All the New Deal did was usher in the era of significant and escalating government debt to provide entitlements. Americans have actually not paid income tax for most of our time as a free republic. We didn't have to. And we were damn prosperous because the people could engage in free commerce. America was also a nation that looked out for it's domestic neighbors, participated in charity and developed it's own schools and hospitals without government funding. Look into how much we take in from income taxes, and then look at our disbursements. You'll see a huge disconnect, particularly when all of the Democrats are promising Universal Health Care, in an age when the baby boomers will start collecting social security and Medicaid (Jan 2008), beginning a 30 year period of nearly bankrupting the system. Banking only transfers wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich. It's called "interest". You skim a little bit off of every credit transaction, whether it is a home loan, a retail purchase or a new business loan.
Confidence now is much different now after black monday, with the help of monitoring in place. An example of monitoring is the actions of the fed. from this past week that gave stocks some backing for when things go bad, which the fed. suggested with its actions with rates. Without backing like that there would a massive crash coming soon.
I think it is just the opposite. I think the Fed is the cause of the problems. Not only that, much of what is produced in the lab is not as valuable as what occurs in nature. A perfect example of this is cubic zirconium versus real diamonds. Pure diamonds mined out of the ground have always surpassed cubic zirconium in price. The reason for this is because due to the "labor theory of value" a great deal of labor has to be used to get real diamonds, while cubic zirconium is cheaply produced in the lab. Both co-exist equally in the market. The diamond industry has not been wiped out by cubic zirconium. If a synthetic gold or silver was suddenly discovered, I firmly believe the price of pure gold and silver would remain, because the rich will not want anything synthetic, any more than a man wants to buy a synthetic diamond ring for his wife. Will is not the first person in this forum to mention the concept of silver and gold being made obsolete by invention of synthetic precious, but because of the example of diamonds vs cubic zirconium, and the labor theory of value, silver or gold becoming obsolete, now or in the future, is highly unlikely.
Yeah, but you're missing the point. Black Monday was exacerbated by restrictions on the money supply by the Federal Reserve. If you look back historically, most of our major booms and busts have come under the Federal Reserve system. Black Monday, Black Tuesday, that's what intervention does. It creates a damn mess. The coming "massive crash" is partially caused by the FED, but every day people only see the FED response, because they don't understand M3 and money supply as factors. The FED creates the mess, then they try to fix it. People only see the reaction, not the action that led to it. It's like the government trying to fix healthcare. The answer is, more government money and control over healthcare. Or foreign policy. Foreign Policy is flawed, so we need more foreign intervention. Another thing Paul talks about is the inflation tax. The government for political reasons can't tax more. They're all excited about Bush's tax cuts. But really, taxes were cut and the deficit grew with more spending. We still have to pay for that, some in deferred debt, and some through devaluation of the dollar in our pockets. If you did business in Canada from the US, you would find that your dollar buys 66% of what it does prior to 2002. That's because it's value has deflated. The government's answer is to subsidize industries with more new money, to supress domestic price increases. But at one point, when the dollar is almost worthless in trade, or the Chinese stop devaluing their currency, you're going to see 200 + 300% price increases at Walmart, and it will be too late to stop it.
Philisophically you can say that, but it can be seen as banks taking their cut for the service rendered. You just need the right rates from the right bank and get a good money market account going so you can overcome the interest. The rich pay interest too and you can get into imbalance of percentages based on amounts in the bank but they got money makets going to overcome their interest rates too.
I think the labor theory of value is just as valid today as it was when the concept was first invented. I mean, you still have diamonds that are expensive, and synthetic diamonds which are cheaper in comparison, because the labor theory of value holds that the pure diamonds will still be harder to obtain, thus their prices. Another good example of the labor theory of value in action is custom cabinets. You have stock cabinets which are mass produced, and you have custom cabinets which are produced by hand, by a skilled carpenter. The custom cabinets produced by the skilled carpenter are always much more expensive than the mass produced ones, because the labor theory of value holds that the carpenter has to spend a certain amount of time and labor producing it. The custom cabinet is superior to the mass produced one, because it can be made with better materials. Both exist equally in the market, and rich generally favors the custom cabinets.
This is my worst nightmare. When this happens, if you don't have any gold or silver, and even if you have it, the U.S. isn't going to be a great place to be....its going to be Hurricane Katrina on a nationwide scale. Americans are going to hit the roof when their dollars can't buy them anything............this scenario is enough to keep me awake at night. If you have any money, the economy suffers this type of collapse, you may want to leave the country.........because it isn't going to be pretty.
I don't think the Fed is that big of a culprit with when it comes to booms and busts. The invervention is to keep things from going overboard one way or the other, to keep the numbers on the chart. We need, actually corporate confidence right now because that is where the hits are coming from recently. Recession odds are still at 50/50 but I don't think we will make it there because of the pending stock corrections and the inevitable moment when bonds get better. I think we will stop that from happening by helping out other factors of the economy to drive the entire economy forward. The dollar is really very undervalued and is a great buy right now long term.
We won't take a hit like a third world country, we got friends, tangible commodity strength and yup you guessed it, gov't regulations will be triggered.
I think you need to read up on Ludwig Von Mises and the Bretton Woods agreement. Market interventionism is the leading cause of the boom and bust cycle. Not the free market. If you continue to disagree, please cite examples. The dollar is being diluted. I keep repeating this, and you keep telling me it is undervalued. It is primarily being down valued because we are flooding the market with them. The dollar's worth is directly tied to what it can buy. In a period of hyperinflation, that's squat. It's a depression. It's when people burn their money for warmth. But gold for example is a global commodity. if the dollar takes a nosedive, you can sell your gold for another, more stable currency. You have to understand that fiat money systems always fail. We're in one of the longest periods of paper money without commodity backing. There is a due date on this jug of milk. It doesn't last forever. I'll laugh at folks who have their heads down and think the Chinese are going to come here and provide humanitarian relief. When our dollar takes a tumble, the world is going to run in the other direction, as fast as possible.
That's just what is really happening today and the actual dollar is not going to stay at its present state. The fact is intervention is just to keep things "on the charts" sort of speak. It was a free market in 1929 without intervention. Not all markets behave in perfect market correlations, value is a driving force up or down.
There is almost $1 trillion dollars in total world circulation, for a world population of about 6.6 billion people. This does not even include all the other world currencies. When you compared the dollar to silver, which only has $4.3 billion in total world supplies, it becomes easy to see why inflation is such a big problem. We have too many dollars, and the Fed is behind that. eric8476, here are some movies which I suggest you watch. They will give you an alternative view which backs up our arguments: The Money Masters:http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...931&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 Fiat Empire:http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...970&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2 Money as Debt:http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...794&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 I encourage you to watch these three films and then research the stuff you learn in them, there is a lot of history here, and I think you will learn the truth about the U.S. economy. The founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew we had a central bank regulating our economy, President Andrew Jackson spent much of his life fighting so that a central bank would never be established. He understood that a central bank would become a parasite to the nation.
Great stuff Tesla, I just want to say this to be clear, I'm saying undervalued based on the actual numbers and expectations of now Oct. 14, not necessarily about undervalue based on amount produced, they can just recall denominations and destroy them. But every time more money is printed, there is a reason it is and we need to satisfy those reasons for that amount of money to stand, building confidence in our economy because we mean to accomplish what we set out to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ This will help many working people Dr. Ron Paul's Tax Free Tips Act Ron Paul's Statement on the Tax Free Tips Act
The central bank was created in reaction to "The Money Trust" fiasco in 1907. Banks need to have enough liquidity at all times for every account they have or else their trust will fall apart and so would banking. I can't stuff my mattresses with all of my money, what if I get robbed? Even if a bank gets robbed, they are backed now and we are backed with enough money and the robbed money will be destroyed when found. We really don't see it but it is important backing for what we do in the world economy. The Dollar is always backed, there will never be a time when it will not be or it have no value what so ever. It's a good concept but as the emergence of world economies, wars, global trading, and the shear amount of people with money and value- central banks are needed for backing. Precious metals only can get to certain amount until it is all mined and possed by somebody, but the population isn't slowing down and what about those people that can't get those precious metal or valuable commodities simply because there isn't enought of it for the population? The economic system is good, not perfect, but good- managing value. And you can have that solid backing of value when you buy things outright. There is a way to right the ship with deflation but that is how things go, really. Not to put words into the founding fathers' mouths but I believe they would agree with a central bank now due to the shear volume of people here.
Umm... except inflation hasn't been a problem since the Carter administration. Are you sure that Grandpa Paul is feeling alright? He seems a little confused about what year it is.
You know, this is something that troubles me terribly. I am for Immigration Reform. But this means all these folks will get new starts. What about us??? They get brand spanking new Social Security Cards and will become prey to the American Dream. Car dealerships, home builders, the whole nine yards, while so many Americans are lost under a history which lasts a MINUMUM of seven years, disenfranchising them from this very status. Where's THEIR new start? Soon they'll still be able to rent a crap apartment alright, or buy a beat up old car --- but from them! With the division amongst rich and poor becoming more and more pronounced in the US, why would we give one set of law-breakers a new start and not our own? I think we should give BOTH! Give them both something reasonable before TRW sucks up all the wealth with i-n-f-o-r-m-a-t-i-o-n. We pork belly everything in Congress. Why not give AMERICAN'S a break for a change? What a world... Incidentally, ever wonder where the idea for bad credit for seven years comes from??? It comes from Dueteronomy, one of the four Books of Moses... "And the year for cancelling debts shall be seven years." Anyone know how old moses lived to be?
Umm, inflation is a problem right now.........we have 13% inflation, the 2% that the government claims does not include food, housing, or energy, three of the most important factors that determine it. Think about it Will. A brand new car today costs way more than it did in the 1940s. Why is that? According to economics, the more efficient a company becomes a producing a product, the product should be cheaper, not more expensive. So a car today should be cheaper than it was in the 1940s, because companies today produce cars at a faster and more efficient rate than in the 1940s. But you see the exact opposite: cars are becoming more expensive as time goes on, not cheaper, and with the exception of the personal computer industry, just about everything is going up in price. This is the result of using paper money and credit. It is a house made of cards, and as soon as the wind blows, it call comes tumbling down. I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news, but food prices, energy, and rent are on the rise, the three major things that are affected by inflation, the very things that the government doesn't include in their 2% inflation rate.