I don't disagree with your call for "honest talk" and "real solutions." But let me look at your speech here and just pull out the parts that do not jive well with me. Then, your supporters will read this, leave comments or hang on to them, talk with others in the campaign about how ludicrous my thinking is or how I make some good points, and then this “bottom-up” atmosphere in American politics, which you think your campaign fosters, will work itself out in a way that what I’ve said gets to you in some form or another.
The first factoid that caught my attention was that the Federal Reserve “had to act with central banks around the world to maintain the functioning of our financial system.” Unfortunately, you did not take the opportunity to say more about the actions of the Federal Reserve.
I found more details on the Federal Reserve’s action in a Houston Chronicle Business article. The article said, “The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in two operations, injected $55 billion into temporary reserves in the United States, a move aimed to help ease a strained financial system in danger of freezing up.”
Ron Paul posted an “address” concerning the economic crisis on YouTube. Posted on a site I am sure your campaign staff advises you to not visit (for fear of what might happen if the news or anybody important caught wind that you read articles on this website), text from his address can be found on InfoWars.net.
This tidbit is of particular interest to me because it speaks to what you raised when you mentioned the Federal Reserve:
“You can't create money like we're doing in order to support the dollar, because ultimately it hurts the dollar and everything we do in Washington today whether its on the appropriations side, whether it's what the Fed is doing, buying up America, it's all putting pressure on the dollar. One of these days we're just going to have to wake up and say that we need to liquidate debt. This is malinvestment.”
Ron Paul’s investigation, research, and knowledge of the free market led him to say more about the Federal Reserve:
“Our problems come first of all from the Federal Reserve. It is a monopoly and it controls interest rates artificially low, causes people to make mistakes, that's the basic source. But then on top of that in the Housing market we had the community reinvestment act which told investors that they had to loan to risky borrowers, and that was a risky complication. HUD contributes to this, FDIC contributes, it's called moral hazard, everything that we have done over here creates moral hazard, that is we assure people or assume that we will take care of everybody, just go out and create the risk, it is the opposite of the market place.”
The Federal Reserve IS at the center of the problem. If you cannot advocate for a radical shift in how the Federal Reserve operates, than you cannot possibly be for, as you say in your speech, “an end to a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy.” You cannot possibly be for, “change that makes a real difference in [our] lives.”
After quickly glossing over the Federal Reserve, you describe how Americans are reacting to the crisis on Wall Street. This is not news to many. And in fact, thank you for suggesting how we have been feeling the crunch since January. But, no thanks because the crunch was being felt when you began campaigning in January 2007 and perhaps even earlier.
Kathy Sanborn covers this specifically in her article posted on Information Clearinghouse Info (another site your staff should keep you from visiting). She specifically asks the following questions:
“Where were the mainstream media financial geniuses several years ago, when people like Joseph Stiglitz told us, via the Internet, that we were heading for a fiscal train wreck the likes of which no one has seen since the Great Depression?
Where were the TV pundits when Dr. Paul Craig Roberts told us, at least two years ago via the Internet, that we were going to lose our shirts, due to outsourcing and investing in “funny” money?
Where were the breathless media when economist Lyndon LaRouche declared, in an Internet webcast at least two years ago, that our financial system would be finished unless it went into bankruptcy protection?
Why weren’t everyday citizens informed through the so-called public airwaves that derivatives and exotic investments were the chief cause of our current financial turmoil, and not the so-called sub-prime mortgage loans?”
Now that everybody knows, now that it’s too late for the mainstream media to go back and incorporate Mike Whitney’s analyses into the coverage of our economy, now that the corporate media is crying to us that “the sky is falling”, it’s important to note that the media engaged in a whiteout of any information that Americans could have benefited from and then essential to ask, “What are you going to do about it?”
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