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Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
Originally Posted by spudea on 01/15/24Originally Posted by spudea on 04/20/16Originally Posted by spudea on 05/30/17
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
"And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Robert Heinlein
Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler
Groucho Marx
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.
Linus, from the Peanuts comic
You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith
Alexis de Torqueville
Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it
A Zero Hedge comment
That's kind of the screw job of the current system though. There is no "wealth" being created, only further indebtedness masquerading as wealth.
Probably because everyone consumes but not everyone produces. Having said that, producers gain "wealth" by maximizing profit margin through low input prices. Higher input prices translates to higher output prices and is mostly a zero sum game. I still contest that any wealth is being created, however, since all that's being created monetarily is more debt. Production creates debt is more accurate statement under the current system. Does changing to that perspective change your opinion at all? Higher prices means higher debt. Do you still want higher prices now?But why is it only viewed from the consumer's standpoint? No one ever got rich by consuming. Production creates wealth. If consumption creates wealth then people drowning in credit card debt must be living the dream.
I generally agree with your sentiment, as a producer myself, I want the lowest input costs possible so I can make the output product as affordable as possible. Higher prices means less people can afford the product, at least until wages rise. But then when wages rise, prices rise further since wages are always a lagging metric. There is no solution in this current debt-money system.That's what's so frustrating about the whole debate. As long as people get cheap crap, no one really cares what happens to the producers, The entrepreneurs, The workers. We've gone from one extreme to the other since the days of Smoot-Hawley protectionism, to this new-age notion that you don't actually have to work hard or risk anything to increase your lot in life, and being able to buy a bunch of junk = wealth(?).
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul
"We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book
Well, if you want to debate the pitfalls of having a currency based on debt, you're in for a boring debate because we'll agree more than we disagree.
Still, FRNs seem to be enough to motivate people to show up to work every day, AND to buy stuff with them. I don't know if the fundamentals there would be much different if we had a real currency backed by something of value.
I think consumerism is a way to mask the problem though. The new "opiate of the masses." You say it is production, but I disagree simply based on the fact that almost all trade and tax policy over the last century has been geared towards punishing productivity and encouraging consumption. We ushered in the income tax and shunned things like tariffs. Something fishy about that, IMO. There's enough suspicion there to keep me from jumping on the "free trade" bandwagon. Seems to be a bit of a rat race against the shenanigans of the Fed, to find cheaper labor and cheaper garbage before anyone gets wise. I don't believe libertarian free-marketers are in on the deception, but I do think they might want to take a look at who is standing behind them and nodding their heads in agreement.
Last edited by nobody's_hero; 11-27-2018 at 07:14 AM.
T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." - Plato
We Are Running Out of Time - Mini Me
Originally Posted by Philhelm
That sentence sums up the system overall, especially now that it's in its end stages. The system has become little more than a "find the greater fools" version of capitalism, since, as you point out, productivity has been punished and smart, conservative business practices also have been (low debt load, patient growth, etc). The fast devaluation of the currency has forced the "greater fools" mindset more since it's a rush to amass as much wealth as possible before the currency loses more value. OTOH, a currency backed by something of value means relative stability and the ability to return to smarter business practices. The flip side is that is that all of this debt has to be wiped out and of course that means the money created out of that debt also. We really should have done what RP suggested back in 2008 and liquidated all that bad debt and malinvestment...
---------------
On topic of tariffs: UTX CEO (major US-based manufacturing corp) said a bit ago on CNBC that tariffs don't help anyone and don't accomplish anything, become a tax on consumers, don't bring jobs back, creates inflation, hurts demand and just don't work. He minces no words.
Relevant part starts at 7:30 mark
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/11/2...ies-hayes.html
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul
"We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book
Chris
"Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon
"...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul
Have you forgotten where you are?
The position of this website is that the amount that the federal government should spend on "borders," outside of times of constitutionally declared wars during which that spending is toward defense against bona fide military invasions, is zero.
Ron Paul may prefer not to label his position as "open borders," but given that he ardently opposes a border wall, supports letting anyone enter the country without even having a passport, and opposes banning people who lack government paperwork like visas from being able to get jobs here, it wouldn't be a stretch to call it that. And anyone who accepts the mission of this website as written agrees with him on these things.
Because managed trade agreements negotiated by unaccountable bureaucrats catering to powerful lobbyists and international plutocrats is much better than zero tariffs and zero subsidies. Always advocating the status quo as dictated by the global left establishment.
President Trump offered European nations and other countries a zero-tariff deal as a way out of an escalating trade war, but so far he has no takers ...
...
“Ultimately that’s what you want. You want tariff-free, no barriers, and you want no subsides because you have some countries subsidizing industries, and that’s not fair,” he told them. “So you go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free. That’s the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance.”
...
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...iff-trade-off/
"Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
"Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
"Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul
Proponent of real science.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.
At what point do we declare victory in the Trade War?
I have never suggested that anyone should have to allow trespassing, which pertains to private property. But that's not what we're discussing here.
As for its being illegal, all we have to do is repeal the laws that make it illegal, and illegal immigration will drop to zero. I support totally eliminating illegal immigration.
It is what we are discussing. Sovereignty. The collective private property of a people. Think gated community. Neighbors coming together to bar access to undesirables or those that may harm. Do you have a problem with that?
You live in the same libertarian utopia play world as Pierz. When you choose to join us at the grown up table of reality let me know.
We are each sovereign individuals.
If I invite someone onto my own property, then when they're there, they're not trespassing, whether you as an outside party like them being there or not.
And if you do support arrogating to yourself or some other individual or group of individuals the power to dictate to private property owners whom they may or may not invite onto their property, or sell their property to, then forcing those private property owners to allow you or those other dictators to trespass their property is precisely what you in fact support.
Last edited by Superfluous Man; 11-28-2018 at 10:21 AM.
My take is a little different from some. I believe in sovereignty. But I worry more about giving more power and wealth to the HOA (government) than I do about the threat from the "undesirables". Especially, since the biggest reason they want into the gated community is because the HOA is luring them in. Which one is really the bigger threat? Screw the HOA, we can manage our own properties without them walling us in.
"And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire
Many people in America want to be able to welcome people into our land that you and your cohorts do not want to welcome here. It is not in some imaginary utopia that this situation obtains, it is the present reality.
Which group is the "collective" that should get its way? Those of us who want to welcome immigrants into America? Or those of you who want to prevent their entry? And on what basis does the one group get to assert its will over the other as the so-called "collective"?
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