Subprime market in housing, Subprime economic System

During today's testimony questions from most senators and representatives on the committee had to do with the housing crisis and whether a recession was in the offing.

After a diatribe about how the government and the Fed are trying to patch up market woes without addressing core problems, Paul pointed out, "Nobody says, 'Where does it come from?' And what is the advice that you generally get, and that is inflate the currency. They don't say inflate the currency, they don't say debase the currency, they don't say devalue the currency, they don't say cheat the people. They say lower the interest rates.'"

But when people crow to the Fed to lower interest rates and make larger sums of money more accessible, argued Paul, they're not really asking for the interest rates to be lowered; they're asking for the government to print more money.

"But they never ask you, and I don't hear you say too often, 'The only way I can lower interest rates is I have to create more money. I have to lower the discount rate, I have to make it generous, I have to increase reserves, I have to lower the interest rates and fix the interest rates.'"

Later, Paul called it "a fallacy" that made the dollar "weaker" and "invites inflation."

"It is that not only have we had a subprime market in housing; the whole economic system is sub prime," Paul railed. "We artificially lower interest rates. And it wasn't under your tenure in office; it's been going on for 10 years and longer and now we're bearing the fruits of that policy."

Paul argued the government shouldn't be concerning itself with deceptive lending practices but with its deceptive monetary policy.

"The real deception is when we distort the value of money, when we create money out of thin air. We have no savings. Yet there's so-called capital. There's money available. But it comes from what you have to do and the pressures put on you.

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