Political Thread 2012

[GarageAlchemist]

I agree on the disability. My uncle is a lifetime drug user. Been to prison multiple times for it, been through rehab for it, always goes back to it. Now his body is shot at 50. He gets 950$ a month disability because his joints are shot.

We need to be able to distinguish between disabilities from choices and disabilities that are caused by circumstances that aren't in anyone's control (accidents, etc.)

[DaveH]

Trafik Jamz;32647 wrote:
I get frustrated when I think about what and where to cut, which is why I think we should cut everything by at least 1 to 2% every year until we balance the budget and then for a couple of years after. I'm also ok with increasing everyone's taxes by 2% across the board (one time) and making sure that even the poorest wage earners pay at least that 2% income tax.

I think the cuts needs to be more like 5% a year, or more. Politically, it probably needs to be done across the board otherwise people/politicians will be screaming that they are being singled out and nothing will get done. If everyone has to take a hit, it has a lot better chance of getting done. That said, I don't think it will get done. You should probably make plans to take care of yourself and your family when things go into the shitter.

I don't know if increasing the tax rate is the solution, I think much more would be gained by getting the economy going again instead.

[thrash]

So gold doesn't have any intrinsic value. Infact, nothing has intrinsic value. A thing is valued only if a particular person wants it more than something else they have at a particular time.

It turns out that most people for most of history have chosen silver and gold for money because they are extremely suitable for that purpose.

Money develops naturally as a logical outgrowth of the barter system. Without money, the butcher has to have exactly the number of chickens that the cobbler wants in exchange for making a set of shoes. The butcher can only get shoes when the cobbler wants chickens.

This is of course an awful way to conduct the affairs of society, and is a detriment to the effectiveness and growth of human civilization.

Compared to all other things, gold and silver have a few properties that make them excellent as money

• they are highly resistant to corrosion, rot, contamination, spoiling, human touch, etc (as compared to wheat, iron, wood, leather, etc)
• they can be cut and melted and recombined and reformed over and over again with no loss whatsoever in utility or capability (as compared to say, a cow)
• the naturally available quantity of each substance is quite difficult to change rapidly (as opposed to peices of paper, flower petals, etc)
• they have unique physical and chemical properties that make it difficult for others to create convincing frauds

the monetary utility of gold and silver is significantly higher than their industrial or ornamental utility. There simply isn't something that has more desirable properties than silver as day to day money, and gold as a store of wealth. Why? Because most people have decided that's what they want to use as money, primarily for the reasons above.

It doesn't hurt that silver and gold are both very pretty, and are both medically useful chemicals, and do have industrial/technical uses. But the #1 good feature of any commodity money is that it be difficult to inflate the supply rapidly. Copper or other metals would work as well for this, but they have problems with durability, corrosion resistance, etc.

Gold and Silver aren't the only things you should have because they are only useful to you in a proto-functioning society where people are willing to trade items with direct utility value (food, clothing, protection) for things with societal/barter value (money, jewelry, luxuries). Depending on how severe the collapse is, there may be a period where your silver/gold holdings are effectively worthless because nobody wants to give you their food in exchange for your silver. They can just wait until you die and then take it from you

At some point -- perhaps on the way down, and perhaps on the way back up if we sink that low -- a barter economy will re-emerge and commodity money will re-emerge to make ti better. Historically, gold and silver have always been at the center of this.

[DaveH]