Why did you vote for Obama, and are you getting what you wanted?

i voted for obama because he had appealing promises (and mediocre follow-through, but no one coming into that mess would have had a spectacular presidency), and because it's not as if there were more appealing options on the ticket. third party and write-in candidates are pointless in a two-party system, so it would have been a waste of time to vote for anyone else.

Does not compute.

Because he was inspiring for one. Also, because I wanted to see health-care reform.

As a president, he disappointed me in both of these things, and in some other things, to the point that I just decided that being concerned with politics isn't really the time or energy. Most political issues really don't affect me and my family, and for the most part I don't give two shits how they affect others. My disappointment following this election along with the aforementioned realization made me decide to just not vote anymore.

That'll show 'em!

At least I won't have to waste anymore time trying to be informed, I can just bask in my ignorance of both candidates

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

I don't have a 0.2 chief

...wow...

just...fucking wow.

Hahaha, are you telling me that you haven't heard of the Federal Reserve? You must elaborate on what exactly your thoughts are.. I'm very eager to know.

Let me guess. You watched Zeitgeist...and stopped there.

Healthcare reform, the economy, etc. etc. don't really have much of an impact on my family. I really believe my life would be the same if McCain were in office right now.

I have never seen that movie and I really don't care to. Nice attempt at dodging my question though.. I'm still waiting.

i agree with xiv. chrono, do you really think Obama has any power at all? you're always so PC, i feel sorry for you... zeitgeist is great btw, you should watch it xiv. actually chrono should watch it too, maybe you'll see the light...

Not dodging your question just postulating about how and where you absorbed such a trite, clouded point of view. That seems to be a trend in most everything you post in P & R. Your views on religion seem to be exclusively rooted from Zeitgiest as well, I wouldn't say it's a stretch for me to make the connection.

If you say you've never seen it, I'll believe you, but, herm...

I still don't see a response to my question anywhere in that post. Now you're just proving my point. Bravo.

What was your question? Do I know what the federal reserve is? Yes, of course I do, I'm not 11. I'm not sure how me not having the time to go in depth about it, and instead, questioning your motivations for making ludicrous superlative comments proves anything.

I'm off to work, but if you're still super eager in this discussion feel free to attempt and disprove the miraculous correlation between all of your political views and the Zeitgiest YouTube videos, lol. I respond to your "question" when I get home, if you can present me with one that cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no".

I requested that you elaborate on what you thought was so 'wow' about the post I made. While you're at it, I'd love to know your thoughts on the Federal Reserve and the benefits of them having complete control over Americas financial system.

What will it take for you to understand that I haven't watched Zeitgiest and therefore have absolutely no interest in discussing it? FYI Ron Paul is the one responsible for a lot of the political views I have.

Usually takes more than a year and a half for things to happen/an effect to be felt in politics and how is your family not affected by the economy? It might not be a big effect but it's not like doing research and voting takes a lot of effort.

Pretty much this.

Because I thought he was the lesser of two evils.

Nah, it doesn't take much effort, but being hopeful about real change in politics just seems to lead to disappointment.

It's sort of by luck I guess that my family isn't affected. My dad is a police officer, mom a medical assistant, uncles that are lawyers and doctors... none of these professions are in much danger of pay cuts or lack of jobs. And I myself plan on going into medicine. I don't have any student loans. My family is pretty financially stable, so even though the economy is shitty, our quality of life hasn't suffered. I hear a lot of people throw around the idea that doctors won't make as much under the new healthcare bill, but I really doubt that; the demand for healthcare is simply too high.

I "wow'd" at your comment, because it seemed extremely naive, irrelevant, and without support. The federal reserve bank is a pretty important and necessary financial structure in the United States that necessitates a level of security we wouldn't otherwise have...Now, I don't see how that means they "CONTROL EVERYTHING, EVEN YOU!".

If you want a deeper explanation I'd need to know more about why you'd even attempt to make an argument of that nature, and what you have to support such a view. As it stands now, that's about all I can give you.

The American Constitution states, "Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and fix the standards of weights and measures" and "No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debts." Article 1, Section 8. These two statements base the monetary system on gold and silver coins, which is supposed to be managed by Congress. By doing this, wealth and power is distributed amongst all the people of the country rather than a central bank.

Here is some history:

1861 - Abraham Lincoln started printing paper money to finance the Civil War. In order for paper money to have value it must be a legally binding document or contract, so the wording printed on the bill is very important. On Lincolns Greenback it stated, "Promise to pay to bearer 5 dollars" and "Payable at the treasury of the United states." This was not real money but a promise for money aka a loan, which required you to travel to Washington, DC to get it.

1866 - The mint resumed producing real money after the war. They replaced the silver dime with a 5 cent nickel allowing the mint more silver to refill their reserves. The dollar climbed in value. Unfortunately the government was still issuing paper dollars in the form of notes.

The wording on these notes stated "This note is a legal tender at it's face value for all debts public and private. Except duties on imports and interest on public debt." Basically, no foreign nations or international bankers will accept it as money because it is not real money. It is an "I owe you".

1886 - The US Treasury started issuing new paper money called a certificate. For each dollar bill, a silver dollar coin had been deposited, for each 2 dollar bill, 2 silver coins had been deposited, etc. This was real money.

1914 - The Federal Reserve system was established. They began printing federal reserve notes which aren't backed by gold or silver, or any redeemable assets. Similar to the Greenback, these bills are redeemable for gold in Washington, but it is still not the money itself.

1932 - Production of gold and silver coins & certificates ceased completely. The printing of paper notes not redeemable for lawful money began. With no restriction of redeemable coins, the Federal Reserve rapidly expanded the money supply.

1957 - The US treasury ended production of silver certificates. The federal reserve note became so common.

1963 - JFK signed executive order 11110, reauthorizing silver certificates and silver dollars. He was assassinated soon after and since his successor did not share his economic views so the order never passed.

The Federal Reserve bank is owned by private bankers who are never audited and constantly produce money out of thin air. They loan this money at interest to the government, and by increasing or decreasing the supply of this money the FR ultimately regulate the value of the currency issued. Not only does this create debt, but it also puts the economy in jeopardy due to inflation. Since the re-establishment of the Federal banking system in 1913, the dollar has lost over 93% of it's value.

"The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered." —Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Why does T-Jeff hate America?

So you copypasted a bunch of crap from a conspiracy site?

You understand that gold and silver are finite, and there will never be enough to back the currency of any nation, right? That's why we have fiat money. Take a guess...how much gold do you think we would need to back all of our currency, then all the currency in the world? Hmm?

"But the Government does receive all of the system's annual profits after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid and an account surplus is maintained. The government also exercises some control over the Federal Reserve by appointing and setting the salaries of the system's highest-level employees"

"The Federal Reserve System's structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors "

"Money originated as commodity money, but nearly all contemporary money systems are based on fiat money.[3] Fiat money is without intrinsic use value as a physical commodity, and derives its value by being declared by a government to be legal tender"

Read through the wiki on "Money" and "Federal Reserve Bank" then get back to me about whether or not you still have a problem with fiat money, and currency not backed by gold and silver.

"They loan this money at interest to the government"

yes, like 98% of which is then returned to the treasury after the fact.



here's a pretty good site with rebuttals to basic conspiracy claims about the fed
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/flaherty/Federal_Reserve.html


the JFK one is especially ludicrous, as executive order 11110 was designed to wean the country off silver certificates and onto fiat notes http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/flaherty/flaherty9.html




however, i do agree that the current banking and monetary system is fatally flawed, mostly because it imposes a creed of exponential growth which cannot be sustained without limitless resources

Obama Against a Compromise on Extension of Bush Tax Cuts


Once in a while Obozo finds his testicles. This is one of those times.

We should never ascribe an arbitrary value to money; instead, we should back it with minerals to which we ascribe an arbitrary value.

plastic bead

INFINITE MONEYS

Ohgar without knowledge of economics:

Ohgar after taking a rudimentary economics class:

I definitely agree with Nolan on this issue. If the government were to fall apart, the paper money we have would be worthless. But if it were gold or silver (or platinum: 5 gold pieces are worth 1 platinum piece, remember), it would retain value simply by way of that fact that other people would ascribe value to it without anyone telling them to ascribe value to it. That's why metals have nearly always been the form of currency for almost all of human history.

That's assuming you could trade your paper for metal, which you almost certainly wouldn't be able to if the government collapsed.

Personally, I support private, competing currencies not controlled or regulated by the government in any way.

Actually, I was aware that gold does not deteriorate and there is a fixed quantity of it. I was also aware that it is highly malleable and has many uses that gold-standard advocates love to bring up. However, because I kept thinking after those arguments were spoon-fed to me, I asked the question: "so what?" Whether it's backed with gold, carbon, einsteinium, or no element at all, money is just a social construct we use so we don't have to directly exchange one good for another. It is fiat by definition.

That's far too simple a comparison. The whole point is that supporters of the gold standard don't want the value of their wealth to diminish from inflation. You may view them both as fiat money, but they are very different. The value in paper money comes from the government dictating a value for it. The value in gold comes from it's scarcity. You bring your gold to a small village in a country that doesn't speak your language, and it has value. You bring paper money there and it has no value (well okay, the dollar does have value in other countries, but that will only last as long as the US remains the monopolistic figure in world economics).

The big difference is that if I have a piece of gold, I don't have to tell anyone that it is worth x amount of value. They can decide for themselves how much they want to value it in bartering. When it comes to paper money, nobody would give it any value at all if the government didn't dictate that it has a certain amount of value.

My original point still stands, which was pretty simple--gold only has value because everyone says it does, much like fiat currency. I wasn't saying anything about anything else.

However, if it weren't for fiat currency, the U.S. economy would have utterly collapsed in the 1960s. Not like it has "collapsed" now--I mean our dollar would literally be worth nothing. In the 60s a bunch of foreign investors started redeeming their U.S. dollars for gold, depleting our stores to the point where if Nixon hadn't changed us to a fiat currency, the dollar would have soon been completely worthless. Fiat money may have its downsides, but they don't even compare to the problems inherent in gold-backed money.

Well of course, but what isn't this statement true for? The entire concept of value is dependent on human judgment.

I'm not familiar with this piece of history. How did the foreign investors get the dollars to begin with? If they traded a foreign currency that wasn't equally backed in gold, then that's where the problem originated.

Senate is live voting on DADT repeal as we speak.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/18/endgame-dadt-cloture-vote-passes-63-33/

Definitely a great accomplishment/IRL troll if this passes.

Hopefully J-Mac really does have a heart attack, and Sarah Palin can dash off an angry tweet about about losing our best and brightest hairdressers or something. One huge caveat is that now if USA tries the draft again we're out of our best excuse for why we can't enlist.

Well, anyone retarded/gullible enough to enlist deserves to die anyway, gay or straight.

I just got off the phone with my son who's in Fort Riley, KS and told him the news. He was pretty upset about it. Told me that after his upcoming Afganistan tour is over, he's getting out.

This from a vet who has been bloodied by 3 Iraq tours and has almost 9 years in already. He wanted to get his 20 in...or more, and be sergeant major.

I hung the phone up with tears in my eyes.....

The armies of other nations have allowed gays to serve openly in the military. The reason they could afford to do this is simple: they could allow homosexuals to serve in their military because we didn’t allow them to serve in ours.

They knew they could count on the strength, might, power, and cohesion of the U.S. military to intervene whenever and wherever necessary to pull their fannies out of the fire and squash the forces of tyranny wherever they raised their ugly heads around the world.

Those days are now gone. We will no longer be able to bail out these other emasculated armies because ours will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and there is no one left to bail us out. We have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation by these misguided and treasonous Republican senators, and the world is now a more dangerous place for us all.

I know a couple of soldiers, that if a mud pumper decides to get “wood” around them in a shower, they will react, and the fag won’t like it.

I think that was record time for me to realize a post of yours was copied from somewhere else.

lol