...Consider that there may indeed be "cycles" of or changes in the supply and demand for Pine Boards -- when some new territory is opened to cutting, the supply of boards may increase -- or when a building boom occurs, the demand for pine boards may increase.
But should we allow the "National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)" to change the definition of a "FOOT" so that we can have the illusion of more "board feet" of pine being available when supplies decrease?
I mean that way, if the "official" length of a foot was cut in half, then lumber mills could still supply the same amount of "board feet" from half the number of trees. But beware -- when you specify lumber for building a house or garage, you will need to then ask for 16ft long boards for the walls (and not 2x4's but rather 4x8's) -- because otherwise you will end up with a really short building!...
In other words, by the FED "printing out money" they are allowing the fulfillment of national debt obligations, but only by forcing everyday citizens to need twice as much for their locally inflated prices.
In a very weird way, the federal reserve's method of printing money is more like renegotiating national debts in light of inflation. It is as if I went to my creditor and said, "look, I've paid you X amount of dollars, I owe Y amount of dollars, but could you reconsider my X as valued higher simply because you have greater purchasing power with that X now than you did back a few years ago?
On a more macro level, I think countries are stupidly agreeing to this kind of negotiation and still accepting international bonds because in an equally bizarre way, their currency goes up when the $USD inflates--again, they agree to this simply because their purchasing power goes up because of it.
All of this happens on a massively large scale with no accountability for the micro level (surprise surprise, just like everything else in our human existence from overuse of pesticides, polluting the ocean through dumping of waste, killing off the bison, etc)
But, pause for a second because credit needs to be given where credit is due (no pun intended): what this kind of "renegotiation" really does is create a buffer for $USD expenditures and purchases. Put another way, it postpones international inflation from affecting US markets. (postpones, but does not eliminate). In other words, if I conduct international business and I trade $USD for $MXN (Mexican Pesos), I can buy a whole lot more goods for my money, then when the market has blips and bumps in Mexico or China or Japan or Europe, it doesn't hit the U.S. until businesses have had sufficient time to react.
If the USD drops in value to a critical level and the FED "prints more money," (a complicated process that only partly has anything to do with printing and more to do with lending and giving away money), these countries that have split investment in the USD, (Whether because the government has purchased bonds or commodities or international businesses it's the same) benefit by being able to pick and choose which currency is worth more--they can establish new long-term contracts in light of a declining dollar and/or force exchange to their currency, plus they get their USD that were owed when they negotiated the bond.
But this doesn't help the average american. Large international businesses like Walmart, and Apple are going to pocket their profit and not trickle it down to their customers. Oil companies like BP and Shell will raise prices saying that it costs them more to produce the oil, and then make a killing off of the exchanges.
This in turn affects your average american who does not have access to international business--sure, people believe in the lie that they will get their retirement money which is based on investments in international and national businesses, but it is a lie because they don't have control over it. They put all of their money at risk and yet do not control that risk themselves--a broker business or hedgefund manager controls the risk and scoops up the cream of the profits and they give the minimal that they can get away with giving you and when the risks become too high and there are issues and you lose your money in a great recession/depression/whatever, they just blame it on the market and go on their merry way because they already made a killing off of you.
This whole system is exploitation at it's greatest, and everyone turns a blind eye to what they are doing by saying "well, my little exploitation here isn't going to affect the whole system because I;m only a small part of the system" yet EVERYONE is doing it. Everyone is exploiting everyone else.
Brokers make millions of dollars a day on money they don't actually own. Banks make millions of dollars a day on money they don't actually possess. The FED gives away money to big banks on a whim chance that it will improve things. Congress keeps borrowing money that they will never be accountable to pay back (Their terms aren't long enough, first of all, second of all, they rely on the FED to ensure that it gets paid back--and it does!) Businesses exploit their workers by not offering them fair wages. Businesses exploit the government by lobbying for laws to be passed that benefit them at the expense of the american public (healthcare laws I'm looking at you).
The whole human race is disgusting!
If there is some intelligent life out there capable of reading this and doing something about it, please liberate me from what mankind is doing.
It seems our entire species is founded on the exploitation of everything else.
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