Wednesday, April 12
Our Universe - Gravity Creates Light
A star is being consumed by a distant supermassive black hole. Astronomers call this a tidal disruption event (TDE). As the black hole rips apart the star, two jets of material moving with almost the speed of light are launched in opposite directions. One of the jets was aimed directly at Earth. Image credit: Carl Knox (OzGrav, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, Swinburne University of Technology)
Physicists Discover that Gravity Can Create Light
Researchers have discovered that in the exotic conditions of the early universe, waves of gravity may have shaken space-time so hard that they spontaneously created radiation.
The physical concept of resonance surrounds us in everyday life. When you’re sitting on a swing and want to go higher, you naturally start pumping your legs back and forth. You very quickly find the exact right rhythm to make the swing go higher. If you go off rhythm then the swing stops going higher. This particular kind of phenomenon is known in physics as a parametric resonance.
Your legs act as an external pumping mechanism. When they match the resonant frequency of the system, in this case your body sitting on a swing, they are able to transfer energy to the system making the swing go higher.
These kinds of resonances happen all over the place, and a team of researchers have discovered that an exotic form of parametric resonance may have even occurred in the extremely early universe.
Perhaps the most dramatic event to occur in the entire history of the universe was inflation. This is a hypothetical event that took place when our universe was less than a second old. During inflation our cosmos swelled to dramatic proportions, becoming many orders of magnitude larger than it was before. The end of inflation was a very messy business, as gravitational waves sloshed back and forth throughout the cosmos. READ MORE...
Thursday, January 26
Multiverse Theory
Multiverse theory suggests that our universe, with all its hundreds of billions of galaxies and almost countless stars, spanning tens of billions of light-years, may not be the only one. Instead, there may be an entirely different universe, distantly separated from ours — and another, and another.
It could be that our universe is just one member of a much grander, much larger multitude of universes: a multiverse. The concept of the multiverse arises in a few areas of physics (and philosophy), but the most prominent example comes from something called inflation theory.
Inflation of our universe is thought to have ended about 14 billion years ago, said Heling Deng, a cosmologist at Arizona State University and an expert in multiverse theory. "However, inflation does not end everywhere at the same time," Deng told Live Science in an email. "It is possible that as inflation ends in some region, it continues in others."
Thus, while inflation ended in our universe, there may have been other, much more distant regions where inflation continued — and continues even today. Individual universes can "pinch off" of larger inflating, expanding universes, creating an infinite sea of eternal inflation, filled with numerous individual universes.
In this eternal inflation scenario, each universe would emerge with its own laws of physics, its own collection of particles, its own arrangement of forces and its own values of fundamental constants. This might explain why our universe has the properties it does — particularly the properties that are hard to explain with fundamental physics, such as dark matter or the cosmological constant, Deng said.
"If there is a multiverse, then we would have random cosmological constants in different universes, and it is simply a coincidence that the one we have in our universe takes the value that we observed," he said. READ MORE...
Sunday, November 20
Hot Inflation Will Wipe Out Most
U.S. consumer prices jumped 7.7% in October from a year ago, still hovering near the the highest levels since the early 1980s. Food and energy are still spiking at a historic pace, which could give the Fed more reason to keep raising interest rates.
It’s a vicious cycle criticized by many investing veterans. And Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki is one of the latest experts to sound the alarm.
“When inflation goes up, we’re going to wipe out 50% of the U.S. population,” he told Stansberry Research earlier this month.
Let’s take a closer look at what Kiyosaki means by that. READ MORE...
Tuesday, October 18
Inflation Wipes Out Retirement Savings
Inflation has taken an average of 25 percent - at least $2.1trillion - off the 401Ks of American workers, despite President Joe Biden's insistence Sunday that the 'economy is strong as hell.'
The analysis was done by conservative economists Stephen Moore and EJ Antoni, who said that the balance of Americans' 401ks will 'ruin your whole day, week and month.'
Moore and Antoni note that inflation has been going at 8 percent for the past seven months, despite the White House claiming things were temporary. READ MORE...
Wednesday, July 13
Only One Way Out of Inflation
Jerome Powell - Bank of America |
Severe recession needed to cool inflation, Bank of America analysts say
- Businesses will spend less
- Consumers will spend less
- Banks will loan less money
- Unemployment will increase
- The Govt might extend unemployment benefits
- If the govt spends more our debt will increase
- Businesses will not expand operations
- Businesses will not invest in future technology
- Businesses will not be globally competitive
- States will reduce services
- Cities will reduce services
- Illegal immigration will deplete resources
- Crime and violence will increase
Monday, May 9
Saving During Inflation
“Inflation is a time for investors and savers to reevaluate their strategies,” says Walter Russell, CEO of financial adviser firm Russell and Company.
Through the Federal Reserve, the government tries to combat inflation on a large scale by raising the federal funds rate, which is the interest rate that commercial banks use to borrow and lend money to each other.
When the cost of borrowing becomes more expensive, higher interest rates trickle down to consumer products such as loans and mortgages, making them more expensive. But higher interest rates may also apply to deposit accounts, meaning that banks start to offer higher interest rates on checking, savings and certificates of deposit.
No one knows what the future will bring, but by making changes to how you spend and where you keep your money, you may be able to weather times of inflation more easily.
Here are some ways to save more during periods of inflation.
Look for high-yield interest rates
It can be frustrating to not be able to get loans for big purchases as easily during periods of high inflation. Still, consumers can take advantage of higher interest rates on bank accounts to fight the effects of inflation on their cash. Bank account interest rates usually don’t totally beat the rate of inflation, but these accounts can help hedge against inflation far better than keeping cash at home or in a low-rate account.
The national average annual percentage yield for savings accounts is 0.06%, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, but there are plenty of financial institutions that offer rates that are much higher — some even 1.00% APY or more. To find these rates, you can research high-yield or high-interest accounts and choose the bank that works best for you.
Find ways to keep costs low
If you haven’t looked over your budget in a while, now may be a good time. During the pandemic, you may have subscribed to multiple streaming services that you don’t use anymore, or you might be spending more money dining out or paying for more convenience services now.
Some people are taking even more radical steps to save money. Amanda Claypool , a financial blogger based in upstate New York, has recently made larger lifestyle changes to keep her costs low in the face of inflation. She spent 2021 living out of her car while driving around the country and plans to return to that way of living soon to save on housing costs. She’s also been trying to trim her budget by biking 16 miles round-trip to work and by eating more rice and beans, a cheap but healthy meal. READ MORE...
Saturday, April 30
Backwards in Time
A wild new theory suggests there may be another "anti-universe," running backward in time prior to the Big Bang. The idea assumes that the early universe was small, hot and dense — and so uniform that time looks symmetric going backward and forward.
If true, the new theory means that dark matter isn't so mysterious; it's just a new flavor of a ghostly particle called a neutrino that can only exist in this kind of universe. And the theory implies there would be no need for a period of "inflation" that rapidly expanded the size of the young cosmos soon after the Big Bang.
If true, then future experiments to hunt for gravitational waves, or to pin down the mass of neutrinos, could answer once and for all whether this mirror anti-universe exists.
Physicists have identified a set of fundamental symmetries in nature. The three most important symmetries are: charge (if you flip the charges of all the particles involved in an interaction to their opposite charge, you'll get the same interaction); parity (if you look at the mirror image of an interaction, you get the same result); and time (if you run an interaction backward in time, it looks the same).
Physical interactions obey most of these symmetries most of the time, which means that there are sometimes violations. But physicists have never observed a violation of a combination of all three symmetries at the same time. If you take every single interaction observed in nature and flip the charges, take the mirror image, and run it backward in time, those interactions behave exactly the same.
This fundamental symmetry is given a name: CPT symmetry, for charge (C), parity (P) and time (T).
In a new paper recently accepted for publication in the journal Annals of Physics, scientists propose extending this combined symmetry. Usually this symmetry only applies to interactions — the forces and fields that make up the physics of the cosmos. But perhaps, if this is such an incredibly important symmetry, it applies to the whole entire universe itself. In other words, this idea extends this symmetry from applying to just the "actors" of the universe (forces and fields) to the "stage" itself, the entire physical object of the universe.
We live in an expanding universe. This universe is filled with lots of particles doing lots of interesting things, and the evolution of the universe moves forward in time. If we extend the concept of CPT symmetry to our entire cosmos, then our view of the universe can't be the entire picture.
Instead, there must be more. To preserve the CPT symmetry throughout the cosmos, there must be a mirror-image cosmos that balances out our own. This cosmos would have all opposite charges than we have, be flipped in the mirror, and run backward in time. Our universe is just one of a twin. Taken together, the two universes obey CPT symmetry.
The study researchers next asked what the consequences of such a universe would be. They found many wonderful things. READ MORE...
Wednesday, March 30
Top Problem is INFLATION Since 1985
The share of Americans who rate inflation as the top issue facing the country is at the highest in nearly 40 years, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.
About one in five Americans, or 17%, surveyed March 1-18 cited inflation as the nation’s most important problem. That’s up from 10% in February, and compares with 4% who pointed to fuel prices in particular.
U.S. consumer prices are rising at the fastest pace in four decades, outpacing wage gains and fanned further by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Gas prices are near record highs -- well over $4 a gallon nationwide -- especially straining lower-income families.
Among those polled -- a little over 1,000 U.S. adults -- 22% say the government is the top problem outside of the economy, while 9% cited the war in Ukraine. The share citing the coronavirus fell to the lowest level since the pandemic began.
Similar to a University of Michigan survey -- which showed U.S. consumer sentiment remained at a decade low in March -- inflation concerns diverge sharply from a political perspective. Nearly 80% of Republicans are worried about inflation, more than double the proportion of Democrats, according to Gallup. SOURCE: Bloomberg READ MORE...
Thursday, March 3
Kamala Harris Says...
Vice President Kamala Harris was blasted by critics Monday for claiming during a speech at the White House that American voters "got what they asked for" when they elected her and President Biden.
Harris made the claim during a celebration for Black History month when she took a moment to celebrate Biden's nomination of Judge Ketanji Jackson to be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court.
"I felt such pride and such hope this past Friday when President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson," Harris told those gathered for the event. "Because as we all know, elections matter. And when folks vote, they order what they want, and in this case they got what they asked for."
"I went off script a little bit," Harris added, laughing.
Critics jumped to social media to blast Harris, with some listing what they saw as the administration's numerous failures, and others predicting a defeat for Democrats in the November midterm elections.
"The American people didn’t ask for any of this: Record Inflation, Record border crisis, Closed schools. A war on American energy, Afghanistan disaster, Russia invasion of Ukraine," wrote Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, while former White House press secretary and Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sarah Sanders called the Biden administration a "complete and total failure." READ MORE...
Wednesday, January 19
What is Inflation?
How do you measure inflation?Statistical agencies start by collecting the prices of a very large number of goods and services. In the case of households, they create a “basket” of goods and services that reflects the items consumed by households. The basket does not contain every good or service, but the basket is meant to be a good representation of both the types of items and the quantities of items households typically consume.
Agencies use the basket to construct a price index. First, they determine the current value of the basket by calculating how much the basket would cost at today’s prices (multiplying each item’s quantity by its price today and summing up). Next, they determine the value of the basket by calculating how much the basket would cost in a base period (multiplying each item’s quantity by its base period price). The price index is then calculated as the ratio of the value of the basket at today’s prices to the value at the base period prices.
A price index does not provide a measure of inflation—it provides a measure of the general price level compared with a base year. Inflation refers to the growth rate (percentage change) of a price index. To calculate the rate of inflation, the statistical agencies compare the value of the index over some period in time to the value of the index at another time, such as month to month, which gives a monthly rate of inflation; quarter to quarter, which gives a quarterly rate; or year to year, which gives an annual rate.
In the United States, the statistical agencies that measure inflation include the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Why are there so many different price indexes and measures of inflation?
Different groups typically care about the price changes of some items more than others. For example, households are particularly interested in the prices of items they consume, such as food, utilities, and gasoline, while commercial companies are more concerned with the prices of inputs used in production, like the costs of raw materials (coal and crude oil), intermediate products (flour and steel), and machinery. Consequently, a large number of price indexes have been developed to monitor developments in different segments of an economy.
The most broad-based price index is the GDP deflator, as it tracks the level of prices related to spending on domestically produced goods and services in an economy in a given quarter. The CPI and the PCE price index focus on baskets of goods and services consumed by households. The producer price index (PPI) focuses on selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services; it includes many prices of items that firms buy from other firms for use in the production process. There are also price indexes for specific items such as food, housing, and energy.
What is "underlying" inflation?
Some price indexes are designed to provide a general overview of the price developments in a broad segment of the economy or at different stages of the production process. Because of their comprehensive coverage, these aggregate (also called “total,” “overall,” or “headline”) price indexes are of considerable interest to policymakers, households, and firms. However, these measures by themselves do not always give the clearest picture of what the “more sustained upward movement in the overall level of prices,” or underlying inflation, happens to be.
Underlying inflation is another way of referring to the inflation component that would prevail if the transitory effects or noise could be removed from the price data. From the perspective of a monetary policymaker, it is easy to understand the importance of distinguishing between temporary and more persistent (longer-lasting) movements in inflation.
Friday, January 14
US Prices Rise the Fastest in 40 YEARS
Prices in the US are rising at their fastest rate in almost 40 years, with inflation up 7% year-on-year in December.
Strong demand and scarce supply for key items such as cars are driving the increases, which are putting pressure on policymakers to act.
The US central bank is expected to raise interest rates this year.
The rise in borrowing costs is aimed at reducing demand by making purchases such as cars more expensive.
December's increase marked the third month in a row that the US annual inflation rate has hovered above 6% - well north of policymakers' 2% target. The last time the pace of inflation exceeded that level was 1982.
Housing costs were up 4.1% year-on-year, while the cost of groceries rose 6.5% - compared to a 1.5% annual average over the last 10 years.
Wednesday's report from the Labor Department showed signs that some of the pressures may be easing.
The cost of energy dropped 0.4% from November to December - its first decline since April. But over 12 months energy costs are up by nearly 30% and have returned to their upward trend in recent days.
"Overall, this is every bit as bad as we expected," Paul Ashworth, chief economist at Capital Economics, said of the December inflation report.
Reacting to the latest report, President Joe Biden said that it "demonstrates that we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases".
He added that there is "more work to do" in the US and noted that "inflation is a global challenge, appearing in virtually every developed nation as it emerges from the pandemic economic slump".
The price pressures occurring in the US have been seen to varying degrees around the world.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which represents more than 30 of the world's largest economies, said this week that inflation among its members had hit its highest rate in 25 years in November. READ MORE.
Saturday, December 4
Rolling Back US-China Tariffs
Eliminating tariffs imposed on goods during the worst of the trade war would help ease inflation in the U.S., former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told CNBC on Tuesday.But there’s currently “no political space” to do so, he said on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”
“I think that the United States and China have deep differences. I’ve never thought it should just be about negotiating the exchange of one good or another on one side or the other. It should be about a level playing field,” Lew said. He served as treasury secretary from 2013 to 2017 during the Obama administration.
He continued: “I’ve thought from the beginning that the tariffs were an ineffective way to deal with their attacks on American consumers. And right now, with inflation being an issue, rolling back tariffs would actually reduce inflation in the United States.”
Relations between Washington and Beijing took a turn for the worse in 2018, when the Trump administration imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods and Beijing retaliated with similar punitive measures, drawing both sides into a protracted trade war.
U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods stood at an average of 19.3% on a trade-weighted basis in early 2021, while Chinese tariffs on American products were at about 20.7%, according to data compiled by think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics earlier this year.
Before the trade war, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods were on average 3.1% in early 2018 while China’s tariffs on American goods were at 8%, the data showed.
Referring to rolling back tariffs, Lew said: “Both the leaders have to, I think, create political space in our two countries for these issues to be issues where you can move and make progress, because otherwise we either stay where we are. It gets worse. I think we can do better.” READ MORE...
Wednesday, November 10
Inflation
The Consumer is spending more for:
- gasoline
- food
- clothes
- personal items
Friday, October 15
A Recession Looms
New research published last week by David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Alex Bryson of the University College London suggests that consumer expectations indexes from the Conference Board and the University of Michigan tend to predict economic downturns up to 18 months in advance in the U.S.
BIDEN'S PROPOSED 39.6% TAX HIKE WOULD HIT THESE INDIVIDUALS, FAMILIES
Every recession since the 1980s has been precipitated by at least a 10-point drop in the expectations indices, they found. Other reliable indicators include a single monthly rise of at least 0.3 percentage points in unemployment and two consecutive months of employment rate declines.
"The economic situation in 2021 is exceptional, however, since unprecedented direct government intervention in the labor market through furlough-type arrangements has enabled employment rates to recover quickly from the huge downturn in 2020," Blanchflower and Bryson wrote. "However, downward movements in consumer expectations in the last six months suggest the economy in the United States is entering recession now (Autumn 2021)."
G-7 LEADERS HAMMER OUT A GLOBAL MINIMUM TAX FOR MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES
The Conference Board’s gauge of expectations declined in September to the lowest since November last year, marking the third consecutive month of declines. At the same time, the University of Michigan's gauge actually increased last month.
The economists highlighted data suggesting the Conference Board expectations peaked in March 2021 and then fell by 26 points through September 2021. The Michigan data, meanwhile, likely peaked in June 2021 and fell by 18 points by August, they found.
Thursday, June 3
On the Horizon
Inflation is a measure of the rate of rising prices of goods and services in an economy. Inflation can occur when prices rise due to increases in production costs, such as raw materials and wages. A surge in demand for products and services can cause inflation as consumers are willing to pay more for the product.
Inflation erodes purchasing power or how much of something can be purchased with currency. Because inflation erodes the value of cash, it encourages consumers to spend and stock up on items that are slower to lose value. It lowers the cost of borrowing and reduces unemployment.
Thursday, May 13
We Are Blessed Americans
Trump to become the current President of the US...
- We have a crisis with immigration
- We have a crisis with inflation
- We have a crisis with gasoline
- We have a crisis with cyber crime/hacking
- We have a crisis with Hamas
- We have a crisis with Russia
- We have a crisis with China's military escalation
- We have a crisis with systemic racism
- We have a crisis with defunding the police
- We have a crisis with illegal drug use
- We have a crisis with disabled veterans
- We have a crisis with healthcare
- We have a crisis with education
- We have a crisis with a DIVIDED America
Inflation B Good
Because of all the spending by our Federal Government, the US inflation rate has increased to 3% and is expected to increase and possibly stabilize at 4% which is incredibly good news for ALL AMERICANS because it means that Americans will be paying more for goods and services, leaving them less and less money to save or spend on other necessities... should the occasion arise.
- More for gasoline
- More for food
- More for clothes
- More for medicine
- More for electricity
Wednesday, May 12
Social Security
Many expenses have dramatically risen in the past year, according to a new analysis of Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics done by The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group.
From March 2020 to March 2021, the fastest-rising cost was car and truck rentals, which went up by 31.2%. That was followed by laundry equipment, which climbed 24.2%; gasoline, 22.2%; and home heating oil, 20.2%.
Some prices, such as prescription drug and medical costs, stayed constant, although physician services climbed by 5.3%. Admittedly, all consumers are grappling with those rising price tags, not just seniors. The Senior Citizens League selected the list based on which costs affect retirees most.
Because older Americans often live on a fixed budget, which typically includes Social Security benefits, having to absorb those higher costs can hit them harder. “With inflation rising so fast, what’s going on right now is an erosion in buying power,” said Mary Johnson, Social Security and Medicare policy analyst at the league.
When measured by the index used to calculate Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment — the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W — inflation has risen since last year. The CPI-W was more than 3% higher as of the end of March than it was a year ago. TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...
Monday, March 15
COVID Relief and Inflation
But Republican lawmakers haven't been the only ones to raise concerns. The sheer magnitude of the fund has prompted lively discussions within economic and political circles about whether it is too large for its own good, and whether inflation is now in the cards.
"I agree that too much is better than too little and we should aim for some overheating. The question is how much," economist and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund Olivier Blanchard wrote on Twitter in February, responding to the proposed bill. "Much too much is both possible and harmful. I think this package is too much."
"This would not be overheating; it would be starting a fire," he wrote.
Over the last decade, the rate of inflation in the US has only occasionally gone above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%. For anyone born after 1960, it might be difficult to imagine what a US ravaged by exploding consumer prices might look like. But in the 1970s, overly loose monetary policy, the introduction of wage and price controls, and a series of energy crises pushed the inflation rate into the double digits and plunged the US into a painful recession.
"There's a real possibility that within the year, we're going to be dealing with the most serious incipient inflation problem that we have faced in the last 40 years," former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told Bloomberg News in February. READ MORE
Unbridled inflation is bad enough on its own terms. But it's also self-perpetuating. The faster people try to spend their depreciating money, the quicker it will lose value. If this were to happen in the US, the Fed would have to step in and consciously inflict pain on the economy. This would take the form of higher interest rates meant to increase unemployment, forcing a stop to the spending frenzy on the most unpleasant terms.
Saturday, December 19
Retirement and Beyond
My father retired at age 62 with a pension from the Federal Government (that now is no longer) and a pension from the US Military with the pay of Naval Caption just under an Admiral... not bad for being in the Reserves for 26 years. His retirement was more than I ever made annually...
I retired at age 67 with about $500,000 in the bank... no pension from any company... only Social Security... however, my wife and I combined our Social Security which helped a lot and we had eliminated our debt over a decade ago... However, we had a small investment that paid us about $1,000 each month +/- so we never had to pull any money out of our savings... plus I taught about 6 night classes for a local university...
The odds are that if you can retire at all, it will be at the age of 70... and, no doubt 75 for your children and their children as retirement age creeps up to 80.
Social Security will be gradually reduced over the years but it will still be available possible in the neighborhood of 50-75% of what it is today. The average social security check is about $1,500.
Advances in medical technology will enable people to live longer and longer so one will either need to keep working or make sure that they have enough in savings or income coming to them from other sources.
It would not surprise me at all that by the year 2050, our life span will increase from right around 80 to right around 100... and, by the year 3000, it will be 120 to 150...
However, by the year 3000, there is also a good possibility that we will not longer be living on this planet we call earth... which is difficult for some of us who care to comprehend.
- How much money will you need in retirement?
- Will you be debt free?
- How much money will you have saved or invested?
- How many jobs will you have had?
- How many homes and vehicles?
- How is your health... do you eat healthy and exercise?
- How do you manage stress outside of drinking alcohol?
- How will you compensate for inflation?
- How long will it take for prices to double?