Every time I hear a politician mention the word stimulus, my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch. Today, you and I are the dead frogs. Pretty soon the dead frog will be fried frog. ( Robert Kiyosaki )
Kalau diterjemahkan: Tiap kali saya mendengar politisi menyebut kata "Stimulus", saya menjadi teringat kembali praktikum Biologi waktu di sekolah; yaitu percobaan pada katak yang baru saja mati, saya sentuhkan kabel listrik ke katak itu agar katak tsb bergerak. Hari ini, kita adalah katak yang mati. Kalau diberi stimulus terus menerus, katak itu akan segera menjadi "katak panggang".
Berikut saya copy paste kan artikel selengkapnya tentang pendapat Robert Kiyosaki terhadap Perekonomian Amerika Saat ini. Terjemahannya saya tuliskan dibawah artikel tsb.
"Is the crisis over?" is a question I am often asked. "Is the economy coming back?"
My reply is, "I don't think so. I would prepare for the worst."
Like most people, I wish for a better future for all of us. Life is better when people are working, happy, and spending money.
The stock market has been going up since March 9, 2009. Talk of "green shoots" fill the air. Yet, in spite of the more positive news, I continue to recommend that people prepare for the worst. The following are some of my reasons:
1. I believe the stock market is being manipulated. I suspect the government, banks, and Wall Street are doing everything they can to keep the market from crashing. Our leaders know that nothing makes the world feel better than a raging bull market.
Do I have any proof that the market is being manipulated? No. I just smell a rat, or a pack of rats. I believe greed, self-interest, arrogance, and fear control the financial markets. I suspect those in charge will do anything to keep us all from panicking... and I don't blame them. A global panic would be ugly and dangerous.
2. In my view, this global crisis has been caused by the Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. Treasury, Wall Street, and the central banks of the world. They caused the problem, profited excessively in doing so, and now profit by being asked to fix the problem.
Every time I hear a politician mention the word stimulus, my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch. Today, you and I are the dead frogs. Pretty soon the dead frog will be fried frog.
In the 1980s, our government's hot money stimulus was measured only in the millions of dollars. By the 1990s, the government had to ramp the stimulus voltage into the billions in order to get the frog to twitch. Today the frog has jumper cables with trillions in high-voltage hot money pouring through the lines.
While most us feel better when we have more high-voltage money in our hands, none of us feel good about higher taxes, increasing national debt, and rising inflation for the long term. Another old saying goes, "Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease." I say the government stimulus cure is killing us frogs.
3. Old frogs don't hop. Another reason I am cautious about the future is that the Western world has a growing number of old frogs. Between 1970 and 2000, the economy responded to bailouts and stimulus packages because the baby boomers of the world were entering their greatest earning years -- their purchasing power increased, and demand for homes, cars, refrigerators, computers, and TVs boosted the economy.
The stimulus plans seemed to work. But when a person turns 60, their spending habits change dramatically. They stop consuming and start conserving like a bear preparing for winter. The economy of the Western world is heading into winter. Hot wires and hot money will not get old frogs to hop. Old frogs will simply join the bears and stick that money in the bank as they prepare for the long, hard winter known as old age. The businesses that will do well in a winter economy are drug companies, hospitals, wheelchair manufacturers, and mortuaries.
4. The dying frog economy will lead us to the biggest Ponzi schemes of all: Social Security and Medicare. If we think this subprime financial crisis is big, it's my opinion that this crisis will be dwarfed by the crisis brewing in Social Security and Medicare...Medicare being the biggest crisis of all. As old frogs head for the big lily pad in the sky, they will demand young frogs spend even more in tax dollars just to keep old frogs from croaking.
5. The 401(k)Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme, like the scheme Madoff ran, depends upon young money to pay off old money. In other words, a Ponzi scheme needs tadpoles to finance old frogs. The same is true for the 401(k) and other retirement plans to work. If young money does not come into the stock market, the old money cannot retire. One reason so many people my age are worried, not only about Social Security and Medicare, is because they're concerned about getting their money out of the stock market before the other old frogs decide to drain the swamp.
The facts are that the 401(k) plan has a trigger that requires old frogs to begin withdrawing their money at a certain age. In other words, as baby boomers grow older, more and more will be required, by law, to begin withdrawing their money from the market. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that it is hard for a market to keep going up when more and more people are getting out.
The reason the 401(k) has this law related to mandatory withdrawals is because the Federal government wants to collect the taxes that they deferred when the worker's money went into the plan. In other words, the taxman wants their pound of flesh. Since they allowed the worker to invest without paying taxes, the government wants their tax dollars when the employee retires. That is why the laws require older workers to sell their shares ¬-- and pay their pound of flesh.
Demographics show that we are entering a battle between young and old. I call it the "Age War." The young want to hang onto their money to grow their families, businesses, and wealth. The old want the tax and investment dollars of the young to sustain their old age.
This war is not coming...it is upon us now. This is one of many reasons why I remain cautious and say, "The worst is yet to come."
Terjemahannya adalah sebagai berikut:
"Apakah krisis ekonomi sudah berakhir?" Saya sering ditanya tentang hal itu. Jawaban saya: "Menurut saya belum berakhir, saya kan bersiap-siap untuk kemungkinan yang terburuk."
Seperti kebanyakan orang, saya juga berharap masa depan yang lebih baik. Kehidupan menjadi lebih baik manakala tiap orang bekerja, bahagia dan bisa berbelanja untuk kebutuhan hidup.
Bursa Saham sudah mulai naik sejak 9 Maret 2009. Kabar membaiknya perekonomian pun mulai merebak. Terlepas dari berita-berita ekonomi yang bagus, saya tetap menganjurkan bahwa kita harus bersiap untuk kemungkinan terburuk. Berikut ini adalah beberapa alasan saya:
- Saya percaya bahwa Bursa Saham / Stock Market sedang dimanipulasi. Saya curiga bahwa pemerintah, bank dan Wall Street sedang berusaha semampu mereka untuk mencegah agar pasar tidak ambruk. Para pemimpin kita tahu bahwa tidak ada yang membuat dunia merasa lebih nyaman dan enak selain "raging bull market" ( sinyal membaiknya bursa saham )
Apakah saya punya bukti bahwa Pasar Saham sedang dimanipulasi? Tidak, saya tidak punya bukti. Tetapi saya dapat mencium sekelompok tikus sedang melakukan manipulasi. Saya percaya bahwa keserakahan, kepentingan pribadi, kesombongan, dan ketakutan berbaur menjadi satu mengontrol "financial market". Saya yakin para pejabat yang berwenang berusaha keras agar kita terbebas dari kepanikan...dan saya tidak menyalahkan mereka. Kepanikan global dapat memperburuk keadaan. - Menurut pendapat saya, krisis ekonomi ini disebabkan oleh Federal Reserve Bank, US Treasury, Wall Street dan Bank Central seluruh dunia. Mereka penyebab masalah ini, mengambil profit yang cukup tinggi, dan sekarang mereka tetap profit karena diminta untuk memulihkan perekonomian.
Anggap saja seperti tukang sihir, untung saat diminta menyantet orang dan ketika yang disantet sakit, mereka tetap untung karena diminta mengobati ( red. )
Tiap kali saya mendengar politisi menyebut kata "Stimulus", saya menjadi teringat kembali praktikum Biologi waktu di sekolah; yaitu percobaan pada katak yang baru saja mati, saya sentuhkan kabel listrik ke katak itu agar katak tsb bergerak. Hari ini, kita adalah katak yang mati. Kalau diberi stimulus terus menerus, katak itu akan segera menjadi "katak panggang".
Pada tahun 1980an paket stimulus pemerintah hanya berkisar jutaan dollar. Pada tahun 1990an tegangan stimulus dinaikkan menjadi milliaran dollar agar katak bisa bergerak. Hari ini tahun 2009, pemerintah telah mengalirkan tegangan triliunan dollar pada kabel listrik tersebut agar katak tsb kembali bergerak.
Hampir semua orang senang kalau diberi bantuan uang bertegangan tinggi sampai triliunan dollar, tetapi tak satupun senang dengan dampaknya spt kenaikan pajak, kenaikan hutang nasional dan kenaikan inflasi. Peribahasa mengatakan "Terkadang obat malah lebih berbahaya ketimbang penyakitnya." Menurut saya obat stimulus yang diberikan pemerintah malah akan membunuh katak tsb.
