Ron Paul's such a.. well, I have no idea what to say about the fella. He's something alright. Right now he's question if there's actually gold at Fort Knox
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said he plans to introduce legislation next year to force an audit of U.S. holdings of gold.
Paul, a longtime critic of the Federal Reserve and U.S. monetary policy, said he believes it's "a possibility" that there might not actually be any gold in the vaults of Fort Knox or the New York Federal Reserve bank.
The libertarian lawmaker told Kitco News, a website tracking news about precious metals, that an audit was necessary to determine how much the U.S. maintains in gold reserves in case the government were to use gold to back the dollar.
“If there was no question about the gold being there, you think they would be anxious to prove gold is there,” he said.
“Our Federal Reserve admits to nothing, and they should prove all the gold is there. There is a reason to be suspicious and even if you are not suspicious why wouldn’t you have an audit?
“I think it is a possibility," Paul said when asked if there was truth to rumors that there was actually no gold at Ft. Knox or the New York Fed.
Paul had been one of the Republicans to spearhead a broader audit of the Fed as part of the Wall Street reform bill passed through Congress this year. The provision, which was weakened somewhat in the final version, found Paul joining with a number of Democrats to require the Fed to open its books and outline its assets and liabilities.
The gold reserves, which Paul's new bill would audit, are generally seen as a guarantee on a nation's currency, but the U.S. moved the dollar away from being tied to the price of gold in 1972.
Paul stopped short of calling for the reinstitution of the gold standard and instead called for the government to allow the use of hard currency — gold and silver tender — alongside the use of the dollar.
"If people get tired of using the paper standard they can deal in gold or silver,” he said.
Isn't Ron Paul so adorable? But perhaps if you're a fat German gold investor, this should force you to change plans.
Or maybe if you're just some German dude who has a score to settle with a rough and cut New York police man and want to steal money from the Knox, you'd probably look to a different plan up your sleeve.
But you really can't blame Ron. He just wants access to Fort Knox. Who knows what he'll do once he's inside! Maybe Ron Paul just wants to dive in a bin full of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. I'm not saying that it's wrong to want to do that, but perhaps that doesn't make him the best candidate out there to do it. Besides, we all know Fort Knox has no more gold. Isn't that right, boys?
Not anymore, that's right! Wehehe
On a quick side note to launch into some social commentary on the fact that these guys ALWAYS wore their prison uniforms, including the cumbersome number plate, even when they were clearly outside of jail. They *defined* themselves through what the state had done to them. And I thought nothing of it while watching the cartoons as a child. It's only now years later after going through the forced re-education of living through this shitty capitalistic culture that I see these things.
I'm not sure what Ron is implying with all this. That we may not even have the gold to back up the dollar. Maybe we should do away with cash altogether and just work with gold as our currency. How would you like carrying a brick of gold in your back pocket? No, no. That would be using gold instead of the fiet dollar bill in your pocket. Then there's a lot of goldbugs out there that wouldn't mind doing that.
What I'm saying is that I'm not really sure I have a problem with allowing goldbugs to trade in gold instead of fiat currency if they want to. I don't plan on doing it, so why should I care if they do? Presumably because it would somehow give the US government even less control of capital than it has already and in effect creates a full-blown monetary system completely run by private corporations.
I mean, the federal reserve is quasi-governmental as it is, but at least there's some nominal degree of control going on. Though they would retain control over their currency which would still be used by virtually everybody but a few people with stupid gold fever. And those people would rapidly find that their krugerrands aren't accepted at the grocery store.
Besides, businesses don't want to deal in gold because dealing in paper currency is enough of a security problem, the average grocery store isn't going to be able to store enough doubloons to get through a business day. But hey, legalize gold, let goldbugs have their fun. Nothing will change.
About the worst consequence would be that most business that deal in hard currency would just abandon them altogether and go credit only. And despite what you may think, they don't want to do that because they get fucked by credit companies just as much as consumers do.
In general though, the real idea about goldbugs is that they want as close to constant deflation as possible to fuck over poor people. That's why they hate the fed/fiat money since it allows the possibility of some inflation and they can't just screw over the poor and live in ye old feudal times that way. Everyone else who hates fiat money, they probably just don't know how it works.
Especially since we now realize gold is not incredibly useful for anything beyond a few minor industrial applications and selling to the next sucker. Besides that, gold is being prospected and mined every day. In real terms it's been a much worse investment than you would imagine.
For my money, I say fuck all that noise. I'm investing in ammo and can openers. Both of which will serve as the currency in our post apocalyptic barter system.
Did you know that currency has its own police force in the united states? Isn't that some comical shit. From a Marxist angle that's a goldmine. And you can't forget the secret service, who was originally solely for the purpose of combating counterfeiters and still does to this day. At least they protect the president and arrest people who write mean things about him on the internet from time to time also. Unlike the mint police who don't do a whole lot more than protect money..
Then again, most people who criticize the gold standard have very little idea how the current system of money works. If you're curious, I would suggest reading The Mystery of Banking by Murray Rothbard. It covers everything well from start to finish http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
Over all, I say why the fuck not audit the fed. They sure have a lot of fun auditing small business owners. Besides, it hasn't been visited since 74. That's a long time.
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