| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
 Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:12 pm Post subject: Ron Paul Was Right |
 |
|
Just sayin..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrIFkNispMk
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/128849.html
| Quote: |
They all laughed at him. Then they panicked and went looking for gold.
Gold's huge rally � prices shot up over 8 percent � came as the government moved overnight to rescue troubled insurer American International Group Inc. with an $85 million bailout loan. The Federal Reserve stepped in after AIG, teetering on collapse from losses tied to the subprime crisis and the credit crisis, failed to find adequate capital in the private sector.
Fearing more tightening of credit markets, investors reacted swiftly and began dumping stocks and socking money into gold, silver and other safe-haven commodities. Gold is especially attractive during times of crisis because the metal is known for holding its value.
Gold for December delivery jumped $64.50, or 8.25 percent, to $845 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its highest trading level since Aug. 29. Prior to the rally, gold had fallen 25 percent since surging to record levels above $1,000 an ounce in March.
"The same market participants who got out of gold are coming back in now. This is the start of an upward move," said Carlos Sanchez, analyst with CPM Group in New York, who predicted prices could climb back to $1,000 by year's end.
I've contacted the Campaign for Liberty for comments from Paul on the AIG rescue mission and the gold price spike, but you'd have to be deaf and blind not to know what he's thinking. Back in the primary, I think Paul surprised Republicans by offering a Rothbardian critique of the economy that sounded pretty good next to the bland "fundamentals are strong"-isms of McCain, Romney, Rudy, and the Sleepy Fred Country Express. But it sounded good because Paul acknowledged structural problems with the financial system, not because he was 100 percent right.
|
From the mouth of the horse on Sept 10 2003:
As Paul saw the situation some five years ago, the government backing isolated GSE management from market discipline. If Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, he told the committee, investors would demand the institutions held to higher management and accounting practices.
�Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market,� Paul predicted. �This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
�Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government�s interference in the housing market, the government�s policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing,� Paul went on. �Like all artificially created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Did Obama or McCain see it coming? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| The problem is not with RP's prediction, it's with his solutions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yeah, maybe. Economics is a social science and as with all social sciences describing problems is much easier than fixing them.
However, the notion that we must have a central bank is I think now very questionable. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| What do we lose if we lose a Central Bank? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Kuros wrote: |
| What do we lose if we lose a Central Bank? |
Idiots like Greenspan.
OK ok. Dumb answer.
You lose political control over the supply of money. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| mises wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| What do we lose if we lose a Central Bank? |
Idiots like Greenspan.
OK ok. Dumb answer.
You lose political control over the supply of money. |
Even Europe has a central bank, and they haven't abused it. Isn't a central bank necessary to stimulate inflation in times of excessive saving? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| As far as I can see, RP idealizes the agrarian society of the early 19th Century when we had unregulated banking. Besides a rather regular boom and severe bust cycle, we had bankers absconding to Brazil with the entire vault of depositers money. Today we have a different problem, but the common link is lack of adequate regulation. (I know the problem is more complex with other important factors, but...) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Europe most certainly has. One day, the world woke up and Spain and Ireland's housing markets had risen 200%. Ditto for the UK. The whole world has been building massive amounts of inflation in financial systems. The average hedge fund in the US is leveraged 27 to 1 and in Europe it is a more "reasonable" 20-1. Dubai/UAE is even worse, by many factors, than the US. China we have no idea, but probably worse.
Build a computer that spits out the amount of money needed to keep the supply up with GDP growth. Let markets set interest rates. Simplify monetary supply so that it can be taught in 9th grade civics. We need stability, savings and much less credit/debt/leverage etc. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| We need stability, savings and much less credit/debt/leverage etc. |
I can agree with that.
I also think there is something fundamentally wrong in a system that requires the common Joe to have a PhD in economics in order to figure out how to save for retirement. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
I also think there is something fundamentally wrong in a system that requires the common Joe to have a PhD in economics in order to figure out how to save for retirement. |
Exactly. It is a ridiculously complicated system to navigate. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The US isn't even in recession. Financals are down and out but the rest of the economy isn't.
If oil goes back to 60 dollars a barrel the US stockmarket will boom in fact. Financials or no financials.
The price of oil is far bigger cause of the problems to the US economy than financial institutions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| The US isn't even in recession. Financals are down and out but the rest of the economy isn't. |
the fundamentals are strong eh joo rip |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
What I'm most curious about is what the campaign would have looked like now if Ron Paul had been the GOP nominee. Right now we have two campaigns that are slugging it out over the economy as one would expect but imagine if the GOP candidate was the one that had predicted the problems a full five years ago. Ron Paul is also the only candidate that can actually make the claim with a straight face that he's not offering four more years of the same.
Like I said to Dems like ya-ta boy during the primaries: you should have supported Ron Paul as the *opponent* you wanted to see, because then the campaign would be much more about issues than the one you see now. There's no need to want him to be president, but to be so vociferously opposed to the only candidate that talked about the issues and the issues alone as an opponent was ridiculous. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'm tired of pointing out how and why the economic data from the Bushies is as reliable as a junkie.
So, on the day McCain addressed the convention the government revised upward (hehe) the GDP data from 1.8 to 3.3%.
Peter Schiff explains how this happened:
| Quote: |
In recent months, investors have been unjustly chastised for their lack of consistency. In truth, they have an unblemished record of drawing the wrong conclusions. Last week�s 2nd quarter GDP report provides the freshest evidence of market cluelessness.
In its report, the Commerce Department stunned economy watchers by showing a 3.3% annualized increase in 2nd Quarter GDP. The robust growth apparently wrong-footed those expecting further recessionary signals, lent further strength to the current dollar rally, and encouraged previously cautious investors to take another look at U.S. stocks. The strong number also bolstered claims by the Bush administration and the McCain campaign that a recession is primarily a psychological phenomenon. These conclusions would be at least quasi-logical if they were not based on a complete misreading of the report.
Without raising an eyebrow on Wall Street or in the press, the GDP deflator, used in the report to downwardly adjust GDP to account for inflation, was shown at just 1.2% annualized.... the lowest deflator in ten years. In other words, to arrive at a 3.3% growth rate, the government assumed that inflation is running at a ten-year low! In contrast, the latest reading on consumer prices (CPI) in the second quarter shows year-on-year inflation running at a 5.6% rate, a seventeen-year high! In fact, for the second quarter, the same time period measured by the GDP deflator, prices actually rose at an even faster pace of 8.0% annualized. How can it be that inflation is simultaneously running at a seventeen-year high and a ten-year low? Welcome to the Alice in Wonderland world of government statistics. |
http://www.europac.net/externalframeset.asp?id=13906 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| you should have supported Ron Paul as the *opponent* you wanted to see |
Talk about a 'Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue'! 
One of the concerns right now is an extended deep depression around the world. The last time we had that, 80 years ago, lots of people chose extreme political solutions from the fringe because they were angry and scared.
The essence of Ron Paul's philosophy is what got us into this mess. So 'he' is not the solution, he's the problem. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
