Ron Paul is wrong, primarily because his policies are impossible to implement

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


I got through the first paragraph then realized the guy is a total loon.

"1. The Federal Reserve destabilizes the economy with its "boom and bust" monetary policy. This is hard to square with the fact that the longer the Federal Reserve has been in existance, the more stable the economy has been."

Anyone who is dumb enough to write something so blatantly stupid isn't worth reading.

The Atlantic typically hosts editorials by communists, socialists, and other completely discredited people.

Great depression, Jimmy Carter, Dot Com bust, and now the total implosion of everything.

More stable? Give me a break.


The BANKING SYSTEM has become more stable since the Fed took over, in the fact that banks don't go out of business anymore, they get bailed out at tax payer expense. The economy itself has become a basket case since the Fed took over. Tens of millions of people out of work, massive transfers of wealth to the political class, massive dislocation of jobs, rampant poverty, etc.. etc.. etc..

reply to post by mnemeth1

Originally posted by mnemeth1
I got through the first paragraph then realized the guy is a total loon.

Wow, you're not even going to address the points?
If the women is a 'loon' you should easily be able to dismantle her points.

"1. The Federal Reserve destabilizes the economy with its "boom and bust" monetary policy. This is hard to square with the fact that the longer the Federal Reserve has been in existance, the more stable the economy has been."

Anyone who is dumb enough to write something so blatantly stupid isn't worth reading.

Wow, so people who disagree with you are subject to ad hominem attacks.

The Atlantic typically hosts editorials by communists, socialists, and other completely discredited people.

Wow, so people who share different economic ideologies are completely discredited? You're not even attacking the arguments present, you're just doing the exact same thing you always do and you're name calling repeatedly.

Great depression, Jimmy Carter, Dot Com bust, and now the total implosion of everything.

More stable? Give me a break.

More stable than it was prior.

Now, when we went into the Great Depression, we were on the Gold Standard. Doesn't that sort of negate your entire argument? The first nation to abandon the Gold Standard was England in 1931 because there simply wasn't enough gold to give out when it was asked for.

And can you show me mathematically how the situation is less stable than it is now?

And weren't we talking about the gold standard?

This is the bit that refers to the gold standard and it's a simple yet compelling point.

7. Congress "should only permit currency backed by stable commodities such as silver and gold". Commodities, almost by definition, are not stable. The price of gold looks as if it used to be stable, because the dollar was fixed relative to an ounce of gold. This does not mean that its value relative to other economic goods was unchanged. You could fix your currency to the price of a bushel of wheat, and suddenly "wheat bugs" would be claiming that wheat is the only reliable, stable commodity in the world whose price never changes. That wouldn't stop fluctuating wheat supplies from whipsawing your economy back and forth. To be sure, the supply of gold changes more slowly than the supply of wheat. But demand for it is not so fixed.

The BANKING SYSTEM has become more stable since the Fed took over, in the fact that banks don't go out of business anymore, they get bailed out at tax payer expense.

How is something that happened very recently indicative of the history of an entire system and its history?

The economy itself has become a basket case since the Fed took over. Tens of millions of people out of work, massive transfers of wealth to the political class, massive dislocation of jobs, rampant poverty, etc.. etc.. etc..

Can you show me a causation between that and the Federal Reserve?

The tens of millions of people who are out of work could be so because businesses simply decided to cut expenses.

How does the 'political class' have a massive amount of wealth now?

The dislocation of jobs is because we aren't willing to work for pennies an hour to keep manufacturing.

Rampant poverty isn't really a problem, stop exaggerating. We have things worse than we used to, but we're far from impoverished.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

Rampant poverty isn't really a problem, stop exaggerating. We have things worse than we used to, but we're far from impoverished.

It is good that your family is not living in poverty and suffering a drastic reduction in standard of living.

Some good news is enjoyable these days; with 43 million Americans on food stamps to prevent the slow death of starvation and malnutrition, it is good to hear your family has not had to resort to the food stamps. This must make you so much more hopeful than those millions of poor people who cannot feed their families and that is good? no?

I'm happy for you.

reply to post by Exuberant1

Originally posted by Exuberant1
Some good news is enjoyable these days; with 43 million Americans on food stamps to prevent the slow death of starvation and malnutrition, it is good to hear your family has not had to resort to the food stamps.

My family was on food stamps for several years while I was a child. We were suffering because we were recent immigrants that didn't have an economic base or anyone to give us a hand because there weren't any people from our nation in the community. We worked our way out of it. My parents worked hard, saved up, and cared more about ensuring stability than having the highest standard of living possible with the money we had.

Unfortunately, simply saying that 43 million Americans are on food stamps doesn't mean that poverty is rampant. It simply means that a lot of individuals didn't put up enough savings to prevent having to go on food stamps the second the economy sputtered.

I'm not saying that they deserve to be on food stamps, but every family should plan for a rainy day. There's a point where personal responsibility comes into play.

This must make you so much more hopeful than those millions of poor people who cannot feed their families and that is good? no?

I'm happy for you.

Listen, my family got through everything with student loans, my father working three separate jobs (one of them required him to drive for several hours and cross the Missouri-Illinois border in the late evening) while getting two graduate degrees with my mother working yet another job. We had it tough, but we always saved up a bit of each paycheck. If you're not willing to save then something should be said for individual personal responsibility.

Your point is moot in pretending I'm somehow out of touch or implying some sort of heartlessness.
They aren't simply innocent victims, they should have prepared for this sort of thing. You can't simply go on living as if continual economic growth is the norm.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

The economy itself has become a basket case since the Fed took over. Tens of millions of people out of work, massive transfers of wealth to the political class, massive dislocation of jobs, rampant poverty, etc.. etc.. etc..

Can you show me a causation between that and the Federal Reserve?

Yes.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


Meltdown by Tom Woods is epic.

If you liked that, you'll love this:

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


You know, this is a text based forum and I'd honestly prefer typed answers. Sure, you can give a few links, but the policy on external links is that we're supposed to use them as supplementary material or a starting off point for a thread. It's also outright unfair to provide a video and expect it to have a typed response. I've taken two minutes of video and given a one thousand word response.

On top of that, for some reason, the video link you provided isn't working for me.

Using typed arguments supplemented with images or whatever, could you please show a direct causation between current economic woes and the Federal Reserve?

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by NewlyAwakened

 

You know, this is a text based forum and I'd honestly prefer typed answers. Sure, you can give a few links, but the policy on external links is that we're supposed to use them as supplementary material or a starting off point for a thread. It's also outright unfair to provide a video and expect it to have a typed response. I've taken two minutes of video and given a one thousand word response.

On top of that, for some reason, the video link you provided isn't working for me.

Using typed arguments supplemented with images or whatever, could you please show a direct causation between current economic woes and the Federal Reserve?

ok.

I wrote this article for Zero Hedge:

www.zerohedge.com...

US Household Net Worth Plunges

Since the beginning of the greatest depression, US household net worth has plunged nearly 11 trillion dollars. All the while we continue to experience price inflation and expanded government spending.

In a normal economy that isn’t run by a bunch of criminals, we should expect to see price deflation as malinvestment is wiped out. Since our money is based on debt, as debt is reduced though defaults and write-downs, the monetary base should contract, thereby leading to price deflation.

Of course, this is not what we are actually experiencing at the present moment since the criminal central bankers and politicians have decided to prevent the liquidation of malinvestment through a nearly endless series of bailouts, guarantees, and deficit spending.

Contrary to what the criminal Keynesians would have you believe, price deflation is a good thing. It does not lead to economic collapse. In a normal non-criminal monetary system, deflation will sink the paper money stock back down to the “real” money stock, which is a 1 to 1 ratio of paper issuance to the gold stock (or at least closer to this point).

There is some debate about how far the money stock would sink to in our current system of fraud and theft, but I personally think it would shrink until everything that can be considered waste is liquidated from the economy. At the most, it would shrink back down to the existing money stock we had prior to the abolition of the gold system back in the 1960s since this is the existing stock of money that is not based on debt (I highly doubt it would shrink this far though.) It should be noted that it takes very little fiat money to have a functioning economy since prices will adjust back down meet the amount of currency in circulation. As money becomes more scarce, prices will fall until a market balance is achieved between the demand for money and its supply. Once all the bad investments are liquidated, the economy will once again begin experiencing a normal demand for credit and lending can resume in a much more sane fashion.

In a non-criminal currency (ie. gold), inflation is caused by banks lending out more money than they have in gold reserves or by an increase in the gold stock. Business cycles are directly related to this fraudulent activity of excessive lending since the act of lending more paper money than the banks actually have in gold reserves artificially reduces interest rates, which leads to “booms” in the cycle.

These “booms” are when the malinvestment takes place due to excessively “cheap” money (credit) being available. Since money is cheap, investors are willing to take more risk than they otherwise would. The cheap cost of borrowing also sends a signal to investors that there is more capital goods available for future production than actually exists. Producers see the cheap rates and assume people have lots of savings available to spend on future consumption so industry reorganizes itself into the production of long term goods. Only later is it revealed that consumers are broke and the existing capital stock of goods that producers were relying on to finish their projects does not actually exist.

The “bust” is the market trying to correct this excessive lending and return itself to a proper ratio of gold to dollars. The “proper” ratio can be considered a point where all bad debts (malinvestments) have been cleared through defaults and write-downs.

In a totally unregulated system of gold back currency, the normal behavior of the economy is to experience constant DEFLATION. As the economy grows and becomes more productive, the value of the currency will INCREASE over time. A piece of gold will buy more and more goods as productivity increases. We should see constantly DECREASING prices, just as we see in the consumer electronics industry, due to technological innovation, competition, and increased efficiency.

The fact that we have not seen price deflation as household net worth has plumeted by nearly eleven trillion speaks volumes about the amount of fraud being conducted by the banks and criminal politicians. A reduction in a nominal net worth of 11 trillion dollars is only a big deal if it is NOT accompanied by deflation. Since we don’t have deflation – it’s a big deal.

Eventually, the market WILL win this fight. It is only a matter of time. The central bank and government will either wipe out the currency through the printing press, or they will allow the necessary deflation to occur and the debts to be cleared. If they wipe out the currency through the printing press, people will once again be forced to return to real money – gold.

Speaking specifically to the Fed's role in this, the Fed sets the reserve requirements and interest rates through open market operations.

By its manipulations, it can create the same artificially suppressed interest rates as we saw during the gold standard by manipulating reserve requirements and artificially driving down the cost of borrowing by flooding the market with "fake" money.

This creates the same effect as pyramiding on gold.

A distinction must be made between a real gold standard and the fake gold standard of America's past that allowed for fractional reserve pyramiding.

A real gold standard requires 100% reserve banking.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Let's see.

Oh wait, this is all your opinions. I'd like some data to back a monetary standard that's based on highly unstable commodities as a good idea.

I'd like to see some data to back a casual relationship between modern economic woes and the Federal Reserve.

Ideas can sound like they make sense all you want, but you'll need some data to prove causal relationships and other claims of the sort.

Also the fact that you make outrageous attacks on the current system by referring to it as criminal.

And specifically:

In a non-criminal currency (ie. gold), inflation is caused by banks lending out more money than they have in gold reserves or by an increase in the gold stock. Business cycles are directly related to this fraudulent activity of excessive lending since the act of lending more paper money than the banks actually have in gold reserves artificially reduces interest rates, which leads to “booms” in the cycle.

In a commodity standard market inflation and deflation can be caused by many other factors, like the discovery of new sources of this commodity, the amount in which it is traded on the open market, the amount that leaves and enters the nation, people redeeming currency for commodity, etc.

And furthermore, you can't note how the currency would be doing with regard to foreign economies.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
Speaking specifically to the Fed's role in this, the Fed sets the reserve requirements and interest rates through open market operations.

By its manipulations, it can create the same artificially suppressed interest rates as we saw during the gold standard by manipulating reserve requirements and artificially driving down the cost of borrowing by flooding the market with "fake" money.

This creates the same effect as pyramiding on gold.

A distinction must be made between a real gold standard and the fake gold standard of America's past that allowed for fractional reserve pyramiding.

A real gold standard requires 100% reserve banking.

Please show actual data to support this claim. You've got me listening, but unless you can show me something concrete there's no point in any of it.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


No, it is not my opinion.

If you want graphic proof of this business cycle explanation, Professor Roger W. Garrison has put together a fantastic demonstration.

www.zerohedge.com...



If you want a top to bottom treatise that provides a super-fine proof of this, read Rothbard's Man, Economy and State.
mises.org...

Inflation caused by an increase in the gold stock is accompanied by a few other factors though that make this far more tolerable.

New mining operations will not be undertaken unless they are deemed profitable by investors. This means the value of gold must have risen sufficiently by the smooth expansion of economic productivity before new mines will be opened.

As new gold is added to the stock, it will be at a rate that is in harmony to the productive expansion of the economy.

Further, gold is extremely scarce. Most of the worlds easily accessible gold has already been harvested. This naturally limits the rate of the gold stock expansion.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by NewlyAwakened

 

You know, this is a text based forum and I'd honestly prefer typed answers. Sure, you can give a few links, but the policy on external links is that we're supposed to use them as supplementary material or a starting off point for a thread. It's also outright unfair to provide a video and expect it to have a typed response. I've taken two minutes of video and given a one thousand word response.

On top of that, for some reason, the video link you provided isn't working for me.

Using typed arguments supplemented with images or whatever, could you please show a direct causation between current economic woes and the Federal Reserve?

I did not expect a typed response. You asked a question and I answered it.

I might type an answer if I get time. But I do want to stress that the video will answer your question. If your question was one of genuine interest rather than for rhetorical "debate points" you will watch the video (assuming you get past the technical barriers, for which I cannot account).

reply to post by mnemeth1

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

No, it is not my opinion.

If you want graphic proof of this business cycle explanation, Professor Roger W. Garrison has put together a fantastic demonstration.

Ok, you're an Austrian school guy and we get it. But there are some legitimate criticisms of the school that can't simply be ignored. Economics isn't something where one guy can simply claim the other guy has failed categorically.

If you want a top to bottom treatise that provides a super-fine proof of this, read Rothbard's Man, Economy and State.
mises.org...

Inflation caused by an increase in the gold stock is accompanied by a few other factors though that make this far more tolerable.

Such as?

New mining operations will not be undertaken unless they are deemed profitable by investors. This means the value of gold must have risen sufficiently by the smooth expansion of economic productivity before new mines will be opened.

Not necessarily. Gold mining will typically be profitable no matter what the price of gold unless it is devalued ridiculously.

As new gold is added to the stock, it will be at a rate that is in harmony to the productive expansion of the economy.

Not at all. It will happen regardless of the economic state of things, particularly in third world nations where they give little consideration for profitability in mines that are run by nearly slave labor.

Further, gold is extremely scarce. Most of the worlds easily accessible gold has already been harvested. This naturally limits the rate of the gold stock expansion.

Care to define "extremely scarce"? The problem is that this still doesn't address fluctuations in the gold market relative to the world at large.

 

However, I think we've come to an impasse. I'm not the most qualified person in the field of economics and I don't have time to read up more on it to get up to snuff again. I may not be able to disagree with your positions in the most systematic of manners as I'm not as read up on economics as you are.

I'll cede this not as a point of fact but as a point of discussion so that we can move on without dwelling on the same point for the rest of the thread.

Care to take on another of Ron Paul's positions?

Well that's easy, the bill to audit the federal reserve. He had over 300 co-sponsors, but they changed their mind at the last minute because college economists said the system would collapse if the fed was audited. So why blame Ron Paul, why not blame the flip floppers who have no backbone?

Originally posted by xpert11
Any sensible people must realize that the 18th century view of the USA that Paul presents provides no viable solution to today problems . Really Paul does well off pleading his views judging by his book sales . Any old joe blogs can tape into the anti establishment crowd hatred of the Fed . For the rest of us or at least me I like to take responsibility for my own life and not look for a bogey man to blame things on . Paul strikes me as someone who would make a nice neighbour but his political views aren't viable . It is true that if elected president that Paul wouldn't get congress to implement any of his policy;s that alone doesn't make him in the wrong . His policy's often fail plainly on merit .

edit on 7-10-2010 by xpert11 because: (no reason given)

I wish I could tolerate the 20th century view of the USA, where the US government can not even print their own money, but instead has a private corporation do it for them and charge them with interest. And it is a 20th century view since the fed was created in 1913. So, since we are all so concerned with being up to date, since this is the 21st century, can we shift positions and maybe take away counterfeiting privileges the fed holds?

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


"Legitimate criticism" - LOL

I tore those apart in the discussion section of the article.

The Austrian School wiki article is managed by Keynesians, so you certainly aren't going to get unbiased information on the Austrian School by reading the wiki on it.

Did you actually read the article linked in the wiki that claims Stigliz predicted the crisis? I near fell out of my chair laughing.

www.newsweek.com...

A few choice quotes:

Stiglitz had been hammering at Obama's economic team for its handling of the financial crisis. He wrote that the stimulus program was too small to be effective—a criticism that has since swelled into a chorus, though Obama says he's not adding more money.

LOL

The article makes absolutely no mention of how Stiglitz came to the conclusion that there was a housing bubble. In reality, Stiglitz had no empirical basis at all for his claims. He simply concluded that "free markets create bubbles." That was about as deep into it as he got. Unlike Schiff and the rest of the Austrian school who had a sound empirical basis for their claims of a bubble.

Further, you expect me to believe a guy that makes insane statements like this?

“Unless we have another bubble to replace the old bubble, like we had the housing bubble replace the tech bubble, it is very unlikely the US economy will be restored to robust growth any time in the near future,” predicted Stiglitz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001.

The guy is saying WE NEED BUBBLES to restore growth LOL

HAHAHAHAHAH

Please, you make this too easy.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

Let's see.

Oh wait, this is all your opinions. I'd like some data to back a monetary standard that's based on highly unstable commodities as a good idea.

I'd like to see some data to back a casual relationship between modern economic woes and the Federal Reserve.

The very name of your thread is opinion!

Ron Paul is wrong, primarily because his policies are impossible to implement

Your opening post was nothing but your opinion!

Now, I've stated this before but it bears stating again: Ron Paul has it easy, he just has to criticize without getting things done.

After stating your opinions, you then ask the good people of ATS to disprove your opinions and when they attempt to humor you,
you accuse them of only stating their opinions.

This entire thread is based on opinion.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


really now the fact that tens of milliions of people are out of work is due to the simple fact of taxation,regulation and unionization running rampant in this country

and yeah the biggest contributing factor to all that is the federal reserve that has so massively devalued the dollar

thats has destroyed wealth and job creation in this country..................the federal reserve is what exactly what the founders feared and hated the most the central bank of this country....

and really rampant poverty isnt a problem? maybe for you since your obviously not poor but it matters to them....

reply to post by neo96


When I want a good laugh, I read the Fed's mission statement:

www.federalreserve.gov...

conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates

LOL

HALAKJHLASKDJFLASDJKFLASDJKF

HAHAHAGHAHAHAHHA

DEAD

DEAD

DEASDD

SLKJDFLSKDJF'___'KJF

That thing cracks me up every time.

reply to post by mnemeth1


lol yep dead dead dead

Originally posted by xpert11
Any sensible people must realize that the 18th century view of the USA that Paul presents provides no viable solution to today problems . Really Paul does well off pleading his views judging by his book sales . Any old joe blogs can tape into the anti establishment crowd hatred of the Fed . For the rest of us or at least me I like to take responsibility for my own life and not look for a bogey man to blame things on . Paul strikes me as someone who would make a nice neighbour but his political views aren't viable . It is true that if elected president that Paul wouldn't get congress to implement any of his policy;s that alone doesn't make him in the wrong . His policy's often fail plainly on merit .

edit on 7-10-2010 by xpert11 because: (no reason given)

Your joking right?
The 18th and 19th century views are the only way to get viable solutions for today's problems.
(time to get flamed but oh well, that's what I am here for)
Hmm let's see now, where did we start falling short? Oh wait I KNOW!
When we kicked God out of the classrooms and told Him to take the Bible with Him.
In 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education was the beginning of our destruction.
Want proof....................just look at our kids today, look at the daily struggles they have to go through, look at what they are being exposed to.
What kind of adults will these over exposed children grow up to be?
It is getting worse with every passing generation. Parents want to be friends instead of parents now. They let their children get away with a little more than they did as children. It is a descending spiral that gets worse with every revolution. We do not allow them to be children any longer. There are some things they are exposed to that just should not be, their young minds and emotions can not handle it.
We don't teach them good moral values, we turn on the boob tube instead to free up our precious time. From this point they are subjected to all sorts of behavior modifiers. Sex, violence, profanity, and best of all they do not have to think! Just sit and absorb it.
No, many do not want to hear it but if this Country is ever going to change it will be because we as a Nation returned to the values of the 18th and 19th century.
If we teach them better, teach them to care for their fellow man, teach them that hard work never killed anyone, teach them to live within their means, teach them respect and self worth, teach them that sometimes in life we will fail and it is part of living. If we teach them then and only then will this nations systems change.
Quadrivium