Libertarians: Nut jobs, romantic idealists, or humanity's last hope?

What is a libertarian?

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#5
#5
Most are idealists, but if they had their say, we'd be better off
 
#7
#7
If by libertarian, you mean a fiscal conservative who is more liberal on social issues, I see nothing wrong with that. If you mean Ron Paul, I'm with Milo.
 
#11
#11
milohimself said:
How about each state having its own currency?
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Worked pretty good in Europe for centuries. Same basic idea.

BTW, I am not in favor of this idea myself. I like the simplicity of a single currency. I just wish our currency was more fixed and less susceptible to manipulation and inflation. I wish there was a way that would do this. Something that has been tried before. Something that maybe showed when tried in this country to prevent inflation almost completely. If only...
 
#13
#13
RespectTradition said:
Worked pretty good in Europe for centuries. Same basic idea.

BTW, I am not in favor of this idea myself. I like the simplicity of a single currency. I just wish our currency was more fixed and less susceptible to manipulation and inflation. I wish there was a way that would do this. Something that has been tried before. Something that maybe showed when tried in this country to prevent inflation almost completely. If only...
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That's one thing, but as you hinted at, if you're for a transfer of power from the federal government to the states to the extent that most libertarians seem to be, then a unified currency becomes less stable and a worse option than if each state had its own bank notes.
 
#14
#14
To me libertarian simply means pro-freedom.

If you think people should be free to spend their money as they see fit, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be free to live their personal lives as they see fit unless they are hurting others, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be allowed to negotiate contracts and be held to them, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be allowed to work at any job they want for whatever wage they are willing to work for, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be able to say what they want, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be able to recreate in whatever way they want as long as they don't hurt others, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be able to enjoy sex with any consenting adult for any reason, then you are pro freedom.

I could keep going.

As long as you are for freedom over oppression, peace over violence, law over personalities, responsibility over entitlements, persuasion over coercion and citizens over government, then you share the libertarian vision.

I may think that premarital sex, drugs, etc may be immoral but that doesn't give me any right to make others live by my standards.

check this out:
Advocates for Self Government
 
#15
#15
milohimself said:
That's one thing, but as you hinted at, if you're for a transfer of power from the federal government to the states to the extent that most libertarians seem to be, then a unified currency becomes less stable and a worse option than if each state had its own bank notes.
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Gold backed money is completely (to all intents and purposes) stable. Problem solved.
 
#16
#16
RespectTradition said:
To me libertarian simply means pro-freedom.

If you think people should be free to spend their money as they see fit, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be free to live their personal lives as they see fit unless they are hurting others, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be allowed to negotiate contracts and be held to them, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be allowed to work at any job they want for whatever wage they are willing to work for, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be able to say what they want, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be able to recreate in whatever way they want as long as they don't hurt others, then you are pro freedom.

If you think people should be able to enjoy sex with any consenting adult for any reason, then you are pro freedom.

I could keep going.

As long as you are for freedom over oppression, peace over violence, law over personalities, responsibility over entitlements, persuasion over coercion and citizens over government, then you share the libertarian vision.

I may think that premarital sex, drugs, etc may be immoral but that doesn't give me any right to make others live by my standards.

check this out:
Advocates for Self Government
Click to expand...

This is my take on libertarians. Every party has it's share of nut jobs that hog the attention, but represent only a small fraction of the whole.
 
#17
#17
RespectTradition said:
Gold backed money is completely (to all intents and purposes) stable. Problem solved.
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Not necessarily. I'll be honest I don't know 100% for certain, but I've heard that most gold mining/production is controlled by they governments. That through licensing and permits they basically have a quota type system to keep the amount of gold in circulation in check. IF that is the case it COULD make a gold backed system MORE susceptible to outside influence. Say for example the US goes to a gold back currency, gold is worth 1k an oz. China has several large gold mines, or large reserves of gold. Out of normal business sense they have only been mining at 30% capacity. For one reason or another they decide they hate us and want to hurt us. They could increase production to 100% or release some of their reserves, and flood the market with new gold. Supply/demand kicks in and gold drops to $300 an oz. In that case the US would take a ~70% hit to the value in their currency. The drop would be temporary, until the market stabilizes with the new volume of gold, but the damage would be heavy till then. The US would be forced to either accept the new value, or use up other reserves/resources to buy up/control as much of excess new gold they could to remove it from circulation to re increase the value.
 
#18
#18
chatsworth_vol said:
Not necessarily. I'll be honest I don't know 100% for certain, but I've heard that most gold mining/production is controlled by they governments. That through licensing and permits they basically have a quota type system to keep the amount of gold in circulation in check. IF that is the case it COULD make a gold backed system MORE susceptible to outside influence. Say for example the US goes to a gold back currency, gold is worth 1k an oz. China has several large gold mines, or large reserves of gold. Out of normal business sense they have only been mining at 30% capacity. For one reason or another they decide they hate us and want to hurt us. They could increase production to 100% or release some of their reserves, and flood the market with new gold. Supply/demand kicks in and gold drops to $300 an oz. In that case the US would take a ~70% hit to the value in their currency. The drop would be temporary, until the market stabilizes with the new volume of gold, but the damage would be heavy till then. The US would be forced to either accept the new value, or use up other reserves/resources to buy up/control as much of excess new gold they could to remove it from circulation to re increase the value.
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I have never read any papers by any economist that supports this view. I am not saying they don't exist, but I haven't read them. I have read several that call this a straw man argument and dismiss it. FWIW
 
#19
#19
I'll be honest, the government control/limiting of the mining/processing part is some stuff I remember from some classes in natural resources in high school where we branched off to cover the economic effects of rare precious resources. That has been 15+ years ago so some memories could be a little fuzzy, but to a lesser extent you can see the effects in the middle east/ OPEC cartels controlling the supply of oil to keep prices high. All those countries have been doing well at least at the upper levels (how they each take care or normal citizens is a topic for another time), and were living high on the hog (lol kinda inappropriate phrase considering where they are) during the sky high oil prices of the mid 2000's. Now even though oil is still higher than it was they aren't doing quite as well because the high prices forced other countries to exploit resources that normally were not practical. This increased the supply of energy resources be it oil or oil alternatives. Now in this case the countries currency's them selves aren't directly backed by oil, but the economies were. It stands to reason that they same could happen with a gold backed currency only it would directly effect the country's value. Even if the market isn't artificially controlled by the governments, what happens if the is a huge strike, or someone invents a practical way to mine the deep sea. Either could cause a flood of gold into circulation, decreasing the overall value thus lessing the value of what gold the country has to back it's investments. On the other hand the system now can be controlled at least to a point by us by living responsibly and with in our means. Yes it can be influenced to some extent by outside parties. The amount they can influence it can be controlled by how far we over extend ourselves. Of course this assumes we can get our pols to act responsibly, good luck with that. That is about as likely as me playing QB for UT in the BCS national championship game next year.

By the way don't take this as me being against going to a gold standard. I'm just arguing that even that isn't perfect and COULD have flaws. We do need to do something because the system we have now, combined with how it is being run is a road to disaster and that road has already ran off the pavement and you can see the end of the gravel.
 
#20
#20
Good summary IMO. There isn't a problem with fiat currency in and of itself, IMO, but rather the way its handled. nbaker in another thread alluded to this I think.
 
#21
#21
chatsworth_vol said:
Not necessarily. I'll be honest I don't know 100% for certain, but I've heard that most gold mining/production is controlled by they governments. That through licensing and permits they basically have a quota type system to keep the amount of gold in circulation in check. IF that is the case it COULD make a gold backed system MORE susceptible to outside influence. Say for example the US goes to a gold back currency, gold is worth 1k an oz. China has several large gold mines, or large reserves of gold. Out of normal business sense they have only been mining at 30% capacity. For one reason or another they decide they hate us and want to hurt us. They could increase production to 100% or release some of their reserves, and flood the market with new gold. Supply/demand kicks in and gold drops to $300 an oz. In that case the US would take a ~70% hit to the value in their currency. The drop would be temporary, until the market stabilizes with the new volume of gold, but the damage would be heavy till then. The US would be forced to either accept the new value, or use up other reserves/resources to buy up/control as much of excess new gold they could to remove it from circulation to re increase the value.
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What would China gain if they weakened the US Dollar and made Chinese imports more expensive for us? :unsure:
 
#23
#23
milohimself said:
Good summary IMO. There isn't a problem with fiat currency in and of itself, IMO, but rather the way its handled. nbaker in another thread alluded to this I think.
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Yeah. The idea is that nothing other than water and oxygen have inherent value. Things only have the value people put on them. Even gold. The true value of gold is that you can't create it out of thin air, and civilizations seem to have valued it throughout the ages. If we just froze the fiat money supply, it'd serve the exact same function I'm certain, because I think it would earn back the confidence the dollar once had pretty rapidly.

One great benefit about freezing it is that you wouldn't even have to invest for retirement. You could just save your money and it would actually gain purchasing power over time, instead of losing it. Inflation devalues our savings encouraging risky investments for retirement.
 
#24
#24
Rasputin_Vol said:
What would China gain if they weakened the US Dollar and made Chinese imports more expensive for us? :unsure:
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Not saying them specifically, just used them as an example, but in normal day to day business nothing. The risk arises if they were to be planning some sort of aggressive move whither a: against us or b: against a 3rd party but are afraid we would interfere. They could do this preemptively say 6 months ahead of time, crash our economy/funds then make their move. Basically economic warfare. Rendering us either unable to afford to respond or just make us doing so more difficult.
 
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