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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Uncle Fester
Published Letters: 2567 Editor's Choice: 14
I think we should shift the focus of discussion from what Willaims Jennings Bryan said in the late 1800s and what President Wilson wanted in the early 1900s to what has actually happened, especially since early 2000, with the Fed "in charge".
The Achilles heel of any fiat monetary system is that is easy to inflate (devalue) the money supply by running the printing press; papering over bad debts and funding foreign misadventures with additional credit/cash created out of thin air. Kinda like the last seven years. It's only competence, discipline and ethics that prevent such occurrences. Elements seemly rarer than gold in Washington.
Instead of the "Gold is the enemy of the common man" meme with it's validity based on the political, social and economic context of over 100 years ago, why not look at what the common man is facing now?
- A "hedonic" CPI that many feel understates true inflation. Some have stated that inflation is understated by about %7. It sounds rather geeky to enumerate the changes to the CPI algorithm since the Carter Adminstration in the 70's, but Social Security payments would double if the original formula was used
- Questionable advice from Sir Alan Greenspan to finance homes with adjustable rate mortagages (ARMs), uttered at the end of a historic Fed easing cycle.
- The Fed holding interest rates at historic lows for three years. This helped fuel an asset inflation boom of epic proportions. Think housing bubble.
- Increasing lack of transparency at the Fed. The Fed stopped publishing M3 statistics that track the overall growth the of money supply last year. While the still published M2 statistic has held steady since then, recreated M3 is growing at 10% a year.
- China, Japan, OPEC, and others hold trillions of US debt that we, the tax payers are on the hook for. All created using Fiat money.
Gold may indeed be a barbarous relic, but I think we should all be really concerned about the US financial situation, and not just because a bottle of first growth Bordeaux is over $1,000.00. It's no suprise that gold is $750-$800 an ounce and the Euro is over $1.40 when you read the numbers. Ron Paul may not have the right solutions, but he's one of the few politicians willing to address this problem.
It's hard to see how the Fed and the Fiat money system has been working for me and other average Americans over the last 30 years. The days when the Fed took away the punch bowl when the party got interesting are over(*).
If the level of finacial literacy was only a little higher in the this country, there would be hell to pay!
some links:
www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs
bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/11/the_return_of_m.html
(*)William McChesney Martin, Jr.
Fed Chair 1951 to 1970,
"The job of the Federal Reserve is to take away the punch bowl just when the party starts getting interesting."
Sorry "Dude",
I think that you'll find a majority of adults posting here, at least as measured by chronological age. There's also a few people trying to discuss the issues as they see them, dispite the bile and animosity issuing from some partisans - they know who they are.
I don't think any letter writers will change their candidate at this point, but perhaps a few letter readers will be swayed. Whether they run towards or run away from a candidate based on the comments here is food for thought.
Meanwhile, we should discuss your use of the phrase 'cult Obama kids'.
A cult member is popularly portrayed as someone who is in thrall to a stronger personality, somebody who has lost their capability for independent, rational thought. They are now sub human. So of course they are easily dismissed. We don't have to consider their critiques of Hillary Clintion. It's just the baaying of sheep.
I'm not sure if that's what you meant.
This front runner status is a fabrication of a media that is devoted to make Hillary fail, same as they did with Al Gore in 2000. They did it the, barely. They wont succeed this time.
So the facts that Obama:
doesn't count as front runner status? Personally, I don't think "Frontrunner" status means much, but it's pretty fact based that the last few weeks have gone Obama's way.
I'm also keen to see how Obama holds up to the negative campaign ads in contrast to the opinions of others here. It's good seasoning for him, and if he fails, he wasn't ready.
I've read here in Salon letters that Obama is a lightweight in real world politics, dispite the fact that whatever happened in South Carolina and whoever started it, Obama won, and President Clinton was sidelined. I score that dirtball fight 0-1 in favor of Obama. We'll see if she can bring it or if it's just faux realpolitik.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
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