BS-87

What the... Is it just me, or has July just been a very unfortunate month for Scouts in Utah?

From: http://scouting.org/filestore/mission/JTE_FAQs-Unit.pdf 18. Should the silver award be higher than gold to match other hierarchy in the Boy Scout program? This was discussed by the task force, which decided that Journey to Excellence would be better understood by the majority of volunteersespecially new volunteersif the program followed the bronze, silver, gold sequence. Kind of a simple answer. The FAQ's on J2E are actually pretty helpful if you plan to take full advantage of the program. http://scouting.org/scoutsource/Awards/JourneyToExcellence.aspx

Looks like even Harvard agrees that loving America makes you a Republican. The more accurate study would probably lump Patriotic folk into the TEA Party. This doesn't mean they like voting Republican, it just means they feel compelled to vote against liberals. Liberals have been slowly killing us with socialism from interstates to mandates and welfare to bailouts. If you love America, you probably just don't like the idea of its most vital document being subverted and perversely interpreted by an ever-growing government.

Maybe even preschool and toddler sisters *GASP*

I think clemlaw just hit the nail on the head on how and why we should be using a "Lion" program or something like it. If you have boys with younger siblings (Kindergarten, Pre-School, Toddlers), they need a program too at Pack Meetings. If there are some simple activities for them to do at Pack meetings, they can earn some simple awards or at least have their pictures they colored held up for the crowd to see. What this also provides is a program for families of kindergarteners to bring their son to and watch everything that goes on in Cub Scouts before "taking the plunge" so to speak and let them walk into the Pack with some realistic expectations. When a boy joins Scouts, his entire family joins Scouts. Programs that can make that truth known should be encouraged, not discouraged.

Is a reasonable compromise to use the little noodle things with a plunger type device inside where you suck up the water by drawing it back and then shoot it out by pushing the plunger back in? That seems nothing like a gun and would be much more fun probably. You may even be able to use it to talk about air pressure or water pressure for a belt loop or pin.

Please break it up into paragraphs Hawkrod... A block of text is impossible to read...

A good committee that meets regularly makes sure that the troop is never in crisis mode. (except for the rare and unavoidable instances) Yes, the troop should be boy-run in order to ensure that everything that the troop does is interesting to the boys, but the adult leadership of the troop, including the committee, needs to act like bumpers in bowling.

Your district advancement committee is not asking for too much. The guideline I know our district goes by is that if the scout fell violently ill on the day of his project, it should be laid out and planned so thoroughly that any shmuck could pick up the project book and lead the project. The object here isn't to discourage the Scout, the object is to give them a real and applied understanding of what's required to undertake a project in the community. It's a valuable skill that can only be learned by doing, and we want to know every single Eagle Scout is both able and willing to see things that can be done in their communities when are grown men, and then undertake any sort of project to make a difference. If anything, we're still shielding the boys far too much from the horrors of city, county, and state governments...

"There's a couple new internet ones out there now I understand, tryin' to become iCash. That can work OK for a bit among people of goodwill, though typically such things are wildly susceptible to speculation or fraud by less commune-oriented business types. Essentially, they're a great way for smart people to fleece fools." Like BitCoins. It sounds like the biggest argument you have against the gold standard is it makes running a society that revolves around debt (like ours) impossible. What's so awful about forcing people to live within their means and not be able to borrow? Sure Americans wouldn't be able to live as opulent of lives as they do now, and the wealthy would easily become far more powerful than the poor, but are those such bad things? Since when is opulence admirable? And wouldn't realizing just how unbalanced the current wealth picture is force the citizens of the world to balance it out a little more? Would we even value things of traditional wealth if that was the case?

You've succeeded in convincing me of one thing. Punishment through taxation can be useful, because a capital gains tax deters speculation and derivatives investments and actually offers the incentive to reinvest FCF into infrastructure instead of simple monetary gains. This encourages investment in other businesses with real employees instead of becoming just another bunch of zeros a broker has to play with. That's an example of nonexistent wealth becoming real wealth and that's something that we should be making incentives for. I still don't feel something like energy should be used as the measure of wealth. At least we're both in agreement that the FED shouldn't be playing the role it's playing. The only difference is you feel they can be limited to only monkeying with monetary policy. I think they cannot help themselves, especially the Keynesians, from making their role go deeper to affect economic environment. When you give an organization the power to have that profound a role, you cannot expect them not to.

"Da modern world uses a token, a chit, to represent value in order to make commerce work. The token is really just a piece of paper. It's a crazy system in a way, but it sure beats the heck out of bartering chickens for medicine and labor for electricity." You're completely underselling the success many communities are finding in localized currency. Some communities are even going so far as to barter their goods and services within "almost" completely self-sustained communities. The doctor eats for free where he wants and gets new shoes when he needs them. The waitress gets a check up as a tip. Things like that. While that all sounds hokey, have you heard of the success "Berkshares" are experiencing? Alternative currencies may be the only way of surviving the coming dollar crisis which you seem all too quick to be an apologist for...

Beavah - The problem you fail to point out is that the Central Bank should not be purchasing the bonds. When people and businesses and banks in the community buy bonds, they are putting money up front for the project which will be paid back to them in taxes. This prevents the community from having to save up money for an immediate need and instead commit to pay back over time the bond to its purchasers. It's not a commitment to raise taxes, it's a commitment to mandatory spending to pay off the loan to creditors when the government doesn't have the lump sum available. It's when these bonds are sold to foreign holders, including foreign governments, and to central banks that we have a problem. Certainly some foreign investors have an interest in our infrastructure, and so I'm more apt to allow foreign investment than a central bank. When a central bank is purchasing, they're purchasing with debt (or money which doesn't really exist and is in risk of default). When these loans default (like in the housing crisis) the money which never existed cannot be recouped. This means there's a certain amount of our national debt which was never really acquired wealth and so our bailing out that defaulted wealth essentially DOUBLED DOWN on that debt. The problem is that the Central Bank borrowed the money to the govt for those bailouts, meaning that the wealth used to bail out the debt that came from wealth that didn't exist doesn't exist either! It comes down to the money multiplier effect. In theory it allows a small reserve of real wealth make large sums of borrowed wealth possible. It's a disgusting abuse of fiat currency that will only continue giving us bubbles and bursts and every single time more wealth is transferred to the government in these bursts. I know I start sounding like a broken record, but if we can't tie wealth to something like gold (because it'd stagnate our economy or cause inflation) what can we tie it to that grows at the same rate as our economy? Because right now, the US dollar is devaluing everybody's wealth. Edited to add: Didn't realize this thread was going to turn into "Economics and Citizenship with Beavah and BS-87"(This message has been edited by BS-87)

"Now, philosophically I actually agree with yeh. But all things in balance, eh? It's important to understand this stuff is complex and there's a fair chance any of us are wrong. And even though I'm a free market, small government fellow, I reckon it's OK that sometimes we pay taxes for things we don't use just because it strengthens the country. Yah, I suppose we could expect rural folks to pay 100 times as much for phone service or electricity or to do without. There just aren't enough customers in rural areas to make it profitable to build out that infrastructure. But I really don't mind da universal service taxes. I want all my fellow Americans to have access to modern services." You're right that projects like this are a good thing, however SeattlePioneer raises a good point in his reply. The people will decide whether or not such projects are necessary by voting with their own pocketbooks. This is why special projects should be paid for through bonds instead of just raising taxes or borrowing from a central bank. You're more than welcome to be an advocate for everyone to have access to modern services, but I still drive out on rural dirt roads. People out there don't get high speed internet, and probably won't for quite some time until the private sector can make it cost efficient. What has been made cost efficient is satellite, which is fast enough to make dial-up a thing of the past and cost effective enough for many rural folks to get. I'm sure if it came up to vote for a sales tax increase or bonds being sold for a project to bring them high-speed internet it would get shot down because nobody really has a value on those things out there. They don't even put a high enough value on paving their roads yet! The private sector really isn't as maniacal and diabolical as the left would have you believe. All in all, they're just people who want to serve other people and sustain their own life in the process. Even when folks get rich, they end up doing nice and charitable things. My example is that there just aren't Rockafellers and Carnegies anymore, and it's because government feels it's their job now to save all of us and bring all of us to the future together. Truth is, many folks are just as well and content sitting on the porch of their old farm home on a dirt road with their dog and having lemonade with their neighbor. Simple living people aren't really concerned with anything other than the government just letting them live their life.

Then the question is ideological then Beavah. Will we improve our situation by giving incentives folks who save, give to charity, and volunteer; Or will we learn best by giving incentives to those who are stuck in less than perfect situations yet make no real effort to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Surely taxes are seen as a punishment so if we go for punishment should we punish those who save, give to charity, and volunteer; or should we punish those who show no real propensity or will to exist as much more than a ward of the state? We definitely need safety nets, but the safety nets need to be strict without being degrading. If you are in dire straits, there are things you can do to make yourself more marketable as a worker and productive member of society. There is no excuse to expect a free meal from the government. Your local soup kitchen should have more compassion should you continue making bad choices. Taxpayers need to seed government aid as an investment. Consider student loans. There are loans heavily subsidized by the government, but it's an investment because there will be a return with interest. I'm getting long-winded again so I'll boil it down. I don't like the idea of punishing anyone for their situation. Taxation should feel the same to someone who is wealthy as they do to someone who is not. Everyone should expect a certain percentage to be the government's. I do like the idea of giving incentives to those who are the leaders and volunteers and the charitable givers. I do not think it should be a tax relief, but I do feel it should be some form of significant standing. (which when you consider it, the government doesn't even need to give because most strong leaders and volunteers receive ten-fold the kindness and goodwill they share with others)

KC9DDI - June 11, 2004 I won't mention names or the location. But when you're either a witness or victim, you do not question that these things happen.

I think Social Security could be a great thing! That is if it was run as private accounts instead of a Ponzi scheme. It's really the role of churches and families and communities to pick up the disabled and downtrodden. What I mean is that ever since the New Deal worked for some short term successes and made some great and needed additions to infrastructure, we've had this mentality that the government can always just throw money at any problem and that will solve the problem. You're right though. Americans are perfectly happy to sit back and let their eyes glaze over. The debates on issues today revolve around how people are immediately effected by policy or issues. It's all very selfish and shows that we're the "best entertained and least informed" of any people in the world. When you add it all up, I'm appalled that a guy like JFK with the right idea of "What can you do for your country?" has given way to the idea that wins elections today, "What can your country do for you?" I don't think I'm unfair in saying that we've degraded to that level either. I think we all saw the Obama Zombies on the day after he won the presidency crying and exclaiming how they wouldn't have to pay for anything ever again... I'm proud that we're all part of a program that teaches the young men and leaders of the next generation of Americans self-reliance and to be the positive force for change in their communities who do not wait around for someone else or their government to make their community a better place to live in.

"Let constituents feel the real pain of what partisan inaction entails." How very compassionate of you... In the interest of keeping this short to avoid making anyone else's eyes glaze over. I'll put it simply. The policies undertaken by our government to recover the economy ever since the 1930's have led us to our current point. It is a wound, a big one. The FED has been acting like a bandaid with no disinfectant applied first. The wound is beginning to fester because the bandaid we applied was corrupt and infected because this type of bandaid will always be corrupt and infected. We cannot slowly peel this off, it needs to be in one swift movement which ends up hurting a little bit. We then can look at just how bad our wound really is. Odds are what we'll see is that no nation is meant to monopolize as much of the world's resources as "peacefully" as we do...

Beavah - The problem here is that we put value in two different things. The FED does a great job of maintaining the status quo and propping up our government. However, I do not value the bloated system of government we currently have. I'm a little more federalist and would much rather see the kind of spending and taxing going on at the federal level be pushed down to the individual states. I understand that social responsibility and compulsory taxation are what make our current society possible and that we would not be the nation we are today without the infrastructure a strong federal presence has granted us. However, the majority of the country agrees with me in saying that our government is doing too much and needs to shrink. The very fact that they cannot afford their own budget spending every year is evidence of this. The result is that we're buried in a debt none of us will see resolved in our lifetimes. The FED is unnecessary. Government was able to fund itself through excise fees, tarriffs, etc. with no income tax for most of our history. For them to be borrowing dollar for dollar with revenue is absurd! People in this country used to vote for federal projects and expansions with their pocketbooks and buy US Bonds themselves. The FED is enabling a grotesque form of government that most Americans today are not satisfied with, but are kept fat and happy enough by to resist revolt. You may hold the status quo on a pedestal all you want, but it's a populist horrific far-cry from the country we were intended to be. We become less American with each passing day as we become as well-sated as the folks in WALL-E (great movie I'd suggest for any Scout function) We may have avoided a Great Depression II, but we've inherited something far worse. We've inherited a system that is not entirely sustainable in the long term and have gone down the road of borrowing our way into poverty. The debt is climbing faster than the FED can devalue the currency. Our dollar will come to the point where it needs to devalue drastically in one fell swoop, instantly cutting the wealth of every American down to a mere fraction of what they currently have. The real tragedy is that it will be an instant transfer to pay the debts of our nation. The debt and unfunded liabilities of our government hang to the tune of $500,000 per household. The time will come when that debt will need to be called and every single American will lose wealth until that figure is paid. Could your family afford to give up $100,000 of wealth TODAY? The real crisis is not employment. The real crisis is not oil. The REAL crisis is what is going to happen to the US dollar...

@Chug - Yes... Unfortunately, the answer is definitely yes... It doesn't matter if the tent (or cold concrete floor of a basement) is crowded. It happens...

"Yah, yeh would think that under ordinary circumstances these fed tricks and TARP would be preposterous, and they sure make all of us angry. But then, under ordinary circumstances da events of 2008 would have led to cascading bank failures and a worldwide Great Depression 2. It still amazes me that didn't happen. Remember, we were on da gold standard and non-Keynsians in da 1930s. How'd that work out by comparison?" Between TARP and quantitative easing, it's become quite evident Bernanke is determined not to be the Fed Chairman who presided over the second Great Depression. The cost is that he will be the Fed Chairman who presides over the greatest rate of inflation and worst employment picture our nation has ever experienced. The way unemployment is measured today is almost criminal, because it vastly understates real unemployment. When someone loses their job today, they're staying unemployed even longer than during the Great Depression! The figures today don't even count these folks because they are assumed to have given up any hope of ever being employed again! There are kids leaving college right now who are realizing just how dim the employment picture is. The problem is systemic, and unless this nominee believes that the systemic problem is the Fed's meddling in and of itself, he will only contribute more to the problem. Inflation is not tied to employment as you suggested Beavah, it's tied to the money supply. What's appalling is that the debt ceiling has been skyrocketing and the Fed has been printing money and loaning money which increases the money supply and decreases the value of our money. Gas used to be worth $1/ gallon, today it is worth $4/gallon. This is not because gas is in any different supply or demand, this is because $4 today is worth what $1 was then! This is an outrageous tax on every single American who has their wealth invested in Federal Reserve Notes. The gold standard was not a cause of the Great Depression. What played a larger role in the Great Depression was the Central Bank, the FED! Because of the same policies that are used today in playing with interest rates, investment was made through debt and the money multiplier effect was shown to be the theoretical mess it really is. It looks great on paper and sounds good but creates the potential for bank runs and market crashes. What the Fed realized they have to do to prevent another Great Depression is devalue the currency, and they can only do that when the money is not tied to gold or silver or other standard of value. A Central Bank can only devalue currency and obliterate wealth effectively transferring all wealth from the private sector to the federal government when the Central Bank controls and monopolizes a fiat currency. Keynesian meddling with markets is the current problem bankrupting us. Laissez-faire Central Banking leads to Depressions. The only true answer to the problem altogether is to quit this hundred years experiment with Central Banking and return to the gold standard. I don't really support anyone being appointed to the FED I guess is the best way to put it. I support ending the FED all together! Edited to answer your question: It is not constitutional to allow a Senator to filibuster anonymously. Make him actually filibuster. That is constitutional and the parties are welcome to do that, including when debating appointments.(This message has been edited by BS-87)

Beavah - You'd be right if economics was like religion. It turns out theoretical institutions like the Keynesians are perpetuating the problems we have and that leads me to believe anyone who aspires to that school of thought would only continue feeding the problem. As it so happens, part of the problem with the FED is they have the audacity to think their short term fixes make for sustainable policy. They are just plain wrong in thinking they can create a healthy economy by artificially creating jobs or printing money by creating debt and devaluing the dollar (which is an apathy tax on every single American rich and poor). I'm sure this guy is great at playing with numbers in a vacuum or limited experiment, but I know with absolute certainty that any Keynesian economist will only perpetuate our current problems.

"Sounds like they wanted to limit the number of switch hitters on each team." *badum tish*

I say we don't need any more Keynesians on the FED board. We could probably use some appointments with folks more philosophically aligned with Austrian Economics. If we'd have had folks in there who recognized how quantitative easing is only exacerbating the difficulties in our economy and building us up for the biggest bubble burst yet (the dollar bubble...) we could have avoided the past bubble bursts like the housing bubble which led to banking bailouts (over 80% of which went to foreign banks) and the very soon up and coming education bubble. Let's get some Hayek thinking folks who aren't pompous enough to believe a central bank monkeying with the money supply and multipliers can effect private industry lagging indicators like unemployment.

Commissioner service is not a lost art! Our district is experiencing a lot of success with younger commissioners using the UVTS system faithfully. It makes our monthly meetings VERY easy!