Sunday, March 30, 2014

The Sarcasm Report v.188

March 19, 2014
U.S. News & World Report : The case for living on half your income

The payoff is pretty awesome if you can swing this major financial task. Asking a family to save half their income today is like asking most people to cut off their left hand. Thoughts abound around how this will happen and what sacrifices must be made. But the payoff in the end saves you money and keeps you afloat should a worst-case scenario materialize.

If this is awesome for some of us, then it certainly must be awesome for all of us!

The Roman Empire's Worst-Case Scenario Program

1. N = "I" (in Roman Numerals).
2. Save half of our current incomes.
3. Retail sales plummet.
4. Incomes plummet.
5. N = N + 1 (II, III, IV...).
6. Hello Great Depression N.
7. If greatly depressed, then go to Step 2.
8. Awesome payoff!

As you can clearly see, we can't actually make it to Step 8 without some help.

6a. Hello Great Depression N.
6b. Add "mother's little helper" to the public water supplies!
6c. More dogs and ponies (debt based euphoria)!
6d. More smoke and mirrors (uplifting political speeches)!

9 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

For those tracking the Economy of SPAM, I've experienced another bite.

Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates. I've been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like this. Please let me know if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates. - March 29, 2014

I'd be tempted to offer you information regarding automatically tweeting your newest twitter updates, but unfortunately your comment (with link) was automatically marked as SPAM yet again (the 18th time in the past few months) and therefore never actually appeared on my blog.

If you, as an anonymous public insurance adjuster, really enjoy my blog as much as you say, then I shall patiently await here for your request to rescue your comment from the evil and domineering SPAM detector!

In any event, I definitely admire your stubborn and utterly useless persistence! ;)

Stagflationary Mark said...

To put this in perspective, I've created 3,169 posts since starting this blog.

I have a grand total of 24 comments (on all posts) marked as SPAM since the beginning of February.

18 of them (75%) were from this one person (or group of people, or bot) and they were all left for me on that one post from 2007. It's become a "public insurance adjuster" SPAM roach motel. SPAM goes in but nothing every comes out.

It's so far into ridiculous now that it cracks me up every time I see a new one, lol.

Once again, what a waste of time and resources! If this is what the economy of the future looks like, then we're @#$%ing @#$%ed!

In related news, the phone keeps ringing even though I'm on the Do Not Call list. I long for the days when the phone was a tool for good, and not a mostly-automated telemarketing productivity "tool" for punishment.

Mr Slippery said...

According to the WSJ, about 1/3 of all web traffic if fake. Bots used for click fraud, DDOS, identity theft, spam.

This article discusses it in terms related to HFT and investment fakery.

I long for the days when the phone was a tool for good, and not a mostly-automated telemarketing productivity "tool" for punishment.

I'm afraid phones, the Internet, the financial world (and maybe higher education) are all about 1/3 a mostly-automated tool for punishment.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Mr Slippery,

Hollow Men, Hollow Markets, Hollow World

Hollow Prosperity :(

Troy said...

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=vfd

national housing expense / wages

shows we're at 30% of gross wages now going to housing.

Doesn't leave much.

And the weird thing is stock made 20-30 years ago is usually well above inflation in current cost, even though it has a current cost of production approaching $0.

Housing is a very funny element of our economy, one that economists have not be trained to analyze adequately.

Quite the opposite, they've been trained to ignore it.

Troy said...

Georgists of the 19th century called the moment when one understands how critical land economics is to our daily life "seeing the cat".

Related to this is the saying

"Of what is significant in one’s own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?"

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/23/water-fish/

How the FIRE crooks chearlead the rising cost of living in housing wants to make my put a fist through a wall.

But for the repair expense . . .

Anonymous said...

Live on half your income. Sure, once the income is over $100K per year.

How do you do that on $8. or $10. or $20. an hour - before taxes? Not eat and live under a bridge.

Josap

Stagflationary Mark said...

Troy,

shows we're at 30% of gross wages now going to housing.

100% and/or bust!

(The "and" is there for comedic effect.)

Stagflationary Mark said...

Josap,

I suspect "half" was used to increase the odds of it ending up in a sarcasm report.

It worked! I certainly couldn't resist clicking on the headline.

Not sure how it helps them though. If I clicked with the intent to live on half my income, then I'd feel pretty "not awesome" clicking on their advertisements, lol.