Bill O’Reilly Should Do His Homework

Last week, O’Reilly Factor producer Jesse Watters confronted Congressman Ron Paul at New England College to ask him why he was not interested in appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s show.  One thing led to another and eventually Watters asked Dr. Paul about his position on the Gold Standard.  Dr. Paul responded that he wanted the country to return to the constitutional mandate that money should be either gold or silver.  At the end of their discussion, Watters asked Dr. Paul why he couldn’t have just come on the show and explained gold and silver to O’Reilly.  Dr. Paul responded, “He wouldn’t have understood it”.

Dr. Paul couldn’t have been more accurate in his assessment of O’Reilly’s knowledge of the Constitution.  On his show on September 7, Bill O’Reilly had a segment where he and Watters ridiculed Dr. Paul for his constitutional position on gold and silver.  They stated their joint belief that the Constitution ”…doesn’t say anything about gold and silver”.  Both men indicated that Dr. Paul was misinterpreting the Constitution.  O”Reilly even asked Watters if Paul is a “loon”.

If O’Reilly or his producer would have just done a little research (I mean it’s fairly easy today given a little thing called the internet) they would have understood that Dr. Paul was spot on with his interpretation of the constitutional mandate that gold and silver be used for money.  .

If O’Reilly and Watters had done their homework they would have known that Dr. Paul bases his position about gold and silver as money on Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1, of the Constitution:

“No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.”

Now, on the surface it appears that Congressman Paul did misinterpret the Constitution given that Article 1 Section 10 specifically states that “No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…  This clause clearly only relates to the states and what they are prohibited from doing.  But, sometimes an issue is more than meets the eye.

As renowned constitutional lawyer, Edwin Vieira Jr. has written, during the colonial period of our history, the Spanish milled (silver) dollar was the predominant medium of exchange in the original Thirteen Colonies.  This had to do with Spain’s important commercial and political power of that time.  In July of 1785, Congress voted unanimously to make the dollar the monetary unit of the United States to emulate the Spanish milled (silver) dollar.  On August 8, 1787, Congress resolved that the new American dollar would contain three hundred and seventy-five grains and sixty-four hundredths of a grain of fine silver.  This measure of silver made the new American dollar equal in value to the Spanish dollar.

At the same time in Philadelphia, the Constitution was being written by many of the same people who adopted the silver dollar standard for the country in the Continental Congress.  Thus, these men as well as their Constitutional Convention colleagues were well aware that the silver dollar had become and was the official monetary unit of the United States. As a matter of fact, the term “dollar” is referred to twice in the Constitution – Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 and in the Seventh Amendment.

I suppose what confused O’Reilly and Watters was that under Congress’ powers in Article 1 Section 8 the terms dollar, gold and silver are not mentioned.  The only requirements for money in that section are that Congress has the power “…to coin money and regulate the value thereof…”  And a month before the Constitutional Convention adjourned Congress did just that by making the silver dollar with three hundred and seventy-five grains and sixty-four hundredths of a grain of fine silver the monetary unit of the country.

Thus Ron Paul is correct when he says the Constitution calls for gold and silver money.  It was implied in Article 1 Section 8 Clause 5 because that is what existed at the time of the writing of the Constitution.  Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1 was a reaffirmation of that fact and a prohibition for states to use anything but gold and silver in payment of debts.  After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  Why would the states be prohibited from using non-gold and non-silver coins when the federal government isn’t?  That would make no sense.

If Bill O’Reilly or Jesse Watters had done about a half hour of research on the internet they would have known what the Constitution said and the historical context of the issue.  They would have known that the Constitution does call for money backed by gold and silver.  Does O’Reilly’s egregious mistake give me the right to question whether he is a loon?  No, perhaps a more appropriate question to ask is, is he an intellectual sloth?

Kenn Jacobine teaches internationally and maintains a summer residence in North Carolina

Congress is Still a Rotten, Stinking Corpse

I have said it before and I will say it again, Congress is a rotten, stinking corpse.  It is no wonder that it currently has the lowest approval rating of all time.  This week more ridiculous legislation was introduced in that body that will only make our lives worse.  The bipartisan bill that was introduced would punish any country that practices currency manipulation as an unfair trade subsidy.  It would give President Obama the ability to impose retaliatory protectionist measures to level the playing field.  Of course, the impetus for the legislation is China’s alleged undervaluing of its currency, the yuan, in order to support Chinese exports to other countries.

Now, it’s funny, how the legislation comes in an election year when there is a very strong anti-incumbent mood amongst the electorate.   Many Americans who have lost their jobs in this depression are naturally fixated on statements from Washington dealing with job creation.  So as not to disappoint, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer was quoted as saying, “”There is no bigger step that we can take to promote job creation here in the US than to confront Chinese currency manipulation.”  This sounds logical on the surface, but upon closer analysis the senator as usual has it all wrong.

In the first place, to even threaten protectionist measures in such a fragile economic environment as we live in is dangerous.  The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was passed in 1930 and placed protective tariffs on thousands of imports coming into the United States from abroad.  At the time, during the Great Depression, its purpose was to protect American jobs.  Sound familiar?  Instead, the tariff caused our trading partners to retaliate with tariffs of their own thereby exacerbating an already horrendous employment situation.  What makes our politicians believe that China would not retaliate with protective measures of its own or worst yet cause the collapse of our currency by flooding the world markets with hundreds of billions of dollars it keeps in reserve?

But secondly, and much more importantly to our situation, we need inexpensive Chinese products otherwise our inflation rate would be through the roof and unemployment would be right there with it.  Here is the vicious cycle of events that is American/Chinese trade relations.  China’s products are cheaper because the cost of doing business there is less than in the U.S.  Thus, we purchase Chinese goods with dollars and treasury notes. China holds these dollars and interest-bearing bonds in reserve and then prints yuan to pay off the Chinese suppliers of our purchases.  When the smoke clears, we get cheap Chinese goods to buy, the Chinese manufacturer makes a profit, and the Chinese government acquires more units of the world’s reserve currency.  Everybody wins, right?

If the Obama Administration ends this cycle by imposing protective tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States, not only will the Chinese government reciprocate with retaliatory measures of its own, the prices of goods in the U.S. will rise sharply.  You see right now we export our inflation to China by way of treasury bonds and newly printed Federal Reserve notes.  Without the ability to export our debt and a lot of the dollars the Federal Reserve has been printing, all of that liquidity will be spent in the U.S. instead on more expensive goods.  As more money enters our economy prices in general will be bid up and will rise and given how much the Federal Reserve has inflated the money supply over the last few years prices will rise by a lot.  At that point, Economics 101 tells us that high prices will squelch demand and huge increases in unemployment will result.

Since the 1970s, the politicians in Washington have placed us in this no win situation with regard to trading with China.  They have destroyed our industrial base with unconstitutional mandates and regulations, and collective bargaining laws.  They have spent us into oblivion by financing a welfare/warfare state unmatched in human history.  If we impose protectionist measures against China we will incur inflation in the short run and high unemployment in the long run.  If we continue to borrow from China to buy their inexpensive goods we put ourselves on an unsustainable course.  At some point, if it isn’t happening already, China will stop financing our purchases and absorbing our inflation.  They will sell their goods elsewhere and Americans will pay higher prices.  Our standard of living will plummet and China will replace us as the world’s number one economic superpower.

But, Chuck Schumer and his colleagues on the Hill are oblivious to all of this.  Of course, they also ignore the fact that the Federal Reserve is the biggest currency manipulator in the world.  Ben Bernanke and his cabal of economic central planners better known as the Federal Open Market Committee fix interest rates and determine the supply of money.  These actions directly determine the value of the dollar.  Before Congress complains about China for not using market forces to value the yuan it should look in the mirror. 

And that is really why I consider Congress a rotten, stinking corpse.  Time and again its members grandstand for personal political gain and leave the American people with the mess.  Its hypocrisy is appalling.  Lastly, it seems like it is constantly coming up with cockamamie schemes to ruin our economy further.  This latest scheme places the blame on China for our own financial incompetence.

You Should be Furious!

There are certainly a lot of things that Washington does that should make the average American citizen furious.  I would like to point out just four: the hypocrisy of the illegality of purchasing foreign prescription drugs, federal employee salaries, the job busting cap and trade legislation, and the wanton destruction of the dollar.

The price of prescription drugs in the United States has increased by 9 percent in the last year.  Certainly the ever increasing cost of drugs is a major reason for the pressure on Congress to reform our healthcare system.  However, currently it is illegal for Americans to import cheaper prescription drugs from outside the United States.  Drugs produced by American companies, but sold in foreign markets are usually between 35 to 55 percent lower in price due to price controls of other countries.  It is an outrage to me that we are not able to take advantage of the stupidity of other governments and import and buy their cheaper American made drugs.  The same bleeding hearts in D.C. that whine about how people are dying because they can’t afford prescription drugs are standing in the way of those folks getting cheaper drugs.

Now, an argument given for keeping importation illegal is that the safety of the drugs cannot be guaranteed.  Nonsense!  We are talking about countries like Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada which have product protection mechanisms in place.  Personally, I’ve lived in the developing world for 8 years and my family has never had an issue with unsafe drugs in those countries.  The bottom line is that there is an easy way to cut drug costs and provide much needed medication to the financially strapped sick, but Congress refuses to do the right thing.

Then there is the story reported by USA Today that the number of federal employees who make $100,000 or more jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of all bureaucrats during the first 18 months of the recession.  The average federal worker’s salary is now $71,206 compared to $40,331 for private sector employees.  To put it in even greater perspective, in December 2007 the Transportation Department had one employee earning $170,000.  By June of 2009 the department had 1,690 workers with salaries above $170,000.  Substantial pay raises and new salary rules were the reason for the jump in salaries.  So while 7.2 million Americans were losing their jobs, not only were financial institutions and car manufacturers bailed out, your tax dollars also went toward ensuring the comfort and security of our ruling bureaucrats.  Not only did Uncle Sam not cut back on labor costs like the rest of America, he handsomely rewarded those that produce very little if anything that benefits society.  All Americans should be furious.

Turning to the environment, if Congress was intent on destroying jobs in these tough times it would have immediately passed the 1500 page cap and trade legislation.  The painful new taxes the legislation would have imposed on all of us would have increased business costs and reduced aggregate demand thereby making an awful job market that much worse.  Additionally, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson admitted during a Senate committee hearing that the bill would not significantly reduce global carbon concentrations in the atmosphere.

Fortunately, Democrats have sat on the legislation given the political risks to their careers of passing it.  But, just one minute, because to the rescue comes the EPA.  This past week the agency issued an “endangerment finding” that global warming is hazardous to human health.  In addition, the enviro-nazis at the EPA threatened Congress that if it didn’t pass cap and trade then it, the EPA, “would act on its own—and in a far more blunt fashion than Congress preferred.”   According to one anonymous administration official, ,” the EPA is going to have to “regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.”

Why is the EPA going to impose regulations that it admits will not significantly reduce global carbon concentrations in the atmosphere?  Why does Congress put up with this extortion?  Wasn’t the EPA created by Congress and thus answerable to it and not the other way around?  Why would Congress allow a bunch of unelected bureaucrats to decide policy?  The answer is easy: to deflect blame for stupid policy.  The EPA is doing Congress a favor – it is going to further drain our economy with expensive regulations and when your congressperson runs for reelection he/she can blame the EPA.  Of course, the question that should be asked at town hall meetings is, can’t Congress take away the EPA’s power?  Yes it can, and as Americans get wiser about what charlatans their elected leaders are they will press them more and more for upright answers.

Lastly, and most importantly, the American people should be outraged at the wanton destruction of their currency by the Fed, Congress, and two presidents.  In the last 3 years alone the dollar has lost 30 percent of its value!  What do you expect the way money has been thrown at financial firms, car manufacturers, and so forth.  For their part, the banks seem to have done well investing their bailout funds since they seem to be turning profits without loaning money.

The federal philanthropy continues – on Saturday, the Senate cleared the way for the passage of a $1.1 trillion spending bill.  The vote was held up for an hour to allow Senator Lieberman an Orthodox Jew to walk more than 3 miles to the Hill on the Sabbath to cast the 60^th vote to end debate.  Now, I am not an authority on Orthodox law, but didn’t the Senator consider voting in the Senate chamber work?  I suppose, like the Constitution that body continues to violate, when it serves their purpose members of Congress fell free to violate whatever parameters will get the job done.

All the bailouts and all this additional spending with money we do not have on aid for car dealers, loan guarantees for steel companies, and 5000 pork barrel projects for individual members continues to devalue our money making it that much harder for those already struggling to make ends meet in this horrendous economy Washington has given us.  Members of Congress are either charlatans or economic imbeciles because their inflationary policies hurt the same people they purport to help.  The whole thing is a stupendous outrage.

So, what is there to do?  I already think it is too late?  We owe 12 trillion dollars with none of our problems resolved.  Congress and the President seem hell-bent on making sure America is further bankrupted by every giveaway scheme imaginable – everyone knows the litany by now, too big to fail, too important to fail, so called environmental protection, cash for clunkers, homebuyer credits, etc, etc, etc….  I suppose we have the mid-term elections to look forward to next year, but given past experience if Republicans take Congress it will be akin to going on a diet and drinking Bud Light instead of Regular Bud.  Bottom line:  both are bad brands. 

If this article has irritated you even just a little bit, understand that there is a lot more that Washington spews that is awful.  From prescription drugs to federal salaries it seems like Washington only cares about it special constituencies and not the rest of us who are hurting.  And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg.