BS: Obama caught in blatant lying

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:40 PM

Yeah, ya' noticed that Obama had flat out quit is blatent lieing ways and it's all because of us... Hey, lets give the man some room, ya' hear???

Yeah, we need a banking thread... No, we don't... We need a mini-shirt and big-fins-on-cars thread...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:38 PM

His lips were moving this morning!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM

You know what I think I'll do? I'll start a thread on banks and money and we can yak about it there. After all, it all started long before Obama, and will no doubt be continuing long after Obama, so I think it should have its own thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:30 AM

Well, dogs an' tacks, LH!!!

You mean, you want a reset??? Well, sheet fire, boy... I'm all for that... We could use a reset in anumber of areas... Like conflict resolution... Like cars without no style... I kinda likes the mini-skirt days, mah seff... You think you could get them back in while yer fiddlin' with a new currency???

But seriously, I think the Euro is a major step forward... I wouldn't be opposed to am international currency... Then the games that are played with currency value manipulatioons couldn't occur...

As for backing??? Brick of cannibus works fine for me... Plus is't natural and organic...

Seriously, there ain't nothin' that we could back it with that wouldn't seem silly unless it was something you could come up with that has no use whats-so-ever so that we aren't like having to shut down all the computers 'cause we need somethin' in' um to back currency... Good luck at fininding that...

But I agree... Sniff... That the good ol' days when a 35 bucks wouldget you an ounce of gold... I also liked them bigass fins on the Imperials and DeSotos...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 01:07 AM

Oh, stop being so silly... ;-)

I am saying that the paper dollar had a much more solid and real and stable value back when it was a "Silver Certificate" than it does now as a Federal Reserve Note...because it was backed up then by reserves of precious metals and redeemable in same. It's now backed up by nothing but a promise and it's redeemable in nothing but itself. A good scheme if you are a legalized counterfeiter...which is what the Federal Reserve is.

I am NOT saying that all the trillions of present dollars supposedly out there (most of which are not paper bills, but just appear on some balance sheet or digital record) should have coins minted to back them up! Good God....there isn't that much gold and silver in the entire world.

There is a vast amount of utterly fictional money out there in play, and there's no way it can all be backed up, because it's a pipedream that was invented to generate debt and interest charges.

One would have to start over with a whole new currency...tremendously reduced in total numbers of "dollars" or whatever you called them from the present inflationary bubble.

I feel like I'm attempting to talk about dogs and cats here and the people I'm talking to are imagining that I'm talking about gods and tacks... ;-)

What happened to communication? Damned if I know. Maybe I'll just find some good books on the subject to recommend to you guys and give up trying to explain to you myself what the heck I'm talking about...

By the way, Canada has already eliminated both the paper dollar bill AND the paper 2 dollar bill, and replaced them both with $1 and $2 coins. It seems to work fine here. The country did not collapse. I believe it was done because it's cheaper in the long run to use the coins than it is to keep replacing the worn out paper bills. Coins last a long time. Bills don't.

(That's just a side issue to what I've been talking about. I mention it for its own interest's sake.)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:34 PM

Exactly my point, Peter T...

LH has this very romantic notion that if it was backed by metal that everyone would be happy and sing on key???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:33 PM

There HAS been a dollar coin, and they are trying to get them used...

Thing is, if they ever expect to get the coin into general circulation, thay have to withdraw the $1.00 paper bill. Not exactly rocket science- just stop replacing the paper bills and/or - as they've done in the past with other paper currency- declare it not legal tender after a certain date.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:16 PM

Gee, William Jennings Bryan lives.

Money is only what people believe in, and as long as they are deluded into believing in the United States -- and its capacity to keep going -- paper money will do: it is only as good as the belief in the governments that issue it. The idea that a gold standard or any other such standard will keep governments in line is a very old fantasy.   John Kenneth Galbraith (in his very funny book on money) makes the interesting point that America was built on a series of bank collapses and bubbles, and that is what made it so entrepreneurial -- in the ruins of all the risks, new things came along that fueled the next phase. Other countries (like Canada) were much more boring, and their banks were much less prone to invest in crazy schemes, which is why Canada is so low on the global innovation and research and development tables.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:15 PM

"If the U.S. would issue a $1.00 coin as standard currency & drop the paperdollar bill entirely, they'd save millions of dollars annually. "


Since 2000, they have been trying (Sacawagea and presidential series "gold" coins, made of a manganese brass alloy ). There HAS been a dollar coin, and they are trying to get them used- a dollar bill lasts 17 months, while a dollar coin lasts about 17 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:10 PM

Do you realize that a danged penny cost 1.6 cents to make???

Yeah, but it costs a great deal more than that to keep the U.S. one dollar bill in circulation.

If the U.S. would issue a $1.00 coin as standard currency & drop the paperdollar bill entirely, they'd save millions of dollars annually.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 06:28 PM

Teddy gear sounds kinky.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:06 PM

Okay, LH... For one thing, coins are expensive to make... Do you realize that a danged penny cost 1.6 cents to make??? But if you were happy if the US minted a coin for every dollar in existence then you'd spend more than than a trillion dollars just to make you happy... With the stuff that we allready need to do don'tch think that would be silly??? And that is just the minting... Now throw in the transporting and storage of hundreds of tons of metal and yer now ralkin' about another trillion dollars... Oh yeah, ya' gotta pay a couple trillion to mint, move and store a few hundred tons of metal coins so if you insist on havin' it your way then yer gonna have to add a couple trillion more coinns to pay for the original coins and then, and then...

No, this insistence on yer part has some psyhological basis prolly related to yer toilet training 'er yer mom taking away yer teddy gear too early... I donno... I ain't no psychologist 'er nutin' but I have heard yer arguemnts before from the LaRouchies that used to infest the town where I had my business, Leesburg, Va... Yeah, they was all over that gold 'er silver standard too as if it was the magic bullet to solvin' all the world's problems...

Of course it's all just smoke and mirrors, gold/silver standard or not... Now back it with cannibus and you might get soemwhere with me but gold??? Nah... Silver??? Nah... Plastic??? Bad fir the environment... Copper??? Gotten too expensive... Pot metal??? Too heavy... Lead??? Kids would eat the coins and die... What else is there??? Hmmmmmmm??? Aluminum??? Then we'd have no beer cans... Can't have that... What else??? Kriponite??? Maybe....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 04:15 PM

LH,

"with 20 gorgeous old silver dollars from the 30s and 40s"

No.

The last silver dollars in the US were the Peace type, from 1921 to 1935. They were going to make them again in 1964, and Denver made a few hundred thousand which were then melted back down.

The previous dollar was the Morgan from 1878 to 1904, then 1921.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 02:18 PM

Those old "Liberty" silver dollars were beautiful, by the way. I had a whole bunch of them. You could just go to the bank, give them a $20 bill, and walk home with 20 gorgeous old silver dollars from the 30s and 40s. Man, were those ever nice coins. I sure wish I had them now, cos they are worth a lot these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 02:12 PM

I'm not in total disagreement with what LH is saying, Bobert. I just have some differences on some of the details.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM

It doesn't have much to do with Obama other than that he and George Bush both caved in to the banks, as usual. But I would not have expected anything different, so I'm not particularly shocked or anything.

What's so radical, Bobert, about proposing that paper money be restored to a certificate that is exchangable in precious metals...as it was back when we had Silver Certificates instead of Federal Reserve Notes? Remember?

I could take a paper dollar to the bank in 1960 and get a silver dollar for it! That was when the dollar still had some real value. You know what one of those silver dollars costs now in paper dollars?

You know what happened to paper money in Germany in the 20s? It became virtually worthless. One man had a gold coin that he had inherited, and he bought a large hotel with it at the height of the German economic crisis. Gold is real. Federal Reserve Notes and other such paper currency that is not legally redeemable in a guaranteed amount of some precious metal are not...they are Monopoly money.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 08:42 AM

Oh, I see that Barak is Irish this mornin... lol...

Really nothin, Capt'n... Just a side bar on Economics 201... Seems that LH, against all logic, thinks like Lyndon LaRouche on having a gold standard... Or some kinda standard... Hey, I hear he's into rocks so why not rocks???

Then Carol and I, who each passed Econ 201, are pointing out having a standard is like, ahhhhhh, wierd thinkin'...

Butg then again, it is Little Hawk and he does have some not-so-logical thinking on some things... Not many, mind you... But lets just say that he didn't have perfect attendence in school and leave it at that... *grin*...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: GUEST,Kendall
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:08 AM

What has all this to do with O'Bama?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:30 PM

I guess my point was that if our societal structures collapsed, neither gold nor silver would be of much benefit to anyone. If a rich person had accumulated a massive amount in his or her treasury, it wouldn't do them a bit of good if the society that decided to agree about what its exchange value was no longer existed. At that point, food, water, shelter, land to grow food on, needed skills and knowledge, and physical labor would be the only things that had real value. People have to agree that things like gold and silver have exchange value. It's all a matter of what people agree to do. With the system we have now, people agree that trust in the monetary system is the only thing that the exchange depends on, so it has an agreed upon value. If the system collapsed, none of what we use as money would have any exchange value, but neither would gold or silver.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:55 PM

Yeah, LH... Yer on to me... Sorry, I'm just havin' a borin' kinda day and figured if I can't find someone here in the Mudpuddle to mess with then what am I to do seein' as the P-Vine has hid that jug of shine from me??? Now ya' know why I am a bluesman...

But yer right... Banks can lend money (not gold, not four leaf clovers or even snakes) to one another and bet with other folks that the the banks they lent it to won't repay the loan and then middle men come in and act as betting brokers and siphon off a big slice which then gets kicked back to all their banking friends... That's purdy much what is going on and then someone on the NPR radio says that these brokers "made" the money??? WTF??? Are they in the counterfiet business, 'er what??? They didn't make the money... They stole the money all legal and then the workin' stiffs have to chip in to repay the banks for the money that these hoodlums stole and...

...the beat goes on...

When credit defualt swaps are made illegal we will be takin' the first step toward correcting what is wrong with banking 'cuase all you have now is banks lending to each other like guys sittin' at a poker table and other rich folks sitting around "making" (ha) money bettin' on which back is going to repay which other band and which banks aren't...

Talk about silly??? This is sillier than the gold (or boa) standard...

B~

p.s. Poor ol' Obama ain't been able squeeze in a decent blatent lie between all this silly stuff...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:35 PM

Yeah, yeah... ;-) I think you're just being obstinate for the fun of it, Bobert.

I spent quite a bit of time looking for four leaf clovers when I was a kid...they were considered more valuable than the 3 leaf variety, naturally. And when I found one, I would press it in the pages of a book.

I agree about the Colombian Boa Constrictors...gorgeous! And you will find that they are quite pricy if you go to an exotic pet store. The reason they aren't used as an exchange for money is...

# 1 - A lot of people are afraid of snakes
# 2 - It isn't practical. Every try to put 15 or 20 Boas in your back pocket or your briefcase? Doesn't work! And they need to be fed and housed. Nope. Stupid idea...

But if you were a Plains Indian, then horses were way better than currency....

Bobert, do you realize that if I was a bank owner, I could instantly create $30 million in debt owing to ME by lending $30 million to some huge corporation? I could do that without really HAVING the $30 million in the first place! And I could charge interest too.

Can you do that? Can I? No. Because we are not a "bank". And no one would believe we had that $30 million unless it showed up first at the bank! But the bank IS the bank. If they lend $30 million, then no one doubts that it's there...even if it isn't. And the moment the corporation owes that $30 million to the bank...the bank is covered, and they just became richer by $30 million plus interest. And if the corporation goes belly-up and the bank is BIG enough, then the government will borrow MORE money from the banks and lend it to the big bank so it won't fail. They do this supposedly to "protect the public". ;-)

Guess who ends up paying the government's new debts to the banks whom they borrowed the bailout money from to keep the banks from failing when their pyramid scheme went KABLOOEY?

You and I do...through our taxes.

You see where this is going? The public always eventually pays the overall debt.

You see how you can create new money through others' debts if you are a bank?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:15 PM

Well, gol danged... Why not four leaf clover??? People like them, too an' they are rare... And they is purdy, too... So I say, hey, why not have the value of printed moneys all tied to four leaf clovers...

No, no... Not four leaf clovers... Hey, LH, ya' ever see a Columbian Boa Constrictor... The way that the sun relects of its scales is like a milluion little prisms... I mean, beutiful, graceful, very stylish and pure... And, unlike, diamonds or gold, it is alive...

Hey, I'm for makin' Columbian boa constrictors the standard for all currencies...

I mean, this entire thing of assigning this universal value to stuff is really strange when you boil it down... They say that one man's trash is another's treasure... You know, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder... I kinda like that... It's romantic in the most classical and historical sense... But when one tribe assigns some object or substance so pure in it's beauty and wants the rest of the world to accept that object of substance as this universal basis of currency this is not unlike the apes (no, not chimps) in Space Odessy worshippin' first rocks and bones that could be used to harm and then to metal, which they didn't understand...

I mean, there is no rational basis in having currency backed by anything unless whatever you back it with is backed by... which is backed by... I mean, this silly thinkin'...

Want proof, LH???

BB agrees with you!!!

I rest my case...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:39 PM

Traditionally, if something real has been selected as a direct exchange for a unit of "money", then it was something that wasn't too easy to get, usually, but that people either needed or at least wanted. This explains why people don't use sand for money. Or grass. Or shit. ;-) It's too easy to find, and nobody much wants it.

You could definitely use water for units of money in a desert area, and it would work great. People in many parts of the ancient world used salt as money for the same reason...it was hard for them to get salt, and they needed it in their diet for health reasons. There was a huge trade in salt at that time, and caravans brought it from places like the Dead Sea to areas where the people could not easily obtain it.

The reasons people generally like gold and silver...as opposed to mud, grass, shit, flies, ordinary common stones, etc. are so obvious that there's no need explaining them.

People also like diamonds and other gemstones because they are rather rare and hard to get (And the diamond industry makes sure it stays that way!) and they look beautiful when polished. They may not be "useful", but they look lovely, and that is a use in itself. Even crows will steal shiny objects like that and put them in their nests, so it is not human beings alone who appreciate a supposedly "useless" item merely for its appearance.

Life is not a matter of "utility" or physical suvival alone! It also has an aesthetic side that is quite important in establising happiness in people. As soon as people have the survival part reasonably well in hand (at least for the moment), they start giving plenty of thought to all kinds of other values in life. Things like gold and silver jewellry help satisfy some of those other values.

There is a inner desire for perfection that drives people, and it goes way beyond just surviving. It gives us our concepts of beauty, grace, dignity, style, purity, and most of the other subtle values that make life worth living.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:22 PM

Well, lots of other stuff has intrinsic value, too... Why not just pick one of those???

(Well, Boberdz... We do... That is why a pound of silver costs more than a pound of sand... Both have value but one more than the other...)

What's that got to do with peggin' the value of currency to something arbitrary just because that arbitrary choice has some level of intrinsic value???

Nothin', at all... Currency standards are hogwash, primitive and tribal... They might have served the apes in 2001, A Space Oddessey but they are way past thier shelf life in a modern world...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:11 PM

You're absolutely right. I would have mentioned those practical uses of gold and silver, but I figured I'd said enough already.

The gold and silver leaf used in some Asian deserts is consumed in very small quantities, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. I've eaten that stuff once or twice when visiting Pakistani friends. It didn't seem to have any noticeable after-effects. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:04 PM

Gold and silver have a lot of intrinsic value electrically. Silver is the best conductor of all the elements (leaving out that newfangled cold temperature superconducting stuff) and gold is the best contactor, so good that it actually gets used in a lot of electronics, just a couple of atoms worth of depth does the trick. I remember when you could wipe all the gold from the contacts with a sweep of a pencil eraser.

It's a shame they get used for currency when otherwise they're so useful.

And I'm not gonna make a point that gold leaf figures as a dessert coating amongst the well heeled of some cultures.

Robo who wonders if one can crap glitter.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:57 PM

(smile)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: beardedbruce
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:47 PM

Forgive me , Lord, for what I am about to say:





Little Hawk, you are absolutely correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:21 PM

An interesting argument, Carol, but I can't agree with it.

Here's the essential difference: Gold and silver and all other metals derive their worth through their scarcity and the expense of mining them and refining and extracting them from the ore (or other medium) in which they are found.

Anything that is found in nature, yet is scarce...hard to acquire...yet found in nature and also attractive or useful in some respects (which is definitely true of both gold and silver)...any such thing becomes valuable simply BECAUSE of its rarity and because of the work that must be done to acquire it.

A bank does not have to do ANY work when it creates (BINGO!) $30 million magically in the form of debt in the moment it makes a new $30 million dollar loan to someone on paper. It doesn't have to even print 30 million dollar bills or mint any coins. It doesn't have to go and get the money out of the vault. It doesn't have to do anything except print a sheet of paper saying "We hereby loan X Inc. $30 million at such and such a rate of interest for such and such a period, bla, bla...)

That $30 million was not mined or refined or extracted or printed or minted or anything. It HAS no corporeal existence. It cost no effort. You can't touch it. It's an idea...nothing more. Because people "trust" the bank (ha ha) they assume that the $30 million msut be real. It isn't.

Stuff you can create instantly out of thin air whenever you desire isn't rare, Carol...not to those who have the authority to create it...and the banks do. Nor is it real. Nor does it possess intrinsic value in its own right.

It isn't rare, it isn't physical, it came from nowhere, with no effort, it isn't fucking REAL.   But everyone assume it's real, because we all play the game.

The physical paper money that you are speaking of, is physically real, yes, although it's just a symbol of value, and we've all agreed to pretend it's worth something....but it comprises probably less than 1 % of the digital and balance sheet money that appears on the balance sheets and bank statements of the nation. There's just enough of it to allow people to do their many daily small transactions at stores and so on....although mostly they would rather use credit cards or bank cards. The amount of real paper money in circulation is miniscule compared to the phony "money" that's in play in the economy...and that's why if everyone made a run on the banks on the same day that they'd have to close their doors after 1 or 2 per cent of their depositors had withdrawn all their deposits in paper money.

You see, it's not the paper money itself that is the real issue here, though it's part of the issue...it's the fact that simply vast amounts of other money have been created by banks NOT IN THE FORM OF PAPER MONEY BUT IN THE FORM OF DEBT through fractional lending. There isn't anywhere near enough PAPER money to back up all that debt. Not even close. There's practially nothing there, comparatively speaking. That's why we have these periodic boom-and-bust scenarios, because it is just a pyramid scheme. The government just bailed the banks out of the last big BUST phase, but they didn't bail the public out. That's because the banks have the power here and the public doesn't, when it comes to this scenario....

The public can't have the power, because the public does not create this phony money on which the whole thing is based...we just use it, that's all.

The banks create it. NOT in paper money. They create it in the form of debt.

The paper money is just there so that you and I can go to the movies or the milk store and buy something with our paper money...but it comprises a tiny fraction of the enormous level of debt that's out there now, and the debt has been created quite willfully by lending institutions that are so big that "they can't be allowed to fail". Thus the government bails them out. And the national debt grows.

What a deal! (if you're on the inside track) What a disaster if you're not.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM

But the value we give things like gold and silver are just as much of an illusion as the value we give our paper money. Metals like gold and silver have little intrinsic value. You can't eat them or use them for your survival in any real way. You can only agree with other people that they have value and base your exchanges on the agreed upon value. This is not really any different that what we are doing with paper money. We have determined that paper in the form of money has value and we are basing our exchanges on the agreed upon value of the paper money - the same as we would do if it was gold or silver.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 04:36 PM

You're not comprehending me at all on this issue, are you, Bobert? ;-)

Look, my friend, when currency is legally redeembable in something real at a given rate...and that something can be gold or silver or any other recognizable and measurable and valuable substance...it doesn't really matter what it is as long as people agree on it as the standard and have a pretty accurate idea of how much of it there is available...

Then the paper currency has real value! And it cannot be endlessly inflated beyond reason by unscrupulous lending institutions creating it out of thin air, because they would be obliged to pay it off on demand in something REAL...which means they would have to limit how much of it they create and they'd have to have reserves of something REAL to back up the damn paper money. And that would prevent them from getting away with their pyramid scheme.

Capiche? This goes for governments too, and they know it, which is why having gold reserves has always been vital for societies with a strong and healthy economy.

Dollars once were real, when they were redeemable in given amounts of gold and silver. They aren't real any longer. They're no more real now than Monopoly money is, and that has happened because the money was turned into Federal Reserve Notes which aren't redeemable in anything real at all...because they ARE Monopoly money...created by a monopoly...for the purpose of enriching that monopoly.

As long as we all go on pretending that the Federal Reserve Notes are real...then the bubble expands, the monopoly grows richer, and the public grows poorer (gradually...so you don't hardly notice it...except when a recession hits).

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 01:10 PM

Yeah, LH, but tiein' currencies to arbitrary standards won't chqange that at all... All that will do is change, as we are seeing, the values of those currencies in relation to the arbritrary standards...

I mean, lets get real here... Lets say that an ounce of gold is worth $35... If you only have but Y amount of gold and you have X number of people needing money as a medium of exchange then there wouldn't be enough money for daily commerace... That would be a bad thing, wouldn't it???

As for debt, it is what it is... I guess the silver lining in it is that the more money we print the less value each dollar holds and that means that all those dollars that the Chinese have are worth less... But the silver lining is that relative to it's own currency you can get more American made product for less currency value... That is kinda what the economists used to call "floating" where values tend to even out as the money supply grows in one place and measured against another's currency... Gold really has nothing to do with that...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:05 PM

Ah, but it was a rather charming place in its simplicity, don't you think? ;-) It obviously couldn't last.

Bobert, you are quite correct that debt and distribution are the problems. I was mainly pointing out that DEBT is the crucial problem, and we have an international banking system that enriches itself by creating massive new debt all the time, and governments that finance themselves and fund wars in that fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Peter T.
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:06 AM

A lot of this tripe goes back to Robert Nozick who argued (and it was immediately taken into the rightwing bloodstream) that the only things government was good for was policing and warfare. So in the US (and now in Canada) rightwingers are perfectly happy to ratchet up military spending ($636 billion in the US and counting for the new fiscal year) and throw people in prison, and support nothing else. This clearly ridiculous notion is behind all this hooha.

Tibet was a peasant state run by hierarchical medievalists before the Chinese came along -- the Dalai Lama has often stated that it was a failure and should have a secular government in future.   The freedoms the Tibetans had before the Chinese came along were more a function of the impossibility of controlling people in any real sense who live in unbelievably mountainous conditions. (Exactly the same is true of the ridiculousness of trying to control Afghanistan).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:07 AM

It is no longer the people we elect, LH... They are just doing what out dysfuntional system invites them to do... The problem is that the dysfunctionality came in incriments... One redistricting here and other there and *then* the fillibuster being used as a daily bat for the minority to beat up on the majority... This cannot be easilly undone, if at all...

(As a side note... The money supply isn't the problem... Debt and distribution are... Wouldn't matter one bit if someone went out to dig out a new basement and found a couple million tons of gold... Unless the entire universe is on a gold standard then so what??? The stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be...)

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:56 PM

It's sort of like that in Canada too, only when parliament is in session here we feel like the baby's gotten into the finger paints. Less serious, perhaps...but still very messy! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:33 PM

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

Will Rogers

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:49 PM

What is pork?
Anything that's not in my district...

          Tip O'Neil

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:16 PM

"Speak softly and carry a big stick"
                                    TR

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:34 PM

The reason there have been cuts in many essential services in the last few decades is simple. The existing financial system which is built upon an ever-expanding false money bubble created through fractional reserve lending policies has effectively bankrupted our entire society...and we are seeing the inevitable cracks in the facade now. So much tax money goes merely to servicing the national debt (debts owed to banks) that less and less is left over to do anything real or useful with. A dollar is worth far less than it once was for the same reason...because so many new dollars have been created by the banks doing their irresponsible lending. One wage earner used to be able to properly support a family. Now two wage earners are finding it harder and harder to do so.

We have been living in a giant ponzi scheme all our lives and it was created by lending institutions and governments in hock to those lending institutions, pdq, and that's why there isn't enough money now to maintain former levels of essential services.

You know this. You advised me to read that book about Jeckyl Island, correct? And I did. It is not the provision of social services such as Canada's universal medicare to North Americans that has bankrupted our societies, it's the constant production of vast amounts of new and fictional money through the banks' Mandrake mechanism that has done it. POOF! A bank just created 20 billion more dollars by making a $20 billion loan to some Third World country...and the bank is now drawing interest on that loan. The $20 billion sprang out of nowhere onto a balance sheet the moment the loan was signed, and the debt it created became a new bank asset...PLUS interest! That new asset can be used to generate further ponzi schemes.

That's the Mandrake mechanism. An ever-expanding giant balloon based on debt that draws interest. That's a pyramid scheme. And you know it.

To blame our present social situation on the provision of new social services is to ignore the massive elephant that's standing in the room right next to you....which is the banking system and its ponzi scheme.

Bush and Obama bailed them out. Why? Well, the government basically does whatever the biggest banks want, right? Because the biggest banks bought out the government a long time ago. If Obama or Bush tried to shut them down, they would be dead men. And I suspect that they are well aware of that...so they do whatever the banks say they must do, and the great money game rolls on.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:33 PM

So government isn't supposed to be into no social programs??? Hmmmmm??? How about the thousands of pages of laws that protect polluters, monopolies, money lauderers (credit default swap schemes), exploiters, userers and general corporate thugs against the working class??? Guess those laws don't count as social programs becuase they only benefit the rich???

No, what we have is the biggest welfare state ever imagined with 5% of the people controlling 80% of the wealth and these same people use the government to corral more and more of the wealth to the point now where most of the Baby Boomers have been fleeced and now see that retirement isn't something that is in the cards for them...

Heaven help the next generation if the governemnt continues to pour welfare (thru bad laws) onto the rich...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:17 PM

"That is what government is intended to do."

Hallelluia! I had been hoping to get some kind of acknowledgement from you, pdq, that the government serves some kind of useful purpose and is not wholly evil and an eternal enemy of the public good. Thank you!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:05 PM

How are social programs unconstitutional, pdq?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: pdq
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:52 PM

"...maintaining the roads, the police, the schools, the fire department, the libraries, the parks, the waterworks, the hydro..."

That is what government is intended to do. Also protect our borders from drug smugglers and other illegal entrants, including Muslim jihadists.

In the last 20 years there have been cuts in fire departments, police and park mantainance to pay for unconstitutional social programs. The bridges and hiways are crumbling. Get back to basics and stop spending our kid's future on make-work BS jobs and local pork projects that do nothing but get worthless politicians elected.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:37 PM

Yeah, I know, Carol. That's why I bent down and kissed the ground when I returned to Canada in 1969 after 10 years of living in the USA... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:34 PM

LH, I hate to break it to you, but that's pretty much what they've been doing for a long time. Except for the war profiteering. They've put a lot of energy into that.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:25 PM

Okay... ;-) Let's tell everyone in the government to just go and vacation on the beach from now on, then. They can spend their salary having fun and getting drunk from now on instead of working. Forget about legislation. Forget about maintaining the roads, the police, the schools, the fire department, the libraries, the parks, the waterworks, the hydro, and medicare. Forget about everything. Let it all just take care of itself somehow. We'll all be better off, right?

I can hardly wait for this "least government" paradise to arrive, can you?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: pdq
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:02 PM

"The government is best which governs least" ~ Thomas Jefferson

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 12:43 PM

"An armed forces big enough to fight off anyone in the world is big enough to be a threat toward everyone in the world." - George Coventry

Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:58 AM

In reference to my prediction on 3 December 08 (one year and a bit ago):

"Monday, January 4, 2010; 11:11 AM

WASHINGTON -- An unexpectedly strong report on manufacturing activity Monday bolstered confidence that the nation's factories will help sustain an economic recovery.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index read 55.9 in December after 53.6 in November. A reading above 50 indicates growth.

That is the fifth straight month of expansion and the highest reading for the index since April 2006. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a reading of 54.3. "