Transcript

News Anchor: Are you concerned about this drop that we’ve seen in gold?

Ron Paul: I’m concerned about the erraticness of the dollar. The dollar goes up, the dollar goes down, we print a lot of dollar and the dollar gets devalued, that’s really the concern. If people think that the gold price going up and down is a reflection of something wrong with gold, then I say no, it’s something wrong with the dollar. Because people have been expressing a concern here in these last couple of month about gold, but compared to what? Compared to where gold went from when the Fed took over when it was $20/ounce, compared to what has happened in the past?

News Anchor: We have to talk about the stability here, to see the sharpest drop of gold in 30 years actually makes the dollar’s price activity recently look a little bit stable?

Ron Paul: Well, in a relative sense, that might be the case, but that’s the way markets work. I remember in the 1970s, when they finally allowed people to own gold, it went from $35/ounce up to $200/ounce rather rapidly, and then it lost 50%, and then it went up to $800/ounce. So to compare a couple of months or a couple of weeks and forget about a bull-market in the gold prices in relation to the dollar for 12 years, I would say the comparison is not an authentic comparison. What you have to look at is the inflation, inflation is when they increase the supply of money. And since 2008, they have quadrupled the supply of Federal Reserve credit, and they’re buying 85 billion dollars a month of treasury bills. And at the same time last week, they bought 60 billion dollars, that’s the inflation, that’s the distortion of the market, and that’s why we’re not getting economic growth.

News Anchor: We’re seeing the opposite of inflation right now.

Ron Paul: It depends on how you define it, inflation is when you increase the supply of money. Bond prices are going up, stocks are going up, housing prices are starting to go back up again, education costs are going up. But the gross distortion is the affect that the inflation of the money does on the price of money and the interest rates and how it causes economy problems and why you don’t get economic growth. So you have to look at the mal-investment and the destruction that occurs when you mess around with the price of money. So it’s not just the CPI, because the CPI isn’t reliable, the government fudges that as well, they change the way they measure it. The free market economists say the CPI is going up by about 8%, so there’s a lot of deception going on out there. And just talk to somebody on retirement getting Social Security, they are not happy with the purchasing power of the dollar, and you can’t tell them there’s no inflation.

News Anchor: Dr. Paul, let’s go back to gold for a moment. Talking about the prices, price stability helps to build confidence, confidence in paper money, and certainly confidence in hard assets. With all the speculative money that went into gold on the way up, and came out of gold on the recent plunge, how do you know what the real value of gold is?

Ron Paul: Nobody knows that, other than what is happening at that moment, because the supply and demand of gold is very important, that’s why it is money, because gold is used elsewhere and it is a commodity. But the supply and demand of money paper is the culprit, that’s the one that is causing all the trouble, but people ignore the supply and demand of paper money. Yes, paper money goes up and paper money goes down, but look at the long term purchasing power of the dollar, it’s been devastating. And believe me, at the rate they’re printing the money, you’re going to see a continual devastation of the value of the dollar, and you’re not going to see economic growth until you liquidate the debt and liquidate the mal-investment out there. Sure, you’re going to see housing go back up again, but you’re going to see more bubble-formation. Just because prices go up, that doesn’t mean there’s economic growth. So we’re a long way from the correction, mainly because they ignore the definition of inflation, and they ignore the need to liquidate debt and the need to liquidate and get rid of all the mal-investment. And by just watching the stock market … one good comparison would be to look at the price of stocks in gold. Although in the last couple of weeks it’s changed a bit, the stock market has crashed because you used to be able to buy the Dow with 44 ounces of gold, now it’s under 10 ounces of gold, and it’s probably going to go a lot lower.

News Anchor: Dr. Paul, how can we talk about the risk of a correction in financial assets – that’s what you were just discussing, the likelihood that the Fed may be creating a bubble for quantitative easing with low interest rates and priming the markets for a crash – when we’ve just seen something similar happen in gold. There was a correction in the gold price. We’re pressing you on this issue because we need you to reconcile the two, you see the characteristics, the [dual plan] of financial assets playing themselves out in hard assets, and it’s tough to understand. We want you to share your views with us.

Ron Paul: I think the way gold’s acting acts like a market does: you get ahead of yourself, and there has to be a correction. The amazing thing isn’t the correction, the amazing thing is the biggest bull-market of the century, when one commodity went up for 12 years straight. So you can’t ignore that. But to say there has to be an adjustment because prices are subjectively decided by many, many factors, so you can’t predict exactly where this money is going to go. Unfortunately, the money right now that the Fed creates goes into reserves, further distorting the market, further pumping up the prices of bonds, further building up a bubble that will burst, because our economic growth isn’t there and we’re in every bit as much trouble as Europe or Greece, so someday there will be a lack of confidence in our dollar, and then you’re going to see the correction in the paper a lot more severe than you see the correction in the dollar-gold ratio.

News Anchor: I’m curious, you don’t like the dollar, you don’t like Federal Reserve and other paper fiat currencies, what do you think about bitcoin, the virtual currency, that’s not backed by the governments or central banks?

Ron Paul: To tell you the truth, it’s a little bit too complicated. If it’s complicated to understand, and I’ve been studying the money for a long time, if I can’t put it in my pocket, I’d have some reservations about that. But it’s been designed in the free market, and if it’s a means of exchange, it would not ever be illegal, and you should not regulate it in the free market. But I don’t think it fits the definition of money which has been around for about 6,000 years. People want to see something that they can know what it is, they can define it, they can touch it, and they can put it in their pocket. And with the bitcoin, if you don’t have a computer, and somebody running the computer and the calculations, you don’t have it. So I am not a big supporter of that, but I’m not opposed it, and I admit I don’t fully understand exactly what’s going on.

News Anchor: So you’re sticking to the hard stuff. I’m just wondering if you’re looking at this price drop in gold as a buying opportunity. I know you also have your own portfolio of gold.

Ron Paul: Oh yes, this is the time people buy. If you look at it these last few weeks, there were some pictures in the paper that were astounding. I think it was in Thailand or someplace, it was a jewelry gold shop, and they were lined up 6 rows deep, hundreds and hundreds of people buying. They were running out of silver coins right now. I recently brought two, because I don’t like to buy when there’s a lot of energy with pushing them up, I wanted to see a correction. And this is very healthy for the economy, because the speculators, the people who are in it and are trading from minute to minute, are weak holders of gold. They don’t believe in gold, but they believe in helping to set the market, and they have a function to play. But the people who really believe in it, are buying now, and literally it was the commodities market that shook this thing out, it wasn’t in the hard assets. There was one person that dumped 53,000 contracts in one sale, so there’s some finagling going on there, I believe.

News Anchor: Yes, the speculative flair. Well, Dr. Paul, you are a believer, always opinionative, I want you to stay with us from Clute, Texas today for your thoughts on a potential historic fix on our nation’s immigration laws and gun control on Market Makers on Bloomberg Television. We’ll be back in a few minutes.

In Washington right now, there is an intense renewed debate about a proposed overhaul of our nation’s immigration system. After the Boston Marathon bombings, in which the suspects were Chechen immigrants, some members of Congress say a proposed legislation needs another look. Ron Paul is back with us here on Market Makers, he’s the former Congressman from Texas and presidential hopeful. Do you think, Dr. Paul, this tragedy is an opportunity to fix our immigration system?

Dr. Paul: Well, there’s always an opportunity because there’s a need for it, but I don’t think they’re going to solve any problems at all, because they’re too big and they’re very complicated and they’re very much involved with economics. I don’t think you can deal with immigration unless you deal with the welfare state: both, with the incentive for some people here not to work, and an incentive for others to come and get some free services. And also I think it is more important that we look at our work permit for letting people come and work, and put aside this idea of how we’re going to give automatic citizenship. That becomes a political football, because everybody is lining up for who’s going to get the vote, one side says, “We’re going to get all the votes because we want them all to be legalized”. But I think you have to deal with the economic policy and really open up the opportunities for people to come back and forth and to work, but not to insist that everybody is going to become a citizen because I don’t think that’s going to work under these circumstances.

News Anchor: Dr. Paul, I want to ask you about what’s happening in the GOP right now. Your son, Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky, made himself even more famous than he already was with that fantastic filibuster, which was impressive at the very least, over the issue of drones. He has an opportunity to galvanize the Republican Party. But the old guard, with the help of people like Karl Rove, appears to be circling the wagons and try to keep the Tea Party up. Hows it going to end?

Ron Paul: Well, with a weakened Republican Party. Because we did fairly well in the presidential campaign, we had a lot of delegates, and they were excluded from the convention, and the rules have been written so it makes it even worse for anybody to challenge the status quo. The people who have been in charge don’t want their party to be broken up. So when the young people come in, they resist it. And it was the young people that were supporting me and my campaign to the tune of millions. People were very interested, but Republicans don’t come and ask me how we can get the young people interested, because I’d want them to change foreign policy, I’d want them to change economic policy, I’d want them to balance the budget, and I’d want them to talk about the Fed. And the establishment in both parties aren’t interested in talking about any of those issues, the young people are.

News Anchor: But if there’s no solidarity inside the Republican Party, Dr. Paul, how on earth does it win the next election?

Ron Paul: I think the solidarity is the same problem in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, it’s ongoing, there are always factions. And, of course, I want to unify everybody into believing in the cause of liberty, sound money, balanced budget, and the constitution. So I would say, yes, that’s a good way to unify them, but to unify for the sake of unity makes no sense whatsoever. Why should everybody give up on their beliefs? But yes, the old guard are losing their way, the party is getting smaller, it is splintered, and they will have to face up to the fact that if they talk about limited government and personal liberties, they have to actually believe in it and do something about it, because the young people won’t be fooled, and if this continues, the party will become smaller.

News Anchor: So, quickly, do you think your son should run for President in 2016, as he has perhaps hinted?

Ron Paul: You’ll have to ask him, I have no idea what he wants to do.

by Ron Paul

The dramatic recent events in Cyprus have highlighted the fundamental weakness in the European banking system and the extreme fragility of fractional reserve banking. Cypriot banks invested heavily in Greek sovereign debt, and last summer’s Greek debt restructuring resulted in losses equivalent to more than 25 percent of Cyprus’ GDP. These banks then took their bad investments to the government, demanding a bailout from an already beleaguered Cypriot treasury. The government of Cyprus then turned to the European Union (EU) for a bailout.

The terms insisted upon by the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund) before funding the bailout were nothing short of highway robbery. While bank depositors have traditionally been protected in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation, the troika insisted that all bank depositors pay a tax of between 6.75 and 10 percent of their total deposits to help fund the bailout.

While one can sympathize with EU taxpayers not wanting to fund yet another bailout of a poorly-managed banking system, forcing the Cypriot people to pay for the foolish risks taken by their government and bankers is also criminal. In their desire to punish a “tax haven” catering supposedly to Russian oligarchs, the EU elites ensured that ordinary citizens would suffer just as much as foreign depositors. Imagine the reaction if in September 2008, the US government had financed its $700 billion bank bailout by directly looting American taxpayers’ bank accounts!

While the Cypriot parliament rejected that first proposal, they will have no say in the final proposal delivered by the EU and IMF: deposits over 100,000 euros are likely to see losses of at least 40 percent and possibly as much as 80 percent. “Temporary” capital controls that were supposed to last for days will now last at least a month and might remain in effect for years.

Especially affected have been the elderly, who were unable to use ATMs or to transfer money electronically. Despite the fact that ATMs severely limited the size of withdrawals during the two week-long bank closure, reports indicated that account holders who had access to Cypriot bank branches in London and Athens were able to withdraw most of their funds, leading to speculation that there would be no money available when banks finally opened up again. In other words, the supposed Russian oligarch money may well be already gone.

Remember that under a fractional reserve banking system only a small percentage of deposits is kept on hand for dispersal to depositors. The rest of the money is loaned out. Not only are many of the loans made by these banks going bad, but the reserve requirement in Euro-system countries is only one percent! If just one euro out of every hundred is withdrawn from banks, the bank reserves would be completely exhausted and the whole system would collapse. Is it any wonder, then, that the EU fears a major bank run and has shipped billions of euros to Cyprus?

The elites in the EU and IMF failed to learn their lesson from the popular backlash to these tax proposals, and have openly talked about using Cyprus as a template for future bank bailouts. This raises the prospect of raids on bank accounts, pension funds, and any investments the government can get its hands on. In other words, no one’s money is safe in any financial institution in Europe. Bank runs are now a certainty in future crises, as the people realize that they do not really own the money in their accounts. How long before bureaucrat and banker try that here?

Unfortunately, all of this is the predictable result of a fiat paper money system combined with fractional reserve banking. When governments and banks collude to monopolize the monetary system so that they can create money out of thin air, the result is a business cycle that wreaks havoc on the economy. Pyramiding more and more loans on top of a tiny base of money will create an economic house of cards just waiting to collapse. The situation in Cyprus should be both a lesson and a warning to the United States. We need to end the Federal Reserve, stay away from propping up the euro, and return to a sound monetary system.

by Ron Paul

Last week President Obama bluntly warned Congress that he will not negotiate when it comes to raising the statutory debt limit.  If Republicans attempt to use a debt ceiling vote to win concessions on spending from the White House, Mr. Obama threatens simply to raise the limit by executive order or other unilateral action.

This is business as usual in Washington.  Democrats literally do not believe we have a deficit and debt problem, and reliably propose greater borrowing and spending.  Republicans talk a good game when it comes to government debt, but have no credibility to argue against deficits or abuses of executive power.  Brinksmanship ensues, and ugly compromises are reached at the 11th hour.  We all lose as the endless borrowing and money printing further erode our dollar and our economy.

Keep in mind that the federal government relentlessly spends about $100 billion more each month than it collects in taxes. This means roughly 40% of every dollar Washington spends is borrowed, to be “paid back” only in highly devalued, newly created money. Ultimately this can only lead to the destruction of the US dollar, as history plainly teaches.  But in the face of this reality Obama just shrugs, turning to demagoguery and talk of little old ladies’ Social Security checks . Like Obama, far too many Americans view federal debt as a nonissue.  Consider Paul Krugman, America’s most reliable Keynesian economist and a beloved figure among mainstream journalists.  He recently wrote an article about the debt limit issue, in which he discussed a controversial proposal to have the federal government simply create a platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion:

“Here’s how it would work: The Treasury would mint a platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion (or many coins with smaller values; it doesn’t really matter). This coin would immediately be deposited at the Federal Reserve, which would credit the sum to the government’s account. And the government could then write checks against that account, continuing normal operations without issuing new debt.”

To be fair, Mr. Krugman acknowledges that minting such a coin would be an accounting “trick,” but he is dead serious about this option for the Obama administration.  This then is the state of modern economics discourse in America, where a respected New York Times economist literally can propose creating “money for nothing” and have the idea taken seriously.

Krugman’s suggestion is just another variant of the endless stimulus proposals, which purport to create greater aggregate demand in the economy by creating more money.  Whether this is done by the Fed or the Treasury is of little importance, as long as government is creating demand-side “growth,” however artificial.

But in just a few short sentences Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe eviscerates the Krugmans of the world by pointing out the obvious: If governments or central banks really can create wealth simply by creating money, why does poverty exist anywhere on earth?  Why haven’t successive rounds of quantitative easing by the US Fed solved our economic recession?  And if Fed money creation really works, and doesn’t create inflation, why haven’t Americans gotten richer as the money supply has grown?

The truth is obvious to everyone.  Fiat currency is not wealth, and the creation of more fiat dollars does not mean that more rice, steel, soybeans, Ipads, or Honda Accords suddenly come into existence.  The creation of new fiat currency simply strengthens a fantasy balance sheet, either by adding to cash reserves or servicing debt.  But this balance sheet wealth is an illusion, just as the notion we can continue to raise the debt limit and borrow money forever is an illusion.

by Ron Paul

French businessman and economist Jean-Baptiste Say is credited with identifying the fundamental economic principle that aggregate demand for goods in an economy will equal the aggregate supply of goods when markets are permitted to operate.  Or in Say’s words, “products are paid for with products.”

English classical economist David Ricardo, among others, more fully developed this principle into what has become known as “Say’s Law.”  Say’s Law, according to Ricardo, leads us to understand that market equilibrium for goods is constant. This simply means that markets, when left alone by government planners or other fraudulent actors, inexorably tend toward an “equilibrium price” which eventually balances supply and demand for any particular good.  Thus markets will clear themselves of any surpluses or shortages in the form of excess supply and demand.

This important corollary of Say’s Law– that markets clear– is critical to understanding the moribund US housing market.  In housing, perhaps more than any other good, we see the terrible consequences of government and central bank interference with market forces.

First, the Federal Reserve Bank relentlessly increased the money supply over the last few decades.  Much of this newly created money and credit flowed from Fed member banks into the residential and commercial real estate markets, causing prices to rise dramatically prior to the housing bust of 2007.

At the same time, the Fed systematically suppressed interest rates for decades.  This led to tremendous malinvestment both by homebuilders and individuals, and encouraged a seedy subprime mortgage industry to make nonviable loans that would not make economic sense under market interest rates.

Congressional meddling in the mortgage market also added tremendously to the problem. Inane legislation like The Community Reinvestment Act literally forced banks to make thousands of loans to bad credit risks.  Similarly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put taxpayers on the hook for millions of mortgages that never would meet market underwriting criteria.  And of course the real estate and homebuilder lobbies made sure mortgage interest debt (unlike most personal debt) remains tax-deductible.

The ultimate result of these interventions by our caring friends in Congress and the Fed has been the biggest housing bubble and crash in US history, leaving millions of Americans underwater on their mortgages if they have not already lost their houses altogether.  Congress and the Fed are directly responsible for millions of shattered lives, and almost unknowable economic damage in the form of trillions of dollars in mortgage backed securities.

The only solution to this mess is to allow the US housing market to clear.  All of the bad mortgage debt must be liquidated, whether via foreclosure or bankruptcy.  Banks holding substantial mortgages or mortgage backed assets must face the music and adjust their balance sheets to reflect today’s reality.  Undoubtedly this will force many banks into immediate insolvency, but such banks must be allowed to fail without receiving another nickel of taxpayer money.  Banks took the risks and made money during the bubble years; those who exercised bad judgment must now accept the consequences of their actions.

Never in American history have we needed to adopt a policy of laissez faire more desperately; never has government seemed more determined to artificially prop up an industry.  But only by allowing the housing market to clear can we hope to rebuild our shattered economy from a stable foundation.  Clearly there will be pain in the short term, but we owe it to younger Americans and future generations to allow the reemergence of a rational housing market.

by Ron Paul

Last year the Chairman of the Federal Reserve told me that gold is not money, a position which central banks, governments, and mainstream economists have claimed is the consensus for decades. But lately there have been some high-profile defections from that consensus. As Forbes recently reported, the president of the Bundesbank (Germany’s central bank) and two highly-respected analysts at Deutsche Bank have praised gold as good money.

Why is gold good money? Because it possesses all the monetary properties that the market demands: it is divisible, portable, recognizable and, most importantly, scarce – making it a stable store of value. It is all things the market needs good money to be and has been recognized as such throughout history. Gold rose to nearly $1800 an ounce after the Fed’s most recent round of quantitative easing because the people know that gold is money when fiat money fails.

Central bankers recognize this too, even if they officially deny it. Some analysts have speculated that the International Monetary Fund’s real clout is due to its large holdings of gold. And central banks around the world have increased their gold holdings over the last year, especially in emerging market economies trying to protect themselves from the collapse of Western fiat currencies.

Fiat money is not good money because it can be issued without limit and therefore cannot act as a stable store of value. A fiat monetary system gives complete discretion to those who run the printing press, allowing governments to spend money without having to suffer the political consequences of raising taxes. Fiat money benefits those who create it and receive it first, enriching government and its cronies. And the negative effects of fiat money are disguised so that people do not realize that money the Fed creates today is the reason for the busts, rising prices and unemployment, and diminished standard of living tomorrow.

This is why it is so important to allow people the freedom to choose stable money. Earlier this Congress I introduced the Free Competition in Currency Act (H.R. 1098) to permit people to use gold as money again. By eliminating taxes on gold and other precious metals and repealing legal tender laws, people are given the option between using good money or fiat money. If the government persists in debasing the dollar – as money monopolists have always done – then the people would be able to protect themselves by using alternatives such as gold that are both sound and stable.

As the fiat money pyramid crumbles, gold retains its luster. Rather than being the barbarous relic Keynesians have tried to lead us to believe it is, gold is, as the Bundesbank president put it, “a timeless classic.” The defamation of gold wrought by central banks and governments is because gold exposes the devaluation of fiat currencies and the flawed policies of government. Governments hate gold because the people cannot be fooled by it.

by Ron Paul

One of the most enduring myths in the United States is that this country has a free market, when in reality, the market is merely the structural shell of formerly free institutions. Government pulls the strings behind the scenes. No better illustration of this can be found than in the Federal Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates.

The Fed has interfered with the proper function of interest rates for decades, but perhaps never as boldly as it has in the past few years through its policies of quantitative easing. In Chairman Bernanke’s most recent press conference he stated that the Fed wishes not only to drive down rates on Treasury debt, but also rates on mortgages, corporate bonds, and other important interest rates. Markets greeted this statement enthusiastically, as this means trillions more newly-created dollars flowing directly to Wall Street.

Because the interest rate is the price of money, manipulation of interest rates has the same effect in the market for loanable funds as price controls have in markets for goods and services. Since demand for funds has increased, but the supply is not being increased, the only way to match the shortfall is to continue to create new credit. But this process cannot continue indefinitely. At some point the capital projects funded by the new credit are completed. Houses must be sold, mines must begin to produce ore, factories must begin to operate and produce consumer goods.

But because consumption patterns have either remained unchanged or have become more present-oriented, by the time these new capital projects are finished and begin to produce, the producers find no market for their goods. Because the coordination between savings and consumption was severed through the artificial lowering of the interest rate, both savers and borrowers have been signaled into unsustainable patterns of economic activity. Resources that would have been used in productive endeavors under a regime of market-determined interest rates are instead shuttled into endeavors that only after the fact are determined to be unprofitable. In order to return to a functioning economy, those resources which have been malinvested need to be liquidated and shifted into sectors in which they can be put to productive use.

Another effect of the injections of credit into the system is that prices rise. More money chasing the same amount of goods results in a rise in prices. Wall Street and the banking system gain the use of the new credit before prices rise. Main Street, however, sees the prices rise before they are able to take advantage of the newly-created credit. The purchasing power of the dollar is eroded and the standard of living of the American people drops.

We live today not in a free market economic system but in a “mixed economy”, marked by an uneasy mixture of corporatism; vestiges of free market capitalism; and outright central planning in some sectors. Each infusion of credit by the Fed distorts the structure of the economy, damages the important role that interest rates play in the market, and erodes the purchasing power of the dollar. Fed policymakers view themselves as wise gurus managing the economy, yet every action they take results in economic distortion and devastation.

Unless Congress gets serious about reining in the Federal Reserve and putting an end to its manipulation, the economic distortions the Fed has caused will not be liquidated; they will become more entrenched, keeping true economic recovery out of our grasp and sowing the seeds for future crisis.

by Ron Paul

We frequently hear the financial press refer to the U.S. dollar as the “world’s reserve currency,” implying that our dollar will always retain its value in an ever shifting world economy. But this is a dangerous and mistaken assumption.

Since August 15, 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold, the U.S. dollar has operated as a pure fiat currency. This means the dollar became an article of faith in the continued stability and might of the U.S. government.

In essence, we declared our insolvency in 1971. Everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.

Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it– not even a pretense of gold convertibility! Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence backed the dollar with oil.

In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite radical Islamic movements among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement also gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as the dollar flourished.

In 2003, however, Iran began pricing its oil exports in Euro for Asian and European buyers. The Iranian government also opened an oil bourse in 2008 on the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf for the express purpose of trading oil in Euro and other currencies. In 2009 Iran completely ceased any oil transactions in U.S. dollars. These actions by the second largest OPEC oil producer pose a direct threat to the continued status of our dollar as the world’s reserve currency, a threat which partially explains our ongoing hostility toward Tehran.

While the erosion of our petrodollar agreement with OPEC certainly threatens the dollar’s status in the Middle East, an even larger threat resides in the Far East. Our greatest benefactors for the last twenty years– Asian central banks– have lost their appetite for holding U.S. dollars. China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever. Foreign central banks understand that American leaders do not have the discipline to maintain a stable currency.

If we act now to replace the fiat system with a stable dollar backed by precious metals or commodities, the dollar can regain its status as the safest store of value among all government currencies. If not, the rest of the world will abandon the dollar as the global reserve currency.

Both Congress and American consumers will then find borrowing a dramatically more expensive proposition. Remember, our entire consumption economy is based on the willingness of foreigners to hold U.S. debt. We face a reordering of the entire world economy if the federal government cannot print, borrow, and spend money at a rate that satisfies its endless appetite for deficit spending.

by Ron Paul

I recently held a hearing in my congressional subcommittee on the subject of competing currencies. This is an issue of enormous importance, but unfortunately few Americans understand how the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department impose a strict monopoly on money in America.

This monopoly is maintained using federal counterfeiting laws, which is a bit rich. If any organization is guilty of counterfeiting dollars, it is our own Treasury. But those who dare to challenge federal legal tender laws by circulating competing currencies — at least physical currencies — risk going to prison.

Like all government created monopolies, the federal monopoly on money results in substandard product in the form of our ever-depreciating dollars.

Yet governments have always sought to monopolize the issuance of money, either directly or through the creation of central banks. The expanding role of the Federal Reserve in the 20th century enabled our federal government to grow wildly larger than would have been possible otherwise. Our Fed, like all central banks, encourages deficits by effectively monetizing Treasury debt. But the price we pay is the terrible and ongoing debasement of our money.

Allowing individuals and business to use alternate currencies, especially currencies backed by gold and silver, would expose the whole rotten system because the marketplace would prefer such alternate currencies unless and until the Fed suddenly imposed radical discipline on its dollar inflation.

Sadly, Americans are far less free than many others around the world when it comes to protecting themselves against the rapidly depreciating US dollar. Mexican workers can set up accounts denominated in ounces of silver and take tax-free delivery of that silver whenever they want. In Singapore and other Asian countries, individuals can set up bank accounts denominated in gold and silver. Debit cards can be linked to gold and silver accounts so that customers can use gold and silver to make point of sale transactions, a service which is only available to non-Americans.

The obvious solution is to legalize monetary freedom and allow the circulation of parallel and competing currencies. There is no reason why Americans should not be able to transact, save, and invest using the currency of their choosing. They should be free to use gold, silver, or other currencies with no legal restrictions or punitive taxation standing in the way. Restoring the monetary system envisioned by the Constitution is the only way to ensure the economic security of the American people.

After all, if our monetary system is fundamentally sound– and the Federal Reserve indeed stabilizes the dollar as its apologists claim–then why fear competition? Why do we accept that centralized, monopoly control over our money is compatible with a supposedly free-market economy? In a free market, the government’s fiat dollar should compete with alternate currencies for the benefit of American consumers, savers, and investors.

As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises explained, sound money is an instrument that protects our civil liberties against despotic government. Our current monetary system is indeed despotic, and the surest way to correct things simply is to legalize competing currencies.