Jon Stewart sticks up for Ron Paul.

[IceBergSLiM]

Hard currencies are good for growth in the short term, but they are huge drivers of policy instability in the member states, which is what leads countries to abandon it. The hallmarks of the gold standard were huge boom and bust cycles, bank panics, social instability, etc.

There have been a number of efforts to implement the gold standard due to the obvious advantages of fixed trade ratios and the economic activity it encourages. The disadvantages were just too awful a price to pay for it however, so everyone stopped using it.

And they lived happily ever after.

 

[momeNt]

Hard currencies are good for growth in the short term, but they are huge drivers of policy instability in the member states, which is what leads countries to abandon it. The hallmarks of the gold standard were huge boom and bust cycles, bank panics, social instability, etc.

There have been a number of efforts to implement the gold standard due to the obvious advantages of fixed trade ratios and the economic activity it encourages. The disadvantages were just too awful a price to pay for it however, so everyone stopped using it.

Everywhere you have gold standard in this statement needs to be replaced with central bank and I think you then have accurate statements.

The boom bust cycles have been due to central banking policies expanding the supply of money and credit. The roaring 20's easy credit policies of the fed eventually led to the crash of 1929.

All the downfalls of a gold standard that you point out are falsely attributed.

 

[matt0611]

I don't even like Ron Paul, and I couldn't help but want to punch that CNN guy at the end in the face.

Yeah...I'm actually surprised how blatant their bias is.

 

[Genx87]

What are you basing your idea of the current money system being a failure on? Furthermore, on what basis are you arguing that a hard currency standard would be superior? Do you believe it would lead to a better standard of living for people? Better GDP growth? More social stability? What?

Really? Where have you been the last few years? I didnt say his system is better at all. Only pointing out the pot meeting the kettle and calling it black.

 

[fskimospy]

Everywhere you have gold standard in this statement needs to be replaced with central bank and I think you then have accurate statements.

The boom bust cycles have been due to central banking policies expanding the supply of money and credit. The roaring 20's easy credit policies of the fed eventually led to the crash of 1929.

All the downfalls of a gold standard that you point out are falsely attributed.

Well you better go inform mainstream economics that they've got it all wrong. Same with almost all modern political economy theory as well. But hey, Ron Paul has a blimp.

 

[momeNt]

Urgh, so much bad information here.

- Low, but steady inflation is a good thing for economies, and fiat currency is far better for accomplishing this.
- The gold standard shackles responses to economic emergencies, making effective action more difficult.
- The gold standard's effect on government policy led to widespread volatility in their behavior due to the constraints on fiscal and monetary policy, leading to enormous social and economic problems.

I love how the universal abandonment of an idea is the result of some worldwide conspiracy as opposed to the recognition that the idea was bad.

Economic emergencies are by and large caused by the very same economic establishment that would be the one responding to it! Central banks inflating the supply of money and credit during times where the market is not calling for it encourages bad investments which leads to violent corrections.

Your first point on inflation is probably read off the federal reserves website. It wasn't until we introduced the ability to inflate the supply of money and credit (inflation) that we got the great depression. http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_charts/yearly_graphs.plx

almost 100 years of no inflation with commodity backed currency. It sucks to find a 20$ bill that you lost in the closet and 10 years later it only buys half of what it used to....

 

[momeNt]

Well you better go inform mainstream economics that they've got it all wrong. Same with almost all modern political economy theory as well. But hey, Ron Paul has a blimp.

I don't have to inform anybody. Just go look at the spot price of gold each day, market has spoken, its essentially the de facto reserve currency.

 

[fskimospy]

I don't have to inform anybody. Just go look at the spot price of gold each day, market has spoken, its essentially the de facto reserve currency.

No it isn't. You also might want to check the two periods under the gold standard and see if you can find any economic crisis in there. Also might want to read up on the great depression and the reserve limits that limited responses to it.

Gold bugs cling to the standard as an article of faith, because it seems like in their gut it should be right. We tried it, and it failed. Why we need to keep re-learning these lessons is beyond me.

 

[matt0611]

No it isn't. You also might want to check the two periods under the gold standard and see if you can find any economic crisis in there. Also might want to read up on the great depression and the reserve limits that limited responses to it.

Gold bugs cling to the standard as an article of faith, because it seems like in their gut it should be right. We tried it, and it failed. Why we need to keep re-learning these lessons is beyond me.

The contraction of the money supply wouldn't have been nearly as hurtful economically if it were not for the government trying to keep prices (and wages) artificially high. Just sayin...

We've only been on a pure fiat system for 40 years (40 years and 1 day to be exact, actually). The success of pure fiat remains to be seen IMO.

 

[momeNt]

No it isn't. You also might want to check the two periods under the gold standard and see if you can find any economic crisis in there. Also might want to read up on the great depression and the reserve limits that limited responses to it.

Gold bugs cling to the standard as an article of faith, because it seems like in their gut it should be right. We tried it, and it failed. Why we need to keep re-learning these lessons is beyond me.

Well, let's just wait until QE5 doesn't work before we finally abolish the fed, QE1 and QE2 failing isn't quite enough for people to form a conclusion, not to mention great depression, the early 80s recession and the 2008-20xx market wackiness.

 

[matt0611]

Well, let's just wait until QE5 doesn't work before we finally abolish the fed, QE1 and QE2 failing isn't quite enough for people to form a conclusion, not to mention great depression, the early 80s recession and the 2008-20xx market wackiness.

Don't forget the 70s stagflation.

 

[ElFenix]

because we never had booms and busts back when we were on the gold standard


oh wait

The contraction of the money supply wouldn't have been nearly as hurtful economically if it were not for the government trying to keep prices (and wages) artificially high. Just sayin...

wages in particular and prices in general are sticky downward. has nothing to do with government and everything to do with no one liking a pay cut.

 

[soulcougher73]

Well you better go inform mainstream economics that they've got it all wrong. Same with almost all modern political economy theory as well. But hey, Ron Paul has a blimp.

You have seen where this "mainstream economics" has gotten us havent you?

 

[matt0611]

because we never had booms and busts back when we were on the gold standard


oh wait






wages in particular and prices in general are sticky downward. has nothing to do with government and everything to do with no one liking a pay cut.

In general yes, but when the money contracts that bad it doesn't matter if people don't want a paycut, its either a paycut or you get let go. The government did not allow this. They were also not able to higher people at lower wages. Pay cuts are fine if prices are falling.

Contracting money supply with price and wage controls (as they did in the great depression) equals unemployment, who would have thunk it?

 

[momeNt]

because we never had booms and busts back when we were on the gold standard


oh wait

You are falsely attributing the great depression as a fault of the gold standard. The great depression was poor policies by the federal reserve in the 1920s which caused the crash in 1929, and then even worse policy in the early 30's which caused the great depression to last up until WWII.

While it is possible to make fiat currency work, it would take policies that are far more strict than anything we are willing to employ.

Milton Friedman on fiat and gold with respects to governments:

[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]if you could re-establish a world in which government's budget accounted for 10 percent of the national income, in which laissez-faire reigned, in which governments did not interfere with economic activities and in which full employment policies had been relegated to the dustbin, in such a world you might be able to restore a real gold standardŠ. A real honest-to-God gold standard is not feasible because there is essentially no government in the world that is willing to surrender control over its domestic monetary policy.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]


[/FONT]

 

[trenchfoot]

I'd vote for Ron over any other repub for one reason only: He appears to be the one lone repub with a mind of his own.

 

[xj0hnx]

There's a reason why every nation on earth abandoned this idea.

Sure is, greed, and easy free money/credit for all, future be damned. Idiot.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Well you better go inform mainstream economics that they've got it all wrong.

Economics is a social science. It's not infallible, and history is replete with examples of mainstream thought within every branch of science, especially the social sciences, being flat out wrong for decades. Your statement is an invalid argument from authority.

 

[fskimospy]

Economics is a social science. It's not infallible, and history is replete with examples of mainstream thought within every branch of science, especially the social sciences, being flat out wrong for decades. Your statement is an invalid argument from authority.

Of course it's not infallible. Their point is not certainly true but it is the best supported one available and therefore the most likely to be correct. That was of course the whole point.

You are attempting to perpetuate an idea that I see a lot on here, that somehow experts don't know any more than some idiot on the internet. Mainstream economics has come by its conclusions after thousands of man-years of intensive research, analysis, etc. If you wish to provide scientific evidence to counter the established orthodoxy, by all means do so, otherwise my argument to accept the conclusions of this well established viewpoint is not only quite valid, it is the most rational one to take.

In short, I don't think the argument from authority fallacy means what you think it does.

 

[BoberFett]

As usual, this thread has been derailed by the same type of people who would prefer Ron Paul just disappeared. So, to get it back on track...

Republicans and the media hate Ron Paul because he's not in their pocket. Small government conservatives and teabaggers should be voting for Paul in droves, but they flock to morons like Bachmann and Palin. Why? Because they're idiots who believe the hype that's spoonfed to them. Is Ron Paul perfect? No. But when debate moderators and the other candidates roll their eyes at the only Republican who isn't champing at the bit to keep invading one middle eastern country after another, it tells you everything you need to know about how stupid this country truly is. The US is getting exactly what it deserves.

 

[MotF Bane]

As usual, this thread has been derailed by the same type of people who would prefer Ron Paul just disappeared. So, to get it back on track...

Republicans and the media hate Ron Paul because he's not in their pocket. Small government conservatives and teabaggers should be voting for Paul in droves, but they flock to morons like Bachmann and Palin. Why? Because they're idiots who believe the hype that's spoonfed to them. Is Ron Paul perfect? No. But when debate moderators and the other candidates roll their eyes at the only Republican who isn't champing at the bit to keep invading one middle eastern country after another, it tells you everything you need to know about how stupid this country truly is. The US is getting exactly what it deserves.

And those of us who vote better get fucked by the ignorant rabble.

 

[bfdd]

eskimospy you sound like a fucking moron "hard currency is better for short term, not long term" well we've been doing the fiat currency long term, doesn't seem to be working all that well. We look back to the times of our hard currency and we see larger leaps of growth in the USA than under a fiat currency. It's ok though, you're just a party line tower. Slightly smarter than the rest, but you're still just a lemming towing a line.

 

[bfdd]

And those of us who vote better get fucked by the ignorant rabble.

That's why we have guns. So when those we didn't vote for come after us, we can show them exactly how we vote.

 

[momeNt]

As usual, this thread has been derailed by the same type of people who would prefer Ron Paul just disappeared. So, to get it back on track...

Republicans and the media hate Ron Paul because he's not in their pocket. Small government conservatives and teabaggers should be voting for Paul in droves, but they flock to morons like Bachmann and Palin. Why? Because they're idiots who believe the hype that's spoonfed to them. Is Ron Paul perfect? No. But when debate moderators and the other candidates roll their eyes at the only Republican who isn't champing at the bit to keep invading one middle eastern country after another, it tells you everything you need to know about how stupid this country truly is. The US is getting exactly what it deserves.

Excellent post.

If only Paul was better looking and had a deeper voice, and use the Clinton-thumb to his advantage, this recipe makes all your points heard and wins the sheeple.

 

[BoberFett]

And those of us who vote better get fucked by the ignorant rabble.

Which is why some of us want as small a government as possible to carry out the functions deemed most important by the Constitution.

In other words: That government is best which fucks us least.