Charts that should scare the crap out of you!

March 20th, 2009 by BillyOceansEleven Leave a reply »

I just came across these charts, which were referenced in an opinion piece in Canada’s Financial Post. The piece poses the question if the political shenanigans we are seeing here in the US will be the end of our country, or at least its status as a financial powerhouse. But the most disturbing part is a graph that was seemingly mentioned in passing measuring the U.S. monetary base, which is the amount of currency in circulation plus the amount of bank deposits at Federal Reserve Banks. These graphs were released by the St. Louis branch of the Fed. Notice the huge jump in the monetary base at the end of the graph.

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To provide a little perspective, take a look at the data measured in terms of year-over-year percentage change.

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Yes, you are reading that last graph correctly. At the end of the graph, it is showing that the change in the monetary base from one year ago was over 100%! If you didn’t pay attention in your math classes in junior high school, that means that the monetary base more than doubled in just one year.

Now think about this logically: if your supply of dollars has doubled, and your supply of goods in the economy has pretty much stayed the same, what do you think that does to prices? That’s right, kids! We could very easily have inflation at levels that would make the 1970s look tame.

Now there’s a good reason to refer to economics as “the dismal science”.

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3 comments

  1. alex says:

    your an idiot

  2. your = possessive form of the pronoun “you”

    you’re = contraction meaning “you are”

    Before calling people names, make sure you have mastered 2nd grade grammar. Idiot!

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