the gold standard: nugget of idiocy

Apropos of my apparently ongoing diatribe against libertarianism is this wonderful refutation of the gold standard argument by Matt Steinglass posted in, of all places, the comment section of one of his blog posts.

The upshot: value is intangible, and therefore money is intangible. It is no more inherent to gold nuggets than it is to nickel currency or electronic pulses in an online stock exchange. There is no more of an imperative on people to admit the value of a gold nugget than to agree to the value of a government-backed sheet of denim with George Washington's face printed on it. To insist that one must always be equal to another just adds a pointless level of complexity while tying the value of the dollar to the vagaries of the gold market.

This quote from Paul Krugman at the link Steinglass provides is absolutely brilliant:

The legend of King Midas has been generally misunderstood. Most people think the curse that turned everything the old miser touched into gold, leaving him unable to eat or drink, was a lesson in the perils of avarice. But Midas' true sin was his failure to understand monetary economics. What the gods were really telling him is that gold is just a metal. If it sometimes seems to be more, that is only because society has found it convenient to use gold as a medium of exchange--a bridge between other, truly desirable, objects. There are other possible mediums of exchange, and it is silly to imagine that this pretty, but only moderately useful, substance has some irreplaceable significance.

The rest of the Krugman article, while dated, is also very useful.

Why Libertarianism Doesn't Work

An interesting observation from Paul Krugman.

At its best, libertarianism fails to sufficiently appreciate the power producers hold over consumers (and, by extension, their government). At its worst, libertarianism is supportive of that power imbalance, and is nothing more than a philosophy of "might makes right," the cult of Ayn Rand.

Ron Paul wants us to issue letters of marque

This is the genius that set all those conservative technocratic hearts all aflutter. Idiot.

But Bill, you told me you were a libertarian!

From last week's New Rules:

But, you know, the days when a shop girl in the big city could support herself working a full 40-hour week, or a family of four could live off a single blue-collar breadwinner, are as bygone a fantasy as malt shops or heterosexual wizards. If you're living hand-to-mouth, and still buying into the con that the big threats to America are socialized medicine, Mexican immigrants and tax increases, then you're not being kept down by the rich. You're being kept down by you.

In America, it's not the haves and have-nots. It's the haves and the been-hads. If you, the citizen, deliberately vote for someone who won't give you health care over someone you will, you need to have your head examined. Except you can't afford to have your head examined.
...
Now, I know socialized medicine sounds like Stalin himself is going to come over to your house and perform a forced sterilization. But, really all it is, is universal health care. Which means everybody - not just the rich - gets to see a doctor when their erection lasts longer than 72 hours.

And I just hope that one day, ten or fifteen years from now, one of Rush Limbaugh's "Ditto Heads" is going to wake up in his cell in debtors' prison - because that's where President Giuliani throws you when you can't pay your Visa bill - and he'll turn on the Fox Financial Channel, and as he watches some CEO gloat over his $200 million in stock options, he's going to suddenly realize that he's been had. And on that day, that man will begin the great middle class uprising of the 21st century.

Sounds like somebody's seen the light.

is Ron Paul going to make a 3rd party bid?

From Political Insider:

During an MSNBC interview Wednesday, Rep. Ron Paul was asked if he would run for president as a third-party candidate. Paul replied, "No, I don't plan to run in a third party. That's not my goal. But if we have a candidate that loves the war and loves the neocon position of promoting--" Interviewer Norah O'Donnell cut Paul off at that point, and did not return to the topic during the rest of the interview.

Does anyone else find it so delicious that the reporter cut Paul off right as he was about to bash the kind of people running Giuliani's campaign and Bush's foreign policy? Right as he was getting to the juicy stuff? It was like the whole national discourse in microcosm!

I put the odds at about 1000:1, but it would really be something if Giuliani won, and then both the Christian Right and Ron Paul made a 3rd party run. The one thing that keeps me from saying this definitely couldn't happen is that there is already, in existence and on the ballot in most states, a party tailor-made for each of them.

Then again, I think the last thing anyone wants is for that kind of realignment to stick: that would mean a viable Constitution Party.

what a genius

Great work from Tom Tomorrow. I will remind you, also, that Greenspan spent much of his life prostrating himself before the wisdom of Ayn Rand.