Glad to have you back qwerty. Now I will go and digest the above.

That title made my day. Also, I recommend that your friend moves to a country where this kind of math doesn't exist, and he could fit in with the people who absolutely cannot figure out equations like these. LIKE MEXICO!!! Just kidding, just kidding, the mexicans are a very prosperous people.

Hi qwerty:

Good. I almost thought the religious Right was blaming the financial crisis on homosexuality.

Capitalist greed is inflating currency. Borrow as much as you can handle. Money is worth less and less until it is worthless.

Hi qwerty, (your name just rolls off the keyboard)

You've given me the laugh I badly needed today. Arminius is correct, the religious right blame homosexuals for everything.

We babyboomers had the best time ever living through the swinging sixties - we can always get stoned if the financial situation gets worse. (well, it worked once - who knows it might work again!)

As a fellow sailor, I like your avatar. There's nothing better than a drink when the sun's over the yard-arm.

Didn't Jesus favour the poor and the dispossessed.  Isn't inflation bad for the bond holders?  Are the bond holders not the capitalists?  If its true as you imply (and I think it is) that inflation favours debtors.  Isn't inflation really a way of taking from the rich and giving to the poor?  Sounds quite Christian to me.  Did Jesus not drive the money lenders from the temple? 

Bond holders crave certainty and the status quo.  The poor crave change and opportunity.  Inflation proves to the hoarders that it is useless to try to hold on to their money ... that it is better to use it ... do something with it ... get something for it.  Thus inflation creates uncertainty and the uncertainty creates opportunity and out of that lives are transformed.  The rich become poorer and the poor become richer.

So whatever is at work Arminius, I don't think it is capitalist greed.

Hi qwerty,

You realize what you have done don't you?

You've just made a connection between homosexuality and interest rates.

Now you are talking about choosing your interest rates.

Ergo, now the fundy's will be quoting you saying that homosexuality is chosen.

And, it is typically one or two points higher than the prime rate set by the Bank of Canada.

With that kind of nonsense we will have a bull-run and a mess of bull-chips to clean up.

All because you haven't gotten that little yellow car out on the road yet.

Troublemaker.

That's what you are.

Welcome back.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Yes, qwerty, inflation and devaluation of currency is an economic leveller.

I remember when the old German Reichs Mark was devalued and the new Deutsche Mark issued in 1948. The old currency was simply declared wortless, a new currency issued, and everyone received 20 Marks of the new currency as head money and started from square one.

We boys made little paper boats out of the worthless old money and let them float down the creek. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "free-floating currency," eh?

Divine justice, perhaps?

LB - wandering off topic but not too far, am I the only person who lauged at the BMW "new to you" used car ads

Although the subject matter of this thread is pretty ... um ... amorphous (not "amorous").  I made it that way on purpose.  You just never know what people want to talk about. 

Divine justice?  Well, yeah ... I was thinking of something like that too.  A kind of "every dog has his day" sort of thing ... a kind of "self-cleaning oven" kind of thing. 

 I would say that the bondholders have pretty well had their way in the world beginning with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.  Unions have been suppressed.  Wages have stagnated.  Usury laws have been circumvented or repealed (how much are you paying on your credit card?).  Social programs have been curtailed.  Tax burdens have shifted down the ladder from the rich and the corporations to the middle class and the poor.  As a result of these developments the middle class has been hollowed out.  Deregulation of financial and other institutions facilitated the pillaging of the middle class and the "offshoring" of manufacturing. 

Now, the results of  all the greed and cynicism have arrived at the door and the piper must be paid.  The market crash and the recession that has followed as well as the inflation that will follow upon the spending of so many freshly printed dollars to rectify the situation will lay waste to many hoarded millions.   However, for those who did not have fortunes squirreled away ... for those whose debts matched or exceeded their assets this is a Renaissance.  A new chance. 

Governments are being forced to face up to their responsibility as a body through which collective action can be effected for social good.  In the final analysis, all the uncertainty has created an opportunity for a better and more equitable world in the future.  If nothing else the potholes will be fixed and the infrastructure of our cities will be renovated as a result.  If nothing else the foolish idea that governments should run surpluses has been broken (for what is a surplus except money that has been taken away from the people and not used for their benefit?).  Likewise the idea (the bondholder's idea) that debt should be paid down is now dead. 

The status quo has become untenable.  The way forward now lies down the road of greater social and financial equality ... of making a better society and not of preserving the old order, the old ways, and the old fortunes.

All the uncertainty in the air is like electricity.  I feel as invigorated as I do in a one of those sky darkening summer thunderstorms.  As Scrooge said, "I feel as light as a feather!  I'm as giddy as a schoolboy!"

So is this how you tell that God is present?  By all the uncertainty?  By the profusion and abundance of possibilities and choices?  By the appearance of new opportunities?  By that "thunderstorm feeling" of life running wild? 

You can avoid the whole conundrum by never giving a dime to the banks and doing all your financial business at a credit union. At which point any extra interest you pay will go back into the community