I don't agree with RP on how we should cut the debt and how we should progress afterwards.
How should we cut the debt and progress afterwards? I want to hear your ideas.
2. No. Gold and silver are commodities and should be taxed just like any other similarly traded product (stocks).
I'm honestly incredibly surprised at how much trust you place in fiat! I'm also surprised that you don't attribute any monetary qualities at all to gold or silvercentral banks still hold it in mass tonnage, and in many countries gold and silver are still culturally and functionally regarded as being money. If someone wants to store their wealth in precious metals for a season, why should the precious metal holder be penalized via taxation for holding an asset that didn't actually change at all? It's a hunk of metal with no liabilities attached whatsoever. Why don't we slap capital gains taxes on houses? What about rare sports cards, cars, or old guitars? Sure, you can chalk up the short term price fluctuations in precious metal prices to supply and demand (and sometimes surreptitious market intervention via agents acting on behalf of central banks, which there is mounting evidence of), but over the longer term, they "gain" value as the real value of fiat money is diluted. They are not the same as stocks, nor do they even resemble stocks, at all. When the Fed announces that they're targeting a 2% inflation rate per year (using cooked statistics, as I've explained before, meaning it's actually more like 8-10% annually), yet continue to hold down interest rates for dollar-savers beneath 0.25%, where is someone supposed to "hide" from that inflation?
Are you actually a full-blown Keynesian now? Bailouts, government stimulus spending and the like, all considered to be good and necessary things? You must have had a great econ professor
I haven't looked into Gitmo lately, but that wasn't what I was even talking about, I was referring to The National Defense Authorization Act (S 1867) which denies terror suspects (including US citizens) the right to trial, and permits authorities to detain them indefinitely. I'm not concerned about the government abusing this power in the very short run, but the longer term implications are quite frightening. All the government has to do to hold you forever and deny you a trial is claim that you are a terrorist, and they can presumably define "terrorist" to mean anything they wantdoes this bother you? My original point was that Ron Paul is the only candidate who cares and speaks up about this.
8. First of all, I don't have to think I'm more intelligent, educated, wise, or have better economic insights than ANYONE to say that their ideas are stupid. Second of all, no, not unless you'll do the same for Obama, and without resorting to doomsday scenarios libertarians/Austrian's have been shouting about for years. You can't say with certainty that the issues you've brought up will turn out well, but you're going to anyways. Besides; none of my criticisms have been of RP's dreamland-USA (aside from his economic policies, which have to be imagined in dreamland-USA to be plausible); they've been of RP as a presidential candidate.
Perhaps self-attributed intelligence wasn't fair for me to say, but surely you have to believe you have better economic insights in order to say that Ron's ideas are stupid. If not, then on what basis would you be calling his ideas stupid?
Sure, I'll do the same for Obama, but I do literally believe that the US dollar is nearly doomed, if not already past the point of no return, so if you consider that an unreasonable doomsday scenario, then I would have to be dishonest with you when describing our not-so-distant future under, or at least in consequence of Obama's control. I strongly sense that your refusal to paint for me an RP Presidency is simply because you don't want to say something that could make you look stupid.
9. Again, no. I find it absolutely ridiculous that you ask me to be thorough when you've been nothing of the sort throughout this thread and have even admitted to willfully skipping things that you didn't feel like arguing about (which is actually my biggest Ron Paul supporter complaint, as we've discussed before).
Haha! To be honest I don't even know what I've skipped, and I don't care to reread the whole thread. If someone wants to tell me what I've skipped, or if they've got a burning question that I've been evading, I'll answer the questions for no other reason than for you to stop accusing me of cherry-picking my responses, or whatever I've apparently been doing.
Honestly, if he were to be elected president, I think he'd find out quickly (like Candidate Obama, like Candidate anyone else) that he can't affect the change he thought he could given the rest of the system, and people would immediately turn on him as a sell-out and flip-flopper like they do with every President when they can't affect the dream-like change they run on.
This, to me, is probably the worst attitude someone can have
that no matter who the President is, that no meaningful change can occur, the system is too far beyond fixing, and in the mean time let's all just argue about who has the worst ideas in theory, and vote for one of two establishment-blessed candidates!
Honestly, you may be right that no change will occur right now, because right now Americans are still sitting pretty for the most part
stocked grocery stores, lots of cool/cheap technology around, disposable income, etc. I suppose as long as our economy holds together in some resemblance of what we enjoy today, then the majority of Americans will continue to choose their politicians by listening to their TV sets, the content of which is heavily influenced by the establishment. However, the establishment is not going to address our debt, and our debt will ultimately be our undoing. In my mind it's either, make tough decisions quickly to being winding down our debt (or at the very least, ceasing to accrue more debt), or we face a full-on currency collapse a little further down the road. We'll find out who's right soon enough, but my money (literally) is betting on the currency collapse.
at these institutions all we want - but when it comes down to it, they have the $$$...which means they have all the true power and influence...which is something that is only ever relinquished through bloodshed
