This is what Perry was referring to re: Bernanke. I love how the media in this country twist words around and play semantics games to divert our attention from the real issues (channelling Newt perhaps, but right is right).
I think it's pretty clear from his comments that Perry tripped over the word "treacherous" and stumbled into "treasonous". The tapes I've seen, he clearly said treacherous initially and went with treasonous. Fine, we can quibble over semantics and play that game. Perhaps we can argue that treasonous is too far, that treacherous might be an entirely accurate description, IMO.
treach·er·ousAdjective/ˈtreCHərəs/
1. Guilty of or involving betrayal or deception.
OK, so now what? Bernanke is not "treasonous" and nobody is going to go off and shoot him any more than somebody is going to "kill" Romney. So Perry is guilty of hyperbole? But where does that leave Bernake?
I'm not sure that just because we might agree that Mr. Perry was inelegant or not so artful in his comments that we absolve the fact that Bernanke -- as money printer in chief -- is not much more above the level of a counterfeiter. A counterfeiter with a license, a license to steal. And the discussion should be what do we do about that? We gave him (and The Fed) the license, why is it so hard to contemplate taking the license back? (BTW - see Lincoln's comments below for the answer to that)
The actions described and the penalties for actions detrimental to the currency were taken quite seriously by the Founders (read the Coinage Act of 1792). The fact that we may have illegally and illegitimately farmed the function out to the Fed doesn't change the underlying facts of what is happening to the U.S. Dollar today.
We hear much hue and cry and significant gnashing of teeth over S&P downgrading the U.S. credit rating and almost no discussion about the devaluing and debasing of the dollar.
Except from Ron Paul. And now Rick Perry.
And every time one of the so-called "kooks" brings up the discussion, they are shut down and marginalized.
WAKE UP PEOPLE.
You can argue that we live in a different era and that we've closed the barn door on the notion of government control over the circulation of the currency, as opposed to farming said Constitutional function out to a private entity (The Fed), but the seriousness of the underlying charge was not lost on the Founders.
Coinage Act Of 1792:
SECTION 19. And be it further enacted, That if any of the gold or silver coins which shall be struck or coined at the said mint shall be debased or made worse as to the proportion of fine gold or fine silver therein contained, or shall be of less weight or value than the same ought to be pursuant to the directions of this act, through the default or with the connivance of any of the officers or persons who shall be employed at the said mint, for the purpose of profit or gain, or otherwise with a fraudulent intent, * * * every such officer or person who shall be guilty of any * * * of the said offenses, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall suffer death.
The Coinage Act of 1792
http://nesara.org/files/coinage_act_1792.pdf
I think I would rather that we fixed the original sin, which was the creation of the Federal Reserve system. Of course, that kind of talk might get you killed as well. But we don't talk about that now do we? Heck that kind of talk may have led to the loss of one or more Presidents in the past, but what do I know?
"I have two great enemies," Lincoln once said, "the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy." --(quoted from This Difficult Individual, Ezra Pound, by Eustace Mullins)
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Ron Paul states the obvious.
S&P States the Obvious
http://lewrockwell.com/paul/paul759.html
Politicians did not get much time to pat themselves on the back for supposedly rescuing the economy with the debt limit deal last week. The ink was barely dry when Standard & Poor's downgraded the US debt ratings anyway, roiling world financial markets. Anyone who has taken an honest look at the government's fiscal situation, taken into account how Washington works and the direction it is going would have a very difficult time arguing with S&P's decision, although a strong case can be made that this was too incremental a downgrade and that it took far too long for S&P to admit the obvious.
Nonetheless, the administration nitpicked over a $2 trillion "mistake." S&P rejoined with the fact that $2 trillion here or there hardly makes a difference in the time frame under discussion. That, if nothing else, should tell you the magnitude of the problem. $2 trillion has become a drop in the bucket.
S&P cited Congress's inability to act like grownups and make necessary, meaningful cuts, which is true. I must take issue however, with their suggestion that tax increases are part of the answer. Taking capital out of the private sector, where it can create real value in the form of new jobs and products, and instead giving it to Washington to waste and squander is not the solution. Tax increases may seem penny-wise to some, but in reality they would be very pound-foolish. The government currently takes in $2.2 trillion in taxes per year, which is far too much already. It spends $3.7 trillion, which is ridiculous and criminal. The problem is runaway government spending, not the American people having too much money.
And yet we can't even have a serious discussion about bringing our troops home and ending our expensive occupations around the world – things the president used to claim to favor!
Even without this downgrade, major investors are waking up to what lies down the road for the United States in fiscal terms. China is showing more signs of losing its taste for our debt. Others are following suit. What we are about to see is the end of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. When that happens, we will no longer be in a position to have pretend debates about things we probably should spend a little bit less on – we will be forced to implement serious spending cuts as our sources of credit dry up. Of course, we can try to postpone the day of reckoning by printing more money but the resulting "inflation tax" will be far worse than a reduction in government benefits.
Hyperinflation devastates the middle class. After Weimar Germany hyper-inflated their currency in the 1920s, an entire life savings couldn't buy a postage stamp. The bank wouldn't even send customers a check for all the money they had saved their whole lives. It wasn't worth the paper it was printed on or the stamp to send it. This is what is meant when it is said that the middle class gets wiped out. The pieces for this to happen here are all falling into place, and have been since 1971. The only way to avoid that sort of chaos now is for Congress to immediately reduce federal spending and take the Constitution seriously again. The welfare/warfare state will end either way, but winding it down responsibly is a far better way to do it.
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