The Best Kept Secret

Six and a half minutes of Ron Paul goodness.

What is a Dollar?

According to the Mint Act of 1792, 371.25 grains of fine silver or 24.75 grains of fine gold. Just like a yard is 3 feet and a pint is 16 ounces. Get it?


From 1790–1913, the United States dollar was constant. It was tied to gold and/or silver. A dollar bought pretty much the same thing for Thomas Jefferson as it did for Teddy Roosevelt. A careful look at inflation rates from 1790–1913 shows some minor fluctuation, but for the most part, a 1913 dollar was the same as an 1850 dollar, and was the same as a 1790 dollar.

Of course, the pound, the mile, the yard, the foot, the pint, and the degree Fahrenheit, are carefully regulated and kept standard. It would be preposterous to say that back in 1908, the yard was comprised of sixty feet, or that a gallon was made up of eighty quarts. And yet, we accept the degradation and the devaluation of our currency as normal. We can't even compare economic data in our own day and age without saying something like "as measured in 1995 dollars" – since the dollar as a monetary unit is not standard, but is systematically devalued every year.

So, why was there no inflation (devaluation) of the currency until 1913? That's the year the United States created a central bank. The Constitution makes no provision for the Federal government to do any such thing, and the Constitution even specifies that money must be backed by gold and silver. But, of course, the folks that tell us the Constitution is a "living document" will tell us that the dollar simply must be "flexible" (while the same people would never in a thousand years propose a "flexible" foot, pound, or gallon to shrink over the course of time).

John Stossel Interviews Ron Paul

Q: Is war ever justifiable?

A: Sure. If you’re attacked, you have a right and an obligation to defend (your) country. I do not believe there is ever a moral justification to start the war.

Q: What if there’s genocide and terrible suffering in a country?

A: It’s a tragedy, and we can have a moral statement, but you can’t use force of arms to invade other countries to make them better people. Our job is to make us a better people.

Read the entire interview here.

Paulonomics

For many conservatives, what makes Paul seem like a nut is his absolute opposition to the war in Iraq and his insistence on immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East and most of the rest of the world. On the other hand, his views on abortion are perfectly in line with mainstream conservative values (although this side of Paul never seems to get any attention).

On the economics front, Paul is a delightful paradox. If you crack the nut shell and look objectively at what Paul is really advocating, conservatives will find that Paulonomics looks an awful lot like Reaganomics. Paulonomics emerges as a refreshing return to conservative roots: small government, low taxes, deregulation, and sound money. If Paulonomics seems nutty, that may say more about the sad state of events today, with “big government conservatism” having become the new touchstone.

The core concept of Paulonomics is the reduction in the size and cost of the federal government. Irking many of today’s conservatives, Paul emphasizes how this should include scaling back what he calls American “militarism,” beginning with a pullout of Iraq.

As a first step he advocates the elimination of all taxes on capital — estates, capital gains, interest income, and dividends. He told me, “It’s capital that you need to make capitalism work.”

Pimp My Ride

This is a great article by Tucker Carlson on Ron Paul.

If you know Ron Paul primarily from watching the Republican debates, you probably assume he spends most of his time ranting about September 11 and the Iraq invasion. In fact, his real passion is Austrian economics. More even than the war, Paul despises paper currency, which he considers a hoax, "fiat money." He can become emotional talking about it. Caught in traffic in downtown Vegas on the way to an event, Paul looked out the window at the casinos and mused aloud: "Can you imagine when all those slot machines used real silver dollars? All that silver ... " His words trailed off, as in a pleasant daydream.