diverborg

[replyThe lack of a gold standard is not the root cause of the current economic problems, and it certainly isn't the solution. To answer a few of posts on here. You are correct, it probably isn't the root cause. Nor will going to the gold standard ensure a prosperous economy. The economy will be up and down like it always is, but at least the growth would be more realistic. Its also likely that during a transition to a gold standard the stock market could take a hit because an endless supply of bogus paper money isn't going to be pumped into the system to keep an unrealistic growth rate or worse, keep it from a big drop. Someday we will pay the piper, either start transitioning it now and make it less painful, or live in la la land for another "x" number of years and watch a complete meltdown of our economy and financial system. Back to the root cause of our problems. You can certainly have a fully functioning and prosperous economy without a gold standard. Spending and printing currency out of thin air to support that spending is the problem. Even then the economy can function, but the dollars value will steadily decline. If we had a congress and president that all seemed to agree that we need to quit printing money to afford out of control spending we could solve the problem there. However, that's been the story forever. Cut spending, lower taxes, bla bla bla... Who is actually accomplishing that? Placing an item of value behind currency whether its goats, walnuts or gold, is one way to ensure we can't create a false wealth. Gold just happens to be a worthless element that almost every society on earth has placed value in for some bizarre reason. Now govt spending would be limited to tax revenue, or at least have an item of value backing any additional money printed into the system.

I agree with the goal, I just don't think the gold standard is the way to get there. There very well could be better ways to approach this, but as of now something needs to be changed, and I haven't seen any other propositions yet.

Sounds great. Unless you sell cheeseburgers for a living. Lol. Well that dollar you get for making each of those cheeseburgers will go a lot further than it did back when cheeseburgers were $5. But those numbers are assuming our economy would be growing at 500% in ten years. Unrealistic, to say the least. The changes will be a lot more gradual and won't have cause some crazy shockwave to ripple through the system. The dollar's value will go up and down, but what stays relatively consistent is the value of work. An hour spent welding on a cruiseship will be worth roughly 4 times an hour spent working at burger king flipping burgers. What that translates to in numbers of dollars is relatively meaningless. Pretty much the reason minimum wage laws are kinda pointless. If we make minimum wage $20/hr, then a cheeseburger is going to cost us $15. We are no wealthier or less wealthier than we are before. Only the value of the dollar has changed. But if we have a system in place where we can at least try to curb some of the rapid devaluation of our currency, then at least what we've saved up in our lives to retire will buy us relatively the same services as what that money is worth today. What good is $1,000,000 in the bank if 50 years from now it costs me $300,000 year just to survive each year vs the $70,000 I can live off of now.

Let me try to clarify a couple things. I never meant to say that the value of gold would increase variable to the dollar. If one gram equals on dollar, then one gram equals one dollar. I would imagine there are things that could change that given the supply/demand for gold changes, but ignore that idea for a moment. What I'm saying is if the efficiency of our economy increased, and the number of dollars in circulation stay the same, then that one dollar will be worth more and buy you more services, therefore that gram of gold will be worth more in "services". It isn't worth more in "dollars", it would be the same. Thats what I meant by the value of that gold increasing as well. You seem to be assuming that we need to have more dollars in circulation for wealth to increase, and for situations to improve. If ten years from now we have the same exact amount of dollars in circulation, but a cheeseburger that once cost $5 lets say you can now buy it for a $1. That cheeseburger isn't worth less, that dollar is worth more. A cheeseburger is still just a cheeseburger. I am oversimplifying it a lot, but this is the basic concept. We want the value of our dollar to increase don't we? Right now we are trying to create wealth without the economy and/or item or service of value to back it up, and thats a very dangerous concept.

Probably a good deal better. Fox tries to sabotage him, and everyone else tries to ignore him. Bullshit. Fox News has given Ron Paul a platform to express his views moreso than any other network. He's been on Hannity, OReilly and Chris Wallace several times and he was always given a great opportunity to reach Republican voters. Might want to youtube those "interviews". They never gave him an opportunity to reach Republican voters. They brought him on there to try and rip into him and in turn made themselves look stupid when he did really well at defending himself, that is for the few seconds they gave him to actually talk. You really need to see O'Reilly's interview of him. Its ridiculous. O'Reilly never let him finish a point. When he's not on their shows they ignore the fact that he exists and only talk about Newt and Romney like they're the only contenders. Check out Jon Stewarts video on this. Its pretty funny. I watched Cavuto ask Chris Wallace what if Ron Paul wins the Iowa caucus after Wallace kept talking like Newt and Romney were the only candidates. Chris Wallace with a straight face, said it would completely discredit Iowa caucus. What a douche.

I'm no econimist, but here's a very simplified analysis. If every dollar requires a little piece of gold at Ft. Knox, how can the ecomony grow? The US economy would become a zero sum game. For every dollar I made, it means someoe else would have to lose a dollar. The only way the economy can grow is if we find more gold. That's ridiculous. Fractional reserve banking can be dangerous and lead to financial bubbles, inflation, and other economic troubles, but without it the economy would stagnate. I might be able to get behind a scheme to increase controls over cash circulation, but going back to precious metals is out of touch with reality. Just my thoughts on the other side of that. I think we need to first differentiate between the difference of the value of the economy vs the value of the dollar. The wealth of an economy in reality boils down to the measure of efficiency of that economy. If the dollars in circulation are fixed, then assuming the wealth of our economy grows through efficiency, then the value of that dollar will grow in proportion. If its on a gold standard, then the value of that gold will grow in equal proportion as well. In theory this system would only allow the value of the dollar to increase if the efficiency of our economy is increasing. With the current system, the value of the dollar is disconnected from the health of the economy and we could have a booming economy but a falling dollar value if we keep printing money to sustain spending that the economy can't keep up with. Its especially dangerous in a struggling economy like we have now, where we just keep printing money to sustain the spending. I don't know about you, but I would like to know that my 401K will be worth something when I retire. What good is all that growth in the account if it can't keep up with inflation. At least if we can't print money without something of value to back up its worth, we have some stability in the value of our dollar. It doesn't matter if we don't have more dollars in the system, someone is supposed to lose a dollar for you to gain a dollar. That's how economics is supposed to work. If your services are gained without the sacrifice of someone else, the system falls apart. We won't run out of dollars to exchange, it will only be the value of those dollars will in theory buy a lot more in services. Which is fantastic for anybody who has a retirement account.

I commend you for your service and respect your opinion on Mr. Pauls foreign policy as much as anybody elses, but just want to mention there has been two sources already linked in this thread to his support from military. We don't have a "military poll" (would be nice if we did). The only indicator we have right now is campaign donations. I placed a link on the first page that was just the 2nd quarter donations and Ron Paul had received more than all the other candidates combined including Obama. The 3rd quarter totals are out now, and that number has exploded. You can see the chart on hwt's youtube link. Yes its a Ron Paul ad and they made the pretty chart, but the numbers are not disputable. They are out there for public record and you can find them with a simple google. I attached a graph of the 3rd quarter totals if you would like to see it. Your opinion and observations while just as valid, don't reflect the entire military. It would be like me sayins that all the non-military people I hang out with think Ron Paul is a nut, therefore every one else in the country thats not serving think he's a nut too.

Absolutely not. Thats why I don't worry so much about a few of his more fringe views. What a president wants and what he accomplishes are two separate things. I made that point in one of my prior posts. He does have a lot of good ideas and seems to be the only one in touch with the budget crisis we have on hand right now though. The other candidates will be more of the same. At least Ron Paul recognizes we can't touch the budget without scaling back military and serious cuts in other areas. How much of that he'll accomplish, who knows, but at least he understands it and will be trying to move us in that direction. IMO the other candidates are the ones out of touch with reality. They're are picture perfect examples of "politics as usual" regardless of what letter they put in front of their name.

Ok, lets expand on this. Regardless of who you think the best candidate would be, Newt probably doesn't have much of a chance at beating Obama. Romney would have a decent chance, but definitely not a sure shot. Strategically Ron Paul would be the only definite win for the GOP, IMO. Its likely nearly every GOP candidate including yourself would vote for him over Obama, and you are going to have a landslide of Democrats jumping the fence to vote for Ron Paul over Obama as well. If the GOP had half a brain right now they'd be propping up Ron Paul as much as possible because he's a sure shot. Newt is far too disconnected from the center and left voters to ever get any from that camp. Romney, would get a few, but there are still way too many that would vote for Obama over those two anyday. If he GOP keeps ignoring Ron Paul and keeps propping up these horrible alternatives, then they're going to piss this election down there leg and we'll see 4 more of Obama. The GOP does not select which candidates to run. A candidate decides to run and then seeks voter support through fundraising, debates etc. In the end, the GOP does not decide who the eventual nominee is. That's determined by the voters. Well thank you for that civics lesson. The GOP does select their nominee, but they use votes to determine who they nominate. The language I used in my post has more to do with GOP pushing for specific candidates during the primaries. Conservative media outlets are doing all they can to prop up any candidate besides Ron Paul. Why? Because Ron Paul is not going to be there puppet. All the other candidates play ball just fine, so anybody but Paul will do for the GOP. That's what I'm getting at. I'm full aware that in the end, the people's votes are what determines that. And as much as many folks would like to dismiss him he neck and neck for that front slot. So lets face it folks, he's very much electable or he wouldn't even be in the top 3 right now. Media outlets are not the GOP. I can't find any specific support for one candidate over the other by the GOP at this point. That's all I'm saying. Fair enough.

Ok, lets expand on this. Regardless of who you think the best candidate would be, Newt probably doesn't have much of a chance at beating Obama. Romney would have a decent chance, but definitely not a sure shot. Strategically Ron Paul would be the only definite win for the GOP, IMO. Its likely nearly every GOP candidate including yourself would vote for him over Obama, and you are going to have a landslide of Democrats jumping the fence to vote for Ron Paul over Obama as well. If the GOP had half a brain right now they'd be propping up Ron Paul as much as possible because he's a sure shot. Newt is far too disconnected from the center and left voters to ever get any from that camp. Romney, would get a few, but there are still way too many that would vote for Obama over those two anyday. If he GOP keeps ignoring Ron Paul and keeps propping up these horrible alternatives, then they're going to piss this election down there leg and we'll see 4 more of Obama. The GOP does not select which candidates to run. A candidate decides to run and then seeks voter support through fundraising, debates etc. In the end, the GOP does not decide who the eventual nominee is. That's determined by the voters. Well thank you for that civics lesson. The GOP does select their nominee, but they use votes to determine who they nominate. The language I used in my post has more to do with GOP pushing for specific candidates during the primaries. Conservative media outlets are doing all they can to prop up any candidate besides Ron Paul. Why? Because Ron Paul is not going to be there puppet. All the other candidates play ball just fine, so anybody but Paul will do for the GOP. That's what I'm getting at. I'm full aware that in the end, the people's votes are what determines that. Unfortunately the general voting populace is very swayed by media attention. Its fascinating to me that Ron Paul is fighting for the lead in the polls, yet all we here in Fox News is "unelectable", "out of touch with reality", "bad speaker". I'd really like to know how he'd be doing with a little mainstream media support. And as much as many folks would like to dismiss him he neck and neck for that front slot. So lets face it folks, he's very much electable or he wouldn't even be in the top 3 right now.

Yes. As I understand it, at one time every paper dollar had a little piece of Gold in a vault backing it, giving it inherent value. Now that there is so much more paper money than there is Gold, putting us back on the Gold Standard is ludicrous and would serve to simply vaporize the value of the Dollar. So you think going back to a gold standard means Ron Paul is going to walk in and overnight take billions of $$ out of circulation? Ok, if he does that, sure there would be economic repurcussion I'd imagine. But explain how that would "vaporize the value" of the dollar. Seems to me it do quite the opposite. Printing endless dollars is what seems to be the problem with the steadily dropping value of the dollar. Look at a dollar bill as sort of a Title to $1 worth of Gold. That was the Gold Standard. Now there are (on an order of magnatude) more pieces of paper than there are bits of Gold. If RP was to tie the value of that dollar to a bit of Gold, what happens when you have far more dollars than you do gold to back them up? There will be trillions of un-backed dollars. Poof! OR... the value of gold shoots through the roof. But I understand what you're saying. That said, I'm not convinced that this is really a concern. I would imagine there would be plenty of economists working with him on this if he were ever able to accomplish such a goal. The purpose of going back to a gold standard would be opposite of your fears, and is to prevent overinflating our economy with bogus money and actually further destroying the value of the dollar. I have a hard time conceiving that there would be no way of implementing this over time without a ill effect on the economy. Then again I have no idea how much gold is in circulation vs dollars currently.

Yes. As I understand it, at one time every paper dollar had a little piece of Gold in a vault backing it, giving it inherent value. Now that there is so much more paper money than there is Gold, putting us back on the Gold Standard is ludicrous and would serve to simply vaporize the value of the Dollar. So you think going back to a gold standard means Ron Paul is going to walk in and overnight take billions of $$ out of circulation? Ok, if he does that, sure there would be economic repurcussion I'd imagine. But explain how that would "vaporize the value" of the dollar. Seems to me it do quite the opposite. Printing endless dollars is what seems to be the problem with the steadily dropping value of the dollar.

Ok, lets expand on this. Regardless of who you think the best candidate would be, Newt probably doesn't have much of a chance at beating Obama. Romney would have a decent chance, but definitely not a sure shot. Strategically Ron Paul would be the only definite win for the GOP, IMO. Its likely nearly every GOP candidate including yourself would vote for him over Obama, and you are going to have a landslide of Democrats jumping the fence to vote for Ron Paul over Obama as well. If the GOP had half a brain right now they'd be propping up Ron Paul as much as possible because he's a sure shot. Newt is far too disconnected from the center and left voters to ever get any from that camp. Romney, would get a few, but there are still way too many that would vote for Obama over those two anyday. If he GOP keeps ignoring Ron Paul and keeps propping up these horrible alternatives, then they're going to piss this election down there leg and we'll see 4 more of Obama. Any of them can beat Obama Quite possible, but I don't think any of us can say that for sure. Ron Paul would inarguably have more votes from the other side. Lets face it people are sick of these wars. They probably cost McCain the election last year, because Obama "claimed" he had a plan to get us out of them. A lot of folks can look past issues they don't agree with if it means getting our troops home, and getting our national budget back on track.

Could you expand on the first point? Why would it be an economic disaster? Not disagreeing, just would like to hear an arguement for it. The second point, is one thing that has bothered me a little about Ron Paul, but keep in mind if any president out there got there way with everything it would be even a further messed up country than it is now. Because he has an opinion that the EPA is unecessary, doesn't mean that he's going to be able to walk in and dismantle it. And I'm not so convinced myself either that the EPA is worth the money we're spending on it. It hasn't protected us from several big disasters as it is. You don't need an entire govt organization in place to have a few laws in place to protect the environment. Temple inland just dumped thousands of gallons of untreated wastewater into one of my favorite rivers near where I live. It did a 100% kill of every fish, turtle, snake, and amphibean for 60 miles downstream. What did the EPA do to prevent that? They've done nothing to ensure it doesn't happen again either. They got a slap on the wrist and didn't even have requirements set forth to improve their wastewater treatment. The only thing hitting them where it hurts right now is all the landowners along the river suing the crap out of them. Its not a bad philosophy, and a worthy experiment.

Ok, lets expand on this. Regardless of who you think the best candidate would be, Newt probably doesn't have much of a chance at beating Obama. Romney would have a decent chance, but definitely not a sure shot. Strategically Ron Paul would be the only definite win for the GOP, IMO. Its likely nearly every GOP candidate including yourself would vote for him over Obama, and you are going to have a landslide of Democrats jumping the fence to vote for Ron Paul over Obama as well. If the GOP had half a brain right now they'd be propping up Ron Paul as much as possible because he's a sure shot. Newt is far too disconnected from the center and left voters to ever get any from that camp. Romney, would get a few, but there are still way too many that would vote for Obama over those two anyday. If he GOP keeps ignoring Ron Paul and keeps propping up these horrible alternatives, then they're going to piss this election down there leg and we'll see 4 more of Obama.

Maybe its just me, but I've never really felt Ron Paul is a bad speaker. I think he does very well making his points especially when he's speaking from his head and not from a teleprompter. The guys memory is outstanding. I personally feel he's the best debater as well. If you disagree with his points fine, but that doesn't mean he can't school anybody he's up against. I've watched him own O'Reilly and its quite humorous. Addresing those on here that think he's naive or foolish... Naive he is not. He's been around a long time and has a lot of history and experience and thought that goes into his opinions including his own military service. Many of his warnings from 30 years ago have come true, and people are realizing this. He's been bouncing between #1 and #2 in all the polls, yet he's glazed over and all we hear about is Newt and Romney like they're the only two in the race. Its laughable. You can claim he's unelectable all day long, but but he's gaining huge support.

And we're stuck in the middle with you. ba dum dum ching.

I think the biggest flaw with out society is that we think political leaders are somehow going "make things better". Nobody wants to point the fingers at "we the people". We have the sole power to elect those that govern us. We have the sole power to decide who we give our business to. We have the sole power that if we don't like something about our economic status, then we can do something about it. Nobody is holding you down but yourself. There is nothing govt can or ever will be able to do to eliminate poverty or protect a certain "class". The disappearing middle class has more to do with the "dumbification" of America than it has anything to do with politics. I came from a single parent family where my dad made $7/hr when I was still in high school and managed to raise 3 of us. I didn't have anybody there to buy me clothes, a car, or pay for my college. There were 4 of us in a two bedroom apt with no video games, or cable tv. And life was just fine. I had the common sense to take advantage of a public education, take the student loans and go to college, and work my ass off to have a better life than I did as a kid, and I'm doing just fine on my middle-class income becaues I don't waste my money on crap. If you don't like the way things are going. Then quit buying stuff at Wal-mart. Try hard in school, go to college (anybody can get a student loan), don't blow your money on "stuff" and invest it, and make something of yourself. No politician can motivate a society to do this by giving them handouts, or making laws to protect a certain class.

I think that statement is just too general. I think you take their general sentiment, and mix it with the diplomat's sentiment and throw in a little aid worker and then try and make your own opinion. Yes its a very general statement, but I'm not claiming that our military personnel are more knowledgeable than a diplomat. I'm claiming that in general I think it would be tough to deny they're more knowledgeable than the general voting populace. You don't have to believe that sentiment if you don't want to.

Got a cite for that that doesn't originate with the RP campaign? I do not, yet... I have seen the figure quoted on more than one media outlet, including fox news whose sole mission is to discredit Paul. I'll see what I can dig up. If you want to taken seriously in this, you may want to drop the strawman statements, as well. Can you explain to me what exactly I said that would qualify as a strawman? Of course a google search is going to bring up the first ten pages of pro-Ron Paul sites quoting that, but I did find where one of those sites quoted USA Today on campain donations from military servicemen and women. Don't know how dated those stats are, and given those are fairly insignificant amounts its hard to draw a full conclusion on that, but it's likely a good indicator of his support. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/07/ron-paul-military-campaign-donations-/1

Got a cite for that that doesn't originate with the RP campaign? I do not, yet... I have seen the figure quoted on more than one media outlet, including fox news whose sole mission is to discredit Paul. I'll see what I can dig up.

Maybe on the military aspect of foreign policy. There is a lot more to foreign policy than the military. Fair enough, but wouldn't you think they would at least have as much wisdom if not slightly more in the other areas of foreign policy than perhaps the rest of the general populace of GOP voters who base their opinions largely on what the Fox news tells them.

On the lighter side, they've made one of these videos for most the GOP candidates out there, but Ron Paul's is the best IMO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w2-n3U5Mm4

Seriously? You think the military should dictate foreign policy? Seriously? You think "trust their opinion" = "dictate policy"? Seriously? You think "servicemen and women" (individuals that typically interface more with foreign cultures than others) = "the military" (the establishment)? Thank you. Your response was a little better than mine.

Seriously? You think the military should dictate foreign policy? Perhaps I worded that poorly. Dictate it, absolutely not. Should their opinion be taken into consideration when we are discussing presidential candidate's views on foreign policy? Um yeah, at least more than my dumbass who's only foreign policy experience is my 3 yrs on an airforce contract and the vast knowledge I've gained from speakers corner.