Author Topic: Gold and Economic Freedom (Read 1590 times)

miko2d · « **Reply #45 on:** June 25, 2003, 07:46:09 AM »

Holden McGroin: My point is that value fluctuates with the emotional view of the buyer and seller. Whether we are talking about gold or water it does not matter.

True. But here you are talking about regular exchange of goods while our original point of discussion was the monetary issue. Those are quite distinct.
If a piece of toilet paper is worth two beef stakes, the fact that a dollar changed value would not directly affect that papet-beef relation.

If the dollar were backed up by 1/400th of an oz of gold, it would not make any difference.

Once again, I am not talking about currency backed with commodity money but about commodity money - but for the current purposes your example suffices.

Your are right that it does not matter if a dollar is backed by a fixed amount of a resource available in constant quantity or it is backed by nothing else - as long as the amount of dollars stays constant[/b]!
The whole point of my argument that amount of dollars does not stay constant - the new ones are produced every day by the governmentt, reducing the purchasing power of the existing ones in people's posession - for which they exchanged labor and resources already!

Such trick is impossible with commodity money - you cannot print gold or silver liek you print new paper currecny.

In the old California and Alaska/Yukon gold rush days, with the dollar on the gold standard, and the local economies dealing with gold dust instead of paper money, price stability was unheard of.

Price instability is a natural feture of a free market - a signal mechanism by which supply is made to adjust to demand, thus leading towards better satisfaction and more efficient use of resources.
Trying to ensure price stability by extra-ecomomic means is equivalent to cutting wires on your thermostat so that it's measurement does not change with time. You will get constant measurement, but the actual temperature in your house will swing much more wildly without feedback control.
The same way artificial price stabilisation and control only leads to shortages of some resources and overuse of others.

miko

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #46 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:03:05 AM »

Who said anything about coercion? I never did... I merely pointed out the lunacy and irrationality of your ideas...

miko2d · « **Reply #47 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:33:34 AM »

GRUNHERZ: Who said anything about coercion? I never did... I merely pointed out the lunacy and irrationality of your ideas...

That's OK. You are entitled to your opinion. Even if you cannot defend it logically and have to resort to personal attacks and imaginary nonsense attributed to your opponent and denying obvious and common features of the world around us.

You treat my suggestion of private security as an anti-utopian nonsence that could never exist.
Do you have any idea the size of the private security industry in US? How many private guards are employed by companies and associations of companies? Ever visited a mall or a bank?
Do you know how many boduguards are employed out there? How many security agencies operate out there and how much money they make? What about the home alarms and monitoring compaies? What do you think those are if not private protection services? The armed people that transport money and valuables around in armored trucks? Even private investigative agencies are plentifull. Bounty-hunters, bail-jumper chasers, etc. What do you think former mayor Rudolph Juliani is doing now if not private security work? What about all those private guarded communities, patrolled communities and city blocks, etc...
And that all proliferation of private security is happening despite police state we live in.

You betray you idiocy in denying the existence and viability private security all around us as surely as if you denied the earth being round.

Also, you should work on your reading comprehension - you cannot judge my thoughts by separate words I am using without context around them.

I sited "communal" living as an example of a lifestyle I would not oppose exactly because communal living seems the most inane way of life to me. My use of this word - especially in a clearly negative sense - does not "betray"anything, at least to an intelligent person.

If my ideas on money and limited government are lunatical and irrational, at least I am in good company - that of Adam Smith, Francling Jefferson and even such socialist as Alehander Hamilton, to name just a few.

If everyone pushed only Marxist ideas like you do, it would be a dull world indeed.

miko

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #48 on:** June 25, 2003, 09:01:09 AM »

So now I'm a marxist, thats funny as hell....

miko2d · « **Reply #49 on:** June 25, 2003, 10:38:27 AM »

GRUNHERZ: So now I'm a marxist, thats funny as hell....

You wish...

I never said you were a Marxist - I have too much respect for them to label you such. They are smart and educated power-seeking scoundrels or misguided idealists.

You are too dumb and ignorant to be a Marxist with the capital 'M'.

You are just pushing marxist/collectivist views that you've got from hearsay or from your early education without subjecting them to critical consideration. And that is exactly what I said - about your views, not your party affiliation.

You can call yourself whatever you wish but your views and methods speak for themsleves. Having good education on the topic of Marxism I can recognise your use of those views and methods even if you do it unwittingly in your ignorance.

miko

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #50 on:** June 25, 2003, 05:15:09 PM »

Wow miko, I guess grennspan is a marxist too - hes lowering interest rates yet again and making money chaeaper and therfore destroying the world....

But have your ways buddy I know youre in the period of being more catholic than the pope right now...

Frogm4n · « **Reply #51 on:** June 25, 2003, 09:40:00 PM »

i think miko learned about the way the world economys work at a freeper rally. okay miko name 1 totally free market economy. and explain to me why a stable economy is bad! ooo so evil!!! and then explain why an economy based totally on free market works so well(wait there are no modern countrys with such a thing.)

its great that you follow adam smith and the like, but i thought you were smart enough to realize that his theorys were revolutionary but that his theorys were not totally correct and to have a stable society one needs a stable economy. something that a total free market cannot provide.

i think you should read more about keynes as well.

Holden McGroin · « **Reply #52 on:** June 26, 2003, 03:15:57 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by miko2d
The whole point of my argument that amount of dollars does not stay constant - the new ones are produced every day by the governmentt, reducing the purchasing power of the existing ones in people's posession - for which they exchanged labor and resources already!

The cash the bureau of engeraving and printing issues amounts to just a few percent of the M1. I can't remember the last time I was paid in cash. Probably when I mowed lawns in the neighborhood.

Credit cards, checks, billion dollar mergers are promises of cash at some nebulous future.

Once I take your promise of payment, I can exchange that for my promise of payment to someone else, and the economic life goes on. The amount of "cash" the Gov't prints is more of a convenience measure. Control the M1 is done by freeing or constraining credit.

And presently Alan Greenspan is more worried about Deflation, not Inflation, so that means that M1 is possibly being reduced.

Frogm4n · « **Reply #53 on:** June 26, 2003, 04:04:38 PM »

if deflation hits noone is quite sure what the hell will happen. only other time in modern history that this happened was in the 1930s. one of the reasons alan greenspans job exsists is to keep it from happening. his goal is to keep inflation at around 3 percent.

StSanta · « **Reply #54 on:** June 27, 2003, 05:55:23 AM »

Fr0gM4n wrote:

...and to have a stable society one needs a stable economy. something that a total free market cannot provide.

I'm quite ignorant in economic matters. A free market, according to libertarian theories, would be self regulating. There are many examples of government regulations resulting in economic disasters. Would ya care to educate me about why a free market cannot give us a stable economy?

The current system we're using sure as hell ain't giving us a stable economy. Two years ago while I was still studying comp. sci., they ripped people out from 4th semester to get people to work for them. Today, I've finished with top grades, 2nd in my year, and I still haven't got a job.

So much for stability.