Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Lots of Talk, Little Action as Stagflation Predominates

Some financial commentators are beginning to sound the economic themes of which Ron Paul speaks.

Lots of Talk, Little Action as Stagflation Predominates

It seems like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. The most-advertised recession of all time has come without any of the talking heads in Washington having done anything to actually prevent it. And, it appears that the politicians have done everything to actually cause a recession instead of preventing one.

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In addition, the bush and his fellow-travelers in Congress pushed through legislation requiring diversion of substantial quantities of our Corn crop to Ethanol production, causing food prices to skyrocket, all in the name of reducing the cost of importing oil. Instead, both energy and food prices have gone through the roof.

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Since the Fed bailed out Bear Stearns (an investment bank), 259,000 homes have been foreclosed upon. Where is the Fed when they are really needed?

If this is the best we can get from the Fed, why do we need them at all? They play games with our money, debasing it and then promising it to their banking friends in case they lose it. All the while, taxpayers are given short shrift by the bankers and lose their homes.

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The bush in the White House is now planning to lead the country's future, its young people, into yet another war in the MidEast in the name of "freedom." It's about time the citizens of this country stood up and refused to participate in the evilness of this bush and his band of cronies, both Democrats and Republicans, in Washington. And, considering how badly the Fed has done its job, it's probably time to consider repealing the statute which created this public-private entity, which at its heart violates the Constitution, which prohibits the government from ever printing money.

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Our Patriotic Debt

Our Patriotic Debt
by Elwood Earl Sanders Jr.

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Hence, there is extreme temptation for bankers to, in effect, inform on their customers. It was not always so: Particularly onerous Treasury regulations proposed in 1999 called ‘Know Your Customer” were beaten back by Congress in a victory for Rep. Ron Paul, who is now a presidential candidate. Alas, many of the rules adopted in the Patriot Act were identity requirements made into law. There can now legally be no secret accounts or accounts under an assumed name in the United States.

The financial surveillance is only just the beginning. There’s also the passage of the Real ID Act of 2005, which sets new security and authentication procedures and forces states to register driver’s licenses and state identification cards into a national database for so-called official government purposes.

Real ID is not really an identification system at all.

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Once civil liberties in the United States are lost, they can never be reclaimed. Who will be affected? The usual suspects: political and social activists, people of faith, along with educators, artists and writers. Let’s start today with financial privacy and Real ID to reclaim the constitutional republic. The ultimate fate of a world without financial privacy was stated nearly 2,000 years ago, in the Bible, Revelation 13:16-17: “He also forced everyone … to receive a mark on the right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark.” Financial privacy, civil liberties and national sovereignty must be an essential part of any constitutional republic.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Nevada Republican Officials Walk Out Of Their Own Convention

After a super-majority of Ron Paul supporters captured control of the Republican state convention Saturday, state party officials abruptly canceled the event without electing delegates to the national convention.

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Paul spokesman Jeff Greenspan said the walkout was a first in his 21-year career in politics.

"I've seen factions walk out, I've never seen a party walk out," he said. "I've never even heard of that."

Friday, April 25, 2008

A Free Market in Gasoline

Congressman Ron Paul Wants A Free Market in Gasoline

(PressMediaWire) - Congressman Ron Paul's writings on free market on gasoline - Many Americans understandably are upset with the sharp spike in gas prices since Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast in August, and are concerned by reports of oil company profits. But we must understand that high oil prices are not the result of an unregulated free market. On the contrary, the oil industry is among the most regulated and most subsidized of U.S. industries. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether too much government involvement in the oil markets, rather than too little regulation, has kept the supply of refined gasoline artificially low.

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Centralized government planning, on the other hand, cannot solve our energy dilemmas. The Nixon-era price controls on gasoline in the 1970s produced nothing but disastrous shortages. By contrast, the Reagan administration’s immediate deregulation of the oil industry resulted in an unprecedented boom in oil production and a dramatic reduction in prices. This is the lesson we must remember.

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Ron Paul Is My Hero

Ron Paul Is My Hero

It’s kind of odd saying that a politician is my hero, but he is no typical politician. He has integrity that no other politician has, he always votes in line with the Constitution. Senator John McCain told Kent Snyder who worked for Paul’s campaign in 1988, "You’re working for the most honest man in Congress."

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Ron Paul for years has been warning us of a looming economic disaster due to our nation’s insatiable appetite for nation building and the fact that we have a fiat currency thanks to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and for Nixon when he took the U.S. off the gold standard.

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Washington State Delegates

What’s this? Ron Paul tops McCain?
By GREGG HERRINGTON, Columbian editorial writer

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Item 1 — Paul prevails: ... it’s clear that Paul outpolled McCain by a substantial margin overall. Most of that margin was built among participants from the 18th Legislative District of north and far east Clark County, where Paul forces captured between 25 and 28 of the 30 delegate slots bound for the state convention.

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Paul’s forces big in Spokane, too

If local Republicans are mortified by the thought of the county party sending more Paul delegates than McCain delegates to the state convention, they can take solace knowing what happened at the Spokane County GOP convention was even weirder.

The Paul forces “ate McCain’s lunch,” a Spokane reporter told me, vastly outnumbering them and pushing through a get-out-of-Iraq-fast plank in the local party platform. That must be a real hit at state GOP headquarters and at the altar of pre-emptive war in the White House.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Real Winner Was None Other Than Ron Paul

Ron Paul Achieves Stunning 16 Percent

The real winner in Pennsylvania yesterday wasn't Hillary Clinton or those of us who never have to see TV ads again. No, of course not: The real winner was none other than Ron Paul, who took 16 percent of the vote for second place in the Keystone State.

... only 73% of voting Republicans yesterday selected the GOP nominee.

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Some Republicans said a vote for Paul was a message vote — a way to tell their party they are not happy with its direction and presidential selection. Richard Dekalb, an 80-year-old Republican who lives in Ann's Choice in Warminster, doesn't like McCain and wanted to vote for “anything as far away (from him) as I could.

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Understand the Presidency

Ron Paul: Clinton 'doesn't understand the presidency'

Wednesday, April 23 2008 @ 07:29 AM MDT
Contributed by: Admin
by Nicholas R. Schwaderer

This year’s presidential election isn’t out of surprises.

When America had just settled into the Obama vs. Clinton vs. McCain political equation, Ron Paul proved Monday night that his message still has a place in the fray.

Earlier Monday, Clinton said she was prepared to “totally obliterate” Iran in response to a nuclear attack on Israel. She elaborated on that statement in later interviews, saying her goal was to reestablish a Cold-War-style deterrence.

The Chronicle asked Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul about Clinton's statement during a press conference immediately before his rally at the University of Montana.

“She doesn’t understand the presidency if she’s making this type of commitment,” he said, launching into a discussion on foreign affairs.

Paul explained his core position through the lens of the current Iraqi conflict. He asserted that we are in the midst of an unconstitutional war that was never declared by Congress. He also expressed his distaste of treaties under which America is obligated to go to war.

When asked what his response would be under the same circumstances, Paul said Israel is safer without our presence and could sufficiently wipe out Iran on its own. He pointed out that Iran ‘may’ have been working on ‘a’ nuke since 2003, while Israel possesses 300.

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Paul Phenomenon

Paul Phenomenon
Ron Paul corners Fed chief Bernanke over rates: fuss-budget


Representative Ron Paul has cornered Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke at a congressional hearing this month, on whether rate manipulation got the US economy in trouble - again.

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A central bank's power lies in its ability to manipulate rates (usually lower them) by printing money when the market forces demand a higher rate.
This ability is very useful for governments in times of war and to finance programs to buy votes, but it is also the key problem with central banking that results in bubbles, high inflation and also personal financial ruin of ordinary people.

In a market driven economy, a central bank is an anachronism that can change the interest rates by bureaucratic decisions (monetary policy committee) rather than actual market forces that drive the demand and supply for credit.

In the US the Fed was established in 1913 amid stiff opposition, through a bill that was secretly promoted by the big banking families of the US.

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But central banks were relatively benign under the gold standard, when their ability to print money was restricted by a link to gold, though a boom accommodated by the Fed during the 1920's later caused the great depression.

The link with gold was broken during the World Wars and re-established under the Bretton Woods agreement where the US dollar was linked to gold and other currencies were linked to the dollar.

Ultimately the US government defaulted on its obligations under the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973 when heavy money printing (and the Vietnam War) made it impossible to preserve the link with gold.

The US finally went to a fully fiat (paper) currency in 1973 after firing a global commodity bubble and oil shock.

For more than one and a half centuries before that gold was priced at 35 US dollars an ounce and there was no long-term 'inflation'.

But since 1973 the US currency has been debauched to 1,000 dollars an ounce and the world is now in the grip of another massive 1973-style bubble which is bringing real misery to millions of poor people around the world in the form of higher food prices.

Meanwhile, the US is now printing more money to save its banking system (rate cuts) and chase an elusive concept called 'growth'.

n Asian dollar linked countries like Sri Lanka which do not have an independently floating currency to counter US inflation and is burdened with a weak domestic monetary system that creates it own inflation, people are suffering with high rice prices amidst the highest inflation it its history.

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At a congressional hearing this month Fed chairman Bernanke was forced to make an admission by Ron Paul (see transcriptions below) to the shocking extent to which central banking rate decisions are a little more than guesswork.

Paul, who is associated with the Ludwig von Misses Institute is one of the few politicians of the world who has an in-depth understanding of 'monetary policy', with the possible exception of senior ministers in Singapore who actually run that country's monetary authority.

He makes the point that central banks create 'growth' by keeping rates artificially low and giving rise to business cycles or bubbles which then burst spectacularly (like the sub-prime bubble).

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Representative Paul (interrupting): Does excessive credit and low interest rates cause mal-investment? Artificially low interest rates, which aren't market driven?

Chairman Bernanke: Well, the question is you know is the judgment where the interest rates ought to be. We have a mandate of course for maximum employment and price stability. We are trying to balance these obligations.

We could make mistakes and put the interest rates to the wrong place and that would have negative impacts. I agree. So we are doing the best we can to find the right place to put the interest rates. One that is consistent with the neutral rate. Or the rate that establishes the full employment in the economy.

Representative Paul (smiling): And some day we may try the market to determine the interest rates. Thank you.

Ron Paul Slams Federal Reserve For Destabilizing The World By Printing Money

Ron Paul Slams Federal Reserve For Destabilizing The World By Printing Money

US congressman Ron Paul has launched a scathing attack against the US Federal Reserve, which the Congressman claims is printing money in order to manipulate interest rates and undermine workers wages and old people’s savings.

Paul, one of the few politicians with an insight into fiat money wrote "The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation."
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Saturday, April 12, 2008

National Taxpayers Union Honors Ron Paul

Nation’s Largest Taxpayers Group Honors Congressman Ron Paul

WASHINGTON , DC – Congressman Ron Paul deserves applause for a pro-taxpayer voting record last year, according to the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU). The nonpartisan citizen group announced that Congressman Paul was one of only a few dozen lawmakers in the House and Senate to win the 2007 “Taxpayers’ Friend Award.”

“While many Members of Congress talked about reducing the size of government last year, Congressman Ron Paul backed up those words with votes,” NTU President Duane Parde said. “This award proves that Congressman Paul is a staunch ally we can count on in our battle to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington .”

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Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Interview - Inflation, Stagflation, Monetary Policy

Radio interview of Congressman Ron Paul by Chris Waltzek of GoldSeek.com.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Health Ideas Make Economic Sense

Ron Paul’s Health Ideas Make Economic Sense
By Rick Coddington

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On health care, Paul was quoted as saying: “Health care should not be left up to HMOs, big drug companies and government bureaucrats. It is time to take back our health care.”

That, to me is the solution in a nutshell. As I have said over and over, the problem is insurance and drug company profiteering and the government bureaucrats that propagate this broken system.

Paul starts by proposing to make all medical expenses tax deductible by doing away with the current 7.5 percent IRS deduction. Simply put that means that you wouldn’t have to get to some IRS number to deduct your expenses, they would be immediately and totally cut from your taxes.

Next, Paul proposes eliminating federal regulations that discourage small businesses from providing coverage. He then moves onto the supply side of the problem by proposing to give doctors the right to collectively negotiate with insurance companies and drive down the cost of medical care.Excellent!

Paul goes on to propose changing the rules to make every American eligible for a Health Savings Account, or HSA, and removing the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy before opening an HSA. That means that we could pay ourselves (a tax deductible amount), put it into an account that we have control of and immediate access to and not have the insurance execs carving out their percentage from our money.

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Thursday, April 3, 2008

Ron Paul Owns The Future

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And whatever anyone says about Ron Paul, his so called “fringe,” is the only political movement left with a systematic argument for the role of government. He talks about strategic issues, while all the rest quibble over tactics. There is no question that the Paulists now have the intellectual and moral power. They are ignored or ridiculed because no one can answer their arguments. And those arguments, left unanswered, will only cause their movement to grow.
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But Ron Paul owns the future.

Freedom Rally At University Of Pittsburgh

Ron Paul at Pitt

Yet another presidential candidate will add his name to the list of politicians visiting Pittsburgh in anticipation of Pennsylvania's presidential primary on April 22.

Republican candidate Ron Paul, in an event sponsored by the College Republicans, will give a speech in Bellefield Hall at 9 pm ...




KDKA radio interview with Dr. Ron Paul.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Ron Paul Supporters vs. Real Conspiracy Theorists

Ron Paul Supporters vs. Real Conspiracy Theorists

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The recent events of Ron Paul supporters organizing and working within GOP convention rules to win delegate seats and resolutions has been labeled by the Republican establishment as a coup against the Republican party. This notion is preposterous and is nothing more than a conspiracy theory of their own in order to motivate opposition to true conservative ideas. Ideas that they say they believe in, but rarely practice anymore.

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Now the Republican establishment is accusing Ron Paul supporters of taking over the party. Maybe they should stop with their own conspiracy theories. Ron Paul supporters are merely trying to rescue the Republican Party and take it back to its true conservative roots. Something that is long over due. Instead of denigrating and blocking the Paul supporters, they should welcome the infusion of new blood. Hopefully they realize it before it is too late.

Purpose Of NATO

Berlin hardens 'no' to NATO offer for Georgia and Ukraine

The German government underlined its opposition Friday to NATO opening the door to membership to former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia.
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NATO was created to defend Western Europe from the Soviet Union. NATO's mission was accomplished, so has NATO's time passed?

... NATO is an organization whose purpose ended with the end of its Warsaw Pact adversary. When NATO struggled to define its future after the Cold War, it settled on attacking a sovereign state, Yugoslavia, which had neither invaded nor threatened any NATO member state.

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Ben Bernanke "We Can Make Mistakes"

Ben Bernanke, Chairman on the Federal Reserve, says "We can make mistakes."




Learn about the Federal Reserve (not a federal agency, has no audited reserves) in The Money Masters.