Author Topic: I'm going over to the dark side  (Read 10604 times)

Len Budney

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #25 on: December 17, 2007, 06:44:09 PM »
It's not the religion, it's the man.  I thought we didn't generalize about such things...?
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It's got nothing to do with Ron Paul or my personal opinions. I think the electorate is as reluctant to put a Mormon in the White House as they were to put a Catholic there before JFK.

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Headless Thompson Gunner

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #26 on: December 17, 2007, 06:45:46 PM »
Oh, I get it now.  We don't generalize, but we believe that all the rest of the country does!

GigaBuist

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #27 on: December 17, 2007, 07:18:17 PM »
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Have you seen the polling that shows any Republican would beat Hillary?  Well, not any Republican, they only polled on the top 4 or 5 Rep candidates, and thus didn't bother to ask how Dr. Paul would do.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/poll_matching_hillary_clinton_and_ron_paul_tells_a_lot_about_clinton_little_about_paul"" target="_blank">No,  Ramussen did a Clinton v. Paul poll. Results:  Hillary with 48% and Paul with 38%.

Bogie

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #28 on: December 17, 2007, 08:53:53 PM »
You know, a LOT of folks are hoping Hillary gets the nomination. It'll be an INTERESTING political season... Even if all the republicans are boring.
 
And if she gets elected, all the crap that is gonna happen will also keep the news folks busy.
 
And I'll likely sell a lot of bumper stickers.
 
http://www.creativeaccuracy.com/stickers.html
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Perd Hapley

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #29 on: December 18, 2007, 02:14:44 AM »
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I guess your point is to ridicule and deride any third parties because none (yet) have been successful at winning a major national election.
Well, not lately.  You don't hear much from the Whig party these days.


How were the Whigs a third party?  In their day, they were one of two major parties.  As I remember it. 

BTW, that's true of both the British and American Whigs.   smiley
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Len Budney

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #30 on: December 18, 2007, 02:34:00 AM »
Oh, I get it now.  We don't generalize, but we believe that all the rest of the country does!

Dunno what you're talking about. Lots of generalizations are possible. For example, "Lots of people like hip-hop."
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The Rabbi

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #31 on: December 18, 2007, 04:07:16 AM »


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The Republicans do the real work of making sure government, which will never be particularly appealing, is at least not as despicable as it otherwise would be without us.  And along come the Libertarians and Paulistas and other similar types, constantly telling us how wrong we are and how much better they are.  Nevermind that they have human flaws and shortcomings just like us.  Nevermind that they won't ever be called upon to defend their real-world results, because they won't ever deliver any real-world results.  Their record is squeaky clean and perfectly defensible, because they have no record to defend.  They get to believe their *expletive deleted*it doesn't smell, and nobody will ever be able to prove them wrong.
This reminds me of Ronald Reagan's description of gov't:  He compared it (and I would add Libertarianism) to a baby: all appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
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pistolchamp

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I'm not sure we are all paying attention!!!
« Reply #32 on: December 18, 2007, 08:05:40 AM »
The "gold standard"?  Not bloody likely as we don't have any gold.  Or at least not much.

8233 metric tons to be exact, that's 197 billion dollars, or a tiny percentage of the money that's out there.  We SHOULD be on a gold standard, but, we are not and neither are any other countries.... nor are they on any standard.  Money is fiat, worthless, just printed paper or bits in the binary system of computers.  Without any standard to make money valuable, its just paper and its only worth what we are convinced by the various governments that it is worth.  The credit of many countries is shakey at best, so their money is really worthless, like the Tanzanian Shilling... it takes 1,135 of them to make one tiny little US Dollar, practically worthless.

The currencies vary in value as we perceive the credit of the country.  Canada is doing well, New Zealand and Australia are okay, the US Dollar and the Euro are not so good.  Watch out for the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen, both, are set to fly.

Gold is sitting around $800/troy ounce and bouncing about 3% up and down each day and the gold traders make about 90% per month and never risk a thing.  The US government could do the same and reinvest the funds into gold to stabilize our economy and guarantee our currency, but, I guarantee there are no politicians who will ever allow this to happen.

The US Dollar is in such disregard that it is possible we will no longer trade oil, gold or diamonds in our currency, but, in Chinese Yuans or Euros, with the world dropping us like hot rocks.

I'm certain that your little recognzied "dark side" will be morally satisfying to you, but, you should just as well vote for Ross Perot for all the good it will do... by letting Obambam or the Hildebeast into office... remember Ross, he made it possible for the Comrade Clinton to take office and we had to put up with that incredible embarrassment for eight years... wanna do it again?  I hope you see the light.

Len Budney

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Re: I'm not sure we are all paying attention!!!
« Reply #33 on: December 18, 2007, 08:23:50 AM »
The "gold standard"?  Not bloody likely as we don't have any gold.  Or at least not much.

By itself that's not a problem: the important thing a gold standard does is prevent government from inflating dollars, because people react by switching from dollars to gold, punishing the inflators. This doesn't depend on the exchange rate, as long as a rate is defined. We could define a dollar to be one milligram of gold, and that would be fine. At today's rate, a dollar would be about 35 milligrams of gold. That's pitiful, but it's perfectly workable.

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8233 metric tons to be exact, that's 197 billion dollars...

At the original rate of $20/oz, that's about $5 billion. At 35 milligrams per dollar, it's about $235 billion, so your estimate is in the ballpark. That does pose logistical problems if we decided to pin the dollar to a gold exchange rate today. But there's another way: issue a new currency, at whatever rate we want, and allow the exchange rate between dollars and newbux to float. People will naturally transition from dollars to newbux, and dollars will fall--but they're going to fall anyway. Without a gold standard it's hard to measure how badly the dollar has been debased, so the collapse happens in fits and starts, but eventually it happens all the same.

--Len.
In a cannibal society, vegetarians arouse suspicion.

Headless Thompson Gunner

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Re: I'm not sure we are all paying attention!!!
« Reply #34 on: December 18, 2007, 08:58:51 AM »
The "gold standard"?  Not bloody likely as we don't have any gold.  Or at least not much.

8233 metric tons to be exact, that's 197 billion dollars, or a tiny percentage of the money that's out there.  We SHOULD be on a gold standard, but, we are not and neither are any other countries.... nor are they on any standard.  Money is fiat, worthless, just printed paper or bits in the binary system of computers.  Without any standard to make money valuable, its just paper and its only worth what we are convinced by the various governments that it is worth.  The credit of many countries is shakey at best, so their money is really worthless, like the Tanzanian Shilling... it takes 1,135 of them to make one tiny little US Dollar, practically worthless.

The currencies vary in value as we perceive the credit of the country.  Canada is doing well, New Zealand and Australia are okay, the US Dollar and the Euro are not so good.  Watch out for the Chinese Yuan and the Japanese Yen, both, are set to fly.

Gold is sitting around $800/troy ounce and bouncing about 3% up and down each day and the gold traders make about 90% per month and never risk a thing.  The US government could do the same and reinvest the funds into gold to stabilize our economy and guarantee our currency, but, I guarantee there are no politicians who will ever allow this to happen.

The US Dollar is in such disregard that it is possible we will no longer trade oil, gold or diamonds in our currency, but, in Chinese Yuans or Euros, with the world dropping us like hot rocks.

I'm certain that your little recognzied "dark side" will be morally satisfying to you, but, you should just as well vote for Ross Perot for all the good it will do... by letting Obambam or the Hildebeast into office... remember Ross, he made it possible for the Comrade Clinton to take office and we had to put up with that incredible embarrassment for eight years... wanna do it again?  I hope you see the light.
Interesting, very interesting...  I think I've made an insight.

Fiat currency is valuable because it's the only medium the government allows taxes to be paid in.  So long as there's a government, and so long as there is an economic population that has to pay its taxes, fiat currency will be in demand and thus have value.  That's why the US Dollar has been the world's currency of choice.  The US Government has the singular ability to levy taxes on the American economy, thus placing the Dollar ahead of all the world's currencies in terms of ability to retain demand/value.

So here's the insight:  Libertarians favor the gold standard because under their system of no taxes and no obligation to the state from the business world or the private individual, the currency loses its value.  No taxes mean no reason to hold or use the currency, and the fiat falls apart.  So that's why we need to switch to the gold standard so badly.

We use our gold to trade with other poor saps in other nations that are still subject to the anachronism of taxation.  Them poor Japs and Chinamen still need to pay taxes, so they'll still need their Yen and Yuan.  But we won't, so we're free to trade in whatever pretty lumps of metal we like. 

Freedom is awesomeness.  And coolness.  Both at the same time!

mtnbkr

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Re: I'm going over to the dark side
« Reply #35 on: December 18, 2007, 09:04:56 AM »
Enough of the thinly veiled insults.

Chris