Archive for the ‘Banking and Monetary Policy’ Category
BTL Update 2011 December 4
Sunday, December 4th, 2011- It Is Now Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off The U.S. National Debt
- Implantable Microchips and Cyborgs are No Longer Conspiracy Theories
- Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window
- S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act, also known as the Indefinite Detention Act was passed by the senate on the evening of December 1st on a 97-3 vote
- Storm Watch: Arab Spring
- Can Congress Steal Your Constitutional Freedoms?
- What Would Really Happen If Ron Paul Were To Be Elected President?
- The Great Global Warming Fizzle
- Anthrax isn’t scary at all compared to this: Man-made flu virus with potential to wipe out many millions if it ever escaped is created in research lab
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Ron Paul: Let’s Legalize Competing Currencies
Friday, December 2nd, 2011by Ron Paul
Before the US House of Representatives, February 13, 2008
I rise to speak on the concept of competing currencies. Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish. In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk. Money makes the transaction process far easier. Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.
This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties: it should be durable, that is to say, it does not wear out easily; it should be portable, that is, easily carried; it should be divisible into units usable for everyday transactions; it should be recognizable and uniform, so that one unit of money has the same properties as every other unit; it should be scarce, in the economic sense, so that the extant supply does not satisfy the wants of everyone demanding it; it should be stable, so that the value of its purchasing power does not fluctuate wildly; and it should be reproducible, so that enough units of money can be created to satisfy the needs of exchange.
Over millennia of human history, gold and silver have been the two metals that have most often satisfied these conditions, survived the market process, and gained the trust of billions of people. Gold and silver are difficult to counterfeit, a property which ensures they will always be accepted in commerce. It is precisely for this reason that gold and silver are anathema to governments. A supply of gold and silver that is limited in supply by nature cannot be inflated, and thus serves as a check on the growth of government. Without the ability to inflate the currency, governments find themselves constrained in their actions, unable to carry on wars of aggression or to appease their overtaxed citizens with bread and circuses.
At this country’s founding, there was no government-controlled national currency. While the Constitution established the Congressional power of minting coins, it was not until 1792 that the US Mint was formally established. In the meantime, Americans made do with foreign silver and gold coins. Even after the Mint’s operations got underway, foreign coins continued to circulate within the United States, and did so for several decades.
On the desk in my office I have a sign that says: “Don’t steal – the government hates competition.” Indeed, any power a government arrogates to itself, it is loathe to give back to the people. Just as we have gone from a constitutionally instituted national defense consisting of a limited army and navy bolstered by militias and letters of marque and reprisal, we have moved from a system of competing currencies to a government-instituted banking cartel that monopolizes the issuance of currency. In order to introduce a system of competing currencies, there are three steps that must be taken to produce a legal climate favorable to competition.
The first step consists of eliminating legal tender laws. Article I Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts. States are not required to enact legal tender laws, but should they choose to, the only acceptable legal tender is gold and silver, the two precious metals that individuals throughout history and across cultures have used as currency. However, there is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Congress the power to enact legal tender laws. We, the Congress, have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, but not to declare a legal tender. Yet, there is a section of US Code, 31 USC 5103, that purports to establish US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender.
Historically, legal tender laws have been used by governments to force their citizens to accept debased and devalued currency. Gresham’s Law describes this phenomenon, which can be summed up in one phrase: bad money drives out good money. An emperor, a king, or a dictator might mint coins with half an ounce of gold and force merchants, under pain of death, to accept them as though they contained one ounce of gold. Each ounce of the king’s gold could now be minted into two coins instead of one, so the king now had twice as much “money” to spend on building castles and raising armies. As these legally overvalued coins circulated, the coins containing the full ounce of gold would be pulled out of circulation and hoarded. We saw this same phenomenon happen in the mid-1960s when the US government began to mint subsidiary coinage out of copper and nickel rather than silver. The copper and nickel coins were legally overvalued, the silver coins undervalued in relation, and silver coins vanished from circulation.
These actions also give rise to the most pernicious effects of inflation. Most of the merchants and peasants who received this devalued currency felt the full effects of inflation, the rise in prices and the lowered standard of living, before they received any of the new currency. By the time they received the new currency, prices had long since doubled, and the new currency they received would give them no benefit.
In the absence of legal tender laws, Gresham’s Law no longer holds. If people are free to reject debased currency, and instead demand sound money, sound money will gradually return to use in society. Merchants would have been free to reject the king’s coin and accept only coins containing full metal weight.
The second step to reestablishing competing currencies is to eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. One private enterprise which attempted to popularize the use of precious metal coins was Liberty Services, the creators of the Liberty Dollar. Evidently the government felt threatened, as Liberty Dollars had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service this past November. Of course, not all of these coins were owned by Liberty Services, as many were held in trust as backing for silver and gold certificates which Liberty Services issued. None of this matters, of course, to the government, who hates to see any competition.
The sections of US Code which Liberty Services is accused of violating are erroneously considered to be anti-counterfeiting statutes, when in fact their purpose was to shut down private mints that had been operating in California. California was awash in gold in the aftermath of the 1849 gold rush, yet had no US Mint to mint coinage. There was not enough foreign coinage circulating in California either, so private mints stepped into the breech to provide their own coins. As was to become the case in other industries during the Progressive era, the private mints were eventually accused of circulating debased (substandard) coinage, and in the interest of providing government-sanctioned regulation and a government guarantee of purity, the 1864 Coinage Act was passed, which banned private mints from producing their own coins for circulation as currency.
The final step to ensuring competing currencies is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Short-term capital gains rates are at income tax levels, up to 35 percent, while long-term capital gains taxes are assessed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent. Furthermore, these taxes actually tax monetary debasement. As the dollar weakens, the nominal dollar value of gold increases. The purchasing power of gold may remain relatively constant, but as the nominal dollar value increases, the federal government considers this an increase in wealth, and taxes accordingly. Thus, the more the dollar is debased, the more capital gains taxes must be paid on holdings of gold and other precious metals.
Just as pernicious are the sales and use taxes which are assessed on gold and silver at the state level in many states. Imagine having to pay sales tax at the bank every time you change a $10 bill for a roll of quarters to do laundry. Inflation is a pernicious tax on the value of money, but even the official numbers, which are massaged downwards, are only on the order of 4% per year. Sales taxes in many states can take away 8% or more on every single transaction in which consumers wish to convert their Federal Reserve Notes into gold or silver.
In conclusion, Madam Speaker, allowing for competing currencies will allow market participants to choose a currency that suits their needs, rather than the needs of the government. The prospect of American citizens turning away from the dollar towards alternate currencies will provide the necessary impetus to the US government to regain control of the dollar and halt its downward spiral. Restoring soundness to the dollar will remove the government’s ability and incentive to inflate the currency, and keep us from launching unconstitutional wars that burden our economy to excess. With a sound currency, everyone is better off, not just those who control the monetary system. I urge my colleagues to consider the redevelopment of a system of competing currencies.
Source: http://www.dailypaul.com/97508/ron-paul-lets-legalize-competing-currencies
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IF THE BANKS OWN ALL THE GOLD, WHY WOULD WE WANT A GOLD-BACKED MONEY SYSTEM?
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011by G. Edward Griffin 2009 October 21
One of the most entrenched myths of our modern day is the assumption that (1) the bankers own all the gold and (2) therefore, the concept of a gold-backed money system is a very bad idea, because it would give them even more power than they now have. This view is wrong on both points, as I will attempt to illustrate shortly but, first, let us allow a proponent of that myth to express it in forceful terms. The following letter was received from Brian McDermott, Governor of Central Queensland Free State, Australia.
Dear Mr. Griffin, Please, when you’re doing your crash course on money, whatever else you do, DO NOT suggest that America go back on the “Gold Standard.” I understand that you are a supporter of going back on to the “gold standard.” This is very dangerous, as I will show you.
There are many people in various parts of the world who mean well, but many of them can’t see the perils of “The Gold Standard.” This is EXACTLY what Rothschild wants, BECAUSE ROTHSCHILDS OWN ALL THE GOLD! Hope this makes sense, but “money” should be based on real value of productivity. Nothing to do with gold. All the gold in the world could sink below the waves tomorrow, and it would make no difference to our economic situation, or our productivity. It’s just a useless, pretty metal, with a “man-made” value. The “gold standard” is a clever hoax. Please wake up, and wake up others.
Did you know that Rothschild sets the price of gold every day, on the world markets? IT’S A RACKET! He’s laughing all the way to (his own) bank, at the stupidity of the goyim!
May I suggest that you do a crash course on Social Credit (C.H. Douglas.) It’s all there. Please stay in touch.
THIS WAS MY REPLY:
Hello Brian.
Sorry I can’t agree with you, but I do appreciate your taking the time to express your view.
The Rothschilds do not own all the gold or even close to it. Most of it is still in the ground, in the ocean, and in private hoards. Even if they did own all of it that presently is in the form of bars, that would just drive up the price and stimulate gold mining so that new supplies would quickly come into production – as now is happening around the world. When the price hits several thousands of dollars per ounce, it will be profitable to extract it from the oceans, and there is a limitless supply from that source. It’s just a question of the natural balance between supply and demand – without a committee of politicians and bankers drafting a magic formula and using coercion to redirect human resources.
Bankers may hoard gold (because they understand its value more than most people) but they have always done everything possible to prevent a gold-backed currency. If they wanted it, they could have had it long ago, but (as you may have noticed) they always have worked against it. Why is that? It’s because they can acquire far more wealth by expanding the money supply at will and collecting interest on money created out of nothing than they can by having limits on their money supply and collecting interest on a much smaller amount of gold-backed loans. Bankers love to possess gold but they hate a gold-backed currency because that limits their money supply and, thereby, limits the volume of loans.
Any system other than precious metals is dependent on human decree and manipulation. It must inevitably end up no different than any other fiat money. I am familiar with the social-credit scheme and find it lacking in merit. It is a social engineer’s fantasy. It does not line up with human nature.
Gold has always worked well as a monetary base throughout history. It can’t be improved upon. We must not fall for the line about gold being just a pretty metal, etc. It has intrinsic value even if not used for money, it does not deteriorate, it can be divided into small units and recombined again if necessary, it is scarce so it has great value in a small space, and, best of all, it can be precisely measured for purity and weight, which allows for units that are beyond human judgment and human manipulation. It is the perfect money.
Source: http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/freedomcontent.cfm?fuseaction=banksandgold&refpage=issues
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Thrive
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011Thrive is an unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what’s REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream – uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness and activism, Thrive offers real solutions, empowering us with unprecedented and bold strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future.
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BTL Update 2011 October 30
Sunday, October 30th, 2011Obama administration pulls references to Islam from terror training materials, official says
Blame the Fed for the Financial Crisis
Did You Know Feds Will Temporarily Cut Off All TV and Radio Broadcasts on Nov. 9?
Shock Report: Federal Reserve to Backstop Bank of America’s European Derivatives
More Q’s for SunPower, Miller & Son
Schulz Goes to Wall Street; Gives the Constitution a Voice
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G. Edward Griffin: Individualism & Capitalism vs. Collectivism & Monopolies
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011Related Posts:
A Brief History of Money and Banking in America
Saturday, October 15th, 2011U.S. Constitution Article I Section 8
The Congress shall have Power:
- To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
- To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
Article I Section 10
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
The first colonial experience with fiat money was in the period from 1690 to 1764. Massachusetts was the first to use it as a means of financing its military raids against the French colony in Quebec. The other colonies were quick to follow suit and, within a few years, were engaging in a virtual orgy of printing “bills of credit”. There was no central bank involved. The process was simple and direct, as was the reasoning behind it. As one colonial legislator explained it: “Do you think, gentleman, that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes when we can send to our printer and get a wagon load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole?”1
The consequences of this enlightened statesmanship were classic. Prices skyrocketed, legal tender laws were enacted to force the colonists to accept the worthless paper, and the common man endured great personal losses and hardship.1 By the late 1750s, Connecticut had price inflated by 800%, the Carolinas had inflated 900%, Massachusetts 1000%, Rhode Island 2300%.2
The situation was so out of hand that, beginning in 1751, the British Parliament stepped in and, in one of those rare instances where interference from the mother country actually benefited the colonies, it forced them to cease the production of fiat money. Henceforth, the Bank of England would be the only source.1
What followed was unforeseen by the promoters of fiat money. Amid great gloom about “insufficient money”, a miracle boom of prosperity occurred. The forced use of fiat money had compelled everyone to hoard their real money and use the worthless paper instead. Now that the paper was in disgrace, the colonists began to use their English and French and Dutch gold coins once again, prices rapidly adjusted to reality, and commerce returned to a solid footing. It remained so even during the economic strain of the Seven-Years War (1756-1763) and during the period immediately prior to the Revolution. Here was a perfect example of how an economic system in distress can recover if government does not interfere with the healing process.1
During the Revolutionary War, a form of centralized banking was adopted when the Continental Congress issued “the Continental” in 1775. Because it was not backed by anything of value, the Continental depreciated so severely that it was virtually worthless by 1781. “Not worth a Continental” became a popular slang expression.3
The onset of the Revolutionary War was the compelling motive for the colonies to return to their printing presses. The following figures speak for themselves:
- At the beginning of the war in 1775, the total money supply for the federated colonies stood at $12 million.
- In June of that year, the Continental Congress issued another $2 million. Before the notes were printed, another $1 million was authorized.
- By the end of the year, another $3 million.
- $19 million in 1776.
- $13 million in 1777.
- $64 million in 1778.
- $125 million in 1779.
- A total of $227 million in five years on top of a base of $12 million is an increase of about 2000%.
- On top of this “federal” money, the states were doing the same in an approximately equal amount.
The immediate result of this money infusion was the illusion of prosperity. After all, everyone had more money and that was perceived as a very good thing. But this was quickly followed by inflation as the self-destruct mechanism began to roll. In 1775, the colonial monetary unit, called the Continental, was valued at one-dollar in gold. In 1778, it was exchanged for 25-cents. By 1779, just four years from its issue, it was worth less than a penny and ceased to circulate as money at all. It was in that year that George Washington wrote: “A wagon-load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon-load of provisions”.
The true nature of the inflation effect has never been more accurately perceived or more vividly described than it was by Thomas Jefferson:
“It will be asked how will the two masses of Continental and of State money have cost the people of the United States seventy-two millions of dollars, when they are to be redeemed now with about six million? I answer that the difference, being sixty-six millions, has been lost on the paper bills separately by the successive holders of them. Every one, through whose hands a bill passed, lost on that bill what it lost in value during the time it was in his hands. This was a real tax on him; and in this way the people of the United States actually contributed those sixty-six millions of dollars during the war, and by a mode of taxation the most oppressive of all because the most unequal of all.”
At the end of the Revolutionary War the nation’s first central bank – the Bank of North America – was created, with defense contractor/congressman Robert Morris implanted as its president. Centralized banking might have been ruinous for the general public, but political insiders like Morris profited handsomely. The bank was given a monopoly license to issue paper currency, and it used most of its newly created money for loans to the central government. In so doing, it inflated its currency so rapidly that within one year the market lost all confidence in the bank and it was privatized.
Alexander Hamilton was the real founding father of central banking, as the Federal Reserve Board declares in one of its publications. His Bank of the United States (BUS), established in 1791 after a momentous debate between Hamilton and Jefferson over its constitutionality, was partly intended to finance “sudden emergencies” like war, in Hamilton’s own words. Hamilton’s Bank of the United States ran up 72 percent inflation in its first five years and created such economic instability that its 20-year charter was not renewed by Congress in 1811.
The BUS was resurrected in January 1817 and empowered to create a national paper currency, purchase public debt, and receive deposits of U.S. Treasury funds. The Second Bank of the United States “launched a spectacular inflation of money and credit,” writes Murray Rothbard in his History of Money and Banking in the United States, coupled with a great deal of fraud. It promptly created the “Panic of 1819,” the first real depression in American history. For the first time there was large-scale unemployment in cities such as Philadelphia, where employment in the manufacturing of handicrafts fell from 9,700 persons in 1815 to only 2,100 in 1819.
After nearly 20 years of inflation, fraud, political corruption, and boom-and-bust cycles caused by the Second Bank of the United States, President Andrew Jackson heroically vetoed the bill to recharter the Bank in 1834, and it went out of business. But the Hamiltonian nationalists did not. They would wage a political crusade for the next two decades as members of the Whig and Republican parties to inflict central banking on the nation once again.
They finally succeeded during the Lincoln administration with the Legal Tender Act of 1862, which empowered the secretary of the Treasury to issue paper “greenbacks” that were not redeemable in gold or silver. The National Currency Acts of 1863 and 1864 created a system of nationally chartered banks that could issue bank notes supplied to them by the new comptroller of the currency. The Acts also placed a 10 percent tax on competing state bank notes to drive them out of business and establish a federal monetary monopoly.
The predictable effect was massive inflation, with the greenback dollars so devalued that within one year they were worth only 35 cents in gold. All of the negative economic effects of inflation – devaluation of private wealth, unfair redistribution of income from creditors to debtors, and hindrance to rational economic calculation – damaged the Northern war effort, but not as much as that of the South. The North funded most of the war with public borrowing; the South funded most of its wartime expenditures by printing Confederate dollars. Consequently, inflation in the Confederacy averaged more than 2,200 percent per year.
The nationalization of the money supply created an engine of inflation – and a powerful lobbying force to advocate that it keep running. Northern manufacturers realized that during periods of inflation, domestic currency tends to depreciate faster than prices are rising. A falling dollar makes domestic goods cheaper and the price of imports higher. Henceforth, they became a powerful political force in favor of an even further centralization of banking. Meanwhile, the heavily indebted railroads realized that inflation cheapened their debts, so they allied with manufacturers as a permanent lobby for inflation.
These special interests joined the political coalition that created the Federal Reserve Board in 1913, which became an important source of finance for America’s disastrous participation in World War I four years later. The Fed did not just print greenbacks, as was the case during the Civil War. It printed enough money to purchase more than $4 billion in government bonds that were used to finance the war. The amount of money in circulation doubled between 1914 and 1920 – as did prices. This was an enormous hidden war tax on the American people: wealth was cut in half, along with real wages, and just about everything consumers purchased became more expensive.
The boom created by the Fed’s war financing inevitably caused a bust – the Depression of 1920, the first year of which was even worse than the first year of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Gross domestic product declined by 24 percent from 1920-21, while the number of unemployed Americans more than doubled, from 2.1 million to 4.9 million. The Great Depression of 1920 only lasted one year, however, thanks to President Warren Harding’s inspired policy of cutting both government spending and taxes dramatically.
In the wars that have followed, central-bank financing has inflicted essentially the same kind of damage on American society: inflation, economic chaos, reduced real wages, price controls and other government interventions, and ideological attacks on capitalism rather than the real culprit, the Fed.
1 G. Edward Griffin. The Creature from Jekyll Island. Westlake Village, CA: American Media
2 Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman. The Case for Gold. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1982
3 Thomas DiLorenzo. Inflating War: Central banking and militarism are intimately linked
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Fiat Money
Friday, September 30th, 2011Related Posts:
Facts and Truth About U.S. Inflation, Debt, and Political Crisis
Friday, August 19th, 2011The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) yesterday released their consumer price index (CPI) data for the month of July. The BLS reported an increase in year-over-year CPI growth to 3.63%, the highest rate of U.S. price inflation since October of 2008. July’s official government reported year-over-year U.S. price inflation rate of 3.63% was up from 3.56% in June, 3.57% in May, 3.16% in April, 2.68% in March, 2.11% in February, 1.63% in January, 1.5% in December, and 1.1% in November.
The official rate of U.S. price inflation has increased by 230% over the last eight months. NIA conservatively projects the official rate of U.S. price inflation to surpass 4% by year-end and 5% in early 2012. NIA estimates the real rate of U.S. price inflation, without geometric weighting and hedonics, to currently be approaching 8%. NIA projects the real rate of U.S. price inflation to reach double-digit territory by mid-2012, if not much sooner.
Gold prices today reached a new all time high of $1,877 per ounce. Gold is the best gauge of inflation, not the CPI. On June 15th when the BLS reported May CPI data, gold was trading for only $1,520 per ounce. Even though the BLS reported a year-over-year CPI increase for the month of May of 3.16%, the mainstream media reported that inflation was slowing down and not a problem because gas prices were declining. Although seasonal adjusted gas prices in the month of May were down 2%, NIA reported to you that non-adjusted gas prices actually rose 3.6%. NIA then warned you that the BLS’s seasonal adjustments will reverse beginning in the month of July and start boosting reported gas prices.
NIA was right, seasonal adjusted gas prices in the month of July increased 4.7%. The mainstream media intentionally misled Americans about price inflation during the month of June, but the world is now recognizing the truth about how U.S. price inflation is spiraling out of control with the price of gold having risen 23% since mid-June. The investment community is also finally realizing what NIA has been saying for years, inflation does not create real economic growth.
The Dow Jones declined today by 172.93 points to 10,817.65 and the Dow Jones/Gold ratio fell to 5.84. The Dow Jones/Gold ratio is declining at a faster rate than even we expected. NIA was one of the only organizations in the world to accurately predict that the Dow Jones/Gold ratio would decline to 6.5 in 2011. NIA continues to believe that the Dow Jones/Gold ratio will decline to 1 this decade, which will mean another 83% loss for Dow Jones stocks in terms of real money.
The lower the stock market declines in the near-term, the greater the chances are that the Federal Reserve will soon unleash QE3 in disguise under a new name. Despite gold reaching a new all time high, the core-CPI, which the Federal Reserve likes to use to gauge inflation because it excludes food and energy prices, is currently up 1.77% on a year-over-year basis, compared to an annual gain of 0.61% in October of last year. Even though core-CPI growth appears to still be low, year-over-year core-CPI growth has increased by 290% since October of last year, a larger gain on a percentage basis than the official CPI. Ever since the Federal Reserve announced QE2 in November of last year, core-CPI has increased for nine straight months.
By the time the 2012 Presidential election comes around, inflation will be the top concern on the minds of all Americans. Inflation will be an even bigger concern than unemployment, because nobody will want to have a job that pays them a salary in U.S. dollars. The only Presidential candidate who has the knowledge and courage necessary to preserve what little purchasing power the U.S. dollar still has left is Ron Paul. NIA supports Ron Paul to become the Republican nominee in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election. To become the Republican nominee, Ron Paul will need to win the Republican presidential primaries. Unlike the general election to be held on November 6th, 2012, the Republican primaries are a series of primary elections and caucuses that are spread out over five months beginning in February.
Iowa is always the first state to vote and will have their caucuses on February 6th, followed by New Hampshire on February 14th, Nevada on February 18th, and South Carolina on February 28th. The results of the first few primaries/caucuses usually influence how people will vote in the following primaries/caucuses. It is important for a candidate to build momentum early on. If a candidate doesn’t have a strong showing in early primary states, they frequently drop out of the race before all of the primaries/caucuses are completed.
The way the primaries are structured gives voters in early primary states, especially voters in Iowa, a lot of power compared to voters in states like New York who very often don’t vote until the nominee has already been determined. About six months before every Iowa Republican primary is the Ames Straw Poll, an unofficial Presidential straw poll that takes place in Ames, Iowa, of who Iowa voters are planning to support in their caucuses. The 2011 Ames Straw Poll just took place on August 13th with Michele Bachmann finishing first place with 4,823 votes and Ron Paul coming in second with 4,671 votes, only 152 votes behind Bachmann.
To attend the Ames Straw Poll and have the opportunity to vote in the poll, attendees were required to purchase a ticket priced at $30. Bachmann gave her supporters 6,000 free tickets at a cost to her campaign of $180,000. Only 80% of the people she gave free tickets to actually voted for her and that’s assuming none of the people who bought tickets voted for her. Bachmann didn’t just pay for the entrance of 6,000 people who she thought supported her, but she paid a small fortune to have Grammy Award winning country singer Randy Travis perform in a special air-conditioned tent. Bachmann even paid to transport forty bus loads of Randy Travis fans to the event, who were required to register at the Bachmann table and vote before seeing the entertainment.
With Bachmann spending a total of nearly $1 million on this event, she should have won the straw poll in a blow out. Click on the link below to see a shocking video we just posted to the NIA blog of the never ending line of Bachmann “supporters” registering at her table so that they could vote without paying the $30 fee. NIA believes that many of these people pretended to support her in order to get free tickets, but actually voted for Ron Paul: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/08/crazy-video-of-bachmann-ames-straw-poll-line/
The morning after Bachmann’s phony victory, she appeared on five different nationwide talk shows. Ron Paul wasn’t allowed to appear on any, with both ‘Meet the Press’ and ‘Fox News Sunday’ canceling interviews they had scheduled with him. Meet the Press spent the morning talking about Bachmann’s win and Tim Pawlenty dropping out of the race after finishing third with less than half of the votes of Bachmann and Ron Paul. They barely mentioned Ron Paul even when he finished in a statistical dead heat with Bachmann.
Even more frustrating and disturbing, the Wall Street Journal published a long article Sunday morning about the race and it focused almost entirely on Bachmann’s straw poll win and Rick Perry’s entry into the race. The article only had one sentence about Ron Paul that read, “Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.” On Monday morning, Ron Paul was scheduled to appear on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, but that interview was canceled as well with an NBC official saying it was due to “logistics and timing reasons with the news in Indiana and Somalia.”
The mainstream media believes that if they repeat “Ron Paul has no chance of winning” enough times, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same applies to the media constantly referring to Mitt Romney as the front-runner. The media supports Romney because they like how he is a part of the Republican establishment and if elected would stick with the status quo in Washington.
Four years ago when Ron Paul was relatively unknown, Romney was the winner of the 2007 Ames Straw Poll. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, who were both also seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, chose not to participate in the 2007 Ames Straw Poll. Romney at the time in his own words called Giuliani and McCain cowards. Romney said, “I think if they thought they could have won, they would have been here,” and “If you can’t compete in the heartland, if you can’t compete in Iowa in August, how are you going to compete in January when the caucuses are held, and how are you going to compete in November of ’08?”
NIA believes that if Romney thought that he could have won the 2011 Ames Straw Poll, he would have been there. Romney knows that he lost all of his grassroots supporters when he spoke out in favor of the Federal Reserve’s destructive monetary policies and said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was doing a good job. Romney showed his true colors when he said that the Federal Reserve is a non-issue and that he won’t be discussing it during his campaign. He has now proven himself to be a hypocrite who was scared of looking bad by losing to Ron Paul in the straw poll and losing his “front-runner” status that was handed to him by the mainstream media. If Romney was afraid to compete in Iowa this month, NIA sees no chance of him winning in Iowa this February and no chance of him winning the Republican nomination.
With Iowa voters having a lot of power being in the first primary state, Iowa residents have spent more time researching the candidates than residents of most other states. Because Iowa voters are educated on the issues, especially issues affecting the economy, the media knew Ron Paul would have a strong showing in the Ames Straw Poll and for weeks leading up to it ran countless stories designed to downplay the poll and make it seem irrelevant. One Fox News reporter even went as far as saying that winning the straw poll is a negative and makes it nearly impossible to win the nomination. None of these things were said before the poll in 2007 because the media knew their darling Romney would win.
All educated Americans who understand the facts and truth about the U.S. economy and inflation are in strong support of Ron Paul because of his 24 year record in Congress of voting against increases in government spending and taxes, and voting for measures to strengthen our currency and reduce monetary inflation. Ron Paul stands for everything that NIA believes in such as liberty, freedom, and sound money. He has done more to protect the U.S. Constitution than any other person in Washington. Our founding fathers had the foresight 224 years ago to see the economic problems we have today. Even back then, rulers of nations had a history of coin clipping, replacing the silver in coins with base metals, and implementing other measures that stole from the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. Our founding fathers never would have imagined just how easy it has become to create inflation, where now the Federal Reserve with the click of a mouse can credit trillions of dollars to any banking institution worldwide.
For years, the media has dismissed Ron Paul’s fight against the Federal Reserve and its destruction of the U.S. dollar. The media calls Ron Paul’s ideas radical, but NIA believes Ron Paul is the most sane person in Washington. NIA believes balancing the budget, auditing the Federal Reserve, returning to a gold standard, and bringing our troops home from the Middle East, are all sane ideas that must be implemented if we want to have any hope of avoiding hyperinflation.
Rick Perry, the governor of Texas who just entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, was recently asked about the Federal Reserve and in response he called Bernanke’s acts of printing money “treasonous”. NIA was the first to call Bernanke’s actions treasonous. Back on December 9th of last year, NIA released an article entitled “WikiLeaks, Bernanke, and Hyperinflation” in which NIA said that it was “deeply disturbed by how U.S. politicians and the mainstream media have been calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be charged with treason.” Although in no way does NIA support Assange or his actions, we expressed in our article how we don’t believe it is a treasonous act to help spread the truth about our country’s foreign policy and other sensitive topics when the information he posted was given to him and in no way did he hack any government systems to obtain it.
NIA went on to state in its December 9th article, “If there is one American who deserves to be charged with treason, it is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.” It is not humanly possible to betray ones country in a way that is more egregious than Bernanke’s despicable acts. NIA is currently in the process of producing a sequel to its critically acclaimed documentary ‘Meltup’, which has received over 1.1 million views with 96% of its viewers “liking” the movie and only 4% “disliking” it, a record for YouTube documentaries at least 50 minutes in length with over 1 million views. NIA’s sequel to ‘Meltup’ will expose the latest updated facts and truth about the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve, and inflation. It will set a whole new standard as the most in-depth, informative, educational, and entertaining economic documentary ever produced. Most importantly, it will expose why Bernanke’s actions are indeed treasonous.
As far as Rick Perry is concerned, he is really no different than Romney. Perry like Romney is a governor who was elected to office due to his strong ties to the Republican establishment. Both Perry and Romney according to many media pundits look very Presidential. You will never hear Perry or Romney speak a word about bringing our troops home, repealing legislation that invades Americans’ privacy rights without making us any safer here at home, and eliminating entire departments of government including the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Homeland Security. These unnecessary bureaucracies have done nothing but add to our budget deficits, without a single success story to justify their existence.
Perry is not a true fiscal conservative. He and his wife complained that the Texas governor’s mansion was too small and is now spending $11 million of President Obama’s stimulus money to renovate and expand its size. With the construction now taking place at the governor’s mansion and Perry unable to live there, Texas taxpayers have so far spent $700,000 to rent him an even bigger Texas mansion and to cover expenses at the mansion including Neiman Marcus window coverings and a subscription to Food & Wine Magazine.
What is unbelievable to us is that Perry for the most part has been a career politician, yet he has somehow managed to become a multi-millionaire while spending nearly all of his time in public office earning a relatively modest salary. Of course, if Perry was elected President, nothing much will change from the Obama administration and within a few years, he might become a multi-billionaire because a billionaire will be the new millionaire. Make no mistake about it, Perry may be trying to differentiate himself from Romney by speaking out against the Fed, but as President of the United States of America, NIA guarantees that Perry wouldn’t do a damn thing to limit the Fed’s powers and stop it from wiping out both the savings of senior citizens and the purchasing power of their Social Security checks. Perry is already in the pocket of the big banks and we just posted an 11 second video on the NIA blog that proves it: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/08/shocking-video-bank-of-america-executive-offers-to-help-out-rick-perry/
Tomorrow, Saturday, August 20th, is Ron Paul’s birthday. To celebrate his birthday and help build momentum for his Presidential campaign, Ron Paul supporters have organized a huge “moneybomb” that starts at midnight tonight. If you would like to give Ron Paul the best possible birthday President and help increase the chances of our nation’s survival, please make a donation beginning at midnight tonight by going to: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us
