HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Views? :
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 04:55:47 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.123301.14776@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>In article <#FT=a2-@engin.umich.edu> positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec15.193448.4741@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>>>
>>>2 - For a currency to be backed in oil.  You must have the right to trade
>>>both ways.  As one of the gold standard people said:
>>>$35 - gets a barrel of oil.
>>>a barrel of oil - gets $35.
>>>
>>
>>...and anyone who wants to convert a goodly sum of money has to bring a 
>>tanker truck. The whole *point* of a standard (or one of the points,
>>actually) is so that people who lack confidence in the issuing body can
>>easily convert money back and forth.
>>
>>-- 
>>__/\__  Jonathan S. Haas         | Jake liked his women the way he liked
>
>	Why is it that you time and time again refuse to accept the
>existence of commodity certificates and insist on pretending like people
>actual have to cary oil around. 

because if there is an economic or political panic, i want the stuff
with intrinsic value *in my hands*, not in my broker's safe. is that
so hard to understand? if i have ten pounds of gold (worth about $50,000
or so), i can stick it in a backpack and go wherever i want in the
event of an emergency. with oil i cannot do that.

when the bottom falls out, your broker is going to be the first one
in the breadline. i'd not trust my savings to his paper.

>Recently a large chunk of IBM was sold at
>the NYSE do you think that they picked up Poughkipse NY carried over to
>the exchange building on Wall Street and sold it?!

irrelevant.

>	Stop with silly tanker stuff.

only if you tell me how, after my broker stops answering his phone, and
after i decide i want to leave the country because of the riots, and
after the US dollar devalues by 90%, i am supposed to take my savings
out of the country *without* a tanker.

--
charles
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: jbn@photon.com (Joe Naiman)
Subject: Psephological journals
Organization: Photon Research Associates, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 20:44:41 GMT


Over the last few weeks, I've gotten into a discussion with some good
buddies on alt.politics.libertarian regarding the heterogeneity of
right-to-life activists, noting that Catholics were more likely than
evangelical Protestants to stomach a pro-abortion candidate and less
likely to consider certain victimless crimes immoral.  My thesis was
that anti-abortion blocs shouldn't be written off entirely by 
libertarian campaigns, but rather subdivided and right-to-life
"moderates" appealed to on common grounds.

I thought about explaining this in a libertarian publication.  However,
this is not the type of material which is normally published in Reason or
The Freeman.  Can anyone recommend a libertarian journal which would
publish campaign-oriented articles?

Thanks,


Joe Naiman

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: ian@nasser.eecs.nwu.edu (Ian Sutherland)
Subject: Private product evaluation agencies (was: Might be a FAQ)
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 19:54:27 GMT

In article <KNY=FC@engin.umich.edu> positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas) writes:
>This already *has* happened. Look at the Underwriters' Laboratories.
>Look at the Consumer's Union (and its publication, Consumer
>Reports). How many people base their decisions to buy a product
>based on what CU says about it in CR?

It's already happened for the sorts of products that these publications
cover.  The thread started out talking (among other things) about
things like drugs and medical treatments.  Can anyone think of any
problems that would occur if evaluation of medical treatments were
handled by such private companies?
-- 
Ian Sutherland
ian@eecs.nwu.edu

Sans Peur
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Gold Standard
Date: 3 Jan 1993 16:45:20 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1992Dec28.063235.4991@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>...  If there much more currency then
>gold, then the currency isn't really backed in gold.  You can't back 5
>trillion in dollars with 500 bil in gold.

I took a few minutes in the library to look up the article under Gold Standard
in the Encyclopaedia Americana.  One of the key points they made was that
currencies DID exceed gold reserves greatly.  Prior to 1914, the ratio was
about 20:1 in Great Britain.

Another interesting point was that the gold standard was adopted in 1821.
Prior to that, the world had operated on a silver standard from antediluvian
times.

And finally, the article pointed out that gold's price fluctates wildly
depending on world political stability.

I only had a few minutes to skim the article: but it convinced me that
currencies are quite a bit more complex than the simplistic libertarian
notions presented here.

Mike Huben

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
						George Santayana

"Those who misremember the past are pleased to repeat it as `proof'."
						Mike Huybensz
From: Harry.Johnson@launchpad.unc.edu (Harry Johnson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Buying Au
Date: 31 Dec 92 19:41:55 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <1992Dec31.172210.24278@athena.mit.edu> cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>In article <1992Dec30.223747.222@samba.oit.unc.edu> Harry.Johnson@launchpad.unc.edu (Harry Johnson) writes:
>>
>>I'm interested in buying gold, not in coin form, but in boullion.  I
>>called my bank today and they said that they don't sell gold except in
>>coined form .  I have a couple of thousand dollars that I'm interested in
>>converting and hoarding (i.e., I want it to be in my house, not in a vault
>>somewhere). 
>>
>>Where can a person buy gold in lump form?  Also, how much am I likely to
>>pay in taxes and commission?  Has anybody reading this group done this before?
>
>i've been looking into this as well, due to my concerns. why do you want
>bullion instead of coins? for a couple of thousand dollars you can only
>buy a few ounces. bars are more of a pain because they have to be assayed
>before they can be sold. coins are much simpler and are priced based on
>their gold content, not the face value. much easier to re-sell too, from
>what i have been told.
>

I thought (possibly mistakenly) that there is some significant charge
associated with having the gold in coined form; for example, assume 1 unit
of gold is worth $100.  If I bought 1 unit bullion, I would expect to pay
$100, while a coin containing the same amount of gold would cost
$100+<something>.  Is <something> in this case too small to worry about?

Also, as someone pointed out to me, it's really dumb to put on a public
forum a statement of the form "Hi, I plan to move my life's savings into
my house; any advice?"  For the record, I don't plan to put the gold in my
house, but in someplace where I can get to it without police, tax
collectors, etc. having access (in other words, not in a bank vault).

Harry 
--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:2925 talk.politics.medicine:431
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 02:47:45 GMT

In article <1h87cvINNhnd@transfer.stratus.com> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares) writes:
>In article <1992Dec20.140943.24362@samba.oit.unc.edu>, bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>
>> >}Rape is very different from most types of assault.  Assult is generally
>> >}directed against an individual, while rape is a crime directed against a
>> >}group.  Its the difference between murder and genocide.
>> >
>> >I'm not persuaded of this.  Individuals are always the victims.  In some
>> >cases, the motive may be hatred of all women, but in others it may be
>> >hatred of the particular victim.
>> 
>> Well the group of individuals that this tends to happen to see it as a
>> crime against their group rather than against themselves as individuals. 
>> Most crimologists agree.  Commonly rape is directed at strangers.  
>
>So is mugging, or burglary.  So what?  That doesn't make them "group 
>crimes."
>
>Is "spouse abuse" a "group crime?"
>
>Feminists are fond of saying, "Rape is not a crime of sex, but of violence."
>This means that rape (like torture) should be considered a subset of battery
>crimes.
>-- 
>
>cdt@rocket.sw.stratus.com   --If you believe that I speak for my company,

	I don't understnd what you mean by burglery, robbery...  beign
group crimes, however generally a thief has no interest in harming anyone,
their interest is in acquiring property.  Harming someone is just "part of
the job", if they do it all (which many won't).   Some are sadists though,
and get hit with robbery / battery counts, though this is really a
different crime.  The sadists probably have motives similar to the rapists
though. 
	As for rape being about violence and not sex; don't you agree with
this?  Most people who deal with rape at all seem to concur in this
opinion, in fact, most rapists are impotent.   

--JMB


Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan)
Subject: Re: Gold Standard? No!
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 20:07:43 GMT

cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>>bright@unlv.edu (Paul Conte) writes:
>>
>>>IF this ever happened, and currency became a private enterprise, would
>>>not the printing of more or less money STILL have an affect on the
>>>value of what I own?

>>Today you nearly demand that everybody be able to print money and that
>>we should all carry hunks of gold around.  Okay let's take the big step
>>backward and imagine that has happened.

>nice story, but not relevant, unfortunately.
>i don't think anyone is suggesting that we carry around sticks of gold
>and pencil sharpeners so we can shave off an apple's worth of gold
>at the grocery store.

Charles: Nice reply but not to what anybody was discussing <g>

What was being suggested was that "anybody" could print money and that
people would trade in whoever's currency they decided to invest in.

tom

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush
From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (Bill Stewart +1-908-949-0705)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: Mary Ellen Carter Salvage Crew
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:10:30 GMT
	<1992Dec16.205810.5848@samba.oit.unc.edu>
	<1992Dec21.041122.22091@athena.mit.edu> <BzM8BL.DCx@newcastle.ac.uk>

In article <BzM8BL.DCx@newcastle.ac.uk> Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
   Since many libertarians have nothing against private discrimination,
   that doesn't really surprise me.

As others have said, hold on just a minute there.
Most libertarians *I* know are against private discrimination in most
of the same areas the liberals I know are, but the difference is that
we think that initiating violence is wrong too, and therefore we
aren't going to hire a government to violently interfere with
individuals' non-violent behaviour.  Put more bluntly, if I don't have
the right to beat up somebody for (nonviolently) acting like scum,
then I don't have the right to tell the cops to beat them up for me.
Doesn't mean I don't think they're acting like scum.

(On the other hand, there are some of us who still DO act like scum....)

   [ why only feminism - don't other people have problems too ]

   So calling yourself a feminist means that you still think there's
   a problem to be solved, and (sometimes) that you're willing to try
   to do something about it.

Nicely put.
--
#				Pray for peace;      Bill
# Bill Stewart 1-908-949-0705 wcs@anchor.att.com AT&T Bell Labs 4M312 Holmdel NJ
# !egassem terces eht dnuof ev'uoY  !snoitalutargnoC 
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Date: Sun,  3 Jan 1993 15:42:26 -0500 
From: Andrew Lewis Tepper <at15+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Gold Standard

In one sense we have a gold standard: Private ownership of gold is
allowed. You may choose to keep your wealth either in gold or dollars. I
suppose it's not too farfetched to write contracts in terms of gold...

"I agree to write you a point of sale program on MSDOS. You agree to pay
me 12.75 ounces of gold."

The statement on currency "This note is legal tender..." would most
likely come into play only if one of the parties defaulted; They would
probably have to pay the judgement in dollars, but the amount would be
based on the value of the gold at the time.

Andy

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 04:42:35 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.025816.13817@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
}	I don't know what "flipping off" means, sounds like to make
}someone angry so I'm going to assume so and go on that (probably a local
}expression).

It's also called "giving someone the finger."  Raise your hand with the back of
it forward, make a fist, except for your middle finger, which you stick straight
out.

You never addressed the central issue: do you really believe
}that the catagory of actions described as Sexual Harrasment is just an
}immature person trying to get a dat; or instead a method of intimadating
}woman?  It comes down to this point.  Intimidation is not a vice, its a crime.

You've never described any particular action.  You didn't even provide the
definition or its criteria: "unwelcomeness" and "hostileness."  The first is
covered by property law, the second by tort.  You keep canting: "INTIMIDATION!
INTIMIDATION," but haven't explained what it is exactly that you're talking
about and why it must be criminalized.

I'm not familiar with any legal definition of intimidation, what right it
allegedly violates, or any positive law on the subject.  What is there in this
regard?

}Note I said that crimonologists agree.  so for that matter do ex-rapists,
}current rapists, people who exclusivly treat rapists; and everyone who has
}investigated this issue.  Do you really think its about sex?

I don't know.  You've neglected to cite any specific evidence thus far, and
I don't know of any to support either claim.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Date: 22 Dec 1992 23:12:31 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <1992Dec20.140943.24362@samba.oit.unc.edu>, bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:

> >}Rape is very different from most types of assault.  Assult is generally
> >}directed against an individual, while rape is a crime directed against a
> >}group.  Its the difference between murder and genocide.
> >
> >I'm not persuaded of this.  Individuals are always the victims.  In some
> >cases, the motive may be hatred of all women, but in others it may be
> >hatred of the particular victim.
> 
> Well the group of individuals that this tends to happen to see it as a
> crime against their group rather than against themselves as individuals. 
> Most crimologists agree.  Commonly rape is directed at strangers.  

So is mugging, or burglary.  So what?  That doesn't make them "group 
crimes."

Is "spouse abuse" a "group crime?"

Feminists are fond of saying, "Rape is not a crime of sex, but of violence."
This means that rape (like torture) should be considered a subset of battery
crimes.
-- 

cdt@rocket.sw.stratus.com   --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR cdt@vos.stratus.com        write today for my special Investors' Packet...

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Gold v. Oil: Backed Currency
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 08:35:32 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.042949.10541@pegasus.com> tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>>Unfortunately, the government insists that I pay my taxes in dollars, and
>>the storekeeper on the corner won't accept a fistful of yen.
>You convert some of your assets into something that both parties to the
>transaction agree upon.

As I pointed out earlier, there are things called sales taxes and income taxes
(and others) which interfere if you try converting your dollars to something
such as gold when you store them.
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu, arromdee@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (Bill Stewart +1-908-949-0705)
Subject: Re: Views? :
Organization: Mary Ellen Carter Salvage Crew
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 22:11:55 GMT
Keywords: currency  oil, cordwood, etc.
	<1992Dec16.142218.18962@samba.oit.unc.edu>
	<1992Dec28.051208.5339@athena.mit.edu>

In article <1992Dec28.051208.5339@athena.mit.edu> cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
   [various other posters]
   >>If you convert your "oilbucks" to futures contracts on the exchange, then
   >>you're withdrawing your faith in the government, but taking faith in
   >>the commodity exchange. If said exchange folds up, you're up a creek...

On the other hand, if your oilbucks are contracts with an oil warehouse,
certifying that they really *have* N specific liters of oil with your
name on them, or N liters of oil which they won't make loans against,
it's a different case.  Sure, they could embezzle the oil, or have a fire,
but you can buy insurance against that.  Unlike a futures exchange, 
you probably have to pay THEM to store the oil.  Or you could deal in
oilbucks which have a limited form of futures contract, where any oil
loans they make are collateralized, or whatever.

There was a story on National Public Radio a few months back about
some folks in Vermont who are trying community-based commodity money systems,
where the main currencies are cordwood and farm produce.
They're rediscovering things like how to work with future value and
non-fixed-value money, and they're mainly doing it for friendly
liberal reasons like keeping jobs in their communities and having good
relationships with their neighbors and such, and it seems to be working ok.
(I'm waiting to see if there will be a followup story next April 15,
describing how they paid their taxes in the same cordwood they earned :-))

   >happens, to quote a Russian proverb, "you can't eat gold".
   no, but you can barter with someone who has wheat,
If there's a major economic collapse, it's still true - if you can't
convince a farmer to part with the little grain he has after the wheat
crop failed, your gold isn't worth much, or is at best worth much less
than the stuff you traded to get it.  However, without the benefits of
Socialist Agriculture, we don't have a major risk of famine here,
unless Our Leaders somehow manage to get into a nuclear war.

As far as minor economic collapses go, my gold's worth about 2/3 of
what it was when I acquired it :-(

   is that really so complicated?
   it has been that way for thousands of years.
   meaningless fiat currency is a recent invention.

Foo.  It wasn't new when the Roman Emperors were debauching the currency,
though it's still certainly much easier to do with paper money than metals.

--
#				Pray for peace;      Bill
# Bill Stewart 1-908-949-0705 wcs@anchor.att.com AT&T Bell Labs 4M312 Holmdel NJ
# !egassem terces eht dnuof ev'uoY  !snoitalutargnoC 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Might be a FAQ
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 04:23:39 GMT

In article <1992Dec25.204128.5929@eecs.nwu.edu> ian@nasser.eecs.nwu.edu (Ian Sutherland) writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.235101.25162@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Stefan.M.Gorsch@dartmouth.edu (Stefan M. Gorsch) writes:
>>Essentially, then, the libertarian position seems to be caveat emptor.
>>While this may have been reasonable in the good ol' days of snake oil
>>and "patent medicine" it is clearly (to me, at least) inappropriate to
>>the current epoch. Today both entrepeneurs and mass marketers are far
>>too adept at manipulating the media to create consumer demand for a
>>variety of useless (or worse) products. In the case of medicine, the
>>average consumer (even the sophisticated consumer) clearly does not
>>have the resources to evaluate the safety and efficacy of
>>pharmaceutical health claims.
>
>This is certainly true.  Is it possible, however, that, in a
>Libertarian society, private evaluation companies would come into
>existence?  Average consumers could pick and choose among such
>evaluators, and base their judgements on their evaluator's reports.
>I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts about (1) whether this
>would actually happen or not, and (2) what problems might still exist
>if it did happen.

I think that evaluation companies would happen--in the US, there's one
fairly popular magazine (_Consumer Reports_) devoted to reviewing
consumer products. (It doesn't take advertising.) There are also
a great many specialized magazines that review computers, or cars
or whatever. 

Some possible problems would be that no one has a good enough testing
system yet, though this would be a problem even if the government
were doing the testing.

A lot of people don't think of doing their own evaluation as a normal
activity. (I blame a lot of this on schooling as it's usually done--
there's no encouragement for using your mind to make decisions that
are important for you.) On the other hand, I assume that conventional
scientific testing will continue to exist, and if some people decide
to just trust that, they won't be worse off than they are now.

People will _know_ that a lot of their decisions in areas where 
knowledge is incomplete (like medicine) are partly guesswork, and
this will be stressful. I'm hoping that the gain in truth and
responisibility will be worth it, though.

Thanks for the polite question.

Nancy Lebovitz
nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu


Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:2867 alt.politics.clinton:18985 alt.politics.bush:14823