In response the Opinion piece “(w)Ron(g) Paul’s Free Market Fairytale,” I’d like to clarify a few things. First, that huge leverage was an artifact of the fractional reserve system of money that the world has been using since the end of the gold standard. This allows for the creation of leverage. The problem here is that our fiat money system only works in a constantly expanding economy. When the economy slows, contracts and starts heading in the wrong direction, shit can hit the fan fast because it doesn’t take much for banks to become under-capitalized. Calling out Ron Paul here is backward and totally wrong since he’s such a huge proponent of the gold standard. Something like this could not happen under a gold standard even if you had less regulation.

Second, the executives at MF Global co-mingled funds from their own trades and their customers, which is illegal. People are going to end up in jail for this. All this you neglected to mention.

Next time please look at both sides of the situation, not just the bits that best fit your views. It’s time we get some real change and fresh ideas. Ron Paul and others like him know what’s wrong here and have been trying to warn the country that this economic crisis was going to happen years before. Nobody in power did; instead, they perpetuated it and the media openly laughed at them. You can keep trying the same old thing in 2012, but I know who I’ll be voting for come next year, even if I have to write his name in.

Ryan Martin is a fourth-year physics major.