Central Banks 'Good', Ron Paul 'Bad'?

Money Bawl ... Monetary expansion is also, for Paul, a key enabler of what he takes to be our imperialist foreign policy: The creation of money out of thin air allows the government to finance wars, as well as the welfare state. Central banking is a form of central planning, on his theory, and as such "incompatible" with freedom. Paul allows that "not every supporter of the Fed is somehow a participant in a conspiracy to control the world." The rest of them, judging from comments repeatedly made in the book, have fallen for the delusion that expanding the money supply is a "magic means to generate prosperity." Paul finds it baffling that anyone could hold this absurd view, but attributes it to Chairman Bernanke, among others. Almost all of the criticisms Paul makes of central banking, when stated in the axiomatic form he prefers, are false. – National Review Online / Ramesh Ponnuru

Dominant Social Theme: Central banks are good and Ron Paul doesn't know what he's talking about.

Free-Market Analysis: Recently, the National Review Online responded to libertarian Congressman Ron Paul's criticism of central banking. Why anyone would want to defend central banks is beyond us, but Ponnuru, a leading young conservative thinker has taken on the task.

The US is the world's dominant superpower, and the US central banking system is part of how the US as an entity has afforded its current dominance. Since 1971, the world has been on a dollar gold standard, reinforced by the determination of Saudi Sheiks to sell oil for nothing but dollars.

Of course, one could hardly blame the Sheiks. Muammar Gaddafi announced that he wanted to place Africa on a quasi-gold standard and not more than a year later he was dead along with most of his family and his regime deposed.

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