Price Controls Have Failed for 4,000 Years—and Humans Still Haven’t Learned

[Snowball]

Note that the OP article has nothing to do with constitutionalism or its opposites -- it is possible that the founding Fathers just messed up on this topic. Fortunately, they understood that the Congress and the States were made up of smart people and could figure these details out, so they said nothing about the subject of precious metals except that Congress shall make nothing but gold and silver legal tender.


Wow, that's a giant string of OT strawmen. Let's break it down.

Section 8: "The Congress shall have power ... To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"

This says nothing at all about "the pricing of money." The regulation of "the Value thereof" is clearly talking about the metal compositions and denominations of the coinage -- a one dollar coin is such-and-such amount of silver, etc. Congress still actively regulates the activity of the Mint to this day, all new coins/notes/etc. must be approved by Congress. Congress has the power to regulate foreign coinage, and they do; in particular, foreign PM coins are subject to tax on appreciation.

You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. In all history there was no gold "market" or silver "market", and prices were SET BY FIAT. This did not change until modern times when gold and silver began TRADING apart from SET GOVERNMENT CURRENCY - 1877 in London - and not even until post-WWII in this country, and again, NOT as pricing mechanisms. That role was reserved SOLELY to the GOVERNMENT until our times.

I will refer you to the Coinage Act of 1792, Section 9. Take a good look at it. These ARE the Founders.
Read it!

https://www.gold.org/sites/default/f...s/1792apr2.pdf

Welcome to Western Civ. I suppose you would suggest there were no "free markets" until the 20th century?

And above, you say that the Constitutional order to "regulate the value thereof" is not "the pricing of money" ? How thick!
It is exactly none other than such. This is ludicrous!

[ClaytonB]

This is unreal! I can't believe how ignorant you guys are of history! There was no "gold market" until the Rothschilds made one and worked to take over the British and American currencies. The gold price was FIXED. Do you even know this?

I will refer you to the Coinage Act of 1792, Section 9. Plenty of "tyranny" there !!!!!!!!

https://www.gold.org/sites/default/f...s/1792apr2.pdf

The market-price of gold: how much of a good that you can receive in exchange for 1 unit of gold

The market-price of the dollar: how much of a good that you can receive in exchange for 1 dollar

The dollar-price of gold: There are two prices, the market-price and the legal-price. The legal-price of gold in dollars is $20/ounce. The market price of gold in dollars is about $1,700 at this time.

Congress has the legal authority to fix the legal dollar-price of gold, and it exercises this authority -- one ounce of gold is legally $20. It was $35 under FDR after the 1933 gold-heist and remained that price for a long time and began to rise until 1971 when Nixon cut the tie to gold. Unlike many conservatives, and even libertarians, I don't consider Nixon's move some kind of tragedy -- it was inevitable because the dollar price of gold will necessary fluctuate unless the government were to sell gold at a loss whenever its market-price rises, and but it at a loss whenever its market-price declines. That's a worthless activity in order to maintain the fiction of "the dollar" as some kind of absolute, eternal monetary unit that is "backed by gold".

When the market-price of gold rises, this increases demand for gold production (mining, refining, etc.), and vice-versa when the price declines. The problem with trying to "fix" the market-price of a real good like gold or silver is that you are trying to fix the amount of bread or potatoes that exchanges for a fixed weight of that precious metal. And it just doesn't work because market prices are too sensitive to small variations. The amount of gold-mining that "should" be happening (based on the current market price) is continually fluctuating in response to market conditions, so if you try to "fix" the price of a unit of gold in the market, you're going to have problems.

If by "setting the price", we just mean the legal-price, and if the legal-price of silver and gold are far from their market-price, preventing exchange-ratio driven metal-flight, then that's perfectly fine and that's exactly what we have today. One ounce of silver is defined as 1 US Dollar. One ounce of gold is defined as 20 US Dollars. These are legal prices, not market prices, so nobody would ever try to exchange 20 silver coins for one gold coin based on a legal definition. So it's irrelevant to the real market-price of these coins.

Notice how many different senses of "the price of money" I have mentioned in just 3 paragraphs. And there are many more senses I have not mentioned here. So debating "the price of money/coins" without specifying exactly which sense we are using that phrase is a waste of time and just promotes confusion.

For lurkers or others who want to refresh their memory, this introduction to money and banking is absolutely eye-opening -- I think I've watched it at least three times all the way through:



See also this amazing article by Hulsmann and Hoppe: The Demand for Money and the Time-Structure of Production

Also, the first four videos of the Introduction to Austrian Economics playlist are a must-watch if you want to go to the next-level and be free of the shackles of politically-induced confusion about money that most people are wallowing in, and as exemplified by Snowball in this thread...

[acptulsa]

You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. In all history there was no gold "market" or silver "market", and prices were SET BY FIAT.

Uh, dude. Calm down and maybe you can think.

Any coiner, whether a government or not, is liable to name the coins they make. So three quarters of an ounce of silver alloyed with a tenth that much nickel can be named a dollar. That isn't affecting the value of the alloy at all. Not one whit. That's just naming the coin.

Fiat currency is where a government says, this scrap of paper may well be worth no more than a Kleenex in reality. But we printed the king's picture on it, and we are forbidding you to use anything else for exchange, and it has the same value as three quarters of an ounce of silver because we say it does. You say naming the coin is the fiat decree in fiat currency. You are wrong.. Simple as that. The fiat decree in fiat currency comes when a piece of paper is decreed to have value far beyond the value of any other piece of paper that size, or any other electron floating around a hard drive, because it was decreed to be official.

A chunk of silver of a particular weight has value because people value it. It doesn't matter if the person who gives that a name is government or not. A rag with an engraved portrait of some dead guy in a powdered wig isn't anything most people value, unless and until a government sets its value by fiat.

It's like the difference between a bicycle and a Bicycle© brand playing card. They're both named bicycle. But unless you can convince someone with an actual bicycle that the playing card is redeemable for an actual bicycle, you can't ride it.

This is ludicrous!

Yes, it is ludicrous that you're accusing us of ignorance because you don't understand what the phrase "fiat currency" means. If you had any idea how ludicrous, you'd hush up.

[ClaytonB]

I don't see how. The word "price" has a definition too, and that is, the value of a good as measured against the value of some particular money or currency. Therefore, about the only way the "price of a dollar" can possibly vary is if the currency in question is something else, like the number of rubles that will buy one, or the number of minutes of labor that will buy one. Yes, a euro has a "price" in FRNs. But English speakers generally refer to that as a rate of exchange.

Economists think about prices a little differently than ordinary people. That's not because the typical understanding of price is wrong, it's just incomplete.

Let's say you have 10 apples and I have 5 oranges. We look at each other across the market and realize that each of us wants what the other has instead of what we have. "Hey, I'll trade these 5 oranges for those 10 apples you have there." You agree, and we exchange. We can say that, in this transaction, "the apple price of oranges" is 2 since you paid 2 apples for an orange; and we can inversely say that "the orange price of apples" is 0.5 since I paid 0.5 oranges per apple.

Now, instead of oranges, suppose I had 5 dollars. "I'll trade these 5 dollars for those 10 apples" is exactly the same situation, except that, this time, we're not bartering non-monetary goods, we're exchanging a non-monetary good for the monetary good -- normal people would call this a sale or a transaction. So, "the dollar-price of apples" is 0.5 since I have exchanged 0.5 dollars per apple -- but the inverse ratio is also meaningful and important... the "apple-price of dollars" is 2 since you have exchanged 2 apples for 1 dollar. That latter ratio, "the apple-price of dollars" is what we mean by the market price of money, which is continually fluctuating. Obviously, because money is exchanged against all other goods in the economy (making it the most liquid good, by far), we can't just look at the apple-price of dollars. We also have to look at the pencil-price of dollars, the shampoo-price of dollars, the cornflakes-price of dollars, and so on. So, "the purchasing-power of money" or the market-price of money itself is simply the (imaginary) constantly-fluctuating basket of all goods which could be exchanged for dollars, and their associated exchange ratios.

That's what I mean when I say that the Congress or any other group of humans has no more power to fix or set the market-price of money than they do to alter the sunrise or sunset. It's just a brute fact of reality that emerges from all the purchases that people make. Nobody controls it and nobody can control it. Not even in North Korea.

There are many other senses in which we can speak of "the price of money" -- such as the legal price (how many dollars-per-ounce-of-gold/silver), the interest rates on loans, or the demand for cash balances, or the demand for mining of precious-metals, and so on. So it's important to clarify exactly which sense we are discussing that and Snowball seems quite happy to try to hide behind the smoke and mirrors of not specifying what exactly the topic is. In this case, it doesn't bother me because I'm familiar with all sides of this topic and it's just an opportunity to spread the light of knowledge...

[acptulsa]

Economists think about prices a little differently than ordinary people. That's not because the typical understanding of price is wrong, it's just incomplete.

Let's say you have 10 apples and I have 5 oranges. We look at each other across the market and realize that each of us wants what the other has instead of what we have. "Hey, I'll trade these 5 oranges for those 10 apples you have there." You agree, and we exchange. We can say that, in this transaction, "the apple price of oranges" is 2 since you paid 2 apples for an orange; and we can inversely say that "the orange price of apples" is 0.5 since I paid 0.5 oranges per apple.

Now, instead of oranges, suppose I had 5 dollars. "I'll trade these 5 dollars for those 10 apples" is exactly the same situation, except that, this time, we're not bartering non-monetary goods, we're exchanging a non-monetary good for the monetary good -- normal people would call this a sale or a transaction. So, "the dollar-price of apples" is 0.5 since I have exchanged 0.5 dollars per apple -- but the inverse ratio is also meaningful and important... the "apple-price of dollars" is 2 since you have exchanged 2 apples for 1 dollar. That latter ratio, "the apple-price of dollars" is what we mean by the market price of money, which is continually fluctuating. Obviously, because money is exchanged against all other goods in the economy (making it the most liquid good, by far), we can't just look at the apple-price of dollars. We also have to look at the pencil-price of dollars, the shampoo-price of dollars, the cornflakes-price of dollars, and so on. So, "the purchasing-power of money" or the market-price of money itself is simply the (imaginary) constantly-fluctuating basket of all goods which could be exchanged for dollars, and their associated exchange ratios.

That's what I mean when I say that the Congress or any other group of humans has no more power to fix or set the market-price of money than they do to alter the sunrise or sunset. It's just a brute fact of reality that emerges from all the purchases that people make. Nobody controls it and nobody can control it. Not even in North Korea.

There are many other senses in which we can speak of "the price of money" -- such as the legal price (how many dollars-per-ounce-of-gold/silver), the interest rates on loans, or the demand for cash balances, or the demand for mining of precious-metals, and so on. So it's important to clarify exactly which sense we are discussing that and Snowball seems quite happy to try to hide behind the smoke and mirrors of not specifying what exactly the topic is. In this case, it doesn't bother me because I'm familiar with all sides of this topic and it's just an opportunity to spread the light of knowledge...

You have a peculiar talent for turning my one simple paragraph into a five paragraph wall of text that says the exact same thing.

Well, almost the exact same thing. You managed to leave out my main point, which was, the word price is generally understood to mean rate of exchange in terms of a particular unit of currency, while rate of exchange is an easier phrase to understand than fiat currency seems to be.

[ClaytonB]

In all history there was no gold "market" or silver "market"

False. There is always a market.

[ClaytonB]

five paragraph wall of text

Sometimes, all the details matter. This is one of those topics where all the details matter. Cute, pithy summaries just play into the confusion that Snowball is agitating in this thread.

[acptulsa]

Sometimes, all the details matter. This is one of those topics where all the details matter. Cute, pithy summaries just play into the confusion that Snowball is agitating in this thread.

Call my prose whatever you want. While you were pontificating, I'm the one who figured out that he didn't understand the actual meaning of "fiat currency", and supplied him with the correct meaning.

You appear to have been too in love with the sound of your own voice to listen closely enough to diagnose the problem.

[Snowball]

Fiat has nothing at all to do with paper currency. You are both thinking only in the most modern sense of defintion, and I do recognize that in this modern parlance, fiat has come to suggest unbacked government currency, but that is merely a supplementary acquisition of term. It was by fiat when the U.S. declared the values of gold and silver and imprinted them on coinage, just like it was by fiat when every king, emperor and caesar did the same thing. The coin of the realm IS fiat. Lincoln's greenbacks were also fiat. Sterling silver pounds are instruments of fiat. It is the government that decides and it has ALWAYS been that way, in history for civilised men.
The only difference between then and now is WHO declares the fiat -which is, "let it be done"... a sanction.

Today, fiat is controlled by the Federal Reserve System in this country, not the Treasury (not since J.F.K.'s Executive Order establishing United States Notes), and not constitutionally by the elected government, that FIAT of which was offshored to the Bank of London. The Bank of London and its shareholders OWN the Federal Reserve as a subsidiary. Its shareholders were last publicly demanded and documented in 1976.

Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence. Staff Report,Committee on Banking,Currency and Housing, House of Representatives, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, August 1976
http://www.save-a-patriot.org/files/view/whofed.html

[acptulsa]

Fiat has nothing at all to do with paper currency. You are both thinking only in the most modern sense of defintion, and I do recognize that in this modern parlance, fiat has come to suggest unbacked government currency, but that is merely a supplementary acquisition of term. It was by fiat when the U.S. declared the values of gold and silver and imprinted them on coinage, just like it was by fiat when every king, emperor and caesar did the same thing.

You're just wrong. Really.

Yes, if a government names a fixed quantity of gold and says that's our official currency, that's an official declaration, a fiat. And, yes, currency is currency. But "fiat currency" is a term with a meaning beyond the meaning of the two words involved, just like the phrase "significant other". Neither "significant" nor "other" has a meaning specific to one's long-term squeeze, but "significant other" does. And the meaning of the phrase "fiat currency" is, a currency which has a value other than the value of its ingredients, because government says so.

What's more, it works both ways. You aren't old enough to remember when a penny was intrinsically worth more than double what you could get for it. Melting them down was illegal, so no one would trade you two dollars' worth of goods for a hundred of them. But if you broke the law and melted down a hundred pennies, you could and people did sell that copper for two dollars, which would buy two dollars' worth of stuff.

Illegally melt the pre-1985 solid copper pennies and sell the copper and you doubled their worth. Illegally bleach a hundred dollar bill and you can't get the price of a handkerchief out of it. Fiat currency means something which government has decreed to be a legal means of exchange with a value completely divorced from the value of its ingredients. That is what the phrase means.

[Snowball]

You're just wrong. Really.

Yes, if a government names a fixed quantity of gold and says that's our official currency, that's an official declaration, a fiat. And, yes, currency is currency. But "fiat currency" is a term with a meaning beyond the meaning of the two words involved, just like the phrase "significant other". And the meaning of the phrase is, a currency which has a value other than the value of its ingredients, because government says so.

What's more, it works both ways. You aren't old enough to remember when a penny was intrinsically worth more than double what you could get for it. Melting them down was illegal, so no one would trade you two dollars' worth of goods for them. But if you broke the law and melted down a hundred pennies, you could and people did sell that copper for two dollars, which would buy two dollars' worth of stuff.

Illegally melt the pre-1985 solid copper pennies and sell the copper and you doubled their worth. Illegally bleach a hundred dollar bill and you can't get the price of a handkerchief out of it. Fiat currency means something which government has decreed to be a legal means of exchange with a value completely divorced from the value of its ingredients. That is what the phrase means.

LOL. Typical post from you. Ignore what I said and launch at me. I stand by everything I posted in this thread, and careful, educated readers may appreciate it.
Nothing to add. Even your quip that "You aren't old enough to remember when a penny was intrinsically worth more than double what you could get for it" makes no sense at all. A penny. Check. Worth double. Perhaps Check. What you could get for it? Nope. The penny was worth what you could get for it, and that includes the copper value alternative. Never worth double until most recently... and I'm certainly old enough to recall most recently. Unless we're talking about war time scrap values. Which means you must be 90. LOL.
I wish I was younger. Sadly, my M.A. from the 80's in history and the hundreds of books I've read in my life, seem to present a difficulty when assuming there is a common understanding of things. This thread may serve as a fitting example that there is not. Ergo, readers that happen upon it may discern for themselves whom among us they most concur with. Au revoir.

[acptulsa]

Ergo, readers that happen upon it may discern for themselves whom among us they most concur with. Au revoir.

They certainly may. Good luck with that.

And as for the actual topic of this thread? It is where the topics of the threads you visit generally wind up...

[Invisible Man]

This is unreal! I can't believe how ignorant you guys are of history! There was no "gold market" until the Rothschilds made one and worked to take over the British and American currencies. The gold price was FIXED. Do you even know this?

I will refer you to the Coinage Act of 1792, Section 9. Plenty of "tyranny" there !!!!!!!!

https://www.gold.org/sites/default/f...s/1792apr2.pdf

Human beings have used gold and silver as media of exchange, as well as other various media of exchange, for thousands of years both with and without price fixing. And you cite a law from only 230 years ago to back up an absolute claim about the absence of markets for gold and silver for all of time before that?

Think what you want about my knowledge of ancient history. But I can show you ancient accounts from thousands of years ago of exchanges using precious metals as media of exchange where prices varied according to the agreements of the parties involved without being set by fiat of ruling regimes.

[Snowball]

Human beings have used gold and silver as media of exchange, as well as other various media of exchange, for thousands of years both with and without price fixing. And you cite a law from only 230 years ago to back up an absolute claim about the absence of markets for gold and silver for all of time before that?

Think what you want about my knowledge of ancient history. But I can show you ancient accounts from thousands of years ago of exchanges using precious metals as media of exchange where prices varied according to the agreements of the parties involved without being set by fiat of ruling regimes.

No, I brought up the Coinage Act in an entirely different context, to answer Clayton's misunderstanding about early American money. That's pretty clear in the post, #31.
I never said coin wasn't minted or used, and in another post I equated that to an example of rulers' fiat. In this regard the fiat I'm talking about is the denominations of metal to coinage. When emperors and kings debased gold, set gold, and other metals according to their purposes, exactly as the United States did, this is an offense against the "free-market" according to some here. What they don't understand is that the fiat, that sanction order which acts upon the thing, is merely done surreptitiously by those who control the markets instead, even if it's not the government itself. The Rothschids and Sassoons started with this in the 1700s with fractionary-reserve lending, a usurious, forbidden practice they learned from their Babylonian ancestors, that they began working in the newly-Protestant kingdom of Netherlands and then Great Britain, as William of Orange allowed it to occur, for his ambitions. Hence, there is not a "free-market" at all, not since this power has been unleashed upon us, it has risen to absorb us, to the extent that free markets are mere illusions or ideological constructs today. We see this happening today in the silver "market", for example. Prices are oppressed by the New York Fed, acting on behalf of the Bank of London, owned by a small group of families. They determine the faux-market because they have unlimited power to affect financial "markets". They are the only international sovereign stakeholders that contract with governments to, independently and without auditory oversight, truly "make" what we call money, that is more truly only debt. It is not a free market, in any way, shape or form. It is a sophisticated, controlled, and purpose-driven societal transformation scheme.

[ClaytonB]

Clayton's misunderstanding about

I've misunderstood nothing in this thread. Cut it out with the poisoning-the-well fallacy and other rhetorical dirty tricks. If you want to point out a specific claim you believe is erroneous and debate it, let's go. I'll keep bringing the hurt, all day, every day...

[Invisible Man]

No, I brought up the Coinage Act in an entirely different context, to answer Clayton's misunderstanding about early American money. That's pretty clear in the post, #31.

You also brought it up in post 28, which was the post I was replying to there.

[acptulsa]

I never said coin wasn't minted or used, and in another post I equated that to an example of rulers' fiat. In this regard the fiat I'm talking about is the denominations of metal to coinage. When emperors and kings debased gold, set gold, and other metals according to their purposes, exactly as the United States did, this is an offense against the "free-market" according to some here. What they don't understand is that the fiat, that sanction order which acts upon the thing, is merely done surreptitiously by those who control the markets instead, even if it's not the government itself. The Rothschids and Sassoons started with this in the 1700s with fractionary-reserve lending, a usurious, forbidden practice they learned from their Babylonian ancestors, that they began working in the newly-Protestant kingdom of Netherlands and then Great Britain, as William of Orange allowed it to occur, for his ambitions. Hence, there is not a "free-market" at all, not since this power has been unleashed upon us, it has risen to absorb us, to the extent that free markets are mere illusions or ideological constructs today.

Much less three at once.

[Snowball]

You also brought it up in post 28, which was the post I was replying to there.

Somehow the conversation (less acptulsa, who doesn't "do" conversations), shifted from price controls to gold & silver price controls, and Clayton and most others here are against those. My opinion on gold & silver price controls is no different than any other commodity. I can see rare cases, perhaps less rare today, when they would do more good than harm. I tried to explain how our whole economy is a victim of performative techniques and passive concepts which were alien to Christendom. These actions upon the so-called market are different than the funciton of government, unargued against until very recent times, that denoting a currency amount specifically to gold and silver, and yes, sometimes (although that need is anachronistic) gold/silver ratio, is a form of "price control". Clayton went on to say it's not, but it is. It establishes a legal base and the establishment of that base and the expected value of exchange is therefore set. This was more important in years past before a modern stock market and the London metals market, which began in 1877. I also explained how the fractionary-reserve methodologies, when corruption took hold in the Protestant kingdoms, and as the House of Hanover, now known as Windsor, granted permissions to the Rothschilds to command the gold and sterling markets without the actual metal on hand, this power has grown and grown exponentially and established a nouveau effendi in Western civilisation.

Having been finished with these points, I've argued before that true conservativism is not against using price controls for goods and services, either, when the ethical need for such outweighs ideological allegiance to a laissez-faire "market". Here I use quotations because it should be obvious there is no such thing anymore.

I am probably done in this thread. I made my points. Have a good day all, and acptulsa try not to be such an aggravating troll wherever you go. It only serves to give others a lesser opinion of yourself.

[acptulsa]

These actions upon the so-called market are different than the funciton of government, unargued against until very recent times, that denoting a currency amount specifically to gold and silver, and yes, sometimes (although that need is anachronistic) gold/silver ratio, is a form of "price control".

That anachronistic practice seemed to be the crux of your whining. The one and only source you linked was basically about nothing else in this world.

Clayton went on to say it's not...

He did? Where?

It only serves to give others a lesser opinion of yourself.

Your opinion and seven bucks will buy me a cup of Starbucks--regardless of what it is. That said, I confess that the poor opinion of stormfront shills does make me feel I'm doing something right.

[Snowball]

I'm done with you, acptulsa. You're on ignore from here on out.
It's gone on too long. Rest assured, anything you write here I won't be seeing, so no need to reply to me any longer.

My apologies to the mods for posting off-topic, but I want him to be made aware.
Surely, he'll continue replying to me, because that's his game. Whatever. I refuse to read anything he writes.

[acptulsa]

Good. Anyone who calls sound money coined by a government fiat currency combined with price fixing isn't worth attempting to interact with. Especially when they're in the habit of trying to defend the indefensible by attacking people.

Much better to be able to refute them without their interference.

[ClaytonB]

Somehow the conversation (less acptulsa, who doesn't "do" conversations), shifted from price controls to gold & silver price controls, and Clayton and most others here are against those.

Against what?! I'm not against Congress defining the dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold, or silver. If they do this near market rates, for both metals, however, it's going to cause problems. There is a long history of this, so I would imagine that a historian would know how to dig up some books and read about it to understand it from a historical perspective.

My opinion on gold & silver price controls is no different than any other commodity. I can see rare cases, perhaps less rare today, when they would do more good than harm.

Price controls literally cannot help anything and, in fact, necessarily cause harm. The popular myth to the contrary is based on a fundamental failure to understand human choice, and trade. By definition, any two people who are voluntarily trading are both benefiting from the trade. Re-read that sentence before you speak -- it's true by definition. Yet, despite the fact that this is true by definition, as well as relatively obvious, this is not well understood among the public because of the prevalence of disinformation about basic economic facts. The purpose of this disinformation is to keep the masses in general ignorance and confusion resulting in permanent poverty. A price-control prohibits a mutually-beneficial trade that would have occurred from occurring. This is the opposite of a Pareto improvement -- the result of a price-control is that there are two people who are made worse off, for sure, and nobody else is made any better off.

I tried to explain how our whole economy is a victim of performative techniques and passive concepts which were alien to Christendom.

Yeah, I've seen every variation of this "Jesus was akshually a socialist" schtick and it's... not true.

These actions upon the so-called market are different than the funciton of government, unargued against until very recent times, that denoting a currency amount specifically to gold and silver, and yes, sometimes (although that need is anachronistic) gold/silver ratio, is a form of "price control". Clayton went on to say it's not, but it is. It establishes a legal base and the establishment of that base and the expected value of exchange is therefore set.

The US dollar came from the Joachimsthaler, which was a privately minted coin from Germany that was widespread and popular in trade at the time the US was founded. There were coins from all parts of the world circulating in the US at that time, and they even competed with each other in a kind of market for money. But there are some economic losses involved when you have multiple monies circulating together, so the purpose of the Constitution's grant of authority to Congress was to facilitate trade in the US by ensuring there was at least one reliable and universal coin -- the US dollar. They didn't need to drive out the other coins, either, because the market will quickly tend to converge on one coin (the story of Gresham's law often gets distorted when it ignores the choice of sellers on what money they will accept in trade).

This was more important in years past before a modern stock market and the London metals market, which began in 1877. I also explained how the fractionary-reserve methodologies, when corruption took hold in the Protestant kingdoms, and as the House of Hanover, now known as Windsor,

That's quite a leap...

I've argued before that true conservativism

I don't play the true _____ game. I'm conservative, but not that kind of conservative. If that's "not true" conservative, in your opinion, oh well.

is not against using price controls for goods and services, either, when the ethical need for such outweighs ideological allegiance to a laissez-faire "market".

The problem with price-controls is not whether they are conservative or not, liberal or not. The problem with price-controls is that they accomplish precisely the opposite of their stated goals.

The most common price-control, and the easiest to debunk, is the "minimum wage". The minimum wage is a deceptive name, because there is no minimum wage. If employing you brings $X of revenue into my business, and the "minimum wage" is raised to something more than $X, then employing you is literally a loss for me. For-profit corporations are prohibited by law from intentionally making choices to lose money, so if my company is large and incorporated, it's actually illegal for me to continue employing you. So your wage will quickly become the only real minimum wage: $0.

[Snowball]

[Against what?! I'm not against Congress defining the dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold, or silver. If they do this near market rates, for both metals, however, it's going to cause problems. There is a long history of this, so I would imagine that a historian would know how to dig up some books and read about it to understand it from a historical perspective.]

There's not a long history of it at all. For the Nth time in this thread, I will repeat myself. There was no gold market. Price of gold was set by fiat.

[Yeah, I've seen every variation of this "Jesus was akshually a socialist" schtick and it's... not true.]

What is that supposed to do with anything I wrote? Nothing. I wrote about fractional-reserve lending, which allowed a small group of underwriters to overstate the amounts of gold they had by writing IOU's. It was a forerunner of what they do today. It was dishonest banking and it was allowed by William of Orange in the Netherlands, while the same group was running the slave trade, waging war and came to rule over the United Kingdom, that House of Hanover. Babylonian banking practices incude usury also.. a forbidden, certainly not "free market" tactic of tribal collusion that also helped elevate them. It was illegal in Christendom and in the Muslim world, it is still illegal today in a country like Iran, which is why this group wants to overthrow Iran.


[The most common price-control, and the easiest to debunk, is the "minimum wage". The minimum wage is a deceptive name, because there is no minimum wage. If employing you brings $X of revenue into my business, and the "minimum wage" is raised to something more than $X, then employing you is literally a loss for me.]

I'm not an advocate of carte-blanche price controls. I do believe in market mechanics but I also believe they no longer exist, because the system has been corrupted and controlled. Price discovery was fine in the old days. The minimum wage is not thoroughly a price control. It is rather a political mandate that arose from inadequacies of the labour movement. Without the unions and laws passed to protect workers, people were bereft of health and a fair wage. Labor is the requirement for production of goods and services, not capital. Capital only enters the picture when the parties demand capital. A good example is the equal or greater production of military equipment by the Soviet Union and Russia compared to the United States. The United States spends dozens fold more money for the same effectiveness. Labour and knowledge drive the human endeavour. God didn't put price tags on the berries and trees. Much has been accomplished by societies without the use of money, and there are plenty of examples in American history also, such as the Amish, Native Americans and the hard work of our Midwestern ancestors who got their land for nothing, granted by the government to settle and farm. Today's false ecomony is all contrivance and undue waste, all the contrivances and waste are sent to the workers of iniquity, then they put the stolen labour and stolen goods back to use for themselves, depriving the population of self-determination and cultural control.

Consider the options and commodities "markets". These were intended to provide forms of insurance to crop producers for bad weather. Now, they are abused to drive inflation and enrich the .00001%. What you need to consider is that "price controls" and "price fixing" HAPPENS every day in their markets. With sophisticated algorithms and high-speed trading programmes, they are able to price fix. They also do it with the fait money they are authorised to produce. It is a pyramid scheme. The only difference between these price fixings and the goverment setting a price in times of crisis or to influence availability, or to discourage profit-driven abuses (such as with health care, which was until the mid-1970's restricted to non-profit status), is that one, the governments, happens at the behest of elected officials, and the other happens at the behest of oligarchs meeting in secret. In this secrecy, they distribute monies amongst themselves, promote those to do their biddings, and punish those who won't acclimate to their agenda. In our times, it is this astronomical wealth inequality they have created which fosters the calls to socialism. So, they are truly on the same side, but one is the unwitting fool.

[ClaytonB]

There is nothing worth replying to, however:

... I do believe in ...

That's your problem right there. "Believe in" is either a religious or political sentiment that is useless for understanding human action (that is, human choice). Since you're a history buff, I assume you've read a lot of long, dry books. Take a shot at Human Action sometime, it's not a difficult read but you might want to keep a notebook handy and jot down definitions along the way. That's the best I can do for you, consider it a life-ring thrown to a drowning man who keeps insisting he's a fish....

[Snowball]

There is nothing worth replying to, however:



That's your problem right there. "Believe in" is either a religious or political sentiment that is useless for understanding human action (that is, human choice). Since you're a history buff, I assume you've read a lot of long, dry books. Take a shot at Human Action sometime, it's not a difficult read but you might want to keep a notebook handy and jot down definitions along the way. That's the best I can do for you, consider it a life-ring thrown to a drowning man who keeps insisting he's a fish....

And I will refer you to the prediction about how capitalism is its own worse enemy by another author available at the Mises Institute, Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.

https://mises.org/library/capitalism...-and-democracy

p.s. don't become another acptulsa. it's wrong.

[ClaytonB]

And I will refer you to the prediction about how capitalism is its own worse enemy by another author available at the Mises Institute, Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.

Yet more student lecturing the professor. Schumpeter was a confused economist, at best. If you want to understand the points you are trying (and failing) to make in respect to the corruption of the market by the "elites", give this lecture a go:



Gabb is the kind of conservative that you keep mistaking me for (which is why I am recommending him), but he has his head screwed on correctly and knows up from down.

[acptulsa]

Gabb is the kind of conservative that you keep mistaking me for (which is why I am recommending him), but he has his head screwed on correctly and knows up from down.

I hope, for his sake, you aren't implying anything. I don't think he can get away with losing his temper, then playing the victim card twice in a single thread.

[Krugminator2]

[Against what?! I'm not against Congress defining the dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold, or silver. If they do this near market rates, for both metals, however, it's going to cause problems. There is a long history of this, so I would imagine that a historian would know how to dig up some books and read about it to understand it from a historical perspective.]

There's not a long history of it at all. For the Nth time in this thread, I will repeat myself. There was no gold market. Price of gold was set by fiat.

[Yeah, I've seen every variation of this "Jesus was akshually a socialist" schtick and it's... not true.]

What is that supposed to do with anything I wrote? Nothing. I wrote about fractional-reserve lending, which allowed a small group of underwriters to overstate the amounts of gold they had by writing IOU's. It was a forerunner of what they do today. It was dishonest banking and it was allowed by William of Orange in the Netherlands, while the same group was running the slave trade, waging war and came to rule over the United Kingdom, that House of Hanover. Babylonian banking practices incude usury also.. a forbidden, certainly not "free market" tactic of tribal collusion that also helped elevate them. It was illegal in Christendom and in the Muslim world, it is still illegal today in a country like Iran, which is why this group wants to overthrow Iran.


[The most common price-control, and the easiest to debunk, is the "minimum wage". The minimum wage is a deceptive name, because there is no minimum wage. If employing you brings $X of revenue into my business, and the "minimum wage" is raised to something more than $X, then employing you is literally a loss for me.]

I'm not an advocate of carte-blanche price controls. I do believe in market mechanics but I also believe they no longer exist, because the system has been corrupted and controlled. Price discovery was fine in the old days. The minimum wage is not thoroughly a price control. It is rather a political mandate that arose from inadequacies of the labour movement. Without the unions and laws passed to protect workers, people were bereft of health and a fair wage. Labor is the requirement for production of goods and services, not capital. Capital only enters the picture when the parties demand capital. A good example is the equal or greater production of military equipment by the Soviet Union and Russia compared to the United States. The United States spends dozens fold more money for the same effectiveness. Labour and knowledge drive the human endeavour. God didn't put price tags on the berries and trees. Much has been accomplished by societies without the use of money, and there are plenty of examples in American history also, such as the Amish, Native Americans and the hard work of our Midwestern ancestors who got their land for nothing, granted by the government to settle and farm. Today's false ecomony is all contrivance and undue waste, all the contrivances and waste are sent to the workers of iniquity, then they put the stolen labour and stolen goods back to use for themselves, depriving the population of self-determination and cultural control.

Consider the options and commodities "markets". These were intended to provide forms of insurance to crop producers for bad weather. Now, they are abused to drive inflation and enrich the .00001%. What you need to consider is that "price controls" and "price fixing" HAPPENS every day in their markets. With sophisticated algorithms and high-speed trading programmes, they are able to price fix. They also do it with the fait money they are authorised to produce. It is a pyramid scheme. The only difference between these price fixings and the goverment setting a price in times of crisis or to influence availability, or to discourage profit-driven abuses (such as with health care, which was until the mid-1970's restricted to non-profit status), is that one, the governments, happens at the behest of elected officials, and the other happens at the behest of oligarchs meeting in secret. In this secrecy, they distribute monies amongst themselves, promote those to do their biddings, and punish those who won't acclimate to their agenda. In our times, it is this astronomical wealth inequality they have created which fosters the calls to socialism. So, they are truly on the same side, but one is the unwitting fool.

Nothing you are saying has any connection to reality and isn't something any credible person has ever said. You speak with such conviction and authority though about topics that you couldn't possibly know about.

You remind me of this guy from Breaking Bad. I could read your posts and watch this clip all day and never not be amused.

[acptulsa]

Nothing you are saying has any connection to reality and isn't something any credible person has ever said. You speak with such conviction and authority though about topics that you couldn't possibly know about.

You remind me of this guy from Breaking Bad.

Yes, it's a bunch of nonsense. But isn't it curious that at the heart of it is the exact same fallacy that Zippy used to try to inject into as many threads as he could, to wit: A gold standard isn't defining your money as a certain quantity of gold, it's "fixing the price of gold"?

[Snowball]

Yet more student lecturing the professor. Schumpeter was a confused economist, at best.

Aha, so the man who was actually RIGHT about predicting the future was "confused", and the myopic, biased son of a Jewish banker, Mises, is sacrosanct.
(1).

No reply necessary. You are much less than a professor, and there's not a damn thing I could ever learn from you, pal.

Nothing you are saying has any connection to reality and isn't something any credible person has ever said. You speak with such conviction and authority though about topics that you couldn't possibly know about.

Oh really? Then address the subject matter I posted, instead of attacking the messenger, moi.