You might be correct on that I wouldn't know, but as I said, it doesn't matter, unless somebody figures out how to capture it and bring it to earth. Gold in any quantity somewhere in the universe, or on earth but unobtainable, is totally beside the point.

A bet you would almost certainly lose...

If gold ever becomes unlimited it will become far less valuable per ounce (simple law of supply and demand, Econ 101) and would would lose the potential to serve as backing for monetary systems.

Not that it matters, but I'm betting the "aforementioned asteroid" is a myth.

the supply is severely restricted

For now. It is only restricted by technology. What happens if gold becomes unlimited?

There are insane amounts of gold in the ocean, the deep crust of the earth and the aforementioned asteroid.

Not strictly true. Gold is valuable because the supply is severely restricted. Nobody has ever succeeded in reducing its value by greatly inflating the supply. Money is valuable because (so far at least) people are willing to accept it in trade, but whenever its supply becomes unlimited (Venezuela, Zimbabwe) the value disappears.

I don't know much about Bitcoin, but I've heard it is also very hard to 'inflate'.

What you fail to realize is gold is valuable for the same reason fiat currency is valuable for the same reason bitcoin is valuable: Belief. There is nothing magical about gold other than it's shinny and people like to wear it...

The fact that you measure the amount of mined gold in existence in dollars (as opposed to units of weight or volume) is revelatory of why you apparently fail to recognize the role that gold could play in maintaining a stable currency (precluding monetary inflation) OR (more likely) perhaps that you object to our economy being forced to maintain a stable currency, recognizing that currency inflation is actually a tax on the nation's savings, and knowing that low-earning people mostly have no savings to tax.

There is about $7.5 trillion of mined and accounted for gold world wide. There are about 18 trillion US dollars alone in circulation. Then everyone else's currency on top of that. At best you are going to get a tiny fraction of gold per dollar or raise the price of gold to match currency volume and make gold's most common use, trinkets to adorn people, unaffordable to most as well as push up the price of certain electronics, one of the few practical uses of the stuff.

Then there is an asteroid called 16 Psyche in our solar systems asteroid belt that has an estimated $26 quintillion worth of gold as well as much greater amounts of nickel and iron. It's the nickel and iron that's the true value. Huge amounts of metal without launch costs. The gold (as well as platinum) is just the cherry on top. We are sending a probe to investigate that scheduled to launch next year...

Ya, that ship sailed.

The "dedication to the gold standard" is simply a dedication to sound money (as opposed to money subject to perpetually decreasing value, such as we have.) Neither "quaint" nor "wacky", and you may live to see the downsides of the alternative.

Not sure what to make of your "freedom to feed donuts to bears" thing. We actually have that 'freedom' where I live, but it doesn't play much of a role in most people's lives.

I would call the dedication to the gold standard long after that ship has sailed quaint more than wacky but mostly it's the practical applications on the rare times Libertarians get a chance. Lots of humorous individual freedom situations that in a vacuum seem reasonable but when evaluated to the longer term for the entire society become wacky. My favorite is the freedom to feed donuts to bears...

What I find most interesting about Antifa is that the only proof of them actually existing comes only when they choose to target D-List conservatives who just happen to be promoting new books! You never hear of Antifa groups making public statements to the news media on matters that have national consequences, but amazingly they have local chapters that pop up with websites in most smaller communities that have colleges willing to host these D-List Conservatives on book tours! Even stranger is that those Antifa websites disappear soon after the book tour ends! Now I am not suggesting that these Conservatives (many of whom have been busted creating fake videos meant to fool the viewer into believing their false claims against Liberals in the past) are seeking free publicity by staging the protests of their own book tours — I am flat out saying that they are behind it! They know rightwing media just LOVES any story about mean lefties trying to destroy America and will publish it with very little scrutiny to the accusations being made.

Antifa — hoping to silence a conservative speaker that no one has really heard of and who cannot get any publicity for their upcoming book tour except on the most fringe rightwing outlets — decides to protest the nobody, thus giving them free world wide publicity and notoriety as a result! You might think Antifa would realize that they are only giving the person (they supposedly want to silence) MORE of a voice capable of reaching far more people than if they did not get involved...but strangely Antifa never seems to get that message.

Sorry, absolutely no "wacky" nor "bad shit crazy left-of-field" ones whatsoever.

(I'm loathe to get very involved with debating pure political/ideological differences, but I'm curious what it is you find within libertarianism that you feel fits that description, if you'd care to cite some of them - Thanks in advance.)

CRS

Not so much your opinion of the matter than the broad brush of generalization you wish to paint the entire left. You have directed an accusation of the entire left against a small subset of the left that least resembles the accusation. In other words you have mentioned being somewhat libertarian. Should I find all the wacky libertarian ideas and assume you strongly believe in every one? Cause' libertarians have some alluring ideas but also some bat shit crazy left of field ones as well...

I was disappointed, but I got it — they had kids and families with social lives that they would rather focus on than our national politics! I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, “Both parties are corrupt and filled with liars,” when I tried to talk about current issues. They were just too busy to invest any time into being bothered by politics. They have careers, as do their spouses. Most have 2 or 3 kids who are involved year long in sports, music programs, drama, or some other extracurricular activity. They are involved in their churches, members of civic organizations, and still enjoy having time to read a book or two (or binge-watch Netflix series and follow NASCAR if we are talking about my Mom’s side of the family). My point is this: They do not pay close attention to politics because they have plenty of other things to focus on that are a far more enjoyable way to spend their time than diving into politics.

And then the pandemic struck and the country came to a screeching halt! Growing up, we ate “home cooked meals” as a family maybe a dozen times a year. None of those occurred in our own home...they all occurred when we traveled to see the grandparents. My family, that used our home in such a limited fashion that it was just a place to use the bathroom and sleep, suddenly was home ALL THE TIME! When you are used to being always on the go...standing still can be a difficult change to your system. Boredom can drive a person crazy... or drive a person TO crazy. My family — that never watched FoxNews unless we were visiting the grandparents — suddenly got into politics and started watching FoxNews every night because they had nothing else to do! This has caused them to “get into” politics for the first time ever — and without any of their normal outlets to focus all of their energy and passion into, they have focused it all onto the GOP and Trump!

I do not blame them for not realizing that they are being used and lied to by the GOP. The GOP have become masters of using propaganda to get their base to do their will. Fortunately, January 6 was a big wake up call to most of them that Trump was not who they thought he was. They disapproved of the attacks on the Capitol, but they still buy into the thought that the election had issues that need to be addressed.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that things in their lives are picking back up. Restaurants are opening back up, sports leagues are starting to meet, and they are free to leave their homes again! I can only pray that their interest in politics will go back to what it used to be. Seeing photos of them at Trump rallies — like photos of them in parachute pants and with mullets — hopefully will soon be embarrassments that they try to bury from anyone ever seeing!

If not ever perceiving a reason for changing my mind constitutes an "obsession", then I guess I'm obsessed, but I certainly do not bring up the subject with any frequency approaching that of Don with his favorite theme.

However, the best part of any political dispute is the opportunity to say "TOLD YA SO", so I'm not likely to forget it anytime soon.

Trump isn't newsworthy anymore. He's done lasting damage to our Country but he's not done trashing the Republican Party. With rare exceptions (see Cheney, Liz) Repugs remain simply terrified of Trump's supporters and don't have the gumption to usher Trump off the political stage, stage right, of course.

Whatever some in the right-wing alternative universe media may say, I can definitely see Trump announcing a 2024 run not because he wants to be President again (ain't gonna happen) but rather simply to grift more money from the rubes.

And it's likely that at least some New York State indictments will have been handed down by then. Dollars to donuts Trump will play the "The deep state is out to get me" victim card.

You do realize your russiagate obsession is approaching par with Don Harris and his OD obsession, right?

Most reports I have read say the Trump administration tried to enlist Russian help but the Russians were: no thanks, were good. So maybe you need to define what you mean by "your team"...

Haha! That's a Snark of the Day award for you, buddy!

Regarding Trump Stormy may yet face charges of Inciting an Inch Erection.

My favorite part of the Russiagate hoax was the lengths your team went to to prove that Trump had secretly enlisted Russian help in hacking the emails of the DNC and of Hillary, AFTER the orange moron had done that very thing ON NATIONAL TV, fer gawdsake!!

Our friends at The Lincoln Project weigh in.

You have a bizarre obsession with russiagate. We have all read the reports and understand them, have you?

As for virus lab-leak theory, I've read quite a bit on this, what conspiracy crazyness are you peddling here?

You are SUCH a fruitPIE!

Heh.

most of us love our country more than we dislike trump, so there's no cause to mourn. and it's fruit PIE guys, thank you very much. ;)

JL

But... I think that speaks well of my ability to filter the man out of my consciousness almost completely by now.

It certainly does!

Just don't let him sneak up on you when you're not looking...

When a tree falls in the forest, but none of the millions in the forest is listening for that fall anymore, does the tree make a noise?

When it comes to you know who, I think the answer is a resounding YES! But, I don't think that is the right analogy, anyways. In any event, if millions ignore him, there are millions who don't. Ignore him at all of your peril, in other words.

As for finding peace, that happened for me the moment I knew Biden was elected president. In fact, I no longer feel the urge or necessity to engage in US political affairs, including of a foreign nature! My long held interest in US foreign policy was what lead me to Biden in the first place way back in the late eighties.

But, I just can't quit this place and all my friends like you, even if my non-brief contributions here are a thing of the past. :)

W had 8 years for his troubles to come back and bite him, in spite of significant 2nd term course correction. thankfully donald's failures hit soon enough to prevent a second term. but one of the consequences of biden's success is that there's less of donald's leadership to hate, and therefore less movement in public opinion. not to mention that W never really had a cult of personality the way donald still does.

of course, there's no cult of personality like the cult of pie, which is always worth reporting on, repeating and mentioning.

mince and cheese pie. viennese pie.

alevropita. galatopita.

chiffon pie. parmesan pie.

grasshopper pie. apple cobbler pie.

ice cream pie. rice dream pie.

cherry pie. berry pie.

peach pie. quiche pie.

meat pie. sheet pie.

low-carb pie. rhubarb pie.

prawn pie. pecan pie.

pork pie. torte pie.

succotash pie, baby smash pie,

chocolate mousse pie. grapefruit juice pie.

key lime meringue pie, orange tang pie,

tourtiere pie, kiwi pear pie,

turkey-quail pie, steak & ale pie,

chicken pot pie.

got pie?

get edible.

JL

Great comment!

Republicans and their sleazy news outlets are stealing this from Orwell’s Animal Farm....which I mostly remember from 8 th Grade English.

Although I don't watch TV, I check the CNN news feed twice daily. I was sure you were off base in claiming that the former president remains omnipresent on CNN, because that wasn't my impression at all.

So I went over to check and hey! There he is, leading three or four stories at the top of the screen, though not the major headline ones. I was wrong and you were right.

But... I think that speaks well of my ability to filter the man out of my consciousness almost completely by now. As I noted in my first comment, I wonder how many other people have found peace (relative to the world at large) by doing the same? And what does that say about the effectiveness of judging a politician's national impact just by counting media appearances or tweets.

When a tree falls in the forest, but none of the millions in the forest is listening for that fall anymore, does the tree make a noise?

I believe that Stormy Daniels coined that phrase.

How many people voted for him in 2020 and what percentage of those voters believe that the election was stolen from Trump?

How much shrinking can he do if he is the Republican nominee in 2024?

And, granted, I don't watch a lot of American broadcast news but, Trump certainly is still front and center in almost everything I see and hear on CNN. I doubt it's much different anywhere else.

One note grabbed me: your casual reference to "the 80 million followers he used to connect with on a daily basis just on Twitter alone." That rang weird to me, as I am not on Twitter myself, and regularly read various 'reality-check' comments from analysts reminding us that Twitter is a limited and fairly exclusive platform, used actively by relatively few Americans. But among whom are all the political and entertainment media writers, who consequently way overestimate the site's importance in the national consciousness.

Here's the comment I just dug up when I wanted to see where that huge 80 million figure came from.

"First, we often hear that Trump has 80 million followers. But is that really the case? According to analytics from the Fake Followers Audit, 70.2% of his followers are fake, which is defined as 'accounts that are unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets (either because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter).'

"That’s not especially unusual among high-profile tweeters. For instance, 43% of former President Barack Obama‘s 118 million followers are fake. But it’s important to understand that Trump has about 24 million followers, not 80 million. That’s a big difference." (Blog DanKennedy.net, 5/28/20)

So here's another example of how the ghost of presidents past is still haunting us: he has a reputation for dominating the media that far outweighs how much he actually dominated the media - because he dominated the messengers far more than he dominated the audience that was actually out there.

For instance, not being a fan [ahem], I regularly ignored any stories about him that didn't directly affect national security or his chances of being defeated in 2020, and when I heard his voice on the radio I immediately changed the channel; I blocked any links to his image that appeared on my Facebook newsfeed. I don't think I was alone in developing these coping strategies.

The other thing that occurred to me as you plotted out his steady future diminishment ('incredible shrinking ... - excellent gag!) is that you don't mention at all his increasing legal and financial liabilities. I'm not sure how an indictment or two, or a loan default or two, would affect his comeback plans or the loyalties and beliefs of his still-solid base. Maybe he would play the victim card from a new suit just as (as you say) the power of the "I wuz robbed" suit is fading. Or maybe the reality check of an actual indictment listing crimes and victims, or a loan suit listing liabilities that far outweight assets, would disillusion and shrink his not yet incredible shrinking base. What do you think of that side of his current trajectory?