Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Oh, yes, things where so much better back in colonial times, when 
>> every state, or even county, and sometimes cities, printed their own 
>> money, and you never knew if the next place you landed in would accept 
>> it..
> 
> Um, no. Every bank printed its own money, and gold worked everywhere. 
> Why do you think there were gold rushes?
> 
> Now we have only one bank printing money, and the only reason it's 
> accepted everywhere is because we have lots of gund. See Iceland for a 
> counterexample. Why again is this good?
> 
Because, you don't have to worry about people "refusing" money at their 
banks, because they don't trust you have the gold, don't like your hair 
cut, or think your too <insert race/religion here>. With one single 
currency you don't get that BS. And... Just to be clear, if all this 
regulation, and taxation, and money based on pure money stuff is so bad, 
why is it **only** the US, and countries filled with corrupt dictators, 
which are currently screwed in health care, cost of living, 
unemployment, etc.? See, its the inconsistency between "these things are 
bad", but, "The use does them less than anyone else, but has had 
**three** economic depressions, counting this one.", that just... 
doesn't jibe.

>> But there just isn't enough fracking gold in the world to support, 
>> never mind back, the number of transactions that actually take place 
>> in the modern world. 
> 
> Bull. You don't need the actual gold. You just need your money to be 
> worth something universal and impossible to counterfeit.  What does it 
> matter if an ounce of gold is worth $100,000?
> 

How the hell is not having anything you "can" exchange for it, just 
imaginary stuff, which you could "in theory" trade for it, then what the 
heck is the difference from the current form again?

>> Moving away from that as a standard, to currency itself being the 
>> standard, **helped** growth. 
> 
> Perhaps. Until people stop believing in money. Then you get the Great 
> Depression.
> 
And, if people stop believing in gold, same thing. Money is *not* gold, 
it has been, and always was, a bit of paper that said, "in theory, this 
will buy X". It doesn't matter if that is gold or rock, as long as 
someone things there is some value to rocks. If they either a) decide 
they don't need your rocks, b) decide you don't have the gold to back 
your "claims" of how much their money is worth, or c) something else is 
worth more to them. Removing such a stupid standard means the value is 
based on what it really was in the first place, trust that you can spend 
it, and get something back, including, if you have enough, gold bars.

>> when we should have been paying attention to the fact that the rest of 
>> the world figured out 20 years ago that small, efficient and 
>> streamlined, was the future.
> 
> Except the Japanese like to buy big gas-guzzling Ford pickup trucks too. 
> :-) Plus, CAFE helped there a whole bunch.
> 
Oh, yeah.. All what 1,000 of them that drive cars? lol Seriously, 1) 
declining population, 2) non-city lands going fallow, and 3) no where 
near enough places "to" drive for the high price of gas to matter at 
all. Its not like, say, a few million idiots that think they need to 
cram 500,000 cars on 1,000 roads every day, in 4-5 cities, in various 
corners of a damn continent. lol

>> 2) anti-intellectualism. 
> 
> Yep.
> 
>> The modern US thinks we are #1, while simultaneously thinking that 
>> being smart, knowledgeable, logical, or just prone to use a lot of big 
>> words, makes you a pariah and untrustworthy. 
> 
> In many ways, yes.  Altho I'm not sure what this has to do with monetary 
> policy. :-)
> 

A lot really. Dumb and gullible people are happy to buy into anything 
that "promises" them something for nothing, and the entire "lending" 
economy has been based "purely" on that thinking. Some... some are so 
stupid they join so called "prosperity ministries", which preach buy, 
buy, buy, and buy more, since a) Jesus will reward the faithful 
(apparently the people holding the collection box) with riches, and b) 
even if he doesn't, the whole world will end, and you won't need to 
worry about losing the $300,000 home you bought on 4 morgages, with 3 
credit cards, and all the crap they fill the inside with.

You and me.. we would look at a stereo system and a TV, and decide to 
take the TV, on sale, which was "good enough". They... would buy both, 
the best ones their credit could get, and then go to church on Sunday to 
be told, "Praise the Lord, you will be rewarded for buying it!" I don't 
want to even think how many of the morons involved with this crash where 
both either CEO or consumers **and** members of that crazy shit.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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