You know, I really like Chuck Smith over at "Of Two Minds", but sometimes he publishes stuff that is just shy of bizarre in my world view.
We started down the primrose path in 1971 sez the guy writing the article. Man, are you paying any attention? Somehow Nixon taking us off the gold standard started us down the road to perdition? Oh my, this is such a target-rich environment.
Look, Nixon is starting to look like a freaking statesman compared to the clowns we have running the show now. I think that the Watergate "Scandal" was small cheese. What we have had in the past five administrations is scandals and indiscretions every bit as dishonorable as what Nixon pulled off, but without anything resembling the outrage over a minor bit of political art. Hell Gordon Liddy would be a plaster saint when compared to Rahm Emmanuel or Carl Rove. The Watergate break in was just small potatoes.
When Dick Nixon made the decision to "close the gold window" he did so without asking the "Masters of the Universe" of the time. It is my opinion, unsupported by any direct facts, that closing the gold window put him in the cross-hairs of the big boys and they laid in wait until he did something that could hang him with.
No, what Nixon did was completely in line with what any other president would have done. Pander to the greatest number of voters, the greatest number of money donations, and keeping the good times rolling. To ask the country to put on a hair shirt and live within it's means is a great first step on writing your memoirs.
Nixon's shock probably bought the country 30 years of easy living. Not a bad deal. The idea that we got all the oil for slips of paper was genius.
The party lasted longer than we had any right to hope. We all started thinking that "things are different this time", and made no effort to maximize our collective gain. We just went stupid for thirty years and now we are pissed because we are waking up from a very pleasant dream into an uncomfortable reality.
4 comments:
And everything done since then has been nothing more than smoke and mirrors to prop up the Ponzi scheme. The real problems started in 1913 with the Frankenstein creation of the "federal" reserve, and it's all been downhill from there...
Craig: as usual, alway good to hear from you. I am thinking that 1913 was a variation on the same thing Nixon did.
Restarted the funny money parade that Andy killed and Abe brought back. Just some presto chango magic so that someone can make some quick coin and we can exand faster than what is sensible.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
another strange idea Smith has sometimes - we should go back to paying doctors with chickens
Heck, maybe it started with the election of Abraham Lincoln, or at Appromattox Courthouse. The slippery slope's been going on so long identifying a beginning ends up just climbing a stairway of interim steps.
I, personally, favor the Marshall Plan as the key point leading to the immediate nowhere we find ourselves in. Not as satisfying as a lot of other key points, but easier to nail down in measurable outcomes. IMO J
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