digital gold currencies. He would like gold-backed notes (or other types of hard money) and digital gold currencies to compete on a level playing field with Federal Reserve Notes, allowing individuals a choice whether to use sound money or to continue using fiat money. Paul believes this would restrain monetary and price inflation, limit government spending, and eventually eliminate the ability of the Federal Reserve to "tax" Americans through monetary inflation (i.e., by reducing the purchasing power of the currency they are holding), which he sees as "the most insidious of all taxes". He suggests that current efforts to sustain dollar hegemony, especially since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system following the United States' suspension of the dollar's conversion to gold in 1971, exacerbate a rationale for war. Consequently, when petroleum producing nations like Iraq, Iran, or Venezuela elect to trade in Petroeuro instead of Petrodollar, it devalues an already overly inflated dollar, further eroding its supremacy as a global currency. According to Paul, along with vested American interests in oil and plans to "remake the Middle East", this scenario has proven a contributing factor for the war in Iraq and diplomatic tensions with Iran. Nonviolent tax resistance In an interview with economic analyst and commentator Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel, June 26, 2007, in speaking of income tax resistance, Paul said that he supports the right of those who engage in nonviolent resistance when they believe a law is unjust, bringing up the names of Martin Luther King Jr., Lysander Spooner, and Mahatma Gandhi as examples of practitioners of peaceful civil disobedience; but he cautioned that those who do should be aware that the consequences could be imprisonment. He said that current income tax laws assume that people are guilty and they must then prove they are innocent, and he believes this aspect of tax law is unfair. However, he said that he prefers to work for improved tax laws by getting elected to Congress and trying to change the laws themselves rather than simply not paying the tax. Social Security Paul has given 12 updates on his Texas Straight Talk archive on the issue of Social Security. Paul considers Social Security unconstitutional, and he has sought for many years for the program to be phased out. He says that the Social Security system, which he has called "a giant Ponzi scheme," is in "bad shape ...