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May 27, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
22:55
#AskRonPaul - Rise of inflation, Greedy Politicians, Monetary Policy, and More

Dr. Paul takes your questions on today's Liberty Report.

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Time Text
Government Pressure Points 00:14:51
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing well, but I understand that I might be under a lot of pressure.
You are in the hot seat today.
In the hot seat, okay.
Another episode of the very popular Ask Ron Paul today, and we really appreciate the participation.
We were talking about it before the show.
We had a lot of questions, and they were good, and we spent a lot of time trying to narrow them down.
Maybe if I survive and I don't look silly, maybe we can do it more often.
Do it more often.
Who knows?
I think it's a lot of fun.
Everyone enjoys it.
So let's get right to the questions, Dr. Paul.
The first one comes from Robert Peters.
He's at Man216BIRD on TwitterX.
And he asks, regular people can barely afford rent, yet the stock market remains high.
Is it being propped up by rich people to make Biden seem like he's doing a good job?
And how long can that possibly continue before we see a serious crash?
Well, a real short answer on the big picture, yes, it's being propped up, but it's being propped up by a collusion of what the Federal Reserve is doing, printing the money and manipulating interest rates.
And they do that quite frequently with all the presidents.
But there's a lot of people who benefited from this as well, and that is the very wealthy.
So when the Fed is manipulating, he does coordinate secretly, of course, with the administration that's in power, and they manipulate it, but they do prop up the stock market.
There's no doubt about that.
But that doesn't mean they have total control of it.
They can do it for a while, but the market eventually overrules.
So to say, well, they're in charge, so that means they're on Biden's side right now, everything will be okay until the election.
Maybe, maybe not.
Because the big thing one has to remember is if there's manipulation, excessive interest rate lowering, and there's malinvestment and too much debt, you eventually will get to the point where it's too hard to doctor it up.
And we're getting awfully close.
And the question that we frequently get asked, I get asked that, and others who get involved in this issue, is, yeah, we agree with you.
Things are bad.
And the debt is too high.
And manipulating interest rates isn't a solution.
And we expect a real crash.
And I'm in that camp, of course.
But the one thing is, in Austrian economics, they teach that the booms are usually created.
The main creator is the Federal Reserve, manipulating interest rates lower than it should be, encouraging people to borrow and spend and participate in what they call malinvestment, investing in things that they might not have invested in because they would have to find their money from people who are saving the money.
And so that is a commonplace.
But the thing of it is, there's an end point to it.
Sometimes there's a deliberate activity by the Fed, and sometimes they do it on purpose.
But the market eventually brings on the correction.
And it can be sometimes modest and frequent, and sometimes it can be big.
And the size and scope of the crash is dependent on how distorted, how big the bubble is.
And the bubble now today, by many, including myself, believe it's the biggest bubble ever.
And that's why the crash is going to be worse than ever.
But now, right now, the stocks are doing pretty well, and people are very happy.
But there's a lot of malinvestment out there, and there's a lot of debt.
And I guess the biggest malinvestment is the money the government prints and creates is the malinvestment by giving it to the government.
It's in the Congress because it's endless.
They don't even ask serious questions about, well, should we send another $10 billion or $80 billion to this country, A?
Should we expand our military operation here?
They really don't even ask those questions.
There's about three or four in Congress.
I'm bringing up, but it just continues.
There's no hesitation because the one thing they don't want to do is scare the markets into the interest rates going up.
And so the answer to when will that come, and I guess the best answer is inevitably, but it will come.
And that was one thing Mises pointed out that you really don't know it timing because there's a subjectivity to what the market does.
And it involves this collective operation by the people.
The boom is encouraged by the masses of people, but when the bus comes, they overreact both ways.
The bubble gets too big and something has to happen, but then on the correction, it goes down too low and it's hard to get back on their feet again.
That's what happened after the Great Depression in the 30s.
So it's something that it's explainable why rent and food and all the necessities are higher and that is a tax.
And unfortunately, the tax is passed on to the middle class and the poor.
Even though the money is printed and everybody should suffer, everybody doesn't suffer equally because if somebody's a billionaire, they don't care what the cost of the rent is or how much bread costs.
So that doesn't happen.
So the tax and people, when they say, well, the prices are too high, well, if the price is doubled, that means that half is just a tax because we're paying for the fact that we spent the money, the government spent the money, and we supported the welfare warfare state, and we diminished the value of the dollar.
And so therefore, dollar-wise, things seem to, you know, be going up and the prices do go up.
But they're false.
It's a misleading and it's distortion.
And ultimately, it's very, very dangerous.
Because if you think of just two most recent examples, Zimbabwe and Venezuela, they went to runaway inflation.
And that's a big problem.
And I believe we can get there.
I don't think we're on the verge of it.
So I don't think the huge crash is coming next month.
But I wouldn't bet my wealth on it.
You know, I wouldn't do it because it could.
But I think it's going to be a while before the whole thing comes down because there's so much confidence in the dollar and the federal and, well, that the Federal Reserve will pull us out.
And there's confidence in our dollar system that that's all, the confidence is being diminished.
So then there will be a meaning up to this when the confidence is lost.
And, you know, China's doing certain things now that's diminishing that support for the financial system as well as our foreign policy.
And when enough people realize that, there will be a crash and who knows what will happen.
All I know is that the answer is prevent it if you can.
If you can't, you better be prepared for what is coming and I think prepared philosophically on what should we replace this horrible system with.
And that, of course, from our viewpoint here, is we replace it with liberty and give up on all this government mismanagement.
All right, let's move on to number two.
And this is sent to us from Ryan.
He's at EndGovBribery, pretty good handle.
And he says, will America ever be able to sever the control that corporate foreign lobbies have over Congress?
How has lobbying lasted this long, given the only practical difference between lobbying and bribery and bribery is the legality?
Yes, and it lasts as long as there's a government that has something for sale.
You know, you could say, well, why don't we send better people there?
Or why don't we write more rules about it?
And that isn't it.
It's the size and scope and the amount of power and influence the government has.
And they have way too much.
So that will automatically encourage groups that want to manipulate that and get in the front of the line.
And if they don't have a line or they don't have a special benefit, if the government is open to that, they turn it into a political football and they create a new benefit and a block of votes.
And so it won't be corrected by saying, well, we have to have are more people that are morally related and we'll have sound money and all this.
It's not going to happen.
The collapse is going to come before that happens.
So the people will look for answers, but it will always be the size and scope of government.
As long as they have something to sell and as long as there are politicians who can get some benefits, they will be out there.
So yes, it would be good because there's a dozen or two that I've met over the years in Congress that fell into that category and they were good people.
But that isn't the case.
It seems like it's more likely that many members go to Congress and they have good intentions, but they quickly know that they have to join the gang if they want to stay there and get promoted and become a chairman of some committee.
All right.
So the third one we have is from Fed Up Kentucky, and I like that handle.
That's a great one.
And he asks, should people start putting more effort into electing lovers of liberty at the state and local level rather than trying to salvage the federal government?
Local or federal?
Both.
But which is best?
I think that's what he wants to know.
If I had to choose where the best influence and you had a sound group of people who had been educated better on economics and on the prospects of liberty, I would say the smaller groups, local government.
And unfortunately, I would say we have to learn from Soros.
Look how he's taken over the Department of Justice and what has happened there.
And that to me has, he has been remarkably successful on that.
And just think of the infiltration of the people that went along with wokeism and all this kind of nonsense.
And we're still suffering so much from that, even though it blossomed under lockdown.
It is something that is very, very dangerous.
So I think that, you know, it has to be replaced by the philosophy, but hopefully it has to come with a major change in the philosophy of the size and scope of government.
I don't think if people did what I suggest, have better universities, better P teachers, and better understanding of economics, improvement on their foreign policy, that's not going to do it.
As long as the government is powerful, because there will always be a military, so there's always going to be a military-industrial complex.
Since we don't follow the Constitution on medical care or education, there's a huge monopoly there for more money and lobby to go to Congress.
So the Congress is in this business.
So that has to be diminished and changed if we ever want to do it.
But I think it's easier for individuals to get a seat in the House of Representatives or the State House or a local city.
There's a lot of people that are there now.
And I'm always impressed because, and they've been successful, but they're unsung heroes because people don't keep up with it.
But I'm always delighted when I hear a story about somebody, well, I ran for this and this, and all of a sudden somebody else ran and had similar values.
And I think this is an unknown that is something that is not uncommon.
That a message and a philosophy that is worthy, it is spread and it can't be stopped.
Eventually that message is the most powerful.
I think that goes on continuously.
Although if you look out there and read newspapers, which don't exist, or you're looking at TV, which shouldn't exist sometimes, they give you this propaganda scheme and say, this is it.
You've got to be ready.
Spend more money.
The Russians are coming.
You know, that sort of thing.
So they will do that.
But I think they're out there.
A lot of people have done it, and I really would encourage it.
But that doesn't mean if somebody's on the verge and has an option to run for the House of Representatives.
And, you know, if I probably had followed some, I didn't follow any rules about when you run for office because I was doing that on a lark to talk about the monetary policy.
But whatever your reason is, people should run.
And it isn't, I ran when I didn't expect to go to Washington.
And I always thought, well, if I get to talk to a few people, maybe they will get interested in the Federal Reserve.
And that happened more than I ever dreamed of.
But the one thing is, is everybody has an opportunity and people would ask me, what should I do now?
And of course, I try to be silly and say, whatever you want, whatever you're comfortable with.
And some people might even write a song.
There was a recent song today that gathered up a lot of interest in politics.
And so I think this is, I think it's up to the individual.
And I've been impressed too on meeting young people now that got an introduction to libertarianism or now talk show hosts and have their own websites and things like that.
Opportunity and Individualism 00:04:30
It's out there and that's what we have to keep going.
And the job, Leonard Reed was one of the people that I listened to a whole lot.
And he says, the first, the most important thing for you as an individual, and he would like point to me, he said, is get as well educated as you possibly can, but you're not going to get it from the conventional sources.
And that's why he had a lot of books that he was promoting and how I really got started in running about it.
And of course, picking up from there has been the Mises Institute in providing the literature.
So he says, get well educated, talk about it, do ever what you can or want to do.
And he would quote, you know, the idea that if you are well informed and can handle yourself decently, somebody will find you.
You know, you will be found and somebody will use you if you offer that up.
But his emphasis was, know what you're talking about.
You have to know, if you're against the Fed, yeah, I guess it's against the Fed.
Well, why?
You know, it's done pretty well, hasn't it?
You know, and all these things.
So education was a key issue, and everybody can do that immediately if they don't feel like.
And I think that's a lifetime project because I still struggle with some subject that I read everything I can about it.
It was just to happen that the monetary issue was the one that introduced me into the broader picture of economic philosophy.
All right, well, let's finish it up now with a question from David Edward Garber.
He's at Dave Garber 1975, and he asks, if we can get Dave up, what helped you more than anything else to get elected repeatedly with libertarian constitutional beliefs, whereas others failed, and to remain steadfast to those principles as a public office holder rather than goof up or compromise or whatnot.
I don't know if there's one answer, but I guess the answers that I would have fed back to me that I heard just on the street if I was out campaigning, and people would come, talk to me, and they'd be halfway apologetic, and they'd start off, and I think, oh, this is going to be, this isn't going to be a good one.
I'd say, Ron, I just don't agree with all your positions.
But he would drop it then.
He said, but I strongly support you, and he'd be a supporter.
But he says, what I like about you is that we know you're telling the truth.
In this age of nihilism, where truth is scarce, and all you have to do is turn on the TV and listen to what goes on with the lawsuits going on and the politicization of the Justice Department.
It's hard to find the truth.
But that was the thing.
And of course, I had no axe to grind because my goal at the beginning was certainly not to, at first it was not to go to Congress, but I signed up to run for Congress.
But I was motivated by the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement back in 1971.
And I realized this was a big deal.
The total severance of our dollar, which had been around for a while, and I'd gone to go to a worldwide reserve currency, which was total fiat.
And it would gradually disintegrate.
And we're in the midst of the disintegration right now, in the midst of rampant price inflation.
And no matter what the statistics shows, the people are getting much, much poorer.
So I think leveling with people, and I think sincerity is important.
You can't tell people what that is.
But confidence, I think that sometimes people say, how did you stand being up there with those people?
Because you were different than the others.
And I always told him that I was set on doing it.
And what the outcome was wasn't my only goal, other than the fact if I could reach some people.
But I started off when, before I was in politics, I would go to the college campuses and I would get, there were libertarian clubs and things around.
15 People, Infinite Impact 00:02:43
If I had 15 people, I was, oh, good, 15 people.
It turned out 15 people multiplied because a lot of them came back and worked in our campaigns and different things like this.
But I never dreamed that I would go to Berkeley campus and get a pretty good sized crowd.
And that to me was an encouragement because I think the message was there because I didn't have to, I was in a comfort zone because I never have to worry, what group is this that we're talking about?
What are they interested in?
One time somebody in the media came up to me because they switched my district from a totally your rural district to more urban.
And they want to know, whoa, boy, how are you going to handle this?
You have all your friends out there.
You've been elected in this rural district.
And now you have to go to the city and have a different group of people to talk to.
And that aggravated me.
I was annoyed.
I considered it an insult.
I said, why in the world would the message of liberty be different for somebody that lives on a farm or works in a steel mill?
And they just didn't understand that because they were locked in on this special interest.
Well, I have to belong to this special interest, this other special interest.
And that's the magnificent thing.
And it is my strong belief, I think, helped me, that the issue of liberty is so fantastic.
It's been so beneficial.
It's been studied for thousands of years and put together.
Our founders gave us a pretty good document.
And it's something that I was convinced as we have our program here called Peace and Prosperity.
That I do truly believe that it's the issue of liberty that can give you peace and prosperity.
And we don't expect that Peace and Prosperity is coming next month or next year, but it's an ongoing effort.
And it's been going on literally for thousands of years.
And that's the understanding of right and wrong and the whole issue of telling the truth.
And that makes all the difference in the world.
The other thing that I tried to convey would be that it's something that is so beneficial.
It's based on a moral principle.
It's based on mostly with our Constitution and all.
So to me, it's always amazed me.
And I still talk about, how come we don't do better in promoting the cause of liberty?
Moral Principle Promoting Liberty 00:00:39
So I'll keep doing that.
And I encourage everybody to find that little niche, where they're going to do and what it is that you're going to do.
And since it's wide open, do whatever you want to do.
All right, Dr. Paul, you survived another ask for a call.
It's great being with us today.
It was.
You want to take us home and close the show out?
Well, I want to thank all the viewers that tuned in and listened through this.
And if anybody cares that this is a good way, maybe we can do this on periodic occasions because I find it interesting to do.
It's a challenge.
Sometimes we get these questions and challenging me on that.
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