tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post7658225908253665358..comments2024-02-29T00:46:38.800-08:00Comments on Washingtons Blog: How To Solve the Economic CrisisUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-14963541925296134082009-03-02T15:04:00.000-08:002009-03-02T15:04:00.000-08:00I think you've identified a necessary, but not suf...I think you've identified a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for recovery. Admitting these failures of trust isn't enough though, the political will, the economic means, and the social desire to do something about the circumstances you identify has to exist.<BR/><BR/>The factions that benefit from the existing economic order have spent the last thirty years and untold resources convincing the electorate of a set of delusions that give it incentive to vote against it's own self interest.<BR/><BR/>They've been so successful that many of the initial propagators of this fantasy now believe their own crap. When a belief system reaches this stage it's usually unsalvageable. The deluded participants are consigned to a fate of following the dictates of their flawed belief systems until it collapses from it's own weight.<BR/><BR/>Those who engineered these delusions, and continue to profit from them, have no interest in their correction. They'll see the system go down before they'll relinquish the privilege that the flawed order insures for them, or by the time they recognize their folly the social, economic, and political resources to reverse the decline will have been spent.<BR/><BR/>The issues involved are sufficiently complex, varied, and subject to legitimate debate that they are easily distorted towards the ends of those who desire that the confusion continue, or who welcome the chaos and collapse of the system for the opportunity it provides to replace it with something of their own, usually much darker, design.<BR/><BR/>So it has always been, and so it will continue to be.JFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13681632224756939196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-57615008594323443102009-03-02T14:59:00.000-08:002009-03-02T14:59:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.JFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13681632224756939196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-32831757995620394662009-02-27T17:41:00.000-08:002009-02-27T17:41:00.000-08:00What caused this depression is the same thing that...What caused this depression is the same thing that causes all depressons (a.k.a. recessions) which don't have an obvious destructive event such as war or natural disaster: artificial inlfation of the money supply. Of which occurs through fractional reserve banking and/or an increase in fiat money, i.e., through fraudulent banking and/or through counterfeiting.<BR/><BR/>The reason why is because all prices are determined by supply and demand, including the interest rate, which is the price on loans. By artificially increasing the money supply by means of fraud and/or counterfeiting, this lowers the price of the interest rate. It thereby falsely gives the appearance of more savings existing (i.e., more saved wealth available to loan) than is actually the case. More to the point, it makes business projects that otherwise would not have been undertaken seem ex ante to be profitable, but which are later found not to be viable. Hence, by lowering the interest rate below the natural rate, it causes malinvestments, particularly clustered in the area of capital goods (since the only way to grow an economy is through an increase in capital goods, i.e., those goods which aren't consumed for their own sake, but are used to make the consumer goods people do directly use).<BR/><BR/>As well, the first spenders of the fiat/fractional reserve money (i.e., the government and its insider-connected elites who create it on fiat) get the benefit of obtaining actual goods and services by spending money that was, in effect, created out of essentially nothing. That is, the government and its favored elites who create the fiat/fractional reserve money get actual goods and services essentially for free (i.e., for the cost of typing a few numbers into a computer terminal, writing a few numbers in a ledger, or printing up some paper). Whereas the rest of the economy is saddled with a devauled currency. Moreover, actual goods and services in the economy are being funneled from genuine value-producers into a parasitical sector of society, thereby making society as a whole poorer and less productive than it would have been without this parasitical drain.<BR/><BR/>Hence, in addition to causing the destructive boom-bust cycle in the economy, a fiat/fractional reserve currency also acts as an obfuscated tax, although a particularly pernicious tax.<BR/><BR/>For more on this, see:<BR/><BR/>America's Great Depression, Prof. Murray N. Rothbard (Auburn, Alabama: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, fifth edition, 2000; originally published 1963) http://www.mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf<BR/><BR/>The above book concerns how governments create depressions/recessions through credit expansion (i.e., fractional reserve banking and/or fiat currency).<BR/><BR/>See also:<BR/><BR/>"Against Fiduciary Media," Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe with Profs. Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Walter Block, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1998), pp. 19-50 http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae1_1_2.pdf<BR/><BR/>I should also point out that plank No. 5 of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's Communist Manifesto is "Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly." (See Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx and Engels, English edition of 1888 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/61 .)<BR/><BR/>For the history on how the "capitalist" (i.e., mercantilist) elite in the U.S. bankrolled Communism as well as National Socialism, see the below scholarly books by libertarian Antony C. Sutton, Ph.D.:<BR/><BR/>Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Antony C. Sutton, Ph.D. (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House Publishers, 1974) http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/index.html<BR/><BR/>(Note: Chapter I of the above book refers to a 1911 St. Louis Post-Dispatch cartoon illustration by Robert Minor. This can be viewed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Robert-Minor-Dee-Lighted-1911.png .)<BR/><BR/>Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Antony C. Sutton, Ph.D. (Suffolk, England: Bloomfield Books, 1976) http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/index.html<BR/>http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/sutton_wall_street/index.html<BR/><BR/>The Best Enemy Money Can Buy, Antony C. Sutton, Ph.D. (Billings, M.T.: Liberty House Press, 1986) http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/index.html<BR/>http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/sutton_best_enemy/index.html<BR/><BR/>See also:<BR/><BR/>"Thyssen Funds Found in U.S.," International News Service (INS), July 31, 1941 http://www.infowars.com/print_prescott.htm<BR/><BR/>Vesting Order Number 248, Federal Register, November 7, 1942 http://www.mbpolitics.com/bush2000/Vesting.htm<BR/>http://www.mbpolitics.com/bush2000/Vesting%20248.gif<BR/><BR/>"Bush-Nazi Link Confirmed," John Buchanan, New Hampshire Gazette, Vol. 248, No. 1, October 10, 2003 http://web.archive.org/web/20040510030611/http://nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_Link<BR/><BR/>"'Bush-Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951'--Federal Documents," John Buchanan and Stacey Michael, New Hampshire Gazette, Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003 http://web.archive.org/web/20031119040002/http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2<BR/><BR/>"How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power," Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell, Guardian (U.K.), September 25, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html<BR/><BR/>"How the Bush family made its fortune from the Nazis," Attorney John Loftus, former U.S. Department of Justice Nazi War Crimes prosecutor and current President of the Florida Holocaust Museum, September 27, 2000 http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/new_world_order/bush_nazis.html<BR/>http://www.john-loftus.com/Thyssen.asp<BR/><BR/>----------<BR/><BR/>I also recommend that everyone see the below reading list:<BR/><BR/>"Recommended Reading Concerning Political and Economic Theory," September 30, 2005 http://www.armleg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4&mforum=libertyandtruthJames Redfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11284915453745539533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-83851557495009739772009-02-27T10:09:00.000-08:002009-02-27T10:09:00.000-08:00Thanks for this- I just sent the link to this arti...Thanks for this- I just sent the link to this article and the following message to Obama- not that he cares or will notice necessarily, but I think as Citizens we need to talk to our public servants, as well as tell each other about their crimes. Also, a real human being may read it, click the links and think. And now I've posted it here for posterity:<BR/><BR/>It's clear that Obama does support some measures that serve the public interest, i.e. renewable energy/infrastructure investment, increasing funding for education, health care and broadband access raising taxes on the filthy rich who pay an average income tax rate of 17%. However, it's becoming increasingly clear to more and more people who voted for "change" that Obama aims to protect the corrupt Establishment that profits from war and social control, i.e. stacking his cabinet with hawks and corporate/Establishment insiders instead of people promoting a progressive agenda and 'change', using the Bush Administration's claim of "state secrets", being uninterested investigating and prosecuting illegal domestic spying, torture, rendition, Iraq War and 9/11 lies, bailing out the bankers and investors who caused the economic meltdown instead of working to reform our financial system that rewards an unproductive elite investor class at the expense of the general welfare, etc. Sooner or later, the People of the U.S. and the world and the nature of economics will result in growth, but minds once expanded don't shrink. People are increasingly turning to the Web for information and the spin, lies and lack of integrity of the Republocrats and corporate media are becoming less effective in molding public opinion. <BR/><BR/>If he wants to get reelected and leave a positive legacy, unlike Bush, Obama would do well to heed the lessons about the importance of trust outlined in this article by George Washington, and stop trying to shore up a corrupt socio-politico-economic order:<BR/><BR/>How To Solve the Economic Crisis<BR/>http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/02/most-dangerous-words-theres-nothing-we.html<BR/><BR/>Free enterprise is a good thing, but markets rigged by politically powerful people in their own short-sighted perceived self interest are not free markets.<BR/><BR/>Obama should consider the economic theory of Silvio Gesell; in 1933 in Worgl, Austria a small tax on money increased its circulation by 14 times, resulting in full employment, long term sustainable investment, no inflation and fully funded public works projects. It's the bankers who changed the Biblical definition of usury from "interest" to "excessive interest", and claim that 20-30% interest on debt-not-money-backed credit card debt is not fraud or "excessive".<BR/><BR/>The Wörgl Currency and Demurrage<BR/>http://www.reinventingmoney.com/documents/worgl.html<BR/><BR/>The NATURAL ECONOMIC ORDER by Silvio Gesell<BR/>http://www.appropriate-economics.org/ebooks/neo/neo2.htmKung Fu NoVahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09464394826506964361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-71070302682773631552009-02-26T14:40:00.000-08:002009-02-26T14:40:00.000-08:00This is an excellent prescription for fixing the m...This is an excellent prescription for fixing the mess. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that Messrs Summers and Geithner are paying attention. They are just shoveling more money to the people who betrayed our trust with no real reform of the system itself.<BR/><BR/>The best we can hope for is that after the Obama team fails due to their wimpy approach, they will get religion and turn things around. Of course, by that time, the political capitol will have been spent and the Relimbaughicans will obstruct any real reform.Charles Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02975241234146573609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53246864840716464.post-66861307289236450022009-02-26T12:34:00.000-08:002009-02-26T12:34:00.000-08:00All the crimes of the previous administration you ...All the crimes of the previous administration you listed in this piece are true and have been known about for years and yet when the democrats took control in 06 they did not go after them. Carl Rove just refuses to obey a subpoena 3 times now and nothing happens, The intelligence committee knew about the torture techniques that were being used and said nothing (secrecy acts) BS. Wire tapping same thing, the Iraq war same thing. So of course they rob us and the rest of the world blind and cause another depression. Nothing we can say or do along standard lines will works , they just ignore us. Many forecasters are predicting that we will go to the streets this summer and you can see it happening all over the world. We will have to build a whole new toilet. This one won't flush anymoreAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13156080225918567393noreply@blogger.com