The IAEA inspections are supposed to prevent that, but you can of course never be sure, as Israel showed.
Huh? Israel has never signed the NPT, so the IAEA has never been authorized to conduct inspections in Israel.
It would be better if no countries were enriching Uranium at all and it was all being done at some large central monitored facility
Putting control of such an important part of a State's energy supply in the hands of other people would be an unacceptable threat to national sovereignty.
Everyone would be in the same boat and there would be no sense of hypocrisy (other than the failure of the big 5 to disarm).
The big 5 cannot disarm- they are required by the UN Security Council to maintain a nuclear arsenal to protect the non-nuclear signatories of the treaty.
International agreements can work, but not if they are only honoured by some countries.
You have hit upon the major flaw of so-called "International Law". You can't force a country to sign a treaty that it doesn't want to sign, and if a country is doing something that you don't like but isn't covered by a treaty, pretty much the only thing that you can do is make threats against them to get them to stop. The NPT in particular is fatally flawed. There is nothing that prevents a country from signing the treaty, obtaining all of the perks and benefits from being a signatory to gain access to nuclear technology, and then withdrawing from the treaty to start building nuclear weapons. As always, it boils down to who has the biggest guns.
Signatories to the NPT are allowed to enrich Uranium as part of a civilian program.
Wow- you really missed the point. The issue has never been the existence of Iran's civilian nuclear program. Article IV of the NPT makes it very clear that signatories of the treaty (including Iran) still have the inalienable right to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The issue here is Article III, which expressly requires signatories to adopt safeguards that allow external observers to verify the peaceful nature of their nuclear programs. The NPT does not specify exactly what these safeguards are except that States must negotiate them with the IAEA. To satisfy this requirement, Iran (like many other states) agreed to the Additional Protocol. By doing so, any violations of the Additional Protocol became violations of the NPT itself.
After years of a cat-and-mouse game, the IAEA officially declared that Iran was in breach of the Additional Protocol in September of 2005, and referred them to the UN Security Council in the process. This led to the Security Council resolutions 1696, 1737, 1747, and most recently, 1803, where the Security Council unanimously required under Chapter VII of the UN charter that Iran stop their uranium enrichment until they are in compliance with the required safeguards.
Iran never suspended their uranium enrichment, in violation of resolution 1696. The IAEA says that Iran is making progress towards compliance with the Additional Protocol, but their latest report makes it clear that Iran has not yet fully complied, and that because of this, the IAEA is "not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran's nuclear programme". Here is the money quote from paragraph 57:
Although Iran has provided some additional detailed information about its current activities on an ad hoc basis, the Agency will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity about the nature of the alleged studies, and without implementation of the Additional Protocol. This is especially important in the light of the many years of undeclared activities in Iran and the confidence deficit created as a result. The Director General therefore urges Iran to implement all necessary measures called for by the Board of Governors and the Security Council to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.
The fact that you tried to turn this into an anti-American rant further underscores your ignorance on the subject. Please take a few moments to try to educate yourself before spouting off again.
Fiscal restraint doesn't mean fiscal stupidity, and retiring some of the current government's debt is not necessarily a bad idea.
Okay- lets take a look at the end result of retiring some of our federal debt.
Before: The private sector has $X in cash and $X in interest bearing assets in the form of securities from the Treasury
The government then forcibly takes $X from the public through taxes and transfers it to the bond holders, dissolving those interest bearing assets in the process.
After: The private sector still has $X in cash, although that cash has been redistributed from the tax payers to the bond holders. However, the private sector no longer has those treasury securities. The net result is that the public (you and I) are poorer by $X.
Fiscal responsibility requires deficit spending by the federal government. The trick is to keep the debt burdon within a "safe" range to prevent runaway inflation, and to make sure that the government spending is focused on the projects and infrastructure that are necessary to enable future economic growth.
Actually... that's not exactly what I remember. He said he deliberately chose to be on his medications so that people could see his dyskinesia.
Here is the exact quote from his book: "I had made a deliberate choice to appear before the subcommittee without medication. It seemed to me that this occasion demanded that my testimony about the effects of the disease, and the urgency we as a community were feeling, be seen as well as heard. For people who had never observed me in this kind of shape, the transformation must have been startling."
Okay... so as someone who apparently knows dink about Parkinsons Disease, let me (a Ph.D in Neuroscience with an emphasis on Motor Control) fill you in on your ignorance there.
Thanks. Nobody likes to be ignorant.
The jerky movement that Fox displayed came from the fact that HE WAS ON HIS MEDICATIONS! It's a symptom of being on LDOPA for too long.
Well, thats not what Fox said about his congressional testimony. He wrote in his book that he made a deliberate choice to modify his medications before his appearance to give the most "startling" visual impression that he could (page 247 of his book "Lucky Man").
Rush still was an asshat for making fun of him.
I don't get to listen to Limbaugh's show more than a couple times a year, but I actually was listening the day he made these comments, and given the context, I think it is absurd to characterize anything he said as "making fun" of Fox.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand where you are coming from. I don't see how Michael J. Fox did anything wrong, nor exaggerated anything.
I didn't say I thought Fox did anything wrong. Where did you get that idea? I have huge respect for him. He did take deliberate steps to make his argument as compelling as possible, but he was well within his rights to do so. But Limbaugh was also within his rights to point out that the Michael J Fox in that TV ad doesn't necessarily represent Michael J Fox of everyday life.
What you are implying is that if Michael J. Fox can get his tremors under control with some medication, then he should show that?
You sure do read into things a lot. I think that Fox should probably do whatever he ethically can to make his point, but I don't see any problem with Limbaugh pointing out what Fox had done.
Your other point is baseless, as well. I do not like Limbaugh and I formed my opinion by listening to his show. He is insulting in every way imaginable. Limbaugh's job is not to find a valid argument to counter someone's statements or actions. His job is to find ways of vilifying the person Limbaugh takes issue with.
Actually, no. Limbaugh is an entertainer. His job is to entertain people so they will listen to his show and hear advertisements from his customers, and he does that by giving his opinion and telling jokes.
Rush accused Fox of exaggerating his symptoms -- like he's waving around and shaking on purpose and faking it all. Fox admitted he skipped his medications so people could see what Parkinson's does to a person. These are completely different things as far as I'm concerned.
I don't fault Fox at all for doing what he did. Like I said, it was clearly in the best interest of his cause to make his disease look as debilitating as possible. But I also don't fault Limbaugh for highlighting this as the manipulation that it was (and no, Limbaugh did NOT accuse him of faking).
I too had a close relative pass away from Parkinson's disease, so I have seen how bad it gets. But the point is that even though the symptoms that Fox that appeared with in front of congress and in that TV commercial were caused by his condition, they were not representative of his daily life. He normally counteracts and controls some of the symptoms, but he chose not to for the TV cameras. That is manipulation.
You know, I appreciate your positive outlook, but I do think you are being naive. The time to prepare to defend yourself from a "real" threat is not when you are already standing face-to-face with it. By then its too late. At what point do you think the 9/11 attacks graduated from a perceived threat to real threat?
I think that it is pretty hard to deny that we are facing a real threats right now, as a significant series of attacks against people like us has proved. There are people out there that want to murder you and I because we don't subscribe to the same radical religious beliefs that they do. That doesn't mean that we need to cower in fear over it, but we do need to acknowledge the threat so we can address it. Maintaining a strong military is only part of the solution, but it is necessary.
Let me get this straight- you are criticizing Rush Limbaugh because you think he insults people, and you chose to do that by... insulting him?
Its been my experience that the people that most vocally accuse Limbaugh of hate speech have not formed that opinion through their own experience of listening to the show, but rather through what other media and Limbaugh's political opponents report that he said. Is that the case with you?
Lets take the Michael J Fox story that you mentioned as an example. Mr. Limbaugh stated on-air that he thought Michael Fox had exaggerated his Parkinson's symptoms in a political ad, and that he had done so for theatric benefit. It was clearly in Fox's best interest to make his disease look as debilitating as possible, and his tremors in the ad were much more pronounced than we usually saw from him. Limbaugh said that he would be the first apologize to Fox if that wasn't the case. But guess what? Rush was right. Fox later admitted that he purposely skips his medication before public events like this so people will see his worst case symptoms. Here is a video clip of him admitting this.
So was that hate speech, or was it an attempt to inject more honesty in a charged political debate? Unfortunately, the partisans have already made their minds up on the answer to that.
Interesting. I don't feel threatened and have no need for an army to defend me. I'd feel even safer with less trained-to-kill people around.
Thats a great idea! Instead of all of that army and war and violence stuff, we should all just sing kumbaya and get along! Why didn't anybody think of that before?
All sarcasm aside, the fact that you don't feel threatened is an anomaly in the history of humankind that has been brought about by those trained-to-kill people that are defending you.
My point is that prior to Vietnam a true declaration of war by Congress was the rule, and straying from this rule leads to bad things.
Where are you getting your definition of what a "true" declaration of war consists of? It certainly isn't from the Constitution.
Let's pretend it's 1808. Do you think that the Iraq war would be seen as constitutional? If not, then what has changed? Certainly not the Constitution.
Of course it would be constitutional. Why wouldn't it be? Congress clearly authorized it, as they are tasked to do in Artical I Section 8.
On the war issue that many neoconservatives hate him for, Paul has said repeatedly that he is against undeclared wars. He's also said that Presidents are to follow Congress on declaring war or refusing it. This means that Paul _would_ go to war if Congress declared it, even in Iraq. He's putting politicians in their responsible positions by demanding that they follow the Constitution.
How do you think the Constitution defines a declaration of war (hint: it doesn't), and how do you think that differs from something like this?
Again, it appears to me that you are forcing absolutes into data that doesn't support it. I'm guessing you didn't do very well in your 7th grade science test about significant digits.
Calling for recounts only in some areas is part gaming the system, and is irrelevant to the question of for whom more Florida voters cast their ballots. Those recounts that do not have as their standard a "clear indication of the intent of the voter" are irrelevant.
I see the point that you are making, but given the Florida election laws that were on the books in November of 2000, your point is also irrelevant to who was legally the winner of Florida's electoral votes.
A statewide recounts where all undervotes and overvotes were considered is the only relevant issue here. Under five different criteria of "clear indicaton of the voter", Gore comes out ahead on four of them, only losing in one where subjective factors of what constitutes a valid mark on optical scan ballots come into play.
If this was the simple absolute that you seem to think it was, then there would have been no need for 5 different standards to check for the "clear" intent of the voter. It is either clear or it isn't. The fact that they did explore 5 different meanings of what the clear intent of the voter consists of- each with different results in the recount- tells me that it is not possible to clearly divine voter intent from a spoiled ballot. To wit, using the "clearest" standard of voter intent, where 3 out of 3 people had to agree what the voter wanted to do with his or her ballot, George Bush still prevailed. The scenarios that you think show the clear intent of the voters as wanting to elect Al Gore are significantly less clear, given that at least one of the people that reviewed the ballot didn't think that it represented a clear vote for anyone.
So that leaves us with the stark reality that there will always be sampling error and noise in a process where 6 million people from all walks of life are required to show up during a set amount of time, stand in line, and follow specific instructions to operate equipment that only they see once a year to cast their vote. Efforts to mitigate and minimize this noise should be applauded and pursued, but the noise itself will never be eliminated. This is precisely why concrete rules must be put in place prior to an election, and why those rules must be followed to determine the winner of the election. The fact that the election was close does not change the rules. I guess you could claim that this means the system is "broken", but I notice that you didn't suggest any alternatives, so I am betting its just a case of you being a sore loser because you didn't like the outcome.
Until a media consortium hired independent assessors to evaluate the ballots, and found that the Gore got more than Bush votes in Florida in 2000.
Interesting charactarization of thier results, especially considering that they made no concrete statements like this themselves.
Their recount tested the results under 9 different scenarios of how overvotes and undervotes should be counted. In 4 of the scenarios (including the scenario most consistent with contemporary FL law), Bush prevailed with more votes (woo hoo for Bush supporters!). In the remaining 5, Gore won (woo hoo for Gore supporters!).
Only a blind partisan could claim that this "proves" their point of view, especially when that wasn't even the goal of the consortium that conducted the recount!
This is an incredibly naiive view to take- the industry is much more complicated than that. Here are 3 things that come to mind:
At its heart, the semiconductor business is a manufacturing business. In many ways, a company's ability to manufacture the chips is more important than the features of the chip itself. When the larger OEMs announce that they will require 10 million units in the next quarter with DPM of less than 500, there are only a few companies that can meet that kind of demand. Intel has spent tens of billions of dollars to build their manufacturing capabilities and keep them at the leading edge. AMD, on the other hand, has made a series of strategic blunders in this regard over the past 15 years (remember the UMC debacle?). As a result, AMD's has never been able to produce the quantity and quality of product that the larger OEMs demand, and have shut themselves out of the bigger markets. You can't blame Intel for this.
When the OEMs design products, there is a lot more involved than just picking the CPU. They need to build a whole platform, and problems anywhere in that supply chain will directly impact the OEMs ability to produce and sell that platform. So even if AMD had been able to supply the 10 million Athlon CPUs with the required defect rate to an OEM, would the OEM be able to get enough chipset components within the required defect rate as well? Once again, Intel took charge of its own destiny here as well by designing and making their own chipsets that are backed by the same manufacturing capabilities as their CPUs, and OEMs respond by using the Intel-branded chipsets 90% of the time.
The supply of the product is one thing, but the quality is another. I'm not talking about the chip's performance, but functional bugs that cause stability issues or data corruption. Slashdot likes to joke about the Pentium FDIV bug, but the truth is that bug scared the crap out of Intel, so they throw enormous resources into their CPU and chipset validation. This translates to direct value to the OEMs in the form of faster time-to-market and lower support costs. If OEMs perceive that on company is validating their products more than the competition, they are going to be more likely to chose that company's design. Remember, this goes for any component of the platform (not just the CPU!), so a flaky northbridge from VIA or NVidia could cause an OEM to drop the AMD platform in favor of Intel as well.
In other words, even though AMD had a superior performance in the Athlon, there were other completely competitive reasons for an OEM to select Intel over AMD, and most of those are a direct result of choices that AMD made.
The value of the dollar is a direct function of two things: - The supply of dollars (in Ron Paul-speak, how many dollars have been "printed") - The demand of dollars (i.e., the size of the economy)
Attempts to artificially tie the value of the dollar to some arbitrary and finite commodity (like gold) place impractical limits on the growth of the economy. The only way the economy can grow when the supply of money is limited in such a way is for the currency to deflate, and history shows us that deflation is analogous to throwing a wet blanket on the economy, causing everybody to suffer.
Moderate and predictable inflation is not a bad thing.
I disagree with your conclusion, but I applaud your reasoned and balanced look at the issue. I wish this kind of discourse was more the norm, where people debate and disagree without resorting to hyperbolic rhetoric and vitriol. Your post was actually the most compelling case I think I have seen that the Bush Administration "lied".
It is clear that many statements that the Bush Administration made in the lead up to the war turned out to be false. It is also the case that many statements they made were in fact true, and that Saddam's Iraq did pose a threat to the United States. It is perfectly reasonable to debate whether that threat was significant enough to justify a full scale military invasion (not many threats are that significant, after all), but an honest debate must acknowledge that this threat did exist.
As you can probably guess, I did think that the threat posed by Saddam's Iraq was significant enough to justify our invasion, and I feel that the data uncovered since then has vindicated that decision, but I accept that people will disagree with this view.
For example, nothing the Bush regime has said about the motive for the invasion of Iraq stands up to any scruitiny, so we're left with nothing but speculation as to they whys and wherefores.
To take this further off topic, I will respectfully disagree with this. Certainly some of the pre-war claims have been disproved, but President Bush's political opponents try to force this into absolutes when the truth is a lot more complicated.
To be more specific, the Bush Administration made several claims to justify the invasion of Iraq, including:
Saddam was in violation of the UN disarmament mandate, including resolutions 687 and 1441. This was confirmed by the Duelfer report following the invasion where the ISG reported their findings of dozens of hidden and illegal weapons programs and infrastructure that the UN had no idea existed.
Saddam was maintaining stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. This was disproved following the invasion, as it appears that Saddam unilaterally destroyed his stockpiles following the first gulf war (the fact that he did this outside of the sights of the UN inspectors was itself another violation of his cease-fire mandate).
Saddam was actively trying to develop nuclear weapons. This was also disproved following the invasion.
Iraq sponsored and promoted international terrorist groups. This was also confirmed. Iraq was first placed on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 1979, and they were known to carry out terrorist attacks through the IIS and directly support dozens of terrorist groups.
Iraq supported al Qaeda. This has been disproved-ish. You can't disprove it outright, because there is clear evidence that both al Qaeda and Iraq reached out to each other to try to form a collaborative relationship, but there is no proof that such a collaborative relationship was ever established or that they ever really worked together.
Iraq posed a direct threat to the United States. Personally, I would say that this has been confirmed. In 2002, intelligence agencies from around the world were warning us that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks against us. That's evidence of a pretty significant threat.
A stable and free democratic Iraq will counteract the source of the hatred in that region that has led to attacks like 9/11. Maybe we will know if this has been confirmed or disproved in 30 years.
So, while it is true that some of the pre-war claims have been disproved, it is also true that some of the pre-war claims have been confirmed. A lot of people like to point at the fact that no WMD stockpiles were found, and generalize from there that everything that the Bush Administration said prior to the invasion is false, but this is disingenuous. Iraq did pose a threat to our national security. The only thing still up for debate is whether or not this threat was large enough to justify war. I believe the threat was big enough to justify our invasion, and I respect people that disagree with this, but I have a hard time respecting a lot of the dishonest debate around the war that centers on false absolutes.
A basic knowledge of economics tells me that the amount of debt that a government can support is based solely on the size of it's economy, and our debt-to-gdp ratio is currently at ~64% and falling, so in that regard we are doing quite well.
You used the nominal GDP rate and not the real GDP rate - that is bad economic analysis.
Yup- I had started out analyzing the GDP vs inflation rates, where the nominal GDP is the proper number to use, to generate that graph. I should have used real GDP numbers for the direct comparison. I need to stop posting after my brain has already turn off from a long day of work. My bad.
But look at the per capita GDP growth rates. From 1790-1913, real per capita GDP grew by an average of 1.45% per year. From 1913-2006, real per capita GDP grew by 2.10%, and remember that this period includes the Great Depression.
I'm an aesthete at heart and don't believe it is possible nor desirable to measure the success or failure of civilization in the materialistic terms of an bean counter.
Well, I think there is a lot more to the success or failure of an entire civilization than just it's economy, but I guess that is a different discussion.
Nobody claims that the GDP is a perfect measure of an economy, but it is the best broad measurement that we have, so I don't think that any honest discussion can just dismiss the number.
If the GDP decreases by 25% but the prices of goods drops 50%, a rational person would call that a period of prosperity.
I disagree. The only way you can prosper with the GDP decreasing is if your population and resource requirements are also decreasing- otherwise people start starving.
Yeah, we're definitely talking about a different video.
Yikes- sorry about that. More evidence that I shouldn't post past my bedtime:). I was referring to the 3 1/2 hour documentary from the mid 1990s called The Money Masters. Somebody else posted a google video link to that in this discussion, and I somehow got it confused with your post. Here is a link to that video, btw.
I have also seen that Money as Debt cartoon before, and it isn't quite as conspiratorial. I still didn't like how they treat the subject like a big secret that nobody talks about when I learned about it in my freshmen econ class years ago.
Lot's of people don't hold much faith in the GDP measurements. In terms of actual industrial and agricultural output, those numbers are bullshit.
Perfect. You have constructed another argument where the facts don't matter. How about instead of blindly labeling any contrarian data as "bullshit", suggest some alternate means of measuring the economy, or better yet, explain exactly what aspect of the GDP measurements you find inaccurate.
Also, there was virtually no unemployment in the United States in the 19th century. More bullshit.
Where on earth did you get that idea? Even that propaganda video that you are pimping every chance you get talks about some periods of heavy unemployment in the 1800s that led to civil unrest. You know- when those evil illuminati were executing their nefarious plans for world domination.
And this of course, is the most comical piece of bullshit in your post. You can find the exact opposite information regarding the value of money in the government's own publications! Read Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census; U.S. G.P.O., 1975. I even found a nice online calculator for you to show how prices declined by 50% during the 19th century.
You are right. I had plugged the numbers in from 1790-1913 (when the Federal Reserve was created) to get that statistic. It looks like the extra years on both ends did skew the results, and the period from 1800-1899 was net deflationary.
That said, take a look at this graph comparing GDP growth and inflation rates from 1790-1913. The correlation between deflation and economic contractions is almost perfect. To claim that the economy thrived when the currency deflated is misleading, to say the least.
I'd love to know what "conclusion" was reached that is not supported by fact.
Its been a while since I watched the video. I remember such sound arguments as:
The Rothschilds were the richest and most powerful family in the world during the 19th century, and we have "no evidence" that this has changed, so they are still the richest and most powerful family in the world.
The evil bankers did not like President Lincoln's plans for the national currency, so John Wilkes Booth was obviously a mercenary hired by them to assassinate the President.
Its classic conspiracy theory- impossible to disprove, but don't mistake that for proof that it is true.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the 19th century. In 100 years, the United States was transformed from near total wilderness to the world's largest industrial power filled with hundreds of cities and a vast railroad system.
The United States did not become the world's largest economy until after WWII. The economy in the 19th century was wild, with massive swings in employment, GDP growth, and inflation. It was not uncommon for the economy would grow by 20+% one year, only to contract by 15% 2 years later (1813 and 1815, for example). The average nominal GDP growth for that century was only around 4.5% compared that to almost 7% since then (and that includes the Great Depression!).
This was all done during a period of moderate - and at times severe - deflation. Deflation is the natural order of things in an industrial society.
This is incorrect. Between 1790-1913, the annualized inflation rate was around.1%, which is very low, but still positive. With only one exception, every deflationary period during the 19th century time corresponded directly with an economic contraction. The exception to this is the years 1866-1878, where there were 12 years of sustained deflation (the longest deflationary period on record) but GDP growth remained positive. This period is an outlier in our economic history, and not a basic rule like you claim.
Don't kid yourself. A bond is a loan.
Of course a bond is a loan, but the mechanism which public debt increases the money supply is different from private debt. When the government holds an auction to sell securities, it transfers $X from the public to the government (in exchange for $X worth of interest bearing assets). This alone would actually decrease the money supply if it weren't for the fact that the government does not maintain a cash account, so it turns around and spends the $X, putting the money back in the private sector (although to different people that it borrowed the money from). The end result is that the private sector still has $X and they have $X worth of interest bearing assets in the form of treasury securities.
Watch this video.
I have seen that video before, and I do not like it. It is classic conspiratorial propaganda- just enough fact so you can't accuse them of outright lying, but dressed up with the most inflammatory language possible and reaching conclusions not supported by the facts. I found it to be an appeal to emotion rather than to reason, and I don't like that.
I'm sorry, I didn't know some people on slashdot still support ad hominem attacks.
I have no idea who you are referring to here (who has supported ad hominem attacks in this thread?), but the idea that slashdot of all places (the cesspool of online discourse) is somehow too dignified for ad hominem attacks made me chuckle.
As for the comment on fractional reserve lending, even you don't seem to grasp the consequences. Anyway, watch the video - maybe it will become clear.
You just did it again. It is possible to understand the macroeconomic impacts of fractional reserve lending, and disagree with benzapp at the same time. You have to stop assuming that anybody that disagrees with you is just ignorant.
No one is buying US treasuries anymore because of the pathetic interest rate the fed set last week, and the debt load of the American consumer is far too great.
No one is buying our treasuries? Today's Treasury auction for 5 year notes attracted over $37 billion worth of competitive bids. This was about $2 billion more than last month's auction (before the Fed announced the cut in the target rate), and about the same as the auction held in September 2006. Oh, and the interest rate from today's auction was 4.25%, which is only 1/8% higher than last month, and a full .
The author isn't saying there shouldn't be monetary policy. The entire point of the book is that the Fed has NOT managed the monetary system properly, best evidenced by the fact the value of the US dollar has declined by 98% since the Fed was created.
That is not evidence of mismanagment, especially considering that the policy of the Fed for much of its existance has been to keep inflation low, predictible, and most importantly, above zero. This 98% statistic that you think proves mismanagement is actually evidence that the Fed is achieving its goals.
Some inflation is desireable, and the reasons why are simple: sustained economic growth when the currency is deflating is next to impossible. Nobody wants to borrow money today that they are going to pay back with more expensive dollars in the future. As a result, productivity and capital investments drop, and the economy stagnates. The opposite is true when the currency inflates. The key is to keep inflation predictable so people can plan for it.
This is actually false. The money supply is increased by ONE WAY and ONE WAY ONLY! When a bank issues a loan, the loan itself is money "created" with the debt ultimately reported to the Fed.
No, thats not the only way that the money supply is increased. The US treasury dept increases the money supply when it auctions securities to the public. The FOMC can also increase the money supply through its open market operations.
Again, this is another poster who apparently doesn't even understand what they are saying. Banks issue loans by stealing part of the value of your money, then they collect interest on it.
Your loaded terminology is betraying you. Implicit in our system is the assumption that loans and investments drive future economy growth. If the money supply grows by $y, and the resulting activity increases our economy by $y, then nothing has been "stolen".
Sorry, there are no credible bad reviews on Amazon. Just a bunch of folks who don't understand fractional reserve lending and how the money supply is directly tied to the issuance of debt. The rest are communists who hate the John Birch society and defame the author and discredit his work entirely on his involvement with that organization.
I guess its a lot easier to argue an opinion if you just blithely dismiss anybody that disagrees with you as being ignorant.
As you and other posters point out - you can't stop the crazies, but you can stop the regular Joes by simply doing your job well enough not to anger anyone that much.
What world do you live in where plotting an assasination doesn't qualify a person as "crazy"?
Slashdot Mirror
After years of a cat-and-mouse game, the IAEA officially declared that Iran was in breach of the Additional Protocol in September of 2005, and referred them to the UN Security Council in the process. This led to the Security Council resolutions 1696, 1737, 1747, and most recently, 1803, where the Security Council unanimously required under Chapter VII of the UN charter that Iran stop their uranium enrichment until they are in compliance with the required safeguards.
Iran never suspended their uranium enrichment, in violation of resolution 1696. The IAEA says that Iran is making progress towards compliance with the Additional Protocol, but their latest report makes it clear that Iran has not yet fully complied, and that because of this, the IAEA is "not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran's nuclear programme". Here is the money quote from paragraph 57:
The fact that you tried to turn this into an anti-American rant further underscores your ignorance on the subject. Please take a few moments to try to educate yourself before spouting off again.
Before: The private sector has $X in cash and $X in interest bearing assets in the form of securities from the Treasury
The government then forcibly takes $X from the public through taxes and transfers it to the bond holders, dissolving those interest bearing assets in the process.
After: The private sector still has $X in cash, although that cash has been redistributed from the tax payers to the bond holders. However, the private sector no longer has those treasury securities. The net result is that the public (you and I) are poorer by $X.
Fiscal responsibility requires deficit spending by the federal government. The trick is to keep the debt burdon within a "safe" range to prevent runaway inflation, and to make sure that the government spending is focused on the projects and infrastructure that are necessary to enable future economic growth.
"I had made a deliberate choice to appear before the subcommittee without medication. It seemed to me that this occasion demanded that my testimony about the effects of the disease, and the urgency we as a community were feeling, be seen as well as heard. For people who had never observed me in this kind of shape, the transformation must have been startling."
I too had a close relative pass away from Parkinson's disease, so I have seen how bad it gets. But the point is that even though the symptoms that Fox that appeared with in front of congress and in that TV commercial were caused by his condition, they were not representative of his daily life. He normally counteracts and controls some of the symptoms, but he chose not to for the TV cameras. That is manipulation.
You know, I appreciate your positive outlook, but I do think you are being naive. The time to prepare to defend yourself from a "real" threat is not when you are already standing face-to-face with it. By then its too late. At what point do you think the 9/11 attacks graduated from a perceived threat to real threat?
I think that it is pretty hard to deny that we are facing a real threats right now, as a significant series of attacks against people like us has proved. There are people out there that want to murder you and I because we don't subscribe to the same radical religious beliefs that they do. That doesn't mean that we need to cower in fear over it, but we do need to acknowledge the threat so we can address it. Maintaining a strong military is only part of the solution, but it is necessary.
Let me get this straight- you are criticizing Rush Limbaugh because you think he insults people, and you chose to do that by... insulting him?
Its been my experience that the people that most vocally accuse Limbaugh of hate speech have not formed that opinion through their own experience of listening to the show, but rather through what other media and Limbaugh's political opponents report that he said. Is that the case with you?
Lets take the Michael J Fox story that you mentioned as an example. Mr. Limbaugh stated on-air that he thought Michael Fox had exaggerated his Parkinson's symptoms in a political ad, and that he had done so for theatric benefit. It was clearly in Fox's best interest to make his disease look as debilitating as possible, and his tremors in the ad were much more pronounced than we usually saw from him. Limbaugh said that he would be the first apologize to Fox if that wasn't the case. But guess what? Rush was right. Fox later admitted that he purposely skips his medication before public events like this so people will see his worst case symptoms. Here is a video clip of him admitting this.
So was that hate speech, or was it an attempt to inject more honesty in a charged political debate? Unfortunately, the partisans have already made their minds up on the answer to that.
All sarcasm aside, the fact that you don't feel threatened is an anomaly in the history of humankind that has been brought about by those trained-to-kill people that are defending you.
So that leaves us with the stark reality that there will always be sampling error and noise in a process where 6 million people from all walks of life are required to show up during a set amount of time, stand in line, and follow specific instructions to operate equipment that only they see once a year to cast their vote. Efforts to mitigate and minimize this noise should be applauded and pursued, but the noise itself will never be eliminated. This is precisely why concrete rules must be put in place prior to an election, and why those rules must be followed to determine the winner of the election. The fact that the election was close does not change the rules. I guess you could claim that this means the system is "broken", but I notice that you didn't suggest any alternatives, so I am betting its just a case of you being a sore loser because you didn't like the outcome.
Their recount tested the results under 9 different scenarios of how overvotes and undervotes should be counted. In 4 of the scenarios (including the scenario most consistent with contemporary FL law), Bush prevailed with more votes (woo hoo for Bush supporters!). In the remaining 5, Gore won (woo hoo for Gore supporters!).
Only a blind partisan could claim that this "proves" their point of view, especially when that wasn't even the goal of the consortium that conducted the recount!
- At its heart, the semiconductor business is a manufacturing business. In many ways, a company's ability to manufacture the chips is more important than the features of the chip itself. When the larger OEMs announce that they will require 10 million units in the next quarter with DPM of less than 500, there are only a few companies that can meet that kind of demand. Intel has spent tens of billions of dollars to build their manufacturing capabilities and keep them at the leading edge. AMD, on the other hand, has made a series of strategic blunders in this regard over the past 15 years (remember the UMC debacle?). As a result, AMD's has never been able to produce the quantity and quality of product that the larger OEMs demand, and have shut themselves out of the bigger markets. You can't blame Intel for this.
- When the OEMs design products, there is a lot more involved than just picking the CPU. They need to build a whole platform, and problems anywhere in that supply chain will directly impact the OEMs ability to produce and sell that platform. So even if AMD had been able to supply the 10 million Athlon CPUs with the required defect rate to an OEM, would the OEM be able to get enough chipset components within the required defect rate as well? Once again, Intel took charge of its own destiny here as well by designing and making their own chipsets that are backed by the same manufacturing capabilities as their CPUs, and OEMs respond by using the Intel-branded chipsets 90% of the time.
- The supply of the product is one thing, but the quality is another. I'm not talking about the chip's performance, but functional bugs that cause stability issues or data corruption. Slashdot likes to joke about the Pentium FDIV bug, but the truth is that bug scared the crap out of Intel, so they throw enormous resources into their CPU and chipset validation. This translates to direct value to the OEMs in the form of faster time-to-market and lower support costs. If OEMs perceive that on company is validating their products more than the competition, they are going to be more likely to chose that company's design. Remember, this goes for any component of the platform (not just the CPU!), so a flaky northbridge from VIA or NVidia could cause an OEM to drop the AMD platform in favor of Intel as well.
In other words, even though AMD had a superior performance in the Athlon, there were other completely competitive reasons for an OEM to select Intel over AMD, and most of those are a direct result of choices that AMD made.The value of the dollar is a direct function of two things:
- The supply of dollars (in Ron Paul-speak, how many dollars have been "printed")
- The demand of dollars (i.e., the size of the economy)
Attempts to artificially tie the value of the dollar to some arbitrary and finite commodity (like gold) place impractical limits on the growth of the economy. The only way the economy can grow when the supply of money is limited in such a way is for the currency to deflate, and history shows us that deflation is analogous to throwing a wet blanket on the economy, causing everybody to suffer.
Moderate and predictable inflation is not a bad thing.
I disagree with your conclusion, but I applaud your reasoned and balanced look at the issue. I wish this kind of discourse was more the norm, where people debate and disagree without resorting to hyperbolic rhetoric and vitriol. Your post was actually the most compelling case I think I have seen that the Bush Administration "lied".
It is clear that many statements that the Bush Administration made in the lead up to the war turned out to be false. It is also the case that many statements they made were in fact true, and that Saddam's Iraq did pose a threat to the United States. It is perfectly reasonable to debate whether that threat was significant enough to justify a full scale military invasion (not many threats are that significant, after all), but an honest debate must acknowledge that this threat did exist.
As you can probably guess, I did think that the threat posed by Saddam's Iraq was significant enough to justify our invasion, and I feel that the data uncovered since then has vindicated that decision, but I accept that people will disagree with this view.
To be more specific, the Bush Administration made several claims to justify the invasion of Iraq, including:
- Saddam was in violation of the UN disarmament mandate, including resolutions 687 and 1441. This was confirmed by the Duelfer report following the invasion where the ISG reported their findings of dozens of hidden and illegal weapons programs and infrastructure that the UN had no idea existed.
- Saddam was maintaining stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. This was disproved following the invasion, as it appears that Saddam unilaterally destroyed his stockpiles following the first gulf war (the fact that he did this outside of the sights of the UN inspectors was itself another violation of his cease-fire mandate).
- Saddam was actively trying to develop nuclear weapons. This was also disproved following the invasion.
- Iraq sponsored and promoted international terrorist groups. This was also confirmed. Iraq was first placed on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 1979, and they were known to carry out terrorist attacks through the IIS and directly support dozens of terrorist groups.
- Iraq supported al Qaeda. This has been disproved-ish . You can't disprove it outright, because there is clear evidence that both al Qaeda and Iraq reached out to each other to try to form a collaborative relationship, but there is no proof that such a collaborative relationship was ever established or that they ever really worked together.
- Iraq posed a direct threat to the United States. Personally, I would say that this has been confirmed. In 2002, intelligence agencies from around the world were warning us that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks against us. That's evidence of a pretty significant threat.
- A stable and free democratic Iraq will counteract the source of the hatred in that region that has led to attacks like 9/11. Maybe we will know if this has been confirmed or disproved in 30 years.
So, while it is true that some of the pre-war claims have been disproved, it is also true that some of the pre-war claims have been confirmed. A lot of people like to point at the fact that no WMD stockpiles were found, and generalize from there that everything that the Bush Administration said prior to the invasion is false, but this is disingenuous. Iraq did pose a threat to our national security. The only thing still up for debate is whether or not this threat was large enough to justify war. I believe the threat was big enough to justify our invasion, and I respect people that disagree with this, but I have a hard time respecting a lot of the dishonest debate around the war that centers on false absolutes.A basic knowledge of economics tells me that the amount of debt that a government can support is based solely on the size of it's economy, and our debt-to-gdp ratio is currently at ~64% and falling, so in that regard we are doing quite well.
But look at the per capita GDP growth rates. From 1790-1913, real per capita GDP grew by an average of 1.45% per year. From 1913-2006, real per capita GDP grew by 2.10%, and remember that this period includes the Great Depression.Well, I think there is a lot more to the success or failure of an entire civilization than just it's economy, but I guess that is a different discussion.
Nobody claims that the GDP is a perfect measure of an economy, but it is the best broad measurement that we have, so I don't think that any honest discussion can just dismiss the number.I disagree. The only way you can prosper with the GDP decreasing is if your population and resource requirements are also decreasing- otherwise people start starving.Yikes- sorry about that. More evidence that I shouldn't post past my bedtime
Here is a link to that video, btw.
I have also seen that Money as Debt cartoon before, and it isn't quite as conspiratorial. I still didn't like how they treat the subject like a big secret that nobody talks about when I learned about it in my freshmen econ class years ago.
http://eh.net/hmit/gdp/
http://measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/ Perfect. You have constructed another argument where the facts don't matter. How about instead of blindly labeling any contrarian data as "bullshit", suggest some alternate means of measuring the economy, or better yet, explain exactly what aspect of the GDP measurements you find inaccurate.Where on earth did you get that idea? Even that propaganda video that you are pimping every chance you get talks about some periods of heavy unemployment in the 1800s that led to civil unrest. You know- when those evil illuminati were executing their nefarious plans for world domination.You are right. I had plugged the numbers in from 1790-1913 (when the Federal Reserve was created) to get that statistic. It looks like the extra years on both ends did skew the results, and the period from 1800-1899 was net deflationary.
That said, take a look at this graph comparing GDP growth and inflation rates from 1790-1913. The correlation between deflation and economic contractions is almost perfect. To claim that the economy thrived when the currency deflated is misleading, to say the least.Its been a while since I watched the video. I remember such sound arguments as:
- The Rothschilds were the richest and most powerful family in the world during the 19th century, and we have "no evidence" that this has changed, so they are still the richest and most powerful family in the world.
- The evil bankers did not like President Lincoln's plans for the national currency, so John Wilkes Booth was obviously a mercenary hired by them to assassinate the President.
Its classic conspiracy theory- impossible to disprove, but don't mistake that for proof that it is true.The United States did not become the world's largest economy until after WWII. The economy in the 19th century was wild, with massive swings in employment, GDP growth, and inflation. It was not uncommon for the economy would grow by 20+% one year, only to contract by 15% 2 years later (1813 and 1815, for example). The average nominal GDP growth for that century was only around 4.5% compared that to almost 7% since then (and that includes the Great Depression!).
This is incorrect. Between 1790-1913, the annualized inflation rate was around .1%, which is very low, but still positive. With only one exception, every deflationary period during the 19th century time corresponded directly with an economic contraction. The exception to this is the years 1866-1878, where there were 12 years of sustained deflation (the longest deflationary period on record) but GDP growth remained positive. This period is an outlier in our economic history, and not a basic rule like you claim.
Of course a bond is a loan, but the mechanism which public debt increases the money supply is different from private debt. When the government holds an auction to sell securities, it transfers $X from the public to the government (in exchange for $X worth of interest bearing assets). This alone would actually decrease the money supply if it weren't for the fact that the government does not maintain a cash account, so it turns around and spends the $X, putting the money back in the private sector (although to different people that it borrowed the money from). The end result is that the private sector still has $X and they have $X worth of interest bearing assets in the form of treasury securities.
I have seen that video before, and I do not like it. It is classic conspiratorial propaganda- just enough fact so you can't accuse them of outright lying, but dressed up with the most inflammatory language possible and reaching conclusions not supported by the facts. I found it to be an appeal to emotion rather than to reason, and I don't like that.
I have no idea who you are referring to here (who has supported ad hominem attacks in this thread?), but the idea that slashdot of all places (the cesspool of online discourse) is somehow too dignified for ad hominem attacks made me chuckle.
You just did it again. It is possible to understand the macroeconomic impacts of fractional reserve lending, and disagree with benzapp at the same time. You have to stop assuming that anybody that disagrees with you is just ignorant.
No one is buying our treasuries? Today's Treasury auction for 5 year notes attracted over $37 billion worth of competitive bids. This was about $2 billion more than last month's auction (before the Fed announced the cut in the target rate), and about the same as the auction held in September 2006. Oh, and the interest rate from today's auction was 4.25%, which is only 1/8% higher than last month, and a full .
Some inflation is desireable, and the reasons why are simple: sustained economic growth when the currency is deflating is next to impossible. Nobody wants to borrow money today that they are going to pay back with more expensive dollars in the future. As a result, productivity and capital investments drop, and the economy stagnates. The opposite is true when the currency inflates. The key is to keep inflation predictable so people can plan for it.No, thats not the only way that the money supply is increased. The US treasury dept increases the money supply when it auctions securities to the public. The FOMC can also increase the money supply through its open market operations.Your loaded terminology is betraying you. Implicit in our system is the assumption that loans and investments drive future economy growth. If the money supply grows by $y, and the resulting activity increases our economy by $y, then nothing has been "stolen".I guess its a lot easier to argue an opinion if you just blithely dismiss anybody that disagrees with you as being ignorant.