Posts by casuallynx8

Forgive my ignorance here, but could someone clarify what exactly is meant by a "combined tax rate"?

You’re more than welcome to plug whatever numbers you like into your NYSE spreadsheet, but when you start drawing conclusions from them, please try not to disregard empirical reality. The historical fact is that humans have lived in organized societies for thousands of years, and over the last two and a half centuries—ever since the first Industrial Revolution—we have seen a relatively steady upward trajectory in living standards. Any theory suggesting this isn't possible is, quite frankly, demonstrably flawed.

Genuine growth implies that we are creating an increasing amount of value every single year. Logic dictates that there must be a corresponding increase in the money supply used to facilitate those exchanges. That is precisely what happens: the Federal Reserve creates money "ex-nihilo." While it is true that this capital enters the system through credit, the interest earned doesn't just sit there; it flows back to the government. This is how fresh liquidity is injected into the system.

Maria Thomas48 said:The equation is correct. It's backed up by an Excel spreadsheet on closed community profitability. There aren't any errors or bad moves in the derivation. No amount of moving the goalposts changes that. Even Dirk Krueger uses this exact same derivation with standard economic symbols in his book "Macroeconomics"—page 29. The link to the Excel file and the PDF was shared earlier.

I'm just following the logical conclusions. And naturally, the conclusions aren't exactly pleasant.

Best,

Hold on a second—are you operating under the assumption that everyone eats, and therefore everyone consumes a specific amount of food over the course of a year?

Page 29 focuses on investments and depreciation, doesn't it? I'm struggling to see how that relates to what you're claiming.

Furthermore, you still haven't actually explained your own formula. Simply stating "the equation is correct" is hardly the same thing as providing an explanation. 😁

Maria Thomas48 said:I honestly don't care what money is actually used for. All that matters to me is that it serves its purpose as a way to settle my bills. That's really it.

If you’ve taken a look at that XLS spreadsheet showing the association's profits, you'll see exactly why the payments end up getting stalled after a while.

Here’s why: The middleman sectors—those entities that exist solely to squeeze a little extra off the top for everyone else—are drying up. Eventually, they’ll just vanish because there won't be any indirect profit left to grab. It happens. One day the margins disappear and then suddenly, there's nothing left to facilitate.Next up are the ones who aren't making much money. Because business has dried up, they’re sliding into the red and struggling to stay on top of their bills. Since even the companies already in the hole haven't been hitting their tax obligations to the government, this drop in revenue means the new loss-makers are falling behind on taxes too. It all circles back to the same thing—the government ends up seeing a dip in tax revenue, which shows up as them pushing back payment deadlines for services and products ordered by the state.

It’s the same thing that happens when credit expansion hits a wall. Loans stop growing. Those companies that were once pure sellers suddenly find themselves without any business at all, and they start operating at a loss. You know how the rest goes. It’s like that whole story about the housing contractors who were making money left and right. I'll get to that. Once the loans have to be paid back, there’s less work available because those construction crews aren't out there spending money on anything else anymore. It reminds me of back during the big highway expansion era. Remote parts of the Midwest were absolutely booming during those years. Money was just flying everywhere. Everyone was winning.

People always seem to miss the connection between prosperity and a steady influx of new capital. It’s a simple equation, really. If you can't link the two, then you're just ignoring how things work. Without that constant flow of new money coming into the system, you have to expect stagnation. In fact, it's more than that. You should pretty much count on the whole society regressing. It's just basic logic.

You can pretty much model all of that in a spreadsheet if you want to. But in a real American community, we’re dealing with imports that constantly drain our cash flow, not to mention the inflation we basically import from overseas—like how fuel prices spike and then drag every other price up with them. It just speeds everything up and makes the whole situation worse.

The whole idea that inflation actually drives economic growth? It’s not exactly right. There's definitely a connection there, I guess, but there are consequences too. It's complicated like that. People still don't get it. You can't just conjure up money to cover inflation out of thin air. It only comes from credit. That's just how it works.You could basically compare this kind of inflation that drives the economy to drugs. It makes you feel good in the moment, sure, but it eventually leads you straight to ruin.Nobody can actually fuel inflation through debt because the total amount of debt just grows by the sum of the interest rates and the inflation rate itself. It's basic math.The real debt is definitely climbing faster than the bank interest rates, and inflation isn't doing anything to offset that. If you look at an Excel spreadsheet tracking inflation-adjusted debt, the math is right there. Say you're looking at 4% inflation and a 7.5% interest rate; that means your debt is actually growing by 11.5% annually relative to the money supply. You can't just pay that back with standard currency. Over a typical 20-year stretch, the debt eventually outpaces the initial money supply in terms of real value. It’s just how it works.

It’s also about that 4% chunk of cash. Sure, the value might have climbed slightly, but now those funds are just sitting there, frozen. You need that liquidity to keep things moving through the system. Honestly, inflation is really the only thing that triggers these payment bottlenecks once it starts piling up over the years. It’s basically just mathematical induction playing out in real time. Can I function without that 4%? Yeah, I can. So, shave off another 4%. Still fine. And another 4%... I can still manage. But eventually, you hit a wall where you just can't anymore. That’s when the crisis actually hits. Suddenly, there's no money left. Payments get delayed, solid companies start folding, people lose their jobs, loans go unpaid, and everything just breaks down.

It all gets paid back during credit expansion—you know, the inflation, the import surges, those terrible investments, all that stuff. Then, once the credit expansion finally hits a wall and stops, everything just surfaces at once. Everyone acts like they’re caught completely off guard, staring around like total idiots. They start asking, "Wait, what happened? We were doing so well just a second ago."

So, there it is. That’s basically why the payments are stalled. It all comes down to the cash flow drying up.

It all boils down to where the money is coming from. You see plenty of posts on this site covering that exact topic. Once those revenue streams dry up, we’re looking at a total crisis..

Hey there.

I was looking through this site about the financial system earlier. It’s interesting stuff. Very technical. A lot of points on how everything connects. I think there's some value here if you actually take the time to sit down and read through the layers. Most people just skim over these kinds of things, but there's a certain logic to it once you get past the initial complexity. It's all very straightforward if you don't overthink the mechanics. Just a lot of data to process. Definitely worth a look for anyone trying to wrap their head around how the money moves.
Profit_community.xls

With all due respect, your theory isn't quite hitting the mark.

Could you walk me through what you mean by Equation 3? To be honest, the math following it is a bit murky; it would benefit from some clearer exposition... I stopped reading shortly thereafter.

The fundamental issue lies in your premise. You seem to be operating under the assumption that total income must equal total expenditure—essentially the sum of private consumption, investment, and government spending. However, this doesn't imply that the economy functions as a zero-sum game. Real income is derived from the creation of new value. At its most basic level, we have to eat, which means we must produce food through our labor just to survive. If we followed your logic, half the population would effectively starve in the first year, because for one group to show a "profit" in resources, the other would necessarily have to absorb the loss.😁

Do you see my point? An individual generates a specific amount of value through their work, which constitutes their income (Y). From there, only three things can happen with that value:
the individual spends it on consumption (C).
the individual deposits it into a bank as savings, which the bank then lends out for investment (I), or they invest it themselves if they are an entrepreneur.
they pay it to the government via taxes, and the state then handles the spending (G) on their behalf.
That is the underlying logic of the Y = C + I + G formula (for a closed economy; if you factor in imports and exports, you simply add the net export differential to the right side of the equation). We are talking about actual newly created value, rather than just shifting existing wealth from one pocket to another (as you suggest happens when losers fund those making a profit).

Maria Thomas48 said:I honestly don't care what money is actually used for. All that matters to me is that it serves its purpose as a way to settle my bills. That's really it.

If you’ve taken a look at that XLS spreadsheet showing the association's profits, you'll see exactly why the payments end up getting stalled after a while.

Here’s why: The middleman sectors—those entities that exist solely to squeeze a little extra off the top for everyone else—are drying up. Eventually, they’ll just vanish because there won't be any indirect profit left to grab. It happens. One day the margins disappear and then suddenly, there's nothing left to facilitate.Next up are the ones who aren't making much money. Because business has dried up, they’re sliding into the red and struggling to stay on top of their bills. Since even the companies already in the hole haven't been hitting their tax obligations to the government, this drop in revenue means the new loss-makers are falling behind on taxes too. It all circles back to the same thing—the government ends up seeing a dip in tax revenue, which shows up as them pushing back payment deadlines for services and products ordered by the state.

It’s the same thing that happens when credit expansion hits a wall. Loans stop growing. Those companies that were once pure sellers suddenly find themselves without any business at all, and they start operating at a loss. You know how the rest goes. It’s like that whole story about the housing contractors who were making money left and right. I'll get to that. Once the loans have to be paid back, there’s less work available because those construction crews aren't out there spending money on anything else anymore. It reminds me of back during the big highway expansion era. Remote parts of the Midwest were absolutely booming during those years. Money was just flying everywhere. Everyone was winning.

People always seem to miss the connection between prosperity and a steady influx of new capital. It’s a simple equation, really. If you can't link the two, then you're just ignoring how things work. Without that constant flow of new money coming into the system, you have to expect stagnation. In fact, it's more than that. You should pretty much count on the whole society regressing. It's just basic logic.

You can pretty much model all of that in a spreadsheet if you want to. But in a real American community, we’re dealing with imports that constantly drain our cash flow, not to mention the inflation we basically import from overseas—like how fuel prices spike and then drag every other price up with them. It just speeds everything up and makes the whole situation worse.

The whole idea that inflation actually drives economic growth? It’s not exactly right. There's definitely a connection there, I guess, but there are consequences too. It's complicated like that. People still don't get it. You can't just conjure up money to cover inflation out of thin air. It only comes from credit. That's just how it works.You could basically compare this kind of inflation that drives the economy to drugs. It makes you feel good in the moment, sure, but it eventually leads you straight to ruin.Nobody can actually fuel inflation through debt because the total amount of debt just grows by the sum of the interest rates and the inflation rate itself. It's basic math.The real debt is definitely climbing faster than the bank interest rates, and inflation isn't doing anything to offset that. If you look at an Excel spreadsheet tracking inflation-adjusted debt, the math is right there. Say you're looking at 4% inflation and a 7.5% interest rate; that means your debt is actually growing by 11.5% annually relative to the money supply. You can't just pay that back with standard currency. Over a typical 20-year stretch, the debt eventually outpaces the initial money supply in terms of real value. It’s just how it works.

It’s also about that 4% chunk of cash. Sure, the value might have climbed slightly, but now those funds are just sitting there, frozen. You need that liquidity to keep things moving through the system. Honestly, inflation is really the only thing that triggers these payment bottlenecks once it starts piling up over the years. It’s basically just mathematical induction playing out in real time. Can I function without that 4%? Yeah, I can. So, shave off another 4%. Still fine. And another 4%... I can still manage. But eventually, you hit a wall where you just can't anymore. That’s when the crisis actually hits. Suddenly, there's no money left. Payments get delayed, solid companies start folding, people lose their jobs, loans go unpaid, and everything just breaks down.

It all gets paid back during credit expansion—you know, the inflation, the import surges, those terrible investments, all that stuff. Then, once the credit expansion finally hits a wall and stops, everything just surfaces at once. Everyone acts like they’re caught completely off guard, staring around like total idiots. They start asking, "Wait, what happened? We were doing so well just a second ago."

So, there it is. That’s basically why the payments are stalled. It all comes down to the cash flow drying up.

It all boils down to where the money is coming from. You see plenty of posts on this site covering that exact topic. Once those revenue streams dry up, we’re looking at a total crisis..

Hey there.

I was looking through this site about the financial system earlier. It’s interesting stuff. Very technical. A lot of points on how everything connects. I think there's some value here if you actually take the time to sit down and read through the layers. Most people just skim over these kinds of things, but there's a certain logic to it once you get past the initial complexity. It's all very straightforward if you don't overthink the mechanics. Just a lot of data to process. Definitely worth a look for anyone trying to wrap their head around how the money moves.
Profit_community.xls

That isn't quite right. The real interest rate is the difference between the nominal interest rate and the inflation rate, rather than their sum. To use your own example, the real interest rate you are paying on a loan would be 7.5 - 4 = 3.5%, not the 11.5% you suggested.

Consequently, if you borrowed $333 at a 7.5% interest rate, you would owe $358 after one year. However, if an item that cost $333 at the moment the loan was taken requires $347 to purchase by the time you repay, then the real profit your creditor realized is merely 35, not $25.

It is much like how, in decades past, one could settle certain debts for the price of a pack of cigarettes; under your logic, such a feat would be impossible.

Furthermore, I struggle to see how, according to your reasoning, anyone manages to repay any debts or loans at all.😁

Andrew Booth29 said:Not paying your suppliers doesn't directly impact profit. It has an indirect effect, sure, because you aren't paying the interest you would have incurred if you had actually borrowed money to pay those suppliers up.

That is technically true, but one has to consider the mechanics of the business model. Since Walmart collects most of its revenue almost instantly—either through cash at the register or via quick credit card settlements—it stands to reason that Walton is essentially floating that capital for a while before passing it along to the vendors. It’s a way of squeezing extra utility out of the cash flow. And that advantage grows even more pronounced if they manage to force suppliers into settlement agreements through offsets or compensations.

Despite falling consumer spending, Walmart saw profits climb

Well, here are some concrete figures regarding our favorite "budget-friendly local staple" ( 🤮 ). A dip in revenue? No big deal—they’ll just stretch out the payment terms for their suppliers a little longer 🙂 , and suddenly those profit margins look much more impressive on paper again... meanwhile, short-term liabilities have climbed from roughly $4.4 billion to $4.8 billion
.
What is there left to say besides 🙂

slygardener4 said:Regardless of what the median income looks like, there is a baseline cost of living required just to survive.
The issue here isn't about how people's salaries compare to one another—it's about the fact that with $1000, a decent life is simply impossible.

Even if we were looking at $2000, survival wouldn't be any easier than it is now with $3,000, assuming the average salary was actually $11,000 instead of $5,500.

Jacob Lewis5 said:The law applies to everyone equally. First you were arguing that skipping payments was how he built his empire, and now you're saying it actually helps him. Pick a side.

What "unethical" stuff are we talking about here? Name one company in the USA or anywhere else that actually runs on pure morality. It's not like he wrote the damn laws! If people are so fed up with being victimized by Todorić's refusal to pay, why aren't they out there gathering signatures for a referendum to change the legislation?

Whether it builds or helps, my point remains the same—the reality is that Ivanka Trump essentially secures an interest-free, short-term loan from his suppliers. Let's not get bogged down in semantics regarding whether I used the word "builds" or "helps"🙄

As for this idea of a referendum to change the law, it's frankly absurd. We don't need a national vote to implement stricter penalties for those who fail to pay their debts. In fact, there have been plenty of viable proposals recently to tackle liquidity issues—such as one-time punitive fines for non-payers—but for some reason, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Shuck, and the rest of the administration seem to be turning a deaf ear. Perhaps it's because the state-owned corporations are among the biggest deadbeats of all.

dr.laki said:He isn't building his success on a foundation of unpaid bills.

Then what is he building it on? If withholding payment isn't actually helping his bottom line, why bother not paying at all? 🙄

Could you or I just start a small business and decide not to pay our suppliers for half a year? Of course not. Why can Ivanka Trump get away with it? She simply leverages her massive scale and market dominance to squeeze the life out of her vendors.

He’s merely exploiting a loophole in how things work (and he’s certainly not the only one doing it).

Precisely. Even if he isn't technically breaking any laws, operating in such a deeply immoral fashion—which is ultimately detrimental to the economy as a whole—means he doesn't exactly earn the title of a "pillar of the community."

Jacob Lewis5 said:Look, whatever. If Warren Buffett messed anything up during privatization, he should definitely answer for it. But this constant bashing? It’s just plain stupid.

You have to look at a company like Del Monte. Before Warren Buffett took over, they were bleeding like 30 million bucks a year in losses, and their "big win" was basically making some cheap cheese spread for some Canadian outfit. Ever since he stepped in, the products are top-tier, people actually have jobs, and even the cows live better than I do—they've got mattresses and get milked on their own schedule. Same story with Coca-Cola; they were getting hammered by political drama and struggling to stay afloat, and now they're a powerhouse with state-of-the-art plants. Walmart, PepsiCo, Nestlé... they're dominating the whole region, and all that profit flows back to Chicago. Would we really prefer if a bunch of Germans, Austrians, or Italians had bought them all up just to sell us their junk and suck the cash out of here without investing a dime? That's not what Warren Buffett does.

I honestly can't tell if this obsession with dragging Warren Buffett through the mud is just pure American jealousy or just straight-up ignorance, but it's totally unfounded. Sure, he wasn't perfect—he had his flaws. But since the 90s, he's been one of the most solid figures in the country.

How can someone be considered one of the most positive figures when his entire business model seems built on dodging creditors? To give you a sense of scale, Walmart had over $300 million in short-term liabilities alone by late September 2009. 😱

EDIT: Here is some firsthand testimony from Adler.

A more honest slogan would probably be "With you until (your) bankruptcy." Given everything you’ve pointed out, we're talking about a retail chain that likely boasts some of the highest markups in the country.

The sheer fact that individuals like Milton Hershey can thrive and expand by simply ignoring their creditors and missing payment deadlines is a profound failure of the USA's economic policy.

It becomes even more tragic when you consider that the Prime Minister would actually welcome such people into the government administration. 😕

Keith Fowler43 said:Right-click on the GIF file, select Properties, and in the window that pops up, look next to the Opens with button where it says Change.... This will launch a new window displaying a list of recommended programs, where you should find Windows Photo Viewer. Select it and hit OK. Once you're back at the final window, don't bother clicking OK; just hit Apply instead. After that, all your GIF files should default to opening with Windows Photo Viewer.🙂

Hmm... I don't see an "Opens with" option here.

I should mention that my account isn't an administrator—it's a restricted user—but I did attempt to change the default program using an admin account, and even then, it wouldn't work.

Greetings,

I am currently grappling with two distinct issues regarding Windows 7.

First, I’ve noticed a mysterious disappearance of free space on my C: drive.😲 I have been monitoring the capacity closely, and over the last two weeks, roughly 1.5 GB has simply vanished. It is worth noting that I haven't installed any new software during this period, and I have already cleared my browser cache to rule that out as a culprit.

Second, ever since I performed a fresh installation of the OS, .gif files have been defaulting to Internet Explorer when I try to open them.😕 My intention was to have them open in the standard Windows Photo Viewer instead. Since I couldn't locate the specific viewer in the "Open with" menu—and I recall from my days using Windows XP that the image viewer often appeared under the Explorer umbrella in the taskbar—I made the decision to set explorer.exe as the default handler for .gif files. The result has been quite disastrous: whenever I attempt to open a GIF, my CPU usage spikes aggressively, and memory consumption begins to climb indefinitely without stopping. The only way to resolve it is a hard restart. To make matters worse, I have tried to revert the file association back to Explorer or select a different program entirely, but the system refuses to accept the change. Every single time I attempt to open a GIF through Windows, I encounter this exact same loop.

I would strongly advise against heading over to the Jefferson clinic; the crowds there are enough to make your head spin, and you likely have far more productive ways to spend your afternoon.

Medicare has a massive number of locations throughout New York City, so it might be worth looking for a spot that isn't quite so overwhelmed: . For instance, I recently visited the Jackson facility near the local sports complex.

Joshua Garcia3 said:If Windows 7 doesn't automatically pick up the driver for your USB modem, you might be able to force it by using Compatibility mode to run the drivers meant for Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Just a heads-up: that trick didn't work for me either. I even called those clowns over at AT&T, and of course, their brilliant solution was—get this—sign a new contract and we'll send you a new router. 🙄 Luckily, I managed to pick up a LAN router myself, so I’m back online, but I have to say to the folks at AT&T— :2up:

So, just so everyone is aware, if anyone else is stuck with that Siemens USB modem and it refuses to cooperate with Windows 7, your only real option is to head down to AT&T or Siemens and throw it at someone's head. 😍

gentleowl66 said:Try to force yourself to be more prepared before you wipe your OS. If you have a secondary partition, use it to stash all those essential drivers—even the outdated ones for things like modems or motherboards. I learned this the hard way while visiting a buddy's place; I neglected to do this, and suddenly I was stuck trying to download everything onto an iPhone, then figuring out how to transfer them to the PC, all while hunting for a USB cable and battling a network connection that wouldn't work because I didn't have the network drivers handy. I didn't even have a disc nearby to fall back on. 😁

I actually use multiple partitions myself... but the point is, I’m planning to build this on a completely fresh machine. I just brought the components home yesterday, and I'm treating myself to the assembly this evening 😁. I'll be tinkering with the setup over the next few days. The plan is to install Windows onto a brand-new 1 TB drive I'm putting in the rig... though, for most of my hardware, I still keep the discs around just in case. 🤷

Joshua Garcia3 said:Windows 7 comes loaded with plenty of those generic drivers. If it doesn't pick it up automatically, you can always fall back on an old installation CD for that modem containing the Windows XP drivers; then, hopefully, it should boot right up using Compatibility mode.

I have the CD, thanks so much.🙂

Joshua Garcia3 said:If Windows 7 doesn't automatically pull the driver for your USB modem, you can always try using Compatibility mode to run the drivers meant for Windows XP or Windows Vista.

I'm a bit confused by your use of the term "pull." I assume you don't mean downloading them from the web; after all, once I start the installation process, I won't have any internet access until that modem actually starts functioning. 😁

Are you suggesting that Windows 7 already has the built-in drivers for this specific modem?

Greetings,

I have a quick question for the group. I am currently in the process of picking out a new PC, and I was considering installing Windows 7 on it. However, my internet connection relies on an old USB ADSL modem—an A-100 model or something similar—that was provided by AT&T back when I first signed up for ADSL service. Does anyone know if there are actually drivers available for that little gadget for Windows 7? I’ve done some digging online, but I haven't had much luck; Siemens, predictably, offers absolutely nothing regarding this 🙄 Additionally, if I were to go with Windows XP 64-bit, would the older legacy drivers still function properly?
Also, signing a new contract with AT&T for a different modem is completely off the table since I've already committed to switching over to broadband, though that won't actually be active until mid-month.