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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SARMAN who wrote (276117)	7/28/2010 5:10:02 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The problem with Greenspan is no one followed his theories. Gold Standard Gold and economic freedom are inseparable, . . . the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and . . . each implies and requires the other. What medium of exchange will be acceptable to all participants in an economy is not determined arbitrarily. Where store-of-value considerations are important, as they are in richer, more civilized societies, the medium of exchange must be a durable commodity, usually a metal. A metal is generally chosen because it is homogeneous and divisible: every unit is the same as every other and it can be blended or formed in any quantity. Precious jewels, for example, are neither homogeneous nor divisible. More important, the commodity chosen as a medium must be a luxury. Human desires for luxuries are unlimited and, therefore, luxury goods are always in demand and will always be acceptable . . . . The term “luxury good” implies scarcity and high unit value. Having a high unit value, such a good is easily portable; for instance, an ounce of gold is worth a half-ton of pig iron . . . . Under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy’s stability and balanced growth. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold . . . . The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the “hidden” confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard. Alan Greenspan

To: SARMAN who wrote (276117)	7/28/2010 8:29:49 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sarman, you are like a chimp, which has achieved intellect to the level of superstition, claiming to be more intellectual than Einstein. <However, the biggest flaw in her theories is that they are just theories lacking the human element. When Greenspan put them through practice, they failed miserably and he had to apologize. So pardon me for craping on Rand, she was just full of shit. > You are not in a position to criticize since you lack the basic cognitive functions to understand what she wrote. You have probably not read any of it. Her theories specifically included "the human element", namely rationality. Animals deal in emotions. Many humans have reason [though some have just a little]. Greenspan's monetary management did not fail miserably. It was highly successful and continues to be highly successful. People borrowing heaps of money to speculate on houses isn't the fault of the money designer any more than speedsters can reasonably blame the engineers who built roads on which fairly high speed is achievable. Getting drunk and driving at 200 kph then crashing over a cliff doesn't mean the road builders were at fault. Even if it was a Toyota and the driver hadn't checked that the floor mat was in place on the floor. Greenspan didn't apologize, nor admit that his thinking was wrong. What he said was that the expectation that shareholders would like to protect their investments by managing their risk properly was unfounded [in many instances in big financial institutions]. Depending on people to wish to stay alive is a reasonable thing [overall] but of course some will get drunk and drive at 200 kph. That doesn't mean the road should be made into a cattle track to limit speed to 10 kph [the kleptocratic suffocatocracy mentality of you and others]. Mqurice