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Ron Paul has been the unheard voice of reason in 2008.
Speculation is not fact. Government shadows USE speculation to best benefit their users and preditors; rich and powerful by sucking more of your sweat and labor..
Ron Paul speculates, but he is one who is on the American People’s side.
He predicted this financial crisis 5 years ago and he warned us.
Keep your ears open for his message. I suspect you may need to know what his his suggestions for protection is.
Ron Paul goes for the Root of problems.
Everything he says is spot on. The key part of the speech was where he said that all of this stops when the Dollar starts being rejected. (external to the U.S.)
All this bail out money and a lot more prior to this is worthless tissue paper created by the Fed.
Buy gold.
Ron Paul has great wisdom and insight; however, he has aligned himself in the past with some galloping racists.
Right message, wrong messenger.
Seems like a voice of reason and common sense amidst the black hole of stupidity that has descended on the US in the last few years.
WACKO REPUBLICAN ALERT! Yes, that’s right, this Republican calls out a wacko republican when he sees one.
Gold Standard? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
What a bunch of buffoons. Yes, fiat money has big problems but the answer is not to go backwards to what is basically a barter system. Dolts.
Irritating how dogma/mantra and the kneejerk reaction it causes substitutes for any real thinking.
I’ll look for a better article, but aim for a standard that actually means something? This article is not dispositive, just an example of how to actually think about an issue rather than revert to magical incantations.
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2008/03/whats-wrong-wit.html
#8 “Gold Standard? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Neither the speaker or anyone in this thread said to go to the gold standard.
What are you posting about?
The root of the problem is that thorny question of the proper role of government. I read a good description, government should set the rules and prosecute the criminals. Government should not interfere with decisions about what people do with their money and what gets produced and sold.
The current problem is that government has decided to be “insurer of last resort” and is backing a whole bunch of worthless investments, thereby insulating investors from really bad decisions.
While I understand the previously mentioned reference to Hoover letting the market suffer the consequences of its action leading to the Great Depression, government can’t be the backstop upon which investors throw all their questionable decisions. There’s just not enough capital since “government’s money” being used for these bailouts is really just our money anyway. It’s a vicious circle which never stops.
For that reason, it was good to let Lehman go down. Somebody has to learn that great rewards entail great risks and you can’t go running to Mommy every time you make a bad decision.
Bobbo, having a king that would water down the metal in his coins is the old way of doing things. Now by abandoning the gold standard, you just allow the government to print more money at will, watering down what you are holding.
And he is a just pointing finger and offers no REAL solution. Just more work with the same rusty. bent and broken tools.
Cursor_
#12 “And he is a just pointing finger and offers no REAL solution.”
Sure he did. The same solution JFK tried to implement, right before he was assassinated…
You don’t listen too well, do you?
#5 “however, he has aligned himself in the past with some galloping racists.”
So did Obama but it doesn’t make him wrong or, right in his positions on finance…
#9–Paddy. Fair Rebuke.
I’m keying off the support and admiration for Ron Paul and your own reference to buy gold.
Ron Paul is a huge supporter of returning to “the Gold Standard.” He thinks “the root” of our current problems is having left the Gold Standard.
The gets to the root of the problem? Wisdom and insight?
I stopped listening to the Video half way through, but relistening, I see he doesn’t say in this presentation that a return to the gold standard would be part of the solution. He has said this in the past and I just went off half-cocked this time.
Sorry, save it for later. In fact, this Ron Paul talk is right on the money, but almost all politicians would say about the same, then go back to their offices and vote irresponsibly anyway. They are two faced that way.
Vote all incumbents OUT!
Thin what you want about Ron Paul, he’s obviously thought through some of these issues more clearly than Obama and McCain, both of whom are deer in the headlights over this mess. Over a year ago, one of the giants in the credit business, said in an interview that if the credit/subprime mess were a baseball game, that we were not even in the first inning yet – hadn’t even finished the national anthem. There have been other voices out there -minyanville.com in particular.
#15 “and your own reference to buy gold.”
I only said that as our money isn’t worth anything. We don’t have enough gold to go back to the gold standard. (I’m sure based on your rejection of it that you know that)
This is going to get a lot uglier before it settles out…
I purchased a two of those $50 buffalo coins from the mint. Now I am ready for the collapse of the world economy!
Obama still working on his plan.
“After meeting with his top economic advisers, Obama said this was not the time to present specific details for how to fix the immediate problem, a reversal from what he had said a day earlier.”
I wish Ron’s message wasn’t so muddled. I think he has a lot to add to the discussion from the point of view that he speaks more from how economics actually works. But in order for what he says to not seem too much out of the main stream he uses a lot of terminology that doesn’t necessarily help convey what he thinks.
What I don’t understand is that it seems like many if not most folks are ready to blame Washington and Wall street for the mess and yet when Washington comes up with a plan to fix it, we’re all for it. Does this make sense? Why should we believe anything they say? And who says that we can’t just let all these bad actors fail? Oh, ya, Washington.
So, Washington cozy’s up to the money in Wall Street and provides legislation to their advantage, then when there’s a problem Washington actually pays them off and tells us that they just have to or you might lose your retirement. What a scam.
Now that we see how ugly the government intervention market becomes lets try a free market and see how that works.
Bobbo, he has a point about the gold standard. If we had been on a gold standard, we wouldn’t have the Feds adjusting the value of the dollar, and the interest changes would have been much smaller. Without a runup in interest rates, there would not have been as much of a housing mess.
#18, I know you’re kidding đ but what actually happens in disasters is that the economy becomes barter. Right now in Texas, after the hurricane the people of the fringe of the disaster who have power are where many people are staying. Why? They have food and the means of keeping it because they have refrigerators and freezers.
Unfortunately, you’re collectible coins are worthless for a while.
One factor people don’t get at is the push by Fannie Mae for more housing for the poor, as well as Clinton’s reinterpretation of the Community Housing Act to go after banks for ‘redlining’. They had to explain why their rates of lending to blacks was lower.
So then banks started issuing cheap loans and handed them off to Fannie Mae.
Mike==we have been off the gold standard for so long I don’t think anyone knows how it would have affected world economy in all the various ways it would.
Seems to me that stock speculation on the margin brought us the crash in 1929 and had nothing to do with the gold standard we were on.
Seems to me that sub-prime mortgage backed securities is bringing us todays crash and has nothing to do with the gold standard we are not on.
But–I’m way out of my depth. Just “basically” why Nigeria or some other country should become the richest nation in the world because of digging up some metal out of the ground doesn’t sound very rational to me.
#24 – “ButâIâm way out of my depth. Just âbasicallyâ why Nigeria or some other country should become the richest nation in the world because of digging up some metal out of the ground doesnât sound very rational to me.”
You are correct, but now we get into the theory of money. Money as we know it emerged because of the impracticality of using commodities as representatives of wealth. We could use anything, 10 foot high carved stones, if we were to choose. This thing money merely represents wealth. So, it is not the gold itself, but how we represent the wealth of the nations. The fact is, investors out on the fringes of economic realities, using these derived securities and other “imaginary” properties, played the game to make themselves very wealthy, but the side effect was running the economy on paper all out of whack from reality. Thus, the two bedroom house in S. CA. becomes “worth” $1.5 million.
The solution? Well, there’s government micro-managing. Not my preference, as I believe there is too much opportunity for non-economic factors to come into play. I believe that you have to let those who made so much money off the rise, drop like stones when the house of cards comes tumbling down. Insulating them from their actions only encourages them, kind of like giving beer to the homeless.
The most important lesson here is for the little guy, those of us just saving for retirement, not to get involved in this game at all. Just stick with good, sound investments and don’t think you can get rich overnight by becoming a “day trader” or any other nonsense. Personally, I bought a reasonably priced house, didn’t play fancy real estate and loan games, and my stocks and mutual funds are still up 150%.
Imagine you’re at the race track.
You bet $1 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $2.
On the 2nd race, you bet $2 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $4.
On the 3rd race, you bet $4 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $8.
On the 4th race, you bet $8 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $16.
On the 5th race, you bet $16 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $32.
On the 6th race, you bet $32 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $64.
On the 7th race, you bet $64 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $128.
On the 8th race, you bet $128 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $256.
On the 9th race, you bet $256 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 odds.
The horse wins, you get $512.
On the 10th race, you re-mortgage you house, sell your car, borrow from the guy next door and bet $500,000 on the favorite to win, at 2:1 ods.
The horse stumbles out of the gate and finishes dead-last.
Should the government give you $1, $500,000 or $1 million?
None.
However, what is going to happen is it is going to give you
1000000
500000
1
——-
$1,500,001
plus a limo ride home.
The US taxpayer gets none of the upside and all the downside.
Brought to you by clownis maximas W.
Short the USD !
Why do you post the crap from Ron Paul? He’s a tard…
At least there is one politican who will talk about the 800lb gorilla in the room.