Posts Tagged ‘texas straight talk’
Ron Paul – Beware the Coming Bailouts of Europe
The economic establishment in this country has come to the conclusion that it is not a matter of “if” the United States must intervene in the bailout of the euro, but simply a question of “when” and “how”. Newspaper articles and editorials are full of assertions that the breakup of the euro would result in a worldwide depression, and that economic assistance to Europe is the only way to stave off this calamity. These assertions are yet again more scare-mongering, just as we witnessed during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. After just a decade of the euro, people have forgotten that Europe functioned for centuries without a common currency.
The real cause of economic depression is loose monetary policy: the creation of money and credit out of thin air and the monetization of government debt by a central bank. This inflationary monetary policy is the cause of every boom and bust, yet it is precisely what political and economic elites both in Europe and the United States are prescribing as a resolution for the present crisis. The drastic next step being discussed is a multi-trillion dollar bailout of Europe by the European Central Bank, aided by the IMF and the Federal Reserve.
The euro was built on an unstable foundation. Its creators attempted to establish a dollar-like currency for Europe, while forgetting that it took nearly two centuries for the dollar to devolve from a defined unit of silver to a completely unbacked fiat currency note. The euro had no such history and from the outset was a purely fiat system, thus it is not surprising to followers of Austrian economics that it barely survived a decade and is now completely collapsing. Europe’s economic depression is the result of the euro’s very structure, a fiat money system that allowed member governments to spend themselves into oblivion and expect that someone else would pick up the tab.
A bailout of European banks by the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve will exacerbate the crisis rather than alleviate it. What is needed is for bad debts to be liquidated. Banks that invested in sovereign debt need to take their losses rather than socializing those losses and prolonging the process of adjusting their balance sheets to reflect reality. If this was done, the correction would be painful, but quick, like tearing off a large band-aid, but this is necessary to get back on solid economic footing. Until the correction takes place there can be no recovery. Bailing out profligate European governments will only ensure that no correction will take place.
A multi-trillion dollar European aid package cannot be undertaken by Europe alone, and will require IMF and Federal Reserve involvement. The Federal Reserve already has pumped trillions of dollars into the US economy with nothing to show for it. Just considering Fed involvement in Europe is ludicrous. The US economy is in horrible shape precisely because of too much government debt and too much money creation and the European economy is destined to flounder for the same reasons. We have an unsustainable amount of debt here at home; it is hardly fair to US taxpayers to take on Europe’s debt as well. That will only ensure an accelerated erosion of the dollar and a lower standard of living for all Americans.
Ron Paul – US Congressman
Ron Paul – The Fed Twists, The Market Shouts
Last week the Federal Reserve began the second incarnation of “Operation Twist”, an attempt to drive down interest rates by purchasing long-term Treasury debt and selling short-term debt. This is just the latest instance of the central bank desperately flailing around doing something merely for the sake of doing something. Fed officials still do not understand– or admit– that the Fed itself caused the financial crisis by driving interest rates too low and relentlessly expanding the money supply. Thus, this latest action will just exacerbate the problem.
Markets, however, understand that the Fed has failed and has no clue what it is doing. This is why markets went into a tailspin after the Fed’s new strategy was announced. Stock, bonds, and commodities dropped in price while the financial press wondered whether this worldwide sell-off meant that the entire system was collapsing. Not since 2008 had there been such a dramatic drop across so many different sectors of the market.
Because of continued rising inflation and the Federal Reserve’s suppression of interest rates, investing in traditional safe havens such as savings accounts, mutual funds, and Treasury bonds has become unprofitable. Lots of money is moving through the system seeking a return on investments or at least some measure of safety, as increasingly desperate investors move their funds around in search of long-term profits and stability. Until the Fed stops its monetary intervention and allows interest rates to be set by the free market, investors will move their money in a volatile manner. They will invest in commodities and stocks while prices swing upwards, but will flee to bonds and cash at the first sign of a downturn.
The uncertainty caused by the Fed does help some people – professional traders on Wall Street for example. Increased volatility and huge price swings mean more opportunities for profit, as sophisticated electronic trading programs can buy and sell huge positions within a fraction of a second of a major market movement. But small businessmen are misled by the artificially low interest rates into making unwise investments, and those whose jobs vanish when the Federal Reserve’s latest bubble pops suffer. Without the knowledge or ability to move with the markets or diversify overseas, average Americans see their savings stagnate or depreciate– along with their hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow.
The only way to return to a sound economy is for the Federal Reserve to cease and desist its monetary manipulation and allow interest rates to be determined by markets, just as the price of goods, services, and labor should be determined by markets. Everything the Fed is doing by pumping money into the economy benefits only the insolvent, too-big-to-fail banks. Low interest rates encourage consumers to take on more debt, meaning more profits for the banks issuing those loans. Purchasing mortgage-backed securities, as the Fed has done, keeps housing prices inflated, helping the banks who have non-performing mortgages on their books. However, it hurts consumers who continue to be priced out of the housing market. In order to maintain a decent standard of living for the American people and to restore the vibrancy of the U.S. economy, it is time to end the Fed.
Ron Paul
When a Cut is Not a Cut
By: Dr. Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman
One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the “cuts” being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family “saving” $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of “cuts” that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to “cut”. It would only take us 5 years to “cut” $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger “cut” than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
Competing Currencies – a Defense Against Profligate Government Spending
The end of June marked what is hopefully the end of the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing. For months the Fed has purchased hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasury debt, enabling the government to fund its profligate deficit spending, push the national debt to its limit, and further devalue the dollar. Confidence in the dollar is plummeting, confidence in the euro has been shattered by the European bond crisis, and beleaguered consumers and investors are slowly but surely awakening to the fact that government-issued currencies do not hold their value.
Currency is sound only when it is recognized and accepted as such by individuals, through the actions of the market, without coercion. Throughout history, gold and silver have been the two commodities that have most fully satisfied the requirements of sound money. This is why people around the world are flocking once again to gold and silver as a store of value to replace their rapidly depreciating paper currencies. Even central banks have come to their senses and have begun to stock up on gold once again.
But in our country today, attempting to use gold and silver as money is severely punished, regardless of the fact that it is the only constitutionally-allowed legal tender! In one recent instance, entrepreneurs who attempted to create their own gold and silver currency were convicted by the federal government of “counterfeiting”. Also, consider another case of an individual who was convicted of tax evasion for paying his employees with silver and gold coins rather than fiat paper dollars. The federal government acknowledges that such coins are legal tender at their face value, as they were issued by the U.S. government. But when it comes to income taxes owed by the employees who received them, the IRS suddenly deems the coins to be worth their full market value as precious metals.
These cases highlight the fact that a government monopoly on the issuance of money is purely a method of central control over the economy. If you can be forced to accept the government’s increasingly devalued dollar, there is no limit to how far the government will go to debauch the currency. Anyone who attempts to create a market based currency– meaning a currency with real value as determined by markets– threatens to embarrass the federal government and expose the folly of our fiat monetary system. So the government destroys competition through its usual tools of arrest, confiscation, and incarceration.
This is why I have taken steps to restore the constitutional monetary system envisioned and practiced by our Founding Fathers. I recently introduced HR 1098, the Free Competition in Currency Act. This bill eliminates three of the major obstacles to the circulation of sound money: federal legal tender laws that force acceptance of Federal Reserve Notes; “counterfeiting” laws that serve no purpose other than to ban the creation of private commodity currencies; and tax laws that penalize the use of gold and silver coins as money. During this Congress I hope to hold hearings on this bill in order to highlight the importance of returning to a sound monetary system.
Allowing market participants to choose a sound currency will ensure that individuals’ needs are met, rather than the needs of the government. Restoring sound money will restrict the ability of the government to reduce the citizenry’s purchasing power and burden future generations with debt. Unlike the current system which benefits the Fed and its banking cartel, all Americans are better off with a sound currency.
Ron Paul
Syndicated by Alan’s Finance Blog @ http://alansfinanceblog.com
How Should Government Treat Energy Producers?
As the economy continues in its downward spiral and talks in Congress about reducing spending have only amounted to political theater, the subject of how the tax code treats energy has become a topic of controversy. Specifically, should we subsidize, enforce mandates, or give tax credits and deductions to industries like ethanol and natural gas? Having a thriving energy market domestically is a good thing and something the government should not hinder. Not only would decreasing our dependence on foreign oil simplify our foreign policy, but it would greatly enhance our anemic economy at home.
Of course, the government should neither inhibit nor subsidize any particular type of energy. While many people agree with that statement, there is much confusion over the difference between government subsidies and tax credits or deductions. The difference is night and day, yet so many times they are all lumped together as evil government handouts. A subsidy IS a government handout. It amounts to the government taking money from the people and giving it to a favored interest. It is the worst sort of market manipulation and it is something I can never support. This kind of government mischief is anathema to the Constitution and the principles of freedom and the free market.
By contrast, with tax credits and deductions, industries, business, and individuals simply get to keep more of the money they have earned. Ideally, the tax code should not be used for social engineering, but, until we have true tax reform, I will always support tax credits and deductions that keep more dollars in the private sector where they are spent, saved, or invested. This means I will support tax credits and deductions for energy producers, farmers, homeschoolers, family child care expenditures, expenses of evacuees from disaster areas, and even adoption expenses. I’ve almost never met a tax cut, deduction, or credit I didn’t like. Any measure that keeps money in the private sector to spend, save or invest, rather than allowing the government to waste or misallocate is a win for the economy.
Inequities in the tax code dealing with tax credits should be solved by giving all participants equal treatment. Removing
I oppose ethanol mandates because I do not think anyone should be forced to use or buy ethanol. Ethanol mandates often serve as corporate welfare for big agriculture ethanol producers. The marketplace should decide whether or not to use ethanol, and producers of ethanol have to discover if they can produce it at a price that makes good business sense. No industry should be allowed to use legislation to create a “market” for its products. The real reason ethanol mandates continue to surface in federal legislation is that agribusiness continues to have one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.
Furthermore, while I do not support providing federal grants to any industry, I do support the tax credits contained in the NAT Gas Act, HR 1380. These credits reduce taxes for the production or purchase of vehicles that run on American-made natural gas. These credits are not subsidies. Of course, we should repeal federal barriers to energy production and reduce taxes on all forms of energy. Therefore, I have also introduced the Affordable Gas Price Act HR 1102 which would remove governmental barriers to offshore drilling, encourage private investment in new refineries and suspend taxes on gasoline when the price at the pump reaches a certain threshold. Lowering taxes to encourage the domestic production of energy and getting government out of the way of the American energy market is not a government giveaway; it is the way it should be in a free country.
Ron Paul
Syndicated by Alan’s Finance Blog
Ron Paul – The FCIC: Passing the Buck
Last week the federal government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission held hearings as part of their continuing investigation into the causes of the acute economic meltdown which occurred in late summer 2008. This bipartisan commission, partly inspired by the Pecora Commission- which investigated the causes of the Great Depression- is expected to report back to Congress before the end of the year.
Things don’t seem to be going well. The individuals questioned by the commission mostly seem to be diverting blame for the whole fiasco to someone else. Nobody is offering any tangible insights into the causes of the financial crisis.
Predictably, the commission will avoid calling any witnesses who might unequivocally indict the federal government for its role in the crisis, or suggest solutions which take away government power. Government commissions have a remarkable tendency to recommend granting even more power to the same useless government agencies that so utterly fail to prevent crises in the first place. We saw this with the Pecora Commission, we saw it after 9-11, and we’re seeing it again today with regard to financial regulations. For example, this latest commission almost certainly will suggest granting more power to the SEC, when in fact the SEC should be abolished as an embarrassing farce. Rest assured that this recommendation will be made without apology or sense of irony.
The reality is that the Federal Reserve relentlessly expanded the money supply through artificially low interest rates for over two decades, and this expansion of easy money caused a wholly predictable bubble. To a myopic Keynesian regulator, the bubble may appear to be caused by greed, but in truth it is completely predictable that humans will act in their own perceived self interest. If the Fed wants to dole out artificially cheap money, people and businesses- including Wall Street businesses- will line up to take it. We can condemn this as greed, but the fundamental problem is Fed policy itself. There will always be demand for cheap money, but we should not allow the Fed to debase our currency and create bubbles of false prosperity to satisfy that demand.
What the commission really needs are experts who understand free market economics rather than big government Keynesian fantasies. The commission has none of these, and has called no true free market witnesses. That perspective would only distract from their predetermined goals.
The commission will bemoan the complexity and inscrutability of our economic problems, but the solution is simple: allow freedom to operate in our markets. Allow U.S. financial, labor, and housing markets to normalize without political interference. Though solution is simple, and rather obvious, it would not be easy or painless, but we’d be so much better off for it in the long run. It would require admitting fiat money is a tangled web of monetary deception prone to catastrophic failure. It would require allowing Americans to choose a system of sound money, where the money supply and interest rates are set by market forces rather than centralized economic planners. Unfortunately, fiat money is like a drug to a Congress hopelessly addicted to spending vastly more than the Treasury collects in revenues. Because of this, our problems can only get worse and more complex before they get better.
Ron Paul
Brought to you by Alan’s Finance Blog:
Government and Gasoline
By: Dr. Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman
As we head into the summer driving season and gasoline prices are again creeping up, the administration has announced plans to explore opening up more off-shore areas for exploration and drilling. On the one hand this can be lauded as a positive step. On the other hand, it is too little, much too late to have any meaningful or long-term effect on what Americans pay at the pump any time soon, if at all.
Indeed, if increasing domestic energy production was really a priority, the administration would direct the EPA to remove its many roadblocks and barriers to energy production. In fact, abolishing the EPA altogether would do much to improve our country’s economy. Instead of protecting the environment as they are supposed to do, most of what they do simply chills the economy. Polluters should be directly liable in court to any and all parties they harm, rather than bureaucrats at the EPA.
Of course, last week’s announcement was couched in terms of removing barriers and red tape. However, the fact that we had these barriers in the first place is yet another reminder of how the energy market is hampered and controlled by bureaucrats and central planners in Washington, rather than the demands of the people and the decisions of private investors.
Consider how extremely negative our government’s reaction has been to other governments around the world that have nationalized their oil and energy industries, such as Venezuela and Iran. We deposed a democratically elected leader in Iran in 1953 for this very reason. Yet the level of involvement of our government and bureaucrats in energy is nearly absolute. Of course, the only thing worse than our government dictating energy decisions to its own citizens is our government dictating energy decisions to the citizens of other countries.
Along with the waste of prohibitions that leave our own natural resources untapped is the waste our government perpetrates with subsidies to alternative fuel sources. There is certainly profit to be made in perfecting cheaper, cleaner fuel sources, but government subsidy programs interfere with finding realistic long-term solutions. Subsidies divert resources towards certain politically-favored fuel types while ignoring others. If the market were left alone, private investors would put their own capital into the most promising alternative fuels. Instead, due to government incentives, resources are concentrated into politically chosen endeavors that could very well end up being dead ends. Meanwhile, precious time and money is wasted.
The government has the opposite of the Midas touch. This has been observed over and over by the reduced quality and rising prices in every private industry in which it entangles itself. Yet somehow people still seem willing, even eager, to relinquish to government control the most important and sensitive portions of our economy and society. Education, healthcare, and energy are all unfortunate examples of industries that are in my opinion, far too important to be left to government control when it is the market that has the golden touch.
More Spending is Always the Answer
Last week, the House approved another increase in the national debt ceiling. This means the government can borrow $1.9 trillion more to stay afloat and avoid default. It has been little more than a year since the last debt limit increase, and graphs showing the debt limit over time show a steep, almost vertical trend. It is not likely to be very long before this new ceiling is met and the government is back on the brink between default and borrowing us further into oblivion. Congressional leaders and the administration acknowledge that the debt limit will need to be increased again next year. They are crossing their fingers that the forecasts are correct and they will not need another increase sooner, even before the 2010 midterm elections.
Continually increasing the debt is one of the logical outcomes of Keynesianism, since more government spending is always their answer. It is claimed that government must not stop spending when the economy is so fragile. Government must act. Yet, when times are good, government also increases in size and scope, because we can afford it, it is claimed. There is never a good time to rein in government spending according to Keynesian economists and the proponents of big government.
Free market Austrian economists on the other hand know that times are bad because of the size and scope of government. The economy is fragile because of the overwhelming stranglehold of bureaucracy and taxation of Washington. Any jobs Washington might create through these endless spending programs are paid for through more taxation and debt put on the productive sectors of the economy. Just as insidious is the hidden tax of inflation caused by the Fed and its ever-expanding credit bubble. When the Fed steps in with its solutions, it only devalues the dollars in everyone’s pocket while encouraging more reckless waste on Wall Street. All of this leads to a worsening economy, not an improved one.
And so the downward spiral continues. The worse things get, the more politicians want to spend. The more they spend, the heavier the debt load becomes and the more we have to spend just to maintain our interest payments. As our debt load becomes unsustainable, the alarm of our creditors increases. It is becoming so serious that our credit rating, as a nation, could be downgraded. If this happens, interest on the national debt will increase even more, leading to even higher taxes on Americans and inevitably, price inflation.
Still, Washington is full of talk of more regulation, more taxation and more spending. The Senate is still struggling to pass a massive regulatory increase on the financial sector, even as the stock market suffers more shockwaves. Pay-as-you-go rules give the appearance of fiscal responsibility, but in truth these rules are only used as a justification to raise taxes. Spending programs like healthcare reform, increased military spending, and a recent doubling of destructive foreign aid are viewed by Washington as necessary and reasonable, instead of foolishness we absolutely cannot afford.
The people understand this, which is why there is so much anger directed at politicians. Washington needs to change its thinking and adopt some common sense priorities. The Constitution gives some excellent limitations that would get us back on the right path if we would simply abide by them. The framers of the Constitution understood that only the ingenuity of the American people, free from government interference, could get us through hard times, yet Washington seems bent only on prolonging the agony.
Brought to you by Alan’s Finance Blog:
Why the Fed Likes Independence
Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks to bail out Goldman Sachs. Apparently he felt at the time that regulators and the public would be angry that taxpayer money was used to fully compensate bankers who made some horrifically bad investment decisions. These banks should have suffered the consequences of the huge risks they were taking. After all, they kept plenty of rewards when times were good. Instead, the Fed found a way to socialize these major losses so these banks could survive and continue making more bad decisions, at the expense of the American people and the value of the dollar.
Geithner claims that they had to take politically unpopular actions to save the economy from collapse. Half of that is right – it was politically unpopular, but it is extremely premature at best, to claim the economy has been saved. It was just reported that the economy shed 85,000 more jobs in December. Unemployment stands at 10 percent officially, and 22 percent according to more traditional calculations. It is hard to argue that this sort of government waste has done anything but harm to our economy. Raiding Main Street to bail out Wall Street is a foolish idea. Main Street productivity and the strength of the dollar is the bedrock of the economy. You cannot gut this foundation without eventually toppling everything else. This is what too many policy makers either don’t understand or refuse to face. Or even worse, perhaps they do understand, but don’t care!
In any case, this revelation makes precisely my point about the need for Fed transparency. This claim that the Fed should have “independence” is a canard. They very much enjoy their comfortable pattern of bailing out friends and devaluing the currency with no oversight and no accountability. Geithner specifically asked officials at AIG not to disclose to the SEC or to the public particulars about this special deal for his friends. We only know these details now because AIG was eventually forthcoming when Congress demanded some answers.
We should be getting this information, and information on all such dealings, straight from the Fed. The Fed should be accountable to Congress because it is a creature of Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to oversee the integrity of the monetary unit. We have unwisely and unconstitutionally delegated this authority to the Federal Reserve, which has in turn devalued our dollar by 95 percent and counting. When the Federal Reserve engages in harmful policies, Congress is still ultimately responsible. If the Fed is not made accountable through a GAO audit at least, it will continue to be accountable to no one, and that is unacceptable.
Geithner expects to be praised and thanked for his actions instead of rebuked and fired. He expects to be given more power to engage in “experimental” monetary policy in the future. But he has just given us a very good idea of what the Fed and Treasury would do with more power, what they consider good monetary policy, and why they like their so-called independence.
Brought to you by Alan’s Finance Blog:
Keynesianism Delivers a Decade of Zero
This past week we celebrated the end of what most people agree was a decade best forgotten. New York Times columnist and leading Keynesian economist Paul Krugman called it the Big Zero in a recent column. He wrote that “there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success” which is true. However, Krugman continues to misleadingly blame the free market and supposed lack of regulation for the economic chaos.
It was encouraging that he admitted that blowing economic bubbles is a mistake, especially considering he himself advocated creating a housing bubble as a way to alleviate the hangover from the dotcom bust. But we can no longer afford to give prominent economists like Krugman a pass when they completely ignore the burden of taxation, monetary policy, and excessive regulation.
Afterall, Krugman is still scratching his head as to why “no” economists saw the housing bust coming. How in the world did they miss it? Actually many economists saw it coming a mile away, understood it perfectly, and explained it many times. Policy makers would have been wise to heed the warnings of the Austrian economists, and must start listening to their teachings if they want solid progress in the future. If not, the necessary correction is going to take a very long time.
The Austrian free-market economists use common sense principles. You cannot spend your way out of a recession. You cannot regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to function. You cannot tax people and businesses to the point of near slavery and expect them to keep producing. You cannot create an abundance of money out of thin air without making all that paper worthless. The government cannot make up for rising unemployment by just hiring all the out of work people to be bureaucrats or send them unemployment checks forever. You cannot live beyond your means indefinitely. The economy must actually produce something others are willing to buy. Government growth is the opposite of all these things.
Bureaucrats are loathe to face these unpleasant, but obvious realities. It is much more appealing to wave their magic wand of regulation and public spending and divert blame elsewhere. It is time to be honest about our problems.
The tragic reality is that this fatally flawed, but widely accepted, economic school of thought called Keynesianism has made our country more socialist than capitalist. While the private sector in the last ten years has experienced a roller coaster of booms and busts and ended up, nominally, about where we started in 2000, government has been steadily growing, because Keynesians told politicians they could get away with a tax, spend and inflate policy. They even encouraged it! But we cannot survive much longer if government is our only growth industry.
As for a lack of regulation, the last decade saw the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the largest piece of financial regulatory legislation in years. This act failed to prevent abuses like those perpetrated by Bernie Madoff, and it is widely acknowledged that the new regulations contributed heavily not only to the lack of real growth, but also to many businesses going overseas.
Americans have been working hard, and Krugman rightly points out that they are getting nowhere. Government is expanding steadily and keeping us at less than zero growth when inflation is factored in. Krugman seems pretty disappointed with zero, but if we continue to listen to Keynesians in the next decade instead of those who tell us the truth, zero will start to look pretty good. The end result of destroying the currency is the wiping out of the middle class. Preventing that from happening should be our top economic priority.
Ron Paul
Brought to you by Alan’s Finance Blog – http://alansfinanceblog.com
