“Don't Trust Anyone Over Fifty”

Socialism was the dominate political/economic idea in post-war Europe and America, Winston Churchill lost the election in 1945 to the Labor party who promised the prospect of a new social order that would ensure better housing, free medical services and employment for all.

These same Marxist ideas influenced the academic world in the U.S. during the post war period and they were the teachers of social sciences during the sixties. I remember my economics 101 class, the first day the teacher explained the laws of supply and demand and then went on to show how imperfect they were and how the government must intervene.

The baby boomer generation grew up in an age of unprecedented affluence but alienating world. Our parents and the leadership of our generation grew up during the depression and war years when the role of government in people’s lives was dominate as never before in American history.

The affluence along with a desire not to become part of the hierarchical corporate world that created this prosperity gave many people the means and desire to make the world a better place and help the less fortunate so they studied social sciences instead of business, engineering or finance. I admire their goals and they managed to accomplish many wonderful things, however many of these people have had no business experience, they have had careers in the “public sector” and they still believe the statist economics that they learned in school.

The leadership of the “liberals” in government, the media and academia are from this generation. They are not evil people; they just have not the experience of competing in a free market. They live in a world of coercion, their marketplace is one of ideas and they seem to think that the best ideas will be forced on the American people through government.

The problem that we are facing right now is this generation is taking power in Washington. They are the leadership of Congress and may soon be in the White House. The policies that they will enact will cripple our economy and will make it very difficult to finance the existing “entitlements” of the retiring baby boomer generation.

The young supporters of Ron Paul are the best hope that I see for the future, if we don’t begin to change the direction of our government in Washington they will pay dearly.

So “Don't Trust Anyone Over Fifty” but try to learn from their experience.

Third-Party Candidacy for Ron Paul?

I have been down this road before. I was a Libertarian Party activist from 1980-1988, including Ron Paul's campaign. The most success we had was in 1980 because we had lots of money from David Koch.

It would be possible to run a third party campaign given the money and supporters that he has, but it would alienate Republicans. The MSM would ignore him more than ever and advertising would be the only way to get his message out. If he stays in the Republican race until the convention, he could focus on support of congressional candidates. The local media is much more likely to cover where he appears with a local candidate.

The neocons have done so much damage to the Republican Party that there is a very real opportunity to shift the party back to its libertarian roots.

The Democrats likely will win the election and with a democratic congress, they will do enormous harm to the economy.

The many young people who have been attracted to the Ron Paul campaign will not only be taxed excessively to pay for the baby boomer retirement entitlements but they will be denied economic opportunity because of the taxes and regulation imposed by the dems.

We could focus on electing like-minded people to congress to at least begin to stem the tide of socialism.


Good article: http://www.nolanchart.com/article/article2.php?ArticleID=2537

Ron Paul and the Gold Standard

Ron Paul has talked and written about the need for a gold standard.

See: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/843/the-political-and-economic-agenda-for-a-real-gold-standard/

The current international monetary crisis proves to me that he is right.

The Federal Reserve bank controls interest rates and money supply by setting interest rates for inter-bank (including the Fed. via the discount rate) and by buying and selling government securities. This gives them the ability to inflate the money supply without the limitation that currency convertibly into gold would impose.

The Greenspan fed was concerned about deflation after the dot-com bubble and Sep. 11 and reduced the Fed Funds target rate to bellow 2%. These low rates were maintained for too long and helped create the housing bubble. This cycle goes on and on.

The high inflation of the late 70's was controlled by reduction of money supply growth by the Paul Volker Fed. At the time money supply (M1, M2, etc.) were reported frequently and in the business news daily.

In the last twenty five years international capital markets have developed which I believe have made it difficult to measure the actual money supply. Part of the measurement equation is velocity of money; this is now around the globe at the speed of light. Foreign central banks hold trillions of dollars and this money is leveraged through the international financial system.

Even if Ron Paul is not elected president, he has raised the issue and attracted many people to free market and sound money policy.


Papers which followed the Gold Commission (on which Ron Paul served) Report:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj3n1/cj3n1-13.pdf

The New York World Trade Center

I worked in and around the World Trade Center for over twenty years. The attack of Sep. 11 2001 was a life changing event for me.

Photographs of WTC taken over many years:

http://jdeegan.com/Photo/WTC/Default.htm

Ron Paul

Ron Paul is providing a very important service in moving the Republican party in a libertarian direction. He represents traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace.

An excellent article about the importance of the Ron Paul campaign.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8828