Starrfall on 31/10/2008 at 05:55

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The (http://www.google.com/search?sa=N&tab=nw&q=khalidi) Khalidi thing probably has more traction, and that doesn't have much.

Here's one of the reasons why (from Harper's):

Stereoprismatic on 31/10/2008 at 16:33

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McCain will have to pull something impressive out of his ass to win this thing.

I think if the Repugs win this time, that might be a pretty strong tipping point. One reason I think Obama will win is because the new world order probably wants someone to ease us into socialism/fascism/communism. I don't think it would be different at all under McCain, though. They're both just different flavors of tyranny.

Gotta ask, what's so retarded about the Gold Standard, SD? Gold and Silver have retained their value for thousands of years, and every paper-based monetary system in all human history has failed utterly, and resulted in massive hyperinflation.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation)

When hyperinflation hit the Weimar Republic, it brought their country to the point where Hitler was elected. We're facing the same economic climate and the powers that be are offering the same "solution": more government, more central planning, more regulations, more control. It's not going to work.

I don't pretend like I have all the answers, because I don't. But I know what's not going to work. A monetary system that is based on creating more and more debt is not going to be healed by just creating more debt. You can't fix inflation with more inflation.

That is why a commodity standard (be it gold, silver, or otherwise) for currency is the most compassionate monetary system out there. Right now there are retirees that are watching their life savings evaporate thanks to the Fed printing money like mad. More dollars in circulation = less value to the currency. If there was gold backing it, not only would people's savings retain their value, our government would be much less able to get us involved in no-win conflicts/occupations such as Vietnam or Iraq. Where do you think all those billions came from that Congress rubber-stamped for W's little wars? They printed it out of thin air.

Also if I may address the redistribution of wealth argument. Why do people think we need material equality? Isn't part of the human experience having incentive to better ourselves? Why would we have any incentive to better ourselves if we were all dirt poor? Every time socialism/communism is implemented economically, it ends up evaporating the middle class in a country, and you're left with about 6% of the population as super-rich oligarchs, and the other 94% of the population dirt poor. This is what we can expect for the US in the future. Competition and free markets are what made America great. But the powers that be are ripping all of that down, and even blaming the free market for our problems, which is absolutely insane.

My main point is, a lot of the things I'm talking about haven't even been tried in this country for decades, or close to a century. Why do we have to trust in this federal reserve we've been maintaining for only around 100 years? It has continually failed us, and will continue to fail us. It's not federal, and there's no reserve.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

-Thomas Jefferson

SD on 31/10/2008 at 18:00

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You're wrong; the value of gold and silver has fluctuated wildly throughout history without the advantage of being able to control supply that fiat currency gives you. All the Gold Standard does is weaken and constrain governments, which is why lolbertarians love it so much.

I'll leave it to recent Nobel prize and Bates Medal-winning economist Paul Krugman to explain why the Gold Standard is a bad idea:

(http://www.pkarchive.org/cranks/goldbug.html)

Stereoprismatic on 31/10/2008 at 21:01

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You're kind of proving my point here.

Yes, gold standards do constrain governments. That's a good thing. Like I said above, if the dollar was still on a gold standard, dubya and company would have been much less able to put us into Iraq unilaterally. In such a situation, if you don't have the gold, you don't have the money. If you're against the war machine, you have to be against the money machine, too.

And a gold standard would do much more than simply constrain the government; it would ensure value to the dollar. Yes, gold prices seem to fluctuate, but take a look at the decline of the USD against the rise of gold. It's a mirror. It's not the value of gold that's fluctuating, although supply and demand do go into play there; it's pretty much staying constant. It's the value of the currency that's changing. If fiat currency is so stable, why has the dollar lost over 95% of its purchasing power over the last century? Why did we only have the great depression after the federal reserve and fiat currency was instituted?

I would argue that gold would give the banks much, much better control over the supply of money. Like I said in my earlier posts, free up competition and allow people to decide what currency they want to use.

Paul Krugman is not really a notable economist to me. He's a Keynesian economist, which means he believes the key to a good economy is spend spend spend, print print print, borrow borrow borrow. Well, wow, look how far that's taken us! The dollar is worth the equivalent of 4-5 cents, we have a 10 trillion dollar national debt (to say nothing of private debts), and the vast majority of the US economy is now owned by foreigners. Keynesian economics has failed, utterly.

BTW, Friedrich Hayek ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek)), student of Ludwig Von Mises, won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for proving the very fact that central banking and fiat currency creates untold economic problems, and actually causes the boom and bust cycles. Keynesians act like this is normal for an economy, but it's periods of artificial wealth, like in the 20s and the 90s, that tend to get us into these messes.

Look to the Austrian school. Austrian economists have been predicting these bubbles and bursts for decades. And it's not even so much of a prediction, rather it's just a good understanding of how the market works and what will be accepted by the general consumers. That's real economics, not the intentionally-complicated crap that people like Krugman embrace. The Keynesians got us into this mess; why trust them for a solution?

"The Poverty and Poison of Paul Krugman" by William L. Anderson- (http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson207.html)

"Why Gold?" by Lew Rockwell-
(http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/whygold.html)

"Mises on Money" by Gary North-
(http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north83.html)

Fringe on 31/10/2008 at 22:08

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He's one of them!