Last week I wrote an item about Ron Paul and the danger he poses to the Fed, the economy and the capital markets with his extreme and absurd views that the Fed should be eliminated or at least under the direct control of the bozos in Congress, and that fiat should be replaced by the gold standard. Much to my surprise this elicited a stack of responses from the Ron Paul lunatic fringe who actually believe these things to be good for the economy. These people are so imbued with the Ron Paul Kool Aid that they are unable to understand even the basics of capital markets and the functioning of the monetary system. Normally I would simply dismiss these people as nothing more than irrelevant background noise, but then the Republicans actually appointed him as head of the monetary committee. He wasted no time at all in coming forth with statements as to how he intends to audit the Fed and impact policy. If you are not paying attention yet, you need to. When Paul combines with his left wing lunatic equal, Bernie Sanders, there is only dangerous politics coming out of Capitol Hill for the capital markets and monetary policy.

What the country and the world needs is a stable and well run management of interest rates and monetary and fiscal policy, especially in emergency situations like the latter part of 2008. Whatever anyone wants to complain about, the reality is TARP and Paulson/Bernanke saved us form true catastrophe and brought a stabilization to the capital markets that was unprecedented. TARP is proving to be not only a success in saving the banking system, but a profitable venture for the taxpayers. Something truly unique. By the time the whole thing is unwound and the government is out of AIG and GM, and maybe even Chrysler, there will be a profit. Despite all of the erroneous media reports, the main profits came from the investments in the big banks, and the TARP losses are mainly in the small Main St banks.

While I prefer to deal more with the happenings in the capital markets and specific trends and transactions as they relate to real estate, I feel we all need to pay a lot of attention to what is still happening on Capitol Hill and the danger to our future success if we do not. The wild reaction of Democrats to the tax compromise and the complete failure of leadership ability by Obama on the issue is indicative of how any show of bipartisanship is now immediately attacked as some sort of subversive act, even by the president’s own party. Clearly the message of the election that the voters are fed up with the highly partisan childishness fighting on both sides, had no resonance with Pelosi and her followers. Harry Reid continues to try to ram through legislation that the country does not want and rejected on election day. It is going to be a long two years and none of it is good for asset values or the economy.