End the Fed

The New American, the self-proclaimed “essential news source for freedom-loving Americans”, recently reviewed Congressman Ron Paul’s book End the Fed. According to the report,

The . . . eleven-term congressman from Texas has spent a long political career promoting liberty and limited constitutional government as the American Founders understood them and exposing the mischief at the Federal Reserve. With the unexpected success of his presidential campaign and his recent best-selling manifesto on liberty, Dr. Paul’s uncompromising, consistent, and thoroughly principled stances on limited, constitutionally legitimate government are well known around the world. Now, thanks to End the Fed, his views on paper money, fractional-reserve banking, and the Federal Reserve and its manipulation of the money supply are summarized for a mass readership.¹

In the book, Congressman Paul states:

Everyone should have an intense interest in what money is and how it’s manipulated by the few at the expense of the many. Money is crucial for survival. It is necessary for maintaining a free society. A healthy economy depends on it. Limiting political power is impossible without it. Sound money is essential for preventing unnecessary wars. Prosperity and peace in the long run are impossible without it. To understand money, one absolutely must understand what a central bank is all about.

George Q. Cannon pointed out long ago, “Gold and silver should both be upheld and used, and any attempt to deprive either of these metals of its value as a tender in payment of debts seems to me a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution.”² Since the Federal Reserve essentially operates on “government-printed paper fiat currency”³,

. . . the Fed, with its power to destroy the dollar and fund the operations of government by other means than up-front taxation, is, like all modern central banks, a fundamentally dishonest and immoral institution. The Founding Fathers understood very well the evils of paper money, and while granting Congress the authority in the Constitution to “coin [not print!] money,” forbade the states from making “anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” Entries in the journals of the Continental Congress observed that “paper currency . . . is multiplied beyond the rules of good policy. No truth being more evident, than that where the quantity of money . . . exceeds what is useful as a medium of commerce, its comparative value must be proportionately reduced.” . . . “Members of Congress, when they knowingly endorse this system of fraud because of the benefits they receive, commit an immoral act. Financing spending in an irresponsible manner, through Fed action or future debt burdens, provides immediate political benefits to politicians.”

But all of this would come to an end if the people themselves held their political leadership to a higher moral standard. Americans have become accustomed to a government that promises them security and benefits instead of merely protecting their freedoms and enforcing their contracts. End the Fed is a plea to Americans to educate themselves about money and free-market economics — and then demand an end to the system that has systematically devalued the dollar and held ordinary Americans in thrall for several generations. If we do not soon abolish the Federal Reserve and return to sound money, we will likely experience national insolvency and an end to our dwindling political liberties.

Sources:

1. Scaliger, Charles. “A Review of ‘End the Fed’ by Ron Paul”. 14 Sep 2009. New American. 14 Sep 2009.↩
2. Gold and Silver Coin as Tender in Payment.↩
3. Monetary and Economic Freedom.↩