makingmusic476 said:
Not to say that the regulations we have in place are working. We just need limits on what corporations are capable of doing. They are entities that can be nearly as powerful as governments, yet libertarians propose we give them as freedom as people to wield that power. And unlike the government, they aren't held directly accountable to people. That's a recipe for disaster, and the 2008 collapse is a clear example of that. But this is merely arguing for/against an ideal. I'm not sure what Paul's specific plans are in regards to bank regulation, etc. Also, I dislike the idea of returning to a gold standard. Things are only worth whatever value people project upon them, and I think gold is losing its value in the eyes of many non-speculators. It's long ago lost any real value to me*, and I don't see it being any less volatile than paper money in the long run. *Aside from "It's gold! How much can I get for it from some idiot!?" |
I'll try to answer everything except the gold standard question (simply because I don't fully understand the arguments for a hard currency, myself) - although I will point one thing out, Ron Paul is in favour of competing currencies. Basically, Ron Paul will allow taxes to be paid in any currency, at the moment, the only reason that the dollar is the official currency, is because it is illegal to use other currencies, and all taxes must be paid in dollars. Ron Paul's idea is that if there is some kind of competition, it will force institutions like the Federal Reserve (which, under Paul, would be far more open) to act in a way that keeps the dollar valuable. His belief is that, ultimately, the Fed would not be able to compete with a hard currency, and the hard currency would eventually replace it. If the hard currency starts losing its value, some other currency would rise up.
As for the corporation thing - you have to remember that most of the corporate power comes from the fact that the Government are so involved in the markets. Under Paul, corporations will get no benefits, no subsidies, no tax breaks. They will have to compete with smaller businesses on a fair playing field. Not only that, but because the Government would have less power, there would be less to corrupt over. That post I made on Facebook the other day, with pizza being declared a vegetable, through corporate interest... that wouldn't happen under Paul, because the Federal Government wouldn't be in the business of deciding what goes on school children's dinner plates.
2008 was not a result of poor/lack of regulations, it was a result of too much Government. The sub-prime crisis began because the Government mandated that banks should make riskier loans in order to achieve the "American dream" of owning a home, this was made worse by the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates too low. The crisis spead to the UK because of the FSA, a government institution set up by Gordon Brown in the early 2000s, which basically, through a series of regulations, enforced the notion of "too big to fail" which dramatically changed the British banking sector, and encouraged them to buy into the sub-prime mortgage scandal.
