http://mobile.bloomberg.com/...cing-u-s-budget-view.html

If anyone wants to read a short and decent analysis of what is wrong with Ron Paul's presidential plan...

Sounds excellent to me, but I suppose liberty isn't for everyone. A lot of young Ron Paul supporters need to read this though. Most of his young supporters have no idea what he stands for, they just hear "end the war on drugs and end interventionism" and think he's the greatest. Most of these people voted for Obama and will end up voting for Obama. Supporting both Obama and Paul is pretty hilarious because they are the most opposite candidates possible. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum on literally almost every issue.

finally something I agree with aponic on

Paul's finance ideas are pretty kookoo, obviously pretty out of touch with how modern markets work. I've not looked at him seriously since his white supremacist son got elected in KY, is RP still touting the ridiculous notion of bringing back the gold standard?

I like that Ron Paul talks about ending the war on terror and his ideas about foreign wars. I think that is the attraction to left/moderates.

Yeah he is hardcore and way too willing to go overboard but some thing has to bring fiscal responsibility to Washington DC.

So to sum it up Paul actually has a program, He's obviously ahead of all the others running, and we know OBummer doesn't

"OBummer"? What are you, 6?

I spent some time trying to explain Ron Paul to someone recently. They really didn't get it. He makes perfect sense to me. I don't agree with him, but I understand his view and I admire is adherence to it. He's honestly more a libertarian than a politician.

As for the example about river pollution in the article cited, Paul is not eliminating recourse through the Courts for damages by one party to another party's property and rights. But it would be more of a response than a preventative. Paul's view is that working things like prevention out is the responsibility of the States and not the Federal gov't.

A couple debates ago he was hit for having a ~50% track record on abortion issues. But that isn't surprising. He consistently votes against federal involvement of any kind. So a bill that involves the federal gov't in regulating, preventing, banning, endorsing, funding, supporting, protecting, WHATEVER side of the issue - he votes no. That's consistent in its approach to stay out of it entirely. He believes abortion should be a state issue. Personally, he stated in that same debate, he believes it is a violent crime and should be handled as such by the states as they would any other violent crime.

Naturally, this means there are some things I agree with him on (where *I* don't want the federal gov't involved) and some things I disagree with him (where I *do* want the federal gov't involved)... but at least he is consistent.

I don't agree with everything he says either, especially the items that the article touches on but I agree with Atryn on this.

The only view of his which seems rather inconsistent with his other views are his views on abortion. I know his rational but at least in my mind the argument sounds very bizarre.

Just as a random aside: "Corporations would see tax rates drop to 15 percent from 35 percent". Our combined corporate tax rates are all between 10-15%. The difference is that there are far fewer loopholes so they mostly all actually pay 10-15%.
:P

hehe i would LOVE to see companies actually pay tax .i like the idea of a mad politician from 10-15 years ago here , abolish all other taxes and make everyone pay a flat % from memory i think it was 4% but if that is the case it must have been only for income tax . but if everyone had to pay say 20% and there was no rebates or ways to minimise it then not only would accountants be out of a job , but governments would ROLL in the cash .

well accountants wouldn't be out of a job because most of what accountants do isn't tax related :P

I should also point out that people like adolf hitler and genghis khan also were consistent in their views so it's not always a good thing:P (waits for the accusation that he's comparring ron paul to hitler) :P

Gowdin's law?

so, as a committed paul-bot, who works in finance, and has a very solid grasp of global economies, the article is right... to a certain degree.

paul's economic policy would be sure to stagnate our economy even more, perhaps spur a depression. but would you rather deal with that now or later? it is inevitably coming at some point, whether we prop up the economy now with spending or not. all the current economic policy does is kick the can down the road for a few years. look at what is happening in Greece/Italy and the EZ right now, that is the result of over spending more than your economy can support. The US is only a few years behind europe in this regard. and its not like all this spending is actually getting us out of the recession anyways.

so why wouldnt you just fix it now? as a devout paul supporter, i believe his economic policy will crash the global economy, but sadly, it's what we need to come out a better nation and world. the phoenix will rise from the ashes, and RP's economic policy WILL be the model for gov't fiscal spending after we have our modern day depression. We will not have another choice in the matter...

but here we are, a country on the verge of economic collapse, continuing policy that has FAILED.

You may call Dr. Paul nuts and crazy all you want, we've heard it all. However, insanity by definition is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. current policy is insanity, not Ron Paul.

and seriously archaic, Rand Paul a white supremacist?? Seriously?? go crawl back under the rock you popped out from under. or go vote for some RINO, either will produce the same result...

another thing that must be considered is the source of that article. bloomberg.

i love when people take articles about economic policy seriously, as though they are definitely all true, when they are written by Keynesian, flamingly liberal sources who have no clue about economies, they just know what theyve been brainwashed for the past 100 years to think...

http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/11/12/Solicitation2.pdf

Bon Apetite! mon Paul-bot Paul-bot

(gentlemen, start your spinning)

Hahaha... wow, really, a full pro-rata refund!

i've seen that before, no shocker. okay, so a little fear mongery, but at least hes making a buck the true capitalistic way.

honestly, since he wrote that, hasn't he been right about the dollar and gold? hasn't he been right about the surveillance state?

we really are one "national emergency" away from marshall law, i dont see why that should seem shocking either.

George Orwell beat him to it by 40 years and I don't see too many 'Orwell 2012' signs in peoples yards.

i refuse to be trolled by your unlogic.

lol, 'unlogic' says the Ron Paul advocate?

How about this for logic:

Gold is a commodity not a currency, its value is controlled by the market which is in turn controlled by a vast number of external metrics. When you base your currency on a commodity you put your economy at the mercy of those external market metrics. You give other institutions (corporations, nations, business or cultural groups, etc.) the ability to influence your economy at their whim. So if 3-4 gold producers start altering production at the bequest of a hostile entity that seeks to manipulate our currency (say OPEC starts cutting deals with S. Africa and Australia), then we suddenly find our currency being manipulated for profit (i.e. the Hunt brothers). That would be a significant surrendering of our sovereignty if Dr. Paul got his way.

Thats not even including the fact that he is, in fact, utterly fluffing nuts. Ron Paul is selling magic bullets and suckers like you keep lining up to buy them.

An honest to god Gold-bug? Don't make me giggle and fall off my stool.

The only true issues I have with all that is that he wants to remove DOEducation, Interior, and Commerce. Could they be reduced? Maybe. DOInterior, no. Commerce and Education? Yes.

The Hunt brothers did not get to actually manipulate the silver market like they wanted. They failed, so that argument makes no sense.

Gold has been currency for thousands of years. Nothing can be done to change that now. Just because the government doesn't recognize it as actual currency to be used to pay for services and goods directly doesn't mean it's any less valuable. The value of gold rises and falls just the same as the value of the dollar rises and falls depending on the supply and demand.

I find it odd that people are so brainwashed that they believe that fiat money is so valuable when it can be printed to no end, as is happening now. If paper money was so valuable, why are nations around the world dumping the almighty dollar and buying gold and gold producers?

I'm not really sure what a gold bug is, but I have seen the writing on the wall with regard to the current dollar-valuation-challenges (LOL), and have since hedged myself with various positions. And I don't mean gold, guns, ammo, and a bunker of baked beans. :P

What person would say that investing in gold over the last 10 years was a dumb thing to do? Those goldbugs sure look stupid now, don't they.

Ugh, I just read that pdf...that reeks of somewhat typical investment newsletter sensationalism, and I've seen a lot of them. Still, not good to see from a presidential candidate.

In case anyone forgot, this recession wasn't caused by government spending, but by an unregulated financial market. How does dismantling the government solve that? I get why people don't like the government, as the political process has been so marred by private interests and has really disenfranchised the regular citizen. But how can you honestly argue that we need less government when the very lack of it is what put us in this mess, by letting the whims of uninhibited capitalism tank the global economy. Your solution is to pair down any oversight that does exist and give even more freedom to companies and individuals who could give a rats ass about the world so long as they've maximized the bottom line?

The government, as imperfect as it is, is the only friend the average citizen really has. Better to try and fix it, then shoot it in the face and cry havoc.

jfotouhi - while I agree with your sentiment and optimistic view of the role of government, there is little doubt in my mind that the government also played a major role in the financial crisis. It is a fact that government action helped promote home loans to people who really couldn't afford them.

The government makes mistakes, they aren't perfect. Neither are VC's (who expect 8 out of 10 investments to fail) or much of the capital markets. More important is that the private market and capitalists are simply NOT motivated by the public good.

The invisible hand theory suggested that the motivations for capital efficiency were already aligned to the public good. But that has kinda fallen apart in light of global economics. What is good for a company might not be good for, specifically, U.S. citizens.

The U.S. government isn't perfect, but it does pay more attention to the interests of the people (at least the voting public) than Wall Street does. If we could focus on removing the impact of big money on politics, that alignment with the public (voter) interest would improve further.

Mr Snow: fiat money is not begin printed to no end, you are very incorrect in that statement.

Weasel: I titled this thread with the word nuts to attract attention to some parts of Ron Paul's plan that I find unappealing. I agree with you about Bloomberg and also about your points on marshal law/etc. There are very few choices and although Ron Paul stands behind his beliefs unlike every other political presidential candidate, I still find him overall too far removed from my own ideas of our federal government. This is why I donate to OWS and support a movement with the expectation of re-centering american politics.

so many points i want to argue here, but instead i will just agree with aponic and atryn mostly. i do want to also call grimm a moron too for his comment, (*yeah i would hate to have ~100% ROI*)

i do sincerely believe that if the US citizens will ever be able to overcome our current systemic malady in the next few decades, it will be born of a fusion party between the tea party and OWS, without the all whackos, plus lots of intelligent contributors with legitimate credibility.

we need one thing, to get money out of politics... somehow. a simpleton like myself doesnt have the answer as to how, but its the only way to save this country. it is the fundamental value that can be united behind in this country. combining forces, as opposed to the typical division of parties.

If american paper dollar was bring printed in unlimited amounts, the USA would have Hyper Inflation and Stagnation, meaning our money would be worthless, akin to what happened to Germany before WWII, so that was an ignorant statement.

If we went back to the gold standard, our prices here in the USA will skyrocket as nobody will be using American Dollars anymore. This will also cause our money to become close to worthless. This will cause prices in everything in American to go up, including oil since oil is priced in American Dollars

And causing a 2nd Global Great Depression is not really the wisest course of action. It took 10 years + 1 great world war to get the USA out of our last 1 and several decades more for Europe to climb out from the Great Depression and the world was a hall of a lot less globalized 70 years ago.

During the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 90's it took them years to climb out. Plus if the USA Falls financially, it'll take down the IMF, World Bank, and China along with us (since they hold most of our debt). If china goes down, it's taking damn near everybody else with them. If we were to fail to pay our debts, the end result will make the housing crisis look palpable in comparison

I'm an independent, i'm for whoever will do something past trying to shove their ideals down our throats, be it democrat or republican. What I stated are scenarios if the US defaults on our debts or some of the other things that could happen if Ron Paul was elected President

And yes, getting money out of politics if the key thing, that means, in my opinion, setting term limits, barring current and past officials from becoming lobbyists, and making the salaries very unappealing for all members of congress

aponic, the events of the past 3-4 years would cause most to tend to disagree with you. Of course, 'to no end' is infinite, so that is impossible and an exaggeration on my part, one which is usually understood to be an exaggeration and is not disputed. Sorry. :P

"Gold has been currency for thousands of years. "

Actually that isn't true. Obsidian was a "currency" long before gold was. Gold was valued in some cultures because of it's use for jewelery and making impressive works of art. In other places in the world is was seen as rather worthless or just something shiny to amuse children.

Even the Roman Empire (who placed value on gold) certainly didn't run on it for the most part.

In modern society gold has very limited practical value (I can't eat it and I can't use it as construction material).

The point to having a "gold standard" was an effort to provide some form of trade stability by creating a predictable means of trade. The world is very different from where it was in 1970. The level of global development is very different. SE asia/parts of africa are much more advanced and closer to developed countries for example.

"Currency" doesn't have any value beyond what it can be traded for goods and services. If the amount of effective currency out there increases but the number of goods and services does not then one has to trade more currency for the same goods and services (inflation). It all has to do with relative costs and how much (as a percentage) that individuals are willing to trade for various goods. Gold was an artificial construct for limiting the supply of "currency".

Ultimately our issue isn't money supply or currency - our issue is the how we chose manage, distribute, and acquire goods. How much "currency" there is in the system is somewhat of a moot point in general.

it doesnt need to be just based on gold though, you could include an entire index of metals as a part of the dollar formula, and it could be pegged for current monetary enviroments. its not like all of the sudden the dollar would just be worthless because the US begins increasing gold/silver/platinum/etc reserves. look at what china is doing right now with their gold reserves. theres an obvious reason why theyre buying so much of it, right now, and not 10 years ago. and its not so their kids can play with shiny objects. to say gold is not a form of currency is just foolish given how fragile the global picture is right now.

were not seeing stagflation right now, because newsflash, the free market system is totally rigged and reporting is artifcial, and has been for at least 10 years now, arguably much more. inflation is an imaginary number, indexed to wage increases, has nothing to do with food/gas/medical cost increases (at least the number they show you on tv). if we looked at that real inflation number, you would see a signifigant inflation %, easily more than 5%. we wont get to the level of germany as long as there is not sheer collapse, because there will always be demand for american services. now if the economy begins to gather momentum for say 2-3 quarters, thats when we could possibly see the hyper inflation rear its ugly head.

George Orwell... are you serious? Elect someone who's been dead for six decades. Good plan :P

weasel: There really isn't a great devaluation of the dollar going on and that is what talk of a gold or metal standard addresses.

Here is an animated video about monetary policy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3sKwwAaCU

without the whackos, this fusion would amount to about 7-8 people

you're right about getting the money out of politics though. easy solution - limit all house/senate members to a single term, if they cant get re-elected they cant be bought (as easily)

How does limiting people to a single term prevent them from being 'bought'? It actually makes it easier. Remove contributions from anything but people and you will greatly increase the chances of good candidates.

unfortunately a fair amount of the "buying" now is in things delivered after they leave office... job, consulting, speaker fees, book deals, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/...p;feature=player_embedded

I cant say I read every post on here, I am only addressing your original comment and link. I think this video is an important refutation of the assertions in the link. He does NOT agree with social security and Medicare, but as he states in this video he owuld NOT touch them. He understands people rely on these systems, but doesn't agree that they should. I agree 100% with this.

I am not sold on the Gold standard, but I do agree monetary reform is crucial.

I don't think that all young people, being one of them, think oh yey drugs etc etc... We like him because we came into the system with the knowledge of HS and college that explains the role of government. Then we come into the real world and see it has been hijacked. We support him because he stand for what government should be, what public servants should be... We want freedom to choose how we run our lives. Let social morality decide what we condemn as inappropriate behavior not government.

+1

refer to earlier post

I consider myself to be a liberal but if I was going to vote for any of the republican nominees it would be Ron Paul. His view on our role/occupation of the middle east was enough to get me to listen to the guy and hear what he had to say.

I would agree that getting money out of politics is step one, but lowering the salaries of elected officials will only make them all the more willing to take money from other sources. Is there any way to legally end the institution of lobbying? I don't know enough about Washington to know how lobbying works, so I have no idea just how hard that would be, but I think slamming the door on lobbying might help.

Also, if they took an oath upon achieving office to only seek employment or accept money from certain sources after leaving office, they might be held accountable for their actions after the end of their term (so that any services they do during their terms in return for promises of favors later might be avoided).

Of course, to do this legally would require the lawmakers to make laws. And since the lawmakers are the ones who are getting paid by lobbyists, making lobbying illegal would be shooting their incomes in the foot (if it's even possible anyway), so I'm not holding my breath.

I agree it should be all donations must originate by a Perso with-in the Districts, as that is who they are suppose to be representing. No a Corporation is not a person, People own a Corporation so let them use the money the took out of it as their money and use it by the same rules as everyone else. Want to buy the Congressman of a certain district then move your residence there.
The system needs to only except from those whose SS# are from your districts residence. If its not then the checks should just go in the general treasury as your determined Fine for trying to corrupt the system.

winning. okay now lets run for congress and propose this.

Vote Orwell 2012!

I can't say Ron Paul is everything that is wrong with this country. But he does demonstrate the selfish bastards we are all evolving into. I don't remember which debate it was, but to paraphrase. If we have a 31 year old that needs medical care to live but does not have the money than he believes they should just die.

This hits me personally because without government help I would have lost my older sister when she was 9 because my parents were under insured. It also hit me as a human being for having such little regard for life. This country was built on working together. There is very little common good left any longer and Ron Paul would rather there not be any at all.

On another note, I agree, get corporations and the rich out of funding elections. But how are you going to stop them? Anyone can publish their opinions on paper or on the internet. I think the real answer is for more people to call the candidates out to actually educate the voting public. So many people go to vote and have no convictions either way except that "inset other party name here" are terrible people. There is no good answer until citizens grow up and open their eyes.

Last note, this whole thread is moot. Ron Paul stands about as much a chance of being elected president as I do. He is just another politician that doesn't understand you can't lead or legislate from stage left or right....as a country people just won't allow it.

I like your idea Oceana.

Fuego, and other participating in this thread:
It is good to talk about our political feelings and broaden our knowledge base in order to understand and have opinions that we can act on. For the most part all of you are representing views expressed by OWS. Here is a video covering their stand on the various issues. Each speaker discusses something different, monetary reform, healthcare reform, etc. You can simply fast-forward to the next speaker if the issue does not interest you.

http://october2011.org/...-super-committee-hearings

ron paul over obama anyday

we will need someting more right than Ron Paul to fix this nightmare we have developed!

When looking at Paul's opinions on finance and economy, it's worth looking at his experience in finance oversight and regulation, which is actually fairly extensive. I think it's also hard to rule out his ideas based on the fact that they are 'out of touch with current financial markets' when our current financial markets seem utterly broken.