Why Ron Paul is not Taken Seriously
Advocates of U.S. Presidential candidate Ron Paul, seem befuddled that his economic proposals do not receive more support and consideration. I am unsure if their criticisms of the U.S. Federal Reserve System (the Fed) are objections to the existence of paper money, central banks, or to the specific operation of the Fed. Monetary policy for an increasingly interconnected world is complex. It is reasonable that most people do not understand it. But it can be understood. Let me try to address a few issues. Money is anything that is generally accepted to serve as a medium of exchange (i.e., you can buy things with it), a store of value (i.e., you use it to save purchasing power for use at a later time), and a unit of account (i.e., it is used to measure relative prices). Stated more simply, money facilitates commerce. Without money that is widely accepted, easy to carry and exchange, and difficult to counterfeit, economic transactions become much more difficult. Without money, peopl