[ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Mon Oct 21 15:15:49 UTC 2013


On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>wrote:

 > a high number of Tea Party advocates believe in creationism.
>
>
Yes.


>  > The question though is can you hold your nose and be in the room with
> that level of craziness
>
>
No I can't, the stink of stupid is just too strong.


> > in order to bring fiscal responsibility to Washington?
>

The economic ideas of the hillbilly wing of the Republican party are just
as irrational as their biological ideas, and in my lifetime I have never
observed more irresponsible behavior by a American politician than what I
observed from the Tea Party Republicans on Wednesday night.


> > I'm a Libertarian, which reflects my thoughts that the Tea Party has it
> right on fiscal issues
>

I'm a Libertarian too, but I'm not suicidal, or irrational.


> > But with the juggernaut that is Washington, how else do you slow it down
> other than throwing bodies under it? This is a serious question. How the
> hell do we slow it down?
>

Easy, if you're in congress you vote to spend less money. And if things
don't come out your way you try to convince others to come around to your
way of thinking so that next time the outcome is different. What you DON'T
do is have a temper tantrum and try your very best to destroy the world
because you're angry that you lost.


> >> That chart is really not a very good argument that debt is bad,
>> according to it the largest percentage of debt to GDP happen in 1946, just
>> before the 1950's boon times and the largest increase in economic activity
>> in history. And the second largest economic boon happened during the
>> Clinton years, a time of increasing debt.
>>
>
> > And yet it shows a trend towards levels of debt that we haven't
> experienced since the TRUE emergency of WWII. Does anyone other then Eugen
> think we are currently facing a crisis that rises to the level of WWII?
>

Well, wars are very expensive, the Republicans started 2 and refused to
raise taxes to pay for them. And then we entered the greatest economic
downturn since the 1930's. And by the way, the Great Depression would have
probably ended in 1938 if drastic measures were not taken to stop
inflation,  inflation which did not exist in 1938. Sound familiar?


> > creationism.  The Tea Party holds no position on that subject.
>

I don't know how you determine the position of the Tea Party about anything
except by looking at the position of Tea Party members, and nearly all of
the most prominent ones are creationists, and very vocal and militant ones
too. And there is a connection, if you don't think logic is important in
one subject, like biology, then you probably don't think logic is important
in another subject, like economics. At any rate it would certainly be
irrational to claim that there is not a very strong connection between the
Tea Party and creationism.

> The president would have folded in the face of such pressure, and the
> individual mandate for Obamacare would have been sensibly put off for a year
>

It is time to face reality, the president is never EVER going to abandon
Obama care. There are 2 reasons:

1) It was passed by the House and the Senate and the Supreme Court said it
was constitutional and, although you may not like it, Obamacare is the
single thing the president is most proud of having accomplished.

2) If Obama gives in to terrorist demands and they are seen to be
successful then he knows that the exact same tactics will be used against
him and future presidents again and again and again.

 > other than threatening to default on the debt,


Besides that Mrs. Lincoln how did you like the play?


>  > what CRAZY economic theory do you attribute to the Tea Party?
>

How about the USA going back to the Gold Standard and in effect give China
and Australia and the happenstance of geology the power that the Federal
Reserve Board has now, as both countries produce more gold than the USA
does. And Uzbekistan becomes a major world power and Japan and Briton and
Germany and France become insignificant footnotes. Do you expect a radical
change like that to happen in 90 minutes without blood in the streets?


> > We need a currency based on Work, in the Physics sense. You could value
> oil in the amount of Work it would do, and then you could value everything
> else in terms of oil.
>

So how much Work in the physical sense does a computer programmer do, or a
novelist, or a cancer researcher, or a Tea party politician?


> > Money's main purpose is to simply avoid barter.
>

Yes.


> > To store wealth in between transactions.
>

Yes.

> Anything will serve this purpose

No not just anything can serve that purpose, only those things that, for
whatever reason, people have faith will retain its value in the future. And
thanks to Tea Party Neanderthals in congress that is the faith that came
within 90 minutes of being destroyed forever.


> > if you have a central power that can create inflationary or deflationary
> pressure on a currency, then the currency is less stable or trustworthy for
> use as a medium of exchange.
>

Since currency was first invented countries have exerted inflationary and
deflationary pressure on them and the US dollar is no exception, but
nevertheless it remains the most trusted currency in the world. The
hillbilly republicans are doing everything they can to destroy that trust.


> > The reason that some of us like Bitcoin is that it is just such a
> currency, and is largely independent of centralized meddling (other than
> just declaring it illegal).
>

If the free market decides it would prefer Bitcoins to dollars who am I to
disagree, but that will take a long time if ever. Bitcoin, just like any
other form of money, has value because people have faith it will be
valuable in the future; right now far far fewer people have faith in
Bitcoin than in the US dollar, so far far fewer people are willing to
accept it as exchange. If Bitcoin can get over its wild and unpredictable
price swings the faith people have in it could increase, but that sure as
hell was not going to happen on Wednesday night in the 90 minutes before
the dollar was lynched by hillbillies.


> > based on evidence and frequent verification by exchange.
>

The US dollar has been the backbone of world exchange for nearly a century,
and you want to destroy that and make gold worthless too.


>  > Spike does not want to make gold nor dollars worthless, I'm sure.
>

I don't care what he wants I care what would happen and default would make
the dollar worthless and dumping everything in Fort Knox on the market
would make gold worthless. By the way, what form of payment would we accept
for all those thousands of tons of gold? Paper currency? Issued from what
country?


> > The problem most people have with the debt and deficit is not related to
> deflation or inflation, it's related to fairness.
>

If the Tea Party can make rich people poor but can't make poor people rich
then fuck fairness.


> > How can the government operate in perpetual deficit when individuals and
> corporations can not?
>

Because government can print money and corporations can't. Printing money
can be a wonderful thing, or a terrible thing, it depends on the
circumstances.


>  >Every time the government prints a dollar, the dollar in your pocket
> goes down in value just a little.
>

During the last 5 years the free market has disagreed with you about that,
despite a lot more dollars having been printed prices have not gone up, and
I think the free market is wiser in these matters than you or me.

  John K Clark


>
>
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