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The Trade Deficit: An Austrian Perspective
Ludwig von Mises Institute ^ | November 24, 2005 | Thorsten Polleit

Posted on 03/21/2006 10:08:04 AM PST by Marxbites

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To: Strategerist

I would love to hear you propound on the uselessness of a metals backed currency versus one the Fed'l Reserve can inflate at will going on 100 years now.

Tell us all how the Fed was the great idea of patriots and NOT that of the banking cartel who spent over 10 years getting it created.

Tell us all how good it was when FDR confiscated gold "temporarily" until the "crisis" passed, when folks were promised the gold notes they got were going to be redeemable in gold for the same amount they tendered.

Then tell us why FDR arbitrarily raised spot gold once Govt had it all, thus devaluing the dollar and INCREASING GOVT'S ABILITY TO SPEND on whatever the F it wanted to?

Tell us all how it was not all the same grand scheme of currency devaluation used throughout history for elites to concentarte their wealth at the people's expense, and how inopportune it was, but just in time, to pay for WWI that Wilson (Rockefeller's bought boy) campaigned he would under no circumstances get us into?

Then tell us how the historical scholars most credible to America's right, and most hated by the left, all seem to finger WWI as the direct cause of WWII.

Then tell us those good ole bankers who financed both sides of both wars were just interested in a stable American economy, but trashed the constitution to do it for our own good.

But first do yourself a favor and watch this please:

http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram
The Constitution was written and ratified to secure liberty through limited government. Central to its design were two principles: federalism and economic liberty. But at the beginning of the 20th century, Progressives began a frontal assault on those principles. Drawing on the new social sciences and a primitive understanding of economic relationships, their efforts reached fruition during the New Deal when the Constitution was essentially rewritten, without benefit of amendment. In a new Cato book, Richard Epstein traces this history, showing how Progressives replaced competitive markets with government-created cartels and monopolies. Please join us for a discussion of the roots of modern government in the Progressive Era.


41 posted on 03/22/2006 11:20:29 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: georgia2006

As well he should these days!

Ah, but IYHO, what is to made of a press rolling, tail chasing Federal Reserve that is directly responsible for EVERY boom/bust cycle this nation has seen over nearly 100 years, starting with the Great Depression they created, but which was conveniently tho wrongly blamed on capitalism to fool Americans into accepting unlimited Govt by the very SAME people who fought ten years to get the Fed created and thus their hands on the control of America's capital?

http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram

See what real economists say about the Fed here:

mises.org


42 posted on 03/22/2006 11:33:11 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: georgia2006

You just might want to better explore the reasons the Founders did NOT want banks that were NOT controlled by the people.

Mises.org has tons of arguments against the Fed and the fiat currency it's given us that they can inflate at their will and which we the people have zero control over - the Feds stock shares owned exclusively by select American elites and Foreign banking cartels.

You certainly aren't hep to history's lessons of tyrannts debasement of currencies as one of their greatest weapons, like taxation, against the people they rule versus represent.


43 posted on 03/22/2006 11:40:16 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: Paul Ross

Why boost in exports due to currency depreciation cannot grow the economy

When a central bank announces a loosening in its monetary stance, this leads to a quick response by the participants in the foreign exchange market through selling the domestic currency in favor of other currencies, thereby leading to domestic currency depreciation. In response to this, various producers now find it more attractive to boost their exports. In order to fund the increase in production, producers approach commercial banks, which on account of a rise in central bank monetary pumping are happy to expand their credit at lower interest rates.

By means of new credit producers can now secure resources required to expand their production of goods in order to accommodate growing overseas demand. In other words, by means of newly created credit producers divert real resources from other activities. As long as domestic prices remain intact, exporters will record an increase in profits.

However, the so-called improved competitiveness on account of currency depreciation means that the citizens of a country are now getting less real imports for a given amount of real exports. In short, while the country is getting rich in terms of foreign currency, it is getting poor in terms of real wealth, i.e., in terms of the goods and services required for maintaining peoples' life and well-beings. As time goes by however, the effects of loose monetary policy filters through a broad spectrum of prices of goods and services and ultimately undermine exporters profits. In short, a rise in prices puts to an end the illusory attempt to create economic prosperity out of thin air. According to Ludwig von Mises,

The much talked about advantages which devaluation secures in foreign trade and tourism, are entirely due to the fact that the adjustment of domestic prices and wage rates to the state of affairs created by devaluation requires some time. As long as this adjustment process is not yet completed, exporting is encouraged and importing is discouraged. However, this merely means that in this interval the citizens of the devaluating country are getting less for what they are selling abroad and paying more for what they are buying abroad; concomitantly they must restrict their consumption. This effect may appear as a boon in the opinion of those for whom the balance of trade is the yardstick of a nation's welfare. In plain language it is to be described in this way: The British citizen must export more British goods in order to buy that quantity of tea which he received before the devaluation for a smaller quantity of exported British goods.

Contrast the policy of currency depreciation with a conservative policy where money is not expanding. Under these conditions, when the pool of real wealth is expanding, the purchasing power of money will follow suit. This, all other things being equal, will lead to currency appreciation. With the expansion in the production of goods and services and falling prices and thus production costs, local producers can improve their competitiveness and profitability in overseas markets while the currency is actually appreciating. Within the framework of loose monetary policy exporters' temporary gains are at the expense of other activities in the economy, within the framework of a tight monetary stance gains are not at any one's expense but just the manifestation of real wealth generation.

excerpted from: http://www.mises.org/story/1345


44 posted on 03/22/2006 11:55:40 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: expat_panama

I agree.

The comparative advantage of low cost producers in free trading markets raises everyone's stds of living.


45 posted on 03/22/2006 11:57:36 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: expat_panama

It will cost the Chinese in less sales too.


46 posted on 03/22/2006 11:58:45 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: 1rudeboy

Dead wrong again as usual eh?


47 posted on 03/22/2006 12:00:40 PM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: Marxbites
Interesting. The currency devaluation is the only thing the traders have in their arsenal to argue that 'things will adjust' and 'stay in balance.'

I have long flagged this as a stupid, cut-off-your-nose to spite-your-face kind of approach to solve a real problem of rapidly ratcheting up levels of dependency on enemy states that have not been properly so identified.

Bilateral adjustments are best. Their government intervenes to totally unhinge the playing field for their benefit. Our government needs to counter it.

A general depreciation of the U.S. dollar...the blunderbuss approach... is simply catastrophic for the net savings and investments of the U.S.

This is what our enemies want to happen. They want to weaken us. But this depreciation is something that will happen unavoidably unless something is done...U.S. interest payments owed and outflowing to foreign nations has already passed what the U.S. is receiving. And every time the debt is increased, and the foreign nations increase their position in the debt instruments of the country, national state and corporate...we are looking at a future liquidity crisis. Bananna Republic stuff that has long been well understood...but strangely not by the faux traders.

And your analysis implies that there are those actively seeking to accomplish it here. Enemies within and without. Savage was right!

48 posted on 03/22/2006 2:11:37 PM PST by Paul Ross (Hitting bullets with bullets successfully for 35 years!)
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To: Marxbites

""You just might want to better explore the reasons the Founders did NOT want banks that were NOT controlled by the people.""


so the founders were communists??? that's the first time ive ever heard that.


49 posted on 03/22/2006 4:13:05 PM PST by georgia2006
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To: Paul Ross

""Tell it to G.E. or Bechtel, and the whole raft of other Fortune 500 multinationals falling all over themselves to close U.S. operations and relocate them to these nations.""


youre an absolute ignoramous....if labor costs alone made a nation competitive, Germany would have no factories and Haiti all of them


50 posted on 03/22/2006 4:14:53 PM PST by georgia2006
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To: Marxbites

It was a joke, n00b.


51 posted on 03/22/2006 4:43:51 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: georgia2006

Of course not, but they in no way shape or form wanted fiat currency. I think the article the below excerpt is from explains why the Fed is unconstitutional very well. IMHO it's called property rights, when the Fed inflates our money they lower it's purchasing power, that's theft in my book. Plus it's the mechanism Congress needed to deficit spend - the reason this pig is so bloated and a circumstance the founders abhored.

http://www.mises.org/mysteryofbanking/mysteryofbanking.pdf

Given this dismal monetary and banking situation, given a 39:1 pyramiding of checkable deposits and currency on top of gold, given a Fed unchecked and out of control, given a world of fiat moneys, how can we possibly return to a sound noninflationary market money? The objectives, after the discussion in this work, should be clear: (a) to return to a gold standard, a commodity standard unhampered by government intervention; (b) to abolish the Federal Reserve System and return to a system of free and competitive banking; (c) to separate the government from money; and (d) either to enforce 100% reserve banking on the commercial banks, or at least to arrive at a system where any bank, at the slightest hint of nonpayment of its demand lia bilities, is forced quickly into bankruptcy and liquidation. While the outlawing of fractional reserve
as fraud would be preferable if it could be enforced, the problems of enforcement, especially where banks can continually innovate in forms of credit, make free banking an attractive alternative. But how to achieve this system, and as rapidly as humanly possible? First, a gold standard must be a true gold standard, that is, the dollar must be redeemable on demand not only in gold bullion, but also in full-bodied gold coin, the metal in which the dollar is defined. There must be no provision for emergency suspensions of redeemability, for in that case everyone will know that the gold standard is phony, and that the Federal government and its central bank remain in charge. The currency will then still be a fiat paper currency with a gold veneer.


52 posted on 03/22/2006 6:32:20 PM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: Marxbites

""Given this dismal monetary and banking situation""


New Flash: The banking system is stronger now than at anytime since deregulation in 1980...are FReepers completely on another planet when it comes to economics???


53 posted on 03/22/2006 6:34:18 PM PST by georgia2006
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To: georgia2006

Peruse this please:

http://www.mises.org/mysteryofbanking/mysteryofbanking.pdf

It will help you understand fractional reserve banking and the atrocities of the Fed.


54 posted on 03/22/2006 6:36:51 PM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible. Today Govt is the economy's virus.)
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To: cinives
Years ago it was paper money issued by individual banks
And that under the so-called "gold standard." Those private issues were paper money. They weren't even "backed" by gold. They were backed by the institutions alone. Sound familiar?

The purpose of the Fed was to streamline and standardize those issues to allow for flexibility and liquidity when required.

55 posted on 03/22/2006 7:12:56 PM PST by nicollo (All economics are politics)
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