by gerald » Sat Oct 19, 2013 6:56 pm
NoOneImportant wrote:Gerald wrote:
but nature and reality don't give a F-- what one thinks should happen. Same old same old. Reality is a brutal teacher, and gives no quarter. Some never learn.
And that's why the dynamic duo of Nixon/Obama will not work any better this time than it did the last time. In point of fact, the software debacle is counter productive, it only serves to mask, confuse, and extend the ultimate difficulty: that you can't legislate prosperity - human nature can't be legislated.
My initial urge was to lapse into sarcasm and declare that: "... no, no, no... it just isn't big enough; we've got to make it bigger...," the standard reply to all failed Marxist schemes. In a more enlightened Marxist society we could say something to the effect: "we gotta force those stingy doctors, and nurses to do what we say... or... or, I'll tell you what, or we'll send 'em to the gulags..." But that would be wrong; what we might try though is to ask the East Germans, or the Pols, or the Czechs, or the Hungarians, or the myriad of other failed collectivist Marxist extravaganzas what they think? For they, each of them, after their 45 "experiment", got rid of it as soon as was possible.
Unfortunately, there is a delusion in America - a delusion born of academia - that we can make work here what has never worded elsewhere; and we can make it work because we can care enough, and when that doesn't work, it always just boils down to: "...we'll just force 'em to do what we want."
Indyjonesouthere wrote:
I rather suspect that with the inability of politicians to control the budget and the massive clusterf*** that is Obamacare we will find that within 3-5 years there will be NO government health care at all. Interest on the debt will destroy most people programs.
And here, regardless of party or ideology, may possibly be our only ultimate salvation - a method of impressing fiscal discipline. People may scream as loud as they desire, and control all aspects of government, but the value of the currency is based, in the final analysis, upon belief. Interest rates - and correspondingly the price of commodities - are, in large measure, a reflection of the stability of that underlying belief. Undermine the belief in a stable currency, and as the Chinese have recently voiced (paraphrasing): "... we have to get a currency, other than the dollar, as the basis of international trade..." In that context, regardless of the Fed's zero interest policy, rates will climb. That is, no one will want to hold U.S. dollars - then the Fed can print all the dollars it desires, to no effect, as it won't be able to find anyone willing to accept them.
Politicians, governments and bankers never learn,--- or think they can always con the people --- the first known fiat currency -- promise to pay was "originated in China during the Han Dynasty in 118 BC, and was made of leather."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote ----- China went through numerious cycles of fiat and specie , and at times, even under pain of death, people refused the fiat ---- same old same old.
cheers
[quote="NoOneImportant"]Gerald wrote:
[quote]but nature and reality don't give a F-- what one thinks should happen. Same old same old. Reality is a brutal teacher, and gives no quarter. Some never learn.[/quote]
And that's why the dynamic duo of Nixon/Obama will not work any better this time than it did the last time. In point of fact, the software debacle is counter productive, it only serves to mask, confuse, and extend the ultimate difficulty: that you can't legislate prosperity - human nature can't be legislated.
My initial urge was to lapse into sarcasm and declare that: "... no, no, no... it just isn't big enough; we've got to make it bigger...," the standard reply to all failed Marxist schemes. In a more enlightened Marxist society we could say something to the effect: "we gotta force those stingy doctors, and nurses to do what we say... or... or, I'll tell you what, or we'll send 'em to the gulags..." But that would be wrong; what we might try though is to ask the East Germans, or the Pols, or the Czechs, or the Hungarians, or the myriad of other failed collectivist Marxist extravaganzas what they think? For they, each of them, after their 45 "experiment", got rid of it as soon as was possible.
Unfortunately, there is a delusion in America - a delusion born of academia - that we can make work here what has never worded elsewhere; and we can make it work because we can care enough, and when that doesn't work, it always just boils down to: "...we'll just force 'em to do what we want."
Indyjonesouthere wrote:
[quote]I rather suspect that with the inability of politicians to control the budget and the massive clusterf*** that is Obamacare we will find that within 3-5 years there will be NO government health care at all. Interest on the debt will destroy most people programs.[/quote]
And here, regardless of party or ideology, may possibly be our only ultimate salvation - a method of impressing fiscal discipline. People may scream as loud as they desire, and control all aspects of government, but the value of the currency is based, in the final analysis, upon belief. Interest rates - and correspondingly the price of commodities - are, in large measure, a reflection of the stability of that underlying belief. Undermine the belief in a stable currency, and as the Chinese have recently voiced (paraphrasing): "... we have to get a currency, other than the dollar, as the basis of international trade..." In that context, regardless of the Fed's zero interest policy, rates will climb. That is, no one will want to hold U.S. dollars - then the Fed can print all the dollars it desires, to no effect, as it won't be able to find anyone willing to accept them.[/quote]
Politicians, governments and bankers never learn,--- or think they can always con the people --- the first known fiat currency -- promise to pay was "originated in China during the Han Dynasty in 118 BC, and was made of leather." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote ----- China went through numerious cycles of fiat and specie , and at times, even under pain of death, people refused the fiat ---- same old same old.
cheers