I couldn't agree more, Ethan. It's clearly not a 'liquidity crisis'. There is way to much liquidity out there and increasing the money supply more certainly isn't going to help. We need to end the Fed now and put Paulson behind bars, too.
Karen
· 1 year ago
Can't agree with you more! How much more has to happen before people wake up and realize this country still has a Constitution.
DAISY_YANG
· 12 months ago
Free speech may not be dead in America, but it sure is on riseupRochester.org. My comments on the board that is lamenting the death of free speech are being censored for being different than that of the moderator. I'm going to submit my thoughts on this subject (and on what is clearly a sham of a website in general) to the D&C, and get their opinion...
Alicia O.
· 1 year ago
This makes me so mad--the talking heads are just trying to divide us Americans--especially the ones that blame it on people not paying their credit cards...
Then during the debates McCain and Obama prance around like they are saying something different from one another. "Shore up the economy!" No, "Jobs!" No, "End the greed and corruption on Wall Street!" They are all just catch phrases.
Notice how the news of the Fed cutting the rate made the situation worse, and it has continued to get worse.
Andrew S.
· 1 year ago
If a job was created for every time a politician said "shore up jobs" we'd have a great economy. What does that phrase even mean? What could a president really do? Save us all...
sean
· 1 year ago
Come with me to buffalo, ny on November 22nd to protest the fed!
Andrew S.
· 1 year ago
Yeah I'd like to do that, maybe we could organize everyone to go along with the other meet-up groups in the area.
DAISY_YANG
· 12 months ago
Free speech may not be dead in America, but it sure is on riseupRochester.org. My comments on the board that is lamenting the death of free speech are being censored for being different than that of the moderator. I'm going to submit my thoughts on this subject (and on what is clearly a sham of a website in general) to the D&C, and get their opinion...
Common Sense
· 1 year ago
Yes, yes, down with the Fed. How dare you attempt to stabilize our financial system and smooth out business cycles. How dare you allow a banking system to exist and support the value of our currency.
Fed, you are so evil. I wish you would die. Then I wouldn't have any place to borrow money, or store my money, or even a place to get money. I would just produce goods, carry them in sacks, and barter them for food when I get hungry.
Oh Fed, has it come to this? Creating money to relieve reserve requirement to allow banks to continue daily operations? How dare you think of the common man and allow them to continue using their ATMs. How dare you allow people to continue accessing their checking and savings accounts. Why don't you close shop and wipe out everyone's bank accounts?
What bastards, those Feds.
Andrew S.
· 1 year ago
This comment proves you have no idea what a central bank is. (Hint, you can't set up a checking account there.)
Common Sense
· 1 year ago
Without a central bank, you would not have anything associated with a bank, since you would have no system in which to store and manage fed notes.
sean
· 11 months ago
You don't seem to consider any alternatives with the usage of money. Currency is great to use but if it is monopolized by concentrated power then it is bad for the public. Currency is strong if the people can issue it and use it for their advantage as value. Also banks do not let people set their standards of how to use their money. If I can remember you are the same person to say that I am against investment. Absolutely not. I am against powers like central banks monopolizing the money supply and if you do not believe me just look at the dollar that you have now. Also look at www.federalreserve.gov. Look into fractional reserving. Money is a matter of ownership. If you do not own the money that you have because it is used as an interest bearing debt to a central bank then how can it be of value at all? This is the theme of the movie money as debt and of our founding fathers as well. Benjamin Franklin wanted America to be free of international banking control. If you own the money supply do you have to pay anyone for interest or debt? No!
sean
· 11 months ago
the value of our currency has went down 95% or more!
Ethan
· 1 year ago
It is interesting that you mention the smoothing out of the business cycle as a reason for the Federal Reserve because the Fed is actually the creator of the business cycle. By setting interest rates and not allowing a free market in interest rates, they tie all business to the same credit cycle. They create the up and down by raising and lowering interest rates. Do you believe it is just a coincidence that our most recent boom came after Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates to 1% and then the system began to collapse as he and then Ben Bernanke started raising rates again? Ben Bernanke himself admitted that inflation is a tax and that he controls it. This is the very reason it was written into the constitution that only gold and silver be legal tender.
The Fed creates a situation in which it is more beneficial to spend than to save. Then in hard times there are no savings to fall back on. Is it a coincidence that we have the highest level of personal, business, and government debt that the world has ever seen?
It is also interesting that you mention the Fed maintaining the value of our currency. Let me ask you this, Why do you want Fed notes? Federal Reserve Notes have no true value. The value of the note is arbitrarily set by Fed policy resulting in the near constant destruction of its value. What you could buy for $1 in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created, would cost you $22.10 today. Stated in another way, $1 today is worth 4.5 cents from 1913, or a lose in value of 95.5%. So I'll ask you, is the Fed doing a good job of protecting the value of the dollar? And lets not forget that this figure comes from the government itself http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl so it is most likely that the value has declined even further.
A central bank is not required to have a banking system. Banking actually began with the gold trade. Holders of gold wanted safe places to store their wealth so the assayers would store it for them. Our own economic system began without a Central Bank and is actually written into the Constitution to that effect. The fact is, there is no need for a central bank to control the money supply. We could have commodity backed money or even fiat money without a central bank.
2) I can link you to death too, with real, relevant links. Sorry, no video. I hope you can read.
3) http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard... Two points: a) Gold standard creates unstable economies: "The fixed exchange rate also caused both monetary and nonmonetary (real) shocks to be transmitted via flows of gold and capital between countries. Therefore, a shock in one country affected the domestic money supply, expenditure, price level, and real income in another country."
b) Gold is inefficient: "Milton Friedman estimated the cost of maintaining a full gold coin standard for the United States in 1960 to be more than 2.5 percent of GNP. In 2005, this cost would have been about $300 billion."
4) " Is it a coincidence that we have the highest level of personal, business, and government debt that the world has ever seen? " Answer: "Yes"
The Fed is not the only central banking system. Your "fact" does not support your conclusion unless the US had the only central banking system.
5) "What you could buy for $1 in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created, would cost you $22.10 today. Stated in another way, $1 today is worth 4.5 cents from 1913, or a lose in value of 95.5%." Welcome to the basic notion of finance. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Always and throughout the universe, this is true. Hell, substitute a gold brick for dollar. A gold brick today is worth more than the same gold brick in a year. Don't believe me? Give me a gold brick. I'll give it back to you next year.
6) Origin of banking. You are wrong. http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/orig... "The invention of banking preceded that of coinage. Banking originated in Ancient Mesopotamia where the royal palaces and temples provided secure places for the safe-keeping of grain and other commodities. Receipts came to be used for transfers not only to the original depositors but also to third parties. Eventually private houses in Mesopotamia also got involved in these banking operations and laws regulating them were included in the code of Hammurabi."
Or Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banker#Origin_of_t... The name bank derives from the Italian word banco "desk/bench", used during the Renaissance by Florentines bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth. However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.
"In fact, the word traces its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where moneylenders would set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are derived. As a moneychanger, the merchant at the bancu did not so much invest money as merely convert the foreign currency into the only legal tender in Rome—that of the Imperial Mint."
7) The purpose of money is to provide an efficient means of exchange without bartering. If we can't start with that basic notion, then this discussion is pointless.
8) I completely understand your need to be right. You're not.
Ethan
· 1 year ago
1) I wasn't patronizing you. I was inviting you to examine the Federal Reserve. You attempted to make the case for the Federal Reserve through sarcasm. I was simply stating all of the ways in which the Federal Reserve does not fulfill it's mission.
2) Any links I posted were only to give you information. I was not attempting to kill you.
3)a) Many of these so called "shocks" can be attributed to those countries having spent there wealth. Thus the necessarily lose there gold (the representation of wealth). How about a quote directly from your link: "It was also a period of unprecedented economic growth with relatively free trade in goods, labor, and capital." "The gold standard broke down during World War I, as major belligerents resorted to inflationary finance, and was briefly reinstated from 1925 to 1931 as the Gold Exchange Standard. Under this standard, countries could hold gold or dollars or pounds as reserves, except for the United States and the United Kingdom, which held reserves only in gold. This version broke down in 1931 following Britain’s departure from gold in the face of massive gold and capital outflows." Read that last sentence as, Britain spent all of their money and then decided it would be easier to print it instead of keeping it tied to gold.
Please don't get mad, this is just what I read from the link you sent me.
b) I understand that Friedman was not fond of a Gold standard, but he was much more set against the Federal Reserve. But let’s examine the quote as fact. It may well cost 2.5% of GNP but it currently costs at least 2% of the value of all dollars in existence to maintain a Federal Reserve System. How much is that? I don't know, no one knows for sure.
4) I don't understand your reply. How could it be a coincidence? Ask your self where this debt has it's origins and you might well find the answer to be Federal Reserve policy.
5) "A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow." You are absolutely correct on this point and the reason is inflation. However you are completely wrong about gold. It has maintained is value relative to other goods and commodities for centuries. I would gladly loan you a bar of gold today for return of it in a year, if I knew you were good for it. By the way the "dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow" thing has more to do with the time value of money and investment returns than anything else. The Federal Reserve could after all follow its mission and keep the value of the dollar stable and inflation would be no concern and I would be delighted.
6) This is exactly what I was talking about. Money was tied to the commodities that were being stored, not to the printing of fiat money. Each receipt was tied to a physical thing that had come about through someone’s labor. This is what real wealth is. The receipts allowed for easy exchanges. This is exactly the purpose of the gold standard and its origins. The origin of the word bank has nothing to do with our conversation, but I do like your first link, it is exactly what I was talking about in a more general sense.
7) I agree. But now you have to ask yourself what you are exchanging. When you are working for money you are exchanging your labor. When you are selling you are exchanging your goods. Does it necessitate that the value of your labor or your goods must decline in value when you have converted them into Federal Reserve Notes? It shouldn't. If I sell my labor for $10/hr, I should be able to hire someone to do that same labor at any time in the future for $10/hr. I should not expect to have to spend my money as quickly as possible to capture as much of its value back as I can before it is depleted. That is my argument against the Federal Reserve. I would be just as happy with Fiat money as with a gold standard if the value of that money did not fluctuate on the whims and wars of politicians trying to steal that value away from me.
8) I do not have any need to be right. In fact I welcome any insight you might have. I seek only the truth. I know that much of what I say is opinion and make no insinuation that the gold standard is the only way to do things. All I am trying to do is point out that the gold standard is better than the Federal Reserve. If the Federal Reserve was so good at its job, then why did we have the worst financial crisis in history after it was created to stop financial crises, and why are we currently in the midst of what some call the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
Common__Sense
· 1 year ago
1) Please carry around tons of gold bricks around and tell me when you'll be doing so.
2) Put your money where your mouth is. Convert your USD to Gold Bars and only re-exchange when you need to spend money.
3) Please explain how you plan to get a loan for anything. Colloary, article mentions higher average unemployment during gold standard than not. Explain why that's good.
Maybe later I'll value this conversation more to consider your other "points".
Ethan
· 1 year ago
1) Do you remember when you quoted this "Receipts came to be used for transfers not only to the original depositors but also to third parties."
There is nothing preventing the dollar from acting as a receipt for gold. In fact it used to be convertible into gold on demand until Franklin Roosevelt closed the gold window to Americans and then confiscated gold from citizens at a fixed rate of $20.67 per ounce with executive order 6102 and subsequently increased the gold price to $35 an ounce. Why? So that he could print all the money he wanted to.
2) I suggest you do the same while gold is still cheap in dollar terms.
3) I assume you mean if gold were legal tender or the dollar backed by gold. Well I would walk into a bank and ask for a loan. Nothing would prevent a bank from existing. Banks existed long before any central bank. The Wikipedia Article History of Central Banking in the United States can give you insight into this as well as G. Edward Griffins, The Creature From Jekyll Island.
First, I would like to point out that the article you cited was one man's opinion. For a counter argument please visit Mises.org Second, unemployment is not necessarily a bad thing at stable levels and current government figures should not be considered accurate as the formulas used to calculate them are subject to political pressures.
This points out one of the major problems with Federal Reserve Policy. In order to maintain full employment they must lower interest rates and create inflation. This may create a situation were everyone is employed but now they are employed at a lower real rate of wage. Is it good to ask someone to give up part of their paycheck to pay someone else?
If I were to personally employ ten people at $10/hr and 10 other people did not have jobs, would it be a good thing if I cut the rate to $5/hr and employed all 20 people?
This thinking that the government or Fed can in some way create jobs that the free market has not, has given rise to our current crisis. We have a mountain of debt that cannot be serviced other than by the creation of more money and more debt. This is not real wealth and it will be exposed as such sooner than even I would like. I am just putting my ideas (gathered from people much smarter than I) out there and trying to warn people so that they can prepare themselves.
I really enjoy your comments. I am in no way patronizing you. I don't pretend to be an expert, I just call it like I see it and I enjoy learning about this topic very much. I am curious though, what is your reason for supporting the Federal Reserve and being so anti-gold?
Common__Sense
· 1 year ago
3) Because the problem with the gold standard is the same problem as any currency. In times of crisis, both are useless. In times of prosperity, currency is far superior due to ease of exchange.
1) On to my point about lending, the Fed Reserve via fractional banking (yes, I know you guys have problems with this too), allows for lending of money.
Prior to this ability, a middle class was largely impossible, since where would they get the start capital to start a business?
2) I do not plan to go to gold as I do not believe the same as you. What I'm saying is that don't tell me about the evils of currency and continue its propagation.
What it comes down to, as your number of people employed point alludes to, is the creation of large middle class and the rapid advancement of people through various socio-economic ladders.
Quite frankly, much of this discussion rests upon the assumption that basic needs are met and now with our remaining money/good, what should we do about it?
However, the majority of the world does not live on this assumption. Hence, in order to keep poor people employed and able to sustain themselves, we do need low unemployment and the easy transfer of currency.
Andrew S.
· 1 year ago
"Gold Standard" does not equal "Use Gold Bricks"
Duh.
It just means your paper is pegged to something of value instead of nothing at all.
Besides - It would only take 1 gold coin to buy a laptop, 20 or so for a car and a couple of hundred for a house. I don't really imagine any situation where you'd carry tons of gold bricks around. (assuming the Straw Man argument you made)
Common__Sense
· 1 year ago
1) I did not present a straw man argument.
A straw man argument is to say your gold standard suggestion means you are against capitalism and I don't understand why you would be against the free market.
I took your suggestion and progressed it to its implementation.
2) We've been there before. This is all going backwards. If people believed the pegging was of the right value, and not higher or lower than true value, then they can just as easily believe a copper or plastic coin is just as good.
Ethan
· 1 year ago
"If people believed the pegging was of the right value, and not higher or lower than true value, then they can just as easily believe a copper or plastic coin is just as good."
This statement represents your misunderstanding of the gold standard. Pegging the dollar to gold simply assigns the value of gold too it. There is no determination to be made for the value of a gold backed dollar. It is what gold is. In a true gold standard there would be physical gold backing each dollar. It then takes something of no value, paper, and assigns it the value of gold. The gold certificate dollar is just as viable as carrying around sacks of gold (your perception of a gold standard) because each peice of paper represents a specific amount of gold.
The value of gold comes from its inherent rarity. It can not be produced on demand. The fiat dollar on the other hand can be printed up in any quantity desired. This is the cause of our extreme national debt and the inflationary/deflationary business cycles.
Your stated purpose for the Federal Reserve existing, creating stability for the dollar, is proven a failure by the existence of the business cycle. The Federal Reserve system has created a situation in the US where we have no real wealth, we have little real production, and we have created a financial tower that is crumbling under it's own weight.
I do believe you have a lot more to learn about what a gold standard means. You have misrepresented it at every opportunity.
Now it is time for you to defend the Federal Reserve. Please tell me how the Federal Reserve has created stability for the dollar. How can the Federal Reserve both stabilize the dollar and maintain full employment? Aren't these goals opposed? Do they not follow exact opposite policies in attempt to maintain both? Have the been succesfull at either?
Ethan
· 1 year ago
It had nothing to do with what people wanted. If you read the first paragraphs of that link you posted, it clearly states that Britain left the gold standard after they used all of their gold, i.e. they ran out of real wealth and then started printing it.
There is nothing backwards about the gold standard. What is backwards is think that we can have a fiat standard and still maintain value. Like I said before, every fiat monetary standard ends its life as worthless paper.
Ethan
· 1 year ago
I just re-read your point 4. I now understand. That fact can be explained by the US Dollar being the reserve currency of the world. We have exported our inflation to the rest of the world through the dollar standard. Japan is lending unlimited dollars as are other central banks around the world. Much of the world has accepted our dollar and our credit as if it were gold. This however does not prevent the ultimate collapse of the dollar due to lose of faith. The rest of the world is waking up to the fact that we will never repay our debts. Most of our own citizens realize the government’s inability to keep its future promises. This will one day bring down our government and the dollar system. We do have the world’s largest debt but I did not say that any other parts of the world do not have debt. Much of Europe is in the same boat we are. China and India just happen to be on the other side of the ledger, but they will have problems as well when the dollar system collapses. They however, will have a manufacturing base and real wealth in place to deal with the situation. This is why the Chinese government is slowly diversifying out of dollar reserves. America will be left with nothing but paper.
There is a certain level of faith that must be placed in anything you call money. It must have value to someone else. Anything could fit this bill, but it is best if it does not perish or get used up. This is why gold works so well. Yes you must have faith that the parties you exchange with will value gold, and they have for thousands of years. Faith in the fiat dollar, on the other hand, is not as simple. With the dollar you must also have faith that the government will not debase it. Here in lies the problem with the Federal Reserve System, it is totally and entirely corruptible, as is any fiat based monetary system. Only a commodity system of money has the properties required to resist the corruption of man.
What do you think will happen when our government comes to terms with its inability to pay its debt? Will they declare bankruptcy or will they create more dollars, destroying the value of the dollars already in existence? It really doesn't matter either way, the dollar will be destroyed along with the government. Now tell me, how would you destroy the gold standard?
Every fiat monetary system that has every existed has been destroyed. Meanwhile gold still exists and still has value.
Common__Sense
· 1 year ago
This devolves into a discussion of why debt should exist. It's pointless. If you don't want a good you can't purchase today, we'll never need debt.
Ethan
· 1 year ago
I'd also like to point out that this not about why debt should exist. Debt is fine and a perfectly good part of capitalism. It requires faith in the borrower and risk for the lender. What shouldn't exist is a paper standard where by a government and people spend all of their wealth, borrow with no way to repay, and to get out of it print more money. This is not real wealth and is exactly why the system is collapsing.
Under a gold standard I could easily loan my gold or my gold certificates with the understanding that risk exists. We currently live in a monetary system that is attempting to remove risk which inturn has created excessive malinvestment. If there were some way to limit the printing of money (hint: commodity money, e.g. gold) then this malinvestment and succesive collapse, a.k.a. the business cycle, would not exist.
Debt SHOULD exist, but our MONEY shouldn't be DEBT. Money should be Value and debt should be debt. Period. Loans are possible with the gold standard, to a lesser extent of course, which can be good but I agree should be left to another discussion.
1) Is there nothing you have as evidence that is not a video? Give me something to read. I don't have 47 minutes to devote to understanding your position knowing that I will debunk any way.
2) If money is value, and value can be lent, and when lent we call it debt (since its just a descriptive term, not a real object), by transitive properties, is not money = debt AND money = value AND value = debt?
Certainly, all accounting systems believes this to be the case.
Ethan
· 1 year ago
The debt that our money is is government debt. First it was U.S. government debt, then foreign government debt, now it's becoming corporate debt. Every dollar in the US is in existence because someone went into debt. Would you agree that debts need to be paid? If you do then you will understand the current deflationary cycle that is happening is because people can not borrow anymore and are paying down debt. I will ask you again, How stable is that? How good of a job has the Fed done? What will they do now? THey will inflate the currency, the Federal Government will go into more debt and pump currency into the system. This will result in inflation and higher prices. Is this stability? Is the Fed accomplishing its goals? Is your wealth safe in dollars? Would it be safe in gold? Every bit of gold in existence is because someone did work. This is the difference between real wealth and fiat.
Common__Sense
· 12 months ago
I say again, why are you using US dollars. Please stop. By using them, you clearly propagate the very issue you are against.
Ethan
· 12 months ago
I am using US Dollars because my employer pays me with them, the places I shop require payment in them and because the government is taxing me for them. I have no choice due to the quote:
"Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."
"This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy." source: U.S. Treasury
I suggest you read the other statements the Treasury has written on that page and ask yourself why the United States would switch from US notes backed by gold to Fed notes backed by U.S. debt. Since I know you won't answer the question even if you asked yourself, I will again answer it for you. So that they can print as many of them as they desire.
I have no choice but to accept and use Federal Reserve Notes, this is my point. Someday businesses will stop accepting US dollars and perhaps then I will have a choice. But even if I found a business that would accept payment in gold I would still have to pay capital gains tax on the exchange and the acceptor of the payment would have to pay sales tax. Those taxes prevent gold from being used as money. Why would the government do that? Because the don't want people switching to gold and/or silver coins instead of dollars. They have total control over dollars but not gold and silver.
Let me ask you this again, If the Federal Reserve is so good at protecting the value of the dollar, why do we have steady inflation? Why does nearly everyone try to purchase or invest fed notes in something real or interest bearing as soon as they get them? Again, I will answer for you since you have consistently chosen not to answer any of my questions throughout this discussion. The reason people pass off their dollars as soon as possible is because they do not hold their value and the Fed is a failure at its stated mission. Every citizen in the country knows this to be true, even you, though they may not have contemplated it.
DAISY_YANG
· 12 months ago
Free speech may not be dead in America, but it sure is on riseupRochester.org. My comments on the board that is lamenting the death of free speech are being censored for being different than that of the moderator. I'm going to submit my thoughts on this subject (and on what is clearly a sham of a website in general) to the D&C, and get their opinion...
the Angry Anarchist
· 9 months ago
For more information, please watch the video, (Movie)? Zeitgeist Addendum. A MUST SEE! It is different than the original Zietgeist video. It's available for downloading @ the infamous TPB, or was it Demonoid? Possibly mininova, I'm not sure. Or just email me and I will send you the boot, (leg). the Angry Anarchist
Andrew S.
· 9 months ago
Zeitgeist Addendum is Socialist/Statist bullsh*t propaganda. The maker is a bumbling idiot and hides behind big words as not to show everyone that he doesn't know what he's talking about. His only solutions are new age "get released from religion and accept one world government" bull. I don't really understand the film at all.
All Comments
Then during the debates McCain and Obama prance around like they are saying something different from one another. "Shore up the economy!"
No, "Jobs!" No, "End the greed and corruption on Wall Street!" They are all just catch phrases.
Notice how the news of the Fed cutting the rate made the situation worse, and it has continued to get worse.
Fed, you are so evil. I wish you would die. Then I wouldn't have any place to borrow money, or store my money, or even a place to get money. I would just produce goods, carry them in sacks, and barter them for food when I get hungry.
Oh Fed, has it come to this? Creating money to relieve reserve requirement to allow banks to continue daily operations? How dare you think of the common man and allow them to continue using their ATMs. How dare you allow people to continue accessing their checking and savings accounts. Why don't you close shop and wipe out everyone's bank accounts?
What bastards, those Feds.
The Fed creates a situation in which it is more beneficial to spend than to save. Then in hard times there are no savings to fall back on. Is it a coincidence that we have the highest level of personal, business, and government debt that the world has ever seen?
It is also interesting that you mention the Fed maintaining the value of our currency. Let me ask you this, Why do you want Fed notes? Federal Reserve Notes have no true value. The value of the note is arbitrarily set by Fed policy resulting in the near constant destruction of its value. What you could buy for $1 in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created, would cost you $22.10 today. Stated in another way, $1 today is worth 4.5 cents from 1913, or a lose in value of 95.5%. So I'll ask you, is the Fed doing a good job of protecting the value of the dollar?
And lets not forget that this figure comes from the government itself http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl so it is most likely that the value has declined even further.
A central bank is not required to have a banking system. Banking actually began with the gold trade. Holders of gold wanted safe places to store their wealth so the assayers would store it for them. Our own economic system began without a Central Bank and is actually written into the Constitution to that effect. The fact is, there is no need for a central bank to control the money supply. We could have commodity backed money or even fiat money without a central bank.
I completely understand your confusion on this topic. Most people have no idea what a central bank actually does, but perhaps you should educate yourself on the subject. Here are a couple videos to enlighten you. Once you have a better understanding of what a central bank actually does, I would be happy to debate you.
How the Federal Reserve Created the US Recession (5 min)
Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve(41 min)
FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution (59 min)
2) I can link you to death too, with real, relevant links. Sorry, no video. I hope you can read.
3) http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GoldStandard...
Two points:
a) Gold standard creates unstable economies:
"The fixed exchange rate also caused both monetary and nonmonetary (real) shocks to be transmitted via flows of gold and capital between countries. Therefore, a shock in one country affected the domestic money supply, expenditure, price level, and real income in another country."
b) Gold is inefficient:
"Milton Friedman estimated the cost of maintaining a full gold coin standard for the United States in 1960 to be more than 2.5 percent of GNP. In 2005, this cost would have been about $300 billion."
4) " Is it a coincidence that we have the highest level of personal, business, and government debt that the world has ever seen? " Answer: "Yes"
The Fed is not the only central banking system. Your "fact" does not support your conclusion unless the US had the only central banking system.
5) "What you could buy for $1 in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created, would cost you $22.10 today. Stated in another way, $1 today is worth 4.5 cents from 1913, or a lose in value of 95.5%."
Welcome to the basic notion of finance. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Always and throughout the universe, this is true. Hell, substitute a gold brick for dollar. A gold brick today is worth more than the same gold brick in a year. Don't believe me? Give me a gold brick. I'll give it back to you next year.
6) Origin of banking. You are wrong.
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/orig...
"The invention of banking preceded that of coinage. Banking originated in Ancient Mesopotamia where the royal palaces and temples provided secure places for the safe-keeping of grain and other commodities. Receipts came to be used for transfers not only to the original depositors but also to third parties. Eventually private houses in Mesopotamia also got involved in these banking operations and laws regulating them were included in the code of Hammurabi."
Or Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banker#Origin_of_t...
The name bank derives from the Italian word banco "desk/bench", used during the Renaissance by Florentines bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth. However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.
"In fact, the word traces its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where moneylenders would set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are derived. As a moneychanger, the merchant at the bancu did not so much invest money as merely convert the foreign currency into the only legal tender in Rome—that of the Imperial Mint."
7) The purpose of money is to provide an efficient means of exchange without bartering. If we can't start with that basic notion, then this discussion is pointless.
8) I completely understand your need to be right. You're not.
2) Any links I posted were only to give you information. I was not attempting to kill you.
3)a) Many of these so called "shocks" can be attributed to those countries having spent there wealth. Thus the necessarily lose there gold (the representation of wealth).
How about a quote directly from your link:
"It was also a period of unprecedented economic growth with relatively free trade in goods, labor, and capital."
"The gold standard broke down during World War I, as major belligerents resorted to inflationary finance, and was briefly reinstated from 1925 to 1931 as the Gold Exchange Standard. Under this standard, countries could hold gold or dollars or pounds as reserves, except for the United States and the United Kingdom, which held reserves only in gold. This version broke down in 1931 following Britain’s departure from gold in the face of massive gold and capital outflows."
Read that last sentence as, Britain spent all of their money and then decided it would be easier to print it instead of keeping it tied to gold.
Please don't get mad, this is just what I read from the link you sent me.
b) I understand that Friedman was not fond of a Gold standard, but he was much more set against the Federal Reserve. But let’s examine the quote as fact. It may well cost 2.5% of GNP but it currently costs at least 2% of the value of all dollars in existence to maintain a Federal Reserve System. How much is that? I don't know, no one knows for sure.
4) I don't understand your reply. How could it be a coincidence? Ask your self where this debt has it's origins and you might well find the answer to be Federal Reserve policy.
5) "A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow." You are absolutely correct on this point and the reason is inflation. However you are completely wrong about gold. It has maintained is value relative to other goods and commodities for centuries. I would gladly loan you a bar of gold today for return of it in a year, if I knew you were good for it. By the way the "dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow" thing has more to do with the time value of money and investment returns than anything else. The Federal Reserve could after all follow its mission and keep the value of the dollar stable and inflation would be no concern and I would be delighted.
6) This is exactly what I was talking about. Money was tied to the commodities that were being stored, not to the printing of fiat money. Each receipt was tied to a physical thing that had come about through someone’s labor. This is what real wealth is. The receipts allowed for easy exchanges. This is exactly the purpose of the gold standard and its origins. The origin of the word bank has nothing to do with our conversation, but I do like your first link, it is exactly what I was talking about in a more general sense.
7) I agree. But now you have to ask yourself what you are exchanging. When you are working for money you are exchanging your labor. When you are selling you are exchanging your goods. Does it necessitate that the value of your labor or your goods must decline in value when you have converted them into Federal Reserve Notes? It shouldn't. If I sell my labor for $10/hr, I should be able to hire someone to do that same labor at any time in the future for $10/hr. I should not expect to have to spend my money as quickly as possible to capture as much of its value back as I can before it is depleted. That is my argument against the Federal Reserve. I would be just as happy with Fiat money as with a gold standard if the value of that money did not fluctuate on the whims and wars of politicians trying to steal that value away from me.
8) I do not have any need to be right. In fact I welcome any insight you might have. I seek only the truth. I know that much of what I say is opinion and make no insinuation that the gold standard is the only way to do things. All I am trying to do is point out that the gold standard is better than the Federal Reserve. If the Federal Reserve was so good at its job, then why did we have the worst financial crisis in history after it was created to stop financial crises, and why are we currently in the midst of what some call the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
2) Put your money where your mouth is. Convert your USD to Gold Bars and only re-exchange when you need to spend money.
3) Please explain how you plan to get a loan for anything. Colloary, article mentions higher average unemployment during gold standard than not. Explain why that's good.
Maybe later I'll value this conversation more to consider your other "points".
There is nothing preventing the dollar from acting as a receipt for gold.
In fact it used to be convertible into gold on demand until Franklin Roosevelt closed the gold window to Americans and then confiscated gold from citizens at a fixed rate of $20.67 per ounce with executive order 6102 and subsequently increased the gold price to $35 an ounce. Why? So that he could print all the money he wanted to.
2) I suggest you do the same while gold is still cheap in dollar terms.
3) I assume you mean if gold were legal tender or the dollar backed by gold. Well I would walk into a bank and ask for a loan. Nothing would prevent a bank from existing. Banks existed long before any central bank.
The Wikipedia Article History of Central Banking in the United States can give you insight into this as well as G. Edward Griffins, The Creature From Jekyll Island.
First, I would like to point out that the article you cited was one man's opinion. For a counter argument please visit Mises.org Second, unemployment is not necessarily a bad thing at stable levels and current government figures should not be considered accurate as the formulas used to calculate them are subject to political pressures.
This points out one of the major problems with Federal Reserve Policy. In order to maintain full employment they must lower interest rates and create inflation. This may create a situation were everyone is employed but now they are employed at a lower real rate of wage. Is it good to ask someone to give up part of their paycheck to pay someone else?
If I were to personally employ ten people at $10/hr and 10 other people did not have jobs, would it be a good thing if I cut the rate to $5/hr and employed all 20 people?
This thinking that the government or Fed can in some way create jobs that the free market has not, has given rise to our current crisis. We have a mountain of debt that cannot be serviced other than by the creation of more money and more debt. This is not real wealth and it will be exposed as such sooner than even I would like. I am just putting my ideas (gathered from people much smarter than I) out there and trying to warn people so that they can prepare themselves.
I really enjoy your comments. I am in no way patronizing you. I don't pretend to be an expert, I just call it like I see it and I enjoy learning about this topic very much. I am curious though, what is your reason for supporting the Federal Reserve and being so anti-gold?
1) On to my point about lending, the Fed Reserve via fractional banking (yes, I know you guys have problems with this too), allows for lending of money.
Prior to this ability, a middle class was largely impossible, since where would they get the start capital to start a business?
2) I do not plan to go to gold as I do not believe the same as you. What I'm saying is that don't tell me about the evils of currency and continue its propagation.
What it comes down to, as your number of people employed point alludes to, is the creation of large middle class and the rapid advancement of people through various socio-economic ladders.
Quite frankly, much of this discussion rests upon the assumption that basic needs are met and now with our remaining money/good, what should we do about it?
However, the majority of the world does not live on this assumption. Hence, in order to keep poor people employed and able to sustain themselves, we do need low unemployment and the easy transfer of currency.
Duh.
It just means your paper is pegged to something of value instead of nothing at all.
Besides - It would only take 1 gold coin to buy a laptop, 20 or so for a car and a couple of hundred for a house. I don't really imagine any situation where you'd carry tons of gold bricks around. (assuming the Straw Man argument you made)
A straw man argument is to say your gold standard suggestion means you are against capitalism and I don't understand why you would be against the free market.
I took your suggestion and progressed it to its implementation.
2) We've been there before. This is all going backwards. If people believed the pegging was of the right value, and not higher or lower than true value, then they can just as easily believe a copper or plastic coin is just as good.
This statement represents your misunderstanding of the gold standard. Pegging the dollar to gold simply assigns the value of gold too it. There is no determination to be made for the value of a gold backed dollar. It is what gold is. In a true gold standard there would be physical gold backing each dollar. It then takes something of no value, paper, and assigns it the value of gold. The gold certificate dollar is just as viable as carrying around sacks of gold (your perception of a gold standard) because each peice of paper represents a specific amount of gold.
The value of gold comes from its inherent rarity. It can not be produced on demand. The fiat dollar on the other hand can be printed up in any quantity desired. This is the cause of our extreme national debt and the inflationary/deflationary business cycles.
Your stated purpose for the Federal Reserve existing, creating stability for the dollar, is proven a failure by the existence of the business cycle. The Federal Reserve system has created a situation in the US where we have no real wealth, we have little real production, and we have created a financial tower that is crumbling under it's own weight.
I do believe you have a lot more to learn about what a gold standard means. You have misrepresented it at every opportunity.
Now it is time for you to defend the Federal Reserve. Please tell me how the Federal Reserve has created stability for the dollar. How can the Federal Reserve both stabilize the dollar and maintain full employment? Aren't these goals opposed? Do they not follow exact opposite policies in attempt to maintain both? Have the been succesfull at either?
There is nothing backwards about the gold standard. What is backwards is think that we can have a fiat standard and still maintain value. Like I said before, every fiat monetary standard ends its life as worthless paper.
There is a certain level of faith that must be placed in anything you call money. It must have value to someone else. Anything could fit this bill, but it is best if it does not perish or get used up. This is why gold works so well. Yes you must have faith that the parties you exchange with will value gold, and they have for thousands of years. Faith in the fiat dollar, on the other hand, is not as simple. With the dollar you must also have faith that the government will not debase it. Here in lies the problem with the Federal Reserve System, it is totally and entirely corruptible, as is any fiat based monetary system. Only a commodity system of money has the properties required to resist the corruption of man.
What do you think will happen when our government comes to terms with its inability to pay its debt? Will they declare bankruptcy or will they create more dollars, destroying the value of the dollars already in existence? It really doesn't matter either way, the dollar will be destroyed along with the government. Now tell me, how would you destroy the gold standard?
Every fiat monetary system that has every existed has been destroyed. Meanwhile gold still exists and still has value.
Under a gold standard I could easily loan my gold or my gold certificates with the understanding that risk exists. We currently live in a monetary system that is attempting to remove risk which inturn has created excessive malinvestment. If there were some way to limit the printing of money (hint: commodity money, e.g. gold) then this malinvestment and succesive collapse, a.k.a. the business cycle, would not exist.
If you want to see what is going on right now visit: DollarCollapse.com
Money as debt => http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-905047...
2) If money is value, and value can be lent, and when lent we call it debt (since its just a descriptive term, not a real object), by transitive properties, is not money = debt AND money = value AND value = debt?
Certainly, all accounting systems believes this to be the case.
"Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."
"This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy."
source: U.S. Treasury
I suggest you read the other statements the Treasury has written on that page and ask yourself why the United States would switch from US notes backed by gold to Fed notes backed by U.S. debt. Since I know you won't answer the question even if you asked yourself, I will again answer it for you. So that they can print as many of them as they desire.
I have no choice but to accept and use Federal Reserve Notes, this is my point. Someday businesses will stop accepting US dollars and perhaps then I will have a choice. But even if I found a business that would accept payment in gold I would still have to pay capital gains tax on the exchange and the acceptor of the payment would have to pay sales tax. Those taxes prevent gold from being used as money. Why would the government do that? Because the don't want people switching to gold and/or silver coins instead of dollars. They have total control over dollars but not gold and silver.
If you would like a more eloquent explanation of the situation please read Ron Paul's introduction of the Honest Money Act to Congress and Ron Paul's words on Legal Tender Laws
Let me ask you this again, If the Federal Reserve is so good at protecting the value of the dollar, why do we have steady inflation? Why does nearly everyone try to purchase or invest fed notes in something real or interest bearing as soon as they get them? Again, I will answer for you since you have consistently chosen not to answer any of my questions throughout this discussion. The reason people pass off their dollars as soon as possible is because they do not hold their value and the Fed is a failure at its stated mission. Every citizen in the country knows this to be true, even you, though they may not have contemplated it.
(leg).
the Angry Anarchist