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Dec. 23, 2022 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
23:53
Is This The Mania Phase Of The Big Government Bubble?

The terrible "progressive" idea that the U.S. government is meant to manage the lives of American citizens (along with the world at large) has failed as expected. Towards the end of failed arrangements, the ambitious scramble to grab whatever they can, while they can. It seems like we've reached that point, doesn't it?

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Time Text
Family Gathering Time 00:01:58
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Chris Rossani, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good, and Merry Christmas.
Christmas is just upon us, and I'm sure you're preparing for Christmas.
Yes, looking forward to spending time with the family this year, as we do every year.
It's always a great time.
Yes.
You know, for many years, we lived in a rather small house compared to the size of our family.
But my wife always, like a lot of people, including myself, would like to build their house.
So it wasn't too long ago.
We did decide when I was leaving Congress we built a house.
But my wife had one request.
No, she had two requests.
I had one.
I wanted a nice office space into my house where I could do my work.
But she does a lot of sewing and quilting.
So she wanted a nice quilting room, and she has a nice quilting room and does a lot.
But she also wanted a big family room.
And she got that too.
So we do have family events in Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The family gets together and the family is still growing.
And we have to sit down and think about all the names and numbers to make sure everybody gets a gift.
So we will have a good time.
The big room is big enough to hold a lot of people.
And we were hoping to do some caroling, which we've never done before.
Just get all the kids together.
And this was an idea I had.
Just get the kids together the evening before.
And it's scheduled for the Christmas time.
Well, it looks like as we're doing this progress, we don't know whether we're going to do it because the cold front is coming through.
But there'll be no snow for Christmas.
No More Extremes Needed 00:10:01
But we will have a good time and we generally will.
So it's a good time of year.
It's a good time of the year when we can think about the very positive things.
And, you know, just thinking that frequently the Christ is recognized as the Prince of Peace.
And that is one thing that I think is very positive because, of course, our goals in our program here is to promote peace and prosperity.
I don't think it's complicated.
I think it's just everybody ought to be nice to people.
But there's a lot of meanness out there.
We're seeing it now.
And we have to deal with it.
And you and I have dealt with it so much over the last several years dealing with the finances.
When you have a system of government that lives in and people who become less moral and spend money, borrow money, over-regulate, and do all the things we've been doing, we can get some problems.
And that's what we're facing.
And right now, today, this very year, Chris, you know, we talk a lot about the monetary policy and the inflation.
And a lot of people still don't know the exact definition of inflation because I think of it, that's the money.
When the money is inflated and you increase it, you know, lo and behold, there's a pretty good chance you're going to have prices rising.
Then when the prices start to go up, the people say, hey, there's inflation.
What are we going to do about this?
Then they talk about, well, right now, the president is, oh, no, Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
He's saying, we need more control on wages.
And some of the administration say, well, we need more control on profits.
We need more control on the prices of things.
And yet they don't talk about what really has to be done.
So there's a lot of talk, Chris, always avoiding it.
And I think, you know, there was a time when I thought, well, it's just semantics.
You should qualify it and say monetary inflation and price inflation, make sure everybody understands.
But I was reading human action, and Mises says, no, this is on purpose.
They do this on purpose because they don't want you to think.
Because if you emphasize money, then you emphasize spending, you don't want to restrain spending, and then you emphasize the Federal Reserve and it should quit printing money.
He says they don't like that.
So you have to say it's something else.
And that's why they go after wages and prices and profits and business people.
So that is where people should start is getting the definition straight, because otherwise they'll join in the gang that says, you know what?
You know, the prices are going up.
We need to do something about this.
We need to regulate these prices or send me more money.
Look at what we did for the economy at the time COVID hit and that was blown out of proportion.
At the same time, the Fed's recession was embarking, and that's where we are today.
So, Chris, I think that it's very clear that there's lots of problems there that aren't too difficult.
And you, quite frequently in the last couple of years, have identified that quite frequently.
So give us your thoughts today about where the inflation is going.
Well, Dr. Paul, you mentioned before we started that the Fed was enacted or passed on December 23rd, back in 1920, 13.
So we're talking over 100 years now that this institution that should not exist, you know, has been with us and has been creating problems.
Now, distortions and stuff that shouldn't exist, you know, it could last for a while.
But towards the end, you know, that's when you start to see manias.
You start to see things that go to extremes.
And I feel, and Dr. Paul, you've said this for years, that we're coming to the end of this, you know, failed institution because they're losing control completely.
They create by the trillions.
It seems another, you did another show today about Ukraine.
They can't get rid of our money fast enough, it seems like.
And this is the mania phase, I believe.
Now, mania phases, can it last another year, another two years?
Possibly.
I don't know.
This is a very big thing that we're talking about.
This isn't a small Ponzi scheme.
This is the biggest one of them all.
So it could last a while.
But, you know, anybody who has been through the stock market bubble, the housing bubble, you remember the mania part of it, where, you know, stuff was happening that just did not make sense.
I remember stocks going up $150 a day for no reason whatsoever.
And during the housing bubble, people were buying and flipping houses down in Florida that they never even saw.
You know, that's how, so when things get so out of whack, and that's what I see our government as now.
It is totally out of whack.
They can't get in control of it.
So, you know, events will turn in whatever way that they turn to finally put an end to this disastrous institution that they created.
Very good.
You know, I look at it as a bankruptcy, a moral bankruptcy as well as a financial bankruptcy.
And people don't want to look at the precise definitions and why it isn't as complicated as they want it to be.
And they could think of money in a different fashion.
But the bankruptcy is what the founders feared because they made statements at the very beginning that we have a republic and we have a constitution, but it's not going to be worth much if the people don't have a moral standard.
And I'm afraid that we're at a point where that has disappeared.
And the one thing that they accept, which is going to be very difficult because it's so ingrained, is very bipartisan, unfortunately.
And that is that the transfer of wealth is legitimate.
You do that for good things.
It isn't the transfer of wealth when somebody has enough wealth where they can donate and help and have charities.
No, I'm talking about the principle of transfer of wealth and the manipulation of regulations and the manipulation of spending, all these things to take care of special interests.
One example would be the military-industrial complex.
They love what's going on in Ukraine, you know, because they don't even care how many weapons get blown up because they get another new order and they have to go build some more.
So the bankruptcy, I think, is both moral and financial.
The end of the crisis is coming because we see it, because the system is bad.
The dollar has been the reserve currency for 100 years, and they don't last forever.
They usually end up with financing things that don't have long life, and that is they finance a military-industrial complex, then they have the spreading of their empire, and it finally comes to an end.
And I think we're there.
And there's not many people, even on both sides of the aisle, they like that.
They're currently passing the biggest budget ever.
And it's going to be a bipartisan vote to finally pass the thing.
So they continue to do that.
And yet, the principle of taking money from one group and giving it to another is something that should be addressed too.
Bastiat wrote a book called The Law, and he makes a point in the law that said that if you and I as individuals can't do it, a thing, then the government can't do it.
That is, if you and I can't go into a store and rob and steal and can't steal from our neighbor, the government shouldn't be able to do it.
But what do we have?
We allow it to happen.
We encourage it.
And the people have all these political action groups.
They get together, you know, and they try to organize so that they are on the receiving end.
But eventually the country goes broke and the debt then becomes to the point where it has to be liquidated.
You have to get rid of the debt because you can't have growth when the debt is so huge.
And that's what's happening now.
There's the market saying the debt has to be liquidated.
At the same time, the business people, the bankers, and the politicians and all the special interests say, oh, no, keep it going, keep it going.
And so it's a contest between deflation and inflation.
And right now, the inflation and destruction of the value of the dollar will continue for a lot longer.
But we'd have to have a change in attitude.
And we've been talking about that for years at least.
And I have gotten a lot of attention.
A lot of people are interested in getting rid of the Federal Reserve because that's the source of all this nonsense.
Finances, everything else.
And it's been very much tolerated.
But It's coming to the point where people are losing confidence around the world, even though they've accepted the dollars that are still due to a large degree.
Less and less, there's federal banks buying gold and making plans and trying to put it together.
This week it was announced that Australia was thinking about what to do and how to protect themselves.
And they've been buying gold.
So there will be plans.
What Happened with Gold Plans? 00:02:56
It'll take time, but we don't know what will happen.
But it will be a major event, Chris.
Right, Dr. Paul.
And, you know, when this all comes undone, it's easy to say that it will come to undone, but it's very impossible to say how because there's just too many variables involved.
We're the exact opposite of the central planners.
They try to get every single minutiae data that they think they can control and maneuver.
And we're on the other side saying, hey, that's impossible.
You're never going to do it.
And what will bring them down, you know, is unknown too.
Think of what happened with what just happened with Twitter.
Nobody ever thought that they would be exposed the way that Elon Musk is exposing them.
It costs $44 billion.
That just shows that change always comes from the least expected places.
In Christmas time, anybody who is familiar with biblical stories knows that the most unexpected people, the people you would never think would ever do anything, end up doing these great things.
So that's our lives are filled with mystery.
And the sad part about it is the people that think that they are here to try to control things, can control every single aspect.
Life is far too complex.
They never do it.
They never will.
The only problem is they create a lot of problems.
Now, that gives us a job because we point out that what they're doing will not work and is always going to create more problems.
But it's, you know, it's tough for humanity because we have to deal with the ramifications of these people.
But in the end, you know, we're not here to control every little minutiae involved because it's simply impossible.
You know, we have a lot of people come to our station and our program to look for what do you do about it?
How do you handle all this?
And that is a big question.
And I think that everybody has a right and a duty to think, what can I do?
How can I protect myself?
How can I take care of my family?
And I think the one thing is that you can do things.
I think the most important thing is to understand the issues so you know what to promote.
And I think education is very, very important.
And that's why I have a homeschooling program.
And it's, to me, to solve the problems, you have to see it in a bigger picture.
The one thing is, is, you know, all the pro-big government people, you know, from the Keynesians all the way up to communism, they're interventionists.
Understanding the Bigger Picture 00:08:54
They want to intervene and tell you how to live and tell you how to spend your money and all these things.
So you have to separate that and say that, no, a society that emphasizes liberty versus intervention is a big difference.
And that is not complicated.
You want things to be voluntary and nonviolent.
That's about the only rule you really have to follow.
Just have all activities, social and educational, the whole works, would be voluntary.
And I do have still other people say, well, what else can you do?
Well, you know, 1971 was a big day for me when the Bretton Woods broke down.
And that is when the gold standard was, you know, destroyed.
They quit paying out gold to defend the dollar.
And for that reason, that's one thing that I have done.
I've talked about gold for a long, long time.
Matter of fact, it was Bretton Woods and the introduction to this runaway inflation, continuous spending to the point where we are now.
So I have advised and I had been a coin collector as a kid and was disappointed when I could no longer find silver in the coins.
And even I was shocked when we couldn't even afford to have copper in our pennies.
So we had a gold standard and a silver standard, and then we had a copper standard.
So it's pretty bad.
Now we have a paper standard and that will not work.
But I have another thing to do.
We partner with Birch Gold Company for other ways to protect assets because there are assets that you can buy.
You still have to worry about the government.
That's the whole thing.
But in the meantime, having assets like gold and silver, I think, is very, very important.
And sometimes you can have programs where you can put that in your retirement fund.
So if you're interested in that, there's a text number at the bottom of the page here where you can text and Birch can say, we'll send you a package.
It's free.
You don't have to pay for the information on how you might be able to use the advice and make use of gold and silver as a protection of the devaluation of the currency.
You know, what we have to think of, it's the currency that's bad.
It's not that the prices are going up because somebody's gouging.
So I think it is important for all of us to do that because it's a lot better than what we have now.
Because the more people who understand, you know, both the philosophy on why you have to quit spending or why you should do things to preserve the value of the currency, rather than saying, you know, it's the working man.
He wants too much for his labor.
It's the businessman.
He wants to have too much profits.
It's the bankers that charge too much interest rate.
All these things, that's a distraction.
It's a distraction from the real problem.
And the problem starts with too much spending and then too much printing of the money.
And then nobody wants to buy the debt.
So we have the Federal Reserve to buy the debt.
And there is a limit to that.
Chris, you have a follow-up?
Yeah, I have one more comment to make.
And it's relative to what you were talking about, what we should do.
We can only do what we can for ourselves and for our families in the end, besides speaking.
That's how you can help people.
But the best thing is to adopt these ideas that are peaceful ideas.
This isn't a religious program, but the ideas that we expound here have religious undertones to them.
Don't harm other people.
Don't take their stuff.
Yet we live in a world where people are obsessed with these things.
They don't care about harming people in other parts of the world.
They don't see it.
Let them, you know, whatever.
Go fight them.
They have no problem taking other people's stuff if the politician says that they'll do it.
And this is hard to resist.
The politician is there to tempt you.
How would you like this?
Wouldn't you like this for free?
I can make this happen for you.
Just vote for me and I'll do this for you.
Of course, he's lying to you.
He's not going to do anything for you.
But these are the temptations that people have to deal with.
And a lot of people succumb.
Most people succumb.
So, the best you can do for yourself, for your family, to teach your kids, is to live within your means, whatever it happens to be.
This is not a competition with anybody else.
And, you know, do good for others, serve others.
Don't look to take advantage of them, defraud them, get the best of them.
And that's how you deal with things, whether the world is going up, down, left, right.
You do your best to stick to those principles no matter what's going on outside.
Very, very good.
You know, and your point that you followed up on my previous point is the one that I think is key.
And that is, we know we're not supposed to steal.
Almost all societies have endorsed that principle thousands of years.
It seems like it was very natural that there was a higher law saying you're not supposed to steal and hurt and kill people.
But turning it over to the government to do the same thing and say, well, that's moral because the government was, we voted it.
We have the dictatorship of the majority.
As long as the dictatorship of the majority says, the government do this.
It's slave one group to make them pay for somebody else.
That doesn't work.
It's the same immorality.
But right now, the biggest, we don't have a challenge, even though there's a lot of immorality down in people stealing and robbing and hurting people.
But most people know it's wrong.
But not too many people think it's wrong for the government to do it.
They just think, well, we need better people to distribute the money.
I want to get my share of the loot.
So then they go along with the program.
But if we applied those same rules that you apply to individuals, to the government, things would be a lot better.
Now, I'm going to close, Chris, with a short statement of what I'd sort of like to have for Christmas.
And it's not a whole lot.
Matter of fact, there's not a whole lot.
Of course, I want my liberty the best I can.
But for a long time, I've been wanting to get rid of the Federal Reserve.
So I think that would be a good idea.
They gave us the Federal Reserve for Christmas in 1913.
Now I want a Christmas where we're giving it back, that we don't have it and we're not burdened by it.
But there's a few other things that I like to give back to the people.
One, I'd like, you know, people finally catching up to that little outfit called the FBI, that they might not be angelic.
They might be participating in some of this stuff.
So I think we ought to consider very much about giving back that Federal Reserve to somebody, get rid of the Federal Reserve.
I don't think if we, you know, the wonderful thing is if we have the system in the society that we're talking about, guess what?
You don't have an income tax.
You get to keep all your money.
And you get rid of the Federal Reserve and the IRS.
And, you know, while we're at it, you know, the CIA has gotten into a lot of trouble.
They run all the coups.
We're the champion of the coups of the world.
And there's a coup that we participated in and ran in 1914 in Ukraine.
And just look at the suffering that has come from that.
But while we're having this giveaway on Christmas, why don't we give the educational system back to the people?
The founders, you know, were taught very well.
They were astoundingly educated, but they didn't go to government schools.
So I think we should give the education we should have separation of church and state.
Why don't we have separation of education and state?
That would be a wonderful gift.
And also, this is a personal view too, is I'd like to see medicine given back to the patients and the doctors, the doctor-patient relationship, and get the government out of medicine so that we can avoid the tragedies that we saw as a result of the COVID lockdown.
That was not a very good president.
So I think there's a lot of presents and they don't cost anything.
Just give up on it.
We'd save a heck of a lot of money if we could give all this back and go back to letting the people take care of themselves.
But at this time, I do want to wish everybody a very happy new year and a Merry Christmas.
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