Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- The Federal Reserve - Enemy of American Workers
Aired: 2022-02-25
Duration: 04:30


=== Federal Reserve's Hidden Cost (04:14) ===

[00:00:03]  Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.
[00:00:08]  The Federal Reserve, Enemy of American Workers.
[00:00:13]  According to numbers released by the U.S. government, consumer prices have increased by 7.5% in the past year, the steepest increase since 1982.
[00:00:26]  The actual price increases are even worse than the government numbers suggest, given that the official statistics are manipulated to understate the real rate of price increases.
[00:00:39]  According to John Williams of Shadowstats, prices have actually increased by around 15% over the past year.
[00:00:49]  The fact that prices remain at historically high levels shows that inflation is far from transitory, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell had described it.
[00:01:00]  The continuing inflation has led the Federal Reserve Board to suggest the Fed will start increasing interest rates earlier than previously announced.
[00:01:10]  The Fed may also break with its practice of only raising rates by 25 basis points at a time and increase rates by increments of up to 50 basis points.
[00:01:23]  However, the increases the Fed is discussing would still leave interest rates at historic lows.
[00:01:30]  Thus, such interest rate increases would do little or nothing to ease the pain rising prices cause for average consumers.
[00:01:41]  Most policy experts and politicians, including President Biden, support interest rate increases to deal with inflation.
[00:01:49]  However, opponents of rate increases fear that increasing interest rates will slow economic growth, increase unemployment, and depress wages.
[00:02:01]  These progressives believe the old fallacy that workers benefit from easy money.
[00:02:08]  The truth is workers are inflation's main victims.
[00:02:13]  Workers may see their nominal pay, pay adjusted for inflation, increase while the Fed-produced price increases cause real wages to plummet.
[00:02:25]  This increases the elite's purchasing power, further income inequality.
[00:02:32]  The Federal Reserve's creation of new money does more than erode the value of the currency.
[00:02:38]  It also artificially lowers interest rates, which are the price of money.
[00:02:44]  This distorts the signals sent to market actors, leading to investment decisions that do not reflect the real conditions of the market.
[00:02:54]  The result is a temporary boom, followed by a bus.
[00:02:58]  Workers who find new jobs in the boom lose their jobs in the bus.
[00:03:03]  These workers are then not just unemployed.
[00:03:08]  They also are often saddled with unmanageable debt incurred during the low interest rates, easy money phase of the business cycle.
[00:03:18]  Progressives could help workers by joining the movement for market-based money.
[00:03:24]  Free market money will be safe from government manipulation and thus its value will remain stable.
[00:03:31]  A step toward restoring a free market monetary system is letting the people know the truth about the Federal Reserve by passing audit the Fed.
[00:03:42]  Another step is legalizing alternative currencies by repealing legal tender laws and ending all capital gains taxes on precious metals and cryptocurrencies.
[00:03:53]  Congress must also begin to cut spending, starting by making major cuts in our $750 billion military budget and ending all corporate welfare.
[00:04:07]  The money benefits financial and political cities at the expense of working people whose standard of living is eroded by the Federal Reserve action.

=== Working Man's Friend (00:12) ===

[00:04:18]  As a Texas labor leader once told me, Gold has always been the working man's friend.
[00:04:25]  I would add that fiat money is the worker's foe.