Author Topic: Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis?  (Read 9564 times)

Classical_Liberal

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Re: Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis?
« Reply #50 on: October 19, 2018, 04:26:07 PM »
Comparing the Federal Government to either household (as I've seen in the past) or to business spending as the last couple of posts here have, is comparing apples to apple trees. 

The government can raise revenues at will(taxes), or create more money at will(create more debt).  Business and households do not have this feature, they are forced to live within constraints of cash-flow and/or the free economy's willingness to lend to them.

Still, there are limits to how much a government can extract based on GDP (or as the US does, extract from others GDP through reserve currency status or force).  Also there's always the possibility of revolution if the economic conditions become too poor.

I'm not say'en  fiat currency will all work out in the end.  It may or may not, depending on governments ability to constrain itself and look both short AND long term.   However, it's not going to run short on cash flow or it's ability to create debt at any time in the near term.

I do, however, agree that the most recent deficit binge is a complete waste.  We should be building an infrastructure to keep the US competitive for the rest of the century, not corporate tax cuts for stock buy-backs.

Telecaster

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Re: Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis?
« Reply #51 on: October 19, 2018, 07:20:14 PM »
Comparing the Federal Government to either household (as I've seen in the past) or to business spending as the last couple of posts here have, is comparing apples to apple trees. 

The government can raise revenues at will(taxes), or create more money at will(create more debt).  Business and households do not have this feature, they are forced to live within constraints of cash-flow and/or the free economy's willingness to lend to them.

Still, there are limits to how much a government can extract based on GDP (or as the US does, extract from others GDP through reserve currency status or force).  Also there's always the possibility of revolution if the economic conditions become too poor.

I'm not say'en  fiat currency will all work out in the end.  It may or may not, depending on governments ability to constrain itself and look both short AND long term.   However, it's not going to run short on cash flow or it's ability to create debt at any time in the near term.

I do, however, agree that the most recent deficit binge is a complete waste.  We should be building an infrastructure to keep the US competitive for the rest of the century, not corporate tax cuts for stock buy-backs.

Co-signed. 

runbikerun

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Re: Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis?
« Reply #52 on: October 20, 2018, 08:37:44 AM »
Man, the Cato Institute really is full of shit. It's remarkable how they note very clearly that Hong Kong is an outlier in the Human Freedom Index by dint of not being a democracy, but don't breathe a word about the fact that it's also a spectacular outlier in social spending (HK spends a little under 3% of GDP; the next lowest in that top ten is Ireland at 17%, while Finland tops out at over 30%).

Onto another topic:

"That worldwide the confidence in the US dollar is collapsing is evident, but also inside the USA it seems to me that always more people are losing confidence in it.
One sign of that is how frequently on the MSM experts keep repeating that the US dollar is solid.
Why do you keep saying that?"

This...this simply isn't true in any meaningful sense. The dollar has been getting stronger for several years.

theolympians

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Re: Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis?
« Reply #53 on: October 20, 2018, 09:50:33 AM »
Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis? YES

talltexan

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Re: Are the Libertarians Wrong about the dollar crisis?
« Reply #54 on: October 25, 2018, 08:37:28 AM »
Libertarians such as Ron Paul and Peter Schiff are, as always, talking about an impending dollar crisis, stagflation, and in the most extreme scenarios financial collapse and political unrest leading to some sort of socialist fascist mad max end game.

I can't tell whether these guys are truly visionary or just want to sell gold.

What do you guys think, impending doom or business as usual? I can remember reading about the iminent collapse of the dollar 15 years ago when I was in high school.
Paul and Schiff are neither visionary nor they want to sell gold. Imo, they just describe what they observe.
The criticism come mostly from those who want to use what Paul and Schiff say in order to make money, preferably quickly.
They are no financial advisors. They describe long term trends. You cannot trade for a quick profit based on their explanations.

Paul and Schiff talk about dollar crisis and collapse, yes.
Do/did they always talk about impending and imminent, as you suggest? I don't know.

In 2008 finance and economy didn't collapse because Gov and Fed forced the people to bail out those big corporations that were broke.
After that, the US economy didn't collapse because xy trillions get pumped in the bond and stock market.
Maybe Ron and Schiff did the mistake of underestimating the scale of the possible central banks and Govs (worldwide) interventions.

That worldwide the confidence in the US dollar is collapsing is evident, but also inside the USA it seems to me that always more people are losing confidence in it.
One sign of that is how frequently on the MSM experts keep repeating that the US dollar is solid.
Why do you keep saying that?

Paul67-

US dollar is up on the year:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TWEXB

Don't believe the St. Louis Federal Reserve bank? If you have international funds in one of your trading accounts, you can look up your balances today, and you'll see this.