An Open Letter to the Financial Community

by Steve Berger

Ron Paul is the only candidate whose political philosophy is truly consonant with free markets and a thriving financial community. All of the other candidates, in one form or another, are just tired and time-worn variations on the same tax-and-spend and mercantilist themes undermining our economy. Just imagine for a moment the capitalist energy that would be unleashed under a Ron Paul administration: no income tax to confiscate hard-earned wealth, no heavy-handed, one size-fits-all regulatory apparatus to hamper capital formation, no paralyzing boom and bust economic cycles under a restored gold standard and the end of fractional reserve counterfeiting. Without a Federal Reserve bank to ignite bubble after bubble, including the latest in the housing market and mortgage credit, would we even be sitting here gnashing our teeth about a mortgage crisis and bandying about cockeyed solutions impairing contractual rights?

While many Republican candidates talk the talk about reducing taxes and fiscal conservatism, very few walk the walk. Ron Paul is the only one who has consistently opposed the unconstitutional war in Iraq and who has exposed the harmful consequences, often unintended, of our interventionist, empire-building foreign policy. Empire building and fiscal conservatism are a contradiction in terms. War spending dwarfs all other, siphons off resources from production to destruction, and typically leads to economic and trade wars under a concept of total war including boycotts, embargoes, protectionism and the like. Any candidate purporting to flex America’s might and to be fiscally prudent is engaged in Orwellian doublespeak of the worst type. Only Dr. Paul is an impassioned believer in a foreign policy conducive to fiscal health.

There is more. A Ron Paul administration would seek to abolish the antitrust regulatory and statutory apparatus and thus revive the imperiled market for corporate control. While this might not curry favor with incompetent and entrenched management teams, a healthy market for corporate control is a surefire way to eliminate excess and promote economic growth. Ron Paul is an ardent proponent of the free enterprise system. This does not mean that he favors Big Business, which often is hand in hand with government in restraining competition and looking for subsidy and protection. Ron Paul favors open and free competition with success grounded on customer satisfaction, not political handouts and bailouts. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has read Bastiat and thus understands the often invisible evil lurking behind every political "solution" to promote economic growth or to interfere with spontaneous market forces.

I implore everyone in the financial community to come to your senses. Dr. Paul is the only candidate whose policies can promote free and healthy markets and lead to a vibrant and growing economy. Ron Paul’s greatest virtue is that is he apolitical, a breath of fresh air and unabashed honesty and consistency. All of his rivals for the Presidency are politicians to the core, bringing to mind Groucho Marx’s dictum that "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and applying the wrong remedies."