Inflation is theft
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
There is a common saying in Libertarian circles that “Taxation is theft.” Likewise, but not as commonly stated, “inflation,” too, is also theft. Inflation generally refers to the rising of prices that makes things cost more.
However, the name is somewhat of a misnomer, as the reason that things cost more is because the dollars used to purchase items are worth less, thus the requirement to use more dollars to buy needed items.
Since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost 96.8% of its purchasing power. Under the guise of “macroeconomic management,” the Federal Reserve intentionally aims to create approximately 2% inflation per year. In so doing, the Federal Reserve has become a key component of a massive redistribution of wealth.
For those who may be considered the financial elite, they are not affected by inflation, as they, like the banks, receive newly created monies first, and thus, they are able to use those dollars before their value is diminished by inflation. As the dollars make their way down to the middle-and-working class Americans, the purchasing power of the dollar is continuously reduced.
The economy may go up, and down, but inflation is permanent. Once devalued dollars cause prices to go up on goods, that then ripples through the economy, causing rent, utilities, etc. to also go up in price, which then leads employees to demand a raise so that they can afford the higher prices, and with more and more money entering the market, the prices continue to rise, as the value of the dollars used continue to diminish. Prices may on occasion go back down temporarily, but they will never go back to what they were back in the good old days!
Gold and silver prices are up right now, and this happens whenever the dollar is weak. Back in 1913, when gold cost $20.67 per ounce, a 1913 “double-eagle” twenty-dollar ($20) gold coin that contained .9675 troy ounces of pure gold was worth exactly $20 in gold. Also in 1913, a silver one-dollar coin that contained 0.7734 troy ounces of pure silver was worth exactly $1 in silver. Today, gold traded at just over $2,000 per ounce. Likewise, silver traded at just under $25 per ounce. Those same two coins – the $20 gold coin is worth about two grand, and the $1 silver coin is worth right at $25.
In June of 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt removed the United States from the gold standard. On March 25, 1964, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon announced that Silver Certificates would no longer be redeemable for silver dollars. Subsequently, another act of Congress dated June 24, 1967, provided that Silver Certificates could be exchanged for silver bullion for a period of one year, until June 24, 1968, wherein silver ceased being the base for U.S. currency.
Money and currency are two different things. Money has value, like a silver or gold coin has value. Money can be used as currency, but currency is not automatically money. Since 1968, the U.S. has been using “fiat” currency. Fiat from the Latin meaning “to be done,” or “because I say so.” The currency that we spend at fast-food restaurants and on everyday items has zero inherent value, and we only treat it as having value because the government says that it has value. All of this is because our ancestors just over 100 years ago fell for the big con-game of a central bank.
Most all of our founding fathers were opposed to the formation of a central banking system. In the Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, Congress gave itself the sovereign power to generate bills of credit. Then, in 1787, our Congress penned into Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution that “Congress shall have the power to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof.”
Over the next 126 years, Congress experimented with first the Bank of North America, the First Bank of the United States, the Second Bank of the United States, a “Free Banking” Era, different National Banks, and then the Federal Reserve System. All of them failed, and as we witness today, the Federal Reserve is showing signs of impending failure.
It is time for we the people to demand from our representatives in Congress that at a minimum they “audit” the Federal Reserve, if not “End the Fed” and completely terminate its existence, as we return real silver and gold to the money that we use as currency, thus halting the devaluation of the dollar, and ending the root cause of inflation.