So then while we are deciding I get to walk around with a dozen different kinds of money that are likely changing in value by the hour and any store I go to will either have to figure out the exchange rate of whatever currency I want to use to pay and/or have multiple prices on every item - one for each currency.

How would these currencies be backed? Who would back them? How does a company operate a currency as a for profit business?

It would be a headache beyond belief.

That's why we do NEED govt.

But just as you said earlier...the govt. has grown incrementally over the last two centuries and now is so big and overreaching and so bloated with bureaucrats and administrative crap that it's out of control.

Dvae that is such a pile of crap!

You need education, skills, an infrastructure to allow you to set up a business and flourish. Policemen to make sure people don't steal it.

If you want to do it all on your own, build a boat, row to a desert island and try it. Man has worked as a team for 500,000 years. What makes one man the leader and another a follower, is often down to his upbringing.

Americans still think they're back in the days of the pioneers trekking across America, to grab land the Government gave them and had the Army to keep the Indians at bay. Without the infrastructure in the early days, you would still be ruled be the UK.

Yes Government is bloated and the US rides on the bloated money. It would sink if it was taken out.

I agree 100%

I think there are some things we need to spend money on that are losing propositions because they help make our worlds better/safer/easier to function in.

Most of the stuff the government does is useless. We could do away with a lot of things and life would be just as good, if not better than it is now and our tax rate would be a hell of a lot lower.

:2 cents: Fuck roads.

You want to know who likes roads? Communists and hippies, that's who!

Real men take the train.

You dont realize 200 yrs ago. You would be a lowly worker and with not much,no chance of building yourself up. Without the gov funded internet where would you be ? You start a store there is electric service there ,a road to the store,police force,fire. A basically educated work force the gov provides that. Courts that will uphold your contracts.You guys need to read up on history, the facts not the bullshit. The gov basically created the middle class which you are all part of, it didnt exist before ww2. In a total free market most of the people here would be a lowly worker at best nothing more.

That would be a nightmare. It's been tried before in other countries and it doesn't work.

You only need one currency, but it MUST be backed by something tangible.

We just went off the gold standard back in 1933, which is not that long ago. I don't understand why everyone is so against going back to a currency that is actually backed by something real, or by a collection of various commodities. A currency backed by gold, silver, palladium, copper, or whatever they want so long as it was real, would work.

Sure, that means the Gov can not borrow endless amounts of money and send the country into massive debt again, but that is the way it is suppose to be! The system we have now is not supposed to be this way. We are not supposed to have trillions of dollars of debt! Money is supposed to be worth something, not worthless. They create money out of thin air! How stupid is that? But the ignorance doesn't end there. They borrow more money that someone else created out of thin air in another part of the world, by selling them IOUs for our fake money, and then are in debt to them for money that doesn't even exist in the first place, all the while giving our borrowed and printed fake money by the billions to other countries who are broke! It's lunacy! But more importantly, it is unsustainable.

Someone here talked about letting the private sector do it. I was reading states where they are bidding to get a private contractor to take over their prisons. The scary part was the company said they had to guarantee 95 percent occupancy. And how is the state going to do that and who is going to pay for that?

Actually one of the first things our founding fathers did was set up a treasury so they could borrow money. Gov doesnt run debt free, you are going to build a road with no debt or go to war.
Debt doesnt matter,the right is playing you. In fact Dick Cheney said it himself. Its all part of their game plan.

"The Two Santa Claus Theory
The Two Santa Claus Theory is a political theory and strategy published by Wanniski in 1976, which he promoted within the United States Republican Party.[6][7]
According to Wanniski, the theory is simple. In 1976, he wrote that the Two-Santa Claus Theory suggests that "the Republicans should concentrate on tax-rate reduction. As they succeed in expanding incentives to produce, they will move the economy back to full employment and thereby reduce social pressures for public spending. Just as an increase in Government spending inevitably means taxes must be raised, a cut in tax rates?by expanding the private sector?will diminish the relative size of the public sector".[7] Wanniski suggested this position, as Thom Hartmann has clarified, so that the Democrats would "have to be anti-Santas by raising taxes, or anti-Santas by cutting spending. Either one would lose them elections"[8].
The theory states that, in democratic elections, if one party appeals to voters by proposing more spending, then a competing party cannot gain broader appeal by proposing less spending. The first "Santa Claus" of the theory title refers to the political party that promises spending. Instead, "Two Santa Claus Theory" recommends that the competing party must assume the role of a second Santa Claus by not arguing to cut spending but rather offering the more appealing and publicly sellable option of cutting taxes.
This theory is a response to the belief of monetarists, and especially Milton Friedman[citation needed], that the government must be starved of revenue in order to control the growth of spending (since, in the view of the monetarists, spending cannot be reduced by elected bodies as the political pressure to spend is too great)[citation needed]. See also Starve the beast.
The "Two Santa Claus Theory" does not argue against this belief but holds that such arguments cannot be espoused to try to win democratic elections. In Wanniski's view, the Laffer curve and supply-side economics provide an attractive alternative rationale for revenue reduction: that under reduced taxation the economy will grow, not merely that the beast of the government will be starved of revenue, and that that growth is an attractive option to present to the voters. Wanniski argued that Republicans must become the tax-cutting Santa Claus to the Democrats' spending Santa Claus. "


Look at it everytime the right isnt in power they scream about debt. Then once they are they spend like drunken sailors. After ww2 debt was over 120 percent of gdp.

Sure you can have debt, you have to have credit. But that is the reason we have a debt ceiling that somehow keeps getting raised every time we hit it. That ceiling should never be raised unless there is a national emergency due to someone attacking us or a natural disaster.

If you hit the debt ceiling, then you can't borrow any more. This is not rocket science. You borrow what you are allowed to borrow, no more. Then you pay it down and then you can borrow some more. That is how credit works. Credit does not mean you can continue to borrow beyond your limit with no ability to ever pay it back. If you and I have to balance our budgets, so does the government (and states).

If that means they have to cut back on government spending, government entitlements, government employees, foreign aid, or build less roads that take you to the same location as 10 other roads do, then so be it. That is how it's supposed to work. If we can not afford it, then we can't afford it.

And why on earth are we giving billions of dollars in aid to other nations when we ourselves are drowning in debt?

It's crazy, irresponsible, and unsustainable.

They are going to fill those prisons (and all the new ones they are building) mostly with blacks. But will have plenty of room for Latinos and whites who also live in poverty.

Big money in prisons.

You owe them and they owe you. I think the point is that its not fair for the CEO to be banking Millions and hundreds of millions and laying people off that were instrumental in making the business that money.

Could be like Private Medicine. Where it costs more and delivers less. :thumbsup

All the people saying "We don't need Government". Best look at places that don't have it to see the shit storm no Government results in. Where shall I start?

Somalia maybe.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/...03_somalia.jpg

Ethiopia?

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...hiopia-600.jpg

Congo?

http://mydailyclarity.com/wp-content.../congo-war.jpg

Sudan?

http://blogfordarfur.org/files/2010/11/JEM.jpg

It's the Government that keeps this from happening where you live. Think about what keeps the gangs where they are?

Kane, thank you for saving me a bunch of typing, and for again being the voice of reason in a thread full of misinterpretation.

I especially enjoyed this part...

Couldn't have said it any clearer myself.

Did those people not get paid for the job they were hired to do?

going back to the gold standard would never would because there just isn't enough gold in the world to back it. what do you do when you run out of gold or whatever to back currency? no more wealth is able to be created?

Why would I be a "lowly worker" "with not much chance"?

I could have been that right here in my own lifetime.
But I'm not.

As far as electricity:
Thomas Edison (a guy who dropped out of school) is the one who personally wired up New York with his company. He envisioned electricity as being free for everyone. That was impossible of course. But the U.S. govt. had nothing to do with people having electricity. The electric company utilities (which charge me an arm and a leg) do.

How does the govt. "fund" the internet? That's really interesting to me. How? What exactly do they "fund"? And if they do...then WHY am I paying $150 a month for a 50 MBS download connection? Could of sworn those were all private businesses doing that.
Or do you mean that it was guys working for the govt. back a few decades who had the first primitive computers that communicated? Or NASA's work in computer technology?
Yes, I agree on THAT.
And guess what...those in society that actually pay taxes...paid for that. Right? But the govt. (whose money comes from people like me and you) doesn't have to "fund" the internet. We all pay for it when we pay our bill.

The govt. provides the "educated work force"? Really? How?
That statement is a bit crazy.
We have public schools. They are paid for by local property tax. People like me who own my own property have to write a check.
Public schools are definitely something that the govt. did a good thing in creating. The BAD part of it is that it's not a tax that is paid by everyone.

Courts that uphold contracts...yes, a civilized society does need courts to maintain the law.
I would say that our govt. (federal, state, and local) may have gone a little TOO far with writing laws though. They seem to have a law against EVERYTHING. And a lot of the "law" seems to be ways to grab even more money from citizens.

I agree that govt. has certain roles. But don't forget WE are the govt. (at least we are supposed to be). But the govt. seems to think that we work for them instead of the other way around.

The Treasury was set up to manage govt. revenue.

I think you're thinking of the Federal Reserve which was created in 1913 and is the central banking system of the U.S.
They are the ones who are supposed to keep banks from failing, etc.

And they pretty much set the interest rates.

They were supposed to be what would stop any more financial crisis's from happening. And then a couple of decades later....The Great Depression. lol

And of course every cycle of recession/boom times since.

A lot of people think that it's an "evil" organization. I think it's just like most things that govt. gets too deep in: ineffectual.

Yeah, it's not fair, but that's the way the business world operates. If you want to make millions and millions, you need to climb your way up that ladder until your the CEO.

Rulers, Gangs, Warlords... that's what you "are talking about not doing" but who will make sure this "not" is enforced?

back to square one :2 cents:

Thanks for validating my point.

They are both forms of government, the only choice you have is if you want it in it's current form or in this one...

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/...03_somalia.jpg

Unless you are a desperate hippie who believes in self-governance and ignores human nature.

no my friend that had to pay off the war debt bills and they borrowed money.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/kids/history/history.htm

You think the power gird got there by itself? It was gov money that paid for it.
If you read your history before the creation of the middle class if you were poor ,didnt finish grade school (my grandfather finished the 5th grade)and if you didn't come from money you were never going to get there for the most part.
The internet government funded the creation and paid for the set up of high speed infrastructure,the big companies didnt want to pay for it.

its worst now its all I got mine fuck you. Thats why ceo's now make 500x the avg worker and avg worker wages have been flat forever. Cheap credit hid alot of it. My father told me about the recession in the 70's wages were frozen but no one was let go. It was considered a loss of face to do that. They basically sat around with nothing to do til it blew over. It also blew over quicker because everyone was working. Not being laid off by the millions.

No, I was genuinely interested in two things. Why you knew how much he paid in taxes (I have no idea how much my dad paid, ever) and why would he pay over $1 million in taxes. Did he not have an accountant so did them on his own or just let the govt figure them out for him?

The argument has been made in the past that the governments that start out the smallest and most non-invasive, like how the US was as a republic, are the ones that end up the most tyrannical and over reaching. The US is quickly becoming proof of that.

Governments do not work, they always fail because everything they're about (aggression) is against human nature. Humans are not inherently violent, they only become violent when you place them under a hierarchical system of aggression, otherwise known as the state.

Here's a really good/thought provoking debate with Peter Schiff and Stefan Molyneux.. Schiff is a minarchist, Molyneux is an anarchist.

A government has money for schools, hospitals, roads etc only because entrepreneurs create business and jobs which is where the government derives the majority of revenue to provide those things

you completely missed mine :2 cents:

Let me take it step by step for you, dumb it down a little :

You said : "this is what I'm talking about NOT doing"

If there is a NOT there is a rule, it's a form of governance.

Whether you're naive enough to believe in Anarcho-Pacifism and think the rule will enforce itself is irrelevant, it's still a form of governance.

I've said this countless times but I'll give it another go...

Dumping, insider trading, price fixing would destroy free markets. Free markets are markets dictated solely by supply and demand, free of manipulation, not free of regulation :2 cents:

Go back and read what I said. There are enough commodities to back a currency, it doesn't just have to be gold.

If gold was once good enough to back currencies all over the world since the existence of paper money, then a mix of commodities would be good enough to back the world currencies now.

Since Nixon totally took us off the Gold standard in 1971, only 41 years has passed. That's it. This entire cluster fuck of a global economy has happened since then. It didn't happen before, it happened after. I have also read that it is not true that there is not enough Gold to back currencies again, but lets say it is true, then you use multiple metals.

Yes, moving back to a gold/silver/whatever backed currency would limit lending, but that is a good thing. Not a bad thing. The ONLY reason they are not going back to a backed currency is because those who are profiting the most off of fiat currency will no longer be able to game the system, and every country will have to follow a budget. How can you wage illegal wars, have endless government entitlements, and bail out businesses who are "too big to fail" if you have a budget to keep?

http://didntbuildthat.com/. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

1) A society of educated law abiding workers earning a fair wage.
2) A sector of commercial businesses innovating and taking risks within the limits of a legal framework of regulations.
3) A powerful government of statesmen capable of creating useful laws with TEETH that keep workers and businesses in line with a broader agenda aimed at improving life for everyone involved.

You can not have any two of the above without the third piece. It really is that simple. What we have now are unregulated businesses blaming workers and being backed by the GOP, lazy entitled workers who bleed the system and blame businesses while being backed by Democrats, and a government that is being used as a business by profiteers from both 'sides' that have no interest in the greater goals of our society. That's why it is broken. It won't be fixed until people take off their 'red shirts' and 'blue shirts' long enough to realize we are actually all on the same team. :2 cents:

Sure look how well that worked for the porn industry when people can choose to do the right thing or steal, it's amazing what happens :1orglaugh

Finally something we can agree on :thumbsup

The respect of property rights is the underlying basis of free markets, so no the current porn industry isn't a free market.

Anyway nowhere in the post you quoted did I mention free markets. only the "amazing things that happen" when people are not forced to do the right thing:2 cents:

Free market isn't when you "shoot with a girl" it's when you sell it :2 cents:

Content theft, like dumping, skews normal market competition it's the polar opposite of what market economies stand for.

As usual you make some good points.

What I have seen over this administration is that the divide between red shirts and blue shirts has gotten much deeper and more viscious. There are people that I used to almost call *friends*. Today we have nothing to say. And the root cause is the political climate. In many cases the damage that has been done here in Wisconsin won't be undone.

We agree.

That trajectory was set in place by career congressmen with no fear of being replaced, but Obama has done a poor job of altering its path. He allows blowhards like Bohener or Cantor far too much leeway as a minority party bent on stirring up conflict and even worse he lets dumbasses in his own party like Pelosi get out in front of issues that he should be the face of from the start.

As one simple failure to communicate his message:
Just imagine if Obama said from the start 'We should continue the tax breaks on the first $250,000 dollars earned by EVERY American each year" (which is 100% true using the graduated tax system we have in place) - instead of saying "We are extending tax breaks for anyone earning less than $250,000" (which is inflammatory and factually less accurate). If you make 20 million you get the identical tax break on the first 249K as someone making 249K gets... you do pay a higher rate on the amount over 250K... but not a higher rate on the first 250K you earn.

Unfortunately Romney is likely to be even worse and until we fix the election campaign system we are unlikely to get any candidates who are significantly better. I am a bigger proponent of real national healthcare than anyone else you are likely to meet. I would gladly trade the Roberts vote on the healthcare act for a flip of his vote in Citizens United. That decision will retard our nation for generations if it is not overturned.

I will ask for a second time since you didn't answer the first time. How does competing currencies in the US make us a better, stronger country? Also, how does it work? Who is going to control and back these currencies and how are they going to do it for profit?

We already have competing currencies. You can trade all your dollars right now for Euros, Yen, Gold or the currency of any other nation. You just can't trade your 'State currency' for the currency of any other State because only the federal government can mint money. Just a quick note, if States each had their own currency, over the last 200 years the rest of the nation would have been financially enslaved by New York, Texas and California.

The problem with our currency is that so much of it is owned by other nations or subject to our growing debt... not that we have too few kinds of it. For example, Monopoly money in six different colors is all equally worthless because it isn't backed by any real value. The orange paper isn't worth more than the white paper just because one says $500 and the other says $1 on it. The same will be true of multiple currencies or our sole currency in real life if we don't curtail its demise.