Want to know how much a trillion is? I found the following in the New York Times of September 28, 1986 "To the Editor" by Dorothy C. Morrell

"Why not think of it in terms of seconds, I asked myself? A trillion seconds would have to be years, probably many years ago. I made a wild guess. As it turned out, I wasn't close. I found that 1,000 seconds ago was equal to almost 17 minutes. It would take almost 12 days for a million seconds to elapse and 31.7 years for a billion seconds. Therefore, a trillion seconds would amount to no less than 31,709.8 years. "

OK, so one trillion seconds equals 31,709 + years

According to most archeologists and others claim that man as we know him has been around for only 50,000 years non withstanding the work of Michael Cremo etc. and others...

Now that we have a handle on how much a trillion is in terms of seconds anyway, -
here are my concerns...

ONE: There are more more than 200 trillion dollars in the derivatives market that have been created by "financial instruments, like credit default swaps and Mortgage Backed Securities etc etc etc

TWO: the fact that if the Federal Reserve, which is not federal at all, but an off shore private corporation were to raise interest rates by even .25% that's one quarter of one per cent the US economy would implode because credit would no longer be available and just to make payments on the US debt of almost 18 trillion dollars, the U S economy might begin to look like the economy of Greece.

THREE: the unemployment in the United States is closer to 20% than the 5% published by the government, the reason is simple, once an unemployed person has been allocated all of his unemployment pay the government no longer considers him as unemployed.

FOUR: "Quantitative Easing" has been pumping billions into the US and world economies for years now and to finance this the U S is purchasing its own treasury bonds. This and the unstoppable printing of dollars has created a fiat currency (no value other than people's confidence) in the United States. China and other countries are now selling U S treasury bonds that they purchased in the past and not buying more.

I could go on

xfiltrate Eat , Drink and Be Prepared

There is a fairly clear, short statement in the link below about the problem which is indeed escalating rather than diminishing.
The Crisis in a Nutshell | Forum for Stable Currencies
Usury controlled by the banks combined with fractional reserve banking lie at the heart of the general economic crisis; these are financial scams designed to suck in whole nations to control from outside forces. Even China has been sucked in during recent years but that nation has started to awaken.

The link above just touches on the issues which always come back to the nature of money/finance, and there are plenty of apologists for the current version of capitalism who "would say that wouldn't they" i.e. they have vested interests in the status quo.

There are some economic "experts" who offer up credible alternatives; in general, they subscribe to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) which basically says that currently nations just aren't what they are supposed to be but have given up their national sovereignty to the banks, particularly the privately owned, so-called national banks (as per the previous post, they are not "national" in the proper use of that adjective).

I mentioned in an earlier post that Britain started this nonsense back in 1694 or thereabouts; arguably the USA has taken up the idea, especially during the last century, and continues with the scam to this day.
(not that it is those two nations themselves which have sold this pup to the world, but certain individuals and organisations drawn there from).

None of it is rocket science but it is wrapped up in all manner of obfuscation.
For anyone who has read this far, read about MMT with an open mind that is receptive to ideas.

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Dave

Please do; some time in the future, when you and I are long gone from this planet, maybe this thread will be found to be of use to others.

Your 4 bullet points are well founded.

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Dave

Thanks for your kind words walkabout, continuing my efforts to get the basics of the economy understood here, the following found at
How much is a trillion dollars? | IHTD

How high is a trillion in $1000 bills?

If you stack a trillion-worth of $1000 bills together, then:
1 million dollars = 4 inches high
1 billion dollars = 364 feet high
1 trillion dollars = 63 miles high or 101.38 Kilometers
(give or take a foot or two)
Note that this is a STACK, not laid end-to-end.

Therefore, if the stack were one trillion $1.00 bills instead of $1,000.00 dollar bills.
simple math tells us the stack would be:

63miles X 1000 = 63,000 miles high / 101 k X 1000 = 101,000 K high

So for each trillion we speak of here we have a stack of $1.00 bills that is 63,000 miles high or 101,000 high.

Since the circumference of the earth at the equator is: 24,902 miles or
40,075 K as all the RTWS know our stack of one trillion $1.00 bills is long/tall enough to encircle the earth with 23,000 miles left over.

If nothing else this provides a basic understanding of how many $1.00 bills equals a trillion dollars. Just imagine a debt of 18 trillion one dollar bills which is the national debt of the United States - representing about 101 % of the gross national product.... other countries are limited to have a debt below 60% of their GNP, go figure?

OK moving on, Walkabout has provided an excellent overview of the currency situation.

On a personal observation, that saddens me greatly, the financial magicians of the United States who burst on the stage in 1913 when they founded the Federal Reserve that has the U S treasury print money for them and then they lend the money to the United States at interest.... and then again in after WWII when the US struck a deal with the Saudis creating the U S dollar as the World Reserve Currency, by having the Saudis agree to only sell oil for dollars, dictating that all who care to purchase must first exchange their currency for dollars, and "inviting" the saudis to invest their petro dollars in the USA. And to convince the rest of the world to go along, during the Bretton Woods agreements, the US claimed that anyone could exchange U S dollars for U S gold.

Well, try changing your dollars for gold today! Or try selling your oil for any currency other than dollars and experience a real to life Dr. Strangelove experience.....

Not wanting to get political here, for I have friends who have responsibility to keep politics out of the HUBB, I will close with my personal concern for Argentina. The blue rate for the dollar is over 15 pesos AR to one US dollar and the official rate is under 10 pesos AR to the US dollar. This means a lot to the economy of Argentina and it is not good for industry or for the masses. While the U S goes further and further in debt to maintain its economy, the world has dramatically limited the ability of Argentina to go further into debt.

FIVE: A basket of foreign currencies is currently replacing the U S dollar as the World Reserve Currency, and the peoples of the United States will not tolerate another invasion of an oil producing or pipeline country based on lies without a provocation, so as in the past the U S needs to somehow, once again, justify going to war so as to have a reason for the demise of the economy and the means to rebuild it via the military/financial industrial complex . The basis of U S hegemony has been the World Reserve status of the U S dollar and of course its military might.

I am really trying to stick with economics here.

xfiltrate somewhere on Route 66

The same thing going on in Canada.
Rocco Galati challenges Bank of Canada to offer interest-free loans - Business - CBC News

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Dave

Australian commentators on their economy have identified the same issues:-
https://stableproductivemoney.wordpr...ower-of-money/

Being Australian, the article does not mince its' words.
e.g.
"The monetary system is usually privatised as well, but in a very stupid way. Governments permit private banks to create money out of nothing, then the governments “borrow” the money back with interest due. It started when the King of England was conned by the London money lenders who founded the Bank of England"

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Dave

I have also come across somewhat similar graphical representations of such large numbers that illustrate the scale involved.
Unfortunately, it is very rare for such fundamentals to appear in the main stream media, anywhere.

Who was the President of the USA who is quoted as saying "you can fool all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time"?

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Dave

Chris Martenson's 'The Crash Course' (short video series) is still one of the best explanations out there of what's really going on, and where we're all heading over the next 15-20 years. It's very well put together IMHO.

@ xfiltrate: Chapter 12: How Much Is A Trillion? underscores what you said about the height of a 1Tr stack of $1,000 bills, although CM reckons it would reach 67.9 miles (not 63 mi) high. Maybe he was stacking used, soiled and crumpled bills instead? But hey, who's counting?!
.

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Right Way Round ...

Keith1954, thanks for the info I just watched the accelerated version of
Chris Martenson's Crash Course.... very informative....
A great, easy to understand, course that only takes an hour to watch
with some excellent suggestions for you economic survival at the end.

The 'Accelerated' Crash Course | Peak Prosperity

Xfiltrate

Bump.

This needs to be revisited.
If only because the USA rates of interest have been raised by 1/4%, but for how long? (and why now?)

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Dave

A useful short history of how money comes to exist:
THE HISTORY OF MONEY Rothschild Banking

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Dave

At heart, the Bank of England (BoE) is simply speaking, and acting, on behalf of their own private banking interests:
Sir John Vickers warns on inadequate bank capital | Business News | News | The Independent
And not in the best interests of the UK.

The article in this link gives an indication of why the BoE does what it does:
Volcker Rule Too big to fail Banks are too big to exist
With a nod in the direction of the Glass-Steagell legislation of the great depression era in the USA.
As an incidental, it has been commented elsewhere that the JPM banker in the picture within the link above is showing off his cufflinks quite prominently: the motif is that of a "seal of the US government".

As a further incidental, the current Governor of the BoE who has been in post for more than 2 years has got wrong every public pronouncement that he has made concerning the state of the UK economy and where rates of interest might be heading.

Meanwhile, banks in Italy are in deep doo doo, stuck with new rulings from the European Central Bank related to bail-ins and the illegality, under EU rules, for supporting their own banks with bail-outs as was done by all in the great financial crisis of the last decade.

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Dave

It feels like a sensible time to mention, again, the Bradbury £
Series: Bring Back The Bradbury Pound | UK Column
in the context of the current debate about the future UK referendum concerning membership of the EU.

And, with the 100th anniversary of WW1 in full swing, a commentary on the banking and political responses to such proposals;
Bankers, Bradburys, Carnage And Slaughter On The Western Front | UK Column

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Dave

Here's an interesting, recent (2012) aspect of research into how economies work, for both developed nations and those developing.
Reassessing the impact of finance on growth
Summary for developed nations:
If levels of credit exceed the GDP and/or if the financial sector of a specific economy employs more than 3.5% of the working population, then the increasing levels of investment are harmful to that economy.


This appears to be a classic case of diminishing returns for the real economy.
Some may have felt this effect qualitatively, now the research shows this to be the case quantitatively.

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Dave

The process, in a nutshell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization

This is a commentary about how it is applied in practice in the UK, with respect to the UK NHS:-
"This is all standard practice.
A simple formula that has been used on all former [now private] services.
First, you trash the service by loading it up with unnecessary expenses.
Then,once you have made it top heavy with managers, extra expenditure, extra costs, higher prices and other forms of legalized fraud, you create administerial chaos and personel instability.
Then you churn out carefully scripted propaganda about how we cannot afford it any more.
Then once you have fraudulently ‘cooked the books’ you flog the service off on the cheap according to a pre-arranged aggreement.
The new owners remove all the artificial overheads and enjoy the moneeeeee fron their cheap assets.
All the politicians concerned swan off to America to collect their thirty pieces of silver.
The peasantry have to pay twice as much for half the service they used to get for free from the service that they paid to build and run in the first instance.
Same old formula"

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Dave