Obama is against Gitmo, staying in Iraq past 2009, and the Patriot Act too.

I read your post over quickly and misread it as 43% agree, 57% disagree. I was shocked that 43% of econ professors agreed.

He tried to get people out of Gitmo until congress voted 90-6. He hasn't sent anyone new there.

When was he against Iraq past 2009?

Before he had the power to actually do anything about it.

LOLLLLLLL YEAH I'LL BE RIGHT THERE SUZZER

NICE TRY.

I'd be surprised if any halfway-decent macroeconomist supported a balance budget amendment that had actual bite.

The surveyed economists aren't all macroeconomists. Many of them are health economists, asset pricing experts, contract theorists, etc. None of that work would be devalued if it turned out that their opinions on the Fed were incorrect. Your analogy is, unfortunately, inapt.

Insider Advantage - Florida Poll released today

Gingrich 34
Romney 26
Paul 13
Santorum 11

Bush stopped sending people there before he left. Another case of Obama getting positive credit for continuing bush policies.

You are completely wrong.

You are trying to trivialize the drug war as some sort of rich white kid's problem.

On the contrary, the drug war causes massive disenfranchisement of poor minorities.

13% of African-American men have been disenfranchised due to felony disenfranchisement, and the majority of these felonies are drug related. This might be the most important civil rights issue today. The number of African-Americans who have been disenfranchised due to the drug war is about 1.4 million.

I'd prefer you address this than call me "an obtuse white boy" and try to trivialize the worst disenfranchisement since Jim Crow.

Obviously, the millions of disenfranchised Americans isn't the only problem caused by the drug war. We also have a much worse problem - in addition to their voting rights, almost ~1% of Americans are currently imprisoned. Our incarceration rate is about 7x higher than Canada / Europe.

Our prosecution of the war on drugs is dehumanizing, irrational, and racist. It produces worse medical outcomes than decriminalization, and spawns terrifying violent criminal organizations.

I'm sure you were aware of this shameful problem, but chose to insult me and trivialize my post for the same reasons outlined in Glenn Greenwald's superb article.

lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=vue8Gs0JWps#!

"you can take that to the bank"

Walter Block receives email from Fed Reserve employee, hilarity ensues

I agree - I would expect uniform rejection of a balanced budget amendment from all marcoeconomists.
However, I think my earlier observation regarding the practical implementation of unbalanced budgets requires serious thought. All administrations deficit spend, regardless of economic conditions, implying that there is no control system. Because the control system doesn't exist in practice, the theoretical objection against destroying the control system (with a balanced budget amendment) is suspicious.
I'm just pointing out that economists can make theoretical objections which should not be translated into policy. Hence, the survey, while interesting, might not be useful for rejecting policy proposals.

Well, then those people aren't experts in macroeconomics, so their position is irrelevant!

L.Ron Paul is a career professional congressman. You don't consider congressmen leaders? I never even in my wildest dreams imagined that angle. Youz guyz never cease to amaze me.

But I like how you explained that to L.Ron some wars are good, and some wars are bad. It just depends. That's not my definition of anti-war. That's my definition of a typical politician... just like all the rest.

So to you he's not a leader, but just a paid and proud collaborator ??

If the man had any convictions, any at all... why is he still cashing those blood money checks for his sinecure. And why is he trying to get even more and bigger ones? Why doesn't he drop a sack, do the right thing for the first time in his life... and quit in protest. Is the money really that important to him?

Walter Block, Walter E. Williams, and Walter White are some of my favorite Walters.

The logic here eludes me. The cyclicality of fiscal policy and the trend in fiscal policy are, to first order, orthogonal instruments. Why do you claim that there is no control system in practice when in fact we observe historical episodes where countercyclical fiscal policy has actually been implemented and been effective? That's like saying that the driver is consistently over the speed limit, therefore he has lost control of his steering wheel.

The surveyed economists, by and large, are deep thinkers who are far better than you or me at understanding the policy implications of their economics proposals. To the extent that you disagree with their policy proposals, it probably isn't because they haven't thought through the political economy aspect of their proposals.

Staying in Congress where there's very little that Paul can do besides vote down legislature proposed that he disagrees with is the protest and is the best thing he can do with the current Congress. No one would care if he quit besides his supporters; Republicans and Democrats alike would be overjoyed. His vote can't do much, but at least it isn't paid for by anyone besides those he represents.

****. Good call. Don't know how I missed that.

last i checked, he was a doctor for a while. but don't let that get in the way of posting hilarious **** like "youz guyz" and "L.Ron." lol! jokes!

Paul-Santorum sign war during Florida rally

Anyone that supports a gold standard is basically someone who supports a balanced budget amendment. So that would put most economists. Friedman.

Schumpeter
An ‘automatic’ gold currency is part and parcel of a laissez-faire and free-trade economy. It links every nation’s money rates and price levels with the money-rates and price levels of all the other nations that are ‘on gold.’ It is extremely sensitive to government expenditure and even to attitudes or policies that do not involve expenditure directly, for example, to foreign policy, to certain policies of taxation, and, in general, to precisely all those policies that violate the principles of [classical] liberalism. This is the reason why gold is so unpopular now and also why it was so popular in a bourgeois era. It imposes restrictions upon governments or bureaucracies that are much more powerful than is parliamentary criticism. It is both the badge and the guarantee of bourgeois freedom—of freedom not simply of the bourgeois interest, but of freedom in the bourgeois sense. From this standpoint a man may quite rationally fight for it, even if fully convinced of the validity of all that has ever been urged against it on economic grounds. From the standpoint of etatisme and planning, a man may not less rationally condemn it, even if fully convinced of the validity of all that has ever been urged for it on economic grounds.

=========================

It becomes very easy to see if you look at what inflation is. The government raises the debt ceiling and spends the money. The treasury issues the bonds and gives the government the cash from those bonds. Who buys the bonds, foreigners, banks, investors, pension funds, and the fed itself. Generally the interest on the bonds is about equal to the price of inflation. Who pays anyone with a checking account or short-term assets.

Since all wealth is denominated in U.S. dollar and the federal government seem to double the national debt every 10 years. 1/2 of all the wealth in the U.S.A. is stolen via the inflation tax every 10 years. Now you say it is just money. Well yes and no, if you own a stock and they hold $1 billion in cash, they will lose 10% of that to inflation every year. So if that company has a $1 billion profit, 35% will be taken as corporate tax, 15% as capital gains tax, but the inflation tax adds at minimum another 10% to that figure.

So you say it hurts the big evil corporation. The problem is the corporation pays the salaries and employs the people. In summary the inflation tax takes away $1.6 million from Ron Paul that delivered 1000 babies and transfers it to Newt Gingrich to give a 15 minute history lesson at Freddie Mac.

In summary there are thousands of economists and maybe a majority (those not tied to schools or government) that support a balanced budget and or a gold standard. Krugman even says the purpose of government is to give it all to the teachers (minute 1:43).

I assume standard practice is to simply ignore steelhouse when he posts one of his incoherent rants?

Chill man. I lumped myself in the obtuse white boy category as well. It's also mostly a reference to a quote from a while back.

Fine I'll give you the drug war as racist. But my point still stands the NDAA and Patriot Act are way down on the list of civil rights that that people protected by the Civil Rights Act and Lawrence v. Texas or Loving v Virginia, etc. are going to care about being trampled.

And I still am pretty sure if you asked the average southern black person (or black person in general) if they'd like to see the war on drugs continue or the CRA repealed - but they can't have both - they'd overwhelmingly vote to keep the CRA.

Oh yeah by the way speaking of voting rights, RP is I would assume fine with states bringing back voting tests and poll taxes - since to stop either of those would be the feds messing in states' business.

Has anyone here been involved with Ron Paul's campaign? I'm considering volunteering (would be my first time for any political campaign) and I'd like to hear a bit about how that works. Thanks.

here is a good way to volunteer.