I'm hopeless, how do I win over this Mittens supporter?

[Syl]

Alright, so on Skype I was speaking to a friend, whom supports Mitt Robney, and he asked me to explain Ron's position on bailing out Europe, and I said that bailing out Europe would have to be done by printing more money that would put an inflation tax on Americans, and that it wasn't a good idea, and he had this to say,

"again, i have no problem with Ron Paul's foreign policy (minus the situation in Europe)
[4:04:32 PM] Alec: As i was saying, if Greece defaults, all of a sudden French banks are failing, and the possibility of France either needing a bailout or defaulting sky-rockets
[4:05:57 PM] Alec: If France fails, its reasonable to think that the Eurozone deteriorates to nothing. But from a domestic standpoint, US banks have a shitload invested in French/other European banks. And as we saw in 2008, it only takes 1 major bank/financial institution to take down the whole system and cause a recession/depression
[4:06:37 PM] Alec: Also, if the Eurozone flat out breaks up and all countries go back to their respective currencies, it is near impossible to predict the effect that has on the global economy"

How do I counter this!?

[Tyler_Durden]

Let them fail. If we bail them out, it's the US taking on more bad debt, which is passed on to the middle class.

Paul spoke on this today at the College of Charleston....

[specsaregood]

Why should I care about banks that invested in EU? Why should I pay to bail them out if they flounder?
I'm not invested over there.

[blabam]

America is in worse shape financially than Europe. Show him the facts.

[RickyJ]

Tell him it is going to crash no matter what, it just a matter of time. If it crashes now it will be better than later. You can't keep printing money and increasing inflation without it hurting people and the economy as a hidden tax. That can only go on short-term, it is not sustainable for the long run.

[dancjm]

"it only takes 1 major bank/financial institution to take down the whole system and cause a recession/depression"

That is not true. You want a bank which has furnished irresponsible loans to go bankrupt. That happening will not cause a recession/depression. If you print vast quanitites of money and use this new paper to buy the bad debt and dump it on the taxpayer, you get inflation, moral hazard and you exacerbate the burden of debt on the nation. That is how you f*ck up the economy.

[DEGuy]

I can't believe you know someone who actually likes Romney for any reason besides thinking he's "Most able to beat Obama"!

Try explaining it as if countries/banks were people. Say someone owed you money, and they constantly went out and bought fancy houses, nice new cars, and gave out money all the time to family. You know they are spending 10, 20, maybe 50% more than they bring in for income, so it looks increasingly likely you won't see your money again, would you loan them more at a low interest rate? Especially if they had no real plan to start bringing in more income OR decreasing their expenses?

[Cyberbrain]

Tell him it is going to crash no matter what, it just a matter of time. If it crashes now it will be better than later. You can't keep printing money and increasing inflation without it hurting people and the economy as a hidden tax. That can only go on short-term, it is not sustainable for the long run.

Right I was just about to say this. You have to clear the bad debt, it's not going to just disappear.

[Evangelical_Protestant]

Tell him: "So if all the banks fail what is the worst? Will your house vanish into thin air? Will your fence melt? The grass all around, will it evaporate? Will the sun fail to rise the next day, leaving you in miserable darkness forever? When absolutely nobody has a single penny, and our money becomes more worthless and vain than it already is, will all humans just die instantly without it? Can you eat money? Can you drink it? Then why worry about it? Peace and liberty is what is important and we have lost our way and turned away from our purpose. We will be fine if we work together for goodness and shun evil and corruption no matter what events take place."

Then you tell him to go to church and praise Jesus that he has anything at all. Then log off and watch the debate. Hope this helps. God bless.

[archangel689]

the one bank failing is not what causes the collapse....that's a symptom not a cause.

[Mini-Me]

It's going to happen sooner or later anyway; look how many times Greece has needed a bailout, and how difficult it is to convince them to change policy! There will be short-term pain all around if France falls, but bailing them out would only push us closer to the edge ourselves...and it would only incentivize them to continue pursuing failed policies, which will lead to even bigger bailouts in the future.

Consider what would have happened if our banking industry wasn't bailed out: There were tons of smaller, more responsible banks sitting ready to accept new customers, and they would have quickly grown to fill the shoes of their failed competitors. There would have been some short-term pain, but in the few years between then and now, our entire banking industry would have restructured itself around these more responsible banks that actually deserve our business. By now, we would have had more competition, better service, and a somewhat stronger foundation to rest upon (although ultimately, fractional reserve banking combined with fiat money will still ALWAYS lead to booms, busts, inflation, and economic ruin). Instead, we paid an arm and a leg we couldn't afford to save these cretins that were NOT WORTH saving, smaller banks lost the opportunity to prove themselves and grow, and we have sent the message to our major banks that they do not have to act responsibly to make money and avoid failure.

The same argument applies to foreign banks, foreign central banks, and foreign governments: Bailing them out avoids short-term pain at the expense of long-term ruin for all.

[bunklocoempire]

Alright, so on Skype I was speaking to a friend, whom supports Mitt Robney, and he asked me to explain Ron's position on bailing out Europe, and I said that bailing out Europe would have to be done by printing more money that would put an inflation tax on Americans, and that it wasn't a good idea, and he had this to say,

"again, i have no problem with Ron Paul's foreign policy (minus the situation in Europe)
[4:04:32 PM] Alec: As i was saying, if Greece defaults, all of a sudden French banks are failing, and the possibility of France either needing a bailout or defaulting sky-rockets
[4:05:57 PM] Alec: If France fails, its reasonable to think that the Eurozone deteriorates to nothing. But from a domestic standpoint, US banks have a shitload invested in French/other European banks. And as we saw in 2008, it only takes 1 major bank/financial institution to take down the whole system and cause a recession/depression
[4:06:37 PM] Alec: Also, if the Eurozone flat out breaks up and all countries go back to their respective currencies, it is near impossible to predict the effect that has on the global economy"

How do I counter this!?

So your friend is hung up on mechanics...

Does your friend understand principle?

Tell your friend you know of a guy out in Hawaii who is floundering and needs their cash, if I don't get the cash it will be catastrophic for them. Your friend trusts you so your friend must comply and give you cash to send to me. Then, when your friend refuses, tell 'em you'll be over to TAKE the money anyway.

I'll get a piece of paper with some numbers on to back all this up as I repeat endlessly that it must be done...;)

Good luck! I realize it depends on who your talking to, but my converts have seen the light based on principles that they didn't know they had and less on mechanics.

[dannno]

He needs some Peter Schiff in his life.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uDbrvir6Lo

[dannno]

//

[Havax]

Tell him: "So if all the banks fail what is the worst? Will your house vanish into thin air? Will your fence melt? The grass all around, will it evaporate? Will the sun fail to rise the next day, leaving you in miserable darkness forever? When absolutely nobody has a single penny, and our money becomes more worthless and vain than it already is, will all humans just die instantly without it? Can you eat money? Can you drink it? Then why worry about it? Peace and liberty is what is important and we have lost our way and turned away from our purpose. We will be fine if we work together for goodness and shun evil and corruption no matter what events take place."

Then you tell him to go to church and praise Jesus that he has anything at all. Then log off and watch the debate. Hope this helps. God bless.

+rep form an atheist

[fisharmor]

Consider what would have happened if our banking industry wasn't bailed out: There were tons of smaller, more responsible banks sitting ready to accept new customers, and they would have quickly grown to fill the shoes of their failed competitors

Case study: BB&T.
The president of BB&T sent out a letter to the general public prior to the bailouts, saying that BB&T had not invested poorly and was not interested in bailout money. He explained that it was rewarding bad actors, and that as a good actor, he didn't think that was particularly fair.

Flash forward to when the bailouts happened, and BB&T was taking money with the rest of them.
Why?
Because they qualified for the money.
If they didn't take it, they were passing up an opportunity for free money.
If they didn't take the free money, it put them at a competitive disadvantage with the bad actors. It set the stage for the bad actors getting into a better position than the good actors, so the good actors had to take the money or else risk getting put out of business.

This is why the bailouts weren't just bad policy: they're morally equivalent to raping your mother to death while hitting her on the head with her dog that you just raped to death.
It didn't just reward the bad guys. It turned good guys into bad guys.
And anyone who thinks that this was a good idea isn't just a bad guy - that's a guy with a fucking broken moral compass, who should be nowhere near power of any sort.

[Liberty74]

Bad business decisions and bad governments need to be able to fail. Propping them up by stealing from the people by taxing or printing money only encourages those businesses and governments to make worse decisions in the future because they know they will always be bailed out.

By allowing these entities to fail, yes, might be painful but the bad debts (liquidated) needs to be out of the market so other companies and legit governments can be formed.

Why does your friend support being an enabler to drug addicts? Basically, that is what we are talking about...

[phill4paul]

Case study: BB&T.
The president of BB&T sent out a letter to the general public prior to the bailouts, saying that BB&T had not invested poorly and was not interested in bailout money. He explained that it was rewarding bad actors, and that as a good actor, he didn't think that was particularly fair.

Flash forward to when the bailouts happened, and BB&T was taking money with the rest of them.
Why?
Because they qualified for the money.
If they didn't take it, they were passing up an opportunity for free money.
If they didn't take the free money, it put them at a competitive disadvantage with the bad actors. It set the stage for the bad actors getting into a better position than the good actors, so the good actors had to take the money or else risk getting put out of business.

This is why the bailouts weren't just bad policy: they're morally equivalent to raping your mother to death while hitting her on the head with her dog that you just raped to death.
It didn't just reward the bad guys. It turned good guys into bad guys.
And anyone who thinks that this was a good idea isn't just a bad guy - that's a guy with a fucking broken moral compass, who should be nowhere near power of any sort.

Hear here!

[otherone]

FDIC......:p

[RKoho]

The banks will crash inevitably that much is true. A bail out would only be a temporary fix as the crisis is a systemic problem of risk caused by government intervention through the Fed and other central banks propping up a system of fractional reserve banking. Propping up the banks will be done by inflationary means as capital is already expended. What inflation does is treat the symptom and not the disease. We will still have an unsustainable system dependent on credit spending and on top of that we will have further misallocation of resources as prices are knocked out of whack by the increase of money supply. The money supply needs to be stable so market signals (prices and interest rates) correctly reflect the cost of resources. We also need to protect people's savings. Inflation destroys the savings of everyone except the rich who can store their wealth in precious metals. To put it simply, we just don't have the resources to bail out banks. Inflating is just number manipulation that reality will soon correct, I promise that much. It's the reason we've had different degrees of recessions nearly every decade since central banks and keynesian policies have been put into place. I'm not the best writer, or the most knowledgeable but that's the best of my understanding at this point.

[Mini-Me]

FDIC......:p

Hahahahah...I do wonder if a lot of the bailouts occurred to mask the fact that the FDIC is worthless in the face of a systemic meltdown...which is the only way in which banks are even allowed to fail nowadays anyway. :p

[pacelli]

How do I counter this!?

Is your friend capable of voting in the 2012 presidential primary or general?

[Brett85]

There was a debate where Romney said that we shouldn't bail out the foreign banks either. So I guess you can tell him that Romney has the same position as Ron on that issue.

[Mini-Me]

There was a debate where Romney said that we shouldn't bail out the foreign banks either. So I guess you can tell him that Romney has the same position as Ron on that issue.

Ooh, good catch. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if Romney has a video for each side of the issue. :rolleyes:

[libertygrl]

Alright, so on Skype I was speaking to a friend, whom supports Mitt Robney, and he asked me to explain Ron's position on bailing out Europe, and I said that bailing out Europe would have to be done by printing more money that would put an inflation tax on Americans, and that it wasn't a good idea, and he had this to say,

"again, i have no problem with Ron Paul's foreign policy (minus the situation in Europe)
[4:04:32 PM] Alec: As i was saying, if Greece defaults, all of a sudden French banks are failing, and the possibility of France either needing a bailout or defaulting sky-rockets
[4:05:57 PM] Alec: If France fails, its reasonable to think that the Eurozone deteriorates to nothing. But from a domestic standpoint, US banks have a shitload invested in French/other European banks. And as we saw in 2008, it only takes 1 major bank/financial institution to take down the whole system and cause a recession/depression
[4:06:37 PM] Alec: Also, if the Eurozone flat out breaks up and all countries go back to their respective currencies, it is near impossible to predict the effect that has on the global economy"

How do I counter this!?

Maybe send him this:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/102095500/The-Romney-Book

[unknown]

I'm hopeless, how do I win over this Mittens supporter?

This should do it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9njHHyRI7g

[LandonCook]

I think this will help: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?353107-Holy-Crap-John-McCain-s-200-Page-Mitt-Romney-Opposition-Research-Book-From-08-Found&p=4059852#post4059852

[centure7]

Me: Hey, do you think Greece should bail out France?
Him: No, that would be crazy.
Me: Exactly. The US is well on track to be the next Greece.
Me: Also, bailouts are very complex financial calculations. Have you or any expert done the math to actually show that the bailout would cost less than letting the Euro zone fail? If the Euro zone fails, the dollar will be one of the alternatives, and that means value will be added to the US dollar, which is a good thing. You're basically gambling with billions of dollars on something you don't know the full effects of.

[rpwi]

Soo many different ways to approach this.

You could explain that banks are fundamentally flawed because they practice 'fractional banking' and they deserve to die just like a counterfeiter deserves to be arrested. That should raise some eyebrows on his part at which point you could explain how fractional banking really works (Ron Paul is against it).

You could explain that it is often cheaper to just bailout the depositors (in this case the FDIC) than it is the banks. FDIC insures about 4 trillion in assets...TARP went 7 trillion and way beyond if you count some of the hidden stuff going on. Would have been smarter to let the banks fail, give the insurance money to the depositors and let the financial system start over again...this time unburdened by mal-investment and incompetent investors. Banks and rich people wouldn't like this because their ill-gotten gambling equity would be gone, but this would be the best solution.

Another tact would be to use a more direct gambling analogy. Ask him what happens if you guarantee to cover the losses of a gambler? Does the gambler become wiser and more thrifty or just the opposite? Wouldn't the gambler sell rights to gamble to other gamblers under his name who do the same and cause a huge chain reaction of irresponsible behavior? And then because this was all interconnected and because this is gambling after all it would fail and fail systemically. Do you give more money to the gamblers to keep their habit going...or do you say enough is enough. Stop gambling...liquidate your losses and get real jobs?

[Simple]

Mitt Romney said he would have signed NDAA into law. How can one support a candidate that wants the powers of a third world dictator? Indefinite detention of American citizens without trial is a suspension of the 5th Amendment, Habeas Corpus, and Posse Comitatus Act. This might be worth mentioning if the economic debate is stagnating.