Paul vs. Bernanke on Value of the Dollar Candidate Rep. Ron Paul Faces Off With Fed Chairman (AP Photo ) ESSAY By Z. BYRON WOLF Nov. 8, 2007 Font Size
E-mail Print Share When you are Ron Paul, your public enemy No. 1 is the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Because when you are Ron Paul, although you are technically a Republican, you are really a libertarian, and your strict adherence to the gospel of the Constitution leads you to question why the Federal Reserve -- the consortium of 12 reserve banks that acts as the U.S. central bank -- even exists.
Related Stories Economy faces risks, not recession: BernankeTop Politics stories Giuliani Says Shamed Top Cop Like NixonCongress Overrides Bush Veto for 1st TimeTHE NOTE: Old Trumps New for Rudy It doesn't say anything about any central bank in the Constitution. Not only that, the primary responsibility of the Federal Reserve -- to control the money flow and availability of currency on the open market -- is something that you, Ron Paul, find incorrigible. The government, you believe, creates inflation when it prints money and moves it willy-nilly into the market to control the very inflation you think it's causing by moving that money around in the first place. Counterpoint: The gold standard was too inflexible, and the average citizen suffers when the government can't give the markets more fuel in the form of money. (And for your information, here's a Fed-produced interactive feature on the Fed.)
But you, as Ron Paul, have your druthers. You'd get right on back to the gold standard, where each dollar represents a set amount of gold. This whole artificial currency is maddening to you (and it's a lot of the reason you're running for president, although you get more press for being the only Republican candidate openly in opposition to the Iraq War). In fact, if you became president, one of the many pieces of the federal government you'd work to abolish, along with the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, is the Fed.
So, when you're not out on the stump running for president but back at your day job in Washington, D.C., a job you plan to keep should you fail in your quest for the White House, it's a good thing for you, as congressman Ron Paul, to sit on the Joint Economic Committee, which from time to time hears testimony from Ben Bernanke, chairman of your hated Federal Reserve.
rimasco
posted
Heres the clip from today
Ron Paul Says Federal Reserve 'Robbed' Americans of their Wealth
posted
i love it when somebody actually stands up and tells the truth in the Capitol Building...the latest batch of crooks up there have changed the name to the Capital Building
posted
I think people are just starting to learn the truth. They cut out the end of the clip when Bernanke was just silenced.
“There is a dollar crisis out and people’s money being stolen,” Paul said. “People who have saved, they’re being robbed. I mean, if you have a devaluation of the dollar at 10 percent, people have been robbed of 10 percent.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attempted to dispel the notion people were being “robbed” of their money by explaining the relativity of the dollar in a local economy.
“If somebody has their wealth in dollars and they’re going to buy consumer goods in dollars, then as a typical American … then the decline in the dollar – the only effect it has on their buying power is that it makes imported goods more expensive,” Bernanke replied.
glassman
posted
i've been saying this for years now, real soon? there will be no equity left in the US....
glassman
posted
they say average income is up over the last 6 years, but it's all in the upper 1/2% and they aren't keeping it here.
glassman
posted
i wanted to post this yesterday:
Longshot White House hopeful Paul takes in $4.3 million
By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential longshot Ron Paul became an Internet fund-raising sensation this week by bringing in $4.3 million in 24 hours through a Web drive by supporters.
The online drive for Paul was done to coincide with a day in British history when rebels, including Guy Fawkes, plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Fawkes was captured and tortured to turn in his brethren.
MSNBC reported this as the single day fund raising record...
i hope he goes third party. i think it's time.
rimasco
posted
I think I heard him say he wouldnt run as an Indie.
Maybe if he sees more support...who knows?
bdgee
posted
I think something is wrong headed about Paul. Otherwise, why would one with his claimed honesty about the budget ever have aligned himself with this bunch of claimed republicans in the first place.
rimasco
posted
I think hes one of those "honest to a fault" types
bdgee
posted
"I think hes one of those "honest to a fault" types".
In which case, since he claims to be loyal to this bunch of usurpers of the title "republican" and supports their overall philosophy and agenda, he has to be dumb as a post.
glassman
posted
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: "I think hes one of those "honest to a fault" types".
In which case, since he claims to be loyal to this bunch of usurpers of the title "republican" and supports their overall philosophy and agenda, he has to be dumb as a post.
bdgee, try reading up on him before you start saying more foolish things. he's the only one in the GOP side who is shooting straight.
rimasco
posted
he could be a little more coy about his asperations
bdgee
posted
glass....,
I do not maker statements or queries without "reading up ... before".
There are particular points that about which Ron Paul is quite "refreshingly honest" and many others where he simply ignores facts in order to reach pie in the sky conclusions that refusing to fund things will lead the U.S. to fiscal utopia and return our foreign relations to pre-neocon times.
Honesty demands that we all accept that this is not the 17th or 18th century, when the U.S. had vast virgin unexplored territories and more than vast potential wealth therein for frugal, ambitious, responsible, forthright, non lazy, Americans to exploit, in a time when we had not yet learned how fragile our existance on this planet is.
There is no place for a "mountain man" to trap the 21st century equivalent of beaver or the railroads to sell hundreds of thousands of sections of land for next to nothing that they, in turn, got free from the government to eager willing "pioneers". We can't send off those for whom there is no inheritance or gainful employment to those now gone places of hope, because they are all filled up with other people. The Constitution does not suggest that wealth (and even minimal financial security) is the birthright of those born to to the "right" families. Freedom is only a word with no actual reality if there is no hope of ever reaching a point where one can select among options by choice rather than choosing out of necessity and Ron Paul refuses to accept that abject poverty is a necessary precipitant to an economic policy that describes freedom in a way that it can only be realized as an offshoot of wealth.
Let Ron Paul state bluntly what he intends to do about our willingness to house an alarmingly huge percentage of our black male population in prisons rather than provide some adequate means to them of earning enough money to raise and feed a family honestly and hope to gain even a modicum of respect and accepted membership in the only society he has to be a part of and let him say how he will stop raiding social security and find a way to fund a program what is the envy of the rest of the non- second or third world nations. Can he suggest (or even consider) working with Mexico to an end that lets that Nation provide for it's masses to make a living there rather than having to sneak into our country to earn enough money to eat regularly and fee their children? He isn't doing any of those, just appealing to the simple minded that can't get it through their heads that either the human race must devise methods of supporting ALL of its people, in a way that doesn't destroy the world in the process, or find some acceptable way to lower the over population to a point that the ways we live aren't over riding the climate. It is the only honest course of action.
retiredat49
posted
quote:Originally posted by bdgee: I think something is wrong headed about Paul. Otherwise, why would one with his claimed honesty about the budget ever have aligned himself with this bunch of claimed republicans in the first place.
Maybe because history has shown him that as an independent, he can't win the presidency...he is in fact a true Libertarian...I watched the last debate in Fla. and he drew boos from "the crowd" on a couple of different occasions...one of them was his stance on the war in Iraq.
The republicans don't like him at all...but the people are embracing his honesty...
Read up on him bdgee...then tell us what you do or don't like about him...You might just be surprised at how aligned you are with him on many of todays issues.
retiredat49
posted
Damn...you're fast...lol
Lockman
posted
quote:Originally posted by bdgee:
Let Ron Paul state bluntly what he intends to do about our willingness to house an alarmingly huge percentage of our black male population in prisons rather than provide some adequate means to them of earning enough money to raise and feed a family honestly and hope to gain even a modicum of respect and accepted membership in the only society he has to be a part of and let him say how he will stop raiding social security and find a way to fund a program what is the envy of the rest of the non- second or third world nations. Can he suggest (or even consider) working with Mexico to an end that lets that Nation provide for it's masses to make a living there rather than having to sneak into our country to earn enough money to eat regularly and fee their children? He isn't doing any of those, just appealing to the simple minded that can't get it through their heads that either the human race must devise methods of supporting ALL of its people, in a way that doesn't destroy the world in the process, or find some acceptable way to lower the over population to a point that the ways we live aren't over riding the climate. It is the only honest course of action.
Is their another candidate bluntly stating what he or she intends to do?
glassman
posted
no there isn't Lockman. not even close
bdgee
posted
"Read up on him bdgee"
Quit being a knothead and spend the little amount of effort needed to read my post to read my post.
AS I SAID ABOVE, I HAVE R3EAD UP ON HIM AND HAVE BEEN DOING SO LONGER THAN HE HAS BEEN RUNNING AS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. It isn't me that will be surprised about what can be learned about Ron Paul, for anyone willing to actually spend the effort to investigate rather than absorb the campaign crud being tossed around.
I sday again, I like a lot of what Paul says, I think a lot of it is impractical BS that a serious presidential candidate should have better integrity than to foster, and I see that he artfully and clearly intentionally sidesteps rather than have any position, particularly when it comes to specifying how he plans the details of his claimed intentions.
Then there is the republican angle. He clearly IS NOT of the ilk of the current powers of that party. Thus, they hate him (they do love hating so much it is their identifying characteristic), snicker)and, thus this absolute honest and honorable character you are claiming he has is wrapped around a lie of party affiliation he himself commits. Just where is the measure of a bottom limit of perfect honesty that the lies about party affiliation don't get to and so don't destroy perfection in truth telling?
glassman
posted
admit it bdgee you're a democrat. anything you don't like is just GOP lies.
penniesindapit
posted
Yeah, What we need is more Candidates that are very unclear as to their beliefs ...................WHAT?
Some people can fault others for everything!
RON PAUL is the ONLY honest Candidate for the Presidency and with any Luck at least half the idiots in our Country will WAKE UP and realize that prior to next year!
Even people like Hannity and Rush will make statements like "You have to vote for Rudy or who ever gets the nomination b.c. it's the lessor of 2 EVILS!!!"
Are you FREAKIN kidding me? I will NOT vote for any one EVIL at all!!!
Even IF I disagreed with Dr. Paul I would still vote for him based solely on his HONESTY b.c. who the HE** wants to vote for a DAG ON LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????
Not me!
Eliminate the: WAR, IRS, FED, INCOME TAX, BIG SPENDING, WORLD POLICING, and every other dumb arse thing we do on a regular BASIS!
Finally we have a Candidate that simply tells it like it is. If we CUT SPENDING ELSEWHERE we could actually ELIMINATE INCOME TAX and be able to take care of AMERICANS FIRST!!!
Crazy idea isn't it!!!!!!!!!!
If Ron Paul doesn't win then just let JESUS come back and begin the END!
Hillary and Rudy = DEATH TO AMERICA
CAN I GET A AMEN???????????????????????????
lpcguy
posted
Hey finally a candidate that has some common sense....
rimasco
posted
My guess is, if he does become a legitimate threat..... he might just meet an untimley death.