Worshiping at the Altar of the Inflationary God

“Bow down before the one you serve. You’re going to get what you deserve.”

– Trent Reznor

I listen to Peter Schiff’s weekly podcast “Wall Street Unspun.” He said something in a recent edition that stuck with me. He said that his father, Irwin Schiff (who was also a prominent opponent of the inflationary policies of the US Government) denounced the politicians and central bankers of the world in books such as The Biggest Con: How the Government Is Fleecing You. Peter said that his father described inflation as a “god that they worshiped.” These days it would seem there’s hardly any room left at the altar. 

The power of the ability to create money from nothing was marveled at when it was first discovered. Critics were sure that no one would accept Lincoln’s Greenbacks when they were first issued to help pay for the civil war. The notion that people would accept a paper money that had no backing just because the government told them to seemed rather dubious at the time, but the general public did accept them. The possibilities were not lost on the thinkers at the time.  If fiat money could be created with a printing press and accepted by the general public, then why not use the printing presses to make us all rich? Continue reading Worshiping at the Altar of the Inflationary God

Historians Mark Out to President Lincoln

Yahoo! News ran a story today that 65 historians rated Lincoln’s administration as their favorite. I’ve always been at odds with the Presidents that historians seem to prefer. There’s top five Presidents of all time are:

  1. Abraham Lincoln
  2. George Washington
  3. Franklin D Roosevelt
  4. Theodore Roosevelt
  5. Harry S Truman

Wow. Thomas Jefferson didn’t even make the top 5. For some reason, historians prefer Harry S Truman, the President that ended the second World War by the unnecessary use of nuclear weapons and threw the US into the Cold War. I’m not sure how that beats out authoring the Bill of Rights, but who do I know.

For that matter, FDR? The man failed miserably in his attempt to end The Great Depression and introduced many laws and policies that were clearly inspired by Communism and smacked of totalitarian authority. As I asked in my book, where in the Constitution does it say that the government has the power to confiscate the gold of all US citizens? 
Continue reading Historians Mark Out to President Lincoln