Posted on 06/18/2006 7:49:43 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
---I'm not sure what the problem with that really is...I think a prosperous country CAN find a way to do this....while an impoverished country chooses to treat its manual laboreres as disposable.---
Essentially, you can have cheap labor and a high tax, big government model or you can have more expensive labor and a low tax, small government model. I don't see any other way out of this in a humane, enlightened manner. What we are doing now with illegal immigrants is trying to both have and eat our cake. It is not sustainable.
Is there any doubt that Bush's way is the way ultimately of higher taxes and bigger government? How else would we even administer this "guest worker" program, much less the social, medical, and educational services?
US divided by superhighway plan--A MASSIVE road four football fields wide and running from Mexico to Canada through the heartland of the United States...
Check out mises.org and review a few of the articles or online books. Several articles have exceptional histories of why we went off the gold standard and what the ultimate effect will be. It boils down to credit expansion of the economy. A free market is less easily subject to governmental manipulation than one controlled by a central bank. The central bank, once in charge of what 'money' is, can manipulate it through interest rates. Lower rates and, to a point, you get economic expansion and inflation, which makes excessive government spending more palatable and easier to repay. (Because it will be paid off in deflated currency.)
I hope everyone will scream to their Senators, their Representatives, their Governors and their local government officials to fight against this deliberate destruction of the American middle class.
Bush has no right to do this to America, like a coward, behind our backs, and I believe it is an impeachable offense.
there are moral AND economic components to the existence of a middle-class....much of the world's leadership is in a perpetual snit over the power of the American middle-class that has devolved from the original form of American government wich two generations of bipartisan "leadership" has been trying to destroy...to the cheers of the "enlightened"
hedgetrimmer:
I certainly agree with your comment about the inflexibility of government employees, but I'm not sure I can agree with the idea that a more competitive government would have to disappear. In any case...
Regarding your "...the fundamental purpose of this nation, to protect individual rights in nation of self governing citizens" and "People should be able to change if that is what they desire...." You seem to be saying that individuals should not have to deal with market forces if they chose not to. In addition, those "self-governing" individuals should be able to tell their government to protect them from market forces.
If you, as an individual, want to opt out of the market forces, then something has to give. Either you lose your job (as I did), or you force some kind of protectionism on parts of the economy. The eventual result of this would be a lot like France, today. Once a job becomes "for life," hiring falls, the ability to be more efficient/productive by making changes becomes much harder, labor costs go up, everything is more expensive so the general standard of living declines (relatively), and your economy declines (at least relatively). Sounds a lot like what labor did to General Motors (although General Motor's short-term managment took the easy way out and allowed it to happen).
Should the government "create catastrophes?" No, but it also should not promote the kind of protectionism (except for protecting direct national defense...and I don't mean defense against the globalism) you seem to be promoting. John F. Kennedy said that a rising tide lifts all boats (i.e. a rising economy leaves everyone better off), but protectionism reduces the height of the tide leaving the few protected boats sitting higher than the rest who can't rise as much as otherwise (to strain a metaphor).
claudiustg:
I think we could deal with immigration in a sustainable manner. We could limit immigration: 1) to those who are willing to assimilate (must get a job, learn English, etc.), and 2) to provide a base of "starting out" workers (assuming we don't have enough already). I agree that Bush's spend-like-there-is-no-tomorrow policies drive me nuts, but if we can get spending controlled a rising economy will help lower the deficits...if the government hasn't already committed us to too many future handouts.
Hey, the important thing is that gays can't get married.
Anyway, making a right of way big enough for oil pipelines from Texas to Canada is kind of silly. In the future we will be getting all of our bio-diesel and other fuels from cellulose processing plants in Northern Indiana, while our raw hydrocarbons are going to be shipped in via pipelines direct from Alberta where, in a very short time as these things go, over half the Canadian population will be living.
Wake up and go back to sleep.
Yes, we could limit immigration to levels that can be assimilated into our current social structure, but then we won't get the much cheaper wages that characterizes the current uncontrolled illegal immigration.
Under Bush's proposed guest worker plan, the problem is that we are talking huge numbers of both legal and illegal workers. They will have to be subsidized by the taxpayers with a tremendous increase government provided services. Else we could just lock them out of the hospitals and schools I suppose.
Bush's big spending now is just a drop in the bucket, compared to what the cost of his immigration policies will be down the line. Sure, in 3 or 4 decades the rising economic tide might kick in and float all our boats, but no case for this grand scheme has been adequately presented to the American people.
Congress has the power to regulate commerce.
The nightmare known as the North American Union...
I might suggest first that if there isn't enough gold, then there certainly should be enough debt (that is what paper money is) but even with the massive amount of debt that has been created, GM and many other companies are indicating problems meeting their obligations to their pensioners. That shouldn't be. See there wasn't enough gold, so we started using debt based money, lots of it, and we promised it to the pensioners. And now we don't have enough? My take is when we use debt as money, that is when there is never enough. But that there is enough when we use gold, the right way. Get on the web and look at the growth of the cities in the 1800s to 1900, see the fine architecture. Some of the most beautiful fanciest homes were built, not the ugly MacMansions that pass for architecture today. There may have been some panics, some recessions, some banks closing, but that is normal and it does no one a favor artificially keeping a bank open that is run by incompetent management. Otherwise, a largely gold and silver oriented money economy with reasonable levels of private debt resulted in a magnificent growth of the American economy. There was a time when we did it right.
You might read, for your research, The Creature From Jekyll Island. In there somewhere is an explanation how JP Morgan arranged for much metallic money to be shipped out of the U.S. and to Great Britian because GB was hurting for money after the Great War. Then when our stock market bubble collapsed, we were starved for real money which we needed to reset the economy. GB had our money. FDR forced us on to debt based money after that and we accepted it because that was the only way out. If JP Morgan had not sent our gold to GB, we might still be using gold and silver today.
Yes, an economy can be starved for gold. There can be situations where there isn't enough gold. GB experienced it and we experienced it, the hard way.
But that is not the same thing as asking is there enough gold. See? Think of when we did have enough, 1800-1900.
First we have to make sure we have some gold, and enough however much that will be, but it will be within the limits of what we have. Done right....the market will determine how much everything is worth in terms of gold. Ratios will arise naturally, and you will know how much gold will buy a house, a car, groceries for the month, braces, private school, etc.
The nice thing would be that in order for the one world government people to get financing they'd have to take it from you and you wouldn't tolerate the taking. As it is today, they can force you, without your knowledge, to finance their agenda by borrowing unbacked credit from the central bank. You pay the silent insidious tax of inflation and do not connect it with what they are doing.
Which reminds me of your question: "I wonder if there is enough gold in the world to back the vastly increased wealth that has been created since the Constitution was written?" What? Our money is unbacked. All the wealth you are thinking of is unbacked by unbacked money. I'm not sure what you meant to ask but it wasn't the way you asked it.
For your research, start here: gold and economic freedom by Alan Greenspan
Setting the stage that bad boy is gonna prance on...
I do not believe Hitler thought he doing his evil deeds for the good of the people. He was an insane mass murderer.
But I'll comment. The thing about the modern economy, perhaps I concede there should be sophisticated mechanisms of credit between private entities that allow the flexability ours allows.
But why must the currency itself be debt based? A debt based currency is forced on us by our government. The islands of Gurnsey and Jersey ran a debt free system of money that was very successful. The government would print money, use it to pay for a legitimate public work project (not a damn bridge that goes nowhere) and that money would circulate debt free in the islands, and was receivable for taxes. It worked. I'm not against something like that. Further, to be only for gold and silver coins is a mercantile mentality that I don't necessarily endorse. I just want equity, and a preservation of this Republic.
We labor under a deficit, a national debt, the IRS, none of which the people like very much, why?
Visit Bermuda sometime, it is beautiful, and there is no IRS, no income tax, little if any debt.
Finally, "Gold and silver remains useful as a currency only of last resort," yes. Thank you for saying that. Gold and silver is where everyone runs when the inherent flaws of our modern money system show themselves and people are afraid where they are invested is not safe as when they bought in. What we might be able to agree on is that fiduciary monies allow beneficial modern economic phenomenon to occur which wouldn't occur with gold and silver, but also contain risks that gold and silver don't have. People will, just like a child testing the world, building confidence as he grows, take ever greater risks with debt and explore more exotic types of doing business, i.e., credit derivatives, and still, like a child, who gets to far from mom and dad, gets scared when a crisis develops, and goes running back to silver and gold. It is a cycle.
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