Much time has been spent debating the merits of Ron Paul’s desire to eliminate the Federal Reserve and return the United States to the gold standard from an economic perspective. What people don’t seem to get is that Paul’s argument isn’t based on economics, but rather on his desire to take power away from the federal government. He doesn’t trust the federal government to manage the money supply (or do anything else, really), and so he opposes the Federal Reserve. There’s not really any more to it than that.