The roar of Ron Paul: Five of his unorthodox views on the economy

Ron Paul is expected to announce an official "exploratory committee" for a presidential run Tuesday. Here is the Texas congressman and ardent free-marketer in his own words.

3. The gold standard

Charlie Neibergall/AP/file
Rep. Ron Paul waits to speak at a rally at the statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa, March 23.

From a congressional hearing, Sept. 17, 2000:

"A characteristic of paper money, of fiat money, is that some benefit and others lose. And a good example of this of how Wall Street benefits, certainly Wall Street is doing very well, but just the other day I had one of my shrimpers in my district call me. He says he's tying up his boat. His oil prices have more than doubled, and he can't afford it, so for now he will have to close down shop.

"So he suffers more than a person on Wall Street. So it is an unfair system. And this is not unusual; this is a characteristic well-known, that when you destroy and debase a currency, some people will suffer more than others....

"If you increase the supply of money, you have inflation."

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