HI 77 - Liberty, Small Government, & Investment Opportunities with Congressman Ron Paul

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Hello and welcome to episode 77 of the Heroic Investing show where we focus on the unique challenges faced by members of the armed services and first responders, but also those common to all investors. We provide the tools that enable our listeners to secure their family, their future and their retirement. My name is Gary Pinkerton and I'm co hosting this show with Jason Hartman. On episode 77, Jason talks with one of actually the headliner, upcoming speaker for Meet the Masters coming up in just a week. He's talking with Dr. Ron Paul. And I think just about everyone out there knows Dr. Paul, a household name after having run for the presidency twice, been a senator, has been a key individual discussing politics, the Austrian economics. Just an incredible guy and I'm certainly a fan and can't wait to talk with him and hear him speak at Meet the Masters. In this discussion, Jason asks Dr. Paul, what is the meaning of liberty according to Ron Paul? Just an awesome question. Dr. Paul says self ownership and the ability to benefit from the fruits of our own labor. Well, Dr. Paul, you had me at liberty. Okay, that reference to Jerry Maguire was probably really, really lame. But hey, in my opinion and probably every other guy out there, the original you had me at hello was fairly lame as well, you know. Patrick Donahoe. Well, first, I love Ron Paul's answer to that man. It was just awesome. He was hard hitting with that answer and continues to describe it a little bit more in this upcoming interview. But I wanted to point out also that if you don't listen to the Wealth Standard podcast, Patrick Donahoe's podcast at Paradigm Life, he goes deep into this discussion. He's another individual that you'll get the ability to hear from if you're able to attend Meet the Masters next week. And hey, there's still tickets out there, so jump into it if you can. If you can make it to La Jolla. Anybody who's on the east coast right now with the 14 inches of snow that we have, you're probably ready to get the heck out and get over to California. I know that I'm certainly looking forward to that flight here coming up soon, in his podcast, Patrick has just relaunched it for 2018. He's kind of breaking it into the different sections of life of John Locke's kind of definition of the American dream. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. So, you know, you think about it, you're like, wait, what? What's property? I thought it was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's what's in the Constitution from the. The Founding Fathers, right? Well, you know, actually interesting. Patrick goes through that in an episode, you know, a couple episodes back right at the end of 2017. You got to go listen to that one. It was really, really good. He did a great job of explaining what John Locke meant by that and what each little section of the three is about. And now he's going to take four months and really dig deep into them in his podcast. So I can't wait to see all that unfold. I thought his first one for the year, starting off with the portion which is Life is really, really good. But, you know, the Founding Fathers really took, as Patrick explains it, you know, they took life, liberty, and pursuit of property and said, you know what? It's not going to be understood. You know, people are going to think, like, what we're telling people is that what makes people happy is the ability to go pursue materialism, you know, go get a bunch of things and, you know, have somebody misinterpret that. So they changed it to happiness. And, you know, maybe that was the right answer. But I think now we interpret the pursuit of happiness to mean, by, gosh, I'm an American. I deserve lots and lots of toys more than the Joneses have, and I deserve somebody to entertain me. So, you know, I turn on my televisions and I just, you know, pursuit of happiness is what it's all about. And I think it's really kind of got us lost. I mean, I'm not sure that's what creates couch potatoes, but, you know, I'm sure it's contributing. I mean, it's in our statements of. Of what's important of America. So I really like the pursuit of property, and it's certainly not because I'm a materialistic person. Actually, one of my goals for 2018 is to kind of study and start putting in place slowly the ideas of minimalism. I don't want a lot of stuff. What I want is experiences with my family. So, you know, I believe true happiness comes from being safe and secure and having the ability, having the means and the resources to. To get meaningful experiences with loved ones, you know, to have those experiences. Because, I mean, you, you listen to stories about when anyone who is elderly, who's passing away after a long, fruitful life, you know, they don't remember the toys they had. They, you know, when they ask, you know, what was most important, they're going to talk about things, about the family, experiences they've had with family. They're not going to say, you know what? I really liked that 1959 teebird much better than, you know, the 64 split window fastback Corvette that I had. You know, I just, I don't see that happen. I've never heard it happening. Even though I love both those cars, by the way, and I'm not even sure I got the years right, but I do love those two cars. It's about experiences with family. So I'm really going through this journey of minimalism. I'm not going to, you know, be a Tibetan monk and have a robe, but take small steps in that direction. Like, do I need a house this big? The next time we get one, do you know, can we go down to one car? Do I really need to buy this thing or can I just rent it for a little while and give it back? It's so easy to expand life and those things get in the way. They interfere with our ability. And I believe what's really important is hanging with family and getting those really important experiences. So that's what Locke meant by pursuit of property. The freedom to use their for people, for all of us to use our greatest asset. And our greatest asset is our mind and our unique ability to create value for others and then profit from that. And so that kind of gets us back to what Dr. Paul was saying is that, hey, freedom is the ability to do what you want, add value and actually profit from it. Then he makes this comment, he said, the Constitution does not talk about, doesn't give the power to the government to take larger and larger and larger portions of that value that we have created. Meaning you go out, you add value, get paid for it, it's in a paycheck, but yet the government is taking.

More and more of it.

In fact, we had to go amend the constitution now almost 100 years to create some pretty powerful things that I believe were not in the Constitution on purpose. You know, we had to create the ability to tax the people and we had to put in place the ability to have a controlling central bank. There are lots of papers around the times of the Constitution talking about why that is important not to have in there. And really the reason we had the American Revolution and broke away from England, where these two were extremely powerful and oppressive to the people, the taxes and the controlling central banks. So it's kind of sad that we didn't heed the warnings of our founding fathers. But that's the stuff that John Locke's talking about. It's the stuff that Ron Paul is talking about. So you can tell in my voice, I'm pretty excited to hear this and I certainly would consider myself a libertarian. So awesome discussion. I'll let us get to it. But he also talks about how do you draw the line about what the government should be involved in and what they shouldn't. And I thought that was a good one. And then he talks about his liberty amendments to end the income tax. Many of us are familiar with this from the campaign discussions, the caucuses in 2012 and when he ran four years before that. And maybe his plan is a bridge too far, but I think it's something that America should genuinely discuss and we decide does it make sense or not? And can like, I like Jason Hartman's idea that just a smaller government just getting a little bit smaller is great. And I know he says he's not a Trump fan. I'm pretty much a Trump fan. You know, I don't think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I think he could be a little more polished. What I will say is I like the idea that he brings the business aspect to our government and that he says things like, hey, for every law we create, we gotta get rid of two others because there's a lot of stuff we need to clean up near the end. Dr. Paul also talks about progressive education has harmed our nation. I just want to mention there's another great guy, Jim, one of our LMSs or one of Jason's LMSs. And he's a friend of mine and I was just speaking with him. He's going to be there on Friday and only on Friday, but he's going to have a chance to talk. He's an awesome friend whose real passion is helping busy entrepreneurs strengthen their family. Teach inspiring fundamental education techniques. My son Jake and I have attended a couple of his events. Life changing for us. But Jim, the reason I'm bringing my peers that Jim also created his own school, his own curriculum to kind of get away from this progressive education. Everyone needs to work hard to become a factory worker. Plan that our current education system has. Awesome friend. And if you're interested in that topic, let me know while we're there or just send me an Email or give me a call and I'll make an introduction for you. But it has made a big difference in our lives and I'm forever grateful for having made that connection and gone through his program. So with that, let's get to Jason Hartman and Dr. Ron Paul. Looking forward to seeing you all at Meet the Masters, my friends. Go sign up.

It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Ron Paul to the show. Of course, you know his name. He's a former congressman for many years, and he's known as America's foremost advocate for Liberty. He spent 23 years in Congress. He was an outspoken critic of the banking system and some of the monetary and fiscal policy that we have. And it's just a real pleasure to have him on the show today. I've been a fan of his work for many, many years and I know a lot of you in our audience are as well. Ron, welcome. How are you?

I'm doing fine, Jason. It's very nice to be on your program today.

It's good to have you on. And we're also looking forward to having you speak at our upcoming Meet the Masters of Income Property event in San Diego in January. So we can't wait to see you there. You've talked a lot about the true meaning of liberty over the years. What is the meaning of liberty? I mean, this is a word that people throw around kind of carelessly. What does it really mean?

I believe that you can start with, you know, self ownership, and that means you have responsibility for your own life and you should have the ability to benefit from the fruits of your labor. We've been drifting a far cry from that. I think the founders understood that position, that we as individuals have natural rights and that they don't come from the government and that we ought to have the right to lead our life as we so choose, that we can seek our happiness. But they never put anything into the Constitution that said that the government will become automatic part owners in everything that you do. So liberty, the opposite of liberty, would be a personal income tax on your efforts, because that means that if you interpret the income tax, that means that everything you earn belongs to the government. And then what you get to spend is what the government gives you permission to spend and to keep on certain conditions and exactly what the prices will be and all these kind of things. So liberty is self ownership, but along with this fourth door work is responsibility. Because if there's a dependency on others or at least a demand and a conversion of some people say, well, some people can't do this. And if that is the case and people can demand assistance rather than the responsibility for oneself in getting help from family, friends, neighbors, and church, that's a whole different system. And we had a nice introduction to the principles of liberty in the early years, but I think we have drifted away. I frequently say in my speeches that if you want to ask the proper question in anything you do politically is what should the role of government be? My answer to that is very simple. The role of government should be limited to the protection of our liberty and the rest of the problems that we face and that we have to take here depends on the individual and how that individual interacts with his friends and neighbors and family.

Very good points. And, you know, one of the things I really like about your work and your philosophies and all of your excellent books is that you seem to be really clear on this. There's so much opaque sort of murkiness out there. So many politicians are, you know, they lick their finger, put it up in the wind, see which way is the wind blowing. You know, how have you been able to maintain such a real consistency and, and clarity when it comes to these ideas?

I'm not exactly sure how you arrive at that point, but a lot of people ask me that question, why didn't you succumb and capitulate and become the chairman by playing their game? And I tell them that I would be a miserable person if I did that, and I wouldn't be able to bear it. So I find greater satisfaction by doing it my way and having a belief which everybody professes to have, but they don't follow that. They always find an excuse about a day or two after they get to Washington. They're always idealistic, but the time they get there, they want, I need to be on this committee. I need to get this for my district. I need to raise money for my next campaign. And then all of a sudden they know that they have to play the game. And if not, then you get severe criticisms and you get really shunned in the political sense. But I have been able to maintain this because in this whole definition of liberty, there is one principle that has been applied throughout the centuries in developing societies that are actually designed to protect people. And that is that there should be no initiation of aggression against another person. And that's been noted in all our great religions. In the Judeo Christian religion, it's been the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill, steal. And this means that you can't commit aggression. Now, the big thing here this principle, if you understand it, most people do understand this, most members of Congress would understand this, that you're not supposed to steal from people, you're not supposed to hurt people. Sometimes they don't understand that they're hurting a lot of people with their legislation, but they're not supposed to hurt people. They know they're not supposed to go in and steal from people and hurt people and kill people, but they have no compunction about sending the government and the IRS and the NSA and all the agencies of government to do what you and I can't do. If you and I can't do it. This is so clearly put in Bastiat's law that you can't do anything in government that you can't do as an individual. So if I can't go into your house, you know, because of your privacy protection, governments shouldn't do it. But you hear it all the time. The government doesn't go for search warrants anymore. And especially since this century, in this century, the NSA has totally abolished the Fourth Amendment. So our government has lost its way.

Yeah, no, it definitely has. But you know, one would argue that while the government has to protect people's liberties and they do this under the guise of the protecting us, it's for our own good. So how do you distinguish that? How do you draw that line? Of course, like you said, don't commit an act of aggression against another person. If we can't do it, the government shouldn't do it. But the government, there are bad guys out there. I mean, we all know that. And the bad guys have to be, you know, stopped, right?

Yeah.

And they will appeal to you for humanitarian reasons. Because like after 9 11, I had a lot of people come up to me and sort of challenge me on my position. They say, ron, you have to give in to this because we have to be safe. Governments are supposed to make us safe, physically safe and economically secure, which, you know, a lot of people still believe, but I don't think that's the purpose of government. They can't make us perfectly safe or perfectly secure and redistribute wealth. That invites the whole concept of socialism and welfarism and communism, that they're going to give us perfect safety and destroy the whole nature of man because the government has to make all the decisions. So once an individual or society caves in and say, the government needs to make me safe. And believe me, I can understand it, I can sympathize with it. After 9 11, that was certainly a disaster. But just Think we were spending over $40 billion before 9, 11 to make us safe and secure. It was a total failure of government. So government can't do it. All they can do is undermine our liberties and make things much worse. So I think the practical argument has to be stated, the moral argument has to be stated, and then we have to refute those people so that, you know, only the government can make us safe. I don't believe that is the case. I think when governments tend to do that, they make us unsafe and very poor and we get involved in wars trying to make us safe and secure.

Well, and then there's the whole issue of blowback, of, you know, why it happened in the first place, why 911 or any of these acts happened in the first place. Kind of wonder in the Ron Paul thinking how much of it is blowback. I mean, you can't really argue that a hundred percent of these acts are a blowback problem. Certainly that's a huge part of it, I'm sure, but. And nobody can really know, but, you know, there'd probably be some terrorism even if we weren't interfering in everybody else's business, right?

Or no, I think it is a combination. It isn't all or nothing, but the radicals are out there. I think there's radicalism in all religions and if it's initiated, you know, they can become very, very violent. And that is a big problem. But when you have an excuse such as us portraying violence on people invading their countries and bombing their countries and committing coups and getting so involved in hurting people and many people suffering from our foreign policy, this just feeds into those who want to radicalize. And I think they do not. The radicals in all the religions, I don't believe for a minute they really represent those religions. And some people in this country, especially right now, if you believe in Islam that it's automatic that you are a very violent person. And see, I don't buy into that, but I do buy into the fact that there's a lot of radicals that have been incited and they get their support from our foreign policy. So the stimulus for it may well be blowback, but you have to have somebody out there looking for a fight anyway. And I think that's what happens.

Yeah, yeah, no question. One of the things that. Things you talk about that I absolutely love, and I'm sure almost all of our listeners love the idea of this and that is the Liberty Amendment. The Liberty Amendment, which is ending the income tax. But Ron, how would the government survive? The government needs money to at least do the few things enumerated in our chartering documents. You know, promote the general welfare that's been blown away out of proportion, you know, provide the common defense that's been blown away out of proportion. All of this stuff is so far from original intent, obviously, but the government still needs some money to run. Where would it get it if we didn't have an income tax? Would it strictly be by inflating the money? That's another form of tax. It's like we have double taxation.

You know, I think the first question is, do we have any examples of a country doing well without an income tax? I will say, yeah, we did pretty well. You know, from the time our country was started up until 1913, we didn't have an income tax. Of course, they tried it in the Civil War and, and it was very small in 1913 on, but the principle was established and that was very bad. No, it goes back to what the role of government ought to be. If you have a government that is following a proper role and the people are satisfied with, and they understand that liberty is what they want and they want a chance to take care of themselves, then you don't have to have an income tax. Since it's such a terrible tax, let's say you do. If you're not a total anarchist and you don't want to, you have to have a government, and I believe in national defense, you can get the needed funds. Even if you wanted to endorse the principle of user fees. You know, we have that in our highway system. But the problem is, you know, the highway tax could probably take care of our highways, but the money goes into a kiddie in Washington and they use it for everything else. And then to get your money back for your district that are your state sent up there, you have to play the political game. But a user tax is pretty good. A tax for the military. I think it could be done with a very, very small import tax or a very, very small tax on sales. But the problem is it always gets out of control. So even if you didn't have the income tax and you say, well, let's have a small tariff to pay for the bills, well, all of a sudden there's protectionism that comes in and they're spending all money and they need the money. And look at them hurrying around today to try to find more money. And they don't talk a bit about the role of government. Nobody is talking seriously about in these weeks that this tax bill has been going on. They're not Going to get the reduction of government. They should be talking about what is a tax. I think a tax is when government spends money the way they collect it is secondary. And you mentioned even the inflation tax. Even if you did, it still attacks and it always hurts the middle class and the poor the most.

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, when they talk about regulating this, that or the other thing, I mean, the minimum wage debate's a good one, and I don't know that I've actually heard you talk about that one, but I have a feeling I know what your view would be. To me, at least you raise the minimum wage, it's just going to trickle right through the system. The businesses are all going to raise their prices and it's just going to cause inflation. You know, it's funny how people somehow think you can get something for nothing, like things can be created out of thin air. I mean, these, these are adults, don't. How do they. They have these, like, childish belief systems.

It's crazy to me, part of it. They're reflecting their education. Education in our country for 100 years has been downhill. You know, the progressive education teaches that these things are good. You know, that deficits don't matter and death. We can monetize debt and we can help the poor and we can police the world. And they're taught this. So miss Members of Congress have been taught that all along, and judges have been taught this, so they endorse this, but they don't understand what a voluntary society. You talk about a minimum wage. Well, it's easy. What's easy? To get to the college kids about, you know, voluntary arrangements for social things, social and sexual matters. As long as you don't hurt and force people. Do what you want. But when it comes to economic policy, then the liberal influence would come in. Well, you can't do it there. But the moral principle is the same. Government should allow us to have our social associations decided by ourselves as well as economic. If that is the case, then you work for the person you want, then you have to work out a deal. They decide to pay. It actually works out better than the coercion and the coercion that is so dangerous. I've often said that even if the system that I describe would not work so well and we'd all be a little bit poor, I'd still want it just for the moral reason, but we don't even have to deal with that. This system that I'm talking about in Sound Money is the humanitarian system where you have the greatest amount of wealth and the best distribution of wealth. And yet we as conservatives and libertarians, we don't do a good job in promoting that message.

No, I agree. It's just funny how the folks on the left somehow got to. Well, I mean, not everybody thinks this, but certainly half the country probably does. They somehow got to own the high ground of compassion and they're just taking from one group to give to their own special interest group. You know, it's crazy. And on the minimum wage thing, you talked about how inflation hurts the poor the most. Raise the minimum wage, you just create more minority unemployment, you create more poor unemployment. And it just hurts these people that they pretend to help. It just drives me crazy. If someone wants to engage in a transaction, what business is it of the government to insert themselves in the middle? You know, if someone wants to work and someone wants to pay them to work, why is the government involved?

But I think you said the right thing. The, the left beat us out on grabbing the moral high ground. And that puts more pressure on us to describe what we believe into a moral position. And that is why I like to start about the moral position of human rights and individual rights and natural rights and no stealing and cheating and killing, you know, non aggression and put it on the moral grounds. And then, you know, we do have to convince that it's in their best interest, economically speaking. You know, the history is there. The history is so clear. The freer society, the more the wealth is and the better it's distributed. And our society today has tremendous wealth for a small number of people. There was an astounding figure I saw the other day that demonstrates how distorted our system is. If you take 50%, the lower 50% in this country, their wealth that they're holding is equal to the three richest people in this country.

That is not the way it works in a free market economy that is always distorted by the monetary system. Von Mises preached in his books that. He says if you destroy the value of money through inflation and different things like that and run enough debt, you will always destroy the middle class. And in my lifetime being in politics, I just see it constantly. But especially bad since our last recession 10 years ago.

Yeah, no, I agree with you completely. I want to ask you about how the government distorts the housing market. You, you wrote a lot about that and I couldn't agree more. And Ron, I'll tell you, you know, most people think I'm absolutely crazy. I'm a real estate guy. You know, my whole life has been in the real estate Business and as a real estate investor and I just think it's the most historically proven asset class in the world and I love it. And I think this idea of encouraging home ownership by creating these pseudo governmental agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and you know, HUD has a part in that too. Of course, it just totally distorts the market. I'd love to see them go away. Yeah, it might be a tough pill to take for a couple of years, but it's distorting the market the same way Sallie Mae is distorting the college tuition market. You know, college tuitions have inflated it, you know, three, four times the real inflation rate for decades now. You know, the government distorts these markets. But what are your thoughts on the distortion in the housing market since we got so many investors?

You know, yeah, there'd be something equivalent to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it'd be private and it would be okay. The distortion comes and the economic distortion which has caused the greatest harm, you know, for ups and downs is the manipulation of the interest rates. And that has a lot to do with housing right now. Interest rates are still very low and there's going to be and there's distortion in the housing market again as it is in student loans and cars and everything else. But the interest rates are lowered by the increase in the money supply and it's the inflation. But you know, that was natural. You have interest rates low and when they're artificially low, you will always have mal investment but you don't know where. Now the current people in the last 10 years, they're very confused because we want inflation. That's their purpose. We're deliberately wanting to have two stated purpose, inflation. So they did this and they can't understand why the inflation rate isn't high. But they're deceiving us. They're lying to us. The CPI is going up more than they admit to. They do this on purpose. But there's tremendous inflation in the stock market, the housing market, there's inflation, prices going up, cost of medical care, it's gone up tremendously. But the last housing market, and it continues today because I still hear it, and that is the Congress butts in and they compound the problems with the Community Reinvestment act, right, the cra. And then they tell people, and the bankers, the bankers are already going to make a mistake because they don't have the right information about what the interest rates would be and what the savings rates are. So they come in and say, you will make these Bad loans. And then when they all go bust, and the people who promoted it, the mortgage people, they go broke, they get bailed out. And the people who were supposed to get these houses, they lost their jobs and they're still not back in their house. And so we have a whole new generation right now. They can't afford getting in our houses. So it's all by government manipulation and it's a struggle, but they're not getting the right information in the school. And this is one reason why I spend as much time going trying to get the right education for people, like in homeschooling and work with the Mises Institute and get people to understand this, because that has to come first before you can expect the politicians to change in Washington. Washington is like they are now, because Keynesianism, the philosophy of Keynesian interventionism and economics, they won the intellectual fight. And that's why we're suffering from what's going on in Washington. So the changes have to be outside of Washington. If it's a person like you who can teach this for practical reasons, on how do you survive it and what do you do, they should also learn the message of exactly why the mess comes and why it's so hard. The old days when I was growing up, you know, it was interesting to save some money, and we got 2 or 3% on our money and we could see it now. There's every reason in the world not to save money, not to teach kids. Put $10 away every month, it's a bad deal. And watch the Android. It's terrible. It's backwards.

Yeah, it's totally backwards. You encourage malinvestment, just like you said. You've got these iron triangles of special interest just feeding the Keynesian disaster. It's too bad Hayek didn't win the debate, but.

It'S really a sad, sad state of affairs. But no question this encourages malinvestment. The problem you have here is that the most fundamental concept of markets and capitalism is the concept of price discovery. When the government is involved in all of these crazy things that they're doing, there's no real price discovery. We don't know what a house should cost or what a stock should cost or what anything should cost because there's just so much regulation and that influences it, and then manipulation of the currency and the tax code and all these, you know, messed up incentives that encourage people to do all these funny things they wouldn't normally do. It's crazy, Ron. I mean, you know, when I sit down with a client sometimes you know, I'll have a meal with a client, and 45 minutes of the conversation is, how do I manipulate my portfolio to gain the best tax advantage? This is not the way a market should work. It should work. How do I manipulate it so I get the higher return, so I produce the most value in the economy? It's just crazy backwards.

Yeah. And this whole thing about pricing is so important because Mises, you know, showed that if you don't have prices, you have socialism. And he said that once you drop that. And we're so awfully close to this, but we're probably not totally socialist because there still is a pricing mechanism, but it's so distorted and getting awfully close now. I remember the very day when we put on wage and price controls, August 15, when the gold standard was rejected, they put on total wage and price controls, and within days, there were shortages all over and black markets going on because they were establishing prices at the wrong place. They didn't know the prices. And that's why this silliness of total socialism and communism is that always fail. Mises said it will always fail. He, in a sense, predicted that communism would not work because there's no pricing mechanism. And you're seeing it's already pretty serious. But it's not complete. But it can be because everybody's. What's the. They do it. You mentioned the minimum wage. That's price fixing.

Oh, of course.

There's so much interference. And what about the price of money, Interest rates? That distorts things, too. So prices are the one to help people survive, help a free market to work. You have to have free market pricing, and you have to have market interest rates, which we don't have. So in interest rates, there is no market rate, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I want to ask you about one more concept, but before I do that, I know we've got to wrap it up. How is Rand doing? You know, talk about aggression. And I mean, you know, I've been following that story and just feel so bad for him. And all of my listeners, of course, wish him well. If. Is he recovering okay?

He is. I mean, his first several days were pretty bad, and I think they took a preliminary X ray and didn't realize how serious the fractures were. And then, because they were serious, then he got fluid on the lungs and he had to go back and get some more X rays. But he felt good enough to go back to Washington this week, and he talked to his mother this morning and says he was feeling better. You know, that's good. But he has, you know, these fractured ribs and it's a mess. But the question always is, what was the motivation? And quite frankly, he, he's answered that by saying, I don't have any idea. He's. I haven't even talked to the guy in years. They just weren't, you know, close friends and didn't talk to each other, but they don't converse. But anyway, it's, it's, it's a messy situation, but he's going to be okay. But I think that this case will go on for a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, good to hear. Good to hear. I wish him a quick recovery. Just the last thing I wanted to ask you about as we wrap it up here is, you know, from the government's perspective, this is just my view, so feel free to disagree with me. But from the perspective of governments, and not just our government, but any government and central banks around the world, inflation from their perspective, seems to be a pretty darn good business plan. From their perspective because they can buy votes, they can spend irresponsibly, and then they can inflate away their debt. Do you have any thoughts on that?

No, I think it's absolutely true. And they're arrogant to believe that they are good managers and they can handle it and they will never let things get out of hand. Well, it always gets out of hand. They've been getting away with so much distortion because if we have good times, the Federal Reserve takes credit for it. Right now, you know, the Federal Reserve, there's a good stock market out there, but if things turn badly, then they come in and further inflate and then they take credit for fixing the recession or depression that they caused. So, yes, it's for deceit. It's deceitful for the politicians, but everybody's participating. Everybody's learned the same bad economics. So the people, whether it's the military industrial complex or whether it's the people who want more food stamps, they want spending, and it's very bipartisan. They both spend money. They can't raise the taxes anymore because there's a limit to what. But they're not going to cut spending. So the central bank is what I call the facilitator, and it's a taxer. They're the biggest taxers and facilitators for big government. If you didn't have a central bank and nobody could monetize debt, we wouldn't have these kind of problems. Maybe the growth would be a little bit slower, but it would be steady and there wouldn't be these calamities that we have faced. It wouldn't be this routine cycle, ups and downs and destroying the middle class. So this will have to be taken care of. We can't go on. Eventually the economic conditions will demand monetary reform. The big job we have is to make sure when they start rebuilding that there's enough people who know and understand what free markets are all about and why it's important to talk about monetary policy.

So would you say the future is inflationary?

Oh, the near future is going to. That's the way it ends. And we earlier on mentioned, I guess we talked a little bit about how do we get rid of this debt if the debt is always liquidated? You have to liquidate the debt and they don't allow a liquidation on these corrections. And that's why this last inflationary cycle 10 years ago hasn't liquidated debt. Debt is much, much worse, but you still have to liquidate debt. And governments never default on not sending you a check. So if the treasury bill has to be covered or the Social Security beneficiaries have to get a check, that's going to continue. They will not keep doing it. So the default comes by devaluing the currency, debasing of the currency, which in itself is an immoral theft, you know, to deliberately. They're committing what counterfeiters do, and we let them get away with it. That's a horrible situation.

No, no question about it. Inflation is the insidious hidden tax. It is a liar and a thief. I mean, I've had Lawrence Cutlikoff on the show a few times and, you know, he's done a lot of studies about our future and the upcoming unfunded mandates and, you know, says it's like $220 trillion. There's just no way we can possibly pay that. You know, government has six choices that I can see. Default, raise taxes, which there's not enough taxes to raise defaults. Politically unpopular. Sell off national assets, use the military to steal. On the good side, technological innovation. That would be growth. That would be good. Or just inflate it away. And that seems to be the most plausible, unfortunately. But, you know, yeah, that's usually what they do.

They, they always inflate.

Yeah, absolutely. Ron, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Please give out your website, tell people you know, where they can find you. Twitter whatever you want, and let's wrap it up.

Well, if people want to find me on a daily basis is ronpaulibertyreport.com I do a daily report 11 o' clock central time and I have a webpage along with that. Ronpaulibertyreport.com Excellent.

Thank you so much and we look forward to seeing you at the upcoming Meet the Masters of Income Property event.

Very good Jason, Nice to talk with you.

Nice talking with you. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss any episodes. Be sure to check out this show, show's specific website and our general website, hartmanmedia.com for appropriate disclaimers and terms of service. Remember that guest opinions are their own and if you require specific legal or tax advice or advice in any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. And we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to itunes or Stitcher Radio or or whatever platform you're using and write a review for the show. We would very much appreciate that and be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

Welcome to Meet the Masters of Income Property Investing. I'm your host, Jason Hartman.

Join us in Beautiful La Jolla, California on January 12th through 15th. This is your chance to meet the Masters of Income Property Investing. Learn from an amazing collection of experts all in one room. You'll meet a ton of local market specialists, mortgage lenders, tax professionals and investment specialists such as Jeff Myers of Myers Research and John Burns, real estate consultant. Learn from Robert Kiyosaki's Rich dad Advisors, Ken Mackellar, his real estate investment expert and Garrett Sutton, his attorney who specializes in asset protection. Find out what leading economists are predicting for 2018, including Danielle DiMartino Booth, founder of Money Strong LLC and Andrew Zapman from Moneyball Economics. Hear from leading entrepreneurs how to maximize your income streams. You'll learn unique financial strategies from Patrick Patrick Donahoe of Paradigm Life and how to give birth to a brand from Brian Smith, founder of Ugg Australia. Brand this year also features a very special guest, Dr. Ron Paul, former Congressman, presidential candidate and staunch advocate of liberty. Right now you can upgrade your ticket to include VIP access and a dinner with Dr. Paul. Enjoy a fine dining and experience and fascinating conversation. Seats are limited, so upgrade your ticket today. Ask questions and learn why real estate is the most historically proven asset class. Armed with new information, you'll have the confidence to take massive action. As the saying goes, don't wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait. Surround yourself with like minded people and build friendships that will last a lifetime. Share strategies and tips with other investors and hear about their successes and struggles. Make 2018 the year you decide to achieve your dreams. Real estate is a proven way to create true wealth within your lifetime and achieve long term financial independence. Don't wait. Join us in La Jolla.

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