Ron Paul Schools Pundits on Gold Standard and the Moral Hazard of Bailouts

This is a very interesting discussion because it portrays how even the supposed "experts" in the mainstream media know very little about the Austrian School of Economics, the gold standard, the moral hazard of bailouts and government intervention in the market, and even competing currencies.

Many times, I don't think these people are even doing this on purpose, you know, like doing it for the sake of an evil motive or intent. It's just more of how they were trained and taught to think. Keynesianism is the most prominent position not just in politics but also in the academe. There are very little Austrian school economists or libertarian professors in the academe.


I think the best thing is that we have the internet now and schools are not the only places we can learn. Knowledge is just disseminated so much faster now and almost without restrictions. Just look at how social media helped topple tyrannies in Libya or Egypt or how WikiLeaks is helping make governments more transparent and exposes corruption and crimes.


Now that we have the internet, I don't think there's any sort of excuse to now know about what's really going on. Mainstream media has lost its monopoly on spreading the news. The truth is in the internet now and almost everyone has access to it (which is also why we must keep them from restricting or censoring the internet).

If you really want to learn more about the reasons for buying or investing in gold or the benefits of doing so in Singapore then you can use Google and just see for yourself. Learn about monetary policy and the Federal Reserve and you'll know for a fact why you need to invest in gold.

Paul Krugman Thinks Gold Price Increase Is Because of Glenn Beck

Paul Krugman, one of the greatest opponents of the Austiran school, thinks that gold prince increased all because of speculation from Glenn Beck. It's probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard (source).

This if course outlines the difference of how Keynesians and Austrians see inflation, the other seeing it as something to do with prices while the latter seeing inflation as something to do with the quantity of money and credit. 

Of course Krugman doesn't think that the trillions of dollars printed since 2008 and injected into the economy like steroids have nothing to do with the price of gold. He doesn't seem to be even considering the euro crisis, a direct example of a failing fiat currency and authority to control interest rates and manage the economy.

Peter Schiff Wonders What Krugman is Smoking
You know Peter Schiff predicted the housing bubble and the recession. Why not just search YouTube for "Peter Schiff" was right (maybe I'll blog about that soon). So when it comes to credibility, will you believe in someone who has been spot-on before or someone who thinks that a TV show host like Glenn Beck (I don't watch his show by the way) affects the price of gold drastically.
I guess Peter Schiff will be saying the same thing about what Krugman is ranting about with the gold price. Again, it doesn't have to be gold, it's just that it is what the market has dictated for centuries. It's like economic law. It has all the perfect qualities to be legal tender. If Krugman and any of his other "liberal"(not in the classical sense) followers really think that currency backed by gold makes no sense then why won't they just allow competition? If they trust is paper money so much then they won't have anything to worry about, right?
But hey, all he really wants to do is break a bunch of windows so that it will create jobs and boost GDP. Smart, huh?

Historical Trend of the Price of Gold

There are many factors that affect the price of gold but what most people don't know is that it has a lot to do with monetary policy and the policymaking of central bankers and other appointed and unelected bureaucrats. 

Trend Price of Gold

Since the recession, which most libertarians predicted by the way, the price of gold has been going up. It's ridiculous how high the price of gold has been going and how low paper currency has becoming. The Federal Reserve has had no choice but to keep on printing money, increasing the money supply, for funding billions of dollars of bailouts and for quantitative easing and as they keep on doing this, the price of gold will keep on going up.

The same is happening in the eurozone. All they've been doing recently is buying each other's debt and bailing each other out with even more debt and even more printing of money. What's worse, they keep interest rates artificially too low. It's crazy, really. Interest rates are obviously one of the greatest indicators in the market and to manipulate it distorts the whole economy completely. It's so scary how a small group of unelected people can have this kind of power. Many countries in Europe have lost sovereignty because of the European Union. 

This is just the market starting to reject fiat currency. This rise in the price of gold is just the market correcting the price back and restoring the value of gold as money. 

Here's an interesting video of Ron Paul lecturing Bernanke on gold as money. There's a funny bit at the end where Ron Paul asks if Bernanke thinks gold is money and he even says that the only reason central banks still keep gold is "tradition". It's the most non-sensical answer I've ever heard and it's almost laughable if not for it being so immoral:

These reasons really are the things that made me think about investing in gold and other precious metals. Fiat currency is just so arbitrarily controlled by a small group of central planners and it's very scary. Let us all protect ourselves and invest in gold. Let us advocate auditing the Federal Reserve. Let us all advocate competing currencies and eventually transition to the liberation of our money.

John Maynard Keynes vs F.A. Hayek (rap version)

These two economists are both Nobel Prize winners yet both have entirely opposite views when it comes to economics and political philosophy. Keynes advocated central planning and management of the economy while F.A. Hayek believed that it's impossible to manage an organic economy and to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.

To learn a lot more about this, I would recommend the PBS documentary The Commanding Heights: The Battle For World Economy. It is quite long thought and for those who aren't really interested in economics, here's something that's very light and entertaining:

Keynes vs Hayek Rap
I love the economic references that are turned into something so comedic and easily understandable even by those who have not much interest in economics. Of course, I still recommend the PBS documentary but for some entertainment, the video above is highly recommended.
Of course, I love every single line in Hayek's rap in the video. It shows the power of the market, the power of the price mechanism, and how governments can't really manage the economy and will only lead to failure, corruption, and the opposite of progress and development.
The same applies to our money. Why should the government have a monopoly on money? It's really so immoral. When I say buy or invest gold I don't actually mean do this for profit's sake, no, it's actually a moral stance. It's protection from people who want think they can control the economy, a sentiment that Keynes shared with Lenin (the documentary "Commanding Heights" is actually a reference to Lenin because that is what he called the steel industry and he believed that it should be nationalized and monopolized by the State). 
If I were you, watch that PBS documentary. It'll really show you a lot more about history and a lot of alternative positions when it comes to economic policy. The mainstream in economics, those who advocate Keynesianism and those who are usually marginalized and discredited like those from the Austrian School of Economics.
Nietzsche mentioned something similar in Thus Spake Zarathustra about how those who are telling the truth, the prophets, they are usually discredited and even laughed at. We've seen the same happen to Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Nigel Farage, and many other libertarians all over the world. But then almost every single prediction of theirs have come true and more are yet to come. My honest recommendation: protect yourself and invest in gold.

“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” - Mark Twain

Ron Paul Debate About Gold in 1983

Ron Paul's principled integrity and intellectual consistency is absolutely unrivaled. Just check out this debate from 1983 with someone who was a member of the Federal Reserve governors during that time.  This debate really shows how he's been advocating this positon for a long time and it's really something that he has thoroughly researched and have been fighting for up to now.

Ron Paul 1983 Debate about Gold
I love how the title is "Gold versus Discretion" because it is really so true. Fiat currency, backed by nothing but government edict, is something that is so arbitrary. Even the Keynesians themselves debate on what exactly the policies should be. This is because the market, the economy, all of it is all so complex and organic. The idea that one could manage or direct it somehow is ridiculous. F.A. Hayek referred to it as the pretense of knowledge.
Gold, on the other hand, is something that has been dictated by the market. It has been historical and economic law and the market that dictated that gold has the perfect qualities to become legal tender. But it doesn't necessarily have to be gold. In fact, what Ron Paul is actually pushing for right now is just competing currencies (against, something that Hayek advocated as well). This means that currencies that are backed by commodities like gold or silver (or, again, any for that matter) will be able to compete and the market can decide what really has value. If the governments of the world and worshippers of fiat currency really believe that there paper money has value, then why are they so afraid to compete?
One of the biggest argument I've heard is the concept of how the Great Depression happened because there was very little regulation and that there's a need for an institution like the Federal Reserve (which is quasi-private, by the way) to intervene and manage. There's no other way of talking about it except that it is central planning. In fact, this has been going on long before John Maynard Keynes, only he was the one who turned it into some sort of religion that's indoctrinated to economics students all over the world.
What can we do? Even the simplest attempts of Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve is being blocked by lobbyists and corrupt politicians. It's disgusting, really. Much with my argument with competition, what's so wrong with transparency?
For now all we can do to protect ourselves from the discretion of the unelected cronies in the Federal Reserve and from the whim of central bankers is to invest our earnings and savings into precious metals like gold or silver. They increase the money supply and debase the paper currency all they want, but if your money is invested in gold or silver or any other precious metal for that matter, then you are protected. It goes well beyond the concept of being a "hedge against inflation".  It's really a very immoral system that legally steals our earnings.
As I have said, I will be detailing and documenting my experiences with investing in gold here in Singapore here in this blog.

Why Invest in Gold in Singapore

You know I used to be a complete social democrat / social liberal (not in the classical sense) / progressive or whatever you'd want to call it. But then I learned about Ron Paul during one of the 2008 US presidential election debates. Now I have learned so much more about libertarianism and the Austrian school of economics.

One of the most important things I learned through Ron Paul is monetary policy. I learned about our current system of money which is fiat currency. I've always thought that money is backed by gold. This isn't really something that is taught to us in school or whatever. But I researched more and more about fiat currency, the Federal Reserve, the gold standard, and of course, the benefits of investing in precious metals like gold. 

Here's one interesting and quite entertaining video of Ron Paul debating a defender of fiat currency:

I chose to post this video because it's light and easy to absorb. Stephen Colbert is liked by many liberals (in the American sense of the term) and that's why maybe it'll help some people rethink their views on monetary policy and political philosophy itself.
So as you can see, Ron Paul totally destroys the defender of fiat with his arguments. If you want to learn more about Ron Paul's position on gold, his book "End the Fed" would be a good starting point. As I write more on this blog (this blog will probably be full of my experiences and speculations when it comes to gold investments), I will be talking more and more about the different arguments against the State monopolized monetary system. 
Well, because by October 1 the Singaporean government has decided to take out the GST (Goods and Services Tax) on gold. People will be able to freely trade physical gold bullion with very minimal restrictions or burdens from the government.
This is a really great move, in my opinion and will really help make people more aware of the value of investing in precious metals like gold and at the same time also expose the truths about the current monetary policy and central banking of the different countries all over the world.
There are many ways you can buy gold in Singapore. You can buy actual physical bullion that you can keep in your possession, as in something you can hold on to. Or perhaps you can decide to get a storage service like a vault of some sort. There are many websites that offer this and I'm sure when the GST is lifted there will be even more establishments that will be offering this.Right now I'm looking for an online service because I would really find that very convenient. Maybe an online dealer that offers delivery service or storage? There are many different advantages and disadvantages of keeping your own gold and getting a storage service but that's probably a topic that I will discuss some other time. For now, I will start looking for where I can buy gold here in Singapore and then I will be blogging here about all my experiences and progress with my investments.
I knew that blogging would be a great way of keeping track of my gold investments. So be sure to follow my blog or drop by again soon to get updated on what's going on with my journey of investing in gold here in Singapore.