Ron Paul - The Revolution

I just finished reading Ron Paul's latest book, The Revolution. What an eye-opening book this is. If anyone thinks that our country is getting all screwed up, then you need to read this book.

We are now in our 7th year of our war on terror, a war which has no end. How do you know when the war is won? Who are we fighting? It's not like World War II when we fought Germany and Japan and they surrendered after we blasted them into submission. With the war on terror we are fighting in ideology, not a country. And the ideology is only reinforced by the fact that we are there.

I remember reading a book about the Civil War where a Confederate prisoner was asked why he was fighting against the North. His answer was, "Because ya'll's down here." For no other reason than the fact that the Union was in the South was his motivation to fight against us. I firmly believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen into this situation.

And Dr. Paul points out the flaws of our Presidential candidates. Remember the general Congressional election 2 years ago in which the Democrats swept many Republicans out of office? Their platform was "We are against the war!" How are they doing now? They are supporting the war. If they were really against it, we'd be working towards ending it. And Hillary and Obama have platformed for change, but not much is being said about ending the war. Why is that? Because they also have no intention of ending the war.

And how about the price of oil and gas? Ain't it great? I just filled up the tank on my gas-guzzling minivan and it cost $92. Gas guzzling minivan? What's that? Yes, minivans get the same gas mileage as most mid-sized SUV's. Why is that? Because most minivans are on the same chassis, engine, and transmission platform as their media-bashed cousins. But why are minivan owners not attacked? Because we'd be attacking the career-oriented soccer moms who throw their kids into institutional daycares where college drop-outs raise their kids for 45 hours a week and we can't do that.

So why has gas climbed so fast? Dr. Ron Paul doesn't come out and say it, but I am able to deduce it and I've heard it discussed many times before on the Ron Smith Show. The United States monetary policy is failing. We are spending way too much money. And how does the government feed this spending habit? They certainly aren't raising taxes (thank God). Instead, they are printing more money and borrowing from the Chinese. It is estimated that the United States borrows over $2 BILLION per day to fund our prosperity. So we are basically borrowing money to pay the interest on money that we have borrowed. If corporations do this they go bankrupt. Instead, the government just prints more money.

And as everyone should remember from Econ 101, when the money supply increases, prices increase. Where is most of the oil located? Outside of the United States. If our dollar is worth less, then it will require more dollars to purchase the same units of product in another country. Therefore, oil, a foreign product for the most part, will cost more as the dollar continues to deflate. Hmmm....

The Federal Reserve, the Fed as it is known for short, is the secretive quasi-government agency that controls the money supply. It is organized and run by the largest banks in the country. And they have no public audit process. How do we know what they are doing and why they are doing what they are doing? We don't. We do know that to curb inflation, the Fed sells bonds to the banks, thus absorbing some of the money in the system. Less money in the system, the less things will cost because money is scarce. If the Fed wants to stimulate spending, then it buys bonds from the banks, thus injecting money into the system. More money in the system, the more money banks can lend to customers, the lower interest rates become, the more money people will spend. However, more money equals more inflation. We cannot get around that.

To quote Ron Paul's book, "Where does the Fed get the money to buy the bonds? It creates it out of thin air, simply writing checks on itself and giving them to banks. If that sounds fishy, then you understand it just fine."

I could go on and on about these topics. This book has me all fired up. It is short - it's only 167 pages long. I highly encourage you to read this.