Ron Paul: Cash Is Economic Free Speech (Video)
In his latest Liberty Report, Ron Paul discusses the escalating “War on Cash” with Daniel McAdams. First, they looked at how many more dollars are in circulation today compared to pre-1971, when Nixon closed the gold window. The Federal government, Paul argues, wants to exercise more control over this untraceable cash under the auspices of catching tax cheats and criminals. Unfortunately, it’s the poor who will be most adversely affected by stricter limitations on cash.
Highlights from the Liberty Report:
Paul: There’s an attack on cash right now. Many people are recognizing this. More articles talking about what the government’s going to do to crack down on those people who have the audacity to think they can carry Federal Reserve Notes around and spend them at will without a record made for the government…
Many have heard of Louisiana. Here, I’ve always had hope that the states would nullify Federal nonsense. But here it says, “Louisiana bans cash transactions on used goods.” … That’s in the wrong direction, obviously…
Even some large banks are talking about it. A Citicorp economist says it might be time to abolish cash. What I’m hoping is that people have conditioned themselves to using a lot of cash. I have… This is an issue economically, an issue of liberty, and an issue of privacy…
Already over our history there have been $1,000 – there might have even been $10,000 dollar bills that you could use in circulation. But they got rid of [those], and now you can still have 100s. But it was one suggestion that the solution to making sure people don’t hold on to cash is not to allow you to have anything other than a 5 dollar bill… [But] poor people would be hurt the most with rules like this.
McAdams: Maybe it’s harder for them to get bank accounts. Maybe they have bad credit, and they’re paid in cash.
Paul: Some of them are just old-fashioned. I have some house rentals, and some of them pay in cash. They get a paycheck, they cash it and they pay in cash. They’re not used to checking accounts…
McAdams: One of the things looking at the Louisiana law that was disturbing… First of all, it turns the seller in a commercial transaction into an agent of the state in that you have to collect all of this information – driver’s license number, vehicle license number… The poor person who’s just trying to run a business is now going to be a tax agent for the state. The other thing is that it strikes me that if more and more states adopt this, it seems like the perfect place for the NSA to find out about where we’re moving, what we’re buying, what our habits are…
Paul: There’s already so much of this. There are currency transaction reports – I think since the ‘70s – it was called the Bank Secrecy Act. It said the Federal government is going to have all the secrecy and invade our privacy. It originally started at $10,000. If you had a currency transaction of $10,000 or you’re leaving the country, you would have to fill out a report…
In a free society you ought to be able to spend your money the way you want, and there should be no need for records…
The use of cash is economic free speech. The magnificence of an economy is everybody votes with that by spending their money. But if the government is involved in all these transactions, who’s going to go through these transactions? What is the natural tendency? I think it could be the development of the black market…
My guess is that Keynesian liberals are more interested in these controls. To make sure they catch the drug dealers, make sure that big corporations don’t [circumvent laws]. But I think the biggest harm done is to poor people… That is characteristic of an economy that over inflates its currency and overspends, there’s debt, and we know who gets bailed out when the crisis hits. This is a feeble attempt to control some of the symptoms that are caused by bad government…
I don’t think they’ll call in all the cash, because there is too much…
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