Mitty is a goldbug!

[rubato]

One of the ways you can be certain that the person you are talking to is mentally deficient is when they state that we need to return to the gold standard. Proving that they don't know how the great depression happened or why the countries who abandoned the gold standard first all recovered first?


And now for the view of the Republican candidate for president of the United States:

"Romney:

I want to make sure the Federal Reserve focuses on maintaining the monetary stability that leads to a strong dollar and confidence that America is not going to go down the road that other nations have gone down, to their peril. And the GOP platform will reportedly include a call for steps toward a return to the gold standard.
... "


The man is even less intelligent than BushCo.



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

Steve wii have a candidate to vote for, at any rate.

[Joe Guy]

Where's Richard Nixon when the republican party really needs him?

[Scooter]

Hilarious spoof of One Direction asking Romney some pointed questions:

[dgs49]

As everyone with a three digit IQ is aware, the party platforms perennially include sops to various splinter groups, and are not to be taken very seriously. I"m sure this one is intended to endear the Ron Paulians.

Dem platforms have included things like "guaranteed living wage," which is about as viable as a return to the gold standard.

The point to be taken away - a valid one - is that the Fed is out of control (in several ways).

[rubato]

Appeasing the goldbugs is just as stupid and just as harmful as trained doctors telling the anti-vaccination crowd that their position "might make sense".


The gold std is harmfully stupid. (see below)
Telling people that it is ok not to vaccinate kills children. (whooping cough deaths are rising)



http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/ ... rime-time/

"...
Last week, the Republican Party officially endorsed a platform suggesting that the nation return to a gold standard. The statement on Page 4 does not mention gold specifically but rather talks about “a metallic basis for the U.S. currency.” The meaning is clear; no one is talking about basing the dollar on iron, copper or tin. The platform calls for a commission to study the idea.

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

This approach is very similar to that in the 1980 Republican platform, which also endorsed a gold standard without mentioning gold. It talked about a “monetary standard” and breakage of the link between the dollar and “real commodities,” which led to “hyperinflationary forces.” Of course, gold is the commodity that dollars were linked to before 1971.

According to an article in the July 31, 1980, issue of The Washington Post, the drafters of the 1980 Republican platform inflation plank included Representative David Stockman of Michigan, the Republican strategist Jeffrey Bell and Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (and subsequently chairman of the Federal Reserve), who endorsed the gold standard in a 1966 article for the libertarian novelist Ayn Rand’s newsletter. The drafters were clearly contemplating a gold standard.

Today, the usual gold bugs – The Wall Street Journal opinion pages, Forbes magazine and conservative Web sites – are all very excited about the Republican endorsement of yellow metal in place of that paper junk we carry in our wallets. During the Republican primaries, both Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain endorsed a return to the gold standard.
... "
Even before that, however, the Reagan administration had signaled its negative position on any return to a gold standard in the Economic Report of the President, issued in February (starting on Page 69). The gist of its objection was that while a gold standard provided stable purchasing power over long periods of time, that was only because inflations were subsequently offset with debilitating deflations. As a consequence, there were greater economic instabilities, higher unemployment and longer recessions during the gold-standard era.

Economists today generally believe that the gold standard exacerbated the Great Depression. They note that those countries that went off it first in the 1930s were the first to recover. A survey of a panel of 41 prominent economists earlier this year by the University of Chicago business school found no support for a gold standard, including by those who had served in Republican administrations, including Edward P. Lazear of Stanford and Richard Schmalensee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
... "

[oldr_n_wsr]

and longer recessions during the gold-standard era

Longer than this one?

[Long Run]

and longer recessions during the gold-standard era

Longer than this one?

Reasonable point, though economists will tell us the recession ended in June 2009. However, we haven't recovered from the recession, and at the current jobs growth pace, it will be 2016 before we have as many jobs as we did before the recession started at the end of 2007. It's a heck of a long time for a lot of people to be hurting financially.

[Scooter]

and longer recessions during the gold-standard era

Longer than this one?

The Long Depression:

In the United States, the Long Depression began with the Panic of 1873. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates the contraction following the panic as lasting from October 1873 to March 1879. At 65 months, it is the longest-lasting contraction identified by the NBER, eclipsing the Great Depression's 43 months of contraction...Following the end of the episode in 1879, the U.S. economy would remain unstable, experiencing recessions for 114 of the 253 months until January 1901.

[rubato]

and longer recessions during the gold-standard era

Longer than this one?

Reasonable point, though economists will tell us the recession ended in June 2009. However, we haven't recovered from the recession, and at the current jobs growth pace, it will be 2016 before we have as many jobs as we did before the recession started at the end of 2007. It's a heck of a long time for a lot of people to be hurting financially.

True, but Repuglicans have blocked any effective stimulus so this is what you get.

It's not as bad as the UK who used the "all austerity approach and has suffered a worse recovery than they did in the great depression.

Which is the Republicans prescription:



Note how the Republican approach causes the worst outcome



yrs,
rubato