That's like dave predicting oil is going to hit 200 with no timeline. It's inevitable that a looney gets one of his predictions "right."
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That is totally subjective. Didn't 9/11 prove that not having a "navy or air force" you can still do tremendous damage? You can't go back in time, not invade, and rerun the scenario to see if it would have yielded a better result. You don't know if our lack of action against belligerent dictators would have emboldened evil around the world. Imagine all the hundreds of thousands of terrorists that we killed or blew themselves up in Iraq, where would they be today? No point debating, just like my speculation is pure speculation, your claim that we would be better off is also speculation. Doesn't make RP right or wrong on that case.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c...ft-house-bailout-plan/
Draft of the House's version of this bailout. They have a very very long way to go. The claw back provisions and golden parachute provisions are laughably weak. These guys are not serious....What wusses.....
-Robert
Draft of the House's version of this bailout. They have a very very long way to go. The claw back provisions and golden parachute provisions are laughably weak. These guys are not serious....What wusses.....
-Robert
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6epCVUppjJM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCnzr566RR0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTljuxZYJ9I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgCq75g_M7Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgK0vHZtwno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e9sPjflrxc
He has been saying the same shit since the late 70's and early 80's. So basically he has been utterly wrong up until this year. Congrats to him, he finally got it right after a quarter century of getting it wrong. Except he got it right for the wrong reasons. The old adage "Even blind squirrels find an acorn every now and then" is quite apt here.
Completely and utterly owned.
Here's my prediction.
I will go gray.
Hey, what do you know, I just found a gray hair!
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Yeah, everything up until this year has been beloved patriot-dory. :roll:
He hasn't been wrong. Look, 20-30 years really isn't a long time. What he is saying is that the Fed can keep trying to balance the economy here and there. And they can delay hard times, lowering interest rates, throwing new money into the economy, but in the long run there is a bigger cost to pay for it all, once the market overrides anything the Fed can throw at it. The USA has had 3 different Central Banks and been basically on and off the gold standard. Of course government loves the Fed, because it allows them to spend more money than they could otherwise. At our own peril mind you. Hell, it was Nixon who killed the fixed gold price so we could keep paying for Vietnam. A wonderful investment that was, btw.
Edit:
And to add, the links you posted are not directly related to this specific problem.
What I posted is, in particular this...
Now, I'm not trying to put Paul on a pedestal here because of this, because like LegendKiller has said previously, a lot of other people saw this coming, too. But for you to say "he's been wrong on everything" is nothing but total bullshit.
First
Lifer
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1982-2001 was the greatest financial and standards of living boom in U.S. history. This is fact, get used to it.
Since when? :roll:
Except this bolded part has never been observed in any real world setting. No empirical data suggests such a thing, it's merely hypothetical, unable to be tested. If you can come up with a way to support said hypothetical, by all means attempt to do so.
Vietnam was over with not more than 18-24 months after Bretton Woods was over with. Yet economists and financial experts still desired floating exchange rate fiat instead of fixed gold-backed currency (and Nixon did NOT just abolish gold-backed dollars due to Vietnam, that's an inane oversimplification). 1982-2001 (and the growth seen in 03-06 and part of 07) show fiat works.
Yes, they are. Paul argues to Volker in those videos (1983) on the need to return to gold-backed dollars due to what he deems as the inevitable debasement of the currency, incorreclty drawing an oversimplified relationship between money supply increases and inflation like it were an exact formula. He still makes the same inane mistakes today about the relationship of money supply and inflation, the only thing that has changed is the context of the financial crises that surrounded him during that time. He was saying the same shit during the 1987 crash.
I'm not saying 100% of the things he says have been wrong, I'm saying the vast majority of his economic policy arguments have stayed exactly the same since he came back to Congress in the mid-to-late 70's after he saw Nixon get rid of Bretton Woods. I provided irrefutable proof that his arguments haven't changed, and that merely the surrounding financial environment changed. There are a lot of things to like about Paul (his principled stance on liberty and gov't trampling those rights, speech, interventionism, etc.). His economic policy is basically dead last on the list of things he has a good track record on.
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Evan, you make some good points, and argue better than others. 
We'll have to agree to disagree here, because you're correct, I am arguing things that I can't show statistically. I'm glad you seemingly admire Paul for his non-economic stances. However because of his stances on those issues, his anti-state mentality, you can understand where he comes from economically. Even if a fiat system can work, and obviously it can in the short term, it just as well can be abused, at the peoples' peril. I'm sure you don't need examples of this.
We'll have to agree to disagree here, because you're correct, I am arguing things that I can't show statistically. I'm glad you seemingly admire Paul for his non-economic stances. However because of his stances on those issues, his anti-state mentality, you can understand where he comes from economically. Even if a fiat system can work, and obviously it can in the short term, it just as well can be abused, at the peoples' peril. I'm sure you don't need examples of this.
I'm sorry I just have to say I completely disagree with this statement. Ron Paul has consistently voted NO on almost all government spending. That's an excellent position if you ask me. The Government needs to realize it's limits, at least Paul stands up and says stop the madness most of the time. As far as his correlation to supply versus value or inflation he's mostly correct. Without severe intervention or forced valuation, increasing the supply of money will deflate it's value. Although we must remember how a country such as ours and one such as Rome artificially inflates the value of their currency.
First
Lifer
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Originally posted by: bamacre
Evan, you make some good points, and argue better than others.
We'll have to agree to disagree here, because you're correct, I am arguing things that I can't show statistically. I'm glad you seemingly admire Paul for his non-economic stances. However because of his stances on those issues, his anti-state mentality, you can understand where he comes from economically. Even if a fiat system can work, and obviously it can in the short term, it just as well can be abused, at the peoples' peril. I'm sure you don't need examples of this.
I agree it can be abused, but IMO (and that stats back this up) the fiat system can be abused in a way that leads to more booms than busts, providing net increases in standards of living and wealth that exceeds the potential of fixed exchange rate gold-backed U.S. dollars.
I don't consider gov't spending to be economic policy per se, though if you were to characterize it that way I wouldn't hold it against you. His stance on gov't spending is wonderful in many ways, but also terribly unrealistic in even more ways. He wants the literal abolishment of the IRS, CIA, Fed, etc., just totally insane stuff that couldn't ever possibly happen. He provides no sound argument for how that would be accomplished and over how long a time period it would need to happen to be accomplished. He's not a pragmatist, he's a principled ideologue.
Also, with regards to money supply increases, Paul is only partially correct. He consistently fails to note that we could perpetually increase the money supply and see deflation if the amount and frequency with which cash is spent/transacted (termed "velocity" in economics) were to increase at a proportionally higher rate. We let in 2 million legal immigrants every year, and hundreds of thousands of illegals, and that has the effect of balancing a lot of the Treasury's printing press increases. Not to mention foreign arbitrage of our dollars and the standardization of our dollar globally has the effect of keeping inflation extremely low. Notice that inflation has been remarkably consistent since the early 1980's, in fact it has been totally under control for a quarter century (consistently under 4% or something). That shows remarkable stability and engenders trust in the worthwhileness of our dollars. That is something that was never the case under Bretton Woods, which was being abused by the time the early 70's rolled around.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09...suskind.html?th&emc=th
Ron Suskind on how the Enron collapse relates to this tawdry tale of deceit and greed. A very interesting read.
-Robert
Ron Suskind on how the Enron collapse relates to this tawdry tale of deceit and greed. A very interesting read.
-Robert
Ron Paul has been saying we were on the wrong path and eventually we'd pay. So I can't see where you can say he has been "wrong for 30 years."
As for the idea that buying all these distressed assets will make us a guaranteed return of 4-8% --- this is some kind of Republican fantasy. Is there anybody so nuts as to believe that IF this were true, there'd be any need for a bailout? Private firms would be lining up to buy these assets for themselves. I agree that there is a best case scenario in which the government makes a positive return on the money, but anyone who thinks this likely has to also believe that all the profit maximizing firms in the world know less about the value of those assets than he/she does or are averse to making money.
As for the idea that buying all these distressed assets will make us a guaranteed return of 4-8% --- this is some kind of Republican fantasy. Is there anybody so nuts as to believe that IF this were true, there'd be any need for a bailout? Private firms would be lining up to buy these assets for themselves. I agree that there is a best case scenario in which the government makes a positive return on the money, but anyone who thinks this likely has to also believe that all the profit maximizing firms in the world know less about the value of those assets than he/she does or are averse to making money.
SP33Demon
Lifer
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Then how do you explain the participants of Bretton Woods II values' decrease against the Euro? I.E., a fiat system is only as good as perception, just as Paul has said all along (much of our dollar's "value" is due to our military might). Gold may not have a liquidity advantage, but it sure as hell is unbiased with respect to value. In addition, using the tech boom of 1997-2001 as an example of why fiat > gold is all completely theoretical. Just because gold isn't as liquid does not mean the tech boom would not have happened. Was Bretton Woods I the answer? Obviously not, but a combination of the gold standard w/ a fiat addendum to address your concern (increasing money supply) would be a hell of a lot better than what we have now. And it would hold a hell of a lot more accountability with regards to borrowing as well as restore more faith in our dollar. My .02.
Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Originally posted by: bamacre
Evan, you make some good points, and argue better than others.
We'll have to agree to disagree here, because you're correct, I am arguing things that I can't show statistically. I'm glad you seemingly admire Paul for his non-economic stances. However because of his stances on those issues, his anti-state mentality, you can understand where he comes from economically. Even if a fiat system can work, and obviously it can in the short term, it just as well can be abused, at the peoples' peril. I'm sure you don't need examples of this.
I agree it can be abused, but IMO (and that stats back this up) the fiat system can be abused in a way that leads to more booms than busts, providing net increases in standards of living and wealth that exceeds the potential of fixed exchange rate gold-backed U.S. dollars.
I don't consider gov't spending to be economic policy per se, though if you were to characterize it that way I wouldn't hold it against you. His stance on gov't spending is wonderful in many ways, but also terribly unrealistic in even more ways. He wants the literal abolishment of the IRS, CIA, Fed, etc., just totally insane stuff that couldn't ever possibly happen. He provides no sound argument for how that would be accomplished and over how long a time period it would need to happen to be accomplished. He's not a pragmatist, he's a principled ideologue.
Also, with regards to money supply increases, Paul is only partially correct. He consistently fails to note that we could perpetually increase the money supply and see deflation if the amount and frequency with which cash is spent/transacted (termed "velocity" in economics) were to increase at a proportionally higher rate. We let in 2 million legal immigrants every year, and hundreds of thousands of illegals, and that has the effect of balancing a lot of the Treasury's printing press increases. Not to mention foreign arbitrage of our dollars and the standardization of our dollar globally has the effect of keeping inflation extremely low. Notice that inflation has been remarkably consistent since the early 1980's, in fact it has been totally under control for a quarter century (consistently under 4% or something). That shows remarkable stability and engenders trust in the worthwhileness of our dollars. That is something that was never the case under Bretton Woods, which was being abused by the time the early 70's rolled around.
Yes of course increasing the supply of money in relation to the population is the ideal situation in a fiat system (hence why Friedman said let a computer control the interest rate not people). Unfortunately what this government has done though unsustainable debt appropriation has increased the supply far disproportionally in scale to the population/use of the currency. In order to retain value in the currency we have to artificially raise the use of the currency. The easiest way to do this is conquer a country or bully one into accepting our currency for their resources. As Paul has said, and is correct, we are Rome and Caesar can't stop stamping his tin coins. We are the benevolent conquerors who give you democracy and let you retain your culture and many of your leaders, we only ask you use to use our currency.
That is what Paul is saying, whether or not you believe it is your business. I offer you this though, proof the surge is working.......
http://www.factcheck.org/askfa...aying_factions_in.html
We look at all outlets of getting fresh new dollars anywhere in the world. If I could find the video of the army paying the insurgents again! These stacks of dollars they were paying them were fresh off the press. Paul is saying we are using the "Empire" scheme, he's either right or he's wrong, but I for one think what he's saying makes some sense.
You're right, war wasn't the only thing accelerating inflation in the 70s, LBJ had pointless social programs, too. Roundabout nonsense diluting the money supply to better stamp out poverty, or something. And yes, these combined caused reserves to dwindle and dollars to balloon, so Nixon suspended convertibility and imposed wage and price controls.
I don't even want to know how you're measuring cost-of-living standards. Or why you prefer the volatility of 20 year booms followed by 20 year busts. Guess which one we're about to go into right now?
So it can be manipulated to produce more booms then busts, but who profits the most from the booms? And who is harmed the most by the busts?
From my perspective it's going to be wealthy individuals with large amounts of capital to invest who benefit the most. This doesn't help the average American working a 40 hour work week any where near as much. Sure they see larger gains on what little savings they have, but this type of system rewards those who already have large sums of money to take advantage of these bubbles.
Then we look at who suffers the most when the bust comes. Again the average American working 40 hours a week is the one who suffers the most. Their jobs are gone, their small investments shrink, the prices of goods increases, etc. If they are really unlucky they lose significant portions of their investments when their home values go down and their retirement investments lose money.
This boom and bust economy leaves too much available for manipulation by the "investor class" of people and rewards these people much more than it rewards the average American worker.
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