Ron Paul: The Bailout Surge
by Ron Paul | Texas Straight Talk
November 24, 2008
This week the bailout of the Big Three automakers was under heavy consideration in Congress’s lame duck session. I have always opposed government bailouts of private organizations. Back in 1979 Congress had hearings about bailing out Chrysler and I was on record pointing out that these types of policies are foolish and very damaging to the long term economic health of our country. They still are.
There was also renewed pressure this week to bailout homeowners and send another round of stimulus checks to “Main Street” to balance out all the handouts to big business. It seems that eventually the entire economy is going to be blanketed over with Federal Reserve notes. Most in Washington are completely oblivious as to why this model of money creation and spending is so dangerous.
We must remember that governments do not produce anything. Their only resources come from producers in the economy through such means as inflation and taxation. The government has an obligation to be good stewards of these resources. In bailing out failing companies, they are confiscating money from productive members of the economy and giving it to failing ones. By sustaining companies with obsolete or unsustainable business models, the government prevents their resources from being liquidated and made available to other companies that can put them to better, more productive use. An essential element of a healthy free market, is that both success and failure must be permitted to happen when they are earned. But instead with a bailout, the rewards are reversed – the proceeds from successful entities are given to failing ones. How this is supposed to be good for our economy is beyond me.
With each bailout we hear rhetoric that this is the mother of all bailouts. This will fix the problem once and for all, and that this is absolutely necessary to avert disaster. This sense of panic squeezes astonishing amounts of dollars out of reluctant but hopeful legislators, who hate the position they are being put in, but are relieved that it will be the last time. It is never the last time, and again and again we are faced with the same scenarios and the same fears. We are already in the bailout business for such a staggering amount that admitting it was wrong in the first place would be too embarrassing. So the commitment to this course of action is only irrationally escalated, in the hopes that somehow, someway eventually it will work and those in power won’t have to admit they were wrong.
It won’t work. It can’t work. We need to cut our losses and get back on course. There is too much at stake for too many people to continue down this road. The bailouts thus far to AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, and TARP funds amount to around $1.5 trillion. Considering our GDP is $14 trillion, and our Federal budget is already $3 trillion, this additional amount will significantly eat into our future lifestyles. That amounts to an extra $5,000 that every person in the country needs to somehow produce just to keep up. It is obvious to most Americans that we need to reject corporate cronyism, and allow the natural regulations and incentives of the free market to pick the winners and losers in our economy, not the whims of bureaucrats and politicians.
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Another round of stimulus checks?
I don't believe it. I'm calling this one a stunt to make people overspend for Christmas, and then in January they'll tell us - hey! the country is broke! We can't afford stimulus checks, we have to raise taxes instead! Be patriotic now.
Bah humbug.
http://www.cafepress.com/...
The gov't is stealing
our money and doing whatever they darn well want with it. Is our country too drugged up on meds and video games to get angry about this and do something? These bailouts are taxation without representation. I do not own a house, have an unreliable american car, or do business with any financial firms. Why should I pay for any of this?
Addicts - Throw the dice, buy another lottery ticket...
They're addicts selling our stuff and borrowing our savings and gambling, deperately hoping to win big in time to pay it all back before we find out and kick them out of office.
Politicians are elected for their people skills and charisma; they usually know nothing about being responsible with money and don't understand economics. Unfortunately, neither do voters.
All of us do much better with our own money than with someone else's.
IMissLiberty
Voting for the Lesser Evil? http://www.inductionworks...
A New GOP
The GOP needs to completely rethink itself. As seen in emperor-elect Obama's campaign, he creatively used the internet to garner the youth support (except from me!) and to raise funds. Ron Paul used the same techniques during the primary season. If only the GOP begins to discover the value of blogging and internet activism, it will then begin to seen a transformation into the 21st century.
http://ronpaulkid.blogpso...
http://ronpaulkid.blogspot.com
I have a question: Why do our politicians not see our budget crisis and the need to stop spending? Time for a change in congress?
They don't understand the
They don't understand the Broken Window Fallacy.
This demonstrates how all the forms of "economic stimulus" operate by stealing and misdirecting resources that otherwise would produce an amount of economic activity at least equal in price and typically greater in perceived value.
Maybe Ron needs to read them the Parable of the Broken Window.
Not willful destruction
I often see these statements on Daily Paul, and don't understand the reasoning behind them. In the long run, the elite would screw themselves, too, if they bring the economy to its knees. So why would the elite willfully destroy the U.S. economy? Granted, the really smart ones probably know that freedom is the only real answer, but I think that they have no idea how to sell freedom to people who are conditioned to not have to deal with painful consequences. So as they take actions to postpone (and exacerbate) the inevitable, they hope and pray that it doesn't occur on their watch.
Different degrees of elite
Fortune Favors the Bold
well said!!
well said!!
I say let them destroy the economy. Can't stop them anyway.
It will just hasten the day when the masses have such miserable lives that they have nothing to lose by rebelling to throw off the shackles of slavery.
There is absolutely no way that we are going to gain our freedom at the ballot box or in the Halls of Congress, or by demonstrations where just a few thousand people show up. They just laugh at us and our inconsequential numbers, and frankly they are right; the core of freedom loving people in this country is truly inconsequential, and the masses are oblivious.
The Economy is Stronger than They Imagine
They can't destroy the economy even with ten times this many bailouts. They can destroy the US Dollar and are madly headed in that direction. But people and companies are smarter about their own survival than the establishment imagines. Ways will be found around every attempt by government to "manage" the economic lives of Americans and American businesses.
Let's not hope for or wish for a collapse. We don't really want that. Instead, let's continue to point out to all who might listen: who is creating the chaos, why they are doing it, and the exact consequences of their actions. Let's seize all opportunities to replace the mis-managers with better stewards of the public good.
ac
liberty yields harmony; tyrany yields chaos
It's worse than you think!
As someone who has attended the annual March for Life in Washington DC almost every January since the early 1990s. where a HUNDRED THOUSAND TO A QUARTER MILLION PEOPLE typically show up to march, and lobby, I can tell you that the elite will ignore any number of demonstrators, while the media gives token coverage (a few inches in a newspaper or, perhaps, 30 seconds on TV) to the event. So demonstrating is a waste of time ... unless, of course, your cause is politically correct ... global warming, for instance.
The only thing that gets their attention is when gun sales go up. Instinctively, they assume that they are the targets.
For those who haven't visited DC in the last 10 years or so, every federal building now has a barrier of enormous concrete flower pots (or other "decorative" monstrosities around it. It's not foreign terrorists that worry them, it's us.
And gun sales HAVE gone up.
News says they're up 30% in Florida since the "economic downturn" and the election. Clerk at a gun store / range in Milipitas CA guesstimated they're up 40% at that store. (I should ask the manager for a real number rather than depend on the clerk's gut feeling...)
Not sure how much is for defense against looters and how much is arming before a perceived increased risk of gun bans or gun-purchase hurdles from a Democrat victory. But I bet the politicos are getting very nervous. (Especially after the economic-downturn riots in Iceland.)
Let's hope that Ron Paul has
Let's hope that Ron Paul has built support within the ranks of our military officers. I sure hope he did not waste all his time on diplomatic endeavors.
Heaven is on the way, until then lets get the truth out! www.GreenvilleRoad.info
If presidential campaign contributions are any indication...
... there's no shortage of knowledge of and support for Ron among our military.
Free Trade Transfered Wealth to China, America should be first.
Free-Trade has transfered wealth to China and now we barrow from their surplus of wealth we used to produce here in the U.,S. , a wealth derived from making and our own capacity to manufacture our own products and services. Now the automotive industry in the last bastion of America's dying industrial capacity. I am opposed to Ron Paul on this issue. He is not very clear of Free-Trade, We have closed our factories and moved them to China, where they now benefit from trade surpluses - in effect- is a transfer of wealth from this country to theirs, This is treason of the highest order, this is what globalism has done to us. Ron Paul should espouse a Libertarian ideology of America first, the rest of world second. Pat Buchanan has been right on this issue of Free-Trade as being nothing more than a transfer of wealth.
we don't have "free trade"
We have corporate-managed trade. Big government regulation favors big corporations in our current communist system, stifling real competition.
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"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained." -Mahatma Gandhi
HEAR HEAR!!
Dr. Paul's words are well received. The morons in Washington, D.C. are ignorant and either stupid or crazy, enmasse. Besides being Constitutionally illegal, our monetary system has failed and these people continue down the same path?
Constitutionalists continue to spread the word. Washington, you are fired. Resign now without perks and retirements. As its been said before, "get out now while the gettin' is good." Hereafter, Constitutionalists need only apply.
I'm wondering when will be the breaking point which will cause for massive Constitution rallies or protests. In what way will such outcries be expressed and organized? For example, non-payment of taxes (www.thelawthatneverwas.co...). What percentage of the "neighborhood" would be necessary to significantly impact the status quo? Above or below 50%? At what risk to bodily injury must the people persevere and to whom? Is it an issue?
There is no law
that obligates most Americans to pay income on the fruit of their labor. But when I went to the site referenced above, I didn't have to read very far before coming upon on of the most misunderstood reasons for thinking that the government has the right to tax all "income". The statement, "The authority of the federal government to collect its income tax depends upon the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the federal income tax amendment, which was allegedly ratified in 1913." This statement is patently false, and whether the 16th Amendment was ratified or not is a moot point in relation to whether there is a "law" or not. In reality, the 16th Amendment granted created no new taxing power. If you want to learn the truth about taxation in America and how to lawfully stop paying it go to www.losthorizons.com
It is very obvious
and there is no doubt that this is not being done out of ignorance, but very much on purpose. They are getting the results they want. Talking about it hopefully will serve the purpose to make people understand that it is bad, if they cannot see that for themselves. Then hopefully they will want to do something to make a difference, but they think right now that is what BO is going to do.
Hmmmm?? How many $s will it take in bailouts to crush the American economy and bring it to its knees? Just how strong are we any way? How close are we to folding over?
Al K. Duh loves bailouts...
...and hates our freedom.
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"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained." -Mahatma Gandhi
I can't beleive
at what's going on with these bailouts...I heard on the way home yesterday that some major tv networks will be asking for some type of bailout next...speachless!!
"We dare not forget that we are heirs of that first revolution" -JFK
Once again, thank you Ron
Once again, thank you Ron Paul for your insight.
It's beyond me too Dr
It's beyond me too Dr Paul.......
Liquidate the bad debt
This is worse than a waste of time for our government to be thinking of more places to throw away the peoples money. The government has lost all credibility - why are they never contrite?
For example, they should be slashing the budget and ending the unsustainable war machine. If we are not willing to live within our means and to stop running the largest trade deficit on the planet, this other stuff is simply a feel good diversion.