Will you vote for Ron Paul?

[kwc57]

The Repugnants seek power for power's sake. They are willing to use demagoguery if that will get them elected.

.

They had a much better chance of winning with Paul than McCain.

McCain was not a good canidate, at all. Way to non-conservative for the majority of americans.

I've commented on this before, but I'll say it again. The Republican field was far to wide last election. Each candidate was trying to "out-conservative" their opponents. Too often when one would fall, they would not endorse any of the others left. You don't see that in Democrats. They don't really try to "out-liberal" each other. Usually they throw their backing behind an opponent when they lose in the primaries. They go into an election unifed behind their candidate. Republicans don't. They bitch and grouse all the way to the polls and complain about the candidate their primary process produced.

I also couple that with some blame on talk radio and punditry. They spent far too much time trying to defeat the Democratic candidate than they ever did promoting a conservative candidate. Hannity billed his show first as the Stop Hillary Express and later as the Stop Obama Express. Did he really think that liberals were listening to his show and he was going to change their minds? It was watsed breath. Talk radio hosts have huge egos and they can't face the prospect of supporting a candidate early in the primaries only to have them lose. They fear it will make them look stupid or irrelevant for backing a loser. So instead, they do it in a backhanded fashion. I'll use Hannity again as an example. His guy was Rudy, but he wouldn't come right out and say it. What he did instead was have Rudy on his show more than any other candidate and treat him with kid gloves. When he had the other candidates on, he asked them much tougher questions. But again, he would never come right out and support Rudy openly.

Too many candidates infighting over who is more conservative than the other and the talking head movers and shakers not helping to narrow and define the field play a major part in who the candidate will be. Conservatives need to put the petty bickering aside and unify or die.

 

[Uncensored2008]

OK... Maybe I am a goofball.. But all this talk of Keynesian this and Friedman that is pretentious and irrelevant. The only economics that matter is the price of gasoline at the pump. The only reason a business owner hires more people is if there is an increase in demand for his goods or services. A business will locate wherever on the planet that offers lowest cost. Many locate in communist countries. How does THAT fit into your college professors economics class?

You are an uneducated and unthinking buffoon.

Was it the overwhelming demand for iPods that led Jobs to have a small media device developed? Or was it the development of the device that led to demand?

With the exception of food and shelter, the production (supply) of items universally creates and drives demand.

 

[Uncensored2008]

If that is Friedman POV it is, I think, overstating the power of the dicipline

That was precisely Rothbards position. Rothbard tended to be harsh in his criticism of the ideas of others. Rothbard was a brilliant man, but like most men of brilliance, unyielding and unresponsive to the ideas and arguments of others.

I think that terming Friedman a "nutjob" is a huge mistake. Friedman's ideas have a great deal of value.

At best economics is useful as a predictive tool equivalent to that of the science of meteorology.

Agreed, and well stated.

Also, I think a tad overstated.

Overstatement was the forte' of Murray Rothbard.

While certainly human behavior plays an enormous part in MACRO, some of the standard tools of macro-economic will work under relatively stable economic circumstances.

Agreed. The Austrians have been remarkably accurate in predictive analysis. The don't reject the use of tools, just particular ones.

In that sense I am 100% with him. (and as an aside, you have now forced me to study Von Mises)

The most concise look at the theories and methods of Von Mises is a book by Rothbard called "Man, Economy and the State." The cool thing is that it's on-line and free.

Man, Economy, and State (with Power and Market) by Murray N. Rothbard - - Mises Institute

Economics is quite rightly a dicipline that belongs in the SOCIAL SCIENCES precisely because it is the study of HUMAN behavior within an artifically constructed environment we call society.

Economics, depsite all its love of metrics, is NOT a hard science.

It is a soft science..

I agree completely.

 

[Immanuel]

Would you vote for Ron Paul?

Not if he runs on the Republican Ticket. If he were to run for the Conservative Party or the Libertarian Party and he had no shot at winning then I might.

As far as I am concerned, no Rep or Dem get my vote until the parties themselves start putting this country ahead of the party.

Immie

Ron Paul hasn't proven himself to you over the last 30 years? You think that just because he might be the "republican" canidate that it will somehow change his longheld and steadfast positions, positions he has consistently held even when they have hurt him politicallly?

Your closing yourself off for no good reason with your statement.

I get your disgust at the 2 Progressive parties that are basically idiot and idiot light but dont let that cloud your judgement .

I think that if Ron Paul runs as the Republican candidate and he wins, that it will mean that he has sold his soul to the highest bidder.

A man of principle cannot win the POTUS election in today's world.

But even worse than that, in order to succeed as a Republican President, he would need to compromise those principles in order to deal with either side of Congress.

No, I will not vote for either a Republican or a Democrat as President of the U.S. Heck, I would not vote for St. Peter for that position if he ran for either party! Jesus... well, that would be different.

Immie

 

[Foxfyre]

OK... Maybe I am a goofball.. But all this talk of Keynesian this and Friedman that is pretentious and irrelevant. The only economics that matter is the price of gasoline at the pump. The only reason a business owner hires more people is if there is an increase in demand for his goods or services. A business will locate wherever on the planet that offers lowest cost. Many locate in communist countries. How does THAT fit into your college professors economics class?

You are an uneducated and unthinking buffoon.

Was it the overwhelming demand for iPods that led Jobs to have a small media device developed? Or was it the development of the device that led to demand?

With the exception of food and shelter, the production (supply) of items universally creates and drives demand.

Huggy is sometimes a buffoon by choice, but he is hardly an uneducated and unthinking one. And while I don't agree with him that discussions of Friedman, the Austrian school et al are pretentious, I can appreciate that such discussions are of interest mostly to those of us who have had some schooling in them. And that's setting aside the one or two Wiki poachers who just muddy the waters with borrowed, and often erroneous concepts.

You are absolutely right, however, that it is generally not demand that produces new concepts and products but rather some visionary who sees the potential and takes the risk that it will catch on and become popular. That was true of automobiles, television, computers, and all sorts of products that most people hadn't even thought of before they first saw one. Occasionally it happens not even out of speculation but is pure accident.

One thing I like about Ron Paul is that while I don't think he himself is particularly visionary, he does support a role for government that at one time encouraged maximum vision and risk taking that produced the most innovative, creative, productive, prosperous nation the world had ever known simply by allowing the freedom that the Founders gave us.

We are in serious jeopardy of bit by bit, inch by inch, losing that freedom. If Paul is not the candidate, I will be looking for somebody with that mindset re the role of government and the freedom of the people.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Not if he runs on the Republican Ticket. If he were to run for the Conservative Party or the Libertarian Party and he had no shot at winning then I might.

As far as I am concerned, no Rep or Dem get my vote until the parties themselves start putting this country ahead of the party.

Immie

Ron Paul hasn't proven himself to you over the last 30 years? You think that just because he might be the "republican" canidate that it will somehow change his longheld and steadfast positions, positions he has consistently held even when they have hurt him politicallly?

Your closing yourself off for no good reason with your statement.

I get your disgust at the 2 Progressive parties that are basically idiot and idiot light but dont let that cloud your judgement .

I think that if Ron Paul runs as the Republican candidate and he wins, that it will mean that he has sold his soul to the highest bidder.

A man of principle cannot win the POTUS election in today's world.

But even worse than that, in order to succeed as a Republican President, he would need to compromise those principles in order to deal with either side of Congress.

No, I will not vote for either a Republican or a Democrat as President of the U.S. Heck, I would not vote for St. Peter for that position if he ran for either party! Jesus... well, that would be different.

Immie

I can completely respect that and thank you for clearing it up for me.

 

[Paulie]

I don't see all that much similarity in the two, however. The housing bubble crash of 2008 was created by government enacting policy allowing and then pushing mostly signature mortgage loans to people who had no capability or ethic to repay them and then Freddie and Fannie unethically bundled those bad loans and sold them to financial institutions who, unaware of the high risk involved or unwilling to worry about it, eagerly accepted those investments. And when that huge number of people started defaulting on those loans, the whole house of cards collapsed and, coupled with a general worldwide recession that happens now and then, was financially disastrous for the USA.

The crash of 1873 was also a general worldwide recession and was exacerbated by the setback of the railroad industry that had over speculated and overbuilt to the extent they could not recoup their investment even in a good economy. And in a bad economy it was disastrous as then the railroads I believe were the nation's largest employer.

Admittedly both were encouraged by the government so I suppose they did have that in common.

Ron Paul is on the right track in his conviction that government should not be promoting bad loans or over speculation in anything.

But I don't see what that has to do directly with the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is responsible for increasing the money supply and lowering interest rates which induces so much malinvestment.

The Fed injects tons of new money into the system, people look for the hottest places to put that money to work because it's going to lose value from inflation, and then a bubble forms and grows.

Then the Fed tightens up the flow of money by raising rates, the bubble bursts, the money supply deflates, and the Fed reinflates again by creating more new money and lowering rates again, wash/rinse/repeat.

The Fed causes the business cycle. I don't see how people don't realize it.

But there were 'disastrous' business cycles from the Revolutionary War on while the Federal Reserve was not established until 1913.

This doesn't preclude the Federal Reserve from causing business cycles.

Business cycles can and will happen because people are not perfect. What the Fed does is greatly exacerbate the problem by bringing us up and down through high inflation and high deflation.

Look at the price of food and energy these days. It's a direct result of all the money the Fed has created since 2008, buying up all the bad mortgage securities, as well as all the treasuries they've recently been buying.

 

[Foxfyre]

The Federal Reserve is responsible for increasing the money supply and lowering interest rates which induces so much malinvestment.

The Fed injects tons of new money into the system, people look for the hottest places to put that money to work because it's going to lose value from inflation, and then a bubble forms and grows.

Then the Fed tightens up the flow of money by raising rates, the bubble bursts, the money supply deflates, and the Fed reinflates again by creating more new money and lowering rates again, wash/rinse/repeat.

The Fed causes the business cycle. I don't see how people don't realize it.

But there were 'disastrous' business cycles from the Revolutionary War on while the Federal Reserve was not established until 1913.

This doesn't preclude the Federal Reserve from causing business cycles.

Business cycles can and will happen because people are not perfect. What the Fed does is greatly exacerbate the problem by bringing us up and down through high inflation and high deflation.

Look at the price of food and energy these days. It's a direct result of all the money the Fed has created since 2008, buying up all the bad mortgage securities, as well as all the treasuries they've recently been buying.

Well, I have read of mistakes the Fed has made at least in the opinion of competent people whom I respect. And I am not competent to explain or judge all facets of the Federal Reserve.

And I vehemently opposed TARP, all bailouts, any and all federalization of U.S. commerce and industry, the stimulus package, and appropriation bills as irresponsible as any I have ever seen. I blame intentional mismanagement of Fannie and Freddie and the domino effect from that on our elected leaders going back a lot o years now, and believe that was the No. 1 catalyst for our current economic woes though the Obama Administration's mishandling of the economy has certainly exacerbated the problem and made a course correction much more difficult.

Almost all the problems that created the current crisis are still there.

But I am pretty sure that you can't lay the high cost of fuel and food at the feet of the Fed. I think other issues have been at stake.

 

[Contumacious]

Libertarians are thieves.

They want to live here and use all of the amenities of our country...roads...hospitals...Fire..police etc..etc...

HUH? WTF?

Of course, that's pure bullshit.

But you fuckers , on the other hand, demand that the government provide those services and then refuse to pay for them . The government is having to borrow 40% its revenue from China.

.

 

[Wicked Jester]

Ron Paul needs to pull his head out of his ass and understand that his foreign policy would be downright dangerous........And that is why he will not be elected, and shouldn't be elected, EVER.

People who contribute to his campaign are fools, playing a fools game.....They may as well just flush every dollar they donate down the friggin' toilet.

Case closed, fuckin' period!

 

[GHook93]

Would you vote for Ron Paul?

Ron Paul is my pick after Cain, Romney and Daniels! I think he is very naive on many issues and I think he ill turn off independents, but I like many of the things he says. If he was between Barry and Ronnie, I would have to go with Ronnie!