Lets hear your pearl of wisdom on the reason for the economic downturn in this country...
I'm a professor of Finance and Economics, so I could bore you to death with the details.
But to keep it simple, an economic downturn is caused by by the same thing that has caused every economic downturn.. a speculative bubble bursting, one that is typically built up with debt.
99% of the population (Including Ron Paul) doesnt even know what the gold standard is. He beleives in Pseudo Economics that has been disproven time and time again, but he's a wacko conspiracy fanatic to the grave. Getting economic advice from him is like getting parenting tips from Michael Jackson.
Ok, so apparently i need details because you have just kind of proven his point as far as i can tell so please bore me with details and if you don't want to do it here please send a PM because i am genuinely interested. Because of the market being overly liquid from the fed being able to set the interest rates artificially low the fed created the speculative bubbles that you are talking about (because we are not on the gold standard and can print money out of thin air). Also he is not an advocate of the gold standard necessarily, but he does advocate having the currency tied to a hard asset and allow for competing currencies in the US so that it can not float freely at the whim of a private bank, aka the fed, and people can diversify their savings.
Also please explain to me how Austrian economics has been disproven because as far as i can tell it has not in anything that i have ever seen. It only gets criticized because of its rejection of the typical market testing methods.
Since you are a professor i hope for an academic type explanation that has actual points instead of statements so i can atleast understand your position.