Ron Paul - Remove Federal Reserve
Chuck Ponzi May 24th, 2007
Enjoyed my time off… now it’s time to be back and ready to rumble.
Precious Metals return to Legal Tender
Debt Monetization limits?
Competitive issuance of USD Rates?
Total Collapse of the US Dollar?
Just topics of discussion for Ron Paul in a few minutes on the phone.
He’s looking more and more like the best qualified candidate in ‘08.
What do you think?
There are some things I like about Ron Paul but he seems unelectable.
The Republicans will not give him support and the Democrats will be roasting him with lots of quip ads.
So, no point in being excited about a guy that has zero chance.
If the presidency was about most qualified we’d have to go back to the precivil war period for examples.
You also here terms like genius thrown around at guys like Clinton and Carter. It must be “genius” in relation to something other than mathmatics. You could only really say that about how they manipulate people.
I watched a lot of Ron Paul on the youtube. He was getting pushed around about his position on global warming. People with very little scientific background are throwing a lot of dogmatic beliefs out there. Since its guys like Gore and he seems fanatical about it (of course gore’s knowledge is superficial at best).
In Ron Paul’s case he was losing the battle with the audience because people have no concept of the scientific principles involved.
He also made a point about the Civil war being unecessary. He had a good point but that was a bit too obscure for the audience (other nations ended slavery without bloodshed).
While I like his qualifications i don’t think the country is quite ready for him.
Could you imagine a debate between Obama and Paul and they bring up the civil war.
We are still stuck on the fluff.
Its like discussing things like the economy being a closed loop feedback system. Most people just don’t have the background to understand it.
I meant since its guys like Gore throwing global warming stuff out there; its accepted because he is an authority figure. Sad to see how the super ego works for some people.
I had the same thoughts about “unelectable”.
Buuuut.
I have to say that the past few years of the bubble have changed the way that I look at voting and politics. I have to vote my conscience, even if it means I’m on the “losing side”.
Lately, it seems to me that pretty much both sides are pretty f’ed up.
Maybe that’s why I like both Obama and Paul. That’s a match made in heaven. What if they both got trumped by Giuliani and Clinton and ran together as running mates on the independent ticket. It would be very hard for me to turn down.
Still, this is not a politics blog… just I love his ideas about how to fix the Federal Reserve.
I don’t know anything about Obama but I liked Giuliani from back in NYC days.
You can’t imagine how badly Dinkins messed up the city finances with defaults on bonds and rampant fraud.
Not to mention Dinkins looked at every arrest of a black man as a crime against society. The city was becoming a war zone. Reported crime dropped because if you weren’t hospitalized then police didn’t care.
Anyhow…
Yes, I’d love for Paul to get elected. Will it happen? Probably no.
Be curious about your economic assesment on illegal immigration. For now I’m more for allowing them to stay. Figure you will change my mind in a couple of minutes.
Illegal immigration is a tough one.
1. This country was built on immigrants.
2. Immigrants should pay their fair share of taxes.
As long as they pay their fair share… I can’t really fault them. It’s all economics at play. I agree with the general idea of a worker visa/registration program and a crackdown on those hiring illegals without paying payroll taxes.
Now, to me, it appears that the current problems are more racial in nature. That’s something that can only be fixed with education.
Economic theory tells us that global competition and free markets free of meddlesome tarrifs and trade restrictions makes everyone financially better off, but it seems that our declining quality of living is not just in our minds… we make less than our parents while having more education. Meanwhile, California needs to go through some rebalancing. Either jobs need to pay more, or people will leave. I’m thinking that the latter will happen.
But, noone is a statistic. Most people I know have a great deal of opportunity. We still are the land of opportunity, freedom, and personal rights, and I’m hoping it stays that way.
Chuck,
You kidding me with illegal immigration? You live here in Southern CA or just write about it? Come on, give me a break!
What do you mean by “current problems are more racial in nature”?
My grandparents came here legally, worked their butts off, assimilated (but still retaining many cultural features), and emphasized education. For a large majority of these illegals they are a burden, using my tax dollars, and education and assimilation to American society seems to be an afterthought, if that at all.
Offhand, I have three thoughts in response.
Firstly, to say that “if they pay their fair share…” of taxes, you can’t really fault them, ignores that many if not most of them do NOT pay their “fair share”, since they are working off the books and/or using fake SSNs. As to your proposed “crackdown” on employers, how do you suggest the illegals eat and otherwise make a living, other than by breaking the law, or by the gov’t granting amnesty for their past crimes? You cannot assume for the convenience of your argument that people who violate one law are complying with the rest.
Secondly, our country was also built by murdering outlaws and slave traders - the fact that immigrants are a part of our history is totally irrelevant to the current problem. These people are violating the law, as well as breaking the bank, and to say that you can’t really fault them suggests that you also couldn’t fault me for whatever crimes I care to commit, as long as people who did such things were a significant part of history. After all, our country was built by slave traders, how can you complain about one more now? Nonsense. Laws and societies change.
Finally, if you are concerned about decreasing wage levels, bringing in millions of impoverished immigrants who will work for whatever they can get, legally or not, is hardly a solution to this problem - quite the opposite.
Jim,
We agree more than disagree. The point of an immigrant worker program is to “legalize” working here to ensure the proper collection of taxes so they do pay their fair share. But, the fact remains that many of them do not make enough to pay significant (if any) taxes. However, I definitely don’t want to make them eligible for EIC (Earned Income Credit), so I favor having to file a nonresident/immigrant worker form that excludes them from EIC. However, the biggest miss is with the employers not paying their portion of FICA payroll taxes, making “illegals” cheaper to hire than legals. We need to crack down on those kinds of employers for getting a free ride. That’s tax evasion.
My point in not faulting them comes only from an economics argument. Jobs are better here, so they come here. Criminal law is based on morality while economics is amoral.
As far as decreasing wage levels, competition causes that. To take out competition removes incentive. Removing incentive reduces innovation. If we want to keep high paying businesses here at all, we have to keep our innovative edge. Frankly, we have noone to blame but our own fat, lazy, gambling selves for that. Let’s not start pointing the finger at immigrants that our economy is good enough to have low unemployment so that there is sufficient incentive for lower-cost labor to come in.
There is one thing that noone in the world can compete with us on, though… our entitlement mentality. Trust me on this one fact, for every fat slob up to his eyeballs in debt living “the good life” off of home equity, there are 1000 others around the world happy to get a stomach full of rice. Like it or not, that’s who we are competing with. You may not like it, it may not seem fair, but it’s the truth. Whatever middle-class dream we were sold was not real, not even close.
Life’s not fair.
I worry about free trade more than having a few of our neighboors from mexico moving in.
Our free trade effect is only supressing wages. We are competing against people in China that have no significant representation that allows for a living wage.Same with many of those countries. Those “cheap” imported goods are oft olny possible due to criminally repressive governments. Not to mention complete lack of enviromental standards. Hence I’d like to see free trade but with some conditions.
1)living wage (with alowances for healthcare and cost of living)
2)Requirement for infastructure investment by the coutries in question. So, that money does some good.
I just see American’s getting squeezed and the low hanging fruit for resources are the illegals. Basically can we consider our immegration policy unconstitutional? Its selective enforcement at best and discrimination at worst. We let people in during the good times and in the face of bad times think about driving them off.
Yeah. The sense of entitlement is bad.
Anyhow… Ron Paul.. interesting guy. I may as well vote for the guy.
LAEF2–
What are you smoking?
You accuse people of making baseless statements, and then commit that exact sin! You say: “People with very little scientific background are throwing a lot of dogmatic beliefs out there” And then with zero evidence other than your dogmatic beliefs, you assert: “gore’s knowledge [of global warming] is superficial at best”
Based on what? If you study his background, the research and interviews he has conducted (properly cited in his writing) or listen to his statments(not Fox News) you would see that his beliefs are in fact well-reasoned, thoroughly researched and fact-based. He does not make radical statments like ‘the world is coming to an end’. He cites hard evidence, distrubing trends and says this is something we should be paying attention to.
And Carter and Clinton not intelligent? (seriously dude, I want some of that weed you’re smoking. It’s good stuff!) Where do you get your infotainment? Sorry, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh don’t count. Clinton was a Rhodes Scholor! That’s nothing like being a Yale legacy. Genius? That’s hard to say, but his knowledge of world affairs, politics and cultures puts him probably in the top 5 of all US presidents. He’s certainly the only modern president who can speak intelligently on a wide range of world topics without the aid of a pre-written speach. There’s lots of actual, substantial evidence to this effect. What’s your evidence? Your personal opinion?
I could be wrong, but I think he’s talking about HR Clinton, not Bill.
Personally, I think most of the people in high politics are geniuses… That’s true of all parties.
Corrupt, but geniuses. Sometimes I wish I was as smart and morally ambivalent as they are… would make life easier.
It is really hard to tell with the public figures.
I see ineffectual or redundant legislation proposed. Sometimes its grandstanding on issues where the bill gets killed later on. Sometimes its just generally misguided thinking. For example take a look at our welfare policies and the greater society.
It goes under Chuck Ponzi’s law of unintended consequences.
The comment about Gore: Global warming is a theory about the enviroment. There have been lots and lots of climatic shifts on this planet. We have a lot of guesses and computer models. We really do not know how accurate they are.
I model electronics for a living. That is hard and obscure. It goes wrong a substantial portion of the time.
The scientists are trying to model an entire planet with many complicated interactions. They hardly had measurements of upper atomospheric temperatures, effects and conditions for a couple of decades. Then we have a few weather sats and a few weather ballons taking sample data. Then we make broad generalizations about what effects that will have.
You don’t think there is any possibility that a large number of people are wrong about this?
If you don’t think large numbers of people could be wrong; remember that most of the educated world believed the sun orbited the earth for hundreds of years. Biggest object in our sky and all so important… and we got it wrong.
Gore claims to be an expert on global warming. Then he goes out and makes a statement on Yahoo questions like this “How are we going to reverse the effects of global warming?”
Its an odd question. I read it and said gee he does not understand some of the fundamental issues. We are talking about lowering our contribution of CO2 and methane to the atmosphere.
Gore thinks we are talking about somehow extracting CO2/Methane from the atmosphere or something like that.
An amused physicist replied to Gore’s naive question “give the earth about 10000 years or so” was the best answer.
We could also go on about sources of greenhouse gasses and sinks for green house gasses. We do not clearly understand if increased CO2 will cause plankton blooms that increase CO2 sink capacity.
Not to mention current evidence shows upper atmosphere cooling trends. Not sure if that means distabilization of the upper atomosphere with super storm potential or does it mean the planets is going through another cooling cycle.
So, its a really complicated phenomena and I don’t think that Al understands it all that well.
I don’t think he is a scientist. I don’t think he invented the internet.
Its complicated. Do you think we should drain all the wetlands (aka swamps) to limit the amount of methane produced? Those are huge sources or greenhouse gasses?
Anyhow, they define genius in different ways. Most guys there seem manipulative but they didn’t seem to produce a whole bunch of genius ideas.
Did Bill or Hillary produce any genius ideas? I’d really like to hear about them. Bill seemed like a genius for talking for a long time with out saying anything.
I just remember Hillary and the health care fiasco. Basically its hard for me to accept giving top notch health care to people that don’t pay for it. I mean subsidised food, free housing, free health care… Why fricking work?
Give me some evidence of genius there buddy.
One nit to pick:
I understand that it is exactly the draining of swamplands that causes the methane to be released… in other words, keeping the methane all locked up in the swamps is the only way to keep it from coming out.
Trying to focus on the positive, Bill Clinton was a great bridge builder.
Chuck.
Can you go in to a little more detailed explinatio of monetiztion of debt?
Since when did we start talking about politics?? Housing bubble people.. housing bubble.. thanks Chuck for starting to post again… I need to read once in a while about the existence of a bubble… God.. these prices are pretty crazy… lol… wtf
a friend of mine managed to purchase a home through auction @ 70% market/Zillow value… not bad right ? It’s in “acceptable” condition… muahahahaha… crash… crash.. mother**** price.. crash…
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Monday 28MAY07 3 p.m. EDT
Please make plans to visit a Senator’s office this week
DEAR FRIENDS,
On this Memorial Day, we remember with our thoughts — we honor with our actions.
There is a reason that the nation’s largest veterans organization — the American Legion — is working alongside us to stop the Senate Comprehensive Amnesty bill: Those whom we honor today did not die for open borders.
In honor of all who have made the supreme sacrifice in service to their (our) country, I ask you to seriously consider going to the office of one of your U.S. Senators this week — especially the ones who voted against the Vitter Amendment this week that would have stripped the amnesty section from the S. 1348 bill.
You will see the list of those pro-amnesty Senators below.
Unless you put enough pressure on them, they will vote for final passage of this terrible bill next week.
MAKE PLANS WITH OTHER NUMBERSUSA ACTIVISTS IN YOUR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
I know that most of you have never made such a visit. But you can do it if you have some other people to go with you or to meet you there.
You can make yourself available to other by going to the Member Connection page at:
http://www.numbersusa.com/memb.....ion=enroll
You can also always get to that page by going to your Action Buffet corkboard and going to the yellow note strip in the upper right, where you will see a link for Members Connection.
When you type in your email address, you will see any other members who have voluntarily made their email addresses available for people to see in their Congressional District. You can paste those email addresses into an email so you can contact them about their interest in joining you for a visit.
If you find almost nobody else listed, your adding your name increases the chance that somebody else will sign up later and be contacting you.
CHECK ON OTHER VISITS ALREADY PLANNED …. AND POST YOUR PLANNED VISIT ON A NATIONAL TALK RADIO WEB PAGE TO PICK UP MORE PEOPLE TO JOIN YOU
The three dozen Talk Radio hosts who were part of the recent Hold Their Feet to the Fire event in Washington DC are coordinated through a website at:
http://www.informedvoter.info/eventsindex.asp
Right now, there are almost no visits listed there. But you can sign up (register) and post any visits you are planning.
Hopefully be mid-day Tuesday, you will start to find visits being listed.
Folks, this is not the time to be timid. Please aggressively plan a visit to the Senate offices as soon as possible. These are going to be the key thing that convinces staff and Senators that they won’t get by with voting for an amnesty.
Every attempt is going to be made to encourage talk-radio show hosts nationwide to join in pitching these visits, so this will truly be a collaborative effort between talk radio and the American people.
Thanks to all of you who responded to my request this week for a surge in donations to enable us to better meet the dangers that face us this summer.
Your wonderful response thus far has enabled us to hire a powerful outside firm to augment all of your and our efforts.
We inked the deal Friday because of your immediate response on Thursday, and because of the trajectory that suggests many of you will continue to step forward with donations over the next few days.
This faxing system is 100% financed by the voluntary generosity of the 365,000-plus Americans who use it.
Please click here to make any sized donation to keep this grassroots phenomenon strong and effective.
THESE SENATORS VOTED FOR AMNESTY LAST WEEK AND NEED YOUR VISITS THIS WEEK
They voted NO on the Vitter amendment.
Alaska: Murkowski (R-AK), Nay Stevens (R-AK), Nay
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Nay
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Nay
California: Boxer (D-CA), Nay Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
Colorado: Yea Salazar (D-CO), Nay
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Nay Lieberman (ID-CT), Nay
Delaware: Biden (D-DE), Nay Carper (D-DE), Nay
Florida: Martinez (R-FL), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Nay
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Nay Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Idaho: Craig (R-ID), Nay
Illinois: Durbin (D-IL), Nay Obama (D-IL), Nay
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Nay Lugar (R-IN), Nay
Iowa: Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Nay Snowe (R-ME), Nay
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Massachusetts: Kennedy (D-MA), Nay Kerry (D-MA), Nay
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Nay Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Minnesota: Coleman (R-MN), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Nay
Mississippi: Lott (R-MS), Nay
Nebraska: Hagel (R-NE) Nay
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Nay Reid (D-NV), Nay
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Nay
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay Menendez (D-NJ), Nay
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Domenici (R-NM), Nay
New York: Clinton (D-NY), Nay
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Nay
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Nay
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Nay Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Oregon: Smith (R-OR), Nay Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Nay Specter (R-PA), Nay
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Nay Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay
South Carolina: Graham (R-SC), Nay
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Nay Hutchison (R-TX), Nay
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Nay
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Nay Sanders (I-VT), Nay
Virginia: Warner (R-VA), Nay Webb (D-VA), Nay
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Murray (D-WA), Nay
THESE SENATORS VOTED AGAINST AMNESTY LAST WEEK BY VOTING IN FAVOR OF THE VITTER AMENDMENT
Even those these Senators voted the right way last week, they still would benefit from personal visits this week.
Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Arkansas: Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Colorado: Allard (R-CO), Yea
Idaho: Crapo (R-ID), Yea
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Kansas: Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Yea McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Yea Tester (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska: Nelson (D-NE), Yea
New Hampshire: Sununu (R-NH), Yea
North Carolina: Dole (R-NC), Yea
North Dakota: Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Yea
South Dakota: Thune (R-SD), Yea
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Corker (R-TN), Yea
West Virginia: Byrd (D-WV), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Wyoming: Enzi (R-WY), Yea
You’ll be hearing from our Capitol Hill team throughout the week.
Please send us any feedback from your visits.
Thank you!
SINCERELY,