Bwahahaha-Anybody what to help with this one?

[adara7537]

Okay, so my boyfriend and I have been talking to one of my friends about Paul. We was supporting Thompson and once Thompson dropped out he went to Romney. Makes me wanna vomit.

Anyhow we asked him why Paul over Romney-this was his reply-

1. The Gold Standard
The Gold Standard dragged out the Great Depression longer than it should've and in a global economy it makes matters of trade and money parity difficult. People talk about our reliance on Chinese money, but China is now the world's largest gold-producing nation. They will have a large hand in deciding the trading price of gold and affect the value of our dollar.
2. International Relations/War in Iraq
Congressman Paul always likes to point to one little line in Washington's farewell address about "entangling alliances"(the speech actually mentions "permanent alliances" anyway) with foreign powers. This is always pointed to as having total weight behind America being a non-interventionist nation. Washington must've had a change of heart (politicians have always done it; if you don't learn from your mistakes then I'd have a problem with you, i.e. Hillary Clinton and universal health care) because he had Ben Franklin hanging out in Paris soliciting French help during the Revolutionary War.
3. The Federal Reserve
Our economy should be as Adam Smith-esque as possible. The Fed does its job, however, and has prevented difficult economic times in the past. The economy always goes up and always goes down. That's just the way it is. Whenever it starts to hiccup people want immediate, drastic change. The members of the Fed do not benefit as much as one might think from FOMC operations, and Bernanke isn't even allowed to own stock or private investments so he's not beholden to his own personal interests. Fed chairmen's terms overlap those of presidents so they're not beholden to them either. The Fed works.

Hahahaha! Oh and by the way he's an accountant, so I would've hoped he knew better than this.

I am in the process of collecting information to dispute everything he has said-so if any of you want to throw in your two cents I would appreciate it-I don't want to forget anything. Or if you know of any good websites, that are good sources to reference, I would appreciate it.

Thanks! :)

[adara7537]

Oops I posted this in the wrong thread, I am a moron-can i move it?

[Goldwater Conservative]

1. The Gold Standard
The Gold Standard dragged out the Great Depression longer than it should've and in a global economy it makes matters of trade and money parity difficult. People talk about our reliance on Chinese money, but China is now the world's largest gold-producing nation. They will have a large hand in deciding the trading price of gold and affect the value of our dollar.

What? The Federal Reserve is widely recognized by respected economists, like Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan, as having the most to do with causing the Great Depression. The gold standard had little to nothing to do with it. Why is the gold standard, which had been in use several times in the 150 years before the Great Depression, assumed responsible when the Federal Reserve had been around for just 15 years? Give me your argument for why it was to blame.

And for the record, Paul advocates allowing gold and silver to be legal competing currencies with Federal Reserve Notes, not switching back wholesale.


2. International Relations/War in Iraq
Congressman Paul always likes to point to one little line in Washington's farewell address about "entangling alliances"(the speech actually mentions "permanent alliances" anyway) with foreign powers. This is always pointed to as having total weight behind America being a non-interventionist nation. Washington must've had a change of heart (politicians have always done it; if you don't learn from your mistakes then I'd have a problem with you, i.e. Hillary Clinton and universal health care) because he had Ben Franklin hanging out in Paris soliciting French help during the Revolutionary War.

Paul uses the line, but it's not the reason for his position - logic is. His argument is that meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and policing the world not only costs us a great deal in resources but makes us more vulnerable by stretching our military thin around the globe and because our presence everywhere incites anti-American violence, such as terrorism. Even the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report talks at length about this "blowback" theory, which is really common sense anyway.

By the way, the phrase "entangling alliances" is from Jefferson's inaugural address. And us asking a foreign country for help in our revolution is very different from us using our superpower status to shape geopolitics to our liking.


3. The Federal Reserve
Our economy should be as Adam Smith-esque as possible. The Fed does its job, however, and has prevented difficult economic times in the past. The economy always goes up and always goes down. That's just the way it is. Whenever it starts to hiccup people want immediate, drastic change. The members of the Fed do not benefit as much as one might think from FOMC operations, and Bernanke isn't even allowed to own stock or private investments so he's not beholden to his own personal interests. Fed chairmen's terms overlap those of presidents so they're not beholden to them either. The Fed works.

Adam Smith advocated minimal government intervention in the economy. How does a private corporation manipulating without accountability the value of the only legal currency in the country constitute free market economics, exactly? Isn't central planning the very definition of command, aka socialist, economies?

And what about what I pointed out above, that the Fed is credited with causing the Great Depression? How is that "doing its job"? Even Helicopter Ben admits it, but his "solution" is simply for them to try harder to not screw up.

Saying that the economy "just goes up and down" is the argument of those opposing a central bank. If the economy is destined to go through cycles, then why have an entity that repeatedly tries to "correct" those cycles, only to repeatedly fail (as we're witnessing now) and make the situation worse than it would have been under a laissez faire arrangement?

The Fed doesn't work.

[adara7537]

Thank you very much!

[Pauls' Revere]

Then theres the constitution:
"Congress alone shall coin money"
This way at least congress is subjected to the vote of the people the FED is not. Wonder why there's so much apathy?