Posted on 08/06/2005 3:18:34 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
Unfortunately, Nixon is gone but the Carter and the Keynesians are still with us. Carter, with his soft-headed "don't hit them back - it will only make them madder" weenieboy pacification. The Keynesians with their idiotic manipulation of the value of our money. Both still plague us today.
When President Nixon in August 1971 made the decision to devalue the dollar against gold, to $42 from $35 per ounce, he repudiated the national debt by 20% and made inevitable the general rise in prices that rippled through the galaxy of all prices. This was bad enough, but it still left an unreliable fixed point in the dollar realm. The nation still had a standard of measure, suspect though it was. In 1973, Nixon went the next step and -- with gold now at $140 per ounce -- "floated the dollar." This meant the nation's Polaris would now drift in the sky. All Americans would have to spend considerably more time and energy in calculating prices in relation to their wages, savings, and their present and future needs.....
Worse, the conservative Keynesians who advised Nixon in 1969 had persuaded him to sharply increase the capital gains tax to 48%. As a result, when the price inflation rippled through the system following the 1971 devaluation, it caused the real rate of capital taxation to soar. The economy slowed further, its decline masked by nominal increases in wages, prices and Gross National Product. When President Jimmy Carter arrived in 1977, gold was still at roughly $140, four times its Bretton Woods price. As Robert Mundell had predicted, by now the world price of oil had quadrupled as well, "black gold" adjusting to the gold Polaris.
In the four Carter years, the gold price quadrupled again, spending much of 1980 above $600 as interest rates climbed to their highest levels in U.S. history. It made not the slightest difference that Carter presented a "balanced budget" in January 1980. By the time Paul Volcker had arrived as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in July 1979, the price of gold was being totally disregarded as a monetary signal and was already up to $237. Without the Polaris, Volcker and the Carter Treasury began pushing buttons and pulling levers, hoping something would work. They tried credit controls, a switch of monetary targets, "jawboning" or "moral suasion," and raising the federal funds rate which the Fed controls. It did everything but drain surplus liquidity from the market -- the one thing that would have worked. Indeed, in the fall of 1979, Volcker advised Congress that because the economy would grow faster in 1980 than had earlier been anticipated, it would need more liquidity! The price of gold jumped to $850 at its peak on February 1, 1980.
I occasionally put on my mental Hazmat suit and jump over to see where the DU crowd sits on certain issues. Whenever Carter is mentioned in any context its like they get down on their knees facing Georgia and begin bowing to him like the Messiah or something. To most of the atheists on that board he is the closest thing to a God they know.
I have been banned over there so many times I am running out of free e-mail accounts and log in names. If you post logic and facts all in one post about Carter you get zapped faster than 2 shakes of a environmentalists finger at a chainsaw.
Also, remember the "misery index?"....combining interest rates, unemployment rates, etc....a whopping big number.....
Carter remains one of the 2 worst "do-nothing" presidents of modern times.
The quality of an administration is inversely proportional to the task it leaves for its successors:
- After Johnson, it was necessary to
- admit (political) defeat in Vietnam
- stop the draft and rebuild military morale and efficiency
- get welfare and other entitlements under control
- transcend communism.
- After Carter, it was necessary to
- confront Islamist miitancy
- get welfare and other entitlements under control
- rebuild military morale
- get the country going again
- whip inflation
- end the energy crisis and
- transcend communism.
- After Clinton, it was necessary to
- confront Islamist militancy
- get the country going again and
- clean out Chinese and other socialist moles everywhere in the government.
I'd have to put Johnson at the top. The damage he did still hasn't been repaired.
When I came back from Iran, I actually voted for Carter to be re-elected!
I had no clue about politics, and thought it was too late to invade them anyways, I spent 53 days doing circles off the Iranian coast, then the rescue attempt, we just slid back home in tears.
Then, I believed too much in the media's lies about Reagan, and knew we didnt have the Military then to do what they kept telling us Reagan would do, so...
and I'm sorry.
It's a still a mystery to me how Reagan was able to carry Massachusetts twice.
..watch his eyes. This guy is a nut case. I've been observing him for years, ever since I lived in Atlanta and he ran for Governor, winning the election over some local one legged newshawk.
Minnesota: The 1980 win was directly attributable to native son Walter Mondale being on the VP ticket. As liberal as Mondale is, I must say he is extremely likable. I met him while he was ambassador to Japan and I must say I came away deeply impressed with his genuine, cordial nature.
By 1984, however, even Mondale could only eek out a 4000 vote victory against Reagan. Many experts believe that Reagan would have gotten a 50 state sweep with only one more visit to Minnesota. As it was, his sole visit to the state was on election eve about 11 p.m. to the small city of Rochester. The crowd absolutely loved him. I must also observe that the 1984 presidential debates were probably the best ever. Mondale didn't try to play a war hero (though he had served honorably in Korea), nor disguise his liberalism. While Mondale was charming and Reagan stumbled a bit in the first debate, the great one came back with charm of his own, humor and hard-hitting facts in the next debate that left little doubt as to the election outcome.
Carter isn't treasonous on purpose. The saddest aspect of his existence is he really believes he represents the best of America. Today, Carter serves as a constant reminder, along with Bill Clinton, of how incompetent Democrats are and that they should never be elected to run the country.
I'd like to say something nice about James Earl Carter now.
I'd like to
I really would
Sorry can't think of anything.
Me too, I voted for him just because he was from Georgia. Little did I know how bad that was going to turn out! Now I cring every time he gets in front of a T.V. camera.
{Jimmy take a hint, JUST GO AWAY!}
As a failure he was a flop. Maybe his mother was on to something when she said that Billy was the smart one.
Clinton was saved by losing congress in the 1993 election. Once adults were in power, the kids had problems in having their way with us.
CringE
I never felt that he ran the white house, I always felt that Miss Lillian (his mama) told him what to do....it wouldn't surprise me if he asked his mama what to wear day in and day out...I don't think his wife had anything to say in that marriage until "MAMA" died....
Jimmy is just a plain ole screwball big time!!!!
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