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[FearfulJesuit]

Ted Cruz is announcing his candidacy. God help us all.

(EDIT: Apparently he wants to abolish the IRS, which I didn't know. Completely batshit, but what did you expect?)

[Darvi]

Ted Cruz is announcing his candidacy. God help us all.

There's only one Cruz I would accept as the most powerful man on Earth, and his name sure as fuck ain't Ted.

[FearfulJesuit]

Ted Cruz is announcing his candidacy. God help us all.

There's only one Cruz I would accept as the most powerful man on Earth, and his name sure as fuck ain't Ted.

I am kind of tempted to cut his PAC a check, because he wants his funding to come from small grassroots donors, and donating money to Ted Cruz in the primary might be a more cost-effective way to get a Democrat in the White House than actually donating to the Democrat.

[smjjames]

Ted Cruz is announcing his candidacy. God help us all.

(EDIT: Apparently he wants to abolish the IRS, which I didn't know. Completely batshit, but what did you expect?)

Yeah, I heard on CNN that he is announcing his run tomorrow.

Theres also the fact that he actually wanted the government to shut down and I'm not 100% sure on his policy for going default or not. But yeah, he's batshit tier.

[wierd]

Make it a removal of the federal reserve's monopoly on printing money, and the requirement to pay interest on it-- and you have my attention.

Abolishing the IRS? Without killing the fed reserve's monopoly, where does he think the government is going to get money from? The money fairy?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The Federal Reserve would probably just come into its own as a megacorporation.

[FearfulJesuit]

Make it a removal of the federal reserve's monopoly on printing money, and the requirement to pay interest on it-- and you have my attention.

Abolishing the IRS? Without killing the fed reserve's monopoly, where does he think the government is going to get money from? The money fairy?

Who said anything about the government getting money? That oppresses the job creators.

Also, no, getting rid of Federal Reserve notes means killing the world's safest investment and probably causing a really bad recession. But that's a separate issue.

[wierd]

FJ-- I didnt say kill the fed reserve, I said kill its monopoly. Not the same thing.

Removing the monopoly would remove the "spending limit" shit that nearly crippled the country last year-- TWICE-- because then congress could issue currency.
The fed reserve could continue to issue currency. It just wouldnt be the only game in town.

[FearfulJesuit]

The debt ceiling is a formality that could be removed by act of Congress at any time, and given the public faith in Congress at the moment, Congressional currency would be nearly worthless. There's no reason to completely change the country's financial system just because the Tea Party is acting like petulant children.

[Reelya]

The Federal Reserve makes a ton of profits ... but these are all directed back to treasury, around $80 billion per year. That's a lot of profit, but if that didn't exist, then the government would have to jack taxes up to cover the gap. $80 billion covers quite a bit of national expenses.

Sure the Federal Reserve system has issues, but without it, private banks would step into the lending void. And you can bet they'd charge more for loans than the Fed does now! If they had a better product than the Fed, then they'd already be trying to push it. Since they're not, then it's likely they want a slice of that market, but can't undercut the Fed and still make a profit. So right wingers want to abolish the publically owned competition rather than make a better product.

I can only see right-wing "abolish the Fed!" cries as greedy drooling bankers wanting a slice of that profit pie. And them getting free reign will push up interest rates (there is no obligation to considering the public interest, or offering zero-interest loans from a private bank) while also causing pressure on both deficits and taxes.

[wierd]

Depends on how it is done-- Flat out abolition? Disaster.  Leaving the fed in charge as defacto, but removing the monopoly on issuance in emergencies? Not so much.

I did not say kill the fed, I said kill the monopoly.  As FJ pointed out, the congress critters could do this at any time, they just havent.  I just dont want to see another "Give me what I want OR ELSE! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" session happen.

[FearfulJesuit]

Do you really think the nation's economy would be more stable if Ted Cruz could suddenly hold the money supply hostage unless we go back to the gold standard?

I mean, sure, go ahead and let Congress "compete", but nobody will trust Congressional currency, and in the meantime it will just destabilize the money supply.

Congress is not made of economists. Congress is a highly variable institution whose members are more interested in whatever ideological nuttery has been cooked up that day than in keeping the economy stable. Congress doesn't know when to print money, it doesn't know when to raise interest rates, it doesn't know how to set an inflation target, because it's composed of 535 highly disparate ideologues who will bicker over every single cent. And any time a chamber switched parties, whatever policy was in place would be scrapped and be replaced by something else.

Imagine the nation's currency going on the gold standard every single time the GOP took control of Congress, then going back to normal behavior when the Democrats took it back. Think about the havoc that would wreck on inflation, interest rates, investments, loans, the entire economy.

No, I'm sticking with the Fed.

[wierd]

I didnt say create a new KIND of currency. It would still be dollars.  Banks create dollars all the time under fractional reserve. I was meaning a similar mechanic-- Congress announces that there is money, and the mint makes it.

I did NOT mean like the shit we had with the banks in early california in the gold rush days, making their own private notes.  Also at no point did I even suggest the gold standard. (There simply is not enough gold to even contemplate this. Seriously?)

[Mictlantecuhtli]

'The fed' is a pragmatic solution, if it wasn't integrated into the government it'd be one of the most corrupt institutions ever. 'The fed' as we know it would still exist, but without being forced into government oversight I doubt that it'd do much of anything besides play interest rate games to finagle money out of people, as opposed to playing interest rate games to lessen the impact of economic circumstances on people with financial access.

[wierd]

If you want a semantic quibble, how's this:

Ability to compel the federal reserve to issue currency, as stated, sans interest.

The major problem with that is inflation, But the federal reserve system is based on inflation anyway.