Ron Paul's Letter in the Wall Street Journal

Posted March 3rd, 2008 by Michael Nystrom

The following letter to the editor by Ron Paul appeared in Friday's (2/29) Wall Street Journal:

I was delighted to read in Judy Shelton’s op-ed, “Security and the Falling Dollar” (Feb. 15), that at long last the security implications of the dollar’s collapse have made their way into the mainstream media. The dollar’s strength (or lack thereof) has been of paramount concern to me, and the subject of many of my statements over the past several years. Decades of manipulation by the Federal Reserve have benefited the government and certain politically-connected firms, while gradually destroying the purchasing power of middle-class Americans. Despite numerous warnings in the past, it is only now at a point of acute crisis that Washington insiders are beginning to awaken to the reality of the end of dollar hegemony.

While I desire reform of our current monetary system, my own proposals have not been as all-encompassing as Ms. Shelton’s suggestion to return to a Bretton Woods-style system. Her recommendation, though, that gold backing should make up a component of a future monetary system, is one that we would all do well to heed. My own legislative proposals focus around eliminating the taxes and laws that dissuade individuals and institutions from using gold as currency or as a backing for currency. By allowing market processes to determine the issuance of currency, we can allow individuals to decide for themselves what currency they wish to use. This would lead to a gradual reintroduction of sound money and avoid the market shocks that occur when monetary decisions are mandated by government fiat.

Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas)
Washington

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RP says more of worth in a two paragraph letter to the editor

On March 4th, 2008 AK4RP2012 says:

than the other candidates combined say all election season. Incredible!

Ditto that...

On March 4th, 2008 Achilles says:

These others are posers compared to RP.

that none of the other Presidential candidates have a clue as to the collapse of the dollar as Dr. Paul has. Instead they pretend to want to help us by instilling fear in groups...old folks with no social security, low income families with no welfare or healthcare and all Americans are unsafe unless we continue to war for another 100 years.

This is absolutely insane. My God, what exactly will it take before American's get up off of their butt, open their eyes, stop believing the MSM and think for themselves.

Makes you wonder what people "really" want.

On March 3rd, 2008 alaney says:

The politicians have been enjoying monopoly money for so long by passing it around to their districts and constituants, that nobody wants the game to end........but as Ron Paul points out, it will end. Even the average "Joe" on the street doesn't want to hear the diagnosis. They'd rather ride the ship down as long as possible, instead of taking corrective action. The Feds and world banksters sure don't want the merry go round to stop, so they keep "inventing" new marketable securities to transact, and the plot just keeps getting more bizzare. About half our population lives off the government in some form or fashion these days. Whether you're a fireman, tax preparer, work for Boeing, or any other defense contractor, blackwater, cop, social security, judge, teacher.......the list is incredibly encompassing. No wonder that Ron Paul has opposition. I think people are scared for their gov't livelyhood, but they needn't be.

Spot on

On March 3rd, 2008 Davy C Rockett says:

People don't want to admit big government does not work, cause they are so wrapped up into the monopoly money the government keeps handing out.
I heard somewhere they were having trouble paying social workers here in America. It reminded me of what was happening to Russia's Army (government fed workers) before the USSR collapsed.

This article actually explains well why this works

On March 3rd, 2008 JohnGalt300 says:

Fortune Favors the Bold

the title is just a coincidence... I think.

http://www.law.com/jsp/ny...

One Other Issue Must Be Addressed In Order For This To Happen

On March 2nd, 2008 arizona steve says:

One other issue that should be addressed in connection with such a proposed bill as this, is the issue of the re-stocking of what I believe to be the empty gold reserve storage vaults at West Point and Fort Knox necessary to carry out such a wonderful plan. In order to accomplish this task successfully, we would need to include a number of amendments that would get the Goverment off the backs of the small miners, in particular. The larger miners have the staff and a fleet of attorney's to successfully beat the BLM and other Federal and some State agencies in court who continue to try and circumvent the 1872 mining law's and are greatly influenced and lobbied by Invironmental Wacko's who want this country to return to a time just after the last Ice Age. An example of this is their recent push to eliminate all forest roads, even fire roads, as well as many other silly demands. A common sense approach between the miners and local officials, leaving Washington, DC approvals and Invironmentalists out of the equation would go a long ways in helping to increase our mineral production in this country. In addition, by freeing up the mining industry in country hundreds of thousand of new jobs would be created and sections of this country would experience major economic booms. We must remember that many cities sprang up and others were greatly expanded as a result of mining activites. A few of this cities were San Francisco, Portland Oregon, Sacramento, Reno, Boise, Carson City, Phoenix and many others. The Catapillar Equipment company was founded by a miner and so were many other famous business, including Levi clothing.

RP is Brilliant

On March 2nd, 2008 bbagnall says:

I've always struggled with "Should we go back to gold?" and weighing the pros and cons. RP breaks through that BS and just says let the markets decide what currency they want. We allow credit cards, Paypal and other things to happen. Let's just let the currency be handled by the free markets and see what materializes. He's brilliant and has put to sleep that niggling question I always had.

Good grief

On March 2nd, 2008 ShineTheLight says:

What is America waiting for. Dr. Paul is right in front of their faces.

I hear you. It's bizarre.

On March 2nd, 2008 bbagnall says:

I hear you. It's bizarre. Everyone complains and says they want someone to make it better, he comes along and look how they react. It's telling that the Internet embraced him (no media influence) while the rest of America did not. I think the media is to blame.

This is a measure ...

On March 3rd, 2008 MichaelMcC says:

Ron Paul is very convincing: He's an honest politician, promoting freedom, with understandable policies and believable counter-arguments to claims that they won't work. Most of those who hear his arguments in full and undistorted become supporters.

In the handfull of old-media outlets there is a conspiracy of silence, punctuated by occasional ridicule. On the Internet, where his message can't be censored, there is massive support for him - translating into record financing and volunteer campaign support. But even combined with a multi-million dollar advertising campaign and massive grass-roots campaigning it doesn't translate into more than single-digit election percentages among the population at large.

So the Ron Paul campaign is a measure of how far along the population is in the switch from old-media news sources to the Internet. We've still got a long way to go - like a factor of 20.

= = = =

Doubling time by internet word-of-mouth was about 2 months. At that rate, if the campaign had started 6 months earlier, he'd have been the runaway nomination winner with 40% or more of the vote. (Real-world non-internet-assisted word-of-mouth may be slower, though...)

One good thing that has come out of this campaign is the exposure of media bias on the right-wing side. In particular, Fox News has exposed itself as covering only one of the four or so major anti-leftist factions, leaving the others unserved. This opens the way for another new news outlet to capture the advertising revenue from those other factions. Meanwhile, the money bombs show that at least the libertarian faction has plenty of disposable income to chase. (Imagine a news network with a libertarian, rather than a neocon or "progressive", point of view. B-) )

interesting

On March 3rd, 2008 Pdubya says:

...although i know all of the real reasons why people aren't choosing paul: media blackout, cfr marginilization, GOP blackballed...etc....still, at the pub yesterday one guy says: man, i like this ron paul guy...why is he getting into this so late into the game?

its just plain sad, really. but, JUST KEEP POUNDING.