Ron Paul: Stress Test Propaganda Is Just More Of The Same

Leave a response

By RonPaul.com on May 8, 2009




Channel: Fox Business
Date: 5/7/2009

Transcript

Liz Claman: What’s the reaction from Capitol Hill over these stress test results?

David Asman: We are very pleased to have with us Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas who among other things has been trying to get the Fed to open its books, which is what we’ve been trying to do here at Fox Business. We’ll talk about that in a second, Congressman, but what about these stress tests? Are they just for show or is there substance here?

Ron Paul: I think it’s just propaganda. You know, we’ve gone through quite a few programs in the last year and a half and this is just another one and it’s trying to pump up confidence but so far it doesn’t look like it’s working again. I mean, we’ve been doing this continuously, but this to me is nothing more than a pretense that they can have central economic planning by manipulating money and credit through the Federal Reserve system.

It has failed. It got us into this problem and hardly can just more of central economic planning by the Fed be the answer.

Liz Claman: Congressman, you co-authored a bill that pushed for auditing the Fed. You ought to be applauded for that because we here as well have, with the Freedom of Information Act, which was actually… we had a judge ruling in our favor and pushing to just find out what is happening with the TARP money, so we’re a mano-a-mano on that level, but when you say that it really has done nothing, I’m just wondering here, we’ve had some stabilization of the banks over the past couple of weeks and the market hasn’t exactly slid down the slippery slope. I’m just wondering you don’t see any value in at least having gone forth with looking at bank books on behalf of 150 inspectors?

Ron Paul: Well, looking at them is one thing, but endorsing a system that is deeply flawed is something else. Because we’re not slipping quite as quickly as we were before, it doesn’t reassure me because we’re still preventing the correction. A correction when you have malinvestment and a financial bubble is to allow the correction to occur, so the fact that there’s been a slowing down of the correction bothers me. It just prolongs the agony and this is exactly what we did in the 1930s. It was always a pretense that we were helping with another government program, but what you want to do is the liquidation of debt and get rid of the malinvestment, get people back to work and savings, but with just more regulations and bills giving more power, like Bernanke talked about, more regulatory power to the Federal Reserve, that’s hardly moving into the direction of the marketplace.

You know, he talked about at the end of his speech, he said, “What we need to do is work for a more sound and stable financial system.” Obviously, he’s confessing that the financial system we’ve had today is not very sound and very stable.

David Asman: Right.

Ron Paul: But all he’s asking for is more authority and more power to inflate the currency, which is absolutely the wrong [thing to do].

Processing your request, Please wait....

Posted in , | Tagged | Leave a response

We the People to Congress: Audit the Federal Reserve!

7 Responses

By RonPaul.com on May 7, 2009





In today’s edition of the Washington Times (May 7, 2009), the Campaign for Liberty has taken out a wonderful ad — an open letter urging representatives to cosponsor Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act (HR 1207), signed by an unprecedentedly diverse coalition of individuals, activists, political organizations and citizen groups, all of whom join us in demanding that Congress finally shine a light on the secretive Federal Reserve System.

An Open Letter

to the U.S. House of Representatives

05/07/2009

Dear Representative,

We, the undersigned organizations representing millions of Americans, encourage you to cosponsor H.R. 1207, “The Federal Reserve Transparency Act,” which would eliminate the restrictions on U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits of the Federal Reserve.

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has operated without sufficient transparency or accountability to the American people. In fact, current law specifically excludes the Fed from a thorough audit or real congressional oversight. No government agency has such an utter lack of sunshine.

The Federal Reserve has created and dispersed trillions of dollars in response to our current financial crisis. Americans across the nation, regardless of their opinion on the bailouts, want to know where that money has gone and exactly how much has been spent.

H.R. 1207 would open up the Fed’s funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, Term Securities Lending Facility, and Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility to congressional oversight.

Additionally, audits could include discount window operations, open market operations, and agreements with foreign central banks, such as the ongoing dollar swap operations with European central banks.

By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, H.R. 1207 would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve.

Sincerely,

Campaign for Liberty
FreedomWorks
Center for Fiscal Accountability at Americans for Tax Reform
Project On Government Oversight (POGO)
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW)
The Rutherford Institute
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)
Common Cause
Velvet Revolution
Justice Through Music
International Association of Whistleblowers
Alliance for Patient Safety
U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
iSolon.org
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Citizens for Sunshine
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
No FEAR Coalition
Marcus Epstein, The American Cause
The Multiracial Activist
Citizens for Health
Progressive Librarians Guild
Government Accountability Project (GAP)
OpenTheGovernment.org
Citizen Outreach
National Coalition of Organized Women
OMB Watch
Public Citizen
Whistleblower Support Fund
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
IowaTransparency.org
The Harbour League
Republican Liberty Caucus
Changing Hearts Foundation
The Constitution Party
Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project
Westchester Residential Opportunities
Eagle Forum-AZ
Democrats.com
AfterDowningStreet
American Policy Center
A New Way Forward
Defending Dissent Foundation
Pain Relief Network
Earth Intelligence Network
Institute for Transparent Government
JustHealth
Liberty Coalition
Kentucky Progress
The Woodhull Freedom Foundation
Utah Center-Right Coalition
Florida Center-Right Coalition
Pennsylvania Center-Right Coalition
Ethan Allen Institute
American Service Council
Public Interest Institute
Shane Osborn, Nebraska State Treasurer
Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, Inc.
Green Party of the United States
National Taxpayers Union
Young Americans for Liberty
Deborah Owens, Ph.D., Board Member, Buckeye Institute
Rand Paul, Kentucky Taxpayers United

»crosslinked«

Processing your request, Please wait....

Posted in , , | Tagged , , | 7 Responses

Ron Paul questions Richard Holbrooke on innocent war casualties

7 Responses

By RonPaul.com on May 7, 2009




Event: House Foreign Relations Committee Hearing
Date: 5/5/2009

Transcript

Ron Paul: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Ambassador. I have a couple of concerns I want to express. The main concern I have is I was hoping to see maybe a change in our foreign policy from the last administration. But, of course, we see just more of the same; more nation building, more policing of the world, more involvement and it just seems like we never learn from our past mistakes.

We don’t learn from what kind of trouble the Soviets got into and yet we continue to do the same thing, and even in your last statement, it’s a grandiose goal that we want to work for a vibrant, modern democracy. Wow, what a dream. But think of how we are doing this. I mean, we label everybody that opposes what we’re doing; we call them Taliban, and all of a sudden, they are many, many thousands of Pashtuns that are right smack in the middle of getting killed by our bombs and then we wonder why they object to our policies over there.

This to me means that we’re into this for a long haul. It’s going to cost a lot of money and it’s going to cost a lot of lives, and if the members of Congress had ever realized what Iraq would end up costing us in the number of deaths, in the number of dollars, now, trillion dollars, they would have been a little more hesitant.

They admit that even now, “well maybe we shouldn’t have”, but who knows what this is going to end up costing in terms of lives and the odds of it working are so slim. This is what my great concern is, you know, in 1999, Sharif was the prime minister and we were supportive of a military coup and Musharraf comes in and we support him. So now, it’s said that we will have relationship with Sharif, which everybody knows exactly what that means. It means that we’re involved in their elections. That is the way we’ve done it for so many years.

But, you know, the Pakistani papers reported as “US taps Sharif to be the next Pakistani Prime Minister”. Now, whether or not we literally can do that, I think that we can have a lot of influence. That’s what they believe in. How do you win the hearts and minds of these people if we’re seen as invaders, as occupiers, and here we are just doing nothing more than expanding our role, you know, in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.

I don’t see any end into it. But my particular question is this, it has to do with those Pashtuns that have been killed by our bombs. I mean, we’re bombing a sovereign country. Where did we get the authority to do that? Did the Pakistani government give us written permission, or did the Congress gave us written permission to expand the war and start bombing in Pakistan?

Why do we, as a Congress and as a people and as I represent not the executive branch, so casually and callously expand the war and say, “Well, today we have to do this. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

What about our national debt? We have a [huge] national debt facing us. We think nothing of $3.5 billion, which will turn out to be tens of billions of dollars after this.

So I’d like to know where you stand on this, the innocent killing of Pashtuns. Are they all Taliban or are there some innocent people being killed?

Richard Holbrooke: Congressman Paul, I did not say exactly what you imputed to me (*), but I have thought a long time about the issues you raised, and you mentioned Iraq. Afghanistan, Pakistan is not Iraq. The reason we are in this area, notwithstanding its immense difficulties, is because the people in this area attacked our country on September 11, 2001 and have stated flatly their intent to do it again.

They’ve done all the other things we mentioned earlier, and therefore it is not Iraq and it’s not Vietnam, despite the fact that many people say it is. It’s about defending our country. It is not easy. I agree with you. It’s not cheap and having seen wars on three continents, having been shot at for my country, I sure don’t feel comfortable in a situation where you ask brave, young American men and women, to risk their lives and sometimes pay the ultimate sacrifice.

However, the President of the United States reviewed everything in regard to this and he came to the conclusion, not that it’s the same policy, he spent the whole meeting today talking about differences and dozens of others, but it’s not the same policy but our goal has to be to defeat Al-Qaeda. You cannot let them take over an even larger terrain, move into other parts of the world, and then plan what they’re planning, in my view.

(*) Mr. Holbrooke actually said, “All of our efforts in Pakistan are geared toward creating the vibrant, modern, and democratic state that Pakistanis desire and U.S. policy envisions as a partner in advancing stability and development in a key region of the world.”

Processing your request, Please wait....

Posted in , | Tagged , , , , | 7 Responses

The Rise of Ron Paul

18 Responses

By RonPaul.com on May 6, 2009




Show: Rachel Maddow Show
Channel: MSNBC
Date: 5/5/2009

Transcript:

Rachel Maddow: What we’re seeing right now is a Republican party that is fragmented, and probably still fragmenting and it will probably be that way for a while. This is early days in their rebuilding. But one of the people who is seeing his stature rise in this somewhat chaotic power vacuum is a man who was essentially disowned by his party during this past election cycle: Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, who ran for President this past year. After being excluded from some of the Republican primary debates, Ron Paul held his own Ron Paul Convention at the same time as the Republican national convention which drew ten thousand supporters in Minneapolis. It was not an adjunct event for the Republican convention, it was a competing event.

The first sign that Congressman Paul might be brought back into the fold may have been the Republican embrace of the tax day tea parties last month. Tax day protests in the theme of a tea party are very much associated with Ron Paul supporters, some of whom who were slightly miffed to see that message being co-opted by national Republican figures.

And now, Dr. Paul himself seems to be getting more attention on the Hill personally, and in terms of policy. Consider his recent bill to audit the Federal Reserve. It’s called the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009. It now has 124 co-sponsors in Congress, and counting. By comparison, the Washington Independent notes today that Dr. Paul’s Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act just two years ago attracted a grand total of zero co-sponsors. What a difference political exile makes.

Joining us now is the man himself, Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, Dr. Paul, thank you so much for coming on the show tonight, it’s a real pleasure to have you here.

Ron Paul: Thank you, nice to be with you.

Rachel Maddow: First of all I should admit that my introductory remarks were not the most flattering portrait of your party, so I want to give you a chance to say what you think of the Republican Party’s fortunes right now. Do you think this is a rebuilding time?

Ron Paul: Well, something has to be done if they want to stay in existence. I don’t think they can continue to do what they’ve been doing. You know, they sort of didn’t accept what I was talking about during the campaign. I talked about and defended… I never voted for an unbalanced budget, never raised taxes.

But you know, I had this other silly idea that you shouldn’t fight wars unless the Congress declared them, and I had all this notion that you shouldn’t print money when you need it. And these ideas struck a chord with a lot of people, but so far not a whole lot in the leadership have come to me and said, “Lead the charge”. But hopefully some of these ideas will stick because all I know is that the campuses are very attuned to this and will listen and I can still get a large number of young people to listen to a different type of Republican party where they deal with civil liberties and they deal with a foreign policy that used to not be that strange to the Republicans. You know, where we had a strong national defense but we didn’t go warmongering. And it used to be the Democrats that always did that, but now it looks like both parties endorse these things.

If you truly want to be interested in protection of civil liberties, if you want a foreign policy built on common sense and not telling people what to do and bombing them if they don’t do what we want, and having come up with some common sense and say, “We just can’t print money when you need it”. All of a sudden these things do make a lot of sense. Whether they’re Republican or Democrat, I think there is a revolution going on in ideas. But a true revolution has to be pervasive enough to infiltrate into both political parties. And I feel very proud to have at least about 14 Democrats who are on that bill dealing with the Federal Reserve, and I think I’m going to get a lot more. Continue reading “The Rise of Ron Paul”

Processing your request, Please wait....

Posted in | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Responses

Ben Bernanke to Ron Paul: “I will resist any attempt to dictate monetary policy.”

145 Responses

By RonPaul.com on May 5, 2009




Event: Congress’ Joint Economic Committee
Date: 5/5/2009

Transcript:

Ron Paul: Welcome, Chairman Bernanke. I have a couple of questions, but first I want to mention that I find it awfully frustrating at times when we always talk about inflation and we only talk about the prices and say, “We have prices under control, there is no inflation”. We have to realize that the monetary base, the liquidity was doubled in a few short months. To me there is a lot of inflation out there. It’s already inflated, we’re in the midst of inflation. Because the prices haven’t gone up doesn’t mean we don’t have the distortion. And it was that system that gave us the financial bubble. Artificially low interest rates, the mal-investment, all the mistakes made. And now we’re trying to correct all that by doing the very, very same thing.

So, I think someday we’re going to have to address this somewhat differently because I’m not very optimistic that we can solve our problems with more spending and more borrowing and more inflation in order to solve those problems. But you’ve answered this question several times, I want to bring it up again and this question has to do with when will some of this liquidity be drained? And I don’t think the answer you’ve given is very specific and I don’t expect to get a more specific answer, but I’m going to try.

What if we have a situation where prices, which is not the best measure of inflation, but let’s say the consumer price index (CPI) is going up 8% to 10% and there is no economic growth. Where are you then, because that’s not impossible, it’s happened. It’s happened in our history, it happens throughout the world, it’s a common thing, it puts you between a rock and a hard place. If you drain, interest rates go up and the economy further crashes. If you don’t, you have the explosion.

Can you give me an idea what you precisely would do if you face the situation where prices were going up 10% with no economic growth?

Ben Bernanke: Well, I think that’s an unlikely scenario but we certainly would have to take steps to ensure price stability, because if inflation gets out of control we know it has very adverse effects on the economy, both in the medium and long term and so we would obviously have to address that.

Ron Paul: Which means you would have to raise interest rates?

Ben Bernanke: This is exactly the same problem which is always faced by monetary policy, which is in a recovery when the economy is starting to grow but has not yet gotten very far, perhaps, and unemployment is still above where we would like it to be. You know, you have to take away the punch bowl, as someone once said, in order avoid the inflation risk.

Ron Paul: I see this as the real problem because we practice economic planning through manipulation of money and credit. Socialism always fails because they don’t have a pricing structure. Interventionism and inflationism fail because we don’t have a free market pricing system of money; the interest rates. Therefore it fails, it comes to conclusion and inevitably it leads to a more socialized economy. Just witness what we’re talking about. Taking over companies, taking over insurance companies, taking over banks. This has been the prediction of the free market economists and yet we continue down this path of socializing our entire economy.

I do want to address one other subject and it has to do with transparency. You said you have made a commitment to transparency and openness, which is very good and there is a lot of us that want that. And I have dealt with that and have a legislation, HR 1207, dealing with that. But in a real sense, I know what you’re doing here, but the code really protects you from telling us some of the things we’d like to know. For instance, in 1978 when the GAO was given the authority to audit the Fed, it put the exclusion in there that you can’t ask these questions. Precisely, if I wanted to know about all your agreements and discussions with foreign central banks, with foreign governments, with international financial organizations, you have no obligation and you haven’t volunteered to do this. So is there a way that you would, since you’re moving in this direction, move and consider supporting a position where Congress has a right to know these very, very crucial, vital issues dealing with their money?

I mean, everything you do deals with their money. Would you ever be open to repeal some of these provisions?

Ben Bernanke: Yes I would. Now, if you let me be specific. We have many programs where we lend money, we take collateral, and obviously we are repaid. I want to assure you, first of all, that we have very substantial oversight and controls, we have precise internal divisions which monitor these things, we have an independent IG and we have an external auditing company, a private company which provides audits every year and has given us a clean bill of health on all our financial controls, all levels of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. That being said, if Congress needs more information about the operations that we’re doing, exactly how we manage our collateral and how we manage our lending and those sorts of things, I think we can talk to you about providing more information about that and if necessary working with the GAO.

Where I’ll be very careful, where I’d like to be just very clear, there’s been some discussion of the GAO “auditing monetary policy”. I don’t know what that means, but I certainly would resist any attempt to dictate the Federal Reserve how to make monetary policy. It’s the independence of monetary policy which is crucial to the maintenance of price stability and economic growth in this country. And that would not be acceptable but if it’s an issue of making sure that we’re appropriately managing our systems and doing what we’re saying we’re doing in terms of our lending, we want to be open, we want you to understand that we’re taking every precaution to protect the taxpayer.

Ron Paul: Of course, the policy is the only thing that really counts.

Processing your request, Please wait....

Posted in , , | Tagged , , | 145 Responses

Ron Paul’s Bill To Audit The Federal Reserve Now Has 134 Co-Sponsors

14 Responses

By RonPaul.com on May 5, 2009




Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207) now has 134 co-sponsors, and the numbers keep growing! Continue reading “Ron Paul’s Bill To Audit The Federal Reserve Now Has 134 Co-Sponsors”

Processing your request, Please wait....

Posted in , | Tagged , | 14 Responses

Page 311 of 398« First...102030...309310311312313...320330340...Last »