FYI, Gordon Letich is f-ing crazy, so it really must have been anti-Smith votes for the most part. Seriously, any candidate who bases their views on the gold standard is seriously f-ed up.

Paul and Barr don't appeal to the same constituencies. I'm surprised Stephanopoulos thought that.

Weren't there about 50,000 under votes in the Democratic senate primary?

What will happen with those potential votes in November?

Pat, there were about 90,000, and it'll be our job to turn those voters (as well as susceptible NAVs) to Merkley for the fall.

I think a lot of those Democratic undervotes were from people excited about the presidential primary whose enthusiasm did not extend to the rest of the election. We have to persuade those people that a Democratic president will be more effective with another Democrat in the Senate.

While Barr and Paul might appeal to different constituencies, I think their popularity points to a deep dissatisfaction with the current Republican Party. After witnessing their repeated incompetence and cronyism, voters have concluded that the Bush administration isn't really conservative, but rather it embraces the ideology of selfishness. This has tarnished the other Republicans that supported the president. I can understand why many principled conservatives would be looking to jump ship.

We'll also have Obama's help, since he will be able to pitch for Merkley in November. Rulial's theory makes sense, that a lot of those undervotes came from people excited about the presidential primary who were either undecided, uninformed or uninterested in other races. In November, they'll have clearer D vs R choices to make, so I suspect that will help.

I watched some of the LibParty convention on C-SPAN. It was fascinating because between each ballot, C-SPAN cameras followed the candidates around the convention floor as they sought to improve their support. Each candidate was "mic'd" and seemed to have no reluctance pointing out why they would be the better candidate. In the end, it came down to 3 candidates: Barr, Mary Ruwart ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ruwart ), and Wayne Allen Root ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Allyn_Root ). It took 6 ballots, with Barr and Ruwart meeting in the final vote and Barr winning after Root ( 3rd place finisher ) endorsed Barr before the final ballot after pitching himself as VP candidate. Also there was an Oregon connected candidate: Michael Jingosian: http://www.resetamerica.com/main.html

Barr, the eventual winner, has an interesting history, not only did he (while still a Republican in Congress) vote for the Patriot Act, he also supported the Defense of Marriage Act as well as voting to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq ( http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml ). Ruwart, in her unsuccessful bid for the nomination pointed out that Barr will have a difficult time attracting Libertarian voters with that record ( http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/libertarians-si.html ).

In a weird way, it reminded me of the major political conventions of yore when candidates were selected during the convention instead of during the primaries. Entertaining television ...

Just a note to correct the opening sentence, Ron Paul is currently serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and has no opposition in this November's election for his house seat. He is a former Libertarian candidate.

Yeah former Congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate should read Congressman and former Libertarian presidential candidate.

I have gone through the Crook County vote, generally a fairly strong County for Republicans (with notable exceptions such as Wyden and some local Democrats). There is what appears to be protest votes both in the Presidential and Senate elections, but also a real drop off in voting. Before I get into the drop off issue, note that McCain only got 84.9% of the vote, and Smith got 86.7% - in a Republican primary!

In the primary election, we had hotly contested County Commission and County Judge races in addition to the Destination Resort issue. You'd think that Republican would at least match the voter turnout of the Democrats. Not so. Of those who did not return a ballot in Crook County, 19% were Democrats, 37% were Independents/others, and 41% were Republicans. The by-party turn out rates were: Democrat 76%, Republican 63%, and Independent/other 37%. (The differences in these two ways of looking at this are the underlying percentage of registration by party.)

This is in a County that generally has a very high ballot return rate. In the 2006 primary, we had a 72.9% ballot return rate compared to 2008 with a 60.03% return rate. -- Nearly all of that drop off is due to Republicans that did not vote.

So, between the protest votes in the neighborhood of 15%, and the no votes - even though Republicans have a 13% higher voter registration rate than Democrats in Crook Co., that 13% gap is close to erased by the non-votes, and depending upon which way the protest votes go, it is even better than that.

If the Republicans are in trouble in a strong-hold like Crook County, what of the rest of the State?

Questions: Will the 50,000 people who voted for Ron Paul in Oregon's GOP presidential primary affect the outcome by refusing to vote for McCain in the fall? Are those 50,000 Republicans the same as the 47,000 Republicans who voted for Gordon Smith's primary opponent, Gordon Leitch?

Kari, you're off message. Gordon Smith is supposed to be a crazy right-wing conservative, remember? Not a moderate who might drive conservative Republicans to vote for someone else. Ditto(head) with McCain.

Must. Remember. Talking points. :-)

Perhaps Barr can run for president on the basis of his greatest success: the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

I find it fascinating just how empty of all ideological consistency the Libertarian Party has become. What was once a pretty consistent group (if you think back to the people they ran for president in the 1980s, say) has turned into the vehicle for whichever disaffected wingnut, regardless of previous political affiliation, manages to temporarily capture the party's nominating process.

If people really want to know why a lot of people voted for Ron Paul in Oregon, you could go over to one of the OR4RonPaul Yahoo lists.

A lot of people voting for Ron Paul are really pissed off about a variety of different issues. A lot of AntiNAISers are also Ron Paul supporters, they have a big problem with public officials from both the democratic and the republican establishments and big business giving our sovereignty over to the UN, WTO, Office Internationale de Epizootie (OIE), FAO and Codex. They are royally pissed off at Real ID, the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, the Patriot Act, various land use issues, the UN's Agenda 21, etc..

What a lot of people, the antiNAISers and others jumping on the Ron Paul bandwagon, see, is half their freedoms being handed over to internationalist for trade purposes and the other half being handed over to internationalists for social engeneering. They've been pushed and pushed and they've had enough. They don't see either the democratic or republican candidates that are currently running as being able, willing or even interested in looking out for their interests. A lot of the votes for Ron Paul are protest votes, but if these people keep gaining steam like they have been, they might eventually give the Ds and Rs something of a run for their money, especially in congressional and state races over the next few years. I believe this is more likely if government on both the national and state levels keeps going in the direction I've seen it moving in for the last 20 years or so.

Here are a couple of websites that might give you an idea as to why all sorts of people are voting for Ron Paul, even though he doesn't have a chance of doing any more than send a message of dissatisfaction to the establishment, not that it'll do much good....The establishment doesn't appear to be all that interested in listening to people like these, and even if it did, a lot of very powerful and entrenched people would loose money, jobs, influence, etc..

Granny Warriors Freedom Rally in Washington DC, April 15th Ralley in Sturgis SD, July 2-6

While many Libertarian purists bemoan Barr's lack of LP pedigree, I was stoked to see him win in Denver. If he were the same Bob Barr that impeached Clinton and pushed for stronger Drug Prohibition, I'd be burning my LP memebership card right now instead of cutting a check to BARR'08. The guy has come a LONG way.

While many Libertarian purists bemoan Barr's lack of LP pedigree, I was stoked to see him win in Denver. If he were the same Bob Barr that impeached Clinton and pushed for stronger Drug Prohibition, I'd be burning my LP memebership card right now instead of cutting a check to BARR'08.

Cool, as long as you send your money to Barr instead of McCain, I'm not bothered.

The Libertarian Party motto: "I've got mine, Jack, now you f*** off."

I don't know what "ex-libertarian bonafides" are supposed to be, but I can admit to having had a flirtation with the Libertarian Party once myself, in the early 80s, at a time when I was appalled by Reagan and disgusted with the Cold War liberals running the Democratic Party. The Libertarian Party was firmly anti-interventionist and that's what attracted me. When I looked closer, however, and looked for more than an anti-intervention stance in foreign policy, what I saw was less attractive: a complete lack of appreciation for the notion of the commonwealth. What I saw was smugness, arrogance, and anti-social aloofness in search of an self-justifying ideology.

Mr. Lowe,

I'd like the link you mentioned; I cannot find it on Butcher's blog.

I agree there is probably some common ground amongst "civil libertarians" of various political stripes, but how does one bridge the gaps? A huge gap that particularly come to mind: firearms. What one group sees as common-sense restrictions for the sake of society, the other sees as a gross affront to personal liberty. I'm of the former opinion, have tried to discuss the topic with folks of the latter, and made no progress at all. OK, that's just me, but I don't see myself as a fanatic (and I've even fired real guns a few times).

No Miles. You're confused. Barr is and has been a consistent advocate for the Bill of Rights

Pat, I wasn't talking about Barr at all, I was talking about Smith. The talking points that we're all supposed to be using with Smith (and McCain) are that they are far-right ideologues (i.e., crazy right-wing conservatives) who simply put on a moderate face to get votes. Kari's argument undercuts that by suggesting that they ARE moderate, and the crazy conservatives may look for someone else -- like Barr. (BTW, getting the votes of crazy conservatives does not in fact mean Barr is one. I make no judgement on that.)

Personally, I think Smith is a moderate, at least compared to current GOPers. I'm just pointing out that we now have two conflicting narratives going on.

Ron Paul believes in the gold standard too, among his peculiarities.

If I had to choose between someone who wanted a return to the gold standard but who upheld his oath to defend the Constitution and someone who opposed a return to the gold standard but who was prepared to shred the Constitution and nuke Iran (or anyone else for that matter) if it was in his (McCain's) or her (Hillary's) interest, I would be more inclined to risk a return to the gold standard.

The economy might tank on the gold standard, but it seems to me that making this a police state and nuking Iran and increasing Muslim hostility towards the U.S. could be a lot worse, especially when they control so much of our oil supply and most Americans didn't have enough sense to learn any of the obvius lessons of the 1973 oil scare.

"Paul, writing in his independent political newsletter in 1992, reported about unspecified surveys of blacks. 'Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action,' Paul wrote. Paul continued that politically sensible blacks are outnumbered 'as decent people.' Citing reports that 85 percent of all black men in the District of Columbia are arrested, Paul wrote: 'Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,' Paul said. Paul also wrote that although 'we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.'"

I'm a bit late to comment here, and I'm sidetracking with this question, but what is the argument against the gold standard. I mean, isn't it a problem that the Federal Reserve is creating money at a pace something like 14% annually? Historically, that will eventually translate to greater inflation than we're seeing now, and what we're seeing now is widely regarded as being quite a bit higher than the "official" numbers. With gold, one doesn't have that problem.

That having been said, I won't be voting for Barr. I'm a bit too fond of the quote "Libertarianism is just anarchy for rich people."

The question I meant to ask is more like, "could you point me to a well-reasoned online argument against the gold standard?" I've looked, and I tend to find arguments on either side to be unconvincing (primarily because both sides have very good counter-points). In spite of this, the establishment comes down in favor of fiat currency, so there may be some understanding that an economics degree confers upon a person that I'm just missing out on.

As far as the 1930's, it's not uncommon for me to see an article on how today's situation mirrors it in a lot of ways. Corporate share of the tax burden is at an extreme low. Economic stratification between wealthy and poor is at an extreme high. We've accomplished this under a system of fiat currency. Given that, I wonder why people rail against the gold standard so hard. I'm not saying that those indicators are proof we'll get all 1930's on the world, but that I wouldn't be surprised if we had an equally monstrous recession.

In the final analysis, what matters is how well people are doing. If we have a fixed supply of money, and the economy expands, there's less money to chase each given item, and we have deflation. If our money supply expands with the economy, we should have "no-flation". If our money supply expands much faster than the economy, we have inflation. If our inflation is accompanied by falling prices, we have stagflation. Which is where people can't even afford to buy things in spite of a devalued dollar. Which I think is as bad as deflation. Which is kinda' where we are today. Raise increases don't keep pace with inflation, which is just another way of saying that people are getting salary cuts each year. I wish for "no-flation".

Ah well, thanks for your good spirit of civility.

Chris, thanks for the lengthy reply.

I'm certainly no historian, but I take it that you'd consider gold's suitability "then" and today to be different. You cite an uptick in gold production as being how gold got us out of economic trouble in the past. IE the ability to rapidly expand the money supply is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. Today, however, we can't count on the added liquidity of such discoveries to bail us out because we've explored most of the promising areas. Do I interpret your meaning correctly?

I take a different approach than you do. I appreciate the arbitrary nature of assigning wealth to objects (though gold does have quite a bit of intrinsic value today based upon its excellent conductivity and refusal to oxidize). Gold trumps cowries because cowrie production can be ramped up very quickly, whereas gold production is only going to amount to 1 or 2 percent annually of all that's been dug up to date--even if we ramp up production.

In short, I believe that the ability to snap one's fingers and create money/liquidity out of thin air is not a good thing. The Federal Reserve / national banks / government have used this fact to ward off downturns that by all means should happen. The result has been that we have transferred wealth to bubble after bubble after bubble, and have postponed but not avoided what inevitably must happen--a recession. Because we've been pushing back against recession for quite a few years now, the one we do get (perhaps the one we are in now) will probably be worse than it would otherwise have been.

You could say that that's not an argument against fiat currency, but is an argument against bad policy. You'd be correct. But show me the government that behaves itself. We've done a lousy job of having our politicians serve us. Each year, they fail to balance the budget and rather than tell us they're raising taxes, they expand the money supply (which devalues the money we regular citizens hold, which amounts to less wealth for us, which is equivalent to a tax increase). A gold standard would force the gov't to try balancing the budget, and to be honest about what we as a nation can and cannot afford.

All that ranting having been done, I don't want you to get the wrong idea about me. I'm a socialist who doesn't mind appropriately-regulated capitalism. As far as libertarianism goes, I'm much closer to them than to the current crop of Neo-con's we have in most Republican offices. And as far as fiat currency goes (which gold is not--excepting when the government decides to tell us how much it's worth), I'm not opposed to it so long as the gov't doesn't abuse its privilege. Sadly, the government does. And I would argue, if asked to, that inflation is used as a tool to move wealth upstream.

You wrote: "Fairly sustained growth seems to require a bit of inflation to lubricate credit. There's a reason why people running central banks seeking to modulate the economy using monetary policy don't seek zero inflation."

I observe: that's what economists mostly say, and given that increases in productivity should mean an increasing standard of living for everybody, I'm cool with that goal. However, I would ask "what is that reason why people running central banks... don't seek zero inflation. Didn't society advance quite rapidly without paper money? Has paper money really smoothed out our upward trajectory? I've read economists who suggest that paper money has done the opposite, but they are in the minority, I'll readily concede.

Paul calls for a return to the gold standard or something comparable -not necessarily gold but some type of sound currency. And certainly something that is looked after by the government and not a group of unaccountable bankers... IMO, the reason people laugh and rail against it so hard is b/c that's what they've seen people in the mainstream media do. From what I can see, the unwashed mass views Paul as 'that crazy guy that believes in the North American Union and wants to go back to the ancient gold standard'. Well, when you put it that way, Paul doesn't sound too appealing. But it's not based on their own research. They only parrot what they've seen on television...

It's like the nature is to take something you don't understand, have some 'expert' on Fox tell you it's nuts, and from there you form your opinion. I think it's partly Paul's fault for overly explaining things. He's like the nerd of the class. He's done his homework. But he has to watch the jocks run the school. It's too bad he's not a better salesman.

For most, I'd guess they interpret Paul's statements as meaning that they'd have to carry gold around in their pockets. That sounds unreasonable. But that's not the gist of what he's saying... Most people aren't interested in hearing someone say 'gold standard', on tv, and then hitting up Wiki or whatever. It just gets chalked up as 'something I don't understand' and so 'it's something I don't care about'. And to further reinforce that, Fox tells us it's a crazy idea. Case closed.

I don't think this extends to us. I think it's part of how the Federal Reserve came about. Most of our politicians are lawyers. Some of them are businesspeople. But I'd guess that few of them are economists. When the ship sunk, in the 1910's, a politician proposed, to the other politicians, the creation of a central bank -on behalf of said bankers. Those other guys all know their jobs are on the line. And politicians, like most people, don't really care how something works. They just want it to work. They were sold on this idea. And off it went -signed into law, over Christmas, when the gov was recessed.

This 'hands off' approach is something that really bothers me about politicians. When the Iraq thing came up, no one wanted to vote for the declaration of war. They voted to put that responsibility in the president's hands -which were lovingly and wide open. That way, if things went badly, they could all say, "It's not OUR fault." This extends to the Patriot Act. What? Four or five voted against it. The rest were all caught up in this 'everyone has to be a patriot' thing, that they didn't even read it. No one wanted to be the guy that voted against the PATRIOT Act, at a time when that was the buzzword. Now look at where we are with that.

The sad reality is that the modern politician is just a reflection of the modern citizen. The majority don't care how government works. They just want it to work. When election time rolls around, the only thing on the peoples' minds is what freebie they'll get out of it. The irony is that they don't know that they're going to end up paying for it ten times over -my apologies, if any of you own rent-to-own businesses. But that's the instant gratification, buried-in-credit-cards society for you.

I'm a resident of southern California and work in the film industry. My family and I are life-long Republicans. In my younger years, I served as a Senate Page for the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. I've had a touch-and-go relationship with politics. But after hearing Ron's message we were all reminded, "Oh yeah. THAT's what we're supposed to be supporting." Like many others, we were lead off course, arguably, starting with Bush Sr. But we have our sights set 100% on having a real conservative influencing the directions of this nation. We believe in states rights, human rights, strong national security and a strong currency. My father is a practicing physician in South Carolina. He owns his own practice and gives two nights a week to the local, free clinic. My mother is a medical student -better late than never, eh! And my sister... well... we don't talk about her -shhh.

Wishing you all good luck and steady work.

Mike

Chris,

Thanks for clarifying. Although I saw you considered trust in exchange to be important, I misinterpreted the point of a lot of what you wrote.

I agree with you that trust in exchange is vital in this whole issue. You point out that, "Even then, its value as such was improved by having the imprimatur (literally) of a strong state backing it, as a guarantee against adulteration, shaving etc." And even then, states would often water down the coinage. Much like today's paper money system.

"Paper money did not create the phenomonon of bubbles or of boom and bust cycles. Those in fact were much more dramatic and long-lasting during the gold standard era than they have been since 1940."

Have you read any pro-gold books on the subject? They argue (nicely, in my mind) that most of the boom/bust cycles attributed to gold in early American history were actually due to abuse of the financial system be it playing with paper money or corrupt tweaking of fractional reserve. Do you have a book you favor that's pro-fiat? That's the kind of thing I might pick up. The thing that disturbs me about the pro-gold standard book I read (one of the two, anyway) is that it sees the world as one big socialist conspiracy. Still, facts are facts, and the book treated the boom/bust paper/gold issue in detail. I'd be interested in seeing the same data with a pro-fiat perspective.

You point out some of the problems of deflation and I don't argue them. If an investor can make money by sitting on his/her haunches more reliably than by starting a business or by lending the money out, then that will be the choice of many. But, I'd ask you, doesn't today's system accomplish the same thing? It's become harder to get home loans today in spite of massive inflation and expansion of the monetary supply. People who do get loans are often given them at outrageous rates. People are reluctant to invest because the market sucks so badly. Much money that was in play a decade ago is now sitting on the sidelines. And weatlh continues to move uphill. This is kind of like what I see you describing the effect of the gold standard as.

Perhaps reducing investment is not such a bad thing. Perhaps encouraging savings is not a bad thing. (Interestingly, and probably irrelevantly, Islam has the proverb "neither a borrower nor a lender be". I'm only throwing this in because it popped into my head just now and seems to look at things quite differently.)

Regarding balanced budgets... I'll repeat that expanding the money supply (since the expansion occurs at the top of the socio-economic pyramid) is quite similar to raising taxes. Worse yet, the US is deeply in debt and a very meaningful portion of our tax dollar goes to paying interest on that debt. Which is basically money we're throwing away because our representatives chose not to balance the budget. I strongly agree with you that a certain amount of liquidity is good, and that there are benefits to not having to balance the budget, but... I'm sure you'll agree that the Federal Gov't has abused this privilege of not having to balance the budget. And isn't it also true that states (as opposed to the Feds) are largely living within the constraint of a balanced budget? I'm not opposed to fiat currency if things can be kept in line--it's just that they haven't been and I can't see them becoming so.

As a socialist, I agree very strongly with the statement that "labor creates wealth" (though the harnessing of energy and the trend towards automation suggests that, eventually, labor need not be done by man). I don't think that your closing statement following the labor-creates-wealth segment is a fair critique. Allow me to reverse it. If labor creates wealth, but the actual amount of wealth created expands much less rapidly than the quantity of some arbitrary commodity (paper or perhaps ones and zeros in a computer) that you've assigned to represent it for purposes of general exchange, you've got problems.

The bottom line is that people matter. The ruling class doesn't play nice with the gold standard, and they don't play nice with our current system. Which system is more ripe for exploitation? In my ideal world, we have a system where labor is properly valued, and paper, or gold, or whatever, isn't used to siphon off wealth from the have-nots. My opinion is that a gold standard (see Ron Paul's version of it--bimetallic systems are no good) comes closer to this ideal than today's paper system, and that both fall short of ideal.

You've been amazingly patient and kind in your responses, and I greatly appreciate that. I have had a good time reading what you've written, and I'd definitely appreciate a book reference from you. Your well-reasoned discourse tells me that whatever book you suggest would be a decent place for me to dig deeper.

Chris,

Thanks for clarifying. Although I saw you considered trust in exchange to be important, I misinterpreted the point of a lot of what you wrote.

I agree with you that trust in exchange is vital in this whole issue. You point out that, "Even then, its value as such was improved by having the imprimatur (literally) of a strong state backing it, as a guarantee against adulteration, shaving etc." And even then, states would often water down the coinage. Much like today's paper money system.

"Paper money did not create the phenomonon of bubbles or of boom and bust cycles. Those in fact were much more dramatic and long-lasting during the gold standard era than they have been since 1940."

Have you read any pro-gold books on the subject? They argue (nicely, in my mind) that most of the boom/bust cycles attributed to gold in early American history were actually due to abuse of the financial system be it playing with paper money or corrupt tweaking of fractional reserve. Do you have a book you favor that's pro-fiat? That's the kind of thing I might pick up. The thing that disturbs me about the pro-gold standard book I read (one of the two, anyway) is that it sees the world as one big socialist conspiracy. Still, facts are facts, and the book treated the boom/bust paper/gold issue in detail. I'd be interested in seeing the same data with a pro-fiat perspective.

You point out some of the problems of deflation and I don't argue them. If an investor can make money by sitting on his/her haunches more reliably than by starting a business or by lending the money out, then that will be the choice of many. But, I'd ask you, doesn't today's system accomplish the same thing? It's become harder to get home loans today in spite of massive inflation and expansion of the monetary supply. People who do get loans are often given them at outrageous rates. People are reluctant to invest because the market sucks so badly. Much money that was in play a decade ago is now sitting on the sidelines. And weatlh continues to move uphill. This is kind of like what I see you describing the effect of the gold standard as.

Perhaps reducing investment is not such a bad thing. Perhaps encouraging savings is not a bad thing. (Interestingly, and probably irrelevantly, Islam has the proverb "neither a borrower nor a lender be". I'm only throwing this in because it popped into my head just now and seems to look at things quite differently.)

Regarding balanced budgets... I'll repeat that expanding the money supply (since the expansion occurs at the top of the socio-economic pyramid) is quite similar to raising taxes. Worse yet, the US is deeply in debt and a very meaningful portion of our tax dollar goes to paying interest on that debt. Which is basically money we're throwing away because our representatives chose not to balance the budget. I strongly agree with you that a certain amount of liquidity is good, and that there are benefits to not having to balance the budget, but... I'm sure you'll agree that the Federal Gov't has abused this privilege of not having to balance the budget. And isn't it also true that states (as opposed to the Feds) are largely living within the constraint of a balanced budget? I'm not opposed to fiat currency if things can be kept in line--it's just that they haven't been and I can't see them becoming so.

As a socialist, I agree very strongly with the statement that "labor creates wealth" (though the harnessing of energy and the trend towards automation suggests that, eventually, labor need not be done by man). I don't think that your closing statement following the labor-creates-wealth segment is fair. Allow me to reverse it. If labor creates wealth, but the actual amount of wealth created expands much less rapidly than the quantity of some arbitrary commodity (paper or ones and zeros on a computer) that you've assigned to represent it for purposes of general exchange, you've got problems.

The bottom line is that people matter. The ruling class doesn't play nice with the gold standard, and they don't play nice with our current system. Which system is more ripe for exploitation? In my ideal world, we have a system where labor is properly valued, and paper, or gold, or whatever, isn't used to siphon off wealth from the have-nots. My opinion is that a gold standard (see Ron Paul's version of it--bimetallic systems are no good) comes closer to this ideal than today's paper system, and that both fall short of ideal.

You've been amazingly patient and kind in your responses, and I greatly appreciate that. I have had a good time reading what you've written, and I'd definitely appreciate a book reference from you. Your well-reasoned discourse tells me that whatever book you suggest would be a decent place for me to dig deeper.

Ooops. Sorry for double-posting! Technical difficulties...

Integr8d, I agree with your sentiments that many people are just parroting what they've seen on TV or read. Blue Oregon has a lot of reasoned discourse, though (and a lot of noise, too, but that's another thing). I can't just assume that commenters here are speaking out of ignorance. And as we can see in this thread, Chris sure isn't ignorant!

Regarding Ron Paul, he's to conservatives as Dennis Kucinich is to liberals. Both are intolerable to the ruling class, and both have a lot of good ideas. I respect Ron Paul tremendously in spite of disagreement on quite a few subjects. I find Kucinich and Paul to be a breath of fresh air.

Here's to the day when conservatives and liberals unite and throw out all the bums from office.

Chris, thanks for the pointers. The prehistoric book sounds like a fascinating read. I don't expect a reply from you because we've carried this thread on for a long time. But... some things I'm sure you'll be interested in:

Milton Friedman is a dirty word in Chile and Argentina. So many of his recommendations were exported to there and resulted in much suffering. I imagine some of his works would be quite educational now that you mention him. Just 'cause the man had some awful ideas doesn't mean he's without merit, after all. :)

Interestingly enough, Ron Paul agrees with you that it would be foolish to jump immediately back on to a gold standard. I can't recall all of his objections, but... there are so many problems with the transition. There's a long-enduring truth of relevance here; the rich start out rich and stay rich while the poor start out poor and stay poor. More and more, the American dream of upward mobility is becoming a myth. The rich will manage to stay on top somehow.

I was having a conversation with a co-worker the other day about this very subject; we've been watching commodity prices and have been pondering the roadsigns along Route America'sDecline. His statement about the difference between fiat currency and the gold standard was very insightful I thought. He said, with only a small bit of humor intended, that the current system isn't actually fiat--the money is backed by oil rather than gold. While not absolutely true, and the backing takes a different form, I think there's a lot of truth in that statement. Fascinating perspective.