One of the biggest mistakes that people make in blaming government is thinking that things would be different if a particular individual weren’t involved.  Let me explain further.

There are many Republicans who think that things would be much better if only Obama weren’t in office.  But if you really look at it, Obama has carried on the policies of Bush.  He has continued the wars (and started new ones) and he has continued to bail out failed companies and he has continued to run huge deficits.  Even Obamacare is not much worse than Bush’s Medicare prescription drug program.

Even with other things, if you look at them close enough, it doesn’t really matter what individual is supposedly in charge.  I like to blame Bernanke when I’m talking about the Fed and monetary policy.  But the reality is that it wouldn’t matter if someone else were chairman of the Fed.  It matters far more what the general establishment’s position is on the issue.  If the big bankers and elite in government want the Fed to buy more government debt, then that is what will happen.

Bernanke is not really a decision maker.  He is a face for the establishment.  It is the same way with the presidency.  There are a few little differences between what Obama has done when compared to what Hillary Clinton or John McCain would have done.  But regardless, they were all vetted by the establishment and they were all acceptable to the establishment.

Sometimes the establishment does not favor a particular person, but they still may be acceptable.  Reagan is a good example.  They didn’t want him in office, but he was acceptable, particularly when he picked Bush as his VP.  Reagan did not shake things up that much.  He is not the hero that conservatives make him out to be.

If you look at the current group of Republican presidential candidates, most of them are acceptable.  The establishment’s first choice is Romney.  The establishment’s second choice (of the major contenders) is Rick Perry.  The third choice is Michele Bachmann.  They really don’t like Bachmann and they don’t want her to win, but she would still be acceptable, much like Reagan.

The establishment is afraid of Ron Paul.  He is completely unacceptable.  He would not be a face.  He is an individual that could actually make a difference and change things dramatically.  He is a major threat to the establishment and they know it.

This whole concept is important when viewing politics.  I believe that Kennedy was taken out because he was a threat to the establishment.  While he was certainly no libertarian, he was not playing along with the crowd.

We should even remember this when going back further into history.  I’ve heard people blame Keynes for the economic problems that we have today.  But Keynes was just a convenient excuse for the establishment during the 1930’s when the government wanted to vastly expand.  He is still used as an excuse today.  But if Keynes had never existed, the establishment would have found some other “economist” to promote their big spending policies.

I’m also not sure how much Paul Volcker was in charge of tightening monetary policy in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when he was Fed chairman.  He may have been instructed to do so by the banking elites and foreign elites in order to save the dollar.

While I like to criticize Ben Bernanke and his Keynesian views, he is just a face of the establishment.  If the major players tell him to stop his digital money printing, then he will stop.  This is why there is hope for avoiding hyperinflation and a total destruction of the dollar.