Swear to ghawd, when I notice it, I think of you!

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Swear to ghawd, when I notice it, I think of you!


How funny because I do the same thing.... its uncanny.

I used to think of Napoleon's quote, "...so the poor don't kill the rich."
Now I think, "In Good We Trust"
Nature is good, since it created and sustains life and life is good,on balance.
And since it did create and sustain life over the past 3or4 Billion yrs, so far, that we know of, it meets the criteria of a creator and a savior.
I trust that Living in Balance and harmony with nature is all I need to not only survive, but thrive and evolve.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And since it did create and sustain life over the
> past 3or4 Billion yrs, so far, that we know of, it
> meets the criteria of a creator and a savior.

I don't get this.

Am I going to be sorry I mentioned it?

I think he's assuming that the measure of creation is "life." That seems an arbitrary definition, I'd think, since the universe has no purpose or intent.

Because with no purpose, one can’t be insightful, and thus impressive ... not to mention repetitive!

And what is the savio(u)r part?

The fittest.

Not necessarily. If you go out in the bush in Australia, everything wants to kill you.

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> schrodingerscat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > And since it did create and sustain life over
> the
> > past 3or4 Billion yrs, so far, that we know of,
> it
> > meets the criteria of a creator and a savior.
>
> I don't get this.
>
> Am I going to be sorry I mentioned it?
Nature is our creator because it created life 3-4 billion years ago and it is a savior, because it has saved life from going extinct over the past 3-4 billion years of continuous existence on Earth, despite all of the cataclysmic events that have occured, life goes on.
Life is good.

Sounds like a lot of overthinking to me.

Or underthinking.

Arrgg! Now you've got me overthinking how to underthink nature.
There goes the day.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Or underthinking.

How do you under-think the nature of reality?
By comparing the words of wise men to scientific discovery?
That's all I do.
Occasionally I throw in my opinion, usually when somebody asks.

> How do you under-think the nature of reality?

Precisely. That's what has us in a state of constant amazement.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2020 05:26PM by Lot's Wife.

all others pay cash.

Shakey's Pizza?

I think Shakey's did have that sign. Whatever happened to Shakey's, anyway ?

What will I spend this on?

I think "all others pay cash!"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2020 03:42PM by thedesertrat1.

I pull out my sharpie and black it out. Sometimes I just line out "God"...

Satisfying feeling!

I tend to limit my currency reading to the numbers in the corners.

You like numbers, don't you!

I'm still back in Grade 8 math thinking square roots? What the heck. Why are they square? Why should I care?

And I've got this far along my lifeline without (consciously) needing them. I think.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2020 06:11PM by Nightingale.

The Babylonians knew how to do square roots 3,800 years ago when they were just barely getting good at writing. The interesting question is why did they bother?

Do you know the answer? I don't.

Possibilities include some particular practical application, collateral recognition stemming from a more useful use of squares or something else, or simply the pursuit of math as a mental discipline. If you can shed light on the question, I'd love to see it.

But I'll reiterate that math as math is overrated. There is, I think, no other form of academic endeavor that better instills logic in a student's mind. I think it should be taught widely and long to as many kids, adolescents, and adults as possible.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is, I think, no other form of academic
> endeavor that better instills logic in a student's
> mind.

I'm doomed. :)

All those brilliant, logical, superbly numerate people will compete for your friendship, Nightingale. The means are never more important than the end.

Thank you, Lot's Wife. You are too kind!

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Babylonians knew how to do square roots 3,800
> years ago when they were just barely getting good
> at writing.

That is hellishly interesting.

Unlike square roots. :)

As we all know “god” = The Federal Reserve.

Funny you should ask.

I always skip right past the God phrase and wish we could dispense with George Washington and use portraits of Vincenzo Bellini. That's one sexy bill right there!

I think lunch money (for when I'm in school.) $2.40 every day to get a hot main course or a tasty sandwich, a salad or veg, and some fruit and milk from the share table. Not bad, huh? I miss that. I miss putting in a solid morning of teaching, and then getting a good lunch as a reward. I'll bet the kids miss it, too (only bag lunches to go for them of late.) And I miss the kids smiling and greeting me as I go on my way.

"In God We Trust" seems outmoded to me. But it probably doesn't seem outmoded to most Americans, so here we are.

I think of Abe Lincoln and the Civil war, when they put that statement on the money. The Union almost fell, General Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought gallantly defending the South, and old Abe was grasping at anything he could think of to get the war over with. It was bad, it was ugly, But Sherman cut his way through to Savannah, and Georgia howled!

But the South shall rise again.

> old Abe
> was grasping at anything he could think of to get
> the war over with.

Not at all. He could have ended the war months earlier than he did. Why did he stall? So he could crush the south sufficiently to impose abolition on the entire country.

It was a calculation that cost tens of thousands of lives. It was cold, it was cruel, and it was right.

Whereas I think of the political pressure in the 1950s that led to the motto being made official and added to the currency, replacing E pluribus unum.

"But the South shall rise again." = "we shall have slavery again"

And therein lies the racism.

The Confederacy should rise again: racist disregard for African Americans.

Manifest Destiny and mass depopulation of the Americas were blessings: racist disregard for Native Americans.

At least as he posts here, macaRomney is not a good person.

Ghawd or no ghawd, money is fun when it's potable!

The plan from the beginning was to steal away the wealth of the average person and put it in to the hands of the wealthy. I forget the actual dates, but here is the progression:

1.) The government issues paper notes backed by gold with a promise from the government to only issue the notes to people as they turn their gold in to the banks for safe keeping. People then turn their gold in to the banks in exchange for the notes which are a promise to return your gold to you any time you want it back. They tell the people that the bank will hold on to their gold for them and keep it safe for them. The promise from the government is that you can use your paper notes to redeem your actual gold any time you want to.

2.) After a few decades pass, the banks keep the people's gold and set a deadline. They tell them that if they haven't turned in their gold in to the banks before the deadline and in exchange for a fair exchange of those notes, that they are in violation of the law. Then later they tell the people that they can no longer use their paper notes to redeem their gold at all, but promise them that the banks will not issue more notes than there is gold to back the notes. To make the promise believable to a naive and religious people at the time, they printed the words "In God We Trust" on those notes.

3.) The government contracts with the Federal Reserve (a privately held corporation with stockholder names kept secret from the public) to manage the nation's money (a duty of congress which is to "coin money and regulate the value thereof" themselves, not to farm that job out to some private company and allow that private company to use the name 'Federal' in their business name). After a few decades everyone forgets about that original promise not to print un-backed money. So the government and banks can pretty much print-up any amount of money they want to print, which dilutes the value owned by the original gold and silver holders.

4.) Now that the government has taken away your actual legal tender (according to the constitution article 1 section 10), they will always be able to dilute your wealth to take it from you as much as they want to, you can never get ahead. When dirivites (mortgage notes) aren't enough, they trade in derivites of dirivitives (mortgage backed securities). The shell games with your money are endless... all because you trusted in gawd.

Article 1 Section 10 of the US constitution says that "No state shall make anything other than gold and silver coin, a tender in payment of debts". We all ignore that requirement these days. Technically, federal reserve notes and anything that represents federal reserve money can not be accepted by any of the fifty state governments in payment of debts or other obligations to the state. There is an important reason for that. Although there are no laws to support the current situation, we all accept federal reserve money as legal tender and we shouldn't. It's all an acknowledged confidence game. You will not find a law on any federal or state law book or court record anywhere innthe United States that declares federal reserve notes to be a legal tender in payment of debts. In fact, when they removed the statement of redeemability for gold or silver from the notes and added "in god we trust", they also made another critical change to those new Federal Reserve notes. The old notes declared the note to be a legal tender "in payment of all debts, public and private". The new and current notes say that the note is a legal tender "for all debts, public and private". The "in payment of" was changed to "for". Regardless, we all just accept it. We have given away our sovereignty because we accepted the "in god we trust" promise.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2020 12:12AM by azsteve.

Again? I will quickly address six issues to make the point that you are reading bad sources.

First, you write that the constitution, Article 1, Section 10 demands that only gold and silver may be used for legal tender in payment of debts. That false. That provision declares that STATES must abide by that rule, not the national government. Read the whole section: it is about limits to state power, not restrictions on national power. Why would the Founders want to stop states from issuing funny money? So they couldn't run unfunded deficits.

Second, you claim that that constitutional provision mandates that currency must be gold or silver; it cannot be "unbacked" by such specie. But that is incorrect. Nowhere in the constitution is the federal government limited in the sort of currency it can issue.

Third, you assert that the only currency that can be used as legal tender in the US is gold and silver produced under Congressional direction. That would assuredly have been difficult given that at the time the constitution was adopted and for about a decade thereafter the United States produced no currency at all. Not a single coin. Moreover through much of the 19th century the bulk of American transactions were conducted in Spanish Dollars and other foreign coins. Why do we speak of "two bits" being a quarter dollar? Because Spanish Dollars were marked so they could be cut into eight pieces, a fact that cowboys understood because they used those coins routinely in private transactions and when paying for government services.

Fourth, you state that the Constitution requires Congress to coin money and regulate its value and hence that the Federal Reserve comprises an institutional violation of that national charter. But you realize, I hope, that the Federal Reserve has never produced a single coin or bill? Nor does Congress do that. It has outsourced coinage (to the Treasury) and regulation (at various points) to various entities, including Alexander Hamilton's central bank. This was the practice of the Founders of the constitution and nothing has changed since.

Fifth, you state that the shareholders of the Fed are undisclosed. That is false. You can go to the website of any of the regional banks and see displayed prominently exactly who the shareholding institutions are. You can also read their explicit rights and responsibilities.

Sixth, you state that mortgages are "derivative" securities. They are not. A derivative is an instrument whose value depends on an underlying security: a mortgage is the underlying security itself, so it is no more a derivative than a stock, a bond, or a currency. But none of this matters because derivatives were not created, nor issued, by government. I'm not sure why you would throw them into a discussion of misgovernment other than for the "scare" value.

There are great histories of US monetary policy and coinage available. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz wrote one. If you want to understand what really happened, it would be a good idea to go to a credible source like that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2020 12:41AM by Lot's Wife.

I don't know why you feel the need to follow behind everything I write Lot's Wife, and find fault with it or to claim that I have faulty sources. Do you always need to be smarter than everyone else? It's pretty obvious by what I wrote (not edited since you found me wrong here), that yes, the states are the only ones that are prohibited from accepting anything other than gold or silver in payment of debts. That is exactly what I wrote. Put another way, the people were conned in to accepting an illegal tender when it comes to paying their obligations to the state. The states were conned in to accepting the illegal tender. Counties and Cities operate under authority of the state. None of these parties would accept a currency like that if they weren't conned in to it. I said there was a reason for that. You pointed out another reason. But only tradition and group-think (not lawful statutes) support the value of federal reserve money even today. Every penny of taxes that I pay in federal reserve money to the state are donations to keep them off my back. Every payment they accept from me in the form of federal reserve money to satisfy my debts to them is illegal. I didn't feel the need to give an whole lesson here on currency and neither my nor your explanation covers all of it. Why does anyone have to be wrong or have faulty sources when you mis-read?

I didn't claim that the government is prohibited from issuing unbacked money. I am saying that they broke their promises made at the time the original currency was issued, to give the people their gold back without diminishing the original value of the notes. The people were deceived. The "in god we trust" played a part in the deception.

I didn't say that according to the constitution, only money created under congressional direction was legal for the federal government to spend (incur debt on the government). I said that a job given to the congress by the constitution was farmed out. In my mind, this is like hiring a neighbor to babysit your kids and when you get home you find that the neighbor is nowhere to be found because they subcontracted the job to babysit your kids, to someone else who you've never seen before, maybe the neighborhood child molestor. In this case, they put the fox in charge of the hen house. Government shouldn't farm out the job of regulating the economy that they are responsible for cultivating themselves. They shouldn't turn it over to others who want to own it.

I absolutely challenge you or anyone else to discover and name any living individual (as opposed to a corporation) who owns actual stock in the Federal Reserve itself. I have never been able to find the name of any individual who owns this stock. The Federal Reserve is not a publicly owned corporation and the stock holders names are not public, nor are they required to be made public. You will find many companies who are affiliated or who have fiduciary duties to the Federal Reserve. The chairman is appointed by the President and is well known to us. You will find institution names that can not be traced to individuals. But no way will you find any owners names either directly or indirectly. I will be glad to be wrong on this one if you can produce real names of living people and numbers of shares they own, or trails of fed stock owned by corporations that are owned by known individuals who can be identified. There is an aristocracy of unknown individuals who own our economy. We do not have a right to know who they are. They have a pretty good smokescreen. You bought in to it.

As soon as a mortgage is valued differently than its contract value and then traded, it becomes a derivative. Technically the way that MERS did business was not legal by most state laws. They didn't usually even bother to maintain complete legal paper trails against the deed going back to the original deed as is required by law. They claimed to have found a loophole. MERS just went back to the original bank at foreclosure time on behalf of who ever might own an interest in the note at the time and ordered the sale when there were defaults to the original mortgage. But those who had an interest in the deed were never recorded on the county records as is required by state law in every state. So the paper trails in-between whoever owned a piece of the note and the actual deed couldn't be maintained because these second order derivatives had been sold and re-sold, bundled and re-bundled so many times that no one could ever keep track of the full chain of sales and resulting ownership. Nor did they even try in most cases. They bundled these mortgage/securities in to traunches and sold them again and again in to oblivian, marking them up each time based on projected future values that were so high that not enough money existed in the economy to ever pay them all off. These were dirivitives of dirivitives. That is why our economy crashed in 2007. The more times they could get another person to lie on a mortgage application about their income, and each time the house sold at yet a higher price, the more the future projected value went up even much more. Nobody knew who the note holder was and the actual note holders couldn't even be listed on the deed. Once again, the national money system abused state laws (like needing to record the actual mortgage holder's identity on the deed and not a generic place-holder fiduciary for the many note holders - like MERS instead) to impoverish the people. Once again, the federally chartered banks (members -not necessarily owners- of the federal reserve system) were complicit. There is a reason why the note holder's real and actual name needs to be recorded against the deed. The events leading up to 2007 tell us exactly why.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_Electronic_Registration_Systems



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2020 03:36AM by azsteve.

azsteve, the reason I correct your misstatements is because they lead to policy prescriptions for the nation with which I disagree. Neither of us enjoy immunity from criticism for what we write here.

And misstatements abound. For example, you write that "states are. . . are prohibited [by the constitution] from accepting anything other than gold or silver in payment of debts." I repeat: that is incorrect. What the constitution says is that "no state shall. . . make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts." What that means is that ONLY the federal government can make the choice to use other forms of legal tender and the states must then accept that choice. That is what has happened since Day One of the US constitution and it is why the present situation has never been successfully challenged in court. The notion that the federal government usurped state power in this regard is fallacious; it is conspiracy theory.

You additionally write "every payment [the governments] accept from me in the form of federal reserve money to satisfy my debts to them is illegal." False. The constitution only limits the states from deciding on legal tender. Article One, Section 10 is a limitation on the state power, not federal power.

Then you claim that the "Government shouldn't farm out the job of regulating the economy." That is amusing, to put it gently. Congress is in charge of legislation and the creation of bodies to oversee various functions. The legislature accordingly farms out national defense, intelligence services, regulation of industries, the enforcement of the tax code, the enforcement of laws through the FBI, and almost everything else it does. That is how the constitution was written; it is how the Founders themselves ran the country in its first few decades.

Next you write: "I absolutely challenge you or anyone else to discover and name any living individual (as opposed to a corporation) who owns actual stock in the Federal Reserve itself." Those are your words. Your misconception arises, however, from the fact that the Fed is owned by its member banks. You write that there is a difference between membership and ownership, but that is incorrect. There is no individual who owns stock in the central bank--other than vicariously through ownership of the member banks. Your claim that "I have bought in to" the "smokescreen" concealing a secret "aristocracy of unknown individuals" who own the Fed is therefore conspiratorial drivel.

Regarding mortgages and derivatives, you write that "as soon as a mortgage is valued differently than its contract value and then traded, it becomes a derivative." That is false. Mortgages' values change minute-by-minute just like the prices of stocks, bonds, currencies, and pork bellies. The variation in price of pork bellies does not make them "derivatives." Options on mortages, MBS, CDS, etc., are derivatives, but mortgages never are. That is Finance 101.

Then you claim that federal regulation of the mortgage and MBS market was an overreach, with Washington usurping states rights. Yet the same constitutional rules that give the federal government control over the currency and legal tender--as well as the interstate commerce clause--give Washington regulatory authority over that market. So there is no overreach.

Your description of what went wrong in the subprime market is largely accurate, and we would agree on some of the appropriate remedial measures--measures that an effectively "bought" Congress has yet to enact. But the first step in getting to a solution is a factual appreciation of what went wrong, and that is where you go off the rails in an attempt to bolster states rights that can be found nowhere in the constitution. Breaking the country up into little Stalinist, autarkic mini-economies with currency/ies based on deflationary specie is way off the mark. It would make the country weaker and more vulnerable, not safer.

Somewhere between my Republican conservative positions and what you (Lot's Wife) describe as Stalinism, from my words, is found a voice of reason, self sufficiency, the empowerment of others, and charity. I've even been quite candid about my personal life and vulnerabilities here on this board. Most of the time when I express any position on this forum, you RIP into my words and pull them either hard right or hard left, pull those distortions to extremes, and then declare them wrong for reasons that you can't document while touting references as the best sources of your and others' supposed authority on the subject, whatever the subject may be. Typically, 'sources' are nowhere to be found.

I am not sure how a note that secures a mortgage and then is separated from that mortgage (a new agreement based on the value of an asset) is not by description, a derivitive (finance 101? Really?). I am not sure how a common currency based on intrinsic value contributes to a mini-economy, or is Stalinist. What is clear is that you disparage (politely at times and rudely in others) any opinion that is not yours. You've been known to attribute to your targets, dark motives, routinely and persistantly. In any event, every post is not about its subject line when you choose to act this way. It's just another opportunity to show everyone how smart and in-charge you are.

We're not supposed insult others here and insult is not my goal here. So I hope the moderators will allow some painful truth to remain here in my words. Some people come to this board damaged. Maybe they don't want to know if they have personality disorders or glaring issues that really should be addressed. I wanted to be polite but to be clear so you don't think that I must be talking about others, I am suggesting that you might be one of those people. How about looking for common understandings instead of always needing to be the smartest person in the room as you obviously feel the constant need to be? Have you ever once in the years you've been posting here said to anyone "I am sorry, I mis-judged you"? Have you ever gone even one day without telling several others that they are wrong while graciously sharing your superior wisdom with them for all here to see? You admit to having faults in general as most well-adjusted people would do (classic mormon self delusion about themselves), and then try ruthlessly to prove otherwise by putting down others subtly and when necessary, directly. Everyone on this board must have see this if they are paying attention. Those who do are probably either too polite to say anything or are too afraid to piss you off, least you go after them next.

You have a right to your opinions and to comment on what others say. The moderators here seem to be quite tolerant. You make me feel very uncomfortable and I am probably not the only one. If you don't see the need to change any of these behaviors, people here will tolerate it. Whether or not anyone here is really your friend or whether or not they really admire you is probably not what you think in many cases. People will treat you how you demand to be treated for the most part. Some people will even buy-in to it. That doesn't mean that your treatment of others is ethical or that others are thinking about you what you think they are thinking. I look at some of my mormon friends, living a life of delusion that they are the person that they want everyone else to think they are. It's transparent but they don't known it's transparent. People see who they are and humor them.

  I have faith, maybe even perfect faith, that every healthy ego wants to be a hero at some point, at some time, in his or her life.  

  When it comes to using words to be the hero, intent and passion can help accomplish the mission.  But it helps to have facts as part of the mix. Especially among people with a penchant for the avoidance of dogma and in possession of the mild hysteria is looking for a fuse.
   
  I get that Lottie is not everyone's cup of tea, but a little sugar, maybe some milk or cream, brandy?, and the old bag becomes tolerable, even likable.

   I'm here for Truth, not to participate in popularity contests, even though I have to disguise myself when I go out in public!  Trying to solve non-exmo dilemmas is not what I'm here for, but when these issues arise, I always seem to side with knowledge rather than passion.

  Eventually, Lottie is bound to be, BOUND TO BE!, wrong about something, and I will gleefully point it out as quickly as possible! But even then, I'll do so knowing that the old battle-ax will know that I love her wobbly, bobbly butt.

  And if I'm in a minority, so be it; I'll still cast my vote for knowledge over miscast passion.  If I'm to die on this hill, so be it.

To paraphrase what a wise man once wrote, "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six incorrect things before breakfast."

I can therefore only express gratitude for those who straighten me out, including recently Henry Bemis on RNA viruses, [|] on microbiology and COVID, BoJ on all sorts of things, anybody, dagny, and many others who presently slip my mind. Then there are the models of tolerance and magnanimity, like EB, D&D, summer, Saucie (my heavens, the woman is patient!), and Nightingale to name just a few of those to whom I am indebted.

If my feelings are not reciprocated, as is inevitable in some cases, I will survive. Indeed, if things get really bad I'll withdraw from life, take up golf, and knock on your door--a prospect that should make you even more thankful for your anonymity.

> Most of the time when I express any
> position on this forum, you . . . declare
> them wrong for reasons that you can't document.

I don't think many would agree that I don't document what I say. You seem more vulnerable on that score than I.


-----------------
> Some people come to this board damaged.
> Maybe they don't want to know if they have
> personality disorders . . . I am suggesting that you
> might be one of those people.

That's quite a statement, azsteve.


-------------
> Whether
> or not anyone here is really your friend or
> whether or not they really admire you is probably
> not what you think in many cases.

What I don't understand here is why you think I would care about what others feel. Your diagnosis notwithstanding, I am not in need of adulation or narcissistic supply.


-----------------
> Some people will even buy-in to it.
> That doesn't mean that your treatment of others is
> ethical . . .

There is irony in your stating this given what you have acknowledged in your past. I will just add that your personal attacks are not arguments.

Render unto Caesar, is what I think.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2020 12:25PM by cl2.

Most of the time I just chalk it off to the idea that a lot of people think somehow God on everything makes people more honest or something.

Most of the time I don't notice it. It's the equivalent of having any other fictional character on the money. It seems silly and somehow cheapens how seriously we take working for our money and what money impacts in our lives.

If this makes religious people happy to put God in everyone's faces all the time, I suppose it is better than other things they could do.

Might there a bank out there that could issue debit and credit cards with "In ghawd we trust" emblazoned on them, thus giving the OP the opportunity to think deep thoughts whenever he swipes?

It's more like 'in the Federal Reserve we trust'.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2020 01:08AM by azsteve.

I always wondered why the worship of money? Also thought the higher the amount, the more powerful THAt god was. A 'five dollar god' being more important than the 'one dollar god', etc. That was when I was a kid. Now I just think, "F(BLEEP)ck the banks.

In Canada, we sometimes get USA coins.
I just take a nail (since the tip is sharp and hard). I hammer out the in the god we trust part.

Feel free to melt it down and reprint and send it back to me :)
It takes very little energy to damage your coins.
They are made of a soft metal.

~~~~iceman9090

I don't think it would be any more relevant if it were actually true.

TopperToppington
(of the Westchester Toppingtons. Not related to Phil Toppington... he is an ass)

McCarthyism.