiful his neighborhood is, but then every neighborhood around his is in misery. I have traveled the world, and I can tell you from firsthand experience I have seen extreme poverty, and probably the worst poverty I saw was in Egypt. Egypt has no reason to be so poor, it has ample natural resources at its disposal to be very rich, but they are impoverished through fiat currency. What they make in minimum wage in their fiat currency in one day is sufficient enough to buy food for one day in the US. Their fiat currency is utterly devalued. Do you not understand what is happening at a global scale through fiat currency? Do you not see what is happening in Venezuela, with people eating out of garbage cans, because of the devaluation of paper money? It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant the common American is.
What is a practical alternative to fiat currency?
 
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