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The History of the Federal Reserve
Michael J. Ross writes "Money plays a key role in modern life; in fact, for some people, nothing is more important than acquiring more of it. Yet most people do not know what money really is, how it is created, how its supply is expanded and contracted, and who benefits from those changes. In the United States, the central figure in this ongoing drama, is our central bank, the Federal Reserve, whose history, power, and effects are explored in G. Edward Griffin's fascinating book The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.
The Creature from Jekyll Island
author
G. Edward Griffin
pages
624
publisher
American Media
rating
9
reviewer
Michael J. Ross
ISBN
0912986212
summary
A compelling history and indictment of the Federal Reserve system
For the citizens of the United States and several Latin American countries, the "coin of the realm" is the US dollar, which is, in simple terms, created by the Federal Reserve, a.k.a., the Fed. But who created the Federal Reserve, and why? The subjects of banking in general, and the Federal Reserve in particular, would be considered by most Americans to be dry, boring, and of little importance to their day-to-day life. But those same people are endlessly fascinated by how to make more money (with minimal effort, such as the lottery), how to spend as little of it as possible (coupons never go out of style), and how to maximize one's investment returns. Why this disconnect? Why do Americans care so little about the origins of that which they spend a third of their time pursuing, and seemingly another third spending?
Some of these "salary slaves" may understand that their money serves as a store of wealth and a medium of commercial exchange, which makes possible their daily financial transactions without the need for bartering. But, for the most part, they do not understand the critical importance of what is backing that money, if anything; how that money comes into existence, and what debt offsets it; what entities control the supply and distribution of that money; and how those changes can be used to legally steal purchasing power from victims who may not be entirely unsuspecting, but do not truly comprehend how they are getting ripped off.
The typical American, if he or she has given any thought to the matter, would consider the following statements to be true: The Federal Reserve is federal, i.e., a part of the US government. The Federal Reserve is a reserve, i.e., it has monetary savings of real value. The Federal Reserve serves the public, and is not a cartel of private banks serving itself. The US dollar has real value, i.e., it represents tangible wealth, such as gold securely stored at Fort Knox. Inflation is an increase in prices. Inflation is caused by greedy companies, not the US government or the Federal Reserve.
As G. Edward Griffin makes clear in his book, none of these beliefs are true — regardless of how well entrenched they are in our conventional "wisdom." He also explains why the US government and the Federal Reserve have their own reasons for being in no hurry to eliminate this ignorance. Yet these topics are just a small portion of what is covered in his far-ranging discussion of the theory and history of money and banking, particularly within the United States.
Spanning 624 pages, the material is organized into 26 chapters, which are grouped into six sections: "What Creature Is This?" (the Federal Reserve's shameful birth, and the shenanigans of the Fed, S&Ls, the IMF, and the World Bank), "A Crash Course on Money" (money, gold, debasement, fiat money, fractional-reserve banking, and money creation), "The New Alchemy" (the Rothschilds, J.P. Morgan, and banker financing of wars and revolutions), "A Tale of Three Banks" (America's failed experiments with central banking, and the American Civil War), "The Harvest" (the unconstitutional creation of the Federal Reserve, and its dreadful effects, including the Crash of 1929), "Time Travel into the Future" (current crises caused by central banking, how they can be reversed, future scenarios, and what the individual can do regardless). Every one of the six sections begins with a brief summary, as does every chapter, with every chapter wrapped up with a more extensive summary.
The section summaries also appear in the table of contents, which precedes a preface and the author's acknowledgments. These are followed by a delightful introduction — a piece from the British humor magazine Punch, comprising a rather telling exchange between an unusually honest banker and a soon-to-be-disillusioned bank customer. The book contains three appendices: a summary of the structure and function of the Federal Reserve system; natural laws of human behavior in economics; and whether the M-1 measure of money is subtractive or accumulative. The author also provides an index, as well as an impressive bibliography, reflecting his extensive research on the topics. In addition, the author invites readers to join Freedom Force, an organization dedicated to increasing liberty in the United States, curbing federal totalitarianism, and abolishing the Federal Reserve — all through peaceful participation in government, and the shaping of public policy starting at the grassroots level.
The Creature from Jekyll Island is published by American Media, under the ISBNs 0912986212 and 978-0912986210. It first came out in July 1994, and is now in its fourth edition, and its 19th printing. It also has Japanese and German editions, published in February 2005 and August 2006, respectively. On the book's Web page, visitors will find testimonials and comments from readers, updates to the book, a review of the book by Jane H. Ingraham of The New American, and G. Edward Griffin's response to a critique of his book by Edward Flaherty, who holds a Ph.D. in Economics. On that Web page, interested readers can order audio cassettes or CDs of the author's lecture, based upon this book, and produced in 1998.
My only criticisms of the book concern not the material itself, but its production — more specifically, the printing and layout, presumably chosen and thus fixable in the future by the publisher. The generous font size used throughout the volume, makes it easy to read; but the bold text, such as the subheads found in every chapter, is a bit rough-edged — on some pages worse than others. The subheads, already bolded, do not need to be in all uppercase; the publisher should choose one or the other. In addition, the inside margin length is a bit too small, forcing the reader to crack open the book more than should be needed, in order to comfortably read the text closest to the binding. In future editions, some of the space in the outer margin could be used to solve the problem, without any change to the words on each page, and thus the length of the book.
But aside from these minor flaws, this book is to be highly recommended. The Creature from Jekyll Island is a remarkably thorough, detailed, and challenging critique of central banking and America's latest incarnation of it, the Federal Reserve. G. Edward Griffin's precision of language, and his interweaving of the major players and their motives, makes for a most compelling historical study.
Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.
You can purchase The Creature from Jekyll Island from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Some of these "salary slaves" may understand that their money serves as a store of wealth and a medium of commercial exchange, which makes possible their daily financial transactions without the need for bartering. But, for the most part, they do not understand the critical importance of what is backing that money, if anything; how that money comes into existence, and what debt offsets it; what entities control the supply and distribution of that money; and how those changes can be used to legally steal purchasing power from victims who may not be entirely unsuspecting, but do not truly comprehend how they are getting ripped off.
The typical American, if he or she has given any thought to the matter, would consider the following statements to be true: The Federal Reserve is federal, i.e., a part of the US government. The Federal Reserve is a reserve, i.e., it has monetary savings of real value. The Federal Reserve serves the public, and is not a cartel of private banks serving itself. The US dollar has real value, i.e., it represents tangible wealth, such as gold securely stored at Fort Knox. Inflation is an increase in prices. Inflation is caused by greedy companies, not the US government or the Federal Reserve.
As G. Edward Griffin makes clear in his book, none of these beliefs are true — regardless of how well entrenched they are in our conventional "wisdom." He also explains why the US government and the Federal Reserve have their own reasons for being in no hurry to eliminate this ignorance. Yet these topics are just a small portion of what is covered in his far-ranging discussion of the theory and history of money and banking, particularly within the United States.
Spanning 624 pages, the material is organized into 26 chapters, which are grouped into six sections: "What Creature Is This?" (the Federal Reserve's shameful birth, and the shenanigans of the Fed, S&Ls, the IMF, and the World Bank), "A Crash Course on Money" (money, gold, debasement, fiat money, fractional-reserve banking, and money creation), "The New Alchemy" (the Rothschilds, J.P. Morgan, and banker financing of wars and revolutions), "A Tale of Three Banks" (America's failed experiments with central banking, and the American Civil War), "The Harvest" (the unconstitutional creation of the Federal Reserve, and its dreadful effects, including the Crash of 1929), "Time Travel into the Future" (current crises caused by central banking, how they can be reversed, future scenarios, and what the individual can do regardless). Every one of the six sections begins with a brief summary, as does every chapter, with every chapter wrapped up with a more extensive summary.
The section summaries also appear in the table of contents, which precedes a preface and the author's acknowledgments. These are followed by a delightful introduction — a piece from the British humor magazine Punch, comprising a rather telling exchange between an unusually honest banker and a soon-to-be-disillusioned bank customer. The book contains three appendices: a summary of the structure and function of the Federal Reserve system; natural laws of human behavior in economics; and whether the M-1 measure of money is subtractive or accumulative. The author also provides an index, as well as an impressive bibliography, reflecting his extensive research on the topics. In addition, the author invites readers to join Freedom Force, an organization dedicated to increasing liberty in the United States, curbing federal totalitarianism, and abolishing the Federal Reserve — all through peaceful participation in government, and the shaping of public policy starting at the grassroots level.
The Creature from Jekyll Island is published by American Media, under the ISBNs 0912986212 and 978-0912986210. It first came out in July 1994, and is now in its fourth edition, and its 19th printing. It also has Japanese and German editions, published in February 2005 and August 2006, respectively. On the book's Web page, visitors will find testimonials and comments from readers, updates to the book, a review of the book by Jane H. Ingraham of The New American, and G. Edward Griffin's response to a critique of his book by Edward Flaherty, who holds a Ph.D. in Economics. On that Web page, interested readers can order audio cassettes or CDs of the author's lecture, based upon this book, and produced in 1998.
My only criticisms of the book concern not the material itself, but its production — more specifically, the printing and layout, presumably chosen and thus fixable in the future by the publisher. The generous font size used throughout the volume, makes it easy to read; but the bold text, such as the subheads found in every chapter, is a bit rough-edged — on some pages worse than others. The subheads, already bolded, do not need to be in all uppercase; the publisher should choose one or the other. In addition, the inside margin length is a bit too small, forcing the reader to crack open the book more than should be needed, in order to comfortably read the text closest to the binding. In future editions, some of the space in the outer margin could be used to solve the problem, without any change to the words on each page, and thus the length of the book.
But aside from these minor flaws, this book is to be highly recommended. The Creature from Jekyll Island is a remarkably thorough, detailed, and challenging critique of central banking and America's latest incarnation of it, the Federal Reserve. G. Edward Griffin's precision of language, and his interweaving of the major players and their motives, makes for a most compelling historical study.
Michael J. Ross is a Web developer, freelance writer, and the editor of PristinePlanet.com's free newsletter.
You can purchase The Creature from Jekyll Island from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
...and a free e-book download is What has Government done to our money? by the esteemed Murray N. Rothbard.
I've read dozens of books (over 30, for sure) on central banking theory, and none of them have given a completely clear and transparent picture of what the Fed really is, what is does, and what it is supposed to do. In the end, all central banks have one customer: member banks (the banks you and I go to), and the central banks have one policy: save their buddies in the member banks against any malinvestment or market change.
The Fed isn't here to protect the value of OUR money (in fact, since the Fed's creation in 1913, the US dollar is about 95-96% devalued), and it isn't here to protect our investments or savings.
Waiting for some idiot to post a link to the Zeitgeist movie's section on the federal reserve. Seriously hoping it doesn't happen, but i have a strange feeling that at least one person on here has fallen victim to the allure of spooky music mixed with insane and unfounded assertions.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Jekyll Island is in fact a peninsula.
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Money-Discworld-Novels-Pratchett/dp/0061161640/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1901449-4836442?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190836803&sr=8-1
and you won't fall asleep reading it.
No nerdly discussion about the history of money would be complete without a slavish recommendation to read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Which, indeed, one should. ADHD raised-on-MTV types needn't bother, but it's pure gold. (+5 self-referental humor!)
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
There are plenty. Many people do not consider this book to be a balanced discussion of the subject matter at hand. This type of controversy should be mentioned in any prominent book review.
..only a concept.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Not news for nerds. News for economists, maybe. And I guess you could call economists nerds, sort of, but not in the IT way. So, no, not news for nerds.
Stuff that matters? Yeah, I guess, sort of. But not from an IT perspective, or even the persective of someone who is more concerned about computers than money.
Why is this review here?
Oh, I forot. Slashdot is Digg now.
Sorry, my fault.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Inflation is not caused by so-called greedy companies; it is, in fact, caused by the Federal Reserve. Inflation is, quite simply, the printing of additional money (as opposed to replacement of worn or destroyed notes).
Yet most people do not know what money really is...
Tag rootofallevil
I hope this isn't too painfully stupid or off point: how does one open a bank? I don't think that is a title in the Dummies series yet and I have been periodically curious about it. How realistic is it for a small group of people or a community to start a bank or credit union?
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
about the world around you. It's not as if any of this stuff will ever affect you.
Unless you want to buy a house. Or a car. Or food. Or anything, really.
I mean, computers come free anyway. Computing time was never so costly that they ever had to divvy it up by time slices or something. And IT should never have to be affected by monetary concerns. Unlimited budgets for our departments are a good thing. Or at least were until the tech bubble crashed some years back....
Real value is power--the ability to control other people (aka labor). Whether the medium is gold coins or paper money or tootsie pops, what you are trading when you exchange money is labor.
Inflation does not tax the poor: They have no cash savings.
Inflation does not tax the middle class: They keep their assets in real-estate and mutual funds.
Inflation forces everyone else to invest in something, because hoarding money isn't good for the economy.
I'm sick of all the "money is a scam" articles on the internet recently.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_reserve ;)
The only people who argue for reinstatement of the gold standard are those who do not have a fundamental grasp of macroeconomics. Reinstating gold-backed currency would do several bad things, because it artificially constrains the value of gold as a commodity metal.
Because the value of gold is implicitly tied to the value of a currency, gold can no longer be traded as a commodity in any real sense. As in - if your currency is backed by gold, what happens if the value of gold should go down due to a glut in the production market? Answer is nothing, because it *can't*. If money is backed by gold then you can't logically trade gold separately from money. This means that gold is artificially valued, and the prices of things that use gold would increase for no sound economic reason.
If you don't understand money as a concept, you will forever be trying to get ahead.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&q=money+masters&total=1491&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
The gold standard was not all that some people make it out to be either. Bankers have been profiting like crazy ever since they gained the ability to create money, meaning to lend money backed by nothing more than the borrower's promise to pay it back. This has been going on since well before the gold standard.
Bankers are able to create money to lend far in excess of what is actually backed by real assets, meaning money from depositors, gold, silver, goats, or whatever. They have been doing this for a long, long time though. They were doing it during the gold standard as well. These days, the vast majority of money in circulation is backed only by a debtor's promise to pay it back to the bank.
This is a video that attempts to explain this in plain terms. It is long (around 45 minutes) but informative.
As a fan of business history (yeah, I'm weird), in the past private citizens did what the Fed does today Want an example? Read any biography about J.P Morgan. In every biography that I've read, he stepped in and kept the US from going into horrible depressions. Did he do it for his own interests? Yes. But his interests were in line with the well being of the country's financial health. BUT, folks were quite suspicious of his interest and demanded a Government solution to the problem of our country's boom's and busts and money supply issues - we got the Fed. My opinion: Morgan did it better but he's gone and I don't there's anybody alive today that would have that kind of character.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
I watched that series and found it mostly informative. The parts explaining the basics of banking and how our debt money system came to be is accurate I think. However, his conclusions about exponential growth being unsustainable and citing a need to control natural resources and population growth sounded like socialist FUD to me. I agree that having immensely powerful bank CEO's using their influence to manipulate society (e.g. not lending money to a auto manufacturer that wants to build an electric car, or something like that) would be bad, but whether that sort of thing really goes on starts to get into kook conspiracy theory territory. Also, his call for an end to all interest on loans, saying usury was immoral, and suggesting making the government the sole lender of money sounded like communist tripe to me as well. At least he didn't get totally whacky and start blaming the Jews or the Freemasons or something.
I would like to hear the opinion of an actual economist give their opinion on our money system to get an alternate point of view before making any conclusions of my own. It's hard to sort out the FUD from the propaganda and would be nice to hear both sides of the issue.
I was a lit major in school but often found myself led stangely enough to the subject of money, currency in particular, as it's a subject that seems to have had much more relevance in people's everyday life in that past than it does now. I find the Federal Reserve, especially the institution of FDIC after the Great Depression, one of the greatest innovations of the 20th century. As Milton Friedman points out, it effectively ended the terrible plague of bank runs that wracked economies in the past.
To get a sense how invisible money as an instrument is to most people in modern stable economies, you can look at the plays of Shakespeare and all the reference to coinage and especially "debased" currency during the period. One of the most insightful history books I've read is E.C. Challis's The Tudor Coinage. It really gives you a sense of how much we take a stable currency, as the bedrock for a stable economic system, for granted.
Anyway, if you have any curiosity about that subject at all, you can check out this article:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0117(196712)2%3A20%3A3%3C441%3ATDOTC1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H
I've been looking for a good stimulating non-fiction read. I think I'll pick up G. Edward Griffin's book. Thanks for the review.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
If you want to read about what central banks are up to, I suggest you read some books on economics - from the 19th century. It was clear to people back then why governments wanted to create fiat money, whether it was sustainable and that sort of thing. They hit it right on the money back then, any other commentary nowadays is just an addendum to what was figured out then.
Reading about Making Money atm, met the author at Kepler's last night.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
start blaming the Jews or the Freemasons or something.
Damn those free masons, putting us hard-working stone workers out of a job. All I wanted to do was have a nice house and feed my kids!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
On second thought, maybe not the impartial history of the role of currency in American society, nor the impartial review of a new book, that I was looking for.
In any event, thanks for pointing out the author's agenda in the review.
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
A good video on the subject is From Freedom to Fascism (http://www.freedomtofascism.com/) You can purchase the DVD for a $1. The movie cites the book and includes some video commentary from the Author of Creature from Jekyll Island. If you are alarmed about what you learn you may want to consider throwing some support behind Congressmen Ron Paul, who is running for president. He entered politics because of his concerns about monetary policy and the Federal Reserve. He is currently the ranking chair of the house finance committee and there is some great YouTube videos on his exchanges with the Fed during committee meetings.
- Lord Stamp, former Director of the Bank of England, 1940
Here's a link for 'The Moneymasters', it's an interesting watch--if a little 80's/90's
This is an area where there are some interesting conspiracy theories, however central banks and currency are complicated subjects so it's worth keeping a cool head and trying to remain objective.
This is a subject not many understand, myself included, so I remain very skeptical that the information put forth by books like The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve and films like The Money Masters is correct. What we can all take from these are some interesting questions to ask bankers and economists, it would be interesting to find out how the banking systems of the world actually work, unfortunately--judging by the Amazon reviews someone else posted--it looks like this book is not a good place to find this out.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Where does money come from? It depends on your currency. In the case of Dollar, it comes from the FED, the one and olnly source for dollar bills. How does money get distributed among the nation? Through the Baning infrastructure which lends money to people and companies and gets interest in return. How banks get money? From the FED! And not the magic happens: Summing up: 1) FED prints money (the paper itself is legal tender, no need for gold to back it up) 2) FED lends this paper to the Banks 3) FED gets the interest from the paper loan from the Banks How do the Banks pay the interests to the FED? Getting new loans! From who? From the FED! So, the FED prints worthless money that is turned into debt that is only payable through new debt! And the thing goes on and on! Basically, THE FED is MAGICAL MONEY MACHINE! Awesome!
... to electronics at least. Gold has high conductivity, malleability, ductility, resistance to oxidation and is also not toxic to humans.
The Raven
From reading the summary, I don't believe this book tells you at all how to make money.
I expect ink, green and the new multi-colors, to be all over my fingers by the end of it.
I often dream of winning the lottery. Then I can spend the majority of the time learning what to do with the money. Another, almost perhaps, equal grind as my current day job.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Reply to Anonymous Coward: Even if your score level is below this, a comment was called for. Child pornography is not "fine".
It's not an asset that the bank can keep in its vault (how would you fit it in there, exactly?), but it's a bank asset nonetheless. If the borrower fails to repay the loan, the bank gets the house.
As long as the government is around and is willing to enforce liens, those are all very real assets, and I don't see a problem in using them as a basis for a currency.
The only reason you need a precious-metal currency is when you don't have a functional government that enforces contracts. If you have doubts in the government's ability or willingness to enforce the lien and throw a defaulting borrower out so that the bank can take their house, then you have a problem, and the bank ought not to consider that loan as an asset anymore. (But without a functional government you have some other fairly serious problems, to the point where I'd suggest that the best currency is probably 5.56mm rifle rounds, not silver certificates.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I read some of the reviews of this book on Amazon. I particularly liked the one that pointed out that in countries where the politicians influence their Fed equivalent, their economy does worse, so our politician-free Fed is better. I like this argument! In fact, following this logic, we should replace every aspect of the running of our country with privately owned, independent institutions. After all, such private companies will do a better job of roads, education, health-care, military etc. Why have an elected government at all - clearly such people are incompetent.
Can the parent comment be deleted? It is extremely offensive and possibly illegal.
You must be new around here.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
If you are looking for a book explaining how money works, try reading Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. It also is older having been first published in 1987. It was written and annotated by an accomplished author -- William Greider. It gives a remarkable account of the wild interest rate changes when rates were tied to the money supply.
When you are finished with Secrets of the Temple, go read Greenspan's book! It's been out for a whole week.
Kevin
Irrational Diversions
I'm not sure, but you might have been marked troll because the gp has been deleted, and someone may have attributed your comment to the article instead. Combine low comprehension with the tin-foil hats, and it looks like a troll.
I don't know, I'm just guessing.
When a bank lends money that's backed by someone's mortgage, it's backed by a very "real asset": the mortgaged property.
IANAE, The corollary is that the mortgage must be for an amount that is very close to the value of that asset. If you have massive over estimates of property values due to something like a real estate bubble, once the bubble burst the revaluation throws the system out of whack. Banks says they have X dollars but due to over valuation they actually only have Y% of X dollars where Y is 100. If there is a crash like that and a simultaneous extreme cash call from the banks actual creditors (their customers) then the whole system collapses.
Gold backed currencies aren't subject to this rare circumstance but Gold standards have a lot of draw backs. Thus even with the known failure conditions of the current system it's still better then the gold standard.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
There's much more I could say, but that's an example of the type of information I pass on to friends and neighbors all the time when they hear that I work "at the Fed."
[I'm posting anonymously just in case my employer might think this post violates some policy or other. I don't think it does, because this is public information, but I rather like working here, so I'll play it safe.]
However I think a return to full-reserve banking would be a treatment that's worse than the disease, at least as it currently stands. We need to banks more responsible for the loans they write, and strongly discourage them from lending out money to people who can't repay it. We need to accept, as a society, that not everyone has a right to a huge house financed with an even bigger mortgage. And we need to take a very hard look at the unsecured-loan industry that's financing much of the nation's consumer debt (in the form of either straightforward loans or credit cards).
But a return to full-cash-reserve banking would probably just dry up the supply of capital that the economy needs, and unless it was done worldwide and at once (not a chance), it would probably just result in a further influx of foreign capital.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I watched that series and found it mostly informative. The parts explaining the basics of banking and how our debt money system came to be is accurate I think. However, his conclusions about exponential growth being unsustainable and citing a need to control natural resources and population growth sounded like socialist FUD to me. I agree that having immensely powerful bank CEO's using their influence to manipulate society (e.g. not lending money to a auto manufacturer that wants to build an electric car, or something like that) would be bad, but whether that sort of thing really goes on starts to get into kook conspiracy theory territory. Also, his call for an end to all interest on loans, saying usury was immoral, and suggesting making the government the sole lender of money sounded like communist tripe to me as well. At least he didn't get totally whacky and start blaming the Jews or the Freemasons or something.
Thats not actually totally FUD. It's a universal rule of thumb that nothing in this universe grow exponentially forever (except the size of the universe maybe). They are probably over stating our proximity to the limit of such growth but we need to be aware that a limit exists. If you whole system is build on the notions we'll always be growing.. when we hit the plateau of the logarithm we may face some issues. Population tends to be self regulating but the mechanisms are sometimes unpleasant. So at some point in the future we need to weigh the evils of active artificial regulations of it or a Malthusian dystopia.
If our population has a natural self regulating limit that doesn't involve unpleasantness, when we hit that limit the economy may not grow anymore. Much of the west has stopped growing due to changes in social variables. These include the spread of legalized abortion, the spread of contraception, the delay in procreation, the shifting of the economic value of children from positive to negative, etc.. these factors may not catch on with the rest of the world and we may still get unpleasantness from those who do not curb their growth.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
It happened right away... not long after the "story" was posted, and almost immediately after I made the comment. Someone just did not like my objection. Simple as that.
When I saw the review of this book posted, I puzzled to myself how such a review would find its way into Slashdot 13 years after a book was published. My curiosity was peaked because I personally just read this book, sparked by the documentary already mentioned in other posts. While I am not a conspiracy theorist, I found myself thoroughly spooked by the nature of the Federal Reserve and the fact that our country pays the Reserve billions of dollars in interest each year; "for what?" you may ask... simply because the Fed printed a bunch of money so that our government could pay for things like the war in Iraq and other unchecked spending. During WWI and WWII the dollar was backed by gold and the government couldn't simply print money to pay bills, because they had to have gold in the reserves to back the dollar that was printed. For this reason, the government had to sell War Bonds to raise money to pay for the war. Today, they simply ask the Fed to print more money for them to borrow. Paying interest on this borrowed money is one of the single largest expenses of our federal tax dollars.
I said all of that to say this: when I saw this review go up, I thought for sure it was an attempt to discuss Ron Paul simply because I am willing to bet that the one of the main reasons someone on Slashdot might read this book is because it is one of the issues behind the candidacy of Ron Paul. If you are asking the question, "who the hell is Ron Paul?" you are not alone. Among Paul's goals is the elimination of the Federal Reserve and the return to the gold standard, the elimination of the IRS, Federal Taxes and the Department of Education, the return to a constitutional government and the removal of our country's nose from the rest of the world's business. I know that sounds crazy, but when you scratch the surface and see what is behind all of this stuff, your interest might be peaked as mine was.
While I am not stumping for Ron Paul, I find it strange that his name hasn't come up in this conversation.
Just my $0.02,
"Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
Somebody was hurt in making it. The person who thought of it in the first place.
Inflation does not tax the poor: They have no cash savings.
Using the term "taxes" confuses things a bit. The price of goods is going up faster than anyone's wages during an inflationary period. In the case of the poor, it definitely makes them poorer. The rich? They'll complain as if their situation was different, but the harm is negligible to them.
Inflation does not tax the middle class: They keep their assets in real-estate and mutual funds.
-If there is a large property-owning middle class in the system, you may be right. But the general trend in wealth distribution over the last 30 years the U.S. does not support this notion.
-A mutual fund does not act as an automatic hedge against inflation. For those of you surprised by this, consider reallocating your mutual funds NOW and learn how to benefit from the dollar devaluation.
-The value of a home does not keep up with inflation. It might look like it in some areas, but this is a grossly oversimplified statement.
Inflation forces everyone else to invest in something
No. It harms everyone but the wealthy. That's about it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It hasn't been deleted. Just marked down to -1 territory.
How true.
I never though I would get an actual laugh out of this discussion, but you proved me wrong.
I can tolerate a lot. Someone mentioned that nobody was hurt in the process, and that is a good point. Perhaps it is not illegal in that form. But while I am a believer in free speech, I also believe that society must have SOME limits, and I shall not apologize for objecting to deliberate child pornography, even if it is fantasy.
The "you must be new here" is not a critique of your position. Merely outlining that that you may not be aware but unless ordered by a court of law or at the whim of a editor, slashdot does not delete posts. It get modded into oblivion quickly and if you view at 0 and higher or 1 and higher you wont' see such garbage.
Now a critique of your position: Freedom of speech is the prohibition of the government from censoring ideas. The spirit behind it is very much "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" vein. So while we can all agree such content is objectionable it is not right to outlaw it if it does not pose or derive from the harm of another. So child pornography in the form of videos, pictures recording etc.. involve and harm a child. Thus should be outlawed. Fiction ought not be. As we may disagree with it, ti harms no one. We do not have to give it a free pass. We can of course limit it's distribution (mod -1 troll) and react negatively to it's author. But we must tolerate the persons right to say it/write it. Because cherry picking rights leads to some unpleasantness and the more you do so the easier it becomes. First it's grow indecent fiction, then artistic works involving children (pretty baby), then it's protecting children from ideas we deem harmful etc.. the whole slippery slope things is cliche but if you draw then line at anything except freedom you risk the progressive redrawing of that line through inaction.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
My sister was a credit-union auditor/consultant at one time and pointed me to this basic step-by-step guide to start a credit union...
/.-er, probably the biggest obstical would be to find the people with banking experience to get a charter in the first place.
http://www.ncua.gov/GuidesManuals/ecp/ecp.html
As to how realistic it is, well unless you can get together at least 5 people with banking experience (at least at the VP level), give it up. You will not be able to get a charter. Even then, unless you can find/raise funding committments around $2M (or equivalant initial subsidies) forget it.
FWIW, credit unions generally start losing money the day they open the door. People who have agreed to be the monthly depositors start putting their money in to the pool and strangely may want interest and/or services and the people that write share-drafts and obtain loans dilute the pool coming out of the gate. Not until the credit union creates a reasonable current loan portfolio or offers other profit generating services will they start to turn the red ink (and that generally takes years).
Having said that, there are lots of credit unions around so if you are actually serious, it's not out of the question. As to getting funding committments, you'd be surprized how many companies there are that donate stuff and how many foundations there are that put money into this kind of stuff. For a
Banks, however, are another story. I'm guessing it would be nearly impossible to change a credit union into a bank (because all those share holders would have to agree), so you probably have to start by being a state-chartered bank (and maybe later turn it into a federally chartered bank). A bank is basically a non-closely held corporation with a license with the state to practice banking (not unlike a car-repair shop or other small business). Mostly states have pretty minimal requirement other than a business plan, list of directors (so they can do background checks), and reserve requirements (generally around $5M) and proof of insurance (of course if you want to offer FDIC insured deposits, that's another thing, but state insurance is generally easier to come by).
Watch "America: Freedom to Fascism" google video.
Good Day!
Thank you for your attempt at explanation, but those point have already been covered here.
First, I admit that I was probably wrong about that being "actual" child porn. Therefore, it is probably not illegal. At first blush I thought it was, and was trying to point that out. But I have since realized that I was probably wrong about that. I was not trying to "censor" anything, I was simply trying to point out that there was material there that could get Slashdot in trouble. I was wrong.
However (and I am repeating myself here) the right to object to (not censor) material that one finds offensive is very much part of free speech, and I will not apologize for objecting.
However I think a return to full-reserve banking would be a treatment that's worse than the disease, at least as it currently stands. We need to banks more responsible for the loans they write, and strongly discourage them from lending out money to people who can't repay it. We need to accept, as a society, that not everyone has a right to a huge house financed with an even bigger mortgage. And we need to take a very hard look at the unsecured-loan industry that's financing much of the nation's consumer debt (in the form of either straightforward loans or credit cards).
I think we need to stop white collar criminals from getting off with a wrist slap. Although not directly tied into the bank system the collapse of Enron and World com and the continued pseudo criminal nature some of the corporation's should be more transparently punished. Perhaps tie jail sentences to how many of millions your fraud cost as well as expenses incurred investigating. And perhaps extend some personal liability to the Directors and upper management of corporations for misdeeds done under their direction.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Except for the radioactive elements, NONE of them decay. Now, compounds (made of multiple elements) may break apart or reform into different compounds, and various metals certainly do corrode (usually forming oxides with the oxygen in the air or something). Also, gold can be dissolved in aqua regia, so you might want to open a chemistry book sometime. Further, you can create gold (and other elements) via neutron bombardment, it's just not economical at this point in time.
...
I know the chemical properties of gold, and aqua regia does not destroy gold in a way that makes it difficult to return to its metallic non-solution properties. It is quite easy to extract gold from aqua regia. As for creating gold from neutron bombardment, it surely could be done (from mercury, likely the easiest candidate) but the energy requirements would be enormous. If you found a solution to the energy requirements, I'd say that society would change overnight. By having nearly unlimited energy at will, people's lives would be changed much more than if someone found a way to counterfeit gold. I'm hedging that we'll never discover a cheap way to add or subtract neutrons and protons from heavier element easily.
Which can hurt the economy, because now we have to horde gold as money instead of using it to make useful things. You know, like the gold in that computer you're using.
Which is why it makes sense to motivate more people to extract it. Of course it would be an inflationary process (possibly) but it isn't done as easily as printing a dollar or two billion.
Only? No, there are plenty of other things like that, you did better with your earlier description saying "one of the only". I mean, I have to assume you at least know of platinum (which we need for catalytic converters, among other things)
Platinum is not easily divisible -- it is expensive to divide platinum. It is not as ductile or flexible as gold, making it a bad medium of exchange. It is not easily recognizable, it is not useful as a transitionary savings tool such as jewelry, and it does not have anywhere near the uses that gold does.
Smart people saw that coming for a long time now. There was plenty of time to adjust before each bubble popped. I mean, they were only warning about them on every single financial program...
Sure there were, and yet smart people were hampered from investing because of the asset bubbles created. When people like me (saver) want to start a business, it is hard to read a market when you have so much malinvestment.
Also, if the economy *can't* expand, it won't. I don't see how that's a good thing here.
You're saying we can only call the economy as "expanding" if prices are going up, or GDP is going up, correct? I see it differently. In a relatively fixed-reserve standard (such as gold), we could say the economy was prospering if prices were falling, making things more affordable for even the poor. Instead of having wages go from $10,000 a year to $20,000 a year in a decade, and have consumer prices go from $5 to $10, you could have wages go from $10,000 a year to $7,000 a year for commodity wages, but consumer goods go from $5 to $2. $10k/5 = 2000 affordability ratio, 10 years later $7k/2 = 3500 affordability ratio. Affordability goes up, which is a good thing.
"Oh, I definitely agree that some of the assets you listed have value to SOME individuals, but there is generally NO asset that is valuable to all individuals -- except for gold, which I can not believe that another individual would not covet or desire if offered in trade for a profitable outcome (for both parties)."
Say you were Robinson Crusoe and shipwrecked on an island with no hope of rescue, would you trade your machete, food, and gun for this bag of gold galleons?
I doubt it very much. 'Value' is always relative to personal perspective and conditions. Remember King Midas? And what happens if we found a cheap way to produce gold, say from sea water?
Then the gold economy would be sunk. Aluminum used to be very expensive, afforable only to royalties. Then, the electrolysis method make it very cheap and common place. Is it wise to pin an entire economy to one commodity?
Having said that, the end of the video was rather "socialist paradise". What I find interesting and ironic is that while the left and right wings are coming to similar conclusions about the existing monetary system and basically want similar characteristics from anything which replaces it. The more left leaning people still want the government to manage the replacement while the right leaning people prefer the market to decide on whatever replaces it.
Perhaps left/right is wrong, liberal/authoritarian might be better. I would like to hear the opinion of an actual economist give their opinion on our money system to get an alternate point of view before making any conclusions of my own http://www.mises.org/money.asp
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Aaron Russo's film, America From Freedom to Fascism explains it all, and how it got started, and how the Fed in it's existence is entirely illegal.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173&q=freedom+to+fascism&total=1121&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. - Jefferson
Well, once argument often made against the Fed is every fractional banking system in the history of man has failed, by most accounts. The idea is, it's a matter of "when", not "if".
How long can they just keep printing money at will for us (creating debt) before the system collapses. It's their goal to teeter this fine line, no doubt, but it would only take a miscalculation or the presence of something unexpected to screw things up.
Interesting trends are the fact that Americans don't save money any longer. Around 7% of income was put to savings in the 1950's. Now something like -5% is. That is, we create debt.
Eventually this debt has to be paid. And when people die or default and don't have savings, how is this debt going to get paid? By tax payers or bad loans? It can add up fast and it's a problem we haven't faced before.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Read this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200507/fallows
It's an interesting essay written by an economist who is highly respected. It's potentially FUD, but this guy has a history or predicting things accurately. It's fictional (takes place 8 years form now) but he makes a good case for why we're fucked.
Essentially it's about the run on the dollar.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I have run across several good documentary DVDs and video links that are critical of the Federal Reserve. I am not an expert and I have not yet heard from experts on both sides of the issue, so I have not drawn any final conclusions on the issue. What I have heard so far is quite thought provoking and gives me great concern for our financial future. In general I am slightly uncomfortable with conspiracy theories, so I am not sure what to believe. But, in my non-expert opinion, what they say about history and economics makes sense and is probably actually true.
Here are the books, DVDs and video links on the subject that I have run across so far:
Also closely related, but written back in 1899 well before the creation of the Federal Reserve is this book:
The Coming Battle
I hope to eventually find a more balanced, unbiased, two sided discussion of the subject by experts on both sides. So far I have only heard from the conspiracy theorists, because the mainstream press has never even mentioned the subject. I try to keep my mind open to what both sides might have to say about the subject. I would also like to hear what an actual economist has to say. Any good links for an opposing view?
By the way, I have not yet actually finished looking at all those DVDs and books yet, but the ones that I have seen were quite interesting. How do I decide what to believe and what not to believe with all this conspiracy stuff, especially when the mainstream press refuses to give an opposing viewpoint or even touch the subject.
Also, the "printed at will" part isn't entirely accurate. I mean, it is forgery for the general public to do that and the mint doesn't print it up just for fun.
I think this is more accurately called "counterfeiting". "Forgery" generally applies to making copies of things like artwork, official documents, illegitimate signatures, etc. When you're talking about creating fake paper money, "counterfeiting" is the preferred term.
I guess one could argue that we should know all that stuff, but think about all the black boxes we use every day. I thought the whole point of an organized, specialist society was that it freed us develop and share narrow, deep expertise.
The secret assumption behind this kind of question is usually that if people only knew the truth, they would be as outraged as the author/revealor. But that's a pretty big assumption.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I have a good Realaudio file by G. Edward Griffin giving a lecture on the Federal Reserve.
It can be found here:
http://www.reformed-theology.org/realaudio/griffin_1.rm
Yes, RealAudio sucks, and the audio wasn't that great to begin with, but it is a very good lecture.
You can listen to it using RealAlternative, too:
http://www.reformed-theology.org/downloads/realalternative.htm
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
This is the think most people don't seem to understand about the Fed.
1. The Fed does make a profit (Interest, national debt).
2. 6% of the profit earned by the Federal Reserve is paid in dividends to the twelve member banks each year.
3. The twelve member banks have private shareholders (usually private banks) profiting heavily at our expense.
4. In one year the 6% dividends were over $350 Billion.
If people wanted to find out the real value of the dollar then we could stop the Fed from tacking on interest to "made up currency" and make up $10 trillion and pay the national debt in one shot. Unfortunately, I think most people would be shocked at how little that dollar would be worth then.
plug and disclaimer- A variation of an idea I have had for a long time now, and it fits in this conversation so I will just paste it in.
..save money to save money if that is what you wanted to do with it. You could still invest, or just put aside cash, and it would most always increase in worth as time went on,not DECREASE like the fed serf-perpetual-debt note has (currently worth 2% of what is was originally, if that)
"You didn't ask me, but here is my idea of monetary economic reform, cliff's notes version, open for review, this must be my 20th or so version of this I have written. The basic idea is the same though..
Fire the Fed *imediately*, pay them off (we have a provision to do so, it's cheap really) No need to pay them guys interest on our own money forever, that is beyond ludicrous. They can go back to being a private bank consortium if they wish and compete with all the other banks normally.
Freeze the current dollar supply until an audit is taken, as fast as possible obviously.
analyze the last quarter's, and the quarter's before that, top 100 traded commodities and national production levels. (wealth is grown, harvested, mined and manufactured, or a combination thereof, there are our tangibles that back the buck in quantifiable form)
Note the diff between the two quarters, if an increase (most likely always is, a percent or two usually, a decrease would be zero production in *anything*, highly unlikely), check the proportion with dollars in existence, then issue that much more "new money" bills into existence, that represents that tangible wealth increase, and that's it, no more, no less. An exact "open source" money system, with an incentive to work and produce, no more voodoo fed czar calling the shots behind closed doors with some of his billionaire drinkin buds. that's just been a congame forever..
In this new system,the harder you work, the more your money is worth, not just more bills into circulation, but the more the bills are really worth. You could actually just
The money is now stabilized, open to inspection (it would have to be), and be inflation and deflation proof because it would be based on quantifiable tangible wealth creation, not figures picked out of someone's nether regions. (It will also attract a ton of foreign investment because of that)
The government now is completely self funding-we can trash the income tax immediately! Trash it, not needed! Think of *that* boost to the economy in the next quarter once instigated. No need for the social engineering that the regressive tax represents, no more carrot and the stick to make states and individuals toe the line of wild @$$ schemes and wealth transference and rearrangement, which is all our current tax and statute conjob is, mass social engineering..
As the government pays its various bills,nationally and internationally, the new money gets into general circulation. Yep, just like that. We might devise a proportional scheme to use half for the federal government and the other half gets divvied up with the states according to best estimate population figures. I would reserve sales taxes for local municipalities only, possibly with a very minimal cap (2%?) to stop abuse and encourage competence in governing, and keep the current limited federal "use" taxes, like the fuel tax, and earmark it totally for the actual "use". Fuel tax goes for road upkeep, endstop, etc. So, we've eliminated the bulk of the taxes, corporate, private, no income taxes, no "death" tax, none of the controversial stupid taxes in other words. Wealth goes to the producers with 100% assurance they WILL get to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Really free and fair trade anyone now?
Combine that with an exact quid pro quo with other nations for import and export duties, with THEM setting the rates...everyone wins.
We use the top one hundred traded commodities/items because it will be a diverse enough reference for the economy in general, and our mone
You're right--if you put dollars in your mattress in 1913, they would be 95% devalued today. (Although actually, they would be 100% devalued today because that physical design is no longer accepted.)
On the other hand if you'd put your money into Ford stock in 1913, today that stock would be far more valuable than it was during that time. The truth is that the only true stores of wealth are assets. Dollars are not assets--they are currency. They are handy for exchanges, but are not wealth themselves.
You don't have to put your money in banks. You can instead put your money in IBM stock. Or you can put your money in bonds if you'd prefer to invest in governments. Or you could buy property if you'd prefer to put your money in real estate.
If you do this, and pick your assets well, you will accumulate wealth. If you focus on the value of a dollar bill I think you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
What is the deal with this? Links to explanations, etc? I guess I don't understand what difference it makes in what currency you use to buy something?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Our Kings, leaders, politicians have already proven they can't stick to it.
They simply can't resist debasing the currency. The N thousand year history of gold and silver standards is one of debasement. Basically. The gold standard, isn't. They have to have that extra pet project, the extra promise to voters, or the war. And people won't pay the tax so they slip the tax in under the guise of inflation.
It's more obvious what they're doing, but it happens nonetheless.
In order for currency not to be continually debased or devalued it has to be removed from bank and political control... And I'd like to see you (or anyone) try that. Even if you were successful, the politicians and the bankers would always be looking at ways of getting their mitts on the system so that they can print to their hearts desire.
I'm coming to the conclusion that the best option would be to use a (non debt based) system which has big red "inflate" and "deflate" buttons attached to a press and a shredder which allows the politicians to manipulate the currency.
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That's a nifty piece of propaganda, the way it distorts the situation is both subtle and compelling.
He talks extensively about returning the US to sound money and has been criticizing the Fed for years. You can see some of his speeches from congress to the fed on c-span or youtube.
Believe it.
Man did some reviewer drink the Cool Aid.
One not so minor flaw is, for example this statement "The US dollar has real value, i.e., it represents tangible wealth, such as gold securely stored at Fort Knox."
The gold standard was abolished on June 5th, 1933. After WWII, the Bretton Woods agreement fixed currency exchange rates in a narrow 1% band around the value of gold, but there was no 1-1 relation between the amount of gold a country had and the total money in circulation. In 1971, the US abolished convertibility from currency to gold, and for all intents and purposed ended any relation between gold and currency. Many banks, including the Fed have been slowly selling off gold reserves ever since.
So either the author or the reviewer doesn't know even the most basic historical facts. Fun additional fact, in 1999, the total worth of all the world's gold was $1.1 trillion, the US GDP alone was $9.3 trillion. So all the world's gold couldn't even have paid for 1/8th of the good and services produced that year in the US alone.
seems timely..
Money is Debt, raises some good points and made sense to me.. but i guess i'm not an economist.. check it out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-fD78zyvI&mode=related&search=
[platinum] does not have anywhere near the uses that gold does.
Platinum is fantastically useful as a catalyst. It's only being held back from many practical uses because it's extremely rare.
You're saying we can only call the economy as "expanding" if prices are going up, or GDP is going up, correct?
I won't speak for the GP, but prices alone have nothing to do with whether the economy is expanding or not. Economic expansion happens when money moves around more. Keeping money under your mattress doesn't help you or anyone else. That money has to be buying goods or making investments to be of any use. Which is one reason why civilization has moved from barter, to metal coins, to paper money, and then to fiat--each step has made it more convenient to move that money.
Not a typewriter
Here's a web documentary about money that I thought was good but worth the watch.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
The parent post's link is pre-selected to contain ONLY the 1-star reviews. That is not the regular distribution of reviews on Amazon for this book. In the general distribution it appears to be a generally well-liked book with minor controversy (as one would expect).
(Disclaimer: I have not read the book.)
Referring to... One not so minor flaw is, for example this statement "The US dollar has real value, i.e., it represents tangible wealth, such as gold securely stored at Fort Knox." ...
He was speaking as though he was the average ignorant citizen that thinks thats how it works. That's what that entire paragraph was about.
Drink more Kool-aid.
Look how far his wisdom has got him.
Infuriate left and right
... a method for motivating people by making a currency prerequisite for certain transactions (hence, certain resources). In the case of the USD, one has been reliably able to buy oil and gas imports exclusively with dollars (thanks largely to the US military's presence abroad) for at least a couple decades. With other currencies, the resources being tied to them may take the form of labor, land, an array of utilities (either controlled by banks or governments) or some combination thereof.
Money is an abstraction allowing people to convert the value of particular, even idiosyncratic goods and services into a more "liquid" or universally desired form. Its a bit like having a gizmo that takes rotational energy from a single axis and can convert it to any other axis of your choosing X, Y or Z... so people create a fourth axis called 'money' to stand for all the others. Unfortunately, if everything becomes valued exclusively in its relationship to money, you can end up with a one-dimensional value system that obscures any realistic valuation of essential goods and services. In our case, the 'gizmos' proliferate instead of real wealth like education, manufacturing ability, conserved resources, etc. and eventually we find ourselves awash in 'gizmos' that have little or no energy stored in them.
By the way, the Wikipedia article on the Gold Standard claims that a return to the gold standard is supported by objectivists. Funny thing is, there's only one objectivist who's also a famous economist, and not only does he disapprove of a return to the gold standard, he used to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve. That's right, boys and girls, Alan Greenspan was a personal friend and disciple of Ayn Rand herself - see Age of Turbulence.
And opinion piece came out today in a local paper with another view of the function of the U.S. Federal Reserve.
"Alan Greenspan, that mystifying Yoda of the global economy who sat for a century as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, has published his memoirs." http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=b1f1d78d-ce1e-4e53-a2eb-c6e829b01d7b
Look up the Austrian or Chicago Schools of economics. Less hand waving, more hard monetarism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_(economics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School
Oh and I don't believe there's a conspiracy. It's just greed. The effects are the same anyway.
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The problem with switching to a gold-backed currency is this: the US owns no gold. After FDR confiscated the gold from the American public in the 30s, over the next decades Fort Knox was illegally emptied. All the gold was stolen and is now in the hands of the same criminal element that operates the Fed. Since they control the gold, a gold standard would prove to be WORSE for the American people than operating on the Federal Reserve system. They'd still be able to freely manipulate the currency at will and continue to put the screws to us.
The solution is a fiat currency issued by the American people through their representatives. This is what the founding fathers, having witnessed firsthand the destruction caused by the Bank of England, had intended.
An FASCINATING movie detailing the history of the Fed and fractional reserve lending in general is the Money Masters.
If a bank allows someone to borrow money without sufficient collateral (either in terms of real, liquidable assets, or in an income stream), they are creating money with nothing behind it. That is very bad.
No. Promises have value. Credit has value. That's why identity thieves target unsuspecting individuals' credit. Some promises are worth more than others; and some promises aren't worth anything. What you must never lose focus of though is that an exchange occurs when you use the term "borrow". The bank values the credit + interest, the bank values the promise + collateral (and uses many tools with which to value that promise, such as credit "ratings") more than the amount they loan. This is always *good* as both parties always increase their subjective wealth from trade. The borrower obtains a loan to buy a house; the banks obtains a presently valued promise of future payments. That something can be subjectively valued drastically differently in the future is a risk that exists for absolutely every exchange which occurs, with more or less consciousness, and nothing can remove that risk as nobody is omniscient and knowledge is always imperfectly and unevenly distributed.
However I think a return to full-reserve banking would be a treatment that's worse than the disease, at least as it currently stands.
You are correct. I would always put "fractional-reserve" in quotes. In the world, there only always exists a finite supply of all that exists. No matter how much money is printed, that supply of all which exists can only be distributed among 100% of the population. Two people can't be lent the same house; nor can two people be lent the same amount of money to purchase the same house. This is something which the major economic schools, including the Austrians, overlook. They all fail to account that the only thing which has changed in the world is the supply of money has increased. As that money is first printed, then distributed through exchange, price signals that the supply of money has increased. But all valuation is simultaneously in a state of constantly changing flux, including valuation for all the different supplies of things which exist, including money and credit promises. And these changing subjective valuations are also occurring simultaneously and independently in addition to because of changes in the supply of money. Money is just another "good" in the economy; subjectively valued just as any other good or service.
We need to accept, as a society, that not everyone has a right to a huge house financed with an even bigger mortgage.
No we need to accept, as a society, that if two people voluntarily finance a huge house with an even bigger mortgage, that is nobody else's business except the banker and the borrower. And no bailouts for either if the venture fails.
And we need to take a very hard look at the unsecured-loan industry that's financing much of the nation's consumer debt (in the form of either straightforward loans or credit cards).
Businesses should be held liable for identity left and subject to class action suits by those who have their credit ruined by complicit business accessories to identify theft. Improper security measures and lax identity identification systems that cause economic damage to consumers should be burdened completely by the thieves caught and the businesses burned. That is all.
But a return to full-cash-reserve banking would probably just dry up the supply of capital that the economy needs, and unless it was done worldwide and at once (not a chance), it would probably just result in a further influx of foreign capital.
No real goods and services can be fractionally purchased (unknowingly unless by fraud). All that occurs is an increase in fiat currency supply. Credit can naturally grow as credit has real subjective value. Credit can decline as credit has real subjective value. It doesn't matter that new IPod nanos cause people to subjectively v
Check out the distribution on this utter garbage:
http://www.amazon.com/What-Bleep-Know-Discovering-Possibilities/dp/0757305628/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/002-2908185-7396820?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190857645&sr=8-3
11 one stars, 36 5 stars. I have seen this DVD and it is literally propagandist pseudo science put out by a cult for recruitment. Check into it on Google. Yet it has a pretty stellar rating on Amazon.
The author of the book in this review is supposedly a member of the John Birch society, real wackos. It's likely propaganda for their organization.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
How does total bullshit like this get modded up? How much gold is there? Total: 145,000 tonnes.
145,000 tonnes * 1000 kgs/tonne * 2.2 lb/kg * 16 oz/lb = 5.1 Billion oz. At a current spot price of about $720/oz, that's $3.7 Trillion for all the gold ever mined on Earth. Not even enough to cover half of the US national debt.
Wow... you are totally making this shit up as you go along. Fact check: How many tonnes of gold are in reserves? The sum of the top 40 government reserves around the world comes to 29,846.7 Tonnes. 29,846.7/145,000 = about 20%. This means about 80% of the world's gold is in private hands. If all the nations of the world dumped *all* their gold on the market tomorrow, it would be a 0.25 times increase in supply. Somehow, I don't see gold investors fleeing in terror from such action. Most of us would giggle in glee at the buying opportunity.
Maybe you should try reading a few of them. You might learn something.
It really bugs me some Christians/whatevers assume the earth is 6000 years old. I guess the reasoning is this: Archbishop Usher's calculations say 4004BC was the date of Adam's creation. It is 2007 AD. 6011 years. End of story.
.org, I forget). There's stuff in there where the Hebrew god tells his people to rape women of conquered tribes, cut the men's genitals off, etc. etc. The Hebrew god, if he had any basis in fact at all, must have been a really horrible being. I wouldn't worship any being that thought that was the proper way to behave. The whole Old Testament is really just "Hebrews are superior to everyone else, and have the right to do what they will to them." It's not just racist, it's "tribist" if you will, as the Hebrews were just a single tribe of people at that time. There were other neighboring tribes who were the same "race" (which is a bit of a controversial and not-so-scientific term anyway).
The first problem is that Adam's creation was probably 1000-2000 years before that according to the new estimate. The second problem is science has determined man is much older than this, and the earth is much older than man. So lets just throw the bible out the window.. right?
Well what's really annoying about it is that it's all based on one extremely literal interpretation of the Bible. Many parts of that book are very open to interpretation. But not all Christians even believe this nonsense; however, the ones that do somehow are becoming very numerous very quickly (at least here in the USA), so it's pretty scary.
Also, the Bible is just a collection of ancient writings from various sources. Somehow, many Christians have decided that it's somehow infallible, even though it was just assembled by a bunch of people around 300AD in Rome. So the book of Genesis, which is obviously just allegory made up by someone to inspire people, or mythologically explain how things came to be, somehow becomes supposedly as accurate as other books, which describe people and events in a lot of detail and are backed up by other documents.
The trouble with this right now is it is racist. Nobody dares advocate it in today's political climate. This is because Adam was the first white guy. Try and find evidence of Caucasians 8000 years ago.. In fact the bible is a very racist book.. in the old testament and even parts of the new. The sad fact is to reconcile the bible with science we have to come to some very politically incorrect conclusions these days.
The Bible has a lot of nasty stuff in it to be sure. Check out evilbible.com (or
The Asians were here first by far... millions of years ago. the blacks second (less than 100000 years ago). And the earth was created who knows how long before this..
Huh? No, my understanding of current scientific consensus is that humanity started out in Africa, and spread out from there. Asians and Caucasians came about from migrating to colder climates. Asians have one very interesting trait, however: a significant percentage of them can be trace their ancestry back to probably one ancestor, who is believed to be Genghis Khan. The genetic evidence points to a strong possibility he basically went around impregnating all the women he could!
Now Slashdot has been invaded! Is there nowhere I can go to escape these conspiracist nutbags? I will make a feeble attempt to counteract this inane review of an inane book, with a list of various debunking links:
September 11th
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/911myths/
http://www.debunking911.com/index.html
http://www.911myths.com/
http://wtc.nist.gov/
Income Tax and the Federal Reserve
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/jsiegel/Personal/taxes/IncomeTax.htm
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/flaherty/Federal_Reserve.html
Other
http://www.debunker.com/conspiracy.html
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000140.html
General
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html
http://www.csicop.org/si/9012/critical-thinking.html
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"fractional reserve banking as economic parasitism"
endorsed by two phd economists. printed in nexus magazine, 60k world circulation. #1 top downloaded economics paper. used by economics teacher in australia as standard classroom material.
more info on request.
as for the book, for those saying that it is a conspiracy theory, who says? which part? it is true that history in retrospect often looks like a conspiracy.
as for those who ask, whats the point? well think about it this way. theres a lot of new online services that are experimenting with currency and microcurrency. consider Linden Labs & 2nd life. they have a fully functioning online/cyber economy with an exchange rate. what is the dynamics of that system? the paper considers that.
also, economics is a complex system. there is a new science of complex systems. cyberspace is a complex system. the web is a complex system. understanding one complex system will help us understand other complex systems. the economic system has many parallels to engineering fields also, such as electrical engineering. but because there is so far no science of "money engineering", few are aware of this connection.
many slashdot readers are interested in security, such as regarding viruses etcetera. the paper reveals that the banking and economic system can have worms, viruses, parasites, trojan horses, very much like cyberspace. in fact the security of our banking system may be very poor, and in dire need of improved engineering approaches to increase its security. it really needs the kind of first rate minds that build complex software systems.
the money system is in fact very much like a massive electrical or energy system. if you are concerned with cooling your cpu or optimizing its performance, imagine a machine that spans entire states, countries even. how can it be optimized? to what degree is it failing us? what are its design deficiencies?
consider the goethe quote. "none are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"
some very interesting recent supporting material:
The normal response of many people, when they find out money doesn't really represent something simple and limited, and instead is part of a complex system, that at it's root seems to be a "federal reserve" that lends money out of thin air and expects interest, is to feel that this process is evil.
The reason they feel this is because they had no idea what money really was, and how it worked, before this. It is NOT because the system is inherently a scam. There certainly are alternative ways to run a monetary system, and there are probably many ways to improve it, or not, but it's not fundamentally evil.
I'm not speaking for or against how the fed is run... only pointing out it's not so simple.
That's another title worth considering reading along with "Jekyll Island", the "End of Economic Man" was written by a former CEO for Norton Publishing in the early 90's. It points out how Economics is more or less a belief system, nothing at all similar to a science such as Physics, yet many people are bumped over the head with a Ideology of Economics as certainty or "science", when in fact it's a belief system. The only question I would like to know is how people can pledge allegiance towards a belief system that hides it's identity from the public, though it's understandable in the light of other certain fundamentalisms throughout the world.
The idea that a bank takes in deposits and then loans them out is a gross oversimplification, and ignores one of the largest effects of banks in a modern economy, namely that they create money on an as-needed basis, and back the newly-created money with mortgaged assets. That's what the whole argument over fractional-reserve vs full-reserve banking is about: some people (the ones advocating full-reserve) think this is not a great idea.
And indirectly, fractional-reserve banking is part of why so many people are upset about the current "sub-prime" mortgage crisis. Because banks create money when they make loans, if a bank loans out money to someone whose assets aren't worth as much as they claimed they were (e.g., they said they make a lot more money than they do, or the house's value was inflated at the time of the loan), then the money that the bank created while making the loan isn't backed up by anything. That is generally, to put it lightly, considered to be a bad thing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I didn't say that creating more money makes us wealthier. I said that if the money supply didn't increase, we would experience deflation because the real economy normally grows (because of increased population and production efficiency). The Herd panics when it sees deflation.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. While fiat currency is indeed a "mirage" (and only a couple percent of the money supply is represented by pretty paper), it is very obviously not a "bubble". Any "bubble" would have collapsed decades/centuries ago.
When a currency collapses, it is because a society is experiencing severe problems, such as being crippled by losing a war (Germany) or being run down by a genocidal dictator (Zimbabwe), not because of anything inherent in the nature of fiat currency.
I have to say, this must be the best way to get people to pay attention to trolls that I've ever seen. First, write something sexually obscene and post it. Nothing new there, Slashdot has at least one of these in every story, sometimes more. "Unfortunately," thinks the troll, "these are immediately modded to -1, and no one pays attention to me -- I know! I'll create a user and respond to my own, anonymous post, expressing horror and outrage! Then all the Slashbots will be forced to read my ridiculous drivel when otherwise they would have just ignored it!"
Fucking brilliant. I hope this shows up on Trolltalk. This is why I read at -1.
Keep on trollin'!
Inflation and deflation have fairly significant and (at least within the world of economics, which is by its nature fuzzy) well-understood relationships with other parts of the economy, including unemployment* and purchasing behaviors, which have obvious effects on production. Since the money supply can affect inflation and deflation, it has a definite -- although admittedly indirect -- impact on overall production.
Now, it's an open question whether an inflationary or deflationary market is better. The generally accepted truth among mainstream U.S. economists today is that a small degree of inflation (say 3% per year or less) is healthy. However, there are some people who have some decent arguments for why a softly deflating market, as you would get with a finite, nonexpanding currency, could be good also. I'll be honest and say that I don't really have the basis to evaluate most of these arguments on their merits, so I won't try to summarize them. But it's easy to see how people will act differently in an inflating and deflating market: in an inflating market, it makes sense to keep all of your money invested, since anything you have sitting under your mattress will lose value, all by itself. In a deflationary market, your money gains in purchasing power just by sitting untouched, so it makes sense to delay expenses as long as you can, since they become cheaper over time. There are other, more subtle effects, also.
* For the relationship of unemployment to inflation, see Phillips curve.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Dr. PAUL. "Maybe there is too much power in the hands of those who control monetary policy, the power to create the financial bubbles, the power to maybe bring the bubble about, the power to change the value of the stock market within minutes? That to me is just an ominous power and challenges the whole concept of freedom and liberty sound money."
Dr. GREENSPAN. "Congressman, as I have said to you before, the problem you are alluding to is the conversion of a commodity standard to fiat money. We have statutorily gone onto a fiat money standard, and as a consequence of that it is inevitable that the authority, which is the producer of the money supply, will have inordinate power."
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Under fractional-reserve rules, a bank can make loans in excess of its deposits -- that's what fractional-reserve banking means. However, it should never, at any time, have more loans outstanding than it has in total assets, including all the collateral that people have pledged in order to secure the loans. (Whether this is actually always true is debatable, and in fact I think it's probably not; when the housing market slumped, suddenly the banks had a lot more money loaned out than the collateral on those loans -- the houses -- was actually worth. Ideally, this would not happen.)
The key to fractional reserve banking is that it allows a bank to treat the borrower's promise to repay a loan as an asset, which it can then loan out again (in part).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
NT
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Anyone can do that... that's kid stuff. The most effective trolls are (at least periphially) on topic, shy to the left or the right of the most vocal posters in the thread, push the right buttons, subtle in logical inconsistency, and posted from accounts with UIDs less than one million.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
There are several points to be made here. . .
I've been impressed for some time now with the work done by the guys at http://www.debunking911.com/index.html and http://www.911myths.com/. There's a lot of rational thinking going on there. Since the day of 911, I couldn't understand the assertion that the towers had been destroyed through controlled demolition. It didn't make sense; a series of jet liners being hijacked in an orchestrated manner, and the crashing of them into the twin towers would have been entirely adequate to start a war. If the buildings had not come down, the deaths of the people and the hampered rescue efforts and the fires would have been a huge tragedy which people would still be talking about today. The buildings collapsing was icing on the cake, if you'll pardon the glibness of the term.
I remember early on, within the first couple of months, a proliferation of conspiracy ideas all landing at the same time. There was one link forwarded to me, which showed a missile striking one of the towers. It was very convincing, upon checking it thoroughly and looking at other samples of the same footage, it turned out to be a very poorly compressed video. The background, which moved very little in the frame looked fine, but the moving object, (the plane), devolved through the encryption process and really did look like a torpedo or cruise missile. I pointed this out loudly, and then never saw that clip ever again. It struck me as odd at the time that such an article would make its way on to the web. Surely the guy who compressed the video and posted it as, "Look! A Missile!" knew that he was creating something very misleading. Perhaps it was a series of mistakes; a poor compression found by somebody else who posted it. But it did seem weird that it and a dozen or so other theories and bits of misleading evidence showed up all at once, several of which continue to hold sway to this day. The process through which disinformation is known to be deliberately distributed to confuse and divide the public seems to me to be a large part of what may be going on here. Covert perception management has been a large part of conducting war in the U.S., and there is plenty of documentation to support this.
I really didn't think much more about the controlled demolition claims until much later when some very well produced items, like "Loose Change" came along and raised doubts again, but for the most part, after looking through all of this stuff, I really don't think that the buildings were deliberately demolished. --I think there is some strong argument of foreknowledge of those attacks, and I noticed that de-bunk sites linked fail to address the more damning of those claims.
And the Pentagon is another matter. I have yet to see anything which convinces me that a passenger jet struck that building. There are a multitude of questions which the de-bunking sites, again, either ignore or answer with very stretched and unconvincing arguments. --The best piece of evidence in my mind in favor of a large jet is the combustion chamber debris, but the first thought which struck me was, "Why not just load some 757 engine parts into the attack vehicle?" I'm surprised that nobody has ever considered this. It seems to me that it would have been a rather obvious ploy. The nature of the wreckage and the missing parts and the withholding of camera images, among numerous other points, are also very awkwardly addressed, if addressed at all by the debunkers. I tend to think that it was not a missile, but perhaps a different type of aircraft which could have been remotely controlled to ensure a 'safe' show-piece disaster at the Pentagon.
In any case, the larger issue is not really in much question. --As one of the sites you linked to put it, "The evidence for a conspiracy to use 9/11 to invade Iraq is significant. While there is not one
You should see what he did.
"For all WE know"?? Are you one of the modders? Why don't you have the guts to show your username?
But more to the point: First, I am hardly new here, which is usually a characteristic of "trolls". Second, I have obviously taken the trouble to respond in a reasonable manner to those who responded. Also not a characteristic of "trolls". Be honest: you didn't even read the rest of the discussion.
But not all Christians even believe this nonsense; however, the ones that do somehow are becoming very numerous very quickly (at least here in the USA), so it's pretty scary.
noisy and obnoxious != numerous
They just want everyone to believe they are (numerous, that is). In reality, which is certainly frightening enough, their public voice and sway is vastly out of proportion to their numbers. I live in the upper midwest, YMMV, but most Christians that I've had this discussion with are pretty embarrassed by "those people."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
It was a mistake, not a hint of troll. Can't prove it, of course... but then you don't really have any evidence, either, you are guessing. And you guessed wrong.
But if you are interested in the truth at all, this has been my legit username for a couple of years now.
The Mystery of Banking, another by Rothbard. And an audio version of What Has Government Done to Our Money?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T-Lc9BweRo
What have they done for me?
Why does loaning money at no interest sound so socialist ? Did you not know that the muslim banks are not able to charge interest. This is why high street banks struggle to get into the market in those countries. Here is a piece by the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5064058.stm
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
According to John Perkins' Confessions of An Economic Hitman, it was a variety of things:
Perkins covers the many reasons why common people in non-westernized nations tend to hate the U.S. Feral Government - the things 'our' government has done/supported aren't especially nice. From the link above:
Now... 35 years later, there are trillions of US dollars out there sitting in central banks waiting to be spent on mostly oil. If oil were to be available in Euros, the dollars would be useless. They would come back to the USA.
The dollar will be worthless in the near future - 6 months? 12 Months? Hard to predict exactly when, but if the 'Neoconvicts' do eventually wage another illegal war of aggression against Iran, China and Russia will likely repudiate the dollar immediately thereafter. If I had much cash, I'd be buying Euros...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
As for Esther, the story is more one of faith than anything else; her determination to defend her uncle, who refuses to worship the king, is what I personally feel earns it its place in the Bible, though the Song of Solomon, which, from what little of it I've read, doesn't appear to be particularly religious, may not be something that belongs. A number of the 'racist' rules in the Bible are also subject to scrutiny, as much of what we need to know might possibly be missing; I, personally, believe that the Bible is somewhat incomplete, missing a, hopefully, small portion, not that it doesn't contain critical doctrine and advice.
The New Testament also includes a number of references that indicate missing books, such as Zenos (might be misspelling his name or thinking of someone else), who might be Enoch, as he is frequently reference by Jesus. Also, if I remember correctly, most if not all of the New Testament wasn't written in Hebrew, but Greek, which is why there are odd 'mistakes', like references to Jonah as Jonas; the Greek translation of the name might turn out different than the Hebrew.
Other things to consider: Genesis 2 retells the creation of the world, in a sense, but reorganizes the way things supposedly happened; we really don't know much about how the world itself was actually created and pieced together. Also, the term day in Genesis 1 is very unlikely to mean one of our 24 hour days, but rather a time period that God observes; the fourth 'day' refers to the creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars, and designated their use in ruling day and night then, which means that what he considered day evening and morning may have had dealt with a very different period of time.
All of this indicates that the creation may have happened in a way we can scarcely imagine; we cannot say exactly what happened, or how God did what he claims to. I'd rather believe that we know very little of how God's word relates to science, and that one day, all those who choose to remain open minded will come to a far greater understanding of the principles that allow religion and science to merge without hostility.
One final note; I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so I do have a few other sources that I can use in explaining what I believe with regards to the Bible, and for those who think that Mormons, as we are commonly referred to, do not believe in the Bible, I'd like to point out that it is, one of our standard works; the Book of Mormon is not a replacement of the Bible, it is a companion, and we are, and have always been, urged to study the Bible as vigorously as we do the Book of Mormon.
P.S. The LDS belief on Genesis chapters 1 and 2 is that Chapter 1 was a spiritual creation of the world, whereas Chapter 2 was a physical organization of the matter that had been spiritually created on the newly formed earth. It's a little difficult to explain this principle clearly to those who don't have a doctrinal understanding of our beliefs, so I hope my explanation hasn't confused anyone who reads this hopelessly.
As for your interpretation that Adam was the first white guy, I believe that there are many things we, as mortals, do not understand; we don't know how God does what he does any more than we know why he does things the way he does them. Also, consider that Seth, Adam's successor, was born, by the Biblical account, one hundred thirty years after Adam; as man was commanded in Genesis chapter 1 to be fruitful and multiply, why would Adam and Eve wait over a century before bearing children, or why would they have stopped after Cain and Abel were born? Anyway, good post; enjoy.
"Today, they simply ask the Fed to print more money for them to borrow."
The FED only lends money to banks, who lend it out for loans to private industry. Believe it or not, the majority of the domestic national debt it owed to . . . the U.S. government. Social security has been collecting a surplus of money since its inception, and the government has been spending that, and issuing bonds to repay what they took from the program at a later date (presumably they will pay for it by raising the federal income tax). The rest of the national debt is owed to private investors who purchased bonds from the government at a fixed rate of return, much of this money is owed to foreign entities. To finance a deficit, the government issues more bonds, which it must repay later with interest.
The FED isn't some huge conspiracy, a bunch of banks got together and tried to find a way to end the volatility that the money market was continually facing. The primary goal of the FED is controlling inflation. People always say that inflation is out of control, I don't know what country they live in. We have very low, but always positive inflation. Most economists agree that this is the best situation. Anything else you can think of (including a commodity standard) would be much worse. It would be more volatile, and it would be hard to control inflation.
Suppose one man spends his time digging gold out of the Alaskan tundra/California Gold Country/etc. Others spend their time farming, making jewlery, making leather for saddles, making tools, making cloth, and so forth, fulfilling all of a society's various needs. Gold-backed currency allowed all these different trades to trade their time in a pretty equitable manner. 1/2 month of gold-mining == 1 saddle == a nice suit of clothes, or something like that.
The gold standard is no longer feasible because one Caterpillar earthmover (and a little chemistry) can do the labor of 1000 men in 1/10th the time. Many mines were taken offline in the 90's because extracting gold had become too easy, and the price of gold had fallen accordingly. The present rise in the price of gold is not so much a return to the historical norm, as reflective of the debasement of the dollar by the 'Feral' Reserve.
The Feral Reserve needs to be replaced with a bank that supports the monetary needs of the middle-class. A fiat currency is fine, as long as the rate of increase in the currency is strictly controlled, and is evenly distributed throughout the system (as, say, 1% interest on all checking deposits - no idea how exactly to do this, but someone could surely find a fair method for disbursement).
Presently the recipients of the newly printed 'dollars' benefit the most, because Haliburton gets to spend it's brand-new $1billion before anyone else realizes that yet another billion dollars has been injected into the economy. A good deal if your name is "Darth" Cheney and you own lots of Haliburton stock, but a giant screwing of everyone else.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Dude, you're just pulling this out of your ass. Do you even realize that?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Oh say whatever you like about the Hebrew god, but his rules are my rules.
That being the case, you must not be a Christian. Jahweh was quite explicit about the "no other gods before me" thing.
Not that it matters, it's all just another bundle of mythology.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Actually the herd does not panic when it sees deflatin-- the period when the US was really growing, while on the gold standard and when we went from being a backwards nation to a world leader-- was a period of deflation.
Why would people get mad when their wealth gets more valuable?
No, all the anti-deflation propaganda comes from those who profit by printing money, which is literally a form of theft.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
people you should all really watch the 5 films on this youtube play list, it'll clear up a few things about the federal reserve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Federal_Reserve_System
just read the words about banking by neato dudes like tommy jefferson and ben franklin. use a silver standard. have congress print thier own money.
the nation wasnt in debt until 1911, when the FED became a 'law'. it became a law without a 2/3 majority vote. why is it still on the books? why do people beat the IRS in cort about the illegal income tax? i mean, the constitution clearly states that the labor i produce is mine and cant be taxxed. however it is.. oh, there was no income tax before 1912 either.
how is it the nation had no income tax, and could still afford everything. had the largest middle class in the world also.
if you silly peoples still say the fed is a govt entity, jsut look it up in the phone book. it will not be in the blue pages. you will find it next to that other federal program...federal express.
a silver standard is the way to go. tehre isnt enough gold around to supply the country, what we have split up evenly by 300 000 000 would be nearly nothing. but there is enough silver. i know only 1 or 2 percent of the people hold most of the money...
another lil factoid, the value of the us dollar is 2 cents.
i know my spelling isnt great, and i dont like capital letters. the first letters are no better than the last ones.
neato book, i might have to give it a read...
tick
I don't normally do this, but since it appeared twice: the word you want is "piqued," not "peaked." You could say, "My curiosity peaked" as in, "My curiosity reached a local maximum," but that would have a different meaning from "this piqued my curiosity," meaning "this stimulated my curiosity."
Limina.Log
The Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve,but a privately owned company.Discuss.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You actually think that only governments store gold in vaults? That's not true. You are the one making things up now.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The way the news media treats the Fed as some mystical economic oracle and it's chief as some superstar is likely responsible for deflating any serious discussion among laymen. However, watch a financial segment between finance reporters and a lot of the cruft is washed away.
A lot more about Fed can be learned from watching CNBC daytime than from CNN.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
If money is backe dby gold then the purchasing power of gold can't go up seperate from the currency.
You have to think globally about the issue.
For example. Say for simplicity that 1 oz of gold is worth $100 US by our "gold standard". That is the standard forever. That means that I can buy 1 oz of gold for $100 US and sell $100 for 1oz of gold whenever I want, guarenteed.
Now, suppose in China/Africa/Wherever someone discovers a new big gold mine. In China/Africa/Wherever gold is now cheaper than copper. The world market is flooded with gold, the price drops 75%.
This means, implicitly that the US dollar has now dropped 75%. Since it has a fixed backing of gold, people can now buy US dollars for 75% cheaper than they used to be. All of a sudden, the value of goods in the US has to skyrocket to cope with the required rapid price inflation.
Gold backed currencies only work domestically. Once you start trading internationally with other countries who don't have gold-backed currencies, everything falls apart. And if every country had a gold backed currency, then the exchange rates between countries would be linked, forever. This would be even more of a disaster because it would mean as the economy of any given country goes up or down their currency can not be valued accordingly. Interest rates would be insanely volatile as countries used them as their only means to attract investment in their bonds.
All this and the price of gold would go up exponentially as countries have to procure more to back their currencies - making legitimate uses for gold (like jewelry, electronics, etc) hyper-inflate in price.
I don't know about this. I believe I've seen several articles stating that fundamentalist churches are gaining large numbers of members.
And the Pentagon is another matter. I have yet to see anything which convinces me that a passenger jet struck that building.
So the hundreds of witnesses don't count?
The twists of logic needed to discount the existanct of a 757 is extremely tortuous. Occam's razor isn't infallible, but the grotesque deformations of rationality needed by the Truthers boggles the mind. Why would the perpetrators fly two airplanes into the World Trade Center, but then expend massive amounts of planning and resources to divert and hide the third plane that was supposed to hit the Pentagon? Why load a drone with 757 parts, when you could just fly the 757 into the Pentagon instead? It's thought processes are insane.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Hundreds of witnesses? Come on now. If you are going to complain about conspiracy theorists spouting wild claims, you had better keep your own boots clean.
Nowhere have I seen data from hundreds of witnesses. Not by a long stretch. --The most comprehensive list I've looked at details interviews from 149 people, and of that number, there were numerous interviewed who were not actually witnesses, but rather felt the explosion from inside the Pentagon, or who were watching radar blips or who came to the site looking for family or what have you. My estimate is that perhaps 80 or 90 people actually reported seeing something fly into the Pentagon.
The curious thing is that their reports are filled with peculiar contradictions and wide variances of conflicting details. As we know, witness testimony is not very trustworthy; human memory is just too malleable, especially when the witness is in a heightened state of fear or shock, as was the case on that day. Further, many of the interviews happened long enough after the event that by the time of the interview, the subject had been watching television news casts about the attacks, being effectively told what they had witnessed by a voice of authority. This is a great way to taint testimony to the point of making it almost useless except in terms of collecting only the broadest, most general of details. So no, the witness testimony has not convinced me of anything except that it is very likely a plane with a some red and blue stripes painted on it hit the pentagon. --Interestingly, one of my more fascinating sources said shortly after the event that, "even the windows had been painted on" [the jet], which is odd, because I noted that several witnesses observed that all the windows were blacked out on the plane.
The twists of logic needed to discount the existanct of a 757 is extremely tortuous. Occam's razor isn't infallible, but the grotesque deformations of rationality needed by the Truthers boggles the mind. Why would the perpetrators fly two airplanes into the World Trade Center, but then expend massive amounts of planning and resources to divert and hide the third plane that was supposed to hit the Pentagon? Why load a drone with 757 parts, when you could just fly the 757 into the Pentagon instead? It's thought processes are insane.
Actually, the logic is not all that twisted. It makes a lot of sense. If the 'terrorists' had failed to hit their targets in New York, it would have been a far less effective event in traumatizing the population. A remote controlled plane, however, could be assured to striking the Pentagon with the kind of accuracy needed to safely do no real damage while still providing a good show. And diverting the original plane would have fit right into the time frame of the event; there is a military air base in the region capable of performing the task, and there were drop outs on the radar path sufficient to account for the time such a maneuver would take. With the Pentagon strike, I can the rationale for such a plan far more easily than the New York claims, and the evidence, such as it is, appears to support this idea whereas the official story has numerous problems.
But that's just my take. If anything else comes up, I'd be willing to alter my thinking accordingly.
-FL
Hundreds of witnesses? Come on now. If you are going to complain about conspiracy theorists spouting wild claims, you had better keep your own boots clean.
So I was off a bit. The point is, there are lots of witnesses. Doing a search I see numbers anywhere from 89 to 149. That's a LOT of witnesses. You can't dismiss them derisively away just because they don't support your predetermined conclusion.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
With the Pentagon strike, I can the rationale for such a plan far more easily than the New York claims, and the evidence, such as it is, appears to support this idea whereas the official story has numerous problems.
The evidence does NOT support that idea, because there is no evidence for a missile. Show me the missile parts. Show me the results of a warhead explosion as opposed to a crash with flammables. Show me the witnesses (full quotes, not out of context). The problem with Truther (and all other conspiracy) theories is that they START from the conclusion then make hand picked evidence fit that conclusion. But the 757 "theory" doesn't do that. It doesn't reject any of the factual evidence. It starts from the existing evidence (airplane parts, witnesses, destruction patterns, hijacked plane, etc) and works to the conclusion that Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
You were off by a lot, and I also did a read through of the 149 interviews, and as I pointed out in my last post, less than two thirds of them were witnesses to the actual event. I also do not dismiss them derisively or out of hand. That's completely unfair. --I think if you read my last post again, you might see that. --And neither do I have any predetermined conclusions. I find the suggestion that there was foul play on the government's side to have some persuasive arguments and evidence to support it, and as such, it would be foolish to not explore such claims. It may indeed be that the alternative theories are completely wrong and that the U.S. government is honest and noble, but so far the evidence I have looked at, (and I've read everything I can find), doesn't support that. And if you'll pardon me, it sounds as though you are the one being derisive and predetermined. This does a good deal to undermine your position. If you want to champion reason and rationality, you have to be reasonable and rational. Failing this will quickly deposit you on the same level as the conspiracy 'nutbags' you are annoyed with. The fact of the matter is that you don't know what happened on that day any more than I do. All we can do is look at the evidence available and put it through the crucible.
Peace.
-FL
You are responding with great verve to things I did not write.
I didn't say anything about thinking a missile hit the pentagon. In fact, I said I thought it was almost certainly an aircraft. --I actually wrote this twice. Clearly. Both times. I am beginning to understand why you continue to hammer away at me when no reasonable person would; I've said nothing untoward or irrational. I can only guess what else you imagine I have said or believe.
Your knee-jerking and erroneous preconceptions are just like those of the worst-case conspiracy 'nut'. Fortunately there are de-bunkers and conspiracy theorists out there who have their act together, otherwise nobody would get anywhere with any of this.
-FL
There is only ONE THING that you left out of this equation. GREED. If someone found a new big gold mine and it produced that well, they would buy enormous amounts of bling, waste it on women, fast cars, servants, etc.
Let's replace gold with NBA contract. Someone got an NBA contract and it produced so well, they bought enormous amounts of bling, wasted it on women, fast cars, servants, big houses, etc. Every time someone gets a bigger NBA (or whatever sport) contract, they waste it, and it affects the world economy zero on the downswing as you indicate. Greed will override deflation EVERY SINGLE TIME. When was the last time you saw a corporation rake in the bucks and then use it to lower prices? Let's see - the biggest corporate gains in WORLD HISTORY - the recent profits of Exxon/Mobil - have you noticed gasoline prices going down since they made so much money? Did they return to $1 a gallon gasoline, or did gasoline simply continue going higher?
Point made - greed trumps gold every single time.
Let's address "interest rates would be insanely volatile." Countrywide, anyone? Have you even LOOKED at adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs)? The interest rates on them are INSANELY VOLATILE. People refinance a small home from $1400 a month and then get into a fixed mortgage for 50% more - $2100 a month - for a SMALL HOME. For 99% of the markets, $2100 a month is a LOT of money.
Add greed in - "points" which is a nice way of saying "you pay us for the privilege of borrowing, PLUS interest," attorney fees; closing costs, fees, fees, fees EVERYWHERE.
When money is backed by gold, it only means that inflation goes up very slowly, until you throw in greed. If money IS gold, then guess what? Inflation can STILL happen - 1849 gold rush for instance - things were priced at TODAY'S prices in dollars there, but elsewhere, fairly stable. Inflation happens regardless of gold backing or not, but gold backing will for the most part keep things more stable. Without it, you end up with hyper-inflation like at the end of WWII in Germany - a wheelbarrow of money for a loaf of bread. That was WITHOUT gold backing for the money. WITH gold backing - gas at 19 per gallon in 1970. WITHOUT gold backing in 1973 gasoline had doubled, then quadrupled. In 1979 gasoline hit $1 per gallon. In less than a decade, oil moved up 5x, where it had been relatively stable with gold backing the money. Gold backed money makes a society more stable, plain and simple, without it (like now), you end up with volatility.
Thanks, I have heard of constants before, but not sure if it was any of your references (which I will check out). My idea was developed standalone, I had never read about anything like it, but am glad to hear some name brand economist guys thought it was a useful idea! the constants I recall were a very local and I think silver coin based currency, basically just tokens that retained value.
I tell you, the scam and conjob with the fed is the longest running pure d ripoff out there, just a heinous robbery of the US public and productive class. There should have been a mass revolt against it way back when. It even hurts business tremendously when there is no need for it other than to keep a relatively small number of people-probably in the low thousands tops-in control of the nation. And none of them are elected.
Yep, just checked it out, his ideas and mine are very similar, not identical but extremely close. His involves investing, mine treats the entire nation as one big investment, because it is. Mine combines labor and tangibles at the same time because it stays adjusted and the commodities can fluctuate better.
thanks again for the links.
Mostly whenever I present this idea I get ignored, or at best some trolls says "what about inflation?" or "you gold bugs are all the same", along those lines. It is such a simple idea but is so hard to get across to people, raised as they are with the way "things are done" and just accepting the most important thing for the economy, the simple basic currency, at "face value", giggles intended. It's very hard to get people to grok that the currency system in use is a tool of oppression and exploitation first before it is anything else.
So, you are an economist, a big money man, an academic, or just a gifted layman on this subject or what? Who knows, this is slashdot, you could work for the Fed even, who knoweth. To be fair, I am just a dumbass farmer who understands the diff between stuff, and illusions/representations or simulacrums of stuff. Gary North had an interesting phrase he came up with to describe it, it being digits that are supposed to be worth something in theory, he calls them "electronic promises of money".