Saturday, December 20, 2014

Defense of the Gold Standard & the Discovery of Freedom, pt 3 of 7


Abdur Rasheed - Muhammad wrote: "Abdur Rasheed wrote: “I know that gold IS valuable because everybody says to get it, but you can lose you ass investing in gold just as easily as anything else.”

Yeah, compare how gold functions as a stable backing of currency to how it functions now under the Central Banks’ fiat system where it’s used as just another commodity. THAT’S the same. Sure. Lol"

You are mixing the two conversations again.

Muhammad wrote: "Abdur Rasheed wrote: “It's worth more now more than ever…”

In context because of the current usage in our technological society."

That's not even remotely true.

How much GOLD do you run into everyday? It's value is NOT based on its usefulness. It's value is based on its shininess.

The ancient civilizations weren't making satellites with it. It was shiny though. Please stop saying that.

Muhammad wrote: "Abdur Rasheed wrote: “…but its STILL just an inflated price based on the fluctuations of some magic wand, Muhammad.”

The price of the dollar is what is being manipulated, giving the illusion that those items are fluctuating in value. A troy ounce of gold will buy the same thing today as it would’ve bought 2,000 years ago."

Really? How much was a laptop 2000 years ago?

You don't have to go back that far. Lets go back say 40 years ago.

In 1975 the value of gold was set at $139 an ounce.

In 1975 the average house costed $39,300.

That's 283 ounces of gold.

Today the average cost of a house is $160,000.

The arbitrary cost of gold is about $1300 an ounce.

The same 283 ounces of gold that would buy you a house in 1974 is arbitrarily worth $367,900 today. Enough to buy 2 houses.

You literally couldn't be more wrong by a multiplier of 2.

Muhammad wrote: "Abdur Rasheed wrote: “It has ZERO value.”

Things with zero value are rarely hoarded, sir."

Is THAT a fact?

Like sub-prime mortgages, tickle me elmo, and pet rocks?

Tell me more.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “They don't make enough gold plated satellites and twin turbo plane to justify the price. If they made something that everybody could actually use with gold then the price would skyrocket and nobody could afford whatever they were making with it.”

Muhammad wrote: "Everyone uses jewelry."

Because of its arbitrarily assigned value. Like fashion.

Muhammad wrote"...People use gold for all kinds of things; its stats make it suitable for lots of things. [casual skim down the WIKI page] Oh, look. Gold is used in medicine."

Before I look this up I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that the market share for gold ingestion or the fucking medicinal value isn't high enough to justify $1300 a damn ounce. The active ingredient in Viagra or Rogaine, or something that has an actual statistical use...priceless.

Muhammad wrote: " Sounds pretty valuable to ME. It has well-known uses in dentistry, and it has numerous applications making it a vital component for the electron microscope. But let me stop. That’s probably not valuable to you either, amIright? Stupid science!"

There are VERy few electron microscopes because they are VERY expensive to build "probably because they have gold in the damn things and very difficult to maintain because of how delicate they are.

If you were in business building electron microscopes you would be broke in 2 weeks.

Another terrible business model and horrible example of the usefulness of a shiny rock.

You keep trying to make gold more useful than just saying, "But everybody wants it!"

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “I know that is only if we go back to the economy limiting gold standard and we can no longer own it, but the REST of the world wouldn't and as I said its a GLOBAL economy.”

Abdur Rasheed - Muhammad wrote: "Yeah. So what does that mean exactly? We wouldn’t have a global economy otherwise? lol We could still do business with other nations… did not the ancients import/export?"

Sure they did. MY point was for you to stop wasting time on this gold standard horse shit and spend some time finding something that we could make and export. It could even have gold in it if it made you feel better.

Under the gold standard: If we had 6 trillion dollars in the treasury then that would be the total sum of our collective currency. The ONLY way to grow more wealth in this country would be to find more gold. We have about 100,000 people per month that turn 18 in this country. If we are limited by our money supply we would choke the economy to death in a matter of months. No growth for businesses.

If we have a town with $10,000 in gold in the treasury. We decide that $10,000 up in promissory notes to represent the $10,000 like starting a monopoly game.

This money circulates through the town. Everybody has some kind of goods, or service or landlord or they work for the business owners to earn their share of the money available.
The ONLY way to grow your economy is to find more gold.

Then say some sharp young artist comes up with this new Wild Hunt book for $50 bucks a copy.

That's not you being greedy. It costs you $45 to make a copy of the book.

How fast can it sell?

Everybody is going to have to rob Peter to pay Paul or not buy the book.

How fast can you grow your business?

Muhammad wrote: "Explain yourself. Because the only component of a global economy that thrives on the fiat system is the War for Profit industry, as you yourself were so kind to shine a spotlight upon."

You didn't get that from me. That is FLAT out not true.

The ONLY true value of a nation is what it can export that people can actually use.

The MOStT profitable company in the history of companies is NOT a military contractor.

It's EXXON MOBLE. There is ZERO profit in war.

There is a SHIT load of profit in crude oil.

Abdur Rasheed - Abdur Rasheed wrote: “
That less than .0001% usefulness proves my point unless you have one of the $52 million dollar jets that was made or modified back in the 1960's.”

Muhammad wrote: "It has usefulness in industry, but it also has recognized universal value that is based on its natural properties, properties that make it the perfect candidate to back a currency as it has proved for ages."

It has VERY limited usefulness in VERY few applications. The fact that you refuse to see that because you seem to want to worship it is mind boggling to me. The only statistical true value of gold is the same whimsical arbitrary value that they put on everything. The only reason why people use it in jewelry is because of the overinflated arbitrary value. You keep acting as if the streets are paved with it and its just sad.

Muhammad wrote: "Meanwhile the Central Bank’s preferred object to back a currency known as “zero” is the very worst candidate that has proven for centuries to create only debt while making a tiny fraction of the population obscenely rich."

It's there if you want it.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “
And rich not based on theories from days long passed.”

Muhammad wrote: "Foolishness. You are rich based on learning what you need to learn, and applying hard-won developed skills to a particular goal path. You would probably be more wealthy underneath the goal standard and consistently growing economy."

There is no way.

The US CURRENTLY has less than a half trillion in gold in our reserves.

Our current debt alone is 16 trillion.

If you take all of the money in the US and devalue it by about 500% and we would ALL go broke.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “I know what works.”

Muhammad wrote: "Not on this topic."

[shrugs]

This might be THE time, but my money is on ME.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “ I am recession proof because I don't get caught in bubbles. Gold or otherwise.”

Muhammad wrote: "Staying out of debt traps and guarding against it makes anybody recession proof. But this fiat system is rigged to pull people into debt."

Again not even remotely true.

I know people who were 100% debt free who lost MILLIONS in the recession. You have no idea what you are talking about, but keep talking. Maybe you can convince me that you are the financial expert between us based on some book you read from the 1800's.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “So are PCB's. Diamonds. Did you every ask why gold over diamonds?”

Abdur Rasheed - Muhammad wrote: "So you can pound a diamond flat until it is transparent? And mercury? And uranium? And aluminum? lol And radon?
Smh"

You say that as if you have a stock pile of stone beaten clear gold and you have a billion uses for it. You say that as if I haven't worked in technology, manufacturing, and INDUSTRY for over 13 years in a variety of different applications and Im somehow ignorant to the practical uses of hundreds of different elements.

Oil
Gas
Steel
Glass
Engineering
Water treatment
Waste Water treatment
Cold forging
Mining
Aseptic food production
Pharmaceutical production

As YOU know are SOME of the pots I have my hand in.

If its out there...it's MY BUSINESS to know about it and be up on the latest technological advancements and I'm telling you that the practical usefulness of gold is so small that it is statically useless in the real world.

Believe me or not.

I don't give a fuck what trap everybody else falls in.

You can call me naive. You'll NEVER call me poor again.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “I just spent a SHIT LOAD of money on diamond tipped drill bits. Gold drill bits are useless btw.”

Muhammad wrote: "Wow that was… remarkably relevant to this topic. How did you DO that???"

What? Talk about ACTUAL USEFUL SHIT? It's not that hard when you actually know what the hell you're talking about.

"B...but you can beat it flat with a rock!"

Ok. Best of luck.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “
But you called me a dumb ass? Interesting.">
Space aliens again, Eh? Ok. Scary.”

FROM WIKI – “Central banks continue to keep a portion of their liquid reserves as gold in some form…”

Muhammad wrote: "Why do that if it has no value?"

Probably because there is a arbitrary value placed upon the rock for no reason...and they are a BANK. If I had to guess.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “
Lol I can’t explain it any more clearer than that. ">

Abdur wrote: "I know you can't. Because you would be wrong.”

Muhammad wrote: "Not. The flaw lies in the receiver, not the messenger."

k

Here are some more recessions and depressions that never happened while we were on the highly stable gold standard.



Sorry messenger, but you're STILL wrong.

Rah

Muhammad Rasheed - Abdur Rasheed wrote: "I don't think you understand my point (despite me saying it a thousand times.)"

I'm carefully studying this, not to see what your point is because I get your point, but to see where the disconnect is. It is you who don't understand me on this. I see components of the disconnect; they manifest themselves snarkily with certain comments from both you and Jackals Home, and I'll attempt to address it later, so that you can at least better understand my side, if not agree with the position.

On certain of these items you've posted, I genuinely can't tell if you are creating misdirection strawmen, or if I just haven't explained myself well on this topic. I'm inclined to lean away from the former, because I'm inclined to believe (out of sibling loyalty primarily) that you aren't a strawman type of guy. So I'll try again. If necessary I will take you by the hand and walk you through some of these. If you still maintain your same stance, then we'll be through and I won't bother you with it again. It'll mean, to me, that its just not your fight and you'd rather have blind faith in the Central Bank system, despite how completely insane that is.

Muhammad Rasheed - Stand by...

Abdur Rasheed - Let me see if I can help you.

1. The gold standard represented the most stable our economy has ever been with ZERO recessions, inflation bubbles, or depressions.

2. The evil powers that be conspired to take over our tangible gold based economy and replace it with a fiat based currency not based on anything at all but wishes and dreams and the illusion of wealth and they succeeded.

3. Now every few years like clock work we go into a economic tail spin down the toilet and the under lying cause is that our paper money...is just fucking PAPER and not represented by anything.

4. This new system is designed to put us into debt and rape our country in interest and turn us into Britain. Britain by the way was the first to get off the gold standard and see where it led them.

5. Gold is valuable and useful in many ways and therefor awesome.

6. Our economy would be growing in leaps and bounds if we were on the gold standard and returned to a stable economic base to build on.

Am I missing anything?

Abdur Rasheed - Oh & RON PAUL 2016!!

Abdur Rasheed - How did I do?

Muhammad Rasheed - lol

Muhammad Rasheed - Did you read the Wiki articles about the Money Trust, their Federal Reserve Act meetings in GA, and the reference to what happened during the '07 Panic?

Muhammad Rasheed - How did you interpret that article you posted regarding the temp appointments? I thought you finding it was some kind of break through.

Abdur Rasheed - How did I do?

Abdur Rasheed - I'm not saying that there isn't a real C.O.B.R.A that secretly controls the world monetary system. I'm not convinced that there IS either.

I'm saying wether I believe it is or not or if YOU do doesn't mean anything unless you are the star of an action movie and can take them down with a bow and arrow and your half Indian friend to help track them.

I'm saying that you are SERIOUSLY wasting your time on shit that can only harm you and can't help you at all.

I named 3 different recessions that you must have a filter block on your computer and you "won't" see them because you have ALL of the answers with none of the proof and ZERO solutions, Bro.

All of the research you have done and for what?

A "End the Fed" tee shirt?

Holding my hand and walking ME through this conspiracy theory is point less. I have nothing to gain by wearing an aluminum foil cone hat...and neither do you.

I'll humor you ONLY because you are my brother, but you gotta know that it is a complete waste of time and energy.

That being said...how did I do with summing up your views on the gold standard?

Can you sum up mine?

Muhammad Rasheed - Abdur Rasheed wrote: “How did I do?”

There are key areas in your summary that show you either didn’t understand me, or you rejected it because it bumped heads against your blind faith wall. But at least it helps in making me think you aren’t deliberately making strawmen.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “1. The gold standard represented the most stable our economy has ever been with ZERO recessions, inflation bubbles, or depressions.”

Zero recessions of the type we’ve experienced since 1913. The kind caused by an unstable fiat currency. Baby recessions that took place under the stable gold standard economy were caused by over-enthusiastic investing and baby-level manipulating by the Money Trust figures, and didn’t kill the economy itself or threaten it. The worst things that happened are those investors themselves took a serious blow to their accounts/egos, and the regular citizens freaked out and snatched their money out of the banks (called a “run”), which make the banks take a loss and of course they hate that. It SEEMED like a big deal, but it really wasn’t. Unless you owned a bank during those days, or if the small business owner you worked for put ALL of his money into one of those greedy, mismanaged railroads.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “2. The evil powers that be conspired to take over our tangible gold based economy and replace it with a fiat based currency not based on anything at all but wishes and dreams and the illusion of wealth and they succeeded.”

The federal reserve note that we use today, the US Dollar, isn’t backed up by anything under the fiat system. Its force is the promise to back it by the Federal Reserve in partnership with the US government. Since we are trillions of dollars in debt (at least), that promise is now null and void. Continuing to print the currency despite this fact, further undermining the strength of the dollar, is a direct sabotage of the promise contract. In other words, you aren’t backing it by a tangible wealth object like gold; you’ve backed it with your WORD. Its strength is backed by your promise to maintain the currency’s integrity, which you IMMEDIATELY betrayed in order to generate the enormous funds to push us into WWI.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “3. Now every few years like clock work we go into a economic tail spin down the toilet and the under lying cause is that our paper money...is just fucking PAPER and not represented by anything.”

The underlying cause is the post above.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “4. This new system is designed to put us into debt and rape our country in interest and turn us into Britain. Britain by the way was the first to get off the gold standard and see where it led them.”

lol

At this time, the Central Bank’s version of two Unicroms, plowing through the galaxy (earth) and devouring planet after planet (nations) are known as The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund. They are fucking RUTHLESS and just completely destroyed Argentina a few years back In a high-profile, international case that barely made a blip on American news programs. Some national leaders are well aware of the dangers represented by signing the citizens’ lives over to that system, recognize their contracts for what they are and reject them. In which case the US president will promptly receive an intelligence report saying that national leader is against freedom or whatever. The Money Trust will get their way with or without the leader’s compliance.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “5. Gold is valuable and useful in many ways and therefor awesome.”

Your sarcasm is not lost on me.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “6. Our economy would be growing in leaps and bounds if we were on the gold standard and returned to a stable economic base to build on.”

I believe we agreed to “a snail’s pace” for the purposes of this thread.

Muhammad Rasheed - btw it's absolutely not a good look for the leader of the Herotalk stooges to say that arguing on the Internet is all of a sudden "a complete waste of time and energy" to him. You don't have a problem cramming your theories about anything else down peoples' throats, so now magically you're above it? wtf?

A-Rah wrote: "Arguing on the Internet is a complete waste of time and energy if it involves a topic that I'm not interested in."

Abdur Rasheed wrote: "I'll humor you ONLY because you are my brother..."

Okay. Thanks. Please understand that I truly appreciate it when you humor me. Since I don't want to be a burden, in the future I'll refrain from wasting all of your time and energy with my lowly attempts to get you interesting in the topics that fascinate me. Naturally I'll expect the same courtesy in return.

Muhammad Rasheed - Your findings of those baby panic attacks contain a WEALTH of info that support my side of this. I need to compile a list from them. I'm disappointed that you didn't see it after reading the articles I posted, but I'll show you.

Jeremy Travis - I wish Neil P. was here to set BOTH of you mooks straight!

Muhammad Rasheed - Abdur Rasheed wrote: "Can you sum up mine?"

Sure. I was looking forward to it. Let me get ready...



Muhammad Rasheed - FROM WIKI - "In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate). This should not be confused with disinflation, a slow-down in the inflation rate (i.e., when inflation declines to lower levels). Inflation reduces the real value of money over time; conversely, deflation increases the real value of money – the currency of a national or regional economy. This allows one to buy more goods with the same amount of money over time.

Economists generally believe that deflation is a problem in a modern economy because it increases the real value of debt, and may aggravate recessions and lead to a deflationary spiral. Historically not all episodes of deflation correspond with periods of poor economic growth. Deflation occurred in the U.S. during most of the 19th century (the most important exception was during the Civil War). This deflation was caused by technological progress that created significant economic growth. This deflationary period of considerable economic progress preceded the establishment of the U.S. Federal Reserve System and its active management of monetary matters."

----------------------------

There are so many golden nuggets in those two paragraphs alone, it's ridiculous.

Muhammad Rasheed - "Deflation occurs when improvements in production efficiency lower the overall price of goods."

The economic boom from the 19th century's Industrial Revolution growth was a significantly faster increase than the "at a snail's pace." Deflation was possible because of the stable currency. The economic booms associated with the Information Age lacked the same deflation because of the fiat system. Deflation benefits the regular people and is a thorn in the side for the 1% and bank owners. Inflation oppresses the regular people and enriches the 1% and the banks.

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “When your money is limited by your gold reserves your economy crawls at a snails pace.”

Muhammad wrote: “Lol

1. Define “a snail’s pace.
2. So?”

Abdur Rasheed wrote: “If you have goods to sell you cannot raise your price.”

Muhammad wrote: “Sure I can! If supply and demand call for it I can raise my price to where the market will sustain it. A certain good I sell is scarce but the people are demanding more, so I can raise my price up from 1/1,000,000 of a gold-backed cent to 5/1,000,000 of a gold backed cent.”

You just typed that you can raise your price by .000005 of a penny.

In order to make a profit.

With a straight face.

I hope you are just fucking with me because that is the single dumbest thing I have ever read.

Muhammad Rasheed - Abdur Rasheed wrote: “Can you sum up mine?”

1.) An ancient financial system, that already wrecked economies in the Old World and slants all financial benefits into the hands of 1% of the population, is exactly what is needed for a modern, complex GLOBAL economy to prosper.

2.) What I really, really need you to understand, Muhammad, about a stable currency backed by a return to the gold standard is FUCK COMMODITIES TRADING ON WALL STREET ON A SYSTEM THAT’S NOT ON THE GOLD STANDARD!! I’M RECESSION PROOF!!! I LIKE MY ASS!!!

3.) What I also really need you to understand about gold is that, in the current fiat system where it only benefits the banks that we aren’t on the gold standard, gold is traded like any other commodity despite it having all the qualities that make it the best candidate to back a currency on an economy-stabilizing precious metals standard. Because of that you shouldn’t invest in it because the banks will manipulate it like they do every other commodity.

4.) Under the fiat system, inflation dilutes the dollar, decreasing the purchasing power steadily over time, so gold costs more than it did back in the 1970s [when we still retained some of our gold reserves. ~M.R.], but I need you to understand that wasn’t inflation, it was the Fed or Wall Street or somebody arbitrarily making those numbers change. Muhammad it saddens me that you’re so wrong about all of this.

5.) The full listing of gold’s practical usage is very unimpressive when you hold it up to the other commodities in this current system. In you want to invest, there are a billion other things to spend your money on that I would recommend instead.

6.) Because it is treated in the current system just like any other commodity, with its number value arbitrarily chosen day to day by the Fed, ANY value that humans have ever had about gold over the course of the last 10,000 years is suspect. Other than being pretty, gold is completely worthless.

7.) Gold has no value, and you pointing out that it has always been an object of wealth in every single human civilization ever will never make it valuable. It’s worthless, and people repeating old clichés like “Its worth its weight in gold” as if gold is actually supposed to be valuable in a real sense is Foolishness & Fuckery of the highest order. You’re just being a willing dupe of Ron Paul and them. Making traditional wedding bands out of gold as some kind of symbol of eternal permanence is arbitrary tomfoolery that has zero relevance in how gold really is. I know this because I work in an industry where it is my job to know that gold is worthless. Its unique elemental properties that caused every people ever to use it as a universal monetary system for tens of thousands of years are an arbitrary joke. We all should just toss both it and all seven electron microscopes in the ocean. Fuck gold and science. When will people get it???

8.) Even though we were fine economy wise back in the pre-Fed days, with the only minor finance crisis problems of the time causing the 1% to take the big hits instead of the middle class and the poor, their money system was a complete joke and is worth my complete disdain. The days of olde were stupid about money. What did they know?

9.) Even if all of that alien/aluminum foil hat/conspiracy nonsense WAS true regarding the Money Trust/Federal Reserve, Muhammad, they are too big to fail. I advise you to burn all of your books, destroy those files, stop talking about it and hide under the covers before they hear you. Are you trying to get your fool self killed?

10.) The War for Profit industry showcased in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 film demonstrating how it is making billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars for the 1% is actually not profitable to anyone.

Muhammad Rasheed - Oh, and:

11.) You’re making me sick, embarrassing me, wasting my time AND energy talking about this with me. All of a sudden typing lengthy rants on the Internet isn’t fun anymore and I want to go home.

Muhammad Rasheed - The rest of the argument with Abdur can be found here:


The Note is live, and the discussion can be continued there. I didn't want it in here because it started to turn into sibling bickering stuff that dragged down the thread.

Muhammad Rasheed - "...whether free-market economies can achieve full employment without government intervention, is a purely factual question that can be answered from history. For the first 150 years of the United States, there was no policy of federal intervention when the economy turned down.

No depression during all that time was as catastrophic as the Great Depression of the 1930s, when both the Federal Reserve System and Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened in the economy on a massive and unprecedented scale.

Despite the myth that it was the stock-market crash of 1929 that caused the double-digit unemployment of the 1930s, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the 12 months that followed the crash.

Unemployment peaked at 9 percent in December 1929 and was back down to 6.3 percent by June 1930, when the first major federal intervention took place under Herbert Hoover. The unemployment decline then reversed, rising to hit double digits six months later. As Hoover and then FDR continued to intervene, double-digit unemployment persisted throughout the remainder of the 1930s.

Conversely, when President Warren G. Harding faced an annual unemployment rate of 11.7 percent in 1921, he did absolutely nothing, except for cutting government spending.

Keynesian economists would say that this was exactly the wrong thing to do. History, however, says that unemployment the following year went down to 6.7 percent — and, in the year after that, 2.4 percent.

Under Calvin Coolidge, the ultimate in non-interventionist government, the annual unemployment rate got down to 1.8 percent." ~Thomas Sowell

Muhammad Rasheed - The banks always manipulate the interest rates. As a business that is how they make their money. It doesn’t matter why they SAY they are doing it, in order to make a profit as a for-profit company, they manipulate the interest rates.

Under a certain type of financial climate or system, the inflation rates are very low and even negative (deflation). That’s obviously a bad time for the banking business in which their regular income is dismal from the owners’ perspective. But under those conditions, the economy is stable, and the prices of goods are generally low. Of course scarce goods that in high demand are going to be higher in a free market; that’s just basic economics. The life is easier for the average person when the banks are struggling financially in this way. It’s not even necessarily that they are “struggling.” Charging regular and customary fees for general banking services very well may enable them to be profitable if they scale down. But knowing you possess a magic dial that you can use to turn up and double, triple, quadruple your income at will in your possession… as my brother asked, “What would YOU do?”

Jackals Home - Lemme tell you, Muhammad, the discussion is over. No one in their right mind is going to jump into this quagmire at this point. You're best served by shelving these arguments for another day, rather than continuing to argue after you removed the only other participant in the discussion.

Muhammad Rasheed - I didn't remove him, I just moved the bickering siblings segment to another area. I even put the link to it in the same area that that segment was in for casual readers to find it. And he's 100% welcome to return and just discuss this stuff with me without making it personal and pushing my buttons. I didn't delete that segment because there were still some good points in it he brought up worth exploring. I've learned a lot and connected some more dots just in the back and forth with him, which always makes serious discussions worth it. Saving it for another day has no value for me since I usually study this stuff all by myself with little outside feedback anyway. I need the back-and-forth. Abdur asked some questions and made me see some things from a different angle that helped me. If you would like to poke some holes in my side of the argument, then please do. Shine a light on the blind sides that you see in it, and let's just discuss it. Even if you don't want to explore it with me, I'd appreciate you just putting it out there.  What do you see? 

Muhammad Rasheed – Listen, I don't expect everybody that I know to be as interested in it as I am, but I do plan to put out some key points that I feel need to be known. That are actually important.

Jackals Home - Nah. I mean, I'll be honest, I love arguing with people, and you're one of my favorite people, but there's nothing to be gained for me, here. You're thirty-thousand words deep into your defense of the gold standard? Little-"L" libertarianism? And all I can say is that your brief, sarcastic summary of Abdur's argument was more convincing to me than pretty much anything you said in your argument (#6 and #7 especially). Like, you making fun of what he was saying convinced me more than anything you had to say. I feel some of Abdur's frustration, in that your half of the discussion does seem like someone who's discovered a new talk radio host, or self-help book series by a white-toothed charlatan, and is super enthusiastic about it, and isn't really super-willing to look at the flaws in what this charismatic mystery person (that you're clearly a fan of) has Emphasized! So! Hard!

I feel like you're in a position where you're isolated both ideologically and geographically, and what you're exposed to is maybe not the best? Almost like you're going to a daily Amway meeting? So I'm not looking for more opportunities to get into pointless arguments over stuff with you.

Muhammad Rasheed - That's clearly the general opinion that I was getting from Abdur's argument, and it's related to one of the areas I wanted to put out there, a concept I had also bumped heads with you over not too long ago (speaking of which I haven't forgotten to get back to you over our truther argument; I have my reference materials with me now). The idea that labeling someone with one of those attack labels means they aren't worth listening to. Abdur's whole side is frustrating to ME because of that. "You're a conspiracy theorist, therefore ANYTHING you type is complete horseshit. Stop talking crazy and just LISTEN TO ME for your own good!" That's the fundamental bottom line of how Abdur and you come across to me, and it's okay. I don't care enough for it to discourage me or make me feel like I'm "wasting my life until I die" for the sole reason but because you don't know. If you knew about it, and had the ability to argue either side... that level of know... and was able to discuss it rationally and break it down, then it would be a different matter altogether. I WOULD listen. Really.

But from the outside looking in, slowly shaking your head while feeling sorry for your friend the poor deluded conspiracy theorist who's ideas are not worth taking seriously for even a second to understand what he's trying to say, I CAN'T listen to you. Because you are actually part of the problem.

Muhammad Rasheed - ^I believe this 100%, but I also said it as a challenge to you (and Abdur).

Did it work?

Muhammad Rasheed - Jackals Home wrote: "Nah. I mean, I'll be honest, I love arguing with people, and you're one of my favorite people, but there's nothing to be gained for me, here."

btw I argue non-serious topics, too, as demonstrated in that Blob thread, just because of the entertainment factor. Arguing on the Internet is more fun than tv to me right now, and my #1 hobby. It's the best. There may not be anything to tangibly gain true, but it's still rip-roaring great fun.

Muhammad Rasheed - Remember that time when you, Rhonda and I were in that restaurant and we had that brief argument regarding whether Star Fox's costume was primarily white, or primarily red? That was a wasted moment that should've been in a message board forum. lol

Jackals Home - No, it didn't work, mainly because I'm not your father, and unless you're hurting yourself and/or others, it really doesn't matter to me what you believe. You can believe crazy shit and have zero negative effect on my life. And since (as near as I can tell) you're not hurting yourself or others, I'm under no ethical duress to argue with you over whatever your current life's devotion is. Starfox's costume is far more important.

Here, start a new subject, cause I won't--Avengers 2, can you make it without Robert Downey Jr., and more importantly, should you? I have a pretty solid argument on that one.

Muhammad Rasheed - James the #6 and #7 parts of that summary were the WEAKEST parts of Abdur's argument!

Muhammad Rasheed - How can something that has NEVER not represented true wealth by civilized humans SPECIFICALLY because of the unique properties it has, be considered to have been 'arbitrarily' given value? It's those very unique properties that makes gold valuable in the first place, otherwise we can just as easily use granite, or chucks of discarded sidewalk concrete... that's what 'arbitrarily chosen' would actually look like. Abdur was coming across as just willfully stubborn on that issue. Is he REALLY the only human being in civilized society to ever consider gold to be valueless? No, he was just taking a hard-headed stance against me because he didn't want to be caught in public agreeing with a notorious conspiracy theorist and getting some of my crazy on his shoes. THAT'S why I was sarcastically flip with him. He didn't have a real argument because he wasn't taking me serious AT ALL.

Consequently I'm just using the opportunity to educate on the concepts involved. People don't have to "jump into the quagmire" but I'm still going to talk about it.

Muhammad Rasheed - Jackals Home wrote: "Like, you making fun of what he was saying convinced me more than anything you had to say."

That's because you already believed it, and when you read it, like him, you said, "Yeah! That's exactly what I believe already!" It didn't "convince" you, it just summed up your side, which was the point.

Jackals Home - "How can something that has NEVER not represented true wealth by civilized humans SPECIFICALLY because of the unique properties it has, be considered to have been 'arbitrarily' given value?"

Tradition doesn't equal truth, correlation doesn't equal causation, and if gold never existed, our worldwide economy would look exactly the same. Humans looking to abandon the barter system will use literally (literally literally, not figuratively literally) anything for currency:


If you think your views haven't been given a fair shake, by me, all I can tell is that you are mistaken. I have no reason to lie to you.

If you think I'm prone to disregarding reasonable arguments delivered by people I respect, that's One Hundred Percent your hang-up. It's not riding on my signal, it's interference on your end.

Abdur Rasheed - Yah Sea Biscuit!

[beat]

Get up Sea Biscuit

[beat]

The problem with your argument from my dumb point of view is the you already have your answer so all the facts must support your answer or you discard the fact instead of looking for truth.

Me pointing out the holes in your argument just so you can bat the facts to the side is frustrating and nothing can be gained from it.

Muhammad : There were zero recessions, depressions, and economic down turns during the gold standard. For real though!

Rah: "What about these four different ones that happened like clock work every few years and lasted about 8 years each?"

Muhammad wrote: "Those were minor and only effected one guy on Nantucket island. Fuck HIM!"

Rah: "Well apparently 15,000 businesses went belly up and HALF of the banks in the US went out of business and took every bodies money with them. THAT is why people would panic and go and snatch all of their money out of the banks in a heart beat. No FED security. That's NOT minor."

Muhammad: "Those four recession/depressions didn't have anything to do with the GOLD STANDARD!"

Rah: "That had NOTHING to do with what you said. You didn't say that there were none ever literally CAUSED BY THE GOLD STANDARD. You said that we were so stable because our money was back up by a global commodity that there were NONE ever literally.

Muhammad wrote: "Evil bankers didn't want to lose everything that they earned in one day so those fuckers caused a global economic meltdown."

Rah: "Just like they do today. What's changed? What's the case FOR the gold standard if we went through the same shit that we go through today? Every recession/depression we have ever had are all commodities based banker shit storms and no financial system based on another kind of commodity is going to or HAS stopped it. "

Muhammad: "It was goooood and stuff back then except for that guy in Nantucket."

Rah: "Fuck it!"

After days of the "Muhammad Fuck the Facts Game" I'm good.

After a while I look for the bottom line. I can stretch my brain and ignore the facts and end up walking to Bell Isle bare foot with my family in toe as I point at people on the street and yell, "GET AWAY FROM US GOVERNMENT AGENT!"
Or I can move the fuck on with reality.

I'm a fix it guy. If I can't fix it...FUCK IT.

Relationship stuff helps me put things in perspective and work through problems and maybe help somebody else.

Political shit I can fix by getting the word out to vote and hopefully make some positive change. People in Washington State and Colorado are glad that they changed their political structure and now they can smoke all the weed they want.

The BEST case scenario in your world is me and my brother in a basement in a secret location planning to topple the secret organization that finances COUNTRIES.

WE have seen what happens when we allow ourselves to get sucked into the black hole of conspiracies.

I didn't like it.

Come to my house looking all frantic and crazy saying,

Muhammad: "Abdur! Quick! Get in the van! It's all going down! We HAVE to get to Bell Isle! The Agents are coming!"

You will become the latest recipient of "The HOT SHIT" award and by that I mean I will shoot you in the ass with some hot shit and then call the World bank.

Rah: "It's me. I got him. Yeah he was looking all crazy and shit. He won't be a problem anymore. I'm going to plant some animal porn on him and dump him where you told me to discredit him. Finish the wire transfer and I will let you know where his followers are staying."

Rah>>>>>>>>>

Muhammad Rasheed - Abdur Rasheed wrote: "The problem with your argument from my dumb point of view is the you already have your answer so all the facts must support your answer or you discard the fact instead of looking for truth."

But that's exactly how you come across to me. I'm still fleshing out my argument for you to see it, but YOU think that you have all the answers. "I work in XYZ industry so I magically know all about gold standards and Rose Wilder Lane's entire philosophy." I don't have all the answers, even filling in missing pieces of the puzzle for myself by following your links in the last few days. So it's not true. I didn't expect you to jump 100% on board with me; all I was looking for was a reasonable debate partner to bounce ideas off of... what was the term for that you used, James? the 'dedicated cynic' or something like that? But you don't even want to listen to me at all. You stuck your conspiracy theorist label on me and you're done. "Why is he still talking to me about this garbage? Can't he see the label I stuck on him?" Forgive me for thinking the two of you... two of the short list of people whose opinions I respected more than any other... were better than that.

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