Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

keyboardworrier

This whole thread can be summed up in this 46 second long video featuring Jack Bogle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLCfkmaqI6k

port_of_spain

blue_max_3 said:

Thrugelmir said:

blue_max_3 said:

I heard today that local councils are wanting to have the 4% cap lifted on council tax. Maybe the first signs that they are going to be grabbing back some of that cash mountain they're spending.

Hardly grabbing back. Quality public services that everybody demands have to be paid for. Times are a changing. 

Well, it shouldn’t be hard to maintain, or expand even, with low inflation and interest rates at .1%. Quality public services is something everyone wants. There’s a danger that with more cash, funding tends to find its way to fringe services and pet projects. The Mail will have copy for years!

That completely misses the problems local government finances are facing. Very low interest rates don't help; it is about whether councils' income matches their expenditure. They can't always go (deeper into) debt to make up any deficit; they are in a very different position to central government in this respect; central government is in a unique position, as the currency issuer for the pound, in which its debts don't have most of the negative consequences that debt can have for any other debtor; councils have the same issues with sustainability of debt as other borrowers (businesses, households, etc).

Right now, councils are spending large, unexpected amounts related to the pandemic, to support vulnerable residents and local small businesses, at the same as seeing large drops in their income. They are, rightly, asking the Government for extra financial support to cover the very large deficits which have arisen. AIUI, some extra money has been provided, but it's not clear yet whether it will all be covered (though the promise to do "whatever it takes" should mean that it will be).

If the Government leaves councils uncompensated for a significant part of their losses, they will surely have to consider council tax rises or other unwelcome measures. And they started from a difficult financial position, after 10 years of deep successive cuts in funding from central government (which, to be fair, following years of a gradual squeeze on their finances under the New Labour Governments).

Doubtless the Mail will tell blatant lies about all this, as usual. You need to be better armed with information to see through their lies.

EdGasketTheSecond

Jerome Powell outlines plans for hyperinflation:

POWELL: We print it digitally. So as a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally. And we do that by buying Treasury Bills or bonds for other government guaranteed securities. And that actually increases the money supply. We also print actual currency and we distribute that through the Federal Reserve banks.

(BTW the FED does not create 'money' because real money, by definition, is a store of value; the dollar is not)

POWELL: Well, there's a lot more we can do. We've done what we can as we go. But I will say that we're not out of ammunition by a long shot. No, there's really no limit to what we can do with these lending programs that we have. So there's a lot more we can do to support the economy, and we're committed to doing everything we can as long as we need to.

From interview on May 13:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-transcript-fed-chair-jerome-powell-60-minutes-interview-economic-recovery-from-coronavirus-pandemic/

bowlhead99

EdGasketTheSecond said:

(BTW the FED does not create 'money' because real money, by definition, is a store of value; the dollar is not)

That definition's balls, because most dictionaries would tell you that money is a medium of exchange that market participants use to engage in transactions for goods and services; a means of payment or measure of value.  You can use money to measure things in terms of how much money (e.g.) they cost at a point in time.

That doesn't mean that increasing the money supply doesn't create 'money' because you choose to have a different definition of money than everyone else.

https://www.oed.com/oed2/00150104

EdGasketTheSecond

bowlhead99 said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

(BTW the FED does not create 'money' because real money, by definition, is a store of value; the dollar is not)

That definition's balls, because most dictionaries would tell you that money is a medium of exchange that market participants use to engage in transactions for goods and services; a means of payment or measure of value.  You can use money to measure things in terms of how much money (e.g.) they cost at a point in time.

That doesn't mean that increasing the money supply doesn't create 'money' because you choose to have a different definition of money than everyone else.

https://www.oed.com/oed2/00150104

I think you're the one talking those round things.

"Money serves as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a unit of account."

"Store of value. In order to be a medium of exchange, money must hold its value over time; that is, it must be a store of value."

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/economics/money-and-banking/functions-of-money

No fiat currency is ever a store of value. The FED creates currency, not money. The dollar has not been real money since it came off the gold standard.

bowlhead99

EdGasketTheSecond said:

bowlhead99 said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

(BTW the FED does not create 'money' because real money, by definition, is a store of value; the dollar is not)

That definition's balls, because most dictionaries would tell you that money is a medium of exchange that market participants use to engage in transactions for goods and services; a means of payment or measure of value.  You can use money to measure things in terms of how much money (e.g.) they cost at a point in time.

That doesn't mean that increasing the money supply doesn't create 'money' because you choose to have a different definition of money than everyone else.

https://www.oed.com/oed2/00150104

I think you're the one talking those round things.

"Money serves as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a unit of account."

"Store of value. In order to be a medium of exchange, money must hold its value over time; that is, it must be a store of value."

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/economics/money-and-banking/functions-of-money

No fiat currency is ever a store of value. The FED creates currency, not money. The dollar has not been real money since it came off the gold standard.

Well, I linked the Oxford English Dictionary definition of what money is. They have been doing what they do longer than you.

A dollar bill will buy a dollar's worth of goods and services next year just like it bought a dollar's worth of goods and services last year. It may buy fewer items next year because its purchasing power reduces over time (as people decide they would like to charge more 'money' as a reward for their endeavours or for the goods and services they sell). But the dollar bill will still store the value of a dollar from when you receive the bill to when you give it to someone else tomorrow or next year in exchange for some other item.

On other threads today you have told us that silver is 'undervalued' compared to gold. So, clearly silver does not hold its value, because sometimes it is 'undervalued'. We saw that an ounce of gold was worth up to 45% fewer dollars or 40% fewer pounds in the last couple of months of 2015 than it had been worth in the third quarter of 2011, so clearly gold does not hold its value or function as a 'store of value' either. And if no fiat currency is ever a store of value, then currency can't be used as money either.

So in your world, there is no money. 

Great. But back in the real world, if people talk about increasing the supply of money by printing more money (with consequential effects on the economy) and we understand those concepts and consequential effects because we are well educated and worldly wise, it is pretty futile to look up some highschool economics textbook and say "aha, but I just read this and I infer that dollars aren't money!"

EdGasketTheSecond

Gold is a store of value; always has been, always will be. It cannot be created by governments. Silver has also been used as money and is a store of value. Both gold and silver store value over a long time. Fiat currencies do not:

eskbanker

Can anyone sufficiently experienced with the new forum software advise if it's possible to automatically ignore any post(er) referring to 'fiat currency', as it seems to be a handy universal indicator of views worth skipping straight past - see also 'rip-off', 'bankster', 'scamdemic', etc....

ColdIron

I can't help you but I can report that the ignore user functions well as a workaround

bowlhead99

eskbanker said:

Can anyone sufficiently experienced with the new forum software advise if it's possible to automatically ignore any post(er) referring to 'fiat currency', as it seems to be a handy universal indicator of views worth skipping straight past - see also 'rip-off', 'bankster', 'scamdemic', etc....

A heavy-handed approach may cause you to lose the invaluable contributions to the motoring forum from enthusiasts of certain italian classics (Fix It Again, Tony!)

Good idea to filter on content rather than individuals, but what if you accidentally miss something really important and educational? Wake up sheeple!