Mushroom's smear campaign doesn't change any of the facts or events as Butler conveyed them, nor does it impugn his character, as Butler was a two-time medal of honor recipient and a legend among infantry Marines and Soldiers for his advocacy on their behalf. He was the quintessential populist general that the men looked up to. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, was a dastard and a buffoon who unnecessarily plunged the west into a war to the death with Nazi Germany.
How did I "attack" you? And if you make the claim or claims, the onus is on you to substantiate it or them. That is just basic debate protocol. If I were obligated to research every claim made by some random figure on the internet, I'd spend all my days Googling. So, if you want to assert something as fact, provide evidence for your claim so that is can be analyzed in an open and objective manner. Are you afraid that if we actually investigate your claims that they'll fail to hold up under scrutiny? There is nothing "between the lines", only what I stated. You haven't provided a shred of evidence that he was "crazy", "batshot" or otherwise. You simply recited a list a claims (none of which you bothered to substantiate or place in context) and arrived at a self-serving conclusion. Now that I'm questioning your position, demanding some kind of intellectual rigor from you, you become defensive and dismissive. Asserting your opinion as fact is a pretty juvenile debate tactic.
Never would have happened. Not only because few really took him seriously, but because the "gold Standard" would destroy the economy of any nation that attempted it again. Short lesson here in economics 101. The reason the US and most nations left a standard based upon a hard commodity is because of the cycles of inflation-deflation that could cripple an economy. And I can give you 2 very good examples of this. Now imagine we had used a Silver Standard in the late 1970's to early 1980's. I do not know how old you are, but I myself clearly remember the Hunt Brothers and Silver Thursday. This was a brief period where manipulation of the market drove the price of silver from around $20 an ounce to over $100 an ounce. And the price stayed artificially high for years afterwards. Now think of the impact on your economy if the value of your currency is tied to that commodity. Suddenly, your currency is worth 5 times more. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Because now massive deflation sets in. This is the opposite of inflation, where your currency is so valuable that you can no longer really use it. Pennies have the value of dimes, dimes have the value of a dollar, and your $200 a month paycheck now has the value of $2,000. Sounds good, until you realize that prices of goods will follow the same curve. This is not exactly inflation, because the value of goods and money both increases, but because the amount of currency in circulation is fixed, the buying power is reduced because of the reduced amounts of goods. This is part of what made the Great Depression so bad. Money never really lost it's value, the opposite happened. So everybody horded instead of spent, and the lack of demand killed the supply side. OK, now fast forward in this case a few months. Say your country actually adapted to the increase of value. Things are sailing along just fine, then suddenly the value of that commodity drops to 10-20% of what it was before. Well, now you have the opposite problem. Your currency is now essentially worthless. Think of Weimar era Germany, where you need a wheelbarrow to have enough money to buy a loaf of bread. That is what happens because your dollars now have the purchasing power of dimes. The reason the world left commodities as a form of currency backing is because it is just to damned unstable. And it is so easily manipulated that it would be a piece of cake to utterly destroy a nation that decided it was to go back to such a system. Let me give you an example of this. Let's take the Republic of Myopia. Now it has tied it's currency to unobtanium. Now this has been a pretty stable commodity, selling at around $100 an ounce for years, with an average annual growth of 2-5% per year. That sounds like a good commodity, except that like Libya and gold (your example), Myopia is not a major producer of unobtanium. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is the major producer of unobtanium, and one of the largest nations holding it is Pottsylvania. Now each of these two countries can destroy Myopia in different ways. First, Grand Fenwick could simply place an embargo upon the export of unobtanium. The supply dries up, and suddenly the price starts to rise, up to $1,000 an ounce. And as this happens, the Myopian currency starts to rise in value as well, causing economic stagnation as now nobody can afford to buy anything because their currency is so valuable (the same thing did happen to Spain after she became flush with American Gold in the 16th century). Then let's let this play out a bit more. The economy is now stagnant because everybody is hording their money. And now Pottsylvania jumps in and starts to dump their stockpiles of unobtanium. Now the market goes into freefall, as they suck up as much as they can as speculation, and the price tumbles farther and farther, finally crashing at $25 an ounce. Now Myopia is in even worse trouble, with their economy now in shambles from the other side. Now their currency, where a penny was worth a dollar, now their dollar is worth a quarter. Economic chaos, by purely legal and easy to commodity manipulation. That is why we no longer use a "gold standard". Any questions? Class is dismissed.
Yes, "experts", none of which you have bothered to cite or even name. I love it when people make reference to vague authority figures that supposedly support their interpretation of events...
Sorry, let's just say I am tired of doing this same thing over and over again. I actually did quite a full report on General Butler back in 1986, as part of a class I had to do for NCO school at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The information is out there, feel free to freaking research it yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCo...inary_findings_of_HUAC.2C_November_24.2C_1934 http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2624/oh-smedley Oh, and as for Congressman Samuel Dickstein, one of the investigators of this plot? he was an NKVD agent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Dickstein_(congressman) http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/01/...rsict.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=dickstein spy&st=cse http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2...for-a-soviet-spy-goes-largely-unnoticed/?_r=0 Now just think about this. When a Soviet agent dismisses a planned "Nazi Plot" as a bunch of nonsense, that is simply insane. If anything, if there was anything there the Congressman would have been shouting it from the rooftops. But it was silly, everybody knew it was silly, and it was dismissed as silly. Try to do a little research into it yourself. And at the same time research the animosity of the VFW and American Legion of the era, and realize how impossible it would have been to propose a high ranking member of one group would be offered the leadership of the other. Most consider Gerald MacGuire and Bill Doyle as little more then conmen, trying to swindle the General as a way to gain financial support in a stupid scam. Doyle and MacGuire were also officers in the American Legion (Doyle was a Post Commander). General Butler was a major Veterans of Foreign Wars officer, and a major recruiter and fundraiser for that organization. And he had publically spoken out against the American Legion, and his disdain for that organization. So the proposal was completely stupid. It would be like going to George Wallace, and offering him leadership of the NAACP if he supported a coup. Or going to Doctor King and offering him leadership of the KKK if he tried to overthrow the government. Complete and utter nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legion Now does this make any sense at all? That he would be offers complete control of the American Legion, in support of a coup? It is bullcrap, pure and simple. Now do some research, and how about some of your own research in return? But hey, this has nothing to do with the USS Zumwalt. If you want to continue this, why not throw it down in the Conspiracy Theory section, where it belongs? This is not the place.
What are you getting this rubbish from? Tell me how was Gaddafi going to change all the currencies of Africa? I think there is something like 54 countries in Africa. The Africans can't even agree who is African, how are they going to change all their currencies? When people say Gaddafi with word fail comes to mind, because that is what he was a total fail. Look at what he had done in his 40 year rule? He was pain in the arse, not a obstacle, otherwise Raegan would have taken him out. Hahahaha. Yes I agree it is your governments fault, it can't control the system the British created to have a balance of power within the region. Al Quaeda came from and 9/11 came from US inaction under Clinton, not US action under Raegan or Bush. Iran hates and I mean hates Britain, we tryed to take Persia for years and years to complete the ring of pink around the Indian Ocean from Indo-China to the Southern Ocean. We even invaded Iran in WW2 with the Soviets. We created and supported Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states as a block to Irans power in the region. We created Iraq to be almost unruleable so Iran, Turkey or Saudi Arabia couldn't take it over. Iraq was a bad idea, the Americans didn't seem to understand what the British left behind for them. Still they have taken it on to block the USSR and protect their oil interests. The point is that the people blame the US, no it was the British that created a system only they could control it. So infact the US problem is that it isn't imperialist. I know what I am saying will sound backward, but it is correct.
Oh, so you know what would happen in an alternate reality now? Your powers of perception are simply amazing! Yet another unsubstantiated, self-serving vagary. Pure opinion based upon speculation. You can give me examples of the "economy" being "crippled" under a commodity standard? I highly doubt that. You say you're going to give me "examples" of the "economy" being "crippled" due to some ill-defined "cycles of inflation and deflation" and your example is an imaginative scenario? I thought you were going to rely on empirical evidence instead of some self-serving imagination land. Color me unimpressed. Empirical evidence refutes your speculative nonsense, I'm afraid: “Gold is a finite resource, and until the big South African discoveries in the 1890s, there wasn’t that much gold. But people were happy to make payments with it. The whole idea that people won’t make payments with something that’s finite and held as a store of value is not correct.” --Simon Johnson, professor of entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics You are talking complete gibberish. Their "value" is a simple function of supply and demand, nothing more. A currency that is deflationary simply has a constant supply with increasing demand for the money. The increasing demand for the money comes from an increase in the size of the economy, i.e., more goods and services. A virtually fixed money supply chasing more goods and services results in LOWER prices, not higher prices. That's what "deflation" is, a general decrease in the average price level of the economy! You presume to educate me on economics 101 and you don't even understand what deflation actually is. How embarrassing... This is nothing but a bunch of speculative ranting and blather. An "example" in an economic context would translate to real-world evidence, not imagined scenarios that involve numerous misconceptions about how deflation actually works. Go back to school, Marine. Your economic IQ is way low.
I think a currency tied to a basket of goods and the money supply tied to commodities is better than government banks controlling the price or money supply. - - - Updated - - - No he is correct, however then the problem is how to control the money supply and stop countries rigging their currencies.
[video=youtube;GuqZfaj34nc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqZfaj34nc[/video] Iran justifiably hates Britain and the US: [video=youtube;80zQ796hvqk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80zQ796hvqk[/video]
None of this is off topic. This new stealth ship is just a cog in the military industrial complex. We can discuss the broader implications and associations of defense spending and banking and financing. They are all interconnected.
It is. But discussing conspiracy teories, with them being true or not, currencies and economics doesn't belong to this subforum.
You guys want to limit the discussion to simple technical or tactical matters. I am merely taking a more strategic view of the new ship. It's just part of a larger trend of militarization and cronyism that has been taking place for over a hundred years.
It is because the guys from military industrial complex loving money and some generals living in "invisible, railgun and lasers equiped undestructible Death Star" fairy tale and because lobbists are damn good at their job. Basically, yes. History of the US is irrelevant in this thread. If you want to discuss it - be our guest - create a separate thread for it. I am sure one of local graphomans will take part.
Oh what a shock. Russia Today alert. Iran has no reason to hate the US, other than the US supporting it's enemies to stop Iran taking over the Arabs. It was mainly the British and Churchill supporting the coup, for BP. MI5 did most of the ground work after the invasion in WW2. Soviets had plans aswell. I know Americans sometimes like to think they did everything even if it causes problems for them, but in this case it was the British.
Bloody Austrians. I am of the Milton Friedman school so I support national currencies, either by a computer instead of people or a basket of goods to get the price and money backed by gold. I very much enjoy Schiff radio and Peter Schiff talks about this a lot. I support a free market and a national government, I even support voluntary taxation. So I am not a statist or progressive. I am a post-modern Conservative.
The utter irony of these two posts back to back. In one breath you resort to character assassination to invalidate the position supported by Gen. Butler and with the next one you reject such levying of personal attacks over substance of argument. War IS a racket. It is most often orchestrated to allow multinational business interests to externalize the costs of accessing foreign markets and control of foreign resources. Butler was correct when he asserted as much.
Friedman came over the the dark side before he died. His son is an outright anarcho-capitalist. Bitcoin is already proving that market-based currencies are viable, not that it needed any proving to begin with...
Because some military planners are stupid and wrong. Limited by politicians and the public. The Royal Navy in WW1 had all of these problems, stupid planners, wrong commanders, limited by politicians and pushed into mistakes by the public. You build them because military planners are stupid, politicians need to "create jobs" and the public wants new shinny ships to buy models of and be patriotic about. I used to be like that myself, I sometimes still am.
Bitcoin has been around for 4 years and is being pushed by people who have made millions off it and want to keep making more. It is a fad, pushed by the same cooperations you say run the US government. Peter Schiff and Stefan Canadian guy had a very interesting debate about. Peter Schiff won. So I am going nowhere near Bitcoin. Good for Friedman, I agreed with his arguments that he made in the 70's and 80's, not his latter stuff. However I still have a great deal of respect for him. His son David is a total D**k. People think I am a anarcho-capitalist, because I support voluntary taxation through charters using the profit motive. However most people think it wouldn't work.
I am betting the same thing as well. I have tracked many kinds of "virtual currencies" over the years, including Linden Dollars, Bitcoins, Simoleans, and it always tends to follow patterns. Oh, and the value of Bitcoins? It is now over $1,000. And you are right, I would not touch it with a 10 meter pole. This "currency" is so highly volatile, that only a fool would try to get into it now. This "currency" has been going through some amazing rollercoaster perambulations, mostly driven by speculators. http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/19/instead-of-crashing-bitcoins-price-is-slowly-deflating/ But the biggest market seems to be in the actual "coins" themselves, not in actually using them. Kind of like anything else virtual (such as the "dot com boom" of the 1990's), it never really lasts. And eventually it will have a hard crash because there is nothing really backing the value, and it will fade into obscurity. And because of usage on sites like Silk Road, expect regulations about it to pop up pretty soon. Plus there is the issue of theft. http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/19/5...r-spying-bitcoin-mining-settlement-new-jersey This just happened a few days ago, but most do not know of or understand it. Basically some guys online had a Trojan that pilfered bitcoins form their computer. And expect lots of copycat programs to start popping up. Once again, totally off-topic (unless you are a conspiracy type who has to link everything together), but it shows how wrong these guys really are. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/bitcoin-is-the-segway-of-currency/281625/ Does this really look like an ideal model to base a currency on? A Mashed Potatoe Standard would probably be better then this pile of coprolite.
Yeah I asked my financial advisor about a Bitcoin investment and hedge a couple of months ago, but he said the risk didn't fit the rest of my rest of my portfolio. After a few minutes of debate he convinced me. Pointing out many of the things you and Peter Schiff say are problems with it. What I was going to do was buy about 100 Bitcoins then bet against the currency the same amount, so I didn't think I could lose really. However he put me straight.
The biggest problem with bitcoin, and there are a few, but the most concerning is the potential to get hacked and not know it until you plan on selling and you find your lot of 200 bit coins is now only 5 and you have no recourse.
