Ron Paul, does he stand a chance?

[Zeste]

Should I be worried that I have absolutley no clue about what you guys are talking about?

none.

I don't even know what those terms mean, or all those letters.

How do so many white-collar badasses end up on these forums?

[Kugbok_Fennin]

Originally Posted by torrent495

Right, the housing market. Not the employment rate, or inflation, or GDP growth, or business investment, or consumer spending, or the stock market. Now the housing market is certainly a predictive indicator of the strength of the economy, but the most important? Not by a long, long shot.

Look man, you clearly don't know what you're talking about.


The housing bubble could very well burst. And if it does, the U.S. might go into a recession. This recession would probably be comparable to the recession of the early 90's. But we're not yet in that recession now, are we? So stop fearmongering like the world's going to fall down.


What? I honestly don't understand what you're saying here. The money supply has doubled, so we would halve the Dow? There's like no connection between the two things.

And nobody cares about the Dow, or nobody should anyway. It's a totally fraud index, S&P 500 is a much more accurate indicator of large-cap market capitalization.


Yes, it is. Things are relative. Is this the 1950's? No. But it's not the 70's or the early 90's either. We're not actually in a recession, and that means we're doing OK in my book.

Reading Comprehension FTW as always.

[Zuuljin]

I dont really know wtf you guys are talking about, and barely squeaked past economics in college, but I dont know if the Cali home market is the best indication of anything other then Cali's ridiculous housing costs. When normal, 3 bedroom, 2 bath homes, that were built 40 years ago are selling up wards of $750, the price is going to drop because no one is going to pay that.

My parents house, which is a 1 story, 3 bedroom 2 bath, which they bought at $175k 20 years ago, was just recently priced at $900k. Who in the fuck is going to pay nearly $1 million dollars for a house that in any other part of the country would be lucky to fetch $200-$300k. The price of housing in Cali was bound to crash sooner or later on its own absurdity. FYI I'm in the Ventura/Santa Barbara area.

[Dabamf]

The housing market suffering a decline is something to be cautious about, but that's it. To even say it is an indicator of an imminent recession is preposterous. I'll take the word of professional economists over kugbok.

Also, a doubling of the money supply is absolutely no indication of inflation. They are related, obviously, but a change in one of them absolutely does not necessitate a change in the other. Use inflation if you want to compare the true value of the dow or s&p increase. Even that though is problematic since the calculated inflation rate is an overestimation of the real inflation rate due to nuances in how it is calculated.

[Soriak]

Originally Posted by Zeste

I don't even know what those terms mean, or all those letters.

DOW = Dow Jones, an index of the 30 largest and widest held public companies. Their performance is one indication of the US market.

S&P 500 = Standard and Poor's 500 (comes from names, not related to poverty or actual standards) They track the performance of 500 large corporations (mostly from the US) and that information is then used as an indication of the US economy.

NYSE = New York Stock Exchange, place where stocks are traded

Think those are all

How do so many white-collar badasses end up on these forums?

Once you get rid of the technical terms there's really nothing revolutionary in this thread

Although I do object to Ferraris becoming cheaper in the US compared to Canada - it's much more likely they'd just get more expensive in the US to compensate, because Ferrari isn't based in the US.

[Brash]

Ron Paul, does he stand a chance? Of course he does! Ron Paul is a defender of our freedoms and hot chicks like him. And that’s all that matters.

[kegkilla]

i saw ron paul on the colbert report the other night and tho i would like to see him be successful i can't forsee much hope for him given his very unique political stances such as abolishing governmental departments that are indeed nefficient and cost taxpayers money. though i can understand his reasoning forwanting to do so, i'd guess 95% of voters would not be able to wrap their heads around ron paul's reasoning to abolish the department of education.

[Mimirswell]

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

Source: John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, letter to Mandell Creighton - April 5, 1887

On topic: Interesting Article about Ron Paul and mainstream media - Where Isnt Ron Paul

[Soriak]

Originally Posted by kegkilla

i'd guess 95% of voters would not be able to wrap their heads around ron paul's reasoning to abolish the department of education.

I'd love to hear his reasoning for this, because this may just be the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Funding education is an investment into the future - if your population is entirely uneducated, how could they possibly take up the only jobs that'll pay worth a damn in 50 or so years? (when a billion chinese and a billion indians join the table)
Although I suppose the unemployed won't cost the government anything once social security and welfare is abolished, it's still lost tax revenue and higher cost of law enforcement. (more crime)

edit: I realized I actually spoke out in favor of him at the beginning of the thread, after seeing him on Bill Maher. Teaches me not to do that without reading up more closely...

[rinthea]

Originally Posted by Soriak

I'd love to hear his reasoning for this, because this may just be the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Funding education is an investment into the future - if your population is entirely uneducated, how could they possibly take up the only jobs that'll pay worth a damn in 50 or so years? (when a billion chinese and a billion indians join the table)
Although I suppose the unemployed won't cost the government anything once social security and welfare is abolished, it's still lost tax revenue and higher cost of law enforcement. (more crime)

edit: I realized I actually spoke out in favor of him at the beginning of the thread, after seeing him on Bill Maher. Teaches me not to do that without reading up more closely...

he supports vouchers and local controlled education

[Kiely]

The American Economy is fuckton harder to control nowaday's then it used to be with all the foreign influence. I'm not surprised that it's never a big debating issue amongst the US politicians for that reason as much as I'd love it to be. I guess it's not trendy enough either..

[Sabolin]

Originally Posted by Soriak

I'd love to hear his reasoning for this, because this may just be the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Funding education is an investment into the future - if your population is entirely uneducated, how could they possibly take up the only jobs that'll pay worth a damn in 50 or so years? (when a billion chinese and a billion indians join the table)
Although I suppose the unemployed won't cost the government anything once social security and welfare is abolished, it's still lost tax revenue and higher cost of law enforcement. (more crime)

edit: I realized I actually spoke out in favor of him at the beginning of the thread, after seeing him on Bill Maher. Teaches me not to do that without reading up more closely...

Your reading up more closely would have found this:
Ron Paul Library, Education Freedom Legislation Will Provide Meaningful Reform

instead of spitting out that garbage that essentially proves kegkilla's point of how the american people would not be able to 'wrap their heads' around it.

edit- I encourage everyone to browse this site:
Ron Paul Library

[Dabamf]

Originally Posted by Soriak

.

Yea you should probably read up on a new idea before criticizing it. This attitude is why he doesn't stand a chance. "Hmm that's an idea I've never heard before. How stupid!"

[Tolanin]

dept of education doesnt have that much of a role in stuff, most of it is done on a local level with state funding and federal funding coming in and various benchmarks required to get funding for the schools... Ron Pauls policy on this is odd, where he plans to get all this additional money from I have no idea, and theres a good reason we don't let parents decide what their kids should learn, cause most of them are dumb.

Some of his policies are interesting and some of our federal institutions definitely need to be overhauled, but for the most part the man is an idiot and we should all be glad he has no hope of winning.

[Fammaden]

Originally Posted by Tolanin

dept of education doesnt have that much of a role in stuff, most of it is done on a local level with state funding and federal funding coming in and various benchmarks required to get funding for the schools... Ron Pauls policy on this is odd, where he plans to get all this additional money from I have no idea, and theres a good reason we don't let parents decide what their kids should learn, cause most of them are dumb.

Some of his policies are interesting and some of our federal institutions definitely need to be overhauled, but for the most part the man is an idiot and we should all be glad he has no hope of winning.

Originally Posted by http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=185

Each time we are presented with a new education proposal from Washington, it involves another layer of harmful federal bureaucracy. No big-government spending program can or will solve our nation's education problems. One-size-fits-all programs simply do not work. I want to give parents the freedom to choose the best options for their children. I want teachers to know that their services are valuable to our nation without making them subservient to federal bureaucrats. And I want to encourage local residents to get involved with their local schools through educational programs and scholarship funds.

My agenda of returning control over education dollars to the American people is the best way to strengthen public education. These bills represent a common sense, pro-family approach that says "no" to more federal involvement in local education and "yes" to more parental and teacher involvement. I thank my colleagues for cosponsoring these important pieces of legislation, and I call on every member of Congress to support meaningful education reform which once again will make American education the envy of the world.

You see, jackass, that it isn't about letting parents custom design curriculum and present it to teachers or something. But at the local level, parents can actually participate in the political process involving public education. Local meetings and elections allow a constituency to be part of the decision making process right there in the communities where the education is taking place. You can not really vote in a federal education program, or any other federal social program. A presidential or even congressional candidate might have an idea on an bill, but even once it passes, the implementation of it becomes more the realm of the selected bureau.

The problem presented is that the centralized federal bureaucracy has its hands in local issues through many departments, and education is a big area of concern in recent years. Most of the teachers I have talked to have had nothing but bad to say about "no child left behind". The primary complaint being that teachers are forced to teach the standardized test rather than actually teach the students, because if the school's testing scores are not up to scratch then federal funding and certification is at risk. So if your class is the one struggling, then your ass is on the fire at work. It is, as the quoted article suggests, a blanket fix for a large diverse nation that doesn't always work for specific regions. Which in essence, is Paul's and many of his supporters' problem with big centralized federal government spending and programming in general.