Ron Paul's Questions for Ben Bernanke

by Gary North

I have good news and bad news for Ben Bernanke.


First, the good news.



Gary North

 I AM OUT OF THE OFFICIAL LOOP

I am no longer Dr. Paul's research assistant. If I were, I would be working at least half of my time on compiling questions for Dr. Paul to ask Dr. Bernanke.

I would be actively cultivating leakers from inside all 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks (private), as well as staffers working for the Board of Governors (government). There is always some disgruntled employee ready to open locked closets. I would be encouraging every one to become the equivalent of Bradley Manning. "Purloined documents R us!"

Thirty-four years ago, I held that position. Dr. Paul was then the Congressman with the least amount of seniority in Congress. His term came to an end only eight months after it began. He was elected to fill an interim position, due to a resignation, and he lost by 268 votes out of about 180,000 in November. He came back two years later, but by then, I was off to greener pastures.

In those days, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System was Arthur Burns. He had been inflating like mad, trying to pull the economy out of Nixon's 1970–71 recession, then Ford's recession in 1975. Gold bottomed in the summer of 1976 at $105. It would never again get anywhere near that price.


Dr. Paul was already becoming Dr. No – voting no on most spending bills. He opposed the extension of funding of the International Monetary Fund. I wrote the dissenting paper on my first full day on the job – a Saturday. Back then, staffers could come into the Capitol office buildings without police checkpoints of any kind, at any hour. Those were the good old days.

Dr. Paul was not in a position to give much trouble to Dr. Burns. A year before, the head of the House Banking Committee had been Wright Patman, an anti-FED Congressman from east Texas. He had been giving the FED trouble for 25 years. It was Patman who, along with fellow Greenbacker Jerry Voorhis, got the law changed in the early 1940s to force the FED to return to the Treasury all money above expenses. That was the greatest single victory Congress ever had in dealing with the FED. But Patman had been ousted in a coup by younger Democrats in 1975. They revolted against the old seniority system in the aftermath of Watergate. The new chairman, Henry Reuss [ROYCE], was pro-FED. There was no way that there would be any confrontations allowed under Reuss.


Ben Bernanke was 23 years old.

That was then. This is now. That's the bad news for Dr. Bernanke.

"QUESTIONS! WE'VE GOT QUESTIONS!"

Read the rest at Lew Rockwell