^^He doesn't. He's fully acknowledged in many public speeches and writings that a return to the gold standard is a silly idea.

He DOES think we should move to an asset standard though, to give our money actual backing and to effectively stop inflation and the global decline of the dollar. An asset standard would not only have the same net effect that the gold standard did in the pre-fed era, it would actually work well in conjunction with industry.

10/11/2007 4:35:17 AM

I'm looking more for an actual economic argument and less for "it would work well."

10/11/2007 9:37:34 AM

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul319.html

Quote :

"A soaring gold price is a vote of “no confidence” in the central bank and the dollar. This certainly was the case in 1979 and 1980. Today, gold prices reflect a growing restlessness with the increasing money supply, our budgetary and trade deficits, our unfunded liabilities, and the inability of Congress and the administration to reign in runaway spending"

Quote :

"The Fed tries to keep the consumer spending spree going, not through hard work and savings, but by creating artificial wealth in stock markets bubbles and housing bubbles. When these distortions run their course and are discovered, the corrections will be quite painful. Likewise, a fiat monetary system encourages speculation and unsound borrowing. As problems develop, scapegoats are sought and frequently found in foreign nations. This prompts many to demand altering exchange rates and protectionist measures. The sentiment for this type of solution is growing each day."

Quote :

"Even if it were recognized that a gold standard without monetary inflation would be advantageous, few in Washington would accept the political disadvantages of living with the discipline of gold – since it serves as a check on government size and power. This is a sad commentary on the politics of today. The best analogy to our affinity for government spending, borrowing, and inflating is that of a drug addict who knows if he doesn’t quit he’ll die; yet he can’t quit because of the heavy price required to overcome the dependency. The right choice is very difficult, but remaining addicted to drugs guarantees the death of the patient, while our addiction to deficit spending, debt, and inflation guarantees the collapse of our economy."

Quote :

"Foreign policy plays a significant role in the economy and the value of the dollar. A foreign policy of militarism and empire building cannot be supported through direct taxation. The American people would never tolerate the taxes required to pay immediately for overseas wars, under the discipline of a gold standard. Borrowing and creating new money is much more politically palatable. It hides and delays the real costs of war, and the people are lulled into complacency – especially since the wars we fight are couched in terms of patriotism, spreading the ideas of freedom, and stamping out terrorism. Unnecessary wars and fiat currencies go hand-in-hand, while a gold standard encourages a sensible foreign policy."

Quote :

"Foreign policy contributes to the crisis when the spending to maintain our worldwide military commitments becomes prohibitive, and inflationary pressures accelerate. But the real crisis hits when the world realizes the king has no clothes, in that the dollar has no backing, and we face a military setback even greater than we already are experiencing in Iraq. Our token friends may quickly transform into vocal enemies once the attack on the dollar begins. False trust placed in the dollar once was helpful to us, but panic and rejection of the dollar will develop into a real financial crisis. Then we will have no other option but to tighten our belts, go back to work, stop borrowing, start saving, and rebuild our industrial base, while adjusting to a lower standard of living for most Americans."

Quote :

"Counterfeiting the nation’s money is a serious offense. The founders were especially adamant about avoiding the chaos, inflation, and destruction associated with the Continental dollar. That’s why the Constitution is clear that only gold and silver should be legal tender in the United States. In 1792 the Coinage Act authorized the death penalty for any private citizen who counterfeited the currency. Too bad they weren’t explicit that counterfeiting by government officials is just as detrimental to the economy and the value of the dollar. In wartime, many nations actually operated counterfeiting programs to undermine our dollar, but never to a disastrous level. The enemy knew how harmful excessive creation of new money could be to the dollar and our economy. But it seems we never learned the dangers of creating new money out of thin air. We don’t need an Arab nation or the Chinese to undermine our system with a counterfeiting operation. We do it ourselves, with all the disadvantages that would occur if others did it to us. Today we hear threats from some Arab, Muslim, and far Eastern countries about undermining the dollar system – not by dishonest counterfeiting, but by initiating an alternative monetary system based on gold. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Such an event theoretically could do great harm to us. This day may well come, not so much as a direct political attack on the dollar system but out of necessity to restore confidence in money once again."

much more in the letter...his main point is a currency backed by something of real value stabilizes inflation, and limits the federal governments manipulative powers.

10/11/2007 11:02:34 AM

^Yep.

You have to be careful with Ron Paul to separate his actual views from the plethora of nutjobs who claim to represent Paul's views. To go back to a gold standard now would be disastrous because there is such a massive excess of paper money. But we CAN transition to an asset standard that would effectively have the same end effect.

McDanger You'll have to do some real academic research to look at fully fleshed out arguments. The "it would work well" comes from looking at history. We know the problems with gold standards as a bank backing, in that it tends to slow or reverse economic growth and stabilize the currency (inflation isn't always a bad thing). We also know the problems it solves in the current system, that is, the long-term devaluing of the dollar, domestic inflation, declining real buying power, unchecked growth of government expenditure, and no market balance to bad investment.

10/11/2007 11:30:36 AM

saw some "vote ron paul 08" signs by the airport today, was great to see them where so many people will drive by!

10/14/2007 2:21:16 PM

^I've been seeing quite a few lately.

10/15/2007 9:10:44 AM

^^ tons by my apartment complex and on the road to work.

10/15/2007 9:23:26 AM

"Google Ron Paul" on US-1 going through Cary this mornin'

10/15/2007 9:49:25 AM

i've seen a lot of ron paul stuff around latly. sounds like he's getting the name out. good going if we can get him the primaries over some new neo-con nazi i'll vote republican and keep scum like hillary and john edwards out of office

10/15/2007 12:40:47 PM

he just won two more straw polls by landslide amounts.

10/15/2007 1:04:15 PM

what is a straw poll???

cnn.com still has him last at 1% amoung pollers. I'd be surprised if he can rally the GOP to support him in as the republican party candidate. His view are probably some of the most "conservative" based on the original platform of the republican party; unfortunately it is very deviant from the "neo-con" nazi's who currently hold a lot of the power and money within the GOP.

[Edited on October 15, 2007 at 1:27 PM. Reason : l]

10/15/2007 1:25:18 PM

Quote :

"keep scum like hillary and john edwards out of office"

i mean, they're not my favorite candidates. but scum, really?

10/15/2007 1:27:20 PM

manager of a hospital i worked at refered to edwards as scum

"pondscum" i believe was his exact words

10/15/2007 1:28:11 PM

well voting hillary into office is a step into this country turning into a rotating monarchy. The same two political families will have held office over the span of 20 years. Plus her socialist wealth distribution and health care socialization plans are too radical for me. I did not go to college for 4 years and earn my way to a high paying job to have her give out $500 baby bonds to every crack baby being pumped out of lil mexico and the ghetto.

Quote :

"i worked at refered to edwards as scum"

although i disagree with stuff edwards has done; as a NC resident I think our state would benefit highly if Edwards were voted into office. Anyone who has insight into politics knows that having an acquaintance in a position of power outweighs any minor differences that you may have with that person regarding their politics. Holding a position of power; Edwards would likely bring jobs to NC and support bills that have riders in the benefit of NC. Kinda like how Bush has helped out his oil buddies and Texas while he has been president.

So i probably would vote Edwards for president if he won the nomination unless someone like Ron Paul won the republican nomination.

[Edited on October 15, 2007 at 1:33 PM. Reason : l]

[Edited on October 15, 2007 at 1:34 PM. Reason : l]

10/15/2007 1:29:30 PM

Quote :

"Edwards would likely bring jobs to NC and support bills that have riders in the benefit of NC. "

No he won't. Edwards doesn't give a flying fuck about NC. He was an absentee congressman, he didn't do a damn thing in office for us and if he gets to be president he will forget about NC faster than he shelled out 400 bucks for a haircut.

He's a fucking liar, and a general sleezeball. At least Hillary is open about what an evil being she is, and makes no bones about it.

Quote :

"what is a straw poll??? cnn.com still has him last at 1% amoung pollers. I'd "

You need to look up the difference between straw polls (actual republican party votes) and PHONE POLLING (which is what ALL cnn/abc/nbc/cbs etc polls are based on).

Phone polling only calls people on LAND LINES, during the day, who have been longstanding party members. In other words it's people over 55 who sit at home all day. The correlation between phone polling and the ballot box is iffy at best. It's an ancient polling method that has very little to do with actual candidate support.

10/15/2007 4:37:38 PM

Quote :

"although i disagree with stuff edwards has done; as a NC resident I think our state would benefit highly if Edwards were voted into office. "

please don't vote based on that selfish anecdote

10/15/2007 5:04:35 PM

Quote :

"please don't vote based on that selfish anecdote"

politics and the way people vote often does have selfish intentions. everything is relative.

If you are a lower class single mother of 6 living on welfare you would vote hillary b.c for your own benefit. Likewise if you are senior management for a defense company like Lockheed or Haliburton chances are you voted for Bush and will vote for one of his croonies in an upcoming elections b.c you know they support more defense spending which benefits you.

Likewise if you work at abortion clinic a vote for a pro-life republican on a christian platform is a vote for your unemployment. Not much logic says that in this case the person would vote democrat unless the republican candidate has some other overwhelming campaign platform issue that you agree on.


[Edited on October 15, 2007 at 5:10 PM. Reason : l]

10/15/2007 5:08:26 PM

Quote :

"cnn.com still has him last at 1% amoung pollers."

Well, considering that CNN doesn't even include his name in their "polls," I'd have to say that their "polls" are far from accurate/fair.

Quote :

"His view are probably some of the most "conservative" based on the original platform of the republican party; unfortunately it is very deviant from the "neo-con" nazi's who currently hold a lot of the power and money within the GOP."

That is precisely why he has such a damned good chance, despite what the media says. There are a LOT of disillusioned conservatives out there, and Ron Paul will easily get their vote, because he is the only conservative candidate in the field for the Repubs. This is a guy that could actually get libertarian votes, possibly even hardcore libertarians votes, if push came to shove. That's certainly not something any of the other repub candidates can say.

Quote :

"as a NC resident I think our state would benefit highly if Edwards were voted into office."

you mean like NC benefited when he was one of our Senators?

10/15/2007 9:30:19 PM

bttt for Ron Paul!

10/16/2007 9:09:12 AM

http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/tables/live/2007-10-15-poll.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Ron Paul at 5% nationally. And I wonder if his name was even on the list of candidates they read off.

I've been called for a Gallup poll, where it was "For Rudy Giuliani press 1, for John McCain press2.....for Mike Huckabee press 6...for other candidates, press7. You had to press 7, then press another button just to say 'Ron Paul.'

At the time, there were 10 candidates, and there are at least 10 buttons on the phone they could've had you press....but no. There's no excuse for that, and it does skew the results, if slightly.

[Edited on October 16, 2007 at 11:34 AM. Reason : i]

10/16/2007 11:31:29 AM

most of america is stupid and do not pay attention so they just pick the most recognizable name

10/16/2007 4:00:55 PM

It would be really awesome if Ron Paul won the presidential vote.

10/16/2007 4:14:53 PM

GOP candidates go negative on each other

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/16/negative.republicans.ap/index.html

Quote :

"GOP candidates breaking Reagan's 11th commandment Story Highlights Presidential hopefuls increasingly criticize one another Negative campaigning increases as real voting draws nearer Main theme seems to be "He's not Republican enough""

Quote :

"Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt went negative in the 2004 Democratic primary, and their strategies backfired. They lost when voters gravitated toward above-the-fray candidates "

Maybe if the republicans keep this up, Paul will have a chance.

10/16/2007 4:22:37 PM

he'll have a chance if every single other candidate suddenly drops dead

10/16/2007 4:43:06 PM

Quote :

"Main theme seems to be "He's not Republican enough""

wouldn't that basically be a Ron Paul endorsement from all the other repub. candidates?

10/16/2007 4:43:09 PM

yeah but most people are too ignorant of politics to realize this. The 2007 republican == George W and Co.

10/16/2007 5:12:51 PM

I have little problem with suddenly pulling out of most government social programs, on this Ron Paul has my respect, my admiration, for standing tall on principle.

However, if I understand correctly he is for straight up pulling out of Iraq now w/o regard to the situation on the ground. Disagree or not with the motivation for the war (perhaps police action would be more apt) you must agree that we should never repeat the shameful exit of Vietnam, we should not just leave in a half-ass manner due to political pressures. The chaos and loss of life would be staggering. (and yes much worse than what we are currently witnessing ). Moreover, it would embolden every punk terrorist around the world.

So I cannot vote for Ron Paul. I don't want to be responsible in part for the death of a couple million Iraqies. Or the new enlarged state of Iran.

Even the vacillating HRC has said the troops will be there a while.

As romantic as the view of the isolationist may be I must admit that this is a global economy with interconnected nations, and we are for all intents and purposes the best nation to be the world's police man. I don't like it, but who else is going to keep rogue nations inline? The UN? Come on.

We do have good intentions overall, if it was any other nation like China or Russia in Iraq right now do you think they would not steal the Oil revenue? Sure you can paint some cabalistic Halliburton scenario, but there is also the plain and simple explanation that we are there to insure world peace and to suppress terrorism. This is not something that is going to happen overnight, this is like the cold war, it'll take decades. I hope that W's optimistic view of man is correct, I hope that even the middle east wants to live free. That remains to be seen.

10/16/2007 5:35:06 PM

Quote :

"So I cannot vote for Ron Paul."

you can not vote Ron Paul b.c he is not a theaucratic demigod; with a firm pro-life platform.

Quote :

" We do have good intentions overall, if it was any other nation like China or Russia in Iraq right now do you think they would not steal the Oil revenue? Sure you can paint some cabalistic Halliburton scenario, but there is also the plain and simple explanation that we are there to insure world peace and to suppress terrorism. This is not something that is going to happen overnight, this is like the cold war"

I do not think China or modern day Russia would be stupid enough to get involved
in that hell hole aka Iraq.

btw i do not agree with the vietnam war from the cold war era.

10/16/2007 5:49:25 PM

Quote :

"So I cannot vote for Ron Paul. I don't want to be responsible in part for the death of a couple million Iraqies. Or the new enlarged state of Iran."

Think of it this way: You don't like RP because he wants to pull out of Iraq, but voting for Rudy or Romney will likely maintain the status quo of preemptive wars with absolutely atrocious results, and you'd be voting for people who don't really care about your small gov't desires. Voting for Hillary of Obama would most certainly be voting for a hasty departure from Iraq in addition to voting for bigger gov't. So, on the one, you have more war, more debacles, too much gov't, and on the other you have cut and run and more more more gov't. When your only real complain w/ RP is that you don't like the cut-and-run in Iraq, how could you possibly go out and vote for someone else who will either increase the likelihood of cut-and-run fuckups in the future while also ensuring an increase in the size of gov't?

I'll admit, RP isn't a 100% perfect to me, either, and he didn't used to be perfect to me on the issue of Iraq. However, the more I look at it, the more I see that the insurgency is never going to end as long as we have troops there. We have simply fucked it up too badly. Hoping for a fantastic parade at the end of it just isn't going to happen, and in the meantime, all we are doing is wasting billions of dollars and making more people hate us. We are really faced with a shitty situation, no matter what we chose. So, even w/ RP's cut-and-run-ish plan in Iraq, the end result of preventing such pointless wars in the future and hopefully setting a trend of far smaller gov't is way more appealing to me than picking a candidate who will stay in Iraq yet let the gov't balloon even bigger.

10/16/2007 6:45:49 PM

Ron paul would not pull troops out the day after his elections, his goal is to begin a plan for withdrawel immediately but he said it would take time

10/16/2007 6:47:06 PM

Quote :

"I don't want to be responsible for...the new enlarged state of Iran"

Then I suggest you don't vote for Joe Biden or Sam Brownback.

10/16/2007 7:13:40 PM

I'm registered as unaffiliated... this came up in a conversation yesterday. Anybody know if the NC GOP allows unaffiliated voters to vote in the Republican Primary?

10/16/2007 10:18:29 PM

in response to mathman and burro,

I dont think either of you actually grasp his policy in the middle east. And mathman, Ron Paul is NOT an isolationist in any sense of the word. He is simply anti-colonial imperialism.

His middle-east position is three fold.

1) We cannot effect any positive, permanent change in Iraq. Our presence only makes things worse for the general public, both in the short term and in the long term. We need to withdraw, but not just militarily. We need to remove all US interests from the country.

2) We need to stop the 30 billion a year going to Saudi Arabia in arms. We need to stop the 60 billion a year going to Israel. We need to stop the 10-50 billion going to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Jordan.

No one seems to realize the REASON that everyone in the region hates us, is because we supplied the weapons for their own destruction. The US has armed every revolution for the last half century in the reason, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people dying.

3) We need to open free, unrestricted trade with the region. Yes including Syria, Iran, Turkey and everyone else. The ONLY way to improve the lives of people and bring about eventual equality is through the markets. You cannot impose imperial occupation on a people who don't want it.


This is Ron Pauls plan, and not only will it work (because history backs it up), it will save millions of lives, and trillions of American dollars, and it will rebuild the good name of the United States around the world, without the need to be the World Police.

The whole "world police" idea is born out of World War II. That was a time and a situation that can never be repeated in a time of mutually assured nuclear annihilation. The reality of today is, no one is going to seize power like that again, because everyone will die in the process.

10/16/2007 10:20:55 PM

1) can't disagree w/ that whatsoever, and I assumed that was his policy.
2) seems to follow naturally from other things I've heard him say. I do seem to recall him talking bout Israel like that, as well.

you have to admit, on the basis of those 2 points alone, he sounds quite a bit isolationalist, despite whatever else he might say. of course, #3 changes that picture drastically, but I was merely speaking from the context of just 1 and 2.

3) I'm not so sure how I feel about this one, and I will freely admit that I have never heard him espouse this position before. I can't disagree that our foreign policy in the region leaves much to be desired, but opening free, unrestricted trade just strikes me a little too far in the opposite direction right now. I'll mull it over

10/16/2007 10:51:53 PM

^^ interesting, I must look further, this does not sound like what I've heard him say. Of course, I'm not terribly educated on the Ron Paul, I thought he said we should leave "now" in a recent debate.

Anyway, I knew this would be the place to get corrected by you Ron Paulians.

10/16/2007 11:13:30 PM

Go to:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/about/contact.shtml

Select "Suggest a Guest" from the drop down...

And let Jay know why he should invite Ron Paul to the Tonight Show!

10/17/2007 8:24:22 AM

Quote :

"most of america is stupid and do not pay attention so they just pick the most recognizable name"

10/17/2007 12:22:10 PM

^ agreed.

If Hitler had the most campaign money he would probably be able to get elected if he did enough advertising.

10/17/2007 12:25:42 PM

In one of the debates Ron Paul talked about a document authorizing US troops to hunt and attack terrorist groups. Someone please remind me what this document is called, b/c THAT is how I believe the US should proceed in the Middle East. Stop playing nanny to Iraq's government and start focusing on the real threat - terrorist groups like Al Qaida.

10/17/2007 1:21:30 PM

Ron Paul's been saying what the Marines are now openly saying, and what i've always believed. shit, even that evil commie flip flopper Kerry said it. finish the job in Afghanistan.

10/17/2007 1:35:17 PM

^exactly, if we'd focused our efforts there instead of going into Iraq, afg. would likely be very stable and self sufficient now.

and what did the admin. learn from this.....it looks like nothing, as the table is being set for Iran.

multi-fronted wars ftl.

10/17/2007 1:46:32 PM

but but saddam and osama were cuddling in bed together during 9/11

and the yellow cake...

[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 1:59 PM. Reason : s]

10/17/2007 1:59:07 PM

Quote :

"shit, even that evil commie flip flopper Kerry said it. finish the job in Afghanistan."

not to mention the soviets. and we see how well that worked out. but that's beside the point, iraq should never have come into the picture.

10/17/2007 2:07:16 PM

Ron Paul will be appearing on Jay Leno on October 30.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/events/

10/17/2007 8:08:13 PM

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/fundraising

10/17/2007 11:52:55 PM

^ Romney is primarily self-funding his campaign.

McCain's money troubles have been documented.

Hunter can't raise any money outside of SoCal and Brownback can't raise any money outside of Kansas.

Those numbers make me shake my head. Giuliani as the Republican nominee just disgusts me.

[Edited on October 18, 2007 at 1:14 AM. Reason : /]

10/18/2007 1:10:57 AM

i think the nominee will come down to paul and guiliani. thompson won't even come close, especially when he's doing interviews saying shit like "i don't really want to be president i just want to do things only the president can do"

10/18/2007 11:15:37 AM

Quote :

"interesting, I must look further, this does not sound like what I've heard him say. Of course, I'm not terribly educated on the Ron Paul, I thought he said we should leave "now" in a recent debate."

Quote :

"I'm not so sure how I feel about this one, and I will freely admit that I have never heard him espouse this position before."

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=cc287b0f-941c-4b07-88e9-9e992810f700

Is his response to the claims that he is proposing an isolationist policy.

10/18/2007 11:23:10 AM

i really liked his response

10/18/2007 11:28:24 AM

Ron Paul ftw...as usual

10/18/2007 11:35:26 AM