Republicucinich

I learned a great life lesson from Jeanine Garofalo last week.  From now on, anyone who holds a different opinion than I on any subject is "Hateful".   They are also "Racist", "Fearful", "Sexist", and "Mysogenistic".  Be forewarned when you comment.  Especially you Hateful people who Disagree With Me.

I particularly like the bumper sticker that says "Republicans For Voldemort", Voldemort being evil incarnate in the Harry Potter books for the two people still uninitiated in that mythology, which MAY be "bigger than Jesus", although JK Rowling, being Richer than the Queen, is too polite to say.  What immediately comes to mind when I see that bumper sticker is the tolerance, respect, and understanding of the opinions of others the driver vehicle must show in every day life. 

I like Ron Paul.  The Dennis Kucinich of the Republican Party.  I don't like all of his stands, but I do like the man and the fact that he is driven by principals.  Where I disgree...

I believe in Free Trade and Open Markets.  What's good inside our borders is good outside our borders.

I don't believe in the Gold Standard.  Gold doesn't really have any intrinsic value.  We might as well say we are a granite based economy.  Or Pepsi.  Ideally, our monetary supply should reflect the overall value of the goods and services we create.  Money is really only a chit to trade goods and services, which themselves have value.  Good monetary policy ensures neutrality of the chit, bad monetary policy, like Enron accounting, tries to create something from nothing... ie more value than is actually created by the creation of goods and services.  You can game it for a while, but not forever.  We are closing in on a day of reckoning.

I like illegal aliens, but mostly because we do not have a free market for labor here, and the illegal labor market is as close a thing to free markets for labor as we are likely to get.  I would be entirely against illegal aliens if we had a free market for labor, ie someone is paid what they are worth.

Interestingly, the kings of today were made on skill sets that are laughably narrow.  Henry Kravis, Warren Buffet, and George Soros have made their fortunes investing Other Peoples Money for a huge, no risk part of the upside. Pro athletes leverage an infinitisimal skill set that had little or no value even 75 years ago.  These folks exploit a wrinkle in history where gilded age wealth more and the ennui of too much leisure time intersect across the widest demographic ever seen in the history of the Earth.  At any other time and set of circumstance, their skills are worthless.

I chose to be an oilman instead of going to law school precisely because I felt and still feel that there is great honor in creating real goods and performing real services that people need and want. 

And maybe because I was also a relatively crappy athlete, had too short of an attention span to be worth a damn as a lawyer, and was too slow to figure out that by buying an insurance company for a dollar, I got access to cost free, and in most cases, negative cost loans that I could invest on my behalf.  You know, the stuff that doesn't make it into Public School educational curricula.

Comments

[Cornelius]

"I believe in Free Trade and Open Markets."

So does Ron Paul. NAFTA isn't free trade (as evidenced by the involvement of politicians).

"I don't believe in the Gold Standard. ... bad monetary policy, like Enron accounting, tries to create something from nothing..."

Ron Paul doesn't want to go back to the Gold Standard. He wants to let the market move toward commodity money, and away from fiat money since the latter... tries to create something from nothing.

"I like illegal aliens..."

I suspect Ron Paul would rather have the freemarket in labor, thus there would be little reason to be an "illegal". But until then...

[Open Choke]

The only non-"fiat" money is a fixed-volume commodity that everyone agrees to use as trade. What could that be? We have used salt, gold, cigarettes, and oil so far. As long as there are mines, metals are a fiat of the miners. Grain is the fiat of the farmers. Oil the fiat of oilmen.

[Oil Field Trash]

Choke, that is the problem with Ron Paul. His supporters are dang windbags that can't even figure out when to keep their mouths shut. You have got to believe in everything or nothing.