WHAT I THINK......MICHAEL O'BRIAN

The U.S. has moved past none of the core issues that brought the economy to its knees last fall, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) suggested.

Paul asserted that while some big financial institutions may be starting to reap large profits again, the bailouts put in place to help those firms last year have only worsened the long-term economic standing in the country.

"None of this is behind us," the libertarian Republican said during an appearance on CNN. "All we have done is prolong the agony and very soon people are going to realize, in spite of all these huge profits, Wall Street is still a shaky place to be."

The congressman pinned blame for the stagnant economy on the Federal Reserve, long his bête noire, for having extended too much credit to large banks and similar companies, and called for stricter regulation of the Fed.

Paul said that the system would be unable to recover until the U.S. sets a new basis for the dollar.

"We're not going to revive the dollar reserve standard around financial markets that has existed for 35 years," he said. "We have to devise a new system and right now we're only playing games with what we have."

The new standard is necessary because, the 2008 presidential candidate said, Wall Street firms are "pulling the strings" at the Fed.

"You know, it is said that the Congress didn't have enough strings attached to the money that they were giving away, but I think the strings go in the other direction," he said. "I think Wall Street has the strings on Washington. And they pull and do what they want and that's where the corruption is. They control the monetary system."