Ron Paul: The System is Coming to an End

Ron Paul: Thank you. Good to be with you.

Neil Cavuto: First of all, how do you feel about your son? I mean, the two of you are going to be power brokers on the Hill, huh?

Ron Paul: Well, who knows what will happen, but we were happy with the election, let me tell you that.

Neil Cavuto: I think you guys have got part of a dynasty. But who knows?

Ron Paul: It’s pretty early to tell that yet.

Neil Cavuto: Indeed. But, Congressman, it’s not too early—you say—to sort of reassess this whole Federal Reserve, and its ability to go into the markets and buy gazillions of dollars worth of bonds, and intervene. You’ve had, and say, “Enough!” What do you mean?

Ron Paul: Well, it’s been an issue that I’ve worked on a long time, because I consider it central economic planning, by monetary authorities. And they do it in secret, and usually the chairman is the boss. So we’re down to the point where one individual can dictate how much money we’re supposed to have circulating and what the interest rates should be. It’s the worst kind of central economic planning. It gets us into trouble. And then when the trouble really becomes apparent to everybody, then they go running to the Fed: “Bail us out!” That’s what they did a couple years ago. And what did they do? They printed a lot more money again. I mean, it’s such a foolish foreign policy. But probably, to me, the most outrageous legal part of this is that, this week he announced he’ll do 600 billion. He might do 900 billion. Who knows how much? They’ve done 1.7 trillion already.

Neil Cavuto: By the way, you’re referring to buying back a lot of Treasury paper mortgage-backed securities…

Ron Paul: Right.

Neil Cavuto: In an effort to keep rates very low. But I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Ron Paul: Yeah. But where and why did they get this authority? The Congress allowed them to have this. You know, it was assumed when we started our country, we’d have honest money. There was no printing, no emitting bills of credit. Congress would authorize expenditures and tax people and pay the bills. But here it is, literally trillions of dollars can be done off the budget. It makes Congress really irrelevant. If they can do that much, and Congress doesn’t even get a chance to really look at the books and audit the Federal Reserve, let alone have any input into this…

It’s coming to an end, because they have failed. The system was deeply flawed. And I think that’s what we’re facing. And that’s why I think it’s going to be very interesting studying and understanding what monetary policy is all about, and how it influences and causes the business cycle. So I think it’s a key period of time in our history in which we live. And I think it’s very important to people to come around to understanding. I am excited about it, because a lot more people are looking at the Fed. And like you said in your opening comments, even around the world they’re saying, “Hey, maybe this Fed is out of control,” which means maybe the American dollar is not so hot anymore. I’d say that’s big news.

Neil Cavuto: Well, would you disband the Fed? Would you just dissolve it?

Ron Paul: Well, that’s not my position. In my little booklet I wrote on it, I said that we should end the Fed. But I don’t call for the end tomorrow. I want just competition for a transition. I want to legalize the Constitution. I want to legalize contracts, legalize competing currencies, as has been advised by—

Neil Cavuto: But are you worried, Congressman? People would say that the reason for a Fed, or an organization like it, is to depoliticize this process. In Congress’ hands, everything’s going to be politicized.

Ron Paul: Yeah, but I’m not advocating that the Congress set monetary policy. I want the market to set interest rates, and the market to set the supply of money. So that’s a lot different than having Congress take it over. I’ve never advocated that. Some people do. A populist generally argues the case that the Congress should print the money, like Lincoln. “Lincoln backs the greenbacks.” And just pour the money out. I don’t accept that.

Neil Cavuto: Right. Okay.

Ron Paul: No, I think you should have gold and silver as legal tender. And the Congress has that responsibility to honor the integrity of the unit of account, and you don’t need a Central Bank to create money out of credit. The whole thing is, they came around to believing that they need to “inject capital” into the system, to make the world go ‘round and the economy to thrive. But when you create money out of thin air, it’s not capital. Capital comes from savings. So we have all this malinvestment and debt build-up over the last decade or so, and it was all from money out of thin air. It was not earned money. It was not true capital. So if we don’t understand the definition of “capital,” we can’t solve this.

But I think in the monetary collapse that is coming, we will be forced to it. And that’s why I want to do as much work as I can on this issue, on the Monetary Policy Subcommittee, to get people to understand how the dollar influences the business cycle, i.e. the Federal Reserve, who manages the dollar. And what we’re going to do, when we have to have reform, because the world will not accept what we’re doing. They’re getting antsy right now—

Neil Cavuto: Well that’s pretty clear. You’re right about that. Whatever we’re doing, they don’t like it. Ron Paul—

Ron Paul: That’s for sure, and I think it’s going to get worse.