Can we continue that discussion from Will's derailed thread?

[Alpo]

The whole point of fiat currency is that the stock of it can grow faster than a commodity/gold based currency (which must be mined, giving it a limited amount of growth). The growth of a currency is supposed to be fast enough to match the growing of an economy.

Both systems have faults. A gold based economy can cause deflation when the rate of mining is less than the rate of economic growth. A fiat currency can be manipulated to cause inflation if it is printed at a rate greater than economic growth.

[Will1]

The whole point of fiat currency is that the stock of it can grow faster than a commodity/gold based currency (which must be mined, giving it a limited amount of growth). The growth of a currency is supposed to be fast enough to match the growing of an economy.

Both systems have faults. A gold based economy can cause deflation when the rate of mining is less than the rate of economic growth. A fiat currency can be manipulated to cause inflation if it is printed at a rate greater than economic growth.

I agree with you on gold based currency, but fiat currency can not only be manipulated to a degree but the main thing that causes it to elevate in value and devalue is the economy in general. Ever since this nation went off the gold standard, we have had inflation which means the currency is loosing value and it robs people of their hard earned "CASH." I generally agree with Dr. and former Congressman Ron Paul. It seems that in the past 10 or so years that his economic view of the Federal Reserve (neither Federal, it is privately owned banks, nor does it have any Reserves because there can be no reserves for fiat currency) and am adamantly in favor of abolishing it.

Did you know that, shortly before he was assassinated, JFK signed an Executive Order to abolish the Federal Reserve? Johnson, right after JFK's assassination, rescinded the order. In light of all the wild speculation that there was a conspracy to have JFK assassinated, I have seen nothing of greater merit to point at a conspiracy than his Executive order. The same thing happened when Andrew Jackson set out to abolish the Second National Bank, which was the "Federal Reserve" of that time. The assassin that the owner of the bank hired to assassinate Jackson picked a couple of lousy pistols for the attempt and they both misfired. Jackson was not injured and he abloshed the Second National Bank.

Except for the Civil War, this country prospered like none has ever done in the history of the world except that the progressives managed to convince Congress and Woodrow Wilson to create the Federal Reserve in 1913. Since then we have had 2 world wars, a severe depression that lasted about a decade and which the Second World War got us out of. Already we've been involved in several other costly wars and the traitorous government that has resulted has abolished the gold standard and manipulated the value of the dollar to cover the cost of the massive spending they've undertaken. The debt that they have saddled future generations with will cause the economic crash of the once greatest nation that ever existed. JFK almost avoided the looming economic collapse but he was assassinated before he could implement his Executive Order. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the owners of the Federal Reserve conspired to have JFK assassinated.

[Alpo]

I agree with you on gold based currency, but fiat currency can not only be manipulated to a degree but the main thing that causes it to elevate in value and devalue is the economy in general. Ever since this nation went off the gold standard, we have had inflation which means the currency is loosing value and it robs people of their hard earned "CASH." I generally agree with Dr. and former Congressman Ron Paul. It seems that in the past 10 or so years that his economic view of the Federal Reserve (neither Federal, it is privately owned banks, nor does it have any Reserves because there can be no reserves for fiat currency) and am adamantly in favor of abolishing it.

To be fair, the Gold standard can/has been manipulated to cause inflation and hidden tax as well:

"Determined not to repeat this ordeal, emperor Nero devised a way to artificially increase the number of coins to keep up with the expanding government spending. Rome did not have the benefits of a fiat currency as it is under a bi-metallic standard which limits the amount of money that can be minted. Nero tampered with the coinage by decreasing the silver and gold content of its coins. Reducing the content to as much as 85% increased the monetary base as it allowed more extra coins to be minted as a result of this reduction. A pound of silver that produced 84 Denarii can now be stretched up to 96 pieces of Denarii."

- The devaluation of the roman currency


I don't believe the backing of a currency is as important as who controls the printing, because every currency can (and has) been manipulated before. It's not the concept of the federal reserve that is flawed I think, just it's implementation. They do have a genuine function of keeping the value of currency steady, but they've also become the gatekeepers of how new currency is injected.

I don't really know enough economics to justify these accusations I used to hear that the federal reserve was responsible for these intermittent crashes (housing crash 2008, internet crash - 1999). I did read an article somewhere claiming that monetary injections (such as quantitative easing) can cause a sort of timing disconnect where investors can't adequately judge the potential risk in stocks, so their behavior seemingly becomes more risk-prone. I'll see if I can find it later today sometime.

[Alpo]

Ok, I could find the original article I read explaining the effects of quantitative easing on investor risk avoidance, but I did find a few that simply list the effects of it without going into much detail:

• The Fed increases the supply of money via quantitative easing
• It is successful in driving down interest rates through the purchase of government bonds
• Investors look to other asset classes because the returns on government bonds have been driven so low by the Fed’s purchases
• Investors irrationally bid up the price of other asset classes in the belief that prices can only go higher
• It all ends in tears

-How should the Fed's quantitative easing program affect my investment decisions?

^ That's a bit of an unintentional quote mine. The guy writing the article basically explains that quantitative easing is the fed trying to keep interest rates low on government bonds and the like, to encourage investment in other areas.

Another had this to say:

"Quantitative easing forces investors to step into ever-riskier investments. That could cause an enormous blow in a subsequent recession. "

-The dangers and drawbacks of Quantitative Easing | ECR Research


So basically the claim (I think) is that printing excess money/credit can cause a sort of uphill/downhill economy, as we go from boom, to bust, to recovery, and start over. Like I say though, I don't know enough economics to even try to claim a causative effect, but probably could correlate increased printing to market booms (not that helpful in convincing people, as I wouldn't know the mechanism behind it :P).

[Will1]

I don't believe the backing of a currency is as important as who controls the printing, because every currency can (and has) been manipulated before. It's not the concept of the federal reserve that is flawed I think, just it's implementation. They do have a genuine function of keeping the value of currency steady, but they've also become the gatekeepers of how new currency is injected.

I don't really know enough economics to justify these accusations I used to hear that the federal reserve was responsible for these intermittent crashes (housing crash 2008, internet crash - 1999). I did read an article somewhere claiming that monetary injections (such as quantitative easing) can cause a sort of timing disconnect where investors can't adequately judge the potential risk in stocks, so their behavior seemingly becomes more risk-prone. I'll see if I can find it later today sometime.

You're mistaken about who prints the currency. The Treasury Department of the federal government prints the currency and gives it to the federal reserve banks. The federal reserve banks then loan it to other banks and collect interest. The federal reserve also loans money to the federal government at interest and guess who pays for it all and gets nothing for the effort? Nice scam the owners of the federal reserve banks have going on. Don't worry about it, it's all just added to the national debt!

[Will1]

So basically the claim (I think) is that printing excess money/credit can cause a sort of uphill/downhill economy, as we go from boom, to bust, to recovery, and start over. Like I say though, I don't know enough economics to even try to claim a causative effect, but probably could correlate increased printing to market booms (not that helpful in convincing people, as I wouldn't know the mechanism behind it :P).

The Treasury Department of the US government prints the currency that the federal reserve banks order and gives it to them free of charge. I stand on what I said in my previous post!

Actualy economists are somewhat like lawyers. They try to make economics sound as complex as possible like lawyers try to make the law sound. They can baffle some of us with bullshlt but some of us actually understand that they are not dazzling us with brilliance. If you can program a computer you are way farther along in IQ than it takes to understand economics.

[Will1]

What do you think of the Ray Rice incident?

Then, Are you a collectivist or an individualist (or something in between)? An individualist is someone who believes that his/her rights, as defined in our "Bill of Rights" for instance, should supercede government (collective) power. A collectivist is someone who believes that the government's power should supercedes the rights of the individual.

I am an adamant individualist. I believe that an employer should have no right to interfere, especially punish an employee, for something that he/she did on his/her personal time as long as what was done was not a crime. In the Ray Rice incident I believe that the New Jersey Attorney General should get a copy of the video of Rice knocking his (then) fiancee unconscious on a hotel elevator and present it to a grand jury for possible indictment for the crime of assault against Ray Price. If that is not done, or if a grand jury finds "No Bill" (refuses to indict) him then it is my firm believe that the Baltimore Ravens and NFL acted in violation of rice's civil rights and he should get a good lawyer and sue them. In recent years both the government and large organizations such as the NFL are on a crusade to do away with our individual rights and force everyone to be a collectivist which I naturally despise. "Judge not, lest ye be judged!" As far as government's right to punish me (no one else has that right) I say that anyting I do that doesn't harm anyone else and doesn't present an imminent danger to anyone or anything else is none of your damn business!

[Alpo]

What do you think of the Ray Rice incident?

Then, Are you a collectivist or an individualist (or something in between)? An individualist is someone who believes that his/her rights, as defined in our "Bill of Rights" for instance, should supercede government (collective) power. A collectivist is someone who believes that the government's power should supercedes the rights of the individual.

I am an adamant individualist. I believe that an employer should have no right to interfere, especially punish an employee, for something that he/she did on his/her personal time as long as what was done was not a crime. In the Ray Rice incident I believe that the New Jersey Attorney General should get a copy of the video of Rice knocking his (then) fiancee unconscious on a hotel elevator and present it to a grand jury for possible indictment for the crime of assault against Ray Price. If that is not done, or if a grand jury finds "No Bill" (refuses to indict) him then it is my firm believe that the Baltimore Ravens and NFL acted in violation of rice's civil rights and he should get a good lawyer and sue them. In recent years both the government and large organizations such as the NFL are on a crusade to do away with our individual rights and force everyone to be a collectivist which I naturally despise. "Judge not, lest ye be judged!" As far as government's right to punish me (no one else has that right) I say that anyting I do that doesn't harm anyone else and doesn't present an imminent danger to anyone or anything else is none of your damn business!

You summed it up fairly well, but you forgot one thing. Football is a product, it has consumers, and the companies have the right to meet the wishes of the consumers. If the fans wanted him gone badly enough because he was bald, then he would be gone, because the dissatisfaction of the fans would be hurting the business. Then again I have no idea what an NFL contract looks like, or what it stipulates, but it's something to think about.

Personally I feel like it's a which hunt. On the news they play the part of the tape that is most damning, but when you watch the full thing you see it wasn't so one sided. They were both attacking each other. The sequence of events that I saw :

1. She slaps him.

2.(In elevator) He pushes her.

3. She rushes him.

4. He punches her.

5. He drags her out of the elevator. (Probably so as not to leave her alone while he went for help, I don't think he was trying to "dump the body" or whatever.)

I don't know either of these people, I don't know what started the thing. A world where a person's future is determined by public outrage seems like a pretty sorry world to me though, but it's up to his boss really.

[Elkvis]

...rights, as defined in our "Bill of Rights" for instance...

One nit to pick:

The US Constitution's Bill of Rights does not define any of our rights. It simply recognizes their existence as intrinsic to humans, and vows to protect them.

[Will1]

I have no idea what an NFL contract looks like, or what it stipulates, but it's something to think about.

I don't know either of these people, I don't know what started the thing. A world where a person's future is determined by public outrage seems like a pretty sorry world to me though, but it's up to his boss really.

Just taking some of your reply out of context. Probably, as is the case when you get any "service" (employment is a service) from any big corporation, you have to sign a contract that forces you to give up virtually al of your rights. We no longer live in the land of the free nor the home of the brave. It's time to change our anthem to say "land of the drudges and home of the cowards."

[Will1]

One nit to pick:

The US Constitution's Bill of Rights does not define any of our rights. It simply recognizes their existence as intrinsic to humans, and vows to protect them.

Our "Bill of Rights" DEFINES what rights that the government must RECOGNIZE!

"Nit flicked off my finger!"

[Alpo]

Our "Bill of Rights" DEFINES what rights that the government must RECOGNIZE!

"Nit flicked off my finger!"

It enumerates the rights the government affirms. The concept of rights is from the enlightenment, and rights are extrapolated from certain traits humans have. Some people say they are given by god/s, or they can be inferred from a persons intelligence. The idea that rights are conferred by a government is a progressive one though, most Libertarians would argue that a person's rights are intact even without the ability to express them without consequence.

Think about it, if the government defined the right to free speech in a more limiting way, would you still have the ability to express yourself in ways that they didn't want?

[gemera]

What do you think of the Ray Rice incident?

Then, Are you a collectivist or an individualist (or something in between)? An individualist is someone who believes that his/her rights, as defined in our "Bill of Rights" for instance, should supercede government (collective) power. A collectivist is someone who believes that the government's power should supercedes the rights of the individual.

Well if all men are created equal then they all have the same individual rights, but in a society of individuals the rights of one individual has to be balanced against the rights of the other individuals OR the rights of one individual has to be BALANCED against the rights of the rest of society.

So in the US this should mean that those who believe individual power should trump collective power or vice-versa are in fact being unconstitutional.

[Alpo]

OR the rights of one individual has to be BALANCED against the rights of the rest of society.


So in the US this should mean that those who believe individual power should trump collective power or vice-versa are in fact being unconstitutional.

The rights of an individual has to be balanced against society only insomuch as the individual/collective doesn't does not violate the rights of any other individual. A society is a collection of people. If a collection of people were to gather more rights as the collection grew, then there would be no rights for anyone in a minority.

Consider this, if a road to a hospital could be built that could save untold lives, but in order for the road to be built you must knock a non consenting persons house down, would that be morally justified? Does that person not have the right to their property, simply because a majority collective will benefit from them losing it? All of the people this would save would have a right to their lives, but that fact doesn't negate the individuals rights.

[stahta01]

The rights of an individual has to be balanced against society only insomuch as the individual/collective doesn't does not violate the rights of any other individual. A society is a collection of people. If a collection of people were to gather more rights as the collection grew, then there would be no rights for anyone in a minority.

Consider this, if a road to a hospital could be built that could save untold lives, but in order for the road to be built you must knock a non consenting persons house down, would that be morally justified? Does that person not have the right to their property, simply because a majority collective will benefit from them losing it? All of the people this would save would have a right to their lives, but that fact doesn't negate the individuals rights.

I hate the phrase "untold lives" to me it means we have no idea if the number is zero or in the millions!!

Tim S.