Despite encouraging words from politicians and the establishment media’s talking heads, it is clear to me, and I believe most Americans who do not live in a regime ivory tower, that we are not coming out of the recession. In fact, things appear to be getting worse as unemployment continues to rise and businesses cut salaries or shut down. The fears that this recession could turn into another Great Depression are very real, as we have lost so much of our capacity to create wealth and the federal government seems determined to use up any remaining capital fighting endless wars, funding endless entitlement programs, and spending trillions of dollars on non-wealth-creating “stimulus” programs while handing out even more trillions to their bankster buddies and corporate cronies. However, another 1930s-style depression is not what keeps me up at night with worry.
America could survive another Great Depression if it was like the last one. Sure, it would be extremely painful, but it would be manageable, as it was before, and eventually we would come out of it, despite the fact that the government would most certainly make all the wrong moves along the way. However, what really terrifies me is a hyperinflationary depression.
According to John Williams at ShadowStats.com, in an article titled Hyperinflation Special Report, hyperinflation is not only possible, but inevitable due to the overspending of the federal government, and the printing press of the Federal Reserve, which as Congressman Ron Paul continuously reminds us, prints money out of thin air. Williams’ report is a truly terrifying read that insists that the coming hyperinflation could get so bad that we will have to resort to the barter system as the dollar will become nothing more than very rough toilet paper. He cautions that electronic banking will cease to work and for a time no one will have any money at all, not even inflated currency. You can certainly imagine the type of Hell on earth this will create for the American people.
Ron Paul : you have right to your life and your liberty you do not have right to stuff. The government should not distribute wealth or services.
President Obama has won the healthcare argument in Congress but the nationwide debate still rages. RT talks now to one of the opponents, Congressman Ron Paul. He says the plan provides a right that should not be offered by government.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
by Daily Bell Staff Report
Dr. Ron Paul
On Monday, Senator Chris Dodd rammed his “financial reform” legislation through his Senate Banking Committee on a strictly party-line vote. It’s no surprise that Chris Dodd’s answer to the economic crisis is the same as his answer to seemingly everything else: give the government more power … Dodd’s bill, which should be called the “Fed Empowerment Act,” will add more layers of bureaucracy to government. One of its provisions includes creating a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be housed at the Fed and funded by it. Apparently, the Connecticut senator expects us to believe that an agency inside the Fed and financed by it will be “independent.” The legislation also includes a new Financial Stability Oversight Council to “monitor” companies that supposedly could become “too big to fail.” The Council will have the ability to require nonbank financial companies to be under the Federal Reserve’s supervision if the government deems they pose a “risk” to financial stability. Certain large companies will be expected to submit plans to the government “for their rapid and orderly shutdown” if the company goes under … Who knows how many businesses could be targeted and broken up, under the guise of “reform,” solely for standing up to the federal government! In yet another expected move, Dodd’s bill strips out a complete Fed audit and allows the Fed to decline to disclose specific information. – Ron Paul, Campaign for Liberty
Dominant Social Theme: More regulation is necessary …
Free Market Analysis: We were lucky enough recently to snag an exclusive, short interview (below) with libertarian congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex). And when we received the above missive via email from his Liberty organization, we found to some extent it paralleled the interview. In both this exclusive interview, and the call to action above, Ron Paul bemoans the power of the Federal Reserve and Congress’ lack of ability to create meaningful oversight over what can in many ways be considered a rogue monetary entity. Hopefully, the Fed does not end up with even more power after its latest series of economic disasters. See for yourself:
Daily Bell: Will the Fed be audited in your lifetime?
Ron Paul: To the extent that I want to see it audited, probably not. There may be some half-hearted attempts at auditing the now-ended liquidity programs, but the substantive things like open market operations, the discount window, and deals with foreign central banks will remain in the shadows. We’ve had great success with the language from HR 1207, managing to get the language through the House as part of HR 4173, but I fully expect the audit language to be watered down when the House and Senate bills go to conference.
Daily Bell: What’s in store for the dollar and fiat currency in general?
Ron Paul: Well, in the long run the value of all fiat currencies falls to zero. So, it’s just a matter of time before the fiat dollar disappears. The dollar has lost 96% of its value over the past century, and the Federal Reserve and federal government have been doing their best in the past two years to accelerate that.
Daily Bell: Where do you see gold and silver going from here?
Ron Paul: Long-term I think they will be much higher than they are right now. We live in a world of government-monopoly fiat currencies and they all inflate and destroy their value in unison. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see gold much higher in the next couple of years.
Daily Bell: Can the fiat dollar recover in your opinion?
Ron Paul:That’s hard to predict, but I don’t think it’s likely. The dollar has lost 96% of its value since 1913, and there’s just no way we can get back to that level under a fiat system. In order to recover, the same Federal Reserve that caused that 96% drop would have to suddenly get wise, stop the inflation and debt monetization, and get serious about sound money. That just won’t happen.
Daily Bell: Will we have a China-centric or Asia-centric world in the 21st century?
Ron Paul: This is a difficult forecast, but it’s certainly possible. When you have Russian leaders chiding American leaders for embracing socialism and Chinese students laughing at the Treasury Secretary’s assertion that US assets remain a safe investment, people begin to wonder when the world flipped upside down. For over a century, whether rightly or wrongly, the US has been seen as the epitome of free-market capitalism, where anyone could pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make it big. Over the past several decades that ability for entrepreneurial success has been suffocated by excessive regulation, taxation, and government intervention. Forcing American businesses and workers to get government permission for everything they want to do is not the recipe for economic success.
“If you think health care is expensive now–just wait until it’s free.”
P. J. O’Rourke
Universal health care will not be free – it will devastate the economy, warns Ron Paul
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com
Monday, November 9, 2009 (always ahead of his time)
If the Obama administration keeps its promise in guaranteeing not to raise taxes to pay for universal health care, the only way to cover the costs will be for the Federal Reserve to print even more money out of thin air, a process that will kill the dollar and lead to lower living standards for all Americans, warns Congressman Ron Paul.
In his weekly Texas Straight Talk telephone update, Dr. Paul said that Saturday night’s passage of the health care bill in Congress will lead to a further devastation of the American economy and the greenback.
Last week, Congress debated a resolution directing the President to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan no later than the end of this year. The Constitution gives the power to declare war to the Congress, so it is clearly appropriate for Congress to assert its voice on matters of armed conflict. In recent decades, however, Congress has defaulted on this most critical duty, essentially granting successive presidents the unilateral (and clearly unconstitutional) power to begin and end wars at will. This resolution was not expected to pass; however, the ensuing debate and floor vote served some very important purposes.
First, it was important to finally have an actual floor debate on the merits and demerits of continuing our involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan. Most congressional action regarding Afghanistan has concerned continued funding for the conflict. Thus, members of Congress have cloaked their support for an increasingly unpopular war in terms of financial support of the troops. But last week’s resolution had nothing to do with funding or defunding the war, but rather dealt directly with the wisdom of an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops (and hundreds of billions of tax dollars) in Afghanistan. Members opposing the resolution had to make their case for the ongoing loss of American lives as well as the huge expenditures required for an intractable conflict.
In my opinion, this was an impossible case to make.
By: Dr. Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman
Hat tip: GoldSeek.com
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Photo: Artistic rendering of Federal Reserve in action.
Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minimum payments that are now coming due. Their debt level is about 120 percent of their gross domestic product and their public sector absorbs what amounts to 40 percent of GDP. Any talk of cutting costs and spending is met with violent protests from the many Greeks heavily dependent on government payments. Mounting fears of default have sent shockwaves through their creditors and all of the eurozone countries.
But there have been statements made by the European Central Bank to calm fears and give assurances that Greece will get the aid it needs. Details of agreements are not forthcoming.
Is it possible that our Federal Reserve has had some hand in bailing out Greece? The fact is, we don’t know, and current laws exempt agreements between the Fed and foreign central banks from disclosure or audit.
Greece is only the latest in a series of countries that have faced this type of crisis in recent memory. Not too long ago the same types of fears were mounting about Dubai, and before that, Iceland. Several other countries (Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Latvia) are approaching crisis levels with public debt as well. Many have strong ties to Goldman Sachs and the case could easily be made that default could have serious implications for big US banking cartels. Considering the ties between the Fed and these big banks, it is not outlandish to wonder if the US taxpayer is secretly bailing out the entire world, country by country, even as our real unemployment tops 20 percent. Unless laws are changed to allow a complete and meaningful audit of the Federal Reserve, including its agreements with foreign central banks, we might never know if this is occurring or not.
Could it all be a bad dream, or a nightmare? Is it my imagination, or have we lost our minds? It’s surreal; it’s just not believable. A grand absurdity; a great deception, a delusion of momentous proportions; based on preposterous notions; and on ideas whose time should never have come; simplicity grossly distorted and complicated; insanity passed off as logic; grandiose schemes built on falsehoods with the morality of Ponzi and Madoff; evil described as virtue; ignorance pawned off as wisdom; destruction and impoverishment in the name of humanitarianism; violence, the tool of change; preventive wars used as the road to peace; tolerance delivered by government guns; reactionary views in the guise of progress; an empire replacing the Republic; slavery sold as liberty; excellence and virtue traded for mediocracy; socialism to save capitalism; a government out of control, unrestrained by the Constitution, the rule of law, or morality; bickering over petty politics as we collapse into chaos; the philosophy that destroys us is not even defined.
We have broken from reality–a psychotic Nation. Ignorance with a pretense of knowledge replacing wisdom. Money does not grow on trees, nor does prosperity come from a government printing press or escalating deficits.
We’re now in the midst of unlimited spending of the people’s money, exorbitant taxation, deficits of trillions of dollars–spent on a failed welfare/warfare state; an epidemic of cronyism; unlimited supplies of paper money equated with wealth.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Congressman Ron Paul says that the people responsible for the economic crisis should not be hailed as saviors and given more power to fix the problem that they created, but arrested and criminally prosecuted.
The Congressman has two bills before Congress, one to abolish the Federal Reserve altogether and another to audit the organization.
“Today they’re protected, they’re in total secrecy and they’re protected by the law — if 1207 is passed we have an audit and they have to answer the questions and I figure, if we ever get that far and get the exposure and get the transparency that we need then people will wake up and realize, why do we have them at all,” said Paul.
Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.
Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.
Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.
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