My Exchanges with Fed Chairmen | Ron Paul

from carl menger to the present day Austrian economists have favoured sound money over government manipulated paper currency the very first Mises Institute conference in 1983 was on the gold standard at the time people said the idea was outmoded and that paper currency was working just fine here we are 25 years later and it is not so the dollar is in grave danger the government is growing at the expense of society and the business cycle has been unleashed with ferocity the best time for a gold standard is in calm times but only a crisis focuses the mind people are looking for answers and the Machine answers the same now as it was when Mises wrote his first book on the topic restore sound money stop the inflation and get government out of the money business it's my pleasure to introduce to you the founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute mr. Llewellyn Rockwell jr. great to have everybody here and it's my great honor to introduce the man of the hour the man of the year man of the decade back in the 1970s when I had the great honor of working for dr. Paul in his congressional office and yes I once worked for the government i since went straight of course but he was doing a little book called gold peace and prosperity and in defense of the gold standard and he said wonderful Henry Hazlitt would think about writing an introduction for this book and he said well probably you know probably he wouldn't so I called hasla and Chris Haslett was thrilled and he was especially thrilled that he because he loved you know turned out I guess no no surprise to be a huge fan of Ron Paul's and rightly so so we're Murray Rothbard and and many of the other Giants Ron has been in Congress for 10 years author of many books which were honored to sell at the Mises Institute candidate for president I was just remembering back at the Dearborn debate when in in Michigan and we were trying to remember what month this was March or April of 2007 when all the Republican candidates were saying hey economy is great everything's fine no trouble only those horrible naysayers doomsayers Cassandra's would be saying that there might be a problem and of course Ron Paul told the truth as is his want and you know be very different seems to me averages its situation these days if it hadn't been the man who told us the economic fundamentals are all exactly right if he weren't the Republican nominee if we had a truth teller but let's get to the man I'm just going to mention that the Mises Institute is presenting to dr. Paul our first Henry Hazlitt award in honor of his 36 years of principled dedication to the cause of Liberty principal teaching of the cause of Liberty and I might not not being a political kind of guy I especially appreciate what he's done with the bully pulpit of congressional office all his campaigns most recently in his presidential campaign to teach the ideas of the Austrian school as they've never been taught before to millions of new people millions of young people and I think help start the revolution that is ongoing now for these ideas and we owe it all to Ron Paul so dr. Paul thank you thank you very much I appreciate that like I say I don't usually get that type of an applause in Washington DC so it's nice to be out of DC and among friends and where the real heart of America is it should be but it is a delight to be here and it's good to see you and it's good to see Burt here today and everybody else all the friends of Liberty so it's been a really a fantastic past two years for me personally and hopefully for others that we have made some advances but things things have looked pretty good and I think that I'm probably a lot more optimistic now than I then I was two years ago but you know the old saying that you know I'm here from the government you know and I'm here to help you I know you don't believe that so I can't use that line but and you probably don't believe this either if I say I'm here from the Federal Reserve I'm I'm here to help you you probably wouldn't believe that one either but hopefully it will never get to the point where it'll be said that I'm here from Goldman Sachs and I'm here to help you but it certainly has been an interesting two years and lots of things of course has happened yesterday or the day before right before I was leaving here I had an interesting phone call from a member of Congress he's a friend and he's he's conservative Republican but we've never done anything legislatively together in other words he's not hardcore but he called and put out a message that he needed to talk to me he was getting ready to make a trip and he wanted to talk to me before he made this trip and I thought it might have been one of the like so many of the members now are calling because they get into a little bit of political trouble you know leadership of the party they don't have anything to do with me but the individual congressman as soon as they get into trouble will you give me some money will you send out an email will you endorse me because all of a sudden they know our views are spreading I thought maybe that's what he was calling me about but that wasn't it he called and said that he and his wife been sitting down and thinking about their investments and he wanted to know how do you buy gold so I say Colberg blumburtt he'll tell you how to bank so maybe that's a sign of the of a changing time that people were starting starting to think that that way but you know die I think this conference that you've had here Lou today's this couple days had been just fantastic on an issue that of course that has attracted my attention for many many years I would say it was the issue of money that was the precipitating factor they got me involved in politics in the 1970s with recognition that the Austrian economists were right I'd been studying and reading Austrian economics in the 60s and in 1971 I remember it very clearly on August 15 that the Bretton Woods was predicted to be to break down a matter of fact it was Henry Hazlitt that very early on when Bretton Woods was set up said it wouldn't work and in low and behold it failed and that's sort of confirmed you know the theory you know sometimes I wonder why we still talk about the Austrian theory of the business cycle and we always call it the theory why don't we call it the Austrian explanation of the business cycle but that certainly got my attention and talked about it all over all the issue that's always driven me has been the issue of Liberty and yet you can't deal with the overall issue of Liberty if you don't deal with the issue of money because money is a driving force it is all-powerful in a moral sense and an economic sense and a constitutionally vital because if somebody gets control over the monetary system they have ominous control and ominous power and there was a conversation I had with Greenspan a couple years ago when I pushed him on this issue on the amount of power he had I said you can dictate interest rates you can decide how much money people who are retired and they're in their CDs what they're going to earn and he acknowledged that and he called it an ominous power that he indeed had but he said but it was given to us the Congress gave us to us and but but that's why he he believed very much in openness of the Federal Reserve and that that people know what they're doing which is an absolute falsehood because we don't know exactly what we're doing and they're doing a lot behind the scenes but anyway he did confess up to the fact that there was an awful lot of power in the hands of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Board Chairman when I first went to Congress which was in the tail end of the 74 election which would have been the Watergate year there the chairman of the Federal Reserve at that time was arts Arthur burns and so I was on financial service of the Banking Committee all the years I've been in Congress so there's been a few Federal Reserve Board Chairman I've seen before the committee Burns was there of course and stayed a good while not that I was there that many years when he was chairman but then G willing Williams Miller came in then of course he didn't last long and we had those terrible problems at the end of the 70s and they brought in bokor Volcker I did have a fair amount of experience with him and then of course after Volcker Greenspan and then Bernanke so it's it's been a few people and a few individuals that have served as Reserve Board Chairman but I think the overall atmosphere of the relationship of the members of Congress are especially with me have evolved a bit since that time you know the two that I were I was most fascinated with and thought about old times was both burns and bokor but for a rather silly reasons because when I think about it they were actually allowed to come to the committee room and smoke a pipe and smoke a cigar right in the hearing room but no not anymore now I can't stand smoke I hate the smell of smoke it's horrible it's bad for your health but there's still something mystical about the fact that somebody could actually sit stand in a building there and smoke you know and no birds would there be playing with this pipe and and and then of course Volkers smoking those horrible cigars but but things that change but attitudes that changed too I know when when Lou was working with me up there we would have conferences and actually act right after he started the Mises Institute we had a gold conference up there and we could get Federal Reserve Board Chairman to come out and participate party was one that participated and Wallach used to be on TV debates with me and Volcker was really a gentleman about it all I can remember when we were working on the monetary Control Act which I believe would have been 1980 and in he was pushing hard for this and this was giving a lot more power to the Federal Reserve and the two things that bothered me the most was one the authority for the Federal Reserve to take reserve requirements down to zero if he wanted and also that he could buy anything he wanted not only domestically but he could buy foreign debt and but he was annoyed and disturbed by the fact that I was saying this out in public so he invited me to a personal breakfast is something that would have never happened by Greenspan or Bernanke they wouldn't do that but Volcker failed it was important enough that he get me over there and explained to me the monetary Control Act and this one we this breakfast can be verified because I had Lew go with me and the interesting that happened there must have been in in 279 and we walked in Lew and I walked in and Volcker staffer was there and we chatted a bit and then then Volcker came in and Volcker did not come over and shake my hand or say hello he immediately went to his staffer and he asked him what is the price of gold so they do pay attention to the price of gold and it is their interest to know what the price of gold is I think that is still just as important today to the members of the Federal Reserve and to the monetary establishment around the world what is the so-called price of the gold which means they're asking what is happening to the perception of the value of the dollar so I think they're still intensely interested in that but we didn't have this discussion about the monetary Control Act and he kept arguing his case oh no no it's not going to do this it's not dangerous but I remember at the end of it he conceded he says yes he says that is true that we could take reserve requirements down to zero if if if necessary and if we had to do something like bail out for country we could do this but he said we would never do it and you know a few a few weeks ago Volcker became came before the Joint Economic Committee and and I happened to bump into him in a in a receiving room just he and I talked for a bit and he was interested in chat chatting and I didn't do it but I think I should have and the thoughts that crossed my mind was what did I tell you about that monetary Control Act look at what they're doing they don't even take it down to zero it's minus zero now you don't have to have anything and they'll keep giving you everything you want you know it makes no difference whatsoever I didn't do that but he was he was fascinated with a friendly chat but his story was the same nothing has changed so I think he's still a big central banker obviously but probably a little more decent individual than the more recent Federal Reserve Board Chairman so it it is something of course it to me has been crucial and and so important today a lot is going on financially nobody needs to go very far to figure that out but in many ways it it's a wonderful thing happening for us because we're getting more attention about this issue I know a lot of a lot of the establishment don't want to hear about what we're talking about and sound money but something has happened something dramatic has happened and it's happened in these last two years I my goal had always been to talk about the issues believing sincerely a major crisis would come hopefully I could participate in the discussion and debate and how how it would be rebuilt how was that system would be rebuilt but I think it's very very clear that what we're witnessing today is the end of that second stage of the Bretton Woods it's the dollar standard with no relationship to gold and it's lasted since 1971 and I think in the last several months the declaration has been made it's a non-viable system I think they know it I think we know it I think the Congress doesn't have any idea what's going on but it's very clear that the current system isn't maintained and it has to be replaced by something and I think they are scurrying around like crazy they do admit there's going to be a global summit and there's going to be the discussion but the plans are being laid I do not believe that they are quite ready to accept our views but the discussion is out there but what hasn't happened during the campaign and since then is to me rather remarkable because I've had more opportunities than ever before to to get our message out on the more conventional stations and you know what would always what astounded me in the campaign was the attention you know people say well you didn't get enough attention they they sidelined you and they wouldn't cover you and they complained about it but you know after that little minor altercation with the mayor of New York City whatever his name is you know one of the somebody in the media came up to me they said well are you ready to quit and ready to get out this was about a week after the that that little incident they said you aren't quit and get out of the race I mean like you were humiliated and proven completely wrong and all this and I said you know what I said in the last week I said I got more attention than I did in the 30 years I've been in campaigning though so I wasn't about to back down on that but the the need the need for a global summit is obvious there but what we do and what they do and how they should have an understanding is completely different I mean if you wanted to get together and agree that we're gonna have sound money and everybody's going to have their currency defined by a weight of a precious metal that's one thing but the plans now for the global summit is is something else sarkozy from france has been very clear on what he wants to do and now i think he's pretty good friends with bush and they they do they they get along fine and sarkozy says what we need to do at this conference is revamp capitalism it's capitalism that is so bad and but i don't think you should worry about that because our president is standing up for us and he he said that the president said that he's all for the global summit with the one condition that we not violate or abuse any free-market principles so we have nothing to worry about he will he will take take care of us and make sure that we we have sound economic principles applied to this summit but I see what's happening is that they've conceded that the dollar standard that we have is is at an end but they probably have gotten together which they do all the time and we're not allowed to know what I do because it's literally in the code exempted from ever auditing or knowing what the Federal Reserve does especially on international cooperations and international discussions you cannot have any accident there is absolutely no no oversight as far as what what they do well I believe they've gotten together and they're willing to temporarily do what they can to prop up the dollar you know keep the dollar on the international exchange markets reasonably valuable valued and and then with the idea that the plans will be laid to come up with a new system so what is happening today probably is very very temporary because they know they know they can't sustain it and then there will be this announcement and this is just a continuation of what I think George Bush Senior became more bold about when when he talked about international finance it was he was the first president to say that we do indeed need a new world order and this is part of that this is the continuation of a new world order and they are going to come up with a new program but our side will have a tough time the only thing we have on our side is the truth and the right economic views and ultimately I believe they can prevail and and we have tools today that we didn't have before we have tools that through the internet I think it's fantastic I think we have more and more people joining organizations like the Mises Institute that is getting this information out this is why I've always admired what the Mises Institute does because it's it's not to have a group of people together and talk about and talk to acquire but it's to spread these views and talk to teachers and promote it and and have new teachers come out and influence the next generation and that's what that's what counts so the prevailing attitude of the people to me is key that is the most important if we're ever to undermine this system of banking and it is indeed the banking system that is allowed so much corruption and when you just think about the power or the Federal Reserve think about the off budgeting I mean when the feck you come in and inject a trillion dollars that means he's not authorized by the Congress I mean where did where did we the people where have we been why have we allowed this it's not only a trillion it's couple trillion or three trillion and what are they doing with it they're propping up bad people it's all the bad people that are getting this they're the ones that are getting the money what are they doing they're fighting wars that they're not supposed to be fighting they're propping up a welfare state this shouldn't even exist and yet hardly anything is said and and here we are on the verge of this in the middle of a major crisis because we've allowed this to go so far you know they talk a lot about moral hazard they encourages people to make bad mistakes and to take more risks than they would ordinarily but I've never ever wondered why they call it moral hazard I keep thinking of it being an immoral hazard that's going on there's a lot of immorality going on that they're out there and there's a lot of people making a lot of mistakes but just think of what contributed this fiasco that we're dealing with now Federal Reserve of course are the ones who have been most responsible in a way because they've controlled the monetary system and under Greenspan just look at what he's done you know took interest rates down to 1% of course that caused trouble when we thought oh they never get back down to 1% again but isn't it like last week it's back down to 1% again too much inflation too much money that's the problem how do you solve that problem too much money too much inflation more spending so so he goes goes on on and on but not only did you have the the Federal Reserve System creating too much money but you had other things too that not a lot of people talked about we're very important to cause people to make mistakes how about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation I mean that in itself is is a major contributing factor this whole idea of valuing assets you know at a certain level that's very important they should be set by the market but we have an SCC that's involved in trying to set the value of assets so at one time they think that assets should be the mandate that they be at a certain level below the market asset then they come along and say okay all of a sudden what we're going to do is reverse this trend and set them at another rate just causing more and more chaos but can you imagine how smoothly that could work if you had a private FDIC that was monitoring each individual bank that would be measuring the the the viability of the bank and in insurance rates may go up and and the consumer and the customers would know and if they were not valuing their assets correctly then then the insurance company or somebody else would be able to tell us that it would happen on an individual bank but never completely with all the banks together on how they measure these things and how detrimental this interference have been and of course to add fuel to this we had Feeney Mae and Freddie Mac here's a program that was designed of course it lasted for a long time so it must have been good it came out of the 30 so but the seeds had been planted in the 30s but it was only in the last decade or two that you could see what was forming and it was not too many years ago probably about eight or nine years ago I had a piece of legislation in that said that you know what we ought to do is remove the line of credit to the Treasury so why do that they've never used it it's only it's only two trillion or two million dollars of course that wasn't very much but didn't matter but it was the atmosphere that the Treasury would always bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and therefore they had lower interest rates and that of course contributed tremendously to it but the one thing you better not dare attack and say that contributed to it because this is politically incorrect to suggest the CRA Community Reinvestment Act had something to do with it I mean we wouldn't want to do that because they you just don't like poor people but I guess if you if you don't if you don't like well if you did like poor people maybe we would have a better system where houses aren't taken from the poor people you give it to them and then they say Oh who's losing their houses right now the poor people if we're further poor people why wouldn't we be for lowering the price of houses housing prices are too high for people can't afford it well good that means we ought to allow the market to lower house it but what's our policy keep the prices of houses up so that they the poor people can't I can't buy their houses oh if they can't what we'll give them more money so you know it goes on and on they have no understanding no conviction no confidence that freedom works and I am convinced that freedom does really work but in addition to contribute to this crisis we've had the HUD programs insisting that you make the bad loans and also the threat by the courts some of these laws are written that if if you don't do what you're told to do if you're in the banking system you don't do this you could be fined up a half a million dollars for doing it so why not do it especially if you can make a killing I'll make the loans I'll sell them and get rid of them and and and then it will satisfy the law and and then lo and behold a bubble is formed but what what are we doing today to try to correct this these programs and the solution the orchestration so much be by the politicians and by the central bank that we're ending up with a system where the poor people now have to bail out the rich people we have the innocent people built and bailing out the guilty people as well as we're relying on the sound investments the people who invested wisely put down down payments that are making their payments and even they've done decent investments they have to be punished to bail out the people who did the bad investment everything is turned on its head one of the basic principles that I believe that we fail to follow and it's very clear in the Constitution that we should not be doing and we've done it from the beginning in this business of on the housing bubble the interference in the contract going in and now interfering in the contract going out saying that you know if you have a if you have a sort of mortgage and you want to foreclose they're essentially saying oh no you can't foreclose you're gonna have to do this and you're gonna have to make sure that nobody is thrown out out of their house it's it's not the the limited responsibility of the government is to enforce contracts but instead they're meddling in contracts all the time that basic principle is not talked about a whole lot but the government is involved in the contract all the time I mean it's it's it's constantly whether it's the price of assets the regulations that we have it's the price of labour wages and on and on the government is constantly involved in contract but what about the contract that the people and the government should have about soundness and money the contract ought to be that we shouldn't have any counterfeiters out there you and I aren't a lot of counterfeit why don't we allow our government to counterfeit it makes no sense whatsoever the monitor the amount of the coinage act of 1792 didn't like counterfeiters and they said that anybody that was caught counterfeiting would receive the death penalty I don't know whether we should apply that to the Federal Reserve or not by the time but they considered it very serious the problem is of course they think only counterfeiting is is taking a piece of paper and counterfeiting the paper but counterfeiting is destroying the value of money by duplication of money illegally and that's what that's what we've been doing you know with Alan Greenspan over the years he came to the committee and I had a fair number of conversations with him both on and in the committee and out of the committee and I did at one time on a casual conversation bring up the subject of Murray Rothbard and he indeed said that he knew Murray and had nothing negative say about him but it was a brief conversation I know Murray had a different opinion or a very strong opinion about about about Greenspan but some of you have heard this story before but I'll tell again in case you haven't heard about it but everybody I think remembers this and knows at alan greenspan at one time you know was a gold standard person and he wrote for Ayn Rand and they wrote in the Objectivist newsletter in his golden freedom article was fantastic and so he one time was coming before the fank Banking Committee we had a chance to meet before that and get a picture taken and and I knew that he was coming so I'd I got my original copy of the Objectivist newsletter which was at that if anybody remember was a green little booklet and I was reading that that would have been you know all through the 60s I guess so I dug that out and dug up the article so when I had my chance to have a couple minutes with Greenspan I walked up and I showed him this faded green book - do you recognize this thing this book and he said yeah he says I recognize that and so I flipped it open to the page with his special article in there and I said do you remember this article and he said yes he did and I said well would you I'd like you to autograph this article so he took it he took out his pen and he autographed it and while I was doing it I said do you want to put a disclaimer on it and he then he said something which was rather astounding he says no no he's very seriously says I've just read that recently he says and I stand by every word of it so but you know in about the last meeting we had when he was getting ready to leave but about a year before he was or so before he was ready to leave he was reappointed and you know Republicans Democrats ort of bowed to the maestro and and so when I had my turn as politely as I could be I said you know I said I can't quite join in and then I said my suggestion is is why don't you leave right now while the getting is good but he didn't take me up on that and I always thought he'd get out of town before he'd be blamed for anything but it looks like he is going to be blamed for a few things and that is good I mean he's responsible and and I thought it would all fall on Bernanke but unfortunately they have put a lot of blame on on Greenspan but you know Greenspan it came before the banking committee not not too long ago as a form you know a former chairman and he had this paper this was probably within a month or so and explanation of this and I guess the best way I could describe this testimony was pretty pathetic you know it was in a way really sad you know because when you think of where he was and where he is today and then he came and it looks like he's desperately trying to save his his image and but he he's going wrong and instead of saying I confess all my sins and I'm going back to my 1966 article no he has he's gone in the wrong direction and saying everything wrong but he had several points I want to go over with you that he made in this in this hearing the first thing he said that we must do in order to get out of this crisis is stabilize prices you know make sure the housing prices do not drop because as as Paulson said it's the dropping of the housing prices that it's all the fault and if we could just stop the dropping of highs and housing prices everything would be okay so that's what Greenspan say we do we have to maintain housing prices and then we have to recognize that private credit won't work what we need to recognize that the only thing that can save us is sovereign credit so we need more government credit of course that had nothing to do with our problems whatsoever but he did the lewd to what he thought was the real problem and he put the blame on the securitizers because they they produced excessive demand for the securities and therefore they were at fault if they wouldn't have been buying these things and the whole I the whole thing is it was the principle of bundling and securitizing that was evil and of course that principle is not necessarily bad I mean if it's done honestly and aboveboard in a in a free market but he says no it was an excessive demand but then the one thing he did want to apologize in a way about the program that he was using the computer economic program because it didn't work quite the way it should have and he said that it was flawed because it didn't take the it didn't have a long enough time span you know they were calculating in the past ten years and everything was okay and it should have been longer and therefore it was a flawed computer program so everybody here that understands the free or free market you understand computers so you got to make sure your computer program works and don't worry about any human action being involved at all it's the computers fault if it doesn't doesn't work out and then hit any bit and on top of all this he said what we need are more regulations that's where he really screwed up he says that that fact that we could have derivatives out there and not have enough enough regulations that is the the real problem so if we'd have only go back and do that we would be much better and then he comes up and he says what we need now is to make sure that we do have a subprime market but it'd be sustainable I mean how much worse can this get but but then he finished on a very positive note he says don't worry the crisis will pass and we'll be okay so all we have to do is listen to this and I know what what a sad ending to this to this career which could have been so different if he would have just taken you know a different different approach but you know the place where we are today is crucial it's not this election isn't crucial you know what difference does it make really you know absolutely no difference whatsoever but we do live in very very important times on the direction that we go in and we in our campaign a lot about change and and we routed a lot of young people and a lot of people interest in what we were talking about a lot of enthusiasm it still exists out there probably more than I ever dreamed it would would be and it's it was very very encouraging but when you look at what's happened in the Obama campaign I mean what this is this is really something something pretty pretty amazing going on the number of people involved can you imagine that dollars involved I I am convinced in my own mind that probably from two-and-a-half to three years ago when his real campaign started there's probably been well over two billion dollars worth of publicity and advertising going in into that campaign because for a year or so before he even announced I mean just think of the positive publicity that came up on nine out of 10 TV stations and that's a very you know it's hard to measure the value of that and he's tapped into it the American people are sick of what they're getting in Washington they're sick of the fact that they don't have enough money and prices are going up and they're sick of war that continues forever and ever and there's sick of people who live off the welfare state and they're sick of bailing out Wall Street they indeed do one change so where they go in they're going to Obama for change and what change is there all this talk about change even McCain is talking about changing and trying to allow bush and we need to change things we need to do this and this and make a difference but all they're talking about is the change in the management of the same system the management of a flawed system a management that could care less couldn't care less about freedom and the rule of law and personal liberty and sound money they don't care about that they care only about the management there is a contest going on not an idea there's a contest going on on who's powerful management group but I am also convinced that those who really are in charge of foreign policy and monetary policy are not worrying that much about who wins and who loses because they both they both are going to just continue to manage the same very very flawed system and excuse me that that will not bring about anything to our benefit it will just perpetuate our problems and so what we what we have to do though is we have to continue this effort because the opportunity is there the opportunity there is for us to really have an impact bigger than ever ever before I mean we have all been astound and Lou and others who have been out and have heard some of the talks and they've been on the road for individuals in the crowd to start start applauding when you say Austrian economics I mean this is pretty amazing and of course the one episode that I sort of found fascinating was at the University you know that Riley Cole left a school the University of Michigan that went over there after we had the debate at Dearborn and that was where it first dawned on me that these college kids you know they seem to be up on some of this because then I got to talking about a little bit about the monetary policy so the bunch of them pulled out their Federal Reserve notes and started burning them and then every once in a while at these at these rallies and I didn't start this I didn't have a hold up a sign but they started this chant and the fat and the fat I mean what's going on here so but but in talking to so many young people who I met after the rallies where they come to my office out I asked him what was the issue that caught your attention and it wasn't always the same some time it was just I like you emphasis on the Constitution but a lot of would say the monetary issue but the one that I sort of got a kick out of and I think is it's sort of fascinating is and it is what we thought you were the only one that was telling the truth you know it the way that that is rather sad because you hear other candidates mumbling sort of similar viewpoints you know oh yeah we've got to be a blonde you know we take an oath obey the Constitution and this sort of thing and I'd asked a point that I tell and they said yeah but they just didn't sound like they were telling the truth and so young people are perceptive you know and they do they do notice the difference and there's a fertile field out there there is no reason for us not to be optimistic enough to believe that many many of those young people who are rallying around Obama are open to our ideas there is no doubt in my mind that they are reaching them is another story it's it's not that easy but this this economy is going to be in shambles for a long time and our views not only make good economic sense they make good constitutional sense good moral sense but it it's so logical you know it just makes common sense that that our views should prevail and can prevail and and and this is very appealing so we need we need to you know increase our efforts and not get too downhearted and thinking well you know things are rather tough the foreign policy is an absolute disaster you know the other night was on TV I was complaining about nobody asked Obama and McCain have you heard anybody ask him about you know why are why are we bombing Syria and why are we bombing Pakistan and why are we planning on bombing Iran and why are we occupying Afghanistan forever and Iraq forever I mean they don't really even even get into that but as bad as all that is and as much as I'm convinced that foreign policy will not change under Obama some are deceived into believing that oh yeah he's gonna bring the troops home sure but you know what the troops are going to come home they are going to come home just the way the Russians troops had to go home to and that we should look as a positive yes we haven't deserved the much of the prosperity we've had because it's been based on borrowed money and Trust in a dollar that's not trustworthy we've been able to print money and spend them overseas we've become a consumer nation but it's gonna if we have to pay for and that's what this whole financial crisis about is paying back for the things that we have done over these several decades but we will be bringing our troops home and because they will not trust the dollar forever and that will be good but the big question is is do we want some semblance of a republic or are we going to have this dribble about pure democracy and thinking that you know as long as there's 51% stick it to the 49 percent just because they produce everything it doesn't matter 51 percent more they get what they want now that has to end we have to defend our position I think we're fortunate in the fortunate in the fact that we have great traditions in this country we do have at least a memory of property rights we have a memory where contracts weren't to be interfered with and we have a memory where the government was supposed to be minimal and we have a document reasonably written and even with its imperfections if if we followed what we have we wouldn't be doing so badly so it isn't the document the document in many ways is irrelevant it's the people who are in charge the people that we asked to take care of government functions in a proper way it's it's getting enough people in Washington with men of integrity people that you can believe this is what makes the difference because if you if you say it's only the document a document doesn't work of course it doesn't work and it's not to fail you the document is to fail you of the people is it the failure of the politician no it's a failure of the people and that's why attitudes and ideas they are so important what our teachers are teaching what the bureaucrats are saying what the media is saying and what our talk-show hosts are saying this this is what really counts and I sense that there is is now a subtle shift at least more questioning going on I noticed the difference between because even within the last year of course being in a campaign is one thing you're less likely to get attention being out of a campaign is less threatening but there are some serious questions being asked today and I think we should thank all those who all of you have been involved in education and promoting all do you have who've been supporters many of you've been supporters of mine over the years for the various things I've done and you're all supporters of the Mises Institute this makes a difference people keep asking me what should I do as an individual how can I make a difference I'll tell you what everybody has to do something but it couldn't be different I mean it's not gonna be the same what what Lou does is different than what I do and if you're a teacher you do something different if earlier today somebody was talking about making a documentary people have talents everybody has a role and a responsibility and besides sitting sitting back and doing nothing or hiding in the woods or trying to find a safe haven in Europe or someplace it desta hasn't this that doesn't excite me as much as saying why can't we change what we have here as difficult as it is I mean that's where our fight is principally but it is it is a fight it isn't a political struggle as much as as an idea it's a fight over ideas and the proper ideas so in this manner I would say keep up the progress that's continue this momentum there's no reason to be discouraged and all the problems we have look at it as opportunities troops coming home that's good running out of money for the welfare state that's fine emphasizing the need to go to work that's pretty good that's not reward people who don't save money it's reward to people who do save money make sure the prices of houses go down to the poor people can buy houses once again this this is what we need these these ideas and views are logical they make common sense they appeal to a lot of people they appeal to young people and one thing that delighted me about the young people they could see the connection about self responsibility self-reliance and allowing people to do with their own personal life with what they want in connecting that with economic freedom for so long we have divided this up one group people go out there defending economic freedom oh yeah we want the market to work but what what you do with your own body what you eat drink and smoke and and how you act and sexual preference all that that's that's out of that's not that's not good for you to make your own decision but believe me young people know and understand that and the fact that you can reach them a different way if they if they like economic freedom you can teach them about the other if they like personal liberty you can teach them about economic freedom and it is not to many of the young people that get turned off by saying I don't want to sing you off to war I don't want to ever have a draft I don't want to ever do this to you we shouldn't be going to war unless it's declared we shouldn't be financing war through inflation and young people like this they are not anxious to go back through the third and fourth time to Iraq one of the things during the campaign that I enjoyed the most was the fact that when they were putting me down so often in Congress and on the road that's on American that's unpatriotic you don't care about the troops and lo and behold guess what when they added up $2 in the primary races if you added up all the dollars of all the other candidates even the Democrats our campaign got more money from active duty military than all the rest put together one more comment about the the summit reminds me of what one of the Federal Reserve Board Chairman told me one time in the committee when I brought this up about the immorality of devaluing a dollar it was theft and you were punishing certain individuals and and they stuck by their guns and they said that yes we want to do this the dollar needs to be lower and the only thing they were interested in was making sure that it was orderly so if they're going to stick you with the value of your money just so it's orderly you're not supposed to get upset so if you lose if you lose 1% of your purchasing power a month that's not so bad that's only 12 percent a year so you shouldn't worry about it but if it's 10 percent in one month now that's disorderly and that will disrupt things and of course that's what they're fighting for now to keep keep this transition from this dollar standard into the next phase they want to make it as orderly but as possible and right now I think they're doing from their viewpoint doing a fairly good job because they're able to bail out their buddies and they're able to punish the innocent but this this will all change but I do want to close by once again praising the the Mises Institute for all their hard work and all the work that Lou is done and all the support that Bert blumburtt has given to the institution I'm proud that in the early years I helped the is the Institute gets started and it's done a tremendous amount of work I did not believe at the beginning that it would be as large and as influential it is now because on the road when I would talk to people there were various people I said what got your interest and one of the things they said well it it was Lew Rockwell in the Mises Institute and likewise I would like to say that a lot of individuals that I have met and they have heard me talk have gone in the other direction because of my support they have found the Mises Institute as well thank you very much thank you I would be I'd be glad Lu says we have a little bit of time I'll try to take a few questions if you have them speak out loudly we know what's what oh yeah well I think it's very significant I think the issue is very significant I think that you might be you know one thousandth of 1% of the country that know about that and realize it but no I think it's very important and of course I used that in the debates as well that remember one time they asked me about the income tax and they knew my position and then they came up with a follow-up question on that and and and since they knew I didn't want the income tax I said the next thing I would do is get rid of the inflation tax but the fact that he conceded that I think is is pretty important and that's the obvious immorality about it you know this all whole idea that 40% of the American people don't pay taxes they don't pay income tax literally but you know they get punished percentage-wise you know if you're making if you're making thirty thousand dollars a year and barely making it and you have the inflation tax which is now fifteen percent probably I mean that is a high penalty and it's much more harmful to to the poor person but no I think it's it's very significant and hopefully we continue to follow up on that to make sure people understand that and to be successful in politics I think you have to have sort of a populist approach and caring about people too often conservative liberals conservatives and constitutional sand and libertarians have been careless and they come across as lack of compassion but it is our position that should exude the most amount of compassion because I mean just just look at this Obama campaign I mean to get to get close to a million dollars in donations you think it all came from poor people you know how can he be the poor man's candidate and it's this kind of stuff that you can appeal to the people who are really suffering and we have to refute this idea well it's only a shortage of money you know that's always argument it's a shortage of money if we just give you more money of course it's too much money that causes the prices go up and and that's that's the great debate that we have to pursue legalizing oh yes legalizing competing currencies you could just summarize that by saying this legalized freedom and that would take care of the currencies but no we should repeal the legal tender laws and and that would be be helpful you could devise maybe some transitional programs the the case for gold which was the minority viewpoint of our gold Commission report was designed to allow competing currencies I don't think it would be technically that difficult we have competing currencies on the world everyday a fluctuate by the second sometime they're up and down and and you could have a domestic parallel currency but what what we did the biggest the the biggest thing we need to do is just you know legalize freedom by limiting government making government very small and and no need for taxes and all but no I think competing currency is a good idea he asked is are there more people in Congress coming around to these viewpoints or am I still pretty lonely up there well maybe maybe when we go back I won't be quite as lonely but there's been you know a couple times I voted by myself have you ever noticed that which in but the other members of Congress would come over to me and and they would be sympathetic that boy I agree with you'll know but I couldn't vote that way how would I explain that you went back home they think politically it would be suicide but it turned out that it was the fact that I took those votes that gave me the credibility with the young people and because they would go and say what we heard you say this and we wanted to check it out to find it was true in you wow you actually voted that way but the numbers of people there's more sympathy there than they express there but but you know it's gonna be overwhelmingly democratically-controlled which in a way is helpful you know when when the Republicans were in charge it was a real disaster the disaster because the the party leadership in the house did everything that Bush asked him to do and Bush never asked him to cut anything you know it was a welfare warfare state so they were carrying the water for Bush and therefore I was the bad guy because I was voting like I'm supposed to vote and whether was a Republican or a Democrat but now all of a sudden there has been a shift where if you look in this last year I imagined I don't know whether I'm voting with the Republicans now or the Republicans are now voting with me but they vote against the appropriations bill because their democratic appropriate appropriation bill and this is the thing is pretty disgusting because Republicans were actually pretty decent in opposing going into bombing and Kosovo as well in Serbia as well as Somalia I mean Bush Rhianna he said some decent things in 2000 we don't want to be in a nation-building and pleasing the world so back to getting people there that I'm a little bit more principled would help I would say that things are slightly better than they were he asked about whether the Congress will limit what the Supreme Court could rule on not with the not with the Democrats in charge we should have done that before because I've had some bills in that would do that in fact that was one of my ways of trying to deal with the abortion issue taking it out of the hands of the federal government but the right-to-life groups opposed that because they they liked the thing to go on and on and they wanted to wait till we could change the Supreme Court and also have a constitutional amendment which you know they have a right to work in that direction but why couldn't we just take away jurisdiction and then let States do it and if if you were opposed to abortion maybe that would have prevented a lot of abortion but you could use this on a lot of issues but I don't expect it to be be used probably less so now than even before you have a question how do I see our relationship with Russia I think the relationship that we have today is not very sound I think it's it's very poor I know Russia have had problems in the past and they have problems now but I I think our responsibilities deal with our problems here at home if we have complaints about Russia or China all these times they bring up these resolutions dealing dealing with you know condemning human rights abuse in the various countries around the world and a lot of times they're very true and I'll vote against all of them you know people how could you vote against these condemning of human rights in China I said well when we take care of Guantanamo maybe we'll have a right to come to condemning other people no I think as a disaster what we're doing we're just looking to stir up trouble why what in the world would we think if Russia was putting some anti-ballistic missiles in Mexico you know but but listen that I want to treat Russia in a special way they asked about Israel you want how do we do treat Israel why tree Russia like I treat Israel and I like outreach in Egypt I like I treat everybody you know with an open mind and with a willingness to talk to people and trade with people and do your best to get along with them and it's much more beneficial but this idea that we have to be so confrontational and in their face this whole idea of what we've done in Georgia but once again is there a difference are we gonna have a change in policy because we have Obama know when the skirmish broke up in Georgia both Obama and McCain said this send you know a billion dollars and they're gonna get more than a billion dollars but I would treat everybody equally they wouldn't get one with one red cent from us and they would get an open door and we would be friends but none of your money would go to any of those countries okay I'm not getting all I know you're talking about 401ks and what else okay I'm not quite sure I got it all for them Oh to hold your treasure bill no no they shouldn't be forced to do anything no they shouldn't be forced to hold Treasury bills in a 401k I mean that would be horrible but this whole thing you know once the government gets involved in investments you get to disaster I saw I think John Sununu is having a bit of a problem up in New Hampshire and one of the things that's hitting him has to do with Social Security you know he supported the revamping of Social Security so his you know I want people to have all their own investments in control and spend their money the way they want but if the government has the Social Security thing and then they perceive that they're going to invest in the stock market and tell him what to do and he had a tough time defending that and the Democrat used that against him because he was strongly in support of that so this idea once the government gets involved in our our retirement a constant telling you what to do yes they're going to protect the government they're never going to allow you to protect yourself okay here we go right here do we think the do I think the government we use as an excuse the financial crisis as an excuse to expand the police state sure they always do I mean they use all kinds of crises to do everything and sometimes they even create the crisis for the purpose of doing that I'm not sure that they two years ago designed this crisis as it's unfolding I don't think they have that much control it just is a flawed policy but they you know go with the punches and and they yeah they'll use it a 911 you know that introduced a chance they gave him a chance to increase the police state what did the depression do look at look at what they used that for it's always to blame freedom and capitalism and sound money and that of course is what's going on right now that's why this burn this Greenspan thing was so bad he was willing to blame freedom and capitalism lack of regulations and we just need more government so the worst the financial crisis gets the more likely they are going to use this to further intimidate us and control us because the government has to take care of its they have to you know financially take care of us if there's a financial crisis but after 9/11 it's a physical security and unfortunately the large majority of American people have gone along with it and we are now less free unless we reverse that in a few years we're going to be a lot less free but what we're hoping to do is make sure that our views prevail and that that trend won't continue thank you you

Channel: misesmedia

Views: 16,381

Rating: 4.9213758 out of 5

Keywords: Ron, Paul, Gold, Standard, Money, Federal, Reserve, Mises, Institute, Austrian, Economics, Freedom, Liberty, Property, Peace, Lew, Rockwell, Auburn, Alabama, Free, Markets

Id: CZtLdO5NmAU

Length: 66min 49sec (4009 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 17 2008