So, Ron Paul wants to audit our gold reserves?

[DFW]

It should cost no more that 1.3 million man-hours, he says. Assuming we use competent professional auditors, and they work
cheap, say $50 an hour, that's $65 million. Republicans want to cut spending, saying we have no money to feed the poor,
heal the sick, or educate our children, but can easily afford $65 million to count gold bricks in Fort Knox and the NY Fed?

Tell you what, Ron, take the $65 million out of federal funds previously earmarked for projects in your district, and I'll go for it.

Story here:http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=130063&sn=Detail&pid=33

[Ian David]

1. He's afraid Goldfinger stole it. n/t

[DFW]

3. Rumor has it his middle name is "Auric"

I heard it on Fox, so it must be fair and balanced, maybe even true.........

[Drale]

5. Goldfinger wasn't trying to steal the gold

he was trying to irradiate it so his gold would be worth more and Ron Paul is one lab accident away from being a super villain.

[Ian David]

11. He was stealing SOME and irradiating the rest. n/t

[Hippo_Tron]

14. I watched the movie pretty recently, he was irradiating all of it

There's a scene where Bond is sitting at the table with Goldfinger discussing his plot and he calculates the amount of time it would take to remove the gold from Fort Knox at which point he realizes the plot is to irradiate the gold rather than steal it. Not only would irradiating the gold make his gold much more valuable, it would also create financial chaos in the West, which is why the Chinese gave him the nuclear device to do it.

[Ian David]

16. I thought I remember them leaving with a couple crates of gold, too. n/t

[TrogL]

17. He had the gold in the car and presumably his own stash

[Hippo_Tron]

18. The barely left, period

Bond's sexual prowess got Pussy to foil their plot by giving the heads up to the US government and by switching the lethal gas with fake stuff and the marines just pretended to go to sleep. It's actually one of the most comical bond climactic scenes, because for most of it, he's handcuffed to the bomb and not really able to do shit. He doesn't even diffuse the bomb at the last second, somebody else gets there and does it for him. At the end of the day, Bond supposedly saves the west from going into complete financial chaos yet all he really did was fuck somebody.

[jberryhill]

20. Him and Captain Kirk

No wonder we so many screwed up leaders, they think that's all you need to do.

[Ian David]

30. Really, isn't that usually enough? n/t

[jberryhill]

22. And he didn't expect Bond to talk...

[Liberal Veteran]

2. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it: Ron Paul is very popular with Republican potheads

And that's pretty much the only issue they really diverge from the Republican Party platform on.

I happen to be very much pro-legalization, but RP is vile in so many respects that it sorta overshadows the fact that his views and mine are aligned on this particular issue.

[Renew Deal]

4. Why are you afraid of the gold being counted?

And has anyone been counting it?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

9. It was counted right after they counted the shrink wrapped,

aircraft loads of money that was sent to Iraq.
Don't worry about it, we are experts at this.

[jmowreader]

25. Counting the gold isn't the problem

Spending $65 million to count gold when they're cutting everything else in the world is the problem.

[DFW]

28. Besides the fact that the question is ridiculous,

(i.e. I've not stated that I'm afraid of any such thing)

If the stated figures are correct, our gold reserves, even at today's high price, are worth $320 billion, or about 8.5%
of the 2012 planned budget outlay. And that's just one year!! Why do we eve care? Even if Goldfinger were to make our
gold reserves vanish entirely, it would have only a temporary psychological impact on the world economy. Our currency
isn't backed by gold anyway, hasn't been since 1933. For Ron Paul's dream of going back on the gold standard to come true,
we'd have to revalue gold at an absolute minimum of ten times (and artificially so, as the gold price is now determined by
the free world market, not government accords) to over $15000 an ounce. At that price, every heroin addict in the country
will attack married people to cut their ring fingers off to sell wedding bands for enough for the next month's fixes, and
two Krugerrands would be enough to pay for a year's college tuition at a decent college. But forget that, as you'll need
the money to pay for the armed guards to watch over grandma's tooth fillings.

The dollar's worth these days is decided by what it will buy, not how much gold it will buy. If you want to buy some
McMansion for $3 million, the seller doesn't want two thousand ounces of gold delivered on his doorstep. He wants
$3 million to show up in his next bank statement. If you follow the gold bugs, that is what they want. They sell gold to
the people who read their newsletters and some even hoard it themselves. If gold increases by a factor of ten, then they're
all rich (which is coincidentally what their newsletters promise). I remember seeing stuff written by Dines, St. Clair, Ruff,
all the old newsletter gurus of the late seventies. When gold reached $850 an ounce, or whatever it was in 1980, they were
all positive it would top $1000 that year, and reach $5000 within five years. When Bill Clinton left office twenty years
later, it was around $260 an ounce. Great investment at $850, right?

Actually, I bought some gold myself when the Supreme Court made Bush Lite our puppet in chief. Republicans always say they're
for fiscal responsibility, and then prove they are for exactly the opposite. The gold I bought at $300 is now worth five times
that minus taxes on the gain. If Ron Paul wants to pay me a few million to inventory it, too, I'll take him up on it, but in the
greater scheme of the world economy, if gold isn't artificially revalued upwards by a factor of about thirty from present levels,
it's a bygone factor, as there are maybe two or three countries left in the world with enough gold to fully back their currencies.
As Switzerland and Brunei do not determine the way of the world economy, other factors must be evaluated to determine a
currency's worth.

What little our dollar may be worth compared to what it was worth in 1933 or even 1980, spending $65 million more of them to
conduct an audit of a bunch of gold bricks that will not change our economic situation seems like money spent for one old
man's whim, and could be better spent elsewhere.

[timtom]

6. My god! We must stop him at all costs.

For, he's batshit crazy!

[Capitalocracy]

7. Why do we even have gold reserves?

Just a thought.

[madinmaryland]

8. I think right now would be a good time for him to start counting all the gold bars.

Lock him in the room with the gold bars and let him go at it.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. That's a great idea

Send him down to the bullion depository with a flashlight and a bottle of water. The longer he stays down there counting the gold, the better off humanity will be.

[originalpckelly]

10. Goldmember of Congress?

I believe that is checkmate. Thank you for playing.

[Puregonzo1188]

12. I know Ron Paul is goofy, but is this really a bad idea?

[DemoTex]

13. After the last three GOP administrations (Reagan, Bu$h-1, and Bu$h-2) ..

I say hell yes, audit it! And, while we are at it, audit all cash dispersements in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bu$h/Cheney wars.

[Mojorabbit]

24. + a gazillion. nt

[Sirveri]

27. This, I have no problem with auditing the government.

Within reason of course. Audit the Fed, audit the gold reserve, audit the DoD, audit them all, it's a great way to deter corruption. Of course we should raise taxes to pay for it though!

[Hippo_Tron]

15. It's a complete waste of time and money

And it's complete hypocrisy coming from people who think we need to stop providing health care for poor and elderly people, because they think it is "frivolous spending".

[dogmoma56]

19. how about auditing his mental capacities first..

[DFW]

29. It would be decidedly easier on our federal budget

About 75¢ vs. $65 million.

No brainer (come to think of it, not a bad description of Rep. Paul either).

[Prometheus Bound]

21. Wouldn't that be done annually anyway?

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[woo me with science]

31. Is that a euphemism for some TSA procedure? nt