Have those hearing Ron Paul dismissed as ‘wanting to return 2 the gold standard’ wondered what he REALLY wants?

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/07/gold-standard-fed-audit-intelligent-investing-ron-paul.html

" What should replace the Federal Reserve, if anything?

Well, ideally nothing. I’ve talked about this for a long time. It came out of the gold commission report in the 1980s. Out of the gold commission, my conclusion was we should have competing currencies, just legalize competition. That’s still my position. In the book, End the Fed, I don’t argue the case for locking the doors and closing it down. As a matter of fact, I say there should be a transition, repeal legal tenant laws and you take taxes off money, which is gold and silver. And then if the people want to use it, let them use it. If people want to get paid in paper, let them get paid in paper.

In Mexico right now you can literally have an account in silver. They’re making more progress in Mexico. And I have visited with their members of Congress. Before it all got passed, they consulted with me. Because the Mexican people know how bad it is when the currency goes to zero. The middle class really, really hurts, and they’ve experienced it. I’m just hoping we never get that bad. But there’s no reason why we should be afraid of a little competition, allowing people to put their money in an account. You have these ETFs already; it would just be that a bank could offer that to you. And you could deal in another currency. The transactions that go on around the world today with the currencies trading, instantaneously they adjust values. And we could do that with gold and silver and dollar accounts. It would be pretty easy.

What effect would that have on the dollar?

I think that would strengthen it because it would shore up the dollar. That’s one reason why the Fed doesn’t like to see dollar prices go up. I mean, gold prices go up because that’s an embarrassment to them. It should send a message to them. And sometimes they pretend that they do look at the gold price, thinking that if it goes up too much maybe there’s something wrong. They work real hard to suppress the price of gold. And I think if you had competition, I think it would be sort of like home schooling. Home schooling doesn’t hurt public schools. Sometimes it gives them a greater incentive because home schoolers do so much better. Of course, sometimes public school people resent the fact that people can learn as well at home as they can in public schools. So, we should never be afraid of competition. If gold is not good money, then nobody will deal with it. But I’m on the side of history with this one because paper money has never worked. It eventually goes to zero and people quit using it. But gold has survived for many, many centuries.

Would you rather see a gold standard instead of the dollar?

I’d rather you let the markets decide. That would be my first preference. The Constitution has never been repealed to say that only gold and silver can be legal tender. But today, if we didn’t get rid of the legal tender laws and do these other things, if you try to use old silver dollars and say, "This is legal tender, I’m going to pay in silver dollars," you’d go to jail because those silver dollars, they’d say, "That’s not a dollar." That’s $25. They’d argue that a silver dollar is worth $25, so they don’t let you use it as legal tender.

Hayek always argued the case for competing currencies and they hated it when he suggested that maybe the market would pick a basket. People worry, "well, there’s not enough gold." Well, maybe if we put gold, silver and copper together or something like that.

The most important thing is restraining the central banks from creating money out of thin air to accommodate special interests and Congress’ deficits that they run up. That’s the purpose. "
There is a lot more in the link, but it is frustrating having people just say, as if it were an ad hominum attack: "Oh, that Ron Paul, he wants to return to the GOLD STANDARD’ as if most who said that had any inkling about economics.

Does his position make sense to you?

Ron Paul is the man! All the debt we’re strapped with is in dollar denominations… overseas loans, overpriced home-purchases, all the problems caused by the Fed’s irresponsible and unchecked tom-foolery.

When it crashes against other currencies, the dollar will make for cheap repayment of all those debts tied to it.

We get a choice of more solid currencies and the banks finally get what they’ve been giving us.

Sweeeet.

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