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Here's what most magazines and newspapers discussing the topic are missing:

A definition of what we want the stock market to be like.

Everyone is focussing on what they don't want. But that's not how you build a resilient system. Basically, that's using default-allow for your firewall. You'll be spending the rest of your life adding rules of what you don't want.

Once you switch around your mind, the questions become a lot easier. Decide what you want the stock exchange to be, and you get your answers almost for free.

If you want the stock exchange to be a place where companies can meet investors and get capital raised, then everything that doesn't serve that purpose directly or indirectly is out. You define how the process should work and allow only that, done. Everyone who wants to play games will have to do it within the parameters you have defined.

The whole problem here is that too many people still believe the old nonsense about the invisible hand. Yes, to some extent you can build a sandbox and people will come and build their sand castles. You can provide a market place and have the participants sort out how everything works.
But you will get scammers, fraudsters, thieves, HFTs and all the other scum as well. If your sandbox is an MMO, you will get gold farmers and scammers and spammers. If your sandbox is a stock exchange, you will get HFTs and stock fraud and insider trading.

Letting chaotic self-organization create the rules of the game through emergence is an interesting experiment, one that I enjoy quite a bit when it comes to games or small settings (book a weekend with friends in a summer cottage and something will happen, no need to set up a schedule beforehand).

Allowing corrupt idiot politicians to base the world economy on chaos theory was one of the dumbest ideas we as a species ever had. Read some catastrophy theory first (at least check out the graphic if the article is tl;dr). There's a reason we call it chaotic systems, you know?

You realize that wages also decreased during that time period, right?

Average weekly wages in 1800: $16

Average weekly wages in 1900: $7

Another source for 1900 weekly wages, this one claiming around $9.26 weekly.

Umm.. no. See, you're a sucker and you believe that a national debt is a bad thing. It's not. A developing nation (and that's what we are) should be in debt. We should be growing and credit is how you do that at a viable pace.

Creation of money supply through fractional reserve lending is done by the authority of the government. Therefore, the government, rather than borrowing money created as debt by its own authority could instead create that money without incurring debt to the Reserve Bank, the value of the money backed by the capital works paid for rather than the governments commitment to repay the debt. Since the increase in the money supply would be matched by increased production (the capital works paid for) there would be no resulting devaluation of the currency.

Money as Debt: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 (45 mins)
or if you prefer to read:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_99/hannigan092099.html

It's not just that. Money has three purposes: a medium of exchange, the obvious one, but also a unit of account and a store of value. With a fiat currency, if the government is reasonably responsible with it (insert cynical snickering here) then you can have a fairly stable store of value: decaying by 2-6% a year due to inflation, maybe, but that's reasonably predictable.

If you tie your money supply to something like a commodity, you tie it to the volatility in that commodity. Here's a random site with a graph of the real price of gold for 1975-2007. Do you really want to tie your currency to that? Even if you assume that some of that volatility would be limited because of gold taking a more central role in the economy, it's still ridiculous. Even if you won't have another big gold rush to shock your economy, there are probably better ideas....

(Think that's bad? Some people who think our currency should be tied to oil.)

Are you really so callous that you'd torpedo the whole economy just to punish a few people you don't like?

Being callous has nothing to do with it. The US economy is an unsalvageable wreck. Where is that $700 Billion dollar bailout coming from when the nation is already $10 Trillion in debt? They're going to print it. They're going to rob every hardworking American of their savings via massive inflation and destroy the economy for the sake of a privileged few. It's time we return to a constitutionally mandated gold standard so they cannot rob the poor and give to the rich by printing money again. Since it has been almost 40 years since there was anything resembling legal tender in this country, I suggest we declare a jubilee and start over... that's really the only fair thing left to do. Sure, it will ruin our credit as a nation, but frankly, it's ruined already anyway. Additional reading:

• Depression era laws undone
• Nobody cares if the Fed prints money until it is completely worthless
• What they didn't tell you about the housing market collapse on TV

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. — Woodrow Wilson, in regards to the creation of the Fed

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. — US Constitution, Article 1, Section 10

I suspect the GP isn't saying that we should have no currency but criticizing "fractional-reserve lending", the process banks use to create money at interest that is not government issued currency.

I think it's offtopic to the issue of privacy and swiss banks, but it is a worthwhile topic to check out. http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_99/hannigan092099.html is a simple story that illustrates the problem well, someone posted it a few days ago.

Won't work. A voter can be smart, but voters are stupid. Voters want lower taxes. Voters also want their candidate to bring home the bacon. Those two stances are diametrically opposed. Either you want reduced spending or reduced taxes. Our endless deficits are only the candidates giving voters what they want. BOTH. The same is true for /. moderation. You can say two things that are exact opposite and receive +4 or +5 moderation on both statements. It all depends on your spin.

I beg to differ. I think their ability to create money is the big problem. Their way out of this quandary should be understandable to any intelligent thinking person. They will print money to cover the debt, and in doing so, destroy the value of your dollars with inflation. In 1971, an ounce of gold cost $40. Today, an ounce of gold costs over $900. In 1860, an ounce of gold would buy a really nice suit. Today... an ounce of gold will buy a really nice suit. Gold supply is fairly inelastic. Therefore its value in relation to other goods remains roughly the same. Since dollars are no longer backed by gold, dollars can be printed on a whim.

Fractional reserve lending is the root of all evil here. If you have representative money like the dollar of 1929, then you end up with a run on the bank. If you have a fiat currency that isn't backed by anything like the dollar of today, you have endless inflation. That happens because fractional reserve lending creates more debt than there is money to pay that debt. Yes, that's a cute little fictional story, but it does a pretty good job of explaining the situation so that even children can understand it.

It becomes literally impossible for everyone to pay their debt, so you become a slave to your creditors. The banks. You've sold your soul to the company store. If you have debt, you are enslaved by the Federal Reserve System. They spin debt as a positive thing. It's not debt, it's "credit." Even president Woodrow Wilson realized his mistake shortly after creating the Fed. He's quoted as saying:

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

It's almost a 100 years later and that small group of dominant men still rule you like kings. There's only one candidate who claims to have any intention of doing anything about it. Too bad he's "unelectable." I guess that word means he's not in right banker's pocket.

Is Allen Greenspan enough of a "serious, respected economist" for you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Greenspan_and_Objectivism http://www.gold-eagle.com/greenspan011098.html http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/greenspan.html

They did it several times in the 20s and 30s because the fractional reserve system meant they were printing dollars anyway.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/lundeen123105.html

Still happened. Admittedly inflation since 1971 has gone mad, but then, you just keep out of cash.

It isn't necessary to tie a currency 100% to gold; it could be tied to multiple metals, or have a fractional tie (such as the Swiss franc prior to 2000). That would reduce or eliminate a lot of the price volatility that you mention, and would still encourage governments to balance their budgets and control debts. As it stands now with a floating currency, it is too ripe for abuse. See this article for some more history behind the gold standard.

He believes that the fetus/baby is an individual, too, with the same rights as any other individual. In the case of partial birth abortion, I don't know how anyone can disagree.

Ever heard of a thing called inflation? That is from not being on the gold standard
"No, it wasn't. We haven't been on the gold standard for decades and inflation has been very low. Besides, there is a much, much better, more plentiful standard: oil, which is traded in dollars."

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/waltzek122 405.html

We have never had inflation from fiat currency?? From 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created, $.04 (4 cents) has become today's $1. Secondly, we've been off the gold standard since 1913; that just ended totally in the '70s, and inflation had already started due to not being completely on the gold standard.

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rat e/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage =2

According to that link, we've had 95% inflation since 1982. (Keep in mind that inflation compounds, just like interest.)

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/inflation.htm

"a dollar in 1950 will buy only 12 cents worth of goods today, 88% less than before"

If you want to read some further ramblings from another "nitwit", here is Alan Greenspan's essay on why the US should remain on the gold standard. As chairman of the Fed, he said that he still believed in what he'd written even though his job did the opposite. Man, that Greenspan guy, he sure was a nitwit if there ever was one. He wasn't a highly respected academic or intellectual or the best Fed chairman ever, nope, he was just a nitwit. In fact, since for years he was considered the leading economic authority in America, America is just full of these "economic nitwits"!

http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/greenspan.htm l

About that oil thing, oil is a diminishing resource and OPEC has made serious threats to sell it in euros.

Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):
Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):

"Fiat money is generally associated with a more statist society. If
politicians dont have to consult citizens or tax them directly
to fund government programs, such as wars, then politicians can, and
do, implement whatever programs they wish. Thus, fiat money is a
necessary ingredient for tyranny. Programs can be funded with money
created by the banking system. In effect, politicians and banks
embezzle the purchasing power of savings."

"Wars cost money. Since the only sources of revenues with commodity
money are taxeswhich people tend to resistor
borrowingwhich drives up interest ratesthere tend to be
fewer and smaller wars. For example, it is less likely that the U.S.
would have fought in Vietnam if President Johnson had to finance the
war with taxes."Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):

"Fiat money is generally associated with a more statist society. If
politicians dont have to consult citizens or tax them directly
to fund government programs, su

Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):
Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):

"Fiat money is generally associated with a more statist society. If
politicians dont have to consult citizens or tax them directly
to fund government programs, such as wars, then politicians can, and
do, implement whatever programs they wish. Thus, fiat money is a
necessary ingredient for tyranny. Programs can be funded with money
created by the banking system. In effect, politicians and banks
embezzle the purchasing power of savings."

"Wars cost money. Since the only sources of revenues with commodity
money are taxeswhich people tend to resistor
borrowingwhich drives up interest ratesthere tend to be
fewer and smaller wars. For example, it is less likely that the U.S.
would have fought in Vietnam if President Johnson had to finance the
war with taxes."Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):

"Fiat money is generally associated with a more statist society. If
politicians dont have to consult citizens or tax them directly
to fund government programs, su

Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):
Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):

"Fiat money is generally associated with a more statist society. If
politicians dont have to consult citizens or tax them directly
to fund government programs, such as wars, then politicians can, and
do, implement whatever programs they wish. Thus, fiat money is a
necessary ingredient for tyranny. Programs can be funded with money
created by the banking system. In effect, politicians and banks
embezzle the purchasing power of savings."

"Wars cost money. Since the only sources of revenues with commodity
money are taxeswhich people tend to resistor
borrowingwhich drives up interest ratesthere tend to be
fewer and smaller wars. For example, it is less likely that the U.S.
would have fought in Vietnam if President Johnson had to finance the
war with taxes."Read up, buddy.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/parks02170 1pv.html

Fiat money has its pluses, but it also has the big downside that
governments don't have to rely on taxes to finance things.

From Dr. Lawrence Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
Advancement of Monetary Education (Parks has studied the money issue
for more than 30 years. His writings have appeared in Pensions &
Investments, The Economist, The Washington Times, The Freeman, The
Free Market, American Outlook, The United States Congressional Record,
National Review, and others. He has broad experience in academia, in
business, and in finance. He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from
the Polytechnic University. Additionally, he is an active member of
many civic and social organizations including The United Association
for Labor Education, The National Writer's Union, UAW 1981, AFL-CIO.):

"Fiat money is generally associated with a more statist society. If
politicians dont have to consult citizens or tax them directly
to fund government programs, su

If you consider inflation to be the value of precious metals such as gold, then sure, you can get to absurd values such as 50% (mind you, there's no such thing as absolute reference value). OTOH, if you consider consumer price indexes, it's much lower - between 5 and 10%.

You're both wrong. Inflation is pretty simple. How much more money was "minted?" That's all you really need to know. Don't give me a commodity chart, don't give me some crappy index. Just give me an M3 report. Oh, oops... the Fed stopped printing that a year ago. You may proceed with your meaningless argument...

I'm Dutch so I'm using euro's. In india they use rupees, and large amounts of Rupees are expressed in lakh rupees or crore rupees. A Lakh Rupee is one hundred thousand rupees and a crore rupee is ten million rupees.

For you ignorant fool the conversion gets you 1698 Euro for 1 lakh rupee.

You are probably a US'ian, so you probably think your dollar is the only valid currency in the world. The rest of the world doesn't think so:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_03/wallenwein 060303.html

Now, that the euro (a) exists, and (b) has already achieved a tremendous amount of penetration of the international currency markets and even central bank reserves to some extent, and (c) has not lost decisively in value but has gained back all "losses" to date, the stage is set for a slow, gradual, but complete takeover by the euro of the dollar's role as the international reserve currency.

This process will not be allowed to take place too suddenly, because a complete and rapid "crash" of the US economy would still hurt too many countries that are dependent on the US market for their exports. Their export routes will have to be shifted first.

Rather, the US economy will be allowed to slowly suffocate under its own dollar-weight, letting it go into a gradual recession, with gradual deflationary pressures exerting themselves at first a la Japan (now happening), which the Fed is presently proceeding to "fight" with mammoth inflation, and that will eventually help bring about hyper-inflation.

--

You know, I used to be rather fond of the US, I've travelled through 35 states, and know the country well. With your current government, the US is loosing goodwill at a tremendous rate, and your personal kind of stupidity doesn't help. But who cares, you're likely an adolescent male anyway.

Bart

Here's something mayby slightly off-topic byt still usefull to answer your request:

Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.: The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse

China and Japan have stopped buying US debt.

The already have.

• Japan and China Stop Buying US Debt
• Foreign Buying of National Debt

They stopped buying months ago.

China and Japan have stopped buying American debt. When America hit somewhere around $7.5 Trillion, they said enough is enough. These days, we're getting money from unnamed benefactors who route money anonymously through caribbean banks. No, seriously.

and providing our consumer based economy with cheap goods, fueling our economy and tax base.

To some extent, yes, but here's the basic deal: They prop us up, we buy their shit. Well, with all the 'good jobs' going overseas, the money has to be coming from somewhere. That somewhere has been the housing market, which, by the way, is about to melt down. The US housing market is strained to its limits and consumer spending has tapered off as a result. Hence, China/Japan have stopped buying debt. The return on investment is no longer great enough. Of course, when the housing bubble pops, it won't be the S&L scandal of the 80's all over again. This time, there is no government bailout coming. The government simply doesn't have the money or the credit necessary for a real bailout. They'll have to print more money to do it, and that will make what money you have now worth about as much as confederate money. Central banks see it coming and are trading in dollars for hard assets as a result. Did you notice that gold happens to be at a 24 year high?

Yeah, we're in deep shit.

The CPI formula has been "recalculated" a number of times. Usually to make the figures reflect a rosier picture for those in power.

I only put the basic idea in the post. I figured it was just a starting point.

Regarding the current price of housing, we are talking a difference of 31 years, so even a modest underestimation in inflation each year over the past 31 years, compounded, would lead to a great difference in price. I would say that some of the difference is due to appreciation, however I think much more is due to the understated inflation rate.

Finally, even assuming the CPI is correct, I think it is reprehensible that we take a 4% loss of value per year for granted. It pretty much assures that you lose money if you attempt to save.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_00/blanchard1 21500pv.html

In 1793, failure to accept the French paper money was made punishable by death and the punishment was actually imposed as demonstrated by the lists of those condemned to the guillotine.

And yes, I was refering to a long time ago: about the 17th or 18th century I think

I can't find any specific statistics on this...

In 2003 the top four Asian central banks bought $300 billion U.S. debt and were holding $1.5 trillion by end January 2004. Japan leads the pack with $741 billion, then China with $403 billion, followed by Taiwan with $207 billion, and South Korea at $157 billion. These amounts are double what the top four had just two years ago.

The American worker, on average, works longer hours than any other country

Correct (and over a lifetime has worked 40% more hours than in other comparable countries), but it does not mean they are more productive. Both France and Germany have a higher GDP/head/hour than the US. See this based on an Economist article based on a Goldman Sachs report. In effect, it implies that working looong hours ain't doing you the world of good.

I don't want to go tinfoilhat on you, but read this. The people who benefit don't even live in the US, or for that matter consider themselves citizens of any nation. By the time China goes to war with us, they intend to have wormed their way into the banking system over there, and loaning the money to the chinese to go to war... they win either way.

Uh, wrong. The desire for feudalism was never the common man's... read this

This is about turning the non-serfs in the USA into serfs. You can't be a feudal lord, if there is a large middle class, as have existed in the US for a long time now. Unfortunately, those causing all this are hiding in the obscurity.

This link is also enlightening, from a different perspective.

Read this. It will explain alot.

1. The "bankers" (i.e. Jews) are accussed of controlling the government from behind the scenes.
2. The "bankers" are accused of manipulating the economy through moneylending in order to avoid ever having to work. (This is the most persistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
3. "Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them." (This is another of the most presistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
4. The "bankers" are quoted as saying to each other, "It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don't know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organised. To rule is our birthright." This is straight out of any piece of Nazi propoganda that you care to pick up.
5. An angry Jewish-looking man is portrayed sitting at a desk inscribed with dollar signs and "eye in the pyramid" symbols (another favorite of conspiracy loonies).
6. The Federal Reserve system is portrayed as being a front for "private lenders", which is in turn portrayed as being a front for an obscured building with a quesiton mark on it that looks a lot like a Jewish temple.
7. The story then descends into standard Christian fundamentalist "New World Order" paranoia, implying at the end of it all that our Jewish-banker protagonist is actually the Anti-Christ himself... a favorite theory of the racist Christian Identity movement. At the end of the story, he's seized complete control of the world (through the standard method of tattooing "666" on everyone's hand) all because we didn't listen to the rantings and ravings of the violent racists who tried to "warn" us of the "great Zionist conspiracy."

Okay, so the story starts with sound economic truths and then starts to blend in racism and hatred through misleading assumptions, half-truths, and outright lies. This is hardly out of the ordinary for hate groups that want to be racist without admitting to being racist. I'll admit, the story isn't as

1. The "bankers" (i.e. Jews) are accussed of controlling the government from behind the scenes.
2. The "bankers" are accused of manipulating the economy through moneylending in order to avoid ever having to work. (This is the most persistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
3. "Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them." (This is another of the most presistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
4. The "bankers" are quoted as saying to each other, "It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don't know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organised. To rule is our birthright." This is straight out of any piece of Nazi propoganda that you care to pick up.
5. An angry Jewish-looking man is portrayed sitting at a desk inscribed with dollar signs and "eye in the pyramid" symbols (another favorite of conspiracy loonies).
6. The Federal Reserve system is portrayed as being a front for "private lenders", which is in turn portrayed as being a front for an obscured building with a quesiton mark on it that looks a lot like a Jewish temple.
7. The story then descends into standard Christian fundamentalist "New World Order" paranoia, implying at the end of it all that our Jewish-banker protagonist is actually the Anti-Christ himself... a favorite theory of the racist Christian Identity movement. At the end of the story, he's seized complete control of the world (through the standard method of tattooing "666" on everyone's hand) all because we didn't listen to the rantings and ravings of the violent racists who tried to "warn" us of the "great Zionist conspiracy."

Okay, so the story starts with sound economic truths and then starts to blend in racism and hatred through misleading assumptions, half-truths, and outright lies. This is hardly out of the ordinary for hate groups that want to be racist without admitting to being racist. I'll admit, the story isn't as

1. The "bankers" (i.e. Jews) are accussed of controlling the government from behind the scenes.
2. The "bankers" are accused of manipulating the economy through moneylending in order to avoid ever having to work. (This is the most persistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
3. "Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them." (This is another of the most presistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
4. The "bankers" are quoted as saying to each other, "It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don't know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organised. To rule is our birthright." This is straight out of any piece of Nazi propoganda that you care to pick up.
5. An angry Jewish-looking man is portrayed sitting at a desk inscribed with dollar signs and "eye in the pyramid" symbols (another favorite of conspiracy loonies).
6. The Federal Reserve system is portrayed as being a front for "private lenders", which is in turn portrayed as being a front for an obscured building with a quesiton mark on it that looks a lot like a Jewish temple.
7. The story then descends into standard Christian fundamentalist "New World Order" paranoia, implying at the end of it all that our Jewish-banker protagonist is actually the Anti-Christ himself... a favorite theory of the racist Christian Identity movement. At the end of the story, he's seized complete control of the world (through the standard method of tattooing "666" on everyone's hand) all because we didn't listen to the rantings and ravings of the violent racists who tried to "warn" us of the "great Zionist conspiracy."

Okay, so the story starts with sound economic truths and then starts to blend in racism and hatred through misleading assumptions, half-truths, and outright lies. This is hardly out of the ordinary for hate groups that want to be racist without admitting to being racist. I'll admit, the story isn't as

1. The "bankers" (i.e. Jews) are accussed of controlling the government from behind the scenes.
2. The "bankers" are accused of manipulating the economy through moneylending in order to avoid ever having to work. (This is the most persistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
3. "Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them." (This is another of the most presistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
4. The "bankers" are quoted as saying to each other, "It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don't know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organised. To rule is our birthright." This is straight out of any piece of Nazi propoganda that you care to pick up.
5. An angry Jewish-looking man is portrayed sitting at a desk inscribed with dollar signs and "eye in the pyramid" symbols (another favorite of conspiracy loonies).
6. The Federal Reserve system is portrayed as being a front for "private lenders", which is in turn portrayed as being a front for an obscured building with a quesiton mark on it that looks a lot like a Jewish temple.
7. The story then descends into standard Christian fundamentalist "New World Order" paranoia, implying at the end of it all that our Jewish-banker protagonist is actually the Anti-Christ himself... a favorite theory of the racist Christian Identity movement. At the end of the story, he's seized complete control of the world (through the standard method of tattooing "666" on everyone's hand) all because we didn't listen to the rantings and ravings of the violent racists who tried to "warn" us of the "great Zionist conspiracy."

Okay, so the story starts with sound economic truths and then starts to blend in racism and hatred through misleading assumptions, half-truths, and outright lies. This is hardly out of the ordinary for hate groups that want to be racist without admitting to being racist. I'll admit, the story isn't as

1. The "bankers" (i.e. Jews) are accussed of controlling the government from behind the scenes.
2. The "bankers" are accused of manipulating the economy through moneylending in order to avoid ever having to work. (This is the most persistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
3. "Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them." (This is another of the most presistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
4. The "bankers" are quoted as saying to each other, "It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don't know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organised. To rule is our birthright." This is straight out of any piece of Nazi propoganda that you care to pick up.
5. An angry Jewish-looking man is portrayed sitting at a desk inscribed with dollar signs and "eye in the pyramid" symbols (another favorite of conspiracy loonies).
6. The Federal Reserve system is portrayed as being a front for "private lenders", which is in turn portrayed as being a front for an obscured building with a quesiton mark on it that looks a lot like a Jewish temple.
7. The story then descends into standard Christian fundamentalist "New World Order" paranoia, implying at the end of it all that our Jewish-banker protagonist is actually the Anti-Christ himself... a favorite theory of the racist Christian Identity movement. At the end of the story, he's seized complete control of the world (through the standard method of tattooing "666" on everyone's hand) all because we didn't listen to the rantings and ravings of the violent racists who tried to "warn" us of the "great Zionist conspiracy."

Okay, so the story starts with sound economic truths and then starts to blend in racism and hatred through misleading assumptions, half-truths, and outright lies. This is hardly out of the ordinary for hate groups that want to be racist without admitting to being racist. I'll admit, the story isn't as

1. The "bankers" (i.e. Jews) are accussed of controlling the government from behind the scenes.
2. The "bankers" are accused of manipulating the economy through moneylending in order to avoid ever having to work. (This is the most persistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
3. "Fabian and his friends purchased most of the newspapers, T.V. and radio stations and he carefully selected people to operate them." (This is another of the most presistent anti-Semitic stereotypes.)
4. The "bankers" are quoted as saying to each other, "It is our right and duty to rule. The masses don't know what is good for them. They need to be rallied and organised. To rule is our birthright." This is straight out of any piece of Nazi propoganda that you care to pick up.
5. An angry Jewish-looking man is portrayed sitting at a desk inscribed with dollar signs and "eye in the pyramid" symbols (another favorite of conspiracy loonies).
6. The Federal Reserve system is portrayed as being a front for "private lenders", which is in turn portrayed as being a front for an obscured building with a quesiton mark on it that looks a lot like a Jewish temple.
7. The story then descends into standard Christian fundamentalist "New World Order" paranoia, implying at the end of it all that our Jewish-banker protagonist is actually the Anti-Christ himself... a favorite theory of the racist Christian Identity movement. At the end of the story, he's seized complete control of the world (through the standard method of tattooing "666" on everyone's hand) all because we didn't listen to the rantings and ravings of the violent racists who tried to "warn" us of the "great Zionist conspiracy."

Okay, so the story starts with sound economic truths and then starts to blend in racism and hatred through misleading assumptions, half-truths, and outright lies. This is hardly out of the ordinary for hate groups that want to be racist without admitting to being racist. I'll admit, the story isn't as

True, it is a powerful tool which could potentially be used to regulate inflation.

However since it can also serve as an inexhaustible spigot of imaginary funding for federal budgets, guess how it inevitably gets used?

Hint: The national debt has now surpassed 7 trillion.

"Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth," Greenspan stated in The Objectivist some 30 years ago, noting: "Gold stands in the way of this insidious process."

No, just devalue the money outside of the US... blah blah blah

It looks as if the Domestic and Non-Domestic $100 bills provided for in Senator Leahy's S-307 will soon be with us. Last year, Leahy introduced S-2158, which called for tightly controlled "domestic" and "non-domestic" versions of the dollar, and new banknotes for both. S-2158 failed to pass the 103rd Congress because of public objections to the "dual currency" idea, but the Counterfeiting and Money Laundering Deterrence Act, reintroduced just a few months later as S-307, is a very close replacement.

All things being equal (they aren't), Bush has done enough damage and the press is bold enough with him that he cannot win relection without: it being handed to him by a blunder of an idiot opponent, or if he steals it through fraud.

We are going into the economic winter of an inevitable Kondratieff Cycledelayed by massive deficit spending. Whatever party wins the next election will take the blame for this.

Based on the momentem of electronic voter machine replacment and the detailed widespread press coverage of the hanging/dimpled chad recount process, if the presidential election is in within 0-5% there will be great hubbub and sevral recounts.

Bush will become president again after recounts play out. The media will be forced to cover the advantages of open source vs proprietary software. It's to short a logical leap for the press not to take.

Durring the mayhem and finger pointing US companies that make software will become the biggest boogie men in the questionable election. Rigged or not, the mistrust of the govt will be enourmous. The stigma will linger and people will understand the software/IP alternitive en-masse for the first time.

When the market/housing/bonds/currency all crash, because the chinese unpeg the yuan from the dollar as late as possible (2007 3/4 as per the WTO) and the yuan springs back hard destablizing everything. (they will do this as sabotage or an economic nuke.) Republicans will take all the blame for the following depresion and the corruption that caused it. (Nothing sucks like a Hoover)

The Republican party will be dispanded, and perhaps a world war (over intelectual property) will occour. Laws on software will radically change for the better in 2012-2015 bringing the US inline with less recent but still new international IP law.

As crazy as it seems, the scarriest thing to me right now is a Democrat winning. Most of these things will still happen but the Democrats will take the blame. Democrats are way to weak to survive a disasterous presidency and will dispand.

Obviously whatever party is dispanded will be replaced, but the populist replacment will take time to accumulate power and the country will swing hard to the left or the right.

Somebody please laugh at me.

However there is an especially insidious reason to believe this market will be quite limited this time around, compared even to the depression of the 1930's, and that is the nature of the individuals in whose hands the net assets are concentrated.

When Greenspan decided to depart from his gold standard by keeping interest rates high relative to gold during the crash he in effect decided to concentrate net asset ownership in the hands of people who don't necessarily have the best of characters -- indeed they are far from the ideal of heroic capitalists so promoted by Alan Greenspan himself when he was a devotee of Ayn Rand's.

As I stated in a white paper posted to sci.space in 1992 (resulting from having spent a few years doing politics in Washington to promote commercial incentives for space launch companies):

Just as important, capital welfare severely distorts the
optimization of asset ownership in society by placing, as a
matter of public policy, ever more assets under the control of
those who already have the most assets. Capitalism expresses its
worst potentials when capital welfare debilitates the character
of the wealthy while it gives them ever more economic authority.
This asset centralization impoverishes the population at large,
ending with a collapse in consumer demand. Supply-side theory
fails to predict this collapse because it fails to deal with the
fact that the wealthy are just as prone to character erosion by
welfare as are the poor. It is even more destructive than
welfare for the poor because it corrupts the decision makers in
the economy. In the face of collapsing consumer demand and
capital welfare, acquisition of more capital assets is promoted
over the productive use or investment of those assets.

Political rhetoric defining "the rich" or "the wealthy" as those
with high levels of income or capital appreciation, focuses
public sentiment against the most productive members of society
and away from the centralization of net assets as the underlying
problem.

The incentive for productivity in the economy, left after the
disincentives of capital welfare are subtracted, is the long-term
economic growth rate minus the interest rate on the national
debt. When the interest rate being paid on the national debt
equals the growth rate of the economy, the fruits of all
productivity are being confiscated to pay capital welfare and the
incentives for productive investment and labor disappear. When
the incentives for productivity become negative due to capital
welfare in excess of the economic growth rate, wealth is
structurally centralized at the expense of others in the economy.
The absolute level of net assets owned by the general population
actually decreases so as to increase the net assets of the
wealthy. This not only removes all incentives for production and
entrepreneurial investment from the economy, but consumer demand
collapses as credit is liquidated to pay for necessities.
Depression ensues. It is under these circumstances that demands
for socialist intervention in the economy via "pub

I suggest you look up 'Kondratiev cycle technology'. Jay Forrester (inventor of magnetic-core memory), studied this at MIT/Sloan school and determined that the a long-term economic cycle develops due to the 'self-ordering' nature of capital equipment.

Basically Forrester's group found evidence for the following feedback loop: Early in the deployment of any technology there is a scarcity of capital. Capital equipment is expensive, and early investments involve high degrees of risk accompanied by high profits in a given technology sector. That in turn brings investment in the businesses developing this capital. However, a large part of this capital is used in the development of the capital itself (i.e. IT tends to need advanced hardware and software to develop the bleeding-edge new hardware and software for actual end-use).

Thus the 'buildup phase' of new technology creates a high demand (for both the acutal equipment and the stock of the companies that make it). At some point, however the generation of this new (and expensive) equipment (or software) exceeds the actual (end-user) demand. When this happens the high profit margins that were being realized during the build-up phase disappear quite rapidly, the investment-value follows (crashing stock prices) and the investment money looks for other places. See this article

Sound familiar? Whether or not you buy into the economic details, this is one of the behaviors seen in economics. The inflated acquisition prices mentioned are the direct result of this effect.

Because sure people make stupid mistakes even (especially?) with billion dollar transactions. But the funny thing about the stock market is that the money doesn't ever go away. Whenever someone loses in the market, someone else has made a profit.

And yes it sucks when the players break the rules but especially on the financial rules the market punishes you very hard. I worked for a biotech firm that was growing well, showing solid net earnings ca $300m on $2b sales, a 30:1 p/e ratio. Our japan division was found to have been moving inventories to the tune of changing the sales #'s by $50m. This lie, accounting for only 2.5% caused a nearly 50% drop in stock price and a (justified) shareholders lawsuit.

Whenever someone fsck's with the rules of the game (fixing the books, insider trading, breaking anti-trust rules, whatever), real people get hurt and we have SEC, IRS etc to try and keep up with the process. MS imo is an excellent example of how a determined and unscrupulous competitor can harm while evading the systems controls(sic).

I'm just thanking my stars that (so far) the politicians havent fscked up like they did after the '29 stock market crash. The US enacted protectionist trade tarrifs which effectively were the first blow in killing off the *world* economy.

Post-sept-11'th fears and RIAA / DMCA idiocies aside, at least across a several bumpy decades our boneheads in Washington, the EU, etc at least so far have managed not to fsck up. They still have opportunities to snatch defeat from the waiting hands of victory, but so far it could be a whole lot worse I think.

Oh, I'm sure they have (or perhaps had) good salaries. That's where that $10 trillion of capital went.

you just can't get away with being crap any more

Merely teaching everyone to clean up their HTML isn't going to bring that $10 trillion bubble back.

The article basically defined how our paper money works, which made me gasp in horror. Paper money is not actually worth ANYTHING... it is a promissary note on FUTURE taxing power of the government... but if the economy tanks, how can the government be able to collect all those taxes, especially when a tanking economy leads people to cash in such measures?

Greenspan, in his article, outlined why gold is good. It is homogenous, divisible, precious and rare, a luxury... things that make it worth something objective. So, if an economy does tank, you have a physical resource that can be traded, not reciepts of checks the goverment may never honor.

I think the gold company listed in this article is a great idea. Why? Because it gives freedom to consumers to choose a money supply. They can go government, or private industry. While the price of gold may fluctuate on the market, it is much more stable than the inflationary value of the dollar.

PS - If I put the word 'fact' on individual lines will it lend more credibility to my statements as well? Hah...