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Congressman Ron PaulGLENN: From Radio City in Midtown Manhattan, third most listened to show in all of America. My name is Glenn Beck, and I have -- everybody now is coming to the bandwagon and they are all saying, "Oh, yeah, look at the problems. Boy, we got problems." And they are talking about the bailout. The bailout is an abomination. Now, I'm a guy who last week said you've got to stop the plane from flying into the side of the mountain, but this bailout, there's no way I would have my -- I can't get through to my senator and congressman. I can't even get an e-mail to them. Everything is full. Keep trying. You have to decide whether it's right or wrong. This is the moment, and I do not say this lightly. I don't think I've ever said this except on September 11th. This is the moment that we must become the greatest American generation. I do not say that I can't -- I don't want my name anywhere attached to this bailout. I don't say that lightly because what I know is coming on the other side is collapse and quite possibly -- everybody now is saying 1929. I think it may be bigger than 1929. Our very survival may be at stake. So I don't say it lightly because if it doesn't pass, it's coming and it's coming like a load of bricks, but it's coming anyway. And what do you have left after it is what matters at this point. Everybody is talking about the bailout. I think what everybody wants to know is, wait a minute, wait a minute, what does this mean? I've got a kid going into college. What does that mean for my job? What does this mean, how do I afford food? What do I do? I don't have a broker. I've got a 401(k). I've got a few thousand dollars maybe in the bank, most likely I've got a few hundred dollars in the bank. What does all of this mean to me? I'm going to speak directly to you on that coming up at the top of next hour. I want you to know that you're not alone. I want you to know that that's where most people are, and the media and everybody else is talking macro, and you're at micro, and is anybody paying attention to micro or is it all macro? We're not living in a history book. There are real people that are affected. What is it going to mean to you and what's the best way to protect yourself? I will help you through some of those answers coming up at the top of next hour.
But first, I do want to talk macro and I do want to talk about what's in this bill because if you are going to be the greatest American generation, if you are going to be one of those Americans that finally stands up and says, wait a minute, and you take charge of your own life, you need to know the facts. A guy who has been there and who has been there this weekend, heard all of the inside dealings, knows about this bill and quite frankly I may disagree with him on a lot of things, but the economy is not one of them. He has called it right every step of the way. Ron Paul is with us now. Ron, this is your cup of tea. This is your ocean. How are you navigating? Where should we be going?
RON PAUL: Well, we're going in the wrong direction. We're in a problem for the precise reason, we spent too much, we borrowed too much and we inflated the currency too much and now we're in trouble and the market is saying you have to make the corrections of all the mistakes. People, you know, have to liquidate bad debt and get rid of the bad investments. So everything we're doing right now is to perpetuate all the mistakes.
GLENN: Right.
RON PAUL: Instead of admitting it and allowing us to get rid of the bad stuff and start all over again. So this just prolongs the agony and actually makes the long-term problems worse because everything that we do is done through more inflation of the money supply, which means that we will have runaway inflation if we continue to do this along with recession or depression and I think these scare tactics are going to backfire on everybody who ends up voting for this.
GLENN: Hold on just a second. What do you mean scare tactics? You told me last week or two weeks ago that you felt we could be headed for a 1989 Soviet style collapse.
RON PAUL: But the people who want us to vote for this are saying, you know, that if you don't, you're going to cause it. It is true that if we don't vote for this, the markets are going to be, you know, in bad shape. There's going to be a downturn. And if we do vote for it, the same thing is going to happen. The only thing is the choice is which one you want, the one that's going to last 10 years or the one that's going to last one year, and it's a terrible choice. Politicians don't like those kind of choices. So they are going to opt out by pretending that they can salvage things for one year and then a miracle's going to come along and these worthless assets that the taxpayers are stuck with are all of a sudden going to have value, and there's not much chance of that happening.
GLENN: What's happening behind the scenes in Washington this weekend?
RON PAUL: Well, it's really interesting. I think those of us who don't get into the discussion and the negotiations, you know, we don't know exactly what's happening. But what I hear --
GLENN: Wait, wait, wait. Why are you not in the -- this is, this is your issue. How are you not involved in this? How are you not inserting yourself?
RON PAUL: Well, for a long time there was one Republican or two Republicans that participated, especially from the House side and then later on when the Republicans were getting ready to rebel and not vote for it, then they incorporated them. But it would be just, you know, Bainer and Blount and a few others that would go in. I'm, you know, I'm not considered important enough to, you know, be involved in that. But I do talk to other members and quite frankly they might have bitten off more than they can chew because I sense that I don't know where those votes are coming from. There's so many Democrats opposed to it and so many Republicans. But usually they know how to count. I mean, they're terrible with the math dealing with the people's finance, but they usually can count these votes. But quite frankly I wouldn't bet that this deal is locked up. But then again most of the time they get these things passed and the taxpayers suffer.
GLENN: What's the worst part of this bill?
RON PAUL: Money, the money involved and the principle, the propping up of the same economic principles that brought us down, at the same time coming up with unlimited funds. They talk, we talk about 700 or 350 plus 1 and the congress has recourse and all that nonsense. This is a $700 billion commitment and if that doesn't work, they will come back for more. They have already spent $700 billion, or at least used $700 billion of credit. So it's open-ended. All of this has to make a difference on the dollar. The dollar value has to go down.
GLENN: Okay. Tell me -- because I have had real -- I mean, I've had people who have been in the room with Paulson and the people that are talking to me are all saying the same thing: The days of spending are over. There is no way to spend any more. Any politician that tells you that they can spend, they're lying. Because it's just not going to hold. The center will not hold any more spending and yet all of them -- and the debates over the weekend, they were still going on and one was talking about a spending freeze and the other was still saying, "Well, we've got to help out." You know that promises are going to be made. We are going to be seduced that we can -- "if you vote for me, I will reduce your pain because the government can help out." Can you explain it all to America what's around the corner?
RON PAUL: It's a system that we have. They've never had to be responsible. They figure if we spend and buy votes, that's good; we'll tax them. We can't tax them anymore, we'll keep borrowing and the Chinese will provide all these funds that we need. And we run out of steam there and they resort to the Federal Reserve to monetize that and just create the money out of thin air. So this is what's going to happen. I don't -- I guess I disagree with you. I don't think they are going to quit spending. Not that the middle class or Americans are going to say, hey, quit the spending. What makes them quit spending is the market. The market, you know --
GLENN: That's what I'm saying.
RON PAUL: Oh, yeah, the marketplace finally objects and then that's when they freeze up and dump securities and they want real value and they demand sound financing. But the politicians aren't likely to do the right things.
GLENN: Can I be real frank with you? I've always been frank with you and it causes problems sometimes but let me be real frank with you. I honestly when I booked you, I honestly thought you would come out and you would be much more -- you'd be much more passionate about what's going on. I can't tell honestly, I don't think you're voting for this, right?
RON PAUL: Oh, my goodness.
GLENN: And you have been much more frank with me before on what's coming, and the reason why I bring this up is because I don't think anybody in America would accept surgery from a doctor that said, "You need surgery, you need surgery, you've got to have surgery right now" without saying, "Well, wait a minute, what are my odds of survival? Am I dying?" No one will assess.
RON PAUL: Okay.
GLENN: -- how bad things are and if this thing has a chance of working. And if it doesn't work, if you don't vote for it, what happens. If you do vote for it, what happens. And what does life look like a year from now.
RON PAUL: I think what you're sensing is that the hysteria here is if we don't vote for this, the end of the world's going to come tomorrow and therefore you have to vote for this $700 billion. I don't believe that's true. I don't believe tomorrow that's going to happen. But I believe we have embarked on a course that I have been preaching about for 35 years that we're going to destroy the dollar. The dollar system, the reserve currency of the world, I mean, when I get into that, it gets too pessimistic because really nobody wants to hear it because I don't think it's just going to be a collapse of Wall Street. I think it's going to be the collapse of Western civilization. I think, Glenn, you might not want to hear this. Our empire has to end, too, and our empire has to come home because that's what we do to ourselves. We destroy our ability to even promote ourselves overseas. We spend too much overseas. Our troops will be coming home. There will be a change, and the welfare state is going to end. But not tomorrow if we don't pass this bill. That's what I'm trying to say is --
GLENN: I want you to know --
RON PAUL: We don't need to panic into voting for this.
GLENN: I want you to know, Ron, that I am against you on the empire thing but I don't think we are that far apart actually. I have always gotten the impression that you're just like, "I'm bringing them all home." Well, you can't reverse 200 and some years of moving in one direction overnight. You can't do that. You've got to slowly bring it up. That's why I'm for, get our own energy, start to slowly pull ourselves back in, and you can't just leave a vacuum. However, I do think I agree with you that our empire is going to end because we're not going to be able to afford anything.
RON PAUL: Right.
GLENN: Right?
RON PAUL: And it will end quickly, too.
GLENN: Yes.
RON PAUL: When the dollar goes, that will go quickly. I mean, the Soviet system ended rather quickly, you know. And that was an economic event. It wasn't a political event or an invasion by the United States.
GLENN: Right.
RON PAUL: It ended for economic reasons.
GLENN: The banks around the world, I mean, I love how this is the failed Bush policies. I don't believe it's the failed Bush policies. I mean, I think he was part of it. I think Chris Dodd was part of it. I think Barney Frank is an abomination when it comes to what's been going on. But it's more than that because it's happened all over the world. The Netherlands, what did they nationalize 49% of their banks over the weekend? Another bank bombed in England over the weekend. This is not us necessarily spreading it overseas. These kinds of things have been happening, the same kind of behavior here has been happening globally. True or false?
RON PAUL: Well, that's true. But we have to understand why. This has been building since 1971 when we gave up on the last link to the gold standard under Bretton Woods, we devised a dollar standard. We were the most powerful economic group as well as a military power and therefore they accepted the dollar and they had more trust in the dollar than it deserved. So we were privileged to print the gold and spend the money and the people accepted it around the world. So we are responsible in the sense that we had license to spend and borrow and inflate and we lived beyond our means and that is why it's worldwide because essentially all central banks hold a lot of dollars and that's why they inflated in their economy as well. So there's a lot of malinvestment and debt worldwide. But it's the dollar phenomenon. It is the international monetary system. Already there's an article out. They accept this whole idea that I'm talking about and they say, well, we need a worldwide central bank that will take over. And, of course, that would be the worst thing in the world because we would have one single bank issuing and try to substitute, you know, substitute the dollar for something under the IMF or whomever. So we do need a new currency but it can't be another worldwide currency run by the bank.
GLENN: We're talking again. I mean, the calls for global control of the financial system and global control of the currency is drop dead frightening. And the way we are weeding out the small, and they're all too -- these are too big to fail, but all you small guys, you can go out of business. All you mom and pop and everything else, you can go out of business, but these ones are too big to fail. And what's happening is the big are getting even bigger. How do you stop, how do you stop global control of financing at this point?
RON PAUL: Well, it's getting tougher all the time. I mean, that's something that I try to alert the people to but, you know, a few years back we had a President say that this was a new world order. It used to be said in private and it was said to be a conspiracy, but our President seemed to talk about a new world order, and they talk about globalism and they talk about international government and that's -- we're marching on in that direction, and I just disapprove of it all. I want local sovereignty, as local as possible, back to the individual, community, the state or at least our own country. But this international stuff is doomed to destroy the individual and we're all going to suffer. We could move into a dark age if we don't wake up to what is really happening.
