Barron's wrote an article on Ron Paul's gold investments. One would think the subject of such a treatment would be how Paul made sensitive, prescient investments while the rest of the country's leadership was spending away. Instead, Jim Mctague characterizes Paul's investments as "a financial planner's nightmare."
Well, given that Paul's holdings are markedly higher than they would be if he had bought one of the major indices, this argument is laughable. Mctague also suggests that Paul's vote against the debt ceiling debacle was self-serving. This is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, gold has soared (as Paul predicted) since the ceiling was raised. If Paul had been desirous of increasing his own personal wealth, he would have voted for the faux spending cut. Secondly, since when is it wrong for congressmen to invest? By Mctague's reasoning, any congressman holding Citibank or Wal Mart or Microsoft should be criticized for voting on bills relative to those companies.
The main criticism of Ron Paul's investment plan seems not to be that he acted improperly, but that he acted outside of the mainstream. But that sort of shock and confusion from the mainstream media about a man who does not follow the crowd should not, at this point in the game, be a surprise.