Saturday, March 29, 2008

Competition for the Creature, Restore Economic Freedom

Bush proposes financial regulation overhaul "In an effort to deal with the problems highlighted by the current severe credit crisis, the new plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve..." Only a lover of big government would propose such an absurd solution to a problem caused by government. The problem really started when congress abrogated its responsibility to coin money and regulate the value thereof, instead turning it over to private bankers with no allegiance to any nation or state. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 ushered in the era of government without end, now having the ability to grow beyond traditional taxation by way of the invisible tax called inflation.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson

How is inflation a secret tax on the poor and middle class? When the Fed prints up more money out of thin air, each dollar remaining in circulation becomes worth less, although not immediately. Those that get to touch the money first do so before the devaluation actually hits. So bankers and high level Wall Street investors, government contractors and the like get the spoils of the Federal Reserve's lack of fiscal discipline. We can also point to Congress for spending like the proverbial drunken sailor, or we could point to the people who bought into the myth that government could be everything to everyone. When we cry about the mortgage bubble burst, just who do we hold accountable? Any one of the parties involved could have put a stop to this economic disaster in waiting if they had wanted to. Did someone put a gun to the head of all those people accepting sub-prime loans for properties that they could not afford? Did they not learn in Sunday School to beware the money-changers? At least James Madison was paying attention in church:

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance."

This also begs the question as to why so many people could not afford to buy a home in the first, second and third place. Fiat money ALWAYS inflates as the bankers sooner or later loan out exponentially more money than they hold in reserve so that the only way out is for the Fed to print more to cover the bankers playing the funny-money system. At the risk of repeating myself, the more money they pump out, the higher the prices will rise to make up for the devaluation of the money supply. The poor and middle class are squeezed out of the American dream because the hours they put in at work are never compensated at a pace that keeps up with the actual rate of inflation. We can blame the bankers 'till the cows come home, but we are all at fault for participating in a "False Economy Appearing Real (FEAR)."

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson..." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt (in a letter to Colonel House, dated November 21, 1933)

When FDR said that the only thing we have to FEAR is FEAR itself, you didn't know he was speaking in code, did you? Is there any solution to this mess besides more government intervention and regulation, Mr. George Shrubbery, the biggest of the Big Government presidents yet? Perhaps we can glean some wisdom from a modern-day Founding Father, one of the few in government today that would actually sign the constitution if he were around at the dawn of these united States. Congressman Ron Paul has submitted the Free Competition in Currency Act whose introductory statement is as follows:

Madame Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Competition in Currency Act. This act would eliminate two sections of US Code that, although ostensibly intended to punish counterfeiters, have instead been used by the government to shut down private mints. As anti-counterfeiting measures, these sections are superfluous, as 18 USC 485, 490, and 491 already grant sufficient authority to punish counterfeiters.

The two sections this bill repeals, 18 USC 486 and 489, are so broadly written as to effectively restrict any form of private coinage from competing with the products of the United States Mint. Allowing such statutes to remain in force as a catch-all provision merely encourages prosecutorial abuse. One particular egregious recent example is that of the Liberty Dollar, in which federal agents seized millions of dollars worth of private currency held by a private mint on behalf of thousands of people across the country.

Due to nearly a century of inflationary monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar stands at historically low levels. Investors around the world are shunning the dollar, and millions of Americans see their salaries, savings accounts, and pensions eroded away by rising inflation. We stand on the precipice of an unprecedented monetary collapse, and as a result many people have begun to look for alternatives to the dollar.

As a proponent of competition in currencies, I believe that the American people should be free to choose the type of currency they prefer to use. The ability of consumers to adopt alternative currencies can help to keep the government and the Federal Reserve honest, as the threat that further inflation will cause more and more people to opt out of using the dollar may restrain the government from debasing the currency. As monopolists, however, the Federal Reserve and the Mint fear competition, and would rather force competitors out using the federal court system and the threat of asset forfeiture than compete in the market.

A free society should shun this type of strong-arm action, and the Free Competition in Currency Act would take the necessary first steps to freeing the market for competing currencies. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Even though Ron Paul is in favor of the abolition of the very private Federal Reserve, this Act is beautiful in that it saves it for those that still believe in the fiat money system, while simply allowing freedom to scatter, smother and cover the monopoly money system. Who is for a monopoly? Who is against freedom? Those that swear allegiance to the Federal Reserve System are frightened to death of your freedom to choose sound money and cut the puppet strings with which we have been bound since 1913. You like the Fed? Ron Paul says you can keep it at the same time we once again legalize freedom with the Free Competition in Currency Act. You could always vote for Big Government by supporting Hillary, Barack or McCain. Or you could vote for freedom, even if you have to write him in. The name is Paul, Ron Paul. Free your mind by freeing your money and making it legal to have gold and silver as currency. What are you afraid of? A False Economy Appearing Real? We've already had that for quite a while now. A few years after Woodrow Wilson signed The Federal Reserve Act, he wrote the following:

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

Do we really need a full century of global bankers controlling the destiny of these united States of America? Is it time that we once again relied upon natural principles for proper economic foundation -- or do we relegate our posterity to a life of indentured servitude and slavery at the paper hands of international banksters? Pretend you have a choice and call your congressional representative to support H.R. 4683: Free Competition in Currency Act of 2007. Who do you think should coin money and regulate the value thereof?

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