A balanced budget will not work unless we return to a hard-money standard. Within a productive economy, a continuing increase in the money supply is a natural and necessary means of providing a reasonably stable unit of account and medium of exchange.

Under a gold standard, the government provides a mechanism for this necessary increase in the money supply: turning gold bullion into coins. Each gold coin minted increases the amount of money in circulation, even though the existing amount of gold in the country and the world remains the same. And the government can transform any amount of gold into coins and release them into circulation without creating an imbalance in its budget.

The exact opposite is true in a fiat money system. An increase in the money supply requires a budgetary deficit, since the amount of new money released to circulation equals the amount of government spending not covered by tax revenues.

For a balanced budget to work in practice, a gold standard must be reintroduced at the same time.

Some things to think about for a Convention of the States: term limits, including for judges; balanced budget; zero base budget, with line item veto. There are definitely more things to be considered, but those seem the most in need of correction.

Good points both of you, showing some of the weaknesses of our system we have become inured to, I think. I like the idea of the no confidence vote, although it is a hair trigger I have seen pulled several time in England. But the budget process should be a balanced one, and I would love to see an end to deficit spending, it is one of the current tools they are using to bamboozle the peasants, who don't care where they get their bread and circuses...

Important point, is Trump sick? I don't know, he does do some off the wall things, but I am not sure if it is because it is what he is used to, or just doesn't know how bad it can come off, or what. Barney did not argue the point Queeg had cracked, I would hope Trumpp doesn't.

Liberty, not to argue the point, as everyone interprets art their own way, but here is the conversation with Barney, and it was after the YellowStain incident, Queeg comes to them for help, but he does not know how to ask for it outright, that was Barneys point. They knew what was up, and still left him to hang out to dry, which is what I see the Republicans doing to Trump. It is a point we can discuss and debate, as I am sure there is no right or wrong answer or interpretation, I am surprised there were people who remembered the book or the movie:

Lt. Barney Greenwald: Well, well, well! The officers of the Caine in happy celebration!

Lt. Steve Maryk: What are you, Barney, kind of tight?

Lt. Barney Greenwald: Sure. I got a guilty conscience. I defended you, Steve, because I found the wrong man was on trial.

[pours himself a glass of wine]

Lt. Barney Greenwald: So, I torpedoed Queeg for you. I had to torpedo him. And I feel sick about it.

[drinks wine]

Lt. Steve Maryk: Okay, Barney, take it easy.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: You know something... When I was studying law, and Mr. Keefer here was writing his stories, and you, Willie, were tearing up the playing fields of dear old Princeton, who was standing guard over this fat, dumb, happy country of ours, eh? Not us. Oh, no, we knew you couldn't make any money in the service. So who did the dirty work for us? Queeg did! And a lot of other guys. Tough, sharp guys who didn't crack up like Queeg.

Ensign Willie Keith: But no matter what, Captain Queeg endangered the ship and the lives of the men.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: He didn't endanger anybody's life, you did, all of you! You're a fine bunch of officers.

Lt. JG H. Paynter Jr.: You said yourself he cracked.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: I'm glad you brought that up, Mr. Paynter, because that's a very pretty point. You know, I left out one detail in the court martial. It wouldn't have helped our case any.

[to Maryk]

Lt. Barney Greenwald: Tell me, Steve, after the Yellowstain business, Queeg came to you guys for help and you turned him down, didn't you?

Lt. Steve Maryk: [hesitant] Yes, we did.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: [to Paynter] You didn't approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn't worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You ragged him. You made up songs about him. If you'd given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you suppose the whole issue would have come up in the typhoon?

[to Maryk]

Lt. Barney Greenwald: You're an honest man, Steve, I'm asking you. You think it would've been necessary for you to take over?

Lt. Steve Maryk: [hesitant] It probably wouldn't have been necessary.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: [muttering slightly] Yeah.

Ensign Willie Keith: If that's true, then we were guilty.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: Ah, you're learning, Willie! You're learning that you don't work with a captain because you like the way he parts his hair. You work with him because he's got the job or you're no good! Well, the case is over. You're all safe. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

[long pause; strides toward Keefer]

Lt. Barney Greenwald: And now we come to the man who should've stood trial. The Caine's favorite author. The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all. Tell 'em, Keefer!

Lieutenant Tom Keefer: [stiff and overcome with guilt] No, you go ahead. You're telling it better.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: You ought to read his testimony. He never even heard of Captain Queeg!

Lt. Steve Maryk: Let's forget it, Barney!

Lt. Barney Greenwald: Queeg was sick, he couldn't help himself. But you, you're real healthy. Only you didn't have one tenth the guts that he had.

Lieutenant Tom Keefer: Except I never fooled myself, Mr. Greenwald.

Lt. Barney Greenwald: I'm gonna drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer.

[pours wine in a glass]

Lt. Barney Greenwald: From the beginning you hated the Navy. And then you thought up this whole idea. And you managed to keep your skirts nice, and starched, and clean, even in the court martial. Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer. But you, you'll publish your novel, you'll make a million bucks, you'll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you'll live with your conscience, if you have any. Now here's to the real author of "The Caine Mutiny." Here's to you, Mr. Keefer.

[splashes wine in Keefer's face]

Lt. Barney Greenwald: If you wanna do anything about it, I'll be outside. I'm a lot drunker than you are, so it'll be a fair fight.

As I recall from the book, Queeg came in, said "When perfection is the standard...", bd and bd, got snotty about shirttails, and finally tore the ship upside down over an issue of missing strawberries. His second-in-command, (under Keefer's influence), during a typhoon, declared him mentally incompetent, and took over the ship, after which he (Maryk) was court-martialed,
and found not guilty.

Will such a thing occur with Trump? I doubt
it. I don't think he is picky about non-essentials.
I do think he has a big mouth, into which he
often unnecessarily puts his foot.

Thanks for the corrections. You have to remember, these are the result of a Yank unfamiliar with Commonwealth government trying to recall an event more than 40 years in the past. Things happened so fast, and even our Aussie compatriots were somewhat bewildered at what had just happened. Like Americans, they didn't have a complete understanding of exactly how their government worked, so the explanations to us were a bit scrambled and contradictory.

We tend to wax a bit arrogant about how our legislative body, Congress, is superior to a parliamentary system, primarily because it is so stable. We can't get rid of the pack of fools even when most Americans don't trust them and want to clean the Augean stables of the House and Senate. We view the parliamentary systems, where a vote of no confidence can bring everything down and cause early elections, as less workable, but in my view, it means the offenses of each elected member are still fresh in the voters' minds. Our system gives the miscreants time to let the memories fade, and convince the public of how great they are well before the next election. Something to think about.

Dr Z, good comments, but not quite.
The G-G is legally constrained by rules among which is to get advice from the prime minister before acting.
This was not done. I understand G-G John Kerr did not inform the Queen who by reputation would not have sacked a
government. The G-G did that as there was an impasse, a vote approving supply (the key items of budget) was voted down.
It is interesting to compare this situation with what happens in the US.
When congress is deadlocked over a budget vote there is no appeal to authority, congress has to talk and argue until
some sort of deal emerges. A better arrangement?
In my view, in Australia etc, this is what would normally happen. The current monarchy is highly respected and does have reserve powers but the strength of the institution is that the reserve power is never or seldom used.
So, going by precedent, not being able to pay the public service, the police, or meet financial obligations does not call for dismissing an elected government. I suppose violent insurrection would trigger such dissolution. As I read it, in the US this option is not available to any individual, it is public opinion that must demand action.

The Commonwealth countries have a little known interesting institution, the Governor-General, who is answerable only to the Queen. The GG has only one power: to dissolve the government of the country and hold new elections if the government acts against the well being of the country.

I was stationed in Australia in the mid 70s, at a joint location with the RAAF. The Labor government had instituted single-payer medical care, and had badly underestimated the cost. The Australian constitution requires a balanced budget, so deficit spending is illegal. The Labor Premier and his Minister of Finance had slipped off to Switzerland to arrange under the table loans to cover the excess costs of single payer, but unfortunately one of their staff caught wind of what they were doing, and gave the GG a call. Even though the GG was a long time friend of the Premier, he did the right thing and called the Queen to inform her he was dissolving the Labor government and staging new elections. Because the Australian people were so appalled, the election resulted in a Liberal (which is really conservative) government being elected.

Too bad we don't have similar institution.

They can't, that IS the problen THEY have created by selling everything that isn't bolted down. Now, they owe big people, big time and none of that involves us. Until a large enough group of Americans wake up to the corrupt nature of our government, it will continue, or it will take control to survive, these are just symptoms, and Ayn Rand saw it 60 years ago.

Their problem is how do you maintain the giveaways while maintaining the insurance bailouts and still paying the bills

That could be interesting, I do not remember for sure but the plot of Seven Days in may I think had them as National Guard on active duty for a supposed "exercise".... I wish he would declare it in insurrection and arrest them all, and hold new elections.

We don't even have replace..we have..uh..nothing new that I know of...

Now that may very well be, in that he may be ultra conservative, but he is also a Party insider, who can probably get a lot more support than Trump can...

That is true, but he is almost Roman in his need to make pronouncements before the arena...

The only way I see this happening is if he openly declares war on the RINOs in Congress. They do need to go, and I'm hoping they will, but Trump can work against them without it being out in the open. He's not that unsubtle.

It was often said that VP Joe Biden was Obama's impeachment insurance, and VP Mike Pence , I believe, is Trump's impeachment insurance. Trump may be unpredictable, but the ultraconservative Pence would be every Democrat's nightmare as President.

Republicans never supported him really. If they did we would have repeal instead of replace

Absolutely correct. I applaud him for putting up with the stupid crap thrown at him

Yes, I cannot argue the point as it reflected my experience in the enlisted world, most E8/9 were not worth spit, as they only got promoted because of KA. I did see a 2 star I had great respect for, and by accident, on a video on You Tube about the Virginia class submarines, he drove the program to be cost efficient, and made building them efficient. He also was a super guy, and was weapons officer on the USS Will Rogers with me in the late 70's. He used to wear cowboy boots, and refused to change them, despite the XO ranting about it. he was a Texan and stayed that way, he still had the damn boots on as an admiral, and they were black and polished as any corofram ever was.

There are specific rules that determine military action in domestic circumstances. The Posse Comitatus law forbids the use of military in law enforcement roles. The exceptions to that rule are when an emergency has crippled the indigenous law enforcement or outstripped its capability, and the National Guard can't completely meet the need. The other exception is when a state is declared to be in a condition of insurrection, allowing the President to declare martial law. The latter is interesting, because the Insurrection Act (established in 1807) grants that power exclusively to the President as the authority who determines if a state is insurrectionist. Congress has no say in the matter. Theoretically, Trump could declare even DC as in a state of insurrection. I suspect the Insurrection Act fringes on being unconstitutional, but no one has sought to challenge it in over 200 years.

It is typical that in a real war, some time must pass before the paper pusher and ass kissing generals are moved out of the way and real men take over. I've spent 25 years in the DoD, much of the time with O-5, 6 and above. Perhaps a generalization, but my respect would be inversely proportional to the officer's rank. A colonel or Navy captain (o-6) was about the limit for respect. After that, promotion was dependent more on the length of one's tongue than on merit. I've only known one Admiral that deserved respect, and he was retired with only one star. And I've worked with two stars that got promoted with no merit at all, but what smooth talkers they were... One became Vice Admiral; he was the Aegis officer on USS Vincennes when she shot down the Iranian airliner. The report said that he used the Aegis screen for Post-It notes!

Just saw this, they will keep pounding and pounding.....

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-resi...

Ah, yes, Doc, I too, am retired military, and understand the oath, but there is the lawful orders of those above part that will trip it up. Say someone is told to cordon off DC and restrict access, and maybe even cordon seats of Fed gov't. Where does it become unconstitutional? What if the President orders it? I can see many, many scenarios where the constitutionality may be unclear, and seniors go to the sidelines to protect themselves. Treason is a heavy charge, if you are on the wrong side of a decision, even when you think you are right at the time.

I agree, it is his outsider state that appeals, it is uh, social skills that repel at times, but given the available choices, I do not have anyone else to offer, beyond Trey Gowdy, and he said no, no, no. As far as getting rid of the RINO herd, it is money that rules, It just costs too damn much to run, and you have to owe too many people favors, the root of all this evil.