Fed Flame Fight Fanned with Financial Fanatics -Intellectual Debates

 

Intellectual Debates
Stephen Williamson
Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:10:00 GMT

In an earlier post, I discussed Ron Paul’s book, End the Fed. In the Fox News clip linked at the beginning of that piece, Ron Paul speaks approvingly of Robert Wenzel. He appears to know him, and seems to feel that Wenzel is some kind of representative of Paul’s in the "intellectual debate."
I was quite careful in my earlier piece to be up front about who I know, where I work, and my background. It seemed that, in arguments with people of a conspiratorial mindset, you want to be very clear and transparent. I expected I might get some flak from Wenzel, but the guy must be a little slow on the uptake. I have written two pieces on Ron Paul, including this one, one with Paul’s name in the title, and the recent one with the title of Paul’s book in the title. A little web cruising would pick that up in short order. Anyway, I actually had to email Wenzel to point the piece out, in order to get a rise out of him.
In any case, this thing is what Wenzel comes back with. So much for intellectual debate. Now, we’ll give Wenzel the benefit of the doubt and assume that he actually has some intellectual capacity. Everyone can learn. Here are some tips for him on intellectual debate:
1. Know your audience. If the audience is a group of 8-year-old boys, then photo-shopped Ben Bernankes with Federal Reserve notes coming out of their butts will go over great. Pornography typically does not go over so well with the intellectual debaters.
2. Know the things that are at the core of your argument. What’s at the core of Ron Paul’s argument is seignorage, but Paul clearly does not understand how to measure it. Neither does Wenzel. "Seignorage even has a Wikipedia entry. Start there.
3. There is no mileage in attacking people for being Canadian. Canadians are boring, shy, and quiet. Pointing out someone’s Canadianness won’t get you anywhere. Newfies, on the other hand, can be made the butt of jokes with impunity.
I have had some email contact with some other intellectual debaters, who I assume are readers of Robert Wenzel. Here is my good friend John Gonzalez:

Hey, I’m glad that you know some powerful people (I read your missive over at EPJ).
You are an idiot. You work with idiots. I look forward to you returning to Canada, you schmuck. You and your Federal Reserve will be going down in flames. You do not see it coming, but it is coming. Me, I saw this mess coming from a mile away, and made money shorting the S&P 500 with leverage back in late ’08. I retired after that (age 46), because I knew it was going to be a long-term mess, and I was happy to watch from the sidelines, until the storm blew over. Oh, by the way, the storm is just beginning, and will trough in 10 years or so. I’m a multimillionaire who rents his home (since ’04) because I knew that home prices would come crashing down. Dumbkopf Bernanke took a loss on his recent home sale, I vaguely remember.
Get some humility, idiot. You guys are blind, and you will be out of a job within the next few years. Oh, protect your family, by buying gold and silver bullion. I know you do not see its value and utility, but you will just have to trust me. John Gonzalez, La Jolla, CA. P.S. – I thought Wash. U. was a good school; I will revisit my assumptions, given that they have Bozos like you on staff. Univ. of Texas-Austin, BBA, ‘85, Univ. of Chicago, MBA, ‘92, LT, USN, ’85-‘90

And another good friend of fine, D. Sherman Okst:

People,(and I’m going on a limb whenever I associate that classification of species with economically inept imbeciles) like you should not teach. This statement is pathetic. NBER – the morons who called the largest recession (really a depression) 9 months late and then said it was over? 22% unemployment, 44 million on food stamps. I can only imagine they don’t know what Hedonics, a bogus deflator, and the rest of the BS that goes into cooking GDP a-la Enron are. And your proud of your association with them? Or those who have devalued our currency 96%. FYI – Getting a broom closet with no window is NOT something one should be proud of, it shows where you rank – even at the worst institution.

You can see the high intellectual plane we are working on here. Ron Paul claims to want an intellectual debate on the merits of central banking. Unfortunately, he seeks advice from some economists who claim to be the heirs of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, but who are actually disgruntled fringe economists – essentially quacks. Some of his supporters are confused and angry people who would benefit us all by directing their energies toward something more productive. Perhaps they could go back to school and learn some economics.

Advertisement