Amagi Metals, an
online dealer in precious metals and coins, announced today that they will stop taking US dollars for payment at the end of
2016.
Since the dollar
was decoupled from gold in 1971, it has lost 97% of its value compared to the yellow metal and 83% of its domestic purchasing
power, and the trend shows no signs of stopping. Both investors and foreign governments have begun to lose confidence in the
dollar’s future…and so has Amagi Metals. Thus, Amagi has planned that by the end of 2016, the company will no
longer accept US dollars or other “fiat” currencies. Instead, Amagi plans to be trading exclusively in cryptocurrencies
like Bitcoin.
From its beginnings
in 2010, Amagi Metals has advocated what CEO Stephen Macaskill calls a “sound money” philosophy for investors
looking to preserve their wealth in the face of governments worldwide issuing massive amounts of currency with little or no
relationship to its actual value. Macaskill has been a pioneering cryptocurrency advocate since 2012 and wants Amagi customers
to be prepared for what may come of the dollar and other paper currencies around the world.
“We want to
be a leader in the sound money movement,” Macaskill says. “With the adoption of cryptocurrencies increasing every
day, their viability is virtually assured. History shows that paper currency, backed by nothing of value, will ultimately
fail. It’s only a matter of time until no one will be accepting the dollar. By trading exclusively in cryptocurrencies,
we’ll still be in business when that time comes.”
"Let's not pretend that things will
change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring
progress. Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born from the dark night. It's in crisis that inventive is
born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames
his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the
true crisis. The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions
to their problems. There's no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s
no merit without crisis. It's in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender
touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead. Let
us stop, once and for all. the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it."
(Extracts from Business Week
article, click headline above to read it)
"A June analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluded
that keeping the U.S.’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product at current levels until the year 2085 (to avoid scaring
off investors) would require spending cuts, tax hikes, or a combination of both equal to 8.3 percent of GDP each year
for the next 75 years, vs. the most likely (i.e. “alternative”) scenario. That translates to $15 trillion
over the next decade..."
"A more revealing calculation
is the CBO’s measurement of what’s called the fiscal gap. That figure is conceptually cleaner than the national
debt—and consequently more alarming. Boston University’s Kotlikoff (who) has extended the agency’s analysis
from 2085 out to the infinite horizon, which he says is the only method that’s invulnerable to the frame-of-reference
problem...concluded that the fiscal gap—i.e., the net present value of all future expenses minus all future revenue—amounts
to $211 trillion...
"The
U.S. is in danger of reaching a generational tipping point at which older Americans have the clout to vote themselves benefits
that sap the strength of the younger generation—benefits that can never be repeated. Kotlikoff argues that we may have
reached that point already. He worries that the U.S. could become Argentina, which went from one of the world’s richest
to lower-middle income in a century of chronic mismanagement..."
The effects of fiscal consolidation—tax hikes and government
spending cuts—on economic activity.
Abstract of an IMF Study
Based on a historical analysis of fiscal consolidation in advanced economies,
and on simulations of the IMF’s Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal Model (GIMF), it finds that fiscal consolidation
typically reduces output and raises unemployment in the short term. At the same time, interest rate cuts, a fall in the value
of the currency, and a rise in net exports usually soften the contractionary impact. Consolidation is more painful when it
relies primarily on tax hikes; this occurs largely because central banks typically provide less monetary stimulus during such
episodes, particularly when they involve indirect tax hikes that raise inflation. Also, fiscal consolidation is more costly
when the perceived risk of sovereign default is low. These findings suggest that budget deficit cuts are likely to be more
painful if they occur simultaneously across many countries, and if monetary policy is not in a position to offset them. Over
the long term, reducing government debt is likely to raise output, as real interest rates decline and the lighter burden of
interest payments permits cuts to distortionary taxes.
From World Economic outlook: Recovery, Risk, and Rebalancing, International Monetary Fund |
According to a new report
just released at www.truthinaccounting.org/, the states have used accounting trickery to conceal a total of $1 trillion of outstanding bills.
The report identifies five 'Sinkhole' states and five 'Sunshine' states.
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
- Confucius
This
financial crisis is forcing state and local agencies to make some tough decisions. If things
continue for much longer, there's a real risk that we may have to lay off Jose.
The US ranks near the bottom of developed global economies in terms of financial stability and will stay there
unless it addresses itsburgeoning debt problems, a new study has found.
In theSovereign Fiscal Responsibility Index, the Comeback America Initiative ranked 34 countries according to their ability to meet their financial challenges,
and the US finished 28th, said David Walker, head of the organization and former US comptroller general.
Lawrence J Kotlikoff in the IMF Journal Finance
& Development,September 2010, Vol. 47, No. 3
A noted U.S. economist says debt figures
seriously understate long-term budget problems in the United States
"EVEN as the United States experiences continuing fallout from a terrible financial
crisis, a more alarming fiscal problem looms. The world’s largest economy faces a daunting combination of high and rising
costs for health care and pension benefits and constrained sources of revenue that will put enormous pressure on its fiscal
soundness...
The size of the U.S. fiscal gap, as recently measured by the IMF... indicates that
the United States is in terrible fiscal shape...America’s fiscal gap is massive. It is so massive that closing it appears
impossible without immediate and radical reforms to its health care, tax, and Social Security systems as well as mili...tary and other discretionary spending cuts...The potential
for the U.S. fiscal crisis to kick off a global financial meltdown is significant...Once the world catches on to the true
extent of U.S. fiscal insolvency, the ability of the United States to continue to finance its government borrowing could come
to a halt...How did the United States reach its current state of what could effectively be considered bankruptcy? It spent
six decades transferring ever more resources from the young to the elderly, under a variety of different programs described
with a variety of labels. Many policies across many administrations from Eisenhower’s to Obama..."
Whenever you find you
are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect
--- Mark Twain
We have never observed
a great civilization with a population as old as the United States will have in the twenty-first century; we have never observed
a great civilization that is as secular as we are apparently going to become; and we have had only half a century of experience
with advanced welfare states...Charles Murray
Kella
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