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The financial panics didn't happen because we were on the gold standard or because of it. They happened for varioius reasons OTHER than the gold standard. We created legislation like Glass-Steagal and others to stop similar types of panics. It was a total different financial world back then.

 

Nor did I say it did. What I said was that in the Great Depression, the gold standard made it worse because it limited what could be done to expand the monetary base, and also that countries that went off it did better sooner than those that didn’t. OTOH, the 1987 crash turned out to be a minor blip (on the broader scale of the economy) because the Fed was free to pump liquidity as it saw fit.

I saw an analysis written in the mid 90s that noted at that time, gold had a 1000% increase in price since it was let to float in 1971; whereas the DOW goes up 700% and consumer prices 250%. Do the math on the deflation that would have to occur if you had to keep the price of gold from rising.

Ron Paul appears to think deflation is good. You might think deflation is good if you are sitting on piles of cash, but if you run a business where you have to borrow to replenish your inventory, when you sell it, you are getting back less than you put in. So it is contractionary.

There are other scenarios: suppose you are on the gold standard and another country with a big economy such as China or Germany goes on it (or off it). More pressures on the supply/demand of gold that your economy has nothing to do with. BTW, Germany did that with silver and that is considered to be a cause of the Panic of 1878, which was very severe.

I remember seeing Paul respond to a question on corporate fraud, but his answer dodged the question. His response might have had true statements, but they had little to do with the question. In other words, he is a typical politician. Plus his ideology brings the worst of the 19th century. Remember how companies would not pay their workers in money, but in company script. Would this be an outcome from Paul’s ideas on competition of currency? As I understand this and other statements he has made, it would sanction this. Maybe he is just dumb and hasn’t thought it out?

 

 

 

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State to fight ruling against ban on race in college admissions

 

 

 

Detroit— Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said today he will appeal a court ruling that overturned the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which bans the use of race and gender preferences in college admissions and government hiring and contracting.

 

Schuette said he will make a formal request for a rehearing with the appeals court, a move that will keep the civil rights initiative — known as Proposal 2 — in place at least temporarily.

 

[color:red]"MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law," Schuette said in a statement. "Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law."[/color]

 

A federal appeals court today overturned Proposal 2, saying the voter-approved measure harms minorities and is unconstitutional.

 

The 2006 law forced the University of Michigan and other state schools to revise their admission policies. In a 2-1 decision, the judges ruled that the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

 

The court in particular objected to the inclusion of the voter-approved ban in the Michigan Constitution in its 59-page ruling.

 

"Proposal 2 reorders the political process in Michigan to place special burdens on minority interests," judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Martha Craig Daughtrey said.

 

The ban, passed with 58 percent of the vote nearly five years ago, affected government hiring as well as college admissions.

 

In 2008, a federal judge in Detroit upheld the law, saying it was race-neutral.

 

George Washington, the chief attorney for the law's opponents, applauded the decision today.

 

[color:red]"It's a great victory. It means affirmative action is legal again in college admissions. It means that thousands of talented black, Latino and Native Americans can go to our public universities," Washington said.[/color] :content:

 

Jennifer Gratz, who headed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative ballot proposal, said she doesn't think the ruling is going to stand long term because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled initiatives than ban ran preferences are constitutional.

 

[color:red]"To me, this is the epitome of an activist court. These justices held onto this ruling for years and released it the day before the holiday weekend. They were hoping they would catch people off guard and not make the news," said, Gratz, director of the American Civil Rights Institute, a California-based group that advocates against affirmative action.[/color]

 

Ward Connerly, a former University of California regent who was a major backer of Proposal 2 and California's similar Proposition 209, said the ruling means the people have no right to govern their own institutions.

 

"It's saying the people have no right to insist that everyone be treated equality. It places the ultimate decision in the hands of the university — that they are supreme ones," Connerly said by phone from California. "It's a terrible, terrible decision that will not stand."

 

Shanta Driver, an attorney in the firm of Scheff, Washington and Driver, which brought the lawsuit to end the ban on affirmative action, said that in light of its victory in the Michigan case, the firm will turn its attention to California. Driver said they plan to file a lawsuit in the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in California to strike down Proposition 209.

 

Michigan's two largest public universities, both parties in the lawsuit, said they would study the ruling before responding to it.

 

"As a party to the litigation, we are in the process of carefully reviewing this complex opinion," Heather Swain, interim vice president of university relations for Michigan State University, said in a statement. "This is a significant issue that impacts universities, and we need to give it thoughtful consideration."

 

In a statement, University of Michigan spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said U-M "is reviewing the possible implications of the court's decision, and recognizes that there may be further legal steps as well."

 

Opponents of Proposal 2 blamed the measure for declines in the percentage of minorities in U-M's freshman classes in the years immediately after the ruling.

 

Underrepresented minorities made up 12.6 percent of freshmen in fall 2006, the last class fully admitted before the passage of Proposal 2. The proportion of Hispanic, African-American and Native-American students dropped each year afterward, falling to 9.1 percent in 2009.

 

However, last fall, U-M reported its minority freshman enrollment had rebounded to 10.6 percent.

 

Gregory Creswell of Detroit gathered signatures for Proposal 2, the ballot initiative banning race and gender in college admissions. He said today he was dismayed by the decision.

 

"In a free society, politicians should not determine who wins and loses in life. It should be that person based on their merits. I don't want the government being for me because of my skin color or against me," Creswell said.

 

Victoria Sudul, 22, who just graduated from U-M with a degree in biology, said she supports the ruling overturning Proposal 2.

 

"I actually think it's a good thing," she said today in Ann Arbor. "I think it's just another window of opportunity for others. I think there are so many other scholarships and awards aimed toward other groups, why not affirmative action?

 

"I don't understand why people are trying to close the window of opportunity for education."

 

The activist group By Any Means Necessary, which pursued the lawsuit to overturn Proposal 2, scheduled news conferences at 2 p.m. at the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor and 4 p.m. at 645 Griswold in Detroit to discuss the ruling. The Detroit Branch of the NAACP also scheduled a news conference at 3:30 p.m. to address the decision.

 

 

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The financial panics didn't happen because we were on the gold standard or because of it. They happened for varioius reasons OTHER than the gold standard. We created legislation like Glass-Steagal and others to stop similar types of panics. It was a total different financial world back then.

 

Nor did I say it did. What I said was that in the Great Depression' date=' the gold standard made it worse because it limited what could be done to expand the monetary base, and also that countries that went off it did better sooner than those that didn’t. OTOH, the 1987 crash turned out to be a minor blip (on the broader scale of the economy) because the Fed was free to pump liquidity as it saw fit.

I saw an analysis written in the mid 90s that noted at that time, gold had a 1000% increase in price since it was let to float in 1971; whereas the DOW goes up 700% and consumer prices 250%. Do the math on the deflation that would have to occur if you had to keep the price of gold from rising.

Ron Paul appears to think deflation is good. You might think deflation is good if you are sitting on piles of cash, but if you run a business where you have to borrow to replenish your inventory, when you sell it, you are getting back less than you put in. So it is contractionary.

There are other scenarios: suppose you are on the gold standard and another country with a big economy such as China or Germany goes on it (or off it). More pressures on the supply/demand of gold that your economy has nothing to do with. BTW, Germany did that with silver and that is considered to be a cause of the Panic of 1878, which was very severe.

I remember seeing Paul respond to a question on corporate fraud, but his answer dodged the question. His response might have had true statements, but they had little to do with the question. In other words, he is a typical politician. Plus his ideology brings the worst of the 19th century. Remember how companies would not pay their workers in money, but in company script. Would this be an outcome from Paul’s ideas on competition of currency? As I understand this and other statements he has made, it would sanction this. Maybe he is just dumb and hasn’t thought it out?

 

 

[/quote']

The Great Depression was caused by the Fed Reserve making the money supply shrink in the USA! They caused the depression!!

 

Add money to the supply...that caused your buying power to go down!!!

 

Buy gold tens years ago...exchange it to US dollars today and look at how much you can buy, a lot!

Take today's deflated dollar today and you can't buy squat.

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The Great Depression was caused by the Fed Reserve making the money supply shrink in the USA! They caused the depression!!

 

Add money to the supply...that caused your buying power to go down!!!

 

Buy gold tens years ago...exchange it to US dollars today and look at how much you can buy, a lot!

Take today's deflated dollar today and you can't buy squat.

 

Of course, the price of gold, it can only go up!

 

So why did the fed let the money supply decline? Wikipedia (so it must be true) has the answer

One reason why the Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was regulation. At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act, which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics a portion of those demand notes were redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by a greater reduction in credit. On April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates, coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold

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Ghostdog, as I said in one of my previous posts. I'm no expert on the gold standard. However, it appears that the Federal Reserve was never a good idea. If we didn't have the Fed, perhaps, just a guess, we wouldn't have had such problems.

 

Once again, the 'meat' of my view is NOT the gold standard. You think its a bad idea. Fair enough. There are plenty of bad ideas from other candidates as well. The 'meat' of my argument is that there is a candidate NOT beholden to the special interests in any way remotely as much as the candidates of the two major parties.

 

The NUMBER ONE problem for America today is that the government makes regulations and laws to suit the special interest. ALL other problems stem from that fact alone. BOTH parties are owned by various groups. It leading candidates are. What is the solution for that? I've asked that question but have not gotten an answer.

 

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No, I have not answered that because I haven’t tried to. I have been stating why Ron Paul is a bad idea, and presented facts to support that. In the broader picture, there is no guarantee that having a president that meets your ideal of NOT being beholden to special interests would come up with a good policy. Or even if they did, be able to get it passed.

 

However, I don’t think that your number one problem is anything new. I think when one reads US history in any detail, this is the way it has always been, starting with the Washington administration. I don’t think all problems stem from that one, nor is it my number one concern.

This problem pales in the problems future generations are going to have to face regarding energy sources, increased population, and climate change.

 

For these days, it has been said elsewhere by others, but I cannot improve on it: Cut corporate welfare. Cut the defense budget. Taxes go back to Clinton levels. Support the strong unions that created a middle class in the first place. Build infrastructure. Take the profit out of health care.

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