Scott Horton Interviews Rep. Ron Paul
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Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses the pitfalls his “Audit the Fed” amendment faces during the legislative process, vastly increased public awareness of the Federal Reserve and central banking, gold’s increase in value relative the dollar and why the US empire would be impossible to maintain without the Fed’s ability to monetize debt.
MP3 here. (10:28)
Congressman Ron Paul represents Texas’s 14th district. He is the author of The Revolution: A Manifesto, A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship and Freedom Under Siege. His archived columns for Antiwar.com appear at http://original.antiwar.com/paul
baboon
May 14th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Hey, Scott
I like Paul, but can't behind him because he identifies with the Republican Party,
I am not prejudice as I do the same with Kacinach because he identifies
with the Democrat Party. I was just wondering though, has Kucinach ever been
on this show. Have you ever invited him? If not , why not ? And if you did
and turned you down, I would like to know.
Good Luck, wish I could have afforded more $$$$ to send you !
Benjamin
May 14th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Dear Scott and Ron Paul;
If the U.S. couldn't pay for the war without the Federal Reserve, then how were wars paid for before Central Banking? This is just nonsense.
The question isn't monetary policy, the question is WHO IS SETTING monetary policy. Ron Paul wants "The free market," which means oligarchs, to set monetary policy. I don't see how this would make any difference. It's the Central Banks and Treasuries of the World which hoard all the gold. Switch to a gold standard, and the exact same organizations, individuals and social classes will be setting policy.
Steve Hogan
May 15th, 2010 at 2:15 am
Benjamin,
You're the one spouting nonsense. Oligarchs don't set the price of plasma TVs, iPods, or eggs (although through monetary inflation, these things cost more in dollar terms than they otherwise would under a commodity money system). What makes you think they could do so with gold in a free market?
Your assertion about needing a central bank to pay for wars is also fallacious. It is the ability for banks to engage in fractional reserve banking (read: counterfeiting) that allows for wars to be funded by currency manipulation, which inevitably results is surging prices later on.
Central banking merely permits the financial fraud to be organized by fewer people in a coordinated fashion. It makes ripping us off easier to achieve, but the principle is the same whether there is a central bank or not. Fraud is fraud.
Dawson Lodge
May 15th, 2010 at 2:22 am
Ron Paul identifies with the classic values of the old Republican party,
which essentially stood for individual rights & responsibilities. Ron Paul
in no way identifies with the neo-nazis that have co-opted the Republicans,
like the Bush gang and others of their ilk. Real Americans are trying to
recover the Republican party from the globalist banksters, and Ron Paul is
leading the charge to reinstate the US Constitution and lawful government.
aaaaaaab
May 14th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
You have to catch up on your history of monetary policy. There's even a lecture by Bernanke in which he explains how the Fed financed WWI.
Technically you can finance wars without the Fed, but it's much harder, because you have to directly tax the people, and people tend to oppose taxation much more often than inflation, which is what the FED uses to transfer purchasing power from the people to the government during war time.
bob35983
May 14th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Benjamin; with cold, hard cash. Taxation. Modern times (Napoleonic?) introduced War Bonds. Mortgages on a variety of instruments: land, incomes, Titles of Nobility, the Crown Jewels. Sales of Offices and/or Titles or entire regions. The Federal Reserve destroys the currency in a manner similar to 'coin clipping'.
guest
May 15th, 2010 at 7:40 am
I think he is just confused. Constitution says that wars should be declared by Congress, the branch that is to pay for them. After World War 2, wars have been fought by executive order from the President with consultation with Congress. (R. Paul opposes this new way (His wikipedia entry says he has the most conservative voting record of any congress member since 1937). Treasury Bills , or promises to repay with interest, have be issued and we get a deficit, or putting it on your children, and their children's children. If people don't believe in the money system, it leads to a currency collapse. Thanks for your input.
Benjamin
May 15th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Does Ron Paul actually oppose fractional reserve banking? Would he ban banks from doing so? If not, getting rid of the Fed is like getting rid of OPEC. It doesn't change who has the oil or who creates the public money for private profit.
Benjamin
May 15th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
By the way, I totally agree that fractional reserve banking is the real problem. But a "free market" with fractional reserve is just another flavor of rule by bankster oligarchs.
Steve Hogan
May 15th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Ron Paul wouldn't have to ban banks from the practice of defrauding their customers. Without the Fed acting as a lender of last resort – one that can rescue banks from bank runs – fractional reserve banking would become far less prevalent. Without 100% reserves available, even large banks could be shut down overnight by customers fearing their money is not safe.
The Fed is a gigantic moral hazard. It permits the banking system to engage in legalized counterfeiting. They get to charge interest on newly created money, and its largest borrowers (the government) get to spend the money before it loses its value on its useless wars and welfare schemes intended to buy votes. The rest of us get the shaft.
End the Fed. Return banking to being an honest profession. Governments would shrink, offensive wars would end, the boom-bust cycles would become a distant memory.
baboon
May 16th, 2010 at 2:23 am
There is where everyone one is confused…
Congress gave the executive all the war powers he needs with Public Law 107-40.
This not just executive order as they lead you to believe, they handed the exec
the war powers for whenever he wants, where ever he wants, read to the law,
the terrorist threat is considered an act of war. Until Public Law 107-40 is
repealed , congress has handed war powers as stated by the constitution.
That Paul or Kucinach don't address this, have me to believe they are both frauds.
As long as both of them stay within the Dem and Pub party, this old man won't
fall for their fish food, both of them are there in their respective parties to keep
the voters believing in the parties,
If like you say, that the republican party has been taken over, Paul isn't going to
be able to change that, he knows and so should everyone. Same with Kucinach.
Paul is not going to foool me with is populist talk in the Republican Party , nor is Kucinach.
Bite on that fish food if you care,
baboon
May 16th, 2010 at 2:38 am
As the 2012 presidential elections approch, and the professed Libertarians start urging
their followers to registar Republican, vote Republican, it will be very telling to me whether
it is a faux-populist leadership designed to take very frustrated citizens, feed them some
food then have them vote Republican.. If that is to be the case,,
I am going to urge all those that are going to bolt from voting Democrat because of that
parties ineptness and corporate whoreing, to think twice befor bolting. I have been true
to my guns and am 0 for 10 in presidential elections because of this, as Debs stated
"I would rather vote for something I believe in and lose ,
than to vote for something I don't believe in and win."
However, for the first time, this may change if Paul runs for president inside the Republican
Party because I will cancel out somebodys vote. Should he run as a libertarian, he just
might get my vote.
baboon
May 16th, 2010 at 2:47 am
Both of the parties are as corrupt as the day is long, more corrupt.
They are not going to be reformed from within.
If Libertarians believe they are going to get my vote with the likes of Beck and O'Rielly
rooting them on, you must know, not everyone is that stupid.
If Paul caters to those kind, it will be very telling.
Fox news is really for idiots, while I don't watch any MSM,
they are the worst, that is not to say that I let MSNBC, CBS OR CNN
off the hook, non of them report the news and shouldn't even be considered a news service.
Benjamin
May 17th, 2010 at 2:46 am
It's the FDIC and the Executive Branch that backs the fractional reserve banking system. Or haven't you noticed?
I totally agree that the Federal Reserve should be ended. But the Federal Reserve is just an agency acting on behalf of it's real constituency; which is its member banks. Get rid of their front group, and you don't really accomplish much. Except assuage populist anger, perhaps.