<p>yeah, didn’t expect the post to be that long. I guess the “novel” comment seems a little hypocritical now lol.</p>
<p>RonPual2012 look up the 16th amendment.</p>
<p>I think society has changed a little since 1798.</p>
<p>The creation of the 16th Amendment strongly correlates with the end of a first era of globalization, powerful modern states with large standing armies, and an increasingly urbanized and industrial society.</p>
<p>As for the Hitler Youth Camp thing and Rahm Emanuel, stop watching The Drudge Report or YouTube videos or wherever you are feeding your hunger for conspiracy theories. And suppose you’ll start bringing up the fema camps, how obama is going to take americans’s guns away, how the twin towers was an inside job, that area 51 is holding ET, how JFK was killed by the Mob, and how the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, the Illuminati, and the Mystical Triads are going to take over the world.</p>
<p>If there is anything I truly hate, it is conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>Funny how just last week, at the G20, they mentioned a “new world order.”</p>
<p>what was the context?</p>
<p>And it’s even funnier that you post that picture because Government intervention in the economy was higher than it has ever been, leading up to the depression.
And even more government DID NOT get us out of the depression.</p>
<p>You kidding? Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover lowered taxes, got rid of regulations on banks and businesses, basically all the same things Bush did. The 1920’s was the most conservative time in America ever.</p>
<p>Government spending did get us out of the depression. Public works projects in the 30’s changed it’s status to a recession, and government war spending got our economy booming.</p>
<p>This is stupid. -_-</p>
<p>There’s nothing inherently evil about a “new world order”. The post-WWII era was a “new world order”. The emergence of the Internet ushered in a “new world order” as well.</p>
<p>These three words are no reason for paranoia. -_-</p>
<p>Moreover, what exactly was so great about the “old world order”? There was never any golden age of humanitarian rights or freedom. As anti-climactic and unsensationalistic as it may be, the world is collectively far better now that it ever was at any time in the past.</p>
<p>Nothing’s ever going to happen “from out of nowhere”, especially in an age where political criticism is dished out vehemently, particularly via the Internet, where it reaches a global audience.</p>
<p>before I respond, what did you mean with the 1798 reference. Maybe I am misunderstanding, but the 16th amendment was ratified in 1909, If I remember correctly</p>
<p>edit: to comraded</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>shocking! someone on this thread actually went to AP US history class…</p>
<p>You’ve read the history books wrong.
Who started the federal reserve?
Hoover</p>
<p>Hoover was strongly in favor of government intervention and was far from a laissez-faire capitalist.
Who inacted protective tariffs?
Ever heard of the horrible Smoot-Hawley Tariff?</p>
<p>The truth is that Coolidge, Hoover’s predecessor, was not in favor of Hoover’s policies and it is Hoover’s successor, Roosevelt, that only expanded on his anti capitalist policies. </p>
<p>Also, do you really think that the Great depression was the first depression?
The 1907 and 1920 depressions were over within a year.
Why, because the government was less interventionist.</p>
<p>Hoover also had the government buy up farm surpluses to try and prop up prices. Doesn’t sound very non-interventionist to me.</p>
<p>“Who started the federal reserve?
Hoover”</p>
<p>You really haven’t read anything, have you? The federal reserve act was signed by Woodrow Wilson in 1913.</p>
<p>The Smoot-Hawley tariff was signed into law in 1930, after the start of the Great Depression.</p>
<p>"Also, do you really think that the Great depression was the first depression?
The 1907 and 1920 depressions were over within a year.
Why, because the government was less interventionist. "</p>
<p>We haven’t had any depressions since, so I’m not sure you thought that argument through too well. Even what we’re going through now is still classified as a recession.</p>
<p>Your link was written by Murray Rothbard, an extreme anarcho-capitalist. Let’s see what Ben Bernanke, a more respected economist with modern analysis tools, has to say:</p>
<p>“First, the existence of the gold standard helps to explain why the world economic decline was both deep and broadly international. Under the gold standard, the need to maintain a fixed exchange rate among currencies forces countries to adopt similar monetary policies. In particular, a central bank with limited gold reserves has no option but to raise its own interest rates when interest rates are being raised abroad; if it did not do so, it would quickly lose gold reserves as financial investors transferred their funds to countries where returns were higher. Hence, when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in 1928 to fight stock market speculation, it inadvertently forced tightening of monetary policy in many other countries as well. This tightening abroad weakened the global economy, with effects that fed back to the U.S. economy and financial system.”</p>
<p>[FRB:</a> Speech, Bernanke–Money, Gold, and the Great Depression --March 2, 2004](<a href=“http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/200403022/default.htm]FRB:”>FRB: Speech, Bernanke--Money, Gold, and the Great Depression --March 2, 2004)</p>
<p>Smh.
Ben Bernanke?</p>
<p>If you want to talk about respectable economist, look no further than Milton Friedman.</p>
<p>I do not agree with anarchy. But I do agree with complete laissez-faire capitalism.</p>
<p>I do admit that my reference to Hoover founding the federal reserve was wrong.</p>
<p>Yes we have not have any “depressions” since then, but we have had many recessions.
1970’s, 1990’s, and now.
So your premise that big government has protected us from economic downturns is false.</p>
<p>Depressions are worse and Milton Friedman opposed a gold standard.</p>
<p>Yes, but he was more importantly in favor of economic freedom.</p>
<p>Ok, I am asking these questions with an open mind. If an answer seems reasonable, I’ll accept it.</p>
<p>1) What if oversea demand for the dollar ceases? China has already expressed concerns about their 2 trillion, so I can’t imagine that they would continue to keep buying.</p>
<p>2) If the debt to savings rate in the economy is so spread, why does the government insist on americans buying products/houses. Why wouldn’t we be encouraged to save? Isn’t that how recessions end. American’s stop consuming, save, and then are able to consume at a reasonable level again. You can’t really have a boom without a bust, can you?</p>
<p>I meant to first put that society has changed since 1791, when the Bill of Rights w/ your dear 2nd amendment was ratified and incorporated into the Constitution. I tend to assume that when people discuss the “Constitution” in its initial form, they are talking about the Constitution along with Bill of Rights. Both were constructed and implemented by practically the same group of people.</p>
<p>Then to address your comment where or why the federal gov’t got the power to impose an icome tax, I mentioned the 16th amendment.</p>
<p>Although I suppose you might interpret the Constitution as it was w/o the Bill of Rights when it was adopted in 1787. Still, the 5th Article of the Constitution allows for amendments.</p>
<p>To answer the above question:</p>
<p>1)China is the greatest purchaser of our currency/treasuries because it wants to keep their (Chinese) currency artificially devalued against ours so it has an export advantage. This keeps us buying massive quantities of their junk, and it keeps its billion people working and living better than subsistence farmers. Japan does pretty much the same thing. They are concerned but they won’t stop buying us treasuries because they can’t, unless they want a revolution or something.</p>
<p>2) Its called Keynesian Economics.</p>
<p>Well, thats just about as sophisticated explanation you can probably get from an undergrad, so you will have to go somewhere else to find out more.</p>
<p>Look at that LogicWarrior you got all of the Ron Paul goonsquad out on full alert!</p>
<p>There’s a few of them on my campus actually. It’s pretty funny to hear them rant about the “dangerous Federal Reserve” and the like. At their last quad “demonstration” I actually saw one of them dressed up in confederacy regalia. The dude was actually trying to claim that Lincoln was a “tyrant”! Oh, and they’ll be glad to tell you about the state’s right to prevent you from getting an abortion. Don’t expect to have a rational argument with them either, because if you frustrate them they’ll just say that you “obviously don’t understand the constitution” or something. They even say this about lawyers who studied constitutional law if you reference them! You can’t go a minute talking to any of them without detecting their sense of superiority and smugness, and they pepper in a few condescending comments remarks every once in a while as well.</p>
<p>But seriously, Ron Paul would be a disaster. Seriously, the man wants to limit the FDA. Has he never heard of pre-safety-regulation america? </p>
<p>Yeah, who’s the government to tell us what poison we can’t have in our food! </p>
<p>Ha, what an sclown. And his supporters need to have their mental health screened before one of them goes gun crazy more than they already have.</p>
<p>Hey, I’m the one who started the deviation of this thread, rightfully so, into a discussion about Ron Paul, just take a look. Actually, maybe that distinction goes to leah337. Just look at pg 1-2 of this thread.</p>