Saturday, June 25, 2005

Arkansas to Get Federal Money for "Immigrant Center"

From Arkansas News Bureau via FreeRepublic (click comments below).

42 Comments:

Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

Arkansas to get grant for immigrant centers
Arkansas News Bureau ^ | Jun 25, 2005

LITTLE ROCK - Arkansas will receive $850,000 to establish centers for immigrants in the state, Gov. Mike Huckabee announced late Friday in a news release.

The governor's office was informed of the grant by U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

The centers will provide job placement assistance, translation assistance, resettlement assistance and legal assistance for immigrants, according to the release.

"With our growing immigrant population, we're delighted to receive this grant," the governor said. "These immigrants are adding much to the culture and the economy of Arkansas. We want to do everything we can to make the transition easy for them."

The grant will go to the state Employment Security Department.

Arkansas is among states with a growing immigrant population.

*****************************
Your tax dollars at work. I wonder if any state funds are co-mingled as a condition of the grant? If so, this is another one that SB 206 would been helpful on. It would have ensured that our tax dollars were used to help legal immigrants only.

5:32 PM, June 25, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What in that story said anything at all about "illegal" immigrants? Why does Mr. Toast assume that this immigrant center has anything to do with illegals?

You guys are so psychotically consumed with hatred for illegal immigrants that I have to suspect that you have deceived yourselves that the fires of racsism are not aflame within.

5:11 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Mark, you're being talked about at http://arkansasfamilycoalition.blogspot.com/2005/06/whos-chasing-conservatives-out-of.html

Are your ears burning?

Check out the Family Coalition Blog.

7:04 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any truth to that Mark? Was is Chris Carnahan that ran you off?

7:22 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who was the chairman back then? Was it John Paul Hammerschmidt?

8:13 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

More importantly, who was the Exec. Director, Mark?

8:14 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Mark, are you out there?

8:36 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark, you're famous!

8:58 PM, June 26, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

It was a name you would recognize. It was someone who still has their hand in all things Republican in Arkansas.

10:29 PM, June 26, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

10:35 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

IS it someone who works for Doug Matayo? Maybe Phil Sheetland?

11:54 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I bet its someone who works for Asa Hutchinson. Am I right?

11:55 PM, June 26, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

BEEBE '06!

1:07 AM, June 27, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

You are not a troll for backing Beebe, but you need to say WHY.

Also, this thread was really meant to be about the Immigrant Centers to be built around the state at taxpayer's expense.

I am still mulling over whether or not I want to reveal the individual I discussed in the article that I wrote three years ago. That person is still in a position to hurt republicans I am friends with.

1:45 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark, you should do what you are comfortable with. I assume that the man who ran you off for being Pro-Life works for someone else who is not Pro-Life, namely Winthrop Rockefeller, right?

3:00 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark, I am a loyal fan of your blog.

You should tell us who is so pro-choice that he ran you out of the party.

Its whats right for the CP.

Your silence is compliance.

God bless.

4:29 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've posted this question to the Arkansas Times blog, but they haven't (or won't) post it.

Can we surmise that liberal Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times is covering for his pal Richard Bearden?

5:55 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you left the 'Party" because of pressure from some individual. You should shake his hand! The Republican party has no conservative policies anymore. Republicans stand for big government, big deficits, and pure unadulterated greed. Spare me the remarks about democrats (that's another subject) but The Reagan Republicans are no more. The Wingnut's
have taken over the party.

6:02 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mr. Knowitall,

There is one way to reverse that trend and return the party to the party of Reagan - elect Asa!

6:38 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Asa will have to "earn" my vote. I not voting for sound bite politicians. If someone is serious about solving our state problems they have my vote and probable a donation.We can't do business as usually anymore.

7:37 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Look at his record in Congress. If that doesn't earn your vote. I don't know what will. Tough votes for balanced budgets through cuts not tax increases, consistently pro-life, pro - law enforcement, pro-ethics, pro-gun, what other issues are you interested in?

8:29 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Speaking of wingnuts, those like "mr. knowitall" have no idea what a Reagan Republican is or isn't. Ronald Reagan was not a populist isolationist xenophobe.

Ronald Reagan favored expansive free trade and global commerce, but staunchly defended national political soveriegnty. His (Reagan) was the rational and reasonable position between the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton types that would have been fine subverting national soveriegnty to the U.N. contrasted to the Pat Buchanan isolationist types that oppose both free trade and a subversion of national soveriegnty.

Which way is best? The Reagan way, of course. Which way is truely the most conservative? Again, the Reagan way, of course.

Those so-called conservatives that have no understanding of laissez faire economic policy and oppose NAFTA and CAFTA are really just useful idiots for the big labor unions. Big Labor knows that socialism can only exist when it is propped up by inefficient economic policy enforced by govermental systems.

Reagan understood that the best way to defeat the enemies of communism and socialism is not through a head on frontal attack, but rather by letting the inferior philosophical and economic policies of the leftist sink themselves by the bankruptcy of thier own ideas.

Furthermore, Reagan supported a very open immigration policy that would help to support our economy by providing a source of low wage workers that are striving to succeed through hardwork and self-reliance. Reagan believed that everyday Americans would rise to any challenge they faced and those Americans impacted by low wages from immigrants would be able to improve their education and work ethic and COMPETE for even higher wage jobs created by a thriving economy. (Reaganomics)

At the same time Reagan recognized that unrestrained immigration would impact our society and economy at a rate faster than we could adapt. We need a strong border patrol. We need to cut the stream of illegal immigrants to a trickle and then vary the stream of legal immigrants based upon our ability to assimilate those immigrants into the culture and also demands of an economy that is cyclically advancing.

The Pat Buchanan / Jim Holt crowd that promotes isolationism and hates big business are NOT Reagan Republicans.

George W. Bush and his neo-conservative advisors are for the most part following the Reagan pattern except that they are also trying to infiltrate the social power-base of agencies and non-govermental institutions. I believe they are doing this because they learned that it is impossible to defeat "the machine" by sheer political force. They saw that Newt Gingrich and the "Contract with America" hit a dead end when it came to implementation because no matter how many votes you have in Washington D.C., you will not win unless you have also conquered/infiltrated the press, the agencies, and other non-govermental organizations. Case in point: John Bolton nomination to the U.N.

This country did not get into the mess it is in over a few years. We have been under attack by liberalism (first in our churches, then our goverment) and socialism for over 100 years. Reform of our country won't occur suddenly either.

Jim Holt and others need to either stealthly work to bring about incremental change or they need to just throw down the gauntlet and take up arms. Either we need reformers or we need revolutionaries. What we do not need is cowardly revolutionaries hiding in the shadow of a giant reformer named Reagan, who they no more agree with than spit.

9:10 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It really sucks that Mark Moore is in such a tough position now.

I don't think there'd be that much backlash if you acknowledged that the man who ran you off for being Pro-Life is Richard Bearden, Rockefeller's campaign manager.

9:38 AM, June 27, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Quote from the Cato Institute

http://www.cato.org/dailys/06-24-04.html

In his farewell address to the nation in January 1989, Reagan beautifully wove his view of free trade and immigration into his vision of a free society: "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get here."

Compare Reagan's hopeful, expansive, and inclusive view of America with the dour, crabbed, and exclusive view that characterizes certain conservatives who would claim his mantle. Their view of the world could not be more alien to the spirit of Ronald Reagan.

1:53 PM, June 27, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

CAFTA and NAFTA are not free trade. They are just called that by "Free Traitors". CAFTA and NAFTA are MANANGED TRADE. The treaties for the both of them run for thousands of pages.

That is not free trade. In the US Constitution, there is a real free trade agreement. It says that no state may lay a duty or a tariff on the goods of any other state. It is 17 words long.

CAFTA and NAFTA are so long precisely because they are NOT free trade. They are managed trade- managed by unelected panels of government negociators picking which industries are going to be the "winners" and which are going to be the "losers".

All of that is besides the fact that it is impossible to have free trade with an unfree people that have a non-floating currency (China). A free market is essential to free trade, and they don't really have one. They can manipulate prices and subsidies all too easily. This hides true costs and makes rational decision making impossible.

Do we really want our econmomy vitally linked to an unfree one? When theirs finally collaspes, ours would be brought down with it.

And speaking of Reagan, there you go again, bashing Holt. Please name one thing he has done that makes him a "hater" of big business.

10:04 PM, June 27, 2005  
Blogger The Truth said...

Holt called for a ban on drug companies' advertisements. I have many more examples too. You will find a lot of them on the truth blog. www.arkansastruth.blogspot.com

3:36 AM, June 28, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark,

It is nice to know that you and Ralph Nadar agree on so many things.

http://www.citizen.org/trade/

Let me see, I can side with Ralph Nadar and Big Labor (who I agree with on virtually nothing) or I can support NAFTA and CAFTA free trade agreements (although I do have some quibbles with state and national soveriegnty issues.) Screw Ralph Nadar and give me the free trade agreements everytime.

As far as China goes, they are free to do whatever with their monetary system that they choose. By linking it to the American dollar, they in essence give up the freedom to manage their own money supply. That is really pretty stupid because it means that the U.S. Federal Reserve controls a major component of their economy. If they were going to link their money system to something, it would have been smarter to link it to gold. At least then their money supply would be controlled by a diverse group of gold producers and gold reserve holders. (Still not good, but better) The way it is now, the U.S. has complete control and it is based upon our fiat standards. I would have to say that "They have us right where we want them."

By the way, is Mr. Toast a member of the Constitution Party?

7:38 AM, June 28, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Truth is a disaster of a blog.

11:48 AM, June 28, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mr. Toast, how is it possible for someone to be a troll on their own blog? I believe you have achieved a new level of cluelessness. You are too easily baited, and have yet to fail to take the bait.

I find it hard to believe that someone your age can be so childish. (Quoting you, "'Nuff said.") I also find it difficult to believe that someone of your intelligence (I know what college degree you have) would formulate such weak logical arguments. Furthermore, your adroitness with the English language should be much better than you have demonstrated in your posts. It would seem that for someone who has managed at least one political campaign, that you would be much more politically adept.

You know what is funny about the above paragraph? They are not statements first made by me. They are statements made by one of your so-called friends who in ignorance disclosed who you are while they were talking politics with me the other day.

I find it interesting that you are the only Arkansas Watch contributor that is anonymous. Not that there is anything wrong with being anonymous mind you (hehe). For your information, I was not trying to label you so that I could “completely turn off what little thought process [I] devoted to [my] arguments thus far.” I was trying to label you so that I could rhetorically use it against you or your favorite candidate. Besides, according to some people I am so closed minded that I doubt I have any thought processes that are not already turned off.

Seriously, I like you and like your style. (I loved the Forked-Tongued Toady label!) You should spend a few years under the mentoring and tutelage of Mark Moore, perhaps you will grow up and be a potent political hack one of these days.

8:35 PM, June 28, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, and one more thing:

Mr. Toast said:
Categorizing people makes it easier for people like you to dismiss their arguments.

and also said:

Try arguments that don't stereotype all people who hold views opposed to yours.

If I didn't know better, I would think that comments like that would have been made by a leftist, liberal Democrat.

Nonetheless, I would suggest that you and the other Arkansas Watch contributors take alittle of your own advice. What do you say? Would you like to make a little bi-lateral treaty or would you prefer that I did so unilaterally so that you could use my stupidity against me?

8:53 PM, June 28, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

There is a lot a don't agree with Ralph Nadar on, but that does not logically mean that he is automatically wrong on everything. Also, we can have the same positions for different reasons- for example he may want tariffs on Chinese goods primarily because they pollute, while I would want it (in part because they pollute) mostly to make up for the cost-shifting their controlled economy produces.

If a guy sells furniture made from stolen lumber, charging him a tariff makes the cost closer to what an honest free market would produce if he had to pay for the lumber. I am for tariffs only against unfree economies that can conceal and shift costs. And I only want them used in ways that would assign costs closer to what a real free market would produce.

As for linking goes, we should link OUR CURRENCY to gold or silver- but that would prevent the Greenspans of this world from keeping the illusion of prosperity going by generating more money.

The Chinese currency should be going up against the dollar, as they get hoards of dollars from what the sell to us, while we get very few rials from the little we sell to them. So they have lots of dollars and we have few rials. That SHOULD make the value of the dollar go down relative to the rial. It does not because they won't let it.

This allows them to pay for their domestic labor and materials in funny money that is undervalued by about 40%. That in turn allows them to sell to us at 40% below what we - using an honest currency- could.

Are the workers and domestic suppliers getting robbed? Of course, but complaining about it will just get you a bullet in the back of the head, with a bill for the bullet sent to your family.

China had all these dollars, which it does not exchange for rial to keep them in balance. Instead, it uses those piles of dollars to buy things on the market priced in dollars- read oil and metals. Do you want to know why the price of gas is skyrocketing, along with steel for construction? This is a part of "free trades" hidden costs.

Such manipulation of the market leads to an unsustainable MISALLOCATION OF RESOURCES. The Chinese are building factories that should not be built, that would not be built if they had to pay all costs in free market prices. When reality asserts itself, their economy will come crashing down, as will ours, if we are too much entangled with it.

9:25 PM, June 28, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark,

It is difficult to know where to begin to start addressing all the stuff you wrote above. Very few people are interested in the lengthy thesis that both you and I are apt to produce. Furthermore and thankfully, you are not a postmodern thinker. That is, you usually have correct logical constructs of “if these premises, then this conclusion follows.” Faulty logic is easily defeated and can be done so in pithy statements that make the author of the flawed logic seem spectacularly foolish. Unfortunately, (actually it may be fortunate) we do not typically disagree about the logical construct, but ultimately what we disagree with each other on is the validity of our premises.

Proving or at least making a convincing argument about the validity of even a single premise often requires whole books and sometimes volumes of books. Which is why our debates end up consuming tremendous amounts of time and equally tremendous amounts of blog column space. It is also why we both end up degenerating our debate to rhetorical “sound bites” that we hope the readers will both enjoy and find convincing.

[The Anonymous Coward, always game for a good debate, grabs a Guinness and proceeds to do battle anyway. After all, who needs sleep anyway?]

You wrote:

If a guy sells furniture made from stolen lumber, charging him a tariff makes the cost closer to what an honest free market would produce if he had to pay for the lumber. I am for tariffs only against unfree economies that can conceal and shift costs. And I only want them used in ways that would assign costs closer to what a real free market would produce.

Lets see if I can understand the above analogy and restate it into relevant terms: If a government, China for example, sells a product or service that is made from stolen resources, charging that government a tariff makes the product or service cost closer to what other producers must charge to compensate for resources plus profit to create that product.

The questions I need answered are the following. From whom is that government stealing? Do you consider it stealing for a government to consume its own natural resources (including labor) in the production of a product or service at below the typical market value of those resources? Isn’t it a fact that the government in question is indeed really just stealing from itself? Who stands to benefit most from a product or service that is sold at a value less than the typical market value? Is it the producer or the consumer of that product or service that most stands to benefit? Clearly, neglecting moral objections (which I will address in a moment) and keeping our debate on purely economic grounds, isn’t it wiser to purchase the cheaper product created from resources stolen from the producer itself?

You might make the moral argument that purchasing stolen product is wrong, even when the product is “stolen” from the producer who is selling that producer itself. On this basis you might be correct, but is difficult to agree that a country that sells its natural resources at below market value is stealing from itself. This moral argument becomes stronger if are actually claiming that the Chinese government is stealing from it’s labors by paying them below market value wages, but even this claim is difficult to make unless there are forced labor or slave labor producing the product or service. Nonetheless, we agree that the Chinese government treats it people atrociously. There are excellent reports on this topic almost weekly in World Magazine. (World is a fabulously conservative Christian alternative to Newsweek, I recommend that you check it out. – www.worldmag.com ) If you were recommending trade sanctions as a reaction to moral or human rights abuses, I would concur. But your economic basis doesn’t seem to hold water.

You wrote:

As for linking goes, we should link OUR CURRENCY to gold or silver- but that would prevent the Greenspans of this world from keeping the illusion of prosperity going by generating more money.

It is interesting that you advocate the Gold Standard for “OUR CURRENCY”, given you abhorrence to fixing the exchange rate of international monetary values. Here is why:

The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. When several nations are using such a fixed unit of account, the rates of exchange among national currencies effectively become fixed. Something you just stated is unwise.

Furthermore, the gold standard can also be viewed as a monetary system in which changes in the supply and demand of gold determine the value of goods and services in relation to their supply and demand. Therefore, anyone who is a producer of gold or a holder of gold reserves in essence controls the monetary system just as Greenspan and the Federal Reserve does the current fiat system.

What is funny is that if you knew how the so-called “Gold Standard” came about you would probably have a seizure. The “Gold Standard” that most Americans think is the be all end all came about when the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference created the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. The Bretton Woods Agreement established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later divided into the World Bank and Bank for International Settlements) and the International Monetary Fund.

The chief features of the Bretton Woods system were, first, an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value—plus or minus one percent—in terms of gold; and, secondly, the provision by the IMF of finance to bridge temporary payments imbalances. In face of increasing strain, the system eventually collapsed in 1971, following the United States' suspension of convertibility from dollars to gold.

While the gold standard can stabilize prices in the short term, it only works in a relatively stable economy where new wealth in not being substantially created. If you hold to a closed system economic concept that you can only get a bigger slice of the pie if someone else’s gets smaller, then the gold standard is for you. If you believe that you can get a bigger slice of the pie by making a bigger pie, then you won’t be happy with a fixed monetary standard. This is true because there is a relatively limited supply of gold, but there is a virtually limitless potential for wealth creation.

What you should be more worried about is the Federal Reserve System, the United States Central Banking System. What I have learned in studying economics and international banking is that no matter the basis the your currency (i.e. gold or fiat), they all are controlled by somebody. Although I don’t agree with everything by G. Edward Griffin in The Creature from Jekyll Island, especially his praise for the gold standard, I do believe he has made some very interesting observation about the Federal Reserve System and it’s founders. You should really take the time to read that book.

You should know thy enemy. If you really understood, you would see that is less important change “the system” and more important to change who is controlling the system. Just as God has little preference in what type of government system exists, either monarchy or democracy, He has a definite preference that the leader/leaders of that system be righteous and holy.

Join me Mark, crossover from the dark side and join the world of the neo-cons. Together we will take over the liberal institutions and make them conservative. We can never defeat them in their full power and might, we must infiltrate them and reform them. Direct revolution would only get us killed … for now.

By the way, the Chinese currency is the Yuan, not the Rial. I believe that the Rial is the unit of Iranian currency. The Yuan is pegged by the Communist Chinese government at 8.2765 Yuan per U.S. Dollar.
http://www.x-rates.com/d/CNY/USD/graph120.html

If the Chinese economy collapses, all we (the U.S.) have to do is refuse to exchange our Dollars for Yuan at the inflated value fixed by the Communist Chinese government. The Communist will get screwed going and coming, just as the protectionist economies of the world got their clocks cleaned when the U.S. abandoned the Bretton Woods Agreement.

I’m really disappointed in your last post, Mark. You really could have done better.

[Forked-Tongued Toady aimlessly wanders toward the kitchen in search of another Guinness and wonders aloud if the parting taunt was over the top and unproductive.]

1:02 AM, June 29, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No Mark do not join the neo-con's! They are the dark side! look what they have done now:
President Bush's proposal for a guest worker program to help stem the tide of illegal immigration actually prompted a surge of illegal border-crossings that the administration then sought to cover up, a watchdog group charged today, citing a 2004 survey by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Judicial Watch, a Washington-based public interest group, said the survey, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, showed that 61 percent of a sample of detainees who had been caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border in the wake of Bush's proposal said they had been informed by the Mexican government or the media that the Bush administration was offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. Nearly 45 percent said the purported amnesty influenced their decision to enter the United States illegally, Judicial Watch said.

7:26 AM, June 29, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well said, mr.knowitall - I think most average citizens of the United States want SOMETHING DONE about the border and illegal (Mexican) immigration into the U.S. It seems to me that it is the out-of-touch, high and mighty legislators and politicians that have made welcoming the illegal immigrants with open arms and bonus handouts with your tax dollars (and now these centers to help immigrants transition) the highest virtue of our land in the present time! I didn't know that it is the government's job to baby the illegal immigrants that come over here (illegally) until they can stand on their feet! That is just another form of welfare -- only it is more pernicious! Welfare given to the legal citizens of this country is burdening the taxpayers enough, and now while the politicians have a hand in our pocket, why not go ahead and dish some money out for the illegal immigrants too? How convenient!

Media "cover-up" alert: "Arkansas is among states with a growing immigrant population" really means Arkansas is among states with a growing illegal immigrant population. I don't see a growing Scandinavian population in Arkansas; I don't see a growing German population in Arkansas; I don't see a growing Russian population in Arkansas. What I see is a growing number of ILLEGAL Mexicans in Arkansas, many of whom have ALSO contributed to an increase of crime and disorder in various parts of the state!

10:37 AM, June 29, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

Don't worry about that Mr. Knowitall and anonymous 10:37. I am not about to cross over to the neo-con dark side!

7:55 PM, June 29, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

From whom is that government stealing? Do you consider it stealing for a government to consume its own natural resources (including labor) in the production of a product or service at below the typical market value of those resources? Isn’t it a fact that the government in question is indeed really just stealing from itself?

First, it is a mistake to think that governments control all resources. In a moral world, people should control resources and governments should exist only to protect the property and other rights of those people. Because your question has this flawed premise, it is difficult to answer briefly.

A bunch of communist thugs who chase 50,000 peasants off of land they have worked for centuries so that a million acres of trees can be cut down for the price of a bribe is stealing from the peasants. It is also stealing from any honest forestry businesses in their country or ours. If you sell electronics, and a rival pops up selling stolen goods at one fifth the price, they are taking your business through dishonesty and indirectly stealing from you.

Since they can now make the furniture cheaper, they are also stealing from our furniture companies- to the extent that American-made bedroom furniture has almost disappeared.


Who stands to benefit most from a product or service that is sold at a value less than the typical market value? Is it the producer or the consumer of that product or service that most stands to benefit? .....isn’t it wiser to purchase the cheaper product created from resources stolen from the producer itself?

In the SHORT-RUN the Chi-Com thugs benefit, and the honest producers in our country and theirs lose. Our consumers benefit.

But as in so many things in life, what feels good in the short run leads to ruin in the long run. Such massive mis-allocation of resources will lead to the ruin of both economies. In this instance, Chi-coms are building lumber yards and furniture factories as if they have lumber at real price X. They overconsume lumber. We close down lumber yards and furniture factories because it really seems like the Chi-coms can do it cheaper.

Guess what, they don't have an unlimited supply of wood at essentially zero cost! Eventually there will be no more land and peasants to exploit. When the situation changes they will find themselves with tons of lumber yards and furniture factories that can no longer compete. America though, will not be winnig the competition, because we closed down too many lumber yards and furniture factories on the mistaken few that the Chi-Coms can magically get free wood.

This is one tiny instance of what is happening in almost every industry. When the chickens come home to roost, their phony economy will sink. If our econmoy is vitally linked to theirs as the free traitors want, then ours will sink too.

The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. When several nations are using such a fixed unit of account, the rates of exchange among national currencies effectively become fixed. Something you just stated is unwise.


There is a difference between a rate of exchange being fixed because they are attached to the same real fixed assest versus the exchange rate being fixed by communist politicians regardless of economic realities.

The exchange rate might be "fixed", but it would be "fixed" at a rate that reflected market realities, not government whims.

Furthermore, the gold standard can also be viewed as a monetary system in which changes in the supply and demand of gold determine the value of goods and services in relation to their supply and demand. Therefore, anyone who is a producer of gold or a holder of gold reserves in essence controls the monetary system just as Greenspan and the Federal Reserve does the current fiat system.

The supply of gold or silver can only be expanded as real goods are brought to market, whereas our fiat currency can be expanded by a billion dollars with the punch of a few buttons. While to some extent the supply of neither is absolutley fixed, I can't buy your attempt to equate the stability of the two. One is MUCH more subject to manipulation than the other.

While the gold standard can stabilize prices in the short term, it only works in a relatively stable economy where new wealth in not being substantially created. If you hold to a closed system economic concept that you can only get a bigger slice of the pie if someone else’s gets smaller, then the gold standard is for you. If you believe that you can get a bigger slice of the pie by making a bigger pie, then you won’t be happy with a fixed monetary standard. This is true because there is a relatively limited supply of gold, but there is a virtually limitless potential for wealth creation.

Let me see if I can help clear things up for you. The gold or silver standard handles a growing economy just fine. If the supply of gold is fixed but other goods and services are produced in more abundance then the price of those goods goes down! Silver dollars go up in value relative to other prices that goes down! That means we could buy more stuff with the same amount of money. That would be great!

I can remember when a penny could buy a piece of bubble gum. As a kid, I remember when it went to two pennies. Now it is five pennies. I know that bubble gum has not become harder to produce. Rather, the money has become easier to come by. This adds no real wealth, since the purchasing power of the money declines- it has delclined 80% in my lifetime!!!

A man who made only $20,000 a year when I was born can live like a man who makes $100,000 now. Rulers always give in when there is a fiat money system like ours. They keep the funny-money going to preserve the illusion of prosperity.

If we were on the gold or silver standard the value of each dollar would increase (in a growing economy).

8:42 PM, June 29, 2005  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

P.S. to so-called "Anonymous Coward"

Please lay off your efforts to ID Mr. Toast. I respect the right of people to be anonymous, and for someone who uses your handle it is hypocracy if you fail to do the same.

I actually know who you are via both technical and non-technical means. Does that mean I am going to out you? No. I respect your right to post anonymously. You should do the same for Toast.

9:04 PM, June 29, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mr. Toast,

A toad is an amphibian, not a reptile. Just thought you would like to know. As for the real meaning and the insult it bears, you should have already figured out that I have no problem with self deprecation.

You wrote:
Now, you've already wasted enough time trying to attack the messenger.

Oh how quickly you forget that you are the one who has been obsessed with attacking the messenger, simply refer to the “toady” comments above. I grew tired of your hateful rhetoric directed at me and struck back, perhaps I shouldn’t have.

My post to you was “cryptic” in order to preserve your anonymity. Just as Mark Moore pointed out, for someone who uses my handle it would be hypocritical to actually disclose your identity.

On to more a substantive debate:

I find it interesting that of all the things I wrote that you chose to quibble about a quote that you conveniently chose to crop short.

I said:

[It] is less important [to] change “the system” and more important to change who is controlling the system. Just as God has little preference in what type of government system exists, either monarchy or democracy, He has a definite preference that the leader/leaders of that system be righteous and holy.

You said:

Really? Just what scripture gave you that little flawed jewel of knowledge? Such a philosophy places you in the boots of a communist, and directly opposed to the opinions of our Founders, who felt that government was inherently corrupt, that minimal government was to strive for, that God would like to bless man with the freedom associated with minimal government, but that he also had little choice but to punish rebellious societies with overbearing governments. (Prov. 28:2).

It is obvious to me that you are not interesting in having a dialog as Mark Moore and I were exchanging, but rather more interested in twisting a PART of my sentence and a verse of scripture to mean something entirely different than what I or the Word intended.

Your “proof text” in Proverbs 28:2, even the entire chapter makes my point exactly. There is no indication of what form of government is preferred anywhere in that chapter, indeed it only deals with (as I said before) the “righteousness and holiness” of the ruler. If God had an overwhelming preference for a particular form of government, He would have prescribed it in scripture specifically in some place. Even if you go searching for such a prescription for governmental systems in scripture, the closest you will find might be a benevolent monarchy. I certainly don’t believe that is the best form of government, but it demonstrates my point.

Consider Colossians 1:15-18 (also 1 Peter 2:13-14)
15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by[f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

It is obvious that God’s concern is not so much with the form of government, but rather that the leaders of whatever form of government that exists are subject to Him and holds Christ as preeminent. Your insulting and hateful comment that “places [me] in the boots of a communist” is irrational and inflammatory but serves no descriptive purpose. Clearly, a communist would never hold that the rulers should be subject to God and hold Christ as preeminent.

I believe that the God-ordained purpose of civil government is to establish and maintain justice and social order, and that Christian political activity should be encouraged and conducted with these limited goals in view. The state is responsible to God, but nevertheless has a distinctly secular purpose. Because church and state have different God-given tasks in the world, they occupy different “spheres” which should respect each other and seek to avoid interference with each other. This is the historic Protestant views of the Founding Fathers, especially among the Baptists, and led to the first amendment to the Constitution. My views on this matter have been shaped by and are consistent with Michael Horton, Don Eberly, and recently Cal Thomas. Are they also “in the boots of a Communist”?

Your accusation that I am opposed to the Founding Fathers is again a shallow, hateful, and inflammatory remark that serves no other purpose than to be contentious. What you don’t understand is that the Founders of this nation established our form of government not based on some Biblical prescriptive, but rather upon a proper understanding of what the Bible says about the fallen nature of mankind. And since men have a fallen nature, they are inclined to preside over corrupt governments. The Founders chose our system because it provided the checks and balances that minimizes the abuses of power that are inevitable of fallen men who are also in positions of power. Governmental systems themselves are not inherently corrupt, as you so inaccurately stated, it is the men that rule that are inherently corrupt.

1:14 AM, June 30, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mark,

Rather than weary us both going round and round about economic systems, let me refer you to what I consider the most accessible and correct book to help you understand my views on economic theory. It is:

Biblical Economics by R.C. Sproul Jr.
http://store.draughthorsepress.com/biblicaleconomics.html

If you have similar texts that you believe I need to study to understand whatever point you are getting at I would enthusiastically do so. I honestly don’t understand what the heck you are getting at in the above post and nobody but you and I give a rip about this topic anymore anyway.

By the way, I was pretty certain that you have known who I am for quite some time. Thanks for keeping it under your hat.

1:44 AM, June 30, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the assurance, Mark! Phiew -- it's good to know that there are people out there that still truly cares for the state of our nation, instead of always justifying some agendas that threaten the sovereignty of our nation with some abstract-sounding arguments!

1:56 PM, June 30, 2005  
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