We win - they lose!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

We win - they lose!

Don’t let the other guys pick the Republican candidate that they want to run against the President in 2012. The media is already picking the winner and the losers on the Republican side. The media is already saying that the two Republican front runners are Mormon, implying that there is something wrong with that! The President’s men and the Liberal pundits are already using their code words to disqualify each Republican candidate. One term that is now being used by Bernard Whitman, a Democratic Political Strategist, is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Snow White being Mitt Romney.

The president spoke tonight and he laid out his plan for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. The President is using this particular topic, at this particular time so that he can make the news and say that I won the day. However, the script he chose tonight and when ever he speaks has never included the words we win – they lose. The United States will now, as the President said, depend on International Coalitions to fight the wars. Who wins and who will lose?

If we look at the war in Afghanistan as a three legged stool; the first leg is the Military, the second is the Karzi government and the third is Pakistan. He is dealing with the first leg by troop reduction. Our military heads oppose the reduction now, because what we have achieved is fragile. The Karzi government is one that is fraught with corruption and Pakistan has demonstrated on many occasions that they are not a true ally and that they will go against our interest. How many years was Bin Laden living in the fortress he built un-detected and/or ignored by a government that harbored him? What has the president done to get the answers and enact the penalties that should be invoked against Pakistan? How do we win? This President does not want to win. By pushing ahead we are saying that we have won by pulling out.

The Democrats on the debt ceiling team, headed up by Vice President Joe Biden, are pushing for new spending. They feel that if you want to get people working again you must spend more money. This is nothing more than new stimulus measures to the debt talks this is just more of the same. How do we win?

What needs to be done is to have a balanced budget amendment come out of this team by 2013. Eliminate the corporate income tax on the basis that it is a double tax. We must seriously cut spending, not talk about raising spending limits. There has to be real movement to enact responsible entitlement reform. Reduction in the Federal Footprint or, in other words, Federal involvement in every aspect of our lives is the real starting point to reform.

Provide certainty to the investment markets, real estate markets and consumer markets. You do this through a reformed energy policy and elimination of the income tax with a consumption tax. A fair tax would promote taxes through the notion of fairness and saving.

Lastly, we must insist on a full audit of The Federal Reserve. We must also insist that the President’s “Black Budget” of 30 to 50 billion dollars be publically disclosed and eliminated. Why on earth does the President or any President need to have 30 to 50 billion dollars to spend with no accountability? This is how you start the reform.

The world seems like it is up for grabs. The United States seems like it is up for grabs. The reason why it might be is that it seems we are weak and, until that changes everything is up for grabs. The United States will now, as the President said, depend on International Coalitions to fight the wars. Who wins and who will loose?

On this date, in 1775, the Continental Congress issued the first Continental Currency!

After the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, the Continental Congress began issuing paper money known as Continental currency, or Continentals. Continental currency was denominated in dollars from 1/6 of a dollar to $80, including many odd denominations in between. During the Revolution, Congress issued $241,552,780 in Continental currency.
Continental currency depreciated badly during the war, giving rise to the famous phrase "not worth a continental". A primary problem was that monetary policy was not coordinated between Congress and the states, which continued to issue bills of credit. "Some think that the rebel bills depreciated because people lost confidence in them or because they were not backed by tangible assets," writes financial historian Robert E. Wright. "Not so. There were simply too many of them." Congress and the states lacked the will or the means to retire the bills from circulation through taxation or the sale of bonds.

Another problem was that the British successfully waged economic warfare by counterfeiting Continentals on a large scale. Benjamin Franklin later wrote:

“The artists they employed performed so well that immense quantities of these counterfeits which issued from the British government in New York, were circulated among the inhabitants of all the states, before the fraud was detected. This operated significantly in depreciating the whole mass.”

By the end of 1778, Continentals retained from 1/5 to 1/7 of their face value. By 1780, the bills were worth 1/40th of face value. Congress attempted to reform the currency by removing the old bills from circulation and issuing new ones, without success. By May 1781, Continentals had become so worthless that they ceased to circulate as money. Franklin noted that the depreciation of the currency had, in effect, acted as a tax to pay for the war. In the 1790s, after the ratification of the United States Constitution, Continentals could be exchanged for treasury bonds at 1% of face value. Continental bills are now very rare, and are sought after by collectors.
After the collapse of Continental currency, Congress appointed Robert Morris to be Superintendent of Finance of the United States. Morris advocated the creation of the first financial institution chartered by the United States, the Bank of North America, in 1782. The bank was funded in part by specie loaned to the United States by France. Morris helped finance the final stages of the war by issuing notes in his name, backed by his own money. The Bank of North America also issued notes convertible into specie.

The painful experience of the runaway inflation and collapse of the Continental dollar prompted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to include the gold and silver clause into the United States Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit, or "make any thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."

I had written earlier in the week that we have 235 plus years of experience and history to tell us what works and what doesn’t work. Our early founders knew that you must back up the money you have with something tangible and not live on the credit you think you have. The founders knew that a sustained projection of power is important when dealing with an adversary or an ally. This is how we win.

The new Republican standard bearer must speak in terms of how to win and make the other guy lose. We must not be afraid to speak in these certainties nor must we ignore the purpose of winning!

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: Speaking solely in a partisan way, the candidate that speaks from the position of strength and the candidate that calls the other guy down will win and when that is accomplished the other side loses!