CNBC/Wall Street Journal debates at 4 & 9 PM ET

[TVMH]

[ QUOTE ]
Have people figured out ways to vote a ton for themselves, have people been organizing mass movements on these polls by forums, or are dr ron supports just much more likely to be on the internet?

[/ QUOTE ]

It occurs to me that an internet poll necessarily requires the person being polled to be on the internet. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Mempho]

I used to be a hard-core Republican when they used to talk about less government, states' rights, ....sigh

The frontrunners are pathetic.

[iron81]

You guys know that internet polls are designed to be taken for a finite period of time, right?

[TVMH]

[ QUOTE ]
You guys know that internet polls are designed to be taken for a finite period of time, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Certainly...it just seems odd that the results of the poll for a highly publicized event would be taken off the website of the company that hosts said event.

[Bedreviter]

And fairly worthless

"None of this is remotely new. With the help of a hyperactive online community, Alan Keyes smashed the opposition as winner of a Republican debate in New Hampshire in December 1999, with 49 percent (against five opponents) in a Fox News/Vote.com online ballot. Sadly for the clickers, Quinnipiac University conducted a real poll (that is, a representative, random-sample telephone survey) on the same debate; Keyes got 13 percent, far behind John McCain (who, as it happens, went on to win the primary)."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/...-ballots-.html

[Mempho]

[ QUOTE ]
You guys know that internet polls are designed to be taken for a finite period of time, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

The debate wasn't over yet, iron.

[Bedreviter]

2. If the GOP primary was to be held today, which candidate would you vote for? * 7781 responses

Ron Paul 75%
Mike Huckabee 7.2%
Fred Thompson 5.7%
Mitt Romney 5%
Rudy Giuliani 3.6%
John McCain 1.5%
Duncan Hunter 0.8%
Tom Tancredo 0.5%
Sam Brownback 0.4%

-The poll was at this point worthless, somehow Ron Pauls numbers were far higher than they should be. Whats the point in keeping a poll that its easy to see is not even close to represent something close to the actual numbers for Republican voters?

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm no fan of the gold standard so don't confuse this with a defense of it. I've read several of your posts on this subject and every time you seek to link the defense of the gold standard with causing the great depression.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have never, not once stated that the link to the gold standard caused the depression. i was joking in the post above since gonebroke2 specifically said that it was the fed's tightening of the money supply that directly caused the great depression (which is obviously a silly assertion).

my only point is that the link to the gold standard worsened and prolonged the negative impact of the depression. i've posted on this a few times and one with very specific links from various sources to prove this. i don't think it is a question really.


[ QUOTE ]
You, however, fail to consider, or completely ignore, the fact that the government printed more paper money than what their supply of gold could support in the first place. If the gov't hadn't screwed with the money supply initially there wouldn't have been a need to defend the gold standard. The pro gold standard crowd believes that the initial departure from the gold standard is what caused the great depression while attempting to return to the old standard only worsened it. Hopefully you now have a better understanding of the pro gold standard position and will stop misrepresenting their viewpoint in the future.

[/ QUOTE ]

i never wanted to turn this into a "pro" gold standard vs. "anti" gold standard. i just pointed out that one thing that worsened the great depression (the double bottom) was the tightening of money to slow gold flow out of the US as a result of the peg to gold. some main causes of the great depression were the excessive risk people were taking with their homes and businesses and the banking failures that followed. the credit crisis there was took an estimated few points off of GDP growth (don't have the studies in front of me but it was a significant economic impact)

the fed piled on tight money on top of bank failures in a poor choice of monetary policy. once monetary policy was loosened and the tie to gold broken, the recovery picked up pace. again, this has been thoroughly researched and i don't think is a quesiton (the fact that after the link to gold was broken, all countries that were previously linked to it did far better than they did on a number of measures during the period of being tied to the gold standrad).

the negative impacts of course, as you stated, could be a result of the larger amount of paper printed than gold available or in reserves. but the two facts i don't think can be disputed:

1) that the tight money policy of the fed to defend the gold standard in 1931 (or 1930, can't remember offhand) help create the double bottom and worsened and lengthened the negative economic impacts of the great depression.

and

2) once a given country left the gold standard and increased the looseness of monetary policy, their economy began recovering and did far better than during the time of the depression that they were on the gold standard.

[ QUOTE ]


I would also like to point out that in this rare instance Rudi is at least partially correct. I don't think you can point to any one thing as causing the great depression but Smoot Hawley had a negative impact on the U.S. economy and played a role in causing/worsening the depression.

[/ QUOTE ]

definitely. i don't think there was one cause but there were certainly anumber of major ones. one of which, as mentioned, were the excesses of the previous decade.

Barron

[gonebroke2]

[ QUOTE ]

i have never, not once stated that the link to the gold standard caused the depression. i was joking in the post above since gonebroke2 specifically said that it was the fed's tightening of the money supply that directly caused the great depression (which is obviously a silly assertion).

Barron

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought we already concluded this debate in the finance forum. You agreed that the Fed caused the great depression. Even Ben Bernanke, the "expert" on the Great Depression, came to the same conclusion:

Ben Bernanke, admits that the Federal Reserve was responsible for the Great Depression. "We did it," Bernanke said, adding, "We're very sorry."

[volkin]

sorry I misunderstood you were making a joke, was a weird place for it so it flew over my head. I agree with everything you say in this last post fwiw.