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The amount of $100 bills in circulation is surging. And it's leaving some economists scratching their heads.
The number of outstanding U.S. $100 bills has doubled since the financial crisis, with more than 12 billion of them across the world, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. C-notes have passed $1 bills in circulation, Deutsche Bank chief international economist Torsten Slok said in a note to clients this week.
[...] "By eliminating high denomination, high value notes we would make life harder for those pursuing tax evasion, financial crime, terrorist finance and corruption," [former Standard Chartered bank chief executive Peter] Sands wrote.
The global illicit money flows were "staggering" and fuel crimes from drug trafficking and human smuggling to theft and fraud, Sands said. He estimated that depending on the country, tax evasion robs the public sector of anywhere between 6 percent and 70 percent of what authorities estimate they should be collecting. And despite "huge investments in transaction surveillance systems, and intelligence, less than 1 percent of illicit financial flows are seized.
[...] "The Federal Reserve and Treasury make 99 dollars for every $100 dollar bill they print and sell offshore," Colas said. "There's a natural desire to keep printing these things — the U.S. government makes a lot of money selling them."
Superbills?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @12:58PM (16 children)
Imagine all the great stuff they could spend it on like pointless wars, harassing pot smokers, spying on everyones activities, fake investigations of each other for corruption, corporate welfare, creating more laws no one understands, the benefits go on and on.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday March 01 2019, @01:13PM (1 child)
Of course those aren't the programs that get cut
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @01:52PM
Lets not forget the $20 million dollars to pay off sexual harassment accusers:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/settlements-congress-sexual-harassment/ [cnn.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @02:10PM (5 children)
Or, you know, they could pay down the $21+ Trillion in debt that's been built up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:02PM (4 children)
That is never getting paid in any normal sense of the word. Can't believe anyone thinks it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @04:33PM
Congressional members & Prez should be required to wear chicken suits a day each year for each T over 5T debt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @04:36PM (1 child)
Clinton started paying it down - just a happy accident that the .com boom happened on his watch and .com money flowed mostly through taxable channels.
So, on Trump's watch we've got a massive flow of under-the-table cash, one might say Russian Black Market style, is anybody surprised?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 01 2019, @10:28PM
What was there in that sentence to be surprised by? The financial crisis happened back in 2007-2008 which would have been well before Trump's watch.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:49AM
In unrelated news, the treasury this week announced another massive run of quantitative easing today, with the presses running day and night to print as many $100 bills as there was ink for. But back to the main story about the mysterious glut of $100 bills that no-one can explain...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @04:34PM (1 child)
tax reduction for the people who actually pay?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 01 2019, @10:30PM
Sure, we can pretend that's on the list of priorities. I would love for that to be a thing, but it's certainly not happening at the US federal level.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @07:06PM (5 children)
Or, if a certain political group could pull its head out of its ass, universal healthcare and education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @07:45PM (1 child)
Yes, of course. They have done such a good job already, let's put them in charge of even more stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @06:37AM
Hillary will sort it out once and for all when it's her turn to be president after she wins the election next year. Finally some change we can believe in!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @09:35PM
stupid fucking slave
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 02 2019, @03:28PM (1 child)
Universal healthcare and education would be a good thing, economically speaking. The former would induce greater liquidity in the labor market; if you aren't worried about losing your health insurance for you and your family, you are more apt to seek jobs where you can be most productive, happiest, and earn the most money. Everybody wins. The latter ensures that our work force has the best skills and education we can give them, regardless of their received familial circumstances, and can begin their productive professional years without crippling debt loads that only benefit worthless bankers who salt the gains away in offshore numbered accounts.
In that kind of society, everyone is happier and more productive. There is less crime, there is less division and counter-productive anger and every other variety of social malady.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:42PM
that's all well and good but theft is not ok just because the thief thinks they are doing it for a good cause. just like racism or discrimination don't magically become something else just because now you're discriminating against whitey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @01:11PM (2 children)
Maybe all the criminal elements that operate in cash started figuring out how worthless it was around the same time the US government bailed out the banks, and began reintroducing it into the economy.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 01 2019, @01:32PM
They paid cash for Antminers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @01:34PM
There was this: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims [theguardian.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 01 2019, @01:21PM (1 child)
It happens that sexually-obsessed - The Mind Really _Does_ Simply Reel - Portland, Oregon is a widely-recognized international human trafficking hub.
I first clued into that as a result of puzzling over all the public service messages on the trains and buses, all about how to get help when you're far from home and pressed into sexual slavery.
This had the eventual result that two or so months ago, the Feds - FBI maybe, but the article didn't say - and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police worked together to round up thirty human trafficking suspects here in PDX, in Southern California and in a particular Canadian city, Toronto or some such.
There were arrests in the PRC as well, but I don't think they resulted from an actual collaboration, rather the RCMP and the Feds having tipped off the authorities there as a result of what they learned from the busts here.
That wasn't thirty prostitutes: that was thirty _pimps_.
Sarah plies her trade mostly on 82nd Avenue in I think North-East Portland. Or maybe it's South-East my memory is as always hazy. (North of Burnside Street, East of the Willamette River.)
A while back I googled me up some reading about 82nd.
I wish I had not done that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 01 2019, @03:45PM
PRC - Pro Rodeo Circuit? So, that's why they ride the bulls - to get sex slaves from a saturated market to an under served market. No one's going to stop a bull to search it!
http://www.tehachapinews.com/lifestyle/tehachapi-mountain-rodeo-association-announces-season/article_7391059c-3156-11e9-9540-1f89e5f82692.html [tehachapinews.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday March 01 2019, @01:29PM (9 children)
I expect the People's Republic of China had some insight into that when it enacted the death penalty for official corruption.
A while back some cartel kingpin's home was raided by the Mexican Federal Police. In his freezer - in his fucking kitchen, you know where the ice cream goes M'Kay? - they found TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS IN MOTHERFUCKING CASH.
That would fix a lot of speeding tickets, M'Kay?
Quite a long time ago, I was overcome with grief to read of a Mexican beat cop having taken his very life due to his inability to shake enough suspects down so as to meet the quota his supervisor imposed on him.
Now, it's not like America doesn't know from bribery, but for us its far, far less of a fact of our daily lives than it is damn near everywhere else in G-d's Own Creation. "Can we take care of it here, Officer?"
Consider a very, very, very simple Economical Model:
Suppose purely for the sake of argument, just one mid-size Mexican city were completely free of official corruption for just one year. What would happen?
Co-Working Spaces would spring up like fucking weeds, for one thing.
Sales of notebook computers would skyrocket.
Children would see their dentists regularly.
Elderly people would eat fruits and vegetables in addition to their rice and beans, thereby clearing up their heart conditions.
There's quite a lot more I expect.
There _is_ a very very simple way to actually carry out such an experiment:
If the Mexican Federal Police positioned sharpshooters on the rooftops all over just _one_ mid-sized Mexican city, only a very few City Police would have to pay the Ultimate Sacrifice before official corruption would at least move _indoors_.
M'Kay?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Friday March 01 2019, @02:11PM (8 children)
You sound like my cousin who advocated machine gun nests on every crossroad. According to him this would solve most every problem in the city and the country in general.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:30PM (6 children)
Yes. And who watches the watchers? Once those snipers and machine gun nest people get "corrupted" you are in a worse situation than before.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 01 2019, @03:50PM (5 children)
You're not supposed to know, or to understand that.
Same idea applies to disarming the populace, and at the same time militarizing the police forces. Going down that road, eventually, the cops will want one "bad guy" in a housing complex, so they'll blow away the entire complex. Bonus points if they can pick a little of his DNA from among the dozens of collateral damage.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 02 2019, @06:35AM (4 children)
Judging by the number of Americans in jail and the number the police kill, your weapons aren't helping all that much. At that it seems like an arms race that the cops are winning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @12:27PM (1 child)
Oh Americans do use all those guns -- to regularly mow down school children.
But hey, less Americans, win-win.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 02 2019, @03:33PM
And what makes you think all that isn't according to plan, to breed the survivors into an army of super-soldiers to better oppress everyone else's children in the future? China makes its school kids learn how to march in formation, America uses a brutal, Darwinian "surprise drill!" approach.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:48PM (1 child)
that's just because they are winning the propaganda war so most of the people with the guns still think the cops/govebbermint are working for the people. lack of firepower is not the problem, i assure you.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 02 2019, @08:55PM
A good chunk of the population seems to support the cops no matter what they do and would be standing along side the cops if the other good chunk tried to use their arms to correct things.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday March 01 2019, @11:27PM
Can we get some real numbers on this? Say, from Team Fortress 2? Now *there's* where phoning home with statistics can produce real-world value.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @01:33PM (14 children)
I wish people would stop pretending things which aren't theft are theft because they know it wins more sympathy than honestly describing the situation.
Copyright infringement isn't theft, tax evasion isn't theft, unlawfully removing the property of another from their possession is theft.
>inb4 but tax evasion/copyright infringement are bad!
Yeah, I didn't imply otherwise, but they certainly aren't theft.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday March 01 2019, @03:45PM (3 children)
Of course "tax evasion robs" doesn't say it's theft, it says it is robbery. Apparently someone enters the tax office with weapons to enforce getting the money.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Spamalope on Friday March 01 2019, @05:13PM (2 children)
Amazon pays how much in Tax? Ge Capitol?
Looks more like it's to keep upstarts from challenging the whales.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @05:45PM (1 child)
Amazon pays every penny they owe, it's just that tax law contains a whole lot of loop holes because it isn't written by formal methods folk but lawyers*.
*also available: because the politicians are paid off to ensure such loopholes exist, but even if they weren't it would still be the case because lawyers don't even try to prove their definitions sufficient.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @12:33PM
Yes that happened and yes it is illegal.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple-pay-back-taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday March 01 2019, @04:00PM (9 children)
I never heard anyone claim tax evasion is theft, although I am sure some people think like that.
I have however, heard many claims that taxation is theft. If you think about it, it is essentially no different than paying protection money to the mafia.
You see, you have this organisation, and they offer you protection, in return for paying what they feel you should for their services. In return, you get their armed thugs protecting you and your business from others, and they will mediate if you have disputes with other people under their protection. If you have a dispute with someone under another organisations protection, they will back you up (as long as it is in their interest usually). They will also regulate their estate and make sure things are running smoothly and money is being earned (because if those paying the protection money go bust, there is no more money for them), including and up to providing services to facilitate this. However if you refuse to pay up, or try to avoid paying what they think you owe, then they come with their thugs and bring violence upon your person and business, from locking you up to depriving you of life if they feel like it.
In the above sentence, you can substitute "protection money" with "taxes", and "thugs" with "police", "organisation" with "government", and the above still holds true.
They say while opposites attract, familiarity breeds contempt. That is probably why Governments and Mafias have so much contempt for each other. They either essentially wage war against each other, or they meld together into one unit, getting so intertwined in some cases that you can't be sure where one ends and the other begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @04:07PM
You are absolutely right, however, as little as I care for our local, state and federal protection rackets, I do prefer them to any others that I have gotten to know in the last 50 years.
Remember the two things that are certain in life. Unless we expand into the universe where you have a choice to live independently without potentially infringing on the rights of others, taxes will continue to be a certainty. For those who cannot, or choose not to re-wire their brains to not crave social contact, I would say that taxes will continue to be a certainty much longer than death will.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @04:44PM
People who claim any modern nation-state has consent of the governed are redefining it in a disingenuous way given that literally a single person they claim control over dissenting suffices to void it.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 01 2019, @06:04PM (6 children)
You're carefully neglecting the major advantage of governments over crime syndicates: Scale.
Sure, governments sometimes fight each other, but there's usually enough peace in most of the territory that people can generally go about their business without risking being killed in the streets. There are major advantages to that, such as being able to construct infrastructure that is durable because it's unlikely to be blown up in the near future. Even in wartime, there's typically a lot of territory that is far away from the front lines and thus relatively safe to be in.
Do you think that much scientific research happens when your scientists expect to be killed by random gun battles between rival gangs? Nope, because those scientists aren't dumb enough to spend their time on, say, chemistry, when they could be spending their time learning how to avoid being killed.
For more on this argument, see Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @06:41PM (4 children)
The necessity of governments governing those who do not consent does not morally justify it. It is immoral, even as it is necessary.
If Hobbes argues against this point then please summarize his points, IIRC Leviathan starts with pages and pages of definitions and I didn't bother reading past them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday March 01 2019, @07:54PM (3 children)
On the contrary, I think it does.
Imagine, for argument's sake, a land with no government and no outside enemies to worry about.
In this land are many people who are productive and make all the food, housing, clothing, etc that this society needs. However, there are also a few people who survive not by producing anything useful and trading it for other useful stuff that they need, but by beating, killing, and robbing others. Don't claim these people don't exist, because they've existed in every human society in recorded history, and there's a way to deal with them. And these folks will not submit to any kind of authority from anybody unless forced to.
Do you as someone living in this society (a) let these few murdering robbers continue to murder and rob unabated, (b) help the other productive people work together to deal with the murdering robbers, or (c) hope that some individual stops them by force?
If you picked (a), then the murdering robbers are diminishing the productive people's freedom by taking away their lives and stuff, and will end up through a combination of violence and threats of violence becoming absolute rulers of some kind, oppressing the productive people as they see fit. This is exactly what happened in the late 400's CE in the wake of the Roman Empire's collapse.
If you picked (b), congratulations, you've picked some form of consent-of-the-governed government. You'll have to deal with complexities like sorting out who is a murdering robber and who isn't, and potentially pooling some of the resources of everyone in this land - including the reluctant ones - to make sure that these folks are caught and somehow made to be no longer a threat to everybody else.
If you picked (c), then either the murdering robber's friends and relatives will get revenge on whoever took out the murdering robber, in which case you get a cycle of clan feuds and constant battles a la Hatfields and McCoys, or that person defeats the people seeking revenge too and becomes an absolute ruler. Either one carries its own problems.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @08:36PM (2 children)
Killing a person to prevent them violating one's rights doesn't violate their rights. Writing this out in full takes a whole lot of space, and most of it is spent on edge cases which are obvious and tediously careful wording, so I'll skip over the details of what I consider peoples rights to be. Forming a police force which enforces/defends peoples rights is morally permissible, provided no member take any action which they haven't the right to. The victims grant the police the right to defend them from the bandits, and so they gain that right so long as it is granted. This does imply that they may not defend the rights of those who do not consent, but practically this doesn't matter since it can be safely assumed all do.
This does imply they have to form a court system etc, but that's really just a question of how certain one has to be an action doesn't violate a anyone's rights before taking it, which isn't what we're discussing though it is interesting.
This group though doesn't have any rights not granted it. They can act to defend Bob, because Bob has that right and grants them it. If the members grant the organization the right to tax them, then it has the right to do so. The organization may take Bob's property if he grants them that right, this is acceptable because Bob himself has that right and may grant it as he wishes.
If nobody grants the organization the right to take Alice's property though, then it doesn't have that right. It doesn't matter if Bob says it's ok, or if five million people say it's ok, they can't grant a right they themselves don't possess, the organization has no right it is not granted by one who possesses it.
Imagine a hijacked plane with a nuclear weapon aboard inbound to some large city, with a single innocent passenger on board. It would be murder to shoot that plane down and save tens of millions of lives. It's a circumstance that would move me to do evil and shoot it down, but just because I can imagine choosing to do it doesn't mean it isn't evil to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @09:11PM (1 child)
Your best bet for convincing me of the legitimacy of governing the unconsenting it to convince me of utilitarianism.
Your best bet for convincing me of utilitarianism is to argue that morality isn't intrinsic to reality, it's just the set of behavioral restrictions we're personally ok with forcing on nonconsenting people with violence. I am, for example, happy to use violence against a nonconsenting person to force them to not steal from me, and so I consider that moral. Push on this a little and one ends up concluding that "X is immoral." just means "I'm willing to use violence against nonconsenting people to stop them doing X.".
Morality then is merely a partial description of one's utility function/decision theory, specifically the set of actions they license which involve doing violence to nonconsenting parties to prevent or force an action from them. As such any morality which calls an act we ourselves would perform evil is simply mistaken, and incorrectly describes those actions we are willing to perform, because morality is descriptive not prescriptive.
Therefore the fact I am willing to shoot the plane down demonstrates that I consider it moral, and I am simply using the words morality/moral/immoral/etc incorrectly in my post.
This doesn't answer the question of what one's morality ought be though, and just kicks the can down the road to what one's utility function/decision theory ought be. Strong arguments can be made for what one's decision theory ought be, leaving only one's utility function undetermined.
While this argument doesn't answer the question of what ought be moral, it does at least argue that everyone already is a utilitarian and just use deontological heuristics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @09:58PM
What our utility function is isn't directly chosen by us, though it can be influenced by our choices. Rational agents will never ascribe positive expected utility to changing their utility function at the time they are considering doing so*. Therefore our utility functions will, to the extent we are rational, only drift neutrally and so we don't need to care about altering them. Therefore our morality is out of our hands to the extent we act rationally, and what appear to be people altering their morality are actually just people deciding that a given strategy leads to greater expected utility (e.g. because they feel good for having done so/because they avoid feeling bad/because it's just habit they got into due to a process with positive expected utility (e.g. obeying parents on moral matters and not bothering to reconsider)/because they avoid prison/et c.).
Therefore I, and all others, already do seek maximum utility without regard for morality, because it can't influence our behavior but is rather a description of it. Choosing to be honorable so that others will be is just a decision theory problem, not anything deeper. My prior sacrifices of utility in the name of morality were just the products of a heuristic for maximizing utility, and still good decisions because they caused others to trust me, which is more beneficial than the utility I would have obtained even if never betrayed.
I believe that maximum utility will be obtained from pseudo-rights, where they're respected up to a point and then are ignored, as almost all people currently support but mistakenly call rights.
Guess I'm a statist now. Didn't expect that. This has been coming for a while, but I didn't expect such a sharp 180 into egoism.
Please point out any mistakes, I'm tired and know fuck all about this topic. I'll think all this through properly over the coming days/weeks. I don't expect my actual behavior will change in the slightest because of this, being trustworthy is far too valuable to give up for the utterly minor gains I could have by violating other's rights.
*newcomblike problems aside, accounting for them isn't needed to communicate my point.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday March 01 2019, @11:30PM
Ok, now repeat that in an overdone Italian mobstah accent, tack on details on how yehr organization is assistin' in providing this infrastructure in the local community, and my vote's for you winning the discussion.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Friday March 01 2019, @01:38PM (23 children)
Most people easily spend more than $100 per trip to a store just for basics, especially if they have a family. The prices of many things has skyrocketed out of the soloar system the last few years.
So the implication is only "corrupt" people use cash? Reeally? This story was brought to you (in a huge annoying popover) by the fund to track every purchase you make.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @02:03PM (10 children)
Inflation makes you richer though since it is easier to pay off your debts.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday March 01 2019, @03:37PM (1 child)
Only if you have negative wealth.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday March 01 2019, @03:49PM
Wrong. The only condition is that your monetary wealth is negative, and the interest is below the inflation rate. Your material wealth can exceed your debt by an arbitrary large amount. Material goods won't lose value due to inflation.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:43PM (2 children)
Only if you actually get an annual pay increase equal to inflation. This has not been happening for the last decade for most people. That's why the middle class is shrinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @05:51PM (1 child)
More like the last several decades. I can't be bothered to look it up but I remember reading somewhere that if minimum wage had kept up with inflation since the 1970s (1960s?) then it would now be around $22/hr. And some fat cats now scream bloody murder at the mere thought of raising minimum wage from $10/hr to $15/hr. And let's not mince words here: keeping minimum wage low is quite effective at keeping everyone else's wages lower too. Just imagine what your life could be like if your salary was roughly doubled.
Yes, indeed. More and more, I'm becoming convinced that what the CEOs really want is that all the rest of us work as serfs on their personal plantations!
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday March 01 2019, @06:42PM
> More like the last several decades. I can't be bothered to look it up but I remember reading somewhere that if minimum wage had kept up with inflation since the 1970s (1960s?) then it would now be around $22/hr.
Wages decoupled from inflation roughly when the US went off the gold standard, which was the 1970s roughly. The ability to print money at whim and spend it like a drunken sailor was the start of the decoupling of asset prices from wages.
> And some fat cats now scream bloody murder at the mere thought of raising minimum wage from $10/hr to $15/hr.
While I loathe to defend "fat cats", I will point out that the population of the world in 1970 was around 4 billion, but now is around 8 billion. At the same time the push for gender equality has resulted in more females working, while automation and productivity enhancements has reduced the need for jobs, so the population has doubled, the working percentage of the population has increased, but the number of jobs hasn't. As such, the value of an individuals labour has reduced.
So yes, I can imagine $22/hr being the correct inflation adjusted minimum wage, but that assumes everything else stays the same, from the number of jobs available, to the population, to the %age of population working, none of which has happened. Peoples labour is worth less now than in the 1970s, and if the AI revolution really reaches its promises, wages will drop further, as there will be even less demand for human labour.
> And let's not mince words here: keeping minimum wage low is quite effective at keeping everyone else's wages lower too. Just imagine what your life could be like if your salary was roughly doubled.
Life would be exactly the same, because prices would roughly double to compensate. If everybodies wages doubled tomorrow, prices would double too, and nobody would be better off.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday March 01 2019, @04:24PM (4 children)
> Inflation makes you richer though since it is easier to pay off your debts.
Not really. as debt usually has an interest rate in excess of inflation (usually magnitudes higher), so inflation does not make it easier to pay off debt. The bankers aren't stupid, they won't let you get away with inflating away what you owe.
It also inflates away your wages, and your savings, so in fact I'd argue that at best you stay the same, but the vast majority of people get poorer.
You may have assets that are inflation proof (so they will go up in price to offset inflation), but their value is the same.
For example, You happen to own a house that is worth £100,000, if inflation makes that house worth £200,000, you are not richer, if you sold that house, you could still only buy that same house again, you could not upgrade. The value has stayed the same, but the price has changed.
However, if you are working for £50,000 a year, and want to buy the £100,000 house, inflation will make the house cost £200,000, but your wages are still £50,000. You are now poorer, because inflation has pushed your purchasing power down. Even if you own the house that is now worth 200k, you are still poorer, because your wages can no longer afford to buy a house like the one you already have, if you needed to.
Inflation is a stealth tax really, the slow siphoning off of your wealth in such a way that is very hard to notice, and even harder to know who is doing it and where the money is going.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @06:37PM
for people who hold cash, and in that respect it's a good thing. If you don't invest your cash hoard, you're losing it to inflation. Of course, if you do invest your cash hoard you are putting it at risk in the markets.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @10:02PM (1 child)
But, if you borrow £100,000 to buy the house, then inflation makes that house worth £200,000. Then, you now owe half what you owed before.
You could sell the house and be £100,000 richer than you were before you bought it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:20AM
You forgot the usury.
(Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Saturday March 02 2019, @12:43AM
Interest rate is set more additive then multiplicative. If inflation is say 0% general mortgage rate will start at something like 0+4% if inflation is 4% general mortgage rate will start at 4+4%(yearly compounded rate). I you are talking orders of magnitude as x10.... there is absolutely no way you will see 100% interest rates when inflation is 1%. Nobody reasonable could afford that.
I will ignore the cost/benefit via paying mortgage rather then rent.
Where inflation really starts being noticeable is say inflation of 5%.
Scenario: Twenty year amortization, 9% interest rate ( chunked in numbers into online amortization thing).
So after twenty years that house will be worth about 270K£. But over that 20 years ~116K£ interest +100K£ principle would be paid. I payed less then what the house is currently worth.
Not including property taxes and some of the other fees.
If inflation was zero, house would be still worth 100K£ after 20 years but 216K£ would have been spent on mortgage and payment. I payed twice what the house is worth.
So that is where people say inflation helps if you are paying off debt. Because once you get the loan, that is what you are paying off a fixed value when you purchase the house.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday March 01 2019, @03:43PM (2 children)
My thoughts exactly. Can't even take the girlfriend out for dinner at a casual chain restaurant without the bill getting near (or sometimes breaking) $100. This "corruption" crap is just a ploy to get rid of cash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @04:20PM
That is not posible if you live in the US, #SoMuchBullshit
I might have believed you if you said a nice restaurant, but even then it has to be a swanky restaurant not just nice.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @04:23PM
I don't deny that there are strong ploys at work to get rid of cash.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the recent massive influx of C notes is the result of a group of actors taking them out from under the mattress, safe deposit boxes, etc. and spending them. The types of actors who hold large quantities of C notes aren't usually your "color inside the lines" types.
What this means to me, if the data isn't just fabricated, is that one or more groups recently converted their cash hoards to power plays - making people do things in exchange for the cash instead of saving it for a rainy day, and the interesting question is: what big activities did all this cash fund?
Another thing this means to me is: like last year's economic "BOOM" which was, in part, funded by the IRS under-deducting from the majority of US workers, resulting in something like an 8% average decrease in income tax refunds this year - this cash influx is either a short term and temporary economic stimulus, or it is the result of massive counterfeiting, which will be even worse in the long run.
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(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 01 2019, @03:58PM (4 children)
That wasn't the impression I got at all. People who have been hoarding $100 notes are suddenly putting them back into circulation. The question is, "Why?" Apparently, the hoarders are losing faith in the Federal Reserve Dollar. If people start demanding Greenbacks, or similar, that will clinch it. No faith in the Federal Reserve.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday March 01 2019, @04:16PM (2 children)
Try reading again. That is NOT what's happening. The amount "in circulation" is simply the number that have been printed by the Treasury and have not been returned to the Treasury for destruction (for bills that are too worn, very damaged, etc.).
TFA says the Treasury has been printing more and more $100 bills, and they haven't been returning. So, they're out there. Unless someone is burning up $100 bills in 55-gallon drums somewhere, chances are either (1) hoarding is increasing, or (2) most of these are still being used both inside and outside the U.S. in illicit transactions, or both.
Not even close. If anything, this indicates more use of the dollar, which frankly, I find a bit surprising. (Though I shouldn't be surprised: even when the U.S. was threatening to not uphold its financial commitments a few years back, T-note auctions indicated steady or even increased demand for dollars. It's all irrational.)
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday March 01 2019, @04:50PM (1 child)
> Not even close. If anything, this indicates more use of the dollar, which frankly, I find a bit surprising.
Well, seeing as every single country that tried to move away from the dollar got some "humanitarian bombing", it doesn't surprise me at all. Off the top of my head:
Attempted:
Iraq - in 2003, Saddam decides to stop selling Oil in USD and switch to Euro. Result - bombed and overthrown, Saddam hanged by the US installed government.
Syria - in 2006, Assad decides to switch away from USD to EUR for all trade. Result - bombed, but Russia and China step in to stop the overthrow. However the country has been pretty much destroyed and will take a generation of hard work at least to bring back to pre-war life, if divisions can ever really be healed post conflict.
Libya - in 2011, Gadaffi decides to move away from USD and form a gold backed Dinar as a common currency for the African Union. Result - bombed, overthrown, Gadaffi sodomised to death with a machete
In progress:
Venezuela - Maduro to move away from trading oil in USD, and to towards currency swaps, and/or Petro crypto currency. Result: overthrow in progress, no certainty of success at the moment
Maybe:
Iran - Attempting to move off USD, but has not fully done so (despite sanctions). Attempting to make use of non USD trading through the EU clearing house in Euros, but the US is threatening to sanction any EU country that trades with Iran. US has made plenty of threats and plans to bomb Iran and overthrow the government, but have yet to actually do it. Seem to be considering giving nukes to Saudi Arabia, maybe let them and Israel do the dirty work?
A bit too big to swallow:
Russia - Moving away from USD for trade, primarily currency swaps and gold swaps. Result: Has nuclear weapons, so a bit tricky to bomb and overthrow. However constant demonisation and attempts to sanction and isolate them until they fold is being attempted
China - Moving away from USD for trade, primarily currency swaps and gold swaps. Result: Has nuclear weapons, so a bit tricky to bomb and overthrow. However constant demonisation and attempts to sanction and isolate them until they fold is being attempted
Moral of the story? Don't even think of moving off the USD unless you got a large nuclear arsenal. As that is only 5 countries on earth, of which 3 (US, UK, France) are allies, it isn't surprising most others just shut up and accept whatever they are told to. However if other smaller countries start joining things like the Eurasian Union, the SCO or CSTO, then they can consider dumping the USD without getting destroyed in the process. At that point, you will see a large increase of USD in circulation, as people start dumping them for hard assets or other currency.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday March 02 2019, @02:47AM
Can no one here read? If your scenario came true and people dumped their U.S. cash, there would be LESS cash "in circulation" according to TFA, because the Treasury would stop printing money and the number of old bills destroyed when returned to the Treasury would exceed new production, due to increased demand.
Some of you seem to read "in circulation" as though it means people are running around actively throwing these bills around. That's not what the term means in reference to currency. Bills "in circulation" are opposed to bills that are pulled out for the Treasury for destruction and/or held in reserve by the Treasury for future release.
If there are more bills in circulation -- again, that just means "not contained within the Treasury" -- without apparent increase in economic activity to justify it, it means people are holding onto and hoarding dollars (or using then for illicit or foreign transactions).
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday March 01 2019, @11:32PM
Um, no. Cassette tapes, vinyl, handlebar mustaches, fixies, and now paper money ... the whole driver behind this was obvious to me as soon as I read the headline.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @04:15PM
In the 1970s, it was a rare bi-weekly trip to the grocery store for our family of four (with my parents) that would top $100 at the register. Today, we go to the grocery at least once a week, more often twice, and it is a rare trip for our family of four (with my children) that doesn't top $100 at the register. Effective food costs have nearly quadrupled. Then we can talk about the gasoline that cost $0.32 per gallon in 1972 which has increased 10x, although it's still rare to top $100 in a single tank, I think it's not unreasonable to pay for a $70 gas bill with a C note, whereas the same bill in 1971 would have been under $10 - fuel mileage has increased a small fraction in the meantime, not nearly to keep pace with the cost of fuel, though, and miles driven on average have increased.
I feel the same way about the $10K maximum transaction limit without nosy people wanting to track what it's all for. When that law was passed, you could buy a nice new house for less than $10K, today a decent used car is more. We recently bought a boat for $16K cash and the process to transfer the money was agonizing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 02 2019, @06:48AM
Does that explain the number of American $100 bills in other nations? Here they're not too useful due to the fear of them being counterfeit.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 02 2019, @03:50PM
Sometimes I question the average citizen's ability to manage his money. When I walk into a grocery store, 90% of the place is full of processed food. That stuff is expensive. It's also full of stuff that's not good for you. Meanwhile the produce section has stuff that is much less expensive; within that section, there are items that are shipped from Chile and are expensive, and items which are local and in season and dirt cheap. So of course people buy the expensive stuff because it's what they want, now. But they could create menus with the cheaper stuff perfectly well and be perfectly happy with the result, in terms of taste and nutrition. But people just want what they want, when they want it and damn the cost. Except as soon as they have done paying for it they complain, complain, complain about the cost. People could save tons of money by curbing those impulses.
I walk down the street and see all kinds of great furniture put out on the sidewalk. Sometimes it might need to be re-upholstered, re-finished, or repaired a bit, but with a little time and elbow-grease you can have a fine piece whose acquisition didn't cost you a mint.
Same thing with clothing, electronics, etc. I've given my kids several iterations of laptops without spending a dime, because I picked them up, tuned them up, installed linux, and told them, "here's your new computer!"
As long as a person has an ample portion of DIY, creativity, and the social confidence to not give a damn what the talking-heads and fashionistas have to say (they're all shilling, BTW), it's quite possible to dramatically re-define his cost of living.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday March 02 2019, @11:20PM
BTW a good way to 'convince' people to abandon cash would be to flood them with fake bills, blame $enemy_of_the_day for it. One small drawback is that people would momentarily benefit by the infusion of cash, which becomes fake only when you take it to a bank.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @02:02PM (10 children)
I was going to write a comment angry about them assuming cash use is suspicious and accusing them of demonizing it to drive people into giving up what shreds of privacy they retain, but then I realized that I can't remember the last time I saw someone use cash in a normal situation.
There are legitimate uses obviously, and many here prefer cash for privacy reasons which is entirely legitimate, but the majority of society just don't effectively care about privacy (at least around here) and don't use cash in normal situations.
I'm annoyed that it actually is suspicious, but where I live it does appear to be the case. Perhaps a campaign to get people to use cash more is in order? (as if that would result in anything more than being told you're autistic for caring about privacy)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 01 2019, @02:33PM (6 children)
Suspicious it may be, but is anybody really going to give you shit for using cash at a grocery or hardware store? Maybe if you bought $1,000 of stuff at Best Buy some eyebrows would be raised.
I think it does depend on location. Some places see a lot of cash or EBT card use.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 01 2019, @03:54PM (1 child)
Might in large depend on what you buy. If you come in and buy a shovel, some plastic tarp, a few rolls of ducttape and a hacksaw then some alarmbells might go off, but then it might also be all about the context.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday March 01 2019, @11:33PM
"Ooh, a post-purchase register coupon for quicklime! Guess I'm getting back in line!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @08:07PM (3 children)
"How much is that?"
"$52.37, sir."
"Are pennies okay? Sorry, they're not rolled."
[Hands a sack of pennies to the cashier]
"Just let me know if it's not enough."
That could happen. Just not to me. I save my pennies for when they're really useful. Like when I travel by air.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 02 2019, @06:58AM (2 children)
Are large amounts of pennies legal tender? Here in Canada, they were only legal tender up to 25 cents. Other coins are similar, only legal tender up to 20-25 or so coins. Of course if the store chooses, they can take more and I notice that the super market I shop at has an automatic coin machine, dump in your change, get a piece of paper that you can spend or trade for higher denominations. Even takes pennies, unlike most all stores now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @12:10AM (1 child)
Apparently, the Canadian government [www.mint.ca] doesn't agree with you WRT the (discontinued) Canadian penny. They state that:
And yes, any and all US currency (including pennies) are "legal tender" (US Code Title 31, Section 5103) [cornell.edu]:
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Sunday March 03 2019, @01:08AM
From https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-52/page-1.html [justice.gc.ca] so actually the Canadian governments law,
Every time I pull out a penny now (I keep 2 cents worth in my pocket), cashiers laugh and refuse them.
Seems America had something similar before 1965 and today stores are free to accept or refuse whatever currency they choose if they're upfront about it. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/penny-whys/ [snopes.com]
Here, you do see stores that post that they won't take a hundred. OTOH, American coinage is usually accepted at par.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @02:56PM
They have passed laws in Australia to prevent any cash transaction over$10,000
People were buying houses with a suitcase full of cash
Criminals would flip houses to wash cash and make a quick profit
Now you can't buy a new car for cash
At the bank they demand to know why you are drawing large amounts of cash or when you get a cheque and when you exchange currency
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:01PM
Since every credit card transaction is traced, since bank account data is sold (deanonyomized then quickly re-linked with you), and since cell phone location can easily be linked with when money is spent, since online shopping can be linked as well...
I use cash whenever I can.
It isn't only the government that has this data. It's private enterprise. It's the largest risk to our democracies, such a large treasure trove of data -- and tracking money exchange is a massive part of it.
If you don't think or know why tracking is going to cause untold death in the future, then fine -- but, I do use cash whenever I can.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday March 02 2019, @11:28PM
If you use cash you submit to a fraud, which is cash printed in exchange for interest, which is money that does not exist. It's like telling a kid "you see the moon, it's right over the hill, if you go there you can touch it".
If you use electronic payments you do the same (because you are still dealing with money), plus you deal with the financial system, you know the guys who actually empower those corporations, those speculators, those high ranking arms and drugs traffickers, those mafia dons.
So, while using cash is immoral, it is doubly so to avoid it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:06PM (2 children)
This is literally insane.
$100 is like $20 a few decades ago. They should be reintroducing *larger* bills at this point.
Soon, $100 will be like $5. Getting rid of cash through backdoors (attrition) denies the voter a clean discussion about it.
Of course, as always, look for the motive. I love how the US government is demonized here, meanwhile? Banks make SOOOOOOOOO much money off of non-cash usage. They are RICH from credit card fees, bank fees, you name it.
It is banks that push, and push, and push again to get rid of cash. Fund studies showing how crime will be removed/eliminated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @05:45PM (1 child)
While I do find myself burning through $100 quite fast these days, it's still not like the $20. Here in the USA, they are met with too much suspicion to be used as ordinary currency. I actually had an ATM dispense me some $100s when I moved to the Bay Area and I thought, "expensive area, might not be too hard to spend". Nope. Hard to spend. I found another ATM that would give me the $20s I wanted. The convenience store owner on the 1st floor of my office knew me and I gradually broke them with that guy until I got rid of the last one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:26AM
They don't have cash-check markers and lightbulbs in cali? Or are they too stupid to tell real from fake?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:40PM (3 children)
Perhaps it is the Iranian government exchanging the metric tons of cash Obama returned to them into Euros and Chinese Yuan in order to free themselves.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 01 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)
That or all the mexican druglords are running out of space in their McDuck vaults.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday March 01 2019, @11:34PM
I'm thinking they're running out of faith in the reserve currency, and replacing it with more actual Scrooge McDuck gold coinage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @10:28PM
The wag who blamed it on Trump because politics is at +3 while the wag who blamed it on Obama because politics is at -1. Soylent News, we have a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)
Since the "Federal Reserve" (privately owned bank, not at all federal owned) prints money whenever it please. It feels it's more of a return of money spreading since printing too much money would lead to inflation when the production isn't following.
It could be that other countries are just dumping their US liquidities if they have enough internal market and their own currency is strong enough.
Usually any sane economist worth their salt would roughly know how the economy is doing, and would fetch back this surplus and "destroy" those bills so as to minimize/eliminate inflation.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday March 01 2019, @06:01PM
Well then, the Fed must surely be involved in this alleged criminal activity as the producers of the items in question. Surely the producer of items involved in almost every drug transaction can't be innocent! It's time to use drug law asset forfeiture on the Fed!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 01 2019, @06:51PM (1 child)
The 500 Euro bill was discontinued at the end of last year, because its high value was allegedly a good way to smuggle cash.
Only ever saw one. Had to deposit it in a bank, before drawing the same amount from the account afterwards. They wouldn't even give the change without associating it with someone's identity. It was brand new and had been given out by an Asian bank to friends before their travel to Europe, yet they couldn't use it anywhere.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday March 01 2019, @08:30PM
I had a hard time using EU100 notes the last time I was in Europe. The friendly person at the front desk of my hotel was kind enough to break them for me.
I've found that it's hard to get folks at regular shops to even break EU50 bills. However, the friendly South-asian man at the bodega near my home is happy to break US$100 bills for me.
Then again, in Europe, cash is pretty much all coins until you get to EU20 (and occasionally EU10) denominations.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @07:21PM
It sounds like Hamid Karzai has gone on a spending spree in the US with his pallets of CIA money!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edinlinux on Friday March 01 2019, @10:21PM
If govts manage to get rid of "cash" (especially bigger bills). It forces people to deposit money in banks.
Then it becomes possible to impose negative interest rates (something other countries are trying and the Fed wants).
if you can keep paper money in safes, this is impossible..so they want to get rid of paper money.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday March 01 2019, @10:51PM
It's amazing that the US strongly capped its currency back in 1946 and yet, 70 years later (and incidentally the Peter Sands paper was written in 2016) with all that inflation that has happened, this isn't good enough for some whiners. I have a different proposal. Let's increase the size of the largest bills to keep up with inflation over that period of time.
A dollar in 1946 would be worth over $12 [in2013dollars.com] in 2018 (using the US CPI index). That's a bit over a factor of ten. So let's introduce $500 and $1000 bills to keep the US dollar relevant and useful to all this global trade and money hoarding that Summers and Sands are concerned about.
I find it remarkable how one can propose crippling an important public good because it occasionally gets used for unpopular and sometimes illegal activities. It's probably just a convenient coincidence that eliminating the value of most of US paper money will generate a lot of business (including the above unpopular and sometimes illegal business) for banks and such who would naturally fill that niche after the paper currency option goes away. My view is that is a terrible idea and instead expanding the role and utility of US paper currency is a far better approach with huge potential to help the global economy.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday March 04 2019, @08:23PM
My bank (and others) now offers $100s in addition to the $20s that have always been the standard. No $50s, straight to $100. So *someone* in the financial system thinks that it's a new standard amount.