Voluntary markets and civil society unite, while power and politics divide. The more power, the more politics, and the more division throughout society. Political power was designed, and meant to be, decentralized in America. Problems are always best solved locally. They also tend to remain local when a giant apparatus of compulsion can't impose itself on everyone. We Americans have a lot of re-thinking to do, if we really want to rid ourselves of all the unnecessary division.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
Sorry for delay for technical reasons, but today we have a very special program.
We are going to speak a little bit about a speaker that we don't have.
We still are speaking, even though the FBI might be listening.
But there's lots to talk about.
The markets are bouncing all over the place today.
They're not being orderly like the Federal Reserve said they have to be.
They don't care what happens just so it's orderly.
And I always considered that a joke because they're always disordered.
And yet, things are going on today.
Gold was jumping first down, then up significantly because of economic reports.
One report said the employment was improving.
So that was bad for the stock market if the Fed wouldn't print more money.
Then all of a sudden, they get a report that said the service sector is doing lousy.
And oh, okay, the Fed, the Fed will have to print more money, and gold reverses it and then goes up significantly.
So it's disorderly, and the Fed's going to be very annoyed because eventually it's going to get a lot more disordered.
And that is something we'll be keeping an eye on.
So, Chris, we're certainly glad you have you with us today as our co-host.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Go ahead, if you want to go into the birch.
Yeah, okay.
What I want to do, of course, is get into the debate and the discussion about what's happening in Washington DC.
And do we have a speaker?
And what are we going to do if we don't have a speaker?
And that's where Chris is going to come in because he's going to help us understand what we should be and should be doing.
So this is something that is very important and something has been going on.
Gold's been important for a long time.
Gold was very disorderly all my life because when I first realized what gold was all about, it was $35 an ounce.
And predictions won't last, won't last.
And because those predictions were right, I got fascinated with monetary policy and economic history and studied Austrian economics.
And since that time, gold is from $35 an ounce and it's now reaching out for $2,000 an ounce.
And I think it might, unfortunately, just getting started.
Unfortunate because when gold goes to two and three and four thousand dollars, believe me, that will put our liberties in more jeopardy.
So I wish they would listen to the Austrian economic theories about money and credit because that would stop all these problems.
But unfortunately, those ideas are politically unpopular.
But because of my interest in gold and economics and liberty, I'd partner with the Birch Gold Group because they help people invest in gold.
So if you have any interest in following through and getting some free information from Birch Gold, you can text Ron 989898 and they will send you free material to help you get started because I think that gold's going to be around for a long time.
Paper money always self-destructs, and that's part of what we're witnessing right now.
And the self-destruction is best evaluated by the amount of debt going up.
And the amount of debt going up right now is atrocious.
And right now, though, the big discussion is in Washington, D.C., who's going to be the speaker.
And we have a different twist on this as others because we do need a little bit of order.
And we'd like to see something, Chris, where our government is protecting liberty, not destroying our money and pleasing the world with warmongering and all these terrible things.
So that is our goal at the Liberty Report and RPI, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
We believe that would be a big boost to our economy.
Government on Autopilot00:11:53
That's right, Dr. Paul.
And, you know, how is our country going to make it without a speaker of the house?
And we want to talk more high level because everybody is so glued to politics.
And, you know, so we actually saw a quote from our good friend Jeff Geist, who is the president of the Mises Institute.
And he said, quote, markets and civil society are win-win institutions.
Government and politics are zero sum.
So unless and until we reduce the importance of political outcomes, unless and until we make life less political, we should expect division to grow, end quote.
And what a great observation.
Politics divides our society.
You know, we could see it.
I just see it in my lifetime, you know, growing up, seeing my parents and even myself, you know, politics, because everything has been politicized, you know, and the market is the exact opposite.
You go to the store, you deal with people all the time who, if you were to sit and talk to them, would probably completely agree with you on many things.
And it doesn't matter.
Everybody is allowed to have their own opinions.
You transact with them and you go about your day.
And that's how the market unites us.
Politics, it slices and dices us and everything is scrutinized, you know, and businesses themselves have become political.
So Jeff made a great point.
We got to get politics, minimize it in our lives, not expand it.
You know, a lot of people talk about, especially libertarian conservatives and constitutionalists, of saying, well, you know, we don't need the Congress there because the money won't be spent and they can't do any harm.
And I used to sort of think that may be true, but it really isn't.
The point is, is government is so out of control, it's on autopilot.
And even when they're in session, deep state runs the Congress.
They're probably having a little discussion or a joke session going on about, no matter what they do, we're going to have control of the Congress anyway.
Because just look at what they do.
It was when COVID broke out that it was blown out of proportion and used as a gimmick to have all Republicans and Democrats, if they were on the road or into Congress, Russians start voting for more money.
And bipartisanship is pretty strong when it comes to these fake problems that they have, whether it's COVID or the Ukrainian war, just think, what is $100 billion they've spent on Ukraine?
Republicans and Democrats have done that.
Yes, there are 20 or so in the House that are trying to straighten things out.
But even in that group, I would say there's probably a few there that don't generally vote against the militarism that we have.
And that's not to disparage them at all, but it's just to make the point that it's the philosophy of these people that really drives it.
And that the philosophy also drives the special interest, the lobbyists, the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical companies, the medical companies.
All these people have such a great influence.
It's just very, very disturbing.
And that's what we have to deal with.
And yet right now, they think everything depends on the speaker.
And I'm not going to deny that there could be a difference, but I also am reluctant to say that's all we need is we need to shift gears a little bit because the momentum in the other direction, like I said, government is on autopilot and the deep state is in charge no matter what happens.
So that has to change too.
But changing the speaker and doing these arguments and fussing, I think it's worthwhile because we have a few getting a good look at it and telling them why we should do things.
But I'd like to hear more.
Why do we have to have a Federal Reserve?
And I found out that that wasn't the most unpolitical thing to say and do.
I found there were a lot of people interested in that.
And there's a lot of people who say, well, what about foreign policy?
Don't we have to take care of Ukraine?
More and more Republicans and conservatives are starting to shift.
And I say, no, maybe we should.
Maybe we should deal with our own borders.
So there are these changes going on, but I've been a strong believer that these changes have to be philosophically based.
And then the people have to have a reflection and an attitude.
And the government will reflect the people's attitude.
That's why the people in the Kong, you know, that were annoyed by the lockdown, when the parents got out and went and displayed their disgust with what they were doing in the schools, it had an effect.
So it is important.
The philosophy is important.
Recognizing that Washington, D.C. is not the place where you start and stop.
I was there a few years and had a little bit of experience, not with expectations that all of a sudden they were going to listen.
But I do think that the responsibility is on us to make these points and that there's more to it than having an election today and say, oh, McCarthy's speaker again, everything is going to be all right.
That's not going to happen.
They had this type of fight right before the Civil War.
And that point sort of worries me.
Right.
And, you know, Dr. Paul, of course, you know this, but our country was not meant to be this monolithic centralized power because problems are best solved locally by the people that are involved.
You know, you mentioned Ukraine and our foreign policy.
You know, what happens locally affects us much more than what happens in Ukraine and Syria.
It doesn't mean that you don't have to care about Ukraine and Syria.
You just have to face reality that you face the problems that are in front of you.
And our lives are so complex, you can't even worry about your neighbor or the next town over.
And you're supposed to worry about other countries, North Korea, this, that.
They always have a carousel of countries, and it all costs us money.
And that's the thing, you know, when politicians locally take your money from you, and you could be against some of it.
You know, let's say they want to build something.
You know, politicians love to do stuff like that.
You at least see what they're doing.
You can keep your eye on them.
When Washington, D.C. takes our money, we can't keep an eye on anything.
They do whatever they want with that money.
Look how $100 billion, like nothing, went across to supposedly Ukraine.
Who knows what is going on with that $100 billion?
I mean, people know that people are involved, but the rest of us don't know and we won't.
So, you know, we have to start getting back to local.
Local, that's where the problems are fixed, decentralized, because this centralization is, it has bankrupted us.
That's what's happened.
Very good.
And, you know, one of the frustrations that I have had recently, and a lot of other people have too, that want to get our message out.
But it's this whole idea of the authoritarianism of both right and left on many occasions.
And that is if you attack the government for some reason, you should be canceled and limited in speech.
I think in this issue on that First Amendment and the FBI, getting involved in social media, I think that it's probably pretty safe to say one party is much worse than the other, but it's still a philosophic issue that we have to deal with because the erosion has been general.
You might say, yeah, the Democrats are so much worse on this on canceling and working with social media.
But if it has to do with the military budget, you run into a different problem.
I mean, there's a bigger mixture.
We don't have enough, you know, libertarians and constitutionalists to really make a mark on there because people will say, oh, well, I've had, I've been told this in Congress.
I would point out that I want to get rid of it.
I don't want to just nibble at it.
And one member that I was talking in a polite way, he says, Ron, you always just go too far.
And I say, you know, the answer is they go way too far by maintaining it and not realizing that the door is open to fiat money and to deficits.
You know, it's just too bad that there wasn't something in the constitution that said the budget had to be balanced.
Like I mentioned yesterday, balancing is one part of it.
But cutting spending is the big deal.
Because if you have a huge deficit and you haven't changed philosophy and you still have the welfare warfare state, you say you have to balance the budget.
It'll be just more gimmicky.
They might have to raise taxes.
And quite frankly, nobody is going to touch it unless there are some serious changes in what the role of the government ought to be.
And that's what you alluded to, Chris.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish up.
Even free markets, even though we support free markets and liberty, individual liberty, these are imperfect things too.
We do not live in a perfect world, and humans are not perfect and never will be.
But there's a difference between decentralization and centralization, where errors that are made when people are in authority, they're localized.
Everyone in the world doesn't have to suffer when something happens in a local situation.
And, you know, we got a taste of this globalization with the COVID and what happened.
Look how it was a globalized disaster.
Because when one authority or several that just, you know, glued themselves to each other make a mistake and they made massive mistakes, then everybody in the whole world suffers.
That is a major difference.
You know, so, but many people, they shun free markets and free others.
There'll be problems with this.
Yeah, there will be problems.
That's part of life.
Being a human means you're constantly every day facing problems.
But free markets are far superior to the centralization of power.
And COVID, you know, you can't get a better example of that.
That was centralization of power that has never been done before.
You know, and hopefully people learn the lessons of this and we go back to, yeah, maybe free markets are not perfect, but they're much, much better than the centralization of power.
Very good, Chris.
Very good.
You know, the thing is, people will point out to individuals like us and they'll say, when did it ever exist?
You know, when was that time?
And Chris, you make this very important point.
It's not a perfect system and the world is never perfect.
Individuals aren't perfect.
It's to know where perfection lies in which direction you go.
If you recognize people as individual instead of just a big spot in a collectivist society where you have no individuality and no spiritual value, you know, that's an entirely different thing.
But people ask, when was it?
And, you know, Jacob Hornberger, who does a very, very good job on Future Freedom Foundation, had an article out this week that I thought was very good because it's been known in libertarian circles that one of the freest times that we had in the United States was the latter part of the 19th century in the beginning of the 20th century.
And that was the 1870 up to the beginning of World War I.
The Gold Standard Era00:03:02
And you can point it out: prices went down, prosperity went up, and there was no war going on.
But then he makes a quick list.
Just think of what he is emphasizing because this has been known and it's been recognized that this period of time has been one of the best times for economic growth that anybody ever was able to record.
But then again, the warmongers came and we were maneuvered into World War I and World War II and all the rest and into the empire building and the mess we have.
But this is what Bumper pointed out, bumpers for Jacob.
Okay, he points out no passports in this period of time, no Pentagon, no military establishment, no military industrial complex, no CIA, no NSA.
Can this be true?
No FBI, no foreign aid, no military bases.
And also there was no basis and no immigration controls.
Everybody was free to come and go.
Oh boy, that was that people are so confused and it's such a mess.
You can't do it.
I don't even want to say that, but I want to have controls, but it would be through property rights and volunteerism, which you could still control your borders.
No minimum wage laws and on and on.
And, you know, one thing in this period of time that I mentioned frequently, and that's 1875, we went off the gold standard in the Civil War period, and then they inflated with greenbacks, and it was a mess and they didn't like it.
So by the 1870s, they decided, well, they have to do something.
And one thing that they did to emphasize this period of time is they said that we need to go back to the gold standard because gold, the greenbacks were there and the dollar price of gold has soared up.
And so they had a Restoration Act 1875.
We're tired of fiat money.
Get rid of some of these greenbacks.
Let's quit it and honor the dollar with the conversion to gold.
And so they did that.
And they had a transition period over three years, 1875, 1878.
1878 came.
And because of what Bumper described, there's no wasn't so much competition for freedom and money.
The transition was miraculous.
Oh, during those three years, the so-called dollar price of gold just went down, down, down till it hit $20.
And then people were thought on when the day of restoration would be, everybody would be rushing to the banks and grabbing the gold.
It turned out all they wanted was reassurance.
A lot of some of them would go and say, well, I want to see it.
And they would see the gold and they would see that there was restoration again, and it settled the whole thing.
Now, yes, that's an idea and a principle and a period of time that we should look at.
Why Trust Has Fallen00:00:40
But people say, well, why don't we do that now?
Because nobody would believe the government.
And that's our big problem.
Why are they going to believe the government?
Oh, yeah, we're going to have a balanced budget.
And yeah, no, we only do things peaceful.
We don't like coups.
We would never participate in a coup.
This sort of thing.
But the government is not believable and it's the biggest thing.
And the truth about what's going on in government isn't going to originate with the change of the speakership.
That is not going to make much difference.
We have to change our minds and change our attitudes, and the people have to be involved.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.