Bittersweet Candy Bowl Forums

1. What is currency, and how is it created?

The dollar... Just think of it like an I.O.U., as with all currency. However, the value of the banknote/coin must be present to make banknote/coin pertinent.

I'll be focusing on U.S. currency. The value of the American banknotes/coins (dollars/cents) pretty much comes from countries like China and Iran when they place their money reserves into one of many U.S. dollar plans. Treasury bonds from The Federal Reserve are bought by .

This is how money is created.
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2. Why give the country of America this money?

Because America is such a good investment. The whole world gives America money, then interest is promised. We owe them extra money because the countries gave us some of their money, which is a loan. That's a big part of the National Debt - all the interest that we haven't paid yet to many other countries.
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3. The subject of debt...

With bank bailouts, federal budgets - money isn't really existent. It's an I.O.U., which is an informal debt instrument.

The money for your loan gets created on the spot, due to the fact that I.O.U.s dollars are pieces of paper that assure that Americans can procure items such as; food, gas, clothing, and much, much more. Once it's put in your name, the banks get to risk money on you.
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4. What is the difference between cash and credit?

There is a major difference between cash and credit.

Cash is your money alone. Not anyone else's, yours. You own it.
The ability of a customer to obtain goods or services before payment (based on the trust that payment will be made in the future) is credit. However, you are using the bank's cash, not yours. It is a loan.
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5. What if I lost my job, but I have a loan to pay?

If you lose your job, however, then the loan was a bad decision, and you will be punished for it by The Board of Executive Directors and the president of the bank (who serves as chairman of the board) because you were a bad bet. The punishment includes you having to pay more money, and they will get it, one way or another, such as foreclosing or repossessing your property.
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6. What if many people lose their jobs?

If a large number of people lose their jobs we have a recession.
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7. What happens during a rescission?

Many people are jobless, so they collect government benefits. This means that more money is needed to cover the costs. America borrows more money to pay for it all.
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8. What about interests for loans?

Due to the fact that more money is being spend then earned, America uses other loans to pay of the previous loans. This leads to a cycle of more debt, and more loans needed.
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9. What about printing more money?

The more of one thing you have, the less valuable it is. That's called inflation. Printing more money would make the situation worse.

Quote

(DollarTimes.com | Inflation Calculator)
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10. Rescission and inflation are happening right now. What is it? What can happen?

You can't raise taxes or print money during a recession without making it worse. Printing more money makes inflation worse. And America can't pay off the loans, so America is fucked, as well as the people who invested in America.
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11. What about owning instead of loaning or renting?

Owning is a little harder in modern times. Owning is much better, but people do not have the money (due to the fact wages barely grew for forty years (1964-2004 Wages)), so they make regular payments to a landlord for the use of property/land (which is renting).

Nowadays, when you make a large purchase, the cost of ownership is delayed. Many can't afford it, so they depend on near-endless small transactions (which makes the whole process more like renting, rather then owning).

Many people nowadays, "rent-to-own". Typically, this is a lease where you would have the option to buy, and part of your rent may go towards the purchase of the house. It's renting until the final payment is made, at which point the total amount exceeds the original purchase price.
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12. What are you're personal views? What, "common man," in-depth analysis can you provide? Etc., etc.

• I believe labor is much too expensive. Wall Street wants you to spend as much money as you can, but they never want to pay you. Economic growth is consumers getting credit without their wages going up.
  
  • When you hear talk about the housing crisis, you never hear, "We need to lower housing prices." (Well, you might hear it from Jimmy McMillan.)
  
  
  
• We're in a cycle that many people don't understand. We require better contrivance to afford the new age of high prices, which could mean many different things, such as higher debt and lower interest, because many Americans are underpaid to begin with.
  
  
• It's a type of socialism called, "market socialism". It's where the best designed product/outcome meets a single need and doesn't last for very long. For example: We subsidize waste with landfills. However, on, "holidays," like Earth Day, we're teaching kids to recycle; preaching one thing, but doing another.
  
  It's neoliberal economics which affects or is in all of our politics.
  
  
• Corporations, or rather, "job providers," are merely citizens. Private bankers (figuratively) print public money. Loopholes or subsidies for constituent industries put legislative bodies in an infrangible ice block, so democracy is broken. Meritocracy is far from possible in this country, due to the fact that we rely on; fucking over our own people, non-existent entities, and unfulfilled promises.

This post has been edited by DMLD96: 09 December 2011 - 05:57 AM

So...what about it? You normally want to have a 'discussion stimulating' question somewhere in there. Also, much of what you said is unnecessary; it's common knowledge. Anyway, yes, the national debt that the U.S. is getting screwed over with is a problem. That's all I can say without much of a discussion. Oh, and here is a wonderful video :

This post has been edited by The Swimmer: 08 December 2011 - 02:17 AM

DMLD, in all honesty if you're going to do an informing thread, make it about something useful and interesting. Economics is a dull topic that most people here don't really care about beyond how it affects their income and the prices off goods. They see it as I get more money = good. I get less money or laid off = bad. Price of gas drops 50 cents a gallon = good. Price of gas raises 50 cents = bad. They don't care where their money comes from or how it's made. Those that do care probably have already looked it up.

Finally, if it's an informal article, use FACTS and stay on topic. Everything after the spoiler is riddled with opinions, and that's bad practice. As for the spoilered sentence itself, I don't know if you just like spoilering random things, but it isn't necessary. Also, it's not written well--you're telling people that money is only money when it is theirs and credit belongs to someone else, and then you add on that your money belongs to wall street. This implies that there is no such thing as money, only credit. This is incorrect and to the average reader confusing.

To top it off, this subject can't be condensed into a few paragraphs. There is a reason BOOKS are written on this subject.

Was expecting him to come in here and have someone explain the economy to me like an autistic kid. I wasn't disappointed.

DM I'm going to bash or anything like that, but what I will say is this. Kiddo you are what? 15 or 16 years old. There is no reason for you to be worrying about this kinda stuff since you're barely old enough to wipe your own ass alright.

Car and Swimmer said it well enough so i'll just say go play outside and have fun while you still can kid.

And I'm pretty sure once Jerk gets wind of this he'll have some choice words for you.

Edit:What do you know he's already here.

This post has been edited by Lvl 50 Fighter: 08 December 2011 - 02:35 AM

Carcharocles, on 08 December 2011 - 02:29 AM, said:

I agree with that part of your comment the most. More in respect to the smaller obvious details (definition of credit, currency, banknotes) rather than the topic in general. Not only is most of what you (DMLD) said inaccurate (Carcharocles mentioned this about the 'credit' definition), but it is just a waist of everyone's time to read. If a person is reading this, at least give them the respect of assuming they are not completely closed off from the rest of the world and oblivious to what's been going on in the news.

Carcharocles, on 08 December 2011 - 02:29 AM, said:

This I disagree with. Careful with the words; the subject can be condensed into a few paragraphs, with a reasonable summary that will be enough for a forum topic. It will not investigate all the different areas of the subject/ problem, nor will it account for all explanations of facts and ideas stated. Still, no one expects a book to be written for a discussion on a forum such as this one, however DMLD could have definitely done a better job with his 'few paragraphs.'

Carcharocles, on 08 December 2011 - 02:29 AM, said:

Well I tried to condense it into a few paragraphs, which didn't really turn out that well, but I might as well try due to my need of intelligent conversation outside of school conversations with teachers and Skype. *sucks at shortening his own words*

Let's see... What to start off with... (Might as well try to fix some of this up.)

Lvl 50 Fighter, on 08 December 2011 - 02:35 AM, said:

But I dun want tu gu outside. Reasons why:

• I beat most of them up when I was younger and they hate me for it
  
• I don't like them
  
• They don't like the color of my skin (I look white, but I'm Puerto Rican)
  
• They are homophobic
  
• They are stupid; borderline special needs
  
• The new guy that lived here for about a year pretty much had a bunch of gang fights and shit, and the police always ask me what happened and bothers my family when I'm near
  
• They only want to play basketball, which I hate
  
• They're flat characters

The list goes on for a while

You don't even specify who "they" are. I assume these are kids in your neighbourhood?

My eyes glazed over most of your original post, but I saw this:

DMLD96 said:

Aren't you a few years late for this? The housing bubble has already burst in the United States, and many areas now have house prices quite a bit lower than they've been for a while. For example.

DMLD96, on 08 December 2011 - 04:27 AM, said:

At least try to be friends, DMLD. You're not trying.

@ Fighter: My choice words are, "Does anybody want some popcorn while Recess and the real members of Social Studies run train on this thread?"

What the hell is the point of this even?

And who the hell is David? I expected to be related to this thread somehow, but it's horribly unfunny and unstimulating.

This post has been edited by MintyLimeGreen: 08 December 2011 - 06:44 AM

I'll take some of that jerk, DMLD threads are always entertaining.

anyways, fighter, I disagree, I think that a 16 year old can be informed on a topic. after all, they are only two years away from voting age, the earlier they get informed the better!

and falconboy is correct as well. you have to put in some effort. are you saying that there is not one single human being your age at your school or town that you can be chummy enough with to go out and toss a ball to and fro with? you sound really anti-social with that post dude.


@minty David is DMLD's first name

TL:DR

This post has been edited by Chris: 08 December 2011 - 06:52 AM

B'aww no actual David.

Heads will roll for this cocktease.

Well, he should inform people next time instead of pretending to be related.

MintyLimeGreen, on 08 December 2011 - 06:52 AM, said:

I think it would be better suited for informing people to never go to Recess again...

Hahaha well said. I suggest starting a coup and changing this top to David: Portrait of a Kickass Labrador.

Eh... I don't have the energy to orchestrate a pointless revolution right now.

Just saying enjoy your youth, cause in a few years you're going to have loads of responsibilities. No problem being informing, but these kind of discussions should really be left to the old farts. (myself not included hell i'm only 21) Though the main part of my kid days are over, I still find it a drag to talk about things like this even though I have to sometimes.

The condescension with which you present this is so ironic it hurts. I don't know much about finance, but I for one will go to a credible individual, or even a schizophrenic convinced that banks are run by clockwork, rather than you. What possibly went through your head when deciding to make this thread? Delusions that somehow you are in a fit state of knowledge to explain this? I doubt you live anywhere near a gang fight, because if you did you'd have had those pretentions knocked out of you years ago.

I'm sorry, but now you're making it sound like banks in general print money. They don't. The United States Federal Reserve stores and distributes money to them, and if I remember correctly the Federal Mints located at various points in the US are the ones that print money. Money isn't printed for you on the spot. Furthermore, there is a maximum limit to how much money can exist at any given time without devaluing currency, so liking it to an IOU is bullshit.

DMLD, please, make sure you know what you're talking about before you actually write an informing article.

This post has been edited by Carcharocles: 08 December 2011 - 05:02 PM

Isn't DMLD like 14 or something anyhow? Anything he says is ridiculous, since most of us are much more advanced in academic and world knowledge in general. Now that being said, I'm sure there's some smart 14 year olds out there, he's just not one of them. I'd say he's copy and pasting from Wikipedia or something, but the information is presented so poorly or just plain wrong that it's not even copy and pasting.

He's 15. I don't know if what he's saying is inaccurate, it's filled with bad examples and analogies. It's so badly written I can't make heads or tails of it. On one hand (as my previous post mentions), it seems like he's confusing the Mint, the Federal Reserve and the normal banks, but at the end of the "new" article he correctly explains why printing more money is bad. I'm willing to bet he's taking what he does know, probably from Social Studies in school, and trying to make it seem like he's an expert on the subject. The result is an incoherent mess.

That would make sense. The information is still presented very poorly to me though.

wacko, on 08 December 2011 - 04:49 AM, said:

A lot of the pricing is fluctuating due to the fact that different races are going different places and such. The owners of Westlawn are tearing down the houses to build condominiums. So my neighborhood is probably going to turn white and a little Asian.

The blacks around me are starting to go to the south side, where the Hispanics were, and I don't know where the Hispanics are going. Having the blacks and Mexicans/Puerto Ricans move in the same neighborhood is a bad idea (gangs, racial tensions, so forth).

So, pretty much, racial relocation is a huge contributor of it.

falconboy99, on 08 December 2011 - 04:59 AM, said:

I tried. I was successful with two, but they both moved. One to a bigger house, and the other... I don't know why.

But if I was friends with any one here, I would say the kids. I usually play with them once in a while and help them with homework, and stuff.

Lvl 50 Fighter, on 08 December 2011 - 07:23 AM, said:

I already do have bunch of responsibilities. Pre-AP English class, Pre-AP Math (and the bitch don't teach!), The Gilder Lehrman US History program, and Chemistry. After school, robotics, LGBT alliance, acting, costume crew, tutoring others, tennis, golf...

Yeah. I seen college. All it is to me is harder work that's more manageable.

Carcharocles, on 08 December 2011 - 05:01 PM, said:

That's the point, to emphasize that money is readily available, but as long as you promise to pay more then you can afford back.

I.O.U.s work similarly to banknotes.

You do someone a favor, they owe you a favor.
You do some work, you get banknotes, which are used to buy; food, clothes, gas, etc.
There are differences between the two, however.

• Money can be used over and over by different people.
  
• Money has a set value, while favors can be equated to different values.
  
  • Favors: I can clean your house, and you make me food. Or I can clean someone else's house, and they fix some part of my house. There is no real way to put a value of work, and you can only put it towards an exchange of certain work/items from certain people.
    
  • Money: I clean your house, you give me ten dollars per hour, and then I could; buy some pizza, I could buy a scarf, and/or spend it on gas. Your work was been given a value, and you can put it towards anything you want from certain people/places.

Carcharocles, on 08 December 2011 - 09:12 PM, said:

I pretty much learned almost nothing from Social Studies. And we're on history, not economics.

MintyLimeGreen, on 08 December 2011 - 09:14 PM, said:

If I went longer, I could present my points more clearly, but I'm trying to keep it short and simple. Which is why I'm editing it, and such, to make more sense and to be informative.

Also, I go back and change/add what I wanted to but didn't do so earlier, due to the fact I'm too lazy to right write it all out in one go.

This post has been edited by DMLD96: 09 December 2011 - 04:49 AM

I'd prefer if you would put much more effort into research than opinion.

Dm I think you are a liar. You listed all these things you do yet you say you are too lazy to make a simple text edit? I am going to take a step back in the whole intelligent person department and say one simple thing about all those classes and extra curricular(I butchered that word thank you spell check) activities you do.

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

Did I not call him a crazy internet liar to look cool not even like 2 DMLD topics ago? I warned you guys.

You tell the truth Minty. We should have listened but I had faith in others.

Is it time for me to co-opt the topic yet?

The most basic thing people need to know about money is this: don't spend more than you earn. An astonishingly simple principle, but one that many people apparently cannot seem to grasp.

Bonus advice: if you are earning money, save 10% to 15% of your gross earnings towards your retirement. Do it now. You will lose out on a lot of money if you wait even 10 years. Time makes a huge difference in terms of growth of your savings.

MintyLimeGreen, on 09 December 2011 - 06:22 AM, said:

Most people had this down more than six months ago though. Fuck, at one point Tensa loved him and defended him from Sushi. Less than a week later he is the 8th person to quote "OMG DMLD SHUT UP" in a thread somewhere. It's pretty much just the new people who don't get this, but they always find out sooner rather than later.

Edit: I hate going off topic so here's my advice for money, and it's pretty much all you need to know. First off? What Wacko said. I learned from experience, and it's an experience I don't recommend.

Next, write a budget up. There's a reason this is done in the Senate--it helps you keep track of what you're spending. You're going to want to have at least 80 dollars per person per paycheck devoted for groceries (my mom puts out 120 for herself and I do 100). None of your bills should amount to more than 1/5 of the remaining money. Prioritize. Rent and mortgage are your first priority. After that, electricity, so your food doesn't go bad. Then, water. Finally, whatever you cook and heat with (in many locations, this may be Electricity; if that's the case, you're free here). Take whatever you have leftover from all of this, and budget it for medical insurance, prescriptions, dental insurance (if necessary), car loan and/or alternate transportation and put money toward retirement. Do this with every check. Any money you have left over is gravy, save it, spend it, whatever you like.

Finally, stick to the budget. Use coupons if you have to, take advantage of sales/layaway, or form a savings account if you desire. BUT STICK TO YOUR BUDGET.

Congratulations, you are now better at handling your money than any government in the world.

This post has been edited by Carcharocles: 09 December 2011 - 06:10 PM

Carcharocles, on 09 December 2011 - 05:59 PM, said:

All us cool people had this down when Kaxbe proved he was an internet liar in what I think was DMLD's first thread. It was the one about Arcana. I was so proud of Kaxbe he did such a good job.

That's the incident I was referencing actually. Was it more than six months ago?

Ryuk did his part also, Toasty.

And guys, don't listen to DMLD! He just rephrased Tay Zonday's HIT SONG "Mama Economy"

Carcharocles, on 10 December 2011 - 01:10 AM, said:

I don't know it seems like so long ago, but it will echo into eternity.


Ahahaha Kaxbe you never disappoint you beautiful man you.

This post has been edited by Toastyjester: 10 December 2011 - 01:17 AM

Not that anyone cares, but the Arcana thread was actually DMLD96's eighth thread.

In a point of irony, his first thread was actually his most useful one.

DMLD96 has created 56 threads, 21 of which are now in Detention.