"Dear Mr. Beck, I am writing to thank you for helping me spread the word about a serious condition. A few months ago, I filmed a PSA for skin cancer awareness where I posed in a strapless Juicy dress to appear “naked,” as a metaphor for the dangers of going out in the sun without sunscreen. I thought that pretending to be naked (even if I only disrobed to my collar bone) would hopefully call attention to skin cancer, a disease that both my parents have suffered from. I don’t know if you know this, Mr. Beck, but that scar on the side of my father’s face is from a melanoma he had removed when I was in middle school. Did you know melanoma is the most serious type of skin cancer? Did you also know that between 40 and 50 percent of Americans who live to be 65 will have either basal cell carcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma skin cancer? And that there are more than 2 million cases of skin cancer discovered in the United States every year? It’s pretty scary, Glenn, and something everyone in America should be made aware of. But the thing is, Glenn, I wasn’t really naked and I know the idea of me being naked caused you to vomit on your radio show for 10 minutes. You suggested I should wear a burqa, since you believe that's probably the only clothing that could possibly fit me. By the way, you should really see a doctor because it isn’t normal to vomit for that long." Shut Up About My Body, Glenn Beck - Yahoo! News Meghan appeared in this ad for skin cancer awareness: Meghan McCain gets naked, Glenn vomits – Glenn Beck I have no problems with Meghan appearing naked or semi-naked in a commercial. It's for a good cause. What's the big deal? :smile:
I don't agree with Glen Beck's politics but that's not the problem. There are lot's of conservative political people (politicians, journalists, commentators, etc.) that I don't agree with and that's not the problem. I think the conservative party makes some good points. We know there's lots of waste in government and that it could probably be quite a bit smaller. I wouldn't mind if my taxes decreased, or at least if they were spent more effectively. Those are the cornerstones of the conservative party: smaller government and decreased taxes. I don't automatically disagree with either of those two tenets. So that's not the problem. The problem is simply this: Glen Beck is an asshole. You can promote a conservative agenda in an intelligent, positive way. William F. Buckley spent his life doing just that. You don't need to be an insensitive, deliberately hurtful person in order to promote a conservative agenda. There are other people in our country who represent a conservative political agenda and we respect that as it is a valid and viable political philosophy. We respect those people because of the manner in which they conduct themselves. Glen Beck however, is just an asshole. Not because of his conservative political stance, but because of the way in which he conducts himself.
Kizmet I have to respectfully correct you on one thing. There is no "conservative party". In fact even amongst those in the Republican party who espouse to be conservative the term "conservative" has not been well defined. There are Reagan conservatives (though most seem to miss the core values that Reagan stood for) then there are Bush conservatives which are distinctly different in that increases in the scope of government are acceptable. Then of course there are the "neo-cons" who tend to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative (again ill-defined since some are Bush type neo-cons where "fiscally conservative" simply means lower taxes but don't cut spending). There are social conservatives who generally could give a rip about the scope of government and spending as long as you leave their guns alone and outlaw abortion then there are those who use "conservative" as a marketing strategy to get elected no matter what (ala John McCain). I tend to define myself as conservative but in truth I'm almost a libertarian. I believe that the fundamental purpose of a federalized government should much, much smaller in scope and that entitlements should be up to each individual state. I stop short of a Ron Paul however in that I believe national security is a federal AND a state matter, I do not believe in a gold standard currency or any currency backed by a commodity and I do not believe in putting fiscal policy back into the hands of the same congress who couldn't figure out Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, etc. So I guess that even my definition of conservative is unique. I do strongly agree with you on one point, Glenn Beck is an asshole. He does more harm than good for those of us who are conservatives and I believe he takes extreme points of view not because he genuinely believes everything he spews but because it makes him money and lots of it. In addition Glenn plays on the fears of anyone who will listen to him but offers no solutions. He has people stocking up on food, water, duct tape, plastic and ammo. He pushes buying gold even though gold is at an all time high and set up for a huge tumble when the economy (which is cyclical) does normalize. I think this gold market will drain the savings of many of our elderly and Glenn is one of the biggest gold pimps of the market, it's unethical. The guy is a bloviating, self righteous, egomaniac who pretends to be in this for the good fight while cashing those paychecks as fast as they can be written. I wish he would fade into obscurity and let the Tea Party folks who work for what they believe in and the conservatives who work for what they believe in fix this country without his side show circus distracting us from the very real problems that we as a nation are facing. But then if we fixed everything how would this clown make a living?
Good post. Just a few points I disagree with you about. I'd like to see us go back to a gold standard. As it stands, we just print worthless paper. You're right that gold will eventually fall, but I don't think it will be as drastic as you think. I find Beck entertaining and am not bothered by him pushing gold and having those gold companies advertise during his show. If you're dumb enough to look to Glenn Beck for financial advise you deserve to lose your money. I don't agree with 99% of what he says and this includes his comments about Meghan McCain. Not sure why, but I think she's kind of hot, even if she could stand to drop 10-20lbs.
I would greatly prefer a gold or silver standard to what there is now. The U.S. dollar has lost a significant amount of value even in my lifetime, and all of that is a gigantic hidden federal tax. -=Steve=-
The problem with going to any type of commodity backed monetary policy is that the issuing nation forgoes the ability to manipulate their own currency values on the international markets which is a significant financial instrument/tool. Why do you think so many nations that had gold standards (ours included) moved away from it? Aside from that if a commodity backs your currency you allow other nations to manipulate your currency's value. For example Saudi Arabia would be able to release a large quantity of gold into the market to depress the value or those large holding nations to tighten the reigns on the commodity causing your currency's value to skyrocket. This has huge ramifications on a nation's ability to create exports or purchase imports and would cripple the U.S. economy. But who am I to lecture this crowd on basic economics and monetary policy.
I understand what you're saying, but in order to apply, likely externalities have to be worse than what we have now, and right now the dollar permanently loses half its value every generation or so. Next to that, the Saudis can bring it on. Besides, in a truly free market for money, rather than have the state tell us all what to use, people would decide for themselves what sort of money to accept. I don't expect that people would necessarily standardize around just one -- people who live in border areas use more than one without much difficulty, and it would make the sort of Saudi scenario you describe a lot harder if there are a few dominant money products in use, e.g., one based on gold, one based on a market basket of goods, or whatever. Besides, giving control of monetary policy to individuals rather than markets only guarantees that monetary policy will benefit those individuals, not people in general. Central planning doesn't work in the economy in general, and the unit of account in the economy is no exception. -=Steve=-
I guess we'll have to disagree, central planning of monetary policy and minting of currency is essential. Regardless of how the dollar is valued it is still the defacto international currency and standard by which other currencies and commodities are measured against. Maintaining a high value on the dollar has significant impacts to localized production for export. If valued too high in today's world we'd start looking more like Euro nations with low industrialization. If you think "buying American" is important then an artificially or overly high value on the dollar would stop that. The devaluation of the dollar isn't an accident nor is it necessarily always a bad thing. First it helps the nation (and other borrowers) pay long standing debt, second it keeps localized production capacity, third it allows for favorable exportation and probably a bunch of other goodies. Where we are really screwing the pooch in local production is in tax policy. We devalue our currency towards favorable export and localized production but then screw it up through high taxes and various other expensive mandates to conform to ala environmental standards, SOX, etc. Not that they are not all needed but some are likely overly restrictive. Something like that should be left to individual states, not monetary policy.
The only difference between gold and paper is that some people think gold looks prettier. Unless gold can be eaten or put into an engine to make it run, it isn't anything more than a collector's item whose assigned value is equally as arbitrary as that of paper money or sea shells.
Gold is used in jewelry, in making electronic components, and has a few other uses in industry, but I'd agree that most of its market value is based on those using it as a largely self-referential store of value. Then again, it has a six thousand year track record of success in that role, whereas paper always devalues in the end. It's also important that the value of fiat currency is entirely controlled by elites who do not have your interests in mind, whereas the value of gold and other commodities can be manipulated, perhaps, but not entirely or for long periods of time. -=Steve=-
I see two problems with devaluing to support exports. One is that it doesn't take the importance of imports into account. Considering how much we depend on imported energy to even have an economy, this seems unwise. The other is that the U.S. dollar isn't the only currency being devalued for this reason, in fact there's something of a "race to the bottom" when it comes to value. We do it, so they do it, so we do it more, so they do it more. I guess we more agree on this. Actually, I'd kill the corporate income tax altogether. It would encourage repatriation of funds, make it cheaper to do manufacturing here, and the the resulting increase in revenue from the top of the personal income tax bracket would probably make up the budgetary difference. And as a bonus, Europeans policy makers would hate it! -=Steve=-
At some point most arguments come down to semantics and I don't mind that. However, if someone in casual conversation uses the term "the conservative party," everyone knows exactly what is meant.
I think that refers to a small, very select party held on the deck of "Old Ironsides" every year when they turn it around. Old Ironsides: USS Constitution Museum, Charlestown, Massachusetts
Your point on energy is correct. The thing about energy however is that we in the United States have found the enemy and that enemy is us. We cut our own throats by limiting harvesting efforts (or in Obama's case stopping altogether). Additionally we retard innovation on purpose (look at the 65mpg Ford in Europe that will not be imported to the U.S. due to market conditions and government policy). Add to that list we retard any business incentive to increase oil refinement capacity and tax the beejebers out of anything and everything having to do with gasoline and it's no wonder gas is $4.00 a gallon. Greed is not limited to oil companies, just look at the hypocrites on the Senate grilling the oil companies about tax rebates all the while they are collecting federal and state taxes on the same gallon of gas, plus the hidden fees generated by tight environmental standards, production taxation, taxation on profits, tarrifs on imported resources, permit fees, license fees, etc. I'd be willing to bet we could have gasoline under a dollar a gallon if the government would just get their hands off of energy altogether. Sure we would increase production and OPEC would cut back to stabilize profits, but if we began production that would challenge their market share we'd see a very different production strategy out of the middle east.
