Post comments below on any issue you want. The only limitations: the ground rules listed at the left and your own imagination. I'll reply when appropriate. Have fun. dc
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First!
Happy New Year all, hope everyone had a great holiday.
dsc
Posted by: DanielC | January 05, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Ditto what Daniel said.
Posted by: Alan Charles | January 05, 2009 at 10:55 AM
To make it a threepeat, Happy New Year!
Also, Tom please reconsider and keep posting at least from time to time. Your wit and wisdom are wonderful additions to the blog. Also, you will not be able to refute or concur on my next statement without posting.
Congradulations to the real national champions The Utah Utes!
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Obama Is Bush III
by Kevin R. C. Gutzman
"...
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was sold to the public at the time as being justified in part by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and his harboring of al Qaeda terrorists. In the wake of the Bush Administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, word leaked out that several prominent figures around Bush long had wanted to invade Iraq; for them, 9/11 was the perfect cover, and the WMD and al Qaeda arguments mere window dressing. By the time the world knew the justifications were false, Iraq had been conquered and Saddam had been removed.
President-elect Barack Obama now says that he is going to reverse the current course of the US economy. This contraction, largely the result of the popping of the Fed-induced housing bubble, would come to a natural end in a matter of months anyway. That’s how the market works: if there is a government-induced binge, the fever breaks and the patient can return to health.
But the average American has been brought up to believe that good economic times are the results of proper government policy, and that bad times result from its absence. Like some 18th-century physician with a bag full of leaches, knives, glasses, purgatives, and emetics to leach, bleed, burn, and blister a sick man before inducing diarrhea and making him vomit, government hovers over the American economy, eager to make him sick in the name of restoring his health.
We have seen the same scenario play out many times in American history. The finest medical care available in America killed poor George Washington in 1799, and the latest economic voodoo caused the recession of 1929 to last a decade and one-half.
When finally the government laid off the taxpayer and the business owner in 1945, the US economy boomed. What a remarkable example of statesmanship! The lesson historians drew was that not only was Franklin Roosevelt, the bleeder and blisterer who had stretched the previous recession to seven times the normal length of an American recession, a great statesman, but so was Harry Truman!
Barack Obama, it seems, wants to be judged in the same way. His soon-to-be-predecessor, George W. Bush, has emulated Herbert Hoover in responding to the current contraction with a spate of inapt federal measures: nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in handouts of newly-printed dollars to US banks and insurance companies have yielded no discernable result. In fact, federal "oversight" appears to have been totally absent, as the same inept colossi whose institutions tottered on the brink of insolvency before this great looting of the taxpayer now claim not to know where the money went.
What to make of this? Why, that more of it is "needed," of course. Thus, $17,000,000,000 was handed over by Bush and his minions to insolvent American automobile manufacturers. No moral, philosophical, or constitutional justification of handing, say, GM – with a current value of –$60B (that is, negative sixty billion dollars) – a few billion was even attempted. No one said how this "loan" would make the great Midwestern dinosaur solvent. Why not? My prognostication? Because it won’t.
All this "act of statesmanship" has done is keep GM in business so that GM can demand more money from the government in a few months. And more a few months after that. And more a few months after that.
The calculations here are almost entirely those of brute politics. GM is "too big to fail." That is, its unions control so many votes that they, like plains-state senators demanding agricultural subsidies, can twist this gift out of the taxpayer. Comes word now that the steel companies are lining up at the trough. Surely the paleoconservatives will muster the same arguments in their favor as served so well in the case of the Big Three: great countries manufacture their own steel; steel workers are highly paid; some of them were navy SEALs; my sister doesn’t want her husband to lose his job at the steel plant; and (the only one that really matters) if the Republicans don’t join the Democrats in this measure, highly organized and politically mobilized steel workers will vote Democratic forevermore.
I predicted that the Big Three would get our money. I predict that other decrepit industries will follow.
AIG spent part of its federal gift on lavish retreats for senior executives. Chrysler put some of its taxpayer "loan" into advertising to "thank" taxpayers. This obscenity was rather akin to Stalin "thanking" the kulaks for their land.
Barack Obama just announced that he plans to have the federal government resolve the economic problem in part by "modernizing" libraries and offering tax reductions to "workers." The library gambit is all about pork-barrel politics: every substantial community has a library, and so a measure like that will mean a federal expenditure in every congressman’s district. Since the early nineteenth-century days of Henry Clay (Pat Buchanan’s hero), greasing the skids that way has been part of the art of buying votes. No need to explain how expropriating money from its owner to purchase a new rug or computer for a library helps the economy.
Tax reductions to "workers," in classic Keynesian analysis, are a wonderful way to address economic contraction because "workers" (that is, unskilled employees) tend to spend a higher proportion of their income than the more affluent. Obama’s conclusion, then, is that America, with virtually the world’s lowest rate of savings, suffers at present from too much savings and too little spending. He wants to reduce the savings rate even further. This is what Keynesianism has given us: gigantic debt and ever-declining savings, despite the fact that everyone knows that societal investment (read: savings) is necessary to heighten the future standard of living.
The Clay platform was based chiefly on the idea of "internal improvements," meaning federal financing of roads and bridges throughout the country. Again, if roads were built throughout the country with money provided by the Federal Government, locals would see the wonderful benefit of supporting Henry Clay. Obama understands this perfectly well.
Like the Feiths and Abramses, the Cheneys and Wolfowitzes, and like George W. Bush himself wanting war with Iraq and seizing on the first excuse that came to hand, Obama has been handed a perfect cover for doing what he was disposed to do all along. An orgy of public spending outstripping even the super-profligate Bush’s was the desire of the leftward-most senator before the contraction, and he can justify it with economic bunk now.
As CNN.com reports, "Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn," Obama said. "That's why we need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term."
But "economists from across the political spectrum" do not "agree." Keynesians and Chicago School monetarists who slathered credit for the bubble on Allan Greenspan and failed to predict its popping, which they still find inexplicable, agree. Austrian School economists who castigated Greenspan during the bubble, forecast the current contraction, and see worse to come as a result of the government’s response, disagree. Vehemently.
Buy this book
But, as one of the Austrians recently said, "Being right is overrated." They are now in the position of the bystander who cannot reach the child in time to push him out of the way of the bus. Obama has adopted Bill Clinton’s tactic of referring to all government spending as "investment," but his taxing and borrowing to pay for wasteful government programs will only make matters worse.
The American economy is like big, healthy George Washington that fateful day in 1799. How much quackery will the government inflict?
Reduced saving means reduced future standard of living. Heightened government spending means reduced saving. Taking money from the politically weak to give it to the strong is King John’s model of government. And George Bush’s. And Barack Obama’s.
In recent days, some paleoconservatives have labeled observations such as these "ideological," people who object to the Big Three Rip-off "ideologues." Was Robin Hood an "ideologue"? Was King John a "statesman"?
There is still time for Obama to decide that unlike the second Bush, he is not going to follow King John in taking money from everyone else for the benefit of the well connected. He can still refuse to follow Bush in exploiting others’ misery for his own ideological ends. The signs are not promising.
..."
Found at:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gutzman/gutzman18.html
Enjoy,
dsc
Posted by: DanielC | January 05, 2009 at 11:27 AM
Happy New Year Too!
Dr. James E. Dunn
In the next few themes, then, I intend to offer some suggestions as to how the civilized world must alter itself, and I ask that you reading this to reflect upon some of these ideas by posting on this blog - intellectually and nicely please!!!
In this short blog, I am going to focus upon the Federal Reserve Board, and on its very detrimental effects on the greater American society.
The Federal Reserve Board is a very private organization of all white men. They alone determine how much money this nation’s many banks will have, and what they will pay the Federal Reserve in terms of interest on the money that they borrow.
The many banks charge you and I a little more interest when we borrow some of the money from the banks, however, and this is how the banks make their money.
The ONLY role the federal government plays in this is to approve the Federal Reserve Board members for life, but they really don’t know much about these Wall Street people!
The Federal Reserve Board meets and makes their decisions in secret, and the minutes of every meeting are held in secret for more than a year.
Now I believe that when someone - in this case the Federal Reserve Board - has such a gigantic influence on yours and my lives as the Federal Reserve Board presently has, that the following bill ought to be passed by the Congress of the United States, and then signed by the President:
1. ALL meetings of the Federal Reserve Board will be in public, such that the various members of the press may IMMEDIATELY report the news of their decisions!
2. Any decision by the Federal Reserve Board may be
over-ruled by the Congress of the United States - by a two-thirds vote - and then signed by the President of the United States.
I believe that it is a sheer travesty that something so vitally important to the lives of every American citizen has not had more governmental control over it as yet!!!
Dr. James E. Dunn
Posted by: Dr. James E. Dunn | January 05, 2009 at 11:28 AM
Dr. Dunn, I tried to comment on your post but got censored by Type Pad due to intergalactical polilitics.
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Then try again, Richard, because even when I sometimes disagree with you, I enjoy reading what you have to say.
DrJED
Posted by: Dr. James E. Dunn | January 05, 2009 at 01:10 PM
DanielC,
A few corrections on your post.
Increasing the energy efficiency of libraries along with other government funded buildings can have a net cost decrease in total cost of operation. For example, modern PC systems with S3 resume power saving and LCD's can pay for themselves in one year of electric savings easily! Heating, cooling, insulation, etc can have similar effects.
Offering tax reductions to workers? Would you rather offer tax reductions to those that don't work? How about to AIG executives like those past republican presidents?
I don't know how old you are, but savings has been a farce ever since I've been alive. A savings account, or even a CD, normally draws less income than the inflationary rate leaving you with money worth less when you retrieve it than when you put it in the bank. The only real way to 'SAVE' or make money is to spend money! This isn't Obama's doing... It's those Republican predecessors like Reagan and Bush that created this problem.
I've noticed that there's two different ways that Republicans and Democrats look at business. Republicans feel people need incentives to be successful in business. Democrats feel people need the ability to be successful in business. The first means doing only for the top of the heap to give "incentive". The second means allowing others to get up there since they need no "incentive" for desire to succeed.
I'd say it's about time a President put a upper limit cut off on eligibility on those tax cuts and Repugs need to STHU about it. They've had their way with the Bush's, Reagan, etc and we're now suffering from it.
I'm in total agreement with opposition to the automotive bailout. Unfortunately, Bush set Obama up to take the fall on those dinosaurs, even though Bush and his Republican lackies helped those companies fail with their lousy energy policies.
I'll hush now. I haven't slept in over 24 hours so I'm probably rambling incoherently anyway.
Posted by: Root | January 05, 2009 at 01:15 PM
Dr. Dunn, I was basically stating that I agreed with your post except the reference to them being white men. They are not white men in fact they are not even human. I explained why but typepad ate my comment. I will not give typepad the satisfaction of reposting. LOL.
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 02:05 PM
Root, the largest Ponzi scheme EVER created was by DEMOCRAT Franklin D. Roosevelt, and as in the case of all ponzi schemes - they fail.
That guy that Madoff with $50 billion is just a democrat wannabe.
Posted by: Patrick Hill | January 05, 2009 at 02:16 PM
The bottom of the heap have no desire to succeed. The government stole the necessity to strive from them decades ago. Like I said months ago. Take all the money away, and only give each person the same. The ones that have it now will have it then, and the losers now will be losers then.
And why not? The losers are given hush money to buy their weed or whatever and remain silent. Spread the wealth hurts all. Savidge calls it "Trickle up poverty."
Posted by: Patrick Hill | January 05, 2009 at 02:22 PM
Root,
Go get some sleep.
That is not my article, hence the by-line and the link to the source. I'm just "play'n" at being a Denney C. with an article instead of the usual Doc banters.
No harm, no foul.
dsc
Posted by: DanielC | January 05, 2009 at 02:26 PM
Thank you, Richard.
DrJED
Posted by: Dr. James E. Dunn | January 05, 2009 at 02:41 PM
Dr. Dunn, I agree with your conclusion and suggestion about the Fed. except for the line about them being all white men. They may appear to be white men but in fact they are not men at all. They are "greys" a bastard offshoot of the Reptillians. Denney knows this being an alien himself but cannot comment because of the treaty between the Reptillians and the Pledians.
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 02:46 PM
Richard: Your comment has been sprung from the Typepad Hoosegow.
dc
Posted by: Denney Clements | January 05, 2009 at 02:47 PM
I've been in privately owned business three times. The first two failed outright, the third was a partnership I walked away from because my 'partner' was hooked on weed, cocaine and was ripping people off left and right to support his loser habit. That third business is still there, after three years, so is the coke-head.
When I worked for a lambskin importer in California, I watched him snort coke and shove hundreds in his pockets while only showing up at the storefronts to promise his minimum wage workers things he never would deliver.. When I worked as a parking valet at a five star Radisson resort hotel, I kept numbers in my pockets of local hookers and drug dealers for the executives.. When I worked for a robotics firm in Houston, the workers struggled making ends meet while the blue collars shot up heroin.
Those executives got where they were out of luck, laws and government that favors the extreme wealthy. I haven't given up on succeeding through hard work, but I'll never believe republicans aren't part of the problem and reason it's so much harder for me than my father and his father to succeed.
That said, I don't follow all Democrat doctrine either. The Government, plainly, cannot afford to spread wealth that it does not have, or pay for programs that do no good.
Posted by: Root | January 05, 2009 at 02:55 PM
Actually Richard, I found out on another blog that one member is a white woman, so ....
DrJED
Posted by: Dr. James E. Dunn | January 05, 2009 at 02:56 PM
Okay, for ALL of you (who seem to be united in this rebellion against the Fed)
here is a synopsis of how the Fed was formed and why:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System
and what prompted the formation of the Fed to begin with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907
So the questions I have for each of you august gentlemen are thus:
1) Has anyone considered possible downsides to its elimination? Meaning, if you're a conservative (and I know JED isn't) then isn't it sort of axiomatic that we never expect perfection in a system, but look for the one that causes the least harm and greatest good?
2) What would happen to international trade and all the complicated ways national monetary systems are interrelated?
3) What about Nader's suggestions to bring more sunshine to Fed operations?
In other words, do you think it's possible that abolishing it would in fact cause greater harm and greater volatility than already exists?
And finally (and speaking just as a pragmatist) what do you think the likelihood is that you'll ever get one congresscritter to even consider seriously for a millisecond any of your proposals?
Posted by: Sunny Fry | January 05, 2009 at 02:59 PM
Sunny is right: Like it or not, central banks are the approved national-global tool for managing the money supplies of advanced nations.Like democracy, the Fed and other central banks stink, but the alternatives stink even more.
dc
Posted by: Denney Clements | January 05, 2009 at 03:22 PM
"...
And finally (and speaking just as a pragmatist) what do you think the likelihood is that you'll ever get one congresscritter to even consider seriously for a millisecond any of your proposals?
..."
Sunny,
I guess you never listened, read, or investigated the only real candidate for change this election cycle, Dr. Ron Paul. Every session since going to Washington (near 'bout), Dr. Paul has introduced legislation to 1. Rid the United States of the private banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve; 2. Open up all the meetings, minutes, and voting at the private banking cartel (aka Federal Reserve Bank) meeting; 3. Allow the US Mint to create Gold and Silver coins (this one got past back in the '80s); 4. Allow for competing currency to the private banking cartel (aka Federal Reserve Bank) with the US Mint via the US Treasury via appropriated real-backed money based on Gold/Silver.
What would happen if we allowed competing currencies? Everyone would move to hard-money and not a promise of the debt-notes which lose value every quarter thanks to the private banking cartel (aka Federal Reserve Bank).
With the value of the hard-currency staying stable, more folks would actually save because their savings would not lose more value then earn.
The Federal Government would have to shrink, because they could not just "print" more paper to cover current debts caused by printing paper in the past to cover past debts that were caused by printing more paper prior to that to cover prior-prior debts caused by the private banking cartel interest on the printing of paper-money on the promise that the taxpayers would pay the cartel interest that the cartel never printed, thus we were behind the 'eightball' with the first printed fiat-dollar.
Now I know how much you hate "links" to other sites, and don't visit them; however, here is a link to a rather informative article on this very subject.
http://rhofam.com/newsletters/?p=70
btw: Hello and happy new year Sunny
dsc
Posted by: DanielC | January 05, 2009 at 03:29 PM
The Government, plainly, cannot afford to spread wealth that it does not have, or pay for programs that do no good. Posted by: Root | January 05, 2009 at 02:55 PM
I wish someone had told 'em that BEFORE the $700 billion bailout.
Posted by: Alan Charles | January 05, 2009 at 03:35 PM
Sunny, Forget about the banks and the Fed. for now. We have bigger fish to fry. I told the Town of James Island that I didn't have to pay taxes on my house because of the new paradigm with immigration. I explained how we can now pick and choose which laws we want to obey. They laughed at me! So, if you have the time I figured you could write them a letter about obsolete laws and such. Only, if you have the time though.
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 03:48 PM
I read awhile back an interesting point:
[quote]
Back in the grand days of ancient Rome one could purchase a really nice outfit, a wonderful pair of shoes, and a great bottle of wine for a gold coin (@ an ounce).
That is still true today, one can buy a really nice suit, an excellent pair of shoes, and a fantastic bottle of wine or the value of a $50 US Gold coin (an ounce).
[end-quote]
The only thing that has changed is the associated value of that gold coin to fiat-dollars. This is caused by inflation. Contrary to the government propaganda (30s-40s) inflation is not a savior to our problems, it is one of the major problems with our current currency issues.
If you have 100 - one dollar bills to purchase things with in the whole economy the value of those 100 bills are much higher than when your bank created another 100 or 1,000 or 1,000 million pieces of paper. Your individual purchasing power is destroyed by the creation of new bills (inflation).
Visit this site: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/ and use the calculator provided by the Fed of Minn.
If in _(year1)_, I bought
goods or services for $ _(dollar value1)_
then in _(year2)_, the same
goods or services would cost $ _(dollar value)_
Enter 2008 in Year1, enter 1.00 in dollar value1, enter 1999 in year2, then press the calculate button.
You will see that just in the Bush Admin we have lost almost $.25 value in the printed fiat-dollars. If you change year2 to 1913, you will see that the private banking cartel has reduced our dollar to a nickel in less than 100 years.
Now where is the problem? I say with the private banking cartel that was created by the same banks that created the crash of 1907.
DanielC
Posted by: DanielC | January 05, 2009 at 04:04 PM
Denney, With all due respect it is kind of hard to stop talking about the Fed. when every newspaper in the country is talking about the massive national debt that the Fed. was the catalyst in creating.
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 04:11 PM
Sunny to answer your questions: Question number 1 concerning downsides. A checking account is a wonderful thing but you cannot deposit promises. Question number 2 concerning trade. We could go back to honest trade which existed prior to the banks. Question number 3 Nader's sunshine. Why, the secretcy in the first place?
What wikipedia doesn't tell you is that it is very unlikely that your son would be in Iraq without the Fed. The Federal Reserve Act was created in 1913. We went to war in 1914. This was no coinicidence. (sp)
Ask yourself why you don't have 20 homes, dozens of cars, servants, gold, diamonds or unliminted wealth of any kind. The reason is you are not the Fed. Think what life would be like if you could just create money out of thin air. What would be your limitations in life? I know that what we are warning about is hard to comprehend and believe because it is sounds so surreal. I guess the best defense for the Fed. is the one that Denney is making whether he realizes it or not. He is saying they are too big to fail. Now, where have we heard that before?
Posted by: Richard L. Wolfe | January 05, 2009 at 04:37 PM