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At 12/2/12 07:47 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 12/2/12 12:42 PM, JMHX wrote:

The purpose of the Gold standard is to explicitly prevent instances where banks issue more receipts for gold than they have in reserves, rather than to allow it to continue in perpetuity [which as I've hinted towards, even under a fiat monetary system cannot occur]

This is what ended up causing the Panic. Economies aren't static things. They need the ability to expand as a means of absorbing economic downturn, which the prevailing gold standard at the time prevented. Had the government at the time been able to inflate the money supply beyond the gold limits, companies like Knickerbocker and most of the California banks would have had the means to temporarily meet the surge of gold calls they'd received. Instead, the inflexibility caused bank runs, bank shutdowns, insurance company defaults and a recession that very nearly bankrupted the United States.

Think of it like a balloon vs. a test tube. If water rushes into one, it can inflate and handle the temporary situation. The other will shatter under the pressure.

INTRO: Korriken sits at his desk, pipe in hand, adjusting his ascot. On the table, a broadsheet detailing Egypt's current crisis is laid out before him.

KORRIKEN: "When will these brown people realize they're not mentally ready for a democracy? Morsi has taken the reins of power and run away into some Muslim Thugerhood of Islamic radicalism."

JMHX: "But Korriken, my liege and tithe-lord, Morsi merely said that he was unilaterally removing the powers granted to the military by themselves in the early days of the Revolution, and that the new Constitution will be held up to a popular vo---"

KORRIKEN: "You and I both know Muslins don't have the competence for that kind of participatory democracy. Can you name me one country where the leader has, in a time of crisis, suspended the rights of some to trials and otherwise unilaterally amended the criminal code?"

JMHX: "But, sir, what about Mr. Lincoln during the Civil Wa--"

KORRIKEN: "DANIEL DAY LEWIS WAS A SAINT AND DON'T YOU DARE IMPLICATE HIM."

At 12/2/12 06:52 PM, adrshepard wrote:

At 12/2/12 03:48 PM, JMHX wrote:

Here you go again with your labels like "unaffordable" and "overextended" as though these are indisputable truths that everyone agrees with. Something is only unaffordable in the sense that no other money can be allocated to it without sacrificing some other vital spending. What's vital is a question of priorities, not truth or fact.

I'm just going by the actions the Pentagon has taken, and the consensus of places like the Congressional Research Service and the Pentagon's own top brass, who testify frequently on the Hill. The political reality is that the Pentagon has known we've been overextended for quite a while, hence the sudden push for course correction once the opportunity came up. They're not just moving pieces around on a map, this costs real money -- even redeploying or reallocating resources costs money. I like to think it's more than some arbitrary label if we're investing huge amounts of time and professional effort in reallocating to cut the expense.

Eliminating foreign bases and advanced weapons systems by definition hurt "us" by reducing our country's combat effectiveness and capability. Those should only be cut as a last resort, because it's absurd to believe the US will never have a need for strong conventional forces again, or that certain regions where we have bases will never be the stage of combat again. If you want to maximize efficiency through managing "brass creep" and reforming the contract award process, fine, but keep our operational capabilities intact.

Like I said, just looking at Pentagon recommendations. The second engine for that fighter jet was on the block well before any of this happened. The missile defense shield has been a popular whipping boy by the moderate Right and the intelligence community. These aren't things I'm pulling out of my ass. David Petraeus was advocating for a vast reduction in operating bases in Afghanistan and Iraq before his cock took him out of the running for anything. This shit grows in cost every year, and even Republicans are coming to see that not every troop overseas serves a vital national security purpose. Peddle that jingoistic shit to someone who doesn't watch this every goddamn day.

"Welfare" isn't just one thing. Social security, unemployment insurance, WIC, credits to families with dependent children and veterans' disability benefits are all classified as 'welfare.' You're going to have to be more specific with what programs you're talking about,

Look up welfare electronic benefit transfer cards. Current law allows state welfare benefits to be spend on anything, even cigarettes and booze.

Some states. And already there's a backlash. Look at New York and Virginia, especially, for a very popular (and very restrictive) reform coming down the pipes to limit what EBT can purchase. And if you think that even a substantial minority of EBT users are loading up on booze and cigarettes, I'd encourage you to learn a bit more about the spending habits of EBT users before profiling them as some kind of profligate poor person.

It's been abused since the 1940s when the Birchers lumped everything together and re-labeled it as nothing but giving money to poor people to buy drugs.

I guess you give generously to panhandlers in the streets, then, because they would never spend it to get drunk or high.

Just ignore my point, go for dat Ad Hom.

Have you SEEN our national bridge infrastructure report? Shit be falling down, 'yo.

When has any public utility EVER been without problems? Besides, those reports are a joke.

Hokay. Fuck "reports" and "engineers" and that shit.

Everything is rated "D" but is simultaneously used all the time without any apparent problems. What's the difference between a "B" road and a "D" road if cars can still drive over it? What's the difference between an "A" bridge and a "C" bridge if they both support the same volume of traffic?

Do your roads fall apart a lot in SimCity with this view? Not even CALVIN COOLIDGE, our most conservativey of conservative Republican presidents, would agree with this kind of madness. I struggle to think you've ever fully read one of these reports without getting to the Table of Contents, yelling "Bullshit BIG GOVERNMENT LIES!" and throwing it down.

If you make it so clear you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about and that you have less than a care about actually expanding from this watchmaker world you've created, you help me by zapping any desire I have to engage with you in good faith.

And the award for most sensationalist topic title goes to...

At 12/2/12 03:43 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 12/2/12 03:03 PM, JMHX wrote:

Rampant inflation was definitely a problem, though. There was so much uncertainty and chaos during the Third Century that hundreds of new coins were minted to try and assert legitimacy and pay troops. The consequences of the rapid debasement of currency in the Third Century are rampant inflation and price controls to counteract this inflation. von Mises (sorry) argues that these price controls were artificially too low which led to a scarcity of food supplies in major cities.

Not to derail from the actual American real-world example I posted in the original post, but I have to point out something here. This is well-and-good for the Third Century, but people forget that the Western Roman Empire didn't die in the Thrid Century. The Constantinians and Theodosians stabilized the currency, and the Western Empire went on as a coequal branch of the empire for another 250 YEARS after that. The inflation crisis happened, yes, and it was dealt with. It caused problems, yes, but it didn't kill the Empire any more than the stagflation of the 1970s killed America.

But back on the topic, Romans in the Third Century would've killed (literally) to have the tax rates we have now, whether the current 34% top rate or the soon-to-be 39% top rate. Keep in mind even with a new, higher marginal tax rate, the effective tax rates of most people (including the wealthy) will go down on the first $250,000 of income due to the targeted tax cuts that prove to be the only thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on.

At 12/2/12 03:31 PM, adrshepard wrote:

A military that dwarves only the next 5 or 10 countries would not be able to meet our current demands and would seriously jeopardize counterterrorism and deterrence efforts. The next 5 or ten countries do not have the demands that we do, and you're going to have to come up with a pretty compelling reason of why we should abandon our global position of strength.

Actually, the onus to prove this is on you, since an unsustainably large military budget is a national security risk. When the time comes to make large cuts to what becomes an unaffordable defense program, the main victims are defense contractors, weapons systems, foreign basing and military overseas supply chains. The point here isn't that "we hurt ourselves by cutting these," but that "we built beyond our means in the first place and now have to realign to budget realities." Had we never overextended our military budgets, we wouldn't have to worry about military reductions, and they wouldn't have been included in the sequestration deal.

Now, if you'd like to source how this would "seriously jeopardize counterterrorism and deterrence efforts," I'd be happy to listen, but you're going to have to start by understanding that we're in a phase of military withdrawal and reorganization of counterterrorism efforts (read: Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa) precisely because the current system is not providing the kind of return on investment sought by the Pentagon to justify the intense expense of continued budget growth. Not to mention the bulk of defense budget spending is consumed on non-foreign-defense spending, like brass creep and uneconomically divided-up defense contracts between dozens of states.

We could reformulate the tax system so that brackets actually curve out alongside income instead of basically discouraging wage income.

Conceivably it could discourage wage income but it takes so much initial funding to be able to live off of investments that its not an option for all but the very wealthy.

True fucking fact, hombre.

There are literally zero people on welfare that are living comfortably. How much money do you think welfare recipients get?

Comfort is a relative term. Depending on the state, welfare recipients get a hell of a lot more money than they need to survive and work. Free spending cards, which allow welfare recipients to spend money on cigarettes and booze, are one example. The 90's reforms put an end to most of the problems, but if you include welfare to mean Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, there's much more waste and abuse.

"Welfare" isn't just one thing. Social security, unemployment insurance, WIC, credits to families with dependent children and veterans' disability benefits are all classified as 'welfare.' You're going to have to be more specific with what programs you're talking about, because this kind of generalization isn't going to fucking fly with me anymore. It's been abused since the 1940s when the Birchers lumped everything together and re-labeled it as nothing but giving money to poor people to buy drugs. And that's bullshit, son.

Why invest in job training if the jobs aren't there? It would be better if money was spent on infrastructure projects that would employ all those unemployed construction workers and improve conditions for US citizens and businesses.

That'd be great, except there aren't that many infrastructure projects that have a viable need to be done (as opposed to make-work projects).

Have you SEEN our national bridge infrastructure report? Shit be falling down, 'yo.

At 12/2/12 03:24 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

If you stop working you will become a cunt and it's as simple as that.

Plato and Aristotle would like a word with you.

At 12/2/12 01:24 PM, Revo357912 wrote: Throughout history though, I have seen that inflation caused by the economy led to disaster. It happened in Rome,

Ugh, this idea is so ill-informed. Inflation was a problem in Rome during the Crisis of the Third Century and the early Diocletian years, but it wasn't the primary cause of any "disaster" for Rome, and later magisters militum and unofficial heads of the West (Stilicho, Ricimer, etc.) had put the Western Empire on decent inflationary footing. If you're going to say that inflation caused a disaster in the Western Empire, it'd be like saying the inflation of the 1970s destroyed the American nation, which is equally ludicrous.

it happened in Germany

Yeah, but Weimar inflation also came with a lot of other factors and a European economic slowdown that became a global economic slowdown. The policies instituted by the Weimar aren't really comparable to anything the United States has done or plans to do, and Weimar never had the economic standing of the United States as the reserve bank of the world.

and it has happened in Africa.

Africa is a massive, massive place. To say "it happened in Africa" is like saying Bolivia's economic problems "Happened in the Western hemisphere." It happened in Zimbabwe for a while until they pegged back to the dollar, and that is by FAR the largest case of hyperinflation in the modern world, brought about by the complete collapse of civil services within the state. A country like Ghana, or South Africa, Kenya or Ethiopia, Egypt or Tunisia, didn't suffer from anything near this kind of hyperinflation. Most of the African nations have been fairly good about maintaining inflation, even if it does sometimes tip into double-digits. But the kind of inflation we saw in Zimbabwe? That's a very standout and unique case in the modern world.

Unless the inflation is intentionally caused because it can be reversed (As China does and has done over the centuries), it eventually leads to the collapse of a nation.

That DEPENDS. Inflation by itself isn't bad, and is the natural side-effect of a growing national economy. If you're saying no country can handle 300-400-1,000-10,000% inflation for long periods of time, I don't think you'll find anyone who disagrees with you. That's not exactly a bold statement to make.

Also, even though the tax burden is lesser than 1980 the cost of living has increased while the average pay wage has not increased to match it up, therefore making it worse on the average person.

Wage is a bad indicator anyway, as it excludes bonuses, tips and other fringe benefits provided to employees. But either way, the average purchasing power of income today is higher than it was in, say, 1900. The average hourly wage in 1900 could buy a fraction of the total goods that an hour of wage in 2010 could purchase, with two big exceptions: energy (which has always been a zig-zag pattern related to a lot of other international factors) and health care/education (which doesn't automate as well as many of the other aspects of our economy, automation -> productivity being one of the biggest reasons why costs fell over the past century.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=
view_all&address=367x27609
http://www.inflationworld.org/news.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/fallromeeconomic/a/econof fall.htm
http://www.ofm.wa.gov/trends/economy/maps102.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S tates#Over_time.2C_by_race_and_sex

Keep in mind that both your InflationWorld and Wikipedia links back up what I've posted above, and I fail to see the point of your Washington State data, as that accounts for one of fifty states, and actually shows a marked increase both in overall wages and overall purchasing power for most of the major regions of Washington State. Did you do any research on whether these links helped your point before you posted them, because I could've used all of these to back up every one of my major points.

Also, please find better sourcing for historical analysis than About.com.

Having the resources to manipulate the tax code goes quite a bit further than genetics in helping sustain earned and inherited wealth. Though the Marxist historians would have a field day with how this article seems to point to the wealthy as somehow genetically or intellectually superior to the 'common man.'

I'll address your post in longer form shortly, but one of the best-known disasters caused by the gold standard was the gold rush following the San Francisco Earthquake, when a mass run on gold bankrupted a ton of insurers forced to pay out claims in gold, as opposed to paper. It brought the Treasury to the brink of default and led to the collapse of the Knickerbocker, at the time one of the largest banks in the world and whose collapse led directly to the Panic of 1907, where not only gold but copper ended up in shortage.

The events of 1907 played a major role in the decision to launch a Federal Reserve, and it was the moment a lot of people began talking seriously about reconsidering the gold standard.

At 12/2/12 07:37 AM, Korriken wrote:

At 12/1/12 06:20 PM, Feoric wrote:

Our marginal tax rates are already low. They're the third lowest rates they have ever been post WWII. Certainly you're not going to defend FYGM assholes that "flee" the United States because they somehow can't afford Clinton-era tax rates? Please.

defend them? hell no! I'm just saying they're doing it. It's not so much 'can't afford it' as it is 'unwilling to pay it'

Until there is a number showing the percentage of millionaires-and-above leaving the country as a percentage of total millionaires, and as a percentage of total population, I'm skeptical about even using this line of argument. Sure, Eduardo Saverin left, and a handful of other people have talked about leaving, but I'm hardly willing to consider it a tide of wealthy people leaving over historically low tax rates until there's an actual number associated with it. That video link you posted had no solid facts in it aside from the anecdote of Saverin, who is an asshole anyway.

At 12/2/12 11:29 AM, leanlifter1 wrote:

I was under the impression that Gold was a good investment because it doesn't change value which is why it is the solid "Golden" standard for which sets the benchmark of value storage. AKA Gold is not volatile which is why it is always a good thing to store your wealth into.

This is absolutely wrong.

So leanlifter's entire political and economic philosophy can be summed up as:

1. Listening to a podcast where a video is mentioned
2. Watching that video
3. Accepting all of it as true
4. ????
5. INFLATION

Joe Rogan, Philosopher & Intellectual

You heard it here first, folks, he's more than a washed up former Comedy Central stand-in for Adam Carolla.

At 12/1/12 03:56 PM, theburningliberal wrote:

At 12/1/12 01:56 PM, JMHX wrote: A lot of stuff sounding exactly like leanlifter1

Either you are baiting him or that isn't you, it just doesn't sound like you. =/

It's a collection of every quote I can find of Leanlifter. No wonder he's busy agreeing with himself above.

At 12/1/12 02:34 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: You mean the IOUs the government writes up to "The Fed" with the onus essentially being placed onto the tax paying, voting, working public ?

We call those Treasury Bonds, and they're amazing.

At 12/1/12 02:27 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 12/1/12 02:26 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote: I hope that's just some form of sarcasm.

No. It's not. It's literally how the federal government handles finances.

^ This

28 years ago a Zim dollar traded on par with the british pound ! Hyperinflation did the rest.

I bought a pound today, paid over 4.25 cents for it, bought eggs as well cost 3.96 for a dozen, both over 10 times the cost.
Look at todays car cost $ over 26,000 dollars look at the median home cost todayhttp://www.autoblog.com/2009/08/18/study-average-car-co sts-22-1-weeks-of-median-family-income-ave/

this is up over 300 dollars this quarter /12 as the article says at a time when wages are stagnating, inflation is still going strong the dollar is weakening. All thanks to government & the FED interference. The US federal reserve note is only still where it is because its the petro dollar. & that monopoly is eroding fast ! Thinking that the USA is somehow immune to hyperinflation is the clown comparison...& its a sad crying clown..... not a happy one !

THe BRICS Nations forming a co-op where they trade without converting to US dollars, China & Austrailia's 40 billion dollar dollar/yuan trade swap where goods are traded between them in their currencies no US dollar involved, China, India, & others buying oil from Iran for gold, weapons, commodities . Writings on the wall if you take your dark glasses off & choose to look . Denial won't change any of this.

Whats the point when money has been turned into fiat and not actual wealth like it is supposed to be. In essence paying taxes is just paying back money to the people that gave it to you which so happens to be the same people that created debt.

Why make a big stink about taxation when it is illegitimate to begin with is all I am saying. If you can prove that fiat currency and taxation is legitimate then you have something here but until then we need to highlight the fundamental illegitimacy of the monetary system and taxation rater than just complain about the incidental fallacy's of the monetary and taxation system in question.

Well I can understand that the koolaid would make one think like that no offense intended toward you. US has no room to be inflating the economy as that's all they have bloody well done since as far back as I can remember. Inflation is the delusion that everything is peachy and deflation is the reality that it isn't.

It's not conspiracy that Gold went missing from the trad towers. It's also not conspiracy that it's far to convenient that other building s with the documents that proved this also got demolished that same day. It's not the point of how much went missing it's the point that it did. Knowing how much and where the gold the US keeps locked up is not really up for debate kind of like ones tax dollars and where they are spent is not up for debate but ones things for sure there was Gold in the trade towers and people pay taxes. In short don't ask questions that you know there is no answer to.

I would say that there is no tangible way to quantify how much Gold went missing and that you based your theory on Loose Change. You believe what you believe and I will believe what I want to. I am not saying you are wrong and I am not saying I am right but you would have to admit that stealing Gold could be highly profitable even if it were your own Gold. Who's to say that insurance policies where not drawn up in the event an undisclosed amount of Gold went missing hypothetical speaking of course as I am not into conspiracy theories only truth ?

At 12/1/12 01:26 PM, Korriken wrote:
2. Obama knows he's in one hell of a GREAT position here. He has no reason to negotiate. IF we go over the cliff, the media will blame republicans for being the party of "no" and a party of racists so bent on harming obama that they would see the common man destroyed before Obama gets a political win with them (as they have been the last 4 years). if the republicans cave, the media will bill the republicans as a weak party will massive rifts in their ranks (as they have been the last 4 years) and of course, the sheep will fall for it every time because their brains have been rotted out by yellow journalism and prime time TV.

Didn't I just point out this exact same thing a few posts above?

I wouldn't stay in America if I faced the eventual possibility of being forced back into poverty to sate the government's gluttony for wasting money.

A tax rate closer to 1980 than 2007 is forcing the super-rich back into poverty? JESUS CHRIST GET ON THE BOATS GUYS. I think I saw Jeff Bezos panhandling with the shattered remains of his multibillion dollar company.

Leanlifter is an offense to anyone who ever sought to improve themselves through education.

At 12/1/12 09:13 AM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 12/1/12 08:59 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/30/12 09:04 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: You believe what you believe and I will believe what I want to.

The motto of defeated idiots haha.

No that's part of the foundation of freedom idiot.

The motto of defeated idiots. You have fun hanging around your 9/11 conspiracy websites and ranting to passersby on the street about the global pyramid scheme perpetrated by the Zionists.

At 12/1/12 11:50 AM, leanlifter1 wrote:

LOL at an IOU promissory note ROFLMAO at people that trust in corrupted Government owned by the like of the Rockefellers.

The thing I like most about reading Leanlifter's posts is how they've essentially been batter-dipped and deep fried in smugness. Here's this young guy posting on a small politics forum, who in a matter of one sentence and some leetspeak has convinced himself that the entire system of international finance is a big shell game created by a clique of conspiracy overlords in charge of the New World Order, and that the concept of the government-issued bond (one of the cornerstones of economics and banking since the days of Egypt) is some kind of shell game perpetrated on people by the elite.

But that's not enough. At the SAME time, the entire international monetary system is a lie which could easily be fixed by turning our object of idolatry from the paper currency into gold, which as we all know has never been responsible for inflationary or deflationary insanity (except for all of those examples where it HAS been the lead cause of both). It just fucking kills me. You read about people like this in the comments section of Glenn Beck articles, but you never expect to meet them.

So just a reminder:

Bonds = lies
paper money = lies
Inflation = lies
Gold under the World Trade Center = stolen by the NWO

At 11/30/12 05:28 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: "Quantitative Easing" sounds like a fancy word for inflation.

You should request a handle change to "Inflation"

At 11/30/12 05:40 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

As for the gold in the WTC - do I detect the beginning of a new conspiracy web?

It's not conspiracy that Gold went missing from the trad towers. It's also not conspiracy that it's far to convenient that other building s with the documents that proved this also got demolished that same day.

The web thickens! Now we have secret missing documents!

At 11/30/12 05:09 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 10/16/12 04:59 PM, Camarohusky wrote: The Fed interest rates should have been increased about a decade ago. + Stuff

I can't believe we agree on something.

I can't believe I agree with you two.

At 11/30/12 05:10 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/30/12 05:05 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: My guess is that tax hikes are always going to be more noticeable than tax cuts, especially if people end up taking whatever monetary gains they get from the taxes and end up losing it on other things, like gasoline and health care.

Ya it's called inflation.

LeanLifter only remembers that one day of lessons from high school, so he's going to throw that word around until it falls apart. Every discussion, every thread, every possible topic will come back in some way to inflation.

At 11/30/12 03:47 PM, adrshepard wrote:

At 11/30/12 12:52 PM, JMHX wrote:

How is it any more of an argument for higher tax revenues than it is for decreased spending? You're implicitly assuming that the vast majority of government spending is essential and cannot be cut. If the levels of taxation aren't meeting the demands of the system, then perhaps its demands are too high.

Because you're conflating future spending with past spending. The debt and deficits we've already accumulated can't be met with the current level of taxation, to say nothing of future spending on defense and social programs. As both the sequester and the current debt reduction talks make clear, it's going to take both a series of cuts and a series of revenue increases simply to corner our already existing financial burden.

At 10/21/12 11:48 PM, Feoric wrote:

At 10/21/12 10:35 PM, JMHX wrote:

There's also the fact that the Golden Dawn is steadily gaining support along among the Greek citizens with an alarmingly high percentage of cops that are in support of them. It's almost as if history is repeating itself, not like that ever happens or anything...

Yes, austerity breeds radicalism and anti-government sentiment, while promoting nationalism. It's a sad relationship, and dangerous if left unchecked.

At 11/6/12 02:41 PM, leanlifter1 wrote:

At 11/6/12 12:56 PM, morefngdbs wrote:

2- If you have been following the news lately , you may have noticed China is buying & importing gold from anywhere inthe world it can get it. & has been keeping every bit of it produced in their country under government control & building up

Also China is DEMANDING that the USA repay it's astronomical debt back in Gold. There was massive Gold stores under the Trade Towers that was never recovered um Strange.

You're going to go this far into conspiracy land? I'm failing to find a single reputable news source that claims China is 'demanding' gold for its debt repayments. They've accepted our USD coupon payments on Treasuries just fine as recently as our last payment, and they're just fine to buy Treasuries using their paper currency. Just check out the last major Treasury auction.

As for the gold in the WTC - do I detect the beginning of a new conspiracy web?

At 11/30/12 12:43 PM, adrshepard wrote:
Using statistics from over 30 years ago to justify higher taxes works just as well to justify reduced spending.

Well, to start, those "statistics from over 30 years ago" constitute what's called a trend line, and the information it provides is valid to a country currently talking about the 'crippling tax burden' faced by Americans. But I agree with you on the core of your argument - spending on education and healthcare has gone up markedly over the past 30 years. This is one of the main arguments for a higher effective tax rate coupled with targeted spending cuts, since current levels are no longer meeting the demands of the system. We're finding the difference in payroll tax increases, which harm the middle and lower classes and still fail to plug the gap in spending.