Re: DOLLAR COLLAPSE NOW IMMINENT

On Fri, 16 May 2008 11:10:58 -0700, Stray Dog wrote:

> On May 16, 11:46 am, The Trucker <mik...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 05:24:50 -0700, Stray Dog wrote:
>> > On May 15, 12:33 pm, The Trucker <mik...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 15 May 2008 07:18:17 -0700, BobR wrote:
>> >> > On May 15, 8:22 am, Stray Dog <straydog2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>> > deleted...
>>
>> >> > Ok, you posed a question earlier now let me pose a question to you
and
>> >> > the rest of the participants.
>>
> 
>>
>> >> Without government all the wealth would be in the hands of a few
people
>> >> all over again.
>>
>> > May I "correct" you by saying that "Without a low-corruption
>> > government...." since it seems like our govt (USA, maybe many
others),
>> > there has been what looks to me an ever pro-industry, pro-rich trend
>> > in our govt. The wealth divide has been getting worse the last 1-2
>> > decades and all the data show that.
>>
>> >> The "all at once" redistribution of the wealth in the
>> >> way you describe has never happened before.
>>
>> > Well, in Russia around 1917, private ovwner****p went poof, and they
>> > changed currency so if you came to the bank with a lot, they capped
>> > how much new currency they gave you.
>>
>> > Also, if you read some history of the Incas, you will find that they
>> > did have a successufl socialist organization of society and it lasted
>> > some 250 years till the conquistadors came.
>>
>> >  But it has happened slowly
>> >> through the combined use of a highly progressive income tax and
government
>> >> infrastructure investments.
>>
>> > There was a big wealth divide before the great depression and during
>> > FDR's time, the taxes on the rich were increased.  Same deal in
>> > England before the 1800s. The rich had the castles and mansions. Once
>> > the taxes went on, then the rich could not afford to keep their
>> > castles and mansions. I saw the Hearst castle in California back in
>> > late 1960s. It was huge. Hearst had to give it up when taxes went up,
>> > now its a tourist spot.
>>
>> >  But that observation begs the real question.
>> >> And that is how to maintain a government that would use such methods
to
>> >> prevent the harm caused by extreme disparity in power and wealth.
>>
>> > Very very good question. My first, off the top of my head answer, is
>> > you gotta keep the corruption down.
>>
>> Sure....
> 
> I could throw in a few other factors but I don't want to present
> myself as one of those "elitist" economists.
> (a lot of them are full of crap, too).
> 
>> > The
>> >> removal of government is not the answer.  The control of government
by the
>> >> common people as well as the rich _IS_.
>>
>> > Other answer: convince the rich that money, more money, and even more
>> > money is not a good goal.
>>
>> That is not an achievable objective.
> 
> I beg and petition to differ. I have been also been paying attention
> to philanthropic trends and some of these guys actually do have
> feelings for the powerless/broke people in the world. Warren Buffet,
> for example, has made many public statements in recent years to that
> effect. Bill Gates, in his old age, might be feeling a bit guilty over
> his earlier robber-baronism since he's trying to spend some money on
> good causes. Mary Astor and Leona Helmsley (both recently died) were
> compared for their styles of giving to charity before they died in
> some magazine and it was a big deal for me. There _are_ some sensitive
> rich people out there. Then, we have the Walton family (survivors
> worth $100 bil, by the way) and the cheapest, chintziest low
> cheapskates of all studied: they gave away less than one percent of
> their wealth and out of the top 100-200 that were studied, there were
> a lot of rich guys who were giving away 10-20-even 50% of their
> booty.
> 
> So, you can't say what you said.

I can say whatever I want.  And so can you. But I want to be very clear in
my position:  I do not want to be a part of a society that is dependent
upon the philanthropic actions of the nobility.  The citing of members of
the nobility who, in your opinion, are philanthropists is not sufficient
in convincing me that rule by the nobility is a good idea.  Your basic
position is "conservative" and mine is not.

>  You may as well tell that bull that
>> you don't like what he is doing to that cow.
> 
> That's beyond the scope of this post.

It was an analogy.  You cannot alter the ego of the rich.

>> >  I would highly recommend a better
>> >> understanding of the pur****ted goals of the United States Government
at
>> >> its inception.
>>
>> > There are a few books out there that indicate the goals of the USA
>> > were not much different than anyone else: power, expansion,
>> > development, etc.
>>
>> I rather like just reading the actual history and making my own
>> analysis of why people did what they did.
> 
> Well, two responses to that. i) just ask where the money/power ended
> up and how that happened, and ii) lots of history depends on who you
> read. I can provide titles.  

The Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers are not "interpretations".  The
speeches and correspondence of Madison and Jefferson are not
"interpretations".

>> Their actions typically give us
>> a clue as to what they were trying to accomplish.  And to be sure, all
of
>> those things (power, etc) were considered in the birth of the USA.  I
will
>> even admit that the "founding fathers" were primarily plutocrats at
heart
>> and that they wanted some sort of nobility to form here in the United
>> States just as it was in Europe.
> 
> Bingo, bingo, bingo. Or were you reading Charles Beard's book "The
> Economic Interpretation of the Constitution"? Where, yes, the robber-
> barons really were writing our constitution to benefit the robber-
> barons, right from the beginings?

I try not to read the interpretations of others, thanks.  My stuff comes
right out of the pipe.

> And, by the way, this is a very hot debate in certain circles in
> history.

Try as they will, the historians will interpret.  They are human.

>  Most of the people that created the
>> United States Constitution saw themselves and their descendants as
BEING
>> that nobility and deserving of that role due to their knowledge and
>> intellect.
> 
> And, that "imperitive" really got cranked up in the early 1900s and I
> can provide a reference for that, too.
> 
>> But there is another side to this coin and that was the need to "sell"
>> that contract to the people.  The "founders" had to play "lets make a
>> a deal" and there were certain things that they had to "give up" in
order
>> to get the Constitution ratified. And the point I am making here is
that
>> the US Constitution was a "deal" between those that wrote the rules and
>> those who accepted the rules.  Madison himself stated that the "intent"
of
>> the founders was secondary to understanding of those that ratified;
that
>> the Constitution derives its power from the consent of the governed. 
That
>> was true then and it is true now.
> 
> Yeah, but it all gets wiped out at the electoral college level, AND
> the fact that we elect senators and representatives who then, THEY not
> us, go on and write the laws, etc. We underlings really don't get to
> do anything except chose the lessor of evils every 2-4 years.

Whine, whine, whine.......  The discussion needs to center on the history
and an understanding of the motivations.  But the discussion must also
encompass proper solutions to the problem.  I will say that attempting a
"fix" at the top is like talking to that bull.

>> To understand Constitutionality or to understand what America _IS_ one
>> must actually read and appreciate the actual history of the
ratification.
> 
> I think this is im****tant and I thank you for pointing it out.
> However, I think a lot of what is in the Constitution is subverted by
> the presence of monetary power out there, corruption, high-powered
> lawyers, and all kinds of manipulative infrastructures designed to
> gain power over underlings.
> 
>> I hope I make a very small contribution to that understanding at:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_The_First
>>
>> and
>>
>> http://www.greatervoice.org/extend/Madison.php
>>
>> <<< deletia >>>
>>
>> Regardless of what evil lurked in the soul of James Madison, his
actions
>> are indicative of what he was "selling" to the American people.  And it
>> seems impossible to misinterpret Federalist 55 through Federalist 58 on
>> the subject of "representation" for the people in their government.
> 
> OK, just look at Gerrymandering and tell me that was done to  benefit
> the people?

Same crap.  It happened in 1929. This is as close to the actual pipe I can
get:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reap****tionment_Act_of_1929
 -------------
 The Reap****tionment Act of 1929 (ch. 28, 46 Stat. 21, 2 U.S.C.  2a,
 enacted 1929-06-18) was a combined census and reap****tionment bill passed
 by the United States Congress which established a permanent method for
 ap****tioning a constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives
 according to each census. The bill neither repealed nor restated the
 requirements of the previous ap****tionment acts - that districts be
 contiguous, compact, and equally populated.

 It was not clear if these requirements were still in effect until the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the matter of Wood v. Broom,
287 U.S. 1 (1932) that the provisions of each ap****tionment act affected
only the ap****tionment for which they were written. Thus the size and
population requirements, last stated in the Ap****tionment Act of 1911,
expired immediately with the enactment of the subsequent Ap****tionment
Act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

 Prior to this hijacking of representative government there was no
 gerrymandering.

>> There is no silver bullet that can be fired at the heart of despotism,
no
>> wooden stake to be plunged into the heart of such malice, that will
>> arrest and confine such evil over time.  Vigilance is the price of
>> freedom and liberty and we must constantly guard against the forces of
>> aristocracy and plutocracy
> 
> Or...the Nazi seizure of power in 1933.
> 
>  or they will, in fact, have their way.  We have
>> failed in our responsibility to prevent the deterioration of our
freedoms
>> and our liberty.
> 
> John Strachey said once that if you can organize ten men, then you can
> control a hundred. Well, sometimes. Or...you can fool enough of the
> people enough of the time.

The fact that we have "The best Congress money can buy" is not seriously
debated.  The current "Campaign Finance Reform" efforts are but a
diversion.  CFR has been done over and over.  The Supremes recently ruled
that the last CFR was, at least in part, unconstitutional.  My own
proposal is the best example if a proper solution I have seen.

Instant Runoff Voting and similar systems of balloting address the need
for improvements in discerning the will of the people in extremely large
electoral arenas.  The shrinking of electoral districts to encompass
fewer people and an insistence on compactness would do more to promote
representative government than would even IRV.

>  That failure happened very early on with the failure
>> of the very first constitutional amendment and manifested itself in
1921
>> when the House of Representatives failed to reap****tion the House in
>> respect of a very steep rise in population and the ****ft of population
>> from rural to urban. This, according to many, was a Constitutional
breach.
>> But we failed even more certainly when we allowed the Congress to limit
>> the representation to only 425 members in 1929.
> 
> Here is another problem: In most if not all of Latin America, most of
> the constitutions of those governments were patterned after the US
> Constitution. What was the problem? Those constitutions were never
> enforced.
> 
> Look what we have today: The Supreme Court actually making laws. An
> unelected body of "powerful" people.

So what will you _do_ about it?  Will you insist that YOUR representative
work to expand the representation?  Will you actually consider a candidate
for office that takes a blood oath to vote as the majority of the people
in his/her district WANT on any legislation that is relatively
controversial?  Will you refuse to vote for any representative that votes
yes on a bill that has an earmark?

That suit wearing ass is supposed to represent _YOU_.

-- 
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org/extend