When Republican House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) threaten the Fed if it tries to help the economy with monetary policy, their low-concept imitation of Ron Paul is economically ignorant and historically unprecedented. When Republican candidate Rick Perry threatens the Fed with charges of treason and comes close to threatening violence if the Fed chairman visits Texas, his polyester impersonation of Paul makes him intellectually and morally unfit for the presidency.
When the books are written, one story of the 2012 campaign will be the full magnitude of influence that Ron Paul has achieved over Republican economic policy. For better or worse, it is an enormous achievement for Paul that his lifetime body of work is now a consensus policy of the Republican Party.
The larger story, when the books are written, will be how Republican leaders in Congress appear hell-bent on returning the nation to the economic crash that began under the last Republican president, as so many recessions and depressions have begun under Republican leadership.
Here is how Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are imitating 30 years of Ron Paul policies and destroying the American economy:
Never before in American history have leaders of any party attacked the Federal Reserve Board for trying to use monetary policy to strengthen the economy during a recession or depression. It has never happened before, not once in American history.
Never before in American history have leaders of any party done what Republican leaders and Republican candidates are doing today: attacking any effort to help the economy through monetary policy, and attacking any effort to help the economy through fiscal policy, at the same time, during a recession or depression. It has never happened before. Not once. Not ever. Even the most conservative Republican leaders in American history have never done anything like this.
Ron Paul was right to call for Fed disclosure. Ron Paul was right to call for Congress to begin serious oversight of Fed action. But Ron Paul is wrong, dead wrong, fatally wrong, disastrously wrong and catastrophically wrong to attack the concept of using monetary policy, properly applied, and to use fiscal policy, properly applied, to increase growth and create jobs during a recession or depression.
Ron Paul has won the debate within the Republican Party and is now dominating the debate in Republican circles. But when the Speaker and majority leader of the House translate Paul's policies into congressional threats against the Fed, they are ignorant of economic policy, ignorant of economic history and driving the nation to an economic crash.
It was Republican President George W. Bush who led the nation to the last crash. It is Republican leaders today who are driving the nation to the next crash. It will be Republicans in the House running for reelection in 2012 who will pay the heavy price politically, because the more Ron Paul wins the economic debate within his party, the more Americans lose their jobs throughout our country.
Dennis A. Henigan: Rick Perry The Gunslinger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8
You are not wrong, you are "wrong, dead wrong, fatally wrong, disastrously wrong and catastrophically wrong".
Ron Paul's argument against The Federal Reserve and it's actions is predicated on the idea that it's an unconstitutional entity, for it represents a fundamentally unconstitutional abdication of the Federal Government's responsibility toward Monetary Policy to The Federal Reserve, a private corporation, in 1913. Furthermore, Paul's position is that The Federal Reserve is in violation of price-fixing laws, because it sets interest rates, which is the "price of money."
This author has clearly not familiarized himself with Ron Paul's position on the Federal Reserve, or he would know that Paul doesn't merely espouse oversight and transparency. Indeed, Paul sees The Federal Reserve as the primary instigator of "recessions and depressions" in the USA. Ron Paul's reading of economists like Hayek, Mises, and Rothbard has
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1143/700/To_Get_Ron_Paul_You_Have_To_Get_Mises,_Rothbard,_Hayek,_And_Hoppe.html
As far as "prescience," I do find it ironic that then-Governor Bernanke said, in 2002, that our economy was in good health. Meanwhile, in 2003, Ron Paul, in the Congressional Record, described the impending mortgage crisis in detail. Who, exactly, was prescient among those two?
Who do you trust? A man, who having applied the concepts of Austrian school of economics, has been able to accurately predict our financial crisis - or - those who either had no idea or were willingly silent??
Furthermore, it is disingenious for the author to lump all the other Republicans with Ron Paul. I have not heard any of them speak, with any intellectual depth, monetary and fiscal policy. There is no evidence that they would not change course.
And as for where we're at now.... how can anyone possibly defend current policies that are driving us to financial ruin, where the poverty rate is approaching its highest level since first being tracked in '59, and unemployment continuing to worsen? Why not elect someone who was actually right about our economic troubles? To me, this just seems to be the only sensible option.
The Federal Reserve has completely failed in it's dual mandate under any metric or government figures you choose. Dr. George Selgin has done an incredible job (using government data) of showing this.
You are correct about one thing: the rest of the GOP field are just a poor man's Ron Paul. Ron Paul is right. The only candidate who predicted the economic crisis is the only one who can fix it.
Only in this now upside-down country that we live in would we turn common sense and reason on its head by declaring an individual is "wrong, dead wrong, fatally wrong, diastrously wrong and catastrophically wrong" when said individual, get this,... PREDICTED IN '03 WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN '08!
Perhaps, if for no other reason even though there are plenty of them, we should finally elect someone in office who has the intellectual capacity to accurately forecast the effects and consequences of public policy. For the author to arrive at the opposite conclusion, based on no reasoning, empirical evidence, or historical context, is downright embarrassing and shameful.
Never in history, under any president has debt ran up this fast.
Never in history has this many regulations been applied to a fragile economy.
Never in history has the government tried to completely take over health care.
Never in history has the fed printed so much money.
Never in history have we spent so much on war.
Never in history has there been such a massive bailout of banks/car companies.
Never in history has inflation been a catastrophic concern.
Never in history has the gap between poor and rich been so high.
All under democrat leadership and/or democrat majority in congress... Republicans come in and talk about fiscal responsibility and all the sudden they are demonized??? We reached the point of no return... republicans are trying to pull back the reigns and soften the blow. The collapse is coming you regardless of what anyone does. More government is not the solution... how is this not clear by now?
Partisanship is over. In this day and age, both parties are equally corrupt...
I'm trying to be a cynic, but it's getting harder and harder to keep up.
Paul's books shed a flicker of hope, we have to make this change before the federal government destroys our currency.
You don't make any sense.