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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>>…</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark<br><br></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:#1F497D'> </span> the Tea Party is the problem here<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='color:#1F497D'> ></span><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='color:#1F497D'> So what happens if we elect a bunch more of them next fall?</span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>I think that is unlikely. For one thing there is a limited supply of people that dumb<span style='color:#1F497D'>…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>John what do you make of this?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/tea-party-science-98488.html?hp=r3">http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/tea-party-science-98488.html?hp=r3</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>All is not lost for our embarrassed mainstream left wing, for the claim can be made that there is no evidence that the Tea Party is an extreme wing of either end of the political spectrum. Why could not they argue that the Tea Party is actually the far left? Then the Yale professor would be able to more easily explain his results.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>I don’t see why not: two famous left wing figures pointed out several years ago where this is headed, Charley Rangel in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2006. Why not see the Tea Party position as extrapolating on what these guys realized several years ago?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>I still haven’t been able to figure out why it is lunacy to point out that the US is not only pretending to pay off debts with borrowed money, but that we are admitting we have no way out. We are saying by yesterday’s action that we are borrowing money to pay for what we already bought, and simultaneously buying a whole bunch of new stuff, which immediately becomes a bunch of stuff we already bought. Remind me please, is it merely stupid or both stupid and crazy, to point out that this plan is not just stupid, it is stupid and crazy?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>If it is crazy stupid lunacy now, how much crazier and loonier was it 7 to 10 years ago when the left wing rising stars were forcefully delivering the same message, when the deficit was a quarter what it is now and the debt was less than a third as much as it is now? Those guys must have been some really powerful brand of stupid. How could they even stay in office? Could it be that the Tea Party has little or nothing to do with mainstream left or right? That the attitude that we must live within our means does not map onto the traditional political spectrum in any meaningful way?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Earlier I had an alternative suggestion to repeatedly raising the government borrowing limit: we sell the gold in Fort Knox. Every American to whom I suggested this thought it a terrible idea. So the obvious question is, if we are issuing IOUs and the world is pretending these are money, is not that identical to selling the actual gold? Are we admitting these IOUs are not as good as gold, but rather are as good as paper?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>John your objection as I recall is that it would cause chaos by tanking the value of gold. I don’t see why that is such a problem. In fact it gives me a great idea. We sell several tons of gold, but only to those countries which mint real money. That dump causes the price of gold to go down. Then we buy it back at the lower price using US money. We end up with their currency, they end up with ours. It is like ordinary currency trading, only with the gold supply in Ft. Knox jacking the price around, we get a discount for a while. Cause chaos, and profit from it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Of course that might create some new problems, but consider this. We are being told that the world’s economy has become dependent on American overconsumption, that markets will collapse without that factor, etc. So we as a species have painted ourselves into a corner: the world’s economies depend on the US to overspend, while the US depends on the world economies to lend us the money to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>Remind me again please: is this scheme is crazy and stupid? Or rather is suggesting that this scheme is crazy and stupid crazy and stupid?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>>…Gee, and I can't imagine why the risk is rising. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>… John K Clark<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>I can, John. Plenty of us can.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>