Ron Paul's Amis

Participants at the annual Summer University of the New Economics in France have been focused on Ron Paul's issue: sound money and the political propensity to inflate away debt.

If Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul is dissatisfied with the attention he's getting in America, here's another audience he might try: southeastern France.

This week European free-market economists, activists and students gathered in Aix en Provence for the annual Summer University of the New Economics. The sessions concern the crisis of the welfare state and paths back to fiscal sanity. But participants so far have been focused on Mr. Paul's issue of the summer -- sound money and the political propensity to inflate away debt.

French professor Pascal Salin of the Université Paris-Dauphine, twice on Monday thundered that "it is not necessary to create money," adding that "real money is investment, that's real wealth creation. . . . Morally, devaluation is nothing more than theft."

The University of Geneva's Victoria Curzon-Price adds that central banks carry no small amount of risk to society. "Confidence in money can disappear very quickly. How can we have confidence in states that steal, in central banks that say one thing and do another." Henri Lepage, president of the free-market think tank Institut Turgot, concluded that "at the heart of [this crisis] is the monopoly of central banks."

While the delegates were primarily concerned with the fate of the euro, American politics were never far from their discussions. After a day of lamenting the depredations of monetarists and not-quite independent central banks, Corsican economics and law student Tristan Casabianca was ready to give his endorsement: "I think Ron Paul is the best guy for America nowadays. Small government is the only solution to the crisis."

Mr. Casabianca is ineligible to vote in U.S. elections. But if Mr. Paul knew how many fans he has in the Mediterranean, he might reconsider his position on immigration.

via - WSJ - Ron Paul's Amis