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Feb. 27, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
24:04
DOGE Success! DC Unemployment Claims Skyrocket

The fake "prosperity" of the Washington DC metro area is on full display, as the recent DOGE-inspired cuts in Federal agencies have sent unemployment claims soaring. Without the Federal government impoverishing the rest of the country, the opulent lifestyle enjoyed in the richest counties in the US would not be possible. Also today: RFK puts the kibbosh on government support for new Covid vax development.

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Boom Periods and Worries 00:10:15
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 this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Good.
Looking for problems.
So we can solve them.
We got a good news Thursday.
We got good news stories today.
Only good news.
Things go sometimes.
They go downhill very rapidly.
The recovery takes a long time.
But I'm still hoping that there are signs of shifting gears and going in a different direction.
And in a way, we're going to be talking about what has actually occurred.
And there's one thing we want to talk about is the jobless jobs, joblessness in D.C.
I remember stories being told, and I think statistics back it, is that when the Depression started, D.C. was one of the times there was a really big boom.
And they figured there'll be lots of Roosevelt was in, you know, they were going to build.
And I think it's been going on ever since.
And it's still booming way more than it should if it was a normal city and not a government city.
But it's right now, it looks like they're maybe backing off or softening it down.
Maybe there will be a price adjustment.
And the report now is the jobless claims last week soared.
If you look at it in the chart, you can be impressed with the chart.
Wow.
Where are they coming from?
Is this mean the beginning of the end of the boom cycle in Washington?
Let's hope so, but I don't know if that's going to be true.
But that means that there is an impact of what Trump is trying to do.
And I think that's good because it's not like all these people have a right to those jobs and a right to gouge the other people and be paid high sums of money from the taxpayers.
You know, that I think is wrong.
So I thought this was pretty good news in this right direction.
But I'm sure the people who lost their jobs could describe a few stories that would say, yeah, it is tough.
But that's what comes with all this distortion, whether it comes from just the artificial inflationary impact of monetary policy, but also of all this big government.
Yes, big government is great.
What if the war ends?
And people, you know, have to go and scurry around.
But right now, it looks like even the military will be challenged.
But there was one number that showed that more people, since there were going to be some social changes in the military, more people were comfortable with joining the military.
And that's a social issue that's going on.
But I think that the new administration is definitely having an impact.
Yeah, and obviously we don't wish misfortune on anyone.
I mean, these are people's lives, and it's unfortunate when this happens.
But, you know, historically, and this has been the case for as long as I followed it, that Fairfax and Loudoun counties in Virginia are the two wealthiest counties in the United States.
And that's just across the Potomac from DC.
They're the bedroom communities of D.C.
And you might ask in a normal economy, well, why are they so wealthy?
They must really create some amazing things, amazing products.
They must have incredible factories or an amazing tech corridor, innovation.
No, it's all government money.
It's all government.
It's all people paid directly or indirectly by the government.
Now, you make a huge government salary, relatively speaking, to the rest of the country, or you work for a company.
This is even better, it's even juicier, that contracts with the government.
Say you're an attorney and you have a contract with the government and you're making two or three million dollars a year.
That's why when you drive around, and I spend a lot of time there driving around, being envious, but you drive around and you see mansions.
You go to McLean and you see mansions.
And this is not like a millionaire or a billionaire that you'd see in the rest of the country who may have created something that's of value.
No, these are people who live off of the work of everyone else.
And so, seeing this, and actually, let's put this first one up because we did notice this on Zero Hedge.
And I sent it over this morning saying, good news, in a way, but Doge wins as DC jobless claims soared last week.
And go to the next one here is a tweet that Hedge put out.
And this is even more dramatic.
This chart, Dr. Paul, all-hell Doge, Zero Heads said, Washington, D.C. rocked by historic layoff wave as Musk fires deep state apparatus at a record pace.
And that chart speaks for itself, Dr. Paul, the unemployment claims, initial unemployment claims for the DC area through the roof.
You know, I think the inflationary period, you could date back to, say, after World War II.
And there's always been a guarantee.
You know, we have a powerful economy, a powerful military, reserve currency of the world.
People were reassured that this system would be endless.
And it basically has lasted longer than a lot of people thought.
And yet, there was always this guarantee that it would keep going up.
You probably can't find another place in the country, as you alluded to.
It would be quite like these two cities in Washington, that there would be this steady growth.
You'd have them, you know, in Florida and Texas and California.
There'd be boom periods, which was partially a result of the economic system, but also because of the inflation.
But all things are limited by the shortcomings of depending on an inflationary system.
So since we've been involved in the wars, there's never a war that we wouldn't like.
There's never a welfare payment, welfare system or a program that you could ever vote against because you'd be declared a horrible person.
You couldn't do anything that didn't absolute protect some ridiculous ruling on diversity and artificial manipulation.
But I think what we're witnessing here and trying to analyze is the fact that this stuff is ending.
And I think this is one example of this.
If there's a real estate change, that doesn't mean that, oh, next week there's going to be a, you know, the prices in Dekela and Washington are going to go down 50%.
But I don't think the confidence is there.
And you talk to the workers who have had a pink slip already.
They're not overconfident.
And the haters who can't stand limited government, they're not overconfident anymore either.
So things are changing.
I see what we do as just a vehicle to the best of our ability to present something that deals with the alternative.
And that's, of course, what we've talked about.
And you've worked so hard on foreign policy in particular.
And I see it instead of it.
If you look at only the problems, people can get depressed over this because you mean this is going to be, you know, the answers.
It'll be easily solved.
And I say, no, it's not going to be easy.
You got to pay a price.
And I think this will begin to see what's happening.
The price is being paid.
And we'll see more statistics like this.
And I think the rest of America is waking up.
And I think, you know, we all owe a debt of gratitude.
Whatever the motivation is, people will have cast aspersions upon it.
But nevertheless, whatever the motivation of Musk and the Doge people is, everyone owes a debt of gratitude.
People like us do, libertarians do for sure.
And shining the light of the fact that there is not some deity in DC that is earning all of this wonderful largesse, you know, and people are waking up and saying, hang on a minute.
I'm out here in Brazoria.
We don't have the kind of restaurants that they have in DC.
Why is that?
Why is there not a capital grill out here?
Well, the local economy can't support it.
And I think that has a lot to do with it.
In the rest of the country, the rest of the world, we're all worried about losing our jobs in the real world.
Even people that run small policy institutes, you worry from week to week, even if you're going to be able to stay in a job.
That's the real world.
And that's the world that people in DC really don't have to deal with.
And in fact, I did in the accountability too, these five questions we talked about earlier this week.
How dare they ask me what I'm doing on the job?
How dare they?
And in fact, I do have as sort of a humorous interlude, something that's been going kind of viral this morning.
And it's a federal employee reacting to this questionnaire being asked, well, what are you doing?
How are you earning your money?
Like any normal person would be asked.
This is going to be a short clip, just 26 or so seconds.
If you want to grab your earpiece, just as sort of a demonstration of the mentality of people, they don't think like the rest of us.
They just don't.
Let's put this on.
Today I responded to the email that we received as federal employees asking us to report five things that we accomplished last week.
I'm not worried about my five things.
I have plenty of things to report.
I did plenty of work last week.
But the feeling of just like absolute existential dread that I felt typing out a response to that email is something that I wish I could convey to everyone because it felt like such a glimpse into the reality that they are trying to create.
And it was terrifying.
It felt like you will do what I say or else.
The email that we received did not say that failure was you will do what I say or else.
Well, that's your boss.
Are you kidding?
See, I work on the assumption that ideas change and then policy changes and the people change.
I think a good example of this is what we read about.
I think there was a fellow up on there, Jeff, Jeff Bezos, has an important newspaper.
Housing Market Shifts 00:02:42
And I don't know what his goals were on that, but he found out he was losing money.
And he changed the whole thing.
His opinion page changed.
And I think that's great.
But I think he's smart too.
He certainly ran a pretty darn good company, the Amazon company.
So he did that.
But I think this is evidence that more and more people will do that.
And he can do that because it's private.
But when it's government, the administration has a bigger job because there's so much political power.
And there's also the deep state.
Who knows what they'll do to the people who want to change things?
Well, here's some more evidence.
And again, it could be anecdotal.
The real estate market is notoriously complex.
Nevertheless, looking at some anecdotal information of the local market, there have been a few posts like this.
If you go to that next clip and have a look at this, who knew shutting down the USAID money laundering operation would collapse the DC housing market?
In the last 14 days, 3,352 homes were put up for sale in DC.
Finding an affordable home was impossible within three hours of DC in the area a decade ago.
How times will be changing?
That should bring the prices of the houses down.
Now go to the next one.
And that says, and you can see all of the listings here in that area.
Now, this is Northern Virginia here, breaking major housing sell-off happening in DC right now.
Every house listed here was recently put on the market.
And now if you go to the next one, sorry, Dr. Paul, if you'll just bear with me here to finish out this thought.
This is from the Kobe SC letter.
This is absolutely insane.
Since Doge began discussing mass layoffs, the median home price in Washington, D.C. has fallen by $139,000.
In 30 days, nearly 4,000 homes have been listed for sale in and around Washington, D.C. What is happening?
Let's explain, et cetera, et cetera.
So it appears to be at least reflecting in the local housing market as well.
The one thing about this one, there's been housing problems, you know, for various reasons around the country.
And the country has been and still remains very wealthy with a very strong currency.
But the point I make is it's changing now.
If a city or a town or a state had trouble, no matter how badly they mess things up and how difficult it has been made by a flawed monetary policy, people aren't saying, well, there's a housing problem in Washington.
I think we should tax ourselves to send more money there.
Covid's Hidden Costs 00:07:41
We don't want to see these people suffer the cost of it.
They need a housing project.
They do it to everybody else.
And that usually destroys the community.
Yeah, absolutely.
So again, it's anecdotal.
It's a seasonal market.
People sell in the spring, what have you.
But nevertheless, it does show some of that.
And I remember, in fact, I benefited in the crash of 08 because the housing market crashed there significantly.
And I bought a house that was so messed up, I had to sign a waiver to go in to look at it.
You know, that's all I could afford back then on the salary.
But it was a significant movement there at the time.
And so maybe we'll see something like that again, you know, a correction.
Time moves on.
We must be prepared.
So let's move on as well then, because here's another, this is good news Thursday again, as I said, put up that next clip.
RFK is already on the job, Dr. Paul, and he's already, go to the next one.
I'm going to skip this part.
He's already on the job and doing good.
RFK Jr. pauses multi-million dollar contract to develop a new COVID-19 vaccine.
The clinical trials for a new COVID-19 vaccine were halted after a multi-million dollar contract authorized by the Biden administration that can develop the inoculation was paused by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., stopping the government involvement in new vaccination.
You know, once again, what are they dealing with?
They're dealing with a government decision that shouldn't exist.
They shouldn't be in this business of saying we're going to keep everybody safe and we're going to make sure they have vaccines when necessary.
This is all preparation.
They can't decide which cold virus are we going to protect this year.
They're arguing over that.
But, you know, you can't just send people in and say, we're going to monitor them and make better, find better scientists to go in there because the scientists, when they work for the government, aren't necessarily going to give us the right answer.
So this shouldn't be in the government realm.
It doesn't mean they can't make these preparations, but there would be a different way of deciding these things.
The decision here, and we've talked about the pharmaceutical industrial conflict, some of the people in academia who have staked out their reputations on a lot of this nonsense.
So they have to go along with that.
When it was in the market and they decided there'd be a lot less vaccines, they would be more cautious.
And what if they introduced this crazy notion of saying you're liable for what you put on the market?
You have liability instead of excusing the financial pharmaceuticals for any injury.
Just think of the injuries that are popping up and the statistics over COVID.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, there's a little bit more on this as well.
And in fact, if you skip that next one, because I think we've already dealt with that, but our own Adam Dick at RPI wrote a piece a couple of days ago, 21st.
Go to that next one.
It's better than that even.
It's not just the COVID vaccine.
If you go back one, he wrote a piece for us called New HHS Secretary Curtail's U.S. government role as drug promoter.
I pulled one couple paragraphs from Adam's piece.
If you go to the next one, so it's not just a COVID one, Dr. Paul.
It's Helen Branswell reported yesterday at Staten News that the CDC was, quote, was ordered to shelve promotions it developed for a variety of vaccines, including a quote,
wild to mild advertising campaign urging people to get vaccinated against flu, and that the CDC was informed that Kennedy wanted advertisements that promote the idea of informed consent in vaccine decision making instead.
And Adam comments, what a major change, a transition from being a pharmaceutical company product promoter to being a promoter of, as Bronzewell describes, informed consent in her article, quote, the principle that people should be notified of all the risks as well as benefits of any medical intervention they receive or any drug they are prescribed.
That's also good news.
Miracles happen when you see this kind of stuff.
What are those cable news is going to do because half of their.
See, the opposition that we're opposing so often exaggerates things.
They lie about it and they have to scare people.
And all of a sudden, when they're proven wrong, and this is what is so delightful, what's happening?
People aren't saying every single person that ever worked in government or ever Congress are evil and they're motivated, but they're saying there's enough reason to question what the government tells us.
And that statistic is around and the numbers have grown dramatically.
How many people now are questioning what the government tells people?
And there's no reason why they can't resort.
There was a time when we were never this dependent on government.
Medicine wasn't always this way.
I mean, and a lot of great medical decisions were made in the private market.
They were sometimes single, you know, physicians just working and coming up with ideas and developing things.
But I think the American people are waking up.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I mean, we've talked about the fact that this is sort of low-hanging fruit.
All of the most absurd things are being exposed.
And it's our hope, I think, not to speak for you, of that, but that the next wave of realization will come that, well, why is government doing this at all?
Why do we have a USAID?
Why do we have an FDA?
You know, why do we have a Department of Education?
When they start asking the question, you know, it's the beginning of the end.
And failure, and, you know, sadly, it's very, very slow education when it comes to wars.
You know, you're a patriotic hero if you support any war proposed by the deep state.
Oh, we have to be over there.
We need the oil.
We're all going to freeze to death.
And, you know, that sort of thing.
So I think people should question that.
And that means there'll be more reservation and think it through.
And that means, well, that means some people could make mistakes and they could die over it.
I said, yeah, but if you guys up in government make a decision, millions of people can die.
And hell.
What are the statistics over COVID?
I think it would probably be hard to find the exact and total injuries and deaths that occurred by dictating medical care during the COVID epidemic.
Yeah, exactly.
Absolutely.
Well, I'm going to kind of end out my section with something that I think is pretty funny.
Now, without going into details, I'm sure we haven't talked about it, but I'm sure you've seen what's come out about the CIA and NSA that they were having on government time in government chat rooms, very.
salacious discussions.
Let's put it that way.
Very perverted discussions, very openly.
And they were shocked that somehow they found out.
Well, this is the Babylon B is sometimes funny, sometimes not.
But this, I think, is a funny cartoon.
I wanted to put it up.
So there's a woman standing here with her head in her hand.
She says, NSA agents horrified people are spying on their personal conversations.
I says, of course, that's hilarious because the NSA, that's what they do.
So anyway, I thought that I laughed out loud when I saw it yesterday.
You better be careful.
Conference Ticket Chaos 00:03:14
You're going to be in trouble for laughing at that.
So anyway, end of the week reminder, if you put on that last one, I had a pleasant problem last night.
I got an email from someone saying, what's going on with the tickets for the conference?
I can't seem to buy any.
So I went on, I checked the back part of our site.
It turns out the allotment that I had made for the early bird special amount of tickets had been surpassed.
And so I had to free up some additional tickets.
Put on that last clip if you can, because the demand was more than I anticipated for the early bird special.
So you still have a couple of days left to get that early bird special on the tickets.
America in the age of Trump 2.0.
I've got all the titles of the speeches except for yours, Dr. Paul.
And I'll put those up on Monday.
I forgot to put them up today.
A lot of great speeches.
Tom Woods, Jimmy Duncan, our good friend, former representative from Tennessee, David Stockman, Jeff Dice.
It's going to be a really fun, fun day for everyone.
So I will put a link in there to get your tickets.
Get them today.
Trust me, while you still get a bit of a break on those prices.
Good.
And I think a lot of people are anticipating a discussion about what's going on in the country.
What can we anticipate?
And everybody knows something's happening.
Everybody knows there's some changes made.
And some people will argue, well, we've had changes all along.
This is just another one.
It's up and down and nothing is secure.
And this is another one of those adjustments.
And others would say, this is like a revolution.
And in some ways, I lean toward the second part because I think it's a revolutionary idea to reinstate the principles of liberty, which is a shame.
The ideas have been available not only the hundreds of years of our history, but thousands of years, there's been introduction of ideas that emphasize the importance of a natural law where you're not supposed to kill people and steal people and hurt people and lie to people.
So I think this is a reassessment and a new interest in those principles.
Because as I've often said, you know, if you're interested in peace and prosperity, the way to go is with more liberty, not with more government, because government almost always is a reversal of personal liberty because governments depend on force.
So often, the founders made an attempt to make it minimal, but I'll tell you what, it's been eroded.
I think Americans realize that.
So it's important.
There's chaos in the streets and cultural Marxists love it.
They want chaos because they think the American people will go to become communists and authoritarians.
And there are a lot of them.
Some of them even work in our universities, you know, to promote these things.
But I think it's an opportunity to continue to promote these ideas.
That's one thing we hope we can do.
And we will hear a discussion at our conference.
And we'll be anxious to meet everybody that shows up at our conference.
And I want to thank everybody today for tuning into our Liberty report.
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