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Guest Post: The Bill Clinton Myth
Submitted by James E. Miller of the Ludwig von Mises Institute
The Bill Clinton Myth
Earlier this week, former U.S. president Bill Clinton gave the keynote address to the Democractic National Convention in an effort to lend some of his popularity to Barack Obama. With the unemployment rate still stubbornly high at 8.1%, Obama has lost many of the enthused voters who put him into the Oval Office in 2008. Clinton was tapped to deliver the speech not only because of his image of a wonkish pragmatist but because of his presiding over the booming economy of the late 1990s. Like a prized mule, Clinton was dragged out to give Democrats someone to point to and say that his policies were the hallmark of smart governance.
What attracts the left, both politicians and media, to Slick Willy is the fact that he presided over a thriving economy even while raising taxes. This coincidence was championed as a justification for higher tax rates by Obama in his own speech before the DNC.
I want to reform the tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 – the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot.
The Clinton-era tax hikes, it is alleged, provided the federal government the means to create a healthy middle class. Or at least that’s the only casual connection that can be gathered from such a philosophy. The left claims that economic growth is driven primarily by middle class spending. This spending needs to be subsidized in turn by government initiatives. As Nobel Prize winning economist and class warrior Joseph Stiglitz puts it:
Many at the bottom, or even in the middle, are not living up to their potential, because the rich, needing few public services and worried that a strong government might redistribute income, use their political influence to cut taxes and curtail government spending. This leads to underinvestment in infrastructure, education, and technology, impeding the engines of growth.
Stiglitz’s thinking rests on the Keynesian theory that economies are reliant on strong levels of consumption and demand. And with the right people in office, the state is the most capable institution of spending a nation into prosperity.
However this is a misunderstanding of the difference between spending by private individuals and political spending. Government is incapable of being run like a business. Enterprise is based off the principle of satisfying voluntary patrons with no guarantee of success. Even in a hampered market economy where corporations receive special privileges via the state, the consumer remains the kingmaker. On the other hand, government receives all income through coercive measures. Profit and loss accounting is of little concern when losses are borne by the taxpayer and profits are immediately devoted to political projects. Should the public Treasury run low, tax collectors can be sent forth to shakedown the unpresuming citizens.
When it comes to rational economic calculation, public officials need not worry about spending money effectively. To attribute increased revenue being taxed away from the private economy with robust growth misconstrues how wealth is created. Government doesn’t create wealth; it merely transfers it between parties. Similarly, it only consumes capital that has already been produced. Because society existed before the state and because the state functions off of what it pilfers from society, public expenditures do not add to net wealth. In order for one tax dollar to be spent, it has to be first taken from the pocket of a taxpayer. Whatever subjective desires could have been achieved by that dollar become overridden to satisfy the whims of the political class.
As journalist of the old right Garet Garrett wrote in his vital essay “The Revolution Was”
If you raise agricultural prices to increase the farmer’s income the wage earner has to pay more for food. If you raise wages to increase the wage earner’s income the farmer has to pay more for everything he buys. And if you raise farm prices and wages both it is again as it was before. Nevertheless, to win the adherence which is indispensable you have to promise to increase the income of the farmer without hurting the wage earner and to increase the wage earner’s income without hurting the farmer. The only solution so far has been one of acrobatics.
The money distributed by politicians and bureaucrats is forever stained with previous sin. The fact that the economy didn’t stagnate under higher taxes during Clinton’s term in office doesn’t demonstrate that taxation has no harmful effects. Economies aren’t closed experiments where one variable can be introduced and the effects observed. There are far too many factors at play. Concrete theories based off certain truths must be applied in such a way to interpret date and wring sense out of it. Good economic conditions weren’t a result of heightened taxes but instead prevailed in spite of them. While the productivity gains from the newly widespread use of personal computers and the internet had a positive effect on growth, another factor often goes unmentioned. The later-half of the 1990s may be looked back upon as golden years but much of the gains experienced by the stock market were not representative of organic growth. A significant amount of investment came not from natural causes but from monetary manipulation by the Federal Reserve. See the following chart for the year-over-year percentage of growth of the M2 money supply.

As Pace University professor of economics Joseph Salerno writes:
In 1992 and 1993, the Fed gunned the money supply increasing it at double-digit annual rates in an attempt to propel the economy into a more expeditious recovery. In 1994, the Fed reversed course and held the monetary growth rate at low levels through 1995. In 1996 it did another about-face and substantially increased the pace of monetary inflation through 1999. Just as the Austrian business cycle theory predicted, real private investment soared from a low of 12 percent of GDP in 1991 to an unprecedented high of 20 percent of GDP by mid-2000 with a pause in the tight money years 1994-1995.
…like the stock bubble, the investment bubble was driven by monetary inflation and doomed to collapse whenever Greenspan decided that the economic data were signaling impending price inflation and slammed on the monetary brake. This occurred last year (2000) when consumer price inflation shot up to nearly 4 percent per year and jolted Greenspan and the FOMC into raising short-term interest rates. Indeed the money supply actually shrunk by $20 billion and its annual rate of growth (year over year) plummeted from an average of 6.23 percent for the period1996-1999 to -1.24 percent in 2000.
This monetary tightening devastated the New Economy and the NASDAQ tanked, falling by over 50 percent from its high in March 2000. But, even more importantly, it also brought the investment boom in the real sector of the economy to a screeching halt.
Like the decade that preceded the Great Depression, productivity gains which drove consumer prices downward masked the amount of monetary stimulus being pumped into the economy. When the bubble collapsed, Greenspan once again turned to the printing press to bail himself out. Instead of causing a bubble in the tech sector, the burst of inflation made its way into the housing sector. By the time the housing bubble popped, Greenspan left the chairmanship of the Fed to great acclaim. Milton Friedman writing in the Wall Street Journal declared Greenspan had “set the standard” for Fed chairmen in maintaining stable prices and growth. In actuality, he and his colleagues of the Federal Open Market Committee were responsible for the continuation of the boom-bust cycle and current Great Recession.
Today, Clinton still takes credit for Greenspan’s manipulated boom. His supporters on the left love nothing more than to point at his presidency as vindication of the backwards theory that higher taxes equal more growth. Clinton wasn’t a policy wonk; he was a politician who dipped into the Social Security trust fund to give an appearance of balancing the budget while the national debt still climbed higher.
Through all of his financial scandals, womanizing, aggressive foreign policy approaches, and possible cover ups, it is actually fitting that Clinton is still looked to by the political establishment as someone worthy of respect. He is representative of F.A. Hayek’s timeless lesson: in government the worst rise to the top and state power corrupts.
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“ "Is", "is." "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment. ”
— Robert Anton Wilson (heavily influenced by Science and Sanity and IGS)
+23.
Clinton did as much or more than Bunnypants Bush to land us in the economic disaster zone we're inhabiting now. I'm not sure how many on the left like him; but he certainly made life more profitable for banksters and the boyz from Wall Street.
If it were down to me, I would graciously meet with mr clinton in time honoured fashion, ask him hows the wife and kids, see if he enjoyed his golfing trip.
And then kick the fucker to death. Then I could sleep a little easier knowing that I in my own small way advanced mankind just a tiny little bit. And just to show I am not partisan, I would do the same to both bushes, obomba and every single top ranking bankster. Fucking shithawks one and all. Put the fuckers in a ring with someone like me, and let them explain why humanity is on the course it is. We could stop this in a heartbeat if we wanted to. Too few folk care is all
Out of a freak accident of luck I could have done something to Hilary back in 2000 when she was running for senate in NY.
She was staying in the hotel I was in and I got in an elevator to go down to meet a group of IBM executives. I happened to be dressed in a black suit and tie.
I got out of the elevator and stepped out onto a landing between two sets of stairs. As I looked to the left I saw a woman coming down the stairs. It was Hilary Clinton walking down to go to a podium for a speech. She walked right by me, looking like Skelator, seriously her face looked like spackle with more makeup than I had ever seen.
For a split second I thought to myself, what if I stuck my leg out?
Knowing that would be the end of my life. I stood there and watched her walk down to the podium and then calmly walked down the stairs to the side. I walked past the line of reporters and met the IBM executives who were freaking out since they couldn't believe I wasn't tackled, or worse.
I must have looked like part of the security detail or something. To this day that was one of the craziest things that has happened to me.
I was thinking Vladimar Putin in a cage match w/your list but I suppose it would be alright if you want to handle it.
Myth is fine if you're studying literature. Reality is that for the first time in 40 years, Republicans can't say tax cuts create US jobs. Politically, they've shot themselves in the foot and there's not much Rove, Rush, the Koch Bros, or Rupert Murdoch can do about it.
Republican tax cuts are in place. Take the Faux News cameras, the ACORN pimp and prostitute, RoMONEY, Paul Ryan, dumbbell Sarah Palin, Boehner and McConnell, and go out and film the US job application process, how many applications go into file 13, how many result in job interviews, and how many result in job offers that have benefits.
If you can't, Republicans need to be called liars to their face, voted out of office and kept out of office. Has nothing to do with Bill Clinton. It's Rush's job to get RoMONEY into the White House. Let Rush do his job.
Current (so called "Bush) tax rates passed in 2003. By 2006 US Gov was in receipt of greatest tax revs in history. It's NOT a Revenue problem.
Looks like you hit all the talking points, Soros would be proud, your brainwashing went well.
thanks heroic.... excellant, more talking points on the block and for the wife's dog park crowd. yes the largest tax cuts in the country's history haven't help create any jobs...just more debt. wow
at this point in time, any refusal to extend the tax cuts will lead to a complete collapse of the economy. this economy can not withstand the forced removal of that kind of money!
Amazing that the Obama bots are infiltrating ZH right around the time of the election.
So you must be arguing for the opposite...tax increases to create jobs?...lol.
I'll tell ya what, when government can prove they are competent enough to allocate capital more efficiently than the private sector and prove they're creating net new jobs...then we'll talk about a tax increase.
We both know hell will freeze over first.
I feel very uncomfortable saying this, but from a strictly contrarian viewpoint perhaps we do need to raise taxes.
How often on ZH to we keep reading that we need to starve the beast? Raising tax rates would, I believe, greatly reduce the amount of taxes paid to the government as a result of decreased economic activity. This would - absent other actions and effects - starve the beast. The problem would be finding a way to prevent the government from acquiring funding via other means: confiscation and monetization come to mind.
Please don't assume I believe that raising taxes would be good; this talk of ultimately benefitting from raising taxes is just sort of a mind experiment. On the other hand, I believe we are beyond the ability to benefit from further tax cuts because the heavy hand of government regulation is the primary culprit behind economic stagnation in my opinion.
Understood, on the thought experiment...lol.
They are borrowing forty cents of every dollar spent now so we are in fact starving the beast. The bloated thing needed a diet plan and the fleas made to recognize themselves as parasites and be made uncomfortable with that knowledge, its exactly what we want.
I am John Galt and I approve this message ;-)
Another excellent article explaining the 'go-go" 1990's. I thought some of the "Boom" was due to inflationary war spending when peacenik Clinton bombed the heck out of the region formerly known as Yugoslavia.
I read somewhere during the Vietnam War that wars add 2-3% of false rise to the total GDP due to spending on "non-productive" stuff. I don't know if that's true but it makes sense.
The Balkan conflict didn't generate enough business to add much to the 90s GDP. When you talk about a war like WWII, then yes it can.
You put millions of people back to work and give them highly skilled training. The issue is what happens when the war ends. Which is why following the end of WWII the USA pretty much fell right back into the depression.
One can argue the Cold War was needed to keep the war machine going, and thus the US economy.
Bill Clinton; spent the Peace Dividend, ran out on the tab for terrorism.
"Because society existed before the state and because the state functions off of what it pilfers from society, public expenditures do not add to net wealth. In order for one tax dollar to be spent, it has to be first taken from the pocket of a taxpayer."
I've tried to make this point several (thousand) times. People hear it, but they choose to ignore it. Sad, really.
Sometimes I'm jealous of people who can just tune out & ignore the truth. I admit, occasionally it'd be fun to indulge in ignorance, to blindly cheer for jersey colors of the football men.....but I just can't do it.
I'd rather understand than be popular. Not saying I'm better than the ignorant masses - far from it - only that perhaps I prefer to be uncomfortable. My lone addiction is exercise.
Clinton is the one that ended Glass-Steagall which then opened up the printing and lending of money to the big "Brokerages."
This is why we are in economic trouble today.
But, the man did not "womanize Monica," she seduced him and he complied.
The rest mentioned is what every President does, steal from SS, start wars, let big oil poison our people, etc.
The one thing I must say is the President Clinton was the smartest man I have ever met. Morally bereft as all the other Presidents, but extremely smart. And that is the difference between him and other past presidents to this day.
Probably should do some research on Reagan and the floodgate of money that flowed into mortgage-backed investments thru TRA'86, GSEs and REMICs, later put on steroids by Glass-Steagall.
One cannot forget the Futures Modernization Act of 2000, supported by Greenspan, signed by slick Willie. It deregulated many derivative instruments that were once illegal.
Technically, most of these instruments are still illegal. A rose by any other name is still a rose. The perfect examples are the many names given illegal insurance products like the credit default swap. It was an illegal insurance product and still is. It's use is like the government calling murder a police action, or wait we do that...., Let me think.
The last three presidents have made the elimination of failure their primary platform. Does anyone honestly think the majority of the Fortune 500 CEOs could actually be succesful without the stock market and government money backing them up?
If they had to run a real business under the rules of true economics, every one of them would fail in weeks. The stock market created a multi trillion dollar business of fraud. It doesn't represent the economy, it represents those who can best pull the wool over the others eyes.
Shell corproations to hide losses, channel stuffing corporate owned retail to fake profit, massive overproduction of inventory to transfer money to foreign nations, to give them cash to purchase government debt. The bullshit list goes on and on and on.
This con game should have collapsed years ago, but the government has profited so much from the fraud, they couldn't let it fail. Evidenced by the number of Congressmen and Senators who came to Washington with little wealth, who became millionaires seemingly overnight.
The fraud can not be allowed to fail, because nearly everyone involved in it barely has the skills to work a minimum wage job.
one may hate his ass, but the dude was BRILLIANT!
Apparently so was Charles Manson. Since the government is now executing operation Helter Skelter, maybe we can let Charlie run on the Democratic ticket. He'd be alot better than the current rats. Besides, we already know all his dirty little secrets, and he's alot cleaner than all the presidents since JFK.
He'd beat Mitt for sure.
as much as i despise government and its big taxes, its expenses must be paid for since they have been incurred, and the only honest way to pay for it is through higher taxes......debt is simply the obverse of taxes and it carries a huge penalty of interest.....artbitrarily lowering the interest rates is simply sweeping the shit under the rug - its consequences have and will rear its ugly head.
you will not grow out of this mess by lowering taxes - it is intellectual fraud to suppose so....and some onerous taxation on the wealthy is required to curb their totalitarian instincts and to pay for the services which they disproportionately consume....
the only way out of our economic crisis is through a combination of honest default and higher taxes....interest is a cancer on the economy and if you think that we have 0% interest, you are a fucktard....
We could sell some assets... Nevada, anyone? I'd buy a piece.
Higher taxes on a shrinking tax base doesn`t work, that is the catch-22 of globalization, only captive businesses (and citizens) will stick around.
There are only two ways to create wealth (as opposed to transfering wealth)- pull shit out of the ground or polish that turd into a finished product.
There are two primary ways to skim wealth- start a government and skim it from the local subjects or start a bank and skim it from the customers (foreign and domestic)
Growth is the ONLY solution, the question is whether it is simply growth of the money supply and the consequent destruction of wealth through inflation, or growth of the economy and consequent increasing wealth of the nation.
But no one is offering an actual growth solution, and TPTB who own the politicians much prefer their monopolies where each is a bigger fish in a smaller pond...
Chelsea looks like Webb Hubbell
Hmmm...
If you look closely at the photo atop the article, I'd have to say that she bears a striking resemblance to Barry Sotero.
One thing - perhaps the only thing - I cant blame Slick "I Feel your Pain" Willie for...
...is carrying-on with Jennifer Flowers all those years, when doing his stint as the Elmer Gantry of Arkansas.
I mean, who - apart from Web Hubbel - could possibly "rise to the occasion" when confronted with that lard-ass Hillary?
Bill is quoted as saying "Hillary has more women than I do"
Clinton is a FRAUD. He gave us a stock bubble and NAFTA, Bill, STFU !
I've asked about this concept before...anyone want to step up?
Government doesn’t create wealth; it merely transfers it between parties.
That's probably one of the most commonly repeated phrases about what's wrong with government spending. It sounds good, but what does it mean?
Take a hypothetical. If it were the state-governor's job to oversee the planting and harvesting of corn to provide for the annual state fair, and he performed that function by planting and harvesting the corn himself, in what way would that NOT qualify as "government creating wealth"?
Anyone got a strong logical rebuttal there?
(This isn't really an invitation to fight--any good answer would satisfy me. I'm just amazed that it's repeated so often without ever being demonstrated.)
Your hypothetical is comical. What if it was the fox's job to guard the henhouse?
If it were the state-governor's job to oversee the planting and harvesting of corn to provide for the annual state fair, and he performed that function by planting and harvesting the corn himself, then you could argue that that person created wealth. But it is not his job. Where would the money that would be exchanged for the corn go? Government coffers? To the governor?
Who would bear the risk when the crop failed? If you say the taxpayers, then we are back to socialized losses if the governor still gets paid.
Whose land would be used ? The states? No property tax revenue for that farm.
The corn comes from the risk invested in growing it:
The farmer risk his time, the money invested in seed, money invested in tractors and implements or animals, the money paid to any people to work the farm.
The farmer has to buy the land, the tractors, the seed, the implements to harvest and plow, and everything else to grow the corn.
The farmer must take market risk that the corn will sell for more than he has invested in the crop.
The government (taxpayers) cannot lose on the corn if the farmer grows it and fails to profit.
If the governor charged with growing the corn fails to make a profit, e losses are pushed to the taxpayer.
A couple of bad crops will replace the farmer with more efficient, capable farmers.
A couple of bad crops for the government farm, and they will spend more money, hire more people, and do everything under the sun except to replace the governor who can't compete in the marketplace, of course at taxpayer's expense.
The government doesn't figure risk into their business because, to them, there is no risk. A few bad years won't break them.
The governor in your hypothetical only produces wealth in the years where there is no problem. The other years he steals from the taxpayers to keep from going under, thus destroying capital.
This is not to mention the added costs of collecting the taxes that would be necessary in those bad years. Taxes don't collect themselves.
Thanks.
The corn comes from the risk invested in growing it...
I'll give it some more thought. I think it makes good sense when you're talking about *profit*, but I'm not sure it makes sense to use the word "corn" in that part of the sentence.
From two months ago: Some Thoughts On Government And "Wealth Creation"
That's the article that started me thinking about this. It was junk then, and it's junk now--it's repetition without elaboration.
(A lot of the more "popular" contributors these days strike me as either hypocritical or not very bright. Not that I can blame you for trying to earn a buck.)
and then there is this:
http://www.reformation.org/frank-marshall-davis-obama.html
Obama looks an awful lot like Frank Davis
Some people have selective amnesia. A lot of the de-regulation that they (including Slick Willie himself) decry in recent ads occured smack dab in the Clinton Administration.
If we actually had a functioning media there might be questions of him such as:
When was Glass Steagall repealed? When did Congress legislatively increase the major banks leverage ratios? When did Larry Summersa and Congress decide that the CFTC was not to regulate derivatives ( despite Brooksley Born's dire warnings)? His adminsitration championed these items and are very much partially responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today.
Its not to say that the other side is any better. There both so full of sh#$.
The two party system is an illusion of choice. They are both controlled by the bankers. Just look at Tyler's list of contributions for Rommney ( that is extremely similar to Obamas four years ago).
Clinton was a Chinese Agent. He de-coupled trade from human rights after Tienanmen and gave them MFN Status which obliged the EU (by treaty) to do the same. He gave Greenspan The Senile green light to feed pork barrel to Wall Street and he brought the dimwit Robert Rubin into government. It was crooks like Phil Gramm who log-rolled to get his friends into the pork barrel.
Clinton basically gave away the US industrial base to China
bubba's BIGGEST lies:
1) i left you with a surplus = internet/tulip mania (ie told greeenspan to rape the savers)
2) i didn't have sex with that 300 pound porkulosa woman!!! (wagging finger)
bs you (the demon-rats) can believe in !!
like he said of candidate obama in 2008: its all a fairy tale...well yes clinton's surplus was ALSO a fairy tale.
As soon as Lewinski got down on her knees blowing the President in the oval office, he should have been thrown out and put in jail. And this is the guy Barrack hugs. Makes me want to throw up.
I bet Hillary has not been intimate with him since that very week this all came out. And boy, she looks so tired and worn out. My guess is all she wants to do is go home to her own bedroom....by herself.
Clinton can thank Silicon Valley for his fake popularity.
Hilary Clinton's political bona fides: she slept with sick Willy. That and a bunch of secrets that would really disgust you.
The Clinton myth is two myths rolled into one.
1. Spending as a percent of GDP FELL, particularly after the Republican Revolution under Gingrich. The 1998, 1999 and 2000 budget surpluses were a combination of tax cuts in 1998 and declining spending as a % of GDP.
2. Clinton increased off balance sheet debt more than he decreased Federal on balance sheet debt.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/clinton-miracle-was-really-spending-slowdown-gingrich-revolution-and-tax-cuts-of-1997/
The only reason they keep trottin out the ole billy goat is because, well..., exactly who else can they trot out.
Can't trot out Jimmy Carter, the anti-Jew/Israel, bleeding heart pro-Palestinian dementia patient.
JFK is dead, LBJ is dead, what other Douche-o-crat Presidents are left.
With the evil Reptilicans dominating the elections, one horney old billy goat that liked to have sex between the Bush's is all they've got.
Since Obama, other than Hitlery, is the best the Democrats can produce, one wonders how deep they'll have to dredge the cesspool in order to find the next Douche-o-crat to run for POTUS.
Let's see, Pelosi maybe?, Maxine Waters?, Barney Frank?, Harry Reid?, Henry Waxman?, the list of losers goes on and on.
More crap from the Mise Institute. WTF do they put in the water over there?
Obama may have a lot of problems, but they are nothing compared to that weird and crazy guy - Mittens. No wonder Obama is starting to walk away with the election, depsite the networks being desperate for a battle.
Mostly Keynesian blog bot corpses. But sometimes low grade govt blog shovel ready maggots to clean up the mess.
Bill Clinton is full of more shit than a Christmas turkey...
I hate all the other cocksuckers who have pretended to be President in my lifetime as well. I'm 53. The ones before my lifetime back to and including Woodrow Wilson were useless as tits on a boar hog. Before them wasn't much better. Andrew Jackson was probably the last one who had at least one admirable trait. Guess what that was.
As far as the two shit stains in contention for the office now, I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. That should pretty much convey my general attitude about politics today. In case it doesn't, I don't give a fuck if they are (R) or (D), 'left' or 'right', 'conservative' or 'librul' because all of that is so much meaningless bullshit as far as I'm concerned. The real and true interests of We the People and our country are not even on the radar of the establishment's status quo political machinery.
Every man for himself bitchez...
With Ayn at your back you will never make the right call. Systemic and moral collapse is assured.
Too many predators, too well fortified, taking too many shots at the food source. It is just another ism, no better than any of the others; and it has the potential, when combined with exceptionalism, to be even worse.
Meanwhile on romantic myth making and the second rate Clinton, why not read the real article?
Seymour Hersh's JFK, The Dark Side of Camelot.
Somalia and Yugoslavia and funny money will get surely Bill back on the red cordial as he approaches his date with his maker.
We are well aware of the various options that you wished to utilise here.
Well played.
it figures the Dems use him as their keynote.
thumb-point
"I... did not have sex with thaaaaaat woman(hey if we can do it with Nixon...)
Vince Foster's last words: I'll be right back.
Correction " The left claims that economic growth is driven primarily by middle class spending. "
Sustainable economic growth is driven primarily by middle class spending WHEN THIS SPENDING IS NOT IN EXCESS OF INCOME. Second correction:
THe spending should not be distorted by injection of unredeemable currency which always forces price up and forces the consumer to bend forward and spend as opposed to decide neutrally between spending and savings. A good savings instrument should be based on commodity based monetary standard. You can not save in Fiat!!!
Autopsy shows that Ron Brown was shot in the head before the plane crashed.
Yep...