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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (126173)	11/2/2012 12:38:04 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

I too agree that the points raised in our economic debates and discourse are mostly a sham. And I too agree that there is broad consensus around the basics of economic policy. But therein lies the rub. I remember in my undergraduate and graduate economics classes, that we were taught what a great thing the Federal Reserve was and how sophisticated our economists were in managing our economy. Most economists today were taught that Keynesianism was the "most right" theory. So no wonder that even those economist who claim to dislike Keynes' theories, will stand up and praise the Fed for a job well done. So yes, the economic debates are a sham to fool the gullible public. There is no real debate. If there were, here's how you'd recognize the symptoms that we were getting to the real policy issues. You'd hear people start debating about whether we should ban the Fed from manipulating interest rates, ban them from buying Treasuries or any other security for that matter, we'd discuss reinstating mark to market accounting in banks, and we'd not just increase reserve requirements, but be discussing making currency redeemable in specie. Or if not that, then allowing other types of currency to compete freely without threat of imprisonment. If the real free market debates on economics were occurring, we'd see debates on banning the Fed from printing money and making it mandatory that they maintain price stability at 0% inflation, not some 2% target, which serves to impose a stealth tax on everyone. If real debates were occurring, we'd hear people openly talk about revoking the Fed's charter on mainstream media. Yes, that article is right, but for the wrong reasons. There is no real national debate on economics in this country. Any debate that doesn't address monetary policy head on is a sham debate.