The most dangerous time since the Civil War

[Kinser79]

(01-14-2018, 11:57 PM)Galen Wrote:

(01-13-2018, 09:09 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(01-13-2018, 04:21 AM)Galen Wrote: Nixon closing the gold window in 1971 was and never has been acknowledged as a default but it was.  The Boomers here were alive and probably had and still have no idea what it all meant.  In fact, the law fixing the price of gold at about $40 per oz is still on the books but the market feels rather differently about it.  It looks like China is introducing a yuan-gold backed oil futures contract which may do the job ending the dollar hegemony since redeeming the contracts in gold takes trust in the yuan out of the equation.

A failure to understand what Nixon did with closing the gold window is not limited to Boomers.  By and large I think most people not versed in economic theory fail to understand what he did.  Indeed it is possible that Nixon himself didn't understand what he was doing.  In my view Nixon made two very grave mistakes...1.  He closed the gold window, 2.  he made tapes of his skullduggery in the West Wing.  Neither are excusable in my view.  And I like Nixon, though that could be because his immediate predecessor was warmongering racist, and the two who followed him were utter morons.

The Boomers were there when Nixon closed the gold window and never did figure out what it means.  Most of the Millies don't even know that it happened and so expecting them to understand about an event they don't know about is unreasonable.  I find the Boomer willful ignorance to be more contemptible.

Nixon probably did understand that he was preventing an immediate dollar crisis.  It is unlikely that he thought through the long term implications of initiating the petrodollar.  Many people are mystified by why the 28 pages of the 9/11 report were classified and why the US doesn't never seemed to care about Saudi government funding of terrorism.  Those of us with an actual understanding of the economics involved are not the least bit surprised.

As for Nixon's successors, it is true that they were idiots.  Ford was simply a placeholder and that was all that anyone at that time could be.  Carter was a well-intentioned idiot but at least his brother was quite amusing at the time.

I agree that expecting Millies to understand an event that they probably don't even realize happend is unreasonable.  That said, Boomer willful ignorance is par for the course.  In general my experience with that generation is that if they decide that they don't want to understand something, they will never understand it or even recognize it.  It doesn't matter if you explain it to them as if they were five years old.

As an example my mother is absolutely convinced that Donald Trump is a racist.  He is such a big racist that he bought a golf club and opened it up for the first time ever to both Jews and Blacks.  On the other hand my mother is convinced that HRC is not racist though she's been repeatedly reported to have called black staffers Nigger(s) repeatedly.  Then again, she also refuses to understand that to the DNC black people are just another voting block to be bribed into voting for them at the expense of the public purse.

I think Nixon thought that backing the dollar in something other than gold would free the government to spend liberally on social programs and the military.  While I have said that I like Nixon as a president, I am under no illusion that he was anything but a New Deal Big Government Liberal--even if he had an R after his name.  Reagan was similar, as were both Bushes.

But then again you're also talking to someone who wants to repeal the 16th and 17th  Amendments to the constitution and abolish the welfare state on the federal level.  (States of course should be free to spend their money as they please and if that means New York or California wants to have a "war on poverty" well more power to them.)

[Actually I'd also like to repeal 20th amendment.  Revert voting rights to men who either own real property or have an income of 20K per year.  My thinking is that in order to get a vote, you need skin in the game and women can't be drafted, and the destitute don't own anything that can be taxed.  But then again according to Boomer liberals I'm an evil Uncle Tom.]

I don't really fault Ford for being clueless.  Greatness was thrust on a mediocre man.  At least he pardoned Nixon and ended the Watergate scandal or it would have been a cloud over the White House for the rest of his adminsitration and probably much of Carter's and set a really really bad precedent to boot.

As for Carter, he was probably well meaning but ultimately unfit for the times and circumstances.  Instead of speaking of malaise he needed to be cheerleader in chief.  Billy though, yeah he was amusing, and at least he was an adult when the Press-titutes attacked the President's family unlike now when they constantly bring up Barron Trump looking bored at state functions or playing with one of those fidget thingys on Airforce One.  (Personally I don't think he's autistic or whatever.  I think Barron Trump's problem is he's 10 and finds the whole being the First Kid thing really boring and wants to play video games instead.  That is to say his problem is that he's perfectly normal.)