IG Stupidity

Ron Paul words on HR1207

Here is the speech given on the House floor by Congressman Ron Paul when he was introducting HR1207.

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HON. RON PAUL
OF TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009

* Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.

* Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.

* Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

* The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed’s negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates.

* More importantly, the Fed’s funding facilities and its agreements with the Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury’s supplementary financing accounts that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated and subsidize poorly performing financial firms.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

What Income Taxes Really Are

There IS an Income Tax . . .

HOWEVER

“Everything” you earn
IS NOT
“Taxable Income”

Did YOU earn your money by:

WORKING FOR…

DOING BUSINESS WITH…

INVESTING IN…

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ?

If not, then those earnings
ARE NOT “taxable income”

WWW.LOSTHORIZONS.COM

TITLE 26 > Subtitle A > CHAPTER 1 > Subchapter B > PART I > § 63. Taxable income defined

(a) In general: Except as provided in subsection (b), for purposes of this subtitle, the term “taxable income” means gross income minus the deductions allowed by this chapter (other than the standard deduction).

That’s not very helpful, what exactly IS “income” since THAT is what you are taxing…

US Supreme Court, US v. Ballard, 535 f2d 400, 404 (1976) “The general term ‘income’ is not defined in the Internal Revenue Code”

What does the Dictionary say “income” is?

in·come: The monetary payment received for goods or services, or from other sources, such as rents or investments.

OK, “income” is all that I earn from my work and investments…just what I thought…

US Supreme Court, Southern Pacific v. Lowe 247 U.S. 330 (1918): “We must reject the broad contention submitted in behalf of the government that all receipts, everything that comes in, are income…”

WHAT !?…….”income” is NOT “all” money that I receive !? What does the Constitution say about a DIRECT TAX upon my earnings?

US Constitution, Article 1 Section 9: “No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken”

In response to the above Constitutional reference, your accountant or the IRS will probably refer to the 16th Amendment, commonly known as the “Income tax”. To which the Supreme Court would reply…

US Supreme Court, Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. 240 U.S. 103 (1916): The provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation…

Additionally… Howard M. Zaritsky, Legislative Attorney, American Law Division of the Library of Congress Report No. 80-19A,“Some Constitutional Questions Regarding The Federal Income Tax Laws”:

Page CRS-5 (1979): “The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice White [the Brushaber ruling], first noted that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax clauses of Article I of the Constitution, quoted above. Direct taxes were, notwithstanding the advent of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the rule of apportionment and indirect taxes were still subject to the rule of uniformity.”F. Morse Hubbard, Treasury Department Legislative draftsman. March, 27 1943 Page 2580.

The income tax is, therefore, is not a tax on income as such. It is an excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges which is measured by reference to the income they produce. The income is not the subject of the tax: it is the basis for determining the amount of the tax.

The “PRIVILEGE” you must participate in to earn “taxable income” is working for, doing business with, or investing in businesses majority-owned by the Federal Government or “Federal Instrumentalities”. If you make your money having nothing to do with the Federal Government, then your earnings are not “taxable income”.

WWW.LOSTHORIZONS.COM

(original)

No Transparency

I hope you all are getting tired of this absolute horse crap. They are not only going to give tax dollars away, but they are going to give it away and not tell us who they are going to give money to or how much.

This is a perfect place in my opinion to stab the big snake in the eye. Obama talked a decent amount about having a transparent government. Then, not even a few months into his presidency he is (a) signing bills that were written overnight (b) signing bills that are filled with pork (c) signing bills that he doesn’t read (d) signing bills that the Americans don’t have a chance to read and lastly (e) having government take whatever they want to give to whoever they want… and nobdy can know about it. Horse shit.

Even (here) on 5 March 2009 Obama sends out a Memo to all departments stating:

Government should be transparent.  Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.  Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

“My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.” How is not even letting our Representatives see where this money is going supposed to be transparent?

I remember back with Halliburton, people were all pissed off because they thought that special contracts were being given out to Bush&Co people. True or not, at least we knew how much was being given and to whom! Here, we are just giving money away to… who knows!

This is ridiculous and I want to puke. I hope you all write your Representative to support H.R.1207 (which would make the Federal Reserve accountable/audited).

Only Ron Paul

As I am looking around the internet to find where I can buy silver and/or gold I find this little nugget of joy. Of course, it is over a year old, but even these people who KNOW money know that Ron Paul is the only one that understands what is wrong with America’s money. I thought it was a superb example of why Ron Paul would have been the best candidate for this past election, especially with all of the economic problems.

People, it is far past time to call for the end of the Federal Reserve.

Original here.

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Bill Haynes
December 13, 2007
The country – nay the world – is mired in the subprime toxic waste meltdown, with lenders writing off billions of dollars in losses. So serious is the problem that the Fed has begun lowering interest rates to ward off recession and President Bush has attempted intervention in private contracts to freeze interest rates for some home mortgage borrowers.

Few remember that it was the Fed’s intervention that caused the subprime problem in the first place. Under Alan Greenspan’s tutelage, interest rates were driven to the decades’ low rates that ushered in the housing boom that is now the housing bust.

Luckily, we have one presidential candidate who grasps the causes of the problem: Ron Paul, the Republican congressman from Texas. If any of the other candidates understood the subprime problem, perhaps we would have a chance seeing the problem resolved properly. (Properly? The borrowers and the lenders should suffer the losses, not the taxpayers.) Ron Paul’s February 15, 2006 Statement before the House of Representatives exhibits his understanding of money.

The Fed Creates a Crisis and Hampers the Recovery

by William Anderson (Original here)

When Ron Paul made eliminating the Federal Reserve System a centerpiece of his presidential primary campaign last year, media pundits and others scratched their heads in amazement.  After all, they reasoned, is not the Fed a collection of “conservative, buttoned-down” public officials who are given the mission of providing prosperity?

Indeed, whenever Ben Bernanke and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, have traveled to Capitol Hill to testify before congressional committees, they are treated as royalty, economic geniuses whose every word is treasured, even if Congress and the press cannot comprehend all of them.  If there is any criticism for these men, it is that they have not inflated enough.

However, in watching one exchange last year between Rep. Paul and Bernanke, I was struck not only by the lack of comprehension of economic logic that Bernanke possessed, but also his utterly wrong view of the actions of the Herbert Hoover administration.  In response to Rep. Paul’s criticism of the numerous Fed-oriented bailouts, Bernanke quoted Andrew Mellon, Hoover’s secretary of the treasury, who had advocated that the government permit weak businesses to go under in order to “purge the rottenness from our system.”

Unfortunately, Bernanke got it wrong.  After quoting Mellon, he assumed that Hoover had followed Mellon’s advice, which clearly is not what happened.  Instead, as Murray Rothbard conclusively pointed out in his classic America’s Great Depression, Hoover ignored Mellon and continued his attempts to bail out failing businesses and implement huge public works projects in order to “increase employment.”

The irony is that Hoover’s policies did “liquidate” the farmers, the bankers, and many others, despite the efforts of the government to keep it from happening.  Unfortunately, the liquidation was much worse than it would have been had Hoover done what his predecessors had done: not intervene into the economy during a downturn.  (President Warren G. Harding, although ridiculed by historians for his relative laissez-faire viewpoints, nonetheless understood the limitations of federal power in economic affairs and refused to intervene when the economy faced a serious downturn in 1921.)

Economic Freedom or Socialist Intervention?

The freedom to fail is an essential part of freedom. Government- provided financial security necessitates relinquishing the very essence of freedom. Last week, the big 3 American automakers came back to Capitol Hill with their hands out to the government. Congress spent this past week debating how much money to give them and what strings should be attached. Though the bailout plan for the auto industry has suffered what I would call a temporary setback in the Senate, other avenues for public funding are being explored through the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. I am afraid the American auto industry will soon learn that having billions rain down from Washington will not be the blessing one might expect.

The government, after it subsidizes an industry, tends to become a very demanding benefactor. Politicians may not have any real idea about how to build a car, run a bank, educate a child, heal the sick or build a road, but they are quite adept at using carrots and sticks to manipulate and threaten those who do. Most of the federal control over education, roads, healthcare, and now banking and soon auto manufacturing, is done through money, mandates and conditions. The bailout proposal we were considering would force automobile manufacturers to submit their business plans for the approval of a new federal “car czar.” This bureaucrat would have the authority to approve the automakers’ restructuring plan, monitor implementation of the plan, and even stop certain transactions he determines are inconsistent with the companies’ long-term viability.

One could argue that if billions of taxpayer dollars are going to flow into a failing industry, then representatives of those taxpayers have “bought” a say in how that industry is run – which is precisely why bailouts are such a bad idea for both the industry and the taxpayers. The federal government has neither the competence nor the Constitutional authority to tell private companies, such as automakers, how to run their businesses. I would have thought that failed experiments with central planning and government control of business that caused so much harm in the last century would have taught my colleagues the folly of making businesses obey politicians and bureaucrats instead of heeding the wishes of consumers, employees, and stockholders. But the auto industry is in danger of learning for themselves one of the oldest lessons in politics: he who pays the fiddler calls the tune.

It is not the job of government to sustain business. The government should get out of the way, and instead examine excessive regulations, tax policy and red tape that have been hostile to manufacturing in this country. We should get back on a sustainable economic course in this country, or we are doomed to collapse, as the Soviets did, under the crushing burden of big government and a strangled economy that can no longer pay for it.

(Reblogged. Original here)

The Great Depression: The Government Admits That It Is To Blame, Not The Free-Market

The government is hailed to be a savior during the Great Depression. However, what caused the Great Depression in the first place? Let us take a look at what the Federal Reserve says.

The Great Depression created a widespread misconception that market economies are inherently unstable and must be managed by the government to avoid large macreconomic fluctuations, that is, business cycles. This view persists to this day despite the more than 40 years since Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz showed convincingly that the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies were largely to blame for the severity of the Great Depression. In 2002 Ben Bernanke (then a Federal Reserve governor, today the chairman of the Board of Governors) made this startling admission in a speech given in honor of Friedman’s 90th birthday: “I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry.”

Emphasis mine…

(Original here)

Money Is Not Real

The best 47 minutes you can spend watching something on the Internet…

“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.”
- SIR Josiah Stamp, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920’s, the second richest man in Britain)