Ron Paul on Ben Bernanke as Time's Man of The Year: Not Evil Per Se, But Head of an Evil System

Via Andy Levy's Twitter feed and Polijam comes this clip of Rep. Ron Paul talking in Morning Joe about Fed head Helicopter Ben Bernanke being named as Man of The Year.

"The big question is: has he used that power for good or for evil? And of course my side of the argument is the system is evil and the chairman, whether it's Greenspan or Bernanke, they can do no good."

I was on Fox News' Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano last week, along with investment guru and Senate candidate Peter Schiff, where we talked about the Fed (in fact, we followed Ron Paul on the show!):

My NY Times review of Joe Scarborough's recent tome, The Last Best Hope, here.

Comments

[Death Sentence]

...we followed Ron Paul on the show!

Fanboy alert.

[norbizness]

Anton Chigurh? WTF?!

[Morris]

Was Ron Paul racist per se when he published a racist newsleter?

[Not Really]

He's not racist per se, he just lets Lew Rockwell handle some of his financial ventures.

[Morris]

Fox News is about, your speed, Nick. Fucking libertoids will go to bed with anybody for some exposure.

[BakedPenguin]

Eddddddward. Edddddward.

[Jersey Patriot]

I, for one, enjoyed the extra commas there. It let me read the sentence in my Bill Shatner voice.

[Morris]

Fox News is about, your speed, Nick. Fucking libertoids will go to bed with anybody for some exposure.

[BakedPenguin]

Edddddddward. Edddddddward.

[Colin]

Although I disagree with Paul on a number of things, he's become must-see video as of late. He's really on the ball.

[Morris]

Is one of those things his willingness to exploit vicious raicsm for political gain? Oh yeah, he's a must-see all right. He's a boring old fuck.

[Guy]

I agree that Ron Paul is old and boring, but is he on anybody's radar screen enough to classify as a fuck?

[Thane Eichenauer]

Morris, can't you find something better to do than worry that Ron Paul had somebody write a newsletter 10 years ago with racially bigoted wording?

[Morris]

Sorry for the double insult. It was an accident.

[Morris's Mom]

That's alright, Honey. So were you.

[Morris's Dad]

Oh no you di'int!!

[P Brooks]

Actually, the Doctor didn't do too badly mano-a-mano against Judd Gregg the other morning. I mean, for a raving crackpot who refuses to admit the Fed is all that stands between us and the Abyss, that is.

[Hank]

Judd busted Paul's balls a little bit with ending the Fed - the ultimate goal. It would be like if a progressive in Congress were talking about the public option and had just written a book called Getting to Single-Payer. Or like when Obama was talking to SEIU. But he was only kidding, like when he said under a Cap and Trade Bill energy prices would necessarily skyrocket. Or, when Obama skewered Hillary for the mandate. It would be nice if Paul was a man of principle like our leader.

[Karlos]

The Fed IS the Abyss.

I'm new here and I'm shocked to find establishment talking points and other PR claptrap on a supposedly libertarian website.

[joel]

isnt auditing the fed, regulating the fed shooting ourselves in the foot? I mean, if it becomes controlled by politics, politics will rule its policies. at least now there is some semblance of independence. of course, the best thing is competing currencies, i just wonder if giving congress more control is more dangerous than doing nothing about it at all.

[yonemoto]

come again? Doesn't politics rule its policies already?

[Hank]

Auditing the Fed is more of a way to expose the Fed to the public. Ending the Fed is Paul's aim. I believe he is counting on much more change in Washington as a whole once there's some public awareness of what the Fed does. Yonemoto would be correct: it's already heavily politicized. No one or group should have that much power over our a economy. Talk about a moral hazzard!

[Rob McMillin]

I, for one, am not looking forward to seeing Ben Bernanke publicly exposed.

[Barack Obama]

There are those who say that if the Fed becomes controlled by politics, politics will rule its policies. Let me be clear...

[Bill C]

The last TIME that praised a fed chairman for "saving the world" on their cover. Enjoy:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3396/time99.jpg

http://img121.imageshack.us/im.....521gma.jpg

[Hobo Chang Ba]

While I share much of Rep. Paul's hatred for the Fed's actions, including totally fiat money and the excessive feeding of bubbles (plus I'm something of a deflation fan), some of the Fed's actions are able to bring in government money in ways that don't involve taxation and bring back US currency from overseas.

I think a big problem is that fiat, monopoly money gives legislators the free reign to run huge deficits without concern for paying off the debt. The fact that they can print money leads to inflation and pinches the lower classes. If progressives understood this, they'd be calling for the end of fiat money and support balanced budget amendments as well. I don't understand how leftist economists like Paul Krugman and Dean Baker ignore the fact that fiat money loses value faster than poor people's income increases (of course their solution is to inadvertently reduce the number of low income jobs by increasing the minimum wage).

I do have a question for gold standard folks, however: if there is a fixed standard behind currency, won't the dollar naturally be inflationary if population increases and deflationary if the population decreases? Demand for dollars will go up as they become rarer, which will still drive up the value per dollar, even if the dollar is backed by gold, right? Would it not be beneficial to have a central bank alter the money supply based upon population growth or decline? They could not print money on a whim, only pull some out of circulation or put reserves back in circulation.

[Jim]

A 100% gold standard does not need a central bank. It is a self regulated natural system. Money is a very old and natural system. It does not need the state. Central banks are a solution looking for a problem (and they create one.) The state interferes in the natural money system to grant privilege to favored interests. This too is as old as history. It has happened before, it will happen again.

Imagine a grain silo operator that prints receipts for more grain than he has because he does not expect every farmer will retrieve their grain at the same time. That operator is a counterfeiter. When a bank does it, it is counterfeiting. The state permits this counterfeiting because it benefits them. Under the currency act of 1792, counterfeiters could be executed. That could be a regulatory reform, as a Libertarian, I could learn to like. That may be what they mean by revolution. Revolve back to the start.

Regarding the question, a natural gold money system will expand at the rate new gold is accumulated into the system. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. A larger supply of the money leads to increased price levels. An historical example is the California gold rush. More local gold led to local mints. The money supply increased and prices inflated. The US mint stepped in, outlawed the local mints and gave us the Double Eagle.

Today, gold mines increase supply at a rate that has been diminishing. It is expensive to mine gold and the price has been low for a long time. A productive country could increase it's supply by selling production to other countries and getting gold. Given that, it may not be a good idea. China would soon have all our gold instead of all our pieces of paper.

If the US could stop consuming more than we produce, stop fighting wars we can not pay for (another type of consumption) and save, invest and become producers and creditors, all our individual increases in productivity would lead to a gradual lowering of the price level in gold money. A calm deflation as a unit of money gains purchasing power over time.

And honest bankers would still have something to do when they stopped fractional reserve counterfeiting. They would offer time deposits to all the savers. The savers would be assured their gold is safe in the 100% reserve system (no FDIC required.) The bankers could then lend at the market interest rate to good business prospects (speculators would have to use their own money, too risky for honest bankers.) That would be something like a real capitalist system and not the bankster driven crony capitalism favored by the state.

Welfare goes away when the state can now longer borrow money out of thin air, individuals will accumulate their own capital to support their own old age. Basically undo everything the state has done for 100 years. Well, I do have those silver slippers in the closet. Ha Ha. I must be crazy to write this down. My wife gets a funny look when I say this.

[Hobo Chang Ba]

One more question, regarding "competing currencies" - is there some law to where my store could not accept yen, pounds, euros and renminbi? Theoretically if there was some foreign country that was affixed to some sort of gold standard or the like, could I not accept that currency? Figuring out sales tax would be a b**** but is there anything legally wrong with accepting foreign tender as competition to the American dollar?

[RIck]

Reason.com - A haven for monetarist Fed apologists. Weak.

[Syd Henderson]

Being evil isn't a disqualification for being Person of the Year.

[zoltan]

Re: Obama, Putin, You, George W. Bush (twice for double evil), Giuliani, Clinton, Gingrich, etc.

[Liberty for Life]

"In a free society every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather than looking to government to correct what is essentially a sin of the heart, we should understand that reducing racism requires a shift from group thinking to an emphasis on individualism." - Dr. Ron Paul

I've been following Dr. Paul since 07. It's my view that he's NOT in it for personal gain! But trying to SAVE us from this out of control government!

The above quote from Dr. Paul said it all...

If we listen; He's All for Liberty, Peace and a prosper America...

I choose Peace...

[Trent]

We're a day late and a dollar short on the Fed audit. Unless the government defaults honestly on EVERYTHING, Medicare, Social Security, Treasuries, AND raises interest rates above the massive inflation rate, the dollar is done for already. And even if by some act of Providence that does happen, the USD still has to go a lot lower. My money is on 0, thanks to Time's Person of the Year.

[Bob the plumber]

Hitler won the same award in 1939, that kind of made me laugh. These awards are just getting more whacky.

Hitler link: http://tinyurl.com/yl6wbhq

[Hank]

I recently went around to all of my neighbors' homes and smashed out all of their windows. Told them not to worry about the draft - nothing to worry about. Subsequently, after a few robberies, I commandeered money from the HOA, and loaned some buddies of mine the funds from the HOA to fix some of the windows (they of course charged the homeowners). HOA rates went up and it's very difficult to find replacement windows, but I believe I fixed the crisis. I was recently voted Neighbor of the Year.

[Jim]

Hank,
I think you qualify as an economics expert for this administration.

[Steve]

The people that own the FED ultimately own AOL Time Warner too. Nuff said.

[Nick]

I know, this guy must be batshit insane, huh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....plpp_video
obviously doesnt know what he's talking about at all