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So BO is going to start a race war? Stokely Carmichael would be proud and the KKK would probably be OK with that too;) LOL. So I suppose Zimmerman is a tool of this plan also? Seems primitive and beneath BO's abilities to conjure up something as simple and lame as a race war. BO is capable of so much more I think. Only time will tell. Maybe BO is a double agent? A Superfly;) LMAO! And he's going to blow this conspiracy shit right out of the water.
Obama's Private Army!
Obama now has his private army, and put together on our watch
By Fred Brownbill
March 30, 2012
Big Sis Janet Napolitano and the Obama private army working under ICE, has placed an HUGE order for 450,000,000 (YES..MILLION) rounds of 40 calliber ultra high performance optimum penetration for terminal performance rounds from Defense contractors ATK.
They also have an open order for 175 million rounds of .223 caliber rifle rounds.
I have to ask each and every one of you reading this today a series of very important questions and would love some answers.
1/ Why does the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency need to be so heavily armed and need so many detention facilities? Go to their web site and check out the massive number in each state, far many more than are needed for illegal immigrants. http://www.ice.gov/detention-facilities/ . Have a look at how many employees this agency has grown to, the different divisions and the always growing number of “special agents” all heavily armed with armored tanks, vehicles and heavy duty military style equipment. All this to catch some illegals? I do not think so, as they have done a very bad job of that so far.
2/ Is this the private army that President Barack Hussein Obama said and promised that he would form when running for president, which would be as well equipped and trained as the regular army? If so, he has it now and it was all done on our watch! Shame on us.
3/ If it is, why now and what for? Surely they are not expecting millions and millions of illegals to come swarming over our borders?
4/ Is there something about to break in this election year that may stop the election or ensure an Obama victory and the final curtain for the Republic as we know it comes down?
I find that it is very alarming that this is happening now at the same time that from President Barack Hussein Obama down, using the public and private media and well known extreme left wing figures like Sharpton, Spike Lee, Jessie Jackson, several politicians, the New Black Panthers etc, a race war is being promoted every day using the African American population as pawns, feeding them vile and more than often incorrect information, angering them and in return angering and frustrating a well armed and trained group of whites who see a huge injustice about to occur.
America, wake up to the distinct probability that the America we love is on the edge of collapse, and that violence and economic destruction will be a huge part of that collapse.
To many, it seems impossible that this would happen here, on the streets of the towns and ciities that you live in. That people you work with, live next to, like and maybe are related to, could become an enemy combatant with as strong a desire to destroy and remake America as we have of saving the America given to us by our Founding Fathers.
This is a short article compared to many I have written, but the message is as important and strong as anything I have written or spoken of before. Please be aware of what is happening to our beloved America , be prepared to maybe have to do something you never dreamt you would have to do. When that time comes, God will give you the strength to do what is needed as long as you are ready and have everything you need to do it.
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND YOU ALL.
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-immigration-agents-are-loading-up-on-as-many-as-450-million-new-rounds-of-ammo-2012-3
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=140e263e1c4b2654e61adf022688eb5d&_cview=1
http://www.saveamericafoundation.com/2012/03/30/obama-now-has-his-private-army-and-put-together-on-our-watch-by-fred-brownbill/
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
DHS Whistleblower:
Obama to Commit ‘Reichstag’ Event to Enact Martial Law
Written on May 12, 2012 by V2A
[While we can't verify the accuracy of this 'DHS whistleblower' we feel we should at least inform of the possibility.]
The Obama agents, through the DHS and other assorted colluders, are plotting a major ‘Reichstag’ event to generate racial riots and produce the justification for martial law, delaying the November 2012 elections, possibly indefinitely, a DHS whistleblower informed the Canada Free Press on Tuesday.
The ‘Reichstag Event’ would take the form of a staged assassination attempt against Barack Obama, “carefully choreographed” and manufactured by Obama operatives. It would subsequently be blamed on “white supremacists” and used to enrage the black community to rioting and looting, the DHS source warned.
The Obama administration would then use the violence and chaos they created as justification for the imposition of martial law in major urban cities in America, the creation of DHS checkpoints, restriction of travel, and the indefinite delay of the November 2012 elections.
The Reichstag event refers to a fire started during Hitler’s rise to power. The fire allowed him to grab emergency powers and murder his opposition. Historians have long believed that Hitler started the fire himself, while he blamed it on the Communists.
The anonymous whistleblower elaborated on how the Obama administration is using the Occupy movement, labor unions, and other assorted subversive groups to create massive chaos within the nation.
Post Continues on www.thecomingattack.com
http://visiontoamerica.org/9682/dhs-whistleblower-obama-to-commit-reichstag-event-to-enact-martial-law/
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
After reading Teddy Roosevelt's quote, I got to thinking.
Hillary claims to have back channeled Elenore Roosevelt. I wonder if Teddy forward channeled Obama?
B2B
Gas spoils rather quickly, it has many problems including varnishing. However, a simple and reliable product can help in this matter greatly.
STA-BIL:
STA-BIL keeps fuel fresh
Fuel that is stored either in the can or in the engine fuel tank, starts going stale after a little more than a month, resulting in hard starting, poor performance and reduced engine life.
When added to fresh fuel, STA-BIL Fuel Stabiliser stops the formation of gum and varnish in fuel system components. It contains corrosion prevention additives to fight the damaging effects of Ethanol in fuels and cleans fuel injectors and carburettors restoring performance.
Marketed for over 40 years in the USA and recommended by more than 100 engine and equipment manufacturers. STA-BIL is safe to use in any petrol engine and will not harm any engine or fuel system components or catalytic converters.
http://sta-bil.com.au/
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
More or less just gasoline with stabilizer in it to keep it from going bad....
What is stabilized gasoline? Thanks.
Another thunderous shot that the sheeple cannot hear:
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-chinese-takeover-of-america-begins-federal-reserve-clears-communist-china-for-first-takover-of-us-banks_052012
It's going to be really bad, isn't it?
http://lewrockwell.com/stockman/stockman11.1.html
A coalition of special interest groups. gays, deadbeats, illegal aliens, and anyone else depending on a govt check.
Unfortunately that is a big percentage.
Rocks, Gravel, Sand & Gravity; it doesn't get much easier or more natural than that.
Storage is needed, and that was included in the last video.
I live in Oregon, we have water everywhere, and I don't have to go very far for lakes, springs, streams and rivers. I live within 10 to 20-minutes from several lakes and streams. Withing an hour I can be on Mt. Hood where some of the cleanest water in the world is at my disposal; our Bull Run Reservoir is quite famous for it's purity, I'm quite lucky this way.
My truck holds 47 1/2-gallons of gas in case I need to get to the forest of Mt. Hood. I could tell you I have 100-gallons of stabilized gasoline in my garage, but that's illegal so I won't say anything about that.
There is sooooo much we all need and should prepare for; and us city dwellers are in more need than most.
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
OK if in city you should have water back up, if you are on a well you need back up if power is off! and back up for no gas for a gen. back up is what we need!
When I said working on it, I meant I'm researching which way to go; here is some of what I have looked at:
please add what is?
I'm working on ac water filtration system now.
Add FOOD to that list and seeds, control food you control the people just look back in history!
Great Quote: "The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else." ~ Theodore Roosevelt
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
VIDEO: Is Ron Paul Actually Winning the Delegate Count?
The Daily Bell
Friday, May 11, 2012 –
by Staff Report
CNN Asks Ron Paul To Drop Out & Endorse Romney Despite His Chances To Win 5/9/12 ... Ron Paul on CNN "Newsroom." They continue to attack and ask Ron Paul to drop out. Ron Paul still has a good chance to win and continues to get asked to endorse Mitt Romney and just give up. – matlarson10
Dominant Social Theme: Ron Paul is done?
Free-Market Analysis: Citizen reporting continues to make the point that GOP libertarian Congressman Ron Paul has remained in the US presidential race not just to "make a point" but because he actually may have the possibility of winning the damn thing.
This video we have presented below makes this point categorically, showing us how power elite media facilities like CNN are simply lying about Ron Paul's delegate counts.
Turns out in these examples that mainstream GOP candidate Mitt Romney has far fewer delegates than CNN claims. The narrator of the video shows us this clearly and points out that not only is Ron Paul adding to his delegate total but that if the momentum continues he may actually have a chance – perhaps a slim one – at winning the nomination.
Here's the video:
(Video from matlarson10's YouTube user channel.)
Illegals & Tax Loophole
http://www.wthr.com/video?clipId=7054149&%3btopVideoCatNo=103348&%3bautoStart=true
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
Obama Pushes False GM Success Story
By Investor's Business Daily
May 1, 2012
Politics: The Obama camp can't stop clucking about how he saved GM and the car industry. But if the GM bailout is such a success story, why can't it pay back its debt to taxpayers?
The president's new campaign video narrated by actor Tom Hanks claims GM has "repaid" its loans. But in a revelation by the special inspector general monitoring the TARP bailout program, GM and GMAC together still owe the biggest share of the remaining $119 billion TARP debt.
Of the top bailout recipients, GM is the biggest laggard, the TARP watchdog says in his latest quarterly report to Congress. Bank of America, Citigroup, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial all have paid off their debt and left the TARP program. Even AIG has paid back more than 75% of what it owes taxpayers.
GM, on the other hand, still owes more than half the $50 billion in federal funds it received when the combination of the recession and its costly union contracts drove it into bankruptcy. And its lending arm, GMAC (now Ally Financial), still owes $14.5 billion.
What's worse, it's not clear that GM actually repaid what it's gotten credit for repaying. Check out this note buried in the inspector's report: "As part of a credit agreement with Treasury, $16.4 billion in TARP funds were placed in an escrow account that GM could access only with Treasury's permission."
As it turns out, GM got Treasury's OK to "repay" more than $6.7 billion "using a portion of the escrow account that had been funded with TARP funds." So GM is merely paying the government back with government money, not money GM is earning selling cars, as the administration has claimed.
Worse, GM in effect is still borrowing money. Consider this item from the report: "What remained in escrow was released to GM." Bottom line: Taxpayers have not been paid back and are still on the hook as GM continues to require government help. Yet Obama has hailed the GM bailout as the signature achievement of his big government programs.
"On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen," the president said. "Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's No. 1 automaker."
Even that's a stretch. GM edged tsunami-crippled Toyota by counting sales at its joint ventures in China, which aren't wholly owned subsidiaries. And the government is directly subsidizing new GM auto lines like the star-crossed Chevy Volt.
Ford, which didn't take TARP funds, grabbed market share from GM and is now more profitable. Ironically, Ford for the first time in years has outsold GM in the number of cars bought by the federal government - although Washington still owns a huge stake in GM. Not exactly a vote of confidence.
In North America, Ford just recorded its highest quarterly profit since 2000. GM missed profit estimates in the fourth quarter. And analysts are not sanguine about its first-quarter results due Thursday.
The GM story is hardly what we're looking for in terms of a recovery. That Obama is touting it as a top economic achievement speaks volumes about his policies.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/05/01/obama_pushes_false_gm_success_story_99648.html
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
Gold and silver, anyone?
Total breakdown is coming. The total ignoring of the multiple and massive problems, by the MSM and our government, will not change the eventual outcome:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/jp-morgan-suffers-massive-losses-4-2-billion-probable-may-spread-to-entire-sector_05102012
Yes of course but tiz the season as they say.
We face the prospect of mass civil unrest, even revolution
Now the Chinese are buying our banks?
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/3-big-chinese-banks-enter-us-banking-market-185200086.html
Global Tax?
Biden: ‘We Want To Create A Global Minimum Tax’
Friday, March 30, 2012
“For years, American manufacturers have faced one of the highest tax rates in the world. We want to reduce that by over 20%. We want to drop the rate, particularly, for high-tech manufacturers like you, Mr. President, even further than the 20%,” Vice President Joe Biden said at a manufacturing plant in Davenport, Iowa this week.
“We want to create (what’s called) a global minimum tax, because American taxpayers shouldn’t be providing a larger subsidy for investing abroad than investing at home,” Biden said at a campaign event.
Real Unemployment Rate 14.5%
‘Real’ Unemployment Rate Remains at 14.5 Percent
By Matt Cover
May 7, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – The “real” unemployment rate – a broader, more inclusive measure of the country’s jobless picture than the one usually used – remained unchanged at 14.5 percent in April, as the economy created a paltry 115,000 jobs.
Known formally as the U-6 unemployment rate, this measure includes those formally counted as unemployed, those known to be marginally attached to the workforce, and those who are working part-time because they cannot find full-time work.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U-6 unemployment rate remained flat in April at 14.5 percent – meaning some 22.8 million people are either unemployed, have stopped looking for work, or need full-time work but can only find part-time employment.
The U-6 rate is considered to be a more accurate measure of the unemployment picture because it includes a broader sample of those affected by poor economic conditions. By including both unemployed persons and those marginally attached, this measure captures people the BLS would normally count as out of the workforce.
Being marginally attached to the workforce means that a person is not employed and has not looked for a job in the past month – but would accept a job if any were available. The measure best captures people who are available to work but who have given up looking for a job.
The government does not count these people as officially unemployed because they have not looked for work in the past month. They are usually deemed not to be in the labor force at all, and essentially disappear from the government’s survey of unemployment.
By counting people who can only find part-time work and including it in a measure of unemployment BLS is able to track what is known as underemployment – when someone is forced to work part-time because full-time work is unavailable.
This measure provides a deeper look into the relative weakness of the jobs market than that provided by the official unemployment rate because while these people are employed, they are not as productive as they could – and would like to – be.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/real-unemployment-rate-remains-145-percent
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
Breaking News - Nuclear Inspector Killed In Iran
IAEA nuclear inspector killed in Iran car accident, authorities say
Source: AFP
Posted: May 08, 2012
TEHRAN – A South Korean UN nuclear inspector was killed and a colleague from Slovenia injured in a car accident in central Iran on Tuesday, the country's Atomic Energy Organization said.
It named the deceased inspector as Seo Ok-seok, a South Korean member of an inspection team that the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) maintains in Iran.
Seo was on a mission with an IAEA colleague near the Khondab complex in the province of Markazi, it added in a statement, without naming the other inspector.
"One of the two experts was injured, while Seo Ok-seok from South Korea died of severe injuries," said the statement, carried by the official IRNA news agency.
It added the car had overturned after veering off the road.
In Seoul, a foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed the details of the death, adding that an IAEA official from Slovenia and an Iranian driver were hospitalized with injuries.
"The agency is in touch with the inspectors' families, and with the Iranian authorities," the IAEA said in a statement from its Vienna headquarters, giving the same nationalities for the casualties.
Iran is building a heavy water research reactor on the outskirts of the village of Khondab, 116 miles (186 km) west of Tehran.
Iran's disputed nuclear program is under the supervision of the IAEA, which has managed to keep its presence in the country despite disputes with the West over Tehran's atomic work.
The crash on Tuesday came ahead of a meeting between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog at its headquarters in Vienna on May 13 and 14 aimed at clearing up questions over Tehran's atomic work.
Iran's leaders insist their work is purely peaceful in nature.
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/18172922/iaea-nuclear-inspector-killed-in-iran-car-accident-authorities-say?clienttype=printable
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
Hi Moxa1, I think 30 - 40 years ago lots more people were smoking and dying from cancer and heart attacks -- in their 50s and 60s.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0103.pdf
So now we have to count people as unemployed that 40 years ago would have been dead.
Chris
Just one correction Chris.... 30 - 40 years ago isn't that long and people were living just as long then as they do now.
well at least we agree (I think) that the unemployed + underemployed = 20% - 25%. But that's like 40M people not 87M people.
One of the problems with counting people over 65 is that 30 - 40 years ago, a lot more people back then didn't live as long. Our economic system isn't designed to keep so many seniors employed.
the idea was for you to retire or die around 65 so that people in their 40s could take your place and people in their 30s could take their place and so on.
But with so many seniors hanging on to their jobs, younger people aren't finding enough job openings.
Chris
Thought you might enjoy this...
A little background on free markets.
Killer Summary of Austrian Views of Money, Banking and the Fed — Delivered in Congressional Testimony!
http://www.libertyclassroom.com/killer-summary-of-austrian-views-of-money-banking-and-the-fed-delivered-in-congressional-testimony/
by Tom Woods
Congratulations to Liberty Classroom’s Jeffrey Herbener, whose course for us on Austrian economics will be available to members next month, on his superb written testimony before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy of the U.S. House of Representatives. The hearing takes place tomorrow, but the written testimony is available already.
I strongly urge you to read it. It is an excellent and straightforward summary of central banking, what a free market in money and banking would look like, what our current (non-market) system looks like, what causes booms and busts, how we should transition out of the present system, etc. And then join Jeff and all of us at Liberty Classroom!
Written Testimony by Jeffrey M. Herbener
Professor of Economics
Grove City College
Before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology
Committee on Financial Services
U.S. House of Representatives
May 8, 2012
Production of Money on the Market
In a seminal article published in 1920, Ludwig von Mises demonstrated that there is only one test of whether or not production of something conveys a benefit on society at large.1 It must be shown that resources have greater value when used to produce a good to satisfy the preferences of some people than when they are used to produce a different good to satisfy the preferences of other people. Production left to the market satisfies the profit and loss test of socially beneficial production. For Tim Cook to obtain computer chips, glass screens, labor and other resources to produce iPads, he must bid them away from other entrepreneurs who would have used them to produce other goods. By incurring the costs of production, Apple Inc. compensates the owners of resources for the value of the other goods they could have produced to satisfy a different group of consumers. Apple then uses the resources to produce iPads, which consumers of its products value more highly as demonstrated by their generating enough revenue for Apple Inc. to more than cover its costs.
The profit and loss test applies to all production in the market, including mining gold and minting coins. A gold mining company will produce when the revenues from the sale of its output exceed the costs of buying its inputs. The company moves labor, mining equipment, land, and other resources away from uses consumers find less valuable into gold mining, which consumers find more valuable. A minting company will produce when the revenues from the sale of its service in certifying gold exceed the costs of buying its inputs. The company moves labor, minting equipment, land, and other resources away from uses consumers find less valuable into minting coins, which consumers find more valuable.
Like the production of all other goods, production of money left to the market is regulated by profit and loss. Additional money is produced when demand for money increases or demand for other goods produced by the same resources decreases. If the demand for money increased, the value of gold coins would rise. Minting companies would increase production to capture the profit. As they increased the supply of certification service, its price would decline and as they increased their demands for resources to certify gold, resources prices would rise and the profit would dissipate. If demand for other goods declined, input prices would fall. Minting companies would increase production to capture the profit and, by doing so, eliminate profit from further production. In this way production of money in the market is socially optimal.2
The profit and loss test also applies to the production of money certificates in the market.3 Money certificates are titles of ownership to money issued by banks that serve as money substitutes. People may find convenience and safety in using checking account balances instead of commodity money when making trades. Banks will produce and maintain checking accounts for customers if they are willing to pay fees to banks that generate revenues sufficient to cover the costs of managing the accounts. If the demand for checking accounts increased, then banks would expand them to capture the profit. As they increased their supply of checking account services, the fees would decline. And as they increased their demand for the resources to manage checking accounts, their prices would rise. As a consequence, profit would dissipate and additional production would cease at the socially optimal point.
The profit and loss test also applies to financial intermediation. Banks perform a middleman function in credit markets by borrowing from savers and lending to investors. They provide the services of pooling the savings, checking the credit worthiness of investors, and bearing the risk of loan defaults. If customers of banks find these services valuable, they will be willing to accept lower interest rates for lending to banks than investors will be willing to pay banks to borrow. Banks will provide financial intermediation services, if the revenues earned from the interest rate differential are large enough to cover the costs of producing the services. If demand for these services increases, banks will increase production of them. Their increased demand to borrow from savers and supply to investors will reduce the interest rate differential. Their increased demand for the resources will raise their prices. Profit will dissipate and additional production will cease at the socially optimal point.
By subjecting all production, including that of money and banking, to the test of profit and loss, the market renders an integrated system of production that economizes the use of all resources for society at large.
Monetary Inflation and Credit Expansion
An elastic currency breaks the integration of production on the market by being an element foreign to the test of profit and loss. An elastic currency has two characteristics: a central bank empowered to issue fiat paper money and commercial banks empowered to issue fiduciary media.4 The production of fiat paper money cannot be regulated by profit and loss. It is always profitable to produce more. In 2011, the average cost of the 5.8 billion Federal Reserve Notes produced was $0.091.5 So a profit of around $4.90 is made by printing and spending a $5 bill. If the Fed continued order the printing of FRNs as long as it was profitable, then eventually prices of inputs would rise so that it cost more than $5 to print a $5 bill. Then the Fed could order the printing of $50 bills instead and so on indefinitely as we have witnessed in hyperinflations like Zimbabwe’s. To avoid destruction in hyperinflation, production of fiat paper money must be regulated by policy, by a rule that is arbitrary with respect to economizing production for society at large.
The production of fiduciary media cannot be regulated by profit and loss.6 Fiduciary media are redemption claims for money which are fractionally backed by a reserve of money. Banks issue fiduciary media by creating loans. For example, a customer applies at his local bank for an auto loan of $25,000. If the bank agrees to extend the loan, it just writes a $25,000 balance into the customer’s checking account. The loan generates interest revenue for the bank while the cost of issuing fiduciary media is nominal. It is always profitable for the bank to create another loan by issuing fiduciary media. If a bank issues more fiduciary media by creating credit as long as it is profitable, it will become illiquid and insolvent and end in collapse. To avoid such destruction, a bank must regulate its issue of fiduciary media via credit creation by policy, by a rule that is arbitrary with respect to economizing production for society at large.
Advocates of an elastic currency realize that its production cannot even be subjected to, let alone pass, the profit and loss test. As F.A. Hayek wrote, “There is no justification in history for the existing position of a government monopoly of issuing money. It has never been proposed on the ground that government will give us better money than anybody else could.”7 Advocates of an elastic currency merely assert that it can achieve a desirable outcome that a system of commodity money and money certificates cannot. There are three such claims for an elastic currency. First that it can keep the price level stable. Second, that it can prevent price deflation. And third, that it can accelerate economic growth.
Maintaining Price Stability
There is no social benefit from keeping the price level stable. The alleged benefit is that price stability prevents wealth transfers between creditors and debtors and between workers and capitalists. But such transfers assume that entrepreneurs fail to anticipate changes in money’s purchasing power. Entrepreneurs can earn profits and avoid losses by anticipating these changes just as well as changes in prices of other goods. If they anticipate rising prices for goods overall, then they will increase their demands for resources today bidding up wages today. Likewise, lenders will insist on higher interest rates today. An elastic currency adds another dimension of uncertainty to changes in money’s purchasing power. It makes the task of entrepreneurs more, not less, difficult. In extreme cases, an elastic currency can result in wildly unstable prices that paralyze entrepreneurial decision making and destroy production on the market. Being regulated by profit, production of commodity money responds only to changes in people’s demands. If money demand rises, the resulting increase in money’s purchasing power would bring forth more production of money and moderate falling prices. The modest price deflation over time in a market economy is integral part of its economizing production.
Moreover, in practice the advocates of price stability aim at price inflation of around two percent per year. But, if entrepreneurs can adjust their expectation to cope with a two percent per year price inflation in an elastic currency system, then certainly they can properly anticipate and deal with a two percent per year price deflation under a commodity money system.8
Finally, two of the periods of most rapid economic growth in U.S. history were from 1820-1850 and 1865-1900. In each of these periods, the purchasing power of the dollar roughly doubled.9
Preventing Price Deflation
There is no social benefit from preventing price deflation. There are two claims to the contrary. The first alleged benefit is that if prices begin to fall, then people form expectations that they will fall further and they put off spending today which pushes prices down even further which re-enforces deflationary expectations. The collapse of spending discourages production and employment. But, the downward spiral of prices is merely the logical implication of assumptions about expectations within formal economic models. If you assume that the agents operating in an economic model suffer from expectations that are self-reinforcing, then the model will produce a downward spiral. But, people in the real world can only obtain the services of goods by buying them. They choose at some point, to buy a good even if they expect its price to fall further. This happens every day in markets for consumer electronics as people buy tablet computers, cell phones, and so on knowing that prices will be lower and quality higher in the future.
Because there is demand for goods and hence prices, whether people expect prices to increase, decrease, or stay the same, speculation earns profit and avoids loss by accurately anticipating the level of future prices. If people anticipate a significantly lower price for a good in the future and withhold their demands for it today, the price quickly falls to the level they anticipated and then they buy the good. Speculation moves prices before they would move without speculation, but not further than they would move without it. This happens every day in financial markets as speculators move prices up and down without generating upward or downward spirals.
The second alleged benefit is that price deflation pushes down output prices but input prices are sticky; therefore, profits evaporate and entrepreneurs cut production and fire workers.
But entrepreneurs choose the degree of price stickiness that their customers and employees prefer. In many cases consumers prefer prices of goods to remain more stable from day to day or hour to hour or minute to minute instead of fluctuating with every increase and decrease in demands. In other cases, buyers prefer complete flexibility in prices. Entrepreneurs can earn profits and avoid losses by catering to these preferences. In many cases, workers prefer to have their wages set over a period agreed upon with the entrepreneurs instead of having them move daily or hourly with the movements in demand for the goods they help produce. In cases where workers desire more flexibility in their compensation, an entrepreneur will make stock in the enterprise part of their compensation. When circumstances change, it is in everyone’s interest to modify the normal arrangements. Entrepreneurs offer deep discounts of their goods when demand permanently falls. They renegotiate contracts with workers and other input suppliers when losses accumulate. In this way, the degree of price stickiness in markets can be changed to avoid adverse effects.
Moreover, entrepreneurs earn profits and avoid losses by anticipating these changes. If they anticipate falling prices of their outputs, they will reduce their demands for inputs today pushing their prices down. When output and input prices fall together, profit and production are maintained. The symmetric process occurs during price inflation. If entrepreneurs anticipate higher output prices, they will increase their demands for inputs today pushing their prices up. As a result, output and input prices move up together and profit and production are maintained.
Even if the prices of inputs entrepreneurs buy remain sticky downward, the effect on their profit and production is cushioned by the decline in the value of the assets they own. The market value of their assets adjusts downward with the decline in the prices of their outputs as investors reduce their demands to hold claims to these assets in financial markets. A decline in the value of their assets restores the profitability of production. Entrepreneurs with superior foresight in anticipating declines in the prices of their output will invest sufficient equity in their enterprises to cushion the blow and provide time for adjustments in the prices of their inputs.
UCLA economist Andrew Atkinson, and Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank economist Patrick Kehoe, in a 2004 American Economic Review article, have shown that there is no correlation between deflation and depression.10 Looking at the evidence across 17 countries over more than 100 years, they concluded, “A broad historical look finds more periods of deflation with reasonable growth than with depression, and many more periods of depression with inflation than with deflation. Overall, the data show virtually no link between deflation and depression.”11 Even for the Great Depression, they find that while all 16 countries for which there were data experienced deflation only 8 of them had a depression. And the relationship between deflation and depression was not statistically significant. For all other periods, beginning in 1820 for some countries, 65 of 73 deflation episodes had no depression and 21 of 29 depressions had no deflation. They wrote, “In a broader historical context, beyond the Great Depression, the notion that deflation and depression are linked virtually disappears.”12 When all periods are put together, they found that “a 1-percentage-point drop in inflation is associated with a drop in the average real growth rate of just 0.08 of a percentage point, say, from 3.08 to 3.00.”13 Finally, when they break the data into Pre-WW II and Post-WW II, they find a stronger correlation between deflation and depression for the early period, but a correlation between inflation and depression in the later period.
Stimulating Economic Growth
There is no social benefit from attempting to accelerate economic growth. The alleged benefit is that monetary inflation through credit expansion builds-up the capital structure of the economy more fully than otherwise. Monetary inflation and credit expansion generate the boom-bust cycle, however, not economic growth.14 The capital structure of the economy is the stages of production from extraction of raw materials to the production of intermediate capital goods to the production of consumer goods. Iron is mined out of the ground, then steel is made, then fenders for an automobile, then the automobile is assembled. In a market economy, not only is each production process justified by passing the profit and loss test, but the entire capital structure satisfies people’s inter-temporal, or time, preferences. The degree to which they desire to postpone their current consumption by saving and investing to build up capital capacity across the capital structure in order to enjoy more and better consumer goods in the future is satisfied in the market. If people intensely desire present consumption over future consumption, then the premium they place on the present, that is, the interest rate, will be high and the amount of their saving and investing will be small and their consumption will be large. Only a small number of investment projects will be profitable; therefore, the capital structure will not be built up extensively. If people lower their time preferences, then the interest rate will fall and they will save and invest more and consume less in the present. With more resources at their command, entrepreneurs will build up the capital structure more extensively. The greater productivity of the expanded capital structure results in the production of more and better consumer goods. This is the process of economic growth. And, as with other aspects of production in a market economy, people get the amount of economic growth that they prefer.
Credit expansion suppresses interest rates below the levels determined by people’s time preferences and increases funds for investment beyond the amount determined by people’s preferences for saving. When the borrowers spend the additional money, they bid up the prices of the goods they are buying. Prices of houses and cars, for example, are pushed up by the addition demand of consumers made possible by credit creation. Prices of producer goods are also bid up by the additional demand of entrepreneurs made possible by credit creation. Prices for auto factories, lumber mills, are pushed up and the capital goods across the capital structure used to produce goods in the expanding areas, iron mines, timber lands, and so on. Monetary inflation through credit expansion makes it possible for borrowers to demand more assets without lenders reducing demands for other goods. Therefore, rising asset prices increase the profitability of their production while the profitability of other goods need not decline. Not enough resources are released from the production of other goods to complete all of the projects made profitable by the credit expansion. With a market monetary system, the proper amount of resources are made available because an increase in the supply of credit can only be brought about by people saving more and consuming less. The additional investment projects made profitable by the increase in saving are balanced by the projects no longer profitable because of the reduced consumption. But with an elastic currency system, the build-up of capital capacity and other investment projects financed with created credit do not wind up satisfying people’s time preferences. The build-up of the capital structure during the boom is unsustainable. It ends in the liquidation of the build-up in the bust.
What brings the boom to an end is the re-establishment of people’s time preferences and preferences for saving. People do this through the disbursement of their incomes. The credit created during the boom is spent by the borrowers to buy goods, houses, factories, etc. The entrepreneurs who produce these goods then receive the new money as revenues for selling the goods. They pay producers to buy the resources used to produce the goods. The new money is then income for the producers. People disburse their income to satisfy their preferences, including their time preferences. They prefer to save only a fraction of their incomes. Although the entire amount of the new money issued starts out increasing the supply of credit, only a fraction of it winds up as supply of credit. Monetary inflation and credit expansion runs counter to people’s time preferences and market economies operate to satisfy people’s preferences.
Another factor working against the sustainability of the boom is that the further credit expansion extends the riskier the projects and the less creditworthy the borrowers become. As financial intermediaries, banks economize credit, lending to the highest return, most secure projects and the highest interest rate, most credit-worthy borrowers. Additional credit must be extended to lower return, less secure projects and lower interest rate, less credit-worthy borrowers. If monetary inflation and credit expansion go on far enough, investors refuse to accept the additional risk and sell out of the lines of production expanded during the boom. Since the prices of assets in the more sound projects have been bid up along with the prices of projects in the less sound projects, investors in the more sound projects will also lose wealth if they continue to hold their investments.
Once people restore interest rates and asset prices to the levels that reflect their preferences, the particular lines of production in which malinvestments have been made in building up the capital structure during the boom are revealed. The bust consists of reconfiguring the malformed capital structure to best satisfy people’s preferences. Mal-invested assets must be sold to entrepreneurs in lines of production that will prove to be profitable. Labor must be re-allocated away from boom lines into production supported by people’s preferences. As with all production decisions, these can be made in the most economizing fashion by entrepreneurs earning profits from their superior foresight in satisfying preferences and suffering losses for their inferior foresight.
An elastic currency is the cause of financial crises and economic downturns. Supplant it with a market system of commodity money and money certificates and there would be no crises and downturns. The residual business fluctuations would not justify government intervention to solve the social problems associated with crises and downturns.
As the monetary system has become more elastic in American history, booms and busts have worsened. George Selgin, William Lastrapes, and Lawrence White conclude, in their 2010 Cato Working Paper, that recent research demonstrates that the Fed has not lived up to its original promise.
Selgin, Lastrapes, and White summarize their findings on the performance of the Fed in these words: “Drawing on a wide range of recent empirical research, we find the following: (1) The Fed‘s full history (1914 to present) has been characterized by more rather than fewer symptoms of monetary and macroeconomic instability than the decades leading to the Fed‘s establishment. (2) While the Fed‘s performance has undoubtedly improved since World War II, even its postwar performance has not clearly surpassed that of its undoubtedly flawed predecessor, the National Banking system, before World War I. (3) Some proposed alternative arrangements might plausibly do better than the Fed as presently constituted. We conclude that the need for a systematic exploration of alternatives to the established monetary system is as pressing today as it was a century ago.”15
I concur with their conclusion. Economic theory and historical evidence demonstrate that a central bank confers no benefit on society at large. The Fed should be abolished and a market monetary system of commodity money and money certificates should be established.
Monetary Reform
The goal of monetary reform is to make money production subject to the profit and loss test of socially beneficial production. Money production must become an integral part of the market economy. There may be several viable paths of transition to a system of market production of money, but any such path must take account of Carl Menger’s famous demonstration that an item can only arise as money consistently with what people are actually using as the most widely traded good.16 After the transition, a monetary system integrated into the market economy could begin.17
Federal Reserve Notes are money in the American economy. Thus, the most direct way to establish a market monetary system is to reestablish FRN as redemption claims for commodity money. The most widely-recognized commodity money today is gold coins. The primary step in monetary reform, then, is to turn FRNs into 100-percent-reserve redemption claims for gold coins.
The other step along this path to a market monetary system is to establish a 100 percent reserve of money against bank issued fiduciary media. The Fed’s tripling of its balance sheet in response to the crisis of 2008 makes this part of the transition easier. Banks now hold reserves against their checkable deposits in excess of 100 percent. In early April, banks held $1,587 billion in total reserves against $1,204 billion in total checkable deposits. Fifty billion dollars of their total reserves consisted of vault cash and $1,537 billion reserve balances in accounts with the Fed. Therefore, banks would need to build their cash reserves up to 100 percent of their checkable deposits of $1,204 by redeeming $1,154 billion of their reserve balances at the Fed for cash. The Fed could acquire the cash needed by selling some of the more than $2 trillion in assets it built up on its balance sheet during the crisis or by printing more FRNs or some combination of the two. Whatever the total value of FRNs was at the point where checkable deposits are 100 percent backed by a reserve of cash, the redemption value of all FRNs could be set by calculating the ratio of FRN to the gold holdings of the Fed. If no change in the stock of FRNs outstanding was necessary to accomplish the transition, then the calculation would be as follows. The Fed is showing on its balance sheet of April 18, $11.041 billion in gold holding. Valued at $42.22 per ounce, this is 261.5 million ounces of gold. On the same balance sheet, the Fed shows $1,100,160 million in currency in circulation. Thus, the redemption ratio would be $4,207 per ounce of gold. The actual calculation, however, could only be done after an audit of the Fed and the process of establishing a 100 percent cash reserve, described above, were completed.18
Once this transition was accomplished, the government should permit private production of money and money certificates according to the general laws of commerce. Mining and minting companies would produce commodity money that people made profitable by their demands. To earn profit, entrepreneurs would produce coins from the metals, in the weights, and with the designs people preferred. They would keep their costs down and invest and innovate when people’s demands made it profitable. Scholars have chronicled many historical episodes of private production of coins. Recently, George Selgin, in his book Good Money, has recounted the production of private coinage in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As he shows, private coinage thrived until the British government outlawed it in 1821.19
Banks, too, should be put under the general laws of commerce including those relating to warehousing money by holding a 100 percent reserve of money against their money substitutes. Banks would earn profit by producing the amounts and types of money substitutes that satisfied people’s demands. To earn profit, they would keep their costs down and invest and innovate when people’s demands made it profitable. The operation of 100 percent reserve banking is described in Jesús Huerta de Soto’s book Money, Banking, and Economic Cycles. As he documents, money warehouse banks thrived in Amsterdam for over a hundred years in the 17th and 18th centuries.20
Conclusion
No one can describe today the configuration of commodity money and money certificates that entrepreneurs would bring about if permitted to operate private enterprises in their production any more than one could have predicted in 1900 the development of the 21st century automobile industry or predicted in 1950 the 21st-century consumer electronics industry. What we do know is that their production would be regulated by profit and loss and therefore, would result in the satisfaction of people’s preferences. The monetary inflation and credit expansion of our elastic currency system would be eliminated and with it the booms and busts that have plagued our history.
Notes
1. This is an implication of Mises’s famous argument that central planners cannot economize the use of resources in society. See Ludwig von Mises, Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 1990 [1920]) and Mises, Human Action, scholar’s edition (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 1998 [1949]), pp. 685-711.
2. Mises wrote that making money production conform to profitability and not politics, “is not a defect of the gold standard; it is its main excellence,” Human Action, p. 471.
3. On bank production of money certificates and credit intermediation, see Jesús Huerta de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, trans. Melinda Stroup (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006 [1998]), pp. 1-36.
4. On elastic currency, see Murray Rothbard, The Case against the Fed (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 1994).
5. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. (moneyfactory.gov/uscurrency/annualproductionfigures.html). April 27, 2012.
6. On fiduciary issue and credit creation, see Murray Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2008 [1983]).
7. F.A. Hayek, Denationalization of Money, 2nd edition (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1978 [1974]), p. 7.
8. The annualized rate of increase in the purchasing power of the dollar from 1815-1850 was 2.24 percent and from 1865-1900 was 1.75 percent.
9. Murray Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2002), pp. 42-179.
10. Andrew Atkinson and Patrick Kehoe, “Deflation and Depression: Is There an Empirical Link,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 94 (May 2004): 99-103. They define deflation “as a negative average inflation rate” and depression “as a negative average real output growth rate.” Ibid., p. 99.
11. Ibid., p. 102.
12. Ibid., p. 101.
13. Ibid., p. 102.
14. On the boom-bust cycle, see Mises, Human Action, pp. 535-583; de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, pp. 265-395; F.A. Hayek, Prices and Production and Other Works (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2008 [1931]); and Murray Rothbard, America’s Great Depression (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2000 [1963]).
15. George Selgin, William Lastrapes, Lawrence White, “Has the Fed Been a Failure?,” Cato Working Paper Dec. 2010, p. 1.
16. Carl Menger, “On the Origin of Money,” Economic Journal 2 (1892): 239–55; Peter G. Klein and George A. Selgin, “Menger’s Theory of Money: Some Experimental Evidence,” in John Smithin, ed., What Is Money? (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 217–34.
17. On such monetary reform, see Rothbard, Mystery of Banking, pp. 247-268; Salerno, Money, Sound and Unsound, pp. 333-363; and de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, pp. 736-745.
18. Data from Federal Reserve Statistic Releases: H.3 Aggregate Reserves of Depository Institutions; H.6 Money Stock Measures; and H.4.1 Factors Affecting Reserve Balances. April 19, 2012.
19. George Selgin, Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008).
20. De Soto, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, pp. 37-114.
Thanks be to THG
Whoops!
Japanese Ambassador Murata is joining in the growing chorus which include US Senators who are warning that the problem at Fukushima nuclear reactor 4 is the single greatest short-term threat to humanity and has the potential to destroy our world and civilization as we know it.
The Ambassador puts it very bluntly saying the warnings about reactor 4's threat to end human civilization are no exaggeration.
He is joining forces with human rights groups from around the globe in calling for the UN to step in and end the crisis in Fukushima that TEPCO is planning on taking decades to resolve after repeated warnings that even a minor earthquake could cause the spend fuel pool to collapse which would result in a radiation release so massive it could end life on earth.
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/05/02/ambassador-exaggeration-fate-world-depends-fukushima-reactor-4-128701/
I disagree with you on those 65 and over
and I was working full time both in the summers and during the winters during school from the time I was 15
I was emancipated before I was 18 and I had to work
to support myself just to finish highschool
so I guess I disagree with your statements about how the younger ones shouldn't be considered as well
looking for a job....can't find one? you're one of the unemployed
so considering how supportive the MSM etc is of Oboy
and I do believe unemployment is above 20%
This board is dedicated to it's founder and my good friend ONEBGG
who was a Patriot and was a Good Friend to Many.
These words fit him best:
Good friends are like gold:
Rare, Reliable, Beautiful and Valuable.
signed....T
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