Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Dear Friends,
Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and
a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our
wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with
absolute certainty that disaster is about to
strike.
The events of the past week are no
exception.
The bailout package that is about to be rammed down
Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright
sinister. It makes a
mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again
bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American
people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities
they will have to shoulder.
Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than
China! "This is welfare
for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's
bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall
Streeters."
That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's
unavoidable.
The claim that the market caused all this is so
staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could
pretend to believe it.
But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired
result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its
predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who
understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the
hook. The Federal
Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather
than the culprit, in this mess!
- The
Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in
mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is
only the very beginning of what will hit us.
-
Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of
the Government." This
is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
- Then
there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority
of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion,
and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative
agency." Translation:
the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the
American people with it, and be subject to no one in the
process.
There goes your country.
Even some so-called free-market economists are calling
all this "sadly necessary."
Sad, yes.
Necessary? Don't
make me laugh.
Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime
against the American people.
The two major party candidates for president themselves
initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind -
another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with
this November: yes or yes.
Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what
their views are. A sad
display, really.
Although the present bailout package is almost
certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in
connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as
tomorrow. With a
Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven
percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never
vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.
The issue boils down to this: do we care about
freedom? Do we care
about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our
government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average
Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest
of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we
care?
When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight,
even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable
opinion in politics and the media?
Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of
a people we are, and what kind of country we shall
be.
In liberty,
Ron Paul
From The Committee to Re-elect Ron Paul http://ronpaulforcongress.com/