Brian Doherty writes at American Conservative magazine:
“No call for liberty and constitutional principle seems convincing when Obama is arguing that those relying on government giveaways should have to follow government-set rules. That is, once you’ve allowed them to go ahead with the handouts, the political game is almost over. Under the guise of “managing the taxpayers’ money,” Obama and his crew are rewriting mortgages, deciding executive compensation, tossing out CEO’s. And note carefully that his plans for where taxpayers’ money should go continue to swell, from healthcare to the environment to energy policy to expanded “national service” programs. When taxpayers’ money is everywhere—and Obama is doing his best to make sure it is—then Obama’s control is everywhere.
The Octo-potus is claiming his space and flexing his grip. As far as he’s concerned, it’s Barack Obama’s country. We’re just living in it.”
My Comment:
This would be much more plausible if it were true that the vast majority of people opposed either Obama…or Bush.
But they didn’t.
They could have stood up to militarism..and jingoism…and government hand-outs…and bail-outs…and subsidies..
But they didn’t – that’s the crucial point.
The Octo-potus rules, because, when all’s said and done, that’s exactly the way we (whoever that nebulous creature is) wanted it.
Lila
I think they are setting us up for the big collapse , now i am not wearing tinfoils , bunker building , but it just seems like they are just throwing it all in for good measure , makeing it collapse for sure. Big collapse means the system gets rid of the waste and start anew. The way that helps is all the excesses and inequity are excused under the guise of a black swan collapse and we get a dog eat dog world for sometime.
Who knows what comes out of it, maybe a brave new world of Audlous Huxley or maybe endgame of Samuell Beckett, “Old endgame lost of old, play and lose and have done with losing.”.
Whats surprising would be if this actually works for another decade. Wont that be nice.
Seems like it.
I wonder at people who think some enormous shift has taken place with Obama – one way or other. Will Grigg had a good piece today at Lew Rockwell about Waco – which was a rallying cry for the right (correctly) against Clinton…but it was Bush Sr. who put the legislation in place.
But the party system makes it hard to get people to see this is way beyond partisanship.
Now there will be all the war crimes trials (and of course, the Bush admin deserves it) – but it’s much more important to catch ongoing crime and discredit the legislation its enabling..
I mean TARP 2 should not even be considered legal since the conflicts of interest are so huge…
It’s beyond disturbing.
But let’s see how many people come right out and connect the dots in any responsible way. I am not talking about tin foil hat stuff. I am talking about credible analysis.
Anytime, I’ve done it, I’ve been greeted by a huge silent snub from even the blogosphere..the piece doesn’t get linked..it gets buried somewhere..
That’s not accidental, I’m sure.
There’s only so much truth people can hear before they get turned off. That’s a sad fact. Most people would sooner listen to confirmation of what they they think they know than listen to something new or revelatory. Requires too much moral and intellectual effort.
I find it funny you should care about people or what they think after writing a book about it. 🙂
You don’t care in the sense you don’t change
what you write about to suit people.
But of course you care. Because it can make it easier or harder to write more.
And no one wants to write in a vacuum.
Well I experienced this when i was reading Armed Madhouse which was an OK book , didn’t seem like a work of investigative journalism more like an insiders account and half the time the information was just given to him by someone who actually summoned him in the first place.
I wasn’t able to read more than a third of the book it quite boring (offputting?)to be given info about high crimes by the people who commit them.
I still feel that it should always be pointed out even if others pretend to not care about it.
I feel there should be an attempt to write a history from an angle of truth other wise the same lies would propagate forever and future historians may write elaborate theories about complete nonsense. I have always wondered what happened in Rome in times of Caesar to Nero and how much of what we read is actually true.
Yes – that’s why you write.
But then, what I’ve found is there is what I like to call a meta narrative into which what you find is fitted into.
And that metanarrative alters what you’ve written..and it’s not in your control.
For instance, if you write a book that indicates that there is a bipartisan effort to spin or cover up something. And if the media at large finds it convenient to take up one side of your story (which exposes the opposite party) but suppresses what puts their side in a bad light, well then – your work has only contributed to perpetuating the media’s metanarrative.
Unless you can take back control…which to some degree you can with a blog.
But it’s not easy.
And blogging lacks the credibility and permanence of print.
Things can be deleted and altered or removed altogether – to distort a record
who wrote this? this is brilliant …
“if Krugman is an intellectual heavy-weight, being a moron isn’t such a bad thing, after all.
”
This is the real lol, I have been begging my friends some many times more intelligent than me to not go for an MBA, not because i feel they may not be able to get a return on the money if they graduate in this market by taking 150k loans but because i dont want them to put their brilliance to make the humanity so much the worse off.
Thank you so much.
That’s worth something.
What you said about the waste of intelligence is true
But there again…it’s the banks that incentivized things so that going into finance ..or housing…became so very attractive..
And now, for the next five years, everyone will want to go to DC and run the New Deal!
LOL
Why not let the market set the incentives and the disincentives?
Why not?
Because of vanity. I think ultimately it comes down to vanity. People are attached to the notion that they can do much more than they really can.
Few of us can manage our own money let alone everyone else’s..
Mobs, Messiah and delusions….
Lila, I’m pretty disappointed in the lack of dialogue I have received regarding the plan of mine that you previously posted. I also thought you were going to describe or post some other “fix it” ideas that are being tossed around, and that we would have a chance to discuss and critique those.
Anyway, regarding the fact that the sheeple want to keep their socialistically-supplied bennies, I believe it is unrealistic for right-wing libertarians to expect people to be other than how they are, leaving them with the only two courses of action at which they seem to excell: ranting about the stupidity of the sheeple, and praying that the whole system collapses and magically leaves them in charge of what’s left.
ps. Curious why I never got ANY response to the email I sent you last week.
Hi Alan –
I do believe I’ve responded twice to your proposals.
I get several of them, you know.
All seem to be variations of the theme, let’s divvy up the spoils on a more satisfactory way because
the government got the loot immorally anyway.
My sense is they post huge constitutional/legal problems and would never pass that first hurdle.
Re right wing libertarians:
(1) I am not praying that the system collapses. It simply IS collapsing. This is a description, not a prescription.
(2) “Magically leaves ‘them’ in charge” – how is anyone left in charge if the system collapses? If it collapses, those in charge (largely big government interventionists, banks, CEOs of defense and related industries) will go down too. This will have its good points too but will be enormously chaotic.
Right wing libertarians, as far as I can see, are minding their own business and trying to protect their OWN money. If you’re worried they’ll end up with more money than the thugs (a strange worry)- relax, the chances are unlikely. The wealthiest in our society have got their wealth largely from a cozy relationship with the state. Ir’s unlikely they’re about to lose it any time.
(3) Hoping to wipe the slate clean and start with some trivial amount of money on everyone’s plate seems to me to be completely unworkable. The sum wouldn’t be anything that anyone with reasonable earning powers would want. It would compensate none of the victims for their real losses. The only thing it would do is to whet the appetites of the tax-eaters for more.
(4) I’m not replying to anyone from my personal email.
Hope that helps.
To this point you have only responded with generalities (i.e., cop-outs) like “My sense is they pose huge constitutional/legal problems and would never pass that first hurdle.”
Ron Paul thinks getting rid of the Federal Reserve would be okay/constitutional/legal…not you? Why not?
We’ve already had fiat/ration coupon money for many years…how could that be a legal problem?
The government sent out economic stimulus checks in 2008 based mostly on political expediency…expediency will drive the government to sending out much more than that before this is done. Why not send it where it will actually do some good?
The replacement of the income tax with a rebated sales tax (the FairTax proposal) is already being talked about, including by several of the 2008 Presidential candidates…my proposal just makes it a much FairerTax. Where’s the problem with that?
The concept of “odious debt” is likewise well-established, all that is needed is the political will and vehicle to push it through. The coming 25%+ unemployment and world-wide rioting should provide fuel for both.
As part of my argument that “citizens are owed compensation for loss of right of free access to land” (originally argued by Tom Paine in his “Agrarian Justice” plan, which see), I define a government as “one or more persons who claim certain natural resources, are willing and able to defend their claim on those resources, and who make and enforce decisions regarding the allocation of those resources: he, she, or they “govern” THEIR OWN property.” I’m curious if you have any problem with that definition and if you agree or disagree with Paine concerning land owners owing compensation for their impairment of others right of free access to land. (Paine wanted to collect the compensation from the property owners to whom the government has allocated the land, while I maintain that the compensation is owed by the actual owner: the government of that land.)
Regarding the prayers of right-wing libbers, I was referring to “before the crash started”. Obviously, now their prayers have been semi-answered. (And I didn’t say they WOULD be left in charge, I just said that that was part of their prayer.)
Finally. I think you have misunderstood something: my plan doesn’t say anything about “everybody starting from scratch” (though if the Fed dollar actually collapses that might turn out to be the case) “with only a little bit of money”. However it works when one currency replaces another (as occurred with the introduction of Fed dollars in 1913) would be fine; if the politics at the time were such that it was necessary to put a billion dollar limit on exchanging the Fed dollars for the new money, I think everybody would be able to find a way to either scrape by or game the system, no matter. From that point on, though, everybody would be getting $1000 per month to spend however they like(call it “loss of of access to land compensation” or “universal social security”, whatever; the name and justification are nits), with no income taxes and soon no other forms of government interference or market distortion. How could you possibly have a problem with that?
No Minimum Wage Laws, but labor would not be as cheap for bad jobs because people would have a little income coming in each month (so the bad jobs would either get automated or have to pay more to get anyone to take them; how would that be a bad outcome?). Good jobs could be filled for less money because people would already have some money coming in each month; people someday might even have to bid to PAY to take some of the few remaining jobs after this has been going for a few decades. I really do not understand how anyone could fail to see how simple this plan is and how cool the results will be other than by willfully refusing to think about it at all. I’ve talked to hundreds of people about it on the street and in laundromats and libraries and in bank lobbies and everybody that I have had a chance to explain it to JUST LOVES IT. I think the problem is that the blog format does not lend itself to complete explanations but rather promotes “quippiness”. BUT I see a lot of potential benefit (for everyone) in getting you to understand this thing and so I do not intend to give up on you, Lila, until I am completely sure that you COMPLETELY understand it, even if at that time you still have irreconcilable problems with it.
some things I missed:
regarding “whetting the appetite of the tax-eaters for more”
1. They wouldn’t be tax-eaters if they were being properly compensated for the loss of their right to free access to land (concerning which so far you have said not a word), and
2. If everyone gets the same amount, then there is no re-distribution (and no tax to be eaten), whether the amount is $1000 or $1 billion. The actual monthly amount is fairly irrelevant as long as the total amount of money is held constant so that there is no ongoing inflation.
The amount drained off each month would be by a small, automatically-collected “infrastructure maintenance fee” of one percent or less on every electronic debit transfer (cash and barter would be free of charge).
Everyone will pay the same flat fee. The biggest impact of this would be on currency and stock speculation, but it would be much less than brokers used to charge for trades all the time.
Regarding your comment: “If you’re worried they’ll end up with more money than the thugs (a strange worry)- relax, the chances are unlikely. The wealthiest in our society have got their wealth largely from a cozy relationship with the state. Ir’s unlikely they’re about to lose it any time.”
1. I don’t know how you got that from what I wrote, but it doesn’t have anything to do with what I was saying. What I was trying to say was that the Royal libertarians (who want to recognize government property titles but not governments from whom those titles originate) are not only inconsistent but also ineffective: With you or without you, I am going to get the world a freer market on top of proper compensation for government’s taking of everyone’s free access rights, while the Royal libbers continue to whine and pray and get nothing actually accomplished. My preference is “with you”, so please try to figure out what I am actually saying rather than just assume you already know. So far you haven’t exhibited the slightest amount of duplication of what I am actually proposing.
2. That is exactly what the plan fixes, both in the short term (by relegating the Federal government to mainly pumping liquidity, human heart-like, equally to every “cell”), and in the long-term (by removing excess liquidity based on the total of benefits previously received; in other words, based on accumulated wealth). In other words, the regressive tax on actual productivity and wages would be replaced by a small charge on wealth that would fall most heavily (in total dollars) on those who have obtained the most previous benefit (perhaps due to “their cozy relationship with the state”). Over time, the wealth disparity will diminish; and with no income taxes to hold them back, and a lot more money in the hands of people who actually need to spend it, the most productive will be able to get very rich, very quickly.
Hi Alan –
You must not read what people write.
I do support the movement to “abolish the fed.” And have done so ever since I first became acquainted with the Fed’s role in all this.
Secondly, “a legal or constitutional problem,” is not a cop out. The movement to abolish the Fed is based on constitutionality.
Thirdly,I do support anything which undoes laws that interfere with the market. I don’t support the creation of any more programs or initiatives. We have too many as it is.
Here’s what I support –
1. Enforce current laws to the full – especially laws on fraud – most of the financial contracts and obligations the government has gotten into can then properly be disregarded
2. Prosecute financial criminals to the full and recover costs from them and not from the public
3. Enforce existing antitrust laws to the full – most of our largest monopolies could be broken up
4. Get rid of all capital gains and other taxes that hold back business investment
5. Cut back (not just check the growth) of defense spending and some new social spending (phase in cuts to social spending that shrink the federal budget and return most of the spending to state or local level)
6. Get rid of excessive licensing requirements in the professions. Open them up to competition from all over the world.
7. Allow businesses to hire whom they want, but do not subsidize immigration with “support” programs.
In border areas, slow down hiring to accommodate local communities. Prefer high skilled immigrants to lower skilled immigrants by not subsidizing the movement of the latter through social programs.
8. Stop subsidies to agribusinesses and other corporate welfare programs.
9. Roll back patents laws and all forms of special treatment and immunities to corporations that don’t exist for individuals.
10. Go back to state level taxes on use rather than federal income tax
That would be a start and would involved undoing bad practices rather than starting a new round of programs.
You missed that I was being ironic.
My point was that there is very little in my plan that you wouldn’t support or don’t already support, so why don’t we talk about the other points rather than trash the whole thing out of hand?
Regarding “what you support” (the numbers refer to those in your post above):
1. Requires a new political movement as the foxes are currently in charge of the hen house. None of the current 3rd parties are acceptable to the majority of Americans, ergo, we need a new one that is. I believe that a viable 3rd party can be built around people who want to implement a plan such as mine. The concept of “odious debt” covers the legality of having those who racked up the debt for their own benefit be held liable to pay it back.
2. Again, requires the chickens to take back control of the hen house.
3. Ditto.
4. Already in my plan.
5. In the plan.
6. In the plan.
7. Totally handled by the plan. By only rationing money to people who are legal residents and getting rid of any other safety netting, people will have much less incentive to enter illegally. And once the plan goes global, people will have a huge incentive to stay in whatever country they legally reside. Not to mention that the Minimum Wage Laws go away.
8. Totally in the plan. WHO “must not read what people write”?
9. I’m still thinking about that one. Lysander Spooner was very big on intellectual property and he’s big with me, but I also don’t think that a lot of the stuff that gets patented has any “uniqueness” about it, and is consequently undeserving of protection. Not in the plan either way at present.
10. My plan does replace the income tax, but this sounds like you are proposing breaking the US up into 50 little countries. I guess I don’t see the point.
Bottomline, just about everything you want to see is already in the plan, so if there are other reasons you would not support it (or things in it that you don’t understand) I would like to find out what those are and see if maybe by explaining them a little clearer that we might be able to get on the same page at some point.
I don’t actively support secession, because of defense and security issues. But if a state wanted to secede, I don’t support coercing it to stay.
Working unilaterally to force the Feds to relinquish power to the state on as many levels as possible would be good.
But armed rebellion etc. etc. is futile and counterproductive.
So – no I don’t think I ever said I’d like the US to break up into fifty countries but the states and cities should become much strong. That’s the whole idea of a federal government.
Right now we have a despotism.
Alan, please present a budget for your proposal. Assume zero inflation, so there are no hidden sources of income. You must also incorporate existing debt service (unless your plan is based upon repudiation).
Obviously I have major problems with it, but I’d like to see how it compares to the existing order, plus it would require you to state what agencies you would abolish, or at what level you would fund them.
Aside from matters of right, equity and law, I believe your plan would shift resources away from production into consumption, and thus would create the same economic imbalances that plague the existing system.
Lila – Just about ever state is an empire that is controlled by it’s large cities. It was probably always that way, but the trend has advanced with federal entitlements. I am a supporter of a return to a form of government as existed under the Articles of Confederation. As for armed revolt, while I do not look forward to anything of that order, it is sanctioned by the second amendment, and is therefore “lawful.” My belief is that if peaceful revolt fails (or is never even attempted in any serious manner), it makes armed revolt inevitable…that is unless you believe just about everything libertarians believe about economics is wrong and Keynes was right.
Hi Jeff –
I didn’t say armed rebellion was illegal. It isn’t. But I do think it would be counterproductive, until the seceding states were stronger.
I don’t think it’s implausible that we will see some such thing in a few years – perhaps in areas of Texas.
As an immigrant, though, I would naturally not support anything which might be seen by people as not disinterested. In other words, I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a foreign agent supporting the dismemberment of the US. I didn’t support the break up of the USSR and I don’t support the break up of the USA…or India…or any large state…except in a very orderly fashion. Civil war is about the worst thing there is. Worse than despotism.
I’d like to address this: Lila wrote, “9. Roll back patents laws and all forms of special treatment and immunities to corporations that don’t exist for individuals.”
The current practice is for individuals who develop patentable ideas as a result of employment, are coerced into assigning royalty-exempt patent rights to their employer and receive one dollar as consideration. I would support changes that would repeal this practice and require employers to pay a royalty to the inventor that is not tied to any employment status.
As it is, the inventor has every incentive to quit employment to develop valuable patent rights on their own, despite risks that they may have to defend those rights against their former employer in court.
horrible.
I understand that one of the reasons Silicon Valley developed into a hub if innovation is because it didn’t enforce non-competes against employees to the degree that Boston did (against software engineers)..
publishers do the same thing with writers…
Silicon Valley IS the hub of innovation because it is the greatest example of free-market capitalism (redundant, I know) that there is. All because of competition. All from an unregulated market. Well, almost.
Imagine if that model were used in Detroit? In healthcare? In education?
Keith Snyder
Lila: thank you for responding to one little point of my post, ignoring the gist and anything that would take a little looking into, and later claiming (as you have already done) that you have “already responded”.
JC: the debt is “odious debt”…you can look it up on wiki…the US was taken over by supporters of banking interests in 1787
(regarding which, see “Creating the U.S. Dollar Currency Union, 1748-1811: a Quest for Monetary Stability Or a Usurpation of State Sovereignty for Personal Gain?” at http://eh.net/XIIICongress/cd/papers/39Grubb93.pdf and http://www.philadelphiafed.org/publications/economic-education/ben-franklin-and-paper-money-economy.pdf)…so,
repudiation, absolutely,
although the Fed dollars which are traded in for US dollars COULD be used to retire Fed dollar-backed debt, but I would think that the people that benefited from that odious debt are going to need those Fed dollars to pay back the Fed dollar-backed loans from which they benefited.
I’m not an expert in economics; I just know that what is going on now is wrong and that paper money was used successfully in the colonies and “as long as you take out as much as you put in” there can be no inflation, etc. etc..
I think certain people have successfully made rocket science out of something that really isn’t, in order to steal other people’s lunch money. Here’s how it works: Governments (even of one person) create “property” when they claim it; all claimed property is “private”, in that the claiming government excludes (by use or threat of violence) whoever it wishes from access to that property for as long as it is able to defend its claim. Governments grow by taking property from other governments that are unable to defend their claims, thus the Roman, US and other empires. The government is the actual owner of all the property it claims and allocates its property as it chooses in order to (in its own opinion) best secure its survival. That property (which includes all the natural resources and flora and fauna – including humans – extant within the claimed property) can be the backing of money as easily as anything else. The problem is not the backing, the problem is the balance between created and destroyed liquidity: if you ate and drank for years without getting rid of sufficient “excess liquidity” you would wind up pretty inflated (and looking like the typical American), whereas if you get rid of exactly as much as you put in, you will wind up exactly at the weight at which you started. How hard is that?
It is completely unlike the existing order.
As I have stated elsewhere innumerable times, all the agencies that hide risk or limit competition or redistribute wealth, etc. have to go. The Federal Government will have basically one job: to “autonomically” provide and remove liquidity at an optimum level.
“Optimum” on the removal side is measured by the lack of inflation or deflation and is controlled by the total input during the previous time period (probably previous month, but some other time period may be better; Milton Friedman suggested this years ago when he spoke in favor of getting rid of the Federal Reserve).
On the input side, as you are essentially compensating people for the loss of their right to free access to land (see Tom Paine’s “Agrarian Justice” plan on Wikipedia), you want to provide them with the cash necessary to replace what they could conceivably do for themselves in a pre-civilized state; I picked $1000 per month, but that is an arbitrary figure chosen mainly for “acceptability by the right-wing liberfascists”. (I don’t know why I think you guys are worth the effort… maybe because you at least are slightly willing to at least discuss this stuff; I think this will be my last effort to get some of you on board.)
Regarding “shifting resources” ALL money gets eventually spent on buying something that someone (or more likely today, someTHING) has produced, the only difference is “whose pockets the money gets put in first”. My plan puts a certain (arbitrary) and equal amount of money in everyone’s pocket each month, and then they are free to spend and make as much of that money (and any other money they already had) any way they like. In exchange, everyone gives up all centrally-planned redistribution devices. No welfare, no personal or corporate subsidies of any type. The total amount put in gets removed each month via a “infrastructure maintenance fee” of less than one percent on each electronic debit transfer, automatically-collected (which amounts to a small tax on “total benefits previously received”, but, since you can avoid the fee by using cash or barter, the tax/fee is actually voluntarily-paid). No Federal PERSONAL OR CORPORATE income-based taxes AT ALL.
Hi Alan –
I’ve responded at length to you and the point I responded to was not a minor one.
The other points, as you yourself write, are “dittos”.
Also, try to appreciate that I have other readers to respond to.
If you want more response, my suggestion would be for you to make an article of your piece and submit it to a magazine.
Lila
so you never read agrarian justice or anything about colonial scrip, huh?
the point you responded to was not in the plan and has nothing to do with the plan and regarded something you had mentioned, so basically you were responding to yourself.
my point was that everything you claim to want to see is already in the plan. except gold-backed mooney which I give references to and explain why that is not a requirement to get an actual free market going. If people want to use gold they can, fine. I think once you have no monopoly on money that “bad money will chase out good” and gold will be hoarded not exchanged as, sooner or later, is always the case, and using or backing money with gold has always led to deflation and depressions. So break down and help me write the book.
ps. did you know that the US Census Bureau is taking a GPS reading this year on every front porch in the USA. I know I didn’t give them permission to take the bombing coordinates of my porch; did you give them permission to take yours?
Alan,
Very interesting article about Franklin and paper money, thanks for posting the link. Now I understand where you attained the idea. I would only point out that Franklin advocated a paper money regime because under the colonial system Pennsylvania had no legal control over the supply of gold and silver. Exports of such to Britain caused credit problems where there was insufficent money in circulation to permit a normal level of economic activity.
Alan –
thanks for the tip about the gps
..do you have a link?
scary stuff.
Re – link to paper money –
since you’d addressed jeff, in that portion – I didn’t read it.
Re – liberfascist..
please don’t get into silly name calling.
There is zero fascism (whatever you mean by that)in anything I do or think.
Name-calling is usually the last refuge of the uninformed and you don’t strike me as uninformed.
Lila
I was learning how to use the GPS unit in Census Bureau training last week (before I got “released” for reasons yet unknown).
http://rightsoup.com/surprise-census-comes-early-with-a-gps-to-map-your-front-door/
http://welcometothe3rdworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-census-gps-ing-your-front-door.html
Lila,
I guess I didn’t make it clear that the part directed to JC (Jeff, I guess), was over with about half-way down and the rest (starting with “I’m not an expert on economics”) was general info and EVERYTHING I write on this site is actually directed mainly to YOU.
(And when I said “It is completely unlike the existing order” I was refferring to the new system that will result from the changes I suggest.)
I’m not very good at this blog stuff, I guess. I find this format very frustrating (thus the pejorative) and I also find especially frustrating people who have slogans like “Examine your premises!” who then ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to examine their own premises: for example, in the first part of his “Agrarian Justice” plan, Paine makes the case that a “right to free access to land” is required if a “right to life” is to have any meaning; so, can I get anyone on here (like you) to look at his argument? It’s like anything that might disrupt right-wing premises can not even be admitted to exist; from my Fundamentalist Christian son I expect as much, but I was hoping for better on here. I also expected that when you posted my plan you had taken the time to read it over and understand it; I can’t discern that you’ve done either. It seems like you’ve decided already that changing anything would be the wrong thing to do, so you can’t allow yourself to waste any time on something you already know won’t work. You say “undo”: that is exactly what, over time, my suggested system will do; it will “undo” the hundreds of years the banks have been ripping us off. How YOU propose to “undo” that inequity?
Here’s what I know: on June 3rd, 2008 I issued my first and only “go to cash the crash has just started, going down big” call; I had previously sent out info about the imminence of the crash and that the S&P would probably get cut in half. If you can find somebody that made a better call than that, I really want to hear about it. I think perhaps I deserve a little bit of special consideration that perhaps I know a bit of something that other people might not know because I think that call proves that I DO MY HOMEWORK and don’t just pull crap out of my butt like a lot of people seem to do. All I’m asking is that you actually read the entire plan – it only takes a few minutes to read anyway – and (without prejudice) actually try to understand what I am proposing and envision what kind of consequences might result from its implementation. And then we could talk about it for a little while and then when we agree that you understand it (you absolutely will not have to like it or agree with any of it), I will quit bugging you about it. How’s that for a deal?
JC: the point there was that Pennsylvania’s use of scrip proved that you don’t have to have a specie-backed currency to have stable prices, thus the goldbugs have it wrong: you can have a stable currency without gold or silver backing. (And just logically-speaking, as long as you take out as much as you put in – as Milton Friedman suggested – you will never have inflation.)