In Ron Paul’s latest video released on his Congressional site he talks about his questioning of Bernanke yesterday. The video is a bit of a scholastic lecture on our fiat money system. During it, he claims, more than once, that our financial system has collapsed.
Yesterday, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times. It was filled with doublespeak, platitudes, lies, and incredible ignorance. Chris Martenson parsed Paulson’s words, paragraph by paragraph, to shed some truth of the situation. Here’s a snippet:
[Paulson writes:]
I have always said that the decline in the housing market is at the root of the economic downturn and our financial market stress. And the economy, as it slows further, threatens to prolong this decline, as well as the stress on our financial institutions and financial markets.
My Comment: Um, no, Hank, sorry, this is not true. Here are some recent quotes from you:
April 20, 2007 — “I don’t see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem. I think it’s going to be largely contained.”
July 26, 2007 — “I don’t think it [the subprime mess] poses any threat to the overall economy.”
This article by Chris Martenson is quite revealing, even entertaining (if you’re into black comedy). Read the whole thing here.
Next up is Austrian economist Thomas J. DiLorenzo. Born 1954, DiLorenzo teaches American Economics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland, a senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and author/co-author of several books, most notably:
Well known for shunning the typical politically-correct line of thinking, his well-researched and masterfully eloquent works are eye opening to many whose only knowledge of political and economic topics resulted from the revisionist history often taught in government schools.
DiLorenzo is steadfast in his claim that the interventions of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt exacerbated the economic problems of the 1930s and prolonged the Great Depression. As he wrote in the opening paragraph of The New Deal Debunked (again) (a followup to his earlier article A New, New Deal):
Quote of the Day: “The Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.” — Joseph Sobran
Subject: Should you pay autoworkers to do nothing?
If the history of the current era is ever written properly it may be called “The Age of the Government Sponsored Scam.” The examples are piling up. Here’s the latest . . .
Think of what this will mean if the politicians pass a bill to bailout GM, or Chrysler, or Ford. When you go to work you’ll be laboring part of the day to pay some members of the United Auto Workers union to sit and produce nothing.
Doesn’t that sound like a scam to you, and wouldn’t a bailout represent government sponsorship of this scam?
Do you think, perhaps, the Detroit automakers might not need a bailout if they didn’t sign such stupid contracts with the UAW union?
Do you think, perhaps, that the Democrats may ignore this problem unless they hear outrage about it from their constituents?
If you have Democratic representatives you may want to ponder whether they represent the unions, or you. Shouldn’t you ask them where their loyalties lie?
Or, if you have Republican representatives, do you think they might make an issue of this if you inform them of it?
Given the direction the political winds are blowing, with world leaders meeting to determine how best to further intervene into the world’s monetary and economic system, the odds of returning to the stable days of the Gold Standard seems infinitesimal at best. At the Christian Science Monitor, an op-ed titled Forget Bretton Woods II – we need a gold standard, editorialist Walker Todd says that absent the “integrity and restraint a gold standard provides” our country may be headed straight for hyperinflation. Using Weimar, Germany as an extreme example, he illustrated how desperate conditions could get:
Weimar Germany experienced one of the greatest inflations in modern history in 1922 and 1923. Eventually, the official exchange rate reached 4.2 trillion marks per dollar. Some Germans heated their homes by burning cash, since it was cheaper than buying wood. The inflation finally was tamed by government bonds promising repayment in gold, backed by land taxes also payable in gold.
And photographs from the situation in Zimbabwe illustrate clearly what could happen. Here’s a man going out to lunch: Read More »
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” - Thomas Jefferson
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally published November 9, 2008 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5438.html
In my last update “FDIC Gives Alpha Bank the Axe!“, I predicted a drought of closures with a possible drizzle (one or at most two minor banks) until November 4th, after that, regardless of the bailout, to expect a steady drizzle and possible downpour (few more major banks and a bunch of smaller ones to kick the bucket) before we close 2008. Looks like we are on the way! (logo)
With the addition of the three banks below, the FDIC’s Bank Body Count (BBC) for 2008 now stands at 19, most notably the recent closure of Houston’s Franklin Bank. [I admittedly cringed a little when I saw they used an image of Ben Franklin on their logo.] Another credit union has recently given up the ghost, making it 13 on the year.
Franklin Bank, Houston, Texas ($5.1 billion in assets, $3.7 billion in deposits, ~$1.5 billion cost to the FDIC) Date of Demise: 11/07/2008
Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles, CA ($561 million in assets, $450 million in deposits, ~$210 million cost to the FDIC) Date of Demise: 11/07/2008
Freedom Bank, Bradenton, Florida ($287 million in assets, $254 million in deposits, ~$95 million cost to the FDIC) Date of Demise: 10/31/2008
High Desert Federal Credit Union, Apple Valley, California ($149 million in assets, cost to NCUA not stated) The credit union is now under the new dictionary term, “conservatorship.” Date of Government Takeover: 10/16/2008
Again, HAVE YOU PROTECTED YOURSELF?
First understand the FDIC, the NCUA, and the nature of the banking system. Here’s the fastest lesson I can manage. Try my other writings or just search the net for more information.
One of Liberty Maven’s (soon-to-be) Liberty Heroes, Thomas DiLorenzo, was interviewed by columnist Ilana Mercer. DiLorenzo, who recently wrote Hamilton’s Curse, discusses at length Hamilton’s strong desire for mercantilism in this country, and throws the stated desires of Obama and McCain into the mix for comparison purposes.
Obama is a slick politician, so I expect him to continue to administer the neo-mercantilist, Hamiltonian empire that has been built up by both parties over the decades, with all of its schemes for corporate welfare for defense contractors, investment bankers and myriad other politically active businesses which, in turn, provide financial support for the regime. But Obama is also a hardcore leftist who spent his earlier career working with some of the craziest socialists in America, groups like ACORN, who advocated such things as kicking doctors off the boards of hospitals and replacing them with “the poor,” and Soviet-style nationalization of the energy and health care industries.
Quote of the Day: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
– James Bovard, Source: Lost Rights. The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1994), p. 333
Free market advocates must speak in favor of business regulation. This may sound strange, but that’s only because the politicians have conditioned us to think about things in the wrong way.
The politicians are busy blaming DE-regulation for the current financial crisis. This is partly self-serving, but it’s also due to a defect in the way politicians think.
The politicians think government regulations are the ONLY regulations that exist. Therefore, in their mind, to repeal a government regulation is to DE-regulate.
They are very wrong.
Often, the repeal of a government regulation will result in the restoration of free market regulations that are far stronger.
Free market regulation comes in several forms. One involves customers taking their business elsewhere when a company fails to provide a good product at a good price. Businesses are regulated by their customers.
Please notice that the government operates under different rules . . .
In his weekly Texas Straight Talk, Ron Paul congratulates Barack Omaba for making history this election, and voices his hopes that the new administration will not make the same inerventionist mistakes that were make in the 30s which exacerbated the problems of the Great Depression:
With the election behind us, our country turns hopeful eyes to the future. I have a few hopes of my own.
I congratulate our first African-American president-elect.Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly would be proud to see this day.We are stronger for embracing diversity, and I am hopeful that we can continue working through the tensions and wrongs of the past and become a more just and colorblind society.I hope this new administration will help bring us together, and not further divide us.I have always found that freedom is the best way to break down barriers.A free society emphasizes the importance of individuals, and not because they are part of a certain group.That’s the only way equal justice can be achieved.
We will face more tough economic problems during this new administration.In fact, the worst is yet to come.A vast amount of problematic mortgages have not begun to reset their variable interest rates and go into default.We already have unprecedented deficits, spending is out of control, and more big industries are coming to government with their hands out.My hope is that this administration will handle this economic crisis better than the interventionists and big government spenders of the 1930’s, the bureaucrats that prolonged the Depression.I hope that new government programs and spiderwebs of red tape do not pop up to interfere with American productivity, and that we can quickly get our financial footing again.We have to understand that an economic correction needs to take place and the only way out of the coming recession is to go through it.Efforts to avoid it can only prolong it.I hope we can somehow find our way back to sound money and reject corporate cronyism.
We cannot address our budget problems at home without changing our disastrous foreign policy abroad.I am hopeful that the new administration can take on the mantle of peace and diplomacy in foreign policy that many Americans feel they were promised.Many other nations also have this hope, which exudes from their congratulatory sentiments offered after the election.They hope that national sovereignty will be respected.They hope that through diplomacy violence and war can be averted.I hope so too.One thing is unquestionable: our aggressive foreign policy of the past has been costly, in blood and in treasure.Our treasure is running out, and fewer volunteers are stepping up to enable that foreign policy.So for these reasons, if we are to continue to have an all-volunteer military, and see prosperity again in the future, I have every reason to hope our foreign policy will change.In order for it to remain the same, mandatory military service would have to return, as well as accelerated theft through debt and inflation to pay for it.I have a hard time imagining popular support for these policies, simply for the sake of war and conquest, when we clearly want peace.
I have many hopes for the future in this time of transition.But I have seen this country face many forks in the road, and sadly take the wrong one too many times.We have heard a lot of talk, and it remains to be seen what actions and specific policies that talk will translate into.So while I may be hopeful, I remain deeply concerned about our future.
Liberty Maven
far, in Liberty Maven’s ongoing series 
In my last update “
