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Name five government agencies that you would abolish

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blobfish

Literotica Guru
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Jun 13, 2012
Posts
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If someone told you that you could abolish five government agencies, which would they be?

1. FCC
2. DEA
3. ATF
4. Federal Reserve (not technically a government agency, I know.)
5. IRS

As a bonus, which would you restructure, but not abolish?

1. EPA
2. USDA (to do some of the things that the ATF and DEA used to do.)
3. CIA
 
blobfish said:
If someone told you that you could abolish five government agencies, which would they be?

1. FCC
2. DEA
3. ATF
4. Federal Reserve (not technically a government agency, I know.)
5. IRS

As a bonus, which would you restructure, but not abolish?

1. EPA
2. USDA (to do some of the things that the ATF and DEA used to do.)
3. CIA
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How can you sit there and say we should do away with the ATF??

Who else am I going to ask which wine tastes best with which gun?
 
StephenHawking said:
that's it:confused:no reasons why?
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Where have you been? I hate the fucking government.

Reasons:

1. Free speech.
2. Legalize drugs.
3. Leave up to the states.
4. They've done untold damage to our country.
5. Institute a flat tax for people and one for businesses.
 
all of this is meaningless. it's like five year olds asking each other what the tooth fairy does with their teeth. i'm going to castro.bye:)
 
Liar said:
Would still need to be collected, no?
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Yeah, but most of what the IRS does is managing loopholes and other stupid shit. The important stuff could probably be left up to an existing department.
 
Dept Of Education can go...It can be handled at state and local levels.
Dept Of Interior seems to be a wast. Sate and locals can take care of it
Dept Of Energy...waste...Leave it to the states
HHS since they just give away money to the Parasites and tell us what to do.
HUDD

Then cut many of the other agencies by 20-40%
Simplify tax code by flat tax or national sales tax and eliminate 60% of that agency

Reduce congresses budget by 50% and tell them all to get full time jobs and show up half as often. Budget can be set by cutting it in half now and automatic 3% increases.No more

Sell off 85% of the 10,000 empty federal buildings we own
Sell off 40-50% of the federal lands and sell more opil drilling rights.
Force congress into Social Security system. No Pensions, No lifetime healthcare.
 
bigkahuna9 said:
Dept Of Education can go...It can be handled at state and local levels.
Dept Of Interior seems to be a wast. Sate and locals can take care of it
Dept Of Energy...waste...Leave it to the states
HHS since they just give away money to the Parasites and tell us what to do.
HUDD

Then cut many of the other agencies by 20-40%
Simplify tax code by flat tax or national sales tax and eliminate 60% of that agency

Reduce congresses budget by 50% and tell them all to get full time jobs and show up half as often. Budget can be set by cutting it in half now and automatic 3% increases.No more

Sell off 85% of the 10,000 empty federal buildings we own
Sell off 40-50% of the federal lands and sell more opil drilling rights.
Force congress into Social Security system. No Pensions, No lifetime healthcare.
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Perhaps a bit simplistic.
 
blobfish said:
I guess that's true for fans of unchecked inflation and chartalism.
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The Fed has been the main thing holding down inflation for the past several decades. Don't you realize how unstable the financial system was before we had it?!

Origins

From 1836, when the Second Bank of the United States lost its congressional charter, until 1913, when the Federal Reserve Act passed, the U.S. was without a central bank. Major financial panics (now commonly known as Recessions) were experienced in 1873, 1884, 1893, 1901, 1903, and a big one in 1907 led to a demand for congressional action. The Aldrich Commission was dispatched to make a study, and shortly after its final report was made Congress changed hands from the big-government Republicans to the more grassroots oriented Democrats. Instead of one central bank located in New York as the Commission recommended, twelve regional banks were created throughout the country, with a Board of Governors, which is the bank's present form.[1]

What does it do?

The Fed essentially controls the amount of cash money in the United States and sets monetary policy. It has 12 branch banks (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco) which loan money to banks within their respective regions. This money is then lent at an interest rate to banks who then lend it to people and businesses. The Fed buys bonds[2] to increase the money supply, lowering interest, and sells bonds[3] to decrease money supply, increasing interest. This is the key part of the open-market operations for the Fed, allowing it to control inflation and growth to a certain extent. Previously the money supply was effectively in the hands of various Wall Street movers and shakers (e.g. J.P. Morgan).

Oh, the irony! The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board for two decades (1986-2006) was Alan Greenspan, a former disciple of Ayn Rand.

Maiden Lane, AIG, and aide to Central Banks

During the banking crisis of 2008, the answer to "What does it do?" became "buy loads of toxic assets from failing banks." The Fed created a number of dummy corporations (sorry, "special purpose vehicles") called Maiden Lane I, II, and III to buy up crap from Wall Street and government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some question the legality of the Fed's actions,[4] however the Federal Reserve Act of 1913—Section 13(3) gives it authority "under unusual and exigent circumstances"[5] to extend credit to individuals, partnerships, and corporations. A subsequent, full audit of the Fed revealed numerous alleged conflicts of interest in the deals.[6]

After drastically increasing the size of its balance sheet, in what became nicknamed the "backdoor bailout," the Fed was able to provided $3.3 trillion in liquidity and a peak of over $9 trillion in short-term loans and assistance to Wall Street firms and foreign central banks[7] over several years. Total commitments were over $29 trillion,[8] an amazing feat considering the GDP of planet Earth is estimated at $70 trillion.[9]

What's wrong with the anti-Fed crankery?

While one can find many legitimate criticisms of the Fed (incompetence, cronyism, etc.), much of the opposition to the Fed comes from a basic misunderstanding of how it operates or a conspiratorial view.

Conspiracy theories

The Fed has been a frequent subject of conspiracy theories alleging the Fed creates inflation, recessions, and even the Great Depression, through manipulation of the money supply.[10] Father Coughlin, the John Birch Society, Liberty Lobby, Eustace Mullins, Pat Robertson, Alex Jones, Texe Marrs and several others have frequently expressed such conspiracy theories. Many of the popular claims made today are recycled from G. Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island.[11][12] In some (but not all) cases these conspiracy theories have an anti-Semitic component, alleging "Jews" secretly or openly control the Fed. These theories are furthermore sometimes tied in to other conspiracy theories about the Trilateral Commission or the New World Order, or manipulation of the U.S. economy by the Rockefeller and Rothschild banking families.[13]

It seems like many of Ron Paul's followers have come up with a new completely insane theory in 2011 about the Federal Reserve, borrowing some points from Lyndon LaRouche. Apparently the Federal Reserve is now a foreign banking institution controlled by the British, and Britain is now firmly in control of (who else?) the Rothschild family. Through their control of the Federal Reserve, they are making the national debt increase (apparently the Federal Reserve controls fiscal policy) to the point where they can take their former colony back (apparently being heavily indebted means England wins you). The only person who can save the US is now Ron Paul,[14] who is above the influence.[15]

Ownership

Critics of the Fed make a big deal out of the fact that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation partially governed by the same banks it is supposed to regulate rather than a federal government agency. So what? This is similar to the status of Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the United States Postal Service, all examples of other major clusterfucks. Of course, being a major clusterfuck is not synonymous with being a conspiracy controlling the world — indeed, they are almost complete opposites.

There is also the misconception that the Fed is completely independent or private. This is false as it is a quasi-public entity. The Fed, like most central banks in the world, is considered "independent," which is basically a term of art meaning that its day-to-day operations are not overseen by the federal government. However, its chairman and board of governors are appointed by the president, it is subject to Congressional oversight,[16] and its mission of maintaining price levels and full employment is determined by Congress.[17] It is also subject to certain types of audits by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and any profits the Fed earns go straight to the Treasury Department.

The extent to which banks "control" the Federal Reserve is that they technically "own" it, but not in the way that shareholders own Microsoft. Since the Federal Reserve was created by Congressional charter, they are not organized like a normal corporation. Shareholder banks have no voting power, and all decisions are made by aforementioned government-appointed policy wonks. Shareholder banks elect 6 out of the 9 members of each regional Federal Reserve Bank's directors, but these regional directors have no power over monetary policy; that power lies solely in the hands of the central Board of Governors. In fact, compared to the Postal Service, the Fed seems like a marvel of reasonable bureaucratic design.

Trouble with accounting identities

At the simplest level of anti-Fed crankery is the idea that the Fed "owns" the government. This is due to a misconception of how the Fed operates. Monetary cranks claim that the Fed lends money to the government at interest, thereby stealing "the people's" money and selling us into debt slavery or some similar nefarious scheme to take over the US government. The way this works, however, is not quite the same as your regular commercial bank. The interest on debt held by the Fed actually goes to two places: One, the Fed pays itself out of this interest to cover its own operating costs, and two, the rest of the interest is rebated to the treasury. So, no, the Fed does not own the government or sell us into debt slavery.[18]

Pseudolaw

This usually ties into the above point. The basic idea is the the Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money, so the Fed is unconstitutional because it is not the Congress. This is a pseudolegal argument because the Congress may delegate its powers. This is similar to pseudolegal arguments made by gold bugs.[19]

Congressional involvement

Sometimes a big deal is made of the fact the law bringing the Fed into existence was passed December 23, 1913, implying that most of the Congress was away for Christmas. Here again the reality is quite different--the House passed the law 298-60 with 76 not voting but with 34 announced pairs, while the Senate passed it 43-25 with 27 not voting but with 12 announced pairs[20]

For those not aware an announced pair is where a Member of the House or Senate who will be absent arranges with another Member who who will be present and is on the opposite side of the issue to form a “pair” with the absent Member, thus allowing the absent Member to have recorded how he would have voted had he been present.[21] This means that at best only 42 more House members and 12 more Senate members could have said no to the creation of the Fed--way too few to have changed anything.

Austrian school and free banking proponents

Much of the opposition to the Fed in non-conspiratorial circles (though there is some overlap) comes from the Austrian school, who are free banking proponents and generally draw on Ludwig von Mises' arguments against central banking. Ron Paul is particularly known for his multi-decadal anti-Fed crusade in Congress. In short, they claim that the Fed creates the business cycle[22] through the expansion of the money supply which leads to "malinvestment" due to easy money.

Ignoring Lessons from the US Free Banking Era (1837 to 1864)

The biggest flaw with the free banking proponents is they either are ignorant or ignore the many problems seen in the Free Banking Era of the US.

The first problem was that during this era banks issued bank notes based on the gold and silver in their vaults effectively printing money. Since these bank notes could only be redeemed at face value at the bank that issued them the result was the actual value of the note decreasing the further from the bank it got. Then there was the issue if the bank failed these bank notes became worthless. This made any form of long distance commerce difficult if not impossible.

The second problem was since the laws were set up by the individual states there was no consistency with regard to reserve requirements, interest rates for loans and deposits, capital ratios, or anything else. Worse enforcement of what laws there were was highly variable within a state. This resulted in some states what was later called wildcat banking where the bank notes were not backed by precious metal at all but by mortgages or bonds.[23] In other words the exact same problems as are claimed regarding the Fed but with even less oversight.

Ignoring the original Great Depression (1873–79 or 96)

Before the Crash of 1929, the term "Great Depression" referred to the period of 1873–96 which was marked by deflation (largely because the US shifted from a bimetallic standard to a de facto gold standard in 1873) and the rapid industrialization of the country. The term Gilded Age is also applied to this period and sometimes in a pejorative manner -- a shiny golden cover hiding a rotting or rotted core. The deflation that marked this period is why some wanted to return to a bimetallic standard as, hammered home in William Jennings Bryan's famous Cross of Gold speech in 1896. Even the shorter range of 1873–79 stated by the NBER is longer than the 1930's Great Depression by 22 months. This era is now called "the Long Depression"; the lesson it gives us is that switching over from a bimetallic standard to a gold standard (which the Coinage Act of 1873 effectively did) triggers off deflation for extended periods of time.

After the establishment of the Fed

The US only saw three major banking crises after the establishment of the Fed (Great Depression, S&L crisis, 2008 financial crisis) and only two since the creation of federal deposit insurance compared to one about every decade prior to that.[24] The business cycle has also seen shorter and smaller contractions.

Essentially, what this demonstrates is that certain libertarians[25] and Austrian schoolers like Ron Paul seem to love the idea of going back to the 19th century and having us all stuff gold bricks under our mattresses every time it looks like there's going to be a run on the bank.
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As for "chartalism," that just means "fiat money, " i.e., money -- I hope you're not such an idiot as to want to go on a gold standard or some shit!

Desire to return to a gold standard

Some people (such as perennial Presidential contender Ron Paul and adherents to the Austrian school[10]) continue to preach in good faith that without a gold standard, money is "objectively worthless"; these people are sometimes known as "gold bugs".[11] Survivalists and conspiracy theorists often like the gold standard, as well as other precious metals like silver and platinum, because it holds out the promise of a stable currency in a governmental vacuum. The idea has also regained currency (no pun intended) recently with the ascent of the Tea Party.[12]

The general appeal of the gold standard to these groups is to wrest control of the money supply from the government. (Or the Jewish bankers, or the New World Order, or whoever your favored bogeyman is.) As Herbert Hoover said, "We have gold because we cannot trust governments."[6] Price stability is another advantage to the gold standard. Fiat currencies live with the ever-present threat that the government might print massive amounts of money, leading to hyperinflation, but such an act would be impossible with gold since the supply of gold is intrinsically limited. With fiat currency you trade the possibility of hyperinflation for an inevitable hyper-deflationary spiral when the amount of gold ore that can be found runs out with the population continuing to increase.

Problems with returning to a gold standard

Not enough gold

The largest and most glaring problem in returning to the gold standard is that there is simply not enough gold in the world to cover the quantity of currency presently in existence. To put it another way, even if the US were somehow able to purchase the world's entire gold stocks (in itself an impossible proposition) there would still be nowhere near enough gold to cover the total value of dollars in existence. It is estimated that the total amount of gold that has been mined in the world is equal to about 142,000 metric tons.[13] Assuming a price of $50,000 per kilogram (corresponding to around $1550 per troy ounce), that equals about $7.1 trillion; not enough to cover all circulating money and deposits in the United States, let alone the entire world. A return to the gold standard would require a massive devaluation of the US dollar, precisely the scenario that many gold bugs feel that the gold standard would prevent.

In addition, gold has gained several industrial uses in the last century, particularly the tech industry and some medical uses, as well as traditional uses in jewelry. The ensuing hyperdeflation of a return to the gold standard would devastate the jewelry industry (no one but the filthy rich is going to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a 14k gold wedding band, never mind 24k) and the tech industry (the extensive use of gold interconnects in chip packaging would send component prices through the roof).

Gold has no magical "intrinsic" value

Gold is almost intrinsically worthless, as any object's value is only assigned by the collective value put on something by its consumers (otherwise known as "the market"), and that the use of gold as reserve currency is more a tradition than anything else. There are a few practical industrial uses for gold, such as gold-plating electrical contacts to resist corrosion, but the demand for gold in such uses is tiny when compared with the world gold supply.

Nothing to prevent the government from leaving the gold standard

A government may choose to leave the gold standard as soon as it implements one. This is evidenced by the history of the gold standard above, in which it was suspended many times for various reasons. The gold standard, then, does nothing to rein in the government.

Lack of nutritional value

The standard response in a barter economy to a handful of American Eagles or Krugerrands is likely to be "sorry, can't eat gold."[14] In other words, the fact that gold is a shiny metal with little value besides what is assigned to it by society (in other words, one of those dreaded "fiat currencies") is consistently ignored by these people. Basically, the gold standard has the same problems as fiat currency: that gold has little practical use outside of specialized fields[15], and that nearly all of its value has been assigned to it by society for its beauty.

Even assuming the survivalist dream/nightmare in which President Obama launches his joint operation with the United Nations to herd Americans in to FEMA camps, gold should be far down on the list of things to stuff in the bag before fleeing to the wilds. Aside from its lack of nutritional value, gold is very dense. A single 1 oz. Krugerand weighs just under 34 grams.[16] While the post-apocalyptic value of these coins (or similar quantities of gold) is unclear, it's not difficult to imagine the strain of carrying any significant quantities of gold (along with food and other supplies) while trying to evade the blue helmeted invaders. It's about as sensible as a Titanic passenger dragging a piano to the lifeboats. Short of stumbling upon camps of dentists or electronics engineers willing to exchange food, fuel, medicine or weapons for gold, one would think it smarter to have already stocked-up on food, fuel, medicine, weapons, ammo, or flint to at least start a fire with.

It's not quite true that you can't eat gold.[17] Just don't expect it to provide you with any useful nutrients.

Other problems with gold coins

Physical gold coins are also very susceptible to scams. Such scams would include clipping and shaving coins, melting coins and adding in cheaper metals, and cornering the market.

Many individuals advocating for a return to the gold standard are actually running or are advertising overpriced gold selling operations (e.g. Goldline). Could it be that the politics of fear are being used by hucksters to make a quick buck?

Gold doesn't even necessarily prevent inflation

All of this being said, this does not mean that printing money (or Bushonomics) is always a good thing; quite the contrary. Printing money without a sound policy to manage the money supply can devastate an already-troubled economy if people hoard the new money rather than spending it, reducing the real value of a stagnant market. However, returning to the gold standard or a fixed exchange system does not prevent inflation (see the Mexican peso crisis of 1994 and the Icelandic financial crisis of 2009), undermining the very reason the gold bugs seek to reinstate the standard. All it means is that there will be a severe and debilitating crash in the currency when the government realizes it can no longer subsidize an artificially strong currency. A well-run mint would tie the production of "fresh" currency to run slightly ahead of growth in the economy, thus keeping the money supply in a close relation to the actual wealth of the nation.

Even gold can suffer problems with inflation.[18] Gold rushes such as the California Gold Rush expanded the money supply and, when not matched with a simultaneous increase in economic output, caused inflation.[19] The "Price Revolution" of the 16th century demonstrates a case of dramatic long-run inflation. During this period, western European nations used a bimetallic standard (gold and silver). The Price Revolution was the result of a huge influx of silver from central European mines starting during the late 15th century combined with a flood of new bullion from the Spanish treasure fleets and the demographic shift brought about by the Black Plague (i.e., depopulation).[20][21] There are all sorts of other factors at play that affect inflation but aren't tied to the currency itself. An oil shock is going to drive prices up if your economy relies on oil, which is inflationary whether your currency is backed by gold or nothing at all. This is an example of cost-push inflation.[22]

Inflation vs. deflation: Two different kinds of thieves

Another reason the gold bugs hate fiat currency is because of their belief that inflation is "theft." That is, your savings decrease in value because of the increase in money supply. This is true, but it also overlooks the fact that the gold standard tends to be deflationary and deflation could be called "theft" as well. The upper classes, while hit less hard by inflation due to their massive stocks of wealth, tend to also be creditors, while the lower classes are the debtors. Inflation is good for the debtors as it makes their debt worth less, while deflation is good for creditors, as it makes debt worth more. This was the magic of mortgage debt — up until 2008, debts shrunk over time as interest failed to keep up with inflation — and was also the reason why the American populist movement in the 1890s had the free coinage of silver as one of its chief planks. Real estate, like gold, has a fixed, known quantity or supply, while population (or what is the same, "demand") is ever increasing. Theoretically, the value of the asset would only increase.

A caveat, though, is that inflation is taken into account in setting interest rates (as many adjustable mortgage[23] debtors found out), so a constant inflation at an expected rate is neutral; only higher than expected inflation benefits debtors. Deflationary cycles also tend to lead to lower wages and job loss. So, overall, inflation helps people in debt and hurts people with savings or who own debt.[24]

The issue of how inflation affects price stability is also important. Gold bugs like to throw around the statistic that the value of the dollar has been devalued over 98% over the last century. Of course, this is a number with no context and ignores the bleeding obvious: wages have gone up since then as well![24] If you want to go back to having your dollar worth what it was circa 1900, have fun going back to a circa 1900 paycheck too. Gold can help preserve long-term price stability to some extent, but it may actually be inferior to fiat currency in providing for short-term stability. Extreme short-term variability in price levels is not uncommon. The wild swings in prices during the late 1800s under the gold standard are one example of this.[25] In terms of price stability, then, the gold standard would be most helpful to people who prefer to stuff their money under the mattress, or bury it in a time capsule in the backyard if they are as nostalgic for turn-of-the-century currency as gold bugs are.

Historically, the upper classes and economic elite have favored hard-money conservatism while the lower classes have favored populist inflationary policy. This has led some to argue that advocating the gold standard is "class warfare" in disguise.[26] This was most evident in the US with the Free Silver movement, where populists such as William Jennings Bryan advocated inflationary policies. That's why it's rather ironic to hear hard-money conservatives in the vein of Ron Paul arguing that all inflation screws over the little guy and repackaging gold buggery in populist rhetoric, although it can be argued that the non-neutrality of money leads to monetary inflation increasing the wealth of the rich. The non-neutrality of money in the short run can allow whoever owns the printing presses (i.e., government) to channel money to itself or favored institutions or agents. This would be a case of what's called "financial repression."[27]

It should also be noted that inflation can't be employed as a panacea. It can be used to economically disastrous ends, such as the infamous case of the Weimar Republic's hyper-inflation, in which it devalued its currency into oblivion in an attempt to pay off war reparations.[28] So, in short, any monetary system can be used to screw over the little guy, the gold standard included. Nevertheless, unless you're living in a nation suffering Weimar-style hyperinflation that desperately needs to anchor its currency to something, the gold bugs are firmly in crank territory.

Fun with different official and black market exchange rates

If the official exchange rate is enforced (i.e. the government will make exchanges on demand) and bi-directional (the government will buy and sell local currency at rate near the official rate), it may be exploited together with a drastically different black market exchange rates:
if the official exchange rate get you larger amount of foreign currency (or gold, if the exchange rate is to gold) than black market exchange rates from the same amount of local currency, buy local currency from black market rate and sell it at official rate.
if the official exchange rate get you smaller amount of foreign currency (or gold) than black market exchange rates from the same amount of local currency[29], buy local currency at official rate and sell it at black market.

Most hyperinflationary governments maintaining an official exchange rate will not, however, enforce bi-directional exchanges like this (for example, they only will sell local currency at the official rate and will not buy any), making the enforcement essentially nonexistent.

Advantages of fiat currency

The advantage of a fiat currency is in theory to match the expansion of the money supply with the expansion of economic output rather than having the money supply expand arbitrarily whenever a Yukon Cornelius strikes gold. This helps prevent unwanted inflation from rapid, unexpected changes in the money supply. The reverse also applies in that fiat currency's elasticity can solve problems with deflation as well. The gold standard can become deflationary during a time of economic expansion due to its inelasticity and ultimately put a damper on growth. As population, the workforce, and overall economic output grow, if the money supply under a gold standard remained static, the demand for new money would outstrip existing stocks. Hence the cost of money, and things like payrolls, would become increasing difficult to maintain over time. An instance of this occurred during the "Long Depression" of the late 19th century.[30] This deflationary effect also played a role in the Great Depression. Nations that dropped the gold standard saw dramatic recoveries during the 1930s compared to those that didn't, which either continued to stagnate or decline slightly.[31] Ironically for libertarian advocates of the gold standard, Milton Friedman famously argued that the gold standard was a major factor in causing the Great Depression, contributing to the contraction of the money supply in 1929-1933.[32] The broad thrust of Friedman's argument is now conventional wisdom among economists and historians across a variety of schools of thought, though disagreement may exist on just how big a role gold played in the Depression.[33]

Another advantage of fiat currency in depression situations is that government spending is often used to help stimulate the economy during a recession. With a gold standard the government would not have the ability to spend more money than it is taking in, to put money in the economy to help it recover. This would likely lengthen recessions as the government would lose one of its most important tools to help a shrinking economy.[34]

Likewise, if the international trading system demanded trade accounts be settled in gold, the United States with its huge trade deficit would be paying for imported crude oil in gold. As well as interest on Treasury debt held by foreigners. And foreign manufactured consumer goods. This would lead to a massive contraction in the money supply, a deflationary spiral, unemployment, shortages of cash and cash equivalents, and would probably ultimately end in conversion back to a fiat currency anyway to relieve the misery, poverty, social unrest, and political instability that would result.

Paper money (backed by a sensible government) has an advantage over gold in that, while being intrinsically worthless, it is at least cheap to make, as opposed to gold which is intrinsically worthless and requires a massive mining and smelting infrastructure to extract and form into ingots which then do nothing but sit in vaults for the rest of eternity. This is why most developed countries have similar "floating" currencies, and it is only in the developing world that "fixed currencies" still exist, though most of those are fixed to the dollar, not to gold. (Even so, in many of those, such as Zimbabwe and North Korea as well as the former governments of the old Soviet bloc, there are official exchange rates and black market exchange rates.)

Pseudolaw: Fake constitutionality

Gold bugs will sometimes use a pseudo-legal argument that only the gold standard is Constitutional, citing this clause:

"The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of debts."

This is a combination of two passages from the constitution.[35] The first clause: "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;" is Article I, Section 8, Clause 5. The second clause is found in another section entirely, referring to restrictions on the states, not Congress. It is Article I, Section 10, Clause 1, which reads: "No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility."[36] Apparently, some people think that this prohibits fiat money. However, the quote says the exact opposite: It explicitly grants the federal government the power to coin money. The restriction to gold and silver applies solely to state governments.

The rhetoric and moralism of gold

The issue of the gold standard, like all monetary issues, has as much to do with morality and philosophy as it does economics. As above, libertarian proponents of the gold standard often frame the issue in terms of government "corrupting" our money.[37] During the 19th century (and still today), a rhetoric of a superior morality surrounded gold. Gold was thought to be a sign of thriftiness and integrity. It was even sometimes referred to as "God's money." There was also a racial tinge to the rhetoric surrounding gold: In some segregated industries, white workers were paid from the "gold roll" while black workers were paid from the "silver roll."[38] Karl Marx noted this rhetoric as an example of his concept of "commodity fetishism," writing that both gold and paper money become "the direct incarnation of all human labor."[39] (Indeed, Marx might have said that capitalism merely replaced gold fetishism with paper fetishism if he had lived to see the 20th century.) Barry Eichengreen and Peter Temin argue that this "gold mentalite" was a factor that worsened the Great Depression due to policy-makers clinging to the gold standard despite its failure.[40]

Opponents of the gold standard and proponents of paper or fiat currency similarly used rhetoric with moralistic and religious overtones. As William Jennings Bryan said in his speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1896: "Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."[41] John Maynard Keynes wrote in his book Monetary Reform: "In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic."[42] The Greenback Party (active from 1875-1884), a third party that advocated the replacement of the gold standard with the paper "greenback" currency used to finance the American Civil War, often had themes of salvation running through their propaganda.[43][44]
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KingOrfeo said:
The Fed has been the main thing holding down inflation for the past several decades. Don't you realize how unstable the financial system was before we had it?!



As for "chartalism," that just means "fiat money, " i.e., money -- I hope you're not such an idiot as to want to go on a gold standard or some shit!
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The entire article on the gold standard is fallacious, because the foundation is incorrect; the amount of gold needed to back the dollar would be no different today than it was in 1873! They could back all the currency with unobtainium, assuming the government owned a large enough percentage of the world's supply. The value of the dollar would increase to cover it. In other words, instead of being paid $20 an hour, a worker might be paid $2 an hour instead. But that $2 would have the same value as the $20 he was receiving before. While inflation can still happen under the gold standard, it would take an act of Congress to revalue the dollar accordingly.
 
And I don't think the Fed is some nefarious plot to undermine the American economy. It's just a dumb idea that is run incompetently.

By the way, all that Jew stuff is a strawmench. No one except lunatics thinks that the Jews control banks/everything. Hell, the Zionists needed the full support of the U.S. government to conquer a shitty desert landing strip.
 
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