Ron Paul is interviewed about “dumping the faith-based Federal Reserve system”. He talks about the history of the gold standard and the dollar, and proposes a transition period where free-market gold currencies could openly compete against the dollar.
Channel: Fox Business
Date: 1/30/2009
Transcript:
Reporter: It’s not too long ago the dollar was as good as gold. In fact, dollar bills were labeled gold certificates, so just imagine if the dollar was as good as gold once again. If confidence is one of the failures of our financial system right now, would a gold standard restore the faith and confidence and allow us to move on? The loudest voice in favor of dumping the faith based Federal Reserve System going back to the gold standard is Congressman Ron Paul; he joins us now by phone tonight. Good to hear you Congressman, thanks for coming in, appreciate it.
Ron Paul: Thank you, good to be with you.
Reporter: So, tell us what the possibility, how would we go about going back to gold standard?
Ron Paul: Well we have some pretty good history to look at; we can look at our own history. We went off the gold standard during the civil war period, and the gold price soared, a couple hundred dollars, from twenty dollars. We lived in a different time then, in the 1970s they passed a Resumption Act and they had a three year period and a lot of part 1870s, and there was a transition. They quit printing greenbacks, they withdrew some greenbacks, they balanced the budget and we weren’t running a welfare-warfare state. And the people, believe it or not, trusted their government and it was a non-event and three years the dollar was as good as gold at twenty dollars an ounce. England, after World War I, tried to do the same thing, but they had too many pounds circulating. They went back to an old price and they didn’t withdraw any pounds so it didn’t work, and now we have a bigger problem. The transition would be pretty tough, not written and talked a lot about this and you’d have to device a system where there would be a transition where maybe you could have a gold standard competing with a paper standard and then obviously gold would win out.
Reporter: Well sure.
Ron Paul: People would eventually go to gold because the paper, we’re getting down to the bottom right now. The last thing before they really rushed to gold is the Treasury bill.
Reporter: And that’s about popped hasn’t it the dues on that?
Ron Paul: Look at what the rates have done just recently so if money quits flowing in there or what if a few foreigners decide to dump some of that stuff then the panic is uncontrollable. Then you’re going to see gold instead of being pressed twenty dollars a day, it might be a hundred dollars or two hundred dollars a day, I believe that is conceivable.
Reporter: Alright, well let’s see if we can get a close-up of what I’m holding in my hand right now. This is an old dollar, I don’t know if you can see it. Can you get any closer than this? This is a silver certificate that was issued, I guess they stopped issuing it about thirty, forty years ago something like that. But is this what you are envisioning? Where a dollar bill that does have a signature, a dollar after all is a contract. There are two signatures in there including the treasury secretary, and those signatures mean this is a contract that a year from now the money that you earn should be worth about as much, and if not, if you have any doubt about this you can trade it in and you can see up on top there it says, “Silver certificate for gold or silver.” Is this what you want again?
Ron Paul: To some degree, but there’s been a lot of writings about how you might do this in the private market and not have a government monopoly, because we did have shortcomings in our gold standard because we have bimetalism and we have artificial prices fixed between gold and silver. You don’t want that, you’d have to be on a gold standard or a silver standard, but you could. Hayek has written about baskets of currencies and having this work in the private market. A competing currency could be private but, yes, eventually what you’d want to do, a lot of people say, “Oh we don’t want no gold, we can’t carry all that gold around in our pockets.
Reporter: Right.
Ron Paul: No, I think your point that you’re making is right. You’re still going to have certificates or you’re going to have electronic entries. There are people today who are trying to promote this idea through electronic gold, but the problem is the legal tender laws force us to use dollars in all settlements, so one of my goals in Washington to move in that direction would be to repeal legal tender laws. Actually, all we need to do is obey the Constitution because it’s still very clear it hasn’t been repealed that only gold and silver can be legal tender. Believe it or not, they don’t even obey the Constitution anymore.
Reporter: We believe it now. We’ve seen enough examples of that unfortunately in the last couple of months. Congressman, thank you so much for being here, appreciate it.
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Well, i agree that we should allow gold to be used as a currency or any other means of exchange which people choose to trade with. Switching to a Gold standard doesn’t solve any of our problems though as our problem are banks maintaining control of our currency and economy and raping the American Population for 5/6ths of what they earn with only 1/6th going back into useful production for our benefit and if we dont kill off these f’ing parasites who contribute absolutely nothing to any of our benefit, the system cant be sustainable. At best Gold would only buy us a few more years and by then these cheats and scam artists would have all the gold as well, it solves absolutely nothing.
Anyway, i’m going to repost a thread here discussing different ideas and options in terms of a working and sustainable economy and currency, and hopefully some will read these and have something to think about in terms of killing the real problem and actually establishing something which could work for us. All of us.
Note what Douglas says about the GNP of our thirteen tiny little colonies exceeding Atlantic trade at the time, this would have been the combined trade of England, Spain, France, Portugal, Holland and all of the other big powerful European countries who were colonizing north and south America at the time.
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Douglas
August 3, 2010 at 2:37 am | Permalink | Reply Report comment Report comment
Please consider the original US thirteen colonies success in establishing the first interst free multi-colonial paper money system. It was so successful that the merchant families controlling the Bank of England responded with violent force. Why?, because the colonies GDP exceeded Atlantic trade.
I am very sorry to say that today’s US Congress and Senate are nothing but powerless talking heads. On top of this, the latest financial bill, does nothing but shift more power over to private central banking families. I can go on and on about how ludicrous the Global financial system is. Showing how the private secretive central banking families hide behind the UN, CFR, IMF and the World Bank to help achieve their Global plans. Like fools they plan and set up their own self destruction. The main problem I have now is that they are destroying the planet earth and all humanity in the process.
This I cannot allow and will do my best to keep and preserve US. I know I may not have posted gracefully in the past and for this I ask your forgiveness. However, we are warriors and a true warrior does not strap bombs on himself and blow up innocent people, a true warrior does not hide behind political fronts to secretly achieve his desires. A true warrior fights for his people straight up right through proper legislation. However, If we do succeed in decommissioning the Federal Reserve, be prepared for a violent retaliation. This will come for sure.
Most Americans have been brain washed through the public school system, the media and the entertainment industry. All these powers have been used very strategically to destroy the US. The masses have become like herding cattle and this has been done deliberately all to help the central banking families justify their adulterated powers.
The very powerful private central banking families blame the US for the holocaust. Mainly because they did not fully act alone in the building and empowering of the Nazi socialist party. Wall Street and several US industrial corporations were involved. The Federal Reserve supplied the credits through their international exchange systems. What is most important to me about WW2 is not the fact that Hitler’s madness must be stopped, but, most important is why was he given so much power in the first place?
The truth is that the whole Nazi socialist movement was suppose to be a get rich scheme for many who did not want to deal with the US constitutional free market system. Do you see a new socialist regime forming?
Please consider that the US constitution does provide a proper law for the issuance of new currency. This is a natural process of the proper representation of the people so that the free market economy can expanded at a ‘natural rate‘ without treason. Now we have insane forced grown economics, all thanks to the stupid greedy central banking families. I have given this system much thought and studied many books on the subject. However, I feel that the basic truth behind running a sound system of exchange still eludes all by deliberate dumb down methods.
It is very important the we clarify the proper representation of mediums of exchange. As well as it is very important for the US to understand that the private central banking families are on a long planned out mission to make the US pay blood for blood the madness of Hitler’s Holocaust. Mainly because it took so long for the US to get into WW2. This delay may have been do to internal resentment towards the Federal Reserve system. Never the less, the FEMA camps are ready.
All my fringes may not be directly related to solving the problem but are important to understanding the magnitude of the financial chaos that is gripping our civilization. Solving the problem in my opinion starts with properly educating Citizens about how and why mediums of exchange have become so powerful and are a main factor for the sustaining of an advanced civilization.
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David
August 3, 2010 at 11:37 am | Permalink | Reply Report comment Report comment
This is a fantastic post Douglas, and you’ve done the same thing i have, examined history and found the single and only thing which has ever generated rich and abundant prosperty for any society and population, and this was Franklin’s colonial script.
I think i’ve figured out why too.
#1 : This economy had no private banks, the colonial governments which created and issued the currency on behalf of the people were the banks. They distributed the currency to the population, made loans to those who needed them and used the small interest they collected on those loans to fund their own operations in lieu of taxes, and i expect maintained financial accounts for the population much as our private banks to today. In today’s terms, this would simply involve forcing the government to do its job, make the currency and credit system the essential public service which it needs to be, where the currency was introduced into circulation by the department of the treasury and existed for no other purpose than to facilitate and maximize trade and production for the benefit of the population, with all of our current local bank outlets functioning as branches of the treasury, managing loans to and maintaining accounts for the population just as they do today, with all of the profits from the interest on the loans being used to fund the operations of the government and for the public benefit, resulting in a truly free private economy, where all business consisted of providing useful and tangible goods and services to the population, free of taxes where each and every person was entitled to keep 100 % of what they had legitimately earned, and where with the technology and production capacity we have today, excess currency to make up the difference between wages and the value of the goods produced could be freely distributed among the population to pay for the full extent of our production as well.
Instead we allow private banks, who contribute absolutely nothing of any tangible value to anyone or anything, to control the issue of our national currency and the only way currency can come into circulation is in the form of debt. This leaves both our government and our population completely and totally at the mercy and under the power of these private banks with absolutely no control of any kind over our own prosperity where these private banks have the complete, total and absolute power to manipulate both our economy and political system in their favor, to gain ever more power, control and ownership over America’s wealth, resources, industry and political system, to the point where they end up owning and controlling the people themselves. Money comes into circulation as debt. Government loans money it should be creating for the people from these private banks to fund its operations, and then taxes the people to pay for these operations and the interest owed to the banks. The private banks introduce further currency into the system by issuing debt/credit to the population who pay interest on it, which is then used by the private banks to buy ever more ownership and power over the country and its population while having contributed absolutely nothing of any tangible value to them, and where every dollar paid by the people, in taxes and interest becomes an instrument to their own destruction. How insane can this be, and how stupid can we be to tolerate a system that does this ?
# 2 : The colonial script the colonies used as currency had no tangible value. It was a fictitious paper currency, which they could freely create for the benefit of the population, out of thin air so to speak, which gave them the ability to create it in whatever quantity was needed in order to pay for the full value of the goods and services the people in the colonies were capable of creating for each other. Having the ability to do this, is absolutely essential to maintaining a stable, reliable, functioning and growing economy and here is the reason for this, and its a very simple thing as well. Each and every useful product or service being created by each member of the population in order to trade with and benefit the others is created out of thin air as well. When i manufacture a product for a customer, something is there which didn’t exist before. It exists simply and only because i had the knowledge and ability and was willing to contribute the effort that it took to create it for them and i have created this useful item which can benefit my client out of thin air so to speak. Without that creation from thin air the item would not exist. The same applies to those who create the materials i use in that creation, as they also are created out of thin air, and would not exist were it not for some enterprising individual who had the knowledge, ability and will to take raw materials from the earth which for tens of millions of years have served absolutely no useful purpose and convert them into something which i can use in my creation as well. Those simply offering services, are creating useful and tangible benefits out of this air as well. A meal that is cooked, a cup of coffee which is served, a vehicle that is repaired and made to work again, all of which could not be available to anyone without some persons effort in providing these services out of thin air once again. Since 100 % of of the useful production and services we create for each other are created out of thin air, and since the only useful purpose of any form of currency or economy can be to facilitate and maximize the trade of these useful goods and services among the population for each others benefit, is it not then absolutely essential to have the ability to manage and create a currency out of thin air to in order to match the full extent of our ability to create these useful goods and services out of this air as well ?
Under the current state of things, only banks have had the power to do this, and have used their ability to do this against the interests of the population, however it is only the fact that the power to do this is in their hands instead of our own which has been the cause of our destruction. With this power resting in the hands of the people whom the currency and economy is intended to serve, it can be an equal and greater means to our prosperity as well. I’m 100% in favor of allowing competing currencies, and allowing people to trade in any manner of with any substance that they choose, however we cannot have have an economy which functions on a finite currency where the ability of the people to create useful goods and services is infinite. We must have a standard and universally accepted currency which can be created in a consistent and reliable manner in order to match the creation of useful goods and services by the population. If we do not, then the economy either cannot grow, or will exist in a state of constant deflation, where the simple act of hoarding the finite currencies would become a means to wealth, and ultimately power, with those doing so having made no contribution to the economy itself, ultimately establishing Banks, as it already has. Why not let an infinite currency serve as a means of trade for an infinitely growing economy, and let this currency establish a stable and consistent value for the finite currencies which can be used as a means to save and establish security ? If the infinite currency is mismanaged, and inflation created, the value of the purchasing power of the finite currencies will remain the same, maximum production and prosperity has still been generated, and no real harm is done, no power has been created nor any prosperity denied to the American people, as this ultimately can only be defined as the amount of useful goods and services making it into the hands of a population, and as long as this is accomplished the currency has served its purpose, and nothing else is of any consequence.
Anyway, i think that both myself and most of the American population regard Ben Franklin as the wisest man who has ever lived, where even the wisdom of Solomon pales in comparison. It was he who invented this concept, and as with everything else he did, it was something that worked, the only thing which has ever worked, the only thing which can ever work, and the single and only concept which has ever brought prosperity to any general population in history. Banks have been wise enough to use it towards buying power and ownership over America and its population, and thus far the American population has been foolish enough to let them do it. Hitler was wise enough to use it to build a small, bankrupt and destitute country into a major power that almost conquered the world in order to fulfill his power ambitions. Isn’t it about time that American people restored Franklin’s concept to its original intent and purpose, and used it to create the infinite wealth and prosperity for themselves according to their infinite ability to create it, which Franklin intended in its creation ?
If so, then the wealth, prosperity and useful technological advancements which result will be so far beyond today’s comprehension, that the best of what we have ever experienced in this country’s history will appear as the dark ages in medieval Europe by comparison, If not, then we will experience those dark ages again, as this is what our banking system has in store for us, with them existing as our lords and we existing as their serfs, and the end result of what we have today can be nothing else.
As always and for everyone, copy, paste forward to everyone on your email list so that ideas of a free economy and free society can permeate society and motivate the action we need in order to establish this for ourselves, not only this thread but all others relevant toward this purpose. Be an American, fight for America, destroy power, establish freedom, establish prosperity for yourself and all the rest as Franklin and our founding fathers intended. If you do nothing, then there will no longer be an America and you will no longer be an American, but a serf and a subject, as will all other Americans, and it will be you and you alone who is responsible for this as well.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and all that is required for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing, lets all do something.
As Douglas says, are we warriors in defense of our own freedom and prosperity who will live and die in order to secure and establish this for ourselves and each other, or are we nothing but cowards and sycophants who will submit to power at our own an each others expense in order to receive a few scraps from the masters table ? What you are, and what the rest of us become, will be determined by what each and every one of you do.
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Warren …
You might want to check a book of essays compiled by Ayn Rand. The book is titled “Capitalism; The Unknown Ideal.” Contained therein, is an important essay written in 1966 by none other than Alan Greenspan (a Jew) about the importance of gold backed currency, how it relates to maintaining a free society and how it prevents the building of a welfare state. Just as a side note, Ayn Rand’s birth name was Alisa Rosenbaum. Just sayin …
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test
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[...] it). Go buy your own candidate, one that will pass laws or create some real change (even if it is ridiculous). Tea Party people, even if misguided, have a fundamental flaw in that they do not understand the [...]
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If the U.S. were to attempt to return to a gold standard, it would quickly be forced off of it, just as England was forced off it in 1931.
Because we have destroyed our protective tariffs, we now have run an accumulative trade deficit of over $9 trillion. Foreign holdings of dollar reserves now exceeds $5 trillion.
Based on a 25% reserve gold standard (we historically only backed 25% of the U.S. dollars with gold) those foreign dollar holdings alone could be used to extinguish the gold backing of $20 trillion – more than the total money supply of the United States.
Ron Paul completely ignores the lessons and warnings of past leaders in his free trade dogma:
“We were suffering from the restrictions of foreign nations, who had shackled our commerce, while we were unable to retaliate: and all now agreed that it would be advantageous to the union to enlarge the powers of Congress: that they should be enabled in the amplest manner to regulate commerce, and to lay and collect duties on the imports throughout the United States.”
“The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania to their Constituents”
Samuel Bryan
December 18, 1787
In the debate on the first tariff bill in 1789, Fisher Ames, one of the ablest men in that Congress, said :
” I conceive, sir, that the present Constitution was dictated by commercial necessity more than by any other cause. The want of an efficient government to secure the manufacturing interest, and to advance our commerce, was long seen by men of judgment and pointed out by patriots solicitous to promote our general welfare.”
Daniel Webster, historically known, as “the Great Expounder of the Constitution,” in a speech at Buffalo, June, 1833, declared : ” The protection of American labor against the injurious competition of foreign labor, so far at least as respects general handicraft productions, is known historically to have been one end designed to be obtained by establishing the Constitution.”
Years later he repeated this idea, but much clearer and stronger in a speech at Albany, in August, 1844, when he said :
” In Colonial times, and during the time of the Convention, the idea was held up, that domestic industry could not prosper, manufactures and the mechanic arts could not advance, the condition of the common country could not be carried up to any considerable elevation, unless there should be one government to lay one rate of duty upon imports throughout the Union ; regard to be had, in laying this duty, to the protection of American labor and industry.
” I defy the man in any degree conversant with the history, in any degree acquainted with the annals of this country from 1787 to 1789, when the Constitution was adopted, to say that protection of American labor and industry, was not a leading, I might almost say, the leading motive, South as well as North, for the formation of the new government. Without that provision in the Constitution, it never could have been adopted.”
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Tim Singleton wrote: “Those who instigated fiat currency are godless and amoral.” I agree! They are godless and amoral Jews. He also wrote: ” … What he (David White) DID see was a war torn apart by central banks and greed.” Again, I agree! The central banks (including the Fed) are completely under the control of greedy–no! AVARICIOUS–Jews. Read a few more history texts published before WWII, and you will begin to see the big picture.
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To Tim Singleton: Several posts ago you wrote, “Those who instigated fiat currency are godless and amoral.” Absolutely correct! Those who instigated fiat currency (were) are Godless and amoral JEWS! The Federal Reserve Bank is a private corporation that is not a bank, and does not have any reserves. It prints worthless dollars on what might as well be toilet paper. You went on to say “… What he (David White) DID see was a war torn apart by [Jewish-owned and -controlled] central banks and [Jewish] greed. (Brackets mine.)
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More than enough gold
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/96496
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We, voters and taxpayers, have to DEMAND that our elected officials put the DOLLAR BACK ON THE GOLD STANDARD to stop this economic free for all. It’s the only way since The Fed loves printing dollars and Congress loves spending them! We have to take the power back from Congress and the President and The Fed!
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[...] Going Back To The Gold Standard? Ron Paul is interviewed about “dumping the faith-based Federal Reserve system”. He talks about the… [...]
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[...] don’t know nearly as much about the Gold Standard as do Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, but I do think that, given not just that the Feds have ruined the dollar but that [...]
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Most of us have been waiting a long time for the price of gold to start taking off again.
Gold as well as most other commodities have been held down for quite a long time by the bankers. The world wide economic system is based on paper and the Central Bankers will lose power when commodities begin to rise. If the system is driven by paper and credit, it would not be in the interest of the bankers to have the public buying up tangible assets.
Gold and the rest of the precious metals have become the only real safe investment. I believe the current gold price is not anywhere near the price it should be at, based on inflation.
The following is an excellent article on how gold has decoupled from the US Dollar…. http://www.goldnewswire.net/gold-disconnects#gold-price
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Yes, in form, but not so much in substance. The 16th Amendment creating the income tax was repeatedly defeated in the Senate as long as the state houses were selecting senators directly.
With the passage of the 17th Amendment which gave all the people equal say in selecting their two senators just as they selected their representatives, the politics of envy were used to justify a Federal income tax. The same interests and people who elect representatives now elect the Senators, so, from that perspective the bicameral nature of the Congress is greatly compromised. My point is the balance of powers amongst the people is as important as the balance of powers amongst the three branches of government.
Their simply is no balance against those who receive benefits from the government acting in favor of those who produce. As for it being a horrible thing to say, well, tough. It is going to be a horrible thing to see this nation eventually go bankrupt. The rich will make out as they always do and the poor will suffer even more than before. We will become ‘equally shabby.’
Besides, I have been overseas and I have seen poverty. There is not a helluva a lot of poverty in the United States when taken in the context of the world.
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“The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the Constitution.” Wiki
And thats a horrible thing to say. We don’t want to split up our country at all. We want the rich and the poor working together.
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I cannot even begin to address the pool of ignorance your reply must pull from. I will not address you again until you have read Atlas Shrugged, all 1000+ pages. You have your homework.
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Well, I would certainly prefer to get paid in gold and silver because whatever else may come, I still got my gold and silver. Dollars can be repudiated as can any currency.
This is not going to be resolved as long as the voting poor have the ability to have an equal say as a producer. This is why we had a bicameral legislature. The 17th Amendment has us screwed into the ground.
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We still have a bicameral legislature. The Senate and the house of represenatives….
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No, we do not. We have two houses elected by the same pool of voters. Originally, the Senators were elected by the State legislatures and acted as ambassadors of the States to the Federal goverment while the House of Representatives were elected by the voters.
They could not pass the 16th Amendment, the income tax amendment, as long as the States were selecting senators. I present as my own definition of proof of this that one of the first things done after passage of the 17th Amendment, which gave selection of Senators to the voters rather than the State houses, was the passage of the 16th Amendment that gave the Federal government the ability to tax the individual.
We had much more protection from the Progressives when the State houses selected senators than we do today. Now, the Senators interests are the same as the representatives. It was a sad day for the republic when is lost a key character of being a republic.
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Interesting posts. I agree with Warren on most points. There are just enough pawns (some Jewish) in the mix to confuse people, but there is a Rothschilds behind each sinister chapter of American history for the last 150 years or so. It is no accident that they are NEVER in the news.
I’ll have to dig out an old book of mine, “The Elite Serial Killers.” I forget the author’s name, I will post it. Written by a patriot.
Which reminds me, look up “Sodium Fluoride” on the internet. This poison is added to toothpaste. Read the back of the label on your toothpaste. The Nazi’s wanted to “tame” people, make them docile like sheep, so we have Sodium Fluoride. Laugh, but it may just answer the question “Where is the RAGE?”
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Hello! Ben, it is a pleasure to meet a kindred soul. I served in the Army Amphibious Engineers in Europe when your dad was flying those missions over the Continent. Both of my sons are about ten years older than you. But we all are on the same page. It is sad that so many members of the younger generations have been badly mislead by the socialist teachers who now are in control of the system. Brainwashing is difficult if not impossible to reverse. But as more and more politicians in both major parties are being exposed as the lying, cheating, thieving traitors that they are, I see a faint glimmer of hope that John and Jane Doe might awaken soon from their apathetic stupor and smell the (Yiddish) coffee. The truth will set you free, and the Internet is a great conduit for disseminating the truth. Nothing is going to change for the better until the neo-cons have been deprived of their power.
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