The Decline of Obama’s America
In his latest video update Ron Paul addresses important issues such as the housing bailout, the stimulus package, Obama’s war in Afghanistan, and the destruction of the dollar.
Source: Campaign for Liberty
Date: 2/22/2009
Transcript:
Ron Paul: Well the administration has just announced a new bailout for the housing market, 275 billion dollars; 75 billion dollars of new money and 200 billion dollars coming from the TARP funds that would go to propping up Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. But so far the markets aren’t buying it, the markets still remain in the doldrums and it seems like in the past year one program after another. More spending, more borrowing, more inflating and there’s no reassurance but we shouldn’t be surprised because we can’t get out of this mess by merely doing what we’ve been doing all along getting us into this mess.
But the whole idea that the people who have been paying their mortgages should now suffer the consequence of bailing out those who can’t pay their mortgages; those individuals who got mortgages, that really didn’t qualify, no down payments, borrowed against the increase and the value of their house. And now they’re saying: “Well there’s 92%. See it’s about 92% of the people are doing okay and paying their mortgage.” 8% of defaults are causing these problems that we have and I’m sure there’s some innocent people being involved and ultimately a lot of innocent people suffer from the dependency on inflation. Inflation of course is when the Federal Reserve tries to solve its problems or manage the economy by increasing money and credit out of thin air and artificially fixing interest rates.
But a characteristic of monetary inflation is the middles class gets wiped out. So right now the middle class has not been wiped out but if we continue to do this, we will wipe out the middle class. But right now what we’re trying to do is find more victims and the victims have to be those individuals who have been paying their mortgages, probably saving some money and living within their means and now they have to bail out not only those who didn’t pay their mortgages but all the Wall Streeters, the mortgage companies, insurance companies, the housing industry and the developers and the builders; they’ll all want bail out too and of course the banks on Wall Street as well had been getting this bail out.
But it can’t work, it won’t work and the sooner we wake up and realize what we need, we need to allow the market to liquidate the bad debt, get rid of the mal-investment, encourage people not to spend but encourage people to live within their means; pay their bills, get rid of their debt and save some money. And when that is accomplished and there’s a little bit of money in the bank and they’re feeling better about themselves they’ll go back to spending but the faster that occurs the better. But everything the government has done in the past year has delayed the correction and that’s why we’re facing serious consequences in the future because right now I don’t see any decent proposals coming out of Washington; either from the administration, from the Federal Reserve or the Congress. It’s all more the same, sadly so.
Lately I’ve been getting more questions about Afghanistan, they want to know what I think is happening over there. So far I don’t think anything good is happening because right now we’re having another military surge and all I can say about it is Obama’s sticking to his word because he was honest with us during the campaign. He did say that he would send more troops into Afghanistan and he is but I can’t see how anything good will come from it.
We’re not learning one thing from history; whether it was the British or whether it was the Soviets, it’s a dead end street to try to militarize Afghanistan. As bad as Iraq is and has been, Afghanistan is going to be much worse. But Obama has announced that 17,000 more troops will be moved in there, that along with the troops we already have that will take us up to 60,000 plus the troops from our allies under NATO, the troops’ level will be up to a hundred, hundred thousand. The Soviets at one time had a hundred fifty thousand troops in there and they couldn’t control Afghanistan. And it is very costly and it looks like it’s going to be a quagmire and I see no good purpose coming from this. And unfortunately if this thing gets out of control which it very well could because we’re literally bombing Pakistan from Afghanistan and this war is liable to spread which means if it gets out of control it’s going to move us in the direction of the administration wanting to oppose the military draft on our young people. The sooner we get out of Afghanistan the better.
The market certainly did not do well this week; whether it was the signal we’re getting from gold, the signal we’re getting from the stocks, things look very bad and it shouldn’t surprise us. A lot of people say that we’ve been in a bear market since the fall of 2007, but I don’t believe that’s true. I think the market place has been in a bear market since the year 2000. Yes the Dow reached new highs but that was only because of the tremendous bubble that was built by the Federal Reserve through the inflation in the last 10 years and finally they built, after this Dow and the NASDAQ collapsed they were able to create a new bubble; the housing bubble and then that finally collapsed. Right now actually they’ve created a new bubble, one more bubble and that’s the bond market and that’s the last one that will finally dissipate.
But the markets are indicating that there’s no confidence in what the government is doing. No confidence in the Congress or the executive branch or in the Federal Reserve. And there’s an old saying that I think is appropriate it says “Pushing on a string”. They’re trying to push in a lot of credit and a lot of new financing but if the confidence isn’t there it doesn’t work and that’s what’s happening. The confidence is gone because the dollar system has ended. The dollar system that was devised after Bretton Woods in 1971, that is gone and they’re frantically trying to keep that together. But the best measurement of what they are doing in devaluing our currency is the traditional relationship of any currency to gold.
During the Bush years it was not good, the dollar lost 69% of its value in terms of gold. In the old days, if you had a 10% devaluation of currency it was big news but here it’s 69% devaluation and people hardly blink to nod because they don’t think in terms of gold and they don’t think in terms of constitution of money and they’re just thinking in terms of managing the economy and nobody paid any attention to it but it seems to be getting worse.
The one thing that has been very, very clear cut since Obama has become President and that is gold is acting almost only like a currency. A good, sound money, commodity money is both a good commodity as well as money. No one individual of one country makes gold money, that came about through history and is by tradition so it is money but it’s acting like money now. And gold of course before the week ended went over a thousand dollars. Just think, just think of the record of the Federal Reserve, and nobody really questions the Federal Reserve except more, there are a lot more all the time. But when the Federal Reserve took over, 1/20th of a dollar could buy 1/20th of an ounce of gold. Today a dollar would’ve bought 1/1000th of an ounce of gold and that is 98% depreciation of our money. And lo and behold, even the consumer price index, if you look at the consumer price index of 1913 compared to now it’ worth 3 to 4 cents, so it’s a very good measurement.
But the real message is that there’s a lot more inflation to come. This week everybody was just shocked; shocked because producer price index went up at a rate of 9% per year. In spite of the weak economy they say “Oh that’s just a fluke, that can’t happen.”You can’t have prices going up, you can’t have price inflation in the oncoming week. Demand is down, oil prices are supposed to drop; yeah but gasoline prices are going up, medical care costs are going up, insurance costs are going up because we have to look at the value of money.
So I think we’re seeing singles now, that there’s a lot more inflation to come and that the policies that we have been pursuing for the past year or so are nothing more than the policies that got us into this mess. And the sooner we wake up and realize what we need is a market economy and we need less spending, we need savings and then maybe we’ll get back to work and solve this problem.
But today in this past week, the markets did not send a very good signal and they’re reason to us in government that were doing the right thing. The signal is change our ways, the government should change our ways, the Federal Reserve should change our policies and quite frankly I think I intend to ask Bernanke some of these very same questions because he will be before the financial services committee next week and oh by the way, Volcker will be before the joint economic committee on which I sit so I might get to quiz him as well.
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Reality About Illegal Aliens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eazJrO2mCk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOXPbYmoD8&NR=1
Bush didn’t take care of it. Obama, close the border! No amnisty to illegal aliens. No rewards for law breakers.
The National Debt Road Trip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5yxFtTwDcc
The reason why his ratings are down is because unemployment is still high. People don’t realize that they have only spent 10% of the stimulus and it is not supposed to kick in until 2010..
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/bruce-bartlett-misstates-the-problem/
His ratings are also down because people think he is not doing enough and letting partisanship turn him from a liberal into a moderate. We are not going to get universal care, cap and trade isn’t enough, and gays still can’t get married. People don’t think that he is doing too much, they think that he is not doing enough..
Hmmm, wonder why they are already talking about the need for another ’stimulus’.
Krugman continues to be wrong.
That’s odd, the people who originally supported him show the smallest decline in the polls. That makes your statement, as usual, hogwash.
The majority of Americans do not want UC, C&T, or Homosexual ‘marriage’.
Get A Clue
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8.
The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5.
That Slippery Slide
Here’s a link to the Chamber of Commerce/NASA website. Do you think the Chamber of Commerce cares who gets to the Moon first? Do you think they care who exploits the Moon’s resources first? Hell no. To them the US is just a market. It doesn’t matter who builds the products or who gets the resources. They don’t care about non-finacial terms like freedom and liberty. We’re a market. We are sheep. The sooner we can be herded into one large group the better.
If you were in Washington DC Wednesday, you could have attended a joint workshop on Lunar Surface Systems Concepts. It was funded by NASA and the US Chamber of Commerce. The US Chamber of Commerce! Now there’s a globalist organization if ever I saw one. They spend all their time lobbying for open borders, unlimited H1-b visas, and free trade.
Let me add this, there is a fundamental difference in the way a globalist and an American looks at the exploitation of lunar resources. To a globalist it does not matter who finds exploitable minerals on the Moon. It is a net benefit to the Earth if they are found in economically productive quantities and concentrations. It is a small expense if they are not found. If you’re an American then it is a big deal if another country gets there first. Even if they find ores than cannot be exploited economically now, if competing countries stake claims to these ores now that gives them a huge future benefit over our economy. That gives them a huge amount of economic power they can hold over us. Are you a globalist, or are you an American?
I hate to be alarmist, but the fact of the matter is, now is time to be alarmist. Even back in the hey day of aerospace it took 8 – 10 years to develop spacecraft and about 5 years for aircraft. Now the F-22 took 25 years to develop and I shudder to think about how long they can drag out a spacecraft design. So suddenly it’s 2009 and our good buddies in China are saying they think they’ll be on the Moon in 2017! Maybe the nay sayers are right. Maybe there’s nothing that can be economically mined – ever, but if they’re not and we’re the last ones up there… It’s too big a risk to take. This is the scientific equivalent of our monetary disaster, and in my opinion the stakes are just as high.
whoever thinks that the moon is abundent enough in gold and platinum to build a base is totally wrong. I would like to see one inch of proof backing up that theory.
Building a base on the moon should not be for its resources. It is human’s nature to explore. It’s the future we look to, we all know space is the next step in our human evolution of exploration. If we want to advance as a human species then we have to go above and beyond.
Build it for whatever reason you choose, let’s just do it and do it now. The fact of the matter is, Sean could be right and there is no proof he’s wrong, but the consequences to our nation if he is wrong are extremely dire and enduring. One of the reasons for the growth and prosperity of the US was the relatively pristine nature of the mineral wealth that was here. The people who were here before the arrival of the Europeans had literally only scratched the surface of that wealth, and they themselves had accumulated considerable wealth in gold. Now we’re talking about going to the Moon where no one has touched any of the mineral wealth ever.
Is there a chance Sean is right? Sure. But if he’s wrong we’re screwed. India is going. China is going. Japan is going. Europe is going. So let’s just sit here and hope they’re all wrong and there’s nothing of any value on the Moon. Let’s keep doling out the money to Blackwater and Haliburton for wars. Let’s keep paying it to crack addicted welfare mothers. Let’s spend trillions on video games and flat screen TVs. Hell, let’s make Sean our god. I’m sure he’d do just as well as Obama. Let’s do all that dumbass stuff and just hope all these other countries don’t know what they’re doing. After all, what could possibly go wrong with that approach?
They pretty much know whats on the moon because they mapped it out. We mapped it out like 50 years ago, and we have actually been there. We know what every planet is made out of and what kind of resources they have. If there was an abundent source for anything that we could advance with, than we would have considered it in the 1960’s… We are going back to the moon and possibly building a base there before india and china… You have to realize that both india and china are like 50 years behind. India hasn’t even sent anyone to outerspace, they’ve only sent a shuttle.. The united states and russia are and have been dominate in space ever since the beginning. You can’t possibly think our scientists are stupid and have been missing out on something for 50 years.
“Our scientists” are telling your right now, as I said earlier, the Moon is made of the same stuff as the Earth. Theory has it the Moon split off the Earth in a huge planetary impact millions of years ago. That’s why the Moon always presents the same face to the Earth as it orbits. As an aside, there’s a chance Venus split off from the Earth at the same time as it always presents the same face to the Earth as it passes at it’s closest point. We know the Moon has more platinum than the Earth from Earth based observations.
Back when we were the only ones who could go to the Moon the question was what is the probability there’s something there that’s minable. Now that we have competition, and if you read any of the articles I provided links to you’d know we do have competition, the question becomes, “what are the odds there’s nothing there of value?” Are you willing to bet the economic future of this nation on there being nothing?
It would be much cheaper to build a base on the moon than to support this stupid war. This shows the direction our country would rather take… We are stupid specias and we will destroy ourselves. http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
Mineral resources are the foundation of our economy. If we abandon the Moon’s resources to competing nations we will suffer, our children will suffer, our way of life and our freedoms will be threatened. Your attitude is treasonous. It is exactly the attitude the globalists want you to have. A weak America is easily taken. A strong American stands alone.
NASA is only currently designing one rocket, the Aries 1. It is a failure already. They’re finding out why a real rocket designer like Von Braun didn’t want to use a solid rocket motor for his first stage. Even if the concept itself was not foolish, the fact is they could have much more quickly put the Orion manned capsule on an existing Atlas or Delta heavy booster and it would have provided the same safety and reliability as NASA’s latest piece of garbage. The only down side would have been that NASA’s favorite contractor, ATK (aka Morton Thiokol of Challenger fame) would not have got a sole source contract to add a 5th segment to their 4 segment solid rocket motor they currently build for the shuttle. Adding a 5th segment necessitates a complete redesign of the booster because it increases the burn area by 25% and thus the pressure. Aries 1 also competes with most of the commercial rockets currently being developed. They plan on building an Aries V out of other shuttle parts at some time in the future. Don’t hold your breath.
What you should be interested in is why they’re lying to you about this Helium 3, why they aren’t telling you the truth about why foreign countries are interested in going to the Moon, and why NASA continues to drag its feet, choosing to build new rockets instead of using existing assets to get our lunar exploitation program back online? Why has NASA competed with the commercial space industry instead of fostering it? Why have they not made a lunar outpost and the identification of lunar minerals a priority so that the commercial mining industry could exploit the Moon’s resources?
That is the wildest conspiracy theory i’ve ever heard.
we don’t need to go to outerspace to dig for resources we can find and take here.
“Constellation is a NASA program with the stated goal of gaining significant experience in operating away from Earth’s environment, developing technologies needed for opening the space frontier and conducting fundamental science.[1] Constellation was developed through the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, which determined the best way for NASA to pursue the goals laid out in President George W. Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration and the NASA Authorization Act of 2005.
NASA plans to develop a host of spacecraft and booster vehicles in order to replace the Space Shuttle and return astronauts to the Moon and then possibly send them to Mars as well. Currently, NASA is in the process of designing two boosters, the Ares I and Ares V. Ares I will have the sole function of launching mission crews into orbit. Ares V will be designed to launch other hardware for use on missions and will have a heavier lift capacity than the Ares I booster. In addition to these two boosters, NASA is designing a set of other spacecraft for use during Constellation. These will include the Orion crew capsule, the Earth Departure Stage and the Altair lunar lander.” wiki
Really, Sean, NASA is doing just peachy? It is so good to know you think that. By the way, where were you when I was working on shuttle or space station? I don’t remember you being there. I guess your current high opinion of NASA tells me why you remain a nobody.
Here’s what’s really going on in NASA’s own words:
Fifty years after Sputnik became the world’s first artificial satellite, a new race is under way with the finish line on the moon. NASA, the former lunar champion, already is predicting defeat.
“I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a low-key lecture in Washington two weeks ago, marking the space agency’s 50th anniversary, still a year away.
“I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it.”
Griffin’s candor startled many in the space community, but insiders acknowledge the reality. China has pulled off two manned spaceflights with its own rockets and is eager to head for the moon.
NASA has a 2020 [and slipping] deadline for returning Americans to the moon. China would like to beat that.
It has a probe poised for a launch to the moon, supposedly before year’s end. The lunar orbiter is to be followed by a lander and then, by 2017, a robotic mission to return moon rocks. Whether China could land one of its “taikonauts” there before American astronauts arrive is uncertain.
The U.S. is “more technically advanced. We certainly could be back on the moon faster than the Chinese, but we don’t have the political will and therefore the resources to do it,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, head of the Naval War College’s national security decision-making department. – MSNBC
I’ve got to admit, I’m amazed. The same people who gave you the Fed and trillion dollar deficits and giving you this line of total crap about our space program and you believe them? You don’t even filter what you hear with the least bit of a critical eye? Ask yourself this, if India is going to the Moon to get Helium 3, why did it bother to send a satelite to map mineral resources? If the Moon is trapping all this Helium 3 out of the solar wind like a sponge, then it’s everywhere uniformly, right? How damn brilliant do you have to be to figure that one out?
There is a gold rush going on and your country is being left in the dust. It is being left out because your government is bought and paid for by foreign interests and because your aerospace companies are more interested in leaching off of you the taxpayer than they are building anything. No one is going to look out for your interests on this. You’ll either get mad about this and do something yourself, our you’ll be the laughing stock of history. The choice is yours.
HAHA you used to work there??????? that is hillarious.
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/index.html
why don’t you read todays news..
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/25/galaxy.planets.kepler/index.html
or read any other news..
India will send people to outerspace in 2015, and will “walk” on the moon in 2020. It says here in today’s news that the reason india is sending people to the moon is to promote domestic scientific research.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/4788143/India-to-spend-1.7bn-sending-man-to-the-moon.html
This one describes how china is trying to get the public to fund their space “exploration”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUKTRE51O1PZ20090225
“Due to the rarity of helium-3 on Earth, it is typically manufactured instead of recovered from natural deposits. Helium-3 is a byproduct of tritium decay, and tritium can be produced through neutron bombardment of lithium, boron, or nitrogen targets. Current supplies of helium-3 come, in part, from the dismantling of nuclear weapons where it accumulates.
If commercial fusion reactors were to use helium-3 as a fuel, they would require tens of tons of helium-3 each year to produce a fraction of the world’s power.
The reality is not so clean-cut. The most advanced fusion programs in the world are inertial confinement fusion (such as National Ignition Facility) and magnetic confinement fusion (such as ITER and other tokamaks). In the case of the former, there is no solid roadmap to power generation. In the case of the latter, commercial power generation is not expected until around 2050.” – wiki
No one gives a rat’s ass about He 3. No one has a reactor that can fuse He 3 or get any energy out of it what so ever. You seem to think you “burn it”. First of all, you don’t burn Helium. It is inert regardless of the isotope. Second, a fusion reactor has been the holy grail of physics for the last 50 years, and frankly we’re not any closer to having one now than we were 50 years ago.
Physics is dead. The same thing happened to it that happened to aerodynamics. All our scientists started doing research for the sake of funding instead of seeking funding for the sake of research. As is it’s custom, our illegitimate government destroys everything it touches. So what are you going to do, throw up your hands and hope John Gault saves you, or fix government so it does what you need it to do?
Right now we have a space program that exists to provide expensive, risk free development contracts to a handful of contractors. That’s why they don’t want you to know the serious nature of what we are up against. The contractors run the government and they don’t want their gravy train to end. If you’re fine with that, then let’s keep going the way we’re going and history will deal with us appropriately.
Who knows what your talking about. NASA is going just as strong as they ever have. We have sent sattalites to every planet in our solar system. We have robots on mars… And next we are setting a new exploration. The milky way alone has 100 billion earth like planets and that is the next large objective for Nasa. Other than that, they probably have about 100 other projects going on including millitary research. NASA and Physics are not dead. Just because you read some article about other countries going to the moon doesn’t mean that we eliminated our space program. Since February 2006 NASA’s self-described mission statement is to “pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.” That is exactly what they are doing.
China MIGHT send people to the moon in 15 years. Their government said, “the space program is too costly for a country that, despite rapid economic growth, is still struggling to eradicate rural poverty.”
“So can we go after minerals on the moon? Before we do, let’s think about mining and smelting on Earth. We use huge amounts of water — huge amounts of power. We consume oxygen and we put out great clouds of gas. But there is no water on the moon, nothing to burn, and no power until we put it there.”
-Prof. Donald M. Burt
Geology Department
Arizona State University
There are no clouds on the Moon. Wouldn’t that suggest to you that solar power would be readily available? In fact, you could use a large concave mirror to produce a solar furnace quite easily on the Moon. At 1/5th the gravity, it wouldn’t be difficult to support structurally. And guess what one of the byproducts of reducing ores like aluminum and titanium is? If you guessed oxygen, you’d be right. As far as needing water, there is no mining process I know of other than panning for gold that does anything with water other than trying to keep it from flooding their mines.
Sean thinks he knows everything and pretends he is the only educated person here. The FACT there is water on the moon.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/09/moon-water.html
I could fill hundreds of books of things that Sean doesn’t know and that goes for everyone. So stop debating like you have all the answers, cause you don’t. Once you step foot in a Science debated I will be all over your ass cause that’s what I know best
what do you want? there is microscopic water found on the moon. No lakes and no fire hydrants. Do you know how to drill?
I’m just saying you post things that aren’t ture and I want to rub it in your face…
Its not like i’m pretending to know everything. I’ve had this same debate about mining gold on the moon before and i’ve been studying economics in school for years because i’ve really been facinated with monetary policies.. I’m really more into philosophy and history. I like to understand why we do the things we do and how we got here.. Trying to argue about something when somebody has had a passion about it for years, goes to school for it, and who reads about it everyother day is probably not the wisest idea.. I am open to suggestions, i agree with alot of things, and i am 100% okay with admitting i’m wrong when there is proof to back it up… Telling me I don’t know what i’m talking about and having nothing to show me where i’m wrong does nothing but turn a debate into an argument.. THis is okay, but all the arguing before was just a pain for the both of us and we got nowhere with it. We should put it all behind us
Water loosens the soil reducing the amount of impact needed.. Everybody who drills typically uses water.
What the indians, chinese, and russians are after on the moon is not platinum. It is Helium 3. It is estimated that 3 space shuttle loads of helium 3 burnt in a fusion reactor could meet the worlds power needs for an entire year. Helium 3 is not abundant on earth. The main source for helium 3 on earth is old nuclear warheads. The tritium in old nuclear warheads decays and forms Helium 3. However, since 1955, only about 150 kilograms of Helium 3 is estimated to have been formed in this manner, which isn’t very much at all.
Helium 3 is trapped within the earth on the surface of the moon and is present in very small quantities (about 0.01 ppm). Therefore, you would need to mine quite a bit of soil to capture the Helium 3. It seems like the economical approach that is being considered is to mine for other precious metals as well, since you have to mine large quantities of earth to begin with.
Helium 3 is the real prize that the chinese, russians, and indians are after. Whatever platinum and other rare metals they find in the process is a bonus.
do you know how much it would cost to send three space shuttles to land on the moon?
“If commercial fusion reactors were to use helium-3 as a fuel, they would require tens of tons of helium-3 each year to produce a fraction of the world’s power.” wiki
“The reality is not so clean-cut. The most advanced fusion programs in the world are inertial confinement fusion (such as National Ignition Facility) and magnetic confinement fusion (such as ITER and other tokamaks). In the case of the former, there is no solid roadmap to power generation. In the case of the latter, commercial power generation is not expected until around 2050.” – wiki
As I understand it, a rhetorical question is one where the answer is obvious. The way we are going now, we will be the last country to go to the Moon in this new era of exploration. If you are happy with that, then let’s keep going the way we are going, or we could follow Ron Paul’s advice and get rid of NASA entirely. He makes the valid point that NASA is not a constitutionally authorized entity. So his plan is to get rid of it.
I suppose if Queen Isabella had followed that line of reasoning, this land we live in would still belong to the people who preceded those of us of European ancestry and we would not have a USA or a US Constitution. In my opinion basic research and risky kinds of exploration are a valid government function. I believe we should amend the US Constitution to allow this kind of thing to be funded by the government. I also think it is our responsibility to get behind the opening of the Moon to commercial exploitation by supporting the kinds of government funded programs required to get us there first instead of last. Now are you with me or are you against me? The answer is not obvious, but it should be.
Thanks for the reply. But calm down just a little bit and if you don’t mind, go ahead and limit the rhetorical questions.
Getting back to the video, it was pretty sweet. Looking forward to hearing Ron Paul’s questions to both Volcker and Bernanke.
Apollo showed the Moon is made of the same stuff as the Earth. Are there any valuable minerals here? Obviously yes, right? The big difference is the Moon is smaller, has more surface area for it’s mass, has less gravity to resist mining, and it has never ever been mined. We know that iron meteorites are generally high in platinum. In fact, one platinum mine in Canada is a meteor impact crater. Now imagine all the iron meteors that have hit the Moon, and many of these impacts have not been covered over by erosion or lava flows. The fact is, valuable minerals are there. The only question is which ones are most accessible? Is it uranium? Could the Moon supply all of our future energy needs? It seems likely platinum could be found in abundance there. Could that be the key to developing economical fuel cell technology that would put an end to our dependence on foreign oil and help balance our trade deficit?
Whatever it is that can be exploited on the Moon, we don’t want to be the last one’s to find out, do we? We don’t want to be the last to stake our claim. The Chinese are going. The Russians are going. The Indians are going. Of that much we are certain. Do you want to be last? Will the US continue to be the economic powerhouse of this planet when we are buying our mineral wealth from countries that are willing to take a risk on the resources locked in our closest neighbor? How are we going to be judged by history if we were there first, we were there in the ’60s, and we squandered that lead? How will future generations of Americans judge us when we had it all, and let some 3rd world puke holes take it all away? Is that the legacy you want to leave your children and your children’s children? That’s not much to aspire to, is it?
Seems to be a very costly mining mission doesn’t it? Is there any evidence to believe the moon holds a pile of minable gold and other precious metals?
I’m sure the only reason India is interested in space is so they can be just like us. Certainly they would never be interested in mining the Moon for resources. Why would anyone think that?
[India's] Chandrayaan-1 is being sent on a two-year, 80-million-dollar mission to provide an in-depth map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the moon’s surface. – Breitbart
No one is going to the Moon to mine resources. They are just trying to impress us by being like us. That’s all. Doesn’t everyone want to be just like us?
A chief scientist with China’s Moon exploration programme, Ouyang Ziyuan, said that the country was planning to launch its first mission to the Moon in 2010. He reportedly told the Beijing Morning Post: “Our long-term goal is to set up a base on the Moon and mine its riches for the benefit of humanity.” – BBC News
Repeat after me, there is no space race, there is no space race. Keep saying it, there is no space race.
India has approved a £1.7 billion plan to launch its first astronauts into space by 2015, in its latest bid to close the gap with China in what many see as a 21st Century Asian version of the Cold War race for the Moon. – Times Online
Clearly a fortune in precious metals mined from the Moon, our nearest celestial neighbor that man first set foot on in the ’60s could never have any effect on the wealth of this nation or of this world. Let’s just ignore what’s going on and hope everything works out, shall we?