Tuesday, May 26, 2009

2 charts, 300 Million Chumps, No Change, and a Challenge

Here's a chart recently published by The Washington Post. It shows the George W. Bush era budget deficits in gray. (Note to all Republicans: Please take note of the Clinton era surpluses.)
The Bush spending deficits were the worst thing to happen to us in recent memory, and they represent The Failed Economic Policies Of The Past Eight Years, as we often heard during last year's presidential campaign.

Unfortunately for us, the Bush deficits were merely a forerunner, a warmup band, a John The Baptist that came along before the real thing.
When the Bush deficits are making love, they sometimes like to fantasize that they hang down like the projected Obama deficits.


The pink lines on the chart are the White House guesstimates of how much they're going to spend that they don't have. The red lines are the Congressional budget office guesstimates. (They only differ by 100 BILLION in the first year.)

But according to The Teleprompter Jesus, no one with a household income of less than $250,000.00 pear year is going to see a tax increase.

How is this possible, you ask, without confiscating every penny earned by households bringing home more than $250K ??

Well, Obama now controls something invented by Gutenberg, developed by The Gideon Bible people, and perfected by The Watchtower Society.
Obama owns some printing presses.
This chart shows the number of dollars in circulation since 1910.

If you look closely you'll see that the thin blue line, representing the billions of dollars in circulation, goes into the stratosphere in 2009. Almost off the top of the chart. Why go through the political inconvenience of taxing voters if you can simply print more money to pay your expenses?

They're out there! ! Those new dollars are out there, and they're shrinking inside your wallet ! ! The funny money is now bailing out Chrysler and G.M. ! ! The Obamabucks are being passed along to Wall Street Fat Cats so they won't lose their summer homes ! ! They were handed out as AIG bonuses ! ! And they'll soon be coming to a make-work project for campaign donors in your town ! !

How will you recognize them ? How will you know if you have one of the new dollars?

You'll know you've got one when you see that it won't buy very much.

In his book "The Revolution: A Manifesto", Ron Paul defines inflation as "an increase in the money supply". Others have defined inflation as too much money chasing too few products.

Unfortunately, most voters will just think that prices are going up. According to the great Ludwig Von Mises, governments prefer for people to think that prices are going up, when the truth is that the money supply is increasing.

Let's create a little wager. It's about a Coke machine. (Actually a Pepsi machine, but calling it "Coke" is a North Texas sociological phenomenon best explained by this chart. Hit the link. It's worth it.)

This Coke machine is in one of the warehouses that I manage for Jukt Micronics. It's one of the few remaining machines on our planet that doesn't already take dollar bills. I have abolutely no influence over the price of the 12 oz. canned Cokes this machine dispenses. I have no inside knowledge about when prices will go up (or down. Like that's gonna happen.)

The Cokes now cost .50 cents.

The Jukt Micronics maintenance staff stocks the machine with drinks purchased at Sam's Club or Costco. They mark up the price just enough to cover the hassle of stocking the machines and setting aside some profit for our holiday parties.

I'm taking wagers on when the 12 oz canned drinks from this machine will cost one dollar. I'll get Dr. Ralph, Fembuttx, Marvel Variants, or some other trusted individual to swing by the warehouse and verify that the machine exists, and that the .50 current price I've shown is accurate.

The over/under date is May 26 of 2010. For those of you who don't suffer from a Compulsive Gambling Disorder, let me explain:

Taking the "Over" means you think the price will hit a dollar after that date. Taking the "Under" means you think the price will hit a dollar before that date. Every time the price mysteriously goes up by a nickel or a dime, believe me, I'll provide pictures.

In order to finance Obama's spending spree, I believe we're going to be paying twice as much for everything within two years. And those of us on salaries, hourly wages, or (God help you) fixed incomes won't see income increases keeping up with inflation.

But thank God no one is going to raise our taxes.

P.S. - If you saw the title of this post and didn't know who the 300 million chumps are, you might be one of them. Here's a hint: take the under.

6 comments:

The Whited Sepulchre said...

I want to be the first to take The Under.

TarrantLibertyGuy said...

Actually, it sounds reasonable... for the price to double in a year. But, if prices are increasing, then somebody making $250K (the idle, rich super-wealthy apparently) in the near future will be making $100K in today's $. So, right - thank God, he wasn't taxed until he hit $250!!

Also, I thought all of Texas was where all soft-drinks were called Cokes. Overheard at baseball game: "I'm getting a coke, you want one?" "Yeah, get me an orange one if they got it."

Also, the Bush deficits think they hang down like Obama's when they're making love?? Was this a guest paragraph by fembuttx?

Dr Ralph said...

Naturally I'll take *Over.*

We must, however, prepare ourselves for the possibility that the 12 oz canned drink disappears and is replaced by some mutant variant (16 oz, 20 oz) that will be priced at $1, thus confounding those of us who long for consistency in our lives and skewing our scenario.

If this machine was maintained by an independent route (instead of self-stocked by your fellow employees) this would be accomplished by the sleight of hand of replacing the current machine with one featuring More Choices! Flashier Graphic! Dollar Bill Changing!

Since it's not (and since presumably *you* may have some say in what the final price is) the question is a little more difficult. This will not be an entirely economic decision, but also a political decision.

Imagine that.

As the late, great Thomas "Tip" O'Neill once said, "All politics is local."

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Doctor,
Most of our canned drink machines have already been replaced with those that dispence the larger products (which helps disguise the fact that you're getting less for your money, but an unfortunate necessity.)
I specified that these are 12 oz cans, selling for .50 cents. That'll make it plain if we switch to a new era in Coke packaging.

Also, Marvel Variants took the "over". He doesn't want to face a reality of $1.00 Cokes, $6.00 diesel, $120 plywood, etc.

But it's coming.

Dr Ralph said...

The $1 coke may well be coming. The question is: when? One year or ten?

I say "not in a year."

When I was but a youth (back at the beginning of the '70s, gas was 25-30 cents a gallon and milk was more or less 99 cents a gallon. In the 40 years since, I've seen gas go for over 10 times the 1970 price. Milk is has gone to 3 times the price.

Meanwhile, the cost of computing capacity and hardware has dropped so dramatically as to be practically unmeasurable. I bought a 400 MB hard drive in 1989 for $260. Now I can buy a flash drive the size of my thumb with 10 times the capacity for under $20.

Predicting the future can be tricky business. I'll stick with "Over."

Lisa said...

I could of swore I took the under and April 16th 2010.