Rand Paul

To functionally create a commission of consumer punishment, not consumer protection, this is an original idea, it is an originally bad idea.

I do not believe that we should pass any legislation that would de-incentivize States and localities from reigning in their bloated budgets.

I am not sure why we need to pass a bill giving the Fed even more power that it already has.

Interventionism and inflationism fail because we don't have a free market pricing system of money.

I find it awfully frustrating at times when we always talk about inflation and we only talk about prices.

Socialism always fails because they don't have a pricing structure.

I am not very optimistic that we can solve our problems with more spending and more borrowing and more inflation.

To me there is a lot of inflation out there. It is already inflated. We are in the midst of inflation.

This has been the prediction of the free market economists, and yet we continue down this path of socializing our entire economy.

We are now back facing the G20 meeting coming up where, once again, the proposition is going to be put on the table by Europeans, of all people, that we ought to be more serious about transparency and regulation of shadow markets on a…

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, came to Hank Paulson in 2007 and suggested that perhaps we ought to have more regulation of hedge funds.

When the government tries to manage and run these large corporations, no one wins.

But the idea of using the term nationalization to justify bailing out bondholders seems counterintuitive and probably a mistake.

As to nationalization, it seems like the ghost of Eugene Debs is amongst us.

I am telling you, Congressman, I don't believe we will have an inflation problem in terms of consumer prices.

Now we are suffering the consequences because it is a failed policy, and it is not working at all.

If increasing the supply of money and credit and low interest rates were a panacea, we should have seen some results.

What will it take for you to say to yourself, could I be wrong?

I maintain that capital can only come from hard work and savings, and I think that is an important distinction.

What do we do now? We are telling consumers to spend and continue the old process. It won't work.

This whole idea that we can recapitalize markets by merely turning on the printing presses and increasing credit is a total fallacy.

We have to come to the realization that there is a sea change in what is happening, this is an end of an era, and that we can't reinflate the bubble.

It is the power and the authority that gravitates to the hands of a small group of people who can create money out of thin air.

If Congress ever wants to know what is going on, we have to change the U.S. Code.

I want to thank you for calling this hearing because the issue of transparency of the Federal Reserve System is something that is of crucial value to us.