There are many reasons for vote for a particular candidate in an election. A short list would include abortion, education policy, fiscal responsibility, foreign policy, homosexual marriage, immigration policy, social service programs, war(s) and subcategories of these larger categories. Some people are driven to vote for a particular candidate because one or two issues matter most to them.
Do you place value in a particular issue that influences your vote? This year will you vote for a President (if an American) based on any particular issue(s)?
the archives near Emmaus 
Neither side is capable of doing anything new on abortion or homosexual marriage, nor probably immigration policy. Wars are nothing but gimmicks, and foreign policy is more or less code for war unless you mean foreign aide but I’ll lump that under fiscal responsibility, under which I will also lump education policy because the only thing the federal government should or has a constitutional right to do on that is stop wasting our tax money on it (its a state issue). Social service programs I will lump under fiscal responsibility. Its the ONLY issue that matters. They are BORROWING money from China on interest — we are paying the interest on the loans by our taxes — and then they are turning around and GIVING the money away in ‘foreign aid’ to other countries, including China the very country they borrowed it from to begin with. Excuse me, can I borrow some money from you on interest, and then give it right back to you, but continue paying the interest to you, please? Its insane. Any candidate who can articulate this and promise to end it should win automatically cough Ron Paul?
Yes, liberty and a free market economy… Better than poverty and oppression…
Eligibility.
(I’m not eligible to vote in the US, though I am elsewhere).
@ reyjacobs – Good to see another Ron Paul fan lol
@ Everyone else – Flat out I am voting for Ron Paul because of his platform. I honestly agree with about 80% of this stances which has NEVER happend for me. On the areas I disagree with him on I greatly disagree, but there is no other candidate that is out there that has articulated: Where we are at as a country?, HOW we got there?, WHY we are wallowing here?, and most important a plan to get us out. I think the number one issue for me is the corporatism in American politics that Ron Paul wants to end via ending the Federal Reserve which is a private bank owned by private bankers that control America fiscally and is not accountable to the America people. We don’t even know who really owns it yet they control interest rates, the monetary value, and the business cycle. We can’t fully audit them. The last partial audit focusing on the housing bubble shows they actually caused it in connection with wall street. I can go on but won’t for the sake a longer rant. Ending the FED is my biggest issue by these:
1. End the Fed
2. Repeal National Defense Authorization Act and the Patriot Act
3. Bring ALL (Iraq, Aghanastan, Japan, Germany and etc) troops home
4. End the War on Drugs
5. Institute laws against lobbying and special interests
6. Reinstitute Habeaus Corpus
well I can write more but I think thats enough. Sorry Brian! Appreciate the you blog and what you guys do
In the last November election, I pretty much voted Democrat straight across the board for local/state positions, not because I am a Democrat or think much of the Democrat platform, but because we have a strong Republican presence (in terms of money/power/influence if not necessarily seat count) that needed balance. Voting isn’t always about which person is better, but about what the region, be it city or nation, needs in that moment. Sometimes the system needs the candidate I like the least. Finally, our system is far to complex to vote for officials solely based on single issues. Yes, there are single issues that are important to me that weigh heavily in my decision making, but I try to keep the whole picture in mind.
What is insane is Ron Paul’s paranoid understanding of finance, in which the context is really: “we have to stop the Jewish bankers from giving money to colored people.”
Yes, China buys some US Treasuries, but so what? We borrow from a lot of countries and institutions, which are eager to buy government-backed debt because it is considered the safest investment on the planet. (That isn’t to say that we don’t have to better align revenues and expenditures, but the identity of the buyers of US Treasuries is not a big deal.)
The amount of foreign aid in the US budget is infinitesimal, and I doubt much of that small sum (if any) goes to China as aid. Certainly if you don’t like it it is your right to try to change that, but it has zero impact on the $14.5 trillion US economy.
Abolishing the Frederal Reserve would be like abolishing modern medicine and forcing doctors to go back to using leeches. It would essentially guarantee that any economic downturn turns into a global recession.
As an example: TARP was unpopular, but it literally saved the economy. Banks were failing in part because values of assets (such as mortgage instruments) were plunging due to a lack of liquidity in the financial markets.
(Let’s say Bank of America has a $100 million mortgage on its books on a Boston office tower. That loan is current and the building is full. What’s the value of the loan? $100 million? Not in a liquidity crisis, in which the average trading value of commercial mortgages is discounted by 50%. So the bank has a $50 million paper loss on a loan that has been and will be fully paid.)
The TARP program created a buyer for financial products, which stopped the irrational slide in asset values. Without a body such as the Fed that can take steps in a crisis, there is nothing
preventing 1929 from happening all over again.
Of course, it’s a lot easier and a lot more satisfying to shout slogans than to actually, like, know something about a complicated topic.
Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul?
Bondboy: he gets his economic knowledge from people like ludwig von mises and murray rothbard, both Jews. Do you really want to imply he is somehow an anti semite? Can you atleast crack open human action or man economy and state before blasting forth your ignorance?
Apparently you do have a third party. I was unaware of this party until now:
Roberth, so some of his best friends are Jews, is that what you are saying? Hahahaha.
Hey, how about you tell me why an economy based on the gold standard could recover from a liquidity crisis? Or explain the difference between fundamental and technical pricing. How does securitization thrive in a gold standard economy? I will wait for your reasoned reply.
@ Bondboy – I don’t actually don’t believe in the gold standard like Ron Paul does. Plus the gold standard has nothing to do with Ending the Fed. I think non debt fiate money like President Lincoln did in the Civil War with greenbacks and the colonies did with continental money before the American revolution is the answer. Also create legislation acts ending fractual lending by banks. Also legislation put into place that would only allow enough money to be printed as to ficilitate commerce. That would solve your liquidity problem. Why does the government need someone to print money and pay them with a profit to do with our tax money?
You say ending the fed would be like abolishing modern medicine? I’m sorry we will have to agree to disagree. Because I really don’t understand anyone who would trust a private bank with no accountability either to our government OR to the people. We don’t even know who owns it. We can’t even get a transparent audit of it like any other private corporation. The most criminal thing about is if you research it, the fed caused the great depression, the fed has caused every business cycle bubble and recession in America. You can see this by simply researching it and their policies. Almost every corporation that contributed to the Great Crack as my Globalization Professor calls it (the latest financial crisis) had either board members or high ranking officials also working for the Fed. That doesnt seem strange to you? They caused and then gave themselve a bailout. The fed is everything wrong with our political system today where corporations are too linked to influencing House Reps, Congressman, and the Executive Branch on economic and monetary policies. Your not defending chickens from a wolf by locking them in the chicken pen.
I can go on but honestly man I’m not simply voting for Ron Paul because a single issue. I have family in War right now I want them home. Who’s the only one trying to bring them home and end our warmongering foreign policy? My constitutional rights to habeaus corpus and a fair trial is being jeporadized by the Patriot Act and NDAA which no other candidate is talking about and Obama signed them into law. Or talking about how the War on Drugs has disimated the Black and Hispanic communities. You can collate the War on Drugs with fathers being absent more in Black and Hispanic communities. Yet your talking about “Jewish” and “Colored” priviledge bankers? I think I wrote enough and this will be last entry on this particular issue. Again will agree to disagree.
Bondboy: I can tell from the childish response in your opening line that you have no interest in serious discussion. I am willing to bet that you do not even know Austrian Business Cycle Theory or why all the Austrians, including RP, were calling the collapse years in advance.