Audit the Fed Ain’t Happening – Libertarians, Stop Hurting Your Head About It!
Earlier I received an email from AuditTheFed.com:
Dear Supporter of Transparency,
According to our sources on the Hill, Senator Bernie Sanders has unfortunately given in to pressure from the White House and Chris Dodd and stripped out the Paul-Grayson language from his Fed transparency amendment.
What Sanders is now proposing is essentially the Watt amendment the Audit the Fed Coalition opposed last year in the House.
Talking Points Memo reports that, “In order to allay some of the White House’s and the Fed’s concerns, Sanders has agreed to limit the scope of what the Government Accountability Office would be allowed to audit–but his plan will still require thorough review of all the Fed’s emergency lending, beginning December 1, 2007.”
Call Senator Sanders’ office at (202) 224-5141 and tell him how you feel about this last-minute compromise.
Click here for contact information for your senators and urge them to oppose this compromise. Tell them it’s time to support a standalone vote on S. 604, Audit the Fed.
A vote could come even late tonight or early tomorrow. Let your senators know where you stand right away.
The American people deserve a full, thorough audit.
Sincerely,
The Audit the Fed Coalition
The Wall Street Journal writes Plan for Congressional Audits of Fed Dies in Senate:
Last-minute maneuvering in the Senate allowed the Federal Reserve to sidestep legislation that would have exposed its interest-rate decision-making to congressional auditors.
Pressure from the Obama administration led Senate lawmakers to alter a provision pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that was gaining momentum despite opposition from the Treasury and the Fed. It would have largely repealed a 32-year-old law that shields Fed monetary policy from congressional auditors.
The compromise, endorsed by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and the Treasury, would require the Fed to disclose more details about its lending during the financial crisis. It would also require a one-time audit of those loans and a one-time review of Fed governance. A formal vote was pushed back until next week.
Thursday’s Senate showdown came after senators on the left and right joined forces to support Mr. Sanders’ provision.
“At a time when our entire financial system almost collapsed, we cannot let the Fed operate in secrecy any longer,” Mr. Sanders said. “The American people have a right to know.”
But Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, while insisting on a commitment to “openness” at the Fed, said in a letter to Congress the Sanders measure would “seriously threaten monetary policy independence, increase inflation fears and market interest rates, and damage economic stability and job creation.”
More* Letter: Bernanke Outlines His Opposition
* Letter: Volcker Outlines His OppositionJournal Community
Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, in a statement, endorsed the revisions to the Sanders provision, saying they would provide a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve Board’s operations in response to the financial crisis, “while preserving the existing protections of the Federal Reserve’s independence with respect to monetary policy.”
A House bill sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) that passed in December contains a proposal similar to the original Sanders measure. If the Senate bill passes, it will need to be reconciled in a conference committee. That keeps the pressure on the Fed alive for the coming months.
The original Sanders measure stated that it shouldn’t be “construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy.” But the Fed and administration warned that would allow auditors to interview Fed policy makers and staffers about monetary policy, thereby allowing congressional critics to pressure the Fed and undermine its independence.
Like most other capitalist democracies, U.S. politicians have given the central bank considerable latitude to control interest rates on the theory that elected politicians are prone to keep rates too low to get more growth during their terms at the cost of more inflation later. Although sponsors of legislation insisted that wasn’t their intent, the Fed and its allies said otherwise.
“It’s a chilling kind of circumstance,” former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, an Obama adviser, said in an interview. “The more you have no clear boundaries about what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate, you castrate the decision-making process. That’s true for any organization, but it’s particularly true when you get into the sensitivities of monetary policy that can generate speculative waves in financial markets and speculation in people’s minds,” said Mr. Volcker, who also urged lawmakers to eliminate the audit provision.
Who’s Who in the Senate Financial OverhaulLearn more about key players in the Senate’s discussion.
View Interactive
Anil Kashyap, an economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, stressed that independent central banks need to be insulated from politics and make decisions several months ahead of expected trends.
“There are times when you have to start raising interest rates before the economy’s recovering. If you’re going to get audited while you do that, you know you’re going to be slower—meaning we’re going to tolerate higher inflation.”
Before the last-minute compromise, the Fed’s foes appeared to be winning, and got a major boost when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said he would side with Mr. Sanders.
Mr. Bernanke, meanwhile, returned to Washington Thursday afternoon after a morning speech in Chicago to continue pressing for changes to the Sanders bill. In the past few days, Mr. Bernanke has spoken to at least a half-dozen senators to argue the Fed’s case that the bill would deeply damage the Fed’s credibility and ability to make tough decisions about interest rates.
At least half a dozen Obama administration officials joined the blitz, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—a former Fed official—and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. Administration aides credited Mr. Dodd with pushing back against the original amendment and developing an acceptable alternative.
New York Fed President William Dudley also advocated to scale back the scope of the auditing. He was among those arguing that ongoing reviews of the Fed’s regular lending to financial institutions would stigmatize the program and cripple the Fed’s role as the nation’s lender of last resort.
The Senate beat back another amendment with populist tinges, defeating 61-33 a provision that would have put strict caps on the size of the nation’s banks. Offered by a bloc of liberal Democrats, it would have capped at 10% the limit on the nation’s total insured deposits any single bank holding company could carry. It would have also set a 6% leverage limit for banks and capped their non-deposit liabilities at 2% of U.S. gross domestic product.
I think it is about time to realize how ridiculously funny this whole farce is. First off: The gang that is the Congress is not going to push through measures that will seriously jeopardize its beautiful money printing machine. It’s simply inconceivable for to happen in any meaningful way. I once thought they could, too, I have come to realize that they won’t.
The temptation of political action is enormous. I, too, fell for it for a long time. The alternatives are hard to accept and just as counter-intuitive as many libertarian solutions seem to unenlightened people in the realm of economics.
We are all perfectly aware of the mechanism of credit expansion and how the Fed is at the root of financial crises that will occur again and again. But do you seriously think president Obama or any other one of these narcissistic, self aggrandizing officials will ever give a flying rats ass?? Haha, it’s unthinkable!
An article such as the one above is just another display of the blatant and shameless lies and falsehoods that politicians and clueless academics will deliberately spread with no reservations whatsoever. We’ve heard this nonsense again and again and it’s just about time we stop pretending that this is a debate. It’s not. It’s a bunch of clowns frantically taking mental craps into the minds of a deluded populace to justify a ponzi scheme that will collapse sooner or later of its own accord. It’s funny at best. But it’s not deserving of a shred of our precious time that we could spend educating those around us about the truth and living our principles in our own lives!
By pretending that it is an intellectual debate we sanction a fundamentally corrupt process. This is not what we should be doing. We shouldn’t justify the systematic looting, theft and defrauding of the majority of the people, in short government, via attempts to participate in it. It hasn’t worked for centuries and trying it over and over again is really the mother of all abusive relationships.
The Audit The Fed efforts are a particularly tragic example. Here we are, fighting day in day out, donating enormous amounts of money, effort, etc. … for what? In order to get the government to deign to have it’s counterfeiting institution to produce a few more pieces of paper to report Congress? Do you seriously think this is going to strip this gang off its powers even one tiny bit?? Even if it did, all it would do introduce 1000s of new “regulations” that will grant more powers.
Millions of innocent and poor people have died over he past years in unconstitutional wars, millions have been thrown in to prison cells for owning or selling some piece of vegetation, our and our kids’ futures have been mortgaged off to foreign nations, corrupt union thugs, and bureaucrats, around 40% of our income per year is taken from us at the point of a gun to support the gaping black hole that is the playground of bureaucratism, and we are fighting tooth and nail about a few pieces of paper? And on top of that, paper that will be submitted to Congress??
I think we reasonable people should not degrade ourselves like that. It costs too much time, effort, and nerves. The purpose of life is happiness. We should live our values, educate our friends and family, get the bad people out of our lives, make sure we raise loved, educated, reasonable children, and over time we will change the whole world in a way that is much more fundamental than adding to the demand for the business of paper production. :)
How Union Greed, Arrogance, and Viciousness are Breaking California’s Backbone
Please consider this piece from city journal, The Beholden State:
The camera focuses on an official of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), California’s largest public-employee union, sitting in a legislative chamber and speaking into a microphone. “We helped to get you into office, and we got a good memory,” she says matter-of-factly to the elected officials outside the shot. “Come November, if you don’t back our program, we’ll get you out of office.’
The video has become a sensation among California taxpayer groups for its vivid depiction of the audacious power that public-sector unions wield in their state. The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.
This is the clip mentioned above:
This video is actually a rather mild and open form of union threat I would say. If anybody seriously thinks the legislature is not going to bow down to this vicious mob, they should ask themselves what they would do when faced with this choice:
“Hmmm, should I take the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in campaign contributions, honorary chairmanships, and kickbacks in backroom deals, or would I prefer to get myself and my family blown up in a car? Such a tough choice …”
This is what you get when you believe that anything good can ever come out of the government, a.k.a organized aggression.
Ron Paul Head to Head With Obama in New Poll; The Ideas Matter, The Politics Don’t
Rassmussen Poll: Obama 42% – Ron Paul 41%
Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is – virtually dead even.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Ask the Political Class, though, and it’s a blowout. While 58% of Mainstream voters favor Paul, 95% of the Political Class vote for Obama.
But Republican voters also have decidedly mixed feelings about Paul, who has been an outspoken critic of the party establishment.
Obama earns 79% support from Democrats, but Paul gets just 66% of GOP votes. Voters not affiliated with either major party give Paul a 47% to 28% edge over the president.
Paul, an anti-big government libertarian who engenders unusually strong feelings among his supporters, was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. But he continues to have a solid following, especially in the growing Tea Party movement.
Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters now consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, an eight-point increase from a month ago. Another 10% say they are not a part of the movement but have close friends or family members who are.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of all voters have a favorable opinion of Paul, while 30% view him unfavorably. This includes 10% with a very favorable opinion and 12% with a very unfavorable one. But nearly one-out-of-three voters (32%) are not sure what they think of Paul.
Perhaps tellingly, just 42% of Republican voters have a favorable view of him, including eight percent (8%) with a very favorable opinion. By comparison, 42% of unaffiliated voters regard him favorably, with 15% very favorable toward him.
Twenty-six percent (26%) of GOP voters think Paul shares the values of most Republican voters throughout the nation, but 25% disagree. Forty-nine percent (49%) are not sure.
Similarly, 27% of Republicans see Paul as a divisive force in the party, while 30% view him as a new direction for the GOP. Forty-two percent (42%) aren’t sure.
Among all voters, 19% say Paul shares the values of most Republican voters, and 27% disagree. Fifty-four percent (54%) are undecided.
Twenty-one percent (21%) of voters nationwide regard Paul as a divisive force in the GOP. Thirty-four percent (34%) say he is representative of a new direction for the party. Forty-five percent (45%) are not sure.
But it’s important to note than 75% of Republicans voters believe Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters throughout the nation over the past several years.
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008, is another Republican who has been bucking the party’s traditional leadership and was the keynote speaker at the recent Tea Party convention in Nashville. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Republican voters say Palin shares the values of most GOP voters throughout the nation. Just 18% of Republicans see Palin as a divisive force within the GOP.
Rasmussen Reports released survey findings yesterday that take a closer look at the political views of those who say they’re part of the Tea Party movement. Among other things, 96% of those in the movement think America is overtaxed, and 94% trust the judgment of the American people more than that of America’s political leaders.
When it comes to major issues confronting the nation, 48% of voters now say the average Tea Party member is closer to their views than Obama is. Forty-four percent (44%) hold the opposite view and believe the president’s views are closer to their own.
Fifty-two percent (52%) believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Thirty-five percent (35%) of voters now think Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that an entirely new political party is needed to represent the American people. Nearly half (47%) of voters disagree and say a new party is not needed
If the Tea Party was organized as a political party, 34% of voters would prefer a Democrat in a three-way congressional race. In that hypothetical match-up, the Republican gets 27% of the vote with the Tea Party hopeful in third at 21%. However, if only the Democrat or Republican had a real chance to win, most of the Tea Party supporters would vote for the Republican.
Ron Paul: We can do better with peace than with war!
This is Ron Paul at a recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference:
People one Step Closer to Waking Up
The reason why I am showing all this is not that I have any particular hopes in Ron Paul in his potential function as a president or anything like that. Anybody who wants to see how much of a chance a fiscal conservative who supports limited government has once elected, just look to California.
But it is undeniable that he has inspired millions of people through the ideas of freedom and peace. And these ideas are really all that matters in the long run.
We can’t expect people to understand right away that we need to eliminate the government at some point. Nor should we be so demanding. The process of economic and moral education and enlightenment is gradual, not abrupt.
Nor, on the other hand, should we be complacent. The coming Congressional elections will be a landslide victory for the Republicans, in that I stand by my prediction from over a year ago, simply for the reason that most people will think that they suck less than the Democrats.
This is of course all nonsense. But for a few true (but inconsequential) believers, such as Rand Paul (KY), Peter Schiff (CT), and John Dennis (San Francisco), most of what we’ll see is business as usual, even with a largely Republican Congress.
The political machinery is vicious. No matter how good your intentions, it will either swallow you up and corrupt you or spit you our right away. There is nothing good whatsoever that can come out of violence. This is at the root of all political problems and it will never go away until we abdicate from this mad fantasy that is the government.
Pelosi Wants to Pass Health Bill to “Find Out What’s in it” …
… thanks for that one Nancy. It really makes a great case for this pile of crap soon to be shoved down our throats!
History Repeats Itself
Ron Paul & Libertarians Own CPAC 2010
Ron Paul’s speech at CPAC:
They also had the traditional CPAC straw poll, Ron Paul won this poll by a landslide. Here is what the annoyed, confused, and biased as ever news media had to say about this:
Mr. Paul, a Republican Congressman from Texas who inspired an intense following for president in 2008, swept the 2012 presidential straw poll Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
He won with 31 percent of the nearly 2,400 votes at the conference, edging out Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who won the straw poll last year and who captured 22 percent of the vote.
When Mr. Paul’s name was announced in the packed ballroom of a Washington hotel, it elicited hoots and boos along with applause. Although Mr. Romney won fewer votes, he seemed to draw stronger applause.
…In many respects, his win in the CPAC poll seemed pre-ordained — his band of followers having a well-earned reputation for flooding polls and forums like these.
What it portends for a possible 2012 presidential run is anyone’s guess. Paul had a similar cult-like following during the 2008 election, only to garner a relatively small chunk of the actual vote.
Paul’s victory renders a straw poll that was already lightly contested among the likely 2012 GOP hopefuls all but irrelevant, as the 74-year-old Texan is unlikely to be a serious contender for his party’s nomination.
As the results were displayed on twin large screens in the ballroom — and even before Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio could announce who had won — a cascade of boos came down from a crowd that views Paul and his fervent supporters as irritants. Paul’s backers responded with cheers, though, when their candidate was then proclaimed by Fabrizio as the winner.
CPAC organizers were plainly embarrassed by the results, which could reduce the perceived impact of a contest that was once thought to offer a window into which White House hopefuls were favored by movement conservatives.
Out of all these pointless and useless “reports” Politico is really the funniest one. “Because the straw poll results don’t fit our understanding of things, we declare them irrelevant.” Wow, that’s what I call analytic, investigative, and unbiased journalism right there.
Luckily Politico didn’t hesitate to set the record straight, by posting a poll on their website on who SHOULD have won the CPAC 2010 straw poll, the results:
Ugh, these strange people, with their unfathomable superpowers of flooding forums and polls, damn you Paulites!!!
On a side note, I really enjoyed how Ryan Sorba’s arrogant and patronizing gay bashing nonsense was simply booed off the stage:
Some more interesting reports from fellow freedom fighter Pete Eyre:
Without a doubt the most-informative and principled session I attended was “You’ve Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives Are Against the ‘War on Terror’” sponsored by C4L and LOLA, essentially calling out the pro-war conservatives on their own turf. The panelists included FFF founder and head Jacob Hornberger, retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist Philip Giraldi and former deputy attorney general Bruce Fein. Check out the speech as a playlist on FFF’s YouTube Channel on as a two-parter on their Vimeo Channel.
CPAC 2010: “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism, Part 2″ from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.
In the session my man Pericles Niarchos (a student at Drexel involved with the badass Student Liberty Front) asked the panelists whether they believe the Constitution they advocate a return to actually helped cause the American Empire they so vilify since it allows for the monopolization of the use of force. See his question and the responses by the panelists here at 46:10. Similarly, in the “How Many Crimes Have You Committed Today” session, in which self-described conservatives argued for lessening the number of actions that were federal offenses, I asked the panelists why, being advocates of free markets and less government, would they allow such an admittedly important good as law enforcement to be controlled by an institution sheltered from competition. Their response? That government needs to exists and that different levels of government should be responsible for different things blah blah blah.
When will minarchists finally realize that we arrived at the rights-violating oppressive welfare/warfare state we have today thanks to the belief that a third party should be granted a monopoly on violence?
… they will realize it when the time has come for them to realize it. When the truth can no longer be obscured, violated, bent, perverted, and covered up. When will that be? It will be someday, nobody knows when, nor does it really matter.
What matters is that we all take part in this great journey and educate as many people as we possibly can along the way. For when the time comes, people will be looking back to us pioneers who stared the beast right in the eyes, who took ridicule, ostracism, oppression, bigotry, and bullying with a smile, who stood for reason and integrity in an ocean of nonsense and corruption, and who never wavered on the path toward morality, truth, peace, and liberty for all.
Fed Independence in Action – Bernanke Met With 26 Lawmakers Prior to Vote
To those hopelessly lost, twisted, and clueless souls who seriously believe that 1. Fed independence (=secrecy) is a good thing and 2. the Fed is actually in any way, shape, or form independent from the government: Maybe the fact that Bernanke Met With 24 Senators After Renomination as Fed Chief will interest you:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had conversations with 18 of the 23 legislators on the Senate Banking Committee prior to their 16-7 vote this month to recommend that the full Senate confirm him to a second term.
The Fed chief had contact with 24 senators between August 4 and Nov. 30, almost all at congressional office buildings, after his Aug. 25 nomination to another four-year term as chairman by President Barack Obama. The meetings and phone calls were listed in a daybook provided by the Fed yesterday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by Bloomberg News.
…
Bernanke also met with House lawmakers, including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and John Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He lunched with Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee on Sept. 16, and spoke the same day at a Rhode Island Business Leaders Day event sponsored by Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat on the banking committee.
Aaah yes, that smacks of independence indeed …
John Tate’s Statement Regarding the Support for Ken Buck
For fairness’ sake:
Throughout 2010, Campaign for Liberty will be running an issue discussion program through our candidate surveys in every state to promote our issues and agenda and to lobby candidates for federal office and to get them on the record in support or opposition on our issues.
Since our inception, we have had many requests from our members for such an effort to help in their work to educate those around them.
As part of this program, mail, radio and TV ads, banner ads, and other forms of communication may be run to encourage candidates to go on record in support of our Liberty agenda, to highlight the responses of the candidates on our issues, and to hold those candidates who ignore our cause accountable.
There have been some questions as to why certain candidates have received surveys while others haven’t. This is simply a matter of putting in place a systematic approach based on candidate filing deadlines and clear survey response deadlines in order to send out surveys in an organized fashion.
For example, Texas candidate surveys have been mailed, and Kentucky surveys will be mailed next week. Illinois survey results are already available on our web site.
As we launch this new undertaking, I also want to take a moment to address your inquires about one of our first public survey ads in Colorado.
First, I think it is important to state up front that, in keeping with our 501(c)4 status, none of our work is in endorsement, support, or opposition for any candidate. In our survey program, we seek only to report where candidates stand in regard to the specific questions to which they have responded.
In retrospect, the ad we are running could have been messaged differently to help avoid any confusion on its intent and to better advertise our issue discussion program. Your invaluable feedback will help us correct this in the future and, as a result, strengthen the effectiveness of our program. This is C4L’s first foray into launching this kind of national initiative, and we are convinced it has the potential to make a tremendous impact.
The candidate featured in the Colorado ad answered 19 out of 20 questions correctly on our C4L candidate survey, and he has been publicly outspoken on Audit the Fed and an out of control federal government. He also answered the Foreign Policy questions and warrantless search question on our survey correctly.
We treat these surveys as a personal promise from the candidate as to how they will vote upon entering Congress. And I can guarantee you we will hold them accountable for their actions and responsible for how they presented themselves to us.
That being said, there is an even more important fact: The Colorado program was funded by a small number of Colorado activists. The funding for this program came ENTIRELY from this small group of new C4L donors.
So for all our great grassroots who are wondering why we might not have used this money elsewhere, I can say two things: First, we WILL have similar programs in MANY other places soon, and second, we did NOT use any money raised generally by Campaign for Liberty to run these ads in Colorado.
In order to both launch the Colorado effort and test our survey program, C4L did not use existing donor funds but built new support and donations, especially within Colorado, specifically for this project. This is the approach we hope to take as we seek funding for many other special projects this year in other states.
I take our message of peace, freedom, and prosperity as well as the responsibility entrusted to me to run this organization very seriously. I hope you all know that, and can give us here at C4L the benefit of the doubt when a situation arises about which you might want more information, or with which you even might not agree. As a multi-issue organization with activists from all manner of backgrounds, we each certainly will have our share of disagreements and agreements. The critical question is whether or not we will let disagreements on occasional topics destroy the unity we share in our desire to be a free people.
This movement has a unique window of opportunity to change politics in our country and restore our lost liberties. But to accomplish this, it will take our unified effort and focus. I see great things for us in 2010 and beyond if we can do that. I hope I’ll have your support as we continue our campaign for liberty.
I am actually not sure what to think of John Tate’s statement. He starts out by rejecting the notion that C4L in any way endorses Ken Buck. Fine. He points out that no existing C4L donor funds were used. OK. He also points out that he takes “our message of peace, freedom, and prosperity as well as the responsibility entrusted to [him] to run this organization very seriously”. Great!
So then, after raising all these valid points, all conceding that C4L has no business supporting in any way a war mongerer, he sneaks in this:
“As a multi-issue organization with activists from all manner of backgrounds, we each certainly will have our share of disagreements and agreements. The critical question is whether or not we will let disagreements on occasional topics destroy the unity we share in our desire to be a free people.”
Why did he add this sentence? Is he trying to prep us for a watering down of our message of peace and freedom?? Excuse me, but what does he mean by “occasional topics”. The issue of opposing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is not an occasional topic. It is based on fundamental C4L principles!
Yes, we may have our disagreements on certain things, like what the best strategies are to spread our message, or whether we should abolish the Fed or simple legalize competition with it. But there can’t be any discussion on whether or not we support shooting people (who have never posed an imminent threat to us) in foreign countries.
So, this section of his statement I found rather confusing and disturbing …
Campaign 4 Liberty Supports Pro War Candidate
I just read on my friend Pete Eyre’s blog about a sad direction that C4L seems to be taking. The organization has supported Ken Buck, a pro-war candidate:
This sickening statements comes from Buck’s website:
My son is a third year cadet at West Point. I’m very proud of my son’s decision to serve his country. He understands the risks involved. He also understands there is a price for freedom in this country and he’s willing to stand up and shoulder that burden. For so many of our brave men and women today, that means shouldering the burden in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We definitely need to continue a major effort in Afghanistan. We are told this effort will take at least 10 years. It will require both military and civilian personnel to help build up the country. The generals on the ground tell us we are likely to be in Afghanistan for the long term with a difficult and complicated mission.
As Colorado’s Senator I will always look first to the advice of the generals, and I will strongly support the mission of our troops who are in harm’s way.
Now, I have to say as a former supporter of C4L, I don’t particularly care for conservative values. I don’t care for progressive ones either. I care for what is right, and just, true, and good. So I find it quite offensive that the money that I and other members have contributed in part goes to funding an over a quarter of a million campaign for some Republican Senate candidate whose views have nothing at all to do with the message of peace and freedom and who represents nothing but your average conservative war mongering bigot.
Pete states his suspicions about a new direction that C4L leadership seems to be taking:
… John Tate, C4L’s head neglected to touch on non-interventionism while addressing the attendees at the 9-12 march in DC. Many believe it was not an accident.
Not that I HAVE to point this out, but just in case there is some confusion, this is from C4L’s own statement of principles:
With our Founding Fathers, we also believe in a noninterventionist foreign policy. Inspired by the old Robert Taft wing of the Republican Party, we are convinced that the American people cannot remain free and prosperous with 700 military bases around the world, troops in 130 countries, and a steady diet of war propaganda. Our military overstretch is undermining our national defense and bankrupting our country.
Naturally, the grassroots members are rebelling.
The story just got mentioned on the Huffington Post and a comment left on the Denver Post article to which it links is for me, the epitome of how far C4L has strayed from its founding:
With everyone from Dick Cheney, to Tom Tancredo, to the Campaign for Liberty supporting Ken Buck, it is no wonder he is the only Republican candidate that can unify the GOP base and ensure victory in November. I support Ken Buck!
I do recognize that C4L has helped introduce individuals to the ideas of liberty, at least initially before it was co-opted by those seeking to avoid the “non-interventionist” plank of their mission to cater more to the pro-war right (and their wallets). But no one should get a free pass or be exempt from being held accountable for their actions. And we’re seeing that – the market, in this case those that had previously supported C4L – is responding as some that had previously supported C4L vow not to do so anymore.
The missteps by C4L higher-ups only underscore what politics is – a dirty, morally bankrupt system in which everyone seeks to live at the expense at everyone else. Let’s walk away from that great fiction and instead choose to not try to control other people. For more on this, check out Voluntaryism.
What Pete refers to as voluntaryism is precisely what I have always referred to as anarchism in my blog. (Whether or not it is expedient to use that term is a different, albeit very valid question.)
If there is one thing that I have always appreciated about C4L, and Ron Paul for that matter, was their efforts to get out the word and educate people about truth, freedom, peace, noninterventionism, and Austrian Economics. And where anybody anywhere does these things, whether he is a politician or not, I still fully appreciate it.
But I, too, have recently realized that it is indeed a complete fantasy to believe that one could ever accomplish liberty, peace, and happiness for all, or even just a little improvement, through political action.
This recent incident is just another proof that politics corrupts, always and everywhere.
The most convincing piece I have ever seen on the futility of political action comes from Stefan Molyneux and is well worth watching:
In short: If you think it is unrealistic for you to think that you can join your local neighborhood mafia, and turn them against themselves, then don’t even start fantasizing about succeeding in doing that to the mother of all mafias, the government.
… so until I hear a clear and decisive statement from C4L disassociating from this nonsense, I am taking my link to their site off my blog.
Ron Paul’s State of the Republic Address
Transcript:
As we start the new year 2010, the establishment politicians, economists and Wall Street are trying to convince themselves that we have turned the corner and economic growth has once again begun. The predictions that conditions are getting back to normal come from those who never saw the crisis coming and don’t have the vaguest notion what caused it. Some of them concede that it could be a jobless recovery. That will establish a new definition for a recovery.
Official unemployment is at 10% but even the government knows that if everyone is counted, including those individuals that are too discouraged to even be looking for work, the unemployment rate is 17%. Free-market economists claim the actual unemployment rate is closer to 22%.
There’s reason to believe that the correction is just barely started and has a long way to run. If the financial bubble came from excess credit created by the Federal Reserve, doubling the money supply can hardly be a solution. It wouldn’t make much sense for a doctor taking care of a very sick patient from severe infection to deliberately give the patient another infection. Yet that’s what the PhD doctors are doing to our very sick economy. It can’t work. It will make the economy much sicker. If our leaders don’t wake up soon, the economy will be brought to its knees. Great danger lies ahead.
In foreign policy, it’s always crucial that the motives of those who would do us harm are understood. Denial of the truth and accepting more politically palatable excuses will guarantee that threats to our safety will continue as we pursue a seriously flawed involvement overseas.
It’s the same in economic policy. If there’s denial or ignorance of the real cause of financial bubbles and the inevitable corrections that must follow, the economy cannot be reenergized.
We should have learned the lesson from the Depression of the 1930s that it was a predictable result from the Federal Reserves orchestrated excesses of the 1920s. Instead, the new-born Keynesian economists who took charge made certain that the correction would not be a one or two year affair as were the previous corrections in our history. The aggressive intervention by Hoover and Roosevelt, the Republicans and the Democrats, turned a short recession into the Great Depression, which lasted until the end of World War II.
The real tragedy was that the interpretation of the 1930s institutionalized bad economic theories. Unfortunately, and erroneously, the Depression was blamed on the gold standard, free markets and a lack of regulations. Though monetary policy was analyzed, its importance was 100% misinterpreted. The low interest rates and excess credit of the 1920s, driven by Federal Reserve policy, was not considered a factor in producing the stock market bubble and the mal-investment.
Instead, the 1930s analysts and even later analysis by Milton Freidman and the monetarists, along with academic “scholars” like Bernanke, came to an opposite conclusion: the Fed was at fault but only because it was too tight, arguing that massive monetary inflation was the only answer to the slumping economy.
And now we are witnessing a grand experiment by the very person who for years claimed special knowledge regarding the Depression. Chairman Bernanke is in the midst of trying to solve the problem of massive monetary inflation and excessively low interest rates instituted by his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, by implementing even more inflation at historic rates. The sad part is the answer to his very risky experiment with the wealth of our country and the health of our economy will take years to analyze. The conclusions will be just as flawed as they were in the aftermath of the Great Depression by an intellectual and political community that had totally rejected commodity money and the principle of free market with the current understanding in Washington.
One hope, though, is that free-market thinking and Austrian economic theories will have greater influence in the next decade or two, since their influence is now on a dramatic upswing. But there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.
In the 1930s, in an effort to find the true cause of the crisis, Congress ordered an official investigation. It became known as the “Pecora Investigation” named after Ferdinand Pecora, the aggressive chief council of the hearings. It received a lot of public attention and brought about many major changes but, tragically, every conclusion made and new policies implemented caused the depression to worsen and legitimized bad economic theories that continue to haunt us to this day.
The Federal Reserve was not blamed except for not printing enough money fast enough. Artificially low interest rates and mal-investment, the main source of the grossly distorted economy and bubble of the 1920s were exonerated. Not enough regulations were blamed, thus the Glass-Steagall Act and the Securities Act of 1933 were passed and deepened the depression. Separating commercial and investment banking and the newly created SEC were to have solved all future problems—as long as the Fed was free from any restraint in its money creation operation to serve big-government spenders and members of the banking cartel.
Since the flaws in the monetary and economic system were not corrected but made worse after the Depression, it was to be expected that periodic booms and busts would persist. The longer these cycles could be papered over with new money and credit, the greater would be the distortions and debt that would one day have to undergo a major correction.
That correction is now in its early stages. Since the dollar was the reserve currency of the world and totally fiat since 1971, without any linkage to gold, the financial bubble became worldwide. This bubble that burst in 2008 was the largest in history. During the formation of the bubble, the U.S. as the issuer of the world currency received undeserved benefits. We essentially became the counterfeiter of the world and no one called us on it. Even today, the trust in the dollar that persists has buffeted the pain of the correction for us. This unique setup was a prime cause for our balance of payment deficits and the huge foreign debt we owe—the largest in the history of the world. The discord in the world financial system is telling us that it’s time for us to pay for our profligate spending and massive foreign indebtedness. We have lived, as a nation, far beyond our means and the message is, for the foreseeable future, that we will be forced to live beneath our means as this debt is paid.
The inflation optimists are excited about current signs of economic growth and have even announced the end of the recession. It is conceivable that a reprieve can be achieved and the penalty that our economy must endure delayed. A reprieve must not be confused with a pardon; one is a temporary delay, the other an exemption. The payback for our excesses is certain to come.
Massively increasing debt and monetary inflation can slow the crash and change some government statistics encouraging the optimists. But real job growth and return of prosperity will remain elusive. The odds of us once again becoming an exporter of manufactured goods, like steel, cars, and textiles, are remote.
Ironically, a reprieve may well restore some confidence and motivate some spending and investment. But instead of restoring long-term growth, it may well act perversely by precipitating price inflation and higher interest rates. Since today’s interest rates are artificially set, much of our investing is unproductively misdirected.
Current enthusiasm in the stock market is once again a reflection of the message that low interest rates send. Thus too, the government’s stimulus package has helped to sustain the bond bubble, which in time must be deflated in order to get back to sound economic growth. All of this activity poses a threat to the dollar.
Governments are very powerful, and when in partnership with the monetary authorities that can inflate the currency at will, big government thrives. Welfare demands and senseless wars can be financed for long period of time through inflation, as long as trust in the currency lasts. Trust, though ultimately controlled by facts, can be misleading, since currency values can gain benefit from a country that has a strong military and wealth and a reasonably healthy economy. Eventually, markets and reality overwhelm, and illusions about a currency’s worth become a reality.
Today, reality is setting in and the first of three major events has begun. The worldwide financial system, built on a foundation of paper, has received the shock waves of an impending collapse.
The wild speculation and the derivatives market, the stock market bubble, the insurmountable debt—public and private—and the massive mal-investments have been shattered.
The only solution so far offered worldwide, but led by the United States has been to “print money” faster, keep interest rates low at practically zero percent, and remove all stops for controlling deficits. These are the very policies that caused the disequilibrium, and doing more of the same, but only faster, can hardly help our economy. The addiction to easy credit and deficit defies a wise political solution. Politicians are incapable of delivering the message of frugality, common sense, and sound money.
We can expect that the course we are on to continue and accelerate, since the first event, the collapse of the financial system, is still in its early stage.
The housing crisis is far from over; the commercial property crisis has not yet gotten much attention, and the financial obligations of the government are growing exponentially. And none of this forces the slightest pause in the expanding of welfare growth. The number of regulations, which are indeed a tax, are exploding though the market was already suffering from regulatory excesses. There’s a consensus in Washington that “wise” regulations can compensate for all the mistakes made by the Federal Reserve, the Executive Branch, and Congress. This fallacy has been around a long time and will be difficult to overcome.
The pessimism of the middle class continues to get worse despite the prognostication of Wall Street and the Administration. Most Americans know that the standard of living and real wages have not gone up for the past 10 years. If you’re not a shrewd stock trader and instead invested in stocks 10 years ago and held on, in real terms you would have lost 20% of your savings. The middle class is poorer also because house prices have crashed and many have lost their homes. On top of this, all we hear about is the trillions of dollars of debt and entitlement obligations that have been racked up for future taxpayers to pay. When it is revealed that the insider friends of the Fed and Congress get billions of dollars in bailout at the expense of the middle class, it’s no wonder the people are taking to the streets and directing their hostilities toward both Republicans and Democrats in Washington. Many would agree it is well-earned anger and properly directed.
This anger and frustration will certainly grow as the consequences of the collapse of the financial system become more severe. The concerted effort to prevent the correction the market demands, guarantees a prolonged agonizing crisis. Every effort to reverse the tide will depend on spending, higher deficits, increased taxes and money creation. This effort is now providing another grand bubble: the dollar/bond bubble.
The next event will be a dollar crisis. A full-blown dollar crisis will be worse than our current financial crisis The extent of a dollar crisis depends on whether or not the Washington politicians wake up and change their ways—a dubious hope.
More likely, the insanity will continue until some not yet known event will undermine the confidence of the dollar worldwide. Signs of less desire by foreigners to hold our dollars are already present. I’m certain our Treasury and Federal Reserve are pulling out all stops to prevent a massive run on the dollar. At present the “orderly” retreat from the dollar is working. But it won’t last.
China is quite active in investing in natural resources around the world, including Iran. While we live in the dark ages and believe only our military presence and military threats can protect our access to oil, China is actually spending some of their savings investing in their future access to energy and other precious metals and minerals.
But the orderly retreat from the dollar won’t last forever. Since 1973, shortly after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the dollar has lost 32% of its value against a Federal Reserve basket of currencies. But that doesn’t tell the real story, since that is a measurement against all other currencies, and they are fiat currencies as well. This gave the dollar an artificial benefit from its position of power in great wealth and military prowess. The dollar in relationship to gold, however, is down 97% since 1971, and 82% as measured by the CPI. The dollar, mismanaged by the Fed, has not been a benefit to the savers who sought to responsibly take care of themselves. They’ve been cheated by a rotten system and are just beginning to understand exactly how the Federal Reserve has been responsible for the swindle.
It is impossible to predict the time when confidence will be lost, but it can come quickly. Resorting to buying other paper currencies will not be of much help. When the dollar crashes, most likely the purchasing power of all currencies—since all countries hold dollars as a reserve—will go down as well.
This means that dollars and other currencies will go into buying consumer items, precious metals and other physical properties. Consumer prices will soar, as well as interest rates. The central bank will lose control; and the more they inflate, the worse the confidence becomes. The interest rates will respond to these efforts by rising sharply.
If the Fed tries to reverse the run on the dollar, interest rates will also soar, and the pain on the American citizens will be of such proportion that political chaos will result. Either scenario leads to political and social chaos—the third event, and the most dangerous.
With no ability of the federal government to fund its commitments, international or domestic, major changes will occur in our system. The social unrest will elicit cries for government to exert unusual force to head off a complete breakdown of law and order. The ultimate trap will be set for a system of government claiming to protect a free society. If more power and police authority are not given to the federal government, it will be argued that only anarchy will result. If more government policing power is given, it will mean a lethal threat to civil liberties. Already we have permitted the notion that a single person, the Attorney General or President, can decide who is an “enemy combatant”, thus denying that individual the right to habeus corpus, permitting indefinite detentions without charges made. This attitude toward civil liberties has changed significantly since the fear built around 9/11.
Yes, I know declaring one an “enemy combatant” is reserved for the radical Muslims engaged in terrorism against the United States. To be reassured by this reasoning is quite dangerous and naïve. Logic should not lead us to equate suspects with terrorists, and include American citizens, and yet this has already been set by precedent. Under difficult circumstances, our political leaders will not be hesitant to use these powers to maintain order. Tragically, the people may even demand it.
We are rapidly moving toward a dangerous time in our history. Society as we know it is vulnerable to political and social chaos.
This impending crisis comes as a consequence of our flawed foreign and domestic economic policies, a silly notion about money, ignorance about Central Banking, ignoring the onerous power and mischief of our out-of-control intelligence agencies, our unsustainable welfare state, and a willingness to sacrifice privacy and civil liberties in an attempt to achieve safety and security from an inept government. Dangerous times indeed!
What can be done about it? Must we wait for the inevitable and expect to restore our liberties in a street fight against the overwhelming power of the state? Not a good option!
The only way that we can prevent blood from running in the streets is to offer a better idea of the proper role of government in a society that desires first and foremost -liberty.
And that is impossible without a firm commitment by our thought leaders to the ideas of freedom, the source of all creative energy and prosperity. An all-powerful state is the threat to that ideal.
The prevailing attitude of the people-as it once was in early America-must be that of liberty and self reliance, rather than the nanny state and dependency relying on government force to mold all private choices.
If this is understood, a smooth-although not painless-transition to a free society is achievable. Ignoring this option will be very destructive to everything that is dear to the hearts of most Americans.
What is it that we must do? We must immediately:
- Balance the budget by reducing spending
- Change our foreign policy to that of non-intervention
- A full audit and more supervision of the Federal Reserve leading to abolishing the Federal Reserve
- Legalize competition to the Federal Reserve with competing currencies
- Regain respect for civil liberties and privacy while reigning in the CIA
- Wean ourselves off the dependence of wealth transfers by government
- Abolish crony capitalism—no subsidies, no bailouts, no regulatory or tax privileges to protect the powerful elite especially the military industrial complex
- Eliminate the income tax, inheritance tax and taxes on savings and dividends.
None of this can happen without the restoration of Congress to its dominant position of the three Branches of Government as was originally intended by the Constitution. The Executive and Judicial must be reined in, and Congress must assert its prerogatives over all legislation curtailing all unconstitutional agendae through budgetary controls.
Signs abound that angry Americans are now more ready than ever before for a change in direction that is indeed real. If this program were improvised-even suddenly and dramatically-the adjustment, though significant and to a degree somewhat painful, would be much shorter and of minor consequence compared to the chaos and poverty that will result if we refuse to change our gluttonous appetite for a free lunch.
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