Cliche red herrings against libertarianism

Well, if you say I'm treading on difficult waters, then Liberals are as well. Far left is Communism and socialism, which are also prime examples of total government, which force everyone into the same line of thoughts and actions. These systems throughout history, do not benefit everyone, but rather focus more power and wealth on government, while everyone else is struggling to survive. (much like we are today.)

I believe Liberals and leftist do the same thing, perhaps with a slightly different subtext.

They still wish to impose their will forcefully unto people. And, as I've said, I don't support any mainstream politicians. I don't believe the "lesser of two evils" thing. I believe both parties are headed in the same direction.

I don't understand how you can say this. Mostly every Liberal supports things like government- subsidized pre-k, government insurance and, government scholarships; All of which make prices go up, taxes go up, and, the government expands. Government employees are paid insane amounts of money, as-is. To employ more government employees, is just a bigger waste of tax payer money.

This has nothing to do with my religious ideals. It has to do with the immorality of murdering babies. I think the word "fetus" is just a cop-out. A way to say the baby is not a human, but a burden that can be done away with for the crime of being inconvenient. I don't see the murder of any person, or, animal, as being a choice. I have strong moral objections to murdering babies.

There are birth control measures, as well as plan B, available to women. I'm sorry you lost your friend, but there are steps that should be taken to prevent pregnancy from the start. Instead, women today use it as a form of birth control, when you're really taking that individuals right to life away. You don't have the Right to kill a child.

Syria Danny was an outright lie. I believe they lie to us whenever they'd like to push the governments agenda. All mainstream media was blaming Assad for the chemical weapons use, before an investigation was even completed. They were ready for war, and I personally don't even believe Assad did that. The father of a rebel said the rebels obtained chemical weapons from France. I believe all mainstream news stations only show us, what the government wants us to believe...

Yes. He is also a liberal who supports population control. Abortion to me, is a form of legitimizing population control. He want's America to be like China, where they could actually limited our children.

Well, that depends. Civil Liberties are very important to me; The fact Obama signed the NDAA, NDRP, HR347, the FAA reauthorization act and, made 100 miles from the ocean a "constitution free" zone, I'd say he is the worse president with regards to respecting our civil liberties and following the Constitution. He's supposed to be a Constitutional Scholar, but he acts like it doesn't even exist, or as if he's above the law, and that's very dangerous.

Well, not really- Domestic spying is a big deal to me, and should be a big deal to Liberals aswell. It violates the 4th Amendment, and we'd probably wouldn't have known if it wasn't for the Ron Paul supporter Edward Snowden telling us what was actually going on.

I don't care about any of these stupid things. I mean, if he's not an American citizen, technically, he's not allowed to be president. But I don't even worry about any of that, because worrying about Human Rights is much more important, and obviously real and happening every year.

As far as the fake airplane goes- I know a plane hit the towers. I think the government knows that, to discredit their enemies, they must become one, and make them look crazy. The old "conspiracy" videos made alot more sense than the official story; the ones saying there was no plane, only came out recently.

There's alot of contradicting info in the 911 commissions report;
For example, the architect of the WTC said either building could withstand 2 planes crashing into them. Also, the official story said the jet fuel melted the steel, when jetfuel doesn't melt at a high enough tempiture to do so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFwkAMd2-k"]9//11 NIST denies evidence of molten steel at the WTC Site (compilation) - YouTube

The truth is out there, people just need to dig, and think for themselves. I know for damn sure the government isn't going to tell us..

Here's Robert Gibbs in the Obama administration talking about killing American Citizens, without due process of law.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KtG4n6Ci8w"]Drone Strikes - Obama Advisor Justifies Killing Innocent 16-Year-Old - YouTube

The bad Obama does, has far overshadowed any alleged "good" he's done. Especially in the way of Civil Liberties. I know the mainstream Right blames him for stuff he hasn't done, but idk why considering there's alot of things he done that violates the Constitution. Possibly because Romney and the Republicans have the same agenda. Still, the laws he's passed are way overboard.

Wage growth has become the responsibility of the government though. They set the minimum wage, and usually it's not enough to truly live, it's just a wage for teenage fast food workers for extra cash. I was only saying that Leftist trust these things in the hands of government, and they typically get worse and less-fair than before government got involved in the first place.

The dollar is devaluing. I hold gold and silver because I do believe the dollar will eventually collapse.

Actually, history has alot to do with us. You say money is about value, but the is little to no value in bad debt and assets which can go either way. Gold has actual physical value, and the dollar will never catch back up to being worth 1 oz of silver (as it was when the dollar was first issued.) If by some miracle, it did become worth that much, it would be generic value, and bound to crash at one point or another.

But also think about this- The Federal Reserve is ran by the biggest multi-national banks in the world. Banks have a history of fabricating values, and manipulating the market. I don't believe the dollar is any different, and we're gonna lose our place as the world reserve currency, as people lose faith in the dollar, and shortly thereafter, the dollar will collapse.

The government will probably try to usher in a World Currency (through the IMF,) much like they scared people into accepting the dollar. If the dollar had actual value, we wouldn't be having this convo. If it was even based of a little bit of gold, we'd have a stable currency, and more importantly, stable prices. Instead we're seeing massive inflation and taxes, which make it even harder on the middle class, when we're stilll getting paid what we were in the 1970's..

 

Also these arguments for the gold standard, and why we should hold gold are as old as the hills---no----I take that back---they are as old as the Swiss banks promoting their gold accounts----the original gold bugs were Swiss economists. (Do you see the connection?)

In my twenties I wanted to be on the right side of what would happen if such a crisis occurred. I wanted to make a killing off of gold. Even in the 70's I had some of those books of apocalyptic horror for the US Dollar. I read them all and studied them, and tried to figure out what was really behind it... The economics just didn't add up.

Let's consider the viability of the gold standard for a moment. The Swiss economists and all these gold bugs did not consider growth of population and an overall growth of the economy, partly because all the data they had to work with (and everyone has only repeated what these Swiss economists were pushing) involved a period of low stable population growth (by today's standards). It wasn't until the 1900's following the invention of fertilizer, that population growth expanded so rapidly. Population growth not only causes economies to grow, it also requires economies to grow.

The gold standard retards economic growth by restricting the growth of the money supply. It does this by causing disruption in market place pricing every time the money supply grows beyond its reserves. The gold standard was part of the problem to the business cycle---the business cycle will always drive economics, but the gold standard did not eliminate it, it created it in its own way.

The money supply has to be big enough to supply the economy it services. In the olde economies of fiat currency lore, this was not the case---people largely lived self-sufficient life styles and the market was largely under-developed. Gold and paper currency was more for the very wealthy and the governments than it was for the mass of peasants. Subsistence life style, including bartering, was the general rule. Self subsistence was actually a significant aspect of the American economy well into the 1900's. I bet your grandfather could fix just about anything in his home, including his vehicles, tractors, whatever---better than anyone of us on this thread today.

Let's consider the automobile and its pricing in the 1920's. You talked about how good our wages were when we were on the gold standard. Henry Ford wanted to make an auto that many could afford---the Model T sold for $825---about $18,000 in today's money. Now---would you want to live in an economy today that a car cost $825?

This means that wages would still be the same level as they were at that time. If we adhered to the gold standard---then that means that the money supply would be roughly the same size-----so everyone would have about the same money that... Oh oh, wait a minute----the population of the US today is far bigger than it was back then. (It must be those damn immigrants---damn them! Coming into our country and taking away all our money and jobs----ok let's take away all their money and... Damnit!! there still isn't enough to go around. WTH???!!!)

Ok---but surely they all had enough money to enjoy life to its fullest---and they could buy a car for only $825!!! They must have had enough disposable income to pay for their cell phones, cable TV, go out and eat at all kinds of fancy foreign restaurants, their wifi, buy computer games, go to IMAX, buy a home theatre system, by blue ray movies and dvds, spend money on their hobbies, and so forth, and still have money to buy food, clothes, sundries and pay the mortgage, and so forth.

Wait a minute---what do you mean they didn't have all those things? In fact, most people didn't even pay mortgages----most people lived in extended families. The nuclear family is a concept that originates in the changing family dynamics after World War II. It is as if our economy has expanded and created all kinds of new opportunities to spend money. It is as if the market has expanded in all kinds of directions, and our money supply has expanded in order for us to meet all these new ways of spending, in addition to a massive population growth.

But still $825---that's like a Play station right? Everyone must have just gobbled up those cars----let's see---it is the equivalent of about $18,000 today, ok that is a little more than a PlayStation----but man! If only I could buy a car that cheap----the last time I checked a new Ferrari, or even a Lamborghini, cost far more than that... I mean really, what kind of a brand new car are you going to buy for $18,000.

Anyway----I think you see the disconnect in the argument that the goldbugs are making for the gold standard...

 

Reply to the post above, and ill reply more in-depth to this one.

You should've bought gold in the 70's, it would have had a remarkable payout.

You don't think silver dimes/quarters/dollars are worth their face value still, right?

 

I am not self-conscious now. Am I self-conscious? The Gold Standard is supposed to guarantee a human rights reality for the inductive capacities of contractual institutions to create privacy and not certain knowledge to defend oneself in the tolerance of business rules of supply and demand (I guess).

Truth is the human right to say what you want is not ethical in most systems of Wants in this day and age. Thus right proceeds ahead of universal ideality.

Is this good? Good is still to be sought inductively itself for the governed state. I really think so. The governance idea materialistically is just Bad.:biker:

 

I see what you're insinuating. I disagree, namely because the dollar has no real value behind it, and precious metals do. You are the one who said value makes it money, right? I don't see the value in the dollar, especially when a few individuals can print it out infinitely, and make the money in my wallet worth less.

You're essentially saying there's not enough precious metals to go around. What I'm saying is there's no such thing as infinite money either, and also that printing more money, drives prices up. I understand the country's much bigger today, and there's hardly enough silver out there, to supply everyone in the country with even as little as an oz. However, I'm saying that in a way, that's also a benefit. Because there is a limited amount of gold, there is a physical barrier so the government doesn't print too much, and inflate our currency (thereby making prices go up.) Gold offer stability, unlike paper money, which is based off of debt and bad assets. There's no real value in money.

On top of that, our Federal Reserve is a private company, that prints out money as they please, and typically give it to banks, who loan it at interest. Thusly keeping much of the money in the hands of the wealthiest people in the world. If you or I did that, we would go to prison!

For a brand new car? Sure! why not? Not to mention a gallon of gas would cost a dime, and the minimum wage was 5 silver quarters an hour (around $30 of today's money.)

I'm not complaining about the immigrants, or the rise in people. There should be at least some backing in gold, even if we don't use traditional precious metal coins. As I've been saying, our current dollar is based on bad debt, why do you think its much better to have fiat money based on a negative money figure, rather than adding some stability and balance to that supply?
To me, it's more insane to suggest paper back by private banks, has any sort of value. Especially when they print 1 trillion a year, and that figure keeps going up.

We're not better off today-- think about this, we made pennies out of steel in WWII to save on money. The Fed was recently considering going back to steel, but today is costs more than a penny, just to manufacture a steel penny. This is because the more they print, the higher prices go up. You're acting like we have to print to maintain this extravagant existence, but, I'm saying we must have some stability to avoid this hyper inflation we're experiencing. I mean, milk is higher than gas, there are hidden taxes on coffee and, the price of simple things have just skyrocketed.

Many people can't afford all those things. Especially not where I live in NY. Every middle and working class person I know are living just to pay their bills, and don't have extra money to fool around with.

Inflation is causing prices to go up, while the wages of the middle and working class stay the same. Sure, this system is fine for businessmen and politicians, but it's causing greater disparity on individuals who work for a living wage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ehh77k0rgPs#t=155

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XmSIuTqZBc"]Congressman Ron Paul grills Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke - YouTube

Cars today cost about that amount. Any halfway decent car anyway. Unless you want a kia for $15,000.

Still, that's alot of inflation. If you're argument is that there's not enough silver, well then we should have a Public Reserve, which is transparent and, has some types of limitations. We can base it off the gold in fort knox, but make it equivilant to the money today. Let's say we have 1 million bullions and 17 trillion dollars, (as an example then, the money is actually based on something, has true value and, a private business cant devalue our money.

This is just a 5 second idea, but it's still better than the system we have where inflation is driving prices up exponentially, and a private business can print out trillions and give it to overseas banks..


I'll put my money on gold, rather than the word of big bankers..

 

There's so many issues with the official story of 9/11. I mentioned one, out of hundreds. But, the link you've provided doesn't even account for many of the issues.

The official story says the jet fuel leaked down the elevator shaft, and that caused the towers to fall straight down like that. The fact is that steel structured buildings have been hit by planes and burned 15 hours, without collapsing.

it also didn't mention that many of the alleged hijackers, ended up being alive afterward.

Or all the stories surrounding the Pentagon, which virtually make no sense at all, like the fact expert pilots have attempted that angled turn, and have failed.

Not to mention there were HUGE insurance policies taken out on American Airlines and the

http://www.trutv.com/conspiracy/government-lies/911-10yrs/part-1.html

We all have opinions, all me and mountain wolf are doing is conversing. Neither of us are forcing our views, just expressing our opinion. You're welcome to join if you'd like.


This was about Libertarianism, idk how it became about gold, but we can talk about anything related to it.

 

What would could the gold standard look like if we could ship Gold physically overnight from say England to the States? Seriously, somebody buys the gold for you by information, but the selling back for the profit would be made in the morning after a Concord jet flight from around four at Heathrow. The difference mean something because it needs to be physically flied over; constantly. This is an environmental question.

 

I would be supporting Bush's insurance and energy policy.

 

Ahh, he signed off with answering me.

Me Again- This video is long, but this is a licensed engineer talking about 9/11 also..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drg9bVqCZdA"]9/11 Conspiracy (Undeniable Evidence) | FULL DOCUMENTARY - YouTube

 

Ok hopefully we can move on beyond the liberal vs democrat talk. Yes liberals and leftists also have a shadow and do shadow projection---it is human nature. But there is a correlation between a regressive and repressive personality and a larger shadow-ego complex. Yes, as I pointed out later, socialism and communism are an aspect of the left (though communism is ideally not totalitarian and has never existed, but it is based mistaken premises and is a failed concept).

I am a liberal and I think government is too big. Anarchism, for example, is not a conservative or right wing ideology.

Religious ideals, morality, either way you are placing your standards and mores on everyone else. Sperm are living things too, shall we stop all forms of male masturbation? Oh wait a minute---the egg is a living cell too---now we have to stop menstruation... Ok---I'm not really going to get in an argument over what is right or wrong---but I will say this, it is an extremely tough decision for any loving mother with a conscience who has to deal with the question of abortion. This is a dark chapter in many women's lives who could see no choice for whatever reason or situation they faced. In Japan there are very few moral issues with early term abortion, and it is far more common than it is here. But even there it is a tough decision for mother's to make, and haunts them afterward for a long time. I have an ex-sister-in-law who faced that, and it still hurts her. My stepdaughter faced that, and it still hurts her. Ask any women you meet who has had an abortion, and most, if not all will not see it as an easy decision, and will still feel a loss over that.

You always talk about liberals say this or that----but seriously, the fact that a pregnancy should be prevented is the response all my conservative friends make----how would we prevent that? I guess it will be up the government and the churches...??? Of course many of those same conservatives want to stop funding for contraceptives, and stop sex education, or the handing out of condoms in schools (Meanwhile Sweden has a much lower teen pregnancy rates and they start sex education much earlier, have government funded contraception, etc. etc.) The fact is unwanted pregnancies happen because sex happens. Sex happens because people have a natural tendency to become horny... even, surprisingly or not, teenagers.

Abortion is a form of legitimizing population control? Ok---you caught me---I force all my mistresses to abort their babies because it is so much easier to kill a 3 month old fetus than to raise a child that my wife will find out about, or even ship them off to an orphange. So far I have saved the American economy from taking care of 45 unwanted babies... (and that is only in the last year...) Seriously------if this is the birth control of choice---such probably not raise a child anyway. Most women who receive abortions would not want that choice anyway---but it is the only way they see to deal with it.

Snowden informed us of the domestic and foreign spying by the NSA and other agencies? Where have you been the past few years? Snowden only provided details, but I certainly was aware of this issue for some time.

So civil liberties rather than the issue of Obama's birth is more important to you. But I'm not talking about you----are you in Washington fighting to end it? There are far too many people who are wrapped up in conspiracy theories and wasting the time of the masses. Politically we now are faced with people that buy into the conspiracies, and those who think they are crazy---that doesn't leave too many people to actually focus on the real problems, nor to take the real problems seriously when there is so much BS----that is my point.

Yes---I don't like the government stance on drones. That needs to be stopped.

If Obama is so terrible who should we have voted in? What about the Patriot Act and Bush, what about the abuse of power that Bush and Cheney engaged in, and the secret moves against the constitution.

Anyway----lets stop playing in the rec room, and go sit at the adult table now:

So you don't think that we shouldn't trust the government with wage growth. That is a good point except for one thing---who should be responsible for that? Big business has certainly not stepped up to the plate. Unions? No that's liberal, and today they are mostly in bed with business. The 1%, the people in control---they clearly have the ideas reflected in the insensitive statement, Let them eat cake (that became the rallying cry of the French Revolution).

As far as gold---see my next post. But you are right--gold does have value, but as a commodity---it is subject to supply and demand. It has value in jewelry making, it has value for its use in the computer industry, etc. It is also a dwindling resource---not to the extent of others, but it is just the same, that raises its value. But its value in terms of a medium of exchange is still an abstract value. If we were faced with a true economic collapse---where food, water, and medicine were in high demand, gold would be no better than any other medium of exchange.

I don't pay attention to what the Fed might be or what it might do, or what secrets they might have, or devious plans they might be making. I only pay attention to what it has done and what it is doing. They have acted very studious with the US economy. They have provided stability during a century and a little over a decade of mostly strong growth. It was a far cry from the volatility of the US economy during the 1700's and 1800's. They just recently kept us out of a depression from the very kind of economic calamity that creates depressions. We are decades ahead of the Japanese in dealing with a very similar economic crisis.

I find the idea of a one world government to be pretty crazy. But I find the idea of a one world currency as utterly ridiculous. Look at the problems that the EU is having trying to spread a single currency across just a handful of nations. I predicted that back in the 1980's when it was conceived. I don't think this is an understanding garnered from living, working, traveling in so many distant lands----I mean---it should be common economic sense sense each country faces unique forces of supply and demand, interest rate structures, economic and business risk, business standards, liquidity issues, and so many other problems that a one-size-fits-all currency is plain stupid.

And what about the questions I brought up in my original couple of posts regarding Libertarianism?

 

One world government is an environmentalist idea. In that perspective it is not so crazy. Beyond a shadow of a doubt IT IS NOT a libertarian idea.

 

But a lot of conspiracy theorists are claiming that this is the big plan.

 

I just wanted to add that contrary to what 25 is saying, the US dollar is strengthening and the value of gold is dropping.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kitcone...-stronger-u-s-dollar-rebound-in-stock-market/

This article was from yesterday, btw.

 

Well, that's not entirely true. Communist Russia is one example.

I'm close to Anarchism, with the exception of a government that protects life, liberty and, property. The reason I say I lean to the right is because I want a small government that respects civil liberties and human rights.

A baby is a baby. It's totally different to kill a child. It takes 2 people to have a baby, so why is it only the woman's choice, and not the males too?
What I'm saying is that Humans have the Right to life, and abortion denies living infants of that right. I'm not placing "my" standards on others, I'm defending human life. It wouldn't be right for me to murder my child because it was an inconvenience, and it's not right for a woman to, either.

Because it is a loss. I had a woman have an abortion with my child, and I went through the entire grieving process. God knows I didn't want to have a child, but even adoption would've been more humane then killing an innocent child. I believe it is a hard decision, and many women are filled with fear or emotion, and they want an easy way out. That adds to why I feel the way I do, and I think the government only allows it, because it's sanctioned population control, without them actually having to force it down our throats. It doesn't make it morally right, and I think the loss these women feel is just more evidence of that.

You're still debating with me like I'm Republican, when Ive clearly stated I'm not.

I'm all for sex education, and I grew up in a time where they weren't allowed to mention condoms in school. A kid mentioned condoms, and the teacher gave us this long speech about how it was inappropriate.

But no, I don't think government should pay for contraceptives, nor do I think churches should be forced to. When the government subsidizes charges, it makes prices go up for everyone else. Not to mention it is the taxpayer paying for it anyway.

Birth control, plan b and, condoms is plenty of protection outside of abortions, and I think women should take the proper steps to protect themselves. I don't think that burden should be pushed on the taxpayer, cause again, that's expanding government, raising taxes and, it's not my responsibility to protect other individuals from pregnancy. It's their own responsibility.

I get that. I meant the government legitimizes it, and expand womens time to make the choice, to lower population levels.

I have too, but I'm saying that the government and the mainstream media, hardly gets into any of that. I remember hearing about the patriot act with Bush, but the young turks and RT is the only media stations who actually show where Obama violates the Constitution. Judge Andrew Napalitano did on his old show on fox business, but was abruptly fired despite high ratings.

CNN,MSNBC and ABC, wont even get into Obamas abuse of our civil liberties. (idk about domestic spying, because I dont watch them everyday)

I think you're making a mistake assuming all conspiracy theories are BS. JFK for example, where 53% of the public believe there was another shooter, and we didn't get the whole story. There's alot of evidence to back that.

And the government, in a declassified document "operation northwoods," wanted to commit terrorist attacks in the US, and blame it on Cuba. The fact is, we don't know alot of what the government does, and we don't know what the Bilderbergs do behind closed doors, when the most powerful people get together and discuss world policy. We do know Obama (when he first got into office) ditched dozens of reporters on his plane, and instead went to a bilderberg meeting. A lot of what they're doing doesn't make sense at face value, and I do believe people shouldnt swallow what they say whole.

I wouldn't have voted for either politician in the 2 main parties. I supported Ron Paul, and later Gary Johnson, when they kicked Paul's delegates out of the RNC.

Romney wrote Obamacare, he supported the NDAA, and was virtually no different than Obama.

I think I said we trust government to do things like this thinking they're gonna make it better, but they end up making it worse. I think people shouldn't work for less than what they know is a fair and livable wage. I wouldn't work for less than $9.75 an hour, unless there was no income tax.
That's not even really a livable wage, if you don't have a support system. But for me, that's fair. But, the 7.75 the government labels minimum wage, isn't even enough to pay rent here in NY.

But, it still would be a medium of exchange, and the paper dollar wouldn't.

The UN is basically a world government.

They need to stop panic and maintain their control somehow. What do you think they'd do if the dollar were to collapse? They're still going to want to print endlessly, and they'd need a new vessel to accomplish that, if the dollar collapsed.

I agree about the EU, it is a mess. But, I think that's because they're already printing tons of it out, bailing out countries and probably businesses, and many of those people want their old currency back.

I'm not saying it's gonna work perfectly, only that they want to maintain their counterfeiting scheme.

yeah, sorry- I moved 800 miles away and, I've been really busy.

I'm still gonna answer, but not now cause Ive been typing 2 hours.
I'm gonna go watch The Simpsons for a bit- Ill reply later or tomorrow, but you will get a reply.

 

You still don't understand the implications of the gold standard on a currency.

Precious metals do not have some magical value that because they are made of something other than paper, they are special. They are valuable only in terms of supply and demand. A value of exchange is an abstract value. A dollar is worth anything on the value meal at McDonald's or any other fast food place. A dollar is worth a third of a gallon of gas (here in Colorado). A dollar is worth what ever I can buy for a dollar. In 1920, a dollar was worth whatever you could get for a dollar at that time. And there is a whole economic, psychological and philosophical structure that goes into creating that value, and as an abstract value, gold does nothing other than to give a psychological credence to that value. It does not give it a physical value. Even under the gold standard there were times when money was worthless---because it didn't matter to the people that a piece of paper was backed by some piece of metal in a reserve, and there were bank runs and so forth.

Gold has value as long as value is placed on it. The US Dollar like any other value of exchange also has value as long as value is placed on it.

Is the dollar being printed without stop? If that was true it would have created a global economic collapse a long time ago. Yes, the dollar, and most other major currencies has expanded incredibly since 2007. This was in order to save us from a much more horrible collapse. There is a huge amount of US debt, as well as global debt. Debt is a horrible nasty thing. The fact that we did not fall into a global depression says that the world money supply increased enough. The fact that we didn't experience the horrible price inflation that all those gold bugs and so forth have been predicting since 2008, tells us that we didn't print too much. I can still go into a Dollar store and buy all of the same things for a dollar each that I could in 2007. Gas is even a bit cheaper then in 2007.

There is not enough gold that has been mined and is still believed to be under the ground to back the total money supply today of the US Dollar.

So what is the answer---give it a partial backing? What does that do? It gives it an artificially induced value---that is much less than its present abstract value. Suddenly we have arbitrageurs pushing the value of the currency down to its new intrinsic value---the value of its backing, the government has to step in to support the currency to prevent economic collapse. Why do you think in the days of the Gold Standard the arbitrageurs were considered as a bunch of evil vermin born of the seed of Satan himself.

Shall we create a new currency that is backed by the current gold reserves? Talk about population control----what did you not get about the part where I talked about the growth of both the population and the currency? If we create a new currency that is backed by gold how will there be enough currency to go around in a population and economy that is much bigger than the one we had in even the 1960's, when we were struggling to try to make some kind of gold standard work.

Or perhaps we should create a basket of commodities to back the currency-----but that does not solve the real point that I was making----it is not a question of whether there is enough gold, or silver or unobtainium (or whatever they called that in Avatar). A reserve currency puts a restraint on a currency that was fine when the economy and the population grew only so much (actually it wasn’t even fine then because any time the money supply grew bigger than the reserves it caused the economy to fall). But it could only grow as fast as reserves could be increased.

Now here is the folly that a couple of Swiss economists who were very well paid by the Swiss banks that hired them---has tainted economics with ever since: The idea that easy money created all the panics that resulted in economic collapse that only the gold reserves could protect from. That was true as long as it was the result of greed and avarice, and speculators and other wealthy individuals were pushing to increase the money supply for personal gain, and the governments abided. But it was not true at all when the economy and population was growing faster than the reserves could be increased. In fact, this would happen without governments even realizing what was happening. A whole school of economics grew out of Swiss Bankers wanting to hold the gold of the global wealthy. That is, a whole school of economics that believed that inflation and economic problems was the result of easy money, and completely ignored the fact that it was also too often the result of maintaining a reserve-backed currency. Though, in all fairness much of this school was built of pseudo-economists---out to sell a bunch of books. But this concept did influence a number of real economists and tainted our views on inflation for many years.

Inflation is, strictly speaking by its definition per classic economics, the growth of the money supply---nothing else. (Today it is also used to refer to rising prices, which is how I mostly use it---but generally speaking---one usually causes the other). Do you think that we could survive in today’s economy with today’s population using only the money supply of the 1920’s when cars were only $875?

No, it would be impossible. In fact, decades ago most of the population would have starved off, because there wouldn’t be enough money to go around. And businesses never would have created all the amenities that we take for granted today---such as an intercontinental highway, and just about all the technology and medicine, and most of the inventions we have come up with since the 1920’s. Whether it was demanded by the market, or demanded by the military, it took lots of money. So we pay $18,000 for a new car that is roughly the equivalent of a Model T in the 20’s. At today’s wages it is about as difficult to buy as it was in the 1920’s----so just because we spend more, we also make more, and it is just as difficult to buy----so what is the real difference?

The dollar lost value because you can’t buy a car for $825? Since 2007, a dollar will still buy basically what it did back then---so how did it lose value? Are you talking about against foreign currencies? The US has artificially kept the dollar low to strengthen our own economy---the export sector and US multinationals have done very well since, and including in, 2008. This is due to the dollar. The fact is, it is a hard battle, because the dollar has a lot of upward pressure. This is also part of the Fed’s attempts to maintain low interest rates, and why Geitner played with fire by accusing the Chinese of currency manipulation for simply pegging the Yuan to the Dollar----that is not manipulation----we were manipulating it downward. Why else whould we care what the Chinese do. We played the same game with the Japanese in the 80’s.

All the goldbugs have been predicting the collapse of the US economy since the 1970’s (mostly to sell books, mind you…), and many more for even longer claiming that we were using easy money even when we were on the gold standard (for the same reason), and yet we have seen incredible economic growth since the 70’s----just look at the chart of the Dow that fraggle rock provided. That is the kind of economic growth when you do not take an abstract value (currency) and limit it to another abstract value that is created as a backing (gold or any other backing).

No---I am not. And I also do not believe that the government printing presses are pushing out money like candy from a candy factory. Money supply growth has been decreasing. However, as I pointed out earlier, had we acted properly with the TARP on the first vote, we would never have needed to spend so much money to support the economy----and that was the mistake of the Bush Administration.

Hyperinflation???? I take it you are too young to remember the late 70’s and early 80’s. That was hyperinflation. There is plenty of news on why Milk is higher. We are now eating the beef, pork, and chickens, that were fed when Bush’s misguided energy policies on corn raised corn prices skyward. Many tomatoes rotted on the vine in the Nation’s tomato capital due to lack of migrant workers from anti-imigration policies. There are plenty of reasons why consumers are spending more. But inflation is nonetheless fairly mild.

But I bet you have a cell phone, right? And how about wifi? Do you have a PS2 or PS3 or an X-Box? I bet if you were suddenly thrust back to the 1920’s you’d be very bored and feel life was terribly inconvenient.

Here is part of the real problem---and it is not about the dollar being worth far less than a McDouble at McDonald’s. It is that the very wealthy are taking home far more of America’s money than 80 – 90% of the rest of America is. Wages of most Americans compared to the wealthy have dropped steadily since the 1980’s. Since the early 80’s inflation has been consistently very low, meanwhile the money supply grew---this means it has been growing to meet the demands of a fast growing economy. (Then in 2008 it had to grow sharply to prevent a depression). But who was benefitting the most from this growing economy? (Hint: it has to do with the ones who take more and more of America’s money each year).

By the way---I didn’t watch the Ron Paul Video----I saw the actual Senate hearings and remember them well.

But basically, I am not even mildly impressed by Ron Paul. Yes---he sounds intelligent when he speaks----so I tried to give him a chance I read his book on the Fed, and a few others-----at first, like I said, to give him a chance----then later it was simply for a laugh and to debunk him to those who wanted to argue his worth with me. I cannot understand how anyone can claim to study economics as a hobby, and yet be so ignorant of actual economics. At first I thought it was his age---but no---he has always held these beliefs----but I know what books he’s studied when he claims to be studying economics. I actually have many of them in my library---like I said in my twenties I explored all that.

Meagain said that all of this stuff needs to be researched and so forth. I was paid a 6-digit income to research this stuff. I can doig out the facts and the figures. I don’t have access to all my old research reports. Many of them were property of Shearson Lehman and I have lost them moving between countries. (And by the way---I was not paid to push any investments or whatver---I felt very fortunate to work in Tokyo where my research was free to come to my own conclusions and not to support any investment bank directives). I have tons of research on floppy disks---unfortunately I don’t have any way to access that now---I should convert it. That comes from my own research for a book that I was working on years ago----I never finished it, I returned to the US and no longer had time---then everything I was forecasting already happened. In my last position too I was able to continue with my research---but I am retired now.

But I can provide charts, and data to back up everything I am saying----I think I can find a report on the Gold Standard I put out a while back that has all kinds of data backing up these things.

 

Ok---I'll have to go through my assertions and statements---I can back all of it up (there are a lot of them), but it might take a while.

Regarding my statement that older economies were based on subsistence farming, with individuals that are more self sufficient, in economies that had much less dependence on the market than in modern times---a great reference which Meagain will be well aware of, is Alvin Toffler's, The third Wave, pp. 37 - 39.

My assertion that the original Gold Bugs were hired by Swiss Banks came from two sources. One was an analyst who worked at Union Bank of Switzerland, the other was an old book that he referred me to. I'll have to find that, or perhaps another source. I originally published it in a special report for Shearson Lehman Hutton in 1988: 'Gold and why we can never return to the Gold Standard.' All my sources were cited. I doubt I still have a copy but I will dig around for it. This also had a lot of the other information I have shared here on the Gold Standard. (Come to think of it, there is information on the connection to the original Gold Bugs in a museum of the history of one of the Swiss Banks).

Here is something more recent on my assertion that the US money supply is too big to be covered by existing Gold reserves. It is from a special report I did on my own Newsletter (The Rebel Wolf Formation), but it includes more modern source material (Special Report: The Gold Standard--or how hard is it to mine Unobtanium? April 3, 2012):

"According to the US Debt Clock website as of April 3rd, 2011 the estimated remaining global gold reserves is at: 1,688,114,300 oz

The US holds (also based on the US Debt Clock): 286,918,987 oz
This is the largest holding of any country listed under Gold Holdings under the US Debt Clock.

According to the March 29, 2012 Federal Reserve Statistics Release, our Money Supply as measured by M2 is: 9.785 Trillion

If we use the recent price of gold: $1,700.

The amount of Gold Reserves required to back M2 is: 5,755,882,353 oz almost 3 ½ times the known remaining global reserves.

Or, consider that in order for the current holdings of gold in the US to fully back our current M2 the price of gold would be: $34,105/oz

But the gold bugs would all answer back, ‘Of course! This is what we have been talking about for almost 40 years—the value is greatly devalued—especially in consideration of the recent deficit spending.’ So let’s jump back to right before the recent deficit spending.

Again, using the US Debt Clock we find that on March 29 2008, M2 was $7.7 Trillion

If we assume that the US gold holdings at that date were the same as the present holdings, the Gold price to back that M2 would still be: $26,838/oz.

Or, if we consider that gold was about $900 on that same date, it would require 8,560,000,000 oz of gold, or a little over 5 times today’s known global reserves.

In 2000 M2 was roughly half of what it is today, so even then we are talking about a price of roughly $17,000/oz using today’s reserves, or, if we used the price of $280, which was the approximate price around the beginning of June 2000, it would take 17,473,210,000 oz, or about 10 1/3 times today’s known remaining global reserves."


(The math is mine, but I'll leave anyone that wants to, the task of checking it.

There are numerous academic papers that discuss the gold standard and how it impacts an economy, and economic textbooks---one in particular that I lost in Japan, was 'Monetary & Fiscal Policy (I have the authors and some quotes written down somewhere in my research). But there is a video of Bernanke teaching a group of students at Stanford (I believe, maybe Harvard---I think Stanford). It is probably on Youtube and is very good. He explains how the Gold Standard creates short term volatility for long term stability, and how an economy runs into problems as it becomes larger than its reserves.

As to my assertion on how the Fed has done---here is a graph I made years ago---wholesale inflation from 1760 to 1993. The smooth wavy line is a decennial moving average (11 year moving average). The spiky line is inflation (yearly rates) in wholesale prices. Anything above zero is inflation, anything below zero is deflation. Notice how inflation smoothed out after the creation of the Fed. Check any good econmics text book for a discussion of inflation, and deflation. Galbraith's book on the Great Depression, I also have a set of encyclopedias from the 1920's that had a very good discussion on the economic turmoil of the 1700 and 1800's (I think they are Encyclopedia Americanas), Panics and Crashes by Harry D Schultz, there are numerous other sources as well (I'll have to dig them out of my library). The source of the WPI in the following chart is the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Statistics:

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53103&stc=1&d=1391245315


I'll continue later...

 

I said...

There's so many issues with the official story of 9/11. I mentioned one, out of hundreds. But, the link you've provided doesn't even account for many of the issues.

The official story says the jet fuel leaked down the elevator shaft, and that caused the towers to fall straight down like that. The fact is that steel structured buildings have been hit by planes and burned 15 hours, without collapsing.

it also didn't mention that many of the alleged hijackers, ended up being alive afterward. Despite the fact they found their passports intact blocks away from the WTC.

Or all the stories surrounding the Pentagon, which virtually make no sense at all, like the fact expert pilots have attempted that angled turn, and have failed.

Not to mention there were HUGE insurance policies taken out on American Airlines just months before

http://www.trutv.com/conspiracy/gove...rs/part-1.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by Number7
While President Bush conveniently had his hands full with elementary school children, Cheney ran the government from an underground control room on 9/11 because the executive order by the President four months earlier had permitted Cheney to bypass the previous protocol.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Number11
These theories couldn't be more instigated by the government's handling of surveillance video footage showing the moment of impact. Video analysts claim the government has cut frame 20 from the tape, which is rumored to show the object that struck the Pentagon. While the official report claims in was a plane, doubters say it was a missile.

 

You do seem more independent to me, because Liberals do typically want to take away guns, but yes, let's move past this...

Laws against bribery, fraud and, destroying other peoples property.

Ive said this before, but perhaps not to you, so Ill repeat it;I don't want to abolish food stamps right away, because I do see that government has caused this disparity in many ways- but, instead of focusing all the wealth to a centralized government system, I think the states should immediately take over the humanitarian spending, while we ween people off their dangerous dependency on the federal government.

When we are totally weened off of government dependency, I think people have a moral obligation to help others; Libertarians have a much better track record of doing that, than Liberals. If you see someone in need, buy them some food, if a family member is homeless, take them in. So many of these issues could be helped by that individuals friends and family, if only we wouldn't rely on government to take care of it. Afterall, government isn't helping homeless people.

These two statements are contradictory. When the fed prints money, it creates more inflation, and another bubble that is bound to burst at one point or another. This also hurts the middle class, as our money devalues quicker than it gathers interest, thus discouraging saving.

I don't believe in Reaganomics or "trickle-down economics," nor do I believe the rich should pay less than the regular person. But most liberals arent fighting for fair taxation, but rather fighting for more taxes and more government all around. This is why, (other than your support for Obama,) I don't really see you as a Liberal.

Liberals don't do anything for the middle class- taxes, inflation and, big government, has been destroying our middle class.

Obamacare and medicare is a better example of the wealthy taking advantage of the rest of the country. Medicare made prices go up, quality of care went down and there are less people on insurance today, then before the government got involved. Not to mention that all the biggest insurance companies (and Mitt Romney) were backing the ObamaCare bill.

No, it isn't- it's because when the government subsidizes these things like healthcare or college tuition, it makes prices go up, because they know the government will pay endless amounts of money. It's just another excuse to waste our money. This is why medical prices and college tuition is so high, and it's actually causing people to need government or they can't go to college, or pay their medical bills. Free market competition would reverse these dangerous trends, while more government subsidize will continue raising prices and thus our taxes.

If the bailout money had went to the people, instead of a few elite banks, it'd be 20 grand per person. Instead, we bailed out many of the same banks who control the federal reserve, and caused the market collapse to begin with. Getting rid of fraud bankers, wouldn't have hurt us. Other banks would've built up, and probably had taken over. Instead, we bailed out the corrupt banks, and they bought up all their competition, and stockpiled their bank accounts, fired people and, stopped giving loans. This contributed to the transfer of wealth to the top 1%

According to the Government it's high, but I'm sure since you watch Cspan so much, you remember Ron Paul talking to Bernanke and saying...
"Do you do your own shopping?"
“OK. So you’re aware of the prices. But, you know, this argument that the prices are going up about 2%- nobody believes it. You know, the old CPI says prices are going up by 9% so they believe this. People on fixed incomes, they’re really hurting. The middle class is really hurting because their inflation rate is very much higher than the government tries to tell them and that’s why they lose trust in government.”

We've been in circles on this issue. Big Business gets benefits from the government. They're not going to be able to dump waste, start wars, get government bailouts/benefits or, get tax cuts in their favor. There's laws against bribery,fraud and, dumping- without a centralized government to bribe, they wouldnt have the power they do today.

Why do you think all the bankers and lobbyist were behind Obama and Romney, but most of Dr. Pauls donations came from active duty military? Because our views don't help the rich. But, we also don't punish them for being rich. The fair tax (23%,) is higher than what most of them pay today. Especially since the top 900 richest Americans dont even pay social security.