Rebuild the Party - A Plan for the Future

We can't be a one issue party. Today our foreign policy is the only thing that ties Republicans together. Even a Democrat like Joe Lieberman with all of his leftist views is accepted in the fold because he supporters the war. I say that we are more than foreign policy and we need to start listening to the rest of our party who opposes the war abroad for very conservative reasons.

Yeah, I remember that rationalization for deficit spending from the early days of the Bush admin. I guess we'll see over the next 5-10yrs how that plays out...

There used to be a conservative 'justification' for deficit spending, that said it could help entrench 'no new taxes' as an absolute requirement for winning office. Then, when debt payments came due, there would be no way out other than cutting spending, new taxes not being an option. A back door to roll back 'great society', if you will. It requires the electorate to hold the line, though.

[Contd.]...., other countries will be unlikely to back another dollar centric monetary system. Perhaps they will fail to reach any agreement, until they give up and fall back on gold. One can always hope....
Anyway, trying to sell this kind of thing to the voting masses come 2012 will likely require this crisis to be quite the Armageddon. Barring that, we may want to focus more realistically.

[Contd.] If govt remains such a huge player, convenience would likely make the currency they tax in very sticky. Another option is a Hail Mary conversion, which would make those who happen to own gold rich over night. Some see this as a problem. If our benevolent monetary overlords manage to really screw this crisis up and cause a violent swing from deflation to hyper inflation.....[Contd.]

Kurtosis - Actual convertibility would remove the need for interest rate manipulation to maintain a gold peg. The main problem then is the conversion itself. Competing currencies should eventually sort themselves out (likely in favor of gold), but would most likely require govt. (who would still use $) to play a much smaller role than they currently do. [Contd.]

But deficit-funded tax cuts are either spent or invested. If spent, it's like buying on a credit card. We all have to pay interest on money that is gone and has no ROI. That initial expenditure may stimulate the economy in the near-term, but the long-term cost cancels it, unless the GDP grows at faster than debt interest. That assumption works great, until it doesn't, like right now.

More debt relative to ability to pay means your lenders incur more and more risk of lending to you, hence they demand higher compensation for that risk in the form of higher interest rates. The US has so far eluded this phenomenon due to a variety of factors - our currency is the world reserve currency, our economic liabilities are less than those of Europe, and we are more stable than China.

I agree w/ most of what you're saying frick, but not the cutting taxes part. Deficit-funded tax-cuts don't always spur growth. The best that can do is purchase growth in the near term at the cost of long-term problems. Anytime any entity, be it a person, corporation, or government, goes deeper and deeper into debt, that debt gets more and more expensive for them in the form of interest rates.

Well stated! Let's reintroduce the American people to the idea of a Constitutional government in which "We the People" loan a small, defined, limited amount of power for a finite amount of time to govern in good faith. I would love to see an bill passed in which every bill passed in Congress requires citing the Article and Section of the Constitution that provides authorization by "We the People."

game changer..Will ANYBODY Listen to this?Kurtosis NAILED IT! Talking/Talk is SOP,WALKING the WALK Separates Adults fm Children; in Congress, White House, & OUR HOUSE. Hypocracy is screaming "socialism" aft. OUR Candidate votes FOR Bailouts.No Guts,No White House;might have changed landscape,& HOR gave him footing to make a stand. I want people who think A BILLION is a LOT OF OUR $! Not Trillions!

Now we learn these MEGA CORPORATIONS are too important to fail.
Free market means we don't need them anymore if that is true (and I don't think it is).
BREAK UP the monopolies, we get the middle class back.
TAX THE HELL out of companies that ship work overseas (esp. phone techs. DAMN)
RESIST THE NEW WORLD ORDER http://frickings.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-world-order-not-just-for-wrestlers.html

These Bush monopolies did nothing but
1) fire 30% of the workforce with every merger to scam profit. Then they
2) reduced the wages of these lower than middle mgr folks because... Who else would hire them! NO MORE COMPETITION!
3) hired overseas (especially phone co.'s)
4) paid selves HUGE bonuses, being Kings of Industry!
CINGULAR BOUGHT ATT, THEN ATT BOUGHT CINGULAR! WTF!
$ spread 2 a few

MBF
Yes, cutting taxes always spurs growth. The rest of your post made no sense? I think the Scotch was cussing through your fingers!
I also agree that spending cancelled out the good of the growth.
BUT what you're missing is the MONOPOLIES created by Bush.
I assume becase they are easier to control, the govt has allowed MEGA MONOPOLIES to be created (banking, telephone, etc)
Multiple effects

Kurtosis
The plan you missed in all this is what if there was a GLOBAL currency that was controlled by a ONE WORLD ORDER and a monopoly on tax rates?
British PM calls for it: http://frickings.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-world-order-not-just-for-wrestlers.html
If they do this, all this is moot.

Btw, links to the references I made in the post (Sheehan, Sanchez, Genesis Plan, Zingales Plan B, Tavakoli):

http://crushthecell.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Wiser-Battle-Soldiers-Ricardo-Sanchez/dp/0061562424/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1
http://www.denninger.net/letters/genesis.pdf
http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/research/PSpapers/plan_b.pdf
http://www.tavakolistructuredfinance.com/TSF8.html

(cont) So the currency dilemna is, how do you create a hard currency system, rather than a debt-backed inflationary fiat currency system, that is immune from manipulation by super rich market players? But yes, our debt-backed inflationary currency is a stealth tax from Americans and our Govt. to creditors, eg to Wall St. and international lenders who hold our govt bonds that back our currency.

(cont) So the problem w/ gold is the US doesn't produce enough domestically, and the world gold supply is small enough that its price can be manipulated by international investors, allowing manipulation of gold-backed currencies by foreign interests. Ron Paul talks about currency competition - including gold and silver - as an interesting alternative: http://thenewliberty.com/?p=435

No more "Me Too" Republicans. STAND FOR SOMETHING (other than war...)

Stuki - Gold, or a hard currency system in general should do that theoretically. In practice there are problems, though. For example, from the late 80s to about '95, Greenspan tracked interest rates to gold prices. However, he quit that scheme in '95 when he observed that gold prices were being manipulated in order to manipulate US interest rates.