Ron Paul reacts to Time: Person of the Year

[Farbin Kaiber]

[rwh11385]

I hate Ron Paul. He makes Libertarians look like crazed kooks.

[Farbin Kaiber]

I hate Ben Bernanke.

[emoshun]

^ great segment, but the camera man's potty dance with the camera halfway through was annoying...

[2002maniac]

I like Ron Paul. He's not nearly as crazy as his rabid followers.

[Restoman]

He has a good message. He looks bad when he starts fuming and slobbering.

[Hallen]

He is a nut, but he's also grandstanding, trying to get people's attention. He's right about the regulation stuff. SOx is one of the dumbest laws ever and it greatly hampers US businesses for no good reason.

He's also right about the Fed, to a certain extent.

If you want to know what they were joking about with the Austrian economist thing, they were talking about Ludwig Von Mises. Look it up. It's a bit extreme, but it is closer to how economies do and should work than any other theories out there, in my opinion. Von Mises pretty much advocates a complete free market with no government (not no government intervention, he means with no government at all). I certainly won't go that far, but he makes a very strong case why government is bad for economies and what government always does when they control the money supply; pretty much what we have seen with the interaction of the Fed with Congress.

[Kruzen]

Ludwig von mises is one of my heros. <3 austrian economics.

[pbr87]

SOx is one of the dumbest laws ever and it greatly hampers US businesses for no good reason.

No.

Sarbanes Oxley act was implemented to prevent another Enron, Tyco or Worldcom situation from happening.

[Tbolt]

I hate Ron Paul. He makes Libertarians look like crazed kooks.

I find this pretty interesting, care to elaborate?

[Tbolt]

He is a nut, but he's also grandstanding, trying to get people's attention. He's right about the regulation stuff. SOx is one of the dumbest laws ever and it greatly hampers US businesses for no good reason.

He's also right about the Fed, to a certain extent.

If you want to know what they were joking about with the Austrian economist thing, they were talking about Ludwig Von Mises. Look it up. It's a bit extreme, but it is closer to how economies do and should work than any other theories out there, in my opinion. Von Mises pretty much advocates a complete free market with no government (not no government intervention, he means with no government at all). I certainly won't go that far, but he makes a very strong case why government is bad for economies and what government always does when they control the money supply; pretty much what we have seen with the interaction of the Fed with Congress.

Actually, within austro-libertarian economics there are a variety of views and ideas concerning governments role. Mises believed a government should provide a national defense. Murray Rothbard however, was for pure capitalism and no gov't whatsoever, peeps will call it anarcho-capitalism

[Hallen]

No.

Sarbanes Oxley act was implemented to prevent another Enron, Tyco or Worldcom situation from happening.

Ostensibly yes. But in practice, no.

It's pretty simple. If somebody wants to steal something, they will. SOx does little to nothing to stop that. It just creates a bunch of reporting requirements and other onerous overhead that wouldn't have stopped the Enron thing, but does make the public think that our government is doing something. SOx has cost American businesses billions of dollars in expense and lost revenues for no return. It's all a big scam. It sure makes the auditing firms happy though. Plenty of new buisness for them, but no value at all for businesses. (guess who wrote that law...)

I'm glad to see some people here know of the Austrian school. It's encouraging. :up:

[rwh11385]

I find this pretty interesting, care to elaborate?

Every single time Ron Paul is on TV, I ask "Who let him out of his cage?" He acts like a goddamn loony tunes character, and does not provide a good image of an intelligent Libertarian, but rather just a crazy ass mofo. I'm Libertarian, but he's making it into a joke and it's hard to take him seriously.

He also has historically misled people with statistics that have no basis provided to make the Fed look bad.

~"The US Dollar has lost 93% of its value over 100 years" ... seems bad. But what he DOESN'T tell you is that would be the THIRD best performing currency over the same period and at a moderate inflation rate of about 3% a year.

A small amount of inflation helps the money supply keep up with the growth of economy, which anyone with a decent foundation in economics would understand.

[pbr87]

Ostensibly yes. But in practice, no.

Ostensibly. That's a big word....me no understand.

It's pretty simple. If somebody wants to steal something, they will. SOx does little to nothing to stop that. It just creates a bunch of reporting requirements and other onerous overhead that wouldn't have stopped the Enron thing, but does make the public think that our government is doing something. SOx has cost American businesses billions of dollars in expense and lost revenues for no return. It's all a big scam. It sure makes the auditing firms happy though. Plenty of new buisness for them, but no value at all for businesses. (guess who wrote that law...)

I'm glad to see some people here know of the Austrian school. It's encouraging. :up:

I genuinely believe the SOx act is not all bad. It prevents certain forms of accounting fraud. And sure, if someone wants to steal, they're going to steal, but you can't seriously argue that just because someone is going to commit a crime, we shouldn't make a law against it? The mere suggestion of this is nonsensical and morally impermissible. Going by your string of logic, why should there be a law against murder? If someone wants to kill someone else, they're going to...so we might as well not even have a law aginst it, right? Not to mention, there are probably several cases where the SOx act has prevented certain accounting sleights of hand. Also, auditing firms are businesses too.

[Hallen]

Ostensibly. That's a big word....me no understand.



I genuinely believe the SOx act is not all bad. It prevents certain forms of accounting fraud. And sure, if someone wants to steal, they're going to steal, but you can't seriously argue that just because someone is going to commit a crime, we shouldn't make a law against it? The mere suggestion of this is nonsensical and morally impermissible. Going by your string of logic, why should there be a law against murder? If someone wants to kill someone else, they're going to...so we might as well not even have a law aginst it, right? Not to mention, there are probably several cases where the SOx act has prevented certain accounting sleights of hand. Also, auditing firms are businesses too.

No, no, you misunderstand. SOx, as far as I know, did not create any new laws. The old laws are fine here. In other words, you steal, you go to jail. Period. I am not advocating the removal of laws; they are what holds our society together.

What I am saying is that the accounting rules and reporting rules (regulations) in SOx will do little to nothing in stopping a determined crook or allowing a crook to be caught. I doubt it would do much good in keeping honest people honest too. All these new regs brought on by SOx cost businesses much more to implement than the previous reporting regulations.

The implementation of this data is completely non-productive. So, in other words, the people doing the work do not contribute to the value of what the company produces. If companies could choose to spend that money in other ways, then they could invest in being more productive, more profitable, better compensation for employees, etc. Instead, that money gets poured down yet another government created artificial bubble. It's only good if you are an accountant or bookkeeper because there are more job opportunities for you.

SOx is a farce. It was done to make the general public feel good after Enron. It was a way for government to have more influence over business. There was nothing wrong with the previous reporting rules. The auditors and the government regulators who were supposed to be watching for this kind of thing were asleep at the wheel as they often are. Implementing SOx helped to cover those tracks.