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Sign the Ron Paul 2012 Petition at http://www.RonPaul2012.net
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04/18/2011
by Ron Pa...
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04/18/2011
by Ron Paul
Congress focused on issues surrounding government spending this week as talk of deficits, the national debt, and the debt limit saturated the airwaves. This is a positive development. In years past, there was very little concern over how much was spent here in Washington, how it was spent, or how much of our gross domestic product was being consumed by government. That blissful ignorance naturally resulted in decades of government spending with impunity, bringing us to where we are today: trillions in debt with astronomical entitlement obligations that will be impossible to fulfill in the not too distant future. So it is a good thing that there is so much political pressure now on our leaders to actually put the brakes on runaway spending.
However, even the most generous estimate of the spending cut passed this week -- $38.5 billion -- is a paltry 3.5% of the $1.05 trillion in spending through the next 5 months. This hardly makes a dent in our government's mountain of debt. Even worse than that, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stripped away the accounting sleights of hand and scored it as only $352 million in cuts, which works out to less than half of one percent of spending. Still, the tiniest cut is better than the massive increases we have become accustomed to in federal budgets.
Of course, our disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not even included in this budget as they are considered emergency spending. They constitute $3.3 billion in spending in the same period of time, so they more than cancel out any small cuts the warmongers may crow about.
I voted against the legislation funding government for the remainder of this year, as well as next year's budget because, as in years past, government spends far too much on unconstitutional programs. In spite of any rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, a point three percent (0.3%) cut does not suddenly make the rest of the spending constitutional or responsible. And, if the American people do not continue to hold the politicians' feet to the fire, you can be sure we will see massive spending increases again in the future.
In addition to Congress' spending, many Americans are finally paying attention to the spending done by unelected banking cronies at the Federal Reserve. Recently the Fed was forced to reveal some details of loans given out during the financial crisis of 2008 and they are truly shocking. Matt Taibbi points out in a recent Rolling Stone article that two very well-connected Wall Street wives got together and formed a real estate investment company that garnered $220 million in so-called "loans" (free money) from the Fed. Compare this number to the $352 million in spending cuts the CBO says are in the current budget! A few months later, one of the wives bought a $13.5 million personal residence with her husband, the CEO of Morgan Stanley.
The unelected, unaccountable Fed hands out as much or more money this way as our federal government spends, and yet receives hardly any attention. This is why I believe transparency of the Fed is a critical step to regaining control of our financial situation in this country. We can never get meaningful reforms if all eyes are on the $352 million so-called cuts, and transactions like the $220 million given to Wall Street cronies are done in the shadows. This is why I have reintroduced my Audit the Fed bill to this Congress. HR 1207 is now HR 459 and is essential to true fiscal reform and responsibility.
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Ron Paul is America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, a return to sound monetary policies, and a sensible pro-America foreign policy.
For more information visit the following websites:
http://www.RonPaul.com
http://www.RonPaul2012.net
http://www.LibertyPAC.com
http://www.RonPaulNews.com
http://www.CampaignForLiberty.com
http://www.house.gov/paul
http://www.DailyPaul.com
http://www.RonPaulForums.com
http://ronpaul2012.podbean.com
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RonPaul2008dotcom uploaded a new video
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Sign the Ron Paul 2012 Petition at http://www.RonPaul2012.net
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04/04/2011
Last week...
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Sign the Ron Paul 2012 Petition at http://www.RonPaul2012.net
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04/04/2011
Last week I was both surprised and pleased when the Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions requiring the Federal Reserve Bank to comply with requests for information made by Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"). Bloomberg simply wanted to know who received loans from the Fed's discount window in the aftermath of the 2008 financial market crisis, and how much each entity received. Surely this is basic information that should be available to every American taxpayer. But the Fed fought tooth and nail all the way to the Supreme Court to preserve their privileged secrecy. However, transparency and openness won the day. There are some 29,000 pages to decipher, but a few points stand out initially.
The Fed lent huge sums of our money to foreign banks. This in itself was not surprising, but the actual amount is staggering! In one week at the height of the crisis, about 70% of the money doled out went to foreign banks. We were told that bailing out banks was going to stave off a massive depression. Depression for whom? We now know that the Fed's bailout had nothing to do with helping the American people, who have gotten their depression anyway with continued job losses and foreclosures. But now we learn that a good deal of the money did not even help American banks!
In light of recent world events, perhaps the most staggering revelation is that quite a bit of money went to the Arab Banking Corp., in which the Libyan Central Bank owned about a third of its stock. This occurred while Libya, a declared state sponsor of terrorism, was under strict economic sanctions! How erratic the US must appear when we shower a dictator alternately with dollars and bombs! Also, we must consider the possibility that those loans are inadvertently financing weapons Gaddaffi is using against his own people and western militaries. This would not be the first time the covert activities of the Fed have undermined not only our economy and the value of the dollar, but our foreign policy as well.
Of course I can't say I'm surprised by the poor quality of the data provided by the Fed. The category of each loan made, whether from the "Primary Discount Window", the "Secondary Discount Window," or "Other Extensions of Credit," is redacted. Thus, we don't know with certainty how much discount window lending was provided to foreign banks and how much was merely "other extensions of credit". Also, some of the numbers simply do not seem to add up. We are of course still wading through the massive document dump, but it does seem as though several billions of dollars are unaccounted for.
As the world economy continues to falter in spite of - or rather because of - cheap money doled out by the Federal Reserve, its ability to deceive financial markets and American taxpayers is coming to an end. People are beginning to realize that when the fed in effect doubles the worldwide supply of US dollars in a relatively short time, it has the effect of stealing half your money through reduced purchasing power. Rapid inflation will continue as trillions in new money and credit recently created by the Fed flood into the commodity markets.
It is becoming more and more obvious that the Fed operates for the benefit of a few privileged banks, banks that never suffer for bad decisions they make. Quite the opposite - as we have seen since October 2008, under our current monetary system politically-connected banks are paid to make bad decisions.
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Ron Paul is America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, a return to sound monetary policies, and a sensible pro-America foreign policy.
For more information visit the following websites:
http://www.RonPaul.com
http://www.RonPaul2012.net
http://www.LibertyPAC.com
http://www.RonPaulNews.com
http://www.CampaignForLiberty.com
http://www.house.gov/paul
http://www.DailyPaul.com
http://www.RonPaulForums.com
http://ronpaul2012.podbean.com
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Dr. Liu, University of London
-"I was quite elated when I recently saw that the National Cancer Institute posted on their webpage 'In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct ANTITUMOR effect.' I foolishly thought that finally there would be official recognition of the modern peer reviewed science that shows the cancer killing properties of cannabinoids. Sadly, this statement was removed, without comment, within hours of its posting."
Dr. Melamede, President & CEO of Cannabis Science
That's DAMN impressive!