Once again the champion of the Constitution, Ron Paul, takes
on the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as the Feds prepare
to drop rates once again.
You could set off a fire with a match in the room. On one
side of the room the Federal Reserve's Chairman and on the
other, the defender of the Constitution and the people. Tensions
were high as Ben Bernanke braced himself for the expected
dose of common sense once again coming from Congressman and
Dr. Ron Paul.
Ben Bernanke was stuck between a rock and a hard place when
asked about the value of the dollar, and he responded that
it was the Treasury's responsibility. But Paul wasn't about
to let him slide on just passing off the blame for our dollar's
crisis. Paul responded, "And here I find the chairman
of the Federal Reserve in charge of the dollar, in charge
of the money, in charge of what the money supply is going
to be, but (you) don't deal with the value of the dollar."
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Then as Bernanke smugly nodded, Paul proceeded to call Bernanke's
bluff, "But you do admit you have a responsibility for
the prices. But how can you separate the two? Prices are a
mere reflection of the value of the dollar. If you want to
control prices, then you have to know the value of the dollar.
But if you're going to avoid talking about (the value of )
the dollar then all you can do is deal with central economic
planning."
Then Paul went on to educate Bernanke on the reasons why
central economic planning, even and especially when dealing
with the money supply, never works.
"Everybody refers to inflation as rising prices, instead
of saying inflation comes from the unwise increase in the
supply of credit."
Then Paul put the icing on the cake with, "Their standard
of living is going down,... the middle class is being wiped
out, and nobody's understanding that it has to do with the
value of money: prices are going up. So how are you able to
defend this policy of deliberate depreciation of our money?"
Bernanke attempted to compose himself and with quivering
voice said, "The Federal Reserve Act tells me that I
have to look to price stability, price stability,... and that's
what we aim to do. You're correct that there are relationships,
obviously, with the dollar and domestic inflation and relationships
between the money supply and domestic inflation, but those
are not perfect relationships, they're not exact relationships,
and, given a choice, we have to look at the domestic inflation
rate." Then he went on to say that Congress has the responsibility
of abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning back to a
gold standard.
Paul, responding to his first statement, saying, "But
your (lack of) achievement; we now have PPI going up at 12%...
that doesn't get a very good grade for price stability. Wouldn't
you agree?"
Then Bernanke grudgingly concurred, "I agree."
However, Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, apparently
wasn't paying attention. He then deferred that if oil prices
continued to rise, then inflation would continue to rise as
well. However, Ron Paul made it very clear that the price
of oil wasn't rising relative to other commodities, but that
it was the value of the dollar that is falling, which he also
made clear that the value of the dollar was in control of
the Federal Reserve‘s decisions.
Apparently Paul's pleas for the people did not penetrate
Bernanke as he continued to announce that rates would be lowered
once again. This means that more money will be created out
of thin air, which will translate into more inflation of oil
as well as other commodities.