I would have liked to say that I took part in the historic election of our first black president, but I simply disagree with him. I’m not sure I agree with PTJ’s statement a few classes ago that Obama is a moderate Democrat either. Economically he is incredibly liberal. Not that Bush/McCain were/are much better, so lose-lose situation. But our nation is resilient. I just worry about the continual expansion of government power, under both parties.
Gold standard: I’ll keep it real, and brief. A GS would mean our currency is guaranteed not to depreciate. The ability to arbitrarily print more money (an easier way for the government to get money than taxing) causes rampant inflation. The strength of the US dollar has declined 90-some percent since we went off the GS in 1933. People say that government control of money allows them to regulate and prevent inflation and recessions, but we’ve seen how well that worked out. The GS would make money its own free entity, not what the government says it is. Any government that controls the monetary system thus controls the economy as a whole, who gets how much money and when, etc. With a GS, you can’t create new money. Altering monetary policy like this would help stabilize interest rates, promote increased savings, economic growth and provide a check on national debt via government spending.
The most common misunderstanding of the GS is the idea that there’s not enough gold in the world. Naturally, the exchange rate of gold and paper money will change. Whether we have a billion pounds or one pound of gold, it is still a marker.
How do we go about returning to the GS? Hell if I know. It would involve deflating the dollar to match the gold stock, the elimination of the Fed (p.s. End the Fed day is Nov 22 haha), and other major measures. If it were easy we’d be at it by now. Before I brace myself for the onslaught of tisk-tisking, I’ll piss everyone (Andrew) off by quoting a founding father and automatically win any further discussion. Ha.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson
This page is quite informative (he advocates a 100% gold dollar, not the pre-1933 gold standard), and I also recommend Ron Paul's book The Case For Gold, which I am in the middle of reading.
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Okay, I'll bite: precisely what is "incredibly liberal" about Obama's proposed economic policies?
50 billion dollars to put into government "economic growth funds", increased government regulation in the economy, and certain (small business?) tax increases.
Ok, that kinda sounded like a line from a McCain ad, but still. :) I'm not saying hes a socialist, but there's no way he's not liberal to the core.
Give me some more specifics -- and I mean citations. If we are going to have a concrete discussion about these things, we first need some good information. (I am also saying this for the benefit of other readers, so that they can go to whatever sites you cite and have a look for themselves.)
I just found those on his website (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/), I haven't done extensive research into it (which proves your point haha).
Hmm. According to the website, the $50 billion is to cover anticipated shortfalls in health, education, and heating assistance, and to fund infrastructure (roads, bridges, school) repair. Even Adam Smith (!) would have been in favor of the second, and I'm not sure that poverty relief programs qualify one as "incredibly liberal" in this day and age. (This might be a semantic issue, in which I might ask: how do you define "incredibly liberal"?)
As for the general notion of "increased government regulation in the economy," I'd posit that this is a matter of degree. Basically every elected official in this day and age is perfectly comfortable with some level of regulation of the market, and if that makes them all "incredibly liberal," then okay, fine, you are correct (but only with the caveat that not only Obama, but basically everyone else in government is "incredibly liberal"). I took your claim to be not an absolute claim, though, but a comparative one: Obama is more liberal (in the contemporary American-politics sense of "liberal" meaning left-wing) than he appears to be or than others are. Thus far I have seen little or no evidence of that when it comes to the economy. Although I think there's a good case to be made that he's a social liberal -- something most people have never questioned. The issue here involves economic regulation, and I'm just curious about (and want to call attention to the function of) the label "liberal" applied to Obama in this sphere.
Let me put this another way. Can anyone prove that Obama's economic policies are more liberal than other available alternatives for how the economy ought to be governed? Otherwise, I worry that the term "liberal" simply functions as a way to caricature Obama's policies as some kind of a slippery slope towards socialism. Obviously this is not your personal intent, Jasmine; you even explicitly and admirably denied that it was. But what I am calling attention to here is the rhetorical and cultural functioning of a term -- "liberal" -- in the present political climate, even if we as individual speakers aren't deliberately meaning to use the term in that way. The term's meaning is social, not individual; it works intersubjectively, and commands rhetorical power regardless of what we individually mean by it.
skldjfs not the Adam Smith card! Lesson learned, do not question the omniscience of PTJ. :)
I guess I'm not saying that these proposed actions are necessarily maverick (ha) or lacking outside support. Just that they are quite liberal policies (defining liberal as advocating government intervention and regulation).
I wouldn't disagree that almost everyone in government now is quite liberal, especially the current administration. As far as his policies being more liberal that other available alternatives, no not really (e.g. both candidates voted for the bailout, etc).
So if we're comparing Obama's policies to that of other politicians today or the Democratic party, he's moderate. But if we compare them to the general political spectrum (radical to reactionary), then he is incredibly liberal, no? I didn't mean 'incredibly liberal' as an insult or attack (or accusation of socialist slippery slopeness), just a statement, and I don't think that many people would consider the rhetorical power of that to be an insult.
Please, question my "omniscience" at every turn :-) I deliberately played that card for its rhetorical value when arguing with someone who is committed to the notion of a "free market" . . . Smith is a much more complicated thinker than is usually acknowledged, and that makes him a good one to look into more deeply. And not just for his value in debates.
Point taken, in any event: Obama, like basically everyone else, is "liberal" if by that term we mean something like "someone who supports discretionary governmental intervention into the economy saand/or the market." (There's an argument to the effect that it's impossible to have a situation without governmental involvement in the economy, especially the market economy, because markets aren't naturally occurring phenomena -- but that's a much, much longer argument for another day.) But I would point out that calling Obama a "liberal" without that elaboration does, whether we mean to do this or not, imply that a) other people with viable proposals aren't as liberal and b) Obama is more liberal, or liberal in comparison to, those alternatives. When I commented in class that Obama was a moderate on economic matters I meant it relatively, not absolutely: there are people calling for much more fundamental overhauls of the market system than anything that an Obama Administration will support. Compared to them. Obama's a moderate -- despite the wildly inaccurate caricatures of his policies floating around the 'Net.
Of course, none of this has any bearing on whether his policies are correct or not. Everything we've been discussing here is just pertinent to an accurate description (given particular points of reference) of where he stands.
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