MEGYN KELLY: Joining me now
is someone who has thoughts about this and
warned about it, and that’s Texas Congressman
Ron Paul.
Congressman, thanks so much for being back
with us. You’ve had your eye on Greece for
a while now. This probably comes as no surprise
to you.
RON PAUL: No, not at all. And I think this
is just the opening of a much more serious
crisis than the financial crisis.
I think what we’re seeing is a shift from
the financial crisis, the financial institutions,
to a currency crisis. Even though the dollar
is up sharply today and has been up sharply
last week, I see this as an attack on the
dollar.
Because in terms of gold, the dollar has been
rampantly devalued and this means that gold
is acting as money.
They’re giving up on the paper currencies
and I think this country and the world is
in for big trouble because this is a currency
crisis and it’s much worse that having a
financial crisis.
MEGYN KELLY: You know they say that look,
what’s happening in Greece is one thing,
but if this expands to Europe and they’re
saying Portugal could be next,
the German chancellor says she’s very worried,
and that the European [Union] has to bail
out Greece because she’s worried about it
spreading to Europe, and there are other countries
that could follow, Spain and others.
If this becomes a European problem, it very
much becomes an American problem as well,
does it not?
RON PAUL: There’s no doubt about it. It
is a world problem and we’re going to be
the last one to fall because we have the dollar
and people still think that the dollar will
save everybody.
The dollar is going to have to bail out California
and so many other problems that we have here.
But that’s going to make the whole world
vulnerable. It’s a debt explosion, it has
occurred for 40 years, we’ve known it has
been building, we knew it couldn’t last,
and we knew it would end first with the financial
bubble collapsing, and now we’re in the
midst of a currency crisis.
MEGYN KELLY: You know, it’s really scary
to see what can happen in a society when the
overspending comes home to roost.
You know, when you see the consequences of
years and years of overspending.
Obviously people here are very worried about
our debt and our deficit.
Congressman Paul, could this kind of thing
happen here? Could what we’re seeing in
Greece and in California happen on a nationwide
basis here?
RON PAUL: Absolutely. There’s going to be
anger and there’s going to be riots in the
streets as well.
But this is all a consequence of the fact
that why and how the government spends like
this.
It’s because they don’t have sound money.
When we run up deficits, we tax, but never
enough. We can’t tax, it would ruin the
economy. Then we borrow, and we get away with
that for a long time.
But we rely on the printing presses from the
Federal Reserve to create the money, and that’s
where the problem is.
This is why we have to look at the Federal
Reserve, we have to get an audit of the Federal
Reserve, we have to look at the monetary system
and the dollar system because you can’t
have fake money.
This is counterfeit. We’ve been operating
like this since 1971.
No time in the history of the world has the
whole world been on fiat money for so long
building up these financial bubbles, distorting
the economies and running up all this debt,
and it has to be paid for. This is just the
beginning.
MEGYN KELLY: Do you actually think that the
Federal Reserve may be secretly bailing out
Greece anyway, because we can’t audit the
Federal Reserve, so we don’t know what it’s
doing with this money.
You think they may be funneling money over
there right now?
RON PAUL: Well, they’re capable of doing
it, that’s why I demand an audit.
But we do know that the IMF has offered them
a lot of money, and we’re like 25 percent
of the IMF, and that money has to come from
us, it has to come from creating new money.
But what they do secretly we don’t know.
But they’re capable of doing it.
And believe me, if push comes to shove, they’re
going to use the dollar because people are
still trusting the dollar. We still have the
big economy.
But that just delays the inevitable and it
makes the downturn that much worse.
MEGYN KELLY: How much of this fall on the
Dow do you attribute to Greece?
RON PAUL: Oh, I think a lot. But that’s
just the tip of the iceberg. They’re the
ones who have been the first ones to fall,
but then there’s going to be Portugal, there’s
going to be California, then it’s going
to be United States government, and it’s
going to be all the governments. I mean, they
talk about Germany being the powerhouse? You
think they have balanced budgets and they’re
going to be able to bail out Europe? No! Everyone’s
in this together. So Greece is just the beginning
because they were probably worse off and it
was precipitated.
But all the countries and so many of our states
are that way and many of our corporations,
individuals, it’s still debt that has to
be liquidated.
MEGYN KELLY: Alright. Well, Congressman Ron
Paul, we always appreciate hearing your insights
on it. Thank you so much for being here.
RON PAUL: Thank you.