A Few Words in Favor of Fiat Currency

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

Grumpy wrote:

Veniversum wrote:

. End of story.

Frank’s comments (as well as several others) give me a USA centrist image, and pretty much alienate/invalidate my view or input. Which if it is a USA only representation/discussion, is pretty much consistent and fair, and out of my scope.
Now, for me, the only way to wrap this up neatly is to call this USA specific, or not to be overly dismissive, a rather flippant issue which someone deems relevant enough to throw onto the world’s economic stage, which is a far cry from playing fair economically with your neighbours.

First off, thank you for sharing your experiences. I appreciate your participation in this topic, especially since you have seen so much of the world. We could say that this is a USA centrist image, but the truth is that the 10 planks of communism are not exclusive to the US. They may have different names for the legislation in other countries, but the functions and goals of them are the same: Monopoly. Almost total control and acquisition of the production of goods and services. So, if you are not in the USA, you would have to take a look at the legislation in your country and see which ones perform the same functions as the 10 planks of communism. If all 10 planks exist, then your country has communism, regardless of what the television theater says. As for the world’s economic stage, that is relevant as well, because if the owner of a business can move to China because they have less regulation and cheaper labor, it forces the work force in other countries to compete for lower and lower pay. Likewise, the movement of the auto industry out of the US did some extreme damage to the work force in the Northern part of the US. Also, currency manipulation is funneling wealth out of prosperous nations into third world countries. Rothschild suggested a one world currency (How convenient</sarcasm>) as a solution to this problem. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a one world government with one currency?? NOT.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

FrankOne wrote:

Sometimes messages don’t post. 90% of my problems with this, are when I include a URL. So I’d recommend copying and pasting your message into Notepad or Word before posting, then you can try again if it fails to post. I did figure out, if I eliminate the ‘protocol’ prefix in front of the URL, it lets me post ANY URL.

I don’t understand most of what you’re saying here. As people get wealthier, they choose to have fewer children — that’s all I was saying.

Thank you, that is good advice. I beg your forgiveness for correcting you, but what you are speaking of is not a “positive” check on population growth as suggest by Thomas Malthus. You are speaking of is actually called “preventative” checks. You can read the essay with a better, simple explanation here: http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/essay.html

In short “Positive” checks are:
1. Intentionally engineered Famine
2. War
3. Pestilence (Biological warfare.)
4. Genocide/Euthanasia

Preventative checks are:
1. Morality/abstinence (usually supplied in the form of religion)
2. Birth control devices/substances
3. Eugenics/sterilization surgeries.

As for property rights, if it’s not lived on, or doesn’t have a business on it, it should be fair game. There must be some limit to how much property a person could own, else you would eventually end up with a monarch. What if one family over time purchases all the land in the country, one at a time over a period of decades and decides they don’t want the entire populace to live there anymore? There has to be a reasonable limit to how much land a person can own. You don’t have to agree, because that’s just my opinion, but I stand by it.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

FrankOne wrote:

You made some great points on tacit consent. And manipulation. Gun control is the perfect example. The left-leaning mainstream media gives out-size coverage to mass shootings. This, in turn, encourages other maniacs to engage in more mass shootings. The general public is convinced that all Solutions come from Daddy Government instead of civil society or individuals, so the ‘solution’ is ‘There oughta be a law’.

Have a look at this “fiction” from the early 90’s. http://pantherparty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wpid-img_23618614684607.jpeg

FrankOne wrote:

I agree with you about property taxes and zoning rules being excessive, but I’m just not seeing huge barriers to subsistence independence in rural counties. The property tax is probably the greatest. As I’ve said, there are a couple hundred thousand Amish that live apart, and government isn’t persecuting them excessively. At the same time, you are seeing very few English JOINING Amish sects or any sort of communitarian/Utopian living arrangements. That is one reason I keep arguing people don’t seem to desire this lifestyle, in general.

The only reason you aren’t seeing the Amish having trouble is because they pay the piper. If they told the piper to “p~~~ off”, I guarantee you there would be arrests. Also Amish people go by the bible and the bible says this:

Romans 13King James Version (KJV)

13 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:

4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.

7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

Essentially, their religion compels them to obey the authorities. How convenient for the ruling class. The book, edited by a monarch from a country where there were MANY absolutely HORRID and murderous monarchs.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

As for the world’s economic stage, that is relevant as well, because if the owner of a business can move to China because they have less regulation and cheaper labor, it forces the work force in other countries to compete for lower and lower pay.

Veniversum: First, who is doing the ‘forcing’ here? I’d disagree with this on the grounds it doesn’t tell the whole story — any business with any competitive advantage ALSO drives PRICES down, benefitting consumers. Whether that is counterbalanced by the dislocation of employees, is certainly debatable. This creative destruction, is the engine of capitalism.

You see such migrations even within a country. We’re seeing manufacturing increasingly move to rural areas and Southern States where their is less unionization or cheaper labor.

First off, this migration increases development where it occurs. China gets roads, power plants, water and sewer services, The average consumer pays less for the goods. And the former Chinese peasant farmers, can now work in a factory — they are earning more, or they would not have gone to the cities.

Now a problem occurs if the workers displaced in Michigan, can’t retrain or find other work. And I would concede, that has occurred, at least to some extent. The creative destruction of free trade and capitalism, may result in the most efficient allocation of resources, and lowest cost of production (and thus of goods & services), but it can be painful. I as a consumer, now get a lot more reliable and cheaper cars due to all this competition — I have airbags, power windows, etc as standard features. The auto industry is radically changed as a result of this competition, with many contractors supplying parts, and many components sourced overseas, often with only assembly occurring in the US.

Now the opposite of this scheme is TRUE communism (not what you call communism in your posts about the USA, but TRUE communism where the State directs the bulk of industry). That is, a system wherein the government dictates how many auto plants there will be, assigns workers, and presumably, provides us the Holy Grail of Total Employment. Imports would presumably, be prohibited or highly taxed. The wage inequality would be kept to a minimum, where the CEO of the auto plant makes only a couple times what the hourly assembly worker does. This scheme might sound good on paper, but we’re not robots; due to human motivations, it worked very poorly in, say, the USSR. Very few could afford cars. The ones that were manufactured, were notoriously unreliable. Wages could not be used as a carrot and stick the way they can in free markets to incentivize production.

Now, when we had a gold standard, these trade balances were unsustainable because real gold had to cross international boundaries. Today, the trade balances are possible, because the government generates more money to make up the difference (to fund our trade imbalance). This ultimately causes inflation. This is one of the numerous reasons why I favor a gold or some other commodity standard.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

The forcing is being done by communist China of course, which you claim is the ” engine of capitalism”, which doesn’t make sense to me. Outsourcing American jobs to communist countries may drive the price of a “specific” product down, but lowering the income of workers makes it more difficult for them to earn their living. Thus, when the workers of westernized countries, who have a high cost of living, have to compete with people from third world, or underpaid communist workers, the result is that they get less pay with the same cost of living, or their job disappears all together. Even freelance web developers have to now, compete with people from India who, have a significantly lower cost of living, so they can work way cheaper. When a person from a first world country has to pay what we do, but only earns as much as third world workers, there’s a major problem. This is wonderful for the third world people though, to whom the wealth is being funneled out of the country. This reduces the quality of life of those of us in the first world. Anyone who has the 10 planks of communism has “TRUE” communism, so the “No True Scotsman” fallacy isn’t going to work here. If the legislation is there, then that’s what it is. Beyond that, I’d like to agree with you on the gold standard, but once again, as others have mentioned (and they are correct) inflation can still happen because all they have to do is print more notes than they have gold for, ending in the same result. We might be better off if we had that, and also abolished the fractional reserve banking system. Ultimately, none of this is going to be fixed until all of us agree to allow the world central banking cartel to rule us, upon blackmail of war OR the central banks are broken up simultaneously, by all peoples worldwide who refuse to go to war. It makes me wonder who really controls the nukes. We all saw how the “GrEXIT” turned out. Even with a populist leftist government, they still had to yield to the demands of the financiers. Allowing people to create money from nothing was the largest mistake the world has ever made. Even when it was done by goldsmiths who printed more receipts than they had gold for.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Veniversum: I think a lot of attitudes on guns depend upon where you live. I’ve lived in rural areas most of my life; everybody hunted. And I’ve surrounded myself with a lot of what might be called ‘anti-government types’. So they all believe in 2nd ammendment rights. As do I!

Even so, I don’t think there is some conspiracy to take away our guns for controlling the population. There are no armed revolutionaries or rebels or separatists in the United States, that are of any consequence whatsoever.

The Left, ultimately, is against individual agency in favor of the collective. So you as an individual aren’t responsible for your success or failure, nor your defense under such a paradigm. The Left, does not view the government as a potential threat, to be ever-vigilant against. So those are some of the reasons for the divide. Also, political correctness, dictates some of this debate. Let us say I am an editorial writer for a major magazine. It would not be deemed appropriate to say ‘We want gun rights to protect ourselves from a potentially overzealous government’, but that, and protection from criminals, and hunting and sport, are why people own guns. I also feel a mistake was made letting people out of mental institutions; they belong in the institutions or halfway houses if they are a threat to others. But it’s often difficult to make this determination. And somebody has to pay to support them — charities or taxes.

Most people simply inherit their political views and religion from their parents. It isn’t something that comes from careful consideration. Neither of the two parties has a very philosophically consistent platform. Republicans are against ‘big government’ but favor it in the form of social security and corporate welfare, and banning drugs and prostitution and defining marriage narrowly.

Democrats are all for free speech, except on campuses. They want special treatment for groups (identity politics) rather than equality, and try to convince people America is racist and sexist to an extent it is not..

The worst school disaster on US soil remains the Bath Bombing in 1927. Yes, 1927. 38 dead from bombs. And no evil guns! So no point in the Democrats or Mainstream Media ever talking about that one. So, conspiracy theories aside, shootings have occurred every decade of the 20th century. There are more of them now, with higher body counts, due to the media echo chamber. Stop the coverage of the shootings voluntarily and the problem will decline to historic levels. I personally, do not view it as that serious of a national problem anyway.

The Amish pay property and other taxes. They take deductions on their income taxes for children. Amish businesses are exempt from paying into social security, welfare, and unemployment because they don’t consume those services. They are also exempt from the Unaffordable Care Act due to their self-sufficiency. So they pay some taxes, but not others.

[QuietlyquietlyParticipant 728]

FrankOne wrote:

QuietlyQuietly: One of the provisions of an obscure political party in America which I support, the Libertarian Party, is that ‘NOTA’ or None of the Above, should be on every ballot. And if they win, that’s what you get! I thought you’d get a kick out of that. Many ways to implement NOTA. It would also be great if you got a 2nd vote to put each candidates in prison rather than in office in every major election, and if anyone ‘won’ 50% saying they should go to prison, they’d end up there. That would be a great provision for many kleptocracies.

Proportional Voting as you do in many parts of Europe (but not in UK since AVR failed), would also benefit us in the US, in my opinion. The two-party hegemony here sustains the status quo and the growth of government.

I have heard of the Libertarian Party, and agree that NOTA would be a good “check” on voting power grabs. Proportional voting, or indeed, Direct Democracy, where people vote online for each piece of legislation, would give the power back to the people. I know I’m going to attract some flak for that, the main one being direct democracy is too unweildy since here in the UK over 4000 new laws are passed EACH YEAR, making it impossible to know the law, and thus vote on it. But I would argue the other way around, and say that if the people haven’t got the time to read the law, and thus know what it says, understand it and then vote on it, firstly those laws should not be passed, and secondly, if they are passed, people cannot, and should not, be bound by them.

FrankOne wrote:

Now the opposite of this scheme is TRUE communism (not what you call communism in your posts about the USA, but TRUE communism where the State directs the bulk of industry). That is, a system wherein the government dictates how many auto plants there will be, assigns workers, and presumably, provides us the Holy Grail of Total Employment. Imports would presumably, be prohibited or highly taxed. The wage inequality would be kept to a minimum, where the CEO of the auto plant makes only a couple times what the hourly assembly worker does. This scheme might sound good on paper, but we’re not robots; due to human motivations, it worked very poorly in, say, the USSR. Very few could afford cars. The ones that were manufactured, were notoriously unreliable. Wages could not be used as a carrot and stick the way they can in free markets to incentivize production.

This is the “above-ground” part of the picture, but fails to address the issue of those projects covered by the “black budget”, which in the US hovers around the $8.5 trillion mark. Stay with me on this. We are sold the idea that we have to work for a living, that life is expensive, that eating, transport, energy, infrastructure, commodities and taxes are what we need to spend lots of money on. Elsewhere in MGTOW I posted a link to Dr. Steven Greer, advisor to many heads of many governments, security agencies, and so forth, who has had direct access to classified documents all the way back to before WW2, showing the secret government agenda to develop, but keep secret, advanced technologies such as anti-gravity, faster-than-light travel, and much more. He presents a compelling case for it, and it is well worth the 4 hours of screen time if you can. He documents how it is funded, how it is kept secret from even the POTUS, and many other heads of departments (CIA etc.).

I firmly believe that these technologies not only exist – for example, the Philadelphia Experiment was the first translocational experiment on a large scale – but are by now extremely sophisicated.

So all the while, we are sold the idea that we need to buy oil, spend money on energy, infrastructure, and so forth, when the technologies exist to transport all our goods a) at virtually no cost, and b) directly to homes, without using roads.

This actually undermines any need for The Gold Standard, and absolutely obliterates any need for fiat currency, markets, banks, and much much more.

I don’t expect everyone reading this to share my opinion, but before you go trolling, do me the favour of actually doing some research on the subject (i.e. watch the lecture I linked) and then make up your mind.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Veniversum: You’re correct about ‘positive checks’. While I’ve studied population growth mathematically (exponential growth studied in my 2nd year of Calculus 25 years ago), I’d never actually READ Malthus’s Essay on Population, and didn’t realize ‘positive check’ had a very precise meaning, you’ve educated me and that was a great link.

QuietlyQuietly: Today direct democracy/electronic citizen voting on major legislation should be allowed in my opinion. With modern electronics, the cost is negligible. But it would be very time consuming to vote on every piece of legislation. I like proportional representation over ‘winner takes all’ because it gives at least some voice to minority parties and helps break the 2-party hegemony we have in the States. I confess skepticism about UFO and other technology; we [US] couldn’t even keep the atomic bomb secret from foreign spies and allies, so proliferation and leaks of say, the supposed Philadelphia Experiment technology, over a 60+ year period, seem highly unlikely to me. Especially in light of modern, anonymous, high speed communications technologies.

[QuietlyquietlyParticipant 728]

FrankOne wrote:

QuietlyQuietly: ….I confess skepticism about UFO and other technology; we [US] couldn’t even keep the atomic bomb secret from foreign spies and allies, so proliferation and leaks of say, the supposed Philadelphia Experiment technology, over a 60+ year period, seem highly unlikely to me. Especially in light of modern, anonymous, high speed communications technologies….

Indeed, I thought so too, until I worked out how it has been kept secret, how it is funded, what the master plans are and how they were written down many years before we experienced them as “unplanned” events. Honestly, watch the vid, it explains it better than I can.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

I agree with reuniting the legislative power with the people. We don’t need representatives anymore. We can represent ourselves. Then also the populace wouldn’t be able to complain about a president anymore, which makes no sense to me. The president isn’t the one who passes or abolishes law, so it makes no sense to me that people blame everything on the executive branch. Ultimately, it’s theater. It’s a distraction I think, to distract the people from their own power. It’s a decoy. I think if the right people created the system for it, like for example people who invented the block chain, hackers and even government hackers wouldn’t be able to touch it. The government already complains that it doesn’t have a back door to all encryption. I hope it stays that way. Program, or be programmed

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

FrankOne wrote:

Veniversum: I think a lot of attitudes on guns depend upon where you live. I’ve lived in rural areas most of my life; everybody hunted. And I’ve surrounded myself with a lot of what might be called ‘anti-government types’. So they all believe in 2nd ammendment rights. As do I!

Even so, I don’t think there is some conspiracy to take away our guns for controlling the population. There are no armed revolutionaries or rebels or separatists in the United States, that are of any consequence whatsoever.

The Left, ultimately, is against individual agency in favor of the collective. So you as an individual aren’t responsible for your success or failure, nor your defense under such a paradigm. The Left, does not view the government as a potential threat, to be ever-vigilant against. So those are some of the reasons for the divide. Also, political correctness, dictates some of this debate. Let us say I am an editorial writer for a major magazine. It would not be deemed appropriate to say ‘We want gun rights to protect ourselves from a potentially overzealous government’, but that, and protection from criminals, and hunting and sport, are why people own guns. I also feel a mistake was made letting people out of mental institutions; they belong in the institutions or halfway houses if they are a threat to others. But it’s often difficult to make this determination. And somebody has to pay to support them — charities or taxes.

Most people simply inherit their political views and religion from their parents. It isn’t something that comes from careful consideration. Neither of the two parties has a very philosophically consistent platform. Republicans are against ‘big government’ but favor it in the form of social security and corporate welfare, and banning drugs and prostitution and defining marriage narrowly.

Democrats are all for free speech, except on campuses. They want special treatment for groups (identity politics) rather than equality, and try to convince people America is racist and sexist to an extent it is not..

The worst school disaster on US soil remains the Bath Bombing in 1927. Yes, 1927. 38 dead from bombs. And no evil guns! So no point in the Democrats or Mainstream Media ever talking about that one. So, conspiracy theories aside, shootings have occurred every decade of the 20th century. There are more of them now, with higher body counts, due to the media echo chamber. Stop the coverage of the shootings voluntarily and the problem will decline to historic levels. I personally, do not view it as that serious of a national problem anyway.

The Amish pay property and other taxes. They take deductions on their income taxes for children. Amish businesses are exempt from paying into social security, welfare, and unemployment because they don’t consume those services. They are also exempt from the Unaffordable Care Act due to their self-sufficiency. So they pay some taxes, but not others.

Yes, people often pass their beliefs to their offspring. More proof that people are a product mostly of their environment, rather than the cliche “human nature” argument.

As for a conspiracy to take our guns away, I have to say that the previously referred to “fiction”, written 25 years ago, is a pretty fantastic coincidence to seem so true now. Plausible deniability, none the less it does appear that the left is working SUPER hard to find any excuse to remove a gun from the populace, especially from those skilled in it’s use from training.

Collectivists wish for people to rely on the police state for all protection, which is absolutely absurd. Firstly, police officers do not “serve and protect”. They will tell you that they enforce the law, and many even get angry if you refer to them as a servant. Furthermore the supreme court ruled in the case of Warren VS the District of Columbia that the police are in no way obligated to protect citizens. There is no swifter nor more righteous justice than that of self defense. Police are really just extortion machines, and their primary function is to ensure that no one achieves independence of the economic system. This is why things like Hemp and Marijuana were mostly illegal, and substances like Alcohol and Tobacco weren’t. We can’t have people producing all of their own products instead of purchasing them, now can we? Tell them you had your stuff stolen, and they will laugh at you, but if you have drugs they will legally confiscate (steal) all of your belongings.

As for the school disaster, are you sure it’s not the massacre at Wounded Knee? That looked pretty horrific to me. It always reminds me of this photo:

http://www.theuniqueoutdoors.com/uploads/2/5/8/1/25815362/s908004461617976658_p57_i52_w720.jpeg

Yes, the Amish pay the piper, as I stated, it’s their religion

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

Ephesians 6:12
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Im an agostic but I like that one.

but but but…the authorities have been established by Gawd! Romans 13 says so! The bible is 100% accurate… it SAYS so in the bible! lol

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

Quietlyquietly wrote:

FrankOne wrote:

QuietlyQuietly: ….I confess skepticism about UFO and other technology; we [US] couldn’t even keep the atomic bomb secret from foreign spies and allies, so proliferation and leaks of say, the supposed Philadelphia Experiment technology, over a 60+ year period, seem highly unlikely to me. Especially in light of modern, anonymous, high speed communications technologies….

Indeed, I thought so too, until I worked out how it has been kept secret, how it is funded, what the master plans are and how they were written down many years before we experienced them as “unplanned” events. Honestly, watch the vid, it explains it better than I can.

If you want to get into some fun stuff about UFO’s, we can talk about the use of psychology, and primarily fear to motivate and stimulate certain behaviors from the populace. This is actually still relative to the subject, and I’ll explain how in a minute. Firstly, in 1938 Orson Welles aired the story of “War of the Worlds” over the radio resulting in a mass panic that lead to murder, manslaughter, and even suicide. My theory is (OMG I’m a conspiracy theorist) that it was a test to see if they could get people to believe it. There was public outrage about it being presented in a fashion that made it seem to the listener as a genuine emergency. Later, in 1967 “The Report from Iron Mountain” was released. It’s possible the ruling class was looking for an economic replacement for the functions of war. Plausible deniability, however there have actually been public printings of people saying these things were true, that were involved in their writings. Some of that is covered in “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, by G. Edward Griffin. Now, flash forward to 2013, and you have Cambridge House hosting Jeff Berwick, who openly states that Paul Krugman from the New York Times had two plans to stimulate the economy because Keynesian economics must have spending or it dies:
1. Fake an alien invasion
2. Mint a 1 trillion dollar coin.

Ok, now to the present. FEAR. FEAR FEAR FEAR. There are kazillions of fake political articles claiming natural disasters are going to happen, war, famine, we’re going to get hit by an asteroid, china is going to nuke us conspiracy theory conspiracy theory conspiracy theory.

Public panic = spending

..and thus you have the “prepper” movement. People consuming preparations for disaster like mad. They just don’t understand that they are being manipulated for the sake of stimulating unnecessary spending to prop up the “fairy tale” economy Jeff Berwick made reference to. It’s a damned shame to see people pulling their hair out like this over fake crises. Then on top of being exploited and manipulated, they are shamed for believing it.. adding insult to injury

[Anonymous 29]

Stargazer wrote:

A Few Words In Favor of Fiat Currency

Although useful, my biggest problem with it is that just like the stock markets it has a tendency to fluctuate
due to confidence. Unfortunately confidence has been manipulated, all to often deliberately by trading houses
which effects the currency. I’ve had enough experience trading pork bellies and silver futures to last me the rest of my life time.

Watching the numbers on screens telling you something that is far removed from reality I learned against my better judgement that c~~~s were manipulating the markets and they still do.

F~~~ currency, cash or blue chip stocks. Material assets is where it’s at and having 10 to 15 percent of your total assets in gold or silver is my insurance. It has not failed me yet.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Veniversum wrote:

I agree with reuniting the legislative power with the people. We don’t need representatives anymore. We can represent ourselves.

I disagree, we still need some sort of reps. We couldn’t just have hundreds of millions of people all proposing bills, nothing would ever get accomplished, nobody would have time to read them.

Plus, the people are the problem. We had Ron Paul running for president more than once, and during his career he pushed to both audit the fed and abolish the fed. Instead…who wins the popular and electoral vote…Obama…who runs up the debt by another 10 trillion. Granted its not entirely Obama…it has to do with who is sitting in congress as well…but we obviously have put a majority in that don’t really have any plans to change the status quo or balance the budget, and we put the same goons back in office year after year. Nothing would change if we cut the middle men out and still had the same population voting for the same garbage.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

“Totalitarianism isn’t bad, we just need an enlightened dictator”.

Quite the opposite when we elect our officials and don’t have a dictator. If we’d elect better representatives instead of more of the same we might not continue our swirl down to the bottom of the toilet bowl. Its just the outlook isn’t looking very good when most the people I talk to around my age want to vote for Bernie Sanders because Bernie wants to forgive their student loans. Who cares if he’s going to run up the debt another 10-20 trillion…he’ll pay my s~~~ off now and that’s all that matters!

The simple fact is even if we were still on the gold standard, the idiots in office right now would still be doing the same dumb s~~~ and running up the debt as much as possible because we have half the country screaming for more handouts and the other half screaming taxes are raping us. They know raising taxes much more is going to hurt the fragile economy, and they know they’ll lose votes if they cut payouts to any of the people or groups collecting freebies, so we just continue on in a state of steady deficit spending that will only be sustainable for so long.

Its like doc is saying…its not the fiat currency itself, its the elected idiots we entrust to manage it. Give those same idiots another system and they’d find a way to f~~~ that up as well.

Yeah. You do keep saying that. But you can’t seem to admit that with fiat currency, the corruption is built in at the base level. So the answer to your question is, “not matter how much corruption there is and what we can do about it, it will always be WORSE with fiat currency”.

The problem IS the corruption, the greed, and the stupidity across all levels of society. Its not going to magically go away because the rules of the game get slightly changed a little bit, its just going to mean the same people who are abusing the system right now will find new ways to abuse it, both those on the top who manipulate things and those on the bottom who would rather leech than contribute.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

If we’d elect better representatives instead of more of the same we might not continue our swirl down to the bottom of the toilet bowl. Its just the outlook isn’t looking very good when most the people I talk to around my age want to vote for Bernie Sanders because Bernie wants to forgive their student loans. Who cares if he’s going to run up the debt another 10-20 trillion…he’ll pay my s~~~ off now and that’s all that matters!

Yes, and the worst feature is not just increased debt, but some of the unintended consequences: that it will further divorce education from the job market; students will pursue degrees that won’t pay for themselves, instead of things like vocational training that have good job prospects, AND the cost of education will spiral up with no market controls or competition, since it’s all ‘free’ from the government.

I, for one, would like to see alternative voting schemes. One simple one — let me vote for anyone I want for representatives to Congress or the State legislature. These individuals, are then automatically ‘elected’ in direct proportion to their vote totals, and can electronically cast a ballot in direct proportion to their vote totals. So if Ron Paul is running in my congressional district, and gets 10%, he gets 10% of the annual pay and 10% of a vote on each bill. In my opinion, this would deliver a terrible blow to the two-party duopoly we suffer from in the US, diluting their power. It doesn’t fix all our problems, but at least gives an opportunity to outsiders. In light of modern electronic communications, the said virtual representatives would not necessarily ever need to physically go to Washington (another HUGE plus!). It’ll be harder for lobbyists to get at them if they aren’t all in one cesspool in one place.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

Beer wrote:

Veniversum wrote:

I agree with reuniting the legislative power with the people. We don’t need representatives anymore. We can represent ourselves.

I disagree, we still need some sort of reps. We couldn’t just have hundreds of millions of people all proposing bills, nothing would ever get accomplished, nobody would have time to read them.

Plus, the people are the problem. We had Ron Paul running for president more than once, and during his career he pushed to both audit the fed and abolish the fed. Instead…who wins the popular and electoral vote…Obama…who runs up the debt by another 10 trillion. Granted its not entirely Obama…it has to do with who is sitting in congress as well…but we obviously have put a majority in that don’t really have any plans to change the status quo or balance the budget, and we put the same goons back in office year after year. Nothing would change if we cut the middle men out and still had the same population voting for the same garbage.

No, we don’t need reps; we can represent ourselves. What we need is the ability to say “NO”. Our representatives cannot represent us (and already don’t) because they rely on donations from lobbyists and the oligarchy to get re-elected.

This problem could be removed by removing the financial constraints on candidate advertisement, but of course the oligarchy would never allow that because they have to maintain their differential advantage. Hundreds of millions of people could propose bills, and the bills that got the most votes would get proposed first. If the people can vote on something as important as a president, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to directly vote on legislation, or the abolishment of legislation. That’s what the whole idea of representatives was supposed to do anyway.. they were supposed to represent the majority of the population from their states, rather than the highest bidder. Of course Obama won; he had access to the most funds via the world central banks and CFR, who had a direct interest in increasing the national debt. Likewise, Ron Paul was openly an enemy of the world central banking cartel. Had he won, and attempted to break of the central banks, or replace fiat with gold backs, he no doubt would have been assassinated and replaced with a proper puppet. As for presidents in general, they are really just a decoy for the people who actually get things done: The house of representatives, and Congress. The president makes little to no difference as far as legislation goes, and the government participants are not going to bite the hand that feeds them (The Federal Reserve) and the world central banks.

[FrankOneParticipant 1417]

Veniversum: But what will the politicians do if you put them out of a job? I guess they could become confidence men, used car salesmen, televangelists or start personality cults? Surely we must leave some respectable profession open for them that utilizes their unique skill sets, no?

Honest Gil Fulbright has my vote! I love the potbelly too! A true ‘fatcat’. Great video!

I also like the idea of direct democracy, as they had in ancient Greece; but it is time-consuming. Voter participation in off-presidential years is low; in 2014 it was around 36%. I think a dual system would be possible — i.e. Congress votes for War in Iraq. I can choose to vote electronically, in which case, my representative’s vote is decreased by 1/710,000 (the population of a typical Congressional District). My vote, would then count as 1/710,000 of his vote. Ultimately, though, my scheme might also be corruptible — the special-interest groups/lobbyists would target, say, senior citizens or those on public assistance, who have more time available for such voting, encouraging them to do so — buying off a voting bloc. Defense contractors would give all their workers the day off to vote for Pentagon expenditure increases. And I’d expect low voter participation rates.

Another idea for populating the Congress I have, would be random selection of Citizens from the population as a whole as we do for juries. I would require they be at least, say, 30 years old, and paid at least the median amount of taxes in the last year. Immediately sequestering them upon selection and requiring them to take and pass a basic test on civics/geography/math would certainly be an option — questions like, ‘define the federal debt’, ‘identify Canada on a world map’, ‘what does the federal reserve do’, calculate interest returns for a 5 year period, etc. This would eliminate the career politicians, at the expense of experience. If they only served a year or two, it might help against lobbyists getting to them. Having them serve two years, but not vote the first year, and making them pass an even more difficult civics test after the first year, might be even better to give them experience and knowledge. Selecting randomly from an even narrower pool, say, successfully small business entrepreneurs, might be even better for prosperity.

If we want less corruption, the obvious answer is to shrink government; if there is less spending at stake (the spoils), there will be less spent on electoral campaigns. As government comprises an ever-higher percent of GDP, campaign spending, increases as you’d expect, since there is more to win or lose for more people.

What do you mean by ‘removing the financial constraints on candidate advertisement’ in your post? I take it you mean banning paid mass-media advertising on television and print media as is done in many European countries?

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

RoyDal wrote:

What do you mean by ‘removing the financial constraints on candidate advertisement’ in your post? I take it you mean banning paid mass-media advertising on television and print media as is done in many European countries?

I hadn’t thought specifically of banning something, but it is ridiculous that people can only vote for those who they are aware of, and paying for mass advertisements makes them aware of candidates who may not necessarily be the best, but are funded by the oligarchy. Personally, I don’t see any reason why it would be expensive, or criminalized, to have a specific website for candidates only where they have a video of themselves, what they intend to do with their policies, etc for voters to view. That way voters can make a truly informed decision about who they are voting for, and are fully aware of who their options are.

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