Sound-money entertainment
Since the pre-9/11 threat of American isolationism and its reversal on that fateful day, American politics has been a bit of a preoccupation in my thinking. In this election cycle, however, I find myself far from sure whom I’d prefer to see stand for election less than a year from now. Seems I’m not alone. Tyler Cowen, over at Marginal Revolution, has the same problem, as he muses in this interesting take on Ron Paul’s candidacy.
It’s true I’m broadly speaking libertarian, and Ron Paul in many ways approximates libertarian positions, but there’s a lot about him that I find discomfiting. Not least among them are his unrealistic stance on the Iraq war (principled though it is), the nationalistic undertone in his talk, and the odds against his winning even a primary, which raises the spectre of splitting votes away from another putative small-government individual-liberty candidate.
It’s true, however, that his Austrian views, and particularly his classical libertarian view on central banking and sound money make him a very interesting candidate to watch. He was on CNN yesterday, talking to Wolf Blitzer, who (some would say appropriately) got to stand in for the faux-news show hosted by starving-and-striking Jon Stewart. It’s not often you hear someone trying to explain sound money versus inflationary currency on CNN.
