Budget debate

Sometimes I think it might be best to take politics and mix it with the WWF...We might have stories like
BOEHNER vs. WEINER go head to head...hand to hand...and accomplish nothing.
Reid and weap for this is what is going on. The voice of the extremists in both parties has drowned out reason. The far right in the GOP ask for tax cust for the rich and the Democrats give them what they want...
Every year $100 billion in taxes is lost to offshore companies, some of these working for the Pentagon. The sum of the revenue collected by the Treasury today is just 14.8% of the GDP, the lowest in 50 years.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, writes in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that "if the Republicans have their way, the entire burden of deficit reduction will be places on the elderly, the sick, children and working families."
Which is just about where it belongs, they seem to think.
But not all of them. What is happening here is a failure of the press; which is so bad that they have been caught giving cell phones to the parents of a murdered child so as to bug their conversations. A week ago they only bugged the cell phones of murder victims, but with each passing week we hear more of the vile antics of the Murdoch Empire - from his rivals, about whom I am sure we could hear much the same.
But we do not hear about intelligent politicians such as Ron Paul who are NOT advocating tax breaks for the rich; they are not on baord with much of the media - and for this alone we ought to single them out. Why are we hearing about Bachmann's headaches and Weiner's weiner?
Because the media empires are full of, get this, RICH PEOPLE....who like to promote the politicians that help them. Here in NY the NY Times Building got indecent tax breaks...a story broken by their rival, the Daily News...why? Because they knew how to cuddle up to politicians. And these politicians in turn get publicity. And some live in fear of the press - but not Ron Paul. This is a kind of litmus test of a politician - what relationship does he or she have with the press?
Notice how little we hear about Dr Paul...yet he is one of the few who understands finance and does not support these tax breaks.
Murdoch does not seem to like him; nor does Sulzberger; or Zimmerman, or Moon, or, or, or, or....
So there.
A vote for Ron Paul is a vote against Murdoch et al. That is a powerful vote.

Citizen Murdoch and his team of politicians

It seems politicians these days are having to distance themselves from a crime suspect - Keith Murdoch, better known by his middle name of Rupert. Yesterday in Parliament, he had to answer questions after having to sell the News of the World - the kind of paper that takes a story from a illegal immigrant about how bad other illegal immigrants are but omits to notice that their source is in fact the world's largest heroin dealer...it is no loss, but to heroin dealers who have stories to sell.
Conveniently for Murdoch, the main whistleblower, who was contradicting the Murdoch line that the hacking was more or less of a one-off, ended up dead. He just 'happened' to die, and there is nothing suspicious about his death or the timing of it...so say the police who just 'happened' to check on him for some odd reason. And so, before the toxicology reports are even started on Sean Hoare, the police have cleared Citizen Murdoch. Which is really very nice, because Murdoch's staff were bribing the police right and left, and quite a few have had to step down. Maybe there are none left to investigate any more mysterious deaths in the realm?
Which is really nice also for the politicians who courted him, from Tony Blair to David Cameron. The whistleblowers die and the police quit and Murdoch can go on forcing his politicians on the public. Yesterday he seemed to be endorsing Michele Bachmann in some tired piece by a J T Young in the New York Post. Makes me wonder what criminal acts Bachmann is into to be on his good side. Hacking into 9/11 victims's phones? Paying off the police? Evidence tampering? Who knows.
It may just be a good policy to avoid any and all politicians whom Murdoch has espoused. Wipe the slate clean and get in people who do not make friends with the devil.
That is one reason to support Ron Paul. Murdoch, Sulzberger, Zuckerman and Sun Myung Moon - (Fox/NY Post; NY Times; NYDaily News; Washington Times) - do not get in bed with him - and we need independent candidates more than candidates need the press. Get out and write to your local papers and support Ron Paul, let them know you do not want Murdoch and others putting their minions in power. Just look at the meltdown that has happened in the UK - a country the US fought to get away from...now is time to fight to get away from Murdoch - and his politicians.

Michele Bachmann on drugs

In todays papers there are stories about Michele Bachmann and her drug habit, or at least her need to take three kinds to deal with her migraines, which she thinks but is not sure may come from her high heels. At least twice while on the hunt for votes she has had to stop and go for medical treatment. Imagine if there were a terrorist attack? I mean, she'd have to stop and take those drugs...or stop wearing high heels.
On the heels of this news, JT Young writes about how great she is. Rupert Murdoch gives him space in the Post to tell us how the left is terrified of her because women are going to vote for her...
He quotes statistics to show that women are 50+% of the vote, and are growing more conservative each year. This does not mean they would vote for some person who has done little in Congress and gets headaches from her shoes...and any lefty women out there would not go vote for her just because of who she is. Young does not seem to have that much experience other than a job in from 2001- 2004 when he was in the Office of Management and Budget; from 1987-2000 he was a Congressional staffer. That is all the paper said about him and all I could find on the internet - it does lead one to wonder what he did between 2004 and the present.
He asserts she is ahead of Romney in Iowa and rising in New Hampshire. If so, heaven help America. It needs a leader who is not in need of constant medical attention. Dr Paul is the man. And next time Bachmann feels that migraine coming on, she knows where to seek help.

Ron Paul's first TV ad runs in Nevada

Ron Paul Slams Debt Ceiling in ‘Conviction’ Ad that Airs in Nevada Today

The State Column | Staff | Monday, July 18, 2011

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, released his campaign’s first TV ad of the 2012 presidential race last Friday. Today, Paul’s “Conviction” TV ad will air in the State of Nevada.
Nevada is a key state for the Paul campaign, because Nevada will be the second state in the nation to hold a presidential caucus. Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager, said that “Nevada is a key constituency with important and growing influence on the National political environment, and Dr. Paul plans to win the state in 2012.”
The TV ad, which was shown in New Hampshire and Iowa last week, pushes Paul as the leader of those who are opposed to the debt ceiling increase.
According to Benton, the “Conviction” TV ad demonstrates that the Texas Congressman “is the only national leader with the experience, record and credibility to stand up to the debt limit scheme, cut the spending now and save our dollar.” Benton added that Paul’s “extraordinary record of consistency in Congress, having never voted in favor of a debt limit increase, makes him the most qualified leader of such a fight.”
The TV ad, which looks like a summer movie preview, slams a potential compromise on how to offset the cost of the debt ceiling. “They did it to Reagan: a debt ceiling compromise. Democrats promising spending cuts, but delivering only tax hikes,” the narrator states. “Will our party’s leaders repeat the mistakes of the past?” the narrator asks. At the end of the TV ad, the narrator suggests that “one candidate has always been true: Ron Paul.”

Last week, Paul slammed Mitch McConnell’s debt ceiling plan in an email to his supporters. Paul called McConnell’s debt ceiling plan a proposal with “no real spending cuts.” McConnell’s debt ceiling plan would give Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling, while stopping short of forcing Obama to enact spending cuts. In his email, Paul argued that McConnell’s plan, if it passes, will have “handed yet more power over to the Executive Branch.”

On Tuesday of last week, Paul announced that he won’t seek the re-election of his House seat in 2012. Instead, Paul plans to focus all of his energy on the 2012 presidential race.

Read more: http://www.thestatecolumn.com/capitol/ron-paul-slams-debt-ceiling-in-conviction-ad-that-airs-in-nevada-today/#ixzz1ST0q9gms

Federal Election Results for the candidates

The NYT yesterday published the FE results for the leading candidates, with Huntsman and McCotter (McWHo?) nor required to file this quarter.
So far, Obama has $46.3 million raised, with $11.1 spent in 2nd quarter.
Then it's Romney: $18.4/$5.7; Paul: $4.5/$1.6; Pawlenty: $4.3/$2.5: Bachmann: $3.4/$0.3
Cain: $2.6/$2.1: Gingrich: $2.1/$1.8: Santorum: $0.6/$0.4: Johnson: $0.2/$0.2

It shows a candidate pacing wisely, not having to spend all his ammunition to get name recognition.
Big business seems to like Romney and Obama more, both of whom have received in general much larger donations on average, thus their large war chests do not reflect more supporters.

This shows something about the amount of support, of course, but also about the way a candidate spends -
Paul's 2nd quarter spending is about 32.5% - compared to others of 100% or nearly that.

Here are some of Dr Ron Paul's comments on record about hemp, marijuana and drug laws...he is way ahead of Obama or any of the other Democrats on these. That is why VOTE HEMP and NORML are behind him, even if he is GOP...the other GOP candidates do not have a chance at getting these and other Green/Progressive votes. One of the many reasons why he is the only electable GOP candidate.

What candidate is behind both hemp and legal marijuana? Certainly not Obama...and certainly not most of the GOP line up - but Dr Ron Paul, who is a GOP Congressman, is the best man for the job...hard to believe, but then again, he did run as a libertarian (1988).

So I thought I'd post his record on such issues as hemp, marijuana and the drug wars along with his ratings from NORML and VOTEHEMP...

 

Dr Ron Paul believes in the legalization of industrial hemp. Paul supported HR 3037 to amend the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. This bill would have given the states the power to regulate farming of hemp. The measure would be a first since the national prohibition of industrial hemp farming in the United States. He favors the legalization of marijuana.
Source: SourceWatch.org Jan 22, 2007

Drug War fosters violence at home & breeds resentment abroad For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no federal war on drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes as a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it. We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved.
The drug war encourages violence. Government violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-called justice. Our drug eradication project (using spraying) around the world, from Colombia to Afghanistan, breeds resentment because normal crops and good land can be severely damaged. Local populations perceive that the efforts and the profiteering remain somehow beneficial to our own agenda in these various countries.
Source: House speech, in Foreign Policy of Freedom, p.159-160 Oct 25, 2001


Voted NO on subjecting federal employees to random drug tests. Drug Demand Reduction Act: Vote on an amendment to require that anyone hired by the Federal Government is subject to random, unannounced drug testing.
Reference: Amendment by Taylor, D-MS; bill by Portman, R-OH.; Bill HR 4550 ; vote number 1998-443 on Sep 16, 1998

War on Drugs has abused Bill of Rights .Paul adopted the Republican Liberty Caucus Position Statement:
As adopted by the General Membership of the Republican Liberty Caucus at its Biannual Meeting held December 8, 2000.
WHEREAS libertarian Republicans believe in limited government, individual freedom and personal responsibility;
WHEREAS we believe that government has no money nor power not derived from the consent of the people;
WHEREAS we believe that people have the right to keep the fruits of their labor; and
WHEREAS we believe in upholding the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land;
BE IT RESOLVED that the Republican Liberty Caucus endorses the following [among its] principles:
While recognizing the harm that drug abuse causes society, we also recognize that government drug policy has been ineffective and has led to frightening abuses of the Bill of Rights which could affect the personal freedom of any American. We, therefore, support alternatives to the War on Drugs.
Per the tenth amendment to the US Constitution, matters such as drugs should be handled at the state or personal level.
All laws which give license to violate the Bill of Rights should be repealed.
Source: Republican Liberty Caucus Position Statement 00-RLC13 on Dec 8, 2000

Legalize medical marijuana. Paul co-sponsored the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana
Title: To provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States. Summary: Transfers marijuana from schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to schedule II of such Act. Declares that, in a State in which marijuana may be prescribed or recommended by a physician for medical use under applicable State law, no provision of the Controlled Substances Act shall prohibit or otherwise restrict:
the prescription or recommendation of marijuana by a physician for medical use;
an individual from obtaining and using marijuana from a physician's prescription or recommendation of marijuana for medical use; or
a pharmacy from obtaining and holding marijuana for the prescription or recommendation of marijuana by a physician for medical use under applicable State law.
Prohibits any provision of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act from prohibiting or restricting a State entity from producing or distributing marijuana for the purpose of its distribution for prescription or recommendation by a physician in a State in which marijuana may be prescribed by a physician for medical use.
Source: House Resolution Sponsorship 01-HR2592 on Jul 23, 2001

Rated A by VOTE-HEMP, indicating a pro-hemp voting record.Paul scores A by VOTE-HEMP on pro-hemp legalization policies
VOTE HEMP is a non-profit organization dedicated to the acceptance of and free market for Industrial Hemp. Industrial Hemp is non-psychoactive low THC varieties of the cannabis sativa plant. Currently, it is illegal for U.S. farmers to grow Industrial Hemp because it is improperly classified as a "drug" under the Controlled Substances Act. Since changes in law require shifts in thinking and this requires education in the facts, our primary goal is the education of legislators and regulators, farmers and businesses, students and other concerned citizens.
Source: VOTE-HEMP website 02n-HEMP on Dec 31, 2003

Rated +30 by NORML, indicating a pro-drug-reform stance.Paul scores +30 by the NORML on drug reform
OnTheIssues.org interprets the 2006 NORML scores as follows:
-30 to -10: "hard-on-drugs" stance (approx. 228 members)
-9 to +9: mixed record on drug reform (approx. 37 members)
+10 to +30: pro-drug-reform stance (approx. 109 members)About NORML (from their website, www.norml.org):
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law's mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the repeal of marijuana prohibition so that the responsible use of cannabis by adults is no longer subject to penalty.
NORML is a nonprofit, public-interest lobby that for more than 30 years has provided a voice for those Americans who oppose marijuana prohibition. We represent the interests of the tens of millions of Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly and believe the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana should no longer be a crime.
NORML supports the removal of all criminal penalties for the private possession & responsible use of marijuana by adults, including the cultivation for personal use, and the casual nonprofit transfers of small amounts. This model is called "decriminalization."
NORML additionally supports the development of a legally controlled market for marijuana, where consumers could purchase it from a safe, legal and regulated source. This model is referred to as "legalization."
NORML believes that marijuana smoking is not for kids and should only be used responsibly by adults. As with alcohol consumption, it must never be an excuse for misconduct or other bad behavior. Driving or operating heavy equipment while impaired from marijuana should be prohibited.
NORML strongly supports the right of patients to use marijuana as a medicine when their physician recommends it to relieve pain and suffering.
Lastly, NORML supports the right of farmers to commercially cultivate hemp for industrial purposes, such as food and fiber production.
Source: NORML website 06n-NORML on Dec 31, 2006

Pawlenty vs. Bachmann

Pawlenty is starting to trail in the polls, but he has managed to get back in the media spotlight - by blasting Bachmann. He claims she did absolutely nothing in Congress. Both are from Minnesota, not a state known for sending people to the Oval Office.
Bachmann is now neck and neck with front-runner Romney in the polls.
But the election itself is light years away in political years...lots to transpire till then.
Here in New York there is an unusual election, to replace Anthony, as in Weiner...The Dems want David Weprin to replace him after he had to quit in disgrace - and this being NY, my bet in on Weprin...GOP Congressmen here are hen's teeth.
But the former mayor, Ed Koch, wants a GOP man - as a way to rebuke Obama for his stance on Israel. So Bob Turner may stand a chance, but I still would not put money on it.
However, it says something about the 2012 elections; Jews may well not vote for Obama for a number of reasons, they may well back the GOP, but only if the GOP candidate is convincing. Last time they did not vote for McCain - who seemed to have amnesia - and Palin, who does not go over well with an educated crowd.
Ron Paul is a strong choice - especially among those who remember his lone pro-Israel stand in 1981, if my own memory serves correct - when the GOP denounced Israel and he said it was a sovereign nation that had the right to defend itself. He also points out that the US gives the Arabs four times as much money than it gives Israel, and he is right. I would not be surprised if Ed Koch would support him. Pawlenty, or Bachmann, I cannot see them getting much enthusiasm among the Jewish voters.  Or the Latin, African-American voters either, they may well be restricted to the core GOP voter base which is not enough to ensure a regime change here.

Dave Brooks in the New York Times

A number of letters appeared in the New York Times yesterday in response to David Brooks article of 5 July ("The Mother of All No-Brainers"). Most were anti-GOP. Barrett Zinn Gross quoted Dick Cheney's absurd remark about deficits not mattering, and Ron Freeland asserts that they GOP is incapable of running the country.
Personally, I am not a big GOP fan. This blog is about Ron Paul - not the GOP. But I am not a fan of the left either - especially when they have some fringe lunatics running about letting rapists out of jail...call me a Centrist if you will.
And I might just call Ron Paul a Centrist, which is what this country needs. But I can work with either party, if I do not have to deal with the extremists. I think that in all fairness to the GOP these letters point out the extermists in the GOP - Cheney and Glover Norquist are mentioned, and neither of them are close to Ron Paul.
These extremists not only make the party look bad, but they deflect light from the sensible candidates. The press finds them an easy story - and does damage to the country, as the voters hear so much about them and not enough about the sensible politicians, right, left or in the middle - who could do the job. The press, especially the Murdoch press, also spends its time hacking into citizen's cell phones, which is why Murdoch may lose his empire in the UK - where his people hacked into the phone of a missing school girl, and possible the phones of UK military families and families of 7/7 victims.Why? It is very mysterious.
He owns the Post in NY, which almost never mentions Ron Paul. Why? Is Murdoch involved with people who do not have the interests of the US at heart? CCP? Chemical companies bent on selling DDT? Intel agencies bent on hacking into phones of military families? Who, by the way, is this paper supporting and why?
Just asking...

Why the news outlets ignore Ron Paul: news from the National Inflation Associatoin

I have been asking a number of times why the media do not (that is not a typo - media is plural, just FYI) give any space to Ron Paul...the NYT for instance devoted an entire page this week to four GOP candidates who have nothing to contribute - it made me wonder...are journalists out to lunch? Or just bugging the phones of 13-year-old missing girls on the orders of Rupert Murdoch? Or vilifying hemp which could provide jobs to Americans, as they did at Hearst? Well, here are some answers from the National Inflation Association - I cut and pasted a key article here well worth reading....

FORT LEE, N.J., July 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Inflation Association - http://inflation.us - today released the following inflation update to its NIA members:

We are at the very beginning of our nation's most important Presidential election season in history. Historically in all Presidential elections, taxation has always been one of the top issues. The Republicans always call for lower taxes, while the Democrats say we should tax the rich more and cut taxes on the poor and middle class. The truth is, taxation today means nothing when the real U.S. budget deficit is now more than twice the government's total tax receipts. Taxation is used to distract U.S. citizens as the Federal Reserve prints trillions of dollars out of thin air, stealing from the incomes and savings of all Americans.

NIA's number one goal during the next year is to educate as many Americans as possible to the truth about the U.S. economy so that come the 2012 Republican primaries and general Presidential election, inflation is the number one issue on everybody's minds. During the 2008 Presidential debates between President Obama and John McCain, Obama did not use the word inflation once. McCain used the word inflation only a handful of times, but spoke about taxation nearly one hundred times. When McCain mentioned inflation, he said that we need to make it easier for students to borrow larger amounts of money to attend college due to inflation, when it is actually the government's willingness to provide easy access to student loans that is causing tuition inflation.

In the 2008 Presidential election, Americans did not have a choice to vote for an anti-inflation candidate. Although polls in late-2008 indicated that the majority of U.S. citizens were against the government's bailouts of Wall Street and artificial stimulus bills, both Obama and McCain were in support of them. Despite Ron Paul doubling McCain's fundraising in the 4Q of 2007 and raising $20 million, ending the year with $7.8 million in cash on hand while McCain's campaign was broke and in debt, the mainstream media manipulated the minds of Americans into voting for McCain as the Republican nominee, when it is Ron Paul who would have put a stop to Congress' reckless, dangerous, and destructive spending that can only be paid for by borrowing and printing money.

Since Obama was elected President on November 4th, 2008, the U.S. dollar has lost 48% of its purchasing power. Americans today spend 48% more for gasoline than they did the day of the last election. Americans today also spend 105% more for sugar, 78% more for coffee, 58% more for corn, with similar gains for many other agricultural commodities. The U.S. government and Federal Reserve created all of this inflation in an attempt to reinflate the Real Estate bubble, yet the median U.S. home price declined by 2.4% during this time period. Meanwhile, the real unemployment rate has increased from 16.8% to 22.3%.

The media worked tirelessly in 2008 to marginalize Ron Paul's Presidential campaign. After every Republican candidate debate, FOX News would have a text message and online voting poll on who won the debate. Ron Paul would overwhelmingly win most of the polls, with hundreds of thousands of people voting, yet the FOX News hosts wouldn't give credit to Ron Paul for winning the debate. They instead would claim that their own poll was somehow compromised and manipulated by tech savvy Ron Paulsupporters. Ron Paul supporters did not manipulate FOX News' polls, FOX News and the rest of the mainstream media manipulated the minds of their viewers into nominating John McCain who had the exact same viewpoints as Obama on every economic issue, except that Obama said he would tax the rich slightly more than McCain (big deal!).

The media is already beginning their massive campaign to marginalize Ron Paul's Presidential campaign for the Republican nomination in the 2012 election. After the first Republican debate on June 13th, Bill O'Reilly referred to a snap poll that declaredMitt Romney the winner with 51% of the vote and Ron Paul the loser with 0%. The very fine print on the screen said that 54 people voted in the poll that Bill O'Reilly was using to declare Romney the winner of the debate. So when hundreds of thousands of real voters support Ron Paul in a FOX News poll, the network's hosts downplay it and claim that their own poll was rigged; but when 54 Washington insiders vote for Romney and 0 vote for Ron Paul, Bill O'Reilly gives credibility to that poll in an attempt to influence his viewers into believing Ron Paul has no chance of being elected!

The mainstream media has already hand selected Romney to be their nominee in the 2012 election. No matter where you look this week, the headlines read that Romney raised $15 to $20 million in the second quarter, most of it coming from bankers on Wall Street. Meanwhile, Ron Paul has raised $4.5 million from grassroots supporters, more than Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, or anybody else that has reported so far, but nobody gives Ron Paul any credit. All of the articles written about Ron Paul call him a "long-shot", solely in an attempt to manipulate the minds of voters.

Romney's millions of dollars in donations are coming from those who benefited from the Federal Reserve's unconstitutional and criminal acts of stealing the wealth of hardworking middle-class Americans through inflation. Romney has made it very clear that he won't discuss the Federal Reserve and that he believes Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is doing a good job. The fact is, unless we address the Federal Reserve and the endless monetary inflation they are creating, no other issues matter at all.

Some of the people who benefited from the Federal Reserve's bailouts are hedging their bets and not just supporting Romney, but are supporting all of the Republican candidates other than Ron Paul. Jack Welch, former Chairman of General Electric (GE), yesterday declared Romney, Pawlenty, and Huntsman the three "real contenders" in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, saying that, "each of them has their pluses and minuses". Welch gave no mention of Ron Paul, despite the fact that he raised more money than Pawlenty and Huntsman last quarter. Welch in the same interview called Bernanke a "hero during the crisis". After all, GE would have gone bankrupt due to Welch's reckless management of the company if it wasn't for the U.S. government backing $139 billion of GE's debt during the financial crisis.

Bill O'Reilly has been trying to portray Ron Paul as some kind of a lunatic, when O'Reilly is clearly uneducated about the economic issues that matter today. In a shocking display of just how incompetent O'Reilly is, he recently played a clip of Ron Paul speaking at the June 13th debate about how the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency has become our main export in return for all of the real products we import from countries like China and Japan. O'Reilly said he was "very confused" by what Ron Paul was saying. O'Reilly apparently thinks this is normal and will be sustainable continuously forever. To see this shocking video of O'Reilly's incompetence, simply go to our recent blog posting at: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/06/bill-oreilly-clueless-about-economics-and-inflation/

Glenn Beck, the only person in the mainstream media who has called NIA a credible organization and has referenced our food inflation report on the air on many occasions, recently left FOX News to start his own Internet television network. With Glenn Beckleaving FOX News, the balance of power has now shifted. If you combine all of the major alternative media organizations on the Internet, they now have larger reach than the mainstream media news organizations on television. Due to this shift in power, NIA now truly believes that a candidate like Ron Paul has a chance of actually winning the 2012 Presidential election.

In order for our movement to succeed in electing a real President like Ron Paul in 2012, we must all work together. Americans need to realize that the real war isn't CNN, MSNBC, and the Democrats vs. FOX News and the Republicans. The real information war is alternative news organizations on the Internet that speak the truth along with politicians who believe in Austrian economics and protecting the U.S. Constitution vs. CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, the New York Times, Time Magazine, and the rest of the mainstream media, which spread false propaganda in order to support the Democrats and Republicans that have been brainwashed by our nation's colleges with Keynesian economic principles, and have put our nation on the brink of hyperinflation.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

About us:

The National Inflation Association is an organization that is dedicated to preparing Americans for hyperinflation. NIA offers free membership at http://www.inflation.us and provides its members with articles about the U.S. economy and inflation, daily news stories and blog updates, and important charts not shown by the mainstream media. NIA is the producer of economic documentaries that have received a combined 12 million views including the critically acclaimed 'Meltup', 'The Dollar Bubble', 'End of Liberty', 'Hyperinflation Nation', and brand new 'College Conspiracy'. NIA provides unbiased reviews of the major online sellers of gold and silver bullion and also offers profiles of gold, silver, agriculture, oil, and alternative energy companies that could prosper in an inflationary environment. NIA is the creator of 'NIAnswers', the world's most comprehensive database of questions and answers about inflation, currencies, debt, and precious metals.

SOURCE National Inflation Association

Ron Paul's idea to reduce debt: Dean Baker's piece in the New Republic

While the other GOP candidates are getting press for, well, getting press, in the way Paris Hilton is famous for being famous, Ron Paul went to work on a way to reduce the debt. I have cut and pasted Dean Baker's article from the New Republic below:

Representative Ron Paul has hit upon a remarkably creative way to deal with the impasse over the debt ceiling: have the Federal Reserve Board destroy the $1.6 trillion in government bonds it now holds. While at first blush this idea may seem crazy, on more careful thought it is actually a very reasonable way to deal with the crisis. Furthermore, it provides a way to have lasting savings to the budget.

The basic story is that the Fed has bought roughly $1.6 trillion in government bonds through its various quantitative easing programs over the last two and a half years. This money is part of the $14.3 trillion debt that is subject to the debt ceiling. However, the Fed is an agency of the government. Its assets are in fact assets of the government. Each year, the Fed refunds the interest earned on its assets in excess of the money needed to cover its operating expenses. Last year the Fed refunded almost $80 billion to the Treasury. In this sense, the bonds held by the Fed are literally money that the government owes to itself.

Unlike the debt held by Social Security, the debt held by the Fed is not tied to any specific obligations. The bonds held by the Fed are assets of the Fed. It has no obligations that it must use these assets to meet. There is no one who loses their retirement income if the Fed doesn’t have its bonds. In fact, there is no direct loss of income to anyone associated with the Fed’s destruction of its bonds. This means that if Congress told the Fed to burn the bonds, it would in effect just be destroying a liability that the government had to itself, but it would still reduce the debt subject to the debt ceiling by $1.6 trillion. This would buy the country considerable breathing room before the debt ceiling had to be raised again. President Obama and the Republican congressional leadership could have close to two years to talk about potential spending cuts or tax increases. Maybe they could even talk a little about jobs.

In addition, there’s a second reason why Representative Paul’s plan is such a good idea. As it stands now, the Fed plans to sell off its bond holdings over the next few years. This means that the interest paid on these bonds would go to banks, corporations, pension funds, and individual investors who purchase them from the Fed. In this case, the interest payments would be a burden to the Treasury since the Fed would no longer be collecting (and refunding) the interest.

To be sure, there would be consequences to the Fed destroying these bonds. The Fed had planned to sell off the bonds to absorb reserves that it had pumped into the banking system when it originally purchased the bonds. These reserves can be created by the Fed when it has need to do so, as was the case with the quantitative easing policy. Creating reserves is in effect a way of “printing money.” During a period of high unemployment, this can boost the economy with little fear of inflation, since there are many unemployed workers and excess capacity to keep downward pressure on wages and prices. However, at some point the economy will presumably recover and inflation will be a risk. This is why the Fed intends to sell off its bonds in future years. Doing so would reduce the reserves of the banking system, thereby limiting lending and preventing inflation. If the Fed doesn’t have the bonds, however, then it can’t sell them off to soak up reserves.

But as it turns out, there are other mechanisms for restricting lending, most obviously raising the reserve requirements for banks. If banks are forced to keep a larger share of their deposits on reserve (rather than lend them out), it has the same effect as reducing the amount of reserves. To take a simple arithmetic example, if the reserve requirement is 10 percent and banks have $1 trillion in reserves, the system will support the same amount of lending as when the reserve requirement is 20 percent and the banks have $2 trillion in reserves. In principle, the Fed can reach any target for lending limits by raising reserve requirements rather than reducing reserves.

As a practical matter, the Fed has rarely used changes in the reserve requirement as an instrument for adjusting the amount of lending in the system. Its main tool has been changing the amount of reserves in the system. However, these are not ordinary times. The Fed does not typically buy mortgage backed securities or long-term government bonds either. It has been doing both over the last two years precisely because this downturn is so extraordinary. And in extraordinary times, it is appropriate to take extraordinary measures—like the Fed destroying its $1.6 trillion in government bonds and using increases in reserve requirements to limit lending and prevent inflation.

In short, Representative Paul has produced a very creative plan that has two enormously helpful outcomes. The first one is that the destruction of the Fed’s $1.6 trillion in bond holdings immediately gives us plenty of borrowing capacity under the current debt ceiling. The second benefit is that it will substantially reduce the government’s interest burden over the coming decades. This is a proposal that deserves serious consideration, even from people who may not like its source.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His most recent book is False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy.