Steve Bannon was recently on 60 Minutes waxing nostalgic about the "American System" of Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln and The Roosevelts. These were all proponents of central banking, corporate welfare, and endless debt. These are the problems that we face today, not the solution. Does Trump agree that we need the status quo?
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Interventionism's Perils
00:13:40
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| Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report. | |
| We once again are doing this by audio for various reasons, but we're delighted that we can reach you today. | |
| Co-host today is Chris Rossini, who is located in New Jersey. | |
| But today we have some interesting comments to make about a very well-viewed interview with Steve Bannon and also with Charlie Rose. | |
| It's been well covered, but I found it to be quite fascinating. | |
| Not that there were all surprises in there, but there was one comment in there that I thought was revealing as to what his true beliefs were, and then began to think how much influence did he have on Trump, and obviously a lot. | |
| He's close friend to Trump, and that was what the campaign was all about. | |
| But this interview was revealing in specific about talking about the philosophy. | |
| And Chris, I'm sure you got a peek at that. | |
| And I was just wondering if you had a comment about Steve Bannon and his interview. | |
| Yes, good morning. | |
| Great to be with you again, Dr. Paul. | |
| I did dig up the quote that really caught your attention, and I'll start by reading it now, and you could comment on it. | |
| So Steve Bannon said, quote, look at the 19th century. | |
| What built America is called the American system, from Hamilton to Polk to Henry Clay to Lincoln to the Roosevelts, the system of protection of our manufacturing, financial system that lends to manufacturers, okay, and the control of our borders. | |
| Economic nationalism is what this country was built on, the American system. | |
| End quote. | |
| What do you think, Dr. Paul? | |
| Well, you know, it is revealing because that is the American system. | |
| And he put a lot of history into that short little quote because many of us, and I'm sure most of our listeners would agree that there was a contest early in our history between Hamilton and Jefferson. | |
| And it's a continuation of a big government versus smaller government, free trade versus protectionism. | |
| And a lot of people don't know how to fit that in with Lincoln, I believe. | |
| You know, it's interesting about Lincoln. | |
| He was a protectionist, and he did strongly believe in the American system, but he also believes in a strong military for domestic purposes. | |
| That's what the American system argued for. | |
| But Lincoln was anti-war when it came to going along with an external war when the Mexican war was gearing up. | |
| He was opposed to that. | |
| So this all fits in together. | |
| And, of course, the big concern that so many people have had, including myself, is that once you have interventionism, which the American system is precisely an intervention for the benefit of the corporate elite, that it leads toward a fascist system and bankruptcy. | |
| And they also took a position, the people who believed in the American system that deficits weren't too bad, and that you had to take care of the corporations and grant them easy loans. | |
| In contrast to some people who thought that, well, the whole solution when it became more populistic is, no, that isn't good, just giving the money to the corporations. | |
| What we have to do is give it to the farmer and the poor people. | |
| So there's a little contest there. | |
| But there is no doubt that the American system is corporate welfare. | |
| And even today, you have so many examples of special tax breaks, which is fine, giving tax abatement, which is fine, which indicates that if you had less taxes, people would come and invest. | |
| But it's always for the big guys that get it. | |
| If you were a small little company moving into a town, they're not going to abate your taxes for five or ten years. | |
| But if you're a big corporation, you are. | |
| So it's a very biased system. | |
| It's not designed on freedom and property rights and free trade, this sort of thing. | |
| And really, there's a strong tendency for central banking. | |
| They like that. | |
| So they're fiat money people. | |
| Lincoln was called a greenbacker. | |
| So this fact that this connection between Bannon and the president, I think, is significant. | |
| It reveals, I think, more philosophically the deep connection and maybe what Trump sincerely believes. | |
| But some of us get confused sometimes because we don't know exactly what he believes, and sometimes he flip-flops. | |
| But for some reason, I don't think this should be ignored. | |
| Looking at somebody who has been very, very aggressive, helped Trump get elected, and all of a sudden reveals deeply exactly what he believes in. | |
| Yes, and when we look at the problems we have today, a lot of us realize that the government is corrupt and it's in bed with corporations. | |
| Well, that's what the American system, and that's such a terrible name because it has nothing to do with liberty or freedom. | |
| That's what it was set up to do. | |
| Alexander Hamilton, who Bannon referred to, was instrumental in creating the first central bank. | |
| It was called the First Bank of the United States. | |
| Now, it didn't survive, but he was instrumental in setting it up, and he wanted endless debt and said it would be a national blessing for this central bank to create endless debt that could be then used to scratch the back of the wealthy so that he would fuse the wealthy politically connected to the federal government. | |
| Henry Clay was the same thing. | |
| He wanted corporate welfare, and he had a big influence on Lincoln. | |
| And finally, Bannon mentioned the Roosevelts. | |
| Well, FDR, with his New Deal, he joined big business with government. | |
| That's what it was. | |
| They cartelized industry in the United States. | |
| So to me, Dr. Paul, it seems like Steve Bannon wants more of the same that created the problems we have today. | |
| Right. | |
| That is the case. | |
| It looks like the status quo throughout our history has been this. | |
| It looks like Hamilton did win the argument. | |
| And it's not Republicans versus Democrats, which we've argued all along. | |
| You take the Hillary-type Democrats and all the Democrats, even Obama, they went to Wall Street. | |
| Sometimes they collected more money from Wall Street. | |
| It didn't bother Wall Street, whether it was a Republican or Democrat, as long as this American system was perpetuated. | |
| And it became the status quo. | |
| And the American people are always begging and pleading, and they're seeing the failure. | |
| They're seeing the bankruptcy. | |
| We have to clean them out, clean out the swamp, and get rid of it. | |
| But how do you clean it out if the philosophy is still part of the status quo? | |
| I think Friday was a revealing statistic to tell us what is really happening with this system that's been going on for so long. | |
| And of course, I've been arguing for years that this system is coming to an end for financial reasons, and it will have to be revised and revamped. | |
| But on Friday, after they passed that bill to suspend the national debt limit, guess what? | |
| The national debt went up $317 billion in one day. | |
| So now we have topped that magical number of $20 trillion. | |
| Hamilton must be very pleased and sitting down like an I win, I win again. | |
| But when the dust settles, the people always lose. | |
| The stronger the government is, the weaker the people are. | |
| And right now, the strength of the government is growing and growing if you measure it by spending, printing money, and government debt. | |
| So this is why we face this crisis. | |
| And I've always argued it's a philosophic issue. | |
| It's not a management problem. | |
| And I think this demonstration on what really underpins the Trump administration fits that point. | |
| Yes, the people do always lose, unfortunately. | |
| And tariffs are one of the main ways that we lose. | |
| Tariffs are another way of saying we're going to tax you, America. | |
| Our government, when they erect a tariff, they don't tax the foreign nation. | |
| They tax us. | |
| We pay the tariff. | |
| And the tariff benefits the politically connected. | |
| That's what the American system is, to benefit the politically connected. | |
| Central banking benefits the politically connected. | |
| We know about Goldman Sachs and everybody that's close to the printing press. | |
| But Dr. Paul, if you could talk about tariffs also lead to war. | |
| Frederick Bastiat said, if goods can't cross borders, armies will. | |
| Can you please talk about that? | |
| Yes, and that's been going on for a long time. | |
| It's gotten worse. | |
| And this administration came in actually bragging about it and wanting to really have a trade war with China. | |
| It makes no sense, especially when in the middle of that trade war will be Korea. | |
| You know, the one friend of the Austrian school is Tom DiLorenzo has written a lot about this. | |
| So anybody who wants to follow up on the American system ought to look into Tom's work. | |
| You know, one thing that Tom pointed out, which is part of this system, is the American system believes in a large standing army in opposite to what Jefferson believed. | |
| But this wasn't with the idea that they pretended or preached foreign entanglement, foreign wars. | |
| And they actually believed you needed a strong standing army to maintain peace and order within the country. | |
| I guess they would be very pleased with the TSA and a lot of other Department of Homeland Security. | |
| So I think we're reaping the worst parts of this philosophy. | |
| And if we see it in this context and realize that economically this is unstable, that it ought to urge us even more to prepare for the day that we can participate in replacing it. | |
| I read, I think it was yesterday, Michael Roseff at LewRockwell.com. | |
| He wrote, he commented on this, and he said, tariffs didn't build America. | |
| He said America rose in spite of the many ill effects of tariffs. | |
| And he's correct about that because tariffs are taxes and taxes don't build. | |
| Taxes destroy. | |
| So Steve Bannon, who wants tariffs, and President Trump, who's barking out orders, get me tariffs, get me tariffs, I want to sign it. | |
| These are destructive actions. | |
| That's not what builds countries. | |
| That's what destroys them. | |
| What do you think, Dr. Paul? | |
| Yeah, I think they're a response to bad policies. | |
| You know, when a country gets into trouble with their economy for various reasons, over taxation or regulation or whatever, they think, well, we can't have the foreigners benefiting and selling us all these goods. | |
| They make a logical argument, so to speak, that you should put on tariffs and keep out the competition, but never addressing the fact that fiat money and high interest rates and interference and taxes, all these things are the problem. | |
| They just go and make it worse. | |
| But this could be said about the immigration. | |
| So basically, the American system says, I don't know if they ever said no immigration. | |
| I doubt if they said that, but they were not pro-immigrant, which, you know, if you have a healthy, vibrant economy designed to protect liberty and offer no subsidies and bailouts and privileges for people who come in and invade and get the benefits from the welfare system, you know, there's nothing wrong. | |
| There's always a need for people. | |
| But instead of correcting the problems, what you do, just like they add on the tariffs, well, they add on this anti-immigrant stuff where every immigrant and everybody that comes in and takes jobs that our American citizens won't take, even though there's so many unemployed. | |
| Well, where do these jobs come from? | |
| You know, why don't they take them? | |
| Well, there's logical reasons for this because people act in their own self-interest. | |
| And if the welfare system is pretty generous, going to work might not pay. | |
| And so other people who are really determined who come here, it's a different story. | |
| But this does not mean that this is the explanation why you have open borders. | |
| Matter of fact, it explains what the problem is and what we have to do. | |
| So cracking down on the borders won't solve the problem if you don't solve the problem of free market economics and also the idea that welfare isn't both in its destructiveness here at home as well as the cost to the immigration. | |
| Just think of the migrants that come in under UN orders. | |
| They get big bonuses and I've been told they get moved up to the front of the line for some of their benefits. | |
|
The Big Picture on Borders
00:03:01
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| Well, that's insane. | |
| But that doesn't mean we should throw out the principles that the freer the markets are, the better, and the freer travel is, the better. | |
| There's no reason why you can't have a generous work program without assuming that they're going to be a voting citizen within six months, or even if they're not legal, let them vote and let them vote for more welfare. | |
| That's suicidal. | |
| But this to me still boils down to not understanding free market economics and making the right corrections and just going along and like you suggested, like the status quo. | |
| Are we going to have a continuation of the status quo under this administration? | |
| And I'm afraid to anticipate what that answer might be. | |
| Yes. | |
| I mean, we keep, we're seeing now Hillary Clinton coming out again and blaming why she lost, why she lost. | |
| Honestly, it really has made no difference. | |
| Donald Trump has kept the welfare state going. | |
| He's kept the warfare state going. | |
| He's gone back on a lot of promises. | |
| Some of them, it's good that he's gone back on them. | |
| But there really has been no change once again. | |
| And with this philosophy that Steve Bannon wants to embrace, that's no change either. | |
| We're already reaping the fruits of this American system. | |
| We need to go in another direction, which is liberty and free markets and private property and voluntary choices. | |
| These words are not being uttered by Bannon, by Trump, by anyone around other than your son, Dr. Paul. | |
| And I believe that that's the direction we should go. | |
| That should be the American system, not this crony capitalist favoritism, political connectedness system that we have that is continuing as we speak now. | |
| And Chris, I think that's a very good summary, and we're going to need to close right now. | |
| And I want to thank our listeners for tuning in today. | |
| And I think it is important to realize and see the big picture. | |
| And the big picture is that this philosophic argument has been going on for a long, long time. | |
| There's variations of it. | |
| But ultimately, it should boil down to the understanding of personal liberty and self-reliance and responsibility versus an aggressive government that believes that people aren't capable of taking care of themselves, the market doesn't work, and gold standards are restrained, especially they don't want to restrain the government spending. | |
| So I think this is in many ways a very, very important issue to call to attention. | |
| I hope a lot of more people will now look at the American system and how that blends into traditions. | |
| And right now it's really getting a great boost. | |
| And something has to change. | |
| And I think that's where I see the changes coming is that philosophically, especially with young people, they're looking for different ideas. | |
| But I want to thank everybody for tuning in today. | |