I’m volunteering a new slogan for his campaign
Ron Paul 2008
Crazy for America

The best thing you can say about Ron Paul is he’s not nearly as insane as his supporters.

Hey lets click on that link and visit something awful.. Oh wait.. I have to participate in the both bat shit insane and brilliant measure of paying for forum access.

Pass.

I’m amazed at the amount of real hate that goes into American Politics these days.

There is some very real, very scary hate out there.

Then there is Ron Paul.

I like Ron Paul’s honesty and I actually agree with him on several issues.

If I don’t vote for Rudi I’ll probably Vote for Paul.

But enough about Ron Paul, let’s talk about the real candidates.

How’s Alan Keyes doing?

Can we start spinning this guy a little more to the left? I prefer Nader to Perot….

Yes, Ron Paul’s message is scary. The truth often is.

Look into how much we are in debt and the interest we owe. Check out how much we are spending on these wars. We borrow piles of money from people that hate us and turn around and give it to other people that hate us. THAT is scary.

How many other candidates have a solution to this problem? No, covering your eyes will not make it go away.

Astlin

>>>Mr. Paul has stood out from the Republican field for his opposition to the war in Iraq. In the speech he argues that the fight against terrorism is threatening American democracy. “The American Republic is in remnant status,” he says. “The stage is set for our country eventually devolving into military dictatorship, and few seem to care.”<<<

Yep. I’d agree with him on both of those counts.

They said that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it, but studying history made me too cynical to care.

People seem to forget that “President” does not mean “King.” It’s certainly true that Bush managed to amass a great deal of power during his first term, but those circumstances were decidedly abnormal.

How does this relate to Ron Paul? Well, if he somehow did manage to be elected as President, the only real practical effect is that he would veto every single spending bill Congress put on his desk. He might get us out of Iraq, because that stance is so incredibly popular now, but he wouldn’t have Congress’s support for any of his more radical views.

And what would happen in Congress? They’d have a pretty simple choice – break party ranks to find legislation that’s sane enough to override a veto, or be willing to get absolutely nothing done for 4 years. Hell, I’d say the American people win in either scenario.

Would I want Ron Paul running the country? Hell no. But given how horrendous our legislation has been for the past two terms, I’d welcome 4 straight years of vetoes with open arms.

If you want polluted air and water, vote for Ron Paul.
If you want untested drugs on the market, vote for Ron Paul.
If you don’t think women have the right to their own bodies, vote for Ron Paul.
If all you care about is lower taxes, vote for Ron Paul.

Those who study history are doomed to watch it repeat.

I would like to like Ron Paul, but the abortion thing’s a deal killer. Fuck off, kind sir.

‘Yeah, he’s sponsored legislation to do away with the Federal Reserve,”

he is?

what a nut

yeah, let’s go back to the days when Morgan and a few super rich bankers ran the country, and we had bank runs, people losing everything because their banks went belly up. sure, real smart.

it’s like the anti-Fed nuts that deliberately misread Wilson when he complained the country was hijacked to “small groups of powerful men” – he was talking about Morgan, just before he signed to create the Fed. We don’t want to go back.

Ron Paul’s views on abortion really cramp my style. It would really make it more difficult for me to date hot mormon chicks without having to pay child support.

Oh, and I love the people that actually believe that if Ron Paul is voted in as president that Congress will just bend over backwards to help him actually deliver on his promises. Ron Paul as president would truly be four years of governmental deadlock.

Yeah, the gold standard and Fed thing is what takes him straight to ‘loon’ in my book. Maybe he has valid notions about it, but the very idea that you could go -back- to those systems after being off them for so long, and the massive costs that would incur, is bizarre.

BTW, I’m not particularly incensed about his view on abortion – while he’s vehemently against it, he’s not calling for it to be banned on a nationwide basis, rather having it remanded to the states for judicial adjudication. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, particularly since the average driving distance when calculating abortion availability has been found to be not that much different among states that would be most likely ban abortion.

“Oh, and I love the people that actually believe that if Ron Paul is voted in as president that Congress will just bend over backwards to help him actually deliver on his promises. Ron Paul as president would truly be four years of governmental deadlock.”

Nothing makes me happier than political gridlock.
When people complain about congress not doing anything I think about what the previous congress did and pray for more gridlock.

@Yunk: “yeah, let’s go back to the days when Morgan and a few super rich bankers ran the country, and we had bank runs, people losing everything because their banks went belly up. sure, real smart.”

Those bank runs occurred during the Depression. Can you guess why they happened? Fractional reserve. Can you guess why that exists? The Federal Reserve, which was created in 1913.

Smart. Real smart.

You are not.

Unhinged is definitely the word.

The only reason Nixon abandon the gold standard was because we refused to balance the trade deficit; which resulted in our trade partners exchanging all their surplus dollars for gold. Basically they were removing all the gold from our reserves.

The gold standard worked very well keeping inflation in check because new gold isn’t added to circulation without first mining it; which is slow. Given the current rate of new gold being mined it’s estimated inflation was 1% – 2% per year with the gold standard.

Our current paper money isn’t backed by anything other that the US governments promise to pay it back at some point in the future. If you have been following the price of things like oil, gold and foreign currencies you’d notice they are all going up in value compared to the dollar which isn’t worth anything.

Inflation is estimated to be over 10% in the US, however the “crazy” government doesn’t take into account things like food and energy when it calculates inflation. In fact just about every number posted by the federal government concerning the economy has been adjusted for political reasons.

This country hasn’t had a balanced budget in decades, and Clinton didn’t balance the budget he just stolen huge amounts of money from the social security fund so he (for political reasons) could say that he generated a surplus, because we are going more and more into debit every day and our interest rates are low to prevent a total economic meltdown the dollar is rapidly losing value.

The only reason the dollar had value was because other countries were willing to hold it as a reserve currency. What happens when no one wants to hold dollars anymore? It drops and you get gold at $840 and oil headed to $100.

Yesterday I read that Citibank, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, was technically insolvent. This means they didn’t have enough cash on hand to meet federal requirements to open for business; they should have failed. However the federal reserve can’t let that happen so they print of billions of dollars and give it to the banks so they don’t become insolvent and fail.

Our current fiat monetary system is going to fail; no one knows when though. The only people who can fix the system are the politicians who make the budget.

Now I’d like to point out that on the gold standard you can’t get run away inflation because the gold supply is limited, and trade deficits automatically correct themselves because they are unsustainable do to the fact that you run out of gold and your money supply shrinks.

There is a lot to be said for the gold standard and you should so some serious reading on the topic instead of assuming that some of the smartest economists in the world are total idiots for wanting to return to that model.

Also if we were to return to a gold standard the government would, and did in the past, confiscate all gold. You wouldn’t get 10x – 15x market you’d get the fixed exchange rate set by the government.

It’s also laughable to think that economists responsible for a return to the gold standard would be so stupid as to let the process cripple the country. Besides we can’t return to the gold standard without fixing the trade deficit and budget; otherwise you end up in the same situation Nixon found himself. I guarantee if you offered china dollars or gold for their exports they would take the gold.

Here is an article by Alan Greenspan outline an easy method for returning to the gold standard.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/greenspan011098.html

This is an interesting read, it outlines fiat currency failures throughout history.

“The history of fiat money, to put it kindly, has been one of failure. In fact, EVERY fiat currency since the Romans first began the practice in the first century has ended in devaluation and eventual collapse, of not only the currency, but of the economy that housed the fiat currency as well.”

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/fiathistoryWP.html

I think the people running the bank (citi) should all be fired. The way it is now they can continue to do grossly irresponsible things knowing full well they are to large to ever be allowed to fail. CEOs don’t seem to give a shit they get their severance package either way. That can’t be a good thing.

Given our level of debt, wars, sub-prime problem, trade deficit, fed rating cuting and the fed money creation/injection there is serious inflation problems and it will get worse.

The only reason the system hasn’t totally failed is because other countries are willing to finance our debt. I have to assume at some point dollars will be so worthless that no one will want them. Which means the federal government won’t be able to even function and the economy will stall/fail?

Clearly the gold standard has some pros and cons and I don’t think a return to the same system is possible or entirely desirable. However the current system will fail and I think people calling for a return to the gold standard are just looking for a way out.

“For the past few decades, the U.S. has enjoyed an historically unique position. As the most powerful nation in an increasingly globalized world, its currency, the dollar, is in demand as a store of value. That is, investors and central banks in other countries want to hold dollars as alternatives to their own, presumably less stable currencies. This insatiable demand for dollars has handed U.S. consumers and governments a virtually unlimited credit card. And we’ve spent the past two decades maxing it out.

The U.S. is now the world’s biggest debtor nation, and our current economic expansion is only possible because Japan, China, and Europe are willing to finance our trade deficit by, in effect, lending us $500 billion a year. They do this by taking the dollars we pay for their Toyotas, French wine and Chinese electronics, and using them to buy U.S. bonds and other financial assets.

When foreign investors and central banks stop demanding dollars, U.S. bond prices will fall, which is another way of saying that U.S. interest rates will rise. Mortgage and credit card rates will soar, bursting the housing bubble. Home prices in hot markets like California and New York will fall by 50% or more in a matter of months, bankrupting millions of over-extended homeowners. The U.S. government will respond by opening the monetary floodgates, printing as many paper dollars as necessary to keep the economy from collapsing. This surge in supply will send the value of the dollar through the floor. Prices for most things will skyrocket, and people whose life savings are in cash, bank CDs or dollar-denominated bonds, will be wiped out. Most U.S. consumer finance companies will be ruined, along with their stockholders.”

I’m still worried about the kittens, myself.

If you want a gold standard, stop whining already. Thankfully, because of the very abandonment of the gold standard, it is quite legal to buy and sell gold as a private citizen. Transfer all your savings into Gold except for whatever working cash you need day to day. The inflationary loss on your working cash is negligible leaving you unaffected by the Fed’s decision to print more bills.

Personally, I tried the Gold standard ten years ago. Then some dupers dropped the bottom out of UOs economy and I lost my shirt. I’m sticking to paper now.

Re: abortion and other non-enumerated federal issues

Ron Paul claims to be keen on trimming back the federal government to its Constitutional limits. All these controversial buzzwords being thrown about over abortion, fetal stem cells, etc. are quite a moot point: all federal laws governing those would be revoked, and the matter would be left to the states. Funding for fetal stem cell research would simply not come from the federal government – no, wait, from YOUR pocket… unless you want it to, since the IRS will be out of business and you’ll have an extra 30% or so of your money back in your own pocket.

Politics again become more focussed locally, not dictated primarily by the West and East coasts.