Hey, racist Mises Institute glibertarians: If you want to get out of a recession/depression (or avoid one in the first place), get the hell off the gold standard!

From http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Politics/whynotthegoldstandard.html --

Why Not A Gold Standard? Here's why:

Loss of control over economic policy. If the U.S. and a substantial number of other industrial economies adopted a gold standard, the U.S. would lose the ability to tune its economic policies to fit domestic conditions.

* For example, in the spring of 1995 the dollar weakened against the yen. Under a gold standard, such a decline in the dollar would not have been allowed: instead the Federal Reserve would have raised interest rates considerably in order to keep the value of the dollar fixed at its gold parity, and a recession would probably have followed.

Recessionary bias. Under a gold standard, the burden of adjustment is always placed on the "weak currency" country.

* Countries seeing downward market pressure on the values of their currencies are forced to contract their economies and raise unemployment.

* The gold standard imposes no equivalent adjustment burden on countries seeing upward market pressure on currency values.

* Hence a deflationary bias which makes it likely that a gold standard regime will see a higher average unemployment rate than an alternative managed regime.

The gold standard and the Great Depression. The current judgment of economic historians (see, for example, Barry J. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters) is that attachment to the gold standard played a major part in keeping governments from fighting the Great Depression, and was a major factor turning the recession of 1929-1931 into the Great Depression of 1931-1941.

* Countries that were not on the gold standard in 1929--or that quickly abandoned the gold standard--by and large escaped the Great Depression

* Countries that abandoned the gold standard in 1930 and 1931 suffered from the Great Depression, but escaped its worst ravages.

* Countries that held to the gold standard through 1933 (like the United States) or 1936 (like France) suffered the worst from the Great Depression

And a side note to alkimoe: There's also no evidence that private schools do a better job on the whole than public ones. GHW Bush tasked Sandia Labs with proving the superiority of private schools back in 1989; when their report failed to do so, he had it suppressed and it had to wait until the Clinton years to see daylight.

Part of the problem: Many private schools are run by entities with an aversion to modern science.

Besides, neither Mr. G. nor most Americans understand that the NPP is awarded for works in progress, not finished products: http://firedoglake.com/2009/10/10/come-saturday-morning-credit-where-its-due/

Meanwhile, Juan Cole, who knows a thing or two about the Middle East and isn't an evil vicious warmonger meanie like Obama, backs Obama's Prize to the hilt. (http://www.juancole.com/2009/10/obama-as-nobelist-obama-as-game-changer.html)

C'mon. Let's not let our dislike and disappointment with Obama for not being Noam Chomsky taint our every word and deed.

It's pretty much that simple. They don't want to alienate a potential future paycheck-signer.

I'm waiting for one of these groups to get as exercised about the right-wing Honduran coup leaders' shutting down various TV and radio stations, such as Radio Globo. But of course so long as Lanny Davis -- a good friend of current SoS Hillary Clinton as well as the Beltway Villager crowd -- is calling the shots in the US, the US corporate media will continue to look the other way, or tsk-tsk legitimate Honduran president Manuel Zelaya for having the effrontery to raise the minimum wage, then plan a non-binding referendum on whether he should be allowed another term.

May I suggest their weak-tea response to the Honduran coup?

Obama had initially made all the right noises, but then the golpistas (coup supporters) and their lobbyist pals like Hillary Clinton's buddy Lanny Davis started loudly clearing their throats, privately and in Op-Ed pages across the nation. The golpistas have spent over $400,000 in lobbying fees, and for this they're ensuring that for the most part Official Washington and the evening TV news keep schtum (or repeats the golpista party line). (http://www.narconews.com/Issue61/article3893.html)

If one wants to make a difference, start calling up or writing one's local and national media outlets to ask them why they're ignoring the brutality and ham-fisted undemocratic actions of the Micheletti golpistas, and reporting very little on the coup in general. That'll serve much better than constant harping that merely feeds the interests of the right wing -- and which is based on wildly incorrect assumptions about the NPP.

With a few exceptions, that's been my attitude towards her for well over a decade. I don't click on her pieces, much less write letters, because I don't want to give Joan Walsh any further justification (of the "Nyahh, nyahh, made ya loooook!" kind) to keep her around.

When I remember that Salon used to employ stellar talent like Murray Waas, Mollie Dickenson, and Charles Taylor (whose one flaw was Paglia-worship), and then reflect on the fact that the two most successful former Salonistas in the TradMed are Jake Tapper and James Poniewozik, it makes me ill.

I'd think that since Mr. G's at least a part-time resident of Brazil -- you know, the place whose embassy in Honduras is currently under siege by the golpistas (though I think they may finally be letting in food and water again) -- that he'd have something to say on this.