U.S. Rep. Ron Paul | CPI |
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:11
Although the money supply has been significantly increased in the past 16 years and financial prices as well as other prices have gone up, Government officials continue to try to reassure the American people that there is no inflation to worry about because price increases, as measured by the Government’s CPI and PPI, are not significantly rising.
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The Bubble
28 April 1998 1998 Ron Paul 39:23
4. Prices indeed do go up, although which prices will go up is unpredictable, and the CPI and PPI can never be a dependable measurement of a monetary policy driven by loose credit.
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Congress Relinquishing The Power To Wage War
2 February 1999 1999 Ron Paul 4:80
Government propaganda promotes the false notion that inflation is no longer a problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. The dangerous financial bubble, a result of the Federal Reserve’s deliberate policy of inflation and the Fed’s argument that there is no inflation according to government-concocted CPI figures, is made to justify a continuous policy of monetary inflation because they are terrified of the consequence of deflation. The Federal Reserve may sincerely believe maintaining the status quo, preventing price inflation and delaying deflation is possible, but it really is not.
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Congress Relinquishing The Power To Wage War
2 February 1999 1999 Ron Paul 4:81
The most astute money manager cannot balance inflation against deflation as long as there is continued credit expansion. The system inevitably collapses, as it finally did in Japan in the 1990s. Even the lack of the CPI inflation as reported by the Federal Reserve is suspect.
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Congress Relinquishing The Power To Wage War
2 February 1999 1999 Ron Paul 4:82
A CPI of all consumer items measured by the private source shows approximately a 400 percent increase in prices since 1970. Most Americans realize their dollars are buying less each year and no chance exists for the purchasing power of the dollar to go up. Just because prices of TVs and computers may go down, the cost of medicine, food, stocks and entertainment, and of course, government, certainly can rise rapidly.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:60
The FED can create excess credit, but it can’t control where it goes as it circulates throughout the economy; nor can it dictate value either. Claiming that a subdued government-rigged CPI and PPI proves that no inflation exists is pure nonsense. It is well established that, under certain circumstances, new credit inflation can find its way into the stock or real estate market, as it did in the 1920s, while consumer prices remain relatively stable. This does not negate the distortion inherit in a system charged with artificially low interest rates. Instead it allows the distortion to last longer and become more serious, leading to a bigger correction.
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The Beginning of the End of Fiat Money
March 13, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 18:12
One day it will become known that technological advances and improvements in productivity also have a downside. This technology hid the ill effects of the monetary mischief the Fed had enthusiastically engaged in over the past decade. Technological improvements, while keeping the CPI and the PPI prices in check, led many, including Greenspan, to victoriously declare that no inflation existed and that a new era had indeed arrived. Finally, it’s declared that the day has arrived that printing money is equivalent to producing wealth and without a downside. Counterfeiting works!
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Manipulation Of Interest Rates Cause Economic Problems
20 March 2001 2001 Ron Paul 22:10
The money supply right now is currently rising at the rate of 20 percent, as measured by MZN. This is horrendous inflation. This is inflation. Everybody says no, there are reassurances. The Federal Reserve and all the statisticians say there is no inflation. The CPI is okay and the PPI is okay. But there is inflation. Because if one increases the supply of money, one is creating inflation.
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Manipulation Of Interest Rates Cause Economic Problems
20 March 2001 2001 Ron Paul 22:11
The most important aspect of that is the instability it creates in the marketplace. It does not always lead to a CPI increasing at 10 or 15 percent. Our CPI is rising significantly. We have other prices going up significantly, like education costs and medical care costs, housing costs. So there is a lot of inflation even when one measures it by prices.
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Inflation Is Still With Us
3 May 2001 2001 Ron Paul 30:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, almost on a daily basis, government officials reassure us there is no inflation to worry about. But, today’s definition of inflation of rising prices as measured by an artificial CPI and PPI is seriously flawed. Rising prices are but one of the many consequences of true inflation — which is an increase in the supply of money and credit.
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Statement for Hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, “Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy”
15 February 2007 2007 Ron Paul 32:7
Even if prices were held in check, in spite of our monetary inflation, concentrating on CPI distracts from the real issue. We must address the important consequences of Fed manipulation of interest rates. When interests rates are artificially low, below market rates, insidious mal-investment and excessive indebtedness inevitably bring about the economic downturn that everyone dreads.
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Opening Statement Committee on Financial Services Paulson Hearing
20 June 2007 2007 Ron Paul 71:9
It is said that the CPI is now increasing at the rate of 2.5%, yet if we use the original method of calculation we find that the CPI is growing at a rate of over 10%.
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Statement before the Financial Services Committee – Humphrey Hawkins Prequel Hearing
17 July 2007 2007 Ron Paul 76:5
But prices do not just apply to goods, they also apply to the price of labor, or wages. Wage raises are often indexed to government CPI figures, which are notoriously prone to manipulation. While official government figures show a CPI under 3%, according to the methods used when CPI was first calculated the current rate of inflation is over 10%. What this means is that while wages will remain stable in real terms, the price of goods and services will increase at a faster rate, leading to a decrease in the real standard of living. The Fed's loose money policy then leads to the lure of easy credit, which will hook more and more families, who will find themselves falling deeper and deeper into debt to finance their lifestyles.
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“Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy”
February 26, 2008 2008 Ron Paul 8:4
The example of the Soviet Union should have taught us that no one person, no group of people, no matter how scientifically trained, can arbitrarily set prices and not expect economic havoc. Only the spontaneous interaction of market participants can lead to the development of a functioning price system that allows the needs and wants of all participants to be met. The sense I get from reading much of the punditry is that the federal funds rate is set often by the whims of the Federal Reserve governors. Even mechanistic explanations such as the Taylor Rule rely on inputs that are often left up to the discretion of the Fed policymakers: what is the potential GDP, do we use CPI or PCE, overall CPI versus CPI less energy and food, etc.
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TRANSPARENCY AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE
December 1, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 100:4
The Federal Reserve’s monetary inflation, indeed, does push the CPI upward, but concentrating on the government’s reports of the CPI and the PPI is nothing more than the distraction from the other harm done by the Federal Reserve’s effort at central economic planning through secret monetary policy operations. Real inflation, the expansion of our money supply, is greatly undercounted by these indices. In response to our latest financial crisis, the Federal Reserve turned on its printing press and literally doubled the monetary base. This staggering creation of dollars has yet to be reflected in many consumer prices, but will ultimately hit the middle class and poor with a cruel devaluation of their savings and real earnings.
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Greenspan Nominated to a Fourth Term
17 January 2000 Texas Straight Talk 17 January 2000 verse 5 ... Cached
Essentially, no one in Washington, on Wall Street, or in the financial media challenges the inflationary policy of the Fed, believing that the favorable status quo will continue indefinitely as long as the money wizard stays in charge. In good times it's easy to forget severe recessions and commodity price inflation. Today, just about everyone endorses the New Era in prosperity that technology and Alan Greenspan have delivered to us. Inflation, as defined by a rising CPI, has been declared dead.
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Greenspan Nominated to a Fourth Term
17 January 2000 Texas Straight Talk 17 January 2000 verse 9 ... Cached
Of course, any of us would "thrive" if we could increase our wealth at that rate with borrowing and counterfeiting - but for us it's illegal. For now, foreigners' willingness to soak up our inflated dollars, while selling us goods at discount, makes us feel wealthier. But that will eventually end with higher interest rates, a weak dollar and CPI type price inflation. When this takes place, any increase in Federal Reserve credit will only accelerate the painful correction.
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Federal Reserve Inflation Punishes Saving
21 July 2003 Texas Straight Talk 21 July 2003 verse 3 ... Cached
Throughout Greenspan’s tenure, we’ve been told that inflation is either nonexistent or very much in check. The Treasury department assures us that consumer prices, measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But inflation is much greater than the government admits. The CPI excludes housing prices, among other things. Everyone knows that housing prices have risen dramatically over the last decade in most parts of the country, with rents following closely behind. So the single biggest expense for most Americans- their mortgage or rent payment- certainly has inflated! The price of many other goods and services, including medical care and energy, also has risen substantially.
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Inflation- Alive and Well
08 March 2004 Texas Straight Talk 08 March 2004 verse 6 ... Cached
The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But even some Keynesian economists admit that CPI grossly understates true inflation. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. The Fed’s easy credit policies have created an artificial mortgage boom, enabling many Americans who would not have met credit standards 30 years ago to buy houses. So demand for rentals has diminished, causing rental housing prices to drop and distorting the CPI downward. However, everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years. Home prices in many regions have more than doubled in just five years. So price inflation certainly is alive and well when to comes to the largest purchase most Americans make.
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Federal Reserve Policy Destroys the Value of Your Savings
10 July 2006 Texas Straight Talk 10 July 2006 verse 4 ... Cached
The Treasury department parrots the Fed line that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), are under control. But even many mainstream economists now admit that CPI grossly understates true inflation. The most glaring problem is that CPI excludes housing prices, instead tracking rents. Everyone knows the cost of purchasing a home has increased dramatically in the last ten years; in many regions housing prices have more than doubled in just five years. So price inflation certainly is alive and well when to comes to the largest purchase most Americans make.
Texas Straight Talk from 20 December 1996 to 23 June 2008 (573 editions) are included in this Concordance. Texas Straight Talk after 23 June 2008 is in blog form on Rep. Paul’s Congressional website and is not included in this Concordance.
Remember, not everything in the concordance is Ron Paul’s words. Some things he quoted, and he added some newspaper and magazine articles to the Congressional Record. Check the original speech to see.