Ron Paul seems to be cool!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Berzerker
So the Framers were stupid?

Like they didn't understand the concept of fiat paper money and inflation?

Did you learn all that in our wonderful government schools?

I don't think the concept of inflation even existed then. Economics as a science was in its infancy then. There's certainly no reason to believe the Founders had any better intuition wrt it than we do.

[Berzerker]

What does that have to do with today? Today we have Keynesian monetary theory.

That doesn't make the Framers stupid

I don't think the concept of inflation even existed then. Economics as a science was in its infancy then.

The main reason for gold/silver in the Constitution was the inflation caused by the over printing of paper money during the war by the continental congress.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
That doesn't make the Framers stupid

This isn't about whether they were stupid or not. You used the fact that they advocated a gold standard as evidence that the gold standard isn't stupid. It's not evidence because the framers of the constitution didn't know what we know about monetary theory. They didn't know that you can prevent deflation and depressions. They only knew about inflation.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Since when is the gold standard a "moderate position" and not just stupid?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul

unless those above are not his positions, which one of them are exactly stupid?

Or are they all?

My reaction on some of them:

Nonintervention
U.S. Sovereignty
Civil Liberties
Free trade
Secure borders and immigration
Lower taxes and smaller government
Importance of hard currency
Prohibition/drug laws
more guns
Abortion
Environment

so I do not agree with all of what he thinks is right, but he is waaay better than any other US candidate... the major ??? is the "back to gold standard" business but even if he was elected I doubt he would be able to pull that one off...

for all the other , they are either minor or not important. Ie more guns - irrelevant, you have plenty as it is, abortion - well he would just pass on the right to the states, which is fair, goes well with "smaller federal gov, idea"... etc... but overall he is by far the best of the choice you got.

But the real problem is that many of Americans don't mind at all interventionism, even if it is based on faulty premises, for civil liberties the majority does not really care about enough, secure borders and immigration.... hmmm maybe there is a general interest in that one, majority likes drugs prohibitions,as well as federal control... You will only mind when this current careless attitude strikes you hard on the pocket, or the civil liberties loss becomes really widespread, but by that time it will be already too late... mah... even in Commie times, most of the people were OK with lack of civil liberties, as long as they could live OK and while they knew what was allowed and what wasn't, so they can avoid it... regardless this was not the best state of affairs.

even if Ron was in Europe he would have no chance in getting elected either, but well at least you in US cannot say that you didn't have any "different" choice (at least now in the primaries)...

[Kidlicious]

He's a nut!

from wiki

Paul's opposition to the Federal Reserve is supported by the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which holds that instead of containing inflation, the Federal Reserve, in theory and in practice, is responsible for causing inflation. In addition to eroding the value of individual savings, this creation of inflation leads to booms and busts in the economy. Thus Paul argues that government, via a central bank (the Federal Reserve), is the primary cause of economic recessions and depressions.

[Berzerker]

This isn't about whether they were stupid or not.

So we really can't blame them for being stupid.

Make up your mind, oh brilliant one

You used the fact that they advocated a gold standard as evidence that the gold standard isn't stupid.

You said they were stupid for having gold and silver back money

It's not evidence because the framers of the constitution didn't know what we know about monetary theory. They didn't know that you can prevent deflation and depressions. They only knew about inflation.

Nonsense, and as I said, a $20 gold piece would have bought a nice suit 200 years ago and a $20 gold piece would buy a nice suit today. That aint even close to true for paper money, so yeah, they seemed to have a clue about how the world
works.

He's a nut!

I've noticed you dont back up your smears, what exactly is nuts about what he said? Grow a spine, Kid... Stick that neck out...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Kidicious
He's a nut!

from wiki

not exactly, and the paragraph you quted does not really cover the important points about the theory.

In any case the theory goes well with Ron's general view, and in principle the Austrian Business Cycle theory is about governmental non-involvement with the economy. Such actions during a depression would allow the market to self correct and come into an equilibrium... It is not about non-prevention of crime (ie fraudulent practices), but about letting the market self-regulate.

Role of central banks is criticized there as they create "artificial" conditions through interest rate setting, which than "trick" the investors into believing that the market is ready for their investments as there is lots of cheap money around (hey that was the case few years ago with dot.com boom/ than recession avoiding maneuvres), that in turn create an "imaginary" bubble which has to be followed by a bust to allow the "correction" or alignment with the market to happen.

If they are right we will be in for a bust soon... a start appears to be coming from this Sub-prime induced credit crunch. According to that business model, the errors that happened like mixing the AAA rated securites with crap ones, and selling as AAA, was encouraged centrally. If there was no low interest rates encouragement, the market would be more careful with managing the investments, and not en masse go into that direction... in other words the ones who went in that direction (in this particular case an obvious idiotic choice which is biting us in the ass right now) would go bust/underperform sooner, and not keep on raking in unrealistic proftis making the others more conservative institutions go in that direction as well to stay competitive.

What kept this whole thing without check was unrealisticly low interest rates that were decided centrally thus giving us a long boom period which premitted such practicies to not only go unchallenged, but to be adopted across the market in order to stay competitive, thus a "mass error" was born and the seed for the impeding bust, or correction by that Austrian Business Model Theory...

Not that nutty as it seems to you.

Oc course a central bank could be doing a great job and be in sync with the market so all is dandy, but as a libertairan, Ron would say that do away with it alltogether and it will be even better.

I certainly would not go that far, but it is one extremist position among many good moderate ones that he holds, and in the end I do no think he would just disband the central bank and than watch the ship sink, as we are quite out of the alignment with fundamentals right now, due to our beloved governments (US, UK etc... ) actions over the past years...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Berzerker
You said they were stupid for having gold and silver back money

This time you are actually right. I meant to say that we can't say they are stupid.

Nonsense, and as I said, a $20 gold piece would have bought a nice suit 200 years ago and a $20 gold piece would buy a nice suit today. That aint even close to true for paper money, so yeah, they seemed to have a clue about how the world
works.

That doesn't mean anything.

I've noticed you dont back up your smears, what exactly is nuts about what he said? Grow a spine, Kid... Stick that neck out...

That the central bank causes depressions. Abolishing the central bank. When the gold standard causes a depression there will be no central bank to intervene.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kidicious
He's a nut!

from wiki

Sadly, from my limited knowledge of the Austrian School, I have to concur that Paul is a nut if he supports them.

IIRC the Austrian school consists in peremptory redefinition of the terms under discussion to make their conclusions inevitable. Digg is full of these foaming at the mouth lunatics. They used to try to spam Digg with their BS.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Such actions during a depression would allow the market to self correct and come into an equilibrium...

During a depression? How is that suppose to work. That's a new one on me. Suppose that the central bank did cause a depression and a gold standard was implemented. How is that suppose to help the economy to recover?

Role of central banks is criticized there as they create "artificial" conditions through interest rate setting, which than "trick" the investors into believing that the market is ready for their investments as there is lots of cheap money around (hey that was the case few years ago with dot.com boom/ than recession avoiding maneuvres), that in turn create an "imaginary" bubble which has to be followed by a bust to allow the "correction" or alignment with the market to happen.

Loaded language. What the central bank does actually is lower interest rates to encourage investment to prevent what would otherwise be a recession? The Fed has done it repeadedly over the years.

If they are right we will be in for a bust soon... a start appears to be coming from this Sub-prime induced credit crunch. According to that business model, the errors that happened like mixing the AAA rated securites with crap ones, and selling as AAA, was encouraged centrally. If there was no low interest rates encouragement, the market would be more careful with managing the investments, and not en masse go into that direction... in other words the ones who went in that direction (in this particular case an obvious idiotic choice which is biting us in the ass right now) would go bust/underperform sooner, and not keep on raking in unrealistic proftis making the others more conservative institutions go in that direction as well to stay competitive.

What is the connection between low rates and banks creating this investment packages? They would have done it anyway. The problem is the banks and their regulatory agencies. It had nothing to do with monetary policy. And btw, I'm sure that the libertarians have some plan to do away with the regulatory agencies too.

What kept this whole thing without check was unrealisticly low interest rates that were decided centrally thus giving us a long boom period which premitted such practicies to not only go unchallenged, but to be adopted across the market in order to stay competitive, thus a "mass error" was born and the seed for the impeding bust, or correction by that Austrian Business Model Theory...

A long boom period is just what we want. In fact, because we use monetary policy we can add extra liquidity to the economy that we would not be able to do with the gold standard. With the gold standard it would be recession for sure. It would be total panic. Notice how the markets were calmed when the Fed took action?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul

unless those above are not his positions, which one of them are exactly stupid?

Or are they all?

Yeah, pretty much. On every single position he is so extreme (monetary policy is just the most obvious example) that he's simply not living in the same world as us. Withdraw from the UN?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Agathon


Sadly, from my limited knowledge of the Austrian School, I have to concur that Paul is a nut if he supports them.

IIRC the Austrian school consists in peremptory redefinition of the terms under discussion to make their conclusions inevitable. Digg is full of these foaming at the mouth lunatics. They used to try to spam Digg with their BS.

well while whast you see on Digg are nutters, the UK economic turnaround with Thatcher for example was greatly influenced by their thought... now you might think she was a nut too, and I partially agree but there are good ideas within that school of economic thought, many of them are used today too in the mainstream...

so Ron agreeing with them is not so whacky, saying he is a "nut" for it well is nutty

[Kidlicious]

The aren't as dumb as the neoliberals

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul

unless those above are not his positions, which one of them are exactly stupid?

Or are they all?

Yeah, pretty much. On every single position he is so extreme (monetary policy is just the most obvious example) that he's simply not living in the same world as us. Withdraw from the UN?

Well and what is that the current US does - run the UN, and if UN doesn't dance than it ignores it (as in Iraq)... probably better to be straight and get out. UN would survive in some different shape, but perhaps relocate ... Would be interesting to see that development.

[Kuciwalker]

Well and what is that the current US does - run the UN, and if UN doesn't dance than it ignores it (as in Iraq)... probably better to be straight and get out.

That's nonsense. It's obviously a better idea to stay in the UN, at least for us.