Peter Schiff had the economy pegged

[AU_domer]

I love this guy.  He was Ron Paul's financial adviser during the campaign.  We have about 95% overlap in our political and economic philosophies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

If you enjoy this clip, you should watch the 8 part video series on Youtube where he discusses the economy and housing market with a mortgage banker association in 2006.  It is very long (probably totals an hour) but it is worth your time.

[NCVol]

It's an all time classic comparison between a shill, and an incompetent hack (Laffer) and an actual competent economic observer (Schiff) .  I don't know how anyone can take Laffer seriously after this exchange and how results proved Laffer and his ilk (which is about the entire mainstream investing punditry class) catastrophically wrong.  And not just wrong as in they missed a prediction, Laffer was fundamentally wrong on every aspect of our economy and what works long term.  Schiff was proven correct. 

The only objection I have to Schiff and the Lew Rockwell crowd is they're talking about essentially a revolution in the way our economy operates.  Until there is a collapse, their prescription is just impossible.  We're NOT going to do away with the Fed anytime soon, or go back on the gold standard, or actually shrink the government, or break the ties between the multi-nationals and both parties in D.C., etc.  It's as embedded in the political system as the democratic and republican parties.

At any rate, what I struggle with is GIVEN the two options, where do you go?  Just one example, of course he's right about regulation, but that assumes the bad actors have to face consequences.  If they don't, and in this world, they do NOT face consequences, because we've allowed so many to become "too big to fail", what is the next best option?  To let them plunder the company without restraint as we did under Bush or at least attempt to put some rules on their behavior.  We let derivatives grow to between 500 and 1,000 TRILLION in notional value because Greenspan thought the financial companies knew what they were doing.  They didn't and paid themselves like Kings while they blew up a catastrophic bubble.  So what's the answer?  MORE deregulation and trusting them to have learned their lessons?  I don't see it, but I recognize the problems with the regulation side too. 

[Shimmy]

I agree with NCVol.  All except for the regulation part, which admittedly you claim you don't know what the best answer is. I believe it's best to keep gov't totally out of it so I am against gov't regulations.  Then again, how do you punish people who swindle money out of a company if you don't have laws against it.

The main point is there is not a lot of difference between today's Democrat and Republican.  And the two parties are so ingrained in our system with so much power, it's hard to figure out what to do to set this country on the right path again.  I believe that education of the people on how the economy works is the only way.

This last election has been the only time I have voted Republican instead of Libertarian.  I'll not do it again.

[Just Win]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlJ032EQIgQ