Ron Paul: Fed cartel needs competing currencies

Congressman Ron Paul wants to End the Fed. That's no secret. It's the title of one of his books. But making big things happen typically requires a transition.

Last year Congressman Paul introduced legislation in favor of competing currencies. Here's an excerpt from a recent CNBC interview on the topic:

Paul said he views the Fed as a "monopoly" that could benefit from the introduction of competition.

"We should start ending the Fed by allowing competition," he said. "I don't like the fact that they have monopoly control. It's a cartel: they print the money. The Constitution really doesn't give them that authority. The Constitution said that only gold and silver can be legal tender. I want to legalize competition and allow individual Americans to use gold and silver in competition, as money. Today if you do that, you can go to jail.

Competing currencies is an imperfect solution to me, but any sound currency would be an improvement over the current fiat-based monopoly. Despite the claims of Bush, Obama, Greenspan & Bernanke, the fact is that Keynes was wrong. Money doesn't grow on trees. And now we need to figure out the best way to transition away from our current monetary policy... and hope we avoid the complete collapse of the dollar.

Tim White