Ron Paul: Texan of the Year

Here's a cute little video that gives a two minute run down on Pickins and his water plan. If you want to dig into the details, just do a search on Pickins and Ogallala. There's tons of news articles on it, but unfortunately none by any reporters who have actually interviewed Pickins. Just once I like to see him called out on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70HFEHB6dag&eurl

Dr. Paul was the only politician warning us of our imminent economic collapse. He's the only man who had the courage to tell us we are broke, deeply in debt, and our reckless foreign policy will have consequences. I’ll never forget the moment when Rudi Giuliani attempted to grand stand during a debate in South Carolina and demanded a retraction to a statement Dr Paul made regarding 9/11 and everyone in the crowd cheered. Dr. Paul coolly responded by educating Giuliani and the crowd on the concept of “Blowback”; which in Texas people probably all too well. You hit me and I’ll hit you back! Dr. Paul is highly deserving of such an honor.

uhh, the democrats had an even bigger problem with ron paul than the republicans did. your interpretation of events is, as ever, bizarre.

Ron Paul is # 1

RP was the best candidate this year (yes, this includes republicans), and many people were too stupid to recognize it

Ron Paul as Texan of the Year?

Ok, my response...

LOL X10,000

He's a politician who seems to have garnered a cult of personality about him, but in my view fails to exhibit either leadership or full integrity.

His views range from reasonable to absurd. His accomplishments are... Well, can anyone name any? I'm not saying he hasn't, I'm making the point this is not a person who has gained his fame by accomplishment, only verbiage.

Surely there's far more worthy people. Perhaps a firefighter who actually saved someone? A soldier who did the same? A teacher, a doctor, a cop, anyone? Is Texas really reduced to being a state where the highest recognition belongs to a politician of no accomplishment, rather that recognizing people of action and accomplishment?

RP a racist, your ignorance is unbelievable - once your understand that RP respects a persons rights, group classification (i.e. racism) is out of the question. If your going to comment on a person, please do some research.

Rod,
You're a real enigma. How could you initially be infatuated over Sarah Palin and like Ron Paul? You had a real forum with your blog to support Ron Paul, and I never saw much enthusiasm. Yeah, you were less than lukewarm with regard to John McCain; but, I can't remember a bunch of posts this election season supporting Mr. Paul.
I guess better late than never. Next time Republicans better figure things out, or there gonna be in the wilderness even longer.
I highly recommend Dr. Kibble's post above!

Dave D. : I have been looking for more info on the newsletter story for the past eight months but I have found nothing, that's exactly why I asked people on this form if they had any more info. I am trying to do research that was the point to my post, but instead you insulted me.

Texan of the Year? I'd have to write-in Kinky Friedman.

Baldy, maybe that's why Rod wrote in Wendell Berry instead of Ron Paul on his Texas ballot when he voted for president:

blog dot beliefnet dot com slash crunchycon slash 2008 slash 11 slash wendell-berry-for-president dot h t m l

Well, Julie and I just got back from voting, and I'm pleased to say that a) I was wrong about it not being possible to do write-in votes for president in Texas, and b) Mr. Wendell Berry of Kentucky will be able to claim two votes from Dallas. I was pleased that I didn't have to withhold my vote this year, and that even though a write-in candidate is basically stunt balloting, at least I was able to exercise my franchise, however hopeless the gesture.

I fully stand by my statement that the Ron Paul thing is a cult of personality. At least half of the people who bring him up use him as an authority. He uses a professed strict Constitutional stance to get attention, mixing the obviously true with the intemperate.

What has he ACCOMPLISHED THAT MADE HIM FAMOUS? Words. Nothing else. There's plenty on his resume, but none of it made him famous.

A few years ago, Ron Paul made a bunch of loud and aggressively worded statements about Iraq. Except that Ron Paul knew the real history, because he was in office when the events he misrepresented were actually voted on... At that point, I put him in the "opportunist" column and I've seen no reason to move him.

Now, about the gold standard...

Adoption of such a thing would be insanity. Flat out insanity. Restricting the amount of currency to a scarce commodity is flat out stupid. It is a recipe for repeating the Great Depression.... But never, EVER ending it. Any attempt to grow the economy would be funded with debt, not investment, and then deflation would make that debt unservicable, resulting in collapse. It would mean an endless repitition of rather extreme burst and bust cycles, as the nation would be stuck with an endless deflationary cycle and repeated national debt crises.

Re: At least half of the people who bring him up use him as an authority.

Note the endless repetition of "Dr" before his name by those who gush about him. Academic degrees are a substitution for titles of nobility in America and whenever I hear people using "Dr" (or for that matter "Rev") with a politician's name I am immediately suspicious that they are trying to inflate the guy's political creds with completely irrelevant academic (or ecclesial) creds.
Politicians serving in office can be referred to by the name of that office: Sen. Lugar, President Bush, Congressman Dingell, etc. Otherwise a simple "Mr." or "Ms." should suffice.

Hear, hear!

re: Dr. Paul is a medical doctor.

I am aware of that. An "MD" is just as irrelevant to his political capabilities as a PhD, a JD or a DD. I stand by my principles here: using "Dr" is a way to artificially inflate his reputation with a sort of ersatz title of nobility. Politicians should be titled either by office, or with the common courtesy titles of "Mr" and "Ms". That's a principle that dates back to President (not "His Highness") Washington.
As for gold currency, it is not a remedy for anything at all. Governments played funny games with gold all the way back to the Romans (at least). At least debt represents real economic activity; gold represents nothing more than some fluke of humankind's aesthetic instincts. That the wealth of the world should depend on how much of a quite useful but pretty metal we can grub out of the South Africa and Siberian bedrock surpasses comprehension.

God, man, do you not understand the nature of our existing fiat money---totally created from debt. In fact, the creation of money from prior production and savings is EXACTLY what distinguishes a commodity-backed currency from fiat currency (and what many use to discredit commodity-backed currency). You need to reshreshen your understanding of the basics before posting on this subject. Blame for the Great Depression lies squarely at the door of the Fed (as admitted by Bernanke to Milton and Anna shortly before Milt's death).

Hmmmm... What "basics" am I missing here? Seriously, minted precious metal coinage, and paper money backed by a commodity of limited quantity..

There is NO reason to do it. Gold's intrinsic value is based solely on what people will do to get it, and what they will give to get it. In other words, gold is just as subject to inflation and deflation AS PAPER / FIAT MONEY.

If food, oil, medicine, or some other need becomes scarce, the value of gold vs that commodity will change. When gold is valued more than the commodity, the ratio changes the other way. Traded currency is little different in that regard. Gold's only inherent value is what people will trade for it. Paper currency's inherent value is only what people will trade for it.

The question being, what does backing the paper with gold do for you, and how does it constrain you? A limited currency means that when the economy expands, there's more goods and services and the same level of currency circulating. Eventually, deflation occurs. When there's no means of increasing the currency supply EXCEPT BY DEBT, you eventually allow debt to become the fiat currency, and that inevitably results in wild, devasting deflationary swings, when people lose confidence in debt as a currency. This means that we'll be stuck in an endless cycle of short booms and then dramatic busts, followed by a long period of stagnation until memory dims and lenders and investors eventually recover from the losses and again accept debt as currency and the cycle starts over.

What happens when we use an "unlimited" paper money? If bad policies are followed, we eventually drift into the deflationary cycle like the one detailed above, or we enter an inflationary cycle, which devalues our savings and investments, causing an economic slowdown and reversing the pendulum swing. Using unbacked currency inevitably leads to inflation... But the recognition / adjustment feedback via a currency controller can keep that inflation at a rate that is less hazardous to our well being than a fixed quantity, ever-deflating currency. Please don't construe this with defending the Fed, or any other such nonsense. I'm just pointing out the entirely obvious basic mechanicals.

I know what you are arguing against. Sadly, your "fix" doesn't actually solve the problem. You see, the "problem" isn't solveable. Economics is not a precise and predictable game. It will have its ups and downs and not a thing in the world can change that. You merely trade one side of effects for another.

"The question being, what does backing the paper with gold do for you, and how does it constrain you? A limited currency means that when the economy expands, there's more goods and services and the same level of currency circulating. Eventually, deflation occurs. When there's no means of increasing the currency supply EXCEPT BY DEBT, you eventually allow debt to become the fiat currency, and that inevitably results in wild, devasting deflationary swings, when people lose confidence in debt as a currency."

If the quantity of goods and services rises faster than the hard-money supply, the hard-money becomes more valuable (it buys more). Because it becomes more valuable, the incentive to go dig it up increases. This incentive persists until the two supplies (the goods supply and the money supply) are in balance. This brings the value of the hard-money down and prevents the deflationary spiral. What the hard-money does that the paper can't do is require the expenditure of effort to create it.

Does this help?

Too many Bushtards with an internet connection. Gold-standards prevent the government from inflating out the currency. If we had a gold standard, then we simply wouldn't be able to bail out all these bad banks that have made bad investments. We also couldn't have raised the debt level to pay for legacy wars or Bush's prescription drug program. I am not surprised that Bushtards sucking off the public teat support fiscal mischief because who else would pay for your life-style.

Your help in discrediting the idea as one of non-thinkers is well appreciated.

If the quantity of goods and services rises faster than the hard-money supply, the hard-money becomes more valuable (it buys more). Because it becomes more valuable, the incentive to go dig it up increases. This incentive persists until the two supplies (the goods supply and the money supply) are in balance.

LOL! We have virtually banned all mining in this country, and you think we are going "go dig it up"??? Since the days we left the gold standard, the economic expansion has been how many times? 10, 20? Do you REALLY think that much gold can be found, enough that it will matter in the slightest? If so, I have a red painted bridge in California to sell you ( only Gold accepted, no checks, please).

Again, the problem is not "relieved" by "digging up more gold" as it generally costs currency and labor to do that. It isn't "free", and the currency increase barely covers the economic expansion to do that. Nope, what happens is precisely what I explained... DEBT. Unsecured debt becomes fiat currency and it gets traded until faith is lost in the originator of the debt and then the whole house of cards collapses, deflation occurs, and the debtors fail, which takes a decade or two to recover from, before we go out and do it again.

I'm not sure you people fully understand pre-depression era debt. IT WAS COMMON PLACE TO TRADE IOU NOTES AS IF IT WERE MONEY. Seriously, you need to go look into the everyday business of grocers, farmers, tradesmen, you name it - of the era. You ran a tab at the grocer, the farmer had one at the hardware store, the wealthy people in town continued to trade these notes around, using financing and interest to collect hard currency. While those notes were generally backed up by real production of real things, when the credit collapse occurred, extreme deflation killed off just about everyone, and made the debt worthless. Cash became hoarded by those who had been financing others, compounding the lack of it.

You CANNOT DEFEAT THAT by going prospecting. What happens, is that the value of gold becomes less than the effort to find it, and then the level of gold becomes, for all intents and purposes...fixed. While slow and incremental growth of the gold supply may occur, in no way is that anywhere near sufficient to solve the problem.

This brings the value of the hard-money down and prevents the deflationary spiral. What the hard-money does that the paper can't do is require the expenditure of effort to create it.

You're still not there. No matter what "price" you set gold to, it either immediately, or eventually, becomes static, since the level of effort and investment required to obtain it continues to rise, reaching a stasis point and then you're right back to a fixed quantity. (bangs head on monitor...) Please go look back and find out if gold production soared during the Depression... (Hint, you could not raise the capital to mount the operation to get it) Since capital formation was all but impossible for speculative things like gold mining, what little was produced was done with manual labor at existing and decling production sites, at ever declining wages - deflation...

It paid less to produce food, gold, cars, machinery, to own land... EVEN SOLID COMMODITIES SAW DEFLATION. Whether you backed the currency with gold, iron, silver, wheat, eggs, concrete, rock, or pablum, the same problems exist and they are intractable.

Ok, I was kidding about the wheat and eggs, just seeing if you're awake...

Easy deflation of the Gilded Age 1870-1907 was extremely good for the average American because of the rapid capitalization of railroads, factories, and other economic investments. It was also a period of low taxes.

It's easier to forecast prices with a cash based society because the threat of inflation through mining or flow of gold stock from one part of the world to another is easier to figure out. It leads to price expectations with lower ranges of fluctuation (usually downward.) That gives entrepreneurs a better idea on where and when to make capital investments.

It's also hard to say that deflation is a detrimental phenomenon when the money supply stays constant or grows slowly or that expectation of deflation is a bad thing. Severe price deflation in personal computers over the last two decades haven't stopped semiconductor companies from pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into R&D and foundry construction. Severe price deflation hasn't stopped consumers from purchasing lots and lots of computers over the same period. The degree of price deflation rather sends a necessary and beneficial signal to entrepreneurs and consumers to buy or invest.

There is the possibility that gold may be come too scarce that a gold standard to overvalue it even when accounting for its storage and anti-inflationary characteristics. At that point, it'd probably be a good idea to use something else as a medium of exchange as money. The market will probably agree on some commodity rather than paper money without a tangible promise behind it.

Easy deflation of the Gilded Age 1870-1907 was extremely good for the average American because of the rapid capitalization of railroads, factories, and other economic investments. It was also a period of low taxes.

This is an interesting statement, since 1907 was marked by a bank panic, and the previous years were a recession... The panic of 07 and assorted ripples eventually dropped the stock market 50%.

JP Morgan and friends "bailed out" the banks that year. But repeated bank runs did not end.

This is hardly a defense of the gold standard. It REALLY is not some kind of praise of "gradual deflation", either.

Really, think about why there were "trust busters", why it was possible to create monopolies in that era... The reason was not that anyone could or would own all the oil or all the steel or anything else. What they could do, is hoard cash - restricting capital to raise competition to the established producers.

The Panic of 1907 was set in motion by... Get this... Investors and Banks attempting to fund the takeover of a COPPER PRODUCER, and then failing. And when they failed, the banks lost the confidence of their depositors and... The rest is easy to imagine.

Your fundamental premise is that slight deflation helped the people be prosperous. Nonsense! The prosperity was entirely due to dramatic gains in productivity, brought about by mechanization. Attempts to capitalize on these productivity gains resulted in economic expansion that dramatically outstripped the available currency, resulting in the slow shift to debt based expansion which created fiat "money". One slight wobble in the economy cause government to engage in protectionism, raising taxes, and then borrowing and spending. This borrowing further exacerbated the lack of currency and hurried up the crash, and then deepened it.

FDR's short sighted policies of borrowing and spending would have prevented any future recovery... Except for the onset of WWII, going off the Gold Standard, and huge productivity gains invented during and post WWII.