Ron Paul Supporters

[flix]

I'm not from the states but I still would consider myself a Ron Paul supporter as it's all "interrelated" in the world of politics. I'm pretty sure Ron Paul is an INTJ as well.

So I wonder if you guys, who are intersted in politics, support him?

Some input for your brains: Click Me! (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

[Pandemonium]

I am up for shutting down the fed.

[flix]

Yep. I was studying this subject for the last months. Read several books, gathered information on the internet nearly 24/7.

Fractional banking and the FED are the problems.

[Frodis]

I did, I do, and I will continue to. I consider him not just a former presidential candidate, but a leader of a movement. In fact, I would say that is his most important legacy. He opened my eyes, got me thinking. I don't agree with him on everything - but I think he'd appreciate that.

I've been pleasantly surprised to see him so much on the cable news shows lately - more so than during the campaign, even.

[IfThenElse]

Count me too, but I see Ron Paul more as a ESFJ/ESFP type, but when I read his work, I would go for ENTJ/INTJ

[flix]

Count me too, but I see Ron Paul more as a ESFJ/ESFP type, but when I read his work, I would go for ENTJ/INTJ

He is capable of independent thinking. Acutally only INTJs can do so.

[Pandemonium]

Yep. I was studying this subject for the last months. Read several books, gathered information on the internet nearly 24/7.

Fractional banking and the FED are the problems.

A few months ago I had to write a 4000 word report on the global financial crisis and possible 'own' ideas for addressing the crisis, in my economics subject (engineering degree studying economics *scratches head*). I wrote about the core issues such as the Fractional Banking System, the Fed. influencing the market, introduction of the community reinvestment act and the rescind of the glass steagall act. While researching I discovered a large amount of literature on Ron Paul.

The great tragedy of my work was that the Professor loved it but attacking the system itself was not allowed. Nor anything along the lines of communist ideals such as an idea of a technology based, resource allocation society, eliminating the market system and status quo. A truly free market would be nice but people who legislate (even the neo-liberals) prefer to encourage monopolies. An example of this is the media oligopoly. Five media firms all having the same bias. Even now they trying to push legislation through congress or parliaments to gain control of the net. Subsequently, I was given an opportunity to submit another assignment. (We are not allowed to have individual thought.)

Conspiracy Rumor: A document was released to police a few months ago highlighting organisations to be aware of as terrorist or criminal. Ron Paul supporters were outlined in this document, along with any other organisation which holds the American Constitution on a dais.

[flix]

Actually I don't want to discuss the whole issue here because it would just make no sense. I could only recommend you some books. The problem is that the most helpful books I read were in German (but I read two books from Peter Schiff and Ron Pauls Revolution as well)

To keep it short and simple:

The main problem is that new money is only being created by new debt. Think about it first. It's a fact.

What happens to the money supply M3? Due to the compound interest it HAS to go up.
If money (M3) goes up, the debt (somewhere in the system) has to go up as well.
>>>
That means you have to find new debitors over and over again. Just by common sense you have to agree that this can't work forever.
>>>
It worked for a while because the productivity went up and therefore the gros domestic product goes up.
>>>
But this is over now. Exponential growth is not possible forever.
>>>
It has to crash.

And this is what we will see pretty soon. Better be prepared.

There are two possibilites for the government:

1) Save the banks > The tax payers have to take the debt > Sooner or later there will be a revolution > Chaos
2) Don't save the banks > The financial system collapses > Chaos

[eternaltriangle]

So uh why then did you have the worst global depression in history in the 1930's, when almost all countries were on the Gold Standard? Why did that depression only end when states went off the Gold Standard?

The fed in 1929 played the Gold Standard game according to the rules, not according to the countercyclical goals of contemporary monetary policy. The fed moved to quash a bubble, and maintained a deflationary monetary policy for years, even as banks were failing and the economy collapsing. In doing so they also created a political situation that drove radical solutions like the Smoot-Hawley tariff.

The advantages of a Gold Standard and the absence of automatic stabilizers are that it ensures that all countries always have the same currency value relative to eachother, which is a minor advantage for trade (you can use hedging in contracts and get the same effect in practice anyway).

However, a gold standard also severely limits the government's ability to respond to cyclical downturns. This is bad for economic liberty - in a downturn where the government does nothing, you get the rise of socialism and fascism. If the fed in the 1930's had just lowered interest rates, Hoover would have been re-elected and the New Deal avoided. I mean the Depression made a guy like Huey Long viable as president. You can't separate economics from politics. If a little intervention can prevent a lot of intervention, then I am all for it.

Secondly, you need a fed to avoid banking collapses. Yes the economy will sometimes go up and sometimes down, but banking is not just another industry. When banks fail, money disappears. Sometimes it is true - it was fake money in the first place. That is why banks need to be regulated, and moral hazard needs to be limited (Canada's last banking failure occurred BEFORE the Great Depression. Canada's banks are also not over-leveraged - in fact they hold more in reserve than required by reserve ratio requirements. Canada's stimulus is all tax cuts and infrastructure spending - not exactly incipient socialism, compared to the US stimulus).

Thirdly, a growing economy requires a growing money supply. If the money supply is based on something like Gold, for instance, that won't happen and you will have insufficient liquidity. Inflation and deflation will occur essentially at random - isn't odd to have an economy that booms or contracts based on whether they make a big gold discovery in South Africa?

"1) Save the banks > The tax payers have to take the debt > Sooner or later there will be a revolution > Chaos
2) Don't save the banks > The financial system collapses > Chaos"

No, there is option 3. Save the banks, and develop appropriate regulations that eliminate moral hazard (at least convince bank managers that while their banks might be saved, they won't be).

So what is your proposal to prevent panics and runs on the bank? No regulation and no fed - let banks fail and suffer the consequences? What if somebody (say a competing bank) spreads scurillous rumours that banks are running out of money, and people withdraw their funds en masse? What do you say to people who are financially ruined when they lose all faith in anything resembling capitalism and call for nationalization, protectionism, socialism and often fascism?

[Frodis]

Count me too, but I see Ron Paul more as a ESFJ/ESFP type, but when I read his work, I would go for ENTJ/INTJ

Hmm, I never would peg him as an E anything. Although he's a politician, he seems to be very much a loner, even among his colleagues. An N for sure, because he seems very focused on economic and monetary theories. Probably T also; for example, although he's personally opposed to drugs and has said he's never used any and only drinks a glass of wine on rare occasions, he advocates ending the "war on drugs" because it just doesn't make sense, isn't doing any good, and in fact does more harm than good (imprisoning non-violent users, disproportionately minorities, etc.) See today's entry on his House page: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

He also certainly seems to be a reluctant leader (he's said many times that he had to be urged to run for the nomination), so I think INTJ would be most accurate.

[eternaltriangle]

Hmm, I never would peg him as an E anything. Although he's a politician, he seems to be very much a loner, even among his colleagues. An N for sure, because he seems very focused on economic and monetary theories. Probably T also; for example, although he's personally opposed to drugs and has said he's never used any and only drinks a glass of wine on rare occasions, he advocates ending the "war on drugs" because it just doesn't make sense, isn't doing any good, and in fact does more harm than good (imprisoning non-violent users, disproportionately minorities, etc.) See today's entry on his House page: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

He also certainly seems to be a reluctant leader (he's said many times that he had to be urged to run for the nomination), so I think INTJ would be most accurate.

Lets try to think of Paul in terms of NI, NE, etc.

Ron Paul is definitely Ti, not Te. He is all about deducing positions from general principles, as opposed to Te, which is about systematizing and efficiency (he probably has a low Te). Insofar as he is a feeler, Ron Paul could well have a strong Fi (which is all about strong internal values), but obviously not a strong Fe, since he is not exactly Mr. Empathy. He strikes me as more Si than Se, since he is very much affected by history and doesn't seem to live in the present. Finally, he is pretty Ni over Ne - he has certainty, without necessarily holding data to back it up. How those are ordered is hard to say.

I think you could make a case for Paul as an ISTJ (the constitution is a rule, we have to follow the rule) or maybe INTJ (if only because he is probably the most politically successful aspie in political history).

[Doppelbock]

I was a Ron Paul supporter even before I moved to Texas. He's perhaps just a wee bit more radical about his ideas than I would like, and some of his followers are wacko's, so it's hard to believe he'll ever amount to much more (politically) than where he's already at, though.

[reb]

Glen Beck had a short segment the other night. the feds paid for a 'survey and study' to some missouri think tank to determine 'what is a domestic terrorist'. one of the factors, according to the study, that bears watching is support for Ron Paul....you coud be a domestic terrorist if....you wear camouflage, have an 'assalt rifle', reload ammunition, believe that the feds have no constitutional right to tax and support Ron Paul...oh, the evil causes me to tremble...

perhaps, commenting on the idiocy of the federal economic solution is also a factor that might indicate a domestic terrorist. we no longer have foreign ones, so the cia/fbi have to have something to do.

[LaoTzu]

I really appreciated Paul in the GOP debates, he seemed to be the only one talking about actual problems and issues, and offering real solutions. The rest seemed stuck deciding if they were going to run as Neo-Con's or Regan.

I don't agree completely with Paul; throwing out anything having to do with government is silly. I don't have much faith in the private sector when it comes to life's necessities (which includes healthcare and education in my book) . But when he talked of 'morality' issues, he was my candidate. The government has no place legislating morality...

Honestly? I was kind of hoping Obama would make use of Paul in his administration.

Hell.... make Paul the Fed chairman :P

[maxpot46]

So uh why then did you have the worst global depression in history in the 1930's, when almost all countries were on the Gold Standard? Why did that depression only end when states went off the Gold Standard?Because of the mishandling of that gold standard, the US stock market bubble that arose because of it, and the deepening and lengthening of the correction by misguided government responses to the popping of that bubble. Specifically, the fact that all the European countries went off the gold standard for WWI, inflated for 10 years, then went back to the gold standard at the pre-war (i.e. pre-inflationary) price set the stage for deflation. This caused all the gold to flow to the U.S. (at one point the U.S. had something like 95% of global gold reserves) creating the '20's stock market bubble.The advantages of a Gold Standard and the absence of automatic stabilizers are that it ensures that all countries always have the same currency value relative to eachother, which is a minor advantage for trade (you can use hedging in contracts and get the same effect in practice anyway). I would say that the great advantage of a gold standard is that it prevents central banks from financing gigantic government expenditures (most notably the wars that "Great Powers" tend to involve themselves in) with the printing press.However, a gold standard also severely limits the government's ability to respond to cyclical downturns. This is bad for economic liberty - in a downturn where the government does nothing, you get the rise of socialism and fascism.Well, it prevents them from responding by using the printing press to "solve" (read: delay) problems by 1) passing them on to future generations via increased debt, and 2) transferring wealth from cash-using poor/workers to asset-heavy rich folks via inflation. As far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing.

Also, with a consistent and unmanipulated gold standard, there will be no cyclical downturns (as per Austrian Business Cycle Theory).Secondly, you need a fed to avoid banking collapses. Yes the economy will sometimes go up and sometimes down, but banking is not just another industry. When banks fail, money disappears. Sometimes it is true - it was fake money in the first place. That is why banks need to be regulated, and moral hazard needs to be limited (Canada's last banking failure occurred BEFORE the Great Depression. Canada's banks are also not over-leveraged - in fact they hold more in reserve than required by reserve ratio requirements. Canada's stimulus is all tax cuts and infrastructure spending - not exactly incipient socialism, compared to the US stimulus). It's true that money disappears (fiduciary media, anyway) but that doesn't seem to me to be a very strong argument to bail out failing banks, not only for the moral hazard but for the ensuing malinvestment.Thirdly, a growing economy requires a growing money supply. If the money supply is based on something like Gold, for instance, that won't happen and you will have insufficient liquidity. Inflation and deflation will occur essentially at random - isn't odd to have an economy that booms or contracts based on whether they make a big gold discovery in South Africa?Yes, but gold generally responds very accurately to increased demand via the price system, i.e. an increase in demand leads to an increase in gold's value, which spurs increased production. Yes, the value of gold can be distorted by rare large discoveries of gold deposits, e.g. 1849 California or 1883 South Africa, and this can lead to inflationary conditions. But compared to the constant inflation of central banks, this is not so bad -- it is only wanting if compared to perfection. Few claim that gold is perfect money, only the best money.What if somebody (say a competing bank) spreads scurillous rumours that banks are running out of money, and people withdraw their funds en masse? What do you say to people who are financially ruined when they lose all faith in anything resembling capitalism and call for nationalization, protectionism, socialism and often fascism?Explain to them the concept of risk, and point out that if they want a risk-free place to keep their money they should choose a 100% reserves bank.


maxpot46 added to this post, 17 minutes and 36 seconds later...

I don't have much faith in the private sector when it comes to life's necessities (which includes healthcare and education in my book).Should they take over food, then, with a quasi-socialist system similar to how they handle healthcare and education (noting that there is already some, but much less, regulation in food)? Food is much more necessary than both of those. Would this improve matters in the food sector?

My answer is obviously not. Prices would spiral out of control. Variety and quality would decline. Shortages would develop. A farmer/government cartel would form, limiting the number of food producers in order to keep their wages high. People would move to neighborhoods with "good" public supermarkets, and wait in long lines for crappy service regardless. Employers might be required to provide food insurance, so that employees could afford $50 hamburgers while on waiting lists for filet mignon.

In this scenario, plenty of people would be calling for complete government takeover of food. Free-market advocates would be ridiculed for suggesting that getting government out of the food sector would result in many producers creating a huge variety of cheap foods in abundance, targeted at both rich and poor (such that most of the poor were overweight/obese). Yet we know that those free-market advocates would be right, because that is the world we live in. We could live in a similar world of a wide variety of cheap and high quality medical or education services as well, if only people could imagine how the same theory (i.e. free market capitalism) that has almost completely eliminated hunger would affect other sectors if similarly applied.

[flix]

@eternaltriangle
I'm really not in the mood to discuss it now. But believe me. You're wrong.

- free market > no banking monopoly > free interest rates > no bank runs
- gold standard > real value of money > money is unequal debt > no bank runs

Hell.... make Paul the Fed chairman :P

You might be too naive. Let's assume you have $1B on your bank account > You wouldn't like the banks to fail > Therefore you don't want to have Ron Paul having any power > You want to keep the status quo.

The people having the money have the power.

[mnmeq]

he was my first choice. as with others I don't concur with all of his policies but I respect greatly his ability to put principle above personal belief. My chief issues with today's republican party are the social conservatism, pervasive theocracy and glorification of ignorance.

[flix]

The only thing I struggle with is if there should be at least something like free health care. You can't just let people die if they're ill?

[RBM]

The only thing I struggle with is if there should be at least something like free health care. You can't just let people die if they're ill?

You don't get your car fixed for free why health care for free ?

I find a shop, I pay for my service, direct and go back if that service and other considerations all meet my personal benchmarks. That model works absolutely fine for many, many, indeed most things.

How ill ?

[flix]

You have cancer and your life can be saved by surgery but you don't have the money and nobody wants to lend you money.

[RBM]

You have cancer and your life can be saved by surgery but you don't have the money and nobody wants to lend you money.

Well, having actually been there, just a few years ago, I expected to die. So am I just weird or what ?

What I mean is, why can't some kind of consensus be reached for that expectation instead of the expectation of care ?

[LaoTzu]

You might be too naive. Let's assume you have $1B on your bank account > You wouldn't like the banks to fail > Therefore you don't want to have Ron Paul having any power > You want to keep the status quo. The people having the money have the power.

It's comedy... ;)

I will say, that Paul (if he could set aside his Libertarian ways for a little while) might just know enough about the inner workings of the economy to ensure that those who deserve to lose, Do. (without, you know....taking every last one of us down with them of course)

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for RP right now.... think I'll boot over to YouTube and check his opinion on this mess.

[flix]

What I mean is, why can't some kind of consensus be reached for that expectation instead of the expectation of care ?

Um. How would this practically work?

[eternaltriangle]

maxpot, thank you for yet another thoughtful response. I see a few issues of contention remaining.

1. Can deflation go through smoothly
The operation of an un-manipulated Gold Standard requires non-sticky wages - in periods of deflation, workers need to be willing to negotiate their wages down. Unfortunately workers are unlikely to do so. Prospect theory, from psychology, may have some explanation - people are more willing to defend against losses than they are to fight for gains. In reality, deflation will result in social upheaval as workers refuse to accept lower wages. It was possible to weather this kind of storm in the 19th century, when only the middle and upper classes had the franchise. It is not possible in a democracy where labour has the vote.

2. Is the price of gold a perfect hedge on inflation?
eh.net has a good piece on the issues with gold as a hedge on inflation. I posit that gold is sought as an inflation hedge only because we do not live with a gold standard, but inflation increases the chance that we will revert to such a state of affairs (since commodity money is an excellent means of reducing inflation). I was curious and decided to look at the data on change in UK market price of gold and inflation from 1718-1933 (I know I won't convince you, but it looked like fun). The UK adopted a gold standard in 1717 and left it in 1931. In order to address time series issues I adopted an ARIMA approach.

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Steps
*An augmented Dickey-Fuller test on inflation (the dependent variable) showed no unit root.
*As such I ran a naive regression with robust standard errors. The result was statistically significant at the 95% level.
*Next I checked for moving average/AR processes. What looks like a good fit on a chart may not be one in reality. The residuals of this regression showed what looked to me like an AR(2).
*So I ran an ARIMA model once again, this time with an AR(2) term (I also tested an AR(1) but it didn't get rid of the spikes in the autocorrelation function). Changes in the market price of gold were no longer statistically significant (p-value = .233). The ACF and PACF confirmed that the AR(2) term had soaked up the autocorrelation. See the results of my final regression below:

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Conclusion: appearances can be deceiving. Even during the reign of laissez-faire economics (where the gold standard was least manipulated), the market price of gold did not move in synch with inflation.

3. Does the Gold Standard really prevent wars?
The problem with the Gold Standard preventing wars is that any country can always go off the gold standard and raise funds through the printing press - precisely what the great powers did in the First World War. Moreover, if only some countries go on gold, they are at a military disadvantage against predatory states that are not on the gold standard. Even if they had better long-term economic growth, war is a short-run phenomena. Where you see a force for peace, I see a system prone to collapse (and its collapse often is calamitous - for instance the British screwed up in returning to their prewar parity, for instance, but picking the right exchange rate, and coordinating that decision with all other states is understandably difficult). Classical liberals have good theories of the economy, but poor theories of international relations or political behavior. They need to do better at integrating the role of politics and political institutions as endogenous factors (eg. as with the new institutional economics). I suppose that is where we differ - you seem to ask yourself "what is the ideal economic system?" Whereas I tend to ask "what is the best feasible economic system?" Our values are probably not radically different, although you appear to be deontologically "libertarian", whereas I am a consequentialist libertarian.

4. Should we let bank failures happen?
I think this is your most convincing argument, particularly the point about mal-investment and moral hazard. Through bailouts it is true that we prevent the market from weeding out poor decision-makers. Firstly, this assumes that investors/banks making fewer, better investments is a superior outcome than investors/banks making more, worse investments. Partially socializing risk, through the FDIC, for instance, favours the latter model. I would argue that in the long-run it is revolutionary technological innovations that make us better off - moreso than capital accumulation (which would suffer from diminishing returns to scale without some innovation). New enterprises are risky, and so major product innovations with a dubious short/medium term prospect for any sort of payoff may well not get financed by a more conservative banking structure, while they will easily find willing investors in a "casino capitalist" model where risk is partially subsidized (the optimal level may vary through time). This is not a "proof", rather it is a plausible alternative.

Secondly, I am afraid that letting recessions/depressions/bank failures happen does not pass the political sniff test. People will not respond well to the evaporation of their savings, and - particularly in a minarchist state without a strong central authority - will be much more inclined to take force and seize the state. Certainly that was the experience in much of Europe when states struggled in the 1920's to maintain the gold standard. Even in more advanced states, no intervention will help the rise of socialist and fascist parties. This reflects a fairly reasonable and observable quality of utility - most people are risk averse, and would prefer smoothed/more certain outcomes, even if it means less growth in the long-run.

5. Cyclical downturns with an un-manipulated gold standard
The notion that cyclical downturns will be prevented by an unmanipulated gold standard assume that the main driving force behind cyclical trends is the money supply. I disagree - the Kitchin cycle is driven by firms changing inventory, the Juglar of fixed investment, the Kuznets of infrastructure, and arguably the Kondratieff by radical innovations (though that one is admittedly contentious). Because of the wide variety of possible cycles, active monetary policy is necessary. The risk of creating a political business cycle can be limited through central bank independence.

In addition, bubbles can take place without any sort of monetary policy. The South Sea bubble, or the Dutch tulip bubbles are good examples of this. I would argue that people may not even be irrational for buying into bubbles. Sometimes there are some good fundamentals that seem to explain the bubble, but really only explain part of it (like the dot com crash). Alternately, I would argue that a rational 60-year old might knowingly invest in a bubble, expecting that he will die in about 20 years before the bubble pops. It is similar to ponzi schemes - Madoff's firm, for instance, managed to survive for 48 years. Madoff himself has lived a very lavish lifestyle throughout that time period, and will probably die shortly anyhow.





eternaltriangle added to this post, 16 minutes and 27 seconds later...

The only thing I struggle with is if there should be at least something like free health care. You can't just let people die if they're ill?

Free health care absolutely kills people in a large number of ways.

1. Universal healthcare results in rationing and waiting lists, such that some people do not get necessary treatment.

2. More importantly, systems of universal healthcare are far less innovative than market-based systems. Imagine if in 1850 people decided to adopt a system that would have ensured universal healthcare, but innovated less. Today people would die of AIDs in months, and other currently curable diseases would not be curable. Over the long-run, it is innovation, not access to medical care, that makes us - even the poorest of us - better off.

How much less innovative are countries with universal healthcare?

Medical patents by country (1996-2000)
USA: 18251
Japan: 2877
Germany: 2116
France: 1775
UK: 1725
Canada: 872

Medical Patents per million people
USA: 60.8
Japan: 22.7
Germany: 25.8
France: 29.1
UK: 28.3
Canada: 26.42

[Pandemonium]

Why don't we just introduce Islamic Banking?

[reb]

there are, i am certain from long observation, a number of people who cannot manage 'money' in any form. i see them regularly. whether there is a gold standard or not will never, ever matter to these people; they will never have a surplus, nor will they ever spend wisely. in order for natural selection to work, there must be consequences; one of those consequences is starving to death, or having cancer and not having the $ to get it fixed (if it can be fixed...much illness cannot...face it, we're all going to die-perhaps the fear of death is something the socialists could work on for us?).

what a floating currency does do is to provide the illusion to someone now making perhaps $18k a year that they have 'some money'. whilst the truly rich have $50 mil. this is not so different from what a gold standard or any standard non-floating currency would create. what floating currency also does is to allow strange little peccadillos like 'stealth' raising of tax rates, smaller packages of chips for the 'same price' (a form of inflation which is very popular). inflation, basically, is like the river that floods and eats the corner of your best 40 acre cornfield away...and one day you notice 'damn, that fence is now hanging in the river and my corn yield is down 30%'. very sneaky to most people, and not even noticeable to those who will never, ever have any money anyway, as they are not paying attention in the first place.

floating currency bad: any standard, even barter, good, for the working person. standard=bad for the money and power hungry. the art of illusion...floating currency.

[maxpot46]

1. Can deflation go through smoothly
The operation of an un-manipulated Gold Standard requires non-sticky wages - in periods of deflation, workers need to be willing to negotiate their wages down. Unfortunately workers are unlikely to do so. Prospect theory, from psychology, may have some explanation - people are more willing to defend against losses than they are to fight for gains. In reality, deflation will result in social upheaval as workers refuse to accept lower wagesI don't disagree that a sharp deflation can cause upheaval in regards to wages. However, I don't see how an gold standard would result in such a deflation. It does seem to result in a mild deflation, but mild deflations are beneficial to workers by increasing the value of their wages and savings, without causing mass upheaval in the form of bankruptcies and unemployment.
2. Is the price of gold a perfect hedge on inflation?
eh.net has a good piece on the issues with gold as a hedge on inflation. I posit that gold is sought as an inflation hedge only because we do not live with a gold standard, but inflation increases the chance that we will revert to such a state of affairs (since commodity money is an excellent means of reducing inflation). I was curious and decided to look at the data on change in UK market price of gold and inflation from 1718-1933 (I know I won't convince you, but it looked like fun).
Conclusion: appearances can be deceiving. Even during the reign of laissez-faire economics (where the gold standard was least manipulated), the market price of gold did not move in synch with inflation. You're correct... I don't accept such approaches because your data reflects complex phenomena and assumes to be able to accurately apply numbers to such unmeasurable things as "inflation rates". It is technically impossible to have a single "inflation rate" because the prices of all goods are always fluctuating against each other. To determine a single rate, some goods must be included and others excluded, but exclusion of any results in an inaccurate figure. Any aggregate "price level" is an arbitrary and meaningless construction.

In any case, even if one was able to magically define accurately and come up with the correct numbers for "inflation", it would be of no avail. To explain, first let me define my terms. You're using "inflation" in the modern sense meaning increase in price level. I use the term in the sense meaning expansion of the money supply in excess of the demand for money. The latter results in the former, but the former can have other causes (namely, supply or demand shocks). Any supply and demand shocks will be reflected in fluctuating prices, but this is not inflation, in the technical sense. So showing variations in prices despite a gold standard does not indicate that inflation occurs on a gold standard.
3. Does the Gold Standard really prevent wars?
The problem with the Gold Standard preventing wars is that any country can always go off the gold standard and raise funds through the printing press - precisely what the great powers did in the First World War. Moreover, if only some countries go on gold, they are at a military disadvantage against predatory states that are not on the gold standard. Even if they had better long-term economic growth, war is a short-run phenomena. Where you see a force for peace, I see a system prone to collapse (and its collapse often is calamitous - for instance the British screwed up in returning to their prewar parity, for instance, but picking the right exchange rate, and coordinating that decision with all other states is understandably difficult). This is a good point, and well taken by the political half of me. There is value in knowing the best money, however, even if it is difficult to implement due to the predatory nature of governments.

[RBM]

Um. How would this practically work?

One might see a glimpse of how it would work from the New Yorker's piece The Bell Curve (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in which an empirical approach is used to improve patient care - and thus educate them as to realistic expectations.

It used to be assumed that differences among hospitals or doctors in a particular specialty were generally insignificant. If you plotted a graph showing the results of all the centers treating cystic fibrosis—or any other disease, for that matter—people expected that the curve would look something like a shark fin, with most places clustered around the very best outcomes. But the evidence has begun to indicate otherwise. What you tend to find is a bell curve: a handful of teams with disturbingly poor outcomes for their patients, a handful with remarkably good results, and a great undistinguished middle.

But of course this is anathema to some:

It is distressing for doctors to have to acknowledge the bell curve. It belies the promise that we make to patients who become seriously ill: that they can count on the medical system to give them their very best chance at life. It also contradicts the belief nearly all of us have that we are doing our job as well as it can be done. But evidence of the bell curve is starting to trickle out, to doctors and patients alike, and we are only beginning to find out what happens when it does.

In December, 1999, at a health-care conference, Berwick gave a forty-minute speech distilling his ideas about the failings of American health care... He began his speech with a gripping story about a 1949 Montana forest fire that engulfed a parachute brigade of firefighters. Panicking, they ran, trying to make it up a seventy-six-per-cent grade and over a crest to safety. But their commander, a man named Wag Dodge, saw that it wasn’t going to work. So he stopped, took out some matches, and set the tall dry grass ahead of him on fire. The new blaze caught and rapidly spread up the slope. He stepped into the middle of the burned-out area it left behind, lay down, and called out to his crew to join him. He had invented what came to be called an “escape fire,” and it later became a standard part of Forest Service fire training. His men, however, either thought he was crazy or never heard his calls, and they ran past him. All but two were caught by the inferno and perished. Inside his escape fire, Dodge survived virtually unharmed.

I can see lots of positive effects to the present system if this approach was adopted at the national level.