Azelma wrote:
No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true. I supported myself during my internship making $18 an hour. And yes, I also ran up massive credit card debt in the process (remember my credit card thread?). Believe what you want...I'll choose to believe the facts.
The former point stands - you were in the position to do so in the first place. And as to internship:
What if you didn't qualify for a credit card?
What if your gamble didn't pay off?
Azelma wrote:
You see it is. You still haven't been able to answer my question. You say it was all luck, and that it was just my parents doing that I am where I am today....when in reality my parents didn't pay for college. Going to a Private High School had nothing to do with getting a job. Here's how education works...you go to high school in order to go to college...you go to college to get a degree and then get a job. High school doesn't really fit into the job part of the equation.
You went to a more expensive college that your parents paid for in full...so if anything you are MORE privileged than I (or did you rack up about 10K of credit card debt in college and pay it off less than 2 years out?)...yet I somehow have been able to get and keep a very good job (while also obtaining promotions within the company). You can't answer why you haven't been able to do the same.
This whole conversation started because you have assumed that I haven't earned anything and it's all been given to me on a silver platter.
I didn't have the opportunity you did. It's really just that simple.
Azelma wrote:
It couldn't be further from the truth. But I understand why you don't want to face the fact that maybe, just maybe, I had fewer advantages than you, yet am enjoying more success. For a man who thinks so highly of himself, this must be an incredibly difficult pill to swallow...so much so that you prefer to focus on irrelevant facts and continue to blame everyone else (specifically, your parents...who paid for your education) for your personal failings.
"I got mine. I got mine, so the world is fair and perfect."
What should I have done differently?
Azelma wrote:
Aestu wrote:
It's interesting that you keep changing the line of questioning when the contradictions and irrationalities of your beliefs come into view.
Quoted for irony.
Call it ironic but the point stands. You changed the line of questioning when I highlighted a contradiction...one you have not yet explained.
I'd like to know - why? Why do you believe what Wall Street does and not what Adam Smith actually said?
Azelma wrote:
The best answer I can give to this is to cite the Fed's mismanagement of the dollar so far. Since the organization started in 1913 the dollar has lost about 90% of its value. Furthermore, most of these losses came after 1971 when Nixon ended the convertibility of the dollar to gold... coincidence? I think not. Basically, a commodity backed currency forces governments to be honest and accountable, as Adam Smith stated. You can't rack up such huge deficits when your currency is backed by gold as things even out under the system in a way that is impossible in fiat monetary systems.
Eight faults in your reasoning here:
1. The premise of going back on the gold standard is that governments can't find ways of getting their hands on more gold one way or the other...but they have...the
chrysargyron, currency debasement, laws against owning large amounts of specie...hell, why do you think the Spanish invaded America? What makes you think adding gold to the mix is going to change what is fundamentally a political problem (the inclination of states to manipulate currency)?
2. Other countries have and are using floating currency successfully - the EU, Japan...in fact, every other country in the world. If the US is the only one having such severe problems, then isn't it logical to conclude that the problem is with other elements of our system and not the gold standard?
3. "Coincidence" - A lot of other things happened during that period. The unsustainable American worldwide economic monopoly began to wane. Deindustrialization. The Vietnam War, with its destructive civil effects and enormous debt load. The social and economic costs of black enfranchisement. What evidence do you have that dropping the gold standard was the mortal fault - that the running couldn't have been avoided by better currency management and control of national problems?
4. If we went to the gold standard, and new deposits were discovered or opened, or if new methods of gold recovery became available, wouldn't it have the exact same effect as the government running the currency - except that, short of stifling free enterprise, there would be absolutely nothing anyone could do about it?
5. If we went on the gold standard, and the economy continued to by turns wax and wane, (and assuming we found some way of preventing large amounts of gold from entering or leaving the economy), the value of gold would be pinned directly to the value of the economy as a whole. Meaning, assuming there was growth, the currency would deflate quickly (incentivizing the hoarding of gold instead of investment of capital), and if there was a recession, gold would lose value no faster than anything else (again incentivizing hoarding). Wouldn't the result be severe economic retrenchment, instead of investment?
6. Countries like Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, Canada and India have massive gold deposits. Why should they have more "worth" just because they're sitting on shiny rocks we use as money? (Bear in mind that as I described in #5, since the value of the economy and gold are tied to each other, this means that a screwed-up but gold-rich country like Burma, for example, would see the value of their country scale directly with the economic growth of first-world nations). Oil, at least, has a value pegged to its inherent utility.
7. One of the strongest advantages of floating currency is law enforcement, because bills are serialized and trackable. If it appears that money was used illegally, it can be tracked back to the bank and ultimately the Fed by serial number.
Kruggerands are virtually synonymous with illegal activity. If gold itself became legal tender, the result would be all the lawless behavior associated with precious metals (to this day, the gold and precious gem trades are extremely lawless precisely because of how easy it is to move wealth without any kind of trail).
8. Isn't it also true that the world has seen absolutely unprecedented economic growth during the 20th century? What is your evidence that a fundamental and unprecedented change in the economic system (dropping the gold standard) had nothing to do with it? (It's also worth nothing that the classical civilizations were very close to industrial revolution, but the main advantage we have that they didn't was floating currency, which dramatically increases the incentive to invest as opposed to hoard and exploit).
Azelma wrote:
Quote:
Hell, why take Adam Smith at face value? What makes his ideas so appealing? He's not Jesus, and there have been a lot of other interesting economists and thinkers over the years (Henry George and Veblen come to mind).
You ask where I got my economic views/opinions from and I told you. Why take any book you read at face value? There will always be differing opinions. Of the numerous works you cited...why take any of them at face value? None of the authors whose works you cited is Jesus either.
The answer is, you don't.
There is no book I've ever read I took at face value or based any element of my belief system wholly around. There's no book you could name that I read that I agreed with 100%.
Hence, it's necessary to read diverse works and form viewpoints from a diversity of ideas and information. But your whole viewpoint is organized around only one book, and you haven't supplied a reason why you think this viewpoint is particularly plausible.
So again the point stands - why do you adopt the philosophy of Smith wholeheartedly?
