Liberty Maven

Ron Paul appeared on MSNBC this morning to discuss the latest developments on his Federal Reserve Audit bill, which now has 310 cosponsors in the House and 30 in the Senate.

Ron Paul appeared on Fox Business News tonight with David Asman on the “Nightly Scoreboard”. They discussed several topics in a nearly 10 minute segment. As usual, Ron Paul just delivers the truth.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

That’s just a little over $30,000 per year.

Clearly the banking lobby is satisfied with Mr. Watt’s performance.

Last Friday, Rep. Ron Paul reported that our Federal Reserve Transparency Act (HR 1207) was “gutted” in Rep. Watt’s subcommittee.

In defense of Rep. Watt, however, it’s not totally his fault. His district is the most obviously gerrymandered in North Carolina, following I-85 like a snake from Charlotte to Winston Salem. It is overwhelmingly Democratic, and his re-election has never been seriously challenged. Why should he represent the people when he is electorally invincible?

While we may not be able to hold Rep. Watt accountable, we can fight back. His attempt to eviscerate HR 1207 must be approved by the full Financial Services committee.

We can block that approval, and restore the original bill. It is especially important that each member of the Financial Services committee hear from their constituents the clear message that Rep. Watt’s proposed changes are unacceptable. And you must act now because . . .

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Ron Paul questioned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today on Capitol Hill. Both men seemed to be talking past each other a bit. Geithner reminds me of a friend who never gives you a concrete answer; thus, he is perfect for his position as tax collector. I cannot resist asking the question… what is going on with his hair? Did it always look like that or is it just due to poor video quality?

by John Browne – Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital

Over the past two years, the federal government and the Federal Reserve have dispersed trillions of public dollars, run up enormous deficits, and kept interest rates at zero. In just about any economic textbook, this combination of policies would be described as the perfect recipe for inflation. Yet, with the exception of the usual increases in health care and education, prices by and large are not rising. Many have concluded that our economic leadership has simply outsmarted the textbooks.

The benign CPI figures are serving as a rallying point behind which the financial talking-heads are forming a parade of optimism. The low CPI is their ‘proof’ that inflation is not a pressing concern. This view is two dimensional.

Inflation is classically described simply as an increase in the money supply. Although these changes will impact price levels, it doesn’t necessarily follow that prices will rise when inflation is high. Instead, inflation may merely result in stable prices at a time when prices would otherwise be falling.

In the popular mentality, however, inflation is simply defined as prices rising. After decades of steadily rising prices, people seem to have forgotten that prices sometimes fall. In light of the bursting of a number of record-breaking, government-fueled asset bubbles, prices should be declining across the board (as they did in the Great Depression). The fact that prices are stable, or have even rallied in some sectors, indicates that inflation is already spreading across the economy.

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

We’re pleased to welcome BJ Lawson to the pages of the Downsizer-Dispatch as a Commentator.

Here’s BJ’s first call to action . . .

Your success promoting the Audit the Fed bills has scared the banking cartel into offering a fake alternative, the so-called Federal Reserve Accountability Act (S 1803).

Please send Congress a letter opposing S 1803, and favoring the real Audit the Fed bill, S 604.

You can use my letter to Congress as a guide to your own . . .

I want my Senators to oppose S 1803, and support S 604 instead. I also want my House Rep. to reject any attempt to foster a bill similar to S 1803 in that chamber.

S 604 would perform a real audit of the Federal Reserve, but S 1803, the so-called Federal Reserve Accountability Act, would actually help the Fed avoid accountability! It would . . .

* Severely limit the scope of any audit,
* Set unreasonable time-frames that will delay or postpone certain audits indefinitely,
* Permit some audits to be performed only one year after a program has been terminated.

Give me a break!

It should be perfectly obvious to any reasonable person that active Federal Reserve programs need the most accountability. And what about programs that are never terminated? Focusing audits on terminated programs is like closing the proverbial barn door after the cow is gone, while giving on-going programs a permanent pass.

Frankly, it seems to me that S 1803 is a fraud designed to preserve the status quo while fooling some Americans into thinking you’ve enacted a real reform. Where did this idea come from anyway? The banking lobby?

You politicians constantly claim that citizens who aren’t doing anything wrong have nothing to fear from their government. Well, if the Federal Reserve isn’t doing anything wrong then it too has nothing to fear. S 1803 actually enhances my suspicion that the Federal Reserve is probably doing lots of bad things!

The cure for this is transparency.

The self-serving political claim that Federal Reserve transparency would disrupt the financial markets is simply wrong. Financial markets require honesty and transparency for the efficient allocation of capital, and for systemic stability. The lack of transparency for Federal Reserve actions is actually the source of market disruption, and creates constant chaos in our international financial relationships.

Please audit the Fed! And make sure it’s a real audit, not a fake one.

Believe me, I’m paying close attention to how you represent me.

END OF SAMPLE LETTER

You can send your letter to Congress using the DownsizeDC.org Educate the Powerful System.

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Ron Paul was interviewed by Tavis Smiley on his PBS show last night. I remember really enjoying Smiley’s questioning and demeanor throughout his questioning during one of the GOP primary debates during the campaign of 2008. A debate that some of us here at Liberty Maven attended.

In this interview they discuss the U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan, Ron Paul’s new book “End the Fed“, and how the Fed can be audited and eventually abolished.

Watch it in two parts below.

(Thanks to great Minnesota Chris for the videos, check out his blog)

Well, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Actions such as these are the reason the word “cynic” was created. Ron Paul’s HR.1207 (S.604 in the Senate) which would require a complete audit of the Federal Reserve has 303 cosponsors in the House and 30 in the Senate. Yesterday, a new bill was introduced by obviously bought and paid for lawmakers that is a “waterboarded” version of Ron Paul’s bill.

“The Federal Reserve Accountability Act” was introduced by Democrat Jeff Merkley and Republican Bob Corker yesterday. The bill takes the cake out of Paul’s bill and leaves nothing but the frosting.

The bill avoids review of the Fed’s regular lending programs, such as the longstanding discount window, and its interest-rate decisions.

So, it excludes the fundamentals, the very actions 75% of the American people say they want to know about. The attitude of these so-called representatives is reprehensible.

I’m willing to bet that Merkley and Corker have some large donors in the banking industry.

This may be expected, but it doesn’t mean those of us that support a full audit as outlined in Ron Paul’s bill should just lay down. If anything, the fight has just begun. Please call your representatives and make sure they understand the difference between the full audit and the waterboarded audit introduced yesterday. Tell them that you will not accept anything other than a full audit. It is time to take off the gloves and fight. It’s going to get dirty in DC. Well, more dirty than it already is.

Here is a PDF of the new bill.

Here is a Press Release from the Campaign For Liberty about the bill.

This morning Ron Paul appeared for an interview on the state of the economy and the Goldman Sachs “bailout” on CNN “American Morning”.

As usual Dr. Paul defends the free market even when asked rather convoluted questions about “how much” the government should support the market. I found the interview a bit odd. In that both the host and Paul were trying to find some kind of middle ground between a government managed economy and a free market position. The common point implied that the government shouldn’t be bailing out these big Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs yet they continue to use tax payer money to do so.

Check out the video below. NOTE: The audio/video sync appears to be off as is custom on some videos processed by Youtube.

On October 15, 2009, I gave a lecture at Moravian College in Bethlehem on the horrendous economics of the stimulus plan, and why free market solutions will work far better.  An MP3 is not yet available, but a PDF is here.  The video playing prior to the lecture is below.  This is only the latest in a series of economic lectures, including on the financial crisis.  If you are interested in having me speak with your group, feel free to contact the campaign from the TowneForCongress.com home page.

First, I want to reassure everyone this talk will not be a campaign speech; its based on an economics article that I wrote in January 2009, before the stimulus plan was passed and before my candidacy – although I am from Nazareth, which by the way, was the original settlement the Moravians founded when they arrived from their failed colony in South Carolina – at the time I was living in Shanghai.

Regardless, these days when one looks at the economy, you must clearly also factor in the interventions by government. So much so, it is a wonder that the field has not yet been renamed “governomics.”

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