kryo

The gold standard, where one dollar is supposidly backed up by one dollar worth of gold in a vault somewhere, was taken out during Nixon's presidency.. therefore it doesn't exist anymore. Did the "good Dr.", who happened to be a Gynacologist, nothing more then a mere nurse with a pair of cold spoons examing dirty vaginas all day, tell you that the gold is being backed up..?

I love pissing Ron Paul people off beyond all recognition because they are like the Jehova Witness's of politics - they never shut the **** up about there agenda. No one cares.

rmodel65

there is the problem, you have hit the nail on the head. the money is worth about as much as monopoly money! coming off the gold standard allows for no accountability if the govt neds money just print it, who cares if the money they print makes the money you have worth less

and im not gonna get mad[8D]

BAY68_347

Personally I am not offended by the political sigs. It takes a lot to offend me and that is not something I would bother getting worked up over.

But while we are off topic...
One thing that I find interesting is that when the US government "releases money" into the economy to stimulate economic growth, it does not actually physically print the money. The money is created by simply entering it into the books of banks and other financial institutions and we just believe it exists. When you step back and think about the balancing act that is upholding our economy, it is really quite amazing... and scary!!!
The days of gold and silver backing our greenbacks are long gone and now we just have to trust that Uncle Sam knows best and ignore the national deficit, the price of oil, the teetering housing market, the depressing plunging American dollar, the wars we are winning, and keep waving our flags because that is the patriotic thing to do.

Put a ribbon on your SUV!!!

andrewmp6

The political sigs dont bother me there on every forum im on even other car ones.

SalikDDD

i'm bothered by it. who cares who you want to win, i'm here for cars not politics :/

mustdoc

Real quick, a few gasoline fun facts:

> The term "real" in economics refers to "adjusted for inflation." A gallon of gas in 1965 may have been, say, 25 cents/gallon but, if adjusted for inflation, it would likely be over $3.00/gallon today (forgive me but I did not go to an infaltion calculator before this post to find out the correct amount - but you get idea.). Therefore, the "REAL" price of gas is likely in the 3 dollar range and is changed little, in REAL terms, from the 1960s... in fact, it may have actually become cheaper... in REAL terms.

The truth is that we in America have gotten spoiled over the decades because of cheap gasoline. Historically, our refining capacity has been the world's envy and crude oil was cheap. Today, our refining capacity has not grown comensurate with population growth and summer blends for some states have to be specially produced (e.g. CA). On top of this, crude oil prices have gone through the roof including all types from the light sweet crude (low sulphur content) to the less desirable forms. That is why the Canadian oil sands are becoming popular - the costs of oil extraction becomes competitive when US gasoline climbs over $3.20 or so a gallon. This is not political talk but automotive-related economic talk.

Here is an intersection of cars and politics:

> In a "true" democracy (please do not respond with "we live in a republic, not a democracy" - the fact is that we live in both - it is a democratic republic) there are no secrets withheld from the people because 'we the people' "are" the government. To maintain the strength of our democracy, our founding fathers charged us to become "an informed citizenery".

The question is how can we become truly "informed" when the government withholds information (i.e. secrets) from us?

Case in point as it relates to gasoline prices - at the beginning of the Bush administration VP Cheney held an "energy task force meeting" and invited all of the heads of the energy companies to meet behind closed doors. The VP has refused to disclose what was discussed at the meeting or even who attended. We know from former Secretary of the Tres. Paul O'Neil's book that Iraq oil was on the menu at the very 1st cabinet meeting (Cheney and Rumsfeld had the Iraq oil maps spread out over the table... before 911!) This energy task force summit meeting was funded with our tax dollars yet we are not entitled to learn anything about it?

Again, how do we follow the founding father's recommendation that we become "informed" when our VP will not allow us to know what his and the president's energy policy is all about? [fact: We do know that gulf coast states were screwed out of millions of dollars when the Dept. of the Interior did not enforce oil lease provisions - allowing oil companies to escape paying tens of millions of dollars to states like AL. TX, LA, FL (causing their state governments to shift the burden upon their citizens) for taking their oil.]

I am not a Democrat so spare me the partisan rhetoric. The truth is that we the people (Republicans, Democrats, Indies, Libertarians, etc.) cannot become informed even if we wanted to because our leadership does not allow it. We can only speculate as to what role the government had to play in rising gas prices and record profits for Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, etc... when we cannot learn what was discussed at the energy task force meeting.

That is why Ron Paul, a strict constitutionalist, is so refreshing - not because he has received more contributions from Military service men and women (he has), but as both a Mustang enthusiasist and US citizen I would love to be "informed" - to learn the unvarnished truth as to why our gas prices have shot up and why crude oil, which was relatively cheap at the beginning of the Bush-Cheney admin., has increased to such high levels over the past 7 years... after an energy task force meeting where such policy was discussed but not disclosed to us, the citizens of the US.

These guys are supposed to be "public servants" - instead they seem to be serving the needs of corporations, especially the oil companies. That is why politics are relevant to Mustang enthusiasists. It can affect the fluids that are cars need to operate.

To quote Emile Faber, "Knowledge is Good".

my77stang

psssst. did you guys know the federal reserve is even completely govt. owned?? thats right, its partially privately owned.

now thats scary.

oh yeah, and it costs us more tha .01 to manufacture a penny. wtf is wrong with this country?

RolandT3Speed

It's not the content of the sigs in this forum, it's the SIZE of the sig images that's really annoying.
The giant sig images are really disruptive to reading a thread.
I find it absurd that such large images are allowed here, but that's the rules so I don't complain.
I use the Firefox Adblock plug-in to block most of them.

JMD

I find it somewhat disturbing that when people go here or there, like in a forum, we are expected to leave our personal, political, and moral beliefs at the door.

While I am certainly not in agreement withof the diverse political views portrayed in different places, but the nature of our American system requires that we express our views.

While I am on the subject of politics,,

Is it politically correct for others to insist that I be politically correct?

mustdoc

The constitution protects both your right and mine to speak politically incorrectly!

Political correctness, in speech anyway, is nothing more than social or political pressure or recommendations to persuade you to adopt certain terms because they tend to be less offensive (e.g. African-American vs. Black, Disabled vs. Handicapped, Woman vs. chick, etc.).

I object to political correctness in many speaking situations because it is simply inaccurate - I have some "white" friends who were born and raised in Egypt (i.e. in Africa) but later immigrated to the US. - hence, aren't they are more African-American than many "blacks" who were not only born here in the US but are the products of mixed race relations and parents being of white European decent (Think of Thomas Jefferson and Strom Thurmond's mixed race children.). Furthermore, if you follow what evolutionary biologists tell us, the entire human race had its origins in Africa so aren't all US citizens, regardless of skin color and place of birth, African-Americans?