What If Ron Paul Really Killed the Fed?

BOSTON (MainStreet) -- The most radical proposals to surface during this year's presidential primaries are Congressman Ron Paul's dual efforts to abolish the Federal Reserve and return the Unites states to a monetary standard backed by gold.

Should he prevail in November, and make good on his mission, how would that feat be accomplished and, perhaps more importantly, how would it affect average Americans?

Congressman Ron Paul wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and return the Unites states to a monetary standard backed by gold. The outcomes of those actions are in doubt.

It depends on whom you ask.

Economists -- many freely admit it -- have a spotty record when it comes to prognostication. There are diverse schools of thought within economics, and it is hardly an exact science despite the seeming precision of its mathematical formulas.

Abolishing the Federal Reserve is to take less than a year during a Ron Paul presidency. It would start with an audit of the Fed and end with the Treasury Department assuming its duties, overseeing a monetary supply backed by gold. (Silver has been touted as a potential secondary monetary commodity).

Paul is not the only high-profile figure who has championed an end to the Fed.

Ron Paul Finds Wall Street Support in the Strangest Places

The late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman proposed, for instance, that the Federal Reserve could be eliminated and replaced by a computer control the nation's money supply without the interference of politics and emotion and at a shrewd and steady rate.