The U.S. Economy W/ Ron Paul Peter Schiff
By Barry Ritholtz - December 21st, 2008, 6:00PM
December 15, 2008
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. —John Kenneth Galbraith
Macro Notes
US$ rally continuesPeter Boockvar
Asian currencies continue to sell off vs the $ on the heels of the news yesterday that South Korea said they will look into hot money inflows stemming from the $ carry trade and the Bank of Indonesia said they are looking into the foreign buying of bills. This follows the news a few weeks ago that Taiwan was limiting foreign deposit holdings and Brazil was taxing foreign inflow transactions. As I mentioned yesterday, we may have reached a short term pain threshold in terms of $ weakness and foreign countries are fighting back as they certainly won't wait for...
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December 21st, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Heroic!
December 21st, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I don’t get it Barry. What a really bad movie trailer. I am disappointed in you for posting this, it isn’t a documentary video it is meant to engender fear in people. The “chosen” clips and apocalypse now film track, are just a waste of time.
~~~
BR: It is an interesting point of view — one that I don’t completely agree with — but nonetheless interesting
If Ron Paul was a true Libertarian, he wouldn’t be anti-choice, pro-government involvement in the abortion issue. (I believe that is what sunk his campaign)
Regardless, the point of the video section is to offer up interesting, thought provoking discussions. This qualified . . .
December 21st, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I wonder if Bush, Bernanke, Paulson, Geitner or even Obama really believe we’ll come out of this ok.
As Vic said, heroic, but also scary as hell.
December 21st, 2008 at 8:01 pm
powerful stuff.
Glad to see the Ron Paul video team back in action.
Seeing as how much of what was warned about has actually transpired – will the vox populi finally sit up and listen?? That of course requires us turning down the panem et circenses of Mother Russi….err America – which, at the moment, doesn’t look likely.
December 21st, 2008 at 8:53 pm
What scares me about Ron and Schiff is that they are right. Because of the nature of the bubble, pure consumer over indulgence based on easy money, a classic Keynesian counter cyclical stimulus is completely ineffective. All it will do is add debt to the national balance sheet, devalue the US dollar and reduce long term growth. At most the roads will look nice.
Why does it scare me that they are right? Because Austrian economics is at its best in its analysis of credit cycles, the rest not so much. It is no panacea for every economic issue and if they gain too many adherents there really will be a revolt back to the pre 1913 USA along with all of its economic evils. Like the Laffer curve worship of the past 30 years. I just don’t trust their believers to be moderate and reasonable with their solutions. The tone of this video, tells you a lot.
December 21st, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Ron Paul is one of the few Politicians who isn’t bought out by special interest and it shows and he gets slammed a plenty for it! Thanks Barry for showing a little courage by posting this vid.
December 21st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Brilliant. I’ve been a Ron Paul supporter for many years. I like a lot of things about Austrian economics but I’m not an economist. I’ve always been skeptical about the premise of a gold standard. One thing is for certain, though, there is little doubt that fiat currency is subject to political manipulation. Can we really trust the government with something as important as our currency?
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 am
Great video Barry. The U.S. has been living on borrowed time and money for a long time. I moved to Asia after I retired four years ago and dread that my U.S. dollar pension will implode. IMHO opinion it is just a matter of time. I may not agree with everything Ron Paul believes in but the country and the world would be a hell of a lot better if he had been president for the last eight years.
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
The look on Adami’s face @ the 7:33 is priceless, here’s thinking it’ll be ‘the new Black’..
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:35 am
Too bad the video wasn’t limited to Schiff and/or you, Barry. The messenger distracts from the message in this case.
Ron Paul wasn’t marginalized because of the abortion issue. Even though he was largely correct on most issues, he made the mistake of questioning the “they hate us because we are free” rationale for the “war on terror” and, thus turning off the great mass of Americans who blindly believe whatever is MSM tells them.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
The music is a bit dramatic and heavy, but nobody can doubt they were right – about all of it. They were right, everyone else was wrong, and we all lose.
Barry: I agree with Mike in Nola – The failure of Ron Paul’s bid had nothing to do with the abortion issue. It was mostly to due with the fact that he was the victim of a massive widespread blackout campaign, measured by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Even in this video you can see some of the ridiculous lengths that the media went through to marginalize him. You cannot win elections in the face of such biased opposition, unfortunately.
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
If the main currency of our financial markets is confidence, then we are already broke. Where will be in a year’s time? It seems inevitable that the stock market is going much lower.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:22 am
BR,
in his own words:
Restricting Freedoms and Choices
by Ron Paul
As the financial sector continues its tailspin despite efforts to bail out Wall Street, among the few gainers in recent stock trading have been those companies looking for a new “shot in the arm” with government funding from the next administration.
With its strident rhetoric toward reestablishing the so called “pro-choice” agenda, the incoming administration has threatened a whole host of policies that would not only reduce restrictions on abortion, but would actually force people who wish to avoid participating in the procedure to support it.
As a physician who has delivered over 4,000 babies I am very disturbed by the continued efforts of those on the left to establish absolute rights to abortion. However, even more distressing is the notion that taxpayers should be forced to subsidize life-ending procedures such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
In addition to the news that those who will benefit from federally-funded stem cell research have seen an uptick in their financial position as a result of the election, comes news from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that many health care facilities under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church may be shut down as a result of the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act” for refusal to perform abortions.
Not only does this Act seem to have growing support in Congress, the President-elect and his Administration have indicated support for this legislation. Since many people cast their votes in a way that they believed would help to improve and increase availability of health care, this is an ironic twist.
Of course, the government takeover of health care began a long time ago, but we should be wary of how far that takeover will go if more private providers are forced out of the marketplace. If enacted, The Freedom of Choice Act and the potential for increased federal funding of embryonic stem cell research will go to show that the incoming Congress and Administration are far more dedicated to a government takeover than they are to affordable and available health care. Moreover, these approaches show no real concern at all for the free choices of taxpayers and health care providers who wish to be free from giving assistance to immoral activities.
These facts should also serve to remind social conservatives that they are better to leave the legislative remedies for important social issues at the level where they constitutionally belong, namely at the discretion of state and local officials. The centralization of power that seemed so attractive to many conservatives just a few years ago no longer seems pleasant at all in light of a more liberal-minded majority in both Houses of Congress and the White House.
This should be a good lesson for future conservative majorities, namely that the centralization of power never results in anything more than the most temporary of “gains” for those who are committed to traditional moral principles, and the power one administration consolidates for itself must inevitably be handed over to the next administration, which will use that increased power for its own agenda.
http://www.ronpaul.com/2008-11-17/abortion-and-the-centralization-of-power/
LSS: his position is in keeping with the 9th & 10th Amendments, it’s for the People, and their States, to decide..
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
you like to speak of nuance, Rep. Paul is, personally, Pro-Life, while being Pro-Choice.
I know, it doesn’t scroll well on HeadlineNews..
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:44 am
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and
snakes, an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid…
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
Does anyone know how they arrive at the $53 trillion deficit number? Thanks,
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:06 am
tanman,
do a web search on : David Walker
along these lines:
David M. Walker, Former Comptroller General
On, March 12, 2008, David M. Walker, resigned as Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO and accepted position of President and Chief Executive Officer of the newly established Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Go to the Peter Peterson Foundation site.
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/dwbiog.html
December 27th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
You can discredit Ron Paul based on the media’s perceptions, his comments on the 9/11 attacks, or his stance on abortion. Truly, though, these “qualifications” have nothing to do with the message he is trying to spread in this video clip.
To question the validity of Ron Paul or Peter Schiff’s statements regarding the state of our economy, and the path to destruction our government is on takes an act of will. You have to WANT to deny these predictions. If you look at them with an open mind, you will see that they are right on the money, as they have been for the last several years.
Science requires that we look into data with an open mind to what the results will be. If you look at where we are headed without a bias, you will see that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are pulling our economy into oblivion. Republicans and Democrats alike…