You're right, for some reason I thought they'd sold those all off but I see they still have a good bit of it (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MBS10Y).
Wow, re-reading this thread really took a load off my shoulders. This is really it. This is the new template. It's a good balance between capitalism (dodgy debt is not forced, but voluntarily entered into) and socialism (central banks owning everything.) I'm actually fine with it.... 20 year old libertarian me is having a hissy fit right now.
Then we'll all be more than happy to take all that worthless "fiat" off your hands! Anything you can't barter to someone else immediately for something you want is "worthless" Fortunately we realized that barter economies are severely limiting, so we assigned an arbitrary value to an arbitrary mineral. Then we determined that also had some pretty severe limitations so moved to assigning an arbitrary value to an arbitrary currency which has resulted in you and I and a big chunk of the world's population living in far better conditions and with far more wealth than the top 1% of the past did. If that's your version of "worthless" then I recommend Somalia, they've got that whole barter thing going on still I think. Plus the bonus benefit of no evil 'gubment, taxes, or gun laws!
Sig you took me too literally lol. Obviously it's not worthless. It should either be converted to assets with growth or income potential. I'm sometimes good at this, sometimes not. Long-term, holding fiat is a bad bet when it comes to purchasing power, I'm sure on that we will agree. Wages -> Fiat -> Investment -> Fiat You want to hit a positive feedback loop at some point at which point fiat becomes worthless again since it's just a means to an end. I oscillate between central banks are the devil and central banks are useful.
BTW, all this means is that the CBs will conveniently pull the plug just when peons go long. Be cautious.
fiat has been getting too much bad rap... you can buy food and everything else with fiat... the system works fine. the entire economy machine can run on the fiat lubricant... everything is cool.. fiat is here because nothing else works... not gold, not non-centralized banks.. life is good right, nothing to worry about... thanks to fiat.. just have enough hedge with assets, just btfd.... everything is good.
Funny enough your tenant has been true for most of history (holding cash is a dumb thing to do) but now there are a few negative interest rate spots (due in part to central bank stupidity) where holding actual cash might be a better idea than "investing" it at least in a bank account.
So how do I teach the kids about how society works? Children, there a bunch of super nerds who basically run the economy. Your options for financial success are to be the nerd, or understand how the nerd works and what motivates him.
Officially in step 8 says it all. What does it say about the future of America? What a down note it is for the end of the year.