"How do you End The Fed?” is a common question. Since the government created the Fed by signing the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 (yes, The Fed is a government-created monopoly) then the simple answer is for Congress to repeal that Act. But alas, it is not so simple in practice. The Fed has been our albatross for over 100 years and it has entrenched itself into our economic lives. Steps can definitely be taken, however, to free ourselves from this immoral and unconstitutional monopoly. Over time, as has happened with Americans freeing themselves from the mainstream media, it can be done.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
We're going to talk about the Fed.
Have we ever talked about the Fed before?
Once in a while, we consider it something I've been thinking about for a long time.
Matter of fact, one of the charts I put up recently on the internet, which Daniel helped me find, dated it from August 15th, 1971, showing the explosion in the money supply and prices in the money supply.
And I thought, well, that is so appropriate because in 1971, I remember the moment Nixon gave that speech, and I said, this is a big deal.
And the big deal rolls on.
And now the big deal will be, is Musk going to call this stuff to a halt?
Will he be able to, along with Trump's ideas on government and politics and Federal Reserve, are they able to halt this craziness in the spending?
They're very, very sincere.
They're very, very smart.
They're very, very rich.
But I tell you what, it's not a done deal.
It's the problem.
I encourage it.
I want to do it.
And I practice what I preach because I wanted somebody to add up someday.
I was in Congress for a couple of years, and I voted against every budget.
I wouldn't know how many dollars of spending that I voted against.
So my record is clear.
And that's why occasionally they ask, but how to do it.
And, you know, it isn't easy because we're at a point where special interest runs the show.
And we have pure democracy.
51% get together and they demand it.
But more and more people are starting to recognize it's a problem.
And I think that's had a lot of effect, you know, on the campaign and why we have the extra committee doge to sit down along with Musk and others to try to at least, they recognize spending is too high.
And, you know, $36 trillion, that's a smidgen too high too.
And it's on autopilot.
They get getting to be the biggest budget item is the interest on the debt.
So that smells danger.
But also, what they're doing and what Trump wants to do has a lot of good ideas because he talks about less government.
But I'll tell you what, it's not a done deal because, you know, Reagan, Reagan had an ability to be an optimist that he did well and did some good things.
And Trump is the same way.
He's an optimist.
But the big question comes, can you pull it off under the conditions we have today?
Are there conditions exactly as they've been at any other time?
And they can't be.
It's a different format.
So it is something, but we wanted to specifically today, Chris, to talk about the Federal Reserve.
We've talked about that because our argument has been, you know, if you're worried about deficits, just rein in the Fed.
Who would buy the debt?
But that would be very, very difficult.
And some people would suffer that probably didn't deserve to suffer.
But they're into a financial bubble and it's hard to turn it off.
And that's what they're facing up to.
Though, Chris, today I would like to make a few suggestions on what we might do.
Exactly, Dr. Paul.
Yeah, a lot of people ask, you know, how do you end the Fed?
What do you do?
Well, it is a complicated question.
It's actually simple, but it's complicated because, well, the first step on the roadmap is education for people to understand.
And more people today, thanks to Dr. Paul, understand what we're dealing with with the Fed, but there's still a lot more that need to at least have an easy understanding of what the Fed is.
And the Fed is a monopoly created by the government.
And it's the worst type of monopoly over money.
Money is a market function.
It's not a monopoly created by government, but government created this monopoly bank and it counterfeits.
And if you look at the Constitution, there's only like three or four federal crimes.
One of them is counterfeiting.
So the government created a bank that counterfeits money.
And what does it do with the counterfeit money?
It buys government bonds.
And that's what enables our government to expand into what has become the biggest government in the history of the world.
And it has a $6 trillion budget, $36 trillion in the red.
It's buried itself in debt.
This was so predictable.
So what do you do?
Well, the easy question is: well, if they created it with the Federal Reserve Act, just repeal the Federal Reserve Act.
That's the simple answer.
But it's really not that simple because the Fed has entrenched itself in our lives.
It is a part of every economic transaction.
It debases the money.
It's the cause of the inflation.
So just repealing the act, while it would be noble, it would cause a lot of harm, like Dr. Paul said.
So, but in the meantime, there are things that we can do, and we're going to talk about it in the show.
You know, the big thing that's going on that people read about in the newspapers and has to be dealt with, and that is what will the status of the dollar be as a reserve currency?
There are a few people around the world that are annoyed by us being able to throw our weight around our economic weight and military weight around because we own the reserve currency.
And the reserve currency was a gold currency, and it became the major currency after World War II.
But now there's a challenge to it because, well, the end of that gold standard was 1971.
So, and why was that?
Is because they didn't stick to what the dollar was all about.
So, I think it's through the education, people have to realize that if you want sound money and you want more of a market economy, the Fed shouldn't be regulating interest rates.
But they also shouldn't, the Fed doesn't know how to regulate the economy by doing all these things.
It facilitates the deficits because it endlessly creates new money as long as the special interests demand more money.
And then you have so many special interests, it's hard to cut back.
But, nevertheless, there's a group now, and Trump is cheering them on, and they're looking about ways to cut back.
But I think there's two methods that somebody can deal with this.
To me, one is a strategic way of doing it, and one is fundamental.
The strategic is you change your strategy.
Let's get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Well, that's a good idea.
I'm against all that stuff.
But that's the nature of government.
So, that is good.
And that's where all the plans are.
And it's being concentrated on, especially with DOGE, because everybody can see it and everybody can agree that we have to get rid of it.
Certainly, there was a lot of agreement on the internet about getting rid of foreign aid.
It's not the biggest thing in the budget, but symbolically, it's big for the American people when they see how many people in this country are suffering.
And you don't want to cut child health care before you cut the foreign a.
But the other method is fundamental, and that is what did this.
And I think the fundamentals are, you know, monetary policy, the definition.
That's why I think if you wanted to narrow it right down to deal with what we're working with now, is what is the definition of the unit of account?
Oh, it's a dollar.
You know, I remember one time, one time, I think we had somebody from the Treasury Department before a committee, and I held up a paper dollar.
And I said, this is, you know, this is, you know, this is a note payment in full to the treasury.
I said, if I bring it to you in the treasury, what are you going to give me for this dollar?
He says, I'll give you another Federal Reserve note.
So the Federal Reserve note backs up the Federal Reserve note.
So that's why, you know, it's it fundamentally.
So that's not a minute.
That's not fundamentally changing anything.
So the one thing that's going on right now, Chris, that I think sort of leans in that direction, because it came up during the Gold Commission, 1981, because we talked about the monetary system and, you know, gold had gone from $35 an ounce up to $800 an ounce.
That's a big, big jump percentage-wise, certainly.
So they wanted people to realize that there has to be a definition of the dollar.
Since 1971, there hasn't been a definition.
So guess what?
You look at the charts, a lot more dollars out there with less and less.
As the number of dollars go up, the value of the dollar keeps going down.
And that's fundamentals that you would have to deal with.
And interesting enough, during the Gold Commission, there was a proposal, and I think it was by Alan Greenspan.
He wasn't at the Fed at the time, but he suggested, why don't you issue bonds in gold-backed bonds?
Now, that is not a solution.
And I don't know exactly how it would work because maybe there would be, that's what people would want to have.
They might want their treasury bills and maybe 30-year bonds backed guaranteed by gold.
But anyway, they brought that up.
And others are now starting to talk about it because it's an overwhelming task to leave what we have and go to a sound monetary system.
So maybe that should be given some thought.
I certainly wouldn't say, oh, that's a stupid idea and it won't work.
It's not a gold standard, but it would introduce the whole idea.
And what's going on with the states, I think, is fantastic where the states, they know the states, the constitutions of the states can't use anything else other than gold and silver as money.
So therefore, states have been motivated and I've encouraged them is no capital gains tax and no sales tax for buying a gold coin or a silver coin.
Using Precious Metals As Money00:10:21
And so that is that movement's on.
So that's getting back to dealing with the unit of account.
And I think that's where eventually the solution has to come.
Yes, absolutely, Dr. Paul.
And one thing that came to mind for me is a model that we could use that we're living through right now.
And that's the fall of the mainstream media because that's another institution that, you know, and again, with education, people need to be educated.
And they got an education with all the lies.
I mean, they just ruined their reputation and their trust.
And, you know, people lie all the time, even going back to when this country was founded, the media lies.
But there was, it didn't dominate.
But in our lives, the lies have dominated.
And especially one event that really I saw a big change around me, and this is anecdotal, is after COVID.
People did not trust the media after what they were told about COVID and those vaccines.
And then following with all the Trump stuff.
So we had years and years and years of education about what the media really is these days, and they can't be trusted.
And look at what happened to save us, you know, to use for lack of a better term.
And that's it cost Elon $40 billion to buy X.
And what that was is competition.
Now, of course, people lie on X. People lie because people lie.
But at least the truth can be found on X. If you search for it on the media, you're not going to find it, no matter how hard you search.
So that's, and that's what we need with money, competition, as Dr. Paul said, competing currencies, no more of this monopoly.
And some people will still use the dollar, of course, many, many people, because it's just a habit and that's just all they know and that's what they're comfortable with and they don't want to change.
Just like some people still, no matter how many lies are told to them, still turn on that TV and they watch the media.
So people will still choose it, but there has to be competition.
You have to have sound money to compete with the fiat dollar.
And if we have that, we could use the fall of the media as a model to wean ourselves off of this monetary financial system that has destroyed us into something that can help us to flourish.
You know, what has to happen in the common everyday activity and conversation and purchasing is when people go in and find that the loaf of bread and eggs costs a lot more money, that they say, well, something has to be done about this.
We need regulations.
We need wage and price controls.
They have all kinds of excuses.
Oh, it's gouging that's going on.
It's labor unions, the whole mess.
But what they have to realize is that the prices go up for a very precise reason.
They should say, well, the dollar is going down in value until they look at that and say, oh, you know, tuition and colleges, it's gone up so high.
They don't usually say, well, you know, for some reason, you know, the monetary system is right.
But have the universities, you talk about education, and that's very important.
There's all kinds of education.
There's still enough freedom in this country to find out the true thing about monetary policy.
But it's something that people don't realize.
How many people have gone to a government school, college, or wherever, a grade school?
Every once in a while, you would run across an economist in one of those schools and teach about sound money.
But most of the time, they all come out learning how to draw up papers and get paid for to defend the Federal Reserve.
And the other thing is I've talked to a lot, everybody knows I talked a lot about auditing the Fed.
And we also, in our little talk here, we wanted to recognize that we're not saying, oh, give us the wand.
We'll wave this wand and everything will be okay.
I'm afraid the wand's going to come and bring on the crash one of these days.
And then we're going to have what people think would happen if you cut back on any of the spending.
So the wand business, it isn't available, but there are things that can be done.
And the education is important.
Protecting oneself with metals and hard assets, that's all important.
But ultimately, the education comes, I think, outside the universities.
And we know quite a few organizations that have been very good on it.
The one organization that a long time ago was Leonard Reed's program that got me involved when I was still in medical school.
And it was fascinating to me about what was known.
And so the information is, and we need to study the current, but you also need to study history.
You also have to know what governments usually do when they can.
They always want control of the creation of new money.
Just think of our own history.
We used the continental dollar and we took that to zero.
And then there was the big fight between Jefferson and Hamilton.
And of course, Hamilton won and started a central bank.
And it's been going on and on.
And then Jackson had to do the fighting.
We've been fighting this all along, but there was always the, after the failure of the Continental Dollar, but most time people thought of money as being real money.
Gold and silver was used up until the 1970s.
And Americans couldn't even use gold in 1971.
So, but that to me is something that has to be done.
But it is education.
And we're thankful now that more and more people like Musk and others are producing an ability to get this information out because it is key because people aren't going to listen to us.
And they say, I had one person who was really good on the issues.
He said, Rhonda, what I don't like about you is you keep talking about auditing the Fed.
I want you to fuck and the Fed.
I do a little bit of that too.
But the reason I concentrate on Audit the Fed is I believe if people knew exactly what was going on, they would come to the conclusion, boy, why do we need this?
Probably the same thing with auditing the Pentagon, the Pentagon, too.
They might say, wow, it's not doing much to defend our liberties or give us protection.
It sounds to me like it's a money machine.
So auditing is good, but it should be automatic and that should reveal what's going on.
So that's why I think in the course of events, if they're serious about getting to the bottom of this, I think they will take it upon themselves to audit not only the Fed, but the Pentagon as well.
Yeah, that would be wonderful.
And who knows?
It could happen.
I'll finish up, Dr. Paul, with my closing statement.
Another common question is, well, what happens after the Fed?
And the answer is we don't know.
There's no way to know the future and what it's going to look like.
If somebody asks me in 1980, what is an iPhone going to look like?
There is absolutely no way to answer that question.
But with money, we can guess, you know, because money is a market phenomenon.
We talk about gold a lot because gold has been money for, what, five, six thousand years?
And it's not because of decree.
It's not because all everybody decided for thousands of years, this is money.
No, it's money because of its properties.
And even today, gold is priced as money.
It's not priced as an industrial metal.
People still treat it, even though it's not handed from person to person as currency.
It's treated as money and it's priced as money all these years later.
So we don't know what the future will be.
We live in a digital age now.
Perhaps there'll be digital currencies backed by gold, backed by something sound.
There's no way to know.
The only thing that we do know and what should happen is no government created monopolies.
The market has to decide.
And when the market decides, the best money will rise to the top just because the people want to use the best money.
They want to use something that doesn't lose value.
They don't want to pay $10 for eggs, $7 for eggs.
And they won't care what it is, what it's called, as long as it doesn't lose value and they earn their money and it's not being stolen from them through inflation, through taxation.
That's all people are going to care about, not what the name of it is or what it is.
But that's only going to happen in the free marketplace.
And, you know, once we get to that point, you know, at least economically, people will be much better off.
Yeah, and right.
You know, the major tool that the Fed uses to play the role of chief economic planner is the manipulation of the value of the currency and pricing the use of the money in that is the interest rates.
Interest rates might be the very most important price in all of economic policy.
If you're going to have an operation where you're estimating prices and borrowing money and this sort of thing, you have to know.
But today, you know, treasury bills are at a certain level, a couple percent.
But what if the market got involved?
22% for some credit cards.
And no wonder that people, they say, well, well, that's because, you know, it's a discrimination against the people.
Well, that's a simplistic way to answer it because people, because if you could say, well, quit borrowing the money, then you wouldn't have to pay that.
But it really is the value of the currency.
It's closer to a market value because treasury bills, whether they're two years or 10 years or 30 years, it's all manipulated by the government, try to make the bubble continue its expansion, because that's what makes people feel good.
Reading The Constitution00:02:23
And that's what the effort is right now with the incoming administration.
How do we stimulate economic growth?
And it's through monetary policy.
It's cutting waste.
But is it talking about defining the value of the currency?
And not so.
So people press it for one person to say, well, what would you do?
And I would get that question a lot with college kids.
They said, well, what should I do?
What should I do?
Well, you could start by just reading the Constitution because the Constitution will give you a pretty good guideline on exactly what you can do and what the government's allowed to do.
Article 1, Section 8, pretty strict rules there.
And the government would be a lot smaller.
The people would be a lot richer.
The people would be a lot happier.
And there would be a lot more world peace.
And I think those are worthy goals and they're achievable.
And that's why I hope that the demand for changes with the new administration come in has legs.
But I want people to understand exactly what they're doing and not patch it over and do a little technical adjustment.
But we need a philosophic adjustment because we drift a long way from free markets and sound money.
Personal liberty, as far as I'm concerned, is the answer to most of our problems.
But that comes from a characteristic of the electorate.
The people have to have a moral fiber that is willing to enforce something because we were told by the founders that if there is not a moral climate of the people who are involved, the Constitution won't last.
So they look like they're right.
That doesn't mean that we're on that course and we can't reverse it.
We can reverse it if enough people decide it's time to do it.
I always remark, and it's remarkable, the course was reversed essentially over COVID, all the nonsense and lies told there.
And there's a lot of those lies, big laws about monetary policy and the responsibility of government.
So I'm an optimist because I think in the area of education and the understanding of personal liberty, it's growing by leaps and bounds.
And I think we should continue to do whatever we can to keep that going.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.