What happened to Barney Frank's promise

[oladub]

It still is the law of the land. It still gives them the right to regulate the value of the currency.

You dodged my question, where does it state in the Constitution that the regulation of the economy is forbidden? This should be good. Just a tip - you are not allowed to rewrite it to suit you.

Darn, I must have skipped right over the part of the Constitution that mentioned 'currency'. The Constiution allows the regulation of the economy to some extent by allowing Congress a couple of specific methods of taxation. It also allows Congress to regulate commerce - at least to the extent that the 10th Amendment allows it to do so. I'll leave the rewriting to neocons, Democrats, and the like.

[rb336]

Darn, I must have skipped right over the part of the Constitution that mentioned 'currency'. The Constiution allows the regulation of the economy to some extent by allowing Congress a couple of specific methods of taxation. It also allows Congress to regulate commerce - at least to the extent that the 10th Amendment allows it to do so. I'll leave the rewriting to neocons, Democrats, and the like.

Article 1, section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [[actually rather broad powers of taxation clarified with regard to the income tax by the 16th Ammendment: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.)
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

The Tenth has nothing to do with it

[oladub]

Rb, Thank you for basically repeating and expanding upon what I wrote. The 10th applies to everything in the Constitution and would therefore limit the application of the commerce clause. I see the word 'coin' but where is 'currency' mentioned?

KingRex, SM and Fly are the resident cheerleaders of the Fed on this board and so are presumably, or de facto, supporters of the Huge Wall Street banks that own the Fed. "Give me a G, give... What does it spell?...Geithner"

For anyone concerned, the Mises institute has a video about the history of the Federal Reserve from an Austrian, rather than a Keynesian, prespective. Skip over the 6.5 minutes of intro in this 41 minute video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...10540567002553

[rb336]

Rb, Thank you for basically repeating and expanding upon what I wrote. The 10th applies to everything in the Constitution and would therefore limit the application of the commerce clause. I see the word 'coin' but where is 'currency' mentioned?

KingRex, SM and Fly are the resident cheerleaders of the Fed on this board and so are presumably, or de facto, supporters of the Huge Wall Street banks that own the Fed. "Give me a G, give... What does it spell?...Geithner"

For anyone concerned, the Mises institute has a video about the history of the Federal Reserve from an Austrian, rather than a Keynesian, prespective. Skip over the 6.5 minutes of intro in this 41 minute video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...10540567002553

i've always appreciated Mises view of economics as a complex dynamic system

the Tenth actually has to do with everything NOT in the constitution, rather than everything IN it

the term "currency" may not have been used as a synonym for money until the 19th century. It wasn't even applied to money until the VERY late 17th [[1699 by Locke) and then only as the circulation of money [[as in the current of a stream)

[oladub]

SM, You continue to be on a roll. Now you want the government to regulate the internet too. What can I say? The concept works well in North Korea.

Viva la Fed!

[oladub]

I know connies love to throw around the 70's [[even if you were way too young to remember them), but you might forget a little thing called the Vietnam War. It could be said that this too had a slight effect on the economy too, you think?

SM, Just a guess but I suspect King Rex is not a connie. Neocons are avid supporters of the Fed. Like Democrats, neo-cons are statists and the Fed advances their respective and often similar agendas. The Vietnam War was largely bankrolled by the Fed as is the Iraq/Afghan War. Politicians usually prefer putting wars on the charge account to billing voters with a war tax surcharge.

[ccbatson]

Welcome DetroitRoch.

Maybe somebody in the conservative media will slip by Frank's guard and get him on tape confronted with the question.

[rb336]

SM, Just a guess but I suspect King Rex is not a connie. Neocons are avid supporters of the Fed. Like Democrats, neo-cons are statists and the Fed advances their respective and often similar agendas. The Vietnam War was largely bankrolled by the Fed as is the Iraq/Afghan War. Politicians usually prefer putting wars on the charge account to billing voters with a war tax surcharge.

no, they are corporatists. big difference

[oladub]

no, they are corporatists. big difference

Rb, Mainstream liberal and and neo-con politicians are both statist and corporatist although ther is a lot of overlap between the two concepts.

SM wrote, "Think about it. If you have too much INflation, what do you do to counter that? Think hard, you'll get it!"

Answer: Stop inflating the money supply.

[rb336]

The Federal Reserve creates those cycles by inflating and deflating the money supply.

learn some history. economic cycles have not been caused by the fed. they've been around for hundreds of years, ever since the dutch and english created financial markets. what is clear from the study of markets is that unregulated markets, which we have had the last 8 years, inevitably lead to bubbles and crashes.

[oladub]

The money inflates itself. It is because of human nature and the laws of economics. Has there ever been a country, government, or capitalist economy where this has not been the case? No.

If I left my money in a cigar box, it would somehow inflate itselt? That must be magic! I will try it.

If, on the other hand, a gold coin is discovered in my backyard, it will still have value. Maybe that is because politicians of all stripes have a difficult time inflating the price of gold. An one ounce gold coin from 1776 is still going to be worth about $850 today. An ounce of gold, worth $35 in 1930, is worth $850 today. Gold coins are money. How come the gold money is worth so much more than currency 77 years later? Because the fed inflated it. The Fed does not have the power to inflate gold.

China is now buying commodities so it can reduce its purchases of treasuries. . This is not good for the dollar. I don't give China advice, but its leaders have come to the same conclusion. Obama is destroying the dollar.

""China has woken up. The West is a black hole with all this money being printed. The Chinese are buying raw materials because it is a much better way to use their $1.9 trillion of reserves. " -Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...cy-system.html

[firstandten]

If they did it would just be dismissed as a video tape doctored up in order to set up a "good democrat" for the fall.

Look at Rangel. This man is a monster that uses minorities to gain wealth. He doesnn't care about the state of residents in Harlem. Not one bit.

Look at Jesse jackson Jr. He is looking at a huge bid for trying to purchase the senatorial seat and he will probably get away with it because of his connections.

But this corruption is not only in the democratic party. The Alaskan senator was guilty and got off. Probably not as bad as they made it out to be but never the less, he stole our money and screwed our trust like these other morans.

This is why people gathered for these Tea Parties to protest the raping of our country and its citizens and residents.

What we need to do is march on Washington and demand every single politician step down and elect real people to office.

Of course some cynicist out here will say whats to stop the corruption from a new administration.
I'll tell u what. The promise of life in prison if found guilty of stealing from the country and its people.

If we had a seperate citizen's panel to oversee our elected officials and keep them honest you would see that all of a sudden that 9 trillion dollar debt we owe would turn into a positive.

The lobbyist are the grease that keeps the wheels running in DC. True political reform will need to address this in a big way. This is not a Dem or Repub thing its a political issue and it doesn't matter who you put in office. Just like we work to live another day, politicans work to get re-elected and you need money for that. The tea baggers showed a lot of misunderstanding on that issue as well as about 10 others that they were protesting about.

[ccbatson]

Currently inflation is flat [[or even deflationary). However, the money being spent [[and printed) is just beginning to enter from the government. Does anyone believe that this is not a set up for big inflation [[or hyperinflation) down the road a little way?

[firstandten]

I know some of you posters are a lot better than me when it comes to economic policy especially the monetary side and what Obama is and is not doing to get us out of this crisis. I come on this board not only to give opinions but to learn from others and I respect the opinions of those on this board.

Having said that I do believe in the premiss that Dr. Batra and others believe that we are in economic trouble because of the

productively = wage gap
[[supply) [[demand)

My understanding is that real wages have not kept up with productively over the last 20 or so years namely because of the economic policies that were heavily laissez-faire. I have difficulty getting my arms around a libertarian economic policy because of that reason

" But the expression free markets is often misinterpreted to mean that unregulated markets are all that is required for markets to work their wonders and achieve efficient outcomes. But unregulated is not enough, there are many, many other conditions that must be present. Deregulation or privatization may even move the outcome further from the ideal competitive benchmark rather than closer to it, it depends upon the characteristics of the market in question.
For government goods and services, when incentives consistent with a competitive outcome are present, we should get government out of the way and privatize, and there are lots of circumstances where this will be appropriate. There is no reason at all for the government to produce its own pencils and pens, buying them from the private sector is more efficient so long as the bids are competitive.
When competitive conditions are not met but can be regulated, the regulations should be put in place and the private sector left to do its thing [[e.g. mandating that sellers disclose problems with a house to prevent asymmetric information or mandating that government funded projects be subject to competitive bidding and monitoring to ensure contract terms are met). There's no reason for government to do anything except ensure that the incentives to motivate competitive behavior are in place and enforced.
But rampant privatization based upon some misguided notion that markets are always best, privatization that does not proceed by first ensuring that market incentives are consistent with the public interest, doesn't do us any good. There are lots of free market advocates out there and I am with them so long as we understand that free does not mean the absence of government intervention, regulation, or oversight, even libertarians agree that governments must intervene to ensure basics like private property rights. Free means that the conditions for perfect competition are approximated as much as possible and sometimes that means the presence - rather than the absence - of government is required."

This quote came from Mark Thoma an economist from the University of Oregon


Knowing that supply and demand seeks equilibrium but supply because of globalization, outsourcing and degulation was increasing, but real wages were decreasing, debt was the method used as in consumer debt mortgage debt etc. to try and regain the equilibrium between supply and demand or lessen the productively wage gap. Of course debt was used because the republicans don't want to increase real wages.

So in my opinion we have a demand problem , but Obama has a problem,we have given away our manufacturing base. we have been losing jobs at a rate of half a mill for the last few months and to go back on all our trade agreements, establish tariffs or otherwise institute trade policies that will isolate us will be a disaster for our foreign policy and will hurt us in the long run.

I think the only option Obama had was to spend a lot on infrastucture to substain demand until other forms of industry can come in and employ people at substainable wages.

So to me equilibrium looks like this

Productively = wages + government spending

The deficit this would create could eventually be addressed by taxes received once your are closer to full employment and at some point a middle class tax hike and of course tax the rich at higher than the 39% Obama wants.

To me this is why a mixed economy is the only viable long term option for this country.

[ccbatson]

Yes...but both are being affected [[and will be).

[oladub]

firstandten writes, "My understanding is that real wages have not kept up with productively over the last 20 or so years namely because of the economic policies that were heavily laissez-faire. I have difficulty getting my arms around a libertarian economic policy because of that reason"

"even libertarians agree that governments must intervene to ensure basics like private property rights. Free means that the conditions for perfect competition are approximated as much as possible and sometimes that means the presence - rather than the absence - of government is required."

It is difficult for wages to keep up with productivity when government policy has been to allow the export of jobs while almost sanctioning the flow of illegal immigrants.The resulting supply demand situation of workers to remaining jobs makes it impossible for workers to demand more wages. While some libertarians would like open borders, it isn't libertarians so much as politicians beholden to corporate interests who advance these policies. The policies are heavily laissez-faire where it comes to advancing corporate interests. As you say, sometimes government is required to protect the interests of individuals. Developing laws that make it difficult for individuals and small businesses to compete are not helpful.

[firstandten]

It is difficult for wages to keep up with productivity when government policy has been to allow the export of jobs while almost sanctioning the flow of illegal immigrants.The resulting supply demand situation of workers to remaining jobs makes it impossible for workers to demand more wages. While some libertarians would like open borders, it isn't libertarians so much as politicians beholden to corporate interests who advance these policies. The policies are heavily laissez-faire where it comes to advancing corporate interests. As you say, sometimes government is required to protect the interests of individuals. Developing laws that make it difficult for individuals and small businesses to compete are not helpful.

Why then when I mention on threads about illegal immigration that we have an illegal employer problem not an illegal immigrant problem and the government should go after them. no one seems to notice. Is it not a reasonable solution?
Unless we built a Berlin wall type structure across the Rio Grande there's no way we could stop the flow of people coming over illegally. And yes, it is a drag on wages

[ccbatson]

There is a point of common ground. For every reason imaginable [[security, slowing the drain on resources, and possibly wages) immigration control is important.

If you really want to level the playing field, establish reasonable immigration policies, phase down [[and out) entitlements [[for everyone) in favor of private free market solutions, dissolve unions [[or at least repeal legislation that bolsters unfair union power in the labor markets)....and we all benefit.