What's the best way to strengthen the dollar?

[ZenMachine]

Strengthen the dollar huh? Well as others said reducing the federal deficit would help. How do we do this? Ending the Iraq war would be a start, or instead of charging it raise taxes to pay for it. I know taxes are dirty word these days but it is how the government brings in revenue and if revenues are less than expenditures you will have deficits.

Historically inflation has hit in the wake of massive periods of deficit spending, usually resulting from a war. Both in the case of Vietnam and now Iraq massive deficits have prompted the federal government to produce more money and more money in circulation means inflation will go up.

Now some on this thread have advocated not facilitating the growth of foreign economies and pointed to this as some sort of Liberal plot to screw America. Yet is American corporations that have profited massively from the growth of emerging economies. Our big business is always heavily invested in economies like China and has made a pile of money there. Yet to me this seems to contradict the conservative "free-trade" policies espoused by many on the right wing. Protectionism directly confronts free trade ideologically.

Take "free trade" for example, who can be against it, if you are then you must be against freedom. What "free trade" should really be called is "totally deregulated international commerce." Not quite as sexy in soundbytes though. The lending crisis has been pointed to, the financial sector got greedy and now the entire economy is paying for it. The same thing happened in the early part of the century and brought about the great depression. At the time we had laissez-faire economic policy that allowed big business to do whatever they wanted without interference, similar to what Reagan, Bush as McCain believe in. Big corporations over-extended as it in in their nature to do as they are profit machines, not concerned with the health of economies or nations, just providing for their shareholders. Another parallel is in the consolidation of wealth, wealth was consolidated in the hands of a small percentage of the population directly before the great depression, yet now it is even more consolidated now than it was then.

Corporations must be regulated by the government or they will over-extend and crap in their own nests, the country. Yet "free-trade" policy advocated by conservatives and Milton Friedman believes in absolutely zero government intervention. So without any regulation how do we prevent their greed from leading to boom and bust economic cycles that primarily hurt the middle and working classes? Keynesian economics. It advocates limited regulation to smooth out the ups and downs of the economic cycle. When the economy is booming the fed. government should raise taxes on the wealthy and and build up surplus reserves to prevent runaway growth that ends in massive recession. When the economy goes into a downturn then that surplus should be spent to stimulate the economy, in fact economic downturns are the only time the government should engage in deficit spending, to pull the country out of a recession as it successfully did in the great depression. This is a very basic description of a much more complicated theory, as Friedman style economics are also much more complex.

Now I can anticipate, some responses to this, namely "you have to let the market decide." A common mantra by those unwilling to examine that when the market decides it goes through boom and bust cycles which are great during the boom but horrible during the bust. No better place is this illustrated than in the natural resource exploitation. Take my state Oregon for example. 100 years ago, hell 40 years ago we had some of the best timber reserves in the world. Big companies like Weyerhauser after world war two logged the piss out of our forests. Okay, at time when the price of lumber is high it makes sense to increase production, yet conversely when the price goes down or the markets are glutted it should follow that production should slow as well. Yet in the 80s when the timber market was glutted the big companies cranked up production even more. Now that seem to go against market principles. So why was it done?

Because forests are publicly owned, they in theory belong to all of us and companies pay us to log them. Yet, because our government basically charged them nothing and imposed no regulation, big logging companies could still make money even when the price of lumber was in the toilet. They did this until they had completely wiped out our timber reserves, then they moved on to Siberia and other virgin forests. They made billions, yet the loggers and mill workers were out of a job and whole communities went under. "Tough ****" some of you will say.

I disagree. Those forests belonged to the public, yet only a few private individuals made 99% of the money off of logging them. Now had our government stepped in and actually managed the resource the industry could have still been thriving. We could have logged at a pace where the forest would have regrown, rather than wiping it out in a few years. The price of lumber wouldn't have gone so far down had the gov. limited logging and curtailed logging to maintain a steady price. Those loggers and mill workers would still have jobs and we would still have money in the bank as a state to tap into in the case of real emergencies.

So who won? Not the majority of people in my state. The Weyerhauser family did, they are billionaires now and big supporters of the GOP which under Reagan allowed them to really go to town. Old man collects Weyerhauser collects porsches, last count he had 80 or so of them. This is what happens when there is no regulation, a few people make out like bandits while everyone else suffers from their greed. The industry could still be running and helping oregon's economy, yet now it is almost completely dead due to greed and "free trade."

This is a long post I know and I apologize for that. Yet economic is complex and is more than blaming the government which is the mantra that the clueless have bought into on this board and other places. Now begin your attacks. I must be a communist etc. even though all I am advocating is limited government regulation of the economy which has a proven track record.

[XDConvert9mm]

^^The only objection I have to your post is the anticipatory arguments you make and calling others in advance that might disagree clueless. I'll think about it for a little while and do my best to have an intelligent rebuttal that will not require insults in a pathetic attempt to argue my position.

[AZXD]

My solution is simple and to the point. Everything else will fall into place with time.

What I fail to understand is how anyone can think that furthering government controls in numerous areas will strengthen the dollar.

That is what this thread is about, right?
Strengthening the dollar!

[ZenMachine]

Lack of government control is one of the things that has weakened it, that along with deficit spending. Since we have a federal mint that controls printing of money, a fed reserve that lends money, the government will always be involved. To believe that they won't is a fantasy.

[AZXD]

Right!
So can you at least tell me if I am doing battle with Communism or Socialism before we progress further.

[trik396]

Originally Posted by ZenMachine

Lack of government control is one of the things that has weakened it, that along with deficit spending. Since we have a federal mint that controls printing of money, a fed reserve that lends money, the government will always be involved. To believe that they won't is a fantasy.

Your statement is a contradiction. You state the government lacks control but then say that very government controls printing, lending, etc...???

If you mean our government is inept at controlling what it shouldn't control in the first place, then I totally understand. I have lots of fantasy's...

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by trik396

Your statement is a contradiction. You state the government lacks control but then say that very government controls printing, lending, etc...???

If you mean our government is inept at controlling what it shouldn't control in the first place, then I totally understand. I have lots of fantasy's...

Great catch.

[KEVWYO]

Originally Posted by XDConvert9mm

^^The only objection I have to your post is the anticipatory arguments you make and calling others in advance that might disagree clueless. I'll think about it for a little while and do my best to have an intelligent rebuttal that will not require insults in a pathetic attempt to argue my position.

I didn't note in Zen's post anywhere where he was calling anyone who might disagree with his thoughts as clueless.

At any rate being a fellow Oregonian with Zen he has illustrated an example very well about how a little bit of governmental overisght and regulation could've prevented the near gutting of an industry (timber) such that we might still be in the forests to substantial degree and providing for ourselves. Instead, we are begging the President to sign a war funding bill that also helps fund our counties where timber receipts used to fund them. There are many counties in Oregon that are going to hit some very severe hard times because Bush won't sign a bill that has some aid built into it to help his own country. A little bit of governmental regulation 30 years ago to present might have prevented timber counties/communities in Oregon from having to beg the Feds for money now.

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by KEVWYO

I didn't note in Zen's post anywhere where he was calling anyone who might disagree with his thoughts as clueless.

At any rate being a fellow Oregonian with Zen he has illustrated an example very well about how a little bit of governmental overisght and regulation could've prevented the near gutting of an industry (timber) such that we might still be in the forests to substantial degree and providing for ourselves. Instead, we are begging the President to sign a war funding bill that also helps fund our counties where timber receipts used to fund them. There are many counties in Oregon that are going to hit some very severe hard times because Bush won't sign a bill that has some aid built into it to help his own country. A little bit of governmental regulation 30 years ago to present might have prevented timber counties/communities in Oregon from having to beg the Feds for money now.

This is a long post I know and I apologize for that. Yet economic is complex and is more than blaming the government which is the mantra that the clueless have bought into on this board and other places. Now begin your attacks. I must be a communist etc. even though all I am advocating is limited government regulation of the economy which has a proven track record.

See and read the bolded portion of the quote. The comments work well for Oregon. Not so much when you apply it nationally.

You're trying to apply policies put in place 30 years ago and roll it into today's administration. You're all over the place on this. Yet one more time, this administration is not runing for office again. Why the incessant need to run against a non-candidate? The easy way out?

[ducttape2]

Originally Posted by KEVWYO

I didn't note in Zen's post anywhere where he was calling anyone who might disagree with his thoughts as clueless.

At any rate being a fellow Oregonian with Zen he has illustrated an example very well about how a little bit of governmental overisght and regulation could've prevented the near gutting of an industry (timber) such that we might still be in the forests to substantial degree and providing for ourselves. Instead, we are begging the President to sign a war funding bill that also helps fund our counties where timber receipts used to fund them. There are many counties in Oregon that are going to hit some very severe hard times because Bush won't sign a bill that has some aid built into it to help his own country. A little bit of governmental regulation 30 years ago to present might have prevented timber counties/communities in Oregon from having to beg the Feds for money now.

Why do you have to beg the government in the first place? It is proof that the government has too much power. Last check, there are plenty of trees in OR and WA. It is government restrictions that prevent us from using our resources.