Hi and welcome to the Stefano Vera podcast today for Episode 234. I have a very special guest. He is Dr Ron Paul, legendary libertarian, former congressman and presidential candidate, and he's also the host of the Ron Paul Liberty Report. So I had the great opportunity to speak with him, and this was only a short interview. I only had 30 minutes, but I'm sure you will enjoy the conversation I had with Dr Paul. This show brought to you by swan Bitcoin dot com The best place to order Stack your Bitcoin in the US with incredibly easy set up and low fees. They're available in all 50 U. S. States their Bitcoin only, and they're focused on teaching you how to take self custody off your Bitcoins as well. So definitely go there. They have a really great offering in terms off, providing a simple and cost effective way to regularly start buying Bitcoin. So go to swan Bitcoin dot com and sign up. Knox is a Bitcoin custodian dedicated to ensuring that their

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. Paul, you've been an inspiration for many of us. Welcome to the show. Good to be with you today Dr Paul. So we we are in the coming. This is a podcast only about the Bitcoin world. And I'd love to get your thoughts on where we are in this whole Bitcoin revolution. We are, you know, as we speak today. It's December 2020 and Bitcoin started in January 2000 and nine. And so it's come a long way. So I'm curious as to your views on a someone who's not necessarily deeply into the world. What's your view on the Bitcoin world and the chances for increased liberty as a result? Well, I think there's, um you know, a lot of questions to be answered. I don't think the conclusion is there yet. I've been impressed with what's happened in these few years because I think some people predicted it would be this popular other people who are skeptical and I think that still exists. And

my introduction to it has been mainly mawr philosophic and legalistic because I knew about this when it was coming, uh into vote when I was in Congress. So I thought the important thing is that we should do whatever we can to make it legal, because on that's why I had to build in That would be legalizing competing currencies because if it's to be used as money, you're competing with dollar. And you know there's some people who don't like that, you know, and they they want to know what's going on. And sometimes there are tax collectors out there, too. They want to know exactly what people are doing on alternative currency. But I was mainly interested in to make sure that it was legal and I think, basically is a lot of people are trusting. A lot of people are buying and selling, but that doesn't totally reassure me because I have, ah, skepticism of government all the time. See, I don't even have ah total reassurance that the government is It's not gonna come along and want to confiscate my gold. You know

this. So I think governments are pretty ornery. So since you know, the more successful crypto is going to be in, Bitcoin is going to be, I think the more you have to be aware of what's going on in the government will become more aggressive. I think about it in education. You know, if you if you're doing private education outside the government education such as homeschooling your private schooling. If you're too successful, the government's gonna want to close you down. And the government schools don't want the competition. I think that's the way it is in finance to, but as of now, it looks like a lot of people who believe in the marketplace believe it can work. But I think I would my advises, Yes, uh, be vigilant, you know, because you know, there's information collected, the exchanges aren't, uh, totally anonymous. And I read the stories about, you know, the I r s checking up on things and, you know, for somebody

like myself, I don't even believe in the i. R s, let alone being flexible enough. Well, a so long as I have the i. R s a investigating me and we follow the rules. Well, you know, in 1932 uh, in the depths of the Depression, uh, people were a lot of home gold, You know, we're on the gold standard, but immediately What did they dio? They closed shop and it made it. They made it illegal to home gold for all the way up until 1975. So that's why, you know, I got into politics, and that's why I remained the skeptic, and, uh and I think it's legitimate. Uh, but nobody claims that we've ever had a perfect system, but I sort of strive for that. For me, the perfect system is freedom of choice. Then you and I can decide exactly what we should use as our monetary system. But today, that's not here. But I like the idea that Cryptocurrency has made people think about it. The one other thing I like about it so far it looks

like there's going to be a limitation of the creation of new currency, and that's that's the big thing. If if this this occurs and you just can't expand it, that's the biggest evil. So when I endorse Cryptocurrencies, uh, I always admonished and say it'll work if if it's if if fraud is prohibited, because governments are used to doing the fraud, and that's why the systems that always go badly. So I think that would be very bad. But that's human nature. And there have been, you know, episodes of people taking crypto that they shouldn't be taking. But that's good, you know, in the marketplace. It's sort of like if, uh if your if your business is being robbed in a free market, you'll get some guards. So I think, uh, the protection has to come from the technological viewpoint so that people can remain unsure. Because if there's not, I don't think

the government is going to come to the rescue and say We want to make it secure and no way lose anything. They're not going to do that. But if, uh if if there is a problem, there is a tremendous incentive, you know, toe have security And of course, there are some that are very satisfied with it, and I'm sort of cautiously optimistic about that. Thank you, Dr Paul. And I'm also curious as to your view on, obviously, Bitcoin appeals to many libertarians, right? Libertarians, We are probably the optimal demographic to be into Bitcoin. And yet I noticed there are a lot of libertarian, too. Aren't that into Bitcoin and they don't necessarily see the promise. I'm curious as to your view on why that is. Well, I think that's because people are individual, you know, I imagine that there is not one feature off of the people involved because there might be some that just love it for the technology of it. And they think it's a transfer

system. And others say, Well, no, this is money is going to compete with the dollar and this sort of thing So it's for different reasons And I'm mostly interested in because, uh, I see this as not a creature of the government, but the government's watching very closely. Eso I think everybody gets involved for for different reasons. Some people I've I've met, some people who are really, really into it, have made a lot of money and their their balance sheet has grown and their whole goal is just Well, I know what's gonna happen in 10 years. I'm buying when I can. I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna hold Well, maybe, but I'm not smart enough to know that for sure. And there's there's gonna be a variation. That's just human nature, Andi. That's why I want individuals to have this flexibility. Because if if your if your goals are slightly different than mine and you have all the authority it might not, please may. So if we have

a system and I hope this system provides is that you could be involved in crypto currencies and work with other people that you have some agreement and I would have to use mine and maybe a slightly different way. I, uh and I think I think there's just a, uh, some time left before all this is ironed out because I don't think people know the the absolute future. And that's because you cannot estimate and predict human action. Human action is an individual thing, and it's going to vary. What we want to do is legalize human action is varies, and that gives us the really good philosophic intellectual opposition to the authoritarians in government, of course. And do you then see it as some combination off technology that helps enable, um, or libertarian future and also some level of politics

in some level of call it activism or lobbying or some level of political support to help enable the overall vision? Oh, yeah, I think, I think both because I think the libertarian understanding, they certainly were aware of this and knew about and wrote about, and they were excited about it. But I don't know anything about the numbers, but there's billions and billions of dollars invested and believe. May. I don't believe they're all good libertarians. I think they're smart people and they're able to do it, and they see this as a vehicle that has a positive future, so they're willing to make a business decision on it, and their attitude would be quite different. But that's the way maybe it would be on gold and silver and everything else. Some people might think it's a store of value only and and hold it and then somebody else might want to do it because they know it has a

metallic value of a industrial value to it. So there will be different reasons. And I think that's the way it is where I don't think you can get everybody to agree exactly why you have crypto and how it works. You know there will be different motivations, but yeah, I still have full trust in free people making voluntary decision. They're not perfect, but when they make mistakes, it's only hurts them. But when you turn them over to the government and put him at the Federal Reserve and they make decisions about savings and interest rates and all of this. You know, when they make a mistake, it can be very, very painful. And that's why we have have the ups and downs in the business cycle and a few of the fear of the crack up boom and things like that. But all that now can be reflected in some people, the way they use crypto. You know, the same figure, you know, it's outside, it's different

. And, uh, in some days, you know, when I watched the markets very close, I think, uh, crypto crypto is a haven and it is the alternative and and everything is going in there, then another day. Then you have a $2000. Definitely. Well, maybe it's not decided for sure. Yet more time is necessary. Uh, and you don't and you want that because you don't want a because we're talking about kryptos in dollar value as well. Uh, that that's ah still still dollars that they're dealing with that So this is, uh this is the thing that that will be worked out and people will I finally decide. But right now it's I think I find it fascinating even though I don't trade it. We we get donations for our foundation and the work that I do. And it makes sense. I speak a lot on the on the issue, and sometimes I think, Well, I don't go to these conferences and talk

about Well, if you buy this one and this one and sell tomorrow and do that, I don't I don't do any of their. And I think, Well, maybe maybe, Why do they want to listen to me? Uh, and I think it's because they know that my goals and my influence is always toe. Make it legal, let people make their decision, and that's why I want the environment. To me, it's it's almost similar to if you, if you're dealing in, uh in religious values, you might not have to take a religious value and promote. But you want to have the freedom of choice in religion or social activities or social habits and all this and make people make these decisions, and that should satisfy. So I think the people who don't get involved are really very valuable. I think of the drug issue for years. I was always against the drug war and I represented a Bible belt very conservative district in Texas. And when I came out for that, I

thought, Boy, they're gonna kill me on this one. And when I ran a second time for Congress and they did, they tried to. Both the Democrats and Republicans said, This guy doesn't wanna have a war on drugs. You know, this sort of thing, people would come up and say, Why do you want to legalize marijuana? And I said, No, you don't have it right It's It's not. I don't want to, uh, legalize, Uh, you know, the single currency or marijuana. What I wanna do is legalize freedom of choice and you make you up your mind. And that's the way it should be, whether it's religion or whether it's what people taking their bodies or what they put in their wallet. And then they have to assume the responsibility. And, you know, I was always impressed. Uh, pleasantly so during the presidential race is that most of the university students that they, you know, get a lot of blame

for some of the weird stuff they dio. The students were good if they heard this message. You are talking about where you you can do what you want, but you can't hurt people, and, uh and you could get along, but you make your choices. But I thought what would turn them on. But if you screw up, you're going to stop with the consequences and and that that they understood. So I think the, uh I think we have a powerful message, a libertarian message, and, uh, it is very appealing. It just astounds me that we don't do a better job in convincing people because they say you and I had a total disagreement on on crypto. The important thing is make sure it's legal. We may have total disagreement, you know, with people who have no faith and other people have different faith as long as you don't use force, same way with our bodies, about what we eat. And, uh, eso it shouldn't be hard with any buddy with a slight libertarian leaning that we don't

look forward to the day when the government and Dr Fauci is telling us that we have to take a vaccine or we can't have a job or we can't travel. That's that's the real danger. But I put that all together whether whether we're talking about marijuana or crypto or religion or personal habits. It's to me is all one thing, Dr Paul, you have inspired so many to want liberty. I'm wondering whether you have any insight on Aziz. You mentioned this idea of growing. You know, you're calling out to the remnant. You're trying to find those people who want freedom. Do you have any tips on how Thio find, you know, the Bitcoin remnant? How to grow that base of people who wanted to have want to have freedom of choice in money? Well, uh, I was taught that if you haven't understanding, do the best. Understand that and explain it. If it's worth anything, they'll find you. You know, people will find you. I I didn't know you, uh, you know

, three or four or five years ago. And I don't know when you got really involved, but I didn't I didn't call you up on the phone and say, Hey, look, this is what you have to do now. Doesn't work that way. You have to present it and you obviously have done it. You know, with what your business is like. You have a mission and you have people wanting to know what you're saying, and I think I think this is very good. So they're the remnant. I might use the definition slightly differently because the remnant are the leftovers, the old leftovers, the people that knew what it was like. Let's say we might use its used biblically. You know, in the Old Testament, there was a remnant people always the societies would deteriorate Well, our societies that you just deteriorating right now and we could argue the case that we have a remnant of those who understood what the founders were talking about because they had a pretty good understanding about libertarianism. They didn't call themselves libertarian, but they called themselves, You

know, defenders of Liberty and, uh, eso there, there, people out there and it's taught that it's taught, taught biblically that there's always a remnant. The people we're gonna have memory. So even no matter what happens with the Federal Reserve and look at what they've done to the money, there's always a remnant out there that wants sound money and, uh, and they hold things together. So, yes, you want to appeal to them because movements occur by leadership and people in the remnants are still leaders and leaning away Even though they may be small, they may be clinging to to the truth and eso they're the ones so they have to be used to popularize, uh, the issues. If you want sound money, people have to know about it if people, uh if you want to. And right now, what I work on so much is is this crazy stuff going on with coronavirus? I want people to be more sensible with their medicine and through their care. And you know all this. So you have to finally get the

people to come out and support. But you have to have people believing. And I was always on the assumption that if you look at it and say, Well, Ron, this sounds really good, but when are you gonna get your 51% so you can win all the election? It doesn't work that way. You have Thio, you need about 8% 88% of the people or so that are very supercharging their leaders. And they're they're thinking about these things and then they influenced the others. Then you could get the crowds to come out and shift the attitude. So, uh, that's that's really the way the way I approach it and and I So I think the remnant whether what? What? What you could say? Because I wanted to date the remnant. Yeah, there is true. I like it when people joined the room that, you know, we're We're part of a the residual of some beliefs that personal liberty iss Far superior Thio. Anything else? Uh, Thio. To me, it's

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. Do you see that? Those are also influences that are coming into the Bitcoin world as well. I worry about that because one of the conferences I met, somebody said, Well, what are you doing? Oh, she says, I'm a lobbyist for Washington. I wanna make sure when they write the regulation that we get protection, and that's a practical thing to do. But because even though I believe in free market medicine, if there beating the bushes to have Obama care, you know, for somebody to go in there and try to save freedom of choice, even in a small area, that's legitimate. But it was sort of a little bit disappointing, but probably probably very, very practical. I want toe. I want separation. So, uh, I I think that it's hard to prove that it's really autonomous. The the, uh, the I. R. S doesn't know what's going on, and I think

I think they know exactly because the first time I even heard a discussion, I can't remember. It was probably Bernanke. It was a chairman and we had him before the committee and this subject came up. I don't know. It sounds like a question I might have asked anyway. It was in the discussion, and he was He was he was not negative, you know, he said, Well, we'll see how this works because if if he didn't see, he didn't come across harsh about it. So I always thought there was more tolerance, but and they know what's going on. And, uh, and I think that's the That's the thing, The ultimate thing of being anonymous and and and secretive, that's not easily achieved. And you can't You can't like I said in 1933 and even if you were well prepared, risk about is going to call in the gold. Well, you know, and it's all the issues. What if people think that the ultimate protection is owning a gun

? You know, uh, societies have taken guns from people in our governments of capable of doing that. To say the issue is personal liberty, you know? You know all these things I think about Mm. And, uh, I'm also I'd also love to get your views on. I know Mrs is a great scholar that, you know we regard is highly influential, And I think he also saw sound money as a protection. What are your views on that idea? It's it's It's like a protection of your rights against the government. Well, that's it, but it should be. It should be automatic. The only purpose for government if you're looking for a purpose. And that is Thio. Protect liberty. You know, making sure that if your rights are being violated, if somebody's hurting, you are stealing from here to burn down your house that if you do have a local policeman, local government, that would be the purpose. But, you know, that's been long lost right now. Uh, you know, I

believe that individual should not lie, cheat, steal or kill. But our government guess what it does lie on occasion. Does it ever cheat? Yeah, they cheat all the time. Do they steal? Yeah, uh, inflate and taxes. And, uh, in the assassinate people, even American citizen. So it's the government that should be restrained. The government should restrain those activities of private individuals that if the if the private individuals lying and cheating and stealing you should have a recourse and some protection. But they shouldn't be involved in the welfare state. They shouldn't be involved in, uh, in, uh, counterfeiting. Uh, instead of protecting, you know, prohibiting counterfeiting, they become the biggest counterfeiters, you know. And that's, uh, of course, uh, where so many of our problems air coming right now, because that's where the big state comes from. And that's where our wars come from. That's where the runaway welfare comes from. And

of course, you could say, Well, yeah, causes chaos, but it gives the motivation to somebody Think about cryptocurrencies, you know, maybe it's an alternative, so the people will have a have a reaction to it. They react rather quickly when government comes in and they put on a lot of regulations. Usually, you know, even under the worst circumstances s Soviet system or whatever, there is always a black market, you know, you have to survive surviving, and of course, the first ones to jump into the black market or the politicians you know to get away from the market. But you know if they have socialized medicine. Everybody's in the socialized medicine medical system. Yeah, unless you're a government official, then you'll have a private doctor. That's that's the kind of rotten. But, you know, that's hypocrisy. And that's one thing that we talk about on my television program is that this whole idea of hypocrisy right now

is really getting people's attention. You don't even have. You know, it's more powerful than arguing. You know the details off what the government should do or shouldn't dio. But the hypocrites that air coming in and saying this is the rules and you can't do this and and, uh, at the same time, they don't even follow the rules. That right now we're finding that is the greatest, uh, incentive for people to wake up on believe our side rather than theirs because they're hypocrites, you know? How about finishing up in a little bit? I got to go in a few more minutes. Oh, for sure, for sure, I guess, uh, perhaps we could just close out with what your thoughts are on the outlook for liberty over the next, Let's say, five years. Do you think we're going in a good direction or in a bad direction or, ah, you know, kind of neutral. Well, next two or three would be very, very bad on our civil liberties are in our wealth, and there will be

you have thio liquidate debt when it gets out of hand, and that is the problem. And it's been encouraged because of the monetary system. And when this happens, it's not only the debt, but it's the male investment, too. And that's why we have corrections. And, uh, I think when you stymie the correction, see, last fall, uh, that, uh, you know, when when we had a no overnight rates surge and they had a shortage and interest rates went to 10% that was before coronavirus. But coronavirus came in, I think, to distract us from there. But it was way out of proportion. It was a huge bubble there. It was bigger. It was already bigger than the NASDAQ bubble in the housing bubble. So the correction was there. The debt has to be liquidated to correct it, and, uh, in the mail investment, bad missed aches, investment. And that's painful. So that's why politicians cannot tolerate that they'd rather delay the inevitable and they want to liquidate debt. But

they want to do it through debasement of the currency. So they just printing, printing, printing. They get all upset. The prices are going up fast enough. We wanna liquidate debt in that faster. But regardless of what happens, the debt gets liquidated and we're in the process of. And you everybody thinks it's only coronavirus. Has these businesses going broke? Their You know, Let's say if you take 1000 small businesses and 500 are gone because they went bankrupt and the the coronavirus and locked on made the difference, There's another group that was more frugal and they had been savers and they could do it. And they might have been buying up some of those assets so that, you know, the A sorting out it has to occur. But they they think that this this can go on, but it don't. It's going, it's going to be resolved. So the answer is in the next few years. Regardless, even if they got more sensible about the lock down, we still have liquidation, which I would say is

gonna have not two or three years and if they really, really are stupid. They could prolong the Depression for like I did in the 19 thirties. The Depression really lasted for 15 years from the through the thirties and until the war was over, you know, there was. It took all that time for people to get back to working again. So if you did the right thing, now that's the best part if you want to do that. And, uh, this is the bit of optimism if we did everything right, if we bit the bullet and we knew we had to have this surgical treatment for our cancer and have it and be cured, that'd be one thing. But nobody is going to do that. There's no way the politicians will back off on spending, and that's and it's not the Democrats fault. It's a bipartisan because one wants to spend the money on the wars, the other on welfare. It just yesterday there was another agreement. It's all this hollering, screaming about what's going on. Even in the midst of the

of the impeachment hearings, there was a pause for the Republicans and Democrats to go and vote for you. No money to be spent so that's going to continue, but there will be liquidation. And I think the liquidation will come with runaway inflation. So the question when's that gonna happen? And when will that work? We're not going to do it the right way. They did it that way in 1921 and after a year everything was back. They were back to work again. So it's gonna take a while. So I guess if we were, if we could get the liquidation down and and and then got into, you know, sound economic policy, it would take at least 10 years. I think in longer terms for the correction, because I have a home schooling program and I get the young kids that can't even go to school down the schools air horrible. And I worked really hard with young people and we're doing better than now because the schools were closed and but I

think the answer is found in in education, and I think the great harm has been done by our universities. So, predicting times predicting the time of the crash impossible, Austrian economics said, You know there is coming, but you don't know the day there will be some psychological or some event that we don't know about what caused the crash and the liquidation. The most important thing is what are you going to replace it with, You know? Are you going to replace it with just a variation of Keynesianism? Are you going to go with the Marxists Leninists and are already in our government? Are we going to excite enough people to understand the difference between freedom and authoritarianism? Fantastic, Dr. Paul, for any listeners would like toa follow you online or subscribe to the Liberty Report. Where can they find you online? Okay, I do A daily live show on our computers. On that is Ron Paul, liberty report dot com. It's 11 o'clock central time

and we've been doing quite well lately because we've talked about coronavirus and the election and mostly current events and a lot of foreign policy. Well, Dr Paul, I want to respect your time. I just want to thank you so much for being an inspiration for many of us. And thank you again for joining me on the show today. Nice to be with you. I hope you enjoyed hearing Ron Paul's views on monetary freedom. He has certainly been an inspiration for many of us. So this is a very special one for May. Also, I've got a really great interview coming up with Neil Ferguson, the historian, so make sure you are subscribed in your podcaster application Search Stefan Lovera podcast for that one, and you can find the website at Stefan Lovera dot com. That's it for May. Thanks, and I'll see you in the Citadel's.