The main meat of the latest Peter Schiff video blog discusses the testimony this week of Ben Bernanke in his semi-annual visit to the US Congress. Mr Bernanke was challenged quite strongly by Congressman Ron Paul, who in effect asked the Federal Reserve chief to state how bad things would have to get before he realised his Keynesian stimulus policies of monetary expansion were wrong. Alas, Mr Bernanke managed to escape answering the question because Mr Paul ran out of time (you can see a YouTube of this questioning here).
Before discussing the Bernanke testimony, Mr Schiff also debates the continuing decline of the Dollar against other major world currencies, including the Euro and the Pound. He notes that there was better financial news this week coming out of Europe and the UK, and he thinks this is not entirely unrelated to the government spending cutback austerity programmes recently announced by European governments, as opposed to the continuing belief by the US government that Keynesian stimulus spending is the only way to revive the American economy.
[Whether the UK government is actually bold enough to implement its proposed austerity programme and face down all of the emotive calls from government agencies to lessen their pain, is something we will need to wait and see.]
Commenting that the earlier US stress tests on banks were like letting gerbils run around on a suspension bridge and then declaring that the bridge was safe, Mr Schiff wants to reserve judgement on the efficacy of the European bank stress tests, but thinks that the Dollar index will need to drop to 70 before concerns will be raised about the continuing weakness of the Dollar.
Schiff follows these discussions by talking about the wisdom of letting General Motors use taxpayers’ money to buy up car loans companies and the possible ulterior motives of the US government in investigating the admittedly poor practices of some US gold dealers.
In reference to Sean Corrigan’s latest piece on the problems that Ben Bernanke is facing, Cobden Centre readers may want to refresh their background to this story by watching a nicely produced YouTube video first broadcast seven months ago, featuring Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and Marc Faber:
As previously mentioned on this blog, TCC’s Chairman Toby Baxendale and I traveled to Jeykell Island in the US the weekend before last to attend a major conference hosted by the good people of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Headed ‘The Birth and Death of the Fed’ not only was the event very impressive in its own right – very well organised with several hundred people in attendance – but there were lots of excellent speakers exploring money and banking from an Austrian school perspective. You can listen to the main highlights here through these links:
Robert P. Murphy – Only the Austrians can Can Explain Depressions
For me, it was not only a delight to listen to and meet Lew Rockwell but it was also a particular pleasure to meet and talk with Congressman Ron Paul. A most intelligent and moral person, I found him to be every bit the gentleman I had expected.
Tomorrow, Toby and I are off to the US for a conference. While I am not looking forward to the early start and the particularly long flight, I am looking forward to meeting Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute and Congressman Ron Paul.
I am also looking forward to meeting lots of other enthusiasts for the Austrian School of Economics and exchanging views and opinions with them.
Indeed, it is concerning these aspects of the trip, that I am reminded of what Churchill once said: “If you love your job, you will never work again!”
When I was a child in the 1960s and 70s who could have imagined something like this? Forget the mindboggling sophistication of the technology. Today, if you do a Google search, US Congressman Ron Paul blows Karl Marx out of the water. Paul’s scores 28,800,000 search results to an unbelievably poor 6,260,000 for Marx.
Now, it is true that these things take a long time to play through, but as a sociologist I am excited by the long-term cultural, political and economic impact of these sorts of numbers for social reformers such as us.
For everyone at TCC, Paul’s recent book ‘End The Fed’ is a must read. Have you got your copy yet? Fascinating.
