The Official Ron Paul Please Speak In Plain English Thread

[anaconda]

I am concerned that the casual voter does not understand what Ron Paul is really saying in the debates. Here's just two examples:

1) I don't think many people know what Ron means when he says "liquidate the debt." And, I don't think they know what his solution as President would be. For example, if he intends to have the Fed auction all of the "toxic assets" on the open market, then maybe this is what he should say. Or, whatever it is he would do as President he should spell it out for the voters that aren't super informed but make up a huge part of the voting block.

2) Most of us here know what "malinvestment" is but I'm not confident that others do. What if Ron takes 15 seconds in a debate and says that "the Fed printed too much money and government regulations made loans too easy. And now we have 2 million empty houses and no jobs. This is what economists call malinvestment."
And then consider steering clear of economic buzzwords that aren't part of the main stream vernacular.

[Cake]

In my experience, people do not generally attempt to discuss or even understand the full scope of Paul's comments on monetary policy. Most commonly, people just simply assume Ron Paul is in favor of a Gold Standard and would have things no other way.

Perhaps my understanding is not completely in line with Paul's, but it seems to me that the wisdom of having a gold and silver backed currency is that something tangible with intrinsic value or worth must be possessed in order to represent a note. In other words, I view a paper currency as acceptable, provided that it is a representation of an actual asset such as gold or silver. In modern times, I would not base a currency on gold and silver alone. After all, the key to a secure low-risk investment portfolio is diversification. I think we should also back currency with other precious metals, and/or minerals.

The point is to have something physical to define worth. Under our current fiat system, we simply have a group of people arbitrarily deciding the worth of currency that is not backed by anything that actually exists in the physical world. It is not that a fiat system has no validity, but in terms of the Federal Reserve the idea lacks wisdom in practice. The Constitution gives the Congress the Power of the purse, and monetary decisions should originate in the House with complete transparency, as opposed to an independent body that is barely accountable to congressional oversight.

[Cake]

Additionally, I do think it would benefit Paul greatly to expand the conversation beyond what our monetary policies should be, and outline some ideas on how to make the transition.