Robert Anton Wilson on the federal reserve

[Yamato]

You spent 15 pages defending a gold standard against every comer. You basically spent 15 pages repeating yourself.

Br Cornelius

Source, please.

[Guest]

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=234679&st=0

Find me where in that you advocate anything other than a gold standard.

Br Cornelius

[Yamato]

http://www.unexplain...pic=234679&st=0

Find me where in that you advocate anything other than a gold standard.

Br Cornelius

Okay will do. This isn't the only discussion I've had about money, money and monetary policy either, nor the only one I've had with you. Plugging such a lie about me that I don't think there are other possibilities was pathetic. But since you're the one that went there, first find where my assertions ended up "roundly routed" in those 15 pages because it seems the one that left the scene was you, not me.

[Guest]

Okay will do. This isn't the only discussion I've had about money, money and monetary policy either, nor the only one I've had with you. Plugging such a lie about me that I don't think there are other possibilities was pathetic. But since you're the one that went there, first find where my assertions ended up "roundly routed" in those 15 pages because it seems the one that left the scene was you, not me.

i read the whole thread again. All you did was repeat that gold was invariable and so was immune to the ills of the FED. Gold had never caused any economic problems in the past and had never failed as a currency. 15 pages of the same statement against many very reasonable and well informed counter positions. Not very edifying.

Br Cornelius

[Yamato]

i read the whole thread again. All you did was repeat that gold was invariable and so was immune to the ills of the FED. Gold had never caused any economic problems in the past and had never failed as a currency. 15 pages of the same statement against many very reasonable and well informed counter positions. Not very edifying.

Br Cornelius

Gold is immune to the ills of the Fed for a very simple reason, because you can't print infinite amounts of it. There's a very finite limited supply of it, and it's extremely difficult to produce. That is a desirable quality. The other one is that it doesn't burn in fire. It doesn't oxidize in air, it doesn't deteriorate from friction and being handled, it can't be stained, written on, it isn't vulnerable to the dirt and oils transferred from human skin. It doesn't get put into a drawer and eaten by termites like a poor Asian lady's life savings recently were when she stored her paper in a shoebox in her house. There are many attributes that make precious metals a very attractive basis for money. You put up an OP about Federal Reserve Notes and then you troll the discussion to gold again when RAW didn't say a word about it. We can agree on fiat currency. But if you can't understand the differences between paper and metal, I don't know what the problem is.

And let's explore those 15 pages a little bit better than that. I see a lot of different questions on that thread I asked you that you never answered.

[Guest]

All of those qualities are not intrinsic to money - they have nothing to do with money. Money is an idea which has to function for its intended purpose. The current FED and Gold both fail on meeting the essential qualities of money - both distort and destroy smooth functioning economies.

You asked why your opinion was wrong on your invariant points. You weren't in a discussion of ideas - you were in polemic mode.

Br Cornelius

[Guest]

More sage words from RAW;

“I have read a great deal of economic theory for over 50 years now, but have found only one economic "law" to which I can find NO exceptions:

Where the State prevents a free market, by banning any form of goods or services, consumer demand will create a black market for those goods or services, at vastly higher prices.

Can YOU think of a single exception to this law?”

An essay by RAW on economics p19;

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=ed44314fcea87fe0&sc=documents&uc=1&id=ED44314FCEA87FE0!104#!/view.aspx?cid=ED44314FCEA87FE0&resid=ED44314FCEA87FE0!473&app=WordPdf

Br Cornelius

Edited July 24, 2013 by Guest

[Yamato]

All of those qualities are not intrinsic to money - they have nothing to do with money. Money is an idea which has to function for its intended purpose. The current FED and Gold both fail on meeting the essential qualities of money - both distort and destroy smooth functioning economies.

You asked why your opinion was wrong on your invariant points. You weren't in a discussion of ideas - you were in polemic mode.

Br Cornelius

I was discussing ideas. You were trying to base money on "things of real value" and when asked what those were, you shriveled up or deflected into doing exactly what you're doing here. More abstract conceptualization of money and flowery rhetoric about how gold is equivalent to fiat. However you define money, any form it takes meets the definition. There are differences between gold and fiat. You can't acknowledge them. That's the end of the debate.

[Yamato]

“I have read a great deal of economic theory for over 50 years now, but have found only one economic "law" to which I can find NO exceptions: Where the State prevents a free market, by banning any form of goods or services, consumer demand will create a black market for those goods or services, at vastly higher prices. Can YOU think of a single exception to this law?”~RAW

The state prevents the pot market by banning Cannabis. Consumer demand creates a black market for that good, at vastly lower prices, because people grow it themselves.

[Guest]

There are differences between gold and fiat.

I acknowledge that they are different - but equally flawed. You do not.

Br Cornelius

[Yamato]

I acknowledge that they are different - but equally flawed. You do not.

Br Cornelius

They're not equally flawed. Fiat is far and away the most flawed example of money there is. It's a lot easier to regulate a physical object than a zero on a computer screen. It's a lot easier to regulate an historically guaranteed storehouse of value (metals) than an historically guaranteed collapse of value (fiat).

[Guest]

An asset is not money and when confidence is low in the market people invest in that asset (a flight to gold) it then ceases to function as a currency because it is unobtainable for its monetary function. This has happened repeatedly and is why Gold generally deepens and worsens recession/depressions. Sitting on a pile of shiny metal when the economy collapses around your ears isn't very useful as the Americans found out in the great depression. The fact that it retains some nominal value through the crisis tells you absolutely nothing about its failure to prevent the crisis in the first place and it is very cold comfort to those not sitting on a pile of gold who depend on money to conduct their daily activities.

The currency of money doesn't have to have any intrinsic value - in fact it functions far better when it has none. Everything else is a matter of regulation and management. it is a gross mistake to equate the failures of the FED to manage its Fiat currency, with a failure of the concept of Fiat currency - that is a stretch of logic to far. There are many forms of Fiat currency and not all of them are doomed to fail by design. The main question here is why your Government elected to adopt a system which seems doomed to fail from the outset ! Answer that and you start to understand money a lot better.

Br Cornelius

Edited July 24, 2013 by Guest

[Yamato]

An asset is not money and when confidence is low in the market people invest in that asset (a flight to gold) it then ceases to function as a currency because it is unobtainable for its monetary function. This has happened repeatedly and is why Gold generally deepens and worsens recession/depressions. Sitting on a pile of shiny metal when the economy collapses around your ears isn't very useful as the Americans found out in the great depression. The fact that it retains some nominal value through the crisis tells you absolutely nothing about its failure to prevent the crisis in the first place and it is very cold comfort to those not sitting on a pile of gold who depend on money to conduct their daily activities.

The currency of money doesn't have to have any intrinsic value - in fact it functions far better when it has none. Everything else is a matter of regulation and management. it is a gross mistake to equate the failures of the FED to manage its Fiat currency, with a failure of the concept of Fiat currency - that is a stretch of logic to far. There are many forms of Fiat currency and not all of them are doomed to fail by design. The main question here is why your Government elected to adopt a system which seems doomed to fail from the outset ! Answer that and you start to understand money a lot better.

Br Cornelius

It's all about confidence. Nothing gets around market sentiment. Not even the magic printing press. Government can spend all the money it wants, it can print a hundred trillion dollars, it can go kicking and screaming into that good night, but in the end, the market's going to win every time. Sustainable economic activity is operating in the marketplace, not fighting tooth and nail against it.

It's funny to see you starting to hedge your criticism of fiat, which is the only thing that RAW criticized in the OP. The recessions we've had since Nixon Shock aren't gold's fault, so your preference not to have it hasn't done these baseless claims any favor.

[Guest]

He criticised the FED (just as I do) - nothing more. He had the good sense to propose the concept of Hemp script and Flax script in his works of fiction (spot the absence of Gold).

RAW had a far better grasp on the issues associated with money than either you or I, and he never proposed turning back the wheels of time to a Gold standard. That tells me all I need to know about the utility of Gold as a currency.

The recessions we have had since Nixon are nothing like as sever as the depression of the 1920's, caused by the gold standard's inflexibility. Recessions will never go away but without flexibility they are far more sever and damaging. the depression of the 1920's ended in another world war.

Br Cornelius

Edited July 24, 2013 by Guest

[Yamato]

He criticised the FED (just as I do) - nothing more. He had the good sense to propose the concept of Hemp script and Flax script in his works of fiction (spot the absence of Gold).

RAW had a far better grasp on the issues associated with money than either you or I, and he never proposed turning back the wheels of time to a Gold standard. That tells me all I need to know about the utility of Gold as a currency.

The recessions we have had since Nixon are nothing like as sever as the depression of the 1920's, caused by the gold standard's inflexibility. Recessions will never go away but without flexibility they are far more sever and damaging. the depression of the 1920's ended in another world war.

Br Cornelius

Okay well you just pray at his altar then and I won't stop ya bud.

We've been over the causes for the Great Depression, incidentally they were cited in the 15 page thread that you probably shouldn't have referred to. None of them blame the the gold standard. What you're alluding to by putting the blame on gold is Keynesian economics, relying on government spending to save the economy from a down cycle, and as you well know, under a gold standard you can't do that. So you can't have your Keynesian and pretend to be against the Fed too, because the Fed is where that extracurricular Keynesian spending comes from. So you're at odds with yourself and like last year, I can't trust you, whether its accuracy or honesty to blame I'm not sure.

[Guest]

There are many well respected papers on why the Gold Standard both caused and deepened the Great Depression. Gold fanboys like to deny the fact, but Gold has always caused deeper and longer recessions - and I provided links to those sources in that discussion. Keynesian economics isn't dependent on money at interest (the root cause of the long term inflation of the money supply) and easing the money supply when needed actually works to shorten recessions. You don't need to expand the money supply other than on a short term basis when more liquidity is essential. You can do that without the FED.

The real fundamental problem which caused the crisis in the first place was creating a system which allows private banks to create money by lending it into existence and then using those loans as collateral to create more loans. A system which has absolutely no central control over the money in existence is a recipe for hyperinflation and a devaluation of the real value of cash in your pocket. When speculators can control more money than the whole of the rest of the functional economy is it not surprising that we are at the whim of boom and bust cycles as the casino goes up and down. That is what the "free market" has become and it has killed the world economy. Quantitive easing is a last ditch attempt to salvage something out of the crisis - and wouldn't have been necessary without the fundamental flaw in the money system we function under.

Fiat money can be interest free and can disallow fractional reserve;

Interest-Free Treasury Dollars: Interest-free money issued directly by the Treasury, reminiscent of Lincoln's Greenback, would basically remove the for-profit middleman -- the Federal Reserve. The concept of interest-free money in the U.S. started in Colonial times. Ben Franklin referred to it as "honest money" and wrote "In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one." Naturally, the private banking cartel will deplore this idea, as it breaks their control over the government and the economy. John F. Kennedy was the last president to attempt this on June 4th, 1963 (Just months before his assassination); he signed Executive Order 11110, which gave him legal clearance to create interest and debt-free money directly from the Treasury. What made Kennedy's plan even more secure is that his interest-free money was to be backed by silver bullion in the Treasury. This would seem to be the best national strategy so long as other local competing currencies are still allowed to exist. Otherwise we are just trading one monopoly for another.

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/05/5-alternatives-to-federal-reserve.html

None of this is a critique of paper money as such - just the rules and regulations the capitol markets function under and the means by which money is currently created. Kill the FED but don't try to replace it with a system (gold) which caused just as many problems and created some of the deepest depressions in history.

The fact that you are so dogmatic that you refuse to accept the output of academia tells us more about you than economics

Br Cornelius

Edited July 24, 2013 by Guest

[Yamato]

There are many well respected papers on why the Gold Standard both caused and deepened the Great Depression. Gold fanboys like to deny the fact, but Gold has always caused deeper and longer recessions - and I provided links to those sources in that discussion. Keynesian economics isn't dependent on money at interest (the root cause of the long term inflation of the money supply) and easing the money supply when needed actually works to shorten recessions. You don't need to expand the money supply other than on a short term basis when more liquidity is essential. You can do that without the FED.

The real fundamental problem which caused the crisis in the first place was creating a system which allows private banks to create money by lending it into existence and then using those loans as collateral to create more loans. A system which has absolutely no central control over the money in existence is a recipe for hyperinflation and a devaluation of the real value of cash in your pocket. When speculators can control more money than the whole of the rest of the functional economy is it not surprising that we are at the whim of boom and bust cycles as the casino goes up and down. That is what the "free market" has become and it has killed the world economy. Quantitive easing is a last ditch attempt to salvage something out of the crisis - and wouldn't have been necessary without the fundamental flaw in the money system we function under.

Fiat money can be interest free and can disallow fractional reserve;

http://www.activistp...al-reserve.html

None of this is a critique of paper money as such - just the rules and regulations the capitol markets function under and the means by which money is currently created. Kill the FED but don't try to replace it with a system (gold) which caused just as many problems and created some of the deepest depressions in history.

The fact that you are so dogmatic that you refuse to accept the output of academia tells us more about you than economics

Br Cornelius

You're switching the topic from nothing more than a critique of magic fiat money into all this. You've probably claimed that the gold standard caused the Great Depression a hundred times in rhetoric only but I've never seen your academics supporting your comments. Blaming gold Keynesian. You have to inflate the money supply to get the spending to have the Keynesianism to agree with yourself. You can't do that without fiat. So you're completely at odds with yourself. Either you don't like fiat and can't have Keynesianism like myself, or you can choose Keynesianism and need fiat money supply expansion to practice it. This Cafeteria Economics where you can have it both ways sounds like another great magic trick similar to what RAW makes of fiat currency in the OP.

[Guest]

You assume again that its Gold or FED. There are other forms of paper money.

When you grasp that maybe you will grasp what I am saying.

Br Cornelius

[Yamato]

You assume again that its Gold or FED. There are other forms of paper money.

When you grasp that maybe you will grasp what I am saying.

Br Cornelius

No, you assume that I assume that because you think everything that I think is contained within the limits you create for me.

Money doesn't need to be paper or anything else. Currency doesn't need to be paper either. There are alternatives, Bitcoin or Litecoin for example.

[Guest]

No, you assume that I assume that because you think everything that I think is contained within the limits you create for me.

Money doesn't need to be paper or anything else. Currency doesn't need to be paper either. There are alternatives, Bitcoin or Litecoin for example.

So why are you against paper money ? Why is Gold superior when it has so many issues ?

Br Cornelius

[Yamato]

So why are you against paper money ? Why is Gold superior when it has so many issues ?

Br Cornelius

Already listed plenty of reasons why on this thread and on the 15 page thread that you referred to.

[Guest]

Already listed plenty of reasons why on this thread and on the 15 page thread that you referred to.

Your reasons are only specific to FED money. Gold has its own problems which you have not acknowledged and that thread showed you avoiding addressing them - repeatedly.

Br Cornelius

[preacherman76]

Nowhere did he advocate gold and he wrote quite a bit on economics, I think we can safely conclude he wasn't a fan.

Here's a nice challenge, find me one quote from RAW where he gives a positive assessment of the gold standard. If it exists it should be relatively easy to find.

The RICH economy is what he advocated, here is an article by him on what that means;

http://www.whywork.o...k/rawilson.html

Much more revolutionary than a discussion of currencies.

Br Cornelius

Thats a stretch. To say the least. You dont hear me talking about any number of things. That doesnt mean that you can safely assume you know how I feel about them.

[Guest]

Thats a stretch. To say the least. You dont hear me talking about any number of things. That doesnt mean that you can safely assume you know how I feel about them.

He made many suggestions on economics. A return to the gold standard is glaring in its absence. He had a very positivist outlook and if he though gold would have been the best solution he would have clearly said so.

He was a very different stripe of Libertarian than most we have here.

Br Cornelius

Edited July 25, 2013 by Guest

[preacherman76]

All of those qualities are not intrinsic to money - they have nothing to do with money. Money is an idea which has to function for its intended purpose. The current FED and Gold both fail on meeting the essential qualities of money - both distort and destroy smooth functioning economies.

You asked why your opinion was wrong on your invariant points. You weren't in a discussion of ideas - you were in polemic mode.

Br Cornelius

In your opinion, what is the answer to the problems of a fiat currency?