Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul to speak at American Monetary Institute conference

[slipslidingaway]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x27276

snip from the above link>>

"You see friends, whatever reforms you are striving for, whether its health care, or a cleaner environment, or greater justice in the criminal justice system or a more fair minimum wage, or writing off unjust loans extended to 3rd world nations, or an end to the gross stupidity of nonsense WARS for profit; the only way any of those goals can be achieved in a lasting, permanent way, is to have monetary reform.

The reason is simply that whoever controls the money system ultimately controls the society."

[goodgd_yall]

1. K & R n/t

[Nederland]

2. I Agree with the statement

The question is, do we really want to entrust control of the money system to politicians? I'd say absolutely not.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Is not the money supply already controlled by people the

politicians nominate and approve and also by extension the people who have contributed to their campaigns?

[Nederland]

9. True

However, the current arrangement allows members of the Federal Reserve a degree of insulation from political pressures. The moments in our history that the Federal Reserve acted for political reasons, such as when Nixon's Fed chairman Arthur Burns was pressured to lower rates just before the 1972 elections, were not good moments. I would hate to see, for example, Congress directly voting on whether or not to raise interest rates. Likewise, returning to the gold standard as advocated by Ron Paul is idiotic...

In sum, I guess while I admit that what we have right now isn't perfect, I've yet to hear of a better idea.

[slipslidingaway]

11. Agree in that I would not want to see Congress directly voting

on interest rates and that there is not enough gold to cover the dollars. But we cannot just continue to print money as Bernanke suggested and have that paper money retain it's value. We need a push to manufacture goods and control our debt, each time we reach the limit on our credit card the Congress raises the debt ceiling. I fear too many politicians brush this issue aside :(

[Nederland]

15. Correct

But we cannot just continue to print money as Bernanke suggested and have that paper money retain it's value.

Correct. However, there is a simple measure that indicates when a country is printing too much money: inflation. When I take a look at the last 25 years, I simply don't see any evidence that the US is printing too much money. Inflation has been under control for a long time now, and until you see a return of double digit inflation you simply cannot argue that we are printing too much money.

[slipslidingaway]

4. Was this another wealth transfer courtesy of the Fed? Heck of a

job!

A few people posted this article last week

http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/bottomline/35813/

"Eager homebuyers and speculators fought each other for these properties, armed with cheap financing, courtesy of Alan Greenspan, who wanted to boost an economy reeling from 9/11 and create a legacy of homeownership for all, including those who could not document steady income or, for that matter, citizenship.

We think of him as Saint Alan now, but in a few years he will be known as the reckless Fed chairman who encouraged the creation and use of exotic mortgages that required you to put down very little money, odd creations like the “2 and 28,” an adjustable mortgage with low interest payments...

Over and over, Greenspan hailed these fabulous financial breakthroughs that gave everyone a chance at the American Dream (or multiple dreams, in the case of speculators who took down homes and flipped them). And why not? Don’t homes always increase in value? Won’t there always be willing buyers armed with ARMs?

Except that wasn’t how it went down. The same guy who prescribed the mortgage elixir for all Americans then laced it with seventeen straight interest-rate increases, increases that brought rates to levels so high that legions of people who bought a home with a teaser rate couldn’t afford the payments. Between 2004 and 2006, just as interest rates started spiking and homes kept being churned out in these saturated areas, 14 million families purchased houses, many taking advantage of teasers and piggybacks. Given that the average home went for about $250,000, that’s hundreds of billions in loans that cost a lot more per month than when they were taken. Now these people are stuck. They can’t refinance because the rates are too high, and they can’t sell their homes to repay their mortgage, either. In every area of this country—and in particular, in the once-hot markets like the ones I mentioned earlier—there are just too many other homes for sale and too many new homes still being pumped out."

[Desertrose]

5. K&R

"The reason is simply that whoever controls the money system ultimately controls the society."

Yup.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Thank you!!! n/t

[rucky]

7. ron Paul wants to get us back on the gold standard.

i don't know if there's enough gold (not hoarded) to back every dollar out there.

but I do know that the dollar needs to be backed by something real. we make money out of thin air, which is what our economy is built on. maybe we should go back to the salt standard?

[slipslidingaway]

8. "I do know that dollar needs to be backed by something real"

Agree! Not sure how this will be achieved, but I would hate to be one of the last to leave the party.

Salt :) I guess we are reverting to resources as currency.

[Nederland]

10. Why?

Why do you think the dollar needs to be backed by something "real"? A comparison of life on the gold standard and life under a fiat currency clearly shows that fiat currencies are far far preferable--especially for the poor and middle class.

[rucky]

12. got 47 minutes?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money&total=140345&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

[Nederland]

14. Great Video

It kind of reminds me of first learning about quantum physics. When you first learn it, you are thinking, the universe cannot possibly work this way; but it does, and it does (obviously) work. In the same way, when people first learn about how fiat currencies work they cannot believe it. But the fact is that things do in fact work that way, and they work rather well. The proof of just how well fiat currencies work lies in observing how in the course of less than fifty years, every nation on the globe switched over from what they were doing to fiat currencies. Since that switch economies have become much more controllable and life for everyone has improved immensely.

There are exceptions of course. Not every government has the discipline to maintain the restraint that is necessary with a fiat currency. As the video describes, nothing physically prevents banks and governments from increasing the money supply as much as they want. The rub, of course, is that if you increase the money supply without limits you get the runaway inflation that was common in Latin America, Israel and other countries. Heck, we even had a bit of a problem ourselves in the late 1970's. Since then, most of those countries have gotten the knack of how to control the money supply so that inflation doesn't get out of control.

That's why it is so important for control of the money supply to not be directly in the hands of politicians. I simply don't trust them, particularly Republicans, to not take a long hard look at our national debt and think, you know, I could make this all go away with just a few years of 100%+ inflation...

It's just too much of a temptation for anyone politician I think.

[slipslidingaway]

13. "Why does fiat money seemingly work ?"

I have not read the whole article yet, but if his past read of the market/economy is an indicator I know I'll learn something.


http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-does-fiat-money-seemingly-work.html

"Imagine that you live on a small island mining the local salt mine, together with Pete the fisherman and Tom the apple grower. You'd exchange your salt for Pete's fishes and Tom's apples, while they would exchange fishes and apples between them.

One day Pete says: "Instead of fish, from now on I will give you pieces of papyrus with numbers marked on them. (Papyrus grows in near unlimited quantities nearby, to the obvious benefit of Pete)." Pete continues "One papyrus mark will represent 1 fish or 5 apples or 2 bags of salt (equivalent to current barter exchange rates). This will make it easier for us to trade among ourselves . We won't have to lug fishes, apples and salt around all the time. Instead, we simply present the papyrus for exchange on demand."

[Look My Way]

16. They belong together !

I like them both to a certain extent. But they are both too wimpy to be our President.

[Desertrose]

17. "too wimpy to be our president" -that's cute

....would they like be our president like a team or something??

:evilgrin:

Sorry....couldn't resist.Actually I don't think either is too wimpy for the office, although I'd hate to see Ron Paul be president...so that leaves Kucinich....and I do like him. a lot.

DR

[Look My Way]

18. The 2 best things about Dennis.

His Sense of Humor and his Foxy Wife!

[Desertrose]

19. OMG. Check out the Daily Show for 8/20/07

Jon keeps talking about Dennis' "hot wife". Really funny- hope it turns up on YouTube soon.
and I agree, DK does have a good sense of humor.

Peace
DR

[Look My Way]

20. Joe Biden thought she was Foxy too.

Dennis outdid himself with that chick.