Ron Paul Retires.... What does this mean for you US economy?

Discuss!

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...on-pauls-liberty-movement-spreads-in-congress

 

Ron Paul is yesterday's man. If he'd been elected the USA would be down the gurgler along with the rest of the world in a financial tsunami that would have crushed the poor and middle class even more brutally than current circumstances provide.

I don't get this fascination with this man. A capital R Republican who wants an isolationist USA with survival of the fittest. A supposed libertarian who is happy for church and state to be joined and for divine guidance to rule the population. A close to 40 year stint in Congress should show the level of complicity he had in the current system. A former obstetrician with a total net worth of $2.4 to $5.4 million. He must have been saving that congressional salary all those years, or perhaps his luck with mining shares might suggest why he is so pro-mining and drilling and anti-environmental controls.

I don't have time for any of them but this one pretends to be different when his feet are as much clay as any of the others.

 

Rubbish Julie, he was the only one running with any fiscal responsibility. What is this church and state crap? Isolationist? Complete and utter rubbish.

 

Imagine how much he would be worth if he had remained a OB Doctor and invested just as wisely in the gold market all those years. Furthermore for Julie W sake. He must be the first congressman in history that is refusing to take his government congressional pension.

 

i believe that he might of been the only person who could of helped the usa get out of the problem they where in, but the bigwigs didnt want this to happen

 

And if you earn 200k pa and the government pays for all your expenses and drives you round, and you put it all in gold and mining shares I suppose that's a way to a reasonable retirement nest egg. The US national average wage index for 2011 was $42,979.61 - and you mostly pay your own way.


Don't follow leaders, watch your parkin' meters.
- Bob Dylan
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
- Old CPA saying
Politics is choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
- someone famous.

 

Possibly the dumbest thing I've read on this forum so far. And that's saying something.

 

what was the second dumbest thing?

 

Second dumbest thing would be me asking if 2 $5 notes with consecutive numbers out of a vending machine were valuable. Face palm

 

I think the fascination comes from the fact he has been talking about the monetary issues for a long time, when no-one else has. His confrontation's with Fed chairman, the way he accurately describes inflation as a tax, his endorsement of Austrian economics, etc, etc as well as his general advocation of liberty.

However, I think some of your criticisms are valid and should be addressed.

First of all, I'll say that even though there are various people I like, ultimately it is the ideas themselves that are important and if one person who has flaws, serious or not, advocates them, that doesn't make the ideas themselves wrong.

Yes, he was in no way pure in congress. I think a case could be made that he is better than the rest but there were still earmarks and things of that nature that he participated in as well as ridiculous salary and perks.

The church/state thing comes from the following article (I googled it) http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html which I pretty much entirely disagree with. In his defence, if he generally wants government out of people's lives then that would necessarily mean he doesn't want religion controlling their lives through the power of government. I've read more recent stuff from him which indicates he has moderated some of these views, probably due to the rise of atheism.

Did he do more harm than good in his time? Debatable I guess. I tend to think not, but it's a matter of opinion and I don't think people should be idolising him (or anyone), but I think he got a lot of ideas out to a lot of people who might not have otherwise heard them. And the Federal Reserve may still be in the shadows if not for his efforts.

 

There is a MASSIVE difference between non-interventionism and isolationism. I doubt anyone would criticise Switzerland's non-interventionism as being counter productive to its prosperity.

The Churches criticise him for not backing them in standing against gay marriage. Marriage is not an issue for the state is his opinion. Never has he said that church and state should be joined for devine guidance to rule the population and your quote doesn't even come close to even alluding to that.

I also think you will find Ron Paul is the most frugal of all congressman on spending in his own office.

 

The "earmarks thing" is not a complex issue. There are 2 votes. One to authorise spending (on something you don't want, so you vote "No'). The second vote is to "earmark", which means that that this spending must only be spent on a specific issue". So you vote "Yes", because even though you don't want the spending in the first place, once it is voted to spend, then at least you can try to make damn sure it is actually spent on that purpose and not sidetracked into buying an aircraft carrier. Not sure why this ever became a criticism.

"Did he do more harm than good in his time". You think this is debatable or a matter of opinion?..........let's say compared to George W Bush, Dick Cheney or Obama, is there really any debate?

As for Julie, nearly everything you wrote, from claiming he was isolationist, to saying he believed "divine guidance was required to rule the population", was factually incorrect. Right now, nobody idolises him, but many people like him and his views. However in the coming years, I can conceive of a future where many people might start to idolise him.

 

The same as before he retired - absolutely nothing.

Ron Paul does not and never had any impact on the US economy, he simply provided some jovial moments in congress when he'd grill the Bernank on 'tradition' and preached to the converted.

At the end of the day, it didn't make a damn difference at all.

It'll only have any relevance when they start searching after the fact back through political history on how it all went wrong & who said what.

Expect a YouTube clip down the line titled "Ron Paul was right"

 

To add to Browski's comments on the ear marks. Debate after debate idiots like Santorum attacked him on it after he attacked them for voting yes on retarded spending bills. He answered this very clearly each time.

While he will be voting for a bill to not be passed, once he realised that he will be out voted, he simply earmarks so that his constituents get their fair share. He believes most spending should be earmarks. It's fine on one hand to stand on your principles, but it's another to let your constituents get smashed without funding because you want to stand on your principles.

He did the right thing on this IMO.

Auspm I think you are right. I am now glad that he wasn't the GOP nominee. The US is about to become as fiscally bankrupt as Greece. Ron Paul has sewn a seed on what must be done. It won't be done, and Rand Paul his son will be sitting in it he box seat in 2016 or 2020 to pick up the pieces and put them back together the right way.

 

Just to clarify my position, I admire Ron Paul for the stances he has taken. He's no saint and he's not perfect, but neither is any other human being and he did far more good than harm I believe. I was trying to present a balanced view, but it might have ended up sounding unfair.

As to things that he has said in the past, you could dig up some things I said years ago and I would disagree with them now. Did I say them? Yes. Was I wrong? Yes. Comes with being a human being, you get stuff wrong. I have seen RP's view change from wanting a gold-backed currency to wanting market competing currencies. I think his religious views also have changed in the last few years to a much more moderate stance than the article from 2003 indicates.

That's all part of having an open mind. That you are prepared to change your view upon receiving new information and don't dogmatically stick to a view that you know is wrong.

As for Rand Paul, all I can say is, the son is not the father.

 

You don't get it, but I get you.
Lazy people often don't like survival of the ones that do the job best, with the rest depending on their free choice to help or to not help.
Instrad, lazy people want to rely on force and suppression of free will. Government. State.

 

I don't see that article at all to mean anything at all about needing church and state to be joined for Devine guidance. It's simply a defence of his religion to which he feels is being attacked by secularists trying to force religion out of public life.

I love the idea that he believes the fathers held a view that churches would become more important than the state. While I don't share his views on church I do share his views on keeping the state as little impingement on the life of the individual as possible. He and the founding fathers were religious, I respect their views while not following them myself.

While I don't lament the fall of the church as an influence on society, I do lament the rise in the state and it's bearing on people's lives.

 

Sorry Julie that WAS the dumbest thing I have heard on this forum, by the little rant you had it's clear you don't really know what he is about. Kinda like showing up on a silver forum, ignoring the fundamentals that link us to silver and trying to flog bismuth (that guy now 2nd in my list, congrats you just dethroned him)