independent.co.uk — In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning; along with China, Russia, Japan and France; to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency
Oct 5, 2009 View in Crawl 4
govtdoesnotworkOct 7, 2009
It's a reality supported claim. This guy had it right in 2001, for example. <a class="user" href="http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_01/warburton041801.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_01/warburton ...</a>And yes, <a class="user" href="http://site.theaustrianswereright.com/" rel="nofollow">http://site.theaustrianswereright.com/</a> but we don't want a gold standard, we want competition instead. The government f**ked up the gold standard every time they've tried it.
govtdoesnotworkOct 7, 2009
But only if you're not counting inflation. <a class="user" href="http://www.goldprice.org/james-turk/2008/01/real-gold-price.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.goldprice.org/james-turk/2008/01/real-g ...</a> in any of the various ways inflation's counted these days.
beakerwimpOct 7, 2009
midnightliberty: You are entitled to your opinion. I certainly would never say that I'm an expert in economic theory. But I have studied it in earnest and I've read every major work by the well-known economists from each major school of thought in economic/human history. I am actually a fan of Ron Paul, Hayek, and the Austrian School. But I feel that anyone who's studied the whole picture, and not just the Austrian school, will find it hard to deny that the Austrian school is an extreme fundamentalist sect of thought containing perhaps 5% (if even) of living economists. It is fairly silly to say things such as "Keynes was discredited long ago" or "MOST economists think that we should return to the gold standard". Statements like these are extreme statements. They are not supported by the majority of economists. That is just a plain empirical fact. And I often see people stating such absurd things as if they were true. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth and I doubt you are the type of person who would say such things, but I say all this as a partial explanation for why I made my post above. My goal is to let people know that there is a lot more to economics than just the Austrian school. Studying the Austrian school and taking it as gospel is similar to studying the Cult of Hera in modern day Athens and thinking that you now understand the fullness of religious thought across all of human experience.I find that most people who discuss economics online have not studied economics in general. Usually people who lean left only study Keynes and read Krugman editorials. Usually people who lean right only study Hayek, the Austrian school, and watch Ron Paul on YouTube. Each person selects the 10% of economic history that makes their point of view seem correct. Each group takes what they like from someone like Friedman while ignoring much of the rest of Friedman's work and commentary.Over the last few decades of human existence, conservative economic thinkers have dragged liberals kicking and screaming to a better understanding of markets and of how economics really work. In doing this, the conservatives have done humanity a great service. But now the shoe is almost on the other foot. The extreme orthodox view of many "conservative" economic thinkers is quite scary to me. It defies any basic understanding of what you learn in Econ 101 and 102 (much of which covers the natural flaws/weaknesses in any market system). It defies the reasonable and understandable line of human thought that has grown out of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Mill. It defies incredibly important contributions to economic thought made by more modern economists such as Marshall, Keynes, and Friedman.Von Mises and Hayek are one small fringe of economic thought, similar to other extreme outliers like Marx. Similar to Marx, their critique of how the world really works gets a lot of traction with people who wish the world was different. The Austrians have never gotten the same big-league testing ground that Marx's school of thought got (unless you count such things as Hoover's policies during the Great Depression). Marx's theory that all value comes from labor is foolish. I see similar flaws in the Austrian School. This of course is just my own humble opinion. And I don't know much, so take from it what you will. I simply encourage people to study all of the great economists and not confine themselves to one extreme outlying group.
hornyangelOct 12, 2009
It's reckless spending on stupid stuff that doesn't bring any return - see AfPak, Iraq wars.
duk0rOct 15, 2009
<a class="user" href="http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt" rel="nofollow">http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt</a>MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIESThose are the debt holdings by month for the past year. Interesting stuff.
Closed AccountOct 20, 2009
I hope ACORN is happy with their playing of the race card to get uneducated people million dollar houses they couldn't afford letting banks and mortgage companies default. All in the name of hope and change!
rascilonOct 22, 2009
The last sentence is particularly chilling.
szaszmanOct 24, 2009
Don't forget silver.
Closed AccountOct 26, 2009
and platinum.