myths about the federal reserve

[hugolp]

Maybe it’s not my place to comment on this, since I’m not fully aware of the challenges moderators and administrators here face, but I find it a little disturbing that dujac got banned from posting here for nothing more than voicing an unpopular belief. As far as I can tell, he always remained civil, he didn’t start multiple nonsense threads, he didn’t spam or plagiarize, and his descending viewpoint was confined to a single thread everyone was free to ignore. But apparently, there’s not enough room in a forum whose banner reads liberty forest for such a thread.

I think there is a significant risk for any group of people who share similar views to become overwhelmed by confirmation bias and become motivated by emotion instead of reality. i.e. There’s a difference between supporting Ron Paul because you believe he is the best candidate and supporting Ron Paul because his name is Ron Paul.

Crossing certain lines such as banning perfectly civil and reasonable posters for unpopular opinions raises huge red flags in my opinion.


"That's one thing about freedom; you have to tolerate the nonsense too." -Ron Paul

I dont agree, but he has been banned for trolling, not for voicing a different opinion. Ask Zippy how many times he has been baned.

 

[hazek]

I'm really disappointed by you guys. Why ban a troll? His power comes solely from your replies so why not just stop replying like I did?

 

[Danke]

I thought it was kind of entertaining, but...I'm one of those easily amused types, so you know how that goes.

I really doubt he was being paid. The Fed, the banks, and the establishment in general easily have enough money to hire better shills. Unless their top reps are all hanging out on the Mises forums or something, I'd like to think they'd send us someone a little more experienced than a bottom-of-the-barrel undergraduate intern. That guy was more Digg/Reddit caliber, if not Youtube. Assuming they do their research, I imagine they'd send us someone more like ZippyJuan instead. (j/k Zippy...I think. )

He is Zippy's understudy. Zippy thought he was ready to move beyond Digg/Reddit and Youtube. Apparently not.

 

[Carson]

 

[Bossobass]

Maybe it’s not my place to comment on this, since I’m not fully aware of the challenges moderators and administrators here face, but I find it a little disturbing that dujac got banned from posting here for nothing more than voicing an unpopular belief. As far as I can tell, he always remained civil, he didn’t start multiple nonsense threads, he didn’t spam or plagiarize, and his descending viewpoint was confined to a single thread everyone was free to ignore. But apparently, there’s not enough room in a forum whose banner reads liberty forest for such a thread.

I think there is a significant risk for any group of people who share similar views to become overwhelmed by confirmation bias and become motivated by emotion instead of reality. i.e. There’s a difference between supporting Ron Paul because you believe he is the best candidate and supporting Ron Paul because his name is Ron Paul.

Crossing certain lines such as banning perfectly civil and reasonable posters for unpopular opinions raises huge red flags in my opinion.


"That's one thing about freedom; you have to tolerate the nonsense too." -Ron Paul

You have to know the difference between what is freedom vs what is defamation.

If I meet someone who is saying something like; "Let me dispel the myths about Ron Paul. Myth #1: Ron Paul has integrity. This is patently false because Ron Paul is a liar, a racist and a con artist", I would certainly not view that as freedom to go on unchallenged forever.

We work hard to arrive at the truth and post the facts. It's no secret that there are many people who dislike that to the point of planting shills to dissuade noobs by calling those facts "myths".

So, just as you have the freedom to attempt a similar underhanded bullshit stunt, the mods have the freedom to plant a size 11 shoe up your ass for it.

dujac has the freedom to find a forum that appreciates his posting style.

Bosso

 

[Mini-Me]

Maybe it’s not my place to comment on this, since I’m not fully aware of the challenges moderators and administrators here face, but I find it a little disturbing that dujac got banned from posting here for nothing more than voicing an unpopular belief. As far as I can tell, he always remained civil, he didn’t start multiple nonsense threads, he didn’t spam or plagiarize, and his descending viewpoint was confined to a single thread everyone was free to ignore. But apparently, there’s not enough room in a forum whose banner reads liberty forest for such a thread.

I think there is a significant risk for any group of people who share similar views to become overwhelmed by confirmation bias and become motivated by emotion instead of reality. i.e. There’s a difference between supporting Ron Paul because you believe he is the best candidate and supporting Ron Paul because his name is Ron Paul.

Crossing certain lines such as banning perfectly civil and reasonable posters for unpopular opinions raises huge red flags in my opinion.


"That's one thing about freedom; you have to tolerate the nonsense too." -Ron Paul

The ban did come pretty quickly, but I'm confident it wasn't for his views. (As Hugolp mentioned, ask ZippyJuan how many times he's been banned.) If you read the whole thread and the progression of his comments, it becomes obvious he was posting not to have a genuine discussion but to troll. If anyone posted something he didn't have a canned response to, he'd ignore it and change the subject or obnoxiously repeat the same previously addressed canned one-liners in response to someone else's post. That's not to say I'm gleefully licking his blood off the bottom of Cowlesy's banhammer or anything, because you're right: He did in fact remain civil (if uncooperative), he didn't spam, etc. However, make no mistake that he wasn't interested in intellectually honest debate or being "reasonable."

All that said, some of the myths he posted about really are myths in whole or part (even if his extended analysis and ultimate conclusions were...terrible? ), so he may have actually done us a service by starting this thread anyway. Clarifying the whole dividends/profits thing in the first few pages helped me too.

 

[DamianTV]

Frankly, I'm glad that dujac got banned. There is not one single person in this forum that actually believes that the Federal Reserve is good for anything but its own profits.

 

[archangel689]

myths

 

[Zippyjuan]

Wow. A lot has been going on since I last checked in. I have to do a bunch of reading to get caught up. Dujac got banned, eh? Attitude? Improper behavior? Hopefully not for having a dissenting opinion. Differences of opinion are a good thing. Makes it more interesting having two sided discussions. Otherwise you get things like:
"Ron Paul is cool. "
"Yeah, I like Ron too. He's cool."
"Uh, so what do you want to talk about?"
"I dunno. What's on TV?"

Looks like this thread is dead anyways. Thanks for some of the comments people made about me in it.

 

[Carson]

The thread may be dead but someone needs to post a picture of a kitten to mellow everyone out for sure!

 

[neumoljiv]

Ha ha ha.... nobody is going to fool me into thinking it comes from a printing press, the memory of a computer, or better yet from thin air.

where does money come from, then?

 

[TexanRudeBoy]

the recession ended over a year ago and we had positive real gdp growth in all four quarters of 2010

Tell that to the millions out of work.............

 

[Carson]

Tell that to the millions out of work.............

I wonder how much of the growth was related to the printing of money.

Oh Yah. The QE2 thing. They printed up bonds to buy with their printed up money. Sort of a double whammy if both are counted in the gross domestic product.

 

[Dr.3D]

where does money come from, then?

It comes from work. Printing currency is much easier and cheaper than mining for real money. Work is involved to create the gold and silver used in coining real money. That real money is exchanged for equal amounts of labor and used as needed to buy what that amount of labor will purchase.

Paper is worth only what people will believe it is worth rather than some specific amount of labor used to create it. This is the difference between paper and real money. Paper can never be real money because it is much too easy to print up. Gold and silver are much more difficult to produce and thus have a value all their own.

Paper is a deception, capable of being devalued at a whim, where as real gold and silver coins are not able to be devalued except through an equal amount of labor to produce more of them.

 

[neumoljiv]

It comes from work. Printing currency is much easier and cheaper than mining for real money. Work is involved to create the gold and silver used in coining real money. That real money is exchanged for equal amounts of labor and used as needed to buy what that amount of labor will purchase.

Paper is worth only what people will believe it is worth rather than some specific amount of labor used to create it. This is the difference between paper and real money. Paper can never be real money because it is much too easy to print up. Gold and silver are much more difficult to produce and thus has a value all it's own.

Paper is a deception, capable of being devalued at a whim, where as real gold and silver coins are not able to be devalued except through an equal amount of labor to produce more of it.

so money is mined from the earth, when was it first unearthed/discovered?

 

[Dr.3D]

so money is mined from the earth, when was it first unearthed/discovered?

Money can be anything that requires labor to produce. It is a commodity. Gold and silver are just two of the better forms of it.

 

[neumoljiv]

Money can be anything that requires labor to produce. It is a commodity. Gold and silver are just two of the better forms of it.

at its core, money is an abstract concept that represents labor/wealth

 

[Chester Copperpot]

at it's core, money is an abstract concept that represents labor/wealth

the fed needs to go bye bye.. theyre ripping everybody off

 

[neumoljiv]

…theyre ripping everybody off

how's that

 

[Zippyjuan]

Money can be anything that requires labor to produce. It is a commodity. Gold and silver are just two of the better forms of it.

I see money as simply a medium of exchange- not a commodity. You can use commodities for money if you like- but money does not have to be a commodity. We trade our labor for money which we can then exchange for goods and services with others. Most money today does not even exist in physical form- it is electronically transmitted.