Webster Tarpley's economic solutions won't work

[aerborne]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics

Wiki says it is.

he mathematician Benjamin Peirce called mathematics "the science that draws necessary conclusions".

You simply refuse to address my points. Either on the bubonic plague or austrian economics.

I bet i've read more Rothbard, Hayek, or Von Mises then you. You Continue to make straw men about what austrian economic theory is, but clearly, haven't read any of their works.

[aerborne]

I am not even going to reply to your nonsense becuase you've been debunked and it's not even worth it, if anyone reads the entire thread here:
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=98465.0

They can clearly see that.

I dont waste time with Trolls.

The only thing that thread proves, is that my posts had all been deleted so My side of the "argument" couldn't be heard. It's my failure for falling for such bad troll techniques from Geolib, like Personal attacks, Ad populum, and his ad naseum arguments over what I meant by what i said. Further argument of what i meant by deleted post is silly, and now it's the shield you hide behind when someone who knows a thing or two about austrian economics actually argues with you over it.

I can't delete this and add it to the above can I? I meant to append it. Oh well i fully expect these posts to be deleted by who ever else lacks the testicular fortitude to have his views challeneged.

[Revolt426]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics

Wiki says it is.

You simply refuse to address my points. Either on the bubonic plague or austrian economics.

I bet i've read more Rothbard, Hayek, or Von Mises then you. You Continue to make straw men about what austrian economic theory is, but clearly, haven't read any of their works.

No, they have already been addressed and you refuse to admit you are wrong actually. The fact of the matter is , i refuse to WASTE MY TIME.

And as for Nuclear Power, here is an article i posted in THIS thread that you obviously have NOT READ:


The Astounding High Cost of `Free' Energy
by Laurence Hecht

The author is editor-in-chief of 21st Century Science & Technology.

Jan. 31—Every time someone mentions wind or solar power as the answer to our energy needs, the image that should form in your mind is that of 1 billion or more dying and starving children. If you do not yet understand why this is the case, you are forgiven. By the end of this piece you shall have been given the essential concepts and facts both to understand this ugly truth, and to act to prevent it.

Begin with this: To maintain a global population in a condition resembling a modern 21st-Century standard of living will require an installed electrical generating capacity of at least 3 to 5 kilowatts per capita. Today, only the United States, Japan, and a few countries of western Europe even approximate this level of generating capacity. Let us understand the meaning of this more clearly, before moving on to the crucial question of how we shall generate this power the world so desperately needs.

Kilowatts are a measure of electrical power, the amount of work that can be done per unit of time. One of the first means of measuring power was to compare it to that of a working horse. The standard horsepower is equivalent to about 750 watts of electricity. That means that it takes 750 watts of electricity, driving a motor or other device, to do the same work as a standard working horse. Thus, 1 kilowatt (1,000 watts) of electricity, is equivalent to the work of about 1.33 muscular horses of the working type. The horse cannot work all day, however, but perhaps for only one third of it, after subtracting the time for meals and rest. Thus, 1 kilowatt of electrical generating capacity, available all day and night, could do the work of 3 times 1.33 horses, which equals 4 horses.

Here in the United States, we have about 3 kilowatts of electrical generating capacity available per capita—much less than we need to be a truly productive economy, but still, something that most of the world comes nowhere near. Thus, we could say that every person in the United States, on average, has the work of 12 horses available to him every hour of the day and night, in the form of electricity.[1] Without electricity, the work of those silent horses must be done by men and women, laboring to turn pumps, to carry water on their heads, to spend a whole day scrubbing clothes, and another heating irons on a fire to press them, while such simple requirements as water and sewage treatment, refrigeration, and even the light bulb, go wanting. Such and worse remains the condition of a majority of the world's population—some 1.7 billion people who are entirely without electricity, and several billion more for whom the supply is intermittent and deficient.

China, for example, which produces a great part of the manufactured products consumed in the U.S.A., had only 0.3 kilowatts of generating capacity available per capita in 2005, which increased by 2008 to an estimated 0.5 kilowatts. Well over half of this electricity goes to power Chinese industry, the product of which is primarily exported. Thus, the amount available per person for use in China is less than 0.25 kilowatts, about one-third of a horsepower. Taken over the full 24 hours, we can say that the average person in China has available to him the work of 1 horse, compared to the 12 horses available in the United States. The source of most U.S. manufactured products is the low-wage labor of millions of Chinese, many of them from families with no access to even the electric light.

In India, Egypt, most of the rest of Africa, and large parts of South America, it is far worse. In Mexico, another major source of U.S. manufactured goods, the electricity available per capita is about the same as China. Such an injustice cannot continue for long. How then will we remedy it?

No one can seriously propose that the world energy shortage can be solved with windmills and solar panels. The proponents of these systems have never addressed the world need, except to propose such patronizing and pathetic schemes as solar-powered refrigerators for African villages, which only work, if at all, when the Sun is shining. But even the proposals to use solar and windmills in the developed countries are a chimera. They have never proven economically or technologically feasible, despite the enormous public expense in tax credits and subsidies which they have drawn upon.

To bring the present world population of 6.7 billion people up to a level of just 1.5 kilowatts of electrical generating capacity per capita will require that we build 6,000 gigawatts[2] (6 million megawatts) of generating capacity. The only feasible way to accomplish this is to embark now on a crash program to build nuclear power plants, making use of our limited existing capabilities and gearing up for a serial production capability for the new breed of fourth-generation, high-temperature helium-cooled reactors, among other models.

Could solar or wind power possibly address the world electricity deficit? The largest existing solar power plant, the solar concentrator known as Nevada Solar One, produces less than 15 megawatts of power, averaged over the course of the day.[3] The largest solar plant using photovoltaic panels is in Jumilla in southeastern Spain. It is rated at 23 megawatts maximum capacity. Divide this by four, and you have the actual average output of less than 6 megawatts! A single large nuclear power plant can produce 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt) or more of electrical power. It can do this all day every day, not just when the Sun shines, and on a land surface area hundreds of times smaller than the equivalent solar plants or wind farms.

What Is Energy Density?
But wind and solar power are "free" people say: The energy is there, a bounty of nature, we just have to use it. Yet once one analyzes such an argument, one sees that it is meaningless sophistry, even on the face of it. Coal, oil, and uranium are "free" in the same sense. A certain amount of work has to be done to mine them and bring them to the place where they will be consumed, but work also has to be done to utilize wind and solar, a very great deal of work compared to the benefit received.

Instead of such loose use of language, let us examine the two most important concepts in evaluating a power source, energy density and energy flux density. By the energy density of a fuel or power source, we mean the amount of useful work that can be derived from a given mass of the substance. By energy flux density, we mean the transformative power which can be obtained from that fuel source. Let us examine the first term first, and see what we can learn from it.

Over the course of human history, there have been several progressive increases in the energy density of the fuels employed. The transition from wood burning to coal (which is almost four times more energy-dense than wood), took place in Europe in the 18th Century. The higher temperatures and regulation that could be achieved with coal fires permitted the introduction of new technologies related to smelting of ores, steelmaking, and other techniques. Until the 1950s, coal was the primary energy source for industry and transportation, and it remains the principal fuel used for electricity generation in the U.S.A.

Oil is about 50% more energy-dense than coal. The advantage of oil over coal as a fuel for powering steam ships became a factor in geopolitics at the close of the 19th Century, with the conversion of the British Royal Navy from coal- to oil-fired steam boilers. The weight advantage of oil, and its ease of handling (not requiring manual stokers to feed the fire), increased the range and efficiency of warships. The lighter derivatives of petroleum, such as gasoline, benzene, and kerosene, are among the most energy-dense liquids, which made them desirable as a transportation fuel—as long as they last.

But each of these improvements in the energy density of fuels was dwarfed by the discovery of atomic energy. As illustrated in the accompanying figure, a barely visible speck of uranium fuel, when fully fissioned, is equivalent to 1,260 gallons of fuel oil (weighing 4.5 tons), 6.15 tons of coal, or 23.5 tons of dry wood. When compared by weight, the advantage of uranium fuel over the older types is as follows:

Advantage per unit weight of Uranium ...[4]
... over Wood: 11.5 million times
... over Coal: 3.0 million times[5]
... over Petroleum: 2.2 million times

We shall be modest and note that these figures are derived by assuming that all of the fissionable uranium in the fuel pellet is burned up (fully fissioned). The fuel burn-up rate in many presently operating reactors, may be only about 4%, although it is higher in advanced reactor designs. Thus, the figures above need to be divided by 25, giving nuclear power, in the worst-case scenario, an energy density advantage over wood, coal, and petroleum of only 88,000 to 460,000. However, with fuel reprocessing, a form of recycling, the burn-up rate is nearly total. Because of the production of extra neutrons in the fission reaction, new fuel can be created by nuclear transmutation as the old fuel burns up. The full nuclear fuel cycle, employing reprocessing and fuel breeding, is a virtually limitless cycle. Nuclear is the only fuel that replaces itself as it burns.

Energy Flux Density
To progress from the concept of energy density to energy flux density, it is necessary to have a deeper conception of the notion of work. In physics-textbook terms, energy is the same as work. It was one of the great achievements of 19th-Century physics, to demonstrate the equivalence of heat, electricity, and mechanical motion, resolving all these forms of energy (work), and others, to a common measure. Thus, the technical definition of energy flux density would simply be the amount of energy passing across a given surface area in a unit of time. An example of a higher energy flux density could be had by comparing the capability of a sharp knife to a dull one. Holding the sharper knife, the same work exerted by the hand is concentrated over a smaller surface area. The energy flux density is greater and the sharp knife is able to cut where the dull one cannot.

By that method of accounting, the energy flux density produced by the fission of a single uranium atom can be shown to be from about 20 million to 20 quadrillion times greater than that gained by burning a molecule of an energy-dense fuel, such as natural gas.[6] However, even this astounding numerical advantage does not yet comprehend the essential difference. To understand energy flux density in the context of physical economy, a higher conception of work is required. It is not sufficient to regard work, as we do in physics, merely as the expenditure of energy measured in calories, joules, kilowatt-hours, or electron volts.

Rather, when considering a physical economy, we must look at the transformative power of the work. Something akin to the skilled worker's maxim "don't work hard, work smart," is appropriate as a first approximation of the concept. Implied in the saying is the idea, that by application of the human mind, the same expenditure of effort can be made more efficient, perhaps by use of a different tool, or by the improvisation of a new one, or by organizing the process in a different way. In the case of nuclear, as opposed to chemical or mechanical processes, a higher order sort of innovation is at work. Here, we are dealing with the introduction of a new discovery of universal physical principle, the revolution in physical chemistry which began with the Curies' separation of the first gram of radium, and proceeded through the identification of the radioactive decay process, nuclear transmutation, the energy-mass relation, the nucleus, the isotope, the neutron, the accelerator, the discovery of fission, the chain reaction, and so forth.

Apart from the questions of cost and efficiency, the fallacy of saying that wind and solar can be made to generate electricity, just as nuclear power can, is that it leaves out the transformative power which the application of this new universal physical principle permits. Nuclear energy works smarter, vastly smarter, than wind, solar, or fossil fuels ever can. The reason is not merely its superior energy flux density, measured in caloric terms, but the transformation in the physical economic process as a whole which it can accomplish.

With the fission of each uranium nucleus, several tiny entities, part particle and part wave, are released at velocities approaching that of the speed of light. These particle/waves, which we call neutrons, have the ability to penetrate the nucleus of another nearby atom, and to transform it into a new element, a process known as transmutation. But this is only the beginning, for that new element may, in turn, spontaneously transmute into another, and another, producing a family of by-products (isotopes) which finally settle into a stable form. By mastering the chemistry of these transformations, we have the ability to make new materials, some known and some yet to be discovered, which will be of benefit to future human life. We have also the benefit of the rays these isotopes give off, at least three different types, and each one at a different strength. Their uses in diagnosis and treatment of an array of dangerous diseases are proven, and every day brings new possibilities.[7]

Nuclear for Fuel and Water
In many parts of the world, including some of extremely high population density, such as the east coast of India, the supply of clean water is running out. Ground wells are becoming contaminated as the fossil water supply within the ground becomes exhausted. Substantial regions of the United States, including Southern California and the American Southwest, are also reaching critical water supply limits. Producing drinking water by desalination of seawater is a proven process. Currently, 40 million cubic meters of water a day are produced by desalination, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa. The leading methods are reverse osmosis, using electric-powered pumps to force salt or brackish water through a specially designed membrane, and flash distillation. However, desalination is an energy-intensive process.

The feasibility of using nuclear power for large-scale desalination was first demonstrated nearly 40 years ago in Soviet Kazakstan. For 27 years, the Aktau fast reactor produced 80,000 cubic meters per day of freshwater, and up to 135 megawatts of electric power at the same time. Japan has operated ten demonstration desalination facilities linked to nuclear reactors, and India in 2002 set up a demonstration desalination plant at the Madras Atomic Power Station in the southeast, with a 6,300 cubic meter per day output. Windmills and solar panels will not supply the large amounts of electric power required to produce freshwater in dry areas of the world, but nuclear plants can do it.

Nuclear power also offers the solution to the dependency on imported oil. The key is the two atoms of hydrogen contained in every molecule of water. Hydrogen is a fuel, which can be utilized on its own, or combined with carbon sources to produce liquid fuels quite similar to those we now use. Hydrogen can be obtained from water either by electrolysis or by thermo-chemical splitting. At the higher temperatures available from the new generation of modular helium-cooled reactors, the efficiency of both these processes is greatly increased. Nuclear-produced hydrogen or hydrogen-based fuels, combined with ample electricity for battery vehicles, will provide a stable local supply of the transportation fuel the nation needs. Instead of enriching the Anglo-Saudi oil cartel by shipping petroleum across thousands of miles of ocean, we can produce our own, cleaner fuel at domestic nuclear power plants, while also providing our electricity and other needs.

These are the things that we as a nation need. They are also the things the world needs. They are but some of the immediately knowable practical advantages of the use of this new physical principle, which has defined the 20th-Century revolution in science. Much more lies ahead, waiting to be discovered. Some breakthroughs, such as the practicable development of thermonuclear fusion energy, are almost now within our grasp. Others are yet to come. To deny its application to our economy, and to return to 18th Century and earlier modes of power generation, is to stop human progress.

[1] A useful pedagogical device that used to be found more often at science museums and other public displays was the bicycle-driven generator. By mounting on the bicycle, the student could discover just how much work, in the form of pedaling, was required to keep a single 100-watt light bulb glowing, thus getting a sensuous appreciation for the labor-saving efficiency of modern electrical power generation.

[2] 1 gigawatt = 1 thousand megawatts = 1 million kilowatts

[3] Beware of labelling. The plant has a peak power output of 64 megawatts. But, like all solar plants, that is the amount it can produce at high noon. As the Sun falls in the sky, the output of the solar plant falls with it, until, for half the day, the solar plant produces no power at all.

When shopping for a solar power plant, divide the manufacturer's claimed output by four to five, and you will have a clearer idea of the con-job you are about to buy into. Also remember, that for most of the day, solar concentrator plants require back-up power from natural gas-powered heaters to keep the working fluids flowing. And don't forget that the Sun doesn't shine every day. In order to integrate such an erratic power source into the grid, requires sophisticated planning, electronic circuitry, and maintenance work, the cost of which is rarely considered.

[4] Derivation of figures in this table:

Weight of oil equivalent (at sp. gr. = 0.9):

30 bbls × 42 gals/bbl × 7.2 lbs/gal × 453.6 grms/lb. = 4.12 × 106 grams

Weight of coal equivalent:

6.15 tons × 2,000 lbs/ton × 453.6 grms/lb = 5.58 × 106 grams

Weight of wood equivalent:

23.5 tons × 2,000 lbs/ton × 453.6 grms/lb = 2.13 × 107 grams

Dividing these weights by 1.86 grams of uranium, which when fully fissioned is equivalent to the energy content of the above weights of oil, coal, and wood, gives the results shown in the table. (Derived from graphic by Dr. Robert J. Moon, 1985.)

[5] The weight comparison to coal is not academic, as coal accounts for nearly half the tonnage carried on U.S. railroads. Gradually replacing coal-fired plants with nuclear power will be an important step in creating a viable rail freight transportation system.

[6] See Appendix for calculation.

[7] Alas, the United States is falling far behind in the use of medical isotopes, because we have nearly shut down our capability to produce all but the commonest of them, and now must import more than 90% of what we use. The chances for survival of certain types of cancers are far greater in a hospital in Europe than here, because U.S. doctors do not make use of the relevant targetted radioisotope therapies.

[aerborne]

That's a GREAT article but i didn't argue with you over whether or not we should build nuclear power. I support that. I argued with you over whether a shortage of drinking water in somalia and some parts of india means there's a shortage of water.

Also, you say the free market can't provide that but the free market can't provide nuclear right now because governments, and environmentalists (all sponsored by the NWO) stand in the way. TODAY we can provide 3$ Lifestraws and watercones cheaply anywhere in the world.

[Revolt426]

That's a GREAT article but i didn't argue with you over whether or not we should build nuclear power. I support that. I argued with you over whether a shortage of drinking water in somalia and some parts of india means there's a shortage of water.

Also, you say the free market can't provide that but the free market can't provide nuclear right now because governments, and environmentalists (all sponsored by the NWO) stand in the way. TODAY we can provide 3$ Lifestraws and watercones cheaply anywhere in the world.

"The Free Markets" , define the free markets please.

Because as i see it, the free markets are BANKRUPT and will not recover for over a DECADE... How do you propose we maintain 6.8 Billion Human Beings. Shall we wait for the "Free Markets" to recover as our standard of living COLLAPSES and we all die?

I believe that is your ultimate solution......

Then again, you disregard the FACT that every large infrastructure project in US history was taken on by the Governmnet as well, because the Private Sector or, your "Free Markets" are Un Willing to do these things - it's bottom line profit for the "Free Markets".

Even if the "Free Markets" could provide these things, You want your water supply privatized? Look at how that worked in Africa.... I believe people are dying of pandemics related to water treatment in Zimbabwe right now because the free markets are not providing them with clean water.

[Revolt426]

https://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/11/12/keplers-actual-discovery-mathematics-not-science-preview.html

Kepler's Actual Discovery: Mathematics Is Not Science

[aerborne]

"The Free Markets" , define the free markets please.

Because as i see it, the free markets are BANKRUPT and will not recovery for over a DECADE... How do you propose we maintain 6.8 Billion Human Beings. Shall we wait for the "Free Markets" to recover as our standard of living COLLAPSES and we all die?

I believe that is your ultimate solution......

Then again, you disregard the FACT that every large infrastructure project in US history was taken on by the Governmnet as well, because the Private Sector or, your "Free Markets" are Un Willing to do these things - it's bottom line profit for the "Free Markets".

Even if the "Free Markets" could provide these things, You want your water supply privatized? Look at how that worked in Africa.... I believe people are dying of pandemics related to water treatment in Zimbabwe right now because the free markets are not providing them with clean water.

You call the markets of TODAY FREE markets? I believe i've already posted an essay by rothbard that clearly defines "FREE markets" as being FREE rather then heavily regulated.

If you'd like to debate the causes, problems and "freeness" of the markets today, I stand by Webster tarpley's discussion with Alex Jones on the matter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuT5Xoekl-0

These are NOT free markets, your statement that

Because as i see it, the free markets are BANKRUPT and will not recovery for over a DECADE... How do you propose we maintain 6.8 Billion Human Beings. Shall we wait for the "Free Markets" to recover as our standard of living COLLAPSES and we all die?

is completely untrue.


Do i want my water supply privatized? In Austin the difference between Austin Electric (The city requires you to use them) and TXU is gigantic in terms of customer service. I very much *INDEED* prefer using the electric companies not mandated to me by city ordinance.

Zimbabwe, like somalia, as I already pointed out is a victim of new world order genocide, food (and water) As a weapon outlined by Henry Kissinger. It's a biased example, as i've pointed out, how market competition in utilities works in some areas.

[Revolt426]

You call the markets of TODAY FREE markets? I believe i've already posted an essay by rothbard that clearly defines "FREE markets" as being FREE rather then heavily regulated.

If you'd like to debate the causes, problems and "freeness" of the markets today, I stand by Webster tarpley's discussion with Alex Jones on the matter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuT5Xoekl-0

These are NOT free markets, your statement that  is completely untrue.


Do i want my water supply privatized? In Austin the difference between Austin Electric (The city requires you to use them) and TXU is gigantic in terms of customer service. I very much *INDEED* prefer using the electric companies not mandated to me by city ordinance.

Zimbabwe, like somalia, as I already pointed out is a victim of new world order genocide, food (and water) As a weapon outlined by Henry Kissinger. It's a biased example, as i've pointed out, how market competition in utilities works in some areas.

You want to debate the causes? Ok, let's start with the first real Depression in the United States, the Panic of 1837 and we can go from there.

What caused it? The Gold Standard and the Free Markets.

And by the way, you HIGHLIGHTED the EXACT reason we NEED to regulate certain areas of the economy - people like HENRY KISSINGER.

You think Evil is going to dissapear if the Utopian Austrian Cult of economics is implimented?

You draw more arguments out of strawmen then you accuse others of, and you cannot even define what a "Free Market" is.

[Revolt426]

And by the way, i would LOVE for you to show me how the current system is not bankrupt and would be able to provide for basic infrastucture and human necessities. That would be like pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat.

ITS IMPOSSIBLE. Name one large scale infrastructure program that was done by the "Free Markets" or the Private Sector please. JUST ONE! and when i mean large scale, i mean something that spurs the National economy, not just your little town in alabama, because physical goods have to be TRANSPORTED to be SOLD, which requires RAILWAYS, BRIDGES, ROADS ETC....

[aerborne]

https://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/11/12/keplers-actual-discovery-mathematics-not-science-preview.html

Kepler's Actual Discovery: Mathematics Is Not Science

http://andrewlias.blogspot.com/2004/08/is-mathematics-science.html

I'll concede this point to you, as i understood it from your post, that the mathematics behind economics "is not science," and certainly my point that it is, was really a moot and semantic argument. I rather enjoyed the article i linked, and have no further interest in discussing whether math is science, because as I see, it really wasn't relevant to either of our points.

You want to debate the causes? Ok, let's start with the first real Depression in the United States, the Panic of 1837 and we can go from there.

What caused it? The Gold Standard and the Free Markets.

And by the way, you HIGHLIGHTED the EXACT reason we NEED to regulate certain areas of the economy - people like HENRY KISSINGER.

You think Evil is going to dissapear if the Utopian Austrian Cult of economics is implimented?

You draw more arguments out of strawmen then you accuse others of, and you cannot even define what a "Free Market" is.

Are we skipping the ones before it? http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/depressions.htm
Why would I argue over whether or not "the gold standard" did it. What happened in 1837 isn't consistent with Austrian Economics, Again i refer you to the rothbard quotation you probably didn't read above:

We could in fact return to the classical gold standard such as all major nations were on before World War I and the United States from the 1850s to 1933. The major advantages would be a return to fixity of weight and to genuine redeemability in gold coin. A classical gold standard would be infinitely superior to either the current or the Bretton Woods system. In this case the particular definition chosen would not matter very much, except that it should be much higher than $35 so as not to tempt an unnecessary and massive deflationary contraction that would, at the very least, turn public opinion away from the gold standard for decades to come. More important, the classical gold standard would return to the very same system that created boom-and-bust cycles and brought us 1929 and at least the first four years of the Great Depression. It would, in short, retain the Federal Reserve System, and its system of cartelized banking, special privilege, and virtually inevitable generation of inflation and contraction. Finally, while the ultimate monetary com- modity, gold, would be supplied by the free market, the dollar would not be truly denationalized, and it would still be a creature of the federal government.

If you want a simple definition of what "free market" means: It's a market without regulation, but if you want to know what that REALLY means (for the people), that's the whole POINT of economics in general.

I see regulations as the basis by which government tries to make fraud ok within business models. When "deregulation" allowed Derivatives to reenter the market place i don't see that as "free market." I see that as institutionalized fraud (A point Webster Tarpley made himself) and the government making it a "slap on the wrist, regulation violation" rather then Jail time and prosecution for fraud.

Do you even know what a strawman is or how it works? I haven't once tried to restate, or misrepresent your arguments such as you and geolib have done with your "Austrian cranks" do this and that.

And by the way, i would LOVE for you to show me how the current system is not bankrupt and would be able to provide for basic infrastucture and human necessities. That would be like pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat.

ITS IMPOSSIBLE. Name one large scale infrastructure program that was done by the "Free Markets" or the Private Sector please. JUST ONE! and when i mean large scale, i mean something that spurs the National economy, not just your little town in alabama, because physical goods have to be TRANSPORTED to be SOLD, which requires RAILWAYS, BRIDGES, ROADS ETC....

Why would I? This is something we both agree on: The system is bankrupt. We even agree with webster tarpley on the cause. We just DISAGREE on what free market means (in terms of definition and for the people) and what to do about it.

[Revolt426]

Because as i see it, the free markets are BANKRUPT and will not recovery for over a DECADE... How do you propose we maintain 6.8 Billion Human Beings. Shall we wait for the "Free Markets" to recover as our standard of living COLLAPSES and we all die?

YOUR RESPONSE:

is completely untrue

Then you said in the following post;

The system is bankrupt.

And, again - any market without any regulation is NOT FREE.

You backtrack and re-write your arguments so often it's impossible to respond to you.

So, what about the Panic of 1837? , i believe it is consistant with Austrian economics for the most part. Unless you are one of those nuts that believe that "EVERYTHING HAS TO BE IN PLACE" for the "Free Markets" to function, and if even one aspect of the economy is not advocated by Dr. Von Mises it wont work, in that case - you've already proven yourself to be irrational.

In any case, i really don't have time to argue with someone who constantly changes the subject.

The system is  not bankrupt and can support humanity, but the system is bankrupt and cannot support humanity.

Can you say DOUBLE SPEAK?.

[aerborne]

YOUR RESPONSE:
Then you said in the following post;
And, again - any market without any regulation is NOT FREE.

You backtrack and re-write your arguments so often it's impossible to respond to you.

And again you conveniently quote ONLY a portion of what I said to change the context in which it was said. But i suppose my post will be deleted and you will have pwned me once again.

I said the markets today are not free markets, free markets are not heavily regulated markets, and the system today (which is not a free market system) is bankrupt. You're trolling because you have no real argument to stand on.

[/quote]
So, what about the Panic of 1837? , i believe it is consistant with Austrian economics for the most part. Unless you are one of those nuts that believe that "EVERYTHING HAS TO BE IN PLACE" for the "Free Markets" to function, and if even one aspect of the economy is not advocated by Dr. Von Mises it wont work, in that case - you've already proven yourself to be irrational.[/quote] That would be a strawman. You believe it is? Despite the very essay i quoted from murray rothbard? You form another strawman by saying :Unless you are one of those...

In any case, i really don't have time to argue with someone who constantly changes the subject.

The system is  not bankrupt and can support humanity, but the system is bankrupt and cannot support humanity.

Can you say DOUBLE SPEAK?.

In any case, I said the markets aren't free and the system is bankrupt. Your trolling because you don't have any valid argument.

[Freeski]

Holy moly.

[Revolt426]

My argument is that you are a monetarist. You think a currency is valued by a commodity, which is FALSE.

My argument is that a currencies value is reflective of the economy it represents, not a piece of metal, or a bushel of wheat , or a barrel of oil.

My argument is that the private sector is unable to build the infrastructure needed to preserve current population levels, and you seem to agree on this because you admit the system is bankrupt. Your answer to this? Nothing.

How is civilization going to SURVIVE while your "Theory" (Because that is ALL it is) of "Free Markets" from the Austrian School is implimented?

How are we going to have a functioning INFRASTRUCTURE if the system is BANKRUPT? How can we have a functioning PRIVATE SECTOR if there is no INFRASTRUCTURE?.

This is all disregarding the problems of the Gold Standard, or using Gold as an actual currency which were highlighted about 100 times in this thread alone.

You believe in a make believe, "Fairy Tale" , Mathmatical equation market that cannot exist and you believe if your system is implimented, the evil parasites will magically "DISSAPEAR".

I think the mere fact that you were debunked from the get go in the first monetary reform thread and YOU BEGAN TROLLING really speaks for itself.

[aerborne]

My argument is that you are a monetarist. You think a currency is valued by a commodity, which is FALSE.

My argument is that a currencies value is reflective of the economy it represents, not a piece of metal, or a bushel of wheat , or a barrel of oil.

You ironically ignore the history of how money was created. Obviously no one would won't to trade in barrles of oil or bushels of wheat in a modern economy which is why gold and silver coins came into use before banking and fractional reserve started issuing bank notes. The need for a store of value that's easily exchangable and storeable, and won't deteriorate over time (IE a stack of paper dollars withers into dust)

My argument is that the private sector is unable to build the infrastructure needed to preserve current population levels, and you seem to agree on this because you admit the system is bankrupt. Your answer to this? Nothing.

No, my answer to your argument is that the current system is not free and the current system is bankrupt. You shoot strawmen once again.

How is civilization going to SURVIVE while your "Theory" (Because that is ALL it is) of "Free Markets" from the Austrian School is implimented?

I like your condescending "theory" as if your "theories" aren't? They're the realm of proven document solid scientific evidence. To address your question: How is civilization going to collapse if the government stops printing money for us. I mean your argument is we'll all die and be poor if the government doesn't print money for us. (that's a strawman, my bad) Civilization will survive because the amount of gold doesn't really matter. It's just like Forex, the price of the dollar adjust to the euro, yen, CAD, and even to food and gasoline. The volume changes this and you argument that a limited supply of gold would destroy civilizations is nonsense, for one, why gold instead of platinum? Platinum is to scarce. Why gold instead of iron? Iron's too abundant to effectively store value. If you think this will happen over night, your wrong, and if the purchasing power of gold gets too high because of diminishing supply... luckily people can use whatever they want.

How are we going to have a functioning INFRASTRUCTURE if the system is BANKRUPT? How can we have a functioning PRIVATE SECTOR if there is no INFRASTRUCTURE?.

I guess we can tax cigarettes, alcohol, and the narcotics we need to legalize to operate government and public infrastructure products. After all, i'm not an anarchist. We certainly won't do this with a bankrupt system, but if we agree on the causes of the bankruptcy (federal reserve, fraud, corrupt government) then we need to remove the poison before we can heal the wound yes? I believe we wouldn't need government to provide public infrastructure in a free market, but as you pointed out, we have no way of knowing what would REALLY happen under *ANY* reform policies (even yours)

This is all disregarding the problems of the Gold Standard, or using Gold as an actual currency which were highlighted about 100 times in this thread alone.

You believe in a make believe, "Fairy Tale" , Mathmatical equation market that cannot exist and you believe if your system is implimented, the evil parasites will magically "DISSAPEAR".

Strawman again. You don't know what i believe. Was there one equation in the rothbard essay i posted?

I think the mere fact that you were debunked from the get go in the first monetary reform thread and YOU BEGAN TROLLING really speaks for itself.

Debunked? He used the same ad hominen attacks, ad populum arguments, and argued ad naseum over the context of what i said. But only one side of the story still exists doesn't it so you have this shield to cower behind. I'd be happy to go back into it, but it gets deleted anytime i post, plus, it's semantic and pedantic to argue with me over what i said, and further absurd, after what I said was deleted. This is a baseless, immature attack. It's so childish.

[Revolt426]

The only comment that deserves a response in your entire post is this

we have no way of knowing what would REALLY happen under *ANY* reform policies (even yours)

Since, Abraham Lincoln used the Policy i would like to see enstated, and it resulted in the US becoming the Economic Super Power of the world by issuence of currency into productive means, such as the Intercontinental Railway (Which is Science based) and Scientific Agriculture advancement - you are not only wrong, but you are ASS BACKWARDS.

[trailhound]

Since, Abraham Lincoln used the Policy i would like to see enstated, and it resulted in the US becoming the Economic Super Power of the world by issuence of currency into productive means, such as the Intercontinental Railway (Which is Science based) and Scientific Agriculture advancement - you are not only wrong, but you are ASS BACKWARDS.

 Gee lincoln's genious plan sure didnt last long

[aerborne]

The Civil War exerted an even more fateful impact on the American monetary and banking system than had the War of 1812. It set the United States, for the first time except for 1814–1817, on an irredeemable fiat currency that lasted for two decades and led to reckless inflation of prices. This “greenback” currency set a momentous precedent for the post-1933 United States, and even more particularly for the post-1971 experiment in fiat money.

Perhaps an even more important consequence of the Civil War was the permanent change wrought in the American banking system. The federal government in effect outlawed the issue of state bank notes, and created a new, quasi-centralized, fractional reserve national banking system which paved the way for the return of outright central banking in the Federal Reserve System. The Civil War, in short, ended the separation of the federal government from banking, and brought the two institutions together in an increasingly close and permanent symbiosis. In that way, the Republican Party, which inherited the Whig admiration for paper money and governmental control and sponsorship of inflationary banking, was able to implant the soft-money tradition permanently in the American system.

The Civil War led to an enormous ballooning of federal expenditures, which skyrocketed from $66 million in 1861 to $1.30 billion four years later. To pay for these swollen expen- ditures, the Treasury initially attempted, in the fall of 1861, to float a massive $150 million bond issue, to be purchased by the nation’s leading banks. However, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, a former Jacksonian, tried to require the banks to pay for the loan in specie that they did not have. This massive pressure on their specie, as well as an increased public demand for specie due to a well-deserved lack of confidence in the banks, brought about a general suspension of specie payments a few months later, at the end of December 1861. This suspension was followed swiftly by the Treasury itself, which suspended specie payments on its Treasury notes.

The U.S. government quickly took advantage of being on an inconvertible fiat standard. In the Legal Tender Act of February 1862, Congress authorized the printing of $150 million in new “United States notes” (soon to be known as “greenbacks”) to pay for the growing war deficits. The greenbacks were made legal tender for all debts, public and private, except that the Treasury continued its legal obligation of paying the interest on its outstanding public debt in specie.103 The greenbacks were also made convertible at par into U.S. bonds, which remained a generally unused option for the public, and was repealed a year later.

In creating greenbacks in February, Congress resolved that this would be the first and last emergency issue. But printing money is a heady wine, and a second $150 million issue was authorized in July, and still a third $150 million in early 1863. Greenbacks outstanding reached a peak in 1864 of $415.1 million.

Greenbacks began to depreciate in terms of specie almost as soon as they were issued. In an attempt to drive up the price of government bonds, Secretary Chase eliminated the convertibility of greenbacks in July 1863, an act that simply drove their value down further. Chase and the Treasury officials, instead of acknowledging their own premier responsibility for the continued depreciation of the greenbacks, conveniently placed the blame on anonymous “gold speculators.” In March 1863, Chase began a determined campaign, which would last until he was driven from office, to stop the depreciation by controlling, assaulting, and eventually eliminating the gold market. In early March, he had Congress to levy a stamp tax on gold sales and to forbid loans on a collateral of coin above its par value. This restriction on the gold market had little effect, and when depreciation resumed its march at the end of the year, Chase decided to de facto repeal the requirement that customs duties be paid in gold. In late March 1864, Chase declared that importers would be allowed to deposit greenbacks at the Treasury and receive gold in return at a premium below the market. Importers could then use the gold to pay the customs duties. This was supposed to reduce greatly the necessity for importers to buy gold coin on the market and therefore to reduce the depreciation. The outcome, however, was that the greenback, at 59¢ in gold when Chase began the experiment, had fallen to 57¢ by mid-April. Chase was then forced to repeal his customs-duties scheme.

With the failure of this attempt to regulate the gold market, Chase promptly escalated his intervention. In mid-April, he sold the massive amount of $11 million in gold in order to drive down the gold premium of greenbacks. But the impact was trifling, and the Treasury could not continue this policy indefinitely, because it had to keep enough gold in its vaults to pay interest on its bonds. At the end of the month, the greenback was lower than ever, having sunk to below 56¢ in gold.

http://mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf page 122.

[trailhound]

 

Murray Rothbard accurately defined mercantilism as "a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state." This is what Lincoln devoted his entire political career to achieving. He was a master politician who once told a friend that his career ambition was to be "the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois." DeWitt Clinton was the notoriously corrupt governor of New York who is credited with inventing the spoils system.

The so-called American System of mercantilism could only be implemented by a highly centralized government of the sort that the U.S. Constitution attempted to deter. That’s why it could only be put into place by force of arms, which it was. As soon as Lincoln maneuvered the South Carolinians into firing the first shot (at a customs house, Fort Sumter) tariff rates were immediately raised to an average of 47 percent and higher, and remained historically high for decades after the war.

During the war Lincoln established a number of tyrannical precedents, including unconstitutionally conducting a war without the consent of Congress; suspending habeas corpus; conscripting railroads and censoring telegraph lines; imprisoning without trial some 30,000 northern citizens for merely voicing opposition to the war; deporting a member of Congress, Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, for opposing Lincoln’s income tax proposal at a Democratic Party political rally; shutting down hundreds of Northern newspapers and imprisoning their editors for questioning his war policies; ordering federal troops to intimidate voters into voting Republican; and intentionally waging war against civilians.

The second plank of the American System of mercantilism, central banking, was achieved with the National Currency Acts of 1863 and 1864, and there was a virtual explosion of government subsidies to railroads and other businesses that bankrolled the Republican Party. The inevitable consequence was the notorious corruption of the Grant administrations.

In 1861 Senator John Sherman, brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman and a major power in the Republican Party, announced that "Those who elected Mr. Lincoln expect him to secure to free labor its just right to the Territories of the United States; to protect . . . by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers . . . ; to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communications between the Atlantic and Pacific."

Translating from the politician’s idiom into plain English, this meant that Lincoln’s main objective was always protectionism for Northern manufacturers; buying votes with cheap federal land sales; and the purchase of even more votes and campaign contributions through a massive spoils system created by government subsidies to the railroad industry. The corrupt political strategy of DeWitt Clinton writ large is Abraham Lincoln’s true economic legacy.

--------------

Thomas DiLorenzo is a professor of economics in the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola College in Baltimore

http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=607&FS=Lincoln%27s+Economic+Legacy

[Revolt426]

Thanks to over a century of relentless propaganda, the image of the Greenbacks comes down to us as worthless paper money. But upon more careful examination, on balance they were probably the best money system America has ever had....Demonstrating how far monetary history has been distorted, readers may be surprised to learn that every Greenback printed was ultimately as valuable as its gold equivalent, and became redeemable for gold coinage at full value. Today the Greenback supporters are erroneously presented as merely being pro-inflation or against sound money. What they really wanted was a more honest money system, controlled by government, instead of banks....

They [Greenbacks] were receivable for all dues and taxes to the U.S., except import duties, which still had to be paid in coin. The Greenbacks were payable for all claims against the U.S. except interest on bonds which was still payable in coin. The Greenbacks were declared a legal tender for all other debts, public and private....

Greenback critics argue that they were inflationary and mistakenly measure the inflation against gold, starting at equal to a gold dollar in early 1862, and falling to 36 cents against a gold dollar by mid 1864. So one gold dollar exchanged for nearly $2.50 in Greenbacks. That is often the whole of their analysis and it is very misleading. Actually the Greenbacks did drop against gold; first to 58 cents at the end of 1862, then back up to 82 cents in mid 1863 and then down to a brief low of 36 cents on July 16, 1864.

From that point they moved up steadily, averaging 39 cents for August; 45 cents for September; and 48 cents for October, 1864. They retreated to $0.44 in December, and averaged $0.68 for December 1865. From there they gradually rose to $1.00, at par with gold in December 1878. Greenbacks became freely convertible into gold, dollar for dollar, in January 1879....

Economists mistakenly argue that it was only because the Greenbacks were eventually made convertible into gold by law, that made them hold and increase their value. However, that law was a hard fought political struggle, dependent on the 1868 presidential election. The battle could have gone either way and the actual "resumption" law could not get passed by Congress until 1874, for implementation in 1879. This could not have kept the Greenback from further declines, and start moving it upward back in mid-1864.

What did occur in July 1864 was that our government put a limit of $450 million on the Greenbacks and from that month they started rising (i.e. gold began falling in terms of Greenbacks)....

While the Greenbacks lost substantial value for a period, the nation was engaged in the bloodiest war in its history, in which 13% of the population served in the armed forces and 625,000 died....Is it reasonable to expect that any government in those circumstances could completely protect its citizens from financial and other hardships?

[Economic historian Irwin] Unger has noted that:

"It is now clear that inflation would have occurred even without the Greenback issue."

And comparing a wartime inflation under a government run money system (the Civil War) to wartime inflation under a private banker run system (WW I), Civil War historian [J.G.] Randall wrote:

"The threat of inflation was more effectively curbed during the Civil War than during the First World War."....

The fact that the Greenbacks were not accepted for import duties may also have been an important negative factor against the currency:

"Hence it has been argued that the Greenback circulation issued in 1862 might have kept at par with gold if it, too, had been made receivable for all payments to the Government," wrote financial historian [Davis Rich] Dewey.

Also, if interest payments on government bonds had been paid in Greenbacks instead of gold, a large part of the demand for gold would have disappeared.


-- Stephen Zarlenga, The Lost Science of Money, pp. 453-65

[Revolt426]

By the way, Lostdog, proving that you are truly lost - it is always good to VERIFY HISTORY before COPY PASTING IT;

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=99961.80

Some people that know what they are talking about would disagree with the complete propaganda you have copy/pasted from the Austrian School of Von Mises;

Constitutional currency, debt free currency/treasury notes, was one of the greatest things that Lincoln did... With it, the Greenback, he successfully preserved the Union... and would have preserved the Constitution as well had he not been killed... The Greenbacks were issued and renewed clear up until 1994 when Congress knuckled under to the FED, and they were replaced by DEBT.

--Oldyoti

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress
and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but
to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
--Abraham Lincoln

[Revolt426]

Since i am aware you wont even look at the thread, here is the information Von Mises neglected to provide.

The whole reason for the Civil War was essentially a De-Facto war with the British Empire during it's exisistance at that period in time.

Prime Minister of Britain, Lord Palmerston was attempting to cut the United States in half by promoting the Confederacy, funding them, offering them Free Trade agreements and Military advisors. People must remember that until the aftermath of World War 2, Britain and the US were arch nemisis'.

infact, Palmerston was ready to assist the confederacy with actual British Military at one point if one of Lee's Battles with the North Resulted in victory for the Confederacy. Palmerston was also assisting the Dutch in shipping slaves to the Confederacy, with East India Company like tacticts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Palmerston#American_Civil_War

Lord Palmerston
American Civil War
Lord Palmerston's sympathies in the American Civil War (1861-5) were with the secessionist Southern Confederacy of pro-slavery states. Although a professed opponent of the slave trade and slavery, he also had a deep life-long hostility towards the United States and believed that a dissolution of the Union would weaken the United States (and therefore enhance British power) and that a southern Confederacy "would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures".[7]

At the beginning of the Civil War Britain had issued a proclamation of neutrality on 13 May 1861. Lord Palmerston decided to recognise the Confederacy as a belligerent and to receive their unofficial representatives (although he decided against recognising the South as a sovereign state because he thought this would be premature). The United States Secretary of State, William Seward, threatened to treat any country which recognised the Southern separatists as a belligerent, as an enemy of the Union and the North. Lord Palmerston ordered that reinforcements be sent to Canada because he was convinced that the North would make peace with the South and then invade Canada. When news reached him of the Confederate victory at Bull Run in July 1861 he was very pleased, although 15 months later he wrote that "the American [Civil] War...has manifestly ceased to have any attainable object as far as the Northerns are concerned, except to get rid of some more thousand troublesome Irish and Germans. It must be owned, however, that the Anglo-Saxon race on both sides have shown courage and endurance highly honourable to their stock".[8] When news came of the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Antietam a week later, this made Palmerston reject Napoleon III of France's offer to recognise the Confederacy.[8] Palmerston continued to reject subsequent attempts by Confederate supporters to persuade him to recognise the South as he thought the military situation did not warrant it. The tide eventually turned in the United States' favour when the Confederacy was defeated in 1865.

After the seizure of the British ship Trent by a United States Navy vessel under Captain Charles Wilkes in November 1861 to prevent two Southern separatist diplomats making their way to Europe to campaign for support for the Confederacy against the United States, Lord Palmerston ordered the Secretary of State for War to send an extra 3,000 troops to Canada and demanded the release of the two diplomats. Lord Palmerston called Wilke's actions "a declared and gross insult" and in a letter to Queen Victoria on 5 December 1861 he said, "Great Britain is in a better state than at any former time to inflict a severe blow upon and to read a lesson to the United States which will not soon be forgotten."[9] In another letter to his Foreign Secretary the next day, he expected there was going to be war between Britain and the North:

It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the rabid hatred of England which animates the exiled Irishmen who direct almost all the Northern newspapers, will so excite the masses as to make it impossible for Lincoln and Seward to grant our demands; and we must therefore look forward to war as the probable result.[9]

However, the United States of America's government decided to hand back the prisoners. Lord Palmerston was convinced that the reinforcements he had sent to Canada had persuaded the North to acquiesce.

Lord Palmerston received a law officer's report he had commissioned on 29 July 1862 which advised him to detain the CSS Alabama because it was being built for the South in the port of Birkenhead and it was therefore a breach of Britain's neutrality. Further, the cotton famine in industrial regions of the North was beginning to bite, just at the time when British popular opinion was starting to harden against the Confederates. The ship had left the port after the order had been sent on the 31 July but departed too soon for it to be detained, and it went on to damage Northern shipping. The United States government accused the British government of complicity in the construction of the ship and, in the so-called Alabama claims, demanded damages from Britain. Lord Palmerston refused to pay damages or to refer the dispute to arbitration. It was not until after his death that his successor (Gladstone) agreed to these demands and paid the United States $15,500,000 in gold as damages.


[edit] Electoral victory and death
Lord Palmerston won another general election in July 1865, increasing his majority. He then had to deal with the outbreak of Fenian violence in Ireland. Lord Palmerston ordered the Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Wodehouse, to take drastic measures, including a possible suspension of trial-by-jury and a monitoring of Americans travelling to Ireland. He believed that the Fenian agitation was caused by America. On 27 September 1865 he wrote to the Secretary for War:

The American assault on Ireland under the name of Fenianism may be now held to have failed, but the snake is only scotched and not killed. It is far from impossible that the American conspirators may try and obtain in our North American provinces compensation for their defeat in Ireland.[10]

He advised that more armaments be sent to Canada and more troops sent to Ireland. During these last few weeks of his life, Lord Palmerston pondered on developments in foreign affairs. He began thinking of a new friendship with France as "a sort of preliminary defensive alliance" against America and looked forward to Prussia becoming more powerful as this would balance against the growing threat from Russia. In a letter to Russell he warned him that Russia "will in due time become a power almost as great as the old Roman Empire...Germany ought to be strong in order to resist Russian aggression."[11]

In early October Lord Palmerston caught a chill and a violent fever. His last words were, "That's Article 98; now go on to the next." (He was thinking about diplomatic treaties.)[12] Another apocryphal version of his last words is: "Die, my dear doctor. That is the last thing I shall do". He died at 10:45am on Wednesday, 18 October 1865 two days before his eighty-first birthday. Although Lord Palmerston wanted to be buried at Romsey Abbey, the Cabinet insisted that he should have a state funeral and be buried at Westminster Abbey, which he was, on 27 October 1865. He was the fourth person not royalty to be granted a state funeral (after Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Horatio Nelson, and Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of Wellington).

http://www.abjpress.com/tarpb3.html
Webster Tarpley:

A NEW ROMAN EMPIRE
It is 1850. Lord Palmerston is engaged in a campaign to make London the undisputed center of a new, worldwide Roman Empire. He is attempting to conquer the world in the way that the British have already conquered India, reducing every other nation to the role of a puppet, client, and fall-guy for British imperial policy. Lord Palmerston's campaign is not a secret. He has declared it here in the Houses of Parliament, saying that wherever in the world a British subject goes, he can flaunt the laws, secure that the British fleet will support him. "Civis Romanus sum, every Briton is a citizen of this new Rome," thundered Lord Palmerston, and with that, the universal empire was proclaimed. .....................

Shortly after that, the British will back Napoleon in his project of putting a Hapsburg archduke on the throne of an ephemeral Mexican Empire - the Maximilian Project. These projects will be closely coordinated with Palmerston's plans to eliminate the only two nations still able to oppose him - the Russia of Alexander II and the United States of Abraham Lincoln. Lord Palmerston will be the evil demiurge of the American Civil War, the mastermind of secession, far more important for the Confederacy than Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee. And in the midst of that war, Palmerston will detonate a rebellion in Poland against Russian rule, not for the sake of Poland, but for the sake of starting a general European war against Russia.

But when the Russian fleets sail into New York and San Francisco, when Lee's wave breaks at Gettysburg, when the Stars and Bars are lowered over Vicksburg, the British Empire will be stopped - just short of its goal. Just short - and yet, British hegemony will still be great enough to launch the two world wars of the twentieth century, and the third conflagration that will start in 1991. And as we look forward for a century and a half from 1850, British geopolitics, despite the challenges, despite the defeats, despite the putrefaction of Britain itself, will remain the dominant factor in world affairs.

PALMERSTON'S THREE STOOGES

How do the British do it? How can a clique of depraved aristocrats on this tight little island bid to rule the entire world? Don't believe the stories about the workshop of the world; there are some factories here, but Britain lives by looting the colonies. The fleet is formidable, but also overrated, and very vulnerable to serious challenges. The army is third-rate. But the British have learned from the Venetians that the greatest force in history is the force of ideas, and that if you can control culture, you can control the way people think, and then statesmen and fleets and armies will bend to your will.

Take our friend Lord Palmerston. Pam has the Foreign Office, the Home Office, and Whitehall, but when he needed to start the 1848 revolutions, or when the time will come for the American Civil War, he turns to a troika of agents. They are Lord Palmerston's Three Stooges. But instead of Moe, Larry, and Curly, these Three Stooges are named Giuseppe Mazzini, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, and David Urquhart. These Three Stooges - far more than the Union Jack, Victoria, the bulldog breed, the thin gray line of heroes, and the fleet - are the heart of what is called the British Empire.

We will get to know Lord Palmerston's Three Stooges better. But first, one thing must be understood. Moe, Larry, and Curly often had to work together on this or that project. But their relations were never exactly placid. [Slapstick episode from a "The Three Stooges" movie is shown to the audience.] You understand: Their stock in trade was infantile violence. So do not be surprised if we find Palmerston's Three Stooges lashing out with slanders, knives, and bombs against each other, and even against their august master, Lord Palmerston himself.

Under Lord Palmerston, England supports all revolutions - except her own - and the leading revolutionary in Her Majesty's Secret Service is Giuseppe Mazzini, our first Stooge. ..........................

Mazzini's American contacts are either proto- Confederates or strict abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison. During the American Civil War, Mazzini will favor both the abolition of slavery and the destruction of the Union through secessionism - the London line. This subversion will be showcased during the famous tour of Kossuth in the United States, next year and the year after. Kossuth will be accompanied by Mazzini's moneybags, the Tuscan Freemason Adriano Lemmi. On the eve of the Crimean War, with Palmerston doing everything to isolate Russia, Kossuth's line will be that the "tree of evil and despotism" in Europe "is Russia." Kossuth will try to blame even the problems of Italy on Russia. Despite Kossuth's efforts, the United States will emerge as the only power friendly to Russia during the Crimean conflict. Kossuth will call for the United States to join with England and France in war against Russia - Lord Palmerston's dream scenario.

Kossuth will refuse to call for the abolition of slavery. Kossuth will get on well with the slaveholders, since he will also be attempting to mediate a U.S. seizure of Cuba, which meshes perfectly with the secessionist program.

Mazzini is the zookeeper for all of these theme parks. But there are other zookeepers, and still more theme parks in the human, multicultural zoo. The custodians are Palmerston's two other Stooges, David Urquhart and Napoleon III.

[aerborne]

Greenback critics argue that they were inflationary and mistakenly measure the inflation against gold, starting at equal to a gold dollar in early 1862, and falling to 36 cents against a gold dollar by mid 1864. So one gold dollar exchanged for nearly $2.50 in Greenbacks. That is often the whole of their analysis and it is very misleading. Actually the Greenbacks did drop against gold; first to 58 cents at the end of 1862, then back up to 82 cents in mid 1863 and then down to a brief low of 36 cents on July 16, 1864.

From that point they moved up steadily, averaging 39 cents for August; 45 cents for September; and 48 cents for October, 1864. They retreated to $0.44 in December, and averaged $0.68 for December 1865. From there they gradually rose to $1.00, at par with gold in December 1878. Greenbacks became freely convertible into gold, dollar for dollar, in January 1879....

You mean like a gold standard?

What did occur in July 1864 was that our government put a limit of $450 million on the Greenbacks and from that month they started rising (i.e. gold began falling in terms of Greenbacks)....

That's one way to put it. Rothbard said they printed 150 million... then printed 150 million again, 2 more times. "Our government put a limit" obfuscates the fact that the 450 million was printed actually 3 seperate printings voted on by congress of 150 million. A forth never happened. there was a limit of 150 million, then of 300 million, then of 450 million. 

While the Greenbacks lost substantial value for a period, the nation was engaged in the bloodiest war in its history, in which 13% of the population served in the armed forces and 625,000 died....Is it reasonable to expect that any government in those circumstances could completely protect its citizens from financial and other hardships?

[Economic historian Irwin] Unger has noted that:

"It is now clear that inflation would have occurred even without the Greenback issue."

And comparing a wartime inflation under a government run money system (the Civil War) to wartime inflation under a private banker run system (WW I), Civil War historian [J.G.] Randall wrote:

"The threat of inflation was more effectively curbed during the Civil War than during the First World War."....

The fact that the Greenbacks were not accepted for import duties may also have been an important negative factor against the currency:

"Hence it has been argued that the Greenback circulation issued in 1862 might have kept at par with gold if it, too, had been made receivable for all payments to the Government," wrote financial historian [Davis Rich] Dewey.

Also, if interest payments on government bonds had been paid in Greenbacks instead of gold, a large part of the demand for gold would have disappeared.


-- Stephen Zarlenga, The Lost Science of Money, pp. 453-65

This statement posted ad naseum really isn't evidence of anything. Again, from the obfuscations above on the "limit" we can only wonder what details left out could lead to the economic changes that took place during the civil war. What with lincolns green backs, international politics, as you pointed out englands involvement, 13% of americans involved in fighting (instead of producing) and so forth. I guess what i'm trying to say is, the devil's in the details as much here, as it is in the "limit of 450 million" sentence.

[Geolibertarian]

Although I disagree with him on several key issues (gun control, public schooling, the rose-colored glasses through which he views Keynesian economics and debt-based money, etc.), I nevertheless agree with much--though far from all--of what Steve Kangas has to say in critique of the Austrian School.

Here's a sampling:

---------------------------------

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-ausmain.htm

Myth: The Austrian School of Economics is "apart and above" mainstream economics.

Fact: The Austrian School is a classic example of crank science.

Summary

The Austrian School of Economics is a tiny group of libertarians at war with mainstream economics. They reject even the scientific method that mainstream economists use, preferring to use instead a pre-scientific approach that shuns real-world data and is based purely on logical assumptions. But this is the very method that thousands of religions use when they argue their opposing beliefs, and the fact that the world has thousands of religions proves the fallibility of this approach. Academia has generally ignored the Austrian School, and the only reason it continues to exist is because it is financed by wealthy business donors on the far right. The movement does not exist on its own scholarly merits.

[Continued...]


http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-gold.htm

Myth: The gold standard is a better monetary system.

Fact: The gold standard causes deflation and depressions.

. . . .Gold bugs argue that we don't need to adjust the size of the money supply to match the level of economic activity -- the value of money will automatically adjust itself to the level of economic activity. Here's how it works. Suppose three people live in a village, and they have 100 gold coins among them. And suppose this covers 100 units of work. A loaf of bread may require five units of work, and therefore cost five gold coins. Now suppose that their economy grows to 120 units of work. There are two ways for the money supply to adjust to this new activity. The villagers could simply add 20 more coins to their money supply, so they now have 120 coins. Or they could let the value of the coins increase.

How would that work? Well, suppose the extra 20 units of work is being produced by just one of the three villagers. Obviously, he is eager to sell his product, just as the other two are eager to buy it. But no one can afford the sale, because there is insufficient money. So they artificially "create" money by lowering their prices for all their other goods, to increase their savings so they can buy it. For example, a loaf of bread still requires five units of work, but they may lower its price from five to four gold coins. The extra gold coin can now be used towards the purchase of the new product. This process is called deflation.

Prices do indeed inflate and deflate in this way. The problem is that this process is terribly inefficient. In real economies, prices tend to be "sticky" -- that is, enormously resistant to change. (At least in a downward direction. In an upward direction, they climb easily. This is good if you want to fight inflation, bad if you want to fight unemployment and recessions.)

There are several reasons for price stickiness. One is psychological -- people hate to cut their prices and wages. Another is that salaries and wages are often locked into contracts, the average of which is three years. And for many, raising prices incurs certain costs (reprinting, recalculating, reprogramming, etc., not to mention a dip in business) that may not make the price change seem worth it. Even if they do decide to change prices, it takes many companies quite some time to put them into effect. Sears, for example, has to reprint and remail all its catalogues. But perhaps the most important reason is that in a big and complex economy, people just don't realize at first when goods start becoming excessive on the market, and the glut may have to reach severe proportions before people notice it and take action.

Price stickiness means that the value of money is slow to adapt to changing economic conditions. Economists have found it much faster and simpler just to expand the money supply and cut the recession short. The Great Depression, for example, dragged on for ten years, with the natural deflation of money proceeding at a glacial pace. It wasn't until World War II that the government was forced to conduct a massive monetary expansion (to fund its defense spending). The result was such explosive economic growth that the U.S. economy doubled in size between 1940 and 1945, the fastest period of growth in U.S. history. Another example is Japan in the 1990s. Its economy has stagnated for five years now, and many economists have criticized its government for not doing enough to expand the money supply. But whatever the solution, the important point is that Japan's government has done very little, and its economy has not deflated or adjusted itself -- Japan's economic pain continues five years later. . . .

Bitter controversy over the gold standard was a hallmark of the Gilded Age. It was widely regarded as a tool of the rich. Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan spoke for the poor when he charged, famously, that "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." The U.S. suffered three depressions during the Gilded Age, and the gold standard and its bank panics were often held to blame.

Throughout this era, the value of gold was fixed at a certain price. One U.S. dollar, for example, was defined as 23.22 grains of pure gold. A British pound sterling was defined as 113.00 grains of pure gold. This meant that the total value of a nation's money supply was determined by the size of its gold reserves. Furthermore, fixed rates meant that international exchange rates were also fixed. In other words, the world operated under a single, unified monetary system. One British pound always equaled 4.8665 U.S. dollars (113.00/23.22), at least according to the official rate. The actual rates might fluctuate, due to the shifting supply and demand of international trade, but the nations set up a system to make sure that they never fluctuated too far from the official rate. This system was rather complex, but basically it kept exchange rates stable and close to the official rate by making sure that nations with trade deficits paid their bills quickly and directly in gold.

But there were economic consequences to such a system. Suppose Britain ran up a trade deficit with the U.S., and promptly paid in gold. The U.S. money supply would expand, and its economy would experience a mixture of inflation and growth. Conversely, the British money supply would shrink. Theoretically, this should have resulted in deflation, but in practice it resulted in widespread unemployment, due to price stickiness. Therefore, outflows of gold from a country were often very painful to its economy. And when people learned that gold was leaving the country, they often conducted bank runs, trying to withdraw their gold before it ran out. Thus, the Gilded Age was replete with bank panics and failures.

The Gilded Age was brief, lasting from the 1870s to 1914, when World War I broke out. During the war, nearly all nations either placed restrictions on gold convertibility or issued non-convertible paper money. But one of their top priorities after the war was the recreation of the full gold standard. It took several years before they succeeded. Britain restored its gold standard in 1925, but in an act of folly, made the pound worth $4.86 again in U.S. dollars -- its old, pre-war parity. Unfortunately, the pound was overvalued at this price now, due to changes in the price of gold, and Britain subsequently experienced a drastic outflow of gold. Again, severe unemployment was the result, not the expected deflation. Britain would struggle with unemployment for the rest of the decade.

By 1928, all the major currencies and most of the minor ones had returned to the gold standard. But the coming Great Depression would lay bare all its disadvantages. A unified monetary system meant that no nation could protect itself from a disaster that occurred in another nation. When the depression struck in the U.S., it quickly ricocheted across the Atlantic. In the U.S., two gigantic bank runs caused over 10,000 bank failures. So many people were left holding worthless banknotes that the money supply shrank by about a third -- a catastrophic reduction.

When Roosevelt took office in 1933, unemployment had soared to nearly 25 percent. His inauguration took place literally in the middle of a third bank panic. Roosevelt stopped it in its tracks by doing something novel: he intervened. He declared a "banking holiday" that closed banks to the public for eight days, to prevent further withdrawals. During that time, the banking system was reorganized. When banks finally reopened, banks deposits actually exceeded bank withdrawals. It was a tremendous political success for Roosevelt, and America's last bank run. Later under the New Deal, bank deposits would become insured by the federal government.

After the Great Depression struck, the world wasted little time severing its ties to gold. Britain left the gold standard in 1931, as did the U.S. in 1933. By 1937, not a single country remained on the gold standard. After World War II, the U.S. partially restored the gold standard for international trade. And to prevent citizens from bank panics, it made its currency inconvertible at home. In 1971, a diminishing gold supply and growing deficits caused the U.S. to suspend the gold standard even for international trade. Ever since, international trade has been based solely on the dollar and other paper currencies. Today, there are no mainstream economists who call for a return to the gold standard; it is widely regarded as a fringe idea of the radical right.

[Continued...]

---------------------------------


Left-wing anarchists make some valid points against the anarcho-capitalist views of the Austrian School as well, though from an entirely different angle:

       http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secFcon.html

[aerborne]

Although I disagree with him on several key issues (gun control, public schooling, the rose-colored glasses through which he views Keynesian economics and debt-based money, etc.), I nevertheless agree with much--though far from all--of what Steve Kangas has to say in critique of the Austrian School.

Here's a sampling:

---------------------------------

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-ausmain.htm

Strawman: The Austrian School of Economics is "apart and above" mainstream economics.

Infallible debunking: The Austrian School is a classic example of crank science.

Strawman: The gold standard is a better monetary system.

Infallible Debunking: The gold standard causes deflation and depressions.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4

It's the same thing... they even use the same format Claim/myth vs "fact"

[trailhound]

Since i am aware you wont even look at the thread, here is the information Von Mises neglected to provide.

 First i must say revolt you r such an asshole. Yes i have been reading your walls of text and responding with the chinks i see in your armor. You have not addressed my very concise points.

 Who's the muscle behind the empire you fear now?

 How did the colonists fend off the brits in the first place without the 'union'?

[vladimir]

...
To any relative newcomers who may be reading this, I invite you to watch the following so that you'll have an even better understanding as to why gold-based money is not the panacea that the monetary-flat earthers from the Austrian School blindly insist it is:

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E0UPBtmTb0 (part 1 of 3)
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9FWECWWN5o (part 2 of 3)
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM7D3mnUSI0 (part 3 of 3)

Thanks, Geolibertarian, for the excellent American history lesson. And thanks especially for these fine links. Byron Dale's series on a gold-based monetary system is spot-on. I don't think, however, that good monetary policies can solve all the nation's problems. The credit system is just a maintenance mechanism flowing out of and back into production and consumption. The fundamental problems lie with the system of production and infrastructure maintenance. If I hear him right, this is Webster G Tarpley's point.

On the credit cycle, see Brian M Cooney's two-part series on YouTube(c):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO0mRT7zW50&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URCJk7azXnM&feature=related
 
Parenthetically, taxation is a direct mechanism that favors or discourages investment and consumption and thus has a direct influence on the economy. Henry George's libertarian theory turns on the tax issue, if I've understood him correctly.
 
Monetary and tax policies will never be fair while a privileged class of bankers and industrial magnates control the government, which acts as an executive body representing their interests. This is where I disagree with Tarpley. Only a social revolution that can smash the present aberration and restore the representative form of government that was envisioned by the American Revolutionaries (but then an idea ahead of its time) can purge the influence of these parasites out of the government.
 

[trailhound]

To maintain a global population in a condition resembling a modern 21st-Century standard of living will require an installed electrical generating capacity of at least 3 to 5 kilowatts per capita. Today, only the United States, Japan, and a few countries of western Europe even approximate this level of generating capacity. Let us understand the meaning of this more clearly, before moving on to the crucial question of how we shall generate this power the world so desperately needs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBbnqcfJWs

[Revolt426]

First i must say revolt you r such an asshole. Yes i have been reading your walls of text and responding with the chinks i see in your armor. You have not addressed my very concise points.

 Who's the muscle behind the empire you fear now?

 How did the colonists fend off the brits in the first place without the 'union'?

I Treat people with respect whom respect others. You intentionally De-Rail threads when you know nothing of the topic or history, then copy/paste lies to prove your false point. So on the contrary , you are an "Asshole". So keep hitting the "Chinks in my armor" because it only discredits you when you post false history. You feel the need to track whichever thread i comment in, and oppose whatever i say, not because you oppose what i am saying - but because you dont know what the hell you are talking about.

Preserving the Union is the WHOLE POINT of the economic policy, by the way.

And who muscles the Empire now? i would take alook at where the Derivative mess was created, and where the Royalty is - that would be the United Kingdom.

The United States is merely an infiltraited Government by Bankers, Royalty and their moles from Wallstreet under London guidence. We are a military de-stabalization tool - we have no empire. The British, on the other hand - have a 16 Nations that name Queen Elizabeth as their Monarch and contrary to myths, they DO have an Empire.

Thankyou for proving my point.

[trailhound]

The United States is merely an infiltraited Government by Bankers, Royalty and their moles from Wallstreet under London guidence. We are a military de-stabalization tool - we have no empire. The British, on the other hand - have a 16 Nations that name Queen Elizabeth as their Monarch and contrary to myths, they DO have an Empire.

Thankyou for proving my point.

Im with you on the crown, but look at the big 'military destabilization tool' lincoln helped bring about.

 We could have fended the brits off forever with out becoming them, IMHO.

 

[Revolt426]

Im with you on the crown, but look at the big 'military destabilization tool' lincoln helped bring about.

 We could have fended the brits off forever with out becoming them, IMHO.

 

Your Opinion is wrong as shown by history, And might i ask - what destabalization tool did Lincoln "Bring about" ? .

There was armed forces PRIOR to the Constitution being ratified, for the sole purpose of protecting us from the British.

Abraham Lincoln protected the Union from being destroyed by the British with a Sovereign Currency, as the South was infiltraited with British Assets like Confederate General Albert Pike.

This is another strawman arguement , because Lincoln did not bring any destbalization tool about - the Gold Standard, resulting in the de-industrialization of the South and dependence on Slave labor and free trade agreements with the British Empire caused De-Stabalization.

Abraham Lincoln attempted to destroy those who wished to stomp out the United States Constitution and cut the Nation into pieces and was assassinated for it.

Equating Abraham Lincoln with the British is like equating John F. Kennedy with George W. Bush.

[trailhound]

  There was armed forces PRIOR to the Constitution being ratified, for the sole purpose of protecting us from the British.

Abraham Lincoln protected the Union from being destroyed by the British with a Sovereign Currency, as the South was infiltraited with British Assets like Confederate General Albert Pike.

This is another strawman arguement , because Lincoln did not bring any destbalization tool about - the Gold Standard, resulting in the de-industrialization of the South and dependence on Slave labor and free trade agreements with the British Empire caused De-Stabalization.

Abraham Lincoln attempted to destroy those who wished to stomp out the United States Constitution and cut the Nation into pieces and was assassinated for it.

 Im sure the confederate states would understand the need to be unified against invasion, but they could still retain their states rights and be unified on the important fronts. 

here's a couple lines from the articles of confederation.

III
The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.

IV
The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.

 
This illustrates the understanding the states had that they needed to be unified against common enemies. This does not mean it was a good idea to create a common enemy and put it in washington to suck us dry like where we are today. 

 Forgive me but centralizing power seems to be history's faux pas so i argue in that general direction. I dont know everything as you have noted (repeatedly) and am not going to tell you you are wrong and assbackwards etc. There's are different views and none of them are totally right or totally wrong. 'Everything is part true, part false, and partially meaningless'  to quote R.A.Wilson.  Do you know who he is?

I dont know Lincolns true intentions, but you might be kind of right revolt.

Abraham Lincoln protected the Union from being destroyed by the British with a Sovereign Currency, as the South was infiltraited with British Assets like Confederate General Albert Pike.

 Thats interesting any sources for that? You've made this assertion throughout the thread and forgive me i have not accepted it as fact yet but im not saying its not true.  I guess the bottomline is the empire got us anyway so we f**ked up.  Devising exactly where we went wrong is a tricky task full of opinions.  I would point out that if the states had rights to make trade regulations on chinese imports perhaps we wouldnt be sitting here nearly powerless to produce anything in our country anymore.

[aerborne]

This is another strawman arguement,

No it's not. even of the below were true he didn't actually form the straw man.

because Lincoln did not bring any destbalization tool about - the Gold Standard, resulting in the de-industrialization of the South and dependence on Slave labor and free trade agreements with the British Empire caused De-Stabalization.

As I've demonstrated, you cherry pick your evidence and arbitrarily accuse the use of gold for the depression and the de-industrialization of the south. You provide no evidence that gold and silver  did this. Further you're not taking into account the criticisms of austrian economists (like rothbard) had with the jacksonian bimetallic coinage, probably because you haven't read it, but only stephen zerlenga's straw man arguments and think THEY represent austrian economists better then their own writings.

[Revolt426]

 
This illustrates the understanding the states had that they needed to be unified against common enemies. This does not mean it was a good idea to create a common enemy and put it in washington to suck us dry like where we are today. 

 Forgive me but centralizing power seems to be history's faux pas so i argue in that general direction. I dont know everything as you have noted (repeatedly) and am not going to tell you you are wrong and assbackwards etc. There's are different views and none of them are totally right or totally wrong. 'Everything is part true, part false, and partially meaningless'  to quote R.A.Wilson.  Do you know who he is?

I dont know Lincolns true intentions, but you might be kind of right revolt.
 Thats interesting any sources for that? You've made this assertion throughout the thread and forgive me i have not accepted it as fact yet but im not saying its not true.  I guess the bottomline is the empire got us anyway so we f**ked up.  Devising exactly where we went wrong is a tricky task full of opinions.  I would point out that if the states had rights to make trade regulations on chinese imports perhaps we wouldnt be sitting here nearly powerless to produce anything in our country anymore.

Sources? Everything i've posted has a Source. Was Albert pike a Confederate General ? YES, this is a FACT. The Sources are at the bottom of the article, and plenty of them.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1998/kkk_in_doj.html

...The other tradition is that of British-sponsored anti-American treason, personified by the Confederate General, Southern Jurisdiction Scottish Rite Mason, and Ku Klux Klan founder, Albert Pike. The Pike legacy still exists today, under various guises: the FBI of the J. Edgar Hoover tradition, which is engaged in a racist campaign of frame-ups against African-American elected officials all across America; and the radical jacobinism of Black Nationalism, which came to the fore as the result of Dr. King's assassination, and which parades today under the banner of a "rainbow coalition."

Nobody can fully appreciate the still-unfolding struggle over the American ideal, without knowing the essentials of the struggle between the two, contending forces represented by Martin Luther King and Albert Pike.

It is, therefore, no small irony that April 4, 1998 marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King, and also the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Congress's treacherous passage of a bill authorizing the erection of a statue, on Federal government property in Washington, D.C., of the traitor Albert Pike....

. As a Confederate general during the Civil War, Pike was in charge of enticing American Indians to war on the United States; his atrocities and war crimes led to his arrest by the embarrassed Confederates, and an 1865 indictment by the United States for treason. Pike fled to Canada, remaining there under the protection of his British Empire sponsors until the heat was off.[6]


[6] While Pike was thus exiled, President Andrew Johnson declared, "It appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice that the . . . murder of . . . Abraham Lincoln . . . [was] incited, concerted, and procured . . . between . . . Richmond, Va., and . . . rebels and traitors against the government of the United States harbored in Canada."--Proclamation, May 2, 1865, Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington: Bureau of National Literature, 1897), Vol. VIII, p. 3,505. In the trial convened on May 9, 1865, the U.S. convicted seven persons of this international conspiracy to murder Lincoln; four were hanged.

[Magnumpi]

OK so one more time, for the layperson, how is a perpetually inflated currency, tied to a boom-bust cycle any different from the current situation? Or does it require a king/dictator to run it(as Hamilton suggested, and Lincoln declared himself)? And since the "gold standard" brought about the depression of 1837? So then did infrastructure bring about the depression of 1873. I guess it's all flawed, start trading jellybeans. Oh wait, that would mean physical holding of at least a portion of the wealth, can't have that.

[planning4acrash]

OK so one more time, for the layperson, how is a perpetually inflated currency, tied to a boom-bust cycle any different from the current situation? Or does it require a king/dictator to run it(as Hamilton suggested, and Lincoln declared himself)? And since the "gold standard" brought about the depression of 1837? So then did infrastructure bring about the depression of 1873. I guess it's all flawed, start trading jellybeans. Oh wait, that would mean physical holding of at least a portion of the wealth, can't have that.

All of the busts you refer to were not caused by gold, but by manipulation of the gold standard (via legal tender laws), causing a rise in the money supply that misallocated resources, leading to a boom and bust. The 1870's bust, for example, was caused by an inflationary boom caused by greenbacks printed for war.

Hamilton was a propagandist for british bankers.

[aerborne]

[6] While Pike was thus exiled, President Andrew Johnson declared, "It appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice that the . . . murder of . . . Abraham Lincoln . . . [was] incited, concerted, and procured . . . between . . . Richmond, Va., and . . . rebels and traitors against the government of the United States harbored in Canada."--Proclamation, May 2, 1865, Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington: Bureau of National Literature, 1897), Vol. VIII, p. 3,505. In the trial convened on May 9, 1865, the U.S. convicted seven persons of this international conspiracy to murder Lincoln; four were hanged.

The Actual Quote:

Whereas it appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice, that the atrocious murder of the late President and the attempted murder of the Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, was incited and concerted by and between Jeff. Davis, late of Richmond and Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N. Sanders, W. C. Cleary and others, rebels and traitors against the Government of the United States, harbored in Canada.

It's interesting that Albert Pike isn't in there, and none of THESE people who ARE much more significant to the secession of the southern states is accused of being a "british agent." Albert pike was barely an afterthought if he was even considered in "and other rebels." You're whole argument that lincoln was the savior of the union from a british conspiracy relies on omissions of evidence.

Have you considered the possibility that, perhaps the conspiracy wasn't to split the united states through the south, but to create a civil war in the united states (to which they could profit from both sides) and that lincoln's destruction of states rights, (as well as the other problems) played right into their hands? Lincoln was clearly a corporatist and a federalist who believed states didn't have the right to secede when the north waged economic warfare with 47% tariffs on the south, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread. What justification or excuse is there for the policies of the north that drove such a wedge between the north and south?

Albert Pike, clearly, is a red herring.

[lord edward coke]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBbnqcfJWs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnwLgrSJZKs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2jiA_DXxGI

The last shall be first and the first shall be last

Jesus of Nazareth

Nobel Laureate Buckminster Fuller’s introduction to his Critical Path is titled, Twilight of the World’s Power Structures. Published in 1981, Fuller’s book predicted the end of the world’s power structures during a process where humanity would undergo a crisis of unprecedented proportions.

In 1991, the Soviet Union and communism collapsed and now with the severe contraction in credit markets, capitalism is in similarly deep trouble; and. Fuller’s 1981 prediction about the demise of the world’s power structures certainly cannot be good news for those who attended the Bilderberg meeting held June 5-8 in Chantilly, VA.

The Bilderberger are believed by many to be the world’s ruling elite, those who determine the world’s direction—at least the western world’s, as attendees are overwhelmingly from Europe and the US (Europe 2:1 US).

In truth, however, the majority of attendees at the Bilderberger meetings are not the ruling elites but their minions—the well paid servants of money and power who toil 24/7 on their behalf, the bankers and corporate CEOs who shepherd the collective wealth of their masters, thereby gaining position and power for themselves in the process.

This fact, however, should not take away from their considerable influence in today’s world. That world, however, is today in a highly precarious state; for, if Fuller’s prediction is true, the Bilderberger’s world is now about to collapse.

MARSHALL THURBER’S CHECKERBOARD GAME

Marshall Thurber who was a close friend of Buckminster Fuller recently unveiled his new Checkerboard Game at the Positive Deviant Network (the PDN (www.posdev.net). A gamesmeister whose Blocks Game (which literally “melts” the right/left brain into a unified state) is the foundation of his long-running Money & You seminar (now taught internationally including China), Thurber’s new Checkerboard Game reveals the dynamics behind the formation of financial and power elites.

The setting itself was rather extraordinary. The Positive Deviant Network was in Dunkirk NY to view one of four prisons where PDN member Dr. Cherie Clark (who received her PhD based on her study of Buckminster Fuller’s principles of Synergistics) co-heads Shock Incarceration (http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/shockny.pdf), a course based on Buckminster Fuller’s principles, the 12 step addiction program and superlearning techniques (80% of Shock Incarceration graduates starting with an average of 5th grade education receive their GEDs (high-school equivalency) in 6 months with 12 hours of classroom time per week).

Where the average prison program lasts only 2-3 years, Shock Incarceration is now in its 21st year after having successfully graduated 37,000 inmates, significantly lowered New York State’s recidivism rates, saved the state of New York over $1 billion dollars and transformed countless lives in the process (Dr. Clark is also the president of Doing Life International, (http://www.doinglife.com/company.html).

The connection between The Checkerboard Game and Shock Incarceration was obvious. The creation of financial elites such as the Bilderbergers creates a world where elites continue to coalesce financial and political power at the expense of others. The rich get richer and the poor now go to prison. The Checkerboard Game and Shock Incarceration reflect that simple but increasingly ubiquitous truth.

If you have the chance to play The Checkerboard Game you should do so. And if you’re ever incarcerated by the state of New York and have a chance to take Shock Incarceration (the US is now the world’s #1 jailor so your odds are increasing)the same advice holds. Buckminster Fuller’s influence in both is obvious.

THE BILDERBERGERS & THE PAPER BOYS

A fortune composed of paper is like a house built on sand

At the very same time the Positive Deviant Network was meeting in northern New York in early June, the Bilderbergers were meeting in northern Virginia; and, while the PDN was looking at ways to alleviate the problems of the powerless, the Bilderbergers were looking at ways to extend the power of the already powerful.

In attendance at the Bilderberg meeting were Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Henry Paulson, the US Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geither, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, and Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank.

It is no coincidence that so many high ranking "public servants" were openly attending a private meeting of the western world’s financial elites. Public servants in name only, public bankers are the handmaidens of the private elites, and in so doing serve their own interests as well.

It is also no coincidence that bankers play such a prominent role in the affairs of the Bilderbergers, the western power elite. Prior to the introduction of the bankers’ debt-based money in England in 1694, the east and the west were "separate but equal". The bankers, however, were to significantly change that dynamic.

After central banking was introduced by the Bank of England, the relationship between the east and west shifted dramatically. England in its Faustian pact with the bankers was able to fund its navy and military with debt-based money and in a version of national gang violence, sic imperialism, imposed its will on much of the world.

The 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries reflected this great shift in power. The 21st century, however, will not. By the end of the 19th century, England’s time as the preeminent world power had run its course.

In 1870, England’s balance of trade went negative and its Treasury had increasing difficulty in paying the enormous bills of the British Navy and the bankers took careful note of this turn of events.

So, in 1913, the European bankers extended their operations to the US via the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the US version of the Bank of England’s central bank. The Federal Reserve System, a consortium of private European and American banks, would issue the same debt-based money in America as had the Bank of England in Britain and the bankers would continue their power and influence in America as they had in England and Europe.

Now, however, in the 21st century, America’s run at the table of fortune is coming to an end as did England’s one century before. In 1970, America’s balance of trade went negative (as did England’s in the 1870s) and again like England, its military budget would consume more and more of its national wealth.

In 2008, the world of the Bilderbergers is now suddenly and unexpectedly threatened. The western power base built on the foundation of central banking has encountered an unexpected problem. The debt-based western world of the Bildebergers has now collided head-on with the savings-based world of the east.

CAPITALISM IS NOT COMMERCE THE COIN OF THE REALM BECOMES THE CON OF THE REALM

Capitalism is the description of the wholesale introduction of credit into the world of commerce. Prior to the introduction of the Bank of England’s debt-based money, the words "banker" and "capitalism" did not even exist. The previous description of banking was "money-lending", an avocation made possible by the charging of interest on the lending of gold.

The utterly brilliant ascent of the money-lenders was made possible by their pact with government, first with King William of England, wherein private bankers would be allowed to issue public currency on which they could charge interest just as they had previously with gold—and government could then spend whatever it wished of the public’s money, usually on war.

The advantages are obvious, at least to the bankers and governments. Over time, however, the credit based "money" turns into debt on which compounding interest is levied. In this system, time is the enemy as time compounds debts as well as the amount of paper money causing a continual debasing of previously issued currency.

THE MORE PAPER MONEY PRINTED THE LESS ITS VALUE

The ultimate seduction of credit lies in its ability to deceive the debtor into believing that it is real money he or she has. It is not. Credit and debt are two sides of the same coin, albeit a coin of highly dubious origin.

The two-sided coin of credit and debt was substituted for gold and silver in an arrangement that served bankers and government, not producers and savers; and, much to the chagrin of the Bilderbergers and their bankers, the rest of the world, sic producers and savers, are now beginning to catch on to this increasingly obvious truth.

The recent rapid rise in the price of oil is a reflection of the intention of oil producers to no longer automatically trade their limited supply of oil for an unlimited and continually devaluing supply of paper money.

The current volatility in the price of gold and silver is a reflection of the death throes of the Bilderberger’s regime of paper money. No paper money system has ever lasted, all have ended in failure and disaster and this present system will end the same way—no matter what efforts are exerted on the behalf of paper money.

IT’S YOUR CHOICE PAPER, GOLD, OR SILVER

It was the bankers of the west that invented this game of charades where credit and debt masquerade as money. It is a charade that has lasted three hundred years. All games end, however, and this game is ending now, gratis of the universe whose intelligent hand Buckminster Fuller saw everywhere, even in our mistakes.

Bucky maintained that mistakes are an integral part of learning (see Fuller’s Mistake Mystique, see (http://www.flighttogenius.com/mm_ebook.pdf), Fuller maintained that the universe evolves by mistakes, learning ever more as it does so—and that includes mankind—no matter how dissociated our minds think we are from the originating phenomena of life.

In early June, as we in the Positive Deviant Network walked through Lakeview Prison in Dunkirk, NY, we saw a slogan prominently painted on a wall. In that prison, especially, its truth was obvious:

LEARNING IS HAPPENING

And, so it is. It is a lesson the bankers and the Bilderbergers will soon understand.

POWER IS NO MORE CONTROL THAN CREDIT IS MONEY
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1131942400352901009

[worcesteradam]

Monetary and tax policies will never be fair while a privileged class of bankers and industrial magnates control the government, which acts as an executive body representing their interests. This is where I disagree with Tarpley.
 

yes, exactly

[Freeski]

yes, exactly

The economy is the heart of their control, IMO.