Why do Republicans (mostly) call for the Federal Reserve to be audited

[bondra316v2]

OK, sure. The cost of a 50" LCD is 2.5% higher today than it was a few years ago. Whoo hoo! Not losing much bang for my buck there. I'm guessing you are using the CPI as a gauge of inflation, which the BLS conveniently leaves the cost of food and fuel (you know the shit people actually have to buy to live) out of the equation. I guess the unemployment rate is about 8 point something too?

Fractional reserve banking created the environment where banks and government encouraged people to take out mortgages they couldn't afford, lenders then bundled MBS's into levered derivatives, and then the government had to bail out the banks with taxpayer dollars when these toxic assets failed. Glad that's all over.

BTW. I'm not one of the "we have to get back on the gold standard people". I don't pretend to have any control over the financial system or have any influence on the direction it takes. If you can profit from the system in place, more power to you. I just encourage people to use common sense. If you don't have any, well then you're SOL.

[bondra316v2]

What is happening in Greece has no bearing on the federal reserve. Greece does not have a fiat currency. Very bad and flawed analogy.

Say what? What is the Euro backed by? What was the drachma backed by? Baklava?

[N/A]

What is happening in Greece has no bearing on the federal reserve. Greece does not have a fiat currency. Very bad and flawed analogy.

Greece uses a fiat currency, the Euro, just not one it controls. Greece is a currency user, in respect to the Euro, not issuer - is the distinction. Greece is revenue constrained in regards to its use of Euros or other currencies it does not issue, much as our states and local government are revenue constrained - they are currency issuers too. Japan, UK and USA are three main currency issuing nations that use and issue their own currency and are not revenue constrained. There are others too, but for international trade, many more nations use other currency and have real debt because of it than ones that strictly use their own currency.

[ALTitan]

OK, sure. The cost of a 50" LCD is 2.5% higher today than it was a few years ago. Whoo hoo! Not losing much bang for my buck there. I'm guessing you are using the CPI as a gauge of inflation, which the BLS conveniently leaves the cost of food and fuel (you know the shit people actually have to buy to live) out of the equation. I guess the unemployment rate is about 8 point something too?

Bull crap. Food & Fuel are part of CPI-U, which is the index that inflation numbers are based on.

Have you ever read monthly BLS report on CPI-U?

[WG53]

Greece uses a fiat currency, the Euro, just not one it controls. Greece is a currency user, in respect to the Euro, not issuer - is the distinction.

That is what I meant nines, but you put it more clear and concise than I. You are more well versed in the terminology than I.

[WG53]

HDTVs are much cheaper now than a few years ago.

[ALTitan]

BTW. I'm not one of the "we have to get back on the gold standard people". I don't pretend to have any control over the financial system or have any influence on the direction it takes. If you can profit from the system in place, more power to you. I just encourage people to use common sense. If you don't have any, well then you're SOL.

Ok, so you are against gold. And you are against FED. You are just a guy who has a strong opinion about anything and everything who wants to share it with everyone on the Internet. Got it.

[N/A]

bondra316v2,

What ALTitan is stating is that a growing economy needs more money. Money is a proxy for trade/transactions, and a bigger economy goes hand with more transactions and needs more money to facilitate that trade. With a fiat system, increasing the monetary base is easy - government spending increases it (taxes and fees paid to the currency issuing government in turn reduce it.) Under a gold standard, the only way to increase money is to acquire more gold (by the way, I wonder if under the gold standard, people complained about increased mining - it would be the same as our money increasing today.) Therefore increasing the money under a gold standard is much more harder and a nation is not in complete control over it since it is a physical process and/or an effort of war (take it from other nations.) Therefore, under a gold standard, economic growth is restrained, because trade is restrained. Under gold standards, economies tracked closely with the supply of gold. Limited gold production caused recessions (demand was limited in that scenario.) Gold rush booms increased economic activity (demand increased.)

[N/A]

And a side note, gold is banker's money. Bankers actually would want a fixed money base, or very growth limited one like gold. This is because it gains them more power over time by making it harder to repay loans and therefore allowing them to take over real assets. They can also just sit on a limited money base and let the rest of the ecnomy produce and they still grow richer as money grows in value.

[Starkiller]

Most people who are against the Fed don't have any real knowledge of economics.

They may have made policy mistakes, but they are inherently necessary.

[OILERMAN]

I'd rather audit congress and the senate

[abenjami]

HDTVs are much cheaper now than a few years ago.

That's no joke. I bought my 55 inch Toshiba 1080i in 2005 for $1,750 and that was a slamming price at the time. Normal retail was significantly higher but I got a good deal online. I can get a 1080p now for around $1,000.

[WG53]

That's no joke. I bought my 55 inch Toshiba 1080i in 2005 for $1,750 and that was a slamming price at the time. Normal retail was significantly higher but I got a good deal online. I can get a 1080p now for around $1,000.

I have a 42 inch 1080p panasonic plasma. It ran for like $1200 msrp sold for like 999.99 or so at the store about another third off for my employee discount. I see 42 inch tvs being advertised for like $399.99 or so now. 599.99 for 51 inch samsungs.

[Justafan]

I'd rather audit congress and the senate

Can't even get them to pass a bill that will make it illegal for people in congress (and their staff) to make use of insider trading off the information they get from working there. People outside of congress go to jail for that all the time.

The biggest crooks in this country aren't in the mob, they're in congress.

[bondra316v2]

Ok, so you are against gold. And you are against FED. You are just a guy who has a strong opinion about anything and everything who wants to share it with everyone on the Internet. Got it.

You sound angry. You are the one who appears to have strong opinions and are more than willing to share them. I apologize that I'm not the Ron Paul gold bug type that you attempted to troll.

Look, I'll try to make this simple, but it's going to take more than a few words. Yes, I am against the FED and I am also against returning to the gold standard. That is possible. Gold has historically been the money of kings and bankers, not of the population. A gold standard has not, and will not work for the reasons outlined by 9 nines. This has been proven over the course of history. That is not to say that owning gold is a bad idea. It has been a store of wealth for 1000's of years. If you took all the gold known to have been mined throughout the history of the world and melted it into a cube, it would easily fit in your back yard. It would be approximately an 80x80 foot cube. Definitely not something that can be used to back currency today.

But you know what else has a long history of failure? Fiat currency. The Chinese first experimented with paper money backed only by government mandate more than a 1,000 years ago. Bonus question - Why is their paper money today called the Yuan? Since the Yuan and Ming Dynasty's there have been a long line of empires that have risen to great heights and fallen. Most of them have a few things in common. These great civilizations gravitated towards being ruled by king's, emperor's, czar's etc., they became colonial imperialists, and they used fiat currency backed by their government. In every case their fiat money ended up being worthless, and if they weren't killed by a pissed off group of peasants, the elite of the time (ie. bankers) escaped with their gold to live another day. Meanwhile the population was left holding an empty bag. Usually after having been decimated by war. That won't happen here. Life is static. I go to work every day. History won't repeat itself this time. Just because.

I'm not a tin foil hat Ron Paul guy. I'm not living in a cave waiting for the world to end on the Winter solstice of 2012. I don't know when our fiat currency will be debased, hyper-inflated, and replaced. I just know history tells us that it eventually will. If I'm alive when that happens, I'm going to have more than an empty bag.

In the meantime, you sound like you are one of those financial advisor guys that can tell me when to put in a stop, or when I should short, or what the 200 DMA of NFLX portends. That's great. More power to you capitalizing on the system before you. It's fun and profitable to do. It just isn't the only method available. Don't be left holding an empty bag when someone in a large trading firm develops a fat finger, or when an algorhythm goes crazy, or if some terrorist group unleashes a mutated stuxnet on Wall Street. That's all I'm saying. Oh, BTW, have you seen the Emperor's new clothes? Stunning.