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Were America’s Founding Fathers Wrong for Advocating Death for QE Measures?
Zerohedge ^

Posted on 08/10/2010 11:42:48 PM PDT by newbie2008

n light of the US Central Bank’s (I refuse to use their misleading self-anointed US Federal Reserve moniker) most recent grandstanding policy decision that has been referred to as "QE light" that precedes the inevitable QE2 launch sometime in the not so distant future, I present an open challenge to Paul Krugman and all like minded economists, Nobel prize winning or not, that support the monetary policy of dollar debasement. This will be a straightforward challenge issued by our Founding Fathers, in particular the first US Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, who scripted the US Coinage Act of 1792. The one question I want to see Mr. Krugman and his supporters answer is this:

“If monetary debasement can truly create economic recovery, why did our Founding Fathers establish, in the US Coinage Act of 1792, that any persons discovered to be deliberately debasing US money ‘shall be guilty of felony and shall be punished by death’?”

Note that the punishment was not imprisonment, not even hard labor, but death. Why did our Founding Fathers, who had just gained freedom from the draconian monetary policies of the British monarch King George through the American Revolution and the Treaty of Paris in 1783 deem that monetary stability could not be separated from the conditions of freedom? Why did they deem the act of monetary debasement so insidious that anyone found guilty of deliberately debasing US money would not be imprisoned but should be punished by death? And why is monetary debasement today accepted as the “right thing to do” and “normalized” by prominent economists like Paul Krugman?

(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: zerohedge

1 posted on 08/10/2010 11:42:53 PM PDT by newbie2008
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To: newbie2008

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies ... If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

(Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826)


2 posted on 08/10/2010 11:49:29 PM PDT by True_Kon
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To: newbie2008

Krugman understands perfectly well.

It’s called treason.


3 posted on 08/10/2010 11:50:31 PM PDT by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: newbie2008

No. They know perfectly well what they are doing (or advocating). And they do not care. The irony is that it will not work as they intend: there is no realistic amount of monetary debasement which will prevent the deflationary collapse which is all but inevitable.


4 posted on 08/10/2010 11:53:50 PM PDT by jjsheridan5
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To: newbie2008

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens...There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” (John Maynard Keynes)


5 posted on 08/10/2010 11:58:26 PM PDT by True_Kon
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To: newbie2008

The press doesn’t know anything about the Fed and money or monetary policy....so nobody watches them......so what if commies placed some people at the Fed???? Scary....

The Fed killed the Clinton economy and the Bush economy....


6 posted on 08/11/2010 12:13:42 AM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: True_Kon

Good quoting of Keynes....funny that the Dems call themselves Keynesians when he’s the one who put us on the gold standard after WW2 that worked so well.......

By the way...in 2001, Paul Krugman called the Bush tax cuts “Keynesian demand-side tax cuts” and declared that Keynesian economics was dead and discredited-—but also argued that Bush should let the Fed stimulate the economy with monetary policy instead of Keynesian fiscal policy.....
but I argue that using monetary policy to stimulate or slow the economy is more dangerous and equally “Keynesian” in the modern sense.....

Funny thing also that nobody points out.....Bernanke’s job is oversight of banks and lending AND monetary policy, BUT he predicted a great economy in 2007, 2008, and 2008 and didn’t see the market crashes and recession coming so why would ANYBODY trust or reappoint Bernanke?????

The Fed raised interest rate over 400% from 2004-2006—from 1% to 5.25%—which burst the housing bubble they helped create....and why did they do this???

They were afraid that wages were going up and the economy was overheating..........does anybody have some thoughts on this idea and the Phillips curve? I do....


7 posted on 08/11/2010 12:21:30 AM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: True_Kon

Good quoting of Keynes....funny that the Dems call themselves Keynesians when he’s the one who put us on the gold standard after WW2 that worked so well.......

By the way...in 2001, Paul Krugman called the Bush tax cuts “Keynesian demand-side tax cuts” and declared that Keynesian economics was dead and discredited-—but also argued that Bush should let the Fed stimulate the economy with monetary policy instead of Keynesian fiscal policy.....
but I argue that using monetary policy to stimulate or slow the economy is more dangerous and equally “Keynesian” in the modern sense.....

Funny thing also that nobody points out.....Bernanke’s job is oversight of banks and lending AND monetary policy, BUT he predicted a great economy in 2007, 2008, and 2008 and didn’t see the market crashes and recession coming so why would ANYBODY trust or reappoint Bernanke?????

The Fed raised interest rate over 400% from 2004-2006—from 1% to 5.25%—which burst the housing bubble they helped create....and why did they do this???

They were afraid that wages were going up and the economy was overheating..........does anybody have some thoughts on this idea and the Phillips curve? I do....


8 posted on 08/11/2010 12:21:30 AM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: True_Kon

If memory serves, Alexander Hamilton devised this central banking system, and AH is not one of my heroes. Perhaps this reflects the opinion of my Professor, Or I am just idolizing TJ.
barbra ann


9 posted on 08/11/2010 12:26:34 AM PDT by barb-tex (November 2! Dia de los Muertas. ( Day of the Dead), Them or Us. Nov 5, Guy Falkes Day)
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To: newbie2008

Is the US Coinage Act of 1792 still extant? Shouldn’t Bernanke and Greenspan et al be up on charges?


10 posted on 08/11/2010 1:40:45 AM PDT by ThanhPhero (di tray hoi den La Vang)
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To: True_Kon

But he was, at the same, time all about government directing and control of the economy which is all about inflation which is debasement.


11 posted on 08/11/2010 1:43:03 AM PDT by ThanhPhero (di tray hoi den La Vang)
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To: True_Kon

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” — Thomas Jefferson

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” — Thomas Jefferson


12 posted on 08/11/2010 2:22:18 AM PDT by loboinok (Gun control is hitting what you aim at!)
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To: loboinok

Conventional invasions and usurpations of rights are easy to fight simply because they are completely visible. That is why today’s enemies of the Constitution do not use those methods. They prefer to skulk about, camouflaged in their nice suits and educated accents - writing multi-thousand page laws that are passed before anyone has a chance to seriously discuss the premise of the law, much less the hidden content - throwing the word “comprehensive” around as if it were a substitute for the Philosopher’s Stone - charging anyone that disagrees with racism, thus cheapening true violations, much like the word “rape” was used a few years ago to describe everything except actual rape.

Out with them all.


13 posted on 08/11/2010 3:58:13 AM PDT by Pecos
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To: loboinok
Thomas Jefferson got around his banking problems by stiffing ever one he could. both monetarily and literally.
14 posted on 08/11/2010 4:17:43 AM PDT by BilLies
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To: newbie2008

sfl


15 posted on 08/11/2010 4:49:54 AM PDT by phockthis
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To: newbie2008

John Jacob Astor opposed the central bank. He died on the Titanic in 1912. In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act was passed.


16 posted on 08/11/2010 5:00:59 AM PDT by RoadTest (Religion is a substitute for the relationship God wants with you.)
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To: RoadTest

ping for later


17 posted on 08/11/2010 5:07:45 AM PDT by Mr. Jazzy ("I AM JIM THOMPSON and moderates make me PUKE!!!")
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To: newbie2008

Why did they deem the act of monetary debasement so insidious that anyone found guilty of deliberately debasing US money would not be imprisoned but should be punished by death?

Because it involves stealing the wealth of the entire nation.


18 posted on 08/11/2010 5:35:23 AM PDT by freedomfiter2
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To: ThanhPhero
Shouldn’t Bernanke and Greenspan et al be up on charges?

Yes. But one could ask the same thing about the majority of those feeding at the public trough; and especially the Chief Pig.

ML/NJ

19 posted on 08/11/2010 5:56:59 AM PDT by ml/nj
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