Ron Paul Calls for Audit of US Gold Reserves

[acockasian]

I don't think Ron Paul is crazy. Maybe a little old-fashioned but most of what he says makes sense. Interesting that the media likes to concentrate on his mental health.

I'm surprised at you. Take a look at his policy positions. Then tell me...

 

There are a few things I disagree with him about. Even vehmently but its secondary or even tertiary (pro life' date=' Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending birthright citizenship), to the positions he takes on what this country needs.

 

He's not tainted. That in of itself makes him the only one in the government that will actually do what is needed.

 

If he was elected he wouldn't be able to do it on his own anyway. The real enemy is Congress. That den of theives needs to be rehauled.

 

A lot of Ron Paul's secondary issues I disagree with won't get past the Supreme Court anyway (birthright citizenship for example).

 

Doesn't matter anyway, we are irrevocably f**ked. Its too late. It really is. The last economic crisis showed that as a people we have lost the will to do what we need to do.

 

Toqueville's warning has come to fruition. The Congress has bribed us with out own money and its the end of the Republic.

 

"nee ha" folks...start learning mandarin. [/quote']

 

Very well said.

 

 

[LizardKing]

Nicely put CS. Paul's opinions are secondary to his fundamental position. Hard to find an American politician who doesn't sound flakey these days anyway, especially in the GOP.

His fundamental position is idiotic. Returning to the gold standard...

[Steve]

Hi, LK. I'm not sure if it amounts to the same thing but he wants to make gold and silver legal tender as it once was (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul)

However, Paul does not support a complete return to a gold standard, instead preferring to legitimize gold and silver as legal tender and to remove the sales tax on them.

 

I think he wants a choice.

Basically to make your money worth something.

 

This interview he has in Forbes explains his position more clearly.

 

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/13/gold-standard-fed-intelligent-investing-ron-paul.html

 

a few excerpts:

 

So if you want to restrain government, you restrain the power to create money. And that's what gold does. A lot of people think, "Well, that means you're going to have to carry all that gold around in your pocket." No. There's nothing wrong with gold certificates. And it can be electronic gold. It's just that it restrains the power of individuals, especially secret individuals that have no oversight from Congress to create this money.

 

also...

 

For it to work, you should always check on who's promising you something beyond the money, that you can take that coin or your paper in and see if they really have the gold in the bank. And this literally came up after the Civil War. See, we were off the gold standard during the Civil War. And the Resumption Act of 1875, they had a three-year period and they said, "We're going to quit printing money." They withdrew some greenbacks and they said, "The gold's going to be available after three years."

 

And actually it was a non-event. They didn't want to carry the gold around. But they wanted to know, once they knew the gold was in the bank, they went back to using their paper. The government didn't have deficit financing and they weren't running the world

 

Its really a check against the government.

[LizardKing]

That is exactly the gold standard and it is stupid. Tying a country's monetary supply to a commodity is dangerously stupid.

 

And that does it accomplish? Some dream? We *were* under the gold standard in the later 1800s and when the Great Depression started. It solves nothing, and ties the hands of government when it needs to make a currency move.

 

I'm off for dinner. Let's just end by saying that the United States abandoned its policy of stabilizing gold prices back in 1971. Since then the price of gold has increased roughly 10x, while consumer prices have increased about 250%. If we had tried to keep the price of gold from rising (because the US government historically manipulated the gold market when it was on the gold standard), this would have required a massive decline in the prices of practically everything else -- deflation on a scale not seen since the Depression. Does this sound like a particularly good idea to you? That's just one simple reality check.

 

Keynes proposed using gummint spending to correct for insufficient demand resulting in mass unemployment and a deflationary death spiral. It was a formula for saving capitalism from itself. Sound familiar? The Dem's stimulus plan? Ya, that's it.

 

Economics has evolved since Keynes. Just about everyone now agrees that monetary policy is a superior tool for dealing with recessions and preventing depressions, but in Keynes' time they where chained to the gold standard. Inflationary monetary policy to short circuit the death spiral was basically impossible, hence the Great Depression.

 

It was the Fed, despite the AIG debacle, who saved us from Great Depression 2.0 this time around because of the flexibility of monetary policy. And yes, they had a hand in creating the conditions the led to the crisis in the first place, but that doesn't change the fact that they managed to prevent the death spiral from taking hold (so far).

 

Gold Standard = Bad Policy

[Flashermac]

David Rockefeller: Quote for January 10, 2008

 

 

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. [color:orange]The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National auto-determination practiced in past centuries.[/color]

 

-- David Rockefeller (1991 Speech to the Trilateral Commission)

 

 

 

Link

 

 

 

[acockasian]

LK,

 

"who saved us from Great Depression 2.0 this time around" is the part I disagree with. Not only do I not believe we are saved but I fear the worst is yet to come.

 

Sincerely hope I am wrong!

 

[cavanami]

Can you say, FUCK DAVID ROCKEFELLER

[Flashermac]

So just what have you got against a wealthy elite composed of bankers and politicians running the world for us proles? Aren't you even a little bit grateful?

 

Look at the wonderful job our bankers did just a year or two ago!

 

 

 

 

[chuckwoww]

His fundamental position is idiotic. Returning to the gold standard...

 

I think his fundamental position is old-fashioned honesty. A return to the gold standard may be impractical but why not do an audit? That will expose Ron Paul as a nut and we can all have a good laugh. Won't cost much. There should still be some honest accountants around.

 

[Steve]

LK, could the panics and depression occur inspite of the gold standard and not because of? I suggest that it was almost totally unrelegated banking and financial markets that caused these panics.

I've mentioned this before. Certain industries, such as the railroad formed oligarchies that controlled supply, demand and pretty much stopped free market by excluding anyone not in the cabal.

 

The stock market of 1929 didn't have the rules it has now. Rules against short selling, rules against double dealing, etc.

 

The most recent crisis happened because the government allowed the markets to do things they weren't allowed to before. That's what caused the crisis and the Fed went along with it.

 

This country became the worlds biggest economy while we were ON THE GOLD STANDARD. Could it be that if there were no gold standard during those panics that people would have lost faith in the currency? Its the public's trust that helped bring us back each time. Back then, your money meant something, it had value. It has none now.

 

I don't think economics is as complicated as we may make out to be or as evolved so much. The world itself was on a gold standard from the Romans up to the 20th century and economies 'seemed' more complex in the British empire in the 19th century than the Roman empire in 100 A.D. Stock markets, shares, etc. Seeminlgy far more complex than the Roman times. Economics is simple. Trade is simple.

 

I think the reason it seems complex is the banks, etc. create seemingly new, complex scams to separate us from our money and provide for themselves an advantage over us. At the end of the day nothing changes. You go to a store and buy a loaf of bread today pretty much the same way some person did in Rome 2000 years ago.

 

No, I don't see the Fed as the savior of the last financial crisis but inherently part of the problem. The Congress and all of us treated Greenspan as if he was some deity. Our trust in the Fed turned out to be misplaced.

 

The country was founded on transparency in government. The Federal Reserve isn't, as are other parts of the government. I'm not saying the public should know the details of every black op program, etc. but our own government uses national security as a reason to either lie to us, remove constititional rights and civil liberties or hide corruption.