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Utah Reps call for Constitutional Convention

Eureka! It was because of the silly action I pulled before I realized (<---just today) you were an all powerful moderator isn't it?

Don't even know what "silly action" you're referring to. I didn't dignify your initial question with a response because I refuse to acknowledge you have "ideas." Seems you just copy-paste whatever ridiculous babble you've read today.

In this instance it appears you've simply repeated something you've been told while confusing the difference between "accumulated deficit" and "spent" and while papering over (and probably not even understanding) the difference between real and nominal dollars.
 
Don't even know what "silly action" you're referring to. I didn't dignify your initial question with a response because I refuse to acknowledge you have "ideas." Seems you just copy-paste whatever ridiculous babble you've read today.

In this instance it appears you've simply repeated something you've been told while confusing the difference between "accumulated deficit" and "spent" and while papering over (and probably not even understanding) the difference between real and nominal dollars.

Please fill free to ignore my posts then.

My initial responses were to others anyway.
 
Please fill free to ignore my posts then.

In the alternative I will feel free to point out their ignorance until their quality improves.

To quote our resident hack-a-tron: "please delete your account and log out of your life."
 
In the alternative I will feel free to point out their ignorance until their quality improves.

To quote our resident hack-a-tron: "please delete your account and log out of your life."

LOL! I didn't realize Jazzfanz had quality control. You have a lot of work to do!
 
Just to be clear, are these negreps?
 
My original response was to this question by Thriller:

So how much debt can we pay within 19 years? Do you know? Did Jefferson know?

I'd like to talk to Jefferson about this "19" number as well as other details of his proposals.

Here is another quote from Jefferson:

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing"; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce; manufactures and aggriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams...

Apparently I'm too damn stupid to figure out what all these terms mean. Anyone besides "believers in dreams" want to help me out with this?
 
The issue isn't so much having a debt that moves back toward zero. The problem is it's impractical to implement without something like an independent Federal Reserve setting spending policy, and that policy would have to come in line with the two main monetary tools the Fed controls (interest rates and capital requirements). Congress is too fixated on politics to get the spending anywhere close to correct.

Economists from Keynes to Friedman have tossed around ideas that would match Millsapa's sentiment. Keynes ideas have proven impractical as congress cannot control itself. I'm afraid any version of Friedman's ideas would require significant changes to the current structure.

Keynes ideas are like trying to dig yourself out of a hole.

The existence of a Fed sounds like the fundamental problem, at least from Jefferson's view:

Thomas Jefferson said:
The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.
 
Don't even know what "silly action" you're referring to. I didn't dignify your initial question with a response because I refuse to acknowledge you have "ideas." Seems you just copy-paste whatever ridiculous babble you've read today.

In this instance it appears you've simply repeated something you've been told while confusing the difference between "accumulated deficit" and "spent" and while papering over (and probably not even understanding) the difference between real and nominal dollars.

Wow, kicky, you're really going over-the-top ******* on this one huh? I've found Millsapa to be quite genuine where others have lashed out a little extra reactionary like you appear to have. I also think it's a Hopper reincarnation and maybe you suspect the same...

Keynes ideas are like trying to dig yourself out of a hole.

So some from a certain crowd say to no end. This depends on your theory of money, I guess.

The existence of a Fed sounds like the fundamental problem, at least from Jefferson's view:

There are other founding fathers, but you obviously have a preference for Jefferson. Read up on Ben Franklin's ideas on paper money and you may alter your position a little (he made a living printing dollars for Pennsylvania and other governments of the time).

I'll give you the same opportunity I've given others (who've refused the offer to get into any actual substance), to wit: What alternative mechanism of exchange do you propose?
 
Wow, kicky, you're really going over-the-top ******* on this one huh? I've found Millsapa to be quite genuine where others have lashed out a little extra reactionary like you appear to have. I also think it's a Hopper reincarnation and maybe you suspect the same...

Based on his false assumptions I can see why he might lack respect for me. Respect is the only way a junto is effective.
I didn't make myself clear in my attempt to keep the conversation simple, and once he misunderstood me I thought it was pointless to correct him.
He appears to have no patience with those he considers beneath him. That's all good. His self-title is a big clue to this.

So some from a certain crowd say to no end. This depends on your theory of money, I guess.

Yes, there are two main schools of thought. Sorry, I didn't realize that saying was overused. The logic of spreading future tax dollars around in an effort to spur the economy never made sense to me because you are taking it out of the market to begin with. The most it could ever result in is a zero sum game.

There are other founding fathers, but you obviously have a preference for Jefferson. Read up on Ben Franklin's ideas on paper money and you may alter your position a little (he made a living printing dollars for Pennsylvania and other governments of the time).

I'll give you the same opportunity I've given others (who've refused the offer to get into any actual substance), to wit: What alternative mechanism of exchange do you propose?

I will try my best to diversify to other Founders. I just came upon Jefferson's ideas on the topic first. Do you think maybe Franklin's views on money are a result of conflict of interest with printing it? LOL!
I'd love to be able to address the alternative mechanism at length, but I am a stupid *** when it comes to this topic. Here is my attempt:

Apparently 3 presidents tried to change the monetary system. Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. The idea was that "congress would issue its own money and banks would be required to loan on existing assets rather than use fictitious money based on merely a fraction of their assets." So my understanding is that when you eliminate "fractional banking" you eliminate the boom bust cycle that we have now, and if you eliminate the bust cycles then there is no "need" for deficit spending...and rack up debt. Am I off base? I've obviously left out other factors for simplicity sake.
 
Yes, there are two main schools of thought. Sorry, I didn't realize that saying was overused. The logic of spreading future tax dollars around in an effort to spur the economy never made sense to me because you are taking it out of the market to begin with. The most it could ever result in is a zero sum game.

Your theory on money is too narrow, and comes off as overly influenced by the Mises crowd (not actual Austrian economists).

Apparently 3 presidents tried to change the monetary system. Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. The idea was that "congress would issue its own money and banks would be required to loan on existing assets rather than use fictitious money based on merely a fraction of their assets." So my understanding is that when you eliminate "fractional banking" you eliminate the boom bust cycle that we have now, and if you eliminate the bust cycles then there is no "need" for deficit spending...and rack up debt. Am I off base? I've obviously left out other factors for simplicity sake.

A widely believed myth. There has been fractional banking since before the birth of the country. The Federal Reserve didn't bring it. The business cycle predates fractional banking by thousands of years. The cycle is inevitable, and was just as bad or worse before the creation of the Federal Reserve. There were many depressions before and only one since. We attempt to minimize it, and, we'll call them the Ron Paul crowd, wrongly blames the cycle on government. Sure government can compound or reduce the sway, but it doesn't cause the cycle.

Truth be told, "sound money" still employs the fractional reserve mechanism anytime any loan is made, whether the loan is in gold, cattle, land, or anything else. Think about this: you loan your neighbor a gold coin, she invests it in a new parlor dress for her prostitutin' bidniss, the taylor then loans it to a drunk. Two loans are outstanding from one gold coin. It's all fractional, man.

Fractional banking creates and destroys money. If we didn't have this mechanism then the government would have to get money into circulation another way. Saying "sound money" sounds nice, but it's a baseless concept with not much thought behind it. Our money is a medium of exchange. The value comes from the economic powerhouse that backs it. It's given further validity through taxing power. I'll take this system over gold any day. All gold does is get thrown in a vault and worshiped, where it does nothing to better humanity. Money is used for the benefit of all. Gold is an idol, and I'd be happier if all the world's reserves were dumped into Eyjafjallajokull.
 
Wow, kicky, you're really going over-the-top ******* on this one huh? I've found Millsapa to be quite genuine where others have lashed out a little extra reactionary like you appear to have.

You think she's genuine. I think she's outrageously underinformed. We can split the difference and say she's genuinely underinformed.

As a general rule, I have low tolerance for those who know very little about complicated systems and ideas while simultaneously espousing lofty rhetoric about the way things ought to be. Milsapa generates content along both trends in high volume. The Thomas Jefferson quotes are nigh insufferable because they're treated like gospel.

I also think it's a Hopper reincarnation and maybe you suspect the same...

I don't think so.
 
Your theory on money is too narrow, and comes off as overly influenced by the Mises crowd (not actual Austrian economists).



A widely believed myth. There has been fractional banking since before the birth of the country. The Federal Reserve didn't bring it. The business cycle predates fractional banking by thousands of years. The cycle is inevitable, and was just as bad or worse before the creation of the Federal Reserve. There were many depressions before and only one since. We attempt to minimize it, and, we'll call them the Ron Paul crowd, wrongly blames the cycle on government. Sure government can compound or reduce the sway, but it doesn't cause the cycle.

Truth be told, "sound money" still employs the fractional reserve mechanism anytime any loan is made, whether the loan is in gold, cattle, land, or anything else. Think about this: you loan your neighbor a gold coin, she invests it in a new parlor dress for her prostitutin' bidniss, the taylor then loans it to a drunk. Two loans are outstanding from one gold coin. It's all fractional, man.

Fractional banking creates and destroys money. If we didn't have this mechanism then the government would have to get money into circulation another way. Saying "sound money" sounds nice, but it's a baseless concept with not much thought behind it. Our money is a medium of exchange. The value comes from the economic powerhouse that backs it. It's given further validity through taxing power. I'll take this system over gold any day. All gold does is get thrown in a vault and worshiped, where it does nothing to better humanity. Money is used for the benefit of all. Gold is an idol, and I'd be happier if all the world's reserves were dumped into Eyjafjallajokull.

I'm sorry but your loaning example doesn't translate to fractional banking.

Speaking of loaning to prostitutes and drunks. That is what has been happening since CRA was implemented, except they are lending out someone else's gold coin (<---ultimately the responsible tax payer ), and 20 more fake ones created out of thin air, to people who have no means to pay it back.

Our current system is nuts. Right now money=debt. The more money there is the more debt there is. If there were no debt in the money system there would be no money.

The last time our national debt was paid off was under Jackson in 1835 when he shut down the central bank.

He said, "The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it."

A better system would be where a bank could only lend out actual deposits, 1 gold coin to 1 person or a 100% reserve requirement, AND the government couldn't increase the money supply.
 
Phyllis Schafly is still articulate and the Eagle Forum still runs an effective organization, and has picked up a lot of momentum in recent years. I cite her opinion as one that will cause many conservatives to hold off on going whole hog on the ConCon idea.

Our founding fathers included almost half who wanted slavery to be abolished in extending liberty to all people, but the price would have been two small countries both much more vulnerable to conquest. It was a practical compromise. For a while.

George Washington suffered from a view of the natives that did not favor believing they could be included in the new government in a way that would have worked. He tried to bribe one well-educated native leader, Joseph Brant, who had led a number of tribes to assist the British during our Revolutionary War, thinking maybe the Brits had "bought" him.

We passed through a narrow window of possibility in world of unworkable compromises, by the skin of our teeth. Today we could do better at including minorities in our system but we are infected with narcissism, pessimism, skepticism, and such in the place values once taught as universals by Christ before the belief system was co-opted to build statism: service, hope, and faith.

It's not about me. It's about the ideas. Sometimes stark contrasts to prevailing notions can be a good thing.

No we can't have that! The elitists know what is best and all you peasanties can just shut up about the founding fathers...they had slaves!...so we can just throw out their ideas. We have to be smarter than them because we elected chicks to congress, and we have a half black pres.
 
No we can't have that! The elitists know what is best and all you peasanties can just shut up about the founding fathers...they had slaves!...so we can just throw out their ideas. We have to be smarter than them because we elected chicks to congress, and we have a half black pres.

I'm finding your courage inspiring. I don't think you have to have a degree in economics to have ideas to talk about in sports forums, do you?

Do you think the principle of internet dominance is justified by the necessity for Statist norms?

I guess some of these dudes are worried Hopper is gonna show up again. Gosh they even sorta try to wrap their minds about that scary scary scary scenario.

Well, since you are not an economist, and I at least have read a variety of economists including Robert L. Hielbroner's "Primer on Government Spending" as well as a few paragraphs of Ludwig von Mises, perhaps I can help you out.

It's all psychological human behavior. If the gov can keep a carrot in front of the hamsters in their cages so that they can just keep running towards it, all is well. We roll outta bed and join the chorus of "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go", and we keep electing the same folks who keep printing more money. Life is good, we pay back yesterdays debt with todays dollars. We ride the balmy inflation wave and as most businessmen know, a rising tide floats all boats.

Heilbroner in his Primer explained how deficit spending runs the engines of commerce and keeps everything going. The gov just prints money, and some folks jump at it, work their little legs furiously, and spin the cylindrical cage real fast.

However, I know some young kids who are starting to wonder how they will fare in their future, with all that debt on their shoulders to begin their worklives with.

So how about the down side to all this wonderful spending? Gov largesse stimulating the economy carries some inefficiencies in its mechanism. They create demand, yes, but for what. What will folks spend their energy doing? Gov spending opens up one class of jobs, and ultimately has to derive taxes from everybody to pay the interest on the debt. Printing fiat currency means when you go to buy a car or a house, or a can of beans, there's a lot more money showing up in the market competing for the product, and we pay more for it.

Gov spending like this is a sort of tax on our future. It makes the money we're earning mean less when we try to buy something later on. A house I bought in 1975 would sell today at six times the price I paid. Meaning in effect, the next person who wants to buy it will have to pay a tax called inflation. Well, if we can keep inflation going maybe they'll feel alright in thirty five years when it's paid for and supposedly worth six times as much again. Until they sell it and have to pay all that "capital gains" on it. Well, if we keep the tax exemption on the specific capital gain on a primary residence, provided we move the sales price into another house, I guess we are alright. Except these kinds of price movements really make us all just a whole lot more inefficient in our decisions and actions. People avoiding doing the most convenient or best thing to avoid taxes. . . .

What I see is a lot of people today struggling to keep up some sort of security, with wages going down as a result of world trade treaties and job flight overseas, and wages are not keeping up very good with our expenses. No, I really don't think what we're doing is really working. . . . at least not in our interest.

I don't think SirKicky is gonna be there to help you when you get caught between that debt and your shaky little job that somebody in Bangladesh will do for mere pennies. So if it's not alright to question authority in a sports forum, I'm thinkin it might just be more worthwhile movin' on down the road.
 
Heilbroner in his Primer explained how deficit spending runs the engines of commerce and keeps everything going. The gov just prints money, and some folks jump at it, work their little legs furiously, and spin the cylindrical cage real fast.

Interested to know. Does that dude ever touch upon the law of exponents? Or what to do once the debt becomes unserviceable?
 
Interested to know. Does that dude ever touch upon the law of exponents? Or what to do once the debt becomes unserviceable?

I understand how this actually is a responsible and intelligent question, and how there might be something in this line that could be done to manage it all. I honestly just had this book out on the kitchen table, but my wife cleaned everything up and I'm not sure she didn't throw it in the trash, considering she believes herself to be an economist of the Chicago school. And since I read it forty years ago, and only recently read a few chapters once again, I might have missed something.

And if anybody wants to fill me in on this subject, I'll eventually deal with it. It might take me a few days since I'm on the road again and will not be back for a while, but I make a rule of respecting actual content in support of various views as a substitute for hyperbolic personal innuendo.
 
Interested to know. Does that dude ever touch upon the law of exponents? Or what to do once the debt becomes unserviceable?

Sufficient circulation cures this alleged problem. That's why it's discussed by the Jekyll Island crowd and ignored by the professionals.
 
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