End Times

A Note from Ron Paul
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

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