RON PAUL BELIEVES IN AN INFLATION CONSPIRACY THEORY: And Here's Why It's Totally Wrong

Ron Paul put on a show at Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony on monetary policy earlier today—even challenging the Fed to let him pay his taxes in gold.

In his rant, Paul argued that inflation was actually more like 9 percent—and not the 2.9 percent increase that Bureau of Labor Statistics says we've seen in the last 12 months—based on the old CPI statistics.

This "old measure" of measuring consumer prices actually touches on a much larger debate–one that has been spearheaded by John Williams and his website Shadow Government Statistics. Ron Paul's website actually cites Williams in many of its economic commentaries.

The stats

Williams's research contends that the 12-month inflation statistic we should have seen last month was 10.5 percent, arguing that the basis for calculating CPI back in 1980 was the pure formula before "the reporting system increasingly succumbed to pressures from miscreant politicians, who were and are intent upon stealing income from social security recipients, without ever taking the issue of reduced entitlement payments before the public or Congress for approval." Read more.......