Ron Paul on Life

"I think stem cell research is crucial. I think medically it has a great future. I think that the answers aren't in yet. Some people say it's absolutely the answer, and others say it's no good and don't do it. It's not known yet, and I'll tell you what: politicians and bureaucrats and the FDA don't know either, and I don't think that's where it should be determined. It should be determined in the marketplace. In Washington so far we only had two choices, either prohibit it or subsidize it. My position is that we shouldn't do either. It should be in the states to devise the rules and laws on what you can do and can't do. Though I'm very strong pro-life and the worst thing I can conceive of is manufacturing babies to be used for research, but as an obstetrician I've had on quite a few occasions to do a surgery on a woman with a pregnancy in the Fallopian tube. And, the fetus is small, and alive, and the heart is beating, but if you don't operate on him, the fetus dies and the patient dies, because a hemorrhage is a very very critical time for ectopic pregnancy. I don't see any reason why you can't use that fetal tissue for research."

"Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans. Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing."

"The long-awaited "campaign finance reform" vote finally took place last week, with the House ultimately passing the measure. The debate was full of hypocritical high-minded talk about cleaning up corruption, all by the very politicians of both parties who dole out billions in corporate subsidies and welfare pork. It was quite a spectacle watching the big-spending, perennially-incumbent politicians argue that new laws were needed to protect them from themselves!"

"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!"

"The growth in money and credit has outpaced both savings and economic growth. These inflationary pressures have been concentrated in asset prices, not consumer price inflation--keeping monetary policy too easy. This increase in asset prices has fueled domestic borrowing and spending. Government policy and the increase in securitization are largely responsible for this bubble. In addition to loose monetary policies by the Federal Reserve, government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have contributed to the problem. The fourfold increases in their balance sheets from 1997 to 1998 boosted new home borrowings to more than $1.5 trillion in 1998, two-thirds of which were refinances which put an extra $15,000 in the pockets of consumers on average--and reduce risk for individual institutions while increasing risk for the system as a whole."