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Ron Paul’s Speech to Congress

“The Bailout”—-obtained from Ron Paul’s Congressional Website

The process of this bailout reminds me of a panic-stricken swimmer thrashing in the water only making his situation worse. Even a “bipartisan deal”—whatever that is supposed to mean— will not stop the Congress from thrashing about.

The beneficiaries of the corrupt monetary system of the last three decades are now desperately looking for victims to stick with the bill after they have reaped decades of profit and privilege.

The difficulties in our economy will continue because the Legislative and the Executive branches have not yet begun to address the real problems. The housing bubble’s collapse, as was the Dot Com bubble’s collapse, was predictable and is merely a symptom of the monetary system that brought us to this point.

Indeed, we do face a major crisis but it is much bigger than the freezing up of Wall Street and dealing with worthless assets on the books of major banks. The true crisis is the pending collapse of the fiat dollar system that emerged after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971.

For 37 years the world built a financial system based on the dollar as the reserve currency of the world in an attempt to make the dollar serve as the new standard of value. However since 1971, the dollar has had no intrinsic value, as it is not tied to gold. The dollar is simply a fiat currency, which has fluctuated in value on a daily, if not hourly, bias. This worked to some degree until the market realized that too much debt and malinvestment existed and a correction was required.

Because of our economic and military strength, compared to other countries, trust in America’s currency lasted longer than deserved. This resulted in the biggest worldwide economic distortion in all of history. The problem is much bigger than the fears of a temporary decline on Wall Street if the bailout is not agreed to.

Money’s most important function is to serve as a means of exchange—a measurement of value. If this crucial yardstick is not stable, it becomes impossible for investors, entrepreneurs, savers, and consumers to make correct decisions; these mistakes create the bubble that must eventually be corrected.

Just imagine the results if a construction company was forced to use a yardstick whose measures changed daily to construct a skyscraper. The result would be a very unstable and dangerous building. No doubt the construction company would try to cover up their fundamental problem with patchwork repairs, but no amount of patchwork can fix a building with an unstable inner structure. Eventually, the skyscraper will collapse, forcing the construction company to rebuild—hopefully this time with a stable yardstick.  This 700 billion package is more patchwork repair and will prove to be money down a rat hole and will only make the dollar crisis that much worse.

But what politicians are willing to say that the financial “skyscraper”—the global financial and monetary system-is a house of cards. It is not going to happen at this juncture. They’re not even talking about this. They talk only of bailouts, more monetary inflation, more special interest spending, more debt, and more regulations. There is almost no talk of the relationship of the Community Reinvestment Act, HUD, and government assisted loans to the housing bubble. And there is no talk of the oversight that is desperately needed for the Federal Reserve, the Exchange Stabilization Fund, and all the activities of the President’s Working Group on financial markets. When these actions are taken we will at last know that Congress is serious about the reforms that are really needed.

In conclusion, there are three good reasons why Congress should reject this legislation:

1. It is immoral—Dumping bad debt on the innocent taxpayers is an act of theft and is wrong.

2. It is unconstitutional—There is no constitutional authority to use government power to serve special interests.

3. It is bad economic policy—By refusing to address the monetary system while continuing to place the burdens of the bailout on the dollar, we can be certain that in time, we will be faced with another, more severe crisis when the market figures out that there is no magic government bailout or regulation that can make a fraudulent monetary system work.

Monetary reform will eventually come, but, unfortunately, Congress’ actions this week make it more likely the reform will come under dire circumstances, such as the midst of a worldwide collapse of the dollar. The question then will be how much of our liberties will be sacrificed in the process. Just remember what we lost in the aftermath of 9-11.

The best result we can hope for is that the economic necessity of getting our fiscal house in order will, at last, force us to give up our world empire. Without the empire we can then concentrate on rebuilding the Republic.

The Debate Results Are….In?

(reposted from http://rdevinhughes.blogspot.com/)

Interest in politics is high; last night, the lobby of my residence hall ended up having thirty people in it just to watch the debate. With such a large group, I figured there would be a heated post-debate discussion as to who won. However, after 90 minutes, everyone in the room seemed to feel very little impact from the debate. The consensus was that neither candidate had a shining moment or could be considered victorious. The debate really did consist of two candidates discussing ideas and explaining why their idea is better for America. We went about our evenings—it’s not like there has to be a consensus winner, right?

The media may disagree with us there. After the debate, a top headline for every major news outlet in the country was something like “Who Won?” ABC News had such a headline on their website, and also held a televised discussion amongst political experts asking who won. However, neither the article nor the video declares a winner; instead, inside we find a recap and analysis of each candidate’s answers. I am quite proud of ABC for this, and the McCain campaign has to be pleased as well. The network covered McCain’s answers without slanting them or giving biased analysis, effectively allowing McCain to get his exact message out to America. ABC News covered the candidates and the issues only; by comparison, CNN was so obsessed with declaring a winner that they conducted a poll revealing that Obama won…yet the respondents were mostly Democrats. What an incredibly useless poll—as a voter, if I had missed the debate, I would want to know what the candidates said so that I could decide for myself who won. ABC was even thorough enough to conduct a fact check on many of the points that were made in the debate.

That all said, in the video I linked to, ABC analyst George Will made a good point in saying that this debate was not a “game changer,” then going on to say that this was bad for McCain. The perception ABC gives off is that Obama is leading the national polls, so a draw in the debate is an overall win for Obama. If the public watches this video and agrees, then McCain ended up having a very bad night. If public favor is indeed currently for Obama, then the McCain campaign probably needed headlines of “MCCAIN WINS DEBATE IN LANDSLIDE.” The next debates between the two may not be as important—not all Americans are voting in November, remember. Absentee ballots will soon go out, and if the current polls are a good indication, the lead is in Obama’s hands right now.

So, is the McCain campaign happy with how ABC News reported the debate? Probably. ABC did not declare Obama the winner, and McCain’s responses are covered fairly and extensively. Now, should they be happy with the results? Maybe not. Maybe it is telling when you are happy just to tie your opponent. Analysists continue to point out that there was no “game changer” or “defining moment,” and in separate articles, polls show that Obama is winning. Therefore, subtly this is saying that McCain is the one needing the game changer. There is not enough on ABC’s website of McCain’s campaign explaining why they won. Sarah Palin was nowhere to be found; Joe Biden was giving post-debate interviews. By being apparently satisfied with a tie, the McCain campaign has allowed the election status to remain, for the moment, in Obama’s favor.

I encourage questions, debates, or feedback. Feel free to comment here or email me at rh312206@ohio.edu. See you next time!