It does matter who we buy it from though. I don’t want money going to fund the Wahabbist movement or the Islamic Republic or Chavez.
This is a nonsense objection. Costs and benefits are not only financial, so an idea has costs and benefits even if it doesn’t involve money in any way.
My main objection to Paul is that I think his notions of how the government should be constructed are outmoded and have been so for a couple of generations. I’d be in favor of cutting the military budget and ending the war on drugs, for example, but consistently and for a long time, voters have opted for a government that provides greater services and does more to protect people’s rights than what Paul is advocating. That’s the choice people have made and I think that in general, it’s the correct choice. You can’t unring the bell, and even if you could, there’s no reason you should, particularly given the harm it would cause.
On the contrary, relying on a federal bureaucracy for medical advice instead of your doctor is the height of naïveté.
The FDA doesn’t give medical advice. It does not do patient consultations. It does not do anything your doctor does.
The incredible naïveté of this sentence underscores how unrealistic the Paul “plan” is, and how the majority of his supporters’ ignorance borders on delusional. (now with added :rolleyes:)
Determining whether or not a drug is safe and effective for a particular use (among other things) requires a vastly different skill set than my doctor has at his disposal.
What, you mean, let CitiBux float on the market against FargoDollars? You really think that’ll make currency values more stable?!
“Competing currencies” is a euphemism. What Paul and his supporters mean is gold and silver coinage. They want us to go back to a precious metal economy.
You appear to be confused… about something.
Ron Paul is a crazy old man. I wouldn’t let him change the tire on my van. He sure as shit shouldn’t be in charge of a military.
If something so tried-and-tested were a good idea, wouldn’t more countries be doing it?
Uh, socialism?
It’s not an experiment; it’s a method that we tried from the founding of the nation, and continued for over a century. It’s been demonstrated to be a failure.
An austerity program in this economic time would be a disaster. Cutting hundreds of thousands of government jobs and cutting government departments would be a horrible mistake.
You can not cut your way out of this fiscal mess. Yet Paul is suggesting that and cutting corporate taxes at the same time. It would be terrible economics.
His policies would cut demand. That is the engine of the economy. The one that gets ignored all the time.
His graph is bullshit. His policies would greatly increase the debt and put us on a disastrous course.
Are more countries doing it?
Ah, so he does still want to put in 1000% inflation instantaneously by nationalizing the precious metals industry.
I meant costs and benefits would be possible to measure objectively.
I realize voters have opted for an expanding government. Why do you think I’m conversing on this topic? I want them to change their mind. I happen to find an outmoded style of government more appealing than a modern authoritarian Government.
I’m arguing that continuing on this path will cause more harm than changing course.
They wouldn’t nationalize it. He would allow private presses. You can’t inflate the weight of a metal.
That’s not always possible.
No one’s “opted for an expanding government”. Liberal democracies provide services and protections that can’t or wouldn’t be provided otherwise, or at least not in a desirable way. Nobody wants to expand the government for the sake of expanding the government. This is one of the most ridiculous conservative/libertarian canards.
Your "outmoded style of government " was tried and it didn’t work. And modern liberal democracies are considerably less “authoritarian” than any other type of government, ever.
Define “harm”.
The federal reserve was created in 1913. The dollar is currently at 4% of it’s original value in that year. That is a failure. The Great Depression started in 1929, we didn’t have a true recovery until after the war in '46. That is a failure.
It’s the amount of goods and service that that metal can buy that would get inflated.
So, you’re saying that inflation doesn’t make dollar bills physically smaller?