FEATURE ARTICLE

The Government as Identity Thieves
The Government as Identity Thieves
 
 Powell Gammill 
Date: 05-17-2010
Subject: Privacy Rights

by Ron Paul 
 
The spotlight remains on the Greek sovereign debt crisis as the riots continue.  The terms of the Greek bailout from the IMF and Eurozone countries remain contentious with citizens on all sides.  Europeans hate having their governments throw public money away as much as Americans do.  The Greeks are not happy about having their taxes raised while their pensions and salaries are cut.  Meanwhile, it is rumored by the Financial Times, AFP and others that Greece may spend more than it saves from austerity measures on arms deals with Germany, France and the US as a potential condition of receiving bailout funds.  If true, it is certainly not unprecedented for the global military industrial complex to benefit from deals made by their friends in the central banking community.  After all, war is the health of the state.  The last thing big government proponents want is for peace to break out in the world.

This free flow of fiat money from around the globe to Greece will not really save Greece as much as it will grant a temporary reprieve to central bankers from the consequences of their mistakes.  Sadly, this will come at the expense of the Greek people and taxpayers in Europe and America.  Taxpayers are of no consequence to either European or American central bankers.  Even the mere desire for complete information on what they are up to in our name is rebuffed, as we saw last week in the Senate with the failure of Senator Vitter’s amendment containing my language to fully audit the fed.  The hubris of powerful and secretive central bankers seems to know no bounds.

If someone incurred debts against you as an individual, without your knowledge or consent, you would call it identity theft.   You would call your bank for a full accounting of the debts incurred in your name, and after some verification, those debts would be declared invalid and you would not be held responsible for them.  Furthermore, if the culprit was found, they would be prosecuted and sent to jail.

Not so with governments and central banks.  Governments that are supposed to be of the people and for the people routinely incur debts against the people.  Some governments even borrow money to oppress their citizens, and then expect them to pay for their own oppression with interest.  With a fiat monetary system, the sky is the limit for how much debt a government can place on the backs of the people. 

We have reached the point in the United States where the debt our government has accumulated against us is mathematically impossible to pay off.  Harder times, likely due to a wave of hyperinflation, will eventually find its way to our streets and I am fearful of how Americans will react.  My hope is that we will come together peacefully and help each other, and that enough of us will be aware that the blame rests securely on the shoulders of the Federal Reserve and the special interests.  They should not be looked to for salvation.  They should not be given more power.  Rather, they should be stripped of the powers that allowed them to create this mess in the first place.

Resistance to public transparency regarding public debts should be denounced in the strongest of terms, and the central bankers that incurred them should be seen as no better than common identity thieves.