Ron Paul, does he stand a chance?

[MrGraham]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

Paul's ability to raise such a huge amount of money entirely from private citizens (and spend it wisely)

How do you figure that he spent it wisely? Very few people who aren't "from the internets" have heard of him, still, even though he has enough money to blast ads wherever he wants.

I really hope Ron Paul does well, and will be voting for him in the primaries, but I feel he's letting us down in getting his face out there, MSM be damned.

[Aulirophile]

Originally Posted by MrGraham

How do you figure that he spent it wisely? Very few people who aren't "from the internets" have heard of him, still, even though he has enough money to blast ads wherever he wants.

I really hope Ron Paul does well, and will be voting for him in the primaries, but I feel he's letting us down in getting his face out there, MSM be damned.

He spends it on ads that target people who don't use the internet a lot and in specific areas where he needs votes.. and also in areas where volunteers haven't gotten there ahead of him and bought signs at their own expense and put them up. That bit is trickier, they pop up everywhere. The signs I was talking about earlier in the small South Carolina town? The guy who put them up got them printed at his own expense and put them up.

[Soriak]

Originally Posted by Lithose

No, thats not how banking has worked for centuries...Banks don't loan you other people's money, ever. What they loan you technically doesn't even exist.

Banks "possessing" the money to cover loans through holdings in the bank is a popular myth that is a dinosaur of banking.

Banks can't increase the physical money in circulation... fractional reserve banking merely means that if someone deposits $100, banks don't have to hold on the whole $100. They can loan $90 of that to someone else. Now if that someone spends the $90 and they end up on someone else's bank account, that bank can loan $81 out again and so on. This is not the same as increasing the money supply, where the amount in circulation would go up. (money deposited on a bank is taken out of circulation)

Although I think we're arguing semantics here

Economists fear banks because the system of wealth creation that banks use is positively ludicrous and can't be sustained, eventually it will collapse, its only a matter of when.

Some Austrian economists do, which is really quite a small subset. Of course it's not 100% risk free, nothing is. But a bank run on a major bank is quite unlikely and even less likely is that they can't cover the liquidity through loans from the fed and other banks. It'd really have to be a massive bank run to pose a problem and an event that'd trigger such would probably be enough to crash the economy on its own anyway.

Edit* Just read the wiki article, it will give you the dirty summary of the banking system we use. If you want to research more on it, well, there is literally fuck tons of literature on the subject, you can start with Jefferson

That article has the following tags:

Neutrality disputed
Cleanup needed
Contradicts "History of Banking"
Unverified claims

[FulorianC]

Of course it's disputed, it goes against the grain of what 'everybody knows'. Which is almost always false.

[Soriak]

Just look at what would be necessary for the banking system to go down in flames... the federal reserve would have to be at a point where they couldn't increase liquidity even over a short term. Then the European Central Bank would, at the same time, also need to be at that point - otherwise they'd easily cover it. Then every other central bank would need to be unable to assist, so you're looking at 50+ major central banks. (members of the bank of international settlements) This is, of course, after every private banks failed to issue any loans, as they usually offer better conditions than the central banks. At this point we're talking about a global bank run and no government willing or able to step up. Likelihood of that happening: extremely close to 0.


A million conspiracy theorists withdrawing their $100k accounts is $100bn - in one week in August, the European Central Bank handed out over $250bn without breaking a sweat. Other central banks handed out loans additionally to that, but I don't know to what extend. If you look at the global economy, the current "crisis" is extremely well contained to housing and much less so to debt. Your credit card isn't likely to get revoked, loans are still happening and the stock market is doing well. Back in the day, this could have been the next great depression.


Predictions still indicate growth for next year, even if it may slow down a little.

[Cadrid]

Originally Posted by MrGraham

How do you figure that he spent it wisely? Very few people who aren't "from the internets" have heard of him, still, even though he has enough money to blast ads wherever he wants.

I really hope Ron Paul does well, and will be voting for him in the primaries, but I feel he's letting us down in getting his face out there, MSM be damned.

At my work we listen to a very popular New Hampshire-based radio station that plays classic hits from the 60s/70s/80s, and I've heard a number of Ron Paul ads on it. Considering the demographic that often listens to that generation of music, and that NH is an early primary state, I'd say he's spending it quite wisely.

On a side note, I was watching the money ticker last night and saw someone else from Acton, MA donated. I didn't catch the last name, unfortunately, but it was a cool moment.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

At my work we listen to a very popular New Hampshire-based radio station that plays classic hits from the 60s/70s/80s, and I've heard a number of Ron Paul ads on it. Considering the demographic that often listens to that generation of music, and that NH is an early primary state, I'd say he's spending it quite wisely.

On a side note, I was watching the money ticker last night and saw someone else from Acton, MA donated. I didn't catch the last name, unfortunately, but it was a cool moment.

Lol. Thats the town I grew up in (moved out last year!). Everyone I know in that town was like Ron Paul who? when I asked them about him. Parents (who I at least consider somewhat knowledgeable) had almost no idea who he was. Suprised me considering everyone I know in Southern, NH at least has a good idea who he is.

[MrGraham]

I guess he's spending well in the primary states, which is just indicative of our fucked up system. I haven't found a single person who is not from the internet who has heard of him in VA or KY.

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Tolanin

jefferson didnt know shit about how our current system would turn out and he did not have any idea what post industrial revolution economics would look like.

You cannot take the economic policy of a guy who lived in a world with blacksmiths and so on and think it is relevant.

He was smart, but he wasnt prescient, and to take quotes from him and try to apply them to things he never knew or even dreamed of and say that its what he meant is dishonest.

Well to be fair, you don't need to depend on the founders' words to understand his position on central banking, their actions spoke infinitely louder. Jefferson vehemently opposed the creation of a central bank for the reasons stated, namely because it would a tool for the conversion of wealth into influence. Andrew Jackson, our Manifest Destiny president, nearly came to blows in his opposition of a central bank.

One thing to note about Paul's ideas about HOW he would dismantle the federal reserve is to note that Ron Paul has expressed his plan to follow Friedrich Hayek's Competing Currencies to reintroduce a bullion standard from the current fiat system. Hayek's school of thought promotes competition at the currency level to slowly promote the stronger currency and would--in theory--eventually choose the stronger gold-backed currency over time. Hayek ALSO proposed a similar competition-based approach to decentralise a system like the fed.

[Soriak]

I came across this article on the Austrian school of economics' view on what mainstream economists refer to as "public goods" - well worth the read: Can Dikes Be Private?: An Argument Against Public Goods Theory - Mises Institute

(the austrian school of economics does not buy into public goods)

It's certainly a morally interesting question. Since the people in New Orleans were aware of the condition of the levies and the risk, yet chose to continue living there, they should have neither received government help to build the levy in the first place, nor to maintain them; and certainly no money to build up again... after all, they willingly chose the risk and did not co-operate to mitigate it on their own.

Anyway, I'd be interested in the view on the article of those who back Austrian economics. And keep in mind that public goods are anything from street lights to police or the defense provided by the military.

[Aulirophile]

Originally Posted by Soriak

I came across this article on the Austrian school of economics' view on what mainstream economists refer to as "public goods" - well worth the read: Can Dikes Be Private?: An Argument Against Public Goods Theory - Mises Institute

(the austrian school of economics does not buy into public goods)

It's certainly a morally interesting question. Since the people in New Orleans were aware of the condition of the levies and the risk, yet chose to continue living there, they should have neither received government help to build the levy in the first place, nor to maintain them; and certainly no money to build up again... after all, they willingly chose the risk and did not co-operate to mitigate it on their own.

Anyway, I'd be interested in the view on the article of those who back Austrian economics. And keep in mind that public goods are anything from street lights to police or the defense provided by the military.

Considering the Army Corps of Engineers was unilaterally ordered to prevent the Mississippi from diverting at the Executive level, it is kind of a moot point. There was a movement, oh, 60 years ago to let the Mississippi move to low ground, the way it wanted to, and then rebuild around the river. It would've changed the whole river's course for nearly 100 miles upstream from the ocean but in a predictable way.

The city of New Orleans WANTED to move the river, the Federal Government stuck them with the bullshit they ended up with. No use crying over spilt milk I suppose, but things don't exist in a vacuum like that.

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Soriak

I came across this article on the Austrian school of economics' view on what mainstream economists refer to as "public goods" - well worth the read: Can Dikes Be Private?: An Argument Against Public Goods Theory - Mises Institute

(the austrian school of economics does not buy into public goods)

It's certainly a morally interesting question. Since the people in New Orleans were aware of the condition of the levies and the risk, yet chose to continue living there, they should have neither received government help to build the levy in the first place, nor to maintain them; and certainly no money to build up again... after all, they willingly chose the risk and did not co-operate to mitigate it on their own.

Anyway, I'd be interested in the view on the article of those who back Austrian economics. And keep in mind that public goods are anything from street lights to police or the defense provided by the military.

Heh The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek is one of my favorite books although it's almost entirely a economics text. It's pretty approachable and often amusing for anyone who's looking for a good, accessible, look at the ideas of one of the most important Nobel-laureate economists of the last century.

Vienna- (or Austria-)school can get pretty extreme even in smaller contexts but technically Ron Paul is actually in the Chicago-School macroeconomics camp. More often than not he's citing Milton Friedman and George Stigler's fiduciary policies about capital and interest; which is the biggest difference between Friedman and Hayek's economics. They're both free-market systems but that's not really saying anything, there isn't many sane economists who still see any feasibility in a government-regulated, centrally-planned systems and certainly ALL of the nobel laureates for the last sixty years have been free-marketeers.

That said, like any worthwhile notion ever spawned by mankind, Hayek's ideas have been misrepresented and abused by shitheads all over the world. Augusto Pinochet, for example, adored Friedrich Hayek and imposed his ideas at every level of Chile's national affairs, often murdering dissidents, activists and even clergy who resisted the sort of cronyism it engendered. But even though Pinochet has been deposed and reviled by Chileans, his system has been kept in place largely because it kept Chile relatively prosperous in comparison to her neighbors despite having a fraction of the usable land.

[Teger]

How do you guys who support Paul in this thread react to the new stuff that just came about him having secret ties to the White Supremacist movement? Commander of American Nazi Party says Ron Paul is secret white supremicist - The Something Awful Forums I know that thread gets kind of fucking retarded, but the original information seems pretty solid. It's surreal to me because I've eaten in that restaurant many times.

[Kugbok_Fennin]

Originally Posted by Teger

How do you guys who support Paul in this thread react to the new stuff that just came about him having secret ties to the White Supremacist movement? Commander of American Nazi Party says Ron Paul is secret white supremicist - The Something Awful Forums I know that thread gets kind of fucking retarded, but the original information seems pretty solid. It's surreal to me because I've eaten in that restaurant many times.

This really isn't news. Regardless, its a pitiful attempt to smear Ron. Honestly, the attempt to correlate is pretty lame.

It's still expected considering what Ron means to the establishment.

[Teger]

I don't really see it as a pitiful attempt, I think it hints at connections between prominent white supremacists and at least some members of his campaign staff. The thread also details his upcoming speaking to a club that is run by known racists, and its not as if his campaign spending records were falsified. He should own up to the actions by his campaign staff and dispose of the donations from these white supremacist leaders intelligently, ie: donating them to a charity.