Paul says “Next Crisis will be More Destructive”

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by jjf3rd77

 

I love how the RP people think you are supporting him now...Just don't get sucked into the rhetoric seabag. But I agree this is what I like about RP. and that's it!!!!!

They likely don't know where I stand. For the record, my favorite candidate has left the race. RP's foreign policy (particularly closing bases) and his stand on allowing states to decide about legalizing hard drugs like heroin are non-starters for me. I don't think there's anybody else I agree with more on economic issues than RP, I just can't get past the other two issues. 

I like the guy, I'd just rather see him as Sec. of Treasury or even VP. He's got a lot to offer in the right position. 

I'de just like to mention that legalizing drugs would be the best course of action. I will not post the link here, but portugal did an experiment so to speak. They did it. And in actuality, it lowered the use of drugs, hiv, and addiction. Just some food for though. you can google "portugal legalize drugs" and im sure you'll find it. The mistake is letting the media put the thought in your head that legalizing drugs would make crime go up. It wouldn't. A lot of people have the 'forbidden fruit' aspect of it as well. But legalizing won't spur millions of new users. Spending money on treatment is far cheaper than enforcing drug laws. There should be "out of sight, out of mind" laws. What people do with themselves is no business of mine or yours or anyones but their own.

And as for military bases. Well, rome fell when it expanded past its ability to sustain itself. The US has done the same thing, its just taking long because corporations are making trillions off suffering.. banks also. While yes, some military bases should remain open. Defence of your home country through economic turmoil is a requirement.

The next crisis will probably be the devaluation of the US dollar.
Courtesy of Ben Bernanke.

reply to post by rebellender

a change in drug policy would change what really, same people using will still use.same people manufacturing would still manufacture....Mexican Cartels maybe but they would move to a different cause.

And IMO more people would have access and be exposed to things they otherwise wouldn't. There are plenty of people who wouldn't have a clue where to find drugs. That wouldn't be the case if it was at every convenience store. Also, addicts who can’t support themselves rob and steal from others….crime goes up…all the drug cases in court will be replaced by criminal case so there will be no ease on our legal system, etc, etc…

seabag: I am cynical to any of the above...we drifted from our constitution and there is also a vacuum of humanity ...we shutter at what would bring back humanity.

Times have changed! If we lived in 1950’s America I wouldn’t be concerned about the drug issue as much. I’d love to return to a time when people had personal responsibility but those days are gone…many don’t give a F$%@ about their fellow American (or even America).

I dont have answers or solutions...maybe start by dropping partisan quibble, stop writing new laws for this and that,,,,profile a little more and molest old and young women less at the Airport. If we step on some toes say I am sorry instead of inclusion of any idea that comes down the Pike. War less but if they want a war with us "Bring it Baby"

I’m down with all of that!!

I grasp the concept of govern less but can Americans live with the responsibilities of that....I think we are still a little worried about bringing a bucket of chicken and a movie home for the kids and lining up a bed partner for the night to be a responsible America, if you want to know what I think.

I don’t know what would happen if we had the libertarian version of freedom (it would border on chaos IMO considering the diverse composition of America these days). Maybe we’ll find out???

Look, if Obama gets re-elected I will prepare for the worst. If Romney or RP get it I will prepare for the worst and keep hoping for the best! I'm not sure how I will cast my vote (Texas Primary hasn't happened yet...I live in Texas). I know I will vote Republican in the general regardless who is on the ballot.

ETA: seabag, looking a little silver, way to go!!!!

Thanks, bud!

reply to post by seabag


Drug policy .. not a worry ..look at Holland, it's worked fine, anyway RPjust said it should be up to the States and not the Federal Govt to police "drugs", so his position has been a little warped to make his sound like a crazy.

I do not fear RP's foreign policy at all, most of the rest of the world does not have bases all over the place draining their cash. One of the reason's Germany is holding up so well is they were not allowed to build up a military after WWII, I think they still have some restrictions from back then. We currently spend 41% of the world Military spending, more than the next 15 countries combined (most of whom are our allies). This is a staggering number, and we are "borrowing money", plus paying interest to do this, when our share of world GDP is only about 21%. We far out spend China, Russia , Iran & Korea. Also we have loads of hardware and could easily defend our borders if we brought most of the troops back home.

en.wikipedia.org...

The "terrorists" really are back in the stone age compared to us, RP has said he wants to shore up our borders and not have us spread so thinly all over the world. When we look at who these folks are, we have underpants bombers against our security systems and no one is ever going to get very far on a plane hijack anymore, Iran is being dealt with by economic sanctions (which is how we first crippled Iraq). These people are basically worked up because we are on their soil, they know women and children that have died from us being there or backing their unpopular Governements (Eygypt / Iraq before we fell out with SH). Given our history of taking over resouces and manipulating government's in other countries for our Corporate interests (look up the history of BP), it's easy to see how these folks get so worked up, the West has been at this mercantilism for centuries now, it's nothing new (Roman Empire, British Empire to name 2).

The number of people killed in terrorist attacks worldwide is very few and while the loss of these people is devastating to the families of the victims it does mean that “terrorism is one of the minor causes of human suffering in the world”.
www.e-ir.info...

The Roman Empire basically made the same mistakes we are making, they essentially fell due to lack of circulating funds (or credit) . After exploiting other's resorces it also spread itself too thinly, the wealthy citizen's were wholesale hoarding bullion (Replace with Corporations, who are sitting on huge amounts of cash, and the very wealthy) ,there was widespread looting of the Roman treasury by the 'barbarians' coupled with the massive trade deficit with Eastern Regions of the Empire served to stifle the growth of wealth in the west." (Stopped making things at home....) ... SOUNDS horribly familiar ! (except replace Barbarians with Bankers !)

When that Empire fell human's went into hundreds of years of dark ages (where things got much much worse) for the vast majority of humanity.

Global Debt Crisis - Bit dry, but good overview of the global financial mess.
www.youtube.com...

The Fed can not go on printing money and devaluing the currency ad nauseam, something has to be done, otherwise the bubble is going to burst and make 2008 look like a small blip. One of the barriers to small business in the US is a lot of business regulation and laws, and frankly if we are going to get out of this mess, we need to make it easier for these people and this is where our lively hoods are going to have to come from; Mega corporations are not going to do it, everything is really done to maximize management bonus and share comp, an awful lot of the regs / laws we have on the books were lobbied for by the big Corporations (see entities like ALEC) to erect barriers of competion from the small guys.

reply to post by AliceBlackman


First of all, thanks for the thoughtful response.

I’m going to address certain portions for the sake of space (word count).

I do not fear RP's foreign policy at all, most of the rest of the world does not have bases all over the place draining their cash. One of the reason's Germany is holding up so well is they were not allowed to build up a military after WWII, I think they still have some restrictions from back then. We currently spend 41% of the world Military spending, more than the next 15 countries combined (most of whom are our allies). This is a staggering number, and we are "borrowing money", plus paying interest to do this, when our share of world GDP is only about 21%. We far out spend China, Russia, Iran & Korea. Also we have loads of hardware and could easily defend our borders if we brought most of the troops back home.

Our GDP is also far higher than those countries. As a percentage of GDP, I think we fare the same in comparison. If we're a little higher as a percentage....so what? Regardless, there are plenty of ways we can cut spending across the board.

Look, I’m a degreed manager/administrator as well as a small business owner so I know there are always ways to cut. I also understand that fraud, waste and abuse are prevalent in EVERYTHING the government touches. I’m willing to make concessions in military and defense…but closing bases and affecting our ability to respond and deter enemies is BullSpit!

The "terrorists" really are back in the stone age compared to us, RP has said he wants to shore up our borders and not have us spread so thinly all over the world.

Some of them are but not all of our ‘potential’ enemies are backwater.

Given our history of taking over resouces and manipulating government's in other countries for our Corporate interests (look up the history of BP), it's easy to see how these folks get so worked up, the West has been at this mercantilism for centuries now, it's nothing new (Roman Empire, British Empire to name 2).

It’s our history by proxy (at the behest of a higher power…not the citizens of America). The military industrial complex and some top US corporations are owned by TPTB. It’s the same in other top countries.

The number of people killed in terrorist attacks worldwide is very few and while the loss of these people is devastating to the families of the victims it does mean that “terrorism is one of the minor causes of human suffering in the world”.

It’s prevalent…

The Roman Empire basically made the same mistakes we are making, they essentially fell due to lack of circulating funds (or credit) .

I see the similarities between the US and the Roman Empire but the difference is that ‘we the people’ have more of a voice and MUCH more knowledge about what’s going on. There is time to change the Emperor.

The Fed can not go on printing money and devaluing the currency ad nauseam, something has to be done, otherwise the bubble is going to burst and make 2008 look like a small blip. One of the barriers to small business in the US is a lot of business regulation and laws, and frankly if we are going to get out of this mess, we need to make it easier for these people and this is where our lively hoods are going to have to come from; Mega corporations are not going to do it, everything is really done to maximize management bonus and share comp, an awful lot of the regs / laws we have on the books were lobbied for by the big Corporations (see entities like ALEC) to erect barriers of competion from the small guys.

ALL OF THE CARTELS need to be broken up. There are laws on the books to protect us from that sort of thing. The problem is in DC where our so-called ‘representatives’ are not following through. We need to get ALL MONEY out of Washington. The problems came about when the money coming in from special interest groups, corporation and global entities (NWO) corrupted the people sent to defend the constitution and the people!

reply to post by popsmayhem

Paul is great on his fiscal policies..

The best I’ve seen…

I would have to agree with him, I believe what this admin and his buddies want is the next crisis to be worst so they can play on it and peoples emotions..

I think they are actively orchestrating the next crisis. Like Rahm said, ”never let a good crisis go to waste.” If there isn’t a crisis then MANUFACTURE ONE!!

The bankers only want one thing, to make more money. Be damned anyone getting in their way,and if you do, might end up dead..

There aren’t that many of them, and I’d bet my life I can wield a gun better than they can wield a checkbook.

reply to post by AzureSky

I'de just like to mention that legalizing drugs would be the best course of action. I will not post the link here, but portugal did an experiment so to speak. They did it. And in actuality, it lowered the use of drugs, hiv, and addiction. Just some food for though. you can google "portugal legalize drugs" and im sure you'll find it. The mistake is letting the media put the thought in your head that legalizing drugs would make crime go up. It wouldn't. A lot of people have the 'forbidden fruit' aspect of it as well. But legalizing won't spur millions of new users. Spending money on treatment is far cheaper than enforcing drug laws. There should be "out of sight, out of mind" laws. What people do with themselves is no business of mine or yours or anyones but their own.

During prohibition in the US the number of people who drank wasn’t NEAR AS HIGH as it is today, nor was it NEAR as acceptable. If you want to look at history and statistics then just look at American history. And I don’t think Portugal is in any way a role model for US!

And as for military bases. Well, rome fell when it expanded past its ability to sustain itself. The US has done the same thing, its just taking long because corporations are making trillions off suffering.. banks also. While yes, some military bases should remain open. Defence of your home country through economic turmoil is a requirement.

The next crisis will probably be the devaluation of the US dollar.
Courtesy of Ben Bernanke.

ROME, ROME, Blah, Blah blah…

I see why people make the comparison but there are SO MANY differences between the Romans and Americans. I’m with you that corporations should be regulated and their money should be kept out of DC but we still have a chance to fix this…America isn't overextended YET but we're fast approaching.

What’s your take on this response to Rebellender? What do you think about my dilemma?

This is Dr Pauls next crisis.............................

reply to post by sonnny1


Dr. Paul takes good care of his lawn. His feet don’t even touch the ground when he mows (according to Paulites)!

reply to post by seabag



I love Ron Paul actually. Voted for him twice. My problem now,is those who drink the kool-aid way to hard,and force the stuff down peoples throat. You cant even taste it that way. Really a turn off.

reply to post by sonnny1


Dude, I taste the Kool-Aid but I do know what you’re saying!

The fanaticism makes me skeptical! For real!

Anything that appears ‘too good to be true’ usually is!

Regardless, Paulites are fanatical! I have to admire them!

reply to post by seabag


Yes I agree it is time to break up the Cartel's, it's not as if we don't already have the ability to do that, we just need to have it done already. Corporate power currently is just too pervasive.

On with the Military Spending / Bases cuts .....

We spend 4.7% of GDP on Military ($711 billon), if we matched the next highest significant country - Russia we’d spend 3.9% ($143 billion), so if we matched 3.9% that would = $590billion, leaving us $447billion ahead (China spends $71.9billion).

Why does it matter?

We are borrowing money to finance this, yes if we cut everything other than Military spending by our Govt (which would mean that people's FICA/Medicare was basically just stolen, it was supposed to be in trust.)..we'd probably not have to borrow anymore at all, however we'd still need to collect in the same Revenue as before..so we could have them reclass the FICA/Medicare as just Income Tax. However that would cause us big big social problems.

We have 1 in 5 children in the USA who are currently not getting enough to eat. (See Feeding America – BBB A+ US Hunger charity), this has terrible effects on children’s mental abilities (some of which you can never recover from) and long term health problems. Please take their hunger in America quiz, link directly below.
feedingamerica.org...

The latest Republican Budget wants to cut $260 billion in social spending over the next decade in order to protect military spending. The cuts would target food stamps, child tax credits and Medicaid healthcare for the poor. The Republican bill also abolishes the Social Services Block Grant that provided $1.7 billion last year for programs such as Meals on Wheels. So how many more American children is it ok to have go hungry to fund a 16% increase in our already way out of anybody's league of Military spending ?

There are 193 countries in the world, we have bases in 130 (67% of the Globe covered), If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases overseas or about 28 per country, far and away the largest Empire ever in the History of the world. The Pentagon has owned up to between 737-865 (depending on various web sources – easy to Google.) Essentially our prescence in a lot of countries, IMHO, is to ensure our Corporate business interests for our large Multi-Nats and not about protecting the USA from attack.
www.democracynow.org...

Do we really need that many for our security?

I think some closures and consolidation would not go amiss here and would give us big savings as well as still providing cover on the ground. Our Bases abroad suck money out of the US to the benefit of those other countries’ economies; wouldn’t it be better spent at home?

I am also a multi-degreed international manager and know that consolidation and restructuring can yield better performance as well as significant savings.

I have to agree with Ron Paul on this one, he is right, when it comes to his analysis of the banking cartel.

After years analyzing the economic status of our nation since the early beginnings of the Fed, I understand from where the control of world economies come from and what they are trying to accomplish.

Yes their experiment has failed but not when it comes to preserving the wealth of the few globally but it has failed the populations of the countries that has been gouged, the hard working class in order to keep preserving the power and wealth of the few.

The economies of the workd including the US are nothing but illusions as they stand today.

reply to post by seabag

No amount of monetary expansion can solve our current financial problems, but it can make those problems much worse. - Ron Paul

Ron Paul keeping it real and right on the money pun intended! People would do well to listen to the man who predicted everything that has befallen us to this day economically and financially. He has been warning us for 30 years of the course we are on and where it would lead us and here we are, and he is warning us still the worst is yet to come!

reply to post by AliceBlackman

We spend 4.7% of GDP on Military ($711 billon), if we matched the next highest significant country - Russia we’d spend 3.9% ($143 billion), so if we matched 3.9% that would = $590billion, leaving us $447billion ahead (China spends $71.9billion).

Why does it matter?

We are borrowing money to finance this.

What you need to ask yourself is where is the other 95% GDP going and where can we make cuts.

The goal (if you’re sane) isn’t to cut from the 5% expenditure (which protects your family), it’s to cut money from other areas that are far less significant.

Can you think of other things US spends money on that are less important???

I can!

DHS, Dept of Ed (fed has no business in that), Obamacare (fed has no busines in that), Welfare fraud, USPS (fed has no business in that), pork barrel spending, foreign oil (we have our own), foreign aid (plenty of room for cuts), etc…???

reply to post by seabag


The Federal Government doesn't spend 100% of our GDP, our Federal Govt only spends about 0.01% of GDP on Education and job training (and some of that they'll get paid back..from student loans) ! So no this isn't what I'd cut.

Using the Govt's my tax reciept web site shows you a personal breakdown of how they are spending our income tax / FICA/ Medicare.

The % of Military spending would be much higher if they completely excluded from FICA/Medicare taxes from the revenue side and the expense side for the "total pie" .. but they do not show this because of having raided the trust fund it was supposed to be in.


National Defence 26.3%
Veteran's benefits 4.1%
Net Interest 7.4% (included because we've always borrowed to finance our wars/interventions)
Military Spending 37.8 %

Health 24.3% (medicare supplemental / Rx benefits / uninsured ER / children's health/CDC)
Job & Family Security 21.09% (unemployment benefit, tax credits, food assistance)
Education & Training 4.8%
Energy & Env 2.1%
Immigration & Law Enf 2.0%
International Affairs 1.7% (embassies / foreign aid etc)
Space & Science 1.2%
Agriculture 0.8%
All others 3.4%


www.whitehouse.gov...

I don't agree Education should be an area to cut.....we are falling behind the rest of the world, our business are complaining they can not find the right caliber of qualified staff.. (and no they do not want to train people either !)

The Military Budget looks the best for cuts to me, especially since we are out spending everyone else by a huge huge margin. I think consolidating our International bases is a great way of doing this, whilst minimising the economic impact on our people and own soil.

How I calculated the 0.01%
so I found a figure of $711billion for Military Spending -
4.7% GDPas our Military (Total GDP 711B/4.7 * 100 = 15,127.7)
en.wikipedia.org...
Therefore Total Tax Revnue = 1,881b (711/37.8% * 100)
Education = $ 90.29 (1,881b * 4.8%)
90.29/15127.7 = 0.01% of GDP spend on Education and Job Training

* if we use the 26.3% for calculating total Tax Revenue, Education expenditure increases to $129.8..still only 0.01%