Fed News Friday: Ron Paul waves “rebel silver” at Ben Bernanke during hearing
March 2nd, 2012
Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images North America
When I first heard the news that Texas Congressman Ron Paul waved a silver coin at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during his testimony at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday, I was instantly excited to write this week’s Fed News Friday piece. While waving the coin at Bernanke, Rep. Paul lectured him about the importance of sound commodity-based money that holds its value over time, as opposed to paper and electronic fiat dollars that all-too-easily lose their value as the central bank issues more and more currency.
As he waved the one ounce silver coin, Paul said:
“You took over the Fed in 2006. I have a silver ounce here, and this ounce of silver back in 2006 would buy over four gallons of gasoline. Today, it will buy almost 11 gallons of gasoline. That’s preservation of value.”
I was thrilled to hear sound-money advocate Ron Paul use the same illustration we’ve been using here at Silver Circle, both on this blog and at our booth at conferences like CPAC: that the Federal Reserve’s fiat dollars are demonstrably losing their value over time because they buy less and less gasoline as the years go on and the printing presses hum, but stable commodities like gold and silver could buy the same amount of gasoline in 2000 as they did in 1950. Was it too much to hope that the most visible champion of sound money in the United States might be reading our blog? I was so excited to write this piece when I heard the news about the silver coin and the badly-needed lesson in monetary policy, but the next day all of us here at Silver Circle would learn something that absolutely floored us…
A flyer the Silver Circle crew recently passed out at CPAC. Credit: Davi Barker / Silver Circle
That silver coin Ron Paul was holding… was not an American Silver Eagle as the press has been reporting. When we got a closer look, we realized that Ron Paul was holding one of our very own coins, “rebel rounds” just like the ones in our upcoming film Silver Circle, which we had minted to promote the film. We gave Ron Paul the one-ounce round last January when we met him in Houston, TX at a Ludwig Von Mises event. We told him about the film and the Rebels from the movie, who illegally coin their own money from silver in 2019 to take on the increasingly totalitarian government/banking complex and the Federal Reserve bank.
This image below is no Photoshop job. It is the unaltered work of Chip Somodevilla for Getty Images North America. Ron Paul was waving rebel silver in Ben Bernanke’s face while lecturing him about sound monetary policy and the need for alternative, commodity-based money in a free market of competing currencies:
Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images North America
As far as the history of the Federal Reserve bank in this country goes, this moment was extremely significant and deeply symbolic. The image above is iconic and we are thrilled to have been a part of it. As Europe’s economy falls, revolutions blaze throughout the Middle East and Africa over rising food prices and repressive governments propped up by the Federal Reserve’s petro-dollars, and the recession here in America continues with no end in sight, the most visible critic of our monetary policy confronted the most visible proponent and leader of it face-to-face, and what did he do? He waved a silver coin at the Federal Reserve Chairman that comes from an independent film about economic and political rebels out to destroy the Federal Reserve Bank and its entire monetary system.
Using that coin bears so much more significance than if it really had been an American Silver Eagle in Ron Paul’s hand. It was the symbolic equivalent of waving a middle finger right at the Fed Chairman’s face while lecturing him about the bankruptcy of his institution, his economics, and his philosophy of money. It was like cryptically saying “We’d be better off if a band of rebels destroyed the entire system you believe in.” We hope the Federal Reserve is still listening in on us, because we hope they get the message. Have fun printing. We’ll be minting.
And don’t forget to visit our official website to learn more about the Silver Circle Movie:http://SilverCircleMovie.com
