For five years, the writing on the wall has been
crystal clear. As 2007 began, the US Foreclosure Market Report for 2006 showed
that foreclosures for the year had reached 1.2 million, an increase of 42
percent over the 2005 figure. In early February 2007, in the midst of a growing
rash of bankruptcies among small US sub-prime mortgage issuers, New Century
Financial announced that it was “recalculating” its “profits for the previous
three quarters. New Century was one of the three biggest mortgage brokers in
the US. In two days, its stock price dropped 40 percent. Six months later,
President Bush was calling the now obvious collapse in the US real estate
market a “blip” on the US economy. Two months after that, the stock market
peaked. A year after that, in September/October 2008, the global economy froze
solid and was only thawed by the biggest explosion of money creation in
history. Now, here we are at the start of 2012. Nothing has changed. No positive
steps have been made. The symptoms have been disguised under an avalanche of
palliatives but the disease continues to eat away at the substance of the
system on which it feeds. The major effort of government and “mainstream”
analysts everywhere has been to avoid, deflect and actively silence any nascent
discussion of the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is perfectly illustrated in
the fact that since August 1971, the funded debt of the US government has risen
from $US 400 Billion to $US 15,236 Billion. The severity of the problem is
illustrated by the fact that with Mr Obama having yet to complete his third
full year as President, he has presided over $US 4,600 Billion (or almost
one-third) of that increase. The root of the problem is the abandonment of
money - the final legal connection between Gold and the US Dollar was ended in
August 1971. The severity of the problem is the grotesque expansion of what has
taken its place.
None of this has been or is being discussed because
the establishment in the US and everywhere else does not want it discussed. A
REAL “black swan event” - an event that deviates by 180 degrees from what is
“normally expected” - would be a political debate over root causes and basic
principles. The great merit of Ron Paul - and the great service he is giving to
his own and every other nation - is the fact that he is doing everything he can
to raise the debate to that level. That makes Dr Paul a unique politician, a
man who tells people what most of them DON’T want to hear or understand.
Or at least they don’t think they want to understand
it. Dr Paul’s great and merited attractiveness to a growing number of admirers
has a very simple source. He is that rarest of creatures - a FREE man. He is
beholden to nobody. He has developed his ideas and his convictions over a long
and fruitful life of independent thinking. He does not compromise. He homes in
on the fundamental issue and principle of any political issue and serves it up
without salt or other “seasoning”. He says what he means and he means what he
says. He is the living embodiment of the “dream” that most Americans have long
since given up on as they saw it slip further and further beyond their grasp.
He is the only prominent person who is doing everything he can to turn the
non-debate which masquerades as the “mainstream” in the US and global political
economy into something of substance. That, far more than the
presidency, is his goal.
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