‘The Dollar Is Going to Self Destruct’: Talking Bitcoin With Ron Paul

Dr. Ron Paul was into sound money before it was cool.Before he became an initiate in the Austrian school of economics, he served as a flight surgeon in the United States Airforce and as a private practice OBGYN in Texas. Proselytized by the works of Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand, Paul decided to run for Congress in the ’70s following the termination of the Bretton Woods agreement — an international pact that was the dollars final, albeit tentative, tie to the gold standard.Nixon’s decision to withdraw from this agreement would have lasting consequences on U.S. monetary policy and Dr. Paul launched his political career as a crusade against these changes and the danger he saw in the fiat economy that they created. In his on-again-off-again career as a politician — which included Texas Congressional Representative terms from 1976 to 1977, 1979 to 1985 and 1997 to 2013 as well as presidential runs in 2008 and 2012 — the godfather of the modern right-wing Libertarian movement made a name for himself with his zealous advocacy of the gold standard and his uncompromising critique of the Federal Reserve and the hazards of its monetary policy.As a fledgling congressman, his position on the House Banking Committee gave him a platform to disseminate his Austrian ideals. Today, his 2009 bestseller End the Fed and his 2012 presidential run can be seen as career capstones which also encapsulated the core tenets of his political philosophy:...