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Has Ron Paul Quit?
Lally Singh sends us to the inside-the-Beltway blog Wonkette for a quick take on a letter Ron Paul sent to his supporters. In this analysis, Dr. Paul has basically called it quits. "Late Friday night, Dr. Congressman Ron Paul posted a letter to his fans basically saying it's over, but he will continue talking about his message, and plus it would be completely embarrassing for him if he also lost his congressional seat."
FTA:
"Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.
I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.
In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.
Sincerely,
Ron"
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
I'm an avid Ron Paul supporter, and voted for him in the primaries. That said, reality cannot be ignored or distorted, McCain will be the nominee. Focus should now be reshifted to helping Dr. Paul keep his seat in the House.
Let's learn from our lessons this time around. (Money bombs -can- work, Internet support doesn't necessarily translate to high election numbers, the power of the MSM to shape opinion, etc..) Next time around, if we have another candidate who supports liberty, with a voting record to back it up, we can try again. I may be an old man by then...
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
To anyone who's not in the cult of Ron Paul, his race was over before it started. He never stood a chance. No number of fanboys will ever change that.
One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
It's hard to believe that Ron Paul's chief political strategy was apparently to hope for deadlock between the front runners so that he could attempt to sway people to his side at a hypothetical brokered convention. And this, while encouraging his own rabid supporters to spend their own money out of pocket to try to create a grassroots following. Could $30 million possibly have been used to achieve less?
Economics is not a science. It is a "social science" like sociology. There is a quantitative dimension to economics, but the premises that said quantitative means are used to measure are entirely subjective.
Basically, you are an idiot if you think that any one school of economics can be right or wrong in an entirely objective scientific way. Because, on paper, the USSR should've been an economic dynamo, the problem of course was that people didn't act in the way their number's predicted...
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Having read the Ron Paul letter, he's not dropping out: he's just admitting that his Presidential campaign is simply going to be a platform for his ideas, and that the real focus will be on his re-election to Congress. Here are some important bits:
But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Lew Rockwell is not the founder of the Austrian School. He is the founder of a think-tank that advocates that particular school of thought.
The Austrian School was founded by Ludwig von Mises and (Nobel Prize Winner) F.A. Hayek, among others.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
The "fight on" or the "every primary and caucus and at the convention" part?
You can't take the sky from me...
That's good. Now, if only we can get Reaganomics recognized as the science that it is.
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I got the email last night. So now 3 liberals to decide between... I believe that Obama is the best of the worst and I predict that he will win by an enormous landslide, perhaps even greater than Johnson. A significant number of those who would normally vote for Republican candidates are extraordinarily pissed off at the travesty that is the RNC and "party" now. And this is the party of Lincoln? I think not (at least, not in any recognizable form). It has been hijacked.
And I would probably be considered "a staunch conservative" by most slashdotters, even though I am really a moderate (at least according to http://www.politicalcompass.org/).
Maybe the astroturfing and spam can finally end now. Ron Paul definitely gets the award for most annoying campaign ever. I've never received spam in my inbox from any of the other candidates. And if I have to ignore one more invitation to a Ron Paul supporters group on facebook I'll scream.
One question though: what happens to all the money he raised? I'm sure he hasn't burned through all of it, and he raised a lot from what I've read. Now that he's running a "leaner" campaign he will be using it even slower.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I've always thought the Soviet Union failed because it expected human nature to change. While it was saying, "From each according to his ability and to each according to his need," the people were saying, "As long as they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work." Guess which slogan had more power.
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Considering the economic wreckage that "science and empiricism" have delivered to the door, I wouldn't be too proud of traditional economic schools of thought right now. Measuring economic progress by the state of the stock market is a complete bust. The middle class and below are in pretty severe trouble right now. and have been for some time. A doctor's visit that cost $5 when I was a kid (the 60's) is now $90 (18x); fuel is up from 30 cents to three bucks (10x), cars from a few thousand to tens of thousands (10x to 20x and more), houses... houses are insane. In the face of all of this, minimum wage has risen from $1.25 in 1965 to $5.85, an increase of 4.7x altogether.
Maybe it is time for money to be backed by something tangible and valuable, instead of the federal nothing-in-reserve notes we have now, backed only by the printing of nothing-in-reserve notes on the one hand, and the incineration of nothing-in-reserve notes on the other. Maybe it is time for infinitely corrosive tax schemes like the income tax to go away. Maybe it is time we stopped trying to be the world's police presence, and shut down all those foreign bases. Maybe it is time for us to stop borrowing money, pay back our debts, and begin to spend only those monies that we can afford to spend.
Not that anything like this will happen. The US is going to find out what continuing these policies far past where they even appear to be doing any good takes us, because very few people are willing to disturb the status quo.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The reason is that tech people and libertarians tend to overlap as demographics. There are more of the former than the latter, but if you know what a Venn diagram is, you won't have problems understanding that.
For the record, Ron Paul is a REPUBLICAN with some libertarian ideas - NOT a "libertarian", even though he ran once or twice on the Libertarian Party ticket. He's more of what they call a "paleoconservative" than a "libertarian". There is a wide variety of "libertarians", both left and right. The ones that end up in the Libertarian Party tend to be, as Bob Black once said, "Republicans who smoke dope."
And his support didn't come from "white supremacists" - that was bullshit media spin based on a couple donations.
I'm an anarchist myself, so I couldn't care less, but it was fun to see him skewer the other Republican candidates with their militarism and economic stupidity.
If McCain becomes President, we'll be at war with Iran AND Pakistan within six months - and the US economy will completely collapse as China dumps the dollar because they were cut off from Iranian oil and gas. Electing that senile old fool is a vote for the destruction of the United States.
Unfortunately, electing either Obama or Clinton will end up in the same place - it will just take a little longer as they screw around with "diplomacy" before starting their wars. Neither of them, let alone McCain, have any clue about US foreign policy.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
There's a qualitative dimension to physics as well.
Basically, you are an idiot if you think that any one school of economics can be right or wrong in an entirely objective scientific way. Because, on paper, the USSR should've been an economic dynamo, the problem of course was that people didn't act in the way their number's predicted...I think that's some strong empirical (i.e. scientific) evidence against Marxism, eh? Plus, as an economic theory, Marxism is non-empirical, like Austrianism. Qualititative/quantitative isn't the issue here, it's empiricism/rationalism. And even a social science is better served by empiricism.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Backed by something? Other currencies aren't backed by anything tangible either. That's not the reason the US dollar is crapping out.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It might sound harsh but going down might just be what America needs right now. Then come out of it wiser and perhaps a little stronger.
Gold is tangible, gold is scarce, but valuable? The high value of gold is built on intangible desires just like the value of paper and ink that we place on money. It's metal. I don't have gold, I don't have any use for it, and I don't want the metal. I want the cash value of gold though.
A gold standard is just changing one object for another as a unit of exchange. You can use deer skins, rocks with holes in them, it's still money. If you want serious value behind the unit of exchange, exchange a valuable unit like a car or piece of machinery. Except those don't fit so well into a pocket. So you exchange cash. But cash makes your pocket fat, so we carry credit cards.
The real goal of a gold standard is to combat uncontrolled money expansion. There are a number of ways to accomplish that without arbitrarily pivoting on some random and irrelevant metal.
Ron Paul has some good ideas I'd support, but the gold standard isn't one of them.
No matter who wins this race, it is NOT the same old entrenched politics.
My personal preference, in order of who I think would be best for the country, is Obama, Clinton, and McCain to win. Now, having said that, I have to admit, I don't see McCain winning as all that bad.
Yes, he will continue the war in Iraq. But you know what? Unlike George Bush, I think he has the competence to continue it in a manner in which we don't alienate the entire world and look like idiots to those who want us all dead. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against our troops fighting the war. In fact, I have an immense respect that I could never convey adequately. But when I think of how Bush has misused them... Well, being a Vietnam War prisoner, I don't think McCain will take our soldiers' lives so capriciously for the sake of building "political capital."
You know what I think is most exciting about John McCain? He hasn't kowtowed to the Jesus Crispies, and he's cleaning the clocks of people who do. If he can successfully show Republicans with brains (yes, contrary to popular belief, there are some) that you can be a conservative without being a sycophant to the religious nuts out there, that would represent anything BUT entrenched politics.
So yeah, I hope Obama wins. And barring that, I hope Clinton wins. But if neither of them do, unlike I've ever felt about George Bush, if John McCain wins, he'll have my support as President and Commander-in-Chief. Unlike the last two elections, I don't see this country as being a miserable failure at everything in the next four years no matter who wins.
I was elected to be a delegate on Feb. 5 for my precinct in Colorado, and I plan to go through with representing Ron Paul to the county level March 2 (and then possibly also to the state level on May 31) so that he does not lose any of the projected 42 delegates nationwide he is counting on.
There is one last additional hope to further spread the message this cycle, and that is if Ron Paul can get first place in four states (he has no first place finishes so far, at least according to official tallies), then he will be allowed to speak at the Republican National Convention. And perhaps if that happens, some of the "limited government" planks of pre-2000 Republican party platforms can be reinserted. Not that a Republican president elected in 2008 would honor that, but it would ensure that in the 2012 debates that a small-government candidate can score points by quoting the platform and criticizing the neocons.
Well, if you chose to selective in the things that you use to measure inflation, then of course you get some interesting numbers. However, you can also run the numbers using say.... electronics and get a set of completely different numbers. This is why economists don't just use a few numbers to measure inflation, they use them all. And according to the inflation rate, then income is well ahead of inflation.
fuel is up from 30 cents to three bucks (10x) Once again, you can't make a straight comparison. Today's fuel doesn't use lead to prevent knock, it uses octane. Additionally, global demand for gasoline and other oil derivatives (think plastic) have multiplied many times since the 60's.
cars from a few thousand to tens of thousands (10x to 20x and more) Today's cars are bigger, faster, quieter and more fuel efficient (on average). Today we have remote door locks, air conditioning, cruise control and power windows standard on almost every car. Cars are more expensive today simply because they are worth more. A modern, convertible VW Beetle makes a forty year old beetle look pretty primitive, they just can't be compared because they don't have the same value.
houses... houses are insane
Suburban houses today are bigger, better built, and on larger plots than they were in the sixties, once again, they cost mor because they are worth more.
Your examples demonstrate why we use a consumer price index instead of anecdotal evidence to measure inflation. Things can only be compared with perfectly equivalent products under similar demand.
It's important to note that increasing the money supply is necessary to prevent deflation being caused by the continuing improvements in manufacturing; if a modern car is worth twice as much as an old one, but you only have as much money as you had in olden times, the car will cost twice as much, leaving you with left to buy every thing else (which had also increased in value).
This is one of the strength's of fiat money, the money supply can scale with increasing standards of living and the increasing value of all goods and services.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
While I am sure you are right, if "empathy" in politics lead to censorship, war, torture, and injustice -- I think I will stick to Dr. Paul's libertarianism.
It isn't his views that I find insane. It is Ron Paul. Perhaps "insane" is too strong of a word. The better term might be "not grounded in reality". Trust me, as someone who follows elections closely, I am not deriding him for any of his political views. His political ideas and views are typically very sane. His belief in powerful cabals and conspiracy groups might be a signal to his "insanity". A sane person tends to dismiss conspiracy theories until evidence presents itself, Ron Paul seems to be open to them until they are disproven.
The problem with gold or similar physical standard is that the amount of gold available is not tied to the size of the economy; the amount available grows much more slowly. If you have an expanding economy as is the case in most of the world you want the amount of money to expand with the size of the economy to prevent deflation (i.e. decreasing real prices) which is just as bad if not worse than inflation.
One small adjustment...
Sufficient time spent studying causes them to realize the world is not such a scary place after all, and that they are capable of running their own lives without incessant nannying from the State, making an ideology like Libertarianism very appealing.
There, much better.
Ron Paul's campaign is a symptom of the same foolishness that was Nader 2000, the idea that politics isn't local, that all you need is a trendy / genius / misguided / radical / (insert opinion) platform or platforms and one candidate can run for the highest office in the land and Change Everything. Ron Paul doesn't have a party. As far as I can tell he's not a Republican (I mean that as a compliment and I did RTFA), says he isn't a Libertarian (and exactly how many Libertarian state governors are there? Just curious). He's running for the Republican party he wants not the Republican party which exists which is like being a Muslim feminist. Or, for that matter, many of the Ron Paul internetters who seem to be supporting the Ron Paul they want, not the Ron Paul they have.
So all you Ron Paul-ites / Naderites / Greens / whatevers. Get some mayors elected first, some governors, take over a few states. (and yes the Greens do have some elected officials). Making bold/bizarre speeches about the gold standard or keeping government out of environmental regulation (what? we settle it with guns?) is very entertaining, but it doesn't get the trash picked up, the schools financed, the roads fixed.
That said, he was/is far and away the most intelligent of the Republicans and in a better world not wanting to slaughter Muslims wouldn't be a deal breaker and the Republican party would actually be the party of small government. A Paul VS Obama debate on social welfare would be very interesting.
Instead we get Hillary 'corporate welfare' Clinton VS John 'kill kill kill' McCain. Or maybe Obama decides to play the substance card.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
It failed because they overspent on their imperialist boondoggle in Afghanistan, just like we're doing in Iraq.
That you even ask the question is surprising to me. Minimum wage sets the floor at which jobs create an earner's ability to interact with the economy. Minimum wage also sets the base cost of anything that requires workers to create, be it product or service. From there, costs and wages go up as skills become scarcer. So minimum wage is a critical issue for both earners and job providers. Furthermore, minimum wage, by setting the earning level for the very lowest earning class of people who actually work within the system, places a hard line that cannot be crossed with regard to what such a worker can obtain within the system. You can't get below it, because you can't be paid less. An hour of labor gets you a minimum of $5.85, period. No less. About ten hours of work gets you one very short, very cursory doctor's appointment. An hour of work gets you about two gallons of gas. And so on. Earlier, you would have gotten more product or service, for less work on your part. This is a direct and concrete measure of economic conditions for the lowest class of earner, which is what I was talking about above.
This is irrelevant; there *is* one and there has been for some time, so we can use it to measure available standards of living at the lowest participating tier at any point during the period which it has been enforced. You want to argue economic issues based on a situation that does not exist. I am simply pointing out the situation that actually *does* exist. My observation is that given the demonstrated effect on earning and buying power that our current economic system has had at the base level, we are going backwards. What one would hope for is that purchasing power would increase, not decrease. It has, however, decreased in real terms, and because of that, I think change is called for.
Minimum wage *is* the actual wage paid for the lowest levels of people participating in the system. It has been since the 1930's or thereabouts. This gives you a direct lever, at the bottom, to relate an hour's work to the purchase of various goods and services. That's what I'm telling you: At the lowest economic level, it took less work to see the doctor in 1965 than it does today. That's going backwards. It took less work in 1965 to buy a house. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work in 1965 to buy a car. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to buy a gallon of fuel. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to put your kid through college or trade school. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to buy heat for your home. That's going backwards. Life is getting more difficult for these people, not less difficult. That's going backwards. It is as plain as the nose on your face if you'll just stop and think about it for a minute.
There are areas in the economy where people get more for their hour of work (electronics is one such instance) but in general, and especially for the basic requirements of day to day life, the ratio of hours worked to products and services obtainable are all going the wrong way.
Proceeding in a course of action(s) that continues to make life more difficult for the lowest levels will eventually result in a situation where life within the systems is perceived as too difficult and people will turn to alternative means of making money; this is where black markets, under-the-counter wages, illegal products and services all gain a foothold in the economy. When working within the system fails to provide people with a tolerable lifestyle, they will look outside the system for relief. And furthermore, they will inevitably find such relief in a society that encourages out of bounds earnings mechanisms with laws that insist upon characterizing all manner of consensual acts as crimes.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
important political dimensions like the "barking nutcase, conspiracy moron" dimension, the "I lie whenever my mouth is open" dimension and the "wears a white dress with a hood over his face" dimension. There's a bigger story to tell.
This is a very poor understanding of the Austrian method. What it actually does is to provide some very broad concepts which constitute what me might call a "metatheoretic framework". This framework, called "praxeology", is in turn used to develop theories about specific economic phenomena. And these theories can be falsified.
So, for example, using this Austrian methodology, the leading theorist of the school, Ludwig von Mises (who in fact gave the thing its name, "praxeology"), made an extensive list of very specific predictions on what would happen in any strongly planned economy that followed Marx' system, writing them in his book Socialism (available for download, so you can confirm for yourself). Note that this was just a few years after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before Lenin had had time to barely start implementing his projects, and without any factual feedback on what was happening in Russia. So, 70 years later, when the iron curtain fell and Western observers could go into the USSR and see things for themselves, not through Soviet propaganda, what did they find? That every single prediction made by Mises was fulfilled. He didn't miss the mark on any of them. As a result, one can say with confidence that the Austrian theory on the effects of socialist planning is, as far as we know, correct. Or, at least, "falsifiable, actually tested, and so far not yet falsified", to put it in a more popperian way.
But what about praxeology itself? Why can't it be falsified? Simply put, because it isn't a theory, nor is it meant to be taken as one. It's a tool. Roughly speaking, you could say that it serves, in Austrian theories, the same purpose served by mathematics in Physics. Can you falsify mathematics? No, because one does not "test" mathematics, one "uses" it to construct tests. Does it causes Physics theories to not be scientific? Of course not, because these theories (that in turn use mathematics) are testable. The same applies to praxeology. And let's not forget that both praxeology and mathematics have the same metatheoretical basis, logics, which for the same reason is never "tested", only "used".
Now, the problem in the text you linked is this: both its author and the person whom he mentions aren't talking about the precise same thing, and since neither know the correct way to clarify the discussion, each understands what the other is saying under the wrong assumption. So, both would profit a lot from studying some philosophy of science, as it helps to understand the differences between theories and metatheories. After all, if you take a metatheory as if it were a theory, as they both do, you end up talking nonsense, no matter whether you're "for" or "against" it.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Just to remind you, the Soviet Union did NOT invade Poland, Finland, and most of Eastern Europe in the 1920s. On the contrary, those regions had been part of the Russian Empire until World War I, and became independent in 1917~18.
In 1939, as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union split Eastern Europe among themselves, and Finland was the only country they couldn't "persuade" to agree to that partition.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, like Ron Paul, was a moral coward, unable to assume his responsabilities before the world.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
No economist would mistake stocks for wealth. Stocks and bonds and real estate and currencies and derivatives are tiny compared to the biggest type of wealth of the world: human capital.
It's clear you don't understand how economic "truth" is decided: by very careful analysis of lots and lots of data, and using statistical evidence to reject hypotheses. We know, for example, that commodity backed currency does not control inflation in a good way. As any good student of economics, certainly you recall the events of the first "Great Depression" from 1873 to 1896, caused by going from fiat money to the gold standard. Deflation is the real evil, not inflation. Certainly you understand deflation causes your debts to increase, crippling borrowing and risk taking and entrepreneurship. When the common man wants to buy land to farm or a house to live in, he must take on a mortgage for decades. Certainly, you recall the words of the man who nearly became President: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!"
Wars, tax policy, and whether to pass debt on to the next generation are good issues for parties and politicians to philosophize about. Whether a philosophical statement is "true" or not can be decided from election to election. The facts about how economics works cannot be changed by lengthy polemics.
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Was Ron Paul honest when he wrote the racist, anti-Semitic, conspiracy nut newsletters without putting their "actual" authors(assuming it isn't actually Ron Paul writing them, although Ron Paul certainly wanted Ron Paul's name in big letters at the top, and nobody else's name to be tracked as the author--probably because Ron Paul wanted support from the militias AKA his constituencies) or was he honest when he denied them.
As for Kucinich, he said that if he doesn't appear on the ballot you should vote for Obama.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Maybe other people didn't want to vote for Ron Paul.
Presupposing that the reason he didn't win is to flatly state that if everyone were informed and voted their hearts, Ron Paul would have won.
Did you ever just stop to think that maybe a majority of people don't agree with you? That if the world was well informed, they wouldn't necessarily come to the same conclusions as you?
Only an egotist would put forth their choice of candidate as the only valid one.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Isn't it outrageous that government decides that something is not good enough for you, therefore you better have none of it.
I cannot believe no one has mentioned the contributions yet! Is Ron Paul going to keep the tens of millions in contributions that he barely spent? Is this going to disillusion a whole generation of politically active geeks?
Ron Paul should donate a large portion of that money to the EFF, ACLU, and anyone else staying in the fight for our civil liberties! We did not contribute for his reelection to congress!
Libertarianism gives more power to people. To quote, as silly as the most common source may sound in this contest: "With great power, comes great responsability". The LAST thing humans one, but their nature, is responsability. So they push the power to others.
Humans are simply, as a general rule, not smart enough to be given power. Thats also why a republic works better than a democracy. Because down to our DNAs, we're little more than a bunch of monkeys who know how to light up a fire.
We shouldn't spend money we don't have. Not for infrastructure, not for social programs, not for anything. Any money left over by a budget surplus should go directly to paying down the national debt.
There is nothing wrong with a limited amount of debt. I will leave the Slashdot "philosopher-kings" to sort that one out.
Consider the following example, which basically is my world right now: You owe about $150,000 in a 30-year mortgage at a rate between 6%. Do you pay off the mortgage, or do you invest the money?
If you said pay off the mortgage, you fail.
If you can find an investment that pays more than 6% on average (nothing is guaranteed) you put your extra dollars above and beyond the mortgage payments into that investment. Why?
1) liquidity. Investments are liquid, easy to cash out on a moments' notice the value of your house is not (the sale price and sale time of your house is tied to the market). Plus if you sell your house, you have to spend some of that money for future housing. In the same way, there are certain things the government can spend money on that have a higher return-on-investment than paying off debt.
2) time value of money. If you sock away even a little bit of money each month, over 30 years you have a whole lot of money. If you pay down your house in 15 years and then spend the next 15 years saving, you would have to invest a lot more of you own money to match what you could have had, if you were just investing a little bit since day 1 and paying the default amount on your loan. In the same way, the government setting up infrastructure now is often cheaper and more cost-effective in the long run than waiting to pay off debt.
3) the value of debt. Some loans are cheaper than others. In your mortgage's case, you can use it as a tax writeoff, which effectively lowers the interest rate an additional few percent. There are similar 'features' to the national debt. The value of the dollar is almost directly related to the amount of debt we have
The dollar has only started to drop in very recent history, and we have held a high amount of debt for a long time. It has much more international implications than just the national debt.
Oh noes! Their traditions are different! THE HORROR! , the far too narrow streets, Oh noes! Their streets were made long ago in no-car times with very limited land area for the population! THE HORROR! the high price of food and fuel and rent Oh noes! They don't have an empire keeping the price of fuel (and therefore food) artificially low! And they have a higher population density! THE HORROR! I remember being shown a tiny little stove that one young couple in London used as their entire heating system. Their kid was buried in a ball of flannel every hour of the day. It was bloody *cold* in that flat. They have poor people? There's none in the USA! THE HORROR! I starkly remember being driven to nausea over the smell of the water in the canals in Venice and in the alleyways of London. Never been to New York, huh? When Europe's standard of living catches up to ours, then you can talk to me about how your economic policies are all that. Done.Does it? The last time I went to Europe (and mind you, I was traveling through fairly prosperous countries — England, France, Germany, Italy), I was appalled at the public squat toilets
Man, I can't believe you threw in the toilet style in your complaints.
You can't take the sky from me...
You are really missing his point entirely. Stop, stop, stop. Let me try give you a concrete example: I do similar work to my dad. At my age my dad was able to support a family of several kids and buy a reasonable sized house. I live on my own and can only afford a much smaller place.
Look around in the real world - this is a common pattern for just about EVERYONE. THINGS ARE GETTING HARDER. I can see this with my very own eyes, or are you trying to convince me that somehow I indeed have it 'better' than my folks? You have to work much harder/longer to be able to afford the same amount of 'stuff'. Also in the older days usually only the male worked, now it takes two working professionals as a couple to be able to get a similar amount of household wealth. We get less "wealth" for the same amount of work, when intuitively it should be the opposite due to leaps in technology.
3rd world countries are complete irrelevant to this, unless you're suggesting that somehow that is where my wealth is going now.
the far too narrow streets
This isn't a symptom of squalor or poverty in Europe, it's mainly a result of history; most cities are very old, and particularly in the city centers the streets were laid out long before cars existed. And space was very limited not just because of higher population density / less land, but because for much of Europe's history, cities had to have big walls around them because of frequest ongoing conflicts/attacks, making everyone pile up into smaller spaces. And because things used to be built with really solid, heavy stone, there's no sense tearing down many of those structures, many of those buildings just stand for centuries. Also, Europeans grow up like that, so they're used to it. I imagine when the US has over 1000 years of history behind it, some parts may start looking a bit like that too, as space becomes ever more limited.
Europe does have high taxes and 'too much socialism' especially from a US perspective, but on the other hand, the European culture / work ethic is more "well-suited" to that. I think that's changing though with the younger generations, who seem to be lazier and more demanding, so Europe may have to become a bit more "right".
He's written several books.
He ran because he was asked to. It's very obvious if you pay any attention to the man that he doesn't enjoy running or thinks that the position is something he should do or even should be done. At 72 I have to doubt the man did this to gain fame in the way you describe. He has a long public history and I've not seen anything which would indicate your claims are true.
They already have that: It's called Alan Keyes, and he really hasn't been all that successful.
As much as Paul supporters would like to believe otherwise, Paul hasn't been successful largely because not that many people like his ideas. I'm not saying that he hasn't been somewhat marginalized (as is any candidate who is not seen as a leading candidate), but many people also just don't happen to share his views. It's just that those who do share them are very vocal and energized. My own opinion is that Paul represents a form of Republicanism that has been all but killed by neoconservatives (really beginning with Reagan).
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
The problem with the Republican Party and racism is that Republican strategists decided to campaign towards racists back when Nixon ran for president. This may sound terrible to say, but the electoral victories of the last 30 years may not have happened without candidates pandering to racism. Unfortunately this decision made 30 years ago is destroying the party. Every decent Republican leaves the party because they can't stand the bigotry. And every time a decent Republican leaves, it makes the bigoted faction more and more important. Expel the racists from the Republican Party, and you will see that the party will become a lot stronger, since many of its principles appeal to a wide demographic. They just don't become Republicans because of the GOP's bigotry.
His decision seems fairly logical to me when the main goal of an on the ground campaign is to get out the vote and most of the elections are over (there are still some late caucuses left though) that he should lean up his machine (less votes to get out).
Bah, people say that the media was totally fair with Dr. Paul. These people weren't paying attention. When the media did cover him, they only questions they asked him were whether or not he planned to run as a third party candidate or to paint him as a racist. Of course when the chairman of the NAACP refuted the claim that Dr. Paul was a racist, you didn't see that on the news.
I am just disgusted with this whole political process. You have both parties that are leading us down the path of a corporatist/fascist police state and the one man who calls a duck a duck is the crazy whacko. The one candidate who won't take corporate donations and he is called nuts and un-viable. Guess who are the ones calling him not-viable...the ones he won't take donations from...but whatever.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
but it's not the same thing. Okay, how about Obama/Nader '08? Before you judge, say it out loud.
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
Well in the current United States, largely apathy is king.
...Rome...
Ppl want to be entertained, bread and circuses and all, much like
So when ppl mention that the Federal Reserve really isn't federal, they
think your a nut job by default and don't bother to even read about it.
http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/federal-reserve/
It is all verifiable.
It is all true.
But they dismiss it with a wave, so they can get back to the Computer, TV,
and watch their sports, boink their significant other, or read a book
about some made up shit that does not even exist.
In the meantime, the Fed loans the government its own money at 'interest'.
It is boring though, doesn't really entertain ppl, so it doesn't get much brain time.
My grandfather when I was a small child decades ago warned us about how bad
this would get, and I didn't really understand him then.
After many years, and a fair bit of reading and discussing with very intelligent
ppl in and out of the united states, I now see the shell game for what it is.
Some of the ppl that backed Ron Paul felt much like those ppl in V for vendetta
and are sick of blood sucking bastards that are ruining our country, and
charging us interest to do it to boot !
When the collapsing dollar dies, and the Amero is brought in to replace it,
the NAU is formed, the RealID and DNA database, and it suddenly dawns on you
that all of this was mentioned, you were warned and it was all in writing
by government officials in plain sight.
Lou dobbs covered the NAU forming, and the fact that there was no vote.
The Trans Texas Corridor was to be paid for by US tax dollars, but sold
to a Spanish billionaire who would run it as a for profit toll road
that we paid to build.
Fortunately the good ppl of Texas caught this and killed it, but it will
be back, and Rick Perry governor of Texas is in on it with them.
If you get a chance watch 911 press for truth to get a good Idea just how
bad things are getting, for the non religious folks also watch Zeitgeist the movie.
Also money as debt is a good primer for the Federal Reserve banking system.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
Most ppl will ignore this and plod on, just another brick in the wall.
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
- U.S. soldier currently in Iraq
Your comparing apples and oranges. A gallon of gas, a car, a home, and many other things in the 60s are NOT the same as they are now. Lets take your gas and car analogy.
In 1960 a low end car the Chevy Malibu was $2156 It got about 15 MPG (Average car in 65 achieved a little less) A low end Kia can be purchased for 13K in 2007 (Average mileage now is 25MPG). (6 fold increase)
Gas then 30 cents a gallon. Gas now $3.00 a gallon. (10 fold increase)
Now lets look at the real cost
Cost to drive 75 miles in 1965 = 1.50 cost to drive in 2007 = 9.00 Only a 6 fold increase not 10 fold as it first looks. Additionally cars back then used large quantities of Lead, Sulfur, etc which was put into the environment. Gasoline is far cleaner, one of the reasons it costs more.
The money you paid for cars back then got you a car with no pollution controls, no airbag, no safety speed tests, Im not even sure if seat belts were mandatory? You were lucky if you had an AM/FM radio (No CD, MP3 or tape). AC was definitely extra, seat comfort on many was atrocious.
Sure Wages have gone up 4.7 fold while the gas to drive somewhere has gone up 6 fold and a car has gone up 6 fold, yet the quality and comfort of that drive as well as safety has sky rocketed. If we said to car manufacturers, No regulations, make a car of the quality and standards of the 60s Im sure we would have them for less $9000, the cost of inflation vs minimum wage.
Other comparisons.
Milk 99 cents a gallon in 1965 Milk $3.00 a gallon now (3 fold increase)
Eggs 60 cents a dozen in 1965 vs 1.50 a dozen now (2.5 fold increase)
Computer in 1965 LOL 1975 ($1000) Now $300 A DECREASE of 3.3 fold (Quality. Dont make me laugh)
Color TV 23 inch Manual channel changer 1965 ($160), Now 24 inch with stereo, remote, timer, etc $199 (1.3 increase)
9 cubic foot fridge $200, Now 20 cubic foot fridge $500 with auto defrost far better energy efficiency (2.5 fold increase)
Before you compare minimum wage 1965 to 2007 also compare how good the products are in safety, features, energy efficacy, convenience, etc. All thing that ADD to the price.
If you want to live with 1965 technology I bet we can do most of it for only 2-3 times the price we paid then, meaning our dollars go twice as far.
Random Unicorn
Up here in New England whenever people ask me why I wasted my vote, voting for Paul in the NH Primary, I ask them why they wasted there time supporting the Pats when they lost the Superbowl. So far I haven't been killed, yet
The plain fact is, people want to vote for a 'winner' and allow the MSM to dictate who that should be. Ron Paul was excluded from debates when Guilanni was not because he was deemed 'not viable'. Turns out, they had that backwards. I have NEVER felt more jaded towards politics as I do right now. Observe:
1) For a candidate to win, MSM support is required
2) MSM is in favor, some directly and others indirectly, of 'news worthy' wars and other events
3) The best interests of the average American ARE NOT in line with the best interests of the average MSM corporation
Therefore: Allowing the media to select our election candidate is nothing short of complete insanity. Anyone that didn't vote for Paul ought to be committed, as they cannot form simple value judgments without the support of the idiot-box.
And, by the way, if we ever want this to REALLY change, we're going to have to bring the word 'revolution' back to an earlier meaning. Those powerful people are entrenched, folks, and it's all YOUR fault.