Ending the Fed would go a long way towards eliminating both the warfare and the welfare states. Where are they going to get the money if they can’t print it? It’s a lot easier to debase the currency than it is to raise taxes. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:
Select politicians, government officials, economic elites, and experts arriving at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland were greeted with an open letter signed by more than 250 billionaires and millionaires. The signers request their respective governments raise their taxes.
The letter signers are concerned about “inequality” that they say “has reached a tipping point.” The cost of this inequality “to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk,” the letter continues, “is severe — and growing every day.” They may have a point. Since the 2008 market meltdown, resentment against those at the top of the income ladder has been growing. However, this is not because people are envious of those able to profit in a free market. Rather, the resentment is rooted in the corporatist system that rewards those who manipulate the political process.
If the signatories to the letter want to truly end the type of inequality that fuels populist rage, they should stop calling for tax increases and instead call for an end to government programs and policies that benefit the rich and powerful. Included are programs like the Export-Import Bank that subsidize large corporations, health and safety regulations that cartelize markets while failing to protect consumers, and interventionist foreign policy that enriches the military-industrial complex while making the rest of us poorer and more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
