Ron Paul's Fear-mongering Video

I Report, You Decide

The Omnivore takes requests--Did you know that? In this case The Omnivore received two. This is the first encountered: What About Ron Paul's Fearmongering Video?

Here is the video:

What Is It?

Ron Paul appears in front of the Jefferson Memorial (hoping you will think it is, like, the Capitol Building or something) and lets you know that:

• He is a Doctor
• He spent 22 years in Congress
• He was a 3-time presidential candidate
• And . . . now he is back in Washington, this time, apparently, as a tourist

He has a shadowed blue box next to his name and a classy, elegant font (Americana URW, of course) to let you know he is classy, elegant, serious business.

Eight Seconds in we switch to a black background of a Washington dome and a bold-faced warning

The WARNING Font Is an OCR Font

We're back to Ron and Thomas Jefferson for a few seconds--but then we hit the emotional payload:

• Family (grandpa and grandma with the kids and grand-kids)
• Work (a jet landing)
• Retirement (Grandma and Grandpa cycling)

Suddenly we see a wall of stocks turning from green to red! The OCR Font screams "SAVINGS OF MILLIONS COULD BE WIPED OUT"

Then we're back to the black-out dome with TAKE THE NECESSARY STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY. It asks you to go to www.RonPaulWarning.com.

You will find a short presentation that, it says, was put together with a leading investor (Stansberry LLC, it turns out--not surprising they don't name it).

The set is designed to look like some kind of cable-show money/investment thing and to project authority and formality. Note the subtle red ties, white shirts, and blue backgrounds: DON'T notice that it looks like the financial adviser and Dr. Ron Paul are wearing the same outfit! 

This presentation will detail both the problem--and the important steps to take. Ron Paul guarantees it will be worth your time.

Dr. Ron Paul clearly has no idea what The Omnivore gets paid for his time.

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE AND NEITHER IS WHAT RON PAUL IS GONNA SELL YOU

The Payload

It turns out that RonPaulWarning is just one of several URLs that flow into the same sales pitch. The pitch is that investor dude (Jared Kelly--that;s his LinkedIn profile) talking to Ron Paul about, well, something. A crash greater than the great depression--greater than 2008--it's going to be TERRIBLE.

They speak in vague terms about a coming "currency crisis." Essentially, everyone will figure out that the American dollar is based on nothing by air and confidence will evaporate--ruining EVERYTHING--because: central banks, and leaving the gold standard.

This is pretty typical Ron Paul stuff combined with Stansberry Research (a fraudster).  It's also a scam. Here is how you know: A scam web-site (this is a standard Buy-Gold style approach) works as follows:

1. The Teaser YouTube (the one I was sent)
2. The long spiel designed to scare you without really explaining anything
3. The Pitch: a 50-dollar book on how to avoid the disaster--usually by buying other stuff like a 150/year investment newsletter or nice safe gold.

You can tell by the following iconography too: if you try to exit the page you get a DON'T LEAVE ME Pop-up:

This is Always A Bad Sign

And the video, itself, has no navigational controls--you can't jump to the end or see how much further you have to go. At the end, having worn you down like a used-car salesman, they give you the pitch and take your credit card info. NOTE: Regardless of their promises, you WILL be charged and they WON'T refund you.

Also note: googling to see if "Stansberry Research is a scam" finds ambiguous pages. This is ALSO part of the scam (this is how nutritional supplements create confusion too--any Multi-Level-Marketing enterprise will auto-generate hundreds of pages extolling it--or damning with VERY faint praise, all put up by members who want to hawk their product). On the other hand,  Here's CNN:

As part of an infomercial for Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, Ron Paul warned that a currency crisis "of epic proportions" would arrive soon and prophesied that life in America was "guaranteed to end in disaster" as "a total breakdown of the stock market" would lead to "civil unrest" and "authoritarian clampdowns." Paul said people could avoid -- and even benefit from -- the collapse by purchasing Stansberry's "Survival Blueprint" for weathering the coming catastrophe for $49.50.

The only person who will benefit from this will be Ron Paul (and Stansberry).

A Few Notes

The idea that America's "fiat currency" is about to collapse is appealing to a lot of people--people who don't like central banks (usually without really understanding them)--and people who want to sell you something.

Secondly, the target of this stuff is senior citizens. That's why they make sure we know he's a "Doctor" and why the images are mostly of old people. They want to play on the fear that their Social Security or nest-egg will be wiped out.

The idea of a "currency crisis" has no legitimate basis (what would you put your money in now? The Euro? The Chinese stock-market? The Rubble?) and is pure hogwash..