Ron Paul: "Country Should Panic Over Fed's Decision"

"It should not surprise anybody, but it is still astounding. To me, it is so astounding that it does not collapse the markets. [Bernanke] said, 'We are in very big trouble. We are going to do something unprecedented and we believe it will not hurt the dollar.' And yet the stocks, they say 'we love this stuff.' But the dollar didn't do so well today and the real value of the dollar is measured against gold, and gold skyrocketed from its very low to its highest. It means we are weakening the dollar. We are trying to liquidate our debt through inflation. The consequence of what the Fed is doing is a lot more than just CPI. It has to do with malinvestment and people doing the wrong things at the wrong time. Believe me, there is plenty of that. The one thing that Bernanke has not achieved and it frustrates him, I can tell--is he gets no economic growth. He doesn't do anything with the unemployment numbers. I think the country should have panicked over what the Fed is saying that we have lost control and the only thing we have left is massively creating new money out of thin air, which has not worked before, and is not going to work this time."

"The biggest unintended consequence is what we need is a restoration of confidence. If the Fed is expressing a lack of confidence and they do not know what to do, it does not do anything to restore confidence. People might restrain from doing anything. 'Interest rates are low. I do not have to buy my house this year. I will wait until next year. It might be a little easier. Prices might come down.' So people are restrained and it is the opposite of when you expect that housing prices are going up, and you are afraid interest rates are going up. That is why the market rate of interest is so crucial. The rate of interest should give the businessman, the entrepreneurs, the investors and the savers information. But there is no market to interest rates. That is why there is such gross distortion and why we do not have a market economy. We have a rigged economy through central economic planning by central banking. The system is failing, it was doomed to fail and we have to wake up to that fact."

"Short of getting rid of the Fed, which is not going to come and I wouldn't do that overnight anyway, I would say that Congress has the authority to say, do not buy debt. Do not buy any debt. The Congress can yell and scream and pander to the people. They can say the deficits are terrible and terrible. But nobody wants to cut overseas spending or food stamps for the poor. They say, 'we cannot do it without the Fed. The Fed has to buy this debt.' That is a moral hazard for the politician. If the Fed couldn't buy the debt, and interest rates would rise all of the sudden the burden would be on the Congress to get their house in order to restore confidence. Even that would panic a lot of people because live within your means? We do not like that. We like this idea that we can give people anything they want for free, so we can get reelected. Well, all of this is coming to an end."

"Liquidity should be determined by the market. I don't think he should raise rates. He should just get out of rigging rates. The system is so biased. It helps the bankers who get free money and then they buy government debt. What about the people who are frightened, they do not like the stock market and they are frugal and want to take care of themselves? What do they get--1% on a CD? That is unfair. It's bad economics. You want to let the market determine interest rates and let it sort it out. People get so nervous, because we have lived so long with a Keynesian economic model of fixing interest rates and intervening in the market."

"So far, I have not heard that he would, but he has changed his mind before. If he gets to be president, we will keep our fingers crossed."