Robert Tulip wrote: “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:16). The main fruit of the Obama Presidency was a sudden crazed near-doubling of US national debt to $20 trillion, debasing the coinage. https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-p ... nt-3306296 That wholesale denial of reality is the primary example of leftist fantasy. The key principle of conservatism is sound money. https://mises.org/library/principle-sound-money By its flight from concern about sound money, the USA has jumped off the leftist end of the political spectrum.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is a good resource for a non-politicized look at the increase in our debt under Obama and where the debt is headed under Trump's budgets and tax reforms.

By a few metrics, debt has doubled during the Obama presidency. The blame though is not only on him because some of the debt increase over the past eight years was already expected to occur, and Congress had to approve bills that increased the debt. Interestingly, debt held by the public would double again by 2024 under Trump's proposed plans – so while he is right about what's happened under President Obama's watch, his plan will make the problem worse.

So we seem to be left with the conundrum of why Trump's party would buy into this "leftist fantasy." I realize that the Democrats have been no damn good at reining in spending, just as the Republicans are through their DNA no damn good at solutions on healthcare. But it is surprising, now, to see the putative party of fiscal responsibility shrugging their shoulders about the national debt. Supply-side zombies. And as the CRFB says, it isn't only this tax plan that adds the debt, there is also the yearly budgets that will grow the debt, just as Obama's did.

http://www.crfb.org/blogs/has-president ... ional-debt

So what do all of us "Trump will not be Impeached" choosers win when we, uh, win, after he goes his full term w/o impeachment?

And time is running out quickly for the "2017" pickers.

BTW....there should have been an option for "Trump will voluntarily resign." Since that is actually a more probably outcome than impeachment. The man who wrote Trump's bio--so I'd guess he knows him pretty well--predicted that The Donald will most likely quit before weathering a full two years in the White House.

Just my two cents.

Mrl Tulip wrote:The main fruit of the Obama Presidency was a sudden crazed near-doubling of US national debt to $20 trillion, debasing the coinage.

If Obama "debased the coinage," we would be seeing extremely high inflation. We do not.
However now that we've clambered out of a massive recession and we're closer to full employment, Trump's projected doubling of the debt may indeed debase the currency.

The key principle of conservatism is sound money.

What a peculiar statement, written in the present tense. That may once have been true, but outside of perhaps Ron Paul I can't think of any politician who advocates a return to the gold standard.

By its flight from concern about sound money, the USA has jumped off the leftist end of the political spectrum.

Another strange statement - is there any country on earth that has a currency backed by gold, or even one that desires such a currency? No.

Slaverz_Bay wrote:So what do all of us "Trump will not be Impeached" choosers win when we, uh, win, after he goes his full term w/o impeachment?

I have a bet with a neighbor, so if Trump is still President at the end of this term, I win $100.00 I hope I lose.

However now that we've clambered out of a massive recession and we're closer to full employment, Trump's projected doubling of the debt may indeed debase the currency

During his presidency, Obama increased the national debt by an estimated 86%

http://www.businessinsider.com/national ... ama-2017-1


But we won't mention that. He was "the good guy"

Wrong, that was already mentioned and discussed, even in the post directly above yours. Now it appears Trump may already be set to repeat that experience. (See DWill's post.)

It's kind of amusing, but if you're complaining about deficits, it probably means your party is out of power. Republicans complain about deficits only when Democrats have the Presidency. But once Republicans get back into power, well...let's have Vice President Dick Cheney explain it...

You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.
- Dick Cheney 1/9/2004
(Speaking to Paul O'Neill, Treasury Secretary for President G.W. Bush)

Obama added slightly less expenditures than was initially reported but money owed increased which all adds up to a significant increase to the total national debt any way you try to spin it, Lib.

I find it humorous how liberals have sanctified Obama, and in so doing have removed him from any critical analysis whatsoever.
Why? Because politics is the new religion for the most liberal of liberal minds these days.

We can talk about how Obama's presidency was at war for the all 8 years.
We can talk about his massive deportations of undocumented workers who'd sad stories never got the same media coverage as they are now.
We can talk about is utter failure with North Korea.
And several others sins, if you'd like

I find it humorous how liberals have sanctified Obama, and in so doing have removed him from any critical analysis whatsoever. Why? Because politics is the new religion for the most liberal of liberal minds these days.

Lawdy, that's so ridiculous it's almost like you do not know the meaning of the words sanctify or religion. You must be well aware that every time a Republican is elected it's the will of Jesus and every time a Democrat becomes President America just elected the Anti-Christ. Here's a 1 minute 46 second video that provides a morsel of what sanctifying a President is really like plus a special bonus: the demonization of Trump's detractors and their progeny.

Due to the title, this thread should remain focused primarily on Trump.

LanDroid wrote:is there any country on earth that has a currency backed by gold, or even one that desires such a currency?

Sound Money is not about the gold standard. That was just the old historical way of stopping politicians from raiding the treasury. http://www.crfb.org/blogs/telling-whole ... -term-debt explains that US public debt is projected to become unsustainable, with cbo projecting interest of 6% of GDP in the next two decades. When public debt can't be paid, you have evidence the money system is unsound.

Another commentary from my favourite folks over at Mises.org is at https://mises.org/files/importance-sound-moneypdf explains that “Sound money, is simply one which does not lead to systematic falsification of or nullification of economic calculation... With sound money, money prices reflect valuation and action.... Sound money is then a money whose purchasing power and quantity is determined by consumers’/producers’ valuations as determined by their preferences, knowledge, and resources. A market-determined commodity money absent government intervention... The fact that rigidity in the monetary unit’s purchasing power is unthinkable and unrealizable does not impair the methods of economic calculation. What economic calculation requires is a monetary system whose functioning is not sabotaged by government interference. The endeavors to expand the quantity of money in circulation in order to increase the government’s capacity to spend or in order to bring about a temporary lowering of the rate of interest disintegrate all currency matters and derange economic calculation....
Credit creation systematically undermines capital-based entrepreneurial plans”

I think this basic economic and fiscal analysis, including the picture below from CRFB, is helpful to put Trump Impeachment Fever into a better context.

Robert Tulip wrote: Sound Money is not about the gold standard.

Certainly true. Sound money is about managing the money supply in a way that helps people economically to the greatest extent possible without lying about it.

Robert Tulip wrote:US public debt is projected to become unsustainable, with cbo projecting interest of 6% of GDP in the next two decades. When public debt can't be paid, you have evidence the money system is unsound.

That is hardly an unsustainable level. Japan has a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 240 percent, which at standard 3% interest rates would mean 7.2% for interest (Japan pays less than 1% currently on debt) but it is almost all owed to Japanese. There are countries with debts to the outside world requiring 6% of GDP to service, who are investing that borrowing in a healthy manner and thriving as a result. Debt service to the outside of over 10% of GDP would raise sustainability issues.

However, since the U.S. borrows in dollars, even that is not a big issue for the U.S. Of course, debasing one's own currency to reduce debt burden would not be an ideal strategy.

“Sound money, is simply one which does not lead to systematic falsification of or nullification of economic calculation... With sound money, money prices reflect valuation and action....

That would be a sensible definition and guideline if not interpreted rigidly as zero inflation, as people like the Mises institute tend to do.

Robert Tulip wrote:Sound money is then a money whose purchasing power and quantity is determined by consumers’/producers’ valuations as determined by their preferences, knowledge, and resources.

That sounds good but it completely neglects demand spillovers and the inability of a modern industrial economy to adjust to a recession with price decreases. In practice inflation of about 2 percent per year on average seems to best shield against these traps and achieve the goal the Mises people have advocated here.

Robert Tulip wrote: A market-determined commodity money absent government intervention...

The Economist magazine dropped its call for a commodity standard in the 90s when commodity prices dropped rapidly (by about half). Such a standard would call for rapid expansion of the money supply under those circumstances, but such a monetary policy would have been inadvisable, because the driving factor behind the falling commodity prices was tight fiscal policy in the US and Europe combined with surging productivity in the commodity markets (not least because of the end of land setasides in US farm policy after the 94 Gingrich surge by Republicans). The fact is a commodity standard is always too rigid.

I was a gold bug many decades ago. My recollection from that time is Von Mises and the Austrian school strongly advocated for the gold standard. I guess that has changed...or my recollection is incorrect...